Trump news – live: Ex-president calls Liz Cheney ‘crazed lunatic’ as Jan 6 panel prepares for hearings

Donald Trump is widely assumed to be all but certainly running for re-election in 2024, but it has long been clear that other top Republicans are laying the groundwork for their own campaigns – whether because they intend to challenge him or because they anticipate he might not be able to run.

Now, the Des Moines Register reports a long-expected presidential contender is making one of the de rigeur early-on visits to Iowa: Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who served as UN ambassador under the Trump administration.

CNN’s Manu Raju has been asking Kevin McCarthy about the audio recordings of him discussing communications with Donald Trump after 6 January – and specifically about inconsistencies between what he said on taped conference calls with his members and what Mr Trump has since denied.

Here’s what Mr McCarthy had to say…

The uproar over the apparently imminent overturning of Roe v Wade has seen several major companies offer to pay travel costs for women seeking abortions who will have to travel across state lines to get them. In response, far-right Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert had this message:

As many have pointed out, Ms Boebert herself has previously mocked people for taking parental leave after having children.

Donald Trump has gaily seized on Joe Biden’s recent derision of him as the “Great Maga King”, sharing kitschy images of him in dark regalia knocked up by his more zealous fans. But in his eagerness to embrace the label, he has perhaps inadvertently offered up fuel to the fevered imaginations of dogged QAnon believers…

As the 6 January select committee gears up for what promises to be a dramatic set of hearings over the summer, one question is central to its members’ discussions: the extent to which they need to focus on former president Donald Trump as they piece together the chain of events that led to the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years.

The Washington Post has released an excellent deep-dive report that includes this account of a discussion between two of the panel’s members last month:

Many Trump fans are eager to see their leader back on Twitter, and Elon Musk has said that he thinks the former president’s account should never have been blocked. But according to financial filings from the company that will oversee the IPO of his own platform, Truth Social, the ex-president has agreed to limit what he can post on Twitter and when if he returns.

Under the agreement, Mr Trump must post anything unrelated to politics first on Truth Social, and can only post on another social media site six hours later, the federal securities filing shows.

But if Mr Trump wants to post on a personal social media account anything “related to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts” he can do so at any time.

Graeme Massie has the story.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill sent to him by state legislators that bans protests outside private homes, drilling down on the right-wing insistence that the law should not tolerate demonstrators who gathered outside the homes of conservative justices and senators to protest the imminent end of Roe v Wade.

Among those whose homes were visited by anti-abortion protesters was Maine Senator Susan Collins, who phoned the police over a message chalked on the sidewalk outside her house.

Donald Trump is selective with his in-person appearances on the campaign trail these days, restricting himself mainly to rallies in carefully chosen states with candidates he has heartily endorsed. He held such an event for Dr Mehmet Oz not long ago, but since it became clear the TV medic is in danger of losing his primary, Mr Trump has not appeared in Pennsylvania again.

However, an Oz campaign event last night – billed as a “telerally” – saw the president dial in on speakerphone to address a roomful of supporters, reassuring them that the candidate was in fact pro-life and pro-gun. Dr Oz’s long record of relatively liberal positions on both issues is the main strike against him for many conservatives, who have been resistant to his entreaties despite Mr Trump’s backing.

Reversing a decision taken by former President Donald Trump, Joe Biden has approved the redeployment of US troops in Somalia.

BBC reported that the deployment was requested by the Pentagon to support the fight against militant group al-Shabab.

In 2020, Mr Trump withdrew about 700 US troops from Somalia.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed that former president Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointees have made the bench “dangerous to the freedoms” of the country.

She criticised the judges as the court prepares to issue a ruling that could end decades of constitutional protections for abortion care and trigger a wave of laws making abortion illegal in roughly half the US.

Read the full story here: