Donald Trump spent his Saturday golfing at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, in the company of scandal-hit ex-NFL quarterback Brett Favre before toasting wealthy prospective donors at an evening fundraiser for his re-election campaign, taking to Twitter to brag about his exploits on Sunday.
While the president was enjoying himself, the year’s first tropical storm from the Atlantic – Hurricane Hanna – made landfall in southern Texas, the US passed 1,000 deaths from the coronavirus for the ffifth straight day and Black Lives Matter protests saw tense standoffs between demonstrators and federal agents in cities from Portland and Seattle in Oregon to Oakland, California.
On Sunday, White House Task Force member Admiral Brett Giroir admitted that the administration’s Covid-19 testing turnaround was still too slow and that more needed to be done as Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows put his faith in “American ingenuity” to lead the country out of the pandemic.
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Fox News host Maria Baritromo plainly asked Department of Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf why the agency doesn’t arrest Portland leadership as massive Black Lives Matter protests continue in the city. Small groups have damaged property.
She asked: “Why can’t you just arrest the leadership in Portland, because of, you know, they’re ignoring what’s going on the ground?”
Secretary Wolf, overseeing a deployment of federal officers into American cities, answered that “we are absolutely are doing that” – though it’s unclear whether he meant protest organisers or elected officials.
“We’re working with the FBI there in Portland, the US Attorney’s office there in Portland, to address the leaders that are organising this and then going after them,” he said. “If the city government won’t, the federal government will hold these folks accountable.”
He later said that elected officials are doing “absolutely nothing” about protesters.
Let’s break down this tweet, shall we?
And The Washington Post? Its publisher used to be Reagan’s chief of staff. He’s on the board of the foundation.
Like several other recent polls conducted by completely different groups, a recent Fox News poll shows Joe Biden ahead in key battleground states that the president won in 2016. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan is among Fox board members, which do not conduct Fox News polls.
And with that, here is the tweet:
More Americans are pessimistic about the direction of their country than at any point during Donald Trump’s presidency, as the nation continues to struggle with the coronavirus, protests against police brutality that have at times turned violent, and a venomous presidential election that has exposed deep political divides.
Roughly eight in 10 Americans say the country is going in the wrong direction, according to a new poll from the Associated Press and the NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
Just 38 per cent of those polled said the state of the national economy is good, down nearly half from 67 per cent in January, before Covid-19 was known to have reached US shores.
More from the polls, from Washington correspondent Griffin Connolly:
A federal judge in California has denied a Trump administration effort to halt an order that requires the release of children from federal immigration custody, set for Monday.
But she won’t deny the request because the order isn’t enforceable because conditions have not been met to ensure their release.
ICE is holding families in three facilities (two in Texas and another in Pennsylvania). Children in custody range in age from 1 to 17 years old.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the state’s coronavirus infection rate is at 1 per cent, following several weeks as a global epicentre for Covid-19.
The rate marks a significant downturn as other states begin to see spikes in infections. Eighteens states have set daily record highs within the last week, and the US saw a fifth-straight day on Saturday reporting at least 1,000 deaths.
Fewer than a third of Americans support Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, a 12-point drop from the same survey in March.
The survey from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research arrives as the US sees a surge of new confirmed infections, which have reached more than 4 million, a total that has more than doubled within a month.
Forty-eight percent of survey respondents said they have approved the president handling of the economic during the public health crisis – a figure that has dropped nearly 10 point from 56 per cent in March.
Only 38 per cent of Americans have approved the president’s term in office, a measure that varies dramatically along partisan lines. More than 80 per cent of Republicans in the survey support the president’s job in the White House – but only 68 per cent support his handling of the coronavirus.
Less than 100 days until November’s general election, Joe Biden is leading in three keys states that Donald Trump won in 2016.
In CNN polls conducted by SSRS, the former vice president is up 51 per cent to Trump’s 46 per cent in Florida.
In Michigan, his lead is in double digits at 52 per cent to the president’s 40 per cent.
In Arizona, Biden stands at 49 per cent to Trump’s 45 per cent.
White House economist Larry Kudlow says he doesn’t buy that the US is experiencing an economic downtown despite 11 per cent unemployment.
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether the US made a mistake reopening too fast, prolonging damage to the economy, Mr Ludlow says there are housing, real estate and automotive booms. “And the jobs picture remains strong,” he said.
Millions of out-of-work Americans continued filing for unemployment last week, though a federal boost to unemployment insurance benefits ended this week, and Congress has not agreed to extend the additional relief.
More than 50 years after police attacked demonstrators marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in a turning point for voting rights, the body of John Lewis – a giant of the civil rights movement and a 30-year member of Congress – has crossed the bridge a final time.
The president’s top economic adviser made this promise to Jake Tapper on CNN earlier as the country continues to face the daunting financial realities of further local lockdowns.
Here’s Griffin Connolly’s report.
Maya Oppenheim has the latest on a disturbing incident at last night’s protest in Aurora.
Here’s Alex Woodward with an update on the Oregon city continuing to be the national epicentre for Black Lives Matter clashes.
Here’s the latest from our video team on how the cards at stacked ahead of November’s big day.
Here’s John T Bennett’s reflections on the president’s re-election hopes with a century of days to go.
He argues the great unknown is how Trump’s Antifa fear-mongering and defence of Confederate statues will play with his base.
Nate Silver: ‘A turnaround in the Covid situation could make the election more competitive’
Here’s a little more from the shows, with crystal ball reader extraordinaire Nate Silver telling Stephanopoulos not to count Trump out on the 100-day mark.
Meanwhile, on CBS’s Face the Nation, FDA commissioner Scott Gottleib tells Margaret Brennan that federal coronavirus testing efforts have sped up – contradicting Admiral Giroir earlier.
White House Task Force member concedes Covid testing failures months into crisis
Admiral Brett Giroir has been speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union this morning and admitting the turnaround for coronavirus tests is still too long.
“Are you afraid to bring this up to President Trump because it will upset him?” Tapper asked Giroir at one point.
“Everyone of the administration understands the importance of testing,” he answered. “Nobody in the task force is afraid to bring up anything to the vice president or the president. Every time I’ve met with the president, he’s been listening to all the data, he assesses that, he understands it. I meet with the vice president almost every single day. No one is trying to stop testing in this country. No one has ever told me to do that. We want more, we want better, we want quicker.”
Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows has also been out there on ABC’s This Week, defending the administration’s response to coronavirus…
…and dancing round the issue of the president refusing to accept an election loss with George Stephanopoulos.
Meadows also declines to give a straight answer on Vladimir Putin, which is little surprise.
On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, ex-CDC director Dr Tom Friedan has this to offer on the challenge of reopening schools.
Elon Musk says he tried to convince Kanye West to stand for president in 2024
The Tesla CEO has been speaking to The New York Times about his friend the rapper’s aborted bid for the White House.
Kate Ng has this on what he had to say.
This latest anti-Trump attack ad celebrates the brave Wall of Moms (and dads and vets) seen at police reform demonstrations in Oregon and across the country.
Trump audaciously attacks Joe Biden’s knowledge of geography and beams over golf game, ignoring trio of crises
If I were this president, I’d steer well clear of attacking Biden on these grounds. Nambia? Finland being a part of Russia? “S***hole countries”? I could go on…
He’s also been gloating over his golf game, ignoring all possible current crises…
…and disingenuously attacking Nancy Pelosi over her opposition to his China travel ban.
His latest is this, defying the national polls to insist he inspires more “ENTHUSIASM” than Biden.
Good luck with that champ. You do you.
Here’s Isobel Lewis on the comedy legend’s withering assessment of the president and how poorly he stacks up against her character from the inspired Armando Iannucci political satire.
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