U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that Iranian ships will no longer be able to travel through the Strait of Hormuz and America would charge a 20% toll on other countries' eligible cargo, escalating tensions after weekend of attacks by both nations to assert control of the critical waterway.
Trump also said he’s recommended Lindsey Graham’s sister be named as his temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate. Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress and an advocate for U.S. military aggression in Iran, died Saturday at 71 after a tear in his aorta.
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Judge blasts Trump’s IRS lawsuit as filed for ‘improper purpose,’ recommends attorney discipline
A federal judge said Monday that Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose” as she referred attorneys for disciplinary actions.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams amounts to a stinging rebuke of the Republican president’s lawsuit, characterizing it as an exercise in self-dealing in which he sued an entity that is effectively under his control.
US military uses drone boats in a first-of-its-kind attack
U.S. Central Command says it used drone ships to hit an Iranian ship maintenance facility and submarine, calling it first.
“Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations,” the command said on social media Monday.
The post featured video of the drone boats approaching a dock that had a submarine sitting on top of it followed by aerial footage of the explosion on Sunday.
The strike comes despite the Trump administration’s claim that it has completely destroyed Iran’s navy.
The Corsair drones also were used to help rescue a pair of Army aviators from the waters off Oman early in June after their Apache helicopter was struck by an Iranian drone.
ICE involved in fatal shooting in Maine, state House speaker says
Democrat Ryan Fecteau posted on Facebook that the shooting Monday in Biddeford, outside Portland, involved U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that the State Police and Maine Department of Public Safety were at the scene, and that he expects the FBI to investigate.
Few details are available. ICE, the FBI and the Maine Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Project Relief, an immigrant rights advocacy group, posted that “a young person” from its community was killed “during an encounter with ICE in Biddeford.” Protesters have already begun gathering at Mechanics Park in Biddeford.
This would be at least the ninth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s mass deportations agenda and the second in a week, following the killing of a Houston man.
EU rallies dozens of nations to pledge $1 billion for recovery fund in Gaza
The European Union coordinated efforts to raise 900 million euros ($1 billion) in aid for Gaza, working with 65 governments and organizations including the White House and the United Nations, the bloc’s top diplomat said Monday.
Kaja Kallas announced the fund after a meeting of the Palestine Donors Group in Brussels.
“The EU is the most credible supporter, for the Palestinian people. We are the largest donor and the strongest backer of the two-state solution,” she said.
The meeting was the second gathering of the Team Gaza Initiative, an effort by the EU to rally support for recovery projects like sanitation and farming in the destitute and war-ravaged coastal enclave of some 2 million people.
Ukraine fears Graham’s death leaves weaker link to Trump
Just days before his death, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was standing in Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Square, giving Ukrainians reason for optimism: He said new hard-hitting bipartisan economic sanctions against Russia were within reach back in Washington.
Now Ukraine’s leaders are devastated. Graham had been one of Kyiv’s closest allies in Washington and a trusted intermediary with Trump, who had a strained relationship with Zelenskyy. They fear that without Graham, Ukraine’s ability to influence could be diminished across a broad range of issues.
“Huge and absolutely unexpected loss,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, a lawmaker with Zelenskyy’s party. “He was the closest link between Ukraine, our president and Trump,” he added. “Our position in Trump’s entourage might be weaker.”
Ukraine and nine other countries announce a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles
Ukraine and nine other countries have formed a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles. The 10 countries announced the agreement at talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Monday, taking advantage of Kyiv’s experience of fighting Russia.
“Our goal is to build a shared ballistic missile defense capability for Europe,” their statement said.
Zelenskyy went to France seeking help against Russia’s ballistic missiles, which have pummeled his country in the more than four years since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion.
Putin was unyielding after Kyiv’s long-range attacks on refineries, tankers and terminals have caused widespread fuel shortages. “Wherever they attempt to strike Russian territory, we will respond in kind, but our strikes will be several times more powerful,” Putin told pro-Kremlin activists.
Trump says all but Iran will have ‘fair and open’ use of strait — after paying US a 20% toll
A fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait without paying any fees before Iran asserted control over it after the start of the war.
Iran says it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with an interim peace deal reached last month. The U.S. and others dispute that, citing international law on freedom of navigation, and the American military has tried to establish an alternative route outside of Iranian control.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called for the strait to be open, as it was before the war. “Freedom of navigation has to be respected,” she said.
Trump says Gov. McMaster should appoint Graham’s sister to finish his term
Trump says he’s recommended that Lindsey Graham’s sister be named as his temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate.
Trump posted on social media Monday that Gov. Henry McMaster should appoint Darline Graham Nordone to fulfill the rest of Graham’s term, which expires in January.
Graham died over the weekend at age 71, and McMaster is expected to announce his pick later Monday afternoon.
After their parents died at a young age, Graham was left to raise his sister, whom he later adopted. The pair were very close, and Graham’s sister was by his side as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year.
The Democratic Party’s direction also is at stake in Michigan and Wisconsin
Following the downfall of Graham Platner in Maine, progressives view the Upper Midwest Senate races as their last chance to shape the Democrats’ Senate caucus and prove their theory of the case in the midterm elections.
In Michigan, Rep. Haley Stevens is running against progressive Abdul El-Sayed for the state’s Democratic Senate nomination in a race Democrats must win to hold the seat held by Sen. Gary Peters, who is retiring and has endorsed Stevens.
In Wisconsin, democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong has surged in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary against more conventional Democratic lawmakers, including former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and current Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.
Michigan voters choose nominees on Aug. 4. The primaries in Minnesota and Wisconsin are Aug. 11.
What happened to Minnesota nice?
In Minnesota, the two leading Senate candidates have clashed over electability, their ties to corporate interests and willingness to fight Trump’s administration.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, backed by progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, says her opponent, Rep. Angie Craig, is backed by “secretive dark money groups.”
“The very folks who are standing in the way of the things that people need to be able to afford their lives, who are Democrats, are funded by these corporate special interests,” Flanagan told The Associated Press.
Craig counters that Flanagan has raised campaign funds from major companies, and that if she becomes the Democratic nominee, Republicans would focus on her ties to an ongoing fraud inquiry into the state’s Medicaid programs. “To stop Donald Trump, we’ve got to win elections,” Craig told the AP.
The next big races between moderates and progressives are in pivotal Midwestern states
Progressives hope to prove economic populism resonates beyond deep blue enclaves. Democratic Party leaders worry progressive candidates could damage their brand and imperil their chances of retaking either chamber of Congress.
August primaries in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota will be another gauge of Democratic voters’ frustration with the establishment. The Upper Midwest is a battleground for progressives and moderates. The outcomes could impact Democrats’ chances in the upcoming midterms and shape their party’s future direction.
How will a special primary work?
South Carolina law requires a one-week filing period beginning July 21, for a special primary to be held on Aug. 11. A runoff if necessary would be held on Aug. 25, leaving the nominee just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.
All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the general election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity.
Does Graham’s death provide more of an opening for Democrats?
No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double digits. When he last ran in 2020, Graham defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin. But Republicans are carefully surveying the landscape after margins have tightened in other races.
Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews won the Democratic nomination last month and has raised more than $8 million, with just under $3 million cash on hand at the end of May, according to federal filings. Graham had taken in $6 million, with just over $4 million on hand.
In a statement Sunday, Andrews called on South Carolinians to join her “in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude” to Graham for his service.
Who could replace Graham?
1. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette had McMaster’s endorsement before losing the GOP governor’s primary runoff to Wilson. A person with knowledge of Evette’s thinking but not authorized to discuss it publicly said she’s getting encouragement from across the state and feels she would have good chances in the special primary.
2. Rep. Nancy Mace. A person with knowledge of Mace’s thinking but not authorized to speak about it publicly said she was considering the race. Mace is not running for reelection to the House.
3. Rep. Ralph Norman, among House’s most conservative, is said to be in the mix.
4. Joe Wilson, a rumored replacement, said he assured Trump on Sunday that “my goal is to remain in the House to keep his two-vote majority for the American people!!!”
5.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, lived in South Carolina and has fielded calls about replacing Graham but isn’t interested in the role and enjoys working for the president, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.
— By Meg Kinnard
Here’s how Graham’s death is scrambling South Carolina politics
Graham’s death on Saturday as he was running for a fifth term begins a tumultuous new chapter in South Carolina politics. As the conservative state’s senior senator and an influential Trump ally, Graham was presumed to be on a glide path toward reelection.
Now, Gov. Henry McMaster must choose a temporary replacement to serve until January while the state also prepares a special primary so voters can choose a new Republican nominee for November’s general election. That appointed temporary caretaker could be a top contender in the special primary.
The rare open Senate seat has ignited a scramble among South Carolina’s most ambitious conservatives, who just finished a sprawling and bruising contest to succeed McMaster. State Attorney General Alan Wilson won the nomination. Also-rans including Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman are all now eyeing Graham’s seat following his death over the weekend.
Top Iran adviser says Iran won't retreat from controlling the strait
Mohammed Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, says Tehran will fight for the Strait of Hormuz.
“We defend it so that in the future, for the passage of our ships, we are not forced to pay tribute to the enemy!” he wrote on X. “Retreating from this vital matter has no place in the mind of any friend of Iran.”
Trump says ‘we’re taking over the Strait’ of Hormuz
That’s what Trump said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.”
Both the U.S. and Iran asserted Monday that they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war.
Trump also said that “everything was agreed to” in an 11-hour meeting Sunday, but Iranian negotiators called back later “and they say, ’we had to make a couple of changes.” He didn’t specify details.
The latest exchange was sparked by an Iranian attack on a container ship on Sunday in the strait, a critical waterway for international oil and gas over which Iran has asserted control since the United States and Israel started the war on Feb. 28.
Graham’s death a setback for Senate Republicans and Ukraine
Congress is returning after a summer break, with the Senate convening following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. His death after a tear in his aorta Saturday leaves Republicans with just 51 members, with Mitch McConnell still recovering and South Carolina’s governor needing to appoint Graham’s interim successor.
This makes Trump’s already contentious congressional agenda even more uncertain. It also leaves Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy without a key ally who had Trump’s ear: Graham was a strong supporter of Ukraine, pressing the president to be firmer on Russia President Vladimir Putin. Now Zelenskyy and Kyiv are reeling from his death.
