The White House defended Donald Trump's tweets calling a 75-year-old injured protestor an "Antifa provocateur", with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany saying it wasn't a baseless conspiracy theory.
Trump announced the first four cities where campaign rallies are expected to resume in the next week, while announcing that he had no intention of renaming any military bases in the wake of protests over racial injustice.
One of the ex-officers charged over the killing of George Floyd was released on bail while the Minneapolis police chief said the department was withdrawing from contract negotiations with the police union pending a review.
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Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration and its response to the coronavirus pandemic and George Floyd protests.
Republicans turn on Trump over baseless 'ANTIFA provocateur' accusation
GOP senators on Capitol Hill have expressed their dismay at a Donald Trump tweet accusing 75-year-old Black Lives Matter protester Martin Gugino of being an “ANTIFA provocateur” and dismissing the viral video in which he is seen being shoved over by police at a George Floyd demonstration in Buffalo, New York, as “a set up”.
“It’s a serious accusation which should only be made with facts and evidence, and I haven't seen any yet”, commented John Thune of South Dakota, according to The Hill. Asked if he thought Trump should cease-and-desist, Thune answered: “Well, I think that’s a given.”
Utah’s Mitt Romney branded the speculation from the president “shocking” and said: “I won’t dignify it with any further comment.”
“It would best if the president did not comment on issues that are before the courts,” said Susan Collins of Maine, putting it mildly.
Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander said simply: “The voters can evaluate that. I’m not going to give a running commentary on the president’s tweets.”
Most relatably of all, Alaska moderate Lisa Murkowski responded: “Oh lord. It just makes no sense that we’re fanning the flames right at this time, this is not good.”
If only Collins, Alexander and Murkowski had joined Romney in breaking ranks to vote for Trump’s impeachment back in February, as they had so heavily hinted they might before backing out.
New York's governor Andrew Cuomo was none too keen on the tweet either:
Here’s Chris Riotta on the offending tweet.
George Floyd laid to rest in Houston
Floyd’s funeral was finally held in his hometown of Houston, Texas, on Tuesday, with Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden and the Reverend Al Sharpton among those paying tribute to the man whose death at the hands of Minneapolis cops on 25 May sparked a global racial justice movement.
More on Biden and Sharpton in a moment, but it was the deceased's niece, Brooke Williams, who made the day's most impressive and moving call for a better world, telling mourners with conviction: "As long as I'm breathing, justice will be served."
More on Biden and Sharpton in a moment, but it was the deceased's niece, Brooke Williams, who made the day's most impressive and moving call for a better world, telling mourners with conviction: "As long as I'm breathing, justice will be served."
Here’s Richard Hall’s report on a difficult and emotional day.
Joe Biden gives powerful address at Floyd funeral as Trump stays quiet
“When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America. Then, Gianna, your daddy will have changed the world,” Biden said, addressing the deceased's daughter via videolink, on a occasion when the spectre of Trump was nowhere to be seen, itself an indictment of his divisive presidency.
“We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul, from systemic abuse that still plagues American life.”
Here's Rich Hall again with more.
Reverend Sharpton: 'This was not just a tragedy it was a crime'
"If four black cops had done to one white what was done to George, they wouldn’t have to teach no new lessons... They would send them to jail," the civil rights veteran said yesterday, with righteous anger.
Justin Vallejo has this one.
"If four black cops had done to one white what was done to George, they wouldn’t have to teach no new lessons... They would send them to jail," the civil rights veteran said yesterday, with righteous anger.
Justin Vallejo has this one.
Georgia primary election chaos prompts cries of 'voter suppression'
Voters encountered long lines and problems with voting machines on Tuesday during a chaotic day of in-person balloting in Georgia, the latest state to struggle to conduct elections amid the health worries of the coronavirus pandemic.
State Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for the difficulties and Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said his office would investigate problems in two counties that are Democratic strongholds in an effort to resolve the issues before the November general election.
The missteps in Georgia, which had delayed its primary from March, are likely to raise alarms about how well states will handle voting if the coronavirus is still raging when Trump and Biden meet in the 3 November presidential election.
Many voters complained of hours-long waits and voting machines that were not operating. Raffensperger said the problems were most acute in metropolitan Atlanta's Fulton and DeKalb counties, although the Georgia Democratic Party said it received reports of problems "in every corner of the state".
The primary was the first use of Georgia's new voting equipment, which added a paper ballot backup, and officials said there were reports some locations struggled to start the machines, did not receive the equipment necessary to start on time or did not train poll workers properly on handling them.
"I waited for three hours," said Callie Orsini, 26, who stood in line with hundreds of people in Atlanta's Midtown neighbourhood on Tuesday. She said some people in line had requested absentee ballots but had not received them and it took longer for poll workers to process them.
Polling locations had been reduced in many counties amid a shortage of poll workers because of concerns about the coronavirus outbreak. About 1m Georgians voted absentee by mail, Raffensperger's office said, and another 325,000 already had cast ballots in person during early voting.
Raffensperger, who sent absentee ballot request forms to the state's 6.9m active voters, called the voting situation in parts of Fulton and DeKalb counties "unacceptable" and opened an investigation.
"We knew it would be challenging to vote in a pandemic, but most counties were able to handle it very smoothly," he told Reuters. "Fulton County obviously had problems, and the issues they had fall on the county administrators."
But Democrats said the responsibility belonged to Raffensperger.
"If there was a failure of leadership, it starts where the buck should stop, at the top," said DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, a Democrat who called for an investigation of Raffensperger's office.
"It is the secretary of state's responsibility to train, prepare, and equip election staff throughout the state to ensure fair and equal access to the ballot box," he said.
Voting rights groups said the experience was particularly difficult in precincts serving low-income and minority neighbourhoods and they worried that thousands of voters might have been disenfranchised.
"This election has been a catastrophe," said Kristen Clarke, president of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
The problems in Georgia follow similar complaints and confusion during an April primary in Wisconsin and last week in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Washington, DC.
Georgia was one of five states choosing candidates for the White House and Congress on Tuesday. Voters in Nevada, South Carolina, North Dakota and West Virginia also held primaries.
Jon Ossoff, 33, led a large field of Georgia Democrats in early results in the race for the party's nomination to take on Republican senator David Perdue. Ossoff faced six other Democrats, but with about 25 per cent of precincts counted he was short of the 50 per cent of the vote needed to avoid an 11 August runoff for the nomination. Perdue has no primary challengers.
Louise Hall has this report.
Louise Hall has this report.
Dr Fauci says coronavirus his 'worst nightmare' and not over
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases issued a dire warning against Covid-19 complacency yesterday, with the US suffering over 2m cases and 114,000 deaths and counting.
Speaking during a previously taped interview at the Biotechnology Innovation Organisation's annual conference, Dr Fauci - America’s top disease expert - said the virus met all four criteria for a nightmare scenario, being new, respiratory-borne, easily transmissible and has a significant degree of illness or mortality.
Dr Fauci said he was surprised "how rapidly it just took over the planet."
"This took about a month to go around the world. When is it going to end? We're still at the beginning of it," he said.
Dr Fauci said other outbreaks such as SARS, HIV and Ebola "had a degree of containment and finiteness to them from the very beginning".
The expert spent most of his career studying HIV and said that “it's really simple compared to what’s going on with Covid-19.”
"We're at almost the beginning of understanding" the coronavirus, especially its long-term effects, he said.
Trump ‘came close to firing defence secretary’ over protest response
Back to the president, who was ready to fire Mark Esper last week after he changed his tune and decided against turning active-duty troops on peaceful protesters despite pressure from Trump to do so, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Responding to questions about a threatening tweet from the Oval Office, the defence secretary told reporters from the Pentagon’s briefing room podium that deploying the military as domestic law enforcement was intended as a “last resort” and ruled: "We are not in one of those situations now."
"I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act," he said, alluding to an 1807 law that allows a president to deploy the US military to suppress civil disorder.
Several aides, unnamed by the newspaper, said Trump - who has little truck with dissent - had considered firing Esper over the episode while the latter had reportedly already readied a resignation letter, before both sides cooled off and thought better of it.
Trump reassembles 2016 election team and thanks Bush nephew for pledging support with declaration he is 'only thing standing between America and socialism'
With the president alarmed by his poor recent polling and nostalgic for the happy golden days of 2016 stalking Hillary Clinton around the debate stage and mocking Ted Cruz’s wife for not being as attractive as Melania, he’s calling the old posse back together for one last ride.
In the last week, Trump’s re-election team under Brad Parscale has rehired Jason Miller, communications director in 2016, to focus on strategy and co-ordinate between the campaign and the White House. Miller has co-hosted the pro-Trump War Room podcast with the president's former campaign chief executive, Steve Bannon, in the interim.
Boris Epshteyn, who after 2016 became a commentator for the conservative Sinclair Broadcast network, has also come back to be a strategic adviser for coalitions. Bill Stepien, a top adviser in 2016, was recently promoted to deputy campaign manager. And Justin Clark, another longtime aide, has led the Republican Party's legal fight over voting rules.
"Every president who has successfully run a first go-around looks to add on people who were in that effort to the re-elect," said Miller, before touting the resources of the 2020 bid. "But this is the Starship Enterprise as opposed to a rusted fishing boat we used in the first campaign."
Familiar faces have also returned to the White House post-impeachment.
Hope Hicks was Trump's original campaign spokeswoman before becoming one of his most trusted West Wing aides. She left the White House in 2018 only to return two years later and was one of the driving forces behind the president's controversial photo op with a Bible after he walked through Lafayette Square last week to a nearby church once the area was cleared of protesters.
Johnny McEntee, who served as Trump's personal aide before being fired by then-chief of staff John Kelly in 2018, returned in January and has been focusing on staffing the administration with loyalists.
While Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign manager, and David Bossie, a trusted aide, have both remained officially outside the campaign, they have attended several recent strategy sessions and have been spotted on Air Force One and at the president's golf clubs.
And some of Trump's 2016 team never left: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president's daughter and son-in-law, are senior advisers. Kellyanne Conway, the president's final 2016 campaign manager, remains a senior White House counselor. Dan Scavino runs the president's social media presence from inside the West Wing. And the president's two adult sons, Don Jr and Eric Trump, and Eric's wife, Lara, remain popular campaign surrogates.
"He will always default to a group of people he trusts and who will advocate for him until hell freezes over," said Timothy O'Brien, a Trump biographer. "But there's a difference between trusting people and being a good judge of ability."
"He will always default to a group of people he trusts and who will advocate for him until hell freezes over," said Timothy O'Brien, a Trump biographer. "But there's a difference between trusting people and being a good judge of ability."
"He tends to hire people who agree with him," O'Brien said. "He lives in a bubble."
In search of a positive endorsement after being snubbed by Republican Party elders George W Bush, Colin Powell and Mitt Romney, Trump has meanwhile cheered a friendly overture from the former’s nephew, Texas’s land commissioner.
"Trump is the only thing standing between America and socialism,” George P Bush said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News and The Texas Tribune.
“Even in a global pandemic where we have had to take unprecedented measures to protect public health, the economy is already returning,” he added. “It’s clear, America and Texas will continue to be stronger than ever.”
Sean Hannity claims Trump also a 'victim of crooked cops' as Tucker Carlson denounces Elmo
The Fox News host and friend of the president used his primetime show last night to liken the death of George Floyd under the knee of Derek Chauvin to the "Obamagate" conspiracy theory levelled at the 2016-era Justice Department and FBI, arguing that both were carried out by "crooked cops".
“Even the president himself - it’s not the same thing as what happened to George Floyd - but it’s horrific,” he said. “He was a victim of crooked cops.”
Even Hannity seemed to realise he'd gone too far on this one - speaking as he was on the night of Floyd's funeral - and later recanted: “I’m not making any comparison. A bad cop is a bad cop, and by all means the damage was real to the country.”
HIs show also featured the following disturbing and poorly-disguised advertorial for a pepper spray and tear gas pistol.
Incredibly though, Hannity's was not the maddest piece of broadcasting to air on the network overnight, with the increasingly unhinged Tucker Carlson getting upset about Sesame Street seeking to address the subject of racial prejudice.
The Fox News host and friend of the president used his primetime show last night to liken the death of George Floyd under the knee of Derek Chauvin to the "Obamagate" conspiracy theory levelled at the 2016-era Justice Department and FBI, arguing that both were carried out by "crooked cops".
“Even the president himself - it’s not the same thing as what happened to George Floyd - but it’s horrific,” he said. “He was a victim of crooked cops.”
Even Hannity seemed to realise he'd gone too far on this one - speaking as he was on the night of Floyd's funeral - and later recanted: “I’m not making any comparison. A bad cop is a bad cop, and by all means the damage was real to the country.”
HIs show also featured the following disturbing and poorly-disguised advertorial for a pepper spray and tear gas pistol.
Incredibly though, Hannity's was not the maddest piece of broadcasting to air on the network overnight, with the increasingly unhinged Tucker Carlson getting upset about Sesame Street seeking to address the subject of racial prejudice.
Cornell West draws tears from CNN's Anderson Cooper with optimism and eloquence on George Floyd funeral
This really is a must-watch exchange.
This really is a must-watch exchange.
Don Jr's secretive Mongolia hunting trip cost $60,000 more than first disclosed
It seems the president's ludicrous eldest child has been covering up precisely how much his holiday to Central Asia to shoot endangered sheep last year cost the American taxpayer.
John T Bennett has the whole murky story.
Trump is ‘living in an alternate reality’, says John Kerry
Kim Sengupta has this on the ex-secretary of state and presidential candidate coming together with former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to denounce the president at the CogX Global Leadership Summit.
Kim Sengupta has this on the ex-secretary of state and presidential candidate coming together with former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to denounce the president at the CogX Global Leadership Summit.
New Lincoln Project ad contrasts Trump and Dwight Eisenhower
George Conway's merry band of Never Trumper's are really outdoing themselves of late and this installment is no exception.
Oliver O'Connell has the story.
George Conway's merry band of Never Trumper's are really outdoing themselves of late and this installment is no exception.
Oliver O'Connell has the story.
'The Republicans who'd prefer Joe Biden are out in full force - and it looks like they might swing the election'
Speaking of Never Trump Republicans, here's Andrew Feinberg for Indy Voices on their growing influence and prospects for ousting the president in November.
Speaking of Never Trump Republicans, here's Andrew Feinberg for Indy Voices on their growing influence and prospects for ousting the president in November.
Why Trump’s loss of evangelical support could cost him the election
For Indy Premium, Andrew Buncombe has this on another key demographic without whom it could be curtains for the president at the ballot box.
Holding that Bible upside down after tear-gassing peaceful protesters and using a sacred church for a cheap photo opportunity might not prove to be a winning move after all.
For Indy Premium, Andrew Buncombe has this on another key demographic without whom it could be curtains for the president at the ballot box.
Holding that Bible upside down after tear-gassing peaceful protesters and using a sacred church for a cheap photo opportunity might not prove to be a winning move after all.
Trump press secretary defends 'ANTIFA provocateur' tweet on Fox and Friends
We know the president is watching Fox from this tweet...
...but he was no doubt tuning in to see how Kayleigh McEnany fielded his latest appalling tweet, which, by the admission of his own side, saw him "fanning the flames" of national tensions.
She doubled down on it, you will not be surprised to hear.
We know the president is watching Fox from this tweet...
...but he was no doubt tuning in to see how Kayleigh McEnany fielded his latest appalling tweet, which, by the admission of his own side, saw him "fanning the flames" of national tensions.
She doubled down on it, you will not be surprised to hear.
Martin Gugino says only 'black lives matter' when asked about Trump tweet
Gino Spocchia has the short and sweet response from the 75-year-old protester hospitalised after being knocked down by the police in Buffalo and then accused of faking it by the president.
Gino Spocchia has the short and sweet response from the 75-year-old protester hospitalised after being knocked down by the police in Buffalo and then accused of faking it by the president.
George Floyd and alleged killer cop ‘bumped heads’ while working security together
David Pinney, a former colleague of Floyd and Derek Chauvin at the Minneapolis nightclub where both men worked the door, has given an interview to CBS in which offers some fresh insight into the tensions between them.
Andrew Naughtie has this report on what he had to say.
David Pinney, a former colleague of Floyd and Derek Chauvin at the Minneapolis nightclub where both men worked the door, has given an interview to CBS in which offers some fresh insight into the tensions between them.
Andrew Naughtie has this report on what he had to say.
Christopher Columbus statue torn down, set on fire and tossed in lake by anti-racism protesters in Virginia
Taking a leaf out of Bristol's book, Black Lives Matter protesters have pulled down a statue of their own in Richmond.
And they're not the only ones coming for Columbus.
Gino Spocchia has the full story.
Taking a leaf out of Bristol's book, Black Lives Matter protesters have pulled down a statue of their own in Richmond.
And they're not the only ones coming for Columbus.
Gino Spocchia has the full story.
