Trump defends business dealings, his children in CNBC interview

When asked to name either his favorite U.S. president, or if he considers any period of American history to be especially formative, Trump said, “We’ve had some very bad presidents.”

He then referenced a recent Supreme Court ruling that was seen as empowering the presidency by allowing the commander in chief to remove members of independent federal agencies that carry out functions under the executive branch.

“It gave a lot more power to the president, but it has been a strong presidency, not just me, it’s been a strong presidency. It’s considered a strong office,” Trump said.

“You know, other presidents are not considered a strong office, even if you’re president, you can’t do as much,” he said, appearing to be referring to other countries’ presidents.

“But now with this additional — I mean, it’s very special. We are respected again as a country, maybe like never before. A year and a half ago, we were laughed at. They’re not laughing anymore,” he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Former special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted President Donald Trump in two separate criminal cases between his first and second White House terms, said the U.S. is currently “facing an attack on the rule of law.”

Smith told Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW’s “Deadline: White House” that “it angers me” to see career officials at the Department of Justice be “demonized” by the Trump administration for their work on cases that are seen as hostile to the president and his allies.

Smith also said that a potential indictment of him by the Department of Justice “could happen” given Trump’s animus toward him for prosecuting the president in two separate criminal cases before Trump returned to the White House.

— Kevin Breuninger and Dan Mangan

Trump said Thursday that “not one ship got through to Iran,” suggesting the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war was not penetrated.

“It was a wall of steel,” he said.

However, according to shipping industry information service Lloyd’s List, the blockade was breached multiple times by an “Iranian shadow fleet.”

– Tobias Burns

Trump broadly defended his decision to go to war with Iran and his prosecution of the conflict, while doling out criticism for past U.S. presidents for their approach to the Middle East and the media for its wartime coverage.

“This is not a war per se. This is the de-nuking of Iran,” Trump said.

“You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” he said, adding that he thought the roughly four-month duration of the war is a relatively short amount of time.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump acknowledged that he had a “little dispute” with Elon Musk, but said he has a “very good relationship” with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

The president said he thinks Musk will donate SpaceX stock to Trump Accounts, a new savings and investing vehicle for kids under 18 in the U.S. that launches on July 4.

“I think that he will do that,” Trump said.

—Ashley Capoot

Trump said he used the tariff authority the Supreme Court stripped from him to resolve eight wars, a claim that fact checkers have repeatedly called misleading.

Politifact, part of the Poynter Institute, rated a statement he made last year that he had solved seven wars “mostly false.”

Politifact noted that the statuses of the conflicts are “more varied and tenuous than his statement portrays.”

Trump also started a war with Iran in February, with the aim of stopping Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The war remains in a delicate ceasefire while both sides attempt to broker a permanent peace deal.

— Garrett Downs

Trump invoked former president Herbert Hoover in the interview, saying he does not want to be remembered as a president who oversaw a depression.

“I always said I don’t want to be a president with a depression on his resume. I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” Trump said. “Herbert Hoover was the president that probably took us into the Great Depression.”

Trump blamed Hoover for raising interest rates and taxes, saying, “That didn’t work out too well.” Hoover was president when the Great Depression began in 1929, and he signed the Revenue Act of 1932, which sharply raised taxes. But interest rates were set by the Federal Reserve, not directly by Hoover.

Trump has previously said low tariffs caused the Great Depression.

Trump also said it took “30 years” to get out of the Great Depression and that “FDR didn’t get us out of it.” That overstates the timeline. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction that began in 1929 as ending in March 1933, though the broader Depression lasted for years and the economy suffered another severe recession in 1937-38 before World War II.

– Luke Fountain

Trump, asked about his recent financial disclosures showing he made more than $2 billion in 2025, pointed out that he forgoes his annual salary from the federal government.

“I gave up my salary. I don’t get a salary,” Trump said, claiming the presidency is a “bigger purpose” than making money.

The president makes an annual salary of $400,000.

— Garrett Downs

Trump dodged Kernen’s question about whether the government will take a 5% stake in OpenAI, a potential deal that the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

Instead of answering directly, Trump began talking about the government’s stake in the embattled chipmaker Intel. The administration announced that it made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock last August, giving it a 10% stake in the company.

“Intel came in, they had a problem,” Trump said. “I said, ‘I can solve your problem, but I want 10% of the company.'”

— Ashley Capoot

Trump repeated a claim that Iran will buy agricultural products from the U.S. as part of a potential peace agreement to end the U.S.’s war with the country, a statement that Tehran has refuted.

“They’re making no money, so we’re going to take some of the money, and we’re going to buy them. They need food. They need corn and wheat and soybeans, and we’re going to have exclusively our American farmers provide,” Trump said.

The U.S. lifted its blockade on Iranian ports and eased some sanctions on Iranian oil as part of the memorandum of understanding to end the fighting that was signed last month. Trump has said those proceeds are supposed to go toward buying food from the U.S., not rebuilding Iran’s military.

But Abdolnaser Hemmati, the governor of Iran’s central bank, told the Iranian news agency Tasnim last month that “there is no obligation to buy agricultural inputs from the U.S.”

— Garrett Downs

Trump complained that the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices “vote as a bloc,” but its six conservatives — including the three he appointed — do not.

“I’m not saying it has to be a loyalty test, but … it’s much different,” Trump said.

He said that “we should have won” major cases on birthright citizenship and tariffs, but in both cases the court ruled against the administration.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump predicted 40% to 60% of chip manufacturing would be based in the United States by the time he leaves office and said he thought businesses would move away from Taiwan.

“They’re all moving back into this country” he said. “They’re building chip factories in Arizona.”

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which has its headquarters in Taiwan, has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on its facility in the state.

— Michele Luhn

Trump said Thursday that “AI is bigger than the internet” buildout of the late 1990s, and total capital expenditures are in line with this statement.

According to Goldman Sachs estimate from 2025, AI capex would need to reach $700 billion in 2026 to match the peak of spending during the late 1990s telecommunications buildout. The investment bank projected in May that AI capex this year will reach $765 billion, growing to $1.6 trillion in annual expenditures in 2031.

– Tobias Burns

Trump would not commit on Thursday to signing a bipartisan housing bill that advanced easily out of Congress more than a week ago, instead shifting the conversation to a controversial election bill, dubbed the SAVE America Act. Trump has said he will not sign the housing legislation until Congress sends the election bill to his desk.

“I think the SAVE America Act is the most important thing that we have, that we’ll have before us, and maybe for many years back and many years forward,” Trump said. The SAVE America Act would require photo identification to cast a ballot and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

The bill does not have the votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster, prompting Trump and his supporters to call for the elimination of the procedure.

“There’s a lot of Democrat points in there that I don’t even think are good, but it’s fine,” Trump said, of the housing bill, which was co-led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tim Scott, R-S.C. “But I’ve made the case I’d rather not sign anything until we signed Save America Act.”

—Justin Papp

Trump denied using the presidency to enrich himself and his family, saying he does not personally know the people managing his investments and that his son Eric Trump handles the process.

“I don’t even speak to — I don’t even know who they are,” Trump said of the people managing his money. He said the investments are given to “big firms” and added, “My son Eric handles it. I don’t talk to him about things such as this.”

That is a more specific explanation than Trump has previously offered about who oversees his personal finances while he is in office. Trump described the arrangement as involving “semi-blind trusts or blind trusts,” though he did not name the firms managing the money or provide more detail about how the arrangement works.

On Tuesday, Trump released his 2025 annual financial disclosure, a 927-page disclosure that shows $2.24 billion in revenue last year.

– Luke Fountain

Trump says the U.S. is “number one in AI,” leading over China.

The U.S. is facing increasingly stiff competition from Chinese open-source models that are proving to be almost as capable and significantly cheaper than some of the most powerful U.S. models. 

“The way I look at AI, or the way I look at crypto, is if we’re not going to do it, China is going to get it,” Trump said.

—Ashley Capoot

Trump, while defending his and his family’s financial activities, said, “I feel badly in a way for my kids” because nearly any business venture they pursue poses a potential conflict of interest with their father’s administration.

“Anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful … if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes, is you know, sort of like, how’s my energy policy?” Trump said.

“You have a conflict. Almost anything they do … So it’s pretty tough in that sense,” he said. “I tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from. But they also have a life, you know.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump said the U.S.’ gross domestic product “should be” between 12% and 13%.

The real GDP grew 2.1% at an annual pace in the first quarter of this year, according to the third estimate released last week by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The bureau said government spending, exports, consumer spending all drove real GDP growth, while imports dragged.

Real GDP rose 0.5% in the final three-month period of 2025, the bureau said.

— Alex Harring

Trump, when asked about the roughly $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency-related income he reported earning in 2025, shifted to his own policy on the technology.

“We have to be at the top, otherwise China is going to take it over,” the president said.

Trump has come under increased scrutiny since his financial disclosures were released at the end of June. He has repeatedly said his investment decisions are made by outside parties.

—Justin Papp

Trump said he plans to continue to try to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from the central bank’s board, even after the Supreme Court ruled that the president lacks the authority to fire her, at least for now.

Asked how we would “get rid” of Cook, Trump said, “by winning the case.”

“They sent it back, not based on the merits” but on “process and procedure,” Trump said.

The high court’s opinion released Monday did indeed leave open the possibility that Cook could be dismissed in the future.

In a 5-4 ruling, it rejected Trump’s bid to pause a lower federal court ruling that had prevented Cook from being terminated as her lawsuit challenging her dismissal proceeds.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump claimed that 401(k)s are up “80 or 90%,” a figure that does not line up with the latest available data from Fidelity Investments, one of the nation’s largest retirement account providers.

Fidelity’s Q1 2026 retirement analysis showed the average 401(k) balance was $141,000, down 4% from the prior quarter and up 11% from a year earlier. Fidelity said average 401(k) balances were up 14% from Q1 2021 and 61% from Q1 2016.

The figure closest to Trump’s claim applies to 403(b) plans, not 401(k)s. Fidelity said average 403(b) balances were up 86% from Q1 2016, a decade-long stretch that spans the Obama, Trump, Biden and second Trump administrations.

– Luke Fountain

While gas prices have pulled back from highs seen earlier this year, travelers for the holiday weekend will still need to shell out more than a year ago amid the U.S.-Iran conflict.

The average price of a regular gallon of gas in the U.S. came in at about $3.84 on Thursday, according to AAA. While that’s down more than 10% from last month, it’s 21% more expensive than the same day in 2025.

More than 61 million Americans are slated to travel by car over the July 4th holiday week, AAA reported.

— Alex Harring

U.S. consumers are still feeling pessimistic about the economy as November’s midterm elections near.

The University of Michigan’s closely followed consumer sentiment index climbed more than 10% from May to June. But the index is still down more than 18% year over year and within striking distance of the record lows set this year.

Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a statement that cost of living challenges remain top of mind for Americans. More than half of consumers have said high prices are hindering their personal finances for three straight months, she said.

What’s more, more job seekers appear to be giving up on entering the workforce. The labor force participation rate fell to its lowest level in half a century when excluding the pandemic, according to data released Thursday.

— Alex Harring

Today’s interview comes after the Supreme Court gave the president broader powers to remove federal regulators this week but made an exception for the Federal Reserve, preventing Trump from immediately firing Fed governor Lisa Cook.

The court found the Fed occupies “a unique role in the U. S. Government,” giving the central bank an extra layer of protection against presidential power.

Trump has put public pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates as few other modern presidents have. Lower interest rates expand profitability and are generally more politically popular than higher rates, but can undermine broader price stability in the economy when applied too broadly.

The question is whether the ruling will take the wind out of Trump’s pressure campaign on the Fed in the future.

In a Truth Social post after the ruling, Trump said the court had sent the case back “on a strictly procedural basis” and vowed to take further action against Cook.

–Tobias Burns

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Trump of using power to benefit himself and punish his enemies, saying in an interview with Democracy Docket Wednesday that his administration had turned the Justice Department into “a big personal law firm for him and his allies.”

“He wants to stay in power for the perks, he wants to stay in power for the financial benefits flowing to him and his family,” Clinton said. “He wants to stay in power to wield unaccountable power against anyone that he considers a political obstacle or an adversary.”

Clinton also criticized major corporations, law firms and media organizations that she said had capitulated to Trump, while urging Democrats to focus on winning competitive seats in the midterms rather than only fighting over deep-blue districts.

“We’re not going to win the majority just by changing who’s in the chair in deep blue districts,” Clinton said. “I’m a numbers person. How do we get to the numbers we need to control the House and the Senate?”

–Luke Fountain

The White House promoted its America 250 push with a social media post declaring, “A nation built on unity,” over an image of Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.

The artwork, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris’ Let Us Have Peace, depicts one of the Civil War’s defining final scenes: the Confederate general yielding to the Union commander in April 1865. The social media graphic also featured the line, “Whose broad stripes & bright stars through the perilous fight.”

The Wednesday post quickly drew criticism online from users who said the image’s message was more complicated: Lee led a rebellion against the United States, and the scene depicts Confederate defeat, not simple national harmony.

–Luke Fountain

Tensions between Trump and Elon Musk have eased since the pair publicly clashed over the president’s signature “One Big Beautiful Bill” law last summer.

Musk called a draft of the bill “utterly insane” in a social media post, while Trump countered that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO “just went CRAZY!”

By the fall of 2025, Musk and Trump were seen shaking hands at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk, the conservative political activist who was shot and killed as he spoke at a rally at Utah Valley University in Orem. In May, Musk was part of the delegation that accompanied Trump on his trip to China.

Musk spent months, and around $300 million, to push Trump back to the White House in 2024. He then served as a special government employee last year, leading the Department of Government Efficiency for the administration, slashing the federal workforce, cutting some government spending and putting an end to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The second Trump administration has given Musk billions of dollars worth of defense contracts at SpaceX and has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit against its AI unit, xAI, in Mississippi.

—Ashley Capoot and Lora Kolodny

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up by nearly 600 points, or 1.1%, on Thursday ahead of the Trump interview on a soft jobs print, while the S&P 500 closed flat.

The weak jobs report report was perhaps something the Administration does not want to see, but it raised investors’ hopes the Federal Reserve would hold off from hiking interest rates, boosting the market. The Dow closed at a record and is on a four-week winning streak.

Semiconductors fell for the second day in a row, weighing the technology heavy Nasdaq Composite down by 0.8%. Chips stock were volatile in the back half of the week on news of efficiency gains among the frontier models and a move by Meta to rent out excess computational capacity.

– Tobias Burns

Trump’s July 4th celebration to mark America’s 250th birthday is arriving amid growing controversy over how the events have been organized, funded and politicized.

Trump and his allies have built a splashy, Washington-centered celebration that includes the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, a major renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, military flyovers, a UFC event at the White House, a Salute to America program and a massive fireworks show.

The events have already drawn questions over corporate money, donor access, uneven state participation and the sidelining of America250, the bipartisan commission Congress created nearly a decade ago to plan the semiquincentennial. The state fair has reportedly drawn smaller-than-expected crowds, while algae blooms have returned to the Reflecting Pool after renovations Trump directed that were meant to fix the issue.

A new report Thursday from House Natural Resources Committee Democrats, MS NOW reported, accuses Trump of turning the anniversary into a political project and alleges that some donors who intended to give to America250 were instead directed to Freedom 250 banking information. Democrats say the allegations could raise questions about potential wire fraud or charitable solicitation fraud, though they remain unproven.

–Luke Fountain

Trump has repeatedly emphasized that the U.S. needs to maintain global leadership in AI, particularly over China.

But as the U.S. government has restricted model rollouts from top U.S. AI companies, namely Anthropic and OpenAI, Chinese companies have launched models that rival frontier labs in some capabilities. Zhipu’s GLM 5.2, released last month, can perform on par with top U.S. labs on some cyber benchmarks, according to researchers.

A number of tech executives and investors have raised concern that Chinese developers were being gifted valuable time in their effort to catch up.

—Ashley Capoot

The Trump administration lifted the export controls on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models this week, but the AI company is still entangled in litigation with the government.

In March, the Department of Defense designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, meaning it purportedly threatens U.S. national security. The label requires defense contractors to certify that they will not use the company’s technology in their work with the military.

Anthropic sued the Trump administration in San Francisco and Washington in an effort to undo its blacklisting by the Pentagon, and those cases are still pending.

—Ashley Capoot

Investors are keen to know if Trump intends to continue with his pressure campaign on the Fed following his maximum pressure campaign on former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates.

He is thought to be giving new Chairman Kevin Warsh more room to run, CNBC’s Matt Peterson reported.

Inflation is rising in the aftermath of the Iran war, having already gotten a boost from tariffs enacted last year, even as wage growth continues a longer-term moderation. 

This doesn’t look like the time for steady rate cuts, and current Warsh recently emphasized the bank’s 2% inflation target, which hasn’t been reached since 2021. Futures markets bets on the Fed are pointing to a greater likelihood of interest rate hikes than any easing this year.

Investors are also curious about whether the Trump administration is planning any more direct interventions in the economy. The government took a 10% stake in Intel last year prior to the parabolic rise in many chip stocks that took place earlier this year. OpenAI, an artificial intelligence leader set to go public in the next 12 months, is considering allowing the U.S. government to take a 5% stake in the company, according to a new report by the Financial Times.

–Tobias Burns

With the midterm elections fast approaching, Trump is branding his new political foes with an old political trope by calling them communists.

The label harkens back to Cold War politics and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who infamously pilloried his political opponents with accusations of being communists in the 1950s. It comes as a new crop of insurgent progressive Democrats associated with the Democratic Socialists of America wins primaries around the nation.

“As we’re seeing now, communism is the greatest threat to our country,” Trump said in a speech in North Dakota on Wednesday. The president singled out one Democratic U.S. House candidate in New York, Darializa Avila Chevalier, for a past social media post where she said she wiped her hands on an American flag.

“We don’t wipe our hands on a flag, did you hear the person? One of our communist people?” Trump said. “These people are a disgrace.”

Chevalier told MS NOW earlier this week that she is not a communist.

The DSA is not a communist group, but does call for increased government programming to reduce poverty and provide healthcare. It’s also unclear whether communist accusations will carry the same weight in the 21st century as they did in the 20th century.

—Garrett Downs

After months of debate, the House and Senate passed a bipartisan housing package in June that aims to increase housing supply and make homes more affordable. Trump was due to sign the legislation at the Capitol on June 24, but he abruptly canceled an hour before the scheduled signing. He downplayed the bill and said he would not make it law until Congress passes an unrelated election bill, known as the SAVE America Act.

House Speaker Mike Johnson officially transmitted the bill to Trump on Monday, starting a 10-day clock. If the president has not vetoed the bill in that window, it will become law even if he doesn’t formally sign it.

The housing package was heralded as a win by both Republicans and Democrats, who are eager to campaign on the legislation ahead of the 2026 midterms in which voters have serious concerns about the cost of living.

Johnson told USA Today this week that he believed the housing bill would become law, but Trump has not publicly ruled out a veto.

—Justin Papp

Amid simmering tensions with Congress, Trump has repeatedly called for firing Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s nonpartisan advisor on rules and procedures, in the past several months.

Trump first called for MacDonough’s firing in May, after she ruled a $1 billion Secret Service provision for his White House ballroom project could not be included in an unrelated budget bill. He again called for her ouster in June when she made a similar determination about the SAVE America Act, the Trump-backed bill that would require photo identification to cast a ballot and proof of citizenship to register for elections.

On Wednesday, Trump again took aim at MacDonough.

“How the Republican Senate is not firing the Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Radical Left Senator Harry Reid, and Barack Hussein Obama, is beyond me! She has been ruling unfairly against Republicans for years, and Majority Leader John Thune has the right to do it, immediately. FIRE THE PARLIAMENTARIAN NOW!!” Trump posted to TruthSocial.

—Justin Papp

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday declined to rule out a return to full-fledged combat in Iran, saying the decision depends on Iran’s actions during the current negotiation period.

“Well, I can’t commit to anything, because obviously it depends on what the Iranians are ultimately going to do,” Vance told reporters after speaking to service members at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.

But Vance said he can commit that Trump will not send troops back into combat in Iran “unless he has to, unless there’s a clearly defined purpose for it.”

“If we’ve gotta do more, of course, that’s kind of up to the Iranians,” Vance said. “If they try to rebuild their nuclear program, if they try to start shooting at commercial vessels again, that’s going to change our calculus.”

— Kevin Breuninger

The Trump administration said Wednesday it will not renew its trilateral trade pact known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA.

The decision — announced on the deadline for the trade partners to determine whether to renew the deal for another 16 years — won’t invalidate the agreement, which will stay in effect for another decade. But it triggers yearly reviews that could result in the renegotiation of major parts of the treaty and undermines its premise.

Trump “chose not to rubber stamp a USMCA renewal without addressing existing issues,” a senior administration official told reporters in a call Wednesday announcing the move.

Trump’s “primary” concern with USMCA centers on the U.S.′ trade deficits with Canada and Mexico, according to the official.

—Kevin Breuninger

Trump won a major ruling this week when the Supreme Court said he and other presidents had the power to fire appointees to ostensibly independent federal agencies.

But Trump also told reporters ‘I don’t think so,” when asked if he planned to fire more people from those agencies as a result of the decision.

Trump is famously mercurial about firing people, even ones he has suggested are safe in their jobs.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday upheld Trump’s firing of Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.

The decision voided the FTC’s provision that commissioners could be removed by a president only for cause, and not because of their political affiliations. Slaughter was one of two Democratic commissioners fired by Trump in 2025.

The ruling effectively overturns a key Supreme Court precedent, “Humphrey’s Executor,” which had protected independent agency members from being fired by a president.

— Dan Mangan

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito isn’t retiring — so far — but if the conservative jurist were to do so, Trump would get a chance to nominate a fourth member of the high court and face a potentially politically tricky situation.

NPR erroneously reported on Tuesday that the 76-year-old Alito was retiring after more than 20 years on the Supreme Court, where he is a rock-solid vote in a 6-3 conservative majority.

The gaffe led to widespread speculation that Alito was preparing to retire, and that NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who has covered the Supreme Court since the 1970s, jumped the gun by publishing too soon a story she had been tipped off about.

If Alito were to retire before January 2027, Trump could have an easier time getting a nominated replacement confirmed by the Senate, which is currently controlled by a Republican majority with 53 seats.

But if Democrats regain control of the Senate after November’s midterm elections, the president might face difficulty in getting a nominee confirmed, particularly if Trump picks someone who is as conservative as Alito.

Even if Republicans retain a slim majority in the Senate, there is no guarantee that all members of the GOP caucus would automatically vote for any Trump nominee.

And Democrats have not forgotten how then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blocked confirmation hearings for then-President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2016. That paved the way for Trump to appoint and get confirmed Neil Gorsuch after winning the presidential election that year.

Trump later appointed two other justices during his first term in the White House: Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

— Dan Mangan

Trump’s insistence on Congress’ adoption of a controversial voter-identification and proof of citizenship bill has derailed action in both the House and Senate in the past week and threatens other GOP priorities.

Republican hardliners jammed up the House floor this week, in part because of congressional leadership’s refusal to attach a version of the election bill, dubbed the SAVE America Act, to the National Defense Authorization Act. In the face of stiff opposition, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent the House home early for its July 4 recess.

The House advanced the SAVE America Act in February, but the legislation lacks the 60 votes it would need in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly pushed Senate leaders to abolish the filibuster to pass the election bill, but there’s also insufficient support to drastically change the chamber’s procedures.

—Justin Papp

The Trump administration and OpenAI are engaging in preliminary and ongoing talks about a possible government stake in the AI company, according to a source close to the discussions, who asked not to be named because the details are confidential.

The talks have been in progress for more than a year, as CNBC previously reported, but nothing official has been decided and the specifics are still subject to change. Altman first shared the idea with the Trump administration in 2025.

OpenAI has reportedly discussed giving the government a 5% stake in the company, according to a report from the Financial Times on Thursday. That potential holding would be worth roughly $42.6 billion at the artificial intelligence startup’s recent $852 billion valuation.

—Ashley Capoot

Trump‘s idea to restrict defense contractors from buying back their own stock and paying dividends is picking up steam in Congress. The Senate Armed Services Committee incorporated a provision to write it into law into its version of the National Defense Authorization Act — a must-pass defense bill.

As written, contractors would need Pentagon approval to execute buybacks or pay dividends. The legislative text closely resembles an executive order Trump issued in January. An amendment to add a similar provision to the House version of the NDAA didn’t make it into the final bill.

Trump has not publicly leaned on Congress to approve the measure yet, but if he does, it would greatly improve its chances of becoming law. Advocacy groups representing Pentagon contractors are lobbying hard to kill the proposal.

—Garrett Downs

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced Thursday that a grand jury had indicted Olympian canoeist David Hearn on a felony charge for allegedly destroying a piece of liner from the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall.

“This was a deliberate act to damage the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall that members of the National Park Service actually have worked hard to restore, and have witnessed,” Pirro said. “National Park employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands.”

Hearn, 67, has said, “I didn’t vandalize anything.” He claims he reached down into the pool on June 19 to touch a piece of liner that had become partially detached.

Trump has made the renovation of the Reflecting Pool a top priority, and has claimed that its new “American flag blue” liner was intentionally damaged by vandals.

— Dan Mangan

The White House in late June sent Congress an $87.6 billion supplemental funding request for the Iran war, a proposal that raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill and may be meeting with some opposition — and not just from Democrats.

Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., immediately slammed the request, which would require congressional approval.

“President Trump launched a reckless and costly war with Iran — without authorization from Congress or the support of the American people — that he should never have started, and now, instead of doing anything to help families get by, he is asking taxpayers to pick up the tab and give him billions more to wage wars overseas,” Murray said in a statement at the time.

Politico reported on Wednesday that even some key Republicans are alarmed at the supplemental, claiming the administration hadn’t provided enough information.

—Justin Papp

Iran is intent on charging fees for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the vital trade route that was choked off during the U.S.-Israeli war and remains at the center of ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran, according to multiple reports.

The U.S. has floated the possibility of relinquishing some frozen Iranian funds in exchange for the Islamic republic abandoning its claims over the waterway, but Iran has so far refused, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The monthslong war in Iran, launched by the U.S. and Israel in late February, led to last month’s signing of a 60-day memorandum of understanding that paved the way for further talks on a permanent deal. But tensions remain high, with the sides exchanging fire at one point and continuing to publicly disagree about key issues.

Axios on Wednesday cited a U.S. official saying discussions in the Persian Gulf currently center on “how the Strait should be managed after [the memorandum expires].”

—Kevin Breuninger

Trump’s interview with CNBC has been teed up by some unwelcome economic news: The Labor Department reported a sudden slowdown in U.S. job growth last month.

Nonfarm payrolls for June increased by a seasonally adjusted 57,000 for the month, less than half of the Dow Jones forecast of 115,000. Job creation in May was also downwardly revised to 129,000, according to the government’s latest monthly report.

The unemployment rate dropped to 4.2% — but that was largely due to a decline in the labor force participation rate, suggesting fewer people in the U.S. are actively looking for work. The rate fell 0.3 percentage points to 61.5%, its lowest point since March 2021.

—Kevin Breuninger and Jeff Cox