Kari Lake Loses Arizona Senate Race in Massive Blow to MAGA

Arizonans have elected Representative Ruben Gallego as the next senator of the Grand Canyon State, according to the Associated Press. Gallego clinched 50 percent of the votes, besting far-right darling and local TV news anchor Kari Lake by 2.2 percent with 95 percent of the state reporting.

Bipartisan polls stretching back to July had placed Gallego squarely in the lead, sometimes with a double-digit jump on the former news anchor.

“Gracias, Arizona!” Gallego wrote on X late Monday night.

Gallego’s win will revert both of Arizona’s upper chamber seats back to the liberal party. After running as a Democrat in 2018, Senator Kyrsten Sinema—whom Gallego will replace—opted to become an independent, citing partisan extremism as her reasoning for the intra-office switch-up in an Arizona Republic op-ed. Earlier this year, Sinema announced she would not be seeking reelection, skirting a three-way race in the swing state.

Gallego’s victory is a bright spot for Democrats, who have lost control of the Senate to Republicans. The GOP holds 53 seats in the chamber.

Lake launched herself into the far-right stratosphere in 2022, when she made a national splash in Arizona’s gubernatorial race as a disciple of Donald Trump, carving her own candidacy out of mimicking the Republican presidential nominee’s bombastic and divisive rhetoric. Her narrow loss in that race to Democrat Katie Hobbs appeared to indicate that the MAGA tide had dried up in Arizona, but the state still voted for Trump this time around.

In the final months of the race, Gallego and Lake’s matchup boiled down to a handful of issues plaguing voters in the state, including immigration, the border, the economy, and abortion access, all of which took center stage during a feisty debate between the two candidates in October.

Over the course of 55 minutes, Gallego and Lake traded personal barbs while Lake positioned herself as a local radical.

“Kari Lake is an unreformed fanatic. Ruben Gallego is an adult,” wrote Phil Boas for the Arizona Republic in the wake of the debate, noting that Gallego was the only candidate in the race who had grown from their radical campaign positions in 2022.

After opening the debate by remarking that there are no Republicans or Democrats in war, Gallego—an Iraq War veteran—took aim at Lake’s track record, claiming that the local TV star had “failed the basic test of honesty.” In turn, Lake argued that Gallego, a former progressive, had “undergone an extreme makeover” in favor of his political ambitions.

Lake also attacked Gallego for his prior comments on immigration, in which he called Trump’s border wall “stupid” and “dumb.”

In April, women in Arizona were rattled by a state Supreme Court decision to revive a 160-year-old anti-abortion law that offered no abortion exemptions, even in cases of rape or incest. That radical policy was quickly nipped by the state legislature but not before Lake reversed course on her “100 percent pro-life” position, telling Arizona voters that she sympathized with women in need of abortions and that she didn’t believe the ruling was in line with the state’s current politics. That same week, Lake backed Arizona Republicans’ bill to replace the 1864 ban with a law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The proposed bill also did not make exceptions for rape or incest.

And, a week before Election Day, the Republican nominee copied one more Trumpian strategy: refusing to concede that she had lost her race in 2022. When pressed by CNN to answer a question that she has spent two years dodging, Lake claimed that she was unable to speak on the issue since she was still in litigation over the outcome, though she added that she intended to “make sure our elections are run properly” and that she wanted to “look forward” rather than backward.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected an almost cartoonishly evil man to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trump said he will nominate former Republican House member and failed New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin for the next administrator of the EPA. And Zeldin has gleefully accepted the role.

“Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies,” Trump said in a statement posted to Truth Social Monday. “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.”

“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet,” Zeldin posted on X in reply. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Zeldin would be an absolute disaster for the environment. A staunch climate denier, Zeldin wants to make fracking and offshore drilling easier and supports new pipeline construction. He is also one of Trump’s biggest fans, refusing to admit he lost the 2020 election—and so he’s all but guaranteed to do Trump’s bidding.

Zeldin has made his pro-business vision for the EPA crystal clear. “So day one and the first 100 days, we have the opportunity to roll back regulations that are forcing businesses to be able to struggle,” Zeldin said on Fox News Monday, shortly after news of his pick broke. “They’re forced to cut costs internally, they are moving overseas altogether to be able to bolster liquidity in the American economy, where businesses strive to grow, expand here and have the ability to export what they produce, as opposed to exporting their jobs in the company—the companies themselves.”

Rest assured, this EPA head won’t be protecting anything.

January 6 protesters are learning the hard way that their fearless leader plays by a different set of rules than they do.

The Justice Department on Monday rejected requests from several January 6 defendants who tried to have their cases tossed out, on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith paused his prosecution of President-elect Trump’s incendiary actions on January 6 after his election win.

“The defendant’s citation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to vacate a briefing schedule in the matter of United States v. Trump … is inapposite,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Isia Jasiewicz wrote in acknowledgment of a defendant’s extension request.

“That motion refers to the ‘unprecedented circumstance’ of a criminal defendant being ‘expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025.’ The need to ‘determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,’ is not similarly implicated in this case, where the defendant is a private citizen.”

January 6 defense attorneys have called foul on their cases, noting the inconsistencies in how the special counsel is handling January 6 for the president-elect compared to his followers. But just because you and Trump both committed crimes on the same day doesn’t mean you get to be prosecuted in the same way. At least for the remaining few months that Merrick Garland is still in charge of the Justice Department.

Israel’s top leadership has indicated that they see Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration as a free license to settle Palestine.

In a statement celebrating Trump’s win, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Monday that “the time has come” to extend Israeli law over the occupied West Bank, reported The Washington Post.

Smotrich, himself a settler who also wields a defense ministry supervisory role overseeing the West Bank and settlements, added that he hoped the new administration would recognize the Israeli sovereignty push, and that the “only way to remove” the “threat” of a Palestinian state would be to force sovereignty “over the entire settlements in Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.

Earlier on Monday, the nation’s new foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said that the government had not yet made a decision about annexing the West Bank, but explained that the issue had been discussed with Trump during his first term and that it would be “discussed again with our friends in Washington” if relevant, reported CNN.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it claimed the Palestinian territory from Jordan. Since then, it has increasingly encroached on the land, expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank (which violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) despite decades of peace agreements with Palestine.

More than 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, with an additional 102,000 people injured in the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A report by the United Nations Human Rights Office, published last week, found that close to 70 percent of those killed were women and children, with 5- to 9-year-old children comprising the majority of the dead. Roughly 80 percent of the victims were killed in residential buildings or similar housing.

With Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on his way out, a MAGA power play amid the fight for Senate leadership is starting to rub some Republicans the wrong way.

After 17 years in the hot seat, McConnell is expected to exit his post at the top of Senate Republican leadership on Wednesday, ending his run as the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.

At the top of the billing to replace the 82-year-old are South Dakota Senator John Thune and Texas Senator John Cornyn, two establishment conservatives and longtime McConnell allies who have not always seen eye to eye with the president-elect.

Meanwhile, a gamut of Trump’s key allies, including Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Charlie Kirk, are aggressively lobbying for Florida Senator Rick Scott to take the helm. (Trump, notably, has so far avoided endorsing any of the contenders.) But the overzealous pressure campaign—which is also being pushed along by some far-right social media influencers and their harassment tactics—is on the verge of combusting, according to Politico.

That’s because most of the Senate Republican conference won’t have to face reelection until 2028 or later. On top of that, the vote is by secret ballot, ensuring that no one—from their constituents to MAGA’s top brass—will know if they voted for or against Trump’s candidate.

“Senators do not take kindly to having an army of social media trolls attack them,” one unnamed aide told Politico on Sunday, noting that the effort was only “pissing off senators whose votes Rick needs” to win.

Still, all three candidates passed a Trumpian litmus test Sunday night, quickly bending the knee to the chief Republican’s unusual demand that they unequivocally agree to recess appointments and thwart the appointment of Democratic judges.

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump posted on X on Sunday. “Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!”

Lawyers at the Justice Department just got a sinister warning about a second term under President Donald Trump.

Mark Paoletta, a former Trump administration member and conservative think-tank fellow working on Trump’s transition, spelled out the upcoming agenda in a lengthy X post on Monday. He named mass deportations, pardoning January 6 insurrectionists, and declaring war on transgender children as the top priorities. And he made sure to tell any DOJ lawyers who may have qualms about that to fall in line.

“DOJ career employees do not set the agenda. In fact, they are required to help implement this agenda. Hopefully, they will be as committed to helping President Trump implement his agenda as they did for President Biden,” Paoletta wrote. “If these career DOJ employees won’t implement President Trump’s program in good faith, they should leave. Those employees who engage in so-called ‘resistance’ against the duly-elected President’s lawful agenda would be subverting American democracy. Finally, those that take such actions would be subject to disciplinary measures, including termination.”

This is yet another dark signal of authoritarian backsliding, as Trump is primed to strong-arm the federal government into doing his bidding or risk getting fired. The former president has doubled down relentlessly on his threat to take down “the enemy within,” a.k.a. anyone he feels like attacking. There are rough waters on the horizon for any federal employee who doesn’t want to conform.

A former Trump staffer and renowned nativist is about to make a comeback at the top of Donald Trump’s policy machine.

In the coming days, Trump is expected to announce the appointment of Stephen Miller to serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, reported CNN.

Miller previously served as the senior adviser for policy and White House director of speechwriting under Trump’s first term, and his appointment comes as little surprise: The 39-year-old was expected—since at least the beginning of the year—to reenter the West Wing as the leading expert on “America First” immigration policy.

The far-right politico has made a name for himself for his vicious anti-immigrant policies, which include proposals to build mass deportation camps and deploy the military and the national guard to seal the border, promising a forthcoming reality of “large-scale raids” and “throughput facilities.”

He’s long been seen as one of the most apparent and rigid ties between Trump and the white nationalist agenda. Miller, a mentee of Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, has had a profound impact on the president-elect’s language and policy on immigration, despite entering Trumpworld with little policy or legal expertise. He was the architect of Trump’s first Muslim travel ban and has been a vocal proponent of family separation at the U.S. border, as well as limiting citizenship for legal immigrants. During his time in Trump’s first term, leaked emails revealed that he promoted white nationalist articles and books, especially on the idea that non-white people are replacing white people.

His rhetoric has been roundly condemned—including by his uncle, Dr. David S. Glosser, who in a scathing 2018 piece for Politico Magazine condemned his far-right relative as a hypocrite for drafting policy that would have prevented their own family from seeking refuge on America’s shores in the twentieth century.

“No matter what opinion is held about immigration, any government that specifically enacts law or policy on that basis must be recognized as a threat to all of us,” Glosser wrote. “Laws bereft of justice are the gateway to tyranny. Today others may be the target, but tomorrow it might just as easily be you or me.”

Miller has also been on the front lines of other components of Trump’s agenda, including attacks on LGBTQ rights and abortion access. In May, Miller (under the helm of America First Legal) joined a legal effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and several professors at the University of Texas at Austin that aimed to dismantle Title IX, arguing that the federal civil rights law—which protects against sexual or gender-based discrimination in education—violated the state’s “sovereign interest.”

According to a legal filing, that included limiting schools’ abilities to punish students who take time off to get an abortion, even if that abortion was performed out of state.

Miller sided with the professors that the school should be allowed to punish students who take time off to get an abortion, even if that abortion is performed out of state, while weirdly diminishing Title IX as a pronoun-fueled bathroom battle that would “force girls in every public school in America to share restrooms, locker rooms, and private facilities with men.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Instagram to get a better understanding of perhaps the most confusing electoral coalition: the AOC-Trump voter. On Sunday night, the progressive congresswoman opened her story comments to her followers, asking: “People who support both Trump & me OR voted Trump/Dem, tell us why.”

The seemingly endless responses touched on the war in Gaza, status quo dissatisfaction, and general vibes. But they all boiled down to one common denominator: class struggle.

“It’s real simple … Trump and you care about the working class,” one comment said. “I feel like you are both outsiders compared to the rest of DC, and less ‘establishment,’” said another. “The responses you got make me want to barf,” said one more.

Others mentioned the genocide in Gaza, the economy, or the general need for “change.”

“Their responses give a window into their (primarily anti-establishment) views,” X user Leah McElrath tweeted. “Split-ticket voting is real, despite conspiracy theories to the contrary.”

“Interesting & quite reassuring: seems there are a lot of people out there wanting radical change, but if only the right offers it, they’ll vote for them. But there’s an opportunity on the left too. Suspect that’s true in the UK as well,” another X user mused.

This impromptu Q&A provided more evidence of a thirst for economic populism that the Democratic Party has yet to tap into.

Less than a week after being elected to a second term, President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be the international strong-arm he claimed he’d be.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already waltzed right past a pointed warning from the MAGA leader, sending tens of thousands of soldiers to the Ukrainian war front after Trump told him not to escalate the situation.

Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, told NBC News that Russian forces are “trying to dislodge our troops and advance deep into the territory we control” in Kursk, a city in southwestern Russia that borders Ukraine. Ukrainian forces “continue to hold back” a “nearly 50,000-strong enemy group” in the occupied region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote in a Telegram post Monday.

Ukraine has warned of a looming counteroffensive in the embattled region for weeks. Among Russia’s allies on the front line include more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers—confirmed by the Pentagon—who are engaging in “combat against Ukrainian militaries,” according to Zelenskiy.

“There are losses; this is a fact,” he said.

“The importance of this operational area cannot be underestimated given the number of enemy troops concentrated there,” Syrskyi wrote on Telegram. “If it were not for the steadfastness of our soldiers, these tens of thousands of enemies from the best Russian assault units would have stormed our positions.”

Trump had spoken with Putin over the phone on Thursday, reportedly advising the foreign leader not to escalate the war, reminding Putin of America’s military capabilities in Europe, according to The Washington Post.

Russia immediately turned its back on the discussion, claiming that the report was “pure fiction.”

One of Trump’s biggest and boldest campaign promises was that he would immediately end the Russian invasion of Ukraine—though his philosophy on how to achieve that was suspiciously scant of details and, at times, veered toward solutions that would invariably aid Russia.

In June, Trump said he would be open to an increase in U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine so long as it shows up for peace talks with Russia, reported Reuters.

Trump’s advisers envisioned that the peace talks—which Trump promised to facilitate upon winning in November—would also quietly include Ukraine seceding part of the country that is currently occupied by Russian forces. The concept was drawn up by retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, both former chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council.

And Trump’s ardent opposition to NATO—the Western military and trade alliance—has also raised eyebrows, even sparking condemnation from some of his former allies. In February, Trump claimed he told a European leader that he’d allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies if they didn’t “pay” their “bills.” And while Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton cast doubt on the incendiary story, he didn’t question the MAGA leader’s desire to nix the strategic alliance.

“Look, I was there when he almost withdrew, and he’s not negotiating,” Bolton said at the time. “His goal here is not to strengthen NATO, it’s to lay the groundwork to get out.”

Elise Stefanik is continuing her ascent through Trumpworld.

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly tapped the House Republican Conference chair to serve as the next ambassador to the United Nations, a decision that could redefine America’s relationship with some of its longest allies.

“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,” Trump said in a statement obtained by CNN. “Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”

Stefanik, a longtime critic of the international organization, won reelection in New York’s 21st congressional district on Tuesday while campaigning as a staunch defender of Israel in its war on Gaza. That includes defending Israel’s decision to eliminate humanitarian aid from the region. In a statement last week, Stefanik heralded Israel’s decision to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, from operating in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, claiming that the 74-year-old aid program “instills antisemitic hate in Palestinians” and “houses weapons for terrorists.”

She also called on the United States to defund the refugee program, criticizing the Biden administration for issuing “$1 billion to UNRWA since 2021.” (The U.S. has received international condemnation for being the lone holdout on aid since Israel accused 19 UNRWA staff members of participating in the October 7, 2023, attack. An independent report published in April found no evidence and was supplied no evidence by the Israeli government supporting the allegations.)

Stefanik has called for a “complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations” after the Palestinian Authority attempted in October to expel Israel from the organization for alleged war crimes and human rights abuses.

At the time of her first win in 2014, she was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. She’s since proved to be one of Trump’s staunchest defenders, making a name for herself in 2019 for her impassioned defenses of the MAGA leader during his first impeachment trial and later refusing to certify the 2020 election results, elevating lies that the Biden-Trump race had been stolen.

But she hasn’t always sided with the MAGA leader. In 2017, Stefanik voted against Trump’s tax plan, one of his signature legislative victories.