实时更新：华盛顿学校在联邦接管中开始课程；国民警卫队开始携带枪支

Trump says DOJ will sue over California redistricting plan

Trump floated a vote to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

"Why are we 'Defense?' So it used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound," Trump said.

"If you people want to, standing behind me, if you take a little vote, if you want to change it back to what it was when we used to win wars all the time, that's okay with me. Alright?" Trump added.

He voiced his support for renaming the department, saying, "I don't want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too."

The War Department was initially established by George Washington. In 1947, President Harry Truman signed a law that reorganized war-related departments into the National Military Establishment, which was renamed to the Department of Defense two years later.

Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Vice President JD Vance lashed out at the Democratic governors of states that the president has said he's considering sending troops into.

"Look at Governor Pritzker in Illinois, or Governor Newsom in Los Angeles, or Governor Moore in Maryland. They are angrier about the fact that the president of the United States is offering to help them get their crime under control than they are about the fact that murderers are running roughshod over their cities and have been for decades," Vance said.

"It shows a real sickness in the head," he continued, adding "Republicans don’t like crime. Democrats don’t like crime. Independents don’t like crime. Why are Democratic governors doing everything in their power to make crime easier to do in their cities? It doesn’t make an ounce of sense to me."

Vance also touted the lack of murders in D.C. since the federal takeover earlier this month. Vance said he'd been told by local law enforcement that "this town averaged one murder every other day for the last 20, 30 years, which means in two short weeks this president and the team have saved 6 or 7 lives."

Crime data from the D.C. police shows those figures to be largely accurate over the last five years, but the murder rate was lower than that in 13 of the 15 previous years.

Trump referred to Biden's allies as "evil people" as he criticized his predecessor.

"There were some brilliant people," Trump said, referring to people in Biden's circle. "But they’re evil people, and they’re going to be brought down. They have to be brought down 'cause they really hurt our country."

Trump did not provide details about how he planned to do this.

Before signing a series of executive orders aimed at reducing crime in D.C. and across the nation, Trump referred to his critics bashing him for sending the National Guard to D.C., claiming that some people think they might "like a dictator."

"They say, 'We don't need him. Freedom. Freedom. He's a dictator. He's a dictator,'" Trump said, referring to critics who disapproved of his National Guard and law enforcement tactics, including threatening to send the troops into Chicago.

"A lot of people are saying, 'Maybe we'd like a dictator,'" Trump added. "I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense, and I'm a smart person. And when I see what’s happened to our cities, and then you send in troops. Instead of being praised, they’re saying, 'You’re trying to take over the Republic.' These people are sick."

He said the administration "in a certain way, we should wait to be asked" to bring in troops, claiming that otherwise opponents would take credit for a resulting reduction in crime.

Reflecting on the impact of sending National Guard into Los Angeles, Trump said: "But I think people should want us to be there, because otherwise all they’ll do is complain as we do our job. So we’ll have to think about that."

After the Justice Department released transcripts and audio of its closed-door interview last month with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, the family of one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, Virginia Giuffre, is arguing that the interview has given Maxwell a “platform to rewrite history.” NBC’s Hallie Jackson reports for "TODAY."

Yamiche Alcindor and Megan Lebowitz

Trump plans to sign executive orders today aimed at eliminating cashless bail for suspects arrested in Washington, D.C., and in other jurisdictions around the nation with similar policies, according to fact sheets describing the executive orders that the White House provided to NBC News.

The executive order on D.C. directs the administration to take certain actions if the city does not change its cashless bail policy, including “federal funding decisions, services, or approvals,” according to the fact sheet. Attorney General Pam Bondi, too, could get involved, though the fact sheet did not detail what actions she might take. 

Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

Jay Ganglani and The Associated Press

LONDON — France has summoned the American ambassador to Paris after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging that France had not taken “sufficient action” to combat antisemitism.

France’s foreign ministry said in a statement yesterday that it had summoned Charles Kushner to appear today over his criticism, which it said was “unacceptable.”

Read the full story here.

Jennifer Jett and Stella Kim

One of the United States’ strongest allies in Asia, South Korea has had a rough start with Trump — struggling in tariff talks as it spent months without a permanent leader.

But its new president, Lee Jae-myung, has arrived for a meeting with Trump on today touting a $150 billion offering whose name is sure to appeal to the U.S. leader: “Make America Shipbuilding Great Again.”

Read the full story here.

+2

Shaquille Brewster

Shaquille Brewster, Selina Guevara and Marlene Lenthang

Chicago’s mayor is defying Trump’s threat to deploy the National Guard to the Windy City to combat crime and scoping out legal avenues to prevent soldiers from overtaking the city.

On Friday, Trump talked about his controversial deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and said Chicago and New York City would be next. He has described the deployment in the nation’s capital as a bid to clean up crime, but critics dismiss the move as little more than political overreach.

“The guard is not needed,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told NBC News. “This is not the role of our military. The brave men and women who signed up to serve our country did not sign up to occupy American cities.”

Read the full story here.

Mosheh Gains and Nnamdi Egwuonwu

Reporting from Washington

National Guard troops deployed to Washington this month to support Trump’s effort to mitigate crime began carrying firearms yesterday evening, according to the federal task force managing the operation.

The majority of the guard members will carry M17 pistols, their service-issued weapons, a Defense Department official with knowledge of the planning, while a small number of the troops will be armed with their service M4 rifles. The troops are authorized to use their weapons for self-protection and “as a last resort” in response to an “imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm,” the federal task force said.

Read the full story here.

Gary Grumbach and Megan Lebowitz

Reporting from Washington

At a ribbon-cutting on an addition to an elementary school in the affluent Glover Park neighborhood last Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser was all smiles. She watched students perform a scene from the musical “Oz,” then spent several minutes talking about the benefits of investing in schools and getting students excited to get back in the classroom.

But minutes after taking photos with school leaders and local officials, she walked into the building’s gymnasium, where she was swept into a tornado of her own, facing questions from reporters about a much tougher topic: the impacts of Trump’s attempt to take over the city. 

Read the full story here.