Trump adviser Alina Habba responds to reports she’s considering key WH role
President-elect Donald Trump’s senior adviser and attorney Alina Habba says she is not considering the role of press secretary, despite “support and speculation.”
Habba addressed the rumors on the social media platform X early Thursday morning, adding that “this administration is going to be epic!”
“Although I love screaming from a podium I will be better served in other capacities,” she said.
Names under consideration include Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt, former Trump administration official Monica Crowley, former ESPN host Sage Steele, CNN contributor Scott Jennings and RNC spokeswoman Elizabeth Pipko, according to Axios.
The press secretary role is one of the most visible at the White House, typically holding daily press briefings with the White House press corps to speak on behalf of the president.
His new administration plans to challenge longstanding traditions that favor mainstream outlets like major broadcast and cable news networks, national newspapers and wire services, like The Associated Press, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room, according to Axios.
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Trump’s new administration is considering giving MAGA-friendly outlets access to the press briefings, Axios reports, which have traditionally featured cable news, print and wire service reporters.
MATT GAETZ RESIGNS FROM CONGRESS OVER TRUMP NOD TO BE ATTORNEY GENERAL, JOHNSON SAYS
Trump continues making his cabinet picks ahead of his inauguration as the 47th president of the U.S. in January.
Some congressional Republicans told Fox News Digital Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who resigned from Congress on Wednesday as Trump tapped him to be his attorney general, may face a tough confirmation path because he was previously under Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into sex trafficking allegations. Last year, Gaetz’s office said the DOJ ended their investigation and determined he would not be charged with any crimes.
A House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz was also expected to be released soon, but Gaetz’s resignation means it may not become public.
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Tulsi Gabbard, who served as a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii from 2013 to 2021 before becoming an independent in 2022 and joining the GOP last month, has been selected by Trump to serve as director of national intelligence in his new Cabinet.
Pelosi fact-checked on claim about illegal migrants crossing the border under Biden-Harris
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was fact-checked on Wednesday by the Washington Post for claiming that fewer migrants came into the U.S. under President Biden than under President-elect Trump’s first term.
“I don’t think we were clear enough by saying fewer people came in under President Joe Biden than came under Donald Trump,” Pelosi told the New York Times during a recent interview. “It’s clarity of the message, and if that’s what Bernie’s talking about, and that’s what Joe Manchin’s talking about, we weren’t clear in our message as to what things are, then I agree with that.”
The Washington Post published a fact-check on the claim on Wednesday, and noted that it was “documented fact” that “at least four times as many migrants entered the United States under Biden than under Trump.”
An aide told the outlet that Pelsoi was referring to deportations during the interview and pointed to numbers in a Reuters report, according to the Post.
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“It showed that in fiscal year 2024, Biden was on pace to exceed the number of deportations of any single year under Trump. But the article did not say that deportations under Biden would be higher than they were under Trump — far from it. Through four years, Biden almost certainly will have fewer deportations than Trump, according to the Reuters count,” the Washington Post’s report read.
The outlet reported that Pelosi’s claim “veers even more off course” when they dig deeper into the numbers and said the former House Speaker earned “Four Pinocchio’s.”
During the same New York Times interview, Pelosi suggested Vice President Kamala Harris might have won if Biden dropped out sooner.
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“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. Kamala, I think, still would have won, but she may have been stronger, having taken her case to the public sooner,” she told the Times.
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MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend called out Pelosi over the weekend for the role she played in President Biden exiting the presidential race.
“I’m going to say it if she ain’t going to say it — Nancy Pelosi, everybody talks about how the speaker emerita, you know, she’s so strategic, she can count, she did all of that when she was the speaker in Congress, but my question is: Where is your calculator now?” Townsend said. “She played in presidential politics this cycle, and she helped orchestrate the very public demise of the president.”
President Biden imposes a new tax as he prepares to leave the White House
President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency finalized a new rule Tuesday, taxing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
The new tax was born out of Biden’s sweeping climate legislation passed by Congress, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a Waste Emissions Charge provision. Although the waste emissions charge was mandated by Congress, the Biden administration had discretion on how tightly to clamp down.
The fee will start at $900 per metric ton of methane emitted over a specific performance level during 2024. In subsequent years, the fee will increase. In 2025, it will grow to $1,200 per metric ton. In 2026, it will increase to $1,500 per ton. Meanwhile, each subsequent year after that, the fee will continue to rise, according to the EPA.
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“The final Waste Emissions Charge is the latest in a series of actions under President Biden’s methane strategy to improve efficiency in the oil and gas sector, support American jobs, protect clean air, and reinforce U.S. leadership on the global stage,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release.
Prior to Tuesday’s new methane emissions rule, Biden and his administration imposed other rules aimed at clamping down on methane. Shortly after taking office in 2021, he signed a law repealing a Trump-era action that rescinded stricter methane-emissions standards imposed under then-President Barack Obama.
While climate change advocates, such as the Clean Air Task Force, have praised Biden’s rule regulating methane emissions, Steve Milloy, a fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, described the action as “irrelevant.” Milloy said that because upwards of 95% or more of the greenhouse gasses trapped by the earth’s atmosphere are water vapor and carbon dioxide, little to no room remains for methane to be stored.
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Milloy also suggested the new methane emissions rule will likely be ineffective, considering it targets the oil and gas sector but not the agricultural sector as well.
“The largest source of methane is actually microbes,” Milloy pointed out — as opposed to man-made power plants. Microbes are tiny organisms that live in cow’s stomachs, agricultural fields and wetlands, according to The Washington Post.
In addition to the effectiveness, Milloy pointed out that the tax will also be to the benefit of Big Oil companies, while hurting smaller ones.
“It’s because all these regulations cripple the competition,” Milloy said. “Taxing the oil industry, you know, Big Oil is going to be all for that.”
North Carolina Republican Rep. Greg Murphy, who was endorsed by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions during his bid for re-election this year, echoed that going after the oil and gas industry with this latest tax will serve to “raise costs and prevent investment.”
“Thankfully, this insanity will end in January,” Murphy said.
President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he would repeal many of the green energy initiatives implanted within Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
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This week, the new president-elect nominated former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to be his next EPA chief. Meanwhile, Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been floated as a possibility for Trump’s next Energy Secretary, among others.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and EPA for comment but did not receive an on-the-record response. But the White House did point to a fact sheet it released Tuesday, on how the Biden-Harris administration has “leverage[d] historic U.S. climate leadership at home and abroad.”
Former DNC volunteer who voted for Trump mocks claims about VP Harris’ campaign
Following President-elect Trump’s historic election victory, several liberal media pundits have come to the defense of Vice President Harris, saying the California native ran a “flawless,” “incredible” campaign.
One former DNC volunteer, however, challenged that notion, arguing the Harris campaign was “anything but” perfect.
“The people on ‘The View’ and all of the media elites right now who are saying that Kamala Harris ran a perfect campaign are completely deluding themselves. This was not a perfect campaign. This was anything but,” former DNC volunteer Evan Barker said on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Tuesday.
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“She trotted Liz Cheney all across the Rust Belt. She completely misunderstood the pain that the American people are going through right now with the economy. And she never addressed those concerns. That’s why the Democratic Party has lost.”
After a tumultuous campaign season, Trump sailed to victory in the early morning hours last Wednesday, after locking down key battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania and Georgia and clearing 270 electoral votes. He concluded the race with 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226, and won the popular vote.
In the final days of the campaigning cycle, polling indicated that the results for the election would likely be very close. Results showed a clear victory for Trump.
Barker, who defected from the Democratic Party candidate and voted for Trump, said she saw Harris’ loss “coming a mile away.”
“When I was at the DNC, I saw what they were selling, and like most of America, I didn’t want to buy it,” she said. “This is a election that was decided by Americans that have decided that they’ve had enough and that they’re not going to stand for it any longer.”
Fallout from the devastating loss, however, has reverberated across the Democratic Party as members point fingers at each other for the Trump win.
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Amid the blame game, Barker argued “the party that I belong to is blaming everyone but themselves.”
“Over the last eight years, I’ve seen a party that has just moved further and further away from the working class people of this country,” she said, echoing the post-election sentiments of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Sanders pinned blame for the loss on the Democratic Party for “abandoning” the working class.
“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. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” Sanders posted to X last week, accompanied by a press release on the election results. “And they’re right.”
Other notable voices in the party, including longtime leader Nancy Pelosi, pointed the finger at President Biden, who left Vice President Harris with just over 100 days until the election when he dropped out of the race.
Some have even called out former President Obama’s role in the Harris campaign.
While the party struggles with post-election infighting, Barker reasoned Harris ultimately could not connect her campaign with the “reality” facing Americans.
“When this is their reality, and then you’ve got a candidate that goes out there with Oprah Winfrey and Al Sharpton and is paying all these celebrities millions of dollars, it’s like the American people could see through that,” she told host Jesse Watters.
In the wake of Harris’ loss, President-elect Trump is preparing his transition to the White House in January.
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Hotly contested Senate race triggers recount as Dem incumbent refuses to concede
Pennsylvania officials announced Wednesday that the tight margin in the Senate race between Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania and Republican Sen.-elect Dave McCormick has triggered an automatic recount under Pennsylvania law.
Fox News projected McCormick as the winner on Nov. 7, and McCormick has since attended new-senator orientation in Washington. Despite Casey not conceding, Republicans are projected to have the Senate majority, with 53 seats to Democrats’ 47.
With 99% reporting as of Thursday morning, McCormick had 3,383,676 votes, or 48.91%, compared to Casey’s 3,357,191, or 48.52%, a difference of 26,485 votes, or 0.39 percentage points.
Once counties finish counting their ballots, they must begin the recount no later than Wednesday, Nov. 20, and the recount must be completed by noon on Nov. 26.
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Of the four previous automatic recounts since the passage of Act 97 of 2004, the initial results of the election were affirmed. Results of the recount will not be published until Nov. 27, and it is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1 million, election officials said.
McCormick spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said that the deficit is too high for Casey to overcome.
“Senator-elect McCormick’s lead is insurmountable, which the AP made clear in calling the race,” Gregory said in a statement.
“A recount will be a waste of time and taxpayer money but it is Senator Casey’s prerogative. Senator-elect McCormick knows what it’s like to lose an election and is sure Senator Casey will eventually reach the right conclusion.”
McCormick declared victory in Pittsburgh on Friday, thanking Casey and his family for their decades of service to the commonwealth.
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Casey, a three-term incumbent, has accused McCormick of trying to “disenfranchise” voters with lawsuits.
In a video Tuesday, Casey said that the democratic process “will play out” once all the votes are counted.
“My priority has always been standing up for the people of Pennsylvania. Across our commonwealth, close to 7 million people cast their votes in a free and fair election. Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election,” Casey said.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., initially declined to invite McCormick to the new-senator orientation this week, citing thousands of votes still yet to be counted.
Amid pressure from GOP senators, Schumer on Tuesday agreed to invite McCormick, as well as Democratic Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego, whose Arizona race against Republican Kari Lake was not called until Monday night.