
Trump expected to nominate Lutnick for Commerce secretary
CNN
President-elect Donald Trump is likely to nominate Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as secretary of Commerce, a source familiar with the process told CNN.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as secretary of Commerce, a source familiar with the process told CNN. Lutnick had been in a battle with hedge fund manager Scott Bessent over the role of Treasury secretary after throwing his own name into the mix. Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm, was tapped by Trump to serve as co-chair of his presidential transition team in August. In this role, he’s helped vet and advise Trump on Cabinet nominees. At Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign rally last month, Lutnick said the US was most prosperous during the early 1900s, when there was “no income tax and all we had was tariffs.” “We had so much money that we had the greatest businessmen of America get together to try to figure out how to spend it,” said Lutnick, 63, who has been advocating for higher tariffs. As a candidate, Trump pledged to impose 60% tariffs on goods from China, as well as 10% tariffs on goods from other countries. Lutnick came under fire for recent comments he made to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” in which he defended Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unproven view that vaccines are contributing to higher rates of autism in children. Trump announced Kennedy as his pick to serve as Health and Human Service secretary last week.

One year ago this week, Joe Biden was president. I was in Doha, Qatar, negotiating with Israel and Hamas to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The incoming Trump team worked closely with us, a rare display of nonpartisanship to free hostages and end a war. It feels like a decade ago. A lot can happen in a year, as 2025 has shown.

Botched Epstein redactions trace back to Virgin Islands’ 2020 civil racketeering case against estate
A botched redaction in the Epstein files revealed that government attorneys once accused his lawyers of paying over $400,000 to “young female models and actresses” to cover up his criminal activities

The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida Tuesday to volunteer over the “next several days” to help to redact the Epstein files, in the latest internal Trump administrationpush toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US State Department on Tuesday imposed visa sanctions on a former top European Union official and employees of organizations that combat disinformation for alleged censorship – sharply ratcheting up the Trump administration’s fight against European regulations that have impacted digital platforms, far-right politicians and Trump allies, including Elon Musk.









