Officials correct death toll in Ice shooting to say one person killed, two in critical condition
The Department of Homeland Security just issued a correction related to the number of people killed and injured in the shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Dallas, Texas.
One detainee was killed and two others were in critical condition, the department said in a statement. Previously, the department said two detainees had been killed.
The department has not yet corrected or removed an earlier post on its X account which said that two Ice detainees were killed.
Key events
Trump turns White House wall into venue for trolling Biden
As parts of the federal government focused on the deadly shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Dallas on Wednesday, Donald Trump returned, again, to a major focus of his second term in office: ruthlessly mocking his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Photographs posted on the official White House accounts on Instagram and X showed Trump inspecting what his special assistant, Margo Martin, called the new “Presidential Walk of Fame” on the wall of the West Wing colonnade: a series of framed photographs of 44 of the 45 men who have served as president of the United States. A framed image of an autopen signing Biden’s name appears instead of his official portrait.
Video posted on X by Martin showed off the transformation of an exterior wall of the White House into a meme, amplifying the rightwing conspiracy theory that Biden, who defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes in 2020, was not even aware of some orders authorized by his signature.
A White House official, who insisted on anonymity, told Reuters that the alternative Biden portrait was Trump’s own idea.
The autopen is a device used to replicate a person’s signature with precision, typically for high-volume or ceremonial documents. In recent years, the device has been employed by presidents of both parties, including Trump, to sign letters and proclamations.
Trump rushes to blame Democrats for shooting at Ice office in Dallas
Donald Trump has followed his vice-president by instantly politicizing the shooting of three detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Dallas on Wednesday, claiming in a social media post that the attack “is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to ‘Nazis.’”
Although the investigation into the shooting is not yet complete, Trump insisted that it was politically motivated, based his FBI director’s claim that one bullet found near the gunman, who died of a self-inflicted wound, had the words “Anti-Ice” written on it.
David Smith
Vice-president JD Vance has denied that the White House is targeting late night TV comedy or other forms of free speech.
“I’m pretty sure that Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night, and to the extent that he’s not back on the air, it’s because he’s not funny and has terrible ratings,” Vance said at an event in Concord, North Carolina. “This is not a federal government problem.”
Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, last week threatened to take action against Disney’s ABC network after Kimmel made remarks about Republicans’ response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel was suspended for a week.
Vance played down the controversy on Wednesday, insisting: “What people will say is, well, you know, didn’t the FCC commissioner put a tweet out that said something bad? Well, compare the FCC commissioner making a joke on social media – what is the government action that the Trump administration has engaged in to kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off the air? Zero.”
“What government pressure have we brought to bear to tell people that they’re not allowed to speak their mind? Zero. We believe in free speech in the Trump administration. We are fighting every single day to protect it.”
In fact, Carr took much more direct action than making a joke on social media: he went on a popular rightwing podcast and urged the owners of ABC-affiliated local TV stations to press ABC to remove Kimmel. “There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters,” Carr said. “Frankly I think it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”
“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr added. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” After those comments, two owners of local stations announced that they would not air Kimmel’s show, and ABC decided to suspend him.
Vance himself also argued last week that anyone caught celebrating Kirk’s murder should be named and shamed, urging: “Hell, call their employer.” Donald Trump suggested that regulators should consider revoking licenses for networks that “give me only bad publicity”.
At Wednesday’s event, Vance was also questioned about Trump’s sudden shift on the Ukraine war in which he said the country can win back all its territory from Russia.
“I believe the president is growing incredibly impatient with the Russians right now because he doesn’t feel like they’re putting enough on the table to end the war,” he said. “The war is bad for Russia. It’s bad for Ukraine. It’s bad for America. We want the killing to stop.”
Officials correct death toll in Ice shooting to say one person killed, two in critical condition
The Department of Homeland Security just issued a correction related to the number of people killed and injured in the shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Dallas, Texas.
One detainee was killed and two others were in critical condition, the department said in a statement. Previously, the department said two detainees had been killed.
The department has not yet corrected or removed an earlier post on its X account which said that two Ice detainees were killed.
Republicans call out ‘unprecedented violence’ against Ice officers, following shooting
In the wake of today’s shooting at the Dallas Ice field office, several other Republicans have expressed their support with immigration enforcement, and expressed concern at violence directed towards Ice agents in recent months.
A reminder that authorities, including the Department of Homeland security, said no law enforcement officials were wounded. Rather, two detainees were killed, and another was severely injured.
In a post on X, House majority leader Steve Scalise, said : “Our brave ICE officers put their lives on the line every day to make this country safer, but they continue to face unprecedented violence. It MUST STOP.”
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, shared a graphic with the words “I stand with Ice” on social media. She added that “Democrats must stop demonizing the heroic men and women of ICE”.
In a statement, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Richard Hudson, said that today’s shooting was “a direct result of Democrats’ long pattern of dangerous anti-ICE rhetoric, consistently putting criminal illegal immigrants first and demonizing law enforcement”.
David Smith
in Concord, North Carolina
JD Vance, the vice-president, has claimed that a gunman who opened fire at an Ice facility in Dallas on Wednesday, killing two detainees and wounding another before taking his own life, was a “violent leftwing extremist”.
Vance was speaking at a law and order event inside an airport hangar in Concord, North Carolina, flanked by officers in uniform and against a backdrop of armoured police vehicles and giant US flags.
“What we know is that in Dallas, Texas, an Ice facility – an Immigration Customs and Enforcement facility – was opened fire upen by a violent leftwing extremist, a person who wrote anti-Ice messaging on their bullets,” the vice-president told a crowd of around 200 people.
“These’s some evidence we have that’s not yet public but we know this person was politically motivated. They were politically motivated to go after law enforcement. They were politically motivated to go after people who are enforcing our border and I think that is the most disgusting thing.”
Trump and his allies have sometimes been over-hasty in ascribing political motives to high profile offenders only for a more complex truth to emerge.
Speaking from a podium branded “Honor. Valor. Justice”, Vance reflected on the fatal shooting of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk but did not reference a deadly attack on Democrat state politicians in Minnesota.
“If you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, the last couple of years, it is not a both sides’ problem,” he claimed. “It is primarily on one side of the political aisle.”
Minority leader Jeffries says Republican short-term funding bill is an ‘immoral assault on healthcare’
Speaking to reporters today, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, said that Democrats “have drawn a line in the sand” when it comes to the Republican-written short term spending bill, that extends government funding until 21 November.
“This is an immoral assault on the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said. “The legislation that they put before the House, and now the Senate, in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion, is just a continuation of a dirty spending bill that we did not support in March.”
Democrats in both chambers remain resolute that any funding extension needs to include several healthcare provisions to mitigate, they say, the impact of the legislation that Donald Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill” – which Trump signed into law earlier this year.
“He [Trump] doesn’t want to discuss the Republican health care crisis,” Jeffries said of the president’s decision to cancel a scheduled meeting with himself and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. “They’re running scared. They have no defensible position, and that’s why, unfortunately, they’re marching us to a government shutdown.”
One note about JD Vance’s speech: he did acknowledge that detainees at the Ice facility comprised the fatalities and casualties.
“Just because we don’t support illegal aliens, we don’t want them to be executed by violent assassins engaged in political violence, either. So we’re praying both for our Ice agents, but also for everybody who’s affected by this terrible attack,” the vice-president said.
House Democratic leadership says political violence has reached ‘breaking point’ following Dallas Ice facility shooting
Top Democrats in the House have issued a statement following the killing of two detainees at the Ice field office in Dallas, Texas. Another detainee is in critical condition.
“Our prayers and deepest condolences are with the families of those killed,” said minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar.
No one in America should be violently targeted, including our men and women in law enforcement who protect and serve our neighborhoods, and the immigrants who are too often the victims of dehumanizing rhetoric.”
They added that political violence in the US has reached “breaking point” this year. But said that the country needs “leaders who bring the country together in moments of crisis”.
Vance blames Democrats for surge in political violence
Vice-president JD Vance has used his speech to take aim at Democratic lawmakers for political violence throughout the US.
“If you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, the last couple of years, it is not a both sides problem. It is primarily on one side of the political aisle,” Vance said, baselessly. “If we are going to truly go after the political violence in this country, we need the Democratic leadership of Washington DC to look in the mirror.”
Vance added, following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, that lawmakers on the left need to start with “condemning the violence, instead of condemning something that Charlie Kirk said, that they disagreed with”. He went on to claim, without evidence, that there is “an entire network of left wing organizations that encourage, that promote, and that apologize for violence”.
Vance claims that ‘violent left-wing extremist’ was behind Ice facility shooting, despite no confirmation from law enforcement
While speaking in Concord, North Carolina today, vice-president JD Vance said that today’s shooting at a Dallas Ice facility was carried out by “a violent left-wing extremist” who was “politically motivated to go after law enforcement”.
While the FBI has said that authorities recovered shell casings with “anti-Ice messaging” near the shooter, officials say the investigation is ongoing. They have neither confirmed the motive behind today’s shooting, nor corroborated Vance’s claims about the shooter’s ideological background. The FBI is investigating the incident as an “act of targeted violence”.
Vance said there was some evidence “that we have that’s not yet public” before repeating his claim that the shooter was targeting “people who were enforcing our border”.
Law enforcement officials today said that no federal agents were wounded in today’s shooting, but two detainees were killed, and another is in critical condition. The shooter died from a self-inflicted gun wound, per DHS secretary Kristi Noem.
Officials identify Dallas Ice facility shooter – report
The shooter who killed two detainees, and severely injured another, before taking his own life, has been identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, according to NBC News – who cited several senior law enforcement officials.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted, in their statement on today’s shooting, that this isn’t the first time the Dallas field office was targeted this year.
In August, Bratton Dean Wilkinson, 36, arrived at facility’s entrance and claimed to have a bomb in his backpack. Officials said that Wilkinson showed the security officer what he claimed to be a “detonator” on his wrist.
A shelter-in-place was issued for the field office, and Dallas police responded with a bomb squad. Wilkinson was later charged with making terroristic threats, per DHS.
Oklahoma official says all high schools will have Turning Point chapters after Charlie Kirk killing
Rachel Leingang
The state superintendent in Oklahoma announced plans to put Turning Point USA chapters in every high school in the state, saying it would counter “radical leftist teachers’ unions” and their “woke indoctrination”.
After far-right activist Charlie Kirk was killed on a college campus earlier this month, requests to start chapters of his conservative youth group, Turning Point, at colleges and high schools have surged, the organization has said.
Oklahoma is the first state where the government is getting involved to promote starting these chapters. In a press release Tuesday, Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma superintendent, detailed how students could start a chapter of “Club America”, the organization’s high school program, by gathering at least three students from the same school and completing a charter agreement. Then, Turning Point will help the club get a teacher sponsor and official recognition, and send materials like an “activism kit”.
“We will be putting TPUSA on every high school campus in Oklahoma,” Walter said in the press release. “Charlie Kirk inspired a generation to love America, to speak boldly, and to never shy away from debate. Our kids must get involved and active. We will fight back against the liberal propaganda, pushed by the radical left, and the teachers unions. Our fight starts now.”
Following the press conference, here’s what we know about the Dallas immigration facility shooting
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Two detainees have been killed, with another in critical condition, after a shooting at an Ice field office near downtown Dallas. Dallas police chief Daniel Comeaux says that the FBI is investigating the incident as an act of targeted violence. The shooter died from a “self-inflicted gun wound”, according to DHS secretary Kristi Noem.
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DHS say that no members of law enforcement were hurt in the attack. But Comeaux also said that officials would not releasing the identities of any victims at this time.
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DHS officials say this was “an attack on ICE law enforcement”. At both today’s press conference and in a statement, law enforcement said that shell casings found near the shooter had “anti-Ice” messaging on them.
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Earlier, Dallas police said that shots were fired “from an adjacent building”. DHS, later added that the shooter “fired indiscriminately” at the Ice facility, “including at a van in the sallyport where the victims were shot”.
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Despite the fact that no federal agents were wounded in the shooting, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas called the attack an “assassination”. For her part, Noem said that “these horrendous killings must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences.”
The 12-ft bronze statue depicting Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands and prancing together that was erected on the National Mall early on Tuesday has been taken down.
The statue appeared courtesy of a group of anonymous artists that goes by The Secret Handshake, who said they received a permit from the National Park Service that allowed the statue to stay up until 8pm on 28 September.
A member of the group told the Guardian that despite this, it was removed in the early hours of Wednesday. They do not know the statue’s whereabouts. “This is a literal example of the Trump administration toppling free speech when it has been legally permitted and approved,” they said.
A spokesperson for United States Park Police told the Washingtonian that the force assisted the National Park Service in removing the statue Wednesday at 5:30am, “due to it not being in compliance with the permit”.
