Trump news: President defends gun rights and ICE raids, amid controversy over thumbs-up photo with El Paso baby

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley calls Donald Trump 'a bully and a coward'

Donald Trump is facing criticism after new video footage emerged of him bragging about the size of the crowd at his El Paso rally earlier this year as he visited people recovering in hospital having been injured in last Saturday’s Walmart mass shooting, in which 22 people died.

The president is seen comparing his audience favourably to that summoned by “crazy” Beto O’Rourke, the local politician and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who has led the community – and the condemnation of President Trump – since the tragedy.

Mr Trump heads off on his summer golfing holiday on Friday with new gun control legislation no closer to realisation, his trade war with China still raging and the opposition-led House Judiciary Committee plotting an impeachment inquiry.

Speaking with reporters before departing the White House for the weekend, Mr Trump said that he received a “beautiful” three-page letter from Kim Jong Un and predicted that the two leaders would have more talks to try resolving the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Mr Trump has said he’s not bothered by the flurry of missiles that Mr Kim has launched in recent days, rattling US allies in the region.

The president said they were all short-range missiles and reiterated that North Korea has never broken its pledge to pause nuclear tests.

Mr Trump said Mr Kim told him in the letter that he was upset about recent US-South Korea military exercises, which North Korea sees as a threat.

The two leaders have met three times — in Singapore, Hanoi and the Korean Demilitarized Zone late last month — but no new talks have been scheduled.

At their second meeting in Vietnam in February, Mr Trump rejected Mr Kim’s demand for widespread sanctions relief in return for dismantling the North’s main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step.

Mr Trump said he’d received the letter on Thursday. “It was hand-delivered. It wasn’t touched by anybody,” Mr Trump told reporters on Friday at the White House.

“It was a very positive letter. I think we’ll have another meeting. He really wrote a beautiful, three-page letter ... a really beautiful letter," he said.

Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load

Key Points

• Trump filmed bragging about crowd sizes to El Paso doctors, wounded
• Poses grinning, thumbs up with baby orphaned in mass shooting
• President on holiday with gun control, China trade war, Iran unresolved
• House Judiciary Committee chair says impeachment inquiry in works
• New acting national intelligence director named

[9 August 2019 12:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

Biden is absolutely right to go after the president's weakness for white supremacists though, not least because he US State Department appears to be hiring them!

Matthew Gebert, a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Energy Resources, actively promoted white nationalist sentiments online and was a prominent member of neo-Nazi circles, according to a Hatewatch report published by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. 

Gebert discussed the need for a country exclusively built for white people that featured a “nuclear deterrent” while his wife, Anna Vuckovic, published white nationalist views on her blog, according to the report. 

The two reportedly went by the pseudonyms “Coach Finstock” and “Wolfie James” online.

Chris Riotta has more.

[9 August 2019 12:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

Some more evidence of Trump behaving with a jaw-dropping lack of self-awareness at the University Medical Center of El Paso on Wednesday.

Normally posing with a baby and giving a thumbs up is standard practice in politics the world over - but surely not when the child is an orphan after his adopted parents were massacred by a white nationalist gunman inspired by your own hate speech?

[9 August 2019 12:30 · Joe Sommerlad]

While Trump was failing to pay his respects to the bereaved folk of El Paso and Dayton on Wednesday, his ICE agents rounded up 680 migrant workers in Mississippi.

Bernie Sanders denounced the round-up as "evil"...

... and this utterly devastating clip of a tearful little girl calling for her father's release on CBS has since gone viral. It's hard to watch but does an invaluable job of putting a human face to the consequences of the Trump administration's actions.

Here's Zamira Rahim's report on the justified political outcry.

[9 August 2019 12:45 · Joe Sommerlad]

On a lighter note, an unexpected hero has emerged in Trump's America with a bold new vision of the Democratic utopia to come and his name is Tommy Lee, Motley Crue drummer and ex-squeeze of Pamela Anderson.

 

If you liked that, his Methods of Mayhem track "Get Naked" featuring Lil' Kim and Fred Durst is a classic of its type.

[9 August 2019 12:55 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump is out of bed and retweeting Katie Hopkins and Tucker Carlson clips.

Sigh. It's going to be one of those days.

[9 August 2019 13:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

More on Trump's poor taste orphaned baby photo op.

[9 August 2019 13:35 · Joe Sommerlad]

The aforementioned Senator Sanders has appeared on comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast and promised to make any government-held alien secrets public should he become president. The truth is out there.

[9 August 2019 13:55 · Chris Riotta]

Good morning from New York City. Donald Trump will be spending his weekend nearby in the Hamptons, for back-to-back fundraising committee meetings and a controversial event hosted by the owner of SoulCycle. 

The president is scheduled to depart from the White House at 9:30 am EST and arrive in Southhampton at 11:30. 

He’ll participate in a roundtable with supporters at 11:50, deliver remarks at a luncheon at 12:30 pm, then head off to a private residence for a while. After that he’ll deliver remarks at another fundraising committee at 2:30 pm. 

We’ll guide you through another day of news out of the White House as it comes in.

[9 August 2019 14:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

Here's Democratic 2020 contender Kamala Harris with same damning words on those latest ICE raids.

[9 August 2019 14:35 · Chris Riotta]

In case you missed it: A man suspected of attacking a child who was wearing a hat during the US National Anthem believed he was encouraged by Donald Trump to carry out the assault, according to his lawyer. 

Curt Brockway, a 39-year-old US Army veteran who was charged on Monday in the assault, suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle crash in 2000 that has affected his decision making, attorney Lance Jasper told the Missoulian.