Category Archives: Donald Trump

Woodward tells how allies tried to rein in ‘childish’ Trump’s foreign policy

Posted on by

On the golf course, Lindsey Graham urged restraint on Iran, while James Mattis slept in his clothes in case of emergency, book says

Four days before ordering a drone strike against the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, Donald Trump was debating the assassination on his own Florida golf course, according to Bob Woodward’s new book on the mercurial president.

Trump’s golfing partner that day was Senator Lindsey Graham, who had emerged as one of his closest advisers, and who urged him not to take such a “giant step”, that could trigger “almost total war”.

Continue reading...

Trump claims US is ’rounding the corner’ as coronavirus death toll nears 200,000 – live

Posted on by

A panel of three federal judges blocked the Trump administration on Thursday from excluding undocumented immigrants from the census totals used to determine how many seats in Congress each state gets.

Trump acted unlawfully in July when he ordered the Commerce Department to produce data that would allow him to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count, the panel said. Federal law is clear that only a single data source - the census count of total population - can be used to apportion the 435 seats in the US House among states, the judges wrote. The decennial census does not ask about citizenship status and by requesting a second set of data outside of the decennial census, Trump ran afoul of the law.

Unprecedented wildfires and rushed evacuations in Oregon have wreaked havoc on the state’s incarcerated population, with thousands now packed into a single overcrowded prison that was already a major Covid-19 hotspot.

A destructive and rapidly spreading fire in Marion county prompted the state to evacuate three prisons on Tuesday, transferring 1,450 people to the Oregon state penitentiary (OSP) in Salem. Evacuees are sleeping on the floor and on emergency beds throughout OSP, including in indoor recreational areas, program rooms and other facilities not typically used for housing.

Related: Oregon fires: evacuated prisoners sleep on floor in packed Covid-19 hotspot

Continue reading...

Joe Biden decries Trump’s ‘almost criminal’ Covid response

Posted on by
  • Democrat tells CNN president ‘waved the white flag’ on virus
  • Trump attacks ABC’s Jon Karl as ‘a disgrace to your employer’

Joe Biden has branded Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic “almost criminal” after book revelations that the US president admitted in early February the disease was “deadly stuff” but deliberately played it down.

As the death toll from Covid-19 nears 200,000 in America, the world’s highest, Biden excoriated his opponent in November’s election over the way he did not address the defining crisis of his presidency early and comprehensively.

Continue reading...

Pelosi: Woodward interview shows Trump’s contempt for supporters – video

Posted on by

Nancy Pelosi has said that Donald Trump’s interview with Bob Woodward, where the president said he intentionally downplayed the coronavirus pandemic to avoid panic, was evidence of ‘contempt’ for Americans’ health.

During her weekly press conference, the House speaker said Trump’s comments were not a sign of real leadership

Continue reading...

Trump ‘wanted to play down’ Covid despite knowing deadliness, Bob Woodward book says – as it happened

Posted on by

From me and Joan E Greve:

Iowa’s governor, Kim Reynolds, is refusing to enforce a White House coronavirus taskforce recommendation to close bars and require people to wear masks after Covid-19 infections in some of the state’s cities surged.

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases have risen sharply across the whole midwest in recent weeks, putting the region at the forefront of America’s pandemic. The region accounted for six of the eight states with the highest number of new Covid-19 cases by early September even as infections fell in other parts of the US previously among the worst hit.

Related: Iowa refuses to close bars and require masks as Covid-19 cases surge in cities

Continue reading...

Trump loyalists interfered to downplay Russia election threat – whistleblower

Posted on by

Brian Murphy claims he was demoted for refusing to accept fabrication of intelligence to match Donald Trump’s rhetoric

Trump loyalists running the Department of Homeland Security manipulated intelligence reports to play down the threat of Russian election interference and white supremacists and exaggerate the threat of antifa and anarchist groups, according to the department’s former top intelligence official.

The official, Brian Murphy, said he was demoted in August from his position running the department’s office of intelligence and analysis because of his refusal to go along with the fabrication of intelligence to match Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and for making formal complaints about the political pressure. He filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

‘I don’t want to create panic’: Trump defends coronavirus remarks he made to Bob Woodward – video

Posted on by

Donald Trump said he was 'trying to avoid panic' by not revealing the severity of Covid-19, despite CNN audio published on Wednesday from an interview in February in which he acknowledged the virus was 'deadly'.

The president, who defended his comments to the journalist Bob Woodward for Woodward's book Rage, insisted his strategy was focused on encouraging Americans to remain calm, as the virus spread across the country

Continue reading...

Trump’s Covid-19 response a ‘life and death betrayal’ of Americans, says Biden – video

Posted on by

Joe Biden took the offensive against Donald Trump during a campaign event in Warren, Michigan after CNN released audio of Trump telling the journalist Bob Woodward in February that he knew coronavirus was ‘deadly’ and airborne.

Biden said the president had ‘failed to do his job on purpose’ as he knew the danger of Covid-19 but downplayed the severity of the virus for months

Continue reading...

Trump knew Covid was deadly but wanted to ‘play it down’, Woodward book says

Posted on by

US president gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews, forming basis of new book Rage, and said of virus: ‘This is deadly stuff’

Donald Trump knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February but intentionally misled the public by deciding to “play it down”, according to interviews recorded by one of America’s most venerated investigative journalists.

The US president gave Bob Woodward 18 interviews between December 2019 and July 2020. They form the basis of his revelatory new book, Rage, obtained on Wednesday by the Washington Post and CNN, in which Trump is condemned by his own words.

Continue reading...

Disloyal review: Michael Cohen’s mob hit on Trump entertains – but will it shift votes?

Posted on by

The president’s fixer wanted to be a Goodfella but ended up taking a fall. His revenge is a tawdrily readable tell-all memoir

Michael Cohen is no saint. Aside from the obvious, Donald Trump’s former fixer has never entered into a formal cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors, a fact duly noted by the US attorneys’ office for the southern district of New York in its sentencing memorandum. Because of that, the “inability to fully vet his criminal history and reliability impact his utility as a witness”.

Related: Michael Cohen book details Trump's racism and toxic family dynamic

Continue reading...

Is democracy in America under threat? – podcast

Posted on by

As the US election draws closer, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington hears from civil leaders on their fears for the integrity of the process and the future of their democracy

When Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic national convention recently he had as his backdrop a facsimile of the US constitution. He spoke pointedly about the importance of that document and criticised Donald Trump, a reality TV star who had damaged the reputation of the United States with “our democratic institutions threatened like never before”.

It is a concern shared by many across the US and the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington tells Anushka Asthana that he was alarmed by what he heard in interviews with some of the most prominent figures in civil rights, the law and academia on the state of democracy in America. He spoke to Michael Waldman, the head of the Brennan Center for Justice; Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP; Deirdre Schifeling, the campaign director of Democracy For All 2021; K. Sabeel Rahman, the head of Demos, and Vanita Gupta, the president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. All told him versions of the same story: democracy in America is in peril like never before.

Continue reading...

Crowds eschew masks at Trump rally as president mocks Biden over social distancing

Posted on by

The president also chose to ridicule the mass protests against racism and policing, saying, ‘We call our rallies peaceful protests’

A packed crowd of hundreds gathered in North Carolina for a Donald Trump campaign rally on Tuesday, with many people forgoing masks, in defiance of state guidelines capping gatherings at 50 people.

Ahead of the president’s visit to Winston-Salem, the chair of the local county commission, a Republican, urged Trump to wear a face mask. The state has a mask requirement in place to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Continue reading...

Trump weighs spending own money on campaign as funds dwindle – live

Posted on by

The race to succeed Bill de Blasio as New York mayor has a new potential entrant.

Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner and one of de Blasio’s most trusted cabinet members, resigned on Tuesday in anticipation of a run.

Michael Cohen’s Trump book is out today and it may or may not be a coincidence that the president was exceedingly busy on Twitter this morning as NBC’s Today was broadcasting excerpts of in interview between his former lawyer and fixer and Lester Holt, of NBC Nightly News.

Related: Michael Cohen book details Trump's racism and toxic family dynamic

Continue reading...

Trump’s White House rally fails to evoke adulation from stony-faced reporters

Posted on by

David Smith’s sketch: With Biden still enjoying a lead in the polls, the president’s attacks on his rivals and perceived enemies smacked of more desperation than usual

After turning the south lawn into a convention stage last month, Donald Trump held a surprise press conference-cum-campaign event on Monday at the White House’s front door – where Jackie Kennedy wore black on the day of JFK’s funeral, and where the Obamas greeted their successors on inauguration day.

On a glorious late summer’s day, Trump’s vantage point behind a presidential lectern at the north portico afforded him a view of former president Andrew Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square and, beyond that, the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza. Give him a second term in November, and perhaps he’ll install a golden escalator like the one he descended in at Trump Tower to launch his first campaign.

Continue reading...

US veterans and soldiers divided over Trump calling war dead ‘suckers’

Posted on by

Some service members expressed skepticism after bombshell report prompted an outpouring of condemnation

Donald Trump was struggling to retain support of active US service members, according to polls, even before last week’s bombshell report that the commander-in-chief referred to fallen and captured US service members as “losers” and “suckers”. But some veterans and military family members remain conflicted.

Related: Trump called American war dead ‘suckers’ and ‘losers', report claims

Continue reading...

Cohen’s book spotlights Trump’s Obama obsession and resurfaces ‘you’re fired’ video

Posted on by

Michael Cohen alleges Trump had ‘hatred and contempt’ for Barack Obama and 2012 video shows Trump mocking his rival

The impression of Donald Trump’s obsession with his predecessor Barack Obama was fueled by a video from 2012 resurfacing this weekend from a parody in which the now-Republican president mocks his Democratic rival.

Journalists dug up the clip after Michael Cohen, Trump’s disgraced former fixer, shared a photo of it taken from the film to promote his latest book.

Continue reading...

A ‘tyrant-clown’ has destroyed my love affair with America | Robert McCrum

Posted on by

With its cynical disabling of the body politic, the Trump administration has contaminated the well of US independence

Once upon a time, at the start of the last century, PG Wodehouse declared, with the fervour of the convert, that to live in America was “like being in heaven … without the bother and expense of dying”.

America used to do that to a certain kind of Brit, and to those who saw themselves as Greeks to the Americans’ Romans: we’d fall hopelessly in love, however much they abused the relationship.

Continue reading...

Michael Cohen alleges Trump racist outbursts and role in Stormy Daniels payoff in new book

Posted on by

White House dismisses as ‘fan fiction’ the tell-all memoir of convicted former fixer who claims Trump is guilty of the same crimes as him

Michael Cohen’s tell-all memoir makes the case that president Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scandal that once overshadowed his presidency.

Of all the crises Cohen confronted working for Trump, none proved as vexing as the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and her claims of an extramarital affair with Trump, Cohen writes in Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump claims US has not seen any proof of Alexei Navalny poisoning – video

Posted on by

The US president declined to accept the German government's assessment that the Russian opposition leader was attacked with a nerve agent. This week the chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests at a military laboratory had identified unequivocally that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned with novichok

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson fascinated by Donald Trump, says ex-ambassador

Posted on by

PM is intrigued by Trump’s ‘relationship with the truth’, Kim Darroch writes in new book

Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.

In a new book serialised in the Times, Lord Darroch said Johnson must share the blame for his resignation as ambassador to Washington, which followed the leaking of diplomatic cables disparaging Trump.

Continue reading...