Donald Trump has voiced his irritation with Vladimir Putin, telling a cabinet meeting he was getting increasingly frustrated with the Russian leader.
The US president told the televised meeting of top officials: “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Asked if he wanted to see further sanctions against Russia, Trump replied: “I’m looking at it.” He refused to give further details but said any action would come as “a little surprise”.
Here’s more on that and other key US politics stories of the day:
Trump promises to send Ukraine 10 Patriot missiles
As well as voicing his frustration with Putin, Trump promised to send 10 Patriot missiles to Ukraine, according to an official familiar with the matter. Trump had announced on Monday that US weapons deliveries would resume, just a few days after they were halted by the Pentagon.
On Monday, the president said he was “disappointed” with Russia’s president and would send “more weapons” to Ukraine. “We’re gonna send some more weapons we have to them. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now,” Trump said, alongside a US and Israeli delegation.
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US ‘only has 25%’ of all Patriot missile interceptors needed
The United States only has about 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs for all of the Pentagon’s military plans after burning through stockpiles in the Middle East in recent months, an alarming depletion that led to the Trump administration freezing the latest transfer of munitions to Ukraine, according to sources in the government.
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Trump threatens to escalate trade war amid confusion over new tariff rates
Trump vowed to further escalate his trade wars on Tuesday, threatening US tariffs of up to 200% on foreign drugs and 50% on copper, amid widespread confusion around his shifting plans. Hours after saying his latest deadline for a new wave of steep duties was “not 100% firm”, the US president declared that “no extensions will be granted” beyond 1 August.
“There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change,” Trump wrote on social media, a day after signing an executive order that changed the date from 9 July.
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Trump gets green light for mass federal layoffs
The US supreme court has cleared the way for Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten crucial government services.
Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds. The decision could result in hundreds of thousands of job losses at the departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and other agencies.
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Exclusive: Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons’, report finds
A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.
The report, from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War, said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark.
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Deadly floods could be new normal as Trump guts federal agencies
The deadly Texas floods could signal a new norm in the US, as Trump and his allies dismantle critical federal agencies that help states prepare and respond to extreme weather and other hazards, experts warn.
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AI scammer posing as Marco Rubio targets officials in growing threat
An unknown fraudster has used artificial intelligence to impersonate the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, contacting at least five senior officials.
According to a state department cable first seen by the Washington Post and confirmed by the Guardian, the impostor sent fake voice messages and texts that mimicked Rubio’s voice and writing style to those targets, including three foreign ministers, a US governor and a member of Congress.
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What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 7 July 2025.
