Trump launches blistering attack on Democrats ‘who reject everything that we hold dear’
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Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks on a group of Democratic congresswomen, claiming the party was now led by “four-left wing extremists who reject everything that we hold dear”.
At a rally for supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio, the crowd did not break into racist chants as happened two weeks ago in Florida when the president referred to the four women of colour.
But it did start chanting “lock her up” when he referred to Hillary Clinton, who he beat in the crucial state of Ohio in 2016, on his way to winning the White House.
“While Republicans are working every day to build up our country, the rage-filled Democrat Party is trying to tear America apart,” said Mr Trump.
“The Democrat Party is now being led by four left-wing extremists who reject everything that we hold dear.”
Mr Trump claimed he was seeking to avoid “controversy”, which is perhaps why he did not spend too long talking about the congresswomen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Last month, he was widely criticised and his tweets formally condemned as racist by the House of Representatives, after tweeting and commenting that the the women should “go home”. Three of them were born in the US, while the fourth, Mr Omar came here 20 years ago after her family escaped from Somalia as refugees.
On Thursday, one of four Republican members of congress who voted in favour of the House bill condemning the president’s remarks about the progressive women, announced he was not seeking reelection.
Will Hurd, who represents Texas’s 23rd congressional district and is the only black Republican in the House, had condemned Mr Trump’s remarks as racist and xenophobic.
“Look, I'm the only black Republican in the House of Representatives. I go into communities that most Republicans don’t show up in order to take a conservative message,” he told CNN last month.
“This makes it harder in order to take our ideas, and our platform, to communities that don't necessarily identify with the Republican Party.”
Mr Hurd made his announcement while Mr Trump was on stage attacking Democratic mayors, across the country, including the mayor of Cincinnati, John Cranley.
He claimed the crowd at the US Bank Arena had broken records, and he alleged it was “Democrats” who for health and safety reasons had not allowed more people inside.
If you want to see how Mr Trump energised the crowd, please see what was our live coverage below
Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
A disturbing insight into the world of billionaire paedophile and former friend of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein.
According to The New York Times, Epstein long harboured a morbid interest in eugenics and transhumanism and dreamed of "seeding the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his ranch in New Mexico". The disgraced financier also reportedly hoped to have his head and penis frozen and preserved after death.
Epstein apparently liked to dangle the promise of research funding before eminent scientists including Professor Stephen Hawking, neuroscientist Oliver Sacks and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gellmann, inviting them over to dinner and holding court on his cod-scientific theories.
Here's Clark Mindock's report.
Back to the Democratic debates at Detroit's Fox Theatre and a busy night for Joe Biden.
Here's Andrew Buncombe on his opening remark to Kamala Harris, "Go easy on me, kid", which some felt was patronising.
Trump is up and congratulating the aforementioned Kelly Knight Craft on her appointment as US ambassador to the UN. Why hashtag Kentucky?
What happens if you actually take up Biden's suggestion and "go to Joe30330" online, rather than "text JOE to 30330" as he meant to say? Colin Dury has the answer.
Biden is also on Snapchat, you know.
Here's our report on "Uncle Joe" getting down with the kids.
The front-runner was also interrupted by hecklers calling out Obama-era deportations when he was vice-president and answered simply: "If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It’s a crime."
New York mayor Bill de Blasio was also the subject of calls that he "Fire Pantaleo!", a reference to still-serving NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, blamed for the death of black citizen Eric Garner after putting him in a chokehold five years ago.
Garner’s cry of “I can’t breathe” became a rallying call for people protesting about police brutality, particularly that targeted against African-Americans.
Phil Thomas has this.
Andrew Yang deserves the plaudits for this fabulous piece of self-deprecation...
...but New Jersey senator Cory Booker arguably had the line of the night when he said to Biden: "Mr Vice President, there's a saying in my community - you're dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavour."
The brand's red jug mascot wasted no time in responding.
Perhaps the stickiest moment of the evening, aside from Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's brutal assault on Kamala Harris's record as California's attorney general...
...was Kirsten Gillibrand demanding that Biden explain an op-ed article he wrote in 1981 arguing that a woman's place is in the home.
Andrew Buncombe has more on Biden's response, in which he pointed to his legislative achievements on behalf of women and attacked Gillibrand over their previously-friendly rapport: "I don't know what's happened except that you're now running for president..."
On Trump's racist tweets about the fine city of Baltimore, R&B star John Legend has some extremely strong words for the president.
Legend told TMZ the commander-in-chief is a as "a flaming racist", "a piece of sh*t" and "an evil f***ing canker sore on America’s whole landscape". Beat that, David Simon.
On Trump's schedule today is his latest campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, where we can expect him to unleash on the Democratic candidates anew.
This will be his first since the MAGA crowd in Greenville, North Carolina, chanted "Send her back!" to Somalia-born congresswoman Ilhan Omar, jeering their speaker did little to stop despite his protestations to the contrary.
"I would discourage the crowd from doing anything inappropriate and I think saying something like that would be inappropriate,” local Republican congressman Steve Chabot told The AP on the prospect of more racist chanting.
“I would hope that the president would silence the crowd, tell them, ‘Hey, don’t do that, there’s no place for that. It’s not helpful, it’s not right.’”
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