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ABC News settles defamation suit ahead of trial as Donald Trump staffs up his incoming administration
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ABC News has agreed to a $15 million settlement stemming from Donald Trump’s defamation suit involving a broadcast about E. Jean Carroll, who herself had successfully sued the president-elect for defamatory statements.
Anchor George Stephanopoulos and the network were sued after Stephanopoulos mischaracterized the jury’s decision as finding him “liable for rape” at civil trial. Trump was found liable for “sexual abuse” for an incident dating back to 1996.
Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that Pete Hegseth, the Trump administration’s embattled pick to lead the Defense Department, will release a sexual assault accuser from a past confidential settlement agreement. Attorneys for Hegseth say the accuser previously broke the agreement, rendering it void.
Meanwhile, one of Trump’s last remaining opponents in the GOP says the party has changed for good.
“MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” Mitt Romney told CNN.
And officials continue to grasp for explanations of the spate of drone sightings above the East Coast in recent days.
“I just got to simply tell you, we don’t know,” a Defense Department official said Saturday of what’s behind the phenomenon.
CNN’s State of the Union interviewed retiring senator Mitt Romney on Sunday. The Republican senator has been one of Donald Trump’s last remaining opponents in the GOP, but bowed out of the Senate this year.
Romney seems to have come to terms with the future of the Republican Party as a Trumpified political movement.
“MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” the Utah senator told Jake Tapper, adding: “Democrats have badly misread the direction of the country… and President Trump took advantage of that.”
Watch a clip here:
Utah senator, who is soon to step down, says he was ‘wrong’ about assumption Trump would lose 2024 election
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.
A transgender activist who staged a sit-in at the US Capitol to protest House Republicans’ new policy targeting a transgender incoming member of Congress tells The Independent that the 2024 election cycle shows that LGBTQ+ Americans really can’t trust Democrats to have their backs in a fight.
“Unfortunately, the signals coming from our government right now, under a Democratic president, are telling us that we’re essentially on our own,” the 33-year-old activist told our Io Dodds in an interview.
In the face of ‘eradication’, one trans activist is preparing to fight – and she’s sick of silence and neglect from her supposed allies. Raquel Willis tells Io Dodds why Republican bathroom bans are everybody’s problem
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:
‘Kim is so uptight and always dresses so professionally in these kinds of dresses and high heels,’ Trump Jr. allegedly said to Guilfoyle, according to a source
With the year coming to a close, the Trump transition team is planning a busy week of meetings at the Capitol for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the incoming administration’s controversial pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
He’s set to meet with numerous GOP senators in the coming days, according to the transition team.
Health experts warn Kennedy is skeptical of mainstream public health interventions like vaccines and flouride in water.
Public health advocates are warning against an incoming powder keg of misinformation and conspiracy theories
Sports and culture commentator Stephen A. Smith joined conservative lawmakers in criticizing the findings of a Justice Department inspector general report on the extent of the FBI presence at the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Smith said he was “sick” and felt like Democrats had lied about the insurrection based on the report, which found “no evidence” undercover FBI employees joined in the riot, but noted the presence of 26 confidential agency sources in the wider area around the Capitol.
Senator Mike Lee of Utah made a similar criticism on Sunday, arguing Democrats had wrongly dismissed questions about the insurrection as conspiracy theories.
Justice Department watchdog found ‘no evidence’ FBI had undercover agents at the Capitol
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:
‘The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease,’ said outgoing Republican Senate leader
Democrats are pushing Biden to continue using his final days in office to seal liberal priorities before Trump takes office.
That includes enrishing the Equal Rights Amendment, which would constitutionally ban gender discrimination.
“With Republicans set to take unified control of government, Americans are facing the further degradation of reproductive freedom,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wrote today on Sunday in The New York Times. “Fortunately, Mr. Biden has the power to enshrine reproductive rights in the Constitution right now.”
Gillibrand argued that because two-thirds of Congress ratified the proposed amendment in 1972 and three-quarters of states ratified it in 2020, the ERA has met the constitutional requirements for certification.
Aides and allies to Kamala Harris are reportedly divided over what the Democrat’s political future looks like after her stinging loss in the 2024 election.
The main point of contention is whether Harris should try to run for governor of California in 2026 or face a likely wide field of up-and-coming Democrats in the 2028 presidential race.
“If you’re thinking of running for president in 2028, the worst thing you can do is run for governor in 2026,” a former adviser told CNN.
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Department of Defense, will release a woman from a non-disclosure agreement that followed a 2017 sexual assault allegation against the former Fox News anchor, according to Senator Lindsey Graham.
“He told me he would release her from that agreement,” the South Carolina Republican told NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. “Just think about what we’re talking about. I’d want to know if anybody nominated for a high-level job in Washington legitimately assaulted somebody.”
Graham compared Hegseth’s nomination to the 2018 confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was publicly accused of sexually assaulting former classmate Christine Blasey Ford.
“If people have any allegation to make, come forward and make it,” Graham said. “Like they did in Kavanaugh, we’ll decline whether or not it’s credible. Right now he’s being tried by anonymous sources, that will not stand.”
More details in our full story.
Hegseth insists 2017 allegations are false
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