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      Trump taps Dr Oz to work with RFK Jr in health role and discourages Republicans from confirming Biden judge picks – live

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      President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he has nominated Dr Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator.“America is facing a healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again” Trump said in a statement.Trump added: “He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades. Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.”Oz ran an unsuccessful campaign for senator in Pennsylvania in 2022.Donald Trump has joined Elon Musk for the sixth test of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket from Texas.Trump’s attendance underscores his increasingly close friendship with Musk, whom he has tapped to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency with the former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy.Follow the Guardian’s SpaceX launch liveblog here:Dr Oz has built a long career promoting health misinformation. During his unsuccessful campaign for senator of Pennsylvania, doctors and researchers called for him to be stripped of his medical credentials over his promotion of unproven treatments, including touting the use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug, to treat Covid-19 without scientific evidence.Timothy Caulfield, the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta, wrote in the Scientific American:
      Despite facing mounting criticism for his embrace of harmful pseudoscience and the provision of evidence-free health advice, Oz remains connected to Columbia University’s medical school and is a licensed physician. In 2014, he was called in front of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection over misleading statements he made on his popular television show, the Dr. Oz Show. During the hearing one senator went so far as to tell “America’s Doctor” (anointed thus by Oprah) that “the scientific community is almost monolithic against you.”
      And while Oz has not been officially sanctioned by a regulatory body—the Federal Trade Commission, for example, has gone after fraudsters who have appeared on his show, but the agency hasn’t taken direct action against him—that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be disciplined.
      His affiliation with Columbia and the fact he still has a license seems especially baffling at a time when the spread of health misinformation has been recognized as one of this era’s most challenging health policy issues. Given all that he has done to promote science-free medicine, how has Oz’s licence not been revoked?
      In his announcement naming Dr Mehmet Oz as his nominee to lead the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, Donald Trump has also suggested that these massive health programs that serve 12.5 million people could see steep cuts.Oz “will also cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget,” Trump said in his announcement.Republicans have been pushing to further privatize Medicare, a program for elderly people and some people with disabilities, despite complaints from patients and providers that the existing privatized Medicare Advantage program costs taxpayers more, and provides worse care.President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he has nominated Dr Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator.“America is facing a healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again” Trump said in a statement.Trump added: “He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades. Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.”Oz ran an unsuccessful campaign for senator in Pennsylvania in 2022.President-elect Donald Trump is urging Republican senators to stop the confirmation of judges before he takes office in January.“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door” Trump wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line – No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”.This comes as Senate Democrats held a late-night vote on Monday to confirm Joe Biden’s nominees to the federal judiciary.Meanwhile, Joe Biden is at the G20 leaders summit in Rio de Janeiro and finally appeared in the leaders’ photo after missing the first one.US officials previously stated that “logistical issues” were to blame for why the president missed out on the first group shot on Monday. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni also missed the first group photo.But today, they had a reshoot, and this time Biden was given a spot near the middle of the front row of the assembled world leaders.Here are some of the photos:Donald Trump has confirmed that he is on his way to Texas for a SpaceX rocket launch, scheduled for later today.“I’m heading to the Great State of Texas to watch the launch of the largest object ever to be elevated, not only to Space, but simply by lifting off the ground” Trump said in a social media post.He added: “Good luck to Elon Musk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project!”Vice president-elect JD Vance said that he and Donald Trump were interviewing candidates for the FBI director position on Monday evening.In a post on social media, Vance said that he was meeting with Trump to interview multiple positions for their government on Monday evening, including the role of FBI director.The post came in response to criticism regarding his absence from a Senate vote on Monday night to confirm nominees for the federal judiciary.“When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director” Vance said. “I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45. But that’s just me.”Donald Trump has officially chosen Howard Lutnick, the president-elect’s transition co-chair, to serve as commerce secretary for his second administration.Lutnick, who has been a longtime friend of Trump, is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.In a post on Truth Social, the former president wrote that he was “thrilled” to announce Lutnick as his commerce secretary. He stated that Lutnick will “lead our Tariff and Trade agenda” and will also have direct responsibility for the office of the US trade representative.In his role as co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team, Trump said that Lutnick “created the most sophisticated process and system to assist us in creating the greatest Administration America has ever seen”.The statement also describes Lutnick as having been a “dynamic force on Wall Street for more than 30 years”.Vice president-elect JD Vance is said to be arranging meetings this week on Capitol Hill between some of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Republican senators who will be involved with the confirmation process. According to CNN, Vance is expected attend some of the meetings too, including those with former representative Matt Gaetz, who Trump has selected as his nominee for attorney general, and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, whom Trump has selected as the head of the Department of Defense.Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy also told CNN that he plans to meet with Gaetz and Vance on Wednesday.A spokesperson for the Trump-Vance Transition said in a statement to the network that Gaetz and Hegseth, as well as Representatives Doug Collins and Elise Stefanik, will “begin their meetings this week with additional Hill visits to continue after the Thanksgiving recess”.Collins has been chosen by Trump to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs while Stefanik has been selected to be the US ambassador to the United Nations. More

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      Trump picks Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary

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      Donald Trump has picked one of his biggest fundraisers for the position of commerce secretary.Howard Lutnick, the billionaire founder of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will be nominated to serve as one of Trump’s principal advisers on commerce and international trade.In a statement, Trump said Lutnick would “lead our Tariff and Trade agenda” in the role, and also have “direct responsibility” for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which negotiates trade deals.The appointment hands Lutnick a key role in the implementation of Trump’s plan to impose steep universal tariffs on overseas imports. While economists and corporate leaders have warned the proposal risks increasing prices for Americans, proponents including Lutnick have claimed it will boost the US economy.The businessman, and close ally of Trump, had been tipped for the more powerful role of treasury secretary, an appointment that had the backing of another powerful Trump fundraiser, the tech billionaire Elon Musk.Scott Bessent, an investor and hedge fund manager, has been seen as Lutnick’s closest rival for the treasury. On his social media site last week, Musk wrote: “My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change.”Lutnick was co-chair of Trump’s transition team. He has championed Trump’s plans to use tariffs on foreign imports to build the US economy – a plan many economists believe will lead to rising inflation. He is also a big backer of loosening regulation of cryptocurrencies.Trump has known Lutnick, whom he hailed in Tuesday’s announcement as a “dynamic force on Wall Street”, for decades. A self-described fiscal conservative and social liberal, he has donated to Democrats in the past but recently told the Wall Street Journal that “they have moved away from me”.Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees in the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001. In the decades since he rebuilt the privately held company, it now employs 13,000 people, up from 2,000 before the tragedy.It is so far unclear how or if he will separate his vast business interests from his powerful government role.During a rally at Madison Square Garden last month, Lutnick was riffing on what he thinks “Make America great again” actually means when he explained when he believes the US was sufficiently great: 1900. “At the turn of the century, our economy was rocking,” he claimed. “We had no income tax, and all we had was tariffs.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene issues warning to Republicans opposing Matt Gaetz nomination

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Republican congresswoman from Georgia, has intervened on behalf of Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s embattled attorney general nominee, by issuing a bizarre challenge to her Republican colleagues.Amid intensifying pressure for the release of a congressional report into alleged sexual misconduct that could sink Gaetz’s nomination, Taylor Greene demanded similar full disclosure of what she claimed were multiple reports of assault and sexual harassment filed against fellow Republican Congress members.She also said she had filed one of the claims herself.“For my Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, If we are going to release ethics reports and rip apart our own that Trump has appointed, then put it ALL out there for the American people to see,” Taylor Greene wrote on X in a post which had received 1.3m views by Tuesday 1pm ET.“Yes.. all the ethics reports and claims including the one I filed, all your sexual harassment and assault claims that were secretly settled paying off victims with tax payer money, the entire Jeffrey Epstein files, tapes, recordings, witness interviews but not just those, there’s more, Epstein wasn’t/isn’t the only asset. If we’re going to dance, let’s all dance in the sunlight,” she wrote.She concluded with what appeared to be a veiled threat: “I’ll make sure we do.”While not elucidating on the seemingly scattershot allegations, Taylor Greene’s intervention exposed the fissures opened up in Republican ranks by Trump’s nomination of Gaetz as America’s top law official.Republican senators have voiced their opposition in sufficient numbers to torpedo his nomination if they vote with their sentiments in Senate confirmation hearings scheduled to take place once Trump returns to the White House.Gaetz forestalled last Friday’s scheduled publication of a report compiled by the House of Representatives ethics committee into his alleged misdemeanors by resigning his seat after Trump nominated him.Nevertheless, fellow Republican members of Congress and senators are demanding its release for consideration in the confirmation process, triggering Taylor Greene’s outburst.The document is believed to be highly damaging to Gaetz, amid allegations that he paid two women, including a 17-year-old minor, for sex in 2017. It also said that he took drugs, including ecstasy. The allegations formed part of a two-year criminal investigation – subsequently dropped without charges – by the FBI into Gaetz’s possible involvement in suspected sex trafficking.Lawyers for women who have testified to witnessing Gaetz’s behavior have fed more details of the affair to US media in recent days, increasing the pressure on the nominee and triggering speculation that they could be called as witnesses to hearings which now seem likely to turn into a media circus.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe depth of feeling against Gaetz among his fellow Republican Congress members has been demonstrated in interviews some have given on television.Max Miller, a Republican member for Ohio, told CNN that he reflected the private sentiments of many in saying Gaetz should not be attorney general.“I’m looking at him as a member of Congress and the job that he has done here, and it has been abhorrent,” he said. “I’m not the only one who thinks this way. I just say the quiet part out loud, and I wish other my colleagues would have the same courage to do so, but him as a member of Congress, should not be the most powerful law enforcement individual in our country, and everyone knows it, and he’s not going to get confirmed.”Tony Gonzales, a representative for Texas – who once called Gaetz and other far-right Congress members “scumbags” – said cryptically: “Matt’s kind of a quiet guy. We’re all still trying to get to know who he is, but soon enough, the American people get to know who he is.” More

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      He has already fathered many children. Now Musk wants all of the US to embrace extreme breeding | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Is Elon Musk the dinner party guest from hell? It sure seems that way. Not only is the man desperate for people to laugh at his crass jokes, he reportedly has a weird habit of trying to donate his sperm at every opportunity – including, according to an October New York Times report, an incident where he offered some spermatozoa, as casually as you might pass the salt, to a married couple “he had met socially only a handful of times” during a Silicon Valley dinner party.Musk has denied offering sperm to strangers over supper. But it would be in keeping with his creepy breeding fetish: Musk is desperate for people in developed countries to have more children and has himself fathered at least 12 children with three women. (One of the children has since sadly died.) He’s become one of the most famous faces of a growing pro-natalist movement – one with an unsettling overlap with eugenics and deeply misogynistic ideas.Musk is obviously entitled to his obsessions. The problem is, now that he’s Donald Trump’s BFF, he actually has the opportunity to embed his obsessions into policy. While much has been said about Musk’s role in the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, it seems likely that the billionaire wants influence over more than just budgets. He seems to want a say in Americans’ sex lives as well. On Sunday, Musk replied to a tweet about declining birthrates by tweeting: “Instead of teaching fear of pregnancy, we should teach fear of childlessness.”What sort of lessons would that entail? Teaching people that while a woman dies every two minutes due to pregnancy or childbirth – and maternal mortality rates are increasing in the US – it’s childlessness you should be afraid of? It’s easy for Musk, who will never have to carry any of the children he’s so keen on having, to be blase about pregnancy risks: he can outsource them all. Still, you’d think he might be more sensitive to the issue considering the musician Grimes, with whom he shares three children, almost died during her pregnancy with son X Æ A-12. That led Grimes and Musk to use a surrogate for their next child.What else would Musk tell young people to instil a fear of childlessness? That, should they choose not to procreate, they’ll be saddled with more disposable income than they might otherwise have? And they won’t have to fret about the fact the US is the only industrialised country without a national paid parental leave policy? Or should he really put the fear of God in them and explain that they’ll miss out on being woken up at 5am and having to listen to the Frozen soundtrack for the millionth time? Look, I love my child (I’ve even grown to love the Frozen soundtrack), but parenthood can be difficult and it’s not for everyone. There are plenty of ways to live a fulfilling life that don’t involve raising a mini-me.I’ll tell you one lesson that I wish Musk would learn: being a sperm donor is very different from being a parent. While Musk has been parading various children of his through Mar-a-Lago for photo opportunities recently, he seems to leave most of the hard work of parenting to others. I mean, come on, he has six children under the age of six, runs a bunch of major companies and spends all his time hobnobbing with politicians: it’s logistically impossible for him to be an involved father to all his children. He’s also estranged from his transgender daughter Vivian Wilson, and has publicly declared – on at least two occasions – that she is “dead – killed by the woke mind virus”.But Musk’s parenting skills aren’t the real issue here. The real issue is that the billionaire, and his breeding obsession, are part of an incoming administration that wants to roll back reproductive rights and usher in a world where women are forced to give birth. It would be nice to be able to ignore every stupid thing that Musk tweets, but we don’t have that luxury any more. He seems intent on worming his way into our wombs. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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      ‘This is not his first rodeo’: will federal courts be able to rein in Trump?

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      A week after Donald Trump entered the White House for the first time in January 2017, he signed executive order 13769, known as the Muslim travel ban, barring entry to the US for refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.Mayhem ensued. Protests erupted in airports. Panic spread around the world.Within 24 hours it was blocked.“There is imminent danger that there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees and other individuals from nations subject to the order,” a federal district judge ruled.That was the start of an epic tug-of-war between Trump’s new presidency and the courts. Judges from Hawaii to Maryland stepped in to halt the ban, prompting its architect, the far-right immigration hardliner Stephen Miller to accuse them of “judicial usurpation of power”.The order had to be written three times before it could satisfy even the increasingly rightwing US supreme court, losing 18 months in the process.In nine weeks’ time Miller will be back in the White House as deputy chief of staff for policy, carrying with him an even more extreme plan for the largest domestic deportation effort in US history. The billion-dollar question is, will the courts let him this time?“The second Trump administration is going to pose the federal judiciary with huge challenges,” said Lia Epperson, a constitutional law professor at American University. “Trump is going for extreme measures, and that will test the balance of power between branches of government over issues like immigration, free speech, and many more.”View image in fullscreenTrump has already made clear, through his own policy agenda and in the gargantuan roadmap to a second term produced by his allies, Project 2025, that he intends to be more aggressive and radical this time. His flurry of cabinet and key federal agency appointments underline the point.Matt Gaetz, the president-elect’s choice for US attorney general, has provoked fears that the justice department will be weaponised to go after Trump’s political enemies. The choices of the hardline South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, for homeland security secretary and the Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary give heft to Trump’s intention to use emergency powers and the US military to implement the mass deportations.“He is creating a cabinet of loyalists who will be in lock step with his agenda,” Epperson said.Trump will arrive back in the Oval Office emboldened by the gift that the supreme court bestowed on him earlier this year: broad immunity from criminal prosecution for any of his official acts. The protection, awarded in a July ruling, could have some unexpected consequences.At its most dystopian, Trump might read the justices’ edict as giving him carte blanche to defy their very own orders.“One of the things we don’t know yet is what would happen if Trump defied judicial orders from the supreme court, claiming the immunity granted to him by the very same justices,” said Professor Rachel Moran of Texas A&M University school of law.Another major shift in Trump’s favour is that during his first term he managed to push the federal judiciary drastically to the right. The 6-to-3 supermajority of the supreme court was forged by Trump’s appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.The lower courts were also transformed by the 242 judges who he assigned to district, appeals and other federal courts. If Trump keeps up that frenetic pace over the next four years he will succeed in appointing more than half of all federal judges.Among his first-term appointments were 54 appeals court judges – second only to supreme court justices in the power they wield. And of those, Trump placed no fewer than 10 judges on the 29-strong ninth circuit court of appeals in San Francisco, which is traditionally seen as a liberal bastion.That in itself could be significant over the next four years. During Trump’s first term, the ninth circuit was by far the most popular route through which to challenge the administration.Now, though, the court will be less attractive to those seeking to rein Trump in, given the stamp he has already put on its ideological balance.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, Biden is scrambling to complete as many judicial approvals as he can before he leaves office, and has already confirmed 215. That will restore some equilibrium, but it will not erase the fact that Trump will begin his second term facing a far more friendly judiciary than in his first.“The proportion of appointees who might be sympathetic to his administration has grown, and that means they are likely to be a less effective check on his power,” Moran said.‘He knows how to do it, and is better prepared’It wasn’t just the Muslim travel ban that got embroiled in the courts during Trump 1.0. Several of his signature policies, including family separation of undocumented migrants at the Mexican border and inserting a citizenship question in the US census, were stymied.A study by the non-partisan thinktank the Institute for Policy Integrity, comparing how successive administrations fared when they introduced major new rules, found that the Trump administration was challenged legally at a far higher rate than any previous administration going back to Bill Clinton in the 1990s. When cases got to court, Trump’s record was even more abysmal.He lost 57% of the time. That was dramatically worse than Barack Obama’s average across his two terms – 31%.“The process of getting new rules out was flawed in many cases, as was the supporting analysis – so when they showed up in court they were getting dinged a lot,” said Don Goodson, the institute’s deputy director.The travel ban got such a beating in federal courts in part because Trump’s White House showed a disdain for basic procedural guardrails designed to ensure that the government acts in rational and beneficial ways. Miller and Steve Bannon, Trump’s then chief strategist – “my two Steves” as he affectionately dubbed them – overruled experts in the Department of Homeland Security and ignored the oOffice of legal counsel, which is normally routinely consulted.A similar dismissive attitude was shown across the Trump administration towards basic requirements set out in the Administrative Procedure Act, such as the need to give the public a chance to comment on all policy proposals. Those guardrails are still in place, which carries a warning for Trump and team.Should they show as much disregard for the rules as they did last time, they are likely to suffer another bloody nose. On the other hand, Trump now has the benefit of experience.“This is not his first rodeo. He knows how to do it, and is better prepared,” Epperson said.Epperson sits on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which was at the forefront of the fight against the Muslim travel ban. The ACLU filed 434 actions against the first Trump administration, and is already gearing up to be similarly adversarial come January.“Litigation is going to be critical,” Epperson said. “Will there be 100% wins in cases protecting civil rights and liberties? No. But will there be a good chance that the courts serve as one of several lines of defense? Yes.” More

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      Trump selects Fox News contributor Sean Duffy as transport secretary

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      Donald Trump has named Sean Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin,and former cast member of the MTV show The Real World, to serve as the secretary of transportation. He was also a co-host on Fox Business but left that role on Monday, according to Fox News Media.Duffy served in Congress from 2011 until 2019. Before being elected to public office, he was district attorney for Ashland county, Wisconsin, from 2002 to 2008 and previously had a reality TV show role. Duffy was a cast member on The Real World: Boston in 1997 where he would meet his wife, Fox news contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy.“He will prioritize Excellence, Competence, Competitiveness and Beauty when rebuilding America’s highways, tunnels, bridges and airports,” the president-elect said in a statement announcing his nomination. “He will ensure our ports and dams serve our Economy without compromising our National Security, and he will make our skies safe again by eliminating DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers.”During his time in Congress, Duffy, 53, faced immense backlash for comments he made on CNN about the difference between white supremacist mass violence and violence carried out by the Islamic State. He also said that one of the “good things” that came from the 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church (AME) was that it led Nikki Haley, the then governor of South Carolina, to remove the confederate flag from the state capitol.After the backlash, Duffy said that the massacre at Emanuel AME was horrific but the shooter was not a part of an organized terror group such as IS. He encouraged the government to continue to monitor large hate groups such as the KKK.In a March 2017 op-ed Duffy penned for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel after Trump’s first State of the Union, the former congressman praised Trump’s dedication to working with conglomerates such as Ford, General Motors and Walmart to combine efforts to “reinvest in America”.Duffy, a father to nine children, resigned from Congress in 2019, citing complications during his wife’s pregnancy for the couple’s ninth child and his desire to spend more time with his family.If confirmed, Duffy will oversee aviation, automotive, rail, transit and other transportation policies at the department with about a $110bn budget as well as significant funding remaining under the Biden administration’s 2021 $1tn infrastructure law.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHis potential appointment follows the devastating train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and still-elevated numbers of traffic deaths, which have fallen this year but remain above pre-Covid levels. He will also have to deal with ongoing investigations into companies run by Elon Musk, who’s been cozy with Trump and deeply involved in the administration’s transition plans. The Department of Transportation is investigating Tesla Autopilot, while the FAA has proposed fining SpaceX for violating space license rules.Trump has vowed to reverse the Biden administration’s vehicle emissions rules. He has said he plans to begin the process of undoing the Biden administration’s stringent emissions regulations finalized earlier this year as soon as he takes office. The rules cut tailpipe emissions limits by 50% from 2026 levels by 2032 and prod automakers to build more EVs. More

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      Trump pick Matt Gaetz under further scrutiny amid fresh allegations

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      An attorney representing two women who he says testified before the House ethics committee has claimed that the former congressman Matt Gaetz paid both women for sex and that one of the women alleged she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor.The new allegations were revealed by the attorney Joel Leppard during an interview with ABC News on Monday – less than a week after Gaetz resigned from Congress following his nomination by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general in his second administration.In the interview, Leppard claimed that his clients were paid by Gaetz using Venmo and said that one of the women testified to the committee that she saw Gaetz at a house party in 2017 having sex with a 17-year-old girl.“She testified that in July of 2017 at his house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Leppard said.Ahead of the Senate’s consideration of Gaetz’s nomination, Leppard said that he believed “several questions demand answers”, adding: “What if multiple credible witnesses provided evidence of behavior that would constitute serious criminal violations?”In a statement sent to ABC News, Alex Pfeiffer, Trump’s transition spokesperson, called the allegations against Gaetz “baseless”, adding that they are “intended to derail the second Trump administration”.“The Biden justice department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing,” Pfeiffer added.Gaetz was investigated by the justice department on suspicion of child sex trafficking, but the department decided not to bring charges. The House ethics committee then launched its own inquiry into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other ethical breaches.Gaetz has repeatedly denied the allegations against him and insisted that he is innocent of any wrongdoing.The House ethics committee had reportedly put together a report on the findings of its investigation into Gaetz and, according to the New York Times, were planning on voting last week on whether to release it, but his resignation halted that process and in effect ended the ethics committee investigation.It was reported on Monday that the committee is now scheduled to meet this Wednesday to discuss the report and may potentially vote on whether to release it. In recent days, an increasing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said that they want to review and see the report the committee compiled as they consider and weigh Gaetz’s nomination.The committee chair, Michael Guest, a Republican, told Politico on Monday that the panel would decide on its own whether to release the report, regardless of Speaker Mike Johnson’s desire to keep it under wraps.The attorney John Clune, who, according to ABC News, represents the former minor, called for the release of the committee’s report last week.“Mr Gaetz’s likely nomination as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events,” Clune said. “We would support the House ethics committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.” More

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      ACLU sues for information on Trump’s mass deportation plan – live

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      The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit a little earlier today seeking basic details on how the federal government would carry out a program to deport millions of people from the US, which President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to begin on “day one” of his new administration.As part of the federal action, the ACLU demanded to be given information about the government’s current relationships with, for example, private airlines, ground transportation facilities and other elements that would be involved in arranging deportation flights for undocumented people. The lawsuit was first reported by the Washington Post this afternoon.The suit was filed in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California and accuses the government of keeping the mechanisms used to deport people “shrouded in secrecy”.Trump has pledged to begin deporting millions of people despite the legal, financial, economic and human rights implications, also confirming today that he would be prepared to shred norms and harness the US military to enforce his policy, despite the threat to democracy and due process.As the Trump administration continues to take form, the field of potential appointees to lead the treasury department has widened to include Marc Rowan who founded and runs one of the nation’s largest public equity firms, and Kevin Warsh a central banker who from 2006 to 2011 served as a governor for the Federal Reserve, Reuters reports.Two others in the running for the seat are Scott Bessent, the founder of the capital management firm Key Square who has said he wants the US dollar to remain the world’s reserve currency and use tariffs as a negotiating tactic, and Howard Lutnick who leads Cantor Fitzgerald.Trump ally Elon Musk publicly threw his support behind Lutnick in a post on X that argues that Lutnick “will actually enact change”.A lawyer who is representing two women who gave testimony to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives investigating Matt Gaetz has said in an interview that the former congressman paid the women to have sex with him.The two women were adults at the time but also told lawmakers that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at the same party she attended, ABC News reported.Gaetz resigned from his position as a Republican representative for Florida last week immediately on being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to become US attorney general. That immediately shut down the congressional investigation and, despite pressure, the House has not yet agreed to release the report of the investigation to the public or the US Senate, the body that will have the job of confirming Gaetz’s appointment.Florida-based lawyer Joel Leppard spoke to ABC News earlier today.“Just to be clear, both of your clients testified that they were paid by [then] Representative Gaetz to have sex?” interviewer Juju Chang asked Leppard.“That’s correct. The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,’” Leppard told Chang.One of the clients, Leppard said, also told the House committee that at the party she was at in July 2017 as she went to the pool area she saw Gaetz having sex with a friend of hers, who was 17.Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing throughout various investigations into his behavior amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The names of Leppard’s clients have not been disclosed.Donald Trump appears to be planning to attend a SpaceX Starship rocket launch tomorrow, in the latest indication of influence of the company’s founder, Elon Musk, on the president-elect and his orbit.The Federal Aviation Administration has issued temporary flight restrictions over the area of Brownsville and Boca Chica, at the eastern end of the Texas-Mexico border, for a VIP visit that coincides with the SpaceX launch window for a test of its massive Starship rocket from its launch facility on the Gulf of Mexico, the Associated Press reports.Tuesday’s 30-minute launch window opens at 4pm central time (5pm ET), according to the company, with the company again looking to test the landing capture system of the booster in Texas, which it debuted last month and about which Trump has been complimentary, while the upper stage continues to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.Musk pumped an estimated $200m through his political action committee to help elect Trump.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit a little earlier today seeking basic details on how the federal government would carry out a program to deport millions of people from the US, which President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to begin on “day one” of his new administration.As part of the federal action, the ACLU demanded to be given information about the government’s current relationships with, for example, private airlines, ground transportation facilities and other elements that would be involved in arranging deportation flights for undocumented people. The lawsuit was first reported by the Washington Post this afternoon.The suit was filed in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California and accuses the government of keeping the mechanisms used to deport people “shrouded in secrecy”.Trump has pledged to begin deporting millions of people despite the legal, financial, economic and human rights implications, also confirming today that he would be prepared to shred norms and harness the US military to enforce his policy, despite the threat to democracy and due process.Mikie Sherrill has represented New Jersey’s 11th District, which includes parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties, since her 2018 election during president-elect Donald Trump’s first administration’s midterm. Sherrill flipped the district from Republican control with former Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen’s retirement and has been reelected three times since.Before getting elected to Congress, she was a prosecutor for the US attorney for the district of New Jersey. She served in the Navy from 1994 to 2003, the AP writes.Sherrill joins fellow Democratic US House member Josh Gottheimer, who announced his run for governor last week. Also seeking the Democratic nod are Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, teachers union president Sean Spiller and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney.Republicans are also lining up to run. Among them are state senator Jon Bramnick, former state legislator Jack Ciattarelli, former state senator Ed Durr and radio host Bill Spadea.New Jersey Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey has announced today that she’s running for governor, saying it’s time to fix the state’s economy and make it more affordable.Sherrill, a former federal prosecutor and US Navy helicopter pilot, joins a crowded field of Democrats vying to succeed Democratic governor Phil Murphy, whose second term expires after next year’s election. Murphy is barred by term limits from running again, the Associated Press reports.In a video announcing her run, Sherrill introduced herself as a US Naval Academy graduate and chopper pilot and leaned on her military experience.
      I learned early on: In a crisis, the worst thing you can do is freeze. You have to choose to lead, to follow, or get out of the way.”
      She went on to say in the video that the state’s economy needs to be fixed.
      “Let’s make life more affordable for hardworking New Jerseyans, from health care to groceries to childcare. These challenges aren’t new and it’s time to confront them head on.”
      Tom Fitton, the president of the influential conservative group Judicial Watch, has had a little more to say today, after his social media post prompted Donald Trump this morning to confirm that he is prepared to utilize the US military to conduct mass deportations when he takes office.Fitton popped up on the hard-right Newsmax cable channel a little earlier. He said that his social media post that Trump 2.0 would be prepared to declare a national emergency in order to use military assets was not derived from any insider knowledge but just from stories that were around. Trump has caused a stir by reposting the message today with the endorsement “True!”He told Newsmax: “Does anyone dispute the invasion is not a national emergency? It’s got to be a whole government approach.”Rightwingers such as Fitton, Trump and Texas’s anti-immigration hardline governor, Greg Abbott, often invoke an “invasion” of undocumented people seeking refuge in the US and crossing the border from Mexico without authorization as and invasion.“They cut the line and they need to be sent home,” he said.The House ethics committee is reportedly set to meet on Wednesday to discuss its report into Matt Gaetz, according to NBC News.The committee has been looking into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other ethical breaches.Last week, Gaetz was nominated by president-elect Donald Trump to serve as his Attorney General. Gaetz then resigned from the House of Representatives, which effectively ended the ethics inquiry.The news of the meeting on Wednesday comes as an increasing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said that they would like to review the Ethics committee report.Eric Hovde, the Republican Senate candidate in Wisconsin, has conceded the race to Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin in a video message.In the message, Hovde, who lost to Baldwin by about 29,000 votes, said that he would not request a recount of the vote but expressed concerns about the election process and alleged “many troubling issues” related to absentee ballots in Milwaukee.His claims of impropriety have been refuted by Republicans, Democrats and non-partisan election leaders.In the video message Hovde said that “without a detailed review of all the ballots and their legitimacy, which will be difficult to obtain in the courts, a request for a recount would serve no purpose, because you will just be recounting the same ballots, regardless of their integrity”.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said that the process of selecting someone to fill Florida senator Marco Rubio’s seat has begun and that a selection will likely be made by the beginning of January.In a statement on Monday, DeSantis said that Rubio is expected to resign from the Senate to assume duties as secretary of state when the Trump administration takes power on January 20th.Under Florida law, DeSantis is tasked with appointing Rubio’s successor.“We have already received strong interest from several possible candidates, and we continue to gather names of additional candidates and conduct preliminary vetting” DeSantis said. “More extensive vetting and candidate interviews will be conducted over the next few weeks.”

      Donald Trump gave the nod on social media this morning to the notion that he wants to use the military to enforce his previously-stated intentions for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants from the US once he gets into office.

      Conservative strategist Steve Bannon was due to go to trial next month on state charges in New York of conspiring to dupe donors to build a border wall but a judge said this morning that Bannon won’t face trial until February.

      There are reports of clashes among top Trump insiders over leadership picks.

      According to reports, Linda McMahon, a former Small Business Administration (SBA) director, is expected to be announced as Trump’s secretary of commerce.

      Trump picked Brendan Carr, Project 2025 co-author, to lead FCC as speculation over treasury secretary appointment mounts.
      Steve Bannon did not turn up in person to attend the latest hearing in his court case in New York City today, on state charges of conspiring to dupe donors to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.Instead, he listened in virtually as the judge, April Newbauer, set 25 February for jury selection, postponing it from December.Bannon did not speak except to say, “yes, ma’am” when asked whether he understood he must be in court on the new date, the Associated Press reported.The judge delayed the trial date from 9 December after deciding to let the future jurors hear evidence that some of the wall charity’s money went to pay a more than $600,000 credit card debt that a separate Bannon-related not-for-profit organization had racked up in 2019.Prosecutors wanted to introduce it and defense lawyers argued unsuccessfully that it was irrelevant.Bannon denies the charges, including conspiracy and money laundering. Manhattan prosecutors brought the case after Donald Trump pardoned Bannon in a similar federal prosecution that was in its early stages, where Bannon had denied pocketing over $1m from the We Build the Wall outfit.Newbauer has yet to rule on whether jurors’ names will be kept confidential, as the prosecution has requested. More