Trump launches blistering attack on Democrats ‘who reject everything that we hold dear’
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks on a group of Democratic congresswomen, claiming the party was now led by “four-left wing extremists who reject everything that we hold dear”.
At a rally for supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio, the crowd did not break into racist chants as happened two weeks ago in Florida when the president referred to the four women of colour.
But it did start chanting “lock her up” when he referred to Hillary Clinton, who he beat in the crucial state of Ohio in 2016, on his way to winning the White House.
“While Republicans are working every day to build up our country, the rage-filled Democrat Party is trying to tear America apart,” said Mr Trump.
“The Democrat Party is now being led by four left-wing extremists who reject everything that we hold dear.”
Mr Trump claimed he was seeking to avoid “controversy”, which is perhaps why he did not spend too long talking about the congresswomen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Last month, he was widely criticised and his tweets formally condemned as racist by the House of Representatives, after tweeting and commenting that the the women should “go home”. Three of them were born in the US, while the fourth, Mr Omar came here 20 years ago after her family escaped from Somalia as refugees.
On Thursday, one of four Republican members of congress who voted in favour of the House bill condemning the president’s remarks about the progressive women, announced he was not seeking reelection.
Will Hurd, who represents Texas’s 23rd congressional district and is the only black Republican in the House, had condemned Mr Trump’s remarks as racist and xenophobic.
“Look, I'm the only black Republican in the House of Representatives. I go into communities that most Republicans don’t show up in order to take a conservative message,” he told CNN last month.
“This makes it harder in order to take our ideas, and our platform, to communities that don't necessarily identify with the Republican Party.”
Mr Hurd made his announcement while Mr Trump was on stage attacking Democratic mayors, across the country, including the mayor of Cincinnati, John Cranley.
He claimed the crowd at the US Bank Arena had broken records, and he alleged it was “Democrats” who for health and safety reasons had not allowed more people inside.
If you want to see how Mr Trump energised the crowd, please see what was our live coverage below
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For Indy Voices, here's Carli Pierson on Biden's excessive reliance on invoking his time with Barack Obama.
Samuel Osborne has the full story on Trump's call with Putin yesterday.
More disturbing news on immigration, as the administration considers ending the temporary protected status of the approximately 7,000 Syrian refugees given shelter in the US, leaving them at risk of deportation.
Adam Forrest has this report.
Barbara Res, a longtime Trump Organization vice president in charge of construction, has claimed the president lied about narrowly avoiding being on board a helicopter that crashed in New York in October 1989, killing three company employees.
Speaking to Ari Melber on MSNBC, Res said Trump had embellished the story of the tragedy to include his own involvement.
The helicopter crashed en route to Trump casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey - leaving executives Stephen Hyde, Mark Grossinger Etess, and Jonathan Benanav dead - but Res said the now-president's long running claim that he had been pulled off at the "last minute" was a "total, total lie".
“It wasn’t very long after the crash that he was putting out the word that he was supposed to be on that plane or that helicopter, and he didn’t at the last minute, he got pulled off the plane,” Res said. “In other words, he’d be dead now.”
“Making news, making himself a part of the story, a very important story, and undermining the fact that three people died,” she added.
As BuzzFeed reported in 2015, no fewer than three biographies of Trump have sought to debunk the story in the past.
Res likened the story to Trump's recent claim to have been among the first responders to the 9/11 terror attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
“How would anyone ever consider him a first responder? It’s a stupid statement,” Res said.
A fairly excruciating video of Trump's new ambassador to the UN, Kelly Knight Craft, sitting firmly on the fence on climate change has re-emerged a day after Washington governor Jay Inslee made a passionate plea for action on the debate stage.
Trump says America's enemies are "drooling" over his potential 2020 rivals. I'm just going to leave that one there.
Here's your Cincinnati reminder. He's like a smartphone app you didn't download, don't want and can't delete.
Blimey, Trump has tasked his pal Lindsey Graham with crafting a new Iran nuclear deal after the president withdrew from Barack Obama's landmark accord with Tehran last year, setting in motion the current regional tensions.
Trump’s administration has paired Middle East policy advisers with “outside actors” to field ideas for the new plan, according to The Daily Beast.
Graham has taken a hard-line approach to the US-Iran conflict, calling Tehran a “provocative regime” and “an enemy of mankind” that “threatens the existence of the state of Israel”.
Chris Riotta has more.
Scotland Yard spent almost £3.5m policing Trump's first state visit to the UK in early June, according to official figures seen by PA.
The US president and his family attended a white-tie banquet with the Queen at Buckingham Palace and was met by tens of thousands of protesters in the capital, including the infamous Baby Trump blimp, before he attended a D-Day commemoration service in Portsmouth.
Figures released by the Metropolitan Police show the force's total costs came in at £3,419,905, with more than 6,300 officers deployed across the three-day visit.
I wonder if we can get a refund?
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