Live updates as Donald Trump Jr testifies in New York fraud trial

Mr Trump, 77, spoke in Claremont, New Hampshire, telling the crowd in his usual grievance-laden parlance: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

The former president has refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and continues to lie, falsely claiming that it was stolen.

Congress faces a deadline of 17 November to pass a budget measure to keep paychecks to federal employees flowing and ensure that parts of the government remain operational. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Legislative Branch was in the exact same position just weeks ago, and found itself utterly paralysed without the ability to pass anything more than a short-term funding extension to get us to this point. Even that proved to be so odious to House conservatives that it cost Kevin McCarthy his role in leadership, ending his long-sought speakership less than a year into the job.

Now, the new Speaker of the House heads into the week before Thanksgiving with two familiar questions burning before him: will the US government shut down? And will Mike Johnson still be Speaker when this is over?

John Bowden reports from Washington, DC.

Barry’s death at the age of 86 was reported by multiple outlets, indicating that she was found at her Manhattan home on Monday.

The former judge, who was first named to the US District Court for the District of New Jersey by then-president Ronald Reagan in 1983, was a graduate of Hofstra University Law School and a former federal prosecutor who rose to several senior roles in the US Attorney’s office for New Jersey when Reagan tapped her for a judgeship, reportedly at the behest of Roy Cohn, the late GOP fixer (and attorney to Donald Trump).

After 16 years on the bench as a trial court judge, Barry was elevated to the Third Circuit by then-president Bill Clinton in 1999.

Barry was widely respected and well-known in the legal community, and her reputation as a judge stood in stark contrast with the ultraconservative views her brother espoused as president.

The biotech entrepreneur wrote on X on Sunday that he would “instantly fire 50 per cent of federal bureaucrats” on “day one”.

“Here’s how: if your SSN ends in an odd number, you’re fired,” he added. “That downsizes government by half. Absolutely *nothing* will break as a result.”

“It doesn’t violate civil service rules because mass layoffs are exempt. SHUT IT DOWN,” he wrote.

Gustaf Kilander reports on the reaction.

The infamous Capitol rioter known as the “QAnon Shaman,” whose real name is Jacob Chansley, intends to run for Congress in Arizona in 2024 after pleading guilty to a felony charge.

Years after the fur headdress, horns, and face paint from January 6 have been taken off, the Arizona resident filed a statement of interest last Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

He indicated he wants to run as a Libertarian in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District election.

Republican Rep Debbie Lesk has held the seat since 2018. She announced last month that she won’t seek re-election. Republicans Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh are also both vying for the hotly contested seat.

The man who once stormed the Capitol has undergone a series of changes since January 6.

A top adviser to Donald Trump privately told colleagues in December 2020 that his boss would not leave the White House “under any circumstances”, new video alleges.

Dan Scavino, who was then serving as Mr Trump’s chief of staff and director of social media , allegedly claimed at a White House Christmas party that the President would “just stay in power” regardless of election rules.

The accusation was made by former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis as part of a plea bargain with Georgia state prosecutors, who have charged Mr Trump and 18 others with plotting to illegally overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

Footage obtained by ABC News from a confidential meeting with investigators shows Ellis describing an alarming conversation she had with Mr Scavino on or around 19 December, 2020.

“I emphasised to him [that] I thought the ability to challenge the election results was essentially over,” Ellis told prosecutors during the meeting, referring to a raft of failed legal challenges launched by the Trump campaign the previous month.

“He said to me, in a kind of excited tone: ‘Well, we don’t care and we’re not gonna leave.'”

Io Dodds has the full story:

Donald Trump found himself in rare agreement with the mainstream media, pleading in a Friday night legal filing that his blockbuster federal trial for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election be shown live on TV.

“The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness,” the former president’s lawyers wrote. “President Trump calls for sunlight. Every person in America, and beyond, should have the opportunity to study this case firsthand and watch as, if there is a trial, President Trump exonerates himself of these baseless and politically motivated charges.”

Elsewhere in the filing, Mr Trump’s team reiterated familiar conspiratorial allegations that the special counsel prosecution is part of a “coordinated effort to undermine President Trump’s candidacy” that bears the hallmarks of an “authoritarian regime.”

Last week, federal prosecutors said federal courtroom rules “clearly foreclosed” showing the election conspiracy trial on TV, writing that citizens have “the right to attend a criminal trial — not the right to broadcast it.”

James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump gatecrashed the debate stage and mercilessly mocked his rivals, who remained frozen behind him — just as they are in the polls.

The sketch began with moderator NBC’s Lester Holt, played by Kenan Thompson, describing the occasion as the “Republican kids table debate.”

The actors playing the five candidates then introduced themselves, while revisiting the biggest moments from Wednesday night’s debate in Miami.

The main focus on Donald Trump’s myriad of legal woes shifted to Lower Manhattan in October as his civil fraud case came to trial at New York state’s Supreme Court.

New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the case against the Trump Organization and maintains that between 2011 and 2021 the company falsified financial statements regarding the development of several real estate projects and artificially inflated Mr Trump’s net worth in order to get better financing terms from banks and insurance companies.

This was done by over-stating valuations of the former president’s most prestigious holdings including his triplex penthouse at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

As the prosecution’s case draws to a close, three of his adult children are taking the stand to testify under oath, which begs the question: how are they wrapped up in all this and why is their testimony important at the trial?

Republican US Rep Elise Stefanik, a top-ranking member of the House GOP, filed a complaint on 10 November that invokes similar rhetoric from Mr Trump’s attorneys in their defence of the former president in and out of the lower Manhattan courtroom.

Judge Arthur Engoron has faced widespread scrutiny among Republican officials and Mr Trump’s supporters for a summary judgment that found him and his co-defendants liable for fraud, as laid out in hundreds of pages of evidence and in depositions stemming from the case from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Mr Trump, his adult sons and chief associates last year.

Judge Engoron also has faced criticism for issuing a gag order that prevents parties in the case from disparaging court staff. Mr Trump has violated the order twice, and his attorneys’ statements in the courtroom prompted him to widen the order to include them, too.