Trump news - live: Trump to testify in E Jean Carroll defamation case as feds raid Pence home

Donald Trump was very active on Tuesday as his 2020 rival Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union speech from Capitol Hill.

The former president (and current 2024 candidate) attempted to capture headlines and public attention with a long thread of live commentary meant to accompany his political foe’s address. Few saw it, however, as the former president remains inactive on Twitter after being unbanned by Elon Musk.

“Having a hard time getting the words out, even though the Fake News will credit him with one of the Great Speeches of all time. I really want to see him improve. Come one Joe, you can do it!” he wrote in one Truth Social post.

But that was far from the extent of the ex-president’s attempts to hug the spotlight on Tuesday. While Mr Biden spoke, his 2024 campaign released a flurry of press releases — eight in total — touting various accomplishments and goings-on of the Trump presidency.

Mr Trump also attacked Mr Biden and his campaign for supposedly coordinating with social media companies to censor conservatives — though there’s no evidence that’s true, beyond some instances where the Biden campaign sought to have explicit images of the president’s son removed from Twitter.

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Mr Trump posted an astonishing 48 Truth Social posts over the course of Mr Biden’s State of the Union address.

The speech lasted about one hour and 13 minutes, meaning Mr Trump shared a post every 90 seconds on average.

The former president boasted about his commentary performance on Wednesday morning, claiming “millions and millions” of people tuned in to hear what he had to say.

“Big night for ‘TRUTH’ last night. Tremendous numbers of people signed on to hear my ‘Play by Play’ of the SOTU Speech…Like I mean Millions and Millions of people, and TRUTH handled the Traffic well,” he wrote.

“Congrats to Devin Nunes and all of those great technicians and others who make TRUTH Social work. Despite all of the obstacles put in our path by the SEC, others in Government, and the Fake News Media, it is a giant success that reaches massive numbers of people, both Friend & Foe! Thank you!” he added.

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Donald Trump has amplified a social media post suggesting Florida governor Ron DeSantis “groomed” teen girls and drank with his students while the Republican state leader was a high school teacher.

In a series of statements on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, Mr Trump responded to a post from a user showing a low-quality photo of a man with a resemblance to Mr DeSantis standing with a group of young women with blurred out faces, one of whom appears to be holding a beer bottle.

“Here is Ron DeSanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher,” a caption on the user’s post reads.

Mr Trump, resharing the image multiple times, responded, “No way?” and, “That’s not Ron, is it?”

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A madcap House Oversight Committee hearing about a two-year-old New York Post story Republicans hoped would deal a fatal blow to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign has been condemned as a “bizarre political stunt” by the White House.

The Wednesday morning hearing, which Oversight chairman James Comer said would be the first in a series examining issues related to Mr Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, focused on Twitter executives’ temporary move to block distribution of an October 2020 Post story purporting to reveal email messages from Hunter Biden to an executive at the Ukrainian gas company he represented as an attorney and later served as a board member.

In his opening statement, Mr Comer called the session a “first step in examining the coordination between the federal government and Big Tech to restrict protected speech and interfere in the democratic process” and claimed social media companies are “under the control of people who are hostile to the fundamental American principles of free speech and expression protected in the U.S. Constitution”.

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Chrissy Teigen reacted in disbelief after an old tweet of hers was quoted during the House Oversight Committee hearing in the US.

As part of the House Republicans’ newly launched investigation into US President Joe Biden and the Democrats, Wednesday’s (8 February) hearing examined Twitter executives’ temporary move to block distribution of a 2020 story by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

The article claimed to show emails from Hunter to an executive at a Ukrainian gas company he represented as an attorney and later served as a board member for.

The Independent’s Inga Parkel has the story:

GOP congressman Matt Gaetz was confronted at the State of the Union by an activist he previously body-shamed.

Twenty-year-old Olivia Julianna, director of politics and government affairs for the nonprofit Gen-Z for Change, took to Twitter to share her exchange with the Florida Representative at President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union.

Last summer, Ms Julianna criticised Mr Gaetz’s fatphobic remarks during a rally in which he said that “disgusting” women who “look like a thumb” have the “least likelihood of getting pregnant” and have no reason to support abortion rights. The Republican politician responded by sharing a Newsmax article that described his remarks as “sure to raise [the] dander of his political opponents” and included a photo of Ms Julianna, then tweeting “Dander raised...”

Ms Julianna, whose video decrying Mr Gaetz’s distasteful comments garnered more than a million views on TikTok, then launched a campaign for abortion funds that raised more than $2m — a sum she reportedly brought up when she ran into Mr Gaetz on Tuesday.

“Just want everyone to know I just shook @mattgaetz hand and thanked him for helping me raise two million dollars,” Ms Julianna wrote on Twitter. “His response was to say ‘heard you had trouble spending it.’ And to quickly walk away in the opposite direction. What a loser lol.”

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Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel in charge of overseeing multiple Department of Justice investigations into Donald Trump.

The move comes after months of negotiations between lawyers for Mr Trump’s former vice president and special counsel Jack Smith, according to multiple reports.

It is not clear exactly what information Mr Smith is seeking through the subpoena, which was first reported by ABC News.

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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN that President Joe Biden would face no Democratic primary challenger in 2024, after his State of the Union address.

Ms Pelosi, who stepped aside as leader of House Democrats but whom the caucus elevated to the honorary title of Speaker Emerita, spoke to CNN after the president delivered his joint address to Congress.

The address comes as Mr Biden weighs whether to run for a second term in 2024. But Ms Pelosi told CNN she did not think that Mr Biden would face any Democratic challenger.

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Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said he was meeting yet again Wednesday with New York City prosecutors who have spent years examining the former president’s financial dealings.

Cohen stopped briefly to talk with reporters as he entered the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He said it was the 15th time he had met with prosecutors.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recently convened a new grand jury to hear evidence related to payments Cohen helped arrange in 2016 to two women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Trump.

“I don’t know why I’m here yet. We’ll find out as soon as I get upstairs,” Cohen said.

Cohen was previously one of Trump’s top lieutenants, acting as a liaison with the media and handling some of his legal and business affairs. But after federal prosecutors charged Cohen with tax evasion and criminal campaign finance violations, the two have become enemies.

Cohen testified before Congress that Trump’s company misled banks and others about the value of its assets, helping to spur investigations that led to the Trump Organization’s conviction in December on charges that it helped some of its executives avoid personal income taxes.

The existence of the new grand jury was previously confirmed by two people familiar with the investigation, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the secret proceeding.

Trump has denied having extramarital affairs with either of the women — porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal. Trump’s lawyers have said the payments were legal and that the investigation is politically motivated.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis said he’s too busy “delivering results” to respond to Donald Trump’s recent social media post amplifying a suggestion the Republican leader “groomed” teen girls and drank with his students while he was a high school teacher.

The ugly attack came this week as new polls have shown Mr DeSantis leading the former president in a head-to-head matchup for the 2024 nomination.

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