We’re wrapping up our live coverage of the second Trump administration, but we’ll be back on Wednesday. Here is a summary of today’s developments:
Donald Trump claimed victory on the economy after 12 months back in office on Tuesday, declaring it to be the “greatest first year in history” as many Americans express alarm over the cost of living. In a stream-of-consciousness speech at the Detroit Economic Club, the US president delivered his gold-tinted view of how the economy has fared on his watch. Prices were down, he claimed, despite official data showing otherwise, and productivity was “smashing expectations”. More here.
Trump gave someone the middle finger, reportedly responding to shouts admonishing him as a “pedophile protector” as he toured a Michigan Ford plant. The celebrity news and gossip site TMZ shared a short video featuring the US president’s flustered response to someone heckling off-screen, during which he appears to issue the hand gesture. Trump spent Tuesday afternoon touring Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn before giving a speech at the Detroit Economic Club. More here.
Trump has told Iranians to keep protesting and said help was on the way, in the clearest sign yet that the US president may be preparing for military action against Tehran. “Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, a day after the White House press secretary said airstrikes were among “many, many options” the US president was considering. More here.
The Trump administration is terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Somalis living in the United States, giving hundreds of people two months to leave the country or face deportation. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said in a statement that conditions in the east African country had improved sufficiently and that Somalis no longer qualified for the designation under federal law. More here.
Greenland’s prime minister has said “we choose Denmark” before high-stakes talks at the White House as Trump seeks to take control of the Arctic territory. Amid rising tensions over the US president’s push, Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Tuesday told a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington. More here.
Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would not comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony about their relationships to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, while launching an extraordinary attack on Republicans and Donald Trump. The Republican-led House oversight committee in August subpoenaed the former president and first lady after its chair, James Comer, announced the panel would review the government’s handling of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by what was determined to be suicide while awaiting trial in 2019. More here.
Progressives in the US Congress on Tuesday vowed to oppose legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it included significant reforms to immigration enforcement, amid a widening roar among Democrats following the killing of a US citizen in Minnesota last week. The declaration by the Democratic-aligned Congressional Progressive caucus comes as the Senate and House of Representatives race to meet an end-of-the-month deadline to approve a series of funding bills or risk a partial government shutdown. More here.
Donald Trump has defended his administration’s increasingly violent immigration crackdown, describing the 37-year-old woman killed by federal agents as likely a “wonderful person” whose “tough” actions justified a lethal response.
Trump’s comments, made during an interview with CBS News after his visit to a Ford factory in Detroit, came amid rising tensions between federal and local officials in Minneapolis after an ICE agent shot dead Renee Good at the wheel of her SUV on a residential street in Minneapolis last week.
The killing set off nationwide protests and, led to the resignations of a half-dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota, who objected to the justice department’s handling of the investigation into the killing.
In the interview, the CBS anchor, Tony Dokoupil, said he had spoken to Good’s father, a strong Trump supporter who was “heartbroken” over his daughter’s death, about the administration’s characterization of Good as a domestic terrorist. Asked what he would say to the father, Trump said: “I would bet you that she, under normal circumstances, was a very solid, wonderful person. But, you know, her actions were pretty tough.”
Trump, the vice-president JD Vance and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly said the agent was acting in self-defense. “There are a couple versions of that tape that are very, very bad,” Trump told CBS, and made the claim that videos capturing the shooting from various angles “can be viewed two ways”.
Video analysis of the footage shows that Good’s vehicle was turning away from the officer as he opens fire.
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