Trump news live: Top Republican demands to see Matt Gaetz’s ethics investigation report

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wants to review the House Ethics Committee’s report on Rep. Matt Gaetz’s conduct.

The panel was set to vote on the report’s release on Friday, but Gaetz issued his resignation from the House of Representatives on Wednesday after Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate him as the next Attorney General.

This means that the Committee no longer has jurisdiction over Gaetz.

Cornyn says he ‘absolutely’ wants to review the report, according to First Squawk.

Ginger Gaetz posted a picture of her husband, Trump’s attorney general pick, standing the middle of what looks like a Central American prison.

‘Happy Thursday!!’ she cheerfully wrote along with the post on X.

Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday he intends to immediately take up President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to reinstate a policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

The new role will put Paul in charge of a committee with broad jurisdiction over government operations, including the Department of Homeland Security.

Paul has been the committee’s ranking Republican during Democratic control of the Senate.

I chose to chair this committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role

This committee’s mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself.

Our first hearing will examine reinstating the successful `Remain in Mexico´ policy from the first Trump administration.

We will also expeditiously move President Trump´s critical nominees, including Governor Kristi Noem, in time for Inauguration Day.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Donald Trump is rounding out his White House and Cabinet – and the team is turning out to be ones of the youngest in recent history.

Both Vice President-elect Sen. J.D. Vance and Rep. Elise Stefanik, who will be the Ambassador to the UN, are 40-years-old.

Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress on Wednesday after Trump announced him as the Attorney General pick, is 42.

And Trump will bring on Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, 43, as his Director of National Intelligence.

Incoming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is 44.

Conservatives slammed MSNBC after host Rev. Al Sharpton accepted $500,000 from Kamala Harris’ campaign weeks before a gushing interview.

Sharpton’s sit down with the vice president last month drew scrutiny for his softball questioning, with the conservative Washington Free Beacon releasing campaign finance records claiming his non-profit was paid handsomely before the gig.

Billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter Bill Ackman led the charge, telling Megyn Kelly on her show this week the payments were an attempt ‘to manipulate the audience.’

Another critic questioned on X: ‘Aren’t political campaigns supposed to GET donations?’

Harris’ campaign allegedly gave two $250,000 payments to Sharpton’s National Action Network on September 5 and October 1.

And on October 20, Sharpton’s went on to praise Harris’ ‘extraordinary historic campaign’ in a gushing interview, and branded Donald Trump ‘hostile and erratic.’

MSNBC has stayed silent over the payment, despite suspending Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in 2010 for making $4,000 in campaign donations.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest reiterated he has no intention of releasing his panels’ report regarding its investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz.

‘What happens in Ethics is confidential. We’re going to maintain that confidentiality,’ the Mississippi Republican told reporters Thursday morning.

‘I’ve given my statement yesterday and there’s nothing new that has changed from then until now.’

After Gaetz’s abrupt resignation Wednesday, the panel no longer has jurisdiction over the former congressman.

The Florida Republican ended his tenure just hours after Trump announced him as his Attorney General pick.

Ahead of Gaetz’s resigation on Wednesday, Guest said: ‘Once the investigation is complete, the Ethics Committee will meet as a committee. We will then return our findings. If Matt Gaetz is still a member of Congress, then that will occur. If Matt has resigned, then this ethics investigation, like many others in the past, will end again.’

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor for DailyMail.com in Lima, Peru

There is tight security around Lima as President Biden heads to Peru for the APEC summit.

Biden is just one of 21 leaders attending the economic gathering, where he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. Peruvian authorities have put 15,000 police and soldiers on the streets, amid street protests over public safety.

An apparent suicide bomb attack near the Supreme Court of Brasilia – days before Biden is set to visit Rio following his Peru trip to join the G20 summit – is adding to the security scenario.

Students have been kept home for ‘remote’ classes, frustrating parents, and people have been asked to telework to free up some of the Peruvian capital’s notorious traffic. Protesters who have been raising concerns about public safety and gang shakedowns have clashed with police in riot gear outside the summit. Armored police vehicles have been establishing a presence in some of the city’s most visited neighborhoods, and law enforcement and security guards are taking conspicuous positions outside hotels hosting visiting delegations.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Rep. Matt Gaetz’s resignation letter was read out loud on Thursday by the House clerk.

With the Florida congressman stepping down, the split of the House of Representatives stands at 220 Republicans, 213 Democrats and two vacancies.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has eight weeks to appoint Gaetz’s replacement.

Gaetz resigned just hours after Donald Trump said he would nominate him to be Attorney General. It also means the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction over the former lawmaker as they planned to vote on releasing their report on him this Friday.

Donald Trump could be set to launch one of the biggest crackdowns on unhealthy eating in American history.

Despite being the biggest fast food lover to ever be elected president, a doctor tipped to play a key advisory role in the incoming administration claims that won’t stop him attempting to change US diets for the better.

Dr Aseem Malhotra is a British cardiologist who has appeared on podcasts with Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson and has close ties to Robert F Kennedy Junior.

He was a lifelong advocate for vaccines but was cast out by the medical establishment in the UK during Covid for promoting the disputed claim that mRNA shots were killing scores of young people.

Like RFK Jr, who has been promised a ‘big role’ in government by Trump, Dr Malhotra believes the US’ spiraling epidemic of chronic disease can be partly traced to the over-consumption of ultra-processed foods.

He is in talks about a role advising the White House on combating heart disease, which is the biggest killer in the US and is fueled by bad diets and obesity.

In a DailyMail.com interview where he laid out what health policy could look like if he joins team Trump, Dr Malhotra said he would push to treat processed junk food ‘like the new tobacco.’

He wants to ban burgers, pizzas and other high calorie food from schools and hospitals and impose a ‘fat tax’ on the unhealthiest snacks, such as candy and ice cream.

Donald Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump says she would ‘love’ to serve in the Senate after her name got floated for the powerful appointment to succeed Marco Rubio, who is Trump’s choice to be the next secretary of state.

‘This is my home state now and has been for three years,’ she told Fox News host Sean Hannity, a friend and advisor to the president-elect, during an appearance on his prime time show.

Donald Trump made his daughter-in-law co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and she crowed about the GOP’s performance during a cycle when the party captured the White House and the Senate, while holding a narrow House majority.

He gave regular shout-outs to his daughter-in-law on the campaign trail, noting in battleground North Carolina that his granddaughter Carolina is named after Lara’s home state.

CNN Republican panelist Scott Jennings had some fun mocking his colleagues after President Joe Biden welcomed Donald Trump to the White House, even after Democrats condemned him as a ‘fascist’ and ‘literally Hitler’ during the campaign.

Find out what he said that triggered his fellow panelists below.

Get caught having an affair with an intern and using the White House for your illicit liaisons and it turns out that it will follow you around for the rest of your life.

In his new memoir, former President Bill Clinton sets out his frustration at being questioned about the relationship years later and admits he never apologized directly to Monica Lewinsky .

Clinton, now 78, was impeached by the House of Representatives when it emerged in 1998 that he had lied about a sexual relationship with the then 22-year-old.

In ‘Citizen,’ published next week, he writes about a 2018 interview on NBC’s ‘Today Show’ when he admits he was ‘caught off guard’ by questions on the subject.

According to The Guardian , which obtained a copy, he was expecting to talk about a new novel he had co-authored with thriller writer James Patterson.

But host Craig Melvin brought up the #MeToo movement and asked whether the affair would be a resigning issue now.

President-elect Donald Trump’s deputy communications chief Margo Martin hinted Thursday that she would return to the White House to serve on the communciations team in the West Wing.

Martin posted on X.com a text from someone at the White House communications office asking her if she had left a high-heeled shoe behind, presumably shortly after Trump left the White House in January 2021.

In response, Martin texted that she would be back with Trump at the White House in four years to pick up the lost shoe.

‘This text exchange aged well,’ she wrote today on X.com.

. ‘Always knew I’d be returning for that heel.’

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent in Lima, Peru

President Joe Biden departed Washington, D.C. Thursday for two global summits in South America – as the 81-year-old begins to exit the world stage.

His granddaughter Natalie was in tow. She’s the only daughter of the late Beau Biden. Additionally, former Sen. Chris Dodd joined the president for the trip.

The president will first travel to Lima, Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Biden’s meeting with Ishiba will also include Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, as the Democratic president has tried to strengthen the ties between Japan and South Korea to counterweight a rising China.

Biden will then head to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the G20.

The president will head to these meetings in a diminished capacity – as world leaders look ahead to President-elect Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration.

Ishiba reportedly wants to meet with Trump before he heads back to Japan, following in the footsteps of the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who held an ‘unofficial’ meeting with Trump just days after the 2016 election at Trump Tower in New York.

And on a press call Wednesday previewing Biden’s meeting with Xi, senior administration officials were peppered with question after question on how Biden would address Trump’s election – questions that they wished not to answer.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman summed up Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations this week as ‘God-tier level trolling’ as a series of announcements from the president-elect continue to spark shock and even outrage.

Trump announced MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz as his nominee for Attorney General and conservative Fox News TV personality Pete Hegseth his nominee for Defense Secretary.

He also named former Congresswoman and Tulsi Gabbard, accused of spreading Russian disinformation, his pick for Director of National Intelligence.

‘I would describe it as God-tier level trolling to just trigger a full-on China syndrome to own the libs in perpetuity,’ Fetterman said.

Matt Gaetz nemesis former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came forward to pour more cold water on his rival’s controversial nomination to be attorney general.

‘I think the choices are very good, except one. Look, Gaetz won’t get confirmed, everybody knows that,’ he told Bloomberg television a day after Donald Trump announced the pick.

Then he put forward the theory that the explosive nomination was a gambit to run interference for other Trump cabinet picks. He called it a ‘good deflection from others’

‘You can talk to [the] president, but it’s a good deflection from others, but it also gives … I’ll let it stand with that,’ he said.

After he was ousted as speaker, McCarthy said it was ‘because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it.’

As Donald Trump shapes his administration, there are still a handful of spots left on his cabinet.

One is to head the department of Health and Human Services.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been touted for a health role in the Trump administration under the president-elect’s slogan of ‘Make of America Healthy Again’.

Yet it is unclear where he will land.

One favorite to take the spot is Ben Carson, as DailyMail.com reported earlier this week.

Joy Reid has announced she’s leaving X as a wave of Kamala Harris supporters protest Elon Musk’s support for Donald Trump.

The ReidOut star took to TikTok to announce that she was turning her back on the Musk-owned social media platform – despite garnering almost 2million followers.

She proudly showed off stills of the account deactivation process – joining personalities like Don Lemon and Lizzo in doing so.

The latter posted to Instagram to reveal she was heading to Bluesky – a new social media site started by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey.

In contrast to Musk’s X, it was ‘designed to not be controlled by a single company’, organizers said when it was founded back in February.

Also swearing off X are publications like The Guardian, which launched a boycott this week due to ‘disturbing content’ on the platform.

The far-left paper cited instances of ‘far-right conspiracy theories and racism’ – as did Reid late Wednesday.

As for a reason, she offered a lengthy explanation – dramatically declaring how, at the end of the day, ‘it was just not worth it.’

Geraldo Rivera branded Matt Gaetz ‘rotten’ and ‘creepy’ as he unleashed on Donald Trump’s attorney general pick.

Even Republican lawmakers were shocked by the selection, setting up an early loyalty test as the new GOP-controlled Senate plans confirmation hearings.

Gaetz, 42, is under an ethics investigation over claims of sexual misconduct, bribery and drug use – which he denies – and was also the focus of a sex trafficking probe involving a 17-year-old girl.

Former Fox News host host Rivera didn’t hold back in his initial reaction to Trump’s announcement, alongside a dozen other proposed appointments.

‘Matt Gaetz is a douche. So bad for Attorney General. Gross,’ he wrote on Twitter.

‘In May 2021 this guy was under investigation for sex trafficking a 17-year-old. The DOJ decided not to charge him reportedly because the minor was almost 18.

‘He also allegedly asked President Trump for a prospective pardon re: January 6th.’

Liberal economist Larry Summers warned that inflation is still not fixed and that a Trump administration could make things even worse.

Summers, who was Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and also advised Barack Obama after 2008 financial crisis, was correct in his 2021 prediction that not getting ‘Bidenflation’ under control would bring back Donald Trump.

In a talk at the New York Economic Club, Summers says the Jerome Powell-led Federal reserve is still not taking it seriously enough.

‘My own judgement is that the Fed and markets ae still underestimating the overheating risk,’ Summers said.

He then predicted a potential disaster for a decision Powell has already made: ‘I ask myself: Why is cutting rates a priority into that environment?’

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

One of Trump’s biggest 2024 campaign promises was to right the economy and help reduce inflation and costs for everyday Americans.

On Fox & Friends Thursday morning, the CEO and founder of Key Square Capital Management said:

Everyone asks me, what do you tell President Trump he should do? I don’t have to tell Donald Trump he should do anything. He’s done it. We had a great economy under Trump 1.0.

I think under Donald Trump, we could have a golden age for the next four years.

Billionaire investor John Paulson announced Tuesday he was withdrawing his name from consideration to become Trump’s Treasury secretary nomination.

That put the focus squarely on Bessent as well as Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick.

Donald Trump’s second term as president is being shaped by the loyal allies who have stood by him during his four years outside of the White House.

As the clock ticks down to his inauguration on January 20, all eyes will be on Mar-a-Lago as Republicans jostle for a cabinet spot or a senior role in the West Wing.

And those are filling fast. In the past few days, a slew of potential appointees have emerged for top Cabinet or West Wing roles and a handful of contenders for other vital positions have emerged.

On Tuesday night there was a flurry of picks, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as co-heads of the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, and John Ratcliffe as Director of the CIA.

But the president-elect sent shockwaves through the Republican Party on Wednesday night with his announcement that he’ll nominate now former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General in a bold test of his unchecked power.

Trump announced his decision just minutes after issuing a statement saying he will nominate former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, who infuriated critics with claims about ‘biolabs’ in Ukraine, to be Director of National Intelligence.

He has also chosen military veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to run the sprawling Defense Department, despite little experience managing anything on tat scale and complexity.

DailyMail.com breaks down who the president-elect has picked so far – and who is almost certain to take a spot.

Jon Michael Raasch, Political Reporter for DailyMail.com on Capitol Hill

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota will be steering the Senate GOP come January, but he differs from Donald Trump on a major policy.

The president-elect has said he wants the Republican-led Senate to green-light ‘recess appointments’ – the power to have his Cabinet officials circumvent the normal Senate confirmation process.

Recess appointments would mean nominees would not need to be put through potentially damaging hearings.

But Thune, who has served in the Senate since 2005, said Wednesday that he wants it to operate normally.

‘Well, what we’re going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees in a way that gets them into those positions so we can implement this agenda. How that happens remains to be seen.’

‘Obviously, we want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do and that these nominees reported off the floor.’

Those confirmation hearings would only require a simple majority vote – 51 – to shuffle through Trump’s nominees. Republicans will have 53 votes to work.

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent

Nikki Haley said on her SiriusXM show that she had no interest in joining President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet a second time around.

His best friend, Steve Witkoff, came to our house in South Carolina … He was like, “What do you want? Tell me what you want. Is there anything you want?” I said, “There’s nothing I want.”

On Saturday Trump posted to Truth Social that he would ‘not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation.’

The former South Carolina governor served as his ambassador to the United Nations, while Pompeo started out as Trump’s CIA director before being elevated to secretary of State.

Haley then ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican primary – and was the last formidible candidate to leave the race.

She and Trump have had an uneasy relationship since.

Haley endorsed Trump – much to the chagrin of her anti-MAGA supporters – but ended up not campaigning for him in the weeks leading up to the election, hitting the trail for Pennsylvania Republican Senate hopeful Dave McCormick instead.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Fox News host and decorated Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary setting off a firestorm inside the Pentagon.

The heavily tattooed 44-year-old deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and won two Bronze Stars, then unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Minnesota in 2012 before joining Fox News.

‘Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,’ Trump said in a statement.

But the surprising top cabinet-post appointment came as a shock to Pentagon career employees who weren’t anticipating a non-establishment pick to lead the nation’s largest federal agency with a $800 billion budget.

One defense official told DailyMail.com that it was ‘like a morgue’ inside the Pentagon after Trump’s announcement came out.

They said the career staff were ‘apoplectic’ after hearing Hegseth would be taking over.

‘The libs seemed so depressed,’ they went on in a message obtained by DailyMail.com.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Senator-elect Dave McCormick’s campaign claims there is no mathematical way that Sen. Bob Casey can overturn his eletion loss in Pennsylvania.

A recount was triggered in the state after McCormick beat the incumbent senator by roughly 26,500 votes.

But on a call with reporters, the campaign’s chief strategist and legal counsel said ‘even if everything goes their way, there is still no chance’ that Casey overturns his loss.

‘Even if they won on every, and up-ended everything we know about Pennsylvania elections – even if they did all of those things… we would still be leading heading by a real and significant and non-overturnable margin, going into the recounts,’ they said on the press call Thursday morning.

Senator-elect McCormick arrives at the U.s. Capitol on November 13, 2024 to participate in elections for the next Senate Majority Leader

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Sen. John Fetterman claims that Donald Trump picking Rep. Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General is ‘God-tier kind of trolling.’

Criticsm immediately emerged on Wednesday after the president-elect announced his intent to have the controversial lawmaker lead the Department of Justice.

Fetterman noted that Republicans will even oppose Gaetz’s nomination.

Speaking with reporters, the Pennsylvania Seantor said:

It’s just kind of like a God-tier kind of trolling just to trigger a meltdown. But, really, the Dems’ opinions on Gaetz, that’s not really what’s interesting. The good ones are going to come by my colleagues on the other side, the GOP, on how they can justify voting for that jerk off.

Donald Trump’s left-field Secretary of Defense pick Pete Hegseth is covered in tattoos – and many of them have already proved controversial for the Fox News host.

The veteran who served tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq and is double Bronze Star holder and is a TV top presenter having fronted Fox and Friends since 2017.

Hegseth, who is 44, started adorning his body with tattoos only recently after his father dissuaded him from getting tattoos at a young age.

He now has over a dozen tattoos across his right arm and chest.

His appointment is one of the most unlikely in Trump’s new cabinet but this isn’t the first time he has courted controversy.

In 2021 Hegseth was part of the Minnesota National Guard called to D.C. to guard Joe Biden during his inauguration but he was then ordered to stand down allegedly due to his chest tattoo of a Jerusalem Cross.

Top Republican Michael McCaul was detained at the airport for ‘mixing Ambien with alcohol.’

The shocking event occurred two weekends ago at Dulles International Airport, according to the lawmaker who chairs the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.

‘Two weekends ago, I made a mistake — one for which I take full responsibility,’ McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement confirming the incident to DailyMail.com.

‘I missed a flight to Texas and found myself disoriented in the airport. This was the result of a poor decision I made to mix an Ambien — which I took in order to sleep on the upcoming flight — with some alcohol. Law enforcement officers briefly detained me while I waited for a family member to pick me up.’

A spokesperson said that McCaul takes the medication because he’s a ‘nervous flyer.’

A recent video of California Governor Gavin Newsom being heckled while visiting Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles is making its rounds on the internet.

Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass held a press conference on October 30 at the Downtown Women’s Center to discuss funding for homelessness in LA communities.

After the event ended, Newsom took a walk around Skid Row, an area notorious for their overwhelming homeless encampments, where the Democrat was mercilessly questioned and criticized by a group called the Los Angeles Community Action Network.

‘You see how dirty these streets are? These streets ain’t been clean, the city didn’t bring one trash can,’ a heckler off camera yelled at the governor, per the video.

The heckler directly behind the camera called Newsom out for ignoring a woman he had passed, who was talking about how her kids were taken away from her while she was stuck living in a tent.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk looked more like Simon and Garfunkel at Mar-a-Lago during a rendition of God Bless America – but fans spotted one minor problem.

The duo returned to a hero’s welcome at the ‘Winter White House’ Wednesday night after Trump had a friendly chat with the Bidens in D.C. and joked he can’t get rid of his billionaire ‘first buddy.’

Conservatives were thrilled to see them alongside opera singer Chris Macchio for a rendition of the American classic.

‘STOP I physically can’t love President Trump any more than I already do or I will die,’ one account posted along with a crying emoji.

But as Musk awkwardly flailed his arms during the performance, a few fans spotted one crucial flaw: ‘Elon doesn’t know the words’.

The billionaire first buddy appeared more than happy to mime the lyrics as they concluded the classic to rave reviews on the Musk-owned social media network X.

President-elect Donald Trump returned to the White House on Wednesday for a surprisingly cordial fireside chat with President Joe Biden that sparked a wild theory.

‘Welcome. Welcome back,’ Biden said to Trump, referring to him as the ‘president-elect’ and ‘former president,’ and promising to work with his bitter political rival for a smooth transition of power.

The two leaders met in the Oval Office, shaking hands and adopting a very different tone than each showed on the campaign trial.

Biden’s broad grin had everyone saying the same thing on social media – that he ‘voted for Trump.’

‘Joe Biden shares the same smile that most of AMERICA has right now,’ wrote combat veteran and former Republican candidate for Congress Sean Parnell on X.

‘Everyone is psyched for Trump to be back in the White House,’ he went on.

Other users started to float a far-fetched idea that Biden’s apparent happy mood was evidence that he actually secretly voted for his political nemesis.

Rep. Matt Gaetz stepped down from his position in the U.S. House of Representatives just hours after Donald Trump picked him as Attorney General.

The dramatic move by Gaetz came as Punchbowl News revealed the impending release of a ‘highly damaging’ report concerning sex trafficking and drug use allegations against the Florida rep.

Now that Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress, the House Ethics Committee loses jurisdiction over him, although the report may still be released.

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s DOJ also conducted an investigation into the Florida Republican over claims of sex trafficking, but he was never charged.

Gaetz’s decision came as even Republicans questioned whether the controversial pick to head the Justice Department could clear the Senate.

Cue the Democrat-media complex freakouts!

Leftist tears have been flowing mightily ever since Trump shocked the world by winning every single swing state in last Tuesday’s electoral rout.

But those tears turned into waterfalls after Trump tapped Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to clean out the Augean stables at the bloated, woke-addled Pentagon.

‘When I saw [news of Hegseth’s nomination], I thought the AP must have been hacked,’ wailed former failed CNN host Don Lemon. ‘But Pete Hegseth? The morning, weekend host on Fox News? Come on.’

Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman said: ‘Being a serviceman does not make you qualified to lead the Department of Defense and to have access to our nuclear weapons.’

So says the man whose greatest credential is that he’s an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune… and a TV pundit.

Well, since you raised it, Congressman, let’s talk about those qualifications—shall we?

Jake Tapper was absolutely dumbfounded beginning his show Wednesday after Donald Trump nominated Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General.

Trump named the controversial Florida Congressman as his nominee in a move that is bound to outrage Democrats and even shock many Republicans in Washington.

Perhaps expressing that outrage, Tapper began his show in utter awe of the nomination.

‘Welcome to The Lead, I’m Jake Tapper. And let me begin the show by uttering some words that I never contemplated using together before. And those words are: U.S. Attorney General Matt Gaetz,’ he said.

He then said what he felt was the danger of Trump giving Gaetz such a position, which requires Senate confirmation.

A senior Republican Senator said he plans to treat Matt Gaetz’s Attorney General nomination process like any other member of Donald Trump’s cabinet.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) was named vice chair of the Senate GOP Policy committee on Wednesday in the election that saw Sen. John Thune named majority leader.

He vowed on Fox News on Thursday to fast-track Trump’s picks when Congress returns on January 3.

I would say we are going to do the Matt Gaetz confirmation like all the rest. President Trump put a bunch of nominations out there.

We got to get on those quickly. When the new Congress is sworn in on January 3. Even before Trump is actually inaugurated and sworn in.

We will actually get busy on those starting on January the 3rd.

We will be able to do the final votes on it and get busy, especially on the to be cabinet picks.

Lankford also said that Trump wil be engaged in the entire process, more than President Joe Biden has been involved with Congress.

President trump was always engaged with members of congress on the phone, calling, coming over, getting a chance to be able to talk back and forth. Coming to the capitol.

A lot of action to be able to move legislation.

Joe Biden has not left the building. He has never called most members of congress and is not engaged.

Even his legislative team doesn’t engage. President trump is a hands on leader. I fully expect him to be able to be engaged.

Donald Trump’s pick for Attorney General Matt Gaetz has suggested he might ‘abolish’ the FBI and other government agencies.

Gaetz, the former Florida congressman, wrote on social media:

We ought to have a full-court press against this WEAPONIZED government that has been turned against our people. And if that means abolishing every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I’m ready to get going!

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Alina Habba has ruled herself out of being Donald Trump ‘s announcement despite speculation she was the front-runner.

The firebrand attorney was thought to be a top contender for one of the most high-profile jobs in the administration.

But on Thursday morning, she announced that she withdrew her name from consideration.

‘While I am flattered by the support and speculation, the role of Press Secretary is not a role I am considering,’ Habba wrote on X. ‘Although I love screaming from a podium I will be better served in other capacities.’