Donald Trump shows off map purporting to support false claim that Hurricane Dorian was heading for Alabama
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Donald Trump has lashed out after being roundly mocked once again for posing in the Oval Office with a map of Hurricane Dorian that had been altered to include Alabama in the storm’s path, therein backing up one of the president’s weekend tweets contested by government meteorologists.
Asked who had made the change – it being a federal offence to publicise misleading weather forecasts - Mr Trump told reporters: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” An incriminating black Sharpie pen had been spotted lying on his desk.
The committee issued the subpoenas Wednesday, having approved them in July.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said the subpoenas are part of the panel's investigation into whether to pursue articles of impeachment against Mr Trump.
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The questions focus on acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.
Shortly after Mr McAleenan took over, Mr Trump told him he'd pardon him if he were to find himself in trouble for blocking people legally seeking asylum, according to people familiar with the conversation. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.
Mr McAleenan has said he was not asked, directed or pressured to do anything illegal, but has also said his conversations with the president are privileged information.
The committee said the subpoena requires production of documents related to meetings in March and April between the president and Homeland Security officials in which pardons may have been discussed.
It also requires documents related to possible pardon offers related to the wall being constructed on the southern border.
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Nadler said the dangling of pardons "would constitute another reported example of the president's disregard for the rule of law."
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Texas Republicans are dropping like flies. Yesterday congressman Bill Flores became the fifth of 23 to announce his retirement in 2020.
He joins Kenny Marchant, Will Hurt, K Michael Conaway and Pete Olson in deciding against seeking re-election next year, creating an interesting little vulnerability in the Lone Star State, where change might just be in the air after it was hit by two devastating mass shootings in August.
At the aforementioned CNN Democratic Climate Change Town Hall last night, the 2020 candidates had some strong words for Trump.
None more so than Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, who argued that not acting to reverse global warming could be all that his presidency is remembered for.
Joe Biden, forced to defend his own track-record on the issue, told host Anderson Cooper it is time to "choose science over fantasy".
Bernie Sanders answered "Duh!" when asked whether he would roll back the president's disastrous environmental policies.
Kamala Harris told Trump to lead or get out of the way.
Julian Castro said his first act as president would be to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate accord.
Elizabeth Warren meanwhile called for ambition and for concerned citizens to think big and not get bogged down in petty minutiae.
Biden also appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night, where, following his string of recent gaffes on the campaign trail, the host asked him flat out: "Are you going nuts?"
“Look the reason I came on the Jimmy Kimmel show is because I’m not,” the ex-veep quipped.
Another 2020 contender, the writer and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson, got in trouble yesterday after posting and then deleting a tweet suggesting Hurricane Dorian had been willed away from Florida by "the power of the mind".
As eccentric as Marianne Williamson may be, she's got nothing on Iowa Republican Steve King.
Last heard from backing white supremacists and telling a gathering of the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale that humanity would not have survived as a species without rape and incest, King has now posted a video of himself drinking water from a detention centre toilet fountain on Twitter.
Apparently a bid to counter concerns raised by Democrats about the conditions asylum seekers are being held in at camps in Texas, King's latest act of provocative attention-seeking is likely to exasperate his fellow Republicans anew.
Since Donald Trump is continuing his days-long unfounded claim about Alabama being included in Hurricane Dorian's path, here's some background on what happened in the Oval Office yesterday in case you happened to miss it:
The president presented an altered National Hurricane Centre map that expanded Hurricane Dorian’s official forecast so it would include Alabama, a state he incorrectly and repeatedly said would be hit by the storm.
Speaking to media in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the president asked acting department of homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan to retrieve a large map from behind him showing the hurricane’s potential path over the US after it pummelled the Bahamas throughout the week.
The map shows the correct National Hurricane Centre forecast for Hurricane Dorian, outlining portions of Florida and Georgia that may be hit by the storm, as well as a black line scribbled onto the forecast that wraps around southern Alabama and its coastline.
Joe Balash, a former assistant secretary to Trump's Department of the Interior (responsible for public land), who pushed for expanded drilling in Alaska’s Arctic, is set to become senior vice president for external affairs at Oil Search, who are, as the name suggests, a big oil company.
According to The Washington Post, Oil Search - based in Papua New Guinea - currently runs drilling on lands not far from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
It's almost as though he never cared about the environment in the first place!
Balash did promise The Post that that he will not violate the president’s Ethics Pledge in his new role, which bars appointees from engaging in lobbying activities related to their old gig for five years.
While the Democrats were agonising over climate change on CNN last night, the Trump administration was rolling back an Obama-era ruling on energy-efficient light bulbs.
Here is the president once again attacking Hollywood actress Debra Messing, suggesting she is in "hot water" and "being accused of being a racist". The actress called for attendees of a Trump fundraiser to be named publicly, a move the president suggested was 'being accused of McCarthyism' -
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