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Donald Trump has hit out at Joe Biden after the Democratic veteran announced his intention to run against him in 2020, questioning his intelligence and branding him “Sleepy Joe” while lashing out over the Mueller report and attempting to fend off further congressional investigations into his affairs.
Barack Obama‘s former vice-president, a man with almost half a century of experience in US politics, is widely tipped to be Mr Trump’s most serious challenger at the polls, joining a crowded field of 20 Democratic candidates already confirmed for the race.
Privately, Trump allies have warned that Mr Biden might be the biggest re-election threat given the former vice president’s potential appeal among the white working class in the Midwest, the region that gave Mr Trump a path to the presidency.
The former vice president is paying special attention to his native Pennsylvania, a state that swung to Mr Trump in 2016 after voting for Democratic presidential candidates for decades.
While Mr Biden represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years, he was often referred to as Pennsylvania’s third senator.
The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020
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Despite digging in his heels in Washington, the president meanwhile faces a new threat in his old stomping ground of New York City, where Deutsche Bank is beginning the process of handing over records of its dealings with Mr Trump to the state attorney-general, who is investigating allegations made by his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, that he inflated his assets to secure loans in order to bankroll his hotel business.
Two House committees have also subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and several other financial institutions earlier this month as part of investigations into the president's finances.
It was unclear exactly what the committees asked for. The investigations are among several House Democrats are conducting into aspects of the president’s personal and political life, and top Democrat Adam Schiff has said he is investigating whether foreign actors, including Russia, have sought to hold leverage over Mr Trump or his family and associates.
Deutsche Bank is a German asset management firm that has lent Mr Trump’s real estate organization millions of dollars over time. The two committees have been working with the bank for several weeks, and both chairs have said officials have been cooperative. Mr Schiff said in his statement that the subpoena to Deutsche Bank is a “friendly” subpoena, meaning he expects them to continue working with the committees.
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The request comes as a third committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, is sparring with the White House over Mr Trump’s tax returns.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by eight percentage points in a hypothetical 2020 match-up, according to a poll from Morning Consult/Politico cited by The Hill.
The poll, released on Wednesday, shows Biden with the support of 42 percent of registered voters compared to 34 percent backing the president.
Another 19 percent said they were unsure who they would support and 5 percent said they wouldn't vote at all.
One of Donald Trump’s only Republican opponents to announce a presidential bid in 2020 has just published a new Op-Ed calling on the president to resign from office.
He writes: “Time and again, Trump tried to use the power of the Oval Office to protect himself and his associates from the consequences of their actions. The only defense Trump has to obstruction of justice is that he was too incompetent to carry it off. Over the past two years, several Trump aides derailed his criminal conspiracies by distracting the president, or simply ignoring him. Trump’s failure to stop Bob Mueller does not negate how hard he tried.”
2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders is out on the campaign trail today talking Donald Trump. The Vermont senator says the president’s “ignorance and his dishonesty are threatening not only the United States of America but the entire world."
A former White House chief ethics lawyer has called for articles of impeachment to be delivered to the US Senate following six weeks of House Judiciary Committee hearings:
Donald Trump tweeted earlier this morning that he never ordered his former White House counsel to fire the special counsel — though that claim is contradicted outright in the Mueller report:
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