Trump news: President praises ‘great people’ shouting ‘white power’ as Pelosi brands his alleged inaction over Russia-Taliban reports ‘as bad as it gets’
Lindsey Graham joins president on golf course as officials take aim at reported Russian plot to kill US troops
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Donald Trump has praised “great people” in footage he shared of furious protesters clashing over his presidency outside a Florida retirement home, in which one apparent supporter repeatedly shouts “white power” from a golf buggy.
The only black Republican senator Tim Scott urged him to remove the “indefensible” footage, which he later did. The White House claimed he did not hear the racist chant.
A White House spokesperson claimed that the president "did not hear the one statement made on the video" and that "what he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters."
While the president was on the golf course for a second consecutive day, this time with Senator Lindsey Graham, the administration faced intense scrutiny over allegations that it was warned about Russian bounties placed on US troops in Afghanistan in an alleged secret deal between Russian intelligence services and Taliban militias. The White House was warned by intelligence officials as early as January about the threat, according to reports.
Joe Biden accused the president of betraying “the most sacred duty we bear as a nation” after reports suggested he had been briefed months ago yet did “worse than nothing” in response. Mr Trump denied having been briefed or "told about" the reports, crying “fake news”, while the Kremlin dismissed the allegations as “nonsense”.
The president's former national security adviser John Bolton said the allegations are among "the most serious matters that has arisen in the Trump administration" and was "puzzled" by the president's apparent inaction and denial, as he pivoted to attacks on his Democratic opponent.
"What would motivate the president to do that?" Mr Bolton told CNN. "Because it looks bad if Russians are paying to kill Americans and we're not doing anything about it. So what is the presidential reaction? It's to say 'it's not my responsibility, nobody told me about it.' And therefore to duck any complaints that he hasn't acted effectively."
While the president Covid-19 infections soared by more than 40,000 for the third consecutive day.
Vice president Mike Pence has been forced to call off upcoming campaign events in Florida and Arizona amid coronavirus spikes in the Republican-governed states, which have pushed to abandon lockdowns in order to restart the economy. But he appeared at a Texas megachurch on Sunday to announced that "each day we are one day closer to putting this pandemic in the past" despite climbing case rates.
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Fox News to White House official: Why is Trump trailing in the polls?
Meanwhile, on Fox News, an indignant Maria Bartiromo asked White House trade advisor Peter Navarro why Donald Trump is trailing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the polls.
"How is it possible that the law-and-order president, in the middle of all of this, the president who’s got jobs and the economy number one, is trailing Joe Biden in every poll that you look at?” she asked, without referencing millions of people protesting in the streets and thousands of dead Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Navarro said he's “not a big head-to-head match-up poller" and said that election will come down to jobs, China and law and order.
With surging unemployment and coronavirus infections and hospitalisations, he said that Trump is “clearly the greatest jobs president in history”. He threatened that failure to reach a second term would be "the mother of all winters of discontent".
Lindsey Graham has joined Trump at his golf course
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has joined Donald Trump at his Virginia golf course on Sunday, the president's second consecutive day on the links.
It's the president's 272nd visit to one of his golf properties since the beginning of his presidency.
'Each day we are one day closer to putting this pandemic in the past': Mike Pence makes campaign stop at Texas church as coronavirus cases surge
After the campaign cancelled events due to spiking coronavirus cases, Vice President Mike Pence stopped at a Texas megachurch for a "Celebrate Freedom Rally" as the state grapples with a surge in Covid-19 cases.
"Each day we are one day closer to the day when we put this pandemic behind us," he said. "When we do, with this governor and this president, we'll bring Texas and America back bigger and better than ever before."
Yesterday, the state reported its highest single-day Covid-19 cases since the outbreak. Nearly 150,000 cases have been identified in the state, and Governor Greg Abbott has ordered bars to shut down after reopening.
Earlier on Sunday during an interview with CBS Face the Nation, Pence said he won't say Black Lives Matter because he believes "all lives matter".
He accused the racial justice movement of promoting a “political agenda of the radical left that would defund the police, that would tear down monuments, that would press a radical left agenda, and support calls for the kind of violence that has beset the very communities that they say that they're advocating for.” (The organisation does not call for violence.)
That same morning, the president shared a video of a supporter yelling "white power".
Donald Trump: Golfer
Back at the White House and retweeting his social media manager, Donald Trump – with Lindsey Graham – spent two days at his Virginia gold course as the nation's coronavirus cases surged and the administration was under fire for reportedly ignoring warnings that Russia paid bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops.
Report: Trump officials warned as early as January about Russian plot against troops
The New York Times followed Friday's bombshell report about an alleged Russian plot to pay Afghan militants to kill US troops with another report suggesting that the administration was warned about the plan as early as January.
On Sunday, the president denied involvement, saying that he was never briefed "or told" about intelligence reports and instead pivoted to attack his rival Joe Biden.
The plan was "well-known" among intelligence officials, according to The Times, as information was sent up the ladder to the White House, which reportedly held briefings on the report in March at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
US states race to reimpose lockdowns as Covid infections pass 2.5m – and Trump heads to golf course
A number of US states are racing to reimpose lockdowns amid a new leap of coronavirus infections that have taken the total to more than 2.5m – apparently triggered by the push to reopen the economy. As Donald Trump for the second successive day visited the Trump National golf course in Sterling, Virginia, the number of cases in the US hit at least 2,534,981, part of a global total of more than 10m.
Among the worst places to have been struck were rural counties in states including California, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Florida, that saw confirmed cases more than double in a week, from June 19 to last Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Andrew Buncombe reports:
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