The Senate is due to begin voting as early as Monday on the nomination of Manhattan US attorney Jay Clayton, Donald Trump’s pick to be the top US spy, and he is expected to be approved within days despite a tense confirmation hearing.
Clayton nomination and DNI role
If approved to be the director of national intelligence, Clayton would fill a role vacated in June when Tulsi Gabbard stepped down after a tenure marked by clashes with congressional Democrats, who accused her of advancing Trump’s political agenda and promoting debunked election claims.
The Senate is due to hold a procedural vote Monday evening on whether to advance Clayton’s nomination for the job overseeing the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, Reuters reported. The position of DNI was created after the 11 September 2001 attacks to coordinate the country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus.
Many senators are eager for Clayton to take up the post because they are unhappy with the interim director of national intelligence, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist without national security experience who has been cutting staff at the agency.
If Clayton wins a majority in the 100-member Senate on the procedural vote, a final confirmation vote is expected later in the week. Trump’s Republicans, who have a 53-47 majority in the chamber and rarely break from the White House, are expected to provide Clayton with enough votes for confirmation.
Other developments
The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”. According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.
Donald Trump’s Republican party has “nothing to run on” for the congressional midterm elections after the president broke promises to lower costs and avoid starting war overseas, Hakeem Jeffries has said. The House minority leader, a New York congressman, made those comments on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, exactly 100 days from the 3 November midterms, when Jeffries and his fellow Democrats are aiming to take control of the US House and Senate from their Republican opponents.
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, is “fomenting hate” by calling the Israeli prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over Israel’s war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations general assembly.
Tom Homan, the Trump administration “border czar”, on Sunday said he did not believe the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer at the center of a recent fatal shooting in Maine “should have ever cleared vetting”. Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Homan was asked by host Dana Bash about the officer’s eligibility to serve following reports that two of his ex-wives had accused him of abuse.
Pop star Katy Perry has condemned the Trump White House after it used her hit song Firework in a TikTok video showing US military strikes on Iranian targets, saying she never approved the use of her music. The White House video, which featured Firework playing over footage of a missile striking an Iranian naval ship, has amassed more than 6 million views. The post was captioned: “Iran has been warned.”
New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill recently signed a new law prohibiting businesses from using shoppers’ personal information to charge different prices for identical products, making her state the third in the US to ban the practice. The Fair Price Protection Act passed by New Jersey’s legislature seeks to protect consumers from surveillance pricing, in which retailers can use data including online activity, location and purchasing history to arbitrarily change prices for individual shoppers.
