White House

US President Donald Trump has pardoned women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony, who had been convicted of participating in the 1872 presidential election. Trump announced the move on Tuesday at a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the right to vote for women in the USA at the White House.

Anthony's trial in 1873 fired up the women's movement in the United States and she had been sentenced to a fine. In August 1920 with the 19th Amendment to the American Constitution the United States introduced the right for women to vote. Anthony died in 1906 at the age of 86.

Robert O'Brien, Donald Trump's National Security Advisor, has tested positive for Covid-19 and shows "mild symptoms and has been self-isolating and working from a secure location off site."

The White House further stated that there was "no risk of exposure to the President or the Vice President."

After a worker tested positive for Covid-19, two White House cafeterias have been closed. The cafeterias, located at the New Executive Office Building and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, will reportedly stay closed for two weeks. According to an internal White House, email contact tracing concluded that no further staffers were exposed.

During Thursday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that "the science should not stand in the way" of reopening schools. President Trump insists on opening schools, "and when he says open, he means open and full, kids being able to attend, each and every day at their school."

McEnany states that the United States is the "outlier" as schools in the Western world and their peer nations are reopening and claims that "science is on our side here".

After several attacks from White House officials, Dr Anthony Fauci urges to bring an end to the divisiveness as it has become "difficult to engage in a dialogue of honest evaluation of what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong." The attacks came after a list of "false" statements was released that Fauci made early on in the pandemic when health officials had lesser knowledge of the virus than they do today.

"We've got to own this, reset this and say OK, let's stop this nonsense and figure out how can we get our control over this now," Fauci added.

According to a report by Axios, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told several staffers that he had fed suspected leakers with "nuggets of information" to see if they would forward it to the media. Axios reports that Meadows has only caught one person so far, who leaked minor information.

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador is set to attend the USMCA celebrations with Donald Trump in the White House. López Obrador, who previously stated that private presidential planes were for the "neoliberal elite", will fly commercially to Washington.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has turned down an invitation of the White House to celebrate the USMCA deal signed by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) is replacing NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement).

"We wish the United States and Mexico well at Wednesday’s meeting. While there were recent discussions about the possible participation of Canada, the prime minister will be in Ottawa this week for scheduled cabinet meetings and the long-planned sitting of parliament," so Trudeau's office.

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to declare the Medicaid program established under president Obama unconstitutional. The administration aims to eliminate medical insurance coverage for 20 million Americans with low enough incomes to qualify for the program. At this point, the White House has not proposed an alternative solution in case they succeed in court.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow has stated that "We’re going to have hot spots, no question" in regards to the surging numbers of Covid-19 cases in the United States as the country previously recorded the day with the highest number of new cases so far. He added that Americans "just have to live with that".

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that the White House has ordered to cancel funding for the Covid-19 research. Fauci stated "It was cancelled because the NIH was told to cancel it" and clarified to Politico that the White House gave the instructions. The project had been studying how Covid-19 could spread from bats to humans.

Trump administration health officials are testifying about the White House response to the coronavirus before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today. Among the health officials are Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert and the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and Dr Robert Redfield, Director of the C.D.C.

Fauci told the committee that he believed "it will be when and not if" a vaccine would be ready and that he is "cautiously optimistic" that one will be available by the end of 2020 or early 2021. He further warned that "we're now seeing a disturbing surge of infections" but that the coronavirus task force was not asked to slow testing.

A statement by the C.D.C. was released prior to the hearing, warning that "Covid-19 activity will likely continue for some time" and that the virus "could place a tremendous burden on the health care system related to bed occupancy, laboratory testing needs, personal protective equipment and health care worker safety."

In "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir", John Bolton details his time as national security advisor and claims Trump said journalists, who he called "scumbags", should be jailed to force them to expose their sources and that they "should be executed".

The Trump administration has submitted an application to a district court on Wednesday to get an injunction and an emergency restraining order to stop the book from being published.

The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit to prevent the publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's new book "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir". The complaint alleges that the book contains "classified information", with Trump adding that he considers "every conversation with me as president highly classified". Charles Cooper, Bolton's lawyer, said they would "respond in due course".

The memoir is set to be published on June 23 and is recounting Bolton's time at the White House and his experience with "a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation".

While the LGBTQ+ community is celebrating Pride Month, the Trump administration eliminated a regulation that prohibits discrimination in health care against transgender patients. The Affordable Care Act, aa Obama-era regulation commonly known as Obamacare, stated in section 1557 that it "prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain health programs and activities."

Deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality heavily criticized the Trump administration, stating it was "horrendous to not only gut nondiscrimination protections but to gut nondiscrimination protections in the middle of a pandemic," and fears that "this rule opens a door for a medical provider to turn someone away for a Covid-19 test just because they happen to be transgender".

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people came together at D.C.'s newly named Black Lives Matter Plaza to protests police brutality and racism. Protestors from all walks of life, including army vets, union recruiters, federal workers, doctors and religious folks, were joined by D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser. Bowser recently renamed 16th Street NW to Black Lives Matter Plaza, located close to the White House, and commissioned local artists to paint a large yellow "Black Lives Matter" mural on the street.

During the protest, Bowser was called onstage by a DJ and told the crowd that "it’s so wonderful to see everyone peacefully protesting, wearing their masks."

The US military has been ordered by the commander-in-chief president Donald Trump to move almost 9,500 troops out of Germany. In the announcement, the White House has stated that the move comes after the NATO has increased its overall spending and there was less need for a large contingent of troops in Germany.

The Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser has announced that the plaza out in front of the White House has been officially renamed to "Black Lives Matter Plaza". In addition to this Bowser also has asked President Donald Trump to "withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington DC".

Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, compared Donald Trump posing in front of St. John's Church with a bible to Churchill inspecting bombing damages during WWII in a press statement on Wednesday.

"Through all of time, we've seen presidents and leaders across the world who have had leadership moments and very powerful symbols that were important for a nation to see at any given time to show a message of resilience and determination. Like Churchill, we saw him inspecting the bombing damage, it sent a powerful message of leadership to the British people, and George W. Bush throwing out the ceremonial first pitch after 9/11.", she said and added: "And for this president it was powerful and important to send a message that the, rioters, the looters, the anarchists — they will not prevail — that burning churches are not what America is about. And that moment, holding the Bible up, is something that has been widely hailed by Franklin Graham and others, and it was a very important symbol to see that we will get through this, through unity and through faith."

Over the weekend, it was reported that President Trump, alongside Melania and son Barron, were brought to the White House underground bunker amid protests outside the White House. On Wednesday, Trump appeared on the Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News, where he claimed to not have hidden in the bunker but rather inspected it for. Trump said he was only there for a "tiny, short little period of time" and he visited the bunker a couple of times before "all for inspection".

Asked he was asked by the Secret Service to "go downstairs" for his protection, Trump said: "No, they didn’t tell me that at all, but they said it would be a good time to go down, to take a look, because maybe some time you’re going to need it… I looked, I was down for a very, very short period of time… a whole group of people went with me, as an inspecting factor."