Donald Trump will return on Tuesday from his red carpet trip to Japan facing severe criticism after he endorsed remarks made by North Korea mocking his US national security adviser John Bolton and 2020 rival Joe Biden, rather than take Pyongyang to task for defying UN Security Council resolutions on missile testing.
“Kim Jong-un is a murderous dictator and Vice-President Biden served this country honourably”, 2020 challenger Pete Buttigieg responded after President Trump responded to Mr Kim’s suggestion that Mr Biden was “a low IQ individual” by saying: “He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.”
Touching down in Washington, the president is also expected to continue facing calls for his impeachment by Democrats in the House of Representatives. While there is a growing push for impeachment proceedings, top Democratic leadership have remained skeptical about the mesaure — and any successful impeachment would almost surely be struck down in the Senate.
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Planned Parenthood has officially filed suit in Missouri, where one of several abortion bans seen throughout the country have popped up recently.
Amy Klobuchar is trying to gain some momentum in the Democratic primary field, and said during a recent campaign stop that the late senator John McCain recited the names of dictators during Donald Trump's inauguration.
It's quite the charge : "The day when I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation."
Meanwhile, his daughter, Meghan McCain, pushed back and asked that her father's legacy not be invoked in presidential politics.
And even more Supreme Court news from this morning: The court has reversed a lower court ruling to uphold a fetal remains law in Indiana, which was actually signed into law by vice president Mike Pence.
The court will not hear the larger case, but determined that requiring the remains of a fetus to be buried or cremated does not constitute an "undue burden" on women, and could therefore stand.
Some more Supreme Court news: The court has decided that it will hear a case that could determine whether Border Patrol agents can be charged in US courts for killing Mexican citizens on the southern border.
The case involves the death of a 15-year-old boy who was shot by officers while playing a game that involved running across the border temporarily. The family is seeking damages.
Some Supreme Court news coming out today: America's highest court will not hear a challenge to a transgender bathroom policy in a Pennsylvania school district.
The court's decision not to hear the case means that children in the school will be allowed to use the restroom that aligns with their gender indentity.
By most metrics, Joe Biden is set to cruise into the Democratic nomination, but there are some worrying signs for the former vice president as he seeks to become president for the third time.
According to a new report from POLITICO, the attendance at Mr Biden's campaign launch rally in Philadelphia and during his first swing through Iowa left something to be desired compared to some others in the 2020 field. Others who are looking strong by that metric? Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, according to that political news outlet.
“I started to think the polls were wrong about Biden because it’s not what we’re seeing on the ground,” Aimee Allison, the founder and president of She the People, told POLITICO>
The issue of voter suppression reared its head at the midterm elections last November, particularly in the state of Georgia where Democrat Stacey Abrams warned thousands of rural African-Americans had been wrongly denied a chance to have their say.
Now an elected official has been held accountable over the same practice in Texas and forced to resign.
Republican acting secretary of state David Whitley stepped down on Monday after wrongly questioning the US citizenship of some 95,000 local residents in January.
The state's attorney general Ken Paxton, also a Republican, promptly tweeted a “VOTER FRAUD ALERT” summarising Whitley’s findings and President Trump repeated Whitley’s claims in a tweet of his own two days later.
Whitley was forced to rescind his advisory on Friday and stop the purging of the state's electoral rolls as part of a settlement with multiple voting rights groups.
Any chance Trump will admit his part in disseminating false information now that Whitley has been been forced out? Somehow I doubt it.
Bernie Sanders calling out Trump over his buttering up of Chairman Kim.
Don Jr is bashing his father's 2020 challengers in the old man's absence.
It's a good thing Donald Trump is so concerned about "fake news" and political bias on social media otherwise who knows what kind of misleading rubbish people might be exposed to online?
Here's more on Trump's bizarre anti-technology rant to sailors and marines aboard the the USS Wasp.
How do you like your catapults: steam or electric?
Some strong words here from the union representing US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Trump's reported plan to have like-minded former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli serve as the body's new director.
"The resignation of Francis Lee Cissna as director of USCIS and the possible appointment of Ken Cuccinelli as his successor spells the end of legal immigration as it currently exists," Danielle Spooner, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union representing USCIS employees, said in a statement.
"It has become clear that the goal of this administration is to end immigration all together. How better to do that then by appointing as the leader of USCIS someone who knows nothing about immigration, adjustment of status or naturalisation, and whose sole purpose is to destroy the agency that grants these benefits?"
Wow.
Facebook has banned a left-wing artist for posting images of KKK hoods and Nazi armbands with the president's signature phrase "Make America Great Again" printed across them, all made from the familiar red baseball caps worn by his supporters.
Kate Kretz says her work, a critique of white nationalism that risks being mistaken for advocacy, aims "to both call out wearers who claim the hats to be innocuous and to sound the alarm that history is repeating itself".
Here's a timely reminder that Trump loudly advocated for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, who were the victims of racial profiling, served lengthy jail sentences and were later found to be entirely innocent of the crime of which they were accused.
Another "dark period in American History" and a call for which Trump has never apologised.
Here's the verdict on Trump's "highly choreographed", relationship-cementing trip to Japan.
"More ceremony than substance".
In case you were anxious as to the Donald's precise whereabouts, Air Force One has touched down in Alaska for refuelling.
Scavino is the president's former caddy who now oversees his social media presence.
Trump appears to have found himself a new attack dog in the shape of Liz Cheney, a US representative to Wyoming and daughter of George W Bush's powerful veep Dick.
She appeared on ABC's This Week yesterday to accuse the Democrats of treason - referring to the origins of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and the transcripts of ancient text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page indicating Democratic-bias within the Justice Department - and to suggest House speaker Nancy Pelosi was losing her grip on the opposition.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is, likewise, very much still at it.
Mayor Pete is not the only candidate to have spoken out strongly about Trump and the military in time for Memorial Day.
Beto O'Rourke told CBS's Face the Nation the president risked starting yet another war by dispatching 1,500 US troops to the Middle East: "President Trump is escalating tensions, is provoking yet another war in the Middle East where we find ourselves already engaged in war in so many countries - in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, not too far from there in Libya, and in Afghanistan."
The Texan had very little to say that was complimentary to the president during his interview with Margaret Brennan, calling him "the most dangerous person who's ever held office in the White House".
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis on the latest Trump administration effort to condemn the planet to death by incineration.
Trump's next big state visit is to the UK on 3 June.
According to a new YouGov poll, 46 percent of Britons surveyed think it should go ahead, while 40 percent want it to be cancelled.
Interestingly, there has been a drop over the last two years in the number of people who feel the British government should try to work with Trump.
In January 2017, 51 percent said ministers should work with the president and only 32 percent felt they should keep their distance, while the figures are now 40 percent and 41 percent.
There were huge protests when Trump made a working visit to Britain last July and more are expected when he arrives for his latest tour of our Brexit-riddled nation. Donald and Melania will be welcomed by the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in the garden at Buckingham Palace next Monday.
The Duke of Sussex will be at the private palace lunch held on the first day for the Trumps but wife Meghan, whose son Archie will be less than four weeks old when the president arrives, will not.
The Duke of Sussex will be at the private palace lunch held on the first day for the Trumps but wife Meghan, whose son Archie will be less than four weeks old when the president arrives, will not.
At the state banquet, a lavish white-tie dinner staged in the palace's ballroom, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will join the Queen and Charles and Camilla for the event, which will feature leading figures from UK national life and prominent Americans in Britain.
The US president will also have tea with the heir to the throne and his wife during the first day and on the second visit Downing Street for talks with prime minister Theresa May just a few days before she steps down from office.
Trump is reportedly bringing his grown-up children with him when he visits the UK - daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, both advisers to the president, along with her siblings Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump.
During the second day of the state visit, May and the US president will co-host a business breakfast meeting, attended by the Duke of York, at St James's Palace.
Trump will then visit Downing Street to hold talks with the prime minister, followed by a joint press conference.
That evening the Trumps will host a return dinner at Winfield House, the residence of the US ambassador, which Charles and Camilla will attend on behalf of the Queen.
On Wednesday 5 June, the Queen and Charles will attend the national commemorative event for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Southsea Common, Portsmouth.
More than 300 D-Day veterans will be at the ceremony, which aims to tell the story of D-Day through musical performance, testimonial readings and military displays, including a fly-past of 25 modern and historical aircraft.
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