Trump news – live: Outrage over president's George Floyd comments as he says coronavirus 'gift from China'
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Outrage quickly followed Donald Trump's comments on George Floyd during a press conference to announce 2.5m new jobs to the US economy in May, saying that he would be "looking down right now" on a great thing happening for our country.
After Trump's on-going feud with former employees, ex-chief-of-staff John Kelly fired back to support Jim Mattis and say the president would either fire or push people so hard they would resign. Hundreds of former diplomatic and military officials, meanwhile, signed a letter denouncing the show of force by soldiers on civilian protesters.
At the end of a chaotic week, Trump travelled to Maine to undo Obama-era conservation orders and allow fishing again off the coast of New England.
Coronavirus, meanwhile, is still happening, with the World Health Organisation revising its guidance on face-masks and the CDC projecting more than 127,000 deaths by 27 June.
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Jimmy Kimmel slams Trump’s claim that he has ‘done more for black Americans than any president’
Clemence Michallon has the latest public service broadcast from the late night host.
Tonight: Abraham Lincoln for Beginners.
Trump says unemployment numbers 'a reflection of all the work we've been doing for three and a half years'
Better late than never (well...), the president is out in the Rose Garden sunshine taking the credit for an unemployment rate of 13.3 per cent.
Trump has already urged New York and other states to reopen and attacked Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey.
Social distancing seems to have gone out of the window.
Trump brands Green New Deal 'baby talk'
Quite why he's going on about this, I'm not sure, but the president has been using it to bash Democratic idealism while insisting on his eco-credentials as he touts a coming boom in the economy.
"I'm a big environmentalist - I believe strongly and taking care of our environment, we have the cleanest air we've ever had like over the modern era," he says.
He's now bragging about coronavirus testing and condemning the virus as a "very bad gift from China".
Trump urges governors to use National Guard who will be ready 'so fast their heads will spin'
The man is talking a mile a minute here, spinning from one subject to the next, but this is probably his most significant statement so far as he pressures state's to reopen and continue May's growth.
"You have a horrible hurricane in Florida, Texas, and it's devastating. And then the hurricane goes away and within two hours everyone's rebuilding and fixing and cleaning and cutting their grass and I've seen it in Texas. I've seen it everywhere," he blathers.
No, me neither.
'Today is probably the greatest comeback in American history'
The president's tone of triumphalism here has been extraordinary as though the coronavirus were long-since vanquished (with 108,000 Americans dead, it very much isn't), as he congratulates everyone from Mike Pence to Jared Kushner and the White House task force.
But there are still 20m Americans out of work, whatever he says about this being "the greatest mobilisation since the Second World War".
This, on George Floyd, is pretty shocking.
The weirdness continues
Trump has been joking about buying an RV and driving to New York with Melania in the trailer and also claimed to be in "perfect shape", despite his physician releasing a report this week reporting that he is still obese.
Trump to Yamiche Alcindor: 'Ugh, you are something else'
As he signed a piece of PPP legislation and drew this hot madness to a close, the president found time for a fresh spat with the redoubtable PBS reporter, who asked him how all of this represented a victory for African Americans as he had claimed, getting a withering response.
After that, Pence was given the stage to blow fresh smoke, followed by Larry Kudlow.
Our on-again, off-again relationship with hydroxychloroquine
The will we or won't we saga with malaria drug hydroxychloroquine seems to have no end with a new study seemingly coming out daily suggesting we should or shouldn't keep studying its effects treating coronavirus.
A paper published in medical journal The Lancet, which lead to the halting of global trials, had to be retracted after an investigation found inconsistencies in the paper's data.
That came after Trump famously took a two-week course in combination with zinc and vitamin D after seemingly positive clinical reports of its effectiveness.
Now scientists in the UK have halted a large trial after initial results show no evidence of benefit.
"This is not a treatment [for Covid-19]," Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the so-called RECOVERY trial, said.
Can we either just put a ring on it already or move on? It hasn't been this tumultuous since Ross and Rachel.
Conrad Duncan looks into the latest episode.
Trump's ex-club grows with former chief of staff joining the circus
Trump now has more ex-employees speaking out about their loveless unions this week than he has ex-wives.
Ex-chief of staff John Kelly told ex-communications director Anthony Scaramucci that he agreed with ex-secretary of defence Jim Mattis.
"I agree with him," Mr Kelly said of Mr Mattis' warning against Trump.
Speaking on SALT Talks, Mr Kelly said Trump would either fire people he didn't agree with or push them so hard they decide to leave, and that he was the first president who didn't try to unite people.
"There is a concern, I think an awful big concern, that the partisanship has gotten out of hand, the tribal thing has gotten out of hand," Mr Kelly said. "He's quite a man, Jim Mattis, and for him to do that tells you where he is relative to the concern he has for our country."
Mr Mattis this week called the ordering of police to clear the area around St John's Church before a Trump photo was an order to "violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens".
We love it when to exes get together. Now let's have a round table with Marla Maples and Ivana Trump, please.
TL:DR coronavirus edition
- Number of coronavirus deaths in New York state is at its lowest number in weeks
- Covid-19 hospitalisations double across NYC, but recorded no deaths in the city the first day since March
- New cases rising at a rate of more than 100,000 a day over a seven-day average since 21 May, the fastest rate of increase yet
- The CDC projects more than 127,000 coronavirus deaths by 27 June
- Vaccine will be made available before effectiveness confirmed, Dr Fauci says
- The USS Theodore Roosevelt, sidelined by coronavirus, is back operating in the pacific
The World Health Organisation is saying everyone should wear a mask outdoors
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