Trump news: President claims he fired John Bolton, as former security adviser texts Fox News hosts live to say this isn't true
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump claimed he fired John Bolton in a tweet on Tuesday as polls showed his approval rating falling 38 per cent, down six points on his July career-best according to a new ABC News/Washington Post, as concerns over the fate of the American economy linger.
The president's abrupt announcement created a flurry of dramatic TV news, with Mr Bolton apparently texting Fox News hosts a simple message: "Let's be clear," he reportedly texted the network's Brian Kilmeade. "I resigned."
The president meanwhile held his latest “Keep America Great” rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Monday night, attacking the “America-hating left”, scaremongering about the release of “horrible, hardened criminals” in sanctuary cities and saying he rolled back energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs because: “I look better under incandescent light”. On another wild evening before a crowd of his most feverish supporters, Mr Trump also made a false claim about voter fraud in California and took sole credit for the US being awarded the 2026 FIFA World Cup and joked about serving a third term in order to be in office when the tournament gets underway.
During his year and a half at the White House, Mr Bolton had particular success in shaping the administration’s policies toward the United Nations and other international organizations, such as the International Criminal Court, as well as advocating for hardline measures on Venezuela and Cuba.
Mr Bolton had launched a broadside campaign against the International Criminal Court that resulted in the US revoking the visa of the court’s chief prosecutor after she sought permission to open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by American troops and others in Afghanistan.
With the national security adviser on his team, Mr Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, a position advocated by Mr Bolton.
The deal had been negotiated by the Obama administration to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions, and some in the administration favoured staying in the agreement.
His tenure in the White House was not without its many controversies, of course.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey refused to meet with Mr Bolton during his visit to Turkey to discuss US plans to withdraw troops from Syria in January.
The Turkish president was angered after Mr Bolton called for Turkish security assurances for the US-backed Kurdish forces as a condition for the withdrawal.
The president himself also appeared to undercut Mr Bolton’s public condemnation of missile tests by North Korea.
“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Mr Trump tweeted. “Some” of his “people” appeared to include Mr Bolton, who had told reporters just hours earlier that North Korean missile tests violated UN Security Council resolutions.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Donald Trump has concluded his remarks at the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Conference in Washington.
Here is ex-National Security Adviser's resignation letter to Donald Trump, signed on Tuesday and effective immediately -
Donald Trump has reportedly expressed opposition to using foreign intelligence, a key way the US operates around the world:
Wilbur Ross, the US secretary of commerce, threatened to fire top employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after the agency’s Birmingham, Alabama office contradicted Donald Trump's tweet claiming that Hurricane Dorian would likely hit Alabama, according to a report from The New York Times.
Mr Ross's threat led to the release of an unsigned letter from NOAA disavowing not only the Birmingham tweet, but the organisation's own knowledge of the storm, in favour of the president's false claim.
The Alabama saga began Sunday, September 1, when Mr Trump warned Alabama that they would "most likely be hit" by Hurricane Dorian, along with other states actually in the incoming storm's path. About an hour later, Birmingham's NOAA office tweeted "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian," emphasising that it the storm would remain too far east to affect the state. This was correct.
A fun fact from the other side of the pond: Just five per cent of Europeans trust Donald Trump, with a majority wanting the EU to stay neutral in conflicts between Russia and the US, a new continent-wide poll has found.
A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) found that the US president is unanimously seen as "toxic" by America's closest ally.
Released to coincide with the appointment of the EU commission, the polling finds that a majority of EU citizens in every country polled would prefer the EU to strike a middle way between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin's regime.
↵Here's more from The Independent's Felicia Sonmez on why the president has abruptly called off peace talks with the Taliban:
The conservative outlet One America News is suing Rachel Maddow and MSNBC for $10m after the nightly news host called it “paid Russian propaganda” because of one of its journalist's links to the Kremlin-owned news agency Sputnik News.
The lawsuit names Maddow, MSNBC, Comcast and NBCUniversal Media, and alleges the comments were made in retaliation after One America News President Charles Herring accused the cable television giant Comcast of censorship.
Maddow was discussing a report published in the Daily Beast on her 22 July show that said an employee for the conservative outlet also worked for Sputnik News.
"In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda," she said at the time. “Their on-air US politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government.”
Here's an opinion piece from The Independent's Jay Caruso on why John Bolton's exit from the Trump administration might actually be a bad sign, no matter what you think of the ex-national security adviser:
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A pastor has said Donald Trump caused him to suffer “intense vitriol and hatred” when the US president mistook him on Twitter for a reporter.
The incident occurred last week amid an international furore over repeated false claims by Mr Trump that a hurricane would “most likely” hit Alabama.
After a host of media outlets pointed out Mr Trump’s error, the president doubled down, climaxing in the White House appearing to falsify a national weather service map using a Sharpie to make it appear Hurricane Dorian had been forecast to strike the southern state.
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The apparent firing of White House national security adviser John Bolton marks just the latest departure for an administration that has turned heads for its high level of turnover.
After Donald Trump became president in January 2017, the administration gained notoriety for its tumult and chaos as the newly minted administration found its legs.
While the rate of removal has slowed somewhat following the 2018 midterms, the sheer number of high-level departures is notable.
Here’s a list of those departures, and how long they lasted in the White House.
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