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      Trump picks hedge-fund investor Scott Bessent for treasury secretary

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      Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent, a longtime hedge-fund investor who taught at Yale University for several years, to be his treasury secretary, a statement from Trump confirmed on Friday. The job is one of the most powerful in Washington, with huge influence over America’s gigantic economy and financial markets.The move to select Bessent is the latest as the president-elect starts to pull together the administration for his second term in the White House. The process so far has been marked largely by a focus more on personal and political loyalty to Trump than expertise and experience.In economics, one of the main focuses and controversies of the treasury role will be to deal with Trump’s high-profile and oft-repeated promises to pursue a policy of aggressive new US tariffs in foreign trade – something that is widely feared by many other countries across the globe.Wall Street had been closely watching who Trump would pick for the treasury role, especially given his plans to remake global trade through tariffs.Bessent, 62, has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and energy production, as noted in a recent opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.The stock market surge after Trump’s election victory, he wrote, signaled investor “expectations of higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans”.Bessent follows other financial luminaries who have taken the job, including the former Goldman Sachs executives Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson and Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s first treasury chief. Janet Yellen, the current secretary and first woman in the job, previously chaired the Federal Reserve and White House council of economic advisers.As the 79th treasury secretary, Bessent would essentially be the highest-ranking US economic official, responsible for maintaining the plumbing of the world’s largest economy, from collecting taxes and paying the nation’s bills to managing the $28.6tn Treasury debt market and overseeing financial regulation, including handling and preventing market crises.The treasury boss also runs US financial sanctions policy, oversees the US-led International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, and manages national security screenings of foreign investments in the US.Bessent would face challenges, including safely managing federal deficits that are forecast to grow by nearly $8tn over a decade due to Trump’s plans to extend expiring tax cuts next year and add generous new breaks, including ending taxes on social security income.Without offsetting revenues, this new debt would add to an unsustainable fiscal trajectory already forecast to balloon US debt by $22tn through 2033.
      Managing debt increases this large without market indigestion will be a challenge, though Bessent has argued Trump’s agenda would unleash stronger economic growth that would grow revenue and shore up market confidence.Bessent would also inherit the role carved out by Yellen to lead the G7 nations to provide tens of billions of dollars in economic support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion and tighten sanctions on Moscow. But given Trump’s desire to end the war quickly and withdraw US financial support for Ukraine, it is unclear whether he would pursue this.Another area where Bessent will likely differ from Yellen is her focus on climate change, from her mandate that development banks expand lending for clean energy to incorporating climate risks into financial regulations and managing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits.Trump, a climate-change skeptic, has vowed to increase production of USfossil fuel energy and end the clean-energy subsidies in Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      Trump selects key Project 2025 figure Russ Vought to head budget office

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      Donald Trump has chosen Russ Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, the controversial conservative plan to overhaul the government, to be director of the US Office of Management and Budget, a powerful agency that helps decide the president’s policy priorities and how to pay for them.Vought, who was OMB chief during Trump’s first term, would play a major role in setting budget priorities and implementing Trump’s campaign promise to roll back government regulations.Since Trump left office, Vought has been deeply involved in Project 2025, a series of detailed policy proposals for Trump’s second term drawn up by hundreds of high-profile conservatives.Among other measures, Project 2025 calls for a broad expansion in presidential power by boosting the number of political appointees and increasing the president’s authority over the justice department. The project also proposes enforcing laws that make it illegal to mail abortion pills over state lines, criminalizing pornography and eliminating the Department of Education.The project’s authors, Vought included, have also advocated for the reclassification of parts of the federal workforce that would give Trump the authority to fire tens of thousands of government employees.During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly denied he had any links to Project 2025, even though many of its authors were former officials from his first administration. With Vought’s selection, the president-elect has now tapped several former aides with Project 2025 links for key administration roles.During the election campaign, Trump’s Democratic opponents made a concerted effort to raise public awareness of Project 2025 among voters, warning it was a blueprint for a hard-right political shift they said would occur under Trump.Their effort succeeded in making Americans widely aware of the project’s existence, and opinion polls showed voters broadly disapproved of the effort.The Trump campaign expressed increasing annoyance with the project, repeatedly emphasizing that its proposals were separate from the campaign’s official policy platform.Vought wrote a chapter for Project 2025 centered on the management of the president’s executive office. While many of the suggestions he laid out are highly technical, they are for the most part aimed at expanding the president’s authorities and lessening the power of career civil servants.“After months of lies to the American people, Donald Trump is taking off the mask: he’s plotting a Project 2025 cabinet to enact his dangerous vision starting on day one,” said Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee.Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Trump never had anything to do with Project 2025, and that all his cabinet nominees and appointments were “whole-heartedly committed to President Trump’s agenda, not the agenda of outside groups”.Vought has helped craft several executive orders that could be implemented on day one of Trump’s term, according to two people involved in the project. They include an order instituting schedule F, which would re-categorize thousands of civil servants to enable Trump to fire them should he want to, said those people, who requested anonymity to discuss the project’s internal deliberations.Trump’s other nominees with Project 2025 ties include Brendan Carr, who wrote the project’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission. Carr is now set to lead that agency.Carr has criticized the FCC’s decision not to finalize nearly $900m in broadband subsidies for Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet unit Starlink, as well as the commerce department’s $42bn broadband infrastructure program and Joe Biden’s spectrum policy.Other Project 2025 contributors who have been named by Trump as officials in his new administration are Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, John Ratcliffe, his incoming CIA director and Pete Hoekstra, Trump’s choice for ambassador to Canada.Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s incoming deputy chiefs of staff, founded a conservative legal and advocacy group known as America First Legal, which contributed to the project.At the OMB, Vought will work with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to carry out Trump’s campaign pledge to slash government spending and regulations.Musk and Ramaswamy have been tapped by Trump to co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity Trump has indicated will operate outside the confines of government. More

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      Trump reportedly considering former senator and loyalist Kelly Loeffler for agriculture secretary – live

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      Donald Trump is expected to offer Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia Republican senator, the position of agriculture secretary, CNN and The Hill report.According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the outlet, Trump is set to meet with Loeffler at Mar-a-Lago on Friday afternoon.Loeffler, who is co-chairing Trump’s inauguration events, was previously appointed to the Senate by Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and then lost in 2021 to Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator.Vivek Ramaswamy appeared to confirm he and Elon Musk will try to stop the flow of funds that go to Planned Parenthood.“The federal government shouldn’t be in the business of giving away free money to non-governmental organizations. That should be obvious,” a Thursday post on X by Ramaswamy read.The post was a quoted reposting of a story from Life News, an anti-abortion digital news site, that bore the headline: “Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Call for Defunding Planned Parenthood Via DOGE”.The pair will lead what they plan to call the Department of government efficiency and have made prior comments about defunding organizations like the Internal revenue service and Department of education, Forbes reported.Read more of the Guardian’s coverage about the concerted efforts to topple Planned Parenthood and deliver blows to women’s healthcare here.US Senate majority whip Dick Durbin has released a statement on Donald Trump’s nomination of Pam Bondi as the next attorney general, calling for the Senate judiciary committee to follow convention rules on customary FBI background checks. Durbin said:
      “Serious questions have been raised about Ms. Bondi’s conduct as Florida’s Attorney General and President-elect Trump’s personal attorney. The Trump transition team is moving forward with an Attorney General nominee without the customary FBI background check. After the controversial announcement and awkward withdrawal of Matt Gaetz, the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee should insist that President-elect Trump, like prior Presidents-elect of both parties, follow the rules.
      The Committee must uphold its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent on this critical position.”
      Here’s a look at where things stand:

      Donald Trump has been granted permission by the New York Judge Juan Merchan on Friday to seek dismissal of his hush money criminal case. The permission follows his presidential victory on 5 November and multiple sentencing delays surrounding the case of which he was found guilty earlier this year.

      In a statement filled with multiple falsehoods, the Donald Trump campaign hailed Merchan’s decision to grant Trump permission to seek dismissal of his hush money criminal case. Calling the decision a “decisive win”, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung falsely claimed the case – which found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsified business records – was a “hoax.”

      Donald Trump is expected to offer Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia Republican senator, the position of agriculture secretary, CNN reports. According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the outlet, Trump is set to meet with Loeffler at Mar-a-Lago on Friday afternoon.

      Melania Trump’s office has appointed Haley Harrison, a longtime aid, as her new chief of staff ahead of her husband Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. In a statement on Friday, Trump’s office said: “She has a strong understanding of White House operations, and as Chief of Staff, Mrs. Harrison will oversee and manage the East Wing’s team.”

      In a new interview on Friday, Matt Gaetz revealed that he will not be returning to Congress next year. Speaking to conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk, Gaetz, who withdrew his attorney general nomination yesterday, said: “I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch. I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” CNN reports.

      More than half of Americans, 53%, approve of Donald Trump’s plans and policies for his second presidential term, a new Pew Research survey has found. The survey, which was conducted between November 12 and 17 and among 9,609 adults, also found that 59% of Americans said they are very or somewhat confident in Trump to make good decisions about economic policy.
      Pam Bondi, a staunch Donald Trump loyalist and his pick to be attorney general, is continuing to receive support from Republicans on her nomination.In a post on X, senator John Cornyn of Texas wrote: “An excellent nomination by Donald Trump for attorney general.”Missouri senator Josh Hawley said Bondi will “be a fabulous AG” who will “be a fantastic partner in this effort to clean up the FBI and DOJ.”Similarly, senator Mitt Romney said Bondi “will be a highly capable leader at DOJ.”Melania Trump’s office has appointed Haley Harrison, a longtime aid, as her new chief of staff ahead of her husband Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. In a statement on Friday, Trump’s office said:
      Mrs. Harrison has maintained an integral role and exceptional leadership on the First Lady’s team over the past seven years. She has a strong understanding of White House operations, and as Chief of Staff, Mrs. Harrison will oversee and manage the East Wing’s team while strategically liaising with other parts of government.
      Donald Trump is expected to offer Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia Republican senator, the position of agriculture secretary, CNN and The Hill report.According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the outlet, Trump is set to meet with Loeffler at Mar-a-Lago on Friday afternoon.Loeffler, who is co-chairing Trump’s inauguration events, was previously appointed to the Senate by Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and then lost in 2021 to Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator.Karl Rove, a Republican strategist, has rebuked Donald Trump for bringing “chaos” back.Martin Pengelly reports for the Guardian:As Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s first nominee for attorney general, withdrew after eight days amid allegations of sexual misconduct and more, and as Trump’s new pick, Pam Bondi, faced scrutiny of her own, a leading Republican strategist rebuked the president-elect for bringing “chaos” back to Washington.“Inadequate vetting, impatience, disregard for qualifications and a thirst for revenge have created chaos and controversy for Mr Trump before he’s even in office,” said Karl Rove, once known as George W Bush’s “Brain”, in the Wall Street Journal.“The price for all this will be missed opportunities to shore up popular support for the incoming president. But at least it’ll make great TV.”For the full story, click here:In a statement filled with multiple falsehoods, the Donald Trump campaign hailed New York judge Juan Merchan’s decision to grant Trump permission to seek dismissal of his hush money criminal case.Calling the decision a “decisive win,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung falsely claimed the case – which found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsified business records – was a “hoax.”Repeating Trump’s unfounded claim that he “won a landslide victory,” Cheung added that the “American people have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the witch hunt cases” – another unfounded claim propelled by Trump in his attacks against his political enemies.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican representative, is reportedly set to lead a new House subcommittee that will work with the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, a government body that Trump claims he’ll create, to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, according to CNBC.A source familiar with the situation told the network that Greene, along with James Comer, the Republican House oversight chairman, have already met with Ramaswamy and his team, and they are “already working together”.In a statement to CNBC, Greene said she was “excited to chair this new subcommittee designed to work hand in hand with President Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the entire DOGE team”.Republican Derek Merrin has officially conceded the race for Ohio’s ninth congressional district to his Democratic opponent and veteran congresswoman, Marcy Kaptur.In a video statement posted to X, Merrin said that he had called and congratulated Kaptur for winning two more years in Congress.“I want to thank each and every person who supported our campaign,” he said. “We ran a strong race and I’m proud of the effort we made for NW Ohio.”Merrin, a fourth-term state representative who was endorsed by the president-elect, Donald Trump, lost by about 2,300 votes – or 0.7% of the vote – according to the Associated Press.“Guys, they spent over $10m against us” Merrin said in the video. “Democrats propped up a third party candidate to siphon votes from us, they hit us hard for almost 100 days in the media, and, that’s life, man, that’s politics.”He continued: “We were fortunate enough to have the money to get our message out, and outside groups were able to talk about Marcy’s record, and it was mainly a fair fight that way – and Marcy Kaptur got more votes than we did, and I accept that.”Merrin did not rule out the possibility of running for Kaptur’s seat again in the future, but stated that his immediate plans are to rest and recharge with his family.“We stood up for our constitution, we fought for lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, set a vision out for more prosperity in northwest Ohio and we weren’t able to win,” Merrin said, “but our message and team across America won.”Chuck Grassley, the incoming Senate judiciary chair, praised Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, in a statement.“Pam Bondi is a longtime prosecutor & effectively led FL large AttyGeneral’s office for 8yrs” wrote Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa and the oldest member of the senate at 91 years old.He went on to describe Bondi as “well regarded” and “experienced” noting that he got to know her during Trump’s first term.“Will learn more as we vet her nom in judic Cmte” he added.There are several actions Joe Biden can take to protect civil liberties before Donald Trump takes the White House.The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:In less than two months, Donald Trump will take office, threatening several areas of American life and international policy. The president-elect has pledged to take aim at LGBTQ+ rights, specifically for transgender and gender-non-conforming people. He has promised to conduct mass deportations and raids as a part of a far-right approach to US immigration. And he is expected to roll back data collection practices on police misconduct and stifle any hope of passing police reform in Congress – specifically the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.Trump will largely be able to roll out his agenda, outlined in the 900-plus-page Project 2025 document, as Republicans took control of Congress during the 2024 general election. Joe Biden’s actions in his remaining time in office could be a crucial buttress against the expected impacts of the next four years.Six experts spoke with the Guardian about what the US president could do in his remaining time to protect the most vulnerable people.For the full story, click here: More

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      Trump hush-money case sentencing postponed indefinitely

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      The sentencing in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal hush-money case has been postponed indefinitely while attorneys on both sides argue over its future given his recent election victory.Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump’s case, did not provide a new sentencing date in his one-page scheduling order on Friday.Merchan said in his decision that Trump’s lawyers had to file their argument for dismissal by end of business on 2 December. Prosecutors have one week to respond.The development came in the wake of filings from prosecutors and defense lawyers over their views of how Trump’s case should proceed after he won the 2024 election against Kamala Harris.Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, issued a statement calling the decision a “decisive win”. However, he repeated the president-elect’s claim that the case – which found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsified business records – was a “hoax”.Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday asked Merchan to throw out the case, contending that dismissal was necessary “in order to facilitate the orderly transition of executive power”.Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney and choice for deputy US attorney general, and Emil Bove, the president-elect’s pick for principal associate deputy attorney general, complained that the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s team “appears to not yet be ready to dismiss this politically motivated and fatally flawed case, which is what is mandated by the law and will happen as justice takes its course”.They argued that the US justice department was on the verge of dismissing Trump’s federal cases and pointed to a departmental memo that bars prosecution of sitting presidents.“As in those cases, dismissal is necessary here,” their filing said. “Just as a sitting president is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as president-elect.”They claimed that if this case proceeds, it would “be uniquely destabilizing” and could “hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs”. They asked Merchan to give them until 20 December to file their push for dismissal.Prosecutors previously told Merchan that they planned on fighting Trump’s expected plans for dismissal in the aftermath of his recent presidential win. Prosecutors also said that other case proceedings should be put on pause until Trump’s dismissal argument is decided.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionProsecutors disagreed that Trump’s case should be dismissed simply because appeals would not be decided before his inauguration. While they respected the presidency and understood the logistical issues, “no current law establishes that a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution, and that is based on unofficial conduct from which the defendant is also not immune.”The prosecution said that courts must respect the varying constitutional interests – the executive branch’s need for independence, and the judicial branch’s need for integrity.Prosecutors told Merchan that there were routes he could take other than outright dismissal, including “deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term”.Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records in an effort to sway the 2016 election on 30 May. The prosecution said that Trump falsely listed reimbursements to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who gave the adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence about a purported affair with Trump, as “legal expenses”.The jury reached their guilty verdict in less than 24 hours. These proceedings were the first time a US president – former or sitting – stood a criminal trial, as well as a conviction. More

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      Leading Republican strategist rebukes Trump for bringing ‘chaos’ back

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      As Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s first nominee for attorney general, withdrew after eight days amid allegations of sexual misconduct and more, and as Trump’s new pick, Pam Bondi, faced scrutiny of her own, a leading Republican strategist rebuked the president-elect for bringing “chaos” back to Washington.“Inadequate vetting, impatience, disregard for qualifications and a thirst for revenge have created chaos and controversy for Mr Trump before he’s even in office,” said Karl Rove, once known as George W Bush’s “Brain”, in the Wall Street Journal.“The price for all this will be missed opportunities to shore up popular support for the incoming president. But at least it’ll make great TV.”Gaetz, 42 and a far-right Florida congressman, denied wrongdoing but lost Senate support amid sensation over an unpublished House ethics committee report concerning allegations of “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shar[ing] inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misus[ing] state identification records, convert[ing] campaign funds to personal use, and/or accept[ing] a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift.”Gaetz was torpedoed by the Republican US senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and senator-elect John Curtis of Utah, who had indicated a lack of support for the former representative’s congressional confirmation. Bondi, 59 and a former attorney general of Florida, seemed more likely to earn support.Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist turned critic of the president-elect, Trump, told CNN Bondi was “a mainstream Republican who turned Maga”, adding: “I will tell you, she is not an ogre. She is not a jerk.”Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told reporters that Bondi was a “grand slam, touchdown, hole in one, ace, hat-trick, slam dunk, Olympic gold medal pick”, adding: “She will be confirmed quickly because she deserves to be confirmed quickly.”Bondi has strong, longtime links to Trump. Part of his defense team in his first impeachment, for trying to extort political dirt from Ukraine, she holds a position at the hard-right America First Policy Institute, set up by Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller.Democrats look less favorably on Bondi’s lobbying work for Qatar, her support for Trump’s lie that his defeat in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud, and a Trump-linked scandal from 2013.As Florida attorney general, Bondi had said she was considering joining a lawsuit brought by students cheated by Trump University, a short-lived, fraudulent for-profit past venture of the president-elect’s that was shut down. Four days later, Bondi received a $25,000 donation from a Trump non-profit. Bondi never joined the lawsuit. She and Trump denied wrongdoing but Trump paid a $2,500 fine for violating federal tax laws.Other Trump picks face continued uncertainty, not least Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host nominated for secretary of defense. Widely seen as unqualified, war veteran Hegseth is the subject of a released police report about an alleged sexual assault in California in 2017.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Thursday, Hegseth said: “As far as the media is concerned, the matter was fully investigated and I was fully cleared.”The Washington Post reported that Republican senators broadly saw Hegseth as a good choice alongside more mainstream selections for other cabinet positions,including Marco Rubio, the Florida senator nominated for secretary of state, and Mike Waltz, the Florida congressman picked for national security adviser.Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator, told the Post: “We live in an age that everybody’s past is exposed, regardless of what their circumstances are, and people draw an opinion before they have time to actually know the whole truth. The good thing is, there’s actually a full report, and you guys can read it for yourself. I don’t think there’s any way in the world you can say that this is a sexual assault.”But Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, of the armed services committee, told NBC the police report was “a pretty big problem, given that we have … a sexual assault problem in our military. You know, this is why you have background checks. This is why you have hearings. This is why you have to go through the scrutiny. I’m not going to prejudge him, but, yeah, it’s a pretty concerning accusation.”Questions also swirl about the vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr, picked for secretary of health. An allegation of sexual misconduct towards a babysitter has resurfaced. Kennedy has said he does not remember but also apologized. CNN, meanwhile, unearthed 2016 comments in which Kennedy previously compared Trump to Hitler and praised descriptions of his supporters as Nazis.Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman nominated for director of national intelligence, is reviled on the left for her positions on Russia, Ukraine and Syria, and distrusted on the right for support for the Iran nuclear deal and opposition to trade wars with China.And Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment impresario picked to be education secretary – a department Trump wants to scrap – is accused in a lawsuit of failing to stop an employee sexually abusing children. McMahon has not commented.Away from Trump’s nascent cabinet, the Georgia congresswoman and far-right conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene was picked to lead a House subcommittee linked to a newly conceived body, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. This is not an official government department and details are vague.It has been proposed by Trump as a mission for the unelected tech mogul Elon Musk, meant to slash trillions off the federal budget, for which project he has been paired with Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Greene promised to fire “bureaucrats” deemed underperforming or surplus to requirements. More

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      Matt Gaetz will not return to Congress after dropping attorney general bid

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      Matt Gaetz, the former Florida representative who this week withdrew from consideration to be US attorney general under Donald Trump, said on Friday he would not seek to return to Congress.“I’m still going to be in the fight but it’s going to be from a new perch,” Gaetz told the rightwing podcaster and radio host Charlie Kirk. “I do not intend to join the 119th Congress.”Gaetz is a dedicated far-right controversialist and staunch Trump loyalist who last year played a key role in the removal of Republican Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, the first such move ever orchestrated by a speaker’s own party.Picked for attorney general during a plane ride with Trump, Gaetz was seen as likely to carry out the president-elect’s agenda of revenge on his political enemies and pardons for allies, including those convicted over the deadly 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Trump who sought in vain to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.Gaetz swiftly resigned his US House seat, which he had held for nearly three full terms on Capitol Hill.His resignation pre-empted the release of a House ethics committee report into allegations of misconduct including allegedly paying for sex with a girl under the age of consent.Amid renewed controversy, Gaetz denied wrongdoing and pointed to a justice department decision to drop an investigation of the matter.Nonetheless, amid feverish speculation over the report and whether the confirmation would fail, Gaetz announced his withdrawal on Thursday.Debate followed about whether Gaetz could or would seek to return to the House when the new Congress is sworn in next year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut on Friday Gaetz told Kirk: “There are a number of fantastic Floridians who’ve stepped up to run for my seat, people who have inspired with their heroism, with their public service. And I’m actually excited to see north-west Florida go to new heights and have great representation.“I’m 42 now, and I’ve got other goals in life that I’m eager to pursue – my wife and my family – and so I’m going to be fighting for President Trump. I’m going to be doing whatever he asks of me, as I always have. But I think that eight years is probably enough time in the United States Congress.” More

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      We can still have progress under Trump. We just need to focus on our mission | Aaron Glantz

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      Welcome to Fighting Back, the Guardian’s new pop-up newsletter from our opinion desk. From now until the inauguration, you will hear from big thinkers on what we can all do to protect civil liberties and fundamental freedoms in a Trump presidency. If you aren’t already a subscriber, you can sign up here.***Take a deep breath. Go on a walk. Meditate if it’s your practice. Talk with your family, friends and longtime collaborators. And then, when you are ready, sit down and write a personal mission statement rooted in an issue that’s important to you.Think about all the levers of power – local, state, federal, corporate and in the broader civil society. Sketch how each of them relate to the problem you hope to tackle. Most likely, Donald Trump and his administration will have a lot of say on this issue, but they won’t be the only players. Move forward with the intention to confront that issue, rather than attack the US president-elect, and you may find unexpected allies. By doing so, you will give yourself a chance to make a meaningful difference.
      It struck me, in 2016, that many in the media were overlooking the fact that the US had elected a real estate developer president
      As an investigative reporter, I spent the first Trump term focused on housing and economic equity. It struck me, after Trump’s surprise win over Hillary Clinton in 2016, that many in the media were overlooking the fact that the US had elected a real estate developer president – one who had been forced to settle a federal discrimination suit, at that.Housing is central to the American dream. It is nearly every family’s largest expense and the single most important source of wealth for homeowners. But on Barack Obama’s watch, homeownership slipped to a 50-year low. Black and brown families bore the brunt of the decline. I and my colleagues at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting set out out not to confront Trump per se, but to attack the following problem:Fifty years after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which banned discrimination in mortgage lending, the homeownership gap between Black and white families is larger than during the Jim Crow era. What can we do to ensure equal access to credit and a fair shake at the American dream?Confronting Trump directly seemed like a fool’s errand. His treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, was a Wall Street executive who personally profited off the foreclosure crisis. The man Trump appointed as the country’s top bank regulator, the comptroller of the currency Joseph Otting, was former chief executive of Mnuchin’s OneWest Bank. From 2010 to 2015, the years Otting was in charge, OneWest made just 1% of its home loans to Black families and 3% to Latinos, despite being headquartered in southern California. But Trump, Mnuchin and Otting were not the only people with power over mortgages. State, local and corporate officials could also be held accountable.In February 2018, my colleague Emmanuel Martinez and I published an investigation, Kept Out, which used an analysis of 31m mortgage records to expose modern-day redlining in 61 US cities. In Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Washington DC and dozens of others, we found people of color were far more likely to be denied a home loan even when they made the same amount of money, sought the same size loan and wanted to buy in the same neighborhood.This was a year into Trump’s first term. Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress. But our approach, simultaneously sweeping and local in scope, gave communities the tools they needed to hold public officials and corporations accountable.Six state attorneys general launched investigations. In Philadelphia, where we conducted our field reporting, the city created a $100m revolving loan fund to help first-time homebuyers. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank, visited the city and promised a major expansion in community lending. After Trump left office, three states and the justice department reached a $20m settlement with one of Warren Buffett’s mortgage companies, which had been the largest home purchase lender in Philadelphia.That inquiry, launched by then Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro, found loan officers and mortgage brokers at Buffett’s companies shared pictures of Black people holding wheelbarrows filled with watermelons. One sent a message that read “PROUD TO BE WHITE!” Another complained: “When I call you N****r, K*ke, Towel head, Sandn***r, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink … You call me a racist.” A top company official posted a picture with the Confederate flag. In addition to settling the case, the company shut down.
      We, the public, would be well-served to step back from this partisan tit-for-tat and focus on whether political leaders get stuff done
      This history is worth revisiting as Trump returns to power and once again stacks his administration with cronies. Some blue-state governors, including California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and Illinois’s governor, JB Pritzker, have positioned themselves to lead the resistance, with Newsom convening a special legislative session to “Trump-proof” the state.But we, the public, would be well-served to step back from this partisan tit-for-tat and focus on whether political leaders “get stuff done”, as Shapiro said in his post-election statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHousing is a major concern for Americans of all political perspectives. A recent Pew Research survey found 69% percent of respondents were “very concerned” about housing costs – with overwhelming majorities of both Republicans and Democrats worried. On this metric, the blue states are failing.California and New York have the lowest homeownership rates and the highest rents, according to the US Census Bureau. In California, a family must make $221,000 a year to qualify for a loan on a “mid-tier” home, according to an October report from the state legislative analyst office. If you’re a working-class person of any race, it’s no wonder Trump’s outrage is attractive. Democratic politicians aren’t solving the problems most important to you.Homelessness is also on the rise – especially in blue states and especially in California. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, California accounted for 49% of all unsheltered people in the United States last year (123,423 people) – nearly eight times the number of unsheltered people in second-place Florida.None of this is Trump’s fault. California is the fourth-largest economy in the world with a state budget approaching $300bn. The Golden state has poured $24bn into solving its homelessness crisis over the last five years, but a state audit found it didn’t adequately track whether all that money was spent effectively. In San Francisco, where residents voted to oust their mayor in favor of the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, the city spends nearly a billion dollars a year fighting homelessness – and likewise has little to show for it.
      Center an issue you care about, ask who is responsible for solving it, find allies and move forward with intention
      So where does this leave us? Back where we started. It sounds basic, but it’s true. People want a government that works for them. Center an issue you care about, ask who is responsible for solving it, find allies and move forward with intention. Not only will this approach bring results for you and those you care about, it will also provide an opportunity to dull the political polarization that feeds Trump’s power. You may not be able to lessen Trump’s rage or his desire for retribution, but you will be able to get something done – and that’s the most important step to creating the world you want to live in.What gives me hopeI derive hope and strength from the community around me. I know that all of us, pushing together, can weave a tapestry of strength that propels impact. In this time, consider supporting organizations that provide space to mission-driven journalists to find common cause together, including the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the Carter Center, home of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.***Aaron Glantz, a two-time Peabody award winner and Pulitzer prize finalist, is a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences. His books include Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream (HarperCollins). More

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      Five actions Biden can take to protect civil liberties before Trump’s presidency

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      In less than two months, Donald Trump will take office, threatening several areas of American life and international policy. The president-elect has pledged to take aim at LGBTQ+ rights, specifically for transgender and gender-non-conforming people. He has promised to conduct mass deportations and raids as a part of a far-right approach to US immigration. And he is expected to roll back data collection practices on police misconduct and stifle any hope of passing police reform in Congress – specifically the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.Trump will largely be able to roll out his agenda, outlined in the 900-plus-page Project 2025 document, as Republicans took control of Congress during the 2024 general election. Joe Biden’s actions in his remaining time in office could be a crucial buttress against the expected impacts of the next four years.Six experts spoke with the Guardian about what the US president could do in his remaining time to protect the most vulnerable people:1. LGBTQ+ rights: fulfill executive order initiatives and confirm judgesAmong Trump’s collection of anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, his administration’s plans to redefine sex are of particular concern, said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.  Sex would be redefined “in such a manner that actually eradicates trans people”, said Redfield, and would not allow for “self-identification”. “The definition of sex that they would propose is that sex is defined based on anatomical characteristics at birth and is unchangeable.” The definition of sex is “at the core of some of the biggest civil rights conversations we’re having in the LGBTQ+ context”, said Redfield. The Biden administration has interpreted the definition of “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity. But with Trump, redefining sex could rollback protections and cause issues for transgender people attempting to access federal programs such as social security benefits, especially as many programs ask for participants to enroll with a gender identification. A redefinition of sex could also result in people being investigated for fraud if their gender doesn’t match across all federal identification documents, said Redfield. Many of these questions around the federal government’s ability to define sex will face legal challenges. So Biden, in tandem with Democrats, should continue to confirm federal judges who will probably hear legal cases about gender, Redfield said. Congressional Democrats have managed to confirm several and are only 15 short of the 234 judicial confirmations needed to match the record set by Trump during his first term. Biden should also complete everything outlined in his Executive Order 14075, including checking in with federal agencies to make sure they are well equipped to handle increased needs from LGBTQ+ people amid Trump’s presidency. “For example,” Redfield said, “if everyone’s changing their passports right now, they need to make sure they have enough staffing for that.”2. Police reform: make sure data on policing is publicly availableThrough executive orders, Biden largely increased data collection on patterns and practices of police departments, said Patrice Willoughby, the chief of policy and legislative affairs at the NAACP. But such data, which tracks police actions including traffic stops, arrests and use of force, will probably come to a “complete stop” under Trump’s administration, likely to boost “the narrative of Black violence” cited by conservatives. Willoughby added that Trump will not provide an opportunity to continue reform efforts seen under Biden, especially given past comments supporting a “violent day” of policing to end perceived increases in crime. With his remaining term, Biden must make sure that data on policing is “available publicly for advocacy organizations, state and local governments” and disseminated so it does not “disappear during a second Trump presidency”. Additionally, the Biden administration should ensure that the “methodology of collecting data” is available to state and local municipalities so it can be “replicated across different ecosystems”, said Willoughby. “States and localities that are interested in police reform [can] have the path forward in order to continue to collect data and apply it in their individual communities.”It’s also important for Biden to direct federal agencies to use funding that has already been earmarked by Congress to address police reform, especially, she said, as conservatives will probably “claw back” funding allocated towards equity and communities of color.3. Immigration: close detention centers and slow rate of detentions Biden should close the estimated 200 US detention sites that will be used by Trump to carry out mass deportation and slow down the current rate of detention for undocumented people, said Naureen Shah, deputy director of government affairs at the ACLU.“When I think about the Trump presidency, I’m anticipating an avalanche of anti-immigrant action from day one, from within hours of inauguration,” said Shah. She added that Ice will probably conduct raids using state and local law enforcement, targeting of undocumented students and attacks on birthright citizenship. The biggest issue is that the Biden administration has left “intact the infrastructure for abuse”, Shah said, including the US detention sites that will be used during Trump’s mass deportation. “We urged the Biden administration early on to close detention facilities across the country,” she said. “We argued that they needed to close the facilities so that another administration couldn’t come in and fill them up.”But instead, the number of detentions has increased throughout the Biden administration, now reaching approximately 37,000 a day, said Shah, with Trump planning to increase that amount. Shah warned that Trump would now have “the empty beds to fill” because “the Biden administration left it all there”. Biden also left in place 287(g) agreements, which allow Ice to tap local law enforcement to identify and place immigrants in the deportation pipeline. Requests for the Biden administration to end said agreements have gone unfulfilled, said Shah.“At this point, we’re calling on the Biden administration to at least slow down the expansion that is planned of Ice detention and to close facilities run by abusive sheriffs and private prison companies,” Shah said, naming the Baker county detention center as a site that advocates have been flagging for years.4. Gaza: end arms sales to Israel Biden could withdraw US military assistance and arms sales as well as allowing for an “honest assessment of Israel’s conduct”, said Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “It’s not too late for Biden to invoke that leverage as US law requires and even in recognizing that Trump would probably reverse it, it still would be an extremely important statement,” Roth said. Allowing for a review of Israel’s actions, including the restriction of humanitarian aid and bombing shelters housing civilians, would make clear that such conduct “[are] war crimes”. “It would be more than just an important rebuke of how the Israeli government is fighting this war. It would help to lay the groundwork for potential international criminal charges,” Roth said, adding that Trump could later face charges for “aiding and abetting war crimes” if the war is still conducted in this manner. But such actions are unlikely. The Biden administration could have allowed the United Nations security council to insist on a ceasefire with “no political cost”, Roth said, comparing the moment to when Barack Obama allowed a security council resolution on the illegality of Israel’s West Bank settlements to go through before Trump’s inauguration in 2016. “[But] Biden wouldn’t do it. He vetoed it … [He] would not do the comparable thing, even though the stakes are much higher. “Biden has said all the right things. He’s pressed for a ceasefire, he’s urged greater attention to civilian casualties, he’s pressed for food and humanitarian aid to come into Gaza,” Roth said. “He’s done nothing to use his leverage to back up those pleas.”5. Education: broadly expand DEI effortsTrump’s plans to rescind diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) efforts from the Biden administration could embolden states that are already targeting such initiatives in education, through anti-CRT (critical race theory) laws, which often restrict classroom material and curriculum on topics including race, sexual orientation and gender identity, said Jordan Nellums, a higher education senior policy associate at the Century Foundation, a progressive thinktank. “The problem that we’ve seen in some states like Texas is that now faculty are looking at their syllabi for classes and realizing that they can’t even use the word ‘race’ or any type of word that may indicate that there’s going to be a discussion on race in certain classes,” he said.With the Department of Education potentially being dismantled, it could also pause its work at making sure that students facing discrimination have a means of reporting it, specifically through the Office of Civil Rights within the education department. Education is largely a “state issue”, said Nellums, but the Biden administration could sign executive actions to mandate that agencies protect DEI efforts more broadly. In terms of student debt, an issue disproportionately affecting people of color and low-income people, Biden could also make sure that those who are eligible for student loan forgiveness, specifically with public servant loan forgiveness and individuals who were defrauded by their college, said Aissa Canchola-Bañez, policy director for the Student Borrower Protection Center. “The Biden-Harris administration has done so much great work in trying to  fix some of the programs that were broken under the last Trump administration, fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and fixing Income Driven Repayment program,” said Canchola-Bañez. But many people are still waiting to get debt relief due to bureaucratic backlogs, said Canchola-Bañez. “The Biden administration can also work to make sure that all those folks who were promised relief actually see it happen.” More