Trump news live: President-elect’s team responds to sordid police report on Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth

Donald Trump stunned Washington by plucking celebrities and prominent figures from cable TV to fill his Cabinet and administration.

In doing so, he ignored the more traditional candidates favored by the political establishment.

To say his choices left the capital in turmoil would be an understatement. Some of them have more IMDb credentials than years of government service.

The choices were perhaps unsurprising given Trump’s history as a New York businessman who became a star on the television show The Apprentice. And he has long expressed his admiration for those who look like they came out of Hollywood’s central casting.

However, Trump’s break with the status quo is a significant change from his first administration, when he chose many establishment candidates to fill key government positions.

This time, he watched TV clips of potential Cabinet members on monitors in a makeshift “situation room” at Mar-a-Lago.

It seems to have been very important to him that his chosen people could represent the government well in live TV interviews, and be able to disrupt normal business in Washington.

The woman who accused Pete Hegseth of assault claims something may have been slipped into her drink before he grabbed her phone and physically blocked her from leaving his room, according to a police report.

Hegseth, a Fox News host and former National Guard officer who was recently nominated by Donald Trump as defense secretary, was investigated for the alleged assault in 2017, but no charges were filed.

The report, issued by the city of Monterey, California, describes an allegedly “highly intoxicated” Hegseth groping multiple women at a hotel in the early morning hours of October 8, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa.

The alleged victim, then 30 years old, who asked to be identified as Jane Doe, was drinking champagne with colleagues during a business trip when things became “fuzzy” and she suddenly found herself in a room with Hegseth.

Jill Biden’s teachers union on Wednesday denounced Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education, calling her “Betsy DeVos 2.0.”

McMahon is expected to undo all of the Biden administration’s initiatives when it takes over the U.S. Department of Education — which Trump has said he wants to abolish altogether — including limiting support for transgender athletes.

The former CEO of the WWE was a controversial choice of Trump. Her experience is in executive branch — she led the Small Business Association during the first Trump administration — and she has little experience in education.

The National Education Association, the union to which the first lady belongs as a community college professor, rejected McMahon’s nomination. It is the largest teachers union in the country.

NEA President Becky Pringle said McMahon would be a new version of DeVos.

Nikki Haley denounced President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

She accused the former Democratic congresswoman turned Trump supporter of spreading Russian propaganda, calling her a “Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer.”

The former South Carolina Republican Party governor gave her scathing review of the 78-year-old president-elect’s nominations for his Cabinet on her SiriusXM radio show “Nikki Haley Live.”

“Everyone loves her now to say she’s a Republican now, but I’ve always said, ‘let’s look at what they’ve said, what their actions are,’” Haley said of Gabbard.

Haley blasted the controversial nominee for going to Syria in 2017 to meet with dictator Bashar al-Assad for what Haley called a “photo op” while committing atrocities against his own people.

Haley called it disgusting that Gabbard questioned whether it was the Syrian leader who was behind the chemical attacks in his country. She recalled giving a speech at the United Nations during Trump’s first term about attacks on children.

The Morning Joe hosts held their secret meeting with Donald Trump because they feared that newly elected President would allow Matt Gaetz to lead an investigation into conspiracy theories surrounding the 2001 death of Joe Scarborough’s intern.

Scarborough and his co-host/wife Mika Brzezinski have faced a barrage of backlash after unveiling the Mar-a-Lago summit amid dwindling viewership on their beleaguered network.

Some called the recent Trump rally a weak attempt to bring in conservative viewers.

But the couple is reportedly “afraid of retaliation and of Gaetz opening an investigation into Joe and the intern.”

“That’s what this was about,” a source told Puck about the motive. “It has nothing to do with ratings or Comcast. It’s all about fear of retaliation and investigation,’

Since 2020, Trump has spread theories that Scarborough had an affair with intern Lori Klausutis and was responsible for her death.