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Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
Donald Trump nominated Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department. If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.
Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr as US secretary of health and human services prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.
Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.
Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.
The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Social media platform Bluesky picked up more than 1 million new members on Thursday, continuing a surge to the platform as former X users leave the platform. Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.
Trump announced Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.
Trump announced his former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”
Trump named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
As Donald Trump secured victory in the US presidential election, an unexpected phenomenon began trending on social media: young American women declaring their commitment to “4B”, a fringe South Korean feminist movement advocating the rejection of marriage, childbirth, dating and sex.
The movement has sparked intense global interest, with millions of views on TikTok and viral X posts heralding it as a women’s rights revolution.
Yet within South Korea itself, the picture is more complex and in some places the feminist movement is under attack.
“I had never heard of 4B until recently”, says Lee Min-ji, an office worker in Seoul who was surprised at all the international attention. “I understand where all the anger comes from, but I don’t think avoiding all relationships with men is the solution”.
Park So-yeon, a publishing professional in Seoul, says she does not date because she is prioritising her professional life.
“Like me, most of my female friends are more focused on their careers than dating right now, but that’s not because of 4B, it’s just the reality of being a young professional in Korea,” she says.
Democrat Janelle Bynum flips seat to become Oregon’s first Black member of Congress
Janelle Bynum will serve as Oregon’s first Black member of Congress after the Democrat flipped a US House seat from the Republicans.
Bynum, a state representative who was backed and supported by national Democrats, ousted Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer. The win was a boost for Democrats who won back the seat after Republicans flipped it red for the first time in roughly 25 years during the 2022 midterms.
“It’s not lost on me that I am one generation removed from segregation. It’s not lost on me that we’re making history. And I am proud to be the first, but not the last, Black member of Congress in Oregon,” Bynum said at a press conference last Friday.
“But it took all of us working together to flip this seat, and we delivered a win for Oregon. We believed in a vision and we didn’t take our feet off the gas until we accomplished our goals.”
Updated
Here are the best, worst and weirdest graphics from the US election:
Bluesky social media platform picks up a million users as people quit X
Social media platform Bluesky picked up more than 1 million new members on Thursday, continuing a surge to the platform as former X users escape misinformation and offensive posts.
Including Thursday’s arrivals, Bluesky has seen an influx of 2.5m new accounts in the wake of the US election to reach more than 16 million users worldwide, the platform said.
Bluesky has also overtaken Meta’s Threads to reach number one in Apple’s app store and enjoyed its “highest traffic day ever” on Thursday, according to Bluesky developer Daniel Holmgren.
The site suffered a brief outage on Thursday, with some users reporting significant delays when trying to load feeds and notifications. Spokesperson Emily Liu said the outage was the result of an internet provider’s fiber cable being cut and not related to the surging demand, which Bluesky’s team was “prepared to meet”.
Social media researcher Axel Bruns told the Guardian earlier this week the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.
“It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else,” he said.
You can read more about Bluesky here:
Donald Trump has wasted no time in assembling his incoming cabinet, issuing a flurry of nominations this week that – in some cases – have further heightened fears that his return to the White House will lead to an extremist agenda.
The roster of names has inevitably drawn comparisons with Trump’s 2016 victory, when he was reported to have devoted relatively little attention to a transition effort. Back then, his picks were described as “conventional” and the incoming cabinet was said have been broadly in line with that of a traditional Republican.
Eight years on and the shape of the Trump 2.0 White House so far has spurred serious concerns about public health and reproductive rights, and left military leaders “stunned” and former intelligence experts “appalled”.
Some senators have already expressed doubt that some of Trump’s nominees will garner sufficient votes to be confirmed – even in the Republican-majority chamber which holds the power to deny his appointments.
So how do Trump’s cabinet nominees in 2024 compare with those he made in 2016?
Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.
As Trump prepares to address conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Musk, the world’s richest man, has been assisting in discussions with foreign officials, establishing himself as the country’s most influential civilian come January.
Earlier this month, Musk reportedly made a guest appearance on a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink.
“He’s now engaging the Iranians,” said Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, about Musk. “And the Iranians have not engaged Americans in direct negotiations since before Trump left the nuclear deal, so this could be a very big deal.”
California’s Democratic representative Robert Garcia called the nomination “fucking insane”, writing on X: “He’s a vaccine denier and a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist. He will destroy our public health infrastructure and our vaccine distribution systems. This is going to cost lives.”
Alastair McAlpine, a pediatric physician at British Columbia’s children’s hospital, wrote: “It is hard to overstate what a terrible decision this is. RFK Jr has no medical training. He is a hardcore anti-vaccine and misinformation peddler. The last time he meddled in a state’s medical affairs (Samoa), 83 children died of measles.”
The conservative pundit and lawyer George Conway also commented on Kenedy’s nomination, along with that of Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz.
“Very little of what Trump does these days amazes me. Any one of the last three of Trump’s Cabinet-level picks (Gabbard as DNI, Gaetz as AG, RFK Jr for HHS), standing alone, would arguably have been the worst in American history. The fact that Trump made all three in a span of roughly 24 hours is astonishing,” Conway wrote.
Picking RFK Jr as health secretary is 'courting catastrophe', says rights group
Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump claimed that Americans have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies” and that Kennedy will “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
In response to Kennedy’s nomination, Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit organization focusing on consumer advocacy, said: “Robert F Kennedy Jr is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health. He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the department of health and human services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.”
“Donald Trump’s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe,” the organization added.
Apu Akkad, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, called the announcement a “scary day for public health”.
Updated
More now on Robert F Kennedy Junior, Trump’s nominee to oversee key US health agencies:
Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vaccine group he led until becoming a presidential candidate, flooded American Samoa with vaccine misinformation ahead of a devastating measles outbreak there in 2019.
The position to lead the US health department needs Senate approval. If approved, experts say vaccines will be “the first issue on the table”.
Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said even if public policies remain unchanged, should authorities with the imprimatur of the federal government speak out against vaccines, “that discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated, and at that point that’s as bad as not having a vaccine at all”.
The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report that found fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, and under half had received flu shots.
Childhood vaccinations have also dipped since the pandemic. Vaccination hesitancy and misinformation were both cited as major reasons by researchers.
“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis [whooping cough], measles,” said Osterholm. “We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades.”
RFK Jr has also recommended removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments.
Trump to nominate Dean John Sauer as solicitor general
Trump has announced another pick for his administration: Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.
From the New York Times: “As Missouri’s solicitor general, Mr Sauer took part in a last-ditch effort to keep Mr. Trump in power after his defeat in the 2020 election, filing a motion on behalf of his state and five others in support of an attempt by Texas to have the supreme court toss out the results of the vote count in several key swing states.
“He also joined in an unsuccessful bid with Texas in asking the supreme court to stop the Biden administration from rescinding a Trump-era immigration program that forces certain asylum seekers arriving at the southern border to await approval in Mexico.”
In a statement, Trump said:
I am pleased to announce that Dean John Sauer will serve as Solicitor General of the United States in my Administration. John is a deeply accomplished, masterful appellate attorney, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in the United States Supreme Court, served as Solicitor General of Missouri for six years, and has extensive experience practicing before the US Supreme Court and other Appellate Courts.
Most recently, John was the lead counsel representing me in the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, winning a Historic Victory on Presidential Immunity, which was key to defeating the unConstitutional campaign of Lawfare against me and the entire MAGA Movement. John was a Rhodes Scholar, graduated from Duke University, Oxford University and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Law School. John will be a great Champion for us as we Make America Great Again!
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Trump nominates former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary for Veterans Affairs
Trump is announcing another flurry of names for his administration, including in a statement sent out minutes ago, former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”
Trump’s statement reads:
I am pleased to announce my intent to nominate former Congressman Doug Collins, of Georgia, as The United States Secretary for Veterans Affairs (VA). Doug is a Veteran himself, who currently serves our Nation as a Chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command, and fought for our Country in the Iraq War. We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need. Thank you, Doug, for your willingness to serve our Country in this very important role!
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Trump names his own attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general
Donald Trump has named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
In a statement, the president-elect said:
I am pleased to announce that Todd Blanche will serve as Deputy Attorney General in my Administration. Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long. Todd prosecuted gangs and other federal crimes as a Chief in the Southern District of New York United States Attorney’s Office, clerked for two Federal Judges, and graduated with Honors from law school, while working full time at the SDNY. Todd is going to do a great job as we, Make America Great Again.
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Today so far
Donald Trump has continued to nominate loyalists with dubious qualifications to his upcoming administration. The most significant nomination of the day of of Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department.
If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.
Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.
Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.
The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Updated
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.
In a new X post on Thursday that doubled as a job announcement and another one of Musk’s trolling attempts, the account for the newly formed Doge wrote: “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”
The name of the department, which is not part of the federal government, harkens back to a meme of an expressive shiba inu dog.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants,” the statement added.
In a separate post, Musk chimed in on the callout, saying: “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero.”
“What a great deal!” Musk, the richest man in the world, wrote with a laughing emoji. He has promised to reduce federal bureaucracy by a third and cut $2tn from US government spending, an endeavor he said “necessarily involves some temporary hardship”.
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Donald Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York.
The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
“I am pleased to announce that Jay Clayton, of New York, the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during my first term, where he did an incredible job, is hereby nominated to be the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social.
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Kennedy had attempted to win the White House himself during the 2024 presidential election but his bid never took off in the polls. After ending his attempt, he eventually endorsed Trump, who promised to put him into an influential position when it comes to health policy.
Kennedy became one of Trump’s top surrogates, which came as a surprise to some observers as he is the scion of a famous Democratic dynasty and has had a long history of environmental activism often in causes which Trump will likely do great damage to.
However, Kennedy has also become well-known for his anti-vaccine beliefs and embrace of other conspiracy theories around health and wellness issues.
His campaign was marked by at times bizarre scandals that ranged from part of his brain had been eaten by a worm to admitting to staging a dead bear corpse in Central Park as the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
Kennedy’s nomination to Trump’s government is likely to boost already strong fears that he is keen on appointing extremists and loyalists to his administration rather than experts and technocrats. It follows on jobs for hard-right Stephen Miller on the issue of immigration, Fox News star Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense and scandal-plagued Maga loyalist Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
Who is RFK Jr, Trump's nominee to lead health and human services?
The man that Donald Trump has nominated to oversee key US health agencies rose to national prominence as one of the most persistent and influential vaccine deniers in the country.
Kennedy, 70, backed Trump after ending his own third-party bid for president. He is the son of the former attorney general and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and the nephew of president John F Kennedy.
Trained as an environmental lawyer, RFK Jr gained notoriety for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning scientific research – often positioning himself as someone who is better qualified than scientists to understand diseases and epidemiology.
He had amplified unfounded claims that vaccines are linked to autism in children, repeatedly questioned whether HIV causes Aids (it does) and falsely linked certain antidepressants to a rise in school shootings and the use of a certain herbicide to a rise in young people coming out as transgender.
A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was one of the top two funders of anti-vaccine ads on Facebook. In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named him as one of the top 12 spreaders of online misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.
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Senator-elect Jim Banks was asked on CNN whether he was concerned by RFK JR’s appointment based on his history of false claims on vaccines.
Banks, who will represent Indiana, replied: “Donald Trump won the popular vote.”
He added: “Mandatory vaccines is a topic that a lot of American voters want us to tackle”.
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Republican senator Bill Cassidy, the incoming chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, has welcomed RFK Jr’s appointment.
Cassidy, who represents Louisiana, has previously criticized Trump on issues such as his anti-migrant rhetoric. But in comments reported by Punchbowl News, Cassidy said today: “RFK Jr has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure. I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda.”
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FactCheck.org put together a sweeping article summarizing some of RFK Jr’s most harmful lies last year.
Here the site looked at the real-life consequences of Kennedy’s misinformation in American Samoa, which experienced a devastating measles outbreak in 2019:
In 2018, two infants in American Samoa died when nurses accidentally prepared the combined measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine with expired muscle relaxant rather than water. The Samoan government temporarily suspended the vaccination program, and anti-vaccine advocates — including Kennedy and his nonprofit — flooded the area with misinformation. The vaccination rate dropped to a dangerously low level. The next year, when a traveler brought measles to the islands, the disease tore through the population, sickening more than 5,700 people and killing 83, most of them young children.
Currently, the CDC makes recommendations about which vaccines people should get and when, including for children.
The CDC works in tandem with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approves vaccines.
Project 2025, the conservative playbook written in part by Trump’s former director of the office of civil rights at HHS, proposes limiting the CDC’s ability to make policy recommendations, such as producing vaccine schedules.
“Their notion was: ‘Let the parents and doctors decide’ – the notion being that the parents and doctors are just as informed as the people sitting around making those decisions,” said Dr Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
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If RFK Jr is approved to head the health department, “the first issue on the table is vaccines,” said Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Even without changing public policy, Osterholm said, if authorities with the imprimatur of the federal government speak out against vaccines, “that discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated, and at that point that’s as bad as not having a vaccine at all”.
The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week, the CDC released a report that found fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, and fewer than half had received flu shots.
Childhood vaccinations have also dipped since the pandemic. In the US, for children born in 2020-21, the rates of children younger than two who had received all their vaccinations fell as the percentage who had received none grew. The largest declines were for children who received both flu shots (-7.8%). Vaccination hesitancy and misinformation both were cited as major reasons by researchers.
“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis, measles,” said Osterholm. “We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades and with that many additional severe illnesses in hospitals and deaths – and that’s just from the rhetoric, not even withdrawing vaccines.”
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Donald Trump nominates RFK Jr to lead health department
The president-elect announced:
I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health.
Kennedy has himself been one of the biggest disseminators of disinformation on the efficacy of vaccines and other health information. A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was one of two groups funding the majority of Facebook ads spreading misinformation about vaccines.
Health and Human Services oversees crucial health-related agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Centrist Democratic coalition urges 'laser focus' on economy
Congresswoman Annie Kuster, chair of the centrist New Dems coalition, said a “common sense” message “laser focused” on voters’ concerns about the economy, public safety and border security helped fellow Democrats defy an anti-incumbent backlash that locked their party out of power in Washington.
“The New Dem message and approach to politics works in red, blue, purple, urban, suburban, coastal and rural districts alike,” Kuster said. “And as a result, we have effectively denied House Republicans a realistic governing majority.”
Kuster said New Dem-backed candidates flipped six seats – “the only ideological caucus to do so,” she noted, in a subtle jab at the progressive caucus – and defended 20 members in competitive re-election races.
Among them was Congressman Josh Harder, a California Democrat who held onto his seat in a district Donald Trump won,
“I significantly over-performed the top-of-ticket by focusing on the cost of living, on public safety and the values that really bring New Dems together,” he told reporters on Thursday.
As the party begins a period of post-election soul-searching, Harder said New Dems success offers a path out of the political wilderness.
“Hopefully over the next two years, you will see the New Dems as a larger driver of that national Democratic brand, especially in these competitive battleground seats,” he said. “So hopefully the baton is passed.”
Last week’s presidential election was not just a victory for Donald Trump, but also for the broader movement against vaccines and the US public health establishment that has intensified since the Covid-19 pandemic. Robert F Kennedy Jr is a leading figure in that movement, and could become more prominent than ever, if Trump indeed nominates him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Jessica Glenza:
Donald Trump will be propelled to the White House for a second term amid concerns about inflation kicked off by the pandemic, with a leading vaccine skeptic – Robert F Kennedy Jr – at his side, and proposals from conservative supporters to fundamentally restructure public health agencies central to pandemic-era ire.
Covid-19 was never seen as the central issue of the 2024 presidential campaign season, but in the first post-pandemic presidential election, it reverberated as the anti-vaccine movement ascended to its greatest political heights ever.
Even in his Wednesday morning acceptance speech, Trump alluded to changes he expects as his administration comes into focus.
The vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr. is “going to help make America healthy again”, Trump told supporters, before adding: “We’re going to let him go to it.”
Dr Howard Markel, a historian of medicine at the University of Michigan who has studied pandemics, said he was struck by widespread anger, and called the election’s theme “the ghost of pandemic future”.
“Did you ever think,” Markel said he remarked to colleagues, “when you were doing all this hard work and staying up all night that not like 1% or 10%, but like 50% of the country would be saying you destroyed their life and kept them inside, out of harm’s way, during the pandemic?”
Shortly before the presidential election, the co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick downplayed the possibility of Robert F Kennedy being appointed the head of the US health department.
Kennedy is “not getting a job for (the Department of Health and Human Services),” Lutnick told CNN.
However, Trump made clear he would like Kennedy to play some role in his administration. Both men spoke at a campaign event in Phoenix’s suburbs, where Trump said he wanted Kennedy to “take care of health” if he won the election – which he did, days later. Here’s more:
Trump expected to nominate Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead health department - report
Politico reports that Donald Trump may name Robert F Kennedy Jr as his nominee to leader the Department of Health and Human Services.
The pick must be confirmed by the Senate, and may spark controversy among Trump’s Republican allies, given Kennedy’s denial of the efficacy of vaccines, and promotion of various conspiracy theories.
Kennedy mounted an independent bid for the presidency, then suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Trump. He appeared as a surrogate on the campaign trail for Trump, encouraging voters to “make America healthy again” by returning the former president to the White House.
Trump mulling Sebastian Gorka, Michael Anton for top national security job – report
A couple more names have emerged as candidates for top jobs in the second Trump administration. Politico reports that Sebastian Gorka and Michael Anton are both in the running to be deputy national security advisor.
Donald Trump this week nominated congressman Mike Waltz as national security adviser. Both that position and the deputy role do not require Senate confirmation, but there are reasons to think that some of Trump’s allies may object to Anton and Gorka joining his administration. Here’s more, from Politico:
Anton, who worked as a speechwriter for high-profile clients like Rupert Murdoch, Rudy Giuliani and Condoleezza Rice before joining the Trump administration in 2017 as deputy assistant to the president for strategic communications, has pushed anti-Islamic views, criticized the Black Lives Matter movement and peddled conspiracy theories, penning an essay before the 2020 election suggesting that billionaire George Soros and the Democratic Party were planning a coup.
Gorka, an ally of Steve Bannon who was also named a deputy assistant to Trump in early 2017, has called violence a “fundamental” part of the Islamic faith and once worked as an adviser to Viktor Orbán. He was criticized within the administration for showing up at random meetings and raising unrelated points, Politico has reported. Gorka’s academic credentials have raised eyebrows among scholars.
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Democratic-led states across the country are gearing up to fight Donald Trump’s plans to carry out mass deportations, once he returns to the White House. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Sam Levin:
California, home to the largest immigrant population in the US, is bracing for Donald Trump’s plan to enact the “largest deportation operation in American history”, with advocates pushing state leaders to find new and creative ways to disrupt his agenda.
The Golden state led the fight against Trump’s first term, shielding many non-citizen residents from removal by restricting local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But the threat this time, immigrant rights groups say, is more extreme, and blue states across the US are facing pressure to mount an aggressive, multipronged response.
“Communities that will be involved in mutual aid and self-defense are prepared,” said Chris Newman, general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a California-based group that supports immigrants. “I think many lawmakers, frankly, are not. They were primarily focused on supporting Kamala Harris, and people’s hope for the best got in the way of their preparation for the worst.”
Senator Susan Collins, a top target of Democrats, plans re-election bid in Maine - report
The GOP is expected to start the next Congress with a majority of 53 seats in the Senate, one that Democrats will need to chip away at beginning in the 2026 midterms to take back control.
And there’s no senator they will want to remove more than Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who has represented the Democratic-leaning state since 1997 and turned back several attempts by the party’s nominees to oust her.
The Washington Examiner reports that Collins plans to run again:
“It’s my plan,” she told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday.
“I’m focused on the appropriations process, not elections right now, but my intention is to run,” she added.
Expect a battle royale in Maine’s Senate race in two year’s time.
Trump says no administration job for JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said he is not planning to offer JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon a role in his incoming administration:
I respect Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, greatly, but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration. I thank Jamie for his outstanding service to our Country!
Last month, Trump implied that Dimon had endorsed him, but the CEO said that was not true:
Alina Habba, an attorney for Donald Trump during his business fraud trial in New York, said she was not interested in serving as his press secretary.
Her name has been mentioned for the role tasked with briefing reporters at the White House and guiding the president’s interactions with the media. On X, Habba wrote:
While I am flattered by the support and speculation, the role of Press Secretary is not a role I am considering. Although I love screaming from a podium I will be better served in other capacities. This adminstration is going to be epic! So proud of the Trump team, the latest appointments and 47!
Politico reports that the chair of the House ethics committee, Republican congressman Michael Guest, has signaled their report into Matt Gaetz will not be released now that he has departed Congress.
“What happens in Ethics is confidential. We’re going to maintain that confidentiality,” Guest said.
The Mississippi lawmaker replied, “I’ve got no further comment,” when asked if he could release the document even with Gaetz no longer a sitting lawmaker.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) has called on the House Ethics committee to release its report examining allegations of sexual misconduct by Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz.
The committee must publicly release the investigative report and findings from its investigation into whether the former congressman engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor child and obstructed investigations into his conduct, according to a letter sent to the committee today.
“The allegations against Gaetz under investigation by the Ethics Committee would represent a significant breach of public trust. They include not only allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor, but also the acceptance of improper gifts and the giving of special favors to people he had a personal relationship with,” Crew chief counsel Donald Sherman said.
“The public has a right to know what the Committee’s investigation turned up, especially given Gaetz’s resignation in a potential attempt to block its release.”
Donald Trump’s transition team plans to kill the $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle (EV) purchases as part of broader tax-reform legislation, according to a report.
Representatives of Tesla, the US’s largest EV seller, have told a Trump-transition committee they support ending the subsidy, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
The subsidy has been a signature measure of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and ending the tax credit could have grave implications for an already stalling EV transition in the country.
Trump repeatedly pledged to end Biden’s “EV mandate” on the campaign trail, without spelling out specific targeted policies.
The trade group the Alliance for Automotive Innovation urged Congress last month to retain the EV tax credits, calling them “critical to cementing the US as a global leader in the future of automotive technology and manufacturing.”
The House clerk read a letter of resignation from former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz on the House floor shortly after noon today.
In the letter to the House speaker, Mike Johnson, Gaetz said he was resigning “effective immediately” and that he will not take the oath of office in the new Congress in January.
“I hereby resign as a United States representative for Florida’s first congressional district, effective immediately,” Gaetz wrote.
“And I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump administration.”
The whole number of the House is now 433.
After the 2020 election, a group of 84 people in seven states signed false documents claiming to be electors for Donald Trump.
This year, despite the fact that four states have brought criminal charges against the fake electors, 14 of them will now serve as real electors for the president-elect.
The 14 once-fake-and-now-real electors were selected by state Republican parties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada. They will meet in their state capitols on 17 December to cast their ballots for Trump.
Prosecutors in many of the states where fake electors signed false documents are moving forward with charges, as the federal charges against Trump for election subversion and other alleged crimes are up in the air after his re-election.
Five of the seven states pursued charges related to the issue. Authorities in New Mexico and Pennsylvania did not pursue charges because the documents the false electors there used hedged language that attorneys said would likely spare them from criminal charges.
The fake electors in some instances are high-profile Republicans: people in elected office, in official party roles, prominent members of external conservative groups.
Lindsey Graham the Republican South Carolina senator, has said he will support Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet positions.
In a statement posted to X, Graham said he respected the fact that “elections have consequences” and that the American people “have spoken loudly, and President Trump won decisively.”
“Generally speaking, I vote for confirmation regardless of party or personal feelings because that is my Constitutional role as a Senator. I will do the same for President Trump’s nominees,” Graham wrote.
The day so far
Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated yesterday to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed. Meanwhile, Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated yesterday as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.
The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Updated
In a sign of the dynamics around Matt Gaetz’s Senate confirmation, CBS News reports that there’s a sense among Republican lawmakers that their job is to do what Donald Trump wants, and thus the ex-congressman’s nomination must be taken seriously:
What I’m hearing privately from a few key GOP senators: yes, they’d prefer to not have a messy fight over Gaetz. Not their favorite. But they also don’t have a lot of energy for pushing back. Trump runs the show, they say. If Gaetz can reassure them, they’re open to backing him.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 14, 2024
Expect to hear plenty more from senators in the weeks to come, as they learn more about Gaetz. Whether the House ethics committee report into his alleged sexual misconduct and drug use becomes available to them will be a big part of this.
House Democrat plans resolution clarifying term limits after Trump re-election remark - report
A Democratic congressman plans to introduce a resolution clarifying that presidents may only serve two terms, even if they are nonconsecutive, after Donald Trump yesterday appeared to joke about seeking re-election, the New York Times reports.
Trump is generally believed to be ineligible to stand for re-election in 2028, because he already served one term as president, from 2017 to 2021. But after Trump’s comment yesterday during a meeting with House Republicans, New York Democratic congressman Dan Goldman will introduce a resolution to clarify that he is term limited.
Here’s more, from the Times:
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’ ” Mr. Trump told Republicans, who appeared to take it as a joke.
One Democrat is moving quickly to make sure that cannot happen. Representative Dan Goldman of New York plans on Thursday to introduce a resolution clarifying that the Constitution’s two-term limit for presidents applies even if the terms are not consecutive. It asserts that the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which states that a person who has been elected president twice cannot run again, “applies to two terms in the aggregate” and leaves no loophole.
…
Mr. Goldman’s resolution, which was obtained by The New York Times, also reaffirms that the 22nd Amendment applies to Mr. Trump.
There is little chance that Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, would bring such a resolution to the floor for a vote.
But Mr. Goldman’s resolution is an early indication of how Democrats may try to hold Mr. Trump accountable and defend democratic institutions with Republicans headed toward full control of Congress and few guardrails remaining to rein him in. Introducing the measure allows Mr. Goldman to draw public attention to Mr. Trump’s statements, which he calls “anti-democratic and authoritarian.”
Mr. Trump’s comment on Wednesday was not the first time he has hinted that he might like to stay in the White House past his next term. In July, he told attendees of a conservative Christian event that they “won’t have to vote anymore” if he won the election, noting: “it’ll be fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”
Reuters reports that an attorney representing a woman who alleged that she was sex trafficked by Matt Gaetz has called for the public release of the House ethics committee investigation into the attorney general-nominee.
“Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” John Clune wrote on X.
Last year, Gaetz said that the justice department had closed its investigation into him, without bringing charges:
Lawyer for Trump threatened New York Times over critical coverage - report
Days before the presidential election, a lawyer for Donald Trump sent a letter to the New York Times demanding the paper pay $10b in damages over critical articles it had published about the former president, the Columbia Journalism Review reports.
The paper responded by saying it stood by its reporting, but the legal threat is a worrying sign of how Trump may deal with news outlets that run afoul of him once he takes office. While Trump frequently gives interviews to media outlets, he also routinely condemns those who write negative stories about him, as well as people who speak up against him.
Here’s more, from CJR, on his threat to the Times:
The letter, addressed to lawyers at the New York Times and Penguin Random House, arrived a week before the election. Attached was a discursive ten-page legal threat from an attorney for Donald Trump that demanded $10 billion in damages over “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner.
It singles out two stories coauthored by Buettner and Craig that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, released on September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 story headlined “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.”
“There was a time, long ago, when the New York Times was considered the ‘newspaper of record,’” the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by CJR, reads. “Those halcyon days have passed.” It accuses the Times of being “a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party” that employs “industrial-scale libel against political opponents.”
The letter is signed by the president-elect’s lawyer Edward Andrew Paltzik, who is—according to one online biography—based in Palm Beach, near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago headquarters. But its language often so closely resembles Trump’s as to be indistinguishable. It has not been previously reported, but came as part of a wave of other litigation from the former and future president that emerged around the same time.
The Times responded to the letter on October 31, referring Paltzik to Penguin Random House for claims against the book and stating that it stood by its reporting, according to a person familiar with the situation. A spokesperson for the Times declined to comment. A representative for PRH did not respond to a request for comment.
Senior Republican senator joins calls for sharing of Gaetz ethics report
John Cornyn, a long-serving Republican senator from Texas who came in second in yesterday’s election to lead his conference, also wants to see the House ethics committee report into Matt Gaetz, Reuters reports:
Cornyn told reporters “there should not be any limitation” on the Senate’s investigation as lawmakers consider whether they should confirm Gaetz to head the Justice Department, “including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated.”
When asked if that means he wants to see the ethics report, he replied: “Absolutely.”
The report investigating allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use by Gaetz was reportedly days away from being released, before the congressman resigned his seat yesterday after Trump nominated for the post of attorney general. It is now unclear if it will ever be made public.
Cornyn is the second senator today to call for the document to be shared with the chamber, which is tasked with confirming a president’s cabinet appointments. Dick Durbin, the Democratic chair of the judiciary committee, made a similar demand minutes ago.
CBS News reports that Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal says he knows of five to 10 of his Republican colleagues who will not vote to confirm Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
That would be enough to block the appointment, but weeks remain before the Senate will formally consider his appointment, and much could change between now and then.
Whether or not Matt Gaetz becomes the next attorney general will be decided by Senate Republicans, who will take the majority in the chamber next year.
But in the House, Fox News reports that speaker Mike Johnson said he had no problems with Trump choosing Gaetz, who resigned his seat in Congress yesterday after receiving the offer.
I think President Trump and Matt Gaetz have had a close relationship for a long time. He respects his legal acumen … I think they decided that together it has to do more with Trump’s administration timing than anything else …
It’s not my decision. It’s the president’s decision. But Matt’s a colleague, and he’s someone who’s worked really hard against the weaponization of government, the lawfare that’s happened at DOJ. He’d be an instant reformer if given the position, and I understand the pick.
Top Democrat on Senate judiciary committee calls for sharing of ethics report on Gaetz
Dick Durbin, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee, has called on the House ethics committee to share its report into Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general who resigned his seat in Congress yesterday.
The judiciary committee is tasked with holding hearings into nominees to lead the justice department, but Gaetz will only come before the body next year, when the GOP takes control of the Senate after winning a majority in last week’s elections.
In a statement, Durbin said:
In light of Donald Trump’s selection of former congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general, I am calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee. The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report. We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next attorney general of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.
Gaetz’s resignation from the House yesterday could prevent the ethics committee from releasing its investigation into sexual misconduct and drug use by Gaetz. Yesterday, Punchbowl News reported that it was expected to soon do so, before Gaetz resigned.
Nikki Haley says she has no interest in serving in Trump's cabinet
Nikki Haley was Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, and this year challenged him unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination.
After he won last week’s election, Trump announced that Haley would not be offered a post in his cabinet. On her SiriusXM radio show today, Haley offered a slightly different version of events – she told an advisor to the president-elect that she did not want a cabinet job:
I had no interest in being in his cabinet. He knew that. But to go a little further, his best friend, Steve Witkoff, came to our house in South Carolina, spoke to me and my husband, and basically wanted a truce between me and Donald Trump. And I told him at the time, there was no truce needed, that I had, that Trump had my support, there was no issue on my end. And at that point he was like, “What do you want? Tell me what you want. Is there anything you want?” And I said, “There’s nothing I want.” And there wasn’t anything I wanted.
…
And the truth is, I know the game he was playing. I don’t need to play that game. But more importantly, we have to look at the bigger picture. It is time to move on. It is time for us to focus on what America needs to do to be strong again, what America needs to do to be safe. The American people have spoken and spoken very loudly, and at this point, we should pray that President Trump does well. We should pray that everyone that he appoints does well. We should hope for the sake of our kids and generations to follow us, that all of this goes forward. So, you know, do I take it personally? No. That’s who he is. He can be shallow at times and I think he showed that. But I don’t have to be shallow. And at the end of the day, I’m very comfortable with where I am, and I’m comfortable with what happened.
Updated
Former national security adviser John Bolton calls for FBI to investigate Gaetz, Gabbard before confirmation
John Bolton, a former national security adviser under Donald Trump who has since fallen out with him, said the FBI should investigate both Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz before the Senate considers their nomination for cabinet posts.
Trump yesterday nominated Gaetz to serve as attorney general and Gabbard as director of national intelligence, drawing an outcry from Democrats and creating unease among Republicans. Gaetz, who immediately resigned his seat in the House, has been under investigation related to sexual misconduct and drug use, while Gabbard has been known for praising US adversaries like Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad.
In an interview with NewsNation, Bolton said:
I don’t think either she (Gabbard) or Matt Gaetz ought to have a confirmation hearing until they have both had full-field FBI investigation.
Given the Russian propaganda that she (Gabbard) has espoused … I think she’s a serious threat to our national security. I think Republican senators should reject both of them.
He was scathing about both Gabbard and Gaetz:
With his (Trump) announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, he’s sending a signal that we’ve lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence.
Up until a few hours ago, I would have said that (Gabbard) was the worst Cabinet appointment in recent American history. Since Matt Gaetz’s nomination (to be attorney general), he clearly has taken the lead on that score.
Updated
The Onion buys conspiracy theory site Infowars in bankruptcy auction
Satire pioneers The Onion have bought InfoWars, the conspiracy theory promoting website that owner Alex Jones was forced to put up for auction after declaring bankruptcy following a lawsuit from the families of those killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
The Onion announced the purchase in a typically sardonic column:
All told, the decision to acquire InfoWars was an easy one for the Global Tetrahedron executive board.
Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic “panic” and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses. With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.
Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society - values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.
There is a far more sober backstory to the purchase, which the New York Times delves into:
The Onion said that the bid was sanctioned by the families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Mr. Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence that was founded in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, will sponsor a relaunched version of the site under The Onion.
…
Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said in an interview that he was informed late Wednesday by the trustee in charge of the bankruptcy auction that The Onion’s bid had prevailed. The trustee was expected to inform Mr. Jones of the result of the auction on Thursday morning.
The Onion plans to relaunch Infowars in January as a parody of itself, he said, mocking “weird internet personalities” like Mr. Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements.
“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” Mr. Collins said. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.”
Here’s more on Jones’s bankruptcy:
Matt Gaetz is not the only objectionable nominee Donald Trump announced yesterday.
The president-elect also named former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as his nominee for director of national intelligence – which immediately set off alarm bells. She gained something of a reputation in Washington DC, after defending Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, even as his military stood accused of war crimes, and criticizing US allies like Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Among those concerned about Gabbard’s nomination was Democratic congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who is expected to soon launch a campaign for Virginia’s governor. Here’s what she had to say, on X:
As a former CIA case officer, I saw the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community put their lives on the line every day for this country — and I am appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead DNI.
Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin.
As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security. My Republican colleagues with a backbone should speak out.
Matt Gaetz was not known for passing much legislation in the House, but made a huge splash last year when he played a major role in the putsch that saw fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy removed as speaker.
Needless to say, McCarthy, who later resigned his seat, is very bitter over the whole episode. Earlier today, Bloomberg News reports that McCarthy predicted Gaetz would not get Senate confirmation as attorney general:
“Gaetz won’t get confirmed, everybody knows that,” McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore on Thursday.
…
“Doesn’t matter,” McCarthy said of the nomination’s prospects. “It’s a good deflection.”
During their meeting at the White House yesterday, Joe Biden asked Donald Trump to work with him on a ceasefire deal that would see the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Axios reports.
The Biden administration has tried to negotiate such an agreement, as well as another deal to end Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, for months, with no luck. His time as president is running out, and the conflicts will become Trump’s problem once he takes office.
Here’s more, from Axios:
Biden wants to use the two months he has left in office to break the prolonged deadlock in the negotiations over a Gaza deal. Trump, on the other hand, would likely be happy to reach Inauguration Day with one less crisis on his plate.
Biden also met yesterday with the families of the American hostages who are held in Gaza, two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Axios.
One source said the families stressed that the hostages are running out of time and expressed concern for their lives.
Biden told the families that he and Trump agreed that the hostage issue is urgent and that they want to try and solve it before Jan. 20, the other source said.
Joe Biden hosts Donald Trump at the White House
Nancy Pelosi once said Donald Trump would be “fumigated out” of the Oval Office if he lost the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden relished describing him as “the former guy” and “loser”. They thought the American nightmare was over.
Then, like in the movies, Democrats woke up in a cold sweat only to realise it wasn’t a dream after all. Instead they are doomed to be supporting players in a sequel. Trump: The Revenge. This time, it’s personal.
On Wednesday, Trump made a triumphant who’s-got-the-last-laugh-now return to Washington, probably the least Trumpy place in the nation: Kamala Harris got 92.5% of the vote here compared to his 6.7%. One of his most recent visits was to appear in court as a criminal defendant accused of an attempted coup.
But hey, who cares about that now? Sporting his red tie, Trump was back in the sacred space where Pelosi, Liz Cheney and others swore he must never foot again: the Oval Office. The 45th and soon-to-be 47th president was hosted by Biden, the 46th, to discuss the presidential transition, a courtesy he never extended to the man who beat him in 2020.
The pair sat on cream armchairs before a roaring log fire – the flames licking high and lustily as if to evoke Christopher Marlowe’s line, “Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.” Behind Biden was the bust of Robert Kennedy, a former Democratic senator whose son, Robert Kennedy Jr, helped deliver the White House to the Republican Trump.
“Well, Mr president-elect and former president … ,” Biden began, shaking the right hand of Trump, whose left hand didn’t quite know what to do as he breathed: “Thank you very much, Joe.”
Biden settled on, “Donald, congratulations” – the first time he had used his rival’s first name since the attempted assassination of Trump in July.
“Thank you very much,” Trump repeated.
An independent central bank is “fundamental” to getting good economic outcomes, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Thursday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Fed has a dual mandate from Congress to act independently to tackle both inflation and unemployment – primarily by raising and lowering interest rates. Anything that undermines the Fed’s independence could spook traders in the financial markets, who might come to question if it could effectively tackle inflation over the longer term.
Fed governor, Adriana Kugler’s speech in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, comes just over a week after the election of Trump – who has previously questioned the Fed’s independence and suggested he would like “at least” a say over setting interest rates, reports the AFP.
Kugler did not name the Republican president-elect during her prepared remarks, in which she said controlling inflation required a commitment to accept the “tradeoffs and sacrifices” often needed to restore price stability.
“It has been widely recognised – and is a finding of economic research – that central bank independence is fundamental to achieving good policy and good economic outcomes,” Kugler said, according to AFP.
“It is not sufficient by itself to achieve those goals, but, over time, it is almost always necessary,” added Kugler, who is among the seven most important monetary policy officials in the US.
During the US presidential election race, Trump criticized Fed chair, Jerome Powell, - whom he first nominated to run the US central bank – and suggested he would not look to reappoint him once his term expires in 2026.
Powell’s replacement as chair will play a significant role in setting interest rates, but will still be constrained somewhat by the Fed’s decentralized system, which gives regional Federal Reserve banks a say over the level of interest rates.
Who is Matt Gaetz, the Trump loyalist picked for attorney general?
Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate Matt Gaetz, a hard-right congressman from Florida known for inflaming tensions within the House Republican conference, as attorney general.
Gaetz, a longtime Trump loyalist, gained attention last year after leading the successful charge to oust his fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. Gaetz and seven other House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy last October, kicking off a weeks-long scramble to find a new speaker.
McCarthy held Gaetz personally responsible for his removal and even funded an unsuccessful primary challenge against his former colleague. McCarthy suggested Gaetz pushed for his ouster because of an ethics committee investigation into allegations that Gaetz paid for and engaged in sexual relations with an underage girl.
That investigation in effect ended on Wednesday night, however, when Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump’s nomination.
In February 2023, the justice department declined to bring charges of sex trafficking against Gaetz, who has denied wrongdoing since the allegations first came to light.
Even before McCarthy’s removal, Gaetz had cultivated a reputation as a rightwing firebrand who did not shy away from conflict with Democrats and fellow Republicans alike.
“Florida Man. Built for the Battle,” reads Gaetz’s bio on X, formerly Twitter.
Gaetz followed his father into politics more than two decades ago. After serving in the Florida statehouse, Gaetz was elected in 2016 to represent a ruby-red chunk of the Florida Panhandle.
Like Trump, to whom he is fiercely loyal, Gaetz is more interested in sparring with political foes than in the dry business of governance, according to his critics. On Capitol Hill, he has repeatedly disrupted House proceedings, including once barging into a secure facility where Democrats were holding a deposition hearing.
You can read more of the profile on Gaetz here:
Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia will stop posting on billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform and plans to suspend its accounts, saying on Thursday the social media network had become an “echo chamber” for disinformation and conspiracy theories, reports Reuters.
Spain’s fourth most-read newspaper for general news said it would stop posting directly but would allow its journalists to maintain personal accounts. The editor, Jordi Juan, said he had suspended his own account. X did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment.
The move follows the Guardian, which also cited racism and conspiracy theories for its exit from the platform on Tuesday.
The Barcelona-based newspaper, which has 1.7 million followers on the platform previously known as Twitter, said X lacked an “effective and reasonable” moderating process since Musk bought it in 2022, reports Reuters.
“Since the arrival of Musk to X, this platform has increasingly tolerated toxic and manipulated content thanks to the proliferation of bots,” Juan wrote in an editorial.
The paper added in a leader:
Ideas that violate human rights, such as hatred of ethnic minorities, misogyny, and racism, are part of the viral content distributed on X, where they gain virality and capture more user time to earn more money from advertising.”
La Vanguardia also cited US president-elect Donald Trump appointing Musk as head of a new Department of Government Efficiency and the spread of disinformation by bots, from countries as far away as India, about the floods that hit the region of Valencia two weeks ago as reasons behind its decision.
When Musk took over, he fired thousands of workers including many in the content moderation department, La Vanguardia said. X also left a European Union programme against disinformation in 2023, it noted.
Critics say Musk’s hands-off approach has allowed lies and hate speech to spread on the platform. Musk has said he is defending freedom of speech.
President Joe Biden heads to South America on Thursday for a curtain call with global leaders after over 50 years in US politics, but the man he tried and failed to keep from returning to power is likely to be the focus of many meetings: incoming US President Donald Trump.
Reuters reports that Biden will hold private meetings with Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and the heads of Japan, South Korea and Brazil during the summits of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, in Peru and the G20, in Brazil. The meetings over six days are not expected to yield any major new agreements, senior Biden administration officials said, even as they are likely to touch on trade, security and global alliances.
“The APEC and G20 will be about one thing … and that is Donald Trump – and what to expect from the next Trump administration on trade, alliances, and other issues,” said Victor Cha, president of the geopolitics and foreign policy department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Trump defeated vice-president Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, in the 5 November presidential election after promising Americans he would impose steep tariffs on all imports, with higher ones aimed at Chinese goods, and signaled much softer support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Biden came into office in 2020 seeking to rebuild alliances strained during Trump’s first term and tried to show that the US remained engaged beyond its borders. He strengthened and expanded Nato and worked to counter China in the Indo-Pacific by building up multilateral alliances in Asia.
Trump has a fundamentally different worldview than Biden, preferring bilateral meetings where he can practice transactional diplomacy over multilateral partnerships like Nato.
Reuters reports that the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters on Wednesday that Biden will use the trip to say that the US cherishes and invests in its alliances and thank those who have helped deal with an array of global problems.
“It’s a message of principle. It’s a message of practicality, and it’s been one of the causes of President Biden’s life,” he said.
London mayor says Trump attacks due to his ethnicity and religion
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has accused Donald Trump of repeatedly criticising him because of his ethnicity and Muslim faith, in comments likely to renew his long-running feud with the US president-elect, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The pair became embroiled in an extraordinary war of words during Trump’s first presidency, initially sparked by Khan speaking out against a US travel ban on people from certain Muslim countries.
Trump then accused Khan – the first Muslim mayor of a western capital when he was first elected in 2016 – of doing a “very bad job on terrorism” and called him a “stone cold loser” and “very dumb”. The mayor in turn allowed an unflattering blimp of Trump dressed as a baby in a nappy to fly above protests in Parliament Square during his 2018 visit to Britain.
Speaking on a podcast recorded before Trump’s re-election on 5 November and released earlier this week, Khan, a son of Pakistani immigrants to the UK, said he viewed the past targeting of him as “incredibly personal”, reports AFP.
“If I wasn’t this colour skin, if I wasn’t a practising Muslim, he wouldn’t have come for me,” he told the High Performance podcast, which interviews prominent people in different sectors. He added:
He’s come for me because of, let’s be frank, my ethnicity and my religion.”
According to AFP, Khan added that during this period he was “speaking out against somebody whose policies were sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist” and that he has “a responsibility to speak out”.
His latest comments on Trump are in stark contrast to those of his colleagues in the UK’s Labour party, which swept to power in July.
Prime minister, Keir Starmer, has appeared at pains to forge a positive relationship with the president-elect, promptly congratulating him on his “historic election victory”.
Starmer said their phone call was “very positive, very constructive” and the so-called special relationship between the UK and the US would “prosper” in Trump’s second term.
Bluesky adds 1m new members as users flee X after the US election
Social media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 1 million new users since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.
The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach nearly 15 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said.
Social media researcher Axel Bruns said the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.
“It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else,” he said.
“The more liberal kind of Twitter community has really now escaped from there and seems to have moved en masse to Bluesky.”
Bluesky began as a project inside Twitter but became an independent company in 2022, and is now primarily owned by chief executive Jay Graber.
The platform has previously benefited from dissatisfaction with X and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who is closely tied to US president-elect Donald Trump’s successful election campaign. Twitter shed millions of users after rebranding to X and usage in the US slumped by more than a fifth in the subsequent seven months.
Bluesky reported picking up 3 million new users in the week after X was suspended in Brazil in September and a further 1.2 million in the two days after X announced it would allow users to view posts from people who had blocked them.
“We’re excited to welcome all of these new people, ranging from Swifties to wrestlers to city planners,” Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu said.
The Republican party has secured a Washington trifecta by taking control of both houses of Congress as well as the White House.
Here are the results in full for every seat in every state:
The Pentagon has been stunned by Donald Trump’s pick for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, a national guard veteran and Fox News presenter who has called for a purge of generals for pursuing “woke” diversity policies.
Hegseth has questioned whether the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Charles Brown, was given the top job because he is black and accused him of “pursuing the radical positions of leftwing politicians”.
Hegseth was a major in the Minnesota national guard who served as a prison guard at Guantánamo Bay detention camp and served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming an outspoken rightwing critic of the military.
He has argued for faster provision of more US weapons to Ukraine for its defence against Russia, but also called US Nato membership into question. His nomination is also a boost for the far right in Israel, as he has shown support for territorial expansion and suggested that Jews could build a new temple on the sacred compound around al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Hegseth told an audience in Jerusalem in 2018: “There’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible.”
The Israeli settler movement is also celebrating Trump’s nomination of Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, as the US ambassador to Israel.
In a visit to the region in 2017, Huckabee, an evangelical Baptist minister, said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank – it’s Judea and Samaria.”
He said: “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities. They’re neighbourhoods. They’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation” – a position dramatically at odds with current US policy and international law on occupied Palestinian territory.
Trump’s nomination of Hegseth, 44, a chatshow commentator with minimal managerial experience, to run the US military establishment with 1.3 million active-duty service members and the nearly 1 million civilian staff has taken Congress and the Pentagon by surprise.
Republicans secure House majority in yet another blow to Democrats
Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives, extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Donald Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.
The Associated Press determined on Wednesday evening that Republicans had won at least 218 seats in the 435-member House after a victory in Arizona, a call that came more than a week after polls closed across the US and as Trump made cabinet announcements that sent shockwaves through Washington.
The call ensures Republicans will continue to have a large say in key matters such as government funding, debt ceiling negotiations and foreign aid, and it spells an end to Democrats’ hopes that the lower chamber could serve as a blockade against Trump’s agenda.
Republicans had already won the White House and regained a majority in the Senate, so their victory in the House provides them with the last component of their governing trifecta. Although they will have a slim majority, Republicans have indicated they will use their trifecta to maximum effect when the new Congress is seated in January.
“We have to deliver for the people, and we will,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News last week. “President Trump wants to be aggressive. He wants to go big and we’re excited about that. We’re going to get to play offense.”
Trump’s selection of at least three House Republicans to join his administration further complicates the math for Johnson. Trump had already tapped the New York representative Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz, the Florida representative, to fill the role of national security adviser. On Wednesday, Trump announced he would also nominate Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman of Florida, as his attorney general.
Updated
Republicans baffled after Trump picks ‘reckless’ Gaetz for attorney general
Donald Trump’s decision to nominate the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has sent shockwaves through Washington, including the president-elect’s own party.
Trump on Wednesday announced Gaetz as his pick to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department, a role that directs the government’s legal positions on critical issues, including abortion, civil rights, and first amendment cases.
Republicans were puzzled over this nomination, expressing this move was not on their “bingo card”.
“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, told NBC News. She added:
We need to have a serious attorney general. And I’m looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.”
A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of his fellow Republican and former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role.
He was investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges. And was under investigation by the House ethics committee amid allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches.
Gaetz has fiercely denied wrongdoing.
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In other developments:
Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives, extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.
Trump also announced his nominee for director of national intelligence would be Tulsi Gabbard, who is a critic of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and has questioned atrocities attributed to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has previously clashed with Marco Rubio, who Trump on Wednesday confirmed would be nominated as secretary of state. The new appointments followed Trump’s announcement of Peter Hegseth for defense in a move that stunned military officials, some of whom questioned whether Hegseth had the experience to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.
Republican senators chose South Dakota’s John Thune as their new leader, rejecting a challenge from Florida senator Rick Scott, who had the backing of key Maga figures Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson. Thune’s elevation comes after long-serving Mitch McConnell stood aside.
Joe Biden met Trump at the White House, extending a courtesy to the president-elect that Biden was not offered in 2020 when Trump refused to acknowledge Biden’s election victory. Trump thanked Biden for welcoming him back to the Oval Office and said: “Politics is tough, and it’s [in] many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.”
The president-elect met with House Republicans before going to the White House, and joked about seeking a third term, which would be constitutionally prohibited after his second term.
Wednesday’s appointments leave a handful of roles to fill in Trump’s cabinet. Reuters reported billionaire banker and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick had emerged as a serious contender against investor Scott Bessent for the role of Treasury secretary, the highest profile job without a name yet attached.
The Democratic minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said his colleagues had “over-performed the national political environment”, pre-empting the news that Republicans had retained the chamber. Elizabeth Warren argued Democrats should show they stand ready to “unrig this economy” as billionaires join the Trump administration. Warren was appearing at an event alongside fellow senator Bernie Sanders.
Two Democratic state governors have launched an initiative aimed at “pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy and fortifying the institutions of democracy”. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, hope to form a non-partisan coalition with their new organisation, Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
Dan Scavino, who on Tuesday suggested Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, was running out of time, has been named as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff. Scavino’s provocative post on X has continued to fuel Australian anxieties over its relationship with the incoming president, whom Rudd in 2021 described as “a village idiot” and “not a leading intellectual force”.
