Trump threatens sending military to Democratic cities, singling out Chicago
In between repeating baseless claims that DC crime data is “phoney”, and touting the work of the National Guard in the nation’s capital, the president says that he’s willing to bring in the “regular military” to the nation’s capital if needed.
He also repeated his threats to send the military to cities in blue states, singling out Chicago today:
Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That’ll be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough.
Key events
US court orders release of Kilmar Ábrego García from criminal custody
Maya Yang
A court has ordered the release of Kilmar Ábrego García from criminal custody in Tennessee.
On Friday, magistrate judge Barbara Holmes issued an order allowing the Maryland father of two to leave custody for the first time since his return to the US in June, after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this year.
The 30-year-old was initially wrongfully deported by federal immigration officials in March. According to the Trump administration, Ábrego was affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.
During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.
Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him back to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.
In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to hit him with a slew of human smuggling charges, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.
Sam Levine
An update from the Texas senate, where Molly Cook, a Democratic lawmaker from Houston, is now questioning Phil King about the new Texas map.
Her line of questioning appears designed to highlight that the senator is not completely blind to race in Texas. She points out that he’s likely done polling in his own races that breaks down results by race and has analysed other statewide racial data as part of his job as a legislator.
“I have not drilled into racial data with regard to redistricting,” King says.
When asked about the ongoing discussions about a possible bilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president said it will be “interesting to see” whether that goes ahead.
Earlier he explained his decision to let the two leaders have a meeting together: “I could have been at the meeting, but a lot of people think that nothing’s going to come out of that meeting.”
Trump went on to say that he’ll know “one way or the other” about his next steps in two weeks. “It’s going to be a very important decision. And that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs, or both, or do we do nothing and say ‘it’s your fight,’” he said.
Earlier the president said he was “not happy” when asked about a US factory being hit during a Russian strike in Ukraine.
Trump confirms funding request to Congress for DC ‘beautification’
The president just confirmed that he has spoken with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, John Thune, about a plan to raise $2bn from Congress to help fund his ‘beautification’ plans for DC.
“I think it’s going to be very easy to get it’s going to be not a lot of money. I wouldn’t even know where to spend the number that you mentioned, but it’s going to be money to beautify the city,” he said in response to a reporter’s question in the Oval Office.
President says he ‘purposefully’ didn’t get involved in Bolton raid
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton. I thought it was a sleazebag, actually, and he suffers major Trump derangement syndrome,” the president said, speaking about the raid on his former national security adviser’s home.
Trump repeated that he tries to “stay out of that stuff”, and that when it came to the search of Bolton’s home, he “purposefully” didn’t want to get involved. “I saw that just like everybody else,” he added.
The president then spent time talking about how he too was subjected to a raid, referring to the FBI search of the his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 during an investigation into the handling of presidential and classified documents.
“They went through everything you can imagine,” Trump said.
Trump displays picture with Putin, suggests he’ll attend World Cup
The president just shared a picture of himself and Vladimir Putin at their summit last week in Alaska. Trump even hinted that Putin may attend the 2026 World Cup in the US.
“I believe he will be coming, depending on what happens, he may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens,” he said.
The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, has gifted Donald Trump the first ticket to the 2026 World Cup’s final match.
Trump threatens sending military to Democratic cities, singling out Chicago
In between repeating baseless claims that DC crime data is “phoney”, and touting the work of the National Guard in the nation’s capital, the president says that he’s willing to bring in the “regular military” to the nation’s capital if needed.
He also repeated his threats to send the military to cities in blue states, singling out Chicago today:
Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That’ll be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough.
Trump announces World Cup draw at Kennedy Center
The president is now speaking in the Oval Office, joined by JD Vance.
He says that the 2026 World Cup draw will take place at the Kennedy Center on 5 December, which will determine the match schedule. The US is one of three host countries for the tournament.
“This will drive more than $30bn in US economy and create 185,000 American jobs. No sporting event attracts more attention, or more fans, or anything else. I just look forward to the draw,” Trump said.
Vance denies that Bolton investigation is due to criticism of Trump – report
The vice-president, JD Vance, has said that the FBI raid and investigation into former national security adviser John Bolton is not because he’s a critic of the president, according to an interview with NBC News.
“We don’t think that we should throw people – even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically – you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing,” Vance told NBC anchor Kristen Welker.
Sam Levine
The Texas senate is taking a brief recess amid questions about the state’s new congressional map.
State senator Phil King, the bill’s sponsor, has been taking questions for about an hour and a half from Democrats. In nearly all of their questions, Democrats have asked King questions about the racial makeup of the new districts. King has essentially said the same thing over and over – he did not consider racial data when looking at the map and the primary purpose why districts look the way they do is to benefit Republicans.
King has also conceded that he did not draw the maps himself and has been a lot more circumspect about what data mapmakers looked at when they drew lines.
The reason King is answering this way is because any concession that racial data was used would be a significant tool Democrats would use in expected legal fights ahead to argue that the new maps diminish the influence of minority voters in the state.
Ahead of the president’s announcement, here’s a recap of the day so far
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The FBI raided the home of Donald Trump’s former national security adviser turned critic John Bolton on Friday morning. A government source confirmed the raid to the Guardian, but didn’t provide additional details. The search of Bolton’s house in Maryland was part of an investigation involving the handling of classified documents, according to various reports. Bolton was not at home during the raid, and said he did not know it was happening, according to CNN. Agents later began a search of his DC office, a source told the outlet.
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For his part, the president said that he wasn’t briefed on the raid when speaking to reporters earlier. He added that he expects more details to come from the justice department. “I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real sort of a lowlife,” Trump said of his one-time cabinet official turned adversary. “He’s not a smart guy. But he could be a very unpatriotic. I’m going to find out.”
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The president also spent time extolling the fact there have been no murders in the nation’s capital in the last week.“That’s the first time in anybody’s memory that you haven’t had a murder in a week,” he said. However, the city last experienced no homicides (over a seven-day period) as recently as July this year, according to DC police data.
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In that same impromptu press conference, Trump also said that he will fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook if she doesn’t resign, intensifying his effort to gain influence over the US central bank. At the same time, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, nodded to a possible rate cut at the central bank’s September meeting. However, Powell stopped short of committing to cutting rates next month during a speech to policymakers and economists at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference.
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Meanwhile, beyond DC, the Texas senate has begun final deliberations to pass its redrawn congressional map. The plan, which is expected to pass this afternoon, could net five congressional seats for Republicans in 2026.
George Chidi
Police officers from around Georgia, and around the country, gathered on Friday morning at the First Baptist Church of Atlanta for a memorial service for police officer David Rose, who was killed on 8 August while fending off a gunman at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) headquarters.
“David Rose was a man whose life was defined by service,” said interim police chief David Padrick, noting his service in the Marine Corps before joining the county police force. “David was more than a co-worker. He was family.”
Rose was his class leader in the police academy, from which he graduated only six months before his death.
“As the class leader, you are expected to lead from the front and not the rear,” said sergeant Trey Jones, his instructor. “He carried himself with a calm presence and a clear sense of purpose … He was unshakable.”
Rose’s death has been met with a wide outpouring of grief in Atlanta. He was the father of two children. His wife is pregnant.
About 500 police officers filled the sanctuary. Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, attended, as did officers from as far away as New York City and Aurora, Colorado.
Many CDC employees also attended the memorial. Their grief was matched by fury at the Trump administration, which many said had been insufficiently supportive since the shooting, if not tacitly encouraging the anti-vaccine sentiment which drew the shooter to their door.
Sam Levine
One remarkable thing evident from watching Texas state senator Phil King’s testimony about the state’s new congressional map is the way he openly says the map is being redrawn for partisan purposes.
“HB 4, I believe, should elect more Republicans to the US Congress,” King said.
This is an admission that would only be made behind closed doors a decade ago. But in 2019, the US supreme court said that federal courts could do nothing to stop gerrymandering for partisan purposes.
That is a huge boon for lawmakers. Since they are still prohibited from drawing lines based on race, they can get some legal protection by simply saying they are going to draw districts for partisan purposes. Lawmakers are betting that there will be no blowback from voting for openly admitting that they are doing this for partisan gain. Of course, the risk is also quite limited since they are in districts already drawn to virtually guarantee their re-election.
Sam Levine
Texas state senator Phil King, the sponsor of the bill to enact the redrawn congressional map, is taking questions from Democrats in the Texas senate about the new map.
Democrats are asking questions about how the map was made that can be used in expected court challenges to the map.
King knows this and is using his remarks on the floor to try to immunize the map from future challenges. To bolster that effort, he’s insisting over and over again that he did not consider race or look at racial data when drawing the map.
“I also want you to know, and I can’t emphasize this enough, that I have not reviewed any racial data,” he said at the outset of his remarks.
The US supreme court has said that lawmakers are entitled to a “good faith” presumption in drawing maps, so Republicans will get a lot of leeway as long as they don’t openly admit to considering race.
