Trump news: President asserts executive privilege over subpoenaed documents as he rages over humiliating polls
Another day of chaotic news stemming from the White House
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Your support makes all the difference.California senator Kamala Harris, one of the leading Democratic candidates to challenge the president in 2020, has said the Justice Department would have little choice but to pursue criminal obstruction charges against Donald Trump if she were elected to the Oval Office.
President Trump has meanwhile lashed out on Twitter suggesting reports about internal polling indicating he might lose next year’s race are “Fake numbers” and the work of the “Fake (Corrupt) News Media”.
In Washington, the House Intelligence Committee is staging a hearing on lessons learned from the Mueller report while the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, is due to appear before the equivalent Senate committee behind closed doors.
The president was meanwhile joined on Wednesday by Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, when he announced he will send 1,000 more US service members to Poland as part of his broadening security and economic alliance.
Mr Trump said the Polish government will pay for the infrastructure to support the additional troops, and he praised Poland for increased defense spending to meeting its NATO commitments.
Earlier in the Oval Office, the president said the United States has based tens of thousands of troops in Germany for a “long, long time” and that he probably would move a “certain number” of those personnel to Poland, “if we agree to do it.”
Mr Trump also said Poland is buying more than 30 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets from the US. In recognition of that purchase, a single F-35 flew over the White House on a sunny afternoon. Mr Duda looked up and waved as the jet passed.
“They’re going to put on a very small show for us and we’re doing that because Poland has ordered 32 or 35 brand new F-35s at the highest level,” Mr Trump said.
US officials also said earlier this week that Mr Trump, in addition to the additional troops, would send a squadron of Reaper drones to Poland to aid its self-defense amid concerns about Russian military activity.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Yesterday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that she does not believe that President Trump is trailing former vice president Biden in a hypothetical 2020 race as she defended her boss.
"I think the polling got it completely wrong in 2016, I don't think it's right now," Ms Sanders told reporters in what has become a common refrain for the Trump camp.
"I'm not worried about polling," she said after being pressed about Trump internal polling. "The president has an incredible record, he's had tremendous success and we feel very comfortable about where we are as an administration."
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis on the president's extraordinary remarks about IT in the Midwest during his speech yesterday.
For Indy Voices, Molly Jong-Fast asks whether Joe Biden is playing "16-dimensional chess" or simply screwing up by insisting bipartisanship is alive and well in the age of Trump.
Veteran chat show host David Letterman has branded Trump "psychotic" and said he would like give him a dressing down on his new Netflix show.
Letterman has interviewed the president more than 30 times over the course of their long respective careers, reflecting: "I had no sense that he was the soulless bastard that he's turned into."
"Everybody says, 'Oh, wouldn't you like to talk to Donald Trump [today]?' And I would. I would just like to say, 'Don, it's Dave. Remember me? I want to talk to the real Donald Trump.' Because I now don't know which is the real Donald Trump, and if the Donald Trump that I was talking to [back then] was the real Donald Trump."
Here's Jacob Stolworthy's report.
Donald Trump Jr quipped to reporters that he had "nothing to correct" before heading into a closed door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee:
Kamala Harris, one of the leading Democrats in the 2020 primaries, has announced her Justice Department would have “no choice” but to prosecute Donald Trump over his alleged obstruction of justice if she were elected.
“I mean look, people might, you know, question why I became a prosecutor. Well, I'll tell you one of the reasons — I believe there should be accountability," the California Democrat and former top prosecutor said on Wednesday in an episode of NPR Politics Podcast.
She added, “Everyone should be held accountable, and the president is not above the law."
Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents related to his administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census:
As CNN’s Manu Raju notes, the Justice Department’s claims that the census documents “are protected from disclosure by the deliberative process” will likely lead to yet another court battle:
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