US politics live: Jillian Michaels erupts on CNN during debate about America’s history with slavery

Joe Biden’s son Hunter has responded to Melania Trump’s threat to sue him for a billion dollars over a claim he made about her relationship.

Welcome back to our live coverage of US politics.

President Donald Trump is preparing for his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which will happen in the early hours of Saturday morning, Australian time.

“I have solved six wars in the last six months, and I’m very proud of it,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office today. He didn’t give an exhaustive list, but one of the conflicts he was counting was, presumably, the long-running one between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“I thought the easiest one would be this one. It’s actually the most difficult.”

Mr Trump is reportedly keen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. But finding a pathway to peace for Ukraine and Russia, one both sides can accept, will indeed be very hard.

Elsewhere, the United States’ ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has expressed the Trump administration’s “disgust” at the Australian government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Speaking to the ABC’s 7.30 program, he characterised the move as a “gift” to Hamas, the terrorist group whose surprise attack on southern Israel in 2023, during which its militants committed atrocities against civilians and kidnapped hundreds, started the war in Gaza.

Mr Huckabee claimed Australia’s newly announced stance on Palestinian statehood would endanger any hostages who remain alive.

“There is an enormous level of disappointment, and some disgust,” he told host Sarah Ferguson, explaining the view inside Donald Trump’s administration.

“I don’t know that the {resident used that word. I would say that is a characterisation of a sentiment. 

“I think it does express the emotional sentiment, a sense of, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Why would they be doing this?’”

And finally, former Biggest Loser star Jillian Michaels - who is now something of a talking head - has become embroiled in a feisty debate about America’s history with slavery. Which is not a sentence I ever imagined I would write.

Read on for more updates.

Originally published as US politics live: Jillian Michaels erupts on CNN during debate about America’s history with slavery