Trump ‘tried to silence’ aide over boxes of classified documents: Live

Donald Trump called President Joe Biden “an embarrassment”, sniping at his successor following his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

The former president wrote on Truth Social: “If I would have made that speech yesterday at the United Nations, for all of the World to see, including the HORRENDOUS delivery, I would have been run out of politics! An EMBARRASSMENT to our Country.”

Here’s an excerpt of President Biden’s speech:

Donald Trump Jr’s brother Eric Trump appeared to be highly amused by the hacking of his brother’s Twitter account, replying to one post in which it was alleged that the elder son of Donald Trump had had an affair with the girlfriend of UFC fighter Logan Paul.

He wrote: “I don’t want @DonaldJTrumpJr to get his account back – this is all too entertaining.”

Eric then followed that by posting: “What was @donaldtrumpjr password? Don2024? ????”

One of the hacked posts had Don Jr saying his father had passed away and he was taking over his 2024 presidential run.

Donald Trump Jr’s account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, appears to have been hacked as it announced the death of former President Donald Trump and that Mr Trump Jr would be running for president in 2024 instead.

“I’m sad to announce, my father Donald Trump has passed away. I will be running for president in 2024,” the account posted to immediate assumptions from other users that the ex-president’s oldest son had had his account hacked.

The account of Mr Trump Jr also wrote: “Some interesting messages with Jeffrey Epstein…”

Gustaf Kilander is following this developing story…

The fight amongst Republicans about how to keep the government open has many facets, but perhaps one of the most fraught ones includes whether to include support for Ukraine. And it is coming just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is about to come to Washington.

Earlier this year, I reported how Republican backing for Ukraine was always fraught, with some being sceptical about US support for the country as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his assault and some elected officials are outright hostile to Ukraine and Mr Zelensky. The split between pro-Ukraine and anti-Ukraine Republicans came on full display during the first GOP presidential primary debate as well.

Sahil Kapur of NBC News sums up how House Republicans have paralysed the lower chamber of Congress:

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is faced with an impossible task to try and unite his party and fund the government. Here’s a full explanation of what he has to deal with:

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday is set to come face-to-face with his most ardent critics as House Republicans prepare to use a routine oversight hearing to interrogate him about what they claim is the “weaponization” of the Justice Department under President Joe Biden.

Garland is appearing before the House Judiciary Committee for the first time in two years and at an unprecedented moment in the Justice Department’s history: He’s overseeing two cases against Donald Trump, the first former president to face criminal charges, and another against the sitting president’s son, Hunter Biden.

“Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate,” Garland will say, according to prepared remarks.

Republicans on the committee were tight-lipped about what they planned to ask Garland, telling The Associated Press on Tuesday that they wanted to keep that under wraps until the hearing.

The Pennsylvania senator responded to a post on X from a BBC disinformation reporter who noted there was a “community of people online who regularly share images of John Fetterman to figure out whether he’s real or has been replaced by a body double”.

“Senator Guy Incognito (D-PA),” Mr Fetterman wrote alongside an image of the Homer Simpson doppelgänger of the same name.

Using doctored images and deceptively cropped screenshots, social media users on X, formerly Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and other sites have been spreading baseless claims that the 54-year-old uses a body double.

“It looks like John Fetterman no longer has tattoos on his forearms,” one wrote on X in a 14 September post.

It was 2.25am on the East Coast when Donald Trump flexed his fingers and opened the Truth Social app for his latest middle-of-the-night posts thoughts.

With the UN General Assembly underway in New York and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in town to urge more support for his country in the face of Russian aggression, the former president had some thoughts:

Our Country has spent almost 200 Billion Dollars more than the countries of Europe in fighting go Ukraine. Does anybody think this is fair and reasonable? Europe should equalize before we go forward!

He followed this up with an all-caps:

RECIPROCAL TRADE AGREEMENT!