Trump Adds New Billionaire Conspiracy Theorist to His Cabinet

Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Republican billionaire Howard Lutnick to be secretary of commerce.

Trump announced in a statement posted on Truth Social that Lutnick, the CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, would “lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of United States Trade Representative.”

Lutnick has been the co-chair of Trump’s transition team since August, and has expressed support for Trump’s ill-defined plan to impose broad tariffs on foreign producers, a scheme experts say would shock the U.S. economy and cause increases in consumer prices across the board. Even Lutnick himself has admitted Americans would bear the brunt of tariffs, but he still wants to impose them anyway.

In September, Lutnick told CNBC that “tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use—we need to protect the American worker.” Lutnick also gushed about tariffs at Trump’s fascistic rally in Madison Square Garden last month, claiming that America was better off 100 years ago, when it had “no income tax and all we had was tariffs.”

He made several other disturbing remarks during his appearance in New York City, suggesting that Trump’s critics ought to be charged with treason, and taking a bigoted swipe at Muslim voters. Lutnick has also claimed that vaccines have “not been proven,” making him the second openly anti-vaccine in Trump’s Cabinet after proposed DHS head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This story has been updated.

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace is still trying desperately to get on television, and this time she’s resorted to transphobic attacks against another lawmaker.

Mace introduced a resolution Tuesday which would ban transgender women from using the women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol, just weeks after Sarah McBride became the first transgender woman to be elected to Congress.

Rather than actually govern, Mace spends most of her time launching pathetic attempts to get as much media attention as possible by trying to “trigger” people, and her latest stunt is the most pathetic one yet.

“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace told reporters on Monday. She added that her new colleague “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”

When asked if the resolution was a direct response to the people of Delaware democratically electing McBride into office, Mace replied, “That and more.”

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said that by electing Donald Trump to the White House, Americans had voiced their support for anti-trans bills, adding that she would support the resolution, and a similar bathroom ban in “all tax-payer funded facilities.” She said she normally uses the private bathroom in her office.

When asked specifically how lawmakers planned to monitor the biological sex of all women trying to enter restrooms in the U.S. Capitol, both Greene and Mace looked uncomfortable and didn’t answer the question.

McBride responded Tuesday to her colleagues’ hateful remarks.

“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” McBride wrote in a post on X.

“This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” McBride wrote. “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”

Mace took to X on Wednesday to fire off a slate of posts cheering herself on. “The radical Left is calling me a ‘threat.’ You’re damn right I am. I am a threat to anyone who wants to strip women and girls of their rights,” she wrote.

It’s clear that Fox News is not into Donald Trump’s pick of Matt Gaetz for attorney general—at all.

A segment of the show on Tuesday morning turned to why the former Florida representative  would be a disaster if he were to lead the Justice Department.

Fox News host Trey Gowdy, a former Republican representative, urged the president-elect to rethink his relationship to “lawfare” and the Justice Department.

“Do not use the justice system as a weapon. The message for Republicans is don’t do it on the other side, either, with this absurd A.G. pick that you just made,” Gowdy said, referring to Gaetz. “Justice is different. It is a combination of policy, law, and also morality. You do not use our justice system as a political weapon. Voters rejected it in November and will reject it if Republicans try to do it. Some things rise above the din. The justice system is one of those things.”

Gaetz has been a massive thorn in the side of his more traditional Republican colleagues since his boycott of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. More importantly, he has massive, troubling allegations of paying to have sex with an underage girl hanging over his head. The House Ethics Committee is still deliberating on whether to release the content of its investigation into these allegations, and the outcome could be potentially damning for Gaetz.

This is not the first time Trump’s actions have left his own media base baffled. Former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson also criticized Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth, writing on X, “From silly diner interviews on Weekend Fox and Friends to Secretary of Defense? I never thought I’d say I’m stunned about any pick after the election but nominating Pete Hegseth for this incredibly important role? Yes he’s a veteran … and?”

These controversial picks promise to make even more controversial Cabinet hearings. We can all only wait and see.

Donald Trump is now receiving intelligence briefings as president-elect of the United States. 

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Trump began receiving briefings provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shortly after the election, citing anonymous sources. During his presidential campaign, Trump didn’t want to receive classified briefings, saying that he didn’t want to be accused of leaking them.

“[Intelligence briefers] come in, they give you a briefing, and then two days later, they leak it, and then they say you leaked it,” Trump said in August. “So the only way to solve that problem is not to take it.… I’ll have plenty of them when I get in.”  

After he lost the 2020 election, Trump took numerous classified documents, including photos and charts relating to national security, with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate, resulting in a federal indictment charging him with 42 felony counts related to willful retention of national security information, corruptly concealing documents, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. 

The case against Trump would later be dismissed by a judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, on the weak grounds that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment to the case was unconstitutional, ensuring that Trump would face no consequences for his actions, despite extensive evidence against him.  

This evidence includes telling Mar-a-Lago staff to avoid cameras when moving boxes, retaining documents even after the FBI searched the property, and the sensitive national security contents of the documents themselves. Now that Trump is receiving classified briefings again, he’ll know about information vital to national security—and can handle that however he sees fit, safely or not.  

Donald Trump repeatedly told America he had “nothing to do” with Project 2025. But now, he’s welcoming its architect into his Cabinet with open arms.

Russ Vought, who was deeply involved in the creation of Project 2025 and wrote an entire chapter in the right-wing playbook, is being strongly considered for an upcoming Cabinet position, according to several sources who spoke with ABC News. Vought has already begun the vetting process and has been seen at Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump’s team.

Vought—a former lobbyist, self-described Christian nationalist, and director of the Office of Management and Budget in Trump’s first term—authored a chapter in the 922-page MAGA extremist master plan titled “Executive Office of the President” for Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” section. The chapter serves as “a comprehensive policy guide for the next conservative U.S. president.”

Vought isn’t the only Project 2025 alum being floated for a crucial role in the Trump Cabinet. Gene Hamilton, who wrote a chapter about how the Justice Department needed a “top to bottom overhaul” because it is “captured by an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues who have embedded themselves throughout its offices and components,” has been seriously floated for an important legal team position. Trump has also nominated Project 2025 contributor and free-speech “warrior” Brendan Carr to serve as Federal Communications Commission chair.

On the campaign trail, Trump had tried to distance himself from Project 2025, particularly after it became a focus point for Democrats. “This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad, but it makes no difference. I have nothing to do [with it],” Trump stated during his nationally televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. His loyal transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick described the project as an “absolute zero” and “radioactive.”

And yet here we are, with Vought, Carr, and Hamilton cozying back up to the president-elect, who was surely lying to America throughout his campaign. The skeleton plan for the far-right takeover is coming alive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered Russia’s threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, indicating an escalation in tensions President-elect Donald Trump promised to alleviate.

Putin’s decree on Tuesday revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine, now stating that Russia could use nuclear arms if attacked by a nation that is backed by a nuclear power, according to The New York Times. Any attack from Ukraine, would be seen as a “joint attack” with its allies, according to the doctrine.

Putin first announced plans to change this policy during an address in September, but its installation seems to be in response to President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire American long-range missiles 190 miles into Russian territory. Biden’s decision came after North Korean troops were discovered fighting in Russia’s Western Kursk region last week.

On the campaign trail, Trump claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” of being elected president—promising a deal that was far more favorable to his supposed ally Putin. Two weeks after Trump’s election victory, it seems that Russia is taking the news as permission to ramp up its assault against Ukraine, and its Western allies like NATO.

Within days of Trump winning the presidential election, Putin sent tens of thousands of soldiers to the Ukrainian war front after Trump told him not to escalate the situation.

During Trump’s debate against Biden in June, the now president-elect said, “If we had a real president, a president that knew—that was respected by Putin … he would have never invaded Ukraine.”

President Biden may have secured a government program that funds semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, critical for electronics companies. 

The Biden administration announced Friday that a $6.6 billion deal with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to build three fabrication plants near Phoenix had been finalized, creating thousands of jobs in Arizona. Semiconductors are used in nearly every electronic device, including cell phones, airplanes, and cars. 

“This is a gigantic announcement,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters Friday. “This will be one of the most important investments that we make as a country to advance our economic and national security.”  

The deal was initially announced in April, with $6.6 billion in grants promised to the Taiwanese company along with $5 billion in loans. The funding comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by Biden in 2022, which allots $52.7 billion for chip research, manufacturing, and workforce development. TSMC makes chips for leading tech companies such as Apple, NVIDIA, and AMDl.

President-elect Donald Trump has attacked the bill, claiming in April that the United States shouldn’t be “giving [Taiwan] billions of dollars to build chips.” Trump’s stance led to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who voted against the CHIPS Act, saying days before the 2024 election that he would try to repeal the bill if Trump was elected.

Later, Johnson was forced to backtrack after his fellow Republican Representative Brandon Williams pointed out that a new $100 billion chip-making factory was going to be built in Williams’s central New York district thanks to the bill.   

The Arizona deal is the biggest such foreign investment in U.S. history, according to the White House, and its finalization means that the government is obligated to follow through with its funding promises to TSMC, making it very hard, if not virtually impossible, for Trump to scuttle the CHIPS Act.

“It’s a binding contract,” said Ryan Harper, the White House CHIPS implementation coordinator. “The company, as long as it meets its milestones, has a contractual binding agreement from the government to move forward.”

In his first term as president, Trump backed then–Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s effort to bring Taiwanese manufacturing company Foxconn to the Badger State, with the Republican Walker offering the company $3 billion in subsidies in exchange for the promise of 10,000 new jobs and a $10 billion investment in the state.  

But the bill didn’t deliver the promised jobs, with government subsidies ballooning to over $4.5 billion, Foxconn reducing the size of the planned factory by half, and robots doing most of the work. Walker ultimately was voted out of office because of the deal, which his Democratic successor, Tony Evers, was forced to rework. Today, the factory that was actually built only employs 1,000 people, and Wisconsin now has its hopes on the CHIPS Act’s funding for something new. 

Biden’s completed Arizona deal likely means that he can leave office with the CHIPS Act as one of his signature achievements, a small silver lining in the face of Trump’s election victory. He can also point to the fact that, should everything in the contract unfold as planned, he succeeded where Trump and Republicans previously failed.  

From cageside at UFC309 to side by side at the upcoming SpaceX launch, the Trump-Musk bromance knows no bounds.

It’s been reported that Trump will be present at SpaceX’s Texas headquarters to watch a rocket shoot into the sky, before it ultimately crashes into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday. This was deduced after the Federal Aviation Administration issued flight restrictions for the president-elect at the same time and in the same area as Musk’s SpaceX launch. Neither Trump nor Musk have commented publicly yet. 

Musk has been a mainstay within the Trump team, spending countless days at Mar-a-Lago by the president-elect’s side. As Trump’s biggest and most enthusiastic donor he’s been rewarded with official leadership of the (mostly fake) Department of Government Efficiency and unofficial direct access to Trump. He has joined important diplomatic phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and others. He’s also expected to have an outsize role in choosing the next Department of Transportation that will surely benefit his finances as an electric vehicle company CEO.  

This is all much to the chagrin of Trump’s inner circle, as the richest man in the world is constantly contradicting and circumventing them in Trump’s ear. While it’s unclear how long this honeymoon will last, we know that as long as Trump likes Elon, the billionaire can do whatever he wants.

The recount for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race won’t count undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots, a major blow to voting rights.

In an opinion filed Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that ballots that failed to arrive with a correct handwritten date on the return envelope, and thereby failed to comply with the requirements of the state election code, would not be included in the final vote tally in the race between Senator Bob Casey and his Republican opponent, Dave McCormick.

McCormick was deemed the winner of the race nearly two weeks ago, nabbing 48.9 percent of the vote with 99 percent reporting compared to Casey’s 48.5 percent. As the week wore on and Pennsylvania’s various counties continued to tally their ballots, it became evident that the competitors were separated by fewer than 23,000 votes. By Monday, that number had dwindled to 17,000 out of almost seven million ballots that had already been recounted, reported the Associated Press.

Democratic-controlled election boards in three counties—Montgomery, Philadelphia, and Bucks Counties—had argued that an incorrect date said nothing about the voter’s eligibility to cast their ballot.

The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania Republican Party filed an emergency request on Thursday, asking the state Supreme Court for an immediate ruling on the case, contesting that the date was still a key component to ballot security.

The court ruled 4–3 in their favor on Monday, with Justices Kevin Brobson, Sallie Updyke Mundy, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht slamming some of the counties for considering the ballots.

“It is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey the order of this court. As Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote: ‘If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can,’” wrote Justice Wecht in a statement, joined by Justice Mundy. “‘That means first chaos, then tyranny.… The greater the power that defies law the less tolerant can this Court be of defiance.’”

The Trump transition team continues to float wildly unqualified people to serve in very important positions.

Politico reported on Monday that the short list to head the Department of Transportation includes Representative Sean Duffy, former Uber executive Emil Michael, and Representative Jenn Denham. 

Duffy, who is on the “short list,” is a former reality TV star and Fox News talking head who has been critical of Trump in the past. Michael is well liked by billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk (maybe because he’s an investor in Musk’s SpaceX company). And Denham, perhaps the most qualified, thinks energy-efficient high-speed rail is an example of “runaway government spending.” 

These picks all align with Trump’s bleak pro-business, anti-regulation vision for the Department of Transportation. Enjoy your walkable cities and decent public transportation (if you even have it) while you can.