Trump news live: Matt Gaetz's surprise announcement shakes up the President-elect's future cabinet

President-elect Donald Trump reacted to the news that his nominee for attorney general former Rep. Matt Gaetz had chosen to withdraw his name from consideration.

I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!

Gaetz, a unequivocal supporter of President Trump, had earned respect from the president-elect despite the salacious allegations that followed him.

In his statement reacting to the decision, Trump said he looked forward to Gaetz's future career.

Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!

Gaetz was nominated by Trump to be his attorney general nine days ago despite allegations of sexual relations with a minor, which the House Ethics Committee had been investigating.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk's 'bromance' has captivated the world, with the once MAGA critic tech billionaire having now earned a seat at the Trump family table after becoming a close ally and playing a pivotal in the Republican's election victory.

Musk, 53, was awarded 'uncle' status by Trump's granddaughter Kai, who this election cycle became the newest GOP sweetheart, and has routinely joined the family for meals.

The Tesla tycoon has spent 'nearly every day' since Election Day at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and has been constantly by Trump's side, even accompanying him during his recent travels to New York City and Washington DC.

Musk has joined Trump, 78, on calls with world leaders and, as a member of the administration's transition team, has weighed in on staffing decisions.

But body language expert Judi James warns there could be a 'power battle brewing' if Trump no longer wants to share the spotlight with his so-called First Buddy and Musk refuses to 'back down from this political honeymoon period'.

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance reacted to the news that former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as President-elect Trump's Attorney General.

'I’m extremely grateful for the work Matt put into the nomination process,' he wrote. 'He made his decision to withdraw entirely out of respect for President Trump’s administration.'

As a Republican senator, Vance personally appeared with Gaetz on Wednesday and participated in meetings with his colleages to urge them to support Gaetz's nomination despite allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.

The Trump transition team took the news in stride.

'Matt is a patriot and I look forward to seeing what he does next,' Vance concluded.

Sen. John Fetterman reacted to the news that former Rep. Matt Gaetz suddenly withdrew his name from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump's Attorney General.

Fetterman dismissed the event as a 'troll' from the Trump team, urging Democrats not to react to every outrageous thing that the president-elect was doing.

Karine Jean-Pierre is wishing good luck to Karline Leavitt, who will succeed her as White House press sectetary when Donald Trump becomes the 47th president.

‘I'm not going to speak to every, every personnel pick,’ she said when asked if she had been in contact with Leavitt.

She defended the Biden administration’s record of bringing back regular press briefings and lowering the temperature after Trump’s battles with what he calls the ‘fake news’ – even while batting back questions about Biden’s failure to take questions in South America.

‘Over the past four years … we have done the best, I think, to stick to expected norms of the office. We've had over 500 briefings from this podium … And you know, we hope that they will continue to answer the questions of the American people.’

‘I have not spoken to my successor. What I would say is I certainly wish her luck,’ she said. Then she reflected: ‘This is a great job, and it is an honor on behalf of the President of the United States. It is a privilege, and it is something that I am very proud to have done.’

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued an emphatic defense of VP Kamala Harris going on vacation in Hawaii.

Harris began her vacay on Tuesday, catching a tropical break after losing the presidential election to Donald Trump, even as her campaign blew through more than $1 billion and the DNC abruptly laid off staffers without providing severance.

Jean-Pierre defended the trip, which coincides with rising nuclear tensions with Russia and a final push to get Biden’s final nominations through the Senate, when asked about the staff layoffs.

‘The vice president has taken time off to go spend time with her family. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,’ she intoned. ‘I think she deserves some time with her family and to have some down time. She has worked very hard for the last four years, and her taking a couple days to be with her family: Good for her.’

A final allegation in the Matt Gaetz saga emerged just before he withdrew as Donald Trump's nominee for Attorney General.

CNN obtained information that Gaetz had been accused of engaging in a threesome with a 17-year-old minor and an adult woman.

The allegation had been made as part of a House Ethics Commitee investigation, CNN reported.

Gaetz has vehemently denied the allegations against him that have been investigated by the committee.

But soon after CNN informed Gaets it was going to report the latest one, Gaetz announced he was dropping out.

His attempt to be confirmed as Attorney General was 'unfairly becoming a distraction' to the Trump transition team, he said.

His wife Ginger declared his decision to drop out the 'end of an era'.

Stefanik met with former GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other leaders and she shores up support ahead of her confirmation vote.

Matt Gaetz's wife Ginger sent him heartfelt messages of support after he stunningly withdrew his name as Donald Trump's Attorney General nominee.

'Nobody loves America more than you,' she responded on his post announcing he was removing himself from consideration, admitting the allegations against him were a 'distraction' for the president-elect.

'The end of an era,' she posted alongside an image of them walking hand-in-hand on the Capitol Hill steps.

Gaetz's bombshell decision followed a new allegation that the embattled Republican had a threesome that involved a minor.

The announcement came a day after the House Ethics Committee deadlocked on releasing a report into allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use by Gaetz.

On Wednesday, Gaetz had met with Republican senators whose support he would have needed to be confirmed as attorney general.

'I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,' he wrote on X.

Donald Trump said in a Truth Social statement he respected Gaetz's decision, and admitted the allegations had become a distraction.

From Jon Michael Raasch on Capitol Hill:

Fetterman told reporters in the Senate:

Holy sh** I didn't see that coming, you know, if you want to respond to absolute trolling, you know, then you really got to pace yourself. It's not even Thanksgiving.

Although I heard a rumor. I heard a rumor [about] Trump, they're going to issue a new silver dollar in his honor after that. So we maybe we can freak out on that.

From Jon Michael Raasch on Capitol Hill:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., says Gaetz dropping is ‘a positive step’ and that ‘I doubt very much that he would’ve been supported by the Senate.'

Another liberal, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told reporters that Gaetz was not going to get confirmed so it's 'a smart move for him to withdraw.’

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina gave a 'no comment' and said his team is prepping a statement.

Yesterday, Graham released a statement yesterday fully backing Gaetz.

Another Republican, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, told reporters that it ‘doesn’t surprise me.'

Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he had skeletons in 'plain sight':

The first lesson of proposing anyone for position of responsibility is to make sure that there are no skeletons. And he had skeletons that were hidden in plain sight.

From the very start, it was a threat to our national security. His attorney general is in charge of espionage, prosecuting espionage, terrorism, other internal threats. Just colossally bad judgment, even [thinking] about him as Attorney General.

Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination as Donald Trump's attorney general.

I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many.

While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance.

He told reporters in the Senate while in meetings with J.D. Vance Thursday:

As far as the media is concerned, the matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared.

Donald Trump's defense secretary pick Hegseth and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance are on Capitol Hill to meet with senators on the fence about the nominee.

He is facing an uphill confirmation battle after it came to light that he was investigated for an alleged sexual assault in 2017 - but no charges were filed.

His lawyer admitted that Hegseth paid off the woman involved in exchange for her silence and shocking new details about the incident have emerged in a scathing police report.

Hegseth himself has admitted to Republicans this week that he is facing a 'battle' that is 'just beginning,' and he's relying on prayer to help get him through the 'attacks and onslaughts.'

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed efforts to block trans women from using women's bathrooms as disgusting and dangerous as Republicans escalate their efforts on Capitol Hill.

Speaker Mike Johnson moved to ban the first incoming trans member of Congress Sarah McBride from using the women's restrooms at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after GOP Congresswoman Nancy Mace introduced a resolution this week setting off a firestorm.

'What Nancy Mace and what Speaker Johnson are doing are endangering all women and girls,' AOC told reporters late Wednesday.

'Because if you ask them what is your plan on how to enforce this? They won't come up with an answer,' the New York congresswoman said.

'What it inevitably results in are women and girls who are primed for assault because people are going to want to check their private parts, and suspecting who is trans and who is cis and who's doing what,' she argued.

'Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of who? Investigator? Who would that be? In order because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans is disgusting,' Ocasio-Cortez claimed.

Her fiery response came as Mace moved not just to ban McBride and other trans women from using women's U.S. Capitol facilities but took it a step further by introducing a new bill Wednesday.

Bill Clinton chastised Democrats for not paying more attention to rural and small town voters, saying it cost them the 2024 election.

His advice for Democrats going forward was to 'help people who feel left out and left behind in small towns and rural areas.'

The former president is on a book tour for his new book 'Citizen: My Life After the White House,' which came out on Tuesday. The memoir details into the past 24 years of his post-presidency life.

Clinton, in media interviews for the book, has opined why Democrats lost the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. He also predicted a conservative would be the first woman in the White House.

But the former president, who won the White House in 1992 by touting his small town roots and pushing for a stronger economy, said Democrats needs to change how it talks to people.

'Politics is the only business in which you can prove your authenticity by not knowing anything,' he told MSNBC.

'You know, and I think that's a problem and we'll pay for it unless we get over it, but that's a problem for the Democrats too. We have to learn to talk to people in ways that they can relate to that explains that. That's why, you know, when I helped -- I did my best to help this time. I don't want to go to any big rallies and big television things. I just wanted to get in the country.'

The House Ethics Committee couldn't come to an agreement about whether to release its potentially damning report on Matt Gaetz's alleged sexual misconduct.

Members on the bipartisan panel have been investigating allegations that Trump's attorney general pick Gaetz had sex with a minor and did illegal drugs while a federal employee.

The panel met on Wednesday to determine whether they should publish the potentially damaging file, but couldn't agree after deliberating for hours behind closed doors.

Johnson responded to the deadlocked committee, telling reporters that he doesn't 'have the authority' to tell the committee what to do.

Donald Trump's defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance are on Capitol Hill to meet with senators on the fence about the nominee.

Hegseth, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars, is a controversial pick to lead the Defense Department.

Many have questioned whether the 44-year-old former co-host of Fox & Friends Weekends can handle managing the Pentagon with an over $800 billion budget.

But Trump has confidence in Hegseth, who he's called a 'courageous and patriotic,' and current service members have told DailyMail.com they think his leadership will be a welcome change at the sprawling agency.

Hegseth is also facing an uphill confirmation battle after it came to light that he was investigated for an alleged sexual assault in 2017 - but no charges were filed.

But his lawyer admitted that Hegseth paid off the woman involved in exchange for her silence.

Hegseth himself has admitted to Republicans this week that he is facing a 'battle' that is 'just beginning,' and he's relying on prayer to help get him through the 'attacks and onslaughts.'

On the eve of the 2024 election, a shock poll out of Republican-red Iowa set the political world on fire.

The so-called 'gold standard' Des Moines Register survey, conducted by veteran pollster Ann Selzer, showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 47 percent to 44 percent.

Trump carried the state in 2020 and 2016 by nearly 10-percentage points.

Harris's sudden surge in the state was supposedly driven by support from women and especially female voters aged over 65 years old, who backed the Democrat by a whopping 35 points.

The survey was seized upon by Harris's surrogates and a left-leaning media that suggested it was evidence of a 'hidden Harris' voter that all the other national and swing state polls had somehow missed.

In the end, of course, this 'hidden Harris' voter never materialized – in Iowa or elsewhere.

Trump won the state by 13 percentage points, the largest margin ever recorded there since 1972, and a 16-point differential from Selzer's prediction.

Days after the election, the Des Moines Register announced they had launched a review of Selzer's polling methods to determine what had gone so dramatically wrong.

Wray and Mayorkas skipped an annual hearing on worldwide threats to the U.S. Thursday, prompting swift backlash.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee told DailyMail.com:

It is unacceptable that the FBI Director and DHS Secretary are refusing to testify publicly at our annual hearing on threats to the homeland.

The American people deserve to hold these officials accountable for their actions under the Biden Administration.

Donald Trump stunned Washington by plucking celebrities and prominent figures from cable television to fill his Cabinet and administration.

In doing so, he ignored more traditional candidates favored by the political establishment.

To say his picks rattled the capital would be an understatement. Some of them have more credentials on IMDb than they do years of government service.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that Republican bans on transgender individuals from using shared bathrooms could only be enforced if women were forced to drop their pants to prove their gender.

Ocasio-Cortez shared a video of her remarks to a media outlet, where she warned that Republicans were 'gross' for enacting a law preventing transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice.

'Are women and girls who are primed for assault because people are going to want to check their private parts and suspecting who is trans and who is cis and who is doing what,' she said. 'And so the idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou, in front of who, an investigator? ... It is disgusting.'

She said that Republicans would be able to 'go around and bully any woman who isn't wearing a skirt' warning that genital checks would be the result of such rules.

Ocasio-Cortez argued that transgender individuals did not 'scheme to “dress like girls” to assault women, hinting that Republicans like President-elect Trump and his nominated candidate for attorney general Matt Gaetz were already doing it 'in broad daylight.'

'Leave women alone,' she concluded.

Pete Hegseth is a strong nominee to lead the Department of Defense. We had an excellent discussion about the need for America’s military to remain the best in the world. That means taking care of our service members, equipping them with the latest technology, and focusing on making our military the most lethal force on the planet.

Pete pledged that the Pentagon will focus on strength and hard power – not the current administration’s woke political agenda.

National security nominations have a history of quick confirmations in the Senate. I look forward to Pete’s hearing and a vote on the floor in January.

Horrifying footage has emerged of what officials in Kyiv suspect were warheads from a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile or advanced long-range rocket raining down over Ukraine this morning.

Security cameras caught the moment several projectiles streaked through the night sky and triggered a series of violent explosions in the city of Dnipro where the manufacturing plants of state-owned aerospace and defence company Yuzmash are located.

The ferocity, speed and coordinated nature of the salvos suggested the explosions were caused by MIRVs (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles) carrying conventional explosives.

Such a punishing attack is seen as a retaliation by Moscow less than 24 hours after Ukraine reportedly struck targets in Russia's Kursk region with British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles - though British Defence Secretary John Healey refused to acknowledge those claims.

Russian authorities have thus far refused to comment, but if an ICBM strike is confirmed it would be the first time such a weapon has ever been deployed in combat, representing a major escalation in the conflict.

Israel has blasted the International Criminal Court's 'absurd' arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as 'dead' Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri is also placed on the wanted list.

Along with Netanyahu, the ICC has also issued an arrest warrant for his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

In their decision to grant the warrants, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians.

The warrant for Al-Masri lists charges of mass killings during the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, including rape and the taking of hostages. The prosecution indicated it would continue to gather information with respect to his reported death.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the Israeli military response in Gaza.

Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza. Israel has said it killed Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.

Kellyanne Conway hit out at a liberal graduate student who questioned her record during President-Elect Donald Trump's first term during a Harvard University discussion.

The former advisor to the president appeared at the Ivy League institution on Tuesday to discuss the 2024 presidential election and what challenges Trump may face in his second term.

But when audience members got a chance to ask Conway some questions, second-year Master of Public Policy student Jane Petersen took the opportunity to try to slam her for once claiming there were 'alternative facts' about the size of the crowd at Trump's inauguration.

'I wanted to ask you a question about your job as White House spokesperson,' Petersen began. 'In that role, you said things that were pretty audacious [and] caused people to question things that they have seen with their own eyes.

'I was always wondering whether it was a survival response in what seemed like what was a very chaotic White House, or was it a strategy? So was it strategy or was it survival? You know, all the bantering with journalists the alternative facts. Was it strategy or was it survival?'

Jill Biden's teacher union on Wednesday slammed Donald Trump's decision to nominate Linda McMahon as Education secretary, calling her 'Betsy DeVos 2.0.'

McMahon is expected to undo all of the Biden administration's initiatives when she takes over the U.S. Department of Education - which Trump has said he would like to do away with altogether - including narrowing its support of transgender athletes.

The former CEO of the WWE was a controversial choice on Trump's part. Her experience is on the executive end – in the first Trump administration she headed the Small Business Association – and she has little experience with education.

The National Education Association, the union which the first lady belongs to as a community college professor, slammed McMahon's appointment. It is the nation's largest teachers union.

NEA President Becky Pringle said McMahon would be a new version of DeVos.

Donald Trump stunned Washington by plucking celebrities and prominent figures from cable television to fill his Cabinet and administration.

In doing so, he ignored more traditional candidates favored by the political establishment.

To say his picks rattled the capital would be an understatement. Some of them have more credentials on IMDb than they do years of government service.

The choices were perhaps not surprising given Trump's history as a New York businessman who became a star of the television show The Apprentice. And he has long expressed admiration for those who look like they are from Hollywood 'central casting'.

However, Trump's break from the status quo is an important change from his first administration, when he picked many establishment candidates to fill major government roles.

This time, he watched TV clips of potential Cabinet members on monitors in a makeshift 'situation room' at Mar-a-Lago.

It appears to have been very important to him that those he chose are able to represent the administration well in live TV interviews, and are able to disrupt business as usual in Washington.

The woman who accused Pete Hegseth of sexual assault claims something may have been slipped in her drink before he took her phone and physically blocked her from leaving his room, according to a police report.

Hegseth, a Fox News host and former National Guard officer who was recently nominated by Donald Trump to be secretary of defense, was investigated for the alleged sexual assault in 2017 but no charges were filed.

The report, released by the city of Monterey, California, details an allegedly 'very drunk' Hegseth groping multiple woman at a hotel in the early morning hours of October 8, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa.

The alleged victim, then 30 years old, who asked to be referred to as Jane Doe, was having champagne with co-workers while on a business trip when things got 'fuzzy' and she suddenly ended up in a room with Hegseth.

Nikki Haley blasted President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

She accused the former Democratic congresswoman turned Trump supporter of spreading Russian propaganda and called her a 'Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer.'

The former South Carolina GOP governor gave her scathing review of the 78-year-old president-elect's nominations for his Cabinet on her SiriusXM radio show 'Nikki Haley Live.'

'Everybody now loves that she is saying she's now a Republican, but I have always said "let's look at what they've said, what their actions are,"' Haley said of Gabbard.

Haley slammed the controversial nominee for going to Syria in 2017 to meet with dictator Bashar al-Assad for what Haley called a 'photo op' while he carried out atrocities against his own people.

Haley called it disgusting that Gabbard would question if it was the Syrian leader who was behind the chemical attacks in his country. She recalled giving a speech at the United Nations during Trump's first term about the attacks on children.

The hosts of Morning Joe held their secret meeting with Donald Trump over fears the president-elect would allow Matt Gaetz to lead a probe into conspiracy theories surrounding the 2001 death of Joe Scarborough's intern.

Scarborough and his co-host/wife Mika Brzezinski have faced a deluge of backlash after they revealed the Mar-a-Lago summit amid declining viewership on their beleaguered network.

Some called the recent Trump meeting a feeble attempt to bring in conservative viewers.

But the pair are reportedly 'petrified of retribution and of Gaetz opening an investigation into Joe and the intern.'

'That's what this was about,' a source told Puck about the motive. 'It has nothing to do with ratings or Comcast. It's all about fear of retribution and investigation,'

Since 2020, Trump has spread theories that Scarborough had an affair with intern Lori Klausutis and was responsible for her death.