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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Lauren Gambino in Washington

Justice department email includes link to white nationalist website – as it happened

An email from the US Department of Justice to immigration court employees included a link to a white nationalist website.
An email from the US Department of Justice to immigration court employees included a link to a white nationalist website. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Summary

Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest politics stories:

  • Jay Inslee, whose campaign focused on the climate crisis, ended his presidential bid and announced he would seek a third term as governor of Washington state.
  • Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will join Fox News in September.
  • The DNC rejected a proposal to host a presidential primary debate on climate change.
  • Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh said he is considering a primary challenge against Trump.
  • Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee said he might run as a Libertarian.
  • The department of justice distributed a link to an antisemitic blog post on VDare, a white nationalist website, in an email sent to immigration court employees.
  • Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke endorsed the proposal by youth gun violence prevention activists March for our Lives to reexamine the supreme court’s current interpretation of the second amendment.
  • The day before the deadly attack against Latinos in El Paso, Texas governor Greg Abbott sent out an anti-immigrant fundraising letter calling on Republicans to “DEFEND TEXAS NOW” and “take matters into our own hands”.

Customs and Border Patrol agents are searching for a 3-year-old boy who is believed missing after attempting to cross the Rio Grande near the Eagle Pass border crossing in Texas.

The child and his mother are believed to be part of a group of 12 migrants who were seen attempting to cross the river at 1:30am on 20 August. Members of the group reported that the pair were swept away by the current, CBP said.

The body of a 28-year-old Honduran woman, believed to be the toddler’s mother, was recovered yesterday.

“This is heartbreaking tragedy that occurs too often,” said Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L Ortiz in a statement. “Border Patrol agents are using all available resources in the search for the missing boy.”

The Eagle Pass border crossing is just a few miles from the site of the drowning of a father and his 23-old-month daughter in June. Their lifeless bodies, floating amid reeds, were captured in a devastating photograph that was published widely by media outlets hoping to draw attention to the unnecessary peril created by US policy on the southern border.

Migrants have the right to request asylum under US law and international treaties. However, the Trump administration has drastically reduced the number of people it will allow to apply for asylum at border crossings, creating a massive backlog that has forced many migrants to remain in Mexico for month – or risk a treacherous river crossing.

Beto O'Rourke endorses March for our Lives proposal to reexamine second amendment

Former Congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told the Guardian on Thursday he supports a proposal by the March for our Lives, a group of youth gun violence prevention activists, to reexamine the supreme court’s current interpretation of the second amendment right to bear arms.

O’Rourke was the first Democratic 2020 candidate to support March for Our Lives’ ambitious new policy agenda for gun control reform.

His campaign did not back away from the most controversial elements of the youth activists’ plan, including their desire to revisit the supreme court’s current interpretation of the second amendment, enshrined in the 2009 District of Columbia v Heller decision, which found that Americans have an individual right to own handguns in their homes for self defense.

“While Beto agrees with the court’s holding that the second amendment allows for regulation, he does not agree with the entirety of the Heller decision,” National Press Secretary Aleigha Cavalier said in a statement. “One piece of the Heller case Beto believes should be revisited is the court’s decision to strike down DC’s safe storage requirements.”

Hillary Clinton’s made similar arguments about “safe storage requirements” and the Heller decision during her 2016 presidential campaign.

Asked explicitly if O’Rourke “believes the second amendment should be interpreted to guarantee Americans the right to own handguns in their home for self defense, or not,” the campaign dodged giving any clear answer.

“Beto believes the second amendment allows for the reasonable regulation of firearms, and as president, will appoint judges that uphold that belief.”

Updated

Kathryn Mattingly, assistant press secretary for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, just provided the Guardian with the following statement in response to BuzzFeed News’s startling report that the government agency distributed a link to a white nationalist website: “The daily EOIR morning news briefings are compiled by a contractor and the blog post should not have been included. The Department of Justice condemns Anti-Semitism in the strongest terms.”

DOJ emails employees link to white nationalist website - report

Hello all, this is Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco, picking up the live blog for the rest of the day.

BuzzFeed News just published an astonishing report about the distribution of a link to a white nationalist website by the US Department of Justice.

According to the report, the Executive Office for Immigration Review included a link to a blog post on the white nationalist website VDare in a morning news briefing that was emailed to immigration court employees earlier this week.

The blog post is about an effort to dissolve the National Association of Immigration Judges, a union representing employees of the immigration courts. The post refers to the New York Times as “lugenpresse”, a German term meaning “lying press” that was adopted by the Nazis to stigmatize Jews, communists, and critics of Adolf Hitler. In recent years the slur has regained popularity within the far right and white nationalists. The blog post also uses the word “kritarch” to refer to judges, a reference to a system of governance involving rule by judges in ancient Israeli history and an apparent invocation of anti-semitism.

“VDare’s use of the term in a pejorative manner casts Jewish history in a negative light as an Anti-Semitic trope of Jews seeking power and control,” Ashley Tabaddor, the union president, wrote in a letter to the EOIR about the incident, according to BuzzFeed News. “Publication and dissemination of a white supremacist, anti-semitic website throughout the EOIR is antithetical to the goals and ideals of the Department of Justice.”

“The daily EOIR morning news briefings are compiled by a contractor and the blog post should not have been included,” a spokesman for the justice department told BuzzFeed News.

VDare is a virulently anti-immigrant website that promotes white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-Semitism. It was founded by Peter Brimelow, a British immigrant to the US, and is named after Virginia Dare, who is supposed to be the first English child born in the Americas. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as an “an anti-immigration hate website”.

The justice department did not immediately respond to additional queries from the Guardian.

Updated

Afternoon Summary

I’m signing off for the day and handing over the reigns to my talented colleague, Julia Wong. Thanks for sticking with us through what has proved to be a slow but steady news days. Here’s a roundup of the biggest news of the day.

  • One-term Republican congressman and radio show host Joe Walsh said he is “strongly” considering a primary run against Trump. Meanwhile, former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee says he might run as a Libertarian.
  • Jay Inslee ended his presidential bid and announced he would seek a third term as governor of Washington state. John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor who ended his campaign earlier this month, announced he would run for Senate.
  • Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders today became the latest senior Trump official to join Fox News. Her first appearance will be on Fox & Friends on 6 September.
  • The DNC rejected a proposal to host a presidential primary debate centered on climate change, disappointing activists and progressive who had pushed for one.
  • US senator Chris Murphy has revived hopes of action on background check legislation in Congress. After speaking to the White House, he tweeted that the White House has “not walked away” despite Trump’s near-daily shifts on the issue.

Democrat: White House has "not walked away" from background checks

Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat who became a leading champion of gun control in the wake of the Newtown shooting, has revived hope of action on background checks after Trump appeared to walk back his support.

Trump has shifted his opinion on expanding background checks on all firearms purchases, initially throwing his support behind such reforms after back-to-back mass shootings left 31 people dead in Texas and Ohio earlier this month. But this week, after reportedly being lobbied by the NRA and conservative lawmakers, Trump waffled.

According to Murphy, the door is still open for action on background checks, which maintains broad support from the American public, including Republicans.

We’re standing by for Donald Trump to present the Medal of Freedom to Bob Cousy.

Earlier on Thursday, Bernie Sanders visited Paradise, the California town devastated by a wildfire that left 86 people dead. The tour came after Sanders unveiled one of the most sweeping climate plans.

After Trump reportedly joked about trading Greenland for Puerto Rico – residents of the US territory considered the deal.

Mostly in jest, some Puerto Ricans called themselves “Caribbean Vikings” and posted memes about the swap.

NBC News rounded up a few of the best reactions here.

DNC rejects calls for a climate-focused primary debate

The Democratic National Committee has voted to reject a resolution to host a primary debate singularly focused on climate change, despite mounting calls for one from activists and candidates as the risks posed by global warming become a top priority for voters.

At a party conference in San Francisco on Thursday, top DNC officials voted 17 to 8 against a resolution that would have dedicated one of the 12 Democratic debates entirely to the issue.

“Climate is such an intersectional issue. It allows us to talk about jobs, economics, racial disparities, healthcare, national security,” said Tina Podlodowski, the chair of the Washington State Democrats and the author of the resolution calling for a climate debate. “And then of course there’s that little issue of the very survival of our species.”

Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to presidential candidate Joe Biden, argued against the measure, saying that the DNC would be falling into “dangerous territory” if it changed party rules to allow for the climate debate. Others cited concerns about opening the door for a flood of single-issue events.

Mose candidates, including Biden, have said they are open to a debate centered on combatting climate change. The presidential candidate who fought hardest for the debate, Jay Inslee, suspended his campaign on Wednesday to run for governor. CNN will host a climate town hall before the third presidential debate next month, and MSNBC has partnered with a handful of organizations to host a multi-day forum with candidates on the subject.

After the resolution failed to pass, activists with the youth-led Sunrise Movement disrupted the meeting and began to sing Which Side Are You On.

Read more from the Guardian’s Susie Cagle in San Francisco.

Updated

Mark Hamill, best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, is no fan of the president.

But Trump’s claim that he is the “chosen one” as he defended a trade war with China was enough to shock a the best-trained Jedi in the galaxy.

Updated

Overstock CEO Partick Byrne resigned from the online retailer on Thursday after his controversial comments about on his involvement with the “deep state” following the disclosure of an affair with a woman accused of being a Russian agent.

The company’s shares, which had fallen in the wake of Byrne’s comments, rose sharply amid news of his departure.

In July I came forward to a small set of journalists regarding my involvement in certain government matters. Doing so was not my first choice, but I was reminded of the damage done to our nation for three years and felt my duty as a citizen precluded me from staying silent any longer. Though patriotic Americans are writing me in support, my presence may affect and complicate all manner of business relationships, from insurability to strategic discussions regarding our retail business.

Thus, while I believe that I did what was necessary for the good of the country, for the good of the firm, I am in the sad position of having to sever ties with Overstock, both as CEO and board member, effective Thursday August 22,” Byrne, who founded the company 20 years ago, wrote in a letter to shareholders.

His tenure was thrown into uncertainty after he revealed that he had been romantically involved with Maria Butina, a Russian operative currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for trying to infiltrate American politics through her connections with the National Rifle Association. He disclosed their relationship in a press release titled “Overstock.com CEO Comments on Deep State, Withholds Further Comment” in which referred to federal agents as “Men in Black” and said he assisted in the “Clinton investigation” and the “Russia investigation”.

The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led organization behind the Green New Deal, has endorsed Massachusetts senator Ed Markey amid rumors that congressman Joe Kennedy III is considering mounting a primary bid for the seat.

Earlier this year, Markey, 73, shored up his progressive credentials by linking arms with New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to introduce a Green New Deal in the Senate. At 38, Kennedy, grandson of Robert Kennedy, is the youngest member of the family’s political dynasty.

A primary between Markey and Kennedy could serve as a test for Democrats at a time when a new generation of young progressives are challenging the party’s Old Guard.

In this context, the endorsement from the Sunrise Movement sends a signal to voters that the senator can appeal to the party’s activist base and that he is committed to the issues energizing the grassroots.

The sprawling Democratic field has winnowed slightly with the departures of Inslee and Hickenlooper. But there are still 22 Democrats running – and less than half have met the fundraising and polling threshhold to qualify for the third debate in Houston next month.

The urgent question now is who will be the next to go?

Ten candidate will appear on stage in Houston, including Julián Castro who just qualified this week thanks to a new CNN poll showing him at 2% nationally.

The other top tier candidates to make the cut – and are therefore less likely to drop out anytime soon – are: former vice president Joe Biden, senator Bernie Sanders, senator Elizabeth Warren, senator Kamala Harris, senator Cory Booker, mayor Pete Buttigieg, senator Amy Klobuchar, former congressman Beto O’Rourke and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

To qualify, the Democratic candidates must receive at least 130,000 contributions from individual donors and earned 2% support in at least four acceptable polls.

Billionaire Tom Steyer, the field’s most recent entrant, is one poll away from making the debate stage while Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard needs two more polls. New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand is just shy of the contributions threshold and still needs three more polls and self-help guru Marianne Williamson has enough contributors but needs to raise her polling numbers.

The cutoff date for the Houston debate – and a separate CNN town hall on climate change ahead of the debate – is 28 August. For candidates who have failed to break through and are struggling to raise money that might just be the end of the road.

The possibilities include Gabbard, congressmen Seth Moulton and Tim Ryan, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, New York mayor Bill de Blasio, Montana governor Steve Bullock.

Former congressman John Delaney, who is self-funding his campaign, has not seen his numbers move, even after being given a relatively long time to make his case for a moderate healthcare plan during the last debate. Meanwhile, Williamson has had several break out moments on the debate stage to become an instant online meme, but it hasn’t translated into hard support.

There are also other considerations to take into account. Of the candidates who have dropped out, congressman Eric Swalwell, Hickenlooper and Inslee, all dropped out to turn their attention to home state races for House, Senate and the Governor’s mansion, respectively. Would Bullock leave to run for senate in Montana as he’s been encouraged to? Likewise, O’Rourke is being urged to abandon his presidential ambitions and run for Senate in Texas.

Updated

Let’s cross the border for a second to talk about Canadian politics. Prime minister Justin Trudeau: young and charismatic with a tuft of brown hair envied by leaders the world over was celebrated as liberals best hope of regaining power in Canada when he ran for election in 2015.

But after four years in power, “cracks in his image have started to show,” writes Ashifa Kassam.

Some of the policies enacted by Trudeau’s government have made his political identity seem hollow, even disingenuous. Compounding this has been the ongoing fallout from the most significant controversy of his tenure: Canada’s ethics watchdog recently found that Trudeau broke the country’s conflict of interest law in the hopes of allowing a giant engineering and construction firm to avoid a corruption trial. The company is facing charges in connection with millions of dollars in bribes allegedly paid to officials in Libya, including members of the Gaddafi regime, between 2001 and 2011.

Don’t miss this commentary from Barbra Streisand, a former lover of [Trudeau’s father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau], who once described him as a blend of “Marlon Brando and Napoleon”. In contrast, one critic had memorably dubbed Justin “the Paris Hilton of Canadian politics”.

Trump’s offer to buy Greenland was mostly met with by the international community with derision and laughter – except, of course, in Greenland, where residents were perhaps unsurprisingly indignant.

But not for the first time, his rhetoric has resonated with right-wing nationalist groups. In this case, it’s the youth wing of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA).

According to a report in Politico, the group, which supports a separate Flemish state, has offered to sell the country’s French-speaking region of Wallonia to Trump for a whopping €1.

“Dear President, one Euro and Wallonia is yours. Call us,” the youth branch of N-VA wrote on Twitter, tagging Trump, who has yet to reply.

The group emphasized that the offer was only a joke and that there was no serious political strategy behind the comment.

“We had absolutely no political message with this and did not want to provoke anything,” the N-VA’s youth president, Lawrence Vancraeyenest, said, according to Politico. “This was a joke, responding to current events, from a youth perspective.”

Inslee seeks a third term as Washington governor

Jay Inslee announced he will seek a third term as governor of Washington state, a day after ending his 2020 presidential campaign singularly focused on climate change.

We have provided the nation a road map for innovation, economic growth, and progressive action. And we’re not done yet,” Inslee wrote in an email to donors.

“I want to continue to stand with you in opposing Donald Trump and rejecting his hurtful and divisive agenda, while strengthening and enhancing Washington state’s role as a progressive beacon for the nation.

Which is why I’m announcing today my intention to run for a third term as Washington’s governor.

Inslee, 68, had struggled to gain traction in a congested primary field. He was unlikely to qualify for the next month’s debate in Houston, Texas, which would have precluded him from participating in a CNN town hall on climate change.

“It’s become clear that I’m not going to be carrying the ball,” Inslee said on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. “I’m not going to be the president, so I’m withdrawing tonight from the race.”

Updated

Third party ticket: Lincoln Chafee mulls Libertarian run

Lincoln Chafee, the Republican US Senator turned Independent Rhode Island governor turned Democratic presidential candidate and a longtime proponent of the metric system, might try his luck running for president as a Libertarian in 2020.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Chafee said he was interested in running for president on a third-party ticket.

“I’m very motivated as an anti-war American, and also by the deficit,” Chafee, now a Libertarian living in Wyoming, told the news website “Those are two big issues that, if the Libertarian convention next summer thinks that someone with a long record on those issues... if I fit that, then yes, I’d be open to that.”

His decision would depend in part on whether Libertarian activists express enthusiasm for his candidacy.T

“I’m new to the party and I’m still meeting people through phone calls, email, and in person,” he said. “I’m at this stage learning what they might want.”

Read the full story here.

And for even more background, I’ve resurrected a write up from Chafee’s 2016 campaign launch, which our reporter said came up a little short – even on a metric ruler.

Updated

Trump’s vision of a great Greenland Purchase was perhaps doomed from the start but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from embracing the idea.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm of House Republicans is offering donors who contribute more than $25 a limited edition t-shirt that depicts Greenland as a 51st US state.

Read more from Politco on the fundraising appeal.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders to join Fox News

Donald Trump has had several press secretaries since taking office in 2017.

His first, Sean Spicer that he will be a competitor on the next season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Spicer was followed Anthony Scaramucci, whose latest feud with the president has lasted longer than his employment as White House press secretary.

Which brings us to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s longest-serving and most loyal press secretary. In perhaps the least surprising post-White House move, Sanders is joining Fox News as a contributor.

She will make her debut appearance next month on the president’s favorite show, Fox & Friends.

There she joins several former senior White House communications officials, including:

Sanders will also join her father, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is a contributor on the network.

The outstanding question: will she follow his footsteps and run for governor?

Updated

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is imploring Democrats not to eliminate the filibuster – a procedural rule that allows the minority party to stall or block the chamber from voting on legislation or a nominee.

“If future Democrats shortsightedly decide to reduce the Senate to majority rule, we’ll have lost a key safeguard of American government,” the Kentucky Republican writes in an op-ed published in the New York Times. “And — stop me if you’ve heard this one — they’d regret it a lot sooner than they think.”

The op-ed serves as as rejoinder to one written by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who urged Democrats abolish the filibuster.

“The Senate is now a place where the most pressing issues facing our country are disregarded, along with the will of the American people overwhelmingly calling for action,” Reid wrote. “The future of our country is sacrificed at the altar of the filibuster.”

Democratic activists have pushed the issue to the forefront of the presidential debate, urging the party’s candidates to commit to eliminating the rule which looms as an obstacle to their ambitious policy proposals.

In 2013, Reid deployed the so-called “nuclear option” and eliminated the filibuster for nominations to executive branch positions and lower-court judgeships in response to Republican obstruction of Barack Obama’s appointees. In 2017, McConnell further limited the minority’s power when he removed the filibuster for Supreme court nominees to undermine a Democratic blockade.

The demise of the filibuster is a reflection of the course, partisan nature of this political moment. Obama’s election inspired a conservative uprising against his presidency, with McConnell insisting then that the “single most important thing” for Congressional Republicans was to ensure that he was a “one-term” president. Eight years later, Trump’s victory has energized grassroots activists and liberals determined to see him removed from office.

Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, which is pushing Democrats to adopt such reforms, said the op-ed was a sign McConnell is starting to fear the tactic.

The economy is booming. There’s no risk of a recession. Everything is FINE. FINE!

Also from the White House: Trump is interested in a payroll tax cut to encourage economic growth in the event of a slowdown.

Somewhere in between, Trump continues to insist that the “only problem” with the US economy is the Federal Reserve. For months, Trump has attacked Fed Chairman Jerome Powell – a man he picked to run the US central bank.

Ahead of a speech by Powell in Jackson Hole on Friday, Trump compared the Fed chairman to a golfer who was unable to putt and said he had let the country down.

On Thursday, he returned to the subject, though he has so far avoided attacked Powell directly.

Updated

Man with a plan: Sanders introduces ambitious climate plan

Bernie Sanders on Thursday proposed the most ambitious plan yet to avert “climate catastrophe” ahead of a visit to Paradise, the California town destroyed by a wildfire last year.

The plan calls for a 10-year, $16.3tn national mobilization and aims to eliminate US carbon emissions by 2050, a target laid out by scientists with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sanders says the sprawling proposal, which he compares to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal economic programs, would create millions of jobs and rally the world’s leaders to join forces in the fight against climate change.

The plan, he says, would be paid for by “making he fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies.”

Sanders’ Green New Deal would also:

  • Aim reach 100% renewable power for both electricity and transportation, the top two contributors to climate change in the US, by 2030
  • Complete decarbonization by 2050
  • Expand public ownership of power companies and make electricity “virtually free” by 2035
  • A promises to “end unemployment” by creating 20m new jobs
  • Declare climate change a national emergency
  • Invest a $200bn into the Green Climate Fund for countries to slash pollution.

Donald Trump’s desire to buy Greenland escalated into an international confrontation this week after he abruptly canceled a trip to Denmark, claiming the country’s prime minister had been “nasty” to him when she called the idea “absurd”.

Now a new backstory is emerging that might explain what piqued the president’s interest in purchasing the icy island.

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton said he spoke to the president about buying Greenland months ago and even raised it in a meeting with the Danish ambassador, according to Talk Business & Politics, which hosted an event in Little Rock, where Cotton made his comments.

“Obviously, the right decision for this country,” Cotton told the group’s CEO when asked about the spat. “You’re joking, but I can reveal to you that several months ago, I met with the Danish ambassador and I proposed that they sell Greenland to us.”

“I told the president you should buy it as well,” Cotton continued, adding later that Trump “heard that from me and from some other people as well.”

Cotton, a staunch conservative and a close ally of Trump, said touted such a deal as strategic on the part of the US. Greenland, an autonomous region owned by Denmark, possesses “untold” economic potential and would be “vital to our national security.”

“Anyone who can’t see that is blinded by Trump derangement,” he said.

Read a write up of the conversation here.

And more on the row between Trump and Denmark. Bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Updated

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the day’s political news. Lauren Gambino here, manning the blog for the day from our nation’s capital.

This morning begins with a shakeup to the 2020 race. Overnight, Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington who made climate change the focus of his presidential campaign, has dropped out of the race after failing to qualify for the third primary debate. The Associated Press is reporting Inslee is planning to seek a third term as governor.

Joe Walsh, the one-term Illinois congressman and conservative radio show host, says he’s “strongly, strongly considering” mounting a primary bid against Trump.

“The only way you primary Donald Trump and beat him is to expose him for the con man he is,” Walsh said on CNN’s New Day on Thursday. “And if I did it ... that’s what I’d do – I’d punch him every single day.”

Trump already faces a primary challenge, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, but his campaign has yet to generate enough enthusiasm to conceivably test the president’s stranglehold on the Republican party.

Meanwhile, John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor who suspended his presidential campaign last month, has announced that he will run for the Senate. Hickenlooper joins a congested primary despite saying things like: “I’m not cut out to be a senator.”

“I’ve always said Washington was a lousy place for a guy like me who wants to get things done – but this is no time to walk away from the table,” Hickenlooper said in a video announcing his run for Senate to take on Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

What we’re watching for today: Trump has a relatively light public schedule, aside from his daily intelligence briefing. At 4.30 pm, he is scheduled to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Celtics legend Bob Cousy, who was known for his public stance against racism and segregation in the 1950s.

Updated

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