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ABC agrees to settle Trump ‘rape’ defamation case for $15m as president-elect attends Army-Navy game: Live

Donald Trump and JD Vance watched college football game with guests Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk and Daniel Penny

Donald Trump makes joke about ‘taking on’ the media while accepting Time Magazine Award

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Donald Trump attended the Army-Navy football game on Saturday alongside a collection of allies, cabinet picks, and controversial figures.

The president-elect was joined by JD Vance, Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump’s defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, and Daniel Penny, who was recently acquitted of homicide after placing a homeless man in a chokehold on a New York City subway for nearly six minutes. Penny has become a cause célèbre on the right since.

Their appearance at the game came as ABC agreed to a $15 million settlement stemming from Trump’s defamation suit involving a broadcast about E. Jean Carroll, who herself had successfully sued the president-elect for defamatory statements.

Trump also named several more picks for his administration on Saturday, including Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes to run an intelligence board, and staunch loyalist foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell as a presidential envoy for special missions.

Meanwhile, officials across the East Coast are expressing frustration over continued mysterious drone spottings in the airspace above New Jersey and nearby states, which have fueled conspiracy theories and concerns among residents.

Donald Trump tells Time he will do ‘whatever it takes’ to address illegal immigration and says he will abolish Department of Education

Good morning!

Donald Trump has said he is prepared to do “whatever it takes” to drive illegal immigrants from the United States, including building more detention centres, and also vowed to shut down the Department of Education and leave teaching administration up to individual states.

Trump further moved to downplay fears over Elon Musk and Robert F Kennedy Jr’s likely influence over his administration and to manage expectations on inflation, warning he may not be able to bring down grocery prices after all by saying: “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up, very hard.”

The president-elect made the comments in an interview withTime magazine after being named its “Person of the Year” following his November election win.

The annual cover – which highlights an individual who has greatly influenced the year, for good or ill – was unveiled on Thursday, bearing an imperious portrait of the Republican against a stark background.

Trump was also awarded the honor in 2016 after beating Hillary Clinton to win the White House for the first time.

He celebrated this latest gong yesterday by delivering a brief speech and ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Here’s Kelly Rissman with more.

Donald Trump named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ for second time

Trump was previously bestowed the honor in 2016

Joe Sommerlad13 December 2024 09:35

Elon Musk calls homelessness a ‘lie’ and ‘propaganda’ — and Trump is listening

To Elon Musk, the word “homeless” is a “lie” and “a propaganda word.”

“Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet,” he told former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson in October. “What you actually have are violent, drug zombies with dead eyes and needles and human feces on the street.”

The more money spent combating homelessness, “the worse it gets,” according to Musk.

Read more:

Elon Musk calls homelessness a ‘lie’ and ‘propaganda’ — and Trump is listening

Trump and his billionaire allies are out of touch with a crisis facing more than 600,000 Americans, advocates tell Alex Woodward

Alex Woodward13 December 2024 09:00

‘No evidence’ undercover FBI agents joined Capitol riots despite ongoing conspiracy theories, watchdog finds

None of the thousands of people who joined protests in Washington, D.C., and stormed the halls of Congress on January 6, 2021 were undercover FBI agents, according to the results of a lengthy probe from a Department of Justice watchdog.

The findings deal a blow to persistent right-wing conspiracy theories that federal law enforcement agents provoked a riot or a “false flag” attack to entrap Donald Trump’s supporters to break into the Capitol.

But the report’s discovery that roughly two dozen confidential sources were on the ground at the time is likely to continue fueling a false narrative that federal agents had something to do with instigating the assault.

Read more:

‘No evidence’ undercover FBI agents joined Capitol riots, watchdog finds

More than two dozen FBI confidential sources were in Washington on January 6

Alex Woodward13 December 2024 08:00

From ‘Aspie supremacy’ to vaccines: The toxic autism politics of Trump’s second administration

Back in September, an X/Twitter account known as Autism Capital posted a screenshot of a written theory that appeared to be taken from 4Chan. The theory postulated that only “high [testostrone] alpha males” and “aneurotypical people” can think freely and be trusted to know what is objectively true. That means “a Republic for high-status males is best for decision making,” the theory continued. Elon Musk, the X owner and Tesla executive, responded: “Interesting observation.”

Little wonder that Musk found such proclamations interesting. He has talked in public a number of times about having “Asperger’s syndrome” (a term that fell out of favor as researchers learned the extent of Hans Asperger’s collaboration with the Nazi regime’s child euthanasia program and one that hasn’t been used clinically since 2013.) The concept of “Aspie supremacy” — a term some disability rights advocates coined for the deeply problematic idea that people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who previously would be considered as having Asperger’s are superior to both neurotypical people and other autistic people — has been around for a while. But it’s gained traction in the past few years in some very online, very right-wing spaces.

Read more:

The toxic autism politics of Trump’s second administration

From Elon Musk to RFK, the right has developed an obsession with pushing two seemingly contradictory — but equally damaging — theories on autism, writes Eric Garcia. And this obsession is bleeding into everything from Trump cabinet picks to policy

Eric Garcia13 December 2024 07:00

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