Tag: Donald Trump

The Nelson Mandela foundation has hit back at remarks attributed to US President Donald Trump about anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

The remarks are from a new book by Mr Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, which comes out on Tuesday.

In the book, Mr Cohen claims Mr Trump made racist comments about Nelson Mandela.

He claimed Mr Trump said the late South African president was “no leader”.

“Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a shithole. They are all complete [expletive] toilets,” Mr Trump once said, according to Mr Cohen.

The White House says the lawyer is lying.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has said it did not believe that “leaders who conduct themselves in the way Mr Trump does are in a position to offer authoritative commentary on the life and work of Madiba”.

“Reflecting on leadership, Madiba once said: “A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.” We would recommend these words to Mr Trump for consideration,” the foundation said in a statement.

Source: bbc.com

President Donald Trump has paid tribute to his “best friend” and youngest brother following his death at 71.

“It is with [a] heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

The president had visited his brother in hospital in New York the day before his death, telling reporters: “He’s having a hard time.”

It is unclear what caused Robert Trump’s death.

A number of US media reports suggested he had been seriously ill.

“He was not just my brother, he was my best friend,” Donald Trump said in a statement on Saturday. “His memory will live on in my heart forever.”

President Trump’s son Eric described his uncle as an “incredible man – strong, kind and loyal to the core”.

“He will be deeply missed by our entire family,” he wrote on Twitter.

Robert was the youngest of Fred and Mary Anne Trump’s five children, and was born two years after his brother Donald.

The eldest of the children, Fred Jr, died in 1981.

Robert Trump spent much of his career with the family real-estate firm, becoming a top executive. Unlike his brother, however, he was said not to court publicity and lived semi-retired in New York state.

He recently went to court in a failed bid to stop publication of his niece Mary Trump’s tell-all book about the president, How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

According to the New York Post, Robert spent more than a week in the intensive-care unit of Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital in June.

Source: bbc.com

President Donald Trump on Saturday, August 8, 2020, signed executive actions extending financial relief to Americans hit by the Coronavirus pandemic as polls showed a large majority of voters unhappy with his handling of the crisis.

The four measures marked a presidential show of strength after Trump’s Republican party and White House team failed to agree with opposition Democrats in Congress on a new stimulus package aimed at stopping vulnerable Americans from falling through the cracks.

“We’ve had it and we’re going to save American jobs and provide relief to the American workers,” Trump said at a press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he was spending the weekend.

With double digit unemployment, disruption to businesses from social distancing rules, and persistent Coronavirus spread, many Americans had been relying on relief measures approved earlier by Congress, but which mostly expired in July.

Trump said his decision to circumvent Congress with executive actions would mean relief money getting “rapidly distributed.”

In reality, his measures are likely to face court challenges because Congress controls federal spending, and in any case they may add up to less money than initially appears.

For Trump, lagging badly in the polls against his Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the November 3 presidential election, the orders were partly about showing he is in charge.

He turned the signing ceremony in the ballroom of the golf club into an assault on his opponents and threw in several false claims about his accomplishments in office.

To cheers from club members invited to watch the event, Trump insulted the Democratic “crazy” leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, denounced Biden as “far left,” and claimed that Democrats want to “steal the election.”

Biden called Trump’s orders Saturday “a series of half-baked measures.”

“They are just another cynical ploy designed to deflect responsibility,” Biden said, adding that Americans need a “real leader” who would work to hammer out a deal with lawmakers.

Haggling in Congress

One key Trump order promises to get $400 a week added to Americans’ unemployment benefits, while two others offer some protection from evictions and relief for student loans.

The $400 assistance is below the $600 offered in the expired stimulus package. It may also end up amounting only to $300 extra a week, because Trump said $100 would be provided from state, not federal, budgets – and only if states were willing or able to do so.

A fourth measure – opposed by many Republicans as well as Democrats – ordered a freeze in payroll taxes. This makes a big headline for Trump but is only a deferral, rather than a cut in the tax.

“Today’s meager announcements show President Trump still does not comprehend the seriousness or the urgency of the health and economic crises facing working families,” Pelosi said on Twitter Saturday. “These policies provide little real help for families.”

Democrats, Republicans and White House negotiators had worked all last week without coming close to a deal on an overall congressional relief bill for those struggling to make ends meet in the world’s richest economy.

Democrats pushed for a massive new $3 trillion stimulus package aimed at propping up the economy, repairing the tattered postal system in time for the presidential election and giving the unemployed an extra $600 a week.

Democrats later announced they could drop the price tag but refused the Republicans’ offer of a $1 trillion package.

Source: france24.com

Donald Trump‘s top government experts now say that the pandemic is entering a new phase as it invades the rural heartland — and they can’t say how long it will last.

With millions of kids nowhere near going back to school and the economy reeling from a 32.9% annualized contraction in the second quarter, the months ahead are stretching into what looks like an endless crisis as Trump tweets “Make America Great Again” and spends his weekends on the golf course.

Top administration officials in recent days have repeatedly delivered information and warnings that directly contradict Trump’s upbeat messaging on Friday on the virus: “We’ll get rid of it, we’ll beat it, and it will be soon.”

Amid this grim outlook, the administration and Capitol Hill Democrats are deadlocked on a plan to extend federal unemployment payments to millions of Americans who lost their jobs in lockdowns.

Dr. Deborah Birx delivered a series of stunning warnings on CNN’s “State of the Union” five months into a pandemic that the President once said posed no threat to Americans but has now killed more than 150,000 of them.

“What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread. It’s into the rural as equal urban areas,” Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, told CNN’s Dana Bash.
Birx even suggested that some Americans in multi-generational families should start wearing masks in their home and assume that they already have the disease.

She did not reject a warning by former Federal Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb that there could be 300,000 coronavirus deaths by the end of the year, saying, “Anything is possible.”
“To everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune or protected from this virus,” Birx said.

Her comments came after her colleague, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told a House committee on Friday it was “unclear” how long the crisis will last. But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans to brace for an average of 1,000 deaths a day for the next 30 days.

And while there are some signs that infections have plateaued in sunbelt states in the last week, albeit at high levels, Birx’s words suggest new epicenters are looming, a situation hardly consistent with Trump’s description of “embers” of infection.

The President speaks optimistically about a coming vaccination — though experts say it could still be months away — and boasts about advances in therapeutics and of building thousands of ventilators. But the horrible statistics of the pandemic are relentless with 1,000 Americans dying almost every day. And the administration response appears — as it has from the start — short of the scale needed to beat back the worst public health crisis in 100 years.

‘Assume you are infected’

With a vaccine still lacking, Birx also warned that too many Americans were not taking the virus sufficiently seriously, in another jarring disconnect from the President’s messaging.

“Across America right now, people are on the move … as I traveled around the country, I saw all of America moving. I think it’s our job, as public health officials, to be able to get a message to each American that says, if you have chosen to go on vacation into a hot spot, you really need to come back and protect those with comorbidities and assume you’re infected.”
Despite the worsening crisis, there is no sign of a new administration approach, or evidence of an effort to set up the massive testing and tracing nationwide program that experts say is needed to finally get a handle on the crisis.

But surprisingly, Birx said the administration had already re-examined its approach.
“I think the federal government reset about five to six weeks ago when we saw this starting to happen across the South,” she told Bash.

At the start of a rough six-week period that saw the virus surge unimpeded through Florida, Texas, Arizona and other states that Trump pressured to open before the pathogen was under control, Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the coronavirus task force, declared in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the US is “winning the fight” and there “isn’t a ‘second wave.’”
Birx has faced criticism for becoming too compliant with the administration’s political line rather than following the science where it leads.

Birx defended herself on “State of the Union” after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she didn’t have confidence in the veteran public health official because she was an appointee of a President who is spreading disinformation.
“I have never been called Pollyannish or non-scientific or non-data-driven,” Birx said on “State of the Union.”

Birx contradicted the President’s call for schools to open everywhere, saying that where there is a high caseload and active community spread, where people shouldn’t go to bars or have house parties, they should “distance-learn at this moment so we can get this epidemic under control.”
Another senior administration official involved in the fight against the pandemic, testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir, contradicted the President’s fresh touting of hydroxychloroquine last week as a potential treatment for Covid-19.

“At this point in time, there’s been five randomized controlled, placebo controlled trials, that do not show any benefit to hydroxychloroquine,” Giroir said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

“I think most physicians and prescribers are evidence-based and they’re not influenced by whatever is on Twitter or anything else,” he said. “And the evidence just doesn’t show that hydroxychloroquine is effective right now.”

Trump’s disconnect on the crisis

Far from showing that he understand the depths of the calamity and has a plan to address it, Trump spent the weekend spreading lies and disinformation in between two trips to his golf course in Virginia, again underscoring how he has declined to adopt the leadership role that would have been expected from a traditional president during a grave national crisis.
He again falsely claimed that the only reason there are more cases of the virus is because the US is doing new testing. He gloated about “Big China Virus breakouts” in nations where reopenings have caused viral spikes and where leaders did a better job in quelling the virus than he did in the United States. Trump also claimed falsely that the media was not reporting on such hotspots around the world.

The President also launched a new attack on Fauci, who said last week that the reason Europe did better containing the initial pandemic was because it shut down far more of its economy that the President allowed in the US.

Trump’s tweets followed a report by Vanity Fair last week that Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner worked on a secret national testing plan last spring before the approach was rejected, reportedly for political reasons, in favor of putting the responsibility for fighting the virus on
individual governors.

Since then, tens of thousands of Americans have died and experts say there still is not sufficient testing capacity to flatten the infection curve of the virus. Many test results are coming back far too slowly to be of any use controlling the spread of the disease. The White House says the premise of the article is wrong and misstates the facts.

Deadlock in stimulus talks

Hopes that a new coronavirus stimulus program could soon come to the rescue of millions of Americans who rely on federal unemployment payments to pay for food and rent were dashed as both sides in the talks dug in on Sunday.
Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are due to meet for further talks on Monday.
Pelosi rejected the administration’s argument that the $600 unemployment benefit was stopping Americans from returning to work but did not specifically say it was a deal breaker.

“The $600 is essential. It’s essential for America’s working families. And, again, to condescend, to disrespect their motivation is so amazing … how insistent the Republicans are about a working family and their $600 and how cavalier they are about other money that is going out,” the speaker said.
Mnuchin argued that the White House had proposed a one-week unemployment benefit extension of $600 as negotiations continued, but had been rebuffed by Democrats. Without giving details, the Treasury secretary also said he and Meadows made “three or four” other offers to the Democrats to deal with enhanced unemployment.

Unemployment “should be tied to some percentage of wages, the fact that we had a flat number was only an issue of an emergency,” Mnuchin said. “There are cases where people are overpaid, there are cases where people are underpaid. The issue is, we need to come up with an agreement to extend this,” Mnuchin said on ABC News’ “This Week.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that while “good progress” was made in the talks between the White House and Democrats, they are “not close” to an agreement yet.

That’s not very reassuring for struggling Americans whose unemployment assistance expired last week.

Source: cnn.com

Top Republicans have rejected President Donald Trump’s suggestion that November’s presidential election should be delayed over alleged fraud concerns.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy both dismissed the idea.

Mr Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election, as any delay would have to be approved by Congress.

Earlier, the president suggested that increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results.

He floated a delay until people could “properly, securely and safely” vote. There is little evidence to support Mr Trump’s claims but he has long railed against postal voting, which he has said would be susceptible to fraud.

US states want to make mail-in voting easier because of public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Trump’s intervention came as new figures showed the US economy had suffered the worst contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

How have Republicans reacted? Senator McConnell said no US presidential election had ever been delayed before.

“Never in the history of this country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. We will find a way to do that again this November third,” he told local Kentucky station WNKY.

Mr McCarthy echoed him. “Never in the history of the federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election,” he said.

Trump ally Senator Lindsay Graham meanwhile said a delay was “not a good idea”.

However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to be drawn on Mr Trump’s suggestion. Quizzed by reporters on whether a president could delay an election, he said he would not “enter a legal judgement on the fly”.

The spokesman for Mr Trump’s re-election campaign, Hogan Gidley, said Mr Trump had just been “raising a question”.

What did Trump say? At a Thursday afternoon White House news conference, Mr Trump denied he wanted to postpone the election, but argued that mass postal voting would leave the result in doubt.

“I don’t want to delay, I want to have the election,” he said. “But I also don’t want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t want to see a crooked election,” Mr Trump also told reporters. “This election will be the most rigged election in history if that happens.”

In a series of tweets earlier, Mr Trump railed against mass postal voting and warned – without providing evidence – that it would be susceptible to foreign interference.

Source: BBC

Donald Trump has called for November’s presidential election to be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results.

He suggested a delay until people can “properly, securely and safely” vote.

There is little evidence to support Mr Trump’s claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting which he has said would be susceptible to fraud

US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: bbc.com

The Trump administration is planning to withdraw some federal security forces from Portland, Oregon, after weeks of clashes with protesters.

US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the pullout was conditional on local police protecting federal buildings, the focal point of unrest.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said federal agents would start leaving the state’s biggest city from Thursday.

Portland has been rocked by 62 consecutive days of demonstrations.

What did federal and state officials say?

In his statement, the US homeland security secretary set no timeline for a pullout.

But he said he and the governor had “agreed to a joint plan to end the violent activity in Portland directed at federal properties and law enforcement officers”.

“That plan includes a robust presence of Oregon State Police in downtown Portland.”

He added that “state and local law enforcement will begin securing properties and streets, especially those surrounding federal properties, that have been under nightly attack”.

The governor tweeted on Wednesday: “They have acted as an occupying force & brought violence. Starting tomorrow, all Customs and Border Protection & ICE officers will leave downtown Portland.”

But she added that federal officers from the US Marshals Service and Federal Protective Service will stay at the courthouse, where they are usually based.

Following the announcement, President Trump, a Republican, declared victory, tweeting: “If the Federal Government and its brilliant Law Enforcement (Homeland) didn’t go into Portland one week ago, there would be no Portland.

“It would be burned and beaten to the ground. If the Mayor and Governor do not stop the Crime and Violence from the Anarchists and Agitators immediately, the Federal Government will go in and do the job that local law enforcement was supposed to do!”

Hours after the announcement on Wednesday night, hundreds of protesters gathered in the city centre near the courthouse building.

What happened in Portland?

The security forces were sent there on 4 July to protect federal buildings that were vandalised during weeks of protests against racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May.

Their deployment exacerbated the civil unrest, especially when footage emerged of demonstrators being grabbed off the street by federal officers and forced into unmarked cars.

The governor and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, both Democrats, complained they never asked for the federal intervention, blasting it as an election-year stunt by the US president.

The Mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse in the city centre has become a nightly battleground, with both federal officers and demonstrators injured in bloody confrontations.

According to oregonlive.com, medics, journalists and legal observers have also been hurt by rubber bullets and pepper balls fired by the federal officers.

In tandem with the crackdown in Portland, the Trump administration has sent in federal agents to several Democratic-run US cities rocked by rising gun crime: Chicago, Kansas City and Albuquerque.

The US Department of Justice said on Wednesday it would also send federal officers to three more Democratic-run US cities – Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee – owing to “disturbing increases in violent crime, particularly homicides”.

Source: bbc.com

Donald Trump has called for November’s presidential election to be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results.

He suggested a delay until people can “properly, securely and safely” vote.

There is little evidence to support Mr Trump’s claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting which he has said would be susceptible to fraud

US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.

Source: bbc

President Donald Trump of the United States and Vice President Mike Pence visited sites on Monday where multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously.

This marked the start of the largest Phase 3 clinical trial yet as he aims to deliver 300 million safe and effective doses by January 2021.

The facilities which have begun production house the first batch of a possible vaccine developed by Novavax — a Maryland company which received $1.6 billion from the US federal government under Operation Warp Speed, and a different vaccine candidate developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. These vaccines and therapeutics include drug remdesivir and convalescent plasma.

Mixed Responses and a Divided Public

Trump’s standing in the polls — trailing former US Vice President Joe Biden less than 100 days before the elections in November, underscores the urgency to deliver a vaccine in time for the presidential elections in the hopes of guaranteeing a second term.

However, it is precisely because of the impending Election Day looming over him that some members of Congress fear that this aggressive push for a vaccine — after the initial dreadful mishandling of the pandemic by the administration, might incite him to take unethical shortcuts in the vaccine-approval process.

Many view this as not only a potentially problematic political move to secure votes but also a highly risky endeavour that could be dangerous to national public health.

This not only comes in the wake of a fresh nationwide spike in coronavirus cases but could leave the already hard-hit US economy in an even more complex predicament if it fails.

Only time will tell

About 4.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States and there have been more than 146,000 deaths. Many White House officials believe that a vaccine is necessary to fully restore a sense of normalcy in the country.

The US Supreme Court is set to decide whether President Donald Trump’s tax returns and other financial records can be examined by Congress and prosecutors – a ruling with potentially huge political consequences.

Mr Trump refuses to share documents concerning his fortune and business.

His lawyers argue he enjoys total immunity while in office.

The ruling will test that claim and has implications on how far US lawmakers can scrutinise the president.

Even a ruling in Congress’s favour would not necessarily make Mr Trump’s tax returns public before his bid for re-election in November.

Mr Trump, who made his money as a property developer, is the first president since Richard Nixon in the 1970s not to have made his tax returns public.

He calls the investigation into his tax affairs a “witch hunt” and sees the congressional case as a device to harass him politically.

Why has this gone to the Supreme Court? Two Democrat-controlled House of Representatives committees and New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance – also a Democrat – are demanding the release of his tax returns and other information.

The subpoenas – orders to hand over evidence – were issued last year to Mazars USA, who are Mr Trump’s accountants, and to major Trump lenders Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

Lower courts in Washington and New York ruled against the president in all cases, but those decisions have been put on hold pending a final court ruling.

Deutsche Bank was one of the few banks willing to lend to Mr Trump after a series of corporate bankruptcies in the 1990s, and the documents sought include records related to the president, the Trump Organization and his family.

The banks and the accounting firm said they would release the information if ordered.

Mr Trump’s lawyers argued that Congress had no authority to issue the subpoenas, and no valid justification to seek the records.

Why is it sensitive politically?

Damaging revelations about President Trump’s financial affairs could hurt his campaign for re-election. He has already slumped in opinion polls, as critics accuse him of mishandling the coronavirus crisis.

The New York investigation covers alleged hush money payments made by Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to two women – adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal – who both say they had affairs with Mr Trump.

Such payments could violate campaign financing laws. The president denies the affairs took place.

Concerns have already been raised about possible conflicts of interest in Mr Trump’s businesses.

At hearings in May there was fierce debate among the Supreme Court judges over the degree to which Congress should scrutinise the president’s personal records.

In the New York case, they were sceptical about a Trump lawyer’s argument that a president cannot be investigated while in office.

This is despite the court having a 5-4 conservative majority and including two Trump appointees – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

In two earlier cases over presidential power, in 1974 the Supreme Court acted unanimously in requiring President Nixon to surrender White House tapes in the Watergate scandal, and 1997 it allowed a sexual harassment lawsuit to go ahead against President Bill Clinton.

Judges appointed by Mr Nixon and Mr Clinton voted against them in the cases.

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for protesters who target monuments to be imprisoned.

The measure says anyone who damages a public statue must be prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the law”.

Mr Trump’s order also calls for withholding federal funds from local jurisdictions and police departments that fail to stop such “mob rule”.

A number of US statues have been pulled down since the police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.

The president issued the order on Friday evening hours after he abruptly cancelled a planned trip to his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, writing on Twitter that he would stay in Washington DC to “make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced”.

The measure says: “Many of the rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies – such as Marxism – that call for the destruction of the United States system of government.”

It accuses the protesters of “a deep ignorance of our history”.

The order cites the recent targeting of a San Francisco bust to Ulysses S Grant, who owned a slave before he became Union Army commander and defeated the slave-owning Confederacy during the Civil War, a statue in Madison, Wisconsin, of an abolitionist immigrant who fought for the Union, and a Boston memorial commemorating an African-American regiment that fought in the same conflict.

“Individuals and organizations have the right to peacefully advocate for either the removal or the construction of any monument,” the executive order says.

“But no individual or group has the right to damage, deface, or remove any monument by use of force.”

It cites existing laws providing for up to 10 years in prison for anyone who damages federal property.

The order warns local jurisdictions that neglect to protect such monuments could face having their federal funding tied to public spaces withheld.

Police departments that have failed to guard statues from damage or vandalism could also lose such funds, the order warns.

It also states that anyone who “damages, defaces, or destroys religious property, including by attacking, removing, or defacing depictions of Jesus or other religious figures or religious artwork” should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The measure appears to refer to a recent Twitter post by prominent social justice activist Shaun King who wrote that “statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down”.

The tweet added: “They are a form of white supremacy.”

Monuments linked to the Confederacy have been especially targeted in the US amid the nationwide protests ignited by the death of Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a month ago.

President Trump has defended Confederate symbols as a part of American heritage.

Statues of Christopher Columbus, the 15th Century explorer whose voyages on behalf of Spain opened the way for the European colonisation of the Americas, have also been targeted as perceived symbols of imperialism.

Some state and local leaders have themselves taken action to remove Confederate symbols.

Earlier this month, Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam announced that a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee would be taken down from the state capital in Richmond.

Source: BBC

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has rejected claims that a social media campaign by Tik-Tok users and K-Pop fans was behind lower-than-expected turnout for Saturday night’s Oklahoma rally.

Teenagers are said to have booked tickets without intending to turn up so as to produce empty seats.

But the Trump 2020 team said it had weeded out bogus reservations.

Mr Trump had said he expected one million to come.

The Bank of Oklahoma Center venue in Tulsa seats 19,000. The event was also planned to extend outside, though that part of it was cancelled.

The Tulsa fire brigade is quoted as saying more than 6,000 attended, but the 2020 campaign suggested the figure was much higher.

The team’s campaign director said in a statement that “phony ticket requests never factor into our thinking” as entry to rallies is on a first-come first-served basis. Brad Parscale blamed the media and protesters for dissuading families from attending.

“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,” Mr Parscale said.

“Registering for a rally means you’ve RSVPed [confirmed attendance] with a cellphone number and we constantly weed out bogus numbers, as we did with tens of thousands at the Tulsa rally, in calculating our possible attendee pool.”

A number of parents responded to Mr Schmidt’s post saying that their children had done likewise.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading progressive figure, praised the young people and K-pop fans she said had “flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations”.

It is unclear how many of the hundreds of thousands of ticket reservations touted by the Trump campaign were fake, but one TikTok video from 12 June encouraging people to sign up for free tickets to ensure there would be empty seats at the arena has received more than 700,000 likes.

The video was posted after the original rally date was announced for 19 June.

The news had sparked angry reaction because it fell on Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of US slavery. The location of the event, Tulsa, was also controversial, as it was the site of one of the worst racial massacres in US history.

After news of the smaller crowd numbers emerged, the account’s owner Mary Jo Laupp praised the response, telling young people who were too young to vote: “Remember that you, in doing one thing and sharing information, had an impact.”

If true, it would not be the first time social media users have shown their political impact in recent weeks.

Fans of K-pop, South Korea’s popular music industry, have been active in drowning out hashtags used by opponents of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in recent weeks, and raised money following the death of African-American George Floyd last month.

Disclaimer : “Opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not in any way reflect those of backend.theindependentghana.com. Our outfit will hereby not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article.”

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump has fired a top federal prosecutor who refused to leave office, Attorney General William Barr has said.

Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on Friday that he had learned he was “stepping down” in a press release.

Mr Berman insisted he would stay in post and continue his investigations.

On Saturday, Mr Barr told him that he had asked the president to remove him immediately, and that he had done so.

Top US Democrat Nancy Pelosi said she believed there were “base and improper motives” in the sacking of Mr Berman and that the Attorney General “must be held accountable for his actions”.

Mr Berman oversaw the prosecution of a number of Mr Trump’s associates.

They included the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has served a prison sentence for lying to Congress and election campaign finance fraud.

Mr Berman’s department has also been investigating the conduct of Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s current personal lawyer.

What happened on Friday?

The row between the attorney general and the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan began on Friday night, when Mr Barr issued a press release announcing that Mr Berman was “stepping down” after two-and-a-half years in the post.

Mr Berman had “done an excellent job”, achieving “many successes on consequential civil and criminal matters”, Mr Barr said.

He added that the president intended to nominate Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton, who has never served as a federal prosecutor, as Mr Berman’s successor.

Not long afterwards, Mr Berman issued his own a statement, saying he had learned he was “stepping down” from the press release.

“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” he added. “I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate.”

Mr Barr’s announcement appeared to surprise the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham.

He said Mr Clayton’s nomination would still have to be approved by New York’s two Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, who are both Democrats.

Senator Schumer tweeted: “This late Friday night dismissal reeks of potential corruption of the legal process. What is angering President Trump? A previous action by this US Attorney or one that is ongoing?”

Why did the president fire Mr Berman? In a letter to Mr Berman released by the justice department on Saturday, Mr Barr wrote that they had discussed his intention to appoint Mr Clayton as US attorney and that he had hoped for co-operation “to facilitate a smooth transition”.

“Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service. Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the president to remove you as of today, and he has done so,” he added.

Mr Barr said Mr Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, would become the acting US attorney and that he anticipated she would serve in that capacity until a permanent successor was in place.

Later, Mr Berman said that “in light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law” and to have Ms Strauss become acting US attorney, he would be leaving office, “effective immediately”.

“It has been the honour of a lifetime to serve as this District’s US attorney and a custodian of its proud legacy, but I could leave the district in no better hands than Audrey’s.”

“I know that under her leadership, this office’s unparalleled AUSAs [Assistant United States Attorneys], investigators, paralegals, and staff will continue to safeguard the Southern District’s enduring tradition of integrity and independence,” he added.

Before leaving the White House for a campaign rally in Tulsa, President Trump told reporters that the decision to fire Mr Berman was a matter for the attorney general.

“That’s his department, not my department. But we have a very capable attorney general, so that’s really up to him. I’m not involved.”

Disclaimer : “Opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not in any way reflect those of backend.theindependentghana.com. Our outfit will hereby not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article.”

Source: bbc.com

The US Supreme Court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s bid to end a programme that protects hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

The justices upheld lower court rulings that found his move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme was “unlawful”.

It protects “Dreamers”, who entered the US without documents as children.

The Trump administration has sought to end the Obama-era policy since 2017.

The Supreme Court took up the case after lower courts ruled that the Trump administration did not adequately explain why it was ending the programme, criticising the White House’s “capricious” explanations.

On Thursday, the justices voted 5-4 to uphold the lower courts’ findings that the administration’s order violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which says a government action cannot be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law” or “unsupported by substantial evidence”.

Disclaimer : “Opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not in any way reflect those of backend.theindependentghana.com. Our outfit will hereby not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article.”

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump sought help from Chinese President Xi Jinping to win re-election, ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton’s new book says.

Mr Bolton says Mr Trump wanted China to buy agricultural produce from US farmers, according to details of the forthcoming book previewed by US media.

He also says Mr Trump “remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House”.

The Trump administration is trying to block the book from hitting shelves.

Speaking to Fox News Mr Trump said of Mr Bolton: “He broke the law. This is highly classified information and he did not have approval.”

“He was a washed-up guy,” the president added. “I gave him a chance.”

John Bolton joined the White House in April 2018 and left in September the following year, saying he had decided to quit as a national security adviser. President Trump, however, said he had fired Mr Bolton because he disagreed “strongly” with him.

His 577-page tome, The Room Where It Happened, is due to go on sale on 23 June.

But on Wednesday night, the Department of Justice sought an emergency order from a judge to stop the book’s release.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, said in a statement: “Tonight’s filing by the government is a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility.”

It said hundreds of thousands of copies of the book have already been distributed around the world and the injunction would accomplish nothing.

Mr Trump’s Democratic challenger in this November’s election, Joe Biden, said in a statement about the book: “If these accounts are true, it’s not only morally repugnant, it’s a violation of Donald Trump’s sacred duty to the American people.”

What does Bolton allege about the meeting with Xi?

The allegations refer to a meeting between President Trump and President Xi at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in June last year.

“Trump, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election [in 2020], alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Mr Bolton wrote.

“He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”

Farmers make up a key voting bloc and largely supported Mr Trump in the 2016 election.

Speaking on Wednesday evening, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer disputed Mr Bolton’s account, saying the request for help with re-election “never happened”.

Mr Bolton also mentions an earlier conversation at the summit’s opening dinner, in which they discussed the building of camps in China’s western Xinjiang region.

Mr Trump said the construction should go ahead as it was “exactly the right thing to do”.

China has detained about a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the camps for punishment and indoctrination.

The Trump administration has been publicly critical of China’s treatment of Uighurs, and on Wednesday the president signed legislation authorising US sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang province.

China denies mistreating Uighurs and attacked the US move, calling it malicious and threatening countermeasures.

On one hand, the account John Bolton offers in his new book should seem somewhat familiar.

This is hardly the first time a former adviser or anonymous current aide to Donald Trump has offered anecdotes about a president seemingly uninterested in the details of governing and uninformed on basic issues of foreign policy. For nearly three-and-a-half years, there have been plentiful stories about a White House rife with backbiting and internal power struggles.

Mr Bolton’s book goes beyond this well-trodden ground, however, in painting a broad portrait of a president willing to bend foreign policy to advance his domestic and personal political agenda. This was the heart of the impeachment case congressional Democrats made against Trump in January.

Mr Bolton confirms their allegations that the president wanted the withholding of military aid to pressure Ukraine to provide damaging information about Democratic rival Joe Biden. Mr Bolton adds that Trump’s dealings with China were also done with an eye on his re-election and that he repeatedly intervened to assist friendly autocrats around the world.

Republicans suggest this is all the work of a disgruntled employee trying to sell books, while Democrats are already growling that Bolton should have volunteered these bombshells during the impeachment proceedings. That ship has sailed, of course, but Bolton’s book can still have a bite, distracting a presidential campaign struggling to find its footing less than five months before election day.

What else did Mr Bolton say?

Mr Bolton says the impeachment inquiry into the president might have had a different outcome this year if it had gone beyond Ukraine and investigated other instances of alleged political interference.

In January, President Trump was impeached for withholding military aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into starting a corruption investigation into Mr Biden and his son Hunter.

The president denied the wrongdoing and was acquitted after a two-week trial in the Republican-controlled Senate in February, which did not include any witnesses.

Mr Bolton – who was criticised by Democrats for declining to testify to the hearings – does not discuss in the book whether he thinks that Mr Trump’s actions on Ukraine were impeachable.

The publication contains a number of other damaging allegations:

‘Oh, are you a nuclear power?’

Among other things, Mr Trump is alleged to have been unaware that the UK was a nuclear power.

Britain’s atomic deterrent came up during a meeting with Theresa May in 2018 when it was mentioned by one of the then-prime minister’s officials.

According to the book, Mr Trump said: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” Mr Bolton said he could tell it “was not intended as a joke”.

Mr Trump also once asked his former chief-of-staff John Kelly if Finland was part of Russia, writes Mr Bolton.

Invading Venezuela would be ‘cool’

Mr Trump said invading Venezuela would be “cool”, according to the book, and that the South American nation was “really part of the United States”.

But he was less enthusiastic about another invasion. Of the Afghanistan conflict, Mr Trump is quoted in the book as saying: “This was done by a stupid person named George Bush.”

Mr Bolton writes that in a May 2019 phone call Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled off a “brilliant display of Soviet-style propaganda” by likening Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, which “largely persuaded Trump”.

Mr Putin’s objective was to defend his ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Mr Bolton writes. In 2018, Mr Trump labelled the leftist Mr Maduro a dictator and imposed sanctions, but he clung to power.

In an interview with ABC News to be broadcast in full this Sunday, Mr Bolton says of Mr Trump: “I think Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle.”

‘This is a bad place’

Mr Bolton writes that many of the president’s closest aides privately disparaged him.

When he arrived at the White House, Mr Bolton said Mr Kelly warned him: “You can’t imagine how desperate I am to get out of here. This is a bad place to work, as you will find out.”

During Mr Trump’s 2018 meeting with North Korea’s leader, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo passed Mr Bolton a note about the president that said: “He is so full of shit.”

He writes that Mr Pompeo, often described as a Trump loyalist, was among aides who considered resigning in disgust in frustration at working for the president.

Mr Bolton writes that the president “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government.”

Disclaimer : “Opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not in any way reflect those of backend.theindependentghana.com. Our outfit will hereby not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article.”

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump is postponing his first post-coronavirus lockdown election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma so it does not fall on a holiday commemorating the end of US slavery.

He tweeted that the 19 June rally would be held a day later out of respect for the occasion, known as Juneteenth.

The choice of date had drawn criticism amid nationwide anti-racism protests.

The location was also controversial, as Tulsa saw one of the worst massacres of black people in US history in 1921.

Up to 300 people died when a white mob attacked the prosperous black neighbourhood of Greenwood, known as the “Black Wall Street”, with guns and explosives. About 1,000 businesses and homes were also destroyed.

Why is Juneteenth significant?
Juneteenth is not a federal holiday, but is widely celebrated by African Americans.

It celebrates the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved African Americans in Texas.

Texas was the last state of the Confederacy – the slaveholding southern states that seceded, triggering the Civil War – to receive the proclamation, on 19 June 1865, months after the end of the war.

President Trump initially defended the timing of his rally, telling Fox News: “Think about it as a celebration. My rally is a celebration. In the history of politics, I think I can say there’s never been any group or any person that’s had rallies like I do.”

But critics accused him of disrespecting the date and the significance of Tulsa to US history.

“This isn’t just a wink to white supremacists – he’s throwing them a welcome home party,” said Democratic Senator Kamala Harris.

Explaining the decision to move his rally, Mr Trump tweeted: “Many of my African American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date out of respect for this Holiday, and in observance of this important occasion and all that it represents. I have therefore decided to move our rally to Saturday, June 20th, in order to honor their requests…”

Why is Trump holding a rally?

The “Make America Great Again” rally in Tulsa will be the president’s first campaign event since 2 March, when the coronavirus pandemic put a halt to mass gatherings.

Mr Trump is seeking re-election in November 2020, but polls show him lagging behind his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

Campaign rallies are seen as a key method of energising his base, and Oklahoma is traditionally a Republican-voting state.

The event will proceed against a backdrop of ongoing protests against racial inequality and police brutality, triggered by the death of African American man George Floyd on 25 May. Mr Floyd, who was unarmed, died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota after a policeman knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

The rally is being held in a 19,000-seat indoor arena, and concerns have been raised about the potential risks.

The US has the world’s highest official death toll from coronavirus. More than 114,600 people have died there with the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and there have been more than two million confirmed infections.

Oklahoma has one of the country’s lowest infection rates, and businesses are reopening – but the state’s Governor Kevin Stitt has urged residents to keep social distancing and to “minimise time spent in crowded environments”.

People buying tickets for the Tulsa rally online have to click on a waiver confirming that they “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to Covid-19” and will not hold the president’s campaign responsible for “any illness or injury”.

Correspondents say that while the virus remains a threat, Mr Trump’s campaign considers that large crowds at the recent protests will make it harder for his opponents to criticise his rallies.

The president has said he plans to hold further events in Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Arizona.

Source: bbc.com

This morning, I happen to see an unusual story on google. It is a habit I’ve cultivated over the years to do small research once I touch my phone. However, today happens to be a different story altogether. I wanted to get a meme to laugh about in order to kick off my day with a good mood.

I went to google search bar and typed ‘pictures of idiot’. Surprisingly, I thought I didn’t put in the right phrase. I deleted it and typed the same phrase, ‘pictures of idiot’. Again the same pictures came. The pictures of President Trump of USA.

This is the screenshot as a proof of it. From the conclusion I gathered, the word ‘idiot’ happens to be used by the US president some years ago. Because of that, the word idiot has been attached in some of his speech on social media and other platforms. Being a world know figure, his pictures are the ones that appears whem you search for the word idiot.

The president is known for his strict rules and principles. He says whatever he deems right without thinking about the effect on his victim. Basically, president Trump has been giving remarks about the Chinese government which is likely to spark off a war. World leaders have tried to calm the tension between these two countries.

You can also try and see for yourself.

Source: operanewsapp.com

US President Donald Trump is to hold his first re-election campaign rally for several months in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the date that African Americans celebrate the end of slavery.

The rally will take place on 19 June, known as “Juneteenth”.

The Trump campaign said his Republican Party was proud of its role in winning the Civil War and ending slavery.

The news follows weeks of anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody.

In 1921 the city of Tulsa was the site of one of the worst massacres of black people in US history.

Mr Trump’s rallies, seen as vital for energizing his base, were suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak in March.

He faces re-election in November but is lagging behind his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in the polls.

Correspondents say that while the virus remains a threat, Mr Trump’s campaign considers that large crowds at the recent protests will make it harder for his opponents to criticise his rallies.

Announcing the venue, Mr Trump alluded to the low rate of coronavirus infections in Oklahoma – at 7,500 cases one of the lowest in the country.

“We’re going to be starting our rallies,” he said. “The first one… will be in Oklahoma, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Beautiful new venue, brand new and they’re looking forward to it. They’ve done a great job with Covid, as you know, in the state of Oklahoma.

He said further rallies would take place in Florida, Texas and Arizona, but he made no mention of what safety precautions would be taken and whether social distancing would be applied.

Also on Wednesday, Mr Trump rejected calls to rename military bases named after Confederate generals.

Why are the date and venue controversial?

Juneteenth is an annual commemoration of the end of slavery. While not a federal holiday, it is celebrated widely by African Americans.

It celebrates the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved African Americans in Texas.

Texas was the last state of the Confederacy – the slaveholding southern states that seceded, triggering the Civil War – to receive the proclamation, on 19 June 1865, months after the end of the war.

The location of the rally in Tulsa is also highly significant.

In May and June 1921 a white mob attacked the prosperous black neighbourhood of Greenwood, known as the “Black Wall Street”, with guns and explosives – killing up to 300 people and destroying about 1,000 businesses and homes.

Defending the timing of the rally, Trump campaign aide Katrina Pearson said in a statement, quoted by Bloomberg, “that the party of [Civil War victor Abraham] Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth”.

She added that Mr Trump had “built a record of success for black Americans”.

But the Biden campaign criticised the decision, with senior aide Kamau Marshall calling Mr Trump a racist.

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump is to hold his first re-election campaign rally for several months in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the date that African Americans celebrate the end of slavery.

The rally will take place on 19 June, known as “Juneteenth”.

The Trump campaign said his Republican Party was proud of its role in winning the Civil War and ending slavery.

The news follows weeks of anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody.

In 1921 the city of Tulsa was the site of one of the worst massacres of black people in US history.

Mr Trump’s rallies, seen as vital for energising his base, were suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak in March.

He faces re-election in November but is lagging behind his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in the polls.

Correspondents say that while the virus remains a threat, Mr Trump’s campaign considers that large crowds at the recent protests will make it harder for his opponents to criticise his rallies.

Announcing the venue, Mr Trump alluded to the low rate of coronavirus infections in Oklahoma – at 7,500 cases one of the lowest in the country.

“We’re going to be starting our rallies,” he said. “The first one… will be in Oklahoma, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Beautiful new venue, brand new and they’re looking forward to it. They’ve done a great job with Covid, as you know, in the state of Oklahoma.

He said further rallies would take place in Florida, Texas and Arizona, but he made no mention of what safety precautions would be taken and whether social distancing would be applied.

Also on Wednesday, Mr Trump rejected calls to rename military bases named after Confederate generals.

Why are the date and venue controversial?

Juneteenth is an annual commemoration of the end of slavery. While not a federal holiday, it is celebrated widely by African Americans.

It celebrates the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved African Americans in Texas.

Texas was the last state of the Confederacy – the slaveholding southern states that seceded, triggering the Civil War – to receive the proclamation, on 19 June 1865, months after the end of the war.

The location of the rally in Tulsa is also highly significant.

In May and June 1921 a white mob attacked the prosperous black neighbourhood of Greenwood, known as the “Black Wall Street”, with guns and explosives – killing up to 300 people and destroying about 1,000 businesses and homes.

Defending the timing of the rally, Trump campaign aide Katrina Pearson said in a statement, quoted by Bloomberg, “that the party of [Civil War victor Abraham] Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth”.

She added that Mr Trump had “built a record of success for black Americans”.

But the Biden campaign criticised the decision, with senior aide Kamau Marshall calling Mr Trump a racist.

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump says he will “not even consider” renaming military bases named for Confederate generals.

He tweeted that the facilities were part of “a Great American heritage”.

Mr Trump’s remarks follow reports that top military officials were open to changes amid nationwide soul-searching after the death of George Floyd.

For many, symbols of the Confederacy – the slaveholding southern states that seceded, prompting the 1861-65 American Civil War – evoke a racist past.

Confederate monuments have been a frequent target for protesters following Floyd’s death.

On Wednesday night a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was brought down by protesters in Richmond, Virginia.

Meanwhile, demonstrators in the nearby city of Portsmouth attacked a Confederate monument, tearing down four statues, according to local media reports.

Source: bbc.com

President Trump has said he will start election campaigning next week, with his first rally scheduled for next Friday in Oklahoma.

“We’re going to be starting our rallies. We believe the first one will probably be in Oklahoma, Tulsa, Oklahoma,” he told reporters. “They’re all going to be big.”

Trump hopes to be reelected for a second term in November – but his poll numbers see him trailing behind Democrat opponent Joe Biden.

Both the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and the Black Lives Matters movement, seem to have dented his popularity.

Due to virus restrictions, political rallies – which were key to his 2016 campaigning – had been impossible in recent weeks.

Source: bbc.com

“I built the greatest economy in the world, the best the U.S has ever had. I am doing it again!”

The world of politics is characterized by the ability to lobby. To be able to engage in any political activity, one must possess the capacity of constructing logically valid arguments, in order to convince people for their votes. Sometimes, in the process of soliciting for votes, you have to make the people aware of some of the things you have achieved, giving the people the assurance that you will achieve similar results provided they give their votes to you.

In a recent Tweet by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, he claimed that he had built the greatest economy in the world, the best the U.S has ever had. He added that he is doing it again.

It is pretty obvious such words are meant for the people to notice the amazing works of Trump in order to give their votes to him in the nations Presidential elections in November this year. Let us look at some of the achievements of Trump, to see if his claims are genuine.

On January 23, 2017 President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, which blocks funding for international organizations that perform or promote abortion. This new program is known as Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA), which now covers $8.8 billion in family planning and global health funds that go to organizations abroad (none of whom may perform or promote abortion).

On January 16, 2018 the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief with the District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on behalf of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. The Archdiocese had wanted to promote a religious message during the Christmas holiday but, had been denied advertising space within the District’s public transit system.

On April 12, 2019 the Trump administration’s policy on military service by those with gender dysphoria went into effect. This policy will help halt the deterioration of military readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion caused by social experimentation in the military.

On May 18, 2020 USAID Acting Administrator John Barsa sent a letter to the UN Secretary General advocating that the UN not push abortion during the coronavirus crisis. Barsa noted that abortion is not an “essential service,” and there are many actual health needs at this time. Therefore, the United States, which stands with the international pro-life community under the Trump administration, does not look kindly on these efforts to promote abortion.

These are few of the numerous achievements of Donald Trump which can win him another tenure of office. But will Trump stand a chance in the impending elections especially when the nation recorded higher numbers of racial injustices in his term of office?

Source: opera.com

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has strongly criticised President Donald Trump’s handling of anti-racism protests, saying he has “drifted away” from the constitution.

The Republican, a former top military officer, is the latest to condemn Mr Trump’s response, including his threats to use the army to quell unrest.

He said he would vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden in November’s poll.

President Trump responded by calling Mr Powell “highly overrated”.

Mr Powell, the only African American so far to have served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has joined a growing list of former top military officials to have launched scathing attacks on President Trump.

It comes amid days of nationwide protests against racism and police brutality sparked by the death of African-American George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on 25 May.

On Sunday, nine of 13 Minneapolis City Council members pledged in front of hundreds of protesters to dismantle the local police department and instead create “a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe”.

Meanwhile, security measures across the US were lifted as unrest started to ease. New York ended its nearly week-long curfew, and Mr Trump said he was ordering the National Guard to start withdrawing from Washington DC.

Source: bbc.com

US President Donald Trump has approved a plan to withdraw 9,500 American troops from bases in Germany by September, US media say.

Mr Trump, who has long complained that European members of Nato should spend more on their own defence, reportedly wants US troop levels capped at 25,000.

Troops would either be redeployed elsewhere or return home, US media report, citing a government official.

Tensions between the US and its Nato allies have increased under Mr Trump.

The president has said that Europe’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) members should no longer be relying so heavily on the US to shoulder the costs of maintaining the alliance.

On Friday, Mr Trump directed the Pentagon to permanently remove almost a third of the country’s troops currently based in Germany, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unnamed administration official.

It added that the US Defense Department would need to approve the plan before it could be implemented.

The White House did not immediately confirm the reports, but spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement that the US remained “committed to working with our strong ally Germany” on defence and other issues.

Mr Trump has previously raised the issue of so-called burden-sharing at Nato summits.

The debate focuses around the target agreed by all alliance members that defence spending should reach 2% of GDP (gross domestic product, the total value of goods produced and services provided) by 2024.

Last year, Nato’s civilian and military budget was about €1.67bn (£1.43; $1.84bn), its own figures show.

The US military presence in Germany is a legacy of the post-World War Two Allied occupation of the country. Germany currently hosts by far the largest number of US forces in Europe, followed by Italy, the UK and Spain.

Some US personnel based in Europe support non-Nato operations and US military numbers fluctuate as forces are rotated in and out of Europe.

Source: bbc.com

Struggling to get life solutions? Contact Mugwenu Doctors. They use herbs and strong spiritual powers to heal long term disease such as pressure, diabetes, ulcers, gonorrhea, syphilis. Life Problems such as love, family problem, hardships in business. For consultation, Call: +254740637248
www.mugwenudoctors.com