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      Democratic leaders across US work to lead resistance against Trump’s agenda

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      After the November elections ushered in a new era of unified Republican governance in Washington, Democratic leaders across the country are once again preparing to lead the resistance to Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he would convene a special legislative session next month to “safeguard California values and fundamental rights”.Washington state’s governor-elect, Bob Ferguson, who is currently the state’s attorney general, said his legal team has been preparing for months for the possibility of a second Trump term – an endeavor that included a “line-by-line” review of Project 2025, the 900+ page policy blueprint drafted by the president-elect’s conservative allies.And the governors of Illinois and Colorado this week unveiled a new coalition designed to protect state-level institutions against the threat of authoritarianism, as the nation prepares for a president who has vowed to seek retribution against his political enemies and to only govern as a dictator on “day one”.“We know that simple hope alone won’t save our democracy,” the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, said on a conference call announcing the group, called Governors Safeguarding Democracy. “We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it.”With Democrats locked out of control in Washington, many in the party will turn to blue state leaders – governors, attorneys general and mayors – as a bulwark against a second Trump administration. For these ambitious Democrats, it is also an opportunity to step into the leadership void left by Kamala Harris’s defeat.Progressives such as Newsom and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, are viewed as potential presidential contenders in 2028, while Democratic governors in states that voted for Trump such as Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are seen as models for how the party can begin to rebuild their coalition. And Tim Walz, Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, returned home to Minnesota with a national profile and two years left of his gubernatorial term.Leaders of the nascent blue state resistance are pre-emptively “Trump-proofing” against a conservative governing agenda, which they have cast as a threat to the values and safety of their constituents. As a candidate, Trump promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history”. In statements and public remarks, several Democrats say they fear the Trump administration will seek to limit access to medication abortion or seek to undermine efforts to provide reproductive care to women from states with abortion bans. They also anticipate actions by the Trump administration to roll back environmental regulations and expand gun rights.“To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom, opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people – you come through me,” Pritzker said last week.Unlike in 2016, when Trump’s victory shocked the nation, blue state leaders say they have a tested – and updated – playbook to draw upon. But they also acknowledge that Trump 2.0 may present new and more difficult challenges.Ferguson said Trump’s first-term executive actions were “often sloppy”, which created an opening for states to successfully challenge them in court. Eight years later, and after studying Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47, he anticipates the next Trump White House will be “better prepared” this time around.Pritzker said Trump was surrounding himself with “absolute loyalists to his cult of personality and not necessarily to the law”. “Last time, he didn’t really know where the levers of government were,” the governor said on a call with reporters this week. “I think he probably does now.”The courts have also become more conservative than they were when Trump took office eight years ago, a direct result of his first-term appointments to the federal bench, which included many powerful federal appeals court judges and three supreme court justices.The political landscape has also changed. In 2016, Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. Despite Republican control of Congress, there were a number of Trump skeptics willing – at least initially – to buck the president during his first two years in office.This time around, Trump is all but certain to win the popular vote, and he made surprising gains in some of the bluest corners of the country.Though the former president came nowhere close to winning his home state of New York, he made significant inroads, especially on Long Island. At a post-election conference last week, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, struck a more neutral tone. Hochul, who faces a potentially tough re-election in 2026, vowed to protect constituents against federal overreach, while declaring that she was prepared to work with “him or anybody regardless of party”.In New Jersey, where Trump narrowed his loss from 16 percentage points in 2020 to five percentage points in 2024, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, acknowledged the result was a “sobering moment” for the party and country. Outlining his approach to the incoming administration, Murphy said: “If it’s contrary to our values, we will fight to the death. If there’s an opportunity for common ground, we will seize that as fast as anybody.”Progressives and activists say they are looking to Democratic leaders to lead the charge against Trump’s most extreme proposals, particularly on immigration.“Trump may be re-elected but he does not have a mandate to come into and rip apart our communities,” said Greisa Martínez Rosas, the executive director of United We Dream Action, a network of groups that advocate for young people brought to the US as children, known as Dreamers.She called on state and local officials, as well as university heads and business leaders, to “use every tool at their disposal” to resist Trump’s mass deportation campaign, stressing: “There is a lot we can do to ensure Trump and his cabinet are not successful in their plans.”State attorneys general are again poised to play a pivotal role in curbing the next administration’s policy ambitions.“The quantity of litigation since the first Trump administration has been really off the charts – it’s at a new level,” said Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University in Wisconsin. “I fully expect that to continue in Trump 2.0.”There were 160 multi-state filings against the Trump administration during his four years in office, twice as many as were filed against Barack Obama during his entire eight-year presidency, according to a database maintained by Nolette.Many of the Democratic lawsuits succeeded – at least initially – in delaying or striking down Trump administration policies or regulations, Nolette said. Attorneys general can also leverage their state’s influence and economic power by entering legal settlements with companies. States have used this approach in the past to “advance their own regulatory goals”, Nolette said, for example, forcing the auto industry to adopt stricter environmental regulations.In a proclamation calling for a special session next month, Newsom asked the legislature to bolster the state’s legal funding to challenge – and defend California against – the Trump administration. Among his concerns, the California Democrat identified civil rights, climate action, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, as well as Trump’s threats to withhold disaster funding from the state and the potential for his administration to repeal protections shielding undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation.Trump responded on Truth Social, using a derisive nickname for the Democratic governor: “Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California. He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again,’ but I just overwhelmingly won the Election.”Democratic leaders in battleground states that Trump won are also calibrating their responses – and not all are eager to join the resistance.“I don’t think that’s the most productive way to govern Arizona,” the state’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, told reporters this week, according to the Arizona Capitol Times. Hobbs, who faces a potentially difficult re-election fight in 2026, said she would “stand up against actions that hurt our communities” but declined to say how she would respond if Trump sought to deport Dreamers or to nationalize the Arizona national guard as part of his mass deportation campaign.The state’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, who also faces re-election in two years, drew a harder line against Trump, vowing to fight “unconstitutional behavior” and protect abortion access, according to Axios. In an interview on MSNBC, Mayes said she had “no intention” of dropping the criminal case against allies of the former president who attempted to help Trump overturn Biden’s victory in the state.Yet she insisted there would be areas of common ground. She urged Trump to revive a bipartisan border deal that he had previously tanked and called on the next administration to send more federal resources and agents to help combat the flow of fentanyl into the US.With Democrats locked out of power in Washington, the new Indivisible Guide, a manual developed by former Democratic congressional staffers after Trump’s election in 2016 and recently updated to confront a new era of Maga politics, envisions a major role for blue states.“Over the next two years, your Democratic elected officials will make choices every single day about whether to stand up to Maga or whether to go along with it,” the Indivisible guide states. “Your spirited, determined advocacy will ensure that the good ones know they’ve got a movement behind them as they fight back – and the bad ones know they’re on notice.”Among the examples of actions blue state activists can demand their leaders consider, it suggests establishing protections for out-of-state residents seeking abortion access or gender-affirming care; refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and forging regional compacts to safeguard environmental initiatives, data privacy and healthcare.Democratic leaders at every level and across the country – even those in purple or red states – can serve as “backstops for protecting the democratic space”, said Mary Small, chief strategy officer at Indivisible.“The important things are to be proactive and bold, to be innovative and to work with each other,” she said. “I don’t think everybody has to have all of the answers right now, but to have that intention and that commitment and to not shrink down in anticipation of a more oppressive federal government.” More

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      Are US women protesting Trump by ‘swearing off sex with men’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Have rumours of a US sex strike been greatly exaggerated?Sex sells. Sex strikes, meanwhile, make for an irresistible headline. Ever since Donald Trump overwhelmingly won the election, there have been endless headlines about how American women are emulating South Korea’s fringe 4B movement (which encourages heterosexual women not to date, procreate, marry or have sex with men) and “swearing off sex with men” in protest.“A Sex Strike Is a Losing Strategy for American Women,” a recent op-ed in the New York Times proclaimed, for example.“No sex. No dating. No marriage. No children. Interest grows in 4B movement to swear off men,” a PBS headline declared.“Ahead of Trump’s Second Term, Calls for a Sex Strike Grow Online,” the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) wrote.It’s certainly true that there has been a spike in US interest in the 4B movement. Voluntary celibacy was growing in popularity long before the election but Trump’s victory gave it a huge boost. There are more than 100,000 videos about 4B on TikTok and there has been a surge in Google searches relating to it. There have also been various viral calls for women to withhold sex in order to protest against Trump. (Just in case you’re wondering if you have a severe case of deja vu, there were also calls for a sex strike during Trump’s first term.)But is this online chatter actually translating to offline action? It doesn’t seem that way yet. There is zero evidence that there are large-scale sex strikes protesting against Trump happening in the US. All the hand-wringing by the likes of the New York Times seems to be over something that doesn’t actually exist. The headlines treating women as some sort of monolith also obscure the fact that, according to AP VoteCast, 53% of white women voted for Trump this year.Still, that doesn’t mean that growing interest in 4B should be written off as some sort of meaningless fad. On the contrary, engagement with the movement points to the fact that many women are not taking Trump’s victory lying down. While there may be no proof of widespread strikes in the sheets, there have been plenty of demonstrations on the streets. Meanwhile, online sales of emergency contraceptives and abortion pills are rocketing before the “reproductive apocalypse” that will be Trump’s second term. With rights being rolled back and pregnancy growing increasingly dangerous in the US, women are also reconsidering whether they want to have children.Let’s say that sex strikes did actually take off, however. Might they be effective? The most famous sex strike certainly was. In the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, women withhold sex in an attempt to end the Peloponnesian war and the ruse pays off: peace is declared. Since then, there have been plenty of other real-world sex strikes with varying results, waged everywhere from Belgium to Liberia. A small town in Colombia held a “crossed legs” protest in 2011, for example; women refused sex with their husbands until the government paved a road linking their town to the rest of the province. The protest is widely considered to have been successful.Less headline-worthy forms of protest, however, tend to be rather more effective. This, by the way, is the rather less talked-about message in Lysistrata itself. As the cultural critic and classicist Helen Morales told the Guardian back in 2022, the play isn’t just about sex strikes: “There are elder women seizing control of the treasury and the younger women withdraw their unpaid labour at home. They’re much more a model for effecting political change.”How the Taliban are erasing Afghanistan’s women – photo essay“It was important for us to look beyond the traditional representations of Afghan women as passive victims of the Taliban and show them as active players in their own lives,” say journalist Mélissa Cornet and photographer Kiana Hayeri in this piece for the Guardian.Argentina votes alone against UN resolution combating misogynistic online violenceWhich is not a huge surprise as Argentina’s President Javier Milei is incredibly rightwing and a vocal critic of the UN.Gender-fluid Mary, Queen of Scots ballet to debut at Edinburgh festival 2025It’s the latest example of a trend of gender-neutral casting in artistic productions. You can guarantee that this will drive the usual suspects completely bonkers.Armie Hammer’s mother gifted him a vasectomy for his birthdayThe disgraced actor, who has been accused of sexual abuse by multiple women, has returned to public life via a podcast. He seems to be having trouble rustling up guests so recently had his mum on the podcast, where she shared this little snippet of info.What happened to Palestinian-Egyptian actor May Calamawy’s role in Gladiator II?When Calamawy was originally cast (long before 7 October 2023) it was reported that she’d have an “important” or leading role. Now it seems like she has been all but cut from the movie – relegated to a tiny non-speaking background part. There has been a lot of speculation that this is punishment for her pro-Palestinian advocacy. As we have seen, talking about a genocide and ethnic cleansing can be a real career-killer.Sydney Sweeney says female solidarity in Hollywood is ‘fake’Wait, you’re telling me that Hollywood – a place that fetishizes unrealistic beauty ideals and where women over 40 struggle to find roles – isn’t a utopia of intersectional feminism? You’re kidding me!Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws“It won’t be a clinic, it will be a prison,” one young woman from Iran told the Guardian.Sweden’s minister for gender equality is terrified of bananasAs someone who also hates bananas with a passion, I would like to extend my solidarity to Paulina Brandberg, whose banana-phobia has made international headlines. As one of her colleagues noted, we should be focusing on her work to help vulnerable women rather than her hatred for an alarmingly yellow fruit.The week in pawtriarchyJust in case you were wondering whether the US could get any more dystopian, it turns out that robot dogs are guarding Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. Still, probably better to have robots rather than the real thing considering how close Trump is to Kristi Noem. The South Dakota governor, whom Trump has just picked for head of homeland security, famously wrote about shooting and killing her family dog, Cricket, and an unnamed goat. More

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      Loyalists and jesters fill Trump’s ‘winter White House’ for court of King Donald

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      View image in fullscreenThe shutters are down, the curtains are open, and Donald Trump’s opulent, waterfront palace of intrigue is open for business once more. A succession of ambitious, ultra-loyal subjects has paraded through, vying for attention and seeking favors from the throne. Servants fall over themselves to indulge their master’s every whim. And then there are the jesters …Given this week’s extraordinary developments at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, as he builds the cabinet with which he will govern in January, it is difficult to escape the notion that the operation is being run something akin to a royal court.Trump certainly gives the appearance of acting as America’s first monarch since the official end of the revolutionary war in 1783, plotting, scheming and playing favorites, and setting individuals against each other as his courtiers are assembled.His unexpected nomination as attorney general of the Mar-a-Lago regular Matt Gaetz, the controversial Florida congressman under investigation for sexual misconduct, was a power move that wrong-footed even his closest advisers, and threw a gauntlet to Republicans in the US Senate who must confirm the appointment.It followed Trump’s equally astonishing choice a day earlier of a weekend presenter from the rightwing TV station Fox News to be the US defense secretary in charge of the world’s largest and most potent military: Pete Hegseth, the ultimate entertainer who caught the eye of the king.Public health experts decried the choice of the vaccine denier Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary. And perhaps the most bizarre spectacle of all is the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, a billionaire who has been elected to precisely nothing, strutting around the expansive resort’s perfectly manicured lawns and flaunting his new bromance with the next supposed leader of the free world.Reports say Musk has accompanied Trump almost every day since the election, joining telephone calls to multiple world leaders, offering advice on policy and staffing decisions, playing golf with Trump family members, and dining with them on the open-air patio.Musk received a standing ovation from assembled guests on the other side of the red velvet rope, according to the New York Times, and joined Trump and the classical singer Chris Macchio in a cringy rendition of God Bless America at a Thursday night gala.On Tuesday, five days into his tenure as Trump’s most favored house guest, Musk was named joint head of the freshlycreated Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), where he will generate plans to “slash and burn” government spending. It remains to be seen if any proposed cuts extend to the billions of dollars in lucrative government contracts and subsidies enjoyed by his own companies, SpaceX and Tesla.“He loves Mar-a-Lago. Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him,” Trump joked to Republicans on Wednesday in his first return to Washington DC since the election, before adding ominously: “Until I don’t like him.”Observers say it is no surprise that these machinations are playing out at Mar-a-Lago, the $1m-a-head private members’ club haughtily branded his “winter White House” by Trump during his first term, where he handed out ambassadorships to wealthy friends and donors, and where he took policy advice from regulars written on cocktail napkins.“A lot of action will get done down there during Trump’s second term, as we’re seeing right now with the transition,” said the political historian Matt Dallek, professor of political management at George Washington University.“It’s really a hub. People come in and out of there all the time, he spends a great deal of time there, and as he famously likes to do, he has multiple people telling him different things and he talks to a lot of people.“He’ll be talking to his wealthy friends, and people who come to the resort from around the world to pay homage to him there. He partly likes it because it’s kind of a shrine to him, and it’s his best version of himself, his best vision of himself and the kind of power that he wants to cultivate. He loves the attention. He loves the people coming in and around him.”Dallek noted that Trump also thrived on the atmosphere of unpredictability his presence at Mar-a-Lago creates. This was evident this week by his unorthodox cabinet hiring and procession of hopefuls desperate for an interview in a hastily assembled war room at what CNN called the “chaotic epicenter” of his transition.“There’s a certain amount of chaos that has long surrounded Trump, that Trump really cultivates, and that is a core part of his political identity. And Mar-a-Lago has been a center of that chaos,” Dallek said.“It’s been a kind of hothouse of fringe figures who’ve come there. He dined there with Ye, the antisemitic rapper, and Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist. There have been foreign spies who have attempted to penetrate the resort. It’s where he stored some of the most highly classified documents on the planet in his bathroom.“We don’t need to look very far back in time to get a sense of the goings-on, how freewheeling and just how bonkers it is. He’s dealing with these incredibly important matters of life and death, of national security, and doing it in this unsecured, chaotic atmosphere where people are coming and going all the time, and where some of his more memorable, and memorably unhinged, moments have occurred.”Dallek, and others, expect Trump to spend considerable time at Mar-a-Lago during his second term. During his first four years in office, the Washington Post calculated in 2021, he was there for all or part of 142 days, and played an estimated 87 rounds at his Trump International golf club in West Palm Beach. Mar-a-Lago’s 128 guest suites are always full when he is in residence.“It’s possible that some people just want to hang out with the president and the people who are around the president, but I think people were explicit about it and the first presidency was an opportunity to be able to tell him what your thoughts were, but also to seek favor,” Robert Weissman, president of the Washington DC-based pro-transparency group Public Citizen, told the Guardian in August.“There are profound and systemic issues regarding ethics, and big money, and access for the rich, but Trump is in a category by himself.”As well as operating Mar-a-Lago as his command center ahead of his second administration, Trump is also reaping a significant financial windfall.Mar-a-Lago is expected to be at full occupancy until January’s inauguration, and CNN reported that members had been offered money by outsiders eager to accompany them on to the grounds to get face time with him.Even after he takes office, return trips to Mar-a-Lago will keep Trump’s coffers swollen. In October, it was revealed that Trump properties had overcharged the Secret Service by 300% for rooms occupied by agents providing security for Trump and his family.“Of course it’ll be a money-making opportunity for him,” Dallek said. “Which he’ll never pass up.” More

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      Karoline Leavitt named as Donald Trump’s White House press secretary

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      Donald Trump named his White House press secretary on Friday, placing Karoline Leavitt, a 27-year-old firebrand from his inner circle, in position to aggressively defend him.The job of the White House press secretary typically is to help inform the American people about presidential activities without betraying the confidence of the boss.“Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator. I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium …, ” the statement read.The challenge for Leavitt will be to impart reliable information and gain credibility with reporters, while maintaining strong loyalty to Trump. Leavitt has been seen as a staunch and camera-ready advocate for Trump who is quick on her feet and delivers aggressive defenses of the president-elect in television interviews.In a June interview on CNN’s This Morning, Leavitt became embroiled in a heated exchange with host Kasie Hunt, bashing Dana Bash and Jake Tapper for their “biased coverage” of Trump before the highly anticipated debate between him and Joe Biden. Bash and Tapper had been moderators for that debate. Hunt abruptly ended that interview after Leavitt refused to be deflected.Leavitt will be the youngest person ever to hold the title of White House press secretary. Ron Ziegler was previously the youngest press secretary at age 29 when Richard Nixon gave him the position in 1969.Leavitt, a New Hampshire native, was an assistant press secretary during the latter part of Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021.When Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in 2020, Leavitt became communications director for Elise Stefanik, the Republican US representative, who has been tapped by Trump as his US ambassador to the United Nations.Leavitt ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives from New Hampshire in 2022, winning the Republican primary. She lost the general election to Democrat Chris Pappas, but the experience appeared to give her valuable experience with public speaking.She joined Trump’s 2024 campaign and has been the chief spokesperson for the president-elect’s transition team.Trump had four press secretaries during his 2017-2021 term: Sean Spicer, Sarah Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany. Spicer got off on the wrong foot with the White House press corps at his first appearance in 2017 after falsely claiming that the crowd gathered in Washington DC for Trump’s inauguration had been “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe”.Spicer was replaced after just sixth months in the role, making his tenure the sixth-shortest since the position was created in 1929, according to data from the White House Transition Project. The average term is just under three years.Sanders, who is now the Republican governor of Arkansas, got praise from Trump for her parrying with the press corps.After Sanders left, Trump turned to Grisham, who never held a briefing, which she said was at Trump’s direction. Grisham resigned after the events of 6 January 2021, and is now a sharp Trump critic.Trump’s last chief spokesperson at the White House was McEnany, who sparred with reporters during the pandemic year of 2020 and is now an on-air personality at Fox News. More

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      Racist and anti-LGBTQ+ texts target Americans across US, including teens

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      Racist text messages targeting Black people across the US just hours after Donald Trump won a second presidency have now expanded to the Hispanic communities – and homophobic versions have been aimed at LGBTQ+ people, the FBI said on Friday.Authorities say they are investigating the messages – which now include emails – and that they have not received reports of violent acts stemming from the hateful messages.The recipients of the messages include high school students being told that they have been “selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp”, the FBI said in a statement.After the 5 November US presidential election saw Trump returned to the White House, Black Americans reported receiving racist text messages telling them they had been “selected” to pick cotton and needed to report to the “nearest plantation”.Black people in states including Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, New Jersey and Nevada, and in Washington DC and elsewhere, reported receiving the messages. The messages were sent to Black adults and students.Some of the texts were signed “a Trump supporter”. Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said the campaign “has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages”.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) condemned the messages, saying that they “represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear”.“The unfortunate reality of electing a president who historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes,” the NAACP president and chief executive officer, Derrick Johnson, said in a statement last week.The FBI said it is contact with the US justice department and other federal authorities on the racist and homophobic messages. More

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      Mike Johnson reportedly opposes releasing results of Matt Gaetz misconduct investigation – live

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      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.Iran sent a message to the Biden administration in October stating it was not attempting to kill Donald Trump while he was president, aiming to reduce tensions with the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.The message, delivered through an intermediary, followed a September warning from the Biden administration that any Iranian attempt on Trump’s life, 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.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 & 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 & Advance.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.”Kat Lay and Kate Connolly explained what the latest appointment could mean:After Donald Trump nominated him to lead the interior department and the new National Energy Council, North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, 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: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.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.
      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.”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.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.
      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.
      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.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: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.
      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. More

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      Two Trump cabinet choices in jeopardy over sexual misconduct allegations

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      The confirmation prospects of two of Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet choices were in jeopardy over sexual misconduct allegations on Friday in developments mirroring the president-elect’s own history of abusive behavior towards women.Uncertainty surrounded the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice as defense secretary – whose path to Senate confirmation was already complicated over concerns about his inexperience and extreme views – following revelations that police in California investigated a sexual assault allegation against him in 2017.No charges were pressed. But the allegations were sufficiently serious for Trump’s newly appointed chief of staff, Susie Wiles, to reportedly speak to Hegseth after she learned of them on Wednesday evening, the day after his nomination.According to Vanity Fair, which initially reported the story, the incoming president’s own lawyers also talked to Hegseth, a 44-year-old Fox News host and army veteran who has railed against – among other things – women serving in military combat roles.The disclosure compounded the controversy over Matt Gaetz, the far-right Florida congressman nominated as attorney general despite having faced a two-year Department of Justice investigation over sex-trafficking allegations. They included allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old minor.Republican and Democratic senators pressed on Friday to see a House of Representatives ethic committee report into Gaetz’s conduct that was commissioned despite the criminal investigation ending without charges.Gaetz forestalled Friday’s scheduled publication of the report – the contents of which were widely expected to be damaging to him – by resigning from the House immediately after Trump announced his nomination on Wednesday. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has also said he would “strongly request” the report not be published.But the report’s existence could still in effect torpedo his nomination after senior senators – including Republican John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Senate judiciary committee – demanded that it be preserved for use in Senate confirmation hearings.The inquiry was originally launched in 2021 to investigate whether the congressman “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House rules, laws, or other standards of conduct”.Trump is believed to have picked Gaetz as the ideal candidate to conduct a wholesale purge of the justice department, against which he harbors bitter grievances for pressing criminal investigations into his conduct during his first presidency.Hegseth, likewise, has been selected with a view to purging the armed forces, which he has accused of being hampered by “woke leadership”.His prospects of doing so seemed to be clouded by disclosure of the 2017 investigation, which stemmed from an alleged incident at the Hyatt Regency hotel and spa in Monterey, California, which was hosting a Republican women’s conference.The Monterey city manager’s office confirmed the investigation in a brief statement, adding that the alleged incident occurred between midnight on 7 October 2017 and 7am the following morning.Hegseth reportedly told Wiles and the Trump legal team that it stemmed from a consensual encounter and described the allegation as “he said, she said”, Vanity Fair reported.The magazine’s website also quoted a source as saying Hegseth had not been vetted. This was countered by a source in Trump’s transition team, who said: “Hegseth was vetted, but this alleged incident didn’t come up.”The dispute over vetting followed separate reports that standard FBI background checks on some of Trump’s most controversial nominees – designed to uncover past criminal activity and other potentially disqualifying liabilities – had been set aside.The questions over the sexual behavior of his nominees echo Trump’s own past. The president-elect was ordered to pay $83m damages to the writer E Jean Carroll last year after a New York jury in a civil trial found him liable for sexual assault and defamation. Carroll alleged Trump raped her in 1996, which Trump denied.His candidacy in the 2016 presidential election was almost derailed following the emergence of an Access Hollywood tape from more than a decade earlier in which he boasted of using his celebrity status to grab women’s genitals.Sexual misconduct allegations have also dogged Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s selection as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. A former babysitter for his children alleged that Kennedy groped her in his home in 1998. Kennedy responded to the accusation, again reported in Vanity Fair, by saying: “I’m not a church boy.” More

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      Environmental groups alarmed as Doug Burgum picked for US interior secretary

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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 April meeting at Trump’s club earlier this year prompted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the country’s top ethics watchdog, as well as House Democrats, to investigate the dinner over constitutional and campaign violations.“If that weren’t disqualifying enough, he’s long advocated for rolling back critical environmental safeguards in order to let polluters profit. Doug Burgum’s ties to the fossil fuel industry run deep and, if confirmed to this position, he will surely continue Donald Trump’s efforts to sell out our public lands to his polluter pals. Our lands are our nation’s greatest treasure, and the interior department is charged with their protection,” the Sierra Club continued.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.”It went on to add: “If Doug Burgum tries to turn America’s public lands into an even bigger cash cow for the oil and gas industry, or tries to shrink America’s parks and national monuments, he’ll quickly discover he’s on the wrong side of history.”The Center for Biological Diversity equally condemned the nomination, saying that Burgum would be a “disastrous secretary of the interior who’ll sacrifice our public lands and endangered wildlife on the altar of the fossil fuel industry’s profits”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBurgum was not always aligned with Trump’s extreme climate agenda. He has said he believes that climate change is real and in 2021 had called for North Dakota to be carbon neutral by 2030, advocating for a plan that retained the state’s fossil fuel industries while investing in carbon capture and storage technologies to offset emissions.At the time, environmental groups supported Burgum’s pledge, but noted the impracticality of relying on unproven carbon capture technology rather than a transition away from fossil fuels.“Could be worse for sure,” said Jared Huffman, a progressive Democrat of California and senior member of the House natural resources committee who has championed climate action. “I look forward to trying to work productively with him.”Burgum’s views on matters outside of climate and energy, however, have long been reactionary. He signed a number of bills targeting LGBTQ+ people in North Dakota, including ones that banned gender-affirming care for minors, restricted drag shows, and banned trans people from using bathrooms and shower facilities that match their gender identity in prisons, domestic violence shelters or state university families. More