Trump targets Ilhan Omar at rally following raid on her home – US politics live

Donald Trump’s new press secretary Katie Zacharia is due to give her first press conference at the White House later this morning.

The president on Friday announced that he had picked Zacharia to be the next White House press secretary, lining up a conservative commentator he called a “devoted fan” to be his most prominent spokesperson.

Zacharia replaces Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after the birth to her second child.

“It is my Great Honor to have just appointed, as Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia,” the president wrote in a social media post on Truth Social.

“She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning. She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!” Trump added.

The New York Times was first to report that Zacharia has been selected for the role.

Donald Trump on Monday tried to boost senator Jon Husted’s reelection campaign by attacking two groups of immigrants during a rally in Ohio.

Trump also gave a shoutout to representative Max Miller, the Republican congressman who refused to stop running for reelection after facing accusations of domestic abuse, pointing him out in the audience.

“Thank you, Max, for coming,” Trump said. “Thank you. Very good.”

Trump focused, however, on a favorite issue — immigration. Trump has long targeted Minnesota’s large population of Somali immigrants and on Monday he linked that group to Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.

During a presidential debate two years ago, Trump falsely accused the latter group of eating pets. Referencing those allegations Monday, Trump said “I was right” and boasted that Haitians were being driven out of the country by his administration’s policies .

“If you want to stop Ohio from being plundered, ransacked and destroyed like Minnesota is being destroyed, we’re going to stop it,” Trump said. “Just like we did with Springfield, we’re going to stop it, we’re not going to let it happen.”

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar said she will “not be silenced” and called a search of her Washington home part of President Donald Trump’s “intimidation” campaign.

Democratic representative Omar, an outspoken critic of the president, said she was being targeted as one of the Republican’s “political enemies”.

It comes as Trump targeted the congresswoman during a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, last night. He said Somalia, where Omar was born, is “one of the worst countries ⁠anywhere on the planet”.

He said:

She comes from one of the worst countries ⁠anywhere on the planet. What a mess they have done – Somalia.

He urged supporters to vote Republican “if you want to stop Ohio from being plundered, ransacked and destroyed like Minnesota’s being destroyed”. In response, the crowd of Republican supporters chanted: “Deport, deport.”

US authorities conducted a predawn raid of Omar’s home in Washington, DC, on Monday as part of an ongoing investigation, the Justice Department said.

A person familiar with the investigation said it is ⁠related to alleged immigration fraud, and part of ⁠the probe concerns the Somali-born lawmaker’s immigration paperwork filled out ​by her late father when she was a child.

Omar wrote on social media that the US government is being weaponized to target a political enemy of the president.

“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” she said. “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”

In a statement, US House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of the party’s leadership in the chamber said the raid was “deeply disturbing and raises serious questions” about the weaponization of the federal government against Trump’s enemies.

In other developments:

• A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to temporarily halt the broadcast of taxpayer-funded television ads promoting the president ahead of the ۳ November midterm elections. Effective as of ۶.۴۵pm ET on Sunday, US district judge Jennifer L Rochon of the southern district of New York issued a temporary restraining order aimed at the ads that is meant to stay in effect for at least ۱۴ days.

• The New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, compared US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s recent shooting of a man in the Manhattan enclave of Marble Hill to a mass shooting scene – and called for an end to the agency’s operations in his city. Mamdani’s joined MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff for his first media interview since ICE agents shot and wounded Oscar Belgal, ۲۸, during an enforcement operation while he was in his car with his five-year-old child also inside.

• The Republican US senator Roger Marshall says he has finally paid off a bakery debt – after six years and repeated collection attempts reported by a Kansas business that had supplied a large order of treats for a ۲۰۲۰ election watch party. “We have absolutely no idea how this happened”, the Kansas senator wrote in a social media post containing a screenshot of the payment on a $۶۷۸.۷۵ invoice from Holly’s Sweet Treats as well as his $۱,۳۰۰ payment. “And we have repaid the bill … double.”

• A businessman wanted for years in the US for allegedly paying bribes to top Venezuelan officials in exchange for lucrative state contracts in Venezuela has been taken into custody. Alvaro Pulido was indicted in Miami federal court in ۲۰۱۹ and again in ۲۰۲۱ as part of an investigation into his longtime business partner, Alex Saab, a one-time ally of ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.