A bit of a quieter week for Donald Trump – except towards the end, when he did his best to push the planet into a watery grave.



Last weekend

The US president stepped off the plane from his world tour last weekend with his aides refusing to comment on a Washington Post report that his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a key adviser, discussed setting up a secret back channel for conversations between the Trump transition team and the Kremlin. Trump’s last act with his fellow world leaders at the G7 in Sicily had been to resist pressure from all of them to commit to remaining in the Paris climate change deal. He would make up his mind in the coming week, he tweeted, easing back into his old habits after a few days of more disciplined social media messaging and uncharacteristically bookish tweets such as: “I look forward to reading the @CommerceGov 232 analysis of steel and aluminum- to be released in June.”

The floodgates really opened on Sunday, with a series of messages hailing the victory of the Montana Republican charged with assaulting a Guardian reporter and hitting out at leaks from his administration and the “fake news media”. As usual, Trump was particularly scathing about the use of anonymous sources.



Monday

On Memorial Day, following mounting pressure, the president condemned a racist attack in Portland, Oregon, that left two men dead, calling it “unacceptable”. He also issued a statement saying he had “total confidence” in the beleaguered Kushner, as newspaper articles suggested the young “princeling” was falling from the president’s favour. Meanwhile German chancellor Angela Merkel warned that her experience dealing with Trump at the G7 suggested the US might no longer be a completely reliable partner.

Tuesday



Not one to shy away from a fight, Trump responded to Merkel with a tweet complaining: “We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military.” Press spokesman Sean Spicer described their relationship, somewhat ambiguously, as “fairly unbelievable”, but claimed: “They get along very well. He has a lot of respect for her.” Spicer was also forced to answer questions about his own position, after the resignation of communications director Michael Dubke reignited speculation that a major staff shake-up was imminent.

In Russia investigation news, Trump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, rejected a request for documents from the House intelligence committee, as reports claimed that former national security adviser Michael Flynn was reportedly now prepared to provide documents to the committee’s Senate counterpart. Trump also retweeted a Fox News story that reflected relatively well on Kushner, clearly feeling it merited making an exception to his usual rule about stories based on anonymous sources.

Wednesday



Early on Wednesday morning, Trump sent the cryptic tweet: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”, delighting the internet. You might agree with Chrissy Teigen that the president “meant to write ‘coverage’. That’s it. It’s not that deep and not that funny.” But at least one man disagreed – Spicer. Trump’s spokesman said the next day that “the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant.” So there you have it. At the same press briefing, Spicer also said the White House would no longer answer questions about the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump’s alleged links to Russia – instead referring them to Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz. And CNN cut ties with comedian Kathy Griffin after she appeared in an art video holding a likeness of the president’s severed head.

Thursday



Things got serious again on Thursday when Trump ended days of speculation by announcing he was pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord. Criticism was swift and brutal both at home and abroad, with Barack Obama issuing a rare statement saying the administration had joined “a small handful of nations that reject the future”. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump said. (Pittsburgh took exception to that.) The president also reneged on a campaign promise to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And the Guardian learned that Brexit leader Nigel Farage was a “person of interest” in the US counter-intelligence investigation looking into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s presidential campaign. In other Russia news, the Senate intelligence committee announced that former FBI director James Comey will give evidence in public and in private on 8 June.

Friday

EU leaders told Trump the Paris deal was not up for renegotiation and pledged instead to bypass Washington to work with US business leaders and state governors to implement the accord’s commitments. It was reported that special counsel Robert Mueller had expanded his investigation into Trump and Russia to take in Flynn’s foreign lobbying. Vladimir Putin chipped in to back up Trump’s frequent contention that the various Russia investigations had been flammed up to distract people from the fact that Trump won the 2016 election fair and square. “In all honesty, I myself sometimes thought that the guy was going too far, but it turned out he was right: he found an approach to those groups of the population and those groups of voters he counted on, and they came and voted for him,” Putin said. Unfortunately for Trump, that probably won’t be the last word on the matter.

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