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      Trump requests dismissal of charges in Georgia election interference case

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      Donald Trump’s attorney in Georgia has asked the state’s appellate court to dismiss election interference charges against the president-elect, arguing that a sitting president “is completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal”.The filing by attorney Steve Sadow before the Georgia court of appeals asks the court to dismiss Trump’s appeal of a lower-court decision to allow Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis to remain as prosecutor on the case, because the Fulton county superior court no longer has jurisdiction, given Trump’s electoral victory.The filing cites the Department of Justice’s decision to end federal prosecutions against Trump last month, and a finding in 2000 by the Office of Legal Counsel that the president cannot be subject to local prosecutors’ criminal enforcement.“The constitution forbids ‘plac[ing] into the hands of a single prosecutor or grand jury the practical power to interfere with the ability of a popularly elected president to carry out his constitutional functions’,” Sadow wrote, quoting the OLC memo.That memo emerged in the wake of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, when perjury charges were being considered in the scandal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The rule was to be applied to federal prosecutions, but the office concluded as a matter of law that the prohibition was categorical – that it did not matter what the charges were – as long as the president was still in office.Sadow’s filing does not ask the court to dismiss the case against the remaining co-defendants in the election interference case, who do not enjoy the same constitutional protections as a president.Trump faces eight charges in Georgia, including a racketeering charge over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state, after Georgia voted for Joe Biden to become US president. Trump pleaded not guilty to the sprawling 2020 election interference case in Fulton county last year along with 18 other co-defendants. Four have since taken plea deals and agreed to testify against the other defendants.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe case has been on hold since June, when the appeals court paused proceedings to consider an appeal asking for Willis to be removed from the case. Defendants argue that Willis’s relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade created an impermissible conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety. More

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      Georgia’s payback machine: Fani Willis resists subpoenas by state lawmakers over Trump prosecution

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      Even before Project 2025 made it a Republican goal to use federal power to bring progressive prosecutors to heel, the Fulton county, Georgia, district attorney, Fani Willis, found herself in the crosshairs of conservative state legislators angered by her prosecution of Donald Trump.That conflict found its way into yet another courtroom on Tuesday. Willis’s office defended itself against a subpoena by a state senate committee, which had demanded her appearance to explain how she might have spent money on Nathan Wade, her former special prosecutor and paramour, in the prosecution of now president-elect Trump and others charged in the election interference case. She rejected two subpoenas issued by the Senate special committee on investigations demanding her testimony and a barrel full of documents about the relationship, her office’s finances and the case.The future of the Trump election interference case in Georgia remains unclear. The state appeals court canceled a hearing scheduled for this week, in which Trump and other defendants had sought to remove Willis as prosecutor on the case. The appeal cited Willis’s relationship with Wade, arguing that the financial entanglement between the two created a conflict of interest that should force a recusal.The appeals court could – and often does – rule without hearing oral arguments. It could scuttle the case entirely, order Willis to be removed as prosecutor, sever Trump from the trial or allow the case to move forward as is.Federal prosecutors rolled up their cases after Trump won election to a second term, noting that the federal government cannot prosecute a sitting president. The Georgia case remains the only one left to prosecute against Trump, with 14 co-defendants still in legal jeopardy.Anger over that prosecution has come from multiple flanks within the Republican party. Even as the former Georgia governor Roy Barnes argued on behalf of Willis before the Fulton superior court judge Shukura Ingram on Tuesday that the state senate subpoenas were unconstitutional, another judge issued an order declaring her office in violation of the state’s Open Records Act in another case.Conservative legal activists from Judicial Watch sued Fulton county after Willis’s office refused to turn over records of her communications with the special counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 committee. The Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney ordered her office to turn the records over within five days.View image in fullscreenRepublicans want to know how Willis might have coordinated Trump’s prosecution with the Department of Justice and, ultimately, the Biden White House. But they are also contemplating how the results of the committee investigation may lead legislators to rewrite laws to take authority away from district attorneys, to cut Willis’s budget or to otherwise limit her authority to prosecute wayward Republicans.Willis has said she views this as political harassment and is fighting them all the way down, likening it to the legislative movement that created a state panel that could remove local prosecutors.Willis’s office argued before that committees representing only the statehouse or the state senate do not have subpoena power: both chambers must issue a subpoena as a joint act under the Georgia state constitution.“The operative word is ‘general assembly’,” argued Barnes. The term refers to both chambers of the Georgia legislature together, he said. “Only the general assembly has the right of subpoena. Not the senate. Not the house.”Willis’s office argued that a subpoena cannot be issued when the general assembly is not in session, as the committee did in this case, and that the subpoenas are overbroad relative to limitations made in Georgia’s Open Records Act and a common-law sense of separation of powers. Barnes argued that legislative oversight over state spending is being used by hostile politicians on a fishing expedition-as-harassment, citing the Mazars decision by the US supreme court seeking Trump’s financial records from his accountants.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This wrought committee created by one set of the general assembly says, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be fun for us to just drag the district attorney down and see what she’s got on old Donald Trump,’” Barnes said. “Well, Fani Willis had an affair with Nathan Wade. This is a pretext. We would be blind not to see what all of us see. This was nothing but singling out one person who’s been duly elected in this circuit, and duly re-elected, to embarrass her. It’s not for any legitimate legislative reason.”Josh Belinfante, representing the senate committee, argued that the district attorney is challenging the constitutionality of subpoena power for all legislative committees, and that doing so gets between lawmakers and their duty.“They’re investigating … these allegations that may show that existing state laws – including those establishing the processes for selecting, hiring and compensating special assistant district attorneys – are inadequate,” Belinfante said. “It is necessary to determine whether the alleged conduct of District Attorney Willis, if proven to be true in whole or in part, should be addressed by the enactment of new laws or prompt some change in state appropriations, or both.”Legislators began looking at the actions of district attorney before the Trump case rocketed to the top of their attention, Belinfante said. Arguments were made that one provision of state statute could be used to limit the authority of the legislature that passed that statute in the first place.“It is presumed that the general assembly can act unless the constitution says otherwise,” Belinfante said. “There is no constitutional prohibition against investigations.”Belinfante noted that the state constitution empowers each chamber to establish legislative committees, and that – in the absence of an expressed prohibition – that gives each chamber the power to issue subpoenas without consulting the other chamber.No Georgia court has ever examined the subpoena power of the state legislature as Ingram has been asked to do on Tuesday, legal experts say. More

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      Car Found in Georgia Pond May Be That of a New York Couple Missing Since 1980

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      The Romers, of Scarsdale, N.Y., disappeared from a Georgia hotel. Divers who seek to solve cold cases found a vehicle similar to theirs in a pond. They also found bones.Charles Romer, a retired oil company executive from Scarsdale, N.Y., and his wife, Catherine, were driving back from their winter home in Florida in the spring of 1980 when they stopped at a Holiday Inn in Georgia.Later, the police would find their belongings unpacked in a room at the hotel, along with a half-full bottle of Scotch and some glasses. The bed was turned down. But the couple — and their late-model black Lincoln Continental — were nowhere to be found.For decades, the disappearance was shrouded in mystery, as relatives of the couple searched for answers. The police long suspected that the couple may have been killed in a brutal robbery, as Ms. Romer, a beloved socialite, had a considerable amount of valuable jewelry with her.Last week, the first big break came in the four-decade case, after volunteer divers visited Brunswick, Ga., a coastal town about 75 miles south of Savannah, and found a car similar to that of the Romers at the bottom of a pond near their hotel.The divers — who use sonar equipment to find submerged vehicles as part of an effort to find missing people — had seen the Romer case on a map of unsolved cases involving people who had disappeared with their cars. On Friday, they started scanning every body of water within several miles of the hotel where the couple had disappeared. In a 10-foot-deep pond near a parking lot of what is today the Royal Inn, they said, they found a vehicle with characteristics that matched that of the Romers — and in it human bones.“It came out of the blue,” said Lawton J. Dodd, a spokesman for the Glynn County Police Department in Georgia. “It’s a cold case that is not a cold case any longer,” he said. “The investigation’s reopened.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rudy Giuliani tells judge he can’t pay his bills in courtroom outburst

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      The former New York mayor and lawyer to Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, erupted in court on Tuesday, telling a judge: “I can’t pay my bills!”Sketches by courtroom artists, who create pictures for the media to use when cameras are not allowed in court, such as federal courts, showed a furious Giuliani, 80, pointing at the judge in his case, Lewis Liman.The hearing in federal court in Manhattan concerned a near-$150m judgment won by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia elections workers whom Giuliani defamed while advancing Trump’s lie that electoral fraud in 2020 cost him victory over Joe Biden.Liman said Giuliani had not been complying with orders to surrender assets.Giuliani said on Tuesday: “The implications you are making against me are wrong. I have no car, no credit card, no cash, everything I have is tied up, they have put stop orders on my business accounts, and I can’t pay my bills!”Giuliani’s fall has been spectacular. After making his name as a hard-charging prosecutor who took on organized crime, he was mayor for two terms, in office on 11 September 2001 and widely praised for his leadership after the terrorist attacks on the US. His 2008 presidential run flopped but Giuliani enjoyed a successful consulting and speaking career before allying himself with Trump when the property magnate entered Republican politics in 2015.Giuliani missed out on a cabinet appointment but became Trump’s personal attorney – work that fueled Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019 for blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt. Giuliani then became a prime driver of Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election – work which produced criminal charges, to which he pleaded not guilty, the huge defamation judgment, and disbarments in Washington and New York.In New York on Tuesday, Giuliani’s lawyer told the judge his client had turned over assets including a Mercedes Benz sports car once owned by the film star Lauren Bacall. An attorney for Freeman and Moss said Giuliani had turned over the car but not the title to it. Attorneys for the two women have also said they have gained access to Giuliani’s $5m Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, but have not secured “the keys, stock, or proprietary lease”.In court, the judge told Giuliani’s lawyer: “A car without a title is meaningless … your client is a competent person. He was the US attorney in the district. The notion that he can’t apply for a title certificate – ”Giuliani cut him off, saying: “I did apply for it! What am I supposed to do, make it up myself? Your implication that I have not been diligent about it is totally incorrect.”He then launched his outburst about financial problems.Giuliani’s lawyer asked Liman to extend deadlines, given he had only just started on the case after previous attorneys withdrew. Liman denied the request, saying: “You can’t restart the clock by firing one counsel and hiring another. He has already received multiple extensions, and missed multiple deadlines.”Trial is set for 16 January regarding whether Giuliani must also give Moss and Freeman his Florida home and four New York Yankees World Series commemoration rings. On Tuesday, Giuliani’s lawyer asked if the trial could be pushed back, so his client could attend inaugural events for Trump, who will be sworn in as president in Washington DC on 20 January. Liman said no.Outside court, Giuliani told reporters Liman was “going to rule against me. If you were sitting in the courtroom and couldn’t figure it out, you’re stupid.” He also said the judge’s “background is serious leftwing Democrat … about as leftwing as you get” – even while acknowledging Liman was nominated by Trump.Giuliani said he did not regret defaming Freeman and Moss.“I regret the persecution I have been put through,” he said. More

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      N.Y.C. Helped Migrant Accused of Killing Laken Riley Move to Georgia, Witness Says

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      In other testimony, law enforcement witnesses placed the suspect, José Ibarra, at the scene of Ms. Riley’s killing, mainly through cellphone and GPS tracking data.Details of how the Venezuelan migrant charged with killing Laken Riley ended up in Athens, Ga., came into sharper focus on Monday, the second day of a trial that is being closely followed by supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.The migrant, José Ibarra, was apprehended by the Border Patrol when he entered the country illegally in 2022 near El Paso. Like many migrants, he was released with temporary permission to stay in the country, and he headed to New York.A former roommate of Mr. Ibarra’s testified that she met Mr. Ibarra last year in New York City and traveled with him to Athens in September 2023 after Mr. Ibarra’s brother told them they could find jobs there.They lived for a while with Mr. Ibarra’s wife and mother-in-law at a Crowne Plaza hotel in Queens that had been converted to a migrant shelter, the roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, said. And for a few weeks, she added, she and Mr. Ibarra lived in a car parked on the street by the hotel.Ms. Flores-Bello said that Mr. Ibarra’s brother Diego had constantly called him in New York, telling him to move to Athens because there were good work opportunities.Laken Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia.Augusta University, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump fake-elector scheme: where do five state investigations stand?

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      After the 2020 election, a group of 84 people in seven states signed false documents claiming to be electors for Donald Trump. This year, despite the fact that four states have brought criminal charges against the fake electors, 14 of them will now serve as real electors for the president-elect.The 14 once-fake-and-now-real electors were selected by state Republican parties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada. They will meet in their state capitols on 17 December to cast their ballots for Trump.Prosecutors in many of the states where fake electors signed false documents are moving forward with charges, as the federal charges against Trump for election subversion and other alleged crimes are up in the air after his re-election.Five of the seven states pursued charges related to the issue. Authorities in New Mexico and Pennsylvania did not pursue charges because the documents the false electors there used hedged language that attorneys said would likely spare them from criminal charges.The fake electors in some instances are high-profile Republicans: people in elected office, in official party roles, prominent members of external conservative groups.Here’s where the state cases stand.ArizonaKris Mayes, the Democratic attorney general for Arizona, said on Sunday that her office will not be dropping any charges related to the fake electors.A grand jury in Arizona charged 18 people involved in the fake electors scheme, including the 11 people who served as fake electors and Trump allies Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman. Some of the fake electors are high profile: two state senators (Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern), a former state Republican party chair (Kelli Ward) and a Turning Point USA executive (Tyler Bowyer).“I have no intention of breaking that case up. I have no intention of dropping that case,” Mayes told MSNBC. “A grand jury in the state of Arizona decided that these individuals who engaged in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2020 should be held accountable, so we won’t be cowed, we won’t be intimidated.”Arizona charged people in April 2024, so the case is still in its early stages.GeorgiaGeorgia’s case will be the most watched, especially if all federal charges against Trump are dropped. It is the only state case where Trump himself is charged, though he will seek to have the charges dropped because of the supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling, or at least paused until he’s no longer in office. Several of the 19 people charged pleaded guilty and received probation and fines.Fake electors David Shafer, Cathleen Latham and Shawn Still were charged in the criminal racketeering case, but not all of the fake electors in Georgia were charged – many were granted immunity to cooperate with the case.The US supreme court rejected an attempt by Meadows on Tuesday to move the case to federal court.The next step is set for December: the Georgia court of appeals will hear arguments on whether prosecutor Fani Willis can continue on the case herself despite a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor on the case. A lower court previous ruled that she could continue.MichiganSixteen fake electors were charged in Michigan in mid-2023. One of them agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and had his charges dropped in return.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe case is working its way through the court process, with the last of the defendants sitting for examinations in October as the judge decides whether the case should go to trial.Six of those charged will serve as Trump’s actual electors this year. Attorneys for those fake and now real electors have said their role this year shouldn’t have any bearing on their legal cases.NevadaSix Trump electors in Nevada were charged at the end of 2023 with state forgery crimes for their roles in the scheme.In June, Clark county district court judge Mary Kay Holthu dismissed the case, saying it was in the wrong venue and should not have been filed in Las Vegas. Democratic attorney general Aaron Ford vowed to appeal the ruling, but defense attorneys have said the charges are now outside the statute of limitations.“My office’s goal remains unchanged – we will hold these fake electors accountable for their actions which contributed to the ongoing and completely unfounded current of distrust in our electoral system,” Ford said. “Our drive to seek justice does not change with election results. We are committed to see this matter through, either through winning our appeal or filing anew before the new year. This is not going away.”Two of the fake electors will again serve as Trump electors this year: Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, and Jesse Law, chair of the Republican party of Clark county.WisconsinThe fake elector scheme allegedly began in Wisconsin, where pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro is from.Those who served as fake electors did not get criminally charged in Wisconsin, though three people involved in the scheme – Chesebro, Roman, and James Troupis – were charged in June by the state attorney general for their role in orchestrating the scheme.The state’s fake electors settled a civil lawsuit in 2023 that required them to agree not to serve as electors when elections involve Trump and to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Some of the electors have publicly claimed they were misled about the purpose of the alternate slates. More

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      Arizona attorney general says she won’t drop Trump fake electors case

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      Allies of Donald Trump who were charged in Arizona for illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election can still expect to face justice despite his return to the White House, the state’s attorney general has said.Kris Mayes told MSNBC on Sunday that she had “no intention” of dropping the criminal case against defendants including the former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Christina Bobb, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior officials of the Arizona Republican party such as the former chair Kelli Ward and state senators Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman.A grand jury in April indicted 18 people in a “fake electors” scheme that sought to falsely declare Trump the winner in the crucial swing state instead of Joe Biden. Most pleaded not guilty in May to felony charges of fraud, forgery and conspiracy.The fates of various criminal cases pending against Trump and his allies were left uncertain after his defeat of Kamala Harris in the 5 November election.For instance, the US justice department is winding down its criminal cases in federal court against Trump.And, in New York, state court judge Juan Merchan is preparing to rule on whether Trump’s conviction on charges of criminally falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels should be tossed out.But Mayes has said she intends to stay the course with her office’s case.“I have no intention of breaking that case up. I have no intention of dropping that case,” Mayes, a Democrat, told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi.“A grand jury in the state of Arizona decided that these individuals who engaged in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2020 should be held accountable, so we won’t be cowed, we won’t be intimidated.”In August, Loraine Pellegrino, the former president of a Republican women’s group, became the first of the defendants convicted when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document.Another of those accused, Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, including sitting for interviews and handing over documents, in exchange for having her charges dismissed.At the time, Mayes said Ellis’s insights were “invaluable and will greatly aid the state in proving its case in court”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlso in August, the Arizona superior court judge Bruce Cohen denied a request by the remaining defendants to have the charges dismissed as “politically motivated” and set a provisional trial date for January 2026.As a state case, anybody who is convicted in Arizona cannot be pardoned by Trump, who was referred to throughout the charging documents as an unindicted co-conspirator and as the “former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election”.The Arizona fake electors scheme was replicated in a number of swing states that ultimately all certified Biden’s victory. The most prominent took place in Georgia, where Trump is one of the defendants, although two charges against him were thrown out in September – and some of the 17 others originally charged have accepted plea deals in return for giving evidence to prosecutors.Fani Willis, the Fulton county prosecutor who brought the Georgia case, was re-elected on 5 November. But no trial date has been set, and there is doubt over its timing given that Trump will be back in the White House in January.The other defendants in the Arizona case include Kelli Ward’s husband, Michael; Robert Montgomery, former head of the Cochise county Republican party; Tyler Bowyer, the Republican national committee’s Arizona representative; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the state Republican party; and activists Samuel Moorhead and Nancy Cottle, who allegedly agreed to act as fake electors. More

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      Swing state voters process Trump win with hope and fear: ‘This is a powder keg moment’

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      “I am still processing my feelings, but what I do know is that my country keeps finding ways to break my heart,” said Adrienne Pickett, a 42-year-old single mother of two who lives in suburban Detroit.The Kamala Harris voter lives in one of seven states that helped decide the US presidential election on Tuesday. All appear to have voted in Trump’s favor by small but significant margins .Like many Democrats in these states, Pickett is coming to terms with a victory by Donald Trump and a new political reality for America. Republicans in these states are also looking ahead – some with excitement, but not all. We spoke with voters for both parties to hear their reactions.These are Pickett’s worries for the future: “We can expect exactly what Trump promised: mass deportations, pardoning criminals who destroyed the capitol and injured and killed police officers on January 6th, vendettas carried out against his perceived enemies, and maybe most frightening of all, a Project 2025 house of horrors brought to life.”In North Carolina, meanwhile, Jess St Louis, 34, a trans woman in Greensboro who canvassed during the election with the progressive group Carolina Federation, said she was nervous and scared about the future under a second Trump presidency. But she also drew comfort from the defeat on Tuesday night of the Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson who has been embroiled in a scandal over his alleged racist and sexist comments on a chat board, which he has denied.“It’s a mixed bag,” St Louis said. “I am scared, but I’m also proud about the governor’s race and about breaking the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina House. I can feel a rising tide of folks in North Carolina actually pushing back against hatred and extremism.”There had been fears that the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene would suppress turnout, in the western part of North Carolina, where 23 of the 25 stricken counties were won by Trump in 2020. But record-breaking early voting and the creation of makeshift polling stations in areas devastated by floods and landslides appeared to have mitigated the problem.While Trump grew his base in North Carolina’s large rural areas, Harris failed to build on Joe Biden’s showing in 2020 in the big cities, despite significant investment in ad spending and field operations.View image in fullscreenWinning should have felt better, thought Jen Dopke, 51, a retail worker from north-east Wisconsin, as the results came in on Tuesday night. Counting still continues Thursday, but Trump has a lead of about 1% – 30,000 votes out of 3.4m cast. Dopke hopes Trump will usher in an improved economy and end American involvement in foreign wars. But she isn’t celebrating yet.“I don’t feel like this was a big win, because we’re not all on the same page,” Dopke said. She watched nervously as people in her life blocked each other on social media the day after Trump secured a second term in office. Dopke supported Trump, but her friends who voted for Harris don’t know that, and she’s wary about them finding out — worried her support for the former president could jeopardize a friendship.“I [hear] what they’re saying, and I think, ‘I just totally don’t believe the same thing, and I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to hear where I’m coming from,’” said Dopke. “It’s terrifying to me. I don’t know what we’re going to do to come together.”Georgia proved a political comeuppance for Trump on Tuesday after his razor-thin loss by 11,799 votes in 2020. This year he was winning by well over 100,000 votes at press time.Alejandro Lopez, a military veteran and social services advocate from Stone Mountain, Georgia, said he was “pissed off at the Republican party for not holding up the rule of law against one of their own,” he said.“To have seen all these members of congress in support of a felon just made me sick to my stomach. The laws created by the US congress now seem to apply to the people and not the legislators themselves.”View image in fullscreenLopez, who has been a close observer of Georgia politics for years, was also with Democrats – in Georgia the Trump campaign pitted Latino citizens against the undocumented with a deftness that went unrecognized by the Harris campaign. Nationally, too, there was a collapse in Democratic turnout and a realignment of Latino voters from a Democratic bloc to a near 50-50 split, which provided the margin of Trump’s victory in swing states even as other demographic groups largely held steady.“I just did not see the Democrats engaging the Latino community as much,” Lopez said.He fears being targeted for his sexual orientation, ethnicity and politics.… “I will keep my nose down so not to create any attention to myself.”The Associated Press has yet to project a winner in Nevada, as the state continues to tally mail-in ballots in its most populous counties. But early results suggest it may be poised to select a Republican for president for the first time since George W Bush in 2004.James, 23, who had cast a vote for Kamala Harris – unbeknownst to his family and coworkers, who are die-hard Trump supporters – said he yearned for a time when he and his loved ones could have civilized conversations about politics.“I would love to say I think things will calm down after this,” said James, who didn’t want to provide his last name so he could avoid further conflict over politics. “But I my heart I know it won’t.”“This is a powder keg moment,” he added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn Pennsylvania, Rick Carrick, a 69-year-old retiree, was walking his dog Elvis outside the Lackwanna county courthouse in downtown Scranton as he processed the election results on Wednesday. He said he was ready to move out of the country.“I just told my daughter, I said guarantee first thing he does when he’s sworn in is he gives everybody from January 6 a full pardon,” said Carrick.Lackawanna county, home to Scranton, was one of several key areas in Pennsylvania where Donald Trump improved his performance compared with 2020. Joe Biden carried the county by eight points in 2020, Kamala Harris carried it by about three points this year. The county was once a Democratic stronghold – Barack Obama won it by nearly 28 points in 2012.Carrick said he had no idea why Trump had been able to do so well in the county.“I’m just looking at the big picture. OK, maybe Trump is better on the economy, and to be honest with you, the first time he ran I liked a lot of his ideas, like we can’t be the bank for the entire world,” he said. “But then other things that he does, it’s like he wants to be king.”Debbie Patel, a retired attorney and progressive activist from the Milwaukee area, said she sees a “dark road ahead” – “for Americans generally”.“The first targets will be the ones he’s been vocal about, and then, because he lacks the capacity to empathize with others. it’s anybody’s guess who he will go after next.”Still, Patel is hopeful about the possibility of establishing common ground among “all people”. She cited efforts by groups like Braver Angels, a nonprofit that seeks to depolarize US politics through facilitated conversations between Democratic and Republican Party voters, as exemplary models for seeking common ground.Ali Asfari, 33, lives in Dearborn, Michigan, which has a large Arab American population. The Biden-Harris administration’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza influenced his decision to vote for Trump, but that wasn’t the only issue.“When he [Trump] was in office there were no wars, and inflation nowadays is bad because of the Joe Biden administration. But hopefully now, with the promises that Donald Trump has given us, it’s going to be better,” Asfari said.“We’re going to have a better economy. We’re going to have better family values, in schools, especially. And we’re going to make this country great again. We’re going to have the entire planet to respect this country again as usual. Because with the Biden administration, nobody had respect for us.”Asfari , who voted for Biden in 2020, added:“She did a terrible job, her and Joe. Look at the wars around the world. Look at the economy over here, with inflation. You know, we middle classes, we go for groceries, everything is double the price. The jobs, we barely find jobs, they’re barely hiring and everything is expensive. Family values went down, down, down, especially in schools. You know, they want to join the boys and girls in one bathroom. They’re doing terrible stuff. So that’s why we have to end all this kind of things and go back to Republicans.”Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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