Category Archives: Donald Trump

‘Despicable’: Republicans and Democrats condemn violence after Charlie Kirk killing

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US lawmakers, in bipartisan rebuke, say violence has no place in America as Trump orders flags lowered

The killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah college on Wednesday afternoon prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans over the latest act of political violence in the United States, with Donald Trump lamenting the loss of a key ally.

“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.

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Trump jeered by protesters as he dines at Washington DC restaurant

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Protesters shouted ‘Trump is the Hitler of our time!’ as he had a meal near the White House to promote his deployment of the National Guard

Donald Trump faced protesters shouting “Free DC! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” as he dined at a Washington restaurant, videos posted online showed.

The US president approached the shouting protesters in the restaurant, pausing a few feet away from them for a few moments, nodding and smiling without offering a response.

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Trump asks EU to impose tariffs of up to 100% on India and China

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In effort to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, US president proposes tariffs targeting Putin allies and trade partners

Donald Trump has asked the EU to impose tariffs of up to 100% on India and China as part of an effort to force the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to end the war in Ukraine.

The US president made the demand during a meeting between US and EU officials discussing options to increase economic pressure on Russia on Tuesday, according to a White House official.

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Trump appears sidelined as the US caught unawares by Israel’s unprecedented strikes on Qatar

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The White House is caught between supporting Israel’s war against Hamas and patching up relations with a key US ally in the region

In the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas negotiators in the heart of Qatar’s capital Doha, the White House appeared sidelined from halting a conflict that Donald Trump has claimed only he could mediate.

As details of the diplomatic flurry before Tuesday’s extraordinary strike were revealed, it was claimed that the White House had little say in how Israel opened its latest front in its war against Hamas – this one on a US ally hosting negotiations days after Trump had claimed he was close to reaching a deal.

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The president doth protest too much: Trump’s denial on Epstein is backfiring

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Typically full of brio and swagger, the White House is scrambling because Trump is behaving so out of character

It took Trump chronicler Maggie Haberman to cut to the chase: if Trump didn’t sign the birthday card or other documents released by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, the reporter asked in a quiet yet insistent tone, what’s the working theory as to why he’s in there?

“The president has one of the most famous signatures in the world,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, replied on Tuesday. “The president did not write that letter. He did not sign those documents.”

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Israeli-Russian graduate student freed after 903 days in Hezbollah captivity

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Elizabeth Tsurkov, who entered Iraq to do research for Princeton, had gone missing in Iraq in early 2023

Israeli-Russian academic and Princeton student Elizabeth Tsurkov has been released after being kidnapped by Kata’ib Hezbollah and spending more than two years in captivity, Donald Trump said in a post on social media.

“I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton Student, whose sister is an American Citizen, was just released by Kata’ib Hezbollah (MILITANT Hezbollah), and is now safely in the American Embassy in Iraq after being tortured for many months. I will always fight for JUSTICE, and never give up. HAMAS, RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, NOW!” the US president wrote in a TruthSocial post on Tuesday.

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House committee releases image of ‘sickening’ birthday note reportedly from Trump to Epstein – US politics live

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White House officials seek to discredit note and claim Donald Trump signature is false

Donald Trump now cannot claim presidential immunity to get off the hook from paying $83.3m in damages to the writer E Jean Carroll, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday, upholding a jury’s 2024 award against the president for defamation.

Trump’s lawyers had pointed to the supreme court’s ruling last year saying the president has immunity for official acts to argue that the damages should be overturned. A three-judge panel for the US court of appeals for the second circuit, rejected that argument.

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Majority in EU’s biggest states believes bloc ‘sold out’ in US tariff deal, poll finds

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Average of 77% of respondents across five countries thought agreement would benefit US economy above all

A majority of people across the EU’s five biggest member states believe the European Commission sold citizens out when negotiating a “humiliating” tariff deal with Donald Trump that “benefits the US” far more than Europe, a survey has shown.

The poll, by Cluster17 for the European affairs debate platform Le Grand Continent, found 77% of respondents – ranging from 89% in France to 50% in Poland – thought the deal would benefit above all the US economy, with only 2% believing it would benefit Europe’s.

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Norway’s Labour party wins election after seeing off populist surge

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Success for party of the prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, despite increased support for rightwing Progress party

The Norwegian Labour party has secured four more years in government after seeing off a surge of support for the populist right in a polarised election.

Soon after the polls closed, the centre left was projected to win with 89 seats with the centre right taking 80 seats. A minimum of 85 seats are needed for a majority.

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US visa refusal for Palestinian delegation prompts calls to move UN meeting to Geneva

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General assembly session about two-state solution for Palestine and Israel due to start in New York on Tuesday

The US’s refusal to grant visas to the Palestinian delegation to the UN general assembly has led to calls for a one-day conference on a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel to be moved from the UN’s headquarters in New York to its other main site in Geneva.

Donald Trump’s White House has already refused to grant a visa to the Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas, and 80 other Palestinian officials for the general assembly session, which begins on Tuesday.

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Supreme court lifts restrictions on Los Angeles immigration raids in win for Trump

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Conservative majority lifts restraining order from judge who found’roving patrols’ were conducting indiscriminate arrests

The US supreme court on Monday cleared the way for federal agents to conduct sweeping immigration operations in Los Angeles, the latest victory for Donald Trump’s administration at the high court.

The conservative majority lifted a restraining order from a judge who found that “roving patrols” were conducting indiscriminate arrests in LA. The order had barred agents from stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.

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Trump directs ire at Tom Hanks for being ‘destructive’ and ‘woke’

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US president applauded West Point alumni for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring the actor

Donald Trump launched a vitriolic attack against Tom Hanks for supposedly being “destructive” and “woke” after one of America’s most beloved actors was snubbed without much explanation by West Point last week.

On his social media site on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni association of the US Military Academy (or West Point) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has played numerous military characters and also has a long history of advocating for veterans.

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Will Republicans in Congress finally stand up to Trump?

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The president has steamrollered the separation of powers but so far his sway over his party has been firm

Democrat Chuck Schumer returned to the Senate floor last week with some urgent questions. “Will Senate Republicans continue to kowtow to a leader they know is dragging the country down?” he demanded. “That they know is a pathological liar? Or will they, as the Founding Fathers intended, stand up to him? Will they help us fight America’s slide into authoritarianism?”

It was a recognition of how Donald Trump has spent eight months seeking to expand presidential power at the expense of Congress and others. He has signed 200 executive orders – more than Joe Biden in four years – unleashed squadrons of national guard troops in Washington, turned investigators on his political foes and sought to bring academic, cultural, financial and legal institutions to heel.

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Trump issues ‘last warning’ to Hamas to accept Gaza ceasefire deal

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President says ‘the Israelis have accepted my terms’ and urges release of hostages to secure peace agreement

Donald Trump on Sunday issued what he called his “last warning” to Hamas, urging the Palestinian militant group to accept a deal to release hostages from Gaza.

“The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”

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US treasury secretary denies Trump tariffs are tax on Americans

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Billionaire Scott Bessent dismisses concerns about president’s levies and predicts ‘acceleration’ in US economy

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has refused to acknowledge that the sweeping trade tariffs imposed by Donald Trump around the world are taxes on Americans.

In a new interview on Sunday with NBC host Kristen Welker, Bessent, a former billionaire hedge fund manager, dismissed concerns from major American companies including John Deere, Nike and Black and Decker who have all said that Trump’s tariffs policy will cost them billions of dollars annually.

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LGBTQ+ Americans consider move to Canada to escape Trump: ‘I’m afraid of living here’

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LGBTQ+ people in the US contemplate heading north as they wrestle with the president’s assault on the community

The number of LGBTQ+ Americans inquiring about moving to Canada has soared since Donald Trump’s re-election, campaigners have said, as people across the US wrestle with the fallout of rising anti-gay rhetoric, anti-trans executive orders, and the more than 600 bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights.

“So much is happening in the US right now and a lot of it is terrifying,” said Latoya Nugent of Rainbow Railroad, a North American charity that helps LGBTQI+ individuals escape violence and persecution in their home countries.

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Trump’s former surgeon general urges president to fire RFK Jr

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Jerome Adams cites vaccine policy and chaos at CDC and joins other officials in saying Kennedy is risking US health

The surgeon general from the first Trump administration on Saturday said that the US president should “absolutely” fire health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr over his “dangerous” policies on vaccines and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Jerome Adams, who has become a pointed critic of the controversial public health decisions being swiftly rolled out in the second Trump administration, made his most fierce attack yet on what has been unfolding.

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Judge blocks ending of legal protections for 1m Venezuelans and Haitians in US

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Homeland security had tried to end temporary protected status granted by the Biden administration

A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means that 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire on 10 September have status to stay and work in the United States.

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Trump sends 10 stealth fighter planes to Puerto Rico amid war on Caribbean drug cartels

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Move comes after accusing Venezuela of buzzing US warship and a deadly US missile strike in Caribbean Sea

Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region, it was reported on Friday.

If follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, and comments by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Wednesday that such attacks “will happen again”.

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Western troops in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’, Putin says

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Russian president’s threat follows French proposal for postwar support for Kyiv that would include presence of Nato countries’ forces

Vladimir Putin has said any western troops placed in Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” for Russian strikes, upping the stakes as Kyiv’s allies scramble to come up with a convincing offer of postwar support to Ukraine.

Speaking a day after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced still-vague plans for a package of support for Ukraine backed by 26 nations, Putin on Friday said any guarantees that involved boots on the ground would violate Moscow’s longstanding objections to Nato troops in Ukraine.

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