The Senate for the first time approved a war powers resolution Tuesday seeking to block U.S. military action against Iran, as lawmakers warily watch President Donald Trump’s efforts to resolve a conflict that the administration launched on its own and now needs Congress to fund.
It was the 10th time the Senate has tried to stop the war, and the outcome, on a vote of 50-48, was a stunning turnaround from past efforts.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to an already sizable military spending boost sought by President Donald Trump. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill ahead of a formal request. Meanwhile Iran’s president is in Pakistan to facilitate negotiations on ending the war, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Abu Dhabi seeking to reassure Gulf allies.
Trump visited a Mack Truck facility in a battleground district in swing state Pennsylvania Tuesday, shifting attention to the U.S. economy in his first major public event beyond the capital since he signed an interim agreement to end the Iran war.
National Guard members and U.S. Park Police have been patrolling around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as the Trump administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
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Senate for first time approves a war powers resolution in a rebuke to Trump over Iran conflict
The Senate for the first time approved a war powers resolution Tuesday seeking to block U.S. military action against Iran, as lawmakers warily watch President Donald Trump’s efforts to resolve a conflict that the administration launched on its own and now needs Congress to fund.
It was the 10th time the Senate has tried to stop the war, and the outcome, on a vote of 50-48, was a stunning turnaround from past efforts. While the resolution is largely symbolic, and does not fully carry the force of law, it reflects the growing concerns from a number of Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate over both the war and the deal Trump struck with Iran to end it. The House approved the resolution earlier this month.
“Time after time, the vast majority of Senate Republicans sided with Trump and his war instead of the American people,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.
Trump touts the economy at Mack Truck facility in battleground Pennsylvania
The president kept attention on the economy in his opening remarks while visiting the facility in the Allentown suburbs on Tuesday.
Speaking in front of an audience of workers wearing reflective safety vests, the president said the U.S. is “the hottest country by a lot,” nodding to the success of Mack Trucks.
He’s visiting the state ahead of key midterm elections in the battleground state. Pointing to Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, Trump said “We gotta get you back in.”
Trump kept his early comments to the U.S., briefly mentioning the war in Iran.
Trump claims factory construction boom, but the spending numbers show a slowdown
The president claimed his tariffs are causing a boom in new factories opening in the U.S.
While the artificial intelligence is boosting U.S. manufacturing, there has not been the renaissance claimed by Trump.
Construction spending on manufacturing has fallen nearly 23% from an August 2024 peak, according to Census Bureau data.
While the average annual spending is still higher than the historical average, it has slowed during Trump’s second term instead of accelerating at the president has insisted.
The U.S. economy has shed 68,000 manufacturing jobs since the start of Trump’s second term, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump says that Iran agreed to UN watchdog inspections of its nuclear sites but ‘there’s no rush’
The president told reporters as he arrived in Pennsylvania on Tuesday that if Iran had not agreed to the inspections, he’d cut off talks with Tehran, saying, “I’d cancel the meetings right now.”
When asked when the inspections might occur, Trump said: “There’s no rush. They’ll be on the ground at the appropriate time.”
Trump says Interior Department will release images of alleged and unverified vandalism of reflecting pool
Pressed by reporters after Air Force One landed in Pennsylvania, Trump said the Interior Department is “going to share” photos and videos of what he claims has been vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The president said Monday that the images existed and the federal government would provide them, though the reporters tracking Trump said that their outlets had yet to receive images from the Interior Department that validated his claims.
Trump said that six people have been arrested for damaging the pool, which filled with green algae after his recent repair as the blue coating began to peel off the floor.
The government has yet to provide evidence that vandalism was behind the pool’s condition instead of repair process that failed to provide the results promised by Trump.
Trump says critics of Iran deal have to be educated
The president was asked Tuesday about Republicans in Congress — including Sen. Ted Cruz — who have been critical of Trump’s interim deal to end the war with Iran.
“I think anybody that’s been critical has to be educated — even if they’re friends of mine,” Trump told reporters.
Critics of the deal, including some Republicans on Capitol Hill, have said the agreement gives Iran significant benefits, while getting little immediately in exchange.
Trump plans to speak as part of ‘The Great American State Fair’
Trump will speak not far from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where the gavel Nancy Pelosi used as the first female House speaker sits next to a red “Make America Great Again” cap. It’s part of an exhibit dubbed “In Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness,” commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary, with artifacts reminding Americans that today’s stark divides are not new.
“People find the hope and the resiliency to move forward,” museum director Anthea M. Hartig said. “History is filled with those moments where we think we’re completely falling apart as we did in the Civil War and then we’re trying to figure out how to build it back together again.”
The split screen will return on July Fourth as America 250 holds a concert in Los Angeles hosted by Queen Latifah while the president returns to the National Mall for what he has described as a “Trump rally.”
Trump says 6 people have been arrested for damaging Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Trump’s social media post said another seven were cited for damaging the pool, which Trump recently had ordered painted American Flag Blue. The president claimed without supporting evidence that there had been a “350 foot gash” in the paint.
“It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition,” the president alleged.
The Associated Press verified that one man was arrested after touching the already-peeling paint as federal workers try to deal with an algae bloom in the water.
Trump said that “some of the water” will be drained from the pool “either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair.”
It was unclear from his post what the scale, scope or cost of the permanent repair would be.
Marco Rubio has arrived in Abu Dhabi
The U.S. secretary of state is in the United Arab Emirates on the first leg of a three-nation tour of Gulf countries aimed at easing their concerns about the result of an agreement intended to end the war with Iran.
In the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain — all nations that Iran hit with missiles and drones in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli airstrikes — Rubio has meetings starting Wednesday with leaders who, in some cases, have taken a harder line on Iran recently than has the Trump administration.
The Emiratis, in particular, have been at the forefront of calls for tough action notably to ensure the reopening of the Straight of Hormuz. There have been conflicting accounts of what the Memorandum of Understanding signed last week will mean for the strait, which the rest of the world wants open free of charge for all shipping.
Judge rules government can’t stop SNAP dollars from buying candy and sugary drinks
The federal judge said Congress imposed no such limits on the nation’s largest food aid program.
The ruling scuttles restrictions on candy, soda and other sugary drinks in the federally funded and state-run Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 23 states. The Trump administration hasn’t announced an appeal.
“The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store, and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote. “But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.”
Seeking to encourage healthier food choices, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign has sought to take soda and candy off the menu because they fuel obesity, diabetes and chronic disease.
Supreme Court sides with Trump administration against green card holders accused of crimes
Tuesday’s 6-3 decision centers around an immigration officer’s 2012 decision to put green-card holder Muk Choi Lau on immigration parole when he returned from a short trip abroad because he had been accused of a counterfeiting crime.
Lau argued that overstepped the officer’s authority, and the decision wrongly allowed the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly begin deportation proceedings after he pleaded guilty to trademark counterfeiting.
The Trump administration argued that suspicion of a crime is enough to put a lawful permanent resident on immigration parole.
The court is separately considering cases over Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship, potentially revive a restrictive asylum policy and end temporary legal protections for migrants fleeing war and natural disasters in their homelands.
Justices give US corporations big wins
The Cisco and ExxonMobil rulings, issued the same day, open U.S. courts in one case involving a foreign government while shutting the door in another. But they involved very different statutes.
The Cisco decision was the latest to rule against plaintiffs seeking to use U.S. courts as a venue to seek justice over the acts of foreign governments, especially those that took place abroad. Falun Gong members sought unsuccessfully to overcome that skepticism by arguing that a substantial portion of Cisco’s activities involving China took place in the United States.
The Cuba case hinged on whether the 1996 Helms-Burton law removes the shield from lawsuits in U.S. courts that typically cover foreign countries and state-owned businesses. The justices reversed a lower-court ruling that found that the Cuban state-owned companies are immune from lawsuits in U.S. courts.
Supreme Court OKs ExxonMobil suit over property seized by Castro’s government
The Supreme Court has ruled that ExxonMobil can sue Cuban state-owned companies in American courts over property on the island nation that was seized after Fidel Castro took power.
The 6-3 decision was the second in as many months in favor of U.S. owners of Cuban property confiscated by the Communist government more than 65 years ago.
The outcome in the two cases could be an additional lever for the Trump administration to exert pressure on Cuba, which is already being squeezed by a U.S. oil embargo.
Supreme Court kills suit claiming Cisco’s technology helped China persecute Falun Gong members
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted tech giant Cisco’s bid to shut down a lawsuit that claimed the company’s technology was used to persecute members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China.
The justices ruled that American courts are the wrong forum, rejecting plaintiffs’ attempts to litigate under the 18th-century Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), first enacted in 1991.
An Associated Press investigation last year showed that American tech companies, to a large degree, designed and built China’s surveillance state, encouraged by both Republican and Democratic administrations, even as activists warned such tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious groups and target minorities. Last month, AP won the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for its stories.
Wall Street points to another day of losses, led by an ongoing sell-off in tech
Futures for the S&P 500 fell 1.2% before the opening bell Tuesday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 0.4%. Futures for the technology-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 2.6% following a 1.3% loss Monday. The Nasdaq has suffered heavy selling for days as investors grow anxious over massive spending by artificial intelligence companies and looming interest rate hikes in the U.S., which will make it more expensive for companies to fund growth through borrowing.
Chip companies were among the biggest losers in overnight trading, with Micron and Intel both down more than 7%. Qualcomm fell 6.3%. Companies that specialize in memory and data storage were also taking a beating. Sandisk fell nearly 9% and Seagate was down 7.2% early.
And Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which owns xAI, slipped another 1% before the bell after a 16.4% tumble to start the week.
Iran’s president visits Pakistan for crucial talks on ending war
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also joined the delegation in Masoud Pezeshkian’s first visit to Islamabad since the conflict started with the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran on Feb. 28.
Iran’s talks Tuesday with officials mediating negotiations between Tehran and Washington on a permanent end to the war come as discrepancies emerge on what has been agreed to so far, and as more violence broke out in Lebanon.
Technical teams have been working on details of the deal following high-level negotiations in Switzerland Monday led by Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.
Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters that no visits were scheduled for the U.N. watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — to examine Iranian nuclear sites bombed by the United States last year. Vance previously said the negotiations in Switzerland won an agreement for the inspectors to visit the sites.
Discrepancy on Iran’s use of unfrozen funds
Following the high-level talks in Switzerland, Vice-President JD Vance had said if Iranian financial assets were unfrozen, they “would actually go to buy American soy, American corn and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people.”
However, Iran has no current demand for U.S. crops, and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Tuesday that Tehran’s decisions on what to import would be based on “prices and quality.”
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said in Tehran.
Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, also questioned Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would have to approve how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
Trump says Iran will buy US corn, soy and wheat. It won't likely happen soon
Trump has heralded the peace talks with Iran as a win for U.S. farmers, saying that the unfreezing of sanctioned Iranian money will be tied to that country buying American-grown corn, soybeans and wheat.
“These are things that are desperately needed by Iran,” Trump posted on social media. “This is a humanitarian crisis, and I feel it is necessary to help.”
But Iran is unlikely to start buying a vast amount of U.S. farm products.
“I don’t expect that trade would be very large in the short run,” said Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Glauber noted that Iran was “unlikely” to abandon its other trade partners on food for America. He said Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina and that Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Authorities arrest 2 more suspects in planned attack on Trump’s UFC show
Two more people in Missouri and Washington state have been arrested in connection with what authorities say was a planned attack targeting Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show at the White House earlier this month.
Law enforcement officials disrupted the plan a few days before the June 14 White House event, according to court documents.
William Lee Spartacus Falkner of Belfair, Washington, was arrested Friday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, according to court documents filed Monday in the Western District of Washington. Jordan W. Rincker, 28, was arrested Sunday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the Western District of Missouri. A defense attorney appointed to represent Falkner did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment, and court records do not reveal if Rincker has obtained an attorney. Neither man has had the opportunity to enter a plea.
Judge blocks use of federal database to check citizenship, saying it could wrongly purge voters
A federal judge on Monday ruled that a recently revamped version of a federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalize elections can no longer be used.
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls.
She said Congress had expressly prohibited the government from centralizing Americans’ personal identifying information and that the federal agencies that created the SAVE program “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”
The decision is a major legal setback for Trump in his efforts to use federal agencies to encourage a nationwide crackdown on having noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls. The modified SAVE system had been a key pillar of the second election executive order the Republican president signed earlier this year. The ruling leaves its future uncertain.
Patrols and nanobubbles at the Reflecting Pool as Trump seeks a renovation do-over
National Guard members and U.S. Park Police patrolled the deck around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday as President Donald Trump’s administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
The patrols came two days after Trump said authorities had made “multiple arrests” of people he insisted were responsible for damage to the peeling coating after an algae bloom occurred. The liner was installed as part of his $14 million-plus project.
The president has confirmed the problems most likely require draining the pool again for liner repairs and he promised a quick fix. Without offering substantiation, he also said vandals dumped fertilizer in the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.
But the timeline was not clear Monday, with the White House saying damaged areas are still being assessed. Contractors and federal workers in recent days have been using chemicals and ozone nanobubbles to combat the algae.
Pentagon seeks $80 billion from Congress for Iran war
The Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to what is already a sizable military spending boost being sought by President Donald Trump.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has yet to make a formal request to Congress. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill, including Monday evening. A top deputy defense secretary told senators about the Iran funding request last week, according to two people familiar with the situation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the developments.
The push for billions of dollars in Iran war funding comes at a fraught political moment. Lawmakers are skeptical of the deal Trump struck with Iran to bring an end to the war, and wary of next steps. The White House has requested a remarkable $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon — a nearly 50% increase over the current fiscal year’s funding levels.
