Donald Trump has said he will issue an executive order to mandate voter identification at all US elections, with “no exceptions”.
“Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS! I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!!,” the US president said on Truth Social late on Saturday.
Any such move is likely to be challenged in court as unconstitutional.
The US constitution grants primary authority to regulate elections to the US states, while empowering Congress to enact election laws or regulations. It gives no explicit authority to the president to regulate voting.
Voter fraud is incredibly rare and voter ID laws have been shown to disproportionately impact minorities, low-income individuals and disabled voters. “As many as 11% of eligible voters do not have the kind of ID that is required by states with strict ID requirements, and that percentage is even higher among seniors, minorities, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students,” the Brennan Center for Justice states.
Trump wants to ban mail-in voting
The US president also stated he wants to ban all voting by mail except for those who are very ill or in military service.
The voting change push by Trump stems from baseless claims that the 2020 election he lost was stolen from him. Earlier this month, Trump falsely claimed only the US uses mail-in voting. Dozens of countries permit at least some form of mail-in voting.
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Illinois governor urges ‘all to stand up’ to Trump immigration crackdown
Governor JB Pritzker has said he will do everything he can to stop Trump taking away people’s rights and urged everyone to take a stand as the US president prepares to launch an immigration crackdown across Chicago.
Pritzker, a Democrat, told CBS on Sunday: “Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency. There is not … I’m going to do everything I can to stop him from taking away people’s rights and from using the military to invade states. I think it’s very important for us all to stand up.”
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Judge pauses deportation of hundreds of Guatemalan children
A federal judge has ordered an emergency halt to a plan by the Trump administration to deport a group of nearly 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children after immigrant advocates lawyers called the plan “illegal”.
Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan said those children couldn’t be deported for at least 14 days, and after a hastily scheduled hearing on Sunday, she enforced that they needed to be taken off the planes and back to the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities while the legal process plays out.
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FDA vaccine chief demands videos of him criticizing Covid vaccines be removed
A top official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demanded the removal of YouTube videos of himself that were published by a physician and writer who has been critical of medical misinformation and public health officials in the Trump administration, according to a YouTube notice that was seen by the Guardian.
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Former CDC official warns of ‘harm’ to public health under RFK Jr
Demetre Daskalakis, the former immunizations director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has warned of the future of American health under the leadership of health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, saying: “I only see harm coming.”
He went on to add: “I may be wrong, but based on what I’m seeing, based on what I’ve heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP, they’re really moving in an ideological direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination.”
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Catching up? Here’s what happened on 30 August 2025.
