A 56-year-old man has been arrested in Florida in connection with a mail-bombing campaign aimed at critics of US President Donald Trump.

US officials named the man as Cesar Sayoc. He faces five charges including mailing explosives and threatening ex-presidents.

Trump said the acts were “despicable and have no place in our country”.

Fourteen items have been sent in recent days to figures including ex-President Barack Obama and actor Robert de Niro.

Two were found in Florida and New York City on Friday morning.

Later, two more were discovered in California. Billionaire and Democrat donor Tom Steyer said that a package sent to him had been intercepted at a mail facility in Burlingame, and another addressed to Democrat Senator Kamala Harris was reported in Sacramento.

The incidents come less than two weeks before the US mid-term elections, with politics highly polarised.

The president praised law enforcement for the quick arrest of the suspect, describing the search as looking for a “needle in a haystack”.

“These terrorising acts are despicable and have no place in our country,” he said.

The comments were in stark contrast to Trump’s tweet earlier in the day, when he suggested the incidents, which he described as “‘Bomb’ stuff”, were slowing Republican “momentum” in early voting.