Key events
White House ups federal law enforcement at tourist hot spots in Washington, DC
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines from the day.
There will be increased presence of federal law enforcement in Washington DC, the White House announced yesterday, to combat crime for at least the next week.
It comes amid Donald Trump’s suggestions that his administration could fully take over running the city, Associated Press reports.
“Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens.”
She added that the increased federal presence means “there will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in DC”.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining — but could face steep push back.
“We have a capital that’s very unsafe,” Trump told reporters at the White House this week. “We have to run DC.”
Trump’s intervention follows an alleged attack on on a federal employee who worked for the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).
In other developments:
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Vice-president JD Vance kicks off a trip in the United Kingdom with a meeting with British foreign secretary David Lammy on Friday that will bring renewed scrutiny of Vance’s sharp criticism of Britain and its governing Labour party. Vance, his wife, Usha, and their three young children are expected to land in London at the start of a trip that includes staying with Lammy at Chevening, the country residence used by the foreign minister.
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The Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and state house speaker Dustin Burrows have filed a lawsuit in Illinois to enforce arrest warrants against Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to block Republicans from enacting a gerrymandered congressional map that would likely add five more Republican seats before next year’s midterm elections. The civil petition was filed in an Adams county, Illinois, circuit court, about a four and a half hour drive from Chicago. More than 30 Texas Democratic members are named in the suit.
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The Trump administration is doubling to $50 million a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine. “Under president Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday in a video announcing the reward.
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Israel’s political-security cabinet approved a plan early on Friday to take control of Gaza City, a move expanding military operations despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating, almost two-year-old war. Far-right allies in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have been pushing for a total takeover of Gaza as part of his vow to eradicate Hamas militants, though the military has warned this could jeopardise the lives of remaining hostages.
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President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran to serve out the final few months of a newly vacant seat at the Federal Reserve while the White House seeks a permanent addition to the central bank’s governing board and continues its search for a new Fed chair. Miran, who has called for a complete overhaul of the Fed’s governance, will take over from Fed Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University.
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Donald Trump will announce a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday 8 August, according to reports from both Reuters and CBS News. The respective leaders of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan, will attend events at the White House tomorrow, despite decades-long tension between the two countries.
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Donald Trump has said he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin despite the Russian leader’s refusal to meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dispelling speculation that direct talks between the two warring presidents were a precondition to a high-level US-Russia summit. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said that Putin did not have to meet with Zelenskyy first before the US and Russian presidents could meet.
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Donald Trump has called on Intel’s chief executive to resign, alleging Lip-Bu Tan had ties to the Chinese Communist party, sending the stock of the US chipmaker falling. “The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted on Truth Social about Tan. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”.
