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The 2024 election cycle is drawing to a close –⁠ here’s what we know

There was some shock at the outcome of last week’s election. But when it comes to control of the House and Senate, things generally landed in the range anticipated by many learned observers. There was a high probability of a Republican Senate – with the GOP likely having a seat or two to cushion a majority. The House of Representatives was expected to be close. The forecast was that the House breakdown would probably reflect the split between the majority and minority today. The only question was which party would be in the majority. And there was a high likelihood that control of the House would mirror the outcome of the Presidential election. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE MEANING OF A REPUBLICAN SENATE – AND WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THE HOUSE You know the rest. The House is close, likely in Republican hands. When everything is settled, Republicans will likely have between 221-223 seats. The Senate moved to the GOP – with a few pickups. So say what you will about the Presidential election. But very few predictions about the House and Senate were off. In the Senate, the map always favored Republicans. The GOP would probably score an immediate pickup with Sen.-elect Jim Justice, R-W.V., claiming the seat of retiring Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.V., who caucused with the Democrats. Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jon Tester, D-Mont., were the most-endangered Democrats up this cycle. Both represented states which heavily supported President-elect Trump. But Brown and Tester consistently proved they could win their races in challenging environments. Plus, there was something else going for them: Brown and Tester always appearing on the ballot in Democratic years: 2006, 2012 and 2018. Democrats won the House and Senate in 2006. That was the “six-year itch” election for President George W. Bush. The second midterm is often brutal for the party of the president in Congress. Voters returned former President Obama to the White House in 2012. Democrats won the House in 2018. 2024? Not a good year for Democrats. TOP REPUBLICAN PRIVATELY BACKING THUNE TO SUCCEED MCCONNELL IN GOP LEADER RACE In Ohio, it appears that Mr. Trump won the Buckeye State by a staggering 11 points. It was always believed that Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, would run behind Mr. Trump and that the President-elect needed to carry Ohio by about 10 points to unseat Brown. Moreno wound up toppling Brown by four points. Sen.-elect Dave McCormick, R-Penn., appears to have unseated Sen. Bob Casey, D-Penn. The underperformance of Vice President Harris in the Keystone State really harmed Democrats like Casey. Harris lost Pennsylvania by about two points. Something else about Casey? Like Brown and Tester, he was on the same election cycle: 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2024. Democrats would have a fighting chance at flipping the House had they performed better in Pennsylvania. They failed to unseat former Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn. Meantime, GOP challengers defeated Reps. Susan Wild, D-Penn., and Matt Cartwright, D-Penn. Democrats needed to knock off Perry and hold those seats to claim the House. Despite being in the same boat as Brown, Tester and Casey, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., prevailed in a battleground state captured by Mr. Trump. Rep. and Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., also won in a state carried by the incoming President. In the House, Democrats clung to several key seats they needed in order to flip the House. Rep.-elect Eugene Vindman, D-Va., defeated Republican Derrick Anderson in central Virginia. Reps. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio is on track to hold her seat. And Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, won – despite Brown’s loss and the blowout of the President-elect. Freshman Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M, won re-election, vanquishing former Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-N.M., in what has been the swingiest district in the country. Vasquez’s district in southern New Mexico has toggled between the parties in each election since 2016. Democrat Janelle Bynum is leading Rep. Lori Chavez-Deremer, R-Ore. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., topped Republican Joe Kent. Gluesenkamp Perez was the surprise winner of all House races in 2022. A ‘VERY DIFFERENT SCENARIO’ FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ELECTIONS IN 2024 During an interview with colleague Bret Baier, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., cited how moderates like Gluesenkamp Perez ran campaigns to fit their districts and scored reelection. “In Marie’s case, she was criticized by the Washington state Democratic party for some of her votes and some of the positions she has taken. They threatened her with a primary. And then she went out there and won in a Trump plus-six district,” said Smith. Smith added that fellow Democrats “should learn a lot from” the likes of Gluesenkamp Perez, Reps. Don Davis, D-N.C., Pat Ryan, D-N.Y. and Vasquez. In other words, Democrats seemed to do many of the things necessary to gain control of the House. But not enough. Take California. ALL EYES ON CALIFORNIA AS HOUSE MAJORITY STILL HINGES ON TIGHT RACES It was thought that Vice President Harris atop of the ticket could help Democrats flip five or six seats in the Golden State alone. Harris is the state’s former Attorney General and U.S. senator. No dice. Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., prevailed in her race. Reps. David Valadao, R-Calif., Ken Calvert, R-Calif., Michelle Steel, R-Calif., and John Duarte, R-Calif., are all poised to hold their seats. Things remain close between Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., and Democratic challenger George Whitesides. The same with Democrat Dave Min and Republican Scott Baugh in the state’s 47th Congressional district. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., vacated that seat in her unsuccessful quest for the Senate. “These are areas that have been Democrat strongholds, and we’re within that fraction of a percentage of taking two more. So the voter shift was significant in a deep blue state. Let’s not kid ourselves. We are a deep blue state. But the shift is significant,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Fox Business. The current breakdown in the House is as follows: 432 members. 220 Republicans, 212 Democrats. There are three vacancies: Late Reps. Sheila

Biden appears to struggle while walking on beach with first lady

A video clip making the rounds online shows President Biden appearing to struggle while walking on the beach with first lady Jill Biden. The video shows the outgoing president and his wife padding across the sands of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he was spending the weekend, as Secret Service members stand by.  Biden, 81, can be seen visibly struggling to trudge through the sand, looking as if he is on the verge of toppling over. At one point, the first lady grabs his arm to hold him steady. Off camera, people can be heard asking him what he will say to Donald Trump when the president-elect visits the White House on Wednesday for a traditional post-election meeting.  FORMER HARRIS STAFFER CALLS ON BIDEN TO RESIGN, INSTALL HARRIS AS FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT Such a meeting is customary between the outgoing president and the incoming president and is meant partly to mark the start of a peaceful transfer of power under America’s democracy. The video prompted a flurry of jokes and speculation about Biden’s physical fitness, recalling the barrage of criticism the president received after his June debate performance that ultimately led to him dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. On X, podcast host Benny Johnson quipped, “Joe Biden’s latest opponent: Sand.” Another commented the video was “Brutal to watch.”  “Joe Biden can’t walk on sand,” League of American Workers founder Steve Cortes commented. “This man is the President for the next 71 days.” DEM PARTY BLAME GAME: ACCUSATIONS FLY AS TO WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HARRIS’ MASSIVE LOSS TO TRUMP After losing to Biden in 2020, Trump resoundingly beat Vice President Harris, the Democrat presidential nominee, on Tuesday.  Trump is the first former president to return to power for a nonconsecutive term since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election. The White House said Biden called Trump this past Wednesday to congratulate him and invite him to meet in the Oval Office. Their meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Wednesday. In a speech Thursday, Biden said he assured Trump “that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve.” Asked about Trump as he left church on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach, Biden said, “I’m going to see him on Wednesday.” Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a response. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Canada remembers Murray Sinclair, trailblazing Indigenous judge and senator

Relatives, friends and leaders say Sinclair, who died this week aged 73, and his legacy will ‘never be forgotten’. Canada has held a national memorial for Murray Sinclair, a trailblazing Indigenous judge and senator who led the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission into abuses committed against Indigenous children at residential schools. The public event on Sunday afternoon in Winnipeg, in central Canada, came days after Sinclair passed away on November 4 at age 73. “Few people have shaped this country in the way that my father has, and few people can say they changed the course of this country the way that my father had – to put us on a better path,” his son Niigaan Sinclair said at the start of the memorial. “All of us: Indigenous, Canadians, newcomers, every person whether you are new to this place or whether you have been here since time immemorial, from the beginning, all of us have been touched by him in some way.” Sinclair, an Anishinaabe lawyer and senator and a member of the Peguis First Nation, was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba and the second-ever in Canada. As chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Sinclair organised hundreds of hearings across Canada to hear directly from survivors of the country’s residential school system. Caring Society statement on the Passing of the Honourable Murray Sinclair. pic.twitter.com/inhhyamNKt — First Nations Child & Family Caring Society (@CaringSociety) November 4, 2024 From the late 1800s until 1996, Canada forcibly removed an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children from their families and forced them to attend the institutions. They were made to cut their hair, forbidden from speaking their native language, and many were physically and sexually abused. “The residential school system established for Canada’s Indigenous population in the nineteenth century is one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our nation’s history,” Sinclair wrote in the TRC’s final report. “It is clear that residential schools were a key component of a Canadian government policy of cultural genocide.” Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, described Sinclair during Sunday’s memorial as “the voice of truth, justice and healing”. She said he had “a heart brave enough to expose injustices, yet generous enough to make everyone around him feel welcome and important”. Other Indigenous community leaders and advocates across Canada also have spent the past week remembering Sinclair for his unwavering commitment to confronting the systemic racism faced by Indigenous people. “One of the greatest insights he shared is that reconciliation is not a task to be done by Survivors. True reconciliation, he said, must include institutional change,” Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) in northern Ontario, said in a statement after Sinclair’s death. Sinclair speaks at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada event in 2015 [Blair Gable/Reuters] “Reconciliation, he taught us, is ours to achieve,” Fiddler said. “The work ahead of us is difficult, but we share his belief that we owe it to each other to build a country based on a shared future of healing and trust. Murray encouraged us to walk the path towards reconciliation. Accepting this responsibility is a fitting way to honour his legacy.” Pam Palmater, chair of Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan University, said Sinclair was someone who “never stopped educating Canadians … and making sure we never forget”. In an interview with CBC News on Sunday, Palmater noted that Sinclair “didn’t just conduct the TRC”; he was involved in many other initiatives, including an inquiry into child deaths in Manitoba and an investigation into the police department in Thunder Bay, Ontario. “He’s never going to be forgotten. He’s one of those people where his legacy lives on,” Palmater said. “His impact is going to be felt for many decades to come.” Adblock test (Why?)

Haiti’s transitional council moves to replace PM in contentious move

Council sets out to replace interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, marking more political turmoil and instability. A transitional council tasked with re-establishing democratic order in Haiti has signed a decree sacking interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, in a contentious move that highlights deepening political turmoil in the Caribbean nation. The decree, seen by The Associated Press, Reuters and AFP news agencies and set to be published on Monday, sets out to replace Conille with Alix Didier Fils-Aime, a businessman previously considered for the job. The nine-member council, which was formed in April to try to help Haiti chart a path forward amid surging gang violence and years of instability, appointed Conille as prime minister in May. But the council has been plagued by infighting and has long been at loggerheads with the prime minister, a longtime civil servant who previously worked with the United Nations. The Miami Herald reported that Conille and Leslie Voltaire, who leads the council, are at odds over a cabinet reshuffling and the removal of three council members named in a bribery scandal. Last month, anticorruption investigators accused those three council members of demanding $750,000 in bribes from a government bank director to secure his job. The report was a significant blow to the council and is expected to further erode public trust in it. The three members accused of bribery – Smith Augustin, Emmanuel Vertilaire and Louis Gerald Gilles – were among those to sign Sunday’s decree. Only one member of the council, Edgard Leblanc Fils, did not sign the order. Still, there are “divergent views” on whether the transitional council – whose members represent various political and civil society groups – has the power to remove Conille, the Miami Herald reported. “Constitutionally, only the Haitian Parliament can fire a prime minister, and presidents in the past have done so through political maneuvering by getting supporters in one of the two chambers of government,” the newspaper explained. “Haiti, however, is in the throes of a constitutional crisis where there is no Parliament and no democratically elected leader in the entire country.” The political turmoil comes as Haiti continues to reel from widespread gang violence, with armed groups exerting control over 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s John Holman noted that a multinational, UN-backed policing mission in Haiti – deployed earlier this year and led by Kenya – “doesn’t seem to have made a dent” in the power of the armed groups. The gangs routinely use murder, kidnappings and sexual violence in their fight for control of territory across Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country. “It seems that the gangs are as powerful as ever right now,” Holman said. Last month, the UN warned that nearly half of all Haitians – some 5.41 million people – were experiencing acute food insecurity as a result of the violence. More than 700,000 people, more than half of whom are children, have been displaced from their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration. Adblock test (Why?)

Earthquake rocks Cuba as residents struggle to recover from recent storms

Officials say efforts to assess damage are under way after 6.8-magnitude earthquake hits eastern Cuba. A powerful earthquake has hit eastern Cuba, adding more problems to a country still reeling from a series of recent storms and blackouts. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported on Sunday that a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit about 40km (25 miles) south of the town of Bartolome Maso. No deaths or injuries have been reported so far. “There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a social media post, adding that the areas of Santiago de Cuba and Granma were affected. “We are beginning to assess the damage in order to begin recovery. The first and most important thing is to save lives,” he said. People in affected provinces have said the earthquake was one of the most powerful they have felt in their lives – no small feat in an area that the USGS says has experienced 23 earthquakes of magnitude 5 and above in the last 50 years. “We’ve felt earthquakes in the past, but nothing like this,” Santiago resident Griselda Fernandez told the Reuters news agency. Other residents in Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, reported that the quake caused buildings to shake and that many people were still standing nervously in their doorways. “You had to see how everything was moving, the walls, everything,” Yolanda Tabio, a 76-year-old in the city, told The Associated Press. Many of the region’s homes and buildings are older and vulnerable to earthquake damage. State-run media published images of terracota roofs and facades of concrete block homes that had collapsed with the shake. Many images showed structural damage to ceilings, walls, windows columns as well as to public infrastructure. The USGS said that nearby countries such as Jamaica also felt some effects. The tremor is the latest in a series of natural disasters that have compounded existing infrastructure problems in Cuba, where large swaths of the population also face economic insecurity. In October, Hurricane Oscar brought heavy rains and widespread power outages to the island and left at least six people dead after making landfall in eastern Cuba. Another storm, Hurricane Rafael, knocked out power for at least 10 million people after slamming into the eastern part of the island last week. The storm uprooted trees and knocked down telephone poles. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. Adblock test (Why?)

Maharashtra polls: Congress suspends seven more rebel candidates

The newly suspended leaders include — Shamkant Saner, Rajendra Thakur, Aba Bagul, Manish Anand, Suresh Kumar Jethliya, Kalyan Borade, and Chandrapaul Chauksey.

Biden to lobby Trump not to abandon Ukraine during upcoming meeting

President Biden will urge President-elect Trump to not abandon Ukraine when the two meet on Wednesday, among other domestic and foreign policies, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday. On Tuesday, Trump defeated Vice President Harris in the presidential election, and he will take office on Jan. 20, 2025. After Trump won his way back into the Oval Office, Biden congratulated him and invited the 45th, and soon to be 47th, president of the United States to the White House to ensure a peaceful transition of power. The two are expected to meet this Wednesday. On Sunday, Sullivan was a guest on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” where he said Biden’s top message would be ensuring his commitment to a peaceful transfer of power. Sullivan also said the president will talk to Trump about what is happening around the world in places like Europe, Asia and the Middle East. “The president will have the chance to explain to President Trump how he sees things, where they stand and talk to President Trump about how President Trump is thinking about taking on these issues when he takes office,” Sullivan said. “President Biden made clear when [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy was here in Washington a couple of months ago that we would spend all of the resources that were provided to us by the Congress on time and in full, meaning that by Jan. 20th we will have sent the full amount of resources and aid to Ukraine that Congress has authorized.” DEMOCRATS LOOKING TO POINT FINGERS AFTER ‘HUMILIATING’ ELECTION DEFEAT SHOULD START WITH MEDIA: WSJ COLUMNIST He continued by saying that over the next 70 days, Biden will make the case to Congress and the incoming administration that the U.S. should not walk away from Ukraine, because walking away “means more instability in Europe.” “Ultimately, as the Japanese prime minister said, if we walk away from Ukraine in Europe, the question about America’s commitment to our allies in Asia will grow,” Sullivan said. He would not say if Biden would propose specific legislation, but he explained that the president would make the case to continue sending resources to Ukraine beyond his term because Russia’s threat to Ukraine will remain. PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP TO MEET BIDEN IN OVAL OFFICE WEDNESDAY “The United States should not walk away from its commitment either to Ukraine or to the 50 nations that we have rallied in defense of Ukraine, in both Europe and Asia,” Sullivan said. The national security adviser’s comments came as Ukraine launched an attack on Moscow with at least 34 drones on Sunday. The attack was the biggest drone strike on the Russian capital since the beginning of the war. Trump has insisted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if he were in the White House at the time. He also told Reuters that Ukraine may have to cede territory in order to reach a peace agreement, which Ukraine rejects and Biden has never suggested. TRUMP TEAM REACTS TO REPORT PRESIDENT-ELECT TOLD RUSSIA’S PUTIN NOT TO ESCALATE WAR WITH UKRAINE Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. military and economic aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticized and rallied against with other Republican lawmakers. According to the Government Accountability Office, Congress appropriated over $174 billion to Ukraine under Biden. The pace of aid is almost sure to drop under Trump, with Republicans set to take control of the U.S. Senate with a 52-seat majority. The war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be its final act after Moscow’s forces advanced at the fastest pace since the early days of the war. Any fresh attempt to end the war is likely to involve peace talks of some kind, which have not been held since the early months of the war. Moscow’s forces occupy around a fifth of Ukraine. Russia says the war cannot end until its claimed annexations are recognized. Kyiv demands all of its territory back, a position that has largely been supported by Western allies. Reuters contributed to this report.

Trump spends time golfing with grandkids at Mar-a-Lago after landslide election victory

President-elect Trump has been winding down from the recent election on the golf course, pictures show. Kai Trump, the 17-year-old daughter of Donald Trump, Jr., made an Instagram post sharing recent pictures with her grandfather on Sunday. “Sundays with Grandpa,” the proud granddaughter captioned the post, adding a heart. The post featured a selfie Kai Trump shared with the president-elect, along with videos she took on the golf course and a picture with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.  Musk appeared to be with his 4-year-old son in one of the photos. The child, whose name is X, was originally named X Æ A-12 when he was born in 2020. FORMER GEORGIA SENATOR KELLY LOEFFLER TO SERVE ON TRUMP’S INAUGURAL COMMITTEE Chloe Trump, 10, was also photographed on the golf course with her grandfather. In one clip, the president-elect was seen watching Kai Trump from a golf cart while “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John was blasting in the background. The pictures were shared days after Trump decisively won the 2024 presidential election race held on Nov. 5. On Saturday night, The Associated Press called Arizona in Trump’s favor, ending the electoral vote count for the 2024 presidential election.  NEW YORK DEMOCRAT RIPS ‘FAR LEFT’ FOR TRUMP VICTORY: ‘IVORY-TOWERED NONSENSE’ Trump garnered 312 electoral votes, dwarfing his opponent, Vice President Harris. The Democratic candidate lost all seven battleground states and only collected 226 electoral votes. The Republican leader is currently selecting his Cabinet and determining who will serve in his second administration. Trump is also expected to meet President Biden in the Oval Office on Wednesday.  On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would not be inviting two members of his former administration to the White House. “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 said. “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Dem Party blame game: Accusations fly as to who is responsible for Harris’ massive loss to Trump

The Democratic blame game is at a fever pitch after Vice President Kamala Harris was swiftly defeated by President-elect Donald Trump at the ballot box in an election that had been anticipated to drag out for days as polling indicated the match-up was razor-thin.  Trump sailed to victory in the early morning hours last Wednesday, after locking down key battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania and Georgia and clearing 270 electoral votes. He concluded the race with 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226, and won the popular vote.  In the final days of the campaigning cycle, polling indicated that the results for the election would likely be very close, which could have resulted in state recounts and lawsuits before the winner was announced.  Following Trump’s clear victory, Democrats across the nation issued statements accepting the results and congratulating the president. Fallout from the devastating loss, however, has reverberated across the party as members point fingers at each other for the Trump win.  5 MISTAKES THAT DOOMED KAMALA HARRIS’ CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRUMP Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders pinned blame for the loss on the Democratic Party for “abandoning” the working class, sparking rebuke from former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” Sanders posted to X last week, accompanied by a press release on the election results. “And they’re right.” NANCY PELOSI FIRES BACK AT BERNIE SANDERS FOR COMMENTS ON DEMS’ SWEEPING ELECTION LOSS: NO ‘RESPECT’ Pelosi responded that the party has not left the working class behind in favor of kowtowing to “big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party,” as Sanders had argued in his press release.  “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him [Sanders], for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class families. That’s where we are,” Pelosi told The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast on Saturday. “Under President Biden, you see the rescue package, money in the pockets of people, the shots in the arm, children in school safely, working people back to work. What did Trump do when he was president? One bill that gave a tax cut to the richest people in America,” she continued.  Sanders doubled down on his remarks Sunday, telling NBC’s Kristen Welker that “the working people of this country are extremely angry.”  “Nancy is a friend of mine,” Sanders said. “But here is the reality. In the Senate in the last two years, we have not even brought forth legislation to raise the minimum wage to a living wage despite the fact that some 20 million people in this country are working for less than $15 an hour.”  SANDERS DOUBLES DOWN ON HIS CRITICISM OF DEMOCRATS, FIRES BACK AT PELOSI’S PUSHBACK “Bottom line, if you’re a working person out there, do you really think that the Democratic Party is going to the max, taking on powerful special interests and fighting for you? I think the overwhelming answer is no,” Sanders said. The Harris campaign and Biden campaign have reportedly pinned blame for the loss on each other, Axios reported last week.  “The 107-day Harris campaign was nearly flawless. The Biden campaign that preceded it was the opposite,” one Harris campaign member told the outlet.  “We did what we could. I think the odds against us were insurmountable,” another individual involved with the Harris campaign said, referring to President Biden’s exit from the presidential race in July and his low approval ratings.  Biden dropped out of the race over the summer following his disastrous debate performance against Trump, where he frequently lost his train of thought and stumbled over his words. The debate opened the floodgates to both conservatives and traditional Democrat allies calling on the president to pass the torch to a younger generation as concerns mounted surrounding his mental acuity and his age.  THE ‘SQUAD,’ WARREN AND SANDERS AMONG PROMINENT POLITICAL FIGURES WHO CRUISED TO RE-ELECTION VICTORIES Many of those who worked on the Biden campaign also joined the Harris campaign following the president’s endorsement of his VP to take up the mantle as Democratic presidential candidate.  A person who worked on the Biden campaign shot back in comment to Axios that the Harris team was to blame: “How did you spend $1 billion and not win? What the f—?” “The Harris team benched [Biden], and then they lost, so now the people who represent Biden are saying, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have benched him,’” another person familiar with the dynamics between the teams said.  White House spokesman Andrew Bates told the outlet, “Anyone criticizing the vice president’s campaign is at odds with President Biden.” Pelosi appeared to pin blame for the loss on the president, claiming that Biden had dropped out of the race too late in the game and that that hadn’t provided an opportunity for an open primary.  “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” she told the New York Times podcast.  “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” Pelosi continued. “. . . Because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”  TRUMP WINS ARIZONA TO SWEEP SWING STATES AND SECURE 312 TOTAL ELECTORAL VOTES Biden dropped out of the presidential race on a Sunday afternoon in July via a social media post. He endorsed Harris minutes later in a follow-up X post, sparking other Democrats to rally around the VP.  Pelosi did defend Biden in June, when the Wall Street Journal ran an article doubting Biden’s mental fitness as president. ​​”Many of us spent time

Trump team reacts to report president-elect told Russia’s Putin not to escalate war with Ukraine

President-elect Trump’s transition team would not confirm or deny that the 2024 election victor told Russian President Vladimir Putin not to escalate the war with Ukraine during a call last week. The Washington Post reported that Putin and Trump spoke on Thursday, marking the first conversation between the two leaders since Trump won his way back into the Oval Office last Tuesday. Trump reportedly took the call from Florida and advised Putin to not escalate the war in Ukraine. The president-elect also reminded Russia’s president about the amount of U.S. military in Europe, a person familiar with the call who spoke on anonymity told the publication. Additionally, the two men talked about peace being the goal in Europe, while Trump also expressed a desire for further talks on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon,” several sources told The Post. ELON MUSK JOINS DONALD TRUMP IN ‘VERY GOOD CALL’ WITH UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY When asked by Fox News for comment about the report, Trump’s team released the following statement: “We do not comment on private calls between President Trump and other world leaders,” Trump communication’s director, Steven Cheung, said in a statement. “President Trump won a historic election decisively and leaders from around the world know America will return to prominence on the world stage. That is why leaders have begun the process of developing stronger relationships with the 45th and 47th President because he represents global peace and stability.” The statement comes just two days after a senior Ukrainian official confirmed to Fox News that billionaire Elon Musk joined a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. ELON MUSK REVEALS HIS POLITICAL PAC’S FUTURE AMID TIGHT PRESIDENTIAL RACE Musk’s unexpected appearance during the first official conversation between Trump and Zelenskyy may point to the SpaceX CEO’s influence on the incoming Trump administration. “I had an excellent call with President Trump and congratulated him on his historic landslide victory — his tremendous campaign made this result possible,” Zelenskyy posted on X. Details of Musk’s exact role were not disclosed, according to reporting from Axios, though sources reported Musk expressed his intent to continue supporting Ukraine through his Starlink satellite network, a service critical to Ukraine’s wartime communications. UKRAINE, NORTH KOREAN TROOPS CLASH FOR FIRST TIME; ZELENSKYY WARNS OF ESCALATION Throughout his campaign, Trump voiced skepticism about continued U.S. aid to Ukraine and emphasized a fast resolution to its conflict with Russia, which raised concerns across Europe.  Trump assured Zelenskyy of support on the 25-minute call, but he did not provide specifics on either policies or military aid. Axios first reported Musk’s presence on the call, and Musk has not yet commented. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The phone call is expected to be the first of many between Trump’s team and Zelenskyy’s advisers as both sides navigate America’s involvement in the ongoing conflict. Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.