Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 200 Shares24 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Unsettling and unprecedented’: Washington DC mayor responds to Trump’s federal takeover of city police – live

      by

      Bowser says that her office plans to follow the law, and cooperate with the federal government. The DC Home Rule Act requires the mayor to “provide the services” of the police department in the case of a declared emergency.Although, she notes that there is a “question about the subjectivity” of the declaration – referring to the recorded evidence of a dropping violent crime rate in DC. “While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” she adds.The mayor also says that she’s requested a meeting with attorney general Pam Bondi, who will temporarily oversee the Metropolitan police department.Bowser notes that all officers should be clearly identifiable: “a uniform, a badge, a jacket, so that people know that they are law enforcement”.The DC Council, the chief policy-making authority for the district, issued a statement calling Trump’s move to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department “unwarranted” and “a manufactured intrusion on local authority.”“Violent crime in the District is at the lowest rates we’ve seen in 30 years,” the statement said.“Federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department is unwarranted because there is no Federal emergency. Further, the National Guard has no public safety training or knowledge of local laws. The Guard’s role does not include investigating or solving crimes in the District. Calling out the National Guard is an unnecessary deployment with no real mission,” added the council.President Donald Trump said on Monday he met with Intel Corp’s chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, along with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and treasury secretary Scott Bessent.“The meeting was a very interesting one,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week.”Trump’s remarks come just days after he called on the chief executive to resign, alleging Tan had ties to the Chinese Communist party.Trump plans to impose a 100% tariff on imported computer chips, a move experts warn could lead companies to pull back on production or raise prices, but could favor Intel as a US-based semiconductor firm.Tan had invested in hundreds of Chinese firms, some of which were linked to the Chinese military, Reuters reported in April.Over the weekend, more details emerged about the fatal attack on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that took place on Friday, killing a police officer. In case you missed it:

      We reported that the shooter had blamed a Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. The suspect’s father contacted police and said his son was upset about the death of his dog, and had also become fixated on the Covid-19 vaccine.

      A union representing CDC employees demanded that the federal government condemn vaccine misinformation after it was known that the shooter blamed the Covid-19 vaccine. The CDC workers’ union said the deadly violence was not random and “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured”. It said vaccine misinformation had put scientists at risk.

      The Georgia Bureau of Investigation named Patrick Joseph White as the shooter. After firing shots at the CDC campus near Emory University on Friday, White was found dead on the second floor of the pharmacy building.
      Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has recently discussed diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine with secretary of state Marco Rubio.On Monday, Yermak said in a post on X that Rubio was briefed “on active communications with our partners,” including a meeting with US vice-president JD Vance.“We coordinated our positions ahead of important diplomatic steps planned for this week,” Yermak said in the post. “For Ukraine, the priority is a just and lasting peace, which requires an unconditional ceasefire as a prerequisite for substantive negotiations, as well as increased pressure on Russia to take real steps in this direction.”The post comes after UK foreign secretary David Lammy and Vance held a meeting with Ukrainian and European partners in Britain over the weekend, where leaders discussed the drive for peace in Ukraine.Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are slated to meet on Friday in Alaska to discuss ways forward to end the years-long war.CNN is reporting that national guard troops in the nation’s capital deployed by the Trump administration are not expected to openly carry rifles.An army official told the news outlet that troops will most likely have weapons nearby, like inside their trucks, if they absolutely need to access them for purposes of self-defense.Still, the official said it is always a possibility that troops could be ordered to operate differently.Gavin Newsom tried to play nice with Maga. But then in June, Donald Trump sent the national guard to LA, to quell immigration protests following Ice raids on the city, and the California governor went scorched-earth on the new administration.Since then Newsom’s social media exchanges with Trump and his White House have taunted and trolled, factchecked and alarm-sounded.Following Trump’s announcement on Monday that he’s activating the National Guard in the nation’s capital and taking over Washington’s police department, Newsom’s social media team set to work.Newsom warned in one post that other cities were next (and reminded followers that he had predicted this might happen back in June.)His press office grabbed a screenshot of the Trump officials looking bewildered.The team continued its full-frontal social assault, peppering Trump with tweets on the DC takeover, tariffs and his partisan redistricting plan. They deployed a Taco tariffs meme (Trump always chickens out) in response to the news that Trump and China extended their truce for another 90 days. They questioned how Attorney General Pam Bondi, who they said “couldn’t find the Epstein files” might fare as the head of the newly installed DC police department.They even fired off a Trump-style all-caps missive warning that California would redistrict if he did not call on Texas to stand down.

      Donald Trump is launching a federal takeover of DC Metropolitan police department (MPD), and deploying 800 national guardsmen to assist local law enforcement. He declared crime in the city “public safety emergency” in a press conference earlier, invoking a section of the DC Home Rule Act which places MPD under federal control. It’s expected to last 30 days, according to the White House.

      DC’s mayor Muriel Bowser said today that her office plans to comply and cooperate with federal government, but noted there are questions about the “subjectivity” of the emergency declaration. DC has seen a notable drop in violent crime, and even saw a record 30-year low in 2024, according to the justice department.

      Beyond Washington, Trump also previewed his Friday meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, claiming he will know “probably in the first two minutes” whether a peace deal can be made. Trump confirmed that while Volodymyr Zelenskyy wouldn’t be a part of the summit, he would call him first as soon as he saw a “fair deal” for a ceasefire emerge. He also didn’t rule out the possibility of a future trading relationship with Russia.

      And while the ongoing redistricting battle across the US wasn’t the main story of the day, California governor Gavin Newsom said that he will be “forced to lead an effort to redraw the maps in California to offset the rigging of maps in red states” in a letter to Donald Trump. Newsom said he would be left with no choice if the president can’t get governor Greg Abbott to drop his push to redraw Texas’ congressional maps mid-decade.
      In a statement, Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who serves as the House minority leader, said that the president’s plan to federalise the DC police department and deploy the National Guard had “has no basis in law and will put the safety of the people of our Nation’s capital in danger”.He added:
      The violent crime rate in Washington DC is at a 30-year low. Donald Trump doesn’t care about public safety. On his first day in office, he pardoned hundreds of violent felons – many of whom brazenly assaulted law enforcement officers on January 6. We stand with the residents of the District of Columbia and reject this unjustified power grab as illegitimate.
      On the president’s statements earlier that he would be comfortable bringing the military into DC if he deems it necessary, Muriel Bowser says that “we don’t believe it’s legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil”.Trump did, however, bring in out-of-state, unfederalised national guard troops during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.Bowser does note that she suspected that the national guard would be deployed, but had no prior knowledge of the federal takeover of the Metropolitan police department.Donald Trump has once again delayed implementing sweeping tariffs on China, announcing another 90-day pause just hours before the last agreement between the world’s two largest economies was due to expire.On Monday, Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline for higher tariffs on China until 9 November, officials confirmed to Reuters.Chinese officials said earlier in the day they hoped the United States would strive for “positive” trade outcomes on Monday, as the 90-day detente reached between the two countries in May was due to expire.“We hope that the US will work with China to follow the important consensus reached during the phone call between the two heads of state … and strive for positive outcomes on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,” a foreign ministry spokesman, Lin Jian, said in a statement.Bowser says that her office plans to follow the law, and cooperate with the federal government. The DC Home Rule Act requires the mayor to “provide the services” of the police department in the case of a declared emergency.Although, she notes that there is a “question about the subjectivity” of the declaration – referring to the recorded evidence of a dropping violent crime rate in DC. “While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” she adds.The mayor also says that she’s requested a meeting with attorney general Pam Bondi, who will temporarily oversee the Metropolitan police department.Bowser notes that all officers should be clearly identifiable: “a uniform, a badge, a jacket, so that people know that they are law enforcement”.The Democratic mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, is now addressing the president’s actions today.“I’ve said before, and I’ll repeat, that I believe that the president’s view of DC is shaped by his Covid-era experience during his first term,” she says. “It is true that those were more challenging times related to some issues. It is also true that we experienced a crime spike post-Covid, but we worked quickly to put laws in place and tactics that got violent offenders off our streets, and gave our police officers more tools.”In a letter to the president, California governor Gavin Newsom has asked Donald Trump to call on Texas governor Greg Abbott – and other red states who are acting under the president’s direction – to end the ongoing efforts to redraw their states’ congressional maps mid-decade.This comes as the redistricting battle in Texas enters its second week. State Democrats broke quorum again on Friday in protest of a gerrymandered GOP-drawn map – that could lead Republicans to pick up five extra seats in the US House ahead of the 2026 midterms.In his letter Newsom said that he will be “forced to lead an effort to redraw the maps in California to offset the rigging of maps in red states”, if Trump does not stand down. “You are playing with fire, risking the destabilization of our democracy, while knowing that California any gains you hope to make,” he wrote.We’re seeing a number of reactions from DC city leaders on the president’s move to deploy the National Guard to the city, and federal takeover of the Metropolitan police department (MPD).DC’s attorney general Brian Schwalb wrote in a post on X that “the administration’s actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful”. He added that “Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year”.Similarly, DC congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said that the president’s actions are “a counterproductive use of DC’s resources to use for his own purposes”.By contrast, the DC Police Union, which represents more than 3,000 officers in the MPD, said in statement that it “acknowledges and supports” Donald Trump’s decision to federalise the department. “The Union agrees that crime is spiraling out of control, and immediate action is necessary to restore public safety”. The statement did underscore that the measure should be temporary, with “the ultimate goal of empowering a fully staffed and supported MPD to protect our city effectively”.The US conference of mayors has issued a statement that pushes back against the administration’s deployment of DC national guard troops.
      Crime rates are plummeting in cities across the United States, including in Washington, D.C., as documented in the FBI’s national crime rate report released just last week…America’s mayors never see takeovers by other levels of government as a tactic that has any track record of producing results. Local control is always best.
      But the conference’s president, Republican David Holt, mayor of Oklahoma City, did add that “we do see great value in partnership between levels of government, and we can imagine value in such partnerships in our nation’s capital”, in his statement.A White House official confirms to the Guardian that the federal takeover of the DC Metropolitan police department is expected to be in effect for 30 days.The official added that this would be “subject to change” consistent with the taskforce’s operations.Section 740 of the DC Home Rule Act stipulates that this would be the maximum length for a federal takeover, before requiring a joint resolution in Congress to extend the 30-day limit.A trade truce between the US and China was set to expire on Tuesday, threatening an escalation of economic tensions between the world’s two largest economies.Chinese officials said they hoped the United States would strive for “positive” trade outcomes on Monday, as the 90-day detente reached between the two countries in May was due to expire.“We hope that the US will work with China to follow the important consensus reached during the phone call between the two heads of state … and strive for positive outcomes on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,” a foreign ministry spokesman, Lin Jian, said in a statement.Chinese and US officials said they expected the pause to be extended after the most recent round of trade talks held last month in Stockholm. Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, said last week the US had “the makings” of a trade deal with China and that he was optimistic about a path forward.Donald Trump has yet to confirm any extension to the pause. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters on Monday. “They’ve been dealing quite nicely — the relationship is very good with President Xi and myself.”Failure to reach a deal would have major consequences. Trump had threatened tariffs on China as high as 245% with China threatening retaliatory tariffs of 125%, setting off a trade war between the world’s largest economies.The New York Times is reporting that the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department is intended to last for 30 days, citing a White House official.Here is the full text of Donald Trump’s presidential memorandum “Restoring Law and Order in the District of Columbia”.
      Section 1. Background. As President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the District of Columbia National Guard, it is my solemn duty to protect law-abiding citizens from the destructive forces of criminal activity. That obligation applies with special force in our Nation’s capital, where, as Commander in Chief of the District of Columbia National Guard, I must also ensure that all citizens can avail themselves of the right to interact with their elected representatives, and that the Federal Government can properly function, without fear of being subjected to violent, menacing street crime.
      The local government of the District of Columbia has lost control of public order and safety in the city, as evidenced by the two embassy staffers who were murdered in May, the Congressional intern who was fatally shot a short distance from the White House in June, and the Administration staffer who was mercilessly beaten by a violent mob days ago. Citizens, tourists, and staff alike are unable to live peacefully in the Nation’s capital, which is under siege from violent crime. It is a point of national disgrace that Washington, D.C., has a violent crime rate that is higher than some of the most dangerous places in the world. It is my duty to our citizens and Federal workers to secure the safety and the peaceful functioning of our Nation, the Federal Government, and our city.
      Sec. 2. Mobilizing the District of Columbia National Guard. Pursuant to my authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States and the District of Columbia, I direct the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital. The mobilization and duration of duty shall remain in effect until I determine that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia. Further, I direct the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with State Governors and authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.
      Sec. 3. General Provisions. This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
      DONALD J. TRUMP More

    • 163 Shares20 Views

      in US Politics

      John Oliver on Ice’s crackdown: ‘Trying to drive up arrests at all costs’

      by

      John Oliver took a hard look at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on the latest Last Week Tonight, as more and more videos of Ice raids across US cities continue to show a brutal crackdown on undocumented people. “For all the administration’s talk of targeting dangerous criminals, the reality is very different,” Oliver started.The Trump administration has set a goal of deporting one million people a year, “which, it’s worth noting, would be more than double the previous record of 400,000 when Obama was president, which was already very high”, said Oliver. “But notably, they don’t seem to be getting near their target numbers.” As of taping, the administration had deported about 280,000 people, “so getting to a million in just six months seems very unlikely”.“And they have backed themselves into this corner, because ‘promising’ to deport a million criminal migrants is one thing, but once you’re in charge, you then have to find that many of them,” he continued, “which is going to be hard if they don’t exist in the numbers that you’re claiming, which they don’t.“It’s like promising to apprehend 10,000 Fred Dursts a day,” he added. “There just aren’t that many out there, so either you have to admit that your target number was bullshit in the first place or you have to drastically widen your definition of what a Fred Durst is until you’re eventually arresting any gen X-er wearing a hat.“But instead of conceding their numbers were inflated, the administration is trying to drive up arrests at all costs.” The Trump aide Stephen Miller has instructed Ice agents to target Home Depots and 7-Elevens, and the agency has rapidly deputized a record number of local police to function as deportation agents. They have brought in border patrol as well as the national guard; at least a quarter of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s workforce; 80% of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and even members of the US Postal Service.“This mass reallocation of resources means that other crimes are going less policed,” Oliver explained. The FBI, for example, has instructed agents to prioritize immigration enforcement at the expense of white-collar crime and investigations into sexual abuse.“I gotta say: for a guy who pandered so heavily to people convinced pedophiles, sex offenders and traffickers had infiltrated our government, Trump’s sure making the government a lot friendlier to them,” said Oliver. “Ghislaine Maxwell’s in a nicer cell now, Lawrence Taylor’s advising on kids’ physical fitness. Fuck it, at this point, if he’s willing to wear a Maga hat, I really don’t see why Roman Polanski can’t come back.”Nevertheless, “border czar” Tom Homan claimed that 70% of those arrested by Ice were criminals, while the other 30% were national security threats who “don’t have a criminal history because they try to lay low until it’s time for them to do things bad”.“Under his logic, I guess anyone could be a national security threat,” said Oliver. But “Homan’s numbers are also nowhere near Ice’s own data,” which found that only 40% of those arrested had any criminal history, including traffic infractions, and just 7% were convicted of any sort of violent crime. In fact, as of June, people with only civil or immigration violations – no criminal convictions – made up the largest percentage of arrests nationwide. “Maybe the clearest sign that this is more about pushing up numbers than catching violent criminals on the run is that one of the key places where they’re now fishing for arrests is immigration court, where people show up for their hearings,” he added.As numerous videos showed, Ice agents arrested people who showed up to process their situation legally, using a loophole that allows the government to deport people without due process if their immigration case is dismissed. “It is the laziest possible way to juice up your numbers,” said Oliver, “because you’re targeting people who are going through the system ‘in the right way’ and turning them into people you can immediately arrest and deport.”This trap was among “things the administration is doing that sure feel like they’re breaking the law” but “often aren’t”. Oliver took the “dystopian visual” of Ice agents wearing masks, which is actually legal, as no federal law prevents it. “So they can do it, but why are they?” The administration claims that it’s for their own protection, with the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, including videotaping arrests as an act of “violence” against agents.All of this “gets even more worrying” when one remembers that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act contains a huge surge of funding for immigration enforcement – roughly $170bn over the next few years, some of which is set aside for the hiring of 10,000 new Ice agents. “For what it’s worth, massive rapid hiring sprees never tend to work out well,” Oliver noted. Past efforts to bolster Customs and Border Protection under George Bush ended up with hiring drug cartel members and an actual serial killer. “And it’s not a great sign for who Ice is appealing to that they’re currently posting gross recruitment ads, like this fake minivan ad tagged: ‘Think about how many criminal illegal aliens you could fit in this bad boy!’” he added. “And they seem more than a little desperate already, as they’ve already removed age limits for hiring agents.”And this past week, Ice shared a video of their newest recruit: former Superman actor Dean Cain. “You know, there’s an old saying in Hollywood: ‘If all you can get is Dean Cain, you are fucked,’” Oliver joked.“Now, I’m not saying that Ice isn’t finding people,” he continued. “I’m just saying, when you are reduced to pinning a badge on the 59-year-old star of The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation, The Dog Who Saved the Holidays, The Dog Who Saved Halloween, The Dog Who Saved Easter and The Dog Who Saved Summer, maybe you are in trouble. Although, on the plus side, no need for that guy to wear a mask because the chances of anyone recognizing him are fucking zero.”So what can be done? “As powerless as this can feel, as individuals there are still actions you can take,” said Oliver, such as recording any arrest you witness involving Ice agents. Oliver also advised that if you’re approached by Ice agents, whether or not you’re a citizen, “attorneys told us the only two things you should say to them are: ‘Am I free to leave?’ And: ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’ That’s it. You have the right to remain silent. And I recognize that in some cases you may be unable to help yourself from saying: ‘Didn’t you used to be Superman?’ ‘I thought you died.’ ‘I can’t believe I’m meeting a film-maker.’ But that really is it.”“We are still in a very grim moment,” he added. “The rightwing narrative is that most people are rabid to punish anyone who wants to become new Americans. But that is just not true,” as new polls found 80% support a pathway to legal citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “Nor are their bullshit claims about who’s being targeted and arrested.“And I’m not saying that everything Ice is doing right now is illegal,” he concluded. “What I’m saying is, a whole bunch of it feels like it really should be. And we need to change that at our earliest opportunity.” More

    • 200 Shares18 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Epstein case haunts administration even as Vance blames Democrats for mishandling

      by

      Vice-president JD Vance’s attempt to deflect attention away from the Trump administration’s handling of the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has backfired, triggering renewed calls for transparency.In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, Vance tried to brush off criticism of the administration’s refusal to release documents related to the scandal, accusing Joe Biden of doing “absolutely nothing” about it when he was in the White House.Within minutes of the Fox News interview being broadcast, social media began to hum with renewed cries of “release the files!”The White House has been caught in a bind over the Epstein affair, which spawned conspiracy theories among many of Donald Trump’s supporters which now senior figures in the administration had actively encouraged during the 2024 campaign.Here are the key US politics stories at a glance:Vance’s attempt to link Democrats to Epstein renews calls to ‘release the files’Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the vice-president appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor.Read the full storyNvidia and AMD reportedly agree to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to USNvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenues from chip sales in China, under an unprecedented arrangement to obtain export licenses for the semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.Read the full storyTexas redistricting fight ‘could last years’, threatens Greg AbbottThe Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.Read the full storyCourt overrides Trump officials’ rollback and blocks fishing in Pacific Islands monumentA federal judge in Hawaii has ruled that commercial fishing is illegal in the Pacific Islands Heritage marine national monument, a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean.Read the full storyTrump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DCIn a social media post on Sunday, the president demanded homeless residents of Washington DC leave the country’s capital or face eviction, and again promised to use federal officers to jail criminals, even though violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low when he took office in January.Read the full storyCompanies aiding Trump’s immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary’ revenuesThe technology, surveillance and private prison providers arming Trump’s massive expansion and weaponization of immigration enforcement are running a victory lap after reporting their latest financial results.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Ahead of the a meeting between president Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin scheduled for Friday, our correspondent Shaun Walker has written this analysis about how confusion over the summit shows Putin still calls the shots.

      Trump’s second term has seen a sustained assault on democratic institutions – political, judicial, media, cultural and academic – that appears to be only accelerating, writes David Smith in this feature.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 9 August 2025. More

    • 175 Shares38 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DC

      by

      In a social media post on Sunday, Donald Trump demands homeless residents of Washington DC leave the country’s capital or face eviction, and again promised to use federal officers to jail criminals, even though violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low when he took office in January.“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”View image in fullscreenThe post was illustrated with four photographs, all apparently taken from the president’s motorcade along the route from the White House to his golf course. Two of the images showed a total of 10 tents pitched on the grass along a highway on-ramp just over a mile from the White House. The third image showed a single person sleeping on the steps of the American Institute of Pharmacy Building on Constitution Avenue. The fourth image showed the line of vehicles that whisk Trump to his golf course passing a small amount of roadside litter on the E Street Expressway, near the Kennedy Center.Trump’s post promoted a previously announced news conference on Monday, which he has promised, “will, essentially, stop violent crime” in the capital district, without explaining how. In a subsequent post, he said that the news conference at 10am Monday, “will not only involve ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation’s Capital, but will also be about Cleanliness”.The Free DC movement, which advocates for self-determination, immediately scheduled a protest on Monday to coincide with Trump’s news conference.Despite Trump’s claims, there is no epidemic of homelessness or violent crime in the capital.According to the Community Partnership, which works to prevent homelessness in Washington DC, on any given night there are about 800 unsheltered persons sleeping outdoors in the city of about 700,000 people. A further 3,275 people use emergency shelters in Washington, and 1,065 people are in transitional housing facilities.Trump’s repeated claims that it might be necessary to federalize law enforcement in the city to make it safe also ignores data collected by the Metropolitan police department, released in January by the federal government, which showed that violent crime in Washington DC in 2024 was down 35% from 2023 and was at the lowest level in over 30 years.“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, told MSNBC on Sunday. “We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.” She added that Washington DC police statistics show that violent crime is down a further 26% so far this year.“Federal law enforcement is always on the street in DC, and we always work cooperatively with them” Bowser said, adding the the Washington DC national guard, which Trump has threatened to deploy, is under the control of the president.Earlier this week, Trump ordered a surge of federal officers from a variety of agencies to increase patrols in Washington DC, pointing to the assault on a young federal worker who came to Washington to work with Elon Musk as evidence that the city’s police force was failing to combat violent crime. Washington DC police, however, had stopped the assault Trump focused attention on, and arrested two 15-year-old suspects at the scene.Asked by Reuters, the White House declined to explain what legal authority Trump would use to evict people from Washington. The president controls only federal land and buildings in the city.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe US Congress has control of the city’s budget but the DC Home Rule Act, signed into law in 1973 by Richard Nixon, gives Washington DC residents the right to elect the mayor, council members, and neighborhood commissioners to run day-to-day affairs in the district.Trump told reporters on Wednesday that White House lawyers were “already studying” the possibility of legislation to overturn the law granting the Washington DC self-rule and imposing direct federal control of the capital.“Even if crime in D.C. weren’t at a historic low point, President Trump’s comments would be misguided and offensive to the more than 700,000 people who live permanently in the nation’s capital,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents DC as a nonvoting delegate in congress said in a statement. “D.C. residents, a majority of whom are Black and brown, are worthy and capable of governing themselves without interference from federal officials who are unaccountable to D.C.”“The only permanent remedy that will protect D.C.’s ability to govern itself is enactment of my D.C. statehood bill into law,” the 88-year-old congresswoman added.Reuters contributed reporting More

    • 150 Shares40 Views

      in US Politics

      Confusion over the Alaska summit shows Vladimir Putin still calls the shots

      by

      In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.It has also seemed as if Trump’s rhetoric was finally shifting, as he termed Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian cities “disgusting” in recent weeks and set Vladimir Putin a deadline of last Friday to stop the war or face the imposition of crippling new sanctions.Then came envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow last Wednesday. Putin appears to have made no major concessions during the three-hour Kremlin meeting, and in return was rewarded not with debilitating sanctions but with an invitation to meet Trump in Alaska. The offer to thrash out a Ukrainian peace deal at a bilateral summit with Trump represents exactly the sort of great-power deal-making Putin has always craved. It will be his first trip to the US since 2007, with the exception of visits to the UN.Exactly how the Alaska summit will look is still unclear, with a particularly Trumpian kind of confusion and chaos accompanying its announcement. Kyiv, European capitals and even Trump’s own staff have been trying to understand what exactly was agreed in the Kremlin.The first announcements from the White House suggested Putin would meet Trump, followed by a three-way meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy. This was swiftly denied by Putin. As he put it, “we are still far from creating the conditions” for a meeting with Zelenskyy. An aide denied that the Russian side had ever agreed to a three-way meeting.A White House source told the New York Post on Thursday that if Putin did not agree to meet Zelenskyy, the meeting with Trump would not go ahead. But a few hours later, Trump denied that: he was happy to meet Putin anyway. The back-and-forth gave the distinct impression, not for the first time, that in the relationship between Trump and Putin, it is the Russian president who calls the shots.View image in fullscreenSome administration officials later briefed US media outlets that they may invite Zelenskyy anyway, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said in a Sunday interview he “hopes and assumes” that Zelenskyy will take part. For now, this does not seem likely. A senior White House official told NBC that Trump was “open” to a trilateral summit, but was “focusing on planning the bilateral meeting requested by president Putin”.As worrying for Kyiv as the planned format of the talks is the apparent Russian deal now on the table. The plan, as it has been reported after filtering through the Trump administration and then to European capitals, is that the Ukrainian army should unilaterally withdraw from the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk it still controls, which would presumably include the fortified military stronghold of Kramatorsk. In exchange, the Kremlin would agree to freeze the lines in other places.“Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers,” Zelenskyy said over the weekend, adding that handing over land to Russia would violate the Ukrainian constitution. He said any deal done without Ukraine was destined to be “stillborn”.Zelenskyy’s public posture that Ukraine will never cede land is true up to a point. Kyiv is unlikely to renounce legal claims to its own territory, but the Ukrainian elite and much of Ukrainian society is increasingly ready for a deal that would recognise Russian de facto control, perhaps for a set period of time, in exchange for ending the fighting.The main problem with such a deal has always been what kind of guarantees Ukraine would receive that Russia would not simply use a ceasefire as time to regroup before attacking again. Brief discussions earlier this year about a European peacekeeping force to police a ceasefire were quickly scaled back to a “reassurance force” stationed far from the frontlines. Ukrainians would therefore have not much to rely on but Putin’s word, which they have learned from experience not to trust.Even still, there is a significant camp in the Ukrainian political and military elite who believe that, after more than three years of war, the situation has become so dire that the country is obliged to take such a deal, simply to allow for a pause in the fighting.The problem for Kyiv is the deal Putin apparently pitched to Witkoff is significantly worse than simply freezing the lines. “As things stand, Ukraine and Europe are on the verge of being confronted with exactly the kind of Faustian deal they feared would emerge back in February,” Sam Greene, a professor at King’s College London, wrote on X.Over the past few days, Zelenskyy and his team have been rallying support among European leaders and trying to put together an alternative, European plan. Unfortunately for Kyiv, previous experience suggests Trump is unwilling or unable to exert real pressure on Putin.“If Putin and Trump reach an agreement directly, Europe will be faced with a fait accompli. Kyiv – even more so,” said Roman Alekhin, a Russian war blogger, on Sunday. It is exactly that prospect Ukraine’s leadership will be doing their utmost to prevent in the days before Friday’s summit. More

    • 175 Shares47 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump promised to be a dictator on day one. We’re now past day 200

      by

      The anger was raw and resolute. Speaking at the Republican congressman Mike Flood’s town hall in Lincoln, Nebraska, a woman pointed to the estimated $450m cost of “Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration detention facility in Florida. “How much does it cost for fascism?” she demanded. “How much do the taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country?”The crowd erupted in applause and whoops. In the week that Donald Trump marked his 200th day in office, few mainstream political commentators are bandying around terms such as “fascist”. But many are warning of a societal march towards authoritarianism that, far from losing momentum, appears to be gathering pace.Over the past month the US president has demanded that his predecessor, Barack Obama, be prosecuted for “treason”, fired the government’s top labour statistician following a weak jobs report and forced Columbia University to pay more than $200m in a settlement that many saw as capitulation.Trump has also egged on Republicans in Texas and other states to redraw congressional maps so they favour his party in future elections – turning the FBI on dissenting Democrats – and ordered a new census that excludes people “who are in our Country illegally”.And his administration has pursued a hostile takeover of the nation’s capital, Washington DC, threatening to place the city under federal control, promising to restore a Confederate statue toppled by Black Lives Matter protesters and executing a radical makeover of the White House itself.The trend line is clear to Trump’s critics. Rachel Maddow, a leading progressive TV host, told viewers of her show on the MSNBC network this week: “We do now live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge. We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.”Terms such as “fascist”, “authoritarian” and “dictatorship” were once dismissed as the refuge of those suffering “Trump derangement syndrome”. Not any more. There is now a growing consensus that the pillars of US democracy are being demolished one by one.Matt Bennett, an executive vice-president of Third Way, a centrist thinktank hardly prone to hyperbole, said: “It’s getting dramatically worse by the day. The question of whether we’re in a constitutional crisis or whether authoritarianism has arrived is kind of an academic one. It’s either here or it’s going to be here very soon.“We’re still short of them openly defying a supreme court ruling or intentionally deporting US citizens or attempting to shut down a news media operation. But we’re not very far short.”The assault on the constitution is wider and deeper than in Trump’s first term, when he arrived in the Oval Office like a trainee pilot sitting in the cockpit of a Boeing 747, overwhelmed by its array of dials and controls. Now he and his allies – notably his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller – know precisely which levers to pull and how little air resistance they are likely to meet.View image in fullscreenHaving promised to be a dictator only on “day one”, Trump got to work pardoning supporters involved in the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol, installing loyalists at the justice department and FBI and recruiting the billionaire Elon Musk to scythe through government agencies, sidelining Congress along the way.The president repeatedly challenged judicial rulings, even calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against his administration. After a judge blocked a deportation order, Trump called him “crooked” and said he should be “impeached”, prompting a “rare rebuke” from the chief justice, John Roberts.The administration escalated attacks on media outlets it accused of unfavourable coverage, moving some out of their Pentagon workspace or barring them from the Oval Office and Air Force One. It also purged the leadership of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, installing Trump himself as chairman.At the 100-day mark, comparisons were being drawn with autocrats such as Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Two hundred days in, Orbán has been left looking like an amateur by the speed and scale of Trump’s efforts to expand presidential power, undermine institutions and control information.Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, said: “He’s clearly made a decision to turn America into some form of dictatorship. There’s no way any longer to look away from that. The excuses – ‘Well, it can’t happen here, American civil society is strong enough to resist’ – may be true, but what’s clear now is that his aspiration is to end American democracy for all time and to turn this country into some kind of authoritarian state.”Among the starkest examples was Trump’s concerted effort to deflect attention from the Jeffrey Epstein files by baselessly reviving the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, has directed federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into allegations that members of Obama’s administration manufactured intelligence.Then came the abrupt dismissal of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, after a jobs report showed downward revisions. Trump accused her of “faking the jobs numbers” and that the figures were “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”, offering only “my opinion” as proof.Trump’s efforts to dominate US culture are far more sophisticated than in his first term. According to an analysis by the Axios news site, he has extracted more than $1.2bn in settlements from at least 13 of the most elite players in academia, law, media and tech. Among them was a $16m deal with Paramount that critics saw as a “bribe” and coincided with the cancellation of the late-night show of the CBS comedian Stephen Colbert, one of the most incisive satirical voices of the Trump era.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenRosenberg added: “There’s no question that our lack of history with a leader like this, and the perception of American exceptionalism, made many institutional players in our society unprepared for what was to come. The key here is that the way that Trump succeeds is by isolating people and by not allowing people to work together collectively.”Funding cuts by Republicans in Congress forced the shutdown of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, dealing a huge blow to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. Government websites have been scrubbed of data on the climate and other issues – including, apparently, the constitution itself.Ominously, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History removed a reference to the 2019 and 2021 impeachments of Trump from a panel in an exhibition about the presidency. A Smithsonian spokesperson said the removal was part of a temporary fix and the exhibit eventually “will include all impeachments”.Although Trump has faced setbacks in the courts, he shows no signs of slackening his pace. Last month he signed a tax and spending bill that, while stripping health insurance from millions of people, includes a record $170bn for immigration enforcement and detention. Amid concerns over its masked agents snatching people off the streets, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will become the biggest domestic police force in the US – and bigger than many countries’ armies.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “We’re on a glide path towards the dissolution of the cornerstones of American democracy. It started with Trump and his threats, even to Republicans, and now it’s accelerated to secret police. The billions of dollars going to Ice is going to create the largest police force in the country and it’s beholden to the president.”Jacobs added: “The next backstop is going to be, will there be competitive elections next year? The gerrymandering in Texas may be a bad sign about whether Democrats and Americans who are ready to vote against Republicans will have that opportunity around the country.”Despite the concerns over an uneven playing field, the midterm elections remain Democrats’ best chance of checking Trump’s power. They hope to harness the rage boiling over at Republican town halls, such as that held by Flood in Nebraska this week, and at protests such as “No Kings” demonstrations that brought millions of people to the streets.Indeed, for all his strongman posturing, Trump is deeply unpopular: a University of Massachusetts Amherst opinion poll released this week found his approval rating at just 38%, down six percentage points since April, though only 1% of Trump voters regret their vote. That drop includes men, one of the president’s most reliable groups of supporters.From his military parade in Washington to his bombing of Iran, from his escalation of immigration enforcement to his so-called “big, beautiful bill”, the American people are rejecting Trump’s leadership and agenda, according to Rosenberg, the Democratic strategist.“A majority of the country now knows that he’s the old man behind the curtain and not the wizard,” he said. “He still has control over Maga and Republicans in Congress but he doesn’t have the persuasive capacity any longer to keep his hold on the broad majority of the country.“This is a sign of his weakness and that he’s not as strong as he believes he is. It’s one of the reasons why he’s looking for these avenues to re-establish his strength and power and have there be a perception that people are bending the knee.“Every time he tries to do this, it fails and he grows more distant to the American people. That has to give us hope we have the tools in the coming months to start winning elections and building a more successful pro-democracy movement that can contain the damage that Trump and Maga are doing to the country in the coming years.” More

    • 188 Shares38 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Lutnick threatens Harvard patents; former Fox commentator bound for UN

      by

      The Trump administrations has threatened Harvard’s lucrative portfolio of patents amid its long-running dispute with the university, accusing it of breaching legal and contractual requirements tied to federally funded research.In a letter, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick demanded that Harvard provide within four weeks a list of all patents stemming from federally funded research grants, including how the patents are used and whether any licensing requires “substantial US manufacturing”. Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Many civil rights experts, faculty and White House critics believe the Trump administration’s targeting of schools for supposedly failing to address antisemitism on campus is a pretext to assert federal control and threaten academic freedom and free speech.Trump administration threatens Harvard federal funding and patentsIn his letter to Harvard, Lutnick also said the commerce department had begun a “march-in” process under the federal Bayh-Dole Act that could let the government take ownership of the patents or grant licenses.As of 1 July 2024, Harvard held more than 5,800 patents, and had more than 900 technology licenses with over 650 industry partners, according to the Harvard Office of Technology Development.Read the full storyTammy Bruce nominated for US deputy ambassador to UNDonald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating former Fox News commentator Tammy Bruce as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations.Bruce has been serving as the chief spokesperson for the state department since Trump took office this year. Trump said Bruce, who had no prior foreign policy experience before becoming spokesperson in January, “will represent our country brilliantly at the United Nations”.Read the full storyIRS commissioner reportedly removed over immigration policy disputeThe removal of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner Billy Long after just two months came after the federal tax collection agency said it could not release some information on taxpayers suspected of being in the US illegally, it was reported on Saturday.The Washington Post reported the Department of Homeland Security had sent the IRS a list of 40,000 names that it suspected of being in the country illegally. DHS asked the tax service to crosscheck confidential taxpayer data to verify their addresses.The IRS reportedly responded that it was able to verify fewer than 3% of the names on the DHS list, but declined requests for further information, citing taxpayer privacy rights.Read the full story‘We are at war – bring it on’: Democrats ready to fight dirty to stop TrumpKen Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking in Chicago this week, said: “This is a new Democratic party. We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we are going to fight fire with fire.”It was a brutally honest acknowledgement of what a decade of Donald Trump’s politics has wrought. Out go the courtly and courteous playing-by-the-rules Democrats convinced that Maga is a passing phase, a fever that will break. In come a new generation of pugnacious Democrats prepared to take off the gloves and fight dirty.The trigger for this scorched-earth approach is Trump’s push to find more Republican seats in the House of Representatives ahead of next year’s crucial midterm elections through gerrymandering, a process of manipulating electoral maps to benefit one party over another.Read the full storyHow did we get all this gerrymandering? A brief history Extreme GOP gerrymanders have remade American politics over the last 15 years. They have locked Republicans into office in state legislatures nationwide, even in purple states when Democratic candidates win more votes. They have delivered a reliable and enduring edge to the GOP in the race for Congress.How did we get here? How did gerrymandered lines, rather than voters, gain the power to determine winners and losers?Read the full storyPete Hegseth reposts video that says women shouldn’t be allowed to voteThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, recently shared a video in which several pastors say women should no longer be allowed to vote, prompting one progressive evangelical organization to express concern.Hegseth reposted a nearly seven-minute report CNN segment on X on Thursday that focuses on pastor Doug Wilson, a Christian nationalist. In the segment, he raises the idea of women not voting.Doug Pagitt, a pastor and the executive director of the progressive evangelical organization Vote Common Good, said the ideas in the video were views that “small fringes of Christians keep” and said it was “very disturbing” that Hegseth would amplify them.Read the full storyUnder-fire FDA figure returns just days after leaving Vinay Prasad is returning to his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy and blood product regulation at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a little more than a week after he left the agency.Two days before Prasad stepped down last month, Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer and conspiracy theorist, had released misleadingly edited audio to suggest Prasad had admitted sticking pins in a Trump voodoo doll, when the full audio made it clear that he was talking about the kind of thing an imagined liberal Trump-hater would do.Prasad is an oncologist who was a fierce critic of US Covid-19 vaccines and mask mandates.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A Georgia man who opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Friday, killing a police officer, had blamed a Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official said.

      Documents filed recently in the New Orleans Roman Catholic archdiocese’s five-year bankruptcy case provide more clarity on how claims will be doled out to survivors of clergy abuse if a proposed settlement is approved.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 8 August 2025. More