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      Trump health secretary choice is ‘courting catastrophe’, says rights group – as it happened

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      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”.This blog is closing now but you can continue to read our latest US political coverage here. Thank you for reading.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.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.”Here are the best, worst and weirdest graphics from the US election: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.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”.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 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!
      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!
      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.
      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.
      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”. More

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      Trump 2.0: are his cabinet picks more extreme than in 2016?

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      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?Secretary of health and human servicesIn 2016, Trump appointed Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon and prominent critic of Obamacare but he was sacked a year later for using at least $400,000 of taxpayer money for private jets. He was replaced by Alex Azar, former executive at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, prompting outcry over the proximity of Big Pharma to Congress.On Thursday, Trump said he will nominate Robert F Kennedy Jras the US secretary of health and human services. The scion of the Democratic dynasty rose to national prominence as a persistent and influential vaccine denier, and one rights group responded to his nomination by calling him “a clear and present danger to the nation’s health” . He has amplified unfounded claims that vaccines are tied to autism in children, promoted the false idea HIV is not the cause of Aids and baselessly 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.Secretary of defenseView image in fullscreenTrump’s pick of James Mattis in 2016 was well received by those in establishment defence circles, who reportedly had faith that he would “moderate” Trump. The retired marine general also had deep wells of support on Capitol Hill and Trump himself said he had been impressed by Mattis’s forceful argument against torture. His resignation less than two years into Trump’s first term was described by some analysts as “the last proverbial adult in the room” leaving.This week Trump named national guard veteran and Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth for the role. Hegseth served as a prison guard at Guantánamo Bay detention camp, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan, before becoming an outspoken rightwing critic of the military. He has called for a purge of generals for pursuing “woke” diversity policies.Pentagon officials were said to be stunned by the choice and the Army Times quoted an unnamed senior military officer as saying there are concerns that Hegseth – who has minimal managerial experience – will be able to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.Secretary of stateView image in fullscreenIn 2016, Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Rex Tillerson – the head of the biggest oil company in the world – as secretary of state triggered alarm among environmentalists and critics of Russian influence. As president and chief executive of ExxonMobil, Tillerson had a history of close business ties to Vladimir Putin.At the time, senator Marco Rubio said he had “serious concerns” about the nomination. In his time in the role, Tillerson clashed with Trump over Iran, North Korea – and the response to Russia’s nerve agent attack on British soil, which the then secretary of state said would have consequences. Trump went on to fire him in March 2018 and Tillerson later that year warned of a “crisis of ethics and integrity” in America.Trump’s choice of Marco Rubio for the role in 2024 was arguably the most hawkish option on his shortlist. The senator has in past years advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to China, Iran and Cuba. Over the last few years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump’s views, but his selection was greeted with relief by many in foreign policy circles.Attorney generalView image in fullscreenTrump’s 2016 pick of senator Jeff Sessions to be chief law enforcement officer for the government was backed by many Republicans, but criticised by rights groups who accused of him of making racist comments in the past.His tumultuous time in the role saw him recuse himself from an investigation into Russia’s role in the election and clash with Trump over the justice department’s independence. He was sacked in November 2018.Congressman Matt Gaetz’s nomination this week has been variously described as “silly”, “the worst in American history” and unlikely to be confirmed by the senate. Robert Weissman, the co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen said “Gaetz has demonstrated contempt for the rule of law, truth and decency” and was “singularly unqualified to lead an agency that enforces civil rights laws and environmental protection statutes.”A loyal Trump follower, Gaetz’s nomination comes a little over a year after the justice department decided not to charge him as part of a sex trafficking investigation. He also faced investigation from the House ethics committee over allegations that he “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use”. He has denied all wrongdoing.National security adviserView image in fullscreenIn 2016, the pick of retired three-star army general Michael Flynn to help shape foreign and military policy in the White House drew sharp criticism for his ties to Russia and comments about Muslims.In the end, Flynn lasted just 23 days in the job and resigned after it was revealed that he had misled the vice-president, Mike Pence, about his communications with the Russian ambassador.Congressman Mike Waltz has been seen as a more conventional pick for the role in 2024. A former Green Beret, Waltz has been a leading critic of China who has voiced the need for the US to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.Director of national intelligenceView image in fullscreenThe choice of Dan Coats – a former senator, ambassador and lobbyist – as director of national intelligence in 2016 was seen by many Republicans as the elevation of a dependable conservative voice. Coats went on to clash with his boss on several issues and was eventually fired three days after Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy which resulted in his first impeachment.On Wednesday, Trump named Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic representative who left the party in 2022 and who has little direct experience with intelligence work, for the role. Gabbard endorsed Trump for president in August.In the past she has criticised the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and publicly doubted the intelligence community – which she is now set to lead – after it concluded that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad carried out a chemical attack that killed dozens of his own citizens.Former intelligence officer and Democrat representative Abigail Spanberger said she was “appalled at the nomination” adding she was “deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.”Secretary of homeland securityView image in fullscreenIn 2016, Trump picked former Marine Corps Gen John Kelly to run the cabinet department responsible for enforcing US immigration laws, as well as a number of important agencies including the coast guard and the Secret Service. His nomination was greeted warmly on both sides of politics, including from the top Democrat on the Senate homeland security committee.Kelly went on to serve as Trump’s chief of staff, but later fell out with the president. Last month he claimed his former boss “falls into the general definition of fascist” and recalled the former president repeatedly lauding Hitler’s achievements when he was in the White House.This week Trump chose Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, for the role. She rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the Covid pandemic. In January she said the US was “in a time of invasion” and offered to send razor wire and agents to help shore up the border.Noem was reportedly on Trump’s shortlist for the role of vice-president, but was removed after an outcry over her admission that she once shot dead a pet dog, as well as a family goat. More

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      RFK Jr condemned as ‘clear and present danger’ after Trump nomination

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      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.Apu Akkad, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, called the announcement a “scary day for public health”.“I’m saying this over and over – but it will be of the utmost importance to ONLY make public health decisions or changes based on robust evidence. I hope we have at least learned this much from Covid,” Akkad added on X.The conservative pundit and lawyer George Conway also commented on Kennedy’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.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.”According to FactCheck.org, in 2018, two infants in Samoa died when nurses accidentally prepared the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine with an expired muscle relaxant instead of water. Following the infants’ deaths, the Samoan government temporarily suspended the vaccination program.The temporary suspension prompted Kennedy and his anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense to reportedly spread various falsehoods about vaccinations across the island, in turn resulting in a drastic decline in vaccination rates.A year later, a measles outbreak on the island caused by a sick traveler ended up infecting more than 57,000 people and killing 83, including children.In an interview for a documentary, Shot in the Arm, Kennedy said he bears no responsibility for the outcome.On another health issue, Kennedy has said that Trump would push to eliminate fluoride from drinking water, a mineral that strengthens teeth and reduces cavities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Throughout his own independent campaign trail, Kennedy has also touted the effectiveness of raw milk and ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that has been disproved as a Covid cure. In addition to health-related conspiracies, Kennedy has admitted to decapitating a beached whale and collecting its head, and to dumping a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago because he did not have time to skin it and eat it later.Kennedy has also said that he had a worm in his brain which “ate a portion of it and then died” and vowed “to eat five more brain worms and still beat” Trump and Joe Biden in a staged debate earlier this year. More

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      Trump expected to announce RFK Jr as his pick to lead US health department

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      Donald Trump has announced he will nominate former independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr as the US secretary of health and human services (HHS) in his administration.Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, will be a contentious pick to lead the US health department, and the role will need to be confirmed by the Senate.Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, claimed Americans have “for too long” been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health”.“HHS will 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,” the president-elect wrote. “Mr. 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!”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.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, 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. More

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      Fears mount over Trump’s second term amid flurry of shock selections

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      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.Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer in Trump’s first presidency, called Gaetz’s nomination “a big f… you to America”.“Matt Gaetz is just simply unqualified … academically, professionally, ethically, morally and experientially,” he told CNN this week.The nomination followed two other shock appointments: Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Fox News’s Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.Gabbard, 43 – a former Democratic member of Congress turned Republican – would oversee America’s vast intelligence complex despite past accusations of being a Russian asset or spouting Kremlin talking points.Her nomination followed repeated vows by Trump to purge intelligence chiefs who he considers to be part of a “deep state”.Army veteran Hegseth, 44, has railed against “woke” leadership in the military. He was nominated following reports Trump was considering issuing an early executive order that would establish a “warrior board” empowered to recommend the removal of generals and admirals deemed to lack “requisite leadership qualities”.Some observers saw these nominations as a deliberate challenge to Senate Republicans, who on Wednesday elected John Thune to replace the retiring Mitch McConnell as Senate leader after the party won a 53-47 majority in the chamber in last week’s general election.The Senate is constitutionally responsible for vetting senior appointments in confirmation hearings. Forecasts have already rolled in noting that Gaetz in particular would struggle to win acceptance.But Trump has urged the Senate to circumvent such hearings by allowing him to make recess appointments in what is seen as an early test of Thune’s independence.“These choices seem designed to poke the Senate in the eye,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice – a non-partisan law and policy institute – told the New York Times. “[They] are so appalling they’re a form of performance art.”The three latest nominees overshadowed concerns about Trump’s appointees on immigration, a key issue which he has highlighted by vowing mass deportations of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.Tom Homan, a hardline former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been chosen as border czar, while Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, who earned notoriety by admitting that she shot her own dog, has been nominated as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.Trump has chosen an even more immoderate figure, Stephen Miller – the architect of the child separation policy for migrant families in his first presidency – as his deputy White House chief of staff for policy, a brief certain to include immigration.Trump had also raised eyebrows with his choice of Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, as US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has previously championed internationally illegal Israeli settlements and has said Israel has a “title deed” to the West Bank, which the Palestinians want as part of a future state; he calls the West Bank by its Hebrew name, Judea and Samaria.Steve Witkoff, a golfing partner who was with Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club at the time of a second failed assassination attempt in September, has been chosen as Middle East envoy.Elise Stefanik, a New York representative whose pugnacious questioning about antisemitism brought down two female Ivy League university heads, will be ambassador to the UN, a body she has frequently criticised.Some nominations are relatively uncontroversial, including Marco Rubio, a senator for Florida, as secretary of state, and Susie Wiles, a veteran Republican operative and senior campaign adviser, as White House chief of staff. More

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      Elizabeth Warren denounces Biden administration over Gaza humanitarian situation

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      Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive voice in the US Senate, has denounced the Biden administration’s failure to punish Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and endorsed a joint resolution of disapproval in Congress.The amount of aid reaching the territory has dropped to the lowest level in 11 months, official Israeli figures show. The White House last month gave Israel an ultimatum of 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support. As the deadline expired on Tuesday, international aid groups said Israel had fallen far short.But the US state department announced it would not take any punitive action, insisting that Israel was making limited progress and was not blocking aid and therefore not violating US law. Warren condemned the Biden administration’s decision to continue supplying arms to its ally.“On October 13, the Biden administration told Prime Minister Netanyahu that his government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or face the consequences under US law, which would include cutting off military assistance,” the Massachusetts senator said in a statement shared with the Guardian.“Thirty days later, the Biden administration acknowledged that Israel’s actions had not significantly expanded food, water and basic necessities for desperate Palestinian civilians. Despite Netanyahu’s failure to meet the United States’ demands, the Biden administration has taken no action to restrict the flow of offensive weapons.”For the first time on the issue, Warren threw her weight behind a joint resolution of disapproval, a legislative tool that enables Congress to overturn actions taken by the executive branch. Such a resolution must pass both the House of Representatives and the Senate.She added: “The failure by the Biden administration to follow US law and to suspend arms shipments is a grave mistake that undermines American credibility worldwide. If this administration will not act, Congress must step up to enforce US law and hold the Netanyahu government accountable through a joint resolution of disapproval.”Eight international aid groups have said that Israel failed to meet the US demands to improve access for assistance, while food security experts have said it is likely that famine is imminent in parts of Gaza.Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, told reporters on Wednesday that Israel had taken some steps to improve aid but they needed to be sustained to take effect. He called on Israel to rescind evacuation orders to allow those displaced by its operations to return home and to resume commercial trucking deliveries into Gaza.Biden has backed Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked the country in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Since then, more than 43,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza, with 2 million displaced people and much of the strip reduced to rubble.The president, whose term ends in January and who will be replaced by his predecessor Donald Trump, is facing growing dissent from Democrats over his handling of the war. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told Zeteo this week: “President Biden’s inaction, given the suffering in Gaza, is shameful. I mean, there’s no other word for it.”Bernie Sanders, an independent senator for Vermont, announced that next week he will bring joint resolutions of disapproval that would block the sale of certain weapons to Israel. “There is no longer any doubt that Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of US and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said.And on Thursday, 15 members of the Senate and 69 members of the House announced efforts to press the Biden administration to hold members of the Netanyahu government – specifically, the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir – and others accountable for the rise in settler violence, settlement expansion and destabilising activity in the West Bank. More

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      Kevin McCarthy predicts Senate won’t confirm Matt Gaetz as attorney general

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      The former Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is predicting that Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general will be rejected by the Republican Senate next year.“Gaetz won’t get confirmed, everybody knows that,” McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. Gaetz orchestrated the successful effort to oust McCarthy from his leadership role last year.The comments come amid growing calls by both Democrats and Republicans for the House ethics committee to release its report into Gaetz, from their investigation looking into allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other ethical breaches.The House investigation in effect ended on Wednesday, after Gaetz announced that he would be resigning from Congress following the announcement that Trump would be nominating him to be US attorney general.Picking Gaetz to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department sent shock waves through Washington DC and nationwide on Wednesday.Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator of Alaska, said that she didn’t think the nomination was “serious” and that she was “looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious”.The Republican congressman Max Miller of Ohio also told Axios that Gaetz had “a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate”.On Thursday morning, Dick Durbin, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee, called on the House ethics committee to share and preserve its report on Gaetz.“The sequence and timing of Mr Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House ethics committee report” Durbin said. “We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people.”Durbin added that the information in the report could be relevant to Gaetz’s confirmation as the next US attorney general.The Republican senator John Cornyn also joined calls for the House ethics committee to release their report on Gaetz on Thursday, saying that he “absolutely” wanted to review the report examining the allegations.“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider,” Cornyn told reporters, according to Reuters. When asked if that meant he wanted to see the ethics report, he replied: “Absolutely.”Gaetz was also investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges last year.Gaetz has insisted throughout both investigations that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.One of the lawyers representing an alleged victim of Gaetz’s said in a statement that Gaetz’s “likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events” adding: “We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”Though McCarthy is predicting that Gaetz will not get confirmed as attorney general, there is a mechanism by which Trump could technically bypass a Senate vote, and make a recess appointment, which is when a president can make an appointment without a vote in the Senate while the upper chamber is in recess. Past presidents have used this method, often as a way to circumvent political divides that would slow nominations. More

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      Line up to kiss the ring! How to join the brownnosers sucking up to Trump | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Let the humiliation Olympics begin. As Donald Trump readies himself for his revenge tour, world leaders and business moguls are falling over themselves to show the incoming president how much they admire him. Even if it means making an embarrassment of themselves in the process.While it’s only natural for the rich and powerful to try to ingratiate themselves with the incoming president of the United States, the extent to which people are lining up to kiss the ring is remarkable. This isn’t just diplomacy as usual: it speaks to Trump’s unapologetically transactional politics. He has made it very clear that loyalty will be richly rewarded and promised to ruthlessly pursue his enemies. As a result, we appear to have entered into a golden age of brown-nosing.Step one in transforming yourself into Trump’s lapdog: delete any previous criticism of the former president that you may have ill-advisedly put out back when you still had a spine. See, for example, Australia’s ambassador to the US, the former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who appears to have stayed up all night recently hitting the delete button on Twitter.“[Trump is] the most destructive president in history,” Rudd declared on Twitter, now X, in 2020, for example. “He drags America and democracy through the mud.”That tweet, along with others critical of the former president, has now been wiped clean. In a statement posted on his personal website last week, Rudd explained he had made those remarks back when he was a political commentator and deleted them to “eliminate the possibility of such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his positions as Ambassador”.A more honest explanation might be that Rudd is terrified Trump will come up with a nasty nickname for him (Rudd the dud?) and impose enormous tariffs on Australia as payback.You can press the delete button as much as you like, but the internet has a very long memory. So, if you can’t completely delete your way into Trump’s good books the next step is to deny and defuse. Technically, you may have made some nasty comments about Trump in the past but you didn’t mean them and, anyway, you’ve seen the light now.This appears to be how the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, is dealing with the fact that, during his days as a backbench MP, he described Trump as a “tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”. Lammy has also called Trump “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and “no friend of Britain”.Seems pretty unambiguous. According to Lammy, we should forget all that because it is “old news”. In an interview with the BBC, Lammy added that he’d made those comments when he was a silly backbencher and he knows better now. “[W]hat you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things,” Lammy explained. “And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then.”What exactly does the older and wiser Lammy now know? Perhaps that he really likes having power and doesn’t want anything as silly as having consistent morals to jeopardize it?To be fair, it seems that a lot of people are now finding out a lot of important facts about Trump that they didn’t know before because JD Vance has also made good use of Lammy’s “older and wiser” defence. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Vance called Trump an “idiot” who was “unfit for our nation’s highest office”. He also characterized the man who would become his boss as “America’s Hitler”. The incoming vice-president has of course, now realised that he was “wrong about Donald Trump”.And he is in powerful company: you would struggle to find a titan of industry who hasn’t criticized Trump in the past and who isn’t rapidly backtracking now. The Apple CEO, Tim Cook; the Google CEO, Sundar Pichai; the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella; and the former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos are among the high-profile business figures who have radically changed their tune when it comes to Trump.The Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has also undergone a Trumpian metamorphosis. He once accused Trump of inciting violence and undermining the law; now he is lining up with the rest of the tech bros to gush about how excited he is to work with the Trump administration. Does Zuck always fawn over incoming presidents? No, he doesn’t. As Popular Information has noted: “Zuckerberg offered no congratulatory message at all to Biden after his 2020 victory.”More broadly, Zuckerberg, who has been busy drastically revamping his wardrobe and public image, seems to have decided that Trump is a figure to admire and emulate. He called Trump a “badass” in July, after the former president survived an assassination attempt. Then, during a recent conference, Zuckerberg said the biggest mistake of his career was apologizing too much. Trump, after all, has proved you can get away with anything; that power puts you above the law.Weaseling your way into Trump’s good books may be humiliating but it comes with a big payday: the president-elect is already busy doling out favours to friends. Elon Musk, for example, who spent over $100m getting Trump elected has been tapped to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. This allows Musk, whose companies have received more than $15.4bn in government contracts, to be a lot more efficient about rerouting public funds into his private purse.Meanwhile Trump is assembling his cabinet, and it is has become apparent that the most important qualification for office is a history of saying nice things about the president-elect. Pete Hegseth, for example, a Fox News personality and military veteran with no meaningful foreign policy experience has been picked to be secretary of defense. The New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who stood by Trump when he faced impeachment and became one of his staunchest cheerleaders, is being rewarded for her sycophancy with a gig as ambassador to the United Nations. Like Hegseth, she also has no meaningful foreign policy experience but she will support Israel and Trump no matter what they do, which is all that matters.The South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, will reportedly lead the Department of Homeland Security. She doesn’t have a huge amount of experience in this area, nor does she represent a border state, but she does have a lot of experience in trying to curry favour with Trump. Noem, who is famous for once shooting her family dog, has echoed Trump’s hardline immigration rhetoric and plied the president with gifts. In 2020, the New York Times reported that Noem welcomed Trump to her corner of the country with a “a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore” that included his face on it. Noem also moderated the famous campaign town hall in Pennsylvania where Trump stopped taking questions and, instead, danced (along with Noem) to his favourite songs.Then there’s “Little Marco”. Trump levelled some very personal attacks against Marco Rubio and the senator responded in kind back in 2016. Since then, however, Rubio has fallen into line and groveled at Trump’s feet enough that it seems he’s being forgiven for mocking the size of Trump’s hands and saying “he’s gonna make America orange”. Rubio is reportedly being considered for secretary of state.So there you go: we are officially a quid pro quo economy now. It’s no wonder that Trump’s former critics are all suddenly reinventing themselves and tech bros are lining up to say how “excited’ they are to work with the Trump administration. What’s a little bit of brown-nosing, when you’re rewarded with a giant pot of gold? More