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US House panel to consider releasing report on Trump’s attorney general nominee

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee is set to meet Wednesday to decide whether to release its investigative report on former Representative Matt Gaetz, who was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be attorney general in his new administration.

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, are demanding that the report be released so they can consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertake their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Last Wednesday, Trump named Gaetz, 42, a Republican congressman from Florida for eight years, to become the country’s top law enforcement official. Hours later, Gaetz resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion.

But it remained uncertain whether the panel would divulge what conclusions it had reached.

The committee, with five Democrats and five Republicans, had been looking into allegations that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and used drugs illicitly. Gaetz has denied the allegations. The Justice Department, which Gaetz hopes to lead, investigated the case but declined last year to bring any charges.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads the narrow Republican majority in the chamber, has contended that no ethics report should be made public because Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress. However, there have been instances where that has occurred in the past.

Johnson told CNN on Sunday that senators reviewing the Gaetz nomination as the country’s top law enforcement official will “have a vigorous review and vetting process,” but that they did not need to see the House Ethics Committee’s report. Some senators have suggested they could move to subpoena it if it is not turned over to them voluntarily.

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin on Sunday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the panel should share its report with the Senate.

“The Senate should have access to that,” Mullin said. “Should it be released to the public or not? That I guess will be part of the negotiations.”

Gaetz is one of several Trump appointees to his Cabinet who do not have the credentials normally seen in candidates for high-level government jobs.

Over the weekend, a lawyer for another Trump choice, Pete Hegseth, a 44-year-old Fox News host named to be defense secretary, revealed that Hegseth several years ago paid an undisclosed amount to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 to avert the threat of what he viewed as a baseless lawsuit becoming public.

Trump has stood by his Cabinet nominees, refusing to withdraw their nominations. But the controversies surrounding Gaetz, Hegseth and others could threaten their confirmations by the Senate to be in Trump’s Cabinet.

The president-elect also has sought — with little success so far — to get the Senate, in Republican control come January when he takes office, to agree to recess at times so he could name and install his Cabinet members without the need for contentious and time-consuming confirmation hearings.
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US Senate Republicans ready for unified control in 2025 with new leadership

President-elect Donald Trump will come into office in January 2025 with unified control of the U.S. Congress. Republicans will hold majorities in both the Senate and House as the result of a mandate from American voters. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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Two Trump Cabinet nominees embroiled in sex controversies

Two of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s key nominations – Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and former lawmaker Matt Gaetz as attorney general — have become embroiled in sex controversies that could threaten their Senate confirmations to serve in Trump’s Cabinet.  

Hegseth, 44, paid an undisclosed amount to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 to avert the threat of what he viewed as a baseless claim becoming public, his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, told U.S. news media this weekend.

Gaetz, 42, resigned abruptly last week from the House of Representatives near the end of his fourth two-year term, just days before the House Ethics Committee was nearing conclusion of an investigation into whether he had had sex with a 17-year-old girl and engaged in illicit drug use. Some lawmakers have described Gaetz showing nude cellphone pictures of his sexual conquests in the House chamber.   

Gaetz has denied the allegations and federal authorities had earlier this year decided not to bring charges. 

Hegseth’s lawyer, Parlatore, described Hegseth’s hotel sexual encounter with the woman after a Republican women’s event in Monterey, California, in 2017 as consensual. Local police, after an investigation, did not file any charges.  

Parlatore told The Washington Post that Hegseth settled the woman’s claim a few years later because he believed the filing of her threatened lawsuit “would result in his immediate termination from Fox,” where he was the popular host of a weekend talk show.  

“He was falsely accused, and my position is that he was the victim of blackmail,” Parlatore told The Associated Press, calling it a case of “successful extortion.” The woman’s name has not been made public, and U.S. news media do not usually disclose the names of alleged sexual assault victims without their consent.  

Parlatore’s statements to news outlets came after a woman who said she is a friend of the accuser sent a detailed memo to the Trump transition several days ago detailing the Hegseth incident with his accuser. The accuser alleged that Hegseth had raped her after drinking at a hotel bar.

Trump so far has stood by Hegseth, an unconventional selection as the Pentagon chief.

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about Hegseth’s lack of a managerial background, either at the Defense Department or at a business. The Pentagon chief would oversee more than 2 million U.S. troops and a civilian work force of nearly 800,000 people.  

In addition, some critics have raised concerns about a large tattoo on Hegseth’s upper right chest, which he characterizes as a Christian symbol, a “Jerusalem cross,” but what his critics say is a white nationalist symbol. Hegseth told one interviewer that he was removed by superiors from a National Guard detail handling security for President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 for fear that he was “an extremist” because of the tattoo.  

When the allegations against Hegseth first emerged, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung contended that Hegseth “has vigorously denied any and all accusations. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.” 

Even though voters in his Florida district had just reelected him to a fifth term, Gaetz resigned from his office Wednesday, ending the investigation.    

Several U.S. senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, are seeking access to the House Ethics Committee findings in the Gaetz investigation as they carry out their constitutionally mandated “advice and consent” role in reviewing Cabinet nominees made by an incoming president.  

House Speaker Mike Johnson, the leader of the narrow Republican majority in the chamber, is balking at the release of what he told CNN’s “State of the Union” show was a report in “rough draft form.”  

Johnson contended that no ethics report should be made public because Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress, although there have been instances where that has occurred in the past.  

He said senators reviewing the Gaetz nomination as the country’s top law enforcement official will “have a vigorous review and vetting process” but that they did not need to see the House Ethics Committee’s report. Some senators have suggested they could move to subpoena it if it is not turned over to them voluntarily.  

Trump has also stood by Gaetz’s nomination, but the president-elect also has sought – with little success so far – to get the Senate, in Republican control come January when he takes office, to agree to recess at times so he can name and install his Cabinet members without the need for contentious and time-consuming confirmation hearings.
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Trump’s Cabinet picks will shake status quo, House speaker says

Some of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks are being described as “controversial” in both Democratic and Republican circles. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson reminded critics Sunday that the American people voted to shake up the status quo, and that’s what these new Cabinet officials, if confirmed, will be tasked with doing. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the story. Video editing by Henry Hernandez.
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Democratic governors prepare for legal battles over Trump policies

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, some state governors from the opposition Democratic Party are preparing to defend their states’ progressive policies. Matt Dibble reports from California, where the governor has called for an emergency session of the state assembly.
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Trump to add North Dakota Governor Burgum as interior secretary

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has selected North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to run the Interior Department, as his new Cabinet continues to take shape.

The transition team officially announced the pick Friday, though Trump first announced the selection late Thursday during a dinner at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

Additionally, Trump announced Friday that Burgum also will lead a newly created National Energy Council that will be established to help the U.S. achieve “energy dominance” around the globe.

In this role, Burgum will direct a panel that crosses all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, Trump said in a statement. As chairman of the National Energy Council, Burgum will have a seat on the National Security Council, the president-elect said.

“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation,” Trump wrote.

His new policies will help drive down inflation and win an “arms race” with China over artificial intelligence, Trump said.

Burgum, 68, is the two-term governor of North Dakota. A billionaire former software company executive, he was first elected to the governorship in 2016 and was easily reelected in 2020.

Burgum briefly ran against Trump as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2023 before dropping out and enthusiastically throwing his support behind the eventual president-elect. A staunch conservative, Burgum, in his new position, is expected to be a strong ally of Trump’s efforts to open public lands for oil, gas and mineral exploration.

Communications director

The Trump-Vance transition team announced Steven Cheung will return to the Trump White House as communications director. He held the same position for the Trump-Vance 2024 presidential campaign and served in the White House during Trump’s first term as director of strategic response.

Trump has swiftly named an array of political loyalists to key Cabinet positions. They remained vocal supporters during his four years out of office, and most of them are likely to win quick Senate approval after confirmation hearings.

Having won majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, Republicans are set to take full control of the U.S. government by the third week in January.

“Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” newly reelected House Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this week. “The American people want us to implement and deliver that ‘America First’ agenda” espoused by Trump.

Trump will be sworn in as the country’s 47th president on January 20, two weeks after the new Congress has been seated.

Trump, 78, campaigned on a sweeping agenda that Democrats will be largely powerless to stop unless joined by a handful of Republican defectors in Congress on any specific issue that would undercut the party’s slim majorities in both chambers.

Republicans will have a 53-47 edge in the Senate, and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President-elect JD Vance in the event of a 50-50 stalemate on any legislative proposal. Republicans have secured at least 218 seats in the 435-member House, pending the outcome of seven undecided elections for two-year terms.

During his bid to win a second, nonconsecutive four-year term, Trump called for the massive deportation of millions of undocumented migrants living in the U.S. to their home countries; an extension and expansion of 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2025; further deregulation of businesses; a curb on climate controls; and prosecution of his political opponents, people he calls “the enemy within.”

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, newly elected by his fellow Republicans as the Senate majority leader, said, “This Republican team is united. We are on one team. We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump’s agenda.”

Trump also has called on Senate Republican leaders to allow him to make “recess appointments,” which could occur when the chamber is not in session and would erase the need for time-consuming and often contentious confirmation hearings.

Controversial picks

Despite the likelihood that most of his nominees will be approved, Trump this week named four who immediately drew disparaging assessments from several Democrats and some Republicans for their perceived lack of credentials.

They are former Representative Matt Gaetz as attorney general; former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat turned Republican, as director of national intelligence; former junior military officer and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary; and former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

The blowback presages tough confirmation fights for the four in the Senate, which reviews the appointments of top-level officials and then votes to confirm them or, on occasion, reject them, forcing the White House to make another choice.

The appointment of Gaetz, 42, could prove particularly problematic, with some senators openly questioning whether he can win a 51-vote majority to assume the government’s top law enforcement position.

Gaetz announced his resignation from the House late Wednesday, when a House ethics committee probe was in the final stages of investigating whether he’d engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. His resignation ended the probe.

The Justice Department Gaetz hopes to lead already had decided not to pursue criminal charges. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing.

Gabbard, 43, has been attacked for her lack of direct experience in intelligence and accused of disseminating pro-Russian disinformation. If confirmed, she would be tasked with overseeing 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. She won over Trump with her switch from being a Democratic House member from Hawaii to changing parties and staunchly advocating for his election.

Critics have assailed Hegseth, 44, a decorated former military officer, as someone who lacks managerial experience in the military or business world. A weekend anchor on Fox News, he has voiced his opinions on military operations, including his opposition to women serving in combat roles. He has lobbied Trump to pardon military service members accused of war crimes.

A descendant of the Kennedy family political dynasty, Kennedy, 70, for years has been one of the country’s most prominent proponents of anti-vaccine views. He has also opposed water fluoridation and suggested the coronavirus could have been deliberately designed to affect some ethnic groups more than others.

On Thursday, Trump also selected former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to be Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor; and former Representative Doug Collins to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He named one of his personal criminal defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, to be deputy attorney general, and another of his attorneys, D. John Sauer, to be solicitor general.

Ken Bredemeier and Liam Scott contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press.
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Democratic senators ask Pentagon, US officials to probe reports of Musk’s alleged calls with Russia

washington — Reports that billionaire Elon Musk has held multiple calls with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, should be investigated by the Pentagon and law enforcement agencies on national security grounds, two senior Democratic senators said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

Musk, who has been appointed to a senior government role by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, oversees billions of dollars in Pentagon and intelligence community contracts as CEO of aerospace company SpaceX.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a senior Foreign Relations Committee member, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed told U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Pentagon’s inspector general that Musk’s involvement in those SpaceX programs should be probed for potential debarment and exclusion after reports as recent as October of his conversations with Russian officials. Debarment refers to exclusion from certain contracts and privileges.

“These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” the lawmakers said in a joint letter dated Friday.

Several Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for a probe into Musk’s communications with Moscow since a report by The Wall Street Journal last month on the alleged contact, but the letter to the U.S. officials who could launch such an investigation has not been previously reported.

The call by Shaheen and Reed for a federal probe is a long-shot effort as Trump prepares to return to the White House with backing from Musk, who spent over $119 million on Trump’s reelection campaign and was appointed co-head of the president-elect’s forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency.

SpaceX, Musk and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon and Justice Department did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Russian contact

Reports of Musk’s contact with Russian officials emerged in 2022, when political scientist Ian Bremmer, president of consulting firm Eurasia Group, said he was told by Musk that he had spoken with Putin about the Ukraine war and Russia’s red line for using nuclear weapons. Musk denied Bremmer’s claim and said he had only spoken to Putin 18 months earlier, about space.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported Musk has had multiple conversations with Russian officials, including Putin and his first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, citing unnamed U.S., European and Russian officials.

Shaheen and Reed said in the letter it was “deeply concerning” that Musk reportedly had conversations with Kiriyenko. He was charged this year with other Russian officials by the U.S. Justice Department for spearheading an AI-powered propaganda campaign on Musk’s social-media platform X and other sites to promote Russian interests and influence voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

Musk has publicly claimed he holds a U.S. security clearance, giving him access to secret information at SpaceX, which holds billions of dollars in Pentagon and NASA launch contracts. The company also has a $1.8 billion intelligence community contract to build a vast spy satellite network, Reuters has reported.

“Communications between Russian government officials and any individual with a security clearance have the potential to put our security at risk,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

Tensions between the U.S. and Russia in space have spiked since Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion. Pentagon officials have condemned suspect maneuvers by Russian satellites in orbit and this year accused Russia of developing a space-based nuclear weapon capable of disabling large satellite networks.

Musk’s SpaceX has come to dominate the U.S. space industry and is relied on heavily by NASA and the Pentagon.

The company’s Starlink internet network of nearly 7,000 satellites has made SpaceX the world’s largest satellite operator and a disruptive force in the satellite internet sector, with heavy interest from the Pentagon for military communications. Ukraine’s military relies heavily on Starlink for battlefield connectivity.

The senators sent a separate letter on Friday to U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall saying Musk’s reported conversations raise the need for more competition in the launch and satellite communications industries and to use more companies besides SpaceX for sensitive national security missions.

“Mr. Musk’s reported behavior could pose serious risks to national security, and as CEO of a company with billions of dollars in sensitive defense and intelligence contracts, warrant reconsideration of SpaceX’s outsized role in [the Defense Department’s] commercial space integration,” the lawmakers said.
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After election losses, Democrats assign blame, begin soul-searching

After losing the White House to former President Donald Trump, Democrats are soul-searching to figure out what went wrong. Analysts say the economy played the biggest role in the party’s losses and Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat, but other factors also contributed. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
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Trump taps old ally, campaign stalwart for top intelligence posts 

washington — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is turning to an old ally and to an outsider seen by some as a disruptor to oversee American intelligence agencies when he begins his second term in office in January.

Trump late Tuesday announced he planned to appoint his former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, as director of the CIA, the country’s premier spy agency.

In a second announcement late Wednesday, Trump said he would nominate former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence and oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. Both nominees must be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Of the two picks, Trump’s choice of Gabbard as his top intelligence official caught some lawmakers and former intelligence officials by surprise.

Gabbard, a veteran with the U.S. Army National Guard, served in Iraq and Kuwait, and later became the first Hindu elected to the House of Representatives, representing the state of Hawaii as a Democrat.

During her more than 20 years in the National Guard, Gabbard was awarded a combat medical badge, but has not held any senior leadership positions.

Trump, who promised during his campaign to root out what he described as corruption in the intelligence agencies, praised Gabbard’s approach.

“I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength,” he said in a statement.

However, she has taken controversial positions in the past that have drawn criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

In a social media video in March 2022, she alleged there were more than 25 U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine “conducting research on dangerous pathogens,” and called on the United States and its allies, as well as Russia and Ukraine, to implement a cease-fire to make sure the pathogens did not spread.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney responded by chastising Gabbard, accusing her in a post of his own of “parroting false Russian propaganda.”

“Her treasonous lies may well cost lives,” he added.

Days earlier, top U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers they were fighting influence operations directed by Russia, aimed at convincing audiences that Kyiv was pursuing biological weapons.

Gabbard was also criticized in 2017 for traveling to Syria and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, who stands accused of war crimes. She defended the trip, arguing it is necessary to meet with adversaries if “you are serious about pursuing peace.”

Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former case officer with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and a Democrat, wrote on X late Wednesday that she was “appalled” by the nomination.

“Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she trafficks in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar al-Assad and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” Spanberger wrote. “I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.”

Ratcliffe to CIA

While Trump went with an U.S. intelligence outsider to serve as his lead intelligence official, he turned to an old ally to head up the country’s premier spy agency.

Trump praised Ratcliffe as a “warrior for Truth and Honesty,” and commended him for “exposing fake Russian collusion,” in part, by rejecting concerns expressed by dozens of former U.S. intelligence officials about Russian meddling.

“When 51 intelligence officials were lying about [President Joe Biden’s son] Hunter Biden’s laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People,” Trump said in a statement late Tuesday.

Messages and other information from the younger Biden’s laptop were provided to a New York newspaper in 2020, some of which were purported to show his dealings with foreign business partners in Ukraine, China and elsewhere. No evidence of impropriety by President Biden was ever established.

Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served on the House Intelligence Committee, has long been an ardent Trump supporter. And like Gabbard, his nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community in August 2019, during Trump’s first term, sparked controversy.

Ratcliffe was quickly forced to withdraw his name from consideration after both Republican and Democratic lawmakers raised questions about his credentials, focusing on allegations Ratcliffe had overstated his counterterrorism achievements as a federal prosecutor.

At the time, some lawmakers also questioned his lack of experience dealing with U.S. intelligence agencies.

But Trump nominated Ratcliffe for director of national intelligence again in February 2020.

During his confirmation hearing, Ratcliffe promised lawmakers he would deliver both the president and policymakers the “unvarnished truth,” no matter what they wanted to hear, and he ultimately won confirmation three months later after a 49-44 vote in the Senate, relying solely on Republican support.

Shortly after being sworn in, he joined social media, becoming the first director of national intelligence to have a Twitter account (the platform now known as X).

Ratcliffe then moved to declassify and release some intelligence regarding interactions between former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian officials.

He slammed leaks to the media that alleged that Russia had offered bounties to Taliban fighters for targeting and killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan – allegations that U.S. defense and intelligence officials later said could not be corroborated.

Ratcliffe also clashed with lawmakers, failing to appear before Congress for the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment hearings and ending in-person, all-member intelligence briefings on election security.

And he publicly argued with the then-chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, regarding Russia’s role in meddling in U.S. elections.

On China, Ratcliffe took a hard line, accusing Beijing of allowing the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic to spread.

In an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal before leaving office in January 2021, he described China as the most pressing threat to democracy and the West since World War II.

Since leaving office, Ratcliffe has served as a co-chair for the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute.

He co-authored a policy brief on the Russian invasion of Ukraine from October 2022, expressing support for a Ukrainian victory while backing an increased, U.S.-led push for negotiations and de-escalation.
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Trump taps senator, former rival Marco Rubio as his top diplomat

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to serve as the next U.S. secretary of state is Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011 and serves on the chamber’s foreign relations and intelligence committees.

Trump, in a statement Wednesday, called Rubio a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom who “will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries.”

Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is regarded as intelligent, ambitious and well-liked by Senate colleagues of both parties.

If Rubio, who is 53 and the son of Cuban immigrants, is confirmed by his Senate colleagues, he would become the first Latino secretary of state. In that role, he would be tasked with helping to implement Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Rubio was a vocal supporter of Kyiv. More recently, he has called for negotiations to end the conflict and voted in April against a $95 billion military aid package for the Ukrainians.

Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Trump’s stance. He has exhibited a tough stance toward authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as toward the communist leadership in Beijing.

In response, China has banned the senator from entering the country — something that likely will change if Rubio is confirmed as secretary of state.

Some leading Democrats in Congress, who will be the opposition party in January, are making positive comments about the Republican.

“I’ve got a good relationship with Marco, and I think Marco is very capable,” Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who has served on the intelligence committee with Rubio, told VOA after Rubio’s name was circulated in media reports.

On social media, Democratic Senator John Fetterman called Rubio “a strong choice,” adding that he looks forward to voting for his confirmation.

“Compared to some of the other names that were floating around, people who really don’t have any experience in foreign policy, I think this is a pretty good one,” former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on CNN before Trump’s official announcement.

In choosing members for his Cabinet and senior White House staff, Trump is generally emphasizing loyalty rather than experience. Rubio campaigned for Trump during this year’s presidential election.

The two had been rivals in the Republican presidential primary eight years ago. Trump had repeatedly belittled the senator, while Rubio questioned the New York real estate investor’s qualification for the presidency, calling Trump “a con man,” deemed him dangerous and someone who could not be trusted with the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

After Trump won the party’s nomination and the presidency, the relationship warmed. But Rubio did not side with Trump when he refused to accept defeat at the hands of Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden four years ago. After Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Rubio condemned the violence, calling the attackers “unpatriotic” and “un-American” “low-lives.”

Earlier this year, Trump considered Rubio, a behind-the-scenes campaign foreign policy adviser, as his running mate before selecting Republican Senator JD Vance.

Should Rubio take the job, he would have to vacate his Senate seat. A successor would then be selected by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Among the candidates being promoted by influential Republicans for the Senate seat is Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s daughter-in-law.

VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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Quick changes expected by President-elect Trump

Donald Trump may not be moving into the White House until January, but he is laying the groundwork and making domestic policy plans for the next four years. VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti has our story. VOA footage by Henry Hernandez.
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Republicans win 218 US House seats, giving Trump’s party control of government

WASHINGTON — Republicans have won enough seats to control the U.S. House, completing the party’s sweep into power and securing their hold on U.S. government alongside President-elect Donald Trump.

A House Republican victory in Arizona, alongside a win in slow-counting California earlier Wednesday, gave the GOP the 218 House victories that make up the majority. Republicans earlier gained control of the Senate from Democrats.

With hard-fought yet thin majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to upend the federal government and swiftly implement Trump’s vision for the country.

The incoming president has promised to carry out the country’s largest-ever deportation operation, extend tax breaks, punish his political enemies, seize control of the federal government’s most powerful tools and reshape the U.S. economy. The GOP election victories ensure that Congress will be onboard for that agenda, and Democrats will be almost powerless to check it.

When Trump was elected president in 2016, Republicans also swept Congress, but he still encountered Republican leaders resistant to his policy ideas, as well as a Supreme Court with a liberal majority. Not this time.

When he returns to the White House, Trump will be working with a Republican Party that has been completely transformed by his “Make America Great Again” movement and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, including three that he appointed.

Trump rallied House Republicans at a Capitol Hill hotel Wednesday morning, marking his first return to Washington since the election.

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else,'” Trump said to the room full of lawmakers who laughed in response.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who with Trump’s endorsement won the Republican Conference’s nomination to stay on as speaker next year, has talked of taking a “blowtorch” to the federal government and its programs, eyeing ways to overhaul even popular programs championed by Democrats in recent years. The Louisiana Republican, an ardent conservative, has pulled the House Republican Conference closer to Trump during the campaign season as they prepare an “ambitious” 100-day agenda.

“Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” Johnson said earlier this week. “The American people want us to implement and deliver that ‘America First’ agenda.”

Trump’s allies in the House are already signaling they will seek retribution for the legal troubles Trump faced while out of office. The incoming president on Wednesday said he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, a fierce loyalist, for attorney general.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has said Republican lawmakers are “not taking anything off the table” in their plans to investigate special counsel Jack Smith, even as Smith is winding down two federal investigations into Trump for plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Still, with a few races still uncalled the Republicans may hold the majority by just a few seats as the new Congress begins. Trump’s decision to pull from the House for posts in his administration — Reps. Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik so far — could complicate Johnson’s ability to maintain a majority in the early days of the new Congress.

Gaetz submitted his resignation Wednesday, effective immediately. Johnson said he hoped the seat could be filled by the time the new Congress convenes January 3. Replacements for members of the House require special elections, and the congressional districts held by the three departing members have been held by Republicans for years.

With the thin majority, a highly functioning House is also far from guaranteed. The past two years of Republican House control were defined by infighting as hardline conservative factions sought to gain influence and power by openly defying their party leadership. While Johnson — at times with Trump’s help — largely tamed open rebellions against his leadership, the right wing of the party is ascendant and ambitious on the heels of Trump’s election victory.

The Republican majority also depends on a small group of lawmakers who won tough elections by running as moderates. It remains to be seen whether they will stay onboard for some of the most extreme proposals championed by Trump and his allies.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, is trying to keep Democrats relevant to any legislation that passes Congress, an effort that will depend on Democratic leaders unifying over 200 members, even as the party undergoes a postmortem of its election losses.

In the Senate, GOP leaders, fresh off winning a convincing majority, are already working with Trump to confirm his Cabinet picks. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota won an internal election Wednesday to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest serving party leader in Senate history.

Thune in the past has been critical of Trump but praised the incoming president during his leadership election bid.

“This Republican team is united. We are on one team,” Thune said. “We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump’s agenda.”

The GOP’s Senate majority of 53 seats also ensures that Republicans will have breathing room when it comes to confirming Cabinet posts, or Supreme Court justices if there is a vacancy. Not all those confirmations are guaranteed. Republicans were incredulous Wednesday when the news hit Capitol Hill that Trump would nominate Gaetz as his attorney general. Even close Trump allies in the Senate distanced themselves from supporting Gaetz, who had been facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Still, Trump on Sunday demanded that any Republican leader must allow him to make administration appointments without a vote while the Senate is in recess. Such a move would be a notable shift in power away from the Senate, yet all the leadership contenders quickly agreed to the idea. Democrats could potentially fight such a maneuver.

Meanwhile, Trump’s social media supporters, including Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, clamored against picking a traditional Republican to lead the Senate chamber. Thune worked as a top lieutenant to McConnell, who once called the former president a “despicable human being” in his private notes.

However, McConnell made it clear that on Capitol Hill the days of Republican resistance to Trump are over. 
…

Trump picks former rival Marco Rubio for secretary of state

washington — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he is nominating Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a senior member of both the foreign relations and intelligence committees and former political rival, to be secretary of state. 

“He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said in a statement. 

Rubio, 53, is known as a China hawk, an outspoken critic of Cuba’s Communist government and a strong backer of Israel. In the past, he has advocated for a more assertive U.S. foreign policy with respect to America’s geopolitical foes, although recently his views have aligned more closely with those of Trump’s “America First” approach to foreign policy. 

In April, Rubio was one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a big military aid package to help Ukraine resist Russia and support other U.S. partners, including Israel. Trump has been critical of Democratic President Joe Biden’s continuing military assistance for Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion. 

Rubio has said in recent interviews that Kyiv needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than focus on regaining all of the territory that Moscow has taken in the last decade. 

On the Gaza war, Rubio — like Trump — has been staunchly behind Israel, calling Hamas a terrorist organization that must be eliminated and saying America’s role is to resupply Israel with the military materials needed to finish the job. 

Rubio is a top Senate China hawk, and Beijing imposed sanctions on him in 2020 over his stance on Hong Kong’s democracy protests. This could create difficulties for any attempts to maintain the Biden administration’s effort to keep up diplomatic engagement with Beijing to avoid an unintended conflict. 

Among other things, Rubio shepherded an act through Congress that gave Washington a new tool to bar Chinese imports over China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and has also pushed a bill that would decertify Hong Kong’s U.S. economic and trade offices. 

Rubio had also become a strong Trump backer, after harshly criticizing him when he ran against the former real estate developer for president in 2016. 

The three-term Republican senator should easily win confirmation in the Senate, where Trump’s Republicans will hold at least a 52-48 majority starting in January. 

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the intelligence committee, quickly issued a statement praising the choice of Rubio, the panel’s vice chairman. 

“I have worked with Marco Rubio for more than a decade on the Intelligence Committee, particularly closely in the last couple of years in his role as Vice Chairman, and while we don’t always agree, he is smart, talented, and will be a strong voice for American interests around the globe,” Warner said in a statement. 

Rubio, the son of immigrants from Cuba, will be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat. 
…

Trump taps Senator Marco Rubio, his former rival, for top US diplomat

washington — There are expressions of relief among Democrats and Republicans after President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he intended to nominate an experienced U.S. senator for secretary of state.

Trump’s choice, Marco Rubio, is a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011. In a statement, Trump called him a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom who “will be a strong advocate for our nation, a true friend to our allies, and a fearless warrior who will never back down to our adversaries.”

Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is regarded as intelligent, ambitious and well-liked by Senate colleagues of both parties.

Some leading Democrats in Congress, who will be the opposition party in January, are making positive comments about the Republican.

“I’ve got a good relationship with Marco, and I think Marco is very capable,” Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who has served on the Intelligence Committee with Rubio, told VOA after Rubio’s name was circulated in media reports.

On social media, Democratic Senator John Fetterman called Rubio “a strong choice,” adding that he looks forward to voting for his confirmation.

“Compared to some of the other names that were floating around, people who really don’t have any experience in foreign policy, I think this is a pretty good one,” former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger said on CNN before Trump’s official announcement.

Among the other names that had been floated was that of Ric Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany in the first Trump administration.

Despite having a close relationship with some Trump family members and being a loyal ally of the president-elect’s agenda, Grenell is regarded as a caustic figure and controversial because of his private dealings with foreign leaders. That would have meant a bumpy road for any appointment requiring Senate confirmation.

In choosing members for his Cabinet and senior White House staff, Trump is generally emphasizing loyalty rather than experience. Rubio campaigned for Trump during this year’s presidential election.

The two had been rivals in the Republican presidential primary eight years ago. Trump had repeatedly belittled the senator, while Rubio questioned the New York real estate investor’s qualification for the presidency, calling Trump “a con man,” deemed him dangerous and someone who could not be trusted with the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

After Trump won the party’s nomination and the presidency, the relationship warmed. But Rubio did not side with Trump when he refused to accept defeat at the hands of Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden four years ago. After Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Rubio condemned the violence, calling the attackers “unpatriotic” and “un-American” lowlifes.

Earlier this year, Trump considered Rubio, a behind-the-scenes campaign foreign policy adviser, as his running mate before selecting Republican Senator JD Vance.

If Rubio, who is 53 and the son of Cuban immigrants, is confirmed by his Senate colleagues, he would become the first Latino secretary of state. In that role, he would be tasked with helping to implement Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Rubio was a vocal supporter of Kyiv. More recently, he has called for negotiations to end the conflict and voted in April against a $95 billion military aid package for the Ukrainians.

Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Trump’s stance. He has exhibited a tough stance toward authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as toward the communist leadership in Beijing.

In response, China has banned the senator from entering the country — something that likely will change if Rubio is confirmed as secretary of state.

Should Rubio take the job, he would have to vacate his Senate seat. A successor would then be selected by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Among the candidates being promoted by influential Republicans for the Senate seat is Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s daughter-in-law.

VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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Biden assures Trump of smooth transfer of power at Oval Office meeting

President-elect Donald Trump returned to the seat of American power Wednesday, visiting both Congress and the White House and laying out his vision as he readies for his second term. President Joe Biden hosted Trump in the Oval Office, where he promised a smooth transfer of power. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House. Kim Lewis contributed.
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US Senate Republicans choose Senator John Thune as majority leader

U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday chose Senator John Thune to serve as majority leader when they retake control of the chamber next year.  

In a secret ballot, the South Dakota senator beat Senators John Cornyn and Rick Scott to assume the mantle of Republican leadership that Mitch McConnell has held for the past 18 years.

Thune told reporters the November 5 election was a mandate from the American people “to work with this president on an agenda that unwinds a lot of the damage of the Biden Harris Schumer agenda and puts in place new policies that will move our country forward in a different direction.”  

The 63-year-old Thune was elected to the Senate in 2004 and currently holds the Number 2 spot in Republican leadership, serving as minority whip. He is perceived as a more mainstream choice than Scott, a hard-line conservative and close ally of President-elect Donald Trump.

McConnell said in a statement that Thune’s “election is a clear endorsement of a consummate leader. The confidence our colleagues have placed in John’s legislative experience and political skill is well deserved.”

Thune received 23 votes to Cornyn’s 15 and Scott’s 13. He will serve as Senate majority leader for at least the next two years.

Republicans will hold at least 52 seats in the 100-person U.S. Senate. Votes in the Pennsylvania Senate race are still being counted.

“I look forward to working with him,” current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.  “We’ve done many bipartisan things here in the Senate together and I hope that continues. As you know, I strongly believe that bipartisanship is the best and often the only way to get things done in the Senate.”

Trump has floated the idea of bypassing the normal hearing process for Cabinet appointees, a significant departure from the Constitutional role of the U.S. Senate.

“The Senate has an advise and consent role in the Constitution, so we will do everything we can to process his nominations quickly and get them installed in their position so they can begin to implement his agenda,” Thune told reporters after his election.

Trump endorsed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Wednesday, saying he should serve as leader in the 119th Congress. With vote counting still underway in some states, Republicans hold a slim majority over Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Trump also had a unified government, with Republican control of both the Senate and the House, during the first two years of his first term as president. 
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Trump’s unexpected pick for Pentagon chief is decorated veteran, Fox News host

Pentagon — President-elect Donald Trump has made a largely unexpected pick to run the world’s largest military, nominating Fox News host and decorated veteran Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary. 

Trump has picked someone who has no previous experience in government or in running a large business. But the Army National Guard officer and “Fox and Friends” weekend host has raised his profile through hinting at several changes to the Defense Department.

Hegseth has said he opposes diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, which he has called “woke.” He has questioned the role of women in combat positions, all of which were opened to women by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in January 2016. Since then, women have earned positions as Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy combat-craft crewman after completing the same grueling tests as men.

Hegseth, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, authored the book “The War on Warriors,” which blames the military’s DEI programs for its recruiting crisis.

“There just aren’t enough lesbians from San Francisco who want to join the 82nd Airborne. Not only do the lesbians not join, but those very same ads turn off the young, patriotic, Christian men who have traditionally filled our ranks,” he wrote.

The nominee has also hinted he could target military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, to push out those who have supported DEI programs.

“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs” and “any general that was involved, any general, admiral, whatever,” he told podcast host Shawn Ryan earlier this year.  

Hegseth served tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay as an infantry officer and has pushed to make the U.S. military more lethal. Trump has praised his pick as “tough, smart and a true believer in America First.”

Hegseth’s nomination will need to be confirmed by a Senate majority. Republicans currently hold the majority by at least three seats.

One former Pentagon official, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss a nomination before a Senate vote, praised Hegseth’s dedication to American troops and veterans.

“He will fight for them because he really cares,” the former official said.

Other national security officials, who also spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised by the pick. 

After Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida was chosen to be Trump’s national security adviser, many had expected the secretary of defense position to be filled by one of the established national security heavy-hitters in the Republican party, such as U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs the House Armed Services committee, or a Senate Armed Services committee member such as Joni Ernst of Iowa or Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Both are veterans.

The Defense Department oversees more than 2.5 million active-duty and National Guard troops and has a budget that is expected to exceed $800 billion this year. 

Trump had a rocky relationship with defense secretaries in his first administration. His first secretary of defense, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, resigned in protest of Trump’s treatment of allies and his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. His other Senate-confirmed secretary of defense, Mark Esper, has called the president-elect “unfit for office.” 

Ahead of the election, Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that his “biggest mistake” in his first term was appointing “bad people,” including “neocons.”

Hegseth was the executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, a group funded by the Koch brothers that advocated greater privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

He was reportedly under consideration to run the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration.
…

Trump meets with Biden at White House

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returned triumphantly to Washington on Wednesday and walked into the White House for the first time in four years to meet with outgoing President Joe Biden. 

Biden invited Trump for the traditional visit — a show of the coming Jan. 20 peaceful transfer of power in the American democracy between the current U.S. leader and the incoming chief executive.  

But the Biden-Trump get-together is rife with political tension. 

Biden, a Democrat running for reelection, had sought to defeat Trump, the Republican, for a second time before ending his campaign in July after he faltered badly in a debate against him. Biden quickly endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to succeed him, but Trump swept through seven political battleground states in the election and easily defeated her. 

When Biden defeated Trump in 2020, Trump offered no White House invitation to meet him ahead of the inauguration and then left Washington two hours before Biden’s swearing-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.  

Trump, who to this day claims falsely that he was cheated out of winning the 2020 election by vote fraud, was the first president to not witness his successor’s inauguration since Andrew Johnson skipped the swearing-in of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869. 

Trump also met with Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the chamber in the current Congress and are nearing a slight majority control in the Congress set to be sworn in Jan. 3, but the outcome of more than a dozen seats remains uncertain.  

Trump has moved quickly to fill his nascent administration with Republican officials who have been the most politically loyal to him in the four years he was out of office. He has sought to fill several key defense and national security positions, including Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be his next defense secretary. 

The choice of Hegseth was outside the norm of those usually named as the Pentagon leader. But he was a vocal supporter of Trump during his first term, embracing his “America First” agenda of trying to withdraw U.S. troops from abroad and often taking up the cause of combat veterans accused of war crimes. 

Trump has also announced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as his choice for Homeland Security chief, picked John Ratcliffe as the director of the CIA and, according to news accounts, settled on Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, the country’s top diplomat.   

Both Rubio and Noem were on Trump’s short list of possible vice-presidential running mates several months ago. While Trump later picked first-term Ohio Senator JD Vance, now the vice president-elect, to join him on the Republican national ticket, both Rubio and Noem remained Trump stalwarts as he won the election.  

Ratcliffe was the nation’s sixth director of national intelligence, serving for the last eight months of the Trump administration after a rocky confirmation process. 

Trump also announced that billionaire businessman Elon Musk and entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead what he called the Department of Government Efficiency. The announcement said they would provide advice and guidance to “drive large-scale structural reform” of the federal government.  

The acronym for the new agency, DOGE, is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. 

Other notable picks by Trump include William McGinley as White House Counsel, Florida Congressman Michael Walz as national security adviser and Thomas Homan, former acting immigration chief, to be “border czar” to head efforts to deport undocumented migrants living in the United States. 

Just ahead of the election, Trump, who only rarely publicly admits making any mistakes, told podcaster Joe Rogan that his biggest error during his term from 2017 to 2021 was hiring “bad people or disloyal people.”   

“I picked some people that I shouldn’t have picked,” he said.  

Some of the top officials Trump chose then, including former chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton, became sharp public Trump critics after he ousted them. Kelly said during this year’s campaign that Trump met the definition of a fascist ruler. Trump attacked both former officials, calling Kelly “a bully but a weak person” and disparaging Bolton as “an idiot.”   

Rubio sparred sharply with Trump during their 2016 run for the Republican presidential nomination, which Trump captured enroute to his first term as president. Rubio mocked Trump as having small hands and sporting an orange spray tan, while Trump derided Rubio as “little Marco.”   

But Rubio, like numerous other one-time Trump critics, was a staunch Trump supporter in this year’s campaign. In recent years, Rubio has proved to be an outspoken foreign policy hawk, taking hard lines on U.S. relations with China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. 
…

Economists wonder whether Trump will follow through on campaign vows

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has left little question about the sort of economic policies he will pursue when he is sworn in for a second term as president in January.

The once-and-future president has promised to extend existing tax cuts and implement new ones; to pursue a deregulation agenda, particularly when it comes to energy production; to reinstate a strong protectionist trade policy, including substantial tariffs on imports; and to undertake a “mass deportation” program that would remove a large number of the millions of undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States.

While there may be little doubt about the kind of policies Trump will implement, the degree to which he will pursue them is an open question.

“The problem that all economists are dealing with is they don’t know how much of what Trump said on the campaign trail to take seriously,” Steven B. Kamin, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told VOA. “They don’t know if he’s going to do a lot of these things, or if he is, how far he’ll take it.”

When it comes to tariffs, Trump has promised across-the-board 10%-20% levies on all imports, and charges of up to 60% on goods coming from China, which experts warn would be economically ruinous.

His rhetoric about fossil fuel extraction suggests he will drive up oil and gas production, even though the U.S. is currently producing more energy than it ever has.

On immigration, he and his advisers have vacillated between suggesting that all undocumented people will be forcibly removed and describing a much more targeted operation.

Tax policy

One thing that appears certain is that Trump will work with Congress — which seems likely to be fully controlled by the Republican Party — to extend the tax cuts that became law as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which he signed into law in 2017.

Those tax cuts reduced the income taxes paid by many American workers and reduced taxable income by increasing the standard deduction. They also sharply cut the top business income tax bracket from 39% to 21%. Those provisions are all scheduled to expire over the next several years, some as soon as 2025, and Trump has proposed making them permanent.

Trump has also floated the idea of other tax cuts, including further reducing the business income tax to a maximum of 15%, and making income from overtime wages, tips and Social Security payments nontaxable, all of which would reduce government revenues.

Kamin said the stimulative impact of Trump’s proposed additional tax changes would likely not be great, but the impact on the country’s debt might be, because they will virtually guarantee additional government borrowing to finance deficit spending.

“The real concern for folks that are concerned about the fiscal balance — and I’m one of them — is that by cementing in place large fiscal deficits as far as the eye can see, even in environments of strong economic activity when we should be running surpluses, that leads to increases in the debt,” he said.

“That, eventually, should lead to crowding out of private investment, rising interest rates, and more worries about the government’s sustainability position,” Kamin added. “But when the debt will reach a level that will be worrisome in that respect, nobody knows.”

Cost-cutting

In theory, some of the deficit spending made necessary by large tax cuts could be offset by a reduction in government spending, something Trump has also floated on the campaign trail.

In particular, the president-elect has proposed creating a Department of Government Efficiency, to be headed by Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of the electric car company Tesla and the rocket builder SpaceX, and the owner of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

For his part, Musk has mused that it should be possible to slash federal spending by as much as $2 trillion per year, or about 30%.

Reductions of that magnitude would require deep cuts to a vast array of programs, including elements of the social safety net such as Social Security and federal health programs like Medicaid. However, it is unclear how Trump would persuade even a Republican Congress to enact such a wide-ranging reduction in government services.

Immigration policy

If Trump follows through on a policy of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, it is virtually certain to have a negative impact on economic sectors where they are present as laborers in significant concentrations, especially agriculture and construction, said Marcus Noland, executive vice president and director of studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“If you take lots of people out of the labor force, you reduce the amount of output, because there’s less labor available, and you raise prices,” Noland told VOA.

“These people are not distributed evenly across the United States economy,” he said. “They’re concentrated in agriculture and construction, so you would disrupt those sectors the most, especially if you combine it with tariffs.”

Trade policy

Trump’s tariff proposals, especially if he follows through with his maximalist proposals from the campaign trail, could be significantly damaging. While theoretically meant to stimulate American manufacturing, Noland warned that they could have the opposite effect.

“Some modeling that I worked on suggest that those tariff policies, instead of reviving the industrial sector, will actually reduce industrial activity in the United States,” he warned.

Blanket tariffs on imports, and especially high levies on Chinese goods, would create severe challenges for U.S. manufacturers.

“The reason is that you would increase the price of industrial inputs, and so, the United States would become a high-cost place to produce,” he said. “Investment would fall — and investment is intensive in industrial materials — so, ironically, it has the opposite effect of what its proponents say.”
…

Trump picks key political loyalists for top jobs

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is moving quickly to fill his nascent administration with Republican officials who have been the most politically loyal to him in the four years he was out of office.

Trump, according to various U.S. news accounts, has decided to name Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, the country’s top diplomat, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as the Homeland Security chief.

Both Rubio and Noem were on Trump’s short list of possible vice-presidential running mates several months ago. While Trump later picked first-term Ohio Senator JD Vance, now the vice president-elect, to join him on the Republican national ticket, both Rubio and Noem remained Trump stalwarts as he easily won the election last week over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has settled on Michael Waltz, a Florida congressman, as his national security adviser. Waltz earlier this year supported a long-shot Republican legislative effort to rename Washington’s international airport for Trump.

Trump on Monday also named Thomas Homan, his former acting immigration chief, to be his “border czar” to head efforts to deport undocumented migrants living in the U.S., possibly millions, back to their home countries. News accounts reported that Stephen Miller, another vocal anti-migrant adviser who served in Trump’s first term, would be named as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy.

The president-elect picked another ardent supporter, Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman, as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He nominated former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel.

Just ahead of the election, Trump, who only rarely publicly admits making any mistakes, told podcaster Joe Rogan that his biggest error during his term from 2017 to 2021 was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people.”

“I picked some people that I shouldn’t have picked,” he said.

Some of the top officials Trump chose then, including former chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton, became sharp public Trump critics after he ousted them. Kelly said during this year’s campaign that Trump met the definition of a fascist ruler. Trump attacked both former officials, calling Kelly “a bully but a weak person” and disparaging Bolton as “an idiot.”

Ahead of the election, Bolton said, “What Trump will look for in senior nominees in a second term is fealty. He wants ‘yes men’ and ‘yes women.'”

Rubio sparred sharply with Trump during their 2016 run for the Republican presidential nomination, which Trump captured enroute to his first term as president. Rubio mocked Trump as having small hands and sporting an orange spray tan, while Trump derided Rubio as “little Marco.”

But Rubio, like numerous other one-time Trump critics, was a staunch Trump supporter in this year’s campaign. In recent years, Rubio has proved to be an outspoken foreign policy hawk, taking hard lines on U.S. relations with China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.

He has at times been at odds with Republicans who were skeptical about U.S. involvement in overseas conflicts, such as helping to fund Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s 2022 invasion. But more recently, he voted against sending more U.S. military aid to Ukraine, while Trump has also voiced skepticism about the extent of U.S. assistance to Kyiv.

Rubio told NBC News in September, “I think the Ukrainians have been, such incredibly brave and strong in standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion, or that country is going to be set back 100 years.”

“I’m not on Russia’s side — but unfortunately, the reality of it is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement,” Rubio said.

Noem rose to national prominence and won conservative plaudits after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

Trump was reportedly considering her as his vice-presidential running mate. But she faced widespread criticism and fell in the stakes to be Trump’s No. 2 in April when she wrote in a memoir that she shot to death an “untrainable” dog that she “hated” on her family farm.

Waltz is a former Army Green Beret who shares Trump’s views on illegal immigration and skepticism of America’s continued support for Ukraine.

Waltz, who also has served in the National Guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and said the United States needs to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.

Just as notable as Trump’s initial selections are two former officials he has rejected for top jobs in his new administration: Nikki Haley, his former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Haley ran against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and Pompeo considered opposing Trump before backing off.

Trump is heading to Washington on Wednesday to meet with President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, about the transfer of power when Trump is inaugurated on January 20. Trump is also planning to meet with Republicans in the House of Representatives.
…

Trump sets sights on Gaza, Ukraine as early foreign policy goals

Beyond promising a return to the America First doctrine, President-elect Donald Trump has not provided details on what U.S. foreign policy will look like under his incoming administration. But his early conversations with leaders following his election victory indicate he aims to fulfill his promises to quickly end the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Transition period for US president-elect takes weeks

Although Donald Trump has won the presidential election, nearly 11 weeks will pass before he can assume office, giving him 76 days to prepare a new government.
…

Voters in Oakland oust Mayor Sheng Thao just 2 years into her term

OAKLAND, Calif. — Voters in Oakland, California, have ousted Mayor Sheng Thao just two years after she narrowly won office to lead the liberal San Francisco Bay Area city.

The Associated Press called the race Monday.

“Thank you for choosing me to serve as your Mayor. As the first Hmong American woman to become the mayor of a major American City, it has been the honor of my lifetime,” she said in a statement last week.

She committed to ensuring a smooth transition.

Thao must vacate the office as soon as election results are certified Dec. 5 and the Oakland City Council declares a vacancy at its next meeting, which would be Dec. 17, Nikki Fortunato Bas, City Council president, said in a statement.

A special election for a new mayor will be held within 120 days, or roughly four months.

Until then, Bas — as president of the City Council — would serve as interim mayor unless she wins a seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. As of Monday, Bas was trailing in that race.

Thao was elected mayor in November 2022 and became the first Hmong American to lead a major city. She faced criticism almost immediately after taking office for firing popular Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong. Frustrated voters, including the local NAACP, blamed Thao for a long list of city woes related to public safety, homelessness and the city’s budget.

In her statement, Thao said she was proud of her administration’s accomplishments.

Thao was not the only official booted from office in Tuesday’s election. Pamela Price, district attorney for Alameda County, which includes Oakland, also was ousted by voters in a recall election. Critics of both Thao and Price disagreed with the officials’ progressive politics.

Thao went into Tuesday’s election weakened by an FBI raid in June of her home — along with properties owned by a politically influential family that controls the city’s recycling contract. Thao has maintained her innocence and authorities have not said what they are investigating.

Oakland uses a ranked choice voting system that allows voters to list multiple choices in order of preference. Thao narrowly beat Loren Taylor in 2022 despite getting fewer first-place votes than Taylor.

Oakland has about 400,000 residents and is, at times, more politically liberal than San Francisco. It is Vice President Kamala Harris’ hometown.

In recent years, Oakland has lost three professional sports franchises, including Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sent state highway patrol officers, state prosecutors, and surveillance cameras to help Oakland battle crime.
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Trump breaks Republican losing streak in nation’s largest majority-Arab city

DEARBORN, Michigan — Faced with two choices she didn’t like, Suehaila Amen chose neither. 

Instead, the longtime Democrat from the Arab American stronghold of Dearborn, Michigan, backed a third-party candidate for president, adding her voice to a remarkable turnaround that helped Donald Trump reclaim Michigan and the presidency. 

In Dearborn, where nearly half of the 110,000 residents are of Arab descent, Vice President Kamala Harris received over 2,500 fewer votes than Trump, who became the first Republican presidential candidate since former President George W. Bush in 2000 to win the city. Harris also lost neighboring Dearborn Heights to Trump, who in his previous term as president banned travel from several mostly-Muslim countries. 

Harris lost the presidential vote in two Detroit-area cities with large Arab American populations after months of warnings from local Democrats about the Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering support for Israel in the war in Gaza. Some said they backed Trump after he visited a few days before the election, mingling with customers and staff at a Lebanese-owned restaurant and reassuring people that he would find a way to end the violence in the Middle East. 

Others, including Amen, were unable to persuade themselves to back the former president. She said many Arab Americans felt Harris got what she deserved but aren’t “jubilant about Trump.” 

“Whether it’s Trump himself or the people who are around him, it does pose a great deal of concern for me,” Amen said. “But at the end of the day when you have two evils running, what are you left with?” 

As it became clear late Tuesday into early Wednesday that Trump would not only win the presidency but likely prevail in Dearborn, the mood in metro Detroit’s Arab American communities was described by Dearborn City Council member Mustapha Hammoud as “somber.” And yet, he said, the result was “not surprising at all.” 

The shift in Dearborn — where Trump received nearly 18,000 votes compared with Harris’ 15,000 — marks a startling change from just four years ago when Joe Biden won in the city by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. 

No one should be surprised 

The results didn’t come out of nowhere. For months, in phone calls and meetings with top Democratic officials, local leaders warned, in blunt terms, that Arab American voters would turn against them if the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war didn’t change. 

The Biden-Harris administration has remained a staunch ally of Israel since the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took over 200 hostages. The war between Israel and Hamas has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. 

While Harris softened her rhetoric on the war, she didn’t propose concrete policies toward Israel or the war in Gaza that varied from the administration’s position. And even if she had, that might not have made much of a difference in places like Dearborn. 

“All she had to do was stop the war in Lebanon and Gaza and she would receive everyone’s votes here,” said Hammoud. 

More voters thought Trump would be better able to handle the situation in the Middle East than Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. About half of voters named Trump as better suited, compared with about a third who said Harris. 

Among those who opposed more aid for Israel, 58% backed Harris in the presidential election; 39% supported Trump. 

Even some Harris voters had their doubts. About three-quarters of Harris voters in Michigan said she was the better candidate to handle the situation. Few preferred Trump, but about 2 in 10 Harris voters said they were equivalent or neither would be better. 

In the absence of support for Harris in the Arab American community, Trump and his allies stepped in. 

A key part of Michigan’s electorate — a state Trump won by nearly 11,000 votes in 2016 before he lost it by nearly 154,000 to Biden in 2020 — Arab Americans spent months meeting with Trump allies, who encouraged community leaders to endorse him. 

Things began to move in September, when Amer Ghalib, the Democratic Muslim mayor of the city of Hamtramck, endorsed Trump. Shortly afterwards, Trump visited a campaign office there. 

That was a turning point, said Massad Boulos, who led Trump’s outreach with Arab Americans. Boulos’ son Michael is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany. 

“They very, very much appreciated the president’s visit and the respect that they felt,” said Massad Boulos. “That was the first big achievement, so to speak. After that, I started getting endorsements from imams and Muslim leaders.” 

An apparent shift toward Trump in final week 

While support for Harris had been declining for months — especially after her campaign did not allow a pro-Palestinian speaker to take the stage at August’s Democratic National Convention — some voters say the last week of the campaign was pivotal. 

At an October 30 rally in Michigan, former President Bill Clinton said Hamas uses civilians as shields and will “force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.” 

“Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians, they wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel uninhabitable,” he said. “Well, I got news for them, they were there first, before their faith existed, they were there.” 

The Harris campaign wanted Clinton to visit Dearborn to speak in the days following the rally, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about them. The potential visit never materialized after backlash over Clinton’s comments. 

“That comment was the talk of the town. It hurt many like me, who loved him,” said Amin Hashmi, who was born in Pakistan and lives in suburban Detroit. A self-proclaimed “die-hard Dem,” Hashmi said casting a ballot for Trump “was a seismic move” that came after he stood in the voting booth for 25 minutes. 

On the Friday before the election, Trump visited The Great Commoner in Dearborn, a Lebanese-owned restaurant. That stood in sharp contrast with Harris, who met with Dearborn’s Democratic mayor, Abdullah Hammoud — who didn’t endorse in the race — but never came to Dearborn herself. 

“He came up to Dearborn. He spoke with residents. Whether some people say it wasn’t genuine, he still made the effort. He did reach out and try to work with them, at least listen to them,” said Samia Hamid, a Dearborn resident. 
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Young Black, Latino men say they chose Trump because of economy, jobs

WASHINGTON — Brian Leija, a 31-year-old small-business owner from Belton, Texas, was not surprised that a growing number of Latino men of his generation voted for Donald Trump for president this year. Leija had voted for the Republican in 2016 and 2020. 

Leija’s rationale was simple: He said he has benefited from Trump’s economic policies, especially tax cuts. 

“I am a blue-collar worker,” Leija said. “So, tax breaks for small businesses are ideal for what I do.” 

For DaSean Gallishaw, a consultant in Fairfax, Virginia, a vote for Trump was rooted in what he saw as Democrats’ rhetoric not matching their actions.  

“It’s been a very long time since the Democrats ever really kept their promises to what they’re going to do for the minority communities,” he said. 

Gallishaw, 25, who is Black, also voted for Trump twice before. This year, he said, he thought the former president’s “minority community outreach really showed up.” 

Trump gained a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and most notably among men under age 45, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters. 

Even as Democrat Kamala Harris won majorities of Black and Latino voters, it wasn’t enough to give the vice president the White House, because of the gains Trump made. 

Economy, jobs made men under 45 open to Trump 

Voters overall cited the economy and jobs as the most important issue the country faced. That was true for Black and Hispanic voters as well. 

About 3 in 10 Black men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, also were more open to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about 6 in 10 who went for Biden. 

Juan Proano, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization for Hispanic Americans, said the election results make it clear that Trump’s messaging on the economy resonated with Latinos. 

“I think it’s important to say that Latinos have a significant impact in deciding who the next president was going to be and reelected Donald Trump,” Proano said. “[Latino] men certainly responded to the populist message of the president and focused primarily on economic issues, inflation, wages and even support of immigration reform.” 

The Rev. Derrick Harkins, a minister who has served Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, has overseen outreach to Black American religious communities for more than a decade. He said that Trump’s hypermasculine appeal worked to win over some younger men of color. 

“I think that Trump with this bogus machismo has been effective amongst the young men, Black, white, Hispanic,” Harkins said. “And I think unfortunately, even if it’s a very small percentage, you know, when you’re talking about an election like we just had, it can be very impactful.” 

Black, Latino voters’ priorities changed from 2020 

While about 4 in 10 young voters under 45 across racial and ethnic groups identified the economy as the top issue facing the country, older white and Latino voters were likely to also cite immigration, with about one-quarter of each saying that was the top issue. 

A clear majority of young Black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older Black voters. Majorities of Latino voters, regardless of age, said the economy is in bad shape. 

That belief made it more difficult for Harris to highlight the actual numbers in the economy, which show that inflation has receded dramatically, unemployment remains low and wages have risen. These voters simply did not feel that progress. 

This is the first time Alexis Uscanga, a 20-year-old college student from Brownville, Texas, voted in a presidential election. The economy and immigration are the issues that drove him to vote for Trump, he said. 

“Everything just got a lot more expensive than it once was for me,” Uscanga said. “Gas, grocery shopping, even as a college student, everything has gone up in price, and that is a big concern for me, and other issues like immigration.” 

Having grown up washing cars and selling tamales and used cars, Uscanga knows how hard it can be to make a living. When Trump was president, he said, it did not feel that way, he said. 

“I was not very fond of President Trump because of his rhetoric in 2016, but I look aside from that and how we were living in 2018, 2019.” Uscanga said. “I just felt that we lived a good life no matter what the media was saying, and that’s why I started supporting him after that.” 

Though the shift of votes to Trump from Black and Latino men was impactful, Trump could not have won without the support of a majority of white voters. 

“Men of color are really beginning to emerge as the new swing voters,” said Terrance Woodbury, co-founder of HIT Strategies, a polling and research firm that conducted studies for the Harris campaign. 

“For a long time, we talked about suburban women and soccer moms who can swing the outcome of elections. Now men of color are really beginning to emerge as that, especially younger men of color, who are less ideological, less tied to a single party, and more likely to swing either between parties or in and out of the electorate,” Woodbury said. 

Desire for strong leadership  

A majority of voters nationally said Trump was a strong leader; slightly fewer than half said the same about Harris. Among Hispanic voters, even more saw Trump as strong in this election. Roughly 6 in 10 Hispanic men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%. 

Black men and women were about twice as likely as in 2020 to describe Trump as a strong leader. 

David Means, a purchasing manager in Atlanta who is Black, abstained from voting in the election because he did not feel either Harris or Trump was making the right appeals to Black men. But the results of the election did not disappoint him. 

“I’m satisfied with the result. I don’t feel slighted. I wasn’t let down. I wasn’t pulling for Trump or Kamala, but I did not want a woman in that position,” he said. And if it were to be a woman, Means said, “I’d rather have a really strong and smart woman, for example, like Judge Judy.”
…

Harris appears with Biden for first time since election loss

U.S. President Joe Biden laid a wreath Monday to honor the nation’s fallen soldiers on Veterans Day, an event marking his first appearance with Vice President Kamala Harris since her election defeat last week.

The ceremony, at historic Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, is also the first time Harris has been seen in public since her Nov. 6 speech in which she conceded the presidential election to Donald Trump.  

Democrats, facing a painful reckoning over their drubbing, have begun soul-searching internal discussions — and some not-so-private blaming — over what caused Harris’s loss, with some pointing to Biden’s initial insistence on running again at age 81, despite having promised to be a bridge president to the next generation.

Criticism of Harris herself has been more muted, and Biden heaped praise on Harris last Thursday in a televised White House address.  

Earlier Monday, Biden hosted veterans at the White House to mark the holiday before heading to Arlington, the final resting place of two presidents, generals from all major U.S. wars, and thousands of other military personnel.  

Biden and Harris, both dressed in dark suits, placed their hands on their hearts before participating in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  

The president was to deliver remarks at the cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater.

The ceremony comes ahead of Biden hosting Trump at the White House on Wednesday.

The Republican has begun naming loyalists to his new administration. He announced he is bringing a hard-line immigration official, Tom Homan, back into the fold to serve as his so-called “border czar,” and congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Trump himself has long claimed he is a fierce supporter of America’s military, but he has made a series of controversial comments about veterans.  

His longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired general John Kelly, has said the Republican leader privately disparaged U.S. service members, including describing those who died or were imprisoned defending America as “suckers” and “losers.”  

Trump denies the accusation.  

But the soon-to-be 47th president has been on record expressing contempt for late American war hero and senator John McCain, who spent years in a Hanoi prison during the Vietnam war.
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