Category Archives: Trump administration

US health secretary Alex Azar tells Trump Capitol attack threatens legacy

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Azar calls attack ‘assault on our democracy’ and urges peaceful transfer of power in formal resignation letter

The US health secretary, Alex Azar, warned Donald Trump in a letter that last week’s attack on the Capitol threatened the administration’s legacy, and he urged the president to support a peaceful transfer of power.

In the two-page, formal resignation letter, dated 12 January, Azar recited what he saw as the administration’s key accomplishments but voiced concern that last week’s siege in Washington and Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud “threaten to tarnish these and other historic legacies of this administration”.

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Sorry, try Obama’s house: Secret Service barred from using Ivanka Trump’s bathrooms

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Secret Service detail were forced to use porta-potties or neighbors’ bathrooms until government rented them an apartment

The dying days of the Trump administration have been plagued by yet more scandal in the form of riots, Twitter bans and impeachment. Now the Washington Post has added another: water closet gate.

In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.

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UN predicts ‘famine not seen in 40 years’ due to Pompeo’s Yemen policy

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Mike Pompeo’s designation of Houthis as foreign terror group will block food and other aid, senior humanitarian says

The US designation of the Houthi movement in Yemen as a terrorist organisation is likely to lead to a famine on a scale not seen for 40 years, the UN’s most senior humanitarian official has said.

Mark Lowcock, the director general of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called for the decision to be reversed, saying the cost of food was likely to rise by as much as 400%, way beyond the reach of many aid agencies.

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Stage set for impeachment after Pence dismisses House call to invoke 25th amendment

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Vice-president’s refusal paves the way for the House to move forward with impeachment

The US House of Representatives has voted to formally call on the vice-president, Mike Pence, to invoke the 25th amendment and strip Donald Trump of his presidential authority after Trump incited a mob that led a deadly assault on the US Capitol last week.

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‘Diplomatic vandalism’: aid groups’ fury as US puts Houthis on terror list

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Trump administration’s 11th-hour decision greeted with dismay by aid agencies working in Yemen

The Trump administration has made an 11th-hour decision to designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organisation in a move that is likely to severely worsen the war-torn country’s humanitarian crisis.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, announced the decision late on Sunday, despite bipartisan opposition and months of warnings from UN officials and aid organisations that the designation – part of the White House’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and its allies – would lead to shortages and delays for aid and commercial shipments and undermine the peace process.

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Trump is being pelted in the stocks now – but don’t bet against him wriggling free

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The chances of seeing the outgoing president in an orange jumpsuit are low – even as the potential charges mount up fast

Lock him up! Echoing Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chant against Hillary Clinton, many Americans appear keen on jailing their president after his criminally reckless incitement of last week’s mob-driven, amateur-hour insurrection in Washington.

His harshest critics would despatch him forthwith to a federal penitentiary or mental institution. Yet despite fears that an unstable Trump poses a security threat in his final 10 days in office, he is unlikely to be forced out. It’s just not that easy, politically or legally.

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US Capitol attack: Trump at bay as first Republican senator calls for resignation

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Donald Trump’s grip on the US presidency appeared increasingly tenuous on Saturday as Democrats advanced plans to impeach him for a second time, political allies continued to abandon him and Twitter banned his account, removing his most powerful way to spread lies and incite violence.

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US fines Boeing $2.5bn following fraud charges tied to 737 Max crashes

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  • DoJ condemns ‘fraudulent and deceptive conduct’
  • Airliner grounded after crashes that killed hundreds

Boeing has been fined $2.5bn by the US justice department after being charged with fraud and conspiracy in connection with two fatal crashes of its 737 Max airliner.

Related: Biden condemns 'domestic terrorists' at Capitol as Pelosi calls for Trump's removal from office – live

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James Comey: Donald Trump should not be prosecuted after leaving office

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  • Fired FBI director: next attorney general must ‘foster trust’
  • President has insulted Comey and threatened him with jail

Donald Trump should not be prosecuted once he leaves the White House no matter how much evidence has been amassed against him, the former FBI director James Comey writes in a new book.

Related: Trump call to Georgia secretary of state electrifies voters in Senate runoffs

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Iran seizes South Korean tanker as tensions with US mount

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Move comes as Iran resumes enriching uranium to up to 20% purity in significant breach of 2015 nuclear accord

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have seized a South Korean vessel “for polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals” amid rising tensions between Iran and the US during the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Iranian news agencies published photos showing Revolutionary Guards speedboats escorting the tanker MT Hankuk Chemi and said the vessel’s crewmembers, including nationals of South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, had been detained. The tanker is being held at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port city.

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‘Traitors and patriots’: Republican push to keep Trump in power seems doomed

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All 12 Republican senators who have pledged not to ratify the electoral college results on Wednesday, and thereby refuse to confirm Joe Biden’s resounding victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, declined to defend their move on television, a CNN host said on Sunday.

Related: Ted Cruz and other Republican senators oppose certifying election results

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Biden seeks term-defining wins in Georgia runoffs Trump called ‘illegal’

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Contests will decide control of Senate and how far Biden can reach on issues such as pandemic, healthcare, taxation and environment

Campaigning continued in Georgia on Saturday in two Senate runoff elections which will define much of Joe Biden’s first term in office.

Related: Biden wants to fill federal court seats – but he needs to win the Senate first

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Alternative facts, witch-hunt, bigly: the Trump era in 32 words and phrases

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His rally speeches and manic Twitter feed conjured new slogans and insults or revived incendiary words

Donald Trump not only changed much about campaigning, governing and the ways of Washington, even the language of American politics has altered during the Republican’s tenure. Trump’s rollicking rally speeches and manic Twitter feed conjured new slogans and insults or revived incendiary words with long histories; his allies, opponents and chroniclers searched for new phrases to describe the indescribable. Here is a glossary of some of them from the past five years:

alternative facts

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Millions lose benefits as Trump refuses to sign Covid relief package

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11 million people will lose aid from expiration of unemployment programs as Trump heads to the golf course instead of signing bill

Millions of Americans battling the financial hardships of the coronavirus pandemic lost their unemployment benefits on Sunday as Donald Trump continued to refuse to sign a relief package agreed in Congress and headed instead to the golf course.

The president’s belligerence over the bipartisan Covid relief and spending bill, that would have extended the benefits and given direct cash payments to most American families, drew the ire of senior Republicans, who accused Trump of inflicting more misery on citizens.

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Trump continues to block pandemic relief package as shutdown looms

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The president indicated he may veto the 5,000-page bill that he calls a ‘disgrace’ which would extend benefits to Americans

As unemployment benefits were due to expire for millions of Americans on Saturday, Donald Trump, who spent Christmas playing golf in Florida, continued to block a $900bn pandemic relief bill that would extend them.

The package, which Congress passed with bipartisan support on Monday after months of negotiations, would keep unemployment benefits in place until March and expand state benefits by $300 a week – as well as extending an evictions moratorium, providing federal loans to small businesses and $600 direct payments to many Americans.

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Critics fear Trump could pressure William Barr’s successor for big favors

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Former DoJ officials say they are worried Trump will lean on acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen for potentially risky favors

William Barr’s abrupt move to leave his post as attorney general this week has spurred fears among Department of Justice veterans that Donald Trump will put new pressures on Barr’s successor to do him big and potentially risky political and legal favors.

Former justice department officials say they are worried Trump will lean on Barr’s less experienced successor, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to push policies which Trump has suggested he backs, including naming special counsels to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless charges of widespread election fraud.

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Trump claims to be ‘working tirelessly’ but leaves Covid relief in disarray

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Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.

Related: Donald Trump's latest wave of pardons includes Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner

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Alaskan tribes, activists and businesses sue to save America’s biggest national forest

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Tongass national forest, which plays a key role in fighting climate crisis, poised for logging after US ruling


A coalition of Alaskan native tribes, conservation groups and small businesses have filed a lawsuit in an effort to save America’s largest national forest by overturning one of the Trump administration’s most contentious environmental rollbacks.

Protection for the Tongass national forest in Alaska, one of the world’s last intact temperate rainforests, which plays a crucial role in fighting climate change, has been gutted by a recent US government decision to overturn a two-decade ban on logging and road building.

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Joe Biden won’t inherit Trump’s millions of Twitter followers

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Move marks a departure from past practice as in 2017 Twitter transferred followers of Obama administration accounts to Trump

Joe Biden will not inherit Donald Trump’s millions of followers on the official president of the United States and White House Twitter accounts when he assumes the presidency, marking a departure from past social media practice, the Democratic president-elect’s team said on Tuesday.

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Trump attempt to overturn election is ‘nutty and loopy’, Romney says

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Donald Trump’s flirtation with declaring martial law in battleground states and appointing a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to help his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden are “really sad” and “nutty and loopy”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.

Related: Biden mulls punishments for Russia over suspected role in government hack

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