Category Archives: Donald Trump

Israel signs historic deal with UAE that will ‘suspend’ West Bank annexation

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Trump hails US-brokered pact as ‘peace agreement’ but cracks quickly appear as Netanyahu denies change of plan

Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties in a historic Washington-brokered deal under which Israel will “suspend” its plans to annex parts of the Palestinian territories.

However, cracks in the deal became quickly apparent after its announcement on Thursday, with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there was “no change” to his annexation plans, while the UAE insisted that it “immediately stops annexation”.

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Foe of a foe – the shared interests that make UAE a ‘friend’ of Israel

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Common ground rests on a ‘peace plan’ aided by splintered Arab solidarity over Palestine

The peace deal that few saw coming had been gathering steam in plain sight. Even before the election of Donald Trump, Israel and the UAE had been inching closer, drawn together by three factors – enmity with Iran, a loathing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a mutual belief that the agreed formula for peace with Palestinians was no longer working.

More than anything else, combating Iran became the conduit for the two sides. The adage of a foe of a foe becoming a friend has rarely been more apt. Tehran’s determination to acquire a nuclear weapon, its extensive reach into the Arab world, potential to shut off the Strait of Hormuz, and Shia Islamic revolutionary zeal, provided enough common ground for both sides to sharply deepen intelligence links to strategic levels over the past four years.

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Trump pushes for schools to reopen as US sees deadliest Covid day since May

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  • Trump: ‘We’ve got to open up our schools and our businesses’
  • US leads world in coronavirus infections and deaths

Donald Trump has vowed to push ahead with the reopening of America’s schools, despite the US suffering nearly 1,500 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, the highest number in a single day for three months.

Related: Coronavirus live news: global death toll exceeds 750,000; France reports over 2,600 new cases in 24 hours

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Israel and UAE agree to ‘historical peace agreement’, says Donald Trump – video

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Donald Trump has said the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state. US officials described the agreement, to be known as the Abraham Accords, as the first of its kind since Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. It also gives Trump a foreign policy success as he seeks re-election in November

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Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail

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The president says he opposes providing additional money to the postal service to help it deliver mail-in ballots

Donald Trump admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots.

Trump’s comments lend evidence for critics who say the president is deliberately trying to hamstring the USPS in advance of the November elections to help his re-election bid.

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‘My hair has to be perfect’: Trump prompts change in showerhead rule – video

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The US president’s hair-washing complaints have prompted a proposal on easing of shower-pressure standards.

The Trump administration presented rule changes that would allow showerheads to boost water pressure, after Donald Trump complained that bathroom fixtures did not work to his liking. 

The Department of Energy plan followed Trump's comments last month at a White House event on rolling back regulations where he said he believed water did not come out fast enough from fixtures. ‘My hair … I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect,' he said

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Forget doom-laden headlines, the dollar has not gone into terminal decline | Barry Eichengreen

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Too much is being read into the greenback’s recent weakening against the euro

The dollar is in freefall! The global greenback is doomed! screamed recent headlines. Actually, such sensational headlines are “too sensational”, to echo that noted authority on currencies, Miss Prism, in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

The dollar’s fall in July to a two-year low against the euro was the immediate impetus for these stories. In fact, the dollar’s recent slide is one in a series of readily explicable fluctuations. When the Covid-19 pandemic went global in March, the dollar strengthened on the back of safe-haven flows into US Treasuries, as it does at the start of every crisis. By May, the Federal Reserve, acting as global lender of last resort, had accommodated this mad scramble for dollars by pouring buckets of liquidity into financial markets and the greenback gave back its early gains.

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Donald Trump continues attack on Kamala Harris, calling Biden’s running mate ‘a big failure’ – video

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President Donald Trump labelled Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris 'a big failure' the day after she was announced as Joe Biden's running mate. Trump's criticism is the second in as many days from his White House press briefings, where called her appointment 'risky'. The president cited previous tension between the two during the primary election debates and backed his own vice-president, Mike Pence

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Bob Woodward obtains letters between Trump and Kim Jong-un for new book Rage

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Bob Woodward’s second book on the Trump White House has a title, Rage, and promises to reveal the secrets of “25 personal letters exchanged between [Donald] Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that have not been public before”.

Related: It Was All a Lie review: Trump as symptom not cause of Republican decline

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Harris and Biden make first appearance as running mates and excoriate ‘failure’ Trump

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  • Democratic pair say president has left America ‘in tatters’
  • Biden introduces Harris as ‘the next vice-president of the US’

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris accused Donald Trump of leaving the US “in tatters” by failing to lead the country through the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, as they debuted the Democratic presidential ticket the party hopes will defeat him in November’s election.

Related: 'Ready on day one': Joe Biden welcomes Kamala Harris at their first event as running mates – live

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US proposes change to shower rules after Trump’s hair-washing moan

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  • President believes shower water does not flow fast enough
  • ‘My hair … I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect’

The US president’s hair-washing complaints on Wednesday prompted the government to propose an easing of shower pressure standards.

Related: Biden and Harris say Trump has left America's reputation 'in tatters' at first event as running mates – live

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Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris as running mate – US politics live

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Well at least we now know where Donald Trump stands on QAnon supporting Marjorie Taylor Greene. Some members of the Republican party disowned her campaign after a series of racist videos emerged in which she complains of an “Islamic invasion” into government offices, claims Black and Hispanic men are held back by “gangs and dealing drugs”, and pushes an antisemitic conspiracy theory that the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who is Jewish, collaborated with the Nazis.

And that seems all fine with the commander-in-chief

Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up - a real WINNER!

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said his department did everything by the book in regards to arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2019, after a government watchdog found the risk of civilian casualties in Yemen was not fully evaluated.

His comments came after a state department inspector general report earlier this week concluded the state department did not fully evaluate the risk of civilian casualties in Yemen when it pushed through a huge 2019 precision-guided munitions sale to Saudi Arabia, report the Associated Press.

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Trump won’t hold socially distanced rallies: ‘You can’t have empty seats’ – US politics live

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Joe Biden may have settled on his running mate, but there is no guarantee we will find out today, according to New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin:

No actual VP event today, per a Biden official.

doesn’t mean there won’t be a reveal of who it is, leaked or planned. just no plans for an in-person event.

The Big Ten college football conference has canceled its football season due to coronavirus concerns, it announced today, in a blow to Republicans and Donald Trump who had urged college football to go ahead.

“The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said in a statement.

Related: Why college football is the perfect storm for Covid-19

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Secret Service escorts Trump from press briefing after shooting outside White House

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  • Secret Service shot armed suspect outside White House fence
  • President was giving coronavirus briefing

Donald Trump was abruptly escorted out of a press briefing by a Secret Service agent on Monday after an armed suspect was shot outside the White House.

The president was just minutes into his coronavirus briefing when a Secret Service agent asked Trump to leave the podium and quickly exit the room along with other administration officials.

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Trump abruptly led out of press conference by Secret Service – video

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Two minutes into a press briefing, Donald Trump was abruptly approached by a Secret Service agent and escorted out of the briefing room. The president said nothing as he walked out and did not answer a reporter's question about why he was leaving. He later returned, thanked the Secret Service and explained that there had been a shooting outside the White House perimeter

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Coronavirus US: study shows 97,000 children tested positive in last two weeks of July – live

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Donald Trump is responding to a statement released Sunday by former Republican senator, Ben Sasse, who excoriated the president for his attempt to use executive orders to combat the worsening coronavirus outbreak.

RINO Ben Sasse, who needed my support and endorsement in order to get the Republican nomination for Senate from the GREAT State of Nebraska, has, now that he’s got it (Thank you President T), gone rogue, again. This foolishness plays right into the hands of the Radical Left Dems!

President Obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with DACA, and President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law. Under the Constitution, that power belongs to the American people acting through their members of Congress.

In a press conference Monday, following a night of unrest and looting, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot appeared to criticize Cook County’s state’s attorney Kim Foxx, whom she previously endorsed.

People believe there is no accountability in our criminal justice system. We need the prosecutors and courts to step up”.

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Microsoft’s TikTok deal: bargain of the decade or a $50bn blunder?

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Jury is out on whether video-sharing site could make Microsoft a social media giant

As the clock ticks on Microsoft’s fast-track talks to buy TikTok the jury is out on whether it marks a unique opportunity to become a global social media giant overnight, or a $50bn (£38bn) geopolitically fuelled business blunder.

Donald Trump’s trade war with China has forced ByteDance, the privately owned Beijing-based parent of the video-sharing site TikTok, to pursue a sale of its US business after the president signed an executive order last week that could shut it down on 15 September.

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Donald Trump denies asking how to add face to Mount Rushmore

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White House reportedly asked South Dakota official about expanding monument

Donald Trump has denied that his team ever approached South Dakota’s governor about adding his face to the iconic monument depicting four presidents at Mount Rushmore. However, he added that it sounded like a good idea.

The New York Times reported a Republican party official source on Saturday stating that a White House aide reached out to Kristi Noem’s office with the question: “What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?”

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US passes 5m Covid-19 cases as Joe Biden says pandemic ‘breaks heart’

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US has the highest number of cases and the highest number of deaths in the world as former vice president attacks Donald Trump over coronavirus ‘failures’

The US on Sunday passed the grim milestone of 5m coronavirus cases, as Donald Trump’s executive orders seeking to break a political impasse over further economic relief were denounced by a Republican as “unconstitutional slop” and Joe Biden accused the president of issuing little more than “excuses and lies”.

Recriminations have been flying in Washington since talks on further aid for the unemployed and for states struggling with a public health crisis collapsed on Friday.

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Big oil remembers ‘friend’ Trump with millions in campaign funds

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Donations to support the president’s re-election have flooded in from a fossil fuel industry that has enjoyed three years of energy deregulation and tax cuts

In mid-June the oil pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren hosted a fundraising bash at his palatial Dallas, Texas, home that drew the presence of Donald Trump and raised $10m for the US president’s campaign coffers.

Warren’s fundraising gusher for Trump occurred after he and his wife had donated a hefty $1.7m since 2019 to Trump Victory, a fundraising vehicle for Trump’s re-election and the Republican National Committee, according to the non-partisan Open Secrets group.

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