President orders 'blind unilateral escalation' in Iran after attack halves Saudi oil production, as he defends Kavanaugh amid impeachment calls
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has been warned he cannot declare war without congressional support following the bombing of Saudi Arabian oil facilities.
The strikes, which destroyed half of the kingdom’s oil production capacity, were claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
On Sunday night Mr Trump said the US was “locked and loaded” and believed it knew who was truly behind the attack.
But Bernie Sanders, who is gunning for the Democratic nomination for president, tweeted: “Mr. Trump, the Constitution of the United States is perfectly clear. Only Congress—not the president—can declare war.
“And Congress will not give you the authority to start another disastrous war in the Middle East just because the brutal Saudi dictatorship told you to.”
It came hours before Mr Trump was due to hold a rally in New Mexico, a state he lost in 2016 but hopes to flip in the 2020 election.
In other news about his possible 2020 opponents, Elizabeth Warren was endorsed by the Working Families Party, an influential progressive group. She'll hold a rally in New York City this evening.
The president also spent some time defending Brett Kavanaugh amid a confusing new set of allegations concerning his behaviour in college, as well as his confirmation process.
As of now, all Democratic frontrunners are following in Ms Warren's lead to call for the Supreme Court Justice's impeachment - except Joe Biden, who simply requests that the matter is looked into.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, maintains that Mr Kavnaugh should sue his accusers.
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US energy secretary Rick Perry has said it is too soon to say whether the US will have to tap into its emergency petrol reserves following weekend attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.
He told CNBC: “We are yet a little premature in making any...actions about whether or not the [US strategic petroleum reserve] is actually going to be needed until we get a handle on the length of time that this facility is going to be down.”
Saturday’s attacks on the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil processing shut five per cent of global oil supply – but the country today said it could bring back about a third of the shut supply.
The Department of Energy said it was working with the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates energy policies of 30 industrialised countries, on whether a combined emergency release is needed.
Mr Perry said countries in the IEA, of which the US is a member, have more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil in reserves.
Reuters
United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths has said it is “not entirely clear” who was behind Saturday’s attacks on Saudi oil facilities – but added that it has increased the chances of a regional conflict.
“It’s not entirely clear who was behind the attack, but the fact that Ansar Allah has claimed responsibility is bad enough,” he told the UN Security Council on Monday, using the official name of Yemen’s Houthi group.
“This extremely serious incident makes the chances of a regional conflict that much higher.”
Kelly Craft, US ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council that emerging information on attacks on Saudi oil facilities “indicates that responsibility lies with Iran” and that there is no evidence the attack came from Yemen.
Reuters
Donald Trump has suggested Democrats only want to take guns away from Americans, as his 2020 presidential hopefuls came out in favour of strong legislation in the wake of mass shootings across the United States, writes Clark Mindock.
Mr Trump reportedly plans to release a policy proposal this week geared towards solving America’s gun violence crime, but few details have been made public.
(Getty)
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar has accused Donald Trump of “lying about everything from weather maps and crowd sizes”.
She said: “Congress has the Constitutional power to declare war.
“Not the President.
“Not the Secretary of State.
“And DEFINITELY not Saudi Arabia.
“This president lies about everything from weather maps and crowd sizes. There is no reason we should take his word on justifications for war.”
Ms Omar was retweeting the president’s claim that Iran lied about a US drone being inside its airspace when it was shot down and about the Saudi Arabia oil attack.
In case you missed it earlier, here’s Donald Trump congratulating himself for the US becoming the “number one energy producer in the world”.
“Thank you Mr President,” he wrote in a tweet after global oil prices rose following an attack on one of the world’s largest oil refineries in Saudi Arabia.
More on this from our correspondent Harry Cockburn:
Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator for Connecticut, claimed it was “as unacceptable as it is predictable” if Iran was behind the weekend oil attacks on Saudi Arabia.
He tweeted that he would “look at the intel” when he gets back to Washington DC today, adding: “Trump’s Iran strategy has been blind unilateral escalation. No off ramps. No international consensus building.”
The Democratic primary got an interesting jolt today as the Working Families Party, an influential progressive group, endorsed Elizabeth Warren. They're urging people to organize particularly against presumed frontrunner Joe Biden, who's way behind on most major progressive issues.
Here's Warren celebrating the endorsement on Amtrak, in the most respectful way possible:
The New York Times created a messy situation this weekend when an excerpt from Times reporters' upcoming book was misreported in the paper itself. On Sunday, the paper issued a correction of a story about two women who remembered Brett Kavanaugh exposing himself to them at Yale, saying that one of the women does not remember one of the events. The earlier accusations still stand.
Still, the confusing article has created a frenzy about Trump allies eager to put the Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice in a better light. Earlier this morning, Trump jumped to the defense of Brett Kavanaugh, via quotes from Fox & Friends, which had also jumped to the defense of Brett Kavanaugh. Read more here:
The director of an upcoming documentary on Roy Cohn told Vulture that Trump's rise to political power partially inspired her film.
"Trump had been elected," she said. "I knew by then that Cohn had been his mentor, his lawyer, his good friend. I don't believe he created Trump. I think that's overstated. But you can pinpoint where Trump started to get the idea that he could be president, and Cohn had a lot to do with it."
Read the full interview here:
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