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Woman Killed, 10 Wounded in ‘Terrorist Attack’ at Bus Station in Israel
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One was killed and at least nine wounded in a terror attack after shots were heard at the Beersheba Central Bus Station in southern Israel on Sunday, the police said, qualifying the incident as a terror attack.

Magen David Adom (MDA) said its paramedics were providing medical treatment at the scene to nine individuals who had been wounded with various degrees of injuries, with reports of more.

The young woman who was critically injured succumbed to her wounds at the hospital. She was later identified as 19-year-old Israel Border Police Cpl. Shira Chaya Suslik from Beersheba; she leaves behind her parents and three siblings.

In addition, MDA said it was transferring to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba two people in serious condition, four people in moderate condition, and two individuals who had been lightly wounded.

According to Israeli media reports, the terrorist was believed to be Ahmad Said Suliman al-Ukabi, a 29-year-old Israeli citizen of Bedouin background.

“We provided initial treatment at the scene to a young woman who was seriously injured and was later transported to the hospital,” United Hatzalah updated.

“We treated another woman who was in critical condition and four people who were moderately and lightly to moderately injured. In addition, we assisted at the scene several people who suffered from emotional shock due to the nature of the incident.”

Condemnations across the spectrum

Following the attack, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the deportation of the terrorist despite his Israeli citizenship and his family, according to Israeli media.

“I call on the Prime Minister to pass the law we proposed today to deport families of terrorists. Pass the law of deporting families of terrorists,” he qualified this by saying,

“There are many Bedouins loyal to the state, but there are some who are not. Those who are unfaithful should be dealt with firmly.”

Mansour Abbas, head of Raam (United Arab List), condemned the attack, saying, “This is not the way of the Arab citizens who knew how to show a moral and legal civic commitment and abhor any kind of violence, and reject any attempt to drag them to participate in acts of political violence.”

The Forum of the Heads of the Bedouin Authorities in the Negev strongly condemned the attack and said it did not reflect human or moral values in the Bedouin community and is in complete contradiction to the common principles of life and peace.

They also warned that we should not allow any “extremist party/group” to take advantage of the situation to deepen societal rifts and sow division between the two peoples and called for increased cooperation and cohesion against terrorism.

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FBI Brass ‘Stunned’ and ‘Shell Shocked’ Over Trump Reelection

The brass on the seventh floor at FBI headquarters in Washington are walking around in a daze and wary of a housecleaning since President-elect Donald Trump won his reelection on Tuesday, according to inside sources.

The Washington Times learned through several anonymous bureau sources that senior executives who run the agency were “stunned” and “shellshocked” by Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” the first FBI source said, referring to the agency’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate have little chance of remaining at the bureau by the time Mr. Trump is sworn into office, sources say.

FBI employees also recall when Mr. Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017, five months after the president was sworn in.

“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what Trump did to Comey,” the first source said. “Trump will say, Yeah, ’fire his ass. Don’t let him take the plane home,” a reference to Mr. Comey finding out about his termination while flying to California on the bureau’s airplane.

Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wray as FBI director in 2017 after firing Mr. Comey. The director’s term is for 10 years, but serving a full term depends on gaining the confidence of the president.

Others on the 7th floor of the FBI are so concerned about their own jobs that they are likely to flood the Washington, D.C., private security job market, sources say.

According to most of the sources, no one in the FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe from losing their job after Mr. Trump is sworn in, and they fully expect the president-elect to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in,” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”

The FBI and Mr. Trump have a tense history, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign. Under Mr. Comey, the agency launched its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia in July 2016.

Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey in 2017 raised suspicions in the Justice Department that the president was obstructing justice, leading to special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-running and costly probe, which eventually found no evidence that Trump campaign officials conspired with or were connected to Moscow.

A subsequent government watchdog investigation found that FBI officials made numerous errors or omissions in secret warrant applications for surveillance of a Trump campaign aide.

More recently, The Washington Times exclusively reported about an FBI whistleblower’s protected disclosure to Congress that alleged Mr. Comey launched an off-the-books undercover criminal investigation against Mr. Trump after he began his first campaign in June 2015. The operation was not predicated on any particular case nor had any connection to Russia.

Mr. Trump also clashed with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired in 2018 hours before his retirement. Mr. McCabe went on to become a cable news analyst who was highly critical of Mr. Trump.

In August 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida and seized documents, leading to criminal charges against him of mishandling classified materials. That prosecution is now in jeopardy due to Mr. Trump’s reelection.

Many at the FBI remembered when Chief of Border Patrol Mark Morgan, a longtime FBI official, resigned six months into 2017 after Mr. Trump was sworn in. Mr. Trump later hired him to head up Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

Additionally, many on the 7th floor of the FBI are concerned about billionaire tech executive Elon Musk, owner of X and Tesla, being brought into the Trump administration as head of a government efficiency commission.

“When he tries to do efficiency at headquarters, the place is going to have five people … if he’s talking about a lot of dead weight,” a second FBI source said.

“Try to find a person that’s actually working,” the source said. “That may be the biggest problem there—that there’s no efficiency. So that’s actually the bigger threat. If you’re going to try to make the government efficient, you would start with the FBI, because if you do politics all the time, you’re probably bloated.”

FBI agents spent much of their time during the Biden administration seeking out, investigating and arresting Jan. 6 defendants, whom Mr. Trump has pledged to pardon at the beginning of his second term.

A third FBI source said some bureau personnel who are tired of the Jan. 6 investigations are amused “at the fact that Trump [likely] pardons everybody involved Jan. 6.”

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Israeli Soccer Fans Attacked in Amsterdam in Antisemitic Incidents — Bibi Orders Rescue Planes

Israeli soccer fans were beaten and injured in violent clashes in Amsterdam overnight, which Dutch authorities condemned Friday as antisemitic.

Dutch police said they had launched a major investigation into multiple incidents following the Europa League soccer game Thursday night between Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv and Dutch side Ajax.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said criminals on scooters searched the city in search of Maccabi supporters in “hit-and-run” attacks. “This is a terrible moment for our city. … I am very ashamed of the behavior that was shown last night,” she said in a Friday news conference.

Amsterdam authorities said Friday morning that five injured Israeli soccer fans have since been released from the hospital, and 20 to 30 other people were lightly injured. In total, 63 individuals were arrested and 10 remain in custody, police said.

Tensions had been rising in the lead up to Thursday night’s match with multiple social media videos showing Maccabi fans chanting anti-Arab slurs, praising Israeli military attacks in Gaza and yelling “f**k the Arabs.” Other videos apparently filmed in Amsterdam show men ripping Palestinian flags off buildings. It is unclear when those videos were filmed.

After the game, hundreds of Maccabi fans “were ambushed and attacked in Amsterdam,” the Israeli embassy to the United States said on social media platform X, sharing video of the violence.

One video shows a man being kicked while he lies on the ground, while another video shows a man being hit by a man yelling “free Palestine” and “for the children, motherf***er.” CNN has not yet been able to verify those videos.

Another video shows a man shouting “I am not Jewish” as he is chased down street, thrown to the ground and beaten.

Police have said the atmosphere at the stadium was relatively calm and fans left without incident after Ajax won the game 5-0, but during the night various clashes in the city center were reported.

The mayor of Amsterdam added, “There can be tensions there are many demonstrations and protests and we are always prepared for them, and of course, they are related to the situation in the Middle East and the ongoing war. But what happened last night wasn’t a protest. … It was crime.”

“There is no excuse for the antisemitic behavior exhibited last night by rioters who actively sought out Israeli supporters to attack and assault them,” local authorities in Amsterdam said Friday, adding that police intervened several times to protect fans and escort them to hotels.

Police earlier said they had boosted their presence in the city center on Wednesday night, citing “tensions” in several areas, one day ahead of the game.

Officers “prevented a confrontation between a group of taxi drivers and a group of visitors who came from the adjacent casino” on Wednesday, the police said in a statement on X, noting another incident, in which, a Palestinian flag was torn down in Amsterdam’s center by unknown perpetrators.

On Thursday, pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to reach the Johan Cruyff stadium, though the city had forbidden them to protest there, Reuters reported.

Kobi Elyahu, an Israeli soccer fan returning to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday evening, described the attacks against Israelis as “very frightening” and “like the 1940s.” He described seeing people locking themselves in hotels to escape, people throwing water and others “driving” and “stepping on” victims.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof called the attacks “terrible” and “horrific” while talking to journalists on Friday.

“There are always problems around football matches, and football matches regarding the Israeli team also has special attention from the police, but the things that happened last night are just terrible, horrific,” he said, before adding that he was “utterly ashamed” that this had happened in the Netherlands.

“This is completely unacceptable. I am in close contact with all parties involved and have just spoken to (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu by phone to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted,” he said, adding, “The situation in Amsterdam is now calm once more.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was shocked by the violence in Amsterdam, adding that he condemns all forms of antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry, UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay said during a Friday news briefing.

Netanyahu on Friday received a briefing from the country’s Foreign Ministry regarding efforts to return Israeli citizens from Amsterdam. During the meeting, Netanyahu compared the antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans to Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” when the Nazi regime attacked Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues and homes throughout Germany in 1938.

“Tomorrow, 86 years ago, was Kristallnacht – an attack on Jews, whatever Jews they are, on European soil. It’s back now – yesterday we celebrated it on the streets of Amsterdam. That’s what happened. There is only one difference – in the meantime, the Jewish state has been established. We have to deal with it,” Netanyahu said, according to a government statement.

In a separate statement from his office, Netanyahu urged Dutch authorities to “act firmly and quickly against the rioters and ensure the peace of our citizens.” He initially said he was ordering “rescue planes” to assist Israeli citizens, but his office later said it would focus on commercial flight solutions.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar traveled to the Netherlands in the wake of the attacks, which he condemned as “barbaric and antisemitic” and called them “a blaring alarm call for Europe and the world.”

Following a meeting with top Dutch officials on Friday, Sa’ar highlighted that Israel expected criminal proceedings to be taken against Thursday’s perpetrators. “We expect arrests, we expect a severe punishment,” Sa’ar said in a statement.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Friday that it “condemns anti-Arab chants by Israelis and attacks on the symbolism of the Palestinian flag in Amsterdam.” It also called on the Dutch government to “protect Palestinians and Arabs in the Netherlands.”

Israel’s National Security Council has urged citizens to avoid affiliated basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Friday night game against Virtus Bologna in Italy.

The Israeli foreign ministry is reviewing security for Israelis living abroad and for all future Israeli team sporting events in Europe, including enhancing cooperation with local authorities, an Israeli official told CNN.

Following the Amsterdam incident, some people in France have called for next week’s match between the French and Israeli national soccer teams to be relocated.

However, France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Friday: “France is not backing down, as this would be tantamount to abdicating in the face of threats of violence and antisemitism.” Security arrangements are being put in place for the match at the Stade de France near Paris, he added.

Meanwhile, European soccer’s governing body UEFA announced Monday that a Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Turkish football team Beşiktaş in late November will be moved to a neutral venue, following a decision by Turkish authorities.

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Who Could Trump Pick for His New Cabinet? Here Are Top Contenders

Donald Trump has begun the process of choosing a cabinet and selecting other high-ranking administration officials following his presidential election victory.

Here are the early picks and top contenders for some of the key posts overseeing defense, intelligence, diplomacy, trade, immigration and economic policymaking. Some are in contention for a range of posts.

SUSIE WILES, chief of staff

Trump on Thursday announced that Wiles, one of his two campaign managers, will be his White House chief of staff.

While the specifics of her political views are somewhat unclear, Wiles is credited with running a successful and efficient campaign. Supporters hope she would instill a sense of order and discipline that was often lacking during Trump’s first term, when he cycled through a number of chiefs of staff.

SCOTT BESSENT, potential treasury secretary

Bessent, a key economic adviser to Trump, is widely seen as a top candidate for treasury secretary. A longtime hedge fund investor who taught at Yale University for several years, Bessent has a warm relationship with the president-elect.

While Bessent has long favored the laissez-faire policies that were popular in the pre-Trump Republican Party, he has also spoken highly of Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiating tool. He has praised the president-elect’s economic philosophy, which rests on a skepticism of both regulations and international trade.

JOHN PAULSON, potential treasury secretary

Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager and major Trump donor, is another top contender for treasury secretary. The longtime financier has told associates he would be interested in the job.

A longtime proponent of tax cuts and deregulation, Paulson’s profile is broadly similar to that of other potential members of Trump’s economic team. He has publicly supported targeted tariffs as a tool to ensure U.S. national security and combat unfair trade practices abroad.

One high-profile fundraiser hosted by Paulson in April raked in over $50 million for the former president.

LARRY KUDLOW, potential treasury secretary

FOX Business Network personality Larry Kudlow, who served as director of the National Economic Council for much of Trump’s first term, has an outside shot at becoming his treasury secretary and would likely have an opportunity to take a separate economics-focused position if he is interested.

While he is privately skeptical of broad tariffs, there is publicly little daylight between the policies Kudlow advocates and those of the president-elect.

ROBERT LIGHTHIZER, potential treasury secretary

A loyalist who served as Trump’s U.S. trade representative for essentially the then-president’s entire term, Lighthizer will almost certainly be invited back. Though Bessent and Paulson likely have a better shot at becoming treasury secretary, Lighthizer has an outside chance, and he might be able to reprise his old role if he’s interested.

Like Trump, Lighthizer is a trade skeptic and a firm believer in tariffs. He was one of the leading figures in Trump’s trade war with China and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada during Trump’s first term.

HOWARD LUTNICK, potential treasury secretary

The co-chair of Trump’s transition effort and the longtime chief executive of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Lutnick is in the running for treasury secretary.

A bombastic New Yorker like Trump, Lutnick has uniformly praised the president-elect’s economic policies, including his use of tariffs.

He has at times given elaborate, unvarnished opinions about what policies will be enacted in Trump’s second term. Some Trump allies had privately complained that he too often presented himself as speaking on behalf of the campaign.

RICHARD GRENELL, potential secretary of state

Grenell is among Trump’s closest foreign policy advisers. During the president-elect’s first four-year term, he served as acting director of national intelligence and U.S. ambassador to Germany. When Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in September, Grenell sat in on the private meeting.

Grenell’s private dealings with foreign leaders and often-caustic personality have made him the center of multiple controversies, though significant Republican gains in the Senate mean he could likely be confirmed. He is also considered a top contender for national security adviser, which does not require Senate confirmation.

Among the policies he has advocated for is setting up an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine to end the war there, a position Kyiv considers unacceptable.

ROBERT O’BRIEN, potential secretary of state

O’Brien, Trump’s fourth and final national security adviser during his first term, maintains a close relationship with Trump, and the two often speak on national security matters.

He is likely in the running for secretary of state or other top foreign policy and national security posts. He has maintained close contacts with foreign leaders since Trump left office, having met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in May.

His views are somewhat more hawkish than some of Trump’s advisers. He has, for instance, been more supportive of military aid for Ukraine than many of his Republican contemporaries, and he is a proponent of banning TikTok in the United States.

BILL HAGERTY, potential secretary of state

A U.S. senator from Tennessee who worked on Trump’s 2016 transition effort, Hagerty is considered a top contender for secretary of state. He has maintained solid relations with essentially all factions of the Republican Party, and could likely be confirmed with ease in the Senate.

He served as U.S. ambassador to Japan in the first Trump administration at a time when the president touted his warm relationship with then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Hagerty’s policies are broadly in line with those of Trump. Earlier in the year, he voted against a major military aid package for Ukraine.

MARCO RUBIO, potential secretary of state

Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, is also a top secretary of state contender whose policies hew closely to those of Trump. Like Hagerty, he was a contender to be Trump’s 2024 running mate.

Rubio has long been involved in foreign affairs in the Senate, particularly as it relates to Latin America, and he has solid relationships throughout the party.

MIKE WALTZ, potential defense secretary

A former Army Green Beret who is currently a U.S. congressman from Florida, Waltz has established himself as one of the foremost China hawks in the House of Representatives. Among the various China-related bills he has co-sponsored are measures designed to lessen U.S. reliance on critical minerals mined in China.

Waltz is on speaking terms with Trump and is widely considered to be a serious contender for secretary of defense.

MIKE POMPEO, potential defense secretary

Pompeo, who served as CIA director and secretary of state during Trump’s first term, is considered a top contender for secretary of defense but could land in various slots involving national security, intelligence or diplomacy.

While he flirted with a Republican primary challenge against Trump, Pompeo never pulled the trigger, and he is now back on friendly terms with the president-elect after a period of awkwardness. He stands out as possibly the fiercest defender of Ukraine among Trump’s close allies, a position that puts him at odds with most high-ranking figures in his potential boss’s camp.

KEITH KELLOGG, potential candidate for national security posts

A retired lieutenant general who served as chief of staff to the National Security Council under Trump, Kellogg has Trump’s ear and is a contender for several national security-related positions, though it is unclear precisely where he would land.

During the campaign, he presented Trump with a plan to end the war in Ukraine, which involved forcing both parties to the negotiating table and ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine for the foreseeable future, among other measures.

TOM HOMAN, potential homeland security secretary

Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a year and a half during Trump’s first term, is a contender for secretary of homeland security. Trump made cracking down on illegal immigration the central element of his campaign, promising mass deportations.

Trump frequently praised Homan during the campaign, and Homan often hit the trail to rally supporters. During Trump’s first term, Homan was a leading advocate of the administration’s controversial child separation policy, during which children of immigrants who had entered the country illegally were detained separately from their parents.

CHAD WOLF, potential homeland security secretary

Wolf, who served as Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security for roughly 14 months during his first presidency, may have a shot at heading back to DHS.

Wolf loyally carried out Trump’s hardline immigration policies, and he deployed federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to control protests during the riots that followed the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer.

He may have some strikes against him. He resigned on Jan. 11, 2021, just days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has expressed misgivings about bringing back those who resigned in the final days of his term. Wolf, however, cited the legal controversy around his appointment as DHS secretary – rather than the Capitol attack – when he stepped down. Multiple judges ruled that his appointment by Trump, which effectively circumvented the Senate, was illegal.

MARK GREEN, potential homeland security secretary

A former Army flight surgeon and the current chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Green is considered by some Trump allies in Washington as a contender for the top job at DHS. His supporters describe him as a Trump loyalist and immigration hardliner who also has significant legislative experience.

Green was nominated by Trump during his first term to serve as secretary of the Army, but he withdrew his name as past statements, which were widely seen as transphobic and Islamophobic, drew more scrutiny.

JOHN RATCLIFFE, potential attorney general

A former congressman and prosecutor who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s last year in office, Ratcliffe is seen as a potential attorney general, though he could also take a separate national security or intelligence position.

The president-elect’s allies view Ratcliffe as a hardcore Trump loyalist who could likely win Senate confirmation. Still, during his time as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe often contradicted the assessments of career civil servants, drawing criticism from Democrats who said he politicized the role.

MIKE LEE, potential attorney general

A U.S. senator from Utah, Lee is widely seen as another top candidate for attorney general. Though the former prosecutor declined to vote for Trump during the 2016 election, he later became an unwavering ally, and he has become something of an intellectual hero among some factions of Trumpworld.

Lee was a key figure in attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, and has spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

KASH PATEL, potential candidate for national security posts

A former Republican House staffer who served in various high-ranking staff roles in the defense and intelligence communities during Trump’s first term, Patel has frequently appeared on the campaign trail to rally support for the candidate.

Some Trump allies would like to see Patel, considered the ultimate Trump loyalist, appointed CIA director. Any position requiring Senate confirmation may be a challenge, however.

Patel has leaned into controversy throughout his career. In an interview with Trump ally Steve Bannon last year, he promised to “come after” politicians and journalists perceived to be enemies of the president-elect. During Trump’s first term, Patel drew animosity from some more experienced national security officials, who saw him as volatile and too eager to please the then-president.

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Meet Susie Wiles — Trump’s White House Chief of Staff

President-elect Donald Trump made history twice this week, first by winning the White House for a second time as a former president, and then by naming Susie Wiles to be his chief of staff.

Wiles, a longtime GOP operative and advisor to Trump, will be the first woman to hold that coveted position in American history. By all accounts, she has earned it. Wiles is credited with tightening up Trump’s campaign operations after his 2020 loss and helping him win both the Electoral College and national popular vote in 2024 – an achievement that has eluded Republican candidates for president for 20 years.

“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,” Trump said in a statement on Thursday, announcing her White House appointment.

“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,” he said.

However, while Wiles is known, respected and even feared in Florida, she is not well-known in Washington, D.C., and certainly not nationally. So who is Susie Wiles? Here are five things to know about the next White House chief of staff:

Her father was a legendary NFL broadcaster, and she helped him overcome addiction

Wiles is the daughter of late legendary NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall. Summerall was an NFL champion kicker and the lead color commentator alongside John Madden on CBS for more than two decades.

During his broadcast career, Summerall admitted to becoming an alcoholic. In his 2006 biography, he recounted how his daughter, Susie, staged an intervention for him and helped him break addiction.

“Dad, the few times we’ve been out in public together recently, I’ve been ashamed we shared the same last name,” Wiles said in a letter that was read during the intervention, according to Summerall’s 2006 autobiography, “On and Off the Air.”

Summerall wrote that the words of his daughter inspired him to take steps to address his addiction.

Her first job in politics was with her father’s old teammate

In the late 1970s, Wiles was hired as an assistant to Summerall’s old teammate on the New York Giants, someone who went on to have a long and successful career in the House of Representatives and later be nominated for vice president. That was none other than the late Jack Kemp, one of the chief backers of former President Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economics theories and architect of the Regan tax cuts.

Wiles went on to work for Reagan himself as a scheduler for his 1980 presidential campaign and later the White House. She left Washington, D.C., for Florida in the 1990s and served as chief of staff to John Delaney, the mayor of Jacksonville. She also worked as the district director for Rep. Tillie Fowler in Northeast Florida.

Delaney heaped praise on Wiles in an interview for Politico Magazine. “I’ve described her as a political savant — just otherworldly sort of political instincts,” he said.

Wiles continued to be a fixture of Florida politics for decades, eventually helping a health care executive named Rick Scott become governor in 2010. Scott is now Florida’s junior senator and this week is celebrating his re-election to a second term.

She once described herself as a ‘card-carrying member of the GOP establishment,’ but supported Trump

Wiles has worked for every stripe of Republican imaginable, from moderate to hard-line conservative. However, she surprised her friends and allies when, in 2015, she decided to become the Trump campaign’s co-chairwoman in Florida.

“As a card-carrying member of the G.O.P. establishment, many thought my full-throated endorsement of the Trump candidacy was ill advised — even crazy,” Wiles told the New York Times in a rare public statement.

Though faced with skepticism, Wiles explained to the Tampa Bay Times at the time that she believed no other Republican running for the presidency in 2016 was prepared to deliver the change she felt Washington, D.C., needed. She said national Republicans had developed “an expediency culture” and lost sight of core principles.

“I said, ‘I don’t want this to continue.’ I think it seriously will damage our republic and who among that group can really have the fortitude to shift what I’ve seen happening over all these years?” Wiles told the paper.

It turned out that her instincts were right. Trump won the primary and shocked the political establishment by defeating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in an upset.

She helped Ron DeSantis become governor before a falling out

In 2018, a young Florida congressman named Ron DeSantis decided to run for governor. He won a contested Republican primary thanks to Trump’s endorsement, but his campaign was struggling and behind in the polls.

With a little more than a month before the election, DeSantis hired Wiles to right the ship. Her guidance is largely credited with pushing DeSantis over the finish line in a narrow victory over disgraced former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum.

However, a rift grew between DeSantis and Wiles after the election. Politico reported that state first lady Casey DeSantis was suspicious of Wiles’ growing influence and power in the governor’s orbit. Eventually, Wiles was edged out of DeSantis’ inner circle.

She wound up back in Trump’s orbit for his unsuccessful 2020 campaign and remained a close and valued advisor as he plotted a return to the White House in 2024. She was with the Trump campaign when DeSantis mounted his own campaign for president, and many suspect Trump’s team used Wiles’ insider knowledge of DeSantis to defeat the Florida governor.

In January, Wiles responded to a report on X that DeSantis had cleared his campaign website of upcoming events.

“Bye, bye,” she wrote.

She is a registered lobbyist

In addition to her work on political campaigns, Wiles is a registered lobbyist.

Federal disclosures filed in April show Wiles was a lobbyist for the tobacco company Swisher International while running the Trump campaign. The documents show she worked to influence Congress on “FDA regulations.”

WIles is the co-chair for the Florida and Washington, D.C., offices of Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm whose clients include AirBnB, AT&T, eBay, Pfizer, Tesla, and the Embassy of Qatar, although she is not a registered lobbyist for any of those clients.

Previously, Wiles worked for Ballard Partners, a Florida-based firm started by lobbyist Brian Ballard.

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Trump’s First Task: Closing the Border and Here Are His Plans

President-elect Donald Trump will face many challenges on his return to the White House unwinding the policies of his predecessor, but one of his top priorities is closing the southern border and reversing the illegal immigration crisis.

To do this, Trump plans to supercharge border patrol, combat sanctuary cities, complete his wall, and battle the cartels to end the immigration crisis, according to campaign promises, policy documents from allied groups, and former officials.

Mark Morgan, who served as the Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the first Trump administration and also served under the Obama Administration, said the new leadership will move to restore the polices revoked by President Biden and supercharge the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin removing illegal aliens—marking a return to “common sense policies.”

Morgan told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show that Trump will use the existing statutory authorities of the immigration enforcement agencies and “infuse what I call a whole of government injection of steroids” to increase the magnitude of enforcement.

Trump is expected to prioritize the completion of his signature border wall. This will be closely followed by his pledge to implement the “largest deportation program” in American history as well as efforts to combat the power of the Mexican drug cartels.

Morgan also said a key component of resolving the crisis will be cracking down on sanctuary cities for refusing to cooperate with ICE, a policy that hindered Trump’s prior deportation efforts. “We’ve got to unleash state and local law enforcement to be able to actually assist ICE with identifying criminals in their cities to remove them,” Morgan said.

“I think that’s where they’re going to be taking a look at where can they actually hold back funding and put a maximum pressure campaign on these sanctuary cities,” he continued.

Trump has consistently taken a tough approach to border security during his political career, choosing the issue as one of the centerpieces of his first campaign for president in 2016. The issue was widely cited as a major factor in both his rise and successful campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Trump promised during the 2024 campaign that he would complete the southern border wall and beef up border patrol.

“We will complete the Border Wall, shift massive portions of Federal Law Enforcement to Immigration Enforcement, and use advanced technology to monitor and secure the Border,” the Republican Party platform, designed by Trump and his allies, promises.

Outline of steps

Key proposals have also been outlined by the America First Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank comprised of former Trump administration officials and loyalists, including former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, who have spent the four years developing plans for Trump’s return to the White House.

In a policy document, the institute outlined the steps that a future Trump administration could take to solve the crisis, including proposals to use the military to fight back against the drug cartels and finishing the wall.

During an October visit to the border on the campaign trail, Trump unveiled a plan expand the U.S. border patrol by 10,000 agents and give current employees raises and bonuses in a bid to bolster the agency’s ability to confront and stop migrants at the border and restore morale that Trump says was lost during the Biden era. He said that he would ask Congress to immediately act on the proposal.

“They have a tremendous shortage because they haven’t been treated right. They want to do their jobs. You know, they consider it bad treatment when you’re not allowed to do your jobs,” Trump said.

“Wage war on the cartels”

After securing the border, Trump plans to turn to fighting back against the drug cartels that dominate cross-border human and drug trafficking. They are a major culprit in the volume of illegal immigration and also for spikes in drug overdose deaths, especially fentanyl.

“The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” Trump said on the campaign trail.

The Trump campaign promised to deploy military resources, including special forces and other means, to “inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.” In addition to designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Trump also promised he would work with other governments to fully dismantle the cartels, which are heavily entrenched throughout Mexico.

Deportation resonates with voters

On the home front, Trump plans to organize the largest deportation operation in history to remove illegal aliens from the country, citing the precedent of President Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback, the largest deportation of undocumented workers from the United States in a tactical operation by border patrol in cooperation with the Mexican government.

Trump promised on the campaign trail that this deportation would beat that record. “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in American history,” Trump promised during a rally in Reading, Pa. “We’re going to get them out.”

“Dwight Eisenhower has the record” for deportations, Trump went on. “He was a very moderate kind of a guy who [was] a good general [and] a good president… did a good job, but he hated the concept of people pouring into our country, and he has the record, but we’re going to, unfortunately, beat the records, not something I want to do.”

“Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it” became one of then-candidate Trump’s most popular refrains, though the construction would remain incomplete when he left office in 2021. Several unfinished sections remain on the southern border, a testament to the Biden administration’s rapid efforts to reverse all of Trump’s immigration policies, chief of which was to halt construction.

Trump promised on the campaign trail he would restore the policies from that first term that were jettisoned by President Biden on day one, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy that released pressure on immigration officials trying to process asylum claims, which overwhelmed the current system.

Biden also reversed Trump’s travel ban – the blueprints of which were actually drawn by his predecessor Barack Obama’s administration – on select Middle Eastern and North African countries plagued by unrest and terrorist groups. Biden also directed the Department of Homeland Security to reverse a Trump-era executive order that ordered harsh immigration enforcement.

These policy reversals, Biden critics contend, sparked the largest border crisis in American history. Since January 2021, when President Biden was inaugurated, there have been 10 million migrant encounters, 80% of which were at the southern border.

The staggering numbers became an albatross for Democrats and particularly for Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the party’s nominee. Near the beginning of Biden’s term, Harris was given the task of addressing the “root causes” of the immigration crisis, for which she was referred to by pro-Biden media colloquially as the “border czar.”

Too little, too late

Shortly before the election, Biden signed an executive order to crack down on the illegal immigrant flows at the southern border as Democrats begun to realize it was a political liability. Critics said it was only a stopgap measure to improve his election chances. The order promised to address the overwhelmed asylum system by shutting down the border after encounters reached a threshold of 2,500 per day over a seven day period.

At the time, Biden was still a candidate and his approval rating on the border stood at an abysmal 33.4%.

Harris was chosen to replace Biden at the top of the ticket. Yet still, while running against Trump, Harris consistently received lower marks on immigration than her opponent. Exit polls suggest this was a liability for her. The Associated Press exit polls found that the issue may have played a decisive role in the election, especially the chief battlegrounds in the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all of which were won by Trump.

To Congressman-elect Abe Hamadeh of Arizona, the fact that Trump calls for better immigration enforcement is no surprise.

“We cannot continue as a country with 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants pouring across our southern border,” Hamadeh told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “So if you look at it, it’s not a surprise to me that President Trump won overwhelmingly and won the popular vote, Electoral College and united Arab Americans, Latino Americans, black Americans. It was the biggest coalition ever.”

“And it’s because all of these issues that we constantly talk about in the country the campaign trail resonates with the people,” he added.

The exit polls found support for Trump’s deportation plans ballooned to 40% of voters, up from the last election in 2020. Immigration was cited as the most important issue for Trump voters, according to a CNN exit poll. Immigration also ranked as the fifth highest issue in a pre-election Pew Research poll, with over 70% of respondents ranking the issue extremely or very important.

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Trump’s Plan for America’s 250th Birthday Party

A video of former and president-elect Donald Trump has resurfaced since Tuesday’s election of him pledging to honor America’s 250th birthday by working with all 50 governors to hold a “Great American State Fair” in 2026 if he were elected.

In the video, posted on May 31, 2023, Trump said, “As a nation, we should be preparing for the most spectacular birthday party” to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, adding, “We want to make it the best of all time.”

Trump said he plans to hold the Great American State Fair at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and coordinate with all 50 governors to feature pavilions at the one-time event from all fifty states.

“The Great American State Fair will showcase the glory of every state in the Union, promote pride in our history, and put forth innovative visions for America’s future…Together we will build it, and they will come,” Trump said at the time.

Trump said he would convene a White House task force called “Salute to America 250” which would be responsible for “coordinating with state and local governments to ensure not just one day of celebration, but an entire year of festivities across the nation starting on Memorial Day 2025 and continuing through July 4th, 2026.”

In addition, Trump said he would create the “Patriot Games” for high school students across the nation to “allow young Americans from every state to show off the best of American skill, sportsmanship, and competitive spirit.”

Finally, Trump said he would again sign an executive order to create a “National Garden of American Heroes” to feature sculptures honoring “great figures of America’s history” – an idea signed by Trump during his first term in office which was revoked by President Joe Biden in 2021.

In 2026, Trump said the nation’s tourist industry should expect a “record year” as he will invite leaders and citizens of nations around the world to visit the U.S in honor of its 250th anniversary.

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Popular Shoe Retailer Begins Moving Production Out of China Hours After Trump’s Victory

As President-elect Trump’s proposed tariffs loom over the U.S. economy, one popular shoe company is already planning to move production out of China.

Steve Madden’s CEO announced on a post-earnings call Thursday — less than 48 hours after Trump’s victory — that the retailer has put a “plan into motion” that cuts Chinese sourcing up to 45%.

“You should expect to see the percentage of goods that we source from China to begin to come down more rapidly going forward,” CEO Edward Rosenfeld said.

The trendy shoe retailer also noted it would focus more of its operations at factory bases in Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and Cambodia.

“Just under half of our current business would be potentially subject to tariffs on Chinese imports (if Trump decides to impose tariffs when he takes office in January),” another company executive said, according to Reuters.

“Our goal over the next year is to reduce the percentage of goods we source from China by approximately 40% to 45%,” the executive added.

Since February, Trump has honed in on using tariffs as a strategic negotiation policy. The former president has floated a tariff of 20% on goods from other countries and 60% on imports from China. During a sit-down interview with Maria Bartiromo, Trump confirmed that his tariff plan would be used as a leveraging tool, and suggested imposing a 200% tax on vehicles from Mexico.

“I think Trump will pursue this more as a bargaining chip than as a cudgel to necessarily broadly punish different countries,” The Lonski Group President and founder John Lonski said in reaction on “Mornings with Maria” on Friday.

“He’s going to go to China and say, ‘Listen, unless you make some changes in your trade practices, unless you become less belligerent, you are going to be facing higher tariffs.’ And why not use tariffs as a bargaining chip? I see no reason not to do so,” he continued.

Lonski expanded on the macroeconomic impact: “As far as the United States economy is concerned, it’s absolutely madness if we don’t take steps to protect industries that are vital to national security. This isn’t only a defense, but it’s also [for] some of the pharmaceutical industries, the production of drugs. We can’t become overly reliant on foreign supplies.”

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Secret Service Robot Dogs Protect Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

Donald Trump’s got a new pack watching his back … ’cause new video shows robot dogs keeping a close eye on the president-elect.

New video taken at Mar-a-Lago shows the robotic rovers prancing across the lawn … check it out, they’re patrolling outside the club, looking for danger. No need for the dogs to go feral on anyone in this clip — but, they’re ready to sic some bad guys if they try to get at Trump.

We’ve confirmed with a Secret Service source … these are assets used by the agency, equipped with surveillance technology and a ton of sensors to beef up their protective operations.

We also know armed boat patrols are keeping an eye on Mar-a-Lago too … so, robot canines aren’t the only Secret Service assets protecting Trump.

BTW … we knew the Secret Service had this technology — ’cause they debuted it over the summer at a NATO summit.

In the clip, a Secret Service scientist says the dogs are operated by a user, like drones or remote control cars … so, there’s no danger of the robo-dogs gaining free will and choosing to chase their tails all day instead of protecting DJT.

It makes sense the Secret Service would deploy any and all measures at their disposal … Donald Trump’s already been the target of two assassination attempts — with a bullet striking his ear at his Pennsylvania rally in July.

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Trump Picks Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff

Susie Wiles, a longtime GOP operative, will serve as President-elect Trump’s White House chief of staff.

Largely avoiding the spotlight, Wiles has been widely credited for running what was Trump’s most disciplined and well-executed campaign.

During his victory celebration in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump gave a special thanks to Wiles for her prominent role in the campaign.

“Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie [Wiles] and Chris [LaCivita], on the job you did. Susie, come, Susie,” he said. “Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice baby. We call her the ice baby. Susie likes to stay in the background. She’s not in the background.”

Trump described Wiles as “tough, smart, innovative” and said she is “universally admired and respected.”

He noted her place as the first female chief of staff in U.S. history, saying: “I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”

Veteran GOP strategist John Brabender told Fox News Digital: “If they searched high and low in the entire world, there is not a better choice than Susie Wiles for White House Chief of Staff.”

When it comes to Wiles, Brabender said, “nobody’s going to have a better relationship with the president, who understands that she is there to help him however she can, and he will respect that.”

“Susie will have no other agenda than helping the president help people,” Brabender emphasized. And he noted that “everybody who works for Susie in the White House will be vetted by Susie which means that there’re going to be nothing but the best.”

A longtime Florida-based Republican strategist who ran Trump’s campaign in the state in 2016 and 2020, Wiles’ decades-long political career stretches back to working as former President Reagan’s campaign scheduler for his 1980 presidential bid.

Wiles also ran Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida governor and briefly served as the manager of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Wiles currently serves as a senior adviser to Trump and is campaign co-chair alongside Chris LaCivita.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was previously floated as a possible contender for chief of staff, but recently told “The Guy Benson Show” that he would not take the position if it was offered.

“People always ask if I’m going to be chief of staff — no, I’m not going to be… that’s a no,” he said.

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Republican McCormick Flips Pennsylvania Senate Seat — But Casey Refuses to Concede

Republican David McCormick has won Pennsylvania’s pivotal U.S. Senate seat, as the former CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund beat three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in Tuesday’s election after accusing the incumbent of supporting policies that led to inflation, domestic turmoil and war.

The victory pads Republicans’ majority in the Senate, which they wrested from Democratic control this week, and clocked in as the nation’s second-most expensive race while playing out alongside the presidential contest won by Republican Donald Trump in the nation’s premier battleground state.

McCormick, 59, recaptured a GOP seat in Pennsylvania after Republicans lost one in 2022, paying off a bet that party brass made when they urged McCormick to run and consolidated support behind him.

In an interview on Fox News shortly after The Associated Press called the race Thursday, the Trump-endorsed McCormick said “people want change.”

“They’re deeply distressed by the skyrocketing prices, the wide-open border, the crime in our cities, the war on fossil fuels, and they want change and common-sense leadership and that’s why I think they elected President Trump and I think that’s why they have elected me,” McCormick said.

Republican strategists largely credited McCormick’s win to Trump’s strong performance in Pennsylvania, beating Vice President Kamala Harris by about 2% as Democrats navigated headwinds like voter dissatisfaction over inflation under President Joe Biden.

That was enough to pull McCormick to victory, they said.

Beating Casey is earth-shaking for Pennsylvania’s Democratic establishment. Casey is the namesake of a former two-term governor and Pennsylvania’s longest-serving Democrat ever in the Senate.

Until Tuesday, Casey, 64, had won six statewide general elections going back to 1996, but he had never been on the same ballot as Trump.

With votes still being counted, McCormick led Casey by about 31,000 votes, or half a percentage point.

Casey did not concede Thursday, and his campaign pointed to a statement from the state’s top election official that at least 100,000 ballots still remained to be counted, including provisional ballots and military and overseas ballots.

In a statement, Casey said the vote-counting process must be allowed to play out and every vote counted.

“I have dedicated my life to making sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard, whether on the floor of the Senate or in a free and fair election,” Casey said. He added, “That is what Pennsylvania deserves.”

McCormick drew on contacts from across the worlds of government, politics and finance to secure backing for his campaign after he was CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, and served at the highest levels of former President George W. Bush’s administration.

It was McCormick’s second time running, this time with a clear primary and Trump’s endorsement. He lost narrowly to the Trump-endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022’s expensive seven-way primary.

His wealth — he’ll be one of the wealthiest senators when he joins the chamber — and connections got him flagged by Republicans as someone who could both raise campaign cash and pay his own way for a Senate campaign.

McCormick drummed out the consistent message that Casey was a do-nothing and weak career politician who was a key ally of Biden and Harris. McCormick maintained that he would bring leadership to the job.

McCormick also benefited from tens of millions of dollars in campaign cash from allies from across the worlds of hedge funds and securities trading.

He ran an energetic campaign, often traveling by bus around the state, and appeared on stage at almost every Trump rally in Pennsylvania, Trump’s most visited state.

McCormick was at ease in front of TV cameras, a skill he honed as a top Treasury Department official giving regular media briefings during the onset of the 2008-09 recession and a prominent figure on Wall Street who was sought after for speaking engagements.

He has a long resume that includes being decorated for his Army service in the Gulf War, earning a Ph.D from Princeton University, running online auction house FreeMarkets Inc. — which had its name on a skyscraper in Pittsburgh during the tech boom — and sitting on the boards of prominent institutions, including Trump’s Defense Advisory Board.

McCormick had baggage, too.

He repeatedly tried to soften his stance against abortion rights after celebrating the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn 1972’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision and end a half-century of federal protection of the right to an abortion. In the end, McCormick insisted that he would oppose a federal ban on abortion and leave in place Pennsylvania’s law that allows an abortion up to the 24th week of gestation.

He also worked to ease concerns over Republican control of the Senate, saying he wouldn’t vote to end the filibuster, a Senate rule that effectively makes 60 the minimum number of votes needed to pass legislation as a means to provide a check on the majority.

McCormick had to absorb accusations — first in 2022’s GOP primary and then again by Casey — that he was a rich carpetbagger from Connecticut’s ritzy Gold Coast trying to buy a Senate seat. McCormick lived there until he ran for Senate in 2022 and, while he bought a house in Pittsburgh, he also maintained a massive home in Connecticut until a daughter graduated high school earlier this year.

McCormick, in turn, stressed his seventh-generation roots in Pennsylvania, talked up his high school days wrestling in towns across northern Pennsylvania — a sport that took him to the U.S. military academy at West Point — and growing up the son of two educators. His father became the first chancellor of Pennsylvania’s state-owned university system — under Casey’s father.

Still, McCormick helped bring the carpetbagger caricature to life by mispronouncing the name of one of Pennsylvania’s best-known local beers.

McCormick also suffered through a legion of attacks on his hedge fund’s investments, including accusations that he got rich at America’s expense by buying shares in Chinese companies that the federal government later came to consider part of Beijing’s military and surveillance industrial complex.

McCormick, meanwhile, tried to capitalize on turmoil in the Middle East and at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

McCormick blamed Casey for supporting Biden administration border policies that he said had enabled illegal immigration and for backing policies that he said had empowered Iran to destabilize the Middle East.

He made a bid for Jewish voters by traveling to the Israel-Gaza border, speaking to Jewish audiences across the state and arguing that Casey and the Biden administration have not fought antisemitism or backed Israel strongly enough in the Israel-Hamas war.

On the border, he backed Trump’s pledge to carry out a mass deportation of immigrants in the country without permission — prioritizing people with criminal records — and vowed to press for U.S. military action in Mexico to target fentanyl trafficking networks, a controversial idea that originated with Trump.

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Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden Legalization Program for Illegal Immigrant Spouses

A Texas federal judge on Thursday struck down the Harris-Biden administration’s plan to fast track permanent residency for illegal migrants married to American citizens.

US District Judge J. Campbell Barker’s ruling comes two months after he issued an order temporarily pausing the administration’s so-called “Parole in Place” program, which sought to grant work authorization, permanent residency and eventually citizenship to spouses and stepchildren of US citizens who have been in the country for at least 10 years.

“The Rule exceeds statutory authority and is not in accordance with law,” Barker wrote in his 74-page ruling, adding that the policy “focuses on the wrong thing in identifying ‘significant public benefits’ — the benefits of aliens’ new legal status, rather than their presence in this country.”

The judge, an appointee of President-elect Donald Trump, found that “history and purpose confirm that defendants’ view stretches legal interpretation past its breaking point.”

The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by 16 Republican-led states in August arguing that the program “incentivizes illegal immigration and will irreparably harm” the states.

The lawsuit further contended that the “Biden-Harris Administration — dissatisfied with the system Congress created, and for blatant political purposes — has yet again attempted to create its own immigration system.”

President Biden announced the Parole in Place program in June, as part of a sweeping set of executive actions on immigration that came in the wake of a historic surge of migrants illegally entering the country throughout his first term.

It was expected that about 500,000 spouses of US citizens, and 50,000 non-citizen children, would benefit from the program, which has now been deemed illegal.

Without Parole in Place, non-citizen spouses will likely need to spend a years-long wait outside of the US before qualifying for the same benefits.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and numerous other Republican lawmakers described Biden’s plan at the time as “amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.”

America First Legal Executive Director Gene Hamilton, who had been representing the coalition of states in their lawsuit, praised the attorneys general that “stood up” to the Harris-Biden administration.

“Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has dedicated itself to the decimation of our immigration system and the erasure of our borders,” Hamilton said in a statement.

“Time and again, the States stood up. And today, the great State of Texas and the courageous Ken Paxton, alongside a coalition of other brave Attorneys General, succeeded in stopping an illegal program that would have provided amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and paved the path for the largest administrative amnesty in American history.”

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Trump Confirms Border Control Among First Priorities — ‘No Choice’ But to Carry Out Mass Deportations

President-elect Donald Trump affirmed Thursday that border security will be his top concern when he assumes office in January, regardless of the cost.

“It’s not a question of a price tag,” the 78-year-old told NBC News in his first interview since media outlets projected him to be the 47th president early Wednesday. “It’s not — really, we have no choice.”

“When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries — and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” Trump added. “There is no price tag.”

Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to round up and remove millions of illegal immigrants residing within the US, teasing plans for “largest deportation effort in American history.”

In an interview with The Post last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) estimated that 4.5 million illegal aliens will be “first priority” for removal.

Johnson added that those “who’ve already committed crimes” would be singled out.

“They’re in the system now [for] shoplifting, or whatever it is … or [having] done things that are untoward or unlawful,” he explained. “We know where they are, we know what they’ve done, they’re here detained, they gotta go.”

“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful,” Trump told NBC News Thursday. “We have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country.

“And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”

The soon-to-be 47th president has long maintained that he wants to build a wall along the US-Mexico border but later revised that imagery to include a “big fat, open beautiful door.”

During the 2016 election cycle, Trump similarly vowed to deport between 2 and 3 million illegal immigrants, with criminals the priority.

However, the 45th president’s administration recorded fewer deportations than under President Biden, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump made significant gains with Latino voters this cycle, with an exit poll by Edison Research indicating that 45% of that demographic backed him over Vice President Kamala Harris, including 54% of Latino men.

“I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country,” Trump said Thursday.

“You can’t have ‘Defund the Police,’ these kind of things … they don’t work, and the people understand that.”

Trump estimated that he has “probably” talked with 70 world leaders since he was projected to win the presidency early Wednesday.

The president-elect also spoke by phone with Biden and Harris, describing them as “very nice calls, very respectful both ways.

Trump added that he and Harris “talked about transition, and she said she’d like it to be smooth as can be, which I agree with, of course.”

The president-elect was coy about his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and confirmed that he has not yet spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but did say that “I think we’ll speak” at some point.

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Trump Ally — Who Could Be AG — Warns NY’s Letitia James to Back Off President-Elect

A fierce ally of President-elect Donald Trump warned Thursday that the new administration will have no patience for New York Attorney General Letitia James if she weaponizes the legal system against the 47th president.

“I dare you to try to continue your lawfare against President Trump in his second term,” Mike Davis, the founder of the Article III Project, an advocacy group that pushes for the nominations of conservative judges, said during an appearance on “The Benny Show” podcast.

“Listen here, sweetheart,” Davis continued, addressing James. “We’re not messing around this time and we will put your fat a– in prison for conspiracy against rights. I promise you that.”

Davis, who has been floated as a possible Trump pick for attorney general or White House counsel in his incoming administration, urged the New York AG to “think long and hard” before potentially violating the president-elect’s “constitutional rights or any other Americans’ constitutional rights.”

“It’s not going to happen again,” he declared.

Watch:

The day after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election, James, 66, threatened to “use the rule of law to fight back” against the future administration, noting that her office has been “preparing for several months” to counter Trump’s ascendance.

James won a $454 million civil fraud judgment against Trump, 78, earlier this year after accusing the real estate magnate of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to get better loan and insurance terms.

Trump has appealed the ruling.

“I can imagine that the Trump 47 Justice Department is not going to have any patience for this Democrat lawfare over the next four years,” Davis said in an interview with Newsmax.

The former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) argued that James would be in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241 — “conspiracy against rights” — if she continues to go after her “political enemies.”

In response to a Wall Street Journal report linking Davis to the White House counsel role under Trump, the lawyer suggested that his ambitions lie elsewhere.

“No, thank you. I want to serve as the Viceroy,” he wrote on X.

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Fed Cuts a Quarter — Powell Says He Won’t Resign If Asked by Trump

The Federal Reserve approved its second consecutive interest rate cut Thursday, moving at a less aggressive pace than before but continuing its efforts to right-size monetary policy.

In a follow-up to September’s big half percentage point reduction, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point, or 25 basis points, to a target range of 4.50%-4.75%. The rate sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending but often influences consumer debt instruments such as mortgages, credit cards and auto loans.

Markets had widely expected the move, which was telegraphed both at the September meeting and in follow-up remarks from policymakers since then. The vote was unanimous, unlike the previous move that saw the first “no” vote from a Fed governor since 2005. This time, Governor Michelle Bowman went along with the decision.

Stocks closed positive after the meeting wrapped, with the Nasdaq, whose holdings are tilted towards the tech sector, rallying 1.5% to lead the major averages. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 closed at record highs. Treasury yields plunged after roaring higher the day before.

The post-meeting statement reflected a few tweaks in how the Fed views the economy. Among them was an altered view in how it assesses the effort to bring down inflation while supporting the labor market.

“The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” the document said, a change from September when it noted “greater confidence” in the process.

Recalibrating policy

Fed officials have justified the easing mode for policy as they view supporting employment becoming at least as much of a priority as arresting inflation.

The statement slightly downgraded the labor market, saying “conditions have generally eased, and the unemployment rate has moved up but remains low.” The committee again said the economy “has continued to expand at a solid pace.”

Officials have largely framed the change in policy as an attempt to get the rate structure back in line with an economy where inflation is drifting back to the central bank’s 2% target while the labor market has shown some indications of softening. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has spoken of “recalibrating” policy back to where it no longer needs to be as restrictive as it was when the central bank focused almost solely on taming inflation.

“This further recalibration of our policy stance will help maintain the strength of the economy and the labor market and will continue to enable further progress on inflation as we move towards a more neutral stance,” Powell said at his post-meeting news conference.

There is uncertainty over how far the Fed will need to go with cuts as the macro economy continues to post solid growth and inflation remains a stifling problem for U.S. households.

Gross domestic product grew at a 2.8% pace in the third quarter, less than expected and slightly below the second-quarter level, but still above the historical trend for the U.S. around 1.8%-2%. Preliminary tracking for the fourth quarter is pointing to growth around 2.4%, according to the Atlanta Fed.

Generally, the labor market has held up well. However, nonfarm payrolls increased by just by 12,000 in October, though the weakness was attributed in part to storms in the Southeast and labor strikes.

The decision comes amid a changing political backdrop.

President-elect Donald Trump scored a stunning victory in Tuesday’s election. Economists largely expect his policies to pose challenges for inflation, with his stated intentions of punitive tariffs and mass deportations for undocumented immigrants. In his first term, however, inflation held low while economic growth, outside of the initial phase of the Covid pandemic, held strong.

Still, Trump was a fierce critic of Powell and his colleagues during his first stint in office, and the chair’s term expires in early 2026. Central bankers assiduously steer clear of commenting on political matters, but the Trump dynamic could be an overhang for the course of policy ahead.

An acceleration in economic activity under Trump could persuade the Fed to cut rates less, depending on how inflation reacts.

Powell said the new administration won’t factor directly into monetary policy.

“In the near term, the election will have no effect on our policy decisions,” Powell said. The November meeting was moved back a day due to the election.

Powell also said he would not step down even if the president-elect asked for his resignation. He ended the news conference a bit shorter than usual after being peppered with questions about the incoming administration.

Pace of future cuts

Questions have arisen over what the “terminal” point is for the Fed, or the point at which it will decide it has cut enough and has its benchmark rate where it is neither pushing nor holding back growth. Traders expect the Fed likely will approve another quarter-point cut in December then pause in January as it assesses the impact of its tightening moves, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

“We interpret the statement overall as pointing to a steady-as-she-goes policy path for now as policymakers take their time to digest emerging Trump shocks to economic policy, financial conditions and animal spirits, with another cut in December a good base case,” said Krishna Guha, Evercore ISI vice chairman.

The FOMC indicated in September that members expected a half percentage point more in cuts by the end of this year and then another full percentage point in 2025. The September “dot plot” of individual officials’ expectations pointed to a terminal rate of 2.9%, which would imply another half percentage point of cuts in 2026.

Even with the Fed lowering rates, markets have not responded in kind. Treasury yields have jumped higher since the September cut, as have mortgage rates. The 30-year mortgage, for instance, has climbed about 0.7 percentage point to 6.8%, according to Freddie Mac. The 10-year Treasury yield is up almost as much.

The Fed is seeking to achieve a “soft landing” for the economy in which it can bring down inflation without causing a recession. The Fed’s preferred inflation indicator most recently showed a 2.1% 12-month rate, though the so-called core, which excludes food and energy and is generally considered a better long-run indicator, was at 2.7%.

Powell Says He Won’t Resign If Asked by Trump

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that he will not step down if President-elect Donald Trump asks for his resignation.

When asked whether he would resign if requested to by Trump, the Fed chair simply said: “No.” Powell subsequently told reporters that the president does not have the power to fire or demote him.

“Not permitted under the law,” Powell told reporters at a news conference, after the Fed cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point.

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Harvard Professors Cancel Classes So Students Can ‘Recover’ from Trump Win

Professors at Harvard and Princeton have canceled classes following Trump’s victory, and other units within the universities are offering “spaces” to process the election results.

At Harvard University, the courses “Sociology 1156: Statistics for Social Sciences,” “Applied Math 22a: Solving and Optimizing,” and the general education courses “The Ancient Greek Hero” and “Popular Culture and Modern China” canceled Wednesday class sessions, made attendance optional, or extended assignment deadlines, according to the student-run paper the Crimson.

An undergraduate student at Harvard told National Review that the first 30 minutes of a section meeting for the class “Gov 1790: American Foreign Policy” were dedicated to origami folding.

Harvard economics lecturer Maxim Boycko said in an email that the in-class quiz for “Economics 1010a: Intermediate Microeconomics” would be optional this week and further permitted students to “take time off,” per the Crimson.

“As we recover from the eventful election night and process the implications of Trump’s victory, please know that class will proceed as usual today, except that classroom quizzes will not be for credit,” Boycko wrote. “Feel free to take time off if needed.”

According to the Crimson, Physics professor Jennifer E. Hoffman said in an email to physics students and faculty that her office would be “a space to process the election.”

“Many in our community are sleep-deprived, again grieving for glass ceilings that weren’t shattered, fearful for the future, or embarrassed to face our international colleagues,” she wrote. “I stress-baked several pans of lemon bars to share.”

The Harvard College Democrats released a statement on Thursday expressing support for Kamala Harris and concerns about a second Trump presidency.

“The Harvard College Democrats are incredibly grateful for the leadership of Vice President Kamala Harris and the vision she presented for the future of the country in her campaign for President of the United States,” reads the statement. “We are proud to endorse a campaign that centered joy, community, and a belief in the immense potential of this great nation.”

At Princeton University, at least two classes were canceled on Wednesday: a graduate molecular-biology class, and the psychology course “Social Cognition: The Psychology of Interactive Minds.”

An undergraduate Princeton student in the course “Social Cognition: The Psychology of Interactive Minds” wrote to National Review that all precepts for the class were canceled for the week, and at the beginning of the lecture on Thursday, students were told they had the opportunity to leave if they could not emotionally handle participating. (The professor of the class, Alin Coman, did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.)

University Health Services at Princeton University hosted virtual and in-person “Post-Election Listening Circles” on Wednesday.

“We have been hearing about lots of anxiety from students about the election and felt like listening circles can be a helpful way to allow students to process and get support from one another,” Princeton University spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill told the student-run publication Daily Princetonian in a statement.

The Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) at Princeton University held a “post-election discussion” on Wednesday, where students groups led conversations about “queer/trans concerns” and “misogynoir in the 2024 election.” On Thursday evening, the GSRC is sponsoring a “meditation session” with Molly Crockett, a professor of psychology at Princeton. The GSRC will also hold an “arts and crafts” session for crocheting.

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion — Campus Life at Princeton University held a “post election decompression space” on Wednesday, and the Office of Religious Life will hold an event titled “Holding Space: The Work of Active Listening and Compassion” on Thursday evening.

The Carl A. Fields Center at Princeton University is hosting a “community care dinner” on Thursday evening. “The food is seasoned,” the Carl A. Fields Center advertised. “The community care sacred.”

Sunrise Princeton, a student-run climate-activism group, held a gathering “to process the election” with craft-making on Wednesday.

“Last night was devastating to watch,” the group Sunrise Princeton wrote in an email. “Many of us are feeling frustrated, scared, uncertain — a whole mishmash of (mostly not good) emotions.”

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The Guardian Offers Therapy to Staff After ‘Devastating’ Trump Election Win

The Guardian is offering counselling to staff as it vowed to support its workforce after Donald Trump’s “upsetting” US election victory this week.

In an email to staff, The Guardian’s editor Katharine Viner said the election had “exposed alarming fault lines on many fronts” and urged journalists based in the UK to contact colleagues in the US “to offer your support”.

Ms Viner said that the result would be “upsetting for many others”, according to the memo seen by Guido Fawkes, adding: “If you want to talk about it, your manager and members of the leadership team are all available, as the People team. There is also free access to free support services, which I’ve outlined at the end of this email.”

It comes after Ms Viner sought to reassure readers over the election outcome, writing in an editorial on Wednesday that the paper would “stand up to four more years of Donald Trump” and that the election was an “extraordinary, devastating moment in the history of the United States”.

Ms Viner added: “With Trump months away from taking office again – with dramatic implications for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the health of American democracy, reproductive rights, inequality and, perhaps most of all, our collective environmental future – it’s time for us to redouble our efforts to hold the president-elect and those who surround him to account.”

Above an invitation to donate to The Guardian, her editorial ended with the message that the paper “will stand up to these threats, but it will take brave, well-funded independent journalism. It will take reporting that can’t be leaned upon by a billionaire owner terrified of retribution from a bully in the White House”.

A Guardian spokesman said on Thursday: “What you refer to as ‘therapy after Trump result’ is actually our employee assistance programme – a function that any responsible international media organisation has available for staff at all times.”

In the US, some colleges have given students time off, an extension on deadlines, art therapy classes and access to a therapy duck in response to Trump’s win.

The University of Oregon told students this week that to “promote well-being and lessen anxiety during election week, University Health Services is bringing Quacktavious the Therapy Duck to campus”.

Students at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy were reportedly told this week that they could play with Lego, colouring books, and have milk and cookies in “self-care suites” following the result.

The University of Michigan is also hosting an “art therapy” and “post-election processing” event.

Some stores in the US even closed on Wednesday, with Iowa retailer The Collective writing on its Instagram page that it was closing to allow for a “day of collective grief”.

Among the overseas reaction was Germany’s popular weekly Die Zeit, which led its website on Wednesday with the one-word expletive “F—”.

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Putin Congratulates Trump on Election Win, Says He’s ‘Ready’ for Talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday congratulated Donald Trump on winning the U.S. election, praised him for showing courage when a gunman tried to assassinate him, and said Moscow was ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect.

In his first public remarks since Trump’s win, Putin said Trump had acted like a real man during an assassination attempt on him while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July.

“He behaved, in my opinion, in a very correct way, courageously, like a real man,” Putin said at the Valdai discussion club in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. “I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election.”

Putin said remarks Trump had made during the election campaign about Ukraine and restoring relations with Russia deserved attention.

“What was said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to bring about the end of the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion this deserves attention at least,” said Putin.

Trump said during campaigning that he could bring peace in Ukraine within 24 hours if elected, but has given few details on how he would seek to end the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two.

The 72-year-old Kremlin chief gave just one note of caution: “I do not know what is going to happen now. I have no clue.”

When pressed by a questioner what he would do if Trump called to suggest a meeting, Putin said he was ready to resume contacts if a Trump administration wanted that, and was ready for discussions with Trump.

Russia and Trump have repeatedly dismissed as nonsense some claims in Western media that Trump was a sort of Russian agent of influence. Russian officials say that during his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump was tough on Russia.

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but said in a 2019 report that he found no evidence of conspiracy.

Moscow has also repeatedly denied U.S. assertions that Russia meddled in the 2024 and other presidential elections and had spread disinformation in an attempt to sow chaos.

WAR?

The 2-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its final – most dangerous – phase after Moscow’s forces advance at their fastest pace since the early weeks of the conflict and the West ponders how the war will end.

Putin on June 14 set out his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from all of the territory of four regions claimed by Russia.

Russia controls Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas – a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Speaking for several hours on Thursday, Putin railed against the “adventurism” of Western leaders whom he accused of pushing the world to a “dangerous line” by seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine.

“It is useless to put pressure on us. But we are always ready to negotiate with full consideration of mutual legitimate interests,” Putin said, just seconds after scolding the West for promising Ukraine and Georgia eventual NATO membership in 2008.

He said that the West had never accepted Russia as an equal partner since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, treating it as a defeated power and enlarging the U.S.-led NATO military alliance eastwards towards Russia.

Russia, Putin said, was ready to restore relations with the United States but the ball was in Washington’s court. Putin also said that China was Russia’s “ally”.

Asked about Kamala Harris’ warning that Putin would eat Trump for lunch, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said with a chuckle: “Putin does not eat people.”

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Merchan Considers Tossing Trump’s ‘Hush Money’ Conviction

The New York judge who oversaw Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan is considering tossing his felony convictions after the former president won Tuesday’s election, CNN reported Wednesday.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to payments made to former porn star Stormy Daniels.

The country’s 45th president is set to be sentenced in the case on Nov. 26, but whether the hearing will happen is now being decided by Judge Juan Merchan.

CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid reported Wednesday evening that Merchan will give himself until next week to decide if tossing those convictions is appropriate.

During CNN’s ongoing coverage of the 2024 election, network anchor Jake Tapper welcomed Reid to discuss Trump’s felony criminal case in New York. She reported:

I’m told that his legal team is going to try to make sure that sentencing never happens. As we know, their usual strategy is always to just try to get things delayed. But here they’re going to argue to the judge that the sentencing should never happen because now that Trump is president-elect, they will say that he is entitled to the same constitutional protections as a sitting president and should be protected from state actors and in this case, state prosecutors and the judge overseeing that case, Judge Juan Merchan.

He’s giving himself a deadline of November 12th to decide if the conviction against Trump should be tossed based on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on immunity. If he tosses the conviction, there’ll be no sentencing. But if that sentencing continues to go forward, this is the argument that the Trump team is going to make.

Trump’s two federal cases are also expected to be dropped while special counsel Jack Smith winds them down. The former president previously vowed to fire Smith if he won the election. As for Trump’s RICO case in Georgia, CNN reported:

There is no clear answer as to whether a state-level prosecutor, like [Fulton County DA Fani Willis], can prosecute a sitting president. Trump’s victory now forces Willis to confront that constitutional question in addition to the existing legal issues that have already cast uncertainly over the Georgia case’s future.

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Radical Left Activates Anti-Trump Protests as AOC Riles Up Rioters

Not even 24 hours after President-elect Donald Trump won more votes in Illinois this general election than in the previous two, and after winning the US election in a massive red wave sweep, far-left protesters gathered outside the Trump Hotel in Obama’s Chicago.

The protests appear to have been highly organized and well-planned before the election, given the coordination among activists, the hundreds—if not thousands—of protesters—many holding signs—and the likely pre-approved protest routes from City Hall.

Organizers shouted into megaphones, “Trump is a fascist” and “racist,” echoing hate speech spewed by the defunct Harris-Walz campaign in the months leading up to November 5. Here’s the mobilization effort by far-left radicals:

Separately, far-left activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on X, saying the quiet part out loud: “There are … mass movements of people that mobilize to protect one another in times of fascism and authoritarianism … and this is the era that we are poised to enter.”

In other words, AOC appears to be giving marching orders to her followers, whom some Marxists regard as “agents of change” or “agents of history.” These folks will be herded like cattle—or “useful idiots”—onto city streets by a mysterious web of nonprofits funded by dark money from leftist billionaires.

The Democrat’s playbook to potentially unleash another wave of social unrest through activism campaigns, with command-and-control centers operated by nonprofits, will likely not be tolerated under a Trump administration.

It’s not just the Trump administration; it’s the American people – a strong majority now – who won’t tolerate far-left activism that burns buildings and trashes businesses. This new path in history has already shifted the Overton Window back towards the center. Plus, politics will focus on law and order instead of nation-killing progressive policies that push for destruction.

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UPDATE: Kari Lake Cutting Into Ruben Gallego’s Lead in Arizona Senate Race

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego remains in front Kari Lake in the race for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat, but the Republican has closed the gap since Election Day.

As of Thursday morning, Gallego’s advantage was 50.1%-47.9% — a difference of 2.2 percentage points (52,578 votes) — with nearly 2.5 million votes tallied, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office results page.

Green Party candidate Eduardo Quintana was pulling about 2%.

Gallego’s lead fluctuated for most of Wednesday as rural counties that reported results earlier in the day favored Lake. Maricopa County, the state’s largest county by far, released the results of about 175,000 votes slightly favoring the Democrat in two evening drops.

Gallego was leading Lake by 5.4 points in the initial results posted after the polls closed Tuesday night.

The winner will replace Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who did not seek reelection.

Regardless of who wins the Arizona race, Republicans will win control of the Senate, giving a boost to Donald Trump’s agenda as he returns to the White House.

Who are Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake?

Gallego is the representative for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers most of south, west and downtown Phoenix. The Marine veteran has served five terms in the U.S. House.

Gallego entered the race in January 2023 and ran unopposed in the July primary election.

Lake, the Republican candidate, is one of Arizona’s most well known political figures and popular in GOP circles.

Lake, recognizable in the Phoenix market from her years on TV before getting into politics, built an enthusiastic following among Republicans with her unflinching support for Donald Trump and her steadfast promotion of false claims of election fraud.

She lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs in her first run for office. Lake has since unsuccessfully fought the results of the 2022 election in court.

Lake entered the race in October 2023 and defeated Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in the primary.

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