Trump news – President boasts about playing golf ‘very fast' as Florida records biggest single-day increase in coronavirus cases
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As the number of coronavirus infections in the US surges for the third day in a row to more than 69,000 cases, President Donald Trump has appeared for the first time in public wearing a face mask, at a medical facility outside Washington.
Mr Trump has eschewed the wearing of face coverings in public, previously saying he “didn’t want the press to get the pleasure of seeing it”. But with Covid-19 infections and deaths rising across the country, the president made an abrupt U-turn earlier this month and claimed he is “all for masks”.
On Saturday, Mr Trump appeared to express confidence in rapper Kanye West, who recently announced plans to run for the White House and distanced himself from the president.
Retweeting an article in which one of his own campaign advisers mused that Mr West may be trying to take black votes away from Democrat candidate Joe Biden, Mr Trump added: “That shouldn’t be hard. Corrupt Joe has done nothing good for Black people!” He added nothing further to the theory.
CEO of Goya Foods says criticism of praise for Trump is ‘suppression of speech’
(AP)
Robert Unanue, chief executive of Goya Foods, has refused to apologise for his statement that the US is “blessed” to have President Donald Trump as its leader amid criticism from celebrities and Democratic lawmakers.
Goya Foods products are sold in the US and a number of Latin countries, and is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the US.
Mr Unanue said earlier this week at the White House during an event: “We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder.”
His comments were a slap in the face among many Latinos and Hispanic American leaders, who have called for a widespread boycott of Goya products. The hashtags #Goyaway and #BoycottGoya have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media.
In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Mr Unanue said the criticism was an attempt at “suppression of speech” and said: “I’m not apologising.”
Trump praises himself for playing golf ‘very fast’ and getting a ‘tiny bit of exercise’
President Donald J. Trump plays golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia (EPA)
The US president is awake and tweeting.
Following reports of the president visiting one of his golf clubs in northern Virginia on 11 July - marking the 273rd time Donald Trump has gone golfing since he took office in 2017 - he took to Twitter to boast that he gets “a lot of work done on the golf course” and gets a “‘tiny’ bit” of exercise during his trips.
Trump used his tweets to again accuse former US president Barack Obama of playing “more and much longer rounds” of golf than him. According to a number of fact-checking reports, Trump has played many more rounds of golf compared to Obama.
CNN reported that Obama had played 98 rounds of golf during the same point Trump is currently at in his presidency, whilst the latter had spend all or part of 248 days at a golf course as of 25 May.
But according to Trump, the “Fake News” media “park themselves anywhere they can to get a picture, then scream ‘President Trump is playing golf’”. The president has a long history of reminding the public how unfairly he views the media’s treatment of him in comparison to his predecessor, despite the repeated debunking of his accusations.
“Actually, I play VERY fast, get a lot of work done on the golf course, and also get a ‘tiny’ bit of exercise. Not bad!” he added.
Trump reinforces threat of ‘automatic’ 10 years in jail for activists who topple monuments
The US president has reiterated his threat that any “Radical Left anarchists, agitators, looters or protesters” would face an “automatic” 10 years of jail time if they “even try” to tamper with federal monuments or statues.
Donald Trump previously made the threat at the end of June, after a George Washington statue in New York had red paint thrown on it amid protests against racial injustice and police brutality.
Tweeting on Sunday morning, Trump said: “No, Radical Left anarchists, agitators, looters or protesters will not be knocking down or harming the Washington Monument, the Lincoln or Jefferson Memorials, or just about any other Federal Monument or Statue.
“If they even try, an automatic 10 years in prison. Sorry!”
Trump previously said he had authorised federal law enforcement to “arrest anyone who vandalises or destroyed any monument, statue or other such federal properly”. However, no such authorisation is required.
His tweet comes a week after a descendent of Thomas Jefferson called for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, to be removed.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a journalist and descendant of the third US president, said in an op-ed published by the New York Times that the memorial is “anything but” a “shrine to freedom”, as it is described by the National Park Service.
Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves during his lifetime and had at least six children with one of them, said Mr Truscott.
Trump and Biden engage in verbal brawl over China
Donald Trump and Democrat candidate Joe Biden are in the midst of a verbal brawl over who is better at playing the tough guy against Beijing.
As China has become a top election issue, the Trump campaign put out adverts showing Mr Biden toasting Xi Jinping. However, Trump has done the same and hosted the Chinese leader at his Florida club previously.
Spots from the Biden campaign feature Trump playing down the coronavirus pandemic and praising Mr Xi for being transparent about the crisis.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz said it is unclear who has an advantage over the issue, but believes China is one of three leading issues for voters, along with the economy and the handling of the pandemic.
“Which person looks more subservient to the Chinese leaders is the person who’s in more jeopardy,” he said.
A Pew Research Centre poll in March found Americans have increasingly negative views of China, with 66 per cent saying they had an unfavourable opinion as the virus spread throughout the world.
The same poll found 62 per cent of Americans calling China’s power and influence a major threat to the US, a significant increase from 48 per cent two years ago.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in late May and early June found registered voters were evenly divided over which candidate would be better at dealing with China. 43 per cent said Trump would be better, while 40 per cent sided with Biden. Five per cent viewed the pair equally, while 10 per cent neither would be good.
Reporting by PA
Trump full of praise for man who turned garden into, er, massive Trump sign
He may have a deadly pandemic, tanking economy, fracturing cities and stalling election campaign all on his plate – not to mention needing to fit the odd round of golf in here and there.
But the US president is nothing if not a man who can find time to repeat and amplify messages of support. Such as a man turning his entire garden into a monster Trump flag.
“Thank you to J.R. Majewski, a great Air Force Veteran and Trump Supporter who did a beautiful job of turning his lawn into a giant Trump Sign,” he tweeted to his 83 million followers this morning.
The Ohio MAGA supporter created the banner using 120 gallons of biodegradable paint. He said all his neighbours love it.
Although one might reasonably wonder: do they really?
‘Intensely masculine’: President’s mask look goes down a treat with men of the base
Has to be said that Donald Trump wearing a mask has gone down something of a storm with plenty of middle-aged conservative types.
They’re not praising their commander-in-chief for finally leading by example on facial coverings – something which many scientists say is one of the most effective ways to reduce coronavirus infection rates.
Rather, supporters appear to have come over a little weak at the knees for the president’s new look.
“I don’t wear face masks, but POTUS is the only man who can pull it off and still look intensely masculine,” said one, KW Miller, a Conservative running for Congress in Florida.
Blimey.
There’s more sycophancy here:
Trump’s reaction to Hurricane Maria was to suggest selling Puerto Rico, says former official
A former cabinet official has revealed that in response to the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, the president asked if the US government could “sell the island”.
Elaine Duke, who served as Donald Trump’s second secretary of Homeland Security, told The New York Times: “The president’s initial ideas were more of as a businessman, you know.
“Can we outsource the electricity? Can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?”
Read the full report by Oliver O’Connell here:
Trump says private border wall segment was ‘done to make me look bad’
President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall in San Luis, Ariz (AP)
A section of Donald Trump’s new border wall, which was built by a private company, was only made to embarrass the president, who said he disagreed with the construction.
According to ProPublica, the segment of the wall along the Texas-Mexico border had shown “signs of erosion” just months after it was finished, despite being touted as a “Lamborghini” compared to the US government’s “horse and buggy” wall design.
Built by North Dakota-based Fisher Industries, the project cost US$42 million. But experts inspecting the wall said the erosion beneath the fence was “massive” and that the wall was built on sand.
The Trump administration signed a US$1.3bn deal with Fisher Industries to build 42 miles of border wall after the company’s CEO, Tommy Fisher, appeared in multiple interviews praising and celebrating Trump’s presidency.
But it appears Trump has dropped Mr Fisher like a hot potato in his tweet on Sunday, in which he said: “I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads.
“It was only done to make me look bad, and perhaps it now doesn’t even work. Should have been built like the rest of Wall, 500 plus miles.”
White House expert insists coronavirus situation ‘not out of control’ as Florida sets one-day record with over 15,000 new cases
A guests gets her temperature taken before entering the official reopening day of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista (AP)
A member of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force has said that despite a surge in Covid-19 infections across the US, the situation “is not out of control”.
Brett Giroir said it’s going to take “a lot of effort and everybody’s going to have to do their part” in fighting the virus.
The assistant secretary at the Health and Human Services Department also said during an interview with ABC on Sunday: “We have to have people wearing a mask in public. It’s absolutely essential… If we don’t have that, we will not get control of the virus.”
The state of Florida reported a record increase of over 15,000 new coronavirus cases within 24 hours on Sunday following Mr Giroir’s interview and a day after Walt Disney World reopened in Orlando.
According to Reuters, Florida would rank fourth in the world for the most new cases if it were a country, behind only the US, Brazil and India.
It comes after President Donald Trump wore a mask for the first time in public on Saturday while visiting a military hospital in Washington, DC. He previously refused to wear a mask in public and repeatedly ignored advice to do so - but has now said he was “never against” wearing a mask.
Additional reporting by agencies
Guidelines criticised by Trump as too tough for reopening schools should be mandatory, says Nancy Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said federal health guidelines on how schools in the US can reopen safely amid the coronavirus pandemic should be mandatory, despite President Donald Trump saying they were too tough.
The Democratic House of Representatives leader criticised the Trump administration for advocating a return to school in the fall as the number of Covid-19 infections rises across the country.
She told CNN on Sunday: “Going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus. If there are CDC guidelines, they should be requirements.”
Last week, Trump said the CDC’s guidelines for reopening schools were too tough, expensive and impractical.
Education secretary Betsy DeVos on Sunday refused to encourage states and school districts to follow the guidelines and downplayed the risk of children bringing the virus home to teachers, parents, grandparents or caregivers.
Reporting by Reuters
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