Democrats begin withdrawing endorsements of Graham Platner after Senate candidate is accused of sexual assault – live

Walmart will lower prices for ground beef and “many other products” at the request of the Trump administration, according to a Truth Social post by the US president.

According to a statement from the retailer, other products such as red cherries, sodas, and potato chips will also see a price drop.

“I have just been informed that one of the biggest, best, and smartest Retailers in America, Walmart, will be lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration’s request to celebrate our great Country’s 250th birthday,” Trump wrote on Monday. “Walmart will, in particular, be dropping the price for a pound of ground beef by almost 15%, among many other products”.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, ground beef prices were $6.75 a pound in May, a 12% increase from the same time last year.

End Citizens United, a campaign finance reform group, has pulled its endorsement of Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner following Politico’s report of sexual assault allegations against him. The group also called for Platner to withdraw from the race.

“The allegations reported today are profoundly disturbing and disqualifying,” said ECU President Tiffany Muller in a statement. “The conduct described is fundamentally inconsistent with the standards we expect from the candidates we support. No candidate, elected official, or political party is exempt from accountability.”

“It takes immense bravery to speak out in such a high-profile case, and we offer our full support to Jenny Racicot for sharing her story,” Muller added. “We stand in solidarity with her and all the courageous women who have come forward to hold Graham accountable.”

“We believe the best path forward for Maine Democrats is to move quickly to nominate a candidate who can earn voters’ trust and who will center their campaign on ethical leadership, accountability, and fighting corruption,” reads Muller’s statement.

My colleagues, Shrai Popat and Rachel Leingang, report that the allegations against Graham Platner, who faces the Republican senator Susan Collins in the general election, come after he has already faced a series of scandals.

Platner has cast himself as a populist everyman with an anti-oligarchy message. Before his run for public office, he made controversial comments on social media and got a Nazi-aligned tattoo, which has since been covered up.

Platner has said he did not initially understand the meaning of the tattoo.

On social media, Graham Platner has denied the sexual assault allegation by a former partner reported by Politico.

“Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false,” the Democratic nominee for Maine’s Senate seat said in a direct-to-camera message.

While Platner deemed the reporting inaccurate, he said that his campaign was “mindful of the political reality” that the accusation “will inflict”.

“We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to,” he added.

It’s worth noting that should Democrats decide to replace Platner as the party’s nominee in the Maine Senate race, Platner would have to drop out by 5pm ET on 13 July, according to state law. The Democratic party will then have a two-week window – until 27 July – to select a replacement candidate.

Some top Democratic commentators have already called on the beleageured nominee to step down. “Platner needs time to heal, focus on his family and well-being. Enough. Enough,” said Donna Brazile, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Politico’s report also notes that Racicot was initially apprehensive coming forward about her alleged experience of sexual assault because she supports Platner’s politics.

“I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person,” she told the outlet.

Racicot noted that she initially connected with Platner on the dating-app Bumble in 2019, and had a consensual relationship with him before the alleged 2021 assault. On that night, she says she told Platner not to visit, but later found he had entered her unlocked home.

She alleges an intoxicated Platner ignored her repeated protests, ultimately following her into her bedroom where he forced her to have sex without protection. The next morning, Platner reportedly claimed he had no memory of the encounter, and Racicot then ordered him to leave. She eventually cut off all contact with Platner after she got her period to ensure she wasn’t pregnant.

Graham Platner, the controversial Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, has been accused of sexual assault, according to an exclusive report by Politico.

A woman who dated the oyster farmer and former marine veteran alleges he forced her to have sex nearly five years ago despite repeated objections. Platner denies the claims.

Jenny Racicot, 41, told the outlet that she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner for over two years. She alleges that in late 2021, an intoxicated Platner entered her home uninvited and forced himself on her. Racicot stated she terminated contact after the encounter.

Platner rejected the allegations in a statement.

“These allegations are troubling, serious, and false. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue,” he said.

The report cited corroborating accounts from a man Racicot later confided in, as well as therapist emails and messages where she warned an acquaintance about Platner years before his Senate run.

At Tyler James Robinson’s preliminary hearing in Provo, Utah, Donald Trump Jr and far-right influencer Jack Posobiec joined Erika Kirk and other members of Charlie Kirk’s family in the courtroom, as prosecutors laid out the case against the accused 23-year-old gunman.

My colleague Dani Anguiano reports that the prosecution told the judge that they plan to show several videos of the shooting in court. Kirk’s family members left the courtroom shortly after the first witness began speaking.

The hearing kicked off on Monday with testimony from Chris Bagley, a former Utah Valley University police officer. Bagley described the moments leading up to the shooting, and hearing a loud gunshot.

“Everybody kind of got up. A lot of people were screaming and starting to run in all different directions,” Bagley told the courtroom.

The police officer searched for additional victims, but finding none, moved to contain the scene to preserve evidence, he said. Police initially believed they had the shooter in custody.

After observing that a nearby building had a direct line of sight to where Kirk was speaking at the time he was shot, Bagley said he went to the building’s rooftop where he saw evidence that he believed indicated a sniper had been there, including a “disturbance” in the gravel.

On Elon Musk’s social-media platform X, Trump supporters celebrated the apparent display of raw power from the US president in getting Fifa to suspend his red card by sharing an AI-generated video of Balogun that has been viewed nearly 20m times.

In the video, the AI version of Balogun responds to the referee who showed him the red card by holding up a photo of Trump with his middle finger extended. The AI Balogun tells the official: “Nah bro, I have the Trump card. I win!” The AI version of Balogun speaks in an American accent, unlike the real person, who was born in New York by accident but raised in London and has a British accent.

The president’s critics pointed to the hypocrisy of Trump, who has tried to deny birthright citizenship to children like Balogun, born in New York to non-citizens, demanding that the striker to be allowed to represent the US.

But then again, Trump’s own father was also an accidental American by birth, since he was born in New York to a non-citizen mother who had arrived in the US six months pregnant after being forced to leave her native Germany.

• Donald Trump confirmed that he personally asked Fifa president Gianni Infantino to review the red card given to US striker Folarin Balogun, making him available to play for the USA in their knockout match against Belgium tonight. Trump said he believed the dismissal was unfair but insisted he did not pressure football’s governing body to overturn the suspension. “All I did was ask for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Referring to Infantino – who has repeatedly buttered him up – Trump added: “I didn’t tell him what to do. I can’t tell him what to do.”

• Trump repeatedly said Balogun’s challenge should never have resulted in a dismissal – even as he admitted to not knowing what a red card was before this incident. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “So I saw the play … That wasn’t a foul. That wasn’t even an infraction.” Invoking his lies about his 2020 election loss, Trump added: “We’re going to have a full team, and Belgium is going to have a full team, and you know what? If they beat us, then they can be really proud. The other way, if they beat us … I say it was rigged, just like the election was rigged in 2020.” As our colleagues covering the World Cup note, despite Balogun’s red card being considered excessively harsh, Fifa’s disciplinary code does not permit appeals against straight red cards, with officials from the world governing body and US Soccer confirming after the game that the sanction could not be challenged.

• Trump’s allies have rallied around his intervention. Standing beside him in the Oval Office, senator Ted Cruz thanked the president “for getting rid of that ridiculous red card”. And his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also praised the move, telling reporters at the state department that the red card was a “bad decision”. He added: “I think it was the right decision to reverse it.” Echoing Trump’s comments earlier, Rubio went on: “Everyone will be at full strength, and the winner will be the winner. And if it’s Belgium, they have a very good team, you know, they’ll move on, and they can say they beat the US at full strength at home.”

• For his part, Infantino insisted in a statement today that he told Trump that Fifa’s “independent judicial bodies” would make their decision. “That is how Fifa’s system works, and it is a principle that I will always uphold,” he said.

• Fifa’s willingness to bow to Trump’s wishes has been strongly criticized, with European politicians, football associations and governing body Uefa condemning the decision. In an unprecedented intervention in the middle of a tournament, Uefa accused Fifa of crossing “a red line” by making an “incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision to rescind Balogun’s automatic one-match ban, which it claimed undermined “the integrity of the game and the credibility of the competition”. Fifa also rejected an appeal by Belgian officials. You can read more on the reaction here.

Here’s the clip of Donald Trump confirming that he lobbied Fifa to intervene regarding Folarin Balogun’s red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While taking a photo with the Chilean foreign minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna, US secretary of state Marco Rubio praised Fifa’s decision to reverse Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension.

In comments reported by NBC News, Rubio called the red card a “bad decision” and said the referees “shouldn’t even be reviewing these things on slow motion, right? They should be reviewing the live action. I think it was the right decision to reverse it.”

Belgian officials have said they are appealing the decision ahead of tonight’s knockout World Cup match between the US and Belgium.

Rubio said that he understood that “there’s a lot of drama” surrounding the move but questioned: “If you’re Belgian, why would you want to play a game and win a match, and then you win this match, and then everyone will argue you didn’t really win it because their best player, the leading scorer, was not on the pitch during the match?

“Maybe we’ll bring it up at Nato tomorrow when we’re there with the Belgians and everybody else,” he joked.

Echoing Trump’s comments earlier, Rubio went on: “But I just hope the match will go on. Everyone will be at full strength, and the winner will be the winner. And if it’s Belgium, they have a very good team, you know, they’ll move on, and they can say they beat the US at full strength at home.”

Donald Trump is currently taking part in a Rose Garden club lunch at the White House. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.

In a statement issued after Donald Trump’s remarks, Fifa president Gianni Infantino confirmed that he had received a call from the US president but said he told Trump the matter was before Fifa’s independent disciplinary bodies.

“Fifa’s judicial bodies are independent,” Infantino said. “They operate autonomously, apply the Fifa Disciplinary Code, and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them.”

He added that while he sometimes agreed and sometimes disagreed with disciplinary decisions, he “always” respected the autonomy of the bodies that made them.

As my colleagues on our World Cup live blog report, Infantino’s statement appears to be his “attempt to squirm his way out from under the bus Trump threw him under earlier”.

Trump earlier confirmed that he had personally asked Infantino to review the red card shown to USA striker Folarin Balogun, saying he believed the dismissal was unfair but insisting he did not pressure football’s governing body to overturn the suspension.

“All I did was ask for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I didn’t tell him what to do. I can’t tell him what to do.”

A five-day preliminary hearing in the murder case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk is set to begin today.

Tyler James Robinson, 23, has been charged with aggravated murder related to Kirk’s death, after allegedly shooting the conservative political activist in the neck at a Utah Valley University campus event in September.

Kirk’s widow, Erika, and members of family will attend the hearing, and it will mark the first time they are in the same room as the man accused of killing the Turning Point USA founder.

Utah prosecutors are aiming to prove at the multi-day hearing that there is sufficient evidence for Robinson’s case should proceed to trial.

Ahead of the hearing, Erika Kirk and her family issued a statement, expressing thanks for the “outpouring” of support “during the darkest days of our lives”, but said that “out of respect for the judicial process, we will not be commenting further at this time”.

Donald Trump’s latest attempt to delay payment of a $5.8m judgment for defaming a magazine columnist whom a jury determined he sexually abused has been emphatically rejected by a federal court judge.

In a single-sentence 4 July order, US district Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the president’s request for more time to pay the civil judgment owed to E Jean Carroll, who was awarded the damages after a New York jury concluded that Trump sexually abused her in 1996 – then defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019.

Trump’s move came days after the US supreme court, without explanation or reasoning, turned down his demand to review the jury’s 2023 verdict.

In a subsequent filing to Kaplan, the judge overseeing the case, Trump’s attorneys referred to how his former lead counsel, Justin Smith, had been confirmed to a federal judgeship in June on the president’s nomination. New lead counsel Josh Halpern therefore needed more time “to become completely familiar with the facts and procedural circumstances”, Trump’s attorneys contended.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, who is no relation to the judge, responded that the request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time” – noting Trump nominated Smith for the court of appeals more than five months previously, and that he had “ample time to retain new counsel”.

Trump just confirmed to reported in the Oval Office that he did, in fact, call Fifa president Gianni Infantino about the straight red card decision against Folarin Balogun.

“I saw the play, and I’m a person that loves sports and was a good athlete, and I understand sports really well, really well,” Trump said.

“That wasn’t a foul … There was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other,” Trump added. “These are two great athletes that got tangled up.”

The president claimed, without providing evidence, that Raphael Claus, the referee who issued the inraction, “is a little bit suspect if you check his past” before going on to say that he asked Fifa for a review on the decision.

Trump added that if the US didn’t have the team’s “best player” to take part in subsequent matches, it would have “really stained” the competition. The president didn’t seem to quite understand the policy around straight red cards that resulted in a one-match ban for Balogun.

“I didn’t know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, ‘you got to be kidding,’” Trump said.

When asked about the latest Russian strikes on Kyiv, that have killed 19 people and heavily damaged apartment blocks and other buildings, Donald Trump repeated claims that “we’re getting close” on reaching a deal on the conflict in Ukraine, despite the attacks happening just days after speaking with Vladimir Putin.

“[Putin] wants to end it, and Ukraine wants to end it, and we’re in talks, and we’ll see if we can get it ended. It’s a terrible thing,” Trump added.