Trump updates: President threatens more US National Guard deployments

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To learn more about the Trump administration’s latest push to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, you can read our story here.

You can also learn about the history of National Guard deployments in the US in our explainer story here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a quick review of the day’s main events:

• United States President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard to US cities such as Chicago, even as his crackdown in the capital of Washington, DC has been met with anger from local residents and officials and drawn condemnation from civil liberties groups.
• Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was brought back to the US via a court order after the Trump administration admitted he had been wrongfully deported to El Salvador, has been detained again by immigration officials. The US government says it will seek to deport him to Uganda, a step which Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have challenged in court.
• The US president signed three other executive orders related to cashless bail and DC’s so-called “crime emergency” as part of his ongoing effort to cast Democratic localities as dangerous and violent. Trump also signed an order punishing people who burn the US flag with a year in jail, even though flag burning is considered free speech protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
• Trump said that he has talked with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the last week, stating that he wants the war in Ukraine to end but that Putin has yet to agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The US president said that he may open a new investigation into former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who served in Trump’s administration during his first term but has since become a frequent critic of the president. Trump made the threat after Christie made critical remarks about Trump on a late-night talk show.

“Can anyone believe anything that Sloppy Chris says? Do you remember the way he lied about the dangerous and deadly closure of the George Washington Bridge in order to stay out of prison, at the same time sacrificing people who worked for him, including a young mother, who spent years trying to fight off the vicious charges against her,” Trump said in a social media post, referring to a scandal during Christie’s time as governor.

“Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts. For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again?”

The US president says there is a “serious” diplomatic push to end the war in Gaza and said he is “not happy” to hear about Israeli strikes targeting medical and rescue workers, along with several journalists, at a hospital in Gaza.

But Trump has not suggested that he will use any leverage to rein in the Israeli prime minister, despite growing outrage over Israel’s targeting of civilians and a famine in the Gaza Strip caused by Israel’s blockade of humanitarian assistance. US weapons transfers, essential to Israel’s campaign in Gaza, have continued under Trump with even fewer restrictions than his predecessor.

You can follow further developments on our Gaza live page.

Asked about police raids on the home of former national security adviser and frequent critic John Bolton, Trump said he was not involved in the probe against him.

“I’m not involved in that,” said Trump.

“I was never a fan of his,” he added. “I thought he was stupid.”

Trump has been frequently accused of using the government to target and intimidate political rivals and critics.

Trump says China has to give the US magnets or “we have to charge them 200 percent tariff or something” amid a trade dispute between the two nations.

China is increasingly sensitive about rare earth elements and its control over their supply, adding several rare earth items and magnets to its export restriction list in April in retaliation to tariff hikes by the US.

“We’re going to have a lot of magnets in a pretty short time. In fact, we’ll have so many we won’t know what to do with them,” Trump said.

The US leader says that the DOD could revert to being called the Department of War.

“Pete Hegseth has been incredible with, as I call it, the Department of War,” he said. “We call it the Department of Defense, but between us, I think we’re going to change the name.”

“President Xi would like me to come to China. It’s a very important relationship,” said Trump, without offering further details.

“We’re going to get along good with China,” he added, noting that massive US tariffs have created a “better” economic relationship between the two countries.

The two leaders are expected to discuss issues such as trade and security.

The US leader confirmed he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin since he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and various European leaders last week.

“Every conversation I have with him is a good conversation,” he said. “And then, unfortunately, a bomb is loaded up into Kyiv or someplace, and I get very angry about it.”

Trump added that Putin was reluctant to meet with Zelenskyy because the two do not like each other.

Asked about possible security guarantees for Ukraine, sought by Kyiv as essential to any agreement to end the war, Trump said the US would back up Ukraine, but said details were being figured out.

Let’s get you up to speed on the most recent developments:

• President Donald Trump has threatened to expand the deployment of armed National Guard members to cities such as Chicago over the objections of state and local officials, teasing a possible escalation of his crackdown on Democrat-led cities.
• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it would seek to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose previous wrongful expulsion to El Salvador became a flashpoint in the administration’s mass deportation push, to Uganda. Abrego Garcia’s lawyer says a lawsuit to block the deportation has been filed.
• Trump signed an executive order banning the burning of the US flag, even though it is a form of expression protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, saying anyone who burns the flag will receive a one-year jail sentence.
• The president signed three other executive orders related to cashless bail and DC’s so-called “crime emergency” as part of his ongoing effort to cast Democratic localities as dangerous and violent.

The US president says he will meet with the North Korean leader “at some point”.

“Someday I’ll see him,” Trump told reporters when asked if he would meet Kim again. “We will meet at some point.”

This morning, US President Donald Trump signed four new executive orders, two related to cashless bail, one on DC’s so-called “crime emergency”, and one on prosecuting those who burn the US flag.

• Additional Measures to Address the Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia – this lengthy executive order calls for a slew of new measures to address the “crime emergency” that Trump called two weeks ago and used as justification for his unprecedented deployment of the National Guard in the US capital. In this EO, Trump directs the US Attorney for DC to hire more prosecutors; directs the park police to enforce applicable laws within their jurisdiction; creates an online portal to increase law enforcement hires for the “DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force”; and directs the Defense Secretary to create a specialised unit in the DC National Guard, among others.
• Prosecuting Burning of The American Flag – while flag burning is a protected act of free speech, according to a 1989 Supreme Court decision, this EO deems the desecration of the flag to be a “statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation”. The order claims that flag burning may “incite violence and riot” and says it is used by foreign nationals to intimidate and threaten Americans. The order calls for the vigorous prosecution of those who burn flags, and threatens visa revocation, deportation and more for foreign nationals who do so.
• Measures To End Cashless Bail And Enforce The Law In The District Of Columbia – citing the “crime emergency”, this order directs the local attorney general to review the practice of cashless bail and the AG and other agencies to press DC to change its policies, including by withholding federal funding or services.
• Taking Steps to End Cashless Bail to Protect Americans – this order similarly threatens the withdrawal of federal funds and grants for local jurisdictions that have eliminated cash bail.

The US president says that a lawsuit could be filed “soon” against California’s redistricting push, which aims to redraw the state’s electoral maps in order to net the Democratic Party several more seats in Congress.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that the move was taken in response to a similar effort in the Republican-led state of Texas, initiated at the direct behest of Trump.

Newsom said “BRING IT” in a social media post responding to Trump’s teasing of a possible lawsuit.

BRING IT. https://t.co/tqRQiMg1xV

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 25, 2025

Even as Intel admits in security filings that the new US government stake in its company poses significant financial risks, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the US could take equity stake in other companies in the artificial intelligence and chip industries.

Hassett, who is director of the National Economic Council, cited Trump’s plans for a sovereign wealth fund in a CNBC interview, saying “I’m sure that at some point there’ll be more transactions” in the semiconductor industry or others.

That could include Advanced Micro Devices or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Asked whether he was considering a possible military deployment to the city of Chicago as part of his campaign to escalate confrontations with Democrat-led cities, Trump said that he could do so with or without the consent of the state’s governor. 

“We can go anywhere on less than 24 hours’ notice,” Trump said.

“If we go in, we will solve Chicago within one week, maybe less, but within one week, we will have no crime in Chicago just like we have no crime in Washington, DC,” he said.

Legal experts have said that sending National Guard troops to states without the request of the governor is against the law – though Trump did so already in Los Angeles, California in July. While the government is allowed to send troops without request to quell a foreign invasion, there is little to suggest they can do so for domestic law enforcement. California Governor Gavin Newsom has sued the administration over its rollout of troops in his state last month.

Trump’s takeover of Washington DC, where he has deployed members of the National Guard and scores of federal agents, continues to receive strong condemnation from Democratic officials across the country.

“Trump is creating a police state,” Democratic Representative John Garamendi said in a TV interview this morning.

“When you consider where the National Guard is deployed in Washington, it’s not in those areas where there’s crime.”

Amid reports that Trump could extend his crackdown to Chicago, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said that there is “no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states, or sending active duty military within our own borders”.

The US vice president has been fawning over Trump’s use of the National Guard, and taking aim at Democratic leaders who have pushed back on the president’s threats to send troops to their cities.

Vance has said repeatedly that local law enforcement told him “that in the past 20 or 30 years, DC has averaged a murder every other day”.

“We’ve been doing this for two weeks, zero people killed. That’s real lives saved.”

“Why are Democratic governors doing everything in their power to make crime easier to do in their cities? It doesn’t make an ounce of sense to me. But Mr President, I appreciate you being willing to help, and I hope these governors take you up on your offer because we should clean up all of America’s streets.”

While the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed DC and other Democratic cities are crime-ridden, the statistics tell a different story.

Crime has been dropping steeply over the past 30 years, so averaging in data from the peak in the 1990s does not say much about the situation today. According to Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the city has seen 101 homicides thus far this year and 112 last year. That puts the 2024 homicide rate at about 25 per 100,000 residents – a 30 percent drop from the prior year.

That puts DC at 11th in the country, according to an Axios review – far below the rates of several cities in Republican states, including Jackson, Mississippi, which had 78 homicides per 100,000, and Birmingham, Alabama, with 59.

The US president defends his crackdown and continued consolidation of executive authority.

“I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense,” said Trump.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we like a dictator,’” he added.

US special envoy Keith Kellogg has said in remarks in Kyiv that the Trump administration is working to stop the Russia-Ukraine war, even as there are few signs that the conflict is close to ending.

“That’s a work in progress,” Kellogg said in response to questions about possible security guarantees for Ukraine.