Donald Trump has continued to lash out in the wake of Robert Mueller's explosive testimony in front of Congress, while taking the time to make up words and tweet about the imprisonment of A$AP Rocky.
The president is trying to undo the damage from the hearings involving Mr Mueller, who said he was not able to say that his report had cleared Mr Trump of any wrongdoing.
He has also been wrapped in another controversy after he spoke in front of a bizarre version of the presidential seal, which included references to the Russian flag and a set of golf clubs.
Yet more footage has emerged from that same Turning Point USA event, which showed the president being introduced by a bizarre campaign video that highlighted Mr Trump's sporting prowess and popularity among friends.
It also comes as the president's administration announced it would begin federal executions for the first time in more than 15 years.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met on Friday morning to seemingly cool tensions after weeks of public infighting within their party.
The meeting reflected a divide seen within the Democratic Party between the old guard and young, progressive newcomers. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to serve in the US House of Representatives, insisted the speaker was unfairly “singling out” her and three other freshmen congresswomen of colour in recent comments she described as “disrespectful”.
Still, it was all smiles Friday morning on Capitol Hill as Ms Pelosi walked to her office and greeted reporters before the meeting. She later shared a photo on Twitter of her standing alongside Ms Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter, writing, "Today, Congresswoman @RepAOC and I sat down to discuss working together to meet the needs of our districts and our country, fairness in our economy and diversity in our country."
Pelosi told reporters that "I don't think we have that many differences" despite some sharp words back and forth recently with "AOC," as she's referred to by her 4.9 million followers on Twitter.
Ocasio-Cortez recently criticized Pelosi, saying she felt Pelosi had been "outright disrespectful" by "the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color" for criticism. Pelosi had remarked that Ocasio-Cortez and a cohort of other progressives were just four votes in a large Democratic caucus.
Pelosi declined to respond to Ocasio-Cortez' criticisms. She said she has meeting with her colleagues all the time and said they discussed Ocasio-Cortez' committee work on the Oversight and Reform and Financial Services panels.
New documents in the A$AP Rocky case – which Donald Trump has become involved in, sparking conflict between the US and Sweden – have been released by authorities in Swedish courts:
Swedish authorities have released court documents in the assault case in which American rapper A$AP Rocky and two other men are charged, with prosecutors saying that the victim was punched and kicked while on the ground and attacked with a bottle.
The documents from the Stockholm District Court obtained by The Associated Press on Friday said that Rakim Mayers, the 30-year-old rapper's real name, and two other suspects have "deliberately, together and in agreement" assaulted the victim in central Stockholm on June 30. The rapper has asserted that it was self-defense.
The case sparked an unusual diplomatic spat between the U.S. and Sweden, after President Donald Trump called for Rocky, a Grammy-nominated artist, to be released. Trump later tweeted "Treat Americans fairly!" and criticized Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.
The Commerce Department lowered its estimate of growth from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018 mainly because businesses spent less on buildings, equipment and software than it had earlier thought.
The department made the change based on more comprehensive data as part of its annual revisions to gross domestic product, or GDP, the broadest measure of the nation's output of goods and services. The revisions cover the five years from 2014 through 2018.
Overall, the changes don't significantly alter the broader trajectory of the economy. Growth picked up in 2017 and 2018 after a sluggish 2016, spurred by stronger overseas growth, increased government spending and the Trump administration's tax cuts.
Still, the revisions mean that growth failed to cross the symbolic 3% threshold last year, which it hasn't done since 2005. Most economists point to slower population growth and sluggish increases in worker productivity as the primary reasons for the shortfall.
Trump had been quick to celebrate the government's first report on 2018 growth, released in February, which showed that the economy expanded 3.1%. (The figure was subsequently revised lower to 3%).
"We've accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions," the president said in a White House press release.
In March, Trump bragged on Twitter that last year's figure was the "BEST NUMBER IN 14 YEARS!"
Trump is facing increased calls for his impeachment. Katherine Ryan has just become the most senior member of the House Democratic leadership to call for the president to be impeached.
She said that attempts to hold him to account through other means had failed and that there needed to be a proper way to question Trump.
"I deeply respect the committee work of House Democrats to hold the President accountable, including hearings, subpoenas and lawsuits. All of our efforts to put the facts before the American people, however, have been met with unprecedented stonewalling and obstruction," Clark said in a statement.
"That is why I believe we need to open an impeachment inquiry that will provide us a more formal way to fully uncover the facts."
Sweden has dismissed Trump's increasingly angry attacks on the country over the continuing detainment of rapper A$AP Rocky. This from Reuters:
Sweden on Friday dismissed an angry outburst from U.S. President Donald Trump after prosecutors charged U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky with assault, saying the country's judicial system was independent of political interference.
Best known for his song "Praise the Lord", the 30-year-old performer, producer and model, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was detained about three weeks ago following a street altercation with two men in Stockholm on June 30. A$AP Rocky, who was charged on Thursday, will go on trial next week.
Trump, who last week urged Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to free A$AP Rocky, fired off tweets on Thursday saying he was "very disappointed" in Lofven and demanding: "Treat Americans fairly!"
Trump added: "We do so much for Sweden but it doesn't seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky."
Mayers has said he is innocent and that the men provoked him and his two companions, who have also been charged with assault. If convicted, they could face up to two years in jail.
A spokesman for the Swedish government said on Friday the government would not get involved in the case.
"Sweden and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven have been very clear in the dialogue with both the White House and directly with the American president, that in Sweden everyone is equal before the law and that the government cannot interfere in legal proceedings," the spokesman said in a text message.
Impeachment might be the aim of more than 90 Democrats in Congress, and of many of Trump's opponents outside DC. But Nancy Pelosi and her allies have suggested they're less interested in that – instead promising to oppose him on other grounds. This from the AP:
Congressional Democrats on Thursday pivoted away from questions of impeachment by saying they are going to "own" the upcoming August recess on issues like health care and prescription drug costs.
Not emphasized was the testimony a day earlier by former special counsel Robert Mueller, which dulled some Democratic hopes of moving closer to formal impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. In private, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advised members of her caucus to talk about impeachment if they must to advance their prospects of winning re-election next year — but not in a way that challenged other members' views. A majority of Democrats, like most Americans, do not support launching a House indictment against Trump despite Mueller's statement that he could not "exculpate" Trump on potential obstruction of justice.
"We will own August, make it too hot to handle for the Senate" to ignore Democratic legislative goals to streamline government and lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs, Pelosi said. Other Democrats gathered on the House steps under brilliant sunshine echoed that phrasing in a likely preview of the party's message during the many town halls they've scheduled over the next six weeks.
Pelosi has long resisted calls for Trump's impeachment from more than 90 members of her caucus, prioritizing the re-election bids of a large group of freshmen Democrats who won election in 2018 in districts that Trump carried two years earlier. Lawmakers from those closely divided districts consistently say their constituents ask about local issues, health care, the cost of prescription drugs and fixing roads and bridges far more often than they mention Trump, the Mueller report and impeachment.
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