Trump’s Latest Administration Pick Is a Quack TV Doctor

Donald Trump has decided to nominate TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator.

Trump issued a statement Tuesday announcing the move, saying, “There may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again.”  

Oz ran for the Senate in 2022 in Pennsylvania, earning Trump’s endorsement against Democrat John Fetterman, but lost even after Fetterman suffered a stroke resulting in unfavorable media attention. Oz’s bumbling Senate campaign was full of gaffes, including the inconvenient fact that he was a resident of New Jersey and not the Keystone State.  

Prior to all of that, Oz was best known for peddling “miracle” medical cures and quack diet solutions on daytime television, which ultimately led to him being dressed down at a congressional hearing. Oz has tried to explain all of this away by claiming that he is an entertainer, not a doctor, which certainly undercuts whatever credibility Trump thinks he will bring to this new government position.  

Trump and Oz know each other at least going back to the president-elect’s first campaign, when he appeared on Oz’s TV show for a softball interview in 2016 and deflected questions about his own health while taking subtle jabs at his opponent Hillary Clinton’s health.  

After listing Oz’s résumé, which obviously made no mention of his medical transgressions, Trump’s statement Tuesday closed with, “I have known Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!”

With Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted anti-vaxxer and medical conspiracist, both taking on health care leadership positions in Trump’s administration, the next four years may lead to extensive damage to American public health.  

JD Vance deleted his social media meltdown calling a Donald Trump ally a “mouth breathing imbecile” Tuesday, after she scolded him for not showing up to his job—and defied the president-elect in the process.

As the Senate Democrats race to approve President Joe Biden’s remaining judicial nominees, before they lose the majority at the beginning of next year, Republicans have become anxious that more Republican senators aren’t showing up to vote against the president’s picks.

Grace Chong, COO and CFO of Steve Bannon’s War Room, a far-right media company, posted on X Tuesday morning urging Vance and Senator Marco Rubio to “show up and do your one freakin job!!”

Shortly after that, Trump made a similar post on Truth Social. “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door. Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line—No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day,” Trump wrote.

Vance couldn’t take the heat.

“Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful,” Vance fumed in a post on X, less than 30 minutes after Trump’s post on Truth Social. “If I had shown up to the vote in question, the nominee would have succeeded 49-46 rather than 49-45. If every Republican had showed up, Fetterman would have come in and the Democrats still would have gotten their nominee across.

“I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” he wrote, also casually burying the news that the Trump administration will try to kick out Christopher Wray long before his term is up.

Within an hour, both Chong and Vance had deleted their posts—but it was too late. The vice president-elect had already demonstrated that while he may understand how math works, he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to lead his party. By Vance’s own logic, it makes no difference whether any of his Republican colleagues do their jobs and show up to vote either. It’s also entirely likely that Vance had the unhappy realization that his childish temper tantrum had undermined Trump’s explicit demands.

There’s a new bigot to know in Florida, and she wants to replace Matt Gaetz in Congress.

Florida Republican state House Representative Michelle Salzman announced her candidacy on X Tuesday, writing, “I am making my intentions to run for Congress by filing today I want to do what is best for our country and helping President Trump with the Make America Great Again Agenda!”

Gaetz resigned from Congress last week, hours after Trump picked him for his attorney general and just days before a House Ethics investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct was set to wrap up.

Salzman, while not facing allegations of sex trafficking and sexual misconduct, seems to be cut from the same cloth as Gaetz in other ways. The Republican state representative is known for letting a toxic landfill fester in Wedgewood, Florida, because, “They’re Democrats. They vote Democrat.”

She posts weird, grainy, and often racist memes on Twitter. She was accused of calling the Florida House’s lone Black Republican a “token.” And perhaps most notably, she has made despicable comments toward Palestinian people.

Last fall, Democratic state Representative Angie Nixon was arguing for a bill in favor of a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Palestine. “We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?” Nixon asked the chamber. Salzman grabbed the microphone and replied, “All of them.”

Salzman is the second Republican to announce her bid to take Gaetz’s seat. Florida will hold its congressional special elections once Governor DeSantis sets a date.

In response to calls for the House Ethics Committee to release the results of its investigation into former Representative Matt Gaetz, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says everything should be released. 

The far-right Georgia congresswoman posted on X Tuesday morning in an attempt to defend Donald Trump’s choice of Gaetz as attorney general. Gaetz is alleged to have trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl at a 2017 party, and tried to bury the committee’s report by resigning from Congress last week.  

Greene wants every House Ethics Committee report released, including sexual harassment and assault claims, as well as reports that House Republicans probably don’t have access to, such as “the entire Jeffrey Epstein files, tapes, recordings, witness interviews.”

Transparency is a worthy goal, but Greene is most likely trolling with her post. House Republicans aren’t likely to listen to her “all or nothing” approach, even if House Republicans rally to support Gaetz. Right now, Republican senators are still not entirely on board, and the incoming Senate will likely have just a three-seat GOP majority. Still, they should: Releasing every House Ethics report would be a victory for transparency and, well, ethics. 

With each day, worse details about Gaetz emerge, with a new report Monday revealing that Gaetz allegedly paid two women for sex, according to the lawyer who represented them before the Ethics Committee. Even Fox News doesn’t think the former Florida congressman has a shot. But Greene and her MAGA allies on Capitol Hill will keep pushing as long it is what their dear leader Trump wants.  

The Senate is scheduled to vote on joint resolutions of disapproval to block weapons sales to Israel on Wednesday, and protesters have filled the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington calling on senators to support the resolutions. 

Several protesters donned red T-shirts reading “Stop Arming Israel” and “Fund Housing, Not Genocide” as police confiscated banners colored black, red, and green for Palestine, displaying slogans such as “Fund Education, Not Genocide.” 

Protests also took place outside of the building, as participants chanted “1. We are the people. 2. We won’t stop fighting. 3. For Gaza’s freedom. Now, now, now!” even as other protesters were arrested.  

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the resolutions in September, saying that “we must end complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate bombing campaign, which has caused mass civilian death” in a letter to his fellow senators. As of Tuesday, seven senators, including Sanders, have expressed support for the effort.  

Israel’s brutal war in Gaza has killed more than 44,700 Palestinians, including at least 17,492 children, and injured more than 104,008. These are all likely undercounts, as the actual death toll could exceed 186,000, according to a July study from the medical journal The Lancet. Thousands of bodies are trapped under rubble in Gaza, and official figures don’t take indirect deaths into account, such as those due to the destruction of infrastructure, including hospitals and food distribution systems.  

Last month, 99 health workers who worked in Gaza sent President Biden a letter saying that they had “witnessed crimes beyond comprehension,” urging a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. The U.S. provided 69 percent of Israel’s conventional weapons imports between 2019 and 2023, and gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid every year as part of a 10-year agreement. 

The Biden administration has refused to entertain even the possibility of halting weapons aid or using it as leverage for a cease-fire, even as Israel’s bombing has created a humanitarian catastrophe. The Senate resolutions are unlikely to succeed in stopping weapons shipments to Israel, but they are another reminder of America’s ability to halt the killing even as politicians refuse.  

Rudy Giuliani is trying to get the date of his defamation trial pushed back so he can attend the inauguration of his former client Donald Trump.

A trial to enforce Giuliani’s payment to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two poll workers in Georgia’s 2020 election whom Giuliani was found guilty of defaming, is set to begin on January 16, just a few days before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

In a letter filed Monday, Moss and Freeman’s attorney Aaron Nathan urged the judge to deny Giuliani’s request, and hit back at Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Cammarata’s implication that there would be “no harm to the Plaintiffs by a delay of a few days.”

Cammarata, who stepped into the role less than a week ago after Giuliani’s previous lawyers quit, had said that Giuliani had “plans” to be “present” at the presidential inauguration. “In Defendant counsel’s words, ‘there are inauguration events planned for, I believe, January 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 2025,’” Nathan wrote.

Nathan also argued that Giuliani’s former lawyers’ requests to withdraw from the case should be denied. The legal duo, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, had argued that they were entitled to walk away from the case, citing a New York rule that grants attorneys the ability to withdraw when a client “insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”

Giuliani owes Moss and Freeman close to $150 million for defamation and has delayed turning over any of his assets by attempting to file for bankruptcy and claiming he didn’t know where his assets were. Last week, Giuliani turned over the first of his assets to Freeman and Moss: his luxury watches, a diamond ring, and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz.

But it seems that Giuliani is still hoping Trump will swoop in and save him from the expensive consequences of his own actions.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has agreed to postpone Donald Trump’s sentencing for his hush-money case. But while his lawyers want the felony convictions thrown out together, prosecutors aren’t willing to toss the case just yet. 

The district attorney’s office wrote a letter to Judge Juan Merchan admitting that Trump probably won’t be sentenced anytime soon given his recent presidential victory. The office wants Merchan to let the felony convictions stand, while also going back to the drawing board on sentencing until the president-elect’s term is up in four years. 

This case involves the $130,000 in hush-money payments that Trump had his adviser Michael Cohen make out to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, buying her silence for an affair she had with Trump a decade earlier. A jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts. 

This is the latest in a devastating series of legal victories for Trump, as his other three indictments—the Georgia election interference case, the federal election interference case related to January 6, and the classified documents case—have all been put on freeze, at least until he’s done with his second term as president. This is just as Trump intended, as his strategy of avoiding justice by winning the election has worked beautifully.   

Trump’s lawyers still want the charges in all these cases to be dropped entirely based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of broad presidential immunity. 

“The clock ran out,” CNN senior political analyst Elie Honig said. “We like to say no person is above the law in this country, but the fact is one person largely is, and that’s the president, because of the immunity ruling and because of the DOJ policy.” 

In the hush-money trial, Trump’s sentencing has been delayed repeatedly thanks to the immunity ruling and the election. It still remains to be seen what Merchan ultimately decides after the Manhattan district attorney’s filing.

Donald Trump’s team apparently missed that Pete Hegseth, the president-elect’s choice for secretary of defense, paid off a woman accusing him of sexual assault. 

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Monday that while vetting Hegseth, Trump’s staff missed the payoff because it was a “private settlement.” On Saturday, Hegseth’s lawyer confirmed the payoff after being contacted by The Washington Post. 

“They did do a vet, we are told,” Haberman said. “This did not show up, this issue, because it was a private settlement, according to the people who were briefed on what took place. Trump really likes Pete Hegseth. But this did introduce the thing Trump doesn’t like, which is an element of surprise and a negative headline.” 

The vetting by Trump’s team, however, is skipping FBI background checks, which have historically been a part of the presidential appointment process. Instead, Trump’s team is using private companies because they are trying to speed up the process and avoid revelations that could be used by their opponents.  

But avoiding a security process that has been used since the Eisenhower administration has backfired in the case of Hegseth, and has also likely kept any security issues from being revealed about Trump’s other choices, such as Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who has a controversial past. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also has a history of actions that call into question his ability to obtain a security clearance.   

Trump appears to be standing by his pick of Hegseth despite the sexual assault allegations, potentially setting up a showdown with Senate Republicans. His choice of attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has also faced opposition due to a House Ethics Committee investigation into the former congressman over allegations that he had trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl at a 2017 party. It appears that weeks after his election, Trump is already testing his limits as president. 

An anonymous hacker has obtained some very damning documents regarding Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, according to The New York Times.

The documents are from a file shared securely between lawyers whose clients have provided testimony that incriminates Gaetz.

As a representative, Gaetz was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations that he had trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl in 2017 at a sex party. Gaetz has vehemently denied these allegations, and even tried to nullify the House investigation by resigning from Congress last week. Since then, there has been much congressional debate over whether to release the Ethics report, with most Democrats urging its release and most Republicans preferring it stay under wraps. But now, a hacker has potentially blown past all of that.

The hacked file is said to hold 24 documents containing testimony by multiple people, including the victim, confirming Gaetz’s actions. The Times reports that the file was downloaded by an “Altam Beezley” on Monday at 1:23 p.m. The documents come from a civil suit filed by Gaetz’s friend Christopher Dorworth, who claims he was defamed by the victim after she accused him of hosting the sex party with Gaetz and Joel Greenberg, who is serving 11 years in prison for sex trafficking.

The hacked documents also include sworn testimony by a woman who said that she had sex at a party with Mr. Gaetz in 2017 when she was 17, and there’s testimony from another woman who says she saw it all happen. There is also sworn testimony from Dorworth and his wife, testimony from Matt Gaetz’s former campaign treasurer Michael Fischer, and time stamps of arrival times of all those who visited Dorworth’s home the night of the alleged sex party.

These materials are not yet available to the public. It is unclear who the hacker is and why they might have done this.

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.