Trump news: First arrests made in Ukraine scandal, as Trump offers to mediate between Turkey and the Kurds
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Two associates to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have been indicted on federal campaign finance violations after allegedly scheming to undermine Joe Biden’s 2020 candidacy and purchase political influence on behalf of a Ukrainian official.
The news arrives as the GOP has been conspicuous by its absence from American TV screens in recent days, with usually loyal Trump supporters on Capitol Hill making themselves scarce and declining media opportunities to defend the president, clearly unnerved by the White House’s refusal to co-operate with the House of Representatives’ inquiry into his dealings with Ukraine.
Mr Trump is meanwhile under fire for washing his hands of responsibility for the Turkish assault on Kurdish fighters in Syria, made possible by his decision to withdraw US troops from the territory earlier this week, with #TrumpGenocide and #TrumpBetrayedTheKurds trending on Twitter and protesters hanging a banner outside Trump Tower in Las Vegas denouncing the betrayal.
He is set to host a rally in Minneapolis this evening, where he has begun a feud with the Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, over $530,000 in costs associated with the event that the mayor says remain outstanding.
It might be a pretty decent idea to try and get the Trump campaign to pay upfront — while they have raised more than $100 million for Mr Trump's re-election in 2020, they are notorious for skipping out on rally bills.
But, the president's campaign has threatened Mr Frey and his city with a lawsuit, claiming extortion.
On the silly side of news, Mr Trump's ally Lindsey Graham was reportedly duped by a couple of Russian comedians in August, who pretended to be a Turkish official. Mr Graham appeared to contradict his public comments about Kurds, at least his recent comments.
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Bloomberg reports today Trump pressured his former secretary of state Rex Tillerson to help convince the Justice Department to drop a criminal investigation into Iranian-Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab, a client of Rudy Giuliani, back in 2017.
(Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty)
Tillerson reportedly declined, saying interfering would be illegal and informed then-chief of staff John Kelly of what had transpired.
Zarrab was being prosecuted by a New York federal court on charges of evading US sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme at the time and had hired Giuliani and former attorney general Michael Mukasey to defend him.
Tillerson and Kelly are already facing pressure to come forward and tell their side of the story as the spotlight on Trump and Giuliani becomes ever more glaring.
In the UK, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has branded Trump's comments on the death of Harry Dunn "crass and insensitive".
Here's Ben Kentish in Westminster.
Trump won't like this: an eight-year-old girl has demonstrated how easy it would be to climb his "impenetrable" border wall.
Sirena Bergman has more for Indy100.
From Moscow, here's Ollie Carroll with the latest from Zelensky on the Trump call.
Donald Trump has vented his anger at Fox News after a poll commissioned by the network showed most Americans want him to be impeached.
The survey indicated 51 per cent of across the US thought the president should be impeached, a significant rise on 42 per cent who said so last month.
And Mr Trump made his displeasure clear with the network, which has historically been supportive of him.
"From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good @FoxNews Poll," he said on Twitter.
Donald Trump has defended allowing Turkey to invade northern Syria by saying the Kurdish people “didn’t help us in the Second World War.”
The president’s decision to withdraw US troops from the area was met with horror in Washington, with Republicans and Democrats criticising the step.
The withdrawal effectively allows Ankara to proceed with a long-threatened military offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Mr Trump dismissed concerns about the move.
“The Kurds are fighting for their land....they’re fighting for their land,” he said.
Donald Trump has reportedly been phoning Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell up to three times a day to complain about Republican disloyalty as the threat of impeachment grows.
The US president has warned Mr McConnell he will step up attacks on senators who criticise him unless they fall in line, according to CNN.
A string of Republicans have spoken out against or refused to defend Mr Trump’s apparent attempts to pressure foreign governments into helping his election campaign.
Mr Trump demands total loyalty from those within his party and frequently lashes out at critics on Twitter.
On Saturday he called senator Mitt Romney as a “pompous ass” after the former presidential candidate said Mr Trump’s “brazen and unprecedented” appeal to Ukraine and China to investigate Joe Biden was “wrong and appalling”.
Donald Trump now appears to be teasing his upcoming meeting today and tomorrow with China's trade officials - just before the US is set to spike tariffs in its tit-for-tat trade dispute with Beijing:
A former adviser to Donald Trump has said that the president should "stop saying things that are untrue" - but stopped short of calling him a liar.
Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan's Head to Head show, Stephen Moore said that “when Trump says things that are false, that does undermine his presidential authority, and I think he should stop doing it".
When pressed on what to make of Trump’s patently untrue statements, Mr Moore said he is “never going to say” that Trump is a liar.
“Trump is an exaggerator, and I think it gets him in trouble.”
Donald Trump's acting director of ICE has released this harsh warning about undocumented immigrants in the US, claiming they are committing violent crimes after being let out of jail -
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