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Support for the military is why Trump ‘is insistent on increasing defense budget to $1.5tn’, says JD Vance
Vance also brought up Trump’s golden dome during his speech.
You should expect some things out of your civilian leadership, out of the president, the Vice president, the Secretary of war. This is why we’ve pushed forward with Agenda 47 and the Golden Dome, and any number of new and advanced technologies. It’s why the president has made improving military quality of life such a central focus, why he’s insistent on increasing the defense budget to $1.5 trillion, and why he’s proud to support pay raises, new barracks, new hospitals and new schools on base.
Key events
Young MC, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory and Milli Vanilli follow Morris Day in saying they will not play in Trump’s Freedom 250 bash
At least five of the nine featured musical acts recruited to play on the National Mall in Washington DC this summer, in a concert series planned by the Trump administration to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, have dropped out of the concert series, just one day after the lineup was announced.
The first to drop out, hours after the announcement, was Morris Day, who called his scheduled participation a baseless “rumor”.
Later on Wednesday, Young MC posted a message that began: “I have informed my agents that I will not be performing at the Freedom 250 event”.
“The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he added, before casting doubt on the claim from the Trump-appointed organizer that the series was nonpartisan.
So far on Thursday, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory and Milli Vanilli have all either dropped out or expressed surprise that they were ever booked.
“The Commodores will not be performing”, the group said in a statement. “Our music has always been our voice and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party.”
Freedom Williams, C + C Music Factory’s lead rapper, said in a video statement apparently recorded in a bathroom that he had been blindsided by texts from friends horrified that he was “doing the Trump Freedom show” and “fucking with Trump”.
“I’m like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’” Williams said he replied to people “I’ve know for years, who know I don’t fuck with Trump”.
“I know where I stand. I know who the fuck I am,” he added, before explaining that his agent had not mentioned any connection with Donald Trump when he pitched the show.
After going online to research the series on Wednesday, Williams said, he told his agent he was out.
Milli Vanilli singer Jodie Rocco told the Associated Press that no one had even asked her or her sister Linda Rocco or anyone else in the current group to perform. “My sister and I were shocked to see our name, ‘Milli Vanilli’, as one of the performers”, Rocco wrote to the AP in an email.
The poster for the Freedom 250 series included an image of Milli Vanilli’s former frontman, Fab Morvan, who just lip-synched the band’s hits and has been performing apart from the group.
At least one of the featured performers, Vanilla Ice, said in an Instagram video that he was still in. “I’m super honored to do this concert with everybody”, he said, on the apparent assumption that he will not, in the end, be performing alone. The rapper has performed at multiple New Year’s Eve shows at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beach club.
Last December, as the deadly immigration crackdown by federal ICE agents ramped up, the two leaders of the effort, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, were filmed singing along with the rapper to his hit 1990 “Ice, Ice Baby.”
New Jersey health inspector denied full access to Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, governor says
New Jersey’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, said that state health inspectors were denied full access to the privately run Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, where detainees are staging a hunger and labor strike over health and sanitary conditions, and protesters rallying outside have been tased, pepper-sprayed and detained.
“The New Jersey Department of Health today sought to conduct a health inspection of Delaney Hall, but it was denied full access and was allowed to inspect only a limited part of the facility,” Sherrill, a Democrat elected last year in a landslide said.
“As I’ve said repeatedly, refusing to provide full access raises serious questions about what ICE is trying to hide from public view,” she continued. “New Jersey believes in the rule of law, will uphold the Constitution, and Delaney Hall should be closed down. I am calling for ICE to immediately de-escalate the situation as I continue working to keep New Jersey residents safe.”
The Department of Homeland Security tried to push back on reports, like one this week from our Guardian colleagues José Olivares and Julius Constantine Motal, that document complaints from 300-400 Delaney Hall strikers over inedible food containing worms, a lack of air conditioning and proper ventilation, a persistent flu and other viruses spreading throughout the facility, delayed medical care and lags in their immigration cases.
In privately-run ICE detention centers nationwide, detainees perform cooking, cleaning and laundry work, getting paid as little as $1 an hour.
In response to reports about harsh conditions at the center, Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, recorded a social media video in which he scoffed at the concerns of Democratic elected officials, including the governor and senator Andy Kim, who was pepper-sprayed by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel outside the facility this week.
In the video, Mullin claimed that the detentions were necessary because of the alleged violent crimes committed by a list of eight foreign nationals the department has arrested “recently”.
The secretary appeared to have some trouble making it through his prepared text in the video, however. There were 21 edits in the first 35 seconds of the published video, to cover apparent flubs in delivery, and Mullin so badly mispronounced the name of one country he said a detained man came from, “Wallamala”, that it was only possible to parse his meaning by consulting the on-screen text, which read: Guatemala.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top US House Democrat, has said a $250 bill with the president’s portrait is a “hard no,” on a post on X. He said:
Get over yourself. The upcoming July 4th anniversary is not about a wannabe King. It’s about celebrating the American journey.
Here’s a recap of the day so far:
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Trump shared a draft Iran peace deal with Israel and other allies. Trump circulated a draft peace agreement for his war with Iran among allies including Israel, as both sides try to prevent fresh breaches of the ceasefire escalating out of control and scuppering any deal.
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The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, excluding food and energy. The PCE price index rose in April at an annual rate of 3.8% – that is an increase from 3.5% in March and 2.8% in February.
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Support for the military is why Trump “is insistent on increasing defense budget to $1.5tn”, says JD Vance during his commencement address at the US Air Force Academy. Vance also brought up Trump’s golden dome and the use of AI in warfare, during his speech.
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Scott Bessent held White House press briefing in which he said “I don’t think there’s anything untoward about having the president’s face on the 250th anniversary bill.”
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Trump refiles $10bn defamation suit against Wall Street Journal over its reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. A judge threw out an earlier version of the suit over legal deficiencies. The lawsuit is one of several that the president has brought in his personal capacity against news organizations.
Political appointees at the Treasury Department told staff at the agency’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to prepare prototypes of the $250 bill with the president’s portrait, according to current and former employees of the Department, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
At a press briefing Thursday afternoon, Treasure Secretary Scott Bessent said legislation would have to be passed by the Senate, to produce the bill because “no living person can be on US currency,” according to law.
If the proposed legislation is passed, this would be the first appearance of a living person on a US currency in over 150 years.
Bessent said the decision with the $250 bill is not up to the president or the Treasury Department, in fact, “it’s all up on Capitol Hill.”
The Department does “prepare for everything if it gets passed,” he said.
Meanwhile, the US Mint said that Trump’s gold coins won’t be ready before celebrations of the 250th anniversary begin, The Hill reported. The Mint is still designing the coin, and there is no official sell date yet.
The AI executive order that Trump almost signed last week called for AI companies to voluntarily consult with the US government regarding their latest models, reported Politico Thursday.
Companies would allow the federal government to preview the models before they are launched.
Since the delay in signing the order, three camps have formed in the White House about how to regulate AI.
The first favors less regulations to help the industry compete with China – this includes AI leader David Sacks. It was Sacks who urged the president to delay the order last week.
The second camp want there to be more barriers to Mythos-type models – they are concerned that the technology could be used by China. This camp includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his undersecretary Emil Michael.
The third camp including chief of staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are standing in the middle ground, they want the AI companies to voluntarily provide the government a glance at their new models, according to the Politico’s reporting.
When asked about California governor Gavin Newsom’s 100% tax on money from Trump’s anti-weaponization fund, Bessent said: “There’s no cure for stupid.”
That ended this week’s press briefing.
On sanctions on Russia, Bessent said that Biden’s sanctions on the country were “mild” and that “no one has done more sanctions that the Trump administration on Russian oil.”
‘I don’t think there’s anything untoward about having the president’s face on the 250th anniversary bill,’ says Scott Bessent
When asked for a third time about Trump’s face on the $250 bill, Bessent said “we prepare for everything if it gets passed,” but added that the decision is up to House and Senate, not the treasury department. He added:
I don’t think that there’s anything untoward about having the President of the United States’ face on the 250th anniversary bill.
When asked about an update on an investigation about who is funding Antifa, Bessent said significant progress has been made and there’s going to be a lot to report in the coming weeks and months.
On sanctions on the Cuban government, Bessent said the answer lies with the Cuban government.
That’s going to be up to the Cuban government. They can go up, they can go down. We tried to get humanitarian aid in and the regime rejected because they wanted to go through their corrupt system, so they could go up, they could go down.
On the skirmishes and ceasefire violation that have been ongoing this week, Bessent said “President Trump always prefers a peace deal, so everything we have done thus far has been defensive, and at present that is what we will continue doing.”
He said: “We can’t talk about reconstruction in Iran until we reach a peace deal.”
On rising oil prices, Bessent said these are short-term challenges and oil prices have already come down “substantially.”
Bessent said the Trump administration inherited “the worst budget deficit in history, when we were not in a recession or not at war”. He said it was at 6.7% and this administration brought that down to about 5.5% or 5.4% this year.
On the peace deal with Iran, Bessent said “it’s always a mistake to get out ahead of the president, so it is all going to be the president’s decision.” He said as he understand there could be no deal without Iran giving up its highly enriched uranium and nuclear program, and that is what the president is working towards.
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