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President-elect is pushing support for Mike Johnson ahead of Friday’s crucial House Speaker vote
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Donald Trump closed out 2024 next to Elon Musk as the president-elect’s allies and elements of his MAGA coalition continue to feud with the world’s wealthiest man over support for skilled immigrant workers.
Asked why Trump had changed his tune about H-1B visas, he said he “always felt we have to have the most competent people in our country.”
“We need competent people,” he said from Mar-a-Lago. “We need smart people coming into our country. We need a lot of people coming in. We’re going to have jobs like we’ve never had before.”
Speaking of immigration, the president-elect on Wednesday suggested a migrant carried out the car attack that killed 10 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, despite police not publicly identifying a suspect yet.
Trump will attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral on January 9, set to be a national day of mourning for the nation’s 39th president, who died at age 100 on December 29.
Meanwhile, Trump is making calls to rally support for House Speaker Mike Johnson, as representatives prepare to vote for who wields the gavel on January 3. Johnson can’t afford to shed Republican votes with his slim majority, through several GOP lawmakers are still undecided.
With rumors swirling of a potential end to the honeymoon period between Trump and Musk, here is a look back at their often tumultuous relationship:
Though the tech billionaire has quickly risen to the (self-titled) position of ‘first buddy,’ the relationship between two of the world’s most powerful men has not always been roses writes Mike Bedigan
An upcoming trial in a federal court in Manhattan will determine if Rudy Giuliani can exempt his multi-million dollar Florida condominium from a list of property he must hand over to mother-and-daughter election workers trying to collect on their $150 million defamation judgment against him.
He appeared to try to file under seal a list of witnesses he wants to call to testify, which a judge reprimanded him for.
The former New York mayor is hoping to keep his Palm Beach condo away from defamed election workers seeking to collect nearly $150 million he owes them
Trump has responded to an attack in New Orleans, where a driver plowed through a crowd on Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, killing at least 10 and injuring more than 30 others.
He suggested that the suspect, who has been killed by police, was not from the U.S., though no information has been released by authorities suggesting otherwise.
“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” said Trump, referencing his anti-immigrant rhetoric about immigrants being released from prisons and mental institutions into the United States.
“The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” he added. “Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!”
Trump — who in 2016 had dismissed the H-1B visa program as “neither high skilled nor immigration” and merely a means of “importing” foreign workers — insisted that never changed his mind after he stood with Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and Silicon Valley billionaires who have relied on the program to staff their firms, drawing fire from an anti-immigrant base.
The president-elect had formerly demanded that the government eliminate what he called “abuse” within the program.
In 2020, Trump said from the White House that his administration was “finalizing H-1B regulations so that no American worker is replaced ever again.”
“I didn’t change my mind,” he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night. “I always felt we have to have the most competent people in our country. We need competent people. We need smart people coming into our country. We need a lot of people coming in. We’re going to have jobs like we’ve never had before.”
Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago he plans to make calls to whip support among skeptical Republican lawmakers to back Mike Johnson for another term as speaker of the House of Representatives.
“If necessary, but I think we’re going to have a great time, we’re going to get a successful vote,” he told reporters. “He’s a good man, he’s a wonderful person.”
The House is set to convene and vote for a new speaker on Friday
Trump’s annual black-tie New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago included a performance from his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, with Musk spotted standing alongside the president-elect throughout the night.
Videos show Lara Trump singing “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers while the president-elect, Musk and JD Vance look on from the crowd.
In remarks to supporters at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve, Trump announced his plans to attend the funeral of former president Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 on December 29.
Services are scheduled on January 9 at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
“I’ll be there,” Trump said.
He did not say whether he spoke to members of Carter’s family when pressed by reporters.
In a statement following his death, Trump wrote: “While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for.”
“He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect,” he said.
Trump will be sworn into office in 20 days.
The man tasked with implementing his “day one” agenda for a “mass deportation operation” is previewing what the administration is planning.
Tom Homan is signaling a return to family detentions and breaking up families with U.S. citizen children, who could be forced into “halfway houses,” with U.S. military assistance, and with “no price tag” for a years-long project that will rely on more funding from Congress.
Migrant families will be given impossible choices under Tom Homan’s agenda while Trump invokes wartime law and surges law enforcement across the country, Alex Woodward reports
The U.S. attorney who has overseen the largest investigation in Department of Justice history is stepping down before Donald Trump can fire him.
But Marjorie Taylor Greene says the resignation of Matthew Graves “is not the end for him.”
The top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. has overseen hundreds of cases stemming from the Capitol riots — charges Greene wants thrown out, even for violent offenders who attacked police.
“We are about to take over and we’re going to be in charge, and he should pay for what he’s done to these people,” Greene told right-wing media network Real America’s Voice on Monday.
“Some engaged in violence, some fought with police, but at this point in time, they have served their time and are past that,” she said.
Far-right congresswoman admits rioters ‘engaged in violence’ and fought police but ‘have served their time’
As the nation prepares a second Donald Trump presidency, the battle for 2028 has already begun.
The president-elect, who has jested numerous times about serving a third term, will not be on the ballot in 2028
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