ABC agrees to settle Trump ‘rape’ defamation case for $15m as extra administration picks introduced: Live

Senate Republican leader and polio survivor Mitch McConnell on Friday condemned “dangerous” efforts to abolish the polio vaccine following news that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s lawyer’s tried to do just that.

Attorney Aaron Siri in 2022 petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval for multiple critical childhood vaccines, including the polio vaccine. News of Siri’s action resurfaced just weeks after RFK Jr. was named by President-elect Donald Trump as his pick to be secretary of Health and Human Services. Siri is currently helping Kennedy vet officials to serve in the department.

Kennedy is known for his extreme anti-vaccine positions which are widely derided by the mainstream medical community. Siri’s petition claimed the vaccine was not properly tested to ensure it was safe, despite its decade-long use protecting millions of children from contracting the disease.

READ MORE:

Barron Trump has been described as a “ladies’ man” around the New York University (NYU) campus, where he is so popular that even his liberal classmates like him.

An insider at NYU’s Stern School of Business, where Barron enrolled this fall, told People magazine that Donald Trump’s only son with third wife Melania Trump has proven to be “popular with the ladies.”

“He’s tall and handsome,” the source said of the 18-year-old, who stands an astonishing six feet nine inches tall.

READ MORE:

Donald Trump’s transition team is reportedly considering scrapping a car-crash reporting requirement that Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk stongly opposes, according to a new report.

According to Reuters, which viewed a document reportedly proposing the change, the removal of the requirement could hamstring the government’s ability to effectively investigate crashes and regulate the safety of vehicles with self-driving systems, like Musk’s Teslas and Cybertrucks.

Musk, who is the world’s richest man, used his vast wealth to pour a quarter of a billion dollars into Trump’s 2024 campaign. If Trump’s team does remove the accident reporting requirements, it would likely directly benefit Musk’s Tesla, which has reported the majority of crashes — more than 1,500 — to federal safety regulators under the program.

READ MORE:

ABC has agreed to pay $15 million as part of a settlement with Donald Trump after the president-elect sued the network and host George Stephanopoulos for defamation.

In March, Stephanopoulos pressed congresswoman Nancy Mace about her support for the former president despite a judge finding him “liable for rape by a jury,” he said.

“Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury,” Stephonopoulos said on ABC’s This Week at the time. “It’s been affirmed by a judge.”

READ MORE:

Donald Trump Jr is dating a new woman who he thinks will “impress” his father, but has not publicly announced a split from Kimberly Guilfoyle, whose style he has criticized, according to a report.

Photos captured Trump Jr., 46 holding hands with socialite Bettina Anderson, 38, as they went for an evening stroll through Palm Beach, Florida this week.

While neither president-elect Donald Trump’s eldest son nor Guilfoyle, 55, have spoken publicly about their relationship status, insiders told People that after months of criticizing Guilfoyle’s style, he thinks he’s found someone who fits into the Trump family — someone comparable to his father’s wife, Melania. Trump met Melania at a party in 1998, when he was on a date with another woman, the former first lady said in a 2016 interview with Harper’s Bazaar.

READ MORE:

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes and the president-elect’s Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell have been selected to serve in his upcoming administration.

Nunes, as former California House Representative, was tapped for to serve as Chairman of Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board, while Grenell was picked to serve as his Presiential Envoy for Special Missions.

While Nunes was in office he served on the House Intelligence Committee and consistently backed any move then-President Trump made. He also led the two-year investigation into US’s responde to the 2012 Benghazi attack, which ultimate found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the US State Department under Hillary Clinton.

Nunes also refused to back an investigation into Trump former national security adviser and Q-Anon conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn after it was revealed he had unreported discussions with Russian officials while serving under Trump.

“From everything that I can see, his conversations with the Russian ambassador—he was doing this country a favor, and he should be thanked for it,” Nunes said at the time.

Grenell formerly served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and his Director of National Intelligence.

Prior to his involvement in Trump’s administration, Grenell was a consultant for an eastern European oligarch, Vladimir Plahotniuc. He faced criticism after he wrote articles defending the oligarch without making clear he was being paid to manage the man’s image.

Grenell is a former Fox News contributor and was named as a VP at the far-right media outlet Newsmax in 2021. He earned the ire of the media in 2020 when, during a Trump press conference, he refused to identify himself to reporters and publicly accused the state of covering up incidents of voter fraud in order to help the election prospects of then-Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

These claims were made without evidence, and Mr Grenell refused to answer questions from journalists who demanded he prove his assertions.

Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk was at Saturday’s Army-Navy game alongside President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance. The image shows the three men on a stadium Jumbotron and is yet another example of Musk — the world’s richest man and presumably a very busy person leading three massive companies — spending a significant amount of time hanging around with Trump.

Failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted a photo of himself posing with Daniel Penny, who was recently acquitted for the death of Jordan Neely, a Black street performer who struggled with homelessness and schizophrenia, and recalled that he donated to Penny’s legal defense fund. Neely died after Penny held him in a chokehold for more than six minuted on a New York City subway train.

Neely was allegedly yelling threatening things at the other passengers, but witnesses said he never touched anyone.

“Our family contributed to this man’s legal defense fund last year because he was wronged. We don’t regret it. Hope Daniel Penny has a bright future & good life ahead,” Ramaswamy wrote. According to reports at the time, Ramaswamy donated $10,000 to Penny’s defense.

CNN contributor and former South Carolina Representative Bakari Sellers lamented that Daniel Penny, who was recently acquitted for the death of Jordan Neely, a Black street performer who struggled with homelessness and schizophrenia, was invited to the Army-Navy football game to hobnob with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

“The prism through which this country views race is fascinating. Look at conservative avatars….Daniel Penny kills a black man has no accountability, chills with the POTUS. Caitlin Clark acknowledges black women’s professional contributions and gets crucified,” he wrote on X. “Watching the identity politics of the right…”

ABC News staff are allegedly upset that the broadcaster agreed to pay $15 million to Donald Trump to settle a defamation suit he brought against veteran anchor George Stephanopoulos. Trump claimed the anchor defamed him when he said the president-elect had been found liable for rape by a jury in the E Jean Carroll defamation trial. According to reporter Yashar Ali, staff ABC News have expressed their frustration that the company found money to pay off Trump, but not for salary increases or staving off layoffs. “Their anger primarily stems from the fact that they have faced repeated budget and compensation cuts in recent years, experienced layoffs, and yet the network — even if insurance paid it — has paid this huge sum of money to settle this matter,” Ali wrote.