Trump news live: Latest Twitter updates as president attacks Georgia officials

The pastor of a Florida megachurch has warned his parishioners not to take the Covid-19 vaccine as he claimed, falsely, that it was a part of a plan to prepare “the structure for the antichrist”.

Guillermo Maldonado, a Trump-supporting pastor and a self-declared apostle, also said that the coronavirus vaccine will “alter your DNA”, writes Namita Singh.

“People, I want you to look at me,” Mr Maldonado could be seen as saying in a video captured by the Right Wing Watch. “That is exactly what is happening with Covid-19. They’re preparing the structure for the Antichrist. How? The vaccine. They’re gonna demand for you to have the vaccine in your passport, otherwise, you will not be able to travel. Because they are preparing the way.”

A federal US watchdog has found that the White House trade advisor Dr Peter Navarro repeatedly broke the law by attacking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the presidential elections, writes Mayank Aggarwal.

The report by US Office of Special Counsel (OSC), an independent investigative agency, held that Dr Navarro “violated the Hatch Act on several occasions when he engaged in political activity in his official capacity” even when he was aware of the violations.

The Hatch Act allows prohibits employees from using their official government positions for partisan political purposes, including efforts to influence elections.

Nearly 1500 lawyers on Monday urged the bar associations across the US to initiate an investigation and take action against Donald Trump’s legal team, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who are leading lawsuits claiming election fraud.

They argued that the attempts of Mr Trump’s legal team are “indefensible” and they must be penalised.

“It is indefensible for lawyers to falsely proclaim widespread voting fraud, submit a pattern of frivolous court claims and actively seek to undermine citizens’ faith in our election’s integrity,. We condemn this conduct without reservation.” said the letter.

Without major intervention from the White House or Congress, millions of Americans with student loan debt could be thrown back into repaying student loan payments, with garnished wages and collections resuming after moratorium comes to an end during a still-raging pandemic.

In March, the Department of Education was ordered to suspend student loan debt payments, pause accruing interest and stop collecting on defaulted federal loans, writes Alex Woodward.

Donald Trump’s administration extended the suspension through the end of January, days after president-elect Joe Biden takes office, while relief proposals from the Democratically controlled House have been deadlocked with a GOP Senate.

Beijing has vowed to hit back at the US after Donald Trump’s administration imposed new sanctions on 14 Chinese Communist Party officials.

The restrictions, which include a travel ban, are linked to China’s ongoing crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong, where elected opposition politicians were disqualified.

Washington’s sanctions targeted the vice-chairs of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), the top decision-making body of the Chinese legislature.

Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, told a news briefing on Tuesday that Beijing would take “firm counter-measures against the malicious actions by the US to safeguard our sovereignty, security and developmental rights”.

She also urged Mr Trump to withdraw the decision.

The Biden administration has named Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general, as its pick for defence secretary, CNN and Politico reported on Monday, writes Josh Marcus.

If confirmed, Mr Austin, who under the Obama administration led US military operations in the Middle East as head of US Central Command, would be the first Black man to hold the position.

Mr Austin has also served as a senior commander in Iraq and was the first Black vice chief of staff for the Army, the service’s second highest ranking officer.

Donald Trump’s disavowed lawyer Sidney Powell suffered a pair of courtroom defeats in Michigan and Detroit in her bid to overturn the president’s election defeat.

A Michigan federal judge ruled that the conservative attorney’s lawsuit was full of “theories, conjecture and speculation” as he dismissed it.

US district judge Linda V Parker ruled against the lawsuit, which asked the state to award its electoral votes to Mr Trump despite him losing there by nearly 155,000 votes.

The emergency room doctor who criticised Donald Trump for greeting supporters in a drive-by parade while still sick with Covid-19 has reportedly lost his shifts at Walter Reed hospital.

CBS News reported that James Phillips, a disaster medicine specialist, is no longer on the hospital’s schedule, beginning from January.

After Mr Trump exposed his Secret Service bodyguards to the virus by demanding the drive-by, Dr Phillips tweeted: “Every single person…in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”

He has since deleted the tweet.

Donald Trump continued his attacks on Georgia officials late into the night as he raged at their refusal to take seriously his baseless claims of vote fraud.

He warned Brian Kemp, the governor, Geoff Duncan, the lieutenant governor, and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, that “Georgia is watching”.

Mr Trump also derided Mr Duncan as “dumb or corrupt” due to his lack of support for election conspiracies.

Yesterday Georgia re-certified Joe Biden’s victory in the state after two recounts confirmed the result.

The president tweeted a number of clips from TV programmes whose hosts have supported him. He is also still claiming in public to have won the election, which he did not.