Summary
Here is a summary of the key recent developments:
An attorney representing two women who he says testified before the House ethics committee has claimed that the former congressman Matt Gaetz paid both women for sex and that one of the women alleged she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor. The new allegations were revealed by the attorney Joel Leppard during an interview with ABC News on Monday – less than a week after Gaetz resigned from Congress following his nomination by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general in his second administration.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) seeking more information about how the agency might carry out Donald Trump’s plans for a mass deportation program.
Donald Trump appears to be planning to attend a SpaceX Starship rocket launch on Tuesday in the latest indication of influence of the company’s founder, Elon Musk, on the president-elect and his orbit.
The field of potential appointees to lead the Trump administration’s treasury department has widened to include Marc Rowan who founded and runs one of the nation’s largest public equity firms, and Kevin Warsh a central banker who from 2006 to 2011 served as a governor for the Federal Reserve, Reuters reports.
Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, is vowing to get as much information about Matt Gaetz to his colleagues in the Senate to show “how dangerous he would be” if he becomes the US’s next attorney general.
A Democratic incumbent on North Carolina’s supreme court held an extremely small lead over her Republican challenger as the last counties work to complete their official tallies. Associate Justice Allison Riggs had trailed on election night by roughly 10,000 votes to Jefferson Griffin, a state court of appeals judge. But that margin dwindled last week as election boards in the state’s 100 counties reviewed information associated with tens of thousands of provisional and absentee ballots and added voting choices of those that qualified for counting to totals.
A Georgia appeals court on Monday canceled oral arguments that were scheduled for next month on the appeal of a lower court ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue to prosecute the election interference case she brought against Trump, the Associated Press reports.
Trump allies have lashed out angrily at Joe Biden for his decision to permit Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to launch attacks inside Russia for the first time, in what the Kremlin has termed an “escalation” in the war. Key Trump surrogates, including his son Donald Trump Jr, hardline congressional Republicans, and other backers have accused Biden of seeking to spark “world war three” before Trump’s presidential inauguration in January.
Donald Trump has announced former Wisconsin congressman Sean Duffy as his nomination for secretary of transportation. Duffy is known for having been a cast member on the reality show, The Real World. His wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, hosts Fox and Friends Weekend, and was also a cast member on The Real World.
This live coverage is ending soon, thanks for following along.
ACLU files lawsuit to gain information about Trump mass deportation plans
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) seeking more information about how the agency might carry out Donald Trump’s plans for a mass deportation program.
The US president-elect has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants upon taking office, a threat that he has doubled down on since winning the presidential race earlier this month. On Monday, Trump confirmed a report that he intended to declare a national emergency to activate military resources as part of the mass deportation operation.
The new lawsuit comes after the ACLU Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) filed a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request seeking details on how Ice’s privately chartered flights might be expanded to expedite deportations. According to the ACLU, Ice failed to respond to the Foia request, which was filed in August.
“For months, the ACLU has been preparing for the possibility of a mass detention and deportation program, and Foia litigation has been a central part of our roadmap,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s national prison project. “A second Trump administration underscores the urgency of our litigation.”
According to the ACLU, planes chartered by the Ice Air Operations network assisted in the deportation of more than 140,000 people last year, and immigrant rights’ advocates fear that the program could be vastly expanded to further Trump’s agenda:
A Democratic incumbent on North Carolina’s supreme court held an extremely small lead over her Republican challenger as the last counties work to complete their official tallies.
Associate Justice Allison Riggs had trailed on election night by roughly 10,000 votes to Jefferson Griffin, a state court of appeals judge. But that margin dwindled last week as election boards in the state’s 100 counties reviewed information associated with tens of thousands of provisional and absentee ballots and added voting choices of those that qualified for counting to totals.
County boards held their local canvass meetings on Friday, and by the evening, Riggs had overtaken Griffin from the over 5.5m ballots cast for the race.
About 10 counties – including those where the cities of Winston-Salem and Fayetteville are located – didn’t complete their work Friday and most met again on Monday. With a few counties yet to close out their canvas Monday night, Riggs’ lead was fewer than 70 votes.
Should the advantage hold, Griffin would have until noon Tuesday to seek a statewide machine recount, in which ballots are run again through tabulator machines. A Griffin spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a text seeking comment.
Who is Sean Duffy, Trump's pick for Secretary of Transportation?
More now on Sean Duffy, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Transportation.
Duffy is a former reality TV star who was one of Trump’s most visible defenders on cable news – a prime concern for the media-focused president-elect, the Associated Press reports. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, was a member of the Financial Services Committee and was chair of the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019, and is now co-host of a show on Fox Business, the “Bottom Line.”
In his announcement Monday, Trump noted that Duffy is married to a Fox News host, calling him “the husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News.”
Trump said Duffy would use his experience and relationships built over the years in Congress “to maintain and rebuild our Nation’s Infrastructure, and fulfil our Mission of ushering in The Golden Age of Travel, focusing on Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation. Importantly, he will greatly elevate the Travel Experience for all Americans!”
Duffy in 2022 ruled out a run for Wisconsin governor, despite pleas from Trump to make a bid, saying he needed time to care for the needs of his family of nine children, posting on social media that his youngest child had a heart condition.
He is a former lumberjack athlete and frequent contributor to Fox News. He was featured on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997. He met his future wife on the set of MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars” in 1998.
He was a special prosecutor and Ashland County district attorney who won election to Congress as part of a tea party wave in 2010. He served until resigning in 2019.
A Georgia appeals court on Monday canceled oral arguments that were scheduled for next month on the appeal of a lower court ruling allowing Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis to continue to prosecute the election interference case she brought against Trump, the Associated Press reports.
Trump and other defendants had asked the Georgia court of appeals to hold oral arguments in the case, and the court had set those arguments for 5 December. But in a one-line order with no further explanation, the appeals court said that hearing “is hereby canceled until further order of this Court”.
A Fulton county grand jury in August 2023 indicted Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
But with Trump to return to the White House in January, the future of the case against the once and future president was already in question even if the court of appeals ultimately says Willis shouldn’t be disqualified.
Trump and other defendants filed the appeal seeking to get Willis and her office removed from the case and to have the case dismissed. They argue that a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. Superior court judge Scott McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the court of appeals.
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Here is the story on Matt Gaetz coming under further scrutiny amid fresh allegations:
An attorney representing two women who he says testified before the House ethics committee has claimed that the former congressman Matt Gaetz paid both women for sex and that one of the women alleged she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor.
The new allegations were revealed by the attorney Joel Leppard during an interview with ABC News on Monday – less than a week after Gaetz resigned from Congress following his nomination by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general in his second administration.
In the interview, Leppard claimed that his clients were paid by Gaetz using Venmo and said that one of the women testified to the committee that she saw Gaetz at a house party in 2017 having sex with a 17-year-old girl.
“She testified that in July of 2017 at his house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Leppard said.
Ahead of the Senate’s consideration of Gaetz’s nomination, Leppard said that he believed “several questions demand answers”, adding: “What if multiple credible witnesses provided evidence of behavior that would constitute serious criminal violations?”
In a statement sent to ABC News, Alex Pfeiffer, Trump’s transition spokesperson, called the allegations against Gaetz “baseless”, adding that they are “intended to derail the second Trump administration”.
Read the full story here:
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Trump allies attack Biden for allowing Ukraine to use US missiles inside Russia
Trump allies have lashed out angrily at Joe Biden for his decision to permit Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to launch attacks inside Russia for the first time, in what the Kremlin has termed an “escalation” in the war.
Key Trump surrogates, including his son Donald Trump Jr, hardline congressional Republicans, and other backers have accused Biden of seeking to spark “world war three” before Trump’s presidential inauguration in January.
“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” wrote Donald Trump Jr on X.
Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, who was seen as a potential candidate for secretary of state, wrote: “No one anticipated that Joe Biden would ESCALATE the war in Ukraine during the transition period. This is as if he is launching a whole new war. Everything has changed now – all previous calculations are null and void.”
Other Republicans to sound off included the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Utah senator Mike Lee, who said: “Joe Biden has just set the stage for World War III. Let’s all pray that it doesn’t come to this.”
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Trump nominates former congressman and Real World cast member Sean Duffy as transportation secretary
Donald Trump has announced former Wisconsin congressman Sean Duffy as his nomination for secretary of transportation.
Duffy is known for having been a cast member on the reality show, The Real World. His wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, hosts Fox and Friends Weekend, and was also a cast member on The Real World.
In his statement, Trump writes of Duffy:
Sean has been a tremendous and well-liked public servant, starting his career as a District Attorney for Ashland, Wisconsin, and later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.
…
He will prioritize Excellence, Competence, Competitiveness and Beauty when rebuilding America’s highways, tunnels, bridges and airports. He will ensure our ports and dams serve our Economy without compromising our National Security, and he will make our skies safe again by eliminating DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers.
The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind.
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Today so far
Between Matt Gaetz news and more information about potential Trump cabinet picks, it’s been a busy afternoon. Here are some of the highlights from the world of politics.
A lawyer who is representing two women who gave testimony to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives investigating Matt Gaetz has said in an interview that the former congressman paid the women to have sex with him.
Donald Trump appears to be planning to attend a SpaceX Starship rocket launch on Tuesday in the latest indication of influence of the company’s founder, Elon Musk, on the president-elect and his orbit.
The field of potential appointees to lead the Trump administration’s treasury department has widened to include Marc Rowan who founded and runs one of the nation’s largest public equity firms, and Kevin Warsh a central banker who from 2006 to 2011 served as a governor for the Federal Reserve, Reuters reports.
Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, is vowing to get as much information about Matt Gaetz to his colleagues in the Senate to show “how dangerous he would be” if he becomes the US’s next attorney general.
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Pennsylvania’s supreme court has ruled on a hotly contested US Senate election between democratic incumbent Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick. In a win for the current leader in the race, the high court says that counties cannot count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope, the Associated Press reports.
Though the AP called the race in favor of McMormick, who as of Monday leads by 17,000 votes out of the seven million that have been counted so far, the margin that McCormick is ahead by is within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
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Due to “logistical issues” Joe Biden was left out of a photo with other world leaders at the G20 summit in Rio De Janeiro on Monday. Those in the photo include Chinese president, Xi Jinping, Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and French president, Emmanuel Macron.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, also missed the picture. She, Biden, and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau were photographed in separate candid photos.
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Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, is vowing to get as much information about Matt Gaetz to his colleagues in the Senate to show “how dangerous he would be” if he becomes the US’s next attorney general.
In a post to X on Monday afternoon Durbin, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, described Gaetz as “the least qualified person and most radical person ever nominated to be Attorney General” in a separate post.
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As the Trump administration continues to take form, the field of potential appointees to lead the treasury department has widened to include Marc Rowan who founded and runs one of the nation’s largest public equity firms, and Kevin Warsh a central banker who from 2006 to 2011 served as a governor for the Federal Reserve, Reuters reports.
Two others in the running for the seat are Scott Bessent, the founder of the capital management firm Key Square who has said he wants the US dollar to remain the world’s reserve currency and use tariffs as a negotiating tactic, and Howard Lutnick who leads Cantor Fitzgerald.
Trump ally Elon Musk publicly threw his support behind Lutnick in a post on X that argues that Lutnick “will actually enact change”.
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Gaetz 'paid for sex' – attorney for witnesses
A lawyer who is representing two women who gave testimony to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives investigating Matt Gaetz has said in an interview that the former congressman paid the women to have sex with him.
The two women were adults at the time but also told lawmakers that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at the same party she attended, ABC News reported.
Gaetz resigned from his position as a Republican representative for Florida last week immediately on being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to become US attorney general. That immediately shut down the congressional investigation and, despite pressure, the House has not yet agreed to release the report of the investigation to the public or the US Senate, the body that will have the job of confirming Gaetz’s appointment.
Florida-based lawyer Joel Leppard spoke to ABC News earlier today.
“Just to be clear, both of your clients testified that they were paid by [then] Representative Gaetz to have sex?” interviewer Juju Chang asked Leppard.
“That’s correct. The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,’” Leppard told Chang.
One of the clients, Leppard said, also told the House committee that at the party she was at in July 2017 as she went to the pool area she saw Gaetz having sex with a friend of hers, who was 17.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing throughout various investigations into his behavior amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The names of Leppard’s clients have not been disclosed.
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Donald Trump appears to be planning to attend a SpaceX Starship rocket launch tomorrow, in the latest indication of influence of the company’s founder, Elon Musk, on the president-elect and his orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued temporary flight restrictions over the area of Brownsville and Boca Chica, at the eastern end of the Texas-Mexico border, for a VIP visit that coincides with the SpaceX launch window for a test of its massive Starship rocket from its launch facility on the Gulf of Mexico, the Associated Press reports.
Tuesday’s 30-minute launch window opens at 4pm central time (5pm ET), according to the company, with the company again looking to test the landing capture system of the booster in Texas, which it debuted last month and about which Trump has been complimentary, while the upper stage continues to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Musk pumped an estimated $200m through his political action committee to help elect Trump.
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ACLU sues for information on Trump mass deportation plan
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit a little earlier today seeking basic details on how the federal government would carry out a program to deport millions of people from the US, which President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to begin on “day one” of his new administration.
As part of the federal action, the ACLU demanded to be given information about the government’s current relationships with, for example, private airlines, ground transportation facilities and other elements that would be involved in arranging deportation flights for undocumented people. The lawsuit was first reported by the Washington Post this afternoon.
The suit was filed in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California and accuses the government of keeping the mechanisms used to deport people “shrouded in secrecy”.
Trump has pledged to begin deporting millions of people despite the legal, financial, economic and human rights implications, also confirming today that he would be prepared to shred norms and harness the US military to enforce his policy, despite the threat to democracy and due process.
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Mikie Sherrill has represented New Jersey’s 11th District, which includes parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties, since her 2018 election during president-elect Donald Trump’s first administration’s midterm. Sherrill flipped the district from Republican control with former Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen’s retirement and has been reelected three times since.
Before getting elected to Congress, she was a prosecutor for the US attorney for the district of New Jersey. She served in the Navy from 1994 to 2003, the AP writes.
Sherrill joins fellow Democratic US House member Josh Gottheimer, who announced his run for governor last week. Also seeking the Democratic nod are Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, teachers union president Sean Spiller and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney.
Republicans are also lining up to run. Among them are state senator Jon Bramnick, former state legislator Jack Ciattarelli, former state senator Ed Durr and radio host Bill Spadea.
New Jersey Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey has announced today that she’s running for governor, saying it’s time to fix the state’s economy and make it more affordable.
Sherrill, a former federal prosecutor and US Navy helicopter pilot, joins a crowded field of Democrats vying to succeed Democratic governor Phil Murphy, whose second term expires after next year’s election. Murphy is barred by term limits from running again, the Associated Press reports.
In a video announcing her run, Sherrill introduced herself as a US Naval Academy graduate and chopper pilot and leaned on her military experience.
I learned early on: In a crisis, the worst thing you can do is freeze. You have to choose to lead, to follow, or get out of the way.”
She went on to say in the video that the state’s economy needs to be fixed.
“Let’s make life more affordable for hardworking New Jerseyans, from health care to groceries to childcare. These challenges aren’t new and it’s time to confront them head on.”
Tom Fitton, the president of the influential conservative group Judicial Watch, has had a little more to say today, after his social media post prompted Donald Trump this morning to confirm that he is prepared to utilize the US military to conduct mass deportations when he takes office.
Fitton popped up on the hard-right Newsmax cable channel a little earlier. He said that his social media post that Trump 2.0 would be prepared to declare a national emergency in order to use military assets was not derived from any insider knowledge but just from stories that were around. Trump has caused a stir by reposting the message today with the endorsement “True!”
He told Newsmax: “Does anyone dispute the invasion is not a national emergency? It’s got to be a whole government approach.”
Rightwingers such as Fitton, Trump and Texas’s anti-immigration hardline governor, Greg Abbott, often invoke an “invasion” of undocumented people seeking refuge in the US and crossing the border from Mexico without authorization as and invasion.
“They cut the line and they need to be sent home,” he said.
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House ethics committee reportedly set to meet over Gaetz investigation
The House ethics committee is reportedly set to meet on Wednesday to discuss its report into Matt Gaetz, according to NBC News.
The committee has been looking into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other ethical breaches.
Last week, Gaetz was nominated by president-elect Donald Trump to serve as his Attorney General. Gaetz then resigned from the House of Representatives, which effectively ended the ethics inquiry.
The news of the meeting on Wednesday comes as an increasing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said that they would like to review the Ethics committee report.
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Eric Hovde, the Republican Senate candidate in Wisconsin, has conceded the race to Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin in a video message.
In the message, Hovde, who lost to Baldwin by about 29,000 votes, said that he would not request a recount of the vote but expressed concerns about the election process and alleged “many troubling issues” related to absentee ballots in Milwaukee.
His claims of impropriety have been refuted by Republicans, Democrats and non-partisan election leaders.
In the video message Hovde said that “without a detailed review of all the ballots and their legitimacy, which will be difficult to obtain in the courts, a request for a recount would serve no purpose, because you will just be recounting the same ballots, regardless of their integrity”.
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The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said that the process of selecting someone to fill Florida senator Marco Rubio’s seat has begun and that a selection will likely be made by the beginning of January.
In a statement on Monday, DeSantis said that Rubio is expected to resign from the Senate to assume duties as secretary of state when the Trump administration takes power on January 20th.
Under Florida law, DeSantis is tasked with appointing Rubio’s successor.
“We have already received strong interest from several possible candidates, and we continue to gather names of additional candidates and conduct preliminary vetting” DeSantis said. “More extensive vetting and candidate interviews will be conducted over the next few weeks.”
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The day so far
Donald Trump gave the nod on social media this morning to the notion that he wants to use the military to enforce his previously-stated intentions for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants from the US once he gets into office.
Conservative strategist Steve Bannon was due to go to trial next month on state charges in New York of conspiring to dupe donors to build a border wall but a judge said this morning that Bannon won’t face trial until February.
There are reports of clashes among top Trump insiders over leadership picks.
According to reports, Linda McMahon, a former Small Business Administration (SBA) director, is expected to be announced as Trump’s secretary of commerce.
Trump picked Brendan Carr, Project 2025 co-author, to lead FCC as speculation over treasury secretary appointment mounts.
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Steve Bannon did not turn up in person to attend the latest hearing in his court case in New York City today, on state charges of conspiring to dupe donors to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.
Instead, he listened in virtually as the judge, April Newbauer, set 25 February for jury selection, postponing it from December.
Bannon did not speak except to say, “yes, ma’am” when asked whether he understood he must be in court on the new date, the Associated Press reported.
The judge delayed the trial date from 9 December after deciding to let the future jurors hear evidence that some of the wall charity’s money went to pay a more than $600,000 credit card debt that a separate Bannon-related not-for-profit organization had racked up in 2019.
Prosecutors wanted to introduce it and defense lawyers argued unsuccessfully that it was irrelevant.
Bannon denies the charges, including conspiracy and money laundering. Manhattan prosecutors brought the case after Donald Trump pardoned Bannon in a similar federal prosecution that was in its early stages, where Bannon had denied pocketing over $1m from the We Build the Wall outfit.
Newbauer has yet to rule on whether jurors’ names will be kept confidential, as the prosecution has requested.
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Bannon trial over Mexico wall funding 'con' delayed
Conservative strategist Steve Bannon is not long out of prison after serving a sentence for defying multiple subpoenas related to the House’s January 6 insurrection investigation.
But he has another case hanging over him, which just got pushed back a little on the legal calendar.
Bannon, the enduring populist who was a central feature in Donald Trump’s first election campaign and term in office, was due to go to trial next month on state charges in New York of conspiring to dupe donors who gave to a private enterprise that pledged to use the funds to speed up the construction of sections of barrier at the US-Mexico border.
A judge, April Newbauer, said this morning that Bannon now won’t face trial until February. In court in New York prosecutors asked for the jury to be anonymous, the Associated Press reports.
Bannon chaired the advisory board of the group called We Build the Wall. Brian Kolfage, the co-founder of the We Build the Wall fundraising group, was sentenced in 2023 to more than four years in prison after admitting to conspiring to defraud donors.
While president, Trump pardoned Bannon on related federal charges, but the state charges stand. Bannon has denied the charges.
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In his first term in office, Trump used the authority of the National Emergencies Act to justify transferring $2.5bn from military construction projects to build new segments of barrier at the US-Mexico border, which a federal appeals court later deemed an illegal diversion of funds.
Mexico never paid for “the wall”, as Trump had repeatedly promised. He declared a national emergency because of people migrating across the US-Mexico border without authorization, seeking refuge in the US.
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William Banks, professor at Syracuse University and founding director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, told ABC earlier this month: “We don’t like uniform military in our domestic affairs at all. The default is always have the civilians do it. The cops, the state police, the city police, the sheriffs.”
Banks told the network that the federal government calling in troops to enforce something like a mass deportation program would be a huge upheaval in the US, including that troops are not trained in regular law enforcement and the legal ins and outs of carrying out civilian arrests.
And he warned against the threat of extremist action from Trump in federalizing and deploying the national guard in an anti-immigration crackdown.
“It would turn our whole society upside down … all these arguments about him being an autocrat or dictator, it is not a stretch,” Banks told ABC.
As well as the implications for democracy, experts said, mass deportation would also be enormously expensive and complicated, to say nothing of the human toll on millions of undocumented families living and working in the US. Some say it would be an “economic disaster” too, and severely disrupt food supply chains.
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Military units in the US are broadly not permitted to engage in law enforcement domestically and this is considered a strong element of American tradition.
The Brennan Center for Justice points to the 143-year-old Posse Comitatus Act, which “bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement” while noting, crucially, “except when expressly authorized by law” and says there are “dangerous gaps in the law’s coverage” which it wants the US Congress to address.
When the National Guard, which most typically operates under control of a state, is called into federal service it is then covered by the Posse Comitus Act. But the Brennan Center says that the most important statutory exception to the act that allows a president to use federal troops for domestic enforcement is the Insurrection Act. “The Insurrection Act allows the president to use the military to enforce federal law,” the center says, adding that: “In the summer of 2020, President Trump deployed the DC National Guard into Washington to police mostly peaceful protests against law enforcement brutality and racism.”
The act gives a president broad powers to direct the National Guard.
US law is generally designed to prevent presidents from using the US military to enforce domestic law and order and any action by Donald Trump to deploy troops in a mass deportation program will cause huge political and legal waves.
Trump said on the campaign trail that on the first day of his administration he would launch the largest deportation program in American history. He’s talked of deploying the US military against opponents, against election chaos and to enforce deportations, all highly controversial.
The group Protect Democracy says the following on its website: “A central hallmark of American democracy is that, with tightly limited exceptions, the US military is not used here at home. Autocrats often deploy military force to quash dissent, target vulnerable communities, and corrupt elections. Such outbreaks can offer political cover for restrictions on civil liberties or the expansion of coercive security measures …
“Congress has passed statutory constraints on domestic deployment that go beyond what is required by the Constitution, intended to prevent the chief executive from abusing the awesome power of the military – overseas or, especially, on American streets.”
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Fear immediately began rippling through undocumented communities across the US when Donald Trump won the election and as he prepares to take the White House, after promising record deportations during an election campaign filled with xenophobic hate speech – and after his first term in office was marked by anti-immigration crackdowns.
With Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris, he’s expected to fulfill his campaign pledge to unleash the biggest mass deportation of undocumented people “in US history”.
He frequently calls people crossing the US-Mexico border without authorization “an invasion”, including those requesting asylum from oppression, war, gang violence, domestic violence or climate crisis-driven poverty, referring to the US as “an occupied country”, and falsely blaming migrants for crime and economic woes.
Many families in the US now face being torn apart. There are at least 11 million undocumented people living in the US, according to the Pew Research Center. As of 2022, about 4.4 million US-born children under 18 live with an unauthorized immigrant parent.
It’s estimated that a million deportations a year could cost $967.9bn in federal spending over a decade, according to the American Immigration Council, which would require congressional approval and trigger an “economic disaster”.
Trump told Time magazine earlier this year: “If I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military.”
Trump backs up talk of using US military to enforce mass deportations
Donald Trump gave the nod on social media this morning to the notion that he wants to use the military to enforce his previously-stated intentions for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants from the US once he gets into office.
The Republican president-elect talked on the election campaign trail about declaring a national emergency in order to trigger powers that would facilitate a rare and highly controversial move to engage the US military to help deport millions of people he deems to be in the US illegally.
Trump responded “TRUE” in an early-morning post on his own platform, Truth Social, after a conservative activist had said he heard such reports.
Tom Fitton, the president of the influential conservative group Judicial Watch, had posted: “GOOD NEWS: Reports are the incoming @RealDonaldTrump administration prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program.”
Trump reposted with his own comment, “true”, appearing to confirm.
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The Guardian is covering the latest news from the war in Ukraine in one of our global live blogs, including all the fallout from the US move under President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to conduct strikes with US-made weapons deep into sovereign Russian territory.
The news, which emerged yesterday, has brought a furious reaction from the Kremlin. Follow the news as it unfolds, here.
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Just a reminder that top Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn was among 18 people charged by a grand jury in Arizona over his alleged involvement in the scheme to create a slate of false electors for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
This included 11 people who served as those fake electors and seven Trump allies, among them Epshteyn, who aided the scheme.
Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, announced the charges in April, and said the 11 fake electors had been charged with felonies for fraud, forgery and conspiracy.
Charged with aiding in the scheme were: Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman.
The indictment said: “In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as president on November 3 2020. Unwilling to accept this fact, defendants and unindicted co-conspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep unindicted co-conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters. This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”
Epshteyn has pleaded not guilty. The case is due to go to trial in January, 2026.
Shares in Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, rose nearly 7% in trading before the bell in the US today, after Bloomberg News reported that president-elect Donald Trump’s transition team was planning to set up federal regulations for autonomous vehicles.
The report comes days after Trump named Musk, the automaker’s CEO, as a co-head of the incoming administration’s new government efficiency department, Reuters reports.
Last month, Musk criticized the state-by-state approval process, required for self-driving vehicles, as “incredibly painful”, weeks after unveiling a two-seat “Cybercab” robotaxi without a steering wheel and foot pedals, set to go into production in 2026.
Trump’s team is looking for policy leaders for the transport department to develop a federal regulatory framework, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
A unified federal regulation could streamline this (approval process), allowing Tesla to push forward more rapidly with FSD [full self driving] testing,” said Mamta Valechha, analyst at Quilter Cheviot.
However, the regulation is not the primary barrier holding Tesla back at the moment, it’s the company’s FSD driver assistance technology that is still not fully autonomous and requires driver supervision.
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The reported tension between Elon Musk and Boris Epshteyn as they vie for status in Donald Trump’s inner circle of un-elected influencers involves the tech entrepreneur, Musk, challenging lawyer Epshteyn on the merits of his suggestions for senior appointments in the incoming Republican administration, according to Axios.
It quotes several unnamed sources, who’ve been giving accounts of the apparent strain between the two men bursting out into public rows, saying that Musk argues Epshteyn has too much sway over the names Trump is picking and considering for his cabinet and senior administration posts, while Epshteyn is “bristling” at Musk challenging him.
The outlet also reports that long-time Trump loyalists are dismayed at the sudden and seemingly ubiquitous presence and authority of Musk as the world’s richest person enjoys the president-elect’s ear.
Clashes among top Trump insiders over leadership picks - report
Tension between top confidants of president-elect Donald Trump sparked a “massive blowup” and a man-to-man “huge explosion” involving tech titan Elon Musk and prominent Trump lawyer and leading adviser Boris Epshteyn, in front of others, according to a new report.
The apparent clash was over the extent of each man’s sway over appointments to Trump’s incoming cabinet, Axios reports this morning, after Musk was questioning some of Epshteyn’s choices.
The outlet reports that things came to a head over dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club last week, with unnamed sources describing a “massive blowup” in which Musk said Epshteyn was leaking to the press and the lawyer said the Tesla, SpaceX and X boss didn’t know what he was talking about.
Epshteyn was influential in Trump’s most controversial choice so far, Matt Gaetz for attorney general. It’s not crystal clear what specific choices he and Musk have clashed over. But Axios further reported that there has likely been disagreement over Epshteyn’s support of Bill McGinley to become Trump’s White House counsel and Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who were part of Trump’s criminal defense team, being appointed to high up posts in the US Department of Justice.
Meanwhile, Musk is currently weighing in on the treasury secretary line-up.
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Donald Trump’s return to office sets the stage for harassment, intimidation and “old fashioned corruption” to spread throughout the US federal government, a top union leader has warned.
The president-elect and his allies have expressed support for the mass firing of civil service workers and abolishing certain government agencies upon his return to the White House.
Officials at the heart of Trump’s first administration have spoken of purging thousands of federal workers by using controversial powers to reshape the bureaucracy. Now, inside dozens of government agencies, staff are bracing for Trump’s second administration.
“It’s pretty bleak,” said Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents 110,000 employees at various agencies around the US. “It’s pretty grim.”
Read the full report here.
US House speaker leaves door open to recess appointments
Trump continues to announce officials who he wants to occupy high-ranking roles in his administration. The announcement of some of the proposed appointees last week sent shockwaves through Washington, namely: Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth and Robert F Kennedy Jr, for attorney general, defence secretary and health secretary respectively.
Washington’s highest-ranking Republican, House speaker Mike Johnson, has said “there may be a function” to facilitate the use of so-called recess appointments to speed up the confirmation of Trump’s cabinet nominees (the constitution says the president can make recess appointments to fill vacant positions when the Senate is not in session).
When asked if he would allow the president-elect to use the recess appointment process – instead of the traditional, longer Senate confirmation process – Johnson told Fox News Sunday:
We are in a time of very divided government and a very partisan atmosphere in Washington. I wish it were not. I wish the Senate would simply do its job of advise and consent and allow the president to put the persons in his Cabinet of his choosing.
But if this thing bogs down, it would be a great detriment to the country, to the American people.
“We’ll evaluate all that at the appropriate time, and we’ll make the appropriate decision. There may be a function for that. We’ll have to see how it plays out,” Johnson said.
“I’m sympathetic to all these arguments. As I said, we’ll have to see how this develops. I am very hopeful, very hopeful, that the Senate will do its job, and that is, provide its advice and consent and move these nominees along,” he added.
"There may be a function for that" -- Speaker Mike Johnson leaves the door open for Trump to ram through his cabinet nominees with recess appointments pic.twitter.com/xR2eGNCy0o
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 17, 2024
As my colleague Joan E Greve notes in this explainer, If Trump pursues a strategy of recess appointments, it could severely curtail the Senate’s power to serve as a check on the new president’s nominations and allow controversial picks such as Gaetz to move forward. To allow the recess appointment process, the House and Senate – which Republicans control both of – would have to both vote to adjourn for at least 10 days.
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Discussion on Donald Trump’s selection of Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman who had been accused of sexual misconduct, for US attorney general continued on Sunday, with Republican senator Markwayne Mullin calling for an unreleased ethics report to be released to the Senate.
Mullin told NBC’s Meet the Press that the Senate, which will oversee Gaetz’s confirmation hearings to become attorney general, “should have access to that” but declined to say if it should be released publicly.
Gaetz resigned from his seat in Congress on Wednesday soon after the president-elect made his controversial pick, frustrating plans by a congressional ethics panel to release a review of claims against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct and illegal drug use. Gaetz denies any wrongdoing.
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson repeated his position on Sunday that the survey should remain out of the public realm. Gaetz had faced a three-year justice department investigation into the same allegations that concluded without criminal charges being brought.
Johnson said the principle was that the ethics committee’s jurisdiction did not extend to non-members of the House. “There have been, I understand, I think, two exceptions to the rule over the whole history of Congress and the history of the ethics committee,” Johnson told CNN, adding that while he did not have the authority to stop it “we don’t want to go down that road.”
Trump’s selection of Gaetz, while successfully provoking Democrats’ outrage, is also seen as a test for Republicans to bend Trump’s force of will.
You can read the full story here:
Are Republicans likely to push back if Trump bypasses the Senate to install cabinet picks?
Under the US constitution, the Senate and the president share the power of appointing top administration officials. Typically, senators question nominees for secretary of defence and other top posts at public hearings before voting on their fitness for office.
But Donald Trump wants the Senate to give up that gatekeeping role and allow him to make “recess appointments,” even though his Republicans will control the chamber next year with at least 52 seats.
He has called for the chamber to adjourn after he takes office in January, which would allow his personnel to take their positions without having to undergo Senate scrutiny.
Reuters has this analysis on whether Republicans will oppose Trump’s plans:
Republicans will control the House and the Senate by narrow margins next year, giving them little room for error if they want to go along with Trump’s proposal.
In the Senate, Trump allies like Florida Senator Rick Scott quickly signaled support while other Republicans have said they are reluctant to surrender such a significant power.
Incoming Senate Republican Leader John Thune has not ruled it out. “All options are on the table, including recess appointments,” he said on Fox News on 14 November.
Republicans could warm to the idea if Democrats manage to block or slow down some of Trump’s nominees next year. A recess appointment could allow them to avoid having to hold up-or-down votes on a divisive nominee like Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a former Democrat who has spread misinformation on vaccines and supports abortion rights.
In the House, Johnson, a close Trump ally, has not yet publicly said what he thinks of the idea. If he were to pursue it, he would have to keep nearly all of his fellow Republicans on board as he will likely start next year with a majority of fewer than three votes in the 435-seat chamber.
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Linda McMahon expected to be announced as secretary of commerce - report
Several roles in Donald Trump’s new team, including the heads of the treasury, commerce and Labor departments are yet to be announced (you can view a full list of those who have been/could be offered key positions when Trump takes office in January here).
Reuters is reporting that Linda McMahon, a former Small Business Administration (SBA) director, is seen as the frontrunner to lead the commerce department, a federal government agency that promotes economic growth and job creation.
McMahon, 76, is a major donor and was an early supporter of the Republican president-elect when he first ran for the White House in 2015. This time, Trump tapped her to co-lead a transition team formed to help vet personnel and draft policy ahead of the 5 November election, which he decisively won.
McMahon is the co-founder and former CEO of the professional wrestling franchise WWE. She later served as director of the SBA, resigning in 2019, and went on to lead a pro-Trump political action committee that supported his 2020 reelection bid.
Iowa pollster J Ann Selzer has announced she is moving on “to other ventures and opportunities” after more than two decades predicting results in the politically important Midwestern state.
Her last poll – three days before the national vote on election day – projected a 47% to 44% lead for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump on the back of older women breaking for Democrats over the issue of reproductive rights.
Nearly every other poll in Iowa showed Trump leading the state, which the former president won in 2020 by eight points. When the votes were counted, Selzer was off by 16 points as the former Republican president won the state decisively.
Selzer announced the decision to retire from election polling in a guest column published on Sunday in the Des Moines Register. She wrote:
Over a year ago I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities.
Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course. It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite.
I am proud of the work I’ve done for the Register, for the Detroit Free Press, for the Indianapolis Star, for Bloomberg News and for other public and private organizations interested in elections. They were great clients and were happy with my work.
There were shocking polls for each, to be sure. In the end, my findings looked good.
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Elon Musk has publicly weighed in on Donald Trump’s choice for US treasury secretary, one of the remaining key incoming cabinet nominations the president-elect will make in the coming days.
Musk urged followers on X to support a candidate that would not be “business as usual” and “will actually enact change” as he threw his support behind Trump’s transition co-chair Howard Lutnick to lead the treasury department.
Lutnick, former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm that lost 658 employees in the 9/11 attacks, is believed to be up against Scott Bessent, the founder of capital management firm Key Square who has said he wants the US to remain the world’s reserve currency and use tariffs as a negotiating tactic.
“My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change,” Musk posted on Saturday. “Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”
You can read the full story by my colleague Edward Helmore here:
Trump picks Project 2025 co-author to lead FCC as speculation over treasury secretary appointment mounts
Good morning, and welcome to our US politics blog.
US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he has selected Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.
Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and Joe Biden to the commission.
The FCC is overseen by Congress, but Trump has suggested he wanted to bring it under tighter White House control, in part to use the agency to punish TV networks that cover him in a way he views unfavourably.
“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech, and has fought against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans’ freedoms, and held back our economy,” Trump said.
Last week, Carr, a big tech critic, wrote to Meta’s Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, Apple and Microsoft saying they had taken steps to censor Americans. Carr said on Sunday the FCC must “restore free speech rights for everyday Americans”.
Carr has of late embraced Trump’s ideas about social media and tech. Carr wrote a section devoted to the FCC in “ Project 2025,” the right-wing plan for Trump’s presidency which would crack down on immigration, dismantle LGBTQ+ and abortion rights and diminish environmental protections.
In a chapter of Project 2025, Carr argued that the FCC’s main goals should be “reining in Big Tech, promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.”
In his chapter, Carr also suggested that social media platform TikTok should be banned if it does not disentangle from its China-based parent company.
You can read more on Carr’s appointment here.
Trump has not revealed his pick for treasury secretary yet. Two potential candidates – former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and billionaire Marc Rowan -will reportedly be interviewed at his Mar-a-Lago residence later today.
Republican US Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, 65, who Trump recently met at Mar-a-Lago, is also in the running for the role, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and investor Scott Bessent are also considered as top candidates for the job.
