Trump called ‘irresponsible and dangerous’ over election commission firings - US politics live

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Man killed by ICE agents not intended target of immigration arrest, DHS says

Gabrielle Canon

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a man killed by federal immigration agents during a traffic stop in Houston this week, was not the intended target of the “enforcement operation”, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were reportedly seeking two people from Guatemala when they attempted to stop Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States for 35 years, the New York Times reported.

Salgado Araujo, who was on his way to work early on Tuesday morning, was driving three other people in a white van. After the shooting, the three men were taken into custody. One of the three men has been identified by advocates as Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, the brother of the victim. The New York Times reported that he was still in an immigration detention center.

In a statement provided to the Guardian, an unnamed DHS official said officers had received a tip from law enforcement partners about their target’s address and had previously spotted two white vans at that property.

“On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target,” the official said.

The statement does not clarify what happened next. Salgado Araujo died in the hospital after being shot in the abdomen, according to accounts from local law enforcement officers. The officers involved were not wearing body cameras, DHS said.

“Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

These were the parting words of Richard Nixon after he was forced to resign the presidency over the Watergate imbroglio in 1974. For Graham Platner on Wednesday, the stakes were somewhat smaller. But when it came to suspending his Senate campaign in Maine, the Democrat had plenty of hate to go around.

The scandal-plagued Platner was forced to step down after a woman who dated him said he drunkenly forced her to have sex despite her telling him to stop, an allegation he denies. It spelled doom for an insurgent campaign that had begun 323 days earlier with a glossy horizontal video that showed Platner farming oysters, chopping wood and gruffly talking about “hardscrabble” folk in Maine.

On Wednesday the video was vertical and, according to the Politico news site, recorded at 4pm outside Platner’s home in Maine in the company of aides including Ben Chin and Morris Katz, a 27-year-old adviser to New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

“Several of [Platner]’s closest advisers pleaded with him Wednesday to strike a ‘conciliatory’ tone in the announcement terminating his Senate campaign,” Politico reported. “But the progressive bucked their advice and made it a condition of dropping out of the race that he get free rein to assail establishment Democrats and blame them for the ignominious end to his rapid political rise.”

Trump called 'irresponsible and dangerous' over election commission firings

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

The Trump administration has been branded “irresponsible and dangerous” after the president terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission (EAC) that assists election administration officials nationwide.

Trump’s “deeply concerning” move comes just a few months before the midterm elections, with remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission forced out on Thursday in different ways.

The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia posted on X that the dismissals “should concern every American regardless of party,” adding “removing every remaining commissioner just months before the 2026 midterm elections is an extraordinary step that demands an immediate explanation from the administration.”

The Brennan Center for Justice’s CEO Michael Waldman called the firings “deeply concerning in light of president Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections.”

Read the full story here:

In other developments:

• Victor Marx, a marines veteran, pastor and self-described “high-risk missionary”, whose extraordinary claims about his past have been disputed and mocked, won the Republican primary for Colorado governor. State senator Barbara Kirkmeyer conceded the race, despite losing by just fewer than 2,500 votes.

• Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her government will ask state and federal prosecutors in the United States to file criminal charges against the people responsible for the deaths of 17 Mexican citizens targeted ⁠during anti-immigration operations or while in immigration detention centers.

• A Mexican immigrant who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday was not the man federal officers were searching for, the Department of Homeland Security said.

• Morris Katz, Zohran Mamdani’s 27-year-old media strategist, who has been blamed by many Democrats for helping to recruit Graham Platner to run for the US Senate in Maine and made ads for the campaign, distanced himself from the candidate.

• Troy Jackson, a former president of the Maine state senate who hopes to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for US Senate, if Platner makes good on his promise to formally withdraw by the Monday deadline, said in an interview with MS Now that Platner had lied to him.

• Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Company, wrote on Substack on Thursday that he would not vote for Chuck Schumer as the party’s Senate leader next year should he win the nomination and be elected.