Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics as Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy more troops into Democrat-led cities.
“We have an insurrection act for a reason. If I had to enact it I would do that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding, “if people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I would do that.”
It came after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily halted a National Guard deployment in Portland although troops from Texas could be deployed in Chicago as soon as today despite a lawsuit from Illinois against the move.
Meanwhile, Pam Bondi is likely to grilled over troop deployments as she faces the Senate judiciary committee. The attorney general is also likely to face questions over the indictment last month of the former FBI director James Comey, deadly strikes on boats believed to be carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, as well as the brewing controversy over the release of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump is also due to welcome the Canadian PM, Mark Carney, to the White House with trade talks expected to be the main focus of discussions.
Later, he will meet American-Israeli former hostage Edan Alexander as the world marks the two-year anniversary of the 7 October attacks. In Egypt, indirect talks are taking place between Israel and Hamas over Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
And, of course, this all comes amid the backdrop of the ongoing government shutdown, now entering its second week. Stay with us for all the latest developments.
In other news:
A career federal prosecutor in Virginia has told colleagues she does not believe there is probable cause to file criminal mortgage fraud charges against New York attorney general Letitia James, according to a person familiar with the matter. The prosecutor, Elizabeth Yusi, oversees major criminal cases in the Norfolk office for the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia and plans to soon present her conclusion to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally, who was installed as the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia last month.
The US supreme court has declined to hear an appeal from Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell of her sex trafficking conviction. Maxwell in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related crimes.
The Trump administration said that funds from a US government program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports are set to expire as soon as Sunday because of the government shutdown.
Jimmy Kimmel emerged as more popular than Donald Trump after a spat with the president’s administration temporarily left the talkshow host off the air in September, according to a recent poll.
Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
