Trump formally secures Electoral College win as his nominees push for Senate assist: Live updates

Donald Trump says ‘something strange is going on’ with drone sightings

Donald Trump has formally won the Electoral College and the presidency after Texas’ electors handed him the state’s 40 electoral votes Tuesday.

After Trump’s election win on November 5, his victory was formalized Tuesday as presidential electors gathered across the U.S.

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College — Trump won 312 last month to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 226.

Thirteen of the electors are Republicans who took part in the fake electors plot in 2020, and some of them face criminal charges.

This comes as Trump’s choices for his cabinet headed to Capitol Hill to meet with senators ahead of their confirmation hearings. HHS secretary nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr. and the nominee to serve as the director of national intelligence, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, went to the hill Tuesday to drum up support for their respective nominations.

Meanwhile, Trump has lost his latest bid to throw out his New York hush money conviction, with the judge overseeing the case rejecting his attorneys’ conjecture that he is protected by “presidential immunity”.

The president-elect appears likely to enter the White House as a convicted felon, though it remains unclear when, or if, the justice will continue to postpone a sentencing date.

MSNBC anchor admits Trump told her to ‘go f*** myself’ when she called for an interview

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.

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Justin Baragona17 December 2024 23:30

Senate’s progressive wing proposes bill to end the Electoral College and ‘restore democracy’

Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Peter Welch of Vermont presented their bill on Monday, saying it was time to “restore democracy” by doing away with the college system altogether and giving primacy to the popular vote, the total number of ballots cast by the American electorate.

“In an election, the person who gets the most votes should win. It’s that simple,” said Schatz.

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Joe Sommerlad17 December 2024 22:45

Trump meets TikTok CEO as platform fights US ban

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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Graig Graziosi17 December 2024 22:00

Republican report suggests Liz Cheney be criminally investigated because of work on Jan 6

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.”

Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 21:47

The rise and fall of Justin Trudeau as Canadian prime minister is on the brink

After nearly 10 years at the country’s helm, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing growing calls from his own party to resign.

Mr Trudeau’s latest crisis has been sparked by the sudden resignation of his finance minister Chrystia Freeland, amid a row over how best to handle US President-elect Donald Trump’s threatened trade tariffs.

Once the poster-boy for liberal politics, his popularity has waned and his approval rating has dipped below 30 per cent several times this year.

So what went wrong?

Rachel Clun17 December 2024 21:30

Pennsylvania state senator mistakes Star Wars prop for drone

Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 21:00

Trump formally clinches presidency with Electoral College win

Donald Trump has formally won the Electoral College and the presidency after Texas’ electors handed him the state’s 40 electoral votes Tuesday.

After Trump’s election win on November 5, his victory was formalized Tuesday as presidential electors gathered across the U.S.

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College — Trump won 312 last month to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 226.

The votes of each state will be sent on to Congress next month, where Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance will be declared the next president and vice president before they take office at noon on January 20.

Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 20:55

Senators warn that Pete Hegseth’s hearings will echo Brett Kavanaugh’s with fervor from both sides

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Gustaf Kilander17 December 2024 20:30

Trump insiders reveal candid details about Melania and Barron’s relationship

Incoming First Lady Melania Trump is devoted to ensuring her 18-year-old son, Barron Trump, is happy and healthy which will likely make her role in the White House less visible than other first ladies, insiders say.

“Melania worries about the hate in the country and how it falls on her son, who is innocent of any of this,” a social source told the magazine.

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Ariana Baio17 December 2024 20:00

Comment: Why Elon Musk should get every cent of his $56bn Tesla pay package

The moment my children became interested in the US election was not when Taylor Swift declared her support for Kamala Harris, it was when Elon Musk appeared alongside Donald Trump.

He’s also the future, their future. They admire the Tesla – ‘faster than a motorbike from traffic lights’ one said to me recently. They can take or leave X, it’s not their network. And the space rocket reversing into a dock, as neatly as any car – that video has been replayed in our household countless times.

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Chris Blackhurst17 December 2024 19:30

Source: independent.co.uk