• Mayor Muriel Bowser says police will not cooperate with ICE.
• Trump says crime would come “roaring back” from non-cooperation.
• President has already deployed over 2,000 troops in Washington.

US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would call a national emergency and federalise Washington, DC after Mayor Muriel Bowser said its police would not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At issue is the provision of information on individuals living in, or entering, the United States illegally. Trump’s threat adds to a move critics have seen as federal overreach, with more than 2,000 troops patrolling the city.

The comments come after several thousand protesters hit the streets this month over Trump’s August deployment of National Guard troops to “re-establish law, order, and public safety,” after calling crime a blight on the capital.

“In just a few weeks. The ‘place’ is absolutely booming […] for the first time in decades, virtually NO CRIME,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Bowser’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s post.

Earlier, he had put the metropolitan police department under direct federal control and sent federal law enforcement, including members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to police the streets. It is unclear when their mission will end.

Trump blamed “Radical Left Democrats” for pressuring Bowser to inform the government about the non-cooperation with ICE, adding that if the police halted cooperation with ICE, “Crime would come roaring back”.

He added, “To the people and businesses of Washington, DC, DON’T WORRY, I AM WITH YOU, AND WON’T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN. I’ll call a National Emergency, and Federalise, if necessary!!!”

Bowser, who has previously praised Trump’s surge of federal law enforcement, bringing a sharp decline in crime, earlier signed an order for the city to coordinate with federal law enforcement.

The National Guard serves as a militia answering to the governors of the 50 states, except when called into federal service. The DC National Guard reports directly to the president.

• Hami Nepal used Discord app to mobilise protests.
• Sudan Gurung and team propose cabinet changes.
• Protests against corruption lead to 72 deaths.

KATHMANDU: A former DJ and his obscure Nepalese non-profit used a social media app popular with video gamers to drive massive protests and become the unlikely power brokers in installing the country’s new interim leadership.

Sudan Gurung, the 36-year-old founder of Hami Nepal (We are Nepal), used the Discord messaging app and Instagram to mobilise massive demonstrations that forced Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign, in the deadliest political crisis to hit the Himalayan nation in decades, a dozen people involved in the demonstrations said.

The group used VPNs to access banned platforms and issued calls to action that reached tens of thousands of young people, they added. Representatives for Oli could not be contacted for comment.

“I was invited to join a group on Discord where there were about 400 members. It asked us to join the protest march a few kilometres from the parliament,” 18-year-old student Karan Kulung Rai, who is not part of the group, told Reuters.

Hami Nepal’s early social media posts on Discord became so influential that they were referenced on national television.

As protests grew violent, the group also identified messages it termed “fake news” and shared hospital phone numbers.

Hami Nepal members, who asked not to be identified as they had used proxy names online for security reasons, said Gurung and the group’s other leaders have since become central to high-stakes decisions, including the appointment of the new interim leadership till elections are held on March 5.

They have already convinced the country’s president and army chief to appoint former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, known for her tough stance against corruption, as Nepal’s first woman prime minister in an interim capacity, three members of the group said.

“I will make sure that the power lies with the people and bring every corrupt politician to justice,” Gurung said in his first press conference since the protest on Thursday.

On Sunday, Gurung and his team were in meetings to decide key cabinet positions and were proposing that some government officials appointed by the previous administration be removed, members of Hami Nepal said.

“Meetings are ongoing between Karki and members of the group. We will finalise the cabinet soon,” one of the members said. Gurung and Karki did not immediately respond to questions sent to their mobile phones.

The “process is being carefully carried out, so that it consists of skilled and capable youth,” Hami Nepal said on Instagram.

From DJ to revolutionary

Monday’s protest by young adults loosely categorised as a “Gen Z” movement, as most participants were in their 20s, turned deadly within hours and rapidly brought down the government.

The protests were directed at perceived government corruption and took off following a ban on multiple social media platforms – a directive that was reversed. Protesters clashed with authorities on the streets, leaving at least 72 dead and over 1,300 injured.

Gurung, who is older than the Gen Z age bracket, and his team have vowed not to take up any cabinet positions but want to be part of the future decision-making.

“We don’t want to be politicians. Sudan Gurung was only helping the ‘Gen Z’ group and we are only the voice of the nation and not interested in taking leadership positions,” said Ronesh Pradhan, a 26-year-old volunteer for the group.

Gurung, who was a DJ before he founded Hami Nepal, organised civic relief when the worst earthquake in Nepal’s history killed over 9,000 people in 2015, and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Team members running the Instagram account, whose followers have swelled to over 160,000, and Discord posts alongside Gurung include 24-year-old cafe owner Ojaswi Raj Thapa and law graduate Rehan Raj Dangal.

Thapa, who quickly emerged as a vocal protest movement leader, told Reuters in an interview that the judiciary was not independent and ensuring its freedom was a key priority once the interim government was put in place.

“We may need some changes to the constitution, but we don’t want to dissolve the constitution,” he said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON: Since the US conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot in a brazen display of violence, President Donald Trump has embraced the role of spokesman in an extraordinary way.

Trump was first to confirm the news to a country in shock that Kirk was dead and first to announce that the latest suspect was in custody. He shared when Kirk’s funeral would take place and said he would attend.

Before a suspect was detained, Trump blamed, without presenting evidence the “radical left” for Kirk’s murder, with many of his followers repeating the accusation and calling for vengeance amid a wave of right-wing anger.

Kirk, a popular but divisive podcast host and author of a half-dozen books, left behind a wife, prominent friends and legions of followers after being gunned down on a Utah college campus on Wednesday where he was giving a speech.

Yet it is Trump who has taken on a central role in messaging after his political ally’s grisly public death, delivering information that typically would come from law enforcement or local officials rather than the nation’s top leader.

His actions contrast with the more cautious approach of past presidents. But they are very much in line with his penchant for direct communication, defying convention and putting himself in the middle of domestic and international issues.

“The one thing about Donald Trump is he is a very detailed individual,” said Mercedes Schlapp, a senior adviser to Trump in his first term. “Whether he is building the Rose Garden Club or we have this awful tragedy, he wants to be the one to break the news.”

Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-staff, said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and saw his vice president accompany Kirk’s casket back to his home state on Air Force Two — all fairly unusual ways for the US government to honour a political operative who has never held office or served in the military.

Trump had a personal and political relationship with Kirk, the co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA he credits with helping him appeal to young voters.

“Charlie had a magic over the kids,” Trump said on Friday on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” recalling how his teenage son Barron was awe-struck by the charismatic 31-year-old activist.

Kirk was also a sharply partisan figure whose combative style and and anti-immigrant rhetoric often brought him to clash with others online and in public. His far-right views on abortion, civil rights and gun control also garnered strong reactions from the groups his comments targeted.

Trump has called for a non-violent response from his supporters but sidestepped reporters’ questions over how to unify the country in the midst of its most sustained surge in political violence since the 1970s. Trump himself was the subject of two assassination attempts last year.

Trump downplayed the extremism from the political right, telling reporters on Thursday that “we just have to beat the hell out of them,” stoking his supporters’ calls for political revenge against the “radical left.”

Twenty-two-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah was arrested on Thursday night for the shooting. Motives remained unclear, with investigators closely scrutinising messages engraved into four bullet casings. Experts have said they could reference left- or right-leaning groups.

Defining the narrative

Schlapp said Trump, a former reality television host, has come to enjoy unstructured exchanges with the press and the bully pulpit that comes with the attention lavished on him.

She noted that his approach to communication has been more aggressive in his second term in office.

“He just really wants to drive the news, and who is better to drive the news than Donald Trump? And his strategy has worked,” she said. “His administration is on offense from a media standpoint like nothing I’ve ever seen. We were getting hit all the time in the first term. It has allowed the president to define a narrative.”

There have been no briefings by Trump’s aides since the shooting. Aides regularly defer to Trump on policy announcements or the administration’s thinking, declining to “get in front of the president.”

Trump’s in-the-moment, off-the-cuff style comes with the risk of influencing a law enforcement process or later being contradicted by a clearer picture of the facts.

“Presidents typically don’t release breaking news like that,” said Yu Ouyang, professor of political science at Purdue University Northwest. “They know the impact that their words would have.”

Critics, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, took Trump to task for his remarks last week, ignoring that liberal and Democratic figures have also been the target of political violence in the US. Some commentators contrasted Trump’s repeated messaging on Kirk versus his relatively muted response to the assassination of Minnesota Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman earlier this year.

In a video message from the Oval Office on Wednesday, he said, “violence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonising those with whom you disagree” – but then only called out the rhetoric of the left.

“Even though [Trump] is trying to console at times, a lot of his rhetoric has also been very much ramping up — blaming a particular group before we even know who has done this,” said Denise Bostdorff, a College of Wooster communication studies professor who has studied presidential rhetoric.

The White House did not respond for comment. Trump’s staff touts the president’s accessibility, while many of his supporters relish his norm-busting, blunt communication style.

“Ronald Reagan was an orator,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, “but Donald Trump understands the speed of news and how to get a story out there.”