Trump news – live: Ex-president faces fierce GOP backlash after endorsing TV’s Dr Oz in Senate race

Donald Trump’s supporters are disappointed that Elon Musk isn’t joining the Twitter board.The fans of the former president had assumed that Mr Musk would overturn Mr Trump’s Twitter ban.

Mr Trump received a permanent ban from Twitter on 8 January 2021 amid concerns that he was inciting violence on the platform.

Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters begged the Tesla owner to reconsider his decision and to help revoke the ban on Trump’s and other conservatives’ Twitter handles.

“Now that @ElonMusk is Twitter’s largest shareholder, it’s time to lift the political censorship,” Rep. Lauren Boebert had tweeted. “Oh… and BRING BACK TRUMP!”

How likely is it that Donald Trump will actually face criminal charges, after being acquitted in two impeachment trials and so far facing few political consequences for the events of 6 January?

Read John Bowden’s piece here:

A Canadian billionaire is set to pay a “record-breaking” fine levied by the Federal Election Commission after he was found liable for donating nearly $2m to a super PAC supporting former President Donald Trump and candidates aligned with his agenda.

Barry Zekelman broke campaign finance law by helping direct the contributions from Wheatland Tube, a US-based company he controls, to Super PAC America First Action in 2018, the Federal Election Commission ruled.

Now Mr Zekelman faces one of the FEC’s largest election-related fines in history after he illegally helped orchestrate US$1.75m in donations to a Donald Trump campaign group.

Read the full story here:

A federal judge will have final say this week regarding whether a group of voters seeking to block Marjorie Taylor Greene from mounting a reelection campaign will see their case move forward or end in failure.

The controversial Georgia congresswoman is the second GOP member of the House to be targeted by a legal effort to block avowed supporters of former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election from seeking office under the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits those who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US from holding federal office.

John Bowden has the latest.

Former president Donald Trump routinely told foreign heads of state and government that he deserved a “re-do” of his first two years in office and said he wanted to serve more than two terms as president, according to one of his former foreign policy advisers.

In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, ex-National Security Council director Fiona Hill said she saw Mr Trump had aspirations to be an autocrat in the mould of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Ergodan, or Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

Andrew Feinberg has the story.

A man from Pennsylvania has been arrested after he placed stickers on gas station pumps depicting Joe Biden along with the phrase “I did that” to protest his belief that the president is solely responsible for soaring fuel prices.

Mr Walker played for the University of Georgia as a running back and won the Heisman Trophy before playing for NFL teams like the Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys. He is the frontrunner to challenge incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock this November.

A GOP strategist who used to work with one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers is pointing to the crowd sizes at his recent rallies as evidence that the GOP base is slowly losing its enthusiasm for the former president.

Susan Del Percio appeared on MSNBC where she made the comments on Sunday to Weekends with Alex Witt guest host Cori Coffin. Ms Del Percio, a PR specialist and Republican strategist who served as deputy commissioner for finance and administration in the administration of ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said that dwindling crowd sizes at Mr Trump’s rallies in conservative areas were proof that the Trump brand was losing its staying power.

Herschel Walker, who is running against Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, was asked on Fox Business yesterday about the Biden administration’s energy policy – and the answer he gave ranged from the unclear to the near incomprehensible. Take a look below.

Some Republicans have been concerned about Mr Walker’s strength in November given his chequered personal history and lack of political experience, and interviews like this have not helped assuage those fears. However, he appears to be polling even with Mr Warnock, and sometimes slightly ahead.

Former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory is running in a hotly contested Republican primary for the chance to succeed retiring Senator Roy Blunt, and he has the disadvantage of facing a Trump-backed candidate in Tedd Budd, who has lately shown signs of gaining in the polls.

To try and slow Mr Budd’s momentum, Mr McCrory has released an ad touting his own conservative credentials on immigration while associating his rival with a wheelbarrow filled with faeces.