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Harris campaign officials explain what went wrong – and what Trump did right: report

Harris campaign officials explain what went wrong – and what Trump did right: report

Top Democrats in Vice President Harris’ campaign say their efforts to sway voters simply weren’t enough in the face of a general dissatisfaction with the direction of the country among the electorate. Officials who worked on the campaign offered a post-mortem to the Washington Post on Thursday, saying that former President Trump also took advantage of new media opportunities that Harris left mostly untouched. “There are certain things we’re looking at to understand if we made the right call,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told the Post. “But fundamentally, there wasn’t just one audience of voters that would have impacted this, or one program. The headwinds were just too great for us to overcome, especially in 107 days. But we came very close to what we anticipated, both in terms of turnout and in terms of support.” Campaign officials said their own internal models going into Election Day had Harris with slim leads in Wisconsin and Michigan, and virtually tied in Pennsylvania, according to the Post. Their models had Trump leading in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. PRESIDENT BIDEN ADMITS PRESSURE FROM DEMOCRATS CONTRIBUTED TO DECISION TO DROP OUT “We are very focused on understanding what happened,” O’Malley Dillon said. “We were laser-focused on the battleground states. We knew it would be a margin-of-error race, but with the organization we had and the movement we saw, we thought it was possible.” DEMOCRATS’ FUROR OVER ‘UNQUALIFIED’ TRUMP NOMINEES PUTS BIDEN’S STAFFING DECISIONS BACK IN SPOTLIGHT  Campaign officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also credited the Trump campaign and GOP in general for increasing their outreach to young men across the U.S. “I think what we have seen is that the folks on the other side, on Team Red, have been doing a lot of this work for years,” the official told the Post. “And there’s just, like, a lot of ground for us to make up in … where young men in particular are going to receive their information, particularly young men who are explicitly not looking for political content.” During the campaign, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, made regular appearances on wide-reaching podcasts with major personalities, many of them comedians like Theo Von and Tim Dillon. That culminated with Trump and Vance having near back-to-back appearances on the largest podcast in the world, the Joe Rogan Experience, just before Election Day. Harris made an attempt at similar forms of media with her appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which appeals far more to young women. “We are not here to tell you everything was perfect,” O’Malley Dillon said. “We lost. But some of the ascribing the loss to singular things, like if we had just done [an interview with] Joe Rogan, then that would have solved the problem with young men. That is too simplistic and doesn’t solve anything and certainly doesn’t solve the path forward.”

Caravan of 1,500 migrants forms in Mexico

Caravan of 1,500 migrants forms in Mexico

Around 1,500 migrants have formed a caravan in southern Mexico and hope to make it to the U.S. before President-elect Trump takes office in January, when he is expected to clamp down heavily on illegal crossings which have soared under the Biden-Harris administration.  The caravan, made up of men, women and young children mostly from Central and South America, on Wednesday traveled through the city of Tapachula, located in southern Mexico, just over the border from Guatemala where thousands of migrants are stranded because they do not have permission to cross further into Mexico. The most southern point of the U.S. border is at the crossing at Matamoros, near Brownsville, Texas, and it would take a desperate adult migrant about 16 days of non-stop walking to get there. It is unclear exactly where members of this particular caravan they intend to cross. TRUMP LIKELY TO MAKE SEVERAL BORDER SECURITY MOVES ON FIRST DAY, SAYS EXPERT Migrants for caravans because they believe there is safety in numbers as it is hard or impossible for immigration agents to detain large groups of hundreds of migrants. Some are hoping to catch rides to help them on their journey, while others will make the arduous trip to the southern border by foot in the searing heat. “It is going to be more difficult, that’s why we are going in hopes of getting an appointment quicker so we are able to cross before he (Trump) takes office,” Yotzeli Peña, 23, a migrant from Venezuela tells the Associated Press. “That would be easier.” Trump has promised to seal the southern border due to the unprecedented flow of migrants into the U.S. over the last three and a half years.  He has also vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in the history of the U.S. and has appointed hardliner South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while Tom Homan will be the new “Border Czar.”  Additionally, he has also pledged to end the use of parole programs by the Biden administration that allow migrants to enter in via the expanded “lawful pathways.” MORE MIGRANTS LIKELY TO RUSH BORDER DESPITE REPORTS OF SPLINTERING CARAVAN: EXPERTS Numbers have been dropping sharply at the border since June, when President Biden signed a presidential proclamation drastically limiting the number of arrivals who can come into the U.S. In September, there were 101,790 encounters at the border, the lowest number since February 2021, and there have been no major signs of a significant increase in numbers since then. However, while numbers remain lower than in previous months, there have been concerns that the change in administrations may lead to a surge at the border as migrants attempt to enter the U.S. before a perceived tougher administration enters office.  This year, in a bid to stop people from gathering at the U.S. southern border to claim asylum, the federal government expanded areas where migrants can apply via the CBP One cellphone app for appointments to enter the United States. Initially, the app was only available to migrants in northern and central Mexico, but officials changed it to include those at the southern border. By extending the app south to Tapachula, officials hoped it would stem the rush north. But some migrants still want to be close to the border so that if they do get one of the cherished appointments, they can get to it quickly and not risk missing it.  “They’re determined to make it into the U.S., one way or the other, because they’ve sold everything, they have nothing to go back to,” independent journalist Auden Cabello, who extensively covered the border crisis, told Fox News Digital last week.  Fox News’ Adam Shaw, Michael Lee and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Trump administration picks’ families have 1 thing in common

Trump administration picks’ families have 1 thing in common

As President-elect Donald Trump has aggressively set to work on building his new administration, some have noticed that many of those being selected as his closest advisors are parents with families well above the national average. The current national average for a family in the U.S. is 1.94, which is below the minimum 2.1 required to replace the population. Meanwhile, some of Trump’s Cabinet members and advisers are well above the replacement level. Trump is a father of five adult children. Though he has divorced two times, he is said to be a devoted grandfather to his 10 grandchildren, even reportedly spending the morning after election night golfing with his granddaughter, Kai Trump. TRUMP’S GRANDAUGHTER KAI SHARES VLOG OF FAMILY CELEBRATION ON ELECTION NIGHT: ‘EXTREMELY PROUD’ Secretary of the Interior nominee Doug Burgum and Deputy Chief of Policy Stephen Miller each have three children. Trump’s picks for the CIA, John Ratcliffe, and Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio have four kids each. Though from several marriages, Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Department of Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth both have seven kids. The grand prize goes to Sean Duffy, Trump’s pick for transportation secretary, who with wife Rachel Campos-Duffy has nine children. In 2019, Duffy stepped down from his role as a Wisconsin congressperson ahead of his ninth child’s birth to spend more time with his family. “Raising a family is hard work,” he said in a social media post explaining his decision. “I have always been open to signs from God when it comes to balancing my desire to serve both my family and my country.” RACHEL CAMPOS DUFFY: I FOUND TRUE LOVE AND A HAPPY MARRIAGE USING THIS 90S-STYLE BLUEPRINT. IT WILL FOR FOR YOU, TOO By comparison, with four children, President Biden is more of an exception in his administration, which is mainly staffed by people with two or fewer children. During the campaign, Vice President-elect JD Vance voiced his belief that the government needs to place a greater emphasis on being “pro-family” and make it easier for Americans to have larger families and more kids. At 40 years old, Vance and his wife, Usha, have three children, and he has voiced his desire to have more. In his first big speech on the national stage at the Republican National Convention, Vance said “the American Dream that always counted most [to me] was not starting a business or becoming a senator or even being here with you fine people, it was becoming a good husband and a good dad and of giving my family the things I never had as a kid. And that’s the accomplishment I’m proudest of.” He was hit repeatedly by the Kamala Harris campaign and the media over his 2021 criticism of the country being run by who he called “childless cat ladies.” But the underlying problem of low birth rates in the U.S. poses an increasingly big worry to those paying attention. Catherine Pakaluk, a social researcher and author, told Fox News Digital that the country’s low birth rate has gotten to a point where it is presenting real problems and dangers for the future. “We Americans are not having enough children to replace the population,” she said. “What we’re seeing is an inversion of the normal population pyramid where we would think about the normal population pyramid would be a greater number of younger workers supporting a smaller number of older, retired workers.” Though not yet at the level of countries like Japan and China, which are now facing shrinking populations, Pakaluk said the result is that there are “fewer and fewer workers,” fewer people paying into the tax base, and government programs such as social security and Medicare are becoming increasingly unviable. Because of this reality, Pakaluk said she appreciates people like Vance pushing for larger families. “I really value that Vice President-elect Vance is speaking positively about families and talking a lot about how much he would like to have a larger family. … I think a lot of what is very helpful to us today is to have role models talking about how having kids isn’t really all that bad and, in fact, might be better than you expected.” Most crucial to Pakaluk, however, is advancing values that lead to people choosing to have bigger families. She recently published a book called “Hannah’s Children” in which she did extensive interviews with mothers who decided to have five or more kids. The common denominator among these women, who came from a wide array of faith backgrounds, was a strong religious belief in children as blessings from God. This led Pakaluk to believe that the solution to what she calls the “birth dearth” is a return to religious convictions on the individual and societal level. She pointed to Duffy, who is a practicing Catholic, as an example. “What I like to say is, I don’t know that you can get more children out of being pro-child. … But I think you can get more children if you’re pro-church or pro-religious community,” she said. “If people encounter strong religious communities on a more regular basis, this can change in a generation.”

Comer to create DOGE subcommittee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene to work with Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy

Comer to create DOGE subcommittee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene to work with Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy

EXCLUSIVE: House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is expected to establish a subcommittee that will work with the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to eliminate government waste, Fox News Digital has learned.  A source familiar told Fox News Digital that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., will chair the Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee, which will focus on rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.  The subcommittee is expected to investigate wasteful spending, examine ways to reorganize federal agencies to improve efficiency and identify solutions to eliminate bureaucratic red tape. A source familiar told Fox News Digital that Comer had a meeting with Ramaswamy and his incoming DOGE team. And Ramaswamy confirmed the meeting with Comer and Greene to Fox News Digital.  “A key state to driving greater efficiency in government is exposing the problem to the public to the public—we are grateful that the House Oversight Committee has created a subcommittee to focus on this work,” a spokesperson for Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital. “We look forward to working together.”  UFC STAR HOPES DOGE WILL ‘CLEAN THINGS UP AT THE STATE LEVEL,’ WANTS JUSTICE FOR PEANUT THE SQUIRREL The source said Ramaswamy is “supportive of the Oversight Committee’s endeavor and are already working together.”  Comer told Fox News Digital that President Trump’s “landslide victory reflects a clear mandate to address inflationary spending that’s driving up the cost of living for hardworking Americans.”  ​ELON MUSK AND VIVEK RAMASWAMY APPROVE THE ‘VERY REASONABLE PROPOSAL’ TO ABOLISH DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION “Wasteful government spending must end, and taxpayers deserve to see their money used effectively and efficiently,” he said.  Comer told Fox News Digital that the new Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency “will align with the Trump administration’s priorities to eliminate government waste, streamline the federal government’s operations and cut red tape that’s stifling jobs and increasing costs for the American people.”  “I look forward to working with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to deliver on these goals to Make America Great Again,” Comer said. Greene told Fox News Digital that the House Oversight Committee “is the perfect place to support the DOGE mission.” “I’m excited to chair this new subcommittee designed to work hand in hand with President Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and the entire DOGE team,” Greene said. “We will identify and investigate the waste, corruption and absolutely useless parts of our federal government.” Greene said the subcommittee will provide “transparency and truth to the American people through hearings.” ELON MUSK SAYS ‘ALL ACTIONS’ TAKEN BY DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY WILL BE ONLINE: ‘TRANSPARENCY’ “No topic will be off the table,” she said. “The goal of DOGE is to bring accountability and GUT useless government agencies.”  Greene said she expects the subcommittee’s work “will expose people who need to be fired.” “The bureaucrats who don’t do their job, fail audits like in the Pentagon and don’t know where billions of dollars are going, will be getting a pink slip,” Greene said. “Chairman Comer and I are focused on delivering the mandate voters sent on Nov. 5th, and I can’t wait to get to work.” Trump this month tapped Musk and Ramaswamy to lead DOGE, which Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, has widely touted. DOGE has already started soliciting civilian help in the agency. Trump said last week he hopes DOGE will become the “Manhattan Project of our time,” in reference to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s secretive atom bomb endeavor during World War II. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a very long time,” Trump said.