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Trump faces criticism over to order to rebrand Pentagon as ‘Department of War’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics where opponents have criticised Donald Trump’s expected move to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “department of war”.
The president is expected to sign an executive order on Friday authorizing the rebrand, the White House said, as part of an attempt to formalize the name change without an act of Congress.
The order will designate “department of war” as a “secondary title”, an administration official said, as a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency.
But the order will instruct the rest of the executive branch to use the “department of war” name in internal and external communications, and allows the defense secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials to use “secretary of war” as official titles.
Trump and Hegseth have been publicly pushing for the rebrand for weeks, claiming the change would present the US military as more aggressive to the world by reverting to the name that was used when the US was victorious in the first and second world wars.
“Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was the Department of War,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week. “Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
The move could cost tens of millions of dollars, with letterheads and signs on buildings in the US and at bases worldwide possibly needing to be changed.
But there has been criticism over the move. Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth – a war veteran who lost both her legs serving in Afghanistan and who is now a member of the armed services committee – said:
Why not put this money toward supporting military families or toward employing diplomats that help prevent conflicts from starting in the first place?
Because Trump would rather use our military to score political points than to strengthen our national security and support our brave servicemembers and their families – that’s why
Stay with us for the latest on this story:
In other developments:
The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, fended off calls for his resignation and spread vaccine misinformation during a contentious Senate hearing.
Susan Monarez, the ousted CDC director, rejected Kennedy’s claim that she had lied about having been pressured to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from a panel of his anti-vaccine allies, and offered to repeat her claim under oath.
Trump hosted an array of tech industry leaders for dinner in the White House state dinning room on Thursday night, including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Sergey Brin, but his former first buddy, Elon Musk, was a notable absence.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to become New York City’s next mayor unless two of the three major candidates running against him drop out of the race. But the Republican didn’t say which two candidates he’d like to see quit.
Demolition to build president Trump’s new ballroom off the East Wing of the White House can begin without approval of the commission tasked with vetting construction of federal buildings, the Trump-appointed head of the panel said Thursday.
As Trump accuses Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook of criminal mortgage fraud, for allegedly obtaining more than one mortgage on a home designated as her primary residence, at least three members of his cabinet have multiple primary-residence mortgages, ProPublica reports.
The justice department has launched a criminal mortgage fraud inquiry into Cook and issued grand jury subpoenas out of both Georgia and Michigan.
New York’s attorney general moved to have the state’s highest court reinstate Trump’s staggering civil fraud penalty, appealing a lower court decision that slashed the potential half-billion dollar penalty to zero.
Key events
After Trump said earlier this week that he wanted two candidates to drop out of the New York City mayor’s race to create a one-on-one race against Zohran Mamdani, some of the president’s advisers have been trying to find a place for current mayor Eric Adams that would pull him out of his reelection campaign.
The New York Times reports that one option in the mix is nominating Adams as ambblockador to Saudi Arabia, citing people familiar with the discussions.
It’s not clear if Trump is directly involved in these conversations, the Times writes. An ambblockadorship also requires Senate confirmation, which could be difficult given Adams’ liabilities.
Steve Witkoff, a Trump adviser and billionaire, “has actively pursued the matter in recent days, meeting personally with Mr. Adams earlier this week in Florida and speaking with other people close to him,” the Times writes.
Chicago braces for Trump’s federal law enforcement deployment
Trump said this week he will be sending troops into Chicago, calling the Democrat-led city a “hellhole”. It would be the second US city to receive national guard troops after Trump declared a national crime emergency and deployed about 800 troops to Washington DC in August.
“We’re going in,” Trump said about Chicago. “I didn’t say when, [but] we’re going in.”
An advance team of at least 30 agents is currently undergoing crowd control and flash grenade training at Naval Station Great Lakes north of Chicago, and 230 agents, most of whom work for Customs and Border Protection, are being sent to Chicago from Los Angeles, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chicago leaders have pushed back on Trump’s views of the city. Chicago residents say the city’s immigrant communities are on edge. Illinois governor JB Pritzker has expressed concern that Ice agents will target Mexican Independence Day events this month, and a large festival planned for the day this weekend was postponed.
But there is a long history of organized resistance that will stand up to the Trump administration. “If you think of the civic action you’ve seen over history, whether that’s the Pullman strikes a century ago, or Haymarket, or the early union movement, or what we did in the civil rights movement, or the organizing for the Women’s March, Chicagoans are organized. So we aren’t helpless,” said Edwin Eisendrath, a former member of the Chicago city council.
As Trump readies to send federal agents into more cities run by Democrats, the takeover of the nation’s capital continues.
But, the Washington Post reports, Congress is not expected to vote to extend the Trump administration’s takeover of the DC police department. The temporary takeover is set to expire next week and would need a vote of Congress to continue.
The Post says that DC mayor Muriel Bowser’s cooperative tone “mollified” the White House. DC separately has sued to stop the National Guard deployment after a federal judge in California ruled that sending troops to Los Angeles was illegal. California Gov. Gavin Newsom also said the deployment there cost taxpayers nearly $120m, an example of “waste, fraud and abuse”.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s adviser, has led the DC operation, the Post reports in a separate piece, saying that the DC takeover was a signature piece of Trump’s domestic policy agenda and Miller is expected to be “involved for a long time”.
Trump’s legal woes mount as supreme court to rule on trade tariffs
Lucy Campbell
This week’s dramatic court ruling that Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs, which he has used to upend global trade, were in fact illegal is the latest in a series of losses for the president’s radical agenda that are ultimately heading for a final showdown in the US supreme court.
Trump has already asked the supreme court to overturn the lower court ruling in the tariffs case. Almost certain to follow are Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, his hostile conflict with Harvard University and his deployment of the national guard and marines to Los Angeles. All have been deemed unlawful in lower courts.
“It’s simple: the president and his administration continue to do illegal things at an astonishing pace, and so the courts are finding that these things are illegal,” said Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“The president is committed to pursuing his agenda regardless of whether it’s legal or not, and is seeing what he can get away with.”
The ultimate arbiter of that will be the supreme court, which is stacked 6-3 in favor of conservatives, many of whom Trump has appointed. The court has already dramatically limited the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions to pause Trump administration policies across the country.
Robert Tait
Washington DC on Thursday sued to stop Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops during the administration’s law enforcement intervention there.
The city’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, said the hundreds of troops were essentially an “involuntary military occupation”. He argued in the federal lawsuit that the deployment was an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
A federal judge in California recently ruled that Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Los Angeles after days of protests over immigration raids in June had been illegal. The Republican administration is appealing that decision and Trump has said he is ready to order federal intervention in Chicago and Baltimore, despite staunch opposition in those Democratic-led cities.
That ruling, however, does not directly apply to Washington, where the president has more control over the guard than in states.
About 2,300 troops from seven states have been deployed in the streets of the US capital since 11 August in a move that Schwalb says exceeds the president’s powers and violates the city’s autonomy, as enshrined in the Home Rule Act.
Boston readies for Ice’s offensive amid Trump’s onslaught on sanctuary cities
Anna Betts
Tensions between Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, and the Trump administration have been escalating in recent months over the administration’s aggressive immigration policies, with reports now signaling the possibility of a federal immigration enforcement surge in the city.
The friction came to a head last week when the Trump administration reportedly began preparing an “immigration enforcement blitz” for Boston in the coming weeks, according to Politico.
The report, which cited unnamed current and former administration officials, prompted a swift rebuke from Wu, who has in recent months become a vocal defender of sanctuary laws and immigrant protections.
“Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law – city, state and federal,” Wu said in a statement. “We are the safest major city in the country because all of our community members know that they are part of how we keep the entire community safe. Stop attacking cities to hide your administration’s failures.”
This standoff has been steadily building since March when Wu testified before Congress alongside three other Democratic mayors to defend their cities’ immigration policies – specifically so-called sanctuary city laws that limit state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Supporters of the laws, including local leaders and police chiefs in jurisdictions that have them, argue that these measures can help build trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement. Some studies have found that crime rates tend to be lower in sanctuary counties compared with those without such protections.
Critics of these policies claim that sanctuary laws undermine federal law enforcement’s ability to arrest and deport individuals with criminal records.
So-called “sanctuary cities” have become a central target of this Trump administration, as it pushes for mblock deportations as part of its crackdown on immigration. In June, Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, sent letters to 32 US mayors, including Wu, demanding they end their sanctuary policies or face cuts to federal funding and possible legal consequences.
US justice department opens criminal inquiry into Fed governor Lisa Cook
Lauren Aratani
The US justice department has initiated a criminal investigation into mortgage fraud claims against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook as a lawsuit she filed against Donald Trump over her firing makes its way through court.
Lawyers with the justice department have issued subpoenas for the investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal, who first reported the investigation, which has since been confirmed by multiple news publications.
Last month, Trump moved to fire Cook over unconfirmed claims that she listed two properties as her primary residence. Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing and Finance Agency and a close ally of Trump, alleged Cook had lied on bank doblockents and records to obtain a better mortgage rate.
Cook, a voting member of the Fed board that sets interest rates, said she has “no intention of being bullied to step down” and that she would “take any questions about my financial history seriously”.
In response to Trump’s bid to dismiss her, Cook filed a lawsuit against the president arguing that her removal was unconstitutional and threatened the independence of the Fed. Cook’s lawyers say the firing was “unprecedented and illegal” and that federal law requires showing “cause” for a Fed governor’s removal.
“An unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications submitted by Governor Cook prior to her Senate confirmation is not [cause],” her lawyers said in court doblockents.
Shrai Popat
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced the Senate finance committee in a tense and combative hearing on Thursday, during which lawmakers questioned his remarks expressing vaccine skepticism, claims that the scientific community is deeply politicized and the ongoing turmoil plaguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In a hearing lasting more than three hours and ostensibly about the Trump administration’s healthcare agenda, Kennedy defended his leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that his time at the agency will be focused on “unbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest”.
Senate Democrats on the committee began the hearing calling for Kennedy’s resignation. “Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is taking vaccines away from Americans,” ranking member Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon, said in his opening remarks. “People are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth in this effort. I hope the very least, Robert Kennedy has the decency to tell the truth this morning.”
Raphael Warnock, also a Democrat, called Kennedy a “hazard to the health of the American people”, repeating calls for him to step down or for Donald Trump to fire him.
Last week, Kennedy fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed to her position. She is now mounting a legal case challenging her removal.
Shortly after Monarez’s termination, several leading public health officials at the CDC resigned from their positions, citing frustration with Kennedy’s approach to vaccines and his management style.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to become New York City’s next mayor unless two of the three major candidates running against him drop out of the race.
But the Republican didn’t say which two candidates he’d like to see quit.
Trump said “No” when he was asked by a reporter on Thursday night if he’d urged or encouraged any of the candidates in the race to drop out, but went on to say he would like to see that happen.
“I don’t think you can win unless you have one-on-one, and somehow he’s gotten a little bit of a lead,” Trump said of Mamdani. “I have no idea how that happened.”
The president, who spoke as he hosted a dinner at the White House with tech executives, went on and said, “I would like to see two people drop out and have it be one-on-one, and I think that’s a race that could be won.”
Donald Trump hosted a high-powered group of tech executives at the White House on Thursday as he showcased research on artificial intelligence and boasted of investments that companies are making around the United States.
Trump has exulted in the attention from some of the world’s most successful businesspeople, while the companies are eager to remain on the good side of the mercurial president, AP reported.
While the executives praised Trump and talked about their hopes for technological advancement, the Republican president was focused on dollar signs. He went around the table and asked executives how much they were investing in the country.
Notably absent from the guest list was Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump who was tasked with running the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year.
US deploying 10 fighter jets to Puerto Rico for drug cartel fight, sources say
The US has ordered the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to a Puerto Rico airfield to conduct operations against drug cartels, two sources briefed on the matter said, in a move likely to further inflame tensions in the region.
The advanced fighter jets will be added to an already bristling US military presence in the southern Caribbean as president Donald Trump carries out a campaign pledge to crack down on groups he blames for funneling drugs into the United States, Reuters reported.
Friday’s development comes three days after US forces attacked a boat that Trump said was carrying “mblockive amounts of drugs” from Venezuela, killing 11 people. The strike appeared to set the stage for a sustained military campaign in Latin America.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 10 fighter jets are being sent to conduct operations against designated narco-terrorist organizations operating in the southern Caribbean. The planes should arrive in the area by late next week, they said.
The US has deployed warships in the southern Caribbean in recent weeks, with the aim of carrying out Trump’s crackdown.
Trump’s LA national guard deployment cost taxpayers $120m, Newsom says
Dani Anguiano
Donald Trump’s deployment of the national guard in Los Angeles in response to protests in the city over immigration raids cost taxpayers nearly $120m, the California governor’s office said on Thursday.
The US president sent 2,000 national guard troops into the city in June amid clashes between federal immigration agents and protesters. This week a judge ruled that dispatching the military to accompany authorities on immigration enforcement operations violated federal law.
More than 4,200 national guard soldiers and 700 marines were deployed in the region. Although relatively few blockisted with raids, the costs mounted – $71m for food and necessities, $37m in pay and $3.5m in travel, among other expenses, Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement.
About 300 troops remain in the city. Newsom described the move as “waste, fraud and abuse”.
“Let us not forget what this political theater is costing us all – millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain, an atrophy to the readiness of guardsmembers across the nation and unnecessary hardships to the families supporting those troops,” the governor said.
Meanwhile, Trump has grown increasingly pessimistic about the chance of brokering an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict anytime soon or seeing the leaders of the two countries meet in person, NBC News reported on Friday, citing two senior administration officials.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
It comes as Trump posted this morning on Truth Social that Russia had been “lost” to China. He wrote:
Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together! President Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump’s deal-making approach to diplomacy is “quite cynical”, but in a positive sense, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Friday.
In an interview with Russian news outlet Argumenty i Fakty, Peskov contrasted Trump’s position with that of European countries which, he said, were doing everything they could to hinder a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine.
“In contrast, Trump is much more constructive. He is, in the good sense of the word, quite cynical. In terms of ‘why fight if you can trade’. And based on these interests of America, he does everything to stop wars,” Peskov said.
He added that Russia would prefer to resolve the Ukraine conflict diplomatically rather than militarily. “And if Trump can help us in making these political and diplomatic means available, then our interests coincide here, and this can and should be welcomed.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Trump could meet again in the near future, Peskov added.
Trump faces criticism over to order to rebrand Pentagon as ‘Department of War’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics where opponents have criticised Donald Trump’s expected move to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “department of war”.
The president is expected to sign an executive order on Friday authorizing the rebrand, the White House said, as part of an attempt to formalize the name change without an act of Congress.
The order will designate “department of war” as a “secondary title”, an administration official said, as a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency.
But the order will instruct the rest of the executive branch to use the “department of war” name in internal and external communications, and allows the defense secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials to use “secretary of war” as official titles.
Trump and Hegseth have been publicly pushing for the rebrand for weeks, claiming the change would present the US military as more aggressive to the world by reverting to the name that was used when the US was victorious in the first and second world wars.
“Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was the Department of War,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week. “Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
The move could cost tens of millions of dollars, with letterheads and signs on buildings in the US and at bases worldwide possibly needing to be changed.
But there has been criticism over the move. Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth – a war veteran who lost both her legs serving in Afghanistan and who is now a member of the armed services committee – said:
Why not put this money toward supporting military families or toward employing diplomats that help prevent conflicts from starting in the first place?
Because Trump would rather use our military to score political points than to strengthen our national security and support our brave servicemembers and their families – that’s why
Stay with us for the latest on this story:
In other developments:
The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, fended off calls for his resignation and spread vaccine misinformation during a contentious Senate hearing.
Susan Monarez, the ousted CDC director, rejected Kennedy’s claim that she had lied about having been pressured to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from a panel of his anti-vaccine allies, and offered to repeat her claim under oath.
Trump hosted an array of tech industry leaders for dinner in the White House state dinning room on Thursday night, including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Sergey Brin, but his former first buddy, Elon Musk, was a notable absence.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to become New York City’s next mayor unless two of the three major candidates running against him drop out of the race. But the Republican didn’t say which two candidates he’d like to see quit.
Demolition to build president Trump’s new ballroom off the East Wing of the White House can begin without approval of the commission tasked with vetting construction of federal buildings, the Trump-appointed head of the panel said Thursday.
As Trump accuses Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook of criminal mortgage fraud, for allegedly obtaining more than one mortgage on a home designated as her primary residence, at least three members of his cabinet have multiple primary-residence mortgages, ProPublica reports.
The justice department has launched a criminal mortgage fraud inquiry into Cook and issued grand jury subpoenas out of both Georgia and Michigan.
New York’s attorney general moved to have the state’s highest court reinstate Trump’s staggering civil fraud penalty, appealing a lower court decision that slashed the potential half-billion dollar penalty to zero.
