Donald Trump and Brazil‘s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro held a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden, in a show of unity between the two nations.
President Trump said he told Mr Bolsonaro he would make Brazil a major non-Nato ally, with the possibility of supporting a campaign to make it “maybe a Nato ally”.
In turn, the Brazilian leader went on to praise Mr Trump for changing the United States, echoing Mr Trump’s “fake news” slogan.
“Brazil and the United States are tied by the guarantee of liberty, respect for the traditional family, the fear of God our creator, against gender identity, political correctness and fake news,” Mr Bolsonaro.
The far-right leader has been an avid supporter of President Trump, with their mirroring speeches sharing conservative views.
The press conference came after Donald Trump was drawn into a Twitter spat with George Conway, husband of adviser Kellyanne, over questions around the president’s mental health.
The argument comes as the FBI investigates the president's ties to the owner of a chain of massage parlours in Florida at the urging of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.
The Democrats have asked the bureau to look into “public reports about alleged the activities by Ms Li ‘Cindy’ Yang and her apparent relationship with the president”, who has been the subject of allegations relating to human trafficking, prostitution and promising Chinese businessmen access to Mar-a-Lago to meet Mr Trump, who denies knowing her despite their being photographed together.
Reports have meanwhile emerged suggesting the president obtained $2bn (£1.5bn) in loans from Deutsche Bank over two decades, allegedly exaggerating his personal wealth and promising bankers weekends at his Florida retreat in exchange for their help in securing the funding.
Read events from the day as they happened
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House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have asked the FBI to step in and investigate the founder of a Florida massage parlor chain who is an alleged acquaintance of President Donald Trump, according to a letter released on Monday.
House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer released the letter, signed by four other politicians. It asked investigators to look into "public reports about alleged activities by Ms Li 'Cindy' Yang and her apparent relationship with the president".
The Orchids of Asia chain of massage parlors founded by Ms Yang is "suspected of involvement" in human trafficking and prostitution, which involves female immigrants being forced to serve as "sex workers," said the letter to the FBI and other federal investigative agencies.
Senators Mark Warner and Dianne Feinstein and Representatives Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler signed the letter. It said Ms Yang also reportedly created a business called GY US investments, which they allege "may be selling access to the president and members of his family to clients from China".
President Trump denies knowing Li Yang despite, er, being photographed with her at a Super Bowl party at Mar-a-Lago.
House and Senate leaders demand FBI investigation into spa owner linked to Trump and Robert Kraft
Ms Yang's lawyer says that her client has been in the dark on the allegations raised against her following the human trafficking sting at a spa she no longer ownsHere's that letter in full.
According to Li Yang's lawyer, Michelle Merson, her client is currently scared and in hiding.
Ms Merson said Ms Yang denies the allegations made against her. "Ms Yang is not concerned because she feels she's speaking the truth and the truth will free her," the attorney said in a video on her website.
The Democrats' letter said Li Yang's own website, which has been taken down, once offered clients the "opportunity to interact" with Mr Trump and other political figures as well as participation in White House and Capitol Hill dinners.
The letter said that, if proven, such allegations "raise serious counterintelligence concerns."
It asked if Ms Yang had been the focus of earlier federal or state probes and for an assessment of "counterintelligence risks", which her apparent activities might have posed.
The Democrats also asked if other individuals have used Mar-a-Lago, the president's Palm Beach estate, to offer foreigners access to President Trump or people around him, as well as whether Ms Yang or her foreign clients have had access to Mr Trump or other US officials at the White House, Mar-a-Lago or other Trump properties.
The FBI had no comment on the legislators' letter.
Asked about the case, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Chinese government followed the principle of not interfering in the internal politics of other countries.
"This is what we say and this is what we do," he told a daily news briefing, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, The New York Times is reporting that Donald Trump acquired more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in loans from Deutsche Bank over a 20-year period before he entered the Oval Office.
Despite his being considered a risky proposition as a result of past bankruptcies, Mr Trump nevertheless secured the loans from the German bank to build a Chicago skyscraper and buy the Doral golf resort in Miami, reportedly exaggerating the extent of his personal wealth by as much as 70 percent and offering bankers weekend stays at Mar-a-Lago in exchange for their help in securing the funding, the resort evidently becoming a focal point for suspicion.
The New York attorney general’s office and the Democratic-controlled House Intelligence Committee and Financial Services Committee have all taken an interest in the president’s financial ties with Deutsche, whom Mr Trump allegedly led to believe he was worth $3bn (£2.3bn) when the truth was closer to $788m (£593m).
The president is due to meet with his Brazilian counterpart today, right-wing firebrand Jair Bolsonaro, a man once dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics".
The pair, who both like to take to Twitter to denounce "Fake News", will meet in Washington at 1.45pm (5.45pm GMT) to discuss a range of issues, including ways to increase US private-sector investment in Brazil and ways to resolve the political crisis in Venezuela.
Arriving yesterday, Mr Bolsonaro - who succeeded the leftist Dilma Rousseff - toured the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and told the US Chamber of Commerce: "Nowadays, you have a president who is a friend of the United States who admires this beautiful country... We want to have a great Brazil just like Trump wants to have a great America".
His son, politician Eduardo Bolsonaro, described the CIA as "one of the most respected intelligence agencies in the world" in a tweet that was likely to raise eyebrows back home in Brazil, where the US and its spy services have been regarded with suspicion in recent years.
In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations involving Ms Rousseff, leading to several years of tense relations between the US and Brazil.
Tweeting ahead of his arrival, Jair Bolsonaro wrote on Sunday. "For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC. It's the beginning of a partnership focused on liberty and prosperity, something that all of us Brazilians have long wished for."
His speech to the Chamber of Commerce yesterday came after the two countries signed several bilateral agreements, including one that allows the United States to use Brazil's Alcantara Aerospace Launch Base for its satellites and Brazil announced an end to visa requirements for US tourists who visit the country.
Brazil is seeking US help with its efforts to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and to expand trade. The Bolsonaro administration is seeking to reduce public-sector spending and privatise state enterprises to reduce debt and grow its economy.
A senior US administration official told the AP's Ben Fox that the US does have a $27bn (£20bn) trade surplus with Brazil and that there are opportunities to bring the nations' business communities closer. He said there are expected to be new initiatives on energy infrastructure.
The official noted that Brazil has a close relationship with Venezuela's military and may be able to serve as a go-between with the security forces that continue to support embattled president Nicolas Maduro.
Brazil, like the US, has recognised the leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as Venezuela's interim president under the argument that Mr Maduro's re-election last year was illegitimate.
"We have to sort Venezuela out," Mr Bolsonaro has said. "We cannot leave them the way they are. We have to free the nation of Venezuela."
President Trump posted no fewer than four clips from Fox News on his Twitter account last night, suggesting the broadcaster is back in his good books after he took them to task over the weekend for suspending Judge Jeanine Pirro, the host having made an Islamophobic comment about Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar's hijab.
Among the selection below is a "takedown" of the "Russia hoax" from one Tucker Carlson, only last week facing calls to resign after a series of misogynistic and racist comments he once made on a radio show resurfaced online.
President Trump also blew his own horn about donating his $400,000 (£300,000) annual salary as president to the department of Homeland Security. If he's so keen on ploughing funds back into central government coffers, why the hesitancy about releasing his tax returns?
White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway has found herself in the frankly ridiculous position of having to refute her own husband's claims about the president's waning mental health.
Lawyer George Conway yesterday tweeted a series of definitions from a psychology textbook concerning narcissistic personality disorder.
Kellyanne Conway denies Trump’s mental health is ‘getting worse’
George Conway suggests Trump has 'narcissistic personality disorder' after string of angry tweetsUS secretary of state Mike Pompeo got laughs at an entrepreneurship summit in Kansas when he said, only half-jokingly, he expects to remain in his job until "Trump tweets me out of office".
Here's Clark Mindock.
Mike Pompeo says he will be secretary of state until 'Trump tweets me out of office’
Mr Pompeo's future at the state Department has been questioned latelyPresident Trump angrily tweeted yesterday accusing the media of "blaming" him for the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last Friday.
The president's refusal to accept the terror attack, in which 50 Muslims were gunned down on their way to prayers, was indicative of a rise in white nationalist violence (likened to his failure to condemn neo-Nazis at Charlottesville in 2017) has certainly attracted criticism but it has also prompted the House Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation of its own.
Congress to probe Trump administration’s response to rising threat of white nationalism
Statistics show white nationalism, hate crimes and extremism are all on the riseAmong those especially critical of President Trump's weak response to the atrocity was satirist Stephen Colbert.
“Trump has trouble showing love for things that are not him, and he has a particularly bad record with Muslims,” Mr Colbert told viewers of The Late Show. “So he’s in a bind. On the one hand, after a terror attack to condemn the extremist ideology of the terrorist should be a slam-dunk. On the other hand, he can’t jump.”
Here's Jacob Stalworthy.
Stephen Colbert had some harsh words for Trump following the New Zealand terror attack
'He has a particularly bad record with Muslims'Here's a little more on Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro - meeting President Trump today - from Tom Embury-Dennis.
Like his American idol, the Sao Paolo native has faced accusations of racism, got into trouble on social media for tweets of questionable taste and had his financial affairs called into question.
He's also been in America for one day and already found time to appear on Fox News to explain himself on the subject of golden showers.
The two men are expected to get along swimmingly.
Bolsonaro explains golden shower tweet and says he can't be racist because 'my father-in-law is known as a big black man'
Far-right leader attempts to discredit festival-goers who oppose his policies"Borders are not arbitrary, and they need to be respected along with the fine men and women of the immigration services and the border patrol."
So says 43rd president George W Bush, who is hosting a naturalisation ceremony at his eponymous presidential centre in Dallas, Texas, welcoming 51 new US citizens today, taking a generous, genuinely statesmanlike pro-immigration stance utterly at odds with the fear-mongering of President Trump.
“Generations of new arrivals [have] left their mark on our national character, in traits that friends abroad still recognise as distinctly American: our optimism, our independence and openness to the new, our willingness to strive and to risk, our sense of life as an adventure, dignified by personal freedom and personal responsibility,” Mr Bush will tell his audience.
“Such qualities don't come out of nowhere. A spirit of self-reliance runs deep in our immigrant heritage, along with the humility and kindness to look at someone less fortunate and see yourself.”
Another man emerging as an unlikely but increasingly prominent critic of President Trump is comic actor Jim Carrey, star of Dumb and Dumber, The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
Regularly posting his own artwork on Twitter, the below is typical of Carrey's scathing diatribes against the president.
Here's Clemence Michellon on the comedian's response to the killings in New Zealand and the inadequacy of the White House.
Jim Carrey bashes Donald Trump in new artwork after sharing grief over New Zealand terror attack
Actor regularly shares art inspired by the news cycleHere's Chris Baynes on those loans to Mr Trump from Deutsche Bank, granted in spite of his being "deemned untouchable".
Trump received more than $2bn in loans from Deutsche Bank despite being 'deemed untouchable', report claims
President reportedly exaggerated wealth to help secure finance for a string of high-end property developmentsMinnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar has become the focal point of much criticism since her remarks about the influence of Israeli lobbyists in Washington exposed divisions within the Democrats.
Donald Trump and Fox News have pounced on her comments as a pretext to accuse the opposition of fostering antisemitism and called on her to resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, all very rich indeed from a president who has done more than most to create divisions through discriminatory rhetoric.
Trump aide Elizabeth Pipko's Jexodus site (twice promoted by Mr Trump on Twitter) was set up to suggest Jewish people were leaving the Democrats en masse in protest at Ms Omar's remarks (they aren't) while alt-right activists Jacob Wohl, Laura Loomer and Ali Alexander last week produced an utterly laughable "documentary" called Importing Ilhan, seeking to discredit her by promoting an urban myth she married her brother to allow him to enter the US.
Representative Omar, a refugee from Somalia, has stood fast through all of this and yesterday told Mr Trump: "You can’t Muslim ban us from Congress."
Ilhan Omar hits back at Trump: ‘You can’t Muslim ban us from Congress’
President had retweeted story about congresswoman facing challenge in Minnesota primaryWith Donald Trump under scrutiny over his failure to take a hard line against white nationalism in the wake of the New Zealand mass shooting, an old speech has resurfaced in which he tells a fake story about a US general who executed 49 Muslim “terrorists” using bullets dipped in pig’s blood.
The footage appears to come from a rally in South Carolina during the 2016 campaign.
His disingenuous criticism of the Democrats and Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar suddenly looks even more ill-advised and hypocritical.
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis.
Trump tells fake story about US general slaughtering 49 Muslims using bullets dipped in pig’s blood, in resurfaced video
'There’s a whole thing with swine, and animals, and pigs, and you know the story OK? They don’t like that,' US president says in 2016 footageThis old classic again...
Here's CNN's Oliver Darcy speaking for an entire industry.
Obviously having woken up on the wrong side of the bed, he's just branded Kellyanne Conway's husband George "a total loser!"
The lawyer has shown himself to be something of a free spirit, unafraid to contradict his wife - a White House counsellor and dogged Trump apologist - by questioning her boss's sanity.
Here's the tweet that started it all.
She will of course now be asked about this by reporters, having already had to distance herself from George once in the last 24 hours.
Brad Parscale, incidentally, is President Trump's 2020 re-election campaign manager.
Trump calls senior aide's husband a 'total loser' after he claimed president's mental health is deteriorating
Donald Trump has called the husband of senior aide Kellyanne Conway a "total loser" after he suggested the president's mental health is deterioratingPlease allow a moment for our liveblog to load
