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Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
Donald Trump named Karoline Leavitt as his pick for White House press secretary. Leavitt, who would be the youngest White House press secretary in history, was the Trump campaign’s national press secretary and served as assistant press secretary during his last administration. “Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator,” Trump said in a statement.
Donald Trump said in a statement that he will appoint Doug Burgum as both interior secretary and the head of a new National Energy Council. Trump announced that the North Dakota governor would head up the department that handles oil and gas drilling on federal lands, rattling environmentalists who fear Burgum will pursue policies that will exacerbate the climate crisis.
The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he is against the ethics committee releasing its report into drug use and sexual misconduct by Matt Gaetz, the former representative nominated by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general.
Donald Trump has appointed his campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung as the next White House communications director.
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary nominee, was reportedly involved in a sexual assault investigation in 2017 – a surprise to Trump’s transition team – but no charges were filed.
Dick Durbin, the outgoing Senate judiciary committee chair, warned that Trump’s justice department will use its powers to “seek vengeance”.
Mike Pence came out against Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the health department, citing the nominee’s support for abortion.
Scott Bessent, a hedge fund founder, and Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, are reportedly in the running to head up the treasury.
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Rudy Giuliani surrendered a Mercedes-Benz, watches and a ring on Friday to two Georgia election workers who successfully sued him for defamation, according to PoliticoO.
The former New York City mayor is still refusing to turn over other property to comply with a $148m judgment against him.
The car and other valuables are the first pieces of property, aside from access to his New York City apartment, Giuliani has been forced to hand over to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who won the $148m defamation verdict against him in 2023.
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Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Matt Gaetz was an “absurd” choice for Donald Trump’s attorney general, during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper:
This is an absurd choice given that he has been outwardly under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and then he resigned right before the report is to be released on charges of everything and allegations of sex trafficking and illicit drug use, and it appears as though a number of House members on both sides of the aisle has information about this.
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Justin Trudeau recalled that the last time Donald Trump took office, he pledged to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to Reuters.
Trudeau made these comments among leaders of Pacific rim countries including the US and China on Friday, as they gathered in Peru for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Instead, Canada’s prime minister said, the nations worked hard to find ways to forge new terms, known as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, that served as proof trade can be beneficial to all parties.
“It wasn’t easy. And nothing is going to be easy this time,” Trudeau said. “Little secret: there is no American administration that is automatically easy for a Canadian government. They take a very robust look at their own interests, and Canada adjusts.”
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Karoline Leavitt, who would be the youngest White House press secretary in history, ran for election to the US House to represent New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district in 2022, losing in the general election, according to Iowa State University’s Archives of Women’s Political Communication.
Leavitt graduated from Saint Anselm College in the state in 2019, earning a degree in politics and communication. As a student during the 2016 election, she began working for Fox News. After graduating, she worked for Donald Trump and served as a presidential writer and assistant press secretary in the press office.
In June, CNN abruptly ended a live interview with Leavitt after she criticized the network’s debate moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, both of whom had hosted the debate between Trump and Joe Biden in Atlanta.
Leavitt described the debate as a “hostile environment on this very network” and accused the moderators of having a biased history with Trump. This led to a heated exchange with CNN presenter Kasie Hunt.
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President-elect Donald Trump names Karoline Leavitt as pick for White House press secretary
Karoline Leavitt was the Trump campaign’s national press secretary and served as assistant press secretary during his last administration.
“Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator,” Trump said in a statement. “I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium, and help deliver our message to the American People as we, Make America Great Again.”
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Donald Trump’s nomination of North Dakota’s Republican governor, Doug Burgum, as the interior secretary has prompted swift backlash from environmental advocacy groups alarmed at the incoming administration’s plans to use federal lands for oil and gas drilling.
Trump also announced in a statement on Friday his intention to make Burgum chair of a National Energy Council he intends to form to “oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE” and to focus on “the battle for AI superiority”.
Burgum, a former businessman, has been governor since 2016 of North Dakota, which is the third largest oil and natural gas producer in the country. Burgum, if confirmed by the Senate, would manage US federal lands including national parks and wildlife refuges, as well as oversee relations with 574 federally recognized Native American tribes.
Major concerns have loomed over the country’s wildlife refuges and public lands as Trump prepares to enter the White House for a second term. Throughout his campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly said “drill, baby, drill” and has vowed to carve up the Arctic national wildlife refuge in Alaska’s northern tundra for oil and gas drilling.
The Sierra Club, the country’s largest non-profit environmental organization, said: “It was climate skeptic Doug Burgum who helped arrange the Mar-a-Lago meeting with wealthy oil and gas executives where Donald Trump offered to overturn dozens of environmental rules and regulations in exchange for $1bn in campaign contributions.”
The Guardian’s Maya Yang and Maanvi Singh wrote all about it:
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Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said that former representative Tulsi Gabbard, president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, is “likely a Russian asset.”
“There’s no question I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset,” Wasserman Schultz told MSNBC on Friday.
“Tulsi Gabbard is someone who has met with war criminals, violated the Department of State’s guidance and secretly, clandestinely went to Syria and met with [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad, who gassed and attacked his own people with chemical weapons,” she said. “She’s considered to be, essentially, by most assessments, a Russian asset.”
Members of the Democratic National Committee are already bracing for a fight to reorder the primary contests in the next presidential election.
“The 2024 calendar will absolutely not be the calendar for 2028,” Nebraska state party chair Jane Kleeb told NBC News.
At least half a dozen DNC members, state chairs and DNC officials said there will be a full reexamination of the order of the states before the 2028 Democratic primary.
Whatever calendar is settled on is a major factor to those presidential primary contenders, who spend most of their time and resources in states like South Carolina and Nevada, which serve to winnow down the pack before moving on to Super Tuesday.
Donald Trump’s transition team has bypassed standard background checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on some of the president-elect’s cabinet nominees, it has been reported, minimising the chances of them being rejected for Senate confirmation based on any past transgressions or conflicts of interest.
Such background checks – a longstanding tradition for incoming presidential nominations dating back decades to the early cold war – have instead been outsourced to private investigators.
The revelation, first reported by CNN, comes as shock waves reverberate in Washington from at least three of Trump’s proposed appointees: Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F Kennedy Jr for attorney general, director of national intelligence and health secretary, respectively.
Moves to cut out the FBI appear to be in line with a pre-election memo drafted by his legal advisers and fit with Trump’s enduring suspicion that the agency is part of what, without evidence, he believes to be a “deep state” machine within the federal government bent on undermining him.
The bureau’s checks, based on convention rather than legislation, are intended to review nominees’ track records for criminal histories, conflicts of interest or personal liabilities that might disqualify a candidate from being given security clearance.
Here’s more context:
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Wall Street ended a turbulent week with its biggest weekly losses in more than two months, as post-election optimism faded.
The S&P 500 fell 1.3% on Friday and 2.1% for the week, while the Nasdaq declined 3.15% for the week. Early gains fueled by Donald Trump’s pro-business election win and a Federal Reserve rate cut gave way to concerns over slower future rate cuts and inflation risks.
Stocks in tech, healthcare and consumer-staples sectors slid, while vaccine makers dipped upon Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
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The FBI said that the racist text messages being sent to Black people across the country are now targeting high school students and Latino and LGBTQ+ communities.
“Some recipients reported being told they were selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp,” reads a statement from the FBI released Friday. “The messages have also been reported as being received via email communication.”
In the wake of the presidential election, college students and working professionals have received mass texts from unrecognized phone numbers.
The hate-filled rhetoric has been reported in at least 30 states. People of color in states including Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, the DC area and elsewhere reported receiving the messages.
The messages were sent to Black adults and students, including to high schoolers in Massachusetts and New York, and students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), such as Alabama State University and other schools, including ones across Ohio, Clemson University, the University of Alabama and Missouri State.
President Joe Biden praised the cooperation among South Korea, Japan and the US in countering what he described as North Korea’s “dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia”, according to the Associated Press.
Biden spoke at the start of a meeting in Peru on Friday with Yoon Suk Yeol, the South Korean president, and Shigeru Ishiba, the Japanese prime minister, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The talks came amid heightened concerns about North Korea’s growing military partnership with Russia and Pyongyang’s stepped-up cadence of ballistic missile tests.
Biden celebrated the partnership between Japan and South Korea, two countries that have historical enmity but that under Biden’s presidency are now tightening security and economic ties as their corner of the world becomes more complicated.
Biden noted that it would be his last meeting with them but that the trilateral partnership should be preserved for years to come.
“I’m proud of how far we’ve come,” Biden said. “Whatever the issue, we’ve taken it on together.”
The meeting comes as North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow try to claw back land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized earlier this year.
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Iran sent a message to the Biden administration in October stating it was not attempting to kill Donald Trump, aiming to reduce tensions with the US, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The message, delivered through an intermediary, followed a September warning from the Biden administration that any Iranian attempt to kill Trump, then a Republican presidential candidate, would be considered “an act of war”.
Since Trump’s election victory last week, some Iranian former officials, analysts and media figures have encouraged Tehran to engage with the president-elect and adopt a more cooperative stance, despite Trump allies’ promises to reintroduce a hardline approach against Iran.
The news comes the same week Elon Musk, whom Trump named as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, reportedly met with Iran’s UN ambassador to discuss how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.
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A former Virginia lawmaker has pleaded guilty to felony gun and drug charges and been sentenced to time already served in jail, according to the Associated Press.
Matt Fariss, who had served in the House of Delegates as a Republican since 2012 before running unsuccessfully last year as an independent, pleaded guilty Wednesday to meth possession and having a firearm while possessing an illegal drug, the Lynchburg News and Advance reported.
Judge Dennis Lee Hupp sentenced Fariss in Campbell circuit court to three years in prison and suspended all but 20 days, according to the News and Advance.
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The appointment of a US health secretary with anti-vaccine views could cause deaths and have profound consequences around the world, global health experts fear.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick for the position, has a history of spreading misinformation on vaccines and questioning the science of HIV and Aids.
His nomination has been greeted with bemusement and alarm. One global health activist, speaking on background, said the move was akin to making the disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield, who falsely claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism, the UK’s health secretary.
Prof Sir Simon Wessely, a regius professor of psychiatry at King’s College London, said of the move: “That sound that you just heard was my jaw dropping, hitting the floor and rolling out of the door.”
Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said there was real concern that Kennedy might use the platform “to pursue the same anti-science positions on life-saving public health interventions that he has advanced previously”.
He added: “If this makes families hesitate to immunise against the deadly diseases that threaten children, the consequence will be fatal for some.”
The Guardian’s Kat Lay and Kate Connolly explain what the latest appointment could mean:
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After Donald Trump nominated him to lead the interior department and the new National Energy Council, Doug Burgum, North Dakota’s governor, wrote on X:
I’m deeply grateful to President @RealDonaldTrump for this amazing opportunity to serve the American people and achieve ENERGY DOMINANCE!
Expect that energy dominance to involve a lot of fossil fuels. Here’s more on what environmentalists fear Burgum as interior secretary could portend for fighting the climate crisis:
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The Guardian’s Alice Herman has more on defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, who concerns experts for his adherence to a number of rightwing ideologies:
Extremism experts are sounding the alarm about Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, whose writings and online presence reveal someone immersed in a culture of rightwing Christianity, political extremism and violent ideation.
The Fox & Friends host, who has served in the US army but has no experience in government, drew shock from Pentagon officials when Trump nominated him. Hegseth’s books on American culture and the military, his commentary on Fox and his frequent posts on social media showcase his far-right ideology. On these platforms, Hegseth telegraphs paranoia and anger toward “leftists”, an ultra-masculine Maga persona and apparent revulsion toward service members who do not fit his vision – including women.
“The thing that really worries me, is both the ideology of Christian nationalism and what that’s going to mean for the kind of policies he tries to put in place for the defense department,” said Thomas Lecaque, a historian focusing on religion and political violence.
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Trump says North Dakota governor Burgum will head up new energy council
Donald Trump said in a statement that he will appoint Doug Burgum as both interior secretary and the head of a new National Energy Council.
Trump announced the North Dakota governor would head up the department that handles oil and gas drilling on federal lands, rattling environmentalists who fear Burgum will pursue policies that will exacerbate the climate crisis.
“I am thrilled to announce that Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota, will be joining my Administration as both Secretary of the Interior and, as Chairman of the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council, which will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy,” Trump said.
“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation. With U.S. Energy Dominance, we will drive down Inflation, win the A.I. arms race with China (and others), and expand American Diplomatic Power to end Wars all across the World.”
Much can change between now and whenever the Senate begins considering Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general, likely after Donald Trump is sworn in on 20 January.
But the Wall Street Journal reports that perhaps as many as 30 Republican senators will not support the former representative’s nomination:
Trump can afford to lose the support of no more than three GOP senators on his most contentious picks, assuming all Democrats are opposed, in a chamber that will be split 53-47 in the new Congress. People familiar with discussions among Senate Republicans said that far more than three of them are prepared to vote no if the matter comes to a vote, and some said there was already talk of trying to convince Trump to pull Gaetz, or get Gaetz to voluntarily withdraw his name.
‘It’s simply that Matt Gaetz has a very long, steep hill to get across the finish line,’ said Sen Kevin Cramer (R, ND). ‘And it will require the spending of a lot of capital, and you just have to ask: if you could get him across the finish line, was it worth the cost?’
Cramer said he didn’t think Gaetz would have the votes to be approved by the Judiciary Committee, much less to be confirmed by the full Senate.
One person familiar with the conversations among Republican senators said ‘significantly more than four’ of them are opposed, which would be enough to tank Gaetz’s chances. ‘People are pissed,’ the person said.
Other estimates ranged from more than a dozen Republican ‘no’ votes to more than 30. ‘It won’t even be close,’ another person said.
‘It’s going to be very difficult,’ said Sen Markwayne Mullin (R, Okla), when asked if Gaetz could win the votes necessary for confirmation. Mullin, a close Trump ally, said he would keep an open mind because he trusts Trump to pick his cabinet. But he said Gaetz will have to go through the vigorous vetting process required of any nominee, and said the former Florida congressman might decide to opt out and withdraw.
“We’ve seen a lot of nominees, when they go through the process, they’re like, ‘You know, it’s not going to happen,’ and they pull out,” Mullin said.
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In an interview with CNN, Mike Rounds, a Republican senator from South Dakota, said that the chamber should be able to see the House ethics committee’s report into Matt Gaetz.
“We do have a process in place which includes the ability to get that type of information, in many cases. And what we want to do is make good decisions based upon all the relevant facts and information that we can get,” Rounds said.
“We should be able to get a hold of it, and we should have access to it one way or another, based on the way that we do all of these nominations.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson opposes releasing ethics report on Gaetz - report
Politico reports that the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he is against the ethics committee releasing its report into drug use and sexual misconduct by Matt Gaetz, the former representative nominated by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general.
“I’m going to strongly request that the ethics committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson said, hours after returning from a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”
The committee had reportedly been near to releasing its inquiry, but Gaetz’s resignation has thrown into question whether such a report can be made public once a lawmaker exits the House. Some senators from both parties have said it should be shared with them, so they can assess Gaetz’s candidacy to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
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Donald Trump has also appointed his top ally Sergio Gor as assistant to the president and director of the presidential personnel office.
Gor was the CEO of Winning Team Publishing while also serving for the pro-Trump Super Pac Right for America, the Trump-Vance campaign said.
Commenting on the nominations of Steven Cheung (as White House communications director) and Gor, Trump said:
Steven Cheung and Sergio Gor have been trusted advisors since my first presidential campaign in 2016, and have continued to champion American First principles throughout my first term, all the way to our historic victory in 2024 … I am thrilled to have them join my White House as we, Make America Great Again.
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Trump confirms campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung as White House communications director
Donald Trump has appointed his campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung as the next White House communications director.
Replacing Ben LaBolt, Cheung will be tasked with steering Trump’s strategy of selling his presidency to the American people.
In a statement on Friday, the Trump-Vance campaign said:
Steven Cheung will return to the White House as assistant to the president and director of communications. Cheung was director of communications on the Trump-Vance 2024 presidential campaign and previously served in the Trump White House as director of strategic response.
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Donald Trump will appoint his main campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, as the White House communications director, Politico reports, citing someone familiar with the matter.
Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Cheung was Trump’s primary vessel to mainstream media outlets, frequently defending the president-elect and remaining close to his side at campaign events and rallies.
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Environmental groups are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s nomination of North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, as interior secretary.
Since 2016, the former businessman has been governor of North Dakota, which is the third-largest oil and natural gas producer in the country. Burgum, if confirmed by the Senate, would manage US federal lands including national parks and wildlife refuges, as well as oversee relations with 574 federally recognized Native American tribes.
The Sierra Club, the country’s largest non-profit environmental organization, said: “It was climate skeptic Doug Burgum who helped arrange the Mar-a-Lago meeting with wealthy oil and gas executives where Donald Trump offered to overturn dozens of environmental rules and regulations in exchange for $1bn in campaign contributions.”
Similarly, the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation policy organization focused on land and energy issues across the western states, said: “Doug Burgum comes from an oil state, but North Dakota is not a public lands state. His cozy relationship with oil billionaires may endear him to Donald Trump, but he has no experience that qualifies him to oversee the management of 20% of America’s lands.”
For the full story, click here:
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The day so far
Donald Trump has not nominated anyone new for his cabinet yet today, but many names are flying around for top posts. Larry Kudlow could reportedly return to his old job heading the National Economic Council, or even the treasury, while Mike Rogers, who just lost election to the Senate from Michigan, may be tapped to lead the FBI. Meanwhile, we have learned more about Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary nominee. He was reportedly involved in a sexual assault investigation in 2017 – a surprise to Trump’s transition team – but no charges were ever filed. The president-elect has taken to announcing his nominations in the later half of the day, so perhaps we will hear from him this afternoon.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Dick Durbin, the outgoing Senate judiciary committee chair, warned that Trump’s justice department will use its powers to “seek vengeance”.
Mike Pence came out against Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the health department, citing the nominee’s support for abortion.
Scott Bessent, a hedge fund founder, and Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, are also reportedly in the running to head up the treasury.
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Top Senate Democrat says nominees show Trump will 'weaponize the justice department to seek vengeance'
The outgoing Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin warned that Donald Trump’s appointees to top justice department posts are a sign that he will direct prosecutors and law enforcement to retaliate against his political opponents.
Durbin singled out the president-elect’s nomination of Todd Blanche, who defended Trump in his hush-money trial in New York, as deputy attorney general, and John Sauer, who argued before the supreme court in his immunity case, as solicitor general:
Coupled with the announcement that he intends to nominate former Congressman Matt Gaetz to be attorney general, these selections show Donald Trump intends to weaponize the justice department to seek vengeance. Donald Trump viewed the justice department as his personal law firm during his first term, and these selections – his personal attorneys – are poised to do his bidding.
The American people deserve a justice department that fights for equal justice under the law. This isn’t it.
Democrats are losing control of the Senate at the beginning of next year, and it will be up to the incoming Republican majority to confirm Trump’s appointees.
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It is ultimately up to the Senate, and in particular its incoming Republican majority, to decide the fate of Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet posts.
For a taste of the sentiment among congressional Republicans towards Trump’s picks, here is the comment Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, gave to Punchbowl News when asked about Robert F Kennedy Jr’s anti-vaccine views:
Look, ultimately, he’s going to be carrying out President Trump’s agenda. You know, everybody comes in, with their own ideas, whether it’s going to be RFK, whether it’s Marco Rubio and foreign policy, but ultimately, when you take on a position like that, you’re there to carry out President Trump’s agenda for all the Cabinet Secretaries, and I have no doubt that they’re all going to be focused on that mission and carrying out the mandate the voters gave us.
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Trump considering Larry Kudlow for top economic jobs, including treasury secretary - report
Donald Trump may be bringing Larry Kudlow, a top economic adviser during his first term, back to his administration, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Kudlow is under consideration to perhaps lead the treasury department or the National Economic Council, which he led during Trump’s first term. In that job, he was often on television downplaying the severity of the economic collapse caused by Covid-19 and predicting a rapid recovery. Kudlow has since become a host on Fox Business Network.
Here’s more, from the Journal:
Donald Trump is considering tapping Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow for a senior economic policy role in his administration, according to people familiar with the matter, amid the president-elect’s mounting frustration with jockeying for top jobs.
Kudlow met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect’s private Florida club, late this week, the people said. Trump’s advisers see Kudlow as a contender to lead the National Economic Council and possibly the Treasury Department.
Kudlow and a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Kudlow, 77, served as NEC director for nearly three years, remaining in the role until the end of Trump’s time in office. He has kept in regular touch with Trump.
Kudlow has made regular appearances on Fox Business since leaving the White House. On his weekday show, Kudlow regularly touts Trump’s economic policy proposals. His allies have made appeals directly to Trump to bring him back into the administration, the people said.
Kudlow’s stock has risen in Trump’s orbit amid what one adviser to the president called a “cold war” between two other leading candidates for senior economic roles in the second term: billionaire Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Executive Howard Lutnick and investor Scott Bessent.
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Trump considering former representative Mike Rogers to lead FBI - report
Mike Rogers, a Republican former representative who just narrowly lost election to the Senate representing Michigan, is in the running to be FBI director under Donald Trump, Fox News reports.
Citing sources familiar with the situation, the broadcaster reports Rogers met with Trump’s transition team yesterday at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Rogers is a former FBI special agent, who was under consideration to lead the bureau during Trump’s first term, a job that ultimately went to Christopher Wray.
Here’s more, from Fox:
Will the second time be the charm for one-time Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent and former Rep Mike Rogers?
Rogers, the 2024 Republican Senate nominee in Michigan who lost his election last week by a razor-thin margin, met Thursday with President-elect Trump’s transition team regarding potentially serving as FBI director in the former and future president’s second administration, sources familiar tell Fox News.
The meeting took place at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Rogers worked as a special agent with the FBI in its Chicago office and who served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee during the final four years of his decade-long tenure in Congress, was interviewed in 2017 during Trump’s first administration to serve as FBI director after James Comey was dismissed.
But Trump at the time decided to appoint Christopher Wray to the traditional ten-year term steering the federal law enforcement agency.
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Donald Trump’s return to the White House represents a setback for women who say he sexually assaulted them, the Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis reports:
When Donald Trump was elected to a second term last week, women who say he sexually assaulted them, and other victims of sexual abuse, voiced disappointment that a man repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct could once again become president, with one of them describing this win as a “gut punch”.
More than two dozen women have made such claims against Trump, including E Jean Carroll, who was awarded nearly $90m total in two civil trials after jurors found that Trump sexually abused and defamed her. She said on X: “I tried to tell you.”
Several survivors of sexual assault interviewed by the Guardian, as well as advocates for persons who have suffered abuse, said they were not surprised by Trump’s win. They felt it was another example of how sexual abuse is not taken seriously, or pointed to the fact that powerful people who perpetrate abuse seem to be able to avoid repercussions.
Stacey Williams, who said she met Trump through Jeffrey Epstein about three decades ago, and told the Guardian that the now president-elect groped her at Trump Tower in 1993 in what seemed to be a “twisted game” with the late sex predator, is among the many processing election results.
“I think what we were all hoping was that [the] truth would come through and the stories would affect people’s vote once they had [them] in front of them.”
But, she said: “Disinformation won this election at the end of the day, and if we don’t figure out an answer for that, I don’t have a lot of hope for this country.”
Trump defense secretary nominee involved in 2017 sexual assault investigation, no charges filed - report
Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump nominated to be defense secretary, was involved in a sexual assault investigation in California seven years ago, but no charges were filed against him, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The incident happened in 2017 at a hotel and golf course in the city of Monterey, but there were few details of how Hegseth was involved, or what happened. Here’s more, from the Chronicle:
In a brief statement late Thursday, the city manager’s office in Monterey confirmed the sexual assault investigation, but provided few details.
The city said the incident was reported to have happened between almost midnight on Oct. 7, 2017, and 7 a.m. the next morning at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course, less than a mile from Monterey Bay and across Highway 1 from the Naval Postgraduate School.
“The Monterey Police Department investigated an alleged sexual assault at 1 Old Golf Course Road,” the city said. It said the victim’s name was confidential and that the alleged assault was reported on Oct. 12, 2017. The city said no weapons were involved, but that there was a report of “contusions to right thigh.”
The city declined to release the police report, saying it was exempt from public disclosure, and said it would not make any further remarks on the probe.
The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office did not reply to a request for comment late Thursday, but an online database indicated no criminal charges had been filed against Hegseth in that county.
Vanity Fair reports that news of the allegation sent Trump’s transition team scrambling over the past few days:
Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017.
According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.
On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”
Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”
Former vice-president Pence opposes Kennedy as health secretary, citing abortion views
Mike Pence, who served as vice-president during Donald Trump’s first term, announced his opposition to appointing Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of health and human services, citing his views on abortion.
“The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life,” Pence said in a statement released by his conservative nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom.
“I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades.”
During his presidential campaign, which he ended in August and announced his support for Trump, Kennedy said he is in favor of abortion being legal up to a certain point.
Pence fell out with Trump after refusing to go along with his attempts to stop Joe Biden from taking office after the 2020 election. Nonetheless, his words may hold some sway with conservative senators opposed to abortion. Here’s the rest of his statement:
For the majority of his career, RFK Jr. has defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v Wade. If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.
The pro-life movement has always looked to the Republican party to stand for life, to affirm an unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.
On behalf of tens of millions of pro-life Americans, I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services.
John Thune, the South Dakota lawmaker who earlier this week was elected leader of the Senate Republicans, will be at the center of the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s cabinet picks.
He has said little about the nominees themselves, but emphasized that he is squarely on the president-elect’s side. The Senate will “do the normal thing in vetting and confirmations hearings, etc. And it’s a process. And we’ll adhere to it, but try and expedite it,” Thune told Semafor in a piece looking at the dynamics around Thune and the confirmation process.
The upshot of the story: there’s no reason to think that Senate Republicans are gearing up to block Trump’s nominees, or at least not many of them. Here’s more:
“John is talented at bringing people together and trying to find a path forward,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told Semafor. “But to have the Matt Gaetz nomination on the very day that he became chosen as leader was certainly unfortunate timing. And it illustrates the challenges he’s going to face in defending the Senate as an institution.”
The Trump 2.0 era on Capitol Hill is already here, with the president-elect pushing his party’s lawmakers to fall in line regardless of their individual concerns. And the coming Senate confirmation fights over his advisers will be the first act in that drama.
Collins is one of several more centrist Republicans whose votes Trump cannot necessarily count on for more contentious nominees; she made no secret this week of her shock over the Gaetz pick and said she wasn’t sure Kennedy would even get a Senate-confirmed role.
…
Thune’s personal confirmation battle next year will require him to bridge the gaps between more establishment-aligned Republicans like Collins, who are already skeptical about one or more of Trump’s choices, and more MAGA-friendly GOP senators.
The South Dakotan won the leadership battle in part by emphasizing his rebuilt relationship with the incoming president. And there’s a substantial bloc of Senate Republicans who are eager to see Thune do whatever it takes to confirm Trump’s advisers.
“I was struck [Wednesday] by how far he went and saying that ‘there’s no daylight between me and President Trump, we’ll advance his agenda,’” said one Republican senator, noting Thune’s openness to using recess appointments on Trump’s picks.
“If he tries to walk that back,” this senator added, “I think there will be hellfire and brimstone.”
The Washington Post reports that among the candidates for Treasury secretary are the co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, as well as hedge fund founder Scott Bessent.
Other names being tossed around are Larry Kudlow, a prominent White House economist during his first administration, or Robert Lighthizer, who served as a trade advisor. Whoever Trump picks will likely be tasked with implementing the tariffs he has threatened to impose on US trade partners, in order to bend them to his will on issues such as immigration and reshoring jobs.
Here’s more, from the Post:
When Scott Bessent left President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, Florida, last Friday, his allies were optimistic that the hedge fund executive was virtually certain to be named the next treasury secretary.
On Thursday, however, Bessent again flew to Florida with his bid for the Cabinet post still hanging in the balance. Bessent is expected to be interviewed by Trump on Friday — as a rival contender for the post, the Trump transition co-chair and Wall Street banker Howard Lutnick, makes his own bid to become the most senior economic official in the U.S. government, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private meetings.
The internal jockeying could have major repercussions not just for Trump’s administration, but the trajectory of the U.S. economy over the next four years. The treasury secretary is responsible for a huge range of policy decisions, from taxes to tariffs to bank regulation, and will be tasked with executing some of the promises central to Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Trump, however, has not yet announced his choice for the pick even as he fills out much of his Cabinet. The impasse has prompted speculation among transition officials that Trump could still pick a third candidate for treasury secretary, such as former White House economist Larry Kudlow or top trade adviser Robert E. Lighthizer, although Bessent or Lutnick are still viewed as the favorites, according to two other people, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations. (Kudlow has said Bessent is his own top pick for the position.)
Might Donald Trump’s allies in the Senate wind up rejecting some of his most controversial picks to lead federal departments, such as Robert F Kennedy Jr for health secretary?
Perhaps, but we will probably only find that out for sure in the weeks to come, and particularly once confirmation hearings for the nominees begin early next year.
Despite Kennedy’s peddling of conspiracy theories and misinformation about vaccines, Republican senators appeared open to considering him for the job leading the country’s health policy and research. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy who, it should be noted, is himself a doctor, said Kennedy “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.”
Updated
News that Donald Trump had nominated conspiracy theorist and vaccine critic Robert F Kennedy Jr as his health secretary sent shares of major pharmaceutical companies lower in European trading today, the Guardian’s Mark Sweney and Graeme Wearden report. US markets have not opened yet, but we’ll see if the bloodletting continues:
Investors in pharmaceutical companies are selling off stock after Donald Trump nominated the anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services.
RFK Jr has embraced numerous health-related conspiracy theories, and is one of the most persistent and influential vaccine deniers in the US.
Trump’s announcement sent shares in some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies – including Moderna, AstraZeneca and GSK – falling on Friday morning.
RFK Jr has said vaccines are linked to autism in children, that HIV is not the cause of Aids and that some antidepressants are linked to a rise in school shootings.
RFK Jr – and Trump – are mulling banning fluoride in drinking water, while he has also called for bans on hundreds of food additives and chemicals and wants to cut ultra-processed foods from school lunches as part of a plan to reduce diet-related chronic diseases.
Announcing his choice, Trump said the health department would play a “big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country”.
Republicans are set to take control of the Senate next year, where one of their first jobs will be to confirm Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet posts. Should they object to the president-elect’s picks, he has threatened to make use of recess appointments, an archaic tactic that would allow him to circumvent the chamber and its objectors. Here’s more on how that would work, from the Guardian’s Joan E Greve:
Several Republican senators expressed shock on Wednesday when Donald Trump announced he would nominate Matt Gaetz, the hard-right congressman known for instigating fights with members of his own party, as attorney general.
“The president obviously has the right to nominate whomever he wants, but I think this is an example of why it’s so important that we have the advice and consent provisions in the constitution,” the Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters on Wednesday. “I’m sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr Gaetz’s hearing, if in fact the nomination goes forward.”
But the president-elect has proposed an archaic and in recent years little-used mechanism to get his nominees installed without Senate confirmation: recess appointments.
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump said on Sunday. “We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!”
If Trump pursues a strategy of recess appointments, it could severely curtail the Senate’s power to serve as a check on the new president’s nominations and allow controversial picks such as Gaetz to move forward.
Here’s everything to know about recess appointments:
Donald Trump has made several nominations to his cabinet, including Robert F Kennedy Jr for health secretary and Matt Gaetz for attorney general, both picks that have drawn objections from Democrats.
But many roles remain unfilled. Among these is Treasury secretary, a key role when it comes to managing the economy and government expenditures, and energy secretary, which could have huge influence on fighting the climate crisis (to the extent that Trump is interested in that) and regulating oil and gas production.
Here’s a look at who he has picked so far, and which nominees we are still waiting for:
Betting markets had a great election. With billions of dollars wagered on who would take the White House, their projections proved closer to the actual result than many opinion polls. Now the operators behind them want the US to wager on almost everything else.
Forget Trump or Harris. Is Billie Eilish going to win album of the year at the Grammys? How many federal government employees are about to lose their jobs? Will mpox be declared a pandemic this year?
All these markets, and hundreds more, were available this week on Kalshi – the platform which, just five weeks before polling day, won approval in a federal appeals court to legally host election betting in the US for the first time.
The result was “astronomical”, according to its CEO, Tarek Mansour, with more than $1bn worth of trades in a single month. But by the next presidential election, in November 2028, he wants hundreds of billions of dollars worth of trades in a single month.
Members of Congress and other US public officials targeted for “retribution” by Donald Trump say they are taking extraordinary security precautions for themselves and their families and are now bracing for scenarios as extreme as the possibility of being rounded up and arrested, after Trump returns to the White House.
Two Democratic House members who have been vocal in their criticisms of Trump and his policy agenda told the Guardian they and their colleagues are preparing for “some pretty surreal and dystopic scenarios”. They range from bogus investigations or tax audits of present and former members of the federal government to out-and-out violence inspired by Trump’s rhetoric of revenge.
“I hope none of my Democratic colleagues become American corollaries to Alexander Navalny,” said congressman Jared Huffman of California, referring to the Russian opposition leader and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin who survived being poisoned before dying in an Arctic prison.
“[My colleagues in the House] are thinking about legal defenses against a weaponized Department of Justice,” Huffman added. “They may have to be ready to be arrested and rounded up. They have to have family plans protecting themselves in ways I don’t even like to talk about publicly …
“I have so many colleagues living under constant violent threats toward them and their families and their staff … These are dark times. We all have our eyes wide open.”
When Donald Trump was elected to a second term last week, women who say he sexually assaulted them, and other victims of sexual abuse, voiced disappointment that a man repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct could once again become president, with one of them describing this win as a “gut punch”.
More than two dozen women have made such claims against Trump, including E Jean Carroll, who was awarded nearly $90m total in two civil trials after jurors found that Trump sexually abused and defamed her. She said on X: “I tried to tell you.”
Several survivors of sexual assault interviewed by the Guardian, as well as advocates for persons who have suffered abuse, said they were not surprised by Trump’s win. They felt it was another example of how sexual abuse is not taken seriously, or pointed to the fact that powerful people who perpetrate abuse seem to be able to avoid repercussions.
Stacey Williams, who said she met Trump through Jeffrey Epstein about three decades ago, and told the Guardian that the now president-elect groped her at Trump Tower in 1993 in what seemed to be a “twisted game” with the late sex predator, is among the many processing election results.
“I think what we were all hoping was that [the] truth would come through and the stories would affect people’s vote once they had [them] in front of them.”
But, “disinformation won this election at the end of the day, and if we don’t figure out an answer for that, I don’t have a lot of hope for this country.”
Emails to Trump’s camp did not receive an immediate response. Trump has previously denied all allegations of misconduct.
US president-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday that a government efficiency panel headed up by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk will issue reports in its work to streamline the US government.
“They will be coming out with individual reports and a big one at the end,” Trump said in a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, providing the first new detail on the panel’s output since it was announced earlier this week.
Trump on Tuesday said the panel would “provide advice and guidance from outside government,” on slimming down the government, cutting regulations, reducing spending and restructuring federal agencies, Reuters reported.
Trump picks North Dakota governor Burgum for interior secretary
President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a wealthy former software company executive, will be his pick for interior secretary.
“He’s going to head the Department of Interior, and it’s going to be fantastic,” a tuxedo-wearing Trump said at a gala at his Mar-a-Lago Florida retreat, adding that he would make an official announcement on Friday.
Burgum, 68, has portrayed himself as a traditional, business-minded conservative. He ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination before quitting and becoming a loyal Trump supporter, appearing at fundraisers and advocating for Trump on television, Reuters reported.
At the gala, which featured tech billionaire Elon Musk, actor Sylvester Stallone and members of his incoming administration, Trump praised his latest cabinet picks and made some of his longest remarks since his presidential election victory speech.
“Nobody knew we were going to win it the way we won it,” Trump said.
He teased Musk about his ongoing post-election stay at Mar-a-Lago. Musk is involved in some of Trump’s meetings at the oceanfront property.
“I can’t get him out of here. He just loves this place. And I like having him here,” said Trump.
At the end of the event, Musk mounted the stage.
“The public has given us a mandate that could not be more clear. The people have spoken, the people want change,” he said.
Fears that Donald Trump’s second presidency will be more extreme than his first have intensified amid a flurry of senior nominations that opponents have criticised as going from bad to worse.
Dismay over some of the president-elect’s early picks escalated to outrage after the far-right Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was unveiled as his selection to be attorney general – a position Trump has previously said he views as the most important in his administration.
The choice provoked disbelief, even among Republicans, and has fueled concerns that Trump is intent on carrying out mass firings at the Department of Justice in retribution for criminal investigations it instigated against him.
Trump reportedly chose Gaetz, 42, after the congressman – who himself was subject to a two-year justice department investigation into suspected sex-trafficking that ended without charges – told Trump: “Yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.”
Others considered for the post were dismissed as too concerned with legal concepts or constitutional niceties.
Musk asks ‘high-IQ revolutionaries’ to work for no pay on new Trump project
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”.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump announced the appointment of Musk and Ramaswamy to Doge, saying: “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies – essential to the ‘Save America’ movement.”
Trump went on to describe the newly formed department as the “‘Manhattan Project’ of our time,” referring to the US-led research program during the second world war that sought to create the nuclear bomb, which killed an estimated 214,000 people in Japan in 1945.
RFK Jr role condemned as a 'public health catastrophe'
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from Washington over the next few hours.
We start with the news that 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 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.
For more on that, see our full report here:
In other news:
The FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard before they are confirmed for their cabinet posts, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has said. Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence, is known for her tolerant view of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Elon Musk reportedly met Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, and discussed how to defuse tensions between Iran and the US, two Iranian officials told the New York Times. 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.
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are seeking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new department, at zero pay. Trump named Musk to co-lead the newly created government efficiency department that sits outside the federal government.
Advocates have urged state governments to find new ways to defend immigrants and block Trump’s mass deportation plan. California shielded many non-citizen residents from removal in Trump’s first term but immigrants rights groups warn an aggressive, multi-pronged response will be needed.
A Democratic lawmaker will file a motion specifically mentioning Trump can only serve two terms, after the president-elect joked he would be willing to serve an unconstitutional third term as president while meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday.
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 “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results”.
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