Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but joins us for live updates on the New York City mayoral debate starting at the top of the hour. Here are the latest developments:
The US treasury announced it is “imposing further sanctions as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.
Donald Trump said that the “tremendous sanctions” on Russian oil firms were necessary because to pressure Vladimir Putin into stopping his war on Ukraine since, “every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere.”
Trump argued that the East Wing of the White House, which is currently being demolished to make way for his new $300m ballroom, was not, in fact, part of what he considers the White House.
A federal district court judge in Portland, Oregon, rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift a temporary restraining order that blocks the deployment of national guard troops in the city.
A federal judge in Chicago on Wednesday agreed to extend her order blocking Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to the Chicago area, possibly by 30 days.
The revelation that a top federal prosecutor used an encrypted messaging application and had messages set to auto-delete after eight hours is “deeply troubling” and may be illegal, a watchdog group said.
As the government shutdown continued, Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, yielded the Senate floor after speaking for 22 hour and 37 minutes to protest Trump’s authoritarian move to deploy troops to Democrat-run cities.
Trump argues White House East Wing was not part of the White House
Donald Trump argued on Wednesday that the East Wing of the White House, which is currently being demolished to make way for a new $300m ballroom, was not, in fact, part of what he considers the White House.
Asked by Jeff Mason of Reuters to respond to the fact that people have been surprised that the entire East Wing is being torn down, Trump said that the wing he described as a separate building “was never thought of as being much; it was a very small building.”
“Rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building,” he continued, referring to the new ballroom, a decision was made to demolish the entire East Wing.
“In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure,” Trump said.
Then, pointing at a model of the new ballroom on a table in front of him, and a new structure leading to the ballroom in the location where the East Wing used to be, Trump added: “The way it was shown, it looked like we were touching the White House. We don’t touch the White House.”
“That’s a bridge, a glass bridge going from the White House to the ballroom,” Trump said, of the new structure that will replace the East Wing.
When the veteran Reuters reporter asked Trump in a follow-up question what he would say to critics who say he has not been transparent enough about this plan to demolish part of the White House, Trump attacked the messenger.
“I haven’t been transparent? Really? I’ve shown this to everybody that would listen,” Trump said. “Third-rate reporters didn’t see it because they didn’t look. You’re a third-rate reporter. Always have been,” the president said.
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How significant are the new sanctions on Russian oil firms announced on Wednesday by the US treasury?
“This is a big step,” Eddie Fishman, a former state department sanctions official, says in a social media thread. “How big depends on follow through: Will the US actively threaten secondary sanctions on the Chinese banks, UAE traders, and Indian refineries that transact with Rosneft/Lukoil? What about oilfield services firms?”
“I expect, at the very least, some pullback from dealings with Russian oil in the short term,” he adds. “ Whether this marks a long-term, strategic squeeze on Russia’s oil revenues—the lifeblood of Putin’s economy—will depend on the U.S. commitment to active, ongoing enforcement.”
Trump says he canceled meeting with Putin because 'we have good conversations but then they don’t go anywhere'
After imposing new sanctions on Russian oil firms he called “tremendous” Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he had canceled a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president in Budapest.
“We cancelled the meeting with President Putin. It just, it didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I cancelled it. But we’ll do it in the future,” Trump said, while sitting with Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, in the Oval Office.
Asked by a reporter to comment on his treasury secretary’s statement that Putin had not been honest in his talks with Trump, the president said: “Well I think that, in terms of honesty, the only thing that I can say is, every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere, they just don’t go anywhere.”
Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told Fox Business Network, “President Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner, as we’d hoped. There were talks in Alaska, President Trump walked away when he realized that things were not moving forward.”
“These are tremendous sanctions,” Trump also said. These are very big against their two big oil companies — and we hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”
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Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, just yielded the Senate floor after speaking for 22 hour and 37 minutes.
Merkley said at the start of his speech that he was “holding the floor to protest Trump dragging us further into authoritarianism.”
In particular, the Oregon senator said, he objected to the idea of letting Donald Trump claim, against all evidence, that he had the right to send military forces to Portland because the city a small protest constituted “an insurrection”.
“Our founders did not want the president to be a king,” Merkley said. “A king can decide on a whim to deploy troops against his own people, presidents cannot.”
US treasury sanctions major Russian oil companies, calls for Russia to accept immediate ceasefire
The Trump administration said on Wednesday it is “imposing further sanctions as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.
Donald Trump just shared the news by posting a press release from the US treasury, headlined “US treasury sanctions major Russian oil companies, calls on Moscow to immediately agree to ceasefire”, on his social media platform.
According to the treasury, the new measures from the US office of foreign assets control (OFAC) “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy. The United States will continue to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the war, and a permanent peace depends entirely on Russia’s willingness to negotiate in good faith. Treasury will continue to use its authorities in support of a peace process.”
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said in a statement. “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”
The treasury said the sanctions target Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
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Federal judge in Portland won't lift order blocking troop deployment until Friday at earliest
A federal district court judge in Portland, Oregon, rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift a temporary restraining order that blocks the deployment of national guard troops in the city.
The judge, Karin Immergut, previously issued two orders blocking the deployment of national guard troops, after finding that Donald Trump’s claim that the city she lives in is “War ravaged” was “simply untethered to the facts”.
Immergut’s first order, blocking the deployment of Oregon national guard troops, was reversed by a three-judge appeals court panel on Monday, but her second order, which bars the deployment of national guard troops from any state or the District of Columbia, remains in effect because the government appealed only her first order and not the second one.
Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in his first term, issued the second order in response to Trump’s clear attempt to evade her first order by flying troops from California’s national guard to Oregon.
Justice department lawyers asked Immergut to dissolve the second order based on the reasoning of the two appeals court judges who accepted Trump’s claim that a small protest against immigration raids in Portland, by dozens of protesters, required the deployment of the military.
Instead, she scheduled a hearing for Friday morning in Portland. The judge’s orders to the lawyers for Trump and Oregon asks them to address the possible rehearing of the three-judge panel’s decision by a larger panel of the appeals court, which that court will consider on Thursday.
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Federal judge in Chicago to extend order blocking troop deployment, as Trump administration asks supreme court to step in
A federal judge in Chicago on Wednesday agreed to extend her order blocking Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to the Chicago area, possibly by 30 days.
The district court judge, April Perry, said at a hearing that her order will extend until she decides the case, unless the US supreme court steps in to lift it, as the Trump administration has requested.
In a filing on Tuesday, the solicitor general, John Sauer, one of Trump’s former personal defense attorneys, urged the supreme court to issue an emergency order lifting the temporary restraining order (TRO) that would let federalized guard troops be deployed.
“Every day this improper TRO remains in effect imposes grievous and irreparable harm on the Executive,” Sauer wrote.
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The surprise demolition of the East Wing of the White House, to make room for Donald Trump’s vast ballroom, is not going down well with former staffers of the office of the first lady, which had been located in the East Wing for decades.
“My heart is breaking for the evident loss of prestige for the first ladies and their staffs,” Penny Adams, who worked in the East Wing for former first lady Pat Nixon, told East Wing Magazine, a newsletter that covers first ladies present and past.
“The photos were jarring when I first saw them,” Michael LaRosa, a press secretary for Jill Biden wrote in an email to the same newsletter. “Initially, they felt like a gut punch. It was also a bit eerie and sad to see some of the interior reduced to rubble.”
Adams also said that some former Nixon staffers had tried, and failed, “to push back on this devastation”.
One of Trump’s most cherished possessions is a 1987 letter from Richard Nixon, the disgraced former president, who passed on praise of the future president’s appearance on a daytime talkshow that year from the former first lady.
“Dear Donald,” Nixon wrote. “I did not see the program, but Mrs Nixon told me you were great on the Donahue show.”
“As you can imagine, she is an expert on politics and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office, you will be a winner!”
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As we prepare for the meeting between Nato secretary Mark Rutte and Donald Trump, a reminder of the context of these talks.
This is a snap meeting, put together as progress between Ukraine and Russia has stalled. Recently, the White House said there were no immediate plans for the president to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, despite Trump touting a second bilateral meeting in Budapest.
The last time Rutte was in Washington was for a meeting with Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders in August.
According to Nato officials, cited by multiple outlets, Rutte is hoping to discuss a 12-point peace plan with Trump. Drawn up by Europe and Ukraine, the plan calls for a ceasefire based on current battle lines, return of the deported children and a prisoner exchange.
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The White House did not respond to a question from the Guardian today about when demolition of the East Wing would be completed, as construction continues. An administration official did say that “the scope and size of the project has always been subject to vary and the process developed”. They added that the National Capital Planning Commission “does not require permits for demolition, only for vertical construction” and that “permits will be submitted to the NPC at the appropriate time”.
The New York Times reported that the teardown should be completed by this weekend, according to an official speaking anonymously.
Earlier, my colleague Lauren Aratani reported that the White House had yet to submit plans for Donald Trump’s new ballroom to the federal agency that oversees construction of federal buildings, though demolition is already under way.
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Bessent says 'substantial pickup' in Russian sanctions coming soon
The treasury secretary Scott Bessent just gaggled with reporters outside the White House.
He said that a “substantial pickup” in sanctions on Russia are coming soon. “We are going to announce either after the close this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow,” he said.
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As Jeff Merkley hits the 20th hour of his Senate floor speech, his Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber have praised his efforts, and joined him on the floor to ask questions and give him small breaks as he continues his marathon monologue.
The senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, called it “incredible”, characterizing the speech as part of the “fight to protect American families from Trump’s reckless and corrupt administration”.
Earlier, senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, said that it “says a lot” about the Trump administration that Merkley can spend hours “talking all the different ways Trump is hurting hardworking Americans and not run out of things to say”.
Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey who currently holds the record for longest floor speech (coming in at over 25 hours), said Merkley was “demonstrating how Trump is moving us towards tyranny, instead of standing up for American ideals”.
Trump urges cattle farmers to cut beef prices
Donald Trump has urged US cattle farmers to “get their prices down” in order to encourage Americans to buy their beef.
On Truth Social, the president said that ranchers throughout the country “don’t understand” that the only reason they are “doing so well” is because of Trump’s tariffs on several countries, “including a 50% Tariff on Brazil”.
He added:
If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years – Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!
Over the weekend, Trump told reporters he was considering importing beef from Argentina in order to lower prices for consumers.
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Watchdog group says top prosecutor's use of Signal may be illegal
The revelation that a top federal prosecutor used an encrypted messaging application and had messages set to auto-delete after eight hours is “deeply troubling” and may be illegal, a watchdog group said.
Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, used Signal to communicate with Anna Bower, a journalist for Lawfare, about the criminal case she is pursuing against New York attorney general Letitia James. Bower published the full conversation Monday evening and said Halligan had set messages to auto-delete after eight hours.
“The story about US attorney Lindsey Halligan’s use of Signal is deeply troubling. That she used the app apparently to discuss government business with a reporter and configured her messages to disappear after eight hours, raises serious concerns that she is actively violating the Federal Records Act and the justice department’s own records-retention rules,” said Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, a non-profit that frequently files lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain federal records.
“Even if portions of the conversation might contain information not typically subject to immediate public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, federal law still requires that such records be preserved for specified periods. Setting such communications to automatically delete is not only inconsistent with those obligations but patently unlawful,” she said. “If Halligan failed to ensure these Signal messages were preserved, her actions may have violated federal law and warrant investigation or corrective action by attorney general Pam Bondi and acting archivist Marco Rubio.”
The justice department did not return a request for comment.
Federal law generally requires government employees to preserve official government records and sets penalties for destroying them.
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Per my last post, it’s worth underscoring that Platner has achieved significant momentum since he entered the race to challenge incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins.
Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, launched her bid for Senate recently – making the schism between the old and new guard of the party abundantly clear.
Meanwhile, Jordan Wood, another Maine Democratic candidate for Senate, said today that Platner’s Reddit comments are “disqualifying and not who we are as Mainers or as Democrats”.
He added:
With Donald Trump and his sycophants demonizing Americans, spewing hate, and running roughshod over the constitution, Democrats need to be able to condemn Trump’s actions with moral clarity. Graham Platner no longer can.
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Maine Democratic Senate candidate, embroiled in recent controversy, covers tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol
Graham Platner, the Democratic senate candidate from Maine, said that he has covered a tattoo on his chest that is widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Platner said he decided to get it covered instead of removed – a promise he initially made – because it would be faster and easier given the options of where he lives in Maine.
“Going to a tattoo-removal place is going to take a while,” he told the AP. “I wanted this thing off my body.”
This comes after Platner revealed, on an episode of the Pod Save America podcast, that he got the skull-and-crossbones tattoo in 2007, when he was in the US Marine Corps. He said that he didn’t realize, until recently, that the image has been associated with Nazi police.
Platner has recently found himself embroiled in controversy after inflammatory Reddit posts spanning 2013 to 2021 resurfaced. These included Platner calling police officers “bastards”, questioning why Black people tip less, and appearing to agree with characterizations of rural white voters as “racist” and “stupid”. Last week he issued a video apology for the comments.
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On ending the war in Ukraine, Rutte says Trump is 'the only one who can get this done'
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill, the Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said that he had “complete confidence” in Donald Trump’s ability to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. He evaded a question about whether he was concerned that the president has persuaded Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “go softer” on Russia.
“He is the only one that can get this done,” Rutte said. “You have a president with a lot of experience because of his first term in office, and who has a clear vision on bringing this war to a durable and lasting end.”
Rutte will meet with Trump in a few hours. “We will discuss further how we from Nato can be helpful in delivering his vision of getting a full-scale peace in Ukraine, which, of course, we all pray for after his enormous success in Gaza,” Rutte said earlier.
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Merkley's marathon Senate speech enters 19th hour
Jeff Merkley, Oregon’s Democratic senator, has been speaking on the floor of the upper chamber for 19 hours. As my colleague, Chris Stein, reports, a spokesperson for the senator says he is planning to speak “as long as he can”.
Merkley started speaking on Tuesday evening and has issued several damning critiques of the president and his administration. “Equal justice under law – that’s the vision here in America. Not unequal injustice, which is what the president is pursuing by taking the power of the government and going after individuals that he does not like or perceives to be political opponents,” he said.
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Top Democrat on House oversight committee urges DOJ to turn over Epstein files
Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House oversight committee, has called on US attorney general Pam Bondi and the justice department to turn over all Jeffrey Epstein-related files.
Following this week’s release of a posthumous memoir by Virginia Giuffre, a survivor of the disgraced financier’s sex-trafficking operations, Garcia said:
Virginia Giuffre’s allegations are heartbreaking and horrific, including testimony that prominent world and US leaders perpetrated sexual assault and sex trafficking of girls and young women. Ms Giuffre clearly contradicts the agency’s claim that the Epstein files did not justify further investigation. In light of this, the DOJ must comply with our subpoena and provide our Committee with the full Epstein files immediately, because the American people demand the truth, the survivors deserve justice, and we must end this White House cover-up.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Bondi, Garcia wrote:
Your refusal to release the files and your continued disregard of a congressional subpoena raises serious questions about your motives. Oversight Democrats support transparency and accountability for the survivors of Epstein’s crimes, as described by Ms Giuffre, regardless of the identities of the perpetrators or co-conspirators or their positions of power. You, however, are going to extreme lengths to conceal the truth from the American people, apparently in cooperation with President Trump.
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The No Kings alliance, the left-leaning groups behind the mass days of protest last Saturday and in June, is building a nationwide rapid response network that will call on supporters to take new actions each week.
Leaders of the organizations told the Guardian that there was energy for “some type of disruption”, and future actions could include targeted boycotts, campaigns at universities, more street protests and electoral organizing in local communities.
After an estimated 7 million people took to the streets last weekend, tens of thousands joined a national call on Tuesday to hear what’s next for the growing movement. Leaders celebrated the broad turnout, saying it showed how much opposition to Trump there was in all corners of the US, and talked about how to sustain and grow a movement during an increasingly authoritarian moment for the country.
The next steps for this burgeoning resistance will show the durability of the movement and whether it can pressure Democrats or pillars of civil society to stand stronger against Trump, or whether it can force defections from Trump’s Republican allies to fracture his power.
For the full story, click here:
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Democrat Scott Wiener will run for the US House seat long held by Nancy Pelosi, the California state senator announced on Wednesday.
Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, has represented San Francisco in Congress since 1987 and has not yet said whether she will seek re-election in 2026. But Democrats are increasingly facing calls for change with younger candidates who will offer new opposition to Donald Trump.
Wiener has served as a state lawmaker since 2016 and said he was seeking office to stand up to Trump as the president wages a “full-on war against immigrants and LGBTQ people” and the cost of living continues to increase.
“We need more than rhetoric and good intentions from Democrats. We need action. We need someone who will fight like hell for the most marginalized in our community – someone who will stand up for trans kids, undocumented immigrants even when it’s unpopular, even when it means getting personally attacked and threatened,” Wiener said in a statement. “We need leaders with spines, who don’t just put their finger in the air to see where the winds are blowing or what polls well.”
As a state lawmaker, Wiener, an attorney who attended Harvard law school, authored a recently passed bill banning federal and state law enforcement from wearing masks and has promoted legislation to address California’s housing crisis and expand climate action.
“I’m running for Congress to defend San Francisco, our values, our people and the constitution of the United States with everything I have,” Wiener said in a video announcing his candidacy. “I’ve stood up to violence and hate my entire life. Trump and his Maga extremists don’t scare me.”
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Ahead of the president’s meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, where we can expect the stalled progress to end the war in Ukraine to be top of the agenda, my colleagues are covering the latest developments in Europe.
My colleague, Tom Ambrose, notes that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that that Donald Trump’s call for Ukraine and Russia to stop at the current frontlines was “a good compromise”, but is doubtful that Vladimir Putin will agree.
Just a quick update, senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, is still speaking on the senate floor. He’s been speaking for 16 hours in a far-ranging critique of the Trump administration’s policies.
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Vance meets with families of Israeli hostages after press conference with Netanyahu
A short while ago, vice-president JD Vance met with families of Israeli hostages who returned alive and families members of deceased hostages who have not been returned.
Earlier, Vance met with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who maintained that Israel has an “unmatched alliance” and partnership with the US.
“I was impressed with your clarity, with your incisiveness, with your solidarity for our common cause,” he said of Vance.
The vice-president said that the nations they would be sitting down to work on the Gaza peace plan. “We’re have a very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza,” he said.
When Vance was asked about the fragility of the current ceasefire he said “this thing takes monitoring, and it’s going to take a lot of work.”
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One repeated refrain from House Republicans today was how Democrats push back on several policy issues simply because they are loth to support the president.
Most of today’s speakers repeated this claim today, with House conference chair Lisa McClain even saying “president Trump could have the cure for cancer, and the Democrats would vote no” because it came from him.
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House speaker responds to report that Trump is demanding $230m in reimbursement from justice department
Mike Johnson said that he hasn’t spoken with the president about a New York Times report that he is seeking $230m from his own justice department in damages over past federal investigations.
“I know that he believes he’s owed that reimbursement. What I heard yesterday was, if he receives it, he was going to consider giving it to charity,” he said.
As my colleague, Joseph Gedeon, reports, the Federal Tort Claims Act specifically bars claims arising from discretionary or policy actions, meaning a president seeking compensation for law enforcement investigations into his own conduct would fall well outside the statute’s intended scope.
The president insisted on Tuesday that the government owes him “a lot of money” for previous justice department investigations into his conduct. “It’s interesting, ’cause I’m the one that makes the decision, right?” Trump said at the White House.
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Johnson kicked off the press conference continuing to blame Democrats for the shutdown. Both parties have traded endless barbs in the four weeks since government funding lapsed.
“As long as Democrats continue to act like unserious lawmakers, I’m just going to say this morning enough is enough,” he said.
The House speaker brought up the topic of Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits, which Democrats say is one of the key extensions they’re seeking in any stopgap funding bill. A reminder, Obamacare subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year. For his part, Johnson maintained today that resolving this in a continuing resolution was “not possible”.
“Republicans cannot and will not solve it in a back room deal,” he added. “Issues of this magnitude deserve deep thought and deliberation.”
House Republicans hold press conference on day 22 of government shut down
We’re now hearing from the House speaker, Mike Johnson, who notes that the ongoing government shutdown is now “the second longest … of any kind ever in the history of our country”.
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Man arrested after driving into security gate outside White House
A man who drove into a Secret Service vehicle gate outside the White House has been arrested.
US Secret Service said in a statement that the incident took place late Tuesday at “approximately 10.37pm”. The individual drove into the security gate located at 17th and E St NW, in Washington DC.
Ultimately the vehicle was assessed and deemed safe. They added that their “investigation into the cause of this collision is ongoing”.
Officials did not provide any extra details on the driver’s identity or possible motivation. The vehicle had a Maryland license place.
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As we enter day 22 of the government shutdown, there will be a 12th vote in the Senate on the stopgap funding bill that has repeatedly failed to gain the 60 votes needed to advance and reopen the government.
On Tuesday, the Senate’s top Republican, John Thune, was optimistic he could get the handful of Democrats needed to clear that hurdle this week.
We’ll also hear from House Republicans and Democrats in respective press conferences today, as both parties continue to blame the other for the ongoing shutdown.
Democratic senator continues 14-hour floor speech, as government shutdown enters day 22
Democratic senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, has been speaking on the floor of the upper chamber for more than 14 hours.
Merkley said that his marathon speech, which began at 6.24pm ET on Tuesday, is to “ring the alarm bells” about how Donald Trump is “shredding the constitution”.
Throughout his time on the floor, which threatens to delay legislative business in the Senate as long as Merkley is still speaking, the lawmaker has run through the president’s first nine months back in the White House, chastising his tariff policies, the use of the justice department to target of his political adversaries, and his frequent attacks on journalists and the media.
Throughout the speech Merkley had several dark green placards behind him to illustrate his points. As of now, he’s standing in front of a sign which reads “AUTHORITARIANISM IS HERE”.
A reminder that Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, holds the record for the longest Senate floor speech – coming in at over 25 hours earlier this year.
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Senate’s top Democrat decries Manhattan immigration raids on street vendors
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who represents New York, said that the federal immigration raids targeting street vendors in Manhattan were “indiscriminate, wrong, and destructive”.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said the operation was “targeted” and “focused on criminal activity relating to the selling of counterfeit goods”. The arrests sparked protests outside 26 Federal Plaza, where several immigrants were reportedly detained.
“Fed immigration agencies should target criminals for arrest and deportation-not unleash reckless raids against vendors on the streets of the city,” Schumer said. “This creates fear and chaos and does not make us safer.”
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Donald Trump is at the White House today, per his official schedule.
The president’s only listed event is his meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte at 4pm ET. Currently that meeting is closed to the press, but we’ll let you know if that opens up.
New Hampshire Republican John E. Sununu announced a campaign for US Senate on Wednesday, hoping to reclaim a seat he lost nearly two decades ago and boosting the GOP’s chances of regaining a foothold in a region overwhelmingly represented by Democrats.
Sununu, 61, is seeking the Republican nomination for the seat being vacated by US Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who ousted him in 2008. His decision sets up a primary featuring two former senators: Republican Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts before moving to New Hampshire and losing to Shaheen in 2014, has been running since June.
“Maybe you’re surprised to hear that I’m running for the Senate again. I’m a bit surprised myself,” Sununu said in a video announcement. “Why would anyone subject themselves to everything going on there right now? Well, somebody has to step up and lower the temperature. Somebody has to get things done.”
Senate Republicans, who hold a 53-47 advantage, are defending seats in Ohio, Maine and North Carolina against a slate of high-profile Democratic candidates. But Republicans are also on the offensive in places like Michigan, Georgia and now, increasingly, New Hampshire – and if they flip one of those seats it will probably put the chamber out of reach for Democrats until at least 2028.
Sununu must first win the primary though, and his past opposition to President Donald Trump could be problematic. While Brown has aligned himself closely with Trump and served as his US ambassador to New Zealand, Sununu backed Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, writing an op-ed calling Trump a “loser.”
Trump went on to win New Hampshire’s leadoff primary, but the state’s voters rejected him for a third time in the general election. And while Republicans control the Statehouse and governor’s office, Democrats have held all four of New Hampshire’s congressional seats since 2017.
Sununu served three terms in the US House before being elected to the Senate at age 38. He’s now the same age Shaheen was when she defeated him and is 16 years older than US Rep. Chris Pappas, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Sununu said Congress has become “loud, dysfunctional, even angry” in his time away, but said he hopes to return “to help calm the waters,” while focusing on the economy, veterans, health care costs and Social Security.
Pappas’ campaign countered that he is the one who has been fighting to lower costs for working families, seniors and small businesses while Sununu has spent years “cashing in and making millions selling out to corporations and working for special interests”.
Mayor says Ice should not target undocumented people in New York City
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. We start with the news that the mayor of New York City has said that the city has had “no involvement” in the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids in Chinatown related to “selling counterfeit goods”.
Mayor Eric Adams shared a social media post from the New York police department (NYPD) after it distanced itself from the raids, saying that it had “no involvement in the federal operation that took place on Canal Street this afternoon”.
Adams quote-tweeted the NYPD’s missive and emphasized:
New York City does not cooperate with federal law enforcement on civil deportations, in accordance with our local laws.
While we gather details about the situation, New Yorkers should know that we have no involvement. Our administration has been clear that undocumented New Yorkers trying to pursue their American Dreams should not be the target of law enforcement, and resources should instead be focused on violent criminals.
Hundreds showed up to protests that broke out in New York City on Tuesday evening after Ice raids related to “selling counterfeit goods” were conducted in the Chinatown neighborhood earlier in the day and resulted in an unknown number of people being detained.
Hours after federal agents descended on lower Manhattan, demonstrators were seen assembling near the 26 Federal Plaza Immigration Building where they believed detainees were taken. Many shouted chants including “Ice out of New York” and “No Ice, no KKK, no fascist USA.”
Videos of the raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.
“Is this worth the paycheck? Selling your soul?” one woman can be heard shouting at agents.
The raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.
It was unclear how many people were detained in the raid, but a witness told the New York Daily News that he saw at least seven individuals taken into custody.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Paul Ingrassia, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead a government ethics office, withdrew from consideration, after the publication of racist text messages caused Republican senators to say they would not vote to confirm him.
Arizona’s attorney general is suing the House speaker, Mike Johnson, over his refusal to swear in Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who won a congressional special election in September.
Trump seemed to confirm a report that he is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the thwarted legal cases against him. “I guess they probably owe me a lot of money for that,” he told reporters.
Despite recently announcing a summit in Budapest, there are now no plans for Trump to meet with Vladmir Putin “in the immediate future”, a White House official told the Guardian.
Trump repeated his wildly false claim that the city of Portland, Oregon is beset by fires started by protesters. “I looked at Portland over the weekend. The place is burning down,” the president claimed, apparently referring to a chemical attack on protesters by federal officers.
Trump is expected to hold talks at the White House with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte. The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, many of them bought from the United States by Canada and European countries.
JD Vance, on a visit to Israel, said that he would not “put an explicit deadline” on Hamas to comply with the key points of the Gaze ceasefire deal.
Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman and former US marine campaigning to be the Democrats’ candidate in next year’s US Senate race, said “I’m not a secret Nazi” and that he didn’t know the historical associations of the skull and crossbones tattoo he got on his chest in 2007.
