• Biden’s message to Americans: President Joe Biden on Thursday promised an orderly transfer of power and emphasized “you can’t love your country only when you win” in his first remarks from the White House since Trump’s win.
• House yet to be called: Republicans are defending a narrow majority, and it could be some time before control is determined. House Republicans are bullish that they will keep their majority though Democrats believe there is still a narrow path to flipping the chamber. Track the latest results here.
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Our live coverage of the 2024 US election has moved here.
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CNN Projection: Trump wins Nevada
From CNN staff
Former President Donald Trump arrives for his campaign rally at Sunset Park on June 9, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump will win the battleground state of Nevada, CNN projects.
There are six electoral votes at stake in Nevada.
Who won in 2020: Joe Biden won Nevada in the last election. Nevada moved to the right relative to the nation in 2020 — even as Biden won the national popular vote by more than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier, his margin in the Silver State stayed virtually identical to hers.
Latinos are a critical voting group in Nevada, and they made up 17% of the 2020 electorate, according to the CNN exit poll. Reflective of his performance overall, Biden won 61% of the Latino vote — a similar showing to Clinton’s. In 2012, when Obama won the state by almost seven percentage points, he won 71% of Latino voters.
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CNN Projection: Democratic Rep. Susie Lee will win reelection in Nevada
From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn
Democratic Rep. Susie Lee will win reelection in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, holding on to a crucial seat for Democrats, CNN projects.
Lee, a former nonprofit executive, defeated Republican Drew Johnson, a policy analyst and columnist. President Joe Biden carried the district by nearly 7 percentage points in 2020.
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Alabama mother says her daughter doesn't feel safe after receiving racist "cotton picking" message
From CNN’s Jillian Sykes
An Alabama mother says Black students at the University of Alabama are fearing for their safety after receiving racist texts that were sent to people across the country after the election.
Arleta McCall said she received a call from her daughter, a freshman and Presidential Elite Scholar at the school, on Wednesday morning. Her daughter was crying and said she wanted to go home, before sharing a copy of a text message from an unknown number saying she had been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation” and to “be prepared to be searched down.”
Similar texts were reported in states including Maryland, New Jersey, Alabama, Michigan and South Carolina. CNN has reached out to state officials for more information.
McCall said her daughter hasn’t gone anywhere by herself since receiving the text message, and questions whether she chose the right college to attend.
McCall said she immediately called the office of the university’s Dean of Students, who said they were aware and had received multiple phone calls about messages circulating through campus. McCall said she received a “generic email in response,” but said that is not enough.
The university told CNN they were aware that “individuals across the country have received these disgusting messages.” They have reported the incident to authorities and are asking anyone to come forward with information, it said.
CNN Projection: House Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry will win reelection in Pennsylvania
From CNN’s Daniel Strauss
Rep. Scott Perry attends a news conference in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday, October 11.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP
Rep. Scott Perry, the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, will win reelection to Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, CNN projects, defeating Democrat Janelle Stelson.
This was one of the more closely watched House races in the country as Stelson, a former TV news anchor, proved a competitive fundraiser. While polling was sparse, the public polling available showed a tight race.
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CNN Projection: GOP Rep. Don Bacon will win reelection in Nebraska
From CNN’s Eric Bradner
Rep. Don Bacon speaks with reporters following a closed-door House Republican caucus meeting, in Washington, DC, on April 16.
Allison Bailey/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty
GOP Rep. Don Bacon will win reelection in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, CNN projects, earning a fifth term and keeping a swing district in GOP hands
Bacon, a moderate, survived a primary challenge and defeated Democratic state lawmaker Tony Vargas in a rematch of their 2022 race, which Bacon also narrowly won.
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CNN Projection: Democrats will flip New York’s 19th District
From CNN’s Gregory Krieg
Democrat Josh Riley will unseat Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro in New York’s 19th Congressional District, CNN projects, securing a critical swing seat for Democrats as they try to win a House majority.
The rematch between Molinaro and Riley, following a 2022 race the Republican won by fewer than 5,000 votes, looked like one of the closest contests in the country heading into Election Day, with Democrats in particular viewing the district as a must-win.
Riley, a former counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hammered Molinaro throughout the campaign over his votes against codifying Roe v. Wade.
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San Francisco's first Black female mayor concedes to Levi Strauss heir
By Associated Press
London Breed, mayor of San Francisco, speaks during a press conference on Thursday, November 11.
KGO
San Francisco’s first Black female mayor, London Breed, conceded the race for mayor to Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie on Thursday, pledging a smooth transition as he takes over the job.
The Associated Press has not yet declared a winner because tens of thousand of ballots have not yet been counted and added to the ranked choice voting calculations.
Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in public housing, could not overcome deep voter discontent and was trailing Lurie, a philanthropist and anti-poverty nonprofit founder.
While San Francisco’s streets have been cleaner and homeless tents much harder to find in recent months, Breed’s fellow Democratic challengers on the campaign trail repeatedly hammered her administration for doing too little, too late as homeless tent encampments, open-air drug use and brazen retail theft proliferated during her six years in office.
She faced four big-name challengers, including two San Francisco supervisors and a former interim mayor.
But voters flocked to Lurie, 47, a city native from a storied family who pledged to bring accountability and public service back to City Hall. He is the founder of Tipping Point Community, which says it has invested more than $400 million since 2005 in programs to help people with housing, education and early childhood.
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Here's how Trump's staffing has already turned into a war
From CNN's Kaitlan Collins
Almost immediately after it became clear that Donald Trump was on his way to reelection Tuesday night, phones began pinging in the president-elect’s orbit and the conversation at several of the dining tables in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom turned to who would staff a second Trump term.
Those hushed discussions have now morphed into an all-out battle that is playing out directly from the patio of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. Almost every single table was filled Wednesday night amid maneuvering over who was sitting where and how close their table was to where Trump usually holds court, at a table behind a velvet rope, two people told CNN.
Onlookers spotted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Tom Barrack and Trump’s transition co-chairs, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, milling about the club earlier Wednesday. Trump spent part of the day going through names that had been previously lined up by Lutnick in the months before the election, though some have questioned whether Trump will rely solely on his recommendations.
Already, those seeking top posts have been working the phones in an attempt to form alliances with others who are also hoping to secure a spot in the Trump administration. Several even booked flights to Florida to ensure face time with Trump in the coming days, when many of the decisions are expected to be made.
As he narrows down his choices, Trump has crossed several options off the list already, according to several people familiar with the chaotic but aggressive process underway.
What Republicans plan to do if they control House, Senate and White House
From CNN's Mackenzie Happe
With Trump winning the White House, Republicans have already started planning what they might do once he takes office.
CNN’s Lauren Fox lays out some of the possibilities.
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Racist texts referring to "picking cotton" were sent to several people across the US following the election
From CNN’s Ashley R. Williams, Jack Forrest and Nouran Salahieh
Talaya Jones recieved the text on Wednesday, November 6.
Courtesy Talaya Jones
Several people, including children and college students, have reported receiving racist text messages from unrecognized phone numbers in recent days.
The texts have been reported in states including Maryland, New Jersey, Alabama, Michigan and South Carolina. CNN has reached out to state officials for additional information on the text messages.
School board officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, say local law enforcement and the FBI are aware of people including their students receiving the texts, and that “law enforcement in some areas have announced they consider the messages low-level threats,” according to a statement from Montgomery County Public Schools.
Talaya Jones, a Black woman who lives in Piscataway, New Jersey, said she was “shocked” to receive a text on Wednesday informing her that she had been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” she told CNN Thursday.
“My initial reaction was probably like disbelief, like I thought it was like a joke,” said Jones, who forwarded the text message to her loved ones. “It really just shows that we didn’t come as far as everybody thought we did as a nation, from back in the day when slavery was still a thing,” Jones said.
Virginia news station WVEC-TV said one of its photographers, Sam Burwell, received a text message from an unfamiliar phone number, addressing him by name, and like the text Jones received, the text told him he had been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.”
Burwell said in an article posted by WVEC- TV that he is concerned about receiving a text message a day after the election.
“I feel like it’s a spam message (and) I do feel disappointed about the message they’re sending a day after the election,” Burwell said.
Officials in Washington, DC, and Virginia told CNN Thursday they are looking into the racist text messages.
CNN has reached out to the Federal Communications Commission for comment.
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Defense secretary says military leaders will do right thing "no matter what" in second Trump administration
From CNN's Oren Liebermann
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin takes questions from the media in Miami, Florida, on Thursday, November 7.
Pool
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday that military leaders will do the right thing “no matter what” as questions swirl about the President-elect Donald Trump’s use of US troops.
Austin was asked about politicization of the military during the first Trump administration and whether he believed a second Trump term could do the same. Though he declined to speculate on what the next administration would do, Austin said he had confidence in the leadership of the military.
More background: Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops to quell protests in 2020. Ahead of Trump’s imminent return to the White House, Austin was asked about the possibility of the incoming commander-in-chief potentially issuing unlawful orders.
In a message to the force sent one day after the election, Austin wrote the US military will “obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command.” The memo raised eyebrows for its apparent emphasis on “lawful orders.”
Austin also said it’s up to the president to choose his own military leaders, with speculation swirling that Trump could fire Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. CQ Brown, who has repeatedly come under right-wing attack.
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Wiles' appointment to chief of staff post breaks one glass ceiling
From CNN's Kevin Liptak
Susie Wiles is seen at Nashville International Airport on July 27.
Alex Brandon/AP/File
No, it wasn’t the presidency.
But with the appointment of Susie Wiles to the top White House staff job, at least one major Washington glass ceiling has been broken. The Florida operative and Trump campaign manager will be the first woman to ever occupy the second-most-important office in the West Wing.
The chief of staff post is one of the few remaining jobs in the federal government to have never been held by a woman.
Of course, the top job of president has been held by a man for 245 years and will continue to be after Kamala Harris lost this week.
But Harris was the first woman to be vice president. And almost all other senior positions in the government have been helmed by women, including almost all the Cabinet posts, top judicial seats and Congressional leadership roles.
One exception is defense secretary — no woman has ever assumed the top Pentagon position, nor has one served on the joint chiefs of staff.
A woman has also never served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
But the absence of a woman in the chief of staff job had long frustrated some women who worked in various White Houses, who longed for the office — with its fireplace, back patio and, most critically, its easy access to the Oval Office — to be occupied by one of their own.
Trump made a nod to the history in his statement announcing Wiles’ appointment.
“It is a well deserved honor to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud,” Trump said.
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Trump considering Missouri's top lawyer for US attorney general, sources say
From CNN's Manu Raju and Kaitlan Collins
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is under consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump’s US attorney general, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Bailey asked the US Supreme Court in July to delay Trump’s sentencing and lift the gag order in the New York hush money case — arguing in part that the gag order infringed upon the right of Missouri voters to hear from a presidential candidate. The court rejected the effort.
CNN previously reported others are also being floated for the role, including:
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general
Matt Whitaker, who served in an acting capacity after Trump fired then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah
John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence
Conservative attorney Mark Paoletta, who has been pitched directly to Trump, according to a source familiar with the matter
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Biden vows orderly transfer of power as Trump makes key staff announcement. Here are the latest developments
From CNN's Elise Hammond
President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to move on his agenda after a decisive victory in the presidential election this week.
His first move Thursday was to announce that campaign manager Susie Wiles would be his White House Chief of Staff. She will be the first woman to hold the role.
Earlier, President Joe Biden spoke from the White House Rose Garden and said people deserve a “peaceful and orderly” transition.
Here are the latest developments:
Biden praises Harris: Speaking for the first time since Trump won, Biden told Americans that they “can’t love your country only when you win,” and encouraged people to accept the election results. He tried to comfort a defeated base and said “the America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up.” The president also praised Vice President Kamala Harris for her “true character” and said that she “gave her whole heart and effort.”
Inside the Democratic Party: Frustration is boiling over across the Democratic Party after the losses this week. One official argued that if Biden had stepped aside sooner, the party would have had a chance to hold a primary contest and nominate their strongest candidate. Other aides and allies are defending the president. The White House said Biden believes his decision to drop out was correct “at that time.”
Transition process: Amb. Stephen Mull, a former diplomat under previous Democratic and Republican administrations, will oversee the transition, according to a State Department spokesperson. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told US troops on Wednesday that the Pentagon will make it a “calm, orderly, and professional” process.
News from the Fed: The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point Thursday. More rate cuts are expected in 2025, though how many is up in the air because of the potential impacts of some of Trump’s proposed policies. Additionally, a senior adviser to Trump said the president-elect is likely to allow Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to serve out the remainder of his term. When asked today if he would resign, Powell said, “No.”
Russia and Ukraine: Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump and said he would be willing to talk. He said Trump’s “desire to rebuild relations with Russia” to end the war in Ukraine “deserve attention.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had a “productive” conversation with Trump on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Trump’s previous claims he could quickly solve the conflict in Ukraine are exaggerated.
House still up in the air: It is still not clear which party will control the House. It could take a week or more before the majority is determined. With some races still yet to be called, Republicans have 210 seats and Democrats have 196. Either party needs 218 seats to have a majority. In the Senate, Republicans will win control, with at least 52 seats so far.
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Brooke Rollins stood down for consideration of chief of staff role yesterday, source says
From CNN's Kaitlan Collins
Brooke Rollins speaks during a discussion hosted by AFPI and The Abraham Accords Peace Institute, in Washington D.C., on September 12, 2022.
Tom Williams/AP/File
Brooke Rollins, who was also under consideration for chief of staff, stood down from vying for the role yesterday after it became clear that seeking it would amount to a serious power struggle with Susie Wiles, one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, according to a person familiar.
While there were some big names aligning themselves behind Rollins, she bowed out when it became clear it was Wiles’ for the taking.
Rollins, who served in Trump’s first term, now runs the America First Policy Institute and is still expected to take some role in a Trump administration.
Correction: An earlier version of this post included a photo that misidentified Brooke Rollins.
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Trump announces Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff
From CNN's Steve Contorno and Aditi Sangal
Trump brings Susie Wiles to the podium at an election night watch party Wednesday, November 6, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
What to know about Wiles: The daughter of the late NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall and a seasoned political operative from Florida, Wiles is one of the longest-serving advisers in Trump’s orbit. After helping him win Florida in 2020, she served as his de facto chief of staff during his post-presidency and then led his campaign for the entirety of the 2024 race — a rare feat in Trump world. Wiles was widely credited for running what was seen as Trump’s most sophisticated and disciplined campaign, which included keeping many of the fringe voices in his orbit at bay.
On election night, Trump credited Wiles during his victory speech, though she declined to address the crowd gathered at the Palm Beach Convention Center. Her willingness to stay in the background has endeared her to Trump and to his allies.
CNN reported earlier today that Wiles had expressed certain conditions to Trump before she accepted the role of chief of staff — the top item being more control over who can reach the president in the Oval Office.
During Trump’s first term, his chiefs of staff struggled to prevent a roving cast of informal advisers, family members, friends and other interlopers from getting inside the White House to meet with him.
Vice President-elect JD Vance said Thursday that it was “great news” that Wiles has been selected for the role, writing in a post on X that she will be a “huge asset” in the White House.
CNN’s Kate Sullivan and Kit Maher contributed to this report. This post has been updated with more reporting on Wiles’ background and reactions to the announcement.
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House minority leader tells colleagues the battle for the majority is not yet over
From CNN’s Sarah Ferris, Annie Grayer, Lauren Fox and Manu Raju
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told fellow Democrats on a conference call Thursday the battle for the majority is not yet over, with many more votes to be counted, according to multiple people on the call.
House Democratic Conference Chair Pete Aguilar said there was a “narrow path” to the majority though Democratic leaders emphasized it was still an uphill climb, those sources said. Democrats on the call spoke about how hard they worked to win and how it’s not over yet.
Another person described the call as “subdued.”
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CNN Projection: Democrat Laura Gillen will flip New York’s 4th District
From CNN staff
Democrat Laura Gillen will flip New York’s 4th Congressional District on Long Island, CNN projects, defeating first-term Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito in a rematch of their 2022 race.
D’Esposito entered the campaign as one of the most endangered incumbents in the country, winning the district by a narrow margin two years ago. Most Democrats chalked up that victory to former GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin’s strong showing in the 2022 gubernatorial race, which New York Gov. Kathy Hochul won by less than seven points.
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Video: Here's how Trump's second term could differ from his first
From CNN's Kevin Liptak
Donald Trump’s presidential election victory will return him to the White House, but his second term will look nothing like the first. The president-elect will seek to correct some of the mistakes he thinks he made during his first term, particularly when it comes to who he’s surrounding himself with.
Here’s how his second term could differ from his first:
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Analysis: Trump’s master plan for a radical reformation of the US government
From CNN's Zachary B. Wolf
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to completely remake the US government and wield new power as president.
Trump attorney’s phone tapped by Chinese hackers, sources tell CNN
From CNN’s Paula Reid, Kaitlan Collins and Sean Lyngaas
Todd Blanche sits in the courtroom at Manhattan criminal court in New York, on Thursday, May 16.
Jeenah Moon/Pool/Reuters
The FBI has informed one of President-elect Donald Trump’s lead attorneys that his cellphone was tapped by Chinese hackers, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN, as part of a wide-ranging operation targeting top Republican and Democrats in US politics that has been underway for months.
The FBI informed the attorney, Todd Blanche, last week that the hackers were able to obtain some voice recordings and text messages from his phone, but that none of the information was related to Trump, one of the sources said. The FBI provided Blanche, who has had to start using a different number after the breach, what the hackers obtained, including communications with family, the source said.
CNN has reached out to the FBI for comment.
Blanche is the second of two Trump attorneys believed to be targeted by foreign hackers. CNN reported in August that attorney Lindsey Halligan was targeted as part of the Iranian hacking effort, though the timing of that attempt and the extent of any breach of her devices or accounts remains unclear.
Chinese hackers have also targeted other top figures in Trump’s orbit, including Trump himself and Vice President-elect JD Vance. Other targets included Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and son Eric Trump, members of the Harris-Walz campaign and members of the Biden administration, CNN previously reported.
The sophisticated hacking effort has unnerved national security officials because of the deep access that the Chinese hackers have gotten to prominent Americans’ call and phone records.
US officials investigating the hacking campaign, which came via intrusions at US telecom firms AT&T, Lumen and Verizon, consider it to be among the most concerning national security-related hacks in recent memory.
The Chinese government has denied US allegations that it is behind the hack.
CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this post.
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Trump campaign manager is open to chief of staff job but has conditions before taking role, source says
From CNN's Steve Contorno
Susie Wiles, second from right, at an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 6 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign manager Susie Wiles, considered the front-runner to serve as chief of staff in the incoming administration, is open to taking the job, a source close to both individuals told CNN.
However, Wiles still has some reservations about the role and has expressed to Trump certain conditions before she accepts, the source said. At the top of the list is more control over who can reach the president in the Oval Office.
During Trump’s first term, his chiefs of staff struggled to prevent a roving cast of informal advisers, family members, friends and other interlopers from getting inside the White House to meet with him. Trump is often influenced on an issue by whoever he speaks to last, a fact that is well-known within his circle — and one that made life difficult on his top aides.
Wiles is widely credited for running what was seen as Trump’s most sophisticated and disciplined campaign, which included keeping many of the fringe voices in his orbit at bay. For most of the campaign, she was in charge of the flight manifest for Trump’s private plane — a thankless job that required her to shut down access to the former president when he wouldn’t tell someone “no” himself.
At times, she also had to confront Trump about keeping certain people at arm’s length, though her inability to prevent far-right provocateur Laura Loomer from joining the former president at a debate and a 9/11 memorial service created significant blowback for her boss.
The daughter of the late NFL broadcaster Pat Sumerall and a seasoned political operative from Florida, Wiles is one of the longest-serving advisers in Trump’s orbit. After helping him win Florida in 2020, she served as his de facto chief of staff during his post-presidency and then led his campaign for the entirety of the race — a rare feat in Trump world.
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Trump says he'll have lunch with Biden "very shortly"
From CNN's Kate Sullivan
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he and President Joe Biden agreed to have lunch together “very shortly” when they spoke by phone, according to NBC News.
Trump spoke by phone with NBC and said his calls with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris after the race was called were “very nice calls, very respectful both ways.”
Trump also said he had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and that he had not yet spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader congratulated Trump today while speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in the Russian city of Sochi.
The president-elect again reiterated his plan to carry out mass deportations. When asked about how much such an operation could cost, he said: “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice.”
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Putin congratulates Trump on winning presidency and says he's willing to talk
From CNN's Elise Hammond, Catherine Nicholls and Sebastian Shukla
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his victory on Thursday and said he would be willing to talk with the president-elect.
Asked if he was willing to talk to Trump, Putin said, “Yes we are. We’re ready.”
“If he makes a phone call, if he says, ‘Vladimir, let’s meet,’ you know, I don’t think it would be beneath me to call him myself,” the Russian leader continued, in his first public comments on the US election.
Putin also said that Trump’s “desire to rebuild relations with Russia to facilitate an end to the Ukrainian crisis … deserve attention at the very least.”
However, he said he would not call Trump first because “at a certain point, the European Western leaders were calling almost every week, and then they stopped all of a sudden,” apparently referring to international reaction following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Russian leader described Trump as an inexperienced politician, but also praised his “courageous” conduct following an assassination attempt in July.
Some background: Trump has previously suggested he will end US support for Ukraine’s war effort and claimed he could settle its war with Russia “in one day.”
Additionally, Trump has repeatedly praised Putin — and repeatedly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with whom he has a complicated history.
Meanwhile, Zelensky said Wednesday that he had a“productive” conversation with Trump. The Ukrainian president reiterated his message that Kyiv will pursue “peace through strength” rather than concessions of territory or neutrality.
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting to this post, which has been updated with additional comments from Putin.
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says he will not resign if asked by Trump
From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he would not resign from his position if asked by President-elect Donald Trump.
“No,” Powell said without hesitation, in response to a reporter’s question at Thursday’s post-meeting news conference.
More background: The Fed’s independence could be compromised once Trump returns to the White House.
“I feel the president should have at least a say in there. I feel that strongly,” Trump said at news conference in August, referring to the Fed’s interest rate decisions. “I made a lot of money. I was very successful. And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve — or the chairman.”
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Latino voters in battleground states react to Trump winning the presidency
From CNN staff
Latino voters from battleground states North Carolina and Pennsylvania are reacting to Donald Trump’s presidential win this week.
Juan Sanchez in Philadelphia said Democrats are elected and “they don’t do anything.”
“For me, it was no surprise, it’s what the country needed because this government has been a disaster,” Sanchez told CNN. “The economy is useless and the people — we’re tired. The Democrats just offer, they don’t deliver.”
Support for Trump among Latino voters was at a historic high in 2024.
But others don’t share those feelings, like Niwton Terrero in Philadelphia. He said as a Latino, he does feel “some distain” about what the former president and his allies have said about Puerto Rico and Latinos.
Hear what voters had to say:
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Fed cuts interest rates again, as the US economy faces Trump's return to the White House
From CNN's Bryan Mena
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point Thursday on the heels of the US presidential election earlier this week.
It’s the second rate cut since the central bank began to lower borrowing costs in September, though the latest cut is smaller. Still, it provides Americans further relief from the high cost of credit cards, auto loans and other debt.
Slower inflation and a cooling job market paved the way for Thursday’s decision.
More rate cuts are expected in 2025, though how many is up in the air because of the potential impacts of President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed policies, such as tax cuts, deregulation, stiff across-the-board tariffs, and mass deportations. The full scope of those plans, and when they would begin to impact the US economy, is not clear.
White House says it disagrees with Sanders' claim that Democrats "abandoned" the working class
From CNN's Michael Williams
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday said the White House “respectfully” disagrees with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ assessment that the Democratic Party “abandoned working class people.”
In a statement following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, the independent senator, who caucuses with Democrats and campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris, said the loss wasn’t surprising.
“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,” Sanders said in the Wednesday statement.
Asked about the senator’s statement, Jean-Pierre said the White House respects Sanders, who she said has been a “partner” to the administration.
But she pointed toward President Joe Biden’s pro-union positions and efforts to boost the working class.
“I think you see that in his policies,” Jean-Pierre said. “And so, you know, respectfully disagree with the senator, and I think you can talk to unions, you could see the jobs that we’ve been able to create to disprove that.”
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Democratic state leaders move to protect certain policies from Trump presidency
From CNN's Elise Hammond
In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory and upcoming return to the White House, some cities and states with Democratic leaders are pledging to protect certain rights they feel could be threatened over the next four years.
California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has called a special legislative session to “help bolster our legal resources and protect our state against any unlawful actions” by the Trump administration, he said in a post on X. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Thursday that he will continue to use the “full authority of my office to address injustice,” safeguard reproductive rights and take on big corporations, among other things.
In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Wednesday that while she accepts the results of the election “that does not mean we’ll accept an agenda from Washington that strips away the rights that New Yorkers have long enjoyed.” She added that her administration will “do whatever we have to do to identify any possible threats to these rights” and announced she has created a task force focused on developing policy responses to things like reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and environmental policy.
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said no matter what happens in a Trump presidency, his state will “remain a place of stability and competent governance.” He said at a news conference Thursday that his administration and the state’s general assembly took “proactive steps” to enshrine reproductive rights, bolstered clean energy initiatives and increased the minimum wage, among other things.
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Listen to voicemails left by CNN viewers reacting to Trump's reelection
Democrat Cleo Fields will win the election for Louisiana’s redrawn 6th Congressional District, CNN projects, picking up the seat for his party.
Unlike other states, Louisiana hosts a nonpartisan primary on Election Day, but if a candidate secures over 50% of the votes, they automatically win the race.
Fields, a state senator, faced several challengers, including former state senator Elbert Guillory. Fields previously served two terms in Congress in the 1990s and ran for governor in 1995.
The seat became vacant after Republican Rep. Garret Graves announced his retirement as a new congressional map made his district significantly Democratic.
Under the new lines, President Joe Biden would have won the district in the past— which includes parts of Baton Rouge — by nearly 20 points. Former President Donald Trump carried the seat in 2020 by more than 29 points.
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White House says Biden believes his decision to drop out of the race was correct “at that time”
From CNN's Michael Williams
Asked several times whether President Joe Biden holds himself accountable for Vice President Kamala Harris’ electoral defeat, the White House on Thursday sought to blame the president’s incumbent status.
“The president is very proud of what he was able to accomplish,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a White House briefing on Thursday – the first since President-elect Donald Trump’s victory was declared.
Jean-Pierre’s answers were ambiguously phrased, either speaking in the past tense or alluding to Biden’s feelings in July, when he made his decision, rather than how he feels at the moment. She did not directly answer whether Biden regrets not dropping from the race sooner than he did.
Jean-Pierre sought to herald Biden’s accomplishments during his term as president, while subtly blaming his and Harris’ status as incumbents for Democrats’ loss.
“Despite all of the accomplishments that we were able to get done, there were global headwinds, that, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, obviously, Covid-19 led to disruptions with the supply chain, and it had a political toll on many incumbents.”
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Blinken taps former ambassador to oversee transition for the outgoing administration
From CNN's Michael Conte and Jennifer Hansler
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has appointed Amb. Stephen Mull, a former diplomat under previous Democratic and Republican administrations, to oversee the transition by the Biden administration to the incoming Trump administration, according to a State Department spokesperson.
“Ambassador Mull will work with the president-elect’s team to ensure as successful a transition as possible,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a briefing.
Mull most recently served as the acting under secretary of state for Political Affairs for about three months during the first Trump administration, and was the US ambassador to Poland during President Barack Obama’s second term.
Miller said that Mull has started working on the transition, but that the department has not yet heard from the Trump transition team. CNN reported on Wednesday that former Iran special envoy Brian Hook is expected to lead the Trump transition team at the State Department.
Miller also laid out the Biden administration’s foreign policy priorities for their remaining time in office, including ending the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.
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Here's what happens to Trump’s court cases now that he’s been reelected
From CNN's Aditi Sangal
President-elect Donald Trump is in an extraordinarily unique position: Never before has a criminal defendant been elected to the nation’s highest office, just as an ex-president had never been criminally charged until last year.
Remember: Trump is scheduled to appear in a New York courtroom on November 26 to receive a sentence for being convicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during the 2016 campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged a prior affair with the president-elect. (Trump denies the affair.)
There’s also the question of what happens to the two federal criminal cases brought against him by Smith in Washington, DC, and Florida.
CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid explains what to expect:
Former US Iran envoy says Trump’s policy will likely "isolate Iran diplomatically"
From CNN’s Mostafa Salem in Abu Dhabi
Brian Hook speaks onstage during the 2021 Concordia Annual Summit in 2021 in New York.
Riccardo Savi/Getty Images
Donald Trump’s former Iran envoy Brian Hook said the president-elect sees Tehran as the “chief driver of instability” in the Middle East blaming the ongoing crisis on President Joe Biden’s failure to deter Iran and its proxies.
Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the world’s top oil producers, have in recent years steered their foreign policies toward repairing ties with former adversaries, such as Iran.
But, asked whether such countries supported further escalation between Iran and Israel, Hook replied: “President Trump understands that the chief driver of instability in today’s Middle East is the Iranian regime.”
Hook told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Thursday that he believes Trump will seek a policy that will “isolate Iran diplomatically” and “weaken it economically” to stop it from funding groups that “destabilize Israel and (regional) partners.” But he added the incoming president had “no interest” in regime change.
He warned that a “policy of appeasement and accommodation” with Iran was behind the turmoil in the Middle East. “If nobody believes that you have a credible threat of military force, then you’re going to lose deterrence,” he said.
Hook was a top State Department official during the first Trump administration and is now expected to lead Trump’s transition team at the State Department, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Hook said he doesn’t have comment on the reports that he will be leading the transition team.
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Kremlin calls Trump's claim he could end Ukraine war in a day an "overexaggeration"
From CNN’s Seb Shukla and Lauren Kent
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Donald Trump’s claims he could quickly solve the conflict in Ukraine are exaggerated but still better than the continued war.
The Kremlin had previously reacted to Trump’s election by highlighting that US-Russia relations remain poor and calling the United States “an unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in the war against our state.”
When asked Thursday about Vice President Kamala Harris’ statement in a September debate with Trump that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “eat you (Trump) for lunch,” Peskov replied, “Putin doesn’t eat people.”
Trump will likely allow Fed chair to serve remainder of his term, adviser says
From CNN's Kayla Tausche
President Donald Trump shakes hands with his nominee for the chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell during a press event in the Rose Garden at the White House, November 2, 2017 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images/File
President-elect Donald Trump is likely to allow Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to serve out the remainder of his term, which expires in May 2026, according to a senior adviser to Trump who requested anonymity to describe private conversations.
The adviser cautioned that Trump could always change his mind, but his present view — and that of Trump’s economic team — is that Powell should remain atop the central bank as it pursues its policy of cutting interest rates.
Trump appointed Powell, a Republican former private equity executive who served on the central bank’s governing board, to its top spot in 2018. President Joe Biden reappointed him to a second four-year term.
Gary Cohn, the Goldman Sachs alum who served as economic policy director during Trump’s first administration, is said to want the job, but former Trump officials have said the fact that Cohn resigned in protest over Trump’s steel tariffs makes it highly unlikely he’d get it.
Among the names mentioned by sources in touch with the Trump transition are Kevin Warsh, who served for five years on the bank’s board of governors and advised Trump during his first term. Trump’s former chief economist Kevin Hassett has also been mentioned.
Some background: Trump has frequently aired frustrations with Powell and occasionally threatened to remove the Fed chair from his post, which no president has ever done.
Trump has also criticized what he perceives as a lack of transparency by the Fed, which conducts its policy deliberations in private and releases the notes from those discussions weeks later.
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Leader Jeffries not ready to concede the House: "It has yet to be decided who will control the House"
From CNN’s Haley Talbot and Manu Raju
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries holds a press conference at the US Capitol on December 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is signaling to his Democratic colleagues ahead of their conference call that it is not yet clear which party will control the chamber as the internal blame game has already begun.
House Republicans are bullish that they will keep their majority though Democrats believe there is still a narrow path to flipping the chamber. CNN has not yet projected the balance of power in the House.
Jeffries congratulated President-elect Donald Trump, thanked Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, adding, “We cannot love America only when we win.”
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Anger at Biden for not stepping aside sooner boils over inside Democratic Party
From CNN's MJ Lee
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who served as co-chair of both Biden and Harris 2024 campaigns, told CNN on Wednesday that he was prepared to defend his friend from any Democratic finger-pointing.
“The Biden administration got a huge amount done as you’ve heard me recite with great frequency. I do think the party has some soul-searching to do,” Coons said.
After ticking off policies that he said were widely popular that the Biden administration should be credited for — including lowering the prices of prescription drugs and investing in infrastructure projects — the senator lamented: “But (voters) do not recognize that that’s what he got done. So we need to think about how we communicate that.”
But if aides and allies of the president are eager to publicly defend Biden and his work, frustration is boiling over across the Democratic Party on his decision to seek a second term — despite his initial promise to be a “transition” and “bridge” candidate.
Some Dems cite lack of primary for loss: Had he stepped aside in the middle of his first term, the party would have had a chance to hold a primary contest and nominate their strongest candidate — whether that would l have ultimately ended up being Harris, or not.
Other senior Democratic officials have even pointed fingers at rising stars within the party — such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — for not launching a primary bid against Biden.
While blowback from an incumbent would have been guaranteed, such a move also would have forced Biden onto the debate stage months earlier, these officials argue, laying bare the limitations of Biden’s age with more time to develop an alternative plan.
A senior Harris campaign official, who said they do not believe a competitive Democratic primary process would have put Harris at the top of the ticket this cycle, told CNN they blamed Biden’s own ego — and all of his top advisers who shot down any suggestion from Democrats that the party needed new leadership.
“The lack of a competitive process for a replacement; that he didn’t allow for that to happen — people are still angry about the shunning that they took for speaking out earlier about him,” the official said.
This post has been updated with additional details from officials which CNN’s Kayla Tausche contributed reporting.
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Trying to comfort a defeated base, Biden says: "The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up"
From CNN's Michael Williams
President Joe Biden speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 7.
Ben Curtis/AP
President Joe Biden on Thursday sought to assuage the defeat his base is feeling following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory this week.
“Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” the president said in his first public remarks since Trump’s win was declared.
“We all get knocked down, but the measure of our character, as my dad would say, is how quickly we get back up,” he said.
“The American spirit endures,” Biden said.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misquoted Joe Biden.
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Biden says US elections are fair and "can be trusted"
From CNN's Michelle Shen
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the results of the 2024 election in the Rose Garden on November 7, in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Joe Biden emphasized the “integrity of the American electoral system” in a speech following the election loss of his 2020 running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
President-elect Donald Trump had repeatedly questioned the US electoral system in the aftermath of his election loss in 2020, spreading false claims about voter fraud and launching a series of legal challenges in swing states. And in the months before the 2024 presidential election, he sowed further doubt in the electoral system, making baseless claims that Democrats were rigging the election, resulting in growing threats against election workers.
In his speech, Biden thanked election workers who “took risks” and “busted their necks” to do “their duty as citizens.”
“We can restore the respect for all our election workers who busted their necks, took risks at the outset. We should thank them, thank them for staffing voting sites, counting the votes, protecting the very integrity of the election,” Biden said.
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"Don't forget all that we accomplished," Biden says
From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 2024 election results and the upcoming presidential transition of power, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on Novmeber 7.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
President Joe Biden touted the impact of his administration during his address at the White House on Thursday and urged Americans: “Don’t forget all that we accomplished.”
He said his presidency has been historic “not because I’m president, (but) because of what we’ve done, what you’ve done, a presidency for all Americans.”
“Much of the work we’ve done is already being felt by the American people,” he said, adding that “the vast majority of it” will have an impact over the course of the “next 10 years.”
“We have legislation we passed that’s just, only now, just really kicking in,” Biden said.
The president said over a trillion dollars of infrastructure work was done under his administration, which will change the lives of people in rural communities and communities that are in “real difficulty.”
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"You can't love your country only when you win," Biden says after Trump win
From CNN's Antoinette Radford
President Joe Biden stands on the day of delivering remarks on the 2024 election results and the upcoming presidential transition of power, in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, DC, on November 7.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
US President Joe Biden told Americans on Thursday that he understands there will be different feelings about yesterday’s presidential election result, but it is important to “accept the choice the country made.”
“You can’t love your country only when you win,” he added. “You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree. Something I think you can do no matter who you voted for is see each other not as adversaries but as fellow Americans, bring down the temperature.”
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Biden praises Harris for her "true character"
From CNN's Shania Shelton
President Joe Biden addresses the nation from the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 7.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
President Joe Biden lauded Vice President Kamala Harris for her “true character” in remarks following her election loss.
He continued: “She gave her whole heart and effort. She and her entire team should be proud of the campaign they ran.”
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Biden says American people deserve a "peaceful and orderly transition"
From CNN's Michael Williams
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 7, 2024.
Pool
President Joe Biden on Thursday said the American people deserve a “peaceful and orderly” transition following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory this week.
“For over 200 years, America has carried out the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world,” Biden said from the Rose Garden. “That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact. Where the people, the people vote and choose their own leaders, and they do it peacefully. And we’re in a democracy. The will of the people always prevails.”
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NOW: Biden is addressing the nation
From CNN staff
President Joe Biden is speaking from the White House Rose Garden following Donald Trump’s election win.
The speech comes after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the election on Wednesday.
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Thune says Trump should stay out of race to replace McConnell as GOP leader
From CNN’s Ted Barrett and Manu Raju
Senate Minority Whip John Thune encouraged President-elect Donald Trump not to get involved in the Senate GOP race to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell as Republican leader, saying it would be “in his best interest to stay out of the race.”
“I’ve stayed in regular contact with him and with his team and you know, obviously, if he wants to, he could exert a considerable amount of influence on that,” Thune said in an interview on CNBC when asked if Trump was involved in the election set to take place Wednesday in the Capitol.
Thune is squaring off against Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida for the post. Scott — who senators say is a long shot bid for the position — has long been politically aligned with Trump and has said he would try to represent Trump voters if he became leader.
Other Republican senators have also said it would be best if Trump left the race for leader to them, but it remains unclear if he will get behind a candidate now that he had a decisive victory and will be returning to the White House.
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US defense secretary tells troops they will make a "calm" transition to Trump presidency
From CNN's Natasha Bertrand
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin holds a joint press conference at the Pentagon in May.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told US troops on Wednesday that the Pentagon “will make a calm, orderly, and professional transition to the incoming Trump administration.”
In a message to the force dated November 6, Austin wrote that “as it always has, the U.S. military will stand ready to carry out the policy choices of its next Commander in Chief, and to obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command.”
Austin’s memo was sent as the US military grapples with the election of Donald Trump, who has suggested he would be open to using active duty troops for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations.
Trump’s election has raised questions inside the Defense Department about what would happen if he issued an unlawful order or invoked the Insurrection Act to deploy active duty US troops domestically.
Austin wrote that the US military will “stand apart” from politics and continue to support and defend the Constitution.
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Hours after Trump’s election, Biden moved to limit oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
From CNN's Ella Nilsen
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is seen on June 28.
Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Hours after President-elect Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, the Biden administration moved Wednesday to limit oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Trump’s 2017 tax law requires one more oil and gas drilling lease sale before the end of 2024 in ANWR – a pristine Arctic region where, before Trump’s first term, oil drilling had been banned for decades. The previous lease sale — also required by the law — was held in 2021, but the Department of the Interior ultimately suspended and canceled those leases because of the oil industry’s lack of interest.
The Biden administration signaled Wednesday in a final environmental impact statement that it plans to go with a slimmed-down version of the lease sale, offering 400,000 acres, the lowest amount of acreage it could legally offer.
It’s one of the many ways the White House and administration are trying to protect some of Biden’s biggest accomplishments while president, including his vast portfolio of action on climate change and the environment.
ANWR’s oil reserves are often mentioned by Trump in campaign rallies, as the president-elect has talked about opening parts of Alaska to oil drilling, or “liquid gold,” as Trump frequently calls it. Although President Joe Biden approved the major new Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, his administration has also put in protections for vast amounts of Alaskan wilderness trying to limit drilling in other regions.
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Zelensky says he had a "productive" conversation with Trump after election victory
From CNN's Lauren Kent and Svitlana Vlasova
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a plenary session during the European Political Community Summit in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday.
Marton Monus/Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had a“productive” conversation with US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian president reiterated his message that Kyiv will pursue “peace through strength” rather than concessions of territory or neutrality.
“It is up to Ukraine to decide what should and should not be on the agenda for ending this war,” he added. “Any country, any leader who respects international law and sits at this table should understand that predators always demand more and more.”
Some background: Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Ukraine-Russia war would not have started if he had been president. He has also vowed to end the war, sometimes even claiming he would stop the years-long conflict before taking office. In July, he said he could settle the conflict in one day.
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Some ways employers can navigate a divided office after Trump's election
From CNN's Jeanne Sahadi
Donald Trump arrives at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6, 2024.
Evan Vucci/AP
Whether you’re elated or despondent that Donald Trump won the presidential election, chances are you’re working with some colleagues who feel the exact opposite — or, incomprehensibly to some, just really don’t care.
After such a hotly contested, divisive race, employers are aware that many employees may have strong responses that could impact work.
Several potential knock-on effects concern them, according to workplace experts and an analysis done by global public relations agency Burson. They include: Lost productivity. Hostility and incivility between employees. And for some, mental health struggles, especially if an employee is feeling harassed, dismissed or discriminated against for their political views.
Some ways leaders can manage conflict:
Giving employees some room: Some employers will be lenient if employees need to take some time to digest the outcome, said Christy Pruitt-Haynes, a distinguished faculty member at the NeuroLeadership Institute.
Keep exchanges civil: Managers should foster what most people want when they come to work, said Ashley Herd, founder of ManagerMethod.
Tom Cotton says no to Trump administration role. He'll remain in the Senate
From CNN's Alayna Treene
Sen. Tom Cotton is seen during a hearing on Capitol Hill in July 2023.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton recently told President-elect Donald Trump’s team that he does not want a role in his next administration and instead plans to remain in the Senate, a source with direct knowledge of the conversation told CNN, despite those close to Trump having floated Cotton’s name for top intelligence or national security roles.
Cotton was among those being considered for Secretary of Defense, sources familiar with the talks said.
Cotton, a prominent conservative lawmaker and hawk on China and Iran, is planning to run against Sen. Joni Ernst for Senate GOP conference chair, the source said. He told Trump’s team he plans to be a top defender of the former president while in Congress.
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Trump's day 1 priority is to reinstate his border policy, adviser says
From CNN's Priscilla Alvarez and Alayna Treene
President Donald Trump arrives at an election night watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6.
Evan Vucci/AP
Donald Trump’s allies and some in the private sector have been quietly preparing to detain and deport migrants residing in the United States on a large scale, according to four sources familiar with the discussions.
Immigration was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and while he repeatedly touted promises of mass deportation on the trail — putting increased emphasis on interior enforcement compared to his 2016 fixation on the border wall — members of his orbit and some in the private sector discussed what that plan would look like, according to the sources.
Trump’s day one priority is to reinstate his former administration’s border policies and reverse those of President Joe Biden, senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told CNN.
Early discussions among Trump’s team have focused on removing undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, a source familiar with the team’s preliminary plans told CNN. A key issue under consideration is how, when and if to deport immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, commonly known as Dreamers.
Targeting Dreamers would be a departure from the historically bipartisan support they’ve enjoyed. Some are temporarily protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allows recipients to live and work in the US.
The biggest gainer was Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and one of Trump’s most outspoken and dedicated supporters, whose wealth jumped $26.5 billion to $290 billion Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ wealth grew $7.1 billion a week after defending his decision to withhold the Washington Post’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, another Trump supporter, saw his net worth rose $5.5 billion Wednesday.
Other gainers include former Microsoft executives Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, former Google executives Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Although none of those billionaires endorsed a candidate this year, they have spoken in favor of Democratic candidates and causes in the past.
Collectively, the top 10 richest people gained $64 billion.
Bloomberg notes it’s the “biggest daily increase” of wealth it’s seen since the index began in 2012,. The market rallied Wednesday as the election concluded swiftly and with expectations that Trump will usher in a new era of deregulation and other pro-business laws and policies investors believe could benefit the stock market overall — especially billionaires who hold much of the world’s wealth.
Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group, Trump’s social media company, also cashed in with shares skyrocketing in value after CNN and other media outlets projected Trump won. The stock rose as much as 35% at one point before fading.
Trump is the dominant shareholder in the conservative social media company, which has scant revenue and is losing money. The president-elect’s 114.75 million shares were worth about $5.3 billion brieflybased on those early gains, up from $3.9 billion when trading ended on Election Day.
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Capitol Hill Republicans prepare ambitious agenda as they hope for full sweep of Washington
From CNN's Sarah Ferris, Annie Grayer and Lauren Fox
Republicans on Capitol Hill are laying the groundwork to push through an ambitious agenda with President-elect Donald Trump if they have total control of Washington next January – a rare GOP trifecta that party leaders believe is now within reach.
And this time they’ll be prepared to use it.
Unlike Trump’s surprise win in 2016, House and Senate GOP leaders have been preparing for months for a possible GOP sweep. Their goal is to get to work quickly drafting big pieces of the Trump administration’s agenda, starting with a major economic package centered on taxes, energy policy, border security and deregulation, according to two people familiar with discussions.
With Republicans winning control of the Senate, delivering on Trump’s agenda will come down to whether the GOP retains a majority in the House. CNN has not yet made a projection in the battle for control of the House, with votes still being counted in dozens of races.
GOP leaders have been dreaming of another major tax package, as many tax provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025. Also on the table: potentially rolling back parts of President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping economic and climate bill that Democrats passed when they had unified government earlier in Biden’s first term, one source familiar with the discussions told CNN.
Republicans also see an opening for other big-ticket items like the House GOP’s hardline immigration proposals that have been stalled since passing their chamber last year as Senate Democrats and the Biden White House had strongly opposed that plan.
Read more about Republicans plans should they reach a governing trifecta here.
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Analysis: The Trump trade euphoria is likely to fade quickly
From CNN's Allison Morrow
The Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, on November 6.
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Wednesday morning, my inbox was flooded with notes from analysts eager to talk about the election’s upside for various sectors. Financial stocks, like banks and credit card companies, are poised to thrive. Same goes for private prisons and companies expected to eventually help carry out mass deportations. The crypto folks came on especially strong, cheering the success of the candidate who promised them the moon.
When the stock market opened in New York, the enthusiasm for these so-called Trump trades went into hyperdrive. The three major indexes soared, a sign of investors’ relief at a swift victory. The Dow had one of its best days ever. Bitcoin surged to a new record high above $75,000.
But traders, on the whole, are just doing what traders do: Sniffing out potential profits they can cash out in the coming days and weeks.
When you step back from the scrum, many of those same traders will tell you the long term outlook for the stock market is murky at best.
“People don’t like missing opportunities to profit, so they’re rushing in and picking some stuff up that they can unload quickly enough before it all comes down,” Daniel Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, told me. “There’s still significant volatility in this market … And I think we’ll still see a significant reversal of these trades as the news begins to dawn.”
Trump has long taken aim at the media and now press freedom groups fear he may make good on his threats
From CNN's Liam Reilly
Press freedom groups sounded the alarm Wednesday on the potential dangers facing journalists under a second Trump administration, denouncing threats from the president-elect and his associates to undermine the news media.
In the hours after Donald Trump’s decisive victory, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Freedom of the Press Foundation, American Sunlight Project and Columbia Journalism Review called on the president-elect to end his attacks on the news media or altogether curb Trump’s power to prevent a destabilizing onslaught against the press.
“On the campaign trail and during his previous administration, President-elect Donald Trump has frequently deployed violent language and threats against the media. His election to a second term in office marks a dangerous moment for American journalism and global press freedom,” Reporters Without Borders said.
The groups’ fears are not without grounds. In the run-up to Election Day, Trump repeatedly threatened the Fourth Estate, often employing extreme and authoritarian rhetoric. Earlier this week, Trump told a crowd in Pennsylvania that he wouldn’t mind if journalists got shot. He also filed a lawsuit against CBS over its “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and repeatedly threatened to strip broadcasters of their licenses, saying on at least 15 occasions that television networks should have their licenses revoked over news coverage he disapproved of.
Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 24, Reporters Without Borders found that Trump insulted, attacked, or threatened the press at least 108 times across public speeches and remarks, a number that does not include Trump’s social media posts or comments made by campaign staff.
Analysis: Inflation haunted the Democrats and if Trump's not careful, it'll haunt him too
From CNN's Matt Egan
A person shops at a grocery store in Brooklyn, New York on July 11, 2024.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images/File
Donald Trump rode a powerful wave of discontent over the cost of living back to the White House.
Voters, fed up with high prices on everything from groceries to car insurance, have ousted Democrats from power in Washington.
Trump reminded voters often that inflation wasn’t a problem when he was calling the shots. And he has promised to attack high prices by shaking things up.
But if he’s not careful, Trump could have an inflation problem of his own.
Not only that, but the bond market is already getting nervous about Trump’s plans to add trillions to the national debt. Bond yields have climbed sharply, a situation that will make it more expensive to get a mortgage or home equity loan and finance the purchase of a car.
“The lesson of this election shouldn’t go unnoticed by Republicans – inflation doesn’t sit well with voters, and they won’t forget,” Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, told CNN.
Of course, it’s far too early to know which of Trump’s campaign promises will become a reality. For now, Wall Street seems largely unfazed by the inflation warnings.
Iran calls US election a chance to reconsider "ill-suited approaches." Here's how other leaders reacted
From CNN's Nadeen Ebrahim
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei holds a weekly press conference in Tehran on October 28, 2024.
Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images/File
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that every US election provides “opportunities for revisiting and reconsidering unjust and ill-suited approaches,” according to the state news agency IRNA.
“Our people have very bitter experiences from past consecutive American administrations,” said ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei, IRNA reported.
During his first term as president, Donald Trump significantly intensified pressure on Tehran, withdrawing from a 2015 agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear activity and re-imposing sanctions on the country.
Baghaei added that the American people have “made their choice” by electing Trump, adding that what matters to Iranians is Washington’s behavior moving forward.
Other leaders: A number of other foreign representatives and heads of states responded to Trump’s win on Wednesday, many offering congratulations.
Among them was Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who expressed his congratulations in a phone call Thursday. During his last presidency, Trump declared himself a “big fan” of Turkey’s strongman leader.
Turkey is a strategically important NATO member due to its geographical location in both the Middle East and Europe, and is the alliance’s second-largest military power.
On Wednesday, the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also said he looked forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump to face threats from North Korea and Russia.
Rutte praised Trump’s success in encouraging other NATO member states to invest at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) in defense.
Rutte said European leaders would on Wednesday discuss the “dangerous new developments” of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea working together, and that he looked forward to talking about those threats with Trump.
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What Trump's proposed tariffs could cost you per year
Donald Trump is headed back to the White House. CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich explains how his tariff plan could affect Americans:
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Analysts: Trump's tariffs likely to raise costs for U.S. consumers
Analysis: There will be little to stop Trump in his second term
From CNN's Stephen Collinson
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during an election night event in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 06, 2024.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Donald Trump believes presidents have almost absolute power. In his second term, there will be few political or legal restraints to check him.
The president-elect’s sweeping victory over Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly turned the theoretical notion that he will indulge his autocratic instincts into a genuine possibility.
When Trump returns to the White House in January as one of the most powerful presidents in history, he’ll be able to take advantage of his own filleting of guardrails during his first presidency, which he continued through legal maneuverings out of office.
It’s not guaranteed that just because Trump has massive power he will spurn constitutional checks and balances. But the lesson of Trump’s business and political careers is that he seeks to obliterate all constraints.
He has, for instance, crushed opposition in the Republican Party and driven out political heretics who oppose his “Make America Great Again” creed. This will be increasingly significant since the GOP has already flipped the Senate and still hopes to complete a monopoly on Washington power by keeping the House, which CNN has not yet projected.
No other president has come into office armed with a Supreme Court ruling that grants significant immunity to presidents for official acts. The decision, a direct result of Trump’s effort to challenge his federal indictment for 2020 election meddling, is limited — but he is certain to take an expansive view of its meaning. The ruling emerged from a conservative court majority fashioned by Trump in his first term and that many legal observers now see as a rubber stamp on future power grabs.
Perhaps most significantly, Trump can claim democratic legitimacy for what is already shaping up as the most intemperate presidency of the modern era, after increasing his vote share across multiple demographics.
Law professor sounds alarm on Trump's plan to strip government worker protections
From CNN's Jessie Yeung
Donald Trump arrives on stage during a town hall campaign event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 20, 2024.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Toward the end of Donald Trump’s last presidency, he issued an executive order reclassifying civil service workers — whose jobs are nonpartisan and protected — as political appointees who could be fired at will.
It had little effect as President Joe Biden rescinded the order as soon as he took office a few months later.
Now, that order could be restored in Trump’s second term — with his campaign website vowing to “remove rogue bureaucrats,” sweeping away protections that have been in place for more than 140 years.
“We’re talking about people who work on anything from national security to national parks,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School.
“In the first Trump term, civil servants did act in some instances as a resistance against Trump’s impulses to overreach,” she told CNN’s Rosemary Church on Wednesday. But the second time around, he might try to “replace them with loyalists,” she said.
Policy experts have warned that Trump’s plans would hollow out and politicize the federal workforce, force out many of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees, and open the door to corruption and a spoils system of political patronage.
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Analysis: Ukraine is forced to confront a brutal Trump reality that it hoped would never happen
From CNN's Nick Paton Walsh
A Ukrainian soldier in a trench 100 meters from Russian positions in the Serebryansky forest of Ukraine on November 6, 2024.
Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images
Bets were hedged, upsides conjured and insurance policies crafted. But ultimately, most hoped it would not happen.
Ukraine and its NATO allies have had for months to entertain the idea of a Donald Trump victory, juggling conceits of a strongman US president who might be a yet tougher ally, a dealmaker who might bring a favorable peace, or fresh eyes who might see a new end to a fatiguing war.
This was but a comforting fiction: The road ahead for Kyiv is extremely stark. There should be no enduring mystery about what a Trump presidency means for Ukraine. Trump has said he would end the war “in 24 hours,” but not how. He also said that “Zelensky should never have let that war start,” and dubbed him “one of the greatest salesmen I have ever seen” who gets $100 billion on every visit to Congress.
As of this morning, the fact these statements are wild exaggerations ceased to really matter. They became the warped lens through which the president-elect of the United States will perceive the largest conflict in Europe since the Nazis.
Trump may appoint a cabinet that mildly adjusts the pace or tone of his instincts, but in the end he wants out. It doesn’t matter that strategically Ukraine’s war has so far provided the Pentagon with a comparatively cheap means of degrading its second greatest adversary at no cost to American life.
It is an anathema to two of Trump’s first term dislikes: costly US military engagement abroad, and upsetting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Read more about what could happen in Ukraine under a Trump presidency.
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What a second Trump term could look like
From CNN's Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins
Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking, during an election night event in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 06, 2024.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Donald Trump’s election victory will return him to the White House, but both his allies and detractors have made clear his second time around will look nothing like the first.
With the Republican Party now entirely his, its anti-Trump figures banished for good, Trump will enter the Oval Office with both the experience of having done the job before and a wealth of resentments over how he believes the system failed him.
Figures who once hoped to act as stabilizing forces — including a string of chiefs of staff, defense secretaries, a national security adviser, a national intelligence adviser and an attorney general — have abandoned Trump, leaving behind a string of recriminations about his character and abilities.
They’ve been replaced by a cohort of advisers and officials uninterested in keeping Trump in check. Instead of acting as bulwarks against him, those working for Trump this time around share his views and are intent on upholding the extreme pledges he made as a candidate without concern for norms, traditions or law that past aides sought to maintain.
Trump’s axis of influence has shifted greatly since he left office. While his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, were once prominent campaign surrogates and senior White House staffers, they’ve since stepped away from the daily churn of politics. She has made clear she has no plans to return to the West Wing, and while Kushner has been involved in the transition efforts, sources said he was unlikely to leave his private equity firm.
Instead, Trump has found himself relying on people such as Donald Trump Jr., Elon Musk and Susie Wiles throughout his third run for the White House.
Trump still faces several criminal and civil charges. Here's where things stand
From CNN's Devan Cole, Paula Reid, Lauren del Valle, Kara Scannell, Jeremy Herb, Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray
Donald Trump attends his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, on May 30, 2024. He is awaiting sentencing for his convictions in this case.
It’s an extraordinarily unique position for him to be in: Never before has a criminal defendant been elected to the nation’s highest office, and an ex-president had never been criminally charged until last year.
Trump has said multiple times he plans to fire special counsel Jack Smith and end the federal cases against him for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and mishandling classified documents.
New York sentencing: Trump is scheduled to appear in court on November 26 to receive a sentence for his conviction earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during the 2016 campaign to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged a prior affair with him. Trump denies the affair. Whether that sentencing happens at all remains an open question. The Trump legal team is going to try to make sure the sentencing does not occur.
Federal cases in DC and Florida: Since the cases were brought in 2023, Trump’s main legal strategy has been to delay the trials until past the election so that, if elected, he could fire Smith, leading to the end of the two cases. Justice Department officials are looking at options for how to wind down the two criminal cases while also complying with a 2020 memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel about indictments or prosecutions of sitting presidents.
Georgia RICO case: The immediate fate of Trump’s criminal case in Georgia — for attempting to overturn the 2020 election — largely hinges on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is disqualified from prosecuting the matter after her prior romantic relationship with a fellow prosecutor. But even if she is allowed to continue prosecuting Trump, the case would almost certainly imperiled now that he has been elected.
Civil suits: Trump is also defending himself in a litany of civil lawsuits, including ones concerning his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, two E. Jean Carroll defamation cases, and a civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general where Trump was ordered to pay nearly $454 million in damages.
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Abortion was on the ballot in 10 states. Here's what voters decided
From CNN's Amy O’Kruk, Annette Choi, Lauren Mascarenhas, Kaanita Iyer and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn
People react after an abortion rights amendment to the Missouri constitution passed, on November 5, 2024, at a watch party in Kansas City, Missouri.
Charlie Riedel/AP
More than two years after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the nationwide right to an abortion, voters in 10 states cast ballots on whether to cement reproductive rights in their constitutions.
Measures to protect abortion access will pass in Arizona and Missouri, where citizens effectively voted to overturn their state’s bans. Abortion rights supporters are hopeful this will lead to a widespread increase in access to reproductive care in those states.
Similar measures will pass in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Montana and Nevada, cementing or expanding current abortion access.
Measures to protect abortion failed in Florida, where the procedure is banned six weeks into pregnancy, and South Dakota, where it is banned, except to save the life of the mother.
In Nebraska, an amendment cementing the state’s ban on abortions after 12 weeks will pass, while a competing amendment to codify the right to an abortion will fail, CNN projects.
Republicans will win the US Senate majority, CNN projects, shifting the balance of power in Washington and putting the chamber in position to boost Donald Trump’s presidency.
The new GOP Senate will be in a position to back Trump’s agenda and to resume the ex-president’s significant reshaping of the judiciary with scores more conservatives.
The Senate takeover was a big success on election night for Republicans, while the destiny of the House of Representatives, where the GOP is trying to defend its narrow majority, remains up in the air.
It could take a week or more before control of the House officially determined. With some races still yet to be called, Republicans have 209 seats and Democrats have 191. Either party needs 218 seats to have a majority.
