Election 2024 live updates: Trump begins transition; three charged in alleged Iranian plot to kill the president-elect
President-elect Donald Trump names his victorious 2024 campaign manager as first-ever female White House chief of staff as he works on transition to Oval Office
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Your support makes all the difference.President-elect Donald Trump has begun preparing for the Oval Office by naming Susie Wiles as his new White House chief of staff.
This comes as three people have been charged in an alleged Iranian plot to kill the president-elect.
The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, said: “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”
The Republicans are expected to retain control of the House, likely handing the GOP a trifecta as they’re set to take back the Senate, possibly handing Trump full control of the levers of power in Washington.
Trump and President Joe Biden both had a trifecta for their first two years in office.
Wiles spearheaded Trump’s successful 2024 campaign and is the first of many appointees who will help to push his agenda, which includes the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, more trade tariffs and extended tax cuts.
Trump shared several late-night election victory posts on Truth Social on Thursday – his first since his return to power was confirmed early on Wednesday morning.
Meet Susie Wiles, the ‘ice maiden’ who propelled Trump to victory – and is his new chief of staff
I reported from across Pennsylvania through the election. The key to Trump’s victory was staring us right in the face
After Trump wins the ‘influencer election’, why some Democrats want to create their own Joe Rogan
‘The will of the people always prevails’: Biden promises ‘peaceful and orderly’ transition to Trump
Putin congratulates ‘brave man’ Trump on his election victory
Defamation case judge slams Giuliani’s ‘farcical’ excuses for failing to turn over property
Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani could be held in contempt of court if he fails to turn over property to election workers he defamed in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
The cash-strapped former New York City mayor was ordered to a federal court hearing in Manhattan on Thursday after attorneys for a mother-daughter pair of election workers accused him of moving around and hiding a long list of valuables he has been court-ordered to turn over.
Alex Woodward has been closely following the case.
Judge slams Giuliani’s ‘farcical’ excuses in election workers defamation case
The cash-strapped former New York City mayor could be held in contempt of court if he blows a deadline to surrender valuables to women he defamed in the aftermath of the 2020 election
Full story: Trump says his mass deportation plan has ‘no price tag’ as he prepares to boot millions from the country
Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history,” deploying federal, state and local law enforcement to arrest, jail and deport potentially millions of people living in the country without legal permission.
A militarized operation would depend on detention camps to hold people marked for removal, and would invoke a centuries-old law previously used to detain Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
President-elect Trump told NBC News on Thursday, two days after defeating his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, that he has “no choice” but to implement large-scale deportations when he takes office in January.
Alex Woodward reports.
Trump says his mass deportation plan has ‘no price tag’
Trump’s militarized removals could cost billions while upending the economy and ripping families and communities apart
Election night ratings drop sharply from 2020 and 2016
The idea of grabbing some popcorn and watching television to see who America has chosen for its next president was far less appealing this year than in the past.
The Nielsen company said that 42.3 million people watched election night returns between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump pour in Tuesday night. That’s down sharply from the 56.9 million who watched in 2020, when Trump competed against Joe Biden, and the 71.4 million who tuned in on election night 2016, Nielsen said.
Election night is often known as the Super Bowl for TV news, but this year even the NFL’s conference championship games were watched by more people.
Continue reading...
Election night television viewership drops sharply from 2020 and 2016
The idea of watching election night returns on television wasn't as appealing as it used to be
Full story: Trump makes first key administration pick and moves campaign head into top White House post
Donald Trump has made the first key appointment of his upcoming administration, announcing that campaign manager Susie Wiles will become his White House Chief of Staff.
In a statement, the Trump-Vance transition team said: “Susie Wiles just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history, and was an integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns.”
Mike Bedigan reports.
Trump plans to appoint campaign head as White House chief of staff
In a statement, the President-elect said that Wiles had helped him achieve ‘one of the greatest political victories in American history’
Major abortion rights victories on Election Day still under threat from Trump and his allies
Alex Woodward and Bel Trew write:
Two years after the Supreme Court revoked a constitutional right to abortion, millions of voters across the country directly weighed in on the future of reproductive healthcare access in their states.
Voters in seven of 10 states with abortion rights measures on their ballots have agreed to expand protections or enshrine a right to abortion in their own state’s constitutions, effectively redrawing the map for abortion access.
But those victories — from Arizona to Colorado, Missouri, Montana and elsewhere — were followed by warnings from abortion rights advocates that president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, and an emboldened Republican-dominated Congress, could soon upend hard-fought, newly enshrined protections.
Continue reading...
Abortion rights win major victories on Election Day. Trump could threaten them
Trump says he wants to leave reproductive healthcare up to the states, where millions of women delivered a powerful rebuke to anti-abortion laws. Lawyers and civil rights groups are bracing for what’s next, Alex Woodward and Bel Trew report
After years of Trump bashing it, Republicans now praise early voting
Prominent Republicans are praising early voting after Donald Trump’s win over Kamala Harris, despite years of the president-elect and his allies baselessly bashing the practice as fraudulent.
Former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told NewsNation on Wednesday that an increase in early voting must be the “norm going forward” for the GOP.
“It was so critical that President Trump, he spoke out on this. I mean, there’s no better person that’s going to get voters to change their habits, to believe in it than President Trump,” she said.
Josh Marcus reports.
Changing their tune: GOP now promoting early voting after Trump’s win
Trump remained ambiguous on early voting, which Democrats have traditionally dominated, throughout 2024 campaign
BREAKING: Trump names campaign co-chair Susie Wiles as chief of staff
President-elect Donald Trump has named campaign chief Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff. She will be the first woman to hold the role when he takes office on January 20, 2025.
“Susie Wiles just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history, and was an integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns,” President-elect Trump said. “Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected. Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again. It is a well deserved honor to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”
A look back at our (mostly correct) Senate predictions after Trump’s big win
A week ago, The Independent made a list of predictions for the US Senate, thinking it unlikely but possible that Democrats would hold the chamber. After a surprisingly powerful performance by Donald Trump on election night, it’s clear that won’t be happening.
John Bowden looks at what we got right and what we got wrong...
A look back at our election predictions after Trump’s big win
What we got right, what we got wrong, and why the polls weren’t as reliable as everyone had hoped (again)
Democrat at heart of Trump impeachment wins Virginia seat against ‘fake family’ Republican
A Democrat, who was partly responsible for kickstarting Donald Trump’s first impeachment, has won a congressional seat in Virginia against a Republican candidate accused of parading a “fake family.”
Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman defeated Derrick Anderson on Tuesday to win the competitive seat in Central and Northern Virginia, according to The Associated Press.
His victory kept the seventh district, which is one of the state’s most purple, in Democratic hands, and put him in line to succeed Abigail Spanberger – a former intelligence officer who vacated the seat to run for governor.
Mike Bedigan reports.
Democrat at heart of Trump impeachment wins seat against ‘fake family’ Republican
Yevgeny ‘Eugene’ Vindman defeated Derrick Anderson on Tuesday to win a competitive seat in Central and Northern Virginia
Five of the most shocking results from the 2024 election
The 2024 presidential election completely upended many people’s expectations. After Democrats booted Joe Biden from the top of their ticket to put Kamala Harris in place, she lost all seven of the major battleground states.
And now, as Republicans plan to drag Democrats’ “political dead bodies through the streets and burn them,” and Democrats deal with a reckoning, a few trends have emerged that continue to baffle some onlookers.
Here are five major shocks of the 2024 presidential election — and why they might have happened:
The five most shocking results from the election
The return of split-ticket voting, Democrat voters disliking their own party, Republicans overperforming — Eric Garcia talks about how this election shattered expectations, and why
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