Trump news: President doubles down on possible election delay and threatens to send National Guard to Portland

Donald Trump's tweet suggesting that the 2020 presidential election could be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic set off a day of wild speculation as to whether he would, could, or how that would even look if he did.

After saying that a mail-in ballot system would create the "most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history", the president double-downed during his White House press conference, saying he doesn't want to wait weeks, months or even years for the result of the election to be known.

The reaction to an election delay made its way into the funeral for civil rights icon John Lewis, with Barack Obama turning his eulogy into a call to action for voting reform in a speech that, while it didn't mention Trump by name, left no one in doubt that the president was the target of his aim.

At the same press conference, Trump threatened to send in the National Guard to Portland after the Department of Homeland Security earlier announced a deal for Oregon State Police to step in and keep the peace. He said the professional agitators and professional anarchists that hate the United States made the city a "beehive of terrorists".

Before he threatened to send troops into Portland, Trump said US soldiers were being removed from Germany because the country was delinquent in its fees to Nato while still paying Russia billions for energy.

Elsewhere, a federal appeals court ruled it would review a judge's attempt to examine the Justice Department's decision to drop its criminal case against Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

It came as Trump's ally Herman Cain died after he was hospitalised with the coronavirus. Mr Cain attended Mr Trump's Tulsa rally in June and was pictured without a mask, but it was unclear if that was where he first contracted the novel virus.

Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load