Federal judge orders Florida to close ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ within 60 days
A federal judge on Thursday barred the DeSantis and Trump administrations from bringing new detainees to the detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz and ordered the state begin closing operations at the immigration detention site within 60 days.
In her order, US district judge Kathleen Williams barred the state and federal governments from bringing new detainees to the detention center and stopped any expansion of the facility, including new lighting or any new buildings, including tents.
As the Miami Herald reports, the temporary injunction comes in response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe in which they argue that the state and federal governments cut corners when erecting the site in a matter of days.
The environmental groups argue that the hasty construction of the facility violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to consider alternatives, consult the public and assess the environmental impact of building projects.
Key events
Closing summary
This concludes our running chronicle of the second Trump administration for Thursday, but we will be back on Friday morning. In the meantime, here are some of the latest developments:
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California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, signed a law to hold a special election in November in which voters will be asked to approve a new congressional map, tilted in favor of Democrats, for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, if Texas goes ahead with a plan to do the same for Republicans.
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Donald Trump ventured from the White House in his motorcade through the not all that mean streets of Washington DC to deliver pizza and hamburgers to law enforcement officers and National Guard troops, and regale them with his plans to upgrade the grass in the district to make it look more like one of his golf courses. “I know more about grass than any human being I think anywhere in the world”, the commander-in-chief told the officers.
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A federal judge ruled that Trump’s former lawyer and campaign surrogate, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.
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A New York state appeals court tossed out a half-billion-dollar penalty that Trump had been ordered to pay after a judge found the president fraudulently overstated the value of his properties and other assets to bolster his family business. Despite the president falsely claiming the ruling to be a “total victory”, the five-judge panel let the lower court’s fraud verdict stand, which paves the way for New York attorney general Letitia James to appeal the decision to the state’s highest court.
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The Trump administration ratcheted up pressure on the Federal Reserve to remove governor Lisa Cook, after the economist declared she had “no intention of being bullied” into stepping down.
Federal judge orders Florida to close ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ within 60 days
A federal judge on Thursday barred the DeSantis and Trump administrations from bringing new detainees to the detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz and ordered the state begin closing operations at the immigration detention site within 60 days.
In her order, US district judge Kathleen Williams barred the state and federal governments from bringing new detainees to the detention center and stopped any expansion of the facility, including new lighting or any new buildings, including tents.
As the Miami Herald reports, the temporary injunction comes in response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe in which they argue that the state and federal governments cut corners when erecting the site in a matter of days.
The environmental groups argue that the hasty construction of the facility violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to consider alternatives, consult the public and assess the environmental impact of building projects.
White House releases video of Trump mocking Biden in speech to federal agents and troops
The White House has released a social media video highlighting the start of Donald Trump’s remarks to law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers on Thursday, which begins with the president mocking his predecessor, Joe Biden, for once falling as he walked up a flight of stairs to Air Force One.
The video, which was recorded by Margo Martin, a special assistant to the president and communications advisor, captures the beginning of Trump’s rambling 12-minute speech in which he essentially congratulated himself on successfully walking down a single step as he began his remarks.
“You gotta be very careful; you don’t want to slip or fall like somebody else I know”, Trump said, to laughter from the officers. “We don’t want that to happen”.
The video then cuts, to omit the part of the original recording in which Trump turned to Martin and said, “Where are we going Margo, over here?”
The president then thanked the assembled officers, who are taking part in his federal takeover of policing in the district. “The numbers are down like we wouldn’t believe, but we believe it”, Trump added.
The administration has repeatedly suggested without evidence that data gathered by the DC police, and released by the justice department, showing that violent crime was at a 30-year low when Trump returned to office in January, and had declined by a further 26% since then, had been manipulated to hide what Trump has called a terrifying crime wave.
Video of Joe Biden falling, repeatedly, while boarding Air Force One in 2021, when he was 79, was widely seen and helped cement the idea that he was too old to be president.
In June, the week Trump turned 79, video of him stumbling and nearly falling while climbing the stairs to Air Force One was also widely seen.
Supreme court permits Trump administration to cut $783m in NIH funding
The supreme court ruled by a 5-4 vote on Thursday that the Trump administration can cut $783m of research funding for health projects that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, what the government calls “gender ideology” and vaccine hesitancy, the supreme court decided on Thursday.
The court lifted a judge’s order blocking cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to align with Donald Trump’s priorities.
The court split 5-4 on the decision. The chief justice, John Roberts, was among those who wouldn’t have allowed the cuts, along with the court’s three Democratic appointees. The high court did keep the Trump administration’s anti-DEI directive blocked for future funding with a key vote from justice Amy Coney Barrett, however.
The decision marks the latest supreme court victory for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with canceling hundreds of grants while a lawsuit brought by 16 Democratic state attorneys general and public-health advocacy groups continues. The plaintiffs said the decision is a “significant setback for public health”, but keeping the directive blocked means the administration can’t use it to cut more studies.
The justice department, meanwhile, has said funding decisions should not be “subject to judicial second-guessing” and efforts to promote policies referred to as DEI can “conceal insidious racial discrimination”.
The lawsuit addresses only part of the estimated $12bn of NIH research projects that have been cut.
The plaintiffs unsuccessfully argued that defunding studies midway through halts research, ruins data already collected and ultimately harms the country’s potential for scientific breakthroughs by disrupting scientists’ work in the middle of their careers.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a lengthy dissent in which she criticized both the outcome and her colleagues’ willingness to continue allowing the administration to use the court’s emergency appeals process.
“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: there are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins,” she wrote, referring to a fictional game in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes in which rules are made up on the fly.
Lloyd Doggett, a Democratic Texas congressperson, who has represented his hometown of Austin for over 50 years in the state legislature and Congress, announced on Thursday that he would not run for reelection if a new Republican-drawn map is used, which would pit him against fellow Democrat Greg Casar in the 2026 midterms.
Doggett, who is 78, said that he had decided not to run against Casar, 36, who is less than half his age.
Texas Republicans are pushing ahead with the rare mid-decade redistricting requested by Donald Trump. Part of the plan to create more Republican-leaning seats is to pack as many Democrats into a single Austin district as possible, rather than keeping the city’s two Democratic-majority districts.
“With the approval of the crooked Trump maps imminent, the future of redistricting turns next to the courts,” Doggett said in his statement. “If this racially gerrymandered Trump map is rejected, as it should be, I will continue seeking reelection in Congressional District 37 to represent my neighbors in the only town I have ever called home. If the courts give Trump a victory in his scheme to maintain control of a compliant House, I will not seek reelection in the reconfigured CD37, even though it contains over 2/3rd of my current constituents.”
Doggett also noted that he had hoped that Casar would try to hold on to his seat in a redrawn district around San Antonio, but had chosen to run for the Austin seat instead.
“I had hoped that my commitment to reelection under any circumstances would encourage Congressman Casar to not surrender his winnable district to Trump”, Doggett said. “While his apparent decision is most unfortunate, I prefer to devote the coming months to fighting Trump tyranny and serving Austin rather than waging a struggle with fellow Democrats.”
If the Trump-directed “extreme gerrymandering prevails”, Doggett added, “I wish Congressman Casar the best.”
‘They fired the first shot, Texas’, Newsom says before signing bill to put redistricting to California’s voters
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, signed legislation on Thursday that will ask the state’s voters to decide in November if they approve of redrawn congressional districts that tilt heavily in favor of Democrats, as a way of neutralizing a similarly partisan map in Texas.
“They fired the first shot, Texas,” Newsom said before signing the bill, noting that California’s new map would only be used if Texas uses new maps tilted in favor of Republicans. “We wouldn’t be here had Texas not done what they just did; Donald Trump didn’t do what he just did. He went so far as to follow up and say that he didn’t just want those five seats, he said he’s, quote-unquote, entitled to those five seats. Just pause and reflect on that. Everything should have just stopped there. The president of the United States claiming he’s ‘entitled’ to five seats. That should put chills up your spine, every Republican, not just Democrat and independent, every American.”
Newsom also said that California would be “the first state in US history to, in the most democratic way, to submit to the people of our state the ability to determine their own maps”.
The map that could give California Democrats five more seats was drawn by Paul Mitchell, founder of Redistricting Partners, a nonpartisan local redistricting firm, who previously created maps for independent redistricting commissions across California.
“All of us support independent redistricting, here in California and in every state in this union” Mike McGuire, another Democratic state leader and senate president pro tempore, said. “One thing that we do not support is unilateral disarmament, when the fairness of the 2026 election is being threatened.”
Lauren Gambino
California lawmakers have authorized a November special election to ask voters to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries and create five new potentially Democratic US House seats.
The state legislature voted to advance the redistricting plan on Thursday after hours of debate. The state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has led the redistricting push, is expected to sign the bill shortly.
The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump, aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.
The nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states were racing on parallel tracks toward consequential redistricting votes, potentially within hours of each other. As Democrats in Sacramento advanced a legislative package that would put their “election rigging response act” before voters in a special election this fall, Republicans in Austin were nearing a final vote on their own gerrymandering pursuit.
California legislature sets November special election to ask voters to approve new congressional map
The California legislature on Thursday approved a plan to hold a special election in November in which voters will be asked to approve new congressional districts, redrawn in favor of Democrats, as a means of nullifying a gerrymandered map on its way to final approval in Texas.
The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.
The nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states raced on parallel tracks to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Trump gives rally-style speech to assembled law enforcement officers at a US park police center
So far, what was billed as a “ride-along” with law enforcement on the streets of Washington DC, has turned out to be mostly Donald Trump giving a short rally-style address to about 300 officers from the DC Metropolitan Police, the FBI, the National Guard, homeland security investigations, the DEA, ATF and US Marshals service.
The president repeated his familiar attacks on renewable energy, telling the officers: “It’s it’s a very expensive form of energy, and we’re not doing the wind”.
He also boasted about his legal victory on Thursday, when a New York appeals court threw out a multi-million dollar financial penalty against him after his conviction for fraud. Although the fraud conviction remains in place, Trump falsely implied that the judges had overturned his conviction.
“We’re having a lot of victories. I had a victory today”, he said. “You know, they stole $550 million from me with a fake case, and it was overturned. They said this was a fake case. It’s a terrible thing, but it’s a nice victory, you know? I mean, it’s not bad, we all have, we all have our limits. But this was a terrible thing that it was a witch hunt”.
He then invited several cabinet members and aides, including the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, to make remarks, which were focused on praising the president.
Among Trump’s comments was a promise to clean up Washington DC, including its grass.
“One of the things we are going to be redoing is your parks. I’m very good at grass ‘cause I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being I think anywhere in the world”, the president told the officers.
“And we are going to be re-grassing all of your parks, all brand-new new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy. Just like Augusta. No dead- it’ll look like Augusta. It will look like, more importantly, Trump national golf club, that’s even better”, he added, comparing his own golf course to the one in Augusta, Georgia where The Masters is held each spring.
“We’re going to have all brand-new, beautiful grass. You know, like everything else, grass has a life. Do you know that? Grass has a life. You know, we have a life, and grass as a life. And the grass here died about 40 years ago”, the president said.
He added that he had brought the officers “great hamburgers cooked by the White House” with him, as well as pizzas from a local chain, Wiseguy Pizza. “I’ll eat with you and we’re going to have a little fun, we’re going to celebrate, then we’re going to get back to work and we’re going to take care of these criminals”.
Trump speaks at US park police headquarters
Donald Trump’s motorcade just arrived at the United States Park police headquarters in Anacostia, in south-east Washington DC.
He was handed a mic and boasted to assembled officers that his crackdown on crime in the capital has been a success and went on to repeat many of his familiar talking points, including the boast that his trip to Saudi Arabia was successful at bringing in investments and that he is building a ballroom at the White House.
Her also claimed that his federal takeover of Washington DC had encouraged people to go out to dinner again. In fact, restaurant owners have reported a sharp drop in reservations during the period.
Trump departs White House to join military and police on patrol of Washington DC
Donald Trump’s motorcade has just left the White House, with the president expected to join an evening patrol of Washington DC’s streets by national guard troops and police officers he placed under federal control to fight a crime wave that statistics suggest is imaginary.
The president was joined by his attorney general, Pam Bondi, his domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
Trump referred to the made-for-TV photo op as a “secret” in a radio interview earlier on Thursday, but the White House has invited journalists along and set up a YouTube live stream to allow the public to follow his performance in real time.
The staged event follows a similar outing on Wednesday by three top administration officials to visit national guard troops keeping the Shake Shack at Union Station safe.
The administration’s commitment to producing content on a daily basis seems to echo the satirical praise Stephen Colbert lavished on George W Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2006 when he said:
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he has stood on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
