Trump and Melania welcome late Shinzo Abe’s widow to Mar-a-Lago; RFK Jr tries to shore up Senate support: Latest updates

Mitt Romney said in his interview on Sunday that Republicans won the 2024 election due to their successful effort to peel off working-class voters from the Democratic Party’s voting coalition.

“The Democrat Party is the one in trouble. I mean, I don’t know how they recover,” said the senator. “Union guys, and gals … have left the Democratic Party.”

He went on to blame that trend on the Democrats’ embrace of transgender rights and a focus on cultural issues while the party ignored economic issues.

Rock made the crowd groan during his Saturday Night Live monologue with a joke about Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

The 59-year-old stand-up comedian and actor hosted the sketch comedy show over the weekend.

During his monologue, Rock made reference to Trump’s successful year, noting that he’d survived an assassination attempt, been re-elected to the US presidency and been named Time’s Person of the Year.

The president-elect’s campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz passed out and fell from his lectern as he addressed a New York Young Republican Club gala on Sunday night, a shocking moment caught on video below.

Bruesewitz had reportedly been about to introduce Trump insider Dan Scavino to his audience before slurring his words, freezing briefly and then toppling over, inspiring gasps in the auditorium.

Master of ceremonies Raheem Kassam subsequently revealed that the stricken aide had received medical support backstage and was up and talking.

“I talked to our friend Alex Bruesewitz and you know what he said to me? He goes ‘Did I at least look cool?’”, Kassam said, according to The New York Post.

“I said Alex you used gravity like I’ve seen nobody use gravity before in their lives. But he’s recuperating back there so give him a big cheer so he’ll hear you.”

Here’s a full report from James Liddell.

Over the weekend, ABC News agreed to a $15 million settlement in response to Trump’s defamation lawsuit launched against the network after it erroneously claimed in a broadcast that the president-elect had been found “liable for rape” at the civil trial brought against him by the writer E Jean Carroll over an incident dating back to 1996.

Trump was actually found liable for “sexual abuse”, not rape.

The network’s costly settlement has alarmed legal analysts and drawn criticism that the network and its Disney parent company gave up without a fight.

The Trump transition team is kicking into a new gear, as time runs out to secure support for their most important nominees.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, is reportedly slated to meet with Senators Ron Johnson and Jerry Moran this week while other parts of the transition team are going to begin engaging with the Pentagon.

On the non-defense side of things, Robert F Kennedy Jr has plans to meet over two dozen senators this week, likely in an effort to ease concerns about how his anti-vax views might imperil his confirmation.

The incoming president and first lady hosted the widow of late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, paying their respects to Akie Abe following the murder of her husband in July 2022.

Trump worked with PM Abe during his first term in the White House.

A server in Washington, D.C. has been fired after she said she would refuse to serve certain officials in Donald Trump‘s incoming administration who have been accused of sexual misconduct.

The server was working at Beuchert’s Saloon on Capitol Hill when she made the comments to Washingtonian magazine for a story about D.C. preparing for the influx of Trump officials to the city’s dining spots.

After the story ran, Fox News ran its own story following up on her comments and learned she had been fired for what her employer called her “base prejudice.”

Daniel Penny, the former US Marine who was recently acquitted of the killing of New York City subway rider Jordan Neely, spent Saturday rubbing elbows with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance at the annual Army-Navy football game in Maryland.

The death of the homeless Black street performer sparked outrage and demands for justice for homeless New Yorkers, while Penny — and some witnesses aboard the train — argued he was a danger to others onboard. The former Marine held Neely in a lethal chokehold for more than six minutes.

“He was just threatening to kill people,” Penny told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. “He was threatening to go to jail forever, to go to jail for the rest of his life.”

CNN’s State of the Union interviewed retiring senator Mitt Romney on Sunday. The Republican senator has been one of Donald Trump’s last remaining opponents in the GOP, but bowed out of the Senate this year.

Romney seems to have come to terms with the future of the Republican Party as a Trumpified political movement.

“MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” the Utah senator told Jake Tapper, adding: “Democrats have badly misread the direction of the country… and President Trump took advantage of that.”

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes and the president-elect’s Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell have been selected to serve in his upcoming administration.

Nunes, as former California House Representative, was tapped for to serve as Chairman of Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board, while Grenell was picked to serve as his Presiential Envoy for Special Missions.

While Nunes was in office he served on the House Intelligence Committee and consistently backed any move then-President Trump made. He also led the two-year investigation into US’s responde to the 2012 Benghazi attack, which ultimate found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the US State Department under Hillary Clinton.

Nunes also refused to back an investigation into Trump former national security adviser and Q-Anon conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn after it was revealed he had unreported discussions with Russian officials while serving under Trump.

“From everything that I can see, his conversations with the Russian ambassador—he was doing this country a favor, and he should be thanked for it,” Nunes said at the time.

Grenell formerly served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and his Director of National Intelligence.

Prior to his involvement in Trump’s administration, Grenell was a consultant for an eastern European oligarch, Vladimir Plahotniuc. He faced criticism after he wrote articles defending the oligarch without making clear he was being paid to manage the man’s image.

Grenell is a former Fox News contributor and was named as a VP at the far-right media outlet Newsmax in 2021. He earned the ire of the media in 2020 when, during a Trump press conference, he refused to identify himself to reporters and publicly accused the state of covering up incidents of voter fraud in order to help the election prospects of then-Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

These claims were made without evidence, and Mr Grenell refused to answer questions from journalists who demanded he prove his assertions.