Key events
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next hour or so.
We start with news that Donald Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, with the US president pushing a Gaza peace proposal after a slew of western leaders embraced Palestinian statehood in defiance of American and Israeli opposition.
In Netanyahu’s fourth visit since Trump returned to office in January, the right-wing Israeli leader will be looking to shore up his country’s most important relationship as it faces growing international isolation nearly two years into its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.
He can expect a warm welcome compared to the chilly reception he received when he spoke on Friday before the UN general assembly where many delegates walked out in protest.
Netanyahu went on to deliver a blistering attack on what he called a “disgraceful decision” over the past week by Britain, France, Canada, Australia and several other countries to recognize Palestinian statehood, a major diplomatic shift by top US allies.
Trump, who had criticized the recognition moves as a prize to Hamas, told Reuters on Sunday he hopes to get Netanyahu’s agreement on a framework to end the war in the Palestinian territory and free the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
“We’re getting a very good response because Bibi wants to make the deal too,” Trump said in a telephone interview, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “Everybody wants to make the deal.”
He credited leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Egypt for their assistance and said the deal aims to go beyond Gaza to a broader Middle East peace.
“It’s called peace in the Middle East, more than Gaza. Gaza is a part of it. But it’s peace in the Middle East,” he said.
In other developments:
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More than 100,000 federal workers are to formally resign on Tuesday, the largest such mass event in US history, as part of a Trump administration program designed to make sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. With Congress facing a deadline of Tuesday to authorize more funding or spark a government shutdown, the White House has also ordered federal agencies to draw up plans for large-scale firings of workers if the partisan fight fails to yield a deal.
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Donald Trump has reversed course and is purportedly planning to host a bipartisan gathering of the top four US congressional leaders at the White House on Monday afternoon in a last-ditch effort to avoid a looming government shutdown, the House speaker and the US president’s fellow Republican, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday.
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The indictment of former FBI director James Comey is part of a concerted effort by Donald Trump to “rewrite history” in his favor, a former senior White House lawyer claimed on Sunday as he warned of more retribution to come for the president’s political opponents.
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The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, announced on Sunday that he was abandoning his faltering bid to win re-election, just over a month before election day. Adams, who was trailing in the polls, was elected as a Democrat but ran for re-election as an independent after he was indicted on federal corruption charges, which were then dropped by the Trump administration in exchange for his cooperation on immigration raids.
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Children, including the very young, have been spending weeks or months in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facility in a remote part of Texas where outside monitors have heard accounts of shortages of clean drinking water, chronic sleep deprivation and kids struggling for hygiene supplies and prompt medical attention, as revealed in a stark new court filing.