Protest balloon was knifed during Donald Trump’s visit to college football game
A towering Baby Trump protest balloon was knifed and deflated by someone unhappy with its appearance during Donald Trump’s Saturday trip to Alabama, organisers said.
The incident occurred during the president’s visit to watch a University of Alabama football game. The balloon, which is more than 6.1 metres (20 feet) tall, was set up in a nearby park.
Continue reading...Senate candidate and ex-attorney general releases 30-second spot to praise the ‘great job’ the president who fired him is doing
Jeff Sessions’ first ad as a candidate for US Senate in Alabama does not mention that he is running to return to a seat he won in 1996 and filled until 2016. Instead, the 30-second clip focuses on praising Donald Trump – the president who fired Sessions as attorney general in November 2018 after ritually humiliating him on the national stage.
Related: Impeachment: how Trump's hardball tactics put the constitution in peril
Continue reading...Lawyer for former US national security adviser says there are ‘many relevant conversations’ that House impeachment investigators don’t know about
Quiet ending to a not-so-quiet day.
The team behind Michael Bloomberg has said that “if we run”, they would bypass the four early-voting state - Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina - and focus on doing well on Super Tuesday and beyond.
NEW Bloomberg statement: "If we run, we are confident we can win in states voting on Super Tuesday and beyond, where we will start on an even footing."
In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party chair @troymprice tells me: "It’s disappointing to hear that Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t plan on competing in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses or the other three early nominating states." pic.twitter.com/SR7wemUrhg
.@ChairmanBuckley blasts Bloomberg for potentially skipping New Hampshire. “We are disappointed and frankly very surprised that any candidate would launch a campaign for the White House where their path doesn't run through New Hampshire or any of the other early states.” pic.twitter.com/wfVhF1NO5u
Continue reading...A war of words on The View showed the president’s opponents falling straight into his son’s trap
Last night, ABC’s The View invited Donald Trump Jr on as a guest – because having just one child of a famous politician on the show is not enough (the co-host Meghan McCain is the daughter of the late senator John McCain). They also invited Trump Jr’s girlfriend – because in today’s political landscape, even the most tenuous link to fame or power seems as good a credential as any for being worthy of a platform.
It wasn’t long before the chatshow descended into chaos. Soon, McCain and Trump Jr were in a very contentious battle over whose dad was bigger than whose – McCain pointing out that Trump said mean things about her dad; Trump Jr pointing out that his dad had Made America Great Again.
Continue reading...Congress hears Mulvaney approved Trump-Zelenskiy meeting on condition Ukraine announced investigations tied to Joe Biden
Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney approved a White House meeting with the president for the Ukrainian president on condition Ukraine announced investigations tied to Trump’s political rival Joe Biden, according to testimony released on Friday.
Related: Trump impeachment inquiry: Mick Mulvaney implicated in released transcripts – live
Continue reading...Donald Trump has said he is considering attending a Russian military parade in May, claiming he has been invited by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The US president spoke to reporters on the White House lawn, where he also talked about Michael Bloomberg entering the Democratic primary. 'He’s not going to do well, but I think he’s going to hurt Biden actually … There’s nobody I’d rather run against than little Michael,' he said
Continue reading...Various legal protections exist but the president’s aggressive response risks eroding a crucial check on official wrongdoing
Donald Trump and his allies have publicly attacked a whistleblower who filed a complaint about the president’s dealings with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and triggered a chain of events that led to an impeachment inquiry of the president.
Related: Ukraine crisis put on ice by Trump staff busy working out how to buy Greenland
Continue reading...Senior state department official George Kent says the president had a very specific demand for his Ukrainian counterpart
Donald Trump wanted to hear three words out of the Ukrainian president’s mouth, according to newly released testimony in the US impeachment inquiry: “investigations”, “Biden” and “Clinton”.
Related: Michael Bloomberg reportedly preparing for presidential run – live
Continue reading...Lawsuit exposed ‘shocking pattern of illegality’ in Trump’s personal charity, while John Bolton fails to show for deposition on Capitol Hill – follow live
Bloomberg is preparing to enter the Democratic presidential primary, the New York Times reports. He’s expected to file paperwork designating himself as a candidate in Alabama this week.
Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire businessman, has been privately weighing a bid for the White House for weeks and has not yet made a final decision on whether to run, an adviser said. But in the first sign that he is seriously moving toward a campaign, Mr. Bloomberg has dispatched staffers to Alabama to gather signatures to qualify for the primary there. Though Alabama does not hold an early primary, it has a Friday deadline for candidates to formally enter the race.
Here’s a summary of where things stand:
Continue reading...IMF says deal to alleviate trade tensions could persuade it to revise up growth forecasts
China has raised hopes that a deal can be reached to end its trade war with the US after agreeing with Washington to roll back some tariffs.
The prospect of an agreement sent stock markets soaring to all-time highs and prompted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to say a deal easing trade tensions between the US and China could persuade its officials to revise up forecasts for global growth next year.
Continue reading...Stone is accused of lying to House intelligence committee about Trump campaign’s efforts to obtain emails hacked by Russia
Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, will be a star witness at the trial in Washington of Roger Stone, a longtime political operative and ally of Donald Trump, a court heard on Wednesday.
The surprise announcement was made during opening statements on Wednesday by prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who told the court that Stone had “straight-up lied” to the US Congress about aspects of the 2016 election campaign “because the truth looked bad for Donald Trump”.
Continue reading...State and defence departments wanted military aid restored, but the Greenland issue ‘took up a lot of energy’, new testimony reveals
After the White House cut off military aid to Ukraine, Donald Trump’s top officials scrambled to get it restored but were unable to organise a meeting with the president, in part because his staff were too busy pursuing his interest in buying Greenland, according to newly released congressional testimony.
The acting US ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, told Congress that Trump’s order in mid-July to cut off security assistance triggered a series of high-level meetings with cabinet members on how to get it resumed, given the urgency of the Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine.
Continue reading...US officials said Trump would not ‘sign a check’ for military aid without investigation into Joe Biden, Bill Taylor tells inquiry
For a second time in two days, newly released testimony in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump has produced a firsthand account of US officials negotiating a quid pro quo in Ukraine in which military aid would be used to pay for a political hit against Joe Biden, the president’s potential 2020 adversary.
Related: Trump-Ukraine scandal: Taylor transcript details direct quid pro quo via irregular channels – live
Continue reading...David Hale will tell Congress Pompeo worried defending Marie Yovanovitch could lead to further delays in releasing military aid to Ukraine
Virginia Democrats are “promising swift action” on a host of liberal policy proposals after sweeping the state’s legislature, according to AP.
Democrats took control of the state House and Senate – they already had Ralph Northam in place as governor – on Tuesday night, and will now push through gun restrictions and raise the minimum wage. From AP:
Northam said at a cabinet meeting Wednesday morning that he’s going to push for the same gun safety laws he proposed at a special session earlier this year called in response to a mass shooting in Virginia Beach.
[Democrats] have also promised to approve the Equal Rights Amendment, making Virginia the final state needed for possible passage of the gender equality measure.
Tulsi Gabbard has repeatedly said she won’t run as a third party candidate if (when) she fails to win the Democratic nomination. That hasn’t failed to stop chatter about her potentially going rogue, however... chatter that Democrats appear keen to shut down:
NEW — DNC Chair Tom Perez said Tulsi confirmed to the DNC last week that she wouldn’t run as a third party candidate.
Continue reading...EU envoy acknowledges in updated testimony he told Ukraine it would likely not receive aid unless it announced investigations into Trump’s rivals
Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell appears to have bulldozed directly through protocol by forecasting, before the articles of impeachment have even been drafted in the House and Trump put on trial in the Senate, that the president will be acquitted.
“If it were today, I don’t think there’s any question — it would not lead to a removal,” @SenateMajLdr McConnell says of a potential impeachment trial in the Senate.
/2 McConnell: “I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to end.” Says Trump will be acquitted by Senate like Clinton & Andrew Johnson
Sondland was asked, with respect to the “demands” made by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to investigate the 2016 election and Burisma, if “those conditions would have to be complied with prior to getting a meeting.”
Continue reading...Gunmen massacred up to nine members of a family, most of them believed to be children, in Mexico on Monday. These victims’ ages, and reported US citizenship, propelled the story into the headlines. But this is a country where nearly 100 people are murdered each day, one every 15 minutes, and many deaths go unmarked.
Donald Trump, via Twitter, called on Mexico to “wage WAR on the drug cartels”. That disastrous strategy, first unleashed in 2006 in response to an explosion of violence, only exacerbated the problem – fracturing cartels into smaller factions battling for power. Two hundred thousand deaths later, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, took power vowing to use “hugs not bullets” to bring peace.
Continue reading...Donald Trump is moving to formally exit the Paris climate agreement, making the United States the only country in the world that will not participate in the pact, as global temperatures are set to rise 3C and worsening extreme weather will drive millions into poverty.
The paperwork sent by the US government to withdraw begins a one-year process for exiting the deal agreed to at the UN climate change conference in Paris in 2015. The Trump administration will not be able to finalize its exit until a day after the presidential election in November 2020.
Continue reading...Two senior American diplomats warned congressional investigators a White House plot to manufacture political dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine had undermined US national security interests and shredded faith among foreign service personnel, according to transcripts released on Monday by committees pursuing an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.
Related: Trump rejects whistleblower offer to answer Republican questions
Continue reading...E Jean Carroll, the widely respected New York journalist who alleges Donald Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s, is suing the president for defamation after he ridiculed her claim on the grounds she was “not my type”.
Related: Trump must hand over tax returns, US appeals court rules – live
Continue reading...A day after a lawyer for the whistleblower who raised alarms about Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine said his client is willing to answer written questions submitted by House Republicans, the president tweeted: “Written answers not acceptable!”
Related: 'Quid pro quo, yes or no?' Trump allies face Ukraine question
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