Donald Trump’s legal team referenced President Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter on Tuesday as part of their renewed effort to overturn Trump’s conviction in the Manhattan “hush money” case. The attorneys pointed to Biden’s assertion that the legal proceedings against Hunter were “infected” by politics, drawing a parallel to Trump’s own stance that the charges of falsifying business records brought against him by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office were similarly motivated by political bias.

The idea that a larger voter turnout among Democrats would have enabled Vice President Kamala Harris to overcome President-elect Donald Trump in the November election is inaccurate, according to The New York Times.
A decline in Democratic voter participation, particularly in major Democratic-leaning cities, played a role in Harris securing over 74 million votes — about 7 million fewer than President Joe Biden’s total in 2020, as reported by a Times/Siena poll.
In comparison, Trump garnered 77 million votes in this election, an increase from the 74 million he received four years earlier.

Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign for president continues to solicit contributions even after the election, according to a report by the New York Post.
“With [President-elect Donald] Trump nominating MAGA loyalists left and right, there is nothing more important than making sure we can fight back and hold him accountable. That’s why we need you to step up today. Yes, today,” an email sent by the Harris campaign three weeks after the election stated.
“Our records show that you haven’t pitched in to support our Harris Fight Fund program yet. We know the election didn’t turn out as we’d hoped, but we’re not backing down,” the email continued.

President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly contemplating replacing Pete Hegseth, his controversial choice to head the Pentagon, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a one-time rival for the 2024 nomination, according to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.
This potential shift comes at a time when Hegseth, a 44-year-old Army veteran and former Fox News personality, is under growing scrutiny due to accusations of sexual misconduct and mishandling financial matters.
The position of defense secretary requires approval from the Senate, and Hegseth’s path to confirmation is becoming more difficult as GOP senators raise concerns about his past.

A judge in Delaware upheld the state’s decision to seize the wealth amassed by Elon Musk through Tesla, blocking him from receiving a compensation package now valued at over $100 billion. Musk’s resistance to woke politics, his efforts to make X a neutral platform, and his support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign have cost him dearly.
On Monday, Delaware Chancellor Judge Kathaleen McCormick affirmed her earlier ruling from January, which determined that Musk was not entitled to a 2018 compensation package worth $56 billion at the time. McCormick had previously criticized the package as “the biggest compensation plan ever — an unfathomable sum.”

Jared Moskowitz, a Democratic Senator from Florida, has become the first Democrat to join the so called ‘DOGE’ caucus in Congress, he announced on Tuesday.
In a statement, Moskowitz said he is joining the caucus because “streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue.”
The now bipartisan caucus was formed by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Reps. Aaron Bean (R-FL) and Pete Sessions (R-FL), and aims to support efforts by the Trump-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an outside group to be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Mike Emanuel discusses the latest in Donald Trump’s New York trial.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy say they’re hunting for ways to make American government more efficient. One possible target: the semiannual changing of the clock that so many Americans dislike.
“Looks like the people want to abolish the annoying time changes!” Musk wrote last week on his social platform, X, linking to another user’s online poll that found most respondents wanted to end daylight saving time. The practice of shifting clocks forward one hour in March and back one hour in November is intended to maximize Americans’ exposure to sunlight during working hours but has long been derided for causing groggy mornings, missed appointments and even some public health problems.
“It’s inefficient & easy to change,” Ramaswamy wrote in a reply to Musk.

The Israeli Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that it had purchased $40 million-worth of advanced drones and autonomous systems from Haifa-based Elbit Systems Ltd.
Jointly developed by the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D), the Israel Defense Forces ground forces and Elbit, the new systems feature advanced capabilities and are engineered to support a range of missions, from precise intelligence gathering to targeted strikes.

Countering Iran is likely to be the primary focus of Middle East policy in President-elect Donald Trump’s forthcoming term, according to a report published Tuesday.
The Middle East Forum’s “blueprint” for the Trump administration, titled “Reasserting American Power in the Middle East,” predicts that the incoming administration will, via executive order, reinstate policies of the prior Trump administration, including reimposing travel restrictions that both Trump aides and critics call the “Muslim ban.”