Trump news: President demands media outlets 'all apologise' as G7 fallout prompts Congress to step up impeachment inquiry
Follow the latest updates from the Age of Trump, as they happened
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 has lashed out at the press after MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell was forced to apologise for claiming Deutsche Bank's financial records on the Trump family included loan documents co-signed by Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.
The president has defended his China trade war and pledged to reduce troop numbers in Afghanistan in an interview with Fox News Radio and been busy on Twitter proclaiming “the Age of Trump”, deriding New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand after she dropped out of the 2020 race and touting construction progress on his US-Mexico border wall, only for his own officials to contradict him.
During that Fox News Radio interview, Mr Trump said that he wanted to cut the troop levels in Afghanistan to 8,500, and said he would then consider next steps as more information becomes available.
Mr Trump also lashed out at the media during that call, saying that he thinks it would be "disloyal" to his supporters if he did an interview with CNN, and suggested that he has dirt on the network's president, Jeff Zucker.
With Hurricane Dorian raging towards the Florida coast after grazing Puerto Rico, Mr Trump also finds himself facing renewed scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee - already examining the case for potential impeachment proceedings - over his offer to host the next G7 summit at his own Trump National Doral Miami resort, which they believe amounts to an abuse of his powers of office.
The hurricane is expected to hit Florida as a Category 4 storm, somewhere in the middle of the state's eastern side.
In response, Floridians are clearing off shelves in stores, and lining up to fill their tanks with petrol.
The storm might hit the Floridian coast as early as Sunday.
Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Trump has unexpectedly called into Brian Kilmeade's Fox News Radio show.
He insisted his China trade war is working and pledged the US would reduce its number of troops in Afghanistan, labelling the country the "Harvard University of terror".
"We’re going down to 8,600 [soldiers] and then we’ll make a determination from there as to what happens," the president said. "We’re not fighting a war over there, we’re just policemen. We could win that war so fast if I wanted to kill 10m people, which I don’t."
On the subject of pardons issued to members of the armed forces charged with war crimes, he commented: "Some of them, it’s not a good situation, but they’re very rough on the military people who frankly love our country but they went too far, they went overboard."
Trump also claimed that giving an interview to CNN would be "disloyal" to his base and, incredibly, said he had once made the aforementioned Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC cry.
Here's Clark Mindock's report.
John Delaney, an outsider for the Democratic 2020 nomination, has compared the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to Thanos, the population-halving intergalatic terrorist in Marvel's recent Avengers movies over their approach to the latest round of debates, which has seen the stage cut down to just 10 participants, Delaney not among them.
Twitter, however, argues it is the Maryland congressman himself who most resembles Thanos.
If you like weird celebrity friendships, Marianne Williamson palling around with Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro is hard to beat.
This feels like a bit of a breakthrough. Maybe if we all just ignored him he'd burn himself out.
The Justice Department's inspector general Michael Horowitz has released his report on former FBI director James Comey's handling of memos he took detailing meetings with Trump in early 2017, finding he violated department policies and his employment agreement by passing them on to a friend who in turn gave them to The New York Times but deciding against pressing ahead with a prosecution.
"Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees - and the many thousands more former FBI employees -who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information,” the report says.
Here's Comey's response.
I wonder who he could be talking about...
Trump is heavily considering blocking $250m (£205m) in military aid to Ukraine that is intended to help fight invading forces from Russia, CNN reported on Thursday, citing sources.
CNN reported that the White House has begun to notify relevant agencies and members of Congress, which approved but Trump has not made a final decision.
Another unfortunate gaffe by Joe Biden surfaces from the campaign trail, as he appears to forget Barack Obama's name in attacking Trump's call to bring Russia back into the G7.
"President... My boss."
With the US already facing Hurricane Dorian off its south east coast, the state of Oregon to the north west has just suffered a 6.4 magnitude earthquake.
Here's Clark Mindock's breaking story.
For Indy Voices, Sirena Bergman says Kirsten Gillibrand dropping out of the 2020 field is a damning indictment of the sexism rife within the Democratic establishment.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments