Trump news – live: President hails post-lockdown US retail boom as Mike Pence insists campaign has ‘right’ to hold rally despite coronavirus fears
Donald Trump has hailed a 17.7 per cent rise in retail sales in the US for May as the states moved to reopen following the national shutdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic, despite ongoing concerns that having done so prematurely risks inspiring a second wave of the deadly virus, which has already claimed 117,000 American lives.
Vice president Mike Pence has been moving to dispel concerns about the further spread of Covid-19 at Trump’s upcoming return to the campaign trail in Tulsa, Oklahoma, insisting the president has a “right” to gather his supporters a day after falsely claiming the state had successfully “flattened the curve” of infections.
A Never Trump Republican group has meanwhile released an attack ad reminding ally Lindsey Graham of his past thoughts on the president, whom he one described as a “race baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”.
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