Putin tells Trump he won’t back down from goals in Ukraine, Kremlin says
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Republicans muscle Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill through Congress
President Donald Trump ‘s tax-cut legislation cleared its final hurdle in the US Congress on Thursday. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved a massive package that would fund his domestic agenda and push millions of Americans off health insurance. The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown. It also cuts health and food safety net programs and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill raises the US debt ceiling by $5 trillion, averting the prospect of a default in the short term but some investors worry the debt overhang could curtail the economic stimulus in the bill and create a long-term risk of higher borrowing costs at the end of the year. The White House said Trump will sign it into law at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Friday, the July 4 holiday.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump ‘s tax-cut legislation cleared its final hurdle in the US Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved a massive package that would fund his domestic agenda and push millions of Americans off health insurance.
The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown, make his 2017 tax cuts permanent and deliver new tax breaks that he promised during his 2024 campaign.
It also cuts health and food safety net programs and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Despite concerns within Trump’s party over the 869-page bill’s price tag and its hit to healthcare programs, in the end just two of the House’s 220 Republicans voting against it, following an overnight standoff. The bill has already cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by the narrowest possible margin.
The White House said Trump will sign it into law at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Friday, the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
Republicans said the legislation will lower taxes for Americans across the income spectrum and spur economic growth.
“This is jet fuel for the economy, and all boats are going to rise,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Every Democrat in Congress voted against it, blasting the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that would leave millions uninsured.
“The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an eight-hour, 46-minute speech that was the longest in the chamber’s history.
Trump kept up the pressure throughout, cajoling and threatening lawmakers as he pressed them to finish the job.
“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” he wrote on social media.
Though roughly a dozen House Republicans threatened to vote against the bill, only two ended up doing so: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a centrist, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a conservative who said it did not cut spending enough.
Marathon weekend
Republicans raced to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline, working through last weekend and holding all-night debates in the House and the Senate. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday in a 51-50 vote that saw Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote.
According to the CBO, the bill would lower tax revenues by $4.5 trillion over 10 years and cut spending by $1.1 trillion.
Those spending cuts largely come from Medicaid, the health program that covers 71 million low-income Americans.
The bill would tighten enrollment standards, institute a work requirement and clamp down on a funding mechanism used by states to boost federal payments – changes that would leave nearly 12 million people uninsured, according to the CBO.
Republicans added $50 billion for rural health providers to address concerns that those cutbacks would force them out of business.
Nonpartisan analysts have found that the wealthiest Americans would see the biggest benefits from the bill, while lower-income people would effectively see their incomes drop as the safety-net cuts would outweigh their tax cuts.
The increased debt load created by the bill would also effectively transfer money from younger to older generations, analysts say. Ratings firm Moody’s downgraded US debt in May, citing the mounting debt, and some foreign investors say the bill is making US Treasury bonds less attractive.
The bill raises the US debt ceiling by $5 trillion, averting the prospect of a default in the short term. But some investors worry the debt overhang could curtail the economic stimulus in the bill and create a long-term risk of higher borrowing costs.
On the other side of the ledger, the bill staves off tax increases that were due to hit most Americans at the end of this year, when Trump’s 2017 individual and business tax cuts were due to expire. Those cuts are now made permanent, while tax breaks for parents and businesses are expanded.
The bill also sets up new tax breaks for tipped income, overtime pay, seniors and auto loans, fulfilling Trump campaign promises.
The final version of the bill includes more substantial tax cuts and more aggressive healthcare cuts than an initial version that passed the House in May.
During deliberations in the Senate, Republicans also dropped a provision that would have banned state-level regulations on artificial intelligence, and a “retaliatory tax” on foreign investment that had spurred alarm on Wall Street.
The bill is likely to feature prominently in the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to recapture at least one chamber of Congress.
Republican leaders contend the bill’s tax breaks will goose the economy before then, and many of its benefit cuts are not scheduled to kick in until after that election.
Opinion polls show many Americans are concerned about the bill’s cost and its effect on lower income people. — Reuters
Trump says he ‘didn’t make any progress’ with Putin following phone call
The two leaders held an hour-long conversation early in the on July 3 focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East. The call marks the sixth conversation between the two men since Trump took office in January. Putin said “Russia will continue to pursue its goals” in the war against Ukraine, a Kremlin aide said. The phone call also came just a day after the U.S. Defense Department paused shipments of key weapons systems to Ukraine, including Patriot air defense missiles and precision-guided munitions. The White House did not provide a read out of the meeting, and Trump did not provided further comment on the phone call.
“We had a call. It was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things,” Trump said ahead of his flight to an Iowa event.
When asked if he had made any progress with Putin on the call, Trump responded: “No, I didn’t make any progress with him today at all.”
The two leaders held an hour-long conversation early in the on July 3 focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East. The call marks the sixth conversation between the two men since Trump took office in January.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters earlier in the day that Putin said “Russia will continue to pursue its goals” in the war against Ukraine.
“Our president said that Russia will pursue its goals, specifically addressing the root causes that led to the current situation, and will not back down from these objectives,” Ushakov added.
The White House did not provide a read out of the meeting, and Trump did not provide further comment on the phone call.
Since taking office, Trump has attempted to broker a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia to no avail. Despite two rounds of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, Putin has refused to implement a ceasefire, citing his maximalist demands.
While Trump has expressed frustration with Russia’s continued aggression, his administration has not imposed new sanctions nor taken steps to pressure the Kremlin directly.
Putin’s message came amid a surge of Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine that have killed and injured hundreds of civilians in recent weeks.
The strikes have destroyed numerous infrastructure as Russia intensifies its assault despite repeated calls from Kyiv, Washington, and European leaders for an unconditional ceasefire.
The phone call also came just a day after the U.S. Defense Department paused shipments of key weapons systems to Ukraine, including Patriot air defense missiles and precision-guided munitions. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has warned that the delay undermines defense efforts and risks emboldening Russia to escalate further.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking from Denmark earlier in the day, said that achieving peace would require direct talks between national leaders.
The president described Trump and Putin as “completely different people” but emphasized that only Putin makes decisions in Russia.
“In Russia, only Putin makes decisions, which is why we need a meeting at the leadership level if we want to have peace,” Zelensky said.
No progress at all, Trump says after Putin phone call
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Thursday. They did not discuss the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. The call comes as the US and Russia are trying to reach a deal to end the conflict. The US has been forced to halt some deliveries of weapons to the region due to a lack of supplies. The Russian president has said he will continue to push for an end to the conflict if the US does not agree to a deal. The U.S. has also said it will not give in to Russia’s demands that it withdraws from the Minsk accord, which it signed in March. The deal was reached to end Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which has been raging for more than a year.
The two leaders did not discuss a recent pause in some US weapons shipments to Kyiv during the nearly hour-long conversation on Thursday, according to a readout provided by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.
US attempts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine through diplomacy have largely stalled, and Trump has come under increased pressure – including from some Republicans – to increase pressure on Putin to negotiate in earnest.
Despite diplomatic back and forth, there seems to be no end in sight to the Russia- Ukraine war. (AP PHOTO)
Within hours of the call’s conclusion, an apparent Russian drone attack sparked a fire in an apartment building in a northern suburb of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said, indicating little change in the trajectory of the conflict.
In Kyiv itself, Reuters witnesses reported explosions and sustained heavy machine-gun fire as air defence units battled drones over the capital, while Russian shelling killed five in the eastern part of the country.
“I didn’t make any progress with him at all,” Trump told reporters in brief comments at an air base outside Washington, before departing for a campaign-style event in Iowa.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, told reporters in Denmark earlier in the day that he hopes to speak to Trump as soon as Friday about the ongoing pause in some weapons shipments, which was first disclosed earlier this week.
The diplomatic back-and-forth comes as the United States has paused shipments of certain critical weapons to Ukraine due to low stockpiles, sources earlier told Reuters, just as Ukraine faces a Russian summer offensive and increasingly frequent attacks on civilian targets.
Putin, for his part, has continued to assert he will stop his invasion only if the conflict’s “root causes” have been addressed – Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine, including the rejection of any notion of Ukraine joining the NATO alliance.
Russian leaders are also angling to establish greater control over political decisions made in Kyiv and other Eastern European capitals, NATO leaders have said.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will discuss paused arms supplies with President Donald Trump. (AP PHOTO)
The pause in US weapons shipments caught Ukraine off-guard and has generated widespread confusion about Trump’s current views on the conflict, given his statement just last week that he would try to free up a Patriot missile defence system for use by Kyiv.
Ukrainian leaders called in the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington, and caution that the pause in US weapons shipments would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend against intensifying Russian air strikes and battlefield advances.
The Pentagon’s move has meant a cut in deliveries of the Patriot defence missiles that Ukraine relies on to destroy fast-moving ballistic missiles, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Ushakov, the Kremlin aide, said that while Russia was open to continuing to speak with the US, any peace negotiations needed to occur between Moscow and Kyiv.
That comment comes amid some indications that Moscow is trying to avoid a trilateral format for any potential peace negotiations. The Russians asked American diplomats to leave the room during such a meeting in Istanbul in early June, Ukrainian officials have said.
Trump and Putin did not talk about a face-to-face meeting, Ushakov said.
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Watch: Putin cuts short event to take Trump’s call, says he could get offended
Russian President Vladimir Putin had to rush out of a public event to take the call with US President Donald Trump on Thursday. Putin interrupted the same and apologised to the audience, saying it was “awkward” to keep his American counterpart waiting as “he could get offended” The talks between the two leaders, which were their sixth conversation since Trump returned to the White House and the fourth in only six weeks, failed to produce any breakthrough. Putin told Trump that Moscow wants a negotiated end to the Ukraine war for peace but will not step back from its original goals. The two leaders discussed the Ukraine conflict, tensions in the Middle East, the situation in Iran, and US-Russia relations. They did not talk about the US decision to temporarily pause some military aid to Ukraine.
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“Please, don’t be angry. I understand that we could talk more, but it’s so awkward to make (Trump) wait, he could get offended,” the Russian President said.
The talks between the two leaders, which were their sixth conversation since Trump returned to the White House and the fourth in only six weeks, however, failed to produce any breakthrough as Moscow stood firm about not stepping back from its original goals in Ukraine.
WOW. Russian President Vladimir Putin abruptly leaves the stage to hop on the phone with President Trump, saying he didn’t want to offend Trump by keeping him waiting.
This is what happens when we have a real President. The world respects us.pic.twitter.com/LBzcktAY4G— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 3, 2025
During the call, the two leaders discussed the Ukraine conflict, tensions in the Middle East, the situation in Iran, and US-Russia relations.
While welcoming talks, Putin told Trump that Moscow wants a negotiated end to the Ukraine war for peace but will not step back from its original goals. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, “Vladimir Putin, for his part, noted that we continue to seek a political and negotiated solution to the conflict.”
“Our president also said that Russia will achieve the goals it has set: that is, the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, to the current acute confrontation, and Russia will not back down from these goals,” Ushakov added.
According to the Russian government, these “root causes” include preventing Ukraine from joining NATO and avoiding any threat near Russia’s borders. However, Ukraine and Western countries reject this explanation and say the war is more about Russia trying to control Ukraine.
Putin also informed Trump about recent agreements between Russia and Ukraine related to prisoner exchanges and the return of fallen soldiers. He said Moscow remains open to further discussions with Ukraine.
FRIENDLY TONE BUT NO MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS
Ushakov said the leaders were “on the same page” during the call. Putin also congratulated Trump ahead of the US Independence Day on July 4. The US President began the call by talking about his new economic bill. The two leaders also discussed improving trade and even launching a cultural exchange programme focused on traditional values through films.
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However, some key topics were left out. They did not talk about the US decision to temporarily pause some military aid to Ukraine — a development closely watched by Ukraine’s supporters. A possible face-to-face meeting between the two leaders was also not mentioned, though Ushakov said the idea is still “up in the air”.
Iran was another subject discussed during the call. Ushakov noted, “The Russian side emphasised the importance of resolving all disputes, disagreements and conflict situations exclusively by political and diplomatic means.” This statement comes after the US launched airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities — an action that Russia strongly criticised.
– Ends
Published By: Satyam Singh Published On: Jul 4, 2025
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