Donald Trump hosted a White House Social Media Summit on Thursday, where the controversial guest list included alt-right meme creators and a QAnon conspiracy theorist but no representatives from either Facebook or Twitter , after lavishing praise on himself as “great looking and smart”.
In the run-up to the event, the president retweeted a post by far-right columnist Katie Hopkins in praise of “Right Minded” world leaders like probable future British PM Boris Johnson, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Mr Trump has meanwhile found himself the victim of online ridicule after saying that the kidney “has a very special place in the heart” after signing an executive order directing his administration to develop policies addressing kidney-related health issues among Americans.
The president capped his day off by backing down from his 2020 Census demands, instead pursuing other avenues for collecting citizenship information after the Supreme Court blocked his census efforts.
The American Community Survey, which polls 3.5 million US households every year, already includes questions about respondents’ citizenship, so it is unclear what Mr Trump has in mind.
But Mr Trump appeared to preview his remarks at a White House social media summit, where he complained about being told: ”‘Sir, you can’t ask that question ... because the courts said you can’t.’”
Describing the situation as “the craziest thing,” he went on to contend that surveyors can ask residents how many toilets they have and, “What’s their roof made of? The only thing we can’t ask is, ‘Are you a citizen of the United States?’”
“I think we have a solution that will be very good for a lot of people,” he added.
Mr Trump had said last week that he was “very seriously” considering an executive order to try to force the citizenship question’s inclusion, despite the fact that the government has already begun the lengthy and expensive process of printing the census questionnaire without it.
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Donald Trump will host his White House Social Media Summit on Thursday, where the controversial guest list includes alt-right meme creators and a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
@CarpeDonktum is one of those visiting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the man who made this clip of Joe Biden molesting himself during his own apology video, a spoof Trump liked so much when it was shown to him by his son Don Jr he pinned it to the top of his Twitter profile.
Political cartoonist Ben Garrison, whose work has been branded “blatantly antisemitic” by the Anti-Defamation League, was originally slated to attend until his invitation was rescinded late on Tuesday when it was questioned by reporters. His 2017 cartoon of Jewish billionaire George Soros as a manipulative puppet-master was found to have been commissioned by "Pizzagate" conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich.
Conservative organisations expected to participate in the White House meeting include Turning Point USA, PragerU - which puts out short videos with a conservative perspective on politics or economics - and the right-wing Washington think tank Heritage Foundation.
Another attendee, James O’Keefe, runs an organisation called Project Veritas that attempts to damage figures and institutions it perceives to be anti-conservative, while alt-right agitators Ali Alexander and Bill Mitchell will also be there, according to NBC.
Facebook and Twitter have, meanwhile, not been invited to the "far-right troll convention", as it has been described by Vanity Fair, their neglect a calculated snub from a president who insists the Silicon Valley giants harbour a liberal bias and actively seek to silence conservative voices.
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis with more.
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis with more.
In the run-up to the event, the president retweeted a post by far-right columnist Katie Hopkins in praise of “Right Minded” world leaders like probable future British PM Boris Johnson, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
The president has meanwhile found himself the victim of online ridicule after saying that the kidney “has a very special place in the heart” after signing an executive order directing his administration to develop policies addressing kidney-related health issues among Americans.
There were, of course, many, many jokes.
It's amazing to think that John F Kennedy is remembered for saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" (wrongly interpreted as "I am a doughnut") but President Trump makes several worse gaffes of this nature every week.
Here's more from Tom on another fine mess.
On to more serious matters.
The Trump administration is set to carry out its delayed threat to round up and deport thousands of migrants living in the US illegally this weekend, according to a report.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are due to target people in 10 or more major cities who have already been ordered to leave the country in a crackdown lasting several days, The New York Times reports.
Here's more from Jon Sharman.
Trump's labour secretary Alexander Acosta continues to face calls to resign after it emerged he agreed a plea deal on behalf of disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a US attorney for Florida's Southern District in 2008.
Acosta is understood to have negotiated a secret "non-prosecution" agreement with Epstein's legal team at the time, suspending a federal grand jury investigation into the accusations against him regarding the sex trafficking of underage girls and silencing 36 witnesses who would have spoken out in exchange for a guilty plea on two state prostitution charges. It was "the deal of a lifetime", according to The Miami Herald.
The president said on Tuesday he felt "very badly" for Acosta: "I do hear that there were a lot of people involved in that decision, not just him... The rest of it, we’ll have to look at. We’ll have to look at it very carefully. But you’re talking about a long time ago."
Acosta is understood to have negotiated a secret "non-prosecution" agreement with Epstein's legal team at the time, suspending a federal grand jury investigation into the accusations against him regarding the sex trafficking of underage girls and silencing 36 witnesses who would have spoken out in exchange for a guilty plea on two state prostitution charges. It was "the deal of a lifetime", according to The Miami Herald.
The president said on Tuesday he felt "very badly" for Acosta: "I do hear that there were a lot of people involved in that decision, not just him... The rest of it, we’ll have to look at. We’ll have to look at it very carefully. But you’re talking about a long time ago."
Yesterday Acosta gave a press conference seeking to downplay the matter...
...as protesters projected "Acosta Enables Sex Trafficking" on to the side of the Francis Perkins Department of Labor Building in DC.
Victoria Gagliardo-Silver has more on a man who also happens to be seeking to slash funding for the fight against child sex trafficking.
With the row over the resignation of Sir Kim Darroch as Britain's ambassador to the US ongoing, other diplomats in Washington are expressing disquiet, saying that they too have spoken frankly about the Trump administration in private: "It could have been any of us", said one.
Sir Kim resigned on Wednesday saying his position had become untenable after a memo in which he described the US government as "inept" and "dysfunctional" under Trump was leaked to The Mail on Sunday, possibly with a view to embarrassing foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt as he challenges Boris Johnson for the Conservative Party leadership.
Darroch was backed by outgoing prime minister Theresa May - provoking Twitter ire from Trump over her stewardship of Brexit - but Boris has so far been mysteriously unforthcoming on the affair.
Here's Trump promoting his Social Media Summit.
Of course he says he would have won the presidency anyway without the aid of online campaigning.
Trump’s grandiose “Salute to America” event on the Fourth of July cost US taxpayers a total of $5.35m (£4.75m), officials have revealed.
The Department of Defence said it contributed $1.2m (£1m) for last week’s military parade in the capital, while the city of Washington, DC put in $1.7m (£1.4m) to cover the event’s logistics, which bankrupted its security fund, according to Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser, who wrote a letter to the White House on Tuesday to complain.
The Interior Department and National Park Service spent another $2.45m (£2m) on staffing costs, barricades and medical services, according to ABC News.
A day before the event was held, the president promised it would be low cost on Twitter.
Here's more from Adam Forrest.
More on the humanitarian crisis at the US border.
Grieving mother Yazmin Juarez, a migrant from Guatemala, appeared before the House Oversight and Reform committee on Wednesday to tell the harrowing story of the death of her 19-month-old daughter Mariee from a lung infection just weeks after their release from ICE custody in Texas.
Juarez broke down in tears during her testimony and was joined in her sorrow by Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Despite weeks of shocking details emerging about living conditions at Border Patrol detention centres, acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan continues to insist that US strategy is working.
Here's more from Jon Sharman.
Speaking of AOC, the star congresswoman is increasingly finding herself a focal point for Democratic infighting.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi used a weekend interview with The New York Times to question the growing influence of four young freshman progressives she dubbed "the squad" - AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley - all of whom are prominent on social media.
"All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world," she said, addressing concerns about cracks in party unity. "But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got."
AOC has since fought back with some thoughts of her own in The Washington Post.
"When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” Ocasio-Cortez told the newspaper. "But the persistent singling out… it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful… the explicit singling out of newly elected women of colour.
"The third and fourth time [Pelosi insulted her], it was like, 'This is unnecessary, but I'm not going to pick a fight over it. Whatever, I’ll be the punching bag if that’s what they want me to be,'" Ocasio-Cortez said.
The president of the United States is currently raving on social media about how handsome he is.
This is basically a Greatest Hits package of his favourite kid nicknames, once more mocking "Sleepy Joe" Biden and Elizabeth Warren over claim to Native American heritage.
Copying in the Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E Neuman to stand in for Pete Buttigieg is a nice touch.
The needless capping up of "Stable Genius", somewhat less so.
Some more recent highlights from the Twitter reel of Donald J Trump.
In amongst the usual self-congratulation and Fox offerings, there was praise for the CEO of Lockheed Martin, Marilyn Hewson (whom he has previously called "Marilyn Lockheed"), for her decision to keep open the Sikorsky Helicopter Plant in Pennsylvania and this gripe about his not being paid for his time.
And here is reposting praise from actor Jon Voight, who continues to trash the memory of the magnificent Midnight Cowboy.
The president really is on sassy form this morning isn't he?
Here is taking the "Fake News Media" to task again, this time on the question of banking.
USA World Cup star Megan Rapinoe says she's "too busy" to run for president despite her enormous popularity and impressive attack on Trump during her appearance on Anderson Cooper's CNN show on Tuesday night, when she argued his message is alienating millions of people.
A survey by Public Policy Polling has since found that she would beat him if she did decide to shoot for the White House but, she insists: "There’s no other place I would rather be. Even in a presidential race. I’m busy, I’m sorry."
One of the few people likely to regard this as good news is Fox host Howard Kurtz, who says her liberal politics has "spoiled" what might have been a "wonderful unifying moment" for the nation.
Here's Mark Critchley's report.
Sad news folks: the Trump Organization has cancelled its strip club sponsored golf tournament this weekend.
Florida's Shadow Cabaret had hoped to stage its "Shadow All Star Tournament" at the president's Miami Doral resort, with its dancers available at auction to serve as "caddy girls", until a Washington Post story on the event inspired widespread ridicule on Wednesday.
"The event was originally booked with the understanding that it would be raising money to support a local charity benefiting underprivileged children," a spokesperson for the Trump Organization said in a statement.
"Now that the charity has removed its affiliation, the event will no longer be taking place at our property and all amounts paid will be refunded."
Here's my gift to you for the day: former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka being brutally pranked on radio by a phone-in caller.
Trust me, it's a peach.
Greg Evans has the full story.
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis on Trump's "joke" about serving 14 more years as president.
Trump’s administration has threatened to hit French goods with extra tariffs in retaliation for a new tax which the US says unfairly targets American tech giants like Google and Amazon.
On Thursday, lawmakers in Paris approved a levy of three per cent on the revenues of large digital companies, a group likely to include US firms like Facebook and Microsoft, but Trump pre-empted the move by directing his trade representative to open up a probe into the tax on Wednesday.
“The United States is very concerned that the digital services tax… unfairly targets American companies,” said trade representative Robert Lighthizer.
Here's Ben Chapman's report.
Trump has been gloating over the last hour about the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee having to delete a tweet about the border crisis because the picture used dated back to the Obama era.
While this is embarrassing for the opposition and provides a timely reminder of their part in the current crisis, it hardly changes the fact that the reality on the ground for many detainees being held right now in US custody is grave indeed and needs addressing with urgency.
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