Trump to speak to Putin and Zelenskyy about Ukraine ceasefire

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news throughout the next few hours.

Donald Trump is due to speak to both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an effort to stop what he called the “bloodbath” war in Ukraine.

Trump, posting on his Truth Social account on Saturday, wrote that he will speak to Putin on Monday morning. “THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” Trump wrote, in his customary all-capitalized prose. The president has repeatedly cited a death toll for the conflict that is much higher than any official figures, or estimates based on an open-source investigation, without explaining why.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed to a state-run Russian news agency that preparations were under way for a call between the US and Russian presidents.

Trump’s call with the Russian president will be followed by a separate conversation with Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s leader, and Nato leaders as part of the US effort to end the war that has raged since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. “HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END,” Trump wrote.

It’s unclear what kind of progress Trump will be able to spur, if any, in the peace process. Russia and Ukraine have just concluded mostly fruitless talks, the first of their kind since the start of the war, in Istanbul. Ukraine said it was ready for a ceasefire but was faced by “unacceptable” demands from Russia.

In other news:

Donald Trump’s acceptance of a $400m Boeing jet from Qatar is the “definition of corruption”, a top Democrat said on Sunday, as several senior Republicans joined in a bipartisan fusillade of criticism and concern over the luxury gift. Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, condemned the “flying grift” on NBC as he assailed the president’s trip to several Gulf states this week that included a stop in Qatar.
As Trump wages a blunt attack on major law firms and the justice department, some lawyers are starting their own law firms and challenging the administration’s effort to cut funding and punish civil servants. The decision to start the firms come as the judiciary has emerged as a major bulwark against the Trump administration.
The US retail company Walmart will “eat some of the tariffs” in line with Trump’s demands, the president’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has insisted, claiming he received the assurance in a personal phone call with the company’s chief executive, Doug McMillon. Walmart said last week it had no alternative to raising prices for consumers beginning later this month because it could not absorb the cost of the president’s tariffs on international trade.
A proposed rule change making it easier to fire civil servants deemed to be “intentionally subverting presidential directives” could pave the way for the White House to fire statisticians employed to produce objective data on the economy but whose figures prove politically inconvenient, experts warn. With Trump under pressure to explain shrinking gross domestic product (GDP) figures amid economists’ warnings that tariffs could trigger a recession, the administration could use new employment rules to pressure workers into “cooking the books”.
Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office announced on Sunday, and he and his family are considering options for treatment. Donald Trump expressed concern on behalf of himself and first lady Melania Trump.
US government debt may come under more pressure this week after the credit rating agency Moody’s stripped the US of its top-notch triple-A rating.

Key events

Putin-Trump meeting not currently being prepared, RIA cites Kremlin as saying

A meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is not currently being prepared, Russian state news agency RIA cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Monday.

The White House has said that Trump is open to meeting with the Russian president. The two are going to speak at 10am ET and Trump will call Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy when that call concludes, the White House said.

JD Vance decided against Israel visit so as not to endorse expanded military operation in Gaza – Axios

JD Vance considered traveling to Israel tomorrow but decided not to due to the expansion of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, Axios reports citing a senior US official.

Axios writes that, according to Israeli officials, the Trump administration on Saturday informed the Israeli government that Vance was considering stopping in Israel after attending the pope’s inauguration. Additional discussions took place yesterday between US and Israeli officials to prepare for the visit, and it was soon reported in the Israeli press that Vance might arrive tomorrow. Several hours later, however, a White House official denied the reports in a statement and claimed “logistical constraints have precluded an extension of his travel beyond Rome”.

But a US official with knowledge of what actually happened during those several hours told Axios logistics weren’t the issue. The official said that while Vance was deliberating, concerns were raised that a trip to Israel at this time would be perceived by Israel and countries in the region as validation for Israel’s expanded operation in Gaza, at a time when the US is pushing for a ceasefire and hostage deal. At that point, the official said, the vice-president made the decision not to go.

Yesterday, the Israeli army announced the start of a large-scale offensive in Gaza, describing “extensive ground operations” to seize “operational control” of swaths of the devastated Palestinian territory. It came on a second day of indirect ceasefire talks in Qatar, which ended without any breakthrough.

Axios writes:

This isn’t about publicly pressuring Israel. Vance officially cited “logistical” reasons for passing on the visit. But his decision sheds light on how the US feels about the current Israeli policy in Gaza.

You can read all our coverage of the crisis here:

JD Vance extends invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit US

JD Vance extended an invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States during a meeting at the Vatican on Monday ahead of a flurry of US-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.

Vance gave the first American pope a letter from Donald Trump and the first lady inviting him. The Chicago-born pope took the letter and put it on his desk and was heard saying “at some point”, in the video footage of the meeting provided by Vatican Media.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, also gave the Augustinian pope a copy of two of St Augustine’s most seminal works, The City of God and On Christian Doctrine, the vice-president’s office said. Another gift: A Chicago Bears T-shirt with Leo’s name on it.

“As you can probably imagine, people in the United States are extremely excited about you,” Vance told Leo as they exchanged gifts.

Leo gave Vance a bronze sculpture with the words in Italian “Peace is a fragile flower”, and a coffee-table sized picture book of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. Leo noted that Francis had chosen not to live in them and added: “And I may live in, but it’s not totally decided.”

Vance led the US delegation to Sunday’s formal mass opening the pontificate of the first American pope. Joining him at the meeting on Monday was secretary of state Marco Rubio, also a Catholic, Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder said. The two then also met with the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

“There was an exchange of views on some current international issues, calling for respect for humanitarian law and international law in areas of conflict and for a negotiated solution between the parties involved,” according to a Vatican statement after their meeting.

After greeting Leo briefly at the end of Sunday’s mass, Vance spent the rest of the day in separate meetings, including with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also met with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni, who said she hoped the trilateral meeting could be a “new beginning”.

In the evening, Meloni spoke by phone with Trump and several other European leaders ahead of Trump’s expected call with Vladimir Putin today, according to a statement from Meloni’s office.

Workers at top US consumer watchdog sound warning as Trump bids to gut agency

Michael Sainato

Donald Trump’s bid to gut the top US consumer watchdog has left the agency unable to protect consumers amid mounting fears of recession, according to workers.

For months the Trump administration has pushed to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and fire the vast majority of its workforce. Ripped-off Americans will have “nowhere to turn” if it succeeds, staff told the Guardian.

“The agency that Congress created after the last financial crisis to help prevent another financial crisis is currently completely handcuffed from working,” said one attorney at the CFPB, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

And we are on the verge of another major financial crisis, so it’s terrifying. The one thing we were created to do we can’t do – at a time when we’re most needed.

Trump officials tried to axe about 1,500 of the CFPB’s 1,700 workers last month, only for his plan to be blocked by a federal judge.

“This whirlwind has been hard on everyone, but everyone comes back with more fight to keep the bureau going, because we know the harms that will be visited on people if it goes under,” said a software engineer at the agency. “When it comes to loans, mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, bank accounts, we’re out there protecting everyone.

We have helped millions of people. We have returned billions of dollars. It isn’t the way it has to be that there is nowhere to turn to when a bank or credit card rips you off. That is something everyone is exposed to. That’s what’s heartbreaking to me about the possibility of my job disappearing.

Pope Leo and Vance share ‘exchange of views’ in meeting, Vatican says

Pope Leo XIV and US vice-president JD Vance met at the Vatican on Monday ahead of a flurry of US-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Vance, a Catholic convert, had led the US delegation to the formal Mass opening the pontificate of the first American pope.

Joining him at the meeting on Monday was secretary of state Marco Rubio, also a Catholic, Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder said.

The Vatican listed Vance’s delegation as the first of several private audiences Leo was having Monday with people who had come to Rome for his inaugural mass, including other Christian leaders and a group of faithful from his old diocese in Chiclayo, Peru.

Pope Leo XIV holds a private meeting with the US vice-president, JD Vance, at the Apostolic Palace on Monday in Vatican City, Vatican. Photograph: Vatican Pool/Getty Images

Jessica Glenza

US advocacy groups are waging an intensive campaign to protect Medicaid and Obamacare from Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, after House Republicans proposed an $880bn cut that could leave an estimated 13 million Americans without health insurance.

The House bill left Republicans’ most controversial proposals on the table, but has divided Senate Republicans: one called the effort to yank away healthcare “morally wrong and politically suicidal”. Others have described the cuts as insufficient and “anemic”.

“One of our patients just shared with us that when she had stage 4 lung cancer, she was not officially disabled but she could not work. It was a rare day she could even get off the couch,” said Erika Sward, assistant vice-president of National Advocacy for the American Lung Association.

“The idea you then have to justify your sickness while you’re fighting for your life is incomprehensible.”

Sward joined colleagues from other disease-specific health advocacy groups in a press call earlier this month, a sign of the gathering opposition to a Republican bill that proposes cuts to everything from healthcare to family and food support. Republicans have floated proposals to cut Medicaid for months, but their ideas were only put to text last week.

Ramon Antonio Vargas

Donald Trump and his Republican allies are “petty bitches” for refusing to display a congressionally approved plaque honoring police officers who protected the US Capitol when the president’s supporters attacked the complex on 6 January 2021, says one of the cops in question, Michael Fanone.

Speaking recently on the show hosted by political broadcast journalist Jim Acosta, the famously candid and oft profane Fanone said he also had a suggestion about where Republican US House speaker Mike Johnson could position the commemoration. “I think that it would be … perfect … if the plaque was shoved up his ass,” said Fanone, who retired from the Washington DC police force after being wounded during the January 6th attack.

Fanone’s remarks in part demonstrated the discontent among many in law enforcement about the way Trump has handled the aftermath of the Capitol assault, which was meant to keep him in the Oval Office after his first presidency ended in defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election won by the Democrats.

After triumphing over Kamala Harris in November’s election, Trump started his second term in the White House by issuing unconditional pardons and commutations for more than 1,500 people charged with roles in the 6 January 2021 insurrection – which was linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of officers who were left traumatized having defended the Capitol.

Michael Sainato

Donald Trump’s bid to gut the top US consumer watchdog has left the agency unable to protect consumers amid mounting fears of recession, according to workers.

For months the Trump administration has pushed to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and fire the vast majority of its workforce. Ripped-off Americans will have “nowhere to turn” if it succeeds, staff told the Guardian.

“The one thing we were created to do we can’t do – at a time when we’re most needed.”

Trump officials tried to axe about 1,500 of the CFPB’s 1,700 workers last month, only for his plan to be blocked by a federal judge.

“This whirlwind has been hard on everyone, but everyone comes back with more fight to keep the bureau going, because we know the harms that will be visited on people if it goes under,” said a software engineer at the agency. “When it comes to loans, mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, bank accounts, we’re out there protecting everyone.

“We have helped millions of people. We have returned billions of dollars. It isn’t the way it has to be that there is nowhere to turn to when a bank or credit card rips you off. That is something everyone is exposed to. That’s what’s heartbreaking to me about the possibility of my job disappearing.”

New pope to meet JD Vance

Two high-profile Catholics, Pope Leo XIV and US vice-president JD Vance, were meeting Monday ahead of a flurry of US-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, AP reported.

Vance’s motorcade was seen entering Vatican City just after 7.30am Vance, a Catholic convert, had led the US delegation to the formal Mass opening the pontificate of the first American pope.

Joining Vance at the Vatican was secretary of state Marco Rubio, also a Catholic, Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder said.

The Vatican, which was largely sidelined during the first three years of Russia’s war, has offered to host any peace talks while continuing humanitarian efforts to facilitate prisoner swaps and reunite Ukrainian children taken by Russia.

Trump tax bill passes in key US House committee vote

Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut bill, stalled for days by Republican infighting over spending cuts, won approval from a key congressional committee on Sunday to advance toward possible passage in the House of Representatives later this week.

The action was a big win for Trump and House speaker Mike Johnson, after hardline Republican conservatives on Friday blocked the bill from clearing the House Budget Committee over a dispute involving spending cuts to the Medicaid healthcare program for lower-income Americans and the repeal of green energy tax credits, Reuters reports.

Four hardline members of the committee’s 21 Republicans allowed the legislation to advance by voting “present” in a rare Sunday night session. The bill passed in a 17-16 vote, with all Democrats voting against it.

The hardliners had spent much of the day in closed-door negotiations with House Republican leaders and White House officials.

“The deliberations continue at this very moment. They will continue on into the week, and I suspect, right up until the time we put this big, beautiful bill before the House,” House budget chair Jodey Arrington said.

Nonpartisan analysts say the bill, which would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s signature first-term legislative win, would add $3tn to $5tn to the nation’s $36.2tn in debt over the next decade. Moody’s cited the rising debt, which it said was on track to reach 134% of GDP by 2035, for its decision on Friday to downgrade the US credit rating.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent dismissed the cut’s significance in a pair of Sunday television interviews, saying the bill would spur economic growth that would outpace what the nation owed.

“I don’t put much credence in the Moody’s” downgrade, Bessent told CNN’s “State of the Union” program, echoing White House criticism.

Economic experts, meanwhile, warn the downgrade from the last of the three major credit agencies was a clear sign that the US has too much debt and should prompt lawmakers to either increase revenue or spend less.

Kremlin says Trump and Putin to talk at 5pm Moscow time on Monday, RIA reports

The Kremlin said that Russian president Vladimir Putin will hold a call with US president Donald Trump at 5pm Moscow time (10am EDT) on Monday, state news agency RIA reported.

RIA cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying that the two leaders’ discussion of Ukraine would take into account the results of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul last week.