Trump news at a glance: US House breaks early for summer recess as Republicans feel the heat over Epstein
Democrats had pushed for a vote to release files related to Epstein as Trump fends off questions over his relationship with the financier, who died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019. Now the House will break up on Wednesday instead of Thursday in what Democrats say is a way to dodge the vote.
Here's the what's happened today:
Republicans downplayed the decision to cut short the workweek, while arguing that the White House has already moved to resolve questions about the case. Last week, Trump asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release grand jury testimony, although that is expected to be only a fraction of the case's documents.
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, dismissed the calls for a vote as 'political games' and also argued that Congress must be careful in calling for the release of documents related to the case, for fear of retraumatizing his victims.
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Congress will subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned sex trafficker who was a close associate of Epstein, to testify amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration's decision not to release its remaining Epstein files.
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Trump has claimed the future owner of the US TV network CBS will provide him with $20m worth of advertising and programming – days after the network cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The US president recently reached a $16m settlement with Paramount, the parent of CBS News, over what he claimed was misleading editing of a pre-election interview with the Democratic candidate for president, Kamala Harris.
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The US will quit the United Nations' culture and education agency Unesco, the US state department has said, as Donald Trump continues to pull out of international institutions. The move is a blow to the Paris-based global organization, founded after the second world war to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science and culture.
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Barack Obama has broken his silence on calls from Trump for him to be prosecuted by unequivocally rejecting his successor's accusations that he tried to engineer a 'coup' after Trump's 2016 election victory by 'manufacturing' evidence of Russian interference.
His office called the accusations 'nonsense', 'misinformation', 'outrageous' and 'a weak attempt at distraction'.
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Trump has announced a trade deal with Japan, potentially resolving weeks of fraught negotiations between the two allies which had caused political uproar and economic uncertainty in Tokyo. While he gave few details of the deal, he described it as 'massive' in a social media post, adding that 'Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 Billion Dollars into the United States.'
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Coca-Cola has announced it will launch a product made with US cane sugar this year, days after Trump claimed the company had agreed to replace high-fructose corn syrup. But the company said that the drink would be an additional product rather than a replacement for the drink containing corn syrup.
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General Motors announced that Donald Trump's tariffs knocked $1.1bn off its operating income in its last quarter.
The New York Times defended the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the outlet from the White House press pool.
Stephen Colbert declared to Donald Trump that 'the gloves are off' in his first broadcast since his Late Show was cancelled amid a political firestorm.
Catching up? Here's what happened on 21 July 2025.
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The Independent
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Trump announces EU trade deal that sees 15% flat tariff for products coming to US
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The Independent
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Trump and the GOP working on an ‘agenda 2027' to tell voters what to expect if they retain Congressional control
President Donald Trump and his White House are influencing GOP congressional candidates and advising who to run and who to stand down as Republicans try to keep control of both chambers of Congress in midterm elections next year. The White House is strategizing to make sure Republicans win enough seats and is putting together 'a 2027 policy agenda' so Trump, who plans to join candidates on the campaign trail, can explain what continued GOP control of the House, Senate and the White House could look like, a White House official told Politico. This strategy includes telling which Republican candidates to run for office and which to 'stay put,' the official said. For example, Iowa Republican Rep. Zach Nunn was weighing a gubernatorial run when the president told him to 'stay put,' the outlet reported. Nunn this month announced he was running for re-election. 'After prayerful consideration with his family and the strong support from President Trump, Zach is more committed than ever to maintaining the Republican majority and advancing the America First Agenda,' the congressman's campaign spokesperson said. The president has also publicly endorsed Nunn. The president also advised Michigan GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga to avoid running for Senate. Trump instead publicly backed Senator Mike Rogers this week, saying he 'has my Complete and Total Endorsement — HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!' Earlier this month, Trump met with Iowa Senator Joni Ernst to encourage her to run for re-election, Politico previously reported. Questions about Ernst's political future swirled after her viral remark about proposed Medicaid cuts: 'We all are going to die.' 'President Trump is the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party — just look at those who have bet against him in the past because they are no longer around,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Politico. 'The President will help his Republican friends on Capitol Hill get reelected, and work to pick up new seats across the country.' Democrats are likely hoping for a repeat of the 2018 midterms, when they destroyed Republicans' trifecta by taking control of the House during Trump's first term. 'I'm sure there's some memories from 2018, but it's all about these last two years of his presidency and his legacy, and he doesn't want the Democrats nipping at his heels all the time for the last two years,' Tony Fabrizio, the pollster for Trump's 2016 and 2024 campaigns, told Politico. Trump has acknowledged the power he has to influence voters. He recently suggested holding rallies for candidates, two White House officials told the outlet. The president reportedly told one of the officials last week: 'We're going to have to campaign in the states and really get out there a lot, huh? Because really, it's just me that can pull them out in a lot of places.' Republican strategists have said they plan to use the threat of Trump's third impeachment, should Democrats take the House, to compel voters. 'We know what the stakes are in the midterm elections,' John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster, told NBC News this week. 'If we don't succeed, Democrats will begin persecuting President Trump again. They would go for impeachment.' The White House also plans to use its 2024 campaign strategy as a guide, targeting young and working-class voters that came out to support Trump in droves. 'One of the main strategies is to put Trump on the ballot in the midterms,' one of the White House officials told Politico. 'We'll have a midterm agenda that we're running on. Not only here's what we've done, but here's what we're going to do next.' Democrats are eating up that idea. Democratic National Committee spokesperson Rosemary Boeglin told the outlet: 'The White House has the DNC's full support in their plans to put Trump on the campaign trail with frontline Republicans to tell the American people that they took money out of their pockets, took food off their table, and took away their health care in order to give massive handouts to billionaires.'
