Judge issues fresh deadline to White House over Venezuelan deportations row

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Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news over the next couple of hours.

We start with news that a federal judge has given the Trump administration a deadline of today to provide details about plane loads of Venezuelans it deported despite orders not to, in a brewing showdown over presidential power.

President Donald Trump claims the deported Venezuelans are members of the prison gang Tren de Aragua, which he designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The White House on Saturday published a Trump proclamation that invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to declare the gang was conducting irregular warfare against the US, Reuters reported.

Later on Saturday, US district judge James Boasberg issued an order blocking the deportations but the flights continued anyway and 261 people were flown to El Salvador.

A Trump administration lawyer argued both that the judge’s initial oral ruling to block the flights was superseded by a more sparsely written order issued later, and that the government had the legal right to continue with flights once they had left US airspace.

Since taking office in January, Trump has sought to push the boundaries of executive power, challenging the historic checks and balances between the US branches of government.

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In other news:

Trump announced on Truth Social that he was ending secret service protection for Joe Biden’s adult children, Ashley Biden and Hunter Biden.
Trump also said the government would release all of the remaining classified documents related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy on Tuesday, something he had pledged to do during his campaign.
Trump also said Joe Biden’s pardon of January 6 committee lawmakers was “void”, and his press secretary later said, without evidence, that the former president may not have been of sound mind when he gave it.
Meanwhile, the CEO of the non-profit US Institute of Peace said Monday that employees of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” had “broken into our building”, as part of an escalating standoff over the legal status of the Institute and whether Musk has authority over it.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate minority leader, has reportedly cancelled a book tour as he faces protests from members of his own party for providing votes crucial to the passage of a Republican spending bill.

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The Trump administration fired most of the board of the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and sent its new leader into the Washington DC headquarters of the independent organization on Monday, in its latest effort targeting agencies tied to foreign assistance work.

The remaining three members of the group’s board – defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and national defense university president Peter Garvin – fired president and CEO, George Moose, on Friday, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press.

An executive order that Donald Trump signed last month targeted the organization, which was created by Congress more than 40 years ago, and others for reductions.

Current USIP employees said staffers from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” entered the building despite protests that the institute is not part of the executive branch. USIP called the police, whose vehicles were outside the building on Monday evening.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will hold a phone call between 9am and 11am EDT on Tuesday to talk about settling the Ukraine conflict and normalising relations between Russia and the United States, the Kremlin said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there was already a “certain understanding” between the two leaders, based on a phone call they held on 12 February and on subsequent high-level contacts between the two countries.

“But there are also a large number of questions regarding the further normalisation of our bilateral relations, and a settlement on Ukraine. All of this will have to be discussed by the two presidents,” Peskov told reporters.

“The leaders will speak for as long as they deem necessary,” he said.

Abené Clayton

The Trump administration has removed former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website.

This move was made to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order to protect second amendment rights, a White House official told the Guardian.

The “firearm violence in America” page, where the advisory had been posted, was filled with data and information about the ripple effects of shootings, the prevalence of firearm suicides and the number of American children and adolescents who have been shot and killed. Now, when someone reaches the site they will be met with a “page not found” message.

When it was originally released last summer, Murthy’s advisory was met with praise from violence prevention and research groups, and was lambasted by second amendment law centers and advocacy groups that argued the Biden administration was using public health as a cloak to push forward more gun control.

“This is an extension of the Biden Administration’s war on law-abiding gun owners. America has a crime problem caused by criminals,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) said in a statement posted to X on 25 July 2024.

Donald Trump visited the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Monday for the first time since making himself its new chair, threatening to shutter an expensive new addition and describing the marble Washington landmark as being in “tremendous disrepair.”

Trump presided over the center’s board meeting in a demonstration of his takeover of an institution that has long enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington, Reuters reported.

Trump, a former real estate executive, criticised an expansive addition built on the Kennedy Center complex for lacking windows and suggested closing it.

He said the center would improve physically over time, however, and he encouraged people to attend shows there.

“This represents a very important part of DC, and actually our country,” he said when asked why he was making time to come to the Kennedy Center with so many other things on his plate. “I think it’s important to make sure that our country is in good shape and is represented well.”

Last month Trump became chair of the Kennedy Center after pushing out billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein. He fired its longtime president, Deborah Rutter, and installed his former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, as interim president.