Trump news: White House slams Putin ‘scheme’ as ex-president rejects House speaker plan
Follow for latest updates on Donald Trump today
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump poured cold water on suggestions that he could be elected speaker of the House of Representatives by Republicans after this November’s midterm elections – an idea that has been floated by some of his more hardcore congressional allies. Instead, the president said, “I wanna look at what’s happening and then we’re gonna be doing something else”.
This he did in the same interview where he called on Vladimir Putin to release dirt about the Biden family’s supposed dealings with the wife of the mayor of Moscow. His appeal to the Russian autocrat has drawn outrage given Mr Putin’s current assault on Ukraine, an American ally.
Meanwhile, it emerged that White House phone records from 6 January 2021 obtained by the committee investigating the Capitol riot feature a 7-hour gap in former President Donald Trump’s communications, a span of time that includes the assault on the building by a horde of his supporters.
Later on Tuesday, former national security adviser John Bolton said that contra the ex-president’s denials, Mr Trump was aware of the slang term “burner phone” – and that he used the term on multiple occasions.
Burner phones and a seven-hour gap: What we still don’t know about the Trump White House call logs from Jan 6
Trump dominates GOP field, leading Biden and Harris in poll for 2024 matchup
Schumer and Democrats say Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from January 6 cases
Trump mocked for lengthy official statement boasting about hole-in-one: ‘Quite exciting’
ICYMI: What Trump’s asking Putin to do
More than two years after he was impeached for holding up military aid to Ukraine to force an investigation into the Biden family’s activities, Donald Trump has called on Vladimir Putin to release unflattering material about the Bidens’ alleged dealings with the wife of the mayor of Moscow.
This he did as Mr Putin assaults an American ally, specifically suggesting that now would be a good time for Mr Putin to contribute what he knows because the Russian president isn’t a fan of the US government.
Read more:
Trump calls on Putin to release Hunter Biden dirt
Mr Trump has a history of asking foreign leaders for dirt on his political opponents
Hunter Biden’s laptop: the saga continues
Since late 2020, the contents of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that was abandoned in a Delaware computer repair shop have been something of an obsession within the right-wing media ecosystem – though the story tends to flare up noticeably whenever a scandal involving Donald Trump gets too hot for comfort.
While the original reports of the laptop’s contents were met with a great deal of skepticism by the mainstream, the Washington Post has now analysed reams of data ostensibly originating from the laptop that it says was given to it by a Republican activist. According to the paper, the findings of a detailed technical investigation will do little to resolve the row over the laptop’s authenticity or the value of its purported contents:
The contents of Biden’s laptop computer have sparked debate and controversy since the New York Post and other news organizations in the closing month of the 2020 presidential campaign reported stories based on data purportedly taken from it.
Many Republicans have portrayed this data as offering evidence of misbehavior by Hunter Biden that implicated his father in scandal, while Democrats have dismissed it as probable disinformation, perhaps pushed by Russian operatives acting in a well-documented effort to undermine Biden. Facebook and Twitter in 2020 restricted distribution of stories about the drive’s contents out of concern that the revelations might have resulted from a nefarious hacking campaign intended to upend the election, much as Russian hacks of sensitive Democratic Party emails shaped the trajectory of the 2016 election.
The Washington Post’s forensic findings are unlikely to resolve that debate, offering instead only the limited revelation that some of the data on the portable drive appears to be authentic. The security experts who examined the data for The Post struggled to reach definitive conclusions about the contents as a whole, including whether all of it originated from a single computer or could have been assembled from files from multiple computers and put on the portable drive.
Read more below.
ICYMI: Bolton says Trump knows what a burner phone is
The seven-hour-plus gap in the White House phone records from 6 January 2021 has raised concerns that the president and certain of his allies may have been communicating on disposable “burner phones” before, during and after the attack on the US Capitol – potentially making it impossible for investigators to definitively establish whom the president talked to and when.
The president’s defence against this theory has been that he does not in fact know what a “burner phone” is. However, his former national security adviser, John Bolton, has effectively dismissed that claim as a lie. And it has also been noted that his legal team used the term multiple times in a lawsuit against his niece and critic, Mary L. Trump.
Read more:
Trump said he hadn’t heard of burner phones but used phrase in lawsuit
Revelation comes after former national security adviser said he had heard the ex-president use the phrase
Trump dismisses House speaker idea
Former President Donald Trump has officially rejected the idea of serving as Speaker of the House next year should Republicans win control of the House in this year’s midterm elections.
Mr Trump made his decision clear in an interview with John Solomon and Amanda Head, after Ms Head remarked that his reaction to the suggestion from Congressman Matt Gaetz at a Florida rally hosted by the ex-president did not make clear whether he supported the idea.
John Bowden reports.
Trump pours cold water on House speaker idea floated by Matt Gaetz
Former president says he isn’t interested while leaving door open for 2024 ambitions
Schiff: Trump is ‘consistently immoral and unpatriotic'
Former lead impeachment manager Rep Adam Schiff was asked by Garrett Haake of NBC News about former President Donald Trump asking Russian President Vladimir Putin for dirt on Hunter Biden.
Mr Schiff responded: “Well at least he’s consistent. Consistently immoral and unpatriotic to be appealing to Putin at a time when Russia is killing Ukrainians, once again for dirt on his opponents.”
Former impeachment counsel puts Trump’s Putin remarks in perspective
As Russian state TV hosts openly call for Donald Trump to return to power and the ex-president himself invites Vladimir Putin to release information unflattering to the Biden family, one of the former legal counsels in Mr Trump’s first impeachment – the trial related to his quid-pro-quo pressuring of the Ukrainian government – has this stark statement of just how serious the situation in the GOP is.
Trump’s Truth Social sign-ups have cratered
Donald Trump’s beleaguered social media platform, Truth Social, has seen a reported 93 per cent drop in downloads since it launched last month.
Analysts from tech company Sensor Tower found a drop of almost 810,000 users since Truth Social launched on 21 February, with about 870,000 installs in its first week, and as little as 60,000 more recently.
Gino Spocchia reports.
Trump’s Truth Social sign-ups have cratered since app’s launch
Former president has yet to post on his own app
LGBT+ advocates condemn new Oklahoma law
The Republican governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, has signed a bill banning trans athletes from women’s sports, the latest salvo in a nationwide GOP-led culture war against inclusive gender politics.
While Mr Stitt described the law as “just common sense”, LGBT+ campaigners and advocates in his state take a different view:
Nicole McAfee, executive director of advocacy group Freedom Oklahoma, said LGBT+ residents are “exhausted, terrified, angry.”
“It’s unacceptable,” they said in a statement. “Trans girls are girls. Nonbinary Oklahomans exist. Having representation of gender and sexual diversity available to young folks is not obscene, but efforts to not only censor it but criminalize it certainly are.”
Read more below.
Oklahoma governor signs law banning transgender athletes from women’s sports
Governor Kevin Stitt signs law joining nationwide legislative campaign targeting transgender youth
White House slams Trump ‘scheme’ with Putin
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield responded to Donald Trump’s request of Russian president Vladimir Putin:
“What kind of American let alone an ex-president thinks that this is the right time to enter into a scheme with Vladimir Putin and brag about his connection to Vladimir Putin? There is only one and it’s Donald Trump.”
Morning Joe hosts slam Trump for asking Russia for dirt on Bidens
Morning Joe hosts slammed former presidentDonald Trump on Wednesday for asking Vladimir Putin to release “dirt” about Hunter Biden’s alleged business dealings in Eastern Europe, a request he made during an interview with journalist John Solomon on the Just the News television show.
Johanna Chisholm reports.
Morning Joe hosts slam Trump for seeking dirt on Bidens from Russia
‘The United States has deemed that Putin and the Russian soldiers committed war crimes; and yet, Trump is asking him for help. It is truly staggering’
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments