Trump to launch re-election campaign in Orlando tonight
This blog is about to close for the day. But my Guardian colleague Adam Gabbatt is about to fire up a special politics live blog from Orlando, Florida.
He recently alighted there from the Guardian US base in New York to cover, with the help of a very focused team, Donald Trump’s official 2020 reelection campaign launch.
It’s going to be a huge night. If you’re a Trump fan, it’s like Christmas in June. If you’re not, well, don’t look away from the difficult things....we’ll have the right tone and sharp analysis, so stick around, we’ll be right back.
Early evening summary. It’s already been a busy day in national politics, in particular.
- Former government ethics chief Walter Shaub has backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s view that detaining undocumented migrants en masse at the border essentially creates “concentration camps”. AOC has been in a row with conservatives, specifically Liz Cheney, since Donald Trump last night promised a new rash of mass deportations.
- The US Senate is one step closer to confirming ultra-conservative, anti-LGBT, anti-women’s rights, religious zealot Matthew Kacsmaryk to a federal judgeship - a job for life.
- Acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan’s departure is just the latest in the Trump administration to find the door hitting him on the way out.
Updated
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot blasts Trump while in NYC
Chicago’s new mayor, Lori Lightfoot, is visiting New York this week and is meeting today with city mayor Bill de Blasio and first lady Chirlane McCray.
Their meeting has, in rather curmudgeonly fashion, this reporter thinks, been tersely described on official notices as “closed press”, so we’ll see if anything emerges.
But Lightfoot wasn’t pussy-footing around last night at the DNC LGBTQ gala in the Big Apple, blasting the Trump administration for its biased policies.
“Trump — behind his smoke screen of lies, insults and angry tweets — has pursued a dangerous agenda rolling back basic rights for LGBTQ+ families, troops and employees,” she said in her speech.
“They aim to reverse civil rights which you may have assumed were a matter of settled law.”
Personally, and the White House aside, Lightfoot was celebratory, remarking: “One month ago, I was inaugurated as Chicago’s first openly gay mayor and our first black woman mayor.
“I was elected by a huge majority — 74% — and I have to feel that the vote revealed a genuine sea change in public attitudes. None of this would have been possible a generation ago. It’s still a bit stunning, isn’t it?”
Walter Shaub, AOC, concentration camps
In the ongoing row about migrant detention camps, former head of the independent Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, who quit the Trump administration in disgust, has weighed in behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this afternoon.
AOC last night and earlier today spoke of her outrage that the Trump administration is “creating concentration camps” on the US-Mexico border to detain undocumented migrants, including children.
Shaub just tweeted, and AOC retweeted.
She's right, and it's time the media started calling them concentration camps. (A year ago this weekend, I saw @AOC in person protesting outside the Tornillo child concentration camp. I didn't know who she was at the time, but her passion in opposing the horror got my attention.) https://t.co/xJ6lvsXN4r
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 18, 2019
He mentions that he saw AOC among protesters at the since-closed Tornillo federal detention facility for migrant youth, which was an appalling bunch of tents in the desert near El Paso, Texas, that mushroomed in size over a matter of months last summer, as the Guardian revealed at the time.
Shaub just termed it a “child concentration camp.”
The administration has opened more camps nearby since then, such as this one which was being readied just as the president was calling conditions for migrants crossing the border as “Disneyland”, despite much evidence otherwise.
Acting...
It looks dramatic when it’s put in a list. MSNBC tots up the senior Trump administration posts currently being operated by an “acting” incumbent.
Key Trump admin. vacancies with acting leaders:
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 18, 2019
Acting Defense secretary
Acting DHS secretary
Acting UN ambassador
Acting SBA administrator
Acting chief of staff
Acting FEMA director
Acting ICE director
Acting USCIS director
Acting FAA administrator https://t.co/bWKoSV8Py1
In a sieve we’ll go to sea!
Patrick Shanahan’s ousting is just the latest of dozens of senior figures to depart the high-turnover Trump administration.
Trump’s White House has had the highest senior-level staff churn rate of the past five presidents, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution, a think tank, Reuters reports this afternoon.
Here are the most prominent - check out the Guardian’s interactive, directly below.
Other less famous names include:
Kevin Hassett: Trump said on June 3 that the White House council of economic advisers chairman would leave his post.
Randolph “Tex” Alles, head of the US Secret Service, left in May as part of a broader shake-up of the Department of Homeland Security, shortly after Kirtsjen Nielsen’s departure.
Clete Willems: A key figure in trade talks with China and a deputy to Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow.
Heather Wilson: The US Air Force secretary, once considered a top candidate to become defense secretary, returned to academia.
Updated
Right-winger moves closer to federal judgeship
Fiercely anti-LGBTQ, anti-marriage equality, anti-women’s reproductive rights lawyer Matthew Kacsmaryk is one step closer to being handed a life-time appointment as a federal judge, after a vote in the US Senate. His final confirmation vote will be held tomorrow.
Kacsmaryk 42, has ripped Roe v Wade, said abortion rights backers are “sexual revolutionaries” + fought against LGBTQ protections in employment, housing + health care, HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery tweeted earlier today, describing the conservative religious zealot as “one of Trump’s most anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion picks yet”.
And... Matthew Kacsmaryk's nomination moves forward, 52-44.
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) June 18, 2019
Final confirmation vote is Wednesday.
Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin spoke out on Capitol Hill earlier, on the floor of the Senate, saying: “It strikes me as unusual, more than coincidental, that in June – the LGBTQ Pride Month – our Republican colleagues would decide to bring to the floor the nomination of a Texas district court nominee, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk… Mr. Kacsmaryk has not been shy about his hostility to marriage equality and transgender Americans,” Durbin said. “I oppose the Kacsmaryk nomination. This is yet another extreme nominee outside the mainstream of American thinking who does not deserve to be rubber-stamped for a lifetime appointment by the United States Senate.”
According to Durbin’s Office, Kacsmaryk has “repeatedly written in his personal capacity about his opposition to LGBTQ rights and the Obergefell case.”
In 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled same-sex couples have the right to marry in the Obergefell case, Illinois local station KFVS reported.
Kacsmaryk claims being transgender is a “delusion”.
Human Rights Campaign legal director Sarah Warbelow said Kacsmaryk “fails a basic expectation of impartiality..HRC will continue to raise the alarm about Kacsmaryk and other nominees who refuse to protect the rights of all Americans.”
Chaos at the Pentagon - even McConnell is speaking out
Now US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who appears to pride himself on doing big things “last minute” (in the row over funding for those sickened by Ground Zero), has just said it “would be better to have a confirmed secretary of defense” as the US confronts Iran, Reuters reports.
Meanwhile, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said: “This is a very difficult time..to have no secretary of defense is appalling..every American should worry.”
The new acting defense secretary, as of about two and a half hours ago, is Mark Esper, currently secretary of the Army. He succeeds Patrick Shanahan who quit this morning.
Shanahan was in the acting defense secretary role after defense secretary Jim Mattis resigned last December following acute and prolonged disagreements over policy with Donald Trump.
When he hired Mattis, Trump was impressed by the marine veteran’s bearing and his nickname “Mad Dog”, but the relationship cooled as Mattis resisted Trump’s inclination to distance the US from its Nato allies and blocked bellicose gestures aimed at North Korea in 2017.
“I think he’s sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told a TV interviewer in October.
Former defence officials had said that Mattis saw his primary loyalty to the US constitution, and that had guided his relations with an erratic and acerbic president, our Julian Borger wrote at the time of Mattis’s announced retirement.
Updated
Early afternoon summary
- Orlando, Florida, Trump’s base, the rest of us, rest of world, etc, braced for Donald Trump’s official 2020 reelection campaign launch tonight. Reminder, Guardian US will be running a special live blog on this, from Orlando, from 5PM ET, with a live feed of Trump’s speech at 8PM.
- Trump has promised mass deportations of “millions” of undocumented immigrants from the US, beginning next week, a policy that has sown confusion and drawn skepticism as well as opprobrium from opponents.
- Acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan has withdrawn from the process to confirm a permanent defense secretary, amid doubts over background checks, turbulent personal life and reports of tricky relationship with Potus.
- Joe Biden held a successful fundraiser in New York City yesterday, at a financier’s house, attended by a handful of Republicans. He announced his campaign for 2020 has already raised close to $20 million. Elizabeth Warren soon catapulted a proverbial donkey dropping into his eye in scorn.
- US markets rising on news that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping plan an “extended meeting” while at the G20 in Japan next week, amid the US-China trade war.
Updated
Shanahan to resign Pentagon post
WaPo’s Josh Rogin tweets:
Officials confirm to me Patrick Shanahan is not only withdrawing from consideration, he is resigning his current Pentagon post. Last day unclear. https://t.co/zufBzZ9nmz
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 18, 2019
US immigration fresh crackdown - not immediate
CNN ace reporter Shimon Prokupecz has tweeted an update on the latest immigration threats/row/confusion. I’ll let it speak for itself.
Senior official tells CNN no operation next week to pick up millions; tentative plans for July operation targeting families with removal orders.
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) June 18, 2019
This hours after Donald Trump whipped everyone up into a foam and sent a fresh tremor of fear through any undocumented person in the US by announcing an implausible new “policy” via Twitter: “Next week ICE [immigration and customs enforcement] will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
Shanahan: turbulent personal life
Patrick Shanahan sat down with the Washington Post last night to talk about tricky things that he obviously knew would come out after he had to withdraw from consideration for defense sec.
He explains that he now regrets defending actions by his son William after, as a 17-year-old, William beat his mother unconscious with a baseball bat, breaking her skull.
Shanahan at the time wrote a memo to a relative where he described the actions as self defense by his son which, even though they would “likely be viewed as an imbalance of force...Will’s mother harassed him for nearly three hours before the incident”.
He told the Post on Monday night that he now regrets making that argument, saying: “I don’t believe violence is appropriate ever.”
The article goes on to detail extreme turbulence in his marriage to his ex-wife, and their family life.
Joni Ernst: Shanahan’s “doing the right thing”
Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who has been stoically outspoken as a military veteran, a sexual assault survivor and an ambitious politician who nevertheless turned down an offer to be Donald Trump’s vice president has said Shanahan just did the right thing by withdrawing from the process to confirm a new US defense secretary.
Fox’s Chad Pergram notes that Ernst reacted to the Shanahan news by saying: “He’s doing the right thing he needs to do and I support him”.
That sounds a tiny bit like a Nancy Pelosi clap....
Back story: Patrick Shanahan tells all to WashPo
The Washington Post pressed the button to launch this story at 12.58PM ET today, one minute ahead of the time logged when Donald Trump announced Shanahan’s withdrawal from the process to find his forever home at the Pentagon.
It’s pretty raw, beginning:
In the months that he has served as President Trump’s acting secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan has worked to keep domestic violence incidents within his family private. His wife was arrested after punching him in the face, and his son was arrested after a separate incident in which he hit his mother with a baseball bat. Public disclosure of the nearly decade-old episodes would re-traumatize his young adult children, Shanahan said.
On Tuesday, Trump announced in a tweet that Shanahan would not be going through with the nomination process, which had been delayed by an unusually lengthy FBI background check, “so that he can devote more time to his family.”
Shanahan spoke publicly about the incidents in interviews with The Washington Post on Monday and Tuesday.
“Bad things can happen to good families . . . and this is a tragedy, really,” Shanahan said. Dredging up the episode publicly, he said, “will ruin my son’s life.”
Shanahan out amid questions over his relationship with Trump, personal life, FBI background check
Patrick Shanahan’s elevation to the permanent post of defense secretary, from acting, had been the subject of a baffling delay.
Just yesterday it was reported that various outlets had questioned his relationship with the president, and the Pentagon has been fielding press queries about his personal life, including a messy divorce that involved an accusation of domestic violence from his ex-wife, who was arrested as part of the dispute, Yahoo news wrote.
As late as that report yesterday, Shanahan did not respond to requests for comment on this story. The Pentagon referred questions from Yahoo to a spokesperson for Shanahan, who emphasized the personal nature of the allegations.
Despite announcing more than a month ago that Shanahan was his pick to get the job, Trump had yet to nominate him formally, forcing the Senate Armed Services committee to postpone a confirmation hearing it had tentatively scheduled for today.
Acting defense sec Patrick Shanahan withdraws from confirmation process
Donald Trump just announced that Patrick Shanahan will not be confirmed as secretary of defense, names secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, as new acting defense sec.
....I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense. I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
US does not want war with Iran - Pompeo
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo address tensions with Iran during remarks at Centcom (United States Central Command, part of the Pentagon) reiterating last night’s announcement that the US is sending 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East “to deter [Iran] from further aggression in the region”.
Here’s a clip via ABC TV on Twitter.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo address tensions with Iran during remarks at CENTCOM, saying the U.S. is sending 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East "to deter [Iran] from further aggression in the region" https://t.co/lfFdxur46B pic.twitter.com/mkz03pxWV2
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 18, 2019
California Democratic Rep Barbara Lee notes “once more for people in the back” that Trump and Pompeo can’t go to war “without congressional approval.
The administration is looking to pressure the clerical regime, not fight it, but the groundwork is being laid for a “possible confrontation” with Iran, Politico writes.
Markets rising on China news
In international trade news, stock prices are sharply higher on Wall Street this lunchtime following news that the leaders of the US and China will meet face-to-face next week at the G20 summit to discuss their long-running trade dispute.
Technology and industrial companies, which would benefit the most from easing trade tensions, rose more than the rest of the market, the AP reports.
Apple climbed 2.4% and heavy-duty equipment maker Caterpillar added 2.5%.
European markets jumped after the head of the European Central Bank said it was ready to cut interest rates if necessary.
The S&P 500 index rose 30 points, or 1%, to 2,919.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 327 points, or 1.2%, to 26,437.
The Nasdaq rose 120 points, or 1.5%, to 7,965.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.05%.
For a summary of previous business news from across the globe, take a glance at our business live blog “as it happened” recap out of the Guardian’s London HQ, also coverage of Donald Trump accusing the European Central Bank of unfairly manipulating the euro.
It’s Fox on Joe Biden so it must be true
Typo notwithstanding:
SCOOP: The Chanos-@JoeBiden fundraiser may have set a record for a signle prez campaign event at a NYC residence raising $500,000--and money still being counted. more now @FoxBusiness
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) June 18, 2019
Joe Biden draws Republicans to fundraiser
Democratic 2020 front-runner Joe Biden held a fundraiser in New York City last night. He’s doing three more today in the Big App today.
Biden suggested that his presidential campaign has taken in close to $20 million already, the Washington Post writes this morning, offering a glimpse of his fundraising prowess in the early stages of the crowded Democratic primary.
Biden says he’s raised money from 360,000 donors, with an average contribution of $55.
Last night’s event was at the Upper East Side home of Jim Chanos, president and founder of Kynikos Associates, a prominent short-selling investment firm, Politico mentioned in its morning newsletter, going off of a reporting pool dispatch from the Wall Street Journal’s Ken Thomas.
He writes that: “Prior to Mr Biden’s arrival, around 6 p.m., about two dozen climate change demonstrators gathered outside.”
Reporters (but not protesters) were ushered into the penthouse apartment, where ‘guests mingled, sipped wine and chatted at an adjoining outdoor terrace. Artwork lined the walls of the apartment. Biden said he appreciated the donors for “writing a check to allow me to compete...nationally”.
‘Guests spotted by the pool included: Former Senator Al D’Amato, Republican of New York, Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney, former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who served as a VA undersecretary for health during the Obama administration and says he was fired as VA secretary by Trump in 2018; [grocery store billionaire and former Republican candidate for city mayor] John Catsimatidis, and other prominent Democratic fundraisers.
Half an hour later, 2020 rival and the leading woman in the race, Elizabeth Warren, zinged out an email to observers and supporters saying: “I don’t spend time at fancy fundraisers. Instead, I spend my time meeting voters and thanking grassroots donors who chip in what they can. Donate $3 to my campaign, and you might just get a call from me to thank you!”
AOC accuses Trump of operating “concentration camps” at the border
Look, I know, Google Calendar is down. You don’t know where you’re supposed to be, doing what. Nothing for it but to dive into the social media storm that’s blown up in a Bermuda Triangle of recrimination and confusion involving New York Democratic Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Wyoming Republican Rep Liz Cheney and....her Dad, Dick...no, wait, I mean her president, Donald.
It’s awful. Here goes. We’ll kick off with AOC’s latest riposte to Liz and work backwards.
Hey Rep. Cheney, since you’re so eager to “educate me,” I’m curious:
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 18, 2019
What do YOU call building mass camps of people being detained without a trial?
How would you dress up DHS’s mass separation of thousands children at the border from their parents? https://t.co/OOfrrfa1Ew
Ocasio-Cortez posted a video to Instagram last night, also accessible here via Twitter, in which she accused the Trump administration of creating concentration camps in which to detain migrants who have crossed the border unlawfully, while they are processed and, increasingly, swiftly dispatched back across to Mexico even if they are claiming asylum from suffering in their home countries, especially Central America.
“The US is running concentration camps on our southern border, that’s exactly what they are,” she says.
“If that doesn’t bother you...I do not, I like, okay, whatever,” she says, shrugging in exasperation.
“Never again means something,” she says, and points out that such rounding-up and detention “in the land of the free” is extraordinarily disturbing.
Cue Twitter tempest over the echoes of the Holocaust, implied parallel between Trump and Hitler, anti-semitism, even mentions of Abu Ghraib...it’s vicious and unfiltered from both sides of the argument.
Liz Cheney
Updated
Trump and Xi meeting “hadn’t been officially scheduled”
More on that report, after Trump said he had a “very good” telephone conversation with China’s President Xi Jinping and said the two leaders would have an “extended meeting” later this month in Japan.
The meeting, which hadn’t officially been scheduled, is aimed at repairing relations between the two countries and easing tensions over trade, the Wall Street Journal writes, adding that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 300 points in recent trading.
The two countries have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat trade dispute since last year and had hoped to reach a deal, but talks faltered in May, with the US blaming China for reneging on its promises in the eleventh hour of discussions.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is scheduled to testify on the president’s trade policy in a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday morning.’
Germany’s Merkel listening to US on Iran - at least with one ear
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her country is taking “very seriously” the new US information about Iran’s alleged responsibility for attacks last week on two oil tankers near the Persian Gulf.
Merkel says “there’s a high-level of evidence. But that won’t stop me from saying we have to do everything to solve the conflict situation with Iran in a peaceful manner.”
Iran denies the US accusation, the AP writes.
She says Germany “will do everything to impress on all sides, but especially to make clear to Iran, that this serious situation mustn’t be aggravated.”
Merkel also says Germany wants Iran to abide by the 2015 nuclear accord, [agreed by Barack Obama and abandoned by Donald Trump], adding that “if that isn’t the case that will of course have consequences.”
Meanwhile, China’s top diplomat has warned the United States against opening a “Pandora’s box” in the Middle East after the recent flare-up in tension between Washington and Tehran. Foreign Minister Wang Yi is calling on both countries to avoid escalating the situation.
In a further US foreign policy development, the Guardian’s David Smith and Julian Borger report today that Iran has declared it “will not wage war against any nation” after the US announced that a further 1,000 troops are to be sent to the Middle East amid rising tensions. That full report here.
As Trump flies in, Orlando Sentinel disavows him
They socked it to him. Before Air Force One touches down in their backyard later today, with Potus, Flotus and Veep preparing to launch his reelection campaign, the big Orlando local daily paper isn’t mincing its words.
‘Donald Trump is in Orlando to announce the kickoff of his re-election campaign. We’re here to announce our endorsement for president in 2020, or, at least, who we’re not endorsing: Donald Trump,’ the Orlando Sentinel writes today.
The editorial continues: ‘Some readers will wonder how we could possibly eliminate a candidate so far before an election, and before knowing the identity of his opponent.
Because there’s no point pretending we would ever recommend that readers vote for Trump. After 2½ years we’ve seen enough.
Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies.
So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.
Trump’s capacity for lying isn’t the surprise here, though the frequency is.
It’s the tolerance so many Americans have for it.
There was a time when even a single lie — a phony college degree, a bogus work history — would doom a politician’s career.’
There’s a LOT more to digest.
Updated
2020 Democrats respond to Trump threat
Following the president’s loud-hailer announcement last night about mass deportations of those in the US unlawfully, candidates for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for president have begun to weight in.
Texas’s Beto O’Rourke’s succinct take on Twitter was: “Militarizing and raiding our communities makes us less, nor more, safe”, prompting a reply from one person out there describing himself as a “staunch conservative”, who said: “Mr O’Rourke...I must say I agree with you on this.”
New York mayor and 2020 wannabe (despite lack of support for the idea in the Big Apple itself) Bill de Blasio tweeted his response this morning, with a link to an article about undocumented people working for Trump.
So @realDonaldTrump, who will be left to do all of that "side work" at your country club? https://t.co/FpCiDO5AVO https://t.co/racszGm7I5
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) June 18, 2019
Washington State governor and climate action champion Jay Inslee tweeted: “Donald Trump kicks off his re-election campaign just like he launched his first run - with a racist attack on immigrants meant to divide us.”
And Steve Bullock, the Democratic governor of Montana, tweeted: “We will not let him use cruel threats to divide us.” That sounds great when you first hear it but, when I think about it for two seconds, brings to mind flinging drawing pins at the backside of a bull elephant.
Trump and Xi Jinping face-to-face at G20
Potus has tweeted that he and China’s president Xi Jinping just got off the phone.
Had a very good telephone conversation with President Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan. Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
Trump and Stephen Miller wave “rocket docket”
If you’re a true believer, giving a hardline policy an offensive moniker is, obviously, hilarious. So, apparently, this new twist on US immigration policy that even lapdogs Kirstjen Nielsen and Ron Vitiello couldn’t stomach is called the “rocket docket”, the Washington Post reports today, conjuring images of speed, power and scorched earth in the president’s haste to get on with raids that break up families and will damage the US economy.
‘Trump and his senior immigration adviser, Stephen Miller (architect of the original Trump travel ban), have been prodding Homeland Security officials to arrest and remove thousands of family members whose deportation orders were expedited by the Justice Department this year as part of a plan known as the “rocket docket.”
In April, acting ICE director Ronald Vitiello and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were ousted after they hesitated to go forward with the plan, expressing concerns about its preparation, effectiveness and the risk of public outrage from images of migrant children being taken into custody or separated from their families,’ the Post writes.
‘US officials with knowledge of the preparations have said in recent days that the operation was not imminent, and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officials said late Monday night that they were not aware that the president planned to divulge their enforcement plans on Twitter.
Executing a large-scale operation of the type under discussion requires hundreds — and perhaps thousands — of US agents and supporting law enforcement personnel, as well as weeks of intelligence gathering and planning to verify addresses and locations of individuals targeted for arrest.
The president’s claim that ICE would be deporting “millions” also was at odds with the reality of the agency’s staffing and budgetary challenges. ICE arrests in the US interior have been declining in recent months because so many agents are busy managing the record surge of migrant families across the southern border with Mexico.’
Updated
Trump’s fresh threat of mass deportations sows confusion
And, in opposition quarters, scorn and revulsion. The prospect of him really going off on another prejudiced mega-rant tonight is making me queasy.
After tweeting last night that “They will be removed as fast as they come in,” he gave no further details. That would appear to indicate migrants who have recently crossed the US-Mexico border.
But an administration official told the Associated Press that the effort would focus on the more than a million people who have been issued final deportation orders by federal judges but remain at large in the country. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the president’s tweets.
It is unusual for law enforcement agencies to announce raids before they take place. Some in the Trump administration believe that decisive shows of force — like mass arrests — can serve as effective deterrents, sending a message to those considering making the journey to the US, from Central America and beyond, that it’s not worth coming.
Trump threatens swift mass deportations of undocumented immigrants; policy document known as “the rocket docket”
Let’s begin with Trump’s tweets from last night.
Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people.......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
And he adds:
....long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement. The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of the loopholes, and fix asylum! If so, Border Crisis will end quickly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
Camping out - the base
‘With tents, sleeping bags and coolers of water in tow, Donald Trump supporters began lining up early Monday for today’s campaign rally in Orlando, nearly two full days before the event, the Orlando Sentinel daily newspaper reports this morning.
Outside the Amway Center, where President Trump will officially kick off his 2020 re-election bid at 8 p.m., about two dozen people and counting had staked out a spot along Division Street as of Monday morning.
The line had grown to about 50 as of 3 p.m. By 9:30 p.m., the line ballooned to about 250, with people snaked around to Central Boulevard. Around the same time, Trump tweeted there were “thousands of people already lined up.”
“This is the big one,” said Jennifer Petito, 54, of Melbourne, [Florida]. “This is the mother of all rallies.”
Petitio, who was wearing a pink “Women for Trump” hat and a red-and-white striped fanny pack [your Guardian reporter’s note for our UK readers: translation of this abominable and abominably-titled item = bumbag], was second in line. She said she got there around 2 a.m. — 42 hours before the rally’s start.
The Amway has capacity for about 20,000 people. Trump tweeted Monday that there had been more than 100,000 requests for tickets, and that large screens and food trucks would be on hand for those who can’t get inside.’
The Guardian can’t help noticing the discrepancy in the statistics. Remember, Trump said thousands of members of the public came out to cheer him in London earlier this month. The biggest crowds were actually thousands of demonstrators, jeering.
Trump threatens mass deportations as he launches 2020 campaign
Good Tuesday morning and welcome to the Guardian’s American politics live blog.
It’s going to be a lively day and I’ll be taking you up to 5pm east coast time with all the events and analysis. Then Guardian US is kicking off a special live blog from Orlando with my colleague Adam Gabbatt as the team prepares to cover the president’s official 2020 campaign launch, with live stream.
- Donald Trump launches his 2020 re-election campaign tonight and has performed his own curtain-raiser by threatening via Twitter last night to begin deporting “millions of illegal aliens” from the US. The pledge has caused nothing but confusion, however, as the logistics of this are virtually impossible, and such policies are usually kept secret anyway.
- Our politics chief David Smith previews tonight’s event and its significance in this piece today on “vulnerable Trump”.
- Trump’s base has been flocking from far and wide to the campaign event in Orlando, where Trump’s speech begins at 8pm EDT. We’ll be live streaming it as well as live blogging the event and reporting from in and around the arena in this swing area of a swing state.
- More decisions are awaited from the US Supreme Court in its traditional June outpouring of decisions. Most breathlessly: the issue of adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census and a battle over gerrymandering.
- And … what happened at that Joe Biden fundraiser last night? Stay tuned …
Updated
