Closing summary
Here are the key recent developments:
Democratic Representative Mark Takano won reelection to a US House seat representing California on Monday. Takano defeated Republican David Serpa, the Associated Press reports. The congressman is a longtime incumbent, the ranking member on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and also sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Takano was previously a classroom teacher and a community college trustee.
The Wall Street Journal and CNN reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, that Trump has chosen Florida congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser. The post does not require Senate confirmation and is highly influential. Waltz is also on the Republican’s China taskforce and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
Trump is reportedly expected to name Marco Rubio as secretary of state. The New York Times reports that Trump is expected to name Florida senator Marco Rubio his secretary of state. The paper cites three unnamed sources “familiar with [Trump’s] thinking”.
Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the former New York congressman and gubernatorial candidate will focus on cutting regulations.
Stephen Miller, an architect of the hardline immigration policies Donald Trump enacted during his first term, appears to be heading back to the White House.
The president-elect has also appointed Tom Homan, who was one of the main officials behind Trump’s family separation policy, as his “border czar”.
Kamala Harris made her first public appearance since her concession speech at a Veterans Day ceremony. The vice-president did not speak at the event, and has since ended her public itinerary for the day after returning to Washington DC.
Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin is reportedly being considered for a position to lead the Department of Interior or Veterans Affairs under Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump’s new “border czar” Tom Homan made clear in an interview he is prepared to pursue hardline immigration policies. He told Fox News: “If sanctuary cities don’t want to help us, then get the hell out of the way, because we’re coming.”
Democrat Cleo Fields has won Louisiana’s congressional race in a recently redrawn second majority-Black district. That flips a once reliably Republican seat blue, according to the Associated Press.
Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Trump’s business fraud trial in New York that saw him convicted of 34 felonies earlier this year, will decide on Tuesday whether to overturn the verdict, Reuters reports. The case is the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to reach a verdict, and Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November – though now that he is headed back to the White House, it is unclear if that will happen.
This live coverage is ending soon, thanks for following along.
Democrat Mark Takano re-elected to House
Democratic Representative Mark Takano won reelection to a US House seat representing California on Monday. Takano defeated Republican David Serpa, the Associated Press reports.
The congressman is a longtime incumbent, the ranking member on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and also sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Takano was previously a classroom teacher and a community college trustee.
The 39th congressional District covers communities in Riverside County southeast of Los Angeles. The Associated Press declared Takano the winner at 9.08pm EST.
Vietnam’s Communist Party head To Lam congratulated Donald Trump in a phone call on Monday and the two discussed ways their countries could boost economic ties, the country’s communist party said.
The US is Vietnam’s largest export market, and in September last year the two countries upgraded their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest level in Vietnam’s ranking.
“Vietnam is ready to promote stable and long-term development of bilateral relations for the benefit of the people of the two countries,” Lam said during the call, according to a statement posted on the communist party’s website.
The statement said Trump expressed his respect for the relationship with Vietnam and Vietnam-US economic cooperation, and wanted to further promote it.
While the New York Times has reported that Donald Trump has picked Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, the report also says “Mr. Trump could still change his mind at the last minute.”
Rubio is arguably the most hawkish option on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, Reuters reports, and he has in years past advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to America’s geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba.
Over recent years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump’s views. The president-elect accuses past US presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.
Rubio has said in recent interviews that Ukraine needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than focus on regaining all territory that Russia has taken in the last decade. He was also one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April.
Rubio is also a top China hawk in the Senate. Most notably, he called on the Treasury Department in 2019 to launch a national security review of popular Chinese social media app TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly, prompting an investigation and troubled divestment order.
As shell-shocked Democrats try to understand why working-class Americans – once the cornerstone of their political base – chose a billionaire over them, progressives argue the path forward is to champion “popular and populist” economic policies.
Democratic recriminations have intensified in the nearly seven days since their devastating electoral losses, which may yet deliver a new era of unified Republican governance in Washington, after Donald Trump stormed to a second term while his party easily flipped the Senate and is on the verge of winning a majority in the House. Divisions have deepened, with progressives blaming the party’s embrace of corporate America and swing-state Democrats accusing the left of tarnishing its appeal with ex-urban and rural voters.
“Clearly not enough voters knew what Democrats were going to do to make their lives better, particularly poor and working-class Americans across this country,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday:
Trump expected to name Marco Rubio as secretary of state – report
The New York Times reports that Trump is expected to name Florida senator Marco Rubio his secretary of state. The paper cites three unnamed sources “familiar with [Trump’s] thinking”.
Updated
Axios reports that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cenvoy, Ron Dermer, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, and that Dermer also met with Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner.
Axios cites to unnamed two Israeli officials and two US officials with knowledge of the meeting, reporting:
An Israeli official said the meeting was aimed at passing messages from Netanyahu to Trump and briefing the president-elect on Israel’s plans in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran for the next two months before Trump takes office.
“One of the things the Israelis wanted to sort out with Trump is what are the issues he prefers to see solved before 20 January and what are the issues he prefers the Israelis to wait for him,” a US official said.
The US officials mentioned the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire efforts, the plan for Gaza after the war ends and Israeli-Saudi normalization efforts as issues the Israelis want to take Trump’s pulse on.
Dermer also met with Jared Kushner, a source with knowledge of the meeting said.
On Ukraine, Waltz has said his views have evolved, Reuters reports.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he called for the Biden administration to provide more weapons to Kyiv to help them push back Russian forces.
But during an event last month, Waltz said there had to be a reassessment of the United States’ aims in Ukraine.
“Is it in America’s interest, are we going to put in the time, the treasure, the resources that we need in the Pacific right now badly?” Waltz asked.
Waltz has praised Trump for pushing Nato allies to spend more on defense, but unlike the president-elect has not suggested the United States pull out of the alliance.
“Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations,” Waltz said last month
Who is Mike Waltz?
Reuters has more information about Mike Waltz, who is reportedly Trump’s pick for national security adviser.
If selected, Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
While slamming the Biden administration for a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Waltz has publicly praised Trump’s foreign policy views.
“Disruptors are often not nice … frankly our national security establishment and certainly a lot of people that are dug into bad old habits in the Pentagon need that disruption,” Waltz said during an event earlier this year.
“Donald Trump is that disruptor,” he said.
Waltz was a defense policy director for defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and was elected to Congress in 2018. He is the chair of the House Armed Services subcommittee overseeing military logistics and also on the select committee on intelligence.
Waltz is also on the Republican’s China taskforce and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a book published earlier this year titled “Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret,” Waltz laid out a five part strategy to preventing war with China, including arming Taiwan faster, re-assuring allies in the Pacific, and modernizing planes and ships.
Decision Desk HQ, an organisation that uses models to project how the vote count will unfold, is predicting that the Republicans will win a majority in the House.
With a Republican Senate majority already won, this would mean Trump controls both houses of Congress when he takes office in January, making it significantly easier to pass legislation.
The Associated Press, which the Guardian relies on to call races, has not yet confirmed that the Republicans have won the four seats needed for a House majority.
There is more information now about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s plans to meet with the Biden administration this week to discuss zero-emission vehicles and disaster relief.
The Democratic governor is leaving for Washington on Monday and will return home Wednesday, his office said. Newsom will also meet with California’s congressional delegation, the Associated Press reports.
He is seeking federal approval for state climate rules, a $5.2bn reimbursement for emergency funding during the Covid-19 pandemic and updates to the state’s Medicaid program, along with other priorities.
The trip comes days after Newsom called for state lawmakers to convene a special session in December to protect California’s liberal policies ahead of Trump’s return to office in January.
Trump then criticized the governor on social media, calling out the high cost of living in California and the state’s homelessness crisis. He said Newsom was “stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again.’”
California won against most of the Trump administration’s legal challenges over the state’s environmental and other progressive policies during the Republican’s first term, said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego.
“The question is: Has Donald Trump changed the legal playing field so much through the court appointments of his first term that he’ll be able to win on policies in his second term?” he said.
As president, Trump appointed more than 230 federal judges, including three justices to the US Supreme Court.
A former US army green beret, who now serves as a congressman for Florida, Michael Waltz has solidified his reputation as a leading advocate for a tougher stance on China within the House of Representatives. He played a leading role in sponsoring legislation aimed at reducing the US’s dependence on minerals sourced from China.
Waltz is known to have a solid friendship with Trump and has also voiced support for US assistance to Ukraine, while concurrently pushing for greater oversight of UStaxpayer funds allocated to support Kyiv’s defense efforts. He has been tipped in the US media as a contender for either defense secretary or secretary of state.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Waltz is a retired army green beret who has been a leading critic of China. A Trump loyalist, he also served in the national guard as a colonel, has criticised Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and has voiced the need for the United States to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.
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CNN is also reporting Trump’s pick of Waltz as national security adviser – again citing an unnamed source familiar.
Updated
Trump may name Florida congressman Mike Waltz as national security adviser – report
The Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, that Trump has chosen Florida congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser.
The post does not require Senate confirmation and is highly influential.
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The rightwing Heritage Foundation, which is coordinating Project 2025, has released a statement welcoming the appointment of Tom Homan as “border czar” in Trump’s administration.
Homan is a “visiting fellow” at the Heritage Foundation.
Proposals for a second Trump administration include political purges of the federal government and attacks on minority rights and environmental protections among many other hard-right policy ideas.
The Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, said:
Tom Homan is precisely the leader America needs to tackle the crisis at our border and restore order. There’s no one better to restore the rule of law within our broken immigration system and ensure that those who have entered our country illegally will be returned home. With decades of dedicated service under both Republican and Democratic administrations, he brings unmatched experience and a steadfast commitment to securing our nation. He knows what it takes to swiftly end Biden’s border invasion.
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House Democrats are looking into strategies to limit the impact of the Trump administration’s expected policy changes.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders, including those from minority and progressive caucuses, are working on ways to protect marginalized communities, safeguard existing programs, and accelerate Biden’s executive actions, Axios reported.
“We as Democrats have to roll up our sleeves and get into defense and protection mode,” Democratic representative Delia Ramirez told Axios.
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Voters in Oakland, California, have ousted Mayor Sheng Thao just two years after she narrowly won office to lead the liberal California Bay Area city.
The Associated Press called the race Monday.
“Thank you for choosing me to serve as your mayor. As the first Hmong American woman to become the mayor of a major American city, it has been the honor of my lifetime,” she said in a statement last week.
She committed to ensuring a smooth transition.
Thao must vacate the office as soon as election results are certified 5 December and the Oakland city council declares a vacancy at its next meeting, which would be 17 December, Nikki Fortunato Bas, city council president, said in a statement.
A special election for a new mayor will be held within 120 days, or roughly four months.
Until then, Bas – as president of the city council – would serve as interim mayor unless she wins a seat on the Alameda county board of supervisors. As of Monday, Bas was trailing in that race.
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California governor Gavin Newsom will meet with the Biden administration to discuss zero-emission vehicles and disaster relief, issues that have been targeted in the past by president-elect Donald Trump, the Associated Press reports.
The Democratic governor is leaving for Washington on Monday and will return home on Wednesday, his office said. Newsom will also meet with California’s congressional delegation.
The trip comes days after Newsom called for state lawmakers to convene a special session in December to protect California’s liberal policies ahead of Trump’s return to office in January.
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Here’s more on Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency pick, Lee Zeldin:
Donald Trump has picked Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), vowing the appointment will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions” by the regulator.
Trump, who oversaw the rollback of more than 100 environmental rules when he last was US president, said that Zeldin was a “true fighter for America First policies” and that “he will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet”.
Zeldin, a Republican who was in the House of Representatives until last year as a member for a New York district that covers part of Long Island, said the nomination was an “honor” and that he was looking forward to cutting red tape as the EPA administrator.
“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin wrote on X. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”
Zeldin, 44, is considered a close Trump ally and ran in a surprisingly close race for New York governor in 2022, before being pipped by Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. During the campaign, Zeldin attacked Hochul’s “far-left climate agenda” and assailed Democrats for allegedly forcing people to drive electric cars.
Read the full story here:
Updated
The day so far
Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the former New York congressman and gubernatorial candidate will focus on cutting regulations.
Stephen Miller, an architect of the hardline immigration policies Donald Trump enacted during his first term, appears to be heading back to the White House.
The president-elect has also appointed Tom Homan, who was one of the main officials behind Trump’s family separation policy, as his “border czar”.
Kamala Harris made her first public appearance since her election loss at a Veterans Day ceremony. The vice-president did not speak at the event, and has since ended her public itinerary for the day after returning to Washington DC.
Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin is reportedly being considered for a position to lead the Department of Interior or Veterans Affairs under Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump’s new “border czar” Tom Homan made clear in an interview he is prepared to pursue hardline immigration policies. He told Fox News: “If sanctuary cities don’t want to help us, then get the hell out of the way, because we’re coming.”
Democrat Cleo Fields has won Louisiana’s congressional race in a recently redrawn second majority-Black district. That flips a once reliably Republican seat blue, according to the Associated Press.
Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Trump’s business fraud trial in New York that saw him convicted of 34 felonies earlier this year, will decide on Tuesday whether to overturn the verdict, Reuters reports. The case is the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to reach a verdict, and Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November – though now that he is headed back to the White House, it is unclear if that will happen.
That’s all from me, Coral Murphy Marcos, for today. My colleague Helen Sullivan will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest from the US elections.
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The Washington Post editorial board published an op-ed urging senators to resist pressure from president-elect Donald Trump to allow recess appointments, which would let him bypass the Senate confirmation process for his appointees.
The op-ed says:
Mr. Trump wants opportunities to circumvent the Senate confirmation process even though Republicans will have a clear majority of seats — at least 52, according to the latest count — signaling his intention to elevate appointees whom even some Republicans cannot tolerate. Senators should refuse to squander their constitutional prerogatives in this way.
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Democrat Cleo Fields flips Louisiana congressional district
Democrat Cleo Fields has won Louisiana’s congressional race in a recently redrawn second majority-Black district.
That flips a once reliably Republican seat blue, according to the Associated Press.
His win marks a major victory for Democrats in a state where they will hold two congressional seats for the first time in a decade.
This is only the second time in nearly 50 years that a Democrat has won in Louisiana’s sixth Congressional district, where new political boundaries were drawn by lawmakers earlier this year.
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Asked about criticism that the party is too focused on cultural issues and not economic issues, progressives pushed back.
Greg Casar said the American people made clear they want a Democratic party that will be “champions for everyday people, for working people and for civil rights”.
Sarah McBride, the congresswoman-elect from Delaware who made history as the first openly trans person elected to Congress, said she ran a campaign that was centered on the economic pain voters in her state were feeling.
“What I was hearing was that the American Dream is increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible,” she said. “That’s what I was campaigning on. I didn’t run on my identity, but my identity was not a secret.”
Delaware is the Philadelphia media market, she noted, meaning many voters in the state saw the anti-trans ads that the Trump campaign ran against Kamala Harris and still cast their ballots for her.
“The party that was focused on culture wars, the party that was focused on trans people, was the Republican Party. It was Donald Trump. It was the $100m, $200m that they spent on television ads,” she said.
She continued: “We have to be crystal clear as we move forward, that we are going to call out the hypocrisy of Donald Trump, of disingenuously claiming that he is a fighter for working people, when his agenda is pro-higher cost and pro-inflation,” she said.
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Congresswoman Elise Stefanik said she was “deeply humbled” in a statement accepting her appointment to serve in Donald Trump’s cabinet as ambassador to the United Nations.
The New York Republican congresswoman said:
President Trump’s historic landslide election has given hope to the American people and is a reminder that brighter days are ahead – both at home and abroad. America continues to be the beacon of the world, but we expect and must demand that our friends and allies be strong partners in the peace we seek.
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Representative Pramila Jayapal said House progressives are prepared to lead a “historic resistance” to a second Trump presidency and a potential Republican governing trifecta in Washington.
Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, acknowledged that the “fight ahead is going to be hard” but said Republicans did not have a plan to lower costs and expand healthcare – issues that voters are now expecting them to deliver on. She pointed to the passage of “popular, populist initiatives” like raising the minimum wage and paid sick leave, which red states voters approved.
As shellshocked Democrats begin to pick up the pieces, progressives say their freshman class – among them the first openly trans congresswoman and a protege of Kamala Harris – show the path to winning back working-class voters who sided with a billionaire over their party.
“They said it’s not immigrants that are driving up housing prices, it’s Wall Street. It’s not trans people that are causing your worsening healthcare. It’s big pharma. These are the members that are authentic, that are proud, that are from their communities, that have promised to deliver to their communities, and are unafraid of standing up to the real powers that be, and that’s the core of who the Democratic Party is,” said the Texas representative Greg Casar, the Congressional Progressive Caucus whip.
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Oklahoma senator Mullin reportedly being considered for interior or veterans affairs jobs
Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin is reportedly being considered for a position to lead the Department of Interior or Veterans Affairs under Donald Trump’s administration.
Mullin led the Trump campaign’s Native American outreach and is considered for the Department of Interior given his background and expertise, according to NOTUS.
The senator was appointed to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2023. He’s also advocated for tribal sovereignty and for the US government to uphold the treaties with Native American tribes.
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Trump says Stefanik will be 'incredible' US ambassador to the UN
President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed the New York Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik as his pick to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations under his administration.
“She will be an incredible Ambassador to the United Nations, delivering Peace through Strength and America First National Security policies!,” reads a statement from Trump.
Trump praised Stefanik’s Harvard education and her early endorsement of his presidency.
He also pointed to her efforts against antisemitism on college campuses amid the war on Gaza.
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In response to the news that Tom Homan would be serving as president-elect Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Congresswoman Delia Ramirez said:
“We know exactly who Tom Homan is. He is the architect of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated thousands of migrant children from their parents with no plan for reunification,” said Ramirez, who’s also the founder of the Congressional Caucus on Global Migration. “He demonstrates cold disregard for the U.S. citizenship of the at least 4 million children with an undocumented parent, suggesting to keep families together, they should be deported together.”
Trump 'border czar' Homan strikes defiant tone in interview
Earlier today Donald Trump appointed as his “border czar” Tom Homan, a former acting chief of immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) who played a role in instituting Trump’s family separation policy.
Homan was on Fox News earlier today, where he made clear he was prepared to pursue hardline immigration policies in the role, which is tasked with securing US borders. Here’s what he had to say:
Newly tapped Trump "border czar" Tom Homan, responsible for deportations, says, "frankly, I don't care what people think about me":
— The Recount (@therecount) November 11, 2024
"When you take most of the Border Patrol agents off the border to deal with this humanitarian crisis, that's when fentanyl comes across." pic.twitter.com/GwljIXBoek
New Trump "border czar" Tom Homan has a warning for Democratic leaders of sanctuary cities vowing not to assist in mass deportations:
— The Recount (@therecount) November 11, 2024
"If sanctuary cities don't want to help us, then get the hell out of the way, because we're coming." pic.twitter.com/RL9magsdBB
Trump taps Zeldin to lead EPA and promises 'fair and swift deregulatory decisions'
Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the former New York congressman and gubernatorial candidate will focus on cutting regulations.
“Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies. He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet. He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way,” Trump said in a statement.
“I have known Lee Zeldin for a long time, and have watched him handle, brilliantly, some extremely difficult and complex situations. I am very proud to have him in the Trump Administration, where he will quickly prove to be a great contributor!”
Updated
Trump to pick former congressman, NY governor candidate Zeldin to lead EPA - report
Lee Zeldin, a Republican former congressman who ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York, will be Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the New York Post reports.
“I am deeply honored to have been asked by President Trump to serve in his Cabinet. As EPA Administrator, we will restore American energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, make the United States the global leader of Artificial Intelligence advancement, and slash the red tape holding back American workers from upward economic mobility,” Zeldin told the Post.
“We will accomplish all this while conserving our environment, protecting access to clean air and water, and keeping the American people healthy. I look forward to contributing to President Trump’s agenda to build a more prosperous future for our nation.”
We do not know yet too much more yet about how Zeldin would lead an agency where staffers fear their mandate to fight air pollution and the climate crisis will be undercut by the incoming Republican administration. Here’s more about that:
Harris makes first public appearance since election loss at Veterans Day ceremony
Kamala Harris appeared alongside Joe Biden earlier today at a ceremony to mark Veterans Day at Arlington national cemetery in Virginia.
The vice-president did not speak at the event, and has since ended her public itinerary for the day after returning to Washington DC. Here are photos of her appearance alongside Biden, which was their first joint appearance since Harris lost the presidential election:
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Wiley Nickel, an outgoing Democratic congressman representing North Carolina, has an idea for keeping his party relevant in the upcoming Trump years.
It’s something our British readers know all about. Nickel made his proposal public, in the Washington Post:
Here’s an idea for how to organize our opposition: We need to borrow from our British friends and appoint a shadow cabinet to fight back against the worst excesses of a second Trump administration.
…
So, what would a shadow cabinet look like here in the United States? We have an amazing wealth of talent on the Democratic side of the aisle in Congress — people loyal to the Constitution and ready to serve in opposition. Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries (New York) in the House and Charles E. Schumer (New York) in the Senate could appoint 26 members of Congress to go one-on-one with each member of Trump’s Cabinet.
If Trump attempts to weaponize the justice system against his political opponents, we could see Sen. Adam Schiff (California), as our shadow attorney general, arguing against replacing our independent prosecutors with Trump loyalists.
If Trump seeks to eliminate the Education Department, Rep. Jahana Hayes (Connecticut), a former teacher of the year, could step up as shadow education secretary to loudly defend it.
If Trump tries to hand Ukraine and much of Eastern Europe to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (New York), as shadow secretary of state, could be a strong voice in support of maintaining international relationships and protecting democracy at home and abroad.
In response to the news that Stephen Miller would be returning to the White House under Donald Trump, co-president of progressive consumer advocacy group Public Citizen Robert Weissman had this to say:
Stephen Miller’s record is one of cruelty, xenophobia, racism – and there’s little doubt he is set to be appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy precisely because of that record. He will enable Donald Trump’s worst tendencies and singularly unqualified to lead the policy agenda for the White House.
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Greece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotaki spoke with Donald Trump on Monday to congratulate him on his election victory, Mitsotakis’s office said.
Mitsotakis invited Trump to visit Greece, while also underlining the importance of a strategic partnership between the two countries, his office said in a statement.
The Greek leader also told the US president-elect that he sought close cooperation with the US administration, his office said.
Conservative attorney Mark Paoletta, who is helping plan Donald Trump’s transition, warned lawyers at the justice department that those who refuse to work on advancing Trump’s agenda should resign or risk being fired.
Paoletta, in a post on X responding to a Politico story on widespread fear among the DoJ, wrote:
“Once the decision is made to move forward, career employees are required to implement the President’s plan.”
President Trump was elected by the American people to carry out his agenda, which includes:
— Mark Paoletta (@MarkPaoletta) November 11, 2024
Securing the southern border, mass deportations of illegal aliens (beginning with rapists and murderers), surging resources to process immigration/asylum claims to clear out backlog and… https://t.co/n7yeUvRM2H
Paoletta is reportedly being considered for the role of attorney general under the Trump administration.
Others under consideration include Missouri senator Eric Schmitt, Utah senator Mike Lee; Trump’s former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, and Matt Whitaker, who was acting attorney general under Trump, according to NBC News.
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Bob Casey, the Democratic incumbent Pennsylvania senator, has refused to concede the race to David McCormick, arguing that “Pennsylvanians deserve to have their voices heard.”
In a statement on Monday, Casey’s campaign spokesperson said:
“As state officials have made clear, counties across Pennsylvania are still processing ballots and need time to tabulate remaining votes. There are more than 100,000 ballots left to be counted – including tens of thousands of provisional ballots in counties favorable to Senator Casey – and just yesterday, officials reaffirmed that tens of thousands of mail ballots remain.”
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The US climate envoy, John Podesta, has said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed.
“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks, said at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Trump has pledged to deregulate the energy sector, allow the oil and gas industry to “drill, baby, drill”, and pull the US from the Paris climate agreement, which committed countries to taking steps to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis.
Yet while Trump will try to reverse progress, “this is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet”, Podesta said.
The day so far
Stephen Miller, an architect of the hardline immigration policies Donald Trump enacted during his first term, appears to be heading back to the White House. While the appointment has not been officially announced yet, CNN reports that Miller will serve as Trump’s deputy chief of staff, and JD Vance publicly congratulated Miller on getting the job. The president-elect has also appointed Tom Homan, who was one of the main officials behind Trump’s family separation policy, as his “border czar”. Homan has spent much of the past four years promising to carry out mass deportations, and will now be in a position to make good on that.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Kamala Harris’s campaign was hobbled by Joe Biden’s failed re-election bid, and by a strategy that failed to preserve the momentum generated once the vice-president launched her bid for the White House, Notus reports.
Harris and Biden appeared together at Arlington national cemetery to mark Veterans Day. In a brief and somber speech, Biden noted this would be his last time celebrating the occasion as president.
Who else might make it into Trump’s cabinet? Many names have been floated, but only a few will be chosen. Here’s what we know.
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Biden's late exit, ineffective strategy hobbled Harris campaign – report
Kamala Harris’s campaign was felled by an ineffective strategy that failed to preserve the momentum she generated upon entering the presidential race, while also being hobbled by Joe Biden’s aborted attempt to win a second term, Notus reports.
Expect lots of Harris campaign postmortems to be published in the days and weeks to come as Democrats look for lessons in a campaign that was started under Biden, passed at the last minute to Harris, and ultimately failed to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
The story, based on interviews with former campaign staffers and others close to the effort, begins by noting that Biden’s campaign struggled to hire because of the president’s unpopularity:
Multiple sources who spoke with NOTUS lamented how difficult it was to hire staff at the inception of Biden’s reelection campaign. Few wanted to work for Biden and even fewer wanted to move to Wilmington, where the campaign was headquartered. One campaign aide said a few of those who were hired for senior roles were, in reality, years too junior for their responsibilities. Even when Biden was still on the ticket, aides who had run national campaigns noticed that the infrastructure was severely lacking. And when the candidate switch occurred, seasoned people who wanted to come on found it difficult to navigate the existing infrastructure. They believed that it was unlikely that Harris understood the teetering giant she inherited. And even if she did, it would have been too costly timewise to rebuild in 100 days.
It also says that despite a jump in voter enthusiasm once Harris entered the race, the campaign was not equipped to make the most of it:
The Biden campaign was also not ready for the energy and support that rushed in from Democrats when Harris first took over. One operative outside the campaign told NOTUS that during the first hours after Harris got into the race, thousands of donors who contributed to ActBlue were prompted to tip the service after they donated. When asked by Harris aides if a volunteer registration form could replace it to capture the newly interested Democrats, the campaign didn’t have such a form available. (The campaign said the link was added to the site several hours later and able to capture 170,000 volunteers that day.)
“There were things that could not be operationalized because the infrastructure was so limited,” said a second outside ally. Another said it was impossible to scale up at the pace required to keep up with the surge of enthusiastic Democrats wanting to volunteer and give money to Harris, because of the complicated way the campaign was initially stood up by Biden.
It also offers some insights into the saga that played out at the Democratic national convention, where party officials blocked the Uncommitted movement’s effort to have a Palestinian speaker address delegates:
Senior allies to Harris pushed the campaign and the DNC to have a Palestinian speaker onstage at the August convention, trying to further the goodwill Harris had earned from the Arab and Muslim communities furious over Gaza, but they were denied. One person said it was at the behest of the national security team.
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The tone of Joe Biden’s speeches has shifted slightly, with his departure from the White House growing nearer and the election having concluded.
Veterans Day is usually a somber and formal occasion, and Biden kept that tone in a brief speech from Arlington national cemetery earlier today, while noting that it would be his last time marking the day as president.
“This the last time I will stand here at Arlington as commander-in-chief,” Biden said.
“It’s been the greatest honor of my life to lead you, to serve you, care for you, to defend you, just as you defended us, generation, after generation, after generation.”
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While we still do not know all the names Donald Trump will pick for his cabinet positions, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports that the president-elect wants the chamber’s next Republican leader to allow him to circumvent the normal confirmation process to get his appointees in:
Donald Trump has demanded that the three frontrunners to lead the Senate allow him to appoint officials to his new administration without confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, as a future Republican government began to take shape the week after his election victory.
In a demonstration of his political muscle, the US president-elect urged support for “recess appointments”, which allow the president to make appointments while the Senate is temporarily paused, and can be used to circumvent the confirmation process, which can result in appointments being delayed or blocked.
The demand amounted to a full-frontal intervention in this week’s GOP’s election for a new Senate leader to replace Mitch McConnell, the party’s longtime leader who is retiring. The three men tipped to lead the Senate – Rick Scott, John Thune and John Cornyn – all quickly agreed to Trump’s request.
One of the biggest decisions Donald Trump has to make is who will be his attorney general.
The appointee will play a leading role in prosecuting the president-elect’s opponents, should Trump make good on his promise to do so.
Semafor reports that one potential candidate for the job has dropped out:
News: Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt told Trump transition that he's withdrawing his name from consideration for attorney general, per a person familiar. The Missouri senator will help select judges and work to move Trump's agenda in the Senate
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) November 11, 2024
Vance congratulates Stephen Miller on reported appointment to White House
Vice-president-elect JD Vance has congratulated immigration hardliner JD Vance on being appointed to a top White House position by Donald Trump:
This is another fantastic pick by the president. Congrats @StephenM! https://t.co/2kQCmbcRy3
— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 11, 2024
Unusually, Trump has not announced the appointment, and Vance is instead reacting to CNN’s reporting that Miller’s appointment is imminent.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are at Arlington national cemetery in Virginia, where they have just laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in honor of Veterans Day.
It is their first joint public appearance since Kamala Harris lost last week’s presidential election to Donald Trump.
Updated
In addition to pursuing hardline immigration policies, Stephen Miller was earlier this year reported to be putting together a plan to tackle “anti-white racism”, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports. Expect to hear more about that, if Miller is indeed appointed to a job in Donald Trump’s second administration:
The anti-immigration extremist, white nationalist and former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.
“Longtime aides and allies … have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints – some of which have been successful,” Axios said on Monday.
Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.
Such an effort would involve “eliminating or upending” programmes meant to counter racism against non-white groups.
The US supreme court, dominated 6-3 by rightwing justices after Trump installed three, recently boosted such efforts by ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
America First Legal, a group founded by Miller and described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, is helping drive plans for a second Trump term, Axios said.
In 2021, an AFL suit blocked implementation of a $29bn Covid-era Small Business Administration programme that prioritised helping restaurants owned by women, veterans and people from socially and economically disadvantaged groups.
Miller called that ruling “the first, but crucial, step towards ending government-sponsored racial discrimination”.
Trump to appoint immigration hardliner Stephen Miller to top White House job – report
Stephen Miller, an architect of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, is expected to return to the White House as his deputy chief of staff for policy, CNN reports, citing two sources familiar with the plan.
Here’s more, from CNN:
Miller, who served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first administration and has been a leading advocate for more restrictive immigration policy, is expected to take on an expanded role in the president-elect’s second term.
Miller is also a lead architect of Trump’s plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. He has said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the number of deportations to more than one million per year.
“President-elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration soon. Those decisions will be announced when they are made,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNN.
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With congresswoman Elise Stefanik heading to the United Nations and former acting Ice chief Tom Homan tasked with border security, who else may Donald Trump appoint to his cabinet?
The Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo has a look at the reported contenders for top roles:
With Democrats heading for the minority in the Senate, some party thinkers are encouraging liberal supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down.
That would clear the way for Democrats – in their final weeks controlling the Senate – to confirm a younger replacement for the 70-year-old, and perhaps prevent Republicans from making any new appointments to the court. But CNN reports that the justice has no plans to retire:
“She’s in great health, and the court needs her now more than ever,” said one person close to the justice.
Over the weekend, Bernie Sanders, an influential progressive senator who is allied with Democrats, poured cold water on Sotomayor stepping down, saying he did not think it would be a good idea:
The war in the Middle East was a major issue in last week’s election, with many Muslims and Arab Americans incensed by Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasions of Gaza and Lebanon.
That indignation played a part in handing Michigan, a swing state that’s home to some of the largest communities of the two groups in the United States, to Donald Trump. The Associated Press reports that Trump has become the first Republican candidate in 24 years to win the city of Dearborn, where almost half of residents are of Arab descent, and many did not trust Kamala Harris to restrain Israel.
Here’s more from the AP:
In Dearborn, where nearly half of the 110,000 residents are of Arab descent, Vice President Kamala Harris received over 2,500 fewer votes than Trump, who became the first Republican presidential candidate since former President George W. Bush in 2000 to win the city. Harris also lost neighboring Dearborn Heights to Trump, who in his previous term as president banned travel from several mostly-Muslim countries.
Harris lost the presidential vote in two Detroit-area cities with large Arab American populations after months of warnings from local Democrats about the Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering support for Israel in the war in Gaza. Some said they backed Trump after he visited a few days before the election, mingling with customers and staff at a Lebanese-owned restaurant and reassuring people that he would find a way to end the violence in the Middle East.
Others, including Amen, were unable to persuade themselves to back the former president. She said many Arab Americans felt Harris got what she deserved but aren’t “jubilant about Trump.”
“Whether it’s Trump himself or the people who are around him, it does pose a great deal of concern for me,” Amen said. “But at the end of the day when you have two evils running, what are you left with?”
As it became clear late Tuesday into early Wednesday that Trump would not only win the presidency but likely prevail in Dearborn, the mood in metro Detroit’s Arab American communities was described by Dearborn City Council member Mustapha Hammoud as “somber.” And yet, he said, the result was “not surprising at all.”
The shift in Dearborn — where Trump received nearly 18,000 votes compared with Harris’ 15,000 — marks a startling change from just four years ago when Joe Biden won in the city by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.
Updated
The Republican House majority leader, Steve Scalise, is celebrating congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s appointment as Donald Trump’s UN ambassador.
Scalise said, in a statement:
President Trump has made a fantastic choice with Conference Chair Elise Stefanik for US Ambassador to the United Nations. I will miss Elise, who has become a dear friend in the House as well as a respected leader as our Republican Conference Chair. She is extremely qualified for this new role in public service, and the House’s loss will be a huge gain for the Trump Administration and the country. There is nobody better to represent President Trump’s foreign policy and America’s values at the United Nations than Elise Stefanik.
Stefanik’s departure from the House means she will need to be replaced in a special election, but her district leans Republican, meaning Democrats will have a tough road to get one of their lawmakers in.
Updated
The GOP took control of the Senate in last week’s elections, by winning Democratic-held seats in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But ballots are still being counted in Pennsylvania, and Politico reports that Chuck Schumer, the Democrat who remains the Senate majority leader until the next Congress begins, is not inviting Republican David McCormick to new member orientation until his win is confirmed.
He is doing the same for Ruben Gallego, the Democratic Senate candidate in Arizona, where ballots are also still being counted, but Republicans are nonetheless calling foul over McCormick’s exclusion.
Here’s more, from Politico:
On Wednesday, Republican senators will vote for the next majority leader, who will begin serving in January. The three front-runners are Florida Sen. Rick Scott, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
When asked on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” who he would support for majority leader, McCormick told host Maria Bartiromo, “I’m still just now spending time with each of the candidates, and I will have an opportunity to vote this week.”
He added that he would not speak about the pros and cons of each candidate, but emphasized the need to be “in step with President Trump.”
In response to Schumer’s decision to prevent McCormick from participating, Republican politicians have been speaking out, including the majority leader-hopefuls.
“The idea that Schumer would not allow him to participate in Senate orientation is beyond unacceptable,” Thune wrote in a social media post Sunday. “The voters of Pennsylvania have spoken. Looking forward to having Dave’s strong voice in the Senate Republican Conference.”Scott called the move “disgusting” and said, “They did the same thing to me after I beat a Democrat in 2018. We have to fight this!”
Cornyn called on Casey to concede and reposted a statement by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), which said: “I can’t think of another time when a senator-elect has been excluded from the Senate’s week-long orientation for new senators.”
McCormick argued that there’s no way Casey can gain enough votes at this point to defeat him.
“Mathematically, there’s no path for Senator Casey to win,” McCormick said on Fox. “Currently, I’m up by something like 40,000 votes, which is a very significant margin. And ultimately, Senator Casey’s going to have to decide when he’s willing to acknowledge that.”
Judge to decide whether to overturn verdict in Trump fraud trial
Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Donald Trump’s business fraud trial in New York that saw him convicted of 34 felonies earlier this year, will tomorrow decide whether to overturn the verdict, Reuters reports.
At issue is the supreme court ruling that gives presidents immunity for certain acts. Here’s more:
Justice Juan Merchan has said he will make his decision by Tuesday. It is the first of two pivotal choices that the judge must make after Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory. Merchan also must decide whether to go ahead with sentencing Trump on Nov. 26 as currently scheduled. Legal experts have said sentencing now is unlikely to happen ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
A favorable ruling by Merchan for Trump on the immunity question or a sentencing delay would pave the way for him to return to the White House largely unencumbered by any of the four criminal cases that once appeared to threaten his ambitions to win back the White House.
Officials at the U.S. Justice Department are assessing how to wind down the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith due to its longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president. A separate case in Georgia involving state criminal charges concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss remains in limbo.
Trump, 78, pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing in all four cases, which he portrayed as political persecutions by allies of Democratic President Joe Biden designed to thwart his campaign.
“It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement on Friday.
The case is the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to reach a verdict, and Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November – though now that he is headed back to the White House, it is unclear if that will happen.
Updated
Biden and Harris to take part in events for Veterans Day
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will both take part in ceremonies honoring Veterans Day today.
The presidents will host an event with veterans and members of the military at the White House at 9am, then head to Arlington national cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Harris will join him for that, and will be there for the speech he has scheduled for 11.15am at a cemetery amphitheater.
Updated
The UK’s defence secretary, John Healey, has said Donald Trump is expected to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes to prevail” over Russia, the PA news agency reports.
Healey said he believes the incoming administration will be “steadfast” in backing Kyiv, downplaying concerns that the US will turn away from Nato under the president-elect.
But he cautioned that any potential peace talks were for Ukraine alone to call after a senior Trump adviser suggested Washington would be focused on resolving the conflict rather than helping the country regain territory.
Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised.
The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer is meeting his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris today to discuss Ukraine on Armistice Day. My colleague Andrew Sparrow has more on the UK government’s relationship with Trump in this post in the UK politics blog.
I am honoured to be in Paris to stand united with President @EmmanuelMacron in tribute to the fallen who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom we enjoy today. pic.twitter.com/L7AgLvOtc1
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) November 11, 2024
EPA staff fear Trump will destroy how it protects Americans from pollution
After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump’s last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House.
When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a “little bit of the EPA” left “because you can’t destroy business”, prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency’s 50-year history.
“People are anxious and apprehensive, [and] we are preparing for the worst,” said Nicole Cantello, an EPA water specialist and president of AFGE Local 704, representing agency staff in the midwest.
“We’ve had a taste of what will happen and how we were targeted last time,” she said. “By the emails and texts I’m getting, a lot of people will leave. So many things could be thrown at us that it could destroy the EPA as we know it.”
Cantello said the union is already seeking to shield itself by departing its office at the agency’s Washington headquarters, ditching the use of EPA computers and divorcing union dues from the federal payroll system. “We have to try to protect our people by being independent of the agency,” she said. “But folks will have to take stock over whether they can endure the attacks that are going to come their way.”
Such anxiety stems from the experiences of the last Trump administration, which removed a broad sweep of environmental regulations and attempted to cut the agency’s budget by a third.
You can read the full story by my colleagues, Oliver Milman and Tom Perkins, here:
The US president, Joe Biden, and President-elect Donald Trump will meet on Wednesday at the White House on Biden’s invitation. Trump, 78, will take office on 20 January. Biden, who has accused Trump of attempting to undermine the US’s system of government, has said he is determined to ensure a smooth transition of power.
“At President Biden’s invitation, President Biden and President-elect Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“I’m going to see him on Wednesday,” Biden told reporters on Saturday, when asked whether Trump was a threat to democracy.
Biden, a Democrat, had initially sought reelection but dropped out of the race in July after a disastrous debate against Trump. His decision to stay in the race for so long – despite concerns about his cognitive functioning – left the party without enough time to hold an open primary, something some Democrats have blamed for Kamala Harris’ defeat in the presidential election.
Updated
Republicans edging closer to full control of the US Congress with party nearing House majority
Republicans are close to clinching control of the US House of Representatives, a critical element for Donald Trump to advance his political agenda when he returns to the White House in January.
The Republicans already have a majority in the Senate and need to win just a few seats to take control of the 435-member House (a party needs 218 seats to win a House majority). According to our latest tally, Republicans have 214 seats, while the Democrats have 203.
Keeping hold of the House would give Republicans sweeping powers to potentially enact a broad agenda of tax and spending cuts, energy deregulation and border security controls. As well as giving the party the power to initiate spending legislation, control of the House would allow Republicans to launch impeachment proceedings against officials.
Updated
Many families risk being torn apart if Trump follows through with his mass deportation promise. My colleague Justo Robles reports on the devastating human cost this policy would have on millions of people across the US. Here is an extract from his story:
Immigration experts acknowledge that Trump’s notion will require major infrastructure, including new detentions camps, and they expect him to do what he says he plans to do.
“There are a lot of people in our community living in mixed-status families, so mass deportations are a direct threat,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a social justice law firm based in Los Angeles that serves people facing deportation.
She added: “The [2016] Trump administration has shown a disdain for immigrant children in the past, so it’s going to require organizers working with lawyers, working with communities, and we intend to challenge him in the courts”
Advocates warned that in his attempt to “secure the border”, Trump was likely to fulfill his pledge to restore many of his controversial immigration programs, such as the policy known as Remain in Mexico, which Joe Biden ended.
The program forced people seeking asylum in the US to wait in Mexico while their claims were processed. Between January 2019 and June 2021, 74,000 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico, vulnerable to kidnapping, extortion and sexual violence.
“We believe that the program violated US law because of the lack of allowing people access to counsel, so we will continue to challenge that program,” Toczylowski said.
In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Tom Homan said the military would not be rounding up and arresting immigrants in the country illegally and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would move to implement Trump’s plans in a “humane manner”.
“It’s going to be a well-targeted, planned operation conducted by the men of ICE. The men and women of ICE do this daily. They’re good at it,” he said. “When we go out there, we’re going to know who we’re looking for. We most likely know where they’re going to be, and it’s going to be done in a humane manner.”
Trump has promised that his campaign pledge to expel millions of undocumented immigrants would be implemented come what may.
Updated
Trump says former Ice director Tom Homan will be in charge of borders and deportations
US president-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), will be in charge of the country’s borders in his new administration.
Homan’s areas of control will include “the southern border, the northern border, all maritime, and aviation security”, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. Trump added that “border czar” Homan will be in charge of the deportation of illegal immigrants.
Homan, who served in Trump administration for a year and a half during his first term, is also a contender for secretary of homeland security.
Mass deportations – and housing migrants in camps – were a key part of Trump’s pitch on the campaign trail. Trump spoke favorably of Homan, telling Fox News host Harris Faulkner in July: “I have Tom Homan lined up, we have the greatest people.”
A Heritage fellow and Project 2025 author, Homan told this summer’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee he had “a message for the millions of illegal aliens who Joe Biden allowed to enter the country in violation of federal law – start packing, because you’re going home.”
At a panel on immigration policy in July, Homan said: “Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”
You can read more here:
NY congresswoman Elise Stefanik chosen by Trump to be new US ambassador to UN
The New York Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik has accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s offer to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a role once held by former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley.
Stefanik, a Trump-skeptic turned Trump-ally, is the House Republican Conference chair, making her the fourth-ranking House Republican.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to the New York Post.
As my colleague Peter Stone notes in this profile on Stefanik, the 40-year-old was among the first House members to endorse Trump’s 2024 re-election bid and has mirrored Trump’s false claims about his 2020 defeat and the January 6 insurrection by his allies who attacked the Capitol.
“I am truly honored to earn President Trump’s nomination to serve in his Cabinet as US Ambassador to the United Nations,” Stefanik said in a statement confirming her acceptance of Trump’s offer.
“During my conversation with President Trump, I shared how deeply humbled I am to accept his nomination and that I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate.”
“America continues to be the beacon of the world, but we expect and must demand that our friends and allies be strong partners in the peace we seek,” she added. An official announcement has not yet been made yet about the UN job, which is a role that comes with offices and a residence in New York.
Updated
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, has said the incoming US administration under Donald Trump should not be “pre-judged”. As we have been reporting, there is speculation that Trump may reduce military support to Kyiv in office, despite Ukrainian soldiers desperately needing weapons to fend off Russian attacks.
Trump has refused to elaborate when asked whether he thinks Zelenskyy should cede territory to Russia in negotiations to end the war, which he has characterised as a drag on American resources.
Stressing the need to continue supporting Kyiv, Barrot said Ukraine should determine the timing and conditions for engaging in any negotiation process.
Barrot told the Paris Peace Forum:
Facing the speculation on what could be the positions or initiatives of the new US administration, I think that we absolutely should not prejudge and we have to give it (the administration) time…
Ukraine, and beyond that the international community, would have too much to lose if Russia imposed the law of the strongest.
Palais de Chaillot, 7e édition du Forum de Paris sur la Paix (#PPF2024). Dans le cadre du panel consacré à l'Ukraine, sous le thème : "L'avenir de l'Ukraine à la croisée des chemins." - La France, par l'intermédiaire de Jean-Noël Barrot, ministre de l'Europe et des Affaires… pic.twitter.com/mJKrCsoFBQ
— Dworaczek-Bendome (@DworaczekBendom) November 11, 2024
During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would end the war, but did not specify how. You can read more about how Trump might handle the war in Ukraine in this explainer.
France’s defence minister said on Sunday that Paris was sending a new batch of long-range missiles to Ukraine so it could strike behind Russian lines.
“President Volodymr Zelenskyy has met President-elect Donald Trump numerous times and I don’t doubt that a strong relationship will be established with the new administration,” Barrot said.
Updated
The claims and counter-claims over the disputed call come amid trepidation in Europe over Trump’s approach to Ukraine. This morning, the British and French leaders are meeting in Paris to observe Armistice Day events but will also be discussing the implications of Trump’s victory.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow is covering UK political news and reports on the UK defence secretary John Healey talking down the risk that Trump’s re-election poses to Ukraine rather than talking it up.
Healey said he did not expect the US to turn away from Nato under Trump. He told Sky News:
I don’t expect the US to turn away from Nato. They recognise the importance of the alliance. They recognise the importance of avoiding further conflict in Europe.
Healey said US support for Nato “goes back decades, and that has remained, including through the previous President Trump administration”. He also said Trump had “rightly” pushed for European nations to spend more on defence.
Meanwhile, away from the disputed call, the race for a new Senate majority leader is heating up, with three Republicans vying for the spot. Senator Rick Scott of Florida has so far won the support from Trump’s Maga camp, including from RFK Jr, Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk.
Donald Trump has yet to announce an endorsement himself, though he said on Sunday that he would want a new leader to conduct “recess appointments”, a controversial method of getting cabinet members into office quickly while temporarily sidestepping a lengthy Senate confirmation process.
Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukraine withdraw from swathes of its eastern and southern territory as a precondition to peace talks, Agence France-Presse reports.
Following Donald Trump’s election, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned there should be “no concessions” to Putin.
Ceding land or giving in to any of Moscow’s other hardline demands would only embolden the Kremlin and lead to more aggression, he said.
Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of US military and economic aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised.
You can read our report on the Kremlin’s denial here:
During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the Ukraine war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so.
According to the Washington Post’s report of the call the US president-elect advised the Russian leader not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”.
Kremlin denies reports of Trump-Putin call over Ukraine
Reuters has more on the Kremlin’s denial that a Trump-Putin call took place.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
This is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, it’s just false information. There was no conversation. This is the most obvious example of the quality of the information that is being published now, sometimes even in fairly reputable publications.”
Updated
Good morning, and welcome to our US politics blog as the Kremlin denies reports that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have discussed the Ukraine war in a phone call, dismissing it as “pure fiction”.
The Washington Post first reported that the call between the Russian leader and the US president-elect took place on Thursday.
On Monday morning, Reuters reported that Putin has no specific plans to speak to Trump at the present, according to his Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Here’s our report on the disputed call:
