Trump news: Fox News to air advert blaming mass shooting on president 'stoking fire of racists'
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Donald Trump will face a shock on Wednesday morning when his favourite breakfast show Fox and Friends runs an attack advert paid for by 2020 Democratic presidential challenger Julian Castro in which the candidate accuses him of “stoking the fire of racists” and inspiring the El Paso mass shooting.
As the Jeffrey Epstein case continues to unfold, Donald Trump says he has “no idea” if Bill Clinton was involved in the disgraced financier’s death, accusing former President Bill Clinton of lying about his air travel on Epstein’s planes.
The president has been heavily criticised for promoting the unfounded theory that the Clintons were somehow involved in Epstein’s death.
Attorney General William Barr has expressed concern at the “serious irregularities” surrounding the death of the billionaire paedophile – a former friend of Mr Trump – in his Manhattan jail cell over the weekend.
The FBI conducted a raid on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, according to reports, as two guards assigned to watch the disgraced financier before his apparent suicide in prison were put on administrative leave.
Jeffrey Epstein: Controversies surrounding paedophile billionaire
Show all 9The president meanwhile took a break from his vacation to speak about energy investments at a Shell complex in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. During the speech Mr Trump launched a series of attacks, primarily focusing his sights on 2020 Democratic candidates. He criticised Elizabeth Warren, using his common slur of “Pocahontas”, before moving onto “sleepy” Joe Biden.
The president then went on to attack his home state of New York, in a rambling tirade about power outages and lawsuits. “They’re burdened with power outages,” he said. “New York energy rates are through the roof. All New York likes to do is sue me, they like to sue me, they’re always suing. They sue me for everything so they can try to stop us by any means possible.”
Donald Trump has meanwhile wrongly claimed that the US has “similar, more advanced” missile technology to that currently being experimented with in Russia, apparently alluding to the nuclear-powered cruise rockets developed under Project Pluto in the 1960s during the Cold War, an initiative that was ultimately dismissed as “too crazy” to be viable.
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As questions linger over the treatment of migrants at US detention centres in Texas, a Border Patrol agent who intentionally hit a Guatemalan migrant with his truck in Arizona in 2017 has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge, according to a federal court filing on Monday.
The agent, Matthew Bowen, also sent a text message referring to immigrants as “subhuman” and “mindless murdering savages”, the court heard.
More from the president - trying to get Cuomo in trouble.
He of course would never dream of swearing. Goodness me no.
Trump’s immigration chief Ken Cuccinelli has suggested a poem etched onto the Statue of Liberty would better read as "Give me your tired and your poor - who can stand on their own two feet" after the administration announced new hard-line rules for legal immigrants.
No, really.
Those lines are of course taken from "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus of 1883 and should read:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Among those offering an emotional response to this appalling remark was Jenny Durkan, the mayor of Seattle.
Here's Chris Riotta's report.
For Indy Voices, Sophie Hurwitz has this powerful piece on why her Jewish faith compels her to protest ICE detention centres.
Republican senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has written to attorney general William Barr asking him to tear up the Jeffrey Epstein plea deal, which granted immunity from prosecution to him as well as to "four named conspirators" and potentially others.
Trump is back to bashing out abuse of The New York Times, apparently by citing the paper's local tabloid rival.
The Trump administration will delay its 10 per cent tariffs on certain Chinese products, including laptops and cell phones, that had been scheduled to start next month, the Office of the US Trade Representative (UTSR) has said.
The USTR's action was published just minutes after China's Ministry of Commerce said vice premier Liu He conducted a phone call with US trade officials.
Other products whose tariffs will be delayed until 15 December include "computers, video game consoles, certain toys, computer monitors, and certain items of footwear and clothing," the USTR said in a statement. A separate group of products will also be exempt altogether "based on health, safety, national security and other factors," it added.
Technology investors welcomed news of the exemptions, pushing an index of chip stocks up 2.8 per cent, while shares of Apple surged more than 5 per cent.
Trump had made his threat on 1 August, saying he would impose the tariff on $300bn (£249bn) of Chinese goods, blaming the rival superpower for not following through on promises to buy more American agricultural products. He also personally criticised Chinese president Xi Jinping for failing to do more to stem sales of the synthetic opioid fentanyl amid an opioid overdosing crisis in the United States.
All of this comes as Trump attacks China for not following through with the expected large purchases of US agricultural products.
"As usual, China said they were going to be buying 'big' from our great American Farmers. So far they have not done what they said. Maybe this will be different!" Trump tweeted earlier.
California congressman Ted Lieu has emphatically debunked another of Trump's tweets from earlier today on China, accusing him of "lying" to American citizens again about the consequences of his tariff war.
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