Trump says at marathon Cabinet meeting he wants death penalty for murderers in D.C.

Iowa Democrats scored a significant victory today by flipping a Republican seat in a special election and breaking the GOP supermajority in the state Senate.

Catelin Drey won the Sioux City-area district with 55% of the vote to Republican opponent Christopher Prosch’s 44%, according to unofficial results with all precincts reporting.

Democrats will now hold 17 seats in the Senate, compared with 33 for Republicans, breaking the GOP’s two-thirds supermajority.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin celebrated Drey’s victory in a district won by Trump last year.

Read the full story here.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said today that a bilateral meeting between Ukraine and Russia could still happen even though neither side has presented any concrete details of where or when such a meeting could take place.

“I’m meeting with the Ukrainians this week. So I will be meeting with them this week in New York. And that’s a big signal. We talk to the Russians every day. I think that we may end up seeing a bilateral meeting,” Witkoff told Fox News’ Bret Baier. “My own opinion is, is that the president is going need, going to be needed at the table to finish a deal.”

Trump has said he is unsure whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet soon. “I don’t know that they’ll meet — maybe they will, maybe they won’t,” Trump said yesterday at the White House during an Oval Office meeting with South Korean leader Lee Jae-myung.

One of the main sticking points in talks between the two countries has been the issue of Ukraine’s potentially ceding land to Russia, which Witkoff said had come up in talks with Russia. “The Russians have put a peace proposal on the table. It involves Donetsk. It may not be, it may not be something that the Ukrainians can take,” he said.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected the possibility of giving land over to Russia.

Bill Gates visited the White House this afternoon for a scheduled meeting with Trump, a senior White House official told NBC News.

A spokesperson for Gates later told NBC News that the two met to discuss the importance of U.S. global health programs.

“Bill met with the president to discuss the importance of U.S. global health programs and health research that is necessary to save lives, protect Americans’ health, and preserve U.S. leadership in the world,” the spokesperson said.

Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation committed $2.5 billion to women’s health across the globe.

The Trump administration’s new pick for co-deputy director of the FBI, Andrew Bailey, brings more legal and managerial experience than current Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Bailey, who was resoundingly re-elected as Missouri’s attorney general last fall, says his focus is on “enforcing the laws as written” and “protecting the Constitution.”

But a top Senate Democrat and other critics say that Bailey’s two-year tenure as Missouri’s attorney general was overly political and that he has a track record of aiding Trump politically while in office.

“President Trump is appointing a partisan politician,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement to NBC News. “Mr. Bailey is another Trump loyalist who has continuously peddled the ‘Big Lie,’ that the 2020 election was stolen.”

“This appointment further proves President Trump will stop at nothing to politicize and weaponize the federal government’s most prestigious and powerful law-enforcement agency to protect his allies and punish his critics,” he said.

Read the full story here.

In the neighborhood where Washington saw its first homicide in nearly two weeks early today, residents are divided over the value of Trump’s surge of federal law enforcement forces into the city.

NBC News talked to more than a dozen people today who live and work in the area surrounding the 300 block of Anacostia Road in Southeast D.C., where, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, city officers had responded to a fatal shooting shortly after midnight. It was the first homicide reported in D.C. since Aug. 13.

This afternoon, after schools had let out for the day, more than a half-dozen children loitered on the front steps of an apartment complex on the block where the shooting occurred.

The local response to Trump’s “federal takeover” of D.C. was mixed, with some crediting him for taking an active interest in public safety in the city and others criticizing him for a buildup they described as unnecessary or aimed at the wrong parts of the city.

Read the full story here.

Trump congratulated Cracker Barrel on social media tonight for returning to its "Old Timer" logo after it faced criticism and a plummeting stock value when it unveiled a new logo design last week.

"Congratulations 'Cracker Barrel' on changing your logo back to what it was," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "All of your fans very much appreciate it. Good luck into the future. Make lots of money and, most importantly, make your customers happy again!"

Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill had criticized the logo's redesign, which omitted a character known as “Uncle Herschel” who leaned against a barrel. Earlier today, Trump urged the company to "go back to the old logo."

Deputy White House chief of staff Taylor Budowich said Cracker Barrel thanked Trump during a call this evening for weighing in. "They wanted the President to know that they heard him," Budowich wrote on X.

When National Guard troops were deployed here this month, Trump promised that they would fight crime and make the streets safe again. But in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, the takeover has created a real sense of terror for immigrants, who say they feel they are being racially targeted and living in a dystopian version of the city they love.

Immigrants and immigration advocates told NBC News that the federal takeover of the nation’s capital two weeks ago has left vibrant communities and businesses “deserted.” Both naturalized citizens and those who are in the country illegally said there is a palpable sense of fear now. People are afraid to go grocery shopping, show up at work and go about their daily lives, they said.

Margarita, a 38-year-old mother of four, is an undocumented immigrant who came to the United States from El Salvador. She opened a Latino restaurant this year and said half of her employees are too terrified to come to work.

One employee came in with tears streaming down his face after he witnessed an arrest and “how they mistreated people in front of his face,” she said in Spanish.

Read the full story here.

The NAACP sued Texas today over the electoral map Republicans in the Legislature passed this month with the aim of providing the GOP five additional congressional seats.

"These maps are an affront to Texas’s voters of color," attorneys wrote on behalf of the civil rights group in a complaint filed in federal court in El Paso. "This Court should throw out these three plans and order a redrawing of the plans so as to cure the racially discriminatory intent that infects all three plans and to restore the voting strength legally due to Black voters and other voters of color in Texas."

Attorneys representing the NAACP urged the court to bar the state from using the maps, which they contended violated the U.S. Constitution's 14th and 15th Amendments and the Voting Rights Act.

“The state of Texas is only 40 percent white, but white voters control over 73 percent of the state’s congressional seats,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement today. “It’s quite obvious that Texas’s effort to redistrict mid-decade, before next year’s midterm elections, is racially motivated. The state’s intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that, in and of itself, is unconstitutional.”

The NAACP has also urged blue states like California and New York to begin redistricting to counter the new maps in Texas.

The Democratic National Committee next month will start the process for considering the order in which state primaries will take place for the 2028 election.

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee announced today that it will meet in September to formally launch a process for states to apply to be part of the early state presidential primary calendar. DNC Chair Ken Martin said that Democrats would hear pitches from various states and that the process would take them into the spring.

“We’re planning for meetings throughout the fall and winter and through the spring to make sure that we have a rigorous, effective and fair calendar process,” Martin said. “We need this process to give us the strongest possible candidate, a candidate that’s battle tested to win and ready to lead America forward.”

Under former President Joe Biden, Democrats removed Iowa and New Hampshire as early states, instead opting to put South Carolina first in the nomination calendar. That order could change again.

James Fishback, a Trump-aligned investor, said he has been “working behind the scenes” to help expedite Cook’s removal as a Federal Reserve governor.

He said he sent a memo Friday afternoon to Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the White House laying out why Trump could move to immediately fire Cook.

“The memo laid out the legal justification for firing Lisa Cook, not waiting for an indictment, not waiting, of course, for a conviction, but the circumstances right then, right there, allowed the president of the United States to dismiss her,” he said in an interview. “We made that case in an eight-page memo."

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on E.J. Antoni’s nomination to be the new commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a committee spokesperson said today.

The group Friends of BLS, which is led by former BLS leaders and economic experts, called this month for the HELP Committee to hold a confirmation hearing and press Antoni about his qualifications, urging it to follow “time-tested, nonpolitical guidelines" to restore public trust in the BLS.

A confirmation hearing is not required for BLS commissioner nominees.

The timing of Antoni's hearing has not yet been determined, a committee spokesperson said.

Trump brushed off concerns about Russia's willingness to sign a peace deal with Ukraine after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said President Vladimir Putin couldn't sign a peace deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy because Moscow views his presidency as illegitimate.

"It doesn't matter what they say, everybody's posturing. It's all bull----, OK? Everybody's posturing," Trump told reporters when he was asked about Lavrov's comments at today's marathon Cabinet meeting.

Lavrov said in a recent "Meet the Press" interview that Putin didn't recognize Zelenskyy as the legitimate president of Ukraine, which would complicate any efforts to sign a peace deal.

The Department of Government Efficiency put the personal data of millions of people, including Social Security numbers, on a vulnerable server in June, according to a new whistleblower complaint.

The report, filed by the chief data officer for the Social Security Administration, Charles Borges, alleges that the actions of multiple DOGE staffers “constitute violations of laws, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross mismanagement and creation of a substantial and specific threat to public health and safety.”

Borges’ complaint accuses SSA Chief Information Officer Aram Moghaddassi, a longtime ally of Elon Musk, of violating agency policies to “create a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment that circumvents oversight,” in violation of multiple federal statutes.

The file contains identifying information of more than 300 million people, according to the complaint, including records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government and sensitive details required to apply for them — making it a gold mine for potential nefarious actors.

Read the full story here.

Trump asserted during today's Cabinet meeting that his authority as commander in chief has no limits when it comes to deploying the National Guard.

He was responding to a reporter's question about Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's urging “nonviolent resistance” amid reporting that Trump is considering dispatching troops in Chicago, which he referred to as a “hell hole.”

"Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it. No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties," Trump said.

Attorneys for Trump and his sons filed a legal notice today in New York that they're appealing part of the ruling that did away with a $500 million penalty against them but preserved restrictions on their company. Trump is not appealing the part of the ruling that struck down the fine.

The notice says Trump plans to appeal the parts of the state Appellate Division ruling that upheld rulings by Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against the Trumps and the Trump Organization.

The compromise ruling by the divided midlevel appeals court upheld Engoron's fraud ruling and appointment of a monitor to "prevent future malfeasance" by the company while doing away with the "excessive" fines he handed down.

James said last week that she is also appealing the ruling to the high court, the Court of Appeals in Albany.

After a three-month trial, in which attorneys for then-Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey said it was his wife, Nadine, who was to blame for the cash and gold found in their Englewood Cliffs home, Menendez appears to be having a change of heart.

In a letter addressed to U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ahead of Nadine Menendez’s Sept. 11 sentencing, Bob Menendez wrote that he regrets that she was painted as money-hungry during his trial.

Read the full story here.

Trump's hourslong Cabinet meeting today was his longest public event as president, across both terms in office.

The meeting lasted 3 hours and 17 minutes.

Trump’s latest comments about allowing hundreds of thousands of Chinese international students into the United States have drawn criticism from some of the most outspoken members of the Republican Party.

Ahead of his meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the White House yesterday, Trump told reporters that he plans to allow 600,000 Chinese students into the country — a figure more than double the number in the United States now.

“We’re going to get along good with China. I hear so many stories about ‘We’re not going to allow their students’” to come in, Trump said. “We’re going to allow, it’s very important, 600,000 students. It’s very important.”

Read the full story here.

Trump's meeting with Cabinet officials and White House reporters has ended after about 3¼ hours.

In a new statement, the Federal Reserve addressed Trump's effort to remove governor Lisa Cook.

"Lisa Cook has indicated through her personal attorney that she will promptly challenge this action in court and seek a judicial decision that would confirm her ability to continue to fulfill her responsibilities as a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System," the statement said.

The central bank said it "will continue to carry out its duties as established by law."

Earlier today, Cook's attorney said he would sue the administration after Trump said he would remove her from her role because of accusations of mortgage fraud.

Asked by a reporter about the Fed's statement, Trump said he would also abide by any court ruling.

The Cabinet meeting at the White House has now lasted for more than three hours as Trump takes questions from reporters following the roundtable with his top officials.

Trump said at his Cabinet meeting today that he wants to rebrand his “one big, beautiful bill” after he persuaded Republicans to call it that.

The legislation remains unpopular in polls, including a recent Pew Research Center poll, with the parties agreeing it will be a major issue in the 2026 midterm elections.

“Last month, in a landmark achievement, I also proudly signed the largest working-class tax cuts in American history. So the bill that — I’m not going to use the term ‘great, big, beautiful’ — that was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about,” Trump said. “It’s a massive tax cut for the middle class.”

Read the full story here.

Trump said today that his administration will seek the reinstatement of the death penalty for murder cases in the nation’s capital, a policy that he has wanted to expand nationwide.

“If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we’re going to be seeking the death penalty,” Trump said during a lengthy Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Trump suggested that such a policy would potentially deter people from committing murder, saying that capital punishment is a “very strong preventative.”

Read the full story here.

Trump on Swift and Kelce engagement: 'I wish them a lot of luck'

00:22

Trump has apparently warmed to pop star Taylor Swift, whom the president just weeks ago said was “NO LONGER HOT," reiterating that he "can’t stand her (HATE!)."

Asked by a White House reporter to weigh in on the engagement announcement today by Swift on Instagram to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, Trump said that he is a "great" football player and thinks he's a "great guy."

He added, "I think that she's a terrific person. So I wish them a lot of luck."

The president has repeatedly bashed Swift, especially since she endorsed Kamala Harris last year for president.

Rubio jokes about having 'most meaningful Labor Day' as he holds 'four jobs'

00:22

Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined in on praising the president before poking a little fun at himself.

"You were elected as the president of working Americans, and that's why this Labor Day is so meaningful," Rubio said.

"For me personally, this is the most meaningful Labor Day of my life — as someone with four jobs," he added to laughter from his fellow Cabinet members and a smile from Trump.

"It's true," the president said.

In addition to his role as the country's top diplomat, Trump has named Rubio his national security adviser and acting head of both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Attorneys for former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith are urging the Office of Special Counsel to drop its reported investigation into him, saying it's centered on "baseless allegations."

"Although you have not reached out to us to discuss these allegations, we welcome the opportunity to engage with your office and are confident that as you become familiar with the facts and the record, you will conclude that there is no basis to find a violation of the Hatch Act and that these allegations are wholly without merit," the letter says.

"Mr. Smith’s actions as Special Counsel were consistent with the decisions of a prosecutor who has devoted his career to following the facts and the law, without fear or favor and without regard for the political consequences, not because of them."

NBC News confirmed earlier this month the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, was investigating Smith for alleged violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits certain political activities by government officials.

The investigation was launched after Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., requested OSC investigate Smith for “unprecedented interference in the 2024 election” with his dual prosecutions of the then-former president on criminal charges involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of sensitive documents after he left the White House. Trump denied any wrongdoing.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking during the ongoing Cabinet meeting, told Trump that "inflation has plummeted to just 1.9% since you took office."

However, inflation is currently at 2.7%, according to BLS data. That figure has risen for three straight months. It had fallen from 3% in January to 2.3% in April, when Trump announced his sweeping tariffs. 

The Cabinet meeting is still going more than two hours after it began.

The majority of the meeting that is taking place before journalists has consisted of Trump praising himself and the Cabinet's work and Cabinet officials praising the president.

After Trump's initial remarks, he has asked secretaries to speak. The officials took turns touting their accomplishments while lavishing praise on Trump.

"You have saved this country by making it the best place in the world to do business again," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins kicked off her remarks with crediting Trump with "saving college football."

Later, she compared Trump's presidency with another revolution. "I do believe we're in a revolution. 1776 was the first one, 1863 or so with Abraham Lincoln was the second. This is the third, with Donald Trump leading the way," she said. "And we are saving America."

Democratic National Committee members today clashed over how to address Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza, prompting the party chair to withdraw a resolution on the matter and move to instead address concerns brought by a younger faction agitating for a stronger stance.

The move came after a DNC panel passed a resolution from chair Ken Martin that called for a ceasefire and the free flow of aid to Gaza — and then blocked a second resolution that called for an arms embargo and suspension of military aid to Israel.

Read the full story here.

Trump says he wants death penalty for those who commit murder in D.C.

00:46

Trump said during the Cabinet meeting that his administration wants the reinstatement of the death penalty in the nation's capital.

"If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we're going to be seeking the death penalty, and that's a very strong preventative, and everybody that's heard it agrees with it," Trump said.

He added, "We have no choice. ... But if somebody kills somebody ... it's the death penalty."

Trump signed an executive order in January expressing a desire to expand the death penalty nationwide.

According to nonprofit the Death Penalty Information Center, the Supreme Court nullified the death penalty in D.C. in 1972 and the D.C. Council formally repealed it in 1981. D.C. residents later voted in 1992 to not reinstate capital punishment in the city.

Trump took some time during the Cabinet meeting to promote the "Presidential AI Challenge," a new initiative announced earlier in the day by first lady Melania Trump.

"It's going to be very good challenge," Trump said. "The first lady is working very hard on this, and it’s an important initiative."

The first lady said in a statement that the challenge “will be the first step in preparing our next generation with a base understanding of this important new technology.” 

The competition is aimed at K-12 students who are tasked with using AI to solve a community problem or challenge, according to the participation guidebook, which can be found at the ai.gov website.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Trump during the Cabinet meeting that his department would soon announce "interventions" that he believes are causing autism.

"We will have announcements as promised in September," Kennedy said in front of a group of White House reporters. "We're finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism, and we're going to be able to address those in September."

It is unclear what specific causes Kennedy was referring to. The secretary has previously falsely claimed that autism is related to vaccinations.

Kennedy also announced in April that his department was undertaking an effort to determine what causes autism.

Trump claimed for the second day in a row that some people prefer to have a dictator in office.

"The line is that I'm a dictator," Trump said, referring to his opponents' criticism. "But I stop crime. So a lot of people say, you know, 'If that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.'"

Some members of his Cabinet laughed.

"But I'm not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime," Trump added.

The president made similar remarks yesterday when referencing his critics' condemnation of sending troops into cities as part of efforts to fight crime.

Trump referred to his critics: "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,'" Trump continued yesterday. "I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator."

During the Cabinet meeting, Trump asked broadcaster Iris Tao to talk about how she said she was the victim of an attempted mugging in D.C.

"I heard you were savagely mugged in the city," Trump said, adding that his administration won't continue to allow such crimes to occur in D.C.

Tao, who works for New Tang Dynasty Television, a sister organization to the right-wing media outlet The Epoch Times, said the incident happened two years ago during the day.

"I was on my way to work, and a young man with a black ski mask pointed a gun in my face and threatened me to hand over my phone, my wallet, my laptop and everything else, and when I refused, he used the butt of his handgun to strike me across the face, in the cheek, or what some people call a pistol-whip me before running away," she said.

"And that has deeply traumatized myself and my family ever since. I’ve never dared to walk in the street of D.C. at night, ever, and my family was extremely worried. So, Mr. President, thank you so much for what you’re doing right now, because such incidents involve not just me, but also my family."

Deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino will oversee the Presidential Personnel Office, the White House announced today, allowing the longtime Trump lieutenant to decide who serves in political positions across the administration.

“Dan Scavino is one of President Trump’s most trusted and longest serving advisors. There is nobody better to ensure the president’s administration is staffed with the most qualified, competent, and America First-driven workers," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said of Scavino's new role, which was first reported by Axios.

"There is much still to be done and Dan’s leadership will ensure the highest quality, most dedicated workforce ever,” she added in her statement.

Trump joked about Democrats being warned against falling into a trap in their response to his anti-crime efforts.

"He's going — it was funny — 'No, it's a trap. Don't do it,'" Trump said, recalling a Democrat on television.

Some Democrats have urged caution in their party's approach to Trump's D.C. crime push, wary about Democrats accidentally being perceived as defending high crime rates.

Trump spent the first 25 minutes of his White House Cabinet meeting touting his tariff policy and legislative achievements, arguing that the country wouldn't have been successful if he hadn't been re-elected.

Trump said the U.S. is “becoming so successful again.”

"If I didn’t win this election this country was gone," he said. "Economically, it was gone. None of the things that we’re talking about would have happened. And the whole world was robbing us blind, friend and foe. They were stealing our jobs, our money, our factories. They were stealing everything. We would have been a shell. We would have been a bankrupt, broken shell, and that’s the way it is. But we’re doing just the opposite, stronger than we’ve ever been."

"I think in the end, it will never have been this successful. I don’t think it’ll even be close with what’s happening," Trump added.

The president's Cabinet meeting at the White House has begun.

A federal judge today dismissed an unusual Trump administration lawsuit against every federal judge in Maryland over a standing order that limits the government’s ability to quickly deport immigrants.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who normally sits in Virginia but was assigned the case because the Maryland judges could not participate, wrote in the ruling that filing suit against the judges was not the correct avenue with which to challenge the order.

Read the full story here.

The president took to social media to offer his thoughts on the controversy over chain restaurant Cracker Barrel's new logo.

"Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

The company unveiled a new logo last week that no longer features a man leaning against a barrel or the words “Old Country Store.” The new simplified logo sparked a backlash from some conservative commentators who said the company was embracing "wokeness." The company maintains its values are the same, “hard work, family, and scratch-cooked food made with care” 

Trump said the company "got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right. Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again."

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement today that they would file a lawsuit over Trump's efforts to have Cook removed.

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook," Lowell said in a statement. "His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

Last night, Trump posted on Truth Social a letter to Cook saying he was removing her "effective immediately" over allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook has denied the allegations and said Trump has no authority to fire her from the independent agency.

A federal-state partnership that monitors for foodborne illnesses quietly scaled back its operations nearly two months ago.

As of July 1, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) program has reduced surveillance to just two pathogens: salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told NBC News.

Before July, the program had been tracking infections caused by six additional pathogens: campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia. Some of them can lead to severe or life-threatening illnesses, particularly for newborns and people who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems.

Monitoring for the six pathogens is no longer required for the 10 states that participate in the program, though those states aren’t precluded from conducting surveillance on their own.

Read the full story here.

There were a total of 87 arrests in D.C. overnight, including 39 undocumented immigrants, a White House official said.

One of the undocumented immigrants had a prior arrest for child rape, the official said, while others had prior arrests for driving under the influence, simple assault, second-degree assault, sexual solicitation, felony robbery and contempt of court. The official did not release information about how many had convictions or how many of those arrested had outstanding criminal charges.

Others arrested as part of the president's law enforcement crackdown include a man who was arrested for a parole violation and was “wanted for questioning” in an on-going homicide investigation, and an armed carjacking suspect. Officers also seized four illegal firearms.

The official said that since the Trump initiative began on Aug. 7, there have 1,094 total arrests.

This year's race for governor in Virginia continues to play out on the airwaves, with both candidates releasing new TV ads today. 

Republican Lt. Gov Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign launched a new ad featuring Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaking directly into the camera and saying in part, “Together we empowered parents in education, made communities safer and set records for job growth. Through it all one constant: Winsome Earl Sears, a U.S. Marine, a mom, a first-generation American. “ 

And former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s campaign launched a new ad targeting Earle-Sears over her support for the sweeping GOP domestic policy legislation dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill and tying Earle-Sears to Trump. 

“MAGA Republican Winsome Earl-Sears. What does she say about Trump’s bad budget bill?” a narrator says in the ad, teeing up footage of Earle-Sears saying in a Newsmax interview that the bill “does so many great things.” 

Republican lawmakers from Indiana are expected to visit the White House today, a spokesperson for the state's Senate majority said.

A meeting for the group is scheduled to take place from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to Molly Swigart, communications director for the Indiana Senate Majority Communications Office.

The event is not on Trump’s public schedule and the White House has not responded to a request for comment. 

The meeting is expected to focus on the Trump administration’s broader agenda. Swigart told NBC News that the invitation from the White House was sent on July 28 “before redistricting was a point of discussion.” Still, the visit comes amid an escalating fight over redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston plans to attend the White House meeting, as well as several other Indiana House members, according to NBC affiliate WTHR.

Senate Democrats are denouncing Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned that the president is “playing a dangerous game of Jenga with a key pillar of our economy.” 

“This brazen power grab must be stopped by the courts before Trump does permanent damage to national, state, and local economies,” he wrote in a statement late last night.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said that Trump is “desperate” for a “scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower costs for Americans,” and described the move as an “authoritarian power grab.” 

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said on social media that the move was “outrageous and unprecedented" and was being pursued "on the flimsiest of unproven pretexts." He said Trump's effort "is clearly the latest scheme from a president determined to subvert the institutions that have kept our democracy strong and our economy the envy of the world.”

A federal judge has ordered Kari Lake, the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, to sit for a deposition if she wants to avoid a contempt trial.

The agency oversees media outlets including the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which have been largely kneecapped by the White House’s efforts to slash their funding. The administration’s effort, though, is being challenged in court.

Judge Royce Lamberth said in a filing yesterday that the depositions would "allow the defendants one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial, to provide such explanation" for their responses to the court thus far, which he said have been lacking.

Lamberth said in the filing that the U.S. Agency for Global Media defendants did not provide information to show cause or "explain how they are in compliance" with his April preliminary injunction and order that the White House restore agency employees who were laid off after Trump's March executive order to cut its funding.

Agency adviser Frank Waco and Leili Soltani, a division director at Voice of America, were also ordered to sit for depositions, which Lamberth wrote must take place no later than Sept. 15.

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities Monday arrested a man across the street from the White House after he set an American flag on fire the day Trump signed an executive order intended to crack down on flag burning.

The man, who identified himself as a 20-year combat veteran in a video posted to social media by the news outlet The Bulwark, said, “I’m burning this flag as a protest to that illegal fascist president that sits in that House,” as he pointed toward the White House from Lafayette Square.

Read the full story here.

Trump is removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook effective immediately, according to a letter he posted last night on Truth Social.

In the letter, Trump writes: “Pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, as amended, you are hereby removed from your position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately.”

Trump cites a “criminal referral” from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, in which Pulte accused Cook of mortgage fraud.

The Federal Reserve did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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A Utah district judge ruled yesterday that the state must redraw its congressional districts because the Republican-controlled Legislature erred when it overruled a ballot measure passed by voters that sought to rein in partisan gerrymandering.

The ruling adds yet another wrinkle to the national battle for control of Congress next year — and how the congressional map is evolving ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

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Trump is signaling fresh doubts about whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet anytime soon as momentum toward a summit between the warring countries appears to be fading.

“I don’t know that they’ll meet — maybe they will, maybe they won’t,” Trump said yesterday at the White House during a meeting in the Oval Office with South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung. “It’s going to be up to them. It takes two to tango. I always say it. And they should meet, I think, before I have a meeting and probably close the deal, but I think it’s appropriate.”

Trump praised Putin for traveling to the United States for talks, a move he said Putin was reluctant to make, but he acknowledged that the efforts to broker peace seem to have slowed.

That marks a shift in tone just over a week after Trump hosted Putin in Alaska for a whirlwind summit aimed at breaking through the three-year stalemate in the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump had initially suggested that back-to-back meetings between the key parties could occur within a matter of days or weeks.

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