Trump makes misleading claims about crime in ‘red cities’
When asked if the president would consider sending National Guard troops to ‘red cities’ that are experiencing high crime, Trump said that “there aren’t that many of them”.
He then said “if you look at the top 25 cities that the crime, just about every one of those cities is run by Democrats”. But according to a report by Rochester Institute of Technology, which analysed FBI data from 2024, two of the cities in the list of highest homicide rates have Republican mayors. And out of the 24 cities in that list, six states are led by GOP governors.
The president continued to repeat the false claim that it’s been “many years” since DC experienced seven days without a murder. City police data shows that as recently as July of this year, the capital experienced a week without a homicide. There have also been several earlier periods throughout 2025 without a murder in DC for more than a seven day stretch.
Key events
Trump says ‘conclusive’ ending to Israel-Hamas conflict in ‘two to three weeks’
The president said a short while ago that the US is sending $60m worth of food and aid to Gaza, as the humanitarian crisis in the region continues.
The president then said the end of the conflict is in sight, but offered few details to expand on his reasoning:
I think within the next two to three weeks, you’re going to have a pretty good, conclusive ending. It’s a hard thing to say, because they’ve been fighting for 1000s of years. You want to know that’s a that’s been a hotbed forever, but I think we’re doing a very good job. But it does have to it does have to end.
When Trump was asked about whether there was a “diplomatic push” to end the conflict, he simply punted to special envoy Steve Witkoff who also gave no further details, but offered vague and heaping praise on the president:
We wouldn’t be anywhere, but for the President’s truth [post] last week, which was a statement to Hamas that they better get their act together and get to the peace table. But for that, it would have been all stalled. So as usual, he is the man who moves it.
Trump adds that he has a “great relationship” with the North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un. “I have a very good relationship. I understand them. I spent a lot of free time with them, talking about things that we probably aren’t supposed to talk about.”
The president is now talking about how his 2016 election victory averted a nuclear war between North and South Korea.
I think you would have had a nuclear war. It would have taken place, and it would have been horrendous for everybody, including them. It would have been very bad for them, because we would have had to enter the picture, and we are the most powerful nuclear country in the world by far.
Trump reaffirms that he’d like Putin and Zelenskyy to meet first
The president is now taking questions from reporters, and says that he’d like for Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet first.
“I may be there. I may not. I’ll see but I wanted them to work out their differences first, because it is ultimately between them,” he adds. “This is a whole new form of war, but it’s a violent war, and there’s been nothing like this since the second world war. So we’ll see what happens over the next week or two.”
Earlier, I spoke with Democratic congressman Glenn Ivey, who represents the district in Maryland where Kilmar Ábrego García and his family live.
Ivey said that Ábrego García’s detention today was a “total abuse of power” by the Trump administration, and ultimately a tactic to save them from “being embarrassed” in court. “They know they don’t have the goods, they don’t have the evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the congressman added, referring to Ábrego García’s pending criminal case in Tennessee.
According to Ivey, Ábrego García’s case has also cut through the political noise among his constituents. “It’s been on the front burner for a lot of people in the district who don’t necessarily always pay attention to what’s going on in politics,” he said, recalling Donald Trump’s meeting with president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. The congressman recalled how Trump’s friendliness with the Salvadoran leader in the Oval Office earlier this year – particularly claims that “homegrown” US criminals would be sent to the country – jolted many in Ivey’s district. “I think folks know that that could be us. And so we need to try to nip this in the bud as fast as possible,” he added.
On the phone, the congressman was also convinced that his district’s motivation to decry Ábrego García’s detention is unlikely to dampen. “I think if they [the administration] are waiting for people to forget about it or get tired of it, they’ve gotten a big surprise on that front,” he said.
Trump told reporters that he and his South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung would have very serious discussions on trade.
So far Lee has praised Trump as a “peacemaker” and said the US president is “the only person who can solve the North Korean issue”.
Lee added that he hoped to expand cooperation with the US Non shipbuilding and other manufacturing sectors.
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.
