Trump denounced over reported war dead comments: ‘He doesn’t understand bravery’ – as it happened

We’re wrapping up our live politics coverage for tonight. Please stay safe this holiday weekend. An updated summary of key news events today:

• Current and former members of the military, Democrats and Biden assailed Trump over a report that he had made disparaging remarks about soldiers who had been killed or captured. Trump has denied the report.
• The US economy added 1.4 million jobs in August, but that the pace of growth was slower than earlier this year and joblessness remains high.
• Both Trump and Biden seized on the new jobs report to make starkly different campaign arguments. Trump pointed to the unemployment figures, which dropped below 10% this month, as a success. Biden, in a speech in Wilmington, accused Trump of deepening the economic crises by failing to control the coronavirus pandemic that has left millions of Americans out of work.
• Facebook removed an image posted by Republican congressional candidate and avowed Qanon supporter Marjorie Greene, which showed her brandishing a firearm next to photos of progressive Democratic lawmakers.
• Facebook also removed the page for Patriot Prayer, the far-right group linked to years of violent protests in Portland, as part of its crackdown on “violent social militias”. On Saturday, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a man wearing the insignia of Patriot Prayer, was shot dead in Portland.
• The Justice Department also announced criminal charges against two “Boogaloo Bois,” one of whom had been profiled by CNN at a protest in Minneapolis in early June.

Report: White supremacists most serious US terror threat

A yet-to-be-released report from the Department of Homeland Security names white supremacists as the deadliest terror threat in the United States, and a greater threat than foreign terror groups, Politico reports.

Three different drafts of the same report were reviewed by Politico, and none of the drafts referred to a threat from Antifa,” the anti-fascist activists who senior Trump administration officials have described as major domestic terrorists.

DHS declined to comment on “allegedly leaked documents,” Politico reported.

My colleague Jason Wilson has documented Patriot Prayer’s years of involvement in violence at protests in Portland. The far-right group’s leader, Joey Gibson, was charged with rioting, a felony, in 2019.

On Saturday, a man wearing the insignia of Patriot Prayer was shot dead in Portland.

Now, Facebook has removed the Patriot Prayer page, the New York Times reports. Gibson’s page has also been removed, Reuters reports.

Once again, Facebook’s action to take down a group with many previous documented links to violent behavior comes after someone has already been killed.

Trump insults John Kelly in response to questions about him disparaging war dead

Asked during the press conference about the multiple reports that he made disparaging remarks about members of the military and the war dead, Trump said the anonymous officials who spoke to media outlets about his remarks “could have been a guy like John Kelly”, a retired US Marine Corps general and his former White House chief of staff, who left the White House in 2018 and has since publicly criticized the president.

Trump then personally attacked Kelly, saying that “he got eaten alive” and “he was unable to handle the pressure of this job”.

Trump thanks news media for footage he said is used to make arrests

While touting the number of arrests of “rioters, looters and domestic terrorists” made after nationwide protests and unrest over police violence towards black Americans, Trump thanked the news media for providing footage of people that is used to charge them with crimes. “We get that from the media free of charge,” the president said.

“We’re working with the state and local authorities to comb through hours of videotape identifying arrest suspects and prosecute lawbreakers. We’ve already got over 300 in jail,” Trump said. “I want to thank the media for helping us out, because they’re taking different angles. We have it from every angle … we see it from the sky and the ground and from the right and from the left, so when they say they didn’t do it, we say, ‘What’s this?’”

Activists have long highlighted the risk of photos and videos documenting protests being used by state authorities to file criminal charges against protesters, and have encouraged people documenting protests not to share images of protesters’ faces.

In recent years, some protesters have also confronted news media covering demonstrations over concerns about having their participation documented.

‘Another campaign speech as a White House “news conference”’

A journalist known for his real-time fact-checking of the president’s statements has a succinct summary of the press conference Trump is doing right now.

Justice Department announces charges against two ‘Boogaloo Bois’

This is Lois Beckett, taking over our live politics coverage for this evening.

The justice department said it had charged two self-described “Boogaloo Bois” with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, Hamas.

At least one of the men charged, 22-year-old Benjamin Ryan Teeter, had been profiled by CNN during protests in Minneapolis in early June.

A confidential informant posing as a member of Hamas recorded conversations with Teeter and Michael Robert Solomon, 30, leading to criminal charges against them, the justice department said:

Solomon and Teeter also expressed their desire to employ themselves as “mercenaries” for Hamas as a means to generate cash for the Boogaloo Bois/Boojahideen movement, including funding for recruitment and purchasing land for a training compound.

According to the allegations in the criminal complaint and law enforcement affidavit, Solomon and Teeter shared with the CHS, and another individual whom they believed to be a more senior member of Hamas (and who was actually an undercover employee of the FBI), their ideas about destroying government monuments, raiding the headquarters of a white supremacist organization in North Carolina, and targeting politicians and members of the media.

Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, said she has confirmed reporting by The Atlantic with two former senior Trump administration officials.

One former official told her: “When the President spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, ‘It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker.’”

More from her thread:

• Current and former member of the military, Democrats and Biden assailed Trump over a report that he had made disparaging remarks about soldiers who had been killed or captures. Trump has denied the report.
• The US economy added 1.4 million jobs in August, but that the pace of growth was slower than earlier this year and joblessness remains high.
• Both Trump and Biden seized on the new jobs report to make starkly different campaign arguments. Trump pointed to the unemployment figures, which dropped below 10% this month, as a success. Biden, in a speech in Wilmington, accused Trump of deepening the economic crises by failing to control the coronavirus pandemic that has left millions of Americans out of work.
• Facebook removed an image posted by Republican congressional candidate and avowed Qanon supporter Marjorie Greene, which showed her brandishing a firearm next to photos of progressive Democratic lawmakers.

Reaction to the Atlantic story continue to pour in as Trump and the White House continue to vehemently deny the report.

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean was blunt.

Trump, facing accusations that he disparaged members of the military and the war dead, vowed that the military’s independent newspaper Stars and Stripes would not be defunded.

His comments come after it revealed that the Pentagon ordered the newspaper to cease publication by the end of the month and to dissolve the organization by January.