Comment came as Greta Thunberg demanded immediate action in Davos
Donald Trump told the world’s business leaders to stop listening to “prophets of doom” as he used a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum to attack the teenage activist Greta Thunberg over her climate crisis warnings.
The US president hailed America’s growth record and compared campaigners against global heating with those who feared a population explosion in the 1960s and mass starvation in the 1970s.
Continue reading...White House’s brief also claimed process has been a ‘charade’ and Trump did ‘absolutely nothing wrong’ in dealings with Ukraine
Lawyers acting on behalf of Donald Trump on Monday branded the impeachment case against him “flimsy” and a “dangerous perversion of the constitution”, setting the stage for the opening of his long-awaited Senate trial on Tuesday.
As the president prepared to jet off to Davos, where he is set to give a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, the White House submitted its formal trial defence brief, a 110-page document in which it also claimed the impeachment process has been a “charade” and insisted Trump did “absolutely nothing wrong” in his dealings with Ukraine.
Continue reading...Donald Trump wants his impeachment trial to end before his state of the union address in just two weeks’ time, Lindsey Graham said on Sunday.
Related: Alan Dershowitz: Trump impeachment acquittal would make me unhappy
Continue reading...Monroe county, Michigan, saw one of the largest swings in the country from Obama to Trump – and so far many swing voters are likely to go for Trump even as they have plenty of doubt
It’s not that James Padot hugely admires Donald Trump or his values.
After all, Padot spent more than four decades as a pipe fitter, a skilled trade that provided a good living but relied on the power of his labour union for work and to ensure he was decently paid.
Continue reading...Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporters, have produced a vital and alarming read
In January 2018, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury made headlines as it depicted a president out of control and a White House that careened from crisis to crisis. Donald Trump threatened legal action against author and publisher. He also lauded himself and his electoral college victory: “I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius … and a very stable genius at that!”
Related: Trump 'abused' and 'harassed' Kirstjen Nielsen over border, new book reveals
Continue reading...Its new commission is failing to enact its grand ambitions, as destructive global power games are played out by others
It has been a difficult start to 2020 for the EU and the new European commission, which took office last month. Ursula von der Leyen, who succeeded Jean-Claude Juncker as commission president, is not short of ambition. She believes Europe should take a leading “geopolitical” role in international affairs, reflecting the EU’s status as the world’s largest trade bloc. But turning words into deeds is proving problematic.
“The EU needs to be more strategic, more assertive and more united in its approach to external relations,” Von der Leyen told Josep Borrell, the newly nominated EU high representative for foreign and security policy, in a mission statement last autumn. “We must use our diplomatic and economic strength to support global stability and prosperity… and be better able to export our values and standards.”
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s legal team has delivered a fiery response to impeachment summons from the Senate, calling the two articles passed by the House “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president”.
Related: Impeachment: is Trump set to survive and win a second term?
Continue reading...As Democrats marched the articles to the Senate, the president basked in policy success. Many think re-election is coming
It was, the White House tweeted on Friday, “an incredible week” for Donald Trump. On that, no one could disagree. But what kind of incredible depended on which end of Pennsylvania Avenue you were standing.
Related: How to dump Trump: Rick Wilson on Running Against the Devil
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s legal team for the impeachment trial will include Starr, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz and Robert Ray
A delegation from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is in Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico today as part of an investigation into the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy and the use of tent courts to process those cases.
Thousands of families are trapped in limbo at the Matamoros, Mexico refugee camp because of @realDonaldTrump's disastrous #RemainInMexico policy. No one should ever be subjected to these inhumane living conditions. No one. We are better than this. #DemsAtTheBorder pic.twitter.com/jovxC3WhHY
The conditions in the camps are heartbreaking. They get water rationed from a bucket. They see a doctor in what looks like a large portapotty. There are so many children. Before Trump’s #RemainInMexico policy these families could wait in the US for their asylum court dates. pic.twitter.com/FNcpGlF5rM
A jury of seven men and five women were picked for the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial today after a two-week selection process in which scores of people were dismissed.
Opening statements are expected to begin on Wednesday.
During jury selection, prosecutors had accused Weinstein’s lawyers of systematically trying to keep young women off the panel, though the final makeup of the jury turned out to be more closely balanced.
For its part, the defense raised an outcry and demanded a mistrial because one of the jurors is the author of an upcoming novel about young women dealing with predatory older men. The request was denied, but Weinstein’s lawyers continued to claim outside court that the juror had withheld the information on her questionnaire.
Related: More than 100 women protest Trump and Weinstein with anti-rape anthem
Continue reading...Remark came as US revealed 11 of its troops had been injured in 8 January missile attacks
Iran’s supreme leader has delivered a rare sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran in which he described Donald Trump as a “clown” who pretended to support the Iranian people but would push a poisonous dagger into their backs.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei struck a defiant tone following weeks of domestic and international turbulence, including the US killing of a top general, missile attacks on US military bases in Iraq and the accidental downing of an airliner that killed 176 people.
Continue reading...Dershowitz is known for defending Jeffrey Epstein while Starr led the investigation that culminated in Bill Clinton’s impeachment
The White House has unveiled Donald Trump’s legal team for his Senate impeachment trial, a list of attorneys whose own ageing controversies threaten to overshadow their efforts to defend the president.
As the impeachment process enters a major new phase next week, Trump’s defense team will include Alan Dershowitz, known for defending the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and Kenneth Starr, the dogged prosecutor who led the investigation that culminated in the 1998 impeachment of former president Bill Clinton and lost a university post in 2016 for mishandling sexual assaults on campus.
Continue reading...Trump and military initially said no service members were hurt in retaliatory strike over Suleimani killing
The United States treated 11 of its troops for symptoms of concussion after an Iranian missile attack on an Iraqi base where US forces were stationed, the US military said on Thursday, after initially saying no service members were hurt.
The attack was retaliation for a US drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January that killed Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the elite Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Continue reading...Government Accountability Office finds suspension of of military aid at president’s direction violated law
As the Senate opened an impeachment trial in which Donald Trump will stand charged with abusing the power of his office, the president was hit with new allegations of wrongdoing by an agency within Trump’s own administration.
The Government Accountability Office released a finding on Thursday morning that the suspension last year of military aid for Ukraine at Trump’s direction violated laws governing the disbursement of congressionally appropriated funds.
Continue reading...House prosecutors to arrive at Senate to formally open trial as Lev Parnas tells reporters president was fully aware of efforts to pressure Ukraine
An independent government watchdog, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said the White House budget office violated the law when it froze US military aid to Ukraine.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the report said.
Yesterday, the House voted to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, setting in motion the third impeachment Senate trial in US history.
Here’s how that looks today:
Continue reading...Donald Trump faces a trial after the House of Representatives voted to send articles of impeachment against him to the Senate. Here’s how a frantic day on Capitol Hill unfolded
Continue reading...Trump bemoaned better energy efficiency standards at Milwaukee rally, saying women must wash dishes ‘10 times’
Donald Trump unveiled unusual, new campaign promises to a crowd of thousands of his fervent supporters at a Milwaukee campaign rally on Tuesday: better household appliances.
While Democratic presidential candidates spared over climate change at their debate in Iowa, Trump offered a contrasting message in the vital swing state of Wisconsin by calling out the US Department of Energy for tightening energy efficiency standards for dishwashers, refrigerators, lightbulbs and more.
Continue reading...If the 2015 nuclear pact cannot be rebuilt or a new one struck, then the choice will be to let Iran have the bomb or to bomb Iran
Next week the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will unveil the current time on its Doomsday Clock, meant to convey the nuclear dangers facing the world. The closer the clock is to midnight, the greater the existential threat. If the stand-off between Iran and Donald Trump persists, or takes a frightening turn for the worse, then the clock’s hands may be closer to the bell tolling than they have ever been. This would mean the danger to the planet was judged greater than at any time since the first H-bomb tests.
The drumbeat of war reverberates around the Middle East. On Tuesday, Britain, France and Germany said that they had been “left with no choice” but to trigger a dispute mechanism in the six-nation nuclear deal with Iran after Tehran declared, in the aftermath of the US assassination of its top general, that it would no longer observe the pact’s “operational restrictions”. Iran’s president then warned that European soldiers in the Middle East “could be in danger”, a clear indication that if the continent stood with Mr Trump then its forces could expect to be treated as enemy combatants.
Continue reading...Nancy Pelosi, the speaker for the US House of Representatives, has vowed that Donald Trump will be ‘held to account’ as she named the Democrats who will prosecute the impeachment case against him in the Senate. The team includes women – two African Americans and one Latina – as well as the House intelligence chair, Adam Schiff, and the judiciary chair, Jerry Nadler
Continue reading...President signs first phase of new agreement with China, hours after Democrats named team that will prosecute him in Senate
Donald Trump has signed the first phase of a new trade agreement with China after two years of tension between the two superpowers that have rattled economies around the world.
Related: Trump vaunts his China trade pact – but some say it’s too little, too late
Continue reading...A plane crash that killed 57 Canadians amid Trump-stoked tension with Iran is the latest sign that Canada cannot rely on its US ally
When a Canadian business magnate sent off a flurry of tweets blaming Donald Trump for provoking the crisis which eventually led to the accidental shooting-down of a Ukrainian passenger jet, the posts quickly went viral.
Michael McCain, the billionaire CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, used the company’s branded Twitter account to describe the US president as a “narcissist” and described the 176 passengers and crew as “collateral damage” from Trump’s “irresponsible, dangerous, ill-conceived behaviour”.
Continue reading...