September 3, 2025: Trump administration news

Our live coverage of Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.

President Donald Trump speaks during an event about the relocation of US Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday.

Here are some of the late developments in the Trump administration tonight:

US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry participate in a press conference near Camp 57 at Angola Prison in Louisiana to announce the opening of a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Wednesday.

The Trump administration is opening a new camp within a notorious state prison in Louisiana to house undocumented migrants accused of committing crimes, officials announced today.

The new detention center, called “Camp 57,” will be at the country’s largest maximum-security prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola, an 18,000-acre facility located an hour north of Baton Rouge. It will have the capacity to house over 400 men, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said today at a news conference, half of whom will be sent there by the end of September.

Administration officials said Camp 57 is designed to hold the “worst of the worst” and pointed to it as a sign of success amid their ongoing campaigns against both illegal immigration and violent crime — both of which are key to Trump’s agenda.

The facility’s name is a nod to Landry, the state’s 57th governor, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told CNN. It is being repurposed from an existing facility that was not in use, Landry said.

Camp 57 is “not just a typical ICE detention facility that you may see in another state, somewhere else in this country,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said. “Instead, this facility will hold the most dangerous of criminals that have been out there harming individuals in this country.”

Though Camp 57 will be isolated from the prison’s normal criminal population, Louisiana’s prison system has been accused of forcing incarcerated individuals at Angola to work in dangerous conditions for little to no pay — including accusations that inmates were made to pick vegetables by hand in temperatures over 100 degrees at what was once a slave plantation.

Noem said the prison’s infamous reputation was “absolutely” a reason officials chose it as the location for Camp 57.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers stood outside the US Capitol today alongside nearly a dozen women who said they’d been abused by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

You also can watch the report here on YouTube

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie said in a post on X that he and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene “are willing to name names” for any list compiled by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein.

“Survivors at our press conference announced they are privately compiling their own Epstein list. They would be sued into homelessness for naming names, but @RepMTG and I are willing to name names in the House of Representatives under Constitutional ‘speech or debate’ immunity,” he said.

Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips said earlier on Wednesday that fellow victims would work together to compile their own list of abusers if all of the information related to the case is not released.

“Us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Many of us were abused by them,” Phillips said at the news conference on Capitol Hill.

“Now together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know who were regularly in the Epstein world. And it will be done by survivors and for survivors. No one else is involved,” she added.

Phillips told reporters at the news conference to “stay tuned for more details.”

President Donald Trump waits for Polish President Karol Nawrocki at the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday.

If you’re just checking in for a quick look at the developments out of Washington, DC, today, these are some of the top stories on CNN:

Venezuelan migrants who were jailed in El Salvador get off a plane at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela on July 18.

The Department of Homeland Security announced today it’s terminating a form of humanitarian relief for Venezuelans living in the United States, urging them to self deport.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem already moved to end protections for about 300,000 Venezuelans with deportation protections earlier this year. The latest move affects another roughly 250,000 Venezuelan immigrants who arrived in the US and enrolled in the 2021 program.

Temporary Protected Status (TPS), as it’s known, has been used for decades to protect people already in the US from deportation when their homelands have faced armed conflict, natural disasters, or unsafe conditions. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have extended protections for immigrants from certain countries, though some Republicans have argued the program, intended to be temporary, has gone on too long.

Harvard banners hang in front of Widener Library during the 374th Harvard Commencement in Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 29.

Harvard University just won a landmark victory in its fight against the Trump administration. A federal judge sided with the Ivy League school in its effort to restore more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs rejected the administration’s argument that it was targeting the university to crack down on antisemitism on the school’s campus.

The Trump administration will “immediately appeal” today’s ruling, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told CNN in a statement.

A cross with the name of 10-year-old shooting victim Harper Moyski stands amid flowers outside the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday as Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visit the site.

Vice President JD Vance deflected today when asked what new gun laws Minnesota lawmakers should consider after the shooting at a Catholic school in that state, asking that lawmakers look “very seriously at the root causes.”

“Every single parent I spoke to wants something to happen,” Vance said. “All they ask is that we look very seriously at the root causes, that we look very seriously at ways to prevent crazy people who are about to shoot up a school from getting access to firearms.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has announced plans to call a special session of the legislature, calling on Republicans in the state legislature to “to do something on guns” following last week’s deadly mass shooting.

Vance made his comments during a trip the state, where he was joined by Second Lady Usha Vance, to pay his respects to the families of the victims and those who are still wounded in the hospital.

The vice president repeatedly commented to reporters after the visit Wednesday that he was moved by his time with the victims’ families.

“I have never had a day that will stay with me like this day did, because I really felt like these parents — in the midst of the worst grief of their entire lives — they opened up their lives and they opened up their hearts and they made me part of it,” Vance said.

Vice President JD Vance speaks to the press in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on September 3.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters Wednesday that there are “no immediate plans” to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, though President Donald Trump has previously insisted “we’re going in” without specifying a timetable.

“There are no immediate plans, but the president has said he has the legal authority to protect American citizens, whether that’s in Chicago or Washington, DC,” Vance told reporters before boarding Air Force Two during a trip to Minneapolis.

Trump administration officials have been working for weeks to draw up plans for a federal troop deployment to Chicago the moment the president gives the green light, they previously told CNN on condition of anonymity.

Asked by a reporter at the White House yesterday if Trump had made up his mind about sending the National Guard into Chicago, the president responded: “Well we’re going. I didn’t say when. We’re going in.”

“We have received credible reports that we have days, not weeks, before our city sees some type of militarized activity by the federal government,” Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson said Saturday.

For now, a ramped-up immigration operation is the one thing the feds have confirmed: “ICE has informed our Illinois State Police Department that they are going to begin operations sometime later this week,” Democratic Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Tuesday.

CNN’s Andy Rose and Maureen Chowdhury contributed to this report.

The Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, a lower security facility where the US Bureau of Prisons said Ghislaine Maxwell has been transferred.

GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna slammed the decision to transfer Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower security prison camp.

Luna said she would like to hear more on the decision to move Maxwell from a prison in Florida to the camp in Texas. The congresswoman also said Maxwell should “tell us names” in the Epstein investigations, but that such cooperation should not be in exchange for a presidential pardon.

“If you heard what I heard yesterday in the interview, we had a 14-year-old girl who’s now an adult that was trafficked. We had a woman who had her infant newborn daughter threatened by Jeffrey Epstein,” she said.

Luna reiterated she’s not going to consider signing on to Rep. Thomas Massie’s effort to force a House vote on releasing all Epstein files until she’s gone through the more than 33,000 pages of documents released by the House Oversight panel.

“In the event that I’m finding that there’s stuff that’s not answering my questions and also it’s not coinciding with the investigation, I might be in favor of it, but as of right now I’m not going to do that,” she said.

Several other House Republicans also told CNN on Wednesday that they’re not planning on backing Massie’s petition, instead backing more fulsome congressional investigations to get more information on Epstein.

GOP Reps. Tim Burchett, Keith Self and Scott Perry echoed the sentiment that the discharge petition effort wasn’t the best track at the moment to address the issue.

The US Capitol on Wednesday morning.

Members of Congress are back on Capitol Hill and face a messy government funding standoff marked by partisan battles and looming shutdown threats.

Lawmakers have until September 30 to fund the government.

Here’s the latest news today:

Rep. Nancy Mace departs in tears from a meeting with members of Congress and survivors of abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, a rape survivor, said the meeting with Jeffrey Epstein abuse survivors “hit very close to home” and called on House Republicans to back the bill to compel the release of the case records in full.

“It hit very close to home for me yesterday, and the least we can do is disclose information. These women have been fighting for justice for 30 years, and they still don’t have any. And there are people here who don’t want to give them that justice,” Mace said.

The South Carolina Republican was one of several lawmakers who met with the Epstein victims yesterday and she left the meeting in tears.

Asked if she’s concerned by President Trump calling the furor over the Epstein files a “Democrat hoax,” Mace said, “No, I mean, I understand sort of his concerns.”

“I also want to remind people that the president is the one who spoke to the FBI. He’s the one that that banned Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. I wouldn’t walk away from that. I would embrace what he’s done to shed light on it. And as a woman, I know that he has stated too publicly that he wants the files released.”

Mace is one of the few GOP members to sign onto GOP Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna’s discharge petition. She told CNN that she’s “not at all” worried that backing the petition would hurt her relationship with the White House.

“Not at all. I communicate with the White House all the time, and I spoke to the White House late last night. I spoke to leadership late last night. And, and I come from the perspective of, my experience is different. My experience is very different from most people, and I think they understand the place where I’m coming from. It’s personal,” she said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other Trump political advisers urged a group of House Republicans today to spend more time pitching his signature policy achievement as a win for working families as the White House’s economic agenda struggles to break through to voters ahead of the midterms.

Rep. Richard Hudson, who leads the House GOP campaign committee, said the message from Leavitt, political aide James Blair and Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio was that “there’s nothing that wasn’t working” about their massive bill — they just needed to spend more time talking about what’s actually in it.

Hudson said the group presented polling that showed key tenets of the bill — especially tax cuts to middle-income Americans — were well-liked by voters. The boost in spending for the military and border security were also popular, he said. The problem for Republicans is that few voters have dug into specifics — and Democrats have weaponized other pieces of the bill, such as spending cuts to Medicaid.

White House officials have been honing rhetoric around the law, focusing on the major tax provisions that they believe will most resonate with voters. The more-focused messaging effort represents a significant departure from the White House’s stance earlier this year, when Trump insisted on passing as wide-ranging a package as possible so that “there’s something for everyone.”

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer stressed they would be calling the bill the “Working Families Tax Plan,” instead. But he argued it wasn’t a “new” name.

Speaker Mike Johnson also denied it was a rebranding, saying: “What we have to do to sell it is tell the truth, and that’s the beauty of it.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a news conference with Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente, in Mexico City, Mexico, on Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that interdicting vessels carrying drugs “doesn’t work,” but blowing them up does.

The top US diplomat, speaking in Mexico City, signaled that the administration would continue to take military action to stop alleged drug shipments.

Rubio’s comments come after the US military lethally struck an alleged drug boat that it says was tied to the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua. The strike was a significant and seemingly unprecedented escalation.

The top US diplomat said the United States has long had intelligence to allow them to “interdict and stop drug boats.”

“We did that. And it doesn’t work,” Rubio said at a news conference, arguing that traffickers assume they will have some loss of their drugs. “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said.

“The president of the United States is going to wage war on narco-terrorist organizations,” he said, adding that Trump has the right “to eliminate imminent threats to the United States.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson at the US Capitol on Wednesday.

Speaker Mike Johnson maintained his opposition to the discharge petition from Rep. Thomas Massie that would compel the release of the Epstein files despite pleas from survivors at a press conference on Capitol Hill to do so.

Johnson, who said he had not seen the earlier press conference due to a busy day, said he still believes the “poorly written” petition does not do enough to protect victims.

“It does not adequately protect victims. And because we have so much compassion for the victims, those who spoke today, and the estimated maybe as many as 1000 victims total, we have to be very diligent about protecting their identities,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Johnson said he still supports the House Oversight Committee’s investigation and said it would even go further than the discharge petition.

“The Oversight Committee is gathering more documents than are even anticipated in the discharge petition. So for example, the Epstein estate is a treasure trove of documents that is not even anticipated in the discharge,” he said.

US President Donald Trump and Polish President Karol Nawrocki walk and talk at the White House on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump held a bilateral meeting at the White House with Polish President Karol Nawrocki today.

Trump, who supported Nawrocki during Poland’s election this year, greeted his Polish counterpart with a military flyover.

“Polish-American relations are very important, very strong,” Nawrocki said from the Oval Office, adding that relations are stronger than ever.

Here’s what Trump told reporters during the meeting:

Epstein survivors Anouska de Georgiou, center, and Danielle Bensky, left, embrace during a press conference held on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

A group of Jeffrey Epstein abuse survivors spoke for the first time on Capitol Hill today.

The news conference came amid growing pressure on Republican leadership for more transparency on the Epstein case.

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse shared their stories and spoke out against efforts to silence them. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and GOP Reps. Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene joined them and urged Congress and President Donald Trump for justice.

If you’re just joining us, catch up on key lines here:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during a press conference on Wednesday.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she’s encouraged President Donald Trump to meet at the White House with victims of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I look forward to talking with President Trump about these women that I’ve met. I also encouraged him, already this morning, that he should have these women in the Oval Office. They deserve to be there,” Greene told CNN after today’s bipartisan press conference with 10 survivors.

Greene said she told Trump that she would be happy to put him in touch with the victims’ attorneys to set up a meeting, but hasn’t gotten an answer back.

Greene said it was an act of “cowardice” for a White House official to say it would be a “hostile act” to the administration for GOP lawmakers to support Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna’s effort to force a House floor vote on their bill to release the full Epstein files, while the Justice Department is already cooperating with the House Oversight Committee.

The Georgia Republican emphasized that no matter which party controls the White House or Congress, she “serves the American people.” Americans, she said, want the Epstein files released in full.

Washington DC Metro Police, FBI, ATF and other federal agents work on the scene of a shooting in southeast Washington, DC, on Monday.

President Donald Trump is looking to expand his federal crime crackdown, floating the idea of sending National Guard Troops to New Orleans next, in addition to Chicago and Baltimore.

Meantime, Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser is defending her move to extend the district’s collaboration with federal law enforcement.

Here’s the latest: