Donald Trump slams Stephen Colbert interview with Joe Biden
US President Donald Trump has tweeted once more that the election results are fraudulent, and this time he appeared to reserve some choice words for Republicans.
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Donald Trump has lashed out at “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert’s interview with President-elect Joe Biden.
The angry tweet was sparked by a New York Postopinion piece which labelled the interview a “joke” and gave a free pass to Mr Biden over the controversy caused by his son, Hunter.
“Granted a lot of face time with Biden, the CBS host had a chance to break news and do the public a service by asking real questions of the next commander-in-chief.
But this is how Colbert brought up the Hunter Biden scandal: ‘You know that the people who want to make hay here in Washington are going to try to use your adult son as a cudgel against you. How do you feel about that?’
“I’m not concerned about any accusations that have been made against him. It’s used to get to me,” Mr Biden responded. “And he’s a grown man. He is the smartest man I know, I mean, in pure intellectual capacity. And as long as he’s good, we’re good.”
He didn’t win the Election. He lost all 6 Swing States, by a lot. They then dumped hundreds of thousands of votes in each one, and got caught. Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don’t be weak fools! https://t.co/d9Bgu8XPIj
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020
“He didn’t win the Election,” fumed Mr Trump on Twitter. “He lost all 6 Swing States, by a lot. They then dumped hundreds of thousands of votes in each one, and got caught. Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don’t be weak fools!”
Twitter again flagged the tweet as disputed.
Mr Trump also defleted blame away from Russia for the recent cyberhak against the US, suggesting that China was behind the attack.
The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020
....discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!). There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA. @DNI_Ratcliffe @SecPompeo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020
MIKE PENCE GETS VACCINATED ON TV
US Vice President Mike Pence has received the COVID-19 vaccine on live TV on Friday, local time.
The gesture came as a move designed to instil confidence in the American public that the newly approved shot is safe.
Mr Pence, second lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams took turns getting jabbed at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House, according to the New York Post.
They became the first high-ranking White House officials to receive the vaccine, developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and approved for use in the US a week ago.
“I didn’t feel a thing, well done,” Mr Pence said afterwards. “Make no mistake about it. It’s a medical miracle.”
Earlier this week, Mr Pence toured a vaccine production facility in Indiana.
“The last thing I would say to every American is be confident that we have cut red tape, but we’ve cut no corners when it comes to the development of this vaccine,” he said.
US President-elect Joe Biden is set to receive the inoculation next week in a public setting, according to CNN, while Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will also get one soon.
President Trump has not yet gotten the vaccine.
TRUMP’S NEIGHBOURS AT MAR-A-LAGO DON’T WANT HIM
It comes as Donald Trump’s neighbours in Mar-a-Lago sent a letter to the town of Palm Beach and the Secret Service demanding the outgoing US President be told that he cannot live at the Florida town because of a deal he made in 1993.
Mr Trump’s lawyer promised the town council that Trump would never live at Mar-a-Lago.
The guarantee was given when he converted the estate into the private resort he has been spotted at many times over the past four years.
Palm Beach approved Trump’s plans for a private resort under the agreement that no club member could spend more than 21 days a year in the club’s guest suites.
The Washington Post reported that next-door neighbours of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida that he has called his Winter White House, have a message for the outgoing commander in chief: We don’t want you to be our neighbour.
A lawyer representing the DeMoss family, which made its fortune selling life insurance and has since become involved in evangelical philanthropy, sent a letter to the town of Palm Beach and the US Secret Service.
The letter urged the town to inform Trump that he would not be allowed to move to Mar-a-Lago full time so as to ‘avoid an embarrassing situation’ whereby a man who was once president would be forced out at a later date, The Washington Post reported.
Mr Trump bought Mar-a-Lago, a 118-room mansion built in the 1920s, for $A10 million in 1985. In 1995, he converted the home into a private club.
The decision to convert the mansion into a club came at a time when Mr Trump was under financial stress and needed to gmake some serious money.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump has told his aides that he will refuse to leave the White House and is “throwing a tantrum” over his election loss, according to a report.
The president told advisers that he will not leave the residence on Inauguration Day, according to anti-Trump publication CNN.
However, few aides believe that this will be the case, according toT he Sun .
“He’s throwing a f**king temper tantrum,” an adviser reportedly told the outlet. “He’s going to leave. He’s just lashing out.”
The White House denied to comment to CNN.
Mr Trump is still yet to concede defeat to Joe Biden.
BIDEN RUSHES TO DEFENCE OF SON, HUNTER
President-elect Joe Biden said that he’s “confident” that his son Hunter Biden did nothing wrong, addressing directly federal investigations into his son’s “tax affairs” and business dealings in Ukraine.
Asked by a US reporter at an event to announce the nomination of former Democrat rival Pete Buttigieg as head of transport if he was sure of his son’s innocence, Mr Biden said only, “I’m confident.”
Hunter Biden revealed the existence of the federal investigations last week, and the former vice president since then had only said he was “proud of my son” when asked about the probes that date back to 2018.
“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers,” Hunter Biden said in a statement issued by the Biden-Harris transition team.
In October, The Post revealed that Hunter Biden had introduced a top Burisma executive to his father.
Meanwhile, a senior Biden staffer has unloaded on the Republican Party.
Mr Biden’s incoming deputy chief of staff and former campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, said the “sense of unity” Biden called for in his 2020 run helped him secure the Democratic nomination — but that’s not to say politicians on the other side of the aisle are “not a bunch of f---ers.”
During his 2020 run, “the president-elect was able to connect with people over this sense of unity,” even when people would “mock him” by implying he couldn’t work with Republicans, Ms O’Malley Dillon said.
“I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of f---ers. Mitch McConnell is terrible,” she continued. “But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? [Biden] rejected that” and “set out with this idea that unity was possible,” securing him Americans’ support.
At the same time, President Donald Trump is reportedly not prepared to let the Hunter Biden issue go.
Mr Trump is said to be considering pushing to have a special counsel appointed to advance a federal tax investigation into the son of President-elect Joe Biden, setting up a potential showdown with incoming acting lawyer general Jeffrey Rosen.
Mr Trump — angry that outgoing Attorney-General William Barr didn’t publicly announce the ongoing, two-year investigation into Hunter Biden — has consulted on the matter with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and outside allies.
That’s according to several Trump administration officials and Republicans close to the White House who spoke to Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.
DEMS’ INTERNAL WOES RAMP UP
Nancy Pelosi “needs to be replaced as House Speaker” – but there could be a Democratic power vacuum, left-wing rebel rouser Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.
Known widely as AOC, she made the comments during a podcast interview with “The Intercept”.
“I do think we need new leadership in the Democratic Party,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said.
“I think one of the things that I have struggled with, I think that a lot of people struggle with, is the internal dynamics of the House has made it such that there [are] very little options for succession.”
House Democrats nominated Ms Pelosi last month to be the speaker who guides them during Joe Biden’s leadership.
To become speaker again, Ms Pelosi will need more votes than House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who’s likely to garner nearly unanimous GOP support.
That means Pelosi will need roughly 218 votes to win, meaning she cannot afford to lose Democratic support.
Though she’s likely to succeed, it won’t be simple because when Pelosi was elected speaker in January 2019, 15 Democrats opposed her.
Ten remain in Congress plus Reps Anthony Brindisi, whose race remains uncalled, and Jeff Van Drew, who became a Republican.
Despite hoping for new leadership in the party, AOC admitted that there “isn’t a plan” if Pelosi is voted out.
“My concern — and I acknowledge this as a failing, as something that we need to sort out — is that there isn’t a plan,” she said, according to The Sun.
“How do we fill that vacuum? Because if you create that vacuum, there are so many nefarious forces at play to fill that vacuum with something even worse.
“And so, the actual sad state of affairs is that there are folks more conservative than even they are willing to kind of fill that void.”
She went on to blame Democrats leaving Capitol Hill on the fact there is a lack of leadership opportunities.
– with AFP
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