Category Archives: US Politics

Biden urged to use clemency powers to tackle ‘crisis’ of US mass incarceration

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Members of Congress call on president to pardon or commute sentences before he leaves White House

More than 60 members of Congress have written to Joe Biden calling on him to use his presidential clemency powers to reunite families, address unfair sentencing policies, and begin to tackle the scourge of mass incarceration, which they said was eroding “the soul of America”.

Biden has 61 days left before he leaves the White House in which he could pardon or commute the sentences of incarcerated Americans. The letter, signed by a number of prominent Democratic politicians and spearheaded by the progressive politician Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, urges Biden to act while he still can.

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Who is Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to lead Medicare and Medicaid?

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Dr Oz, best known for his daytime talkshow, leaned heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for US Senate

Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for more than a decade and leaning heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency that operates on a $2.6tn annual budget and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people.

“I am honored to be nominated by [Donald Trump] to lead CMS,” Oz posted on X on Tuesday. “I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”

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Trump picks former WWE executive Linda McMahon for education secretary

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Billionaire and former Senate candidate served in president-elect’s cabinet in first administration

Linda McMahon, co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition team, has been named as the president-elect’s pick for education secretary in his upcoming administration.

In a statement, Trump extolled the “incredible” job McMahon, the billionaire co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), has been doing as transition team co-chair and said: “As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families. … We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”

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Trump picks Linda McMahon for education, and says he won’t reconsider Matt Gaetz nomination – live

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President-elect picks prominent donor and co-chair of transition team as education secretary; Trump won’t rethink Gaetz for attorney general despite mounting scrutiny

President-elect Donald Trump will join billionaire Elon Musk for a SpaceX launch in Texas later today, as reported by Reuters.

This will be the sixth test flight to space for SpaceX’s Starship rocket. The test launch is planned for 5pm ET.

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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough brushes off backlash to his meeting with Trump

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Morning Joe host accuses critics of being disconnected from ‘the real world’ amid outcry over Mar-a-Lago visit

The Morning Joe star Joe Scarborough brushed off criticism of last week’s meeting with Donald Trump in Florida amid reports that the get-together was motivated by the liberal news network show host’s fear of retribution from the US president-elect.

Scarborough, along with his co-host, Mika Brzezinski, revealed during Monday’s broadcast that they personally met with Donald Trump last week to “restart communications” following their unrelenting opposition to his campaign for the White House.

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Trump reportedly picks Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary

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Billionaire founder of financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald was one of president-elect’s biggest fundraisers

Donald Trump has reportedly picked one of his biggest fundraisers for the position of commerce secretary.

Howard Lutnick, the billionaire founder of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will be nominated to serve as one of Trump’s principal advisers on commerce and international trade, the news website Axios reported.

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Trump reportedly doubts senators will back Matt Gaetz but still lobbies hard

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President-elect’s nominee for attorney general is dogged by sexual misconduct allegations

Donald Trump has reportedly told associates that Matt Gaetz, his nominee for attorney general, has a less than 50-50 chance of being confirmed by the Senate, even while pushing forward with his nomination amid damaging sexual misconduct allegations.

The president-elect has continued making calls in support of his beleaguered nominee despite resistance from Republican senators because he is confident his insistence will alter the standard for acceptable cabinet choices even if Gaetz fails, the New York Times reported.

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Trump selects Fox News contributor Sean Duffy as transport secretary

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Former Republican congressman from Wisconsin was also a cast member on MTV’s The Real World: Boston

Donald Trump has named Sean Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin,and former cast member of the MTV show The Real World, to serve as the secretary of transportation. He was also a co-host on Fox Business but left that role on Monday, according to Fox News Media.

Duffy served in Congress from 2011 until 2019. Before being elected to public office, he was district attorney for Ashland county, Wisconsin, from 2002 to 2008 and previously had a reality TV show role. Duffy was a cast member on The Real World: Boston in 1997 where he would meet his wife, Fox news contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy.

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Matt Gaetz ‘paid for sex’, says lawyer for two women who testified to House committee – as it happened

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This live coverage has ended. Thanks for following along. You can read our full story on the latest allegations against Matt Gaetz below:

The reported tension between Elon Musk and Boris Epshteyn as they vie for status in Donald Trump’s inner circle of un-elected influencers involves the tech entrepreneur, Musk, challenging lawyer Epshteyn on the merits of his suggestions for senior appointments in the incoming Republican administration, according to Axios.

It quotes several unnamed sources, who’ve been giving accounts of the apparent strain between the two men bursting out into public rows, saying that Musk argues Epshteyn has too much sway over the names Trump is picking and considering for his cabinet and senior administration posts, while Epshteyn is “bristling” at Musk challenging him.

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Trump allies attack Biden for allowing Ukraine to use US missiles inside Russia

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President-elect’s surrogates accuse president of seeking to spark ‘world war three’ over decision to allow limited strikes

Allies of the president-elect, Donald Trump, have lashed out angrily at Joe Biden for his decision to permit Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to launch attacks inside Russia for the first time, in what the Kremlin has termed an “escalation” in the war.

Key Trump surrogates, including his son Donald Trump Jr, hardline congressional Republicans, and other backers have accused Biden of seeking to spark “world war three” before Trump’s presidential inauguration in January.

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ACLU files lawsuit to gain information about Trump mass deportation plans

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Suit made against Ice comes as Trump vows to deport millions of undocumented immigrants upon taking office

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) seeking more information about how the agency might carry out Donald Trump’s plans for a mass deportation program.

The US president-elect has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants upon taking office, a threat that he has doubled down on since winning the presidential race earlier this month. On Monday, Trump confirmed a report that he intended to declare a national emergency to activate military resources as part of the mass deportation operation.

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Trump nominates big tech critic Brendan Carr to chair telecommunications regulator

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Carr has claimed Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft ‘censor’ Americans and criticized NBC for letting Harris appear on Saturday Night Live

President-elect Donald Trump will tap Brendan Carr, a critic of the Biden administration’s telecom policies and big tech, as chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), he has said in a statement.

Carr, 45, is the top Republican on the FCC, the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.

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‘Queen of polling’ J Ann Selzer quits after Iowa survey missed by 16 points

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Pollster announces she’s moving on ‘to other ventures’ after poll wrongly predicted strong shift in state to Kamala Harris

J Ann Selzer, the celebrated Iowa election pollster, announced on Sunday that she is moving on “to other ventures and opportunities”, two weeks after her survey in the state wrongly predicted a strong shift to Kamala Harris in the days before the election.

That poll, which projected a 47% to 44% lead for the vice-president over Donald Trump on the back of older women breaking for Democrats over the issue of reproductive rights, came three days before the national vote, giving Democrats false hope that Harris could win the White House decisively. When the votes were counted, Selzer was off by 16 points as the former president won the state decisively.

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Ex-CDC acting director calls RFK Jr’s false vaccine theories ‘cruel’

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Richard Besser criticizes Trump’s health secretary pick, and says falsely linking vaccines to autism is a ‘cruel thing to do’

The former acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has criticized Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination by Donald Trump as secretary of the country’s health and human services (HHS), calling his false vaccine theories “cruel”.

In a new interview on ABC, Richard Besser, who led the CDC during Barack Obama’s administration, called Kennedy’s push to falsely link vaccines to autism a “cruel thing to do”, adding, “There are things we do for our own health, but there are things we do that are good for ourselves, our families and our communities and vaccination falls into that category.”

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Trump’s defense pick reportedly paid sexual assault accuser but denies claims

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Peter Hegseth, pick for defense department, says encounter was consensual but woman was paid undisclosed sum

Peter Hegseth, the military veteran, Fox & Friends chat host and Donald Trump’s pick to head the department of defense, reportedly paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault – an encounter that he insists was consensual.

According to the Washington Post, the unnamed woman was paid an unknown sum after signing a nondisclosure agreement.

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Experts sound alarm as Trump mulls pardons for January 6 attackers

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Attorneys and lawmakers who oppose pardons for Capitol rioters would not be able to stop him, legal analysts warn

lf Donald Trump follows through on his promise to pardon people who participated in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, attorneys and lawmakers who oppose such moves would not be able to stop him, according to legal experts.

If Trump does issue the pardons, it could indicate to many of his supporters that there was nothing illegal about the riot to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and would undermine the US constitution, the experts said.

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‘A change from the status quo’: the voters who backed Trump and AOC

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Americans who elected a leftist Democrat and a Republican president say the pair share an anti-establishment spirit

Politics makes for strange bedfellows. US political minds will be reminding themselves of this fact as the dust settles on America’s election, with some results showing that a few voters were able to simultaneously support Donald Trump and progressive-leaning Democratic candidates.

In the Bronx in New York, a strongly Black, Asian and Latino community, Trump’s support jumped 11 points to 33% over 2020, one of the largest margins citywide. At the same time, the leftwing firebrand Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secured 68.9% of the vote, returning her to Congress for a fourth consecutive term.

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Emboldened anti-abortion groups create wishlist for second Trump term

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‘Make America pro-life again’ legislation includes banning abortion pills entirely and outlawing telehealth abortions

The anti-abortion movement is ready for its comeback in 2025.

With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, complete with a Republican-dominated Congress, anti-abortion groups are unfurling ambitious lists of policies they hope to see enacted under a sympathetic administration.

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Dozens of stars backed Harris’s campaign and yet she lost. Is the era of celebrity endorsements over?

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Focus on A-list talent such as Swift and Beyoncé may have reinforced an out-of-touch vision, or maybe celebrity support holds no political power

The names read like a who’s who of A-list talent about to walk a red carpet or attend Vanity Fair’s famous post-Oscar party. Oprah Winfrey, Megan Thee Stallion, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Springsteen and many, many more.

These are just some of the bold-face name celebrities who backed Kamala Harris’s failed run for the White House, making it one of the most star-studded political campaigns in US history. Even the world’s biggest current star – singer Taylor Swift – got behind Harris.

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Rightwing settlers in Israel welcome ‘dream team’ of Trump and his hardline appointments

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Palestinian groups shocked by US president-elect’s favouring of outspoken supporters of far-right activists in the region

Rightwing settlers and extremist nationalist Zionists in Israel have described top officials in Donald Trump’s new administration as a “dream team” which will offer a “unique and special opportunity” to expand Israel’s hold on occupied territory and permanently end any prospect of a Palestinian state.

Palestinian groups and leftwing NGOs in Israel have been shocked by Trump’s appointment of outspoken supporters of the projects of far-right Israeli activists and say the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has been emboldened by Trump’s victory.

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