Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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Two West Virginia national guard troops were shot outside a Washington DC metro stop close to the White House, in what officials described a “a targeted attack” and “an ambush”. The troops are in critical condition.
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A review of video from the scene of the shooting of two national guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday appears to show that it was the work of “a lone gunman” who “ambushed” the troops, Jeffery Carroll, assistant chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan police department, told reporters at a news conference.
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In a video address, Donald Trump claimed the attack on two national guard members in Washington DC by a suspect believed to be an Afghan national, justified his program of mass deportation and the reconsideration of all people granted asylum and refugee status during the Biden administration.
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According to the Department of Homeland Security, the suspect in the shooting attack on two uniformed national guard troops is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who entered the United States in September 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program to support Afghans put at risk by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that year. Trump struck the peace deal with the Taliban in 2020 that required the US to withdraw from Afghanistan ion 2021.
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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, told reporters in the Dominican Republic that he has ordered the deployment of an additional 500 national guard troops to patrol the streets of Washington DC, at Donald Trump’s request, following the shooting of two guard troops on Wednesday near the White House. A federal court judge ruled last week that all of the guard troops should be withdrawn from Washington DC, since the deployment is probably illegal.
Key events
Homeland security secretary blames Biden for admitting Afghan suspected of shooting national guard troops
In a deeply partisan statement sent to reporters, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, confirmed the immigration history of Rahmanullah Lakamal, the suspect in the shooting of two national guard troops in Washington DC on Wednesday.
“The suspect who shot our brave National Guardsmen is an Afghan national who was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration. I will not utter this depraved individual’s name. He should be starved of the glory he so desperately wants,” Noem said in the statement.
She went on to suggest that Democrats who have reminded active-duty troops that they can refuse illegal orders have somehow vilified those service members.
“Those politicians and media who continue to vilify our men and women in uniform need to take a long hard look in the mirror,” Noem said.
The department of homeland security confirmed the suspect’s name and said that he was admitted to the US by the Biden administration “as part of their Operation Allies Welcome program on September 8, 2021.”
Ignoring the vetting efforts that went in to those admissions, the department claimed that the program “let in thousands of unvetted Afghan nationals including terrorists into our country.”
Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
-
Two West Virginia national guard troops were shot outside a Washington DC metro stop close to the White House, in what officials described a “a targeted attack” and “an ambush”. The troops are in critical condition.
-
A review of video from the scene of the shooting of two national guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday appears to show that it was the work of “a lone gunman” who “ambushed” the troops, Jeffery Carroll, assistant chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan police department, told reporters at a news conference.
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In a video address, Donald Trump claimed the attack on two national guard members in Washington DC by a suspect believed to be an Afghan national, justified his program of mass deportation and the reconsideration of all people granted asylum and refugee status during the Biden administration.
-
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the suspect in the shooting attack on two uniformed national guard troops is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who entered the United States in September 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program to support Afghans put at risk by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that year. Trump struck the peace deal with the Taliban in 2020 that required the US to withdraw from Afghanistan ion 2021.
-
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, told reporters in the Dominican Republic that he has ordered the deployment of an additional 500 national guard troops to patrol the streets of Washington DC, at Donald Trump’s request, following the shooting of two guard troops on Wednesday near the White House. A federal court judge ruled last week that all of the guard troops should be withdrawn from Washington DC, since the deployment is probably illegal.
Senior justice department official suggests Democrats who warned about illegal orders are to blame for attack on national guard troops
Since the shooting of two national guard troops in Washington DC on Wednesday afternoon, elected officials of both major parties have expressed their horror at the shootings.
One of them was Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator and retired Navy fighter pilot and astronaut who recently reminded active-duty troops that they have the right to disobey unlawful orders.
“This is horrific,” Kelly wrote on X on Wednesday. “I’m thinking of the families of these two National Guard members who lost their lives while serving the day before Thanksgiving. Thank you to the first responders who’ve brought a suspect into custody.”
Among the replies to Kelly’s post was one from Harmeet Dhillon, a conservative lawyer now serving as assistant attorney general for civil rights. “Look in the mirror,” Dhillon wrote to Kelly, suggesting that the video he recorded, with five other Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds, had somehow inspired this attack on uniformed troops patrolling Washington DC.
Trump calls shooting of national guard troops ‘an act of terror’ carried out by an Afghan ‘flown in by the Biden administration’
Speaking from Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Trump called the shooting of two members of the West Virginia national guard outside a metro station near the White House “an act of terror”.
“I can report tonight that based on the best available information, the Department of Homeland Security is confident that the suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on Earth,” the president said in a brief video address. “He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021, on those infamous flights that everybody was talking about.”
“Nobody knew who was coming in, nobody knew anything about it” Trump charged, ignoring the vetting effort carried out by US military, intelligence and immigration agents.
Trump also made no mention of the fact that he had struck the agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to remove all US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
“His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden, a disastrous president, the worst in the history of our country,” Trump continued.
The president then used the attack to once again share his false claim that the previous administration “let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don’t want to even know about.”
Trump went on to claim that the attack justified his program of mass deportation and his aggressive disdain for refugees from other nations bombed by the US military in recent decades.
“No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival,” Trump said. “An example is Minnesota, where hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country, and ripping apart that once great state.” Trump appeared to be referring to the hyperventilation in the rightwing media over accusations of fraud against a small number of Somali-Americans in Minnesota.
He then returned to a familiar target of attack, his claim that a Somali- American refugee who represents Minnesota in Congress, Ilhan Omar, “preach to us about our constitution and how our country is no good.”
The president finished by claiming that this single attack justified a project his administration was already preparing to carry out: the reconsideration of refugee and asylum status granted under previous admninistrations.
“We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country,” the president said. “If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them.”
Multiple news outlets are reporting that the suspect in the shooting attack on two uniformed national guard troops in Washington DC on Wednesday, who has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program to support Afghans put at risk by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that year.
An archived web page of the Department of Homeland Security site described the aim of the program as providing support for “vulnerable Afghans, including those who worked alongside us in Afghanistan for the past two decades, as they safely resettle in the United States.”
An FAQ on the site includes this description of how Afghan nationals arriving in the US under the program were vetted to ensure that they did not pose security risks:
The screening and vetting process involves biometric and biographic screenings conducted by intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals from the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and additional intelligence community partners prior to their arrival in the United States. If someone fails these checks while they are still overseas, they will not be permitted to board a flight to the United States.
Video shows emergency response after shooting of national guard troops near White House
Video recorded by a witness in the aftermath of the shooting near the White House on Wednesday showed the gunshot victims being treated on a sidewalk outside the Farragut West metro station.
Some of that witness video was obtained by the Guardian and is included in this report, along with preliminary statements on the investigation from Jeffery Carroll, assistant chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan police department, and Muriel Bowser, the city’s mayor.
Suspect in shooting of guard members identified as Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal
The suspected gunman in the shooting of two national guard members on Wednesday near the White House has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the United States in September 2021 and has been living in Washington state, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press and other outlets.
After golf, Trump comments on new polling and election in Honduras
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting of two national guard troops who were in Washington DC because Donald Trump wanted them there, the president posted once about the shooting on his social media platform and then moved on to other topics.
The attack took place while Trump was at his golf club in West Palm Beach and, according to the White House, the president was briefed on the shooting before he returned to his club, Mar-a-Lago.
Shortly after he arrived back at Mar-a-Lago, Trump posted about the shooting and referred to the attacker as an “animal”.
In the subsequent four hours, the president has made no further comment on the attack, or the critically wounded troops, but he did return to social media to endorse a Honduran presidential candidate and then to share the news that a new poll, from a pollster who has worked for Trump since 2011, found that he has “strong approval at 50%”.
The post about his approval rating, from a survey conducted by his pollster, John McLaughlin, which is nearly nine points higher than Trump’s average in national polls, was illustrated by a giant photo of Trump’s smiling face.
Law enforcement officials tell NBC News suspected gunman who shot uniformed troops is an Afghan national
NBC News reports that unnamed law enforcement officials tell the outlet that the suspected gunman, who is alleged to have shot two uniformed members of the national guard near the White House on Wednesday, “has been initially identified as an Afghan national.”
The FBI is investigating the shooting of the two guard members, who were both shot in the head, as a possible act of terrorism, officials briefed on the investigation told NBC.
JD Vance asked troops to pray for wounded guard members, then joked about turkey
In remarks earlier on Wednesday at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, JD Vance, the vice-president, asked troops to pray for the two wounded members of the West Virginia national guard who were shot on Wednesday in Washington DC.
Later in his prepared remarks, Vance joked about the fact that Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving.
“Turkey, think about turkey,” Vance said. “Who really likes, be honest with yourself, who really likes turkey?”
After a small number of soldiers raised their hands and cheered, Vance told them: “You’re all full of shit. Everybody who raised your hands.”
As the audience laughed, the current frontrunner to be the Republican nominee for president in 2028 added: “Here’s how I know that every single one of you who raised your hand is lying to me: how many times do you roast an 18-pound turkey, just randomly? Just, you know, a nice summer afternoon, we’re going to go get an 18-pound turkey.”
“Nobody does it because turkey doesn’t actually taste that good,” Vance continued. “But on Thanksgiving… the most American holiday, we’re gonna cook a turkey, by God, because that’s what Americans do! We cook this gigantic American bird, and we do all kinds of crazy things to make it taste good.”
FBI director sows confusion at news conference on shooting of national guard troops
Kash Patel, the FBI director, sowed confusion at a news conference when he seemed to stumble over his words while pledging to devote all necessary federal resources to the investigation of the shooting on Wednesday.
When it was his turn to speak, what Patel actually said was: “We will shortchange the American public with no resources to make sure we find and safeguard our nation’s capital, right here in Washington DC, and bring anyone responsible for this heinous act of violence to justice.”
Shortly after Patel spoke, Jeffery Carroll, assistant chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, said that “at this time, there is no indication that there was any other suspect. The one suspect that was involved in this incident, they were shot during the interaction and transported to the hospital for treatment.”
Patel was then asked by a reporter to clarify why he had pledged to bring “anyone responsible” for the shooting to justice. Patel let Carroll answer the question. The police chief clarified that there was no active search for any other suspects, since video of the shooting reviewed by the police suggested that it appeared to have been the work of “a lone gunman”.
