US Senate votes to advance Russia sanctions bill that would give Trump new tariff powers – live

July 2026 · 16 minute read

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US Senate votes to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence

The US Senate voted 51-to-47 to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, installing Donald Trump’s pick in the role despite his lack of prior experience with intelligence.

Clayton will replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned last month and had confirmed in sworn testimony last year, before Trump attacked Iran on the premise that it was about to obtain a nuclear weapon, that US intelligence agencies assessed “that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”.

Clayton will take over from the acting director, Bill Pulte, a pro-Trump political operative who similarly lacked the intelligence experience for the role that is mandated by law.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Clayton repeatedly refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He also made baseless accusations in a CNBC television appearance that the slow vote count in California was an indication of fraud.

Key events

Immediately after the US Senate overwhelmingly voted to advance legislation sanctioning Russia and Iran, Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, explained why he changed his vote to oppose the revised version of the Senate bill. The latest version of the bill, Welch said, gives far too much power to Donald Trump to impose tariffs on other countries.

“From the first day of Putin’s savage attack on Ukraine, no one has been a more stalwart defender of Ukraine, of Ukrainian victory than our departed colleague colleague, senator Lindsey Graham,” Welch said. “He and senator Blumenthal had a compelling insight: you hurt Russia by going after the buyers of Russian oil. And the way to go after the buyers was by imposing a tariff on the major buyers of Russian oil, making it too costly for those buyers to continue purchasing it. It would starve the Russian beast of the revenue fueling its cruel aggression.”

“The language in that original bill by senator Blumenthal and by senator Graham was specific and limited,” Welch said. “It was a limited and specific delegation of congressional tariff authority that could be used for the limited and sole purpose of cutting off oil revenue to Russia, all for the purpose of assisting US efforts to help defend Ukrainian freedom and repel Russian aggression.”

The revised Graham-Blumenthal bill, Welch said, does two things. “Number one, it imposes tariffs at the discretion of the executive of up to 100% on the top five purchasers of Russian oil and gas. Number two, it allows the executive to impose 100% tariffs on the top five countries, ‘facilitating’ the evasion of sanctions on Russian oil.”

“There is a fatal absence of specificity as to what countries could be considered facilitators or what conduct or the extent of that conduct that could constitute being a facilitator,” Welch said. “This language is very general. In effect, this would be a blanket delegation of congressional tariff authority to the executive, all in the name of targeting a facilitator that the executive could target in tariff any country for any reason.”

The senator then said that he would be proposing an amendment to the current bill before it comes to a final vote.

“I will offer an amendment to strike the overly vague delegation of tariff authorities to also target ‘facilitators’ of sanctions evasions,” Welch said. “As currently written, the facilitator provision enables the executive with full congressional authorization, to impose any tariffs on any country for any reason, so long as the executive labels the tariff country a facilitator.”

US Senate votes to advance Russia sanctions bill that would give Trump new tariff powers

With Volodymyr Zelenskyy watching from the Senate gallery, the US Senate voted 86 to 12 to advance the “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act”.

Zelenskyy had previously urged senators to support the bill before the vote, despite Democratic reservations that the legislation, as written, would give Donald Trump expansive new powers to waive sanctions on Russians and impose tariffs on “countries that purchase Russian-origin crude oil or natural gas or facilitate sanctions evasion”.

Aaron Fritschner, an aide to Democratic congressman Don Beyer of Virginia, argued on social media that the legislation in the Senate bill gives the president too much discretion to waive sanctions and impose tariffs.

“The bill has a huge new tariff authority with no expiration, delay, or oversight mechanism,” Fritschner wrote before the Senate vote. “The optional sanctions take up most of the text, but the tariffs are the key policy ingredient and more importantly they are the reason why Republicans and especially the president want this bill to pass.”

“There is no limitation, the president can decide which countries this bill applies and hit them with a 100% tariff for five years,” he adds. “Historically, tariff provisions required either long investigations in advance, consultation with Congress, or imposed short, limited durations. This one does not.”

“Trump has abused every single major tariff authority!” Fritschner notes. “If you give Trump a tariff authority he WILL abuse it. That’s what he does, it’s all he does.”

According to Fritschner, Democrats all want to help Ukraine: is significant even if Trump twists it later. The good news is the House passed a much better bill – the Ukraine Support Act.”

“The Ukraine Support Act has proactive support for Ukraine, in addition to sanctions on Russia that are written better, and no new tariffs power,” he adds. “If they pass this bill, Senate Dems will be handing Trump new, massive, unchecked tariff powers in the hope that he will use them against Russia, to help Ukraine, and won’t abuse it in ways that raise Americans’ prices or enrich his own family. Does that sound like a good bet to you?”

George Chidi

George Chidi

A small group of demonstrators held a press conference Tuesday outside the hotel where Democratic mayors are meeting in Atlanta to raise a protest against Palantir Technologies Inc, surveillance technology and municipal leaders that contract with its partners.

“We’re calling on Jacobs Solutions Inc to publicly explain how the strategic partnerships with Palantir Technologies aligns with the values it promotes to cities, public agencies and communities it serves,” said state representative Eric Bell, a Democrat representing part of Clayton County in Atlanta’s southern suburbs. “Municipal leaders are discussing the future of infrastructure, technology, procurement and public trust. Decisions matter. Technology is never neutral. The tools governments choose to purchase and deploy have real consequences on the people.”

Georgia state lawmaker Eric Bell at a protest in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Georgia state lawmaker Eric Bell at a protest in Atlanta on Tuesday. Photograph: George Chidi/The Guardian

Representatives from Metropolis Technologies, Flock Security and other technology firms had speaking slots at the conference. The use of technology like aritificial intelligece to “streamline city services, cut costs, and improve resident experiences–and what it takes to implement them responsibly,” was the subject of one panel discussion.

Press were not permitted to attend the conference.

Jacobs is an engineering and consulting firm with many clients among large, Democratically-controlled cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Nashville, San Jose and Atlanta, often working on large, complex transportation, sanitation and construction projects.

Jacobs and Palantir launched a global strategic partnership in March 2022 for data and technology solutions for infrastructure and national-security markets, starting with water infrastructure. The partnership with Palantir “combines Jacobs’ deep domain knowledge with Palantir’s cutting edge Data and AI technology to create value for clients,” according to Jacobs’ website. “The goal is to deliver real-time computing power, actionable data and control on a time horizon measured in weeks, not years.”

Palantir has increasingly come under fire from political progressives after ICE issued the company a $30m contract to build “ImmigrationOS,” designed to speed identification and apprehension of people prioritized for removal and to make deportation logistics more efficient. Palantir has also aided immigration enforcement with software tools to provide a predictive model for neighborhoods.

“Palantir has faced significant criticism for work supporting immigration enforcement, large scale, government data analysis, and its close association with prominent Trump allies, including co-founder Peter Thiel,” said Robin Biro, a board member of the Latino civic advocacy organiztion GALEO Impact Fund. “And I’m going to give you a quote from him … he says, ‘I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.’” Biro was quoting from a piece Thiel wrote for the libertarian Cato Institute in 2009. He has since left the United States and reportedly resides in Argentina.

“Those concerns have led to governments and public institutions in multiple counties to publicly question whether the company aligns with their values,” Biro said. “Atlanta has always been a city that leads with civil rights and inclusion and respect for individual liberty. We should demand technology partners that earn public confidence not divided before committing tax dollars.”

US Senate votes to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence

The US Senate voted 51-to-47 to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, installing Donald Trump’s pick in the role despite his lack of prior experience with intelligence.

Clayton will replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned last month and had confirmed in sworn testimony last year, before Trump attacked Iran on the premise that it was about to obtain a nuclear weapon, that US intelligence agencies assessed “that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”.

Clayton will take over from the acting director, Bill Pulte, a pro-Trump political operative who similarly lacked the intelligence experience for the role that is mandated by law.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Clayton repeatedly refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He also made baseless accusations in a CNBC television appearance that the slow vote count in California was an indication of fraud.

US military says it intercepted Iranian missile attack on US forces, ending pause in fighting

Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles at American forces based in the Middle East on Tuesday, ending a brief pause in fighting, the US military said in a statement.

All Iranian missiles fired in what US Central Command called “an attempted surprise attack” by “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces” were successfully intercepted, the Pentagon said.

The attack appeared to end a brief period of calm.

Senator Ron Wyden says Jay Clayton will be Trump's 'election conspiracy wingman' as intelligence director

The Senate is now debating the nomination of Jay Clayton, the current US attorney for the southern district of New York, as the US director of national intelligence.

Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, spoke in opposition to the nomination, calling Clayton an unqualified conspiracy theorist.

“He has repeated baseless conspiracy theories about American elections, refused to acknowledge who won the 2020 election and participated in an abusive investigation of American journalists while providing false testimony to Congress about that investigation,” Wyden said.

“It has been clear for months that under this administration, the main qualification to be DNI is the willingness to use the position to spread conspiracy theories about elections and to help Donald Trump make it harder for Americans to vote,” Wyden continued.

“Even before his nomination, Mr Clayton decided he’d show how eager he is to serve as Trump’s election conspiracy wingman,” the senator added. “I was especially alarmed by his conspiracy-mongering about vote by mail. That’s how my home state of Oregon has been voting successfully for years.”

“The first two senators elected by mail were a Democrat and a Republican. Vote-by-mail benefits rural voters who live far away from polling stations. Vote-by-mail benefits older people who may not be able to drive. It’s never been partisan, certainly not until Donald Trump, aided by people like Jay Clayton, made it a part of the attack on American democracy,” Wyden said.

The senator also criticized Clayton for his “role in the abuse of subpoenas issued to the journalists at the New York Times”.

Melody Schreiber

Donald Trump is pushing the longtime vaccine opponent and current health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr to be more aggressive on cutting vaccines in the US, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

Trump has a long record of anti-vaccine statements, but the White House recently put a hold on vaccine changes after polling indicated they were a losing issue in the midterm elections.

Kennedy, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, recently slashed the routine childhood immunization schedule in an unprecedented move.

Trump reportedly asked Kennedy at his northern Virginia golf course in May if the health secretary had the “yips”, according to the Journal.

Trump wasn’t talking about a sudden inability to make putts. Kennedy wasn’t making enough cuts to the US vaccination schedule, Trump reportedly said.

The US president hopes to make “alleviating autism” a component of his legacy, the Journal reported – and he has taken issue with Kennedy’s less aggressive changes to vaccination recommendations in recent months.

“Donald Trump has been anti-vaccine at least since 2015,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an infectious diseases physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At the Republican primary debate that year, Trump said that autism had gotten “totally out of control” and vaccines should be in “smaller doses over a longer period of time”.

Trump regularly posted on social media about debunked links between vaccination and autism as early as 2014, and his posts on Truth Social have recently advocated for breaking up shots into individual components and delaying some childhood vaccines for more than a decade.

Trump administration plans to end Medicare subsidy that holds down drug costs for seniors - report

The Trump administration plans to stop paying subsidies to health insurance companies that helped to lower premiums for Medicare drug plans, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The change will stop the estimated $3.6bn in subsidies that went to insurance companies this year, making the cost of prescription drug plans, known as Part D, more expensive for seniors starting next year, according to administration officials.

About 25 million Americans have Part D plans, but the change will not take effect until after the upcoming midterm elections.

George Chidi

George Chidi

Elsewhere today, Democratic mayors from around the country have convened in Atlanta for a quiet conversation about managing cities amid the provocations of the Trump Admniistration.

The theme for the conference is “Mayors Deliver”, with discussion about housing, public safety, affordability, jobs and other Democratic touchstones.

DNC chair Ken Martin, under fire and managing internecine conflict within the party, was on the panel of speakers opening the event this morning, as was former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms - the Democratic nominee in the Georgia governor’s race - and Atlanta’s current mayor Andre Dickens.

Industry groups, including those from the surveillance camera, artificial intelligence and data center sectors, feature on the discussion calendar. Attendees will also be discussing election security and voter turnout.

Quentin Lucas, mayor of Kansas City and president of the Democratic Mayor Association, described the fraught relationship his city’s political establishment has with Republican state and federal leaders. Republicans feel it necessary to signal their fidelity to the president and his agenda with increasingly harsh attacks on Democratic-led city governments, he said.

“It’s the problem of modern politics,” the progressive mayor said of Mike Kehoe, Missouri’s conservative Republican governor. “He’s a good Christian man. I believe I am too, so we have perfectly fine conversations. In Donald Trump’s America, you can sit with somebody and share things and talk about family and all of that. But when you ask, ‘Hey, can I get a common-sense, moderate appointed to this board? Can we protect a congressional district in a state with only two Black congresspeople and two Democratic seats?’ The answer is often, ‘I gotta do what I gotta do.’ And I think that to me is probably the greatest challenge.”

Lucas is facing a federal lawsuit initiated by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican. The 22 July filing alleges that the city’s Minority and Women Business Enterprise contracting program unlawfully uses race and sex in awarding public contracts and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Missouri man at the center of the suit has a decades-old federal fraud conviction, which the attorney general’s office ignored before filing suit.

Lucas likened the suit to the president drawing city names at random out of a hat to attack. He described the suit as yet another attack on Democratic governance facilitated by the erosion of longstanding legal norms under Trump.

double quotation markI’ve been thinking this for years. Trump is the accelerant for all of it. The goal is to have no Black people in power, no Black people in the upper reaches of business. And its odd, because Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate who actually could get some minority numbers. But they are so - in some ways - uncomfortable with fighting it out for real, trying to persuade people of different backgrounds, which is something me and Andre [Dickens of Atlanta], and every mayor of an American city - except for the really, really Black ones - have had to do.

Sean Hannity also addressed Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that Lindsey Graham “loved you, he loved the state of Israel, he loved the people of Israel”.

He said Graham was Israel’s strongest ally in the Senate and “would have been blown away” that Netanyahu came to his funeral.

Sean Hannity went on to recognize Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is also in attendance at Lindsey Graham’s funeral.

Hannity said: “President Zelenskyy, I know that Lindsey would have been deeply moved and honored that you made this long journey to be here today.”

He added: “In our private conversations, he often marveled at your strength against the world, one of the world’s most brutal regimes. He saw you, as he said it to me once, as a warrior poet or a warrior comedian, to use those terms, and on paper, I think everybody would agree.”

Eulogizing Lindsey Graham, Fox News host Sean Hannity said the South Carolina senator was “great for ratings because people listened to him.”

“He drew you in, he had that passion to draw you in so far that, I was very grateful” Hannity said.

He also acknowledged Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presence in the cathedral, saying: “Lindsey would have been blown away that you took this long journey…to be here today.”

Reflecting on Graham’s staunch support for Israel, Hannity said: “Just as president Trump has been Israel’s strongest friend in the history of the White House… Lindsey was that friend to Israel in the United States senate as long as I’ve known this man.”