Covid deaths at highest level since April as Biden pledges to 'fight like hell' for US investment – live

Donald Trump just posted a video on social media of him talking about the election, repeating debunked claims he has made on social media in the last few weeks following his loss to Joe Biden.

Standing at a podium stamped with the presidential seal, Trump started the video by saying, “This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made …” – all while hundreds of Americans die of Covid-19 each day – and said it is an “update on the efforts to expose the tremendous voter fraud and irregularities” during the election, which he noted (in the 46-minute video) was “ridiculously long”. Trump repeated his claims that the election was under “coordinated assault and siege”.

Election officials have made clear that the election was one of the most safe and secure in US history, and there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump’s battle to hold onto his place in the White House is quickly coming to an end as 8 December approaches, which is the last day states have to resolve any disputes and certify their results, at which point the results of the election will be nearly impossible to overturn.

Senator David Perdue of Georgia, who is up against Democrat Jon Ossoff in the special election for his seat in January, trades the most stock of any member of the US Senate, according to a New York Times analysis of Perdue’s stock trading.

Not only does Perdue trade stocks in high amounts, he also trades in companies that are directly affected by the policies he sets in the committees and subcommittees in which he serves. The Times noted that Perdue denies that his trading sets up a conflict between his personal financial matters and his job as a Senator, saying that he trading is handled by outside advisers without his input.

Here’s more from the Times’ story:

An examination of Mr. Perdue’s stock trading during his six years in office reveals that he has been the Senate’s most prolific stock trader by far, sometimes reporting 20 or more transactions in a single day.

The Times analyzed data compiled by Senate Stock Watcher, a nonpartisan website that aggregates publicly available information on lawmakers’ trading, and found that Mr. Perdue’s transactions accounted for nearly a third of all Senate trades reported in the past six years. His 2,596 trades, mostly in stocks but also in bonds and funds, roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate.

The data also shows the breadth of trades Mr. Perdue made in companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came not just before the Senate as a whole, but before the committees and subcommittees on which he served.

The Republican National Committee is hosting a “Victory Rally” with Donald Trump and Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler before their January runoff elections. The rally will take place in Valdosta, Georgia, on Saturday.

This will be Trump’s first rally since election day. Trump is still refusing to accept the official results of the election and has not formally conceded to Joe Biden. The rally is an indicator that the RNC is hoping support for Trump will motivate voters to support the Republican candidates in January’s runoff.

Notably absent from the event is Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who is a supporter of Trump but has, in recent days, been the target of attacks from the president calling on Kemp to use his powers as governor to rig the election in favor of himself. In response, Kemp said that the state’s law “prohibits the Governor from interfering in elections” and that “he will continue to follow the law”.

Donald Trump’s threats to veto Congress’s annual defense bill unless legal protections for social media companies are removed fell flat on Capitol Hill today, including with Republicans.

Jim Inhofe, the chair of the Senate armed services committee, which is charge of creating the bill, said that he plans to move forward with the bill without provisions that will repeal protections for social media companies, teeing up a potential veto from Trump.

Trump tweeted last night that he would veto the bill if it does not include a provision that revokes Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which provides a legal shield to technology companies for any content from third parties and users. Trump has made largely unsuccessful efforts to curb social media companies, particularly Twitter, which has been flagging his tweets about the election as misinformation drawing the president’s ire.

Inhofe said that he agrees with Trump about Section 230, but it has “nothing to do with the military.”

The bill is wide-ranging, setting defense policies for the country and offering raises to troops. An amendment that would remove the names of Confederates from military bases within three years has also been included.

When asked at a press conference earlier this afternoon whether Trump is serious about his threats to veto the bill, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said: “The president is serious about it.”

Mark Kelly, a former US Navy captain and astronaut, was just sworn into his seat as a US Senator for Arizona after ousting Republican Martha McSally from her seat with a margin of just over 2 points. Kelly was sworn in by Mike Pence, with his fellow Democratic senator from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema, holding the Bible he took his oath.

McSally was appointed to replace the late John McCain in 2018 after she lost the race for the other Arizona US Senate seat to Sinema. Kelly is also the husband of Gabby Giffords, who was severely injured during an assassination attempt and mass shooting in 2011. Kelly and Giffords have since become staunch gun control advocates.

Kelly was one of two Democrats, the other being Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, who successfully took a Senate seat away from a sitting Republican.

Joe Biden is planning to keep Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2017 after the president fired James Comey, as FBI director, the New York Times is reporting.

Citing an anonymous official on Biden’s team, Biden is planning on “not removing the FBI director unless Trump fired him.”

Biden keeping Wray as director would be a return to norms as FBI directors tend to serve for 10-year terms. The firing of Comey was an exception and eventually led to the investigation of possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

Wray is a Republican who was the assistant attorney general overseeing the criminal division under George W. Bush and was specifically in charge of corporate fraud. Before becoming FBI director, Wray was a litigation partner at a private law firm.

A rare interview with Robert Mueller, former FBI director and special counsel to the investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016, is set to premier today on NBC’s “The Oath” podcast with Chuck Rosenberg.

Rosenberg is a former federal prosecutor who worked for Mueller as an FBI counsel. Rosenberg told the Associated Press that he knew not to ask any questions about his time on the special counsel. “I knew he wouldn’t talk about it and I had really no intention of asking about it,” he said.

Mueller has kept an impressively under-the-radar profile since his time as special prosecutor, only coming out with a public statement in September when he pushed back on a claim from Andrew Weissmann, a former top federal prosecutor who worked on the counsel with Mueller, who said in his memoir that the special counsel “could have down more” to hold Donald Trump accountable.

“It is not surprising that members of the special counsel’s office did not always agree,” he said. “But it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information.”

Several properties owned by the Trump Organization, and by Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, received millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program loans, NBC News reports.

Data from the program were released last night after several news organizations sued the federal government to release the data from the PPP and Economist Injury Disaster Loans.

Congress earmarked $700bn for forgivable loans to businesses, mainly to keep employees on payroll, but also to cover expenses like rent, utilities and mortgage payments.

Data around the loans that were granted to the Trump and Kushner family businesses reveal that their loans did not end up going toward keeping jobs, as the loan was created to do.

More than two dozen PPP loans worth over $3.65m were used for rent by tenants of the Trump and Kushner companies. One loan went to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., located in the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York. The company reported that the money did not go to keeping jobs, and it later closed permanently.