#december172025 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #december172025, aggregated by home.social.
-
Jan. 6 riot ‘does not happen’ without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress – NPR
In this image from video released by the House Judiciary Committee, former special counsel Jack Smith speaks during a deposition Dec. 17, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
House Judiciary Committee / APLaw
Capitol riot ‘does not happen’ without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress
December 31, 20259:15 PM ETBy The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Jan. 6., 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol “does not happen” without Donald Trump, former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers earlier this month in characterizing the Republican president as the “most culpable and most responsible person” in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, seen here in August 2023, defended his work to House members Wednesday.Law
Jack Smith defends his prosecutions of Trump in closed-door session in CongressThe Republican-led House Judiciary Committee released on Wednesday a transcript and video of a closed-door interview Smith gave about two investigations of Trump. The document shows how Smith during the course of a daylong deposition repeatedly defended the basis for pursuing indictments against Trump and vigorously rejected Republican suggestions that his investigations were politically motivated.
Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment against Donald Trump in August 2023 in Washington, D.C.Law
Special counsel Jack Smith says evidence against Trump was enough to convict him“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit,” Smith said, bristling at a question about whether his investigations were meant to prevent Trump from reclaiming the presidency in 2024.
“So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election,” he added.
The Dec. 17 deposition was conducted privately despite Smith’s request to testify publicly. The release of the transcript and video of the interview, so far Smith’s only appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving his special counsel position last January, adds to the public understanding of the decision-making behind two of the most consequential Justice Department investigations in recent history.
Trump was indicted on charges of conspiring to undo the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and of willfully retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Both cases were abandoned after Trump’s 2024 election win, with Smith citing Justice Department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.
Smith repeatedly made clear his belief that the evidence gathered against Trump was strong enough to sustain a conviction. Part of the strength of the Jan. 6 case, Smith said, was the extent to which it relied on the testimony of Trump allies and supporters who cooperated with the investigation.
“We had an elector in Pennsylvania who is a former congressman, who was going to be an elector for President Trump, who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government and illegal,” Smith said. “Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Jan. 6 riot ‘does not happen’ without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress : NPR
#AP #AssociatedPress #December172025 #DepartmentOfJusticeSpecialCounselJackSmithFinalReportOnTheSpecialCounselSInvestigationsAndProsecutions #Deposition #HouseJudiciaryCommittee #JackSmith #Jan6 #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #RiotJanuary6th #USCapitol #USCongress #WashingtonDC #WithoutTrump -
Jan. 6 riot ‘does not happen’ without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress – NPR
In this image from video released by the House Judiciary Committee, former special counsel Jack Smith speaks during a deposition Dec. 17, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
House Judiciary Committee / APLaw
Capitol riot ‘does not happen’ without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress
December 31, 20259:15 PM ETBy The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Jan. 6., 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol “does not happen” without Donald Trump, former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers earlier this month in characterizing the Republican president as the “most culpable and most responsible person” in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, seen here in August 2023, defended his work to House members Wednesday.Law
Jack Smith defends his prosecutions of Trump in closed-door session in CongressThe Republican-led House Judiciary Committee released on Wednesday a transcript and video of a closed-door interview Smith gave about two investigations of Trump. The document shows how Smith during the course of a daylong deposition repeatedly defended the basis for pursuing indictments against Trump and vigorously rejected Republican suggestions that his investigations were politically motivated.
Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment against Donald Trump in August 2023 in Washington, D.C.Law
Special counsel Jack Smith says evidence against Trump was enough to convict him“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit,” Smith said, bristling at a question about whether his investigations were meant to prevent Trump from reclaiming the presidency in 2024.
“So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election,” he added.
The Dec. 17 deposition was conducted privately despite Smith’s request to testify publicly. The release of the transcript and video of the interview, so far Smith’s only appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving his special counsel position last January, adds to the public understanding of the decision-making behind two of the most consequential Justice Department investigations in recent history.
Trump was indicted on charges of conspiring to undo the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and of willfully retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Both cases were abandoned after Trump’s 2024 election win, with Smith citing Justice Department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.
Smith repeatedly made clear his belief that the evidence gathered against Trump was strong enough to sustain a conviction. Part of the strength of the Jan. 6 case, Smith said, was the extent to which it relied on the testimony of Trump allies and supporters who cooperated with the investigation.
“We had an elector in Pennsylvania who is a former congressman, who was going to be an elector for President Trump, who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government and illegal,” Smith said. “Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Jan. 6 riot ‘does not happen’ without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress : NPR
#AP #AssociatedPress #December172025 #DepartmentOfJusticeSpecialCounselJackSmithFinalReportOnTheSpecialCounselSInvestigationsAndProsecutions #Deposition #HouseJudiciaryCommittee #JackSmith #Jan6 #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #RiotJanuary6th #USCapitol #USCongress #WashingtonDC #WithoutTrump -
The Tragic Death and Enduring Legacy of Rob Reiner – December 17, 2025 – The Daily – The New York Times
Published Dec. 17, 2025, Updated Dec. 18, 2025
Hosted by Michael Barbaro, Featuring Julia Jacobs and Wesley Morris, Produced by Mooj ZadieMichael Simon Johnson and Luke Vander Ploeg, Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Michael Benoist. Contains music by Diane Wong and Dan Powell. Engineered by Alyssa Moxley
Rob Reiner, the classic film director, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were killed on Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged the couple’s son, Nick, with first-degree murder.
Julia Jacobs, an arts and culture reporter for The New York Times, explains what we have learned about the deaths, and Wesley Morris, a critic at The Times, discusses why many of Rob Reiner’s films are so beloved.
On Today’s Episode
Julia Jacobs, who reports on culture and the arts for The New York Times.
Wesley Morris, a critic at The New York Times who writes about art and popular culture.
Rob Reiner during the filming of “The American President” in 1995.Credit…Universal / Getty ImagesBackground Reading
- Rob Reiner, the actor who went on to direct classic films, died at 78.
- Nick Reiner was formally charged on Tuesday with murdering his parents.
Listen to and Follow ‘The Daily’
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Feedback
Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. For corrections, email: [email protected]. Follow our hosts on X: Michael Barbaro @mikiebarb, Rachel Abrams @RachelAbramsNY and Natalie Kitroeff @Nataliekitro.
Editor’s Note: The embedded podcast episode is from Spotify. Choose your own to listen. –DrWeb
Direct link to episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/09dRntMwzTYodq9xQYk2so?si=f68ed740ab774882
#Brentwood #California #December172025 #EnduringLegacy #MicheleSingerReiner #Pocast #RobReiner #TheDaily #TheNewYorkTimes #TheNewYorkTimesDaily #TragicDeath -
The Tragic Death and Enduring Legacy of Rob Reiner – December 17, 2025 – The Daily – The New York Times
Published Dec. 17, 2025, Updated Dec. 18, 2025
Hosted by Michael Barbaro, Featuring Julia Jacobs and Wesley Morris, Produced by Mooj ZadieMichael Simon Johnson and Luke Vander Ploeg, Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Michael Benoist. Contains music by Diane Wong and Dan Powell. Engineered by Alyssa Moxley
Rob Reiner, the classic film director, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were killed on Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged the couple’s son, Nick, with first-degree murder.
Julia Jacobs, an arts and culture reporter for The New York Times, explains what we have learned about the deaths, and Wesley Morris, a critic at The Times, discusses why many of Rob Reiner’s films are so beloved.
On Today’s Episode
Julia Jacobs, who reports on culture and the arts for The New York Times.
Wesley Morris, a critic at The New York Times who writes about art and popular culture.
Rob Reiner during the filming of “The American President” in 1995.Credit…Universal / Getty ImagesBackground Reading
- Rob Reiner, the actor who went on to direct classic films, died at 78.
- Nick Reiner was formally charged on Tuesday with murdering his parents.
Listen to and Follow ‘The Daily’
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Feedback
Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. For corrections, email: [email protected]. Follow our hosts on X: Michael Barbaro @mikiebarb, Rachel Abrams @RachelAbramsNY and Natalie Kitroeff @Nataliekitro.
Editor’s Note: The embedded podcast episode is from Spotify. Choose your own to listen. –DrWeb
Direct link to episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/09dRntMwzTYodq9xQYk2so?si=f68ed740ab774882
#Brentwood #California #December172025 #EnduringLegacy #MicheleSingerReiner #Pocast #RobReiner #TheDaily #TheNewYorkTimes #TheNewYorkTimesDaily #TragicDeath -
Trump pushes back on criticism of economy in contentious prime-time speech – The Washington Post
Trump pushes back on criticism of economy in contentious prime-time speech
Updated, December 17, 2025 at 10:28 p.m. EST51 min ago
President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Dec. 17. (Doug Mills / AFP/ Getty Images)1 min
President Donald Trump delivered a sharply political televised speech Wednesday evening focused heavily on the economy, an effort to reverse declining public opinion numbers and the view even among some supporters that he has not lived up to key campaign promises.
Follow Trump’s second term
Live coverage contributors 13
WashingtonPost staff – JacobBogage, DanDiamond, IsaacArnsdorf, AbhaBhattarai, RachelLerman, RachelSiegel, CatZakrzewski, LaurenKaori Gurley, DavidJ. Lynch, KarenTumulty, ScottClement, AndrewAckerman..
Editor’s Note: I am proud to list the journalists, patriots, citizens, journalists all. They report. Thank you all, for the hard and vital work. It helps us at a critical crossroads. –DrWeb
1 hour ago
Trump’s prime-time speech echoes themes from his campaign rallies
Facing internal White House strife, a slowing economy and tension overseas, President Donald Trump turned to a familiar routine Wednesday in his prime-time address: the campaign.
Trump zigzagged from the economy to immigration, and from transgender rights to global trade to his new war on drugs, in an 18-minute distillation of the stump speeches he gave on his way to a second term.
Trump, though, has been president again for nearly a year.
1 hour ago Return to menu
Trump also touted his efforts to lower health costs through his “Most Favored Nation” pricing deals with pharmaceutical companies.
It’s true that some of the deals — like Trump’s work to lower the price of GLP-1 drugs — have been striking. But drug costs represent just one relatively small component of America’s high health costs.
1 hour ago
Trump’s many distortions on the Affordable Care Act
Trump in his speech tonight riffed on a favorite target: the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health law passed by Democrats that he has spent much of his political career vowing to repeal.
“The current Unaffordable Care Act was created to make insurance companies rich,” Trump said. “It was bad health care at much too high a cost.”
1 hour ago Return to menu
Former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon, covering the speech on his “War Room” online talk show, pointed out that this address was seen by prime time network TV viewers, not just the president’s base.
Bannon posed the question: “Was this too intense for a broadcast audience?”
1 hour ago Return to menu
Trump said “100 percent” of new jobs in his second administration have gone to U.S.-born workers. Economists say that is not true.
A quirk in federal survey calculations is muddying the data on foreign- vs. U.S.-born workers in the labor force. Officials at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau warn against using that data to draw conclusions about population counts — or comparing it with figures from previous years. Doing so would be “a multiple-count data felony,” Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Commerce Department economist, told The Washington Post in August.
Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/17/trump-address-nation-2026-agenda/
#Contentious #Criticism #December172025 #Economy #FactCheck #JournalistUpdates #LiveSpeech #PrimeTimeSpeech #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TV #WhiteHouse -
Trump pushes back on criticism of economy in contentious prime-time speech – The Washington Post
Trump pushes back on criticism of economy in contentious prime-time speech
Updated, December 17, 2025 at 10:28 p.m. EST51 min ago
President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Dec. 17. (Doug Mills / AFP/ Getty Images)1 min
President Donald Trump delivered a sharply political televised speech Wednesday evening focused heavily on the economy, an effort to reverse declining public opinion numbers and the view even among some supporters that he has not lived up to key campaign promises.
Follow Trump’s second term
Live coverage contributors 13
WashingtonPost staff – JacobBogage, DanDiamond, IsaacArnsdorf, AbhaBhattarai, RachelLerman, RachelSiegel, CatZakrzewski, LaurenKaori Gurley, DavidJ. Lynch, KarenTumulty, ScottClement, AndrewAckerman..
Editor’s Note: I am proud to list the journalists, patriots, citizens, journalists all. They report. Thank you all, for the hard and vital work. It helps us at a critical crossroads. –DrWeb
1 hour ago
Trump’s prime-time speech echoes themes from his campaign rallies
Facing internal White House strife, a slowing economy and tension overseas, President Donald Trump turned to a familiar routine Wednesday in his prime-time address: the campaign.
Trump zigzagged from the economy to immigration, and from transgender rights to global trade to his new war on drugs, in an 18-minute distillation of the stump speeches he gave on his way to a second term.
Trump, though, has been president again for nearly a year.
1 hour ago Return to menu
Trump also touted his efforts to lower health costs through his “Most Favored Nation” pricing deals with pharmaceutical companies.
It’s true that some of the deals — like Trump’s work to lower the price of GLP-1 drugs — have been striking. But drug costs represent just one relatively small component of America’s high health costs.
1 hour ago
Trump’s many distortions on the Affordable Care Act
Trump in his speech tonight riffed on a favorite target: the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health law passed by Democrats that he has spent much of his political career vowing to repeal.
“The current Unaffordable Care Act was created to make insurance companies rich,” Trump said. “It was bad health care at much too high a cost.”
1 hour ago Return to menu
Former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon, covering the speech on his “War Room” online talk show, pointed out that this address was seen by prime time network TV viewers, not just the president’s base.
Bannon posed the question: “Was this too intense for a broadcast audience?”
1 hour ago Return to menu
Trump said “100 percent” of new jobs in his second administration have gone to U.S.-born workers. Economists say that is not true.
A quirk in federal survey calculations is muddying the data on foreign- vs. U.S.-born workers in the labor force. Officials at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau warn against using that data to draw conclusions about population counts — or comparing it with figures from previous years. Doing so would be “a multiple-count data felony,” Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Commerce Department economist, told The Washington Post in August.
Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/17/trump-address-nation-2026-agenda/
#Contentious #Criticism #December172025 #Economy #FactCheck #JournalistUpdates #LiveSpeech #PrimeTimeSpeech #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TV #WhiteHouse