5am – A/B/CTRUMP TWEETS ABOUT “THE SQUAD”
Trump tells four liberal congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their countries, prompting Pelosi to defend them. (Washington Post) — President Trump said Sunday that four minority, liberal congresswomen who have been critical of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” prompting other Democrats — including Pelosi — to leap to their defense. Pelosi denounced Trump’s tweets as “xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation,” while the four congresswomen promised to continue fighting Trump’s agenda and accused him of trying to appeal to white nationalists. Trump’s remark swiftly united a House Democratic caucus that had been torn apart in recent days by infighting between Pelosi and the four freshman women of color — Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.). It also comes after Trump announced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were preparing to round up migrant families that have received deportation orders across the country. Trump kicked off the furor with a string of tweets before heading to his golf club in Sterling, Va., on Sunday morning. “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Trump tweeted. Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Tlaib was born in Detroit and Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York — about 20 miles from where Trump was born. Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia; her family fled the country amid civil war when she was a child, and she became a U.S. citizen as a teenager. All four women won election to Congress in 2018. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Trump continued in the tweets. “Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Trump’s comments prompted a sharp response from Pelosi, who described them as racist and divisive. “When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again,” she said in a tweet. “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power.”
AOC unloads on Trump after he tells progressive congresswomen to ‘go back’ to home countries (Fox News) — New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, fresh from a bitter public spat with top House Democrats, unloaded on President Trump Sunday afternoon after he suggested that unnamed progressive congresswomen “go back” to their own “corrupt” and “crime infested” countries of origin, then “come back and show us how it is done.” “You can’t leave fast enough,” Trump had written. Ocasio-Cortez’s fiery Twitter return barrage could be the call to action that unifies a party currently divided along establishment and progressive lines, observers said, even as some analysts blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for laying the groundwork for Trump’s remarks. “Mr. President, the country I ‘come from,’ & the country we all swear to, is the United States,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “But given how you’ve destroyed our border with inhumane camps, all at a benefit to you & the corps who profit off them, you are absolutely right about the corruption laid at your feet.”
5am – D FLAG RIPPED DOWN AT ICE FACILITY:
Protesters Tear Down American Flag From ICE Facility, Replace It With Mexican Flag And Deface Blue Lives Matter Flag (Daily Wire) — Demonstrators at a protest outside an Aurora, Colorado Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility on Friday removed an American flag and replaced it with the Mexican flag. They also defaced a Blue Lives Matter flag before flying it upside down next to the Mexican flag. CBS4 reported that the Blue Lives Matter flag was spray-painted with the words “Abolish ICE” in red.
5am-E COURT RULINGS / TRUMP WINS:
9th Circuit rules in favor of Trump admin in ‘sanctuary city’ case (The Hill) — The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s efforts to prioritize federal dollars for local policing to towns and cities that complied with certain immigration policies. The ruling, a split 2-1 decision, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) was within its rights to withhold Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants from sanctuary cities and states over their refusal to work with federal immigration enforcement authorities and instead prioritize agencies that focused on unauthorized immigration and agreed to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to jail records and immigrants in custody.
9th Circuit Court sides with Trump administration on banning Title X funds for abortion (Washington Times) — A federal appeals court refused Thursday to block the Trump administration’s Title X family-planning rules from taking effect, keeping in place newly instated requirements preventing grant recipients from referring clients for abortions.The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a plea from 20 states and the District of Columbia, as well as abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, to impose an emergency stay after lifting June 20 preliminary injunctions ordered by lower courts in California, Oregon and Washington. In February, the Department of Health and Human Services overhauled rules governing Title X grants for family-planning services to low-income patients, prohibiting recipients from using the funds to “perform, promote, refer to, or support abortion as a method of family planning.” The rule change could cost Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, as much as $60 million per year, although the Title X grants represent only a small percentage of the organization’s half-billion in annual federal funding.