interview

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday offered his assurances that U.S. troops would not be sent to help defend Ukraine against Russia after seeming to leave open the possibility the day before.

Trump also said in a morning TV interview that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean peninsula from Russia are “impossible.”

The Republican president, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House on Monday aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. While answering questions from journalists, Trump did not rule out sending U.S. troops to participate in a European-led effort to defend Ukraine as part of security guarantees sought by Zelensky.

Trump said after his meeting in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Putin was open to the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine.

But asked Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” what assurances he could provide going beyond his term that American troops would not be part of defending Ukraine’s border, Trump said, “Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president.”

Trump would have no control over the U.S. military after his term ends in January 2029.

The president also said in the interview that he is optimistic that a deal can be reached to end the Russian invasion, but he underscored that Ukraine will have to set aside its hope of getting back Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in 2014, and its long-held aspirations of joining the NATO military alliance.

“Both of those things are impossible,” Trump said.

Putin, as part of any potential deal to pull his forces out of Ukraine, is looking for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.

At the end of Monday’s White House gathering, Trump said he is trying to arrange a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, followed by a trilateral meeting involving himself and the two warring leaders. Details and possible locations were not discussed, but an international arrest warrant for Putin could complicate any such meetings.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it could happen “in Europe” and he’s advocating for Geneva, although he said it could be another “neutral” country. He noted in an interview with French television TF1-LCI broadcast Tuesday that Istanbul hosted the most recent bilateral discussions, in 2022.

Meanwhile, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said his country would be prepared to organize such a summit, Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported.

Asked about the complication posed by the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Putin, Cassis said “the aim of receiving Mr. Putin in Switzerland without him being arrested is 100% achievable … of course, if he comes to Switzerland for the purposes of peace, for such a multilateral conference, not if he comes for private matters.”

Cassis said arranging for Putin to avoid arrest would require “a certain procedure,” but it could be done “in a few days.”

In the “Fox & Friends” interview, Trump said Putin and Zelensky are getting along “a little better than I thought,” noting the “tremendous bad blood” between them.

He said his perception of their relationship is why he’s arranging for them to meet one-on-one soon, instead of a three-way meeting with himself as sort of a mediator.

“I think they’re doing OK. I wouldn’t say they are ever going to be best friends, but they’re doing OK,” the president said.”

“You know, they’re the ones that have to call the shots,” Trump said. “We’re 7,000 miles away.”

The White House meeting with Zelensky included the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the European Union and NATO.

Trump said the European leaders were not in the room when he spoke with Putin on Monday. He said he thought it would have been disrespectful to handle the phone call that way since Putin and the European leaders meeting with him at the White House haven’t had the “warmest relations.”

But despite that, he said that he has managed to maintain a “very good relationship” with Putin.

Superville and Madhani write for the Associated Press.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — U.S. veterans of the war in Afghanistan are telling a commission reviewing decisions on the 20-year conflict that their experience was not only hell, but also confounding, demoralizing and at times humiliating.

The bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission aims to reflect such veterans’ experiences in a report due to Congress next year, which will analyze key strategic, diplomatic, military and operational decisions made between June 2001 and the chaotic withdrawal in August 2021.

The group released its second interim report on Tuesday, drawing no conclusions yet but identifying themes emerging from thousands of pages of government documents; some 160 interviews with cabinet-level officials, military commanders, diplomats, Afghan and Pakistani leaders and others; and forums with veterans like one recently held at a national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Columbus, Ohio.

“What can we learn from the Afghanistan War?” asked an Aug. 12 discussion session with four of the commission’s 16 members. What they got was two straight hours of dozens of veterans’ personal stories — not one glowingly positive, and most saturated in frustration and disappointment.

“I think the best way to describe that experience was awful,” said Marine veteran Brittany Dymond, who served in Afghanistan in 2012.

Navy veteran Florence Welch said the 2021 withdrawal made her ashamed she ever served there.

“It turned us into a Vietnam, a Vietnam that none of us worked for,” she said.

Members of Congress, some driven by having served in the war, created the independent commission several months after the withdrawal, after an assessment by the Democratic administration of then-President Biden faulted the actions of President Trump’s first administration for constraining U.S. options. A Republican review, in turn, blamed Biden. Views of the events remain divided, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered yet another review this spring.

The commission wants to understand the bigger picture of a conflict that spanned four presidential administrations and cost more than 2,400 American lives, said Co-Chair Dr. Colin Jackson.

“So we’re interested in looking hard at the end of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, but we’re equally interested in understanding the beginning, the middle and the end,” he said in an interview in Columbus.

Co-chair Shamila Chaudhary said the panel is also exploring more sweeping questions.

“So our work is not just about what the U.S. did in Afghanistan but what the U.S. should be doing in any country where it deems it has a national security interest,” she said. “And not just should it be there, but how it should behave, what values does it guide itself by, and how does it engage with individuals who are very different from themselves.”

Jackson said one of the commission’s priorities is making sure the final report, due in August 2026, isn’t “unrecognizable to any veteran of the Afghanistan conflict.”

“The nature of the report should be representative of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine experience,” he said.

Dymond told commissioners a big problem was the mission.

“You cannot exert a democratic agenda, which is our foreign policy, you cannot do that on a culture of people who are not bought into your ideology,” she said. “What else do we expect the outcome to be? And so we had two decades of service members lost and maimed because we’re trying to change an ideology that they didn’t ask for.”

The experience left eight-year Army veteran Steve Orf demoralized. He said he didn’t go there “to beat a bad guy.”

“Those of us who served generally wanted to believe that we were helping to improve the world, and we carried with us the hopes, values, and principles of the United States — values and principles that also seem to have been casualties of this war,” he told commissioners. “For many of us, faith with our leaders is broken and trust in our country is broken.”

Tuesday’s report identifies emerging themes of the review to include strategic drift, interagency incoherence, and whether the war inside Afghanistan and the counterterrorism war beyond were pursuing the same aims or at cross purposes.

It also details difficulties the commission has encountered getting key documents. According to the report, the Biden administration initially denied the commission’s requests for White House materials on the implementation of the February 2020 peace agreement Trump signed with the Taliban, called the Doha Agreement, and on the handling of the withdrawal, citing executive confidentiality concerns.

The transition to Trump’s second term brought further delays and complications, but since the commission has pressed the urgency of its mission with the new administration, critical intelligence and documents have now begun to flow, the report says.

Smyth and Aftoora-Orsagos write for the Associated Press.

In a police department with a long tradition of colorful nicknames — from “Jigsaw John” to “Captain Hollywood” — LAPD Sgt. Joseph Lloyd stands out.

“The Grim Reaper.”

At least that’s what some on the force have taken to calling the veteran Internal Affairs detective, usually out of earshot.

According to officers who have found themselves under investigation by Lloyd, he seems to relish the moniker and takes pleasure in ending careers, even if it means twisting facts and ignoring evidence.

But Lloyd’s backers maintain his dogged pursuit of the truth is why he has been entrusted with some of the department’s most politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing cases.

Lloyd, 52, declined to comment. But The Times spoke to more than half a dozen current or former police officials who either worked alongside him or fell under his scrutiny.

During the near decade that he’s been in Internal Affairs, Lloyd has investigated cops of all ranks.

When a since-retired LAPD officer was suspected of running guns across the Mexican border, the department turned to Lloyd to bust him.

In 2020, when it came out that members of the elite Metropolitan Division were falsely labeling civilians as gang members in a police database, Lloyd was tapped to help unravel the mess.

And when a San Fernando Valley anti-gang squad was accused in 2023 of covering up shakedowns of motorists, in swooped the Reaper again.

Recently he was assigned to a department task force looking into allegations of excessive force by police against activists who oppose the government’s immigration crackdown.

At the LAPD, as in most big-city police departments across the country, Internal Affairs investigators tend to be viewed with suspicion and contempt by their colleagues. They usually try to operate in relative anonymity.

Not Lloyd.

The 24-year LAPD veteran has inadvertently become the face of a pitched debate over the LAPD’s long-maligned disciplinary system. The union that represents most officers has long complained that well-connected senior leaders get favorable treatment. Others counter that rank-and-file cops who commit misconduct are routinely let off the hook.

A recent study commissioned by Chief Jim McDonnell found that perceived unfairness in internal investigations is a “serious point of contention” among officers that has contributed to low morale. McDonnell has said he wants to speed up investigations and better screen complaints, but efforts by past chiefs and the City Council to overhaul the system have repeatedly stalled.

Sarah Dunster, 40, was a sergeant working in the LAPD’s Hollywood division in 2021 when she learned she was under investigation for allegedly mishandling a complaint against one of her officers, who was accused of groping a woman he arrested.

Dunster said she remembers being interviewed by Lloyd, whose questions seemed designed to trip her up and catch her in a lie, rather than aimed at hearing her account of what happened, she said. Some of her responses never made it into Lloyd’s report, she said.

“He wanted to fire me,” she said.

Dunster was terminated over the incident, but she appealed and last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a reprieve that allows her to potentially get her job back.

Others who have worked with Lloyd say he is regarded as a savvy investigator who is unfairly being vilified for discipline decisions that are ultimately made by the chief of police. A supervisor who oversaw Lloyd at Internal Affairs — and requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media — described him as smart, meticulous and “a bulldog.”

“Joe just goes where the facts lead him and he doesn’t have an issue asking the hard questions,” the supervisor said.

On more than one occasion, the supervisor added, Internal Affairs received complaints from senior department officials who thought that Lloyd didn’t show them enough deference during interrogations. Other supporters point to his willingness to take on controversial cases to hold officers accountable, even while facing character attacks from his colleagues, their attorneys and the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Officers have sniped about his burly build, tendency to smile during interviews and other eccentricities. He wears two watches — one on each wrist, a habit he has been heard saying he picked up moonlighting as a high school lacrosse referee.

But he has also been criticized as rigid and uncompromising, seeming to fixate only on details that point to an officer’s guilt. People he has grilled say that when he doesn’t get the answer he’s looking for, he has a Columbo-esque tendency to ask the same question in different ways in an attempt to elicit something incriminating.

And instead of asking officers to clarify any discrepancies in their statements, Lloyd automatically assumes they are lying, some critics said.

Mario Munoz, a former LAPD Internal Affairs lieutenant who opened a boutique firm that assists officers fighting employment and disciplinary cases, recently released a scathing 60-page report questioning what he called a series of troubling lapses in the LAPD’s 2023 investigation of the Mission gang unit. The report name-drops Lloyd several times.

The department accused several Mission officers of stealing brass knuckles and other items from motorists in the San Fernando Valley, and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by switching off their body-worn cameras.

Munoz said he received calls from officers who said Lloyd had violated their due process rights, which potentially opens the city up to liability. Several have since lodged complaints against Lloyd with the department. He alleged Lloyd ultimately singled out several “scapegoats to shield higher-level leadership from scrutiny.”

Until he retired from the LAPD in 2014, Munoz worked as both an investigator and an auditor who reviewed landmark internal investigations into the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the Rampart gang scandal in which officers were accused of robbing people and planting evidence, among other crimes.

Munoz now echoes a complaint from current officers that Internal Affairs in general, and Lloyd in particular, operate to protect the department’s image at all costs.

“He’s the guy that they choose because he doesn’t question management,” Munoz said of Lloyd.

In the Mission case, Munoz pointed to inconsistent outcomes for two captains who oversaw the police division accused of wrongdoing: One was transferred and later promoted, while another is fighting for his job amid accusations that he failed to rein in his officers.

Two other supervisors — Lt. Mark Garza and Sgt. Jorge “George” Gonzalez — were accused by the department of creating a “working environment that resulted in the creation of a police gang,” according to an internal LAPD report. Both Garza and Gonzalez have sued the city, alleging that even though they reported the wrongdoing as soon as they became aware of it, they were instead punished by the LAPD after the scandal became public.

According to Munoz’s report and interviews with department sources, Lloyd was almost single-handedly responsible for breaking the Mission case open.

It began with a complaint in late December 2022 made by a motorist who said he was pulled over and searched without reason in a neighboring patrol area. Lloyd learned that the officers involved had a pattern of not documenting traffic stops — exploiting loopholes in the department’s auditing system for dashboard and body cameras. The more Lloyd dug, the more instances he uncovered of these so-called “ghost stops.”

A few months later, undercover Internal Affairs detectives began tailing the two involved officers — something that Garza and Gonzalez both claimed they were kept in the dark about.

As of last month, four officers involved had been fired and another four had pending disciplinary hearings where their jobs hung in the balance. Three others resigned before the department could take action. The alleged ringleader, Officer Alan Carrillo, faces charges of theft and “altering, planting or concealing evidence.” Court records show he was recently offered pretrial diversion by L.A. County prosecutors, which could spare him jail but require him to stop working in law enforcement. Carrillo has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In an interview with The Times, Gonzalez — the sergeant who is facing termination — recalled a moment during a recorded interrogation that he found so troubling he contacted the police union director Jamie McBride, to express concern. McBride, he said, went to Lloyd’s boss, then-deputy chief Michael Rimkunas, seeking Lloyd’s removal from Internal Affairs.

The move failed. Lloyd kept his job.

Rimkunas confirmed the exchange with the police union leader in an interview with The Times.

He said that while he couldn’t discuss Lloyd specifically due to state personnel privacy laws, in general the department assigns higher-profile Internal Affairs cases to detectives with a proven track record.

Gonzalez, though, can’t shake the feeling that Lloyd crossed the line in trying to crack him during an interrogation.

He said that at one point while Lloyd was asking questions, the detective casually flipped over his phone, which had been sitting on the table. On the back of the protective case, Gonzalez said, was a grim reaper sticker.

“And then as he turned it he looked at me as if to get a reaction from me,” Gonzalez said. “It was definitely a way of trying to intimidate me for sure.”

Tristan Rogers, the Australian actor behind the magnetic Robert Scorpio on “General Hospital,” died Friday after a battle with lung cancer, according to his manager. He was 79.

In an email to The Times, Rogers’ manager Meryl Soodak said his client was “a family man” who is survived by his wife, two children and a grandson.

“[He was] loyal, kind and loved his role of Scorpio,” Soodak said.

Rogers’ signature commanding voice and poised bravado made Scorpio a fan favorite on the long-running soap opera, and became his most recognizable role. As the enemy-turned-close-friend of star character Luke Spencer (played by Anthony Geary), Rogers appeared in some of the most memorable moments of the show’s run.

In November 1981, Scorpio stood by as Luke and fellow star character Laura wed in front of 30 million viewers, still the highest-rated hour in American soap opera history.

In true soap opera fashion, Scorpio would allegedly die a dramatic and fiery death in an explosion in South America in 1992, only to return alive for a short stint in 2006.

Through every iteration of his “General Hospital” career, Rogers embraced Scorpio’s status as an ‘80s TV icon.

“I think this character will follow me to my grave,” Rogers told the New York Times in 2006.

Rogers was born June 3, 1946, in Melbourne, Australia. Out of high school, he played in a rock band with friends and began taking up modeling roles, he recalled in an interview. For “extra money,” he acted in small TV and soap opera roles in Australia in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, including stints in the shows “Bellbird,” “Number 96” and “The Box.”

Early in his career, his Australian accent deterred casting directors from booking him for American shows, Rogers recalled in a 2022 interview. However, in 1980, he found himself auditioning for what was supposed to be a small, single-episode role on “General Hospital.”

This caught the eye of Gloria Monty, the show’s visionary producer, who asked Rogers to stay on as a recurring character.

Rogers was key to shaping the character of Scorpio, from his name to his risk-taking bravery, on what would eventually become the longest-running daytime soap opera in American television history, according to Guinness World Records.

“I started in earnest, I had a feeling that I had done something right. I had evolved into the character. [Scorpio] took everyone by surprise, he looked different, he sounded different, he conducted himself in a different way and the public latched onto this right away. And so all of a sudden, away we went,” Rogers said in a radio interview earlier this year.

While the show was set in a New York hospital, the late 80s saw it shift focus into an action adventure storyline that heavily featured Scorpio as an agent of the fictional World Security Bureau, or WSB.

Broadcaster ABC notes that the change kept the attention of viewers and contributed to the continuation of the show’s success, as spies and agents created complex and popular mystery storylines within the “General Hospital” universe.

According to the New York Times, the second week after Rogers’ character was revived in 2006, “General Hospital” was the No. 1 daytime drama among young women, drawing larger-than-average audiences back to the show.

Rogers also acted in the series “The Young and the Restless,” “The Bay,” and “Studio City,” as well as voice-acting in the Disney animated film “The Rescuers Down Under.”

Genie Francis, who played Laura Spencer in “General Hospital,” said of Rogers on X, “My heart is heavy. Goodbye my spectacular friend. My deepest condolences to his wife Teresa and their children. Tristan Rogers was a very bright light, as an actor and a person. I was so lucky to have known him.”

Kin Shriner, also an actor on the show, added in a video posted on X, “I met Tristan 44 years ago at the Luke and Laura wedding. We were stashed in a trailer and I was taken by his Australian charm. Over the years we’ve worked together … we always had fun. I will miss Tristan very much.”

In one of his last interviews, Rogers reflected on the joy of his acting career.

“I’ve had a good time of it,” he said.

Art Fein, a Los Angeles music-scene renaissance man who worked as a journalist, publicist, manager and television host over a six-decade career, has died. He was 79.

Fein died of heart failure on July 30 while recovering from surgery for a broken hip, according to Cliff Burnstein, co-founder of Q Prime Management and a longtime friend.

Arthur David Fein was born June 17, 1946. Growing up in Chicago, he was transfixed by a Chuck Berry concert at age 10 and devoted his life to discovering, championing and preserving rock music. After moving to Los Angeles in 1971 to pursue a career in music journalism, he got a job in Capitol Records’ then-nascent college promotion department. There, he befriended John Lennon and Yoko Ono, while coordinating interviews with college radio stations for Ono’s latest album, “Approximately Infinite Universe.”

After leaving Capitol, he wrote music reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Herald-Examiner, Billboard and others before being hired as music editor at Variety. “By the time I got this job, I was sick of the new, aggravating profession of rock criticism,” he recalled in his 2022 memoir “Rock’s in My Head.” “It was about writers, not the music. I wasn’t interested in being terribly critical. I was an advocate. I wanted to help the music along; rock critics wanted to help their sense of superiority.”

He returned to the label world with stints at Elektra/Asylum and Casblanca but pivoted to management, incubating a proto-punk scene that would yield influential L.A. acts like the Cramps, the Blasters and the Heaters. A compilation he assembled, 1983’s “(Art Fein Presents) The Best of L.A. Rockabilly,” became a bible for bands inspired by X and Social Distortion, which drew from vintage rockabilly but amped it up for the punk age.

His public access cable TV show, “Lil Art’s Poker Party,” featured interviews and performances with his favorite musicians and ran in SoCal for 24 years. Rhino Records co-founder Richard Foos recalled that “for years we had a weekly poker game either at his house or mine. I was there the night [music critic] Lester Bangs was playing. We started the first hand, started talking music, and never played another hand.”

In 1990, Fein published “The L.A. Musical History Tour: A Guide to the Rock and Roll Landmarks of Los Angeles,” a compendium of locations guiding readers to grave sites of stars such as Roy Orbison and Ritchie Valens, and sites where Sam Cooke, Janis Joplin, Marvin Gaye, Tim Hardin, Dennis Wilson and Darby Crash died.

Fein also developed a complicated relationship with producer Phil Spector, to whom Lennon had introduced Fein as the man who “knows all about music.” Fein became part of Spector’s inner circle, even into his deeply troubled years when he was convicted of murdering House of Blues hostess Lana Clarkson. Fein maintained contact with Spector even after he was sentenced to life in prison.

The Blasters’ lead guitarist Dave Alvin wrote on Facebook that “Back in the early days of The Blasters, when few outside of Rollin’ Rock Records knew or cared who we were, Art cared deeply. In early 1980, I was a wannabe poet working as a fry cook in Long Beach … Art Fein played ‘Marie Marie’ to a Welsh rock ‘n’ roll singer named Shakin’ Stevens, who quickly recorded my song and made it into a huge international hit. … Thanks to Art Fein, I was soon able to quit my job as a cook and pursue music. I can never, ever thank you enough for all you did for me, Art.”

Singer-songwriter-guitarist Rosie Flores added that “back in ‘94 when I was touring with Butch Hancock in Europe, I took a bad fall, at the end of our month-long tour. I slipped in the rain on a cobblestone street in London and severely broke my wrist. Three months later I was invited to sing at the Elvis [annual birthday] bash at The House of Blues … It was normal protocol to donate all the money from the proceeds of the show and give it to an organization or a charity. This year, Art surprised me and handed me a stack of money to the tune of $1,500 for my medical bills. I didn’t expect that at all [and] it brought tears to my eyes.”

In the closing lines of his memoir, Fein wrote that “I can’t say anything terribly pithy or canny about the state of record sales, or streaming, or new delivery systems. Or how YouTube or TikTok are shaping contemporary music.”

“It turns out I didn’t want to be in the music business; I wanted to be in the music,” he wrote. “There I remain.”

Fein is survived by daughter Jessie and wife Jennifer.

Jennifer Aniston just came out with an unexpected, wistful comment about her “Friends” co-star Matthew Perry’s death: Part of her, she said, thinks it might be “better” for him that he died.

“We did everything we could when we could,” the “Morning Show” star said in an interview published Monday by Vanity Fair, talking about Perry’s friends’ attempts to help him when he was struggling with addiction. “But it almost felt like we’d been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight.”

Indeed, Perry discussed his friends’ efforts to help him in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” which recounted his decades-long struggles with substance abuse as well as his numerous recovery efforts.

“Although he asserts he was never high while filming ‘Friends,’ he’d often be sick or hungover,” former staff writer Christina Veta wrote in The Times’ review of the memoir. “Once, Perry passed out on the Central Perk couch and [co-star Matt] LeBlanc had to nudge him awake to say his line. Later, Aniston called him out for drinking again, telling him, ‘We can smell it.’”

Perry told Aniston, “I know I’m drinking too much, but I don’t exactly know what to do about it.”

“In nature, when a penguin is injured, the other penguins group around it and prop it up until it’s better,” he wrote in his memoir. “This is what my costars on Friends did for me. There were times on set when I was extremely hungover, and Jen and Courteney [Cox], being devoted to cardio as a cure-all, had a Lifecycle exercise bike installed backstage. In between rehearsals and takes, I’d head back there and ride that thing like the fires of hell were chasing me — anything to get my brain power back to normal. I was the injured penguin, but I was determined to not let these wonderful people, and this show, down.”

Aniston told Vanity Fair in the new interview, “looking solemn and out toward the ocean” as she spoke about Perry’s death, “As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better. I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”

Perry said in his memoir that amid all his drinking and drug use, he was never suicidal.

“In the back of my mind I always had some semblance of hope. But, if dying was a consequence of getting to take the quantity of drugs I needed, then death was something I was going to have to accept,” he wrote about the period after “Friends” ended.

“That’s how skewed my thinking had become — I was able to hold those two things in my mind at the same time: I don’t want to die, but if I have to in order to get sufficient drugs on board, then amen to oblivion.”

Almost exactly a year after the memoir came out, on Oct. 28, 2024, at 4 in the afternoon, Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home. The drug ketamine would later emerge as his official cause of death, with drowning a contributing factor.

The hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” is making its way to the big screen on Sept. 5.

Lin-Manuel Miranda announced the theatrical release date for the Tony Award-winning musical Tuesday night during an interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

“We always wanted to release it theatrically, but then the pandemic hit and so we decided to release it on streaming, so that everyone could see it at home whenever they wanted,” Miranda said on the show. “[Soon] you will be able to see ‘Hamilton’ in movie theaters nationwide and in Puerto Rico.”

The show’s cinematic release marks a major milestone: It’s been nearly 10 years since the off-Broadway premiere of “Hamilton,” which was based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the United States. Created by Miranda, who also composed the music, lyrics and book, the hip-hop- and R&B-inflected musical used source material from “Alexander Hamilton,” a 2004 biography written by Ron Chernow. The musical went on to win 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2016.

The film was shot in June 2016, during a live performance at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, and features much of the original cast. This includes Miranda as Alexander Hamilton; Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr; Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler and Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton.

The film was originally slated for release in movie theaters in October 2021. Disney paid $75 million for worldwide movie rights in 2020 and released it later that year exclusively on its streaming platform; the film went on to win two Emmy Awards in 2021.

The “Hamilton” anniversary is being celebrated in more ways than one. Prior to Miranda’s “Tonight Show” interview, Madame Tussauds New York unveiled a wax figure of Miranda dressed as Alexander Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Two special performances of the hit musical will also take place at the same theater today. Every actor who has performed on the Broadway musical since its opening has been invited, according to the Associated Press.

Attendees for the matinee were already selected via a lottery process and the evening performance is an invite-only fundraiser for the Immigrants: We Get the Job Done Coalition — a host of 14 immigrant service organizations that uplift immigrant communities across the country.

Tickets for the film are now available for purchase.

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department on Tuesday for files in the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation and is seeking depositions with the Clintons and former law enforcement officials, part of a congressional probe that lawmakers believe may show links to President Trump and former top officials.

The Republican-controlled committee issued subpoenas for depositions with former President Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight former top law enforcement officials.

The committee’s actions showed how even with lawmakers away from Washington on a monthlong break, interest in the Epstein files is still running high. Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and claimed he cut off their relationship long ago, and he has repeatedly tried to move past the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation. But lawmakers from both major political parties, as well as many in the Republican president’s political base, have refused to let it go.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chair of the Oversight Committee, noted in letters to U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and the former officials that the cases of Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell “have received immense public interest and scrutiny.”

“While the Department undertakes efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell’s cases, it is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex-trafficking laws generally, and specifically, its handling of the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell,” Comer said.

Epstein’s circle

Since Epstein’s 2019 death in a New York jail cell as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges, conservative conspiracists have stoked theories about what information investigators gathered on Epstein — and who else knew about his sexual abuse of teenage girls. Republican lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee nodded to that line of questioning last month by initiating the subpoenas for the Clintons, both Democrats, as well as demanding all communications between President Biden’s Democratic administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein.

Bill Clinton was among a number of luminaries acquainted with Epstein, a wealthy financier, before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, once gave a newspaper interview in which she described riding in a helicopter with Clinton and flirting with Trump, but she later said in a deposition that those things hadn’t actually happened and were mistakes by the reporter. Clinton has previously said through a spokesperson that while he traveled on Epstein’s jet, he never visited his homes and had no knowledge of his crimes.

The committee is also demanding interviews under oath from former attorneys general spanning the last four presidential administrations: Merrick Garland, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Alberto Gonzales. Lawmakers also subpoenaed former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller.

However, it was Democrats who sparked the move to subpoena the Justice Department for its files on Epstein. They were joined by some Republicans last month to successfully initiate the subpoena through a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee.

“Today was an important step forward in our fight for transparency regarding the Epstein files and our dedication to seeking justice for the victims,” said Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on the committee, and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, who initiated the subpoena, in a joint statement. “Now, we must continue putting pressure on the Department of Justice until we actually receive every document.”

Will the subpoenas be enforced?

The subpoenas give the Justice Department until Aug. 19 to hand over the requested records, though such requests are typically open to negotiation and can be resisted by the Trump administration.

The committee is also asking the former officials to appear for the depositions throughout August, September and October, concluding with Hillary Clinton on Oct. 9 and Bill Clinton on Oct. 14.

Multiple former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, but none has been compelled to do so. That history was invoked by Trump in 2022, between his first and second terms, when he faced a subpoena by the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

Lawyers for Trump resisted the subpoena, citing decades of legal precedent they said shielded an ex-president from being ordered to appear before Congress. The committee ultimately withdrew its subpoena.

The committee had previously issued a subpoena for an interview with Maxwell, who had been serving a prison sentence in Florida for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein but was recently transferred to a Texas facility.

However, Comer has indicated he is willing to delay that deposition until after the Supreme Court decides whether to hear an appeal to her conviction. She argues she was wrongfully prosecuted.

As the Justice Department has tried to appease demands for more disclosure, it has turned attention to Maxwell. Officials interviewed her for 1 1/2 days last month.

But Democrats stressed the importance of gaining direct access to the investigative files, rather than relying on Maxwell’s words.

“We need these files now in order to corroborate any claims she makes,” Garcia and Lee said, adding: “This fight is not over.”

Prosecutors say there’s not much new in grand jury transcripts

Another way the Trump administration is trying to address the public clamor for more transparency is by asking federal judges to unseal grand jury transcripts in the cases against Epstein and Maxwell. But prosecutors indicated Monday the public already knows a lot of what’s in the documents.

Much of the information “was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” prosecutors wrote in court papers Monday.

The prosecutors also made clear they’re seeking to unseal only the transcripts of grand jury witnesses’ testimony, not the exhibits that accompanied it.

Groves writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Jennifer Peltz and David Caruso in New York and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

The Valdai Discussion Club, in partnership with the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), will hold the 3rd Russian-African conference titled “Realpolitik in a Divided World: Rethinking Russia-South Africa Ties in a Global and African Context” in late July 2025. The primary goal of the conference is to form and expand communities of African and Russian experts interested in cooperation, the confidential discussion of the most pressing international issues, and the preparation of recommendations for practical foreign policy work.

It is no coincidence that South Africa has been chosen as the venue for the Valdai’s conference. In 2025, South Africa chairs the G20 summit. In preparation for the upcoming late July conference, Steven Gruzd, Head of the African Governance and Diplomacy Programme and the Africa-Russia Project at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), offers an insight into the current Russia-South Africa relations, the United States trade issues with Africa, and Africa’s future prospects in this rapidly changing world. Here are the interview excerpts:

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) will host the 3rd Russian-African conference of the Valdai Discussion Club in South Africa. Within the context of the shifting geopolitics, what would you say, in terms of current Russia-South Africa relations, its status and prospects, as one of the themes for discussion?

Steven Gruzd: SAIIA looks forward to co-hosting the Third Russian-African Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club later in July 2025. We believe that it is important to interact and engage with a variety of actors in a balanced and nuanced way. We do not believe that academic boycotts are constructive.

The event is being held against the backdrop of rapidly shifting global geopolitics and the erosion of the “rules-based international order,” as nationalism is reasserted and conflicts endure in the Great Lakes in East-Central Africa and in the Middle East.

South Africa has maintained good relations with Russia throughout the last decade, although trade remains at a relatively low level and there is much scope to improve it. Diplomatically, relations are warm and constructive, and have been enhanced by regular interaction between the two countries in both BRICS and the G20. South Africa has tried to play a mediating role in Russia’s war with Ukraine, but here it has been one voice among many and does not have much concrete to show for these efforts, as the war rages on. Nevertheless, it remains a key driver of the African Peace Initiative. At the UN, most of South Africa’s votes on the Russia-Ukraine war have been abstentions, in line with its declared non-aligned stance.

To what degree are the few points raised above influencing or reshaping Russian-African relations? Do you also think Russia is rivaling and competing with its own BRICS members, for instance, China and India, across the continent?

SG: Russia-Africa relations have been steadily growing, as the two well-attended Russia-Africa Summits in 2019 and 2023 attest to. As Russia has faced sanctions and been shunned by the West, it has sought new markets and to strengthen ties with the Global South, including in Africa. Russia supported the membership of Egypt and Ethiopia to become full BRICS members at the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg. The 2024 BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, was successful and added Algeria, Nigeria, and Uganda as “partner countries.” This was an important occasion for Russia to show that it was not internationally isolated and could still rely on many countries as friends.

The operations of the Wagner Group, especially in the Sahel, have been gradually subsumed under the Africa Corps of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Russia has been strengthening bilateral relations with many African countries and is looking to provide peaceful-use nuclear technology to about 20 African countries. It is heavily involved in the building of a nuclear energy plant in Dabaa, Egypt.

Russia’s BRICS partners—China and India, but also the UAE and Saudi Arabia—are active on the African continent, but at this stage it seems that all are able to achieve their strategic objectives in Africa without coming into conflict with one another.

Do you view South Africa’s G20 presidency as a unique factor for fighting neo-colonialism and Western hegemony and for addressing thorny trade issues with the United States?

SG: South Africa’s G20 presidency is important. It remains the only African member state of the G20, although the African Union has joined as a full member since 2023. This is the first time that the G20 is hosted in Africa. As the president, South Africa has the ability to influence the G20’s agenda. It is the fourth developing country in a row to host the G20—after Indonesia (2022), India (2023), and Brazil (2024). It has continued several of the initiatives of these Global South states in its focus. South Africa’s priorities include strengthening disaster resilience and response, ensuring debt sustainability for low-income countries, mobilizing finance for a just energy transition, and harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development. The aim is for a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient global economy.

So far, the US has not sent its top leaders to preparatory meetings in South Africa, and there is doubt whether US President Donald Trump will attend the G20 Summit in November. This threatened to damage South Africa’s leadership, but the other G20 members have rallied to support South Africa.

I do not think that the G20 is the venue to “fight neo-colonialism, Western hegemony, and trade issues with the United States,” or at least not in using that language. I think BRICS may be a more appropriate platform to air these issues. South Africa will nevertheless push the concerns of the Global South this year.

Can South Africa’s presidency change perceptions of the G20’s role in global politics and its invaluable contributions to Africa’s development?

SG: I believe South Africa is doing well in its G20 stewardship so far and will hopefully host a successful summit, which has become especially challenging in the current geopolitical environment. If Trump does not attend, it will be damaging to the G20, particularly because the US is the host for 2026. South Africa’s relations with the US have deteriorated, including over Trump’s views on the treatment of white farmers, the expulsion of Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from Washington, and threatened high tariffs, among many other issues.

The summit will hopefully showcase South Africa and change perceptions about failed or failing African states. South Africa remains a key player in Africa, contributing to the continent’s development through peace efforts, trade, and political interactions.

But I also think South Africa should be and has been modest in its expectations of what the G20 can do during any one-year presidency. The G20 remains one of the few forums where Russia and the West still sit around the same table, and it has been challenging to reach consensus.

South-South cooperation is frequently resonating, as is the United States skipping the G20, Trump, and the new world architecture featuring in bilateral and multilateral discussions. Can African leaders change attitudes and face geopolitical development realities? Can Africa remain non-aligned? What then can we expect as future prospects, especially for Africa?

SG: There is no doubt that South-South cooperation is happening and being talked about more and more, and it is set to continue. The global environment is subject to profound geopolitical tensions, not least due to Trump’s “America First” policies, including high trade tariffs. The entire world of development assistance or foreign aid is likewise undergoing far-reaching changes. Trump has destroyed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), putting at risk or shutting down countless development projects in Africa. European countries—for a long time generous donors to Africa—are diverting billions of euros in development funding to defense and dealing with migration-related issues.

African countries will be under continual pressure to “pick a side” in what some have called the “New Cold War,” and for the most part they will continue to assert their non-aligned stances. How long they can continue on this path is unclear. And many say they are non-aligned but continue to lean closer to either the West or China and Russia in reality. African leaders are having to adjust to a rapidly changing and uncertain world, the contours of which are not entirely clear at this point. African leaders have been forced to deal with a world with less aid. Hopefully this will encourage African states to be more self-reliant, curb corruption, and pursue their national interests.

Most UK holidaymakers will also have to pay a fee before jetting off

Brits heading to EU nations such as Italy, Spain or France may soon have to undertake an interview before permission to enter is granted. It’s all to do with new rules that will soon come in following Brexit.

Once a new scheme gets underway, UK passport holders will need a travel permit to visit any part of the Schengen area, made up of 25 EU countries and four additional nations. EU leaders have stated that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is being introduced to enhance security and the borders of the Schengen zone.

The implementation of the scheme has been delayed several times, but according to the latest update, UK travellers won’t require one for EU travel until at least April 2027. The EU’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs announced earlier this year that the ETIAS will be launched in the final quarter of 2026, and due to a transitional and grace period, the requirement to apply for an ETIAS before departure won’t become mandatory until 2027.

READ MORE: I’ve been to 30 countries and there are six cities in Europe I’d never revisitREAD MORE: ‘Tourists at my Majorca hotel race for sunbeds – but I show them there’s no point’

The roll-out of ETIAS is tied to the introduction of the Entry/Exit System (EES), and each permit will cost 20 euros. It will be necessary for travel to and within the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.

With a valid ETIAS, you can make multiple trips into the territories of the participating European nations for short stays, typically up to 90 days within any 180-day period. However, it doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be allowed in.

At the border, officials will check your passport and other documents to confirm you satisfy the entry requirements. Most ETIAS applications are to be processed and approved “almost immediately”, but some could be turned down.

One reason for this, according to SchengenVisaInfo, is if you are invited for an interview and do not attend. While most ETIAS applicants will not need an interview, some may require a manual review due to mistakes or potential issues.

Other reasons an ETIAS may be refused include not having a valid passport, not filling out the application properly, being flagged as a “risk”, or having a flag against your name in the Schengen Information System (SIS).

Any ETIAS application refusals can be appealed.

While “60 Minutes” will soon have a new owner, the CBS newsmagazine’s next executive producer is coming from inside the family.

Tanya Simon, a 25-year veteran of the program, will take on the role vacated by Bill Owens in April. She has served as interim executive producer since his departure.

She is the daughter of the late Bob Simon, one of the best known correspondents during the program’s 57 year history.

Changes at the top of “60 Minutes” have been rare. Simon will be only the fourth executive producer in the program’s history and the first woman.

Simon’s appointment will be a relief to the program’s staff, where morale has been rocked by parent company Paramount Global’s battle with President Trump. The correspondents of the program signed a letter to company co-chairman George Cheeks urging him to give Simon the job.

Simon will have the backing of her colleagues who are thankful they won’t be dealing with an outsider who might not value the program’s editorial rigor and independence. But she will be faced with the challenge of navigating the operation after one of the most difficult periods in its history.

Paramount Global agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit against “60 Minutes” over the editing of an interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump claimed the interviews was deceptively edited to aid Harris in the election.

The case was labeled as frivolous by 1st Amendment experts and the settlement widely seen as a capitulation to Trump in order to clear a path for Paramount’s $8-billion merger with David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

While “60 Minutes” did not issue an apology or acknowledge any wrongdoing, the program is likely to face intense scrutiny going forward. Critics will be looking for signs of the program pulling its punches in reporting on Trump. In order to clear the Paramount Global deal with the FCC, Skydance has agreed to name a news division ombudsman that will report to the company’s president for at least the next two years.

“Tanya Simon understands what makes ’60 Minutes’ tick,” CBS News President Tom Cibrowski said in. a statement “She is an innovative leader, an exceptional producer, and someone who knows how to inspire people,” “

Simon got her start at CBS News in 1996 as a researcher for its other newsmagazine “48 Hours.” She joined “60 Minutes” in 2000, working with correspondent Ed Bradley on a variety of reports including the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. She went on to produce for nearly all of the program’s correspondents including her father.

Her work has earned virtually every major broadcast honor, including multiple Emmy Awards, the Peabody and the DuPont-Columbia Award.

President Trump is celebrating the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” on CBS — and calling for even more late-night hosts to be axed.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump wrote Friday morning on Truth Social. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”

He added that Greg Gutfeld, who has a late-night show and co-hosts “The Five” on Fox News, “is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” referring to Jimmy Fallon.

Although “Late Night” is the top-rated late-night broadcast show, “Gutfeld!” draws a bigger audience.

Colbert, 61, has hosted the show for a decade and shared the news of its cancellation Thursday night, noting that he was made aware of the decision only the night before. “The Late Show” will end in May.

“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS,” Colbert said. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”

CBS said the decision was “purely financial.” The cancellation comes after Colbert criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, for settling a lawsuit filed by Trump last year over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. Colbert called the $16-million settlement a “big fat bribe” Monday night, noting that Paramount is awaiting federal approval for its $8-billion merger with Skydance Media.

Both branches of the Writers Guild called on New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James to investigate Paramount.

“Cancelations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society,” read a statement released Friday by the union.

Fellow late-night hosts have since criticized the show’s cancellation.

“Love you Stephen. F— you and all your Sheldons CBS,” Kimmel wrote in an Instagram story, referencing the network hits “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon.”

“I’m just as shocked as everyone. Stephen is one of the sharpest, funniest hosts to ever do it. I really thought I’d ride this out with him for years to come,” Jimmy Fallon posted in an Instagram story. “I’m sad that my family and friends will need a new show to watch every night at 11:30. But honestly, he’s really been a gentleman and a true friend over the years — going back to The Colbert Report, and I’m sure whatever he does next will be just as brilliant.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who called for an investigation into the Paramount settlement this month, suggested that the move was politically motivated.

“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” she wrote Thursday night on X. “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

“If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was a guest on the show Thursday night.

Trump had called for Colbert’s termination in September.

“I briefly watched an interview of Stephen Colbert on highly government subsidized PBS, and found it fascinating for only one reason — Why would they be wasting time and the public’s money on this complete and total loser?” he wrote on Truth Social. “He is not funny, which he gets paid far too much to be, he is not wise, he is VERY BORING, and his show is dying from a complete lack of viewers.

“CBS should terminate his contract and pick almost anyone, right off the street, who would do better, and for FAR LESS MONEY,” he continued. “Or I could recommend someone, much more talented, and smarter, who would do it for FREE! The good news for Stephen is that the two DOPES on NBC & ABC are not much better than him!”

In a Variety interview published Wednesday, Kimmel shared his concerns about the Trump administration targeting him and his competitors.

“Well, you’d have to be naive not to worry a little bit. But that can’t change what you’re doing,” the ABC late-night host told the outlet. “And maybe it is naive, but I have the hope that if and when the day comes that he does start coming after comedians, that even my colleagues on the right will support my right to say what I like. Now, I could be kidding myself, and hopefully we’ll never find out. But if we do, I would hope that the outrage is significant.”

During Tuesday’s instalment of Good Morning Britain, presenters Charlotte Hawkins and Richard Madeley shared the latest headlines with ITV viewers

Things took an emotional turn on Tuesday’s (July 15) instalment of Good Morning Britain.

During the programme, ITV viewers saw hosts Charlotte Hawkins and Richard Madley speak to a man called Tristan, who recently lost his wife to breast cancer.

Before her death, Dr Susan Michaelis campaigned for there to be research into lobular breast cancer, after living with the disease for 14 years.

While speaking to Tristan on the show, it seemed as though Charlotte was overcome with emotion as the interview wrapped up.

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BBC Breakfast viewers have been left unimpressed with presenter Sally Nugent following an interview on Monday’s show

During Monday’s BBC Breakfast, Sally Nugent questioned Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, about Rachel Reeves‘ newly announced £500million fund, which is designed to support up to 200,000 vulnerable children.

Sally seized the chance to grill the MP with various queries, including questions about wealth taxation, which the politician was reluctant to address.

At one point, the BBC presenter enquired: “Will higher earners be taxed more to plug the blackhole in the government’s finances at the moment?”

Jones responded: “I’m not sure I agree with the definition of a black hole in the public finances, just to be clear. But, to answer your question on tax, I’m afraid, in the way that you probably expect me to answer, I’m not going to speculate on tax policy.”

The MP explained to the BBC host that the government follows a formal procedure for announcing tax modifications, which occurs during budget announcements with the chancellor speaking from the dispatch box in the House of Commons, reports the Express.

Nevertheless, Nugent persisted in seeking an answer from the MP, pressing: “Ok, I don’t want you to speculate, but I would like to know, what do you think of the idea of a wealth tax?”

Chuckling, Jones informed the BBC presenter that her question remained speculation about tax policy, stating: “As I’ve just set out, I’m afraid, I’m not going to do it.”

She then probed further about the government’s plans to maintain the freeze on tax thresholds, to which he responded: “That’s also tax speculation, and as I say, any changes one way or another will be announced by the chancellor at the budget.”

Sensing the interview wasn’t going as expected, she humorously asked: “What can you tell us?!” The exchange quickly sparked reactions on social media, with many criticising Sally’s interviewing style.

One viewer sarcastically remarked on X: “Darren Jones, having none of silly Sally’s nonsense.” While someone else said: “@sallynugent as an experienced journalist, you should be aware that Darren Jones will not disclose potential (or not) tax rises. Stop wasting his & our time. Presume we will be subjected to unanswerable questions up to the Autumn budget?”

Another person commented: “Another pointless interview from Sally Nugent. There are so many questions that need to be asked of the government, so stop wasting time asking questions that cannot be answered.”

A different viewer added: “That interview was pretty irrelevant and a waste of time. Sally Nugent, not exactly pinning him to the door with laser-like questions.”

One viewer shared their frustration: “Sally’s interview with the chief sec to treasury is a failure *Asks him to speculate on future policy* “I cannot speculate on tax policy” *Rephrases question, pretending it isn’t speculative* (laughing) “I cannot speculate” Ask better questions.”

BBC Breakfast can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.