Iranian man charged in plot to kill Trump; judge grants special counsel’s request to pause Trump’s 2020 case – live

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Pentagon lifts ban on US defense contractors inside Ukraine to repair weaponry - report

The Biden administration has decided to allow US defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, Reuters is reporting, citing US officials.

The contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines and will not be engaged in combat, an official told the news agency.

“Having small numbers of contractors in Ukraine conducting maintenance away from the front lines will help ensure U.S.-provided equipment can be rapidly repaired when damaged and be provided maintenance as needed,” the US official said.

Faisal Ali

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested on Friday that a second term for Donald Trump could provide an opportunity to resolve the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Lebanon and Gaza.

Erdoğan said he called Trump on Wednesday, while in Budapest for the European Political Community summit, in which he congratulated him on his election victory.

During a speech in Istanbul, Erdoğan said he now expects Trump to “abandon the erroneous policies of the previous administration” on Gaza and bring the war there to an end.

“You know Trump has promised to end the conflicts initiated by Israel. We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told stop”, Erdoğan said.

On Ukraine, Erdoğan called for more diplomacy, adding that Turkey-US cooperation could get a breakthrough.

“More weapons, more bombs, more chaos, and conflict will not end this war,” he warned.

Ankara has previously played a key role in facilitating dialogue between Kyiv and Moscow.

Judge grants Jack Smith's request to pause proceedings in election interference trial

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case has granted a request from the special counsel’s office to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election.

As we reported earlier, Jack Smith asked judge Tanya Chutkan to pause the case against the president-elect to “assess the unprecedented circumstances” in which the office finds itself.

In a filing earlier on Friday, Smith said that “as a result of the election” the prosecution “respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance.”

Smith’s team said it would inform the judge of “the result of its deliberations” by 2 December.

The day so far

Donald Trump seems set to evade federal prosecution for allegedly plotting to overturn the 2020 election, with special counsel Jack Smith asking a judge to pause proceedings in the case. Separately, the justice department unveiled charges against a member of an Iranian paramilitary for allegedly plotting to kill the president-elect prior to his victory on Tuesday. We have also been getting more of a sense of who might serve in a second Trump administration, and what it’s priorities may be. Elon Musk reportedly took part in a call with Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which the Ukrainian president found to be more reassuring than he expected. And on Fox News, the House majority leader Steve Scalise said Republican lawmakers would be focusing on extended tax cuts, allowing more oil and gas production and stopping migrants.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• We still do not know the winners of Arizona and Nevada’s electoral votes or Senate races. Trump is expected to win the former, while Democratic candidates appear to have advantages in the latter.

• Bob Casey, Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator, lost his bid for re-election yesterday, the Associated Press confirmed. But he has not conceded, and a prominent Democratic election attorney has indicated there may be a fight over ballot counting brewing.

• Million of Americans may lose health insurance coverage next year, if Congress does not decide to extend subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

Special counsel Jack Smith asks judge to pause Trump's 2020 election meddling case - report

With Donald Trump headed back to the White House, NBC News reports that special counsel Jack Smith has asked a federal judge to pause proceedings in his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Continuing the case appeared untenable after Trump won Tuesday’s election, since justice department policy prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents – something Trump will soon be, once again.

NBC News reports that, in his filing, Smith said that “as a result of the election” he “requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance.”

Earlier this week, the Guardian reported that Smith will end both the election interference case against Trump, and a separate prosecution for allegedly taking and hiding classified documents. Neither case had gone to trial prior to Trump’s election victory on Tuesday:

Signs that Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump increased in the run-up to the election, leading his campaign to reportedly request extraordinary security accommodations. Here’s a look back at those, from the Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis:

Donald Trump’s team has asked for officials to provide him with a dramatic array of military protections as the presidential campaign wraps, including travel in military aircraft and vehicles, according to reports.

Trump’s campaign has also requested ramped-up flight restrictions around his residences and rallies, and “ballistic glass pre-positioned in seven battleground states” for his team’s use, the Washington Post reported, citing internal emails and sources familiar with the requests. The New York Times first reported on these requests.

The demands were both “extraordinary and unprecedented”, the Post noted, as not a single recent presidential nominee has been shuttled in military aircraft before an election. A source told the Times that these sorts of high-level, classified military resources are used solely for sitting presidents.

Trump’s asks followed intelligence provided to his campaign staff that Iran is seeking to assassinate him and after his team expressed worry about drones and missiles targeting him. Trump was shot during a failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on 13 July, and a man was arrested in an alleged assassination attempt on 15 September; neither gunman is believed to have had Iranian ties.

Justice department charges Iran Revolutionary Guard member with trying to kill Trump

The justice department has brought charges against a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards paramilitary group for plotting to assassinate Donald Trump prior to Tuesday’s presidential election, the Associated Press reports.

On the campaign trail in the lead-up to his election win, Trump survived two assassination attempts, but authorities do not believe either were linked to Iran, a longtime foe of the United States.

According to the AP, the complaint unsealed in a Manhattan federal court says an unnamed official of the guard, which is formally known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, instructed a contact in September to create a plan to surveil and kill Trump.

Signs are continuing to mount that Elon Musk will be involved in Donald Trump’s administration. But the Guardian’s Dan Milmo reported earlier this week that even if he decides to stay out of politics, Musk appears set to gain from the Republican’s return to the White House:

Hours before it became official that Donald Trump had returned to the White House, his biggest supporter was already inside the Oval Office.

Elon Musk, who has been a key backer of Trump’s return to the presidency, was in his default wind-up mode as he used his X platform to post a superimposed picture of himself – holding a sink – inside the seat of US power.

“Let that sink in,” he wrote.

It was amateurish but Musk’s contribution to Trump’s victory has been serious and will reap benefits for the world’s richest person.

Trump acknowledged Musk in his victory speech on Wednesday, even if it required prompting from the audience, and indicated that Musk will be well treated under his administration.

“We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them,” said Trump.

Musk, who is worth $264bn (£205bn), can easily afford the more than $100m he has given to the fellow billionaire’s campaign via his Super Pac.

Musk joined Trump's call with Zelenskyy - report

In yet another sign of Elon Musk’s clout with the second Trump administration, Axios reports that he was on the line when Donald Trump called Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his election win.

Two sources knowledgable about the call said Zelenskyy was “somewhat reassured” by what Trump told him. On the campaign trail, the president-elect promised to end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours” after taking office, which raised concerns he would broker a deal that would benefit Russia.

According to Axios, the call between Trump and Zelensky lasted about 25 minutes, and “the president-elect said he will support Ukraine, but didn’t go into details.”

“Three sources briefed on the call all told Axios that Zelensky felt the call went well and that it did not increase his anxiety about Trump’s victory. One source said it ‘didn’t leave Zelensky with a feeling of despair,” Axio said.

As for Musk, Axios said he “weighed in during the call to say he will continue supporting Ukraine through his Starlink satellites, the sources said. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.”

Number-two House Republican signals focus on taxes, border, role for Musk

Steve Scalise, the Republican House majority leader, said that if the party maintains its control of the chamber, their top priorities will be passing legislation to extend tax cuts implemented during Donald Trump’s first term, making good on his promise to crack down on migrants, and increasing oil and gas production.

Saying the Republicans would pass a bill using the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to circumvent a filibuster by Senate Democrats, Scalise said:

There are a lot of things you could put in that. We laid it out as a first 100-day agenda. And we would put things like renewing the Trump tax cuts, many of those which expired that we passed in 2017. We want to renew those cuts so that families don’t see a tax increase.

He also made clear that the House was ready to approve proposals by Trump to stop people from crossing into the United States from Mexico, as well as ways to increase America’s already high oil production:

The ability to produce more energy in our country, it will lower costs for things like gasoline and food for families who are struggling. And it really takes leverage away from countries like Russia, like Iran, like Venezuela. So geopolitically has a lot of benefits, too.

Finally, Scalise signaled that Trump would indeed get billionaire Elon Musk involved in his administration somehow, saying:

Let’s rightsize government. Elon Musk is going to be very involved in that.

Here’s the full interview:

EU leaders are gathering in Budapest for an informal summit on the bloc’s ailing competitiveness – a task given added urgency by the threat of protectionist “America first” trade policies promised by the US president-elect Donald Trump.

“Don’t ask what the US can do for you, ask what Europe should do for itself,” the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said as the meeting got under way. “Europe must find a balance. We know what we have to do.”

European officials are alarmed by Trump’s impending return not just because of his hostility to Nato and ambivalence towards Ukraine, but also the economic consequences of his threat to make the EU “pay a big price” for not buying enough US imports.

Trump Media shares rise after Trump says he has 'no intention of selling' Truth Social

In one of the first statements he has made on social media since winning the presidential election, Donald Trump says he has no intention of selling Truth, the X-like network that has become one of his prime means of communication since leaving the White House.

He made the announcement in a post on Truth itself, in his signature style:

There are fake, untrue, and probably illegal rumors and/or statements made by, perhaps, market manipulators or short sellers, that I am interested in selling shares of Truth. THOSE RUMORS OR STATEMENTS ARE FALSE. I HAVE NO INTENTION OF SELLING! I hereby request that the people who have set off these fake rumors or statements, and who may have done so in the past, be immediately investigated by the appropriate authorities. Truth is an important part of our historic win, and I deeply believe in it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

The president-elect made the foray into social media in the run-up to his successful campaign to return to the White House, but Truth Social has yet to become as big as X, Facebook and other social media mainstays, with Trump being its most prominent user.

Share of his company Trump Media have in recent days seen heavy volatility in trading, but are up by about 8.5% as of 10.53 am ET:

Democrats retain majority in Pennsylvania house despite losses elsewhere

Democrats have managed to hang on to their majority in Pennsylvania’s house of representatives by a single seat, the Associated Press reports, despite losing the state’s electoral votes to Donald Trump and failing to re-elect their US senator.

The party had won control of the chamber two years ago, also with only a one-seat margin, but had hoped to expand their majority further. That said, the GOP did keep their majority in Pennsylvania’s senate, denying Democratic governor Josh Shapiro the trifecta needed to fully implement his agenda.

Here’s more on the Democratic victory in the Keystone State, from the AP:

The win by incumbent Rep. Frank Burns is the final House race to be called in a year when none of the 203 districts are changing hands. It gave Democrats a 102-101 margin and dashed Republican hopes of returning to control after two years in the minority.

The Washington Post reports that, in addition to setting up a customary post-election win meeting with him at the White House, Joe Biden will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration:

Staffers for Biden and Trump are working to schedule a meeting between the two leaders, something that did not occur four years ago when it was Trump who was leaving the White House and Biden who was coming in. Biden’s aides say he will attend Trump’s inauguration, something Trump also refused to do when Biden took the oath of office, breaking a long-standing tradition.

Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration, after spending weeks fruitlessly trying to prevent him from taking office by propagating baseless claims of fraud in 2020.

Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris have public appearances scheduled today.

The president will come near reporters briefly in the afternoon as he travels to Delaware for the weekend, but there’s no telling if he will speak to them. Harris is in Washington DC and holding undisclosed meetings.

Yesterday, Biden spoke from the White House, and pledged a smooth transfer of power to Donald Trump:

Also writing in the New York Times, Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama, shared his views on what went wrong for Democrats:

Now Mr. Trump has decisively won back the presidency. I would never claim to have all the answers about what went wrong, but I do worry that Democrats walked into the trap of defending the very institutions — the “establishment” — that most Americans distrust. As a party interested in competent technocracy, we lost touch with the anger people feel at government. As a party that prizes data, we seized on indicators of growth and job creation as proof that the economy was booming, even though people felt crushed by rising costs. As a party motivated by social justice, we let revulsion at white Christian nationalism bait us into identity politics on their terms — whether it was debates about transgender athletes, the busing of migrants to cities, or shaming racist MAGA personalities who can’t be shamed. As a party committed to American leadership of a “rules-based international order,” we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.

What Donald Trump did right (and Harris misunderstood):

Kamala Harris brought new energy and remarkable discipline to the campaign’s final months, revitalizing the collaborative joy essential to Democratic politics. But her ties to an unpopular incumbent — and a global post-pandemic backlash against any incumbent — held her back. Democrats understandably have a hard time fathoming why Americans would put our democracy at risk, but we miss the reality that our democracy is part of what angers them. Many voters have come to associate democracy with globalization, corruption, financial capitalism, migration, forever wars and elites (like me) who talk about it as an end in itself rather than a means to redressing inequality, reining in capitalist systems that are rigged, responding to global conflict and fostering a sense of shared national identity.

Yes, this is unfair: Republican policies from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush did far more than Democrats to create this mess. But Mr. Trump’s crusade against the past elites of his own party — from the Bush family to Mitch McConnell — credentialed him with a public hungry for accountability, while the Harris campaign’s embrace of Dick Cheney conveyed the opposite message.

And, finally, what might work to undermine Trump over the next four years:

Out of the wreckage of this election, Democrats must reject the impulse to simply be a resistance that condemns whatever outrageous thing Mr. Trump says. While confronting Mr. Trump when we must, we must also focus on ourselves — what we stand for, and how we tell our story. That means acknowledging — as my Hong Kong interlocutor said — that “the narrative of liberalism and democracy collapsed.” Instead of defending a system that has been rejected, we need to articulate an alternative vision for what kind of democracy comes next.

Democrats are going to spend the coming days, months and years digesting their brutal defeats in Tuesday’s election.

Among those pondering what happened is congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who appears (the Associated Press has not called it) to have won re-election in a red Washington state district, despite losses by fellow Democrats elsewhere. In a Q&A with the New York Times, she shared some thoughts on how she has managed to hold on to her seat in what is otherwise hostile territory for her party:

You were considered the most vulnerable House Democrat, and yet you are set to win by a fairly comfortable margin in a very difficult political environment. How did that happen, and what can Democrats learn from you?

I just refused to let this race be nationalized. It’s not about the message. It’s about my loyalty to my community. The messenger is the message in a lot of ways. My awareness of my community has been durable, and it’s reflective in my vote record. That is a huge asset.

The fundamental mistake people make is condescension. A lot of elected officials get calloused to the ways that they’re disrespecting people.

…

How do you think Democratic lawmakers have been disrespecting people?

I was talking to a woman who runs one of the largest labor and delivery wards. She said 40 percent of the babies there have at least one parent addicted to fentanyl. What is empathetic — to tell them that’s their problem, or to take border security seriously?

People are putting their groceries on their credit card. No one is listening to anything else you say if you try to talk them out of their lived experiences with data points from some economists.

Last night, the Associated Press reported that Republican David McCormick had unseated Pennsylvania’s longtime Democratic senator Bob Casey.

But the incumbent has not conceded. Instead, he posted a message saying that there are still ballots to count:

Meanwhile, Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic election law attorney who has worked for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns, appeared to suggest that there may be a court fight brewing over ballots in the race:

Whether all this will affect the outcome remains to be seen. While it was always viewed as difficult for Democrats to keep their Senate majority beyond this year due to the three red state seats they would have to defend to do so, Casey’s seat was viewed as winnable for the party. His defeat appears tied to Donald Trump’s sweep of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes.

Ballot counting continues in Nevada, Arizona with Senate seats in play

We still do not know which candidate won Nevada and Arizona’s electoral votes, with ballot counting ongoing in both western states, and the Associated Press yet to determine a winner.

Donald Trump is ahead in both states thus far, but even if he slips, it would not change the outcome of the presidential election. The real races to watch in the states are for its Senate seats, which also have not yet been called by the AP.

Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen seems to have the edge over her Republican challenger Sam Brown in Nevada, with 96% of the ballots counted.

In Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego has a lead over Republican Kari Lake, though only 76% of results have been reported.

Even if both Democrats win, it will not prevent the GOP from taking control of the Senate next year. Their victories in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, along with Trump’s re-election, ensured their majority.