27 February
Donald Trump steps up attack on Florida school guard
Donald Trump has stepped up his criticism of an armed sheriff’s deputy who apparently failed to act during a school shooting that left 17 people dead in Florida earlier this month.
Scot Peterson, an armed school resources officer who remained outside the building during the massacre, was "frankly, disgusting", the US President said, accusing him of having “choked”.
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Speaking at a gathering of 39 state governors in Washington to discuss school safety, Trump also said police officers who arrived on the scene but did not immediately take on the gunman “weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners”.
“The way they performed was really a disgrace. I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” he added.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders later played down Trump’s comment, CNN reports, saying: “I don’t think that was the point he was making. He was saying that he would be a leader and would want to take a courageous action.”
Peterson has publicly defended his actions during the shooting, calling accusations he is a coward “patently untrue”, according to the BBC.
In a statement delivered by his lawyer, Peterson said he believed that the gunshots were coming from outside the school building, and that he followed his training to “to seek cover and assess the situation in the event of outdoor gunfire.”
Last week Trump called for some teachers to be armed in order to deter school shootings (see below).
26 February
Samuel L. Jackson lashes out at Donald Trump’s plan to arm teachers
Samuel L. Jackson joined the chorus of people criticising Donald Trump for his recent plan to prevent mass shootings by arming teachers.
On Friday, the Pulp Fiction star called the US president a “Muthafu**a” for this new strategy:
Trump’s plan “hasn’t been particularly well-received” since he first announced it in a listening session on Wednesday at the White House for students and parents who had been affected by the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, says Esquire.
The president suggested that “arming 20 percent of teaching staff at schools may be effective at quickly ending attacks,” says HuffPost.
Jackson’s tweet was met with criticism by many people who said teachers should have the right to protect their students.
Others criticised Jackson for glorifying gun violence in several of his action films.
After claiming his idea had been misrepresented by the media, Trump further defended his plan at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday.
“This would be a major deterrent because these people are inherently cowards,” Trump said. “If [the Florida gunman] thought that other people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone there.”
Teachers and health policy experts “have condemned the plan, claiming an increase in guns on campus would make school more dangerous, not less,” reports The Independent.
23 February
Donald Trump hosts Malcolm Turnbull: what we can expect
Donald Trump will roll out the red carpet for Malcolm Turnbull today, a year after he abruptly ended a phone call with his Australian counterpart in a heated row over asylum seekers.
Australia’s biggest-ever political and business delegation will receive a ceremonial welcome from the US President and First Lady when they arrive at the White House for bilateral talks.
The two leaders will hold a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Friday morning, followed by a working lunch and a press conference later this evening.
The pair are expected to discuss China’s rising power, trade and regional security, but experts predict the warm welcome will also serve as a chance for Trump to repair their relationship.
A leaked transcript of last January’s call revealed Trump’s anger at Turnbull’s insistence that he adhere to an Obama-era deal to accept more than 1,000 asylum seekers from Australia.
“As far as I am concerned that is enough Malcolm,” Trump said. “I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call.”
But the Australian government has since set aside its doubts and, if anything, “doubled down” on its relationship with the US since then, Professor Simon Jackman, chief executive of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, writes for the BBC.
What’s on the agenda?
Although both leaders are grappling with their own domestic dramas – Trump is embroiled in the growing gun control debate (see below), while Turnbull is still dealing with the fallout from the Barnaby Joyce sex scandal – they have an ambitious agenda focused on trade and regional security.
How to respond to North Korea’s provocations “represents an immediate problem,” Australian journalist and professor Tony Walker writes in The Conversation.
“But in the longer term, China’s expanding power and influence constitute the greatest security challenge facing Australia since the second world war,” he says.
Turnbull faces a delicate balancing act, however, as China remains Australia’s largest trading partner.
“China’s rise has been of enormous value to the region; there’s hundreds of millions of people who have been lifted out of poverty,” he said recently. “We don’t see the region through what is frankly an out-of-date Cold War prism.”
On the other hand, as Jackman says, the US is “easily” the largest source of foreign investment into Australia. “This is vital to Australia building the technical, industrial, and financial capacity to accrue trade surpluses with its Asian neighbours,” he says.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the pair may also discuss a plan to create rival to Beijing’s massive ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, which builds infrastructure in poorer countries, and which is “widely seen as having a strategic motivation to win influence” in those nations.
22 February
Donald Trump says teachers should be armed
Donald Trump has endorsed the idea of arming teachers in US schools in a bid to halt a rash of deadly school shootings in recent years.
“If you had a teacher who was adept with the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly,” he said, suggesting that schools should arm up to 20% of their staff in order to deter would-be shooters.
“Gun-free zone to a maniac - because they’re all cowards - a gun-free zone is ‘let’s go in and let's attack because bullets aren’t coming back at us’,” he said.
The US President’s comments came during a “listening session” at the White House attended by students and parents who had been affected by school shootings, at which he also called for more action on mental health.
“The extraordinary public exchange with the president gave voice to an intensely emotional debate over how to respond to the latest gun massacre in an American school,” says The New York Times.
Trump’s call to arm teachers has garnered a mixed response.
Some at the White House event backed the suggestion, but Mark Barden, the father of a young boy shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, was unconvinced.
“Schoolteachers have more than enough responsibilities right now, than to have to have the awesome responsibility of lethal force to take a life,” he said.
Several of the students and family members suggested that the President should impose age restrictions on the purchase of firearms.
But an NRA spokeswoman told The Washington Post that the group would oppose setting age limits on firearms as the policy would punish “law-abiding citizens for the evil acts of criminals”.
21 February
US-Russia probe: oligarch’s son pleads guilty in blow to Trump
A Dutch lawyer has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators examining possible links between Russia and Donald Trump's election campaign team, ratcheting up pressure on the president's former aides awaiting trial.
Alex van der Zwaan, 33, admitted covering up his discussions with then campaign staffer Rick Gates shortly before the 2016 US presidential election, CNN reports.
The lawyer, who will be sentenced in April, is the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch named in the controversial Trump dossier, NBC News reports.
His guilty plea to a felony charge “could intensify pressure on both Gates and on Paul Manafort, Gates’s long-time business partner and the president’s former campaign chairman”, says The New York Times.
Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty to money laundering and other crimes related to consulting work they did for a Ukrainian political party.
Separately, 13 Russians have been charged with tampering in the election by special counsel Robert Mueller, as part of his ongoing investigation.
Donald Trump aide Rick Gates to plead guilty in Mueller probe
19 February
Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to fraud-related charges and to testify against former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
According to US media reports, Gates will change his plea in the next few days and is expected to spend only 18 months in prison if he cooperates with Robert Mueller probe into the Kremlin’s possible interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“If [Gates] were to plead guilty to criminal charges connected to his earlier work as a lobbyist for a pro-Kremlin party in Ukraine, including allegations of money laundering, it would set off a chain of events that could bring Mueller’s investigation deep into the White House,” says The Guardian.
He would be the third Trump aide to make a plea deal with investigators, after George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn.
Trump has repeatedly denied that his campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
Last week 13 Russians living in the US were charged with allegedly interfering in the election with a multipronged effort to support Trump’s campaign and disparage his rival Hillary Clinton. The president yesterday insisted once again that there was no evidence to indicate his staff were involved.
Donald Trump aide close to deal with Mueller
16 February
Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser Rick Gates is reportedly finalising a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, following an interview with investigators looking for evidence of collusion between the presidential campaign and Russia.
Gates has been in negotiations for about a month, and has had what criminal lawyers call a “Queen for a Day” interview, according to CNN. During such an exchange, a defendant can “typically admit to crimes with little additional consequences, unless he or she lies,” the broadcaster reports.
Gates was indicted by Mueller alongside Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in October 2017 on charges of criminal money-laundering unrelated to the Trump campaign. Manafort and Gates both pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Yesterday it was revealed that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon had been questioned by Mueller for 20 hours over two days this week.
The Associated Press reports that Bannon “answered every question that was put to him by Mueller’s team”, citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the interview.
Last week, Bannon refused to answer questions from a House intelligence panel that is running a parallel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He responded only to “25 pre-written questions that had been approved by the White House”, the BBC reports, and every response was a simple “no”.
Donald Trump’s lawyer admits paying off porn star
15 February
Donald Trump’s long-time personal lawyer has admitted to paying off a porn star alleged to once have had an affair with the US President.
Michael Cohen, who worked as private counsel to the Trump Organisation for over a decade, told The New York Times he made a $130,000 payment out of his own pocket to porn star Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, in the run-up to the 2016 election.
CNN says the move seemed to be “a pre-emptive measure to protect the presidential candidate from accusations that she and Trump had a physical relationship”.
According to Cohen, “the payment to Ms Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone”.
The lawyer went on to say that “neither the Trump Organisation nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction to Ms Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,”
The payment to Daniels was first revealed by the Wall Street Journal, and quickly became a nation scandal.
Trump has repeatedly denied the affair, which Daniels says took place just months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son Barron in 2006, but reports of a rift between the first couple have added fuel to the fire.
Cohen has refused to answer any follow-up questions, including why he had made the payment, whether the President had been aware of it and whether he had made similar payments to anyone else.
In 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported the existence of an unpublished National Enquirer story which alleged that Trump had paid off another women, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, after an affair.
Cohen did, however, say he had informed the Federal Election Commission of the payment after watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint alleging the money could be considered an in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign.
Trump provokes outrage with ‘broke and broken’ NHS claim
6 February
Donald Trump has clashed with British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt after claiming the NHS is “going broke and not working”.
Trying to use the state of Britain’s National Health Service to rebut Democrat arguments for a universal health system, the US President refered to last Saturday’s Save the NHS march, which demanded more funding for the health service.
His comments drew a sharp response from the Government, opposition and doctors.
Speaking as his party released a report into healthcare reform in the UK, Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable said the NHS was not “broken” but “under enormous pressure”.
Even Trump’s friend, the journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan, who recently interviewed the President for ITV, attacked his claims about the NHS.
“Wrong, Mr President,” he tweeted. “Our NHS is a wonderful, albeit imperfect, health system – and the envy of the world. By comparison, the US healthcare system is a sick joke & the envy of no one.”
The President appears to believe the London march was motivated by opposition to the NHS model, but “in fact, it was organised and backed by groups including the Labour Party calling for more funding, not less, with many NHS staff among the thousands who attended”, he says.
The NHS is considered the arch example of what many Americans described pejoratively as “socialised healthcare”, offering universal treatment, in contrast to the US model of private health provision.
In a joint response to the US President, the People's Assembly Against Austerity and Health Campaigns Together, which organised Saturday’s demonstration, said people had marched “to show their love for the principles of universal and comprehensive care free at the point of use, paid for through general taxation”.
Donald Trump accused of ‘political hit job on FBI’
5 February
A senior Democrat has accused Republicans of carrying out a “political hit job on the FBI” following the declassification and release of the so-called Nunes memo by Donald Trump on Friday.
The four-page memo (see below), compiled by House intelligence committee chair Devin Nunes, alleges that the FBI “abused” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by improperly using information from the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant to surveil former Trump aide Carter Page.
Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, said that the Republican rush to release the memo was “a political hit job on the FBI in the service of the president,” The Guardian reports.
Democrat Senator Dick Durbin told CNN that such a move “could precipitate a constitutional crisis”. It would mean Republicans were “basically saying that in America, one man is above the law, and that's not a fact,” he added.
The Washington Post reports that senior Democrats will attempt to have their own memo released later today by the House intelligence committee. It reportedly offers a “ten-page rebuttal” of the claims made in the Nunes memo.
While it remains unclear whether Republicans on the committee will vote for its release, at least four senior Republicans have moved to distance themselves from the contents of the Nunes memo.
Republican Trey Gowdy, who helped to draft the memo, has rejected the idea that the document has “any bearing” on the Russia investigation, and said it has “nothing at all to do with the special counsel.”
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