Trump announces Space Command will move from Colorado to Alabama
Donald Trump announced that US Space Command headquarters will officially move from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama.
The president declared Huntsville would “forever be known from this point forward as Rocket City” – apparently unaware the Alabama city has held that title since the 1950s thanks to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Trump couldn’t resist linking the decision to his electoral performance. “I only won it by about 47 points,” he said about Tennessee, before adding: “I don’t think that influenced my decision, though, right?”
Key events
No Kings mass protests set for 18 October
The coalition behind the “No Kings” rally have announced another mass protest set for 18 October.
The nationwide protest that turned out hundreds of thousands of people is rooted in Trump’s threats to send militarized forces into different American cities and his detention and encampment of immigrants, the organizers say.
“I would love to receive calls from governors and mayors saying they need help” Trump said about deploying national guard across the country while in the Oval Office. “We’ll help them, we have a lot of people, we have a great military force.”
Trump: ‘Would be honored’ to get a call from Illinois governor for national guard
Trump said “he would be honored” to take a call from Illinois governor JB Pritzker to send national guard to his state.
“I would love to have governor Pritzker call me”, Trump said. I’d gain respect for him and say we do have a problem, and we’d love to send in the troops, because you know what the people they have to be protected.”
Trump said because of the national guard roaming around DC, new restaurants will open up in the city.
“Washington DC is a safe zone right now, it’s a safe city” he said. “This took place in 12 days, now it’s 15 days, but three days ago it became what’s known as a safe zone”.
“We took 1,600 people out,” Trump said.
Pool reporters asked Trump about the latest on Russia-Ukraine talks, and the president shared that both countries had 7,313 soldiers killed over the last week. “For no reason whatsover” Trump said.
The president didn’t comment on a potential meeting between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Canada wants in on Golden Dome, Trump says
Speaking about the newly relocated Space Command in Huntsville, Alabama, Trump shared the latest on an ambitious missile defense system he dubbed the “golden dome”.
The “golden dome” is Trump’s gold-plated take on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, though his version would apparently be so impressive that “everybody wants to be a participant in it.”
Canada, according to Trump, has already come calling.
“Canada called they want to be a part of it, and that’ll be great”, he said. “Canada wants very much to be included in that. Then we’re going to work something out with them.”
Trump also took a parting swipe at Colorado, which was hosting Space Command as a temporary headquarters.
“I want to thank Colorado. The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail in voting. They went to all mail in voting. So they have automatically, crooked elections.”
Trump says the Space Command relocation promises 30,000 jobs and economic investment that Trump inflated in real-time from “hundreds of millions” to “billions and billions of dollars” because, as he explained, “it can’t be millions”.
Trump justified the move by saying it would help America “defend and dominate the high frontier as they call it”.
Trump announces Space Command will move from Colorado to Alabama
Donald Trump announced that US Space Command headquarters will officially move from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama.
The president declared Huntsville would “forever be known from this point forward as Rocket City” – apparently unaware the Alabama city has held that title since the 1950s thanks to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Trump couldn’t resist linking the decision to his electoral performance. “I only won it by about 47 points,” he said about Tennessee, before adding: “I don’t think that influenced my decision, though, right?”
Republican senator Joni Ernst won’t run for re-election
Two-term Iowa Republican senator Joni Ernst has decided to officially bow out of a re-election bid.
“After a tremendous amount of prayer and reflection, I will not be seeking re-election in 2026”, Ernst said in a video announcement.
Ernst is the first woman combat veteran to serve in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow 53-47 majority.
Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’, experts say
Oliver Milman
A group of the US’s leading climate scientists have compiled a withering review of a controversial Trump administration report that downplays the risks of the climate crisis, finding that the document is biased, riddled with errors and fails basic scientific credibility.
More than 85 climate experts have contributed to a comprehensive 434-page report that excoriates a US Department of Energy (DOE) document written by five hand-picked fringe researchers that argues that global heating and its resulting consequences have been overstated.
The Trump administration report, released in July, contains “pervasive problems with misrepresentation and selective citation of the scientific literature, cherry-picking of data, and faulty or absent statistics”, states the new analysis, which is written in the style of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.
“This report makes a mockery of science,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University.
“It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community.”
Amy Coney Barrett defends US abortion ruling in memoir
Richard Luscombe
Amy Coney Barrett, the conservative supreme court justice whose controversial fast-track confirmation at the end of Donald Trump’s first presidency led directly to the panel’s vote to strike down abortion rights nationally, has expressed in a new memoir her belief that the ruling “respected the choice” of the American people.
Barrett was paid a $2m advance for her book Listening to the Law, according to CNN, which obtained a copy and published brief extracts on Tuesday, a week before its 9 September publication.
“[T]he court’s role is to respect the choices that the people have agreed upon, not to tell them what they should agree to,” Barrett writes, according to CNN. The outlet framed Barrett’s comment as reflecting her belief that her predecessors’ 7-2 vote in Roe v Wade had “usurped the will of the American people”.
Rudy Giuliani’s hospital discharge comes a day after Donald Trump said he will award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Associated Press reported.
The decision places the award on a man once lauded for leading New York after the September 11, 2001, attacks and later sanctioned by courts and disbarred for amplifying false claims about the 2020 US presidential election. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was also criminally charged in two states; he has denied wrongdoing.
Trump on his Truth Social platform called Giuliani the “greatest Mayor in the history of New York City, and an equally great American Patriot”.
Rudy Giuliani has been discharged from the hospital and is “progressing well” following a car collision in New Hampshire on Saturday, his spokesperson Ted Goodman said.
“The mayor would like to thank the New Hampshire State Police, paramedics, Elliot Hospital, and all the physicians and nurses who provided incredible care” Goodman added.
