Trump news: President says Bahamas full of 'bad gang members', as official threatens to fire NOAA employees over Hurricane Dorian claims

Donald Trump is campaigning in North Carolina on Monday in support of Republican Mark Harris, who faces a strong challenge in a special election in a district that the president carried overwhelmingly in 2016.

During an impromptu press conference before boarding his plane to that state, Mr Trump shocked reports by telling them that he is hesitant to allow Bahamians to enter the US after Hurricane Dorian because the island is full of "bad gang members". Also during that press conference, the president repeatedly said that Barack Obama had given him a present by leaving judicial vacancies, and repeatedly insisted that pundits had misanalysed the 2018 election results — in which Republicans lost control of the House — because his party had retained control of the Senate in an election year that favoured the GOP.

Speaking of Hurricane Dorian, Mr Trump's use of a sharpie to modify a hurricane projection map has kept in the news, with reports indicating that employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had been threatened by the Commerce Department if they contradicted the commander-in-chief when he claimed that the storm was set to smash into Alabama.

As Mr Trump returns to campaign mode once again, the president has also faced a burgeoning field of Republican challengers to him in 2020, prompting him to declare that he would not join a debate stage with any of them.

Mr Trump also engaged in a fight with Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, who called the president a "p**** a** b****".

And, Mr Trump has also been accused of treating foreign policy "like a gameshow", after talks with the Taliban broke down before they even started at Camp David.

Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load