Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump’s presidential transition team repeatedly intervened in UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, it has been reported.

The president’s aides told Starmer’s national security adviser and former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, on more than one occasion, that they wished for Mandelson’s predecessor Karen Pierce to remain in post, Politico reported this morning.

According to a source close to the president, the message was conveyed during a meeting in December in Palm Beach in December 2024.

Later the same month, the transition team called Powell to tell them they were unhappy with Pierce’s treatment and did not support Mandelson’s appointment.

Politico reported:

Trump’s aides were particularly exercised that Mandelson could be made ambassador after he had made disparaging public remarks about the president in the past, according to both officials.

Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles is understood to be one of those unhappy with Mandelson’s appointment, with one source saying she saw him as “arrogant” and rude to staff.

Mandelson was ultimately sacked just nine months into the job after new details emerged about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted child sex offender.

In February, more files were released that revealed the peer was passing information to the convicted sex offender while he was business secretary, including market-sensitive information that sparked the criminal investigation.

In other developments:

• Donald Trump created an extremely awkward moment for Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday when he responded to a question from a Japanese reporter about why the US attacked Iran without warning allies like Japan, by joking about Imperial Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

• Japan’s prime minister said later she explained to Trump that Japan’s ability to deploy military forces overseas, as he wants, is still limited by the constitution drafted for Japan by the United States after the second world war.

• A federal arts commission approved the final design for a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing Donald Trump’s image to celebrate the US’s 250th birthday on 4 July.

• The John F Kennedy Presidential Library foundation announced on Thursday that it is awarding Profile in Courage awards to staunch opponents of Donald Trump: the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell and the people of the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

• Senator Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who has shown a willingness to cross Trump since he announced that he will not run for re-election, said he will not vote to eliminate the filibuster to force changes to US election law.