JD Vance

Subterms

    More stories

    • 250 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Musk defends Doge role and rejects conflict of interest claims as he joins Trump for Oval Office ceremony – live

      by

      Speaking from the Oval Office, where he stood behind the Resolute Desk, but to the right of a seated Donald Trump, Elon Musk just defended his outsized role in the gutting of federal agencies, under the auspices of his “department of government efficiency”.Asked about critics who call his effective control over multiple federal agencies, and the cutting of funding for congressionally approved programs federal judges have ordered to halt, Musk said: “The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get”.“That’s what democracy is all about”.He also dismissed concerns about his own clear conflicts of interest, since six of his businesses are dealing with investigations, complaints or regulatory actions from 11 of the federal agencies he has taken a leading role in drastically cutting back or reshaping.Musk told reporters he is trying to be as transparent as possible, even though his own financial disclosures will not be made public. “Transparency is what builds trust” he said.Trump backed Musk’s claim there was no problem with his role. Trump also claimed that he saw a lot of “kickbacks” with government contracts. The president said that he hoped the courts would allow him to pursue his agenda.Trump claimed that his administration, with Musk’s help, had already found billions in “fraud and abuse”, despite the fact that multiple examples they have previously offered to the public have been false or misleading. Trump cited no new evidence, but told reporters “and you know what we’re talking about”. This appears to be his new shorthand for the debunked claim that Musk’s team had uncovered $50 million in funding to send condoms to the besieged Gaza Strip.Here is photograph of the press availability in the Oval Office posted on Musk’s platform X by Katie Miller, the spokesperson for his “department of government efficiency”, which shows that Miller’s spouse, Stephen, was just out of the frame of wire photographs, to Trump and Musk’s right.The Associated Press was not allowed in to the Oval office to report on the Musk-Trump news conference, the not-for-profit news cooperative says, because it has declined to abide by a White House directive to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.The AP’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said in a statement:
      As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.
      Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.
      It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.
      The AP issued this style guidance note on 23 January on the renaming:
      President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The body of water has shared borders between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change.
      The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
      Speaking from the Oval Office, where he stood behind the Resolute Desk, but to the right of a seated Donald Trump, Elon Musk just defended his outsized role in the gutting of federal agencies, under the auspices of his “department of government efficiency”.Asked about critics who call his effective control over multiple federal agencies, and the cutting of funding for congressionally approved programs federal judges have ordered to halt, Musk said: “The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get”.“That’s what democracy is all about”.He also dismissed concerns about his own clear conflicts of interest, since six of his businesses are dealing with investigations, complaints or regulatory actions from 11 of the federal agencies he has taken a leading role in drastically cutting back or reshaping.Musk told reporters he is trying to be as transparent as possible, even though his own financial disclosures will not be made public. “Transparency is what builds trust” he said.Trump backed Musk’s claim there was no problem with his role. Trump also claimed that he saw a lot of “kickbacks” with government contracts. The president said that he hoped the courts would allow him to pursue his agenda.Trump claimed that his administration, with Musk’s help, had already found billions in “fraud and abuse”, despite the fact that multiple examples they have previously offered to the public have been false or misleading. Trump cited no new evidence, but told reporters “and you know what we’re talking about”. This appears to be his new shorthand for the debunked claim that Musk’s team had uncovered $50 million in funding to send condoms to the besieged Gaza Strip.Here is photograph of the press availability in the Oval Office posted on Musk’s platform X by Katie Miller, the spokesperson for his “department of government efficiency”, which shows that Miller’s spouse, Stephen, was just out of the frame of wire photographs, to Trump and Musk’s right.Elon Musk has joined Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as the president put his signature on an executive order that requires federal agencies to coordinate with the billionaire Tesla chief’s “department of government efficiency”.In comments to the press, Musk called the federal bureaucracy an “unelected” fourth branch of government, and also said the US budget deficit must be addressed. Trump, meanwhile, talked about the need to root out “corruption”.A coalition of labor unions yesterday filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) violated federal law by accessing secure systems in three government departments.“Elon Musk and his minions are stealing Americans’ private personal and financial data in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.“I suspect no one who voted for Donald Trump thought he would allow Musk permission to invade their privacy. This is a breach of our fundamental freedoms. Right now, inside the Department of Education, the world’s richest man is rifling through 45 million people’s private student loan accounts and feeding the data into artificial intelligence.”The suit singles out Doge’s access of secure systems in the departments of Treasury and education, and the office of personnel management. Last week, a judge temporarily stopped Musk’s officials from accessing the Treasury’s payment system:Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director Kash Patel coordinated with the White House and justice department on the firing of top bureau officials, then lied about it at his confirmation hearing, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee said.Dick Durbin made the allegation in a letter to justice department inspector general Michael Horowitz, and requested an investigation.“It is unacceptable for a nominee with no legal or current role in government to personally direct the unjustified and potentially illegal firings of dedicated, nonpartisan professionals at the FBI. If these allegations are true, then Mr. Patel may have committed perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Patel said.The Senate judiciary committee is expected to on Thursday vote on advancing Patel, who Democrats consider a concerning pick to lead the bureau because of his vows to use its powers to retaliate against Trump’s enemies.Shortly after Trump took office, a former personal lawyer to the president who is now a senior justice department official ordered the firing of several veteran FBI agents, and asked for the names of everyone at the bureau who worked on January 6-related cases. Here’s more on that:Officials from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” are “actively dismantling” the department of education, a Democratic congresswoman told HuffPost.Donald Trump recently signaled that he would like to see the department abolished, and congresswoman Melanie Stansbury said Musk’s employees “are in the building, on the sixth floor, canceling grants and contracts.”She expects the department “to potentially be dissolved in the coming days.”“It’s not legal. They know it’s not legal. But they’re doing it anyway,” said Stansbury. “The only recourse we have right now is to … go the courts.”Here’s more on the Trump administration’s plans for the department:Donald Trump plans to today sign an executive order that will require heads of US government departments and agencies to cooperate with the Elon Musk-chaired “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Reuters reports.Citing a White House official, the president will also order agency heads to limit hiring to only essential staff. The order comes as Democrats warn that Trump is defying the law by allowing Musk and his staff to enter federal agencies and access secure systems, or shut them down altogether.The White House says Trump will signs executive orders at 3pm. Here’s more about the concerns surrounding Doge:Republican congressman Guy Reschenthaler has been an advocate for Marc Fogel during his detention, and had this to say about the news that he had been released:
      Our prayers have been answered. Thanks to President Donald J. Trump’s leadership, Marc Fogel has been freed from Russia! Marc spent 1,255 days locked away in a Russian penal colony under the Biden Administration. President Trump freed Marc in just 22 days.
      Notice the reference to the Biden administration. Donald Trump and his allies have sought to cast themselves as more effective than his Democratic predecessor at every turn, and do have some diplomatic successes to promote, such as when Venezuela earlier this month agreed to release six detained Americans.Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was serving a 14 year prison sentence in Russia after getting caught with medically-prescribed marijuana “will be on American soil” by tonight, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday.“Today, President Donald J. Trump and his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are able to announce that Mr. Witkoff is leaving Russian airspace with Marc Fogel, an American who was detained by Russia,” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said in a statement. “President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the President’s advisors negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine. Since President Trump’s swearing-in, he has successfully secured the release of Americans detained around the world, and President Trump will continue until all Americans being held are returned to the United States.”Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.The Trump administration is pushing for the war with Russia to end, while Zelensky is hoping for more US military commitments, as well as NATO membership, the deployment of peacekeeping troops.Trump said in a Fox interview on Monday that Ukraine “may be part of Russia someday.”After Pope Francis rebuked mass deportation of migrants plan, US border czar Tom Homan has pushed back, saying Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.“I’ve got harsh words for the Pope: Pope ought to fix the Catholic Church,” Homan, a Catholic, told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.“I’m saying this as a lifelong Catholic — I was baptized Catholic, my first Communion as a Catholic, confirmation as a Catholic. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us.”The criticism was in response to the pope’s public letter condemning the Trump administration’s efforts sent earlier on Tuesday.“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” Francis wrote in a letter sent on Tuesday. “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.”Francis urged people “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”Homan compared the wall surrounding the Vatican City to the US border wall.Federal judge John Bates on Tuesday ordered US health agencies to restore websites that were suddenly and unexpectedly taken offline after Trump signed an executive order to scrub websites of “gender ideology extremism.”The legal saga began after medical advocacy group Doctors for America sued US health agencies for taking down their websites.”Prior to the sudden, unannounced removal, these Defendants had maintained these or similar webpages and datasets on their websites for years,” the lawsuit says. “The removal of the webpages and datasets creates a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, deprives physicians of resources that guide clinical practice, and takes away key resources for communicating and engaging with patients.”Donald Trump hit out at federal judges who have frustrated his efforts to transform the government, calling them “highly political” and arguing he is merely fighting fraud and waste. The president received an assist from his ally, House speaker Mike Johnson, who said he had met with Elon Musk and was “excited” about his work in the “department of government efficiency”. But the American Bar Association warned that the administration was flying in the face of the constitution, and that it “cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore”, while a Democratic senator said that if the White House begins ignoring court orders it does not like, it would be “maybe the greatest challenge to democracy in our lifetimes.” Meanwhile, an appeals court granted prosecutors’ request to drop charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case, marking the end of the aborted federal effort to convict the president prior to his re-election.Here’s what else has been going on today:

      Steve Bannon pleaded guilty to a fraud charge connected to a fundraiser falsely billed as paying for a border wall, but will serve no jail time.

      Two senior officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have resigned, after a top White House official who also played a major role in Project 2025 ordered the watchdog to stop work.

      Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, will go to Ukraine to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced Trump, who also predicted the war with Russia would end “soon”.
      King Abdullah of Jordan has arrived at the White House to meet with Donald Trump, and the fate of the ceasefire in Gaza is expected to be high on their agenda.The two leaders may also discuss Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the territory and for its population to be displaced to countries neighboring Israel – such as Jordan.We have a separate live blog covering the meeting, and you can follow it here: More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Daniel Penny will be JD Vance’s guest at Army-Navy football game in Maryland

      by

      JD Vance, the vice-president-elect, confirmed that Daniel Penny, a Marine Corps veteran recently acquitted of homicide charges, will be his invited guest at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday in Maryland.Penny will watch the game from a suite alongside president-elect Donald Trump and other figures in Trump’s next administration, including his defence secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance posted on X, confirming news first reported by the non-profit publication Notus.The invitation follows Penny’s acquittal on Monday by a New York jury, which found him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of arrests, mental illness and medical conditions. Medical evidence revealed that Neely had sickle cell trait, an inherited genetic condition that under extreme physiological stress can potentially compromise blood oxygen transport, a factor Penny’s defence team argued could have contributed to his death.The case sparked nationwide controversy after Penny placed Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train in May 2023. Witnesses reported that Neely had been shouting and acting erratically, with one passenger, Juan Alberto Vazquez, telling NBC News at the time that Neely was making aggressive statements about not caring about potential consequences.It will be Penny’s first public appearance since his acquittal, and a high-profile event with deep ties to the military at that.Vance was vocal in his support of Penny, describing the prosecution as a “scandal” and praising the jury’s decision.“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance posted on X.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPenny, in a sit-down interview with Fox News this week, maintained that he feared for his own safety and that of other passengers during the incident, describing himself as being in a “vulnerable position”.“The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself,” Penny said. “I’d take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.” More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Tim Walz ‘surprised’ that he and Kamala Harris lost election to Donald Trump

      by

      In his first television interview since their defeat in the 5 November presidential election, Tim Walz said he was “a little surprised” that he and his fellow Democrat Kamala Harris lost the race to the Republican ticket headed by Donald Trump.“It felt like at the rallies, at the things I was going to, the shops I was going in, that the momentum was going our way,” the Minnesota governor told KSTP, one of his state’s news outlets, in an interview published on Thursday. “So, yeah, I was a little surprised.“I thought we had a positive message, and I thought the country was ready for that.”Walz said “history will write” whether the outgoing vice-president erred in choosing him as her running mate before Trump clinched his return to the White House.“Are there things you could have done differently? Since we lost, the answer is obviously yes,” Walz remarked. “On this one, I did the best I could.”During the conversation with KTSP, Walz also described the frantic morning after Harris called him on 6 August asking him to serve as her vice-president if she were elected. His acceptance led to him being flown to Philadelphia on a private jet to be introduced at Temple University – where he said he and Harris shared a humorous moment.“She turns to me and she says: ‘Well, let’s not screw this up,’” Walz recalled. “And we went out there.”Walz’s election debrief with KTSP came after his participation in the presidential race with Harris initially generated excitement with Democrats. His midwestern, former high school football coach persona charmed on the campaign trail at first, and his popularity surged after he perturbed Trump by labeling him and his allies “weird”.Nonetheless, Walz became less visible as the Harris campaign adopted more conventional strategies on the home stretch. Many ultimately regarded Walz as having performed less effectively than his Republican counterpart, US senator JD Vance of Ohio, by the time the two men debated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris ended up losing the electoral college to Trump by a 312-226 margin. The Republican candidate also captured the popular vote 49.9% to 48.4%, leaving him free to attempt to deliver on promises of mass deportations of immigrants and retribution against those who worked to hold him accountable for trying to forcibly overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.Walz told KTSP he “certainly got to see America” during his failed run for the vice-presidency but is now prepared to focus on his gubernatorial agenda in Minnesota.“It was a privilege to do that,” Walz said. “Coming back here now and having the privilege to do this work feels really good.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Senior Biden aide commits to giving Ukraine avalanche of military assistance

      by

      The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson.National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.The US is also pledging to support Ukraine’s manpower challenge, offering to train new troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory. This comes alongside a nearly finalized $20bn in loans, which will be backed by profits from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.The United States is tying that to a number of new sanctions to come in the coming weeks, all with the intent of complicating Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House’s latest move comes a little more than a month in advance of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the US may unload an all-new strategy for a ceasefire altogether.According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is quietly developing a peace proposal for Ukraine that would effectively sideline Nato membership and potentially cede significant territory to Russia, signaling a dramatic shift from current US policy. Trump, for his part, has often stated that he would end the Ukraine and Russia war within 24 hours.Still, Ukrainian officials, including Yermak and Ambassador Oksana Markarova, have been meeting with key figures in Trump’s transition team this week, including JD Vance, Florida representative and potential National security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s pick for Russia and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, in a bid to secure continued support.These meetings carry heightened urgency, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote on $24bn in additional aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has nonetheless committed to sending $725m in military assistance this week, the largest shipment since April. More

    • 188 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Anti-opioid groups are ‘optimistic’ about Trump’s tariffs. Will the move help tackle the fentanyl crisis?

      by

      Anti-opioid campaigners in the US have welcomed Donald Trump’s threat to hit Mexico, China and Canada with increased trade tariffs if they do not curb the smuggling of the powerful drug driving the US opioid epidemic.Families and doctors grappling with a crisis that has claimed about 900,000 lives say the move may signal that a second Trump administration will finally get serious about tackling the flow of fentanyl into the US. But they also warn that much more needs to be done to reduce demand for opioids and to rein in the power of the pharmaceutical industry which created the epidemic.Trump said last week that he will issue an executive order on his return to the US presidency next month imposing a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada until their governments clamp down on the smuggling of fentanyl and other drugs into the US, and on people crossing the northern and southern borders illegally.The president-elect also said he will impose a 10% additional tariff on imports from China as the leading manufacturer of the precursor chemicals used by drug cartels to manufacture fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid that is now the single largest cause of drug overdose deaths in the US.Ed Bisch, who lost his 18-year-old son Eddie to a prescription opioid overdose in 2001, said that tariffs are a sign that Trump “means business”.“I’m optimistic that the threat of substantial tariffs will lead to major cooperation in reducing the fentanyl poisoning of America,” he said.Bisch and other campaigners also say that some of Trump’s cabinet choices may signal a greater engagement with the crisis by the next administration, particularly as Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is nominated as health secretary, was a heroin user and the vice-president-elect, JD Vance, wrote a bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up in a household and region hit by drug addiction.Trump campaigned in 2016 and again this year on commitments to tackle the opioid epidemic which has devastated regions of America in ways that are often unseen in other parts. The crisis dragged entire communities deeper into poverty, drove up crime and greater dependency on welfare, and tore families apart.Millions of children have been raised by their grandparents because the intervening generation was imprisoned, dead or in no condition to parent. In West Virginia, the state worst hit by the epidemic, nearly half of all grandparents are raising their grandchildren.The opioid crisis has also played an important part in undermining public confidence in government institutions and medical practice in parts of the US because the epidemic grew out of the pharmaceutical industry pushing the wide prescribing of narcotic pain killers from which drug makers made billions of dollars with the complicity of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The epidemic then evolved as illegal supplies of heroin and then fentanyl drove up the death toll.But critics say Trump failed to follow through on his campaign promises in 2016 and his next administration will be a test of how really committed is he is on the issue in the face of what is likely to be major pushback from the drug industry.As president in 2017, Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.“No part of our society, not young or old, rich or poor, urban or rural has been spared this plague,” he said at the time.But two years later, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticised the Trump administration for a lack of coordination of efforts and failing to fulfill a legal requirement to issue a national drug control strategy.Robert Kent, who served as general counsel for the White House office of national drug control policy under Joe Biden, credits Trump with declaring the epidemic an emergency and establishing an opioid commission that issued guidelines on how to combat the crisis.“In Trump’s first term, he was the one who declared an opioid public health emergency, which is still in effect. The problem was there were no concrete actions taken specifically as a result. He didn’t put significant new resources into it,” he said.Kent said that the Biden administration put a greater emphasis on “harm reduction” such as the provision of overdose antidotes and test strips allowing drug users to detect fentanyl. But he fears those may be in danger from Republicans who see such measures as enabling drug use.Andrew Kolodny, director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and one of the first doctors to raise the alarm about the dangers of mass prescribing prescription painkillers, said harm reduction was necessary but did not get to the root causes of the epidemic.“It’s not hard for Trump to do better than Biden did on opioids. There were some good things that came out of the Biden administration. It was nice to see the federal government move more in a direction of harm reduction. But beyond that there wasn’t really that much done so by Biden,” he said.“When Biden ran for office, he put out a platform on how he would address the opioid crisis if he was president, and it was an excellent platform. But he never really implemented the plan.”Kolodny said that if Trump wants to have a significant impact in reducing opioid addiction he needs to create cheaper and easier access to treatment.“The vast majority of people with opioid use disorder actually want help for it. The reason they keep using fentanyl is that it’s much easier to get fentanyl and cheaper to get fentanyl than it is to get yourself onto buprenorphine or methadone treatment or find a doctor or programme that will very quickly enroll you in treatment when you ask for it,” he said.Researchers are still trying to decipher a drop in overdose deaths in the US last year. They believe better treatment and prevention are playing a part. The Drug Enforcement Administration said earlier this month that the amount of fentanyl found laced into other drugs had dropped and that they were therefore less potent and dangerous. The DEA head, Anne Milgram, attributed that to the Biden administration’s targeting of Mexican cartels and their supply chains.But Kent is cautious.“There’s a lot of people running around because we’ve seen a slight reduction in overdose deaths feeling like that’s mission accomplished when we’re only losing 93,000 people versus 111,000 a year. I would never define that as success in my world. Even within those numbers, underserved communities are being higher impacted at this point. In Black and brown communities the numbers are going up while the other numbers are going down. So there’s work to be done,” he said.Kent said he agrees with the need for an increased focus on the border.“We need to increase the number of staff at the border, just for a whole bunch of reasons, including illicit drugs coming across. There needs to be an investment in screening technology. And there needs to be a continued effort with China, trying to convince China to work with its chemical companies to stop selling the chemical precursors to the Mexican cartels so they can create the fentanyl,” he said.Bisch and others whose lives have been hit by the opioid epidemic are also keen to see broader reform of a system that enabled the drug companies to push mass prescription of opioids on the public in ways not permitted in other countries.Bisch supports Trump’s nomination for attorney general, Pam Bondi, who as Florida’s attorney general cracked down on doctors and “pill mills” churning out opioid prescriptions to anyone who would pay. In 2010, Florida dispensed more opioid prescriptions than every other US state combined as people travelled from across the country to buy the painkillers in bulk. Bisch wants to see Bondi use federal laws to prosecute the drug company executives who made false claims about the safety of prescription opioids in order to get them approved.He also backs Trump’s nomination of Kennedy, who has accused the FDA of putting the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry ahead of people’s health by effectively encouraging the prescribing of too many drugs and the selection of Marty Makary to head the FDA. Makary has said doctors in the US prescribe too many medications compared with the rest of the world.“The best way to lower drug costs in the US is to stop taking drugs we don’t need,” he told the US Senate in September.In nominating Makary, Trump said the “FDA has lost the trust of Americans and lost sight of its primary goal as a regulator”. He said Makary and Kennedy would work together to “properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our nation’s food supply and drugs”.Bondi is expected to have a relatively easy path to approval by the US Senate. But Kennedy and Makary may face a more difficult time. Kennedy, in particular, will face scrutiny over his rejection of vaccines. But Kolodny said they will also be up against the pharmaceutical industry.“I’ll actually be shocked if Kennedy gets confirmed and if Makary gets confirmed for FDA commissioner because big pharma doesn’t want them, and big pharma has a lot of muscle on Capitol Hill,” he said. More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Thanksgiving in America, when obsequious Trumpers genuflect to the president-elect | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      JD Vance is being weird againMelania Trump has made it clear that her second stint at being first lady will be conducted entirely on her own terms. It’s been reported that she’s unlikely to move back to the White House and will spend a lot of the next four years flitting between New York and Florida. Maybe she’ll write another coffee table book. Maybe she’ll develop another caviar-infused skincare line. Who knows. But whatever she does, it’ll be in the service of her own interest, rather than the country’s.With Melania not particularly interested in being by Donald’s side, there’s a void to be filled. And it looks like JD Vance and Elon Musk are furiously competing to win the incoming president’s affections. Musk has basically been camping out at Mar-a-Lago since the election, and has earned “uncle status” according to Trump’s granddaughter Kai.The tech billionaire also had a seat at the Trump family table for Thanksgiving dinner, where he bopped to YMCA and presumably had a little giggle over a bizarre AI-generated video Trump tweeted which showed Donald popping out of a turkey Joe Biden was about to carve and gyrating. It’s not clear if Musk, who spent the rest of the day tweeting self-aggrandizing videos of himself, had any quality time with his children over the holiday but that seems to be his MO: urging people to have multiple kids while ignoring his own.JD Vance may be the next vice-president but from the looks of it, Musk very much seems to be Trump’s number two. Vance looks keen to change that, however, and celebrated Thanksgiving with a weird tweet of his own. The vice-president-elect posted an edited image of Norman Rockwell’s 1943 Thanksgiving painting Freedom from Want with Trump’s face Photoshopped on the patriarch and Vance Photoshopped over the wife. (To be clear: it’s not explicitly stated who the matriarch figure is in the painting but, while Rockwell’s cook is the model, the woman is often interpreted as being the wife of the man she’s standing next to.) In the original painting, the matriarch is holding up a turkey. In Vance’s version he – clad in an apron and blue dress – is holding up a very red map of America. Once upon a time Vance compared Trump to Hitler; now he’s eagerly doctoring pictures so he can depict himself as Trump’s trad wife.Why would Vance embarrass himself like this? Former Kamala Harris adviser Mike Nellis reckons “Vance is worried about Elon having more influence than him, so he thought posting this weird ass meme would win him favor again.” I’m not sure anyone should listen to a Democratic strategist about anything ever again but this interpretation does seem about right.While I couldn’t tell you exactly what went through Vance’s head when he posted an image of himself as an aproned matriarch, I can very confidently say that we have (at the very least) four more years of these sorts of posts. Forget the banality of evil, the Trump administration represents the inanity of evil: we’re going to see the passing of inhumane policies, the rollback of reproductive rights, and the gutting of public services alongside idiotic memes designed to “own the libs”. The online trolls have crawled out from below the bridge and now advise the president; the shitposters are in charge now.I guess it’s totally fine to threaten Muslim congresswomen in the US nowSpeaking of trolls, Trump-endorsed congressional candidate and Florida state senator Randy Fine tweeted a casual death threat to Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – the only Muslim women in Congress – this week. “The Hebrew Hammer is coming,” Fine tweeted. “[Rashida Tlaib] and [Ilhan Omar] might consider leaving before I get there. #BombsAway.” Can you imagine if Tlaib or Omar had delivered a similar message to Fine? It would be front-page news and Biden would have made an outraged statement. This was barely covered. Fine is the same guy, by the way, who cheered the murder of 26-year-old American citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, an activist reportedly killed by the Israeli forces while peacefully protesting illegal settlements in the West Bank.Blue Origin deletes video of female astronaut after sexist commentsAstronaut and MIT-trained engineer Emily Calandrelli became the 100th woman in space when she joined six space tourists in a Blue Origin launch. An Instagram video of her excited reaction to being in space was inundated with misogynistic comments, which led to Blue Origin taking it down. Being a woman in the public eye is a real barrel of laughs!A fifth woman has died as a likely result of abortion bansAccording to ProPublica, Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old Texas woman, is the fifth woman who is known to have died because their medical care was delayed after miscarriages or because they couldn’t undergo legal abortions.Fox News’ Jesse Watters: ‘Trump’s going to treat Denver like a woman. He’s going to protect the city whether they like it or not’Poor Denver.Brazilian congressional committee votes for bill to ban abortion in all casesThat includes in cases of fetal deformation, rape or when the mother’s health is in danger. The proposed bill has to go to a special committee before it can advance further but the fact it has got this far is alarming.Walmart is the latest company to abandon its DEI initiativesThe right has declared war on DEI and it looks as if they’re winning. Not a good time for my (satirical) company Rent-a-Minority, I’ve got to say.Gen Z isn’t a big fan of dating apps“There is a growing romanticisation of in-person meeting and interaction,” one expert told the Guardian.Former ICC chief prosecutor says she faced threats and ‘thug-style tactics’Fatou Bensouda has said she experienced direct threats to herself and her family just for doing her job. Meanwhile, the US government and its allies continue to undermine the ICC and international law.Israel’s finance minister proposes ‘thinning out’ Gaza’s population“It is possible to create a situation where Gaza’s population will be reduced to half its current size in two years,” the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Monday. (While these remarks were covered by the Israeli press, they strangely didn’t seem to be deemed newsworthy by a lot of the US press.) Israeli settlers are already preparing to occupy the strip and build new houses next to mass graves.The week in pawtriarchyWould you like to see a picture of a poorly penguin named Flop who learned to walk again because zoo staff made her a bespoke baby bouncer and treadmill? Of course you do. This Guardian piece is guaranteed to make you pen-grin. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump cabinet criticized as hodgepodge team unified only by ‘absolute fealty’ to him

      by

      During Donald Trump’s first administration, his vice-president became the target of an angry mob amid calls for him to be hanged. His top diplomat was fired via Twitter and branded “dumb as a rock”. His first attorney general was given his marching orders and called “very weak” and “disgraceful”.Despite it all, Trump has had no trouble recruiting a team eager to serve when he returns to the White House in January, even if his initial pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, was forced to back out amid allegations of sexual misconduct.Trump’s cabinet for his second term is nearly complete just three weeks after his stunning election victory over Kamala Harris. To his Maga (Make America great again) followers it is a team of all the talents, poised to enforce an agenda of mass deportations, gutting the federal bureaucracy and “America first” isolationism.To critics with memories of Trump’s first cabinet, however, it is an ideological hodgepodge glued together only by unquestioning fealty to the incoming 78-year-old commander-in-chief. Some have compared it to the gathering of exotic aliens in the Star Wars cantina. Others predict they will soon be fighting like rats in a sack as different factions compete for Trump’s attention.“The same thing that happened last time will happen this time,” said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “He cannot resist chaos. It is his drug. He will eventually start doing what he always does and turn on different people and start sandbagging his own choices for these various jobs.“It’s that pattern he has. He comes out one day and says, ‘I love so and so,’ and then the next he’s talking to his friends saying, ‘Hey, you think Tillerson’s doing a good job or is he screwing me over?’ Those things are patterns we’ve seen in Trump’s personal life, his business life and his prior administration. An 80-year-old man is not going to be a changed person.”Eight years ago, Trump arrived in Washington as a political neophyte in need of a helping hand. He appointed a cabinet that included traditional conservatives of whom he knew little. This time, he returns as a former president who has transformed the Republican party and prioritises unwavering loyalty and adherence to his agenda over qualifications and experience.This was most obvious sign of this was the selection of Gaetz for attorney general, a position key to Trump’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants, pardon January 6 rioters and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years. Gaetz’s replacement, Pam Bondi, is a longtime ally who declared after Trump was criminally charged that the “investigators will be investigated”.View image in fullscreenThere was a similar motivation behind the choice of Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, for defence secretary despite him having no track record in government. Hegseth fits with a drive to purge perceived “woke” policies from the military. He has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California.Trump’s selections are sending mixed economic signals. The nomination of the Wall Street billionaire Scott Bessent to head the treasury implies an attempt to reassure markets (it is also notable because Bessent used to work for George Soros, the target of countless rightwing conspiracy theories). But Howard Lutnick, nominated for commerce secretary, has praised the president-elect’s proposed use of tariffs. Vice-president-elect JD Vance is also among those pushing a more protectionist agenda on trade.And Trump’s pick of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a congresswoman from Oregon, as labor secretary could be one of the rare selections that draws bipartisan support. She is considered one of the most union-friendly Republicans in Congress, and her selection was viewed as a way for Trump to reward union members who voted for him.On foreign policy, Trump made a relatively conventional choice in Marco Rubio for secretary of state. The Florida senator has advocated in the past for a muscular foreign policy with respect to foes including China, Iran and Cuba. But the president-elect also intends to put Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who has previously made statements sympathetic to Russia, as director of national intelligence.Other picks include Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute thinktank, as agriculture secretary; Doug Burgum, a wealthy former software company executive, as interior secretary; and Linda McMahon, former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, as education secretary – overseeing an agency that Trump pledged to eliminate.Then there is Robert Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine activist and sceptic of established science. Kennedy’s career as an environmental lawyer could put him at odds with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” philosophy and figures such as Lee Zeldin, set to lead the Environmental Protection Agency with a mandate to slash environmental regulation. Kennedy has also been condemned by Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and other social conservatives for supporting abortion rights.Outside the cabinet, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Department of Government Efficiency”, while lacking official authority, signals a strong push for drastic budget cuts and deregulation. And despite campaign trail denials, Trump has embraced Project 2025, a controversial plan from the Heritage Foundation thinktank, by appointing figures such as Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe person who will have to make sense of it all is Susie Wiles, a longtime Florida political operative who will become the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. She will hope to avoid the fate of chiefs of staff who failed to last the course of Trump’s first term as, like a sports coach, she seeks to make disparate players gel into a cohesive whole.In an analysis for the New York Times, David Sanger, who has covered five US presidents, identified “a revenge team”, “a calm-the-markets team” and “a government shrinkage team”, commenting: “How these missions will mesh and where they will collide is one of the biggest unknowns of the incoming administration.”But others argue that the cabinet’s range of experiences and worldviews will pale into insignificance when set against their devotion to the Trump cult. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “Regardless of whatever individual ideological leanings these people have had at varying points in their adult lives, it’s largely irrelevant because the only litmus test we have seen put forward is absolute fealty to Donald Trump.“As we have seen in the Republican party overall, absolute fealty to Donald Trump overshadows any ideological belief. We could take almost every issue that used to be a part of the Republican party and show how the party has moved to a diametrically opposite position. This is not a party governed by ideology any more. It is governed by personality. It is governed by loyalty to Donald Trump.”Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide, added: “They’re all going to get in a room and they’re just going to go: ‘Here’s what we think. What do you think, boss? Oh, OK, well, that’s what we’re all going to do.’ The idea that there’s going to be ideologically rooted debate, vigorous debate happening in the Trump administration is absurd. It’s laughable.”Notably, Trump’s cabinet is more diverse than in his first term, although it again has only three people of colour in secretary positions. Rubio would be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat; Bessent could become the first openly gay Republican cabinet member confirmed by the Senate; Gabbard would be the first director of national intelligence from the Pacific Islander community.But seasoned Trump watchers detect no method in the madness and suspect that the former reality TV star will once again act on impulse and thrive on conflict. Chris Whipple, the author of The Gatekeepers, a book about White House chiefs of staff, said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that Trump has learned anything about governing since his first term.“There’s a lot of wishful thinking among a lot of commentators that OK, he’s had four years in office, he learned a lot, he’s had all this time to plan with Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute and he’s got his act together. I just don’t think that’s true. I don’t see any evidence that there’s any sort of plan here other than ‘this guy looks good for that job, and Robert F Kennedy Jr has got a cool last name’.” More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump cabinet picks shaped by new power centers in his orbit

      by

      Donald Trump’s picks for the incoming administration are being shaped by a combination of different power centers including one-man influences like top Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn and combined groups led by chief of staff Susie Wiles and vice-president-elect JD Vance.The president-elect appears to have settled on a number of cabinet nominees himself without being aggressively pushed by advisers, including Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Marco Rubio for secretary of state and Russ Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget.But for other cabinet roles or major White House positions for which Trump did not have a clear preference or a frontrunner in mind, a handful of individuals with outsized influence have come to dominate the decision-making in meetings and interviews being held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.There are still factions, according to half a dozen people involved in transition planning, though they have been nowhere near as concrete as they were in 2017, when there were clear demarcations between Trump’s family, the Republican National Committee, establishment Republicans and people allied with Trump’s strategist Steve Bannon.And in recent months, the previously distinct camp informally led by Wiles, who has had influence over West Wing picks and some cabinet roles, and the other camp led by Vance have combined and engulfed the wider Trump orbit, the people said.“It’s ever-shifting sands of allegiance. The people who you think are your friends may not be the case in 24 hours. We’re all friends but none of us are friends,” said one person adjacent to the Trump team.Although there are people in Trump’s orbit who disagree with Epshteyn, there is universal acknowledgment that he has had significant influence in the first weeks of the presidential transition, a reflection of Trump’s appreciation for his help in coordinating the defeat of the criminal cases against him.When Trump floated the idea of having the congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Epshteyn was supportive of him during a round-trip flight from Palm Beach, Florida, to Washington when the president-elect announced he was nominating Gaetz.View image in fullscreenAfter the Gaetz nomination sank in the face of holdout Senate Republicans refusing to confirm him over sexual misconduct allegations, Trump nominated as a replacement former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi – who has been friendly over the years with Epshteyn.Epshteyn has also played key roles in finalizing the leadership at the justice department, recommending that Trump keep his personal lawyers in key jobs: Todd Blanche for deputy attorney general, Emil Bove for the principal deputy position and John Sauer for solicitor general.One through-line about those lawyers was that they were successful in delaying until after the election the federal criminal cases against Trump, which were dismissed on Monday. But the other was that they were all recruited by Epshteyn.Epshteyn, whose physically imposing presence is regularly fitted into a navy three-piece suit, has flexed his power away from the department as well, recommending Bill McGinley to be the next White House counsel.Epshteyn has told associates that the choices are for Trump to make. Some of the picks he has suggested have been names endorsed by other allies or people who have appeared on his longtime friends Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.From the outside, Bannon pushed for McGinley to be White House counsel and may yet get another victory if Trump picks Kash Patel, a regular guest on War Room, for the FBI director or the deputy FBI director roles for which he remains in the running, the Guardian has reported.Bannon lobbied for Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget and, in a particularly audacious play, managed to get Sebastian Gorka, the deeply polarizing national security aide from the first Trump administration, into the incoming team as the senior counter-terrorism director.He also played an instrumental role in bringing Scott Bessent to the fore, according to a person directly familiar with the matter. Bannon made the first introduction to Trump years ago, while his allies have advocated for him at Mar-a-Lago and pushed his agenda.View image in fullscreenBut a main power center for cabinet picks is widely seen to rest with JD Vance’s crew, which pushed for Bessent to be named as treasury secretary and Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission, among others.The Vance crew is informally said to involve Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr – who pushed for Vance to be his father’s running mate – and Don Jr’s close advisers including Arthur Schwartz and Andrew Surabian, as well as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.In addition to being seen as getting Bessent the nod when Trump still had his doubts, the Vance crew have earned additional juice with Trump in probably securing enough Republican votes for Hegseth to be confirmed as defense secretary, despite another set of sexual misconduct allegations.For West Wing picks, the incoming White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has extended her personal influence with Trump. Wiles has mostly been able to get the staff of her choosing without having to fight against competing interests.Wiles’s top aides have landed in deputy chief of staff roles, including James Blair for legislative policy, Taylor Budowich for presidential personnel and Steven Cheung as communications director – although the factions are amorphous and Budowich and Cheung are also close to the Vance crew.Then there are individuals – relative newcomers to the Trump orbit – who have been in transition meetings at Mar-a-Lago as a result of their unique situations: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, who is also the co-chair of the Trump transition team.By weighing in on major cabinet picks, Musk has gotten on the nerves of some Trump loyalists, including Epshteyn, who have complained that the billionaire knows little of the Trump agenda they are trying to bring about and has little idea about who would be best placed to enact it.Lutnick has retained his authority through his transition co-chair role, although he recently engaged in some accidental self-sabotage by pushing too hard to be treasury secretary and appeared to have been caught in a leak investigation over the nominee for secretary of agriculture.Trump was irritated by Musk’s post on X pushing Lutnick for treasury secretary, which gave an opening for his main rival Bessent to secure the job instead. Still, Lutnick has continued to be close to Trump and last week was named commerce secretary.Musk, who is staying off-site in Palm Beach, has become more judicious with his interactions with Trump since that episode and after he secured himself his own role to lead the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency”. More