Trump news: Fox News to air advert blaming mass shooting on president 'stoking fire of racists'

Catch-up on events as they happened

Conspiracy theories that Trump has pushed

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.

The 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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Key Points

• Julian Castro buys Fox and Friends ad space to target Trump
• Administration unexpectedly delays China tariffs
• President wrongly claims US has nuclear-powered cruise missiles
• Barr condemns 'serious irregularities' in Epstein case
• New York AG sues over 'public charge' immigration rule

[13 August 2019 21:50 · Chris Riotta]

Donald Trump suggested the reason Iran was not seizing US vessels in the Strait of Hormuz is because the US has "very boats going there actually because we have our own oil and gas" - here's the quote:

"We will never allow ourselves to be at the mercy of foreign energy suppliers and that’s what’s fighting us," he said. "You probably saw the Straits the other day, very few American boats are there. They capture, Iran - I broke up that deal, that was a good thing to do, it’s a whole different country right now."

He added, "They’re capturing boats from other countries but they’re not taking our boats … We have very few boats going there actually because we have our own oil and gas."

[13 August 2019 21:59 · Lucy Anna Gray]

The president has launched a fresh attack on CNN's Chris Cuomo.

The CNN anchor was filmed arguing with a man who repeatedly referred to him as "Fredo", a character from the Godfather movie. 

"Fredo is from the Godfather, and he's a weak brother, and they use it as an Italian aspersion," Cuomo was filmed saying. "Are you Italian? It's a f***ing insult to your people ... it's like the N-word for us." 

Trump has since retweeted the video with (someone else's) caption of "THIS. IS. CNN."

[13 August 2019 22:19 · Chris Riotta]

Guess what else Donald Trump attacked during his speech today? You guessed it, the president's apparent arch enemy - windmills:

[13 August 2019 22:30 · Chris Riotta]

Here's video from a rogue drone hanging out above accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's private island residences when FBI agents raided the properties -

[13 August 2019 22:35 · Chris Riotta]

Donald Trump has announced a Thursday rally in New Hampshire -

[13 August 2019 22:38 · Lucy Anna Gray]

That's all for our live coverage of the Trump administration today. Thanks for following along.