Trump repeats false claim that DC crime is ‘the worst it’s ever been’
The president has repeated the baseless claim that crime in the nation’s capital is the “worst it’s ever been”. He also described the situation as “tragic” and an “epidemic”.
A reminder that data from the justice department shows that DC experienced a 30-year low in violent crime in 2024.
Key events
Lauren Gambino
Democrats have gathered in Los Angeles in a show of unity in support of the Election Rigging Response Act.
Speakers have included labor leaders, teacher union, the state’s planned parenthood head and a member of the California independent redistricting commission who said she believes mapmaking is best left out of the hands of politicians. But on Thursday, she said, “extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures”.
Jodi Hicks of Planned Parenthood assailed the nine House Republicans from California who supported legislation rolling back reproductive rights: “You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats.”
David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, whose arrest and detention during protests over the administration’s immigration raids in June, said his state fighting to save the country from “an authoritarian” in the White House.
“I trust California voters will save our democracy,” he said.
Trump cold-called Norwegian minister about Nobel peace prize
Donald Trump called Norway’s finance minister out of the blue last month to discuss tariffs – and to tell him that he wanted the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian business daily Dagens Næringsliv reported today.
“Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called,” Dagens Næringsliv reported, citing unnamed sources. “He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”
This was not the first time Trump had raised the prize in discussions with Stoltenberg, the paper noted.
In a comment to Reuters, Stoltenberg said the call was to discuss tariffs and economic cooperation before Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister. “I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” he added.
Several White House officials, including treasury secretary Scott Bessent and trade representative Jamieson Greer, were on the call, Stoltenberg added.
Several countries including Israel, Pakistan and Cambodia have nominated Trump for brokering peace agreements or ceasefires, and the president has claimed many times that he deserves the Norwegian-bestowed accolade, which four of his White House predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.
With hundreds of candidates nominated each year, laureates are chosen by the Norwegian Nobel committee, whose five members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Swedish 19th-century industrialist Alfred Nobel. The announcement comes in October in Oslo.
The White House on 31 July announced a 15% tariff on imports from Norway, the same as the European Union. Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Norway and the United States were still in talks regarding the tariffs.
Lauren Gambino
Hello from the very intentionally chosen National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where Gavin Newsom has teased a “major” redistricting announcement.
Seated in the front row are several Democratic members of the California congressional delegation including representatives Maxine Waters, Pete Aguilar and Judy Chu and senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, holding signs that say “defend Democracy” and “election rigging response act”.
The California governor has vowed to retaliate against Texas’s plan to redraw its maps to give Republicans a five-seat advantage before the 2026 congressional midterms.
Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ’em just played on the loudspeaker.
Sam Levine
Sean Dunn, the Washington DC man who was arrested and charged with assault on Wednesday after throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement agent, worked for the justice department and has been fired, the US attorney general Pam Bondi said on Thursday.
Dunn worked in the department’s criminal division as an international affairs specialist in the office of international affairs, according to a department spokesperson.
“If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you,” Bondi said in a post on X. “You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement.”
That statement was immediately met with ridicule online. The department currently employs Jared Wise, a former January 6 defendant, who urged rioters to kill police officers. Trump issued a blanket pardon on his first day in office to roughly 1,500 people involved in the Capitol riot, many of whom attacked law enforcement.
Second meeting is chief aim of Alaska summit with Putin, Trump says
When asked whether “anything less than an unconditional and immediate ceasefire” would be considered a success at Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin tomorrow, the president avoided the question.
“All I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly. I’d like to see it happen very quickly,” Trump said. “We’re going to find out where everybody stands, and I’ll know within the first two minutes … it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
But yesterday, the president said, unequivocally, that Russia would face “very severe consequences” if Putin does not agree a ceasefire at his initial summit with Trump in Alaska.
Trump repeats baseless claims of “phony crime stats” from DC police
The president said, once again without evidence, that DC officials have created fake statistics that show the rate of violent crime declining in the city.
He added that they are “under investigation”, but didn’t name anyone specifically.
“They’re phony crime stats, and Washington DC is at its worst point, and it will soon be at its best point,” he said.
Trump praises executive order allowing MPD to notify Ice agents about undocumented immigrants at traffic stops
The president just called an executive order – signed by DC police chief Pamela Smith – “a great step”. The action, signed today, allows the department to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents about undocumented immigrants they find during traffic stops.
Trump didn’t confirm whether he pressured the Metropolitan police department to issue the order, when asked by a reporter in the Oval Office. “I think that’s going to happen all over the country,” he added.
Trump repeats false claim that DC crime is ‘the worst it’s ever been’
The president has repeated the baseless claim that crime in the nation’s capital is the “worst it’s ever been”. He also described the situation as “tragic” and an “epidemic”.
A reminder that data from the justice department shows that DC experienced a 30-year low in violent crime in 2024.
Trump was just asked whether he would give Putin access to rare minerals to incentivize him to end the war in Ukraine. He didn’t really answer that: “As far as rare earth, that’s very unimportant … I’m trying to save lives,” he said.
The president went on to explain his hopes for the meeting.
“What I’m really doing this for is to save thousands of soldiers a week. You have Russian soldiers, you have Ukrainian soldiers,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we’re having. We’re going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelenskyy, myself, and maybe we’ll bring some of the European leaders on.”
Fact check: Trump rails about social security fraud without evidence
The president is now talking about how his domestic policy bill, which he signed into law last month, enshrines “no tax” on social security for America’s older adults.
He’s also bringing up one of his frequent talking points: egregious social security fraud.
“You have 12.4m names listed in the social security database that were over 120 years of age, meaning you’re breaking records,” he said.
An important fact check here: the social security database does have the names of a number of Americans born as early as the 1920s (without death dates), but that doesn’t automatically mean that these people are receiving cheques. Also, a report from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in 2024 found that only 1% of total benefits paid from 2015-2022 were improper.
Trump delivers remarks in Oval Office on Social Security Act anniversary
Donald Trump is now addressing the press in the Oval Office. He’s issuing a presidential proclamation on the 90th anniversary of social security and is joined by the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano. Here’s Trump:
In the campaign, I made a sacred pledge to our seniors that I would always protect social security, and under this administration, we’re keeping that promise and strengthening social security for generations to come.
Florida governor says state will open ‘deportation depot’ immigration jail
Richard Luscombe
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Thursday that the state will open a second immigration jail, as a federal judge weighs whether to close the controversial existing facility in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.
DeSantis painted the forthcoming detention center at the shuttered Baker correctional institution in Sanderson as supplementary to the remote tented camp. He also said the facility would hold up to 1,300 undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation.
“We need additional capacity beyond what we’re already doing down in south Florida. There’s a massive part here at Baker that isn’t being used. [It’s] ready-made infrastructure,” DeSantis announced during a press conference at the disused jail 50 miles north of Gainesville.
Baker was closed in 2021 after numerous reports of excessive violence and abuse of inmates by guards.
The governor gave no timeline for its opening, but said the facility, which he said would be called “the deportation depot”, would be operational soon.
“We’re not rushing to do it right this day, but they’re doing what they need to do to get it done with all deliberate speed,” he said.
“It’s a priority for the people of this state, it’s a priority for the people of this country.”
The development came on the heels of district court judge Kathleen Williams hearing final arguments in Miami on Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by an alliance of environmental groups seeking to close Alligator Alcatraz.
Navarro says tariffs on pharmaceutical imports are still ‘likely’
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview with CNBC today that the Trump administration is still “likely” to implement tariffs on pharmaceutical imports. He said that these tariffs would likely be the result of the ongoing trade investigation to determine the national security impact of certain imports.
This comes, however, as the president signed an executive order yesterday to ensure a “resilient” supply chain for for essential medicines by filling the reserve of the stockpile of key pharmaceutical ingredients.
Yesterday, Reuters had exclusive reporting that tariffs on pharmaceutical imports are still “weeks away” – according to their sources. This is while the president focuses on his upcoming meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday.
California governor Gavin Newsom has taken to social media again today to mock the president – using his bizarre style of all-caps posting on Truth Social – and tee up his plans to offset the redistricting battle that began in Texas, after House Democrats broke quorum to protest a gerrymandered GOP-drawn map.
I, GAVIN CHRISTOPHER NEWSOM, AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR (MANY SAY), WILL HOST THE GREATEST PRESS CONFERENCE OF ALL TIME. AFTER THAT — “THE MAPS” WILL SOON BE RELEASED. VERY MUCH ANTICIPATED. HISTORY MADE. THE GOP’S RIGGED GAME IS OVER!!!!
In just over an hour we can expect to hear from Donald Trump in the Oval Office. He’s due to deliver remarks which include issuing a presidential proclamation honoring the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act.
Senator Graham says White House to send funding package to secure ‘safety’ resources for DC
Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that –following discussions with Trump, attorney general Pam Bondi and the president’s senior staffers yesterday – the White House will send a package to Graham and Republican senator Katie Britt of Alabama to “shepherd” a “DC Security Fund” through Congress.
Graham, who is chair of the Senate Budget Committee, wrote on X that the fund would “give President Trump the resources he will need to improve the safety and quality of life in our nation’s capital”.
Alice Speri
More than 120 education scholars have condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal dedicated to Palestine by a Harvard University publisher as “censorship”.
In an open letter published on Thursday, the scholars denounced the abrupt scrapping of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review – which was first revealed by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies”.
The writers note that the issue’s censorship is also an example of “anti-Palestinian discrimination, obstructing the dissemination of knowledge on Palestine at the height of the genocide in Gaza”.
The scholars also asked for the publisher to apologize to the authors, commission a new special issue on Palestine and implement safeguards to protect editorial independence. They pledged to boycott the journal’s publisher and the affiliated Harvard Education Press until then.
The ordeal around the special Palestine issue played out against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s crackdown on US higher education institutions’ autonomy on the basis of combating alleged antisemitism on campuses.
Harvard is the only university that has sued the administration in response to the White House cutting billions of dollars in federal funds and other punishing measures it has unleashed on universities. But internally, Harvard has pre-empted many of the administration’s demands, including by demoting scholars, scrapping initiatives giving space to Palestinian narratives and adopting a controversial definition of antisemitism that critics say is antithetical to academic inquiry.
