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
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
Trump attorney’s phone tapped by Chinese hackers, report says
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s attorneys has been told by the FBI that his cellphone was tapped by Chinese hackers, CNN reports. The network cites three sources familiar with the matter.
Tapping the phone of Todd Blanche, who represented Trump in his hush money criminal trial, was part of a wide-ranging operation targeting top Republicans and Democrats in US politics that has been underway for months.
Per CNN:
The FBI informed the attorney, Todd Blanche, last week that the hackers were able to obtain some voice recordings and text messages from his phone, but that none of the information was related to Trump, one of the sources said. The FBI provided Blanche, who has had to start using a different number after the breach, what the hackers obtained, including communications with family, the source said.
Blanche is the second of two Trump attorneys believed to be targeted by foreign hackers.
In August, CNN reported that attorney Lindsey Halligan was targeted as part of a separate Iranian hacking effort.
Putin congratulates Trump on his election victory
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory in his first public comment on the U.S. vote, and he praised the president-elect’s courage during the July assassination attempt.
“His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man,” Putin said at an international forum following a speech in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“He manifested himself in the very correct way, bravely as a man,” he added.
Putin also said that what Trump has said “about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion, deserves attention at least.”
The Kremlin earlier welcomed Trump’s claim that he could negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine “in 24 hours” but emphasized that it will wait for concrete policy steps.
″I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election as president of the United States of America,” Putin said in a question-and-answer session at the conference.
As to what he expects from a second Trump administration, Putin said, “I don’t know what will happen now. I have no idea.”
“For him, this is still his last presidential term. What he will do is his matter,” added Putin, who this year began a fifth term that will keep him in power until 2030 and could seek six more years in office after that.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the Kremlin is not ruling out the possibility of contact between Putin and Trump before the inauguration, given that Trump “said he would call Putin before the inauguration.”
Peskov has emphasized that Moscow views the U.S. as an “unfriendly” country that is directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He dismissed arguments that Putin’s failure to reach out quickly to Trump could hurt future ties, saying that Moscow’s relations with Washington already are at the “lowest point in history” and arguing that it will be up to the new U.S. leadership to change the situation.
The Kremlin’s cautious stand reflected its view of the U.S. vote as a choice between two unappealing possibilities. While Trump is known for his admiration of Putin, the Russian leader has repeatedly noted that during Trump’s first term, there were “so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia like no other president has ever introduced before him.”
‘I’m going to destroy you’: Inside the war between Trump’s new and former campaign managers
As Donald Trump’s victory became increasingly apparent on Tuesday night, tensions behind the scenes were reportedly already ramping up between those vying for influence in the president-elect’s future administration.
Specifically, Trump’s 2024 campaign chief Chris LaCivita and Corey Lewandowski, who ran his 2016 campaign, were said to be at each other’s throats.
Mike Bedigan has the story.
Inside the war between Trump’s new and former campaign managers
On Tuesday night as Trump swept to victory, his 2024 campaign chief Chris LaCivita and Corey Lewandowski, who ran his 2016 campaign, were reportedly at each other’s throats
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