Ex-president faces GOP backlash after endorsing Dr Oz – follow live

Some of former President Donald Trump’s loudest allies on Twitter are in open revolt after the ex-president made his endorsement in the Pennsylvania US Senate race this weekend.

In a statement released on Saturday evening as he attended a campaign-style rally in North Carolina, the 45th president made his second attempt at kingmaking in the Republican Senate primary, following his previous endorsement and retraction of support for Sean Parnell.

Read John Bowden’s report

GOP strategist Susan Del Percio says the sparse crowd in Donald Trump’s Selma rally shows a “very shrinking base” and that his supporters are done with him.

“That’s what you saw there,” she told MSNBC’s Cori Coffin one day after Mr Trump addressed the crowd in Selma, North Carolina.

“Those crowds are getting smaller and people aren’t buying into it, mostly because Republicans want to move on. They don’t want to talk about the Big Lie,” she said. “The people of this country don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

According to a report only about 1,000 to 2,000 people attended the event, in comparison to the rally of 15,000 at the same venue in 2016 for Mr Trump’s address.

“They’re done with Donald Trump and his lies, except for a small group that we see there,” she said.

A Canadian steel magnate is set to pay a “record-breaking” fine levied by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) after being found liable for steering nearly $2m in donations to a super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump and candidates aligned with his agenda.

The FEC announced the decision last week in response to a claim against the businessman filed by the Campaign Legal Centre in 2019. The original complaint was based on reporting initially published in The New York Times.

Barry Zekelman of Zekelman Industries “participated in Wheatland Tube’s decision-making process to contribute to [America First Action],” the FEC’s decision stated.

John Bowden has details

iz Cheney has rejected reports of a dispute among members of the January 6 committee over the criminal referral of Donald Trump to the Justice Department, describing the panel as “the single most collaborative committee”.

“There’s not really a dispute on the committee,” Ms Cheney responded to CNN’s Jake Tapper’s question.

“The committee is working in a really collaborative way to discuss these issues, as we are with all of the issues we’re addressing, and we’ll continue to work together to do so. So I wouldn’t characterise there as being a dispute on the committee,” she added.

“I’m very proud of the bipartisan way in which we’re operating, and I’m confident that we will work to come to agreement on all of the issues that we’re facing. So I wouldn’t say that it’s accurate right now to say that there’s a dispute on this issue,” she added.

The committee which is investigating the 6 January 2021 riots at the US Capitol is made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans.

She said the panel is yet to reach a decision over Mr Trump’s criminal referral.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump and a senior adviser to the former president, had secured a $2bn investment from the Saudi crown prince despite concerns and objections from fund advisers over the deal, according to a New York Times report.

Previously undisclosed documents show that the panel screening investments for the Saudi prince raised objections over “the inexperience” of Mr Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, and concerns that the Saudis owned “the bulk of the investment and risk”.

They also found the firm’s operations “unsatisfactory in all aspects” and flagged the proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”.

The prince, who was leading the board of his Public Investment Fund, overruled the concerns of his screeding panel, the report said.

In a statement over its relationship with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, a spokesman for Mr Kushner’s firm told the Times: “Affinity, like many other top investment firms, is proud to have PIF and other leading organisations that have careful screening criteria, as investors.”

Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the panel investigating the Capitol riots, has said that the House committee has enough evidence to prove criminal charges against Donald Trump in what she called “insurrection”.

“It’s absolutely clear that what President Trump was doing, what a number of people around him were doing, that they knew it was unlawful. They did it anyway,” Ms Cheney said on CNN on Sunday.

She said the committee has not yet decided whether to criminally refer Mr Trump to the Justice Department, following reports that the panel has enough evidence.

“I think what we have seen is a massive and well organised and well-planned effort that used multiple tools to try to overturn an election,” Ms Cheney said.

She said those involved in the planning of the obstruction of a congressional proceeding “knew that they were going to attempt to use violence to stop the transfer of power.”

“That is the definition of an insurrection,” she said.

She said the panel has a “tremendous amount of testimony and documents that I think very, very clearly demonstrate the extent of the planning and the organisation and the objective”.

Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt to begin Senate debate on a $10 billion COVID-19 compromise on Tuesday, pressing to entangle the bipartisan package with an election-year showdown over immigration restrictions that poses a politically uncomfortable fight for Democrats.

A day after Democratic and GOP bargainers reached agreement on providing the money for treatments, vaccines and testing, a Democratic move to push the measure past a procedural hurdle failed 52-47 Tuesday. All 50 Republicans opposed the move, leaving Democrats 13 votes short of the 60 they needed to prevail.

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A former Trump administration official, who is now making his own bid for Congress in New Hampshire, voted in two different states’ Republican primaries during Donald Trump’s first run for office back in 2016, the Associated Press reported.

Legal experts say that the New Hampshire congressional hopeful may have violated federal voting laws.

Donald Trump gloated over the retirement of Rep Fred Upton, a Republican who had voted to impeach the former president for his role in the January 6 insurrection.

“UPTON QUITS! 4 down and 6 to go,” the former president said in a statement. “Others losing badly, who’s next?”

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President Joe Biden took a jab at his predecessor in the White House, whom he referred to as “the last guy” during a speech in Washington DC.

Speaking to a conference of the North America Building Trades Unions on Wednesday, Mr Biden called the Trump administration’s $2 trillion tax cut “just so outrageous”.

“The last guy, what was his name? Anyway, the last guy,” Mr Biden continued. “I forgot it. He never showed up to the inauguration.”