Trump will host Kennedy Center Honors
The president has said he will host the Kennedy Center Honors, at the insistence of his chief of staff Susie Wiles. It will take place in December.
The president also announces Sylvester Stallone, the “Rocky” and “Rambo” star who is the president’s newly minted “Ambassador to Hollywood,” is one of this year’s honorees.
“Sly is a pillar of the really American pop culture and a Hollywood superstar like few others,” the president said. “One of the biggest names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In fact, the only one that’s a bigger name of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they say, is a guy named Donald Trump”.
Stallone has routinely praised Trump, even calling him a “second George Washington”.
Key events
The president is taking questions from the press now, and confirms he’s heard about recent reports that Russia is “at least in part” responsible for a recent hack of the computer system of the federal court system.
“Are you surprised?” Trump tells the reporter. “They hack in. That’s what they do. They’re good at it. We’re good at it. We’re actually better at it”.
Overall the president is using the Kennedy Center as part of his ongoing “beautification” ambitions for DC.
“I’m determined to make Washington, DC safe, clean and beautiful,” Trump says. “A big part of that’s going to include the Kennedy Center”.
Trump is switching between about talking about his plans for a Kennedy Center renovation and the “public safety emergency” he’s declared in the nation’s capital.
“People tell me they can’t run anymore. They’re just afraid, and they’ll be running again,” he says. “We’re going to be essentially crime free. This is going to be a beacon, and it’s going to also serve as an example of what can be done”.
Trump now praises attorney general Pam Bondi – as she now oversees the DC police department as part of the federal takeover.
You’re going to see a big change in Washington crime stats very soon. They’re not the stats that they gave because they turned out to be a total fraud. The real stats.
Trump will host Kennedy Center Honors
The president has said he will host the Kennedy Center Honors, at the insistence of his chief of staff Susie Wiles. It will take place in December.
The president also announces Sylvester Stallone, the “Rocky” and “Rambo” star who is the president’s newly minted “Ambassador to Hollywood,” is one of this year’s honorees.
“Sly is a pillar of the really American pop culture and a Hollywood superstar like few others,” the president said. “One of the biggest names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In fact, the only one that’s a bigger name of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they say, is a guy named Donald Trump”.
Stallone has routinely praised Trump, even calling him a “second George Washington”.
Joining the president today is Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Trump visits Kennedy Center, announcing this year’s honorees
The president has now arrived at DC’s landmark performing arts venue, the Kennedy Center, to announce the recipients of this year’s honors.
A reminder that Trump made himself the chair of the Kennedy Center earlier this year, and has overhauled the management and programming of the venue, including ousting its long-serving president Deborah Rutter.
As part of Trump’s domestic policy bill, the Kennedy Center will also receive $257m for an extensive renovation.
Appeals court rules Trump administration does not have to make foreign aid payments
Today, a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s injunction that required the state department to continue making payments to foreign aid contractors.
In a 2-1 decision, the appellate panel effectively granted a victory for Trump, which means that the administration can cut billions in congressionally appropriated funding for foreign assistance.
This also comes after the supreme court rejected a previous appeal to lift district judge Amir Ali’s decision earlier this year.
Chris Stein
National guard troops were spotted arriving on the National Mall late Tuesday as agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), FBI and Department of Homeland Security fanned out across neighborhoods in the capital, sometimes accompanied by local police officers.
Video circulating on local media showed police and federal agents arresting at least one person that evening in Columbia Heights, home to the city’s largest Hispanic population.
Around 800 national guard troops are expected to be deployed for the mission, defense officials have said. A White House official said the national guard “is currently providing support to federal law enforcement agents. Their role is to protect federal assets, provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deter violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence”.
It was unclear how many arrests were made on Tuesday night and by which agencies. The US attorney’s office, Metropolitan police department and DEA, whose head has been appointed temporary administrator of the police department, did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
German chancellor Merz says Trump call was “very good, constructive”
My colleague Jakub Krupa has been keeping up with the latest developments following Donald Trump’s virtual meeting with European leaders and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A few of the top lines are here:
-
German chancellor Frederich Merz said that Trump “largely shares” the European position, and characterised the meeting as a “very good, constructive talk”.
-
For his part Zelenskyy emphasised the importance of a trilateral meeting with Trump and Putin.
-
He also confirmed that Trump said he would call him straight after the meeting with Putin to talk it through it.
-
Meanwhile, Jakub reports that Nato secretary general Mark Rutte posted on social media, saying it was a “great call”, and emphasised Nato unity to end the war in Ukraine and “achieve just and lasting peace”.
Trump considering list of 11 Fed chair replacements – report
The president is considering 11 candidates to replace Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell when his terms ends in May, according to a report from CNBC.
According to CNBC’s sources this long list includes three people who have not yet been mentioned publicly.
Per CNBC these include: David Zervos, Jefferies chief market strategist, former Federal Reserve governor Larry Lindsey, and Rick Rieder, a chief investment officer at BlackRock.
A reminder, that should Donald Trump replace Powell, his pick must be confirmed by the US Senate.
An interesting news nugget today comes by way of writer Kyle Tharp – who writes the Chaotic Era newsletter.
In his latest post, he finds that only three politicians have found much success in their podcast endeavors. Tharp’s reporting, which uses data from Podscribe, finds that Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas averaged more than 1.4m monthly downloads last month for his podcast The Verdict.
Meanwhile, California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom and Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw managed to break more than 400,000 and 300,000 downloads for their respective shows.
There’s a precipitous drop in average monthly downloads after that, according to Tharp. He reports that “more than two dozen leading elected officials” have attempted to host their own podcasts in recent years.
Also today, we can expect to hear from Texas Democrats – who left the state over a week ago to deny quorum in protest of gerrymandered GOP-drawn maps.
The legislators will join Indiana lawmakers as the Trump administration applies pressure on the Indiana governor Mike Braun to also redraw the state’s map.
A reminder that yesterday, the Texas Senate approved a map that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. But since House Democrats continue to break quorum, the legislation isn’t going anywhere. Speaker Dustin Burrows said the House will adjourn until Friday, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time.
If Friday’s attempt fails, Texas governor Greg Abbott said he’ll call a second session immediately.
Stephen Starr
Rural communities are seeing a key aspect of life affected amid Trump’s immigration crackdown and Ice raids.
Harrisonburg, Virginia, a town of 50,000 people in the Shenandoah Valley, should have been alive with the color, sound and smells of local Latino culture. Soccer tournaments, taco trucks, Salvadorian chanchona musical bands and about 4,000 visitors were last month set to attend the town’s Hispanic Festival held at a sports complex outside the town.
But this year, it’s not happening.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have been active in the Harrisonburg area for months, prompting organizers to cancel the festival.
“There have been instances of raids targeting immigrant families and workplaces in the past. While we had no confirmed reports that Ice planned to target the festival, the general climate of fear is very real,” says Crimson Solano, executive director of the Coalición Solidaria Pro-Inmigrantes Unidos (COSPU), which runs the festival.
“This fear undermines the purpose of the festival, which is to create a safe, celebratory space for our community.”
Festivals and fairs are a mainstay of small-town American life. But now from rural Indiana to a tiny village in Washington state to cornerstone Appalachian towns such as Harrisonburg, Latino and other international festivals are being cancelled this summer due to fears of raids by Ice agents.
Read more here:
My colleagues will be bringing you the very latest developments on the president’s virtual meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders.
You can follow along here
As they noted, Donald Trump just praised his European counterparts as “great people who want to see a deal done”, in a post on Truth Social.
The president has also undermined various reports that include critics of his upcoming meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the “very unfair media” is “constantly quoting fired losers and really dump people like John Bolton”.
In an article published in the Atlantic on Tuesday, the former national security adviser said: “Putin has already won. He is the leader of a rogue state, and he’ll get a picture on U.S. soil with the president of the United States.”
Similarly, in an interview with CNN last week, Bolton said that the “initial set-up” for Friday’s summit is a “great victory for Putin”.
But Trump wasted no time in the post calling out the press as “are sick and dishonest people, who probably hate our country”.
