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

And they rhyme with Ronald Rump.

The Independent’s Washington Bureau Chief John T Bennett writes Mike Pence skipped his usual greetings from his boss, and said "we" have worked hard on a vaccine when discussing the administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine development effort.  And both Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler thanked Mr Pence for his work, while no one uttered the words “Donald” and/or "Trump.”

That spare $200m would buy a few MAGA hats.

According to The Washington Post, Donald Trump’s campaign has so far spent $8.8m since October challenging election results in the key swing states that went for Biden in the 2020 election.

The biggest ticket item was the $3m fee spent on the Wisconsin recount which grew Biden’s lead by 87 votes. Or put another way, dropping almost $35,000 per each extra vote that went to the Democrat. (Although Trump has said the recount was to find examples of fraud, not more votes for him).

Most of the expenses went to multiple law firms for political consulting, advertising and polling, with $30,000 going to one of the campaign’s most prominent lawyers, Jenna Ellis.

The New York Times, meanwhile, is reporting that Trump has raised $207.5m since election day between his campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Only donations of more than $6,000 go to Trump’s formal “recount” funds, the Times reports, while the rest is going to paying off campaign debts and a new political action committee.

Put that in the bank for 2024.  

The US economy added the fewest workers in six months in November, hindered by a resurgence in new COVID-19 cases that, together with a lack of more government relief money, threatens to reverse the recovery from the pandemic recession.

The closely watched employment report also showed 3.9 million people had been out of work for at least six months, with many giving up, a sign of lack of confidence in the labor market. The report, which only covered the first two weeks of November, when the current wave of coronavirus infections started, underscored the challenges facing President-elect Joe Biden when he takes over from President Donald Trump in January.

The economy has recouped only 12.4 million of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April. Even with a vaccine on the way, economists are warning of a bleak winter and urged Congress to provide additional fiscal stimulus.

Job growth last month was held back by further departures of temporary workers hired for the 2020 Census. Local governments continued to shed more workers, especially at schools, causing overall government payrolls to drop by 99,000 jobs, the third straight monthly decline. The private sector added 344,000 jobs.

The retail sector lost 35,000 jobs. Retailers typically embark on seasonal hiring in November, a practice that has been upended by the pandemic. This disruption likely threw off the model the government uses to strip seasonal fluctuations from the data. - Reuters

One month after the US election, and weeks after victory was declared for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, the Democrat’s lead over the Republican continues to grow as the results from the final ballot counts trickle in.

As of Friday morning, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have accrued 51.3 per cent of the popular vote or a record-setting 81,237,902 votes.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have a total of 74,188,990 votes or 46.9 per cent, putting the Biden-Harris ticket ahead by more than 7 million or 4.4 percentage points.

The Independent’s Oliver O’Connell has the full story.

The US House of Representatives has passed a landmark bill voting to remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances.

It is the first time either chamber of Congress has voted on the possibility of national decriminalisation of the drug.

The 228-164 vote in favour of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act) stands little chance of passing the Republican-led Senate, but reflects a national swing in opinion away from criminalising those that manufacture, distribute, or posses marijuana.

Oliver O’Connell is following the story as it unfolds. 

That would be enough to pre-order 20 of her new $58 Tax the Rich merch, “as complained about on Fox News”.

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls it “another day on the radical left with our crazy ideas” of government-funded economic relief to help Americans suffering from government-mandated pandemic lockdowns.

Just in time to engage in some capitalism and drop a full, 8-hour day’s work on a $7.25 minimum wage for that $58 sweatshirt.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Members of the Pentagon’s Defence Business Board were reportedly fired on Friday just weeks after the Trump administration hooked Defence secretary Mark Esper from the top job.

The news was scooped by Politico, quoting two former board members as being told via email from White House liaison Joshua Whitehouse that read: “If you are receiving this e-mail, your membership on the Defense Business Board has expired or is coming to an end.”

Board chairman Michael Bayer confirmed to the outlet that members were terminated by form letter that was, in his experience, surprising that the White House would change a board at the 11th hour.

"This kind of a move really will weigh heavily on people on the future and their willingness to serve on these outside advisory boards if they're going to be subjected to political loyalty test. It's unprecedented. I'm just saddened," he added.

"I had no indication this was coming. It was a form letter going to a large number of people, I just don't know how many people got it.”

While almost all polling companies missed the mark during the presidential election race, The Trafalgar Group was consistently one of the closest in their predictions of how tight the final tallies would be.

So it’s worth keeping an eye on their predictions for the two Georgia Senate runoffs that will decide who controls the legislature.

Robert C Cahaly, just dropped their latest numbers and it’s a close one with on win Democrat Jon Ossoff ahead of Republican David Perdue, but Republican Kelly Loffler ahead of Democrat Raphael Warnock.

If those leads hold, the Democrats could be seeing red in the chamber for the next four years.

Donald Trump is continuing to host crowds of people inside the White House for Christmas parties, even as the coronavirus pandemic rages out of control and health experts plead with people to avoid large gatherings.

The president has been largely silent on the virus ravaging the US, which on Thursday killed more people than died at Pearl Harbor.

Mr Trump’s social media posts have overwhelmingly focused on challenging the results of the 3 November election, with scant attention paid to the public health catastrophe around him.

Even as government officials issue increasingly dire coronavirus warnings, he has remained silent.

The Independent’s Harriet Alexander has more.

Georgia's election officials accused of having ballot-counting wrongdoing happen on their watch say there was no ballot-counting wrongdoing happening in the election being run on their watch.

The state’s voting system implementation manager, Republican Gabriel Sterling, told Lead Stories that the surveillance shows nothing bizarre happening and everything is normal and fine. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

“If you look at the video tape, the work you see is the work you would expect, which is you take the sealed suitcase looking things in, you place the ballots on the scanner in manageable batches and you scan them,” Mr Sterling said.

Here is the video:

Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, presented the video as “smoking gun evidence” and said witnesses signed sworn affidavits that they were told to leave before the ballots were supposedly taken from beneath the tables and counted. 

Frances Watson, the chief investigator for Georgia’s secretary of state, told Lead Stories that Republican and Trump campaign observers were not told to leave, and that the ballots scanned in the surveillance video had already been counted, in contrast to Mr Giuliani and assertions from witness Jackie Pick.

As Twitter would say; everything is in dispute.

The Independent’s Gino Spocchia has more.