Trump news – live: Amy Coney Barrett hearing underway as president says New York has ‘gone to hell’

Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is currently appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the upper chamber of Congress considers the conservative’s elevation to the highest court in the land as Ruth Bader Ginburg’s successor, a process that promises to be bitter and divisive.

The president has meanwhile begun his day assuring by raging that New York has “gone to hell” and predicting California will follow suit, telling Americans once more that the coronavirus pandemic will simply “run its course” and by raging at left-wing demonstrators in Portland, Oregon.

Trump’s re-election campaign is meanwhile in dispute with the respected Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after it used his words out of context in a political ad to make it appear as though he were praising Trump. “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate," Dr Fauci said in response.