Trump news: President loses Pennsylvania appeal as he backtracks on vow to leave peacefully
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Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results suffered a severe blow on Friday when a judge he had appointed in Pennsylvania ruled against his fraud appeal.
A blistering ruling from Third District’s Stephanos Bibas – a Trump-appointed judge – said “free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy.”
“Charges of unfairness are serious,” he said in his ruling on Friday. "But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
One of his lawyers, Jenna Ellis, said they will take their case to the Supreme Court.
Earlier on Friday Mr Trump, currently playing golf, tweeted en route to his Virginia course that Joe Biden must first “prove” that all of his “ridiculous” 80 million votes were obtained legally, before claiming the White House.
Mr Trump’s admission on Thursday that he would leave if Mr Biden won the electoral college made headlines worldwide - despite the fact that it should not have been necessary to state.
The president on Friday appeared irritated by the response, and tweeted: “Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!”
The president’s legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, are continuing to challenge results in the courts, but their hopes - faint from the start - are fading. They have had more than 35 cases dismissed so far.
Trump angry at own golf course, says ‘I hate this f**king hole’
Donald Trump snapped at his own golf course on Thanksgiving, and exclaimed that he hated “this f*****g hole’, as he played before having dinner, writes Gino Spocchia.
The outburst came as the US president paid a visit to Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, where he spent Thursday morning.
Trump angry at own golf course, says ‘I hate this f****** hole’
Trump played golf for an estimated 300th time during presidency and snapped: ‘ah s***!’
Trump now live-tweeting OAN broadcasts
In a change from his previous habit of live-tweeting Fox News broadcasts, Donald Trump has switched to faux-news channel OAN.
The tweet first is classic Trump - a ratings war - mixed with with some now-standard election conspiracy nonsense.
Another makes a separate outlandish conspiracy claim about USB drives “giving” votes to Joe Biden.
No evidence, as usual.
A non-OAN tweet from the president claims that Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator, was banned from Twitter. Mr Mastriano’s account does not appear to be blocked at the moment, but he has tweeted an image suggesting it was temporarily suspended for breaking the platform’s rules.
Mr Mastriano was among the Republican politicians who took part in the not-a-hearing into Mr Trump’s/Rudy Giuliani’s false claims of election malfeasance at a hotel this week.
Trump erupts at Twitter for suspending Pennsylvania Republican after baseless voter fraud hearing
Donald Trump has raged at Twitter after the platform suspended a personal account belonging to a Pennsylvania state senator who presided over a conspiracy-filled “hearing” among GOP lawmakers to amplify false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The president – in a series of posts tagging One America News Network, which was suspended from YouTube this week for promoting a false Covid-19 “cure” amid its wall-to-wall far-right content – said state Senator Doug Mastriano was “banned” after the platform and “fake news, working together" sought to “SILENCE THE TRUTH.”
Trump erupts at Twitter for suspending Republican state senator
Donald Trump has raged at Twitter after the platform suspended a personal account belonging to a Pennsylvania state senator who presided over a conspiracy-filled “hearing” among GOP lawmakers to amplify false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump now boosting another Fox News rival
Amid his ongoing spat with Fox News, which he says has been insufficiently slavish in its support for him, Donald Trump is now promoting Newsmax on Twitter.
It follows his earlier OAN viewing session.
Newsmax is hitting all the right notes as far as the president is concerned, backing his decision to pardon Michael Flynn and talking up his false claims of election fraud.
Florida governor accused of ‘killing spree’ after extending ban on cities from imposing own mask mandates
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been accused of overseeing a “killing spree”, after he extended a ban on cities in the state imposing their own mask mandates.
On Wednesday, Mr DeSantis extended an executive order issued in September, which prevented local governments from fining residents who refused to wear face masks, or from closing restaurants not complying with coronavirus measures.
Florida governor accused of ‘killing spree’ after extending mask mandate ban
Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava calls decision ‘deeply frustrating’
“We will turn over the fraudulent result”
Donald Trump has confirmed what he floated yesterday - that he will travel to Georgia on Saturday, to campaign for Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
Neither got more than 50 per cent of the general election vote, resulting in 5 January runoffs against Democratic challengers.
The pair are facing a tough challenge from Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and money is pouring into the state on both sides in the crucial campaign.
At stake is control of the senate.
Democrats would need to capture both of the seats in Georgia to secure a 50-50 tie in the Senate. Then, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris could cast tiebreaking votes to carry out the Democratic agenda. If they were to lose one, Republicans would maintain their majority, albeit by the slimmest of margins.
Why Donald Trump left the World Health Organization
In May the president stunned diplomats and allies by announcing that the US was leaving the WHO - something he had threatened to do, but few thought he would.
Today the New York Times has obtained a list of seven demands that Mr Trump presented to the WHO chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“It was an enormous backfire, and it was bound to be,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor and longtime WHO adviser who also reviewed the list.
He told the paper: “It wasn’t a negotiation. It was blackmail.”
The list:
- An investigation into the WHO’s handling of the outbreak and the source of the virus.
- Dr Tedros must call on China to provide live virus samples and stop censoring Chinese doctors or journalists.
- Dr Tedros must say that countries were right to consider travel restrictions during the pandemic.
- WHO must send a team to Taiwan - not a member of the WHO - to explore their successful response.
- WHO must pre-qualify coronavirus drugs and vaccines for use around the world once they were authorised by major regulators in the United States, Canada, Europe or Japan.
- Ensure that countries like the United States that contribute heavily to the WHO are proportionally represented on the organisation’s staff.
- WHO must support proposed changes put forward by the G7.
Trump is leaving the White House… probably to play golf
The motorcade was rolling at 10:18am.
He played golf yesterday morning at his Sterling, Virginia, course.
Is he backtracking on his promise to leave the White House?
Why Trump backtracked on his pledge
The president is currently playing golf - again - but his tweet has raised eyebrows.
Trump appears to backtrack on pledge to leave White House
Donald Trump appears to have already backtrack on his pledge to leave the White House if Joe Biden wins in the Electoral College in December.
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