President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting Tuesday at the White House. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
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3 BIG PLEDGES FROM AN HOURSLONG TRUMP CABINET MEETING
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
Hello, and happy last week of summer to all of you.
President Donald Trump’s Cabinet spent more than three hours of this late-August day in an on-camera meeting with the commander-in-chief. It led to a surprising amount of news.
For travel, vacation or end-of-day ease, here’s a brief look at three significant things we learned.
1. Trump plans to ask for the death penalty for all murders in Washington, D.C.
Watch the clip in the player above.
“If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we're going to be seeking the death penalty,” the president announced while speaking with Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
What does this mean? As with other Trump pledges, in these first hours after this announcement, we are waiting for details.
It is not yet clear if Trump means that the U.S. attorney in Washington D.C. should now try to charge all city homicide cases as death penalty cases. That would be unprecedented on many fronts, including that D.C. does not allow the death penalty as punishment for its crimes under city law.
In D.C., homicides are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, under the Department of Justice.
And yet. D.C. has not seen an execution since 1957, per the Death Penalty Information Center. In 1981, the city council voted to abolish the practice. In 1992, residents overwhelmingly backed that up in a city-wide referendum.
This is the latest in Trump’s moves to personally reshape how law and justice are administered in D.C., which has for decades operated mostly by self-governance but legally remains a federal jurisdiction in which Congress can intervene.
As we write, Trump allies and opponents of the death penalty alike are sorting out what precisely the president aims to do.
2. Trump seemed to back up RFK Jr.’s promised work on autism
Watch the clip in the player above.
In speaking with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Trump raised the topic of autism.
“We’ve got to solve that problem,” he said. “It's crazy what's happening.”
Kennedy, who has vowed to present a report about the causes of autism by September, told Trump: “We will have announcements as promised in September, finding interventions, certain interventions now, that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism.”
After the HHS secretary detailed an increase in autism diagnoses, the president responded with a classic Trumpian implication, vague but signaling: “There has to be something artificially causing this, meaning a drug or something.”
Trump continued a few minutes later, suggesting, “I think we maybe know the reason. And I look forward to that press conference.”
3. Trump continues to focus on big tech, which will get bigger
Trump holds up an image showing the size of Meta's new data center during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Early in the news conference, the president pulled out a drawing. It showed a large geometric shape over a map of Manhattan.
“This is something given to me by [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg,” he told the press and Cabinet members.
The image was the estimated size of a massive data center Meta plans to build in Louisiana.
“We're also working on things to ensure that the awesome power of artificial intelligence is used to benefit all Americans,” Trump said.
This is not a surprise. But it is another indication that Trump is all-in on artificial intelligence — and that big tech is continuing to court his approval.
Reporters did get extensive time to ask questions. But we are left with many, many still unanswered.
More on politics from our coverage:
Watch: Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorney discusses his case after the Maryland resident was arrested again during a meeting with ICE.
One Big Question: How are voters viewing Trump's immigration crackdown? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter discuss.
Why clear encampments? President Donald Trump said encampments have turned “our capital into a wasteland” during an Aug. 11 news conference. The White House has threatened criminal action against people who don’t comply with orders to leave.
It’s part of a wider push across the country by Democrats and Republican lawmakers alike to take drastic action to reduce homelessness. In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order last year directing state agencies to clear encampments.
But the effort is often misguided and unlikely to actually help people experiencing homelessness, said Mary Frances Kenion, chief equity officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Ultimately, people can lose not only their shelter and mementos, but also government-issued IDs and documents, which can make it that much harder to get the aid they need, Kenion added.
What can make these kinds of efforts successful? Among the factors experts shared: Providing weeks of notice before the encampment is cleared, and making sure the clearing is conducted by a trusted service provider, not a sanitation department or law enforcement. Those service providers can spend time identifying specific needs of residents and offering them structured resources, such as places to go with pets or housing that isn’t segregated by sex.
“When you are anchoring your solutions and your approach into housing first and then wrapping the supports and services needed to get people towards stability, it works,” Kenion said.
The bottom line, Kenion said: “Homelessness has continued to rise year over year, particularly unsheltered homelessness, and people do want action. And for some, the action and the path that they are choosing is to simply remove people from public view.”
By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage
Senior Editor, Digital
No president has removed a Federal Reserve governor before.
President Donald Trump’s late Monday night move to remove Lisa Cook from her position has touched off many questions around the firing. In a letter on Truth Social, Trump accused Cook of mortgage fraud. In response, Cook said she’s not resigning, saying “no cause exists under the law, and [Trump] has no authority to do so.”
The firing is expected to prompt a legal challenge that could make its way to the Supreme Court.
Tensions between presidents and the Fed, the country’s central bank for more than a century, are not new.
But experts say Trump’s move is unprecedented as he seeks to wrestle greater control over the historically independent institution.
Our question: What financial crisis primarily led to the creation of the Fed?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: Name the governors with their own gerrymandering monikers. For a bonus, what were the nicknames?
The answer: There are two. Beyond Gov. Elbridge Gerry, whose name inspired the first use of “gerrymander” more than two centuries ago, there’s the “Perrymander,” named after then-Gov. Rick Perry’s maps in Texas in the 2010s. And then there's the "Jerrymander," named after Gov. Jerry Brown and his lopsided redrawn districts in California in the 1980s.
Congratulations to our winners: Brenda Radford and Steven Greek!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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