Trump cabinet live updates: Senators skeptical of MAGA picks after RFK Jr and Gaetz

Democrat Janelle Bynum has flipped Oregon’s 5th Congressional District and will become the state’s first Black member of Congress.

Bynum, a state representative who was backed and funded by national Democrats, ousted freshman GOP U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Republicans lost a seat that they flipped red for the first time in roughly 25 years during the 2022 midterms.

Leander Antwione Williams, 31, who played for the Detroit Lions in the 2016 season, was arrested by FBI agents in Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday – over three years on from the violent insurrection where Donald Trump supporters tried to stop the certification of the election in President Joe Biden’s favor.

James Liddell has the story.

And he appears to be repeating one of Bush’s most infamous mistakes.

Iran sent a private letter to the Joe Biden administration last month vowing it wouldn’t plot to kill Donald Trump, according to a report.

The letter from Tehran — delivered on October 14 — came in response to US officials’ private hand-written warning to the country in September, relating that any threats against the then-Republican nominee’s life would be “treated as an act of war,” the Wall Street Journal first reported.

The promise not to kill the now president-elect contradicts Iran’s vow to avenge Qassem Soleimani — the commander of the Quds Force killed in a US airstrike in 2020 during Trump’s presidency.

Kelly Rissman has the details.

Louisiana lawmakers on Thursday postponed a vote on a key bill in Gov. Jeff Landry’s sweeping and complex tax reform package.

Most of Landry’s proposed bills, granting approximately $2 billion in income and corporate tax cuts, have moved smoothly through the House of Representatives during the state’s third special legislative session of the year. But lawmakers have raised more resistance to a sales tax on dozens of services such as lawnmowing, getting tattoos and using coin-operated laundry machines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has spoken out against Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination as Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary — but not for his views on vaccines and fluoride and the host of other reasons that have people are up in arms about the possibility of him becoming a cabinet member.

Pence released the following statement through his Advancing American Freedom group:

The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life.

I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades.

For the majority of his career, RFK Jr. has defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v Wade. If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.

The pro-life movement has always looked to the Republican party to stand for life, to affirm an unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.

On behalf of tens of millions of pro-life Americans, I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services.”

The New York Post editorial board has condemned Donald Trump’s decision to pick Robert F Kennedy Jr as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Referring to a meeting with Kennedy in May 2023, the board writes on his views about health:

When it came to that topic his views were a head-scratching spaghetti of what we can only call warped conspiracy theories, and not just on vaccines.

“Neocons” are responsible for America’s policy ills. “Pesticides, cellphones, ultrasound” could be driving an upswing in Tourette syndrome and peanut allergies.

He told us with full conviction that all America’s chronic health problems began in one year in the 1980s when a dozen bad things happened.

Convincing to the gullible conspiracy-hungry crowd on Twitter, but not to the rest of us.

In fact, we came out thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts.

The Post gave a ringing endorsement of Donald Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 election.