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As it happenedended

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

Chris Riotta
New York
,Clark Mindock,Joe Sommerlad
Thursday 11 July 2019 17:52 EDT
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Donald Trump says 'the kidney has a very special place in the heart'

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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.

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Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load

The president is expected to begin delivering remarks at the White House social media summit in exactly 20 minutes from now.

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 20:10

Twitter went down on Thursday across major parts of the world including the US and the UK as users reported being unable to access the platform on web and mobile devices.

The outage occured just before Donald Trump was expected to deliver remarks at his White House media summit. 

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 20:37

The president is running late for his social media summit remarks. Perhaps it's due to the Twitter outage.

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 20:50

Donald Trump has begun his remarks at the presidential social media summit.

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 20:55

Donald Trump began his remarks on social media by celebrating the latest numbers from the stock market, claiming the "biggest impact proportionally is blue collar workers."

"People with 401ks are up 71 per cent," he also claimed. "Really every body is happy, some people just aren't willing to admit it, does that make sense?"

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 20:57

Donald Trump is now touting Dan Scavino, one of his advisers who served as the head of his communications team in 2016.

“Hillary had 28 people and I had Dan,” the president said. “I had my Dan.”

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 21:01

It should be noted Donald Trump invited a number of right-wing extremists and conservative influencers to his White House media summit, including an alleged plagiarist, a conspiracy theorist and a meme creator according to CNN.

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 21:02

“The crap you think of is unbelievable,” Donald Trump said to the conservative influencers he invited to the White House for his social media summit.

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 21:05

Donald Trump complained about his inability to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census and also touted his pardon for Scooter Libby at the White House social media summit. 

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 21:07

Donald Trump has invited Josh Hawley, the newly-elected Missouri senator. Mr Hawley has begun attacking platforms for allegedly "discriminating against conservatives."

"They ought to abide by the same principles of free speech ... that this country embraces," he continued. 

There is no evidence to claim platforms are suppressing conservative voices online, however.

Chris Riotta11 July 2019 21:09

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