Donald Trump has cancelled plans for a deployment of federal troops to the San Francisco Bay Area that had sparked widespread condemnation from California leaders and sent protesters flooding into the streets.
The region had been on edge after reports emerged on Wednesday that the Trump administration was poised to send more than 100 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agents to the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, across the Bay from San Francisco, as part of a large-scale immigration enforcement plan.
But on Thursday, the president said he would not move forward with a “surge” of federal forces in the area after speaking with the mayor, Daniel Lurie, and Silicon Valley leaders including Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO who recently apologized for saying Trump should send national guard troops, and Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia.
Trump cancels plans to send federal troops to San Francisco for immigration crackdown
Lurie said he spoke with the president on Wednesday night, and that Trump told him he would call off the deployment.
“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning,” Lurie said in a statement.
Trump confirmed the conversation on his Truth Social platform, saying: “I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around.”
Donors for Trump’s $300m White House ballroom include Google, Apple and Palantir
The White House has revealed that major companies in the tech, defense and crypto industries are helping Donald Trump fund his $300m ballroom at the White House, where work is under way to demolish the entire East Wing.
The list of donors includes tech companies Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google; the defense contractors Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Palantir; and the communication companies T-Mobile and Comcast, according to CNN.
New book details infighting behind Trump’s ‘obviously unqualified’ cabinet picks
Donald Trump picked Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary as a personal favour to his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski despite objections that she was “obviously unqualified”, according to a new book.
The factional infighting behind Trump’s cabinet selection, where inexperience was no barrier to success, is detailed by journalist Jonathan Karl in Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Soon after his election victory last November, the book recounts, Trump picked Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security, central to fulfilling his campaign promise of the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Top House Democrats accuse Trump of illegal scheme to pilfer $230m in taxpayer money
Top House Democrats have accused Donald Trump of orchestrating an illegal scheme to pay himself $230m in taxpayer money, demanding he immediately abandon claims they say violate the constitution.
The representative Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the House judiciary committee, and the representative Robert Garcia, ranking member of the oversight committee, sent a letter to the president on Thursday condemning his plan to use a confidential administrative process to direct treasury funds into his own pocket.
Trump pardons founder of Binance, world’s largest crypto exchange
Donald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday. “President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” a White House statement said. “The war on crypto is over.”
Most voters in swing House districts fault Trump trade moves for high prices
As Donald Trump continues to slap tariffs on major trading partners, polling from a Democratic campaign arm finds that a majority of voters in districts likely to decide the majority in the House of Representatives blame the president’s trade policies for increasing their cost of living.
Colombia urges US to halt strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats: ‘It is murder’
Colombia has condemned US airstrikes on vessels allegedly involved in drug-smuggling off the coast of South America, urging Washington to immediately halt further attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean.
US Senate fails to pass bill to pay federal essential workers and troops through shutdown
The Senate failed on Thursday to pass legislation that would keep federal workers deemed essential and troops paid throughout the ongoing government shutdown – now in its 23rd day. With a 54-45 vote, the upper chamber failed to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the Shutdown Fairness Act, introduced by Ron Johnson, a Republican senator of Wisconsin.
Melania Trump’s meme coin architects accused of pump-and-dump fraud in lawsuit
The designers of a cryptocurrency launched by the US first lady, Melania Trump, in January were accused in court filings on Tuesday of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme.
The $MELANIA coins were released for just a few cents each on 19 January, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as US president. In addition to $MELANIA, Donald Trump launched $TRUMP a few hours before his inauguration.
What else happened today:
The NBA, one of the world’s most prominent sports leagues, found itself associated with illegal gambling again on Thursday after two prominent stars were arrested in a sweeping federal investigation. Chauncey Billups, a Hall of Fame player who is now coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, was arrested in connection with a poker operation linked to the mafia, while Miami Heat star Terry Rozier is accused of taking part in a scheme to manipulate games.
A top federal prosecutor’s use of an encrypted messaging application with messages set to be automatically deleted after eight hours was potentially illegal, two watchdog groups said.
Illinois officials have issued a warning to federal immigration agents that tampering with or swapping license plates is against state law and will not be tolerated.
Catching up? Here’s what happened Wednesday, 22 October.
