The Latest: Trump says he’ll send National Guard to Memphis to address crime concerns
By The Associated Press
President Donald Trump said Friday he’ll send the National Guard to Memphis to address crime concerns there with the support of the mayor and the governor.
Since sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, the Republican president has openly mused about sending troops to other cities, claiming they’re needed to crack down on crime.
Here’s the latest:
With Hyundai raid, Trump’s immigration crackdown runs into his push for foreign investment
President Trump’s push to revitalize American manufacturing by luring foreign investment into the U.S. has run smack into one of his other priorities: cracking down on illegal immigration.
Hardly a week after immigration authorities raided a sprawling Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, detained more than 300 South Korean workers and showed video of some of them shackled in chains, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned the country’s other companies may be reluctant to take up Trump’s invitation to pour money into the United States.
The detained South Koreans were released Thursday and most were flown home.
If the U.S. can’t promptly issue visas to the technicians and other skilled workers needed to launch plants, then “establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies,” Lee said Thursday. “They will wonder whether they should even do it.”
▶ Read more about the immigration crackdown and foreign investments
Trump says the US needs ‘quick trials’ for crime
Trump was speaking about the fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina, allegedly by a man with a lengthy criminal history.
“They should have a trial the following day,” Trump said on Fox News Channel. “The whole thing is on tape.”
He said China, which is not a democracy, and some other countries have “quick trials.”
The president seemed to lament that it could take years for the case to work through the legal system. He also spoke about the cost of incarcerating and caring for the suspect.
Rubio to visit Israel in show of support ahead of expected UN meeting on Palestinian state
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Israel next week in a show of support for the country ahead of an expected contentious U.N. meeting on the creation of a Palestinian state.
Despite tensions between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, notably over Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar, Rubio will arrive in Israel on Sunday for a two-day visit and is expected to travel to a controversial archeological site in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim for the capital of an eventual state.
The State Department said Friday that Rubio would “convey America’s priorities in the Israel-Hamas conflict and broader issues concerning Middle Eastern security, reaffirming the U.S. commitment to Israeli security” with an emphasis on the Trump administration’s commitment “to fight anti-Israel actions including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.”
His trip comes as efforts to broker a hostage release and ceasefire deal to end the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza have stalled and Israel has moved ahead with plans to occupy Gaza City.
Trump says George Soros should face RICO investigation
The president said “we’re going to look into” the prominent liberal donor, suggesting his funds support rioting.
RICO, which refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, is usually used for organized crime.
Soros’ group, Open Society Foundations, has rejected these allegations before.
“We do not pay people to protest or directly train or coordinate protestors,” it said in August.
The president talked about learning the news of Kirk’s assassination
Near the end of his Fox interview, Trump said he’d been holding a meeting about building a new White House ballroom when his aides interrupted.
“They came in and they said, ‘Charlie Kirk is dead.’ I didn’t know what they meant. I said, ‘What do you mean, dead?’” Trump said.
”‘Charlie Kirk was shot.’ And they thought it was dead because it was so horrific.”
Trump said he swiftly ended his meeting. “I just told these people, “Get out, you gotta go.”
Trump on Zohran Mamdani: ‘My little communist’
The president once again treaded into the New York City mayoral race, saying he wanted to see a one-on-one race against Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.
“I call him my little communist,” Trump said in the interview on “Fox and Friends.” He acknowledged Mamdani’s strong chances of victory but mused that “maybe one-on-one, somebody could beat him.”
Trump noted that former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, now running as a Democrat, was leading the other non-Mamdani candidates in the race.
And while Trump is a Republican, he said Curtis Sliwa, the eclectic GOP candidate in the race, was “not exactly primetime.”
“He wants cats to be in Gracie Mansion,” Trump said.
Trump criticizes Senate Democrats for holding up nominations
He said that if former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln “came back from the dead and they wanted to go into the administration,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wouldn’t approve them.
Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, are considering changing the rules to make it easier to get certain nominations to a confirmation vote in batches, instead of one by one.
Trump says inflation is ‘solved’ and he needs to win tariffs case before the Supreme Court
On the heels of a Thursday inflation report showing inflation increased to 2.9%, Trump is saying high prices aren’t a problem and that the biggest risk to the economy would be a Supreme Court ruling that his emergency tariffs are illegal.
“I’ve already solved inflation,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” as he continued to verbally attack Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the central bank’s benchmark interest rates.
Trump declared an emergency under a 1977 law to impose tariffs and courts have said he exceeded his legal authority by doing so, putting before the Supreme Court what Trump called “one of the most important cases in the history of our country.”
Trump said he didn’t want to discuss the consequences of losing the case, saying, “What we did is right. The president has the power to impose tariffs.”
Trump says ‘don’t even bother’ negotiating with Democrats
He said Republicans will likely put together a continuing resolution to keep funding the federal government.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told the AP he was willing to risk a shutdown to protect some healthcare programs.
Trump said it was no use working with Democrats “if you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it.”
Instead, he said, “we will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together.”
The president says his patience with Putin ‘is running out’
“It’s running out and running out fast,” Trump said.
However, Trump said, “it does take two to tango,” suggesting that it’s been hard to get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the same page for ending the war in Ukraine.
When Fox hosts indicated Putin was to blame for prolonging the conflict, Trump attributed the problem to “tremendous hatred between him and Zelenskyy.”
Trump says it’s ‘dangerous’ being president
Trump said politics has always been a dangerous business and that being president is “the most dangerous career you can have.”
He named Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and other presidents who were assassinated and said he went into politics aware of the danger.
Trump was the target of two assassination attempts last year.
Trump says he didn’t want to watch the video of Charlie Kirk’s shooting
“I didn’t want to remember Charlie that way,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
Graphic video of the shooting in Utah has circulated widely online.
Trump says ‘with a high degree of certainty’ that suspect in Charlie Kirk killing has been caught
The suspect in the Charlie Kirk assassination has been captured, President Trump said Friday in an announcement that appeared to represent a significant breakthrough in an investigation that captivated public attention and spanned nearly two days.
“With a high degree of certainty, we have him,” Trump announced in a live interview on Fox News Chanel on Friday morning.
The FBI and Justice Department did not immediately comment, but a news conference in Utah, where the killing took place on a college campus Wednesday, planned a news conference for later in the morning.
▶ Read more about the killing of Charlie Kirk
Trump says National Guard going into Memphis
The president said he’s sending the National Guard into Memphis to combat crime.
Saying “Memphis is deeply troubled,” Trump said “we’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.”
Speculation had centered on Chicago as Trump’s next city to send in the National Guard and other federal authorities. But the administration has faced fierce resistance from Illinois J.B. Pritzker and other local authorities.
