Trump challenges Biden to drug test before first presidential debate: Live updates

The Republican has been presented with a plan to bring an end to the war in Ukraine by two key advisers that would require Kyiv to sit down for peace talks with Russia or receive no further US weapons.

The strategy, which would only be actionable in the event that Trump beats Joe Biden to the White House in November, would conversely see Moscow threatened with increased American support for Ukraine if it refused to participate in the negotiations.

The proposition was devised by retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg and national security expert Fred Fleitz, who both served as chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council during his 2017-2021 presidency, and divulged in an interview with Reuters.

“We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,’” Kellogg told the news agency.

“And you tell Putin, ‘He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.’”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (or CREW) is filing a criminal complaint against the former president overwhat it calsl his “bribery” of oil and gas executives.

“The FBI and Department of Justice should investigate whether Donald Trump violated the law by promising political favors, if re-elected, to the oil and gas industry in exchange for $1bn in campaign donations, according to a complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,” the ethics watchdog said in a statement.

“In a closed door meeting in April, Trump reportedly told a group of oil and gas executives that they should raise $1bn for his campaign and promised that he would take specific actions, including issuing drilling and export permits that some oil and gas companies have pursued for years, on ‘day one’ of his next presidential term.”

Lawyers for Trump are hoping to convince Judge Cannon to throw out the classified documents case against him by arguing that the special prosecutor who brought the charges is unlawfully appointed and unconstitutionally funded.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are fighting a similar battle on behalf of the former president, with legislation and funding memos aimed at eliminating federal funds for what they’re calling “politicized prosecutions.”

Here’s more from the tireless Alex Woodward.

Trump reportedly visited Mar-a-Lago a few weeks before federal law enforcement agents searched the Florida property, a trip that special counsel Jack Smith and investigators scrutinized as part of a wider probe into whether the former president obstructed law enforcement in the classified documents case.

Trump’s aides tried to keep that trip “quiet,” according to ABC News.

Investigators probed that previously undisclosed visit — reportedly in July of 2022, less than a month before the FBI searched the compound — as part of a broader investigation into whether the former president obstructed the government’s attempts to retrieve classified documents that were allegedly unlawfully in his possession.

Trump normally spends the summer at his Bedminster club in New Jersey and his home would have been under construction at the time of the three-day visit, which confused Mar-a-Lago staff who didn’t know where he could stay, according to ABC.

“They were keeping this one quiet… nobody knew about this trip,” one witness who spoke with investigators told the network.

Alex Woodward has this one too.

The judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case in Florida snapped at prosecutors twice within 20 minutes during a hearing on whether to put a limited gag order on the former president for his false claims that have fueled threats against officials.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s office has repeatedly warned that Trump’s rhetoric and bogus statements about the FBI’s use of deadly force has opened the door for harassment against the officials prosecuting him.

During a tense hearing on Monday, federal prosecutor David Harbach argued that merely redacting officer names from court documents is not enough to protect them.

Harbach appeared to grow frustrated by District judge Aileen Cannon’s insistence that he prove that Trump’s words were to blame.

“Mr Harbach, I don’t appreciate your tone,” Judge Cannon said from her Fort Pierce courtroom.

Trump is under two gag orders already – one in his hush money trial and another in his federal election interference case – after judges agreed that his social media posts and rhetoric threatened to compromise the proceedings and endanger witnesses, jurors, and court staff.

He also was under a gag order in his civil fraud case in New York.

But Judge Cannon isn’t convinced he needs another.

Anchor Kasie Hunt was forced to abruptly end a live interview with Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Monday after she repeatedly attacked the debate’s moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, baselessly accusing them of political bias.

Leavitt has since demanded an apology from the network, with the jail-bound Steve Bannon offering the episode as Trump’s latest excuse to back out of Thursday’s showdown.

Donald Trump has challenged Joe Biden to take a drug test before their first presidential debate of 2024 on CNN on Thursday, amplifying a demand by former White House physician turned Republican congressman Ronny Jackson (AKA “Ronny Johnson”) that the commander-in-chief prove he is not using performance-enhancing medication before participating.

“DRUG TEST FOR CROOKED JOE BIDEN??? I WOULD, ALSO, IMMEDIATELY AGREE TO ONE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in deranged all-caps.

The Republican, 78, predicted during a speech on Saturday that Biden, 81, would be “jacked up” and receive a “shot in the a**” to help him stay focused during the head-to-head .

Conservative media has pushed similar claims over the last week – as it did after the president’s barn-storming State of the Union address in March – to suggest it will not be a fair fight, perhaps betraying an underlying anxiety about their own candidate in what promises to be a make-or-break evening.

On the same platform, Trump also attacked the Biden campaign for pushing “cheap fake” social media images falsely alleging that his rallies are sparsely attended.

He, of course, would never stoop to anything so low as pushing manipulated footage of Biden.

Anyway, two can play that game.

Donald Trump has baselessly claimed that Joe Biden will use medical supplements to prepare for the first presidential debate this coming Thursday.

At his last scheduled rally before the debate, Trump suggested that Biden is going to appear “jacked up” after getting “a shot in the a**.”

“So tonight we’ll refer to him as Sleepy Joe because right now, as you know, it’s been reported that right now, Crooked Joe has gone to a log cabin to study. Prepare? No. He’s sleeping now because they want to get him good and strong. So a little before debate time, he gets a shot in the a**,” Trump told the crowd on Saturday in Philadelphia.

However, the former president changed his tune just days before the debate, suggesting that Biden might prove a formidable opponent.