Lawmakers decry Trump’s pressure campaign on justice department to investigate his political opponents – live

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Hundreds of Hollywood and Broadway stars – including Robert De Niro, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Selena Gomez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep – are urging Americans to “fight to defend and preserve our constitutionally protected rights” in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.

More than 430 movie, TV and stage stars as well as comedians, directors and writers added their names to an open letter Monday from the American Civil Liberties Union that argues it is “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation”.

The move comes less than a week after ABC suspended Kimmel’s late-night talkshow following comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. After a group of ABC-affiliated stations said they wouldn’t air Jimmy Kimmel Live! the Walt Disney Co pulled the show on Wednesday just before its scheduled airing, prompting a firestorm of debate over free speech.

“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter says. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power – because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

The list of signatories includes recent Emmy winner Noah Wyle, Oscar-nominated Florence Pugh, comedian David Cross, Tony winner Kelli O’Hara and veteran actor Molly Ringwald. Pedro Pascal, Billy Crystal, Nathan Lane, Kerry Washington and Kevin Bacon are also among those who signed.

“This is the moment to defend free speech across our nation. We encourage all Americans to join us, along with the ACLU, in the fight to defend and preserve our constitutionally protected rights,” the letter concludes.

The US government is revoking the visas of Brazilian solicitor-general Jorge Messias and five other former and current Brazilian judicial officials, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters.

The move represents a significant escalation in the ongoing feud between the US and Brazilian governments that has intensified since the criminal conviction of former president Jair Bolsonaro earlier in the month.

Donald Trump and his political allies have denounced Bolsonaro’s conviction as the fruit of a “political witch-hunt” and more broadly accused Brazil’s judiciary of censoring conservatives.

Brazilian authorities have vigorously rejected those assertions. They say there is ample evidence that the right-wing former leader – a close ally of Trump – attempted to overturn his 2022 election loss to current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In addition to Messias, the official said the Trump administration is revoking the visas of former solicitor-general José Levi, former electoral court justice Benedito Gonçalves, auxiliary judge and supreme court aide Airton Vieira, former electoral court aide Marco Antonio Martin Vargas, and Rafael Henrique Janela Tamai Rocha, another high-ranking judicial aide.

Tech giant Oracle, headed by Larry Ellison, will receive a copy of TikTok’s algorithm to operate for US users, a senior official in the Trump administration told the Associated Press.

Determining next steps for the algorithm, currently owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, has been one of the most watched issues during ongoing negotiations over TikTok’s future. Oracle will now oversee the security of Americans’ data and monitor changes to the popular social media platform’s algorithm.

The official reportedly said they believe the plan will satisfy national security concerns over a Chinese company potentially manipulating what is being shown to US TikTok users.

The White House says doctors may be exempt from H-1B visa fees, according to reporting from Bloomberg.

“‘The Proclamation allows for potential exemptions, which can include physicians and medical residents,’ White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email to Bloomberg News,” journalist Ed Ludlow wrote in a post on X.

Trump signed a proclamation on Friday introducing the application fee of $100,000 for the H-1B visa, 60 times the current cost, in a move designed to encourage companies to hire more American workers. Economists have warned that the move could hurt US economic growth.

We’ll also be keeping an ear out at today’s press briefing to hear the administration’s reaction to several global allies’ recognition of a Palestinian state.

A growing chorus of nations have pledged to recognize Palestinian statehood, in a move that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has branded as a “a huge reward to terrorism”.

Netanyahu has said, categorically, that a Palestinian state “will not be established west of the Jordan River”.

Last week, on the president’s state visit to the UK, he acknowledged that statehood it was “one of the few things” that he and British prime minister Keir Starmer disagreed on. Over the weekend, Britain, Canada and Australia all formally recognized Palestinian statehood ahead of a high-stakes week at the United Nations general assembly. Trump will address the nations present on Tuesday, 23 September.

A reminder, that you can follow the latest developments in the Middle East at our dedicated blog below.

Lawmakers decry Trump's pressure campaign on justice department to investigate political opponents

As we reported over the weekend, the president has ramped up his demands of attorney general Pam Bondi to use the Department of Justice to launch investigations into his political opponents.

On Truth Social, the president addressed Bondi directly and bemoaned the lack of investigations into longtime political adversary Letitia James, the New York attorney general, as well as California Democratic senator Adam Schiff and former FBI director James Comey.

“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Trump wrote. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

On Friday, the president said he fired the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, Erik Siebert, for saying that there was insufficient evidence to charge James with mortgage fraud. “A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job,” Trump said of Siebert.

In response, several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized Trump’s politicization of the justice department.

In an interview with NBC News, Rand Paul, Republican senator of Kentucky, toed a line, and said that “lawfare in all forms is bad,” before insisting that Joe Biden was the “king of lawfare”.

Paul also noted that “we need to get politics out of the judicial system as much as we can”.

Meanwhile, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN that Trump’s actions resembled “the path to a dictatorship”.

“It is so very, very frightening and damaging to our republic,” Schumer added.

Similarly, Chris Murphy, Democratic senator of Connecticut, denounced the president’s demands of the justice department:

Donald Trump, because he doesn’t care about the facts – all he cares about is the threat of imprisonment for his political enemies, so that it suppresses the speech of other people who might speak up – is now going to put his own political loyalist in charge of that investigation.

On social media, Trump said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan to replace Siebert. Halligan is an attorney and special assistant to the preisdent.

“Lindsey is a tough, smart, and loyal attorney, who has worked with me for a long time, including in the winning fight against the Weaponization of our Justice System by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats,” Trump wrote in his post.

Alexandra Villarreal

The Trump administration has started recruiting hundreds of military lawyers to sit as immigration judges, presiding over what are often life-and-death federal decisions for immigrants in the US, as experts warn the White House strategy is high-risk and arguably unlawful.

The judgeships are temporary but renewable, and the government’s goal is to fill an acute need for more immigration judges amid Donald Trump’s mass deportation mission – which is now happening even as experienced immigration judges seemingly deemed to have fallen foul of the president’s agenda are being purged from the courts.

Active-duty armed forces officers and reservists, part of the military’s justice arm known as the Judge Advocate General’s (Jag) corps, which has given rise to the lawyers there being nickname ‘Jags’, are getting messages asking them to volunteer for the high-stakes immigration roles.

But experts warn that military lawyers do not have the specialized knowledge to perform the duties of an immigration judge and may only have gotten an hour or two of immigration law training – if that – during JAG school, while, further, their appointments would likely break the law.

“The military’s mission is to kill people and break things – and Jags are trained to support that mission within the boundaries of military law. That’s not the same as immigration law. So why would we be using those attorneys, of all the lawyers out there, to decide the fate of families seeking refuge?” said Shawn VanDiver, a navy veteran and immigration advocate. “It’s just another way the Trump administration is trying to sow fear and keep people from coming here.”

Per my last post, it’s important to underscore that autism has been a focus for Kennedy. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Kennedy planned to announce that use of Tylenol by pregnant women was potentially linked to autism spectrum disorder. Kennedy has claimed that the US is in the grip of an “autism epidemic” fuelled by “environmental toxins”.

A reminder that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) says there’s “no clear evidence” linking “prudent” use of acetaminophen to issues with fetal development.

Also today, Donald Trump will make an announcement at 4pm EST in the Roosevelt room, according to his official schedule.

On Sunday, the president teased today’s remarks, saying his administration has found “an answer to autism” at Charlie Kirk’s public memorial in Glendale, Arizona.

Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr will join the president, alongside the director of the Centers of Medicaid and Medicare Services, Dr Mehmet Oz.

Per, the Washington Post, the Trump administration is expected to tie pregnant women’s use of the popular medicine Tylenol (known as paracetamol elsewhere in the world) to the development of autism in children. Trump is expected to specifically call out the drug’s active ingredient, acetaminophen. A reminder, medical experts say that it’s perfectly safe for women to use this over-the-counter pain medication while pregnant.

Later today, we’ll hear from press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who will hold a White House briefing at 1pm EST.

With Congress on recess this week, we’ll also be looking to hear the administration’s latest response to the looming government shutdown.

The Senate failed to pass a stopgap funding bill on Friday, after both Democratic and Republicans versions of a short term resolution to keep the government funded stalled in the upper chamber.

Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who heads the US Senate’s commerce committee, has urged Donald Trump to support international efforts by an airline trade group to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 – despite opposition from a pilots association, which says such a move could increase travel risks.

In a letter first reported by Reuters on Sunday, Cruz asked Trump to support efforts the upcoming opening of a United Nations aviation meeting in Montreal.

“America should lead on the international stage in support of raising, or even abolishing, the pilot retirement age,” said Cruz, who leads the Senate panel overseeing aviation issues. He added current policy is “forcing thousands of highly qualified and experienced pilots into early retirement every year”.

In 2024, Congress rejected a push to raise the mandatory airline pilot retirement age to 67 from 65. Lawmakers rejected the bid to hike the retirement age after some cited a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which had called for a scientific and safety analysis before making the decision.

International rules prohibit airline pilots older than 65 from flying international flights, and many countries, including the US, apply the same rule domestically as well.

The White House did not immediately comment.

Dharna Noor

Hundreds of environmentalists gathered in New York City’s Stuyvesant Square Park and a nearby Quaker meeting house on Sunday to rally in support of solar power and other forms of renewable energy. The event was part of a national “day of action” billed Sun Day, founded by veteran environmental activist Bill McKibben and first Earth Day coordinator Denis Hayes.

“It’s so sad to watch the sun going to waste,” McKibben said at a press conference, standing beside environmentalists and their children. “Every single day, energy from heaven going to waste while we drill down to hell for another dose of the stuff that is wrecking this planet.”

McKibben was joined at the press conference by other activists, as well as officials from New York and his home state of Vermont.

“We have the ability here to protect our children, to protect our future,” said New York’s lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.

The event in the park followed an all-afternoon celebration of clean power, with displays of solar panels, child-friendly lessons on renewable technology, and panel discussions. One popular panel featured McKibben and New York City’s comptroller, Brad Lander.

Turning Point USA receives major donations after founder Charlie Kirk's death

Peter Stone

The powerful fundraising operation that rightwing activist Charlie Kirk led to build the influential college group Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is receiving a wave of support from large donors and Donald Trump allies since his murder, which suggests the group will remain a major force on the American right, campaign finance experts and consultants say.

New backing and appeals for help to sustain TPUSA have come from, among others, Lynn Friess, the widow of mega-donor Foster Friess, who was Kirk’s first major backer when he formed his campus-focused Republican group in 2012 at the age of 18. Friess pledged $1m to TPUSA days after the 31-year-old’s killing.

In an email to friends and allies on the right, Friess wrote on 14 September that her donation was to support a surge in “new TPUSA chapters springing up across the country … helping this incredible movement grow even stronger”.

Far-right former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who was close to Kirk and appeared at some TPUSA events in recent years, also sent out a fundraising appeal to help sustain TPUSA, while Dallas multimillionaire Doug Deason has indicated he plans to increase his already hefty backing for the group.

Kirk’s success roping in big donors, many of whom remain anonymous, is apparent in its rapid growth according to tax filings, In 2024, Arizona-based TPUSA reported raising $85m, or more than double the $39m it hauled in during 2020.

Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch will probably be involved in the effort to buy TikTok in the US, Donald Trump said in an interview on Sunday.

The president was asked about the status of the sale of the app during an interview with Peter Doocy on The Sunday Briefing on Fox News. Trump administration officials have signaled that a deal for the Chinese-owned social media platform was imminent, though there has been some confusion about the status of the agreement.

Trump said moguls Larry Ellison and Michael Dell were involved in the deal before adding: “I hate to tell you this – a man named Lachlan is involved. You know who Lachlan is? That’s a very unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch.

“Rupert is probably gonna be in the group, I think they’re gonna be in the group, a couple of others. Really great people. Very prominent people. And they’re also American patriots, they love this country, so I think they’re gonna do a really good job.”

Such a deal would involve Fox corporation being among the group of investors in TikTok, CNN reported on Sunday, not Rupert and Lachlan as individual investors.

A delegation of US lawmakers met with Chinese defence minister Dong Jun on Monday in the first House of Representatives visit to Beijing in six years, with talks aimed at bolstering exchanges including military-to-military communication.

The bipartisan delegation was led by Democratic US representative Adam Smith, the current top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee that oversees the US Defense Department and armed forces.

“We are the first delegation from the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and we feel strongly that there should be more frequent visits and more robust conversation,” Smith told Dong.

“We want to open up the lines of communication. And in particular around military matters,” Smith said, according to a pool report organised by the US embassy in Beijing.

Dong said the visit marked a “good” phase in efforts to strengthen China-US communications.

Trump officials reportedly set to tie Tylenol to autism risk

Donald Trump’s administration is on Monday expected to tie pregnant women’s use of the popular medicine Tylenol – known as paracetamol elsewhere in the world – to a risk of autism, contrary to medical guidelines, the Washington Post has reported.

Trump officials are also expected to announce an effort to explore how the drug leucovorin could purportedly and potentially treat autism, according to the Post report published Sunday, which cited four sources with knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made.

Medical guidelines say it is safe for pregnant women to take Tylenol, the over-the-counter pain medication whose active ingredient is known as acetaminophen in the US and paracetamol elsewhere in the world.

Trump teased the announcement during the memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sunday, telling the crowd “I think we found an answer to autism.” On Saturday, the president said the planned announcement would be “one of the most important things that we will do.”

Trump hails Charlie Kirk as ‘a martyr for America’s freedom’ at memorial

Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.

You can read our report here:

In other developments:

• Donald Trump met with billionaire Elon Musk, his once trusted adviser with whom the president had a spectacular public falling out, at a memorial event for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, raising speculation that the two could be reconciling. Trump shook hands with and chatted to Musk, who once led the president’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which took a hatchet to the US federal workforce and agencies in the early months of Trump’s second administration.

• Trump’s administration is on Monday expected to tie pregnant women’s use of the popular medicine Tylenol – known as paracetamol elsewhere in the world – to a risk of autism, contrary to medical guidelines, the Washington Post has reported. Trump officials are also expected to announce an effort to explore how the drug leucovorin could purportedly and potentially treat autism, according to the Post report published Sunday, which cited four sources with knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made.

• The United States called on Sunday the recognition of a Palestinian state by several key allies - including Britain, Australia and Canada - “performative”. “Our focus remains on serious diplomacy, not performative gestures. Our priorities are clear: the release of the hostages, the security of Israel, and peace and prosperity for the entire region that is only possible free from Hamas,” a US State Department spokesperson said on condition of anonymity.

• Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch will probably be involved in the effort to buy TikTok in the US, Trump said in an interview on Sunday. The president was asked about the status of the sale of the app during an interview with Peter Doocy on The Sunday Briefing on Fox News.

• Trump said he was appointing his former lawyer Lindsey Halligan to be US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia after an extraordinary outburst in which he overtly put pressure on his attorney general to more aggressively pursue senior public officials he regards as his political enemies.