Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Friday. Here are the latest developments:
The federal government remains shut down.
Donald Trump canceled plans for a federal deployment to San Francisco at the request of two billionaire supporters, but he reiterated threats to Chicago.
Trump said that he does not plan to ask Congress to declare war on Venezuela, ahead of possible strikes targeting suspected drug cartels as “we’re just gonna kill people”.
Trump said an unnamed “friend” had just sent him “a check for $130m” to be used to pay military salaries during the government shutdown.
A federal judge in Texas on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Republican congressman who argued that California’s redistricting proposal would cause him personal injury and should be blocked.
Trump claimed his militarized war on drugs was a huge improvement over the Biden administration’s effort, but a government database shows drug seizures are down from 2022.
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Trump boasted of drug seizures, which are down from 2022
At the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, recited a list of drugs seized by an administration taskforce, and attributed its great success to the president’s aggressive enforcement policies, including using the military to carry out lethal strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats.
However, according to a government database, the weight of drugs seized during the first months of the Trump administration appear to be similar to or even slightly lower than those seized at some points during the Biden administration.
The Drug Seizures dashboard on the website of US Customs and Border Protection show that the total weight of illegal narcotics seized in the first seven months since Trump took office is 373,600 lbs. That is up from the totals for the same period in 2024, which was 343,000 lbs, and 2023, which was 344,7000 lbs, but is is down from the same period in 2022, when the Biden administration seized 379,000 lbs of drugs.
The overall weight of drugs seized for fiscal year 2025, was 531,000 lbs as of September. In fiscal year 2022, it was 656,000 lbs.
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