What to know today
- The Supreme Court said this afternoon the Trump administration can deport certain immigrants convicted of crimes to "third countries" where they have no previous connections.
- Senate Republicans are aiming to advance a bill this week to enact President Donald Trump's domestic policy agenda. Polling indicates a majority of registered voters oppose the legislation.
- Trump advisers are launching a super PAC to target Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky libertarian who has opposed Trump's policies, including the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.
- New York's mayoral primary election is tomorrow, with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani positioned as main rivals to take on Mayor Eric Adams in the fall.
Kennedy’s new vaccine panel lacks experience and shouldn’t meet, Sen. Cassidy says
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., today criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert f. Kennedy Jr.’s picks for a key federal vaccine advisory committee and called for the group’s next meeting to be delayed until more members with relevant expertise can be appointed.
Kennedy abruptly fired all 17 members of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices this month and replaced them with eight new members, including known vaccine skeptics. That group is scheduled to meet for the first time Wednesday and Thursday.
Cassidy, a medical doctor who is the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was a key vote in Kennedy’s confirmation. He said he voted for Kennedy after Kennedy made a number of commitments, including not to make changes to ACIP, a highly influential panel that makes vaccine recommendations and shapes the childhood vaccination schedule.
Cassidy expressed concerns today on X about the newly appointed members.
Democrats to choose new House Oversight Committee leader to take on Trump
Reporting from Washington
Democrats tomorrow will select their new leader of the House Oversight Committee, a lawmaker who will play a critical role in investigating Trump and his administration in the next Congress if the party takes control of the House in the 2026 midterm elections.
It’s a highly competitive, four-way race for the top Democratic slot on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, with no clear front-runner.
The race has broken down along generational lines, with two younger upstarts in their 40s vying for the job against two seasoned septuagenarians on the committee. Some members of the party are concerned that aging Democrats don’t have the energy or tactical abilities to take on Trump in such a hypercharged political environment.
Supreme Court allows Trump to swiftly deport certain immigrants to ‘third countries’
Reporting from Washington
The Supreme Court today made it easier for the Trump administration to deport convicted criminals to “third countries” to which they have no previous connections.
In a brief unsigned order that did not explain its reasoning, the court put on hold a federal judge’s ruling that said those affected nationwide should have a “meaningful opportunity” to bring claims that they would be at risk of torture, persecution or death if they were sent to countries the administration has made deals with to receive deported immigrants.
As a result, the administration will be able to quickly remove immigrants to such third countries, including South Sudan.
The three liberal justices on the conservative-majority court all dissented.
House Democrat calls Bondi 'unprofessional' after she takes jab at her and Biden
Attorney General Pam Bondi's remarks about Rep. Madeleine Dean and former President Joe Biden at a House hearing today prompted Dean, D-Pa., to call Bondi “very strange and very unprofessional.”
The exchange included Dean’s asking Bondi whether she had ever been registered as an agent of a foreign principal — referring to when Bondi lobbied for the government of Qatar — to which Bondi general referred to an interview last year in which Dean said Biden should remain the Democratic candidate in the presidential election.
“You want to talk about incompetence, you’re the one that says Joe Biden on PBS was competent,” Bondi said.
Dean responded by saying: “This is so discourteous. This is so outside the committee’s guidelines. Taking a personal shot at me while swiping at Biden. Very strange and very unprofessional of you. The answer is yes or no, and the answer is yes, you were registered as a lobbyist for Qatar. Is that correct? Yes, never mind. Don’t answer.”
Dean went on to ask Bondi about the timing of her selling stock before Trump’s tariff announcement. Bondi snapped back, “I would take a class in financial literacy if you think I profited from that, because I lost a tremendous amount of money.”
Democratic lawmaker and Pam Bondi have heated exchange during House hearing
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., grilled Attorney General Pam Bondi over how many industry operations investigators and law enforcement officers the Justice Department expects will be lost to attrition from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, firearms and Explosives, repeatedly asking how many will be gone.
DeLauro said the proposed cuts would shortchange "federal efforts to stop illegal gun trafficking and federal efforts to stop the flow of dangerous illegal drugs like fentanyl,” prompting Bondi to step in.
“I was attempting to answer your question very calmly, unlike you,” Bondi said.
DeLauro addressed the committee chair a few moments later, calling Bondi’s attempts to answer filibustering and adding that the Justice Department’s fiscal year budget indicated ATf would eliminate 541 investigators, which she said would reduce the bureau’s ability to regulate firearms and explosives by 40%.
Bondi said the cuts would be from attrition.
“We are not firing agents. They will be working,” Bondi said. “Can I tell you that they all want to be on the streets? They want to be doing their jobs.”
Presidents’ ordering military action without Congress’ approval has become routine. Here’s why.
Trump’s decision to order strikes in Iran — among the most consequential he has made as commander in chief — is the latest example of a U.S. president’s taking military action without first seeking congressional approval. And experts say that, while his power over American armed forces isn’t absolute, there’s most likely little lawmakers will do.
Trump is supposed to submit to Congress a legal justification for having bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities within 48 hours after the operation began. Unlike tangible consequences Trump has faced for other moves in which he tested the bounds of executive power — such as court rulings against him — any price he might pay for this decision would largely play out in the American political arena and on the world stage, where the U.S. reputation is on the line.
former White House physician to appear before House committee investigating Biden’s mental fitness
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the former White House physician who treated President Joe Biden, will appear for a deposition before the House Oversight Committee on July 9, a source familiar with the committee’s schedule confirmed to NBC News.
O’Connor agreed to appear after he was subpoenaed by the committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who is leading an investigation into Biden’s alleged cognitive decline in office. Comer is specifically focused on Biden’s use of an autopen for official government business.
Republican attempt to rein in federal judges stripped from Trump’s big bill
Senate Democrats forced the removal of a provision in Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill that sought to restrict courts’ power to block federal government policies with injunctions or restraining orders.
Democrats are challenging a broad range of provisions in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” over compliance with Senate budget rules that Republicans are relying on to bypass the 60-vote hurdle to advance most legislation.
Supreme Court takes up religious claim by Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were cut by prison officials
Taking up a new religious rights case, the Supreme Court agreed today to weigh a claim for damages brought by a devout Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were cut by Louisiana prison officials against his wishes.
At the time of the incident in 2020, Damon Landor had kept a religious vow not to cut his hair for almost 20 years.
As U.S. braces for Iranian attacks, a ‘brain drain’ weakens its defenses, former officials say
As the United States faces potential retaliatory attacks from Iran, a “brain drain” in top Justice Department and fBI national security and counterterrorism units could reduce their ability to prevent potential terrorist and cyber attacks from Tehran, according to six former senior Justice Department and fBI officials.
Staff levels in the Justice Department National Security Division’s law and policy section have dropped by as much as two-thirds, two former Justice Department officials said. Its counterintelligence and export control section — which tracks foreign espionage in the United States by Iran and other foreign rival — has lost about a third of its workforce, two former Justice Department officials said.
Liberal coalition launches ad campaign against GOP's big bill
A coalition of liberal groups is opening a new front in the battle against the sweeping Republican domestic policy bill aimed at slamming “giveaways” to oil companies.
The coalition, which includes friends of the Earth Action, Public Citizen and Greenfaith, is launching an initial six-figure ad buy set to run in Washington, D.C., as well as Iowa, North Carolina, Utah, Maine and Kansas.
Those states are represented by GOP senators whose votes will be crucial to passing the bill.
“These days it’s hard to catch a break — unless you’re a big oil company. Senate Republicans want to give them another huge tax break,” the ad's narrator says, highlighting campaign contributions from fossil fuel entities. The ad also criticizes the proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the legislation.
The coalition cites provisions in the bill that would grant tax breaks and funding for producing more oil. The campaign will include ads on digital media and print, as well as billboards.
Senate Republican leaders hope to pass the bill along party lines by July 4. It may be too late for the liberal groups to stop the measure, but the ad campaign points to a message they could continue to push in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, in which Democrats want to unseat Republicans who voted for the bill.
Rep. Massie responds to Trump attacks: 'I don’t change my positions'
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., hit back after Trump allies launched a super PAC aimed at defeating the congressman in next year's Republican primary.
Trump "knows he’s not going to change my opinion," but is trying to "keep the other Republican members of Congress cowering in fear of him so that he can proceed without the another branch of government intervening," Massie said in a radio interview today on WBT 1110 AM.
"He’s attacked me before. I don’t change my positions," Massie said.
Massie, a hard-line conservative, has criticized the administration's handling of Iran and the Trump-backed domestic policy bill that Congress is trying to pass by July fourth.
Ranked choice ballots give voters more options — but make ballots harder to fill out
New York City will hold primary elections for mayor and other local offices tomorrow. It will be the second time the city is using “ranked choice voting” to select the Democratic and Republican nominees for its top office. Under New York City’s ranked choice rules, rather than cast their votes for just their top candidates, voters can rank as many as five preferred candidates from first through fifth.
Enabling voters to rank candidates gives them an extra degree of input in a primary, but it also makes ranked choice ballots more complicated. In a typical nonranked choice election, candidates have single buttons or bubbles next to their names on the ballot. In a ranked choice election, voters can select candidates as their first, second, third, etc., choices. On New York’s Democratic mayoral ballot this year, that translates into 60 bubbles, spread across 12 rows and five columns.
The grid style of ballot is more complex than a nonranked one, adding new ways for voters to mismark or mistakenly fill out their ballots. While the rate of rejected ballots tends to be fairly small in ranked choice races, it happens about 10 times more often than in nonranked races that appear on the same ballot, according to our recently published peer-reviewed research article in the journal Political Behavior.
'Biden didn’t start any wars’: Democrats sharpen their arguments against Trump’s foreign policy
Democrats are seizing on Trump’s surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities to make the case that the world is becoming more dangerous on his watch, not less, and that he is reneging on a promise to avoid foreign military interventions.
The argument strikes at Trump’s contention that his blend of negotiating skills and toughness is enough to keep the United States safe.
federal judge rules NIH funding cuts are 'void' and 'illegal'
A federal judge in Massachusetts has just ruled that several of the Trump administration’s directives to block National Institute of Health funding over alleged diversity-related initiatives within the agency are “void, illegal, and of no force and effect and are hereby vacated.”
The grant terminations that resulted from the Trump administration’s directives are also void and illegal the judge said. Those directives would have cut funding from hundreds of programs that provide grants to universities, hospitals and other organizations.
The judge said in a hearing last week that the administration had not produced any evidence that the grants had been used to support unlawful discrimination, adding that the grant cancellation was discrimination itself.
A cast of scandal-plagued candidates tests the limits of what New York City voters will forgive
few political operatives have it easier than opposition researchers in New York City this year.
New York’s 2025 municipal races feature a scandal-laden cast of characters whose alleged or proven misdeeds have made front-page headlines for years. They include the front-runner heading into Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary.
Trump’s team launches group to unseat GOP Rep. Thomas Massie
Two key advisers to Trump are launching a group to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican with a pattern of opposing the president who most recently lambasted his decision Saturday to strike three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Chris LaCivita, a senior political adviser to Trump, confirmed to NBC News on Sunday that he and Tony fabrizio, another Trump adviser, will run the anti-Massie super PAC.
Polls show Trump's big bill is unpopular as Republicans stare down their deadline for passage
Reporting from Washington
Trump is facing political headwinds for his “big, beautiful bill” as Republican leaders hope to begin voting on it in the Senate this week.
Specifically, five new surveys indicate that the GOP is losing the battle of public opinion on a major piece of legislation they’re aiming to pass by July fourth.
Nonpartisan polls released this month show that voters have a negative perception of the bill. The House-passed version, which is facing modest revisions in the Senate, would extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts while slashing taxes on tips and overtime, and enact a series of spending cuts to Medicaid and other programs.