Election 2024 stay: Trump and Biden set for White House assembly as new border czar reveals dying threats

Donald Trump reportedly advised Russian President Vladimir Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine in a phone call the day after the presidential election, a new report says.

As one of his first orders of unofficial business as the president-elect, Trump spoke with Putin on Thursday in a telephone conversation that he took from his home in Florida, according to The Washington Post.

He allegedly asked the Kremlin leader not to escalate his war and reminded him of America’s military presence in Europe.

It was one of several calls Trump took with other leaders from around the world in the hours after he won the 2024 presidential election.

He also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Here’s more from Ariana Baio.

The New York Congresswoman, one of the president-elect’s most loyal and outspoken supporters on Capitol Hill, has reportedly been offered a role once held by Nikki Haley in the new administration, according to Kaitlan Collins of CNN.

Stefanik is currently the House Republican Conference chair (having replaced the aforementioned Cheney in that role in 2021) and is therefore the fourth highest-ranking member of the GOP.

She was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress when she entered its halls in 2014 and was initially a Trump critic in the Paul Ryan era, only to then make

a name for herself by aggressively challenging witnesses at Trump’s first impeachment hearings in 2019 and then embracing his false 2020 election fraud narrative.

In another post on Truth Social, Trump derided his defeated election rival Kamala Harris for campaigning with disaffected Republican Liz Cheney, calling the tactic “a BIG mistake” that had only served to angere conservatives and left Democrats “just plain scratching their heads in amazement”.

Good morning!

Donald Trump has announced that Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will serve in his incoming administration as border czar and take responsibility for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants he promised on the campaign trail.

The president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform overnight that Homan would be in charge of “the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security”.

He added: “I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders.

“Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.

“Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”

If you’re not familiar with Homan, here’s a taster.

The ex-ICE director was involved in the Heritage Foundation’s notorious Project 2025 proposal for Trump’s second term and told the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July that he had “a message for the millions of illegal aliens who Joe Biden allowed to enter the country in violation of federal law – start packing, because you’re going home.”

At a panel on immigration policy that same month, Homan said: “Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

And, last Thursday, he told Fox News he had “not politicked or asked… for a cabinet position” and that no offer had been made but added: “President Trump knows if he needs help securing that border I’m standing by.

“If he needs help running a deportation operation, I am standing by.”

Bernie Sanders has doubled down on his scathing remarks about the Democratic party having “abandoned” working-class voters, despite criticism from longtime friend and ally Nancy Pelosi.

The veteran Vermont senator reiterated that the US working class is “angry” but rejected the idea that the issue this election cycle had been with party “messaging.”

In a statement after Donald Trump sailed to victory over Kamala Harris, Sanders wrote that “it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working-class people, would find that the working-class has abandoned them.”

The former House speaker and Democratic powerhouse Nancy Pelosi then slammed his remarks, saying she did not agree or “respect” them.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Meet The Press about Pelosi’s remarks, he said: “Nancy is a friend of mine, and we’ve worked together on many issues, but here is the reality, I have to say to Nancy, in the Senate, in the last two years, we have not even brought forth legislation to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, despite the fact that some 20 million people in this country are working for less than $15 an hour.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan tamped down on worries that Donald Trump would weaponize the federal government against his political enemies on Sunday, even as Trump himself has publicly promised to do so.

Jordan was on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday and was presented with a list of Democrats whom Trump has said he would press the Justice Department to prosecute at various points during his campaign. Notably, the president has never had the power to launch such politically motivated criminal investigations or unwarranted prosecutions of their enemies.

But the Ohio congressman brushed away concerns, stating that Trump “didn’t do that in his first term” and pointed out that despite pledging his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, to “lock her up”, did not actually direct the DoJ to do so at any point in his first presidency.

“I know, but I’m talking about Donald Trump’s second term. Going forward,” Bash pressed.

“I don’t think any of that’s going to happen, because we’re the party that’s against political prosecutions,” Jordan replied.

The special counsel is signaling an end of a yearslong investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

He is likely getting away with it, Alex Woodward reports:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s sweeping victory, Republicans are turning their attention to those in the judicial system who went up against the president-elect in the courts.

Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, Florida Representatives Anna Paulina Luna and Cory Mills floated the idea that criminal charges could be brought against Judge Juan Merchan – and his daughter Loren Merchan.

Read more here:

Texas Senator John Cornyn, who is vying for the Senate Majority Leader position, agreed with Donald Trump that the next Senate leader should allow the president to make recess appointments to his cabinet.

“It is unacceptable for Senate Ds to blockade President [Trump’s] cabinet appointments. If they do, we will stay in session, including weekends, until they relent. Additionally, the Constitution expressly confers the power on the President to make recess appointments,” Cornyn said hours after Trump demanded so on Truth Social.

Recess appointments allow the president to appoint people to his cabinet during Senate recess, bypassing the typical confirmation process.