Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back on Wednesday. In the meantime, here are the latest developments:
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, refused to answer questions about the indictment of James Comey and what happened to the $50,000 Tom Homan, the border czar, reportedly accepted from undercover FBI agents last year.
Donald Trump met the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, and jokingly pushed him to agree to “a merger” of their two countries. He also declined to rule out invoking the insurrection act to put troops on the streets of the US, which might have made the prospect of joining the union even less appealing.
Trump suggested that he might not follow a law mandating that furloughed government workers will get backpay after the government shutdown ends.
Texas national guard troops arrived in Illinois, over the objections of the state’s governor.
House speaker Mike Johnson said that his decision to stave off swearing in representative-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona has “nothing to do” with the fact that she would be the 218th signature on the bipartisan discharge petition – to compel a House vote on the full release of the Epstein files.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, visited the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Portland, Oregon accompanied by conservative influencers. Portland police cleared the street outside ahead of Noem’s arrival, keeping a handful of protesters, one dressed as a chicken and another as a baby shark, at distance. She led federal officers in prayer and met Oregon’s governor and Portland’s mayor and police chief during her visit. When she appeared on the roof of the facility, protesters blared the Benny Hill theme.
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Portland's mayor tells Noem 'out-of-state social media influencers' distort reality in city
In a meeting with the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, complained about what he has described as excessive use of force and tear gas by federal officers and tried to convince her that conditions in the city bear little resemblance to the wild claims made by her boss, Donald Trump.
“What Secretary Noem saw today in Portland matches our reports: Portland continues to manage public safety professionally and responsibly, irrespective of the claims of out-of-state social media influencers,” Wilson said in a statement after the meeting.
Given that Noem invited a trio of conservative social influencers to join her on her brief visit to the city on Tuesday, two of whom are partisans from other states who falsely refer to the protesters as “terrorists”, Wilson’s warning about being fooled by their videos may have fallen on deaf ears.
“I continue to maintain that the tactics used by federal agents at the Ice facility are troubling and likely unconstitutional,” Wilson added.
“We believe a constitutional federal government must be accountable to the community in terms of clear limits on use of force, officer identification, limits on chemical munitions, and body-worn cameras,” the mayor said.
On Sunday, Wilson told reporters that he had complained to the civil rights division of the department of justice about the behavior of federal officers on Saturday, after they pushed protesters off the streets and sidewalks doused the neighborhood around the Ice facility in Portland in tear gas.
“We see Federal Protective Service that’s really trying to inflame the situation, not put it down and certainly not just protect property,” Wilson said. “We saw unjustified uses of force. We saw shoving peaceful veterans and elderly people to the ground. Indiscriminate use of impact munitions [and] pepper spray.”
The civil rights division of the department of justice that Wilson appealed to for help is currently run by Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general who previously represented prominent conservative social media influencers, including Andy Ngo and James O’Keefe.
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