Trump news: Native Americans protest ahead of president's Mount Rushmore event as coronavirus cases continue to spike
Nation surpasses 50,000 cases for third consecutive day as violent Fourth of July speech defends monuments
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Donald Trump drew on his dark, campaign-style vision of a divided America at his Fourth of July fireworks show at Mount Rushmore, held in front of hundreds of people packed together and not wearing masks as the nation's coronavirus crisis reaches nearly 3 million cases and more than 128,00 deaths.
The US reported more than 50,000 cases on Friday for a third straight-day, with spikes in nearly every state as the US entered the three-day holiday weekend.
In his remarks, he promised to defend monuments and condemned what he called "far-left fascism" among protesters calling for the removal of statues honouring slaveholders and Confederates.
Roughly 100 protesters were met by National Guard troops who fired pepper spray at several people and arrested a handful of others.
The president promised to build a National Garden of American Heroes – "a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived" – including a complicated and likely controversial selection of American figures, from Amelia Earhart and Harriet Tubman to Antonin Scalia and Billy Graham.
The president also argued that Black Lives Matter protesters angered by the police killings of George Floyd and other black Americans would have wiped out the city of Minneapolis had he not sent in the National Guard to stop the demonstrations, while he picked fights with CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and Dr Anthony Fauci as he seeks to distract from the resurgent coronavirus.
Dr Fauci warned on Thursday that the US is “not going in the right direction” after the country reported 55,000 new cases of Covid-19 in a day, beating the world record for a daily rise set by Brazil on 19 June. Arizona, California, Florida and Texas alone accounted for 25,000 of that total as assistant health secretary Brett Giroir cautioned: “We are not flattening the curve right now. The curve is still going up.”
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Trump-supporting Superman actor makes a chump of himself on Fox and Friends
Dean Cain - who played the Man of Steel on TV in the 90s but was last heard from being red-pilled into starring as Peter Strzok in a spoof play called FBI Lovebirds at CPAC - appeared on the president's favourite breakfast show yesterday to complain that Superman could no longer fight for "truth, justice and the American way" any more because of PC libtard snowflakes (or something).
He was immediately schooled on the subject by DC comic book writers, of course.
Greg Evans has this one.
Trump jetting out to South Dakota for Mount Rushmore fireworks display as large crowds expected with no social distancing measures in place
Now where have we heard that one before?
Here's some handy build up from CNN's New Day.
The tumultuous history of Donald Trump and female reporters
Danielle Zoellner and Maya Yagoda recount this president's many beefs with the women of the White House press corps, from Paula Reid, Kaitlan Collins and Yamiche Alcindor to Weijia Jiang.
The NFL's Washington Redskins announces review of name
Native American groups have long campaigned for a change arguing that both the name of the team and the main logo are racist.
Ben Burrows reports.
It's a federal holiday today, so...
The president is at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. The in-town pool report states that the motorcade arrived at 9.52am, but the president was not seen.
There's always a small group of both protesters and supporters near the entrance of the club. Today a woman held a sign that read: "Trump is a traitor" and a man gave the motorcade a thumbs up.
Expect fireworks later
The literal kind, but maybe brace for others just in case.
The schedule for the remainder of the day is that the president and first lady will depart the White House at 4.45pm for Joint Base Andrews to take Air Force One to Ellsworth Air Force Base outside of Rapid City, South Dakota.
Travelling on to Keystone, South Dakota, the Trumps will head to Mount Rushmore to attend the 2020 Fireworks Celebrations, scheduled for 8pm Mountain Time.
After the fireworks, the president and first lady will return to Washington, DC, arriving back at the White House at approximately 4.30am on Saturday morning.
South Dakota and Covid-19
Ahead of the president's visit to Mount Rushmore, and the worries about the potential for a large crowd that may not be wearing masks nor practicing effective social distancing, let's take a look at South Dakota's coronavirus story.
With a population just over 880,000 and a density of just over 11.3 people per square mile, the largely rural state didn't see an initial spike in cases until mid-April when 181 cases were recorded in a single day.
Day-to-day case numbers dropped off after that before a second peak on 8-9 May when over 240 cases per day were reported. After a smaller increase in late May, the state has averaged approximately 60 cases per day since the beginning of June.
In total there have been 6,893 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and a total of 97 officially recorded deaths. The majority have been in the vicinity of Sioux Falls, the state's largest city.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has had roadblocks set up since March to stop the spread of coronavirus to their community, despite the threat of legal action from Governor Kristi Noem.
The Secretary of the Interior is promising big things for tonight.
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