Trump and Vance are still backing embattled Hegseth: Live

The think tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to President-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to back Trump’s imperiled selection for secretary of defense in its latest attempt to wield influence in the incoming Republican administration.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Thursday that his group will spend $1 million to pressure senators unwilling to back Pete Hegseth, whose nomination to lead the Pentagon has come into question due to his views on women serving in combat and reports about his personal behavior. A number of Republican senators have declined to commit to backing Hegseth or have asked for more information about his drinking and treatment of women.

“It’ll be messaging right now with their constituents about how out of step they are with the Trump agenda,” Roberts said in an interview, who argued that criticism of Hegseth was being driven by “the establishment.”

The GOP senator told CNN on Thursday that, in his opinion, it is up to Democrats to vet nominations, and that members of his own party should be inclined to automatically confirm them.

“Who’s to say we’re a better vetter and picker of people than Donald Trump?” Tuberville told CNN on Thursday.

Manning, 37, was among a group of trans demonstrators who staged a sit-in inside the women’s lavatory opposite House speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Thursday, according to The 19th.

The protest called on Democrats to fight back against Johnson’s new bathroom rule, which requires trans people in the Capitol building to use only the facilities corresponding to their birth sex.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

CBS has filed a supplemental argument asking why Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the network over the Kamala Harris 60 Minutes episode was filed in Texas.

In another filing, they argue that Trump’s attempt to claim CBS violated the state’s consumer protection laws is an attempt to “police editorial decisions made by news organizations with which one disagrees.”

“Under President Trump’s interpretation, the [law] would become a weapon for any candidate to challenge media coverage they did not like,” attorneys wrote.

Trump’s allegations that the 60 Minutes segment was deceptively edited and cost his campaign “to the tune of several billion dollars is not only far too speculative and inherently improbable to warrant standing, it is also irrelevant.”

He brought the lawsuit “in his individual capacity, not on behalf of his campaign,” attorneys note.

And even if he didn’t, his claims are moot, they said: He won the election.

Here’s more from Alex Woodward on the lawsuit filed by then-candidate Trump against the network:

Less than a week after President Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon for his only surviving son — despite denying for months that he would do so — the White House appears to be leaving him room to maneuver on another, similar issue. The question of whether Biden might grant unprecedented preemptive pardons to a range of public figures who might find themselves in the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s second administration remains unanswered.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday repeatedly refused to say whether Biden is even considering such a test of the president’s pardon power, which could theoretically be invoked to prevent the next administration from investigating or bringing charges against people known to be antagonists of the incoming president.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.

Eric Garcia reports from Palm Beach, Florida:

On the Southern Boulevard bridge next to President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, there is a parked car festooned with Trump flags. Jestin Nevarez — who blasts out a rap version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” titled “Trump Saved the USA” on repeat — is the owner.

“I come out here and show support,” he told The Independent. “And right now, Mar-a-Lago is a tourist attraction. So when people drive by, they see the flags, they hear the music, they stop in and they have a good time.”

People do indeed stop to take photos of Nevarez’s car and snap photos of the once and future president’s estate.

Palm Beach has changed in the years since Trump first became president.

Before interviewing Vermont senator Bernie Sanders on his latest Weekly Show podcast episode, the Comedy Central comedian, 62, opened the hour acknowledging that America is currently in a “transitional period where we are not sure about whether the ground we are standing on is solid.”

Inga Parkel has the story.

Pardons are usually issued to those who have been accused of a specific crime and those who have already been convicted. But Biden’s White House is looking at is the possibility of issuing pardons to people who haven’t been investigated or charged with anything.

Gustaf Kilander explains.