Matt Gaetz admits to womanizing and partying too much as he slams House’s move to release ethics report: Live

When Justin Trudeau became the Canadian prime minister in 2015, people were still using that thing called Facebook. I can remember well the frothing posts by female friends, none of whom could contain their excitement at the election of this hottie PM. Furthermore, they gushed at the notion that what made him hotter still was not only that he was young and handsome, he was a lovely liberal dude too, which made him even more super-duper guy.

(If my male friends had written about an equally attractive female prime minister in such a way, they might well have been cancelled, but let’s park that.) As far as my friends were concerned – and to be fair, Trudeau had plenty of male fanboys – here was the perfect Generation X politician, and all would surely be well in his good hands.

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Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano is facing some heat after posting a picture of what appears to be a Star Wars prop instead of one of the mysterious drones that are flying around the East Coast this month.

The meme the politician shared on the social media platform X includes a picture of what looks like a replica of a TIE Fighter, which is a fictional spacecraft used by the Sith Empire’s Imperial Fleet and seen in the 1977 classic and first film Star Wars: A New Hope.

“Breaking News: Crashed drone in Orange Beach retrieved from water, and taken to undisclosed location for further investigation,” the meme’s caption reads.

Mastriano reposted the image with a serious comment on Tuesday.

A federal judge said Tuesday that he won’t dismiss a bribery charge against New York Mayor Eric Adams because prosecutors described the allegations adequately in an indictment.

Judge Dale E. Ho wrote in an opinion that an indictment unsealed against the Democrat in September sufficiently details alleged bribery crimes, preventing dismissal of the charge prior to an April trial.

Adams has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges stemming largely from his relationships with several Turkish government officials and businesspeople from 2015 to 2022. The indictment alleged that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in overseas travel benefits and illegal campaign donations from people seeking to buy his influence.

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The rash of mysterious drone sightings across New Jersey continues to cause panic down the US east coast — and on Capitol Hill, frustrations are bubbling.

Joe Biden’s administration, with just over one month left in office, is heading into the holiday season in full lame-duck mode. As rumors of a ceasefire in Gaza being “close” raise the hopes of some Democrats eager to see the president pull out a final legacy-defining win, more are becoming vocal about the failure of the broader administration to address what is quickly becoming a source of serious misinformation.

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Donald Trump says privatizing the United States Postal Service — an idea Republicans have been circling for years in a crusade to kill one of America’s most popular public agencies — is “not the worst idea” he’s ever heard.

It’s the clearest signal yet that his incoming administration is reviving plans to gut the agency, which is empowered by the Constitution and older than the nation itself.

His remarks on Monday followed reporting in The Washington Post that Trump and his billionaire nominee for commerce secretary Howard Lutnick are mulling plans to overhaul the agency, including whether to privatize it entirely.

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Reflecting on an election cycle that was dominated by podcasts and non-traditional media, the deputy campaign manager for the Harris–Walz campaign said there’s “no value” in speaking to mainstream press, notably the New York Times or Washington Post anymore.

Rob Flaherty, a key figure in crafting Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign strategy, admitted to Semafor in an interview that Republicans successfully expanded their alternative media presence with influencers, streamers, podcasters and more.

He maintained that stance in a recent interview with the online news outlet, saying the Harris campaign chose to focus on podcast appearances and interviews with influencers over traditional media to compete with Donald Trump’s campaign.

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Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is now prohibiting “editorials containing criticism” of Donald Trump “unless they are presented side-by-side with another opinion piece representing the ‘opposing view,’” according to a memo written by the newspaper’s editors.

As Oliver Darcy first reported in his Status newsletter, the staff memo reveals that Soon-Shiong’s “meddling” of the LA Times’ coverage – especially regarding the president-elect – has “grown more pervasive than previously realized.”

The memo, signed by several members of the LA Times’ opinion section, was sent to the newspaper’s executive editor, Terry Tang. It comes after Soon-Shiong killed an op-ed last month critical of Trump’s recent Cabinet picks and the incoming president’s suggestion that he may use recess appointments to circumvent the confirmation process.

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MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle revealed that President-elect Donald Trump told her to ‘go f*** myself” after she tried to set up an interview with him before the election to discuss his Madson Square Garden campaign rally.

While noting that Trump profanely brushed off her invitation for a sitdown, Ruhle also used this anecdote as an example of how much more accessible Trump is to the press than President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, who she claimed are nearly impossible to contact due to buffers put up by their staffs.

Appearing on Lukas Thimm’s live variety stage show So Many Issues, Ruhle brought up the wild MSG rally in October, which was described as “an orgy of fascism” and sparked outrage after a right-wing comic called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Ruhle said she “rolled the dice” and decided to call up Trump to see if he’d agree to talk to her about the fallout.

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Donald Trump reportedly met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Monday to discuss the app’s potential ban by the US government.

The two men reportedly had a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, according to NBC News.

In the days leading up to the meeting, Trump had expressed some degree of sympathy for the company, saying he had a “warm spot” for the app, and promising that he’d “take a look” at the ban.

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Republicans released a 128-page report Tuesday which suggested that former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney be investigated for her work probing the January 6 Capitol riot.

The report looked at the “failures and politicization” of the now-dissolved January 6 Committee, claiming that President-elect Donald Trump was unfairly blamed for the attack.

“Speaker Pelosi’s multimillion-dollar Select Committee was a political weapon with a singular focus to deceive the public into blaming President Trump for the violence on January 6 and to tarnish the legacy of his first Presidency,” it says.

The conclusion argues that the FBI should investigate Cheney, claiming that her contact with witness Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump White House aide, amounted to witness tampering.

“January 6th showed Donald Trump for who is really is – a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave,” Cheney said in a statement, according to The Hill.

She went on to note that “Chairman [Barry] Loudermilk’s (R-Ga.) ‘Interim Report’ intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did. Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”