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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Politics
Joe Sommerlad, Alex Woodward, John T Bennett

Trump news - live: President launches fresh attack on Parasite and Brad Pitt after defending Tulsi Gabbard at MAGA rally

Donald Trump has resumed his attack on Democratic 2020 candidate Michael Bloomberg on Twitter and posted a bizarre all-caps rant about bailing out America's farmers with federal funding.

The president unexpectedly lashed out at this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner, the South Korean thriller Parasite, at his latest campaign rally in Colorado Springs on Thursday night, only for the movie’s US distributor Neon to mock him for not being able to read subtitles.

Trump also laid into Hollywood star Brad Pitt (“a little wise guy”), teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and Fox News - angered by negative coverage about him on Neil Cavuto’s show - otherwise stumbling over his words again and getting his conspiracy theories mixed up.

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Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Trump mocks Parasite Oscar win and calls Brad Pitt 'little wise guy' at Colorado rally

Donald Trump has unexpectedly lashed out at the this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner, the South Korean thriller Parasite, at his latest campaign rally in Colorado Springs, stating a suprise preference for Gone with the Wind and Sunset Boulevard (respect!) and calling Brad Pitt “a little wise guy” for speaking out against his administration at the awards ceremony earlier this month.

“How bad were the Academy Awards this year?” Trump asked the crowd, receiving a round of enthusiastic boos by way of an answer.

“The winner is a movie from South Korea, what the hell was that all about?” he continued. “We got enough problems with South Korea with trade and on top of it, they give them the best movie of the year.”

“Was it good? I don’t know. I’m looking for, like – can we get like Gone with the Wind back, please?” Trump continued to cheers from the presumably thousands of TCM viewers in the audience.

Neon, the studio that distributed Bong Joon-ho's film, has already responded to the president in withering style.

Here's Phil Thomas on an unexpected lurch into a film criticism from a man otherwise known to prefer Jean Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport - and to impatiently fast-forward through its dialogue scenes to get on with the punching.

He was also once apparently offered the chance to sit down for a screening of Steven Spielberg's The Post at the White House but opted for The Greatest Showman instead, which just says it all.
 
President lashes Fox News over negative coverage

In another garbled rally appearance peppered with crowd-pleasing digs at his rivals, Trump whipped up boos for teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and mocked Amy Klobuchar's debate performance in Nevada by saying she "choked" before miming throttling himself for almost half a minute.

Again mumbling simple words like "statistics", Trump fired out confused and often bewildering conspiracies, sensationalised local crime stories to stoke fears of "illegal aliens" carrying out crime sprees, resumed his assault on wind turbines, said Barack Obama should have been impeached and even criticised Abraham Lincoln's stovepipe hat, saying it was "too much".


Perhaps his most consistent line of attack was against the media, where he again took Fox News to task for having the temerity to feature a guest critical of him on Neal Cavuto's show, something he had already whined about on Twitter earlier in the day - attempting to pin the blame on former GOP House speaker Paul Ryan, now a Fox executive.


Andrew Naughtie has more below.
 
Rally crowd boos Greta Thunberg after president again gripes about her beating him to Time honour

Here's Clark Mindock on the president's attack on the 17-year-old Swedish environmental campaigner, who was named Time magazine's Person of the Year ahead of him in December - a defeat he CANNOT let go of.
 
Trump ridicules Amy Klobuchar over debate spat with Pete Buttigieg

One more from Colorado Springs.

Here's Clark again on the president's aforementioned attack on the Minnesota senator who fell out with rival Buttigieg (whom Trump again likened to Mad magazine posterboy Alfred E Neuman) on the debate stage in Las Vegas on Wednesday and - perhaps foolishly - asked him: "Are you saying I’m dumb?"

An open goal to the troll-in-chief.
 
Russia trying to seal president's re-election, Congress warned​

The House Intelligence Committee has meanwhile been warned that Russia is again plotting to sow the seeds of unrest in the United States and is attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election in Trump’s favour.

Five panel members including chairman Adam Schiff were briefed on the subject by deputy director of national intelligence Shelby Pierson on 13 February, according to The New York Times, to the apparent fury of Trump, who fears his enemies will use it to discredit him.

I mean, sure. That might well be in their best interests.

Phil Thomas reports.
 
Trump tips loyalist Doug Collins as permanent director of national intelligence

As part of his Rolling Thunder post-aquittal revenge tour, the president announced on Twitter on Wednesday night that he would be replacing his current acting national intelligence director Joseph Maguire - who declined to block the initial whistleblower complaint about his imperfect call with Volodymyr Zelensky - with Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany.

Longer term, he is apparently consider Georgia peach and would-be senator Doug Collins for the role full-time after his stirling efforts defending Trump at any cost during the impeachment inquiry.

(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty)

The president apparently revealed that Collins was in contention to be is first permanent replacement for Dan Coats to reporters aboard Air Force One where he was travelling to Colorado in the company of guest Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Because that is the world we live in now. White duly addressed the crowd at Colorado Springs last night.

Here's Conrad Duncan on Grenell, who may just be keeping a seat warm for Collins.
 
Roger Stone given 40 months in jail as Trump backs away from pardon

Republican "dirty trickster" and Adam West Batman antagonist Roger Stone was finally sentenced to three years and four months behind bars yesterday for lying to Congress and intimidating a witness, charges arising from the Mueller investigation and his attempt to get his immaculately-gloved paws on Democratic National Committee emails hacked by Russia in 2016 in the hope of discrediting Hillary Clinton.

Trump has teased the idea of pardoning Stone - and provoked a major furoure about the politicisation of the Justice Department under attorney general William Barr - but yesterday appeared to back away from the idea, for now, saying: "I'm following this very closely and I want to see it play out to its fullest because Roger has a very good chance of exoneration in my opinion."

John T Bennett has this report.
James Comey serves up Mariah Carey meme to ridicule Trump

Trump was STILL tweeting about the Stone case yesterday, despite Barr complaining it makes it hard for him to do his job, and got this delightful response from former FBI director James Comey, following a path trodden by Hillary and Joe Biden in the past. 

Here's Greg Evans for Indy100.
 
Resurgent Elizabeth Warren unveils draft contract to release Michael Bloomberg's employees from NDA agreements

Fresh from murdering Michael Bloomberg on the debate stage in Vegas on Wednesday, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren appeared on a CNN town hall with Erin Burnett last night to present a draft contract agreement she had drawn up for the former New York mayor to sign that would liberate his female employees from the non-disclosure agreements they signed, allowing them to speak out about his miscounduct.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Warren has admitted that Wednesday night - which broke viewership records - was "a lot of fun".

Here's Andrew Naughtie.
 
Who said it: Donald Trump or Michael Bloomberg?

To give you an idea of why Bloomberg is considered such a threat, a new filing with the Federal Election Commission reveals that he is currently investing in his campaign at a rate of $7m (£5.4m) PER DAY. An ungodly amount of money.

The candidate unwisely said yesterday that Trump himself was arguably the "real winner" of Wednesday's debate - a remark the president pounced on at his rally and on Twitter - as it emerged the two men's connections go even deeper than we thought: Bloomberg apparently even owns a condo in a Trump-managed property.

His candidacy has also been dogged by the emergence of a steady stream of deeply offensive comments he has made in the past, several of which might even have embarassed Trump.

Can you tell the two of them apart? Take our quiz below.
 
Trump accused of trying to steal Democrats' thunder with three-day stay at his Las Vegas hotel

Here's Andrew Buncombe on the scene Nevada as the desert slot machine Mecca braces itself for Trumpworld's arrival.
 
Trump ally Erik Prince reportedly under investigation by FBI

Well this is weird.

The Blackwater founder and Trump donor is being investigated by the Feds for attempting convert an American-made crop dusting plane into an attack aircraft in violation of arms trafficking regulations. OK...

Clark Mindock reports.
 
'Donald Trump’s Parasite rant was a snapshot of his blinkered, ludicrous worldview'

For Indy Voices, here's Adam White on Trump's buffoonish foray into film criticism.
 
Elizabeth Warren trolls Republican donor with menacing tax ad in his own paper

A little more on the Massachusetts senator, who is continuing to take on rich fat cats by buying advertising space in The Las Vegas Review-Journal to troll the newspaper's owner, Republican owner Sheldon Adelson, to tell him he'll be paying $2.3bn (£1.8bn) in tax if she wins the White House.
Chris Riotta has this report.
 
Cher warns Trump could make good on his threat to shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue

The legendary pop icon, 73, never one for moderation, has taken to Twitter to issue a dire warning about the president's current uninhibited embrace of lawlessness.

Danielle Zoellner has this report.
 
Rabid conservative baffles nation by proclaiming Trump 'first black president' in sizzling hot take

Wayne Allyn Root of "Newsmax TV" has form in this sort of nonsense-shovelling.

Here's Greg Evans to explain.
 
Trump sacked intelligence director over fury at Russia briefing to Congress

It appears the ousting of Joseph Maguire was indeed connected to the president's raging fury at the House Intelligence Committee being briefed on the Kremlin's preference for a Trump 2020 win.
 
Trump resumes attack on Bloomberg with bizarre photoshopped video of 'Mini Mike'

The president is back and tweeting more crude attacks on his fellow New York billionaire courtesy of his social media guru Dan Scavino.


That was followed by this weird all-caps rant about bailing out farmers.

And this. We're on hoax number 7, apparently.
Trump the film critic promotes gay Bollywood romance

The tweets keep coming.

Mostly they're promoting the administration's tentative peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan but the following is more unusual.

Ahead of his trip to India next week, the president has unexpectedly retweeted British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell on Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, a new Bollywood romance for the country's emergent LGBT+ community.

Trump is also trailing an announcement on his new director of national security, saying four people are in contention, and taking credit for the revival of Kentucky's coal industry.
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