The White House slammed Donald Trump after he shared a now-deleted video on his Truth Social account that included the phrase “unified reich”. While the language may have been cribbed directly from Wikipedia, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said it was “appalling”, but added: “This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president.” Meanwhile, in Arizona, Trump’s allies were arraigned on charges related to allegedly plotting to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020. Among the group was Rudy Giuliani, who tried mightily to avoid service of the indictment, but was ultimately tracked down thanks to his livestreaming.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Trump told a local broadcaster he was “looking at” restrictions on contraception, then said he would never do such a thing in an all-caps post on Truth Social.

• Antony Blinken’s appearance before a Senate committee was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.

• “Unified reich” is not the first Nazi-adjacent terminology that Trump has used.

• A bipartisan group of US senators condemned the international criminal court after the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested arrest warrants against two of Israel’s leaders.

• Peter Navarro, an incarcerated former Trump adviser, predicted mass deportations and the firing of the Federal Reserve chair if the ex-president returned to the White House.

Lauren Gambino

Pro-Palestinian protesters again interrupted secretary of state Antony Blinken as he appeared before a second Senate panel on Tuesday, calling him a “war criminal”.

Another shouted that he was abetting a “holocaust” in Gaza. “

“Secretary Blinken, how dare you,” one of the activists yelled before being removed by police. Several more antiwar activists sat silently behind him with their painted red hands raised, a symbol of the bloodshed in Gaza.

Blinken did not respond to the protests and paused while the activists were removed from the room before continuing with his remarks.

“We have to do better by the people of Gaza,” Blinken testified.

Since the beginning of the war seven months ago, protests have been a feature of the pro-Palestinian movement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and pushing the Biden administration to change its policy toward Israel. Blinken, over the course of several trips to the region, has become the face of Joe Biden’s response to the war – and a target of protests. Nearly all of his public appearances attract anti-war activists, and some even camped outside of his home in northern Virginia.

On Tuesday, the protesters who attended the hearings did not make clear policy demands. Instead, they focused their attacks on Blinken personally.

One told the secretary he would be remembered as the “butcher of Gaza”.

In a speech to union workers today in Philadelphia, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, said the use of the term “unified reich” in a video posted by Donald Trump was “appalling”.

“In this moment, extremists are trying to divide our nation, and we see them as they encourage xenophobia and hate,” Harris said.

“This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president and it is appalling. And we’ve got to tell him who we are. And once again it shows that our freedom and our very democracy are at stake.”

Joe Biden was also asked about the remark as he campaigned in New Hampshire.

“It would take too long,” he quipped as he exited a Veterans of Foreign Wars post to shouts of “criminal” and “traitor” from Trump supporters stationed outside.

Lauren Gambino

Four protesters were removed before the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, finished his opening remarks in his first of four appearances on Capitol Hill this week.

One waved a Palestinian flag and said Blinken would be remembered as the “butcher of Gaza”. One attempted to approach the dais but was quickly blocked, and another was carried out. Several others remained silent, their hands painted red to symbolize the Palestinians killed by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

Blinken was pressed by both Democrats and Republicans about the administration’s Israel policy. Lawmakers also wanted to know about the situation in Haiti, the war in Ukraine, the death of the Iranian president in a helicopter crash, Chinese aggression and artificial intelligence.

For the most part, Blinken did not veer from his previous remarks on Israel. He called the decisions by an ICC prosecutor to seek warrants against Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders “profoundly wrongheaded” and said it would likely complicate US-backed peace talks. He also emphasized the US support for a two-state solution.

Two Democratic senators, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, pressed Blinken to take a tougher line with Israel, while Republicans admonished Biden for withholding a shipment of bombs.

In a testy exchange with Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, Blinken categorically denied that the US was withholding intelligence from Israel on the whereabouts of top Hamas officials, or the locations of underground tunnels.

“I wish we had it,” he said.

Blinken will appear shortly before a Senate appropriations subcommittee.

Joanna Walters

It’s a very “split screen” day at the top of US politics.

Joe Biden was in Nashua, New Hampshire, moments ago on a classic but unremarkable election year visit.

He went to spell out the impact of the Pact Act that helps military veterans who were exposed to toxins with getting key benefits, especially as a result of burn pits during their service.

The Biden administration said more than 1m claims have been granted to veterans since Biden signed the legislation into law in August 2022, across the country, with about $5.7bn in total benefits distributed to veterans and their survivors.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was in criminal court in New York, where his defense wrapped up.

And his former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and other minions were pleading not guilty in an election interference case in Arizona dating back to the 2020 election, when Biden won the state.

Joanna Walters

Here’s the line-up of those accused in the Arizona election interference case.

The Associated Press reports that in addition to Rudy Giuliani appearing remotely, those being arraigned on Tuesday are the former Arizona Republican party head Kelli Ward; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA; the state senator Anthony Kern; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican party; Robert Montgomery, a former chairman of the Cochise county Republican committee; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila county; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice-president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, past president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward; the attorneys Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb; and Michael Roman, who was Trump’s 2020 director of election day operations.

Further arraignments are scheduled for 6 June for the state senator Jake Hoffman; on 7 June for the former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; and on 18 June for Trump’s attorney Boris Epshteyn and for James Lamon, another Republican who claimed Trump carried the state.

The following are also defendants in the Georgia election interference case: Giuliani, Eastman, Ellis, Bobb and Roman. Trump is a central defendant in that criminal case. There is no date for that trial yet.

Joanna Walters

In this Arizona election interference case, former president and current presumed Republican nominee for the 2024 election, Donald Trump, was not charged but was referred to by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Arizona is the fourth state where allies of Trump have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election, the Associated Press reports.

The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on 14 December 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump carried the state.

A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Of eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 fake Arizona electors, who had asked a federal judge to decertify the results (ie, the Guardian adds, Biden’s surprise victory in Arizona in November 2020) and block the state from sending its results to the electoral college.

In dismissing the case, the judge concluded the Republicans had “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims”. Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 participated in the certificate signing.

Note from Guardian archives: as part of the US electoral college system, states cast a set number of votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state, the winner of which then takes the presidency.

Joanna Walters

During his remote appearance in an Arizona court today, Rudy Giuliani said he received a summons but did not have a copy of the indictment. He said he was familiar with the charges, though, by reading about them.

Arizona authorities tried unsuccessfully over several weeks to serve Giuliani notice of the indictment against him, the Associated Press reports.

Today in response to the prosecutors request for a $10,000 cash bond after outlining the difficulty in serving Giuliani in the case, Giuliani said:

I have a fair number of threats including death threats, and I don’t have security any more … so I have very strict rules about who gets up and who doesn’t.”

The judge required Giuliani to post a secured appearance bond of $10,000 as well as appear in Arizona within the next 30 days for booking procedures.

Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges last month against Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump, a Republican, had won Arizona.

The defendants include five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides.

The indictment alleges Ward, a former state senator who led the GOP in Arizona from 2019 until early 2023, organized the fake electors and urged then-vice-president Mike Pence to declare them to be the state’s true electors. It says Ward failed to withdraw her vote as a fake elector even though no legal challenges changed the outcome of the presidential race in Arizona.

Last week, attorney John Eastman, who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election, was the first defendant in the case to be arraigned, pleading not guilty to the charges.

Giuliani pleads not guilty in election meddling case

Joanna Walters

Rudy Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges stemming from his role in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in the key state of Arizona to Democrat Joe Biden. His trial has been scheduled for October – right before the presidential election.

The ex-New York City mayor, former presidential candidate and former lawyer for former president Trump, Giuliani, who turns 80 later this month, appeared remotely for an arraignment that was held in a Phoenix courtroom, the Associated Press reports.

Former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward and at least 11 other people were also arraigned on Tuesday, accused of conspiracy, forgery and fraud charges. She and nine others have so far pleaded not guilty.

Giuliani said he did not have an attorney at this time but will. He was asked by the court whether he needed counsel appointed for the arraignment.

He said:

No, no, I think I am capable of handling it myself.”

The Biden campaign is slamming Donald Trump after he shared a now-deleted video on his Truth Social account that included the phrase “unified reich”. While the language may have been cribbed directly from Wikipedia, the president’s re-election effort denounced it as Nazi rhetoric, and a White House spokesman chimed in to call such language “abhorrent, sickening and disgraceful”. Meanwhile, in Arizona, the former president’s allies are being arraigned on charges related to allegedly plotting to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020. Among the group is Rudy Giuliani, who tried mightily to avoid service of the indictment, but was ultimately tracked down thanks to his livestreaming.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• “Unified reich” is not the first Nazi-adjacent terminology that Trump has used.

• A bipartisan group of US senators condemned the international criminal court after chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants against two of Israel’s leaders.

• Peter Navarro, an incarcerated former Trump adviser, predicted mass deportations and the firing of the Federal Reserve chair if the former president is returned to the White House.

Rudy Giuliani and other Donald Trump allies accused of attempting to meddle in Arizona’s 2020 election results are being arraigned today, the New York Times reports.

The defendants are facing charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery for allegedly attempting to create fake presidential electors in order to disrupt Joe Biden’s election victory in the state. In addition to Giuliani, who is expected to be arraigned virtually, former Arizona Republican party head Kelli Ward and Christina Bobb, a former Trump campaign adviser who is now with the Republican national committee, are also facing charges.

Giuliani went to great lengths to avoid being served by Arizona authorities, but they eventually caught up with him as he left celebrations for his upcoming 80th birthday party:

Lauren Gambino

As the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, entered a hearing room in the Senate Dirksen building – his first of four appearances on Capitol Hill this week – anti-war protesters rose and raised their hands, painted blood red.

“Secretary of genocide,” they called, as he took his seat. “War criminal.”

According to local health officials, more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza. Israel says it is seeking to eradicate Hamas, which launched a cross-border attack that killed roughly 1,200 people on 7 October and took as many as 250 hostages.

Blinken is here ostensibly to make the case for Congress to approve Joe Biden’s $64bn state department and international affairs budget request. But he’ll certainly face pointed questions from senators on both sides of the aisle who are unhappy with the president’s Israel policy.

The Senate foreign relations committee, Blinken’s first stop of the week, features Republicans who are furious over the Biden administration’s decision to pause a bomb shipment to Israel as a warning to the nation not to launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah, and Democrats are also upset that the administration hasn’t done more to protect Palestinian civilians.

The hearings come at an extremely delicate moment for the region: a day after the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants for two top Israeli officials – the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense minister, Yoav Gallant – as well as the leaders of Hamas. Meanwhile, Iran is reeling from the death of the country’s president and foreign minister in a helicopter crash near its border with Azerbaijan.