August 25, 2025: Trump administration news

The bombing area at Abbey Gate, at the Kabul Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, is pictured August 26, 2021, before the blast.

The review into the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan won’t be complete until mid-2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters today.

“We’re getting access to all documents necessary: why decisions were made, why they weren’t made, why certain force protection measures were ignored,” Hegseth said alongside President Donald Trump at an event in the Oval Office.

He said the lengthly timeline is due to the thoroughness of the review, which is being led by Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.

Hegseth said after the investigation started, it showed there needed to be “an even deeper dive” to get answers about what happened.

The 2021 withdrawal saw the deaths of 13 US service members and left behind thousands of Afghans who had worked alongside the US military and other officials. Some of the families of the US service members killed were present in the Oval Office today.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia enters a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, on Monday.

A federal judge in Maryland today said that she will order federal officials to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in the US while she weighs a new legal challenge from him to the Trump administration’s plans to quickly deport him to Uganda.

US District Judge Paula Xinis said during a brief hearing this afternoon that she’s planning to stretch out an existing hold on Abrego Garcia’s removal so she can more fully consider whether officials are violating his due process rights, including by deporting him to Uganda even after he said he fears being persecuted or tortured in the African nation.

Under that new order, she said, the government will be “absolutely forbidden to remove Abrego Garcia from the continental United States.”

It’s unclear how long the new pause will last, but it’s likely it will remain in effect through at least later this week.

Read more details here about the case

Federal agents and a police officer search an area during a surveillance patrol in the Marshall Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC, on August 23.

The House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into allegations that Washington, DC’s crime statistics have been manipulated, according to a letter sent to the city’s police chief.

The investigation comes as DC officials and President Donald Trump administration’s spar over the state of crime in the nation’s capital and whether it justifies his federal crackdown. DC officials and others opposed to the president’s decision to call the National Guard into the city and take over its police force have argued that crime has dropped over the past few years. Trump has cast the city as being crime-ridden and in need of assistance.

The Justice Department has also launched an investigation into the city’s crime statistics.

In a letter sent today to DC Police Chief Pamela A. Smith, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said his committee had received “disturbing allegations that DC crime data is inaccurate and intentionally manipulated, potentially at the direction of Metropolitan Police Department leadership.” He pointed to reports that one DC police commander was placed on leave in May due to accusations that in one district, officials had marked offenses as lower-level crimes than they might actually be.

Earlier, when the Justice Department announced their investigation into the police department’s statistics, Smith said an internal investigation into the allegations was ongoing.

The committee has requested transcribed interviews with each of the district’s commanders of its seven patrol districts, as well as documents and information relating to a whistleblower’s allegations.

US President Donald Trump questioned South Korean President Lee Jae Myung over a reported “raid on churches” in the country during their Oval Office meeting.

Lee said that this was a part of investigations into the impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law last year.

The South Korean parliament has launched three different special counsels to investigate Yoon’s insurrection charges, former first lady Kim Keon Hee’s corruption allegations, and the death of a marine during Yoon’s presidency.

“There are investigations going on to check the facts, led by special prosecutors, who have been appointed by the parliament,” Lee said.

The South Korean leader said that the investigators are not under his control.

Lee also addressed reports that the investigators had entered a US military base in South Korea.

“The job of Korean prosecutors is fact checking. And they didn’t investigate the US military directly, but looked into how the Korean troops inside that base operate control systems,” Lee said.

Trump said he was “sure it was a misunderstanding” and that the leaders would discuss the matter in more detail soon.

President Donald Trump attends a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, not pictured, in the Oval Office on Monday.

President Donald Trump said today that he’s discussed denuclearization with Vladimir Putin, telling reporters the Russian president “is willing to do it,” and that he believes China will follow suit.

“One of the things we’re trying to do with Russia and with China is denuclearization, and it’s very important — one of the things I discussed with President Putin there, it wasn’t just that, it was also other things — and I think the denuclearization is a very, it’s a big game,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “But Russia is willing to do it, and I think China is going to be willing to do it. We can’t let nuclear weapons proliferate. We have to stop nuclear weapons.”

Trump has previously expressed concern over Russia’s nuclear capabilities after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested Trump was pushing the US and Russia towards war. When Medvedev warned of Russia’s nuclear capabilities earlier this summer, Trump called his comments “the ultimate threat,” in an interview with conservative outlet Newsmax.

At the time, Trump also responded to Medvedev’s comments by ordering two nuclear submarines to move to “the appropriate regions.”

The White House declined to comment when CNN asked about whether the administration will seek a formal nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia and China, referring to Trump’s public statements.

FBI agents walk outside the home of Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton on August 22.

President Donald Trump said that he has not been briefed on the FBI search of former national security adviser John Bolton’s home and office.

Asked about he possibility of more targeted searches, Trump said, “I don’t know” and deferred to the Department of Justice.

He went on to pivot to the FBI executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago property during the Biden administration and said, “They started that.”

Trump added: “How did it work out? Oh I see, we’re in the Oval Office. I guess it didn’t work out too well for them, did it?”

More on Bolton search: The FBI conducted a court-authorized search at Bolton’s home and office on Friday as part of a renewed investigation into whether he disclosed classified information in his 2020 book, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser in his first term, but the president fired him in 2019 and the two have been at odds ever since.

CNN’s Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes, Michael Callahan, Shania Shelton and Adam Cancryn contributed to this post.

A Palestinian youth stands on a street strewn with rubble following an explosion in the Saftawi neighbourhood, west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on August 25.

President Donald Trump claimed today that the war in Gaza will end in the next few weeks, without providing specifics into how the conflict will conclude.

The US president said he “deals with” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “quite a bit” and said he has told him the war needs to end soon.

“I think within the next two to three weeks, you’re going to have pretty good, conclusive — a conclusive ending,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

“Is a hard thing to say, because they’ve been fighting for thousands of years,” he added. “I think we’re doing a very good job, but it does have to — it does have to end, but people can’t forget October 7th either.”

Trump pointed to US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff’s efforts to secure the release of hostages still being held in Gaza and provide food aid as the humanitarian and hunger crisis in the encalve worsens.

Expanded military operation on the ground: The American president’s claims that the war will end soon comes as Israel has expanded its military operation in Gaza City, which Netanyahu said was one of the last Hamas strongholds.

The takeover and occupation of the largest city in northern Gaza will require the military to bring in 60,000 more reserve troops and extend the service of another 20,000. The Israeli military has already taken the first steps of a larger operation, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said last week.

CNN’s Tal Shalev, Tamar Michaelis and Oren Liebermann contributed reporting to this post.

Correction: An earlier version of this post gave the wrong title for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. He is Israel’s prime minister.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens to US President Donald Trump during the signing of executive orders in the Oval Office on Monday.

President Donald Trump suggested today that he will change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War, its previous name, within “the next week or so.”

“You know, we call it the Department of Defense, but between us, I think we’re going to change the name,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office. “You want to know the truth, I think we’re going to have some information on that maybe soon.”

The president went on to say he has been “talking to the people,” in order to change the name and that “everybody likes that.”

“We had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War, then we change it to Department of Defense,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with South Korea President Lee Jae Myung. “So that’s a little thing, has nothing to do with your country, but it’s something that I think you’re going to be hearing about or seeing about over the next couple of weeks.”

“Probably that change is going to be made over the next week or so.”

The suggestion to change the name back to the Department of War, which became the Department of Defense after 1947, has been made several times before, including by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But no timing or further details have ever surfaced.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told US President Donald Trump that he is “the only person” who can improve relations with North Korea.

Shortly after Lee took office in July, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong rebuffed his gestures for working towards peace.

The two Koreas reached an armistice agreement to halt the fighting of the Korean War in 1953, but there has never been a treaty to end the conflict.

“When Kim Yo Jong criticized me and the US, she still said that your relations with Kim Jong Un are without doubt. I interpreted this as that North Korea is waiting [to meet with Trump],” Lee said on Monday.

“If you play the peacemaker, I will actively support you as a pacemaker,” Lee said.

President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 200% tariff on Chinese goods if the country doesn’t increase exports of rare earth magnets to the United States.

“They have to give us magnets, if they don’t give us magnets then we have to charge them a 200% tariff or something,” Trump told reporters Monday while hosting South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the Oval Office. “But we’re not going to have a problem with that,” Trump added.

Trump said that a 200% tariff would effectively mean the US “wouldn’t do any business with China.” That’s essentially what happened when Trump imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, which he has since lowered to 30%, earlier this year. China responded with a 125% tariff on American goods, which it has since lowered to 10%. While the higher tariffs were in place, trade between the US and China ground to a near halt.

While the US and China recently agreed to a 90-day truce to keep the lower tariff rates in place, Chinese exports of rare-earth magnets have continued to be a source of contention, with the Trump administration alleging China is intentionally preventing the crucial inputs from reaching the US.