Trump news today: Donald Trump fills memorial speech for vlogger Diamond with his favourite rally gripes

On his Truth Social account, Trump called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell either “the WORST negotiator” in politics or a “stone cold CROOK” after the Republican senator insisted that the US would not default on its debt and expected negotiations with the Biden administration to avert a disaster.

“There can be no other explanation as to why he has become such a rubber stamp for the Democrats. Republicans, use Debt Ceiling to get it all back!” Trump said on Monday.

House Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing the White House to agree to major spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling after GOP lawmakers voted to raise the debt ceiling three times during the Trump administration.

“In the end, I think the important thing to remember is that America must never default on its debt. It never has, and it never will,” Mr McConnell told reporters last week. “We’ll end up in some kind of negotiation with the administration over what the circumstances or conditions under which the debt ceiling be raised.”

A special grand jury investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia has wrapped up its work. But key questions remain, as a judge hears arguments about opening up the grand jury’s findings:

Roughly two years after his brush with viral fame, the man who boasted about writing a “nasty note” for Nancy Pelosi after kicking back in her chair and putting his workboot on her desk has been found guilty on all eight charges against him.

Richard “Bigo” Barnett testified in his own defense last week in one of the highest-profile trials connected to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021. It took a jury only two hours to deliver a verdict.

Trump is currently subject to a “social media exclusivity” clause that requires him to post “any and all social media communications” to his Truth Social for six hours before posting to rival platforms, according to recently disclosed FEC filings.

The six-month rolling contract runs out in June and Trump does not plan to renew it, sources told Rolling Stone, as he plans to use all channels available for his 2024 presidential campaign.

The former president struggled to meet the mood of a memorial service for Ineitha Lynnette Hardaway, better known as “Diamond” of the pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk, The Independent;s John Bowden reports.

Speaking Saturday at the gathering in North Carolina, Trump sounded more like a candidate delivering a stump speech than an ex-president memorialising a valued friend or political ally.

At one point, he even quipped that the service had gone on much longer than the “15 minutes” he was promised to deliver his remarks and leave.

Following the “leak” of a draft of what became the US Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down Roe v Wade, Mr Trump has repeatedly demanded that the journalist and outlet that published the draft be thrown in jail if they don’t reveal their source, accelerating the former president’s public war on the media.

“It won’t take long before the name of this slime is revealed,” he said in a statement on his Truth Social account on 19 January.

It follows a pattern of attempts to undermine and vilify a press on which he once relied to develop his public persona as a self-made model of success that he used to propel himself to the White House.

Now facing a wave of criminal investigations, convictions against his company and credible accusations of misconduct in his second bid for the presidency, the former president is threatening to imprison journalists and using lawsuits to target First Amendment protections:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave committee seats to far-right conspiracy theorists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar after they were removed by House members in the formerly Democratic-led chamber.

Now the Republican leader has vowed to remove Democratic members Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from their seats on the House intelligence committee, escalating his clashes with Democrats as he clings to a slim GOP majority ceding authority to a far-right flank.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote a letter to Mr McCarthy arguing that he has no justifiable reason to block his appointments.

“It is my understanding that you intend to break with the longstanding House tradition of deference to the minority party Intelligence Committee recommendations and deny seats to Ranking Member Schiff and Representative Swalwell,” Mr Jeffries wrote in the letter obtained by The Washington Post. “The denial of seats to duly elected Members of the House Democratic Caucus runs counter to the serious and sober mission of the Intelligence Committee.”

Two weeks after the dissolve of a grand jury looking into whether Trump and his allies broke the law with his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, a judge will decide whether to release the panel’s final report.

The 23-member special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia convened for eight months and heard from prominent Trumpworld figures, including Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham, as well as Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and dozens of other witnesses, questioned aoubt the former president’s attempts to subvert the outcome of the election in the state.

The case has brought up the abuse and harassment of election workers in the state, the fake elector scheme, and Trump’s call to Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes for his victory in the state, which several audits have confirmed Joe Biden won.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could file criminal charges following the report’s public release, which Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will determine after a hearing in the case on Tuesday.

A federal judge has determined that Florida’s governor (and Donald Trump’s likely 2024 rival), Ron DeSantis, unconstitutionally suspended an elected state attorney who criticised the governor’s positions on abortion and transgender healthcare, but the judge said he did not have authority to return the prosecutor to office.

“10 dead in California shooting, horrible gun wielding ANTIFA protest against our great police in Atlanta – Nothing will happen to them despite night of rage and destruction,” the former president posted on Truth Social. “Yet our January 6th protestors, over a Rigged Election, have had their lives ruined despite nobody killed except true Patriot Ashli B. This situation will be fully rectified after 2024 Election. Thank you!”