Trump news - live: Top state department official resigns over president's 'actions surrounding racial injustice' as Facebook takes down his ads

Social media platform says campaign used 'banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol'

Rayshard Brooks death: Trump says 'you can't resist a police officer' and claims officer 'heard a shot'

Facebook has removed dozens of ads from Donald Trump's re-election campaign invoking Nazi imagery against political opponents while he has publicly sparred with the US Supreme Court and his ex-national security adviser John Bolton over allegations in a new book.

The social media platform said its decision to pull dozens of Trump campaign ads that invoked Nazi symbols to mark political opponents was based on the company's policy against "using a banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol."

Bolton say the “stunningly uninformed” president begged Chinese premier Xi Jinping for help with his re-election, said invading Venezuela would be “cool”, believed Finland was in Russia and did not realise the UK was a nuclear power.

Several newspapers published extracts from The Room Where it Happened, which hits shelves next week and paints a damning portrait of the Trump White House and a blustering president willing to do “personal favours for dictators he likes”, ignorant of foreign policy and motivated predominantly by “re-election calculations”.

Trump wasted no time in angrily hitting back at Bolton, disparaging him as “a washed up guy” on Fox News and taking to Twitter to label him: “A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war.”

A senior State Department official meanwhile has resigned over the president's poor handling of racial tensions in the wake of the police killings of black Americans, as the president lashed out over the Supreme Court's ruling that halts the administration's bid to end DACA, an Obama-era programme that provided a legal path for migrants who entered the US without legal permission to stay in the country.

The president, who has two of his own appointees on the high court, threatened the possibility of more nominees, underscoring the future of SCOTUS as a larger campaign issue in November.

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Key Points

• Trump begged Xi for re-election help, John Bolton book alleges
• President reportedly said invading Venezuela would be 'cool'
• Trump 'believed Finland part of Russia' and was not respected by Putin
• President 'expressed surprise to learn UK a nuclear power' 
• Angry Trump hits back at Bolton as 'disgruntled boring fool'

[18 June 2020 22:31 · Alex Woodward]

Tonight: Trump vs Trump

Donald Trump Jr will interview his father on his Triggered web series.

Priorities intact, of course.

[18 June 2020 23:36 · Alex Woodward]

Breaking: Top state department official resigns over Trump's response to anti-racism protests

Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the first black woman and youngest person to serve as assistant secretary for legislative affairs in the US State Department, resigned over Donald Trump administration's response to Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

[18 June 2020 23:54 · Alex Woodward]

We're closing today's live coverage of the Trump administration.

Stay tuned with The Independent.