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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.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to hold a White House briefing at 2pm EST.
Bessent will at the podium hours after the White House has circulated a draft peace agreement for the US war with Iran among allies including Israel. The agreement comes as both sides look to stop new ceasefire violations from derailing negotiations.
We will be bringing you updates from the briefing once it starts.
Richard Luscombe
Dozens of former federal judges have joined the push to thwart Donald Trump’s creation of a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization fund” that would funnel taxpayer dollars to the president’s political allies.
The bipartisan group of 35 judges filed a lawsuit in the southern district of Florida on Wednesday seeking to reopen Trump’s legal case against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leaking of his tax information by a whistleblower who was later sentenced to five years in prison.
US inflation rose at fastest pace in three years in April as Iran war hikes up prices
US inflation increased at its fastest pace in three years in April, driven by higher energy prices amid Trump’s war against Iran, and cementing economists’ views that the Federal Reserve could hold interest rates unchanged well into next year.
Surging price pressures are eroding household income and could restrain consumer spending and economic growth this quarter. Income at the disposal of households after adjusting for inflation dropped for a third straight month in April, other data showed on Thursday.
Given the soaring cost of living, Americans are growing frustrated with Trump’s handling of the economy. A Reuters/Ipsos survey last week showed the president’s approval rating fell to nearly its lowest level since he returned to the White House, hit by a drop in support among Republicans. Trump won the 2024 presidential election in large part because of his promise to lower inflation.
The government yesterday also revised down the growth pace in consumer spending in the first quarter to 1.4% from the previously reported 1.6% annualized rate. Overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth was slashed to a 1.6% rate from the 2.0% pace estimated last month.
Inflation threatens his Republican party’s congressional majority in the November midterm elections.
Read the full report here:
Trump shares draft Iran peace deal with Israel and other allies
Earlier, my colleagues reported over on our Middle East live blog that Donald Trump has 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.
In an attempt to speed up the negotiations, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will fly to Washington tomorrow to meet his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.
Tehran targeted a US air base in Kuwait today after Washington struck what it described as an Iranian drone operation near the strait of Hormuz, highlighting the fragile situation as both sets of negotiators refuse to cede ground on final points of disagreement.
The draft Trump has shared is not vastly different to the one that has been circulating across the region for days, under which the strait of Hormuz would be opened to commercial shipping, the US blockade of Iranian ports would by lifted and Iran would be given access to as much as $12bn (£9bn) in frozen assets.
The aim would be for commercial shipping in the strait to return to pre-war levels within 30 days and for negotiations envisaged to last as long as 60 days to commence on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. This would include discussions about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, a time-limited suspension of further enrichment and supervision by the Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
China is pressing for the UN security council to ratify any agreement.
Here’s the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour’s report:
The vice president urged the graduating class to use artificial intelligence and technology wisely.
He brought up how Pope Leo recently issued an essay against AI, and “encouraged us as human beings not to outsource the most important moral decisions to digital technology.”
Vance said he doesn’t want AI to lead on the battlefield:
One of the things that makes Americans unique, that makes you as warfighters unique, is that we wage war justly. But when I say that we, all of us wage war justly, I mean fundamentally that you must do so because you are the ones who execute. You are the ones who lead on the battlefield. You are the ones who ensure that our lethality in war, which is amazing and necessary, but also coexists with our heart and with our conscience.
Vance said people often talk about how reading the headlines about the state of the country is depressing, but that feeling can be chased away by looking at this graduating class:
When I look at you, when I look at the future of America, I feel great hope that we are and will remain the greatest country anywhere in the world.
Vance said this is the only commencement speech he is giving this year. He also spoke about how the airmen are distinguished from civilians:
Hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans, most of them civilian, have celebrated or will celebrate graduations during this season, and almost none of them will have your responsibility, quite literally decisions over life and death.
Vance described the events of how an American pilot was rescued from behind enemy lines in Iran earlier this year. He said it was one of the most “daring and amazing" acts he’s ever seen:
I never told anybody this before. I was sitting in a secure conference room on the phone with our military leadership and our civilian leadership, and that operation hit a bit of snag, and I think a lot of us were looking around and saying, are we worried here, but it was an Air Force general who said I promise you we’re still going to get everyone out alive.
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.
While giving his commencement speech, Vance spoke about the forces serving during Operation Epic Fury, Absolute Resolve, Southern Spear and Midnight Hammer and said:
They’ve accomplished things that the rest of the world quite literally thought were impossible. Trust me, I’ve seen the intelligence reports for predecessors have done things that other people thought were impossible, and they did them anyway.
Bringing up Iran, he said:
It is American airpower that allows us to penetrate Iran airspace and strike critical targets across enormous distances with speed and efficiency and precision. And when the president says he will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, it is the men and women you will join in just 60 days to give force to that promise and to that guarantee.
Vance spoke about how the graduating class was up against “an entirely new era of warfare, one shaped by autonomous systems, AI, and cyber operations technologies evolving far faster than military institutions have historically been accustomed to now.”
He said that the jobs they will hold would have sounded like science fiction two decades ago. He said:
They [the jobs] are now reality because our adversaries are studying this country every day. They’re studying our military doctrine. They’re studying our industrial capacity, they’re studying our political divisions, our attention span, and new graduates. They are studying you.
JD Vance delivers commencement speech at US Air Force academy
While speaking at the US Air Force Academy, vice president JD Vance thanked “the people who run Dover Air Force Base, the people who pilot and crew Air Force Two, the staff at my house, the person who delivered me my daily intelligence briefing, they are proud to be airmen or proud to be guardians.”
Vance also thanked the families of the graduating class:
So to the loved ones gathered here today. We will never forget that our nation’s airmen and guardians were your sons and daughters long before they were ours. So I hope you take pride in what they’ve become and know this. The administration will always have your back, just as these new officers have ours.
Richard Luscombe
White House pays bizarre tribute to Harambe 10 years after gorilla’s death.
The White House has posted on social media a tribute to mark Thursday’s 10th anniversary of the death of a figure it called “a true patriot”.
The hero concerned the infamous case of the 400lb western lowland gorilla that had been named Harambe, which was shot dead at the Cincinnati zoo after a toddler entered his enclosure and interacted with the animal.
In a lengthy post on Wednesday evening, what would have been the primate’s 27th birthday, the official government account mourned “an icon that became part of internet history, American culture, and an entire generation’s timeline”.
Security staff at the zoo shot and killed the male silverback on 28 May 2016 after the boy, three-year-old Isaiah Dickerson, climbed a fence, crawled through a hedge, and dropped 15ft into the enclosure holding Harambe and fellow gorillas. Video captured the gorilla pulling the boy, who received only minor injuries, through water.
Vice President JD Vance is about to deliver the US Air Force Academy commencement address in El Paso County, Colorado Thursday morning.
Last week, President Trump delivered the commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy.
Joseph Gedeon
No Kings event set for 14 June, as Trump celebrates birthday with White House UFC bout
The No Kings movement has announced a nationwide event on 14 June, directly counter-programming Donald Trump’s 80th birthday celebrations and a Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout on the south lawn of the White House.
The centerpiece is a 90-minute concert at New York’s Town Hall featuring entertainer Bette Midler, songwriter Patti Smith, actor Jane Fonda, musician Rufus Wainwright and commentator Joy Reid – streaming free nationwide, while local groups host watch parties across the country. The event is co-presented by the Committee for the First Amendment, a coalition of artists and cultural figures, and frames the US’s 250th anniversary as a moment of democratic reckoning.
The plans put two very different visions for the occasion in direct competition.
The US president is billing UFC Freedom 250 as a historic national celebration: a star-spangled octagon arena on the south lawn of the White House, with 4,000 ticketed guests, and a fan festival on the Ellipse expected to draw up to 100,000 people. The weigh-ins are reportedly set to take place at the Lincoln Memorial.
Trump has claimed that demand for tickets, for an event which will feature a title fight between the lightweight champion Ilia Topuria and the interim champion Justin Gaethje, has been unlike anything he has seen. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle called it “one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history”.
