Donald Trump was attending the launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket launch in Texas yesterday when he was asked whether he was reconsidering his controversial nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
“No,” the president-elect told reporters. He did not respond when asked how far he was willing to go to get Gaetz confirmed.
As we reported earlier, the House ethics committee is expected to meet today to vote on releasing a report examining allegations of sexual misconduct against the former Republican congressman.
Former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who has been named as Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, donated $814,600 to Trump’s 2024 campaign as of July.
She served in Trump’s cabinet in his first term as the administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019.
McMahon chaired America First Action, a Super PAC that backed Trump’s re-election campaign, raising $83m in 2020. She provided $6m to help Trump’s candidacy after he secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, according to the Associated Press.
In October, McMahon and her husband, Vince, were named in a new lawsuit involving WWE. The suit alleges that she and other leaders of the company allowed the sexual abuse of young boys at the hands of a ringside announcer, former WWE ring crew chief Melvin Phillips Jr.
The complaint specifically alleges that the McMahons knew about the abuse and failed to stop it.
An attorney for the McMahons told USA Today Sports that the allegations are “false claims” stemming from reporting that the couple deems “absurd, defamatory and utterly meritless”.
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US envoy travels to Israel in effort to secure Lebanon ceasefire
US envoy Amos Hochstein said he will travel to Israel on Wednesday to try to secure a ceasefire ending the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group after declaring additional progress in talks in Beirut.
Hochstein, who arrived a day earlier in Beirut, said he saw a “real opportunity” to end the conflict after the Lebanese government and Hezbollah agreed to a US ceasefire proposal, although with some comments.
Reuters reports that the diplomacy aims to end a conflict that has inflicted massive devastation in Lebanon since Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah in September.
Although diplomacy to end the Gaza war has largely stalled, the Biden administration aims to seal a ceasefire in the parallel conflict in Lebanon before Donald Trump takes office in January.
“We are going to work with the incoming administration. We’re already going to be discussing this with them. They will be fully aware of what we’re doing,” Hochstein said.
Trump expected to invoke 'global gag rule' on abortion services
As he did in his first term, US president-elect Donald Trump is likely in January to invoke the “global gag rule”, officially called the Mexico City policy, which bans US federal funding for NGOs in foreign countries that provide abortion services or abortion advocacy.
The gag rule has a 40-year history of being applied by Republican presidents and rescinded by Democratic presidents. Every GOP president since the mid-1980s has invoked the rule, reports the Associated Press.
As one of his first acts as president in 2017, Trump expanded the rule to the extent that foreign NGOs were cut off from about $600m in US family planning funds and more than $11bn in US global health aid between 2017 and 2018 alone, according to the US Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reports the AP.
The money – much of it intended for Africa – covered efforts such as preventing malaria and tuberculosis, providing water and sanitation, and distributing health information and contraception, which might also have repercussions for HIV prevention.
The policy stipulates that foreign NGOs that receive US government funding must agree to stop abortion-related activities, including discussing it as a family planning option — even when they are using non-US government funds for such activities.
The gag-rule policy “leads to more unintended, unwanted, unsupportable pregnancies and therefore an increase in abortion,” said Catriona Macleod, a professor of psychology at South Africa’s Rhodes University.
“This legislation does not protect life … it’s been called America’s deadly export,” said Macleod, who heads the university’s studies in sexuality and reproduction.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Donald Trump’s re-election as US president has prompted fears that he will cut off American support for Ukraine, forcing it into peace talks with Russia that would culminate in a settlement on terms favourable to Vladimir Putin.
However, as my colleague Andrew Sparrow reports, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has argued that Trump would not go that far.
Lammy and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, had dinner with Trump in the autumn. Lammy discusses that too in an interview in the UK’s New Statesmen with George Eaton. Here are the key lines.
Lammy argued that Trump would not accept a deal over Ukraine that would look like a victory for Putin. Asked about Trump’s stance on Ukraine, Lammy said:
I’ve been a politician for 25 years and I understand the different philosophies at play. There’s a deep philosophical underpinning to friends in the Republican party that I’ve known for many years, thinking back to people like [former US secretary of state] Condoleezza Rice. Donald Trump has some continuity with this position, which is ‘peace through strength’.
What I do know about Donald Trump is that he doesn’t like losers and he doesn’t want to lose; he wants to get the right deal for the American people. And he knows that the right deal for the American people is peace in Europe and that means a sustainable peace – not Russia achieving its aims and coming back for more in the years ahead.
Lammy said he found Trump “very funny, very engaging and very charismatic” when he and Starmer met Trump for dinner at his home in New York. He also said Trump was “a consummate politician” and very interested in learning how Labour won the election in the UK.
Following Trump’s victory earlier this month, Lammy described his previous remarks about the US president-elect as being “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” as old news.
You can read Andrew’s full post on Lammy here.
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Trump loyalist Kash Patel in contention to be named FBI director
Donald Trump is keeping his controversial adviser Kash Patel in the running to be the next FBI director, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the transition team conducted interviews for the role on Monday night at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club.
The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted post by the vice president-elect JD Vance, underscored the intent to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, years before his current term is up.
Vance revealed that he and Trump had been interviewing finalists for FBI director in a post responding to criticism he received for missing a Senate vote last night that confirmed one of Joe Biden’s nominees for the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit.
“When this 11th circuit vote happened, I was meeting President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI director,” Vance wrote.
Trump has a special interest in the FBI, having fired James Comey as director in 2017 over his refusal to close the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and then complaining about perceived disloyalty from Wray.
Patel’s continued position as a top candidate for the role makes clear Trump’s determination to install loyalists in key national security and law enforcement positions, as well as the support Patel has built up among key Trump allies.
The push for Patel – who has frequently railed against the “deep state” – has come from some of the longest-serving Trump advisers, notably those close to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, a faction that got Trump’s personal lawyers picked for top justice department roles.
That faction has also suggested to Trump in recent days that if Patel gets passed over for the director role, he should be given the deputy FBI director position, one of the people said – a powerful job that helps run the bureau day to day and is crucially not subject to Senate confirmation.
The Federal Reserve must not remove Wells Fargo’s $1.95tn asset cap until the bank has fixed its risk management and compliance issues, top Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren told the US central bank on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
In a letter to Fed chair, Jerome Powell, and the central bank’s regulatory chief, Michael Barr, Warren said the Fed must reject Wells Fargo reported appeal to have the punishment imposed in 2018 lifted until it “can show that it can properly manage the risks associated with running a large bank”.
Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and the Fed declined to comment on the letter, which was seen by Reuters, according to the news agency.
Bloomberg reported in September that Wells Fargo had sent a third-party review of its risk and control overhauls to the Fed in an attempt to end the unprecedented cap imposed after the bank’s long-running fake accounts scandal and other issues.
Republican president-elect Donald Trump is to overhaul bank regulation and slash burdensome rules, boosting analysts’ expectations that the cap could be removed as early as next year and alarming many Democrats in favor of tough rules.
A prominent Wall Street critic and one-time presidential candidate, Warren will next year become the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. Long a thorn in Wells Fargo’s side, Warren cannot force the Fed’s hand but her letter can pressure it to take a tough line and highlight the bank’s missteps, reports Reuters.
Warren pointed to a number of regulatory actions against Wells Fargo since 2018, including in September when the Comptroller of the Currency dinged the bank for shortcomings in policing money laundering. The country’s fourth-largest lender is still grappling with a class action lawsuit over its diversity hiring practices, she also noted.
Wells Fargo CEO, Charlie Scharf, has repeatedly said upgrading the bank’s risk and control framework has been a top priority, and the bank has convinced regulators to terminate six regulatory consent orders since 2019.
In response to Warren’s request at a 2018 hearing, Powell committed that the Fed would put any decision to lift the asset cap to a vote of its board of governors. On Wednesday, Warren reminded him of that promise and called on the Fed to make public any third-party review Wells submitted as part of its bid to lift the cap.
US president-elect Donald Trump will name who he has picked to be Treasury secretary as soon as Wednesday, Reuters reports, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
No one has been has been chosen yet for the role, CNN also reported.
You can take a look at the people who have been and still could be offered key positions when Trump takes office via this explainer:
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Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, says Australia is “ready” for a second Trump presidency.
In a speech to the Sydney International Strategy Forum via video link, Rudd said “the team here at the embassy and the government of Australia are ready to work closely with the new Trump administration to continue to realise the benefits of what is a very strong economic and security partnership”.
You can listen to his comments here:
Russia on Wednesday accused the US of prolonging the “war in Ukraine” by stepping up weapons deliveries to Kyiv ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Both Moscow and Kyiv are jockeying to secure an upper hand on the battlefield before Trump assumes office in January 2025.
The Republican has repeatedly criticised US support for Ukraine and claimed he could secure a ceasefire within hours – comments that have triggered fears in Kyiv and Europe about Ukraine’s ability to withstand the Russian attacks without US support.
Moscow has significantly escalated its aerial campaign this week, launching multiple deadly missile strikes and targeting Ukraine’s energy grid. Ukraine meanwhile has fired long-range US-supplied Atacms missiles at Russian territory for the first time since the White House authorised such strikes, drawing scorn and promises of retribution in Moscow, reports AFP.
“If you look at the trends of the outgoing US administration, they are fully committed to continuing the war in Ukraine and are doing everything they can to do so,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
According to AFP, Peskov was responding to the US saying it would soon provide Ukraine with antipersonnel landmines.
House ethics committee to vote on publication of Matt Gaetz report
The House ethics committee is expected to meet on Wednesday to vote on releasing a report examining allegations of sexual misconduct against former Republican representative Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the US justice department.
The panel has previously said it was investigating claims that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift”.
The justice department launched its own inquiry into accusations that Gaetz engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, but the department closed its investigation last year without filing charges. Gaetz has consistently denied the allegations.
Two women testified to congressional investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex and that he was seen having sex with the 17-year-old, a lawyer for the women has said.
As the ethics committee is evenly split between the two parties, it would take only one Republican siding with every Democrat on the panel to have the report released. But prominent Republicans, including House speaker Mike Johnson, have cautioned against releasing the report on Gaetz, who resigned his seat immediately after Trump announced his nomination as attorney general.
“I think that would be a Pandora’s box,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “I don’t think we want the House ethics committee using all of its vast resources and powers to go after private citizens, and that’s what Matt Gaetz is now.”
But other Republicans, including Senator Markwayne Mullin, have suggested the report should be at least made available to the senators who will vote on confirming Gaetz’s nomination.
“I believe the Senate should have access to that,” Mullin told NBC News on Sunday. “Now, should it be released to the public or not? I guess that will be part of the negotiations. But that should be definitely part of our decision-making.”
Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for more than a decade and leaning heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency that operates on a $2.6tn annual budget and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people.
“I am honored to be nominated by [Donald Trump] to lead CMS,” Oz posted on X on Tuesday. “I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”
In the announcement of Oz’s selection, Trump said that Oz will “make America healthy again” and described him as “an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades”.
Oz has been on US television screens for nearly 20 years, first appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2004. In that time, he’s talked to his audience about losing weight with fad diets and what it takes to have healthy poops and, toward the end of his run, touting hydroxychloroquine as a potential remedy for Covid-19.
You can see the full explainer on what to know about the New York University professor and surgeon turned television show host, and now Trump appointee, at this link:
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In case you missed it, here is our news article on Donald Trump picking the former WWE executive, Linda McMahon, for education secretary:
Here’s some more from the Associated Press’s education writer, Annie Ma, on some of the Department of Education’s key functions, and how Donald Trump has said he might approach them:
Student loans and financial aid
The education department manages approximately $1.5tn in student loan debt for more than 40 million borrowers. It also oversees the Pell grant, which provides aid to students below a certain income threshold, and administers the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which universities use to allocate financial aid.
The Biden administration has made cancellation of student loans a signature effort of the department’s work. Since Joe Biden’s initial attempt to cancel student loans was overturned by the supreme court, the administration has forgiven over $175bn for more than 4.8 million borrowers through a range of changes to programs it administers, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
The loan forgiveness efforts have faced Republican pushback, including litigation from several GOP-led states.
Trump has criticized Biden’s efforts to cancel debt as illegal and unfair, calling it a “total catastrophe” that “taunted young people.” Trump’s plan for student debt is uncertain: He has not put out detailed plans.
Civil rights enforcement
Through its Office for Civil Rights, the education department conducts investigations and issues guidance on how civil rights laws should be applied, such as for LGBTQ+ students and students of color. The office also oversees a large data collection project that tracks disparities in resources, course access and discipline for students of different racial and socioeconomic groups.
Trump has suggested a different interpretation of the office’s civil rights role. In his campaign platform, he said he would pursue civil rights cases to “stop schools from discriminating on the basis of race.” He has described diversity and equity policies in education as “explicit unlawful discrimination” and said colleges that use them will pay fines and have their endowments taxed.
Trump also has pledged to exclude transgender students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms. Originally passed in 1972, Title IX was first used as a women’s rights law. This year, Biden’s administration said the law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, but Trump can undo that.
College accreditation
While the education department does not directly accredit colleges and universities, it oversees the system by reviewing all federally recognized accrediting agencies. Institutions of higher education must be accredited to gain access to federal money for student financial aid.
Accreditation came under scrutiny from conservatives in 2022, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools questioned political interference at Florida public colleges and universities. Trump has said he would fire “radical left accreditors” and take applications for new accreditors that would uphold standards including “defending the American tradition” and removing “Marxist” diversity administrators.
Although the education secretary has the authority to terminate its relationship with individual accrediting agencies, it is an arduous process that has rarely been pursued. Under president Barack Obama, the department took steps to cancel accreditors for a now defunct for-profit college chain, but the Trump administration blocked the move. The group, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, was terminated by the Biden administration in 2022.
Money for schools
Much of the education department’s money for K-12 schools goes through large federal programs, such as Title I for low-income schools and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Those programs support services for students with disabilities, lower class sizes with additional teaching positions, and pay for social workers and other non-teaching roles in schools.
During his campaign, Trump called for shifting those functions to the states. He has not offered details on how the agency’s core functions of sending federal money to local districts and schools would be handled.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a sweeping proposal outlining a far-right vision for the country that overlaps in areas with Trump’s campaign, offers a blueprint. It suggests sending oversight of programs for kids with disabilities and low-income children first to the Department of Health and Human Services, before eventually phasing out the funding and converting it to no-strings-attached grants to states.
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Trump has called for dismantling the education department: Here's what that would mean
Throughout his campaign, president-elect Donald Trump heaped scorn on the federal Department of Education, describing it as being infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists.”
He has picked Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive, to lead the department. But like many conservative politicians before him, Trump has called for dismantling the department altogether – a cumbersome task that likely would require action from Congress.
The Associated Press has this short explainer on what that would mean:
The agency’s main role is financial. Annually, it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools and manages the federal student loan portfolio. Closing the department would mean redistributing each of those duties to another agency. The education department also plays an important regulatory role in services for students, ranging from those with disabilities to low-income and homeless kids.
Indeed, federal education money is central to Trump’s plans for colleges and schools. Trump has vowed to cut off federal money for schools and colleges that push “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content” and to reward states and schools that end teacher tenure and enact universal school choice programs.
Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets – roughly 14%. Colleges and universities are more reliant on it, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
National Education Association says nominating McMahon as education secretary shows Trump 'could not care less about our students' futures'
The president of the National Education Association (NEA) said that the president-elect’s decision to name Linda McMahon as his pick for education secretary in his upcoming administration, shows “that he could not care less about our students’ futures”.
In a statement released on Tuesday after Donald Trump’s announcement, Becky Pringle criticised the naming of McMahon, the billionaire co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and called on the Senate to reject “Trump’s unqualified nominee”. She warned that “McMahon’s only mission is to eliminate the Department of Education and take away taxpayer dollars from public schools”.
Pringle wrote:
Every student – no matter where they live, how much their family earns, or the color of their skin – deserves the opportunity, resources, and support they need to grow into their full brilliance. In every community across this country parents and educators are partners in this effort.
By selecting Linda McMahon, Donald Trump is showing that he could not care less about our students’ futures. Rather than working to strengthen public schools, expand learning opportunities for students, and support educators, McMahon’s only mission is to eliminate the Department of Education and take away taxpayer dollars from public schools, where 90% of students – and 95% of students with disabilities – learn, and give them to unaccountable and discriminatory private schools.
During his first term, Donald Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to undermine and ultimately privatize public schools through vouchers. Now, he and Linda McMahon are back at it with their extreme Project 2025 proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, steal resources for our most vulnerable students, increase class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for disabled students, and put student civil rights protections at risk.
She added:
Parents and educators will stand together to support students and reject the harmful, outlandish, and insulting policies being pushed by the Trump administration. They will make their voices heard, just as they did by resoundingly defeating vouchers in states like Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska.
The Department of education plays such a critical role in the success of each and every student in this country.
The Senate must stand up for our students and reject Donald Trump’s unqualified nominee, Linda McMahon. Our students and our nation deserve so much better than Betsy DeVos 2.0.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Trump extolled the “incredible” job McMahon has been doing as transition team co-chair and said:
As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families. … We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments
Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for more than a decade and leaning heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency that operates on a $2.6tn annual budget and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people.
Trump is keeping his controversial adviser Kash Patel in the running to be the next FBI director, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the transition team conducted interviews for the role on Monday night at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club. The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted post by the vice president-elect JD Vance, underscored the intent to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, years before his current term is up.
Russia on Wednesday accused the US of prolonging the “war in Ukraine” by stepping up weapons deliveries to Kyiv ahead of Trump’s return to the White House. Both Moscow and Kyiv are jockeying to secure an upper hand on the battlefield ahead of Trump assuming office in January 2025.
Women’s health advocates in Africa are worried that Trump will again invoke the so-called global gag rule, a policy that cuts off US government funding for groups that offer abortion-related services. The gag rule has been imposed by all Republican presidents since 1984. In 2017, Trump expanded it, cutting foreign NGOs off not only from family planning money, but from broader US global health assistance covering malaria and tuberculosis prevention, water and sanitation, and the distribution of health information.
Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, says Australia is ‘ready’ for a second Trump presidency. In a speech to the Sydney International Strategy Forum via video link, Rudd said: “The team here at the embassy and the government of Australia are ready to work closely with the new Trump administration to continue to realise the benefits of what is a very strong economic and security partnership.”
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