WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump wasted no time using another apparent terrorist attack in London to argue for U.S. courts to reinstate his travel ban focused on people from predominantly Muslim countries.
"We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety," Trump said on Twitter, before U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said the incidents were being treated as a potential act of terror.
First responders, including armed police and ambulance personnel, rushed to a series of incidents across central London late Saturday night. The city's police urged residents to "run, hide, tell." At least one fatality was reported.
British authorities provided no immediate information on the likely source of the attacks, which included one in which a van veered off the road into a crowd of pedestrians on London Bridge. Stabbings were reported in at least one other area.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Trump _ who was briefed by his national security team, according to spokesman Sean Spicer _ had additional, non-public information about the attacks at the time he sent his message on Twitter.
The White House on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately reinstate Trump's stalled travel ban, aiming to reverse a string of courtroom losses since the measure was first introduced in January and then amended in March.
At issue is Trump's executive order temporarily barring entry into the U.S. by people from six predominantly Muslim countries in what the White House has described as an effort to protect the country from terrorists.
The administration asked the court to let the ban take effect while the justices decide whether to review a lower-court ruling that said the policy was "steeped in animus and directed at a single religious group."
About eight minutes after his original tweet, Trump followed up with an expression of concern: "Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U.K., we will be there _ WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS!"
