Trump news: President defends gun rights and ICE raids, amid controversy over thumbs-up photo with El Paso baby
Donald Trump is facing criticism after new video footage emerged of him bragging about the size of the crowd at his El Paso rally earlier this year as he visited people recovering in hospital having been injured in last Saturday’s Walmart mass shooting, in which 22 people died.
The president is seen comparing his audience favourably to that summoned by “crazy” Beto O’Rourke, the local politician and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who has led the community – and the condemnation of President Trump – since the tragedy.
Mr Trump heads off on his summer golfing holiday on Friday with new gun control legislation no closer to realisation, his trade war with China still raging and the opposition-led House Judiciary Committee plotting an impeachment inquiry.
Speaking with reporters before departing the White House for the weekend, Mr Trump said that he received a “beautiful” three-page letter from Kim Jong Un and predicted that the two leaders would have more talks to try resolving the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Mr Trump has said he’s not bothered by the flurry of missiles that Mr Kim has launched in recent days, rattling US allies in the region.
The president said they were all short-range missiles and reiterated that North Korea has never broken its pledge to pause nuclear tests.
Mr Trump said Mr Kim told him in the letter that he was upset about recent US-South Korea military exercises, which North Korea sees as a threat.
The two leaders have met three times — in Singapore, Hanoi and the Korean Demilitarized Zone late last month — but no new talks have been scheduled.
At their second meeting in Vietnam in February, Mr Trump rejected Mr Kim’s demand for widespread sanctions relief in return for dismantling the North’s main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step.
Mr Trump said he’d received the letter on Thursday. “It was hand-delivered. It wasn’t touched by anybody,” Mr Trump told reporters on Friday at the White House.
“It was a very positive letter. I think we’ll have another meeting. He really wrote a beautiful, three-page letter ... a really beautiful letter," he said.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Joe Biden set the tone for Democrats at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday with an attack on Donald Trump for currying “the favour of white supremacists”, and a lecture to Breitbart worker who attempted to tell the former vice president he was misquoting the Republican’s “very fine people” comments after the deadly Charlottesville riot.
“I believe that everything the president says and has done encourages white supremacists, and I’m not sure there’s much of a distinction,” Mr Biden told reporters at the event when asked about Mr Trump’s perceived racism.
“As a matter of fact, it may be even worse. In fact, he’ll be out there trying to ... curry the favour of white supremacists or any group that … is anathema to everything we believe in. So, whether he is or is not a white supremacist, he encourages them. Everything he does, he speaks to them. He’s afraid to take them on.”
Joe Biden has said poor children are just as “talented as white kids” during a campaign event with Asian and Latino voters.
The former vice president made the gaffe, which some took to imply that all poor children are non-white, on the presidential campaign trail in Iowa.
He was speaking about students, wealth and achievement.
An armed Trump supporter sparked a security alert at an immigrant community centre in El Paso after he was spotted brandishing a knife and a gun outside.
Thomas Bartram, 21, was reported to police by staff who noticed him parked in front of the building in a truck plastered with the image of the US president dressed up as Rambo.
“He was outside the building acting strange, making threatening comments to volunteers outside because he saw that we had an anti-Trump sign on our window,” said community organiser Ana Tiffany Deveze.
The volunteers were so concerned – four days after 22 people were killed in a mass shooting in the city - that they locked themselves inside the Casa Carmelita building and called police.
Donald Trump has said he is in agreement with Kim Jong-un over the North Korea dictator's opposition to US-South Korea war games and suggested the pair will soon have a fourth meeting.
Speaking to reporters before departing the White House for his golf club in New Jersey, the US president also praised a "beautiful letter" he received from Mr Kim amid increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.
North Korea has conducted a series of missile tests in recent weeks, which Mr Trump said were all short-range missiles.
Here's all of the Trump properties that have reportedly used undocumented workers:
Bernie Sanders is hitting Donald Trump and Republican leadership over health care, saying his agenda is to “guarantee health care to all and save the average family thousands of dollars a year” -
Protestors opposing a fundraising event for Donald Trump in Southampton, New York are demanding gun control reform while calling out SoulCycle owner Stephen Ross for throwing the event —
Here’s video of Donald Trump addressing accusations that he’s racist from earlier today -
This concludes today's live coverage. Be sure to get outside this weekend, enjoy the fresh air and check back in to The Independent for the latest news and commentary.
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