Trump boasts about vaccine rollout despite criticism as report says he blames Kushner for election loss

Donald Trump returned to Washington DC from his Mar-a-Lago resort hailing the arrival of a coronavirus vaccine, against widespread alarm over its slow rollout falling short of federal promises.

The president cut short his Christmas break, missing out on the annual New Year’s Eve party at his Florida residence despite charging attendees $1,000 per ticket.

A damning account in The New York Times of the president’s last several months, against a raging pandemic and looming election loss, reports his outage with Jared Kushner over Covid-19 testing and division among White House health officials over the role of Scott Atlas leading a dangerous response to the crisis.

White House officials also reportedly objected to Scott Atlas joining the West Wing, as the president’s favoured appointee on the coronavirus response told him “exactly what the president wanted to hear," according to The Times. while Dr Deborah Birx reportedly fumed over his dangerously false claims.

Mr Trump meanwhile has continued his protest against the certification of November’s election results in the Senate on 6 January, at which Republican senator Josh Hawley will voice his objections to Democrat Joe Biden’s win even though the Trump campaign has still failed to turn up any evidence of the mass voter fraud it alleges.

GOP Senator Ben Sasse has urged his Republican colleagues to reject the “dangerous ploy” to disenfranchise millions of Americans’ votes.

At least 140 House Republicans have joined the effort.

The US Secret Service is meanwhile reportedly making changes to its presidential detail tasked with protecting Mr Biden in order to root out alleged Trump loyalists from its ranks.

The president-elect has also announced plans to memorialise the victims of the Covid-19 crisis before his inauguration with a nationwide service to recognise the dead.

Follow live coverage from New Year’s Eve as it happened

• What the polls are saying about the Georgia senate runoffs

• The Democrats are suddenly leading in Georgia

• Mar-a-Lago NYE party guests charged $1,000 a ticket

• The year in Trumpspeak

• Trump rages at Melania’s Mar-a-Lago renovations

• Ivanka fuels speculation over White House run

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