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White House says no plans for Trump-Putin meeting in the immediate future
There are no plans for Donald Trump to meet with Vladmir Putin “in the immediate future”, a White House official told the Guardian.
The official added that the recent call between secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was “productive”, and therefore an additional-in-person meeting between the envoys is “not necessary”.
This comes after Trump announced a yet-to-be determined bilateral summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, after his conversation with the Kremlin Leader last week.
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Senate majority leader Thune tells Democrats to 'get wise'
The Senate’s top Republican, John Thune, closed out the lunch in the Rose Garden by urging his colleagues across the aisle to “get wise” and “vote to reopen the government”.
“Everybody here has voted now 11 different times to open up the government, and we are going to keep voting to open up the government, and eventually, the Democrats, hopefully, sooner or later, are going to come around,” Thune said.
Trump is running through what he sees are the greatest hits of his first nine months back at the White House. “We don’t need to pass any more bills. We got everything in that bill,” the president said, referring to his sweeping domestic policy agenda that he signed into law in July.
Here are a few pictures of some of the senators and officials in the Rose Garden today.
The president is explaining a new piece of immigration enforcement legislation, called “Kate’s law”.
“Very simply, it says that if you’re an illegal alien and you come in and you get thrown out, if you come back and get caught, you have to spend 10 years in jail,” Trump said.
The president urged the senators to pass the bill making its way through the House. The legislation is named after Kate Steinhle, who was shot in the head in 2015 by a man who entered the country illegally and had previously been deported. Different iterations of the bill have failed in Congress over the last several years.
Trump chides senator Rand Paul, without mentioning his name
As he welcomes the Republican senators, and thanks them for his help, Trump notes – without naming him – that senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has routinely voted against the stopgap funding bill to reopen the federal government, did not turn up.
“We’re just missing one person. You’ll never guess who that is,” Trump said. “He automatically votes no. He thinks it’s good politics. It’s really not good politics.”
The president has spent most of his opening remarks heralding the success of his sweeping tariffs.
“We’re a wealthy nation again, and we’re a nation that can be secure. We’re a nation that can start paying down our debt, and with tariffs, we’re the wealthiest nation ever in the history of the world,” he said.
This comes as he reignites a trade war with China, threatening an additional 100% levy after Beijing tightened exports of rare earth minerals.
Trump hosts GOP senators for Rose Garden lunch
Hosting several Republican lawmakers at the White House, Trump says that “this is supposed to be sort of a private event, and there is no such thing in politics as a private event”.
White House says no plans for Trump-Putin meeting in the immediate future
There are no plans for Donald Trump to meet with Vladmir Putin “in the immediate future”, a White House official told the Guardian.
The official added that the recent call between secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was “productive”, and therefore an additional-in-person meeting between the envoys is “not necessary”.
This comes after Trump announced a yet-to-be determined bilateral summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, after his conversation with the Kremlin Leader last week.
The vice-president also reaffirmed that there will be no US boots on the ground in the region, but said that America’s role will be to “provide some useful coordination” between Israel, Gulf Arab states, Indonesia and Turkey.
“The only real mediators are the United States of America, and so that’s the role that we’re going to play. I think the American people should be proud of them,” Vance added.
Vance says that future governance of Gaza should be left to Palestinians and Israelis
The vice-president said he doesn’t know the answer to the question about the ultimate authority in Gaza.
“We need to reconstruct Gaza. We need to make sure that both the Palestinians living in Gaza, but also the Israelis, are able to live in some measure of security and stability. We’re doing all those things simultaneously,” he said.
“Let’s focus on security, rebuilding, giving people some food and medicine. If we get to the point where we’re arguing exactly what the governance structure in Gaza is long term, then we should pat ourselves on the back. That’s a very good problem to have.”
The vice-president said that his visit to Israel had “nothing to do with events in the past 48 hours” and that he had been trying to plan this visit “months ago” but thought “this would be a good time to do it”.
Vance refuses to put "explicit deadline" for Hamas to comply with disarmament
The vice-president said that he would not “put an explicit deadline” on Hamas to comply with the key points of the Gaze ceasefire deal.
“If Hamas doesn’t comply with the deal, very bad things are going to happen,” Vance said, reiterating Donald Trump’s threats earlier today on social media.
“I don’t think it’s actually advisable for us to say this has to be done in a week, because a lot of this work is very hard. It’s never been done before, and in order for us to give it a chance to succeed, we’ve got to be a little bit flexible,” the vice-president added.
A note about the civilian military coordination center (CMCC). It will serve as a “hub” for the delivery of “everything that goes into Gaza” according to officials speaking today.
We also just heard from Donald Trump’s top envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were two of the key brokers for the US in mediating the current ceasefire deal.
Kushner said that “almost half” of the deceased Israeli hostages have been released.
