Closing summary
This ends our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back on Friday morning. Here are the latest developments:
As the federal takeover of the DC police continues, the Pentagon said that 800 national guard troops had been mobilized, with around 200 soldiers at a time taking turns to assist federal agents and the Metropolitan police department.
Donald Trump echoed the baseless claim that crime in the nation’s capital is the “worst it’s ever been”, despite data from the justice department showing that DC experienced a 30-year low in violent crime in 2024. Trump also said, again without evidence, that DC officials have created fake statistics to portray the rate of violent crime declining in the city. He added that they are “under investigation”, but didn’t name anyone specifically.
As part of its advertising blitz to attract new recruits, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) released a social media video on Thursday that uses a song by the rapper DaBaby and shows agency vehicles that appear to be painted in the same red, blue and gold style as Donald Trump’s private plane, which was featured in the opening sequence for The Apprentice.
New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, confirmed on social media that a federal building where protesters held a silent vigil on Thursday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) was evacuated after “envelopes containing white powder were discovered”.
In another sign that the Trump presidency is largely made-for-TV, the White House and Fox News revealed that Trump will appear on Fox News both before and immediately after his summit meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Four days after Trump ordered the unhoused residents of Washington DC, whom he sped past in his motorcade for a golf outing, to leave the city, local officials helped clear encampments before announced sweeps by federal agents.
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Officials in Washington DC act on Trump's order to clear city of unhoused residents before expected sweeps
Four days after Donald Trump ordered the unhoused residents of Washington DC, whom he sped past in his motorcade for a golf outing, to leave the city, local officials helped clear encampments before announced sweeps by federal agents.
The Washington Post reports that members of DC’s health and human services unit were clearing an encampment on a grassy area near the Kennedy Center after residents there were given one day’s notice to remove their belongings.
The Associated Press reports that about a dozen unhoused residents were seen packing their belongings near the Institute of Peace on Thursday. Items weren’t being forcibly thrown out by law enforcement, but an earth mover dug out and scooped away the remains of encampments, depositing them into the bed of an idling truck.
Volunteers from some of the agencies around the city that help unhoused people were on hand, and advocates said they expected law enforcement officers to fan out across DC later in the day to take down any remaining homeless encampments,
Amber Harding, director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, told the AP she believed that “federal law enforcement will begin systematically rounding up and arresting unhoused people.” She believed officers would ask people to move on or would “offer shelter,” arresting people if they refused either directive.
“We do not have enough shelter beds for everyone on the street,” Harding said. “This is a chaotic and scary time for all of us in D.C., but particularly for people without homes.”
Lucho Vásquez, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said his group was “focusing all energies on opening and operating temporary facilities” for anyone in need of emergency shelter, food or other resources after the removals.
From a former encampment near the Institute of Peace, DC’s deputy mayor, Wayne Turnage, told reporters that after the National Park Service notified the city it planned to close all such sites on federal and district land, Washington officials decided to tackle some of the work themselves.
“Closing encampments is a very, very complex process”, Turnage said. “We’re dealing with human beings who, in many cases, have been marginalized. Their lives are being disrupted. And so we have put a process in place that we think respects that”.
He said federal authorities have laid out an “aggressive timeline” that aims to finish closing encampments within about week, but it may not be possible to clear all 62 sites that quickly.
National Guard troops deployed to DC by the president could be used to evict homeless residents who fail to leave on their own. On Thursday, Trump said the troops, who are not trained for law enforcement or social work, are trained in “common sense”. He added: “they’re trained in not allowing people to burn down buildings and bomb buildings and shoot people and all the things.”
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White House grants Fox News exclusive interviews with Trump before and after Putin summit
In another sign that the Trump presidency is largely made-for-TV, White House planning for the summit meeting on Friday in Alaska between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin appears to have been influenced by the nightly Fox News television schedule.
According to a Fox ad shared by the White House on social media on Thursday, with the tag line: “One historic summit — two exclusive interviews”, Trump will give a preview of the summit to Brett Baier, in an interview recorded on Air Force One en route to Alaska, and then make a live appearance immediately after meeting Putin on Sean Hannity’s primetime Fox show at 9pm EDT.
In a social media promotion for his show from the military base in Alaska where Trump and Putin will be meeting, Hannity told viewers that “right after that meeting, we will go in that very room, we’ll set up and we’ll have our exclusive interview with president Trump”.
Pentagon spokesperson says Hegseth supports right for women to vote, despite social media post
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, “thinks that women should have the right to vote,” Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson told reporters on Thursday.
The question was the first to be asked at an unusual off-camera, on-the-record press briefing, because Hegseth had shared a video report on social media last week in which several pastors said that women should no longer be allowed to vote.
“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth wrote on his personal X account above the video report that focused on pastor Doug Wilson, a Christian nationalist who co-founded the Idaho-based Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).
In the segment, Wilson raised the idea of women not voting. “I would like to see this nation being a Christian nation, and I would like this world to be a Christian world,” Wilson said.
The video report also included comments from pastor Jared Longshore, who said that he would support repealing the 19th amendment to the US constitution which granted women the right to vote.
“Of course the secretary thinks that women should have the right to vote,” the Pentagon spokeswoman said on Thursday. “That’s a stupid question.”
Pressed to explain why the defense secretary had shared the video report, the spokeswoman confirmed that Hegseth is a member of a congregation that was founded by pastor Doug Wilson and “appreciates many of his writings and teachings”.
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Federal building in New York evacuated after white powder found, New York mayor says
New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, confirmed on social media that a federal building where protesters held a silent vigil on Thursday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) was evacuated after “envelopes containing white powder were discovered”.
According to a report from NBC News, the powder was found on the ninth floor of 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, where Ice has an office.
“I want to also reassure you that there are no known injuries at this time,” Adams added.
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Trump's baseless claim that DC crime stats are fake was prompted by question from celebrity fitness trainer
In a now familiar scene, when Donald Trump took questions in the Oval Office on Thursday, the first two reporters he called on were correspondents for partisan, far-right outlets that support him.
After calling first on a correspondent for One America News, who praised Trump’s handling of social security, the president turned to Cara Castronuova of Lindell TV. That outlet was founded by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow salesman who relentlessly boosted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Castronuova, a former celebrity fitness trainer who openly supports Trump, invited the president to comment on what she said was the way that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders “continue to peddle the lie and the claim that you’re trying to cut social security” and are “literally terrorizing the elderly in America that sadly keep watching the very misleading mainstream media”.
“I love your question,” Trump said, before launching into a diatribe against Warren and Sanders.
A few minutes later, Castronuova asked Trump for his response to what she called “very concerning reports” that “police are manipulating crime data to downplay crime in DC”.
Despite Trump’s hyperbolic claims about a spike in crime in Washington DC, justifying his federal takeover, data collected by police, and released by the justice department, showed that violent crime was at a 30-year low when Trump took office in January. Official statistics show that violent crime in DC is down a further 26% so far this year.
“Will the administration release its own crime statistics to counter their misinformation?” Castronuova asked.
“Yeah,” Trump replied.
“Will those individuals who are intentionally misrepresenting crime data and fudging the books like you said be penalized for endangering the public?”
“They are under investigation right now,” Trump said. “They are giving us phony crime stats, just like they gave us phony stats in the financial world,” the president then claimed, in reference to his prior unsubstantiated claim that employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed slowing job growth was also fake.
Later on Thursday, Fox News reported that America First Legal Foundation, a group founded by Stephen Miller, filed a freedom of information request to obtain raw crime data from the DC Metropolitan police department, in an effort to find support for the theory that local crime statistics were, as Lindell TV’s correspondent claimed, manipulated.
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New Immigration and Customs Enforcement ad features music by DaBaby and vehicles painted like Trump's jet
As part of its advertising blitz to attract new recruits, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) released a social media video on Thursday that uses a song by the rapper DaBaby and shows agency vehicles that appear to be painted in the same red, blue and gold style as Donald Trump’s private plane, which was featured in the opening sequence for The Apprentice.
ICE has new marked vehicles… and they’re sporting the same paint job as Trump’s personal jet. Subtle. pic.twitter.com/1vKBy3RMr4
— alex (@ajhoward121) August 14, 2025
DaBaby, a North Carolina artist who was born Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, was widely criticized for homophobic remarks in 2021.
The song used in the ad, TOES, begins with the lyrics: “My heart so cold I think I’m done with ice (Uh, brr)/ Said if I leave her, she gon’ die/ Well, bitch, you done with life (Okay)/ Better not pull up with no knife/‘Cause I bring guns to fights (Boom)”.
Earlier this week, a prior Ice recruitment that used Jay-Z’s music without permission was removed from X in response to a copyright complaint, but not until it had been viewed nearly three million times.
The video featured images of Ice agents during raids set to Jay-Z’s Public Service Announcement, with the caption: “Hunt Cartels. Save America. JOIN.ICE.GOV.”
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Border patrol chief who led raid outside Newsom's redistricting event claims he had no idea governor was there
While the timing of a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) raid on Thursday outside the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, was announcing a redistricting plan, struck many as an intentional act of intimidation by federal forces, the CBP chief who led the raid claimed during the show of force that he had no ides the governor was there.
Video of the raid posted on X by a popular pro-Trump influencer included an interview with Gregory Bovino, a CBP chief in Southern California who has become the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, through his frequent appearances on Fox News and in social media clips produced by influencers and his own agents.
“We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place since we won’t have politicians who will do that, we do that ourselves”, Bovino said in the clip.
“You know the governor’s inside right there” the person recording the interview noted.
“Oh I didn’t- I don’t know where he’s at”, Bovino replied.
“He’s about a hundred feet behind us; do you have any comment for him, any message?” the videographer asked.
“We’re making Los Angeles and California a safer place”, the CBP chief said, as an armed agent with a digital camera behind him filmed the raid. “We’re going to continue to do that and they can take that one to the bank, and cash it”.
Eric Holder, who served as attorney general in the Obama administration and now leads an organization aimed at eliminating politics from the process of drawing congressional districts, endorsed California governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw his state’s map if Texas goes ahead with its plan to draw a new map this year.
Here’s how the statement from Holder, the chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee begins:
Nobody wins a redistricting arms race, least of all the American people. But Trump’s demand for extreme and unjustified mid-decade gerrymanders in Texas and beyond—with too many Republicans ready and willing to be complicit in his orders to predetermine the outcome of the next federal election—has brought a new, dangerous threat to free and fair elections in America. That’s why I support responsible and responsive actions—on a temporary basis—to ensure that the foundations of our democracy are not permanently eroded and to leave a basis for needed reform.
Governor Newsom’s proposal for a redraw process adheres to that vision. It stands in stark contrast to the power grab unfolding in Texas, by allowing voters a chance to weigh in and, in 2030, returning California to its long-standing commission process.
“Our democracy is under attack. We have no choice but to defend it,” Holder said, adding that congress should pass “a federal ban against partisan gerrymandering, to ensure that our nation never has to go through this again”.
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Here's a recap of the day so far
As the federal takeover of the DC police continues, the Pentagon said today that all 800 national guard troops have been mobilised – with around 200 soldiers at a time taking turns to assist federal agents and the Metropolitan police department (MPD). Last night protesters heckled federal law enforcement officials as they reportedly stopped dozens of cars at a checkpoint along a busy street in Washington DC – chanting “get off our streets” and “go home, fascists”. The White House said that federal officers made 45 arrests on Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump repeated the baseless claim that crime in the nation’s capital is the “worst it’s ever been”, despite data from the justice department showing that DC experienced a 30-year low in violent crime in 2024. Trump also said, again without evidence, that DC officials have created fake statistics to portray the rate of violent crime declining in the city. He added that they are “under investigation”, but didn’t name anyone specifically.
Also today, DC police chief Pamela Smith issued an executive order that allows the MPD to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents about undocumented immigrants they find during traffic stops. For his part, the president called this “a great step” while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.
And looking beyond Washington, the president prefaced his summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on a couple of occasions today. He said that his chief aim was to set up a second meeting with Putin, himself and Volodymyr Zelenskyy all present. “I’d like to see it happen very quickly,” he said.
Notably, Trump was less forthright when asked if “anything less than an unconditional and immediate ceasefire” would be considered a success at tomorrow’s summit. “We’re going to find out where everybody stands … if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future,” he said.
The president also made an international cold-call last month to Norway’s finance minister – to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, according to reports today by Norwegian press.
Finally, and closer to home, California governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to hold a special election to approve new congressional maps in response to a redistricting plan by Texas. “We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire,” he said today at a press conference.
This comes as Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
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All 800 national guard troops deployed have been activated, Pentagon says
In a statement, the Department of Defense said that all 800 national guard troops deployed this week are now mobilised.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson underscored that troops will not be arresting people, “but they may temporarily limit the movement of an individual who has entered a restricted or secured area without permission”.
About 200 soldiers at a time will support federal law enforcement and the Metropolitan police department (MPD) in the nation’s capital. “They will remain there until law and order has been restored in the district, as determined by the president – standing as the gatekeepers of our great nation’s capital,” Wilson said.
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Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas.
Gene Wu, chair of the Texas house Democratic caucus, said in a statement that he and his colleagues “successfully mobilized the nation against Trump’s assault on minority voting rights”.
“Facing threats of arrest, lawfare, financial penalties, harassment and bomb threats, we have stood firm in our fight against a proposed Jim Crow congressional district map,” he said. “Now, as Democrats across the nation join our fight to cause these maps to fail their political purpose, we’re prepared to bring this battle back to Texas under the right conditions and to take this fight to the courts.”
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Newsom calls for a special election to introduce new US House maps
“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Gavin Newsom said, announcing his plans to ask voters to approve new congressional maps in response to a redistricting plan by Texas.
To critics who fear a redistricting arms race, Newsom said:
It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.
Other blue states need to stand up.
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Border patrol has showed up outside Gavin Newsom’s event at the democracy center in Los Angeles.
Local news reported that at least one man was arrested, as the governor vowed on X that Democrats would “not be intimidated”.
Inside, speakers referenced the enforcement activity. Ann Burroughs, president of the Japanese American National Museum, said the center was built on the site because it was where, in 1942, Japanese American families were forced onto buses that took them to incarceration camps for the duration of the second world war.
“What happened in 1942 is not much different from what is happening now,” she said, “as Ice is stalking the streets of our city and the terror that Ice is inflicting on our sisters and brothers in the immigrant community.”
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Democrats have gathered in Los Angeles in a show of unity in support of the Election Rigging Response Act.
Speakers have included labor leaders, a teachers union, the state’s Planned Parenthood head and a member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission who said she believes mapmaking is best left out of the hands of politicians. But, she said, “extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures”.
Jodi Hicks of Planned Parenthood assailed the nine House Republicans from California who supported legislation rolling back reproductive rights: “You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats.”
David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, who was arrested and detained during protests over the administration’s immigration raids in June, said his state is fighting to save the country from “an authoritarian” in the White House.
“I trust California voters will save our democracy,” he said.
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Trump cold-called Norwegian minister about Nobel peace prize
Donald Trump called Norway’s finance minister out of the blue last month to discuss tariffs – and to tell him that he wanted the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian business daily Dagens Næringsliv reported today.
“Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called,” Dagens Næringsliv reported, citing unnamed sources. “He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”
This was not the first time Trump had raised the prize in discussions with Stoltenberg, the paper noted.
In a comment to Reuters, Stoltenberg said the call was to discuss tariffs and economic cooperation before Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister. “I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” he added.
Several White House officials, including treasury secretary Scott Bessent and trade representative Jamieson Greer, were on the call, Stoltenberg added.
Several countries including Israel, Pakistan and Cambodia have nominated Trump for brokering peace agreements or ceasefires, and the president has claimed many times that he deserves the Norwegian-bestowed accolade, which four of his White House predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.
With hundreds of candidates nominated each year, laureates are chosen by the Norwegian Nobel committee, whose five members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Swedish 19th-century industrialist Alfred Nobel. The announcement comes in October in Oslo.
The White House on 31 July announced a 15% tariff on imports from Norway, the same as the European Union. Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Norway and the United States were still in talks regarding the tariffs.
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Hello from the very intentionally chosen National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where Gavin Newsom has teased a “major” redistricting announcement.
Seated in the front row are several Democratic members of the California congressional delegation including representatives Maxine Waters, Pete Aguilar and Judy Chu and senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, holding signs that say “defend Democracy” and “election rigging response act”.
The California governor has vowed to retaliate against Texas’s plan to redraw its maps to give Republicans a five-seat advantage before the 2026 congressional midterms.
Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ’em just played on the loudspeaker.
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Sean Dunn, the Washington DC man who was charged with assault on Wednesday after throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement agent, worked for the justice department and has been fired, the US attorney general Pam Bondi said on Thursday.
Dunn worked in the department’s criminal division as an international affairs specialist in the office of international affairs, according to a department spokesperson.
“If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you,” Bondi said in a post on X. “You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement.”
That statement was immediately met with ridicule online. The department currently employs Jared Wise, a former January 6 defendant, who urged rioters to kill police officers. Trump issued a blanket pardon on his first day in office to roughly 1,500 people involved in the Capitol riot, many of whom attacked law enforcement.
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Second meeting is chief aim of Alaska summit with Putin, Trump says
When asked whether “anything less than an unconditional and immediate ceasefire” would be considered a success at Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin tomorrow, the president avoided the question.
“All I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly. I’d like to see it happen very quickly,” Trump said. “We’re going to find out where everybody stands, and I’ll know within the first two minutes … it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
But yesterday, the president said, unequivocally, that Russia would face “very severe consequences” if Putin does not agree a ceasefire at his initial summit with Trump in Alaska.
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Trump repeats baseless claims of "phony crime stats" from DC police
The president said, once again without evidence, that DC officials have created fake statistics that show the rate of violent crime declining in the city.
He added that they are “under investigation”, but didn’t name anyone specifically.
“They’re phony crime stats, and Washington DC is at its worst point, and it will soon be at its best point,” he said.
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Trump praises executive order allowing MPD to notify Ice agents about undocumented immigrants at traffic stops
The president just called an executive order – signed by DC police chief Pamela Smith – “a great step”. The action, signed today, allows the department to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents about undocumented immigrants they find during traffic stops.
Trump didn’t confirm whether he pressured the Metropolitan police department to issue the order, when asked by a reporter in the Oval Office. “I think that’s going to happen all over the country,” he added.
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Trump repeats false claim that DC crime is 'the worst it's ever been'
The president has repeated the baseless claim that crime in the nation’s capital is the “worst it’s ever been”. He also described the situation as “tragic” and an “epidemic”.
A reminder that data from the justice department shows that DC experienced a 30-year low in violent crime in 2024.
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Trump was just asked whether he would give Putin access to rare minerals to incentivize him to end the war in Ukraine. He didn’t really answer that: “As far as rare earth, that’s very unimportant … I’m trying to save lives,” he said.
The president went on to explain his hopes for the meeting.
“What I’m really doing this for is to save thousands of soldiers a week. You have Russian soldiers, you have Ukrainian soldiers,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we’re having. We’re going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelenskyy, myself, and maybe we’ll bring some of the European leaders on.”
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Fact check: Trump rails about social security fraud without evidence
The president is now talking about how his domestic policy bill, which he signed into law last month, enshrines “no tax” on social security for America’s older adults.
He’s also bringing up one of his frequent talking points: egregious social security fraud.
“You have 12.4m names listed in the social security database that were over 120 years of age, meaning you’re breaking records,” he said.
An important fact check here: the social security database does have the names of a number of Americans born as early as the 1920s (without death dates), but that doesn’t automatically mean that these people are receiving cheques. Also, a report from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in 2024 found that only 1% of total benefits paid from 2015-2022 were improper.
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Trump delivers remarks in Oval Office on Social Security Act anniversary
Donald Trump is now addressing the press in the Oval Office. He’s issuing a presidential proclamation on the 90th anniversary of social security and is joined by the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano. Here’s Trump:
In the campaign, I made a sacred pledge to our seniors that I would always protect social security, and under this administration, we’re keeping that promise and strengthening social security for generations to come.
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Florida governor says state will open ‘deportation depot’ immigration jail
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Thursday that the state will open a second immigration jail, as a federal judge weighs whether to close the controversial existing facility in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.
DeSantis painted the forthcoming detention center at the shuttered Baker correctional institution in Sanderson as supplementary to the remote tented camp. He also said the facility would hold up to 1,300 undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation.
“We need additional capacity beyond what we’re already doing down in south Florida. There’s a massive part here at Baker that isn’t being used. [It’s] ready-made infrastructure,” DeSantis announced during a press conference at the disused jail 50 miles north of Gainesville.
Baker was closed in 2021 after numerous reports of excessive violence and abuse of inmates by guards.
The governor gave no timeline for its opening, but said the facility, which he said would be called “the deportation depot”, would be operational soon.
“We’re not rushing to do it right this day, but they’re doing what they need to do to get it done with all deliberate speed,” he said.
“It’s a priority for the people of this state, it’s a priority for the people of this country.”
The development came on the heels of district court judge Kathleen Williams hearing final arguments in Miami on Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by an alliance of environmental groups seeking to close Alligator Alcatraz.
Navarro says tariffs on pharmaceutical imports are still 'likely'
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview with CNBC today that the Trump administration is still “likely” to implement tariffs on pharmaceutical imports. He said that these tariffs would likely be the result of the ongoing trade investigation to determine the national security impact of certain imports.
This comes, however, as the president signed an executive order yesterday to ensure a “resilient” supply chain for for essential medicines by filling the reserve of the stockpile of key pharmaceutical ingredients.
Yesterday, Reuters had exclusive reporting that tariffs on pharmaceutical imports are still “weeks away” – according to their sources. This is while the president focuses on his upcoming meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday.
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California governor Gavin Newsom has taken to social media again today to mock the president – using his bizarre style of all-caps posting on Truth Social – and tee up his plans to offset the redistricting battle that began in Texas, after House Democrats broke quorum to protest a gerrymandered GOP-drawn map.
I, GAVIN CHRISTOPHER NEWSOM, AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR (MANY SAY), WILL HOST THE GREATEST PRESS CONFERENCE OF ALL TIME. AFTER THAT — “THE MAPS” WILL SOON BE RELEASED. VERY MUCH ANTICIPATED. HISTORY MADE. THE GOP’S RIGGED GAME IS OVER!!!!
In just over an hour we can expect to hear from Donald Trump in the Oval Office. He’s due to deliver remarks which include issuing a presidential proclamation honoring the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act.
Senator Graham says White House to send funding package to secure 'safety' resources for DC
Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that –following discussions with Trump, attorney general Pam Bondi and the president’s senior staffers yesterday – the White House will send a package to Graham and Republican senator Katie Britt of Alabama to “shepherd” a “DC Security Fund” through Congress.
Graham, who is chair of the Senate Budget Committee, wrote on X that the fund would “give President Trump the resources he will need to improve the safety and quality of life in our nation’s capital”.
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More than 120 education scholars have condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal dedicated to Palestine by a Harvard University publisher as “censorship”.
In an open letter published on Thursday, the scholars denounced the abrupt scrapping of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review – which was first revealed by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies”.
The writers note that the issue’s censorship is also an example of “anti-Palestinian discrimination, obstructing the dissemination of knowledge on Palestine at the height of the genocide in Gaza”.
The scholars also asked for the publisher to apologize to the authors, commission a new special issue on Palestine and implement safeguards to protect editorial independence. They pledged to boycott the journal’s publisher and the affiliated Harvard Education Press until then.
The ordeal around the special Palestine issue played out against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s crackdown on US higher education institutions’ autonomy on the basis of combating alleged antisemitism on campuses.
Harvard is the only university that has sued the administration in response to the White House cutting billions of dollars in federal funds and other punishing measures it has unleashed on universities. But internally, Harvard has pre-empted many of the administration’s demands, including by demoting scholars, scrapping initiatives giving space to Palestinian narratives and adopting a controversial definition of antisemitism that critics say is antithetical to academic inquiry.
White House says 45 arrests made on Wednesday night
A White House official confirmed to the Guardian that federal law enforcement officers made 45 arrests on Wednesday night in Washington DC. They added that 1,650 officers took part in last night’s operations.
The official added that 29 people arrested were allegedly undocumented immigrants.
They also said that the National Guard are not making arrests at this time, but instead troops deployed to the capital are “providing a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests” and protecting federal buildings and property.
The White House added that operations will now be around the clock, seven days a week – instead of focused on the evening hours.
Law enforcement will also target specific high-crime areas, the White House said, and will focus on “drug dealers, street corners and set-up investigations”. They will also form multi-agency teams to help with this effort.
In that same interview, Trump called California governor Gavin Newsom “incompetent” when asked about Newsom’s push to get the president to stand down and defuse the redistricting arms race that has spread across the country.
Newsom has also trolled the president on social media – mimicking Trump’s all-caps writing style. Later today, the California governor will host a press conference to announce plans to offset the GOP-drawn congressional map in Texas.
“The state has gone to hell. You see what’s happened to Los Angeles, and if I didn’t send the troops in, you probably wouldn’t have much of a Los Angeles standing right now,” Trump said, referring to the deployment of the California National Guard to quell protests in LA earlier this year.
My colleague, Jakub Krupa, is bringing you the latest developments ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska tomorrow.
Jakub’s got the latest lines from Trump’s interview with Fox News Radio happening now.
Trump says that the main aim of tomorrow’s summit is to set up a second meeting – involving Volodymyr Zelenskyy – to make a deal.
Trump adds there is a “25% chance” that the meeting with Putin will be unsuccessful, but earlier the president said that the Kremlin leader “wants to get it done”.
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As federal firefighters grapple with strained resources in an intense year of fire activity, Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers from the Trump administration about how severe cuts to staffing and budgets at the US Forest Service may have hamstrung wildfire preparation and response.
Leaders at the agency and the US Department of Agriculture, which oversees it, have repeatedly assured the public and Congress that they were fully prepared for the critical fire season that’s already well under way.
But internal data, first reported by the Guardian last month, painted a dangerously different picture, with more than a quarter of firefighting roles left unfilled in mid-July, just as fire activity and risks spiked. Trump administration policies designed to rapidly shrink the federal government have also left significant gaps in the workforce that supports wildfire mitigation and suppression.
In a letter issued Thursday, the representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, gave USDA secretary Brooke Rollins two weeks to provide documents with a detailed accounting of firefighter staffing and support personnel, and called for clarity from the USFS on information that’s largely been shielded from the public.
“The Forest Service’s firefighting capacity has been dangerously hampered by Department of Government Efficiency and Trump Administration layoffs, deferred resignations, and other early retirements and resignations just as climate change is extending the fire season,” Garcia wrote in the letter, requesting specifics that would show “the extent to which the Trump Administration’s policies have affected the ability of firefighters to protect the American public”.
The president, late Wednesday, continued to post unfounded claims about DC’s crime rate.
On Truth Social, he said:
Violent Crime Rate in D.C. has worsened, and the Murder Rate has essentially DOUBLED in just over a decade — But these are only the “official” statistics released by corrupt City Officials.
He said “the REAL numbers are many times worse,” and claimed that because the “the Democrat Government of D.C. has largely stopped investigating, arresting, and prosecuting most Crime,” the published statistics “don’t even capture a fraction of the actual Violence”.
There is no evidence to support these allegations.
A US justice department report, however, showed that violent crime in DC hit a 30-year low in 2024. Similarly, independent reports show that even when DC’s violent crime rate spiked in 2023, it was still lower than metropolitan cities like St Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology.
MPD data also shows that DC experienced a 35% drop in violent crime from 2023 to 2024.
DC police made 74 arrests on Wednesday
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) tells the Guardian that it made a total of 74 arrests across DC on Wednesday 13 August.
They note that this number reflects the number of arrests made until midnight on Thursday. We’re still waiting on an exact number of arrests from federal law enforcement from the White House.
MPD confirmed that a total of 76 arrests were made throughout the day citywide on Tuesday. The department’s data showed they made an average of 56 arrests per day in 2024.
Updated
DC police announces new 'juvenile curfew zone' in Navy Yard area
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) also announced that, beginning Friday 15 August, groups of nine or more young people – under the age of 17 – will not be allowed to gather in the popular Navy Yard area after 8pm. This particular curfew will be in effect until August 18.
The citywide curfew (from 11pm-6am) for anyone under the age of 17 remains lasts until August 31.
'Get off our streets': DC residents protest federal law enforcement
A number of DC locals protested the increased presence of federal law enforcement on Wednesday night.
Protesters also encouraged drivers to avoid the 14th street area, where dozens of authorities had set up a traffic checkpoint to stop cars for alleged traffic violations. A CNN report noted that they saw at least one person being handcuffed and taken away by law enforcement.
According to various reports, several people chanted at officers telling them to “go home, fascists”. Those protesting in the busy 14th st area of the city – where several popular restaurants and bars are located – also noted that some of the officers assisting the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Other local reports shared video of residents shouting “get off our streets”, “go home pigs”, and “shame on you” as they filled pavements, surrounding police cars.
I’m waiting to hear back from the White House and the MPD about Wednesday night’s arrest numbers, and I’ll make sure to provide an update.
Updated
While secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s links to an extremist church and crusader tattoos caused a stir during his confirmation hearings, the former Fox & Friends host is now openly bringing his ultra-conservative brand of christianity to the Pentagon.
Veterans tell the Guardian that Hegseth’s religiosity – rubbing off in new recruitment ads and official US Department of Defense social media activities – is dividing the ranks and doing untold damage to the future of the US military.
In one of the Pentagon’s latest videos that it posted on X – with the message: “We Are One Nation Under God” – paratroopers are seen dropping from the back of airplanes as soldiers in full tactical gear aim assault rifles at an unknown enemy somewhere in the whirling sands of what looks like the Middle East.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them,” text from the book of Psalms appears across the screen as the scene unfolds in a desert resembling where medieval crusaders once fought. “I did not turn back till they were destroyed.”
Days before the ad was posted, Hegseth, on his personal account, reposted a CNN segment about pastor Doug Wilson – Hegseth is a congregant at one of Wilson’s churches – with the quote “All of Christ for All of Life,” a slogan for embracing christianity in every facet of society (including government). In the original report, Wilson contends that women should not have the right to vote. Many critics saw the post as showcasing Hegseth’s own pitiful track record with feminism and undermining promises he made to Senator Joni Ernst to champion women in uniform.
We can expect to hear from the president at 1pm ET today. He’ll deliver remarks from the Oval Office, according to his daily schedule.
We don’t now yet what those remarks will focus on. It could end up covering a number of topics, like his Kennedy Center appearance yesterday which touched on several ongoing stories: his Friday meeting with Putin, National guard troops in DC, the federal takeover of the city’s police, and replacing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.
Updated
Melania Trump demands Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to Jeffrey Epstein
Melania Trump has demanded that Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and has threatened to sue if he does not.
Biden, the son of the former president Joe Biden, alleged in an interview this month that Epstein introduced the first lady to Donald Trump.
The statements were false, defamatory and “extremely salacious,” Melania Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, said in a letter to Biden. Biden’s remarks were widely disseminated on social media and reported by media outlets around the world, causing the first lady “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm,” he added.
Biden made the Epstein comments during a sprawling interview with the British journalist Andrew Callaghan in which he lashed out at “elites” and others in the Democratic party who he said undermined his father before he dropped out of last year’s presidential campaign.
“Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep,” Biden said in one of the comments that the first lady disputes. Biden attributed the claim to the author Michael Wolff. Donald Trump has accused Wolff of making up stories to sell books.
Donald Trump’s takeover of Washington DC’s police department and decision to deploy the national guard was sparked by the assault of a former Doge staffer who nicknamed himself “Big Balls”.
Thirty-three years ago, a fatal attack on a congressional staffer also provoked an effort by the federal government to impose law and order on the nation’s capital – but in that case, it came from Capitol Hill.
On Monday, Trump said he was taking “a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse. This is liberation day in DC and we’re going to take our capital back.”
In 1992, it was the death of 25-year-old Tom Barnes, a staffer for Senator Richard Shelby, a Democrat of Alabama, that prompted the senator to introduce legislation to legalize the death penalty in the district.
Shelby, a conservative Democrat who would become a Republican two years later, acknowledged that many DC community leaders had historically been opposed to the death penalty, but argued that the tide had changed – using similar dystopian language as Trump.
Read Fred Frommer’s piece on how a violent event in 1992 prompted a response – not from the president, but Congress – with similarly dystopian language here:
When Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet in Alaska, the Russian president will set out to woo his US counterpart and dangle financial incentives for siding with Moscow over Ukraine.
The hastily arranged summit, organised at Putin’s request, will be his first invitation to meet a US president on American soil since he visited George W Bush in 2007.
The surprise announcement caught Kyiv and its European allies off guard but for Putin it signals a preliminary diplomatic victory: a face to face with Trump requiring no concessions, and a step towards his goal of deciding Ukraine’s future at the table with Washington.
Key to Putin’s message on Friday will be an appeal to Trump’s business instincts. On Thursday, the Russian president’s adviser Yuri Ushakov said the leaders would discuss the “huge untapped potential” in Russia–US economic relations.
A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.
Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.
Under Humire’s leadership, the Center for a Secure Free Society thinktank published the “TdA Activity Monitor”, tracking alleged crimes by accused members of the gang throughout the US. According to InSight Crime, at least five event entries in the tracker appeared to have been “completely fabricated”. InSight Crime found zero basis for the false entries, with local police departments telling researchers the purported crimes were nonexistent. InSight Crime analyzed more than 90 of the entries, finding many relied on unverified sources.
“Some incidents are included multiple times, inflating the gang’s perceived presence and activities,” researchers found.
The monitor is no longer available online following InSight Crime’s reporting.
“The TdA Monitor is an aggregator, not a primary source of information about Tren de Aragua’s activities,” a statement from the Center for a Secure Free Society said, adding that it “reflects the media reporting”.
The Department of Defense declined to comment.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the US administration was making “sincere efforts” to resolve the Ukraine conflict and suggested Moscow and Washington could reach a deal on nuclear arms control that could strengthen peace.
Putin held a meeting with top officials and representatives of Russia’s leadership ahead of a summit with US president Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.
Donald Trump on Wednesday revoked a 2021 executive order on promoting competition in the US economy issued by Joe Biden, the White House said.
The move by the Republican US president further unwinds a signature initiative by his predecessor, a Democrat, to crack down on anti-competitive practices in sectors from agriculture to drugs and labor.
The justice department welcomed Trump’s revocation of the order, saying it was pursuing an “America first antitrust” approach focused on free markets instead of what it called the “overly prescriptive and burdensome approach” of the Biden administration.
It said it was also making progress on streamlining the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (HSR) review process of mergers and reinstating more frequent use of targeted and well-crafted consent decrees.
Biden signed a sweeping executive order in July 2021 to promote more competition in the US economy as part of a broad push to rein in what his administration described as a pattern of corporate abuses, ranging from excessive airline fees to large mergers that raised costs for consumers.
The initiative, which was very popular with Americans, was championed by top Biden economic officials, many of whom had previously worked for or with the senator Elizabeth Warren, who played a key role in creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Barack Obama.
Trump to hold joint press conference with Putin at Alaska summit tomorrow
Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Donald Trump will hold a joint press conference at their Alaska summit on Friday after meeting one-on-one and with delegations, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
The media event will undoubtedly evoke memories of the two leaders’ previous presser at their Helsinki summit in 2018, where Putin presented Trump with a football ahead of that year’s World Cup event in Russia.
Political commentators at the time were critical of Trump’s approach, with many saying he allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred by Putin. The pair appeared friendly as the US president even sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies on election interference.
Trump flies to a meeting in Alaska with Putin on Friday in a different public mood - impatient with the Russian’s unwillingness to negotiate an end to his war in Ukraine and angry over missile strikes on Ukrainian cities.
The world is waiting to see if it will be this tougher version of Trump who shows up in Anchorage or if it will be the former real estate tycoon who has sought to ingratiate himself with the wily former KGB agent in the past.
Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he will host the Kennedy Center honors this year and said he had been heavily involved in choosing who to nominate, rejecting people he thought were too liberal.
The US president named actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, the rock band Kiss, country music star George Strait and actor and singer Michael Crawford among the first batch of Kennedy Center honors nominees since he took over as the Washington-based arts center’s chairman upon returning to the White House this year.
The president typically attends the annual honors event each December but sits in the audience as a VIP and hosts a reception for awardees at the White House. Trump’s announcement that he will host the event is a break from tradition, although no details were released on what form that would take.
His announcement continues his push to exert authority over US cultural institutions, such as the Smithsonian, and Democratic-led cities and came on the first full day that federalized national guard troops were on duty on the streets of Washington by order of the president. Trump has cited a crisis of crime and homelessness in the nation’s capital to sharp criticism from opponents.
In an appearance at the arts center on Wednesday morning, Trump also said that he intends to “fully renovate” the entire infrastructure of the Kennedy Center to make it a “crown jewel” of arts and culture in the US.
Vladimir Putin will face “very severe consequences” if he does not agree a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine at his summit with Donald Trump in Alaska, the US president said on Wednesday.
Speaking after a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders, including Britain’s Keir Starmer, Trump also suggested he would push for a second summit if his meeting with Putin goes well – this time including his Ukrainian counterpart.
“If the first one goes OK, we’ll have a quick second one,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “I would like to do it almost immediately, and we’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself, if they’d like to have me there.”
Trump did not provide a timeframe for a second meeting. He is to meet Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. The meeting will reportedly be held at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, a military facility crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war.
Asked if Russia would face consequences if Putin did not agree to stop the war after the Alaska meeting, Trump said: “Yes, they will … very severe consequences.”
Trump says he will seek ‘long-term’ control of DC police
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would ask Congress for “long-term” control of Washington DC’s police department and signaled he expected other Democratic-led cities to change their laws in response to his deployment of national guard troops and federal agents into the capital.
The president’s comments came as the White House took credit for dozens of arrests overnight in Washington as part of Trump’s campaign to fight a “crime crisis”, which the city’s leaders say does not exist.
Trump earlier this week invoked a never-before-used clause of the law that sets out the federal district’s governance structure to take temporary control of the police department, but will need Congress’s permission to extend it beyond the 30 days allowed under the statute.
It comes as the New York Times reported that protesters last night gathered around law enforcement officers, including homeland security agents, who set up a police checkpoint in the busy U Street corridor in north-west Washington.
Crowds chanted ‘go home fascists’ and told drivers to turn away from the checkpoint on 14th Street, warning that they could be stopped for reasons including not wearing seat belts or broken taillights. The checkpoint was closed just before 11 pm.
Read our full report here:
In other developments:
Trump promised ‘very severe consequences’ if Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to ceasefire at their Friday meeting in Alaska. He didn’t, however, elaborate on what those penalties will be.
Trump took part in a virtual meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders ahead of his summit in Alaska with Putin which the German chancellor described as “constructive”. Zelenskyy confirmed that Trump said he would call him right after the meeting with Putin.
At the Kennedy Center, Trump announced that he would host this year’s honors himself.
California governor Gavin Newsom, who revels in trolling Trump on social media, used the president’s bizarre writing style to promote a news conference on his state’s plan to counter Texas gerrymandering, scheduled for Thursday at 11.30 am Pacific Time.
The White House announced that Trump revoked an executive order issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden, which made it government policy to promote competition throughout the US economy. Unlike many of Trump’s orders, this one, which ended 72 federal initiatives to fight corporate monopolies and aid workers and consumers, was released without any publicity at all.
Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EJ Antoni, was in the crowd outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021 when Trump supporters rioted in a failed effort to keep him in office.
