Trump news: President heads to El Paso after attacking Dayton mayor and being met with protests in Ohio
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Donald Trump visited El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday to pay his respects and meet with first responders following mass shootings in both communities over the weekend that left 31 dead.
As the president served his role of consoler-in-chief, he encountered a sometimes hostile reception, and went on the offensive against his critics in spite of the solemn nature of his duties.
"We had an amazing day, as you know we left Ohio and there was a lot of love, and a lot of respect," Mr Trump said in El Paso after meeting with first responders, doctors, nurses and survivors.
"There are a lot of heroes. A lot of heroes, and a lot of people who are just incredible," Mr Trump said in Texas.
Mr Trump had attacked 2020 contender Beto O’Rourke late on Tuesday night, telling him to “be quiet” after the candidate said his racist rhetoric was responsible for the massacre at a Wal-Mart in his hometown of El Paso.
Trump protests: President visits Texas and Ohio after mass shootings
Show all 31Mr O’Rourke, whose hometown is El Paso, responded: “22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism. El Paso will not be quiet and neither will I.”
Meanwhile, in Ohio, Dayton mayor Nan Whaley also criticised Mr Trump saying “he’s made this bed and he’s gotta lie in it” while the state’s Republican governor Mike DeWine called for expanded gun laws to stop further outbreaks of violence. Protests are widely expected in both cities.
Shortly after Mr Trump's visit to Dayton, Ms Whaley signalled that Mr Trump had been respectful during his meetings with first responders and victims in her city, but called on him to pass gun control measures alongside senator Sherrod Brown.
Mr Trump later attacked Ms Whaley and Mr Brown, saying they had misrepresented their conversations.
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Trump's first tweets of the day are on his getting a sweet protection money deal from South Korea in exchange for shielding them from his friend in Pyongyang and on The New York Times "almost" giving him a good headline yesterday.
This is what he is referring to.
Tom Embury-Dennis has more.
In the latest resignation from the Trump administration, the president's ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman has announced he is stepping down as of 3 October to spend more time with his family.
"American citizenship is a privilege and I believe the most basic responsibility in return is service to country," Huntsman wrote in his resignation letter to Trump. "To that end, I am honored by the trust you have placed in me as the United States ambassador to Russia during this historically difficult period in bilateral relations."
"It is my hope that this will allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed... I pledge my full effort in facilitating a smooth transition that ensures our foreign policy goals are kept in proper focus."
Huntsman was a former governor of Utah before being made ambassador to China under Barack Obama.
He faced calls to resign last year following the summit in Helsinki, Finland, when Trump sided with Russian premier Vladimir Putin in his denial of Kremlin-sponsored interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Ivanka Trump has been heavily criticised by the mayor of Chicago for the factual inaccuracies in these tweets about the oft-reported problem of gun violence in the Windy City, in which the first daughter made numerous errors attempting to link the issue to the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.
"She got the numbers wrong, she got the location wrong, that's the danger of trying to govern via tweet. Well, that's the danger of somebody with a platform and audience of that kind that doesn't know what they're talking about and getting the fundamental facts wrong," commented Lori Lightfoot scathingly.
"It wasn't a playground, it was a park. It wasn't seven dead, it wasn't 52 wounded in one incident, and it's misleading. It's important, when we're talking about people's lives, to get the facts correct."
Greg Evans has the full story for Indy100.
Her father has meanwhile been making political capital out of the apparent left-wing leanings of Dayton killer Connor Betts.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson insists white supremacy is "actually not a real problem".
This would very much suggest otherwise.
Carlson's Fox colleague Sean Hannity also made a fool of himself suggesting that a police state was the answer to gun massacres, completely overlooking the logistics in his effort to avoid arguing the ready availability of lethal firearms might have more to do with it.
Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria has left US allies ill-equipped to deal with a resurgent Isis, according to a new Pentagon report.
Richard Hall has more.
Adolpho Telles, chairman of the El Paso Texas Republican Party, says Beto O'Rourke and Democratic congresswoman Veronica Escobar, who has also said Trump is not welcome in town, do not speak for the entire community.
Details of the president's arrival meanwhile remain hush-hush as he seeks to dodge the inevitable protesters.
Good morning from New York City, and welcome to another day of news.
We’ll be covering Donald Trump’s visit to Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas on this blog, while also focusing on the fallout from the president’s incendiary insults towards people of colour, growing calls for an impeachment inquiry in the House, and other news from Capitol Hill as it comes in live.
The White House has been criticised by a former FBI official over its plan to re-raise the Stars-and-Stripes, currently flying at half-mast in respect for the Texas and Ohio dead, on Thursday 8 August.
Why, you ask?
"The numbers 8/8 are very significant in neo-Nazi and white supremacy movements," explained Frank Figliuzzi on MSNBC. "The letter H is the eighth letter of the alphabet and to them the numbers 8/8 together stand for Heil Hitler."
Figliuzzi said he did not believe the decision was a deliberate nod to American fascists but concluded instead that it revealed the "ignorance" of the administration towards dangerous subcultures.
Zamira Rahim has this report on a world ever-more boggled by conspiracy.
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