Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. We will be back on Thursday. Here are the latest developments:
Texas Democrats are staying out of their state, after they broke quorum for two consecutive days this week, to block a new GOP-drawn congressional map.
Donald Trump could meet Vladimir Putin to try to broker an end to the Russian war on Ukraine as soon as next week, but finding a venue to host the summit might not be easy, given that the Russian president was indicted for war crimes in 2023 by the international criminal court, and is subject to arrest in 125 countries.
Trump said that White House lawyers “are already studying” the possibility of legislation to overturn the law granting the District of Columbia self-rule and imposing direct federal control of the capital. The president added that part of the plan would include “bringing in the national guard” to police the district’s streets.
Unions denounced the Department of Veterans Affairs after it announced that it was breaking union contracts with more than 370,000 federal workers employed in the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, seized on a report that Donald Trump had an undisclosed phone call with Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who is running as an independent with the backing of Republican donors.
Mamdani accuses Cuomo of 'coordinating' with Trump in New York mayor's race
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, seized on a report that Donald Trump had an undisclosed phone call with Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who is running as an independent with the backing of Republican donors.
“Donald Trump has been coordinating with Andrew Cuomo, in direct conversation with the former governor,” Mamdani told reporters in response to a New York Times report on the conversation. “It is Trump billionaires who have been opposing our campaign’s vision for a city that New Yorkers can afford.”
“Whatever Donald Trump seeks to do to influence the outcome of this election, I have more faith in New Yorkers themselves,” Mamdani said, “who have shown … that they do not want to support our current president’s vision of a New York City that is ripping immigrants from their homes, that is detaining New Yorkers on the basis of political expression.”
On social media, Mamdani called Cuomo’s discussion with Trump, who is wildly unpopular in his home town, “disqualifying and a betrayal of our city”.
Earlier on Wednesday, Cuomo’s younger brother, Chris, was forced to delete a social media post attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after she pointed out that the TV news host had fallen for an obvious deepfake video supposedly showing her giving “a fiery speech” on the Sydney Sweeney “good jeans” debate. The crude Instagram video the younger Cuomo fell for was labelled “parody 100% made with AI”.
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