Trump news – live: Outrage over president's George Floyd comments as he says coronavirus 'gift from China'

President hammering out retweets without remorse

After what can’t have been a great deal of sleep, Trump begins his day with his customary right-wing retweet barrage.

Today’s unappetising offerings (27 and counting) feature Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley, Bill Cassidy, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Joni Ernst, Ron Johnson and Rick Scott and cover everything from DC vandalism to Saturday’s successful SpaceX rocket launch.

These are his only originals so far:

A lot of love for Wisconsin's Senator Johnson this morning, presumably intended as a reward for his work chairing the Senate Homeland Security Committee's highly dubious "Obamagate" investigation.

Bill Barr branded 'unfit for office' and called on to resign

Trump's attorney general and chief enabler is under scrutiny again after reportedly ordering the firing of tear gas on protesters on Monday to clear the way for the the president's short walk in Lafayette Park to St. John's Church.

“Time and time again, US Attorney General Barr has proven that he is more committed to protecting Trump than protecting the rule of law,” Virginia Democratic senator Mark Warner wrote in a campaign email.

“These protesters, who were demonstrating for black lives, were forcibly cleared using violent tactics including tear gas. All for a photo for Donald Trump.

"One thing is clear: Barr is unfit for office. He is acting as Donald Trump's personal lawyer instead of fulfilling his duty to act in the public's best interest."

Barr defended the police tactics used on Thursday, saying there was "very serious" rioting, a break-in and fires set at historic churches and buildings over the weekend.

"The rioters used crowbars to dig out the pavers," he insisted in a news conference.

"There were 114 injuries to law enforcement, most of those to federal agents and most of those inflicted around the White House," Barr said, noting that it is "the responsibility of the federal government" to protect that property and keep everyone safe.

He did at least make the following acknowledgement but Senator Warner makes a compelling argument:

'Trump thinks it’s essential to enact violence against people peacefully protesting violence'

For Indy Voices, here's the one and only Mark Steel on the president tear-gassing demonstrators for an empty photo op he botched anyway by holding the Bible upside down.

Trump backs 'Steve' in Steve-on-Steve race

As the relentless rain of Republican retweets rumbles on - multiples for senators Mike Crapo, Roy Blunt, John Boozman, Jerry Moran, Pat Toomey, Pat Roberts, Thom Thillis, Dan Sullivan, Cory Gardner, David Perdue, Tom Cotton and Martha MacSally - here's our favourite.

Republican Steve Daines is running in Montana against Democrat Steve Bullock - a short-lived 2020 presidential candidate - so which Steve is Trump really yammering on about here?

Also, he's hardly "kidding" in this one. That is very much what he really thinks.

State-backed hackers targeting Trump and Biden campaigns, Google says

The search giant confirmed the findings after the director of its Threat Analysis Group (TAG), Shane Huntley, disclosed the attempts on Twitter.

Huntley said a Chinese group known as Hurricane Panda targeted Trump campaign staff while an Iranian outfit known as Charming Kitten had attempted to breach accounts of Biden campaign workers.

Google said it saw no evidence that the phishing attempts were successful.

Such attempts typically involve forged emails with links designed to harvest passwords or infect devices with malware.

The effort targeted personal email accounts of staff in both campaigns, according to the company statement.

A Google spokesman added that "the timeline is recent and that a couple of people were targeted on both campaigns" but would not disclose how many.

The company said it sent targeted users "our standard government-backed attack warning" and referred the incidents to federal law enforcement.

Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, called the announcement "a major disclosure of potential cyber-enabled influence operations, just as we saw in 2016".

His tweet referred to the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent online release of internal emails - some doctored - that US investigators determined sought to assist the Trump campaign.

"The Trump campaign has been briefed that foreign actors unsuccessfully attempted to breach the technology of our staff," the president’s team said in a statement. "We are vigilant about cyber security and do not discuss any of our precautions."

"We are aware of reports from Google that a foreign actor has made unsuccessful attempts to access the personal email accounts of campaign staff," Biden’s representatives said in a statement. "We have known from the beginning of our campaign that we would be subject to such attacks and we are prepared for them."

Hurricane Panda, also known by security researchers as Zirconium or APT31 - an abbreviation for "advanced persistent threat" - is known for focusing on intellectual property theft and other espionage.

Charming Kitten, also known as Newscaster and APT35, is reported to have targeted US and Middle Eastern government officials and businesses, also for information theft and spying.

AP

Elated Trump hails 'stupendous' US job figures as unemployment falls to 13.3 per cent

The US economy added 2.5m jobs in May as a result of states re-emerging from lockdown, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, publishing much better numbers than anyone expected. 

The president can barely contain his thrill on Twitter, describing the data as "stupendous", "joyous" and "a stunner by any stretch of the imagination!", his euphoria not acknowledging the pandemic context and  revealing huge relief behind the bluster.

He says he'll be giving a press conference on the subject at 10am local time (3pm GMT). We'll cover that for you right here and fully expect to see him taking all the credit.

Here's Chris Riotta on the figures.

Trump builds wall of fencing around White House amid George Floyd protests

The president moved overnight to place more fencing barricades on the White House perimeter amid nationwide protests and racial tensions.

New black metal walls were secured along the west and south perimeters on Thursday, providing Trump with an extensive security zone around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The decision to close more avenues and parks around the complex comes despite demonstrations having been peaceful since Monday.

Many feel there's something not right about this.

“I think the need to fortify your house - and it’s not his house; it’s our house - shows weakness,” comments Deborah Berke, dean of Yale School of Architecture. “The president of the United States should not feel threatened by his or her own citizens.”

Here's Gino Spocchia's report on one wall Trump has managed to get built.

DC mayor asks Trump to remove military from city streets

Muriel Bowser has written to the president formally requesting he remove the additional forces called in to quell the George Floyd demonstrations, whom Pelosi and others have expressed their disquiet about.

She's not messing around, it seems.

Mike Pence claims promising US job figures mean 'recovery starts today'

As we await Trump, here's John T Bennett on his warm-up man, who has been speaking to Jim Kramer on CNBC.

Those unemployment numbers are "a tribute to President Donald Trump’s leadership”, he says, heroically. 

Cory Booker and Kamala Harris give impassioned speeches as Republican Rand Paul holds up anti-lynching bill

We're still awaiting Trump so, in case you missed it, here's a shocker from yesterday.

Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul had the gall to hold up an anti-lynching bill - yep, you read that right - in this week of all weeks after it had sailed through the House of Representatives 410-4.

Fortunately, former Democratic presidential candidates Booker and Harris were on hand to treat that with the flame-thrower it deserved.