Trump says he will meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska next Friday – as it happened

On Friday, the Democratic leaders of the California state legislature said they were prepared to move forward with a ballot measure asking voters to redraw the state’s house map should Texas follow through with its proposed redistricting plan.

“We don’t move unless they move,” California governor Gavin Newsom said during a news conference in Sacramento, where he was joined by a delegation of Democratic state representatives from Texas. “But we’re not going to unilaterally disarm.”

US congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said every Democratic member of the state’s congressional delegation supported the California ballot initiative.

“We cannot stand here and just shrug as Trump and the Republicans try and rig the rules so they can avoid responsibility for the damage that they have done to this country,” she said. “We need a break on them, and we can get it in the midterm elections.”

A Texas judge has ruled that Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman, cannot provide financial assistance to the state Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to block Republicans’ gerrymandering, the Texas Tribune reports.

O’Rourke, a former presidential candidate, was sued by the state’s GOP attorney general, Ken Paxton, who claimed the Democrat and his group, Powered by People, were unlawfully helping the Democratic lawmakers and engaged in deceptive fundraising. Paxton has been pursuing an array of aggressive tactics to punish the legislators who are breaking quorum in an effort to stop Republicans from redrawing the congressional map.

The Tarrant county district judge, Megan Fahey, issued an injunction against O’Rourke less than four hours after Paxton filed his claim, according to the Tribune, which noted that Fahey was appointed by GOP governor Greg Abbott in 2019. O’Rourke earlier filed a separate lawsuit against Paxton to try to block his attacks on his group.

The Democrat condemned the attorney general and the injunction in a social media post this evening, writing:

They want to make examples out of those who fight so that others won’t. Paxton is trying to shut down Powered by People, one of the largest voter registration organizations in the country, because our volunteers fight for voting rights and free elections… the kind of work that threatens the hold that Paxton, Trump and Abbott have on power in Texas.

Paxton said in a statement: “The Beto Bribe buyouts that were bankrolling the runaway Democrats have been officially stopped.”

Several protesters outside New York City’s 26 Federal Plaza government building were arrested on Friday for disorderly conduct, with demonstrators accusing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency of operating a covert detention facility there, according to several reports.

Protesters marched to the largest federal immigration courthouse in Manhattan on Friday morning and chanted outside the building. Demonstrators demanded access to the site, which was denied, and they later held a sit-in outside the courthouse, according to ABC7.

Within a few minutes the New York City police department moved in to arrest some of the protesters for disorderly conduct, according to reports, as activists could be seen blocking the street.

Donald Trump said he plans to meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska next Friday, 15 August. He announced the location in a brief post on his social media site early this evening.

Our recent reporting on the latest developments:

California Democratic legislators are holding an afternoon briefing about their proposal to counter Republican’s gerrymandering in Texas with a ballot measure.

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said all members of the California delegation supported a plan to redraw the state’s districts to eliminate five Republican seats – if Texas moves forward with its gerrymandering plan that would add five GOP seats.

“When we saw that Texas was going to create the most segregated map in Texas since the 60s, to eliminate all of the minority districts that they could, so that they could create five Republican districts, we said, could we create a map that eliminated five Republican districts, but that was true to the Voting Rights Act? And we found that we could,” Lofgren said.

Governor Gavin Newsom has floated a statewide ballot measure that would allow voters to weigh the proposal to adjust the state’s congressional map if the Texas GOP executes its plan.

Robert Rivas, the Democratic speaker of the California state assembly, said, “We will fight fire with fire. And we will do whatever it takes to defend our democracy.”

California is hosting Texas Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to break quorum and block gerrymandering.

The Texas Democratic party chairman has responded to the lawsuit filed by Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, seeking to remove 13 Democratic lawmakers from office, saying in a statement:

Texas Democrats are exercising a long-standing, constitutionally protected right of the minority party to block extreme agendas – in this case, gerrymandering to keep Trump in power. These lawmakers have taken significant risks and sacrifices to stop Trump’s agenda, and despite all the threats they face, they remain undeterred, just like the rest of us. If Ken Paxton wants a fight, we will give him one.”

Paxton has sought to enforce arrest warrants against the Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to stop Republicans from gerrymandering the congressional map in a manner that would add five more GOP seats.

Some more background on what happened at the Texas house today:

Trump has said he will soon have an update on Russia and would be meeting with Putin “very shortly”. Today was the original deadline he had set to end the Ukraine invasion or bring new sanctions. At the event with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the president made vague remarks about next steps, saying:

President Putin I believe wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace. Now, President Zelenskyy has to get … everything he needs, because he’s going to have to get ready to sign something, and I think he is working hard to get that done.

Asked if Zelenskyy would have to give up territory, the president responded: “You’re looking at territory that’s been fought over for three and a half years. A lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have died. So we’re looking at that, but we’re actually looking to get some back and some swapping. It’s complicated.”

Trump has said he would also soon announce details on the location of a meeting.

In the state dining room, Donald Trump is flanked by the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to his right, and the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, on his left.

Trump says that both nations agree to “stop all fighting forever”. But a key part of the agreement is that it establishes what will be now known as “the Trump route for international peace and prosperity”. This is a key transit corridor that will have US development rights.

Trump adds that he thinks Aliyev and Pashinyan are “going to have a great relationship”.

The New York Times is reporting that Donald Trump is replacing the IRS commissioner, Billy Long, only two months after her was confirmed.

Long is a former congressman from Missouri and a notable Trump ally – who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. According to the Times, Long is being primed for an ambassador nomination. It is unclear who lead the agency next, according to the Times.

Long is the sixth person to run the IRS this year alone, there have been four acting commissioners since Danny Werfel’s resignation in January, following Trump’s inauguration.

A senior administration official tells the Times that treasury secretary Scott Bessent will be named acting commissioner.

The Trump administration is demanding that the University of California, Los Angeles, pay the federal government $1bn over multiple installments to settle claims of antisemitism, according to a report from CNN.

The settlement would also require UCLA to pay $172m to a fund for Jewish students and other individuals affected by alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, per CNN. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

CNN notes that if the proposal is agreed to, it would mark the biggest settlement the government has received from a higher education institution. CNN has not yet received comment from the University of California system.

According to CNN’s reporting, “the proposed agreement prohibits overnight demonstrations and calls on the school to revise its policies and procedures on protests. It also requires UCLA to discontinue race and ethnicity-based scholarships and provide the resolution monitor with admissions data.”

The Texas legislature failed to meet quorum for a third time today, after only 95 of the 100 representatives needed were present. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers defied Governor Greg Abbott’s demands to return, and remain out of state in protest over a new GOP-drawn congressional map.

Speaker Dustin Burrows attempted to reconvene the house today and meet quorum after it failed earlier this week.

In an interview with Ruthless Podcast, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, threatened to add “six, or seven or eight” new seats to the GOP-drawn congressional map that Democrats are already protesting by breaking quorum.

The current proposal is a gerrymandered map that could secure Republicans five seats in Texas ahead of the 2026 midterms.

When asked about how he sees this redistricting battle ending, Abbott was resolute: “One way or the other, they [Democrats] are coming back, and it’s going to end with these maps being passed.”

The DOJ has issued two grand jury subpoenas to Letitia James, the New York attorney general and longtime Trump adversary, according to reports.

One of the cases relates to a civil fraud case brought by James’s office against Trump, which resulted in the president owing New York state $500m, the New York Times reported. The other case relates to the attorney general’s investigation into National Rifle Association (NRA), a rightwing gun lobbying group.

The investigation will raise further concerns that Trump is using the legal system to pursue personal vendettas. Last month the justice department announced a new “strike force” to investigate unsubstantiated charges that Barack Obama and top officials conspired to hurt Trump’s 2016 campaign, as legal experts told the Guardian that the department is “being used as a personal weapon” by Trump.

“Any weaponization of the justice system should disturb every American. We stand strongly behind our successful litigation against the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association, and we will continue to stand up for New Yorkers’ rights,” James’s office said in a statement.

Today, the hotel where several Texas Democrats are staying experienced a second bomb threat in one week, according to local police.

The St Charles police department said that they conducted a thorough search of the area, and no explosive device was found. They confirmed that all 70 hotel guests are safe.

Today’s bomb threat comes just days after an initial bomb threat at the same hotel, which is located in a suburb outside Chicago.

It’s not immediately clear how many Texas lawmakers are still staying at the Q-Center hotel where the threats were made.

In an interview with NBC News, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, said he would call “special session, after special session, after special session with the same agenda items on there”, referring to the Democratic lawmakers who broke quorum this week.

The legislators have vowed to stay out of Texas until at least the end of the current session, which ends on 19 August.

In the interview, Abbott, a Republican, was undeterred. “Democrats act like they’re not going to come back as long as this is an issue,” Abbott said. “That means they’re not going to come back until like 2027 or 2028.”

Since the quorum break, the legislative business of the entire session is now on ice. This includes relief for the victims of the catastrophic flooding that hit Texas last month.

“There’s only one thing that’s denying our ability to get legislation passed. And it’s these Democrats who have fled the state, turned their backs on their fellow constituents,” Abbott said. “And those Democrats are going to lose their job in the upcoming election, if they don’t get kicked out before then, because they’re not stepping up helping out their constituents who are in desperate need.”

It’s important to note that Republican House leadership in Texas chose to start the special session with the question of redistricting legislation.

The Texas legislature is hoping to resume its special session today at 2pm ET, after Democratic lawmakers broke quorum for two consecutive days earlier this week in protest over a gerrymandered congressional map, drawn by the state’s GOP.

For their part, the dozens of absent Democrats have hunkered down in blue states – such as Illinois, New York and Massachusetts – and have told the Guardian they plan to stay away from the Texas Capitol for “as long as it takes”.

The Democrats’ next stop on their tour to deny quorum is California. Where they’ll hold a press conference at 5pm ET today with Governor Gavin Newsom and House speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi.

Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and attorney general, Ken Paxton, both Republicans, have threatened the legislators who left town with civil arrest warrants. Paxton has also promised to file court orders that would declare the Democrats’ seats vacant if they fail to return to Texas by Friday.

Meanwhile, Texas senator John Cornyn, also a Republican, has said the FBI has agreed to help local law enforcement locate and arrest the legislators, despite none of them being been charged with a crime.

For his part, Gavin Newsom has taken a leading role in the redistricting arms race that’s ensued, and pledged to retaliate against Republicans’ redistricting efforts by working to change California’s own congressional map.

An advocacy group sued the US justice department and the FBI on Friday for records detailing their handling of the sex-trafficking investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The legal organization Democracy Forward is seeking records related to senior administration officials’ communications about Epstein documents and any regarding correspondence between Epstein and Donald Trump.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington DC, appears to be the first of its kind. The group says it submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) for the records related to communications about the case in late July that have not yet been fulfilled.

“The court should intervene urgently to ensure the public has access to the information they need about this extraordinary situation,” said Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of the Democratic-aligned group, in a statement. The federal government often shields records related to criminal investigations from public view.

The Epstein case has been subject to heightened public focus since the justice department said last month it would not release additional documents from the case.

Meanwhile, top Trump officials reportedly met at the White House on Wednesday night to discuss strategy moving forward as the Trump administration continues to face criticism, including from Republicans, for its handling of the official files related to Epstein and the US president’s responses to calls for the release of all documents related to the criminal investigation.

The meeting was reportedly hosted by JD Vance, with the gathering moved from the vice-president’s official residence to the White House, according to reporting by CNN. The meeting had been billed to include top Trump officials, including the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI director, Kash Patel. Vance and his staff had denied that a meeting to discuss the handling of the rumbling Epstein scandal was taking place.

The Trump administration is now weighing whether to release recorded audio from the recent Department of Justice interview with Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said that members of the US military would not be entering Mexican territory after a news report that Washington may take such action to combat drug cartels.

Earlier today, the New York Times (paywall) reported that Donald Trump had secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels.

Sheinbaum said her government had been informed of a coming order but that it had nothing to do with the US military operating on Mexican soil.

A US appeals court has overturned a lower court’s ruling finding probable cause to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court over their handling of the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants under a centuries-old wartime law.

US district judge James Boasberg found in April that officials could face criminal contempt charges for willfully disregarding his 15 March order barring the deportations to El Salvador of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act without the chance to challenge their removals.

The Trump administration appealed. This morning, a three-judge panel of the DC circuit US court of appeals sided with the government by a 2-1 vote.

Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both of whom were nominated by Donald Trump in his first term in the White House, concurred with the unsigned majority opinion. Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed by Barack Obama, dissented.

“The District Court’s order raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions like the conduct of foreign policy and the prosecution of criminal offenses,” Katsas wrote in an opinion.

According to new reporting by the New York Times, the president has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that the Trump administration considers terrorist organizations.

According to the Times’ sources, US military officials have started drawing up options for how the military could go after the group. The Times also notes that this escalation would be the most “aggressive step” in the administration’s “campaign against cartels”. They also noted that this continues the president’s preference for using “military forces to carry out what has primarily been considered a law enforcement responsibility to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs”.

In February, the state department designated Tren de Aragua, MS-13 and several other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations.

Today, a federal judge in Los Angeles will hear arguments in the Trump administration’s request to strike down the landmark Flores settlement agreement – a 1997 consent decree which provides basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody.

The settlement also limits the length of time that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can hold children in custody to 72 hours, and requires them to be housed in safe and sanitary conditions. The administration argues that “unlawful family migration barely existed 1997”. They add that the agreement has prevented agencies from carrying out effective immigration policy.

Last year, the same judge presiding over today’s hearing approved the Biden administration’s request to partially lift oversight protections at the Department of Health and Human Services. The agreement is still in place at CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies.

During Trump’s first term in office, the administration asked a judge to dissolve the Flores settlement agreement, but its motion was struck down.

The president’s day really kicks into gear at 2.30pm ET, when he will welcome the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, to the White House, followed by the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.

Donald Trump will hold separate meeting with the two leaders, and the day will culminate in a trilateral signing between the three nations. The president has characterised the day as a “Historic Peace Summit” on Truth Social, and touted his role as an international peacemaker.

“Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to ‘TRUMP’,” he said in his post.

Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisers chairman Stephen Miran to serve out the final few months of a newly vacant seat at the Federal Reserve while the White House seeks a permanent addition to the central bank’s governing board and continues its search for a new Fed chair.

Miran, who has called for a complete overhaul of the Fed’s governance, will take over from Fed Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University.

The term expires 31 January, 2026 and is subject to approval by the Senate, Reuters reported.

Trump said the White House continues to search for someone to serve in the 14-year Fed Board seat that opens 1 February. Trump is also weighing options for a successor to Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends 15 May, 2026.

Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines from the day.

There will be increased presence of federal law enforcement in Washington DC, the White House announced yesterday, to combat crime for at least the next week.

It comes amid Donald Trump’s suggestions that his administration could fully take over running the city, Associated Press reports.

“Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens.”

She added that the increased federal presence means “there will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in DC”.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining — but could face steep push back.

“We have a capital that’s very unsafe,” Trump told reporters at the White House this week. “We have to run DC.”

Trump’s intervention follows an alleged attack on on a federal employee who worked for the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

In other developments:

• Vice-president JD Vance kicks off a trip in the United Kingdom with a meeting with British foreign secretary David Lammy on Friday that will bring renewed scrutiny of Vance’s sharp criticism of Britain and its governing Labour party. Vance, his wife, Usha, and their three young children are expected to land in London at the start of a trip that includes staying with Lammy at Chevening, the country residence used by the foreign minister.

• The Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and state house speaker Dustin Burrows have filed a lawsuit in Illinois to enforce arrest warrants against Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to block Republicans from enacting a gerrymandered congressional map that would likely add five more Republican seats before next year’s midterm elections. The civil petition was filed in an Adams county, Illinois, circuit court, about a four and a half hour drive from Chicago. More than 30 Texas Democratic members are named in the suit.

• The Trump administration is doubling to $50 million a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine. “Under president Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday in a video announcing the reward.

• Israel’s political-security cabinet approved a plan early on Friday to take control of Gaza City, a move expanding military operations despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating, almost two-year-old war. Far-right allies in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have been pushing for a total takeover of Gaza as part of his vow to eradicate Hamas militants, though the military has warned this could jeopardise the lives of remaining hostages.

• President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran to serve out the final few months of a newly vacant seat at the Federal Reserve while the White House seeks a permanent addition to the central bank’s governing board and continues its search for a new Fed chair. Miran, who has called for a complete overhaul of the Fed’s governance, will take over from Fed Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University.

• Donald Trump will announce a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday 8 August, according to reports from both Reuters and CBS News. The respective leaders of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan, will attend events at the White House tomorrow, despite decades-long tension between the two countries.

• Donald Trump has said he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin despite the Russian leader’s refusal to meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dispelling speculation that direct talks between the two warring presidents were a precondition to a high-level US-Russia summit. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said that Putin did not have to meet with Zelenskyy first before the US and Russian presidents could meet.

• Donald Trump has called on Intel’s chief executive to resign, alleging Lip-Bu Tan had ties to the Chinese Communist party, sending the stock of the US chipmaker falling. “The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted on Truth Social about Tan. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”.