A backlash is building over a picture posted by Melania Trump on Twitter that showed her and Donald Trump smiling broadly while holding a baby who was orphaned in the mass shooting in El Paso.
Related: Ice raids stir fear as Kamala Harris says they demonstrate 'insensitivity' – live
Continue reading...Donald Trump has been criticised for using a hospital visit in El Paso to boast about crowd numbers at a rally held several months ago. He made the comments while visiting the Texas city after a gunman killed 22 people in a shopping centre. He also hit out at Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso local and Democratic presidential candidate. Trump’s administration then turned the El Paso visit into a campaign video
Continue reading...
Nancy Pelosi is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, after which the group will see a migrant detention center in McAllen, Texas.
Estoy entusiasmada de viajar a Guatemala con la Presidenta de la Cámara @SpeakerPelosi y la delegación del Congreso para que escuchen y hablen directamente con el pueblo guatemalteco como lo he hecho yo. https://t.co/1mZQcJjrKp
Trump has turned his focus to the Federal Reserve, which he has repeatedly bashed for not lowering interest rates fast enough.
....John Deere, our car companies, & others, to compete on a level playing field. With substantial Fed Cuts (there is no inflation) and no quantitative tightening, the dollar will make it possible for our companies to win against any competition. We have the greatest companies...
....in the world, there is nobody even close, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about our Federal Reserve. They have called it wrong at every step of the way, and we are still winning. Can you imagine what would happen if they actually called it right?
Continue reading...Residents of El Paso demonstrated as Donald Trump arrived in the Texas city to pay tribute to the victims of one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent US history. With much of the president’s rhetoric reflected in the El Paso shooter’s anti-immigrant and racist essays, many felt the visit was ‘throwing salt on the wounds’ of a binational, largely Latinx community in mourning
Daryl Johnson’s team faced an official backlash 10 years ago when it issued a briefing on rightwing extremism
Ten years ago, the Department of Homeland Security sent American law enforcement agencies an intelligence briefing warning of a rising threat of domestic rightwing extremism, including white supremacist terrorism.
The economic recession and the election of America’s first black president would create fertile ground for rightwing radicalization, the 2009 report concluded. Military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, would be attractive targets for recruitment.
Continue reading...
Beto O’Rourke has said that Donald Trump is a white supremacist.
The former El Paso representative earlier spoke at a rally protesting the president’s visit.
Donald Trump has been very clear about who he wants to keep out of this country — with walls and cages and militarization and torture and cruelty. We in El Paso have borne the brunt of that, but we in El Paso are standing up to that. https://t.co/nEdgJvfwwy
Trump just posted photos from his visit to a hospital in Dayton, where the press pool was not allowed because it was “not a photo op”
White House @presssec says reporters were not included in Dayton hospital visit "because the visit was not 'a photo opp’" https://t.co/LKkI3bOkm5
Continue reading...Speaking to reporters at the White House, Donald Trump said he was 'concerned about the rise of any group of hate' and referred to white supremacists and anti-fascist activists. The US president was leaving to travel to Dayton and El Paso to meet with first responders, families and victims of the recent shootings when he said: 'Whether it’s any group or kind of hate ... I am concerned about it and I’ll do something about it'
Continue reading...El Paso congresswoman warns Trump is not welcome as Dayton mayor encourages protests
Donald Trump is likely to receive a cool reception, at best, when he touches down in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, three days after a 21-year-old gunman who invoked the language of white supremacy killed 22 people and wounded 24 more in a suburban Walmart superstore there.
The president could also face protests in Dayton, Ohio, the location of the second of two mass shootings at the weekend, where nine were killed by a man who investigators said on Tuesday explored violent ideologies.
Continue reading...
Venezuela’s U.N. ambassador is accusing the Trump administration of trying to start a war by sabotaging talks between president Nicholas Maduro and his opposition, as the Trump administration’s national security adviser John Bolton doubled down on his view that “Maduro has to go,” according to the Associated Press.
Addressing a summit on Venezuela’s crisis in Peru’s capital, Lima, Bolton pronounced Maduro’s “dying regime” doomed – even though a seven-month US-backed campaign has so far failed to topple Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian successor.
Bolton claimed Donald Trump’s latest moves – which will also see those who do business with Maduro’s government sanctioned – would help end “Maduro’s tyrannical reign”.
Related: 'It will not work': experts question Venezuela sanctions as Bolton touts them
Two members of Congress have sent a letter to the National Archives seeking records related to the supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“In the coming year, the supreme court will again address important matters regarding civil rights, criminal justice, and immigration,” reads the letter, authored by the New York congressman and House judiciary committee chairman Jerrold Nadler and the Georgia congressman Hank Johnson.
Related: Judicial council tosses misconduct claims against Brett Kavanaugh
Continue reading...Original headline read ‘Trump urges unity vs racism’ – prompting accusations that newspaper was feeding president’s narrative
The New York Times was forced to change its front-page headline for Tuesday’s newspaper amid an intense backlash over its portrayal of Donald Trump’s statement on the twin mass shootings that left 31 people dead.
The original headline read “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM”. Many people complained that the wording fed Trump’s claims that those who criticised his persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric – some of which was parroted in the El Paso gunman’s alleged manifesto – were playing politics.
Continue reading...Ohio state representative’s screed against cannabis and liberal ‘snowflakes’ goes too far even for her own party
A Republican state representative in Ohio who blamed “homosexual marriage” and “recreational marijuana” – along with many of Donald Trump’s favourite targets – for gun massacres is facing calls from her own party to resign.
In a Facebook post, Candice Keller, who represents a conservative district near Dayton, where nine people were killed early on Sunday, mused about the causes of mass shootings including: family breakdown and same sex marriage, open borders, sportsmen who disrespect the flag and national anthem, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, a godless culture, and liberal “snowflakes”.
Continue reading...
Trump has turned his attention away from the shootings if his Twitter feed is any indication.
The president has instead been busy attacking China for harming America’s economy and repeating the (false) claim that US consumers are not covering the cost of his trade war:
....used currency manipulation to steal our businesses and factories, hurt our jobs, depress our workers’ wages and harm our farmers’ prices. Not anymore!
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Cory Booker, has dismissed Trump’s statement on the shootings this morning as woefully lacking.
The New Jersey senator specifically cited Trump’s focus on mental illness in his remarks. “Mental illness didn’t kill the people of Dayton,” Booker said. “People are too easily getting their hands on guns.”
Continue reading...Brexit leader admits racist remarks about congresswomen made him feel uncomfortable but says they were shrewd
Nigel Farage has described Donald Trump’s “go back” comments aimed at four congresswomen of colour as “genius”.
The US president’s racist remarks were widely condemned after he told the four Democrats known as the Squad to return to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came”.
Continue reading...Hurd’s departure set to leave one Republican African American in Congress – and 41 of 53 sitting GOP senators are white men
Four months ago, the woman in charge of recruiting Republicans to run for Congress in the 2020 elections lectured her party about diversity.
Related: Will Hurd, only black House Republican, is latest to not seek re-election
Continue reading...
Emerald Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, urges the New York Police Department to follow through with the firing of officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of her father in July, 2014.
WATCH: Emerald Gardner, the daughter of Eric Garner, reacts to news that administrative judge recommends that NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo should be fired.
“We’ve waited 5 years... Commissioner O’Neill, fire Pantaleo.” pic.twitter.com/WE4R1wMLsY
The former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who resigned from the post in 2018, has replied directly (via Twitter, also) to the president’s offensive tweet earlier about congressman Elijah Cummings suffering an intruder at his house in Baltimore last weekend.
This is so unnecessary.
Continue reading...Congresswoman mocks ‘send her back’ comments with Instagram post of trip to Ghana with House speaker
The congresswoman Ilhan Omar took a swipe at Donald Trump on Thursday, posting a photo on Instagram of herself and Nancy Pelosi in Ghana with the caption: “They said ‘send her back’ but Speaker Pelosi didn’t just make arrangement to send me back, she went back with me.”
The photo came from a congressional trip to the African country this week, in observance of the American slave trade’s 400th anniversary. The two women were joined by the civil rights icon and Georgia congressman John Lewis and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Continue reading...
As Trump carries on with his rally in North Carolina, we’re going to wrap up the liveblog for today. Check The Guardian’s homepage for updates.
Congressman Will Hurd of Texas, a critic of Trump and one of the few Republican lawmakers who voted to condemn Trump’s racist attacks, announced that he will not be seeking reelection in order to “pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress”.
I have made the decision to not seek reelection for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security. https://t.co/GeZ4Hh264f
Continue reading...Ronald Reagan made racist remarks about African delegates to the United Nations, newly released audio recordings have revealed. 'Damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes,' Reagan tells Richard Nixon, who erupts in laughter. At the time of the call, Nixon was still president and Reagan was governor of California
White evangelical Christians are on the frontline of the US's anti-abortion movement. But not so long ago this group was not interested in the politics of terminations. Its members are a crucial faction of Donald Trump's base, motivating him to further restrict abortion rights. How did it all change? Leah Green investigates how a group of men turned abortion into a tool that shaped the course of American politics
Continue reading...Delivering what must have been one of the most cryptic gaffes of his career, Joe Biden caused mass confusion during the final moment of the latest Democratic debate, after he apparently urged viewers to visit a website that does not exist. Biden laid out his 2020 vision before telling those watching: 'If you agree with me, go to Joe 30330.' He had in fact meant to refer them to a phone number
Continue reading...