Closing summary
This brings our surreal-time coverage of the second Trump administration to a close for the day. We will be back soon, but in the meantime, here are the latest developments:
Hundreds of people were arrested in an immigration raid at a Hyundai battery factory in Georgia, most of them Korean nationals, despite the fact that a warrant said that just four people, with Spanish names, were targeted.
Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing the US Department of Defense to refer to itself as the “Department of War”, as part of an attempt to formalize his rebranding effort without the legally required act of Congress.
Trump announced that the US will host the 2026 meeting of the G20 at his privately owned Doral golf course and spa in Miami.
Asked about Florida’s move to lift mandates on vaccinations for schoolchildren, Trump said that officials have to “be careful” in removing access to vaccines he described as “amazing” and “incredible”.
After watching a misleading report on small protests in Portland, Oregon over immigration, the president said that he might send troops there. A Fox News report on the protests used video recorded during a protest in 2020 and wrongly said it had been recorded in the city this summer.
CNN reported that Trump “is weighing options for carrying out military strikes targeting drug cartels operating inside Venezuela, including possible strikes within the country”.
The Pentagon made some immediate cosmetic changes to signage on Friday, after Donald Trump signed an executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War.
Two leading Republican lawmakers, the House speaker Mike Johnson and Nancy Mace, both claimed this week that Trump had acted as an FBI informant to take down Jeffrey Epstein. They offered no evidence, but if it existed it would be in the files Trump has fought to keep from the public.
Republican lawmakers push unsourced claim Trump was an 'FBI informant' against Epstein
As the Republican leadership in the House continues to block a bipartisan effort to force the full release of files from the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who was once Donald Trump’s friend, several of them have started to make the same unsourced claim: that Trump aided the federal effort to prosecute Epstein.
On Tuesday, Nancy Mace, the South Carolina congresswoman who has supported the petition to force the release of the files, told a reporter for the Independent that she had no reason to believe that Trump has opposed hte releae of the files because they might be embarrassing to him.
“Donald Trump is the one who banned Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago”, she said. “He was an FBI informant, and he talked to the feds to get this guy turned over. So Donald Trump is a hero in this.”
Then on Thursday, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, made the same claim in an interview with Manu Raju of CNN.
When the reporter said that Trump had called the effort to release the Epstein files “a hoax”, Johnson replied: “He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”
As the conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild noted: “This has been a supposition among QAnon believers for years. Maybe they could release the files and prove it!”
Sign on Hegseth's office door now says 'Secretary of War'
The Pentagon made some immediate cosmetic changes to signage on Friday, after Donald Trump signed an executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War.
A video clip posted on social media by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, showed workers replacing the sign on his office door with one that read “Secretary of War”.
Other images gathered by Pentagon reporters showed workers scraping letters that spelled out “Department of Defense” from the wall near Hegseth’s office.
The URL of the Pentagon’s official website was changed from from “defense.gov ” to “war.gov”.
Trump promises to send federal troops to police Chicago and New Orleans
Speaking at a dinner for Republican lawmakers on the newly paved-over lawn on the Rose Garden, Donald Trump boasted of what he called the success of his federal takeover of policing in the District of Columbia and promised to send troops to Chicago and New Orleans next.
“We’re going to make Chicago like this”, Trump said. “We’re going to come into New Orleans and we’re gonna make that place so safe. It’s got a little problem right now, a couple of headaches like murders. A lot of little murders going on, and we’re not going to stand for it”.
Trump says he is 'not talking about' regime change in Venezuela, as he reportedly weighs air strikes
Donald Trump refused to answer on Friday when a reporter asked him, amid reports of US ships and bombers massing in the Caribbean, if he would “like to see regime change in Venezuela”.
“We’re not talking about that”, the president said, “but we are talking about the fact that you had an election which was a very strange election, to put it mildly”.
He went on to say that “billions of dollars of drugs are pouring into our country from Venezuela”, in line with his administration’s claim that it is now at war with drug cartels operating in the country.
The president’s comments came after Fox News reported that the Pentagon is deploying 10 F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico, joining eight US Navy destroyers. That prompted the Fox national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin to observe that there was no apparent reason that stealth fighter jets were needed for a counternarcotics mission.
“The F35s being sent to Puerto Rico are usually used for large bombing missions like the targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities- a 5th generation supersonic fighter jet known for its lethality”, Griffin wrote on X. “It looks to me like the US military is going to war.”
Later on Friday, CNN reported that Trump “is weighing options for carrying out military strikes targeting drug cartels operating inside Venezuela, including possible strikes within the country”.
Such strikes would be an escalation from deadly attack on a boat from Venezuela in the Caribbean, which killed 11 people the administration suspected on smuggling drugs bound for the US.
During Trump’s first term in office, according to his defense secretary, Mark Esper, the president asked him on at least two occasions if the US military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.”
Esper recounted the requests in his memoir, and wrote that when he objected, Trump suggested that “no one would know it was us” if the US fired “some Patriot missiles” and he would just deny that the US had carried out the strikes.
In 2019, when Trump reportedly considered forcing its president, Nicolás Maduro, from office, a Democratic congresswoman opposed to what she called “regime change wars” objected very strongly. “The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela”, Tulsi Gabbard wrote at the time. “Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders--so we have to stop trying to choose theirs.”
Misled by video of 2020 protests shown on Fox, Trump threatens to invade Portland and 'wipe out' protesters
Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that he might send national guard troops to Portland, Oregon, apparently because he was misled about the scale of small protests outside an immigration detention facility there by a TV report which incorrectly presented video recorded during a protest in 2020 as having taken place in the city this summer.
“I will say this, I watched today, I didn’t know that was continuing to go on, but Portland is unbelievable, what’s going on,” Trump said. He then claimed, incorrectly, that he had seen video evidence of “the destruction of the city”.
In fact, a handful of protesters have demonstrated outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in a remote area of Portland along the south waterfront this year, but the scale of the protests, which attract dozens at most, is nothing like the 2020 protests that regularly drew thousands or tens of thousands of demonstrators to a central part of the city.
“Are you going into Portland?” a reporter asked Trump.
“Well, I’m going to look at it now because I didn’t know that was still going on; this has been going on for years,” the president replied. He then explained how he had been misled into the entirely false belief that the large-scale protests from 2020 had continued.
“We’ll be able to stop that very easily, but that was not on my list, Portland, but when I watched television last night, this has been going on,” Trump said.
The president did not cite the specific news report that he was basing his impression on, but his favorite channel, Fox News, broadcast a report on Thursday that mixed images of a recent protest in Portland, attended by dozens of protesters, with a viral video clip from 2020 of one protester, Christopher David, being pepper-sprayed in the face by a federal agent that was wrongly described as having been shot in June of this year.
The report focused mainly on one protest outside the facility on Tuesday, attended by dozens of protesters who brought a guillotine as a prop before being doused with chemical agents by federal officers.
“These are paid terrorists,” the president said, once again spreading a baseless conspiracy theory his administration amplified about anti-fascist protesters in 2020.
“These are paid agitators, these are professional. I watched that last night, I’m very good at this stuff. These are paid agitators, they get paid money by radical left groups,” the president claimed. He then went on to suggest that well-printed signs displayed by some protesters proved his theory.
“These are paid agitators and they’re very dangerous for our country and when we go there, if we go to Portland, we’re going to wipe ‘em out. They’re going to be gone. They won’t even stand to fight. They will not stay there. They’ve ruined that city.”
“It’s like living in hell,” the president said, describing an imaginary version of Portland that bears no resemblance to the actual city, in which fences around the federal courthouse that was the scene of mass protests in 2020 have now been removed and the central police headquarters no longer has boarded up windows.
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Trump says US must be 'very careful' in removing mandates for 'vaccines that are so amazing'
Asked about Florida’s move to lift mandates on vaccinations for schoolchildren, Donald Trump said that officials have to “be careful” in removing access to vaccines he described as “amazing” and “incredible”.
“I think we have to be very careful” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday. “Look, you have some vaccines that are so amazing. The polio vaccine, I happen to think, is amazing. A lot of people think that Covid is amazing. You know, there are many people that believe strongly in that. But you have some vaccines that are so incredible and I think that you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated”.
Trump said that the position adopted by Florida was “a tough stance”, given the risks to the community by unvaccinated children attending school.
“Look, you have vaccines that work; they just pure and simple work, they’re not controversial at all, and I think those vaccines should be used, otherwise some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people”, the president said.
“When you don’t have controversy at all, I think people should take it”, Trump added.
His remarks come one day after his anti-vaccine health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, told senators that he agrees with the views of an Israeli management professor he recently appointed to a key CDC vaccine advisory panel, Retsef Levi, who has said that mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 are deadly and should no longer be used.
At the same hearing, Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator who is also a medical doctor, suggested that Trump deserves a Nobel prize for Operation Warp Speed, which sped up the development of mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 in 2020.
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Trump announces US will host 2026 G20 meeting at his Doral resort in Miami
Donald Trump just announced that the US will host the 2026 meeting of the G20 at his privately owned Doral golf course and spa in Miami.
The president was joined by Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, for the announcement in the Oval Office.
Trump initially did not mention that his Doral resort was the location, but confirmed it in response to a question from a reporter. The president then quickly moved to downplay concerns that he was using his office for personal profit, claiming that “we will not make any money on it” and that the location was chosen because “everybody wants it there”.
The president was asked if he intends to invite Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to attend as an observer. He initially said that he had not yet considered that possibility, but has previously claimed that excluding Russia, over its initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, was a mistake.
Minutes later, Trump was asked again and said that both Putin and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, were welcome to attend as observers. “I’d love them to, if they want to”, the president said. “If they want to, we can certainly talk”.
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Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, just announced that he will not end his re-election campaign, despite reports that he was recently offered a position in the Trump administration if he would do so.
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Trump claims 'a lot of illegal aliens' worked at raided Georgia plant, but warrant targeted just four
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Donald Trump just claimed that “a lot of illegal aliens, some not the best of people” were working at a factory in Georgia raided by immigration officers on Friday, resulting in nearly 500 arrests.
However, a warrant for the raid on the HL-GA battery factory, which is being built to make car batteries for South Korean electric vehicles, identified just four “target persons”. The warrant was obtained and posted online by Politico.
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Trump signs executive order directing Department of Defense to call itself 'Department of War'
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday authorizing the US Department of Defense to refer to itself as the “Department of War”, as part of an attempt to formalize his rebranding effort without the legally required act of Congress.
According to a draft White House factsheet seen by the Guardian on Thursday, the order designates “Department of War” as a “secondary title”, as a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency.
The move, to have the executive branch use a name for the department Trump called “much more appropriate”, restores a name used until 1947, when Congress merged the previously independent war department and navy department with the air force into a single organization, known as the National Military Establishment. In 1949, Congress changed the name of the National Military Establishment to the Department of Defense, and made the army, navy and air force secretaries subordinate to a single, cabinet-level secretary of defense.
Referring to the creation of the defense department in 1949, the president said: “We decided to go woke and we changed the name to Department of Defense, so we’re going Department of War”.
Trump also introduced the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, as “our secretary of war” and claimed that the name change “really it has to do with winning”, suggesting that the US military had somehow been hampered by the choice “to be politically correct, or wokey” and, as a result, failed to win “wars that we would’ve won easily”.
The draft White House factsheet on Trump’s rebranding initiative implicitly acknowledged that only Congress can formally change the department’s name, saying that the order would authorize the defense secretary to propose legislation that would make the change permanent.
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New York's mayor, Eric Adams to make 'important announcement regarding the future of his campaign'
Eric Adams, the sitting mayor of New York, has just announced a hastily scheduled event to begin 30 minutes from now in which he will “make an important announcement regarding the future of his campaign”. The event is scheduled for 4.30pm ET.
Adams, who is running as an independent and trails in the polls, has previously denied reports that he is in talks with the White House over taking a role in the Trump administration in exchange for ending his apparently doomed re-election campaign.
At a dinner with tech industry leaders last night, Donald Trump denied that he is encouraging Adams to drop out of the race to help New York’s former governor, Andrew Cuomo, defeat Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist who is the frontrunner to be elected mayor in November. Trump then immediately said that he would like Adams to drop out for that reason.
The New York Times reported on Friday that Adams met in person with Trump’s friend and diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the possibility of being nominated as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Last year, federal prosecutors accused members of the Turkish government of a years-long influence campaign to cultivate and secure favors from Adams.
In the federal indictment, the US attorney for New York’s southern district alleged that government officials and business leaders with ties to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, showered Adams with thousands in illegal foreign campaign donations and free or heavily discounted luxury hotel stays and flights around the world.
Charges against Adams were dropped by the Trump justice department this year, over the strong objections of prosecutors who claimed that there was an explicit quid pro quo arrangement in which the mayor would cooperate with federal immigration enforcement in the city in return for corruption charges being dropped.
Should Adams become the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, he would oversee diplomacy with the kingdom whose de-facto leader, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, US intelligence believes approved the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
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The day so far
Donald Trump plans to announce executive orders shortly in the Oval Office, with the theme we know most about so far being an instruction to rename the Department of Defense the “Department of War”.
Until then, here’s a quick recap of some of the day’s key developments:
Trump criticized the European Union’s decision to fine Google $3.46bn over antitrust concerns and threatened a wider trade probe against the EU in response to the move.
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr plans to announce that use of Kenvue’s popular over-the-counter pain medication Tylenol in pregnant women is potentially linked to autism, without including evidence for the claims, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Georgia is about to become the eighth state to send national guard troops to Washington DC to support Trump’s federal law enforcement big foot operation there, as the US capital sues the administration over its actions.
Most of the 475 people arrested in a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raid at a Hyundai factory construction site in southern Georgia are Korean nationals.
The federal Ice raid is being described as the biggest single Department of Homeland Security (DHS, the parent agency of Ice) enforcement operation at one side in the department’s history. The DHS was created after 9/11.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent called for renewed scrutiny of the Federal Reserve, including its power to set interest rates, as the Trump administration continues its efforts to exert control over the US central bank.
Vladimir Putin has said any western troops placed in Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” for Russian strikes, upping the stakes for Kyiv as Donald Trump’s efforts to forge a peace deal show little sign that are any closer to success.
Trump is sending 10 F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region. The action to send jets to be based in the US territory follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat that the administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers.
And the big economics news of the day was that the US added just 22,000 jobs in August, continuing the slowdown amid Trump’s tariff policy.
Trump threatens trade investigation over EU antitrust fine against Google
Donald Trump has criticized the European Union’s decision to fine Google $3.46bn over antitrust concerns and threatened a wider trade probe against the EU in response to the move.
“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Google’s fine for breaching the EU’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services marks the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company as well as a retreat from previous threats to break up the tech giant.
The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the US company to end its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.
The commission’s investigation found that Google had “abused” its dominant positions in the ad-technology ecosystem.
Google said the decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal.
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Kennedy and HHS to link Tylenol use in pregnancy to autism – report
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr plans to announce that use of Kenvue’s popular over-the-counter pain medication Tylenol in pregnant women is potentially linked to autism, without including evidence for the claims, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Kennedy, in a report, will also suggest a medicine derived from folate called folinic acid can be used to treat symptoms of autism in some people, the WSJ reported.
Tylenol, whose active ingredient is acetaminophen, is a widely used pain reliever, including by pregnant women.
The report, expected this month from the US Department of Health and Human Services, is likely to highlight low levels of folate, an important vitamin, and Tylenol taken during pregnancy, as well as other potential causes of autism, the report said.
The health department and Kenvue did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
It is not the first time Kenvue or J&J have faced questions about the link between Tylenol and the condition. In 2023, a judge rejected claims the drug causes autism if mothers take it during pregnancy.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says Tylenol is safe to use in pregnancy, though it recommends pregnant women consult their doctors before using it, as with all medicines.
Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group formerly headed by Kennedy, has posted several times in recent weeks on social media site X about the potential link between Tylenol and autism.
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Georgia to send national guard troops to Washington
Georgia is about to become the eighth state to send national guard troops to Washington DC to support Donald Trump’s federal law enforcement big foot operation there, as the US capital sues the administration over its actions.
Georgia governor Brian Kemp announced he would be sending 316 members of the state national guard to Washington later this month, in the latest indication that Trump’s law enforcement action there will drag on, the Associated Press reports.
Kemp, a Republican, said he will mobilize the roughly 300 troops in mid-September to take part in Trump’s DC operation to relieve soldiers from elsewhere who deployed earlier.
Georgia is proud to stand with the Trump administration in its mission to ensure the security and beauty of our nation’s capital,” Kemp said in a statement.
Trump initially called up 800 members of the District of Columbia national guard to assist federal law enforcement in his unilateral action to impose federal resources on DC with the stated goal of cracking down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration. Since then, seven other Republican-led states have sent troops – Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.
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The nationwide debate over gerrymandered redistricting has come to Kansas, as the Topeka Capital-Journal wrote on Thursday.
Republicans initiated efforts, on Donald Trump’s urging, to engineer mid-decade redistricting in Texas, to gerrymander district maps and gain an edge in next year’s midterm elections.
In Kansas, Democratic congresswomen Sharice Davids, who sits in the house with three Republicans to represent the state’s four seats in the lower chamber, could be in difficulty if the district map is gerrymandered by the GOP.
Davids spoke out on Friday, saying: “Under pressure from Donald Trump, Kansas state politicians are pushing an unprecedented mid-decade redraw to make the already gerrymandered maps even more extreme – breaking their promises and putting their own political power ahead of Kansans.”
She added: “Their goal is clear: stack the deck in their favor because they know their policies aren’t popular, including their disastrous budget that rips 79,000 Kansans off their health care just to give billionaires massive tax breaks. Voters, not politicians, should choose their representatives. This potential gerrymander is clearly political, threatens our democracy, and deepens division in our country.”
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Donald Trump plans to announce executive orders today in the Oval Office, with the theme we know most about so far being an instruction to rename the Department of Defense the “Department of War”.
Trump was initially expected to issue first orders at 2pm ET then more at 4pm ET, but the media has since been informed that a single event at the White House is now due to take place at 4pm ET.
Some context from my colleague Hugo Lowell: The US president is expected to sign an executive order authorizing the rebrand of the Defense Department, the White House said, as part of an attempt to formalize a name change without an act of Congress.
The order will designate “Department of War” as a “secondary title”, an administration official said, as a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency.
But the order will instruct the rest of the executive branch to use the “Department of War” name in internal and external communications, and allows the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to use “secretary of war” as his official title.
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Summary
Hello, US politics live blog readers, it’s another busy Friday and there is much more to come, so stay with the Guardian for all the relevant news as it happens. Here’s where things stand:
Most of the 475 people arrested in a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raid at a Hyundai factory construction site in southern Georgia are Korean nationals.
The federal Ice raid is being described as the biggest single Department of Homeland Security (DHS, the parent agency of Ice) enforcement operation at one side in the department’s history. The DHS was created after 9/11.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent called for renewed scrutiny of the Federal Reserve, including its power to set interest rates, as the Trump administration continues its efforts to exert control over the US central bank.
Vladimir Putin has said any western troops placed in Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” for Russian strikes, upping the stakes for Kyiv as Donald Trump’s efforts to forge a peace deal show little sign that are any closer to success.
Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region. The action to send jets to be based in the US territory follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat that the administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers.
US jobs report. Our sister live blog run by the business team in London has closed now, so here’s our story on the big economics news of the day, that the US added just 22,000 jobs in August, continuing the slowdown amid Trump tariffs.
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Reuters notes that the arrests could exacerbate tensions between Washington and Seoul, a key ally and investor in the US, as the countries remain at odds over the details of a trade deal that includes $350bn of investments.
Just last month, South Korea pledged $150bn in US investments – including $26bn from Hyundai Motor – at a summit for the nations’ leaders.
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Most of 475 people arrested at Hyundai facility are Korean nationals
The arrested workers were being held at Ice’s Folkston detention facility in Georgia, Schrank said. Most of the 475 people are Korean nationals, he said.
Local Korean media said roughly 300 people detained were South Korean nationals.
“It is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Co. We prioritize the safety and well-being of everyone working at the site and comply with all laws and regulations wherever we operate,” a Hyundai spokesperson said in a statement provided to Reuters.
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Homeland security officials said the workers it arrested at the Hyundai facility in Georgia were barred from working in the US after crossing the border illegally or overstaying visas.
The investigation took place over several months, Steven Schrank, special agent in charge of investigations for Georgia, said during a press briefing.
“This was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses,” he said in comments reported by Reuters.
Schrank said there was a network of subcontractors on the site.
A spokesperson at Hyundai’s battery joint venture partner, South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solutions, said in a statement it was cooperating and had paused construction work.
The facility, a joint venture between LGES and Hyundai Motor, was due to start operations at the end of this year, according to LGES.
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Hyundai facility raid is largest single-site operation in DHS history
With some 475 workers arrested, according to US immigration officials, the Ice raid at the Georgia Hyundai facility is the largest single-site enforcement operation in the Department of Homeland Security’s history, Reuters notes.
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Treasury secretary Bessent calls for 'entire' review of Fed
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent earlier called for renewed scrutiny of the Federal Reserve, including its power to set interest rates, as the Trump administration continues its efforts to exert control over the US central bank, whose insulation from short-term political pressures is widely seen as key to its effectiveness.
“There must also be an honest, independent, nonpartisan review of the entire institution, including monetary policy, regulation, communications, staffing and research,” Bessent wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
He called for the Fed to leave bank supervision to other governmental authorities and to “scale back the distortions it causes in the economy”, including by bond purchases made outside of true crisis conditions.
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Ice executed search warrant at Hyundai facility over employment practices, DHS says
A US homeland security department spokesperson had earlier said that US immigration authorities executed a judicial search warrant at the Hyundai facility in Georgia on Thursday over unlawful employment practices and other alleged federal crimes.
The spokesperson said in a statement provided to Reuters that Ice’s investigative arm executed the warrant as part of acriminal investigation.
“This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians, ensuring a level playing field for businesses that comply with the law, safeguarding the integrity of our economy, and protecting workers from exploitation,” the spokesperson said.
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Trump administration will enforce foreign worker laws, White House says after Hyundai raid
Following on from my last post, the White House said today that the Trump administration will enforce laws that require foreign workers have proper authorization to be in the United States, after immigration authorities raided a Hyundai facility in Georgia.
“Any foreign workers brought in for specific projects must enter the United States legally and with proper work authorizations,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, quoted by Reuters.
“President Trump will continue delivering on his promise to make the United States the best place in the world to do business, while also enforcing federal immigration laws.”
Hundreds of workers detained in major Ice raid at US Hyundai factory
Hundreds of workers at a factory being built in Georgia to make car batteries for Hyundai and Kia electric vehicles were detained in a massive raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Thursday that stopped construction.
The facility is part of what would be the biggest industrial investment in the state’s history and had been hailed as a huge boost for the economy by Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
At least 450 people were arrested, according to the Atlanta office of the US justice department agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
However the Korea Economic Daily later reported around 560 workers at the Hyundai facility and LG Energy Solution (LGES), had been detained, citing unidentified industry sources. Some 300 are South Korean nationals, according to local media reports. Hyundai Motor is a South Korean automotive company but has many international plants.
The raid on Thursday has dealt a setback to the company’s substantial project in Georgia and was a dramatic iteration of the Trump administration’s harsh crackdown on immigrants in the US.
It also showed the disruptive impact that Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda is having on businesses, even as the White House tries to spur more inflows from foreign investors.
A government official representing South Korea, the home of Hyundai Motor, said those arrested were being held at an Ice detention facility.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said that “many of our nationals” have been detained and expressed concern about the impact of the raid.
“The economic activities of our companies investing in the United States and the interests of our citizens must not be unduly violated during the course of US law enforcement,” ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said in a statement on Friday.
Western troops in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’, Putin says
Vladimir Putin has said any western troops placed in Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” for Russian strikes, upping the stakes for Kyiv as Donald Trump’s efforts to forge a peace deal show little sign that are any closer to success
Kyiv’s allies scramble to come up with a convincing offer of post-war support to Ukraine.
With little sign that , Putin on Friday said any guarantees that involved boots on the ground would violate Moscow’s long-standing objections to Nato troops in Ukraine.
The Russian leader knows that western countries are unwilling to go to war over Ukraine, and his threats on Friday look designed to further spook European capitals on the escalatory dangers of committing troops.
Trump has vacillated over what support the US might provide for such a mission. At a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders the day before he met Putin in Alaska, he appeared to promise some kind of US involvement but many are still blurry on the details.
DOJ looking at ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns - report
Trump’s justice department is considering proposals to limit the rights of transgender people to own guns, CNN reports, citing two officials familiar with the internal discussions.
According to CNN, the “preliminary” discussions stem from the recent deadly school shooting in Minneapolis that killed two children and injured 21 people, which police say was carried out by a transgender woman.
Republicans have long resisted gun control policies aimed at limiting possession among those suffering from mental health issues, but CNN reports that the DOJ discussions centre on a proposal to “declare that people who are transgender are mentally ill and can lose their second amendment rights to possess firearms”.
A reminder that it is well-known that the vast majority of mass shooters in the US are cisgender men, and LGBTQ+ individuals as perpetrators are very rare. They are more often the targets of violence.
It goes without saying that if the DOJ’s proposal goes ahead it would be highly controversial and certain to draw a swift legal challenge.
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Trump expected to nominate Lt Gen William Hartman to lead NSA and Cyber Command – report
Donald Trump plans to nominate Lt Gen William Hartman, the acting leader of both the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command since April, to formally lead both agencies, Politico reported yesterday, citing two people with knowledge of the situation.
Trump to issue executive order to allow punishments for countries wrongfully detaining Americans - report
Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order as early as Friday to establish a designation for state sponsors of wrongful detention, in a move that would allow the US to punish countries that illegally detain Americans or take them hostage, CBS News reports this morning.
According to the president’s schedule, Trump is due to sign executive orders later today at 2pm ET including, as we’ve been reporting, rebranding the Department of Defense as the “department of war”.
After Trump said earlier this week that he wanted two candidates to drop out of the New York City mayor’s race to create a one-on-one race against Zohran Mamdani, some of the president’s advisers have been trying to find a place for current mayor Eric Adams that would pull him out of his reelection campaign.
The New York Times reports that one option in the mix is nominating Adams as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, citing people familiar with the discussions.
It’s not clear if Trump is directly involved in these conversations, the Times writes. An ambassadorship also requires Senate confirmation, which could be difficult given Adams’ liabilities.
Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate investor and Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, “has actively pursued the matter in recent days, meeting personally with Mr Adams earlier this week in Florida and speaking with other people close to him,” the Times writes.
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Chicago braces for Trump’s federal law enforcement deployment
Trump said this week he will be sending troops into Chicago, calling the Democrat-led city a “hellhole”. It would be the second US city to receive national guard troops after Trump declared a national crime emergency and deployed about 800 troops to Washington DC in August.
“We’re going in,” Trump said about Chicago. “I didn’t say when, [but] we’re going in.”
An advance team of at least 30 agents is currently undergoing crowd control and flash grenade training at Naval Station Great Lakes north of Chicago, and 230 agents, most of whom work for Customs and Border Protection, are being sent to Chicago from Los Angeles, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chicago leaders have pushed back on Trump’s views of the city. Chicago residents say the city’s immigrant communities are on edge. Illinois governor JB Pritzker has expressed concern that Ice agents will target Mexican Independence Day events this month, and a large festival planned for the day this weekend was postponed.
But there is a long history of organized resistance that will stand up to the Trump administration. “If you think of the civic action you’ve seen over history, whether that’s the Pullman strikes a century ago, or Haymarket, or the early union movement, or what we did in the civil rights movement, or the organizing for the Women’s March, Chicagoans are organized. So we aren’t helpless,” said Edwin Eisendrath, a former member of the Chicago city council.
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As Trump readies to send federal agents into more cities run by Democrats, the takeover of the nation’s capital continues.
But, the Washington Post reports, Congress is not expected to vote to extend the Trump administration’s takeover of the DC police department. The temporary takeover is set to expire next week and would need a vote of Congress to continue.
The Post says that DC mayor Muriel Bowser’s cooperative tone “mollified” the White House. DC separately has sued to stop the National Guard deployment after a federal judge in California ruled that sending troops to Los Angeles was illegal. California Gov. Gavin Newsom also said the deployment there cost taxpayers nearly $120m, an example of “waste, fraud and abuse”.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s adviser, has led the DC operation, the Post reports in a separate piece, saying that the DC takeover was a signature piece of Trump’s domestic policy agenda and Miller is expected to be “involved for a long time”.
Trump’s legal woes mount as supreme court to rule on trade tariffs
This week’s dramatic court ruling that Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs, which he has used to upend global trade, were in fact illegal is the latest in a series of losses for the president’s radical agenda that are ultimately heading for a final showdown in the US supreme court.
Trump has already asked the supreme court to overturn the lower court ruling in the tariffs case. Almost certain to follow are Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, his hostile conflict with Harvard University and his deployment of the national guard and marines to Los Angeles. All have been deemed unlawful in lower courts.
“It’s simple: the president and his administration continue to do illegal things at an astonishing pace, and so the courts are finding that these things are illegal,” said Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“The president is committed to pursuing his agenda regardless of whether it’s legal or not, and is seeing what he can get away with.”
The ultimate arbiter of that will be the supreme court, which is stacked 6-3 in favor of conservatives, many of whom Trump has appointed. The court has already dramatically limited the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions to pause Trump administration policies across the country.
Washington DC on Thursday sued to stop Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops during the administration’s law enforcement intervention there.
The city’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, said the hundreds of troops were essentially an “involuntary military occupation”. He argued in the federal lawsuit that the deployment was an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
A federal judge in California recently ruled that Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Los Angeles after days of protests over immigration raids in June had been illegal. The Republican administration is appealing that decision and Trump has said he is ready to order federal intervention in Chicago and Baltimore, despite staunch opposition in those Democratic-led cities.
That ruling, however, does not directly apply to Washington, where the president has more control over the guard than in states.
About 2,300 troops from seven states have been deployed in the streets of the US capital since 11 August in a move that Schwalb says exceeds the president’s powers and violates the city’s autonomy, as enshrined in the Home Rule Act.
Boston readies for Ice’s offensive amid Trump’s onslaught on sanctuary cities
Tensions between Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, and the Trump administration have been escalating in recent months over the administration’s aggressive immigration policies, with reports now signaling the possibility of a federal immigration enforcement surge in the city.
The friction came to a head last week when the Trump administration reportedly began preparing an “immigration enforcement blitz” for Boston in the coming weeks, according to Politico.
The report, which cited unnamed current and former administration officials, prompted a swift rebuke from Wu, who has in recent months become a vocal defender of sanctuary laws and immigrant protections.
“Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law – city, state and federal,” Wu said in a statement. “We are the safest major city in the country because all of our community members know that they are part of how we keep the entire community safe. Stop attacking cities to hide your administration’s failures.”
This standoff has been steadily building since March when Wu testified before Congress alongside three other Democratic mayors to defend their cities’ immigration policies – specifically so-called sanctuary city laws that limit state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Supporters of the laws, including local leaders and police chiefs in jurisdictions that have them, argue that these measures can help build trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement. Some studies have found that crime rates tend to be lower in sanctuary counties compared with those without such protections.
Critics of these policies claim that sanctuary laws undermine federal law enforcement’s ability to arrest and deport individuals with criminal records.
So-called “sanctuary cities” have become a central target of this Trump administration, as it pushes for mass deportations as part of its crackdown on immigration. In June, Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, sent letters to 32 US mayors, including Wu, demanding they end their sanctuary policies or face cuts to federal funding and possible legal consequences.
US justice department opens criminal inquiry into Fed governor Lisa Cook
The US justice department has initiated a criminal investigation into mortgage fraud claims against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook as a lawsuit she filed against Donald Trump over her firing makes its way through court.
Lawyers with the justice department have issued subpoenas for the investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal, who first reported the investigation, which has since been confirmed by multiple news publications.
Last month, Trump moved to fire Cook over unconfirmed claims that she listed two properties as her primary residence. Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing and Finance Agency and a close ally of Trump, alleged Cook had lied on bank documents and records to obtain a better mortgage rate.
Cook, a voting member of the Fed board that sets interest rates, said she has “no intention of being bullied to step down” and that she would “take any questions about my financial history seriously”.
In response to Trump’s bid to dismiss her, Cook filed a lawsuit against the president arguing that her removal was unconstitutional and threatened the independence of the Fed. Cook’s lawyers say the firing was “unprecedented and illegal” and that federal law requires showing “cause” for a Fed governor’s removal.
“An unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications submitted by Governor Cook prior to her Senate confirmation is not [cause],” her lawyers said in court documents.
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced the Senate finance committee in a tense and combative hearing on Thursday, during which lawmakers questioned his remarks expressing vaccine skepticism, claims that the scientific community is deeply politicized and the ongoing turmoil plaguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In a hearing lasting more than three hours and ostensibly about the Trump administration’s healthcare agenda, Kennedy defended his leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that his time at the agency will be focused on “unbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest”.
Senate Democrats on the committee began the hearing calling for Kennedy’s resignation. “Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is taking vaccines away from Americans,” ranking member Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon, said in his opening remarks. “People are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth in this effort. I hope the very least, Robert Kennedy has the decency to tell the truth this morning.”
Raphael Warnock, also a Democrat, called Kennedy a “hazard to the health of the American people”, repeating calls for him to step down or for Donald Trump to fire him.
Last week, Kennedy fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed to her position. She is now mounting a legal case challenging her removal.
Shortly after Monarez’s termination, several leading public health officials at the CDC resigned from their positions, citing frustration with Kennedy’s approach to vaccines and his management style.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to become New York City’s next mayor unless two of the three major candidates running against him drop out of the race.
But the Republican didn’t say which two candidates he’d like to see quit.
Trump said “No” when he was asked by a reporter on Thursday night if he’d urged or encouraged any of the candidates in the race to drop out, but went on to say he would like to see that happen.
“I don’t think you can win unless you have one-on-one, and somehow he’s gotten a little bit of a lead,” Trump said of Mamdani. “I have no idea how that happened.”
The president, who spoke as he hosted a dinner at the White House with tech executives, went on and said, “I would like to see two people drop out and have it be one-on-one, and I think that’s a race that could be won.”
Donald Trump hosted a high-powered group of tech executives at the White House on Thursday as he showcased research on artificial intelligence and boasted of investments that companies are making around the United States.
Trump has exulted in the attention from some of the world’s most successful businesspeople, while the companies are eager to remain on the good side of the mercurial president, AP reported.
While the executives praised Trump and talked about their hopes for technological advancement, the Republican president was focused on dollar signs. He went around the table and asked executives how much they were investing in the country.
Notably absent from the guest list was Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump who was tasked with running the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year.
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US deploying 10 fighter jets to Puerto Rico for drug cartel fight, sources say
The US has ordered the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to a Puerto Rico airfield to conduct operations against drug cartels, two sources briefed on the matter said, in a move likely to further inflame tensions in the region.
The advanced fighter jets will be added to an already bristling US military presence in the southern Caribbean as president Donald Trump carries out a campaign pledge to crack down on groups he blames for funneling drugs into the United States, Reuters reported.
Friday’s development comes three days after US forces attacked a boat that Trump said was carrying “massive amounts of drugs” from Venezuela, killing 11 people. The strike appeared to set the stage for a sustained military campaign in Latin America.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 10 fighter jets are being sent to conduct operations against designated narco-terrorist organizations operating in the southern Caribbean. The planes should arrive in the area by late next week, they said.
The US has deployed warships in the southern Caribbean in recent weeks, with the aim of carrying out Trump’s crackdown.
Trump’s LA national guard deployment cost taxpayers $120m, Newsom says
Donald Trump’s deployment of the national guard in Los Angeles in response to protests in the city over immigration raids cost taxpayers nearly $120m, the California governor’s office said on Thursday.
The US president sent 2,000 national guard troops into the city in June amid clashes between federal immigration agents and protesters. This week a judge ruled that dispatching the military to accompany authorities on immigration enforcement operations violated federal law.
More than 4,200 national guard soldiers and 700 marines were deployed in the region. Although relatively few assisted with raids, the costs mounted – $71m for food and necessities, $37m in pay and $3.5m in travel, among other expenses, Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement.
About 300 troops remain in the city. Newsom described the move as “waste, fraud and abuse”.
“Let us not forget what this political theater is costing us all – millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain, an atrophy to the readiness of guardsmembers across the nation and unnecessary hardships to the families supporting those troops,” the governor said.
Meanwhile, Trump has grown increasingly pessimistic about the chance of brokering an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict anytime soon or seeing the leaders of the two countries meet in person, NBC News reported on Friday, citing two senior administration officials.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
It comes as Trump posted this morning on Truth Social that Russia had been “lost” to China. He wrote:
Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together! President Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump’s deal-making approach to diplomacy is “quite cynical”, but in a positive sense, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Friday.
In an interview with Russian news outlet Argumenty i Fakty, Peskov contrasted Trump’s position with that of European countries which, he said, were doing everything they could to hinder a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine.
“In contrast, Trump is much more constructive. He is, in the good sense of the word, quite cynical. In terms of ‘why fight if you can trade’. And based on these interests of America, he does everything to stop wars,” Peskov said.
He added that Russia would prefer to resolve the Ukraine conflict diplomatically rather than militarily. “And if Trump can help us in making these political and diplomatic means available, then our interests coincide here, and this can and should be welcomed.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Trump could meet again in the near future, Peskov added.
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Trump faces criticism over to order to rebrand Pentagon as ‘Department of War’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics where opponents have criticised Donald Trump’s expected move to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “department of war”.
The president is expected to sign an executive order on Friday authorizing the rebrand, the White House said, as part of an attempt to formalize the name change without an act of Congress.
The order will designate “department of war” as a “secondary title”, an administration official said, as a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency.
But the order will instruct the rest of the executive branch to use the “department of war” name in internal and external communications, and allows the defense secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials to use “secretary of war” as official titles.
Trump and Hegseth have been publicly pushing for the rebrand for weeks, claiming the change would present the US military as more aggressive to the world by reverting to the name that was used when the US was victorious in the first and second world wars.
“Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was the Department of War,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week. “Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
The move could cost tens of millions of dollars, with letterheads and signs on buildings in the US and at bases worldwide possibly needing to be changed.
But there has been criticism over the move. Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth – a war veteran who lost both her legs serving in Afghanistan and who is now a member of the armed services committee – said:
Why not put this money toward supporting military families or toward employing diplomats that help prevent conflicts from starting in the first place?
Because Trump would rather use our military to score political points than to strengthen our national security and support our brave servicemembers and their families - that’s why
Stay with us for the latest on this story:
In other developments:
The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, fended off calls for his resignation and spread vaccine misinformation during a contentious Senate hearing.
Susan Monarez, the ousted CDC director, rejected Kennedy’s claim that she had lied about having been pressured to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from a panel of his anti-vaccine allies, and offered to repeat her claim under oath.
Trump hosted an array of tech industry leaders for dinner in the White House state dinning room on Thursday night, including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Sergey Brin, but his former first buddy, Elon Musk, was a notable absence.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to become New York City’s next mayor unless two of the three major candidates running against him drop out of the race. But the Republican didn’t say which two candidates he’d like to see quit.
Demolition to build president Trump’s new ballroom off the East Wing of the White House can begin without approval of the commission tasked with vetting construction of federal buildings, the Trump-appointed head of the panel said Thursday.
As Trump accuses Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook of criminal mortgage fraud, for allegedly obtaining more than one mortgage on a home designated as her primary residence, at least three members of his cabinet have multiple primary-residence mortgages, ProPublica reports.
The justice department has launched a criminal mortgage fraud inquiry into Cook and issued grand jury subpoenas out of both Georgia and Michigan.
New York’s attorney general moved to have the state’s highest court reinstate Trump’s staggering civil fraud penalty, appealing a lower court decision that slashed the potential half-billion dollar penalty to zero.
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