Donald Trump has targeted Joe Biden after the former vice president made a verbal slip about a potential 2020 presidential bid.
Mr Trump, who has eagerly followed the 2020 Democratic field, tweeted Monday: “Joe Biden got tongue tied over the weekend when he was unable to properly deliver a very simple line about his decision to run for President.”
He added, “Get used to it, another low I.Q. individual!”
At a dinner over the weekend, Mr Biden said he had “the most progressive record of anybody running.” But Mr Biden hasn’t announced whether he will launch a third run for the White House.
He quickly corrected himself, but the comment prompted frenzied speculation.
The president has previously labelled California Congresswoman Maxine Waters and actor Robert De Niro as being “low I.Q.”
Meanwhile, Mr Trump faced controversy on Monday after denying white nationalism was an increasing threat just days after a suspected gunman launched a terror attack against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The House Judiciary Committee has revealed its intention to conduct hearings into the rise of white nationalism under Mr Trump, in which it will probe the administration’s response to FBI findings that the issue has become an increasing threat.
Monday also marked the deadline for the White House to respond to the committee’s request for documents — a move the Trump administration has seemingly avoided.
It remains unclear whether Democrats will now issue a subpoena against Mr Trump or the White House.
Additional reporting by AP. Check out The Independent’s live coverage below.
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
So many tweets...
Let's start with Donald Trump's attacks on Fox.
The president has been criticised for having such close ties to the right-wing broadcaster, most recently by The New Yorker, but here called on the network to "stay strong" over the decision to take host Judge Jeanine Pirro off the air for making an Islamophobic comment about Democrat Ilhan Omar.
On her show last week, Ms Pirro asked of Ms Omar, a Muslim who wears a hijab: "Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?"
With the channel already under-fire over another host, Tucker Carlson, after misogynist and racist remarks he made on a radio show resurfaced, it acted to suspend Ms Pirro, but the president was having none of it...
Mr Trump was surprisingly critical of Fox, whose star anchor, Sean Hannity, he is said to speak to on a nightly basis.
In addition to telling the broadcaster to "Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct" (!), he subsequently launched into two more of its hosts, Arthel Neville and Leland Vitteret, asking, mockingly, whether they were "trained by CNN".
He then retweeted favourable coverage of his own tweets.
The Steele Dossier has once more been on the president's mind as Robert Mueller's Russia report edges ever closer.
The dossier, written by British MI6 agent Christopher Steele, consists of 17 memos dating from between June and December 2016 that allege misconduct and conspiracy between the Trump camp and the Kremlin during his successful run for the White House.
On Friday, the president accused his Democratic opponent, "Crooked" Hillary Clinton, of commissioning it.
He retweeted the above tweet trilogy on Sunday with this reboot to follow:
Finally, he retweeted a theory, expanding on a criticism by Hawaii Democrat and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, that the Steele Dossier was actually a fiendish plot instigated by us dastardly Brits (and not Hillary?) to manoeuvre Washington into standing up to Vladimir Putin on our behalf.
But he wasn't done there.
Donald Trump continued his strategy of attacking the Steele Dossier as a tool of the "Witch Hunt" against him by taking Republican Senator John McCain to task for passing it on to the FBI.
Senator McCain, lest we forget, was a hugely-admired public servant and presidential candidate who passed away from brain cancer on 25 August 2018.
Mr Trump famously mocked McCain - a pilot during the Vietnam War who was shot down, captured and held prisoner in Hanoi for six years by the North Vietnamese - for not being a true American hero (having not served himself due to "bone spurs"): "He is a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren't capture."
He was duly criticised by the deceased's grieving daughter Meghan...
...And retweeted this in response:
Worth remembering Meghan McCain's thinly-veiled warnings at her father's funeral against "cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly" and "the opportunistic appropriation of those who live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served."
What else? Oh yes, he's been after a General Motors autoworkers' union in Ohio:
And Saturday Night Live (again).
He now appears to be threatening to intervene to stop Alec Baldwin impersonating him. So much for free speech.
Lastly, on what has been a spectacular weekend of tweets, even by the standards of this master of the art, there were plenty of reminders to loyal Trump supporters of the need for the border wall and the threats posed by unaddressed illegal immigration from Central America.
Here's Tom Barnes on Mr Trump's lobbying for Judge Jeanine of Fox.
Opponents of the president are wasting little time in pointing out that defending Islamophobia is not a good look for the Leader of the Free World in the wake of the atrocious mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday.
His assertion that there was no rising threat from white nationalism and that "it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems" was widely seen as a weak response to the tragedy.
Trump defends ‘Judge’ Jeanine Pirro after Fox host taken off air over Islamophobic hijab comments
President offers support for commentator following much-criticised attack on Muslim congresswoman Ilhan OmarAnd here's Chris Riotta on the president's ongoing bitterness towards John McCain, seven months after the poor man was laid to rest.
Trump launches bitter attack on late senator John McCain
Second time president has hurled misleading accusations at deceased senator in space of 24 hoursAmong those leaping to the defence of John McCain is his long-time friend Lindsey Graham, Republican senator for South Carolina:
In other Trump news this morning, Washington State is threatening to leave the president's name off 2020 ballot papers unless he finally reveals his tax returns.
Very much the sort of blackmail tactic the man himself would be tempted to employ, an irony that will no doubt annoy him all the more.
Trump to be left off 2020 ballots unless he shows his tax returns, Washington State says
Lawmakers force the president’s hand as he continues holding years of tax returns close to his chestThe president may have vetoed a motion to overturn the resolution opposing his national emergency declaration on Friday after it passed muster in the House of Representatives and Senate but two-thirds of Americans do not support him on the matter, according to a new poll.
Trump’s national emergency opposed by majority of Americans
Polls consistently show Democrats and independents strongly disagree with calling emergency over borderPresident Trump's weak response to the mass shooting in Christchurch has won him few admirers, with some seeing it as a repeat of his failure to condemn neo-Nazis at Charlottesville in August 2017.
"The president is not a white supremacist," says acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, which you would certainly hope was a given.
Here's Chris Baynes.
Trump denies 'rising threat' from white nationalism in wake of Christchurch mosque atrocity
'I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,' says US presidentThe president is awake and resuming his attack on General Motors and the UAW union.
"Close a plant in China or Mexico", he says, casually.
More self-congratulation, presented without citation:
The Democrats are currently lining up to disagree with former vice-president Joe Biden that his successor, Mike Pence, is "a decent guy".
Fellow Indianan and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's description of Mr Pence as "the cheerleader of the porn star presidency" has yet to be bettered despite the best efforts of Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris et al.
His toadying response to the president over the veto - "I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud to be standing next to your desk than I am today" - certainly deserves to be mocked.
Democrats line up to target Mike Pence after Biden calls him a ‘decent guy’
2020 candidates use criticism of vice president to stand out in crowded fieldBut the mudslinging goes both ways.
Since announcing his 2020 candidacy, Beto O'Rourke's opponents have been working overtime to dig up dirt on the Democrats' new golden boy.
The Republicans used St Patrick's Day to mock his arrest for driving under the influence more than 20 years ago - an amazingly callous tweet to come from the party's official account.
Many also leaped on a Reuters report over the weekend saying the the former punk rocker, 46, wrote some fairly wild poetry in his youth and was part of the early hacktivist group Cult of the Dead Cow under the pseudonym "Psychedelic Warlord".
Whatever you make of all that, he's clearly caught the imagination of voters:
Hahaha!
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis on the president's apparent endorsement of the fan theory the Steele Dossier was a piece of good old-fashioned British Cold War intrigue straight out of John Le Carre.
Trump appears to claim UK invented Russia interference in 2016 election to 'bait' US into taking its side
US president shares tweet by founder of right-wing conspiracy theory websitePlease allow a moment for our liveblog to load
