Trump teases control of Greenland and Panama as Matt Gaetz fires back at explosive report: Live updates

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Congress Narrowly Averts Government Shutdown — And Rejects Trump’s Debt Ceiling Commands Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailGet our free Inside Washington email

Donald Trump is signalling his incoming administration’s readiness to expand U.S. territory, with recent out-of-nowhere snipes at Panama and Greenland.

After seemingly joking about Canada becoming the “51st” state, the incoming president fired off ominous messages alleging the Panama Canal and Greenland pose serious economic and national security threats to the United States.

He claimed the Panama Canal is a “rip-off” that the country “will immediately stop,” and that the “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” — rattling diplomatic relationships less than a month before he returns to the White House.

Meanwhile, allies of House Speaker Mike Johnson are urging the president-elect to reaffirm his support for the Republican leader after Democrats and some Republicans blocked the Trump- and Elon Musk-led campaign to derail the stop-gap funding bill before Christmas, averting a government shutdown.

The House of Representatives is also reeling after an ethics committee report into former congressman Matt Gaetz “determined there is substantial evidence” that he paid tens of thousands of dollars for sex and used illicit drugs while he was a member of Congress.

Canal threats, money-laundering claims and a hotel battle: Trump’s long, weird history with Panama Trump rattled North American diplomatic relations over the weekend with a threat to retake the Panama Canal, two-and-a-half decades after the U.S. transfered control of the vital global trade route to Panama.

Josh Marcus dives into Trump’s long strange trip with the Central American country:

Alex Woodward24 December 2024 15:20

Biden vetoes legislation that would have allowed Trump to add more judges to the federal judiciary President Joe Biden has vetoed legislation that would have added dozens of judges to the federal judiciary, dealing a blow to Trump’s incoming administration and his plans to build on his first term’s radical reshaping of the courts with more right-leaning judges.

The bipartisan bill would have awarded roughly 66 new federal judicial slots over the next three presidential terms. Trump would have been able to appoint a first batch of 25.

The bill passed the Senate unanimously in August but lingered in the Republican-controlled House for months, until after Trump’s victory in the 2024 election. It cleared the House on a largely party-line in December.

The JUDGES Act would have increased the number of trial court judges in 25 federal district courts in 13 states, including California, Florida and Texas, in six waves every two years through 2035.

The bill “seeks to hastily add judgeships with just a few weeks left” in the current Congress, Biden wrote in a letter to lawmakers Monday night.

“The House of Representatives’ hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships,” he added.

“The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,” the letter continued.

The bill “would create new judgeships in states where senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies,” efforts that suggest “concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now,” according to Biden.

Alex Woodward24 December 2024 15:17

Trump blasts Biden for commuting death row prisoners Trump, who touts himself as America’s “most pro-life” president, continues to attack Presidnt Joe Biden after he announced the largest single-day commutation of federal death row inmates in modern history.

“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Christmas Eve. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”

The White House announced early Monday morning that the president would commute the sentences of 37 inmates awaiting execution in the federal prison system, which Trump has pushed to expedite once in office.

Biden explicitly said in his announcement that he could not let Trump do that.

“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he wrote.

Here are the stories of the three federal death row inmates Biden chose not to save:

Alex Woodward24 December 2024 15:00

Matt Gaetz ‘got a great note’ from Trump... on a month-old story Matt Gaetz shared a photograph of a printed-out article in The Federalist about the former congressman’s ethics probe.

“I got a great note from President Trump!” Gaetz shared Monday night, hours after the House Ethics Committee shared “substantial evidence” he paid tens of thousands of dollars for sex, including with a high school student, and frequently used cocaine and ecstasy while in office.

“Matt very unfair!” reads the note, drawn in Trump’s classic thick Sharpie print.

The article, however, is from November,

Alex Woodward24 December 2024 14:45

All the allegations against Matt Gaetz revealed in explosive report As a sitting member of Congress, Matt Gaetz paid for sex with a 17-year-old high school student, used cocaine and ecstasy, and spent thousands of dollars on sex- and drug-fueled partying, according to a bombshell report from the House Ethics Committee.

Monday’s report found “substantial evidence” the now-former Republican congressman “regularly” paid for sex and met women through a “sugar dating” website through a former associate who has since pleaded guilty to sex trafficking.

We combed through the report.

Alex Woodward24 December 2024 14:15

Gaetz report states some women said drug use at parties ‘impaired’ their ability to ‘fully consent’ The House Ethics Committee report into Matt Gaetz states that “all of the women interviewed by the committee said their sexual relationship with Gaetz was consensual, but at least one woman said the use of drugs at the parties they attended with him may have ‘impair[ed their] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent.’”

“Indeed, nearly every woman that the Committee spoke with could not remember the details of at least one or more of the events they attended with Representative Gaetz and attributed that to drug or alcohol consumption,” according to the report.

Gaetz has rejected the allegations.

The women also discussed instances where Representative Gaetz would try to convince them to have sex with him or Mr. Greenberg: “[H]e would make me feel bad about not having sex with him or [] Joel Greenberg” and that he would say, “Why don’t you want to have sex with me” or “[Mr. Greenberg] looks very sad over there … Make him happy.”

Another woman said that their relationship at some point was a “loving friendship,” but over time came to feel like a “task.”

A third woman said, “[W]hen I look back on certain moments, I feel violated.”

One woman said, “I think about it all the time . . . . I still see him when I turn on the tv and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.”

House Ethics Committee report

Gustaf Kilander24 December 2024 14:00

Johnson allies call for Trump to back him to avoid another round of Republican civil war Should other contenders for the speakership emerge with any significant support following last week’s spending bill battle it could delay the certification of the president-elect’s own victory.

So far, there has been silence on the matter from Mar-a-Lago since Friday night’s vote on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through mid-March — a struggle that did not bode well for Johnson’s future.

Oliver O’Connell reports.

Oliver O'Connell24 December 2024 13:00

Trump considering attempting to boot Mike Johnson: report President-elect Donald Trump is considering attempting to boot Speaker Mike Johnson from his post, according to Politico.

This comes after Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown on Friday night.

Trump is reportedly unhappy with the funding deal and that he didn’t get the debt ceiling hike he sought.

“The president is upset — he wanted the debt ceiling dealt with,” a person in Trump’s circle told the outlet.

“In the past couple weeks, we’ve questioned whether [Johnson has] been an honest broker,” another person said.

“I don’t see how Johnson survives,” yet another individual told Politico.

Gustaf Kilander24 December 2024 12:00

Trump declares Elon Musk is ‘not going to be president’ amid ongoing taunts over who’s really in charge “No, he’s not taking the presidency,” Trump declared in a Sunday night speech. “That’s not happening.”

The president-elect’s snarky remark comes as Democrats have sought to drive a wedge between the world’s richest man and the notoriously thin-skinned Trump by highlighting Musk’s growing influence and describing him as the “real president.” The taunts have only grown following last week’s chaos on Capitol Hill after Musk raged against House Republicans’ original spending bill, prompting lawmakers to race against the clock to strike another deal to prevent the government from shutting down.

Justin Baragona24 December 2024 11:00

Chair of Ethics Committee did not vote to release report The chair of the Ethics Committee, Republican Rep. Michael Guest said that while he does “not challenge the Committee’s findings,” he did not vote to release the report.

I believe, have publicly stated, and remain steadfast in the position that the House Committee on Ethics lost jurisdiction to release to the public any substantive work product regarding Mr. Gaetz after his resignation from the House on November 14, 2024.

While I do not challenge the Committee’s findings, I did not vote to support the release of the report and I take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards and voted to release a report on an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006.

Representative Gaetz resigned from Congress, withdrew from consideration to serve in the next administration, and declared that he would not seek to be seated in the 119th Congress. The decision to publish a report after his resignation breaks from the Committee’s long-standing practice and is a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Michael Guest

Gustaf Kilander24 December 2024 10:00

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