Politics
‘The bill is going to come due’: House GOP braces for Epstein crisis to intensify
Internal fury over the House GOP’s Jeffrey Epstein crisis is still swirling as President Trump faces an all-out revolt from his biggest supporters on Capitol Hill. The rebellion this week stunned White House officials and GOP leaders — and, according to Republicans involved in the talks…
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Second Lady Usha Vance is expected to attend the United States’ final group-stage match this evening in Los Angeles, according to an administration official. Her husband, Vice President J.D. Vance, appeared earlier this afternoon at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in nearby Orange County as part of his book tour.
The triumph of the World Cup’s first two weeks — boosting the U.S.’s global reputation with sold-out stadiums and few logistical complications — has forced Democrats who had criticized President Donald Trump’s role in preparations to grudgingly reconsider.
“I think that there was a little bit of like liberal wishcasting that this would maybe be a disaster to sort of stick it to Trump,” said Rob Flaherty, the digital Democratic strategist and soccer fan who attended the U.S. group-stage match with Australia. “It hasn’t yet been.”
Before the tournament, attitudes about the World Cup were polarizing, like so much else, along partisan lines, with Democrats confronting FIFA and the Trump administration over high ticket prices, shortfalls in public funding, and the government’s posture to foreign visitors. As the tournament approached, local officials in areas hosting matches, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, turned from critics to cheerleaders.
Now a prominent congressional Democrat is going even farther: praising the U.S.’s handling of tournament logistics — if not giving the Trump administration explicit credit by name.
This week, Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat active in foreign-policy issues, called it a “remarkable success” and vowed to “do everything I can to get the World Cup back here as soon as possible” in an X post.
In an interview with Blue Light News Thursday, Boyle said, “this has been a great moment, actually devoid of politics, and I think it would be best to keep politics out of it.”
“I’m excited about the U.S. hosting the World Cup, how well that it has gone, how receptive these foreign fan bases have been to finding out more about the United States and interacting with ordinary Americans,” Boyle continued.
Boyle’s enthusiasm places him in rare territory. Though other prominent Democrats including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, along with Mamdani and Sherrill, have all attended games, few among them have been willing to articulate anything that sounds like praise for the authorities putting on the event.
“Let me be clear, my comments are irrespective of the Trump administration. Frankly, his immigration policies for the last year and a half did scare some people off from coming to the United States,” said Boyle. “The credit goes to the local host committees.”
SEATTLE — In late May, Greg Moriarty formally presented his credentials to President Donald Trump as Australia’s man in Washington. But it wasn’t until mid-June that Moriarty encountered one of the U.S. officials he most needed to meet: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, whose department plays a key role in critical-minerals deals between the two countries.
Moriarty’s encounter with Wright did not take place at the Energy Department’s headquarters just off the National Mall in Washington, or at any of its many facilities around the country. Rather the men met at Lumen Field in Seattle, at last Friday’s crucial World Cup match between their countries, where Wright led the U.S. delegation — an auspicious occasion for an envoy to make connections in a new post.
“The United States is a very sports-mad country, so is Australia, so [it’s] a great opportunity to get to know them on a different level, because you might touch on one or two items of business,” Moriarty said in an interview. “But it’s generally just so that you can both enjoy the spectacle and the connection that we both have through sports.”
Moriarty also introduced himself to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a figure of particular fascination in Australia given that country’s embrace of harsh Covid-era lockdowns, as well as members of Congress in attendance. Moriarty, a former defense secretary and national security adviser, will work to keep Washington’s foreign-policy establishment focused on the Indo-Pacific in a year when its attention has drifted alternately to the Arctic, Caribbean and Persian Gulf.
“The United States is a superpower. It clearly has global commitments and global responsibilities,” said Moriarty. “But Australia, we think that the United States’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific is very solid.”
In Seattle, however, business was front of mind for Moriarty, who finds himself fighting a new 12.5 percent tariff that the Trump administration has imposed on countries accused of not doing enough to prevent slave labor in their supply chains. At the waterfront Edgewater Hotel, Moriarty joined corporate leaders — including Microsoft’s Australian-raised Deputy General Counsel Antony Cook, who has taken a leading role in the company’s approach to AI regulation, and Mikaël Limapalaër of heavyweight pension fund Australian Super — to discuss the future of the bilateral trade relationship.
Moriarty is unusual among Australia’s ambassadors to Washington for not having been a politician — his immediate predecessor, Kevin Rudd, previously served as the country’s prime minister — but he already shows a deft instinct for intertwining economic ties, military alliances and cultural affinity. At one point, he linked a coming National Football League game in Melbourne to the arrival of nuclear submarines as part of the AUKUS security partnership.
“We’re really keen to sort of see how we can use American football to grow an audience in Australia, that will again be really good for the business connections and the people-to-people connections,” said Moriarty.
“Australia will be ready to host the first rotation of U.S. submarines by the end of next year, and we’re hoping that all the Americans who come down to and live down in Western Australia bring their own love of football.”
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