Donald Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has said he will not vote for the Republican president in November, adding that he hopes Mr Trump will become a one-term leader.
Mr Bolton, who is currently promoting a book on his time in the administration, has become a vocal critic of Mr Trump’s presidency after leaving the White House last year, arguing the president is not fit for office and not competent enough to carry out the job.
The president reportedly remains "furious" about turnout at Saturday's rally in Tulsa, as a bad weekend was added to an already bad week for the administration. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denies reports that the president was angry about the rally and refused to acknowledge that his use of the term 'kung flu' is offensive.
Nearly half of US states reported a rise in new coronavirus cases on Monday, with some continuing to break records for their daily confirmed cases. Texas governor Greg Abbot is now encouraging Texans to wear face masks as the virus is now spreading "at an unacceptable rate" in the state. Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow denies there is a second wave of coronavirus.
Joe Biden's campaign has written to the Committee for Presidential Debates saying that it would accept the proposed dates for three debates between the candidates in the autumn. The Trump campaign would like more than three, though in the past Trump has said he would skip them.
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Bolton says he will not vote for Trump and warns November election is ‘last guardrail’ to protect US
Former national security advisor John Bolton has said he will not vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and warned the vote in November is the “last guardrail” to protect the US.
In an interview with ABC News to promote his new book, The Room Where It Happened, Mr Bolton said the president was not fit for office but added that he would not support presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden either.
“I don't think he [Trump] is fit for office. I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job. I don't think he's a conservative Republican,” he said.
Our reporter, Griffin Connolly, has the full story below:
Nearly half of US states report rise in new coronavirus cases
Nearly half of US states have reported a rise in new coronavirus cases this week, with some continuing to break records in their numbers of daily confirmed cases.
A total of 23 states across the US, including some with large populations such as California and Texas, have seen a rise in new reported cases compared to last week, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre.
California has also reported its highest number of people hospitalised with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
Although some people, including Donald Trump, have suggested the rise in cases is a reflection of increased testing, health officials have argued there is a bigger problem going on.
“More testing does in fact turn out more cases. However... if widespread testing was the entire reason for the rise in cases, you'd expect to see the proportion of positive tests go down or at the very least remain steady. We're not seeing that,” Dr Shoshana Ungerleider, a specialist in internal medicine at the California Pacific Medical Centre, told CNN.
“This has nothing to do with more testing and everything to do with behavior.”
Experts and officials have told members of the public to follow public health guidelines, such as wearing masks in public spaces, avoiding crowds and staying at home as much as possible.
For more on what Mr Trump thinks has caused the rise in Covid-19 cases, please see the tweet below from this morning:
Trump campaign denies low rally turnout was due to disruption efforts by TikTok users
The Trump campaign has insisted it was not tricked by a group of TikTok users and K-pop fans after reports suggested thousands of people signed up for the president’s Tulsa rally as a prank.
Mr Trump’s first rally since the US coronavirus lockdown was supposed to kickstart his crisis-hit re-election campaign but ended up being notably poorly-attended.
One explanation for the lower-than-expected turnout was a campaign by TikTok users, who began sharing plans to disrupt the rally a few days before it was due by encouraging each other to sign up for tickets and not attend.
However, Brad Parscale, Mr Trump’s campaign manager, aggressively denied that explanation in a statement on Sunday.
“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don't know what they're talking about or how rallies work,” Mr Parscale said.
Our reporter, Danielle Zoellner, has the full story below:
Trump campaign insists it wasn't fooled by TikTok teens and K-pop fans over low Tulsa rally turnout
An estimated 6,200 were in the 19,000-capacity venue during the Tulsa rallyWhite House adviser who returned to tackle Covid-19 will leave this summer, Axios says
White House adviser and economist Kevin Hassett will leave the Trump administration this summer, according to a report by Axios citing two officials.
Mr Hassett returned to the White House in March to help Trump officials deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.
Axios reported that the economist, who was Mr Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers chair from 2017 to 2019, had been cautious about the health dangers of Covid-19 and promoted the use of face masks.
He was also said to have argued for ambitious economic packages, including direct payments to individuals and extensions of unemployment insurance benefits.
Mr Hassett’s exact date of departure was not mentioned in the Axios report.
Trump says he opposes removal of controversial statue of Theodore Roosevelt
Donald Trump has said he opposes the removal of a statue of Theodore Roosevelt outside New York City’s American Museum of Natural History which is said to represent racist attitudes.
The removal was announced by the museum on Sunday after critics said the statue, which shows Roosevelt on a horse with a Native American man and African man by his side, symbolised racial discrimination and colonial expansion.
Bill de Blasio, New York City’s mayor, said on Sunday that the city was in favour of the request to remove the monument because it “depicts black and indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior”.
However, Mr Trump responded negatively to the decision in a tweet on Monday.
“Ridiculous, don't do it,” the president said.
Kim Jong-un 'gets a huge laugh' out of Trump, Bolton claims
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un “gets a huge laugh” out of the idea that he is friends with Donald Trump, according to former national security advisor John Bolton.
Mr Bolton told ABC News on Sunday he was confused by the president’s statements about the dictator, such as his repeated claims that Mr Kim has written “beautiful letters” to him.
“I think Kim Jong-un gets a huge laugh out of this,” the former aide said.
“I mean, these letters that the president has shown to the press — off the record and whatnot, but I've been in the room when he's done it — are written by some functionary in the North Korean Workers Party Agitprop Office.”
Our reporter, Griffin Connolly, has the full story below:
As coronavirus cases continue to rise across the US this week, experts and White House staffers have expressed frustration at Donald Trump’s comments on testing over the weekend.
At his rally in Tulsa on Saturday, Mr Trump suggested the high number of US cases was due to extensive testing rather than the country's epidemic growing out of control.
“When you do testing to that extent, you’re gonna find more people, you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down,” the president told his supporters.
You can find more on this story below:
BREAKING: Trump claims 2020 election will be 'rigged by foreign countries'
Donald Trump has claimed the 2020 presidential election will be the “scandal of our times” in a tweet following polls showing his popularity falling against Democratic rival Joe Biden.
“RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS,” Mr Trump tweeted on Monday.
“IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”
His angry tweet came less than a week after a Fox News poll showed Mr Biden’s lead over the president at 12 percentage points.
More on this breaking story can be found below:
Democrats and Republicans sharply divided on US economy, poll shows
Americans' outlook on the US economy has improved from its lowest points during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, but a new poll shows Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided on the country’s prospects.
Eighty-five per cent of Democrats called economic conditions “poor”, while 65 per cent of Republicans described them as “good” in a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
Overall, 63 per cent of the country said the economy was in poor shape, down from 70 per cent who felt that way in May - a change which has been driven by increasingly optimistic Republican voters.
Two-thirds of Republicans, but just 29 per cent of Democrats, also expected improvement over the next year.
Harvard University professor Jason Furman, a former top economist in the Obama administration, said the economy was in “terrible shape” but improving rapidly.
“Depending on which of the two halves you're looking at, you're going to have a very different interpretation of where we are,” Mr Furman said.
Here are some early reactions to Donald Trump’s tweet claiming without evidence that the 2020 election will be rigged.
Trump put re-election ahead of national security, John Bolton says
John Bolton has accused Donald Trump of putting his re-election campaign ahead of US national security and described the president as disinterested in intelligence briefings and ignorant of global affairs.
“My experience was he very rarely read much,” Mr Bolton, a former national security advisor, told ABC News.
“Intelligence briefings took place perhaps once or twice a week. They should take place every day.”
The former aide added that Mr Trump’s attention span was “infinite” for issues around his re-election campaign but not for national security issues.
You can find more on this story below:
Mr Trump has launched another attack on John Bolton this morning, claiming his former national security advisor was “grossly incompetent” and “a liar”.
Stacey Abrams, voting rights activist and potential running mate pick for Joe Biden, was interviewed on MSNBC's Morning Joe today and emphasised the importance of mail-in voting in 2020, while also warning that the president wants to undermine the voting process.
Trump aiming for "tribal leadership win"
The Tulsa rally laid out Trump's divisive re-election strategy that ignored many of the constituent groups usually thought to play a vital role in choosing the next president.
Speaking on CNN's Reliable Sources at the weekend, former Trump adviser-turned-critic Anthony Scaramucci said: “There’s really only one strategy left for him, and that is to propel that rage and anger and try to split the society and see if he can have a tribal leadership win here."
The Associated Press reports:
The Republican president did not offer even a token reference to national unity in remarks that spanned more than an hour and 40 minutes at his self-described campaign relaunch as the nation grappled with surging coronavirus infections, the worst unemployment since the Great Depression and sweeping civil unrest.
Nor did Trump mention George Floyd, the African American man whose death at the hands of Minnesota police late last month sparked a national uprising over police brutality. But he did add new fuel to the nation’s culture wars, defending Confederate statues while making racist references to the coronavirus, which originated in China and which he called “kung flu.” He also said Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who came to the US as a refugee, “would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came, Somalia.”
President pays tribute on 75th Anniversary of Battle of Okinawa
The White House has released a presidential message on the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, remembering the 12,000 Americans that died capturing the island from Japan, and the total of 200,000 that perished in the battle, including 100,000 civilians.
The statement lauds the forging of the alliance with Japan and the shared commitment to freedom and democracy.
"Today, we remember our Greatest Generation and salute those who answered our Nation’s call with unyielding valor and intrepid resolve. As our country continues to recover from the unprecedented hardships we have faced over the past months, let us draw from their patriotism and conviction in our efforts to build a stronger, more united country for all Americans."
Bolton writes in The Room Where it Happened that Trump thought invading Venezuela would be "cool" and that he argued the South American nation was "really part of the United States".
It appears that section of the book is on the president's mind this morning:
More context on Trump, Venezuela, and the Bolton book, from Andrew Feinberg:
Will there be another rally? Where might it be?
It was believed that the Trump campaign was preparing to announce new rallies in the after glow of a successful event in Tulsa, so what is the plan now?
One option to is to scale down events and keep them outside or in aircraft hangars at campaign stops, rather than at purpose built arenas or exhibition halls. If you can't get the desired crowd in a deep red state like Oklahoma, maybe a smaller gathering is more achievable.
But where to go next? This week, the president heads to Arizona and Wisconsin for appearances, and both are important swing states, so perhaps a focus on key electoral college battlegrounds will be a pattern going forward.
The AP reports that at least one swing state governor says Trump would not be welcome to host a rally in her state amid the pandemic.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said she “would think very seriously about” trying to block Trump from hosting a rally there if he wanted to.
“We know that congregating without masks, especially at an indoor facility, is the worst thing to do in the midst of a global pandemic,” Ms Whitmer said in an interview before the Oklahoma event, conceding that she wasn’t aware of the specific legal tools she had available to block a prospective Trump rally. “I just know we have limitations on the number of people that can gather and that we’re taking this seriously.”
