Summaru
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
Donald Trump’s incoming presidency is set to threaten millions of Americans’ healthcare plans. Millions of Americans are at risk of losing health coverage in 2025 under Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration. More than 20 million Americans rely on the individual private health insurance market for healthcare, private insurance which is subsidized by the federal government.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the former independent presidential candidate turned Trump surrogate, is reviewing candidate resumes for the top jobs at the US government’s health agencies in Donald Trump’s new administration, a former Kennedy aide and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
A Chinese national who had been recently released from a mental hospital was ordered held Friday on trespassing charges after police say he tried to enter President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the Associated Press reports. That entrance was in violation of a court order that he stay away from Mar-a-Lago following previous attempts.
Democratic US Representative Andrea Salinas has won reelection in Oregon’s 6th congressional District, beating Republican Mike Erickson to earn a second term in Congress after outraising him by millions of dollars. Oregon’s newest congressional district, the 6th was seen as leaning more toward Democrats, according to the Cook Political Report. That gave a slight advantage to the freshman Democratic incumbent, who also defeated Erickson in the 2022 election.
Women have won 60 seats in the New Mexico Legislature to secure the largest female legislative majority in US history, stirring expressions of vindication and joy among candidates who knocked on doors and found voters were ready.
A federal judge on Friday overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent US supreme court rulings that strictly interpret the second amendment right to keep and bear firearms. Judge Stephen P McGlynn issued the lengthy finding in a decree that he said applied universally, not just to the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit challenging the ban.
Speaking to the New York Times, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who played a major role in the pressuring Joe Biden not to seek re-election, said she believed the president waited too long to exit the race, and erred in immediately endorsing Kamala Harris. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said.
Officials at the Pentagon are having informal discussions about what to do if Donald Trump were to give an illegal order, such as deploying the military domestically, CNN reports. They are also preparing for the possibility that he may change rules to be able to fire scores of career civil servants.
Just hours after Donald Trump’s election win on Tuesday, Black people across the US reported receiving racist text messages telling them that they had been “selected” to pick cotton and needed to report to “the nearest plantation”. While the texts, some of which were signed “a Trump supporter”, varied in detail, they all conveyed the same essential message about being selected to pick cotton. Some of the messages refer to the recipients by name.
Donald Trump, during a call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, handed the phone to Elon Musk, the New York Times is also reporting, confirming an earlier Axios story. It is not clear what the three men discussed or whether they touched on any change in US policy toward Ukraine in the wake of Trump’s election victory, the Times said.
The Biden administration has decided to allow US defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, Reuters is reporting, citing US officials. The contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines and will not be engaged in combat, an official told the news agency.
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case has granted a request from the special counsel’s office to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election. As we reported earlier, Jack Smith asked judge Tanya Chutkan to pause the case against the president-elect to “assess the unprecedented circumstances” in which the office finds itself.
This live coverage is ending now, thanks for following along.
Updated
Oregon Democrat Andrea Salinas wins re-election to Congress
Democratic US Representative Andrea Salinas has won reelection in Oregon’s 6th congressional District, beating Republican Mike Erickson to earn a second term in Congress after outraising him by millions of dollars.
Oregon’s newest congressional district, the 6th was seen as leaning more toward Democrats, according to the Cook Political Report. That gave a slight advantage to the freshman Democratic incumbent, who also defeated Erickson in the 2022 election.
Salinas and Chavez-DeRemer became the first Latina members of Congress to represent Oregon when they were elected in the 2022 midterms.
This was Erickson’s fourth time running for Congress.
As of late October, federal campaign finance records showed Salinas had raised nearly $4.8m compared to Erickson’s roughly $460,000.
The boundaries of the 6th District were created during redistricting after the 2020 census. The district includes the state capital Salem and parts of Portland’s affluent southwestern suburbs. And while it also spans rural areas across a broad swath of the Willamette Valley, President Joe Biden would have carried it by about 13 points in 2020.
Updated
The New York Times reports that Trump’s transition team is relying on two cabinet leaders and fossil fuel lobbyists to reshape the agencies that protect air, water, climate and pubic land.
The paper cites six sources familiar with the matter.
It reports that, “people working on the transition have already prepared a slate of executive orders and presidential proclamations on climate and energy. They include withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, eliminating every office in every agency working to end the pollution that disproportionately affects poor communities and shrinking the size of national monuments in the West to allow more drilling and mining on public lands.”
Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, told CNN before Tuesday’s presidential election, however, that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.”
Bigtree said Trump wanted to see Kennedy’s ideas for reducing chronic illness produce results within two years, especially in US children.
Kennedy last week said he would recommend fluoride be removed from public water supplies, falsely claiming on X the chemical is associated with numerous health issues including bone fractures and cancer. The American Dental Association says the decades-old intervention reduces tooth decay by more than 25% in adults and children.
“President Trump is giving him two years to show success,” Bigtree said. “President Trump is keenly interested in the selections that Bobby Kennedy thinks would get the job done.”
Kennedy will recommend scientists and doctors who “don’t have any conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to the departments that are going to be dealing with drugs and vaccines,” Bigtree said.
Bigtree, an anti-vaccine activist, is chief executive of MAHA Action, a new organization named after Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again pledge that Bigtree said would also propose appointees to Kennedy.
Kennedy is being assisted by daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, his former campaign manager, and investor Omeed Malik, the source familiar with the matter said.
Robert F Kennedy Jr reviewing candidates for health agency jobs – report
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the former independent presidential candidate turned Trump surrogate, is reviewing candidate resumes for the top jobs at the US government’s health agencies in Donald Trump’s new administration, a former Kennedy aide and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
Kennedy, of the famed political family, has been asked to recommend appointees for all regulatory health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration, said Del Bigtree, who was director of communications for Kennedy’s campaign and remains close to the former candidate.
A source familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified, echoed that Kennedy had taken on that role. Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment. In August, Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has spread misinformation about vaccines, ended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump in exchange for a role in Trump’s administration focused on public health. Kennedy says he is not anti-vaccine but for more rigorous testing of vaccines.
While he is looking for individuals to fill administration jobs, Kennedy could himself still take an official position in Trump’s administration or serve in an advisory capacity, according to Bigtree.
The two men formed the 2nd Amendment Militia and then in the summer and fall of 2022 tried to recruit others to join them, prosecutors said. In September 2022, O’Dell’s home became a staging site as the two men collected firearms, ammunition, paramilitary gear and other supplies, according to the government’s evidence.
Prosecutors said Perry posted a TikTok video in September saying that their militia group was going to “go protect this country”, and another in early October saying the group would be “out huntin’”. Prosecutors said the two men viewed US Border Patrol agents as traitors for allowing immigrants to cross into Texas.
The day before they planned to leave for Texas, an FBI team using an armored vehicle served a search warrant on O’Dell’s home, and prosecutors said Perry fired 11 rifle shots at them. O’Dell and his girlfriend surrendered, but after exiting the house, Perry fought with agents.
Two men who co-founded a militia group have been convicted of attempting to murder federal agents ahead of a trip to Texas where they intended to shoot people attempting to cross the US-Mexico border.
Jonathan S O’Dell, 34, of Warsaw, Missouri, and Bryan C Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tennessee, also planned to shoot any federal agents who tried to stop them as they targeted migrants, according to the prosecution.
A jury at the US district court in Missouri deliberated for more than two hours before finding them guilty of more than 30 felony counts each, the chief federal prosecutor for western Missouri, Teresa Moore, announced Friday.
They both face at least 10 years in prison, and possibly life.
Incoming female legislators in New Mexico include a crusading Republican advocate for crime victims, Republican Nicole Chavez, and Democrat Heather Berghmans, who defeated men in the general election and the primary against an incumbent senator accused of sexual harassment.
Berghmans, 36, of Albuquerque said people in her district appeared eager to hear from a new generation of female candidates. She will join the Senate as its youngest member after winning 60% of the general election vote.
“I did hear a lot of people at the doors who told me to my face that they were willing to vote for me just because I was a young woman,” said Berghmans, who campaigned on solutions to surging homelessness and the housing affordability crisis. “I think that people are excited to see new ideas and new faces and that women have been the ones to step up to run.”
Chavez won her state House seat in a relatively affluent Albuquerque neighborhood. She expressed pride in contributing to the new female legislative majority — and as her district’s first Latina legislator-elect.
But Chavez also said she campaigned to ensure a diversity of political values in preserving her party’s control of the only Republican-held House district in Albuquerque, amid a growing urban-rural partisan divide.
“I don’t believe in just recruiting women,” she said. “I think we should have diversity of all values.”
Women in New Mexico secure largest female legislative majority in US history
Women have won 60 seats in the New Mexico Legislature to secure the largest female legislative majority in US history, stirring expressions of vindication and joy among candidates who knocked on doors and found voters were ready.
New Mexico voters are sending 11 additional women – Democrats and Republicans – to bump up female representation in the 112-member Legislature. Female state senators will still hold a minority of seats – 16 out of 42.
Women have made slow, steady advances in statehouse representation across the country, with one notable surge in the 2018 election cycle almost entirely among Democrats in a trend associated with the #MeToo movement and political engagement linked to the election of Donald Trump as president.
In 2018, Nevada became the first state to elect a female legislative majority, later expanding it to more than 60% of seats with majorities in the state Assembly and Senate. Female legislators in New Mexico will hold a 54% majority – though with many more seats.
The share of women in all state legislatures combined roughly tripled from about 11% in 1980 to 33% going into the November election, when women held 2,424 seats nationwide, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
Federal judge overturns Illinois ban on semiautomatic weapons
A federal judge on Friday overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent US supreme court rulings that strictly interpret the second amendment right to keep and bear firearms.
Judge Stephen P McGlynn issued the lengthy finding in a decree that he said applied universally, not just to the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit challenging the ban.
The Protect Illinois Communities Act, signed into law in January 2023 by Democratic Governor JB Pritzker, took effect on 1 January. It bans AR-15 rifles and similar guns, large-capacity magazines and a wide assortment of attachments largely in response to the 2022 Independence Day shooting at a parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
McGlynn’s order doesn’t take effect for 30 days.
“Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class,” McGlynn, who was appointed by Donald Trump during his first term, wrote in his opinion.
“The oft-quoted phrase that ‘no right is absolute’ does not mean that fundamental rights precariously subsist subject to the whims, caprice, or appetite of government officials or judges.”
Updated
Here is the video clip of Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, saying on Friday that the 2024 US election outcome is “hard to understand”.
The governor of Minnesota vowed to “keep fighting” Trump’s “hateful agenda”. Walz appeared to choke up during the speech in his home state. Harris and Walz lost by a landslide.
Updated
A veteran California politician was caught up in last year’s Los Angeles city council racism scandal but refused to resign. Kevin de Léon has now been voted out, replaced by a younger progressive candidate, Ysabel Jurado.
Kevin de León, the Los Angeles councilor who was caught on tape alongside other LA politicians in a racist conversation but refused to resign (unlike Nury Martinez who did), lost his reelection bid to Ysabel Jurado.
— Taniel (@Taniel) November 8, 2024
Ysabel Jurado, a 34-year-old queer single mother who grew up in the neighborhood she will now represent, joins an expanding wing of young progressives on the Los Angeles city council. She will be the first Filipino American on the council.
Jurado won out over de León despite being targeted with a reported half million dollars in attack ads from the Los Angeles police union. Late in the campaign, she was recorded saying “F the police,” which she said was a reference to the song lyric, during a meeting with local college students.
The Los Angeles Times later reported that the student who asked Jurado the question that prompted her answer worked for Kevin de León.
Updated
Nebraska Republican Don Bacon won a fifth term representing the Omaha-centered US House district on Friday, the Associated Press reports.
Bacon’s win edges Republicans closer to the 218 seats they need for control of the US House of Representatives, which would give them The current tally is 212 Republican seats to 199 Democratic seats, according to the Associated Press. If the Republicans win the House after winning the Senate and the presidency, they will have unified party control of the federal government.
Bacon defeated Democrat Tony Vargas, a state lawmaker, in a hard-fought rematch of their 2022 race. Unlike other GOP candidates in the solidly Republican state, Bacon had emphasized his bipartisan credentials and highlighted his vote for the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Joe Biden won the second district’s vote in the Electoral College in 2020, making it a top target as Democrats attempt to win back the House majority.
More context here:
Updated
The Associated Press has more context on a series of people who have been arrested over the past few years after incidents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
In January 2020, two Palm Beach sheriff’s deputies opened fire on a Connecticut opera singer who sped through a checkpoint outside Mar-a-Lago while having a mental breakdown. She was not hit and was arrested nearby. She was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. She had been charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, fleeing arrest and resisting an officer without violence.
In March 2019, Chinese national Yujing Zhang gained access to Mar-a-Lago while carrying a laptop, phones and other electronic gear. That led to initial speculation that the Shanghai businesswoman might be a spy, but she was never charged with espionage. Text messages she exchanged with a trip organizer indicated she was a fan of the president and wanted to meet him or his family to discuss possible deals. She was found guilty of trespassing and deported.
In December 2019, the club’s security officers confronted another Chinese national, Jing Lu, then 56, for trespassing and told her to leave, but she returned to take photos. Lu was charged with loitering and resisting an officer without violence. She was later acquitted of trespassing but found guilty of resisting arrest.
On Thanksgiving weekend 2018, a University of Wisconsin student visiting the area with his parents walked into Mar-a-Lago by mingling with a group that was entering. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
Chinese national held for trespassing Mar-a-Lago
A Chinese national who had been recently released from a mental hospital was ordered held Friday on trespassing charges after police say he tried to enter President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the Associated Press reports.
That entrance was in violation of a court order that he stay away from Mar-a-Lago following previous attempts.
Zijie Li, 39, is being held without bond at the Palm Beach County Jail after being arrested Thursday when he arrived at Mar-a-Lago’s entrance gate in an Uber, the latest in series of contacts he has had with police and Secret Service agents at or near the estate since July.
Li, who lives in suburban Los Angeles on a student visa, had just been released from a mental health hospital, where he had been placed in late October after police found him found near the estate. He is now facing two counts of misdemeanor trespassing.
Updated
Trump's presidency a threat to millions of Americans's healthcare plans
Donald Trump’s incoming presidency is set to threaten millions of Americans’ healthcare plans.
Marina Dunbar reports for the Guardian:
Millions of Americans are at risk of losing health coverage in 2025 under Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration.
More than 20 million Americans rely on the individual private health insurance market for healthcare, private insurance which is subsidized by the federal government.
These subsidies, programs that help lower the cost of health insurance premiums, increased the amount of assistance available to people who want to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare as a signature piece of legislation during Barack Obama’s administration.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
In a statement on X, Illinois’s Democratic governor JB Pritzker vowed that his state will “always be a refuge for those whose rights are denied elsewhere.”
Illinois will always be a refuge for those whose rights are denied elsewhere — those seeking reproductive health care, immigrants working hard for a better life, LGBTQ+ Americans looking for protection, and people with disabilities whose civil and human rights are under attack.
— Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) November 8, 2024
Pritzker’s statement come as various marginalized communities including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ groups as well as advocacy organizations, worry about Donald Trump’s incoming rightwing administration and the president-elect’s repeated pledges to deny their rights.
Martin Pengelly reports for the Guardian on Nancy Pelosi’s comments that Joe Biden’s delay in withdrawing from the race blew Democrats’ chances of winning:
Joe Biden’s slowness in exiting the 2024 presidential election cost the Democrats dearly, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said, days after Kamala Harris was beaten by Donald Trump.
“We live with what happened,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi was speaking to the Interview, a New York Times podcast, in a conversation the newspaper said would be published Saturday in full.
“Had the president gotten out sooner,” Pelosi remarked, “there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.
For the full story, click here:
The day so far
Here’s a look at where things stand:
Speaking to the New York Times, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who played a major role in the pressuring Joe Biden not to seek re-election, said she believed the president waited too long to exit the race, and erred in immediately endorsing Kamala Harris. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said.
Officials at the Pentagon are having informal discussions about what to do if Donald Trump were to give an illegal order, such as deploying the military domestically, CNN reports. They are also preparing for the possibility that he may change rules to be able to fire scores of career civil servants.
Just hours after Donald Trump’s election win on Tuesday, Black people across the US reported receiving racist text messages telling them that they had been “selected” to pick cotton and needed to report to “the nearest plantation”. While the texts, some of which were signed “a Trump supporter”, varied in detail, they all conveyed the same essential message about being selected to pick cotton. Some of the messages refer to the recipients by name.
Donald Trump, during a call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, handed the phone to Elon Musk, the New York Times is also reporting, confirming an earlier Axios story. It is not clear what the three men discussed or whether they touched on any change in US policy toward Ukraine in the wake of Trump’s election victory, the Times said.
The Biden administration has decided to allow US defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, Reuters is reporting, citing US officials. The contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines and will not be engaged in combat, an official told the news agency.
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case has granted a request from the special counsel’s office to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election. As we reported earlier, Jack Smith asked judge Tanya Chutkan to pause the case against the president-elect to “assess the unprecedented circumstances” in which the office finds itself.
Donald Trump yesterday announced that his campaign co-chair Susie Wiles will be his chief of staff in the White House.
He’s expected to announce more appointments to prominent administration positions soon. The Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo took a look at who might be in the running:
Military officials discussing how to respond to illegal orders under Trump – report
Officials at the Pentagon are having informal discussions about what to do if Donald Trump were to give an illegal order, such as deploying the military domestically, CNN reports.
They are also preparing for the possibility that he may change rules to be able to fire scores of career civil servants.
On the campaign trail, Trump has mulled sending the military after his political enemies, and also to turn back migrants at the southern border. US law generally prohibits active-duty troops from being deployed for law enforcement purposes. There are also fears he could gut the civil service in the Pentagon, and replace fired staff with employees selected for their loyalty to him.
Here’s more, from CNN:
Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.
Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.
“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.
Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.
“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”
Updated
Nancy Pelosi also said she disagreed with Bernie Sanders, the progressive independent senator who said Democrats had “abandoned working-class people” after Kamala Harris’s election loss.
“Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said in her interview with the New York Times.
“With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic party has abandoned the working-class families.”
The former speaker instead blamed cultural issues for Harris’s loss to Donald Trump. “Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it,” Pelosi told the Times.
“Guns, that’s an issue; gays, that’s an issue, and now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities; and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose.”
Updated
Pelosi criticizes Biden for ending campaign late and endorsing Harris
Speaking to the New York Times, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who played a major role in the pressuring Joe Biden not to seek re-election, said she believed the president waited too long to exit the race, and erred in immediately endorsing Kamala Harris.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said. Shortly after announcing in July that he would end his bid for a second term, Biden endorsed Harris, setting the stage for her to become the Democratic nominee. Harris went on to lose the presidential election to Donald Trump on Tuesday, and in the interview conducted two days later, Pelosi said Democrats would have benefited from a primary to choose their candidate.
“The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said.
“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
Updated
Donald Trump has attacked California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who yesterday called the state legislature into a special session to enact laws intended to counter the Republican president-elect’s agenda.
“Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California. For the first time ever, more people are leaving than are coming in. He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again,’ but I just overwhelmingly won the Election,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He also restated his support for voting laws that could make it more difficult to cast ballots: “Also, as an ‘AGENT’ for the United States of America on Voting & Elections, I will be DEMANDING THAT VOTER I.D., AND PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP, ARE A NECESSARY PART AND COMPONENT OF THE VOTING PROCESS!”
Updated
Donald Trump’s transition team could announce additional White House positions as early as today, CNN is reporting.
As we reported earlier, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is not expected to return to a new Trump administration but could advise on Middle East policy.
The Financial Times is reporting that the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, is being tapped to be Trump’s new “energy tsar”.
Burgum is Trump’s preferred candidate for the role, the paper writes, adding that former energy secretary Dan Brouillette is also a contender.
Updated
Just hours after Donald Trump’s election win on Tuesday, Black people across the US reported receiving racist text messages telling them that they had been “selected” to pick cotton and needed to report to “the nearest plantation”.
While the texts, some of which were signed “a Trump supporter”, varied in detail, they all conveyed the same essential message about being selected to pick cotton. Some of the messages refer to the recipients by name.
Black people in states including Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, the DC area and elsewhere reported receiving the messages.
The messages were sent to Black adults and students, including to high schoolers in Massachusetts and New York, and students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), such as Alabama State University and other schools, including ones across Ohio, Clemson University, the University of Alabama and Missouri State.
At least six middle school students in Pennsylvania received the messages, according to the AP.
Authorities including the FBI and attorneys general are investigating the messages.
Jim Banks, the Republican Indiana senator-elect, said he hopes that every undocumented immigrant who came to the US illegally under the Biden administration will be deported once Donald Trump is in office.
“It’s my hope that we deport every single one of them that we can, and it starts with deporting violent criminals who are in the United States who came here illegally who have committed violent crimes,” Banks told CNN on Friday.
“I think once you do that, President Trump is committed to making that his first and top priority when it comes to mass deportation.”
Asked how those plans would be carried out, Banks said he didn’t think it would be “that complicated”.
He said the American people had given Trump and the Republicans “a mandate to do everything that we can.”
“The goal should be to deport every illegal in this country that we can find,” he added.
Donald Trump, during a call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, handed the phone to Elon Musk, the New York Times is also reporting, confirming an earlier Axios story.
It is not clear what the three men discussed or whether they touched on any change in US policy toward Ukraine in the wake of Trump’s election victory, the Times said.
The tone of the call was described as “positive”, a source told the paper.
Updated
Pentagon lifts ban on US defense contractors inside Ukraine to repair weaponry – report
The Biden administration has decided to allow US defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, Reuters is reporting, citing US officials.
The contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines and will not be engaged in combat, an official told the news agency.
“Having small numbers of contractors in Ukraine conducting maintenance away from the front lines will help ensure U.S.-provided equipment can be rapidly repaired when damaged and be provided maintenance as needed,” the US official said.
Updated
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested on Friday that a second term for Donald Trump could provide an opportunity to resolve the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Lebanon and Gaza.
Erdoğan said he called Trump on Wednesday, while in Budapest for the European Political Community summit, in which he congratulated him on his election victory.
During a speech in Istanbul, Erdoğan said he now expects Trump to “abandon the erroneous policies of the previous administration” on Gaza and bring the war there to an end.
“You know Trump has promised to end the conflicts initiated by Israel. We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told stop”, Erdoğan said.
On Ukraine, Erdoğan called for more diplomacy, adding that Turkey-US cooperation could get a breakthrough.
“More weapons, more bombs, more chaos, and conflict will not end this war,” he warned.
Ankara has previously played a key role in facilitating dialogue between Kyiv and Moscow.
Judge grants Jack Smith's request to pause proceedings in election interference trial
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case has granted a request from the special counsel’s office to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election.
As we reported earlier, Jack Smith asked judge Tanya Chutkan to pause the case against the president-elect to “assess the unprecedented circumstances” in which the office finds itself.
In a filing earlier on Friday, Smith said that “as a result of the election” the prosecution “respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance.”
Smith’s team said it would inform the judge of “the result of its deliberations” by 2 December.
Updated
The day so far
Donald Trump seems set to evade federal prosecution for allegedly plotting to overturn the 2020 election, with special counsel Jack Smith asking a judge to pause proceedings in the case. Separately, the justice department unveiled charges against a member of an Iranian paramilitary for allegedly plotting to kill the president-elect prior to his victory on Tuesday. We have also been getting more of a sense of who might serve in a second Trump administration, and what it’s priorities may be. Elon Musk reportedly took part in a call with Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which the Ukrainian president found to be more reassuring than he expected. And on Fox News, the House majority leader Steve Scalise said Republican lawmakers would be focusing on extended tax cuts, allowing more oil and gas production and stopping migrants.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
We still do not know the winners of Arizona and Nevada’s electoral votes or Senate races. Trump is expected to win the former, while Democratic candidates appear to have advantages in the latter.
Bob Casey, Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator, lost his bid for re-election yesterday, the Associated Press confirmed. But he has not conceded, and a prominent Democratic election attorney has indicated there may be a fight over ballot counting brewing.
Million of Americans may lose health insurance coverage next year, if Congress does not decide to extend subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
Special counsel Jack Smith asks judge to pause Trump's 2020 election meddling case - report
With Donald Trump headed back to the White House, NBC News reports that special counsel Jack Smith has asked a federal judge to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Continuing the case appeared untenable after Trump won Tuesday’s election, since justice department policy prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents – something Trump will soon be, once again.
NBC News reports that, in his filing, Smith said that “as a result of the election” he “requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance.”
Earlier this week, the Guardian reported that Smith will end both the election interference case against Trump, and a separate prosecution for allegedly taking and hiding classified documents. Neither case had gone to trial prior to Trump’s election victory on Tuesday:
Signs that Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump increased in the run-up to the election, leading his campaign to reportedly request extraordinary security accommodations. Here’s a look back at those, from the Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis:
Donald Trump’s team has asked for officials to provide him with a dramatic array of military protections as the presidential campaign wraps, including travel in military aircraft and vehicles, according to reports.
Trump’s campaign has also requested ramped-up flight restrictions around his residences and rallies, and “ballistic glass pre-positioned in seven battleground states” for his team’s use, the Washington Post reported, citing internal emails and sources familiar with the requests. The New York Times first reported on these requests.
The demands were both “extraordinary and unprecedented”, the Post noted, as not a single recent presidential nominee has been shuttled in military aircraft before an election. A source told the Times that these sorts of high-level, classified military resources are used solely for sitting presidents.
Trump’s asks followed intelligence provided to his campaign staff that Iran is seeking to assassinate him and after his team expressed worry about drones and missiles targeting him. Trump was shot during a failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on 13 July, and a man was arrested in an alleged assassination attempt on 15 September; neither gunman is believed to have had Iranian ties.
Justice department charges Iran Revolutionary Guard member with trying to kill Trump
The justice department has brought charges against a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards paramilitary group for plotting to assassinate Donald Trump prior to Tuesday’s presidential election, the Associated Press reports.
On the campaign trail in the lead-up to his election win, Trump survived two assassination attempts, but authorities do not believe either were linked to Iran, a longtime foe of the United States.
According to the AP, the complaint unsealed in a Manhattan federal court says an unnamed official of the guard, which is formally known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, instructed a contact in September to create a plan to surveil and kill Trump.
Updated
Signs are continuing to mount that Elon Musk will be involved in Donald Trump’s administration. But the Guardian’s Dan Milmo reported earlier this week that even if he decides to stay out of politics, Musk appears set to gain from the Republican’s return to the White House:
Hours before it became official that Donald Trump had returned to the White House, his biggest supporter was already inside the Oval Office.
Elon Musk, who has been a key backer of Trump’s return to the presidency, was in his default wind-up mode as he used his X platform to post a superimposed picture of himself – holding a sink – inside the seat of US power.
“Let that sink in,” he wrote.
It was amateurish but Musk’s contribution to Trump’s victory has been serious and will reap benefits for the world’s richest person.
Trump acknowledged Musk in his victory speech on Wednesday, even if it required prompting from the audience, and indicated that Musk will be well treated under his administration.
“We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them,” said Trump.
Musk, who is worth $264bn (£205bn), can easily afford the more than $100m he has given to the fellow billionaire’s campaign via his Super Pac.
Musk joined Trump's call with Zelenskyy - report
In yet another sign of Elon Musk’s clout with the second Trump administration, Axios reports that he was on the line when Donald Trump called Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his election win.
Two sources knowledgable about the call said Zelenskyy was “somewhat reassured” by what Trump told him. On the campaign trail, the president-elect promised to end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours” after taking office, which raised concerns he would broker a deal that would benefit Russia.
According to Axios, the call between Trump and Zelensky lasted about 25 minutes, and “the president-elect said he will support Ukraine, but didn’t go into details.”
“Three sources briefed on the call all told Axios that Zelensky felt the call went well and that it did not increase his anxiety about Trump’s victory. One source said it ‘didn’t leave Zelensky with a feeling of despair,” Axio said.
As for Musk, Axios said he “weighed in during the call to say he will continue supporting Ukraine through his Starlink satellites, the sources said. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.”
Number-two House Republican signals focus on taxes, border, role for Musk
Steve Scalise, the Republican House majority leader, said that if the party maintains its control of the chamber, their top priorities will be passing legislation to extend tax cuts implemented during Donald Trump’s first term, making good on his promise to crack down on migrants, and increasing oil and gas production.
Saying the Republicans would pass a bill using the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to circumvent a filibuster by Senate Democrats, Scalise said:
There are a lot of things you could put in that. We laid it out as a first 100-day agenda. And we would put things like renewing the Trump tax cuts, many of those which expired that we passed in 2017. We want to renew those cuts so that families don’t see a tax increase.
He also made clear that the House was ready to approve proposals by Trump to stop people from crossing into the United States from Mexico, as well as ways to increase America’s already high oil production:
The ability to produce more energy in our country, it will lower costs for things like gasoline and food for families who are struggling. And it really takes leverage away from countries like Russia, like Iran, like Venezuela. So geopolitically has a lot of benefits, too.
Finally, Scalise signaled that Trump would indeed get billionaire Elon Musk involved in his administration somehow, saying:
Let’s rightsize government. Elon Musk is going to be very involved in that.
Here’s the full interview:
EU leaders are gathering in Budapest for an informal summit on the bloc’s ailing competitiveness – a task given added urgency by the threat of protectionist “America first” trade policies promised by the US president-elect Donald Trump.
“Don’t ask what the US can do for you, ask what Europe should do for itself,” the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said as the meeting got under way. “Europe must find a balance. We know what we have to do.”
European officials are alarmed by Trump’s impending return not just because of his hostility to Nato and ambivalence towards Ukraine, but also the economic consequences of his threat to make the EU “pay a big price” for not buying enough US imports.
Trump Media shares rise after Trump says he has 'no intention of selling' Truth Social
In one of the first statements he has made on social media since winning the presidential election, Donald Trump says he has no intention of selling Truth, the X-like network that has become one of his prime means of communication since leaving the White House.
He made the announcement in a post on Truth itself, in his signature style:
There are fake, untrue, and probably illegal rumors and/or statements made by, perhaps, market manipulators or short sellers, that I am interested in selling shares of Truth. THOSE RUMORS OR STATEMENTS ARE FALSE. I HAVE NO INTENTION OF SELLING! I hereby request that the people who have set off these fake rumors or statements, and who may have done so in the past, be immediately investigated by the appropriate authorities. Truth is an important part of our historic win, and I deeply believe in it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
The president-elect made the foray into social media in the run-up to his successful campaign to return to the White House, but Truth Social has yet to become as big as X, Facebook and other social media mainstays, with Trump being its most prominent user.
Share of his company Trump Media have in recent days seen heavy volatility in trading, but are up by about 8.5% as of 10.53 am ET:
Updated
Democrats retain majority in Pennsylvania house despite losses elsewhere
Democrats have managed to hang on to their majority in Pennsylvania’s house of representatives by a single seat, the Associated Press reports, despite losing the state’s electoral votes to Donald Trump and failing to re-elect their US senator.
The party had won control of the chamber two years ago, also with only a one-seat margin, but had hoped to expand their majority further. That said, the GOP did keep their majority in Pennsylvania’s senate, denying Democratic governor Josh Shapiro the trifecta needed to fully implement his agenda.
Here’s more on the Democratic victory in the Keystone State, from the AP:
The win by incumbent Rep. Frank Burns is the final House race to be called in a year when none of the 203 districts are changing hands. It gave Democrats a 102-101 margin and dashed Republican hopes of returning to control after two years in the minority.
Burns beat Republican Amy Bradley, chief executive of the Cambria Regional Chamber of Commerce and a former television news anchor and reporter.
Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams said retaining the House majority was “one of the most challenging yet important priorities of the cycle,” and that her party will be “a critical check on Republican extremism.”
Burns, a conservative Democrat who supports gun rights and opposes abortion, has regularly found himself voting against his fellow House Democrats. He has long been an electoral target of Republicans, while many other similarly situated western Pennsylvania districts long ago flipped to the GOP.
The district includes Johnstown and a wide swath of Cambria County.
Burns’ win is some consolation to Democrats in what has otherwise been a banner electoral year in Pennsylvania for the Republican Party. Former President Donald Trump won in the state, Dave McCormick beat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, two Democratic congressional seat were flipped and Republican candidates won all three of the state row offices.
The Washington Post reports that, in addition to setting up a customary post-election win meeting with him at the White House, Joe Biden will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration:
Staffers for Biden and Trump are working to schedule a meeting between the two leaders, something that did not occur four years ago when it was Trump who was leaving the White House and Biden who was coming in. Biden’s aides say he will attend Trump’s inauguration, something Trump also refused to do when Biden took the oath of office, breaking a long-standing tradition.
Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration, after spending weeks fruitlessly trying to prevent him from taking office by propagating baseless claims of fraud in 2020.
Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris have public appearances scheduled today.
The president will come near reporters briefly in the afternoon as he travels to Delaware for the weekend, but there’s no telling if he will speak to them. Harris is in Washington DC and holding undisclosed meetings.
Yesterday, Biden spoke from the White House, and pledged a smooth transfer of power to Donald Trump:
Also writing in the New York Times, Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama, shared his views on what went wrong for Democrats:
Now Mr. Trump has decisively won back the presidency. I would never claim to have all the answers about what went wrong, but I do worry that Democrats walked into the trap of defending the very institutions — the “establishment” — that most Americans distrust. As a party interested in competent technocracy, we lost touch with the anger people feel at government. As a party that prizes data, we seized on indicators of growth and job creation as proof that the economy was booming, even though people felt crushed by rising costs. As a party motivated by social justice, we let revulsion at white Christian nationalism bait us into identity politics on their terms — whether it was debates about transgender athletes, the busing of migrants to cities, or shaming racist MAGA personalities who can’t be shamed. As a party committed to American leadership of a “rules-based international order,” we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.
What Donald Trump did right (and Harris misunderstood):
Kamala Harris brought new energy and remarkable discipline to the campaign’s final months, revitalizing the collaborative joy essential to Democratic politics. But her ties to an unpopular incumbent — and a global post-pandemic backlash against any incumbent — held her back. Democrats understandably have a hard time fathoming why Americans would put our democracy at risk, but we miss the reality that our democracy is part of what angers them. Many voters have come to associate democracy with globalization, corruption, financial capitalism, migration, forever wars and elites (like me) who talk about it as an end in itself rather than a means to redressing inequality, reining in capitalist systems that are rigged, responding to global conflict and fostering a sense of shared national identity.
Yes, this is unfair: Republican policies from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush did far more than Democrats to create this mess. But Mr. Trump’s crusade against the past elites of his own party — from the Bush family to Mitch McConnell — credentialed him with a public hungry for accountability, while the Harris campaign’s embrace of Dick Cheney conveyed the opposite message.
And, finally, what might work to undermine Trump over the next four years:
Out of the wreckage of this election, Democrats must reject the impulse to simply be a resistance that condemns whatever outrageous thing Mr. Trump says. While confronting Mr. Trump when we must, we must also focus on ourselves — what we stand for, and how we tell our story. That means acknowledging — as my Hong Kong interlocutor said — that “the narrative of liberalism and democracy collapsed.” Instead of defending a system that has been rejected, we need to articulate an alternative vision for what kind of democracy comes next.
Democrats are going to spend the coming days, months and years digesting their brutal defeats in Tuesday’s election.
Among those pondering what happened is congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who appears (the Associated Press has not called it) to have won re-election in a red Washington state district, despite losses by fellow Democrats elsewhere. In a Q&A with the New York Times, she shared some thoughts on how she has managed to hold on to her seat in what is otherwise hostile territory for her party:
You were considered the most vulnerable House Democrat, and yet you are set to win by a fairly comfortable margin in a very difficult political environment. How did that happen, and what can Democrats learn from you?
I just refused to let this race be nationalized. It’s not about the message. It’s about my loyalty to my community. The messenger is the message in a lot of ways. My awareness of my community has been durable, and it’s reflective in my vote record. That is a huge asset.
The fundamental mistake people make is condescension. A lot of elected officials get calloused to the ways that they’re disrespecting people.
…
How do you think Democratic lawmakers have been disrespecting people?
I was talking to a woman who runs one of the largest labor and delivery wards. She said 40 percent of the babies there have at least one parent addicted to fentanyl. What is empathetic — to tell them that’s their problem, or to take border security seriously?
People are putting their groceries on their credit card. No one is listening to anything else you say if you try to talk them out of their lived experiences with data points from some economists.
Last night, the Associated Press reported that Republican David McCormick had unseated Pennsylvania’s longtime Democratic senator Bob Casey.
But the incumbent has not conceded. Instead, he posted a message saying that there are still ballots to count:
I have dedicated my life to making sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard, whether on the floor of the Senate or in a free and fair election. It has been made clear there are more than 100,000 votes still to be counted. Pennsylvania is where our democratic process was born. We…
— Bob Casey Jr. (@Bob_Casey) November 8, 2024
Meanwhile, Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic election law attorney who has worked for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns, appeared to suggest that there may be a court fight brewing over ballots in the race:
🚨BREAKING: David McCormick has filed TWO new lawsuits to challenge and throw out provisional ballots in Philadelphia. Admits Philly has 15-20k provisional ballots left.
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 8, 2024
Pro Tip: Candidates who believe they have won don't file lawsuits like this. Very strong Trump 2020 vibes.
Whether all this will affect the outcome remains to be seen. While it was always viewed as difficult for Democrats to keep their Senate majority beyond this year due to the three red state seats they would have to defend to do so, Casey’s seat was viewed as winnable for the party. His defeat appears tied to Donald Trump’s sweep of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes.
Ballot counting continues in Nevada, Arizona with Senate seats in play
We still do not know which candidate won Nevada and Arizona’s electoral votes, with ballot counting ongoing in both western states, and the Associated Press yet to determine a winner.
Donald Trump is ahead in both states thus far, but even if he slips, it would not change the outcome of the presidential election. The real races to watch in the states are for its Senate seats, which also have not yet been called by the AP.
Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen seems to have the edge over her Republican challenger Sam Brown in Nevada, with 96% of the ballots counted.
In Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego has a lead over Republican Kari Lake, though only 76% of results have been reported.
Even if both Democrats win, it will not prevent the GOP from taking control of the Senate next year. Their victories in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, along with Trump’s re-election, ensured their majority.
Trump’s share of Jewish votes — about 30%, according to the AP’s VoteCast — resembled the 2020 outcome, when 68% of Jewish voters backed Biden and 31% backed Trump.
The CEO of one of the nation’s largest Jewish organizations, Ted Deutch of the American Jewish Committee, said the AJC looked forward to working with Trump and his administration on policies that would bolster Israel’s security and combat antisemitism.
Deutch also urged the incoming administration to “increase unity among the American people and repair partisan divides.”
The CEO of a left-of-center advocacy group, Amy Spitalnick of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, issued a statement saying Trump’s victory is “terrifying for so many communities who have been consistently threatened and demonized by his campaign.”
“Trump’s embrace of anti-democratic, antisemitic, xenophobic, and racist conspiracy theories seeks to pit communities against one another and sow distrust in our democratic institutions, while making all of us less safe,” Spitalnick said.
The UK foreign secretary David Lammy has suggested that Donald Trump may be invited to the UK for a state visit – but not next year.
Asked about the prospect of a state visit, in an interview with BBC’s Newscast, Lammy said that organizing one for 2025 might be “a bit of a tall order” because of the time needed to prepare. But he said the UK would want to be “generous with our American friends”.
A state visit is the most prestigious category of visit that a foreign head of state can make to the UK. There are normally only about two a year, and they involve almost all the royal and ceremonial trappings the UK is able to lay on.
Theresa May was criticised when she was prime minister for inviting Trump to the UK on a state visit only seven days after his inauguration. The offer was seen as premature and ingratiating, although it seems to have played a role in enabling May to become the first foreign leader to visit Trump in the White House.
At a joint press conference in Washington in January 2017 May said the state visit would come later that year. But Trump later told May he did not when to come if there were going to protests, and the state visit did not take place until 2019. There were other visits before then, including one featuring a reception at Blenheim Palace that was almost as grand as a state visit event.
Asked if Trump would be offered a state visit in 2025, Lammy said:
State visits take a while to organise. So in the next year, I’ve got to tell you, I think that would be a bit of a tall order. But [Trump] was genuine in his respect and his affection for the royal family.
Asked if a state visit might be offered later, Lammy said the government would “want to be generous with our American friends as they will be, I imagine, with us, particularly in a second term”.
Trump did better with Catholics than in 2020
Donald Trump won over more Catholics in the 2024 presidential election than he did when he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, an AP analysis suggests.
Among religious voters as a whole, the president-elect faired roughly as well as he did during the previous election. But 54% of Catholic voters lent him their support this year, while Kamala Harris was backed by 44%. That compares to a split of 50% pro-Trump and 49% for Biden, a church-going Catholic, in 2020, according to AP’s VoteCast.
VoteCast also documented a racial divide. About six in 10 white Catholics supported Trump, and about four in 10 supported Harris. By contrast, about six in 10 Latino Catholics supported Harris, and about four in 10 supported Trump.
Archbishop Thomas Wenski, of Miami, who has worked closely with migrant and refugee communities in South Florida and beyond, sounded a note of “cautious optimism” about a second Trump term, believing that the reality of migrants’ contributions to the US economy will matter more than the “hyperbole” about mass deportations.
“If he wants to accomplish ‘the greatest economy ever,’ he’s going to have to work on some type of accommodation on the immigration issues,” Wenski said.
Updated
David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, said in an interview that he had expected Donald Trump to win the presidential election “for some time”.
He told the Newscast podcast that when he met people from the Republican campaign in the spring he was impressed by how organized they were and he said: “I felt in my bones that there could be a Trump presidency.”
He also said he was surprised the Democrats did not focus more on the economy in their campaign. He said:
Because we had just come out of a campaign effectively, as the British Labour party having won an election, I was a little bit surprised that the Democrats had made a decision not to centre particularly the economy in their approach to the election.
We obviously had been really clear about growth for us. We knew that cost of living crisis, that’s where the public’s [attention was].
Updated
When the US election result pushed shares in the artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia to a record high and did the same to the price of bitcoin cryptocurrency, the market gave its verdict on what Trump redux means for at least parts of the technology world – a boom.
Stock in the electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla surged by nearly 15%, which must have cheered its boss, Elon Musk, whom Trump called a “super genius” on Wednesday.
But what about the people who do not own stock in Silicon Valley firms, but do use their products? Tens of millions of users of Musk’s social media platform, X, will now have to decide if they are willing to post in a place owned by a figure who looks set to be a central part of Trump’s administration.
Musk could be tasked with “making recommendations for drastic reforms” aimed at the efficiency and performance of “the entire federal government”, Trump had said. This could grant him huge power over the agencies that regulate his and other tech companies.
X had already become, according to the independent tech analyst Benedict Evans, “a coordinating site for misinformation” and many felt its amplification of false claims polluted the election. Might a Trump administration then do anything about misinformation on social media?
“He won’t,” said Evans. “He likes misinformation. There is a widespread view in tech that content moderation got out of hand and we need to pull back on this. At most you might need to think about amplification [of misinformation] but not deleting stuff.” So expect a wilder ride on social platforms, perhaps, as they pitch towards the right.
Millions of Americans could lose health insurance under Trump, report says
Millions of Americans could lose health insurance after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Subsidies that helped many pay for insurance are due to expire at the end of 2025 – and it is up to the new Congress and president whether they are extended. The subsidies were part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan, and Trump and Republicans have signaled they don’t support extending the measure, according to a report on NBC News.
“If Republicans end up winning the House, in addition to the Senate and White House, having a GOP sweep, I think the odds are less than 5% they get extended,” Chris Meekins, who was a senior HHS official in Trump’s first term, told NBC.
In 2024, more than 20 million people got health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, official figures show.
Without the financial support, estimates show health insurance could be out of reach for nearly 4 million people. Trump’s campaign did not comment on the report.
Updated
Guardian columnist Marina Hyde has written this piece on the Democrats’ failure to learn the lessons of 2016 – and how both sides look set to forget any lessons learned from Trump 2.0:
My husband knows masses more about US politics than me, so do imagine how much he enjoyed me spending the best part of the past two years telling him “Trump’s going to win” simply because I felt it in my vibes. However, earlier this year, he started to agree with me, which I had to concede meant a lot because he was basing it on actual information, and had the first clue what he was talking about. Scrolling back through my text messages to him, I am reading things such as: “Sorry, Harris is ‘selling joy’???? Please tell me the election anywhere in history that was won on joy because I would LOVE to hear about it.” (Sidenote: I can see from reviewing the data that I’ve really over-leaned into the sassy question mark this year.)
Anyway, there’s plenty more in this vein. “I don’t believe all this polling, I just think it’s all some massive cope?” Yet when I was asked on the afternoon of election day who I predicted would win it, I promptly said “Kamala Harris?” Later that night, on the phone, my husband wondered mildly why I had abandoned the conviction of long months of kitchen rants and annoyingly punctuated text messages. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess I just … forgot?”
Forgetting is a very seductive thing. But then, irrational behaviour so often is. I can only say that I did want the opposite of the thing I forgot to be true.
Right now, the Democratic party should be looking back at the past few months and wondering how a lot of stuff slipped their minds. Picture their trip down memory lane. “We should definitely run a coastal elite woman against Trump and call his supporters weird. I forget how that goes for us. We should definitely go heavy on the culture war stuff. I forget how that goes for us. We should definitely present the choice as being between darkness/fear/hate and moral superiority. I forget how that goes for us. We should definitely not present the choice as being between his economic plan and our clear and better one. I forget how that goes for us.”
Madonna has expressed outrage at the re-election of Donald Trump, describing him as “a convicted felon, rapist, bigot”.
Writing on Instagram, she said: “Trying to get my head around why a convicted felon, rapist, bigot was chosen to lead our country because he’s good for the economy?” She also posted a picture of a cake with the words “Fuck Trump” etched in frosting along with the caption: “Stuffed my face with this cake last night!”
The singer has previously castigated Trump, saying at the Women’s March in Washington DC in January 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration, that she’d thought “an awful lot about blowing up the White House”. After a backlash among Trump supporters, she said: “I do not promote violence and it’s important people hear and understand my speech in its entirety rather than one phrase.”
Billie Eilish has also expressed dismay in the wake of Trump’s election. She told a concert audience in Nashville on Wednesday: “A person who is a … let’s say convicted predator, let’s say that … someone who hates women so, so deeply is about to be the president of the United States of America.”
We’ve been reporting on the possible impact of Trump’s election victory on the war in Ukraine.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has suggested Trump will pull support for Kyiv, but Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris believes the US stance should have little impact on any EU decision.
He said:
The US had its election and it made its decision but that doesn’t change European values, and European values around the importance of the UN Charter, the importance of territorial integrity remain.
I think when it comes to the Middle East, I think we’re at a very very dangerous moment and I worry about this interregnum period now and how Netanyahu responds to that.
President-elect Trump is a person who professes his support for peace. I think it is so important now that the world speaks with one voice in terms of calling out the humanitarian crisis and the loss of civilian life.
I know President-elect Trump references the Abraham Accords as a moment of success in his last term in office.
Is that a pathway back towards getting partners in the region around a table to discuss regional stability, but part of that has to be the recognition that Palestine is a state in its own right?
Artists need to “keep the flag of truth flying” after Donald Trump’s election victory, the legendary Scottish actor Brian Cox has said.
Cox, who played Logan Roy in the hit HBO series Succession, also said the world has “never been in a more dangerous place than it is at the moment” as he reflected on the US election campaign and a second impending Trump presidency.
“As artists we have to bang the drum, we have to keep going,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “We mustn’t put up with it. That’s why I admire people like Mark Ruffalo [a longtime advocate for social justice].
“I’m not going to give up on my criticism of Trump. I think it behoves artists to not give up, to keep the flag of truth flying, because it’s been so abused in recent years.”
Cox went viral on Tuesday night after making his disdain for Trump known during a virtual appearance on Channel 4 alongside the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
The 78-year-old, who splits his time between London and New York, said he was “acutely depressed” about the election and felt like he just had to “ride it out”.
Cox said:
There’s probably nobody more surprised than Trump himself. I think he was expecting to talk about voter fraud. But the American people have bought into him, which I find absolutely astonishing.
It’s extraordinary that he has so many Catholic voters. I’m not religious at all, but I was born a Catholic. So I know about the Catholic doctrine and Trump’s sins are unbelievable. How can they possibly rationalise their faith in relationship to him?
He added:
I’ve got two sons in America, I worry about what’s in store for them. The only person Trump cares about is himself. It’s hard to predict what he’ll be like.
The Associated Press reports that a federal judge has struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to US citizens.
The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of US citizens to apply for a green card without first having to leave the country.
The temporary relief from deportation brought a brief sense of security to some 500,000 immigrants estimated to benefit from the program before Texas-based US district judge put it on hold in August, days after applicants filed their paperwork.
Barker ruled that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority by implementing the program and had stretched the legal interpretation of relevant immigration law “past its breaking point”.
The short-lived Biden administration initiative known as “Keeping Families Together” would have been unlikely to remain in place after Donald Trump took office in January. But its early termination creates greater uncertainty for immigrant families as many are bracing for Trump’s return to the White House.
Demonstrators in South Korea swore off heterosexual dating in protest against misogyny. Now the movement is sparking interest among young American women.
So what exactly is the 4B movement going viral after Trump’s win?
My colleague Alaina Demopoulos has this report:
Susie Wiles profile: ‘tough, smart’ operator who led Trump back to White House
Susie Wiles, who was named Donald Trump’s new White House chief of staff, will be the first woman in US history to serve in the role as gatekeeper to the president, a position that typically wields great influence.
The chief of staff position is usually the first appointee that a president-elect names, and may oversee the transition from one administration. Once Trump is sworn in as president, Wiles will also be in charge of all White House policy, serving as a confidante and adviser and managing day-to-day affairs.
Wiles, 67, is a veteran of Florida politics. She began her career in the Washington office of New York congressman Jack Kemp in the 1970s. Following that she did stints on Ronald Reagan’s campaign and in his White House as a scheduler.
Wiles then headed to Florida, where she advised two Jacksonville mayors and worked for Congresswoman Tillie Fowler. After that came statewide campaigns in rough-and-tumble Florida politics, with Wiles being credited with helping businessman Rick Scott win the governor’s office.
After briefly managing the Utah governor Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign, she ran Trump’s 2016 effort in Florida, when his win in the state helped him clinch the White House.
Two years later, Wiles helped get Ron DeSantis elected as Florida’s governor. But the two would develop a rift that eventually led to DeSantis to urge Trump’s 2020 campaign to cuts its ties with the strategist, when she was again running the then-president’s state campaign.
Wiles ultimately went on to lead Trump’s primary campaign against DeSantis and trounced the Florida governor. Trump campaign aides and their outside allies gleefully taunted DeSantis throughout the race – mocking his laugh, the way he ate and accusing him of wearing lifts in his boots – as well as using insider knowledge that many suspected had come from Wiles and others on Trump’s campaign staff who had also worked for DeSantis and had had bad experiences.
Wiles joined up with Trump’s third campaign and served as his “de facto chief of staff” over the last three years to lead his successful re-election bid and helped him work with lawyers on his various criminal and civil cases.
Project 2025 chief’s book urges ‘burning’ of FBI, New York Times and Boy Scouts
A new book by the chief architect of Project 2025, a hugely controversial policy plan for a second Trump term, repeatedly employs imagery of fire and burning, including calling for rightwingers to “burn away the rot” of American institutions and organizations deemed opposed to conservative aims.
The news comes after a White House address on Thursday, two days after Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, when Joe Biden called on Americans to “bring down the temperature” after months of heated political battle.
Mixing classical quotes with cliché (“it is time to fight fire with fire”) and metaphors about forest fires and Smokey Bear, Kevin Roberts, president of the far-right Heritage Foundation, advocates “a long, controlled burn” of targets including the FBI, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the New York Times, “every Ivy League college” and even the Boy Scouts of America.
Meanwhile, Hungary’s prime minister believes Ukraine has already lost in its fight against Russia’s invasion and is predicting that Donald Trump’s new administration will abandon US support for Kyiv, Reuters reports.
Viktor Orbán told state radio:
If Donald Trump had won in 2020 in the United States, these two nightmarish years wouldn’t have happened, there wouldn’t have been a war. The situation on the front is obvious, there’s been a military defeat. The Americans are going to pull out of this war.
Orbán has long sought to undermine EU support for Kyiv, and routinely blocked, delayed or watered down the bloc’s efforts to provide weapons and funding and to sanction Moscow for its invasion.
Updated
Vladimir Putin is ready to discuss Ukraine with Donald Trump - but that does not mean Putin is willing to alter his demands and Russia’s goals in Ukraine remain unchanged, the Kremlin said on Friday.
On Thursday, Putin congratulated Trump on winning the election, praised him for showing courage when a gunman tried to assassinate him, and said Moscow was ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect.
Asked about a possible phone call between Trump and Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was nothing concrete on it to report yet, and said it would be premature to talk of any improvement in Russia-US ties.
But Putin had made it clear many times he remained open for dialogue, he said.
Voters have elected a Republican majority in the Senate. They have also been electing members of the House of Representatives and state governors. You can see a full map of the results across the US here:
Swing state analysis: how Democratic vote stayed flat while Republican gains won it for Trump
Guardian analysis suggests Harris underperformed compared with 2020 – but in the states that mattered most it was Trump’s gains that won him the White House
Nationwide, the US election was primarily a story of Democratic underperformance rather than huge Republican gains compared to 2020 – but in the swing states that ultimately decided the victor, it was the opposite story, with Trump’s gains far outstripping Harris’s losses.
Across the US, Democrats lost more total votes overall compared with 2020 than Republicans gained: Harris attracted 1.4m fewer votes than her Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, did, while Trump attracted 1.1m more than he did in the previous election.
The figures were calculated by looking only at counties that have 100% of their precincts reporting and at least 95% of their estimated ballots counted, and comparing the vote in those areas to 2020.
Another way of looking at the numbers is that for every 78 votes Donald Trump gained nationally compared to 2020, Kamala Harris lost 100.
But in the seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – there was an inverse trend: the Democratic vote dropped very slightly but held up quite well compared to 2020, but Trump made enough gains to give him the White House. A large part of Democratic campaign spending was focused on the swing states, suggesting that this helped buoy up Democratic support – but not enough to overcome a wave of additional Trump voters.
At least 24 states also saw a larger drop in Democratic votes than any movement in Republican votes compared with 2020 (looking only at areas where counting was almost complete).
Read on here:
Updated
The UK’s deputy prime minister, meanwhile, revealed she had spoken to the vice-president elect, JD Vance, posting on X that it had been “good to speak” to the Ohio senator.
Like her colleague David Lammy, Angela Rayner has a record of making critical marks of Trump, previously calling him an “absolute buffoon” over his handling of the Covid crisis.
Good to speak to US Vice President-elect @JDVance as UK Deputy Prime Minister.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) November 7, 2024
We spoke about our plans for the future and how, working together, we build on the special relationship between our great countries.
She had told ITV: “He has no place in the White House. He’s an embarrassment and he should be ashamed of himself, especially when thousands of Americans have died.”
After he lost the election in 2020, she said she was “so happy to see the back of Donald Trump”.
The awkward comments go both ways, however. In July, Vance said the UK would be an “Islamist country” under the new Labour government.
“I have to beat up on the UK – just one additional thing,” Vance said. “I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn’t care about it.
“And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over.”
In response at the time, Rayner said Vance had said “quite a lot of fruity things in the past” and she does not “recognise” his view of the UK.
UK foreign secretary says his Trump criticism is 'old news'
The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, has described his previous remarks about the US president-elect, Donald Trump, as “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” as old news.
Keir Starmer’s government is making efforts to smooth over tensions with the incoming president, whose pledge to raise tariffs on imports into the US could hit the UK economy.
Appearing on BBC Newscast, Lammy was pressed on his past critical comments but dismissed them, adding it would be a “struggle to find any politician” who had not said some “pretty ripe things” about Trump.
Asked if he apologised for remarks including calling the president-elect a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” or if Trump brought them up when they met in New York in September, Lammy said “not even vaguely”.
A federal judge has struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to US citizens.
The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of US citizens to apply for a green card without first having to leave the country.
The temporary relief from deportation brought a brief sense of security to some 500,000 immigrants estimated to benefit from the program before Texas-based U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker put it on hold in August, days after applicants filed their paperwork.
Barker ruled yesterday that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority by implementing the program and had stretched the legal interpretation of relevant immigration law “past its breaking point.”
The short-lived Biden administration initiative known as “Keeping Families Together” would have been unlikely to remain in place after Donald Trump took office in January. But its early termination creates greater uncertainty for immigrant families as many are bracing for Trump’s return to the White House.
CNN’s latest projection of the crucial races to gain control of the House has Republicans ahead in ten of the contests, with, according to their projections, only six victories needed to tip them over the magic 218 for control.
AP has called 410 of the 435 races, with the Republicans seven away from control of the House.
Reuters reports that speaking in Budapest, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose own government is in crisis, has said “We will continue to work well with the future American president” when asked about the election of Donald Trump.
Scholz added “the question of how this can be achieved has been the subject of our discussion,” referring to a meeting of senior European leaders held yesterday in Hungary.
Writing for MSNBC, political columnist Zeeshan Aleem has pinpointed what he says is the one sentence that shows how defeated Kamala Harris misread the election.
He described her telling Sunny Hostin on ABC’s The View that she wouldn’t have changed anything about the Biden administration’s policies as “an act of political malpractice.”
Harris was in a tricky position during the campaign — she was running simultaneously as incumbent and newcomer, and it’s difficult to create distance from an administration whose accomplishments one wants credit for.
But it was far from an inescapable predicament: Competent politicians often get away with talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Harris could’ve said that she took pride in working with Biden in shepherding the US out of the Covid crisis, but that she could hear the American people say that they were still hurting, and that she stood for a sharply new perspective on the economy that was laser-focused on bringing down costs.
Her limited discussion of inflation lacked a clear story or theory of society. Who was to blame for why everything became so expensive? She left hammering corporate greed on the table, and her initial broadsides against big business ebbed as she sought out the input and support of Wall Street and Silicon Valley and even chose billionaires as surrogates.
The Republicans are just a handful of calls away from gaining control of the House, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said he can still see a path to victory for the Democratic party.
In an interview overnight, quoted by the Hill website, Jeffries said:
We still have a clear pathway to taking back the majority. Of course that runs through Arizona and Oregon and five races that are flip opportunities in California that are too close to call and too early to call.
You can find the latest results for the US Senate, House and governor elections here …
The election of Donald Trump has far-reaching consequences for US foreign policy, including the Biden administration’s long-standing support for Ukraine. This morning, Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán, has said he expects US funding to end.
Reuters quotes Orbán as saying “The Americans will quit this war, first of all they will not encourage the war. Europe cannot finance this war alone.”
In this morning’s First Edition newsletter, my colleagues Archie Bland and our senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison discuss what Trump means for Ukraine …
Our latest episode of Politics Weekly America dropped in the last couple of hours. With Donald Trump president-elect, a 6-3 conservative majority in the US supreme court, and a majority secured in the Senate, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Washington Post reporter Marianna Sotomayor about what happens if Democrats are not victorious in the lower chamber …
You can listen to it here: Can the Democrats salvage the House of Representatives? – podcast
China is bracing itself for four years of volatile relations with its biggest trading partner and geopolitical rival, as the dust settles on the news that Donald Trump will once again be in the White House.
On Thursday China’s president, Xi Jinping, congratulated Trump on his victory and said that the two countries must “get along with each other in the new era”, according to a Chinese government readout.
“A stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship is in the common interest of both countries and is in line with the expectations of the international community,” Xi said.
The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins and Helen Davidson report:
Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US president-elect Donald Trump, will not return to the White House, the Financial Times reported on Friday, but Kushner could advise on Middle East policy, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Welcome and opening summary …
President-elect Donald Trump has named Susie Wiles, the manager of his victorious election campaign, as his White House chief of staff, the first woman to hold the influential role.
Wiles is widely credited within and outside Trump’s inner circle for running what was, by far, his most disciplined and well-executed campaign, and was seen as the leading contender for the position. She largely avoided the spotlight, even refusing to take the mic to speak as Trump celebrated his victory early on Wednesday morning.
Wiles’s hire is Trump’s first major decision as president-elect and one that could be a defining test of his incoming administration, as he must quickly build the team that will help run the federal government.
Meanwhile the Republicans are edging closer to a House majority, after picking up two more hard-fought seats in Pennsylvania.
Democrats won another seat in New York, defeating a third Republican incumbent in that state, and three US House seats in Nevada will remain under Democratic control after a sweeping win Thursday for the incumbents, but Republicans need just seven more seats to reach a majority of 218.
Here are the other key recent developments:
Speaking to NBC News, Donald Trump made clear that the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants that he campaigned on will be a top priority of his administration. “We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to – at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” Trump said, adding that, “I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in”
The former CIA director and US defense secretary Leon Panetta predicted Trump will give Benjamin Netanyahu a “blank check” in the Middle East, possibly opening the way for all-out war between Israel and Iran
Joe Biden, in a speech from the White House, said he will “ensure a peaceful and orderly transition” to Donald Trump, while calling on the country to “bring down the temperature”
Biden is to focus on government funding and hurricane relief in his final weeks as president. With the clock ticking toward the end of his presidency, Joe Biden will focus on keeping the government funded and open, pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), rush assistance to communities battered by hurricanes Helene and Milton, as well as confirm judicial nominees
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, congratulated Donald Trump on winning the US presidential election, and said he was willing to talk to him. “I would like to congratulate him on his election as president,” Putin said in Sochi, a resort on the Black Sea
Several key races remain to be called, including the presidential outcomes in swing states Arizona and Nevada (where Trump is tipped to win), Senate races in those two states plus Pennsylvania and, perhaps most importantly, control of the House
Based on analyses of election results so far, it appears that Trump won by driving out the Republican base and making gains among certain groups that typically back Democrats. But split-ticket voters stepped up for Democratic senators and a governor in swing states, reducing their losses in what was otherwise a rough election
The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates further, saying progress has been made against the wave of inflation that struck the United States during Joe Biden’s presidency, which was likely a major factor in voters choosing Donald Trump as the next president
Trump’s sentencing in his business fraud trial scheduled for later this month? Probably not happening, Politico reports
Gavin Newsom, the California governor and potential presidential candidate some day, called the legislature into a special session to prepare to fight Trump
Democrats aired grievances over Harris’s election loss, with many pointing the finger at Biden and his aborted attempt at a second term
Americans are stockpiling abortion pills as Trump’s victory seems set to put foes of the procedure into positions of power
Harris was unable to settle on an effective message against Trump, and was hobbled from the start by Biden’s low approval ratings, a New York Times postmortem of her campaign finds
