Trump treats RFK Jr to McDonald’s after health secretary nominee slams his diet: Live updates

Donald Trump’s search for someone to lead the Treasury Department continued over the weekend while one of his new close allies placed his thumb on the scale.

Elon Musk, the Twitter/X/Tesla/SpaceX CEO and top Trump booster, has been increasingly hanging around Mar-a-Lago and the president-elect himself in the days since Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election. Having put a considerable sum behind backing Republicans this cycle, Musk seems eager for a return on his investment — he is now publicly urging the incoming president towards one of the two men seen as finalists for the job of Treasury secretary.

On Saturday — the same day he appeared alongside the president-elect at the UFC championship at Madison Square Garden — Musk made his appeal public.

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President-elect Donald Trump is filling key posts in his second administration, putting an emphasis so far on aides and allies who were his strongest backers during the 2024 campaign.

Here’s a look at who he’s selected so far.

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Ann Selzer, the pollster behind the Des Moines Register’s respected Iowa Poll, has announced her retirement just weeks after the survey incorrectly showed Vice President Kamala Harris with a 3 percentage point lead over Donald Trump in Iowa.

Just before Election Day, the poll showed Harris leading Trump 44-47 among likely voters. The news was a last minute injection of hope for Democrat voters desperate to keep Trump out of the White House.

Those hopes turned to ash on Election Day; Trump defeated Harris soundly, 56 to 43 per cent.

Selzer penned a guest column in the Des Moines Register announcing her retirement. After the poll failed to reflect reality, she called it a “big miss” and theorized that her poll may have “energize[d] and activate[d] Republican voters who thought they would likely coast to a victory.”

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Speaker Mike Johnson defended his call for the House Ethics Committee to withhold the release of its report on the investigation into Matt Gaetz and allegations that the former congressman engaged in sex crimes.

Johnson appeared across the DC news circuit on Sunday as he continues to ride the waves propelling his ascent in MAGAworld; his interviews with two networks came just hours after the GOP House leader was seen alongside Donald Trumpat the UFC championship at Madison Square Garden.

On Sunday, the speaker faced expected questions about the former and soon-to-be-president’s most controversial Cabinet nomination: Matt Gaetz, the one-congressman from Florida, who was picked to be Trump’s attorney general. Gaetz was once investigated by the same Justice Department he now seeks to lead for allegedly having sex with an underage girl; he has strongly denied the allegations.

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Saturday Night Live took a hit at Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet picks in their Cold Open sketch on Saturday night.

The skit, which started by poking fun at Trump and President Joe Biden’s transition meeting, took jabs at the many people who could join the president-elect’s cabinet come January.

“It’s all about surrounding yourself with the best people,” comedian James Austin Johnson said, playing Trump in the sketch. “And I am very vastly picking the most epic cabinet of all time. They’re some of the most dynamic, free-thinking, animal-killing, sexually-criminal, medically-crazy people in the country.”

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Elon Musk is looking for a few good “super high-IQ” volunteers to do the “tedious work” of gutting the federal government.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — whose acronym is DOGE — is apparently recruiting unpaid volunteers from X, according to posts from the nascent agency.

A post made by the department’s account said it was looking for the “top 1 percent” of X applicants who have a “super high-IQ” and are “small-government revolutionaries” to work 80-plus hour weeks identifying allegedly wasteful government spending. READ MORE:

A new Donald Trump with McDonald’s picture just dropped.

President-elect Donald Trump, his son Don Jr, Tesla/X CEO Elon Musk and Robert F Kennedy Jr posed for a photo together on what appears to be a private plane. In front of them are trays of McDonald’s. RFK Jr, who Trump wants to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, appears less than enthused to be associated with the fast food, though he may have just been caught off guard by the camera.

A caption on the picture read “Make America Healthy Again starts TOMORROW.”

Donald Trump made a triumphant return to Madison Square Garden for the Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday night (16 November).

The president-elect returned to the famed venue just weeks after it played host to a controversial campaign rally.

Trump entered the stadium with Elon Musk and Dana White to rapturous applause and was seen chatting with several members of his entourage.

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