Attorney general Pam Bondi signaled a shift in President Trump's crackdown on urban crime, saying federal troops will head next to a "city who wants us there" instead of intervening in resistant Democratic cities.
Trump has repeatedly toyed with the idea of taking over Chicago, which has long been plagued with gang violence. But Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) have furiously pushed back on Trump's offer of assistance.
The Trump administration is now suggesting they will not waste time fighting with Democrats who refuse to be helped.
"They are a progressive city, and they don't want the president's help. That's on them," Bondi said of Chicago on Fox News Tuesday night. "Chicago should be begging Donald Trump for help to keep Chicago safe — yet they aren't. So we’re going to a city who wants us there."
Bondi did not say which city is next, but Trump has named Democrat-run New Orleans as another city that could use federal help with fighting crime.
Louisiana is a Republican-run state, and Trump has already said the governor, Jeff Landry, is receptive to Trump's crackdown.
According to Bondi, the feds have arrested over 2,310 people and seized over 225 guns in Washington, D.C. since Trump launched his takeover of the capital in August.
The city's police data shows that homicides have fallen 43% since the crackdown started, with violent crime dropping 18%.
The president touted his D.C. operation as a success during a rare stop at a restaurant in downtown D.C., where he teased a major announcement.
“We’re going to be announcing another city that we're going to very shortly. We’re working it out with the governor of a certain state that would love us to be there and the mayor of a certain city in the same state,” he said on Tuesday.
“We’ll announce it probably tomorrow," he added.
The takeover of D.C. expired Wednesday after Congress declined to renew it, but National Guard troops are expected to remain in the city for now.
While Bondi is pointing to a more limited federal presence in Chicago, immigration agents have started a new crackdown in the city in honor of a 20-year-old woman who was killed by an illegal alien in a hit-and-run accident.
Since beginning Operation Midway Blitz, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has arrested several criminal foreigners, including for offenses as sexually assaulting a child family member, rape, armed robbery, and domestic battery.
The cost of Barack Obama's presidential library is nearing $1 billion, according to financial records from the former president's own foundation.
The Obama Presidential Center has been mired in development for years, but it is proceeding despite intense local opposition in Chicago - with critics slamming the towering, grey structure as both ugly and a threat to the impoverished South Side community.
The center is slated to open in the spring, five years behind schedule and more than two times over budget.
Obama, a former "community organizer," touted the progress on his center in his foundation's annual financial disclosure.
"On the South Side of Chicago—just steps from where I began my own journey as a young organizer—we’re building something big. Not just in scale, but in spirit,” Obama said in an introductory note to the report. “The Center will be a place where young people can find their voice, where neighbors can gather and exchange ideas, and where people from every corner of the world can come to be inspired, empowered, and connected.”
According to the Obama Foundation, construction has now cost over $600 million, more than double the initial $300 million estimate.
The current final estimate is a staggering $850 million, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The project has faced years of delays and legal challenges. Angry locals say the center, situated in the middle of historic Jackson Park, is ruining the flow of the neighborhood and driving up rent.
"It looks like this big piece of rock that just landed here out of nowhere in what used to be a really nice landscape of trees and flowers," Ken Woodard, 39, a lawyer and father of six who grew up in the area told Daily Mail. "It's a monstrosity."
Obama's team is reportedly planning community tours to encourage locals to “begin to imagine how they will use and enjoy” the center.
Meanwhile, Obama's friends and allies are reaping a juicy profit, with top executives at the foundation receiving over $6 million, the Daily Mail reported.
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, who represents the area in city government, is an Obama supporter but she has concerns about how the project will impact the neighborhood.
"We're going to see rents go higher and we're going to see families displaced," she told the Daily Mail.
"Every time large development comes to communities, they displace the very people they say they want to improve it for," she added.
The Supreme Court has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) approval to detain suspected illegal aliens in Los Angeles on the basis of things like language and ethnicity, overruling a Biden judge who found that using those factors constitutes illegal racial profiling.
The court was split 6-3. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the conservative majority, which held that the lower court's restrictions went against "common sense."
“The interests of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement for questioning is ultimately an interest in evading the law,” Kavanaugh wrote. “That is not an especially weighty legal interest.”
Kavanaugh took a moment to rebuke district courts that attempt to control immigration policy, a trend that has frustrated the Trump administration a great deal.
"The Judiciary does not set immigration policy or decide enforcement priorities. It should come as no surprise that some Administrations may be more laissez-faire in enforcing immigration law, and other Administrations more strict," Kavanaugh said.
A judge appointed by President Biden, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, had ruled in July that agents in Los Angeles may not make stops based on any combination of the following elements: ethnicity, speaking Spanish, presence at certain locations such as pick-up sites for day labor, and the type of work a person does.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Frimpong's order, but the Supreme Court reversed, finding it imposed an unreasonable burden on immigration agents.
While ethnicity cannot be the sole determining factor, Kavanaugh said agents may consider it alongside things like location, place of employment, and the ability to speak English when deciding if there is "reasonable suspicion," which is the lowest evidentiary standard in policing.
Kavanaugh noted that Los Angeles has an "extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants", and that those illegal aliens tend to work in certain jobs that do not require paperwork, such as landscaping and agriculture.
Moreover, many are from Mexico or Central America, and often do not speak English. Taken together, these circumstances establish "reasonable suspicion" of illegal presence, he said.
Kavanaugh noted that "immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U. S. immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations," and that millions of illegal aliens entered the country during the Biden presidency alone.
"As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States,” he wrote.
Liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the high court, wrote a blistering dissent.
"We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job,” Sotomayor writes. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
President Trump was greeted with cheers and jeers in his hometown of Queens, New York on Sunday during his appearance at the U.S. Open final, where he became the second U.S. president in history to attend the event.
Leftist media outlets rated the crowd's reaction as mostly negative. A pool report from the Independent completely failed to mention that Trump received cheers at all.
"Sgt. Maj. Carla Loy stepped out and began the anthem at 2:31 p.m,” the report said. “Trump’s face appeared on the big screen at 2:32 p.m. in the stadium, promoting a wave of boos during the anthem.”
Trump was shown twice on the stadium's screens during Sunday's match at Arthur Ashe Stadium, eliciting strong reactions from inside the 24,000-seat venue, one of the largest in tennis.
The president was joined by members of his inner circle Sunday, including attorney general Pam Bondi, special envoy Steve Witkoff, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
Trump was first shown on the big screens during the National Anthem, as he saluted to a mix of boos and applause.
Before the match ended, Trump was also seen tossing signed MAGA hats to supporters of his and cheering for Carlos Alcaraz, who beat Jannik Sinner in four sets.
The White House ripped "Fake News" reports that suggested Trump was not welcome.
“All these Fake News Losers do is lie because their pea-sized brains have been irreversibly destroyed by TDS,” the White House's Rapid Response account wrote in reply to the pool report. “This is how it aired on TV. Note the cheers.”
The president has made a regular habit of attending major sporting events, where his presence invariably becomes its own spectacle.
Trump's attendance at Sunday's match marked the first time he has been to the U.S. Open in a decade.
Despite the negativity from some spectators at Sunday's match, Trump had a warm response when asked about it on his return to Washington D.C.
“They were really nice — the fans were really nice. I didn’t know what to expect,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “Usually, you would say that would be a somewhat-progressive — as they say nowadays — crowd.”
“But they were great. The fans were great,” he added.
It has been confirmed that Trump will host a UFC cage fight on the lawn of the White House next year. The over-the-top display is bound to send Trump's critics into hysterics.
The Jeffrey Epstein situation continues to remain interesting with new twists and turns by the week, it seems. That was especially the case this week after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) raised new questions about President Donald Trump's involvement with Epstein.
According to the Daily Mail, while speaking to reporters about the situation, Speaker Johnson seemed to suggest that Trump once worked as an FBI informant regarding his relationship with the convicted child sex-trafficker.
Johnson made the comments in the halls of Congress this week after a CNN reporter pressed him on why the president continues to call the Epstein situation a Democrat-led "hoax."
Johnson's comments regarding Trump's possible role as an "FBI informant" sparked immediate questions.
What's happening?
The Republican House speaker attempted to explain the president's take on the Epstein situation, which has proven to be a challenge for his administration.
"What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him," Johnson said.
He added, "I’ve talked to him about this many times, many times. He is horrified. It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself."
That's when he dropped the potential bombshell regarding the president's alleged former role as an FBI informant.
"When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down," Johnson said.
Ever since the president's Department of Justice concluded that there was no conspiracies behind Epstein's death or some kind of secret "file" filled with the names of celebrities and power players, the president has essentially downplayed the entire situation.
On more than one occasion, Trump has written it off as a "hoax."
"From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president," Trump said recently.
The MAGA base hasn't been thrilled with the administration's seeming lack of interest in the matter.
Only time will tell if Johnson accidentally let something slip as far as Trump's possible former role as an FBI informant.
President Donald Trump and his administration have been forced to turn to the U.S. Supreme Court probably more often then they had anticipated when they took over the White House earlier this year.
According to Newsweek, the high court received its latest emergency request from the White House, this time revolving around the attempted termination of a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Earlier this year, the president tried to fire Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, and the issue was immediately litigated.
On Tuesday, a lower court finally weighed in on the matter and, as usual, gave the Trump administration bad news.
The lower court ruled against the Trump administration having the authority to fire Slaughter, "ruling that commissioners can only be removed for reasons such as misconduct or neglect of duty."
Newsweek noted:
The lower court ordered her reinstated by finding that statutory protections limit removal to causes such as "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." Both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and district courts have issued rulings in the dispute.
Trump's Department of Justice has argued that such firings fall within the authority of the president, insisting that Trump has the ability to fire commissioners "at will."
However, lower courts have not agreed, and the rulings have forced Trump and the White House to seek relief at the highest level -- the Supreme Court, which they've had to do multiple times in similar situations.
Trump has had a great success record with emergency requests filed with the high court on such issues.
Depending on how the high court rules in this case, it could have broader implications as far as presidential authority is concerned.
Newsweek noted:
If the Court does rule for the administration, presidents could gain broader authority to remove members of multimember agencies, reshaping enforcement across multiple policy areas. If the Court upholds the lower-court rulings, existing statutory shields for independent agencies would remain intact.
Earlier this year, when Trump announced the firing, several high-profile Democrats were triggered, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
"Donald Trump just illegally fired two independent commissioners at the FTC who fight big corporations that abuse consumers and workers. Why? Trump's billionaire donors expect a return on their investment. He works for them, not you. The courts must reinstate the commissioners," she wrote at the time on X.
Social media users were quick to respond to Warren at the time.
"Sounds like something you would have said 8 years ago. Trump did nothing illegal and he is not aligned with billionaires against workers and consumers. Your analogy is grossly simplistic outdated and nauseatingly repetitious!" one X user wrote.
President Donald Trump is defending Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after a contentious Senate hearing where he was pressured to resign by Democrats and even faced criticism from some Republicans over his leadership at the Health and Human Services Department.
Thursday's Senate hearing of the Finance Committee was guaranteed to be explosive after Kennedy fired the director of the CDC, Susan Monarez, who accused Kennedy in an op-ed of pressuring her to rubber-stamp anti-vaccine policies, a charge Kennedy rejected by calling her a liar.
As expected, Democrats painted Kennedy as a menace to public health, accusing him of undermining access to vaccines for deadly diseases and putting children in danger.
"I don't see any evidence that you have any regrets about anything you've done or plans to change it," said ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR). "And my last comment is, I hope that you will tell the American people how many preventable child deaths are an acceptable sacrifice for enacting an agenda that I think is fundamentally cruel and defies common sense."
Kennedy was defiant throughout, blasting his critics as liars and shills for big pharmaceutical companies.
While it was no surprise to see Democrats dogpile Kennedy, he also faced scrutiny from a handful of Republicans who expressed concern about the extent of his plans to shake up public health policy, particularly on vaccines.
“In your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” said Republican Sen. John Barrasso (WY) “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (LA), who was a key vote to confirm Kennedy to his role, accused Kennedy of "effectively" taking away COVID vaccines, which had been available on a walk-in basis at most pharmacies.
Kennedy insisted that anyone who wants a COVID shot can still get one despite new FDA rules that may require healthy people under 65 to get a doctor's prescription first. The insurance landscape is also unclear because insurance companies follow the recommendations of an influential CDC panel whose members Kennedy purged and replaced, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
During a shouting match with Michael Bennet (D-CO), Kennedy said he does not "anticipate" any changes to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine at ACIP's upcoming meeting. Kennedy said he agrees with an ACIP official he handpicked who called the COVID mRNA shots dangerous, especially for young people.
"Senator -- senator -- are you saying the mRNA vaccine has never been associated with myocarditis or pericarditis?" Kennedy asked Bennet.
While casting doubt on the safety of the COVID shots, Kennedy agreed that Trump should get the Nobel Prize for developing them through Operation Warp Speed. Trump's role in developing the shots has long been controversial with his own base, and the president recently called on Big Pharma to "justify" the success of COVID drugs.
When asked about Kennedy's combative performance, Trump said he did not watch it, but he appreciates that Kennedy is "different."
"He means very well. And he's got some little different ideas. I guarantee a lot of the people at this table like RFK Jr., and I do, but he's got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes," the president said.
"But I heard he did very well today," Trump added. "It's not your standard talk. I would say that, and that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what's going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he's different."
Never-before-seen footage from outside Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell has been released after Pam Bondi said the minute of tape went "missing."
While the "missing minute" appears to contain nothing remarkable, it is not yet clear why it was not included with 11 hours of footage the Justice Department released in July to prove that nobody except Epstein entered his cell before he died.
The new video was included with an evidence dump containing over 33,000 pages that the House Oversight Committee shared on Tuesday.
The "missing" footage depicts the common area in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) of Epstein's jail, the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
The new video appears to show Epstein being escorted to a shower stall to make an unmonitored phone call around 7 p.m., CBS reported.
Roughly an hour later, Epstein is seen returning to his cell, although the staircase to his cell block is only partly visible. The "missing minute" from 11:59 p.m. to midnight appears to be uneventful. Epstein was found dead the next morning.
Bondi had previously explained that the video went "missing" because of a routine process at Epstein's jail.
"There was a minute that was off that counter, and what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year, every night, they redo that video," Bondi told reporters. "Every night is reset, so every night should have that same missing minute."
Negligence and other problems within the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) have long been cited by the government as factors in Epstein's shocking death.
Epstein was not being monitored properly just before he died, despite a previous suicide attempt at the jail. The government later said it lost surveillance footage from outside his cell during the attempt.
Because of a security camera malfunction, video was only recorded on one surveillance camera inside the Special Housing Unit on the night Epstein died.
Since Attorney General Bill Barr was in charge, the Justice Department has said the limited footage proves that Epstein killed himself, a finding Bondi officially backed in a controversial memo this summer. The DOJ also said there is no evidence that Epstein possessed an incriminating "client list" of powerful figures.
Bondi's conclusions, and the DOJ's refusal to release the complete Epstein files, sparked a right-wing backlash that has largely quieted, although a handful of Republicans have continued to press the issue, joining Democrats who have accused Bondi and President Trump of a nefarious cover-up.
The House Oversight Committee's 33,000-page release has been dismissed by Democrats as a ruse, as most of the material was previously public.
Iowa Republican Joni Ernst is retiring from the Senate after little over a decade.
In a statement, Ernst confirmed that she will not seek re-election in the 2026 midterm elections, handing Democrats a longshot opportunity to gain a seat in the Senate.
Ernst would have likely won another term, but Republicans are still favored to keep her seat in the former swing state, which has turned reliably Republican in the Trump era.
An occasional critic of President Trump, Ernst is the first woman elected to Congress from Iowa and the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate.
The Iraq vet was the fourth highest-ranking member of Senate Republican leadership. A prominent war hawk, she played a role in confirming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after initially casting doubt on him.
The news of Ernst's decision has Democrats beating their chests as they hope to regain Senate control from Republicans, who won a narrow majority in 2024.
“Donald Trump and Senate Republicans’ devastating agenda has put their majority in jeopardy,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Ny.) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-Ny.) said in a joint statement Tuesday.
“Democrats are in a strong position to win seats and continue fighting for working families.”
Ernst's retirement announcement came after various publications reported that she was planning to step aside. She won re-election once, in 2020, defeating her Democratic opponent by 7 points.
Iowa Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson has already declared her candidacy for Ernst's job. Former state Sen. Jim Carlin and veteran Joshua Smith had previously entered the primary to challenge Ernst.
"I’m all in,’’ Hinson posted on X. “As Iowa’s next Senator, I will stop at nothing to Make America Great!”
Some Democrats who are vying for the seat include state Sen. Zach Wahls, state Rep. Josh Turek, Jackie Norris, chair of the Des Moines School Board, and Nathan Sage, a former chamber of commerce president.
Ernst came under scrutiny earlier this year for her flat-footed response to a constituent who asked about Medicaid cuts, with Ernst commenting, "Well, we’re all going to die.”
Democrats have seized on Ernst's reply to attack Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," which is expected to weigh heavily in the midterm elections.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley (R), the oldest member of Congress, said it was an "honor" working with Ernst.
"Whatever she chooses to do in her next chapter, they will be lucky to have this outstanding leader on the team,” he added.
The White House marked Labor Day by celebrating job growth and wage gains for Americans, slapping back at critics who paint a more pessimistic picture of the Trump economy.
“As Americans across the nation mark Labor Day, President Trump stands as the champion of the American Worker,” the White House said.
The White House credited Trump with a "private sector boom," with half a million jobs added and small business optimism on the rise as government payrolls decline from Trump's sweeping downsizing efforts.
The administration touted continuous real wage gains since Trump's inauguration in January, including a 1.4% inflation-adjusted increase among blue-collar workers over the past year.
According to preliminary government data shared on Monday, 1.2 million foreigners have exited the labor force since President Trump returned to the White House and launched his immigration crackdown.
The stunning figure is just one sign of how Trump is reshaping the economy to prioritize American workers, who have long been forced to compete with a glut of cheap, foreign labor.
Trump's critics have pointed to signs of a slowing jobs market, but the White House notes that American workers have accounted for all net job growth since January.
Employment among native-born Americans has gone up 2.4 million, while foreign employment has decreased, a stark shift after immigration hit all-time highs under Trump's predecessor.
Trump's trade policies are also "leveling the playing field" for American workers, the administration said, citing $8 trillion in new corporate investment in American production, although the long-term impact of those commitments remains unclear.
So far, Trump's tariffs have not resulted in a surge in prices as many economists predicted, with gas prices hitting five-year lows over the Labor Day weekend.
The economy is sure to weigh heavily in next year's midterm elections. Trump and his Republican allies have started selling his Big, Beautiful Bill as a victory for workers, citing tax savings for the middle-class and workers who rely on tip income.
The administration is preparing a list of professions that qualify for Trump's tax cut on tips - with workers in industries like hospitality, entertainment, and food service expected to benefit.
Despite improvements for American workers, steep economic challenges remain, with housing costs at all-time highs. Trump is considering declaring a national emergency to address the housing crisis, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
"We're trying to figure out what we can do, and we don't want to step into the business of states, counties and municipal governments," Bessent said. "I think everything is on the table."