US politics live: Washington DC gunman identified, Trump halts Afghan immigration after DC shooting attack

The drastic move comes after Trump unleashed on Biden’s ‘unvetted foreigners’ in extraordinary late-night speech.

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics.

President Donald Trump has reacted to the horrific shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington D.C. today by intensifying his anti-migrant rhetoric, and reiterating his view that every foreigner in the United States should be “re-examined”.

The National Guard troops, and the alleged shooter, are alive and being treated in hospital. The suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who entered the US during the country’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He later applied for asylum, which was granted by the Trump administration in April of this year.

“This heinous assault was an act of evil and act of hatred and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. It was a crime against humanity,” Mr Trump said of the attack in an address to Americans.

“I can report tonight that based on the best available information, the Department of Homeland Security is confident that the suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on Earth.

“He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021, one of those infamous flights that everybody was talking about. Nobody knew who was coming in.”

Afghans evacuated to the United States were, in fact, vetted.

“We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan, under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country, who does not belong here or add benefit to our country. If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” the President added.

Read on for more updates.

Originally published as US politics live: Washington DC gunman identified, Trump halts Afghan immigration after DC shooting attack