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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Maanvi Singh in San Francisco (now) and Lauren Gambino in Washington (earlier)

Trump claims he's helping himself with his attacks on Baltimore – as it happened

Trump talks to the press before he departs for Williamsburg, Virginia.
Trump talks to the press before he departs for Williamsburg, Virginia. Photograph: Pete Marovich/EPA

Summary

We’re wrapping up a bit early here today, so we can tune into Democratic debate. You can follow The Guardian’s live coverage and analysis of the first round of the debate here.

  • Donald Trump continued to defend his attacks on Baltimore and the city’s congressman, Elijah Cummings even as he departed for an event commemorating 400 years since the rise of American democracy in Virginia that black state lawmakers boycotted in light of the president’s “disparaging” comments against minority members of Congress the majority-black city. To reporters, Trump said the black lawmakers were acting “against their own people” and asserted that he was the “least racist” person “anywhere in the world”
  • A member of Virginia’s House of Delegates interrupted Trump’s speech to protest the president’s divisive rhetoric and policies. Trump later said the protestor, Ibraheem Samirah, “didn’t look so good”.
  • Two female Republican senators, both survivors of sexual assault, split sharply in their assessment of general John Hyten’s fitness to serve as the vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff amid accusations that he sexually assaulted an Army colonel while she severed under him. Senator Martha McSally of Arizona declared Hyten “innocent” of the charges against him while Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said the facts of the case left her with “concerns regarding your judgment, leadership, and fitness to serve as the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Donald Trump’s campaign announced that the president will be returning to New Hampshire next month, to hold a campaign rally.

The event will be held on August 15, in Manchester, New Hampshire, interrupting a planned week-long presidential vacation at Trump’s private golf course in New Jersey.

Trump narrowly lost the state -- by less than one percent -- in 2016.

North Carolina Republican political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless has had new charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and illegal possession of absentee ballots leveled against him.

Dowless, who worked for the Republican nominee in the state’s 9th congressional district last year, was previously indicted on obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and possessing an absentee ballot in violation of state law.

He was charged with running a scheme to illegally collect and forge mail-in ballots from voters in rural North Carolina.

Updated

Maanvi Singh here, taking over.

A federal judge has dismissed the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit against Donald Trump, The Russian Federation and WikiLeaks.

The lawsuit, filed last year, alleged that the Trump campaign was a racketeering enterprise, engaged in a conspiracy to influence the outcome of the election.

The dismissal notes that “the primary wrongdoer in this alleged criminal enterprise is undoubtedly the Russian Federation”, which cannot be sued in US courts.

Updated

The ACLU, who greeted Trump’s election with an advertising campaign that taunted: “we’ll see you in court,” is making good on that promise.

On Tuesday the civil liberties organization announced it had filed a motion to stop a Trump administration policy allowing migrant families to be separated at the border.

Despite an earlier court ruling that had blocked the practice, reports have indicated that children and parents are still being separated more than a year later.

The ACLU is also suing to stop Trump from using federal funds that Congress refused to appropriate to build his border wall. This lawsuit comes after the Supreme Court granted Trump temporary approval to begin construction of the wall with funds diverted from the military.

California passes new election law requiring Trump to release tax returns

Trump – or any presidential candidate – will not qualify for California’s primary ballot unless he discloses his tax returns, under a new law signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday.

The legislation, which passed on a strictly party-line vote by lawmakers in Sacramento, is an “unprecedented mandate that is almost certain to spark a high-profile court fight and might encourage other states to adopt their own unconventional rules for presidential candidates,” according to the LA Times.

Trump has defied decades of tradition of voluntarily releasing his tax returns as a presidential candidate, and now as president. He routinely dismisses such calls to disclose his filings, insisting that he would release them when he was no longer under audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

Democrats, including Newsom, have suggested that Trump is hesitant to release his filings because they might reveal potentially compromising financial ties to Russia – or that perhaps he is not as wealthy as he claims to be.

To be eligible for California’s presidential primary ballot in March, all presidential candidates must release five years of personal tax filings by late November. The financial documents will then be made public online by state election officials.

California is not alone in the effort to force Trump’s hand.

Last week, Trump sued to stop House Democrats from obtaining his New York state tax returns made available by a law signed by governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this month.

Several other states have also considered legislation that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns in light of Trump’s precedent. Meanwhile, the Democratic-led House is locked in a protracted legal battle with Trump, seeking to obtain his tax returns under an obscure 1924 law that allows the chairs of Congress’s tax committees to examine any American’s confidential filings.

The slow drumbeat of calls for Trump’s impeachment continued today as congresswoman Grace Meng, a Democrat from New York, announced her support.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC’s nonvoting delegate, also called on the House to launch impeachment proceedings on Tuesday.

According to a count by Politico, 112 Democrats now support an impeachment inquiry.

During the second presidential debates, Trump’s re-election campaign will air a new ad that attacks Democrats for supporting a healthcare plan that would cover undocumented immigrants, according to a release from Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

The ad, , “They’re All the Same,” will run on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News on July 30 and 31.

During the first round of debates last month, every candidate on stage raised their hand when asked if their plan would cover undocumented immigrants. The concept is broadly unpopular and several leading Democratic strategists and pundits feared that moment would come back to haunt the party, as Trump and Republicans try to tar the field as too far left.

Trump’s re-election campaign will run this ad during the presidential debates.

The 30-second spot accuses Democrats of wanting to socialize the US healthcare system, even though there is a sharp divide in the Democratic field over support for a single-payer system.

“Democrats. Radical. Reckless. Socialist,” the ad blares amid video footage from the border and an emergency room hospital.

Ibraheem Samirah, the Virginia state delegate who interrupted Trump’s speech earlier this morning, is hitting back at Trump for saying that he “didn’t look so good”.

In remarks to reporters outside the White House, Trump said he was “going to be very nice,” adding that “the protestor didn’t look so good to me.”

Samirah shot back on Twitter: “What about me ‘didn’t look so good?’ I wore my favorite bowtie.”

Video and photos from the event would confirm that, indeed, Samirah wore a suit and bowtie.

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt has more on Trump’s remarks in Jamestown and Samirah’s protest. Read about that here:

Updated

Thanks to Joanna Walters for manning the blog so I could grab some lunch and stretch my legs.

Trump took another round of questions from reporters on his way back to the White House. Trump continued to attack the city of Baltimore, even though some state lawmakers in Virginia boycotted his speech commemorating the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy over his inflammatory remarks.

For those wondering if Trump is playing “3-dimensional chess” or simply following his instincts, the president says it’s the latter. Unless, of course, he is playing 3-dimensional chess and “no strategy” is the stratgey.

He also again stood firm in his decision to nominate Texas congressman John Ratcliffe, who appears to have an uphill confirmation battle awaiting him in the Senate.

Trump, who has employed his daughter and son-in-law in the White House, is thrilled that Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s son will be the ambassador to the US. Bolsonaro, after all, embraces comparisons to his American counterpart.

Detroit is a whole scene ahead of the second presidential debate.

Impeachment ad to run during presidential primary debates

The first paid TV advertisement to emerge in the aftermath (anticlimax?) of the testimony by Robert Mueller on Capitol Hill last week will air during the Democratic primary debates tonight and tomorrow night.

The 30-second ad is funded by long-shot 2020 presidential wannabe Tom Steyer’s Need to Impeach group.

With crisp clips of the most revealing questions from Democrats and decisive responses from the former special counsel, who spent almost two years conducting the Trump-Russia investigation, it does get to the best of the hearing.

As Politico revealed this morning, it starts with: “Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” House judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) asks Mueller. “No,” Mueller says.

And it goes on from there in similar vein.

Ad ad paid for by Tom Steyer’s Need to Impeach

Updated

McSally backs General but Ernst has serious questions

Notwithstanding Arizona Republican senator Martha McSally’s definite assertions earlier that Hyten is “innocent”, fellow Republican Senator Joni Ernst, of Iowa, expressed concerns about an Air Force General John Hyten’s nomination to serve as vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, amid the allegations of sexual harassment.

Ernst questioned Hyten during an armed services committee hearing about his handling of complaints of a “toxic” environment within his command.

She said she was left with concern over Hyten’s “judgment, leadership and fitness to serve” in leadership, the AP reports.


Ernst is a former reserve officer. She recently disclosed that she was a survivor of a college sexual assault.

McSally’s comments earlier were especially stunning because she recently revealed that she was raped in the military by a superior officer. And the way the crime investigation was handled drove her to despair.

Ernst, meanwhile, in an interview with the Guardian earlier this year revealed that she turned down the opportunity to be Donald Trump’s vice-president because she believed her husband Gail “hated any successes I have”.

US Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa
US Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Updated

Army colonel who alleges sexual assault responds

US Army Colonel Kathryn Spletstoser has just responded, to reporters, after US Air Force General John Hyten denied her accusations of sexual assault, earlier at his Senate confirmation hearing today.

Spletstoser on Tuesday maintained the sexual assault accusations she had leveled against Donald Trump’s nominee for the position of second-highest ranking military officer in the country. She accused Hyten of making false statements in front of a Senate panel earlier in the day, Reuters reports.

“You just had a four-star general get up in front of the American people and in open testimony, in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and make false official statements under oath, he lied about a myriad of items,” Spletstoser told reporters.

Of his alleged assailing of her in the past, she said: “He did it, he did it multiple times.”

Congressman Elijah Cummings, the recipient of days of attacks from the president, spent his morning with students of the University of Maryland’s Summer Bioscience Internship Program and the Youthworks Program. On Twitter, the House Oversight committee chair championed the program that he helped start – and vowed to continue serving as a “check on the Executive Branch”.

cher
The Cher Show Photograph: Joan Marcus

He also got a boost from Cher, who shared a slightly pixelated head shot of the lawmaker with the hashtag “IStandWithElijahCummings.”

Updated

Senate Democrats unveiled a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, a 2010 US supreme court decision that opened the spigot on unlimited campaign spending in US elections.

The legislation has little chance of passing, especially with Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader. Once an advocate of campaign finance reform, McConnell is now a staunch opponent of efforts to enact change.

The amendment, introduced by Senators Tom Udall of New Mexico, and Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, has 43 original cosponsors and would give Congress and US states the ability to write the rules on political spending by outside groups. The House introduced a companion to this measure.

A constitutional amendment must be approved by both the House of Representatives and Senate with a two-thirds majority vote or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

The full text of the amendment can be found here.

Updated

Ibraheem Samirah, a Palestinian-American who is a Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates, interrupted the president’s remarks commemorating the 400th anniversary of the rise of American Democracy.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Samirah called Trump a “beacon of hate speech and harmful policy.”

Updated

Hey, Baltimore

Yeah, we’re talking to you.

We are asking our Charm City readers to share with us a little bit about the Baltimore you experience every day.

If you’re so inclined the questionnaire can be found in this story. Just tap the gray box and fill out the form.

A Guardian journalist may follow up with you.

Elizabeth Warren will take the debate stage tonight alongside fellow progressive stalwart Bernie Sanders.

Ahead of their appearance, she unveiled a list of new endorsements from progressive lawmakers, including one from Raúl Grijalva, who was one of only a handful of members of Congress to endorse Sanders in 2016.

“She is a bold, persistent, visionary leader who cares about working families - and because of this, she’s won my endorsement,” Grijalva said.

She also won endorsements from Representative Deb Haaland, one of the first two Native American women to serve in the US Congress along with several members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, including Senator Ed Markey, and congressmen Joe Kennedy.

Donald Trump’s delivered a speech that celebrates America’s sweep from colonial Virginia settlement to – one day – planting an American flag on Mars.

“America always gets the job done,” he said. “America always wins.”

The speech was briefly interrupted by a protester who was shouted down by supporters of the president chanting “Trump”.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was not on the dais during Trump’s speech.

In remarks earlier in the commemoration ceremony, Northam, who was called on to resign by several black lawmakers in the state over a scandal involving a racist yearbook photo,” emphasized the inequities that still exist in Virginia 400 years later.

Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who is black and was urged not to attend, was present for Trump’s remarks but sat stone-faced and did not clap.

Updated

Donald Trump said the “African American community is so thankful” that he was speaking out about the grim reality of inner cities like Baltimore.

How did the entire African American community convey this gratitude? “They’ve called me and they’ve said, ‘finally somebody is telling the truth,” Trump said.

Some critics weren’t buying it.

Updated

While we wait for Trump to speak in historic Jamestown, Virginia, a recap of his comments from earlier.

Before departing from the White House, Trump said the black legislators planning to boycott his appearance at a Virginia event commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first meeting of the House of Burgesses are acting “against their own people.”

Trump went on to say that African Americans “love the job” he’s doing and are “happy as hell” with his recent comments disparaging the majority black city of Baltimore and its congressman, Elijah Cummings. This follows his attacks on four progressive congresswoman of color, who he told to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the US and all are US citizens.

Rather than attend the ceremony in Jamestown, members of Virginia’s legislative black caucus placed a wreath honoring deceased black lawmakers at Virginia’s State Capitol, according to the Associated Press. They also plan to hold a ceremony at the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail site in Richmond, where slaves were imprisoned and sold.

Delegate Lamont Bagby told the AP that the lawmakers chose to boycott Trump’s speech in Jamestown because they want to reflect on the good, the bad and “the ugly” of the last 400 years, including slavery.

The White House blocked a State Department intelligence analyst from delivering testimony on the national security implications of climate change to Congress because the analysis “did not comport with the administration’s position on climate change,” the analyst wrote in an editorial for the New York Times.

Rod Schoonover, who worked as a senior analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department until he resigned in protest earlier this month, said he was allowed to deliver a brief oral testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, but the White House refused to approve his written testimony for entry into the permanent Congressional record.

That intervention prompted Schoonover’s resignation. In the editorial he writes:

The bottom line of written testimony was this: “Climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security over the next 20 years.” ...

In blocking the submission of the written testimony, the White House trampled not only on the scientific integrity of the assessment but on the analytic independence of an arm of the intelligence community. That’s why I recently resigned from the job I considered a sacred duty, and the institution I loved.

The Guardian has extensively covered climate change – and the administration’s “war on science”. Read more here.

Updated

Meanwhile, in another high-profile hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee the Air Force general nominated to become the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Hyten, categorically denied allegations of sexual misconduct.

The Tuesday morning hearing is the the first chance that senators will have to question him about the charges brought by his former aide, Army colonel Kathryn Spletstoser, according to the Associated Press, which broke this story earlier this month.

Hyten and Spletstoser met separately with senators in classified sessions last week.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations reviewed the matter and found insufficient evidence to charge Hyten or recommend any administrative punishment.

Spletstoser told The Associated Press that Hyten subjected her to a series of unwanted sexual advances by kissing, hugging and rubbing up against her in 2017 while she was one of his top aides. She said she repeatedly pushed him away and told him to stop, and that he tried to derail her military career after she rebuffed him.

During the hearing, Arizona Republican senator Martha McSally, who has spoken publicly about her sexual assault, says she believes Hyten is innocent.

McSally, who was appointed to replace John McCain, faces a grueling election that may very well be decided by moderate and independent women in the state.

Updated

The Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee committee is holding a hearing on the conditions at the Southern Border.

Among those slated to testify is Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of the US Customs and Border Protection and Jennifer Costello, the deputy inspector general US Department of Homeland Security.

Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee committee on conditions at the border

So that happened....

Bernie Sanders and Cardi B – who is freshly feeling the Bern this time around – met at the Ten Nail Bar in Detroit ahead of the presidential debates there this week.

Video coming soon.

Trump will speak in Jamestown today to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first meeting of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, which laid the foundation for America’s representative government.

This year also marks 400 years since the first African slaves were brought to Virginia, the birthplace of the slave trade to the US and the onetime seat of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Black state lawmakers have said they will not attend the president’s address because of what they called in a statement his “degrading comments toward minority leaders,” his “policies that harm marginalized communities” and his “racist and xenophobic rhetoric”.

In a tweet, Trump appears to complain about their planned absence, saying the lawmakers, who are Democrats, are purposely trying to make the event as “uncomfortable as possible.”

Updated

Trump: 'I am the least racist person'

Speaking to journalists as he left the White House for Virginia, Trump said: “I am the least racist person that there is anywhere in the world.”

Trump has often leveled this defense when accused of racism or bigotry. The assertion is laughable to most Trump critics in the wake of his equivocation in response to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville; his desire for the US to attract more migrants from Norway instead of “shithole” countries like El Salvador, Haiti and various African nations; his brutal policies at the southern border; his campaign to include a citizenship question on the census; his attack on four lawmakers of color who he told to “go back” to their home countries, regardless of the fact three were born in the US and all are American citizens; and his most recent assault on senior black lawmaker, Elijah Cummings, and his majority-black district.

In his comments on Tuesday, Trump also accused the Reverend Al Sharpton of being a racist and claimed his presidency has been a success for African Americans.

“They’re doing better than they’ve ever done before,” he said of African Americans. “They are so happy at what I’ve been able to do.”

“The African American people have been calling the White House they have never been so happy as [sic] what a president has done,” Trump added.

He also said: “I think I’m helping myself” with his attacks on Baltimore.

Accusations of racism have long dogged Trump, since his days as a young real estate developer working alongside his father, Fred, when the Justice Department accused Trump Management Company of refusing to rent to African American residents. In the 1990s he took a full-page ad in major New York newspapers calling for the death penalty for five black and brown teens, known as the Central Park Five. All five men were later exonerated.

And before becoming president, his entry into national politics was the false “birther” conspiracy that alleged Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president was not born in the US.

Updated

On his way out the door to Virginia, Trump defended his choice of congressman John Ratcliffe to be the director of national intelligence.

Trump’s nomination of the Texas Republican comes after he put on quite a show for the president during the testimony of former special counsel Robert Mueller.

The president says Ratcliffe had already speaking to him about the post “long” before his performance during the House hearing.

He also continued to attack the city of Baltimore and its leaders.

This morning, Maryland governor, Larry Hogan, a Republican who considered challenging Trump for the nomination told a local radio station that the president’s comments were “just outrageous and inappropriate.”

“Washington is just completely consumed with, with angry and divisive politics, the divisiveness and dysfunction. And then 14 hours later we get this tweet that sets off another fire storm of angry tweets back and forth,” he said.

Updated

Baltimore hit back hard at Trump over his attack on the city as “disgusting” and a “rat and rodent infested mess.” Cartoonist Dan Wasserman imagined the president’s reaction.

George Conway, the lawyer and outspoken Trump critic married to White House counsel Kellyanne Conway, is at it again this morning.

George Conway once told the Washington Post that he Tweets “so I don’t end up screaming at her about it.”

Trump attacks China over trade policy

Good morning and welcome to another day that begins with a Donald Trump Tweet storm. On his mind this morning is all manner of topics: terrorism, the US border, China, trade, “Morning Joe & Psycho,” Fox & Friends and, of course, as if he’s in on the joke, infrastructure week.

Later today Trump will travel to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he delivers remarks on the 400th Anniversary of the First Representative Legislative Assembly, where America’s unique tradition of representative government. But black lawmakers in the state will not attend because of Trump’s ongoing and persistent attacks on lawmakers of color, including most recently, House Oversight chairman Elijah Cummings.

“The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the President, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric,” the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus said in a statement Monday.

We’re also standing by for the big event of the day, the first night of the democratic presidential debates featuring senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

But don’t expect the two leading lights of the American left to go after one another. They want this primary race to be a contest of ideas, and specifically of the progressive ones they have proposed. So far, the policy battles are being fought on their turf and they intend to keep it that way. More on that here:

Also on the stage this evening is celebrity author and self-help guru Marianne Williamson. She made a splash in the first round of debates when she vowed to “harness love” to defeat a fear-mongering president and later said her first call as president of the United States would be to the prime minster of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. She explained that she would tell her that under a Williamson administration the US would be as good of a place for children to grow up in as New Zealand: “Girlfriend, you are so on.”

Meanwhile, American rapper A$AP Rocky has pleaded not guilty to assault at the start of his trial in Sweden. The case has received widespread attention and strained international relations between the US and Sweden after Trump became involved and publicly demanded his release. The unusual intervention by a US president comes as Trump faces a torrent of condemnation for his racist attacks on US lawmakers of color, which he resumed last night.

Updated

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