🔗 Share this article

Greetings and salutations to the US politics live blog. This is Tom Ambrose, and I will be providing you with all the most recent developments over the coming hours.

The President Dismisses Greene's Safety Claims

We start with the development that Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene on the weekend, despite his reversal on opposing the disclosure of the Jeffrey Epstein documents.

He persisted in rejecting her assertion that his criticism were putting at risk her and said he did not think anyone was focusing on her. Greene remarked on Saturday that Trump’s online criticism had unleashed a surge of menaces directed at her.

“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene,” he remarked, referring to the lawmaker. “I don’t think her life is in danger... I doubt anybody is concerned for her,” Trump told the press before boarding his presidential plane on Sunday evening.

Greene, a US House of Representatives representative from the state of Georgia who was long known as a Trump loyalist, has lately adopted stances at odds with the commander-in-chief. She noted on Saturday she has been contacted by private security firms warning about her safety and that harsh attacks against her have in the past resulted in death threats.

Jeffrey Epstein Documents Disclosure Push

This dispute came as the President urged his fellow Republicans in Congress to support the publication of records related to the late disgraced financier Epstein, reversing his prior resistance to such a action.

Trump’s post on his Truth Social followed House speaker Mike Johnson previously stated that he thought a decision on making public DOJ documents in the Epstein investigation should help put to rest allegations “that he [Trump] has something to do with it”.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have no secrets.

“Now is the moment to move on from this political stunt orchestrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the significant achievements of the GOP, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown’,” he added.

Although the President and Epstein were seen together years back, the commander-in-chief has claimed the two men fell out before Epstein's legal troubles. Emails disclosed last week by a congressional panel indicated the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in jail in 2019, thought Trump “was aware of the girls,” though it was not clear what that statement signified.

Other Updates

• Republican congressman Thomas Massie had questioned Trump over whether the US president was making a “last-ditch effort” to keep the full files on the deceased convicted criminal Epstein from being disclosed by initiating a new probe. The congressman and Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, the two US representatives spearheading the cross-party effort to have all the documents in the possession of the government public both expressed new worries about the actions by the White House.
• The United States carried out another attack on an alleged narcotics smuggling boat in the Pacific region on Saturday, killing three people on board, the Department of Defense said on Sunday. “Information verified that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, traveling on a known narco-trafficking route, and transporting drugs,” the military command announced in a message on online platforms.
• The President said the United States may open talks with Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president, who is under growing scrutiny from the US government amid a huge military deployment in the Caribbean region. “We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would want to talk,” the US president said on that day, in one of the initial indications of a possible path to defusing the increasingly tense situation in the region.
• Trump on the weekend dismissed worries about conservative commentator the commentator's latest interview with a extremist figure known for his anti-Jewish sentiments, which has created a division within the GOP. Trump defended Carlson, noting the ex-media personality has “expressed good things about me in the past.” He added if he chooses to interview the activist, whose supporters see themselves as defending the nation's cultural heritage, then “people have to decide.” He did not condemn Carlson or the activist.
• Trump suggested on that day that he intends to have a discussion with NYC's mayor-elect Mamdani and stated they will “reach an agreement”, in what could be a detente for the Republican president and Democratic rising star who have portrayed one another as opponents. Trump has for months criticized the mayor-elect, falsely labelling him as a “socialist” and forecasting the decline of his hometown, NYC, if the democratic socialist were chosen.
• A group of 17 transgender US air force members has filed a lawsuit against the federal government for denying them early retirement pensions and benefits. The complaint, submitted in a US court, describes the government’s move against them as “illegal and unjustified”.