LIVE Unprecedented $40 trillion debt figure highlights competing administration priorities

Over 750 US troops have been wounded since the Iran war began, Pentagon notes.

Key points

• Jim Himes of Connecticut and other Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, the bill is the House version of similar legislation from Sen.
• Oil tankers and vessels loaded with containers were seen at a standstill in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
• Democrats introduce legislation to stop trades from early access to Trump's Truth Social posts.
• Follow the latest news on President Donald Trump and his administration Aug.
• It comes in response to Truth Social's launch of a subscription-based service that provides advance access to posts from Trump and other influential accounts.

Follow the latest news on President Donald Trump and his administration Aug. 20, 2026.

Oil tankers and vessels loaded with containers were seen at a standstill in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump has again threatened Oman as Iran notes it is working with the Gulf Arab country on a plan to manage shipping through the strait. Fully reopening the waterway has been a key U.S. Demand.

Edited By BRIDGET BROWN, AISHA I. JEFFERSON, LUENA RODRIGUEZ-FEO VILEIRA, NELL CLARK and LISA MARIE PANE.

Today's live updates have concluded. Read what you missed below and find more coverage at apnews.com.

For context, the bill seeks to bar social media platforms from selling preferential access to posts from administration office-holders including the president, Congress and the judiciary.

Notably, the legislation would additionally produce it illegal for individuals to trade securities or other instruments off the information obtained through the preferential access.

Introduced by Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut and other Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, the bill is the House version of similar legislation from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

Himes remarked "auctioning off advance access to government announcements on Truth Social is one of the most brazen attempts at self-enrichment yet."

Vance notes the debt is too high but puts blame on Biden administration.

"Even though we inherited this debt bomb from the Biden Administration, we actually do have a plan to get the economy growing faster than the debt, and that's the most important thing, " Vance remarked in an interview on Newsmax.

When the president signed tax cut and spending legislation into law last year, the debt has exploded over a number of presidential administrations as the administration spent more than it collected in taxes, including during Trump's first term, under former President Joe Biden and in Trump's second term. Trump praised Cohen for 'recanting everything you remarked'.

In the roughly 15-minute friendly exchange on the radio show between Trump and Cohen that aired Thursday evening, the president informed his former lawyer that he respects "the fact that you recanted everything you said."

"That's a major thing that you did. That's a particularly sizeable thing, " Trump informed him.

Much of their conversation focused on Trump's second term and the Iran war, with Cohen slipping back into a role of adviser and at one point telling Trump, "Maybe what we should do is then have a press conference and literally put out all of the accomplishments."

In short, lIVE  Unprecedented $40 trillion debt figure highlights competing administration priorities is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.