Trump news – President complains about daytime TV amid claims he will hold spoiler event during inauguration
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Donald Trump is reportedly weighing whether to launch a 2024 re-election bid on the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration.
On Saturday, The Daily Beast cited three sources who confirmed he is considering a 2024 run, and two of them said he had floated the idea of holding an event on 20 January.
According to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the president has privately bragged that he would still remain in the spotlight, even if Mr Biden is in the Oval Office, because the media finds Mr Biden “boring.”
The report comes after the Trump campaign suffered a humiliating court defeat in Pennsylvania, where Republican-appointed judges unanimously ruled to toss out the campaign’s attempt to challenge the election result there.
“Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in the court's ruling.
By Saturday evening the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had also dismissed a case brought by Congressman Mike Kelly and others to disallow millions of mail-in ballots in the state.
Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s up-to-the-minute coverage of all the latest coming from the White House and beyond in US politics.
Wisconsin county recount demanded by Trump sees Biden gain
A recount in Wisconsin's largest county demanded by President Donald Trump's election campaign ended Friday with President-elect Joe Biden gaining votes.
After the recount in Milwaukee County, Biden had a net gain of 132 votes, out of nearly 460,000 cast. Overall, Biden gained 257 votes to Trump's 125.
Mr Trump's campaign had demanded recounts in two of Wisconsin's most populous and Democratic-leaning counties, after losing Wisconsin to Mr Biden by over 20,000 votes. The two recounts will cost the Trump campaign $3 million. Dane County is expected to finish its recount on Sunday.
Overall, Mr Biden won the 3 November US presidential election with 306 Electoral College votes - many more than the 270 needed for victory - to Trump's 232. Mr Biden also leads by more than six million in the popular vote tally.
After the recount ended, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said: “The recount demonstrates what we already know: that elections in Milwaukee County are fair, transparent, accurate and secure.”
The Trump campaign is still expected to mount a legal challenge to the overall result in Wisconsin, but time is running out. The state is due to certify its presidential result on Tuesday.
Reuters
Ex-CIA boss says Ted Cruz ‘unworthy’ of Texas during row over Iran killing
Former CIA director John Brennan called senator Ted Cruz “unworthy to represent the good people of Texas” as the two argued online about the killing of a top Iranian scientist believed to lead the nation’s secretive nuclear programme
The Republican senator, who has long opposed the Obama administration’s Iranian nuclear deal and advocated for a tough posture towards the country, accused the former intelligence official of siding with “Iranian zealots” after he condemned the roadside shooting ambush of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, who American and Israeli intelligence believe is behind a secret programme to design an atomic warhead.
The former CIA boss lamented that the assassination, reportedly linked to Israel, would set off regional instability and cautioned that “Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage,” presumably a reference to president-elect Joe Biden, whom he has publicly supported.
Read more:
Ex-CIA boss says Ted Cruz ‘unworthy’ of Texas during Iran Twitter row
Pair arguing about killing of top Iranian nuclear scientist
Trump plays golf as US hits 13 million coronavirus cases
NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell has posted footage of Donald Trump playing golf.
According to Ms O’Donnell, Mr Trump was then picked up from his private club by Marine One and flown directly to Camp David.
Mr Trump, who regularly assailed President Barack Obama for playing golf while in office, played himself on Friday despite an ongoing health crisis that has just seen the US hit its 13 millionth coronavirus case.
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.
On Thursday, Mr Trump said he would leave the White House if Mr Biden beats him in the Electoral College. On Friday, he backtracked on the pledge and appended a number of additional conditions that Mr Biden would have to meet to ensure the president's peaceful exit from the White House.
Mr Trump's tweet repeated unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud.
Read more:
Trump appears to backtrack on pledge to leave White House
Mr Trump has still not committed to a peaceful transition of power
Trump promotes Pennsylvania election misinformation
Donald Trump’s latest tweet, which was posted shortly after midnight, promoted egregiously false claims about the election in Pennsylvania.
The 1,823,148 ballot figure Senator Doug Mastriano claims Pennsylvania reported as sending out is in fact the number of registered Democrats who had requested mail-in ballots by 19 October.
It did not account for registered Republicans or independents who also did so.
Additionally, the 19 October was more than a week before the deadline for requesting mail-in ballots.
Those votes were not “created out of thin air”, and there is all available evidence shows Mr Trump did in fact lose Pennsylvania.
Trump loses Pennsylvania ‘election fraud’ appeal in blistering ruling by judge
In a blow to Donald Trump’s legal campaign to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, a federal appellate court has rejected his emergency appeal in a Pennsylvania lawsuit.
The 3-0 rejection in the case, seeking another attempt to overturn the Pennsylvania results after a lower court had tossed out the suit last week, is yet another loss in the Trump campaign’s attempt to undermine president-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Mr Biden won the state by roughly 80,000 votes, according to Pennsylvania secretary of state’s office.
Read more:
Trump loses Pennsylvania ‘election fraud’ appeal
President’s legal team will attempt to bring election case to Supreme Court
Trump tweet features double misinformation warning
In what may be a first for Donald Trump, a tweets of his - debunked earlier in this blog - features two warnings from Twitter over election misinformation.
The first was applied to Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano’s tweet - quote tweeted by Mr Trump - which provided inaccurate and misleading figures to suggest there were massive discrepancies in mail-in ballots.
Mr Trump’s own comments, which falsely claimed more than a million votes were “created out of thin air”, then received its own warning label.
Joe Biden expected to name Cindy McCain as ambassador to UK
President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly expected to name Cindy McCain as his ambassador to the UK.
The widow of the late Republican Senator John McCain has been a fierce critic of Donald Trump and crossed party lines to endorse Mr Biden.
Ms McCain, 66, is a known Anglophile and thought to be a frontrunner for the job as a reward for helping to win the state of Arizona for the Democrats.
Read more:
Joe Biden expected to name Cindy McCain as ambassador to UK
The widow of the late Republican Senator John McCain has been a fierce critic of Donald Trump and crossed party lines to endorse Mr Biden.
Biden promises to use ‘all powers’ of federal government to help tackle coronavirus
Joe Biden last night tweeted an address to the American people in which he promised to use the “vast powers” of the federal government to combat coronavirus.
But, he said, the government “cannot do this alone”, and he urged people to do all they can personally to limit the spread of the virus.
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