Trump returns to MSG for UFC fight night as he picks oil CEO Chris Wright for energy secretary: Live
Donald Trump returned to Madison Square Garden tonight after naming fracking CEO Chris Wright as his pick for energy secretary
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has returned to Madison Square Garden tonight to attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the New York City arena.
The president-elect returned to the famed venue just weeks after his controversial campaign rally there. Attendees met him with thundering cheers as he entered alongside UFC CEO Dana White, billionaire ally Elon Musk, cabinet pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Popular podcaster Joe Rogan also attended, greeted Trump with a friendly handshake.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to fill key posts in his second administration and tonight named fracking CEO Chris Wright as his choice for energy secretary.
Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development and one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change.
Trump's transition team is also firefighting serious allegations surrounding Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary.
A woman who gave testimony to the House Ethics Committee probing Gaetz claims that she witnessed him having sex with a minor, her lawyer told ABC. Gaetz denies all wrongdoing.
The president-elect's transition team is also reportedly "stunned" by a sexual assault allegation regarding Hegseth that only emerged within 48 hours of announcing him for the top defense job, CNN reports. He denied all the accusations.
Trump warned his second term would mean ‘retribution’. His alarming cabinet picks show he means it
Trump makes not-so-subtle jab at RFK Jr during Mar-a-Lago speech: ‘Don’t get too popular Bobby’
Trump’s Cabinet tracker: Who has been tapped to carry out his agenda
Trump emerges from Mar-a-Lago seclusion to raucous reception at UFC with key allies
‘He’s like the sleeper’: Lara Trump details Barron’s influence over his father
Joe Biden accused of starting WWIII by permitting Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike Russia
The president has authorised Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike hundreds of miles inside Russia for the first time, according to reports.
The decision marks a major policy shift and comes after Russia warned that it would interpret the move to permit the use of US-made missiles as an “escalation”.
With Biden leaving office in two months, President-Elect Trump has indicated he will limit American support for Ukraine and has pledged to end the war quickly.
His predecessor’s decision has already led both Donald Trump Jr and Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to accuse Biden of attempting to start a Third World War.
Barney Davis and John Bowden have this report on a big call.
Biden approves Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles inside Russia for first time
The move by the United States comes two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office
Trump to interview treasury secretary candidates at Mar-a-Lago
The Republican has yet to announce his choice for treasury secretary and two new candidates for the position will reportedly be interviewed at his Mar-a-Lago residence on Monday: former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and Wall Street billionaire Marc Rowan.
Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, and Key Square Capital Management founder Scott Bessant were thought to be first in the line for the role but the incoming president is understood to be having second thoughts, according to The New York Times.
Here’s John Bowden on which man Musk favors.
Elon Musk wants this man to be Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary
One candidate has near-constant access to the president-elect. Will that give him the edge he needs?
Donald Trump picks Project 2025 co-author to lead FCC
Good morning!
Donald Trump has announced his latest cabinet pick, nominating Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the body charged with regulating the US media.
Currently a commissioner with the FCC, Carr contributed to the controversial Project 2025 manifesto and was described by the president-elect as “a warrior for Free Speech... [who] has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans’ Freedoms, and held back our Economy.
“He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America’s Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America.”
The pundits are already looking ahead to his possible role in realising Trump’s threat to revoke broadcast licences and benefiting Elon Musk.
‘We’re so back’: How the Heritage Foundation is creeping back into Trump’s sphere after months of criticism
After Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, the organization behind it “kind of went dark,” an official admitted.
Kamala Harris linked the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 – a radical conservative 900-page blueprint for the second Trump administration, which includes proposals for shutting down the Department of Education and federal limits on abortion – to the Trump campaign.
After Democrats hit Project 2025 hard in campaign ads, the organization faced widespread backlash and had no choice but to quietly back away. Trump’s campaign also publicly shunned the proposals. “We did not anticipate that,” a Heritage official told Politico’s Playbook. “And wish it didn’t happen. But you know, we had to do what we had to do.”
As Trump distanced himself from the document, the think tank also stopped touting it on social media. Their president, Kevin Roberts, even pushed his own book publication launch back from September to after the election.
Now the book, titled Dawn’s Early Light, the foreword of which is penned by vice president-elect JD Vance, has been published, and the mood seems to be changing in the group, who are creeping back out of the shadows into Trump’s sphere after months of fierce criticism.
Last week in Washington D.C, the group marked the book’s publication with a cocktail party where one Heritage official, with “a nervous laugh,” told Politico’s Playbook: “We’re so back.”
Read more below.
‘We’re so back’: How the Heritage Foundation is creeping back into Trump’s sphere
After the Democrats hit Project 2025 hard in campaign ads in the summer, the think tank had no choice but to quietly back away
ICYMI: SNL skewers Donald Trump’s ‘crazy’ cabinet picks in brutal Cold Open
Saturday Night Live took a hit at Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet picks in their Cold Open sketch on Saturday night.
The skit, which started by poking fun at Trump and President Joe Biden’s transition meeting, took jabs at the many people who could join the president-elect’s cabinet come January.
“It’s all about surrounding yourself with the best people,” comedian James Austin Johnson said, playing Trump in the sketch. “And I am very vastly picking the most epic cabinet of all time. They’re some of the most dynamic, free-thinking, animal-killing, sexually-criminal, medically-crazy people in the country.”
Watch below.
Inside the Harris campaign’s 15-week, $1.5 billion spending spree that has left Democrats looking for answers
The Harris campaign burned through $1.5 billion in a failed bid to send the vice president to the White House, and now Democrats are searching for answers after the stunning defeat.
Kamala Harris’s 15-week operation splashed out on celebrity concerts, social media influencers, an Oprah town hall event, and ramped up its advertising campaign and ground game at an average cost of roughly $100 million a week, according to The New York Times.
The biggest expense, according to the outlet, was the campaign’s advertising spend – including producing television and digital ads – which amounted to $494 million between July 21 and October 16.
Other costs included $2.5 million for three digital agencies that worked with online influencers and $900,000 to advertise on the Las Vegas Sphere venue, according to officials who spoke to theTimes.
It has provoked the Democratic National Committee’s financial chair to “push for an introspective study and analysis” of how the campaign racked up a total spend of $1.5 billion.
Read more below.
Harris campaign’s $1.5 billion spending spree leaves Democrats looking for answers
The Harris campaign splashed out on celebrity concerts, social media influencers, an Oprah town hall event, and ramped up its advertising campaign and ground game
ICYMI: Iowa pollster Ann Selzer to retire after ‘big miss’ predicting Kamala Harris win in Iowa
Ann Selzer, the pollster behind the Des Moines Register’s respected Iowa Poll, has announced her retirement just weeks after the survey incorrectly showed Vice President Kamala Harris with a 3 percentage point lead over Donald Trump in Iowa.
Just before Election Day, the poll showed Harris leading Trump 44-47 among likely voters. The news was a last minute injection of hope for Democrat voters desperate to keep Trump out of the White House.
Those hopes turned to ash on Election Day; Trump defeated Harris soundly, 56 to 43 per cent.
Selzer penned a guest column in the Des Moines Register announcing her retirement. After the poll failed to reflect reality, she called it a “big miss” and theorized that her poll may have “energize[d] and activate[d] Republican voters who thought they would likely coast to a victory.”
While Selzer is retiring, the poll will reportedly continue to operate. Gannett Media — which owns the Register — told CNN via its chief content officer Kristin Roberts that the poll will “evolve as we find new ways to accurately capture public sentiment and the pulse of Iowans on state and national issues.”
Pollster Ann Selzer to retire after ‘big miss’ predicting Kamala Harris win in Iowa
Selzer said she has been planning to retire after 2024 for at least a year
‘The least qualified nominee in American history’: Why Trump picked Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense
The second in command to the nation’s military could end up being a Fox News pundit who wants to launch a “frontal assault” against top brass, kick women out of combat, and implement Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda for the world’s third-largest standing fighting force.
The president-elect has nominated Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defense, overseeing a budget of roughly $850 billion and roughly 3 million service members and personnel serving in the nation’s oldest-running agency while the US is embroiled in global conflicts in a period of escalating tensions.
The office was created in the aftermath of the Second World War to centralize governance of the newly renamed Department of War and the various branches of the military, writes Alex Woodward.
Read more below.
Why Trump nominated a ‘wholly unqualified’ Fox News host for defense secretary
Veterans groups and service members are warning against Trump’s ‘dangerous’ appointment to the Pentagon, as the president-elect rewards loyalists dedicated to his agenda, Alex Woodward reports
Trump’s Cabinet tracker: Here’s who is among the White House appointments so far
President-elect Donald Trump is filling key posts in his second administration, putting an emphasis so far on aides and allies who were his strongest backers during the 2024 campaign.
Here’s a look at who he’s selected so far.
Trump’s Cabinet tracker: Here’s who is among the White House appointments so far
Here is who Donald Trump has chosen to fill key cabinet positions in his second administration
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments