Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump had “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders.
Jeffries, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, accused the US president of “playing games with the lives of Americans” with his unprecedented domestic deployment of the military, which has escalated to include the arming of troops currently patrolling Washington DC – after sending troops into Los Angeles in June.
The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, said any such plan from Trump was perpetrating “the most flagrant violation of our constitution in the 21st century”.
Here are the key Trump administration news stories of the day:
Trump ‘manufactured crisis’ to justify plan to send national guard to Chicago – Jeffries
Planning is under way to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday, as House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Donald Trump of “playing games with the lives of Americans”.
“We won’t speculate on further operations. The department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC.
Read the full story
France summons US ambassador Charles Kushner over antisemitism allegations
France summoned the American ambassador Charles Kushner after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging France had failed to do enough to stem antisemitic violence, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.
Russian foreign minister praises Trump efforts to end war in Ukraine
Sergei Lavrov, Moscow’s most senior diplomat, praised efforts by Donald Trump to end the war, in an interview on NBC on Sunday, while US vice-president JD Vance said Washington would “keep on trying” to broker talks in the absence of a deal.
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California’s governor takes his gloves off to punch back at Trump
In the opening weeks of Donald Trump’s second term, Gavin Newsom wagered that peacemaking was best: a tarmac greeting for Air Force One, an Oval Office visit and a podcast slot for Maga’s biggest names. But then Trump came for California, and its governor dropped the niceties.
Read the full story
Trump targets opponents with mortgage fraud claims
The president and his allies have been accused of executing a “pattern of lawfare” akin to those exerted by authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Russia after adopting a new strategy to target political opponents: allegations of mortgage fraud.
Read the full story
What else happened today:
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The justice department is alleging in a new court filing that three Smartmatic executives who were indicted last year on bribery and money-laundering charges transferred money from a 2018 voting machine contract with Los Angeles county into slush funds that were originally set up to pay bribes to overseas election officials.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on Saturday 23 August 2025.
