Trump news: President blocks action on gun control weeks after deadly mass shootings, as Fox News poll suggests he will lose in 2020
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Donald Trump has angrily denied reports he made a promise to a mystery foreign leader during a phone call from the Oval Office that so troubled one US intelligence official they felt compelled to file a whistleblower complaint about it, predictably dismissing the story and asking: “Is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate?”
The precise nature of the pledge is currently unknown, according to The Washington Post, but, despite the matter being deemed of “urgent concern”, the president’s acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire has so far refused to pass it on to House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, even after a subpoena was issued.
With a new Fox News poll finding him lagging behind the 2020 Democratic front-runners, Mr Trump returns from California where he visited his US-Mexico border wall on Wednesday, hailing the construction project with characteristic bluster as a “world-class security system”.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump asked a federal court to block an effort by New York prosecutors to obtain his tax returns as part of a criminal investigation, opening another front in the president’s efforts to keep his financial information private.
The president’s attorneys filed a lawsuit against Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr, who recently subpoenaed the president’s accounting firm for eight years of his state and federal returns as part of an investigation into payments made to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr Trump.
The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020
Show all 25They called the subpoena a “bad faith effort to harass” Mr Trump and said Mr Vance, a Democrat, had overstepped his constitutional authority.
“Virtually ‘all legal commenters agree’ that a sitting President of the United States is not ‘subject to the criminal process’ while he is in office,” Mr Trump’s lawyers wrote.
“Yet a county prosecutor in New York, for what appears to be the first time in our nation’s history, is attempting to do just that,” they added.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, asks US District Judge Victor Marrero to declare the subpoena unenforceable until Mr Trump leaves office.
The president’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said the lawsuit is intended “to address the significant constitutional issues at stake in this case.”
A spokesman for Mr Vance said his office had received the lawsuit “and will respond as appropriate in court.” Mr Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, declined to comment.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Barack Obama has offered a thinly-veiled critique of Trump's excessive use of social media.
"What you have to do is to create a process where you have confidence that whatever data is out there has been sifted, sorted and the core issues that are going to be important to your decision, you're able to see it around," Obama said during an interview at a technology conference in San Francisco.
"And that requires not just a good process but making sure you have a team that's got a diversity of opinion. The other thing that's helpful is not watching TV. Or, you know, reading, you know, social media.
"So those are two things I would advise if you're president not to do, because it creates a lot of noise and clouds your judgement."
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Trump has given more face-time to reporters than usual on his jaunt to New Mexico and California.
Another of his remarks yesterday was a moan about the cost of keeping open Guantanamo Bay, the notorious prison at a US military base Cuba were suspects were detained and waterboarded during George W Bush's War on Terror, said his administration was studying the issue.
"It costs a fortune to operate it, and I think it's crazy," the president told journalists on Air Force One.
Trump, who has previously argued that the facility should stay open, declined to say what he would like to happen with it now.
Trump did note that his predecessor had pledged to have the prison cleared of its occupants and shuttered by the time he left office but did not succeed.
"So we're stuck with it," Trump said. "We're taking what he left and that's where we are right now; we're going to make some decisions."
Obama pledged to close the prison, which he believed did not project US values, but he could not overcome opposition in Congress.
It was unclear on Wednesday whether Trump meant to signal a potential shift in policy or simply launch a round of criticism against Obama.
His remarks appeared to be designed more to highlight a promise that his predecessor was unable to keep rather than a pledge to do something new about the issue himself.
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Here's more on Trump's plan to target San Francisco on pollution and homelessness from Andy Gregory.
The bogusness of the president's environmentalist stance here should not go understated.
Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky has defended his country's ties to the US after it took delivery of $250m (£280m) in arms intended for use confronting Russian-backed separatists.
The military aid has been read as the Trump administration seeking to curry favour with Ukraine, with some arguing it is a sweetner offered in exchange for Kiev heaping further pressure on 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden by pressing on with a corruption investigation circling around his son Hunter Biden and a local energy firm of which he was a board member.
Our defence correspondent, Kim Sengupta, reports.
Teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg continues to makes waves in Washington.
People are very much enjoying her appearance before the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis yesterday, where she comprehensively schooled Louisiana Republican Garret Graves with his own logic.
Sirena Bergman has more for Indy100.
A cheerleading squad from North Stanly High School in New London, North Carolina, has been placed on probation after posing with a Trump 2020 banner during an American football game.
Chelsea Ritschel has more.
Trump has been speaking to Ed Henry of Fox News for a new interview to air today, saying he is "not thrilled" with Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell but insisting his job is safe for now (not entirely convincingly) after the central bank voted seven-three in favour of moving lower interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday.
Trump also moved to pour cold water on the prospect of a bipartisan compromise on gun control legislation, even as his aides circulate a draft plan on Capitol Hill.
Six weeks after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, Trump says: "We're going very slowly."
The president insists he doesn't want "bad people" to have weapons, but won't allow any plan to move forward that takes guns away from law-abiding people.
Trump says Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke's call last week to confiscate AR-15-style rifles has made it more difficult for Republicans to make an agreement. Trump says: "A lot of people think this is just a way of taking away guns."
He says he won't let that happen.
A new Fox poll, incidentally, again has Trump losing out to the top 2020 Democrats, which he will not like not bit.
Ex-White House ethics lawyer Richard W Painer, who served between 2005 and 2007 under George W Bush, is confident of Trump's impeachment. "It's happening," he says.
Zamira Rahim has the story.
Jon Sharman has more on Trump's ridiculous wall gaffe yesterday.
“Sir, there could be some merit in not discussing it.”
His contention that the border fence is painted "a good, strong rust colour" also deserves to be a Hall-of-Famer. Saves repainting I guess!
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