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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Vivian Ho in San Francisco (now) and Joanna Walters and Amanda Holpuch in New York (earlier)

Trump to hold second summit with North Korea's Kim Jong-un – as it happened

Trump with Kim last year.
Donald Trump with Kim Jong-un last year. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Closing summary

  • President Trump is set to make a “major announcement” on Saturday regarding the border and the federal government partial shutdown.
  • Amidst the fallout over BuzzFeed’s explosive story reporting that President Trump directed ex-fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Special counsel Robert Mueller issued a rare statement, saying that the article’s “description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”
  • As the federal government partial shutdown enters a record Day 29 tomorrow, some state governors have begun to fight back with unemployment benefits for federal employees still working without pay.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis will permit federal workers required to work without pay to file for unemployment.

“Those federal employees who are required to report for work are feeling the same economic squeeze as those who have been furloughed. They should not be denied the immediate financial assistance provided by unemployment benefits while being mandated to show up to work,” Polis said in a statement. “I have authorized an emergency rule that makes all unpaid federal workers eligible for unemployment benefits, whether they are reporting for work or not.”

Polis made the announcement on Day 28 of the federal government shutdown. Federal employees not working during the shutdown can collect unemployment, while those who are on the job without pay cannot, according to the Labor Department.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that his state will also provide benefits for federal workers who are still working. Democratic state governors of Michigan, New York and Washington are also asking the Trump administration to let states offer unemployment benefits to federal employees who are working without pay.

Special counsel disputes BuzzFeed report

Special counsel Robert Mueller issued a rare statement refusing the explosive BuzzFeed report that the president directed ex-fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Updated

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz may launch an independent bid for president, the Washington Post is reporting.

Advisers to the billionaire Democrat are exploring the possibility. Former Ohio governor John Kasich, a 2016 Republican candidate for president, is also considering an independent run.

Former President George W. Bush delivered pizza to his Secret Service agents, who are working without pay during the shutdown. He wrote that he and former First Lady Laura Bush are “grateful to our Secret Service personnel and the thousands of Federal employees who are working hard for our country without a paycheck.”

Updated

California Senator Kamala Harris may not have announced her candidacy for president (it’s being speculated that she will make the announcement in her hometown of Oakland on Monday), but she appears to have already selected her campaign headquarters, The Baltimore Sun is reporting.

“Harris picked Baltimore because of its diversity, its proximity to Washington and because it is in the Eastern time zone, the sources said, who requested anonymity because Harris has not yet announced her plans.”

Updated

Fallout continues over BuzzFeed’s explosive story reporting that President Trump directed ex-fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Hello, this is Vivian Ho with the west coast bureau, taking over for Joanna Walters.

Afternoon summary

  • Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will hold a second nuclear summit, near the end of next month, the White House announced, after the president held an Oval Office meeting with a North Korean emissary.
  • The next three days will see a flurry of activity from Democratic figures who have already declared they are running for the White House in 2020 and those who may be about to.
  • The federal government partial shutdown will enter a record Day 29 tomorrow, as a brief session of the Senate earlier saw the GOP block a Dem attempt to reopen Homeland Security, while increasing numbers of federal workers are claiming unemployment benefit.

In the latest news on the government shutdown, the Associated Press reports that the Democratic state governors of Michigan, New York and Washington have asked the Trump administration to let states offer unemployment benefits to federal employees who are working without pay.

Governors Gretchen Whitmer, Andrew Cuomo and Jay Inslee said in a joint statement that their states are providing the benefits to furloughed workers. But federal regulations prevent those who are on the job without pay from eligibility.

They called on the Labor Department immediately to provide “clear, unambiguous” guidance on whether states have flexibility to waive the rules to help those working without pay.

That includes Transportation Security Administration officers, air traffic controllers, Coast Guard members, among others.
“There is no rational justification to deny these employees the same short-term relief being offered to furloughed federal employees across the country,” the governors said. They said they are “profoundly distressed” by the 28-day shutdown, which is “badly hurting” federal employees in their states and across the country.
The Labor Department says federal employees not working during the shutdown can collect unemployment, while those who are on the job without pay cannot.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, said Thursday that his state will give benefits to people still on the job despite the guidance prohibiting it.

Updated

As rising Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum says of the MLK holiday: “It’s not a day off, it’s a day on.” He may have tweeted it last year, before he narrowly lost his bid to become state governor in November, but it doesn’t grow old.

He added: “We should have conversations about race, racism, sexism, and all the other -isms, because if it sits unconscious, we’ll allow it to continue to perpetuate.”

Gillum and that other loser-cum-hero of the Democratic midterms effort, Beto O-Rourke, are not going away and the 2020 field is only going to widen dramatically in the coming months.

Julián Castro popped up in New Hampshire earlier in the week and Kirsten Gillibrand is zooming into Iowa this weekend, on Warren’s heels. All three are formally running. But the Monday holiday, marking what would have been Martin Luther King Jr’s 90th birthday, is the all-you-can-eat buffet of the maybes as well as the definite.

Speculation continues to build that Kamala Harris will announce her candidacy “in or around” MLK Day. Joe Biden is making his first public appearance of the year at Al Sharpton’s civil rights breakfast in Washington on the day.

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg will also be there. And Gillibrand is joining Sharpton at an event in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood later on.

Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders are both attending events in South Carolina.

The Guardian is marking Trump’s two-year mark in office with a series of articles over the next few days. The first one was published today.

It examines the effects the Trump administration has had on key issues: the environment, the economy, foreign policy, immigration and the judiciary.

What do you mean “it’s Friday afternoon can’t I switch off now and crack a beer like Elizabeth Warren?” Buckle up, America!

The anniversary of Trump’s inauguration coincides with the deafening sonic booms of declared and soon-to-declare candidates for the White House in 2020 hitting the campaign trail at the speed of sound.

Here’s our new interactive feature of the who’s who of the Democratic race, the unofficial Dem primary field, which is about to get a lot larger.

The empress of soul, Gladys Knight, has defended her decision to perform the American national anthem at the Super Bowl, after receiving criticism from supporters of former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who used football’s pre-game tradition to protest racial injustice, especially police brutality against people of color.
But Knight, a 74-year-old native of Atlanta, where the game will be played, has agreed to sing “the Star Spangled Banner”, Reuters reports.

Her decision was blasted on social media today by supporters of the “take a knee” stance championed by NFL players who kneel during the anthem as a form of activism. Donald Trump, who lobbied for rebels to be fired, has led a chorus of conservative voices calling such actions unpatriotic.
Knight argued that she wanted to “give the anthem back its voice” in order to include Americans struggling for racial justice. She said she did not need to prove her commitment to civil rights.
“I have fought long and hard for all my life, from walking back hallways, from marching with our social leaders, from using my voice for good,” the “Midnight Train to Georgia” singer said in a statement.

She added: “I have been in the forefront of this battle longer than most of those voicing their opinions to win the right to sing our country’s anthem on a stage as large as the Super Bowl,” Knight added.

The Super Bowl is on February 3 (which, lest we forget, is four days before Michael Cohen testifies to Congress)

Updated

It’s a big weekend for presidential hopefuls – with many potential candidates using the upcoming three-day weekend to take the first steps in the 2020 campaign.

Senator Kristen Gillibrand, a Democrat in New York, has landed in Iowa:

Hello, this is Joanna Walters again, taking over the reins from Amanda Holpuch.

Michael Fuchs, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said Trump is heading into the second North Korea summit with “no sense.”

Fuchs, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said:

Once again, President Trump is rushing into a summit meeting with Kim Jong Un with no sense of what it will achieve other than showering a brutal dictator with more international acceptance. Diplomacy with North Korea is necessary, but what Trump has done so far is more of a show than real diplomacy. With North Korea, we can’t trust – we must verify. So far, Trump’s engagement with North Korea has produced nothing for America while North Korea continues to expand its nuclear program. Let’s hope the second summit produces real results, but don’t hold your breath as we wait for episode two of the Trump-Kim show.

More on the North Korea news from the Guardian’s Julian Borger:

This week the vice-president, Mike Pence, conceded that Washington was still “waiting for concrete steps” from the Kim’s regime, and the US unveiled a plan for a significantly expanded missile defence system, much of it designed to counter what the Pentagon termed “an extraordinary threat” from North Korea.

For its part, the Pyongyang regime has insisted that it will not unilaterally disarm, and has demanded the relaxation of international sanctions before offering any more concessions on its nuclear programme. Kim Jong-un is also demanding security guarantees from the US, and a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean conflict.

The last time Kim Yong-chol, whose official title is vice-chairman of the Workers’ party, was in Washington, to finalise arrangements for Singapore, he presented Trump with a letter from the North Korean leader in an outsized envelope. Trump and Kim Jong-un have already exchanged letters in recent weeks, and the US president at one point claimed that they were so positive, the two men had “fallen in love”.

White House to hold second North Korea summit

Donald Trump’s meeting with North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Choi, has ended, according to the White House pool report.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders sent this readout from the meeting:

President Donald J Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.

The Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, said despite Trump’s claim North Korea would substantially dismantle its nuclear programme, that hasn’t happened since their first summit in June 2018.

As the longest government shutdown in US history drags on, the president is encouraging his supporters to donate to his 2020 campaign.

In return, his campaign claims it will send “red faux bricks” to Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House majority leader, Nancy Pelosi.

We don’t know whether Trump’s border wall will be made of steel or concrete and we don’t know if the faux bricks will be made of foam or plaster (or polyurethane!)

It’s also not clear this will be a big fundraiser...

A basic, red, prop foam brick is $20 a pop on this prop website.

And to get a brick sent to Chuck and Nancy, donors must spend at least $20.20 - which would not leave much of a profit, even with a steep brick discount.

Maybe Mexico is paying for the faux red bricks.

This weekend is the third annual Women’s March, but it is going forward under a cloud of controversy because of ties between its top organizers and anti-semite, Louis Farrakhan.

The Guardian’s Erin Durkin writes that the controversy has seen march sponsors withdraw and led local chapters of the group to disaffiliate from the central organization.

The result is that there will be two major women’s marches taking place on the streets of New York and many other cities around the country on Saturday – the original one, which emphasizes leadership by women of color, and another – March On – formed in opposition to antisemitism.

“Founded by the leaders of many of the marches across the country, March On is women-led, but open to all, and will employ a sophisticated political strategy to coordinate concrete actions at the federal, state, and local level through the joint efforts of millions of marchers,” the March On website states.

Lee Weal, an activist based in New York City, told the Guardian that while she went to the second Women’s March and had been planning to go to the third this year, the group’s ties to Farrakhan put her off.

“If we insist that Trump disavow people like David Duke, you can’t have a different rule for those on the left,” she said, adding she thought leaders were “hurting the movement” by aligning with him.

Women in more than 30 countries around the world are also expected to gather on Saturday as part of the global Women’s March, to protest against violence against women and the impact of policies of austerity.

Senator calls on FBI to investigate DHS secretary

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to see if she committed perjury while testifying under oath about family separation.

Last night, the senator published a leaked memo that showed the Trump administration had been planning the family separation policy in December 2017.

Nielsen, however, said while under oath in testimony before Congress: “I’m not a liar, we’ve never had a policy for family separation.”

Updated

Donald Trump and Mike Pence made surprise remarks at the country’s largest demonstration against abortion, the March for Life, this afternoon.

While Pence attended the rally in-person, Trump addressed the march in videotaped remarks.

“When we look into the eyes of a newborn child, we see the beauty and the human soul and the majesty of God’s creation,” Trump said. “We know that every life has meaning.”

He then touted the administration’s work to restrict abortion access in the US.

A bombshell report in Buzzfeed that Donald Trump directed his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a real estate deal in Moscow has impeachment chatter at a fever pitch.

There are 14 members of the Senate who were in Congress in 1999 during the Clinton impeachment trial and voted to remove him from office:

Senators who voted for impeachment

  • Charles Grassley
  • Michael Crapo
  • Mike Enzi
  • James Inhofe
  • Mitch McConnell
  • Pat Roberts
  • Richard Shelby

House members who voted for impeachment who are now in the Senate

  • Lindsey Graham
  • Roy Blunt
  • Richard Burr
  • Jerry Moran
  • Rob Portman
  • John Thune
  • Roger Wicker

While hard to say how they would vote if the House would pass articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, many of the senators are among the president’s closest allies.

Yet their past pronouncements on impeachment against a Democratic president might suggest support for the process, should it be proven Trump obstructed justice or submitted false testimony.

It is also true that many Republicans stood by Richard Nixon until public opinion swung sharply against him. With little public or political support, he resigned before an impeachment vote took place.

Updated

Early afternoon summary

  • Washington is abuzz with the Buzzfeed bombshell report overnight that Donald Trump personally directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about an effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
  • Top Democrats have vowed to investigate the serious allegation, which would amount to obstruction of justice by the president, especially given their new power in key House committees since winning control of the House in the midterm elections.
  • Trump has been meeting a top North Korean official at the White House to talk nukes.
  • Melania Trump is at Mar-a-Lago and flew there on a government plane, although the government shutdown apparently caused POTUS to nix a trip by Nancy Pelosi to Afghanistan on a...government plane.
  • The Senate convened just long enough this morning for the Dems to try to squeeze through legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security for a few weeks, and for the GOP to block it.

The White House sent a statement to the press pool earlier, without naming the person quoted. It accuses Pelosi’s camp of a “flat out lie” in accusing the WH of leaking her plans to fly commercial after Trump blocked her war-zone trip on government flights.

Requests from the pool for a named statement on the record have so far gone unanswered.

“When the Speaker of the house and about 20 others from Capitol Hill decide to book their own commercial flights to Afghanistan, the world is going to find out. The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat out lie,” said the statement from a senior WH official.

Pelosi said the White House exposed her plans and made the trip to Afghanistan too risky.

“We weren’t going to go because we had a report from Afghanistan that the president outing out trip had made feet on the ground much more dangerous because it’s a signal to bad actors that we were coming,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Mitch McConnell lends himself to cartoons almost as well as Trump. Rob Rogers has skewered the Senate majority leader today. Rogers has become more seething, less subtle, in his art since being ousted from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last year. Here’s his offering on Mitch today.

The US Senate was very briefly in session this morning. Just a handful of senators rattling around the chamber, but enough for the Democratic side to attempt to advance legislation re-opening the Department of Homeland Security and the GOP side to block it.

The Hill reported that Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine asked to take up a bill passed by the Dem-dominated House that would fund the DHS until February 8 (lest we forget, the day after Michael Cohen is due to testify on Capitol Hill).

James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, blocked the request, objecting “on behalf of the majority leader”, referring to Kentucky Republican and Senate leviathan Mitch McConnell.

McConnell has vowed not to allow a vote in the GOP-dominated Senate on bills Trump won’t sign, which so far covers anything aimed at reopening the federal government but without Trump’s requested $5.7 billion funding for his wall.

Donald Trump is reportedly at this minute meeting in the White House with North Korean envoy Kim Yong-choi. Reuters reported that press sec Sarah Sanders announced the meeting. We await further details.

Pelosi accuses White House of endangering lives

“Pelosi told reporters that WH leaking of their travel plans scrapped their trip, calling it “very irresponsible” and saying it endangered lawmakers traveling there,” CNN’s Manu Raju just tweeted, after Pelosi addressed a media huddle in the halls of Congress.

She’s accused Trump of leaking her plans to fly commercial as an alternative to using government-provided aircraft, which the president blocked yesterday afternoon just as Pelosi and a congressional entourage was about to leave for the airport.

Trump cited the shutdown, but most saw an upping of the ante in the bitter shutdown battle between Republicans and Democrats and now, specifically, Trump and Pelosi.

Critics were already pointing out that exposing plans in advance that a high-profile delegation would visit a war zone, using taxpayer-funded government aircraft, could endanger the politicians, troops on the ground and security personnel.

Updated

Nancy Pelosi was asked if she believed Trump’s White House may have leaked details of her trip as “retaliation” for her request on Wednesday that the president delay his State of the Union speech, due January 29, because of security concerns during the government shutdown.

“I would hope not,” she said. “I don’t think the president would be that petty, do you?”

Pelosi is so practiced at earnest smooth-talking you can’t even see the tongue jammed into the cheek.

Nancy Pelosi is speaking with reporters this minute on Capitol Hill. She’s slamming the White House for, as she believes, “leaking” details of her planned trip to Afghanistan - a war zone, which breaks protocol. The White House has denied leaking anything.

“We’ll go again. We’ll go another time,” she said.

Meanwhile, World Affairs! The Associated Press reports that the US and North Korea began fresh talks today aimed at resuming stalled efforts to end the North’s nuclear weapons program.

So the buzz is all about arranging a second summit between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, following the fanfare around what the Guardian figured was littel more than a glorified photo-op in June last year.

AP continues: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea’s former spy chief, Kim Yong Chol, did not respond to reporters’ questions before their meeting at a Washington hotel today.
Pompeo, Kim and Steve Biegun, the special US envoy for North Korea negotiations, stood silently as photographers took photos. Pompeo and Kim had plans to go to the White House later for a possible meeting with Trump.
Veep Mike Pence said earlier that the Trump-Kim dialogue was “promising” but that “we still await concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle the nuclear weapons that threaten our people and our allies in the region.”
A planned meeting between Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol in New York last November was called off abruptly. US officials said at the time that North Korea had canceled the session.
Kim Jong Un expressed frustration in an annual New Year’s address over the lack of progress in negotiations. But on a visit to Beijing last week, he said North Korea would pursue a second summit “to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

A slightly different take from Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who said on Twitter: “Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn’t end his inquiry, but it’s about time for him to show Congress his cards before it’s too late for us to act.”

Got it. But in this hyper-speed, information saturation, 24-7 connectivity news time warp we now live in, a little shy of two years is really not long for an investigation of the complexity and scale of Robert Mueller’s.

He’s shown plenty of cards, defying the norm that most packs have only two jokers (Manafort, Cohen, Flynn, Gates, Papadopoulos, Russian hackers, need we go on?)

But curious to hear more about what Murphy means when he said “before it’s too late for us to act”.

Here’s the full statement:

Chairman Schiff Statement on BuzzFeed Report

Washington, DC — Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, released the following statement:

“On October 24, 2017, Michael Cohen testified before the House Intelligence Committee under oath. We now know that he made false statements about the efforts to consummate the Trump Tower Moscow deal during the campaign.

Contrary to Mr. Cohen’s testimony, and notwithstanding Donald Trump’s many public denials of business dealings with the Russians during the campaign, those negotiations continued through at least the middle of 2016. Most significantly, and while espousing the relaxation of sanctions on Russia, Trump was seeking the Kremlin’s help to make this multimillion dollar project possible.

“It is now alleged that the President of the United States directed Michael Cohen to lie under oath to Congress about these matters in an effort to impede the investigation and to cover up his business dealings with Russia.

These allegations may prove unfounded, but, if true, they would constitute both the subornation of perjury as well as obstruction of justice.

Our committee is already working to secure additional witness testimony and documents related to the Trump Tower Moscow deal and other investigative matters.

As a counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude, and given that these alleged efforts were intended to interfere with our investigation, our Committee is determined to get to the bottom of this and follow the evidence wherever it may lead.”

Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and chairman of the House intelligence committee, has put out a statement pledging in strong terms to investigate allegations that Donald Trump had business dealings with Russia during the 2016 election campaign and has since directed ex-fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about it.

He calls the latest revelations and claims: “A counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude” and pledges that the powerful committee will “get to the bottom of this.”

If presidential crime and punishment discussions aren’t going away any time soon, neither is the issue of the US-Mexico border.

Starting off in the ‘you have to laugh or you’d cry’ zone, here is the latest cover of the New Yorker.

One of those most wonderfully-drawn zingers, it shows Trump in the Oval Office grimly bricking himself in with a literal wall. Razor wire looping along the top and all balanced as precariously as this authority, atop the Resolute desk.

As the New Yorker says itself, the cartoon is by the artist John Cuneo, who last year depicted the President enjoying a day of golfing in the swamp. “When it comes to drawing Trump, I’ve kind of hit the wall myself,” Cuneo said. “Half of a face is more than enough.” Cuneo’s image nods to a magazine cover from another era—the drawing, by Boris Artzybasheff, for the August 31, 1962, issue of Time, depicting the Berlin Wall.

We won’t sidetrack for more than a moment on Cohen’s father-in-law Fima Shusterman, but as Trump keeps bringing him up, here’s a quick recap.

Shusterman, was charged with two other men in 1993 with conspiring to defraud the IRS in connection with his New York taxi business. He pleaded guilty to a related charge that same year, and was placed on probation for two years.

He reportedly loaned at least $20 million to a Chicago taxi business mogul referred to in FBI search warrants for Michael Cohen, according to this CNBC report.

Trump told Fox News in a phone interview last weekend that be believed that Cohen decided to give prosecutors information on him, in order to get a reduced sentence from his crimes. He told Fox: “He should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that’s the one that people want to look at.”

Michael Cohen’s background is certainly colorful, or shady, whichever way you’d like to put it. Here’s one of the Guardian’s profiles of “the lawyer who rose from the taxi business to fixing the future president’s messiest problems” to conviction in a New York courtroom.

Cohen was convicted of campaign finance violation, tax fraud and bank fraud, last August and convicted of lying to Congress, last November. He’s been sentenced to three years in prison.

The man who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump but has now directly and repeatedly implicated the president in criminal conduct.

Donald Trump has responded to the BuzzFeed story. By quoting Fox News! And repeating his odd reference to Michael Cohen’s father-in-law, while, again, accusing his former close friend and lawyer Cohen of lying.

Updated

Nadler says House judiciary committee will 'get to the bottom' of Cohen report

More high-level reaction to the account that Donald Trump is said to have directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Jerry Nadler, representative of New York and chairman of the House judiciary committee, tweeted this morning that directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime.

“We know that the President has engaged in a long pattern of obstruction. Directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime. The @HouseJudiciary Committee’s job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work.”

Updated

Government shutdown enters day 28

The heat in Washington doesn’t seem to lessen whether Congress is in session or not, these days. The public record noting that Donald Trump has no public events scheduled and Congress isn’t sitting makes no different to the red hot stream of volcanic news gushing down Pennsylvania Avenue.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has just issued a statement, following the chaos triggered yesterday afternoon when the president escalated his feud with her by canceling her previously undisclosed trip abroad, denying her the use of a military aircraft to visit American troops in Afghanistan.

The spectacular snub came a day after Pelosi suggested the president either postpone or submit in writing his 29 January State of the Union address, citing security concerns stemming from the partial shutdown of the federal government.

Hours after Pelosi said Trump had been “silent” in response to her request, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders posted a letter from Trump to the House speaker postponing her travel, while dripping in sarcasm.

“In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate ... It would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me,” the letter said in part.

Trump also said Pelosi was welcome to purchase tickets on a commercial flight ...

(Let it be noted that on Thursday night, Melania Trump flew to their private club and resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, on a government plane.)

Pelosi has now issued a statement, which says, in large part: “After President Trump revoked the use of military aircraft to travel to Afghanistan, the delegation was prepared to fly commercially to proceed with this vital trip to meet with our commanders and troops on the front lines.

“In the middle of the night, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service provided an updated threat assessment detailing that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip.” The statement was issued by Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill.

It went on to say: “In light of the grave threats caused by the President’s action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights.”

Updated

Casting your mind back ... oh, just a couple of days ... Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general, William Barr, told senators at his confirmation hearing that it would be a crime for a president to try to coach a Congressional witness. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham asked Barr if it was a crime if “the president tried to coach somebody not to testify, or testify falsely?” Barr didn’t obfuscate or equivocate. “Yes,” he said. “Under an obstruction statute, yes.” For avoidance of doubt, Democrat Amy Klobuchar said to Barr: “You wrote ... that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right?” Barr replied, yes. Here’s the clip:

Updated

David Axelrod, long-time Democratic party insider and Barack Obama’s former senior adviser, said on CNN on Friday morning that if the Buzzfeed story was true then Trump was “in a new type of trouble, no question about it.”

Other commentators called the article a “bombshell”, in the already-cratered legal landscape surrounding the president. As special counsel Robert Mueller continues the Trump-Russia investigation and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani suddenly switches to say he “never said there was no collusion” between the campaign and Russia, is this what “American carnage” begins to look like?

Axelrod went on to say: “It sets up an extraordinary event” when Cohen testifies to Congress. “It reminds me of 1973,” he said.

Michael Cohen is due to testify to Congress next month. Prior to the latest allegations, there had been some doubts around it as he expressed concerns for the safety of his family. But the latest signs are that he appears to be bracing himself to go ahead and appear before the House Oversight Committee on February 7.

Democrats have come flying out of the gate over the BuzzFeed story that Trump directed his ex-fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

A very sober-sounding Adam Schiff, California Democrat and the new chairman of the House intelligence committee, whom Trump has delighted in calling puerile names, went straight for the P-word. He posted on Twitter: “The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true.”

Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro, who’s brother Julián Castro has announced he’s running for president in the 2020 election, immediately went for the “I” word. “If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached,” he tweeted briskly.

Updated

New report on Michael Cohen and Donald Trump

Good morning. The Guardian US team plans to take you through what promises to be another action-packed day in American politics. There’s no sense of TGIF when Donald Trump’s in the White House.

The president is apparently in a “whole new type of trouble” today after BuzzFeed broke an explosive story reporting that he directed ex-fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

As reaction pours in, everyone is still reeling from Trump’s one-upmanship of Nancy Pelosi, when he nixed her government trip to Afghanistan as she was about to head to the airport yesterday afternoon.

Partisan warring over the government shutdown, which today enters a record day 28, just gets deeper and darker.

This as today’s anti-abortion protest and tomorrow’s Women’s March fill the streets with voices arguing opposite messages – and Democratic presidential wannabes get ready for a long weekend of speeches heading into Martin Luther King Day. Watch this spot for US politics live!

Updated

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Budget and the Bees
People Claim To Have Found The Exact “Moment” Sharon And Kelly Osbourne Started Taking Weight Loss Medication
Netizens were convinced they could see the exact moment Sharon and Kelly Osbourne allegedly began using weight‑loss medication.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
The Heartbreaking Story Of Stephen Baldwin’s Biggest Struggle, And How He Poked Fun At It In New Ad
In the new video, Stephen Baldwin joked about his dependence on substances, which is an issue that his daughter Hailey Bieber has also spoken about.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Is John Cena Facing Health Issues? Fans Notice 'Awkward Posture' After Retired WWE Star's Struggle to Walk
Fans are speculating about John Cena's health after viral clips appeared to show the retired WWE champion struggling with his posture and mobility.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Slavery exhibit is changing at the African American history museum as a loan agreement ends
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is removing a rare slave ship timber from its “Slavery and Freedom” exhibit and sending it back to South Africa
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
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