Donald Trump's pursuit of a border wall continued as he spoke at a rally in El Paso, Texas. Banners reading 'Finish the wall' lined the El Paso County Coliseum as the president spoke of how Democrats wanted to propose measures that would 'release of thousands of criminal illegal aliens'
As President Trump prepared to speak at the border Monday in another expected call for a wall to curtail illegal immigration, Governor Gavin Newsom defended his decision to withdraw national guardsmen from the California-Mexico border, saying that “this whole border issue is manufactured.”
We’re live with @GavinNewsom as he discusses moving @theCAguard personnel from the border & redeploying them to focus on the actual threats California faces, not the White House’s manufactured crisis. #CaliforniaForAll https://t.co/bcd5KJB0xB
Cliff Sims, the former White House communications aide who wrote a tell-all about life working for President Trump, is suing the president, alleging that he used his campaign organization to selectively enforce nondisclosure agreements to silence or punish former employees, the New York Times is reporting.
Mr. Sims was a White House aide from the beginning of the administration. But it was the campaign organization that filed an arbitration claim against him last week, accusing him of violating the nondisclosure agreement he signed with it during the 2016 presidential race with the publication of his book, “Team of Vipers,” last month.
The White House had dozens of people sign such agreements at the beginning of the president’s term. But those agreements are widely seen as likely unenforceable. In the suit, Mr. Sims says he does not recall whether he signed one when he came to the White House.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of Iranians march through capital to mark 40th anniversary of Islamic revolution
Iran’s president has insisted “enemy” plots against the country will fail and called President Donald Trump an “idiot” as vast crowds marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including soldiers, students, clerics and chador-clad women holding small children, marched through the capital in freezing rain on Monday to mark the anniversary.
Continue reading...Simon Tisdall’s denunciation of the US-led western involvement in Afghanistan as “17 or so years of ultimately pointless, criminal mayhem” (The US ruined Afghanistan. It can’t simply walk away now, Opinion, 8 February) is about as far wide of the mark as it is possible to be, unless you are Donald Trump. Even more curious, Tisdall then enjoins the US, presumably the “criminals” in this enterprise, not to scuttle away.
I served in Iraq and Afghanistan and am not naive enough to believe that one was the “good war”, while the other one wasn’t. But Tisdall seems to forget why we intervened in Afghanistan in the first place: to remove a monstrous regime, the Taliban, that had allowed the perpetrators of 9/11 to set up camp in their country and also terrorised its own people. Destroying the Taliban regime was the right thing to do.
Continue reading...Bipartisan negotiators are running out of time to reach a deal over Trump’s demand for a border wall
Bipartisan negotiators in Washington are running out of time to reach a deal over Donald Trump’s demand for a border wall after talks stalled, raising the prospect of another government shutdown starting on Friday.
Leaders from both main parties sitting on a 17-strong negotiating panel must reach a deal over the disputed border security issue by Monday if there is to be time for Congress to pass legislation and Trump to sign it before the latest deadline of 15 February. Should they fail to reach agreement within hours, federal agencies, already exhausted after the 35-day shutdown that ended last month having impacted 800,000 federal employees, will yet again start to close from Friday at midnight.
Continue reading...As the British comedian’s show returns, he discusses fighting fake news, why Brexit is worse than Trump’s presidency – and his attempt to convert his kids to Marmite
The Donald Trump presidency, John Oliver observed in 2017, is a marathon. “It’s painful, it’s pointless and the majority of you didn’t even agree to run it; you were just signed up by your dumbest friend,” he told viewers. “And though you’re exhausted and your whole body is screaming for you to give up and your nipples are chafing for some reason, the stakes are too high for any of us to stop.”
Activists, politicians, judges, journalists and concerned citizens are all running the race. Some have embraced the challenge and now, past the halfway point, are finding hope as they see the 2020 election on the horizon. Others have wobbled, legs buckling, consumed by the anxiety that they will never make it. Oliver, a cheerful and charming presence in a conference room at HBO’s headquarters in New York, is surely one of those runners wearing a wacky costume, pointing out the absurdity of the exercise while embodying the stamina and stoicism required to reach the finish line.
Continue reading...Following ‘fake news’ and ‘witch-hunt’, the president has a new favourite buzzword – and it can describe his own behaviour
Donald Trump tore into a reporter who asked him about Democrat plans to scrutinize his personal finances on Wednesday, accusing them of “presidential harassment”.
Related: In the age of Trump and Bezos, public life is one big smutty ancient Greek vase | Marina Hyde
Continue reading...US president will meet North Korea leader in Vietnamese capital this month amid hopes of breakthrough
Donald Trump has said that US diplomats have had a “very productive meeting” with North Korean officials as he announced his summit later this month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be held in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi.
“My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un. It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28,” Trump said on Twitter.
Continue reading...Acting attorney general will be first Trump cabinet official to be brought before panel led by Democrats
A look at the front page of the Detroit Free Press memorializing John Dingell, the legendary US congressman who passed away on Thursday.
Ivanka Trump has said she knew “almost nothing” about the prospective Trump Tower project in Moscow that her father was pursuing during 2016 presidential election.
“We were an active business,” Trump said during an interview that aired Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, while adding her knowledge of the project amounted to “literally almost nothing”.
EXCLUSIVE: Ivanka Trump has "zero concern" about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. https://t.co/4raDLDD6Xh pic.twitter.com/R18v6BW7gW
Continue reading...Hopes raised for potential deal, reports suggest, to avert another government shutdown when bill expires on 15 February
The NAACP is urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject judicial nominees who refused to say that Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case that ended segregation in schools, was rightly decided.
A number of Trump judicial nominees considered by Senate Judiciary Committee today refused to say Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided. For us, that is disqualifying. We urge the Senate to vote NO.
Georgia Rep. Rob Woodall will not seek re-election, per the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It’s a seat likely to be targeted by Democrats.
Breaking: #GA07 Rep. Rob Woodall (R), who won by just 419 votes last fall, to retire. Doesn't change @CookPolitical's Toss Up rating, but does vault #GA07 to the very top of Dems' list of pickup opportunities. https://t.co/XS4PeDhFrA
Continue reading...Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the border crossing with Colombia ahead of a humanitarian aid delivery from the US arranged by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president. 'We have been threatened by the US empire, by the President of the United States of America, Mr Donald Trump', declared Venezuela's embattled president, Nicolás Maduro. The aid blockade could sway the loyalties of the military who may disobey Maduro's orders and allow the much-needed aid to pass. International pressure is growing on Maduro to step down after major European Union nations this week joined the United States, Canada and a group of Latin American countries in recognising Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader
Hope is real after landmark Taliban talks, but fears remain about what might happen if US troops depart
The start of 2019 has brought for Afghanistan a tantalising hope of peace, fragile but very real, as the Taliban sat down for talks first with Americans in Qatar and this week with senior members of the Afghan elite in Moscow.
These discussions come fraught with fears, that the progress for women and civil rights will be traded away too easily, and that the Taliban may renege on any deal once US troops and their coercive power are gone.
Continue reading...After attorney general admits wearing blackface in 1980s, lieutenant governor accused of attack in 2004
It was a quiet ending to an eventful day. Thanks for sticking with us, everyone.
Paul Erickson, the boyfriend of Maria Butina, the Russian national who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to influence US politics during the 2016 presidential election, was indicted by a federal grand jury in South Dakota on charges of wire fraud and money laundering, the Daily Beast is reporting.
The case against Erickson, a conservative US political activist and National Rifle Association insider, does not appear to be linked to the foreign agent case against Butina, who tried to infiltrate the NRA and relay intelligence on American politicians to a Russian government official.
Erickson was arrested on Feb. 6 and entered a plea of not guilty, according to the court filings.
The indictment alleges that Erickson ran a criminal scheme from 1996 to 2018 using a chain of assisted living homes called Compass Care. Erickson also allegedly defrauded investors through a company called Investing with Dignity that claimed to be “in the business of developing a wheelchair that allowed people to go to the bathroom without being lifted out of the wheelchair.” The indictment says he also ran a fraudulent scheme that claimed to be building homes in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has delivered his second State of the Union address, calling for bipartisan unity before taking aim at ‘ridiculous partisan investigations’, while continuing his demand for a US-Mexico border wall. Female Democrat members attended the speech dressed in white, in a tribute to the women's suffrage movement
Continue reading...As the president railed against ‘partisan investigations’, the night’s momentum was with the diverse, hungry Democrats
It was the night that Donald Trump, preaching unity but practising divisiveness, found his white minority rule under siege from Nancy Pelosi’s women in white.
A year after wearing black to support the MeToo movement, the record number of Democratic women in the House of Representatives wore white at the state of the union address to honour suffragists who won the right to vote.
Continue reading...The president called for bipartisan unity but decried ‘ridiculous partisan investigations’ and took hard line on immigration
Donald Trump issued sharp warnings to Democrats, including cautioning that “ridiculous partisan investigations” would harm economic progress, in comments that clashed with an appeal for unity during his first State of the Union address to a newly divided Congress.
“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” Trump declared. The presence of Democrat House speaker Nancy Pelosi on the dais behind him was an acute reminder of the political challenges he will face in the next two years.
Continue reading...The president pitched bipartisanship but struck polarising tone on immigration and socialism
Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, urging unity despite giving a speech that often reflected the country’s bitterly polarized political climate.
The president attempted to cast his agenda as bipartisan amid rising tensions over immigration following the longest government shutdown in US history last month.
Continue reading...The meeting between leaders of US and North Korea is expected to take place in either Danang or Hanoi on 27-28 February
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are to hold their second summit in Vietnam at the end of February, the US president has confirmed.
In his state of the union speech to Congress, Trump repeated an earlier claim to averted a major with his Korean diplomacy.
Continue reading...The president delivered his annual speech in a House of Representatives controlled by Democrats
Continue reading...Measures said to include using civilian facilities to make and test missiles
North Korea is trying to ensure its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities are safe from US military strikes, a UN report has said, as officials from both countries prepared to meet to discuss a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Trump is expected to meet the North Korean leader, possibly in Vietnam, at the end of the month to discuss measures that would lead to Pyongyang giving up its nuclear weapons in return for US security guarantees and other assurances.
Continue reading...