Outcry over stalemate on Gaetz report; Trump reportedly considering Martin Makary for FDA – US politics live
NEWS | 21 November 2024
From 3h ago 16.33 EST Democrat accuses ethics committee chair of 'betraying process' Susan Wild, the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee, accused the committee’s chair, Michael Guest, of “betraying the process” and mischaracterizing the meeting. She said that the committee voted on whether to release the report but were in deadlock along party lines. “In order to affirmatively move something forward, somebody has to cross party lines and vote with the other side,” Wild told reporters, noting that there were five Democrats and five Republicans on the committee. She said that the committee will reconvene on 5 December to discuss. Share Updated at 16.46 EST 9m ago 19.51 EST The US senate has blocked a measure to stop the sale of mortar rounds to Israel, Reuters reports. Share 14m ago 19.45 EST Seventy-nine of the 100 senators have now opposed a resolution that would have blocked sales of tank rounds to Israel, while 18 approved it and one voted present. The Senate is due to vote later today on two other resolutions that would stop shipments of two other types of offensive military equipment. All of the votes in favour of the measure came from Democrats, while “no” votes came from both Democrats and Republicans. Approval would have been a marked departure from decades of US congressional support for Israel, which for years was the biggest recipient of US military assistance. The “resolutions of disapproval” were filed by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and co-sponsored by a handful of Democrats. Backers hope that forcing a vote would encourage Israel’s government and President Joe Biden’s administration to do more to prevent Israel from killing more civilians, and particularly children. Israeli forces have killed 17,400 children in Gaza in just over a year. Share 32m ago 19.27 EST More detail now on the measure on tank rounds. US Senate has blocked legislation that would have halted the sale of some weapons to Israel, which had been introduced out of concern about the human rights catastrophe, and extremely high number of civilians and children Israeli forces have killed in the Palestinian territories. As voting continued, 59 of the 100 senators opposed a resolution that would have blocked sales of tank rounds to Israel, while 15 supported it. Share 1h ago 19.01 EST Senate blocks measure to halt sales of tank rounds to Israel The senate has blocked a measure that would have halted the sales of tank rounds to Israel, Reuters reports. Voting continues on the other measures. The resolutions being voted on are to block the sale of 120mm mortar rounds, joint direct attack munitions (JDAMS), and tank rounds. They must pass both the Senate and the House of Representatives with a simple majority. If they pass, they go to the president. Share Updated at 19.01 EST 1h ago 18.51 EST Trump likely to choose Johns Hopkins surgeon Martin Makary to lead FDA - report Trump will probably choose Johns Hopkins surgeon and writer Martin Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. Makary raised concerns about a number of public health issues during the Covid-19 pandemic, touting the protection from natural immunity and opposing Covid vaccine mandates. The FDA is the world’s most influential drug regulator with a more than $7 billion budget. It is responsible for approving new treatments and assuring they are safe and effective before entering the biggest and most lucrative market. It has regulatory authority over human and veterinary drugs, biological medicines, medical devices and vaccines. The agency is also responsible for maintaining safety standards for the food supply, tobacco, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team, said he would not speculate on or get ahead of any announcement. As FDA commissioner, Makary would report to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. To lead HHS, Trump has nominated Robert F Kennedy Junior, an environmental activist who has spread misinformation about the safety of vaccines and one of several unconventional Trump picks for top administration jobs. As a doctor, Makary was a co-developer of the Surgery Checklist, a routine for surgeons that improved patient outcomes and has been spread around the globe by the World Health Organization. Share Updated at 19.19 EST 1h ago 18.43 EST North Carolina Republican legislators gave final approval Wednesday to a series of political power moves that would weaken the incoming governor and other Democratic elected officials in the ninth-largest state, the Associated Press reports. They’re contained in a massive bill sprinkled with a new round of Hurricane Helene relief provisions and rushed through a lame-duck General Assembly session. The Senate voted along party lines for the 131-page measure, which would alter yet again how the State Board of Elections is appointed, likely leading to a GOP majority on a panel now controlled by Democrats. It also would move up in 2025 several post-election deadlines after Republican complaints that counties took too long this month to count provisional and absentee ballots, especially in light of an extremely close Supreme Court race. The House approved the same measure Tuesday night, so the bill goes next to the desk of outgoing Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who has blasted the effort as “massive power grabs.” Other Democrats called provisions unconstitutional. Any veto override attempt would happen early next month. The measure was approved less than 24 hours after it was made broadly public in the final weeks before Republicans’ veto-proof majority ends, after electoral defeats in the House this month. Share 1h ago 18.35 EST Federal investigators 'established trail of payments from Gaetz to women who testified he paid them for sex' – report The New York Times reports that, "Federal investigators established a trail of payments from Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to be attorney general, to women including some who testified that Mr. Gaetz hired them for sex”. The story cites a document obtained by the New York Times and a lawyer who represents some of the women. The story continues: Federal investigators established a trail of payments from Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to be attorney general, to women including some who testified that Mr. Gaetz hired them for sex, according to a document obtained by The New York Times and a lawyer representing some of the women. The document, assembled by investigators during a three-year sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz, is a chart that shows a web of thousands of dollars in Venmo payments between Mr. Gaetz and a group of his friends, associates and women who had drug-fueled sex parties between 2017 and 2020, according to testimony that participants are said to have given to federal and congressional investigators. At the parties, women, and a girl who was 17 at the time, were paid for sex, according to accounts of the participants’ testimony from people briefed on what they said. Share 2h ago 18.17 EST Sanders addresses Senate ahead of vote to prevent further arms sales to Israel Bernie Sanders is addressing the Senate now. “I will tell you that our role [in the world] is significantly diminished if we continue to support Netanyahu,” he says. It will diminish the US’s ability to critique other countries for their human rights records. The war on Gaza is supported by American taxpayer dollars, as is the mass starvation of children, Sanders days. He is speaking ahead of a vote on the joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs), introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders in September, would prevent the Pentagon from sending another $20bn to Israel as it continues its assault on Gaza – which has killed at least 43,000 people, most of them women and children. Share Updated at 18.20 EST 2h ago 18.15 EST Trump could change his mind on the selection of Vought, Reuters reports, and there were other candidates for the role as recently as earlier this week, according to one of the sources. The Trump transition team and Vought did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump repeatedly denied when campaigning for president that he had any links to Project 2025, although many of its authors were former officials from his first administration, including Vought. At OMB, Vought will work with X CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to carry out Trump’s campaign pledge to slash government spending and regulations. Musk and Ramaswamy have been tapped by Trump to co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity Trump has indicated will operate outside the confines of government. Share 2h ago 18.12 EST President-elect Donald Trump is planning to tap conservative loyalist Russell Vought to be the director of the US Office of Management and Budget, according to two sources close to his transition effort who spoke to Reuters, putting him at the helm of a powerful agency that helps decide a president’s policy priorities and how to pay for them. Vought was OMB chief in Trump’s first term and would play a key role in rolling back government regulations and setting budget priorities. In this position, he would be in a position to implement a policy known as Schedule F, which would in practice strip thousands of federal employees of some key civil service protections. Vought helped produce a blueprint called Project 2025 by a coalition of conservative groups for a second Trump White House term. One of its proposals is to dramatically restructure the government so that appointed conservatives have power over key decisions typically relegated to civil servants. Share 2h ago 17.49 EST Today so far Members of the House ethics committee were appeared to be deadlocked whether to release a report on their investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz. The former Florida congressman, shepherded by vice president-elect JD Vance, held meetings with key Senate allies involved in the Cabinet confirmation process at the Capitol on Wednesday, as Senate Democrats officially requested the files from the FBI’s probe into whether Gaetz engaged in child sex trafficking. Meanwhile, the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson announced that transgender women are not permitted to use women’s bathrooms in the Capitol building, weeks after the election of the first transgender member of Congress, Sarah McBride. She responded: “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families.” Also: Trump announced he has chosen the former acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, as his nominee to serve as US ambassador to Nato. Trump is also expected to name his pick for treasury secretary as soon as today. Trump’s lawyers asked the judge overseeing his Manhattan hush-money criminal case for permission to make yet another play for dismissal. Defense secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the Biden administration will allow Ukraine to use US-supplied antipersonnel landmines to help fight off Russian forces. Austin said women in the US military “make us stronger” as Trump’s pick for his successor, Pete Hegseth , faces scrutiny for previous remarks suggesting banning women from combat roles. Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy laid out their plans for the new Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. They pointed to recent Supreme Court rulings that they say can be used to take power away from federal agencies. A vote to block arms sales to Israel will be held on Wednesday in the Senate. The joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs), introduced by the senator Bernie Sanders would prevent the Pentagon from sending another $20bn to Israel as it continues its assault on Gaza. The state of Texas offered thousands of acres of land to Trump “to construct deportation facilities” and aid in his plans to begin a mass deportation of migrants as soon as he takes office. More than 60 members of Congress have written to Biden calling on him to use his presidential clemency powers to reunite families, address unfair sentencing policies, and begin to tackle the scourge of mass incarceration, which they said was eroding “the soul of America”. Share 2h ago 17.49 EST Sam Levine Rudy Giuliani should be held in civil contempt for continuing to lie about two election workers to whom he already owes $148m for defaming, lawyers for the two women wrote in a court filing Wednesday. The request comes months after Giuliani agreed in court to never again accuse Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss of election fraud. Despite that agreement earlier this year, Giuliani continued to spread lies about them on his live-streamed show. “You would think that they wouldn’t be allowed to take all my property until the thing was affirmed on appeal and I got a chance to show them that they never let me show the tapes that show them quadruple counting the … ballots,” he said during one episode on 12 November. “Then … another one is, uh, they’re passing these little, little hard drives that we maintain were used to fix the machines, right, and they say it was candy. Well, you look at it … looks like a hard drive to me, and they told me it was a hard drive and there’s no proof that it was candy.” Georgia election workers ask judge to hold Rudy Giuliani in contempt Read more Share 3h ago 17.25 EST Joe Biden awards Medal of Freedom to Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, in a private ceremony. The White House shared the commendation with the press: With absolute courage and conviction, Cecile Richards fearlessly leads us forward to be the America we say we are – a Nation of freedom. Carrying her parents’ torch for justice, she’s led some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes – to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote. A leader of utmost character, she has carved an inspiring legacy that endures in her incredible family, the countless lives she has made better, and a Nation seeking the light of equality, justice, and freedom. Share Updated at 17.39 EST 3h ago 16.54 EST Biden urged to use clemency powers to tackle ‘crisis’ of US mass incarceration Ed Pilkington More than 60 members of Congress have written to Joe Biden calling on him to use his presidential clemency powers to reunite families, address unfair sentencing policies, and begin to tackle the scourge of mass incarceration, which they said was eroding “the soul of America”. Biden has 61 days before he leaves the White House in which he could pardon or commute the sentences of incarcerated Americans. The letter, signed by a number of prominent Democratic politicians and spearheaded by the progressive politician Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, urges Biden to act while he still can. “Now is the time to use your clemency authority to rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges,” the letter demands. Biden’s clemency power is one of the most concrete tools at his disposal during the lame-duck period of his presidency. During his term in the White House, he has already granted 25 pardons and 132 commutations, including for people imprisoned for simple possession of marijuana and several court-martialed from the military because of their sexual orientation. Biden urged to use clemency powers to tackle ‘crisis’ of US mass incarceration Read more Share Updated at 17.37 EST 3h ago 16.33 EST Democrat accuses ethics committee chair of 'betraying process' Susan Wild, the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee, accused the committee’s chair, Michael Guest, of “betraying the process” and mischaracterizing the meeting. She said that the committee voted on whether to release the report but were in deadlock along party lines. “In order to affirmatively move something forward, somebody has to cross party lines and vote with the other side,” Wild told reporters, noting that there were five Democrats and five Republicans on the committee. She said that the committee will reconvene on 5 December to discuss. Share Updated at 16.46 EST
Author: Amy Sedghi. Helen Sullivan. Maanvi Singh. Léonie Chao-Fong. Anna Betts.
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