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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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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. 
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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. 
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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.
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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. 
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