Trump may name Florida congressman Mike Waltz as national security adviser â report
The Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, that Trump has chosen Florida congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser.
The post does not require Senate confirmation and is highly influential.
Key events
Democrat Mark Takano re-elected to House
Democratic Representative Mark Takano won reelection to a US House seat representing California on Monday. Takano defeated Republican David Serpa, the Associated Press reports.
The congressman is a longtime incumbent, the ranking member on the House Committee on Veteransâ Affairs and also sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Takano was previously a classroom teacher and a community college trustee.
The 39th congressional District covers communities in Riverside County southeast of Los Angeles. The Associated Press declared Takano the winner at 9.08pm EST.
Vietnamâs Communist Party head To Lam congratulated Donald Trump in a phone call on Monday and the two discussed ways their countries could boost economic ties, the countryâs communist party said.
The US is Vietnamâs largest export market, and in September last year the two countries upgraded their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest level in Vietnamâs ranking.
âVietnam is ready to promote stable and long-term development of bilateral relations for the benefit of the people of the two countries,â Lam said during the call, according to a statement posted on the communist partyâs website.
The statement said Trump expressed his respect for the relationship with Vietnam and Vietnam-US economic cooperation, and wanted to further promote it.
While the New York Times has reported that Donald Trump has picked Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, the report also says âMr. Trump could still change his mind at the last minute.â
Rubio is arguably the most hawkish option on Trumpâs shortlist for secretary of state, Reuters reports, and he has in years past advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to Americaâs geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba.
Over recent years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trumpâs views. The president-elect accuses past US presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.
Rubio has said in recent interviews that Ukraine needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than focus on regaining all territory that Russia has taken in the last decade. He was also one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in April.
Rubio is also a top China hawk in the Senate. Most notably, he called on the Treasury Department in 2019 to launch a national security review of popular Chinese social media app TikTokâs acquisition of Musical.ly, prompting an investigation and troubled divestment order.
Lauren Gambino
As shell-shocked Democrats try to understand why working-class Americans â once the cornerstone of their political base â chose a billionaire over them, progressives argue the path forward is to champion âpopular and populistâ economic policies.
Democratic recriminations have intensified in the nearly seven days since their devastating electoral losses, which may yet deliver a new era of unified Republican governance in Washington, after Donald Trump stormed to a second term while his party easily flipped the Senate and is on the verge of winning a majority in the House. Divisions have deepened, with progressives blaming the partyâs embrace of corporate America and swing-state Democrats accusing the left of tarnishing its appeal with ex-urban and rural voters.
âClearly not enough voters knew what Democrats were going to do to make their lives better, particularly poor and working-class Americans across this country,â Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday:
Trump expected to name Marco Rubio as secretary of state â report
The New York Times reports that Trump is expected to name Florida senator Marco Rubio his secretary of state. The paper cites three unnamed sources âfamiliar with [Trumpâs] thinkingâ.
Axios reports that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahuâs cenvoy, Ron Dermer, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, and that Dermer also met with Trumpâs son in law, Jared Kushner.
Axios cites to unnamed two Israeli officials and two US officials with knowledge of the meeting, reporting:
An Israeli official said the meeting was aimed at passing messages from Netanyahu to Trump and briefing the president-elect on Israelâs plans in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran for the next two months before Trump takes office.
âOne of the things the Israelis wanted to sort out with Trump is what are the issues he prefers to see solved before 20 January and what are the issues he prefers the Israelis to wait for him,â a US official said.
The US officials mentioned the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire efforts, the plan for Gaza after the war ends and Israeli-Saudi normalization efforts as issues the Israelis want to take Trumpâs pulse on.
Dermer also met with Jared Kushner, a source with knowledge of the meeting said.
On Ukraine, Waltz has said his views have evolved, Reuters reports.
After Russiaâs 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he called for the Biden administration to provide more weapons to Kyiv to help them push back Russian forces.
But during an event last month, Waltz said there had to be a reassessment of the United Statesâ aims in Ukraine.
âIs it in Americaâs interest, are we going to put in the time, the treasure, the resources that we need in the Pacific right now badly?â Waltz asked.
Waltz has praised Trump for pushing Nato allies to spend more on defense, but unlike the president-elect has not suggested the United States pull out of the alliance.
âLook we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations,â Waltz said last month
Who is Mike Waltz?
Reuters has more information about Mike Waltz, who is reportedly Trumpâs pick for national security adviser.
If selected, Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
While slamming the Biden administration for a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Waltz has publicly praised Trumpâs foreign policy views.
âDisruptors are often not nice ⦠frankly our national security establishment and certainly a lot of people that are dug into bad old habits in the Pentagon need that disruption,â Waltz said during an event earlier this year.
âDonald Trump is that disruptor,â he said.
Waltz was a defense policy director for defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and was elected to Congress in 2018. He is the chair of the House Armed Services subcommittee overseeing military logistics and also on the select committee on intelligence.
Waltz is also on the Republicanâs China taskforce and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a book published earlier this year titled âHard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret,â Waltz laid out a five part strategy to preventing war with China, including arming Taiwan faster, re-assuring allies in the Pacific, and modernizing planes and ships.
Decision Desk HQ, an organisation that uses models to project how the vote count will unfold, is predicting that the Republicans will win a majority in the House.
With a Republican Senate majority already won, this would mean Trump controls both houses of Congress when he takes office in January, making it significantly easier to pass legislation.
The Associated Press, which the Guardian relies on to call races, has not yet confirmed that the Republicans have won the four seats needed for a House majority.
There is more information now about California Governor Gavin Newsomâs plans to meet with the Biden administration this week to discuss zero-emission vehicles and disaster relief.
The Democratic governor is leaving for Washington on Monday and will return home Wednesday, his office said. Newsom will also meet with Californiaâs congressional delegation, the Associated Press reports.
He is seeking federal approval for state climate rules, a $5.2bn reimbursement for emergency funding during the Covid-19 pandemic and updates to the stateâs Medicaid program, along with other priorities.
The trip comes days after Newsom called for state lawmakers to convene a special session in December to protect Californiaâs liberal policies ahead of Trumpâs return to office in January.
Trump then criticized the governor on social media, calling out the high cost of living in California and the stateâs homelessness crisis. He said Newsom was âstopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to âMake California Great Again.ââ
California won against most of the Trump administrationâs legal challenges over the stateâs environmental and other progressive policies during the Republicanâs first term, said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego.
âThe question is: Has Donald Trump changed the legal playing field so much through the court appointments of his first term that heâll be able to win on policies in his second term?â he said.
As president, Trump appointed more than 230 federal judges, including three justices to the US Supreme Court.