Trump visits Japan as largest federal employee’s union calls for immediate end to shutdown: Live updates

President Trump has kicked off his meeting on Tuesday with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female leader.

The two shared a warm greeting and posed before both nations’ flags.

Trump spoke of Japan as a strong friend to the U.S.

Former special counsel Jack Smith asked the Justice Department for guidance on Monday about what he can and can’t discuss in potential public testimony before Congress, The New York Times reports.

In a letter to the DOJ, Smith’s attorneys said the former official “respectfully requests guidance” on issues including grand jury secrecy rules and access to special counsel files that could affect what the ex-prosecutor can say openly.

Smith, who Republicans in Congress are investigating on allegations he led politically motivated investigations and criminal cases against Trump, is seeking to testify before lawmakers.

He has denied his cases had partisan underpinnings.

Donald Trump is slated to meet on Tuesday morning at 9:30am local time in Tokyo with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan, the country’s first female leader.

Ms Takaichi, 64, won the ruling party’s leadership contest after Shigeru Ishiba resigned, but secured the country’s top job only after the Liberal Democratic Party, which remains the largest party in the parliament, stitched up a coalition with the smaller right-wing Japan Innovation Party, known as Ishin.

Calling herself the successor of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, whom she was an ally of, Ms Takaichi said she would pick Satsuki Katayama as the first woman finance minister at a time of rising prices and slowing growth.

Here’s a primer on the Japanese leader.

The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal on Monday before the Supreme Court as it seeks to remove Shira Perlmutter, director of the U.S. Copyright Office.

A lower federal appeals court barred the White House from unilaterally firing the official, whose office is part of the Library of Congress.

The cases raises important questions about the president’s ability to remove personnel at key federal agencies.

More than 100 former Justice Departments filed an outside brief on Monday in federal court urging a judge to dismiss the Trump administration’s prosecution of former FBI director and frequent Trump critic James Comey.

“This looks like a picking out of a political enemy and prosecuting that person,” James Pearce, who signed the amicus brief, told The Washington Post of his motivations. “The brief makes clear that we are not advocating in any way a relaxation of the standards. The way that the vindictive prosecution doctrine is that it is extraordinarily hard to meet. And it is appropriately not granted to the majority of defendants who seek it.”

Here’s more on the controversial Comey case.

New College of Florida, a public liberal arts school that has undergone a series of conservative policy overhauls in recent years, has announced it will be the first to sign on to the Trump administration’s “compact” for higher education in exchange for federal funding preferences.

“As other colleges have rejected the compact, we see it as a bold step forward from the Trump administration that will help preserve America’s place as the world’s number one destination for higher education,” the school wrote in a news release.

New College, under the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has eliminated diversity programs and gender studies.

The compact calls on universities to a make a number of changes in line with Trump priorities, including capping international students, freezing tuition, and adopting particular definitions of gender.

Many well-known universities including University of Arizona, MIT, and Brown University have rejected the compact.

The president’s attentions may be in Asia at the moment, but the White House continues to negotiate trade terms with its continental neighbors.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday during a press conference that after speaking with President Trump over the weekend, her country would have a “few more weeks” to avoid a tariff hike that was set to kick in this week to make time for further discussions.

The White House has said it is seeking to remove 54 non-tariff barriers to trade with Mexico, including disputes over intellectual property, and has threatened rates as high as 30 percent on Mexican goods that don’t fall under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement.

The parties previously agreed to a 90-day pause in July.

Air traffic controllers are required to continue working during a government shutdown, but tomorrow they will stop being paid, according to the Department of Transportation.

“Air traffic controllers will stop getting paid starting TOMORROW,” Transportation Sean Duffy wrote on X. “This is not ok! I just visited several of them at [Cleveland Hopkins International Airport] and they are worried about paying their mortgage. [Chuck Schumer] and [Hakeem Jeffries] you’ve got to do better!”

Even as he cast ballots by mail himself and launched messaging campaigns encouraging his supporters to do the same, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to eliminate mail-in voting altogether, baselessly casting doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in votes.

Now he appears to be calling for the end of all forms of early voting.

After publicly demanding the prosecution of his political enemies, Trump encouraged the Department of Justice to investigate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election with “gusto” — and signaled that the “biggest SCANDAL in American history” will “happen again” unless the government eliminates early voting.

“Look what happened to our Country when a Crooked Moron became our ‘President!’” he wrote on Truth Social. “We now know everything. I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history! If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms. No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID!”