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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Sam Levin in Los Angeles (now) and Amanda Holpuch in New York (earlier)

Trump says he's considering executive order to force census question – as it happened

Trump told reporters he was ‘thinking of’ issuing an executive order.
Trump told reporters he was ‘thinking of’ issuing an executive order. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Summary

We’re ending live coverage for the day, thanks for following along! Here’s a recap and key links from the day:

The Washington Post takes a look at how just how much paper the 2020 Census will require. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.

Another update in the court battle over the Census citizenship question:

The American Civil Liberties Union and others have asked a federal court in New York to block the Trump administration from delaying the printing of 2020 census forms or changing the forms to include the citizenship question.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project, said in a statement:

The Trump administration repeatedly argued the census forms could not be altered after June 30. They’ve now changed their tune because the Supreme Court ruled against them. They can’t have it both ways. Trump’s lawlessness will not go unanswered.”

You can read the full motion here.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris echoed their Democratic presidential rival Elizabeth Warren today when they promised to nominate an educator as secretary of education, the AP reports:

“We don’t treat you with dignity,” Biden, the former vice president, told thousands of public school teachers gathered for the National Education Association (NEA) convention in Texas. “If I am president, it will change on day one.”

Harris, a California senator, pledged a secretary “from public schools” and added that NEA, the nation’s largest union, “will be at the table to help me make that decision.”

Warren had already promised to nominate an educator earlier in the campaign.

The Guardian’s Mona Chalabi has created a graphic to illustrate just how severe the overcrowding is at some US migrant detention facilities:

Mona explains:

Overcrowding is so severe at some US migrant detention facilities that adult detainees are held in cells where they each have less than 0.3 sq meters of space.

A report released this week showed photographs of detainees pressed against the outermost walls of cells, but to understand the extent of the overcrowding, the Guardian contacted a research agency called Forensic Architecture that is based at the University of London.

The researchers began with a photograph that was included in Tuesday’s report about conditions at the Rio Grande detention facility in Texas. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that 88 adult men were being held in a cell with a maximum capacity of 41.

More here:

Another migrant dies in Customs and Border Protection custody

There has been another death in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody, according to the agency. A 52-year-old man from Nicaragua died after he was rushed to the hospital. The agency said he was part of a group of 36 people from Central America that had surrendered to agents near Sasabe, Arizona.

The US government has faced intense scrutiny over the last year surrounding in-custody deaths of migrants. Read some of their stories here:

A sexual assault survivor approached Biden today and said she was devastated to watch the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court, asking him what his plan would be to address the GOP takeover of the court. Hear his response:

“The plan is to appoint the right people. That’s the plan,” he said, adding that he was against packing the courts, referring to the idea some Democrats support of expanding the court. Earlier, he said he would consider nominating Merrick Garland, Obama’s former supreme court nominee:

The president has begun his three-day golf weekend, bringing the total in taxpayer money spent on his golf hobby to more than $108m, according to HuffPost:

The president has spent 60 days at his course in Virginia, 59 days at Bedminster and 57 days at his resort in West Palm Beach, the report said, adding that he he also visited courses in Los Angeles, Doral and Jupiter in Florida, Scotland, and Ireland.

HuffPost calculated that Trump has spent 187 days on a golf course that he owns since taking office – which is two-and-a-half times the number of days Obama had visited golf courses at this point in his first term.

Census court case moves forward

Hello - Sam Levin in Los Angeles here, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day. Because the Trump administration has refused to back down on its efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, the court case challenging the White House will move forward:

That means the court is on track to hear arguments about whether officials were motivated by racial bias when seeking to add the citizenship question. A US district judge has ordered discovery to start today in the Maryland lawsuit:

Evening summary

Life-size wooden sculpture of US first lady Melania Trump is officially unveiled in Rozno, near her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia
Life-size wooden sculpture of US first lady Melania Trump is officially unveiled in Rozno, near her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia Photograph: Borut Zivulovic/Reuters

Donald Trump said today that he had stop employing undocumented immigrants at his properties after numerous current and former undocumented employees spoke out about the contradictions in anti-immigrant rhetoric when he relies on immigrants in his workforce.

One of those workers, Sandra Diaz, who obtained legal immigration status after quitting her job at Trump’s Bedminster club, told the New York Daily News that undocumented people still work at his business. “He’s still lying as always,” Diaz said.

Anibal Romero, an attorney who represents Diaz and 43 other undocumented ex-Trump employees, reiterated his belief that Trump knowingly hired undocumented people.

“He knowingly hired these undocumented workers for years when he wanted to financially profit from their hard work,” Romero said. “Now he wants to deport them when he wants to politically profit from their plight.”

Sandra Diaz pictured here with another former undocumented Trump employee, Victorina Morales, during an interview last year.

The undocumented ex-Trump employees say management at the clubs they worked at knew of their illegal status but hired them anyways. Some of the former workers alleged managers even set them up with fake immigration papers.

Sevnica, the Slovenian home town of the US first lady, now boasts a statue of its most famous daughter - and it’s great!

The artist, Brad Downey, says it’s the first monument anywhere dedicated to Melania Trump.

Can you prove him wrong? Please email me if so: amanda.holpuch@theguardian.com.

There’s a new, deeply reported story in South Carolina’s the State newspaper, investigating the notion that Joe Biden is set to win South Carolina’s presidential primary, in part because of his popularity with the state’s black voters.

The reporters concluded that as Biden faces questions about his record on race, which has impacted his standing with black voters nationally: “many African Americans across generations in South Carolina told The State they do not associate themselves with the criticism the former vice president has received.”

Elections are complicated. More from the report, which puts an important emphasis on the voices of actual voters:

They said enthusiasm for Biden’s candidacy derives from a combination of strategic thinking about who can beat President Donald Trump and a deep emotional connection to the man who served alongside Barack Obama, the country’s first black president.

And older black voters said they trust Biden to unite the country. If they turn out in large numbers next year — as they did in 2016, when the over-45 age bracket represented more than 70% of those participating in the S.C. Democratic presidential primary — that sensibility could prevail.

Just last week 2020 presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson was on the Democratic debate stage, promising to call New Zealand as her first act in office.

Now, a week out from the first round of debates, Politico has an analysis of which members of the crowded Democratic field could see the next round of debates.

Currently, 21 candidates have passed a modest qualification threshold for the July debates, either hitting 1 percent in three qualifying polls or getting 65,000 donors. That’s one more candidate than the Democratic National Committee has said it will allow on stage across the two nights, meaning someone has to get cut.

Fourteen candidates have met both the basic qualification and a secondary one for the debates, leaving seven to fight for the final spots: John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan, Michael Bennet, Steve Bullock, Bill de Blasio and Eric Swalwell.

Senator Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign announced her campaign raised $12m in the second quarter, which places her behind three other candidates who announced their fundraising amounts earlier this week.

Mayor Pete tops the list, with $24.8m; followed by Joe Biden, with $21.5m and Bernie Sanders, with $18m.

At least $2m of Harris’s funds came in after the Democratic debates. Her campaign said 63,277 donations were made to the campaign in the first 24 hours after the debate.

Justice dept: still seeking inclusion of citizenship question on Census

The Trump administration will continue to fight to add a citizenship question to the US Census, something the president has said repeatedly since the Commerce department announced on Tuesday that the questionnaire was being printed without the question.

Justice department attorneys, who also told a judge on Tuesday that the fight for the question was being dropped, said on Friday that the Trump administration will continue its legal battle to include the question.

A federal judge set a 2pm today deadline for the Justice department to explain what exactly what was happening with the case given the conflicting statements from the president and federal agencies.

“As the government explained during the July 3, 2019 status conference and as noted above, the Departments of Commerce and Justice have been instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision, that would allow for the inclusion of the citizenship question on the census,” the Justice Department said in a court filing Friday.

Last week, the supreme court declined to make a decision about whether it was constitutional to include a question about citizenship, which sent the case back to the lower court where it is now being argued.

Earlier today, Trump told reporters he was considering an executive order, among “four or five” potential legal routes to getting the question on the Census.

More alarming reports about US Customs and Border Patrol, which oversees enforcement of US borders.

A border patrol agent raised concerns with a supervisor that other agents attempted to humiliate a Honduran migrant in May by making him hold a sign that read “I like men,” according to a CNN article published yesterday. CBP said they were looking into the allegations in response to the CNN report.

CNN said: “The incident is one of many, per the emails, in which the CBP agent allegedly witnessed several colleagues displaying poor behavior and management’s failure to act.”

Would you like a quick review of some recent pieces assessing Elizabeth Warren’s economic positions? Well, you’re in luck.

Because Warren’s campaign is emphasizing policies early in the campaign, there is a lot of thoughtful analysis of her economic position.

Can Elizabeth Warren build a bigger welfare state without taxing the middle class?

Vox looks closely at how Warren’s ambitious domestic spending plan would actually work in a country like the US - while also referencing broader plans by other Democratic 2020 hopefuls.

Even though progressives might say they want health care and university akin to the systems in Nordic countries, the US population and tax structure is very different.

The Ivory Tower team of wonks behind Warren’s policy agenda

This Politico piece looks at the team of intellectuals helping formulate and deliver her policies.

There’s a fascinating/alarming quote in there from Austan Goolsbee, a senior economic adviser to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, who is still worried about how being prepared could negatively impact someone’s chances on the campaign trail.

“Democrats brought a stack of fact sheets to a gunfight,” Goolsbee said of the 2016 campaign. While he admires the Warren team’s policy chops, he added that “it does give me a little heartburn when there’s so much policy detail this early in the campaign.”

Warren Is No Hillary. She’s Also No Bernie

And over at Jacobin, there’s a properly socialist take on Warren v Sanders. Really thoughtful, critical analysis in how the division between the two friends is playing out in more mainstream media.

With Warren’s advocacy for aggressive government regulation, her support for redistributive programs, her sharp critique of antisocial corporate behavior, and her rejection of individualistic folklore (remember “You didn’t build that”?), she’s emerged as a relatively mild but nevertheless quite serious opponent of neoliberal ideology — the worldview in which markets can solve everything and, in Margaret Thatcher’s words, “There is no such thing as society.”

Afternoon summary

Speaking to reporters outside the White House this morning, Donald Trump said the Fourth of July celebration in Washington DC was “fantastic” and would lead to more people joining the US military.

He said the teleprompter went out before his speech ended, possibly because of the rain, which still doesn’t explain why he made references to air travel during the Revolutionary War.

He also responded to Joe Biden’s comment that Trump is a bully, by saying “I don’t think I’m a bully at all.”

It is a surprising defense, especially considering there is a Wikipedia page listing more than 100 names Trump has called world leaders, reporters and organizations (i.e. ‘Fake Tears Chuck Schumer,’ ‘Failed prognosticator Bill Kristol’ and ‘Al Frankenstein.’)

Updated

Vice president Mike Pence notes on Twitter that Venezuela declared its independence on this day 208 years ago. He used the anniversary as an opportunity to highlight the US government’s support of opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. Nicolás Maduro remains president of Venezuela, though Guaidó declared himself interim president on 23 January.

The country is racked by hyper-inflation, food and medicine shortages and collapsing infrastructure.

Yesterday, the UN published a report accusing Maduro’s security forces of committing a series of “gross violations” against Venezuelan dissenters and urges him to disband a notorious special forces group blamed for a wave of politically-motivated killings.

Despite the US government’s full-throated support for Guaidó, the country has actually done very little in the way of typical diplomatic response by providing minimal help to Venezuelan refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants fleeing the country.

More from the White House pool on Trump’s Census comments, which he made less than three hours before government lawyers explain their position on the case to a judge in Maryland at 2pm.

We’ll see what happens. We could also add an addition on. So we could start the printing now and maybe do an addendum after we get a positive decision. So we’re working on a lot of things including an executive order.

Trump said he spoke with attorney general William Barr, who said: “we have a number of avenues we could use..., all or one.”

Division on display

A scuffle broke out when far left protesters burned the Stars and Stripes near the White House after the controversial presidential speech and military display on the National Mall on Independence Day.

Some footage was captured for USA Today by Max Cohen, and posted to Twitter.

While Trump celebrated the story of America as “the greatest political journey in human history” while supporters cheered his promotion of the military, protesters assailed him for putting himself center stage on a holiday devoted to unity.
And the US Secret Service said two people were arrested during the flag-burning incident on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, the Associated Press reports.
The arrests were made about two hours before the president spoke at the Lincoln Memorial.

The Secret Service said one person was arrested for felony assault on a police officer and malicious burning. The other was arrested for hindering a police investigation and resisting arrest. Neither individual was identified.

It is not illegal to burn a US flag, but the Secret Service said the burning occurred beyond the limits of a permit issued by the National Park Service for the July 4th events.

Trump still trying to force citizenship question on Census

Donald Trump told reporters he is “thinking of” issuing an executive order to force including a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census, according to the White House pool.

Four days ago, the department that oversees the Census, the Commerce department, said it was printing Census forms without the question.

Chaos ensued.

The president said reports that this was happening were fake - even though the Commerce secretary said it was happening - and then a Justice department lawyer had to defend the president’s comment without anyone in the department apparently being briefed on it.

The judge presiding over the case of whether its legal to include a citizenship question in the Census is not happy about how things are playing out.

On Wednesday, just before the Fourth of July holiday, federal district court judge George Hazel convened a call with the attorneys and said:

If you were Facebook and an attorney for Facebook told me one thing, and then I read a press release from Mark Zuckerberg telling me something else, I would be demanding that Mark Zuckerberg appear in court with you the next time, because I would be saying I don’t think you speak for your client anymore.

At 2pm today, the government is scheduled to appear in court to explain its next steps in the case.

Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden hit out at the Democratic party’s left wing in an interview broadcast on Friday with CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

“It’s centre-left, that’s where I am,” he said of the Democratic party.

“I think Ocasio-Cortez is a brilliant, bright woman, but she won a primary,” said Biden. “In the general election fights, who won? Mainstream Democrats who are very progressive on social issues and very strong on education and healthcare.”

Yesterday, Donald Trump promised “very soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars.”

There has been no planted flag - that we know of - on Mars, but there have been a lot of American spacecraft:

Updated

Elizabeth Warren vows to help black women as president

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 presidential hopeful, wrote an essay explaining how her presidency would support black women for the black women’s magazine, Essence.

The essay, which was published today, highlights research showing black women are more likely to be breadwinners for their families and work more than any other group of women workers, but are paid less and have worse access to housing, childcare and healthcare.

Warren said on day one of her presidency, she would use executive orders to boost wages for women of color and open up new routes for leadership:

I’ll start by putting tough new rules on companies that contract with the government — who collectively employ a quarter of the American workforce. Companies with a bad track record on equal pay and diversity in management won’t get new contracts — which gives them a big financial incentive to shape up. I will prohibit companies that want to get government contracts from forcing employees to sign away their rights with forced arbitration clauses and non-compete agreements — restrictions that are particularly hurtful to women of color.I will also take executive action to make the senior ranks of the federal government look like America and strengthen enforcement against systemic discrimination. We need to demand that companies and the government properly value the work of Black women — and hold them accountable if they don’t.

Warren is one of five presidential candidates scheduled to speak at the magazine’s annual event, Essence Festival, this weekend. She, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke are scheduled to speak on Saturday. Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to speak Sunday. Last year, more than 510,000 attended the four-day event.

In April, Essence published an op-ed by Warren about her plan for improving maternal mortality for black and brown mothers. Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy related causes.

Updated

US adds 224,000 jobs in June

Good news in today’s jobs report, which showed job growth rebounding after an unusual slowdown in hiring in May.

There is evidence in the June report that the economy is slowing, sharply, which could encourage the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in July.

Unemployment is still low at 3.7%.

Updated

Trump criticized over Fourth of July event

If you woke up wondering why so many people are talking about the fact that airplanes didn’t exist in 1775, it’s because of Donald Trump. He claimed that the Revolutionary army “took over airports” that year in his Fourth of July speech yesterday commemorating the US’s fight for independence.

The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, has the full review of the July 4th spectacle here. At the event, Smith writes: “Trump did not fulfil his critics’ worst fears of a politically partisan, campaign-style rally with his “Salute to America” event.”

That said, Trump is facing criticism this morning for making himself the center of Independence Day in a sprawling 45-minute speech.

We’ll have more reaction to that in the live blog today as well as more on the 2020 candidates, who are campaigning in full force this holiday weekend.

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