Key events
A recap of overnight events in DC
As the federal takeover of the DC police and deployment of national guard troops entered its fourth night, here’s a recap of what happened overnight.
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The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, ended DC’s “sanctuary policies”. In a directive signed yesterday, she rescinded previous orders – including one from the DC police chief, Pamela Smith – that Bondi’s office says “limited” the Metropolitan police department (MPD) from working with federal officers. Bondi has now scrapped rules which prevent DC police from arresting people “solely for federal immigration warrants” and “restricted certain information from being shared with federal authorities,” a justice department spokesperson said.
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Bondi also stripped power away from Smith, the police chief, and appointed Terry Cole – who leads the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) – as “emergency police commissioner”. According to her order, the MPD “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any further directives.
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And today, the DC government announced it is suing the Trump administration for its takeover of the DC police. The district’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, wrote: “Section 740 of the Home Rule Act permits the President to request MPD’s services … Even when Section 740 is lawfully invoked, the Home Rule Act keeps operational control of MPD with the Mayor and Chief, and the President must request MPD services through the Mayor.” He added that the federal government’s actions are “brazenly unlawful” and “infringe on the District’s right to self-governance”.
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Meanwhile, federal law enforcement began conducting sweeps of homeless encampments. Crews tore down a major encampment near the Kennedy Center on Thursday, removing residents and clearing out the remaining encampments across the city. My colleague Kirstin Garriss has more on the latest here.
‘We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen,’ Obama says as he praises Texas Democrats
Former president Barack Obama has praised Texas Democrats for protesting against the state’s gerrymandered GOP-drawn congressional maps by breaking quorum, according to a report from ABC News.
ABC obtained footage of a Zoom meeting on Thursday in which Obama addressed the legislators.
“We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by and so because of your actions, because of your courage, what you’ve seen is California responding, other states looking at what they can do to offset this mid-decade gerrymandering,” he said.
In the meeting, Obama also said that the Democrats – who left the state capital almost two weeks ago – “helped to lead what is going to be a long struggle”.
He added:
It’s not going to be resolved right away, and it’s going to require, ultimately, the American people understanding the stakes and realizing that we cannot take our freedoms and our democracy for granted. You’ve helped set the tone for that, and I’m grateful for it.
In a statement to ABC News, Texas house minority leader Gene Wu said Obama’s message to the Democrats is “proof that when they stand up and fight back, we don’t stand alone”.
Wu added that “President Obama’s support shows the whole country is watching – and Texas house Democrats won’t be silenced by bullies”.
This comes as Texas Democrats also said they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending their efforts to block Republicans from passing a new map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. However, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
Chris Stein
Washington DC’s only Home Depot was busy with contractors and customers on Thursday morning – but the Hispanic day laborers who usually gather and wait for work under the parking lot’s sparse trees were nowhere to be found.
Two days earlier, masked federal agents swarmed the area and made several arrests, which were photographed by bystanders and posted on social media. Juwan Brooks, a store employee who witnessed the raid, said the agents grabbed anyone who appeared Hispanic.
“They don’t ask no questions,” Brooks said. People walking across the parking lot, getting out of their cars or even sleeping in their vehicle – all were grabbed by the agents, leaving behind empty work trucks that were eventually towed away.
“It was cool when Trump was saying it, but to actually see it first-hand? I didn’t like it,” Brooks said. The day laborers “are not bad people”, and he wondered what happened to the children of the men that were taken away.
Four days after Trump ordered federal agents and national guard on to the streets of Washington DC to fight a crime wave that city leaders say is not happening, residents of the capital are becoming used to the presence of groups of armed men in their neighborhoods, and the aggressive tactics they use.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner
When the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week said funding for the development of mRNA vaccines – the backbone of Covid vaccines – was being wound down because they had failed to “earn public trust”, it was met, publicly and privately, with exasperated incredulity.
Critics say few have done more than Jay Bhattacharya and other top health officials in the Trump administration to sow doubts about public health institutions and, by extension, the value of the vaccines that have saved millions of lives around the world.
“It is astounding that Bhattacharya has the audacity to claim to know that Biden-era policies are responsible for distrust of mRNA vaccines, when he and his associates have done so much to diminish the appreciation of these important medical accomplishments,” Jeremy Berg, the former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the NIH, said in a statement to the Guardian.
Bhattacharya’s comments appeared in an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he defended a recent announcement by the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is anti-vaccine, to terminate $500m in federal funding for mRNA vaccine research, which Kennedy justified by claiming he had “reviewed the science”. Experts say the evidence Kennedy reviewed did not support ending the research.
While the mRNA platform was “promising” and could deliver breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer and other diseases, Bhattacharya said it had failed the test of use for a public health emergency because it had not earned public trust.
My colleague Jakub Krupa is running our Europe live blog today, with all the latest news lines ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting later.
The summit is set to start 11am Alaska time, which for us in Europe is 8pm British time, 9pm central Europe time, starting a flurry of diplomacy between the two delegations in a variety of formats: one-on-one and in larger groups.
It is expected to conclude some seven hours later, according to the schedule, with plans for a joint press conference with both leaders. At least that’s the plan for now.
Local residents are torn between excitement over high-profile visit and trepidation over what US-Russian leaders might agree, with some even joking: “Please don’t sell us back.” (The US bought Alaska from the Russian empire in 1867).
Follow all the buildup here:
Trump ahead of Putin meeting: ‘high stakes!’
Well, the president is awake and has made his first Truth Social post of the day.
Ahead of his meeting in Alaska with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump says:
HIGH STAKES!!!
More on this as we get it …
Maya Yang
Donald Trump cold-called Norway’s finance minister last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian press reported on Thursday.
The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: “Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”
The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg.
In a statement to Reuters, Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary general, said the call focused on tariffs and economic cooperation ahead of Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister.
“I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” Stoltenberg said, adding that several White House officials including the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, were on the call.
Each year, the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee reviews hundreds of candidates before choosing laureates. The committee members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Alfred Nobel, a 19-century Swedish industrialist. Laureates are announced in October.
Sam Levine
Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is expected to announce what he has teased as a “major” redistricting announcement on Thursday.
Gene Wu, chair of the Texas house Democratic caucus, said in a statement that he and his colleagues “successfully mobilized the nation against Trump’s assault on minority voting rights”.
“Facing threats of arrest, lawfare, financial penalties, harassment and bomb threats, we have stood firm in our fight against a proposed Jim Crow congressional district map,” he said. “Now, as Democrats across the nation join our fight to cause these maps to fail their political purpose, we’re prepared to bring this battle back to Texas under the right conditions and to take this fight to the courts.”
Bondi sends ‘sanctuary cities’ letters to mayors of 32 cities
George Chidi
Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said she has sent “sanctuary city” letters to the mayors of 32 cities and a handful of county executives, warning that she intends to prosecute political leaders who are not, in her view, sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.
“You better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you’re not, we’re going to come after you,” she said, speaking to a Fox News reporter. “Our leaders have to support our law enforcement.”
Bondi’s letter asks the recipients to provide a response by 19 August that “confirms your commitment with complying with federal law and identifies the immediate initiatives you are taking to eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement”.
Bondi cites an executive order issued by Donald Trump on 28 April which called for the attorney general to identify jurisdictions that “obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws” then to “notify each sanctuary jurisdiction regarding its defiance of Federal immigration law enforcement and any potential violations of Federal criminal law” as a precursor to prosecution or withholding grants.
Each of the recipients appears to have received a near-identical letter, none of which specify what local laws or practices fail to comply with Bondi’s assertions.
Initial responses from state and local governments receiving the letters include a mix of incredulity and defiance.
Patrick Wintour
Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” may alarm some in Kyiv.
The US president implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war.
Trump insisted that he would not let Putin get the better of him in Friday’s meeting, telling reporters: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me.
“I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes … whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting.
“And if 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,” said Trump.
He also said a second meeting – not yet confirmed – between him, Putin and Zelenskyy would be the more decisive.
“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy’ things up, but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, OK?” Trump told Fox News Radio.
He was referring to the possibility that Zelenskyy will have to accept “land swaps” – in practice the handing over of Ukrainian territory to Russia, potentially including some not captured by Moscow.
Newsom says California will push to redraw maps in riposte to Texas plan
Lauren Gambino
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said on Thursday that state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map-drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.
As he spoke at the Japanese American National Museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy – a venue deliberately chosen for its symbolism – federal agents, armed and masked, fanned out across the complex, led by Gregory Bovino, head of the border patrol’s El Centro sector. Local news footage showed a man being led away in handcuffs.
Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the “election rigging response act”, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through mid-cycle maps that could hand Republicans five extra US House seats. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.
“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom declared at a rally in Los Angeles, in which he formally called for a 4 November special election to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”
After the rally, Newsom called the presence of border patrol agents “sick and pathetic” and accused Trump of ordering the operation to intimidate Democrats. “Wake up, America,” Newsom warned. “You will not have a country if he rigs this election.”
Los Angeles’s mayor, Karen Bass, a Democrat who was not attending the event, arrived on the scene to condemn the raid. In remarks to reporters, she argued that it was not “a coincidence” the raid took place steps from where Newsom was speaking. “The White House just sent federal agents to try to intimidate elected officials at a press conference,” she said in a social media post. “The problem for them is Los Angeles doesn’t get scared and Los Angeles doesn’t back down. We never have and we never will.”
Trump makes false claims about crime in Washington DC as homeless camps are cleared
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Donald Trump has falsely claimed crime in Washington DC is “the worst it’s ever been” on Thursday, amid a federal takeover of the city’s police department and deployment of the national guard and federal agents in the city.
“Washington DC is at its worst point,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “It will soon be at its best point.” He also baselessly accused DC law enforcement officials of giving “phony crime stats” and said “they’re under investigation”.
The president’s comments came after protesters heckled federal law enforcement officials as they reportedly stopped dozens of cars at a checkpoint along a busy street in Washington DC on Wednesday night.
About 20 law enforcement officers, some of whom appeared to be from the Department of Homeland Security, pulled over drivers for infractions such as broken taillights and not wearing seatbelts, according to the Washington Post.
At least one woman was reportedly arrested as more than 100 protesters gathered and reportedly yelled things like “get off our streets”, according to NBC News. Some protesters began warning drivers to avoid the area, the outlet reported.
The city’s homeless encampments, which Trump has long fixated on, came under target Thursday night as city police began removing residents. Officials in Washington DC and advocates for the unhoused had warned people living in camps to relocate to shelters before the federal sweeps began.
“We do not have enough shelter beds for everyone on the street,” said Amber W Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. “This is a chaotic and scary time for all of us in DC, but particularly for people without homes.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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As part of its advertising blitz to attract new recruits, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) released a social media video on Thursday that uses a song by the rapper DaBaby and shows agency vehicles that appear to be painted in the same red, blue and gold style as Donald Trump’s private plane, which was featured in the opening sequence for The Apprentice.
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New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, confirmed on social media that a federal building where protesters held a silent vigil on Thursday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) was evacuated after “envelopes containing white powder were discovered”.
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In another sign that the Trump presidency is largely made for TV, the White House and Fox News revealed that Trump will appear on Fox News both before and immediately after his summit meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday.
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Four days after Trump ordered the unhoused residents of Washington DC, whom he sped past in his motorcade for a golf outing, to leave the city, local officials helped clear encampments before announced sweeps by federal agents.
