Trump news: President teases 'wild' Orlando rally as state polls show every major Democrat swamping him in 2020
Thousands of supporters flock to president in Florida as he kicks off 2020 campaign
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Donald Trump is reportedly toying with the idea of live tweeting the Democratic 2020 debates on 26 and 27 June to taunt his would-be rivals for the presidency as they face off against one another for the first time.
Ahead of his own formal campaign launch in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday, the president has meanwhile announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will begin deporting “millions of illegal aliens” next week.
“They will be removed as fast as they come in,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement. The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress.”
Meanwhile, a boisterous crowd of thousands of supporters gathered in front of the Amway Center arena in Orlando on Tuesday, hours before Mr Trump was set to hold a rally to formally launch his re-election campaign.
His official campaign launch in Florida today also coincides with a “national week of training” for his political supporters to build up ground game in the 2020 elections, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020
Show all 25Just before his arrival, the Orlando Sentinel editorial board published a story titled, “Our Orlando Sentinel endorsement for president in 2020: Not Donald Trump”.
“Some readers will wonder how we could possibly eliminate a candidate so far before an election, and before knowing the identity of his opponent,” the paper wrote. “After 2½ years we’ve seen enough.”
“Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies,” the paper continued, going on to mention several examples of the president’s most flagrant falsities.
Mr Trump meanwhile said his re-election launch will be a political spectacle. In a tweet, he wrote: "People have never seen anything like it (unless you play a guitar). Going to be wild — See you later!"
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Trump is up and accusing the president of the European Central Bank of fiddling the economy.
What did he expect Draghi to do - keep it a secret?
Oh look, here's more.
Here's Richard Hall with Iran's response to the news of further US troops being deployed to its doorstep.
The latest twist in the lawsuit against InfoWars conspiracy nut Alex Jones - brought by the parents of children murdered in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 after he claimed the massacre was a "hoax" - is absolutely breathtaking.
Here's Lily Puckett's report, worth reading for Jones's response alone.
The Don here acting as his own hype man.
"People have never seen anything like it (unless you play a guitar)," he says, audaciously likening his upcoming MAGA rally to Woodstock.
CNN correspondent Jim Acosta is meanwhile reflecting on his many extraordinary encounters with Trump supporters at these events over the last year.
One of the first to attack Trump's "deportation squad" of ICE agents targeting migrants is Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, California, who has some strong words for the president.
She and Trump have form - to put it mildly.
A government watchdog is to investigate whether the US Interior Department broke the law by making plans to open lands cut from a Utah national monument by President Trump to leasing for oil, gas and coal development, a pair of Democratic congress members said on Monday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO)'s investigation into whether the Interior violated the appropriations law by using funds to assess potential resource extraction in the lands cut from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is the latest chapter in a long-running saga over the sprawling monument created in 1996 on lands home to scenic cliffs, canyons, dinosaur fossils and coal reserves.
Trump slashed the monument by nearly half in 2017 following a contentious review by former Interior secretary Ryan Zinke of monuments around the country. Trump ordered the review based on arguments by him and others that a law signed by President Theodore Roosevelt allowing presidents to declare monuments had been improperly used to protect wide expanses of lands instead of places with particular historical or archaeological value.
The GAO investigation comes after Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico and Congresswoman Betty McCollum of Minnesota, both Democrats, requested the investigation in May. They argue that a section of the appropriations law on the books since 2002 states that no taxpayer money can be used to do pre-leasing studies on lands in monuments that were created by 20 January 2001.
Last year, the Interior made public proposals for managing Grand Staircase, saying its preference for one of the sites would be the "least restrictive to energy and mining development." That plan also would allow commercial timber harvesting to keep forests healthy.
The public comment period closed on the proposals and the Bureau of Land Management's website says it intends to finalize the plans later this year.
Interior Department press secretary Molly Block said in a statement the agency will provide "factual information" to the GAO and is "confident" the probe will determine the Interior "acted appropriately and within the law."
GAO spokesman Charles Young confirmed the inquiry. He said it's too early to known how long the probe into the legal question will take.
Trump in 2017 also downsized the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, but that won't be part of the GAO's inquiry because it was created in 2016 by President Barack Obama.
Environmental, tribal, paleontological and outdoor recreation organizations have separate lawsuits pending to restore the full sizes of the monuments, arguing presidents don't have the legal authority to undo or change monuments created by predecessors.
Udall and McCollum announced the GAO investigation in a joint news release. Udall is the ranking member of the Senate's Appropriations Subcommittees on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies. McCollum is chair of the same committee in the House.
Udall called on the Interior to halt work on proposed management plans until the GAO makes its determination on the legal question.
"National monuments like Grand Staircase-Escalante protect some of our most spectacular wilderness areas and breathtaking lands, and it is imperative that the Department manage them in accordance with the laws passed by Congress," Udall said in the news release.
What else is going on on Capitol Hill?
Well, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has disparaged TV satirist Jon Stewart over his impassioned defence of 9/11 first responders who risk having their healthcare take away, the former saying he doesn't know why the latter is "all bent out of shape" over the issue.
Stewart appeared on Stephen Colbert's show last night to offer a rebuttal.
Meanwhile, veteran Republican senator Chuck Grassley has been out sightseeing in his home state of Iowa for his 'Gram.
Back to the issue of Mr Trump's threat over deportations, Republican Representative Mike Turner, of Ohio, has told CNN that tweeting such policy on the hoof is not helpful and that both Democrats and the GOP are going to have to work together to deal with immigration reform.
It was always likely, but it appears that the president will be live-tweeting the Democrat 2020 candidate debates next week.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Trump is tentatively planning to live-tweet the debates on 26 and 27 June, according to people familiar with the planning.
A number of political advisers are said to have argued that there is an advantage in letting potential Democrats challengers attack one another without the distraction of Mr Trump inserting himself into the debate - and apparently planning is still fluid and the president could change his mind.
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