Trump fined and threatened with jail for violating fraud trial gag order: Live

Former New Jersey Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie mocked Donald Trump on Twitter on Friday afternoon following the third failure of Trump-endorsed Jim Jordan to win enough party votes to become Speaker of the House.

Mr Christie wrote: “This is what winning looks like with @realDonaldTrump.

“House Republicans in crisis. Trump’s handpicked candidate to be speaker defeated three times by his own party.

“Cherry on top? Trump spent the last three days in courtrooms and on golf courses. This is what his campaign is now.”

For the longest time, the hard-right faction has refused whatever Republican leadership was begging them to take.

The radicals would spit out what the GOP would offer and ultimately, the Republicans would give them whatever they wanted as a means to acquire power or pass legislation. If that didn’t work, the House Republicans would eventually relent and ask the Democrats to bail them out.

The roles are now reversed in that the hard right wants power and they are on bended knee asking for establishment Republicans — by no means moderate but who still understand governing to recognize the radicals would be a disaster for governance — to give them power.

Andrew Feinberg and Eric Garcia report from Capitol Hill:

House Republicans have cast aside Ohio congressman Jim Jordan as the party’s pick to be the next Speaker of the House after he failed to gain support from a majority of the chamber on three separate ballots this past week.

Mr Jordan, a right-wing firebrand whose history of bomb-throwing and obstruction made his brand too toxic for a critical mass of moderate Republicans to stomach him as a replacement for former speaker Kevin McCarthy, lost a secret ballot election during a GOP conference meeting on Friday.

His candidacy for the speakership had been opposed by more than a dozen members on a first vote in the House chamber on Tuesday, with the ranks of his opponents growing on two subsequent roll-call votes, even as members who voted against him — and their staffers and family members — received abuse and death threats from people claiming to support Mr Jordan.

Earlier in the day, Mr Jordan once again failed to win a majority of the votes to become speaker of the House, with three Republicans from swing districts voting against him.

In addition to Donald Trump — though not present in court — receiving a stern rebuke, $5,000 fine and threat of jail time from Judge Arthur Engoron, the civil fraud trial of the former president proceeded with further testimony at the New York Superior Court in Lower Manhattan, closing out week three.

David McArdle of Cushman & Wakefield, who conducted multiple appraisals for the Trump Organization, concluded his testimony early in the day having been on the stand for much of Thursday.

Next up on the witness stand was Raymond Flores, formerly a vice president of acquisitions and development for the Trump Organization. He was questioned by Andrew Amer of the New York Attorney General’s Office.

Mr Flores says he was involved in reviewing Trump’s statement of financial condition for 2020. At the heart of the case is the NYAG’s contention that these documents were falsified to boost Mr Trump’s net worth and used to gain more favourable financing terms.

While he confirms that he worked on Trump’s 2020 statement, Mr Flores says he doesn’t remember much about it, or if he worked on the statement for 2021. He also says he doesn’t remember a call Amer asked about where valuation methods were discussed.

Amer then turned to work Mr Flores performed involving Trump’s golf courses. However, the former Trump employee repeatedly says he doesn’t recall discussing valuation methods the company used for these properties while he was employed at the company.

Mr Flores was also asked about the 2020 valuation of the Niketown building on 57th Street in Manhattan of which Trump owns a ground lease.

He continues to say that he does not recall.

Court resumes at 10am on Monday.

After turns as a real estate magnate, a New York tabloid mainstay, a reality TV star and president of the United States, Donald Trump is settling into a new role: defendant.

In the courtroom, Trump is often subdued, sitting between his lawyers and staring straight ahead with a scowl as he studiously ignores his adversary, New York Attorney General Letitia James. But when he steps into the hallway where a phalanx of TV cameras awaits, Trump transforms into his familiar political persona, eager to spin the proceedings in his favour.

“If I wasn’t here, probably — maybe — people wouldn’t see the facts the way they are,” Trump said during one of his swings before the cameras on Wednesday.

Trump, who also attended portions of the civil trial earlier this month, is under no legal obligation to attend the proceedings. But in a preview of how he’ll likely approach the more serious criminal trials that will begin in the coming months, Trump uses the appearances as an extension of his presidential campaign, betting he can shape perceptions and portray himself as a political leader under attack.

Fox News political analyst Brit Hume has lavished praise on Joe Biden for his speech on Thursday evening where he pledged his support for Israel amid growing tensions between the country and militant group Hamas.

“I think it may be remembered as one of the best, if not the best speeches (sic) of his presidency,” Mr Hume said during Fox’s special coverage of the president’s address. “He was firm, he was unequivocal, he was strong, as he has been — particularly in recent days before he went to Israel, and while he was over there.”

During his prime-time address, Mr Biden asserted the United States’s vital role in global security and pledged his support for both Israel and Ukraine.

He also called for a $100bn package to help both Israel and Ukraine defend themselves and to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza

Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 on Friday after a disparaging social media post about a key court staffer in his New York civil fraud case was allowed to linger on his campaign website after the judge ordered it deleted.

Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt, for now, but reserved the right to do so — and possibly even put him in jail — if he continued to violate a gag order barring parties in the case from personal attacks on court staff.

Engoron said in a written ruling that he is “way beyond the ‘warning’ stage,” but decided on a nominal fine because Trump’s lawyers said the website’s retention of the post was inadvertent and was a “first-time violation.”

Earlier, an incensed Engoron said the failure to delete the post from the website was a “blatant violation” of his 3 October order, which required Trump to delete the offending message.

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise blamed the “very large machine” of Trump’s presidential campaign for allowing his deleted social media post to remain on his website, calling it an unintentional oversight.

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, wasn’t in court Friday. He’d returned to the trial on Tuesday and Wednesday after attending the first three days in early October but skipped the rest of the week.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy took to the floor of the House on Friday to nominate Mr Jordan as his replacement as the third vote on his speakership bid got underway.

“Jim Jordan is an effective legislator. To legislate is about more than the name on the bill,” he said. “It’s about reaching compromise and working long hours. Behind the scenes to get the job done.”

Mr Jordan held a short press conference on Friday morning, lasting only about 10 minutes and taking few questions from reporters.

“Between the first one and the second vote, you all said we’re gonna lose 10, 15 votes,” Mr Jordan told the press. “We picked up a few we lost a few. I think the ones we lost can come back. So look, there’s been multiple rounds of votes for speaker before.”

Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington, DC:

Ivanka Trump has asked the judge in her father’s New York civil fraud trial to quash a subpoena to compel her testimony in court.

The filing late on Thursday states that Ms Trump is no longer a defendant in the case, nor is she a New York City resident.

Lawyers for Donald Trump’s eldest daughter note that an intermediate appellate court dismissed her as a co-defendant in the case against the former president under the statute of limitations in June.

Further, New York State Attorney General Letitia James did not depose Ms Trump, who has distanced herself from her father’s business and political ambitions since he left the White House in January 2021.

She now resides in Miami, Florida with her husband Jared Kushner and their children.

“Trial subpoenas are not a means for parties to get discovery, which they failed to obtain during pretrial proceedings,” Ms Trump’s attorney, Bennet Moskowitz, wrote in the 12-page filing.

“The NYAG, which never deposed Ms Trump, is effectively trying to force her back into this case from which she was dismissed by a unanimous decision of the Appellate Division, First Department. Ms. Trump is not a party in this action. Nor is Ms Trump a New York resident. It is black-letter law that, given those two facts, Ms Trump is beyond the jurisdiction of this Court,” he added.

During the first three weeks of trial testimony and evidence, Ms Trump’s penthouse in her father’s property Trump Park Avenue was brought up.

In 2011, she signed a rental agreement with an option to buy a penthouse at the property. , In her memoir, The Trump Card, she claimed she “didn’t benefit from an insider price” and paid market value for the property.

The New York attorney general’s case states that Ms Trump had an option to buy the penthouse for $8.5m, but the Trump Organization’s financial statements valued the unit at $20.82m.