‘Radical left Democrats’ are causing increase in political violence, says Trump
During his brief media availability before his meeting with the president of Turkey, Donald Trump once again blamed “radical left” Democrats for the increase in political violence throughout the country, after yesterday’s shooting at an Ice facility in Dallas.
One detainee was killed, and two were severely injured in the attack. Notably, no federal agents were wounded. Department of Homeland Security officials said on Wednesday it was “an attack on Ice law enforcement”. At both today’s press conference and in a statement, law enforcement said that shell casings found near the shooter had “anti-Ice” messaging on them.
In the Oval Office today, Trump said that “the radical left is causing this problem, not the right”.
Updated at 12.38 EDT
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Richard Luscombe
The justice department’s purge of federal prosecutors deemed to be critical of Donald Trump has reached the Miami US attorney’s office, where a “rising star” of the department was terminated this week, according to the Miami Herald.
Will Rosenzweig was fired in a “terse” email from attorney general Pam Bondi as he celebrated the Jewish Rosh Hashanah holiday with his family on Tuesday, the newspaper said.
Pam Bondi. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
The 39-year-old is the third federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida “to be summarily fired by the Bondi-led justice department” since Trump started his second term as president in January.
Rosenzweig missed the message and only found out he had been fired when his office cell phone stopped working and he called in to find out why, the Herald said.
Rightwing agitator Laura Loomer celebrated Rosenzweig’s dismissal in a post to X on Wednesday, reposting a message from the conservative commentator Natalie Winters that claimed he “secretly ran anti-Trump blog for years”.
The Herald cited “multiple sources” that said Rosenzweig posted criticisms of Trump to social media beginning in 2017, while he was in private practice and before he joined the justice department.
Two other Miami federal prosecutors, Michael Thakur and Anne McNamara, were fired within days of Trump’s January inauguration, among more than a dozen attorneys and officials seemingly punished for working on cases against him prior to his November 2024 reelection.
According to the White House press pool, the president has emerged from his meeting with Turkey’s president Erdoğan.
When asked about how the meeting went, Trump said “great” before giving a thumbs up to reporters.
ShareUtah court appoints attorney to man charged with killing Charlie Kirk
A Utah court has appointed an attorney to represent Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old charged with shooting and killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, after they determined he couldn’t afford private counsel.
“This action fulfills the Commission’s constitutional responsibility to ensure that individuals accused of a crime—who cannot afford legal representation—are provided with a qualified defense,” a spokesperson for Utah County said in a statement.
The court named Kathryn Nester as Robinson’s counsel moving forward.
ShareTrump’s false assertion that London could introduce sharia law is ‘nonsense’, says UK’s Starmer in rare rebuke
Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer has rejected Donald Trump’s recent false assertion that there was a push to apply sharia law in London, calling it “nonsense” and defending London mayor Sadiq Khan in a rare criticism of the US president.
At the United Nations earlier this week, Trump delivered a blistering and sweeping criticism of immigration policies in Europe in which he singled out the UK capital, falsely claiming “now they want to go to sharia law” and calling Khan a “terrible, terrible mayor”.
“The idea of the introduction of sharia law is nonsense and Sadiq Khan is a very good man,” Starmer told ITV London. He added that there are few things he disagrees with Trump on, “but I’m very clear, this is one of them”.
Khan in 2016 became the first Muslim to be elected mayor of London. He has since won two more mayoral elections and has the largest personal mandate of any British politician, something Trump usually holds in high regard.
The US president’s comments this week were the latest in a long-running public feud between the two men that goes back to at least 2017, when Khan criticised Trump for pledging a travel ban on a number of majority-Muslim countries. Trump has called Khan “a nasty person” who has “done a terrible job” and rightwing commentators in the US have routinely attacked crime rates in London and the diversity of the capital’s population.
Trump’s surprise criticism of Britain on Tuesday was particularly jarring as it came only a week after he gushed about the US-UK relationship during his unprecedented second state visit, in which he was treated to the full array of British pageantry including a white-tie banquet at Windsor Castle hosted by King Charles.
Khan responded to Trump’s comments this week by accusing him of being “racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic”, and pointed to data that shows a record number of Americans are settling in Britain.
He said liberal US citizens identified with London because of the city’s “fundamental values, like adhering to the rule of law, being proud of our diversity and championing the rights of minority communities”.
Updated at 13.29 EDT
The Washington Post (paywall) is reporting that defense secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned hundreds of the US military’s generals and admirals from around the world to gather on short notice and without a stated reason at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week.
“Even top generals and their staffs don’t know the reason for the meeting,” according to the Post, “sowing confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year”.
ShareDOJ official pushes prosecutors to investigate George Soros’s foundation – report
In the latest instance of the US justice department moving against Donald Trump’s political enemies, the New York Times (paywall) reports that “a senior DOJ official has instructed more than a half-dozen US attorney’s offices to draft plans to investigate a group funded by George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor whom Trump has demanded be thrown in jail”.
Per the NYT report:
The official’s directive, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, goes as far as to list possible charges prosecutors could file, ranging from arson to material support of terrorism. The memo suggests department leaders are following orders from the president that specific people or groups be subject to criminal investigation – a major break from decades of past practice meant to insulate the justice department from political interference.
Trump has revisited his grievances with Democratic megadonor Soros, 95, in recent days, amid a backdrop of threatening to silence liberal and progressive individuals and groups in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk – which he has repeatedly blamed on the so-called “radical left”.
Last Friday he singled out Soros, a longtime backer of progressive causes and Democratic candidates, and his foundation, the Open Society Foundations which funds global democratic initiatives, telling Fox & Friends that “we’re going to look into Soros” for possible violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law. He also told NBC News Soros “should be put in jail”, adding: “He’s a bad guy.”
Per the NYT report:
[Soros’s foundation] provides grants to groups that work for human rights, democracy and equity, but Mr. Trump and some Republicans contend, without providing evidence, that it is a shadowy network promoting civil unrest, violent protests and property destruction. Liberals say the assertions are falsehoods aimed at stifling dissent.
Chad Gilmartin, a spokesperson for the justice department, defended the move to the NYT. “This D.O.J., along with our hard-working and dedicated U.S. attorneys, will always prioritize public safety and investigate organizations that conspire to commit acts of violence or other federal violations of law,” he said.
In a statement provided to the Guardian, the Open Society Foundations denounced the accusations as “politically motivated attacks on civil society, meant to silence speech the administration disagrees with and undermine the first amendment right to free speech.”
The organization said its work in the United States was “solely dedicated to strengthening democracy and upholding constitutional freedoms.” Saying it condemned terrorism and denying that it funded it, the group added, “Our activities are peaceful and lawful.”
Updated at 13.08 EDT
‘Radical left Democrats’ are causing increase in political violence, says Trump
During his brief media availability before his meeting with the president of Turkey, Donald Trump once again blamed “radical left” Democrats for the increase in political violence throughout the country, after yesterday’s shooting at an Ice facility in Dallas.
One detainee was killed, and two were severely injured in the attack. Notably, no federal agents were wounded. Department of Homeland Security officials said on Wednesday it was “an attack on Ice law enforcement”. At both today’s press conference and in a statement, law enforcement said that shell casings found near the shooter had “anti-Ice” messaging on them.
In the Oval Office today, Trump said that “the radical left is causing this problem, not the right”.
Updated at 12.38 EDT
I’ve been speaking with Carl Tobias, professor at University of Richmond School of Law, who told me that an indictment against Comey might be a more difficult hurdle to clear than the justice department realizes.
“Although federal prosecutors generally encounter little difficulty in securing an indictment from a grand jury, a Virginia federal grand jury, especially one in Richmond, where Comey is well respected and led the US Attorney office here, may complicate DoJ’s ability to secure an indictment,” Tobias said.
He added there is a general weakness in the case. The fact the previous US attorney for the district, Erik Siebert, found insufficient evidence to charge Comey, alongside Trump’s calls for attorney general Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey, who he proclaimed is “guilty as hell”, could taint the indictment and appear to be politically motivated.
Tobias noted that if the justice department is unsuccessful in securing the indictment, it may seek out other avenues to target Comey.
Updated at 14.05 EDT
Trump stays quiet about Comey indictment, calls former FBI director a ‘sick person’
The president said that he “didn’t know what was going to happen” with regard to reports of the imminent indictment of former FBI director James Comey.
“I can only say that Comey is a bad person. He’s a sick person. I think he’s a sick guy…he did terrible things at the FBI,” the president said, after praising Lindsey Halligan, the new US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia.
Trump appointed Halligan, a former White House staffer, after firing her predecessor, Erik Siebert, when he said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Comey.
ShareTrump blames government shutdown on Democrats, after White House memo tells agencies to prepare for layoffs
In response to a question about the circulated memo by the OMB to federal agencies, telling them to prepare for significant layoffs in the event of a government shutdown, Trump blames Democrats for any reduction-in-force.
“This is all caused by the Democrats. They asked us to do something that’s totally unreasonable. They never change,” the president said. “This is what Schumer wants. This is what the Democrats want.”
“With all of the heavy bombardment over the last two weeks, they’ve gained almost no land. Think of that. They’ve gained almost no land,” Donald Trump said of Russia’s most recent offensive in Ukraine. “I’m not going to ever call anybody a paper tiger, but Russia spent millions and millions of dollars in bombs, missiles, ammunition and lives, their lives, and they’ve gained virtually no land.”
Share‘We’re close to getting a deal done,’ Trump says on Gaza war
When asked whether Trump and Erdoğan are aligned on the war in Gaza, and foreign policy in the region, the US president said he “doesn’t know” what the leader of Turkey’s stance is.
However, he noted that his meeting with Arab leaders on Tuesday was successful, before repeating his insistence on the release of all Israeli hostages. “We want them all back, we want them back at one time,” Trump said.
Updated at 11.57 EDT
Trump says he wants Turkey to stop buying Russian oil
During his spray with reporters, Trump said: “I’d like to have him [Erdoğan] stop buying any oil from Russia, while Russia continues this rampage against Ukraine.”
The president repeated that the Russian economy is struggling due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. “It’s such a waste of human life, and so he ought to stop. Putin ought to stop,” Trump said.
Updated at 14.06 EDT
Trump begins meeting with Erdoğan
Speaking in front of reporters, Donald Trump describes his strong relationship with the president of Turkey.
“When I was in exile, we were still friends,” Trump said, referring to the four years after he lost the 2020 election to former president Joe Biden.
Trump said that Erdoğan has “built a tremendous military” and they buy a significant amount of weapons from the US.
“They want to buy F-16s, F-35s and some other things, and we’re going to talk to them about that,” Trump said. “We’re just going to have, I think, a very interesting couple of hours.”