Trump admits ‘some contractor error’ in DC reflecting pool renovation – but still blames ex-Olympian for vandalism – live

Trump says ‘some contractor error’ in reflecting pool renovation while still blaming former Olympian for vandalism

Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge that “some contractor error” done by rushing the reflecting pool renovation job for a 4 July opening. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the mishandled work “was a very small area” of the pool of “and was relatively inconsequential”.

However, Trump also continued to insist that former Olympian David Hearn was guilty of vandalism, despite the justice department dismissing the property destruction charges against him for having touched a chunk of the reflecting pool’s newly peeled lining.

In a Truth Social post, the president cited a line from a court filing that notes that a national parks employee saw Hearn “ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating”. However, Jeanine Pirro – the US attorney for the District of Columbia – dropped the charges against Hearn last week.

In a 20-page court filing, Pirro’s office wrote that the damage to the concrete-bottomed tourist attraction was the result of a “botched” renovation – “not vandalism”.

Trump has since decried Pirro’s decision, claiming his longtime ally and former Fox News host “folded like an umbrella”.

“She made a terrible mistake. I don’t understand why she did such a stupid thing,” the president told NBC News last week.

Key events

José Olivares

A Kurdish man who was force-fed over the course of eight months while on hunger strike in US immigration detention has spoken out about it for the first time, describing how much the process harmed him physically and psychologically.

Gabar Choli, a film-maker and activist now living in Canada after being deported, described how he endured the coercive treatment – a practice widely considered torture by international human rights groups – often twice a day after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when his asylum application was denied.

“It just broke me, mentally broke me,” Choli said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. “It came to a point that I decided to write my body an apology letter.”

ICE officials force-fed Choli at the Port Isabel federal detention center in Los Fresnos, south Texas, from late May 2025 until he was deported in January of this year, a Guardian investigation found. Choli had resorted to a hunger strike to protest against conditions at the facility and to push for a resolution to his immigration case.

He described how a team of detention center guards would physically restrain him while ICE medical staff forcibly inserted a feeding tube through his nose and down his esophagus and pumped nutritional liquid into his stomach.

An investigation by the Guardian last week found that the second Trump administration used court orders in plans to subject at least 10 hunger strikers in ICE detention to involuntary medical procedures.

Wisconsin is not the only state with high stakes primary races on 11 August.

We’ll also be bringing you the latest on a number of pivotal contests. In Minnesota, the closely watched and crowded Democratic primary for US Senate seems to be a competition between lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan and congresswoman Angie Craig.

Meanwhile in the state’s gubernatorial race – the Republican primary is shaping up to be a three-way competition between Trump ally and fervent election denier Mike Lindell, businessman Kendall Qualls and Minnesota House speaker Lisa Demuth. On the Democratic side, four-term US senator Amy Klobuchar is the frontrunner hoping to succeed outgoing governor Tim Walz.

There are also primaries in Alabama, Vermont and Connecticut on Tuesday. And we’ll be covering the special Republican primary to replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham on the general election ballot.

As Francesca Hong surged ahead in the final weeks of the chaotic Democratic primary to be Wisconsin’s next governor, the democratic socialist has become the internet’s main character.

Donald Trump has mocked her old tweets, while major figures in her own party publicly questioned her ability to win a general election. The man she is vying to succeed even launched a late blitz in support of one of her rivals.

But on the ground in Wisconsin, the enthusiasm for her shines through.

In hundreds of events across Wisconsin – from karaoke nights to ramen pop-ups – Hong, 37, built a grassroots army that pushed her to the verge of clinching the Democratic nomination for governor in a marquee battleground state.

After the progressive Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary for US Senate in next-door Michigan last week, scrutiny of Hong intensified. In Wisconsin, Democrats face another test of whether voters in a swing state will side with leftwing candidates in primaries – and what that could mean for the party’s chances in a typically close general election in November.

Hong – a chef and former restaurant owner, a single mom and a state lawmaker from Madison – is running on a progressive platform that includes universal childcare and fully funding the state’s public schools. She is also calling for a moratorium on datacenters, a centerpiece that differentiates her from the other Democratic candidates.

“I got into this race because I know that we can win and that Wisconsinites are going to fight for one another and fight to be a part of the change,” she told the Guardian, “because they’re tired of people making decisions that don’t improve lives and they’re tired of the status quo.”

Four candidates are vying for the open governor’s seat on Tuesday, with most polls showing Hong in the lead. Kelda Roys, a state senator, and Joel Brennan, a former head of the state administration department, are still in the race. David Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, exited the race and then re-entered it – receiving the endorsement of the outgoing Democratic governor, Tony Evers.

A memo from the Crowley campaign on 5 August suggested polling may be off, pointing to Michigan polls showing El-Sayed with a much broader lead than he actually achieved. Evers recently claimed Hong’s campaign was “in a tough place”, because she had to spend time dealing with “what’s on the Twitter”.

Reach Rachel’s full dispatch from Milwaukee, Wisconsin here:

Trump says ‘some contractor error’ in reflecting pool renovation while still blaming former Olympian for vandalism

In a 20-page court filing, Pirro’s office wrote that the damage to the concrete-bottomed tourist attraction was the result of a “botched” renovation – “not vandalism”.

Trump has since decried Pirro’s decision, claiming his longtime ally and former Fox News host “folded like an umbrella”.

“She made a terrible mistake. I don’t understand why she did such a stupid thing,” the president told NBC News last week.

On Tuesday, Republican voters in South Carolina will have the opportunity to re-select their GOP nominee for the Senate race this November.

This comes after the death of long-serving Senator Lindsey Graham last month. Graham had won the Republican nomination for the Senate seat he had held for 23 years. His sister, Darline Graham, was appointed to finish the final months of his term and is running to take his place as the GOP nominee. She’s also received Trump’s endorsement.

Tuesday’s special primary is already a crowded race, and Darline Graham will have to face off against nine other candidates, including congressmen Russell Fry and Ralph Norman, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and businessman Mark Lynch.

Victoria Bekiempis

Over the weekend, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced she is going to freeze her eggs and will be sharing the process online.

The progressive New York congresswoman, 36, revealed her decision to undergo fertility treatment in a series of Instagram stories this weekend. “This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez said she had been saving for the procedure for a very long time, and said there was not a lot of information for women interested in doing so.

“As women in general, we are not taught about our bodies, we are not prepared for our own lives, whether that is in puberty, whether that is in pregnancy, whether that is in perimenopause, menopause, whether that is in so many different aspects of our lives,” she said in one of the stories.

Ocasio-Cortez recognized the balancing act that comes with undergoing fertility treatment with her work as a congresswoman. Ocasio-Cortez told viewers that she would be taking her shots in the dressing room before a scheduled ABC interview on Sunday.

Trump will be in Washington today, mostly in private meetings.

As of now Todd Blanche’s swearing-in ceremony and an executive order signing at 2.45pm ET are both closed to the press, but we’ll let you know if that changes and bring you the latest lines.

Trump to swear in Todd Blanche as attorney general

Donald Trump is set to formally swear in Todd Blanche as his new attorney general at 2pm ET in the Oval Office.

This comes after the Senate officially confirmed Blanche before lawmakers left for August recess.

Trump’s pick to lead the justice department received a lifeline from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who cast a deciding vote, after two moderate GOP lawmakers – Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins – voted no on Blanche’s nomination.

Trump officials offer cities tens of millions for Memphis-style police surges – with conditions

George Chidi

The Trump administration is offering grants of tens of millions of dollars to cities across the US to create more Memphis-style enforcement surges – on the condition that they abandon progressive ideologies on policing.

The US Department of Justice says it will announce up to four finalist cities which will split $300m in grant funding under a federal “Model Cities” policing initiative (MCI) next month, setting the stage for some of the largest federal policing grants ever awarded to individual US cities.

In exchange for the funding, cities are required to comply with federal immigration enforcement requests, enact conservative policies on anti-homelessness rules, and potentially repay millions of dollars in the event of a surge in violent crime or “civil unrest”, according to a grant document.

The document cites Washington DC and Memphis, Tennessee – two cities with national guard troops patrolling the streets – as a model to emulate. The administration has so far defied calls to suspend its controversial taskforce in Memphis, following four officer-involved deaths since its launch last September.

“That’s not a model I’d be looking for,” said Steven Reed, the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama. Reed said he had seen the grant and passed on applying. “Everybody wants a quick fix, and no one wants to invest in the root cause of the issue,” he said.

Trump appoints staff secretary Will Scharf as new White House counsel

Donald Trump announced on Sunday that ⁠Will Scharf, the staff secretary who helped secure approval for the $400m White House ballroom project, will become ⁠White House counsel and assistant to the president.

Effective 1 September, Scharf will replace David Warrington, who will be leaving the administration to join the private sector. Warrington formerly served as a personal counsel and a lawyer ‌for Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Trump noted that Scharf previously served as a federal prosecutor and represented him in a number of cases, including at the supreme court. Scharf also led the National ‌Capital Planning Commission, which approved the president’s construction of the White House ballroom.

“Will is Tough, Strong, and Smart! He also loves our Country, and respects the Law,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Will Scharf will do a great job as White House Counsel!”

The shakeup in the White House counsel’s office comes at a critical juncture – just months ahead of the midterm elections, where Trump’s Republican party will be fighting to hold on to control of Congress.

Max Miller remains on ballot after missing resignation deadline

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Max Miller, the beleaguered US Republican representative from Ohio, will remain on the ballot paper for November after missing the final opportunity to resign as a candidate.

He vowed last week to defy a rising groundswell of resignation calls from his own party over domestic abuse allegations after his ex-father-in-law, Bernie Moreno, a GOP senator, said he was unfit to serve in Congress. The deadline has now passed for Miller to step down and allow the GOP to find a replacement in time.

“If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them,” Moreno, an ally of Trump, posted on Sunday. “He should not serve in the House of Representatives.”

Addressing reporters on Tuesday, Moreno described the dispute between his daughter and Miller as “truly the seventh level of hell”, adding: “This has been a horrific experience for my entire family.

“This has been brutal beyond comprehension, and if there’s any minimum standard for being an elected official, as I said, he fails to meet that minimum basic standard.”

Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of the Republican Ohio senator Bernie Moreno, has accused Miller of pointing a gun at her head, pouring hot water on her and potentially breaking their two-year-old daughter’s collarbone.

Emily Moreno has also alleged Miller physically attacked her attorney and another legal representative, and filed for a restraining order on her lawyer’s behalf. Emily Moreno and Miller are now locked in a bitter custody battle.

In other developments:

Donald Trump announced on Sunday that ⁠Will Scharf, the staff secretary who helped secure approval for the $400m White House ballroom project, will become ⁠White House counsel and assistant to the president. Effective 1 September, Scharf will replace David Warrington, who will be leaving the administration to join the private sector. Warrington formerly served as a personal counsel and a lawyer ‌for Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has announced she is going to freeze her eggs and will be sharing the process online. The progressive New York congresswoman, 36, revealed her decision to undergo fertility treatment in a series of Instagram stories this weekend. “This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, embraced Donald Trump’s suggestion that the two represent “VERY DIFFERENT” versions of the US, pledging to fight inequality while the president is “making billions of dollars off of you”. In a Saturday night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump shared an image of himself and the first lady, Melania Trump, beside a photo of El-Sayed, who is Muslim, and his wife, Sarah Jukaku, wearing a hijab. “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s [sic],” read the caption.
Some of Taylor Swift’s songs have been removed from videos posted on social media by Donald Trump’s campaign and the White House, silencing efforts to mock the pop star. A video posted 3 August featuring the US president and the first lady, Melania Trump, watching fireworks was posted this month on TikTok with Swift’s song August.