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As it happenedended1567440067

Trump news – live: President returns to golf course while looming Hurricane Dorian sparks evacuation of one million people

Joe Sommerlad
Monday 02 September 2019 15:49 BST
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Trump says that he's 'not sure that I've ever heard of a Category 5 Hurricane' before

Donald Trump has failed to inspire confidence in his handling of Hurricane Dorian, returning to his Virginia golf course on Labor Day after wrongly warning the storm could come as far inland as Alabama and claiming never to have previously heard of a Category 5 natural disaster, despite this being the fourth of his presidency.

With Dorian causing devastation in the Bahamas and bringing mass evacuations to Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, Mr Trump has been branded “the global poster-boy for white nationalism” by London mayor Sadiq Khan and is under renewed pressure to take meaningful steps on gun control following the latest mass shooting in Texas.

The president had also spent his Saturday playing 18 holes after ducking out of Second World War commemorations in Poland and on Sunday resumed old Twitter beefs with ex-FBI director James Comey and the Federal Reserve and started a new one by attacking Will & Grace star Debra Messing.

Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load

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Iran's information and IT minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi has been teasing Trump on Twitter after the president posted a classified satellite photograph from his morning intelligence briefing late on Friday to deny US involvement in a mysterious explosion at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in the country.

With security experts marvelling at Trump's idiocy in publishing a secret graphic complete with annotations, speculation as to what caused the blast was rife, with the Nahid-1 satellite thought to have been the cause in some quarters.

Not so, says Jahromi.

Here's my report.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 12:05
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As the Trump administration continues to whip up tensions at the border, a protester was arrested in Oakland Park, Florida, on Friday for throwing a Molotov cocktail into the lobby of a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office.

Celia Hunt, 35, tossed a bottled filled with gasoline into the building but its fuse failed to ignite, meaning no one was hurt.

The incident follows a similar attack in August when a gunman fired on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in San Antonio, Texas, from a car. There too, no one was injured.

Ken Cuccinelli, acting head of USCIS, responded on Twitter:

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 12:20
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Here's the latest from the US-China trade war after both sides slapped extra tariffs on each other's goods in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 12:35
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Trump is up and staring at an empty schedule.

After retweeting several Dorian updates from the National Hurricane Center, he is back to tweeting about whatever is on Fox News and attacking another New York Times columinst he takes exception to, this time Paul Krugman, followed by American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) chief Richard Trumka.

That last coming on Labor Day, no less.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 12:50
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More Comey-bashing via Fox. Has Dorian made landfall yet? 

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 12:55
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Someone grab the remote, I'm begging you.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 13:00
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Fresh from covering for Trump in Poland, veep Mike Pence will arrive in Ireland later today for an official visit that will give him a chance to "reconnect with his Irish roots". Cue the memes. 

Put it this way, he can't do any worse than Eric Trump, who made a chump of himself utterly failing to pour a Guinness on a night out in Doonbeg earlier this summer.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 13:15
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This resurfaced video from Texas senator and former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is absolutely insane and speaks volumes about America's toxic relationship with guns.

Here's our report.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 13:30
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Bearing in mind Sadiq Khan's comments about the president and white nationalism, here's Chris Riotta on efforts underway to deradicalise those to whom the hate movement appeals. 

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 13:45
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For more on Hurricane Dorian as "tropical-storm force winds" begin to be felt in southern Florida for the first time, you can follow Conrad Duncan's dedicated liveblog here.

Joe Sommerlad2 September 2019 14:00

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