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Trump taps Pam Bondi for attorney general after Gaetz withdraws; hedge fund boss Scott Bessent to lead treasury: Live

President-elect made flurry of nominations on Friday night to form his new administration

Oliver O'Connell,Gustaf Kilander
Saturday 23 November 2024 15:44 EST
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Matt Gaetz reveals he will not be returning to Congress

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Donald Trump wasted little time after Matt Gaetz said he was dropping his bid to become attorney general, soon naming Pam Bondi, former attorney general of Florida, as his choice to lead the Justice Department instead.

Bondi represented the president-elect at his first impeachment trial in the Senate and is both an experienced public official and a long-time Trump ally.

The president-elect has also announced that he wants the job of treasury secretary to go to hedge fund manager Scott Bessent.

Trump called Bessent “one of the World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists.”

In a flurry of announcements on Friday night, Trump revealed his picks to lead the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the FDA, the CDC, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Department of Labor.

The president-elect also met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

They discussed the range of global security issues facing the alliance and Rutte also sat down with Rep. Mike Waltz, Trump’s choice for national security adviser.

Watch: Newsmax courts Matt Gaetz to host his own show

Newsmax courts Matt Gaetz to host his own show
Ariana Baio23 November 2024 07:00

Trump will fire Jack Smith’s lawyers and use the DoJ to investigate the 2020 election, report says

President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly set to attempt to fire the attorneys who worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith investigating the former president for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and for his connection to the Capitol riot.

Those affected are likely to include career professionals usually shielded from such revenge efforts, , according to The Washington Post.

Trump is also set to put together groups to look for evidence that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud.

Read more:

Trump will fire Jack Smith’s lawyers and use the DoJ to investigate the 2020 election

Those affected are likely to include career professionals usually shielded from political revenge efforts, which may take years to enact

Gustaf Kilander23 November 2024 06:00

Americans view Trump more ‘warmly’ now than after previous elections

After a contentious presidential election cycle, approximately 43 percent of people said they feel “very warm” or “warm” toward the president-elect in a new poll conducted by Pew Research Center.

Ariana Baio reports:

Americans view Trump more ‘warmly’ now than after previous elections, poll says

Trump increased his image among voters by nine percentage points between the 2020 election and now

Ariana Baio23 November 2024 05:00

Grimes says Elon Musk is ‘unrecognizable’ as she speaks out about bitter custody battle

Grimes has said that her former partner and father of her child Elon Musk has become “unrecognizable” as she opened up about her bitter custody battle with the tech billionaire.

The Canadian musician, real name Claire Elise Boucher, said she had spent a year “locked in battle” with Musk over her rights as a mother and that her social media posts had been used against her.

It comes after it was reported that the former couple’s custody battle over their three children; four-year-old X Æ A-12, also known as baby X; two-year-old Exa; and two-year-old Tau, had been resolved.

Mike Bedigan reports.

Grimes says Elon Musk is ‘unrecognizable’ as she speaks out about custody battle

The Canadian musician, real name Claire Elise Boucher, said she had spent a year ‘locked in battle’ with the tech billionaire

Gustaf Kilander23 November 2024 04:00

Pete Hegseth once made ominous prediction about ‘civil war’ if Democrats won the election

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, has said that leftists are America’s “internal enemies” and suggested a Democratic victory could have ended in a civil war.

Trump named the 44-year-old veteran and Fox News host as his nominee for secretary of defense earlier this month. Now, The Guardian reports the man who could lead the Pentagon once wrote in 2020 that the U.S. might undergo “civil war” if Democrats won.

In his book American Crusade, Hegseth laid out “the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America’s internal enemies” and called on the GOP to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents.”

“America will decline and die,” Hegseth wrote, referring to a now-moot future where Joe Biden won the election, according to The Guardian. “A national divorce will ensue. Outnumbered freedom lovers will fight back.”

The U.S. armed forces are similarly-minded freedom lovers who would have to “make a choice,” he continued.

If confirmed, Hegseth would lead the Pentagon and assume the second-most powerful position in the military’s chain of command.

Katie Hawkinson23 November 2024 03:00

Tulsi Gabbard was placed on TSA watch list over her foreign travel and connections, says report

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be his director of national intelligence, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, was briefly put on a watchlist by the Transportation Security Administration, according to CNN.

The list leads to certain individuals being chosen for additional screening before flights. She was added to the list after her patterns of travel and foreign connections triggered a government algorithm this year, three sources told the network.

But Gabbard was soon removed from the list, called “Quiet Skies.” Her removal came after she publicly claimed that she had been put on a “secret terror watchlist.”

Read more:

Tulsi Gabbard was placed on TSA watch list over her foreign travel, says report

Nominee to be director of national intelligence visited Syrian dictator in 2017 and has made statements echoing Russian propaganda

Gustaf Kilander23 November 2024 02:30

Trump nominates NFL veteran Scott Turner as HUD secretary

Trump has nominated Scott Turner to serve as his secretary of housing and urban development.

“Scott is an NFL Veteran, who, during my First Term, served as the First Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council (WHORC), helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities,” Trump said on Friday night. “Those efforts, working together with former HUD Secretary, Ben Carson, were maximized by Scott’s guidance in overseeing 16 Federal Agencies which implemented more than 200 policy actions furthering Economic Development.”

“After graduating from [the] University of Illinois, Scott was drafted by the Washington Redskins, and spent nine years in the NFL before he went on to win a State House Race in Texas, where he was born and raised,” the president-elect added.

Gustaf Kilander23 November 2024 01:19

Trump nominates Marty Makary as FDA commissioner

Trump has nominated Marty Makary to be the FDA commissioner, saying in a statement on Friday night that the “FDA has lost the trust of Americans, and has lost sight of its primary goal as a regulator.”

“The Agency needs Dr. Marty Makary, a Highly Respected Johns Hopkins Surgical Oncologist and Health Policy Expert, to course-correct and refocus the Agency,” he added. “He will work under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to, among other things, properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our Nation’s food supply and drugs and biologics being given to our Nation’s youth, so that we can finally address the Childhood Chronic Disease Epidemic.”

Gustaf Kilander23 November 2024 01:14

Trump nominates Dave Weldon as CDC director

Trump announced on Friday night that former Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon has been nominated to serve as his director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In addition to being a Medical Doctor for 40 years, and an Army Veteran, Dave has been a respected conservative leader on fiscal and social issues, and served on the Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, working for Accountability on HHS and CDC Policy and Budgeting,” Trump said in a statement. “Dave also served in a leading role in Government Oversight and Reform Committee Hearings, addressing issues within HHS and CDC. Dave has successfully worked with the CDC to enact a ban on patents for human embryos.”

Gustaf Kilander23 November 2024 01:07

Trump claimed Kim Jong Un missed him. The North Korea leader has a different message

On the campaign trail over the summer, Donald Trump claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “misses me,” and that relations between their two countries would improve with a second Trump term.

At a defense expo in Pyongyang this week, the North Korean dictator had a very different message.

“We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the U.S.,” Kim said, according to state media, accusing the U.S. of an “unchanging aggressive and hostile policy” toward the country that’s helped put international affairs into their “most chaotic and violent” state since World War II.

After Trump’s comments about Kim in July, a state news agency said, “No matter what administration takes office in the US, the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this.”

Josh Marcus23 November 2024 01:00

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