Donald Trump accused by CNN Don Lemon of lying 'directly to the American people' at Phoenix rally

Donald Trump has been accused of lying “directly to the American people” at a rally in Arizona by a CNN anchor.

The President’s address to the crowd in Phoenix was “a total eclipse of the facts”, Don Lemon said.

He also claimed Mr Trump was trying to rewrite history about his response to the violence in the Virginian city of Charlottesville, where a far right protest over the decision to removal a statute of Confederate General Robert E Lee led to clashes between white supremacists and counter protesters.

One of those counter protesters, Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a car drove into a crowd of them. The man suspected of being the driver, James Fields Jr, 20, has been charged with second degree murder

Mr Trump claimed the media had distorted their reporting of his response to the which saw him as he blame "many sides” for the violence and stop short of explicitly condemning the far right.

Following the furore, Mr Trump initially rolled back his comments but later doubled down on them and said his response had been “perfect” during his 77-minute speech at the rally.

In his speech to his supporters, he attacked the decision to remove Civil War statues saying: "They're trying to take away our culture. They're trying to take away our history".

He called those calling for the removal of the statues honouring people who tried to save the slave-owning Confederacy in the 19th century as "weak, weak people".

In a piece to camera, Mr Lennon said he had to “speak from the heart” and joined a host of other critics who have questioned Mr Trump’s fitness for office.

He said: “He’s unhinged, it’s embarrassing. I don’t mean for us the media because he went after us but the country. This is who we elected President of the United States. A man so petty he has to go after people he deems to be his enemies like the imaginary friend of a six year old.

“His speech was without thought, it was without reason. It was devoid of facts, it was devoid of wisdom, there was no gravitas, there was no sanity there. He was like a child blaming a sibling for something else. He certainly reopened the race wound from Charlottesville."

He added that the President was "a man clearly wounded by the rational people who are abandoning him in droves. A man backed into a corner by circumstances beyond his control and beyond his understanding.

“If you watch that speech as an American you have got to be thinking ‘what is going on, this is the person we elected as the President of the United States’”.