Trump news - live: Administration sues over Bolton book as criticism grows over president's police reform executive order
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump's administration sued to block the release of John Bolton's upcoming White House memoir, saying it was "rife with classified information."
The White House defended Trump's executive orders on police reform as Democrats critised the measures as "weak" and "inadequate".
Mike Pence, meanwhile, defended the president's upcoming rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, insisting Trump has the right to gather supporters after falsely claiming the state successfully "flattened the curve."
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Trump says 'Reducing crime and raising standards are not opposite goals'
The president said Americans support their police forces, but demand reforms in the wake of continued failures in justice: "we must improve accountability, increase transparency, and invest more resources in police training, recruiting and community engagement."
Trump says 'they came up with the AIDS vaccine' during White House event
Here's footage of the president falsely claiming AIDS has a vaccine during an event on police reform today:
Fact-checking the president's dubious claims
As per usual, there is plenty of fact-checking to be had on the president's false claims made during his latest speech. For example, Trump said the Obama administration did "nothing" towards the issue of police misconduct, an obvious fallacy:
Only 37% of Trump voters would want friends and family to know how they voted, according to poll
Oliver O'Connell writes: Former Trump administration press secretary Sean Spicer has a theory as to why his former boss is trailing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in almost every recent poll.
People do not want to admit they support him — even to family and friends.
Mr Spicer tweeted: “Crucial takeaway in new poll showing why polls will continue to be an issue: ‘only 37% of @realDonaldTrump voters would want their friends and family to know how they had voted while 74% of @JoeBiden supporters are comfortable with it being known.”
The poll Mr Spicer is referencing was conducted by the Democracy Institute, a DC Think Tank for The Daily Express newspaper in the UK.
The phenomenon of voters not revealing their voting preferences to family and friends — silent voters — has had implications for electoral polling and election results in the past.
Elderly victim of police abuse who Trump attacked on Twitter facing skull fracturing
Reports indicate 75-year-old Martin Gugino now faces a skull fracturing and is unable to walk after he was shoved by police during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd. He was attacked by the president on Twitter as a possible "Antifa provocateur" - an unfounded conspiracy theory claim.
Trump says he opposes defunding police forces
The president announced his opposition to protestors' calls for a reallocation of police funds back into historically marginalized communities of colour:
ICYMI: Trump’s niece to reveal in new book how she leaked details of his 'fraudulent' tax schemes
Donald Trump’s niece will reveal in a new book - set to be published just before the Republican National Convention - that she leaked tax returns showing his involvement in “fraudulent” schemes to the New York Times.
Mary Trump’s new book reportedly sheds light on her involvement in the newspaper’s explosive 2018 investigation, which showed how the president used tax dodges and loopholes to reap at least $413m from his father’s business empire — in part by opening a sham corporation with his siblings to disguise the funds as gifts.
The book, titled Too Much and Never Enough, will also detail how the president and his father allegedly contributed to the death of his older brother, Fred Trump Jr, according to the Daily Beast. Fred Trump Jr was Mary Trump’s father, and the once-heir apparent to the Trump empire.
Democratic leaders say Trump's executive order 'falls seriously short'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement shortly after Trump signed his latest executive order the move "falls seriously short of what is required to combat the epidemic of racial injustice & police brutality that is murdering Black Americans. We must insist on the bold change found in the George Floyd #JusticeInPolicing Act."
Opinion: I spoke to doctors and people close to Trump this week. We're right to worry about his health
Andrew Feinberg writes: Just before 11pm on Saturday, June 13, the President of the United States (or a staffer with access to his Twitter account) thought it necessary to explain to his 82,100,000 followers why he had appeared to have trouble descending a metal ramp earlier that day.
Over the course of that evening, a video clip of Donald Trump’s appearance at the US Military Academy’s commencement ceremony had been trending on Twitter with the hashtag #TrumpIsNotWell. It depicted him taking small, hesitant, unsteady-seeming steps as he walked down a ramp next to Lieutenant General Darryl Williams, the academy’s superintendent.
In Trump’s rendering of events, the halting, tentative gait captured on video was a reaction to a ramp that was “very long [and] steep” (it wasn’t), “had no handrail” (true), “and, most importantly, was very slippery” (the weather in West Point, New York was sunny and dry). He also claimed to have “ran down to level ground” over the “final ten feet” of the ramp, though the video shows him taking just several normal steps as he transitions to level ground.
But if the president thought his explanation of events would put an end to the matter, he thought wrong. Instead, the video — and the #TrumpIsNotWell hashtag — have continued to trend on social media, and the health of the oldest first-term president in American history continues to be an unresolved issue as he runs for reelection.
Trump announces nationwide ban on chokeholds 'unless an officer's life is at risk'
John Bennett writes: Donald Trump announced a federal ban on police officers applying chokeholds as part of a new process under which local police departments receive federal grant dollars, but said an officer could still use such a manoeuvre if they feel their life is in danger.
The president's qualifier is the same that has allowed some police officers who have shot and killed black people to escape charges or prison time after arguing in court they felt their own lives were at risk. The announcement was part of the president announcing an executive order on what experts call modest policing reforms.
Those reforms are intended, Mr Trump and other senior administration officials say, to put more officers on the street and make police departments "closer" to the people they are supposed to serve.
Mr Trump invited law enforcement officials onto the stage in the Rose Garden to stand behind him as he signed the executive order. He did not, however, invite any family members of victims of police shootings to join him.
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