News & Politics

President-elect Donald Trump may create an opening in Florida for a U.S. Senate seat, with his expected nomination of Sen. Marco Rubio to become Secretary of State.

READ MORE: Trump Victory Was ‘Slim’ and Not the ‘Historic Mandate’ Republicans Claim, Analysis Shows

In 2008, when Barack Obama became President-elect, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had the responsibility to fill Obama’s Senate seat. Blagojevich, later convicted of corruption, was infamously recorded saying, “I’ve got this thing, and it’s (bleeping) golden… I’m just not giving it up for (bleeping) nothing.” After serving eight years of his 14-year sentence, Blagojevich’s prison term was commuted by President Donald Trump in 2020.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran unsuccessfully, and, critics say, poorly, for the GOP presidential nomination, has some options, which include handing the seat to a Trump—or to a DeSantis.

Senator Rubio won re-election in 2022, and his six-year term does not end until 2028.

Should Rubio be nominated and confirmed, Gov. DeSantis would need to appoint a temporary seat holder who could choose to run in 2026 for the seat. The seat would also be up for election on schedule, in 2028.

In 2010, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin declined to appoint himself to an open Senate seat and appointed his 36-year-old legal adviser instead. Four days later he launched a campaign to run for the seat, and won it that year.

DeSantis’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier, “could act as a caretaker in the Senate role until 2026,” CBS News reports. “This move would give DeSantis the option to run for the Senate seat himself in the 2026 special election, aligning with the end of his gubernatorial term.”

He could also appoint his Lt. Governor, Jeanette Nunez, to the seat.

READ MORE: ‘No Excuse’: Dems Have Just Weeks to Get Dozens of Biden’s Judicial Nominees Confirmed

Or, “DeSantis could work with Nunez to resign as governor, allowing her to ascend to the governorship and appoint him directly to the Senate seat, bypassing the need to wait until 2026.”

“There’s also speculation that DeSantis could appoint his wife, Casey DeSantis to the seat. Casey DeSantis has long been involved in state government and she enjoys wide popularity across the state.”

But there are other options.

U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) “is publicly calling for President-elect Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to be chosen to fill [the] Florida Senate seat — a sign of Trump allies potentially rallying around the pick,” Axios reports.

Lara Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, was handed another top position recently: co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Before getting involved in politics, she was a producer for TV’s “Inside Edition,” worked on the Trump 2020 campaign, and spoke at Trump’s January 6, 2021 Save America rally that preceded the insurrection. She was also rumored to be interested in running for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina in 2021.

She has no experience in government.

But Talking Points Memo founder and editor Josh Marshall asks, “how much say does DeSantis even get over a replacement?”

“I think too,” he adds, “people are overlooking the distinct possibility that Rubio’s [appointment] is less about giving him [Secretary of] State than giving someone else his Senate seat.”

READ MORE: ‘What Illegal Corruption Looks Like’: Trump Blasted for ‘Already Breaking the Law’

If Donald Trump appoints Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) to the role of secretary of state, one of his fellow Republican senators thinks the president-elect's daughter-in-law would be "a tremendous" replacement, Axios reported Tuesday.

Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) — who offered the GOP State of the Union rebuttal in February — told Axios the Republican National Committee co-chair "just got off a historic win."

The Alabama lawmaker added, "She understands the America First agenda. For me, I think she would be a tremendous pick, a voice for hard working families and another mom of school aged kids that understands what we're up against, and that's to fight to protect the American dream."

The Daily Beast noted, "Lara has not officially spoken about the public support. Yet as these things typically go, no one who wants it says that they want it."

TIME reported in July:

The upshot is that Lara Trump is potentially going places in MAGA World. As an articulate Trump defender and one of his most prominent surrogates, she would have a long list of options should her father-in-law reclaim the White House, ranging from a senior role in a second Trump term to elected office. 'If we win,' says Charlie Kirk, the right-wing firebrand, 'she'll definitely be one of the most sought after and respected people in the conservative movement.'

Aside from Lara, other possible picks for Rubio's seat, according to Axios, include Florida Governor Ron "DeSantis' chief of staff James Uthmeier and the state's attorney general, Ashley Moody."

Politico reported on Tuesday that "two people close to" DeSantis said the GOP governor would also consider selecting Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez — who "would be the first Cuban American woman in the Senate" — to take the seat.

President-elect Donald Trump last week declared he had won a “historic mandate,” but as states continue to count votes, his margin continues to shrink, debunking his claim.

Most notably, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office, there are more than 2.6 million votes left to be counted in the Golden State, out of a total of more than 13 million.

The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, also wasted no time claiming a “mandate” for the GOP, just as Trump did.

“The American people have spoken and given us a mandate. We will be prepared to deliver on day one. With Republicans in control, we will secure the border, grow our economy, restore American energy dominance, and end the radical woke agenda. America’s best days are ahead of us,” he claimed.

As recently as Monday, New York Republican Party chair Ed Cox also called it a “historic mandate.”

READ MORE: ‘No Excuse’: Dems Have Just Weeks to Get Dozens of Biden’s Judicial Nominees Confirmed

The results are clear: Donald Trump won the White House and Republicans are projected to have a majority in the House and the Senate—but any claim to a “mandate,” or a “historic” election is false, say critics.

“Yes, Trump won, but it is not a mandate,” declared former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel, a former managing editor of TIME magazine. “His very slim popular vote margin seems outsized only in comparison to the fact that Rs seldom win the popular vote. He got fewer votes than last time. He won because of the millions of folks who chose not to vote—hardly a mandate.”

“As blue Western states and cities finish counting votes, it looks like the popular vote ‘landslide’ projected for Donald Trump last week turned out to be a trickle,” writes The Nation‘s Joan Walsh. “When all the votes are counted, he will end up with a margin of roughly two points over Vice President Kamala Harris. Presidents Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972 won more than 60 percent of the popular vote; Ronald Reagan in 1984 won 58 percent. Those were landslides.”

Walsh acknowledges that the results are not “good news” for Democrats.

READ MORE: ‘What Illegal Corruption Looks Like’: Trump Blasted for ‘Already Breaking the Law’

“But it’s not the top-to-bottom repudiation of Democrats as it first looked like, and the way to respond is not to launch a civil war within the Democratic Party,: she notes. “Unfortunately, that has already begun. Centrists blame the doctrine of ‘woke,’ with particular ire for trans Americans (we see you, New York Rep. Tom Suozzi); leftists say Democrats abandoned the working class (we hear you, once again, Senator Bernie Sanders). Both positions are wrong. Others point fingers at the Harris campaign. Meanwhile, much of the media hypes Trump’s win as a landslide, which would seem to validate his racist, anti-worker agenda.”

Currently, according to the Cook Political Report’s vote tracker, Donald Trump is beating Kamala Harris by about 3.2 million votes, or 2.17%. Those number will change, of course, but the margin will likely stay about the same if not narrow.

“When the votes are all counted,” The Washington Post’s Philip Bump notes, “Trump will likely end up with the narrowest margin of victory since 2000. And it’s probably in large part because a lot of 2020 Biden voters stayed home.”

“It is likely that,” he continues, “when all of the votes are counted, Trump will have received about half of the votes cast, beating Vice President Kamala Harris by about a percentage point. As a function of the two-party vote, Trump’s popular vote victory — his first — will probably be the smallest since Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush in 2000.”

Focusing on swing states, as Vice President Harris did during her 107-day campaign, Bump adds, “while most non-swing states probably saw drops in turnout, it is likely to be the case that most of the seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — will have seen increases in vote totals. It’s another indication that the Harris campaign’s intense focus on those states provided a boost to her candidacy, albeit a fruitless one. (Last week, we noted that the shift in the presidential vote margin in the swing states was smaller than other states, which suggests the same thing.)”

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

With Donald Trump appointing Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) as national security adviser — and possibly appointing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as secretary of state, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will be tasked with selecting replacements, Politico reports.

Per the report, the president-elect is "triggering a major shakeup" in the Sunshine State by giving DeSantis "a powerful opportunity to shape his legacy and potentially set up his political future" following his failed presidential bid earlier this year.

"Everyone who wrote Gov. Ron DeSantis’ obituary following the presidential election is an idiot," Florida GOP consultant Anthony Pedicini told Politico.

READ MORE: House GOP leader says 'hopefully no more' as Trump Cabinet picks make 'thin majority even smaller'

"The governor everyone said was a lame duck is getting more powerful by the minute."

Politico reports, "Two people close to the governor previously told POLITICO that he would likely look to Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, former Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva or chief of staff James Uthmeier as possible replacements."

The news outlet notes that "appointing Nuñez, who is a longtime close friend to Rubio, would be historic," considering "she would be the first Cuban American woman in the Senate, while either Nuñez or Moody would be only the second woman senator to ever represent Florida."

Politico reports:

It’s possible that Trump will continue to choose leaders from Florida to fill his administration, particularly given that incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles has deep roots in the state. The House and Senate seats alone are already upending Florida’s future political landscape, as both Waltz and Rubio were considered possible candidates for the 2026 governor’s race.

READ MORE: 'They’re trying to bully us': GOP senators revolt over new MAGA pressure campaign

Regarding Waltz's seat, the Republican governor "would need to set a date to hold a special election, a move that would likely take a few months in order to meet various deadlines and requirements," the report notes.

"If there was any doubt that Florida is not the Republican epicenter of American politics this is proof that it is now," Pedicini told Politico.

Politico's full report is available at this link.

Some of Donald Trump's MAGA allies are pushing back on the president-elect's alleged Secretary of State choice, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), according to a Tuesday Politico report.

Far-right activist and close Trump ally Charlie Kirk warned his millions of followers not to believe everything they see until the MAGA leader confirms his appointees himself.

"Folks, word of wisdom. If Trump hasn’t confirmed it on Truth [Social], don’t jump to conclusions and don’t believe everything you see," Kirk wrote via X.

READ MORE: House GOP leader says 'hopefully no more' as Trump Cabinet picks make 'thin majority even smaller'

Friends of Ric Grenell, — a "controversial figure within" MAGA world, who served as Trump's director of national intelligence — according to Politico, said that "Rubio wasn’t a done deal, according to two people advocating for his selection as secretary of state."

However, per the report, "Some people close to Trump did not like that Grenell appeared to be actively lobbying for the role of secretary of State — a major no-no in Trump world."

Still, other MAGA allies voiced their disapproval of Rubio.

Noting that the Florida senator "has been criticized by some Trump diehards as too hawkish," Politico notes that right-wing "comedian Dave Smith said Tuesday that Rubio is 'a disaster.'"

READ MORE: Once 'unthinkable' scenario in second Trump term more likely than ever: law professor

He added, "Might as well give Liz Cheney the State Department. Awful sign."

Another right-wing activist said, "Rubio? Was Hillary unavailable?"

Politico's full report is available at this link.

Sources close to Melania Trump “don’t expect her to be full-time” in Washington D.C. as they say the former first lady will buck tradition and decline a meeting with First Lady Jill Biden on Wednesday, CNN’s Kristen Holmes reports.

Holmes spoke of the decision on CNN Tuesday, telling host Pamela Brown the former first lady informed the White House and Donald Trump’s team that “she had a prior engagement related to her book,” “Melania,” which was released on Oct. 8.

The CNN reporter floated the possibility of Melania Trump “[changing] her mind” about Wednesday’s slated meeting at the White House, noting there are people in her husband’s orbit “that really wanted her to go.” According to Holmes, “part of the reason” the former first lady attended Rosalynn Carter’s funeral was “because she did not want the media narrative that she was not attending.”

READ MORE: House GOP leader says 'hopefully no more' as Trump Cabinet picks make 'thin majority even smaller'

The CNN reporter went on to say it’s clear Melania Trump “really wants nothing to do with” Donald Trump’s second presidential run.

“She appeared three times total in the span of two years,” Holmes said. “One was at his announcement, the second at Madison Square Garden, where she made brief remarks, and the third was standing on the stage election night.”

“We are told that is because she did not want to be in the spotlight,” the CNN reporter added.

Holmes pointed to Melania Trump’s absence at Donald Trump’s debate with President Joe Biden as even more evidence of her withdrawal from her husband's political ambitions.

READ MORE: Supreme Court delivers massive blow to Mark Meadows

“Everybody else from the family was there, everybody's family was there,” Holmes said. “That is a key moment in the campaign to have the first debate and she was nowhere to be seen.”

Melania Trump’s reluctance to appear during husband’s campaign may extend to his time in the White House, Holmes added.

“There's a lot of special speculation — and I have heard from a lot of sources — they don't expect her to be full-time [in Washington D.C.]," the CNN reporter said. "They insist she will be there for state dinners, big meetings, but she will not set up a full-time residency."

“I am also told that they are looking at possibilities of her splitting her time mostly between New York and Palm Beach,” Holmes added.

READ MORE: Justice Alito has bad news for right-wings’ plan to enshrine Supreme Court control

Watch the report below or at this link.

Donald Trump's 2024 win means that he could enshrine far-right conservatism even further in the U.S. Supreme Court — but Justice Samuel Alito is standing in the way.

Given Alito's age of 74, there was speculation that he and Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, could step down to make way for younger conservative justices who would be expected to maintain control long into the future.

Last week, Trump allies butted heads over asking the justice to step down.

But according to the Wall Street Journa Tuesday, Alito isn't going anywhere.

“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” said a person close to Alito. “The idea that he’s going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is.”

As the New York Times reported last week, speculation about shoving the justices out has "prompted fissures in the conservative world, eliciting a striking rebuke from Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society and arguably the most powerful figure in the conservative legal movement."

Both Alito and Thomas are younger than President-elect Donald Trump, who, at 78, will be the oldest president in history when he leaves office at 82.

Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the court and have lifetime appointments.

Read the full report here.

Gov. Kristi Noem's assent from admitted dog killer to national watchdog is spurring howls of rage and disbelief on social media.

President-elect Donald Trump's selection of Noem, the South Dakota Republican who boasted of shooting a pet dog to death, as secretary of Homeland Security on Tuesday stunned political spectators.

"Trump wants the dog-shooter to be his Secretary of Homeland Security," author Stephen King told his followers. "We're sure not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

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News broke in April that Noem's memoir "No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward" included an anecdote about shooting a 14-month-old dog named Cricket in a gravel pit because she "hated that dog."

ALSO READ: What Trump's win really means for America

"The puppy-killer will be in charge of homeland security," SiriusXM radio host Michelangelo Signorile wrote on X, "making critical decisions over people's lives."

Noem will head a sprawling agency that oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Secret Service, two sources told CNN Tuesday.

"She was willing to shoot her own dog," responded USA Today columnist Michael J. Stern on X. "Imagine what she'll do to immigrants crossing the border."

The non-partisan advocacy group Veterans for Responsible Leadership argued Noem's decision to share the anecdote suggested she catered her message toward Trump loyalists alone.

"Noem never cared that we were disgusted with her dog murder," the group wrote. "We weren’t the audience."

Political analyst Russell Drew was one of many commentators to suggest Trump granted Noem the powerful position in gratitude for her support.

"With Kristi Noem head of Homeland Security, not only will people not be safe, but neither will their dogs!" wrote Drew. "Talk about being completely unqualified for a job."

"Noem, it will be recalled, scuttled her bid to become Trump’s vice presidential nominee when she published an account of how she gunned down the family pet," added John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation. "But she remained absolutely loyal to Trump and has now been tapped to keep America 'safe.'”

CNN analyst Jeff Storobinsky resorted to dark humor, writing, "All dogs, please, this is not a drill, please seek shelter immediately."

Cartoonist Adam Zyglis joined in by sharing a cartoon that depicts Noem and Trump, both toting smoking guns, next to the corpses of a dog and Lady Justice.

It is entitled "MAGA Meet-Cute."'

Stephen Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, believes the likelihood of President-elect Donald Trump flat-out disobeying a ruling from the United States Supreme Court is stronger than ever.

Writing in the New York Times, Vladeck makes the case that the Supreme Court hits the brakes on proposed Trump policies more often than it's given credit for during his first term in office.

However, he believes that some of the court's unpopular rulings, most famously its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, have damaged the court's credibility and could embolden Trump to shrug off its directives.

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"Without that public support, what would happen if Mr. Trump simply ignored a decision by the nation’s highest court that he doesn’t like?" Vladeck asked. "It is a question that until now seemed largely thinkable."

Vladeck points to statements made by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance in recent years in which he said that Trump should ignore any court ruling that tries to inhibit his power and he cited the actions of former President Andrew Jackson as precedent.

Added to this, he argues that Trump is far less likely to care about any public blowback from defying Supreme Court orders now that he is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office.

"Judicial power is fragile... the entire system is jeopardized when the courts lose their ability to stand up to the other institutions of government," Vladeck writes in conclusion. "That is why it is so essential for the justices to worry about the court’s public support even in calm times, for it’s when the rule of law is directly threatened that the court’s credibility and legitimacy becomes imperative."

The right wing of the Georgia State Election Board that champions rules favored by GOP supporters of President-elect Donald is set to get back to its agenda after court decisions thwarted past attempts to implement the changes before November.

The fight for voting rights in Georgia intensified after the 2020 presidential election, when Trump and his supporters falsely claimed that widespread voting fraud had cost him his reelection bid.

The debate over the sweeping changes to Georgia’s election rules continued last week with the conclusion of Tuesday’s presidential election, which saw Trump defeat Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris to win Georgia’s 16 electoral votes.

The 5.3 million vote turnout for this year’s general election, including 4 million votes cast in person at polls early and absentee ballots, was cited as evidence by Republican lawmakers behind 2021 election overhaul and subsequent election rules changes leading up to the Nov. 5 election.

Republicans in Georgia disputed the claims of voter suppression after Democratic nominee Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the 2020 election. A battle over election rules continues to play out this year before the Georgia State Election Board, which meets next on Nov. 18.

Georgia has until Nov. 23 to certify the election results.

Trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to become the next president, thanks in part to Georgia’s 16 electoral votes. In the Nov. 5 election, Trump defeated Harris by 2.7 million votes to 2.5 million, a sharp contrast to the 2020 election, when Trump famously lost by just under 12,000 votes to Joe Biden in Georgia.

The battle over key election rules is still set to play out before the Georgia Supreme Court, which will hold hearings on the Republican National Committee’s appeal of a Fulton County judge invalidating new statewide procedures. Attorneys for the state and the Republican groups argued for the pressing need to have rules in place in time for the general election for daily reporting on absentee ballots, new ID requirements for dropping off absentee ballots, hand counting paper ballots and broader discretion for local election boards to investigate the way a county conducts an election before certification.

Attorney Marc Elias, who challenged conservative election rules on behalf of progressive and Democratic groups, pledged to continue to do so following the Nov. 5 presidential election. Elias’s Democracy Docket team was hired this year to assist the Harris campaign with multiple aspects of the election program, including voter protection, recounts, and other litigation challenging state voting laws.

Ellis wrote in an online blog that despite the “chilling realization” of Trump’s impending victory, Harris’s speech resonated reinforced their advocacy to protect democracy that began with Hillary Clinton’s concession speech to Trump in the 2016 presidential election

“Hillary’s concession speech helped guide me to a worldview that has served me well ever since, Elias wrote Nov. 7 on Democracy Docket. “I will always be an admirer of her tenacity and grit. But in her speech, Kamala spoke to what I value and who I am. We all owe Kamala a lot for her fight and perseverance. But I owe her much more. We will fight. And when we fight we win.”

The three GOP board members who have been publicly praised by Trump are expected to continue pushing for new rules such as requiring three poll workers at every precinct after polls close on election nights to individually count paper ballots to confirm whether the hand tally matches the number of machine-counted ballots.

The State Election Board has also called for a highly controversial change giving the county election board’s new discretion over certifying election results. The three Republican state election officials are asking the court to clarify state law in order to give local election board officials the ability to examine election records and the right to cite any vote discrepancies or other election irregularities as a reason to refuse to certify the election results.

The State Election Board has been forced to defend against a flurry of lawsuits since former GOP state Sen. Rick Jeffares and political media personality Janelle King were appointed earlier this year to the five-member board. The controversial rules were often approved by a 3-2 majority, with Fulton County Republican Janice Johnston joining Sandy Springs’ King and Henry County’s Jeffares in advancing the proposed changes until the rules were finalized several weeks later.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and X.

WASHINGTON — Two days before a key meeting with President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump has not yet signed the necessary paperwork to unlock resources for a smooth transfer of power from one presidential administration to another.

Trump’s transition spokesperson Brian Hughes told States Newsroom Monday that “The Trump-Vance transition lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”

“We will update you once a decision is made,” Hughes said in a statement.

Biden will host Trump at the White House late Wednesday morning, according to his public schedule.

One of the agreements in question includes a memorandum of understanding between the Trump-Vance transition and the U.S. General Services Administration for office space, information technology services, and staff assistance, as outlined in the 2010 update to the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

The services are available to the president-elect, and to major presidential candidates following nominating conventions, but come with financial disclosure requirements and a contribution cap of $5,000 on transition-related donations from any one person or organization.

The other is an MOU with the White House, negotiated by the incumbent and president-elect, to establish an ethics plan pertaining to members of the transition team and information sharing, including national security matters. The due date was Oct. 1.

‘Peaceful and orderly’ transition urged

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday that Chief of Staff Jeff Zients has reached out to the Trump-Vance transition team’s co-chairs Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, both major campaign donors.

“So we’re going to leave that line of communications open. We’re going to be helpful here. We want to have an effective, efficient transition of power,” Jean-Pierre said.

Biden said Thursday from the White House Rose Garden that a “peaceful and orderly transition” is what “the American people deserve.”

The transition memoranda are available online, and the public can view the agreements filed in September by Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee who ultimately lost to Trump.

Raskin calls on Trump to act

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, called on Trump’s campaign in October to complete the paperwork.

“Breaking the precedent set by every other presidential candidate since 2010, you have rejected these resources and refused to commit to a smooth transition,” Raskin wrote in an Oct. 23 letter.

The Maryland Democrat surmised in the letter that the Trump team’s paperwork delinquency “may be at least partially driven” by an attempt to skirt the financial disclosure and limit rules.

“With fewer than three weeks left until an election in which the American people will select a new President of the United States, I urge you to put the public’s interest in maintaining a properly functioning government above any personal financial or political interests you may perceive in boycotting the official transition law and process,” Raskin wrote.

In February 2021, the Biden-Harris administration filed a 1,021-page transition-related donation and expense disclosure.

Last updated 5:25 p.m., Nov. 11, 2024

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on Facebook and X.

“The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart opened his show Monday by taking Democrats through the wringer in a stinging takedown of their election night defeat last week, joking with his audience, "It turns out the election was stolen by more people voting for Donald Trump.”

“It’s quite the capper,” Stewart said to laughter. He opened his show Monday by demanding a close-up camera view before taking on a serious tone and declaring: “Welcome to the resistance," he said, pausing as the audience applauded. "I’m actually being facetious.”

He continued his opening segment by dissecting the Democrats’ election night loss with a smattering of humor and defeat, and then offered his own assessment of what the Democratic Party – and the political analysts – got wrong.

“I’m glad to say Democrats did protect democracy, just for the other side,” he said. “But it’s a delight to hear about why it happened from so many people who were so wrong about what was going to happen,” Stewart said.

ALSO READ: Trump didn't win — disinformation did

“Everybody’s talking about this ‘wokeness’ theory,” he continued. But, he noted that the Democrats “didn’t talk about pronouns, they didn’t say ‘Latinx,’ it was the opposite. They didn’t do the woke thing…they acted like Republicans for the last four months. They wore camo hats and went to Cheney family reunions.”

He said instead, Democrats were mostly running “against an identity that was defined for them based on a couple of months of post-George Floyd defund the police ‘Me Too’ Instagram posts from four years ago."

He continued his post-election assessment by telling viewers that the general mood in the country that the Democrats discovered on election night was that “government wasn’t working for them.”

“And then Democrats in particular were taking their hard-earned money and giving it to people who didn’t deserve it as much as them. So the Democrats got shellacked," he said.

“But, I just want to assure people that this isn’t forever,” Stewart told his audience, before discussing the 1984 election results when Democrats won just a single state.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in four years, at all.”

Watch the clip below or at this link.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

U.S. Congressman Ruben Gallego will be Arizona’s newest senator, according to the Associated Press, which called the race for Gallego Monday night.

Almost a week after Election Day, with more than 93% of votes in the state counted, Marine veteran and Democrat Gallego was 2.2 percentage points and 72,626 votes ahead of Lake, a Trump-endorsed Republican and former Phoenix television news anchor.

“Growing up the way I did in the environment I did, growing up poor, being here is something that was literally a dream,” Gallego said during a celebratory press conference Monday night.

His supporters cheered as he reminded them he would be the first Latino senator from Arizona.

“As hard as I fought in the Marines, I will fight as hard for Arizona in Washington, D.C.,” Gallego said.

He promised to work to fix the broken immigration system, as well as to help lower costs for housing, gas and groceries.

Lake did not concede or make any public statements after the race was called for Gallego.

Even as she ran for Senate, Lake continued to unsuccessfully challenge the results of the 2022 gubernatorial race that she lost by more than 17,000 votes to Democrat Katie Hobbs. Two years later, a day after the Nov. 5 election, the Arizona Supreme Court dismissed her final appeal request.

As vote tallies slowly trickled in over the last six days, Gallego maintained a fluctuating lead over Lake, but pulled further ahead as more votes that favored him were tallied in Maricopa County. Gallego defeated Lake in Maricopa, which is home to some 60% of the state’s voters, by about 5 percentage points.

Gallego increased his lead over Lake significantly on Sunday and Monday, from Saturday when he was up only 1.5 percentage points and 45,054 votes.

As of Monday night, Arizona had tabulated more than 3.2 million ballots, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, and had more than 179,000 left to go.

Lake’s campaign undertook an aggressive effort to recruit volunteers to encourage voters to cure any issues with their ballot so that they could be counted, such as verifying their signature on an early ballot envelope if it had been flagged as inconsistent with previous signatures.

The curing deadline ended Sunday, after the Arizona Supreme Court rejected a request from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Campaign Legal Center, which requested an extension to give voters more time to cure their ballots.

But none of the counties charged with counting the ballots that responded to the high court requested more time for curing, The Hill reported. The ACLU claimed that more than 60,000 ballots had yet to be processed by Sunday’s deadline and therefore could not have been contacted, but counties claimed they all made efforts to contact voters whose signatures were questioned.

Some of Lake’s most ardent followers shared baseless rumors in the days after the election that Democrats were attempting to “steal” a win from Lake. That echoed Lake’s false statements when she lost the 2022 race for Arizona governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs, as well as her evidence-free claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Gallego has represented the state’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House since 2015.

He ran on a platform of making life more affordable for the middle and working class, abortion rights and measured increases in border security that include increased manpower and better use of technology.

Lake toed the MAGA line during her campaign, calling for completed construction of Trump’s border wall, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and an extension of Trump’s tax cuts.

Lake sought to align Gallego with Democratic President Joe Biden and what she called his “open borders,” while Gallego reminded voters that Lake had drastically moderated her stance on abortion in the past year.

In the coming year, Lake faces the prospect of paying yet-to-be determined damages to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, after she legally conceded fault in his defamation suit regarding Lake’s false claims that Richer helped rig the 2022 governor’s race against her.

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as Donald Trump’s next secretary of state would no doubt be “a hawkish choice” as the president-elect continues to build out his incoming administration, according to Axios co-founder Mike Allen, who adds the pick also sends a reassuring signal.

“This is to be reassuring to people around the world, to Republicans, to Democrats in Washington, of the choices that president-elect Trump had,” Allen told CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins during an interview Monday near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Marco Rubio is a very traditional Republican.”

Allen, who described Rubio as “a great American story,” noted that the Florida senator is the son of two Cuban immigrants, and would be the nation’s first Latino secretary of state. Rubio, who Trump famously mocked as “little Marco” during the 2016 campaign, is also somebody who can carry Trump’s message, a trait the former president “really values.”

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“The world is so different than when President Trump was in office before, now president-elect Trump is coming into wars,” he said. “This is a hawkish choice. He’s been hawkish over the years on China, on Iran, on Cuba, but, as the reporting suggested earlier, he's moved toward Trump, including on the issue of a negotiated settlement for Ukraine, one of the biggest things on his plate, no question.”

Allen added that he views the administration picks that Trump has announced so far as “confirmable.”

“All very, like, responsible, reassuring to Republicans who were sort of hoping for the best Trump. These picks so far are very much in the Republican main lane,” he said.

Watch the clip at this link.