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      RFK Jr to research unsupported link between vaccines and autism, Trump says

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      Donald Trump has said Robert F Kennedy Jr, his nominee for health secretary, may investigate a supposed link between vaccines and autism – despite a consensus among the medical establishment debunking any such connection.In a wide-ranging interview with NBC, the US president-elect claimed an investigation was justified by the increasing prevalence of autism diagnoses among American children over the past 25 years.“When you look at what’s going on with disease and sickness in our country, something’s wrong,” Trump said after the interviewer, Kristen Welker, asked him if he wanted to see some vaccines eliminated – a position for which Kennedy has argued.“If you take a look at autism, go back 25 years, autism was almost nonexistent. It was, you know, one out of 100,000 and now it’s close to one out of 100.”According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one out of every 36 children in the US were diagnosed with autism in 2020, compared with one in 150 in 2000.Kennedy, a noted vaccine sceptic, has repeatedly peddled discredited theories that the conditions is caused by childhood vaccinations.“I do believe that autism does come from vaccines,” he said in a 2023 Fox News interview in which he called for more vaccine testing.“We should have the same kind of testing place or control trials that we have for other every other medication. Vaccines are exempt from pre-licensing control trials, so that there’s no way that anybody can tell the risk profile of those products, or even the relative benefits of those products before they’re mandated. We should have that kind of testing.”Trump – who has previously said Kennedy would be allowed to “go wild” on health – said his health secretary pick would not “reinvent the wheel totally”.“He’s not going to upset any system,” he said.But on autism, he added: “Somebody has to find out. If you go back 25 years ago, you had very little autism. Now you have it … When you talk about autism, because it was brought up, and you look at the amount we have today versus 20 or 25 years ago, it’s pretty scary.”Scientists have attributed the rise in autism diagnoses to improved screening methods while saying it is caused by a complex mix of factors, including genetics, environment and conditions during pregnancy and birth.The World Health Organization has definitely ruled out a connection between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine or other childhood inoculations.Research led by the British doctor Andrew Wakefield asserting a link between autism and the MMR jab was later discredited, with the Lancet, a medical journal, issuing a full retraction of a paper it had published based on it.Wakefield was later banned from practicing in Britain after being found by the country’s general medical council to have broken its rules on research and to have acted “dishonestly” and with a “callous disregard” for children’s health.The Guardian reported in 2018 that Wakefield had attended an inaugural ball marking the start of Trump’s first presidency the previous year at which he was quoted calling for a shakeup of the US medical establishment.“What we need now is a huge shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – a huge shakeup,” he said. “We need that to change dramatically.” More

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      Liz Cheney calls Trump threat to jail her an ‘assault on the rule of law’

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      The former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney has described a threat by President-elect Donald Trump to imprison her alongside others involved in an investigation of his supporters’ 2021 US Capitol attack an “assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic”.Cheney was responding to comments made by Trump during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday in which he said members of the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack “should go to jail” – but said he would not direct the attorney general or FBI he appoints during his second presidency to pursue the matter.During that interview, Trump said: “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with [Bennie] Thompson and the people on the … committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps.“They deleted and destroyed all evidence”, Trump alleged without evidentiary support, adding that those responsible were Cheney and Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat. “For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”In a statement containing her response and obtained by the New York Times, Cheney said Trump had “lied about the Jan. 6 … committee” and that there was “no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis” to go after the panel’s members.“There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting – a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee – and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct,” Cheney added.She added that Trump “attempted to overturn” the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden so that he could remain in the Oval Office by mobilizing an “angry mob”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history,” said Cheney, the daughter of the former US vice-president Dick Cheney. “Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”The exchange comes as Biden is reportedly considering offering sweeping pardons to those who could become targets of Trump’s promised “retribution” against his political enemies.Efforts to prosecute Trump over the Capitol attack have been abandoned after he defeated Vice-President Kamala Harris in the 5 November White House election. But Cheney – a former Harris campaign surrogate – said material collected by the special counsel Jack Smith should be preserved and “as much of that information as possible should be disclosed in the special counsel’s upcoming report”. More

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      ‘Currying favor with Trump’: Eric Adams’ rightward drift sparks speculation as prosecution looms

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      Eric Adams was elected New York mayor as a centrist-sounding Democrat. A Black former cop who talked tough-on-crime but fit fairly squarely in the overwhelmingly Democratic politics of the city.But Adams was also always famed for his eccentricities and foibles – scandals over the true extent of his veganism, whether or not he might actually live in New Jersey, and some of the tall tales he would recount from his past.But few New Yorkers might have expected the most recent twist in the Adams’ story: his firm drift rightward, especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory.In fact, Adams’ ever-closer relationship with Trump has sparked speculation as to exactly what the Democrat mayor of a famously liberal city – embroiled in deep legal troubles – might want from America’s soon-to-be Republican president.Recently, Adams did not dismiss switching to the Republican party, in which he had been a party member from 1995 through 2002, before turning Democrat. “I’m a part of the American party,” he said. “I love this country.”Last week alone Adams stunned observers with the depths of his rightward tilt on one of the key issues of the election: immigration. Adapting the language of extreme Republicans – who have fear-mongered over immigrant crime – Adams came out swinging for Trump, who plans a mass deportation of millions of immigrants as soon he gets back in the White House.“Well, cancel me because I’m going to protect the people of the city,” Adams said when asked if he plans to cooperate with Trump’s plan for federal deportation agents to remove migrants accused of felony crimes in the city.The comment came as Adams said he had requested a meeting with Trump’s incoming “border czar”, Tom Homan. Adams said he wanted “it clear that I’m not going to be warring with this administration”.He added: “I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens. Find out what his plans are, where our common grounds are. We can work together.”Adams’ hard line adds a new wrinkle to how Democrat-led “sanctuary cities” such as New York, Los Angeles and Denver will adapt to the second Trump administration and raises the prospect that some top Democrat leaders may actively assist mass deportation.Adams is already looking to roll back sanctuary city laws approved by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, that prohibit New York law enforcement – the NYPD and correction and probation departments – from cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents unless the cases involve suspected terrorists or serious public safety risks.View image in fullscreenSome moderate Democrats on the city’s usually progressive-leaning city council are supporting the move, with the councilmember Robert Holden calling in June for a repeal, saying: “Sanctuary city laws put all New Yorkers, both immigrants and longtime residents, in danger.”Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, said recently that while she supports legal immigrants, including asylum seekers, she will cooperate with the Trump administration to remove immigrants who break the law. “Someone breaks the law, I’ll be the first one to call up Ice and say: ‘Get them out of here,’” Hochul said.But some observers look at Adams’ tack towards Trump and see other factors at play, beyond playing to a segment of the electorate tired of Democrats’ traditional softer positions on immigrants.Adams is facing a multi-count federal complaint over alleged fundraising abuses involving Turkey brought by the outgoing local US district attorney Damian Williams, a Joe Biden nominee. Adams’ trial is set for the spring, just as his mayoral re-election campaign moves into high gear.Trump has nominated Jay Clayton to be Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor. Clayton is known for bringing white-collar corruption cases while serving as commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission but has no experience litigating criminal law cases, raising the question as to whether Adams is cozying up to Trump in the hope that the complaint will be dropped.Adams is also now on the same page as Trump when it comes to unfounded claims of the political weaponization of the Department of Justice. In September, Adams defiantly suggested prosecutors had gone after him because he had criticized Biden’s immigration policies.“Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics,” he said. “I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target – and a target I became.”But amid all the fresh posturing there is no doubt that immigration is a thorny political issue.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than 200,000 people have come to New York over the past several years after entering the United States seeking asylum. The Adams administration has projected the cost of housing and support to New York taxpayers could hit $10bn by June next year, and Trump made pronounced inroads in the city in last month’s election, particularly among Asian voters and Hispanic voters.Yet Adams has struck a notably hard line and nationalistic language that echoes Trump. Last week, he floated the idea of deporting migrants who had been accused but not convicted of felony crimes.“If you come into this country and this city and think you are going to harm innocent New Yorkers, and innocent migrants and asylum seekers, this is not the mayor you want to be under,” Adams said last week. “I’m an American. Americans have certain rights. The constitution is for Americans. I’m not a person who snuck into this country.”That brought a pushback from civil rights groups.“Everyone residing in the United States regardless of their immigration status has specific inalienable rights under the constitution, including the right to due process,” said the New York Immigration Coalition.“Immigrant communities have been key to New York’s success, both past and present. The answer to the ongoing crisis in our city is not to turn our back on our values, but it’s to ensure fair treatment,” said Andrea Gordillo, a progressive Democrat candidate for the city council.It is possible that Adams’ recent sidling up to the incoming Trump administration is both a self-serving move and a pragmatic step in keeping with a shift in New York’s political coloring and a recognition of the reality of the next four years of Trump rule.“He’s currying favor with the Trump administration, and it’s smart for any New York mayor to have friends in Washington because the city always has problems,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist.“By playing that card he’s also playing to the population of the city that have moved not insignificantly to the center and away from the left. New Yorkers are angry about the basic conditions of life here and tired of paying the cost of the nation’s problems. By doing so he’s setting himself for re-election.”There is also no doubt Adams is also dealing with a nasty criminal situation. At least seven top Adams officials have resigned or announced plans to resign as a result of the federal criminal investigation.“Making it go away would a boon to Adams’ re-election chances. Whether it is or it isn’t, everything in politics is conspiratorial by nature,” says Sheinkopf. “Any New York mayor who wants to make an enemy of the White House is nuts. New York mayors need the president no matter who they are.”By the end of last week Adams was even being asked whether he intended to stay in the Democratic party and join the Republicans. His answer was hardly a firm no.“The party that’s most important for me is the American party – I’m a part of the American party,” he said. More

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      Biden has been wrecking his legacy, but he still has time to do the right things | Judith Levine

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      President Joe Biden seems intent on demolishing his legacy.For months, the Democrats begged him to drop out of the presidential race. He defied them until the 11th hour. Kamala Harris lost.For years, capital punishment opponents pressed him to make good on his 2020 pledge to abolish the death penalty. In the past few weeks, they’ve been begging him to commute the death sentences of the 40 people on federal death row before Trump delivers them what Project 2025 icily calls “finality”. During his last term, Trump dispatched one woman and 12 men – more executions in six months than during the preceding 40 years.Biden has not responded to the pleas of the condemned. Instead, he pardoned Hunter, granting his son immunity from prosecution for any crime he “has committed or may have committed” between 2014 and 2024. The pardon, which experts call unprecedented in scope, not only breaks another vow (and “cements his legacy as liar-in-chief”, Fox News gleefully reports). It also hands Trump cover to use the Department of Justice to shower mercy on his fellow crooks and assorted sycophants and ruin his foes.And now Biden is considering preemptive pardons for the dozens of law-abiding public servants whom Trump is threatening with retaliatory criminal prosecution. Further abusing his office, tarring these people’s reputations with rumors of guilt, Biden is, in short, out-Trumping Trump.At the start, Biden called himself a human rights champion. Speaking at the state department shortly after his inauguration, he proclaimed that “upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law and treating every person with dignity” would be “the grounding wire of our global policy – our global power”. There was no asterisk indicating an exception for Palestine.Yet since 7 October 2023, while Democratic opposition to the war in Gaza has grown to a majority, the Biden administration has drawn, and trampled, one line after another in Israel-Palestine’s sand. A year and a week into the war, on 13 October 2024, the US secretaries of state and defense – though, pointedly, not the president himself – signed a letter to the then Israeli secretary of defense Yoav Gallant threatening unspecified “implications for US policy” if Israel did not implement a list of “concrete measures” to end the starvation, disease and arbitrary displacement – to “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory” in Gaza, “starting now and within 30 days”.Thirty days passed. The conditions were not met. The Democrats lost the election, in some part due to disaffection over the war. Bernie Sanders brought a resolution to the US Senate floor to withhold military aid to Israel, citing US law prohibiting it to countries that use the weapons to commit war crimes. The White House quietly lobbied against the resolution, claiming that “disapproving arms purchases for Israel … would put wind in the sails of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas at the worst possible moment”. With nearly 44,000 Palestinians killed and 2 million displaced, it was unclear when a better moment might be.The next day, the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gallant and the presumed-dead Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri (known as Mohammed Deif), alleging the same war crimes and crimes against humanity that Sanders cited in support of his resolution.And barely a week later, Biden asked Congress to approve a $680m arms package for Israel, which it did. The package included the weapons the Israel Defense Forces had been using to wipe out entire families, with no apparent military objective.What else has the president been doing since the election to burnish his memory in the world’s eyes? He recognized National Family Week, National Apprenticeship Week and National Impaired Driving Prevention Month. He pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys. And oh, yes, he brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, leaving the IDF undistracted from pulverizing every structure and living thing in Gaza.Biden is capable of changing his mind. In 1974, for instance, he opined that he didn’t “think a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body”. In 1994, he boasted of his steadfast record – “no fewer than 50 occasions” – of voting against federal funding for abortion. He reversed that stance in 2019, and, running for president in 2020, promised to “protect women’s constitutional right to choose”. The candidate had noticed that states were “passing extreme laws” against abortion. “Circumstances have changed,” he said – again, too late.There are a few explanations for this almost petulant farewell performance. Perhaps Biden is mad at the Democrats for pushing him aside. Perhaps Mr Nice Guy is the same obnoxious misogynist who interrogated Anita Hill during Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings and declined to take testimony from three other women who alleged that Thomas had sexually harassed them too. Perhaps Biden is not really “driven” by human rights, as Politico’s Nasal Toosi concluded earlier this year, though he’ll tack them on if they don’t interfere with other realpolitik or economic goals.Or perhaps he’s entered the later stages of dementia and, in the muddle, switched parties.But the hell with explanations. The question is: now what? Circumstances have changed. Biden is a lame duck, free to do what he wishes. Trump is the next president. Biden’s legacy may be shot – and what’s not shot, Trump will shoot down or take credit for. But the president still has time to do the right things. He could start by saving a few, or a few thousand, lives.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books More

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      Ro Khanna: Brian Thompson killing was ‘horrific’ but people ‘aren’t getting care they need’

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      Progressive congressperson Ro Khanna has sympathy for murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson – yet at the same time is not surprised that the killing reignited a national dialogue about inequities in the US healthcare system, he said in an interview Sunday.“It was horrific,” the California Democrat said on ABC This Week with respect to the slaying of Thompson, whose survivors include his widow and two sons ages 16 and 19. “I mean, this is a father we’re talking about – of two children, and … there is no justification for violence.“But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.”Khanna told the show’s host, Martha Raddatz, that he agreed with fellow liberal and US senator Bernie Sanders when he wrote recently on social media: “We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured. Health care is a human right. We need Medicare for all.”“After years, Sanders is winning this debate,” Khanna said, referring to the Vermont senator’s support for a single-payer national health insurance system seen in other wealthy democracies.While police have stopped short of offering a possible motive behind Thompson’s 4 December shooting death, the apparent targeted nature of the attack – as well as shell casings found at the scene of the killing displaying the words “delay”, “deny” and possibly “depose” have suggested it was maybe linked to the largely privatized US healthcare industry’s routine denial of payments to many Americans.Healthcare debt has emerged as a leading cause of bankruptcy in the US while for-profit health insurers such as UnitedHealthcare are among the country’s richest companies. Thompson, 50, who lived near UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota, commanded a salary of $10m annually before a gunman wearing a mask shot him dead outside a hotel in Manhattan as he prepared to attend a meeting with investors of his company.Many greeted news of Thompson’s death not with sympathy but with mockery. A widely shared example of the sentiment was a social media post from Columbia School of Social Work’s Anthony Zenkus, which read: “Today, we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down…. wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who die needlessly each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”Khanna on Sunday said his status as a member of the US House has not immunized him from absurd insurance battles.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThough he acknowledged it paled in comparison to people with cancer, heart disease and diabetes being denied coverage while they battle for their lives, Khanna said: “I, as a congressperson had UnitedHealthcare deny a prescription for a nasal – a $100 pump spray, and I couldn’t get them to reverse this. So imagine what ordinary people are dealing with.”Khanna said some modest steps that the US could take to begin addressing healthcare inequities in the country is to cap out-of-pocket costs while also requiring the private insurers relied on by many Americans “to cover anything” that Medicare would.Medicare is the public US health insurance program for those older than 65 and people who are disabled.“We have to understand people with cancer, with heart disease, with diabetes, with insurance aren’t getting the care that they need. They’re getting stuck with huge medical bills.” More

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      Trump picks hush-money defense attorney Alina Habba as counselor to the president

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      President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing one of his defense attorneys in the New York hush money case as counselor to the president.Alina Habba, 40, defended Trump earlier this year, also serving as his legal spokesperson. Habba has been spending time with the president-elect since the election at his Florida club Mar-a-Lago.“She has been unwavering in her loyalty and unmatched in her resolve – standing with me through numerous ‘trials’, battles and countless days in court,” Trump posted on his social network Truth Social. “Few understand the weaponization of the ‘injustice’ system better than Alina.”Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury in May found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush-money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.In Trump’s first term, the position of counselor was held by Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway. Habba has Iraqi ancestry and is Chaldean, which is Iraq’s largest Christian denomination and one of the Catholic church’s Eastern rites.Habba frequently accompanied Trump on the campaign trail and was one of the speakers at the late October rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.On Sunday, Trump also announced he is bringing back former staffer Michael Anton to serve as director of policy planning at the state department. Anton served as the national security council spokesperson from 2017 to 2018.Trump said he also will be appointing Michael Needham, a former chief of staff for Senator Marco Rubio, as counselor of the state department. The Florida senator was chosen by Trump to be his next secretary of state. More

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      Trump surgeon general pick involved in gun accident that killed her father at age 13

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      Donald Trump’s nominee for US surgeon general – Dr Janette Nesheiwat – accidentally knocked over a gun when she was 13 years old, causing it to fire and fatally shoot her father in the head.The death of Nesheiwat’s father occurred in February 1990 at her family home in Umatilla, Florida, as reported on Friday by the New York Times.“I was in Father’s bedroom at about 7.15am getting some scissors” out of a fishing tackle box on a shelf above her dad’s bed, she said, according to a police report reviewed by the New York Times. “I opened the … box and the whole thing tipped over”, causing a handgun to fall from inside, discharge and strike her father in the head as he slept in the bed.Nesheiwat’s father, who immigrated from Jordan, died in a hospital the following day.While avoiding discussing her role in the case, she has said her father’s death inspired her to become a doctor. Nesheiwat has spent the past 15 years as an urgent care doctor for CityMD, a for-profit chain of clinics around New York City.At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, she began appearing regularly on Fox News as a medical contributor.Nesheiwat would replace Dr Vivek Murthy if her nomination is confirmed after Trump begins his second presidency.Murthy was the first US surgeon general to declare gun violence as a public health crisis. In an advisory, he cited that firearms are now the leading cause of death in the US among children and adolescents.A graphic accompanying the advisory explained how many of those deaths were unintentional, resulting from firearms that were stored loaded as well as unlocked.To address the crisis, Murthy called on the US to ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict use in public spaces and penalize individuals who fail to safely store their weapons.Republicans have opposed efforts to treat gun violence as a public health issue, with House Republicans voting in 2023 to ban the Center for Disease Control from researching gun violence. Republicans have also pushed to prevent public health agencies from citing public health emergencies to pass gun control measures and has attempted to defund programs aimed at gun violence reduction.Murthy was dismissed from his role as US surgeon general by Trump during his first presidency in 2017 before outgoing Joe Biden appointed him to the position again in 2021.The New York Times reported that a Nesheiwat memoir being published later in December mentions her father’s death in the first sentence.“When I was 13 years old, I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere,” she writes in Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine. “I couldn’t save his life.“This was the start of my personal journey in life to become a physician and enter the world of healing arts.”But, according to the New York Times, nowhere in the next 260 pages of the book does she detail how her father died or say that he was shot.The Orlando Sentinel provided more detail in 1990, describing in a news item how a bullet hit Ziad “Ben” Nesheiwat in the head and killed him after his 13-year-old daughter knocked over a tackle box, causing a gun to fall out and fire.“As she says in her book, she became a physician because of her dad’s tragic accidental death,” a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, Brian Hughes, said in a statement to the New York Times after Nesheiwat did not respond for comment. “She became a physician to save lives, and that dedication to the lives of her fellow Americans is why president Trump nominated Dr Nesheiwat to be our next surgeon general.“She and her family miss their father, and hope he’s proud of them.” More

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      Donald Trump promises to pardon January 6 rioters on ‘day one’

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      In his first sit-down television news interview since winning a second presidency in November’s election, Donald Trump renewed promises to pardon his supporters involved in the attack on the US Capitol in early 2021.He also doubled down on promises of mass deportations and tariffs in the conversation with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker – the latter of which he acknowledged could cause Americans to pay more after riding voters’ complaints about higher prices back to the White House at the expense of Vice-President Kamala Harris.“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump said in the interview, claiming convicted Capitol attackers had been put through a “very nasty system”.“I know the system,” said Trump, himself convicted in May by New York state prosecutors of criminally falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. “The system’s a very corrupt system.”Trump said there may be some exceptions to his pardons over an attack on the Capitol that was meant to keep him in the Oval Office after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden – and which was linked to multiple deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers. He referenced previously debunked claims of anti-Trump law enforcement infiltrating his supporters’ ranks and agitating the attack.When Trump was asked about Capitol attackers who assaulted police officers he said that “they had no choice”. He also claimed individuals were pressured into accepting guilty pleas.“Their whole lives have been destroyed,” said Trump, who criticized the outgoing president’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, on convictions of lying on gun ownership application forms as well as tax evasion. “They’ve been destroyed.”Trump denied he would direct his second administration’s appointees to arrest elected officials involved in the investigation of the attack on the US Capitol, which led to federal criminal charges against him that have been dismissed. But he made it a point to tell Welker: “Honestly, they should go to jail.”More than 1,250 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. And at least 645 people have been sentenced to serve some time in prison, ranging from a few days to 22 years.During his sentencing Friday, Philip Sean Grillo of New York City, one of the Capitol attackers, tauntingly told the federal judge presiding over his case, “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways.” Grillo received a one-year prison sentenced and was ordered to be taken into custody immediately.Another of the convicted attackers, Edward Kelley of Tennessee, was found guilty at trial in November of conspiracy to murder federal employees. Jurors determined he had developed a list of officials he wanted to kill for investigating him in connection with the Capitol attack.In other parts of Sunday’s interview, Trump reaffirmed his plans to enact tariffs on imports from some of the US’s biggest trading partners. He said he could not guarantee US families would not pay more as a result of his plan.He also doubled down on refusing to admit Biden fairly defeated him in the 2020 election, claiming he won in November against Harris because the race “was too big to rig”.On his plans of mass deportations, Welker asked Trump about families with mixed immigration statuses. Trump suggested immigrants living in the US legally were at risk if they had family members living in the country without permission.“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump said.He did claim to have some support for working with Democrats to protect Dreamers, or people who have lived in the US for years after being brought to the country as undocumented children. But, as he has done before, he promised to work to end birthright citizenship and said he would consider pushing to amend the US constitution to do so.“We have to end it,” Trump said.Welker also asked Trump if he had fully developed a plan to overhaul healthcare after saying he had “concepts” of one during his lone debate with Harris.“We have concepts of a plan that would be better,” Trump replied, in part. More