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On Insurrection Act, Trump says he doesn’t think he ‘needs it right now’ in Minneapolis
While speaking to reporters today, Trump said that he would use the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis if he “needed it”.
“I don’t think there’s any reason right now to use it, but if I needed it, I’d use it,” he added.
Earlier this week, Trump threatened to invoke the centuries old law, that allows the use of military forces to quell a domestic rebellion or invasion, in response to the protests against federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
A reminder that George HW Bush was the last president to use the act during the deadly 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Key events
Trump appoints Tony Blair, Jared Kushner and others to ‘board of peace’ overseeing Gaza reconstruction
Robert Mackey
The White House has released a list of officials appointed by Donald Trump to what he’s calling a ‘board of peace’, tasked with overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza, and its transitional administration.
The board members were listed by the White House as follows:
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Marco Rubio, US secretary of state;
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Steve Witkoff, Trump’s diplomatic envoy;
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Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law;
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Sir Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister;
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Marc Rowan, a billionaire Wharton business school graduate;
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Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank Group;
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Robert Gabriel, a former Fox News producer, now a US national security adviser.
The statement also says that a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) will be led by Ali Sha’ath, a former Palestinian Authority official and Gaza native.
Trump also appointed Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisors to the board, to oversee “day-to-day strategy and operations”.
Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN envoy to the Middle East, will also serve as the High Representative for Gaza.
In support of the Office of the High Representative and the NCAG, a Gaza Executive Board is being established, the White House says. The board “will help support effective governance and the delivery of best-in-class services that advance peace, stability, and prosperity for the people of Gaza.” Its appointed members include Mladenov, Blair, Kushner, Witkoff, Rowan and:
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Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister;
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Ali Al-Thawadi, a Qatari diplomat;
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General Hassan Rashad, the head of Egyptian military intelligence;
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Reem Al-Hashimy, UAE’s minister for international cooperation;
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Yakir Gabay, an Israeli real estate billionaire;
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Sigrid Kaag, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
TheWhite House also announced that Major General Jasper Jeffers, a former US special operations commander, “has been appointed Commander of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), where he will lead security operations, support comprehensive demilitarization, and enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials.”
Donald Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago today, to speak at a ceremony honoring him with the renaming of a four-mile stretch of road in Palm Beach after him. The president left Washington for the event, flying to Florida after the rural health roundtable.
After being introduced by Florida representative Meg Weinberger – who Trump proudly referred to as “Maga Meg” – he said the road was “a very important stretch”.
The portion of the road named for him goes from the Palm Beach international airport to the Mar-a-Lago club.
“A lot of people, a lot of important people, and I don’t care if they’re important or not, but important and not important people travel on that road,” the president said, adding, “I will remember this amazing gesture for the rest of my life,” he said.
Attorneys for suspect in Charlie Kirk killing attempt to disqualify county attorney’s office
Lawyers for Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk at an university event in September, are seeking to disqualify the Utah county attorney’s office from prosecuting the alleged gunman.
At a hearing today, Robinson’s attorneys argued that since the child of one of the prosecutors attended the Utah Valley University where Kirk was shot, there was a conflict of interest.
Speaking before district judge Tony Graf, a lawyer for Robinson said that he believed “the court has the discretion to say to the Utah county attorneys, ‘you shouldn’t be representing yourself in this case’.”
He added that an evidentiary hearing would be needed to settle the matter.
New poll finds majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s first year back in office, most call it a ‘failure’
A new poll by CNN finds that 61% of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump’s first year back in office. While 58% categorized his return to the White House as a “failure”.
When it comes to specific policy issues, only 42% of respondents said they approved of Trump’s handling of immigration and border policies, while 58% disapproved.
Sixty per cent of people disapproved of the president’s work on foreign policy, while 63% disapproved of the administration’s handling of health care policy.
Incident reports provide details of emergency response after fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis
Anna Betts
New incident reports from the Minneapolis police and fire departments, along with transcripts of 911 calls, provide new details about the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good last week in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
According to a Minneapolis fire department incident report obtained by the Guardian, along with police records and 911 transcripts, paramedics arrived at the scene at about 9.42am on 7 January and found Good “unresponsive” in the driver’s seat of her car, “with blood on her face and torso”.
The report states that paramedics removed Good from the car and reported that she was “unresponsive, not breathing, with inconsistent, irregular, thready pulse activity”.
According to the report, paramedics identified two “apparent gunshot wounds” to the right side of her chest, another apparent gunshot wound “to the patient’s left forearm”, and a “possible gunshot wound with protruding tissue on the left side of the patient’s head”. The report also notes that she had “dilated pupils” and blood “discharging” from her left ear.
Responders moved Good down the block “for a more workable scene, better access for ambulances, and separation from an escalating scene involving law enforcement and bystanders”.
Paramedics began performing chest compressions and applied a tourniquet to Good’s left arm before transporting her to a nearby hospital. The report states that CPR was continued during transport.
Upon arrival at the hospital, the report states that paramedics continued chest compressions while hospital staff “assumed airway and ventilation responsibilities”. According to the report, “resuscitative efforts were discontinued at approximately 10.30am”.
Read more about the report and the transcripts of multiple 911 calls obtained by the Guardian:
Sam Levine
The justice department is not entitled to sensitive information on California voters, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, writing that the administration’s efforts to obtain the information on voters in the state is a threat to democracy.
The Trump administration has filed similar lawsuits in nearly half of US states.
Last summer, the justice department asked California for a list of all voters, including their dates of birth and the last four digits of their social security number, claiming the information was needed to ensure the state was keeping ineligible voters off its rolls.
California’s secretary of state offered to let the justice department inspect a redacted version of the voter registration list, but refused to turn over all of the requested information. The justice department responded by filing a lawsuit against the state and went on to file similar litigation in 23 states and the District of Columbia.
The ruling is a setback to the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to gather sweeping voter information, which experts have said are based on weak legal arguments. The suits have nonetheless caused considerable alarm among voting rights activists, who see them as a vehicle to make exaggerated claims about noncitizens on the voter rolls and sow doubt about the integrity of the US election system ahead of this fall’s midterms.
Despite the Nobel Institute’s statement earlier, the president said that Mariá Corina Machado’s offer to share her peace prize with him was “a very nice gesture”.
He said called Venezuela’s opposition leader a “very fine woman” and added that the two will be talking again.
When asked about why Trump is supporting the country’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez, instead of Machado, the president referenced the repercussions of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“Everybody was fired, every single person, the police, the generals, everybody was fired, and they ended up being ISIS. Instead of just getting down to business, they ended up being ISIS,” Trump said.
He added that he had a “great meeting” on Thursday with Machado. “I never met her before, and I was very, very impressed,” Trump said.
The president also pushed back against a reporter’s question about Israeli and Arab insistence that the US hold off on strikes against Iran.
“Nobody convinced me. I convinced myself,” Trump said. “You had, yesterday, scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn’t hang anyone. They canceled the hangings – that had a big impact.”
On Insurrection Act, Trump says he doesn’t think he ‘needs it right now’ in Minneapolis
While speaking to reporters today, Trump said that he would use the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis if he “needed it”.
“I don’t think there’s any reason right now to use it, but if I needed it, I’d use it,” he added.
Earlier this week, Trump threatened to invoke the centuries old law, that allows the use of military forces to quell a domestic rebellion or invasion, in response to the protests against federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
A reminder that George HW Bush was the last president to use the act during the deadly 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Speaking to reporters earlier before departing to Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump was asked if he would pull out of Nato if it didn’t help him acquire Greenland. He said:
Well, we’re going to see. Nato has been dealing with us on Greenland, we need Greenland for national security very badly.
Further to that, the Nobel Institute has issued another reminder that the peace prize remains inseparably linked to the person or organization designated as the laureate.
In a statement, the institute said:
Regardless of what may happen to the medal, the diploma, or the prize money, it is and remains the original laureate who is recorded in history as the recipient of the prize. Even if the medal or diploma later comes into someone else’s possession, this does not alter who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The statement added that a laureate “cannot share the prize with others, nor transfer it once it has been announced. A Nobel Peace Prize can also never be revoked.”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has said she is confident there would be an orderly transition in Venezuela after the US overthrow of Nicolás Maduro and that eventually there would be free and fair elections.
“Venezuela is going to be free, and that’s going to be achieved with the support of the people of the United States and President Donald Trump,” she told a press conference in Washington. “I am profoundly, profoundly confident that we will have an orderly transition [to elections].”
It comes a day after Machado presented Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal after meeting with him in the White House, as she sought to sway him to give the opposition a role in determining Venezuela’s future.
Trump has dismissed the idea of installing her as president of Venezuela (despite her movement being widely considered the winner of a 2024 election that Maduro was accused of having rigged in his favor), and has instead backed backed former Maduro loyalists, led by interim president Delcy Rodríguez, to govern Venezuela for now.
But Machado insisted she had faith in the US president’s plans. She told the audience:
I have no doubt that President Trump, his administration and the people of the United States support democracy, justice, freedom and the mandate of the people of Venezuela.
Once the regime is out and the transition is accomplished, the United States will not only be a safer nation, but one that will have more prosperity and strength in our hemisphere.
Supreme court to issue next rulings on 20 January
The US supreme court is expected to issue its next rulings on Tuesday as several major cases remain pending including the legality of Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs.
The court indicated on its website today that it may release decisions in argued cases at 9.30am ET on 20 January when the justices take the bench during a scheduled sitting. The court does not announce in advance what cases will be decided.
Callout: What is life like in the Twin Cities right now?
Thousands of federal immigration agents have been sent into Minneapolis in recent days, with protests taking place in Minnesota and across the country in response to last week’s shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests.
We want to hear from you. Are you based in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul? Has your daily life been affected?
Have you changed the way you go about your days and nights? How do you feel about the lawsuit, and the presence of federal immigration agents in your area?
You can share your experience at the form below, or message the Guardian securely on WhatsApp or Signal at +447766780300.
Trump repeats threats to take action in Minneapolis
On Truth Social, Donald Trump continued to claim, baselessly, that people protesting against federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis are “highly paid professionals”.
The president once again, criticized Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, and the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, for losing “control” of the city, as tensions rise and demonstrations have resulted in arrests and the use of teargas.
“If, and when, I am forced to act, it will be solved, QUICKLY and EFFECTIVELY!” Trump wrote.
The president ended his rural healthcare roundtable without taking questions from reporters. As he went around the room and heard from various officials, including lawmakers and cabinet members, he said that “we’re going to have to go very fast” because they were “way behind schedule”.
Joseph Gedeon
Reporting from the White House
As the soft, elegant piano music played to a fade and Donald Trump walked into a packed East Room, he took to the microphone immediately to say this investment in rural healthcare is “the big one” and called it “the great healthcare plan”.
“That means low price and great healthcare,” the president said while adding that the administration was rolling out $50bn in rural healthcare funding,
He said of Obamacare: “This was a bill to make insurance companies wealthy.
“They put Band-Aids, literally Band-Aids, over the communities”, he added.
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on countries who ‘don’t go along’ with plans to acquire Greenland
Speaking at the White House today, Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries who pushback against his moves to annex Greenland.
“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland,” the president said. “Because we need Greenland for national security.”
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