Trump targets Greenland and Panama as international students urged back to campus before inauguration: Live
Danish defense minister says country will spend $1.5 billion to ensire ‘stronger presence’ in Arctic
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has posted his traditional rambling Christmas message calling out various foes, taunting adversaries, and reiterating his desire for U.S. territorial expansionism — including retaking the Panama Canal, incorporating Canada into the union, and buying Greenland.
A Danish official said an announcement that the country is boosting defense spending for Greenland, was an “irony of fate.”
Troels Lund Poulsen, the Danish defense minister, told the paper Jyllands-Posten Tuesday that the country plans to spend a “double-digit billion amount” in krone — about $1.5 billion — to make sure they have a “stronger presence” in the Arctic.
Trump said the “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for the U.S., which operates a base in the territory’s northwest.
After seemingly joking about Canada becoming the “51st” state, the incoming president fired off ominous messages in recent days alleging the Panama Canal and Greenland pose serious economic and national security threats to the United States and might be targeted for some kind of annexation or purchase.
Meanwhile, college campuses across the country are calling the nation’s more than 1 million international students back to school before Trump’s inauguration, warning that the possibility of an imminent travel ban targeting certain countries could impact their return.
Trump trolls Canada in Christmas message by claiming ex-hockey star Wayne Gretzky should be PM – or governor
Trump wants to purchase Greenland. How would that actually work?
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Canal threats, money-laundering claims and a hotel battle: Trump’s long, weird history with Panama
Trump names nominee for Panama ambassador after suggesting U.S. would seize control of canal
Trump has nominated Miami-Dade Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera for U.S. ambassador to Panama, “a Country that is ripping us off on the Panama Canal, far beyond their wildest dreams,” the president-elect Trump announced on Christmas Eve.
“Few understand Latin American politics as well as Kevin,” Trump said.
Cabrera also served as state director for Florida in Trump’s 2020 campaign and is vice chair of Miami-Dade’s International Trade Consortium.
His nomination follows a seemingly random attack suggesting that the U.S. would seize control of the Panama Canal, part of a series of statements aimed at other countries in a signal that his administration is threatening U.S. territorial expansion to bully sovereign nations to his economic demands.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino fired back, emphasizing the canal would remain under Panama’s control.
“The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable,” he said.
Trump posts flurry of endorsements for Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem day after Christmas
In a flurry of posts on his Truth Social account, Trump has shared several pieces from right-wing media outlets and other commentators supporting his nominees for Homeland Security and Department of Defense secretaries.
Trump had continued to stand by former Fox News host Pete Hegseth despite coming under fire for allegations of sexual harassment, nonprofit mismanagement, alcohol abuse and sexual assault, among other controversies, since the president-elect named him to lead the Pentagon.
The president-elect also shared letters from the Fraternal Order of Police supporting Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the massive Homeland Security law enforcement umbrella agency.
Marianne Williamson enters race for DNC chair: We need to ‘create the energy’ to counter Trump
The race to lead the Democratic Party in the wake of Kamala Harris’s election defeat expanded on Thursday as author and two-time candidate Marianne Williamson announced that she was seeking the role.
The Independent’s John Bowden has more:
Marianne Williamson enters the race for DNC chair
Williamson joins former governor, state party leaders in crowded race to lead Democrats after Trump drubbing
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has some critics worried. Others are ready for a fight
Some of Donald Trump’s most prominent critics are bracing for impact.
“By going after me they’re just going to give me a platform,” George Conway told The Independent.
More from The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg on the critics preparing for a fight:
Donald Trump critics ready for his White House return and possible retribution
While some critics brace for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, others are ready for a fight.
ICYMI: Biden gives Christmas Day drone tour of White House
GOP congressman downplays potential Russian attack, saying ‘it’s not the first one’
At least 38 people were killed when an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet bound for Russia crashed in Kazakhstan in an incident that officials are speculating was caused by a Russian air defense.
One Republican member of Congress appeared to downplay the possibility.
“If reports are true, that Russia did down it, if reports are true, it’s not the first one they did,” Rep. Ryan Zinke told Fox Business on Thursday.
He then went on to suggest that Ukrain should not be in NATO and should conceded the Crimean peninsula to Russia to avoid further attacks.
“It’s … a melting pot, without an answer, unless we have clearly defined objectives. What’s our plan? My position is I don’t think Ukraine is ready for NATO. They’d have to do a massive political reform that they’re not willing to do,” he said.
“And the Crimean peninsula has been, you know, a sticking point … Quite frankly, there’s been 14 wars fought over that Crimean peninsula. I don’t think you’re gonna wrestle it out of the hands of Russia any time soon, and I don’t think you should be going to NATO,” Zinke added.
“I think that’s where President Trump has been starting, I have not talked with him about this specific issue, but in my judgment that would be a good start,” he said.
Former congressman Adam Kinzinger shared the clip, writing: “I seriously dislike these people.”
“I know Zinke. He never would have said this except for now, because he has no soul. He simply wants power and will debase himself for it,” Kinzinger wrote. “History will look on these people with scorn.”
Trump’s ‘border czar’ says migrant families will be put in detention centers once again
The Trump administration is planning to jail immigrant families together in detention centers before they are removed from the country.
“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” Tom Homan told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”
Trump and Homan have repeatedly said that even U.S. citizen children of non-citizen parents are expected to be deported along with their families.
“Here’s the issue,” Homan told The Post. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
Trump’s border czar wants ‘family’ detention centers for deportation plans
Tom Homan says the administration will construct ‘family facilities’ for mass deportation plans, including removing citizen children with undocumented parents
Retiring congresswoman on why she didn’t run for re-election: ‘He tried to kill me once. I’m not available for it again'
Democratic Rep. Ann McLane Kuster didn’t seek re-election this year particially because she feared Trump’s return to office, she told Roll Call.
Kuster was among the last members of Congress in the House gallery on January 6, 2021, and security footage showed that there was only “30 seconds from when I was able to evacuate that the insurrectionists were in that hallway hunting for us with zip ties and bear mace and who knows what else,” she said.
“I just felt like, he tried to kill me once. I’m not available for it again,” she told Roll Call.
“I’m not prepared to be the gladiator, if you will, again for him, with his attack on women and undermining the social fabric,” she added. “I’ve worked very hard on mental health and addiction treatment and on the environment. I’ve done a lot of work on tackling sexual assault and the whole ‘Me To’ era of protecting women in the military and in the workplace, and it appears his approach is to tear that all down.”
Elon Musk: ‘Ozempic Santa’
Incoming Trump administration official and world’s wealthiest person Elon Musk posted a photograph of himself dressed as Santa Claus “Ozempic Santa” and revealed he’s taking the antidiabetic drug Mounjaro for weight loss.
Elon Musk reveals he’s taking drug for weight loss in bizarre ‘Ozempic Santa’ post
The world’s richest man has clashed with incoming Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the role weight-loss medications should play in making Americans healthier and thinner.
Elon Musk’s spending bill antics derailed bipartisan efforts to criminalize pornographic deepfakes
The “Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act” was attached to a broader bipartisan government funding bill with support from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.
Elon Musk’s X platform was even involved in lobby efforts to support the legislation, including other actions on child safety.
But his pressure campaign against that government funding bill prompted Republicans to strike that language from the measure altogether. Efforts to revive the spending bill did not include it.
Democrats and Republicans have a common enemy: pornographic ‘deepfakes’
Ted Cruz and AOC are unlikely allies forcing Big Tech to take down nonconsenual images, but Elon Musk’s antics derailed their efforts, Alex Woodward reports
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