Trump news: President claims Adam Schiff is an 'informant' while slamming 'phony' Emoluments Clause in rambling Cabinet meeting

Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.

Donald Trump has complained on Twitter after rowing back his announcement that the next G7 summit of world leaders would be held at his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, raging that the media and his Democratic opposition concerned about conflict of interest failed to mention that “NO PROFITS would be taken”.

The announcement was made last Thursday during acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's disastrous quid pro quo press conference - having already been floated in August amid outcry - and yesterday Mulvaney told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday: "At the end of the day he [the president] still considers himself to be in the hospitality business."

Here's Eleanor Busby's report.

During that appearance on Fox, Mulvaney attempted to defend the moment last week he appeared to admit the White House had held up almost $400m (£308m) military aid to Ukraine for political purposes, therein effectively acknowledging the quid pro quo the impeachment inquiry is hung on.

Responding to questions from reporters, Mulvaney said of the president: "Did he also mention to me in the past that the corruption that related to the [Democratic National Committee] server? Absolutely, no question about that. But that's it and that's why we held up the money."

In conversation with Wallace yesterday, Mulvaney insisted his comment had been misconstrued: "That's not what I said. That's what people said that I said."

"Can I see how people took that the wrong way? Absolutely," Mulvaney later said in the interview. "But I never said there was a quid pro quo because there isn’t."

He said the fact that the money was ultimately paid should "put this issue to bed" and denied that he had any intention of resigning. "Absolutely, positively not. I’m very happy working there. Did I have the perfect press conference? No," this fan of the rhetorical question insisted. 

Over on ABC's This Week, secretary of state Mike Pompeo was not particularly enthusiastic about coming to his colleague's aid. "I will leave to the chief of staff to explain what it is he said and what he intended," he told George Stephanopoulos.

He was pretty evasive on Ukraine throughout in fact...

...and blandly optimistic about the crisis in Syria kicked off by Trump's withdrawal of US armed forces, leaving America's Kurdish allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to the mercy of a Turksish onslaught.

As Kurdish commander Mazlum Kobani tells The New York Times he fears "There will be ethnic cleansing" at the Syrian border without the US military in place as a 1,000-strong peacekeeping force, ex-Republican congressman Justin Amash also took to TV to attack the president for causing the crisis.

On NBC's Meet the Press, Amash told Chuck Todd it was "pretty clear" the president isn't actually bringing the troops home.

"He’s moving troops back into Iraq. He’s moving other troops into Saudi Arabia," Amash said, referring to the Pentagon's recent move to deploy additional personnel, aircraft and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia.

"He’s using our forces as paid mercenaries. What happened to the American people having their voices heard through their representatives in Congress?"

"He certainly knew what Turkey would do. Then he acts surprised that they're committing acts of violence. I think you don't wait until after withdrawing troops to pressure Turkey to ease up," Amash said, alluding to the decidedly wobbly five-day ceasefire vice president Mike Pence announced on Thursday.

The president of course spent much of his weekend on Twitter insisting everything was fine. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi - who lost her brother, Thomas D'Alessandro III, a former mayor of Baltimore, over the weekend - is currently in the Middle East leading a Democratic delegation to discuss the deeping crisis in Syria.

Initially visiting Jordan, the group has just made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan.

Trump has, of course, had something to say about this too.

Here's Clark Mindock's report.

Hillary Clinton has been enjoying herself lately, trolling the president and often beating him at his own game.

Her latest is a ruthless Cold War-era parody of Trump's letter to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, in which the president had begged Erdogan not to carpet bomb America’s Kurdish allies in the SDF, which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation, by imploring: “Don’t be a tough guy, don’t be a fool!”

Vincent Wood has more.

One of Clinton's less well-received recent efforts was her assertion that Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is "a Russian asset", intended - like 2016 Green Party presidential contender Jill Stein before her - as a ploy to split the Democratic vote to Trump's advantage.

Clinton's theory, espoused last week on the Campaign HQ podcast with David Ploufe, provoked fury from Gabbard herself, an amused denial from Stein and bafflement on CNN.

Trump, naturally, couldn't resist low hanging fruit that juicy.

He admits he is "a big Russia lover" but only because he likes "all people". Honestly, who talks like this?

As for the rest of Trump's weekend Twitter perfomance, there was an awful lot of anti-impeachment propaganda - with multiple video posts from such Fox anchors as Jeanino Piro, Jesse Watters and Steve Hilton and such Fox pundits as Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise as well as the usual motley crew of allies, from Ronna McDaniel to Tom Fitton.

Among the highlights not already covered was this attack on Barack Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice (who has described Trump's Syria strategy as "bats*** crazy" and a hug she once received from him as "totally gross")...

...and this mysterious message in which he attributed the baffling claim "We have secured the Oil" to his defence secretary Mark Esper.

This latter was actually his second crack at the tweet, having misspelled Esper's name as "Mark Esperanto" in the original, which may have been an auto-correct error.

The oil remark was Trump's own comment and not part of the quote in that version.

Late on Friday, Trump also announced his pick to replace Rick Perry as energy secretary, resigning as his name surfaces in the Ukraine inquiry.

Trump's nominee is Perry's current deputy, Dan Brouillette, a department veteran hailing from Louisiana.

Brouillette, a father to nine children, recently told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that Europe needs to buck up its ideas on climate change before telling the US what to do.

“So we get some pressure every now and then from the Europeans and others who, you know, criticise the president for backing out of the Paris accords... The bottom line is that none of those countries are going to meet those environmental targets that they have set for themselves without nuclear power.”

Some other highlights from the Sunday talk show circuits included Democratic senator Bob Menendez accusing Mike Pompeo of living in "a parallel, alternate universe"...

...retiring Florida Republican Francis Rooney sticking it to Mulvaney on CNN after backing Trump's impeachment on Friday ("We're not supposed to use government power and prestige for political purposes")...

...and 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg warning of the consequences of Trump's actions in the Middle East for future American foreign policy. The Iraq war veteran warned that the persident undermining US credibility is "going to cost us for years and years".