Trump opens cabinet meeting with personal jab at Pelosi as tension rises over shutdown and National Guard: Live updates – UK Times

Attorney General Pam Bondi said 562 people have been arrested in Memphis since the administration’s “Memphis Safe Task Force” launched.

Officers have also seized 114 “illegal guns,” Bondi said at the Cabinet meeting.

“They were so happy to have us there,” Bondi told Trump. “We’ve been making arrests left and right.”

President Donald Trump appears to be attempting to stir up conflict within House and Senate Democrats by claiming “a lot” of the rank-and-file are “calling us” to say they want to vote to reopen the government.

He’s previously claimed there have been ongoing talks with Democrats, but no House or Senate members have said there has been any contact between them and the White House.

Trump is also again threatening to punish Democratic voters by using the ongoing government shutdown as a pretext to slash what he calls “Democrat programs.”

“The shutdown has been pretty damaging, not yet, because it’s early, but it gets a little bit worse as it goes along,” he said. “And we’ll be making cuts that will be permanent, and we’re only going to cut Democrat programs.”

“I hate to tell you, I guess that’s makes sense, but we’re only cutting Democrat programs, but we’re going to start that, and we have Russell, we can talk to you about it if he wants to, but we’re we’ll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly, because that’s the way it works,” he added. “They wanted to do this, so we’ll get little taste of their own medicine.”

President Donald Trump hit out at Representative Nancy Pelosi as he spoke about the government shutdown and Democratic leadership at today’s Cabinet meeting.

Trump made the remark after he said that he doesn’t know “who the hell is leading the Democrats.”

“The only one, the challenger actually, was Nancy Pelosi, and Nancy — Nancy’s not looking too good,” he said. “I don’t know what happened to Nancy, but she’s not looking great.”

President Trump says he’s “going to try and make a trip over” to the Middle East on “Monday or Tuesday” to mark the implementation of phase one of the peace plan his negotiators have been working on during talks in Egypt this week.

“We’re going to try and get over there, and we’re working on the timing, the exact timing. We’re going to go to Egypt, where we’ll have a signing, an additional sign, and we’ve already had a signing representing me, but we’re going to have an official signing,” he says.

Administration officials have confirmed that President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his perceived political enemies without “delay” was intended to be a private message.

Alex Woodward has the story:

President Donald Trump kicked off his Cabinet meeting with remarks about the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.

“I think it’s going to be a lasting peace, hopefully an everlasting peace, peace in the Middle East,” he said. “We secured the release of all of the remaining hostages, and they should be released on Monday or Tuesday.”

Trump noted that he’s planning to visit the region.

The White House’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, told NBC News he has landed in Israel.

Witkoff arrived just hours after the first phase of the Israel-Hamas peace deal was announced.

Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo earlier today.

President Donald Trump’s Cabinet meeting, which was set to start at 11 a.m., has not started.

The meeting comes after Trump announced the first phase of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Andrew Feinberg has the details on the deal:

Jesse Watters said the quiet part out loud Wednesday when he thanked Donald Trump for serving as a “Fox News producer” due to the president convening an “Antifa violence roundtable” that featured a slew of far-right influencers and “independent journalists.”

“The mainstream media has probably never heard of any of these people, and this is why this is such great programming,” Watters gleefully exclaimed during Wednesday’s broadcast of The Five.

Can President Donald Trump win a Nobel Peace Prize?

Maira Butt answers your questions about the prestigious award: