NRA crowd boos media after Trump calls them 'fake' at annual meeting
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Donald Trump railed against "radical left-wing" 2020 hopefuls and praised members of the National Rifle Association during a speech hosted by the guns right's group Friday.
"Far-left radicals in Congress want to take away your voice, your jobs, your rights," the president said. "And they especially want to take away your guns." He went on to slam the press as "fake news" and vowed to protect the Second Amendment in the US.
Mr Trump also called in to Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Thursday evening to accuse the Democrats and Obama-era Justice Department of orchestrating a “coup” against him and Hillary Clinton of allowing thousands of private messages to be leaked and “destroying the lives” of his campaign staff. The chairmen of the House Oversight, Judiciary and Homeland Security committees have meanwhile launched a joint investigation into the departures of Kirstjen Nielsen, Randolph Alles and other officials earlier this month as a potential threat to national security.
With pro-gun legislation largely stalled in Congress, Mr Trump also revealed Friday he was withdrawing the US from an international agreement on the arms trade, calling it “badly misguided.”
He made the announcement as he vowed to fight for gun rights and implored members of the nation’s largest pro-gun group — struggling to maintain its influence — to rally behind his re-election bid.
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“It’s under assault,” he said of the constitutional right to bear arms. “But not while we’re here.”
Mr Trump said he would be revoking the United States’ status as a signatory of the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates international trade in conventional weapons, from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships.
Former President Barack Obama signed the pact in 2013 but it has never been ratified by US lawmakers.
“Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone," Mr Trump said, before signing a document on stage asking the Senate to halt the ratification process. “We will never allow foreign diplomats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom.”
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Don Jr has also been busy on Twitter, again retweeting alt-right meme account Carpe Donktum to "fix" Joe Biden's campaign launch video released yesterday.
The same account was responsible for the video photoshopping Biden's apology video, in which he addressed inappropriate touching allegations, so that it appeared the ex-veep were molesting himself while speaking.
Both Don Jr and his father posted the video on Twitter earlier this month, the president of the United States even pinning it to the top of his feed (!).
In case you missed it yesterday, the president's daughter-in-law Lara Trump appeared on Fox to declare that helping refugees was "one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany".
She appears to have not read the same history books as Crystal Palace goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey.
More from Rick Reilly's Commander in Cheat about the president's golfing habits, a book that deserves to become a best-seller.
Apparently the Secret Service agents assigned to protect him routinely move his mis-hit balls about the green.
"He cheats at the highest level. He cheats when people are watching, and he cheats when they aren’t," the author writes. "Whether you’re his pharmacist of Tiger Woods, if you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.”
Here's a little more background on the history of the NRA ahead of the president's address to the influential lobbyists in Indianapolis this afternoon. The group actually started life in the aftermath of the American Civil War advocating stricter gun control before mutating into its grotesque present form.
Trump is up and refuting reports North Korea demanded $2m (£1.5m) for the medical care of captured American college student Otto Warmbier.
The tourist was arrested by the regime in January 2016 - accused of stealing a propaganda poster - and released in a vegetative state in June 2017, dying soon afterwards.
"We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement to CBS on Thursday, the president again breaking with protocol on Twitter in which case.
Trump's response is to The Washington Post's report, citing two people, which suggested diplomat Joseph Yun had signed a pledge to pay the tab at the orders of Trump and then secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the pair keen to open dialogue with Pyongyang at the time.
Trump is also accusing the Obama administration of negotiating with "terroists" [sic].
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