Category Archives: Donald Trump

Trump floats executive order on Covid relief aid despite doubts over legality – live

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The New York prosecutors who are trying to access Donald Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, the New York Times reports.

Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance subpoenaed the bank last year, the Times writes.

The subpoena to Deutsche Bank sought documents on various topics related to Mr Trump and his company, including any materials that might point to possible fraud, according to two people briefed on the subpoena’s contents.

Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided Mr Vance’s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that Mr Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans.

Facebook has removed a post from Donald Trump’s Facebook page for spreading false information about the coronavirus, a first for the company that has been harshly criticized for repeatedly allowing the president to break its content rules.

The post included video of a Trump falsely asserting that children are “almost immune from Covid-19” during an appearance on Fox News. There is evidence to suggest that children who contract Covid-19 generally experience milder symptoms than adults do. However, they are not immune, and some children have become severely ill or died from the disease.

#BREAK Facebook removes post from President Trump's page for breaking its rules on Covid-19 misinformation.

The post was a clip of his interview with Fox & Friends this morning where he made claims about children and Covid-19 immunity pic.twitter.com/tPYPAVLYY8

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Coronavirus live news: global death toll passes 700,000; French government warns ‘do not lower your guard’

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US health secretary Alex Azar to visit Taiwan in veiled attack on China; Trump flounders in interview; France could lose control ‘any time’

Test results for a man suspected of being North Korea’s first coronavirus case were inconclusive, but authorities have quarantined more than 3,635 primary and secondary contacts, according to a World Health Organization official.

On 26 July, the country said it had declared a state of emergency and locked down the border city of Kaesong after a person who defected to South Korea three years ago returned across the fortified border with what state media said were symptoms of Covid-19.

France’s prime minister, Jean Castex, has said vineyards are facing “major difficulties” due to a drop in exports during the pandemic.

He tweeted that state support “must continue and intensify” to save the wine industry from collapse.

Contexte international, crise sanitaire, baisse des exportations : notre filière viticole est confrontée à d’importantes difficultés.
La mobilisation de l’État doit se poursuivre et s’intensifier.
Avec @J_Denormandie, j’échange dans le Cher avec les professionnels du secteur. pic.twitter.com/G6qIEojyMw

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Donald Trump claims Lebanon explosion ‘looks like a terrible attack’ – video

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The US president Donald Trump says an explosion that killed dozens of people in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, looks like an attack. 'We will be there to help. It looks like a terrible attack,' he said at a press briefing. Trump was later asked why he called the explosion an attack, not an accident, saying he met with generals who felt it was 'a bomb of some kind'

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Coronavirus US: Biden tells Trump ‘step up and do your job’ over Covid-19 death toll – live

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Donald Trump refused to praise the late John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and original Freedom Rider, during his latest one-on-one interview, and also questioned the value of the pivotal Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, which Lewis fought and almost died for.

When asked how history would remember the civil rights leader, the president replied, “I don’t know. I really don’t know” and brought the point back around to himself.

Related: Trump refuses to praise late civil rights leader John Lewis

“Veep” the hit politics satire series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus found seven seasons of success on HBO.

Louis-Dreyfus does not like the new HBO material:

God, I wish this was just a dumb show like ours. https://t.co/n3edLDiqiq

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‘They’re dying … it is what it is’: key takeaways from Trump’s shocking interview

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President floundered in conversation with Axios, claiming Covid-19 was ‘under control’ and attacking mail-in voting

Donald Trump stumbled through his second damaging interview in as many weeks, floundering in a conversation with the news website Axios over key issues he is tasked with responding to as president.

It’s been just over two weeks since the president made a series of shocking statements in a one-on-one interview with Fox News, but he packed another host of extraordinary claims into a 37-minute interview released on Monday night by Axios.

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Neil Young sues Donald Trump campaign for using his music

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Musician files lawsuit against the president for copyright infringement after Rockin’ in the Free World and Devil’s Sidewalk were played at a rally

Neil Young is suing Donald Trump’s campaign for alleged illegal usage of his music at a rally.

The musician claims that Rockin’ in the Free World and Devil’s Sidewalk were played at the president’s recent rally in Tulsa without a license. Both songs have also been used before by the campaign.

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Trump refuses to praise late civil rights leader John Lewis

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  • President unhappy that Lewis did not attend his inauguration
  • Trump questions value of Civil Rights Act: ‘How’s it worked out?’

Donald Trump refused to praise the late John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and original Freedom Rider, during his latest one-on-one interview, and also questioned the value of the pivotal Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, which Lewis fought and almost died for.

Related: Coronavirus US: Biden tells Trump 'step up and do your job' over Covid-19 death toll – live

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Trump’s stream of subconsciousness becomes a torrent in car-crash interview | John Crace

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The president’s incoherence and unchecked narcissism were given full rein for 40 long minutes in a TV evisceration

I take it all back. I regularly mock British politicians for their lies and hypocrisy, not least Boris Johnson, the UK’s Donald Trump-lite, who only last Friday had hit a new low for cronyism, corruption and nepotism with his appointments to the House of Lords.

But all this was amateur hour compared with Donald Trump’s interview with Axios’s political correspondent, Jonathan Swan, that was broadcast on HBO on Monday evening.

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Donald Trump flounders in interview over US Covid-19 death toll

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President again says he is doing ‘incredible job’ fighting pandemic and casts doubt on Jeffrey Epstein’s cause of death

Donald Trump visibly floundered in an interview when pressed on a range of issues, including the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the US, his claims that mail-in voting is fraudulent, and his inaction over the “Russian bounty” scandal.

The US president also repeatedly cast doubt on the cause of death of Jeffrey Epstein, and said of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite who has pleaded not guilty to participating in the sex-trafficking of girls by Epstein, that he wished her well.

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Coronavirus live news: UN warns world faces ‘generational catastrophe’ over school closures

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UN says getting students safely back to classroom must be ‘top priority’; Philippines reimposes lockdown; record fines for isolation breaches in Australia

We’re reporting that builders in the Australia could lose $450m daily under Melbourne stage 4 Covid-19 lockdown.

Work levels from big construction sites to trade businesses set to be pummelled amid predictions new curbs will ‘knock wind out of’ state

Related: Victorian builders could lose $450m daily under Melbourne stage 4 Covid-19 lockdown

Reuters is reporting that Taiwan has provisionally approved the use of dexamethasone, a cheap and widely-used steroid, to treat the new coronavirus because the island faces a shortfall of the antiviral drug remdesivir after the United States bought nearly all global supplies.

Taiwan Centres for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang told reporters on Tuesday that medical experts had decided to provisionally allow dexamethasone to be listed as a COVID-19 treatment but that procedures still needed to be completed before it could be given to any patients.

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Coronavirus live news: Greece reports highest number of cases in weeks as Danish expert advises against lockdown easing

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UN says getting students safely back must be ‘top priority’; France says ‘situation is precarious’; record fines for isolation breaches in Australia

France’s Accor, the world’s sixth largest hotel chain, said it was slashing 1,000 jobs worldwide in a major cost cutting plan accelerated by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The group, which runs high-end chains such as Raffles and Sofitel, and budget brands like Ibis, plans to cut costs by €200m by 2022.

After weeks of railing against what he claimed were the potential risks of voting by mail, president Donald Trump has urged voters in at least one Republican state - Florida - to vote by any means.

Trump, who is trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in polls, has repeatedly warned in recent weeks - without evidence - that mail-in voting carries more risks than voting by absentee ballot and could result in widespread fraud.

Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA

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‘You can’t do that’: Trump argues with reporter over Covid-19 death figures – video

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In an extraordinary clip from Axios’ Jonathan Swan's interview with Donald Trump, the president rifled through a sheaf of graphs to claim that the US has lower numbers of coronavirus than other nations.

The pair debated Trump's point that America has a lower number of deaths as a percentage of coronavirus cases, but when Swan pointed instead to the number of US Covid-19 deaths as a population percentage, Trump said: 'You can't do that' 

The full interview will be shown on HBO on 4 August 

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Donald Trump defends Dr Deborah Birx after calling her Covid-19 assessment ‘pathetic’ – video

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The US president has defended his public health expert Deborah Birx after she drew criticism from House speaker Nancy Pelosi and from his own earlier tweet, labelling her assessment of Covid-19's spread as 'pathetic'. Pelosi targeted Birx, saying Trump spread coronavirus misinformation and Birx was his appointee. The president pointed to coronavirus flareups overseas as a measure of the US success, saying the country was doing very well and adding he had a lot of respect for Birx


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Trump and his company under investigation by New York district attorney, filing suggests – live

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New York prosecutors argue they are justified in seeking Trump’s tax returns because of public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”

Expanding on our earlier post, lawyers from the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued that in court on Monday.

Manhattan District Attorney District Attorney Cyrus Vance is seeking eight years of the Republican president’s personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records, other than part of the investigation is related to payoffs made to women to keep them quiet about alleged affairs with Trump.

In their court filing Monday, though, attorneys for Vance said Trump’s arguments that the subpoena was too broad stemmed from “the false premise” that the probe was limited to so-called “hush-money” payments.

Trump just answered questions from reporters at the White House, expanding on his threat to ban Tik Tok, disagreeing with Fauci, and again promoting hydroxychloroquine, even as top administration officials acknowledge that there is no evidence the drug is an effective treatment for the virus.

Responding to a handful of questions on Monday afternoon, Trump said the social media platform Tik Tok must be sold to Microsoft or another company by 15 September or it will be shut down in US. He also said the Treasury should receive payment as a portion of any deal between the social media platform and a US company.

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Trump calls Birx’s dire warning on widespread coronavirus in the US ‘pathetic’

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President and Nancy Pelosi criticize Deborah Birx as US deaths climb past 154,000 and cases reach one-quarter of global total

Donald Trump publicly rebuked a second member of the White House coronavirus taskforce on Monday morning, calling Deborah Birx’s assessment of Covid-19’s spread “pathetic” in a tweet.

Birx warned on Sunday that the coronavirus was entering a new phase in the US and infections were now “extraordinarily widespread” across the country, instead of clustering mainly in a clutch of states and big cities.

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TikTok row: Microsoft pursues deal as Pompeo says Trump will take action soon

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Microsoft confirms acquisition plans, hours after US secretary of state says Chinese software companies are feeding data directly to Communist party

Donald Trump will take action in coming days to tackle an array of national security risks presented by TikTok and other Chinese software companies, Mike Pompeo has said, as Microsoft revealed it was pursuing a deal after speaking to the US president.

Microsoft said late on Sunday that - after a conversation between Trump and its CEO, Satya Nadella – it would move quickly on acquisition talks with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, completing talks no later than 15 September. It pledged to ensure that all private data of American users was transferred to, and remained in, the US.

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Nancy Pelosi says she doesn’t have confidence in Dr Deborah Birx over coronavirus – video

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US House speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has lost trust in Dr Deborah Birx, a senior scientist on Donald Trump’s coronavirus taskforce, after the US surpassed 154,000 deaths due to the virus. Pelosi criticised Birx's role in the White House's handling of the pandemic, claiming president Trump had been spreading disinformation about Covid-19, and Birx was his appointee

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Deborah Birx warns Covid-19 now ‘extraordinarily widespread’ in US – as it happened

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We’ll be shutting down today’s blog shortly. Here’s a glance at today’s major news items:

The US economy could benefit if the nation were to “lock down really hard” for four to six weeks, a top Federal Reserve official said on Sunday, adding that Congress can well afford large sums for coronavirus relief efforts.

The economy, which in the second quarter suffered its biggest blow since the Great Depression, would be able to mount a robust recovery, but only if the virus were brought under control, Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, told CBS’s Face the Nation.

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How a rural US sheriff’s department was able to obtain a military-grade vehicle

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Trump’s 2017 reversal of Obama’s order allowed county sheriff to acquire vehicle by answering questionnaire, documents show

A sheriff’s department in a remote rural California county with only 18,000 people, no incorporated cities, few sworn officers and almost no crime, was able to obtain a second military-grade MRAP armored vehicle in 2017 by giving brief answers to a simple questionnaire, according to documents obtained under freedom of information requests.

MRAP stands for mine-resistant ambush protected, though the prospect of encountering mines or being ambushed would seem to be unlikely in even the toughest US police precincts.

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Media to be banned from Republican convention due to coronavirus restrictions

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In a modern first, the press will not be present when the GOP votes to renominate Donald Trump for president

The media will be barred from the Republican national convention where Donald Trump is set to be renominated as presidential candidate later this month, a spokeswoman said on Saturday, citing coronavirus restrictions.

While Trump called off the public components of the convention in Florida last month, citing spiking cases of the virus across the country, 336 delegates are scheduled to gather in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 24 August to formally vote to make Trump the GOP standard-bearer once more.

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