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The president-elect weighed in on a reconciliation package, reportedly telling the House Speaker he prefers one piece of legislation
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President-elect Donald Trump wants one reconciliation package rather than the GOP leadership’s two-bill strategy, re-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly informed Republicans Saturday — a sign that Trump may be already testing the unity of his party.
Johnson told fellow Republicans that Trump hopes for “one big beautiful bill” that would address border security, energy and tax cuts, Politico reported. All three were some of his biggest campaign promises.
The president-elect’s preference aligns with House Ways & Means Chair Jason Smith, who has pushed for just one piece of legislation rather than the two that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has favored.
The news comes after Johnson was re-elected as speaker after an initial struggle to get enough votes due to the incredibly tight margin in the House.
While a new Congress has already begun, Trump is now required to make a pitstop before he takes office.
New York Judge Juan Merchan ordered the president-elect to appear for sentencing in his hush-money case just ten days before his inauguration. Merchan indicated Trump wouldn’t be jailed. Trump slammed the order in a Saturday morning Truth Social post as “a fake, made up charge by a corrupt judge.”
Frustrated CNN news host Jim Acosta accused Donald Trump himself Thursday of peddling “fake news” with his repeated lie that the deadly New Orleans truck attacker was an immigrant.
Read more:
‘When there’s an act of terrorism in this country, the incoming president should tell the truth to the American people. Isn’t that what the president should do at all times?’ news host asks Trump supporters
President-elect Donald Trump already appears to be testing the unity among Congressional Republicans.
He voiced support for one reconciliation package rather than two, which the GOP leadership had endorsed, newly re-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson informed Republicans Saturday, sources familiar with the matter told Politico.
Johnson told fellow Republicans that Trump hopes for “one big beautiful bill” that would address border security, energy, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, the outlet reported.
The president-elect’s preference aligns with that of House Ways & Means Chair Jason Smith, who has pushed for just one piece of legislation rather than the two that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has favored. Thune wanted one bill to be dedicated to tax and the other bill to be dedicated to the border and energy.
The number of murders is expected to drop for the third year in a row — despite President-elect Donald Trump railing that the nation is suffering from high crime rates.
Read on:
Rates of violent crime also dropped, by nearly 3.3 percent in 2024 from 2023, data shows
One thing that Keir Starmer should not do, as he seeks to manage the relationship with the incoming president of the United States, is leak private details of his phone calls with him.
So it is unlikely that the prime minister was responsible for telling The Times that Donald Trump “veered off on a series of tangents” in their conversation on 18 December. The president-elect said that so many birds were being killed flying into wind turbines in the US that the coyotes were growing fat. If Starmer, or anyone acting on his behalf, did leak it, it could prove quite the misstep.
This is harmless stuff by Trump’s standards, reflecting his known antipathy to “windmills”, as he called them, in a public post on Truth Social yesterday. But the breach of confidence will make it harder for Starmer to engage with the unpredictable fireball coming his way.
Read more:
It’s not just Starmer’s premiership at stake here. If the president-elect and his billionaire pal become a bigger threat than they already are, UK democracy may also be at their mercy, writes John Rentoul
With every passing day, the US government inches closer to doing something unprecedented: banning a social media app used by an estimated 170 million Americans each month.
But what would happen next?
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TikTok wouldn’t simply vanish off your smartphone – but in the long term, banning the Chinese video app could rip the heart out of American youth culture, writes Io Dodds
MSNBC panel members burst into laughter while reading President-elect Donald Trump’s most recent social media rant.
Trump posted a rant on Truth Social Saturday morning decrying his legal woes after Judge Juan Merchan ordered him to appear for sentencing in his hush-money case on January 10, just over one week before his inauguration.
“There has never been a President who was so evilly and illegally treated as I,” Trump wrote. “Corrupt Democrat judges and prosecutors have gone against a political opponent of a President, ME, at levels of injustice never seen before.”
Read more:
President-elect will be sentenced in his hush-money case on January 10
President-elect Donald Trump claimed that Democrats are “giddy” about flags being flown at half-staff in a sign of mourning and respect to honor the late Jimmy Carter during his inauguration.
President Joe Biden ordered flags be flown at half-staff to honor the late president, who died Sunday at age 100. Trump has tried to politicize the gesture, since the flags will still be lowered during his second inauguration on January 20.
“The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday afternoon. “They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves. Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years – It’s a total mess!”
Read more:
‘They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves,’ Trump complained
Cheers rang out through the East Room of the White House on Saturday as actor and activist Michael J. Fox walked up to the stage to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden.
Fox is one of 19 people, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Bono, to be given the award on Saturday, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“You defend the values of America, even when they’re under attack,” Biden told the honorees. “Together, you leave an incredible mark on our country, with insight and influence that can be felt around the globe.”
Read on:
The nation’s highest civilian award honors individuals who ‘made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors’
The judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump in his home state of New York has ordered the president-elect to appear before him on January 10 to face a sentence after jury convicted him on 34 felony counts last year.
In a stunning, 18-page ruling released on Friday, Justice Juan Merchan said he would not sentence Trump to a term of incarceration but would instead impose “a sentence of unconditional discharge” — meaning a sentence of no jail time, probation or fines — as “the most viable solution” and permit Trump to continue to appeal the case.
The hearing is scheduled just 10 days before the president-elect is inaugurated.
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