President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a statement on Monday, Trump praised Zeldin’s background as a lawyer and said he’s known the former New York congressman for a long time.
“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”
A source confirmed to Fox News Digital that Trump has selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) to fill the all-important role of Secretary of Homeland Security, a position held for the last four disastrous years by Alejandro Mayorkas. (We’ll get back to Mayorkas in a bit.)
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for everything from border security and immigration to disaster response and the US Secret Service.
But under Mayorkas and Biden-Harris, Homeland Security has been complicit in the never-ending surge of illegal aliens into this country, a disastrous (lack of) response to deadly Hurricane Helene, and two assassination attempts against Trump over the course of just 64 days.
Noem… would work with former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, who on Sunday was announced as Trump’s “border czar,” and Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to Trump during his first term, who was tapped as White House deputy of staff for policy on Monday.
It was also announced Monday night that Trump is expected to choose Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as his secretary of state. In addition, the president-elect has asked Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) to serve as his national security adviser, according to a source familiar.
Biden-Harris Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell announced Saturday a federal disaster relief official who advised her survivor assistance team to ignore homes displaying Trump signs in Lake Placid, Florida, following Hurricane Milton has been fired.
Criswell said in a post on X:
More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors.
Recently, a FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values & principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.
This was reprehensible. I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people, this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA and we will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct.
We take our mission to help everyone before, during and after disasters seriously. This employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel. I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.
Multiple government employees told the Daily Wire that Washington also relayed this message verbally.
The employees told the outlet that “at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags” were skipped from the end of October and into November — about the same time as the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.
The report said, “It is unclear whether the same guidance was issued elsewhere in the country.”
One of the employees wrote in a whistleblower complaint filed to DHS: “If they had damage or lost power for over thirty-six hours, it was my duty to inform them of benefits to which they are entitled through FEMA.”
The employee added, “This behavior raises significant concerns of discrimination against United States citizens because of their political views… . These actions not only undermine the integrity of our agency and create a hostile work environment for those who may hold differing political beliefs but they also threaten the very democracy of our country.”
President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly tapped Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, to lead U.S. negotiations with Lebanon to end the war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The Boulos family has Christian Arab roots and is part of a global business empire.
The Times of Israel reported:
Lebanese-American businessman and Donald Trump surrogate Massad Boulos revealed in a recent interview days before the election that he will serve as the US point man for Lebanon in the incoming administration, tasked with negotiating with Beirut to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I will be responsible for negotiating with the Lebanese side in order to reach an agreement, and Trump will appoint someone familiar with the Israeli file to negotiate with the Israelis,” Boulos told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed in what appears to be one of the first revelations regarding now President-elect Trump’s personnel.
Boulos joined the Trump inner circle after his son Michael married the former president’s daughter Tiffany in 2022. He helped Trump make significant inroads in the Arab American in yesterday’s election.
Hezbollah marked President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election by firing rockets at the Israeli town of Trump Heights on Wednesday morning.
There were no reports of damage there.
However, a car was damaged in the town of Ra’anana, near Tel Aviv, when pieces of a Hezbollah missile that was destroyed by Israel’s missile defense system fell onto a parked car.
Trump Heights was named for Trump in appreciation for his recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which were taken from Syria in a defensive war in 1967.
Trump has promised to stop the war in Lebanon, while also allowing Israel to do whatever necessary to defend itself from Iranian-backed terror organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas.
An end to the war could provide opportunities for major foreign policy wins in the early days of the new administration, including an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia.
President-elect Donald Trump addressed his supporters in the nation early Wednesday morning after earning more than 270 electoral votes, vowing he will lead the “golden age of America” after launching the “greatest political movement of all time.”
“This was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond. And now it’s going to reach a new level of importance because we’re going to help our country heal,” Trump said just before 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
“We’re going to help our country here. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders. We’re going to fix everything about our country and we’ve made history for a reason tonight. And the reason is going to be just that. We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible,” he added to cheers from the crowd.
“Every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you. And with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America. That’s what we have to have. This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again,” he said.
“We will make America safe, strong, prosperous, powerful and free again. And I’m asking every citizen all across our land to join me in this noble and righteous endeavor,” Trump said.
The first step in the Democrats’ plan is obviously “winning the vote.”
That means “finding ways legally to either change the law or to just look the other way to win the vote,” Glenn explains.
Democratic lawyer Marc Elias is geared up for another round of fighting election-related lawsuits, and Biden’s DOJ has already sued certain states for “removing noncitizens from voter rolls or switching to paper ballots.”
Winning the vote means winning by whatever means necessary.
The second step is “winning the count,” which is the step “everyone is worried about, says Glenn.
“We saw it last time — all of a sudden, they just stopped counting at 10:30 at night,” which created room for “shenanigans” to happen, he explains.
Whether it’s calling for recounts in swing states, questioning every step of the counting process, or telling Americans “we don’t know who won or lost” in order to sow seeds of doubt, we can expect the 2024 election to look a lot like 2020.
Winning the certification is step three.
“Each state has to certify the vote and seat electors,” but if Trump wins, “objections and accusations of ‘shady’ electoral practices will fill the headlines.”
The fourth step in the Democrats’ diabolical plan is what Glenn calls “winning the Electoral College.”
The Democrat-controlled media is already priming Americans for the scenario in which Trump loses and takes power anyway by using Republican support to endorse alternate electors and then send the election to the House, where the GOP holds a slim majority. According to the left’s theory, the House will select him as president even if he loses the election.
If all else fails and Trump wins, the final step in the plan is to “disrupt, disrupt, disrupt” the transition of power, which used to be nothing more than a formality.
We can expect protests, accusations, and anything the left can drum up to create chaos and “[set] the country on fire.”
In recent years, author and radio host Eric Metaxas and other conservative Christian supporters of Donald Trump have compared themselves to the famed German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer — who was put to death, in part, for participating in a plan to assassinate Adolph Hitler.
In a recent interview on Flashpoint, a Christian television talk show on the Victory network, both Metaxas — author of a bestselling biography of Bonhoeffer — and the show’s host called the current election a “Bonhoeffer moment” and urged Christians to rise up and oppose evil.
That evil, in Metaxas’ eyes, is the Democrats, who, he has argued, stole the 2020 election and whom he often compares to Nazis. For him, if Democrats win the next election, it could mean the end of America as we know it. Metaxas has argued and has claimed in the past that Trump is God’s chosen candidate and that those who oppose him oppose God.
His newest book, “Religionless Christianity” — a phrase used by Bonhoeffer — describes America’s current politics as a spiritual war and sign of the end times.
A group of Bonhoeffer scholars — and the theologian’s descendants — have had enough. In a statement issued Friday (Oct. 18) members of the International Bonhoeffer Society called on Metaxas and others to stop comparing the current election to the rise of the Nazis. The statement, in particular, called out Metaxas for social media posts featuring a gun and a Bible and his support of Jan. 6 rioters.
“This portrayal glorifies violence and draws inappropriate analogies between our political system and that of Nazi Germany,” the scholars said in a statement, which has been signed by more than 800 Bonhoeffer scholars and other Christian leaders. “It is a dangerous misuse of Bonhoeffer’s life and lessons, particularly in this election season in the United States.”
The statement from the Bonhoeffer Society makes a similar point.
“Any attempt to invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his resistance against Hitler as a reason to engage in political violence in our contemporary context must be strongly opposed,” it says. “Moreover, while Bonhoeffer supported the coup, he refused to offer a Christian or theological justification for it. He understood the dangers of such a rationale.”
One in four Americans fear a civil war could break out following the presidential election, a new poll has found.
A YouGov poll of 1,266 registered voters has found that 84 percent of citizens believe America is more divided today than ten years ago.
Of the bipartisan voters surveyed for The Times newspaper in the UK, 27 percent say they fear violence is ‘very or somewhat likely’ after ballots are cast for the next President in 11 days.
Twelve percent of respondents claimed to know someone who ‘might take up arms’ if they believed Donald Trump is ‘cheated’ of an election victory. Five percent said they knew someone who would do the same for Kamala Harris.
The new poll follows a bombshell prediction of a psychological catastrophe across the country if Trump beats Harris.
Voters believe that the upcoming bid for the White House is ‘very likely’ (6 percent) or ‘somewhat likely’ (21 percent) to cause a second civil war.
[Dr. Ben Carson] We need to understand that we are not each other’s’ enemies in this country. And it is only the political class that derives its power by creating friction. It is only the media that derives its importance by creating friction… that uses every little thing to create this chasm between people. This is not who we are.
Lawmakers repeatedly questioned why the agency tasked with protecting the country’s top leaders didn’t do a better job communicating with local authorities during the July 13 rally, particularly when it came to securing the building that was widely agreed to be a security threat but that ultimately was left so unprotected that gunman Thomas Michael Crooks was able to climb up and open fire on Trump.
The panel — comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats — has spent the last two months analyzing the security failures at the rally, conducting nearly two dozen interviews with law enforcement and receiving more than 2,800 pages of documents from the Secret Service.
Edward Lenz, commander for the Butler County Emergency Services Unit who was in charge of the local tactical units operating at the Butler rally, said his agency was never asked to put a sniper team on top of the roof and never said that they would. Lenz said the Secret Service knew their shooters were inside the AGR Building and there was no “feedback or guidance” from the Secret Service that they wanted the team anywhere else.
Lenz also testified that Secret Service officials did not check with him or his team to make sure they were in place before Trump went on stage and that the emergency communication for July 13 had not been worked out in advance.
Thursday’s session was the fourth congressional hearing about the Butler shooting since July.
