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Donald Trump has insisted that Iran is responsible for an attack on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, after the Pentagon released night-vision footage of what it says is an Iranian navy boat retrieving an unexploded mine from the hull of one of the targets.
Phoning in to Fox and Friends for an interview on his 73rd birthday, the president said: ”Iran did do it. You know they did it because you saw the boat.”
Meanwhile in an ABC interview, Mr Trump questioned the testimony given to the Mueller investigation by ex-White House counsel Don McGahn, saying the adviser “may have been confused” when he said under oath that his former employer instructed him to fire the special counsel.
He also said Friday that "of course" he would go to the FBI or the attorney general if a foreign power offered him dirt about an opponent.
It was an apparent walk back from his earlier comments that he might not contact law enforcement in such a situation.
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Mr Trump, in an interview Friday with "Fox & Friends," said he would look at the information in order to determine whether or not it was "incorrect."
But he added that, "of course you give it to the FBI or report it to the attorney general or somebody like that."
Earlier in the week, Mr Trump had told ABC News that he would consider accepting information from an outside nation and might not contact law enforcement.
His assertion that he would be open to accepting a foreign power's help in his 2020 campaign had ricocheted through Washington, with Democrats condemning it as a call for further election interference and Republicans struggling to defend his comments.
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It just so happens to be Donald Trump's birthday today. He turns 73 and is the second oldest president in American history, behind Ronald Reagan who was 78 when he left office. He's presumably hoping for enough boxes of Lego to help finish that pesky border wall.
If you want to send El Presidente a greeting on his special day, you can do so below. I'll leave that with you.
A Trump administration national security official has sought help from advisers at a think tank that disavows climate change to challenge widely accepted scientific findings on global warming, according to his emails.
The request from William Happer, a member of the National Security Council, is included in emails from 2018 and 2019 that were obtained by the Environmental Defense Fund under the federal Freedom of Information Act and provided to the Associated Press. That request was made this past March to policy advisers with the Heartland Institute, one of the most vocal challengers of mainstream scientific findings that emissions from burning coal, oil and gas are damaging the Earth's atmosphere.
In a 3 March email exchange Happer and Heartland adviser Hal Doiron discuss Happer's scientific arguments in a paper attempting to knock down climate change as well as ideas to make the work "more useful to a wider readership." Happer writes he had already discussed the work with another Heartland adviser, Thomas Wysmuller.
Academic experts denounced the administration official's continued involvement with groups and scientists who reject what numerous federal agencies say is the fact of climate change.
"These people are endangering all of us by promoting anti-science in service of fossil fuel interests over the American interests," said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.
"It's the equivalent to formulating anti-terrorism policy by consulting with groups that deny terrorism exists," said Northeastern University's Matthew Nisbet, a professor of environmental communication and public policy.
President Trump rejected the warnings of a national climate change assessment by more than a dozen government agencies in November. "I don't believe it," he said. More recently, he told British TV interviewer Piers Morgan global warming amounted to little more than a "change in the weather".
Happer, a physicist who previously taught at Princeton University, has claimed that carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas from the burning of coal, oil and gas, is good for humans and that carbon emissions have been demonised like "the poor Jews under Hitler."
In other words, Happer is absolutely crackers.
Trump appointed him in late 2018 to the National Security Council, which advises the president on security and foreign policy issues.
Trump has, once again, created an interesting little problem for himself. If he doesn't actually go through with this pledge, that's "fake news" surely?
Kim Kardashian West was back at the the White House on Thursday to help Trump promote efforts to help those leaving prison get jobs and stay on track.
At an East Room event attended by Cabinet secretaries, activist and formerly incarcerated people, Kardashian West announced the creation of a new ride-sharing partnership that will give former prisoners gift cards to help them get to and from job interviews, work and family events.
"Everyone wants the community to be safe, and the more opportunity we have and that they have and the support that we help give them, the safer everyone will be," said Kardashian West, who became involved with the issue after learning about the case of Alice Marie Johnson, a grandmother who was serving a life sentence without parole for drug offenses.
Kardashian West successfully lobbied Trump to grant Johnson clemency and has been studying law under the tutelage of lawyers Jessica Jackson and Erin Haney of the bipartisan criminal justice reform group #cut50 ever since.
Trump pronounced himself a fan of Kardashian West's advocacy, praising her genes and declaring, "I guess she's pretty popular."
Here's how the Trump children are honouring their old man.
He looks a little squashed in that first one - doesn't he?
Nothing from Don Jr yet. Last year he was on Fox and Friends himself and turned to the camera to say "Happy birthday Dad! “You’re getting absolutely no presents as I figured five grandchildren was enough.”
Trump is on Fox and Friends now, saying he will spend his birthday "working" but may have a slice of cake this evening.
In response to a question about GQ saying he prefers campaigning to being president he insists he "loves the job" and the "fake news media" should be ignored.
He's now talking about Fox's feature on bone cancer sufferer Natalie Harp. He tweeted about it earlier.
"She says she's alive because of you Mr President," the hosts fawn.
On Iran, he says "Iran did do it. You know they did it because you saw the boat", praising the military's night-vision photography, attacking Obama for appeasing Tehran and promising to hold firm on sanctions.
Calls the country "a nation of terror" that has "changed a lot" since he took office after "having a good time at Obama's expense".
On his "foreign dirt" remark, he doubles down: "I think it was accurately stated".
He says he's such a patriot, no one would think to offer him anything incriminating and says you would have to listen to any intelligence in order to be able to determine it was a cause for concern and would need passing on to the FBI.
He repeats his Twitter argument from yesterday that he was recently trusted to meet European heads of states so why wouldn't he be trustworthy with sensitive material on an opponent.
He inists: "The Democrats spied on my campaign and they got caught".
Trump is now saying Nancy Pelosi "should be ashamed of herself" over her condemnation of him yesterday and is now going after another critic, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, over his suggestion overnight the president is "normalising abhorrent behaviour".
He's now calling Hillary Clinton's emails are the "single biggest political crime in the history of our crime" and says he hopes attorney general William Barr's new investigation will get to the bottom of it.
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