Trump news - live: President posts ‘most important’ 46-minute speech filled with false voter fraud claims

Calls have been made for Kamala Harris’s brother-in-law to become Joe Biden’s Attorney General.

Ben Crump, the lawyer for the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, says that Tony West would be the perfect choice to lead the Justice Department.

Mr West is currently the chief legal officer for Uber, but served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and is married to the vice president-elect’s sister, Maya Harris.

More from Graeme Massie here: 

More bad news for the outgoing president as the EU says it is looking forward to Mr Biden’s arrival as a key moment to reset relations with the US.

The 27-nation bloc is seeking to rekindle the decades-old spirit of trans-Atlantic cooperation that has long defined global diplomacy. But the EU also acknowledges that future relations will have to adapt to a multi-polar world where China is an ever bigger player.

“It is time to reconnect," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday.

The EU is glad to be shedding the Trump years, when the U.S. president was intent on criticizing European allies for cowering under the U.S. defense and security umbrella while seeking economic advantage through subsidies and other trade tactics.

Ooof. He won’t like that.

Despite the drop, the outgoing president still secured millions more votes than defeated candidates Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Trump’s haul in the popular vote is now 74,115,722 votes - or 46.9 per cent of all ballots counted to date.

Joe Biden, meanwhile, picked up 81,056,268 votes - or 51.3 per cent of the 158,073,433 total.

Those figures are according to the latest update from The Cook Political Report's 2020 National Popular Vote Tracker.  

Matt Mathers has more.

The Senate majority leader has brushed aside a middle-ground proposal from a bipartisan group of senators looking to break the legislative stalemate over a new coronavirus relief deal, saying lawmakers couldn't afford to "waste time" on "messaging games."

The Kentucky Republican then indicated he's revamping partisan GOP legislation after consulting Trump administration officials about what kind of bill would earn the outgoing president's signature.

“I think we have a sense of what that is,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “We’re going to send that out to all the offices and get some feedback to see how our members react.”

He added: “We don’t have time for messaging games. We don’t have time for lengthy negotiations.”

Oliver O’Connell and Griffin Connolly bring us this one.

The 44th president has criticised the slogan “defund the police” and suggested white Americans are fearful that the African American community will “get out of control” with criticisms of the authorities.

Speaking to Peter Hamby of the Snapchat political show Good Luck America, Barack Obama said that people who use the slogan “defund the police” could make it harder to implement police reform.

“You lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you're actually going to get the changes you want done,” he said, according to a preview of the interview obtained by Axios.

“The key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with?” Obama adds.

James Crump has more.

As the spread of Covid-19 continues to accelerate across the US, residents in Oklahoma have been asked to take part in a  day of prayer by the state’s Republican governor Kevin Stitt.  

In an announcement, Stitt said Oklahomans should pray to God amid the pandemic, which has seen some 200,000 people in the state contract the coronavirus, and almost 2,000 lose their lives.

The day of prayer has been planned for Thursday, with churches and other places of worship due to host those who take part.

There has, meanwhile, been no statewide mandate on masks, despite new Covid-19 cases increasing by 18 per cent over the past two weeks, according to the AP, and demands from Democrats and medial officials.

Gino Spocchia has this report.

President Trump is considering giving a pardon to ‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic, reports suggest.

The star of the Netflix series - whose real name is Joe Maldonado-Passage - is thought to be on a list of names being considered for a pardon while Mr Trump is still president, as reported by ABC News.

Mr Maldonado-Passage is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and animal abuse.

The 57-year-old’s lawyers campaigning since the Netflix series’ release for him to be pardoned by Donald Trump.

“We've heard from the Tiger King,” the insider said, adding: “You wouldn't believe the amount of calls, some insane, we've gotten.”

Read more from Isobel Lewis here:

President Donald Trump has raised roughly $170 million since his election defeat.

Most of the money was raised in the days after the November 3 election, according to a person familiar with Trump's effort who requested anonymity on Tuesday to discuss details of the operation.

The amount, which approaches the sums Mr Trump took in at the height of the campaign, offers yet another sign that he does not intend to leave the White House quietly and will remain a powerful force in Republican politics.

Mr Trump appeared to flout the idea of standing again in 2024 at a holiday reception in the White House on Tuesday.

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Britain this morning beating the United States to authorisation of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine has reportedly upset the White House.

Benjamin Mueller for the New York Times noted: “The specter of Britain beating the United States to a Covid vaccine approval had already angered the White House in recent days, heaping additional pressure on American regulators to match Britain’s pace.”

It is understood that Mr Trump is going to host a “Covid-19 Vaccine Summit” early next week that could well heap the pressure on US regulators.

Read the latest coronavirus news here:

A top Georgia election official lashed out angrily at the rhetoric surrounding the election and the threats of violence that have followed.

Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, said:  “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions.”

“This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some.”

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