Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Gaza peace plan at the White House

Hello 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 hour or so.

We start with news that Donald Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, with the US president pushing a Gaza peace proposal after a slew of western leaders embraced Palestinian statehood in defiance of American and Israeli opposition.

In Netanyahu’s fourth visit since Trump returned to office in January, the right-wing Israeli leader will be looking to shore up his country’s most important relationship as it faces growing international isolation nearly two years into its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.

He can expect a warm welcome compared to the chilly reception he received when he spoke on Friday before the UN general assembly where many delegates walked out in protest.

Netanyahu went on to deliver a blistering attack on what he called a “disgraceful decision” over the past week by Britain, France, Canada, Australia and several other countries to recognize Palestinian statehood, a major diplomatic shift by top US allies.

Trump, who had criticized the recognition moves as a prize to Hamas, told Reuters on Sunday he hopes to get Netanyahu’s agreement on a framework to end the war in the Palestinian territory and free the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

“We’re getting a very good response because Bibi wants to make the deal too,” Trump said in a telephone interview, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “Everybody wants to make the deal.”

He credited leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Egypt for their assistance and said the deal aims to go beyond Gaza to a broader Middle East peace.

“It’s called peace in the Middle East, more than Gaza. Gaza is a part of it. But it’s peace in the Middle East,” he said.

In other developments:

More than 100,000 federal workers are to formally resign on Tuesday, the largest such mass event in US history, as part of a Trump administration program designed to make sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. With Congress facing a deadline of Tuesday to authorize more funding or spark a government shutdown, the White House has also ordered federal agencies to draw up plans for large-scale firings of workers if the partisan fight fails to yield a deal.

Donald Trump has reversed course and is purportedly planning to host a bipartisan gathering of the top four US congressional leaders at the White House on Monday afternoon in a last-ditch effort to avoid a looming government shutdown, the House speaker and the US president’s fellow Republican, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday.

The indictment of former FBI director James Comey is part of a concerted effort by Donald Trump to “rewrite history” in his favor, a former senior White House lawyer claimed on Sunday as he warned of more retribution to come for the president’s political opponents.

The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, announced on Sunday that he was abandoning his faltering bid to win re-election, just over a month before election day. Adams, who was trailing in the polls, was elected as a Democrat but ran for re-election as an independent after he was indicted on federal corruption charges, which were then dropped by the Trump administration in exchange for his cooperation on immigration raids.

Children, including the very young, have been spending weeks or months in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facility in a remote part of Texas where outside monitors have heard accounts of shortages of clean drinking water, chronic sleep deprivation and kids struggling for hygiene supplies and prompt medical attention, as revealed in a stark new court filing.

Updated at 06.58 EDT

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Saudi real estate developer Dar Global plans to build a $1bn Trump Plaza project in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah as US president Donald Trump’s family business expands in the Gulf, the company said on Monday.

The project will be the second Trump-branded development in the kingdom after the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah last year, Dar Global said in a statement.

The bulk of the Trump Organization’s business is in the United States, but it has significant interests overseas, including in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Reuters reports.

It has partnered with Dar Global, the international arm of Saudi Arabia’s Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company, on several projects, which include plans for Trump towers in Dubai and Jeddah as well as a real estate project in Qatar.

Richard Luscombe

Ty Cobb, who defended Trump’s first administration during the Mueller investigation into his 2016 campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, also told CBS that he doubted Comey would be convicted, if the case ever reached trial.

Trump’s moves, he said on the Sunday morning show Face the Nation, were “wholly unconstitutional (and) authoritarian” and an attempt to hoodwink future generations.

“Trump wants to rewrite history so that the next generation may not know that he incited a violent insurrection, refused to peacefully transfer the power of the presidency after losing an election, stole classified documents and showed them to friends and guests at Mar-a-Lago, and that he was a criminal,” Cobb said.

“He’s a convicted felon. All, anybody involved in those events that offended him, they’re in real danger.”

Richard Luscombe

Trump’s climbdown comes days after he scrapped a planned meeting to discuss the crisis with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the respective Democratic minority leaders in the House and Senate.

The president accused the pair of making “unserious and ridiculous demands” in return for Democratic votes to support a Republican funding agreement to keep the government open beyond Tuesday night – but left the door open for a meeting “if they get serious about the future of our nation”.

Johnson, appearing on CNN, said he spoke with Trump at length on Saturday, and that the two Democrats had agreed to join him and John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, for an Oval Office discussion Monday.

He did not say if Trump would be negotiating directly with the Democrats – but portrayed Trump as keen to “try to convince them to follow common sense and do what’s right by the American people”.

Schumer, talking to NBC’s Meet the Press, said he was “hopeful we can get something real done” – but was uncertain of the mood they would find Trump in when they sat down for the 2pm ET discourse.

“If the president at this meeting is going to rant, and just yell at Democrats, and talk about all his alleged grievances, and say this, that, and the other thing, we won’t get anything done,” Schumer said.

“We don’t want a shutdown. We hope that they sit down and have a serious negotiation with us.”

According to CBS News on Sunday, meanwhile, Trump is not hopeful the meeting will lead to an agreement.

The number of people charged with breaking federal drug laws dropped to the lowest level in decades this year after the Trump administration ordered enforcement agencies to focus on deporting immigrants, a Reuters review of nearly 2 million federal court records found.

So far this year, about 10% fewer people have been prosecuted for drug violations compared to the same period of 2024, court records show, a drop of about 1,200 cases and the slowest rate since at least the late 1990s.

The reduction was more dramatic for the types of conspiracy and money-laundering cases often used to pursue higher-level traffickers. The number of people charged with money-laundering dropped by 24%, according to Reuters’ analysis.

Shortly after taking office in January, US president Donald Trump launched the broadest overhaul of US law enforcement since the attacks of 11 September 2001. He ordered thousands of federal agents to focus on fending off what he described as an “invasion” of illegal immigration.

Michael Sainato

The Trump administration is set to oversee the largest mass resignation in US history on Tuesday, with more than 100,000 federal workers set to formally quit as part of the latest wave of its deferred resignation program.

With Congress facing a deadline of Tuesday to authorize more funding or spark a government shutdown, the White House has also ordered federal agencies to draw up plans for large-scale firings of workers if the partisan fight fails to yield a deal.

Workers preparing to leave government as part of the resignation program – one of several pillars of Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce – have described how months of “fear and intimidation” left them feeling like they had no choice but to depart.

“Federal workers stay for the mission. When that mission is taken away, when they’re scapegoated, when their job security is uncertain, and when their tiny semblance of work-life balance is stripped away, they leave,” a longtime employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) told the Guardian. “That’s why I left.”

The total resignation program is set to cost $14.8bn, with 200,000 workers paid their full salary and benefits while on administrative leave for up to eight months, according to a Senate Democrats’ report in July.

Trump officials argue this outlay is worth it. The Office of Personnel Management claimed the one-time costs lower longer-term spending by the federal government. It also criticized job protections of federal civil servants, claiming the government should have a “modern, at-will employment framework like most employers”.

Harris calls Trump ‘incompetent and unhinged’ and makes call to ‘fight fire with fire’

Ramon Antonio Vargas

Donald Trump has proven himself to be an “unchecked, incompetent, unhinged president,” and his opposition must follow leaders who are ready to “fight fire with fire,” his 2024 election rival Kamala Harris has said.

The former Democratic US vice-president delivered those fiery remarks on Saturday evening while accepting an award from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington DC – and after Trump’s fellow Republican allies have demanded that his liberal opponents tone down their rhetoric in the wake of the 10 September shooting death of rightwing political activist Charlie Kirk.

During a nearly eight-minute speech recorded by C-SPAN, Harris alluded to how the second Trump administration has cut healthcare protections as well as nutrition assistance benefiting the poor. She pointed to the administration’s implementation of tariffs that preceded a reported rise in consumer prices in August. She also mentioned the administration’s axing of $500m in funding for vaccines like the ones that helped end the Covid-19 pandemic, its deploying US military troops into the streets of multiple cities and other controversial actions as Trump’s approval rating has plummeted on average to -9.4% as of Saturday.

“Let us be clear – we predicted all that,” Harris said, echoing her 2024 campaign predictions that a second Trump presidency would be “a huge risk for America” and “dangerous”.

But Harris said what she never foresaw “was the capitulation” to him from once proud institutions. Top universities have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle antisemitism claims. Law firms have acquiesced to performing pro bono work for causes that are dear to Trump – and to not engage in race-conscious hiring – to avoid executive orders from the president that could substantially slow their business down. And major US media platforms such as ABC and CBS have settled lawsuits, at multi-million dollar costs, brought against them by Trump rather than contest what pundits widely perceived to be winnable cases.

“Universities, law firms, media corporations, the titans of industry … have been so quick to kneel before a tyrant,” Harris said.

Harris held up what she considered to be a meaningful act of resistance: one centering on Jimmy Kimmel’s return to air after ABC temporarily suspended the late-night host’s show over comments criticizing the Trump administration’s response to Kirk’s killing.

Hugo Lowell

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.

The strikes on the Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics, which the administration has claimed were necessary because interdiction did not work, have been orchestrated through the homeland security council (HSC), which Miller leads as the homeland security adviser.

Miller empowered the HSC earlier this year to become its own entity in Donald Trump’s second term, a notable departure from previous administrations where it was considered part of the national security council and ultimately reported to the national security adviser.

As a result, the HSC has taken the lead on engaging the Venezuelan boats, the people said, a situation evidenced by his top deputy, Tony Salisbury, and others being the gatekeepers to details about what boat to strike until they are about to occur.

That was the case for instance with the second Venezuelan boat hit with hellfire missiles on 15 September. While the White House was informed the Pentagon had identified the boat as a viable target more than four days before, many top White House officials only learned of the impending strike hours before it happened.

A White House spokesperson said in a statement the strikes were directed by Trump, saying he oversaw all elements of foreign policy. “The entire administration is working together to execute the president’s directive with clear success,” the statement said.

Robert Mackey

The state of Oregon filed a lawsuit in federal court on Sunday seeking to block the deployment of 200 national guard troops to Portland, arguing Donald Trump’s characterization of the peaceful city as “war ravaged” is “pure fiction”.

Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, said at a news conference that she had been notified by the Pentagon that the US president had seized control of the state’s reservists, claiming authority granted to him to suppress “rebellion” or lawlessness.

“When the president and I spoke yesterday,” Kotek said, “I told him in very plain language that there is no insurrection, or threat to public safety that necessitates military intervention in Portland.”

A Pentagon memorandum dated Sunday and signed by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, obtained by the Washington Post, said: “200 members of the Oregon National Guard will be called into Federal service effective immediately for a period of 60 days.”

Trump’s action, in asserting federal control of the state’s national guard troops, is clearly “unlawful”, Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, said, given that it was not taken in response to a foreign invasion or mass anarchy, but one small protest by dozens of activists outside a single Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Portland.

“Let’s be clear, local law enforcement has this under control,” Kotek, said. “We have free speech demonstrations that are happening near one federal facility. Portland police is actively engaged in managing those, with the federal folks a the facility, and when people cross the line, there’s unlawful activity, people are being held accountable.”