Election 2024 live updates: Trump announces Cabinet picks RFK Jr., Matt Gaetz to mixed reactions

In the hours after Trump announced that vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his pick to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, mixed reactions began rolling in from the senators needed to support his confirmation.

Trump’s Cabinet selections will face Senate confirmation votes — and unconventional picks like Kennedy could face a bumpy process in a Republican-controlled Senate with little room for error.

Read the full story here.

During an episode of his "Triggered" podcast tonight, Donald Trump Jr. indicated that he played a major role in his dad announcing plans to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.

"I did what I said I was going to do. A lot more to be done, obviously, but those were a couple other big ones where I went out on a limb and just want to make sure that we understand that I’m a man of my word, so we’re following through on our promises," Trump Jr. said.

Trump Jr. said during an episode of his podcast last week that he would ensure Kennedy “has a voice” in the incoming administration. He also raised concerns about the challenges of a Senate confirmation for Kennedy.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, offered surprising words of support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after Trump announced him as his pick to become secretary of Health and Human Services.

"I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov," Polis wrote in a lengthy tweet. "He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA."

"I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health," he continued, later adding that he looks forward to "partnering with him to truly make America healthy again."

Jay Clayton, who led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, will be nominated as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, according to a public announcement from the president-elect today on Truth Social.

If confirmed by the Senate, Clayton would take the reins on the ongoing federal case involving New York City Mayor Eric Adams, an investigation surrounding Polymarket, and a host of other sensitive financial and public corruption cases as well as a recent spate of terrorism cases.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on Trump's announcement.

The new Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump announced will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is seeking workers.

The only catch? Be prepared to work more than 80 hours per week and not get paid.

"We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting," the new department posted to X, asking interested applicants to DM the account.

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Trump, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump made the announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS),” he wrote. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health.” 

Donald Trump Jr. also shared the news on X.

During his presidential campaign, Kennedy developed a national profile for his criticism of the Covid vaccine and childhood immunizations. He has claimed that vaccines are tied to autism, despite evidence conveyed through studies over decades that have disproven such a claim.

Read the full story here.

There are currently no plans for Harris to invite Vance to meet at the White House or vice presidential residence at the Naval Observatory, according to a Harris aide familiar with the vice president's schedule.

However, it is still possible for their plans to change ahead of Inauguration Day, the source added. If the two did meet, it would likely be sometime after Thanksgiving.

When Trump won in 2016, Biden invited then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence to meet at the White House and Naval Observatory. In January 2021, Pence called Harris to offer his congratulations.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., met today for the first time since Thune was elected as the next Senate majority leader.

In a press release, the two said they look forward to working together to "secure our borders, cut taxes, reduce inflation, slash bureaucratic red tape, restore America’s energy dominance, rebuild our military, and instill fear in our overseas enemies." Thune, in his message, emphasized the idea of team work.

“Speaker Johnson and I had a productive meeting today getting organized for the work ahead, and I look forward to our partnership as we reverse the Biden-Harris agenda and advance President Trump’s priorities on behalf of the American people," Thune said.

In a livestream this afternoon, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt spoke about the upcoming recount that will be conducted in the state's Senate race.

Schmidt told reporters that he expects the recount to cost over $1 million and said that counties will begin the recount once they’re done with the initial unofficial canvass of the votes.

Counties must begin the recount by Nov. 20 and it must be completed by Nov. 26 at noon. By Nov. 27, counties must report the results of the recount to the state.

"State law required me to order a recount," Schmidt told reporters, pointing to the fact that the margin in the race is currently under 0.5%.

Trump has moved quickly to fill out key White House and Cabinet roles, with picks for chief of staff, ambassador to the United Nations and several other positions in the days since winning the 2024 election. The incoming Trump administration includes top campaign aides, members of Congress and figures from his first term.

Read the latest updates on who Trump has chosen for his administration.

Republican senators are preparing for a robust vetting of Gaetz, Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, with a keen interest in details from a House Ethics Committee investigation into the former congressman from Florida.

The ethics panel has been investigating Gaetz off and on since 2021, most recently focusing on alleged sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts, obstruction and other allegations. But the results of that probe may not become public because Gaetz resigned from the House at noon today. The Ethics Committee has jurisdiction only over sitting House members.

Trump’s choice of Gaetz was a surprise to nearly everyone, including members of his own party and officials at the Justice Department — in part because of the Ethics investigation, his past legal problems and his reputation as a rabble-rouser in Congress.

A source familiar with the process told NBC News that Gaetz had been consulting Trump on who would be best to run the Justice Department. Gaetz did not ask for the role, that person said, but Trump asked him to take on the job yesterday, just hours before the decision was made public.

Read the full story here.

The full House Ethics Committee will meet behind closed doors on Friday, three sources familiar with the meeting confirmed to NBC News. One of those sources said that releasing the Matt Gaetz report is expected to be among the topics on the agenda.

Punchbowl News reported Wednesday that the Ethics panel had planned to release a “highly damaging” report about Gaetz on Friday, citing multiple sources familiar with the probe. 

An Ethics Committee spokesman had no comment when asked about the meeting.

The attorney for a 17-year-old who Gaetz was investigated for allegedly having a sexual relationship with is calling on the House Ethics Committee to "immediately" release the result of its probe into the now-former congressman.

"Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report," the attorney, John Clune, wrote in a post on X. "She was a high school student and there were witnesses," he added.

The bipartisan Ethics committee has been investigating whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

The attorneys who’ve been defending Rudy Giuliani in a case seeking to force him to turn over his assets to two former election worker he defamed are asking a judge for permission to drop him as a client.

The exact reason for the request was redacted in a court filing late Wednesday, but the filing suggested Giuliani, who represented President-elect Donald Trump in his challenges to the 2020 election, was being an “unreasonably difficult” client.

In the filing, Giuliani attorney Ken Caruso and co-counsel David Labkowski cited three provisions of the code of professional conduct allowing them to withdraw — when “the client insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement;” “the client insists upon presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument;” or “the client fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer.”

Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick has filed litigation to throw out undated and otherwise "defective" mail ballots in his race against Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., just a day after the race automatically went into a recount.

Casey's campaign manager, Tiernan Donohue, slammed McCormick, who attended Senate orientation this week despite the race not being officially called.

"David McCormick’s hypocritical reversal on undated mail ballots is further proof of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters while counties continue to count votes in this razor-thin election," Donohue said. "Sen. Casey’s priority continues to be making sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard as our democratic process unfolds."

Democrat Janelle Bynum wins the U.S. House seat in Oregon's 5th Congressional District, NBC News projects.

Bynum will be the first Black person to represent Oregon in Congress, with NBC News projecting that she has defeated first-term GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the competitive district.

Bynum, a state legislator, attributed her victory to her focus on key issues like high prices and housing costs, and emphasizing her background as a mother and small-business owner.

“Looking at just my past service in the Legislature, being someone who can move big pieces of legislation in a bipartisan manner, and being relentless about it. And so all of those things, including just a very strong profile, I think, led to my success in the, in the race,” Bynum told reporters Thursday during a Zoom call with NewDem Action Fund, the political arm of the New Democrat Coalition in Congress.

See the latest results here.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., praised Gaetz today during an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, saying that "there's been no one better at channeling the American public's frustration with the weaponization of the Department of Justice."

“It’s amazing that you’re more upset about allegations than you are about the weaponization of the Department of Justice,” he told Mitchell, referring to the sex trafficking allegations against Gaetz.

The Justice Department investigated those allegations but never charged him with any crime. 

Gaetz, a staunch Trump ally, has been an outspoken critic of the Justice Department's probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Hagerty also called Trump's pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, “an inspirational leader,” despite Hegseth's lack of experience for the role.

When nominating Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., for Senate majority leader during closed-door elections yesterday, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, plugged the president-elect’s alleged support of Thune for that role.

“Trump likes Thune,” Daines told his colleagues, a source close to him said.

But that’s not all he said.

Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton said in an interview today that he doesn't think former Reps. Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, R-Hawaii, are qualified to serve as attorney general and director of national intelligence, respectively.

"She doesn’t have any experience in intelligence matters," he said about Gabbard during an interview on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "She has demonstrated repeatedly that she doesn’t understand international affairs. She has been quoted as saying that, effectively, Putin was justified in having Russia invade Ukraine because there were secret American biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. I mean, this is fantasy land stuff."

"I think this is a case where I hope Republicans, en masse, vote against these two nominees, because they will be embarrassed in history if these people are confirmed and perform the way it is perfectly predictable they will perform," he added.

Bolton served as Trump's national security adviser in the White House, during Trump's first term, from 2018 to 2019, before Trump fired him. NBC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

After Trump won the U.S. presidency last week, tech CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos publicly praised the president-elect.

One name was conspicuously missing: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.

His absence was notable considering that of all the top tech companies, TikTok faces the most immediate and existential threat from the U.S. government. In April, President Joe Biden signed a law that requires China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok by Jan. 19. If ByteDance fails to comply, internet hosting companies and app store owners such as Apple and Google will be prohibited from supporting TikTok, effectively banning it in the U.S.

Trump’s return to the White House, though, may provide a lifeline for Chew and TikTok. 

Read the full story here.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced today that she is taking legal action against current and former FEMA officials for conspiracy to discriminate against Florida hurricane victims who support Trump.

“Hurricane season is not over, and the federal agency in charge of emergency response is embroiled in scandal — caught withholding aid from storm victims in Florida who support President Trump," she said in a statement. "I am taking swift legal action to find out how far this political discrimination reaches and to make sure all Americans who fall victim to devastating storms are served, regardless of their political affiliation.”

The lawsuit is specifically against FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and former FEMA official Marni Washington. Moody alleges Washington was the FEMA supervisor who was eventually fired for telling FEMA workers to avoid helping people living in homes advertising support for Trump in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Among other things, Moody has requested a trial by jury in the case.

In the hours since he was chosen to lead the Department of Justice, Gaetz has been working the phones, placing calls to Senate Republicans to get a read on his chances of getting confirmed as attorney general next year, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

The lawmakers receiving those calls including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be the first significant hurdle in Gaetz’s confirmation process.

Republicans and Democrats on the committee said this morning that they are interested in obtaining the House Ethics Committee's findings in its investigation into the Florida Republican, whose resignation was effective at noon today.

Sen. Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, who sits on that panel, said this morning that he expects to hear from Gaetz.

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed interest in seeing the House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz after Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called on the House panel this morning to share its findings. 

“Absolutely,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said when asked if he wants to see the report. “I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated.”

Asked if Gaetz has the votes to be confirmed, Cornyn said, “I would say it’s premature to count votes, but there are a lot of questions.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he could name five to 10 Republicans who are “seriously” considering voting against the Florida Republican.

Judiciary Republicans, however, also said they would still give Gaetz a fair confirmation hearing and didn’t share many concerns about the past investigations into him. 

Gaetz has officially resigned from Congress, according to a letter the House clerk read on the floor just now.

In the letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Gaetz said he does not intend to take the oath of office for the 119th Congress in January. So Gaetz is officially done in the 118th Congress and has given up his seat for the next Congress.”

I hereby resign as a United States representative for Florida’s first congressional district, effective immediately,” Gaetz wrote. “And I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump administration.”

On her Sirius XM show, Trump's former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, said she was approached by his friend Steve Witkoff about joining his Cabinet, but declined.

“He was like, ‘What do you want? Tell me what you want. Is there anything you want?’ I said, ‘There’s nothing I want," Haley said.

After dropping out of the presidential race in March, Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, chose not to endorse Trump right away, but later said she would vote for him. She has been a critic of the now-president-elect, calling him "unhinged" and "diminished" while she was still in the race.

Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post that he would not be asking Haley to join his administration. When asked about her comment, the Trump campaign referred NBC News to Trump's post.

Trump has picked Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East.

In an interview with Bloomberg, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., predicted Trump's pick for attorney general will not make it through the Senate.

"Gaetz won't get confirmed, everybody knows that," McCarthy said in an interview on "The Asia Trade."

Pressed by host Haslinda Amin on why Gaetz was nominated if he won't get confirmed, McCarthy called the move "a good deflection from others" who Trump has chosen to join him in the administration.

McCarthy and Gaetz have history. Gaetz led a successful effort last year to oust McCarthy as speaker over spending differences, in which Gaetz was joined by seven other Republicans and all the House Democrats.

At the Republican National Convention in July, Gaetz also taunted McCarthy, saying, “Hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it." McCarthy told NBC News in response that the comment "shows exactly who Matt Gaetz is."

Outgoing Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is calling on the House Ethics Committee to “preserve and share all relevant documentation” of their investigation into Gaetz with his panel, whether the ethics panel releases a report on the probe or not. 

“We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people," Durbin said today on the Hill. "Make no mistake, this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next attorney general of the United States and our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent.”

It’s not clear yet whether the House Ethics Committee will release their findings into Gaetz now that he has submitted his resignation from the House, but Judiciary Democrats are expected to continue to put pressure on the committee. 

In an interview with the New York Post, Trump revealed what he and Biden spoke about yesterday at the White House, which included the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.

“I wanted — I asked for his views and he gave them to me,” Trump said. “Also, we talked very much about the Middle East, likewise. I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me — he was very gracious.”

Trump complimented Biden in the interview, something that goes against his rhetoric during the campaign, in which he routinely questioned the president's mental faculties, baselessly called him a criminal — with Biden saying the same of him — and alleged without evidence that he had weaponized the Justice Department against Trump to interfere in the election.

“It’s been a long slog,” Trump said in the interview. “It’s been a lot of work on both sides, and he did a very good job with respect to campaigning and everything else. We really had a really good meeting.”

Trump also said the transition is going “very smoothly" and that the two of them plan to meet again just before the inauguration.

Tulsi Gabbard has been accused of parroting lines that could be taken off of any regular Russian broadcast over the past decade, accusations that she has consistently denied. NBC News’ Matt Bodner looks into the history of the woman picked by Donald Trump to be director of national intelligence.  

Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard, has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda and would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee.

Gabbard, who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical unit, has long criticized U.S. foreign policy as imperial and heavy-handed. She also has sharply criticized Trump in the past over his approach to the Middle East during his first presidential term, portraying him as dangerous.

As director of national intelligence, a position created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a budget of about $70 billion and serve as the principal adviser to the president on intelligence matters. She would first need to be confirmed by the Senate, where Republicans will hold the majority starting in January.

In her public statements, Gabbard has often been at odds with the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments. If she is confirmed, her tenure would most likely be marked by clashes with government analysts who see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government as the primary purveyor of disinformation designed to sow divisions in the U.S.

Read the full story.

The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet today, a source familiar with the situation told NBC News.

The source said the meeting agenda is confidential, so the person did not know what will be discussed. It’s unclear whether the committee would be discussing its investigation into Gaetz, who resigned from the House yesterday after Trump said he would be named attorney general.

Gaetz's resignation ended the committee's investigation into him because it has jurisdiction only over current, not former, House members, NBC News previously reported.

Punchbowl News reported yesterday that the committee was set to release a report about its investigation into Gaetz, citing multiple sources familiar with the probe. NBC has not confirmed that reporting.

As he waged his winning campaign, Trump described the Justice Department as a hotbed of partisan prosecutors who had “weaponized” law enforcement and the military as a fighting force that had forsaken its mission in favor of political decorum.

A Trump presidency would fix all that, he pledged, and with his choices to lead the Defense and Justice departments, along with other agencies, he has shown he meant just what he said.

Since his decisive victory last week, Trump has tapped trusted allies to carry out the priorities that align with what he promised voters.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s choice of Matt Gaetz — a House member from Florida who was recently the target of an FBI investigation — to be the next attorney general of the United States sent shock waves through the Justice Department yesterday.

“OMG,” a current senior Justice Department official said. A second department official called the selection “truly stunning,” and a third labeled it “insane.”

Gaetz, who was the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation that ended without charges, has been a fierce Trump supporter and has regularly attacked both the Justice Department and the FBI, including calling for the FBI to be defunded and abolished.

Read the full story here.

The Conservative Political Action Conference Investor Summit kicks off today at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump is also fleshing out his administration picks.

The welcome reception will feature CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp and former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. The summit will continue through Saturday.

If Kamala Harris’ campaign was known for anything, it was its blockbuster fundraising. In just a matter of months, it crossed the $1 billion mark, at a stunning and record-breaking pace.

Now, less than a week since the vice president conceded the contest, it not only has run out of money, but it’s also still asking for more. The campaign emails and texts, known for their ubiquity throughout the election, aren’t expected to stop anytime soon.

Read the full story here.