Donald Trump has reacted angrily after House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff laid out the case against him in the first opening statement of the impeachment trial on Wednesday, accusing the president of orchestrating a “corrupt scheme” to extort a domestic political favour from Ukraine.
While Mr Schiff’s speech was praised by Democrats, Republicans in the chamber made a point of looking visibly bored by his extensive presentation of the evidence, prompting CNN anchor Chris Cuomo to remind them they should be “doing their damn job” and focusing on principle, not party, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes invited them to resign.
After sending out a record-breaking 142 tweets yesterday, President Trump has continued to fight the messaging war on Thursday and revived his attack on 2020 Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg, branding him a “clown” and saying his campaign is a “hopeless” waste of money.
Mr Bloomberg's response: "Obsessed much? It shouldn't be this easy to distract the President of the United States."
During Thursday's proceedings in the president's impeachment trial, now on its fourth day, Texas Senator Ted Cruz made a sort of impeachment drinking game — with milk. Mr Cruz said that every time the prosecution says "drug deal" or "get over it", "drink a shot of milk!"
The normal milk drinking followed Mr Schiff's derisive opening comments about Senate Republicans who appeared to have difficulty being silent for hours.
House Judiciary chairman Jerrold Nadler made the case that the president abused the power of the executive office with a "Donald Trump first" agenda that placed "his own personal political interests first."
Meanwhile, the White House is imposing new rules on pregnant women travelling to the country as the administration rails against "birth tourism", or giving birth in the US so that the child can obtain US citizenship.
The State Department did not make it clear how one would know a person is pregnant. The rules would deny visa applications when the traveller's "primary purpose" is to obtain American citizenship for their child by giving birth in the country.
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