Jacinda Ardern wishes Donald and Melania Trump a speedy recovery – video

New Zealand's prime minister has wished the US president and his wife a rapid recovery after they were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Friday. She said the virus had had a 'devastating impact' globally and noted that several world leaders had been taken ill with it

Continue reading...

Trump in quarantine as Covid diagnosis throws US into fresh upheaval

America’s leadership has been plunged into extraordinary uncertainty after Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, raising questions over how far the infection has penetrated the heart of government.

Related: Donald and Melania Trump showing 'mild' Covid symptoms as Joe and Jill Biden test negative – live

Continue reading...

Trump’s Covid diagnosis throws final month of campaign into total confusion

Huge questions over practical matters of rallies and travel, but also of whether Trump falls ill – and what that means for the election

Hours after the announcement that he had tested positive for Covid-19, Donald Trump canceled a planned trip to Florida for a campaign rally on Friday and announced that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, who also tested positive, would enter quarantine.

Related: What happens if Trump is incapacitated and how would it impact the election?

Continue reading...

Trump joked while people suffered with Covid. Well, is now the time to stop? | Marina Hyde

Maybe the real victims of the president’s diagnosis are his MAGA disciples who don’t believe the virus even exists

Well, it’s definitely a plot twist. Like a lot of people who sat through Tuesday’s presidential debate, I’m amazed the week has ended with Donald Trump ingesting bleach, and not me.

As you may vaguely have heard, the US president and his wife, Melania, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus – which feels untimely given that, mere hours earlier, Trump had been declaring: “The end of the pandemic is in sight.” Perhaps this is a one-last-job movie. Alternatively, picture a Wuhan bat staring pensively into the fireplace as its butler suggests not thinking too hard about Trump’s motivations. Some poorly facepainted men just want to watch the world burn.

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson sends best wishes to Donald and Melania Trump after Covid-19 diagnosis – video

Boris Johnson has wished Donald and Melania Trump a 'strong recovery', hours after the US president revealed he and his wife had tested positive for coronavirus

Continue reading...

Trump’s positive Covid test was a surprise that many saw coming

The president has been cavalier throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Now, a month before the election, this changes everything

It is likely to go down as the biggest “October surprise” in the history of US presidential elections. Yet anyone who was paying attention could have seen it coming.

Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus after claiming “it will disappear”, telling the journalist Bob Woodward he was downplaying it deliberately, failing to develop a national testing strategy, refusing to wear a face mask for months, floating the idea of injecting patients with bleach, insisting to one of his many crowded campaign rallies that “it affects virtually nobody” and, at Tuesday’s debate, mocking his rival, Joe Biden: “He could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

Continue reading...

‘Frustrations at US policies’ behind Melania Trump statue, says artist

Brad Downey says first lady shows contradiction between US’s position on race in 2020

The American artist behind a controversial statue of the US First Lady Melania Trump, unveiled this week in bronze in her native Slovenia, has defended the work as a representation of the contradictions of her husband’s presidency.

Brad Downey, a conceptual artist from Kentucky based in Berlin, said the statue that replaced an earlier wooden carving destroyed in an arson attack in July, was motivated by his “frustrations with the policies of my birth country.”

Continue reading...

Wooden Melania Trump statue replaced with bronze after arson attack

Original carving near US first lady’s hometown in Slovenia was badly damaged in fire

A bronze statue of the US first lady, Melania Trump, has been unveiled near her hometown in Slovenia, to replace a wooden carving of her that was burnt in an arson attack two months ago.

The new work – like the original – is a collaboration between Brad Downey, a Berlin-based artist from Louisville, Kentucky, and a local craftsman, Ales “Maxi” Zupevc, who have invited residents of Melania’s hometown of Sevnica to see the work in nearby Rozno, south-eastern Slovenia.

Continue reading...

Melania Trump reportedly used private email while in the White House

Former senior advisor claims she corresponded multiple times a day with the first lady on state business via private channels

Melania Trump used private email and messaging while in the White House, according to a former senior advisor and estranged friend.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, speaking to the Washington Post, claims she corresponded multiple times a day with the First Lady via private channels.

Continue reading...

RNC 2020: Trump hailed as a benevolent chief who deserves re-election

Speakers – including three members of the president’s family – spouted falsehoods about his character and his opponent

The best courtroom dramas involve a defence lawyer who can work miracles of persuasion and, no matter how damning the evidence, convince the jury that their client is innocent.

A week after Democratic prosecutors presented their “open and shut” case against Donald Trump, the virtual Republican national convention is not only attempting to get him off the hook but argue that he deserves a medal – and four more years in the White House.

Continue reading...

Melania Trump taped making derogatory remarks about Donald and Ivanka – report

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff reportedly taped the first lady’s ‘harsh comments’ and plans to share them in a book, Melania & Me

Melania Trump will speak at the Republican national convention on Tuesday night, in the shadow of an extraordinary report that she was taped making derogatory comments about her husband’s adult children and even Donald Trump himself.

Related: RNC 2020: a two-hour glimpse into the upside-down world of Trump TV

Continue reading...

Digested week: I get to see my mother for the first time since March

So much, yet so little, has happened since lockdown, not least Grant Shapp’s ruined holiday

Monday

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Grant Shapps’s family. After all, if you can’t trust the transport secretary not to ruin his own holiday, then who can you? Back in April, Grant told the Today programme that he definitely wouldn’t be travelling abroad this summer, but some time between then and last Saturday he must have changed his mind after having negotiated safe “air corridors” between Britain and various countries.

Continue reading...

Melania Trump used White House move to renegotiate prenup, book claims

  • First lady delayed moving from New York for five months
  • Melania reportedly said aim was ‘taking care of Barron’

Melania Trump delayed coming to the White House after her husband Donald Trump won the 2016 election because she was renegotiating her prenuptial agreement, a new book has claimed.

Related: Trump’s joke about Melania is just one of their many awkward moments

Continue reading...

Donald Trump spends Christmas Eve railing against impeachment

  • President claims Democrats ‘in real doubt’ about evidence
  • Trump tells troops he has yet to buy a present for Melania

Donald Trump has launched fresh attacks on the congressional architects of his impeachment, even as the standoff intensified between Democrats in the US House and Republicans in the Senate over the president’s impending trial, and appeared set to last well into the new year.

And on a less grave note, Trump revealed in a video conference with US troops to deliver Christmas greetings that, despite it being the morning of 24 December, he had not yet bought his wife her Christmas present.

Continue reading...

Impeachment hearing joke referencing Barron Trump draws angry response – video

Republican representative Matt Gaetz fiercely criticised the Stanford law school professor Pamela Karlan for a pun during the second round of the Trump impeachment hearings.

The Democrats' witness and impeachment expert had said: 'While the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.' She later apologised for her comment, which Melania Trump highlighted in a tweet


Continue reading...

Impeachment hearing joke draws angry response from Melania Trump – and lays bare America’s divide

Pamela Karlan’s reference to Trump’s son Barron offered Republicans a chance to claim righteous outrage

Finally, a smoking pun. A simple play on words told us everything about the impeachment inquiry, the current mindset in Congress and the state of the nation.

The witness Pamela Karlan cracked a joke that delighted liberals and infuriated conservatives. Or rather, it delighted conservatives because it gave them a talking point to whip up outrage.

Continue reading...

Melania Trump suspects Roger Stone behind nude photo leak, new book claims

In Free, Melania, obtained by the Guardian, Kate Bennett also reports that president and first lady sleep in separate rooms

Melania Trump suspects Roger Stone, a longtime ally and adviser to Donald Trump, of being behind the release of nude photos from her modelling past, a new book claims.

Related: Trump's 'demeaning fake orgasm' made me speak out – ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page

Continue reading...

Melania Trump booed at Baltimore youth event – video

Melania Trump has received a frosty reception at a youth event in Baltimore, with attendees booing and audibly talking throughout her speech.

Trump was attempting to discuss her 'Be Best' initiative at the B'More Youth Summit, which aims to raise awareness about the US opioid crisis.

In July, Donald Trump tweeted that Baltimore was a 'rat and rodent infested mess'

Continue reading...

When Donald met Scott: a reporter’s view of Trump and his White House wonderland

Australian PM Scott Morrison received a full-blown welcome from the US president. Katharine Murphy was on hand for an inside account

  • Support our independent journalism with a one-off or recurring contribution

Scott Morrison has made his first visit to the United States as prime minister. It was a trip that included a close encounter with the unpredictability of the Trump White House, a foreign policy pivot, and a backlash about a lack of climate policy action. Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, travelled, with the prime minister. Here is what she witnessed:

Continue reading...