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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Lois Beckett in Oakland, Joan E Greve in Washington, Lauren Aratani and Martin Belam

Steve Bannon pleads not guilty to fraud charges over border wall campaign – as it happened

Evening summary

We’re wrapping up our live US politics blog for today, but you can continue following our updates from the virtual Democratic National Convention.

An updated summary of today’s key events, from my colleague Joan Greve and me:

  • Steve Bannon pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, was arrested earlier today for allegedly using money from his anti-immigrant group “We Build the Wall” on personal expenses.
  • Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has tested positive for coronavirus. Cassidy said in a statement announcing his positive test result, “I am strictly following the direction of our medical experts and strongly encourage others to do the same.”
  • House speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Congressman Joe Kennedy’s primary challenge against Senator Ed Markey, enraging progressives. A number of progressives noted Pelosi has historically been very hesitant to support primary challenges against Democratic incumbents, but the speaker made an exception for Kennedy’s campaign against Markey, who is considered one of the most progressive members of the Senate.
  • A federal judge ruled that Trump must comply with the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena of his tax returns. The district attorney’s office is conducting an investigation into hush-money payments Trump made in 2016 and possible bank and insurance fraud.
  • Another 1.1 million Americans filed for unemployment claims last week, according to the Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment figures. The figure marks a concerning uptick compared to the week before.
  • NBC News reported that Stephen Miller wanted to separate tens of thousand more migrant kids from their parents, and that he made top Trump officials personally endorse moving forward with the family separation policy in an early May 2018 show-of-hands vote at a White House meeting.
  • Wisconsin said Kanye West did not make the deadline to appear on the ballot as a presidential candidate, a setback for Republicans who hoped the artist would steal votes away from Biden and help Trump to victory in a key swing state.

White Republican in Wisconsin argued black voters deserve Kanye West on the ballot

Wisconsin’s elections commission ruled 5-1 today that Kanye West did not make the deadline to appear on November’s ballot as a presidential candidate.

The one dissenting vote was a white Republican who argued that West should appear on the ballot because black Milwaukee residents deserved to be able to vote for a black candidate after what they experienced at the polls in April.

Polling place closures and coronavirus fears in the early weeks of the pandemic resulted in significant numbers of voters, particularly black voters, being dissuaded from voting, a study from the Brennan Center for Justice concluded.

“Mr. (Kanye) West is an African American candidate,” Republican Robert Spindell said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “and I think we should do all we can to — after the terrible treatment that the Black population in Milwaukee received during the April election — that we given them a choice.”

The Journal Sentinel reported that the decision was a loss for supporters of Trump, who have been pushing West’s candidacy as a spoiler campaign.

Maskless Steve Bannon strolls out of court

Bannon’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea for the fraud charges the former Trump campaign manager and aide is facing. Bannon is accused of using money from the anti-immigrant group “We Build the Wall,” which authorities said raised more than $25mn from passionate Trump supporters, on personal expenses.

Bannon was arrested at about 7.15am this morning on a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut, it was said in court, and he was brought to New York city several hours later.

What NBC reported about Trump officials raising their hands for child separation

More on that NBC News story about an early May 2018 White House meeting at which Stephen Miller reportedly demanded that top Trump officials raise their hands to endorse moving forward with the administration’s policy of family separation.

Which cabinet members reportedly raised their hands to support what has been widely condemned as one of the most evil and inhumane acts of the Trump administration? NBC News does not provide a breakdown of the vote, other than reporting that then-secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen “kept hers down,” and that a lot of other people raised their hands.

But NBC News said a document listed those who had been invited to the meeting, including: secretary of state Mike Pompeo, health and human services secretary Alex Azar, attorney general Jeff Sessions, then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, White House deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, then-White House counsel Don McGahn, and Marc Short, then director of legislative affairs and now chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence.

It’s worth noting that on Monday, Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, went public with an endorsement of Joe Biden, and with a scathing op-ed about his experiences working for Trump.

Like this NBC News report citing two unnamed officials present at the meting, Taylor’s op-ed contained details that appeared designed to defend his former boss, Nielsen, for her role in the administration’s family separation policy.

NBC: Trump advisers endorsed separation of migrant families with show-of-hands vote

Trump adviser Stephen Miller had wanted to separate even more migrant children from their parents than the administration eventually did, three former administration officials told NBC News.

“While ‘zero tolerance’ ultimately separated nearly 3,000 children from their parents, what Miller proposed would have separated an additional 25,000, including those who legally presented themselves at a port of entry seeking asylum, according to Customs and Border Protection data from May and June 2018,” NBC News reported.

The new report from NBC News also details a May 2018 meeting at which top Trump advisers reportedly raised their hands to personally endorse the administration’s separation of migrant kids and parents at the US border, a policy which was later widely condemned as an “unconscionable” human rights violation, and as child abuse.

Frustrated that the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy was not yet being put into action, Stephen Miller demanded that powerful administration officials raise their hands to show support for moving forward, NBC News reported, and “a sea of hands went up.”

The details of the meeting were provided to NBC News by two unnamed officials who were in the room, and backed up with a document about who was invited to the meeting. A White House spokesperson denied to NBC News that the show-of-hands vote happened.

Updated

Endorsing with the Stars: Steph and Ayesha Curry for Joe Biden

The Democratic National Convention shared a clip from the NBA star and TV cooking personality’s Biden endorsement, which will be aired tonight.

‘He didn’t strike me as a serious candidate:’ questions about DeJoy’s qualifications

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy did not seem to be a “serious candidate” to serve as postmaster general during an interview with the agency’s board of governor’s, David Williams, a former member of the board, told Congress on Thursday.

DeJoy did “particularly badly” during his second interview for the position, when John Barger, a Trump appointee to the board, had to complete question answers for DeJoy and explain what he meant.

“He didn’t strike me as a serious candidate,” Williams told the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

DeJoy’s role in leading the agency are under heavy scrutiny amid reports of widespread mail delays across the country. Donald Trump has admitted he does not want to fund the postal service because doing so would make it easier for Americans to vote by mail this fall. DeJoy announced this week he was “suspending” recent changes believe to be causing delays until after the election, but many worry the damage has already been done.

Williams also said that Barger, not the outside search firm looking for a new postmaster general, brought DeJoy’s name to the board for consideration. The Washington Post reported Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recruited DeJoy, a major Republican donor without prior USPS experience, to the position.

Williams said he did not believe DeJoy underwent a background check before being appointed to the position. Questions about DeJoy’s business entanglements and potential conflicts of interest have come to light in recent weeks.

Williams also raised concern about recent decisions to remove mail sorting machines and mailboxes, saying they were puzzling and would not save USPS money.

Trump repeats ‘ill-informed’ and ‘demeaning’ claim about California wildfires

This is Lois Beckett, taking over our live politics coverage from California, which is currently battling hundreds of wildfires amid a scorching heatwave. Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.

When Trump weighed in on the wildfires at his press conference today, it was to repeat a version of claims he has made before, that some kind of poor forest management is responsible for California’s fires, and that he did not want the federal government to have to pay for disaster relief.

“The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the frontlines,” Brian K Rice, president of California Professional Firefighters, said in a statement in response to similar comments in 2018.

Trump has used his comments about forest “management” to downplay the role of the climate crisis as a factor in the state’s wildfires. Asked in 2018 if climate change was a factor, he said, ““Maybe it contributes a little bit. The big problem we have is management.”

As The Guardian reported in 2018. “Several ecologists have pointed out that ‘management’ is typically code for logging by industry, whereby large stands of trees that would typically survive a wildfire are removed, leaving behind debris that is often more effective at spreading flames. Logging, therefore, can make forest fires worse.”

The same year, Trump also claimed that Finland prevented forest fires by raking and cleaning their forests, which prompted mockery from Finns.

Steve Bannon appears in court in New York, in this courtroom artist’s sketch.
Steve Bannon appears in court in New York, in this courtroom artist’s sketch. Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Today so far

That’s it from me for now. I’ll be back later tonight to cover the last night of the Democratic National Convention.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Steve Bannon pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, was arrested earlier today for allegedly using money from his anti-immigrant group “We Build the Wall” on personal expenses.
  • Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has tested positive for coronavirus. Cassidy said in a statement announcing his positive test result, “I am strictly following the direction of our medical experts and strongly encourage others to do the same.”
  • House speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Congressman Joe Kennedy’s primary challenge against Senator Ed Markey, enraging progressives. A number of progressives noted Pelosi has historically been very hesitant to support primary challenges against Democratic incumbents, but the speaker made an exception for Kennedy’s campaign against Markey, who is considered one of the most progressive members of the Senate.
  • A federal judge ruled that Trump must comply with the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena of his tax returns. The district attorney’s office is conducting an investigation into hush-money payments Trump made in 2016 and possible bank and insurance fraud.
  • Another 1.1 million Americans filed for unemployment claims last week, according to the Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment figures. The figure marks a concerning uptick compared to the week before.

My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Trump has just wrapped up his campaign speech in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, where he delivered a dark message about the alleged dangers of electing Joe Biden president.

“They’re coming to get you,” the president said, describing himself and his supporters as “the wall between the American dream and total insanity.”

More from Victoria Bekiempis:

The judge also said one bail condition was that Steve Bannon would have “no use of private planes or private yachts or boats.”

According to the New York Times, the former Trump adviser was apprehended this morning on a $35-million yacht owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui.

More from Victoria Bekiempis:

Steve Bannon will be released on a $5 million bond, backed by $1.75 million in cash or real estate.

The former senior Trump adviser has until 3 September to get this collateral together.

Bannon appears in court and pleads not guilty to fraud charges

The Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis reports:

Steve Bannon has just appeared in court via video. The former Trump adviser is wearing a white face mask and a button-down shirt and looks sunburned in the face.

Bannon was arrested at about 7:15 am on a yacht off the coast of Connecticut, it was said in court. He was brought to New York City several hours later.

Bannon’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea for the fraud charges he is facing. Bannon is accused of using money from his anti-immigrant group “We Build the Wall” on personal expenses.

Speaking to reporters in Pennsylvania, Trump reiterated his belief that he would only lose the presidential election if it were “rigged.”

“The only way they’re going to win is by a rigged election, I really believe that,” the president said.

Trump pointed to his large crowd of supporters to justify that claim. However, recent national polls have found Joe Biden leading by several points, and the RealClearPolitics average of Pennsylvania polls shows Biden ahead by 5.7 points.

Trump noted that Joe Biden will speak at the Democratic convention tonight to formally accept the presidential nomination.

“Tonight, Slow Joe will speak at the Democratic convention, and I’m sure he’ll knock ‘em dead,” Trump sarcastically said.

The president went on to accuse Biden of having “abandoned” his birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“He left,” Trump said. “He abandoned Pennsylvania. He abandoned Scranton.”

That accusation is a bit odd, considering Biden’s family left Scranton when he was 10 for his father’s work, so the young Biden probably didn’t have much say in the matter.

Trump is now addressing supporters in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, marking his latest effort to provide some counterprogramming to this week’s Democratic National Convention.

Trump opened his remarks by noting he watched Barack Obama’s convention speech last night, in which the former president warned the future of American democracy was on the line in November’s elections.

The president oddly co-opted Obama’s language, arguing that he was the one who was protecting the future of the country.

“At stake in this election is the survival of our nation,” Trump said. “Because we’re dealing with crazy people on the other side.”

Senator Ed Markey offered a courteous message to House speaker Nancy Pelosi after she endorsed his primary challenger, Congressman Joe Kennedy.

“Speaker Pelosi is an effective leader who has shattered glass ceilings throughout her career,” Markey said in a tweet.

“I had the privilege to work alongside Nancy in the House for decades and any candidate would be proud to have her endorsement. I congratulate Joe Kennedy on securing her support.”

Markey and Pelosi served alongside each other in the House for more than two decades, but Pelosi said she was endorsing Kennedy because the time demands that Americans elect “courageous leaders.”

A number of Markey’s supporters criticized Pelosi for her endorsement because the speaker has consistently resisted backing primary challengers but is now trying to defeat one of the most progressive sitting senators.

Trump has arrived in Pennsylvania, where he will hold an event with supporters on “Joe Biden’s record of failure,” according to his campaign.

According to the pool report, the president was greeted by supporters chanting “Four more years!” and “We want Trump!” as he exited Air Force One.

Several White House reporters noted that, despite Trump’s call to boycott Goodyear tires, the presidential limousine is still using them.

Updated

Progressive Democrats are bullish on Senator Ed Markey’s chances of a primary victory against Congressman Joe Kennedy, despite House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement of Kennedy today.

“Pelosi endorsing Kennedy is just evidence that supports @EdMarkey case against dynasty and smoke filled rooms anointing candidates,” tweeted Congressman Ro Khanna, who has endorsed Markey.

“Bold prediction: it will backfire. Markey’s up two. My guess is now he’ll win the race by more than 5.”

Recent polls have shown Markey and Kennedy in a dead heat in the primary, which will take place on Sept. 1.

Steve Bannon’s arrest is reverberating in Brazil because of his close ties to the family of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro’s politician son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, is the front-man of Bannon’s group The Movement in South America and often boasts of his ties to Trump’s former strategist.

“We share the same worldview. He said be an enthusiast of Bolsonaro’s campaign [sic],” Eduardo Bolsonaro tweeted after meeting Bannon in 2018, alongside a photo of the pair.

When Jair Bolsonaro went on a state visit to Washington in March 2019, Bannon was invited to dine at the Brazilian embassy, causing outrage and angst among many career diplomats.

Brazilian analysts described the detention of the far-right agitator as a blow to the Bolsonaros.

“As incredible as it might seem, Bannon’s arrest is worse for Bolsonarismo than for Trumpismo,” wrote Matheus Leitão in the magazine Veja.

“[Bannon] was purged by Trump [and] he ended up being adopted by the Bolsonaro family, who have always treated him with pomp and circumstance. Bolsonaro’s third son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, became not just a friend but Bannon’s representative,” Leitão added.

Ricardo Kotscho, a left-wing commentator, called Bannon’s arrest bad news for the Bannonista ideologues within Bolsonaro’s government, noting how Bannon was the guru of Bolsonaro’s guru, the US-based polemicist and astrologer Olavo de Carvalho.

Such is the closeness between the Bolsonaro clan and Bannon that one of Jair Bolsonaro’s top advisers, who hails from the Brazilian city of Sorocaba, has earned the nickname Sorocabannon.

Republican senator Bill Cassidy, who has tested positive for coronavirus, has been campaigning for reelection in recent weeks.

Cassidy posted a video yesterday of his visit to a Louisiana medical center for veterans. In the video, Cassidy is seen wearing a face mask, although it does slip past his nose by the end of the video.

Republican senator tests positive for coronavirus

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has tested positive for coronavirus, his office announced in a statement.

Cassidy’s office said he took a test after learning he was exposed to someone who had contracted the virus.

Bill Cassidy delivers remarks to media.
Bill Cassidy delivers remarks to media. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Cassidy, one of the physicians in the Senate, will quarantine for 14 days and notify those he has recently come in contact with about his test result.

“I am strictly following the direction of our medical experts and strongly encourage others to do the same,” Cassidy said.

One of Cassidy’s Republican colleagues, Rand Paul, tested positive for the virus in March, and two Democratic senators -- Tim Kaine and Bob Casey -- tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in May.

Steve Bannon was arrested on a $35-million yacht owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, according to the New York Times.

The Times reports:

Mr. Bannon was arrested early Thursday on a $35 million, 150-foot yacht that was off the coast of Westbrook, Conn., law enforcement officials said. Working with the Coast Guard, federal postal inspectors and special agents from Ms. Strauss’s office boarded the vessel, which belonged to the exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, the officials said.

Bannon is soon expected in federal court to face fraud charges over allegations that he used money from his group “We Build the Wall” on personal expenses.

The progressive group Justice Democrats accused House speaker Nancy Pelosi of trying to “undermine the next generation of Democratic voters and the progressive champions we choose to believe in” with her endorsement of Joe Kennedy’s Senate primary bid.

“For two years, Democratic Party leadership has endorsed incumbents over progressive primary challengers claiming it is their policy to always back incumbents -- even when the incumbent was anti-choice and endorsed by the NRA,” Justice Democrats said in a statement.

“But now, when a sitting US Senator champions the Green New Deal while wildfires blanket Speaker Pelosi’s home state in smoke, she chooses to endorse a challenger.”

Kennedy is facing off against Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, considered one of the most progressive members of the Senate, in a Sept. 1 primary.

“This move reeks of hypocrisy: the party is setting one standard for progressives and one entirely different standard for the establishment,” Justice Democrats said.

Pelosi endorses Kennedy in Senate primary, enraging progressives

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has surprisingly endorsed Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy in his primary challenge against progressive Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.

“Never before have the times demanded we elect courageous leaders as today, and that is why I am proud to endorse Joe Kennedy for Senate,” Pelosi said in a video announcing her endorsement.

The announcement was met with immediate outrage among progressive Democrats, who have rallied around Markey in the Sept. 1 primary.

Markey is considered one of the most progressive members of the Senate, and he co-authored the Green New Deal with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Progressive activists noted Democratic party leaders, including Pelosi, have previously been very hesitant to back challenges to Democratic incumbents.

“No one gets to complain about primary challenges again,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet. “So @dccc, when can we expect you to reverse your blacklist policy against primary orgs?”

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Lauren Aratani.

Attorney general William Barr was aware that Steve Bannon would be arrested today, according to NBC News.

Bannon, a former senior adviser to Trump, is facing fraud charges for allegedly using funds from his group “We Build the Wall” on personal expenses.

Afternoon summary

Here’s what has happened so far today:

  • Steve Bannon was arrested along with three other men for leading an online fundraising scheme that raised millions of dollars to build a privately built border wall at the southern border, ultimately using donations for personal expenses. Donald Trump said that he was “sad” to hear of Bannon’s arrest, but distanced himself from his former campaign adviser.
  • A federal judge ruled that Trump must comply with the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena of his tax returns. The district attorney’s office is conducting an investigation into hush-money payments Trump made in 2016 and possible bank and insurance fraud.
  • The Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment figures showed that 1.1 million people filed for unemployment claims last week, a concerning uptick compared to the week before.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg made a promise to spend $1 billion in the fight against Donald Trump in the 2020 election. That announcement was made when Bloomberg announced he was running for the Democratic nomination in November 2019, a campaign that dissipated in less than four months.

The Huffington Post points out that, even though Bloomberg promised he would spend that money even if he did not get the nomination, the billionaire has yet to open his wallet to the Democratic cause. Here’s more from the Huffington Post’s story:

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a promise when he ran for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination earlier this year: He would spend “whatever it takes” to defeat President Donald Trump in November, at one point suggesting he could put $1 billion of his $55 billion net worth toward the anti-Trump cause.

Bloomberg lavished money on his own campaign, spending more than $433 million on television ads, according to Kantar/CMAG, and building a massive field operation he promised to keep running regardless of who won the nomination. Even now, nearly six months after he dropped out of the contest, Bloomberg remains the biggest television ad spender of the presidential race by a significant margin, having spent more than four times as much as Trump’s campaign and six times as much as former Vice President Joe Biden.

But as Bloomberg prepares to address the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, his largess has not yet made its way to explicit anti-Trump efforts. While he remains perhaps the Democratic Party’s most significant donor, he dismantled the field operation he pledged to keep open, has not made major donations to any of the major super PACs backing Biden, and has not spent anywhere close to $1 billion.

The Department of Justice requested today that the Supreme Court review a decision from an appeals court that ruled Donald Trump cannot block his critics on Twitter.

That the president blocking people on Twitter is a violation of the First Amendment’s right to participate in a “public forum” was first ruled in 2018 by a federal district court and was again upheld by an appeals court in 2019.

“The result of the court of appeals’ novel ruling will be to jeopardize the ability of public officials — from the President of the United States to a village councilperson — to insulate their social-media accounts from harassment, trolling, or hate speech without invasive judicial oversight,” the justice department said in a statement.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University initially filed the lawsuit that led to the ruling on behalf of seven people Trump blocked that included writers and academics who were critical of Trump on the platform.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, had surgery Thursday morning to remove a polyp from his vocal cords, according to NBC News.

A source told NBC that Fauci is at home and doing well. Polyps are not considered a sign of cancer and can develop after prolonged strains of the vocal cords from yelling, singing or cheering. Fauci has been, of course, doing a lot of talking these past few months, doing countless interviews on the Covid-19 outbreak.

While Fauci is expected to return to work soon, patients of the surgery are advised talk for up to five days post-surgery and talk lightly for the week after. Fauci was doing interviews just this week, calling Russia’s claim of an effective and safe Covid-19 vaccine as “bogus” and the long-term effects the virus can have on a person as “troublesome”.

Steve Bannon was reportedly on a yacht off the coast of Connecticut when he was arrested today. Welcome to 2020.

Though Donald Trump has distanced himself from We Build The Wall, the campaign has connections with other top Republicans and allies to Trump besides Steve Bannon. At one point, a prominent backer of the campaign said Trump had given his “blessing” to go forth with the privately constructed wall.

Here’s more from the Guardian’s Daniel Strauss:

The list of well known names associated with We Build the Wall goes far beyond the figure of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and populist firebrand Bannon. The group’s website is a roll call of top figures in Republican and conservative circles.

It lists Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state and a prominent Trump cheerleader, as its attorney general. Bannon was the advisory board chairman. Erik Prince, founder of the private military contractor Blackwater USA, is a member of the organization’s advisory board. Former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, an icon in conservative anti-immigration circles, is also on the advisory board, as is former Milwaukee county sheriff Dave Clarke and former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling.

The White House has released Donald Trump’s official statement on the arrest of Steve Bannon, a former key Trump adviser.

In the statement, the White House distanced itself from the We Built The Wall campaign and from Bannon, saying that Trump had no involvement in the project and that it was a “showboat”.

“President Trump has always felt the Wall must be a government project and that it is far too big and complex to be handled privately,” said press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “President Trump has not been involved with Steve Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the Administration, and he does not know the people involved with this project.”

Though Trump had no direct ties to the campaign, the founders targeted Trump’s supporters when rallying up donations, using the name “Trump Wall” when advertising the wall on a now-deleted GoFundMe page.

While taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump himself said that he was “sad” to hear about Steve Bannon’s arrest but reiterated that he has distanced himself from Bannon “for a very long period of time”.

Bannon was a key figure in Trump’s 2016 campaign and was close to the president up until summer 2017, when Bannon criticized Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a group of Russians during the campaign as being “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”. Bannon was fired from his role as a White House advisor and has been distanced from the president since. This past summer, Bannon has suggested he supports Trump’s reelection campaign and made moves to try to get back into the president’s circles.

Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1953, Steve Bannon was the chief executive officer of Donald Trump’s election campaign in its final months in 2016. He later served as the president’s chief strategist for seven months during the early phase of his administration. He was fired in the summer of 2017, but Trump is recently said to have been talking about him positively.

The bluntly spoken, combative Bannon was the voice of a nationalistic, outsider conservatism, and he pushed Trump to follow through on some of his most contentious campaign promises, including his travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries.

He led the rightwing Breitbart News before being tapped to head Trump's campaign, where he pushed a scorched earth strategy.

After Trump fired him, Bannon launched a European operation called the Movement. Based in Brussels, it was set up to give far-right parties access to polling data, analytics, advice on social media campaigns and help selecting candidates. “Remember ‘Bannon’s theorem’,” he told the Guardian at the time. “You put a reasonable face on rightwing populism, you get elected.”

Bannon, who served in the navy and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before becoming a Hollywood producer, had been hosting a pro-Trump podcast called "War Room" that began during the president's impeachment proceedings and had continued during the pandemic.

He was arrested in August 2020 and charged with fraud over a fundraising campaign called We Build the Wall.

Updated

Federal judge rules Trump must turn over tax returns to Manhattan DA

A federal judge today rejected Donald Trump’s latest attempt to block the Manhattan district attorney’s office from getting a hold of his tax returns for investigations into the president.

Cyrus Vance, the Democratic Manhattan district attorney, has been trying to get the president’s tax returns for an investigation into whether state laws were broken when hush-money payments were given to two women during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Vance has also suggested the scope of the investigation is broader, encompassing possible bank and insurance fraud.

The case has already made it up to the Supreme Court, which rejected arguments from Trump’s lawyer in July that the president is immune from criminal investigation.

After the court’s ruling, Trump’s lawyers went back to the lower courts and argued that a subpoena from a Manhattan grand jury for the investigation was too broad and politically motivated. Judge Victor Marrero, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, said that blocking a subpoena “amounts to absolute immunity through a back door”.

Even if the Manhattan district attorney’s office gets the tax returns, it will only be made public if Trump is charged with a crime after he leaves office, per grand jury secrecy rules.

Updated

Some important context to today’s news of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s arrest: Earlier this summer, attorney general William Barr attempted to prevent Audrey Strauss, the Southern District Court of New York’s (SDNY) interim district attorney who today arrested the president’s former ally, from heading the powerful district.

Trump fired SDNY’s former district attorney Geoffrey Berman in June 2020 after a baffling series of events where Barr released a press statement, without Berman’s knowledge, that Berman is resigning. When Berman refused to confirm his resignation from the role, Barr announced that he asked Trump to fire Berman, and the president followed through.

When asked why they sought to fire Berman, Barr and Trump pointed fingers at each other. Berman has overseen investigation and prosecution of key Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen. Upon his departure, Berman said that it was crucial that “important cases continue upended” in SDNY.

That Berman did not leave without publicly expressing dismay forced Barr to give up a plan to replace Berman with a chief prosecutor from New Jersey, a move that critics say was the justice department’s attempt to wrestle control of SDNY.

Instead, Audrey Strauss, who was Berman’s second-in-command, stepped up. Berman said that he was happy to leave SDNY in the hands of Strauss, saying she would continue the district’s “tradition of integrity and independence”.

Audrey Strauss, interim district attorney for the Southern District Court of New York, whose office today arrested former Trump ally Steve Bannon.
Audrey Strauss, interim district attorney for the Southern District Court of New York, whose office today arrested former Trump ally Steve Bannon. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Updated

It appears that US Postal Service agents were the ones to arrest Steve Bannon today. The irony is palpable.

Former key Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who was one of the main architects of the president’s campaign, joins Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn in the list of men who aided Trump during his campaign and have since been indicted over the last four years.

While Bannon was a key figure in helping Trump get elected, inspiring much of his far-right, extremist rhetoric and serving as chief executive during his presidential campaign, Bannon and Trump have had some serious rifts in the months after Trump entered the White House. Trump fired Bannon in summer 2017, supposedly after Bannon criticized Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a group of Russians during the 2016 campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”.

In a press briefing later in the year, former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump was “furious” and “disgusted by Bannon’s remarks. “Going after the president’s son in an absolutely outrageous way is probably not the best way to curry favor with anybody,” she said.

But more recently, Bannon has been reentering mainstream Republican media circles, seeming to try to court his former boss by showering him with praise.

“When people see the difference between the order of Trump and the chaos of [presumptive Democratic candidate Joe] Biden,” he said on Fox News earlier this year. “I think it’s going to be a pretty clear choice and I think Biden’s going to have a very tough time making this case to people.”

Updated

Steve Bannon is listed as “advisory board chairman” of the online fundraising campaign that has led to his arrest today in New York.

A press release from the Department of Justice says that Bannon covertly received over $1 million in donor funding, “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of which was used to cover Bannon’s “personal expenses”. Bannon and the three other men arrested “devised a scheme to route those payments” through a nonprofit controlled by Bannon and a shell company under the control of Timothy Shea, who was also arrested today.

The We Build The Wall campaign started in 2018 as a GoFundMe by Kolfage, a military veteran, who has described some people crossing the southern border without documents as terrorists and drug traffickers and accused border wall critics as being cartel collaborators. The campaign created a video posted on Youtube of construction of metal barricades to attract anti-immigrant donors to the campaign.

By spring 2019, the group had raised $22 million out of its $1 billion goal.

Last year, the campaign was seen by the Guardian building a private border wall in south Texas despite a court injunction that ordered the work to be suspended.

The We Build The Wall campaign states on its website that “we the People are coming together to build segments of border wall on private property and the best part is, we’re going to do it for a fraction of what it costs the government”.

It has a direct appeal to people who “are sick and tired of watching politicians in both parties obstructing president Trump's plan to build a wall on our southern border”.

Brian Kolfage, a military veteran, started the campaign in 2018 as a GoFundMe page. He has described some of the undocumented people who cross the border into the US from Mexico as terrorists and drug traffickers, and has accused critics of Donald Trump’s pledge to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it as being cartel collaborators. The campaign created a video posted on YouTube of construction of metal barricades to attract anti-immigrant donors to the campaign. By spring 2019, the group had raised $22m out of its $1bn goal.

In December 2019, the campaign was seen by the Guardian building a private border wall in southern Texas despite a court injunction that ordered the work to be suspended.

Trump has criticised a section of wall that the group promoted after it showed signs of erosion, saying it was "only done to make me look bad", even though it was built by his supporters.

Updated

Steve Bannon indicted by federal prosecutors

Former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested in New York in connection to an online fundraising scheme.

The Department of Justice’s Southern District of New York (SDNY) says that Bannon, along with three others, were arrested for leading the “We Build The Wall” online fundraising campaign that “defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors”.

In a statement, acting US attorney Audrey Strauss said that the fund capitalized on donors’ interest in building a border wall while instead funneling millions of dollars to fund the “lavish lifestyle” of “We Build The Wall” founder and public face Brian Kolfage.

Updated

This is Lauren Aratani taking over for Martin Belam. After a night of vitriol at the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump is trying to remind those in the Republican Party who has brought them success.

Trump is once again attacking the late senator John McCain, this time referring to him as a “lousy candidate” and criticizing former members of his campaign who have since been critical of Trump. Trump has a long history of attacking McCain, who at the end of his life was critical of Trump.

Trump this morning retweeted an interview of Sarah Palin, McCain’s vice presidential candidate in his 2008 campaign, with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. Palin criticized Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, both who were senior advisors to McCain’s campaign, for “jumping ship early” and for allegedly not voting for them during the election.

Wallace, now a host on MSNBC and Schmidt have since become Never Trumpers, Republicans who oppose Trump. Schmidt is a cofounder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of Republicans that have paid for scathing anti-Trump ads in the midst of the election.

In response to Palin’s interview, Trump wrote on Twitter that Wallace and Schmidt “never gave him a chance to win”.

“Hope they are happy with OBiden, who gave you me!” he wrote.

Updated

Museum officials have announced that nearly six months after the coronavirus forced its closure, the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York will be reopening on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks next month, first to those who lost loved ones, and then to the general public.

The memorial plaza had been open to the public with social distancing restrictions since early July, but the museum remained closed as did other cultural institutions. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week that museums would be allowed to reopen with restrictions starting later this month.

“We are extremely pleased to announce the reopening of the 9/11 Memorial Museum, a physical testament to the triumph of hope and our potential for resilience in the face of adversity and unfathomable loss,” Alice Greenwald, the 9/11 museum’s president and CEO told the Associated Press.

The anniversary day reopening will be reserved for families of those killed in the 2001 attack and the 1993 World Trade Center attack. The public will be able to visit starting 12 September.

Pandemic restrictions will be in effect, such as a limit of 25% of capacity, and a requirement to wear masks. The museum had always mandated visitors to get timed entry tickets in advance, which will continue now.

And that’s it from me, Martin Belam, today in London. I’m handing over to Lauren Aratani, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Local media is reporting that Chicago police have effectively banned protests on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s block, ordering arrests for anyone who won’t leave. The Chicago Tribune says:

Lightfoot’s office said the city supports residents’ First Amendment right to peacefully protest but did not specifically address whether activists should be allowed to assemble outside her home.

The paper reports that the directive surfaced in a July email from theShakespeare District Commander to officers under his command, and it did not distinguish between the peaceful protesters Lightfoot regularly says she supports and those who might intend to be destructive.

Read it here: Chicago Tribune – ‘Fort Lori’: Chicago police ban protests on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s block, order arrests for anyone who won’t leave

One of Joe Biden’s paths to victory in November is to peel away moderate Republican support from Donald Trump enough that it will swing potentially tight races in a couple of the battleground states.

My colleague Daniel Strauss has been looking at just how that strategy is shaping up, and why dissident Republicans have been a feature of this year’s DNC.

Biden has also long prided himself on being a politician with strong ties to both Democrats and Republicans, even in an era of intense partisanship. The Biden campaign has embraced that record. According to multiple Democrats, the campaign has been actively reaching out to Republicans for the convention. That outreach comes as a number of anti-Trump Republican groups – the Lincoln Project, 43 Alumni for Biden, Republican Voters Against Trump – also actively campaign and fundraise to push Trump out of office.

Chuck Hagel, who served as defense secretary under Barack Obama despite having been a Republican senator for Nebraska, said he and the other Republicans featured at the convention are motivated by their revulsion for Trump’s actions as president. “What I suspect Christine Todd Whitman and John Kasich and other Republicans who are supporting Biden see … is, in our opinion, what Donald Trump has done to this country and will continue to do in this country – debase the presidency, in my opinion, in every way. The Republican party has allowed him to do that. They’ve enabled him. They’ve been enablers. And many Republicans I talk to in the Senate, in the House, know it. But they’re also afraid.”

Read it here: ‘They’re not alone’: Biden aims to unite anti-Trump Republicans at DNC

American Airlines will drop flights to 15 smaller US cities in October when a federal requirement to serve those communities ends, report the Associated Press.

The airline blamed low demand during the coronavirus pandemic, which has triggered a massive slump in air travel. Airlines and their labor unions are seeking billions in taxpayer relief.

American said its October schedule will drop flights to cities including Sioux City, Iowa; New Haven, Connecticut; and Springfield, Illinois.

“This is the first step as American continues to evaluate its network and plans for additional schedule changes in the coming weeks,” the airline said in a prepared statement.

A massive pandemic-relief measure approved in March set aside up to $50 billion in cash and low-interest loans for the nation’s passenger airlines. American was the largest recipient $10.7 billion, if a pending loan wins final approval from the Treasury department.

In return for taxpayer dollars, airlines were barred from furloughing workers and were required, in most cases, to continue serving destinations they had before the pandemic. Both of those conditions expire 30 September.

An American Airlines executive cited the stalemate in Washington over a renewed coronavirus stimulus package for the airline’s decision to cut service to some destinations. American Airlines lost more than $2 billion in its most recent quarter.

Over 1.1m Americans made an initial claim for unemployment benefit last week

More bad news on the US economy. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits climbed back over 1 million last week as the coronavirus continued to take a devastating toll on the job market.

The labor department announced that it received 1.1m claims for benefits last week, an increase of 135,000 from the previous week’s revised level.

Weekly applications for unemployment benefits had dipped below one million the previous week for the first time since March. Before the pandemic hit the US the record for weekly claims was 695,000, set in 1982.

Major international market reactions will be picked up as ever by our business live blog.

Updated

Michael Tomasky has set out in the New York Times this morning what he wants to hear from Joe Biden later tonight, and that’s to make the economic case for his presidency.

The country has done better for decades under Democrats, by nearly every major economic measure. From John Kennedy through Barack Obama — 56 years during which, as it happens, we had a Democratic president for 28 years and a Republican president for 28 — we saw more than 50 million jobs created under Democrats and just 24 million jobs created under Republicans. Even the stock market has performed better under Democratic presidents.

It’s true that just toting up numbers by the months each party had in power is imprecise. But there’s no better way to do it, and if all these numbers were reversed, Republicans would make sure Americans knew about it. They would also make sure Americans were well aware of such an important and consistent failure from the other party. But Democrats have largely failed to punch home just how destructive Republican economic stewardship has been.

Read it here: New York Times – Michael Tomasky: This is what I want to hear from Joe Biden

And talking of the economy, we should get the latest US jobless stats in about ten minutes or so…

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has just tweeted out a video setting out the Trump administrations case that the previous administration was certain that the US could ‘snap back’ sanctions on Iran unilaterally. It features clips of John Kerry, Joe Biden and Barack Obama all saying words to that effect.

It follows a clip of Joe Biden saying the same thing back in April 2015 that Pompeo posted last night.

It quotes Biden saying “There will be a clear procedure in the final deal that allows both the UN and unilateral sanctions to snap back without needing to cajole lots of other countries – including Russia or China – to support it. That will be written in the final deal.”

This morning’s video from Pompeo then also quotes president Donald Trump, saying that “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violent, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout.”

But therein lies the problem. A few months after those wrods, on 8 May 2018, president Trump announced that the US would be withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. The US reinstated sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord, effectively breaking US participation in it. The ‘snap back’ terms were part of that deal.

Earlier today Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov described statements by the United States on reimposing UN sanctions against Iran as “absurd”, adding that the country has no legal or political grounds to do so.

Over the last couple of the nights at the DNC, speakers have been targeting Donald Trump for his repeated attempts to undermine mail-in voting in November’s election, whether it’s legal threats against the state of Nevada, tweeting that the election will be fraudulent, or sitting by while the United States Postal Service is degraded under his watch.

Our Sam Levine has got the definitive run-down for you though: Does mail-in voting lead to fraud – and does it help Democrats? The facts

Also writing about race in America today are Laura Barrón-López and Alex Thompson, who observe that the attention paid to racial injustice and systemic racism at the DNC would have been unthinkable even four years ago:

The combination of Democrats’ reaction to Donald Trump’s presidency, the most diverse presidential field in history and years more of activism, however, made race impossible to ignore in the 2020 campaign. All the candidates felt compelled to talk about race, not just to appeal to voters of color but to make inroads with white liberals who have dramatically shifted their views in recent years.

Biden was a bit of an outlier in the primary as he did not incorporate as much of the social justice language into his campaign as other candidates but also managed to trounce them with voters of color. Even so, the dramatic shifts in public opinion in recent months seem to have ended any lingering caution about discussing race.

“I remember when president Obama gave his speech, saying that if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin, and how world-stopping that was at the moment at that time,” said Alencia Johnson, a former senior campaign aide to Elizabeth Warren. But to hear Harris and others say the names of Floyd and other Black men and women killed by police, she said is “almost earth-shattering.”

Read it here: Politico – Democratic convention takes ‘earth-shattering’ turn with its focus on race

Time magazine have just put out their new cover onto social media – “The new American revolution”, which is in conjunction with Pharrell Williams

He’s curated the project for the magazine which “examines America’s oppressive past—and the potential for an equitable future” in a series of contributions from young Black musicians, activists, artists and athletes.

Williams himself has contributed an essay, alongside Michael Harriot, in which they write:

America was founded on a dream of a land where all men were created equal, that contained the promise of liberty and justice for all. But all has never meant Black people. Like most Black Americans, I understand that all exists only in the augmented-reality goggles available to shareholders, power brokers and those lucky enough to get in on the initial public offering. But the ongoing protests for equity and accountability that have overtaken cities across the nation have made me feel something new that I can only describe with one word: American.

The desperate longing for economic justice that spurred unrest in the streets of Minneapolis after George Floyd’s murder reminds me of the same fire that burned in the veins of the Sons of Liberty when they dumped 342 chests of tea into the sea at Griffin’s Wharf. When I see people tearing down the monuments to secessionist traitors who wanted to start their own white-supremacist nation, I see patriots acting in service of this country. It reminds me of the protesters who were inspired to tear down the statue of King George on July 9, 1776, after they heard Thomas Jefferson’s letter telling his oppressors to kick rocks. Those “thugs” would serve under the direction of George Washington in the American Revolution. But the Declaration of Independence makes it sound dignified: “In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms,” wrote our Founding Fathers. “Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”

You can read the whole thing here: Pharrell Williams – America’s Past and Present Are Racist. We Deserve a Black Future

Updated

Fred Guttenberg, the gun safety campaigner whose daughter was killed at the Parkland school shooting in Florida in 2018, has just demonstrated how much Trump’s tacit endorsement of the QAnon conspiracy theory yesterday for some people draws a very clear divide between the two candidates to be president.

Updated

Michigan to pay $600m to compensate Flint residents over lead-tainted drinking water – reports

There’s a strong environmental theme emerging in the news so far this morning – and here’s another bit. The Associated Press are reporting that they understand that Michigan will pay $600 million to compensate Flint residents whose health was damaged by lead-tainted drinking water.

Details will be released later this week, according to an attorney who spoke to the AP. It is intended to resolve all legal actions against the state for its role in a disaster that made the impoverished, majority-Black city a nationwide symbol of governmental mismanagement.

The offices of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney general Dana Nessel have been negotiating for more than 18 months with lawyers for thousands of Flint residents. A spokesman for Nessel, declined to confirm the reports of a deal.

Flint switched its water source from the city of Detroit to the Flint River to save money in 2014, while under control of a state-appointed emergency manager. State environmental regulators advised Flint not to apply corrosion controls to the water, which was contaminated by lead from ageing pipes.

Residents of the city with a population of nearly 100,000 began complaining that the water was discolored and had a bad taste and smell. They blamed it for rashes, hair loss and other health concerns, but local and state officials insisted it was safe. Residents had to use bottled water for drinking and household needs for more than a year.

Researchers with Virginia Tech University finally reported in summer 2015 that samples of Flint water had abnormally high lead levels. Shortly afterward, a group of doctors announced that local children had high levels of lead in their blood.

The governor at the time, Rick Snyder eventually acknowledged the problem, accepted the resignation of his environmental chief and pledged to aid the city, which resumed using Detroit water.

Under the deal, the state would establish a $600 million fund and Flint residents could file claims for compensation. The amount awarded per applicant would be based on how badly they were harmed.

If approved, the settlement would push state spending on the Flint water crisis over $1 billion. Michigan already has pumped more than $400 million into replacing water pipes, purchasing filters and bottled water, children’s health care and other assistance.

The coronavirus crisis has obscured a lot of news about the ongoing climate crisis. And that’s allowing people to exploit the lack of attention it has been getting. Emily Holden reports for us today in Washington on how the gas industry is waging war against climate action in the US

In historically conservative states, the gas industry has convinced legislatures to pass laws prohibiting cities from following in Seattle’s footsteps and trying to ban new gas hookups. In the digital world, it has carefully cultivated the fuel’s image, paying Instagram influencers to cook with gas stoves. In the media, it has sought to be quoted in important stories in news outlets like Reuters, according to internal records. In Washington DC, where the industry has strong support from the Trump administration, it has lobbied the federal government on everything from environmental reviews to appliance standards.

“The gas utilities are facing an existential threat, and instead of approaching a decarbonizing economy as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, they’re digging their heels in and going back to the age-old tactics” said Charlie Spatz, a researcher at the Climate Investigations Center.

Read it here: Revealed – how the gas industry is waging war against climate action

Louisiana’s governor sets state on path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

Louisiana’s governor has signed an executive order setting a state goal for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, drawing swift praise from environmental groups, report the Associated Press

Gov. John Bel Edwards laid out the state’s first goal for greenhouse gases in an order creating a climate initiatives task force to include members from state government, business, environmental justice, Indian tribes, academics and other areas.

At least 23 other states and the District of Columbia have set greenhouse gas targets, though specifics vary, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

The United States is among the world’s biggest carbon polluters. Louisiana’s ultimate and interim goals are in line with those in the Paris agreement of 2017 and those of many other states, Edwards said. He did not mention that Donald Trump had pulled the US out of the agreement.

“In many ways, Louisiana is the poster child for climate change, we are the canary in the coal mine,” Edwards said during a Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency meeting live-streamed from Baton Rouge.

“We want to be the gold standard. We cannot build our way out of this problem.”

But Edwards said there’s also tremendous development and jobs potential in renewable energy and such techniques as restoring wetlands, where green plants will take in carbon dioxide that is emitted into the air, and creating ways to capture the gas from refineries and factories and store it in underground formations rather than letting it into the air.

“We are not turning our back on our traditional energy here in Louisiana,” Edwards said. He noted that companies are setting their own emission goals and that Louisiana is well positioned to move from dirtier fuels to natural gas.

“The real unique part about it is this is a fossil fuel-driven state,” said Natalie Snider, senior director of coastal resilience for the Environmental Defense Fund.

David Smith in Washington has an analysis piece for us this morning on that blistering Barack Obama speech last night.

In 2020, Obama was back in the city where the US constitution was drafted and signed. But this time he stood alone at a lectern in the Museum of the American Revolution. Usually presidents go into bat for their own legacy, but the message was that the legacy of George Washington and other founding fathers is now at stake.

Obama’s speeches are often lauded for their poetry but this time his language was cold and muscular, using the word “democracy” 18 times. The man who made famous the slogan “Hope and change” had found that the first of those is not always enough. “I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously,” he said. For a long time the 44th president has declined to use Trump’s name. No more.

Read it here: Obama’s stark message: America must save itself from Trump

New Mexico city to pay $6.5m to family of man choked to death by police officer

Associated Press are reporting that the New Mexico city of Las Cruces has agreed to pay $6.5 million to the family of Mexican American man who was choked to death by a police officer.

The settlement calls for the city, 46 miles (74 kilometers) north of the US-Mexico border, to pay the family of Antonio Valenzuela within 30 days and promises the local government will embark on various police reforms. Financial terms of the settlement were not previously disclosed.

Former Las Cruces Police officer Christopher Smelser
Former Las Cruces Police officer Christopher Smelser Photograph: Las Cruces Police Department/AP

Under the settlement, Las Cruces police agreed to ban all chokeholds and fire any officer who violates the new policy something officials say the city already does. The city also must try to adopt a warning system involving officers who use excessive force and forge a policy so officers can undergo yearly mental health exams.

Valenzuela, 40, had a warrant out for his arrest because of a parole violation and fought with officers who tried to detain him after he fled from a traffic stop in February.

After a chase, then-Las Cruces Officer Christopher Smelser applied the chokehold. Smelser, who is Hispanic, can be heard on police video saying, “I’m going to (expletive) choke you out, bro.”

Valenzuela died at the scene. Smelser was later fired and faces a second-degree murder charge. He has not yet entered a plea.

Updated

Riot declared on 84th continuous night of Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon

The 84th continuous night of Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon have been declared a riot again by the police.

Local media report that clashes came outside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in Southwest Portland. The ICE building was repeatedly tagged with graffiti and some windows were broken. Federal officers would then push protesters back from the building.

Officers reportedly used the stun grenades and gas around midnight to break up the crowd, though it was unclear which law enforcement agency used the gas and grenades.

A couple of quick bits of foreign policy updates in from Reuters this morning.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has described statements by the United States on reimposing UN sanctions against Iran as absurd, adding that it has no legal or political grounds to do so. Mike Pompeo is heading to the UN later today to try and get unified action against Iran.

And the Chinese commerce ministry has said China and the US have agreed to hold trade talks “in the coming days” to evaluate the progress of their Phase 1 trade deal six months after it took effect in February. That follows Tuesday’s remarks by White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows that no new high-level trade talks were scheduled. Donald Trump had told reporters he had postponed an 15 August review of the trade pact, in frustration over Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the coronavirus crisis on a day that has long been set as a key moment in the build-up to November’s election – the day that Joe Biden will speak to accept the Democratic party’s nomination for president.

I’m Martin Belam, I’ll be here for a couple of hours, and you can in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com

Updated

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