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President-elect held baffling — at times alarming — press event at Mar-a-Lago, wandering from topic to topic and threatening allied nations
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Donald Trump gave a bizarre, rambling press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, bafflingly leaping from one topic to another.
Ostensibly arranged to announce new foreign investment in the US, the president-elect also attacked President Joe Biden over the transition process and refused to rule out using military or economic coercion to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.
Trump further railed against windmills, electric heaters, water pressure and soap, Canada, dishwashers, and the legal cases against him. At one moment he said he wanted to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and then claimed Hezbollah might have been at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Meanwhile, his lawyers are attempting to block the “imminent” release of a final report by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith covering his classified documents and election interference cases. Aileen Cannon, the judge in the former case, has temporarily blocked the release of that final report.
Further, Judge Juan Merchan refused Trump’s latest attempt to delay the sentencing over his hush money conviction — still scheduled for Friday.
This all came just a day after Congress formally recognized the president-elect’s 2024 election win over Kamala Harris.
Here it is…
John Bowden writes:
We’re less than two weeks out from the initial sprint of the second Trump administration — and the incoming president is now seeking to push aside one of his biggest hurdles.
In the clearest sign yet that Donald Trump is serious about pursuing an aggressive legislative agenda in his first year in office, he is taking an active role in managing the future of the House Republican Conference. Where once he was at arm’s length of Republican congressional leadership, Trump has leaned into his role as leader of the GOP and now casts a long shadow over the House and Senate Republican conferences.
Read on…
Analysis: Trump is angling to dismantle the hurdles that sapped his first-term momentum by calling all corners of the GOP to him
President-elect Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. should buy Greenland since his first term in the White House.
The island, with 56,000 inhabitants, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, and both the Danish government and local authorities have repeatedly said that the island is not for sale.
But that hasn’t deterred the president-elect, as Gustaf Kilander reports.
‘We are not for sale and will never be for sale,’ Greenland prime minister says
Rep. Gerry Connolly, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement after a judge temporarily blocked the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on President-elect Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents:
“By blocking the release of the Special Counsel’s report on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents to the American public erodes the integrity of our justice system and unduly shields President-elect Trump from accountability.
“House Republicans complain about a so-called ‘two-tier system of justice,’ but it is not lost upon anyone that the Department of Justice released in full—for all to see—Special Counsel Hur’s report on the classified documents recovered from President Biden. In stark contrast to President-elect Trump, President Biden cooperated completely and unhesitatingly with DOJ. DOJ must release its report on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents by January 20 so that the American people can understand the full extent of the President-elect’s unlawful possession of hundreds of the government’s most sensitive documents. The public’s right to know is paramount.”
With less than two weeks until he’s once again ensconced in the Oval Office, Donald Trump opened his first press conference of 2025 in his usual style — with a laundry list of grievances against his political nemesis Joe Biden.
The former president turned president-elect had ostensibly called a small group of reporters from a hand-picked selection of news outlets to his Mar-a-Lago residence to announce a new $20 billion investment in American data centers by an Emirati billionaire, Hussain Sajwani.
But then, before the assembled press, any sense of focus or discipline went out the window as Trump rambled and weaved his way through topic after topic.
Andrew Feinberg reports on what was said.
Trump suggests he could use force — economic or military — to turn American allies into vassal states
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is falling short of its goal to have 2,000 political appointees on board by Inauguration Day, a new report reveals.
Trump’s team sent out several employment offers to political appointees on Monday in an effort to meet the goal — but they’re still falling short, CBS News reports, citing two sources familiar with the situation.
Katie Hawkinson reports.
Trump will take office in less than two weeks, but his team is still well short of its target of appointing 2,000 new staff
An appeals court judge has rejected Donald Trump’s last-ditch attempt to stop this week’s sentencing hearing in his hush money trial.
The president-elect has desperately fought to return to the White House with a clear record. But after his latest courtroom failures to overturn his conviction and sentence, Trump is set to enter office as the first criminally convicted president in U.S. history.
Moments after a brief hearing with Trump’s attorneys and Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday, a New York state appellate court judge issued a one-page denial of the president-elect’s latest attempt to avoid his imminent court date.
Alex Woodward reports from New York.
New York appeals court rejects president-elect’s latest move to halt his imminent sentencing date
Vice President Kamala Harris plans to close out her term with an around-the-world trip making stops in Singapore, Bahrain and Germany, her office said.
The trip, which is scheduled to last from Jan. 13 to Jan. 17, will be a final opportunity for Harris to address U.S. foreign policy challenges before Donald Trump takes office. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is expected to join the vice president.
Although she has not disclosed her next steps after losing the presidential election, the expansive travel suggests that Harris might want to continue playing a role on the global stage. There’s also speculation that Harris could run for governor of her home state of California.
Dean Lieberman, Harris’ deputy national security adviser, said in a written statement that “the vice president felt it important to spend some of her final days in office thanking and engaging directly with U.S. servicemembers deployed overseas, which as she has said, has been one of her greatest privileges as vice president.”
There are U.S. troops based at all three of Harris’ stops.
Read on for more details…
Vice President Kamala Harris plans to close out her term with an around-the-world trip
President-elect, Donald Trump claimed he plans to change the name of the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America’. During an odd press conference on Tuesday, January 7th, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm beach, Trump said this, along with many other off-base comments. The newly elected United States President backed up his idea by stating “we do most of the work there” and claiming the Gulf is “ours”. Other notable comments from Trump include calling The Panama Canal a “disgrace” and attacking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for announcing his resignation.
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