Fox News guests spread ‘disinformation’ – says leaked internal memo

Among those named in document are frequent guests Rudy Giuliani, John Solomon, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova

Fox News has a credibility problem. Most critics of the cable news network will be well aware of that, but in this case the admission is coming from Fox News itself.

An internal research briefing obtained by the Daily Beast names four regular contributors to the network for peddling “disinformation”, particularly when it comes to the Ukraine scandal that led to Donald Trump’s impeachment.

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Qassim al-Rimi: US forces killed al-Qaida leader in Yemen, Trump confirms

Al-Rimi had claimed responsibility for a shooting at a Florida naval base, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors

Donald Trump confirmed on Thursday that a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaida leader who claimed responsibility for last year’s deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

Unconfirmed reports of his death, including indicative tweets from the president, have been circulating since 31 January, but the neither the Department of Defense nor the CIA had issued official confirmation.

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Trump responds to impeachment acquittal with rambling, vitriolic speech – as it happened

  • Trump speaks at White House for first time since acquittal
  • Report shows Iowa caucus results ‘riddled with inconsistencies’
  • Buttigieg lead over Sanders narrowing in Iowa results
  • Help us cover the critical issues of 2020. Consider making a contribution

Related: Trump unleashed: what's next for a president who feels invincible?

Both Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders have claimed victory in Iowa, even as technical delays and reporting issues have prolonged the delay in tallying the Democratic caucus votes. Sanders has touted his raw vote tally; Buttigieg holds a narrow lead in the number of state delegate equivalents he’s amassed.

Both candidates will be speaking tonight in a CNN town hall ahead of the New Hampshire primary contest next week. Deval Patrick and Amy Klobuchar will be participating as well, answering questions from supporters and network hosts.

Related: Sanders and Buttigieg nearly tied in Iowa amid new claims of counting errors

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No 10 says Johnson’s row with Trump over Huawei was ‘overblown’

US president was reportedly furious about PM’s decision to use Chinese 5G expertise

Downing Street has sought to play down the significance of a difficult phone call between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson over the UK’s decision to allow Chinese company Huawei to help build its 5G network.

Trump was reported by the FT to have been “apoplectic” about the decision taken by Johnson, and the phone call last week was said by one official to have been “very difficult” and tense.

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‘Dirty cops, leakers and liars’: Trump on impeachment acquittal – video

Donald Trump spoke in the White House to supporters and Republicans in what he called 'a celebration' on Thursday, after being acquitted of impeachment in the Senate. 

The senators found Trump not guilty of the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, by a 52-48 tally, and not guilty of the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, by a 53-47 tally.

Trump said the Democrats that impeached him were 'vicious and mean' saying Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi were 'horrible' people

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‘He’s impeached forever’: Nancy Pelosi on Trump’s acquittal – video

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Donald Trump would never get rid of the 'scar' of impeachment, in her first weekly press conference since Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

Pelosi also responded to Trump’s comments at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he implicitly insulted Pelosi and Republican senator Mitt Romney

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Donald Trump alludes to Mitt Romney and Nancy Pelosi in speech after acquittal – video

The US president referenced support for his impeachment from both Mitt Romney and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, at the national prayer breakfast. He added: 'When they impeach you for nothing, then you are supposed to like them. It is not easy'

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Nancy Pelosi appears to prepare in advance to rip up Trump’s speech – video

The US House speaker seemed to make a small tear in some pages of the text of Donald Trump's State of the Nation address almost an hour before she dramatically ripped it up at the end of the president's speech on Tuesday night.

The Senate has acquitted Trump of charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress

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After Trump’s acquittal: new revelations will continue to trickle in

The hollowness of the president’s acquittal after impeachment may be exposed as leaks and investigations soldier on

The Senate trial of Donald Trump has arrived at its preordained conclusion. The president has begun a victory lap to celebrate impunity and settle scores with a long list of enemies headed by Mitt Romney, while the Democrats return to their ill-starred primaries. But there are good reasons to believe that Ukraine, the reluctant focus of the impeachment battle, will continue to haunt US politics for some time to come.

Related: Trump tilts at Romney and Pelosi in first speech after impeachment acquittal – live

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‘Don’t do this again’: Schumer and McConnell clash over Trump acquittal – video

The US senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer both held press conferences after the Senate acquitted Donald Trump on two impeachment charges. Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, said Americans knew that ‘this was one of the largest cover-ups in the history of our nation’, while McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, warned the House of Representatives: ‘Don’t do this again’

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The great escape: how Donald Trump survived impeachment

How did Trump and his team pull off his successful defense? Here’s a look at key factors

Will historians find Donald Trump’s impeachment remarkable because Republican politicians turned a blind eye to such egregious wrongdoing and acquitted him? Or will they find it remarkable because it was the last time a cadre of Republican officials publicly turned against Trump?

While most of the career civil servants who defied the president by testifying in the impeachment inquiry do not publicly identify as Republican, many were Trump appointees with strong Republican ties, while other key figures such as former national security adviser John Bolton are wizened party warriors.

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Trump’s acquittal in impeachment ‘trial’ is a glimpse of America’s imploding empire

In a hyperpartisan era, Republicans cast Trump as a victim while Democrats lamented his ‘normalisation of lawlessness’

Donald Trump’s short but indelible political career has been based around the principle of divide-and-fool. His acquittal in the impeachment trial by the US Senate will further fan the flames of the most profound national split since the Vietnam war, perhaps even the civil war.

First, expect Trump to be cocky and take a victory lap, falsely claiming “exoneration” just as he did after special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation left him bruised but unbowed. A day after Mueller’s leaden testimony to Congress, the president felt able to act with such impunity that he made his bullying phone call to the leader of Ukraine.

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US politics: Buttigieg leads in Iowa as Senate prepares to acquit Trump – live coverage

  • Buttigieg just ahead of Sanders as Iowa votes trickle in
  • Pelosi rips up copy of Trump State of the Union speech
  • Only one Republican senator likely to vote to convict Trump
  • Help us cover the critical issues of 2020. Consider making a contribution

Pete Buttigieg threw everything into winning the Iowa Democratic caucuses and – with 71% of the vote in following Monday’s results debacle – his gamble may well have paid off.

If so, the former mayor of tiny South Bend, Indiana, may look back on this moment as the peak of his political career, or the start of a long, hard slog that could take him all the way to the White House.

Hello and welcome to another big day in American politics.

It’s fair to see Donald Trump is probably having a pretty good week. Last night he got 80 minutes to make his case for a second term on primetime TV with his State of the Union address, as the Democrats continued to struggle to publish results from their first primary contest on Iowa on Monday.

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Donald Trump’s State of the Union address 2020 – video highlights

Donald Trump has delivered his third State of the Union address, bragging about the ‘great American comeback’ in a speech resembling an 81-minute re-election rally. It prompted Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in Congress, to rip up her copy of the speech on national television

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Hundreds of Salvadorans deported by US were killed or abused, report reveals

Human Rights Watch says 138 Salvadorans were murdered from 2013 to 2019 and 70 others were abused or sexually assaulted

At least 200 Salvadoran migrants and asylum seekers have been killed, raped or tortured after being deported back to El Salvador by the United States government which is turning a blind eye to widely known dangers, a new investigation reveals.

Related: How the US helped create El Salvador’s bloody gang war

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Nancy Pelosi rips up State of the Union speech after Donald Trump snubs handshake – video

Donald Trump appeared to snub Nancy Pelosi's request for a handshake during the start of his State of the Union address. At the speech's conclusion, Pelosi was seen tearing up her copy of the speech, later saying 'it was the courteous thing to do' 

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State of the Union: Pelosi expresses her disdain as Trump pitches for re-election

Trump used speech to brag about ‘the great American comeback’ but House speaker said she couldn’t find ‘one page with truth on it’

An emboldened Donald Trump bragged about the “great American comeback” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, in a speech resembling an 81-minute re-election rally that prompted the most powerful woman in Congress to rip up her copy of the speech on national television.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said she tore up the address, which he delivered on the eve of the verdict in his impeachment trial, because she couldn’t find “one page with truth on it”.

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Senate leaders make speeches before final vote – video

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called for senators to ‘vote to reject the House abuse of power’ during a speech on Tuesday 4 February before a final vote scheduled for Wednesday afternoon on whether to convict Donald Trump. Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said that ‘the Republicans refused to get the evidence because they were afraid of what it would show’.

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‘You basically are nothing’: the Americans shut out of the Iowa caucuses

Hundreds of thousands of Iowans are barred from the Iowa caucus because of physical and legal barriers

As Democratic candidates began a last minute blitz across Iowa on Friday evening, nearly a dozen men gathered in a cavernous YMCA meeting room in downtown Des Moines to have a conversation that felt a universe removed from the 2020 race.

They were part of one of the largest groups shut out of Monday’s caucus: people with felony convictions. Iowans are barred from voting for life once they commit a felony, and people can’t vote even if they committed a crime decades ago. The state’s policy, one of the strictest in the country, means more than 42,000 Iowans out of prison won’t have a say in choosing a presidential candidate. Almost 10% of the black voting age population can’t vote because of a felony conviction.

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‘Pathological liar’: Bloomberg hits back at Trump ‘Mini Mike’ insult

Michael Bloomberg traded insults with Donald Trump on Sunday, calling the president “a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity and his spray-on tan”.

Related: 'My party is a cult': Republican Joe Walsh on his Iowa challenge to Trump

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