Trump news: President folds over citizenship census question after hosting right-wing extremists and conservative influencers
President backs off Census demands and hosts right-wing extremists at social media summit
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump hosted a White House Social Media Summit on Thursday, where the controversial guest list included alt-right meme creators and a QAnon conspiracy theorist but no representatives from either Facebook or Twitter , after lavishing praise on himself as “great looking and smart”.
In the run-up to the event, the president retweeted a post by far-right columnist Katie Hopkins in praise of “Right Minded” world leaders like probable future British PM Boris Johnson, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Mr Trump has meanwhile found himself the victim of online ridicule after saying that the kidney “has a very special place in the heart” after signing an executive order directing his administration to develop policies addressing kidney-related health issues among Americans.
The president capped his day off by backing down from his 2020 Census demands, instead pursuing other avenues for collecting citizenship information after the Supreme Court blocked his census efforts.
The American Community Survey, which polls 3.5 million US households every year, already includes questions about respondents’ citizenship, so it is unclear what Mr Trump has in mind.
But Mr Trump appeared to preview his remarks at a White House social media summit, where he complained about being told: ”‘Sir, you can’t ask that question ... because the courts said you can’t.’”
Describing the situation as “the craziest thing,” he went on to contend that surveyors can ask residents how many toilets they have and, “What’s their roof made of? The only thing we can’t ask is, ‘Are you a citizen of the United States?’”
“I think we have a solution that will be very good for a lot of people,” he added.
Mr Trump had said last week that he was “very seriously” considering an executive order to try to force the citizenship question’s inclusion, despite the fact that the government has already begun the lengthy and expensive process of printing the census questionnaire without it.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
The buzz in Washington this morning is that Trump will soon make an announcement regarding the addition of that citizenship question to the 2020 census.
As senior Democrats from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to Joe Biden call for labour secretary Alexander Acosta to step down over the Jeffrey Epstein plea deal, vice president Mike Pence is out there defending him.
Here's Delaware Democratic senator Joe Machin, who voted in favour of Acosta's nomination, saying he would not have done so had he known about the plea deal.
And here's 2020 contender Amy Klobuchar calling for his head.
For Indy Voices, Andrew Buncombe puts a positive spin on the ousting of British diplomat Sir Kim Darroch.
Also for Voices, Robert Fisk looks at the impact of the Darroch affair for the Middle East.
One more from Indy Voices.
Here's St Louis Park native Suzy Corrigan on the local council of the Minneapolis suburb angering Trump by banning the Pledge of Allegiance.
In case you've missed the news, the president is expected to speak at 5pm local time from the White House on the US citizenship question.
There is some talk that he will issue an executive order to include the question on the 2020 census, even after the Supreme Court ruled his administration could not include it given their rationale.
In non-Trump news, the battle over American immigrants and healthcare got a tad bit more serious in California on Wednesday, after the governor of the state signed a bill extending coverage to some undocumented immigrants there.
The new law provides health insurance through the state's Medicaid programme to all individuals between the ages of 19 and 25, regardless of their immigration status.
Something to keep an eye on in the days ahead: Tropical Storm Barry has formed in the Gulf of Mexico, and could become a hurricane as it heads towards the coasts of Louisiana.
Should there be much damage from that storm, all eyes would once again be on Mr Trump and his reaction to storm damage in the US.
On the Democrat side today, House speaker Nancy Pelosi got a bit testy with reporters after they asked about rising tensions between her and some progressive members of the Democratic caucus, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
"We respect the value of every member of our caucus," she said.
She continued: "I said what I’m going to say on the subject. … So if you want to waste your question you can waste your question.”
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