{"id":120787,"date":"2024-12-30T18:22:39","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T18:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-endorses-johnson-for-speaker-re-election-president-elect-loses-appeal-of-e-jean-carroll-verdict-live-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2024-12-30T18:22:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T18:22:39","slug":"trump-endorses-johnson-for-speaker-re-election-president-elect-loses-appeal-of-e-jean-carroll-verdict-live-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-endorses-johnson-for-speaker-re-election-president-elect-loses-appeal-of-e-jean-carroll-verdict-live-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump endorses Johnson for speaker re-election; President-elect loses appeal of E Jean Carroll verdict: Live – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Incoming president hails incumbent as \u2018a good, hard working, religious man\u2019 and backs him to hang on to gavel ahead of Friday\u2019s crucial vote
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Donald Trump<\/a> has endorsed<\/a> the current speaker of the House of Representatives<\/a>, Mike Johnson<\/a>, for re-election ahead of Friday\u2019s crucial vote when Congress<\/a> returns from its holiday recess.
Speaker Johnson, who narrowly averted a government shutdown<\/a> before Christmas, hopes to hold onto the gavel but needs the support of 218 lawmakers so cannot afford more than one GOP rebellion, given his side\u2019s slim majorty of 219 to 215.
Taking to Truth Social<\/a> to call for Republican unity, the president-elect backed the incumbent by hailing Johnson as \u201ca good, hard working, religious man.\u201d
\u201cHe will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN,\u201d he said. \u201cMike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.\u201d
Meanwhile, a federal appeals court has upheld a ruling against the president-elect<\/a> after he challenged a jury\u2019s verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming former magazine columnist E Jean Carroll<\/a>.
\u201cTrump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings, and has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial,\u201d three appellate judges wrote in their decision Monday.
After firing off dozens of posts this month to derail a bipartisan spending bill helmed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk says the Republican congressman has his \u201cfull support.\u201d
After the House passed a third attempt at the stop-gap bill, Johnson told reporters he spoke with both Trump and Musk an hour before votes started.
Trump\u2019s key endorsement ahead of Friday\u2019s vote to determine who wields the gavel sends a clear signal to House Republicans to line up behind Johnson, who has faced some resistance from the GOP\u2019s far-right flank after inter-party chaos nearly derailed a must-pass spending bill hours before a government shutdown.
Representatives will decide who holds the gavel to lead the House with a slim Republican majority
Elon Musk has been branded a \u201cnational security risk\u201d by a former US army general, who cited his concerns over the tech billionaire\u2019s close ties with the Chinese government.
Lieutenant General Russel L Honor\u00e9, who retired in 2008, highlighted Musk\u2019s history of appeasing and praising the Chinese Communist Party and his multiple business deals with the party, particularly in the modern space race.
In a scathing op-ed, published in The New York Times, <\/em>Honor\u00e9 noted that Musk and his company SpaceX already face federal reviews for failing to provide details of meetings with foreign leaders, but said that such infractions were \u201cjust the beginning of my worries.\u201d
Mike Bedigan<\/strong> has more.
Lieutenant General Russel L. Honor\u00e9 highlighted the tech billionaire\u2019s history of appeasing and praising the Chinese Communist Party and his multiple business deals with it
After carefully tip-toeing around the growing tensions that have rocked the GOP in recent days, Fox News appears to have finally found a narrative it can sell to right-wing viewers about the MAGA civil war currently ongoing over the thorny issue of immigrant visas.
According to the conservative cable news giant, \u201cinfighting\u201d is \u201chow politics ought to work\u201d and Democrats who were \u201cgiddy\u201d over the right tearing itself apart over highly-skilled immigrant workers are the \u201creal losers\u201d while MAGA is merely having a \u201ccivilized debate\u201d over the matter.
Got that guys?
Justin Baragona<\/strong> has a full report.
\u201cThe only real losers in the wake of this kerfuffle are the Democrats and liberal talking heads who hoped that they were watching MAGA tear itself apart,\u201d a Fox News columnist argued this week.
Here\u2019s what Carroll\u2019s attorney Roberta Kaplan had to say about today\u2019s appeal\u2019s court ruling in a short statement to The Independent:<\/em>
\u201cBoth E Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today\u2019s decision. We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties\u2019 arguments.\u201d<\/em>
Here\u2019s the current House GOP leader\u2019s typically grovelling response to the president-elect\u2019s post just now.
And here\u2019s US Attorney General<\/del> One America News presenter Matt Gaetz\u2019s take:
As tensions flare between Musk and the president-elect\u2019s MAGA allies, Trump himself posted what appeared to be a personal message to the SpaceX and Tesla boss on Truth Social over the weekend claiming that fellow billionaire Bill Gates had asked to come to Mar-a-Lago.
Trump suggested the Microsoft co-founder had requested an invite to his Florida estate and encouraged Musk to join them.
\u201cWhere are you? When are you coming to the \u2018Center of the Universe,\u2019 Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year\u2019s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!!\u201d the Republican wrote.
Trump then signed the message \u201cDJT\u201d, as is his custom.
Here\u2019s Kelly Rissman<\/strong> to attempt to get to the bottom of it.
President-elect\u2019s cryptic message comes amid his \u2018first buddy\u2019 Elon Musk\u2019s feud with other MAGA allies over H-1B visas
A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling against the president-elect after he challenged a jury\u2019s verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming a former magazine writer.
Monday\u2019s decision from a three-judge panel with New York\u2019s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals follows a May 2023 verdict awarding E Jean Carroll $5m for the former president\u2019s ongoing defamation by denying claims that he sexually assaulted her in a department store in 1996.
In January, a second jury in a separate trial ordered Trump to pay Carroll more than $83m in damages for his defamatory statements about the former Elle<\/em> magazine writer.
Trump argued the verdict from the 2023 judgment should be tossed out on his claims that the trial judge should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused him of sexual misconduct.
One of those women, Jessica Leeds, testified that Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s.
Another woman, former People<\/em> magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump forcibly kissed her at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.
Trump\u2019s lawyers also said jurors also should not have listened to his comments on the so-called Access Hollywood<\/em> tape, on which the president-elect brags about grabbing women\u2019s genitals.
\u201cTrump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings, and Trump \u201chas not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial,\u201d appellate judges wrote in their decision on Monday.
Here\u2019s the very latest from Alex Woodward<\/strong>.
A jury awarded the former Elle columnist $5 million in her first defamation trial against the former president
Here\u2019s the latest from the president-elect on Truth Social in which he rages about this year\u2019s election, slipping in digs about Black Democrats Beyonce, Oprah Winfrey and the Reverend Al Sharpton and claiming voter fraud in California, before finally getting to the point and calling for Republicans to stick together and get behind House speaker Mike Johnson (so long as the latter does his bidding, presumably):
\u201cWe are the Party of COMMON SENSE, a primary reason that we WON, in a landslide, the magnificent and historic Presidential Election of 2024. ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, 312 ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES, AND THE POPULAR VOTE BY MILLIONS OF VOTERS (Despite large scale voter fraud taking place in numerous states, including California, where votes are ridiculously still being counted, or under review!), ALL WON WITH EASE, CALM, & PROFESSIONALISM. Republicans are being praised for having run a \u201clegendary\u201d campaign! Democrats are being excoriated for their effort, having wasted 2.5 Billion Dollars, much of it unaccounted for, with some being used to illegally buy endorsements ($11,000,000 to Beyonc\u00e9, who never even sang a song, $2,000,000 to Oprah for doing next to nothing, and even $500,000 to Reverend AL, a professional con man and instigator, who agreed to \u201cinterview\u201d their \u201cstar spangled\u201d candidates, Kamala and Joe). We ran a flawless campaign, having spent FAR LESS, with lots of money left over. They ran a very expensive \u201csinking ship,\u201d embracing DOJ & FBI WEAPONIZATION against their political opponent, ME. BUT IT DIDN\u2019T WORK, IT WAS A DISASTER!!! LETS NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN. The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration. Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!\u201d<\/em>
Here\u2019s more from Alex Woodward<\/strong>.
Representatives will decide who holds the gavel to lead the House with a slim Republican majority
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has said that he does not think President-elect Donald Trump has permanently changed the Republican Party.
Sununu, a moderate member of the GOP, said on CNN\u2019s State of the Union<\/em> on Sunday that he does not imagine someone will take Trump\u2019s place as leader once his term is over.
\u201cTrump is Trump. There\u2019s no \u2018Trump-lite.\u2019 There\u2019s no \u2018Trump 2.0\u2019 coming up,\u201d he said.
\u201cI always say that Trump is who he is because he\u2019s built up himself in the American psyche for 40 years. I mean, really since the 80s.\u201d
Andrea Cavallier <\/strong>has more from Sununu.
The moderate Republican governor said he does not think President-elect Trump has permanently changed the GOP
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
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