Highlights: Polls close in Arizona after voters cast ballots in battleground state primary

Alexander Kolodin wins the Republican primary for Arizona secretary of state, NBC News projects.

See the latest results here.

Jay Feely wins the Republican primary for Arizona's 1st Congressional District, NBC News projects.

Feely, a former NFL kicker, was endorsed by Trump and will face a tough general election in a battleground district in the Phoenix metro area.

See the latest results here.

Mark Lamb, the Trump-endorsed former sheriff of Pinal County, wins the Republican primary for Arizona's 5th Congressional District, NBC News projects. The deep-red district is open because GOP Rep. Andy Biggs is running for governor.

See the latest results here.

Trump-backed Rep. Andy Biggs wins the Republican primary for Arizona governor, NBC News projects, defeating fellow GOP Rep. David Schweikert.

See the latest results here.

Follow the live vote count in the governor's race and other primaries.

The House voted 220-205 to pass a stopgap funding bill that would fund the government until Dec. 4.

The continuing resolution would buy lawmakers more time to go through the appropriations process. It would also allow Congress to avert a government shutdown before the midterm elections. The next government funding deadline is Sept. 30.

The continuing resolution is now headed to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he will hold a vote on it but cautioned it doesn’t have all the provisions the White House requested. The bill is highly unlikely to get the 60 votes needed for passage in the Senate.

Thune left the door open to using budget reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority of 51 votes, to fund the government if the House-passed continuing resolution, or CR, can’t get the necessary bipartisan support for passage.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News today.

Read the full story here.

The polls have closed in Arizona at 10 p.m. ET.

Voters cast their ballots in the primary races for governor, secretary of state and other statewide offices that are expected to be competitive in November.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said tonight in a video on X that he does not have the legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the city.

"My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether NYC could execute the International Criminal Court warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here," Mamdani said. "It is clear we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant."

The ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu's arrest on Nov. 21, 2024, saying he was alleged to be "responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024."

Mamdani called Netanyahu a "war criminal" and an "architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people." He also urged the U.S. to join the ICC and execute the warrant on Netanyahu.

Election officials are increasingly concerned that the proliferation of prediction markets could further fuel distrust and disruption around the midterm elections in an already contentious political climate.

Read the full story here.

Democrat Troy Jackson won’t officially become his party’s nominee in the Maine Senate race until this weekend, but the sprint to the general election has already begun, with Republicans — and some anxious Democrats — digging into his long record in politics in search of potential liabilities.

Read the full story here.

The U.S. attorney who was fired last week after less than an hour on the job sued the Trump administration today, arguing he should be allowed to serve until a permanent successor is named.

Shortly after he was sworn in last week as the top government attorney in the Western District of Washington, Roger Rogoff was informed that Trump had fired him.

Rogoff, a former judge who also was a state and federal prosecutor, was unanimously appointed by a panel of federal judges to fill the job, in line with federal law, after the position in Seattle had been vacant for months.

In his lawsuit, which names Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department as defendants, Rogoff asked a federal judge to declare the firing “unlawful” and allow him to resume his assignment as U.S. attorney until the vacancy is filled by way of presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, reacted today to her new Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, who is scheduled to be formally nominated Saturday.

“I’ve known him for many, many years,” Collins told NBC News on Capitol Hill. “He has been around Augusta for, like, 20 years, and he’s from the same area of Maine that I’m from in northern Maine. He’s had quite a transformation over the years in his political views but now seems to be firmly aligned with the democratic socialists.”

Jackson is a former Maine Senate president with backing from labor groups.

Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for the Senate in Michigan, joined NBC News' "Meet the Press NOW" to discuss his bid against Rep. Haley Stevens in one of the most closely watched Democratic races of the cycle.

El-Sayed discusses U.S. military aid to Israel and his calls to abolish ICE.

‘Voters want change’: Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on tight primary race

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators today that he estimates the Iran war has cost the U.S. military $37.5 billion so far.

Hegseth revealed the new estimate at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing where he was joined by other Trump administration officials seeking additional funding.

The estimate has risen from $28 billion in the spring, before a ceasefire went into effect. Hostilities between the two countries have since resumed, particularly over the past 10 days.

NBC News reported this month that some experts and officials have put the overall cost for the war at $80 billion to $100 billion, including the cost of repairing damaged U.S. military bases, replacing destroyed aircraft and fully replenishing American weaponry.

Hegseth says Iran war will cost $37.5 billion

04:33

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters today he might be inclined to push for a delay in Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general if a deal to formally end Trump's "anti-weaponization" fund can't be reached in time.

“If it can’t get resolved, we just have to talk about the timing of the markup,” Tillis said, adding, “I know they’re acting in good faith, so we just need to get it done.”

He said there are two paths to formally kill Trump's nearly $1.8 billion fund that was part of a settlement of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS after some of his tax returns were made public. One path is a formal agreement with the Justice Department that's signed by a judge, and the other would be legislation.

Tillis also said another part of the settlement — an agreement that the IRS "forever discharges" Trump, his family members and companies from any existing audits, investigations and "monetary relief" the government could seek from tax returns filed before this May — should be narrowed to "something that's fair."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this afternoon that Iran still has military capabilities, a contrast to Trump’s repeated declarations about Iran.

“I acknowledge they still have capabilities, no doubt,” Hegseth said at a Senate hearing in an exchange with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “But the amount of damage that we’ve done to them over the course of these series of operations has put them in the worst place they’ve ever been.”

Trump has given a different assessment of Iran since the war started Feb. 28.

Trump told reporters in March that the Iranians, “from a military, military standpoint, they’re finished.” And in May, he said, "They’re decimated.”

Roughly 6,600 noncitizens were unwittingly registered to vote in New Jersey from 2023 to 2024, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said today.

Roughly 400 of them improperly cast votes, she said.

“They were registered as Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,” said Sherrill, a Democrat. She added that it is unclear which elections they voted in and said there was “no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed.”

Sherrill said the names are being removed from the voter rolls and that the noncitizens had been registered through no fault of their own because of “a serious software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System” from June 2023 to June 2024.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voiced concern about the lack of congressional authorization for ongoing U.S. military operations against Iran.

Murkowski said at a Senate hearing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that when she looks at the text of the 1970s War Powers Resolution, it's not "ambiguous."

"It requires the president to terminate hostilities within 60 days, absent congressional authorization. So hostilities began Feb. 28. May 1, Congress was informed that hostilities had ended, but yet, despite the fact that hostilities had ended, we were still seeing sailors being fired upon," Murkowski said.

Murkowski, who has joined Democrats in support of legislative measures to end the Iran war, noted that in mid-June, the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to preserve a ceasefire that had been reached.

Trump announced this afternoon that U.S. airlines could resume direct flights to Lebanon, reversing a Federal Aviation Administration regulation that was put in place over 40 years ago.

Trump said his decision stemmed from today's bilateral meeting with the Lebanese president at the White House.

“After meeting with the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, who has done a remarkable job working to transform his Country, I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land. Hopefully, other Countries will do the same,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, criticized the Trump administration over the removal of senior generals and admirals from their positions at the Defense Department since January 2025, when Trump took office again.

Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, noted that some officials were also blocked from promotions. NBC News reported on the developments in April.

She cited a New York Times article last month about 40 senior officers' being removed from promotion lists and more than two dozen generals and admirals who were fired or sidelined. She said the story said that more than half of those who were fired or removed were female or Black officers and that for the first time in more than a decade, no active-duty female naval officers are likely to be promoted to admiral.

"I find this deeply troubling. These are men and women who volunteered to serve our country and swore an oath to support and defend our Constitution," Collins said.

Numerous protesters interrupted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this afternoon during his opening statement at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Trump's supplemental funding request.

One by one, protesters stood up in the hearing room and held signs urging an end to the war with Iran. U.S. Capitol Police removed them.

"We will have order in the hearing room," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chair of the committee, said during the disruption.

The Maine Democratic Party announced today that four candidates have qualified for the ballot at this weekend's state convention, where Democrats will pick a new nominee for a pivotal Senate race.

Former state Senate President Troy Jackson qualified, and he's expected to win the nod after his supporters won almost all of the county convention seats at meetings over the weekend.

Three other candidates will also be on the ballot: Maine Beer Co. founder Dan Kleban, who dropped out of the race Sunday; David Costello, a former official in Maryland’s Department of the Environment who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate this year; and Saundra Pelletier, CEO of a women's healthcare pharmaceutical company.

The candidate who wins a majority of the 601 Democrats participating in Saturday's convention in Bangor will become the new nominee after Graham Platner, who won the Democratic primary, withdrew from the race.

The Senate Intelligence Committee today voted 9-8 along party lines to advance Jay Clayton’s nomination to be Trump’s director of national intelligence to the full Senate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans are aiming to confirm Clayton quickly.

“We’ll try and get Clayton done as soon as possible, as soon as we can, you know, get consent to move, and then FISA would follow on probably shortly after that,” Thune said today, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

During Clayton's confirmation hearing before the panel last week, he repeatedly refused to say in response to questions from Democrats whether President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, saying only that Biden was certified to be president.

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to review an Alaska bush pilot’s claims that state authorities have tried to illegally seize his $95,000 airplane after a passenger brought a six-pack of beer on a flight bound for a dry village.

Pilot Kenneth Jouppi.  James Wilson via AP

The pilot, Kenneth Jouppi, sued to block his plane’s seizure after he was convicted of an alcohol-related misdemeanor charge. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in the state’s favor that Jouppi’s plane was subject to criminal forfeiture laws.

Yesterday, however, the nation’s highest court agreed to hear Jouppi’s case. He argues that taking his 1969 Cessna would violate the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause.

Read the full story here.

Secretary of State Rubio will meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN ministerial meeting in Manila, a State Department official confirmed.

The meeting comes as Trump appeared to downplay his own accusations of China’s interference in U.S. elections during a primetime address last week.

“They do things and we do things to them,” Trump told reporters today during a meeting with the Lebanese president. “I’ll be honest, we do things to them, too. It’s not a one-way street. But we’ll be talking to them.”

Asked ahead of his departure for Manila on Sunday if he would raise election interference with China during any potential meeting with Wang, Rubio dodged the question.

A D.C. appeals court today upheld the conviction of Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro on two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022.

Peter Navarro. Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images file

The conviction came after the House of Representatives voted to hold Navarro in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena demanding he testify before the now-defunct House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

"The district court had authority to resolve whether executive privilege had been invoked as to the Select Committee’s subpoena to Dr. Navarro," a three-judge panel wrote. "And it correctly concluded that only the President or his designee could invoke the privilege. Because President Trump did not, in fact, invoke executive privilege, neither the Select Committee’s subpoena nor the prosecution for Dr. Navarro’s contumacy in the face of that subpoena presents the separation-of-powers concerns of which Dr. Navarro complains.”

Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison in January 2024 on the charges.

A plume of smoke rises after a strike on the Iranian capital of Tehran on March 3. Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty Images

The Iran conflict is entering a dangerous and murky new phase, with the regime showing it has retained enough firepower to kill and wound American personnel, though Trump has said repeatedly that the U.S. won the war.

Read the full story here.

Trump told reporters at the White House that he plans to discuss potential U.S. help for Lebanon's military during his meeting today with the country's president.

Asked if the U.S. would help Lebanon take over villages that Hezbollah has withdrawn from, Trump said, "We’ll be speaking about that today with the president, and we have some very concrete plans already in store for that, with others going in and helping. But they’re also becoming much more self-sufficient, and we will be speaking about that."

When a reporter posed a similar question about the Lebanese Armed Forces, the Lebanese president said that when he had earlier spoken on the phone with Trump, "I told him I need two things from you: political support and supporting of the LAF, which is the most trusted institution in the country, and it has the most powerful weapon, which is the trust of the public."

Asked separately if he has spoken to Hezbollah, Trump said, "I would speak to Hezbollah. I speak to everybody. I’ll speak to people that a lot of people think I shouldn’t be speaking to, and things work out."

During the meeting with the Lebanese president, Trump told reporters at the White House that the U.S. could strike the area of Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified site in Iran, after reports that Tehran could be trying to move nuclear centrifuges there.

When asked by a reporter if he believes Iran has moved centrifuges to Pickaxe Mountain, Trump responded: "Well, I think that they may have. We don't have it on record. All we do is read the fake news," adding that the U.S. priority was tracking Iran's nuclear materials.

"You're talking about the centrifuges," Trump said. "It doesn't mean anything unless they have the material. They don't have — we follow the material, that's where the action is, and we'll be hitting that area very, probably pretty soon, and there's not not a thing they can do.

"But, you know, normally I wouldn't say that if I thought they could do something about it, I would never say that," Trump continued. "But we'll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, didn’t mince words when he was asked whether Trump’s primetime speech succeeded in its goal of nudging the Republican-controlled Senate to pass his sweeping elections bill, known as the SAVE America Act.

Read the full story here.

Video shows a man pouring liquid and igniting a massive fire outside a federal building in New York City that includes offices for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and other agencies. Authorities say the suspect, identified as 43-year-old Andrew Arrabaca, a United States Army veteran, also fired an airsoft rifle and ignited incendiary devices. NBC’s Emilie Ikeda reports for "Today."

Man Arrested After Setting Fire Outside Manhattan Federal Building

02:00

Over a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse sent a letter to Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, urging them to oppose Todd Blanche's nomination to be attorney general.

"We understand that both of you remain open to opposing his nomination, and we are asking you to stand with survivors of human trafficking and sexual assault at this critical moment," they wrote.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Eric Lee / Getty Images

A federal appeals court has rejected a request by Joe Biden to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews with a memoir ghostwriter before he was elected president.

A divided three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suspended its decision until Aug. 3 to allow more time for Biden to consider another appeal.

The panel’s 2-1 ruling late yesterday found there is a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material that Biden wants to keep under wraps. Redactions to the recordings would help protect Biden’s privacy, the majority noted.

Read the full story here.

The Pentagon identified the active duty soldier killed in Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed drone as Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The incident, which occurred Sunday at Erbil air base, is under investigation, the Defense Department said.

Swinton was assigned to the 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was supporting contingency operations in Iraq.

The late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will be honored with a special ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda today, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., announced today.

The ceremony will be closed to the public, but it will be available to watch by livestream, Graham's sister, Sen. Darline Graham, announced. She was sworn in last week to serve the remainder of her brother’s term and plans to run for a full-six year term, which begins in January.

After the ceremony at the Capitol, Graham's body will be moved to the Washington National Cathedral for a funeral service later in the day, where Trump will deliver a tribute, her office said.

In a statement, Thune called the late senator "more than a colleague, he was a friend.”

The Middle East crisis cast a shadow over a diplomatic gathering in Southeast Asia today, where foreign ministers voiced serious concern over renewed hostilities that add to uncertainty in a region grappling to manage tensions and conflicts of its own.

Foreign ministers from the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and major partners have meetings in Manila this week against a backdrop of instability since the U.S. and Iran resumed open conflict, raising fears about energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as inflation and global growth.

Risks have increased in recent days, with Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis announcing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, opening a potential new front in the conflict and raising the threat to global energy supplies and trade beyond the Gulf.

Read the full story here.

The Trump administration informed a federal judge yesterday of its plans to conduct a “Façade Condition Assessment” and “Painting Feasibility Study” on the exterior of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, as plans to paint the historic government building become clearer.

The work, which is expected to be completed by an undisclosed building consultant and environmental services consultant beginning July 30, will consist of extracting samples of the stone from various parts of the wall to test its condition, including for microfractures, weathering and any pre-existing coatings and contaminants.

The administration said it will choose several inconspicuous spots to test whether mineral silicate paints can bond to the building's surface without the need to scrape the surface away, as well as the ability to remove the paint from the stone without damaging it.

In each test area, the building consultant will "use the gentlest means possible to clean the stone, apply one of the potential options for mineral silicate paint and, after sufficient cure time, remove the paint from that test area,” the deputy director of the Office of Administration, Heather Martin, wrote in a sworn declaration.

U.S. Central Command released video of its 10th night of consecutive strikes flying deep into Iran, targeting command centers, launch sites and air defenses. Trump says Iran “will pay” anytime it kills an American service member. Meanwhile, the State Department issued a rare global travel warning to Americans abroad after Iran sent another barrage of missiles into Jordan. NBC’s Keir Simmons reports for "TODAY."

U.S. carries out 10th night of strikes after service members killed

02:17

Trump imposed 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods yesterday, declaring that Canada has unfairly discriminated against American autos, alcohol and dairy products.

The move could unleash a new wave of economic chaos, with risks of higher inflation and further fraying of relations between two nations that had been closely woven together before Trump’s return to the White House. The administration official previewing the action said that Canada was one of the only nations other than China that retaliated against Trump’s previous tariffs and must be held accountable.

Read the full story here.

Lebanon’s president will meet with Trump today to wrap up a four-day visit to Washington, in a bid to bring about long-term calm in the war-torn country after months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.

Joseph Aoun’s landmark meeting with Trump comes as Lebanon and Israel continue to hold rare direct talks mediated by Washington. Lebanon hopes they will result in Israeli troops withdrawing from large swaths of southern Lebanon that they currently occupy, and for the Lebanese military to receive support to assert full control in areas where Hezbollah militants had held sway.

Read the full story here.

Today’s primaries in Arizona will set up several competitive House battleground races this fall, as well as competitive elections for governor, secretary of state and other offices. And as the 2026 election looms, the 2020 election still continues to play a big role in campaigns in the tightly divided swing state.

Read the full story here.