Lander released from federal custody
New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was just released from federal custody and was seen leaving the federal building in lower Manhattan with his wife, Meg Barnette, and New York governor Kathy Hochul. He is now addressing the media outside.
Lander says he’s fine, the non-profit newsroom The City reports. “I will be fine but Edgardo will not be fine,” he says in reference to the man taken by Ice outside an immigration courtroom earlier. Lander was detained for insisting that the Ice agents show a judicial warrant authorizing that immigrant’s arrest
Although a homeland security spokesperson said Lander was arrested for allegedly assaulting a federal officer, he said he has not been charged at this point.
The New York Comptroller’s office is now streaming live video of Lander’s comments on X, here:
Key events
Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the day in US politics, but we will return on Wednesday. Here are some of the day’s developments:
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Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate was detained by federal immigration officers for over three hours for trying to escort an immigrant out of a hearing in lower Manhattan. After his release, he expressed shock when a reporter told him that a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that he had been arrested for putting his hands on a federal officer. “Seriously?” Lander said.
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Donald Trump held a meeting in the White House situation room, leading to widespread speculation that he might join the Israeli attack on Iran.
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“Effective today, I am lifting the curfew in downtown Los Angeles,” the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.
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A federal judge in Boston ruled that transgender and intersex people can obtain passports that align with their gender identity during litigation that seeks to overturn Trump’s executive order that US passports must conform to the sex citizens were assigned at birth.
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A federal appeals court in San Francisco heard arguments on Tuesday in Trump v Newsom, to determine whether the Trump administration must return control of the California national guard troops deployed to Los Angeles by Trump to the state’s governor during protests over federal immigration raids.
Tulsi Gabbard, who decried ‘regime change wars’ now says she is ‘on the same page’ as Trump on Iran
Tulsi Gabbard, the current US director of national intelligence, was clear about where she stood on the rush to war with Iran, on 3 January 2020, the day that Donald Trump brought the US to the brink by assassinating the Iranian Quds force commander Qassem Suleimani.
“‘We do not seek regime change’ Trump declares as he escalates his regime change war against Iran”, Gabbard tweeted that day. “Neocons like Graham/Bolton are cheering. To all who voted for Trump [because] of his antiwar rhetoric, it’s time to realize he lied to u. Stand with me against Trump’s Iran War!”
Just over five years later, having switched parties and then endorsed and campaigned for Trump on the premise that he was an enemy of “regime change wars”, Gabbard told Megyn Kelly that she was playing a key role in preventing war with Iran.
But Gabbard was reportedly excluded from a top-level discussion about Iran and Israel at Camp David last week.
Then, earlier today, when Trump was reminded by a reporter that Gabbard had testified in March that the intelligence community she leads has seen no evidence that Iran has restarted the pursuit of nuclear weapons it abandoned in 2003, he dismissed her sworn testimony as unimportant. “I don’t care what she said,” said Trump. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Still, before a hearing on Tuesday, Gabbard told CNN that she and Trump “are on the same page” about Iran.
Trump’s Wednesday: installing giant flagpoles, lunching with army chief of nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s
While the world waits to see if he will decide to join Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Iran, Donald Trump has issued an urgent communiqué on social media, posting that the first item on his agenda for Wednesday will be “putting up two beautiful Flag Poles on both sides of the White House”.
“These are the most magnificent poles made” the redecorator-in-chief assures us. “They are tall, tapered, rust proof, rope inside the pole, and of the highest quality.”
The president has made no mention of Iran on his personal social media platform for several hours, since posting earlier on Tuesday his demand for that nation’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” in a war the United States is not officially involved in.
But another item on the president’s schedule for Wednesday suggests that he might have an extremely uncomfortable meeting over lunch if he does go to war with the Islamic Republic of Iran in the next hours.
That’s because the president is scheduled to have lunch, two hours after the flag poles are operational, with the chief of staff of the nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s army.
The army chief, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, was described in the New York Times recently as “Pakistan’s most powerful man”.
Last week Pakistan’s United Nations ambassador told the security council that “Pakistan strongly condemns unjustified and illegitimate aggression by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Pakistan stands in resolute solidarity with the brotherly people of Iran.”
Munir’s nominal boss, Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja MAsif has been considerably less diplomatic in his language. Writing on the social media platform X on Monday, the defense minister mocked Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran, for saying that the people of Iran are “energized and motivated” for regime change.
“If Iranian people are energised and motivated according to you,” Pakistan’s defense minister wrote in reply to Pahlavi, who lives in comfortable exile, “show some balls and go back and lead them and remove the regime. Put your money where your arse is, bloody parasitical imperial whore.”
“Pahlavi stands with Netanyahu a genocidal maniac, all he deserves is contempt and nothing else” the defense minister added on Tuesday.
According to the Karachi daily Dawn, Field Marshal Munir is on a five-day official visit to the United States “aimed at reinforcing military and strategic ties” between the two countries.
Lander says Ice agents who detained him were both immigrants themselves
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate who was detained for over three hours by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Tuesday, told Chris Hayes on MSNBC that the agents who arrested and detained him were both immigrant New Yorkers.
One of them, Lander said, “is a Pakistani Muslim who lives in Brighton Beach”, a Brooklyn neighborhood, and the other, “an Indo-Guyanese guy” who lives in South Ozone Park, Queens.
That puts them, Lander noted, among the 40% of New Yorkers who were born outside the US. Half of the city’s residents, he added, live in mixed-status households, where at least one member of the family is an immigrant, “including 1 million children”.
The fact that New York is “an immigrant city”, Lander argued is what makes it important for it to have a mayor who will stand up for immigrants.
The US attorney for the southern district of New York “is continuing to investigate” Lander, a spokesperson told reporters, apparently by interpreting his initial refusal to let go of the immigrant he escorted from a hearing on Tuesday as a form of either assault of a federal officer or obstruction of an official proceeding.
A large number of the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 were initially charged with obstructing an official proceeding, because they succeeded in delaying the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 election that day. Last year, however, the supreme court threw out those charges, ruling that the law applies only to evidence tampering, like the destruction of records or documents, in official proceedings.
Lauren Gambino
As the conflict between Israel and Iran threatened to draw the US into war, the Democratic senator Tim Kaine delivered an urgent speech imploring Congress to exercise its “constitutional responsibility” and debate military engagement with Iran before it is too late.
“We should not allow a war of the magnitude of this to begin with Congress hiding from the responsibility that was put on Congress’s shoulders in 1787,” the Virginia senator said in lengthy remarks on Tuesday evening.
On Monday, Kaine introduced a war powers resolution that would prohibit US armed forces from taking direct action against Iran without explicit authorization from Congress or a declaration of war. The resolution would not prevent the US from defending itself against imminent threats, but would require congressional approval for offensive action.
The bill likely faces an uphill climb in the Republican-controlled chamber, with the majority loath to challenge Trump’s powers. But it will get a vote, a week from Thursday, by Kaine’s count. Under Senate rules, war powers resolutions are considered “privileged”, guaranteeing a floor debate and vote.
As the conflict intensified, Kaine told his colleagues they would hear from him frequently over the next 10 days, having made a promise to himself after spending years attending “the deployments and the homecomings” and “the wakes and funerals” of US service members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I will be asking my colleagues to support it and uphold the oath we’ve all taken to support the constitution that established that most unusual principle, most unique principle that is part of what makes this nation special,” he said.
Federal appeals court hears arguments on whether Trump or Newsom should control national guard deployed to Los Angeles
A federal appeals court in San Francisco heard arguments on Tuesday in Trump v Newsom, to determine whether the Trump administration must return control of the California national guard troops deployed to Los Angeles by Donald Trump to the state’s governor during protests over federal immigration raids.
The hearing comes after the ninth US circuit court of appeals granted an administration request last week to temporarily pause a lower court order that directed Trump to return control of the soldiers to Gavin Newsom, who filed suit over the deployment.
Judge Mark Bennett, who was nominated to the federal bench by Trump in 2018, opened the hearing by asking the federal government’s lawyer, Brett Shumate, whether the department of justice’s position is that the courts have no role in reviewing the president’s decision to call the national guard.
“No, there’s no role for the court to play in reviewing that decision,” Shumate responded.
“The statute says the president may call on federal service members and units of the guard of any state in such numbers that he considers necessary,” Shumate said, adding that the statute “couldn’t be any more clear”.
Shumate then cast the ongoing protests in Los Angeles as a dire threat to federal workers and property, despite the fact that the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, announced on Tuesday that she was lifting the curfew she had imposed on one neighborhood last week, saying acts of vandalism and violence had subsided.
The government’s lawyer insisted that the troops were still needed to protect federal buildings and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents making arrests.
If the appeals court allows the lower court order to go into effect, returning the guard to the governor’s control, Shumate said, “lives and property will be at risk”.
California’s lawyer, Samuel Harbourt, argued that the federal government failed to even inform Newsom of the decision to deploy the guard and could have taken “more modest measures” instead of “militarizing the situation”.
“There’s World A, where federal authorities like Ice officials are enforcing the law as they prefer, and then World B; they encounter any obstacle and then the president can immediately reach for the most extreme option on the table, which is federalizing the national guard,” Harbourt added.
US district judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco ruled last week that the guard deployment was illegal and exceeded Trump’s authority. He granted Newsom a temporary restraining order to take control of the guard while the lawsuit proceeds. It applied only to the national guard troops and not the marines, who were deployed to LA after the state filed suit.
Harbourt told the panel that not upholding Breyer’s ruling would “defy our constitutional traditions of preserving state sovereignty, of providing judicial review for the legality of executive action, of safeguarding our cherished rights to political protest and of keeping the military”.
At Tuesday’s hearing, the appeals panel appeared skeptical of the state’s arguments and seemed inclined to stay Breyer’s order.
Newsom’s lawsuit accused Trump of inflaming tensions, breaching state sovereignty and wasting resources just when guard members need to be preparing for wildfire season. He also called the federal takeover of the state’s national guard “illegal and immoral”.
Breyer ruled the Trump violated the use of Title 10, which allows the president to call the national guard into federal service when the country “is invaded”, when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government”, or when the president is unable “to execute the laws of the United States”.
Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, said the definition of a rebellion was not met.
“The protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion,’,” he wrote. “Individuals’ right to protest the government is one of the fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment, and just because some stray bad actors go too far does not wipe out that right for everyone.”
Federal judge issues nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s executive order on passports for transgender citizens
A federal judge in Boston ruled on Tuesday that transgender and intersex people can obtain passports that align with their gender identity during litigation that seeks to overturn Donald Trump’s executive order that US passports must conform to the sex citizens were assigned at birth.
US district judge Julia Kobick issued a preliminary injunction that expanded an earlier order she issued in April that had stopped the US state department from enforcing the policy in the case of six people, after finding the order was likely unconstitutional.
The judge’s new order means that all trans citizens will be able to update their gender markers on their passports as the case against Trump’s order proceeds.
After Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his term in January, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, the US state department announced that it would “no longer issue U.S. passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBAs) with an X marker. We will only issue passports with an M or F sex marker that match the customer’s biological sex at birth.”
“While this is good news”, the ACLU said in a statement, “we will continue fighting until this executive order is blocked permanently.”
CNN reports that the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, was taken to a hospital in Washington on Tuesday in an ambulance.
Noem is reportedly conscious at the hospital and has spoken with her security detail, a source told the broadcaster.
Earlier on Tuesday, a group of Democratic senators reportedly called on her to testify about the rough detention of senator Alex Padilla of California at her news conference in Los Angeles last week.
Curfew lifted in downtown Los Angeles, mayor says
“Effective today, I am lifting the curfew in downtown Los Angeles,” the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. “As we continue to adapt quickly to the chaos coming out of Washington, I’m prepared to reinstate it if necessary. The safety and stability of LA remains my top priority.”
“The curfew has been an effective tool in helping us maintain public safety in the downtown Los Angeles area and deter those looking to exploit peaceful protests for criminal activity” the chief of the Los Angeles police department, Jim McDonnell, added. “The LAPD will maintain a strong presence in the area and continue to monitor conditions closely to protect lives, uphold the right to lawful assembly, and safeguard property.”
‘Seriously?’ Lander aghast to hear DHS claim he was arrested for putting his hands on a federal officer
In a brief news conference outside the federal building in lower Manhattan, Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate who was detained by federal immigration officers earlier, expressed shock when a reporter told him that a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that he had been arrested for putting his hands on a federal officer.
“Seriously?” Lander said.
It remains unclear whether any charges will actually be filed, but New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, told reporters: “To my knowledge … there are no charges; the charges have been dropped; he walks out of there a free man.”
Lander denies DHS spokesperson’s allegation that he was trying to ‘get a viral moment’
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate who was detained by federal agents while attempting to escort a man out of immigration court in lower Manhattan on Tuesday, was just asked to comment on the claim, from a homeland security spokesperson, that he was attempting to create a viral moment.
He explained that he was simply attending immigration court hearings to support the due process rights of immigrants who were following the law and was escorting people out of the building after their hearings.
“My goal was to walk Edgardo out of the building,” he said, in reference to the person Lander was escorting out of the immigration courtroom when Ice agents seized both of them.
Lander also said that the same spokesperson’s claim, that he had assaulted a federal officer, was obviously false, and urged people to watch video of the incident. “I was simply asking them to show me the judicial warrant,” Lander said.
He will be speaking shortly at a rally in Foley Square.
Lander released from federal custody
New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was just released from federal custody and was seen leaving the federal building in lower Manhattan with his wife, Meg Barnette, and New York governor Kathy Hochul. He is now addressing the media outside.
Lander says he’s fine, the non-profit newsroom The City reports. “I will be fine but Edgardo will not be fine,” he says in reference to the man taken by Ice outside an immigration courtroom earlier. Lander was detained for insisting that the Ice agents show a judicial warrant authorizing that immigrant’s arrest
Although a homeland security spokesperson said Lander was arrested for allegedly assaulting a federal officer, he said he has not been charged at this point.
The New York Comptroller’s office is now streaming live video of Lander’s comments on X, here:
Gwynne Hogan, a reporter for The City, an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering New York, reports on Bluesky that New York governor Kathy Hochul just asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents what the delay is with releasing the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander, who was detained by them outside an immigration court in the federal building in lower Manhattan.
“How long is this going to take?” Hochul was overheard asking. “I don’t think he has a long rap sheet”.
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According to a homeland security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer”, but video of the incident shows that Lander was arrested after asking officers leading someone away outside an immigration courtroom to produce a judicial warrant.
Trump’s meeting in the Situation Room with his national security team has come to an end, after more than an hour, CNN and Reuters are reporting.
Kathy Hochul has been in Federal Plaza speaking to Brad Lander’s wife Meg Barnette. She posted this photo to X saying: “New York will not back down.”
The New York governor earlier called Lander’s arrest by federal agents at an immigration court “bullshit”.
The day so far
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Donald Trump has spent much of the day so far weighing his military options, demanding an “unconditional surrender” from Tehran and threatening Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. He said that the US is aware of Khamenei’s location and he’s an “easy target”, but said “we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now”. “Our patience is wearing thin,” he warned. Trump had earlier said he was not seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Iran but instead wants to see “a real end” to Iran’s nuclear programme, with Tehran abandoning it “entirely”. You can follow our live coverage on the crisis in the Middle East here.
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New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was dramatically arrested by masked agents while visiting an immigration court and accompanying a person out of a courtroom. The incident has been condemned by New York politicians who have called Lander’s arrest “political intimidation”, “fascism”, and “a shocking abuse of power”. The DHS said Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer”. He is still in custody at the time of writing.
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It comes less than a week after US senator Alex Padilla was restrained and forcibly removed from a press conference when he tried to ask DHS secretary Kristi Noem a question in LA. Recounting that incident on the Senate floor today, Padilla urged Americans to “wake up”, and warned that what was happening to immigrants in California was just a “test case” for what Trump could do to any American anywhere in the country.
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Over 48 hours after a Minnesota state lawmaker was killed and another injured in a “politically motivated assassination”, Donald Trump was still refusing to call the state’s governor, Tim Walz, as a president usually would under the circumstances.
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Fewer than 10% of immigrants arrested by Ice this fiscal year have serious criminal convictions like rape, murder, assault or robbery CNN reported. According to Ice records, three-quarters had no criminal convictions beyond immigration or traffic offenses.
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The NAACP said it will not invite Donald Trump to its annual convention next month, the first time the 116-year-old civil rights organization has not asked a sitting US president to attend its convention.
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A CBS News investigation found that two-thirds of counties that have lost funding from Fema’s storm preparation program supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
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Bernie Sanders endorsed the leftwing New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the latest boost to his insurgent campaign. Sanders, a senator from Vermont and a powerful figure on the Democratic party’s progressive left, said: “At this dangerous moment in history, status quo politics isn’t good enough. We need new leadership that is prepared to stand up to powerful corporate interests and fight for the working class.”
Earlier we brought you reported comments from Kathy Hochul, now the New York governor has reiterated her view on X.
