- PoliticsHuffPost
Rudy Giuliani Says Trump Is 'Looking At Other Options' After Texas Lawsuit Bombs
The president's personal lawyer indicated that Trump's legal team may file more suits, even though the Electoral College will meet on Monday.
- PoliticsAssociated Press
Trump helicopter buzzes supporters rallying in Washington
Thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump returned to Washington on Saturday for rallies to back his desperate efforts to subvert the election that he lost to Joe Biden. The gatherings of mostly unmasked Trump loyalists were intended as a show of force just two days before the Electoral College meets to formally elect Biden as the 46th president. Trump, whose term will end Jan. 20, refuses to concede, while clinging to baseless claims of fraud that have been rejected by state and federal courts, and Friday by the Supreme Court.
- PoliticsYahoo News
Trump's desperate gambit to stay in office alarms Europeans, who know about coups
Europeans were bewildered at first by the chaos unleashed by Trump’s desperate efforts to stay in power. But they are paying attention now.
- PoliticsBusiness Insider
Sidney Powell's secret source who used the pseudonym 'Spider' and identified himself as a military intelligence expert in her evidence-free election fraud lawsuits is actually an IT consultant, report says
"Spider" is an Army veteran who was enrolled in the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion, he never completed an entry-level training course.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
Trump Grows Increasingly Angry With FDA, Wonders if COVID Vaccine Makers Are ‘Democrats’
With the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine seemingly days away, President Donald Trump has been stewing over what he perceives to be a lack of credit that he is getting for the breakthrough.The outgoing president recently ranted to several advisers and associates about how vaccine manufacturers were possibly working to deny him the chance to declare victory in the pandemic, according to three people familiar with his private grumblings. One adviser told The Daily Beast that this month, the president asked if the heads of Pfizer, one of the main vaccine manufacturers, were “Democrats.”“It kind of came out of nowhere and I didn’t really know how to respond,” this source recounted.When Pfizer announced its vaccine breakthrough last month, Trump flew into a tantrum after the company said it had not been directly involved in Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s public-private partnership for developing and distributing COVID vaccines. The president, already aggrieved that no vaccine breakthrough had been announced prior to the election, told certain aides and close allies to go on TV and make public statements rebutting Pfizer’s claims and to allege that the breakthrough was an achievement only Trump and his team could have made, two of the sources said.Those moments of aggrievement underscored several dynamics that have come to define the president’s handling of the COVID crisis: a brewing resentment towards some of the main entities helping with the pandemic response and a constant need for personal affirmation.That need came into focus again on Friday, when it was reported that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Stephen Hahn, that he should consider polishing up his résumé if the Pfizer vaccine wasn’t approved by the end of the day.The warning wasn’t the first that Meadows had issued to Hahn. According to a pharmaceutical industry source, Meadows summoned the FDA chief to the White House early this month to demand answers as to why the vaccine process wasn’t moving along more rapidly. Meadows subsequently denied to The Daily Beast that he had pushed for Hahn’s resignation during that meeting.“Get a new source,” he said at the time.White House Orders FDA Chief to Authorize COVID Vaccine Today or ResignThis go around, Hahn was the one pushing back on reports that he was being pushed out, saying in a statement that the representation of his talk with Meadows was “untrue.”The White House did not provide comment for this story on Friday afternoon.But a lobbyist working on vaccine manufacturing and development said the mere idea that the White House was applying pressure to the head of the FDA on the eve of the vaccine’s introduction was massively problematic, to the degree that it would breed mistrust in the vaccine’s safety.“It's not as bad as firing the FDA head,” the lobbyists said. “But it does nothing but generate negative headlines over vaccine efficacy.”Trump Cheers ‘Terrific’ Rise in COVID Cases During Off-The-Rails Vaccine SummitThat Trump would apply this type of pressure was hardly surprising, the source said. For months, the president has been at odds with Big Pharma over the trade group’s pre-election advertising campaign attacking him for pursuing a policy that would insist Medicare not pay more for prescription drugs than the most-favored-nation price. Trump had attempted to cut a deal with the trade group in which he would have dropped that policy pursuit in exchange for pharmaceutical companies reducing out-of-pocket drug costs and sending cash cards to Medicare beneficiaries. But the deal blew up over fears that the cards would be politicized—indeed, literally being called “Trump Cards.”The friction has grown worse as Trump has grown increasingly angry at the pace at which a COVID vaccine has been developed and approved. This past week, Trump held a summit to celebrate Operation Warp Speed. But the announcement came before the invitations were sent to key stakeholders. And when the day arrived, representatives from Pfizer and Moderna, another company that recently announced positive vaccine results, declined to show.Trump’s ire has been directed at Hahn as well. For weeks, he has quizzed administration officials on why it’s taking the FDA so long to give final vaccine approval and demanding the White House keeps pressure on the commissioner to “do his job,” according to a source with direct knowledge of the president’s demand.The FDA has a rigorous and well-established review process for vaccine development that involves several stages of clinical trials and copious amounts of data review by outside advisers. It has been structured that way precisely to instill confidence that the final affirmation of a vaccine’s effectiveness is not colored by political or monetary considerations. But the process notably does not accommodate a president’s need for speed, praise, or credit. And that, at this juncture, has appeared to cause problems.“Donald Trump must get the credit for the vaccines. It is a miracle,” the president tweeted on Friday morning, referencing something said by a Fox Business host.“If it had not been for Donald Trump's personal leadership, we would not be seeing a Pfizer vaccine—and, hopefully in the next week, a Moderna approved vaccine,” the White House account tweeted in the afternoon.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
- CelebrityCountry Living
Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis Make Surprise Red Carpet Appearance
The Cambridge kids attended a pantomime performance with their parents, appearing in public for the first time in months.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
Sarah Palin Returns to the Movement She Started in Georgia Runoff Campaign
MARIETTA, Ga.—When Sarah Palin took the microphone in a parking lot in suburban Atlanta on Friday morning, she offered the die-hard conservative crowd assembled a nostalgic blast from the past—or something like a journey full-circle for the Republican Party.“Oh golly, I'm glad to get to be here and thaw out,” Palin—who’d flown in from Alaska the night before—told the crowd as she bounded off a double-decker bus and into a stage drenched in Georgia sun.The former governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee had been recruited as the headliner for a statewide bus tour, organized by a coalition of conservative advocacy groups, to drum up enthusiasm within the conservative grassroots for Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) ahead of the Senate majority-deciding January runoff elections.For a moment, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the scene unfolding was happening a decade ago—Palin bantering and rallying with a fired-up throng of activists. But fluttering in the crowd alongside the yellow don’t-tread-on-me flags were new blue Trump flags and the pro-police U.S. flags with the thin blue line. Red “USA” and “Make America Great Again” hats dotted the crowd.Palin’s words, too, came in a familiar tone—but the content was unmistakably 2020. She reiterated the false claim that the election was “stolen” from President Donald Trump, and connected Loeffler’s early support for confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court with legal efforts to keep Trump in office, despite the clear will of the voters.“Kelly was the first one to publicly call for confirmation before the election—wise gal—before the election, the rigged election!” said Palin, to cheers. “And I know that's for a whole ‘nother bus stop. But for a rigged election. She had great foresight.”“We're gonna keep making America great, and Georgia, it's in your hands,” she went on, to cheers. “It's in your hands. The eyes of America, the eyes of the world, are on Georgia, figuring out what it is that you all are going to do—and it is up to you.”Palin has not held elected office in over 10 years, instead spending much of the last decade on television, from an ill-fated reality show on TLC to regular hits on Fox News. In that time, the conservative movement has changed considerably, and produced a new crop of stars who may shine bigger and brighter than the former Alaska governor.But the way that movement has changed is, in no small part, because of Palin—a fact that was not lost among those who showed up to see her.“I don’t know if I’d call myself a fan,” said Al Meyer, a 56-year old resident of East Cobb, who stood in the parking lot before the rally clutching a copy of Going Rogue, Palin’s 2009 memoir, in case he got a chance to get it signed. “She’s kind of been out of the spotlight.”“I’m more a fan,” Meyer added, “of the movement she started.”In picking Palin as his running-mate in 2008, the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) elevated to national prominence a charismatic but unpolished conservative firebrand—a populist with an inclination toward shock and fiery rhetoric, and a disinclination to apologize for any of it. Many political observers tie what came next for the GOP—the emergence of the tea party movement and, then, Donald Trump—to Palin’s emergence.Certainly, supporters of Palin and Trump see the connections. Later that afternoon, Carol Susan Cook stood in a parking lot outside a bar in Gainesville, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, cheering as Palin spoke at another stop.“She’s very close to him,” said Cook, wearing a Trump hat and a shirt showing Palin, pictured next to Barack Obama, throwing up a bunny-ears behind his head. “They're not politicians, in a way,” she said. “They're both for the common people.”Sarah Palin Cancels and Matt Gaetz Signs on to NY Young Republicans’ Pandemic GalaLike most campaign events that have attracted conservatives in Georgia since Nov. 3, the emotion during Palin’s stops on Friday was rooted in Trump’s election—which has been over for weeks but is very much alive in the eyes of his supporters—more so than the one Perdue and Loeffler are facing, which will determine whether or not Joe Biden has a unified Congress to work with as president.Palin dutifully delivered her lines to buck up the GOP senators, and did so in her trademark rambling style, no more polished than it was in 2008.“Kelly is a leader in the Senate, and that Perdue family too, from these parts,” said Palin, in Gainesville. “And I say these parts because, to me, Georgia is just a little tiny sister state to Alaska. These parts, that runs the gamut of mileage around here.” She went on to praise Perdue’s cousin—Sonny, a former Georgia governor and current U.S. Agriculture Secretary—as a “fun governor” and praised him for winning “White House Apprentice,” having survived the entirety of Trump’s first term.And Palin proved a determined attack dog against the Democratic candidates—specifically going after Raphael Warnock, the Baptist pastor challenging Perdue, who the GOP has increasingly cast as the villain of the runoff. “I am looking at him, saying. how does that work?” said Palin. “A pastor, from the pulpit, who is pro-abortion… who has evidently has never learned that as he’s preaching peace, peace, justice, that peace begins in the womb.”Before she climbed back on the bus—which blared the slogan “Win Georgia, Save America” on the side—Palin stopped for lots of pictures with admirers; one in Marietta wore the tri-cornered, colonial-era hat that was often seen in the tea party rallies of the Obama era.Gavin Swafford, a 19-year old student and conservative activist in northwest Georgia’s Whitfield County, had come to Marietta on Monday to see Palin—and Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who he helped campaign for, and a figure who some local Republicans see as quite similar to the Alaska governor. He laughed that Palin rocketed to prominence “before my time,” but praised her as “always an interesting figure.”“She is known for her lighter side, but here, another side comes out, you see the fighter,” said Swafford, though he noted that some prominent Trumpworld figures like Greene, and Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), might have more pull given their place at the center of today’s fights. “But,” he said, “she drew a crowd of 200, 300.”Palin herself tossed out a few hints of what her political future holds in a post-Obama, post-Trump world. Unprompted at both stops, she criticized Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who is up for reelection in 2022, for her allegedly soft stance on judicial confirmations. Previously, Palin has teased a challenge to the two-term moderate.She has a constituency for that challenge—at least in Georgia, some 3,000 miles away from her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. “She needs to run in Alaska! Because we have this one that keeps getting back in, she needs to go” said Cook, the Palin fan in Gainesville.“She’s going to be bashed by the liberals, because they do that to everyone that they are afraid of. She would be so strong.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.













