Trump Jr pushes his father’s big election lie at CPAC 2021 – live

Donie O’Sullivan of CNN has shared a chilling clip in which he interviewed a number of QAnon conspiracy theorists and fanatical Trump supporters.

“At some point there will be arrests and that will include a lot of the lying media,” one Trump supporter told Mr O’Sullivan, adding that she believed – wrongly – that it was not the former president’s supporters who stormed the Capitol last month.

Another baselessly claimed Mr Trump would return as president on March 4, based on a false belief that the last legitimate president was Ulysses S Grant, who was inaugurated on that date in 1869.

Others said they hoped the Myanmar military coup could be replicated here, in order to reinstall Mr Trump as president.

Robert E Kelly, a professor of political science and North Korea expert, has branded the Republican Party a “cult of personality” after it emerged there was a golden statue of Donald Trump featured at this year’s CPAC.

“It’s a cult of personality alright. Not sure how much more proof of that you need than Trump-as-the-golden-calf,” Mr Kelly tweeted this morning.

“Maybe a huge North Korean-style statue? Remember this video when you watch DeMille’s ‘Ten Commandments’ this Easter.”

Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package has been approved by the US House of Representatives in his first major legislative win.

The president’s plan to send emergency financial aid to households, small businesses, and state and local governments battered by Covid-19 passed on a near party-line 219 to 212 vote early on Saturday.

The bill will now go to the evenly-divided Senate, where Democrats face a challenge in their hopes of using the package to raise the minimum wage and where vice president Kamala Harris may have to cast a tie-breaking vote.

In among the usual bile directed at the media, Democrats and Republicans not deemed sufficiently loyal to the Trump family, Donald Trump Jr on Friday also pushed against the big election lie during his speech at CPAC.

Talking about the election, Mr Trump Jr mentioned “the 80 million that voted for Joe Biden” (it was actually more than 81 million), but gestured quotation marks while saying the figure.

It comes after a riotous mob assaulted the Capitol last month, largely inspired by the Trump family’s false claims about election fraud.

The organisers of CPAC were forced to remind attendees that wearing masks was compulsory at the conference, setting off a wave of boos and jeers.

After one speaker finished up his speech by leading a chant of “freedom!” that saw attendees rise to their feet, event organisers took to the stage, begging the crowd to wear their masks at all times.

Shouts of complaint echoed around the ballroom at the order to don a face covering the stop the spread of Covid-19.

The nation’s largest right-wing summit has devoted at least seven panels to relitigating or amplifying false claims about the 2020 presidential election, not counting the speeches from high-profile Republicans and right-wing figures raising questions about “election integrity” after Donald Trump’s loss and a persistent lie that the election was “stolen” from his supporters.

The former vice president is returning to his home state of Indiana to decide his future, but residents in his hometown of Columbus are torn on his legacy, reports Richard Hall.

It’s the WWF-style intro that will be scarred into most attendees’ minds forever, writes Holly Baxter.

Josh Hawley may have spoken proudly about his role in the events of 6 January, but the QAnon Shaman appears to have a few regrets, accusing Donald Trump of “grooming” him and other rioters who stormed the US Capitol.