Trump news: President's alleged business ties to IRGC stir controversy after he brands group a terrorist organisation
Read along for our coverage as the president cleaned house on Monday
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has labelled Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation in an unprecedented move that could have lasting consequences for the United States.
The president declared for the first time in history that another government entity was a terror group, potentially making it more difficult for American diplomats and other officials working in the region.
The move arrives a day after the president accepted of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, with whom he has repeatedly clashed over his administration’s more hardline immigration policies, as he seeks more drastic action to address the “crisis” at the US southern border.
Ms Nielsen's departure on Sunday was followed by the resignation of Randolph Alles, who was in charge of the Secret Service but had apparently fallen out of Mr Trump's good graces weeks ago.
Those two resignations were expected to be followed by more departures in the Department of Homeland Security in the days or weeks to come as a part of a phase that some in the media have begun to call a purge.
Also in the news was Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, who made eight criminal referrals to the attorney-general, William Barr, over the leaking of Mr Trump’s phone calls with ex-Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto and national security adviser Michael Flynn’s calls to a Russian ambassador.
Coming up this week, attorney general William Barr is slated to testify before both the House and the Senate on his department's budget for the coming year.
But, that testimony is likely to veer of track a bit as democrats grill him about the contents of the Mueller report, which he received last month.
Mr Barr as pledged to send the report to Congress in the coming weeks, but it remains to be seen just how much of the report might be redacted.
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And here's Ilhan Omar's pithy response to President Trump's "joke" about her to a Republican Jewish audience in Las Vegas over the weekend.
As threatened, the Trump administration has labelled the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Here's secretary of state Mike Pompeo:
And here's national security adviser John Bolton:
Here's our breaking report.
Worth remembering Iran threatened to retaliate if the US went ahead with an action Tehran considers "inappropriate and idiotic".
Here's Samuel Osborne's report.
“While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what’s important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House,” says speaker Nancy Pelosi in USA Today, apparently rebuking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Her remarks follow Barack Obama's concerns about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, offered during an Obama Foundation gathering in Berlin, Germany, over the weekend.
"One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States - maybe it’s true here as well - is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, 'Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,' and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a 'circular firing squad,' where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens."
Pelosi is not the only senior left-winger with a few tips for AOC...
Omar is not the only Democrat daring to speak out against Israel. As she found to her cost, this is an extremely difficult line to walk requiring the utmost delicacy.
2020 hopeful Beto O'Rourke attacked the country's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend and apparently did not get the memo.
Here's Conrad Duncan on Bernie Sanders' surge to the front of the field to take on Trump next year.
Here's the White House's response to the suggestion earlier President Trump had been urging Kirstjen Nielsen to bring back the separation of families policy at the border.
Another week, another top-level White House departure.
New reports are detailing an alleged collision between Donald Trump and his Department of Homeland Security secretary, amid the latest departure from the administration by a top-level Cabinet appointee.
Mr Trump has sought to reinstate his policy of separating migrant families at the US-Mexico border, according to an NBC News report published on Monday, a day after Kirstjen Nielsen announced her resignation from the White House.
The president’s calls to once again systematically separate migrant families — many of them arriving at the nation’s southern border legally while seeking asylum — reportedly put him at odds with Ms Nielsen, the sixth secretary to oversee the federal agency.
The homeland security chief told Mr Trump the agency was unable to reinforce his policy as it defied federal court orders prohibiting the measure, multiple sources told the outlet.
As Congress battles Donald Trump to get a hold of his tax returns, New York state’s Democratic lawmakers are introducing new legislation to effectively allow the House to request the president’s filings.
Brad Hoylman, who is sponsoring the legislation, said in a statement, “His representatives say they will block all congressional efforts ... it turns out that New York state has those returns and can do its part to assist the Congress."
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