Man arrested on trespassing charge at Mar-a-Lago
A man was arrested on a trespassing charge at Mar-a-Lago yesterday, our partner network NBC News reports.
According to an affidavit, Zijie Li, from El Monte, California, was previously issued a trespass warning by Palm Beach Police on 19 July for “attempting to enter Mar-a-Lago in an effort to speak with the former president”.
He then came into the town of Palm Beach four additional times, driving up to the north check point but not attempting to enter Mar-a-Lago.
Police say Li placed paperwork about Trump on cars around the area on 19 July.
Li appeared in Palm Beach County court this morning and bond was set at $100,000.
He’s currently at the Palm Beach County Jail.
FBI release firearm images involved in alleged plot to kill American-Iranian journalist
The FBI has released images of firearm pictures that it says were found on the cloud accounts of Carlisle Rivera of Brooklyn, New York; and Jonathan Loadholt, of Staten Island, New York, who are among the three men charged over an alleged plot to kill a US citizen of Iranian origin.
The authorities said the electronic accounts of Loadholt included images of a Taurus G2s 9mm firearm, which is a handgun designed for easily concealed carrying.
They also said the contents of Rivera’s cloud account contained stored images of firearms and knives, with creation dates between at least July 2022 and August 2023.
The images included a Taurus TCP firearm, which is a compact handgun.
The FBI has said that at the instruction of 51-year-old Farjad Shakeri, who has been charged over an alleged Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump before the presidential election, Loadholt and Rivera spent months surveilling an American journalist of Iranian origin residing in the US.
In exchange for Shakeri’s promise of $100,000, Rivera and Loadholt repeatedly tried to locate the journalist for murder.
There’s a fine line between defiance and precaution
We knew there had been two attempted assassinations. News of a third came as Trump prepared for his return to the White House.
His communications director, Steven Cheung, says the president is “aware of the attempted assassination plot” but “nothing will deter him”.
Three months ago, Donald Trump survived when a gunman opened fire, wounding him on the ear, as he addressed a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
A second attempt on his life was thwarted when the Secret Service spotted a gun between bushes on a golf course near the president’s homes in Florida.
His rallies were moved indoors for a time.
Every time he has spoken since, it has been behind a wall of bullet-proof glass.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is reported to have told its operative to postpone his efforts to kill Trump until after the election.
They didn’t expect him to win, but now that he has, a third attempt on his life in the space of four months is a serious concern.
He’s an avid golfer, enjoys meeting the public and detests having his style cramped, but security will take priority.
“God saved me to save you” has been his rally cry, but there’s a fine line between defiance and precaution.
What is the 4B movement?
The 4B movement is an unofficial group which originated in South Korea that has seen women abstain from sexual relationships with men as a protest against perceived misogyny and oppression.
4B was attracting minimal attention on social media in the US in the run-up to the election, but interest spiked after Donald Trump’s victory, with more than 50,000 mentions from American accounts on X on 6 November.
Since election day, X posts mentioning 4B have been engaged with more than 1 million times, potentially reaching more than 45 million accounts.
Here, Sky’s Molli Mitchell explains why it has become so popular since the US election…
‘Nothing will deter’ Trump from White House return
Following reports we brought you earlier on criminal charges relating to a thwarted Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump before this week’s presidential election (see post at 17.14), the president-elect’s team has said “nothing will deter” Trump from returning to the White House.
“President-elect Trump is aware of the attempted assassination plot by the Iranian terrorist regime,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said.
“Nothing will deter President Trump from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world.”
Earlier, the US Justice Department reported that three men had been charged over an alleged Iranian plot to kill Trump.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact in September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill the president-elect.
Abbas speaks with Trump about ‘just and comprehensive peace’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has spoken with Donald Trump on the phone and congratulated him on his victory, the official Palestinian news agency reports.
During the call, Abbas also told Trump he was looking forward to working with him to achieve a “just and comprehensive” peace.
What history do Trump and Abbas share?
During Trump’s first presidential term, he cut off US funds to the UN Palestinian aid agency (UNRWA) and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The move ended decades of US policy that Jerusalem’s status must be decided in negotiations with Palestine.
At the time, Abbas “warned of the dangerous consequences of such a decision on the peace process” and political factions led by Abbas’s Fatah movement called for daily protest marches.
COVID, inflation and ruling parties – the same story in both the US and UK
On the face of it there are few similarities between the UK election and the US election .
One produced a left-of-centre government intent on tax rises; the other a right of centre administration hell bent on big tax cuts.
One produced a cautious, rather dull lawyer as leader; the other, a political showman turned astute political operator.
One a dour pragmatist, the other a brash populist. But look closer and the similarities are stark.
Both existing governments were dealing with almost exactly the same problems.
Firstly, the hangover from a once in a 100 years catastrophe that blew budgets, found health systems wanting, killed enormous numbers of people and rocked the confidence of the people.
COVID was a disaster for governments the world over.
It wasn’t enough to say “we got the vaccines out there”. Too many people had already died.
It wasn’t enough either to say we spent billions helping people and businesses out.
Millions of jobs were gone, massive spending continued, interest rates fell and inflation soared.
And secondly, look at the politics in both countries. Both ruling parties became consumed in their own way by utter madness.
In the UK the Tories turned inward, obsessed about illegal immigration and how to deal with it and ran through four prime ministers in about three years.
In the US, the Democrats, also obsessing about illegal immigration and how to deal with it, crammed their leadership madness into about 10 minutes.
An 81-year-old Joe Biden, who had suggested he’d only do one term, decided he would run again only for it all to fall apart in that debate in June. Cue utter panic.
By the end of July he’d gone and by early August, Kamala Harris had replaced him, and to anyone paying attention it was clear it was all doomed.
One hundred days is not enough to even introduce yourself to the American people, let alone persuade them to like you enough to vote for you.
Peak Harris lasted about one heady week in August. Peak Trump is set for eight years.
So COVID, inflation and ruling parties and politicians absorbed by their own self-importance. The same story in both countries.
Left, right or centre, it doesn’t matter. If that is the backdrop to the vote, you’ve had it. And on both sides of the Atlantic, so it proved.
Biden to allow US military contractors to deploy to Ukraine
Joe Biden’s administration will allow American military contractors to deploy to Ukraine to help the war-torn country maintain and repair US-provided weapons, CNN reports.
An official with knowledge of the plan said the move would allow the Pentagon to provide contracts to American companies so they could help with repairs, particularly F16 fighter jets and Patriot air defence systems.
This would be the first time American contractors would be allowed to work inside Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines. They will not be engaged in combat.
They will help ensure US-provided equipment “can be rapidly repaired when damaged and be provided maintenance as needed,” the official said.
The move is the latest easing of restrictions by Biden’s administration.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the US has given Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in weaponry.
But Kyiv either had to move US-provided weaponry out of the country for heavy repair or rely on video-conferencing and other solutions to fix those systems inside the country.
The restrictions in the past have sometimes slowed down repairs and proven increasingly difficult.
Could Donald Trump run again in 2028?
Donald Trump will be one of only two presidents to serve two non-consecutive terms after his US election win this week, second only to Grover Cleveland, who did it in the 1800s.
It’s already a historic victory – but Trump has made comments in the past hinting at a third term in office.
An amendment in the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the United States, prohibits anyone from serving for more than two terms.
But what has the incoming president said, how likely is he to pursue a third term in 2028 – and is it even possible?
Has a third term been done before?
Franklin Roosevelt served as US president four times from 1933 to 1945, because there was nothing in the original US Constitution which limited how many terms a president could serve.
But later the 22nd Amendment limited presidents to two four-year terms, irrespective of whether they were served consecutively or not.
Congress passed the 22nd Amendment two years after Roosevelt’s death and it took effect from the 1952 election, which Republican Dwight D Eisenhower won over Democrat Adlai Stevenson.
No one has been able to serve more than two terms since.
What has Trump said?
It was in the lead-up to the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden, that he first started hinting at seeking a third term.
At a rally in August 2020, he told supporters he would win the next election and then possibly “go for another four years” because “they spied on my campaign,” an apparent nod to his unsubstantiated claims that Barack Obama had his “wires tapped” before he was elected in 2016.
According to Forbes, Trump told another rally that if he were to win the 2020 election, he would “negotiate” a third term, adding he was “probably entitled to another four [years] after that” based on “the way we were treated”.
But in an interview last year with Sky News’ US partner NBC News, Trump was asked if there was any scenario in which he would seek a third term should he win the presidency next year, to which he responded: “No.”
And in April 2024 he told Time magazine he “wouldn’t be in favour” of an extended term – but two vague comments he made in speeches this year have stoked rumours he could try it.
One was during a National Rifle Association speech, when he asked supporters if he would be considered “three-term or two-term” – though this appears to be in reference to his unsubstantiated claims that he should have won the 2020 election but that it was rigged against him.
Another came in July, when he told attendees at a conservative Christian event they wouldn’t “have to vote anymore” if he won the 2024 election, according to CBS News.
After repeatedly telling them to vote “just this time”, he added: “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”
Sky News spoke to two experts to hear their views on whether the president-elect was likely to attempt to run for a third term – and whether such an effort might be successful.
Read the full story below.
Trump ‘asks protectionist’ to return as US trade representative
Robert Lighthizer, a firm supporter of tariffs, has reportedly been asked to return as US trade representative in Donald Trump’s administration.
The Financial Times cited several people familiar with talks in the transition team.
Mr Lighthizer was one of the leading figures in Trump’s trade war with China and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada during his first term.
He had lobbied for a different role such as commerce secretary, the FT said.
The Trump transition team has yet to make an official comment on the report.
It comes after Trump announced he had picked Susie Wiles, one of his two campaign managers, to be White House chief of staff.
He has indicated he aims to kick the aggressive trade agenda from his first term into higher gear, with across-the-board 10% tariffs on imported goods and even higher levies on imports from China and elsewhere. If enacted, they would push up consumer prices.
China’s top envoy to the US warned yesterday that there are no winners in tariff or trade wars, nor in wars over science and technology or industry.