Trump cultists

“We have a president, we have a vice president, we have a speaker. It feels as if Elon Musk is our prime minister! And I spoke with Elon a couple of times this week. I think many of us — well, unelected – but he has a voice. And I think a large part of that voice is a reflection …

The Texas Tribune reports: President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday he would nominate Houston billionaire hospitality mogul Tilman Fertitta to serve as U.S. ambassador to Italy. Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets and Landry’s restaurant group, is a prolific political donor who hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his Post Oak Hotel in Houston earlier this year. He has donated millions …

Bloomberg News reports: Less than two months ago, shares of Tesla Inc. were on their way to just the third losing year in the electric-vehicle maker’s decade-and-a-half as a public company. But after a furious rally in the last seven weeks, the stock is suddenly among the S&P 500 Index’s best performers for 2024. Prior to the US presidential election …

German outlet Der Spiegel reports: The alleged [Christmas market] perpetrator is obviously a fan of the AfD, as revealed by an analysis of several of his social media accounts by SPIEGEL. Eight years ago, he wrote on Twitter that he wanted to start a project together with the AfD: an academy for ex-Muslims. When another user asked why he was …

Axios reports: The MAGA-verse, with President-elect Trump and Elon Musk at the helm, continues to wield unprecedented power over Congress — but it has also found its limits. Three times now, the influential voices surrounding Trump — often organizing on X — have failed to get exactly what they want. John Thune was elected to be Senate majority leader, despite …

Media Matters has the transcript: STEVE BANNON: Clearly, Johnson’s not up to the task and he’s gotta go. Right? He’s gotta go. Should Johnson be speaker of the House? President Trump, these are your people. It’s not just Johnson. Clearly, he has to go. He doesn’t have that — he doesn’t have what we call the right stuff. Right? That …

Politico reports: President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that he is picking the head of a right-wing Catholic advocacy group and critic of Pope Francis to serve as ambassador to the Holy See, potentially teeing up tensions with the Vatican. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Brian Burch, head of the group Catholic Vote, “loves his Church and …

Politico reports: House Republicans voted in their closed-door conference meeting to pursue a funding plan that will require Democratic votes and strips out a debt limit measure President-elect Donald Trump is pushing, according to more than a dozen Republicans leaving the meeting. The plan will also include a one-year farm bill extension and the $110 billion disaster aid package Republicans …

The Guardian reports: A company owned by two of Donald Trump’s top mega-donors has routinely brought dozens of its workers from Mexico to staff its warehouses in Wisconsin and other locations even though they do not appear to have permission to work in the US, according to a Guardian investigation. Uline – a giant Wisconsin-based office and shipping supply company …

The Washington Post reports: The relationship between billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and billionaire Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk is warming up, a Friday morning exchange on Musk’s social media app X suggested. Two days after the tech titans dined together with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Bezos broadcast his agreement with Musk’s opinion that it was necessary to …

NBC News reports: Tesla has issued a recall for nearly 700,000 vehicles due to a tire pressure light issue. The electric car company is recalling certain 2024 Cybertruck, 2017-2025 Model 3 and 2020-2025 Model Y vehicles because the tire pressure monitoring system warning light “may not remain illuminated between drive cycles, failing to warn the driver of low tire pressure,” …

“When I was speaker, we had two government shutdowns, one was pretty long, I think 20 some days. It convinced President Clinton that we were serious and it convinced the American people that we were going to keep our word even if it was hard. “I think that everybody misjudged what President Trump won when they bring in a 1,500 …

Florida Politics reports: New legislation could give the state government control over presidential libraries, in a move seemingly designed to stop local interference against a future facility for President-elect Donald Trump. Rep. Alex Andrade will carry the House version of the legislation. “I think it’s brilliant,” the Panhandle Republican told Florida Politics. Central to the legislative premise is the idea …

The Hill reports: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Republicans have arrived at a plan C to avert a shutdown and the House will vote Friday morning on the legislation. “Yeah, yeah, we have a plan,” Johnson said Friday morning as he entered the Capitol. “We’re expecting votes this morning, so you all stay tuned. We’ve got a plan.” He did …

“Look, I’ll say one thing. The Democrats just voted to shut down the government, even though we had a clean CR, because they didn’t want to give the president negotiating leverage during his first term — during the first year of his new term. And number two, because they would rather shut down the government and fight for global censorship. …

Reuters reports: U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, set to join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, waded into Germany’s election campaign on Friday, calling the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) the country’s savior. The AfD is running second in opinion polls and might be able to thwart either a center-right or center-left majority, but Germany’s mainstream, more centrist parties have vowed to shun …

CNN reports: The bill required two-thirds of the majority to pass. It failed because of opposition from conservative Republicans and almost all House Democrats. Republicans can try again to pass the bill through a simple majority, but that would also be tough and likely to fail. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told House Democrats in a closed-door meeting that he …

NPR reports: President-elect Donald Trump announced “success” in coming up with a new plan to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling a day before a government shutdown, urging Congress to swiftly pass it in votes as soon as Thursday evening. Trump’s social media post landed as Republicans said they had narrowed in on a tentative accord after grueling …

Politico reports: Sen. Joni Ernst is rolling out her next step on Thursday to overhaul the federal workforce as she embraces President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. The bill from Ernst, known as the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act, would require each executive agency to relocate at least 30 percent of employees currently working at a Washington, D.C., headquarters to …

“Chris Murphy, the execrable senator from Connecticut, Democrat, he put out a statement, quote, ‘Remember what this is all about. Trump wants Democrats to agree to raise the debt ceiling so he can pass his massive corporate and billionaire tax cut without a problem. Shorter version, tax cut for billionaires or the government shuts down for Christmas.’ “So Democrats are …