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      US election briefing: Democrats pick through defeat with blame falling on Biden and economy

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      The Democratic party has begun to pick through Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump in the presidential election, with the post-pandemic headwinds, a failure to distance herself from Joe Biden and overestimating abortion access instead of the economy as an election winner, all reported by congressional Democrats as reasons for the decisive loss.Biden struck an optimistic tone in an address to the nation, praising Harris for an “inspiring” campaign. Comments from the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, claiming Democrats had “abandoned working-class people”, earned a rebuke from the Democratic party chair, Jaime Harrison.Biden’s decision to pursue re-election and then his late withdrawal drew criticism from numerous former top Democrat advisers and politicians, including Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and presidential candidate, who said “it probably wasn’t great to cover up President Joe Biden’s infirmities until they became undeniable on live TV”.Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, pushed back on the accusation that it was arrogant for the 81-year-old president to run for a second term: “This is the president who has been the only person [who] has been able to beat Donald Trump.”Here’s what else happened on Thursday:US presidential election news and updates

      Trump has named Susie Wiles, the manager of his victorious campaign, as his White House chief of staff, making her the first woman to hold the influential role. She was seen as the leading contender for the job but has avoided the spotlight, even refusing Trump’s invitation to take the microphone during his victory speech on Wednesday. Learn more about Wiles here.

      Vladimir Putin has congratulated Trump on his victory and expressed admiration for Trump’s response to an assassination attempt. Putin said he was ready for dialogue with Trump, which will cause disquiet in Kyiv and other European capitals. Hours beforehand, Russia had carried out a massive drone attack on Kyiv, and killed four people in a strike on a hospital in Zaporizhzhia.

      Republicans have expanded their control of the US Senate, after Dave McCormick defeated the Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania. Control of the House remained unclear on Thursday, with Republicans closing in on the 218 seats required for a majority.

      Healthcare providers have reported unprecedented surges in demand for reproductive and gender-affirming medications in the wake of Trump’s victory, even greater than the day after Roe v Wadefell.

      California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, announced a special session of the state’s legislature to ensure the attorney general’s office and other state agencies have the funding they need. California has been setting up guardrails to protect its residents’ rights under an adversarial federal government.

      Trump as president may give Israel a “blank cheque” for all-out war against Iran, a former CIA director and US defence secretary has predicted. Palestinians in Ramallah argue things cannot get any worse for them than it has been under Biden.

      Elon Musk has said Trump’s podcast appearances made “a big difference” in the election, as the manosphere and so-called “heterodoxy” celebrate the result. Meanwhile, searches for the 4B movement have spiked on Google and TikTok as women discuss cutting off heterosexual dating with men.

      A Texas judge has ruled against Biden’s programme offering a path to citizenship for certain immigrant spouses of US citizens, a blow that could keep the scheme blocked through the president’s final months in office. Fear has risen in undocumented communities and families face being torn apart at the prospect of Trump’s promised mass deportation programme.

      Americans see immigration as the most pressing issue for Trump to address, and a large majority believe he will order mass deportations of people living in the US illegally, a Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.

      The US Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Its chair, Jerome Powell, said the election result would have no “near-term” impact on rates and insisted he would not resign if Trump asked him to leave early, adding that firing a Fed governor was “not permitted under the law”.

      The British government will ask its ambassador to Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, to stay in post as Trump takes power, ahead of a complex shuffle of UK security and diplomatic jobs in the new year.

      Sales have surged for dystopian books, with The Handmaid’s Tale jumping more than 400 places on bestseller charts since Wednesday and On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder enjoying a similar rush.
      Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      Where do the Democrats go from here? – podcast

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      “This was a pretty sweeping victory for Trump,” Lauren Gambino, political correspondent for Guardian US, tells Michael Safi. “It was decisive, and he may very well end up with full control of Congress, which would really help him implement some of these pretty dramatic proposals he’s laid out throughout the campaign.”Speaking to Democrats processing the result, Gambino says there is a sense of devastation.“Some of them are calling for a full overhaul of their brand. Bernie Sanders has said they’re no longer the party of the working class.”Safi also reports from Kamala Harris’s concession speech at Howard University, Washington DC. He speaks to Harris supporters reflecting on what went wrong, and asking: what next?Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

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      Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie elected mayor of San Francisco

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      After years of negative headlines and post-pandemic economic struggle, San Francisco has picked a wealthy Democratic outsider with no government experience to serve as the city’s new mayor.Daniel Lurie, 47, is one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss jeans company fortune, and previously spent 15 years as the executive of a San Francisco non-profit he founded. He defeated several Democratic challengers, including the current mayor, London Breed, in an election that was expected to break local campaign spending records.“I’m deeply grateful to my incredible family, campaign team and every San Franciscan who voted for accountability, service and change,” Lurie said in a statement. “No matter who you supported in this election, we stand united in the fight for San Francisco’s future and a safer and more affordable city for all.”Lurie poured more than $8m of his own money into his campaign, while his billionaire mother, Mimi Haas, backed him with another $1m. He will be the first San Francisco mayor since 1911 to win office without previously serving in government, making him the city’s “least experienced mayor in a long time”, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.But the Chronicle also ended up endorsing Lurie, praising the “balance of compassion and toughness” in his planned approach to dealing with the people in San Francisco struggling with homelessness, and saying the city needed a change in leadership, making Lurie’s inexperience potentially worth the risk.Lurie had touted his experience funding and building affordable housing at the Tipping Point Foundation as evidence that he could lead San Francisco in the right direction.San Francisco is dominated by Democrats, and so the choice was effectively between moderates and progressives, with voters focusing on pragmatic centrists. Lurie beat and will replace Breed, the city’s first Black female mayor, who has led the city since 2018.Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in public housing, conceded the race on Thursday when it became clear she could not overcome deep voter discontent and was trailing Lurie, a philanthropist and anti-poverty non-profit founder.“At the end of the day, this job is bigger than any one person and what matters is that we keep moving this city forward,” Breed said, adding that she had called Lurie to congratulate him. “I know we are both committed to improving this city we love.”The northern California city has come to represent the challenges faced by many large US cities that have struggled with an uneven economic recovery and rising cost of living since the Covid-19 pandemic. Standout issues across all candidates’ campaigns were housing and crime, even with crime down 32%.San Francisco has the highest median household income among major US cities, but homelessness remains intractable. Since a June supreme court ruling, Breed’s administration has been actively sweeping unhoused encampments.Her critics pointed out that sweeps are temporary fixes and the city has not done enough to offer shelter to its unhoused population.In an interview with Reuters, Lurie said sweeps were a tool for the city to combat homelessness and promised to stand up 1,500 emergency shelter beds in his first six months in office.Lurie is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co fortune through his mother, Mimi, who wed Peter Haas when Lurie was a child. Peter Haas, a great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, was a longtime CEO of the iconic clothing company who died in 2005.Both the Levi’s name and Haas family philanthropic foundations are deeply embedded in San Francisco’s history and identity.Lurie’s father, Brian Lurie, is a rabbi and longtime former executive director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation. More

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      Republican Dave McCormick wins Pennsylvania Senate seat in key race

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      The Republican Dave McCormick won the Senate race in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday, denying the Democratic incumbent, Bob Casey, a fourth term and expanding his party’s majority in the upper chamber.When the Associated Press called the race at 4.09pm ET on Thursday, two days after polls closed in Pennsylvania, McCormick led by 0.4 points. The narrow margin raised the possibility of a recount, although his victory is expected to stand given his lead of roughly 30,000 votes.A spokesperson for Casey insisted that thousands of ballots remained uncounted, refusing to yet concede the race to McCormick.“As the Pennsylvania Secretary of State said this afternoon, there are tens of thousands of ballots across the Commonwealth still to count, which includes provisional ballots, military and overseas ballots, and mail ballots,” Casey spokesperson Maddy McDaniel said in a statement. “This race is within half a point and cannot be called while the votes of thousands of Pennsylvanians are still being counted. We will make sure every Pennsylvanian’s voice is heard.”With McCormick’s victory, Republicans have now secured at least 53 seats in the Senate, erasing Democrats’ previous majority in the chamber. Two Senate races in Nevada and Arizona remained too close to call as of Thursday afternoon.Although he fell short, Casey outperformed Kamala Harris, who lost Pennsylvania to Donald Trump by two points. Trump also won the two other “blue wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, but Democrats managed to hold on to both Senate seats that were up for grabs in those states.The call in Pennsylvania brought an end to a contentious and expensive Senate race that saw the two candidates trade barbed attacks on the cost of living, abortion access and McCormick’s recent residency in Connecticut. Casey attacked McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, as out of touch while McCormick linked Casey to the “reckless” government spending of the Biden administration.At their debate last month, Casey mocked McCormick as “bought and paid for by these billionaires and corporations”. McCormick returned fire, saying: “When you don’t have a record to run on, which Senator Casey does not, you attack your opponent.”The high stakes of the race made it into one of the most expensive Senate elections in the nation, as the dueling campaigns and their allies spent more than $300m on ads. One pro-McCormick organization, the Keystone Renewal Pac, spent at least $54m on the race, making the group the highest-spending single-candidate Pac involved in a Senate race of this election cycle.Most public polls of the race showed Casey leading by several points up until recent weeks, when McCormick narrowed that gap to just a few points. Despite that trend, Casey appeared to be in a slightly stronger position than Harris, who was running neck and neck against Trump in Pennsylvania up until election day. Leaders of both parties had identified Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes as the potential tipping point in the presidential race.“I think both races are going to be very close, but I think the people of our state know it’s a very, very clear choice,” Casey told the Guardian in September. “It’s never been clearer.”Before election day, Democrats held a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Republicans’ victories in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia had already guaranteed control of the Senate, but McCormick’s win will give the party even more leverage to enact Trump’s agenda when the new Congress is seated in January.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      Mississippi mayor claims bribery charges are ‘political prosecution’

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      The mayor of Mississippi’s capital city said on Wednesday that he had been indicted in an alleged bribery operation, and he said it was a “political prosecution” to hurt his 2025 campaign for re-election.“My legal team has informed me that federal prosecutors have, in fact, indicted me on bribery and related charges,” Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the Jackson mayor, said in a video statement on Wednesday, WJTV and other news outlets reported. “To be clear, I have never accepted a bribe of any type. As mayor, I have always acted in the best interests of the city of Jackson.”Lumumba, a Democrat, has been mayor since 2017. An indictment was not immediately available on Wednesday in federal court electronic records.The charges come after undercover FBI agents posing as real estate investors invited the mayor to a fundraiser in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, on 3 April, WLBT reported. The agents said they wanted to develop property in downtown Jackson and help fund the mayor’s re-election campaign.Jackson city councilmember Angelique Lee, a Democrat, resigned in August and pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges as the result of the same FBI investigation.Lumumba said his legal team will “vigorously defend me against these charges.“We believe this to be a political prosecution against me, primarily designed to destroy my credibility and reputation within the community,” he said.The Jackson city council president, Virgi Lindsay, released a statement asking Jackson residents to be patient after the mayor’s indictment, WAPT reported.“I remind myself that the presumption of innocence is a bedrock principle of our criminal justice system,” said Lindsay, a Democrat. “Therefore, I will remain steadfastly focused on the work of our city council, and trust the legal system to unfold without undue commentary from me.” More

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      Musk says Trump’s podcast appearances made ‘big difference’ in election

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      Donald Trump’s stunning election triumph was won partly thanks to his willingness to undergo freewheeling interviews with popular podcasters like Joe Rogan, the US president-elect’s most influential backer, Elon Musk, has claimed.Speaking to Tucker Carlson, Musk said Trump’s three-hour conversational encounter last month with Rogan – America’s most-listened-to podcaster – and other podcast appearances allowed listeners to decide whether he was a “good person” and was a major point of distinction from Kamala Harris.“I think it made a big difference that President Trump and soon to be vice-president Vance went on lengthy podcasts,” Musk told Carlson, who expressed agreement.“I think this really makes a difference because people like Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is great, and Lex Fridman’s and the All-In podcast. To a reasonable-minded, smart person who’s not like hardcore one way or the other, they just listen to someone talk for a few hours, and that’s how they decide whether you’re a good person, whether they like you.”Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, each underwent several podcast interviews during the campaign, including on Call Her Daddy, in which the US vice-president talked about abortion.But she did not appear on The Joe Rogan Experience. The podcaster later said he declined her campaign’s insistence that it should last for just one hour, rather than three, and that Rogan travel to meet her, instead of his preference that it take place in his studio in Austin, Texas.Musk, who has frequently belittled Harris, claimed she had refused a three-hour sit-down because it would have exposed her supposed inability to talk in a relaxed and spontaneous manner.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      “I actually posted on X [that] nothing would do more damage to Kamala’s campaign than going on Joe Rogan, because she’d run out of non sequiturs after about 45 minutes,” he said. “Hour two and three would be a complete melted puddle of nonsense. So, it would just be absolute game over. That’s why she didn’t go on.“But, on the other hand, Trump, he’s there, there’s no talking points. He’s just being a normal person, having a conversation and doing three hours of Rogan, no problem.”Rogan’s interview with Trump, conducted at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, was noted for its friendly exchanges and words of praise from the podcaster, which included him lauding the then candidate’s speaking style and “comedic instincts”.“You said a lot of wild shit and then CNN, in all their brilliance by highlighting your wild shit, made you much more popular,” Rogan told Trump, explaining his ability to get more publicity than other politicians.“It’s funny. It’s stand-up. It’s funny stuff. You have, like, comedic instincts. Like when you said to Hillary: ‘You’d be in jail.’ Like, that’s great timing. But it’s like that kind of stuff was unheard of as a politician. Like, no one had done that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe podcast host compared Trump’s behavior to the more “rehearsed” speech of other politicians – possibly implying Harris.“When you see certain people talk, certain people in the public eye, you don’t know who they are. You have no idea who they are. It’s very difficult to know,” Rogan said. “You see them in conversations. They have these pre-planned answers, they say everything. It’s very rehearsed. You never get to the meat of it.”Rogan ultimately endorsed Trump on the eve of the election after hosting another interview with Musk, who told him that X – the social media platform that the Space X and Tesla entrepreneur owns – would not be allowed to exist if Harris won the election.After being criticised early in her candidacy for avoiding challenging interviews, Harris sat for several television interrogations, including with CBS’s 60 Minutes and Bret Baier on Fox News, a pro-Trump network where she was subjected to multiple interruptions and hostile questions on rightwing talking points.Trump held more interviews but generally chose friendly settings, including Fox and Newsmax, where his views went largely unchallenged. He pulled out of an interview with 60 Minutes, which has been interviewing presidential candidates for more than half a century, after objecting to the programme’s plans to factcheck him.Shannon C McGregor, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina, told the Hill that podcast appearances gave voters a better insight into the candidates as people than regular television interviews.“It gives listeners a better sense of what the candidates are like than the CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, especially for people who aren’t super interested in politics,” she said. More