Politix

Congressman Jim Clyburn's widely credited with saving Joe Biden's Presidential campaign, but he says Joe shouldn't thank him ... the credit goes to 2 Black women who inspired him.

The distinguished gentleman from South Carolina joined "TMZ Live" Tuesday to shed some light on his decision to throw major support behind Biden leading up to the SC primary, which proved pivotal in Joe landing the Democratic nomination.

Clyburn tells us he was already a Biden fan, but he decided to go all out for him to honor his late wife, Emily ... who passed in September 2019. The congressman says his wife absolutely loved Joe, and she made him promise her he'd commit to helping Biden get the nom.

The other Black woman who persuaded Clyburn is anonymous, but his interaction with her was so impactful ... he attributes it to his game-changing endorsement of Biden. The rest, as they say ... is history.

Of course, this all led to Biden becoming President-elect, and Rep. Clyburn seems pretty confident nothing's going to change that ... despite President Trump's efforts.

In fact, Jim seems fed up with all the Trump talk since the election, and reminds us the sitting Prez is just one individual -- one the congressman would like to see put in his place. As he's told us before, if Trump won't leave quietly ... he believes the military will make him.

Finally, on the topic of Georgia and its uber-important Senate races ... Jim has an interesting take on how they could affect Biden's presidency and the Democratic Party as a whole.

NBC's Ken Dilanian is the latest victim of the dreaded hot mic ... unwittingly unleashing a stream of curse words on live TV, but he's got an explanation and an apology.

Here's the deal ... Ken was supposed to be doing a live hit Tuesday on MSNBC about new developments in President Trump's refusal to concede and acknowledge President-Elect Joe Biden, and he cursed as Craig Melvin introduced him.

"Oh, s***, f***," Ken exclaimed while looking down at his phone. MSNBC quickly cut away after the profanity.

Ken's already saying sorry for his on-air gaffe ... he's apologizing for using profanity and says it was a byproduct of technical difficulties. He mistakenly hung up on the control room -- hence the four-letter words -- but didn't realize his mic was still hot.

President Trump has the right to exhaust every avenue to determine if there was voter fraud in the election, but if nothing turns up, he should exit stage left ... so says the Texas GOP chairman.

Allen West joined "TMZ Live" on Tuesday and said people are getting way ahead of themselves by declaring Joe Biden the President-elect ... not while ballots are still being counted -- or recounted -- in George, Arizona and North Carolina.

West, a former U.S. Congressman and retired Lt. Col., added the voter fraud allegations in Pennsylvania -- so far, unfounded -- also have to play out in court. While West is throwing his support behind team Trump and the audit of ballots, he makes it crystal clear -- if it's ruled a fair and legal election ... Trump has to abide by that.

Obamacare was on the line Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court .... and not only does it seem the justices are inclined to do away with part or all of it -- although there seems to be a good chance the case will be thrown out on technical legal grounds -- there was also talk about another looming issue ... whether the federal government could impose a mandatory mask requirement.

Oral arguments kicked off Tuesday on the issue of whether the ACA's individual mandate is constitutional anymore since a Republican-held Congress removed the tax penalty in 2017. The justices had said previously that the law was grounded in Congress's ability to tax citizens, but now that there's no longer a tax penalty, some of the justices felt there was no longer a legal basis for the law. The Trump administration wants the whole law 86'd, but others say the justices could declare just the mandatory health insurance provision unconstitutional and save the rest of the ACA.

As the groundwork for that was being laid out at the beginning of the hearing, Justice Clarence Thomas raised an illuminating comparison ... asking if a proposed national mask mandate could, for instance, be challenged if there's no real threat of enforcement.

He seemed to be spit-balling, but the fact he chose to hurl that wad specifically in this context was telling, especially since Joe Biden said he would roll out a national mandate.

Back to the ACA ... Justices Kavanaugh and Alito -- both of whom tend to have strict interpretations of the constitution -- appeared to signal they thought removing the mandate and leaving the rest of law in place was something that could feasibly work.

Alito, for example, compared the mandate to a crucial part of a plane that engineers thought, at first, was necessary to fly. But, if that part gets removed once it's in the air, and if the plane continues to fly ... he asked why is it necessary to take the whole thing down? It was pretty insightful -- but time will tell if or how they actually rule on the subject.

One person who was relatively muted throughout Tuesday's proceedings -- and who didn't really show her cards much at all -- was Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the newbie of the group, and the one who could well be the deciding vote to strike the ACA down, or uphold it.

Her questions were brief, and were mostly buried in legalese ... it was hard to pick up what, if anything, she was signaling on how she felt about the merits of the case.

As this case plays out over the next few months, Justice Thomas' question of masks might be setting up another showdown over the legality of mandated mask-wearing ... something we'll definitely keep an eye out for.

Rudy Giuliani's impromptu Philly news conference at the Four Seasons -- the landscaping company, not the hotel -- gave an adjacent sex shop a raw deal ... and it's none too pleased.

An employee named Jacob at Fantasy Island Book Store -- an adult entertainment shop a couple of buildings over from Four Seasons -- tells TMZ ... Giuliani's Saturday event cost him and his partners some good cash.

He says they opened at 9 AM and by 10:30 AM, their parking lot was swarmed by Giuliani and his posse ... plus all the media/security tagging along to see what he was going to say about President Trump and the election.

With all the hubbub and cameras, Jacob says customers were spooked and couldn't get to Fantasy Island's front door.

He says they didn't get any warning about Rudy's plans, and it sounds like Four Seasons wasn't given notice either ... although it's reaped some benefit, selling out merchandise after becoming Giuliani's backdrop.

No such luck for Fantasy Island.

Jacob says all they got was a flood of phone calls from reporters asking if Giuliani swung by the adult store. That's a "no" ... BTW.

President-elect Joe Biden can Make Syracuse Football Great Again ... so says head coach Dino Babers, who believes #46's ties to the school will help BIG with recruitment.

Biden is a proud Orange alum -- he received his law degree from 'Cuse in 1968 and became the first Orangeman to be elected POTUS.

Babers was asked about Biden winning the presidency following the Orange's 16-13 loss to Boston College ... and he thinks the impact will trickle onto the field.

"To have the opportunity to be the head football coach at the university where the president-elect graduated from, I think is huge," Babers told reporters.

"Not only is it a huge honor, but I think it’s a huge recruiting advantage when you go around the country and say, 'Hey, come to Syracuse University. You can be a president of the United States."

Babers also says he hopes to meet the president-elect someday .. calling the opportunity "extremely cool."

Stacey Abrams is getting a round of applause from Rep. Karen Bass, who says Georgia wouldn't have gone blue for Biden without Stacey, and now she could help the Dems run the table in D.C.

The U.S. Congresswoman spoke with us Monday on "TMZ Live" and explained why the upcoming run-off elections for two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia are HUGE for her party, and more importantly ... why Abrams deserves a ton of the credit for getting it to this point.

Rep. Bass says Stacey's efforts to register hundreds of thousands in the Peach State, not only helped Biden (who won GA by a hair), but also the Democrat hopefuls looking to replace GOP incumbents.

If Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock beat out their Republican counterparts in a January runoff, the Democratic Party would have the WH, the Senate and the House -- and Biden could push through his agenda without pause.

We also talked coronavirus with the Congresswoman, and while she's happy about Pfizer's claim it has a 90% effective vaccine ... she's also cautiously optimistic.

Dr. Jill Biden is paying her respects to Alex Trebek, and remembering her time with the late "Jeopardy!" host.

The First Lady-elect just posted a picture of her and Alex on the game show set, a throwback to 2016 when she was the Second Lady and a special guest presenting the Final Jeopardy clue. Jill captioned the pic, "Rest In Peace, Alex ❤️."

Jill's 'Jeopardy' appearance came about 3 years before Alex announced he was battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer. As you know, Alex didn't let his cancer diagnosis and chemo treatments stop him from hosting his game show ... just as impressively as ever.

As we first reported, Alex passed away peacefully at his home Sunday morning, surrounded by friends and family.

Alex's death came the morning after Joe Biden was announced the projected winner of the Presidential election -- a very emotional weekend for Jill, and America.

President Trump's eldest son has his tinfoil hat on Monday morning -- he thinks the promising COVID vaccine news coming out right after the election is more than coincidence ... he's insinuating the drug company held its findings back till after the election so Trump wouldn't get a bounce and possibly win as a result.

Donald Trump Jr.'s response to Pfizer developing a coronavirus vaccine that may be more than 90 percent effective ... "Nothing nefarious about the timing of this at all right?"

The President repeatedly claimed during the lead up to the election that a vaccine would be announced before voting day. On top of that, Trump touted Pfizer as a company with great promise in finding a vaccine. So his son is suggesting the findings were available but held back.

For his part, President Trump took a different approach to Pfizer's vaccine results by tweeting -- in all caps -- "STOCK MARKET UP BIG, VACCINE COMING SOON. REPORT 90% EFFECTIVE. SUCH GREAT NEWS!"

President-elect Biden says he was informed of the vaccine development Sunday night and says, "I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped produce this breakthrough and to give us such cause for hope."

How'd J.R. Smith celebrate Joe Biden's victory?

He drove around bumping "F*** Donald Trump" and flipping off MAGA supporters.

So yeah, just as you'd expect ...

The L.A. Lakers star hit the streets (of what appear to be Beverly Hills) on Sunday -- where he blasted the YG song from his BMW, while leaning out of his window and shooting the bird at all of the pro-Trump protesters he saw.

Smith loved every second of it -- and was smiling and laughing while trolling Team MAGA.

Of course, Smith is the latest in a long line of NBA players relishing Biden's victory ... his teammate, LeBron James, has been rejoicing on social media for days -- even waving goodbye to Trump in one tweet.

Trump and the NBA haven't seen eye-to-eye in a long time ... coaches such as Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich have RIPPED him consistently over the past 4 years.

The president, meanwhile, has been critical of players for kneeling during the anthem in the Orlando bubble this summer ... and he's consistently talked about the league's reportedly low TV ratings.

In fact, at a rally just a few days before his election loss ... Trump got a crowd to chant "LeBron James sucks" after he voiced his displeasure with the Lakers star and the NBA.

We have POTUS, FLOTUS, SCOTUS and now ... an official title for the First Family's furry friends, DOTUS, which just became Twitter official.

Dr. Jill and President-Elect Biden set up online accounts for their 2 German Shepherds, Major and Champ, with a handle of @First_Dogs_USA. Unfortunately, some troll already snapped up @DOTUS, which is dedicated to "The Don of the U.S." -- so the Bidens settled for this.

Their bio reads, "We are the First Dogs of the USA, Champ and Major Biden,” their Twitter profile said. “You can call us #DOTUS. We love nom noms, snuggles and we can’t wait to explore the WH!”

Doesn't look like the dogs have a formal Instagram account dedicated to their White House adventures just yet ... which would be a good idea, since more people probably wanna SEE Major and Champ more so than read their canine thoughts and musings. Just a thought!

As of Monday morning, the DOTUS Twitter page has over 94k followers, and counting.

Like we told you, Major and Champ will be the first dogs in the White House since Barack Obama was there with his family's two Portuguese Waterdogs, Sunny and Bo. Not just that, but Major is the first rescue to set its paws down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Morgan Wallen's pissed Joe Biden supporters can pack in together to fill the streets in celebration during the pandemic, yet he can't perform concerts.

The country music star posted a video showing the massive group of people outside the White House celebrating President-elect Biden's victory ... with zero social distancing.

Wallen wrote "Time to start booking shows" which was shortly followed by "The hypocrisy is unreal." His beef?

It's clear he feels there's a double standard ... given he lost his 'SNL' gig last month after he was seen partying irresponsibly in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, yet Biden supporters have no problem gathering in large crowds to celebrate.

As we reported ... Wallen was seen at a bar taking shots and kissing women and at a house party. He wasn't wearing a mask, much less social distancing. At the time, Wallen admitted his actions were "short-sighted" and he seemed contrite about losing his opportunity.

But now ... Wallen's fuming he got canceled for the exact same thing Biden supporters did over the weekend. He wrote, "If it's OK for us to party in the streets with no 'social distancing' then we can book shows right now." Morgan points out ... his band and crew have families to feed, which they can't do without touring.

Better start warming up that arm, Mr. President-Elect.

The Washington Nationals have invited Joe Biden to throw out of the first pitch of the 2021 season -- when they take on the New York Mets at home on April 1st.

And, right now, it seems they expect him to accept.

"We look forward to hosting President-Elect Biden on Opening Day of the 2021 season," the team said in a statement.

"We're excited to continue the long-standing tradition of sitting Presidents throwing out the first pitch at the home of the national pastime in our nation's capital."

Worth noting ... Donald Trump did NOT throw out a ceremonial first pitch at an MLB game during his presidency -- the ONLY president to skip the tradition since it began with William Taft in 1910.

Trump famously attended Game 5 of the 2019 World Series when the Nationals played the Houston Astros -- but he didn't throw out the first pitch.

As for Biden, he played a little baseball as a kid -- and threw out the first pitch for the Baltimore Orioles during Opening Day in 2009.

The pitch wasn't horrible (looking at YOU, Dr. Fauci) ... but it wasn't a perfect strike either.

One of President Trump's helicopters is up for grabs -- but, weirdly, he and his team don't seem to be looking for a specific price ... instead, they're putting the ball in a buyer's court.

DT currently owns three Sikorsky S76-B helicopters -- plus other private aircraft not associated with the White House -- and one of those choppers has found its way to an aerial retailer via Aero Asset, which is hawking the thing out of a hangar in New Jersey.

The funny thing ... there's no asking price, the listing just says "Make offer." So, basically, DT appears to have gone the route of Craigslist and will pretty much take what he can get!

Granted, the market value for one of these helicopters of the same year is said to be anywhere between $700k-$800k, with other estimates coming in closer between $1 mil and $2 mil for newer models. All in all, Trump probably wouldn't haul in more than $1.5M at best.

Sources confirmed to TMZ this was, in fact, Trump's Sikorsky -- which he'd been seen riding in the recent past ... including trips made during his 2016 campaign, as well as appearances for "The Apprentice" once upon a time. It even used to bear his last name along the tail.

No word on what sorta offers -- if any -- the person tapped to sell this has received thus far, but it looks like Trump's chopper here has been on sale since at least August, so quite a while. It's also got all the fixings of a typical piece of Trump property, with gold seatbelts and custom flooring and upholstered leather. Still, no one seems to have wanted to bite.

Here's hoping this is the last we'll have to hear about "fake news" for a long time -- which, ironically enough, is coming to us courtesy of President Trump's own campaign staffers.

The Trump campaign's Communications Director, Tim Murtaugh, tweeted out a photo this weekend that showed the walls of the interior of their headquarters in Arlington, VA completely plastered with copies of a newspaper front page that read, "President Gore."

The paper was supposedly the front page of the Washington Times from 2000 -- Tim was trying to show they got it wrong and called a Gore win prematurely. He wrote, "Greeting staff @TeamTrump HQ this morning, a reminder that the media doesn't select the President."

The problem ... that front page is FAKE, and the outlet actually called him out over it on Twitter -- noting the photos/headline were doctored, and NOT what they ran at the time.

Of course, somebody tracked down the actual front page TWT ran in 2000 after Election Day, and sure enough ... they actually called it for George W. Bush (which, while still premature the day after, ended up being correct in the end). In other words, actual fake news that Team Trump fell for, and taped up in their offices. Murtaugh eventually deleted his post.

It's just a testament that Trump's delusion about this election and his unfounded claims of a rigged system and voter fraud runs deep through his ranks ... which is not a good sign of what's to come.

You might've heard "Y.M.C.A." being played A LOT lately from both Dems and Republicans -- a testament that it's still got pull on both sides of the aisle ... according to the guy who wrote it.

Village People founder Victor Willis -- the cop in the group -- tells TMZ ... he just loves the fact his band's iconic earworm has seeped into the political arena this election cycle -- even if that means it was heavily kickstarted by Donald Trump at rallies.

In case you hadn't noticed, Trump was big into incorporating "Y.M.C.A." as a go-to tune during his final blitz across the country -- often dancing to it on stage, which actually got made into a 2-minute long compilation clip in sync with the song. So, yeah ... it's been revived.

Of course, on Saturday ... the song was sorta hijacked by Biden supporters in Philly who danced to it while trolling Trump supporters from across the street (who were actually playing it) ... this as Joe Biden was announced as the projected winner of the 2020 election.

On that front, Victor tells us that's A-OK too ... everyone's invited to sing it. So long as the track continues to get play -- not to mention climb back up on the charts, which it's also doing for the first time in literally decades -- he's good with anybody getting down to "Y.M.C.A.'

As we told you, Victor had already signaled it was cool for DT to use the track -- and he reiterated that here with us as well ... saying he had no plans to sue Trump or his campaign.

If anything, it sounds like Victor is grateful to Trump for resurrecting not just "Y.M.C.A" ... but also "Macho Man," another Village People classic. Alec Baldwin even sang a rendition of it on 'SNL' this weekend, so it's all Village People all the time, it seems, these days.

To Victor, that just speaks to the universality of his music -- and the message of overcoming obstacles that apply to just about any and everybody who's going through adversity.