Trump loses latest bid to dismiss hush money case after touting $100bn SoftBank deal

Trump used a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday to announce a $100bn investment deal with Japan’s SoftBank, which he and the bank’s CEO Masayoshi Son promised would create hundreds of American jobs.

Here’s what they had to say:

Donald Trump has lost his latest bid to throw out his New York hush money conviction, with the judge overseeing the case rejecting his attorneys’ conjecture that he is protected by “presidential immunity”.

The president-elect appears likely to enter the White House as a convicted felon, though it remains unclear when, or if, the justice will continue to postpone a sentencing date after a unanimous jury found him guilty in May of falsifying business records tied to hush money payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels in October 2016.

Here’s a full report from Alex Woodward.

Graham, a staunch Trump supporter, told Kristen Welker of Meet the Press on Sunday that he disagrees with the presidency-elect but did not elaborate further.

Graham replied, “No.”

US lawmakers have told Apple and Google to prepare to remove TikTok from their app stores on 19 January after the Chinese-owned platform failed in its bid to delay a nationwide ban.

China-based ByteDance must sell TikTok in the US before that date to avoid the ban, which has been ordered due to national security concerns.

MAGA acolyte Steve Bannon is currently floating the idea that Donald Trump could run for a third presidential term, even though the United States Constitution says otherwise.

During a speech at the New York Young Republican Club’s Gala on Sunday night, the former Trump chief strategist suggested that the 22nd Amendment – which states that presidents can not be elected more than twice – didn’t apply to Trump because the president-elect’s terms are non-consecutive.

President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise of sweeping deportations could result in “severe economic fallout,” devastating the economy even more than the Great Recession, according to a report by Democrats in the Congressional Joint Economic Committee.

In an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine, the veteran Kentucky lawmaker, 82, warned the president-elect that he is set to encounter “a world far more hostile to US interests than the one he left behind four years ago” – citing the ever-growing challenges posed by China, Russia and Iran.

MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed that the US government is “in control of the drones” that have been spotted over New Jersey and New York in recent weeks, which officials have so far been unable or unwilling to account for.

Greene, who is well known for amplifying online conspiracy theories, wrote on X late on Saturday night: “The government is in control of the drones and refuses to tell the American people what is going on. It really is that bad.”

It would be a “big mistake” if Ukraine’s allies did not continue to give it the “strongest” support, Sir Keir Starmer said after Donald Trump criticised Kyiv’s use of US missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory.

The Prime Minister urged Western allies of the war-torn nation not to “take our eye off the ball” as Ukraine enters its third winter since the invasion.