Category Archives: US Politics

Trump weighs spending own money on campaign as funds dwindle – live

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The race to succeed Bill de Blasio as New York mayor has a new potential entrant.

Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner and one of de Blasio’s most trusted cabinet members, resigned on Tuesday in anticipation of a run.

Michael Cohen’s Trump book is out today and it may or may not be a coincidence that the president was exceedingly busy on Twitter this morning as NBC’s Today was broadcasting excerpts of in interview between his former lawyer and fixer and Lester Holt, of NBC Nightly News.

Related: Michael Cohen book details Trump's racism and toxic family dynamic

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Trump’s White House rally fails to evoke adulation from stony-faced reporters

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David Smith’s sketch: With Biden still enjoying a lead in the polls, the president’s attacks on his rivals and perceived enemies smacked of more desperation than usual

After turning the south lawn into a convention stage last month, Donald Trump held a surprise press conference-cum-campaign event on Monday at the White House’s front door – where Jackie Kennedy wore black on the day of JFK’s funeral, and where the Obamas greeted their successors on inauguration day.

On a glorious late summer’s day, Trump’s vantage point behind a presidential lectern at the north portico afforded him a view of former president Andrew Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square and, beyond that, the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza. Give him a second term in November, and perhaps he’ll install a golden escalator like the one he descended in at Trump Tower to launch his first campaign.

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Michelle Obama on marriage: ‘There are times when you can’t stand each other’

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Former first lady says in latest episode of her podcast that marriage should be approached like picking a basketball team

Michelle Obama said there have been times when she wanted to “push Barack out of the window” and that marriage should be approached like picking a basketball team in a frank discussion about relationships.

In the latest episode of her Spotify podcast, the former first lady said young couples, especially when they have small children, struggle to deal with tiredness, stress and sharing roles and they give up on their relationship.

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US veterans and soldiers divided over Trump calling war dead ‘suckers’

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Some service members expressed skepticism after bombshell report prompted an outpouring of condemnation

Donald Trump was struggling to retain support of active US service members, according to polls, even before last week’s bombshell report that the commander-in-chief referred to fallen and captured US service members as “losers” and “suckers”. But some veterans and military family members remain conflicted.

Related: Trump called American war dead ‘suckers’ and ‘losers', report claims

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Cohen’s book spotlights Trump’s Obama obsession and resurfaces ‘you’re fired’ video

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Michael Cohen alleges Trump had ‘hatred and contempt’ for Barack Obama and 2012 video shows Trump mocking his rival

The impression of Donald Trump’s obsession with his predecessor Barack Obama was fueled by a video from 2012 resurfacing this weekend from a parody in which the now-Republican president mocks his Democratic rival.

Journalists dug up the clip after Michael Cohen, Trump’s disgraced former fixer, shared a photo of it taken from the film to promote his latest book.

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A ‘tyrant-clown’ has destroyed my love affair with America | Robert McCrum

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With its cynical disabling of the body politic, the Trump administration has contaminated the well of US independence

Once upon a time, at the start of the last century, PG Wodehouse declared, with the fervour of the convert, that to live in America was “like being in heaven … without the bother and expense of dying”.

America used to do that to a certain kind of Brit, and to those who saw themselves as Greeks to the Americans’ Romans: we’d fall hopelessly in love, however much they abused the relationship.

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Michael Cohen alleges Trump racist outbursts and role in Stormy Daniels payoff in new book

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White House dismisses as ‘fan fiction’ the tell-all memoir of convicted former fixer who claims Trump is guilty of the same crimes as him

Michael Cohen’s tell-all memoir makes the case that president Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scandal that once overshadowed his presidency.

Of all the crises Cohen confronted working for Trump, none proved as vexing as the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and her claims of an extramarital affair with Trump, Cohen writes in Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.

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The bleak Covid winter? America still not on course to beat back the virus

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As summer ends, and as deaths near 200,000 amid severe economic damage, experts say the next few months are vital

Even with three decades of experience in the travel industry, Jorge Pesquera has never seen a downturn in business like this one.

Related: Could western Pennsylvania win Trump a second term?

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US security adviser claims China has taken ‘most active role’ in election meddling

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Robert O’Brien didn’t provide any details, also claiming Beijing had ‘the most massive program’ to influence US politics

China has taken the most active role among countries seeking to interfere in the US election and has the biggest program to influence domestic politics, the US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said on Friday, without providing any details.

“We know the Chinese have taken the most active role,” O’Brien told reporters at a briefing.

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Trump denounced over reported war dead comments: ‘He doesn’t understand bravery’ – live

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Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, said she has confirmed reporting by The Atlantic with two former senior Trump administration officials.

One former official told her: “When the President spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, ‘It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker.’”

This former official heard the President say about American veterans: "What's in it for them? They don't make any money." Source: "It was a character flaw of the President. He could not understand why someone would die for their country, not worth it."

Regarding McCain, "The President just hated John McCain. He always asked, 'Why do you see him as a hero?" Two sources confirmed the President did not want flags lowered but others in the White House ordered them at half mast. There was a stand off and then the President relented.

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‘My son wasn’t a sucker’: Joe Biden reacts to report that Trump denigrated soldiers – video

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A furious Joe Biden castigated Donald Trump after it was reported that the US president had called dead soldiers 'losers' and 'suckers'. 'If what is written is true, it's disgusting,' Biden said. 'It affirms what most of us believe to be true: Donald Trump is not fit to be commander in chief.'

Trump reportedly made the remarks when he cancelled a visit to pay respects at an American military cemetery outside Paris in 2018. He has denied the allegations, first reported in the Atlantic magazine

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‘He is a coward’: Trump condemned for reportedly calling US war dead ‘suckers’

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Trump claims accusations, confirmed by two former DHS officials, are ‘totally false’ as Biden criticizes president

Current and former members of the military, elected officials and the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, have reacted with outrage and sadness as former members of the Donald Trump administration confirmed key details of a bombshell report in which Trump referred to fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers”.

Related: Khizr Khan: 'Trump may damage American democracy permanently'

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‘It’s not the same’: How Trump and Covid devastated an Arizona border town

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Nogales residents say the city is struggling amid the pandemic and after years of Trump painting the area as a ‘war zone’

When Francis Glad was a child growing up in Nogales, Arizona, the US-Mexico border near her home was nothing like it is now. “It was more like a neighbor fence, like you have at your house,” she remembers. “It was very symbiotic. Just people coming back and forth.”

But today, a towering 30ft border wall, made of dizzying steel bollards, slices through the Nogales sister cities.

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Voter suppression: how Trump is undermining the US election – video explainer

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Americans are increasingly encountering barriers to exercising their most fundamental of democratic rights during this 2020 presidential election – the right to vote. 

The Guardian's Sam Levine looks at how voter suppression has been unfolding across the US, four key tactics being used in attempts to block votes, and how president Donald Trump is trying delegitimize November's election

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Trump attacks Nancy Pelosi over ‘Salongate’ – video

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US president Donald Trump slammed House speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Democrat was filmed at an indoor hair salon with her face covering around her neck. Trump, a longtime critic of Pelosi, pounced on the opportunity to attack her over the incident. “I’ll tell you what, she must have treated that beauty salon owner pretty badly. She uses the salon and the salon turned her in?” he said. “So I just put out that if she was set up, then she shouldn’t be leading the House of Representatives. I want the salon owner to lead the House of Representatives.”

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Biden warns Trump ‘legitimizes dark side of human nature’ in Kenosha visit

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Joe Biden said he sought common ground while Trump, he said, stoked division and was actively obstructing racial progress

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday warned that Donald Trump’s behavior “legitimizes the dark side of human nature”. He made the remarks during a visit to Wisconsin, where he spoke by phone to Jacob Blake, a Black man whose shooting by a white police officer renewed nationwide protests against systemic racism.

Related: Joe Biden meets privately with Jacob Blake's family amid protests over shooting

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Joe Biden to meet with Jacob Blake’s family in Kenosha – live

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The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn reports:

Joe Biden will meet Jacob Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr, later today as well as other members of the family of the 29-year-old who is gravely wounded and still fighting for his health in a local hospital in Kenosha after being shot in the back by a white police officer on August 23.

Trump and his advisers are trying to walk back his comments encouraging North Carolinians to vote twice in the November elections.

The president said yesterday, “Let them send it in and let them go vote. And if the system is as good as they say it is then obviously they won’t be able to vote” in person.

Trump yesterday: “If you get the unsolicited ballots ... send it in early, and then go and vote.”

Trump in May:
“If you told a Republican to vote twice, they'd get sick at even the thought of it."pic.twitter.com/bjWMotfXrP

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Donald Trump hopes for election boost from Kosovo-Serbia talks

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White House summit irritates EU diplomats, who say deal brokered by them is near

The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House on Thursday and Friday, in an encounter that some see as a push for a diplomatic win for Donald Trump to brandish during his re-election campaign.

Kosovo’s prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will meet with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, in talks that Trump aides say will be primarily about economic issues between the two countries, but may pave the way to a broader deal.

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As election nears, Trump builds the very ‘deep state’ he railed against

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White House manipulation of US intelligence on Russian and Chinese interference may rival WMD fiasco that led to Iraq war, say experts

Two months before the presidential election, the US intelligence agencies are under increasing pressure from the Trump administration to provide only the information it wants to hear.

After installing loyalist John Ratcliffe at the pinnacle of the intelligence community, the administration is seeking to limit congressional oversight, and has removed a veteran official from a sensitive national security role in the justice department

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Trump’s tweets are felt in Ethiopia. Washington should use its power wisely | Mekonnen Firew Ayano

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Anti-democratic attitudes in America helped to scrub our election, while US-Nile geopolitics could become a powder keg

When US presidents comment on events in other countries, their remarks have impact.

When, for example, President Barack Obama congratulated the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) on an apparent landslide election victory in 2015, it signalled to some Ethiopians that the world’s most powerful country would not favour a legal challenge to the election results.

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