Trump updates: US president slams Putin on Ukraine at cabinet meeting

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If you’d like to read more about the deadly floods in Texas and criticisms of the government’s response, you can find our story here.

You can also read our coverage about Trump and Netanyahu’s controversial plans to forcibly expel Palestinians from Gaza, something that experts have warned could amount to a war crime and an act of ethnic cleansing.

We will be closing the live page soon. Here’s a brief review of the day’s main events:

• The death toll from flash floods in the state of Texas has risen to at least 109 people, while more than 160 remain missing as rescue operations continue. The Trump administration has pushed back against criticism that steep cuts to federal agencies and weather services may have hindered preparedness efforts.
• Trump met with his cabinet at the White House, discussing a wide variety of topics and renewing threats to ramp up tariff rates on countries that do not reach trade agreements with the US by August 1.
• The US president also voiced some of his harshest criticism of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to date, questioning whether he was serious about finding a way to end the war in Ukraine and suggesting that the US could pursue further sanctions against Russia.
• Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second day in a row, as the two continue discussions on a possible ceasefire in Gaza and recent attacks against Iran.

The FBI has launched probes into former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI director James Comey, Fox News reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

Two sources cited by Fox said the FBI viewed their actions as part of a “conspiracy”.

The progressive senator has said that Trump and the US Congress have given the Israeli prime minister a glamorous welcome, despite widespread evidence that Israeli forces have committed systematic abuses in Gaza.

“As President Trump and Congress roll out the red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let’s remember that Netanyahu has been indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza,” Sanders said in a statement.

“This is the man Trump and Congress are welcoming this week: a war criminal who will be remembered as one of modern history’s monsters.”

The private nature of the Trump-Netanyahu meeting suggests the two men are not yet close to an agreement, said Mohamad Elmasry, a professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

“If there’s nothing to announce, then there may not be much reason to to have all the lights and the cameras,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera. 

“Israeli media is also reporting that Trump is intending to put a lot of pressure on Netanyahu in today’s meeting. I have my doubts about that, but we’ll see. I think that the coming two or three hours will be telling, and I think we’ll start to learn about what was discussed, what these two leaders agree on and what they disagree on.”

The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume carrying out mass job cuts and restructuring agencies, elements of his campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government.

The justices lifted a San Francisco court’s order that had blocked large-scale federal layoffs affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs while litigation in the case proceeds.

Trump in February announced “a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy” in an executive order directing agencies to prepare for a government overhaul aimed at significantly reducing the federal workforce and gutting offices and programmes opposed by the administration.

Workforce reductions were planned at the US Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and more than a dozen other agencies.

The Supreme Court in recent months has sided with Trump in a number of major cases that were acted upon on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January.

Major stock indexes finished the day largely flat, as investors remain wary of ongoing turbulence over US tariffs and trade policy.

The S&P 500 dropped by a small 0.1 percent, while the Dow Jones lost 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq increased by 0.1 percent.

A Qatari delegation has arrived at the White House for talks about the Gaza captives and ceasefire deal, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with the details.

The Qatari delegation met on Tuesday with senior White House officials for several hours prior to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrival for his meeting with Trump, according to the Axios report.

The music mogul will be sentenced on October 3 for his conviction on prostitution-related charges after a split verdict that saw him acquitted of offences that would have carried more serious punishment.

Combs was found not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking charges in his New York trial. But the jury found him guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

It is unlikely the judge will impose the maximum punishment.

Prosecutors said in court filings that based on federal sentencing guidelines, a range of 51 to 63 months in prison potentially would be appropriate – but they could also ask for a longer punishment.

The defence, in its interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines, has indicated it plans to propose lighter sentencing of 21 to 27 months.

Combs, 55, has been held since September in a Brooklyn detention centre, and the time he has already spent behind bars will count towards his ultimate sentence.

With questions mounting about whether local early warning systems were adequate to preventing flood deaths, Abbott says the state legislature will prioritize creating improved systems.

“We’re going to have in place the systems that are needed to prevent deadly flooding events like this in the future,” he said.

Asked by a reporter “who is to blame”, Abbott called it “the word choice of losers”.

“Every football team makes mistakes,” said Abbott. “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say ‘don’t worry about it ma’am, we got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again and we’re going to win this game… What Texas is all about is solutions”.

A week after a US immigration judge granted him bond, a Spanish-language journalist who was arrested while covering a protest last month remains in federal custody.

Police just outside Atlanta, Georgia arrested Mario Guevara while he was covering a protest on June 14, and he was turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) several days later. He was being held at an immigration detention centre in Folkston – in southeast Georgia, near the Florida border – when an immigration judge last week granted him bond.

But when his family tried to pay the $7,500 bond last week, ICE didn’t accept it and he has since been shuffled between three other jails, his lawyer Giovanni Diaz said.

“We are of the opinion that there seems to be a concerted effort between different jurisdictions to keep him detained,” Diaz said.

Guevara, 47, was livestreaming video on social media from a DeKalb County rally protesting President Donald Trump’s administration when local police arrested him.

The Salvadoran national has been authorised to work and remain in the country, Diaz said. A previous immigration case against him was administratively closed more than a decade ago, and he has a pending green card application sponsored by his adult US citizen son, the lawyer said.

At least 161 people are known to be missing following the devastating July Fourth floods, according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, Abbott updated the total number of deaths to 109, adding that five campers and one counsellor were still missing from Camp Mystic.

Twelve children remain missing, said Abbott, who urged Texans to report any yet to be identified missing flood victims.

Abbott said he spoke with US President Trump Tuesday morning, and he expressed particular sadness over the loss of life at Camp Mystic, a girls’ camp where at least 27 children and counsellors died.

“He wants to step up and make sure that any need we have here in Texas is going to be met very quickly,” he said.

Abbott said the Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy texted him saying the government was going to declare the floods a public health emergency, which will make it easier for out-of-state healthcare and mental healthcare providers to respond.

The South American nation and world’s largest copper producer says that it has not received any new information regarding a change in US tariff policy after Trump said the US would place a 50 percent tariff on copper imports.

“There is no executive order from the United States regarding the investigation into copper tariffs,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement adds that Chile has not received new information from US counterparts and remains in contact with the relevant authorities.

The US president says that there will be no changes to the August 1 deadline he has set for new tariffs, which will not be extended.

“There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change,” Trump said in a social media post. “In other words, all money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 – No extensions will be granted. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The Israeli prime minister says he will meet with the US president at 4:30pm (20:30 GMT) instead of 6pm (22:00 GMT).

He stated earlier that he and Trump saw “eye to eye” on the goal of destroying Hamas, with whom the US and Israel are seeking a ceasefire.

The winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary says that his campaign received a record number of total votes.

“With the updated RCV [ranked choice voting] totals just released by the Board of Elections, our campaign has officially earned the most total votes in a primary in New York City history,” Mamdani said in a social media post.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, had said he wants an investigation into whether cuts to the National Weather Service contributed to a lack of warnings that might have prepared people.

There also had been suggestions among local officials that they have a series of air-raid style flood warnings down the river that would sound off and alert people to leave because many people didn’t respond to the first couple of warnings that might have saved lives.

Now officials we’ve talked to here and the state lieutenant governor say they’re going to ensure that that happens – even if the state has to pay for it.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said more tariff letters will be rolled out in the coming days.

In an interview with CNBC, Lutnick said the public can expect another 15-20 letters to be sent in the next two days.

The TV network CBS reports that migrants being held at a newly opened detention centre in Florida are living in inhumane conditions with inadequate access to water, lights that stay on 24 hours a day and food containing maggots.

“We’ve been here at Alcatraz since Friday. There’s over 400 people here. There’s no water to take a bath. It’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath,” Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura is quoted as saying in the report. La Figura was arrested in Florida on charges of assault and transferred to the migrant detention facility, which the Trump administration calls “Alligator Alcatraz”.

Poor conditions in immigrant detention facilities have been a source of consistent scrutiny by rights groups under both Republican and Democrat administrations, but those concerns have been exacerbated as the Trump administration seeks to ramp up the number of people detained by immigration authorities.

“They’re not respecting our human rights,” another man is quoted as saying in the report. “We’re human beings. We’re not dogs. We’re like rats in an experiment.”

“I don’t know their motive for doing this, if it’s a form of torture. A lot of us have our residency documents, and we don’t understand why we’re here,” he added.

Let’s get you up to speed if you’re just joining us:

• The Trump administration’s policies on tariffs and trade continue to be a source of uncertainty for consumers and trading partners around the world, with the president stating that he could slap 50 percent tariffs on copper as other countries scramble to reach trade agreements with the US before new tariffs take effect on August 1.
• The US president convened his cabinet secretaries at the White House, the first time that all have met together since April. Trump touted his recent accomplishments while cabinet members praised him for his leadership.
• Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a second time this evening, following a conversation at the White House on Monday in which they discussed the forced displacement of Palestinians living in Gaza and the recent conflict with Iran.
• Lashing out at his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Trump accused the Russian president of saying “a lot of b*******” over peace talks with Ukraine and said he was considering further sanctions against Russia.