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Dem governor issues stark warning to Trump: ‘You come for my people, you come through me’

Dem governor issues stark warning to Trump: ‘You come for my people, you come through me’

Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a stark warning to President-elect Trump following his landmark victory, promising that if anyone tries to “come for my people,” they will have to “come through me.” “People have often said that I’m a happy warrior, and I’ve always taken seriously my role as a happy warrior on behalf of this state,” Pritzker said in a news conference Thursday. “Even today, when I’m struggling with many of the difficult questions this election poses, my optimism for the future remains undiminished.” “To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom and opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans: I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior,” he said. “You come for my people, you come through me.” BIDEN SPEAKS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE HARRIS LOSS, AS TRUMP AND ALLIES EYE TRANSITION PROCESS Pritzker’s words of warning came after he promised to protect residents from Trump’s “backward” agenda. “Over the years ahead, we’ll do more than just protect against possible reversion to an agenda that threatens to take us backwards,” he said. “We will continue to advance a positive, productive and inclusive agenda of our own.” HARRIS FORMALLY CONCEDES ONE DAY AFTER TRUMP’S SWEEPING VICTORY “Despite his threats to health care coverage and educational opportunity and a fair minimum wage, Illinois will continue to invest in the well-being and prosperity of all our people.” Illinois has maintained some of the strongest abortion protection laws under Pritzker, launching the Midwest state to become a safe haven for women seeking abortions. Fox News Digital has reached out to Pritzker’s office for comment.

DNC chair fires back after Bernie Sanders claims Dems lost working class in election: ‘straight up BS’

DNC chair fires back after Bernie Sanders claims Dems lost working class in election: ‘straight up BS’

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison fired back at Bernie Sanders in a post on X after the progressive senator from Vermont claimed that Democrats have lost the working class. “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,” wrote Sanders in a Nov. 6 post. Harrison slammed the recently re-elected Senator Sanders in a post earlier on Thursday, claiming “this is straight up BS…” BERNIE SANDERS EXCORIATES DEMOCRATIC PARTY, CALLS CAMPAIGN ‘DISASTROUS’ AFTER TRUMP VICTORY “Biden was the most-pro worker President of my life time- saved Union pensions, created millions of good paying jobs and even marched in a picket line and some of MVP’s plans would have fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial wealth gap for working people across this country,” wrote Harrison.  “From the child tax credits, to 25k for a down payment for a house to Medicare covering the cost of senior health care in their homes. There are a lot of post election takes and this one ain’t a good one,” he concluded. Harrison’s post currently has over 18,000 likes. Harrison’s post comes as many fingers are being pointed within Democratic circles to attribute Vice President Harris’ definitive loss to any possible guilty party. Sanders referred to the Harris campaign as “disastrous” in his X post, asking “Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing?” added Sanders. “Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.” HOUSE DEMOCRAT SAYS THE PARTY NEEDS TO GET PAST ‘TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME’ Vice President Harris has gained only 226 Electoral College votes thus far, according to the Fox News Decision Desk. She has been projected to lose critical swing states Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Democrats didn’t just suffer defeat at the top of the ticket, but across the board. According to projections from the Fox News Decision Desk, Republicans are set to take the majority of both the House and Senate. Harrison is not expected to seek re-election as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, per Reuters. He was first chosen for the post in 2021 after President Biden took office. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Sanders, 83, has served as senator since 2007 and won another six-year term on Tuesday despite many seats in the chamber flipping red.

KJP says President Biden still has no plans to pardon Hunter Biden for tax fraud, gun charges

KJP says President Biden still has no plans to pardon Hunter Biden for tax fraud, gun charges

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden still has no plans to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, who pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September. Hunter Biden’s plea spared him from a public trial over his failure to pay taxes while he spent lavishly on drugs, escorts, luxury hotel stays, clothing and other personal items. The plea also came after he was convicted of three felony gun charges in June. The first son, prosecutors said, lied on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs. After Hunter Biden was convicted of the crimes, President Biden indicated he did not plan to pardon his son. POLL COMPARES WHETHER TRUMP, HUNTER BIDEN SHOULD GET PRISON SENTENCES, ACCORDING TO US ADULTS On Thursday, Jean-Pierre was asked again if Biden had any intentions of pardoning Hunter, who is scheduled to be sentenced on the gun charges on Dec. 12 and the tax fraud charges on Dec. 16. “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no,” the press secretary said. Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich followed up on the question, asking if a commutation, or a lesser sentence, was off the table for Hunter Biden. BIDEN COMMITTED ‘IMPEACHABLE CONDUCT,’ DEFRAUDED UNITED STATES TO ENRICH HIS FAMILY’: HOUSE GOP REPORT Heinrich reminded Jean-Pierre that she had previously said Biden would not consider a commutation of Hunter’s sentence. “Yes, that stands,” Jean-Pierre said. “You’re saying that still stands?” Heinrich asked for clarification. ‘IT’S STILL NO’: KJP SUGGESTS BIDEN WON’T PARDON HIS SON IN THE TAX CASE “Yeah,” Jean-Pierre responded. The president’s son was indicted in December on three felonies and six misdemeanor counts alleging he evaded paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while simultaneously spending money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,” according to the December 2023 indictment. Prosecutors also allege the tax returns Hunter Biden ultimately did file falsely claimed that things like prostitutes, strip club visits, porn website subscriptions and other personal expenses were actually deductible business expenses. The aim, according to the indictment, was to “evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities” that Hunter Biden faced. Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.

Conservative politicos share reactions to protest response after Trump win: ‘It’s strangely quiet’

Conservative politicos share reactions to protest response after Trump win: ‘It’s strangely quiet’

Conservative political experts pointed to President-elect Trump’s decisive victory Tuesday as a main reason anti-Trump protests have been more muted compared to 2016.  While some protests have taken place across the country since Tuesday, their focus has not been solely on Trump, and the turnout has not been the same as when thousands took to the streets in 2016 after Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.  In Seattle, for example, where demonstrators protested on election night, the focus was more on the war in Gaza, and both Democrats and Republicans were chastised by demonstrators. A protest Wednesday night in Chicago similarly focused on that war and was only loosely connected to Trump’s win.  Meanwhile, people around the country have taken notice of the more muted protests compared to 2016.  SEATTLE POLICE ARREST 5 DEMONSTRATORS IN ELECTION NIGHT PROTEST  “It’s strangely quiet,” Daily Wire reporter Kassy Akiva noted Wednesday on X, one day after the election. “I don’t see any major protests being planned right now.” “I have to say, Williams College was very quiet today. Certainly no demonstrations, no collective mourning, no whining or crying that I saw,” observed political science professor Darel Paul. CLIMATE ACTIVISTS SPRAY US EMBASSY IN LONDON WITH ORANGE PAINT AFTER TRUMP REELECTION VICTORY “There’s not going to be anyone out there saying this time that [Trump] is an illegitimate president,” political strategist David Kochel pointed out. “He certainly has a much more legitimate stake in the office, because he will end up winning the popular vote. And I do think there’s some tension in the country when a candidate doesn’t win the popular vote but wins the Electoral College, and he doesn’t have that tension this time.” Others, including Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the co-author of “Next Gen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It,” agreed with Kochel’s point about Trump’s decisive victory resulting in a more muted protest response. “We haven’t seen the same level of hysteria yet that met Trump’s first victory,” Gonzalez said. “Trump’s first victory was a bigger surprise to the body politic, to the system, because nobody expected him to win. This time, he had won before.” “It is hard to gin up discord when the win was so significant,” Tea Party Patriots Citizen Fund Chairwoman Jenny Beth Martin added.  COLIN KAEPERNICK SUGGESTS TRUMP ‘TARGETED’ AND ‘MINIMIZED’ HIM FOR NATIONAL ANTHEM PROTESTS Gonzalez and others, however, did note that while the protest response to Trump’s victory may be lighter than what was seen in 2016, that could change once he begins enacting policy changes. “I think it’s important to use the word ‘yet,’ because I think that we will see the same level of out-of-control hysteric opposition to Trump,” Gonzalez said.  Aron Boxer is a former special education teacher and the founder of the Connecticut-based Diversified Education Services. He describes himself as a moderate conservative and said he agreed with Gonzalez’s take that protests could heat up in the future. “There’s been some pretty inflammatory rhetoric coming from Adam Kinzinger, Leticia James, Gavin Newsom and even Kamala when she spoke the other night and said that they’re going to fight. Listening to their words, it really sounds like they’re almost giving the public a little wink and a nod, encouraging them to speak up,” Boxer said.  “It seems like they’re trying to kind of rally the troops … and I think that these things do take some time to take shape.”

Trump names Susie Wiles as first female White House chief of staff in history

Trump names Susie Wiles as first female White House chief of staff in history

Susie Wiles, a longtime GOP operative, will serve as President-elect Donald 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,” Trump 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.”  INSIDE THE REPUBLICAN VICTORIES IN SUBURBAN NEW YORK: ‘FED UP WITH ONE PARTY DEMOCRATIC RULE’ 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.” 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.  Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

White House says Biden believes he made right decision to drop out of 2024 race despite Trump victory

White House says Biden believes he made right decision to drop out of 2024 race despite Trump victory

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden believed he made the right decision to drop out of the presidential race in July, acknowledging there are many election experts analyzing the failed efforts by the Democratic Party with their own opinions on the race dominated by Republican President-elect Trump. Jean-Pierre spoke to reporters during a press briefing Thursday afternoon, saying Biden had called Trump to congratulate him on his victory, assuring Trump he would direct his administration to work with Trump’s team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition of power. Additionally, Jean-Pierre said Biden had spoken with Vice President Kamala Harris to congratulate her on a “history-inspiring campaign.” “For some people, this election is a time of victory, and for others, it’s a time of loss,” she said. “To state the obvious, Tuesday night’s results were not our team’s desired outcome. There’s going to be a lot of postmortem analysis of what happened in the coming days, in the coming weeks, even in the coming months.” BIDEN CONGRATULATES TRUMP, PLEDGES ‘PEACEFUL AND ORDERLY’ TRANSFER OF POWER One reporter asked Jean-Pierre to address the criticism directed at Biden for the loss. “What I can say, and this is something the president says all the time: ‘You get knocked down, you get back up,’” Jean-Pierre said, noting the president made that exact statement moments earlier. “The president believes he made the right decision on behalf of the American people, on behalf of this country, to step aside.” After the 2022 midterms, Biden decided to seek re-election despite polls in 2023 showing that about 80% of the American public believed the octogenarian was too old to serve another term. HARRIS FORMALLY CONCEDES ONE DAY AFTER TRUMP’S SWEEPING VICTORY “What he believed is that 14 million voters decided in the primary to make him and the vice president, obviously she was on the ticket, the nominee,” Jean-Pierre said when asked again if Biden made the right decision to run for president. “Fourteen million Americans decided that. So, they made their decision on who they wanted. “Now, as we know, in July the president made a decision to step aside and he immediately … endorsed the vice president,” she added. Jean-Pierre was also pressed on whether it was wrong for the president’s team in 2023 to firmly encourage rising stars in the Democratic Party and others who participated in the 2020 cycle to rally behind Biden and not consider running for president. HOW TRUMP WON: THE DETAILS FROM THE FOX NEWS VOTER ANALYSIS She refused to get into a specific conversation but said it was not unusual for party members to rally behind their leader, which, in this case, was Biden. “What I can say is what the president decided to do, what the president believed and what the president is going to continue to do, [which] is put the American people first,” Jean-Pierre said. She was also pressed about whether Biden still stands by his description of Trump being an existential threat to democracy. Jean-Pierre said Biden believes what he said at the time and believes he had an obligation to be honest with Americans. She backed her statement up by pointing to comments made by former chief of staff John Kelly, who referred to Trump as a “fascist.” During a series of interviews conducted with the media and published in October, Kelly recounted multiple occasions when the former president allegedly praised Adolf Hitler. Kelly also insisted Trump met the “general definition of a fascist” and would govern like a dictator if allowed. Jean-Pierre said Kelly was clear in his statements, while also pointing to statements made by Trump about the enemy within, going after people who disagree with him. “Look, we’re being very clear here,” Jean-Pierre said. “The outcome was not what we wanted, and the Americans have made a decision that we want to respect. We want to respect the decision that the American people have made, and we are going to make sure that the American people get what they deserve, which is a peaceful transfer of power.”