Trump to address largest US anti-abortion rally and tour disaster areas in North Carolina and California – live

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Trump to address America’s largest anti-abortion rally

People participating in the March for Life walk past the supreme court on 19 January 2024. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

President Donald Trump is due to make a speech via video link to the March for Life rally, America’s largest annual anti-abortion rally later on Friday.

The president pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists a day before the March for Life in Washington DC.

Trump is not the first president to address the rally. Previous Republican presidents, including George W Bush and Ronald Reagan, have addressed the group remotely. However, in 2020, Trump became the first US president to attend the rally in person.

The annual rally began in 1974 after the legalisation of abortion established in Roe v Wade.

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Key events

Trump says he will sign executive order to ‘fundamentally overhaul’ or ‘get rid’ of Fema

Donald Trump said he will sign an executive order to begin the process of “fundamentally reforming and overhauling” or “maybe getting rid of” the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).

“I think, frankly, that Fema is not good,” Trump told reporters in Asheville, North Carolina.

I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling Fema … I think we’re going to recommend that Fema go away.

He went on describe Fema as a “big disappointment”. “They cost a tremendous amount of money. It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow,” he said.

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Trump terminates security detail for Dr Anthony Fauci

Donald Trump has terminated security detail for Dr Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, CNN reports.

Fauci had his security protections revoked on Thursday night, the outlet writes, citing a source.

He has since hired his own private security that he will have to pay for himself, it says.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has ended security details for several of his former administration officials, including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, former top aide Brian Hook, and John Bolton, his former national security adviser.

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Donald Trump reiterated his call for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to cut oil prices, claiming that it would help bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump said:

We want to see Opec cut the price of oil, and that will automatically stop the tragedy that’s taking place in Ukraine. It’s a butchering tragedy for both sides.

Trump made similar comments during an online address to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, where he called on Opec to cut the cost of oil, in order to choke off revenues to Russia and halt the conflict in Ukraine.

Donald Trump speaks to the media flanked by the Tennessee governor, Bill Lee, and the first lady, Melania Trump, in Asheville, North Carolina. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
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Trump, speaking to reporters in Asheville, North Carolina, also said he wanted to secure two things from California : voter identification laws and changes to water policy in the wake of the wildfires.

I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state.

“After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed falsely that the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and other officials have refused to provide water from the northern part of the state to fight the fires.

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Trump says he wants to see states ‘take care’ of disasters themselves

Donald Trump said he would like to see states take care of disasters themselves as he made his first presidential trip of his second administration to hurricane-battered North Carolina on Friday.

Trump, speaking to reporters, accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) of having “really let the country down” as he prepared to meet with emergency responders and tour the “massive amount of damage” left by Hurricane Helene. He said:

I like the concept [of] when North Carolina gets hit, the governor takes care of it. When Florida gets hit, the governor takes care of it. Meaning the states take care of it.

He continued:

I’d like to see states take care of disasters, let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.

Asked if he expected to ask Congress for additional aid for North Carolina and California, Trump claimed that the aid will go through his administration instead of Fema.

The aid will go through us. So rather than going through Fema, it will go through us.

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Rachel Leingang

Rachel Leingang

In his first interview after his release from prison, Enrique Tarrio thanked Donald Trump for pardoning him for his role in planning the January 6 riot, saying he “literally gave me my life back”.

Now that he is out, the Proud Boys leader wants revenge, he told Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Info Wars. He said:

The people who did this, they need to feel the heat, they need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted.

“Success is going to be retribution,” he added. “We gotta do everything in our power to make sure that the next four years sets us up for the next 100 years.”

In the days since the leaders of far-right militia groups were freed from prison, they and their organizations are regrouping and figuring out how to build back momentum now that Trump is back in office. They are emboldened by the mass pardons for the insurrectionists and are planning their next moves.

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Judge bars Oath Keepers founder from entering Washington DC after prison release

A federal judge has barred the former leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, Stewart Rhodes, and several other January 6 defendants from going into Washington DC or the US Capitol without the court’s approval.

US district judge Amit Mehta issued the order after Rhodes visited the Capitol on Wednesday, a day after he was released from prison as part of Donald Trump’s sweeping clemency order.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack on the Capitol and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The judge’s order today also applies to other members of the Oath Keepers group who were convicted of charges that they participated in a violent plot to attack the Capitol.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a supporter of President Donald Trump and convicted on charges relating to the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol, after being released from a Maryland jail, in Washington. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP
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Donald Trump is heading to Los Angeles today to survey fire damage, and reportedly invited along California’s Democratic senator Adam Schiff, a leading antagonist who he has insulted repeatedly.

Politico broke the news yesterday, along with Trump’s invitation to the state’s other senator, Democrat Alex Padilla. Both declined, with their offices saying they needed to remain in Washington to vote.

Donald Trump, next to Melania Trump, speaks to reporters as he departs the White House today. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

As he departed the White House this morning for the trip that will also take him to hurricane-ravaged areas of North Carolina, a reporter asked Trump why he invited Schiff, given their bad blood. Trump replied:

I don’t know. Is he going? Is he going? I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t know. You know, if he’s going to be there it would be cheaper but I didn’t invite him. Somebody did.

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Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury is the top Democrat on a subcommittee that will support the “Department of government efficiency” (Doge), the Elon Musk-backed initiative to streamline the federal government.

In an interview with CNN today, Stansbury said she believes the quasi-governmental department is less interested in efficiency, and more interested in policies that will benefit Musk and other wealthy businesses:

We believe that they’re going to use the Doge subcommittee to eviscerate the federal workforce. We think they’re going to go after federal departments, agency heads. We think they’re going to go after the retirement benefits and use it also to restructure the government as a way to be essentially a personal piggy bank for Elon Musk. I mean, I think none of us really understand why Elon Musk is even interested in restructuring the government, except for that he has billions of dollars in federal contracts. And I think it’s notable that up until the inauguration, he was operating his arm of DOGE out of SpaceX, which is the company that he has billions of dollars in front of the federal government with.

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Trump weighing deploying up to 10,000 troops to US-Mexico border – report

The Trump administration may deploy as many as 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border and construct detention facilities for migrants on military bases, CBS News reports.

The president earlier this week sent 1,500 active-duty troops to the border, adding to a preexisting deployment authorized under Joe Biden. The memo circulating in government says Trump may dramatically expand the troop presence to make good on his campaign promise of stopping border crossers. Here’s more, from CBS:

The internal Customs and Border Protection memo dated Jan. 21 indicates there’s a plan to dispatch “~10,000 soldiers” to help the agency’s mission at the southern border. The Trump administration, according to the document, has submitted an “[u]nrestrained request” for the Pentagon to surge resources and personnel to assist CBP with technology and infrastructure.

The memo also says the Defense Department “may” convert its bases into “holding facilities,” presumably to help CBP detain migrants who crossed into the U.S. illegally.

Additionally, the memo shows the Trump administration is planning to dramatically expand detention capacity at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is expected to be at the center of Mr. Trump’s promised mass deportations.

According to the document, ICE officials want 14 new detention facilities with the capacity to hold up to 1,000 migrants each and another four able to accommodate as many as 10,000 immigrant detainees each.

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Chicago was said to be an initial target of the mass deportations Donald Trump promised on his first day in office.

But the promised raids did not wind up taking place, and it’s unclear if and when they will. Politico reports that the word in the Illinois state government is that Trump is interested more in spectacle than substance when it comes to immigration enforcement.

“It’s not like anyone with the Trump administration is picking up the phone and calling us and saying ‘Here’s the plan,’” an Illinois state official told Politico.

“They’re looking for a PR stunt.”

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Donald Trump’s threats to carry out mass arrests in cities that have curtailed cooperation with immigration authorities have spread fear throughout communities, the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports:

Chicago’s Lower West Side felt uneasily quiet this week.

Christina Alejandra, a dancer and local business owner in the city’s artsy, majority Mexican American neighborhood, wondered whether it was because of the freezing temperatures, or the impending threat of immigration raids.

The city has been preparing for weeks for a crackdown, after Donald Trump’s new administration made clear that so-called sanctuary cities – communities like Chicago that refuse to hand over immigrants to federal authorities – would be the first targets of its mass-deportation program.

But the fear didn’t really hit Alejandra, who’s 26 and undocumented, until Monday, inauguration day, as Trump began unleashing a barrage of new immigration restrictions. “I’ve never been scared like this before,” she said. The Guardian is not publishing Alejandra’s full name to protect her and her family from immigration enforcement.

Chicago and surrounding areas have seen raids before, including during the first Trump administration. “But this feels different,” Alejandra said. “The way he and his supporters are riled up. There’s a shift happening.”

Such worries have been stirred up in immigrant communities across the US in recent days, amid a flood of new executive orders setting strict limits on who can enter the US, who can stay here and who can call themselves an American, setting off unprecedented waves of panic within the country and at its borders.

Moments after the president was sworn into office, asylum seekers waiting to enter the country learned that their appointments to meet with Customs and Border Protection had been cancelled – and images of devastated and desperate people at the border made a stark diptych with the inaugural ceremonies.

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Republican lawmaker proposes constitutional amendment allowing Trump third term

Republican congressman Andy Ogles has proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow Donald Trump to serve a third term in office.

The Tennessee lawmaker said he was making the proposal because he thinks Trump has done such a great job over the past few days:

President Trump’s decisive leadership stands in stark contrast to the chaos, suffering, and economic decline Americans have endured over the past four years. He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal. To that end, I am proposing an amendment to the Constitution to revise the limitations imposed by the 22nd Amendment on presidential terms. This amendment would allow President Trump to serve three terms, ensuring that we can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs.

The amendment is written in such a way that the three other living presidents who have served two terms – Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama – would not be eligible to run again.

It is very difficult to amend the US constitution, and it remains to be seen if Ogles’s idea is to be taken seriously.

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Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has announced that “deportation flights have begun,” and shared photos of people lining up to board a military aircraft.

Deportation flights have begun.

President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences. pic.twitter.com/CTlG8MRcY1

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 24, 2025

Leavitt’s comment was light on details, but perhaps she means they have begun under Trump administration, as there was plenty of deporting going on during Joe Biden’s just-concluded presidency:

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