Trump news: President says moon is 'part of' Mars as he's criticised for 'making a fool of himself' in D-Day speech
Follow the latest updates as the president heads home to Washington
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Donald Trump is flying home to Washington on Friday after a five-day state visit to Britain, Ireland and France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day but can expect to find himself immediately confronted with a number of major issues left stewing in his absence.
After the enjoying the pageantry of his royal reception in London, the president will arrive home this afternoon to face escalating trade tensions with Mexico and China and further calls for his impeachment, with House speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly telling her fellow Democrats on Tuesday: “I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison.”
Mr Trump hit back at Ms Pelosi, calling her “a disaster” during an interview with Laura Ingraham of Fox News staged in front of the Normandy American Cemetery in plain view of 9,000 war graves, an insensitivity for which both the president and the network have been heavily criticised.
The president also caused mass confusion on Twitter when he urged NASA not to plan any further trips to the moon, instead directing all of their efforts to Mars.
“For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago,” he wrote on Twitter.
20 pictures that sum up President Trump's visit
Show all 20He added, “They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!”
Mr Trump also declared Friday that now “there is a good chance” the US will strike a deal with Mexico to avert the tariffs he had scheduled for Monday to force the nation’s ally to stem the flow of Central American migrants into the United States.
“If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately,” Mr Trump tweeted from aboard Air Force One as he flew home from Europe. “If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!
The tweet marked a change in tone from earlier Friday, when his spokeswoman Sarah Sanders had told reporters in Ireland before Mr Trump took off: “Our position has not changed. The tariffs are going forward as of Monday.”
US and Mexican officials were holding a third day of talks at the US State Department Friday trying to hash out a deal that would satisfy Mr Trump’s demand that Mexico dramatically increase its efforts to crack down on migrants.
Ms Sanders had said earlier that the two sides had “made a lot of progress” but not enough.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
The Trumps returned to Doonbeg last night, with Trump squeezing in a round of golf this morning and Melania reportedly taking time to visit a local primary school before the return to DC.
The locals have been pretty remorseless in their mockery.
Trump is back online and busy resuming his tireless publicity shunt for Fox.
While the president has been away, the US military has been busy doing his dirty work for him, painting his glorified fence in Calexico, California, to improve its "aesthetic appearance".
Here's Victoria Gagliardo-Silver's report.
More disturbingly at the border, Homeland Security inspectors have visited four detention centres operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and found evidence of appalling living conditions, spoiled food and nooses in cells.
Jon Sharman has more.
The House Oversight Committee is considering a vote on whether to hold attorney general William Barr and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress after the Justice Department refused to comply with a deadline for the release of documents requested by chairman Elijah Cummings. That deadline passed yesterday.
The committee is investigating the addition of a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 census by the Trump administration, which says it needs additional data to enforce the Voting Rights Act. Democrats argue it is really a pretext to suppress votes and collect information for use in drawing up Republican-leaning congressional maps.
The American right are meanwhile going after Cummings' wife over her apparent refusal to disclose financial statements for the charity she runs. A breach of the law, they insist. Don Jr and The Daily Caller are both on the case.
Over at the House Judiciary Committee, chairman Jerry Nadler is also keen to resume the fightback.
In case you missed it, one of the finest moments of the president's trip to Britain was his encounter with 93-year-old D-Day veteran Thomas Cuthbert in Portsmouth, who took an instant shine to Melania.
"Oh, she is a nice lady, isn’t she?" Cuthbert remarked, shaking the first lady's hand before turning to Trump and adding: "If it wasn’t for you and if I was 20 years younger..."
As Melania laughed, the president responded: "He could handle it, there’s not a question about it.”
Afterwards, Cuthbert gave this assessment of the president to The Sun: "He surprised me, when you see someone on the TV - but he seemed different, he seemed one of the boys.
"His wife was very pleasant as well," the old goat continued, clearly enamoured.
Don Jr responded to The Onion's relentless parodies of his relationship with his brother this week with breezy good humour.
The trouble was, it drew an even better response.
Donald Trump has been posting clips from Fox News all morning as he heads to the airport in Ireland to travel back to Washington:
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