Trump news: President rages over impeachment hearing, escalates Iran tensions on Twitter and names ASAP Rocky 'hostage negotiator' as national security chief
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump — visiting California for fundraisers and a trip to his US-Mexico border wall – has lashed out at the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearings against him, calling them “the greatest political scam in US history!” at the start of a chaotic day on Twitter.
The president also announced he would be increasing sanctions on Iran and named Robert O’Brien as his new national security adviser to replace John Bolton, the State Department diplomat last heard from attempting to intervene as a “hostage negotiator” when US rapper A$AP Rocky was detained in Sweden and charged with assault.
Mr Trump’s ex-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski could meanwhile be held in contempt of Congress over his stonewalling before the Judiciary panel on Tuesday, a tense hearing in which he refused to answer questions, appeared to admit lying to the media, promoted his website during a bathroom break and was told his behaviour was “completely unacceptable”.
Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve once again slashed interest rates, the second time since July.
The slash caused Mr Trump to lash out at Jerome Powell, the Fed's chairman, on Twitter.
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California governor Jerry Brown is punching back after Donald Trump decided to announced cuts to a waiver for the state.
According to a Downing Street spokesperson, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump had a phone call earlier today, in which they condemned the attack on Saudi oil facilities.
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is in Washington today, and spoke to Congress this morning.
Here's a snippet of what she had to say, according to prepared remarks: "I am submitting this report as my testimony, because I don’t want you to listen to me. want you to listen to the scientists. And I want you to unite behind the science. And then I want you to take action."
THIS JUST IN: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the attacks on Saudi oil facilities were an "act of war", but provided little details or evidence that has not already been made public.
"We were blessed that there were no Americans killed in this attack but any time you have an act of war of this nature, there’s always risk that that could happen,” he said.
He added later: “This is an attack of a scale we’ve just not seen before."
"This was an Iranian attack. It’s not the case that you can subcontract out the devastation of 5% of the world’s global energy supply and think that you can absolve yourself from responsibility. Were it the case that the Houthis’ fraudulent claim was accurate, were that true — it’s not, but were that true, it doesn’t change the fingerprints of the Ayatollah as having put at risk the global energy supply."
Iran's foreign minister has accused Donald Trump of escalating the economic war on his country, at the expense of ordinary Iranians.
In a tweet, here's the response to Mr Trump's increased tariffs:
The US Federal Reserve has cut interest rates for the second time in three months, in the latest signal that the economic oversight body is concerned with the state of the global economy.
Donald Trump had some nice words about his newly named national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, before boarding Air Force One just now.
From the White House pool report, and slightly edited:
“He’s worked with me for quite awhile now on hostages and we have a tremendous track record on hostages.” Mr Trump called Mr O’Brien “highly respected” and “very talented.” “Robert has been fantastic. We know each other well.” He said the national security adviser role is very important if it’s someone the president respects. O’Brien called it a “privilege” to take the adviser role. “We’ve got a number of challenges.”
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