President-elect Trump's sentencing in his criminal hush money trial was put on pause Tuesday, according to a new report.
Axios reported Judge Juan Merchan adjourned the sentencing, slated to take place in New York City on Nov. 26, as he considers how to move forward after Trump's Election Day victory.
No additional details were included on the case's docket, according to the report.
Merchan is also expected to rule Tuesday on Trump's demand for a new trial, the report noted.
Merchan paused the case for a week on Nov. 12 so Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office could file to the court what prosecutors believe to be appropriate next steps.
Trump's lawyers want to see the case dismissed. Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
He pleaded not guilty and called the prosecution a political witch hunt.
MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski stunned and outraged many of their viewers this week by announcing they went to Mar-a-Lago for a personal sit-down with Donald Trump — painting it as an effort to get back in the loop and into a place where they have the access to hold him accountable.
But according to CNN's "Reliable Sources," this may not be the whole story.
Rather, according to the report, the two anchors may have been trying to ingratiate themselves with the president-elect to avoid his retribution.
A pair of sources privy to the behind-the-scenes decision making told CNN that "Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration. Knowing that Trump has threatened retribution against his perceived political opponents, and that Trump has promoted lies about Scarborough and Brzezinski in the past, the MSNBC hosts decided to reach out to the President-elect."
These two sources "generally agreed with Joe and Mika's impression of the situation at hand — namely, that the incoming Trump administration could use its wide-ranging powers to punish people deemed enemies."
Trump has repeatedly attacked the press for critical coverage and fact-checking, famously calling them the "enemy of the people" and even saying at a recent rally that he uses the press as human shields against assassins.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have been sharply critical of Trump during the campaign season, with Brzezinski even calling him an "aging BS artist." Trump, for his part, has often targeted them specifically in his attacks on the press, and has even pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Scarborough murdered a staffer while he was a Republican member of Congress.
All of this comes as experts set off alarm bells over Trump's selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a loyalist who has often endorsed Trump's legal revenge schemes on his political enemies and has himself faced ethics investigations, to head up the Justice Department — a move that even took many Republican senators aback.
Journalists on Monday found that New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer has deleted a social media post she published on Sunday regarding Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Florida Voice News' assistant news director Eric Daugherty shared a screenshot of Mayer's now-deleted post, in which the New Yorker writer wrote: "Message to Trump Team: 'There will be no recess appointments' Sen. Mitch McConnell said tonight at a Washington gathering."
Daugherty wrote via X that "something sketchy is going on."
He added, "This news of McConnell telling Trump 'no recess appointments' has been DELETED by the D.C.-based New Yorker reporter…. AFTER a sitting US Senator (@BasedMikeLee) and basically the entirety of X got wind of the news. It is a SEVERE F-up for a reporter with a news organization to somehow devise a quote up out of nowhere and attribute it to the wrong person. The event is reportedly in DC, and this reporter is based there."
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) replied to Mayer's deleted tweet, writing, "McConnell is no longer the Senate GOP leader."
McConnell announced in February that he would step down as Senate GOP leader in November, and on Monday Senator John Thune (R-SD) was elected by his fellow Republicans to succeed the Kentucky lawmaker, according to USA Today.
The Florida Voice News staffer also questioned why the tweet has been deleted, with "no retraction or correction" included.
"Was she given a command by a higher up because of the blowback?" he asked.
A "Morning Joe" show insider claims the hosts' controversial visit with President-elect Donald Trump may have played a part in saving a free press.
Joe Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski took flak Monday after announcing they’d taken a trip to Mar-a-Lago for a face-to-face visit with the incoming president.
“They bent the knee,” one onlooker said of the pair who have spent years criticizing Trump.
But a source at the show told the Daily Beast the meeting “was f—cking worth it” — and claimed it may have caused a change in Trump’s opinion of the press.
“That doesn’t mean there are going to be earth-shaking changes,” the source said. “But the temperature has to come down.”
Trump has viciously attacked news since before he first announced his 2016 candidacy, including “Morning Joe’s” MSNBC network which he calls “MS Dem BC,” suggesting it’s connected to the Democratic Party.
But those criticizing the show’s hosts for taking the trip to Mar-a-Lago are “part of the problems we’re in,” the source said.
“You never turn down that opportunity,” they said. “That would be journalistic malpractice.”
Another NBC source told the Beast, “Any practicing journalist or news host would take an off-the-record meeting with the incoming President of the United States. End of discussion.”
The source told the Beast that Scarborough and Brzezinski’s visit could likely be credited for Trump’s apparent toning down of anti-press vitriol. On Monday, he said on Fox that it “very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press.”
“I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place,” Trump said about the meeting, which he said Scarborough had requested.
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication. In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
A Donald Trump plan to court-martial top military brass for their part in the withdrawal from Afghanistan was slammed as 'utter nonsense" by a retired general Monday.
The Trump transition team is reportedly crafting a list of current and former military brass involved with the withdrawal, with the proposal that they be charged with treason, NBC News reported over the weekend.
The plan claims that retired military officials would be recalled and forced back into active duty, where they would be court-martialed.
According to retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, it's never going to happen — and even if it did, he said it would make Trump look terrible for his own mistakes.
"What is not utter nonsense is this is a political attack of utmost hypocrisy. Trump ran for office saying get out of Afghanistan. He reduced the troop presence to 2,500. He negotiated directly with the Taliban."
When Biden came into office, McCaffrey said that only 2,500 troops on the ground made things difficult when they were forced to give up the U.S. Air Force base.
"The evacuation, from a tactical military viewpoint, was a brilliant success," he continued.
"... We got out of there with 100,000 Afghan civilians fleeing with us. It is just the world turned upside down.
"I think it is going nowhere, but it is a disaster signal to the armed forces. They are also talking about review boards, vetting the three and four-star officers [in the] Army, Navy, and Air Force. Firing the chairman of [Joint Chiefs of Staff]. This is a terrible beginning to a new administration."
That said, he believes "it will go nowhere" because "there is no precedent."
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction published an independent report in 2022 where it blamed both Trump and President Joe Biden's administration for the chaotic withdrawal.
An outraged Greene (R-GA) on Monday urged a national split from Democratic states whose lawmakers, and voters, have expressed criticism of President-elect Donald Trump.
"I’m still in favor of a national divorce if need be," Greene wrote. "If Democrat governors plan to commit treason against our President and the majority of Americans then let them destroy their own states."
Greene did not name names, but several Democratic governors have reportedly launched efforts to protect their states from Trump policies.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called a special state legislature session to discuss “Trump-proofing” his state and has traveled to Washington D.C. to ask for President Joe Biden’s support, the Washington Post reported Monday morning.
"We need to prepare ourselves firmly and plant our feet in case we get swept away," Newsom told Californians earlier this month. "We're going to have your back."
Governors of Illinois and Colorado last week formed a coalition to protect state-level institutions from authoritarianism and a president who vowed to govern as a dictator on “day one," the Guardian reported over the weekend.
“Hope alone won’t save our democracy,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said as he announced the formation of Governors Safeguarding Democracy. “We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it.”
Greene on Monday described these actions as a threat against Trump's "mandate."
That mandate calls for actions Democratic states must accept, Greene argued, such as the mass deportation of "illegal invaders" and preventing trans children from playing sports.
"No one will want to live there," Greene predicted of post-"divorce" blue states. "And after years of being attacked by the deranged left, most of us are so sick of their crap."
Greene has made several calls for a "national divorce" in the past, arguing that the left and right have reached "irreconcilable differences." She has claimed this could be done without mass violence, though critics have called it a euphemism for civil war.
Steve Bannon's criminal trial will be postponed until next year after prosecutors introduced additional evidence in his fraud case.
The former White House chief strategist, who served a four-month prison sentence this year for contempt of Congress, was set to be tried next month on criminal fraud charges over an effort to solicit donations to build a border wall. A judge ruled it needed to be postponed for the prosecution to submit more evidence.
"We’re not changing [the date] again," said New York Supreme Court Justice April Newbauer.
The judge allowed prosecutors to introduce evidence about financial transactions involving Bannon's nonprofit organization We Build the Wall and his American Express card.
Newbauer previously ruled that Bannon and WeBuildTheWall can be tried together in the case.
Manhattan prosecutors charged Bannon in September 2022 with money laundering and conspiracy for allegedly deceiving donors who gave more than $15 million to build a border wall like Donald Trump proposed during his election campaigns and presidency.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet in person with Donald Trump for the first time in years.
The pair had previously been friends with the former star of NBC's "The Apprentice," but their relationship soured after they repeatedly criticized Trump during his first presidency and afterward. They said they visited his private resort in Palm Beach, Florida, in an attempt to bury the hatchet.
"Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from so many people from political leaders to regular citizens deeply dismayed by several of president-elect Trump's Cabinet selections and they are scared," Brzezinski said. "Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself.
"On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years."
Since the last time they met, the former president accused Scarborough of murdering a congressional staffer decades ago, a conspiracy theory he heard from his attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, and the "Morning Joe" host claims that Trump allies had threatened to arrest his producers if he was re-elected.
"We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets," Scarborough said. "We talked about that a good bit. It will come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so."
"What we did agree on was to restart communications," Brzezinski said. "My father [former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski] often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That is a task shared by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to Trump since March of 2020 other than a personal call that Joe made, a call after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. In this meeting, President Trump was cheerful and upbeat and he seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues. And for those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn't we? Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country."
"We have been as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump's actions and words in the coarsening of public debate for nearly 80 million Americans," Brzezinski added. "Election denialism, public trials, Jan. 6 were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote. Joe and I realized it's time to do something different and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him."
A source close to the former president told Scarborough that Trump might approach his second term differently because he was prohibited from running again.
"Somebody close to Donald Trump told me this past weekend, this is a president who is not seeking re-election, so maybe, just maybe now could be time for both parties to get to work," Scarborough said. "I know, given the jarring headlines that we read every day, that may seem like a stretch but think about this. Of the 150 million votes cast, Donald Trump got 50 percent, Kamala Harris got about 49 percent, so I don't know. It seems to make sense for leaders of both parties to seek common ground, if it's possible at all. I will tell you a lot of Democratic leaders we have talked to this past week since the election have told Mika and me, it's time for a new approach. When I say top Democrats, I mean top Democrats. They said we are open — this is before we talked to Donald Trump — they said, listen. We are open to working with the incoming president if the incoming president is open to working with us."
Brzezinski acknowledged that seemed unlikely, give the current political climate, but she argued that both parties should at least try to co-exist peacefully.
"The question is, though, how do we get there?" she said. "Hyperbole and personal attacks will not work. My hair on fire doesn't work, we have all seen that! What also does not work is threatening political opponents with arrest, harassment and even jail. That is a failed path. Recent history has proven that impeachments and trials turn those on trial into political martyrs and only make them more popular with the American people. Just ask Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. We know this will be a consequential presidency, the question is whether it will be constructive. It will take a new approach from all sides, from both parties, and a leader who can bring them together and only time will tell if Donald Trump can be that leader. As for us, we also let him know that we will continue to speak truth to power and push back hard when called for, as we have with all presidents."
Scarborough seemed to anticipate criticism of their visit to Mar-a-Lago and insisted they would still cover him as a potential threat to democracy.
"Don't be mistaken, we are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump," Scarborough said. "We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times, and I am reminded of what Marty Baron, legendary editor told his Washington Post editors back in the first term: 'We are not going to war, we are going to work.' So let's go to work now."
The man leading Donald Trump's transition team is reportedly driving the president-elect up the wall as he conducts a political "knife fight" against a powerful competitor.
Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick's chances of securing a powerful role as Treasury Secretary appear to be dwindling as he continues to irk the president-elect, the New York Times reported late Sunday.
"Lutnick, who has been running Mr. Trump’s transition operation, has gotten on Mr. Trump’s nerves lately," the New York Times reported.
" Trump has privately expressed frustration that Mr. Lutnick has been hanging around him too much and that he has been manipulating the transition process for his own ends."
Lutnick, the chief executive of the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has been squabbling with former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent as both men vie for the job, according to the Times.
"A person familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the battle between Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Bessent as a knife fight, with Mr. Lutnick as the primary aggressor," the Times reported.
But Trump's annoyance reportedly has him considering unexpected candidates in former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh or Wall Street billionaire Marc Rowan, according to the Times.
One powerful ally remains on Lutnick's team and that's Elon Musk, who posted on X over the weekend that Bessent would not challenge the status quo.
"Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas [Lutnick] will actually enact change," Musk wrote. "Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another."
Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to answer the Times' questions about a meeting Trump had with Lutnick on Sunday.
“President-elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second administration," she said in a statement. "Those decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”
"Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans' Freedoms, and held back our economy," Trump said. "He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America's Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America."
Trump's statement does not mention Carr's connection to Project 2025, the governance plan from which the former and incoming president has tried to distance himself since polls showed it was highly unpopular.
"Carr also wrote the FCC section of Project 2025, the agenda that the conservative Heritage Foundation sketched out for a second Trump term," according to NPR. "Trump disavowed it during the campaign but its themes have dovetailed with his public pronouncements since the election. (A call by House Democrats for Carr to be investigated for engaging in partisan activity over the report did not result in formal action. Carr said he had secured approval from FCC ethics officials to do so in his personal capacity.)"
Donald Trump on Sunday lashed out against a retired political pollster, calling for an investigation into her over what he called a "totally fake poll."
Trump over the weekend took to his own social media network, Truth Social, to share an article entitled, "Pollster Ann Selzer ending election polling, moving 'to other ventures and opportunities.'"
"Public opinion polling has been my life’s work. I collected my first research data as a freshman in college, if you don’t count a neighborhood poll I did at age 5. I’ve always been fascinated with what a person could learn from a scientific sample of a meaningful universe," Selzer wrote in the guest column for the Des Moines Register. "Beyond election polls, my favorite projects were helping clients learn something they did not know to help them evaluate options for their companies, institutions or causes. That work may well continue, but I knew a few years ago that the election polling part of my career was headed to a close."
In his post, Trump criticized one of Selzer's election polls that received media attention for predicting Vice President Kamala Harris could beat him in Iowa, which is a red state.
"A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time," Trump wrote. "She knew exactly what she was doing."
Trump continued:
"Thank you to the GREAT PEOPLE OF IOWA for giving me such a record breaking vote, despite possible ELECTION FRAUD by Ann Selzer and the now discredited 'newspaper' for which she works."
The former and incoming president added, "An investigation is fully called for!"
Donald Trump hasn't even taken office yet, but he's already made a major misstep, according to a former Republican writer.
Trump, who is going to be entering his second term as a "lame duck" President, has been under fire for his nominations to important posts, including former lawmaker Matt Gaetz, who would be Attorney General.
Those nominations could be his undoing, according to New York Times columnist David French, an ex-writer for the conservative National Review.
French, who previously shared signs of what he thought could be the end of the MAGA movement, said Trump's nominations are a threat to the former and incoming president.
"That was quick. Donald Trump is planting the seeds of his own political demise," French wrote Sunday in an article titled, "Donald Trump Is Already Starting to Fail."
"The corrupt, incompetent and extremist men and women he’s appointing to many of the most critical posts in his cabinet are direct threats to the well-being of the country, but they’re also political threats to Trump and to his populist allies," he said.
According to French, Trump's problem is that he has purged everyone around him who held him back from his worst political instincts. In doing so, Trump has now been free to go more extreme than ever, including by nominating unserious individuals for important positions.
Those nominees, the columnist wrote, have ideas that are incompatible with the needs of everyday citizens.
"But here is his fundamental problem: The desires of his heart and the grievances of his base are ultimately incompatible with the demands of the majority, and the more he pursues his own priorities, the more he’ll revive his opposition. He’ll end his political career as an unpopular politician who ushered in a Democratic majority yet again," French wrote on Sunday. "The reason goes deeper than ideology (many of his nominees are extremists) or scandal (Kennedy, Hegseth, and Matt Gaetz, each have their own histories of alleged sexual misconduct, for example). Ultimately, it goes to competence: Can you do the job we ultimately hired you to do?"
As part of the process to land a job in Donald Trump's second administration, hopeful applicants are being asked to provide standard résumés and also include documentation on efforts they made to support him in the past.
According to a report from Politico, the President-elect has had a large pool of candidates to choose from as he started doling out prestigious positions in his next administration with many of them having been runner-ups to incoming Vice President J.D. Vance.
As Joe Borelli, the New York City Council minority leader who advised Trump after his 2016 win, put it, “He didn’t have a moob like Chris Christie running the transition team without actually thinking about who would fill some of the important spots. This go-around Team Trump knew they were in the catbird position and had a clear depth chart of folks for consideration.
As part of that process, job seekers are required to, file not just a resume and cover letter but a document indicating everything they have done to support Trump — whether that be through positive media interviews, fundraising or volunteering."
The report adds that those who were also-runs to Vance should count themsleves lucky with Politico's Jeff Coltin and Kimberly Leonard writing, "Vance was relentlessly pilloried on the campaign trail. And Trump has turned against a vice president before — reportedly expressing support for the Jan. 6 rioters chanting 'Hang Mike Pence.'"
