Trump says he will nominate Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel
Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to be the US ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee “loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” the president-elect said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!” Trump added.
Huckabee, who served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007, is two-time Republican presidential hopeful and father to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current governor of the state and Trump’s former White House press secretary.
He is an outspoken settlement backer; in 2018, he said he dreamed of building a “holiday home” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Key events
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has congratulated congressman Mike Waltz on being selected as Donald Trump’s national security advisor.
“Congressman Mike Waltz is a brilliant and faithful patriot, who has served our country as a Green Beret and a member of Congress. It has been his life’s mission to help protect the United States, and he will continue to do so as the President’s National Security Advisor,” Johnson said.
He added that the Florida congressman is “the perfect person to advise President Trump and defend our interests on the world stage. I look forward to continuing to engage with him as Congress works to implement America First national security policies under the new Trump Administration.”
Waltz just won re-election to his district just north of Orlando, and his departure from Congress will trigger a special election to replace him. But Democrats are unlikely to win in Waltz’s district, which is sharply Republican.
Anna Betts
A new Louisiana law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public classroom by the beginning of 2025 has been temporarily blocked after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Tuesday.
The judge said the law was “unconstitutional on its face” – and plaintiffs were likely to win their case with claims that the law violates the US constitution’s first amendment, which bars the government from establishing a religion and guarantees the right to religious freedom.
The ruling marks a win for opponents of the law, who argue that it is a violation of the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.
They also argue that the poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments would isolate students, especially those who are not Christian.
Proponents say that the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance to the foundation of US law.
Trump says he will nominate Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel
Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to be the US ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee “loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” the president-elect said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!” Trump added.
Huckabee, who served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007, is two-time Republican presidential hopeful and father to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current governor of the state and Trump’s former White House press secretary.
He is an outspoken settlement backer; in 2018, he said he dreamed of building a “holiday home” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Several hundred White House staffers loudly cheered for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, who was arriving for her lunch with Joe Biden.
Staffers shouted “MVP”, for Madame vice-president, as she got out of her SUV and clapped and waved, per pool report.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Harris addressed staffers. “So thank you all very much.
“Listen, we do the best work anybody could do, which is to dedicate ourselves to the people, to public service, to lifting folks up, knowing we have the power, and when we do that work, we make a difference, and you all are a part of doing that work every single day, and I am so grateful to each of you.
“So let’s get back to work, because we still have work to get done. And I am sending all my love and thanks. Thank you, everyone.”
Joni Ernst, the Republican senator for Iowa, has privately expressed interest in becoming Donald Trump’s defense secretary, according to multiple reports.
If nominated and confirmed, Ernst, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Iraq War veteran and member of the Senate’s armed services committee, would be the first woman to serve in the role.
National security leaders have told Ernst that she would be a good fit for the job, but those conversations have not yet escalated to anything official, Notus reported.
A source told the Washington Post on Tuesday that the idea started “gaining a life of its own yesterday,” but it’s not clear whether Trump will consider her for the role.
Trump confirms appointment of Mike Waltz as his national security adviser
President-elect Donald Trump has issued a statement announcing his appointment of Mike Waltz to serve in his cabinet as the national security adviser.
Waltz “has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda, and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” Trump said in a statement on Tuesday.
Waltz, a Republican congressman representing east-central Florida and Trump loyalist who served in the national guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and voiced the need for the US to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.
Waltz is a combat-decorated Green Beret and a former White House and Pentagon policy adviser. He was first elected in 2018, replacing Ron DeSantis, who ran for governor, in Florida’s sixth congressional district.
Waltz served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, and he was awarded four Bronze Stars. He was one of the lawmakers appointed in July to serve on a bipartisan congressional taskforce to investigate the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
The day so far
The judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money case has paused legal proceedings at the request of prosecutors and the president-elect’s attorneys, both of whom pointed to his victory in last week’s presidential election. Republicans are getting ready for Trump’s visit to the White House, with House speaker Mike Johnson saying he planned to have Trump address his lawmakers. Speaking of Congress, we still do not know for sure which party will control the House for the next two years. Counting of ballots in key races remains ongoing, though Republicans seem on track to keep their majority.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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Samuel Alito, a long-serving conservative justice on the supreme court, has no plans to step down, the Wall Street Journal reported. If he changes his mind, Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate could confirm a replacement and likely prolong the court’s conservative supermajority.
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Trump will reportedly oppose a US law that could lead to popular social media app TikTok being banned, despite bipartisan support for the measure.
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Despite taking office with Republicans in control of Congress in 2017, Trump’s first years in office were marked by legislative chaos. Johnson vowed that won’t happen again when Trump returns to the White House in January.
Callum Jones
As Donald Trump appoints his cabinet, and searches for a treasury secretary, the billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson – a key backer of the president-elect – has withdrawn his name. He had been widely tipped as a likely candidate for the role.
“Although various media outlets have mentioned me as a candidate for secretary of the treasury, my complex financial obligations would prevent me from holding an official position in President Trump’s administration at this time,” Paulson told The Wall Street Journal in a statement.
He pledged to remain “actively involved” with Trump’s economic team, however, and in helping to implement the incoming administration’s policy agenda.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey still is not conceding, despite grim signs for the Democratic senator’s prospects of re-election.
The Associated Press has already called the race for Republican challenger David McCormick, but ballot counting is ongoing. In a new statement, Casey signaled he is waiting for that process to finish:
My priority has always been standing up for the people of Pennsylvania. Across our Commonwealth, close to seven million people cast their votes in a free and fair election. Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election. The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.
I want to thank the election workers across our Commonwealth who have been working diligently over the weekend. Their work will ensure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard.”
If Donald Trump follows through on his promise to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrations, his “border tsar” Tom Homan will play a leading role. Here’s more about his rise to power, from the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang:
In 2018, then acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) Thomas Homan told HuffPost that Congress needed to fix immigration laws because: “I’m the first one to say, I can’t arrest 11 million people.”
Now, newly tapped as Donald Trump’s “border tsar”, he will be tasked with just that. The president-elect said on Monday that Homan, a former law enforcement official who has served in immigration enforcement under multiple presidencies, would be “in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin”.
Homan has been describing mass deportation in stark terms for the past year, angling for a role in helping Trump with his signature campaign promise. Asked about the high price tag of a mass deportation, he turned the question back on 60 Minutes: “What price do you put on our national security? Is it worth it?” When the outlet followed up to ask if there was a way for mass deportations not to separate families with mixed immigration statuses, Homan responded: “Families can be deported together.”
It is a likely next step for a man who served as acting director of Ice for 16 months under Trump in what was seen as a period of intense controversy for the agency. The Atlantic documented how Homan was the “father” of the Trump administration’s family separation policy, tracing its roots to a 2014 meeting during which Homan pushed the idea. He defended the policy to the outlet by saying: “The goal wasn’t to traumatize. The goal was to stop the madness, stop the death, stop the rape, stop the children dying, stop the cartels doing what they’re doing.”
Donald Trump on Sunday announced that Tom Homan, a proponent of hardline immigration policies including separating migrant parents from their children, will become his “border tsar”.
Homan has made clear he’ll continue pushing for policies that would crack down on people who have entered the United States illegally. Yesterday, he told the New York Post that he would surge immigration officers onto the streets of cities that refuse to allow them into their jails:
Homan — whom Trump tasked with both securing the border and carrying out the deportation of millions of migrants who are in the US illegally — told The Post that he wants his boss to put maximum pressure on the leaders of New York and other sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with efforts to lock up and deport migrants who commit crimes in the US.
“I’m hoping the president files a lawsuit against them and withholds federal funding,” Homan said.
He said that he would rather work with local cops to identify migrants who have been arrested and take them into ICE custody.
But, if police are barred from helping the feds identify suspects, “then we’ll wait til they get out of jail, then we’ll go out into the neighborhoods and get them.”
He added: “If they’re not willing to do it then get out of the way — we’re coming.”
Homan said enforcing immigration laws like that will require a lot of manpower, “so if I have to flood agents to the sanctuary cities to get the job done then that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Earlier, at the Capitol, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson pledged that his lawmakers will do all they can to help Donald Trump enact his policies.
“This leadership will hit the ground running to deliver President Trump’s agenda in the 119th Congress, and we will work closely with him and his administration to turn this country around and unleash, as he says, a new golden age in America,” Johnson said.
Trump began his first term in 2017 with both houses of Congress in Republican control, a situation that appears to be on track to happen again next year, since the GOP has recaptured the Senate and appears on course to preserve their house majority.
But Trump and the Republicans were criticized for a chaotic and disorganized approach during his first two years in office (before the GOP lost control of the House in 2018 and, with it, the ability to pass major Trump-backed legislation) that led to many legislative priorities stalling. Johnson said that once Trump takes office next year, he will not let that happen again:
When President Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, we all look back and recognize that the Republican Party was not fully prepared for that moment, and precious time was wasted in the beginning of that Congress. I know it well, because that was my freshman year in Congress – we began in 2017. We are not going to make those mistakes again. We will be ready on day one. We are prepared this time. And as we wind down, the 118th Congress will be ready to take the ball and run full speed in the 119th Congress that begins in January.
Trump wants to halt US TikTok ban – report
Donald Trump will attempt to block a recently passed US law that could lead to popular social media app TikTok being banned, the Washington Post reports.
The measure enacted with bipartisan support earlier this year imposes a 19 January deadline for Chinese firm ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok or face a ban in the United States on national security grounds.
The Post heard from Kellyanne Conway, a former advisor to Trump who now advocates for TikTok. She said:
He appreciates the breadth and reach of TikTok, which he used masterfully along with podcasts and new media entrants to win …
There are many ways to hold China to account outside alienating 180 million U.S. users each month. Trump recognized early on that Democrats are the party of bans — gas-powered cars, menthol cigarettes, vapes, plastic straws and TikTok — and to let them own that draconian, anti-personal choice space.
TikTok is currently in court over the law, though no decision has yet been made:
Mike Johnson says House Republicans planning meeting with Trump
The Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said that their lawmakers are planning to meet with Donald Trump on Wednesday, before he heads to the White House to discuss the presidential transition with Joe Biden.
“President Trump is going to meet with President Biden at the White House. And so it was suggested – in fact … I think he said it first before I did – but that he wanted to come and visit with House Republicans. So, we’re working out the details of him gathering with us potentially tomorrow morning before he goes to the White House, and that would be a great meeting and a moment for all of us,” Johnson said.
The speaker and other top Republicans just held a press conference at the Capitol to tout their victories in last Tuesday’s election. While all the ballots have not been counted yet, the GOP appears on course to continue their majority in the House.
New York prosecutors requested pause in hush money case after Trump re-elected
New York Judge Juan Merchan halted proceedings in Donald Trump’s hush money case after a request from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who cited the former president’s victory in the presidential election, Reuters reports.
The president-elect had asked Bragg to agree to the delay, and Merchan paused all proceedings through 19 November. Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November.
Judge halts proceeding in Trump hush money case
New York judge Juan Merchan has paused the proceedings in Donald Trump’s hush money case, Reuters reports.
Merchan was today expected to decide whether Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges related to falsifying business documents would be thrown out under the supreme court’s ruling earlier this year granting presidents immunity for official acts.
The judge’s decision comes after Trump won the presidential election a week ago.
Alito not planning to leave supreme court – report
Samuel Alito intends to continue serving on the supreme court, the Wall Street Journal reports, despite fears from liberals that the 74-year-old conservative justice will soon step down and allow Donald Trump and the newly Republican-controlled Senate to confirm a younger replacement.
Such a decision by Alito could prolong the conservative dominance of the supreme court, where they have a six-justice supermajority and the liberals a three-justice minority. But the Journal says that Alito plans to stick around:
“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” said one person close to Alito. “The idea that he’s going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is.”
Trump’s election last week set off renewed discussions over the future of the Supreme Court, where the three eldest justices are in their 70s.
With Republicans set to take both the White House and Senate come January, there will be at least a two-year span when the GOP can fill vacancies without need of compromise with Democrats. Some Republicans have suggested that would be a good time for Alito, appointed in 2006 by President George W. Bush, and Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, a 1991 appointee of President George H.W. Bush, to step aside for younger nominees who could perpetuate the court’s conservative direction for decades to come.
A majority of Americans view the Supreme Court as politically motivated, public opinion surveys have shown. But across the ideological spectrum, the justices prefer to see themselves as standing apart from partisan politics, and Washington’s postelection chatter is proving irksome within the court, people familiar with the matter said.
Supreme court declines to hear Trump ally’s bid to move Georgia election case to federal court
The supreme court has turned down an effort by Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows to move the Georgia election meddling case to federal court.
Meadows first made the petition earlier this year, after the supreme court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts. The case brought by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis against Meadows, Trump and more than a dozen others for allegedly plotting to overturn the results of the election in Georgia has since stalled, and it is unclear if it will continue now that Trump is headed back to the White House.
Here’s more about Meadows’s petition:
Republicans near House majority despite losing seat in California
The GOP is on track to maintain its majority in the House of Representatives, even as Democrats managed to claim a hotly contested seat in the Los Angeles suburbs.
Yesterday, Republican congressman Mike Garcia conceded to his challenger George Whitesides in California’s 27th congressional district, flipping a district that Democrats have wanted to conquer for the past two elections. But it may not be enough to return the party to the majority in Congress’s lower chamber, and give them the ability to block Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
The Associated Press reports that the GOP had won 214 seats in the House, four shy of the majority, while the Democrats have 205. Counting in 16 races is ongoing, many of which are swing seats where every vote will matter, but Republicans are generally seen as having the edge in several crucial races.
We’ll let you know if the AP calls any outstanding House races over the course of today.