Trump news live: Karoline Leavitt briefs from the White House as Trump readies for primetime address – UK Times

Karoline Leavitt is back at the podium in Brady Press Room for her first briefing since returning from maternity leave.

She is expected to face questions about the Iran war and President Trump’s speech this evening.

Donald Trump’s teleprompter operator is thought to have made more than $100,000 betting on the president’s speeches, ABC News reported.

Gabriel Perez, who has operated Trump’s teleprompter for a decade, is alleged to have relied on insider knowledge to make money on prediction platform Kalshi, sources told the outlet.

Regulators have expressed openness to reaching a settlement deal with Perez.

Vice President JD Vance pushed for the passage of the SAVE America Act on Thursday morning ahead of President Donald Trump’s speech on U.S. elections.

“Let’s deliver for the people who sent us here and use reconciliation to send as much of the SAVE America Act as possible to President Trump’s desk,” Vance wrote on X.

The GOP-backed bill, which Republicans have said does not have the votes to pass, would require that new voters show proof of citizenship.

The Trump administration announced new measures on Thursday to significantly shorten the duration of visas for foreign students, cultural exchange visitors, and journalists, according to a government notice.

The Department of Homeland Security’s new final rule establishes fixed time periods for F visas for international students, J visas for cultural exchange program participants working in the U.S., and I visas for media professionals.

These visas currently allow stays for the entire duration of a program or U.S.-based employment.

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan warned there will be more “bloodshed” unless Democrats “shut their mouths.”

“It all goes back to the Dems, who want to continue to attack ICE, tell people to evade them, tell people don’t comply,” Homan told Fox News.

“There’s still gonna be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted,” he said.

Ahead of President Trump’s address on U.S. elections tonight, here’s a look back at his long history of casting doubt on — and at times flatly denying — the integrity of the American electoral system.

Over the past decade, he has repeatedly portrayed elections as suspect, often preemptively framing any outcome he dislikes as the product of fraud rather than voters’ choices.

His claims stretch back to his first bid for the White House. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Trump repeatedly insisted, without evidence, that the vote would be “rigged” and “taken away from us” — rhetoric that abruptly disappeared once he defeated Hillary Clinton and took office.

Trump’s fixation on elections intensified after he lost the 2020 race to Joe Biden.

On election night, with ballots still being counted, he told supporters gathered at the White House, “Frankly, we did win.” He then spent months falsely claiming the contest was “rigged,” even as courts, election officials and his own advisers rejected his allegations. He and his allies mounted a sweeping effort to overturn Biden’s victory, pressuring state officials, promoting slates of fake electors and helping set the stage for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump was criminally charged as a result of his efforts to overturn the election in Georgia and in Washington, D.C. Both cases were later dropped.

As he mounted his comeback campaign in 2024, Trump again primed his supporters to distrust the process, repeatedly warning that the election would be fraudulent. He adopted the slogan “too big to rig” and urged supporters to turn out in such overwhelming numbers that any supposed cheating would fail.

Since his inauguration last year, Trump has shown renewed interest in relitigating 2020. In January, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia. Trump has also cast aspersions on a host of other contests, including races in California, where he has accused Democrats of cheating.

Through it all, multiple government and independent reviews have found that voter fraud in American elections is exceedingly rare.

Officials have framed the plan as a necessary security measure, citing what they describe as “several examples of assemblies that elevate into non-peaceful demonstrations.”

The park, long a focal point for public dissent, has recently hosted protests against the Iran war and Israel’s actions in Gaza.

A former DOJ official testified against Todd Blanche’s confirmation during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the acting attorney general’s nomination on Thursday morning.

“I had great hope that Todd Blanche would be an effective leader and a responsible steward of the Justice Department,” Elizabeth Oyer, who previously served in the department as a pardon attorney, told senators. “But, he quickly proved me wrong.”

“Two days after Mr. Blanche was confirmed as deputy attorney general, he fired me from my position…I declined to rubber stamp a political favor for a friend of Donald Trump, and it cost me my job.”

Blanche, who was present for yesterday’s hearing, is not on Capitol Hill today.

It’s unclear whether television networks will air President Donald Trump’s address on U.S. elections this evening, during which he will reportedly resurface longstanding claims of fraud.

When reached by Axios, representatives for NBC News, ABC News and CBS News declined to comment.

In the past, TV networks have sometimes refrained from airing presidential addresses, including those that are judged to be overtly political.

There are signs that the address may not be carried live: some Thursday 9 p.m. time slots indicate the presence of regularly scheduled programming, The Daily Beast reported.

In a speech on political extremism Thursday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio railed against communism — echoing recent denouncements from others in the Trump administration.

“Communism does not sound good in theory,” Rubio said at the State Department. “The world it envisions for all of us is small, flat, gray.”

“This is a distinctive and unique evil. It has always been driven by a hatred, above all else, for civilization itself,” he added.

He has warned about a communist takeover of the Democratic party after a handful of democratic socialists won primaries in New York. There are no self-identified communists currently serving in Congress.

During an interview with Joe Rogan released yesterday, Vice President JD Vance warned that AI could trigger massive wealth inequality that may lead to a communist takeover.