Democratic primary takes place today in Washington DC
Guns, terror, and LGBT rights: Orlando raises stakes for next president
Trump bans Washington Post from officially covering his campaign
1.02am BST
That was it. No more presidential voting (not counting delegates at the conventions) (or early voters) (or absentee voters, etc.) till November!
Primaries are over. pic.twitter.com/6uii59zMbO
12.53am BST
The Washington DC results will be illustrated on our interactive results tracker – follow along here.
12.49am BST
Trump’s done. Ten minutes until Washington DC polls close.
12.46am BST
Trump says he thinks Senator Elizabeth Warren might be Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick. But he does not refer to her by name; he calls her “Pocahontas” in reference to her disputed Native American heritage.
Trump:
I think maybe it could be Pocahontas. I hope so. I hope it’s Pocahontas.
They want me to apologize. But I did! Can you believe it, I apologized. I said, ‘I’d like to apologize to Pocahontas. It’s true. The great Pocahontas.
12.34am BST
Trump is re-telling the story of how he beat Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush for the Republican nomination. Like how Clinton always talks about beating Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb.
“I remember New Hampshire, I love New Hampshire. In fact just yesterday I was in New Hampshire. Gave a speech about” that “horrible, horrible” incident...
Trump is yet again revisiting the Republican primaries and complaining about Charles Krauthammer at length. #pivot
The dishonest @washingtonpost lies about the size of Trump's crowd. Sad! https://t.co/BDuaIb6qPt
12.28am BST
Trump is saying lyrics, as he has before, from Al Wilson’s The Snake. “Think of your border, think of people pouring in who you know are going to be trouble at some point”.
[A protester is taken out. “Get him out,” Trump says. “That’s right, go home to mommy. Bye”]
Trump is reading The Snake which he describes as a parable about US and immigrants. Could also be about him and the GOP.
12.22am BST
Trump promises a relief from idiocy:
It’s America First. We’re no longer gonna be the stupid people. And we’re not the stupid people. But we’re led by the stupid people. And that’s gonna end.
12.21am BST
Dallas’ local CBS station reports that the cities of Irving and Grand Prairie, Texas, have declined to host Donald Trump rallies:
#EXCLUSIVE: 2 N. #Texas cities have rejected hosting @realDonaldTrump rallies. @thecityofirving & @gp_tx. @CBSDFW pic.twitter.com/nIu3fEg7RF
12.18am BST
“We can’t continue to live this way...” Trump says. Then he reworks an old Ronald Reagan line:
If you think you feel safer now than you did eight years ago – I don’t think there’s anyone here in this room that feels that way.
Don’t even think about it. We’re going to build that wall. Don’t even think about it.
Trump: And who is going to pay for it?
Crowd: Mexico!
I didn’t want to do this, folks, I’ll tell you. I don’t know about you, but it’s about 110 degrees up here. I didn’t want to do this. I would’ve been very happy if Obama were a great president... but you know what, he’s been one hell of a lousy president.
12.13am BST
Trump brags about shutting the Washington Post out of his events:
I said, why should I have people following me around, sitting up there like bigshots, and they write very untruthful stories.
So I did it with the Washington Post, I’m so happy... maybe they’re somewhere in the back, the back bleachers.
12.09am BST
Trump says that the United States has admitted many immigrants since 9/11 from countries that persecute gays and lesbians. Perhaps the US is providing asylum – he does not say.
He continues his attack on Clinton:
She’s no friend of women, and she’s no friend of LGBT Americans. No friend, believe me. And how can you be a friend when you take many many millions of dollars... when these countries are oppressive to LGBT, they’re oppressive to everybody.
And then women like Hillary better than Donald Trump? I don’t think so, I’ll be honest. I don’t think so.
Trump again insists of Syrian refugees "we don't know who they are." They are actually subject to an intensive screening process.
In Greensboro, the entire crowd has stayed standing as Donald Trump talks about terrorism and the LGBT community. pic.twitter.com/8olIq2zkf4
12.04am BST
Trump interrupts his statement on Orlando to attack Clinton.
Clinton “plays the women card more than any human being I’ve ever seen in my life. And frankly, I don’t even think women like her, from what I’ve seen,” he says.
I watched president Obama today, and he was more angry at me than he was at the shooter. And many people said that. One of the folks on television said, ‘boy has Trump gotten under his skin.’
That’s the kind of anger he should have for the shooter, and these killers, that shouldn’t be here.
12.00am BST
Trump says “we can’t be led by weak ineffective people”. He names Obama and Clinton, who are booed. Trump says that refugees from Syria “are being snuck into certain communities” without state governors knowing.
Trump has a prepared statement on the Orlando attack, which he seems not to want to read.
11.57pm BST
Trump is speaking in Greensboro. Here’s a live feed:
11.49pm BST
Guardian politics reporter Ben Jacobs is monitoring the Trump rally for us tonight:
Pastor Mark Burns introducing Donald Trump in NC repeatedly insists that Hillary Clinton is a racist
11.44pm BST
In his statement in Washington, DC, earlier, Bernie Sanders called for an end to the superdelegates system by which senior Democratic party figures cast decisive votes in the presidential nominating contest.
Sanders also called for same-day registration, adequate staffing and training for elections and other “major, major changes”.
VIDEO: Bernie Sanders vows to fight for change in Democratic party, including an end to superdelegates. https://t.co/IyYgFlc549
11.39pm BST
It appears the Trump event in Greensboro is off to a spirited start:
More than 40 minutes before Trump speaks in Greensboro, already had three separate protestors kicked out pic.twitter.com/bWhRKJvRyY
Anti Trump march pic.twitter.com/T0T2lEiaGZ
11.29pm BST
Politico’s Ken Vogel comes across a strange filing by a pro-Trump political action committee called Get Our Jobs Back, Inc. It claims a $50m expenditure on “digital media marketing” – a huge sum:
Assuming this is either a typo or a prank: new super PAC reports a $50 MILLION digital ad buy supporting Trump. https://t.co/VEBRa9hQyn
Just called treasurer of this pro-Trump PAC.
He said it will cost me $1M to intervu him, then threatened to sue, so… https://t.co/vcdrinQlHo
Maybe just coincidence, but the confrontational treasurer of pro-Trump PAC has same name as notorious Ponzi schemer: https://t.co/JLQhLMmk0u
Mr. Hoffenberg admitted to being the ringleader of one of the largest so-called Ponzi schemes on record, having sold more than $460 million in fraudulent notes and bonds to investors and having used some of the money he collected from later investors to pay interest owed to earlier investors. The rest of the money was used to run The New York Post briefly and to support a Potemkin-village financial empire with inflated revenues and fictitious profits that made it appear to be a major health care financing company
CONFIRMED: Treasurer of this pro-Trump PAC is notorious Ponzi schemer Steven Hoffenberg, convicted of a $460M fraud. https://t.co/JLQhLMmk0u
The splash page for that Super PAC reads like it's some sort of spoof. https://t.co/sTneIRdgJr cc @derekwillis pic.twitter.com/5TtxlQ15iP
11.18pm BST
It’s finally here. The last voting in the 2016 presidential nominating season is happening as we speak in Washington, DC, where Democrats are holding a primary (Republicans in the district held their contest in March; Marco Rubio won 10 delegates and John Kasich won 9).
Polling stations in DC close at 8pm ET.
11.09pm BST
Are the 63% of women who told the Bloomberg /Selzer poll that they would never vote for Trump missing something?
Trump tells Fox News host Sean Hannity that “I’m much better for women than [Clinton] is. I’m much better for gays’.
Trump to Hannity in interview to air tonight: "I’m much better for women than she is. I’m much better for gays.” pic.twitter.com/nfekhmtTWB
You’d see the top models in the world getting screwed on tables in the middle of the dance floor,” said Trump. “You would see things you just don’t see today primarily because of AIDS and other diseases. But it was incredible. You’d see the most beautiful women in the world, the most beautiful people in the world. Then, an hour later, you’d see them making love right in front of you. And I’m there saying, ‘Excuse me?’
Trump added he was dating “a million” models at the time.
10.16pm BST
The Bloomberg / Selzer poll asked a lot of “never would I ever” questions.
55% of voters surveyed said they could never vote for Trump, compared with 43% who said they could never vote for Clinton.
If you can never get the vote of two in three women, who are a majority of voters, that is something that has to change for Trump to emerge victorious,” Selzer said.
66% of electorate "bothered" by Trump's Muslim ban; 72% by his remarks on Curiel. Some things haven't been breached. pic.twitter.com/80WtqLFqh8
10.07pm BST
Hillary Clinton holds a 49-37 lead over Donald Trump among likely voters nationally, a new Bloomberg poll finds.
The poll was conducted on 10-13 June and, at the end, included a question about the 12 June Orlando attack.
“Clinton has a number of advantages in this poll, in addition to her lead,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. “Her supporters are more enthusiastic than Trump’s and more voters overall see her becoming a more appealing candidate than say that for Trump.”
One bit of positive news for Trump in the results is that he narrowly edges out Clinton, 45 percent to 41 percent, when those surveyed were asked which candidate they would have more confidence in if a similar attack to the one in Florida took place a year from now.
10.01pm BST
A new email from the Donald Trump campaign invites potential supporters to become a “Founding Member of our campaign to officially mark your membership in the greatest American movement since our country’s founding.”
If Crooked Hillary gets elected, the country we love will be lost,” the email warns. “Say goodbye to the Supreme Court, our military, our border, our freedoms –everything that has made America great...
9.33pm BST
Donald Trump has elaborated on his decision to nix press credentials for the Washington Post. The Post had reported that Trump had suggested the president harbored some nefarious secret agenda, which the Guardian also reported.
The Post’s report was preceded by an investigation that revealed that Trump had not given away money to veterans’ charities as he claimed, seemingly pressuring Trump into writing a $1m check to a charity.
Trump doubles down on Washington Post ban, on "Hannity": pic.twitter.com/pJInzueSmY
9.23pm BST
8.17pm BST
In a statement given at a press conference, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has lashed out at Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration, as it relates to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida that left 49 people dead.
“This is what we do know, and what we must never forget: We know that one hateful person committed this terrible crime, not an entire people or an entire religion. The Muslim people did not commit this horrific act,” Sanders said.
7.52pm BST
A fundraising email just sent out by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign highlights the revulsion expressed by numerous high-profile Republican lawmakers, officials and leaders in response to Donald Trump’s self-congratulation in the wake of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando that left 49 people dead.
“In the wake of his response to the tragic attack in Orlando, more and more Republicans have backed away from Donald Trump, his views and what he represents,” Clinton’s team wrote. “It’s no surprise, given his hateful language and dangerous policies that will do serious harm to working families and put America’s security at risk.”
7.31pm BST
President Obama claims to know our enemy, and yet he continues to prioritize our enemy over our allies, and for that matter, the American people. When I am President, it will always be America First.
7.19pm BST
Hillary Clinton offered a vigorous rebuttal of Donald Trump’s national security agenda at a speech in Pittsburgh this afternoon, arguing that his response to the massacre at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando is “more evidence that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be commander-in-chief.”
7.03pm BST
Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus’ response to President Barack Obama’s speech on national security this afternoon touches on a lot of familiar territory, although it is missing one thing: Any mention of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald trump.
“The horrific attack in Orlando was the second act of radical Islamic terrorism inspired by Isis to be carried out on our shores in six months,” Priebus said in the statement. “Let’s not forget: President Obama’s hasty and politically driven withdrawal from Iraq, which Hillary Clinton supported, created the vacuum that enabled the rise of this terrorist group. Their failure to secure Libya after their military intervention gave Isis a beachhead on another continent. Democrats want to talk about anything else because they have lost the national debate.”
6.36pm BST
Donald Trump has responded to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s speeches condemning his response to the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub that claimed 49 lives:
Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.
6.35pm BST
In the aftermath of Orlando, conservatives are facing the dilemma of deflecting attention from their own homophobic history – and drawing LGBT voters to the right, reports.
Related: Gay and voting for Trump after Orlando: how the right is eyeing the LGBT vote
6.24pm BST
Senator Bob Corker, one of Donald Trump’s biggest acolytes, has criticized his comments after the Orlando massacre:
.@SenBobCorker says Trump's call for Obama to resign were not the "type of comments that needed to be made after 50 people have perished."
6.18pm BST
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has condemned the treatment of campaign journalists by Donald Trump’s campaign, calling the mistreatment of reporters because of unfavorable coverage “shameful.”
“The Society of Professional Journalists strongly supports the numerous journalists and news outlets which have been blocked, bullied and harassed during this election season,” said SPJ president Paul Fletcher in a statement.
“Journalists covering a political campaign perform an important public service – they provide information to the American public seeking to determine our next leaders. Journalists must be free to do their jobs without fear of reprisal, intimidation and threat of physical harm,” Fletcher continued.
“Candidates for the office of president of the United States and all other offices must understand and respect the role of a free press, and must expect to be asked uncomfortable questions and receive tough but fair coverage,” Fletcher said. “Journalists ask questions on behalf of all Americans who have the right to know the policies, positions and background of any person they are voting into the country’s highest office or other offices.”
“For a candidate to disown the principles of the First Amendment simply because they do not like their coverage is shameful.”
6.16pm BST
Video: President Barack Obama’s full remarks from the Treasury Department this afternoon.
6.10pm BST
In an email to supporters this afternoon, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders told his fans that although “the voting is done” after today’s primary in Washington DC, “our political revolution continues” - and previewed his online video address on Thursday night, in which it is speculated that he will suspend his campaign.
“When we started this campaign, I told you that I was running not to oppose any man or woman, but to propose new and far-reaching policies to deal with the crises of our time,” Sanders wrote. “And for the past fourteen months, through the entire primary process, we’ve sent the establishment a message they can’t ignore: we won’t settle for the status quo.”
6.01pm BST
This is the angriest members of the press have seen President Barack Obama in a long time.
"That's not the America we want." Here are 3 key minutes from the president's remarks... https://t.co/Ky01ePTH8Z
5.46pm BST
President Barack Obama delivers a forceful declaration that proposals by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States are “fueling Isil’s notion that the West hates Muslims.”
5.37pm BST
Hillary Clinton, speaking in Pittsburgh, begins comparing President barack Obama’s response to the Orlando massacre to that of Donald Trump.
“Just one day after the massacre, he went on TV and suggested that President Obama is on the side of the terrorists,” Clinton says, to boos. “Now just think about that for a second - even in a time of divided politics, this is way beyond anything that should be said by someone running for president of the United States.”
5.31pm BST
As Barack Obama details the war on terrorism in response to the terrorist attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is speaking on national security in Pittsburgh.
“The terrorist in Orlando is the definition of ‘the wrong hands,’ and weapons of war have no place in our streets,” Clinton says.
5.26pm BST
President Barack Obama emphasized that although the exact motivations of Omar Mateen are not yet understood, his self-professed alignment with Isis and Hezbollah - two terror groups that are ideologically at odds - is an alignment with groups on the run.
“We’ve taken our more than 120 top Isil leaders and commanders,” Obama says, using another term for Isis. These actions, Obama says, tell Isis that “you will not be save; you will never be safe.”
5.25pm BST
5.23pm BST
President Barack Obama, speaking at the Treasury Department in Washington DC, addresses the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando that claimed the lives of 49 people.
Obama reiterated that he and FBI director James Comey did not believe Omar Mateen was directed by a group. But he said the Orlando killer “took in extremist information and propaganda”, and “became radicalized”.
5.02pm BST
Gun control, homegrown extremism, homophobic violence and the war against Islamic State have all been highlighted by the Orlando nightclub massacre, but deadlock in Washington means major legislation will probably have to wait until after the November election.
Related: Guns, terror, and LGBT rights: Orlando shooting raises stakes for next president
4.56pm BST
Hackers in the employ of the Russian government gained illicit access to the Democratic National Committee’s computer network, according to the Washington Post, gaining access to email, web traffic and the entire dossier of opposition research conducted on the background of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
According to the report, hackers had access for as long as a year.
4.52pm BST
Senate minority leader Harry Reid launched into a blistering attack on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on the Senate floor this morning, calling Trump “vicious,” “un-American” and “hateful.”
4.49pm BST
After 12 months of at times bitter contest, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will meet privately on Tuesday, after polls close in the nation’s capital.
4.34pm BST
Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander says that the Republican party has no nominee:
"We don't have a nominee" Sen Alexander says in response to question on Trump. Informed he's the presumptive nominee: "That's what you say."
4.18pm BST
Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will address his campaign’s supporters via a livestream on Thursday night, two days after tonight’s Democratic primary in Washington DC concludes the nominating season.
3.52pm BST
In a press conference on Capitol Hill, House speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that the proposed ban on Muslim immigration to the US put forward by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is not “in our country’s interests.”
“I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country’s interest,” Ryan said. “I do not think it is reflective of our principles.”
3.48pm BST
If you weren’t watching last night, Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison called presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “a narcissistic fascist” for his proposed ban on Muslims and self-congratulation in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
“It is clear that we have a narcissistic fascist who has claimed the Republican nomination,” Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, told MSNBC’s Chris Cuomo. “That’s a fact. The question is what are we going to do about it as a nation.”
3.20pm BST
Today is Flag Day, and Donald Trump’s 70th birthday.
3.01pm BST
When Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination as she continued to grapple with a surprisingly resilient primary opponent, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was in the polling doldrums. Now that she has become the nominee-in-waiting, however, Clinton’s odds are looking up.
The former secretary of state’s lead over Trump has grown to seven points, according to the latest tracking poll released this morning from NBC News/SurveyMonkey. Conducted online - unusual for polls that are largely reliant on landline phones - the poll shows Clinton leading Trump 49% to 42% among registered voters nationwide. The same poll last week showed Trump polling at 44% and Clinton at 48%.
2.36pm BST
A few weeks ago, a USA Today investigation found that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had been involved in at least 3,500 lawsuits over the course of his career in real estate. A deep dive into one of those lawsuits has unearthed an accusation that Trump routinely deleted emails - an accusation that he has routinely made against presumptive general election opponent Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail.
USA Today reports that in a 2006 lawsuit Trump’s holding company filed against a former employee over a casino deal in Florida, a judge ordered Trump’s casino holdings to turn over email records as part of the discovery process. The Trump Organization, however, said that it had no records from between 1996 and 2001 - six years’ worth of emails.
At that time, a Trump IT director testified that until 2001, executives in Trump Tower relied on personal email accounts using dial-up Internet services, despite the fact that Trump had launched a high-speed Internet provider in 1998 and announced he would wire his whole building with it. Another said Trump had no routine process for preserving emails before 2005.
How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that up--and where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted? https://t.co/gECLNtQizQ
2.18pm BST
Good morning, and welcome to the last day of the US primary season.
Washington DC’s Republicans already cast their ballots back in March, but today’s Democratic primary in the nation’s capital marks the official end to 2016’s primary contests - and the beginning of a general election campaign that is already heating up.
Related: Who's winning the presidential nomination? See the full delegate count
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