NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):
11:10 a.m.
A White House official says President Donald Trump’s longtime aide will serve temporarily as White House communications director.
The aide, Hope Hicks, will work with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to help set White House messaging strategy. Word of Hicks’ new role comes as the White House struggles to weather the fallout after Trump again blamed “both sides” for weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators.
The official insisted on anonymity to discuss unannounced personnel matters.
The 28-year-old Hicks worked for the Trump Organization and was Trump’s spokeswoman during the presidential campaign. She’s considered one of the most important players in his inner circle. Her current White House title is director of strategic communications.
The official says a permanent communications director will be named later.
—Contributed by AP writer Darlene Superville.
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9 a.m.
President Donald Trump plans to rally supporters in Phoenix next week.
Trump’s campaign announced the event Wednesday — a day after the president again blamed “both sides” for weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators.
The campaign says the Aug. 22 rally will take place at the Phoenix Convention Center.
The president has been holding campaign-style events in Trump-friendly areas since he took office. Next week’s rally will be Trump’s first in the West.
Trump told Fox News in an interview this week that he may pardon Joe Arpaio (ahr-PY’-oh), the former Phoenix-area sheriff who recently was convicted in federal court.
A federal judge ruled in 2013 that Arpaio’s officers had racially profiled Latinos. Critics say a pardon would amount to an endorsement of racism.
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7:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump is renewing his attacks on e-commerce giant Amazon, and he says the company is “doing great damage to tax paying retailers.”
Trump tweets that “towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!”
The president has often criticized the company and CEO Jeff Bezos (BAY’-zohs), who also owns The Washington Post.
Many traditional retailers are closing stores and blaming Amazon for a shift to buying goods online. But the company has been hiring thousands of warehouse workers on the spot at job fairs across the country. Amazon has announced goal of adding 100,000 full-time workers by the middle of next year
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3:50 a.m.
President Donald Trump is blaming “both sides” for the violence between white supremacists and counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, and he’s rebuffing the widespread criticism of his handling of the protests.
Trump spoke Tuesday in New York and showed sympathy for the fringe groups’ efforts to preserve Confederate monuments.
His words amounted to a rejection of the Republicans, business leaders and White House advisers who’d pushed the president to more forcefully and specifically condemn the KKK members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who took to the streets of Charlottesville.
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