Trump news: Under-fire postmaster general says he has 'no intention' of returning mail sorting machines
Senate committee interrogates US Postal Service chief as GOP prepares for 2020 convention
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump said he would send law enforcement officers to polling locations for this November's presidential election in comments branded "an attack on America" by a former White House ethics chief.
“We're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement, and we're going to have hopefully US attorneys, and we're going to have everybody and attorney generals (sic),” Mr Trump told Fox News after host Sean Hannity asked if he would have "poll watchers".
Meanwhile, his Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said on Friday there was “no intention” to return mail sorting machines that were removed in recent weeks, after it was reported that at least 671 machines were removed in critical voting states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Georgia, among others.
The postmaster general said those machines were “not needed”, while adding that he supports vote-by-mail efforts amid the pandemic.
Mr DeJoy, who has overseen sweeping cuts at the agency following his appointment by the president in June, told a US Senate committee he would be voting by mail in fall elections and insisted that the "American people should feel comfortable that the Postal Service will deliver on this election" despite the president's constant threats to undermine the agency.
On Friday, the president and his family held a funeral service for his brother Robert Trump, who died on 16 August. He was 71. The president held a service in the East Room of the White House.
A group of anti-Trump Republicans have meanwhile seized on the arrest of former Trump campaign chief and senior White House adviser Steve Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to fraud in an an alleged US-Mexico border wall crowdfunding scheme. He is the subject of an advert targeting Fox News views during next week's 2020 Republican National Convention.
GOP officials and the president are preparing for the event following Joe Biden's official nomination as the Democrats' nominee after his party's week-long convention, during which Democrats and several Republicans condemned the current administration and the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout.
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Walter Shaub, the White House's former ethics chief, has said Donald Trump is using a "dictator's playbook" over plans to send law enforcement agents to polling stations this November.
"This is an attack on America," Mr Shaub warned on Twitter overnight.
Tropical storms could become hurricanes near US by Monday
Two newly formed tropical depressions at opposite ends of the Caribbean were expected to become tropical storms Friday, with forecasters projecting potential tracks for both that could take them toward the US, possibly as hurricanes.
Tropical Storm Genevieve in the Pacific, meanwhile, continued to weaken as it remained offshore from Mexico's southern Baja California peninsula while sweeping the coast with strong winds and rain that carried the threat of dangerous flooding.
The two tropical depressions formed Thursday, and tropical storm watches were posted for several islands at the eastern end of the Caribbean while a tropical storm warning was posted at the Honduras-Nicaragua border region at the western side of the sea. A hurricane watch was posted for the southern coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
The US National Hurricane Center said Tropical Depression 13 was likely to become a tropical storm Friday and then skirt the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. The early, still uncertain track showed it potentially being near Florida by Monday as a hurricane.
Associated Press
Trump petitions Supreme Court to let him block people on Twitter again
Donald Trump has petitioned the supreme court to let him block people on Twitter again.
In 2018, it was ruled the US president cannot block other users on the social media app because the messages are "governmental in nature" and therefore part of a public forum.
As such, blocking users "as a result of the political views they have expressed is impermissible under the First Amendment", the judge ruled at the time.
Read more:
"Love is more powerful than hate": Joe Biden has shared a portion of his acceptance speech from the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.
Trump tries to blame California wildfires on state ignoring his 'raking' leaves theory of forest management
Donald Trump threatened to withhold emergency funding from California because the state had ignored his “raking” theory of forest management to prevent wildfires.
As firefighters battled hundreds of wildfires across Northern California, Mr Trump told a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that the state should pay for the damage because they ignored his recommendations after previous fires.
“Maybe we're just going to have to have them pay for it because they don't listen to us. We say you've got to get rid of the leaves, you've got to get rid of the debris, you got to get rid of the fallen trees,” Mr Trump said on Thursday.
Read more:
George Floyd mural at Minneapolis intersection where he died defaced
Someone has defaced a giant mural of George Floyd at the Minneapolis intersection where he died in May.
Someone sprayed black paint on the mural on the side of a food market, the Star Tribune reported. A Minneapolis police spokesperson says the department has not taken any reports about the vandalised mural, however.
Other Floyd murals around the country have reportedly been defaced, including in Rochester, Minnesota; Long Beach, California; and Portland, Oregon.
Floyd, who was Black, died on Memorial Day after four Minneapolis police officers arrested him for allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill at the food market. The officers held him down on his stomach in the street while he was handcuffed. A white officer pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes even as Floyd said he could not breathe.
His death sparked global protests against racism and police brutality.
Associated Press
‘You are an idiot’: Trump mocked for tweeting about ‘entrance requirements’ to virtual DNC
Donald Trump has been mocked for suggesting that people needed ID to attend this year’s virtual Democratic National Convention (DNC).
“To get into the Democrat National Convention, you must have an ID card with a picture...” the president wrote in an early morning tweet on Friday.
In years gone by, those wishing to attend the DNC have been asked to buy a ticket and provide photographic ID to gain entry.
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Joe Biden ‘hit a home run’ with powerful DNC speech, Fox News hosts say
Joe Biden’s speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination last night went down a storm with the party faithful – and even drew praise from Republican commentators not known for praising the other side, Andrew Naughtie reports.
Fox News’s Chris Wallace, who recently interviewed Donald Trump in an encounter that many considered disastrous for the president, concluded that after such a successful turn, Mr Trump’s attempts to frame Mr Biden as a senile joke were clearly unlikely to work.
“Yes, Biden was reading from a teleprompter, and a prepared speech, but I thought he blew a hole, a big hole in that characterisation,” he said, adding: “It seems to me that after tonight, Donald Trump is going to have to run against a candidate, not a caricature.”
Also giving Mr Biden a good review was Dana Perino, a former press secretary to George W Bush and now a Fox News commentator. “Joe Biden just hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth,” she said.
“He had pace, rhythm, energy, emotion, and delivery. So I think if he looks back, he’s gotta say that’s the best speech of his life. And he really just took the moment, and I love that.”
Charges against Steve Bannon show Trump administration 'cannot fully protect president's former associates', former prosecutor says
The money laundering and wire fraud charges levied against Steve Bannon have reaffirmed the "ongoing professional independence" of the Manhattan prosecutor's office, an expert has said, following allegations that the recent firing of Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman, may have been intended to quell criminal probes into Donald Trump's associates.
"It shows that the Trump administration cannot fully protect the president's former associates from federal criminal prosecution simply by firing US attorneys like Geoffrey Berman who honor their responsibility to seek impartial justice," said Bruce Green, a former prosecutor in the office who now directs Fordham University School of Law's, Louis Stein Centre for Law and Ethics.
Mr Green said in June that Berman's firing "certainly wasn't a routine decision, and the only fair inference is that there are some cases where the office is proceeding too independently".
Mr Bannon and three others are charged with defrauding online donors in the name of helping build the president's cherished southern border wall. Mr Bannon pleaded not guilty at a hearing in Manhattan on Thursday.
Trump campaign plasters The Washington Post with ads linking to claims debunked by paper’s fact checkers
Donald Trump's campaign has reportedly thrown $10m into an advertising push to coincide with the Democratic National Convention, which featured homepage takeovers of the Wall Street Journal and Daily Caller, as well as The Washington Post.
“More people will see our digital content than will watch Joe Biden’s convention itself,” said Trump's campaign coordinator Tim Murtaugh.
But a number of journalists have raised concerns over the glaring ads on The Washington Post’s homepage, especially because the paper has been a leading voice in holding the president to account.
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