Trump says he will seek ‘long-term’ control of DC police
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would ask Congress for “long-term” control of Washington DC’s police department and signaled he expected other Democratic-led cities to change their laws in response to his deployment of national guard troops and federal agents into the capital.
The president’s comments came as the White House took credit for dozens of arrests overnight in Washington as part of Trump’s campaign to fight a “crime crisis”, which the city’s leaders say does not exist.
Trump earlier this week invoked a never-before-used clause of the law that sets out the federal district’s governance structure to take temporary control of the police department, but will need Congress’s permission to extend it beyond the 30 days allowed under the statute.
It comes as the New York Times reported that protesters last night gathered around law enforcement officers, including homeland security agents, who set up a police checkpoint in the busy U Street corridor in north-west Washington.
Crowds chanted ‘go home fascists’ and told drivers to turn away from the checkpoint on 14th Street, warning that they could be stopped for reasons including not wearing seat belts or broken taillights. The checkpoint was closed just before 11 pm.
Read our full report here:
In other developments:
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Trump promised ‘very severe consequences’ if Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to ceasefire at their Friday meeting in Alaska. He didn’t, however, elaborate on what those penalties will be.
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Trump took part in a virtual meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders ahead of his summit in Alaska with Putin which the German chancellor described as “constructive”. Zelenskyy confirmed that Trump said he would call him right after the meeting with Putin.
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At the Kennedy Center, Trump announced that he would host this year’s honors himself.
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California governor Gavin Newsom, who revels in trolling Trump on social media, used the president’s bizarre writing style to promote a news conference on his state’s plan to counter Texas gerrymandering, scheduled for Thursday at 11.30 am Pacific Time.
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The White House announced that Trump revoked an executive order issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden, which made it government policy to promote competition throughout the US economy. Unlike many of Trump’s orders, this one, which ended 72 federal initiatives to fight corporate monopolies and aid workers and consumers, was released without any publicity at all.
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Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EJ Antoni, was in the crowd outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021 when Trump supporters rioted in a failed effort to keep him in office.
Key events
Trump to hold joint press conference with Putin at Alaska summit tomorrow
Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Donald Trump will hold a joint press conference at their Alaska summit on Friday after meeting one-on-one and with delegations, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
The media event will undoubtedly evoke memories of the two leaders’ previous presser at their Helsinki summit in 2018, where Putin presented Trump with a football ahead of that year’s World Cup event in Russia.
Political commentators at the time were critical of Trump’s approach, with many saying he allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred by Putin. The pair appeared friendly as the US president even sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies on election interference.
Trump flies to a meeting in Alaska with Putin on Friday in a different public mood – impatient with the Russian’s unwillingness to negotiate an end to his war in Ukraine and angry over missile strikes on Ukrainian cities.
The world is waiting to see if it will be this tougher version of Trump who shows up in Anchorage or if it will be the former real estate tycoon who has sought to ingratiate himself with the wily former KGB agent in the past.
Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he will host the Kennedy Center honors this year and said he had been heavily involved in choosing who to nominate, rejecting people he thought were too liberal.
The US president named actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, the rock band Kiss, country music star George Strait and actor and singer Michael Crawford among the first batch of Kennedy Center honors nominees since he took over as the Washington-based arts center’s chairman upon returning to the White House this year.
The president typically attends the annual honors event each December but sits in the audience as a VIP and hosts a reception for awardees at the White House. Trump’s announcement that he will host the event is a break from tradition, although no details were released on what form that would take.
His announcement continues his push to exert authority over US cultural institutions, such as the Smithsonian, and Democratic-led cities and came on the first full day that federalized national guard troops were on duty on the streets of Washington by order of the president. Trump has cited a crisis of crime and homelessness in the nation’s capital to sharp criticism from opponents.
In an appearance at the arts center on Wednesday morning, Trump also said that he intends to “fully renovate” the entire infrastructure of the Kennedy Center to make it a “crown jewel” of arts and culture in the US.
Patrick Wintour
Vladimir Putin will face “very severe consequences” if he does not agree a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine at his summit with Donald Trump in Alaska, the US president said on Wednesday.
Speaking after a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders, including Britain’s Keir Starmer, Trump also suggested he would push for a second summit if his meeting with Putin goes well – this time including his Ukrainian counterpart.
“If the first one goes OK, we’ll have a quick second one,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “I would like to do it almost immediately, and we’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself, if they’d like to have me there.”
Trump did not provide a timeframe for a second meeting. He is to meet Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. The meeting will reportedly be held at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, a military facility crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war.
Asked if Russia would face consequences if Putin did not agree to stop the war after the Alaska meeting, Trump said: “Yes, they will … very severe consequences.”
Trump says he will seek ‘long-term’ control of DC police
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would ask Congress for “long-term” control of Washington DC’s police department and signaled he expected other Democratic-led cities to change their laws in response to his deployment of national guard troops and federal agents into the capital.
The president’s comments came as the White House took credit for dozens of arrests overnight in Washington as part of Trump’s campaign to fight a “crime crisis”, which the city’s leaders say does not exist.
Trump earlier this week invoked a never-before-used clause of the law that sets out the federal district’s governance structure to take temporary control of the police department, but will need Congress’s permission to extend it beyond the 30 days allowed under the statute.
It comes as the New York Times reported that protesters last night gathered around law enforcement officers, including homeland security agents, who set up a police checkpoint in the busy U Street corridor in north-west Washington.
Crowds chanted ‘go home fascists’ and told drivers to turn away from the checkpoint on 14th Street, warning that they could be stopped for reasons including not wearing seat belts or broken taillights. The checkpoint was closed just before 11 pm.
Read our full report here:
In other developments:
-
Trump promised ‘very severe consequences’ if Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to ceasefire at their Friday meeting in Alaska. He didn’t, however, elaborate on what those penalties will be.
-
Trump took part in a virtual meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders ahead of his summit in Alaska with Putin which the German chancellor described as “constructive”. Zelenskyy confirmed that Trump said he would call him right after the meeting with Putin.
-
At the Kennedy Center, Trump announced that he would host this year’s honors himself.
-
California governor Gavin Newsom, who revels in trolling Trump on social media, used the president’s bizarre writing style to promote a news conference on his state’s plan to counter Texas gerrymandering, scheduled for Thursday at 11.30 am Pacific Time.
-
The White House announced that Trump revoked an executive order issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden, which made it government policy to promote competition throughout the US economy. Unlike many of Trump’s orders, this one, which ended 72 federal initiatives to fight corporate monopolies and aid workers and consumers, was released without any publicity at all.
-
Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EJ Antoni, was in the crowd outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021 when Trump supporters rioted in a failed effort to keep him in office.
