Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
Officials from Denmark and Greenland met with JD Vance and Marco Rubio today, after Donald Trump posted on social media that the US “needs Greenland for the purpose of national security”. France, Germany, Sweden and Norway will send troops to Greenland, at Denmark’s request, as the Trump administration continues weighing taking military action to acquire the island.
Local media in Minneapolis and the Associated Press are reporting another shooting by federal immigration officers in the Minnesota city. An immigration agent shot a man “from Venezuela” after a “targeted traffic stop” in Minneapolis this evening, the Department of Homeland Security said in a lengthy social media post.
Trump said he had a “great conversation” with Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, after his first known conversation with Nicolás Maduro’s former vice-president. “Many topics were discussed, including Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security. This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL,” Trump said in a social media post.
The Senate voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice. Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.
Half of Americans believe that ICE is making American cities less safe, a new CNN poll has found. According to the survey which was conducted from 9 to 12 January, 51% of Americans said that ICE’s enforcement actions are making cities less safe rather than safer. Only 31% felt that ICE’s operations were making cities more secure.
The Trump administration has indefinitely suspended immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries, marking one of its most expansive efforts yet to restrict legal pathways to the United States.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office today, Trump said that “the killing in Iran is stopping”.
The FBI searched the home of a Washington Post reporter as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. According to the Post, federal agents searched the home of Hannah Natanson – who covers the federal workforce.
The Republican chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer, plans to also hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress. The Clintons filed sworn legal documents with Comer yesterday, sharing everything they knew about Jeffrey Epstein, the office of Bill Clinton shared in a statement.
A US district court in California has upheld the state’s new congressional map, redrawn after voters approved the state’s bid to redistrict in order to counter similar gerrymandering efforts in Texas.
A federal immigration officer shot a man “from Venezuela” after a “targeted traffic stop” in Minneapolis this evening, the Department of Homeland Security said in a lengthy social media post.
DHS said the man “resisted and violently assaulted” the immigration agent, adding: “This attack on another brave member of law enforcement took place while Minnesota’s top leaders, Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, are actively encouraging an organized resistance to ICE and federal law enforcement officers.”
According to DHS, the immigration officer and wounded man are both at the hospital.
Donald Trump said he has no plans to fire Fed chair Jerome Powell and called the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week “unfortunate” during a wide ranging interview with Reuters.
“I don’t have any plan to do that,” Trump said of firing Powell, in light of a criminal investigation the Justice Department has undertaken into the Federal Reserve chair.
Separately, he called the Minneapolis shooting last week “so sad to see on both sides”, in a shift in tone from his first remarks calling Good a “professional agitator”.
During the interview, Trump also claimed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and not Russian president Vladimir Putin, was stalling efforts to reach a peace deal.
Local media in Minneapolis and the Associated Press are reporting another shooting by federal immigration officers in the Minnesota city.
A man was shot in the leg following a car chase, the Minnesota Star Tribune reports, citing witnesses and multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. The Associated Press also reported the shooting, citing a person familiar with the matter who urged caution as the investigation is still preliminary.
The Guardian is working to independently verify further details.
The city of Minneapolis posted on social media that: “We are aware of reports of a shooting involving federal law enforcement in North Minneapolis. We are working to confirm additional details.”
France and Germany will send troops to Greenland, at Denmark’s request, as the Trump administration continues weighing taking military action to acquire the island.
In a statement on social media, French president Emmanuel Macron wrote, “At the request of Denmark, I have decided that France will participate in the joint exercises organized by Denmark in Greenland, Operation Arctic Endurance.”
Greenland has also agreed to send 13 members of its unified armed forces on a reconnaissance mission to the Greenlandic capital.
Sweden has said it will send troops to Greenland in support of “Operation Arctic Endurance” as well. Norway is also sending two military personnel to the island.
Tim Walz issued a call to action to Minnesotans in an address this evening, calling on them to record the “atrocities” committed by ICE agents in the state “to bank evidence for future prosecution”.
“Armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door, ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live,” he said. “It’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
Walz called on Minnesotans to “carry your phone with you at all times” to “help us establish a record of exactly what’s happening in our communities.” He also told residents, “Accountability is coming, in the voting booth and in court.”
The livestreamed address was plagued by an audio echo, that the White House pounced upon in a reaction to the video on social media, calling Walz a “loser”.
Walz’s team deleted the original video from his X account shortly after the livestream concluded but later reposted an echo-free version.
California governor Gavin Newsom rejected Louisiana’s request to extradite a California physician for allegedy providing medication abortion to a patient in Louisiana.
“We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services. Not today. Not ever. We will never be complicit with Trump’s war on women,” Newsom said in a statement.
Lousiana’s extradition request follows an effort by Texas to sue a New York-based doctor in late 2024 for allegedly mailing abortion pills into the anti-abortion state.
Here’s more of my colleague Carter Sherman’s coverage of the case:
Democratic leaders have denounced the Senate’s vote against a war powers resolution that would have curtailed Donald Trump’s ability to take military action in Venezuela without congressional approval.
Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia, said Democrats will “file a whole lot more war powers resolutions” as Trump has threatened action in other countries including Greenland, Iran and Mexico. “They can run but they can’t hide,” Kaine said of Republicans. Without Republican support, however, those resolutions are unlikely to pass the Senate.
Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, said Congress’s purpose as a check on presidential authority had “atrophied” under recent administrations, but that it must work to reclaim that power.
Meanwhile, on social media, senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat wrote that Republicans “voted for forever wars, and against the best interests of the American people.”
A man who was one of two people shot and wounded by a border patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, last week pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault on a federal employee and damaging federal property.
Luis David Nino-Moncada remains in custody, with a release hearing scheduled for next week and a five-day jury trial set for March. He was shot while sitting in a pickup truck in the parking lot of a medical complex during an immigration stop one day after an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. A passenger in his car, Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, was also shot and wounded.
When the shooting first occured, the Federal Bureau of Investigations’s Portland X account posted a statement saying it was “investigating an agent involved shooting”. Shortly after it was posted, that statement was removed from the FBI’s social media account. A new post later said that the bureau was “investigating an assault on a federal officers”.
The Senate has voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice.
Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.
Earlier in the day, Young released a statement saying he “received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela” after speaking with secretary of state Marco Rubio, and that if Trump were to pursue “major military operations” he would ask Congress “in advance for an authorization of force”. Hawley shared a similar statement with reporters.
Young added that Rubio has agreed to testify on the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee this month.
With Hawley and Young’s votes, the Senate was split 50-50 on the resolution. JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. Republican senators Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins cast their votes for the war powers resolution alongside Democrats.
Paul, who did not change his vote, said it was “an absurdity” to argue Trump hadn’t already taken actions of war in Venezuela. “If we don’t know it’s a war until after all the people die … wouldn’t it then be a little late?” he told reporters ahead of the vote.
In response to the vote, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said, “Make no mistake about it: this vote makes things more dangerous, not less. It emboldens Donald Trump to push further down this reckless path.”
Senator Todd Young, one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats last week to advance a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela, says he now sides with the president.
In a statement, Young said he “has received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela” and that if Trump were to pursue “major military operations” he would ask Congress “in advance for an authorization of force”.
Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri, shared a similar message with reporters earlier in the day.
Read more here:
Donald Trump and Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, have both issued statements regarding their phone call earlier today.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “We are making tremendous progress, as we help Venezuela stabilize and recover. Many topics were discussed, including Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security. This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL.”
In a post on X, Rodríguez wrote in Spanish that she “held a long and courteous telephone conversation” with Trump “in which we addressed a bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our peoples, as well as pending matters between our governments”.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
