Key events
Democrats and Republicans celebrate passage of bill to release Epstein files
Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog. I’m Vivian Ho and I will be bringing you the latest news over the next few hours.
The Senate agreed on Tuesday by unanimous consent to approve legislation that would force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The move came mere hours after a 427-1 vote in the US House to pass the bipartisan measure that Donald Trump had been fighting for months.
“Americans are done being lied to. These survivors deserve full transparency. Every document, every truth, every name,” Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greenea longtime Trump ally who split from the president over the Epstein files, posted on X on Tuesday.
The scandal over the Epstein files has dogged Trump since his return to the White House. For months, the president has dismissed the uproar over the government’s handling of the Epstein case as a “Democrat hoax”. Over the weekend, he relented and urged Republican lawmakers to vote for the measure that many of their constituents demanded they support.
“I don’t care when the Senate passes the House Bill, whether tonight, or at some other time in the near future, I just don’t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the victories that we’ve had,” the president posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.
The Senate majority leader, John Thune, told CNN that the bipartisan bill will likely be sent to Trump’s desk for signing on Wednesday, after the House formally transmits the bill and the Senate officially approves it. Trump told reporters on Monday that he would sign the bill.
Congressman Ro Khannaa Democrat who sponsored the bill alongside Republican congressman Thomas Massie, posted on X that Trump “should have the survivors who made this possible at the bill’s signing.”
“Against all odds, the survivors kept fighting,” Khanna said. “This victory is theirs.”
In other developments:
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Backlash from the Epstein files, some of which have already been made public by members of the House, has begun: the New York Times said it will be cutting ties with the former treasury secretary Larry Summers after documents revealed that Summers maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein long after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008.
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Trump is set to speak at a US-Saudi forum focused on investment on Wednesday. After a White House visit on Tuesday from Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, Trump said that the US and Saudi Arabia have entered into a security agreement that would ease weapons transfers between the two countries and elevate Saudi Arabia to a “major non-Nato ally,” Politico reports.
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This came after Trump brushed off questions from a reporter about a US intelligence assessment that the prince had approved the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggia US green-card holder and Washington Post columnist. Marty Baronthe former executive editor of the Washington Post, called Trump’s remarks “a disgrace”. “‘Things happen,’ he said. Actually, someone made them happen. And that was the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He had Jamal Khashoggi assassinated, and then he and his government lied about what happened.”
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Federal judges are set to hear arguments on Wednesday afternoon to determine a preliminary injunction request in two consolidated challenges to North Carolina’s congressional map, which was redrawn with the aim of adding more Republicans to Congress. On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges ruled that Texas cannot use 2025 congressional maps, which added five Republican districts, for the 2026 midterms and must use the 2021 boundaries. Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote: “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.”
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A new Marquette Law School survey finds more people are favoring Democrats than Republicans in the anticipated 2026 vote for Congress.
