Trump presidency in turmoil

Donald Trump's turbulent presidency hit another turmoil after top ex-aide John Bolton declared him unfit for office in a bombshell book and the Supreme Court blocked a key part of his re-election vow to deport undocumented migrants.

The mounting drama around the Republican's already rocky re-election bid raised the stakes for his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday -- the first he will have held since the US coronavirus lockdown began, but mired in controversy over whether it is safe.

Trump's once supremely self-confident march toward a second term was already in a hole due to criticism over his responses to the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide anti-racism protests.

A Supreme Court ruling against his administration's bid to remove protections for hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants classified as "Dreamers" struck another body blow.

The 5-4 ruling, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court's four liberals, upheld lower court decisions that found that Trump's 2017 move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, created in 2012 by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, was unlawful.

The administration's actions, the justices ruled, were "arbitrary and capricious" under a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act.

The ruling means that the roughly 649,000 immigrants, mostly young Hispanic adults born in Mexico and other Latin American countries, currently enrolled in DACA will remain protected from deportation and eligible to obtain renewable two-year work permits.

The ruling does not prevent Trump from trying again to end the program. But his administration may find it difficult to rescind DACA - and win any ensuing legal battle - before the Nov. 3 election in which Trump is seeking a second term in office.

Trump's platform rests in large part on his promise to crack down on illegal immigration. His push to get the "Dreamers" deported symbolized that hardline position.

The ruling was doubly stinging because Trump has long boasted that his appointing of two justices succeeded in tilting the nation's top court to the right.

In an outburst on Twitter, Trump called this and other recent rulings he didn't like "shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans."

He also faced a blistering insider attack from Bolton, a lifelong Republican who saw Trump from up close as national security advisor.

"I don't think he's fit for office. I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job," Bolton told ABC News to promote his book, "The Room Where it Happened."

The book -- which the White House is trying desperately to get blocked by court order -- alleges that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping for re-election help, obstructed justice, and was no match for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle," Bolton told ABC.

Trump, who has assiduously built his image as a president who is tough on China, lashed back at Bolton, calling him a "sick puppy" and dismissing the book as "fiction."

In an apparent bid to underline his tough stance, Trump threatened in a tweet that a "complete decoupling" between the deeply entwined US and Chinese economies is an "option." Just the previous day, his hawkish trade ambassador Robert Lighthizer had told Congress this would be unfeasible.