Noem confirms Ice is processing Kilmar Ábrego García for deportation
In a statement, following Kilmar Ábrego García’s detention today, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said that he is being processed for deportation, but didn’t confirm where he would be sent.
She also repeated several unfounded claims about Ábrego:
President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator to terrorize American citizens any longer.
Key events
A short while ago Donald Trump welcomed the president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, to the White House. It’s their first meeting and comes at a time when the relationship between their countries is strained.
We’ll bring you any key lines that come out of their Oval Office meeting.
Trump says DOJ intends to sue over California redistricting plan
Asked if he was intending to challenge California’s redistricting plans (which let’s not forget are a direct response to developments in Texas), Trump said:
Well, I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon, and I think we’re going to be very successful in it. We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen.
Trump added that he’ll “probably” also file a suit challenging the Senate “blue slip” process that has held up several of his nominees for judges and US attorney.
You know, blue slips make it impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or a US attorney, because they have a gentleman’s agreement … It’s a gentleman’s agreement that’s about 100 years old, where, if you have a president like a Republican and if you have a Democrat senator, that senator can stop you from appointing a judge or or US attorney.
Trump said he believes it’s “unconstitutional”.
Trump says US military may or may not deploy to Chicago
Trump said the US military might deploy to Chicago and is ready to go anywhere on short notice to crack down on crime.
“We can go anywhere on less than 24 hours’ notice,” Trump said in the Oval Office earlier when asked whether the Pentagon was preparing for deployment to Chicago.
He said Chicago needs federal help to clean up the city but did not announce a decision.
“They need help. We may wait. We may or may not, we may just go in and do it, which is probably what we should do,” Trump told reporters.
Trump has seized control of the police force in Washington and is now allowing national guard troops to carry weapons while on patrol in the city. He’s also now threatening to expand the US military presence to Democrat-controlled cities like Baltimore and Chicago.
Trump also said earlier that he wanted to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War.
Why are we ‘Defense?’ So it used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound.
If you people want to, standing behind me, if you take a little vote, if you want to change it back to what it was when we used to win wars all the time, that’s okay with me. Alright?
He added:
I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too.
On foreign matters, Trump said while he wasn’t aware of an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital overnight that killed 20 people, including five journalists, he is not happy about it.
I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to see it. At the same time, we have to end that … nightmare.
He didn’t give any further comment.
On South Korea, he said he was seeking information from South Korea about investigations in the country that he said targeted churches.
Police probably shouldn’t have done that, but I heard bad things. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’ll be finding out.
Trump is due for a meeting with the South Korean president Lee Jae Myung in a few hours. He posted on Truth Social earlier this morning: “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there.” He was possibly referring to the investigation and trial of former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol on insurrection charges.
Asked whether the Pentagon was preparing for military deployment to Chicago, Trump said they’re ready to go anywhere on short notice to crack down on crime.
We can go anywhere on less than 24 hours notice.
Trump claims people say ‘maybe we’d like a dictator’ – but insists he isn’t one
In comments made in the Oval Office earlier, Donald Trump claimed that some people think they might “like a dictator” – but insisted that he isn’t one.
Referring to critics of his deployment of the national guard to Washington DC and his threats to send the troops to Chicago, the president said:
They say, ‘We don’t need him. Freedom. Freedom. He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator.’
A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’ I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense, and I’m a smart person.
And when I see what’s happened to our cities, and then you send in troops. Instead of being praised, they’re saying, ‘You’re trying to take over the Republic.’ These people are sick.
He said that, “in a certain way, we should wait to be asked” to bring in troops, but reflecting on the impact of his sending national guard into Los Angeles earlier this summer, he added:
But I think people should want us to be there, because otherwise all they’ll do is complain as we do our job. So we’ll have to think about that.
Trump signs order to criminally charge those who burn US flag in protest
Joseph Gedeon
Donald Trump signed an executive order this morning instructing federal prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against individuals who burn American flags during protests.
The order tells the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to look at cases where people burned flags and see if they can be charged with other crimes like disturbing the peace or breaking environmental laws.
It’s an attempt by Trump to go around a supreme court decision from 1989, when the court ruled 5-4 in Texas v Johnson that destroying the flag is protected political expression under the first amendment.
That court ruling threw out flag-burning laws in 48 states and made it clear that people have the right to burn flags as a way to express their political views.
“All over the country they’re burning flags,” Trump said in the Oval Office a short while ago when he signed the order. “All of over the world they burn the American flag, and as you know, through a very sad court, I guess it was a 5-4 decision, they called it freedom of speech.
“But when you burn the American flag, it incites riots, at levels we’ve never seen before,” he added.
Still, Trump has long advocated for criminalizing flag burning. In 2016, he posted on social media: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
Most Americans tend to agree with Trump on this issue. Polling conducted by YouGov in 2020 showed nearly half of Americans support making flag destruction illegal, while about one-third believe it’s permissible. An updated YouGov survey from September 2023 found that 59% of Americans now consider burning an American flag during protests to be “never” acceptable.
US CDC taps vaccine skeptic to lead Covid-19 task force
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has chosen Retsef Levi, a member of its key vaccine panel, to lead its Covid-19 immunization task force, a spokesperson for the health department told Reuters.
Levi had critiqued mRNA vaccines in the past, spreading misinformation that they can cause serious harm and death, especially among children, and called for their immediate withdrawal.
Levi did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Trump signs executive order to end cashless bail in DC
Donald Trump is signing executive orders around ending cashless bail in the nation’s capital. Trump is claiming that this is possible due to his takeover of the city’s police force, citing a public safety emergency.
One of the orders directs the attorney general to identify jurisdictions across the country with cashless bail policies and withhold or revoke federal funds and grants. The president points to Illinois’s policy and spends some time undermining the governor, JB Pritzker: “They threw him out of the family business, and he becomes governor. Now he wants to run for president. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Trump repeats false claims about DC homicides, says Congress has agreed to ‘beautification’ funds
The president has repeated inaccurate claims that DC was the most dangerous city in the country until the federal takeover of the DC police and deployment of the national guard.
Trump also says that the 11 days without any murders in the capital is “the first time that’s taken place in years”. In fact, DC experienced a streak without any homicides, that lasted more than two weeks, in March of this year.
The president also said that Congress has apparently said “they’ll give us whatever money is needed to fix up the capital,” referring to his request for billions of dollars to continue his “beautification” project. On Friday, Trump said he’d spoken to top congressional Republicans about the funding request.
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