The close of the week brought a new round of fresh controversies enveloping Mr Trump’s White House, from his acting chief of staff’s comments during a press briefing on Thursday, to the violence in Syria after his decision to withdraw troops from the region.
Mr Trump was quick to hail the ceasefire his vice president Mike Pence agreed with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara over the Syria crisis. The president said on Twitter it was a “great day for civilisation” shortly after Turkey agreed to a 120-hour ceasefire that provided the country with many of its demands made prior to the deadly violence that shook northeastern Syria.
But his DC rivals denounced the measure as a “sham” as the fighting continued between the Turkish military and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The ceasefire did not hold for long as reports indicated shelling had taken place on Friday shortly after Mr Pence announced the agreement.
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
Mr Trump avoided military service during the draft in the Vietnam War when he was provided with a letter from a doctor claiming he had bone spurs. The president has never revealed in which leg he claimed to have suffered the bones, or whether they somehow went away.
Mr Mattis also harped on mocking comments the president made about him saying he was “not just an overrated general, I am the greatest, the world’s most overrated.”
“I’m honored to be considered that by Donald Trump, because he also called Meryl Streep an overrated actress,” he added. “So, I guess I’m the Meryl Streep of generals. Frankly that sounds pretty good to me.”
Trump's staff acted like "henchmen" towards the parents of British teenager Harry Dunn when they visited the White House earlier this week after he was killed in a car crash that involved the wife of a US diplomat, according to their lawyer.
Trump had hoped to get the grieving Tim Dunn and Charlotte Charlesin a room withAnne Sacoolas, blamed for the tragedy that took place near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, but they declined saying they would not consider it without mediators and a therapist present.
Outgoing energy secretary Rick Perry has been speaking to Bill Hemmer on Fox and denied that Mulvaney's admission yesterday on Ukraine was the tit-for-tat it sounded like: “There was no quid pro quo in the sense of what those folks out there would like for it to be.”
Asked if any evidence of wrongdoing will be found - not if there was any in the first place to be found - Perry answered: "No."
He confirmed that he instigated the smoking Zelensky call on 25 July but said his goal was solely to “get Ukraine back in the sphere of influence in the United States".
“They have to do some things. They have to show us they're going to respect the rule of law, you're going to be transparent, they're going to unbundle their midstream gas company. All of those things were part of him coming in. And I think that's completely and absolutely legitimate. That's what we're supposed to be doing,” Perry said.
“President Trump wasn’t going to send American money to a country that had a history of being corrupt,” he added.
William H McRaven, a top US Navy admiral hailed as the architect of the Osama bin Laden raid has denounced Trump, writing in a scathing editorial on Friday that the president is seeking to “destroy” the country.
Speaking on the Campaign HQ podcast with David Plouffe, Hillary Clinton has suggested Vladimir Putin has a kompromat on Trump and that the Russians are grooming Hawaii congresswoman and faltering 2020 contender Tulsi Gabbard to be their third-party candidate.
Clinton also accused 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein of being "a Russian asset" - the latter having been accused of being a puppet set up to split the Democratic vote by some jaded Hillary supporters.
“Yeah, she’s a Russian asset - I mean, totally," said Clinton. "They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate. So I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most needed.”
She thinks Gabbard is their preferred alternative this time around.
The candidate alluded to the idea during Tuesday night's debate in Ohio, saying: “This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I’m an asset of Russia. Completely despicable.”
As for the kompromat, the ex-secretary of state and first lady said:
I don’t know what Putin has on him, whether it’s both personal and financial. I assume it is.
Conservative mouth Ben Shapiro has meanwhile opined that now is the time for Hillary to make a dramatic entrance into the Democratic 2020 race.
It appears there is some roiling tension inside that Democratic field. People are not satisfied with the field they have," he said on his self-titled show.
"Honestly, if Hillary Clinton were to make her grand reentrance, now would be about the time she should do it. Because the fact is, a lot of people are dissatisfied with Biden. A lot of people are dissatisfied with Warren and Hillary is an enormous name."
Trump is saying he has spoken to Erdogan and is seeking to downplay the resumption of hostilites in Syria that continued in spite of yesterday's ceasefire agreement.
"Big progress being made!!!!" he says, before tweeting the Turkish president himself with the words: "DEFEAT TERRORISM!"
If that's his concern, why remove US troops from the region and positively invite the resurgence of Isis?
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