Trump news: President 'fires pollsters' over results as Fox News survey has him trailing every single major Democratic candidate
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump's re-election team have cut ties with several pollsters after survey results were leaked to the press indicating the president would lose to his Democratic rivals in four key battleground states in 2020.
Those leaks have been accompanied by some more worrisome news for the incumbent: a new poll from Fox News finds him 10-points behind Joe Biden, nine behind Bernie Sanders and also forecast to lose in hypothetical match ups with Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.
Mr Trump spent his weekend attacking the “Corrupt News Media” on Twitter, and accusing The New York Times of “a virtual act of treason”. Meanwhile, he was honoured by Israel, which renamed a settlement in the Golan Heights in his honour.
As those troubling 2020 stats have trained eyes in Washington, the US State Department announced that it would no longer provide aid to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatamala until those countries take "concrete actions" to deter migrants from making their way north to the US.
And, comedian Jon Stewart has continued his fight to get funding for 9/11 victims to pass Congress, with his most recent spat coming with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
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Another Democratic rising star, Pete Buttigieg, has said the situation in Iran is "disturbingly reminiscent" of the build-up to the Iraq War in 2003.
"There's no question that Iran has a pattern of malign activities. There's also no question that there is a pattern that is disturbingly reminiscent of the run-up to the war in Iraq in some cases being driven by the same people," the war veteran said on CNN's State of the Union.
"I mean, the fact that one of the architects of the Iraq war is the president's national security adviser right now, when the president himself has pretended that he was against the Iraq War all along. This is shocking," the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said, referring to John Bolton, known for his reputation as a warmongering hawk and enthusiast for regime change.
Buttigieg also had this to say on Trump and the president's apparent belief he is above the rule of law.
Elsewhere, Mayor Pete told Axios on HBO he was "almost certain" America had previously had a gay president.
"I would imagine we've probably had excellent presidents who were gay - we just didn't know which ones." The mayor added it was "statistically... almost certain."
Pressed on which of the 45 presidents might have been gay, he answered: "My gaydar doesn't even work that well in the present, let alone retroactively. But one can only assume that's the case."
The founder of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei has said he expects the company to see a 40 per cent sales plummet as a result of attacks on it by the Trump administration after the president had the tech giant blacklisted as a national security threat.
“In the next two years, I think we will reduce our capacity, our revenue will be down by about $30bn (£23.8bn) compared to forecasts, so our sales revenue due this year and next will be about $100bn (£79bn),” said Ren Zhenfei.
Here's the full story from Ben Chapman.
Trump has dangled the possibility of his serving more than two terms in office more than once, a total fantasy that would require a major constitutional amendment. He's yet to even secure himself a second act and the prospect of that happening is by no means secure based on current evidence.
Here's Clark Mindock on the real delusion.
In case that doesn't work out for him, here's what would happen if he actually refused to leave office.
Here's Clark Mindock's exclusive and timely interview with Tulsi Gabbard, one of the more divisive and overlooked of the Democratic 2020 contenders, who argues that her campaign is about challenging US foreign policy orthodoxies like the pursuit of regime change that have dominated Washington thinking since the Second World War.
With the likes of Pompeo and Bolton talking tough on Iran, Gabbard - a Hawaii congresswoman and war veteran - says their brand of sabre-rattling is dangerous and needlessly places American troops in harm's way.
Exasperated by the president's stonewalling of congressional investigations, House Democrats are reportedly considering turning to former aides who never worked at the White House like Chris Christie, Corey Lewandowski, Rick Gates and Paul Manafort to serve as star witnesses before its committees, according to Politico.
This would mean they are exempt for the executive privilege protections that the president has used to prevent the release of key documents relating to the Russia investigation, also the pretext for persuading ex-adviser Don McGahn against speaking to the House Judiciary Committee.
Satirist John Oliver has added his voice to the growing calls for Trump's impeachment among progressives: "People are dying to see it happen."
Mayor Pete was due to attend a Pride gala in New York this evening but will now return to his Indiana constituency to oversee the response to a fatal shooting involving local police.
President Trump is tweeting about his re-election campaign launch in Orlando, Florida tomorrow.
The arena hosting the event only holds 20,000 people, so Mr Trump's campaign have set up something outside called "45 Fest" (Trump is the 45th president) that will involve music, food and big screens to watch the address.
Mr Trump has also been blasting the media reporting of his polls. We can assume the "Motley Crew" reference is to his potential Democrat rivals, hopefully not the band.
Speaking to ABC recently about former vice president Joe Biden apparently leading a 2020 match-up with Mr Trump in early polling, the president said: "I don't believe those polls, there is no way he beats me in Texas."
He also claimed, despite reports to the contrary, that his campaign's internal polling shows him "winning everywhere".
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