Trump news: Trump visits golf course for second day in a row as coronavirus deaths near 100,000
President spends Memorial Day weekend golfing and spreading false claims as nation's death toll climbs to devastating high
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As the nation's death toll approaches 100,000 lives lost during the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump was spotted playing golf on Saturday and Sunday, as crowds of people flocked to beaches and parties over Memorial Day weekend despite growing infection rates across the US.
The president also shared sexist insults about his political rivals, including one message that called Hillary Clinton a "skank", while also spending the weekend on Twitter floating conspiracy theories about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.
After encouraging Americans to spend the weekend outdoors and at the golf course, White House health official Dr Deborah Birx defended her remarks following reports of massive crowds over the holiday weekend and suggested that Americans need to change their behaviour and follow physical distancing guidelines, which are beginning to ease in most states after weeks of quarantine.
Offline, Mr Trump spent the holiday weekend at his Virginia golf club, where he was captured putting, driving his golf cart and waving to supporters.
In another apparent attempt to undermine the results of an election, the president also continued to push his false claim that mail-in or absentee voting would lead to voter fraud, a falsehood that even a commission that he appointed to investigate had failed to find any evidence.
"The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history," Mr Trump said on Twitter. "People grab them from mailboxes, print thousands of forgeries and 'force' people to sign. Also, forge names."
There is no evidence to suggest this happens.
The president's top economic adviser meanwhile has predicted that the unemployment rate will remain in double digits by the 2020 presidential election in November and hit 20 per cent by the end of May, as the number of unemployed Americans continues to creep upward.
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On Saturday evening new claims emerged Dominic Cummings had taken more than one trip to County Durham, after eyewitnesses reported seeing him on 12 April, 30 miles from Durham in Barnard Castle.
Another eyewitness said they saw the prime minister’s most trusted aide in Durham on 19 April, days after he had been photographed returning to Downing Street.
Read the full story here.
Conservative MP Steve Baker, a prominent member of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, said Dominic Cummings “must go”.
He tweeted: “It is intolerable that Boris’ government is losing so much political capital. Three changes are immediately required: 1 - Govt needs competitive expert advice 2 - Govt must insist on high software engineering standards 3 - Dominic Cummings must go.”
The academic leading the Oxford University trial for a coronavirus vaccine has said it only has a 50 per cent chance of success.
Speaking to The Telegraph, project leader Professor Adrian Hill said the success of the vaccine was far from guaranteed and cautioned against “over promising”.
But that hasn’t stopped pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca which announced a $1.2 billion deal with the US government to produce 400 million doses of the unproven vaccine first produced in Professor Hill's Oxford lab.
Claims promoted by the Trump administration that the global coronavirus pandemic originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the central Chinese city are a "pure fabrication", the institute's director said.
Wang Yanyi was quoted by state media on Sunday as saying the institute did not have "any knowledge before that nor had we ever met, researched or kept the virus... We didn't even know about the existence of the virus, so how could it be leaked from our lab when we didn't have it?"
US president Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly said they suspect the virus that was first detected in Wuhan was somehow released from the laboratory.
Most scientists say the pathogen that has infected 5.3 million and killed more than 342,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, was passed from bats to humans via an intermediary species likely sold at a wet market in Wuhan late last year.
The virus' toll continued to ebb in Asia and other parts of the world, with China on Sunday reporting three new confirmed cases and just 79 people remaining in treatment for Covid-19.
President Donald Trump played golf at one of his courses on Saturday during the US’s Memorial Day weekend as he urged states to reopen after coronavirus-related lockdowns.
Many Americans have remained cautious as the number of confirmed cases nationwide passed 1.6 million.
In California, where many businesses and recreational activities are reopening, officials in Los Angeles County said they would maintain tight restrictions until July 4.
New York reported its lowest number of daily coronavirus deaths - 84 - in many weeks in what Governor Andrew Cuomo described as a critical benchmark. The daily death tally peaked at 799 on April 8.
France is relaxing its border restrictions as the virus gradually recedes, allowing migrant workers and family visitors from other European countries - but is requiring quarantine for people arriving from Britain and Spain.
Starting on Monday, France is abandoning border checks installed in March and switching to spot checks in various places, according to a government statement.
It is also broadening the categories of people allowed from other countries in Europe's border-free travel zone to include migrant workers and people coming for family reasons.
However, since Britain and Spain are requiring quarantine for those arriving from elsewhere in Europe, France is doing the same. It will be a voluntary 14-day quarantine, based on reciprocity for measures taken by Britain and Spain in an "uncoordinated" manner, the French government said.
Travellers from outside Europe are still banned until at least June 15, except for French citizens.
Any traveller arriving in France must fill out a permission form justifying the trip and a signed paper declaring that they do not have symptoms.
The government said France is working with other European countries on standard Europe-wide travel rules.
Conservative MPs have ramped up pressure on Boris Johnson to dispense with his top aide amid fresh allegations that Dominic Cummings broke lockdown rules more than once.
The Prime Minister has been urged to sack Mr Cummings after reports surfaced that the 48-year-old made a second trip to County Durham, where his family lives, despite stringent social restrictions.
At least six Tories, including prominent 1922 Committee member Steve Baker, said Mr Cummings "must go", but Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said reports of a second trip were "not true".
The PM pledged his "full support" on Saturday to his under-fire chief adviser, who it emerged had travelled 260 miles to the North East in March to self-isolate with his family while official guidelines warned against long-distance journeys.
Other Conservative MPs calling for Mr Cummings’ to be sacked include Sir Roger Gale, who said: “While as a father and as a grandfather I fully appreciate Mr Cummings’ desire to protect his child. There cannot be one law for the Prime Minister’s staff and another for everyone else. He has sent out completely the wrong message and his position is no longer tenable.”
Caroline Noakes, Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton said: “There cannot be one rule for most of us and wriggle room for others. My inbox is rammed with very angry constituents and I do not blame them. They have made difficult sacrifices over the course of the last 9 weeks.”
Others who have also called for Mr Cummings to go include: Simon Hoare, Damian Collins and Sir Peter Bone.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has yet to comment on the Cummings case, instead taking to Twitter on Sunday morning to ask the public to "stick to lockdown rules".
She said: "Please stick to lockdown rules for now & not just because they are the rules - they remain the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones.
"Please stay at home except for essential purposes, stay 2 metres apart from others when you are out and don't meet other households.
"If you have Covid-19 symptoms - a new, persistent cough, fever, loss/change of taste/smell - please isolate at home for 7 days. If someone in your household has symptoms please isolate for 14 days.
"We will review the current rules on Thursday and hopefully, evidence permitting, move to Phase 1 of scotgov routemap out of lockdown, with the gradual easing of some restrictions.
"But for now, please continue to do the right thing - it really is helping to save lives."
Dominic Cummings left his home in north London with his wife and son shortly after 11am.
After one journalist asked if he had returned to Durham in April, Mr Cummings said: "No, I did not."
Mr Cummings, who was wearing a lanyard with an ID card, was carrying a note pad and what appeared to be a black bin bag.
The family then got in the car and drove away.
"Defending Dominic Cummings is the icing on the cake of the government's spectacular display of incompetence," writes The Independent's Sean O'Grady.
Do we really live in a country where one adviser in Downing Street, Dominic Cummings, is so crucial, so central, so indispensable to the government that they are placed above the law?
Seems so. The impression given is that the prime minister is so dependent on this man as a sort of intellectual valet that he simply cannot live without him. He is Boris’s “brain” by the looks of things, and I’m not sure that’s a reassuring thought, given where we are now.
Read Sean's piece in full here.
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