Trump news: Congress files tax return lawsuit as president rages against Robert Mueller and insists military leaders 'thrilled' to take part in 4th of July tank display
Another day of controversy and chaos in Washington
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has hit out at Robert Mueller on Twitter and insisted the US military is “thrilled” to be taking part in his “Salute to America” celebration for the Fourth of July as the House Ways and Means Committee launches a lawsuit to acquire his tax returns.
In an exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News broadcast on Monday night, the president criticised homelessness in American cities, spoke of his optimism that his trade war with China would ultimately be won and benefit farmers and accused the social media giants of “possibly illegally” blocking him from gaining new followers before expressing his desire to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, which he called, “the Harvard of terrorists”.
A delegation of Democratic congressmen and women have meanwhile visited a number of migrant detention centres at the US-Mexico border in Texas, speaking out against the squalid conditions they found there and the behaviour of some Border Patrol agents overseeing the facilities.
Images released Tuesday by US government inspectors who visited facilities in South Texas where migrant adults and children who crossed the nearby border with Mexico are processed and detained showed overcrowding and seemingly unsanitary conditions.
As public outrage grows over the conditions in which thousands of people — some no more than a few months old — are being held by the US government, the report offered new cause for alarm.
It quotes one senior government manager as calling the situation “a ticking time bomb.”
“Specifically, when detainees observed us, they banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody, and gestured to evidence of their time in custody,” the report says.
BuzzFeed first reported on a draft version of the report, which blurs most faces in the photos.
An autopsy report also released Tuesday confirmed that a 2-year-old child who died in April had multiple intestinal and infectious respiratory diseases, including the flu.
Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez is one of five children to die after being detained by border agents since late last year. Two of the other four also had the flu.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
President Trump and the Republican Party together raised $105m (£83m) in the second quarter this year, with Trump's re-election campaign taking in $54m (£42.7m) of the total, the president's campaign said on Tuesday.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) brought in $51m (£40m) from April to June, the campaign said in a statement. Together, the two entities have $100m (£79m) in cash on hand, with $56m (£44m) for Trump's campaign and $44m (£35m) for the RNC, it said.
In the first quarter of 2019, Trump's campaign raised more than $30m (£24m) and the RNC took in nearly $46m (£36m) from January to March.
The RNC and Trump's campaign have linked their financial and operational forces before the November 2020 presidential election, the groups saying the uptick in donations would allow them to double their digital investment to boost online efforts to raise money and target donors.
"The RNC's record-breaking fundraising has allowed us to identify troves of new supporters online and continue investing in our unprecedented field programme," committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a separate statement.
McDaniel has dismissed any notion of a Republican challenger to Trump in 2020.
Carpe Donktum - the alt-right creator of such memes beloved of Trump as "Joe Biden molests himself" and "Democratic debate power outage" - appears to have scored himself an invite to the White House for a social media summit.
Assuming this isn't "fake news", of course.
Trump here in PT Barnum mode, huckstering for the "greatest show on earth!" on 4th of July.
Here's the latest on Trump's "Salute to America".
I'll just bet those boys are thrilled.
China has accused Donald Trump of "gross interference" in Hong Kong’s affairs after the US president said protesters simply wanted democracy for the semi-autonomous region.
Yesterday, hundreds of protesters stormed the headquarters of the city’s legislative council, smashing windows and pictures, amid growing anger over an extradition bill with mainland China.
Trump told reporters that the protesters were “looking for democracy” but added that “some governments don’t want democracy”, in an apparent criticism of Beijing's strict political rule.
Here's Conrad Duncan's report.
Here's Jay Caruso for Indy Voices on Trump and Fox News's hypocrisy regarding Kim Jong-un.
Also for Indy Voices, Scott Lucas asks whether Trump has resigned the world to a nuclear North Korea by crossing the DMZ.
Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is filing a lawsuit in federal court today seeking to compel the Internal Revenue Service to turn over Trump's tax returns, The Washington Post reports.
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