Trump news: President endorses man who openly avows white nationalism, collects Nazi relics and called Sandy Hook 'a hoax'

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Donald Trump spreads bogus wind energy claim in front of energy workers

Donald Trump has endorsed the political ambitions of ex-Arizona Diamondbacks baseball star Curt Schilling, an outspoken conservative and Breitbart podcast host known for espousing conspiracy theories and white nationalist rhetoric and collecting Nazi memorabilia.

The development comes after the president addressed energy workers in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and joked about calling off the 2020 election and serving a third term, attacking his political opponents including Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, despite the event not being earmarked for campaigning.

Speaking to staff after touring the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex in Monaca, Mr Trump also spread misinformation about wind power (“All of the sudden it stops – the wind and the televisions go off”) after defending his retweeting of baseless rumours about the death of billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Trump's comments at the Shell Plant also sought to take credit for the whole place, even though it was actually green lit and started in 2012 when Barack Obama was president.

As Mr Trump rested from that trip, the White House was relatively quiet on Wednesday.

But, vice president Mike Pence announced he would be visiting Ireland soon, adding gravity to previous statements that Congress would not ratify a trade deal with the UK if the post-Brexit landscape did not honour the Good Friday Agreement.

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Key Points

• President endorses white nationalist ex-baseball star for Arizona Congress
• Trump lies about wind power to energy workers
• Defends retweeting Epstein conspiracy theories as 'fine'
• Dismisses farmer's concerns about China trade war
• 21 states sue administration over power plant rollbacks

[14 August 2019 11:10 · Joe Sommerlad]

As part of Trump's latest Feud That Won't Die, The Mooch has been talking to Anderson Cooper (therein inadvertently giving credence to the president's criticism of him as a mouth-for-hire).

[14 August 2019 11:25 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump's White House has apparently given up on lobby briefings altogether these days and Mike Pompeo's State Department has evidently likewise lost its passion for press releases.

[14 August 2019 11:40 · Joe Sommerlad]

A new poll finds Vermont senator Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic 2020 field in the state of New Hampshire ahead of Joe Biden.

Sanders is on 21 per cent, Biden on 15 per cent and Elizabeth Warren on 12 per cent, Pete Buttigieg on 8 per cent and Kamala Harris on 7 per cent in the Gravis Marketing survey, according to The Hill. 

The poll of 250 Democratic primary voters conducted between 2-6 August contradicts the most recent conducted for the state by RealClearPolitics, which put Biden out in front.

"It is important to note that Senator Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic Primary in 2016,” remarked Doug Kaplan, president of Gravis. "However, it is unlikely that [he] will have a repeat of his 2016 performance in the state due to the number of candidates in the race this time."

The poll also found  Trump losing to every candidate in the top five in the Granite State in a hypothetical match-up among registered voters, with Biden beating him 53 per cent to 40 and Sanders beating him 51 per cent to 41.

[14 August 2019 11:55 · Joe Sommerlad]

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of Citizenship and Immigration Services, has been challenged by Erin Burnett on CNN over his declaration that the inscription on the Statue of Liberty from "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus should read: "Give me your tired and your poor – who can stand on their own two feet".

"Well of course that poem referred back to people coming from Europe where they had class-based societies,” Cuccinelli said. "Where people were considered wretched if they weren't in the right class."

"And it was introduced – it was written one year – one year after the first federal public charge rule was written that says – and I'll quote it, 'Any person unable to take care of himself without becoming a public charge,' would be inadmissible or in the terms that my agency deals with, they can't do what's called adjusting status, getting a green card becoming legal permanent residence," he continued.

[14 August 2019 12:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

"So far this year more than 9,000 Americans... have been killed by gun violence - including those killed in more than 250 mass shootings... How many Americans will lose their lives, or their loved ones, to random gun violence before the United States Senate takes action?" House majority leader Steny Hoyer asked yesterday as Democrats returned to DC to demand action from Hoyer's Republican counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnell.

The latter has so far resisted calls to reconvene the upper chamber of Congress in the wake of El Paso and Dayton to vote on a House gun control bill he has sat on since February.

"If we did that, we would just have people scoring points and nothing would happen," McConnell said on Thursday in an interview with Kentucky radio station WHAS. "There has to be a bipartisan discussion here of what we can agree on. If we do it prematurely it will just be another frustrating experience."

McConnell promised in the same interview to bring background checks to the "front and centre" of his legislative agenda but frustration and bad faith are evidently growing among his opposition.

"We know exactly why he isn't here. He's waiting for the outrage to die down, for the headlines to change, [for] the people to turn the page and think about something else," said Virginia congressman Don Beyer yesterday. "But as he delays or waits for people to lose interest, 100 Americans are dying every day to gun violence."

[14 August 2019 12:30 · Joe Sommerlad]

Marianne Williamson was on Late Night with Seth Meyers last night and was good humoured but disappointingly measured - although she was forced to row back past comments against vaccinations.

[14 August 2019 12:45 · Joe Sommerlad]

Some interesting numbers - and an important cautionary qualifier - on Trump's current polling.

[14 August 2019 13:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump "blinked" in his trade war with China, says CNN analyst Max Boot.

[14 August 2019 13:20 · Joe Sommerlad]

Bullets were fired at an ICE office in San Antonio, Texas, yesterday in an attack the FBI says was politically motivated. No one was hurt but employees were inside at the time.

[14 August 2019 13:40 · Joe Sommerlad]

This would annoy him.

Ex-2020 presidential candidate Eric Swalwell is keen.