Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we have some very compelling stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on.
A Democrat takes the lead in the last uncalled Senate race, President-elect Donald Trump names a key policy adviser, and he picks a longtime supporter for a critical international relations position.
Also, the Arizona Supreme Court issues a ruling regarding mail-in ballots, and a former presidential hopeful breaks down what he says will be a top priority for the incoming Trump administration.
New Development in Arizona Senate Race
The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office says that Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is ahead of Republican Kari Lake in the state’s Senate race, and the numbers indicate that his lead is growing.Gallego is now up by more than 65,000 votes, according to unofficial results, with just over 250,000 ballots remaining to be counted statewide, including a large number in Arizona’s heavily populated Maricopa County.
Gallego is a 44-year-old military veteran and longtime congressman, and the 55-year-old Lake is a former television news anchor. They’re competing to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who left the Democratic Party a couple of years ago before deciding not to seek another six years in office.
Prior to Sinema, the seat was held by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who also retired from Congress instead of trying for reelection.
So you know, Republicans have flipped multiple Senate seats in the current election, and they’ll enjoy a significant majority in the upper chamber when the new Congress convenes in January 2025.
Meanwhile, in the state’s races for the U.S. House of Representatives, five Republicans have already won seats in the lower chamber, another Republican currently holds a narrow lead, and three Democrats are projected to win their elections to earn a coveted place in Congress.
Trump Names Deputy Chief of Policy
Vice President-elect JD Vance says that Trump is naming his longtime adviser Stephen Miller to be the deputy chief of policy, and yesterday, he described the move on social media as “another fantastic pick by the president.”So you know, Miller was a senior adviser in Trump’s first term, and he has been a central figure in many of the president-elect’s policy decisions, especially dealing with illegal immigration and border security.
Since Trump’s first term ended in 2021, Miller has served as the president of a group called America First Legal. His organization has filed a number of lawsuits against the Biden administration, as well as universities and media companies, over issues including immigration, religion, and freedom of speech.
So far, Trump has picked his campaign manager Susie Wiles to be his new chief of staff, and he’s chosen former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan to be his “border czar.” The president-elect said on Truth Social that Homan will be in charge of the “Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.”
By the way, Trump recently said that he will not be inviting back to his team either Nikki Haley, who served as the U.N. ambassador during his first term as president, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also served as his director of the CIA.
Trump to Nominate Rep. Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador
Trump says he’ll nominate House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.The president-elect called Stefanik “an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.” With the GOP having control of the Senate, Stefanik is likely to be confirmed.
So you know, the congresswoman is a staunch supporter of Israel. She has also questioned U.S. financial support of the U.N., which has been accused of being biased against the Jewish state.
Stefanik has called for defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), saying earlier this month that it “instills anti-Semitic hate in Palestinians, houses weapons for terrorists, and steals the aid they are supposed to be distributing.”
The New York Republican became the youngest woman elected to Congress when she won her seat 10 years ago at the age of 30, and in 2019, she rose to prominence as a defender of Trump during his first impeachment hearings.
Her foreign policy experience includes serving on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and also working at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
More recently, Stefanik has been in the spotlight due to her criticism of a number of university presidents and their responses to anti-Semitism on their campuses following the Hamas terrorist group’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
By the way, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will eventually have to call a special election to fill Stefanik’s vacant seat, which is safely Republican.
Arizona Supreme Court Rejects Emergency Ballot Request
Arizona’s Supreme Court has denied a call to extend the deadline for officials to fix problems with mail ballots.So you know, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted the petition, citing delays in vote counting as the reason. The ACLU, along with a group called Campaign Legal Center, named several county registrars, including the one for Maricopa County, in their petition.
However, the state’s top court said that election officials in eight of the state’s 15 counties reported that all of the voters with “inconsistent signatures” had been properly notified and given an opportunity to respond.
Arizona law requires that people who vote by mail must receive notice if there are issues with their ballots, including their signature not matching the one on file, and also that they are allowed to correct any problems through a process known as “curing.”
In the emergency petition, the groups said that as of the evening of Nov. 9, more than 250,000 mail-in ballots had not yet been verified by signature. They argued that tens of thousands of Arizona voters could be disenfranchised due to the ballot restrictions.
However, the court determined that it had no information to “establish in fact” that any such individuals did not have the benefit of “reasonable efforts” to cure their ballots, and that there was no evidence to show that they would be prevented from doing so by the stated deadline.
By the way, the Arizona secretary of state has reported that more than 3 million ballots were cast in this year’s election, and according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, more than 2.3 million people in the state voted by mail.
Top Priority for Trump Is ‘Uniting the Country,' Ramaswamy Says
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy says that the “No. 1 focus” of Trump and his incoming administration is “uniting the country.”In a recent interview with ABC News, Ramaswamy said that Trump’s decisive victory was “a gift to the country.” He also said it’s time to “get back to a place” where ordinary people who voted differently can all get together at the dinner table and say “we’re still Americans at the end of this.”
Earlier this year, Trump said that Ramaswamy would be involved in some way as part of his new administration, and he called the businessman a “smart guy.”
However, Ramaswamy did not say during the interview whether or not he would be joining the Trump team. He did say that the president-elect has “learned a lot” from his first term in office, and that he will “take to new heights some of the things he wasn’t able to accomplish” during his first four years in the White House.
Hours after Election Day, Trump told his supporters that the results have given both him and the GOP “a powerful and unprecedented mandate” regarding a multitude of different policy proposals he made during the campaign.
In his victory speech, Trump said he looked forward to “the golden age of America,” and called his win “a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again.”
A couple of days later, President Joe Biden spoke to the American people from the Rose Garden at the White House, and he called on everyone to accept the results of the election.
Biden also said that voters should “see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans,” and that in a democracy, “the will of the people always prevails.”
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Tuesday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
Don’t forget the News Brief Motto: We’re portable, affordable, and always on-demand.
And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very notable quote, and this one comes to us from the late Wayne Dyer, who said: “When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.”
Dyer was an author and motivational speaker.
For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.
The Epoch Times News Brief program is written each day by David Ross.
Thank you for making us your one-stop source for a concise, accurate, and unbiased daily synopsis of many of the news stories you need to know about.
Enjoy the remainder of your day, and we’ll see you right back here tomorrow for another edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
For now, let’s all continue to watch out for one another, and have an absolutely superb day today. Bye for now.
