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Trump to be named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’; president-elect gloats about Christopher Wray’s resignation: Live

The Republican also won the accolade in 2016 after winning his first presidential election

Joe Sommerlad,Ariana Baio,Gustaf Kilander
Thursday 12 December 2024 11:39 GMT
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Jimmy Kimmel wades in on Donald Trump’s latest administration

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Donald Trump is expected to be named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” on Thursday morning after winning the presidential election for the second time, according to Politico

The annual cover – which highlights an individual who has greatly influenced the year, for good or ill – is set to be unveiled today, with sources suggesting in advance that the president-elect will grace the cover again.

The Republican was also named “Person of the Year” in 2016, the year he beat Hillary Clinton to win election to the White House for the first time, and is expected to celebrate the honor by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange this morning.

Trump has meanwhile been continuing to announce nominees to his new administration and gloating over the resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom he appointed to replace James Comey in 2017.

Writing on Truth Social, the president-elect called it “great day for America” that would “end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice.”

Trump went to accuse the bureau of having “illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me.”

Schiff warns Trump against threatening his political enemies

The California Democrat, particularly loathed for his “pencil-neck” by the president-elect, has been pointing out that calling for the jailing of your rivals is a pretty dictatorial look, advice that Trump is pretty unlikely to heed.

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 14:50

DOGE about ‘dismantling the deep state’, says House speaker

Mike Johnson managed to sound pretty paranoid talking to Bret Baier on Fox News last night about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), insisting it is necessary to root out supposed operational bias within the workings of the federal government, a conservative obsession that may or may not be a real problem.

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 14:30

Fox News floats Trump could expand America through a land purchase

The Trump-iana purchase!

A prominent Fox News host has floated that President-elect Donald Trump could be looking to make a major land purchase during his second term.

Her prediction comes as Trump continues to taunt Canada and its officials and has reportedly suggested the northern neighbor should be America’s 51st state.

“I actually think that the United States might make some sort of purchase. I don’t know, not Canada, but there might be some sort of like big real estate purchase in the next four years,” Dana Perino said on Tuesday’s episode of The Five on Fox.

Co-host Jessica Travlov then suggested Greenland as a potential purchase, given Trump’s interest in it in 2019, which sparked a memorable diplomatic beef with Denmark.

Alex Lang has more.

Fox News host floats idea Trump could expand America through a land purchase

The suggestions comes as Donald Trump has been trolling Canada about becoming a U.S. state

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 14:10

Republican senator blocks federal protection for journalists

Tom Cotton of Arkansas has blocked a federal shield law that would have protected reporters from revealing their sources and material to the government.

In the Senate on Tuesday, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden called for the unanimous consent of the chamber to pass the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (or PRESS) Act, only for Cotton to object, arguing that the “liberal media” does not “deserve” further protections.

“The press badge doesn’t make you better than the rest of America or put you above the law,” he said on the Senate floor.

Cotton subsequently posted this on social media:

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 13:50

Nancy Mace says she was ‘accosted’ over trans rights dispute as man arrested

The South Carolina Republican Representative has said she was “physically accosted” on Capitol grounds on Tuesday evening, seemingly in relation to her recent string of anti-trans rhetoric.

“I was physically accosted tonight on Capitol grounds over my fight to protect women,” Mace wrote on X. “Capitol police have arrested him. All the violence and threats keep proving our point. Women deserve to be safe. Your threats will not stop my fight for women!”

In another post, Mace said she was hurt by a “pro-tr*ns man”.

Capitol Police have arrested the person accused of assaulting Mace, a Capitol Police spokesperson said in a statement.

Mace said the physical assault resulted in her being treated with a “new brace” on her wrists and ice on her arm.

Here’s Gustaf Kilander’s report.

Suspect arrested after Rep. Nancy Mace claims she was assaulted

Mace has been embroiled in controversy after she introduced a bill banning transgender women from using women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 13:30

House Intelligence Committee chair slams Trump DOJ for spying on lawmakers

Republican Representative Mike Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the first Trump administration committed a “grave constitutional violation” when it secretly obtained phone records and emails belonging to Congressional members and staffers.

Turner attacked Trump’s DOJ for collecting communication logs from 43 congressional staffers and two House Democrats , which was revealed in a report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

“This report lays out outrageous behavior by the Department of Justice,” Turner told CNN on Tuesday.

“This is a grave constitutional violation.”

Between 2017 and 2018, prosecutors utilized subpoenas to demand that Apple and Google collect and hand over data, without approval from a court or from then-attorney general Bill Barr.

They then issued gag orders to prevent the companies from informing those targeted.

Federal investigators targeted two unnamed House members, congressional staffers and journalists as part of its investigation into the source of leaked sensitive information.

Ariana Baio reports.

House intel committee chair slams Trump DOJ for spying on lawmakers

New report found that DOJ officials under Trump administration secretly obtained phone, email and text communtions of lawmakers

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 13:10

Joe Biden says Trump dismantling ‘strongest economy in modern history’ would be a ‘major mistake’

The president said yesterday he is bequeathing President-elect Donald Trump what he described as “the strongest economy in modern history” and “the envy of the world” while warning that efforts by the next administration to roll back his economic policies would result in great harm to Americans’ pocketbooks.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution think-tank at what was billed as a major address on the economic legacy he is leaving behind after just a single four-year term, Biden recounted how he had come into office with a “fundamentally different theory” from the “trickle-down” beliefs that have dominated economic policy since the rise of Ronald Reagan and modern conservatism in the 1980s.

Using a playbook of working to grow the US economy “from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down,” Biden explained how he had pushed Congress to enact the American Rescue Plan Act shortly after he took office, along with the bipartisan infrastructure law he signed, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act clean energy and climate spending package that capped his first two years in the White House.

Those record investments, he said, have resulted in a record number of applications to start new small businesses, record-low unemployment and a “soft landing” for the economy that has seen inflation retreat to pre-pandemic levels at or below two percent.

There was plenty of Trump-bashing in amongst it.

Here’s a full report from Andrew Feinberg.

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 12:50

Conservatives still flooding right-wing media to make excuses for Pete Hegseth

Trump’s embattled nominee for defense secretary is expected to meet with more Republican senators today as he works to earn their support ahead of confirmation hearings, CNN reports.

Those senators include Idaho Senator Mike Crapo and Montana Senator-elect Tim Sheehy, with also reportedly making courtesy calls to Maine Senator Susan Collins, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Indiana Senator Todd Young.

On conservative media, you can get away from Republicans falling over themselves to absolve him of his alleged sins.

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 12:30

RFK Jr urges Trump to pick his daughter-in-law for top CIA post

The president-elect’s health czar is pushing for his former campaign manager and daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy to be the next deputy director of the CIA under John Ratcliffe, according to Axios.

RFK Jr has reportedly been putting in calls on her behalf for the position in the agency she spent a decade working in and wrote a memoir about, entitled Life Undercover (2019).

The role does not require Senate confirmation.

Gustaf Kilander reports.

RFK Jr pushes for CIA spy daughter-in-law to join Trump administration

The position of deputy director at the CIA is one of the top intelligence jobs that Trump has yet to nominate anyone for

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 12:10

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