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Nikki Haley responds after Trump says she won’t be part of new cabinet, says she wishes him ‘great success’

Nikki Haley responds after Trump says she won’t be part of new cabinet, says she wishes him ‘great success’

Nikki Haley, a Republican who ran against President-elect Trump months ago, responded after he publicly announced that she would not be joining his administration. Responding in an equally public format, Haley wrote that she wishes him “great success.” “I was proud to work with President Trump defending America at the United Nations,” she wrote in a X post Saturday.  “I wish him, and all who serve, great success in moving us forward to a stronger, safer America over the next four years,” she said. TRUMP RULES OUT TWO GOP STALWARTS FROM JOINING HIS ADMINISTRATION: ‘WILL NOT BE INVITING’ Haley’s gracious response came after Trump took to Truth Social to frankly state that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, as well as former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo would not be participating in his new cabinet.  The announcement came after rumors have swirled regarding President-elect Trump’s cabinet members. NIKKI HALEY PENS SUPPORTIVE OP-ED IN FAVOR OF TRUMP AHEAD OF ELECTION DAY: ‘EASY CALL’ “I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” the president-elect posted on Truth Social early Saturday evening.  “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country,” he continued. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Haley during her run for the Republican candidate attempted to cast herself as an alternative to Trump, but eventually penned a supportive op-ed about the presidential candidate two days before Election Day. The former South Carolina governor wrote the recently-published opinion piece, which is titled “Trump Isn’t Perfect, but He’s the Better Choice.” “I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time,” Haley conceded. “But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call.” Fox News Digital’s Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.

Trump wins Arizona to sweep swing states and secure 312 total electoral votes

Trump wins Arizona to sweep swing states and secure 312 total electoral votes

President-elect Trump has officially won Arizona, avenging his 2020 election loss in the crucial swing state. The race in Arizona was called by the Associated Press on Saturday evening. With Arizona, Trump has secured 11 more electoral votes, and has won 312 electoral votes in total. His opponent, Vice President Harris, only garnered 226 electoral votes. Trump’s Arizona pick-up ends the battle for swing states in the 2024 presidential election. In addition to Arizona, he picked up electoral votes in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. President Biden won the state of Arizona by less than one-half of 1% in the 2020 election and the results in the key area of Maricopa County were also slim, with Biden beating Trump by 2%. Before Biden won Arizona in 2020, Republicans had carried the state every year since 1996. BATTLEGROUND SERIES: ARIZONA’S 11 ELECTORAL VOTES HINGE ON KEY SWING COUNTY BIDEN WON BY A HAIR IN 2020 Immigration was arguably the most highly important issue in Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico.  “We have to have swifter incarceration at the border,” Mary from Phoenix told Fox News Digital last month. “And if there’s a suspicion that they’re going to commit a crime, lock them up.” HARRIS RIPPED FOR ‘WORD SALAD’ AFTER HECKLER INTERRUPTION DURING CAMPAIGN SPEECH: ‘THE GIBBERISH NEVER ENDS’ Others in Arizona agreed with Harris’ message in her numerous trips to the state that Trump represents a threat to “Democracy.” “Kamala, Kamala, Kamala!” a Tempe man named Bob told Fox News Digital. “The rich have been riding a wave of tax cuts and not responsibility, and the Supreme Court’s been taking away the rights of the government agencies that regulate things. So we need to get that back in line and Kamala is going to do that instead of putting more Federalist judges up there.”  Arizona is also home to a higher proportion of Hispanic voters than the rest of the country, and while they favored Biden by 19 points in the last election, they had shown signs of shifting toward Trump leading up to the election. The Grand Canyon State is also voting for a new senator after independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema decided not to run for re-election this year. The Republican candidate is Kari Lake, a former TV news host who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022. The Democrats have fielded Rep. Ruben Gallego, a former Marine who represents Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District. Fox News Digital’s Remy Numa and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

President-elect Trump’s 2024 popular vote count officially surpasses 2020 election numbers

President-elect Trump’s 2024 popular vote count officially surpasses 2020 election numbers

President-elect Trump’s 2024 vote totals have officially surpassed his total vote count from 2020, according to numbers from The Associated Press. Trump’s popular vote total, 74,372,005 votes and counting, surpasses his 2020 total of 74,223,975 despite certain states like California and Arizona still tabulating votes. According to the AP, Maryland, Oregon, Arizona, Utah, Alaska and California have still not finished counting votes. California specifically had only counted 63% of its votes as of 5 p.m. ET, according to The Associated Press. It is unclear when these states will finish their counts. Approximately 5 million votes or so remain to be counted. FORMER GEORGIA SENATOR KELLY LOEFFLER TO SERVE ON TRUMP’S INAUGURAL COMMITTEE Trump’s definitive victory in Tuesday’s election gives him 301 Electoral College votes over Vice President Harris’ 226, according to The Associated Press. PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP TO MEET BIDEN IN OVAL OFFICE WEDNESDAY In the 2016 election, Trump did not win the popular vote but won 304 Electoral College votes compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 227. Republicans winning the presidency and the projected GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress should give Trump more authority to achieve his policy goals in his second term. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Trump teases he’d bail out Harris campaign debts for sake of ‘unity’ in latest troll

Trump teases he’d bail out Harris campaign debts for sake of ‘unity’ in latest troll

President-elect Trump has repeatedly said he wants to unite the country when he serves his second term as president. On Saturday, he came up with a new idea to do just that, saying he’d pay off the Democrats’ debts. The Harris-Walz campaign is reportedly $20 million in debt, having raised more than $1 billion and had $118 million in the bank as of Oct. 16, according to Politico reporter Christopher Cadelago.  In the name of unity, or more likely in an epic troll, Trump says people should chip in and bail out the vice president’s campaign.  DEMOCRATS LOOKING TO POINT FINGERS AFTER ‘HUMILIATING’ ELECTION DEFEAT SHOULD START WITH MEDIA: WSJ COLUMNIST “I am very surprised that the Democrats, who fought a hard and valiant fight in the 2020 (sic) Presidential Election, raising a record amount of money, didn’t have lots of $’s left over,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth. “Now they are being squeezed by vendors and others. Whatever we can do to help them during this difficult period, I would strongly recommend we, as a Party and for the sake of desperately needed UNITY, do. “We have a lot of money left over in that our biggest asset in the campaign was ‘Earned Media,’ and that doesn’t cost very much. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Earned media is essentially free media coverage, which Trump says he got in abundance throughout his historic campaign. Trump’s earned media came in the form of viral social media posts, doing free interviews and hosting dozens of rallies that generated their own news stories and headlines.  TRUMP’S VICTORY DOESN’T GO OVER WELL WITH LIBERAL MEDIA: ‘I’M GONNA THROW UP Questions are being raised as to how the Harris-Walz campaign could spend so much money yet suffer such a resounding defeat to the former president, who won a landslide victory, sweeping all battleground states as well as the popular vote. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign to confirm the $20 million figure but has not received a response.  The Washington Examiner published a report Friday with details on how the Harris campaign spent its $1 billion war chest, with one particular expenditure raising some eyebrows. “The Harris campaign spent six figures on building a set for her appearance on the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast with host Alex Cooper,” The Examiner wrote. “The interview came out in October and was reportedly filmed in a hotel room in Washington, D.C.” Yet the episode failed to break an audience of 1 million. It’s had 822,000 views since being uploaded Oct. 6, compared to Trump’s Oct. 25 appearance on Rogan that has well over 47 million views on YouTube. Harris campaign fundraiser Lindy Li told “Fox & Friends Weekend” the campaign ended in an “epic disaster.” “The truth is, this is just an epic disaster. This is a $1 billion disaster,” Li declared Saturday morning, summing up the result of the Harris campaign. The DNC member noted she raised money for the campaign based on the understanding the election was a “margin of error race.” “I raised millions of that. I have friends that I have to be accountable to and to explain what happened because I told them it was a margin of error race. I was promised, [Harris campaign chair] Jen O’Malley Dillon promised all of us that Harris would win. She even put videos out that Harris would win. I believed her, my donors believed her. And so they wrote massive checks.” Fox News’ Gabriel Hays and Alexander Hall contributed to this report. 

House Oversight calls on FEMA director to testify after official tells workers to avoid homes with Trump signs

House Oversight calls on FEMA director to testify after official tells workers to avoid homes with Trump signs

The House of Representatives Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after an employee was terminated for instructing hurricane relief workers in Florida to avoid homes with Trump flags. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairperson of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, announced Saturday he sent FEMA Director Deanne Criswell a letter requesting she testify at a hearing to answer questions about the agency’s response to hurricanes Helene and Milton. In the letter, Comer said the hearing would “permit members to investigate recent reports that a FEMA official instructed relief workers to bypass hurricane-impacted homes displaying campaign signs for President Trump.” “In the wake of the recent major disasters that impacted Americans of all political persuasions, it is critical that FEMA adheres to its disaster relief mission,” he wrote. FEMA OFFICIAL DIRECTED HURRICANE RELIEF WORKERS TO AVOID HOMES WITH TRUMP SIGNS AS AGENCY CONDUCTS CLEANUP The Oversight Committee’s investigation followed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s announcement Friday that he was launching an investigation into the agency. “The blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days,” DeSantis said. “At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government’s targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump. FOLLOW THE MONEY: UNDERSTANDING FEMA’S DISASTER BUDGET IN HURRICANE MILTON AFTERMATH “New leadership is on the way to D.C., and I’m optimistic that these partisan bureaucrats will be fired.” The investigations were promptly launched after FEMA confirmed to Fox News Digital that an employee had instructed aid workers to deny relief to residents who had Trump campaign signs at their homes. The Daily Wire was the first to report it. FEMA OFFICIAL FIRED FOR DIRECTING HURRICANE RELIEF AWAY FROM TRUMP SUPPORTERS’ HOMES “We take our mission to help everyone before, during and after disasters seriously. This employee has been terminated, and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel,” Criswell said. “I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.” WATCH: A FEMA spokesperson told Fox News Friday the agency is “deeply disturbed” by the employee’s actions and that it was an “isolated incident.”  “FEMA helps all survivors regardless of their political preference or affiliation,” the spokesperson said. “The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes, and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the agency has helped more than 365,000 households affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton in Florida and provided nearly $900 million in direct assistance to survivors.” “We are horrified that this took place and therefore have taken extreme actions to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels.” Fox News Digital has reached out to FEMA for comment.