President's tweets 'repeatedly driving down stock market', as Pence under fire over staying at leader's Irish golf resort
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Today, the president doctored a map of Hurricane Dorian's impact to pretend his earlier comments about the storm affecting Alabama were correct. Almost immediately after, he denied doing any such thing.
He also told reporters that vice president Mike Pence did not stay at his Ireland property at his request, which is a lie, according to earlier statements from Mr Pence.
Days on which Donald Trump tweets more than 35 times are regularly associated with negative stock market returns while days on which the president tweets five times or fewer yield positive results, according to a new study by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Vice president Mike Pence is meanwhile under fire for staying at a Trump-owned golf resort in Doonbeg on the Atlantic coast during his trip to Ireland, forcing him to fly 181 miles across the country to attend meetings with the country's leaders in Dublin.
Back in the US, the Pentagon has given the go-ahead for $3.6bn (£2.9bn) to be diverted towards the president's US-Mexico border wall from 127 different military construction project while Hurricane Dorian approaches the Florida coast after decimating the Bahamas.
Later in the evening, Democrats discussed climate change in a CNN town hall with Wolf Blitzer. The president will likely use the event to continue to deny climate change.
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For Indy Voices, Angela Ryan explains her decision for voting Trump in 2016 and why she regrets it now.
Ex-defence secretary James Mattis, who resigned on New Year's Eve in opposition to Trump's plan for full troop withdrawal from Syria, has been doing the rounds in recent days to promote his new book Call Sign Chaos.
He says it would not be appropriate for him to comment on the administration's policies at present but clearly has plenty of opinions bottled up.
Some more damning poll news for Trump, this time from IBD/TIPP.
The Mike Pence party bus has reached Iceland.
He's due in London later today.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has attacked Walmart after its decision to change its policy on gun sales in the wake of El Paso.
"It is shameful to see Walmart succumb to the pressure of the anti-gun elites. Lines at Walmart will soon be replaced by lines at other retailers who are more supportive of America’s fundamental freedoms," the powerful lobby group said in a frankly rather threatening statement.
"The truth is Walmart’s actions today will not make us any safer. Rather than place the blame on the criminal, Walmart has chosen to victimise law-abiding Americans.
"Our leaders must be willing to approach the problems of crime, violence and mental health with sincerity and honesty."
The US has sanctioned a shipping network it says is connected to Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday. The US Department of Treasury says the network includes dozens of ship managers, vessels, and facilitators and has moved oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Assad regime in Syria, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and others.
“Treasury’s action against this sprawling petroleum network makes it explicitly clear that those purchasing Iranian oil are directly supporting Iran’s militant and terrorist arm, the IRGC-Qods Force,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, warning that there will be “swift consequences” for anyone facilitating the oil sales.
The sanctions come one day after the Trump administration sanctioned Iran’s civilian space program claiming that the program is a cover for developing ballistic missiles - a charge that Iran denies and the US has not provided evidence for.
Negar Mortazavi has more context here:
The Trump Administration is rolling back regulations for energy-saving lightbulbs. The move could contribute to greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, and has been called "completely misguided and unlawful" by an environmental group. Here's more, from The New York Times.
Donald Trump still has full confidence in Boris Johnson. Speaking to reporters, the president said “He’s a friend of mine, and he’s going at it, there’s no question about it. Boris knows how to win. Don’t worry about him.”
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