Trump news – President ‘very disappointed’ in reports North Korea rebuilding missile site as Democrats threaten impeachment
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has said he is "very, very disappointed" to hear that North Korea is rebuilding a missile site that Pyongyang has said will be closed amid ongoing denuclearisation negotiations.
Earlier, the president lashed out at a number of old enemies on Twitter, including Hillary Clinton, showing his growing frustration with House Democrats and the investigations surrounding him.
In those tweets, the president accused the Democrats of “playing games” by instigating “McCarthyite” congressional investigations against him rather than getting on with the business of government, refusing to hand over files related to his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance to the House Oversight Committee and indicating he might not co-operate with the House Judiciary Committee’s abuse of power investigation into his inner circle.
As the investigations into Mr Trump have swirled, a damning new poll has emerged suggesting two-thirds of American voters believe he committed a crime before his election.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump also walked back his decision to pull all US troops out of Syria, saying he now agreed “100 per cent” with keeping a military presence there.
Meanwhile, the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will return to Capitol Hill for a fourth day of testimony.
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One hell of a paragraph in Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker's New York Times piece on the Cohen cheques:
"Some people close to Mr Trump have privately predicted that he will ultimately choose to seek a second term in part because of his legal exposure if he is not president. While there is no legal consensus on the matter, Justice Department policy says that a president cannot be indicted while in office."
In other words, insiders are suggesting in all serious Donald Trump is only running in 2020 to avoid facing the music, not because of any real dedication to "making America great again".
Homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has appeared before Congress for the first time to speak on the "national emergency" President Trump has declared at the southern border.
Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, she warned of the "humanitarian catastrophe" unfolding in Central America and called on Washington to support the border wall and crackdown on illegal immigration, "a crisis - pure and simple".
The new Customs and Border Protection statistics cited below declaring a 50 percent increase in illegal crossing in February year-on-year support her case.
The panel is expected to grill Ms Nielsen on the administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy and the practice of separating children from their parents in border detention centres.
Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is joining two protest groups - CREDO Action and By The People - at a Washington rally today calling for President Trump's impeachment, a line of attack House speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far discouraged.
Representative Tlaib has also courted controversy by expressing her support for fellow Democrat Ilhan Omar after the latter became embroiled in an antisemitism row after criticising the influence of Israeli lobby groups in the US capital.
President Trump reportedly made no fewer than 60 false claims in his two-hour address to CPAC in Maryland on Saturday night.
Don Jr is saying precisely what you'd expect him to following the publication of new illegal border crossing statistics.
For a contrary opinion, here's analyst Sarah Pierce from the Migration Policy Institute think-tank, who told The Independent: “Today’s numbers suggest that the administration’s chaotic approach to southern border security is actually encouraging illegal migration.”
Ms Pierce says the shift to non-points of entry suggested the Trump administration’s policy of metering - placing limits on the number of people who can claim asylum at a border checkpoint - and others have created circumstances that actively encourage illegal entry into the US from desperate refugees.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is currently giving testimony in the House, where Democrats are grilling her on issues like family separation and the situation at the border.
She had a shocking prediction: "We are on track to encounter close to one million illegal aliens at our southern border this year."
Here is DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on the most recent numbers form the US border.
“In February, we saw a 30 percent jump over the previous month, with agents apprehending or encountering nearly 75,000 aliens,” Ms Nielsen told the House Committee on Homeland Security. “This is an 80 percent increase over the same time last year. And I can report today that CBP is forecasting the problem will get even worse this spring as the weather warms up.”
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told the House Committee on Homeland Security that the Trump administration's view is that America needs to reform its immigration laws.
“We want to strengthen legal immigration and welcome more individuals through a merit-based system that enhances our economic vitality and the vibrancy of our diverse nation. We also will continue to uphold our humanitarian ideals,” she said. “But illegal immigration is simply spiraling out of control and threatening public safety and national security.”
Here's a latest tweet from Donald Trump as the Senate is poised to vote on his emergency declaration.
Worth noting: Congress has already voted on border wall appropriations (and voted against the president's agenda). Also, most Republicans vowing to vote against the president's emergency declaration are saying they are motivated specifically based on constitutionality and precedent.
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