Politics

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump is set to challenge policies aimed at boosting diversity at companies and universities when he takes office next month, throwing the weight of the U.S. government behind growing conservative opposition to such practices.

The Justice Department and other federal agencies are likely to start investigations and bring lawsuits over diversity, equity and inclusion policies as they argue that many of those practices violate anti-discrimination laws.

“DEI is unlawful discrimination,” said Mike Davis, the founder of the Article III Project, a conservative advocacy group, who has advised Trump on legal issues. “It’s illegal for the government to do it. It’s illegal for universities to do it. And it’s illegal for companies to do it.”

The plans would turn the power of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — created in 1957 to enforce laws aimed at stopping discrimination against Black people and other marginalized communities — against policies designed to benefit those groups.

Trump signaled his intent late on Monday when he tapped lawyer Harmeet Dhillon as his pick to oversee the division as an assistant attorney general, saying that her career highlights included “suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers.”

Proponents of DEI policies say they are needed to address longstanding racial inequities in U.S. society, while opponents argue that many of the policies are exclusionary and focus on race and gender at the expense of individual merit.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funds, could empower the Justice Department to challenge university admissions practices and racial equity programs in healthcare.

“The argument is going to be to the extent that there’s a consideration of race in any context by any entity that receives federal funds, that’s a problem under Title VI,” said Danielle Conley, the head of the anti-discrimination practice at law firm Latham & Watkins.     

UNIVERSITIES IN FOCUS

Trump vowed in a campaign video to direct the Justice Department to pursue civil rights investigations into universities, saying they had been captured by the “radical left.”

“We are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all,” Trump said in the video, posted in July.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Legal challenges could include claims that universities are not following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling barring consideration of race in college admissions. The Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden has defended an exemption allowing U.S. military academies to continue using affirmative action policies, a stance Trump could reverse.

During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department sued Yale University alleging that its admissions practices discriminated against Asian American and white applicants. The lawsuit was later dropped under the Biden administration.

A BROADER CAMPAIGN

Even in situations where the Justice Department does not have direct enforcement authority, the government could still weigh in on existing cases to argue that its interpretation of civil rights laws aligns with others challenging DEI policies.

America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has brought 15 lawsuits since 2022 targeting major companies like Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms and Amazon.com over their diversity efforts.

Seven of those cases, including the complaints against Meta and Amazon, have been dismissed after judges found that the person or group suing did not suffer harm that would allow them to sue. America First Legal has appealed some of those decisions.

America First Legal did not respond to requests for comment.

‘BETRAYAL OF THE MISSION’

The America First Legal cases are part of a larger effort to pressure companies to scrap practices aimed at boosting racial and ethnic representation in the workplace. 

Many of their legal challenges were brought on behalf of white men using laws passed during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s designed to support Black Americans.

“It would be a betrayal of the mission of the Civil Rights Division to turn it into a legal force that protects primarily the interests of white men,” said Thomas Healy, a Seton Hall University law professor who has written about civil rights issues.

DEI opponents note that federal anti-discrimination laws are race neutral and generally apply to all forms of exclusion based on race or gender.

Civil rights advocates fear that even the threat of government scrutiny will cause companies to back away from prior commitments on diversity.

“The risk I see is that employers may be worried about getting sued and roll back their programs,” said Amalea Smirniotopoulos, a senior policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “At the heart of these attacks is fundamentally an attempt to hoard opportunity for a limited group of people.”

Walmart in late November became the latest major U.S. corporation to scale back its DEI efforts, following JPMorgan Chase and Starbucks.

About half of the American public believes that federal and state governments and powerful U.S. institutions need to do more to address inequities caused by structural racism, according to an October Reuters/Ipsos poll. One in three disagreed with the idea, the poll found.

Anti-discrimination lawyers said many DEI policies may be able to withstand legal scrutiny if they’re focused on measures that do not involve explicit consideration of race, such as expanding employee recruiting and setting aspirational goals for diversity. 

“It is not pre-ordained what the outcome of the various challenges will be,” said Debo Adegbile, head of the anti-discrimination practice at law firm WilmerHale.

LEGAL OBSTACLES

The Justice Department will face some obstacles in any effort to combat DEI policies. Its Civil Rights Division does not enforce federal laws banning racial discrimination in hiring and contracting against private employers, according to experts in discrimination law. 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the only federal entity empowered to sue companies over employment discrimination. The five-member EEOC is expected to have a Democratic majority until at least 2026, which could stymie some of Trump’s plans.

But the Civil Rights Division can bring employment discrimination cases against state and local governments.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A week after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Elon Musk said his political action committee would “play a significant role in primaries.”

The following week, the billionaire responded to a report that he might fund challengers to GOP House members who don’t support Trump’s nominees. “How else? There is no other way,” Musk wrote on X, which he rebranded after purchasing Twitter and moving to boost conservative voices, including his own.

And during his recent visit to Capitol Hill, Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy delivered a warning to Republicans who don’t go along with their plans to slash spending as part of Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency.

“Elon and Vivek talked about having a naughty list and a nice list for members of Congress and senators and how we vote and how we’re spending the American people’s money,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

Trump’s second term comes with the specter of the world’s richest man serving as his political enforcer. Within Trump’s team, there is a feeling that Musk not only supports Trump’s agenda and Cabinet appointments, but is intent on seeing them through to the point of pressuring Republicans who may be less devout.

One Trump adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal political dynamics, noted Musk had come to enjoy his role on the campaign and that he clearly had the resources to stay involved.

The adviser and others noted that Musk’s role is still taking shape. And Musk, once a supporter of President Barack Obama before moving to the right in recent years, is famously mercurial.

“I think he was really important for this election. Purchasing Twitter, truly making it a free speech platform, I think, was integral to this election, to the win that Donald Trump had,” said departing Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law. “But I don’t know that ultimately he wants to be in politics. I think he considers himself to be someone on the outside.”

During the presidential campaign, Musk contributed roughly $200 million to America PAC, a super PAC aimed at reaching Trump voters online and in person in the seven most competitive states, which Trump swept. He also invested $20 million in a group called RBG PAC, which ran ads arguing Trump would not sign a national abortion ban even as the former president nominated three of the justices who overturned a federally guaranteed right to the procedure.

Musk’s donation to RBG PAC — a name that invokes the initials of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of abortion rights — wasn’t revealed until post-election campaign filings were made public Thursday.

Musk has said he hopes to keep America PAC funded and operating. Beyond that, he has used his X megaphone to suggest he is at least open to challenging less exuberant Trump supporters in Congress.

Another key Trump campaign ally has been more aggressive online. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whose group Turning Point Action also worked to turn out voters for Trump, named Republican senators he wants to target.

“This is not a joke, everybody. The funding is already being put together. Donors are calling like crazy. Primaries are going to be launched,” Kirk said on his podcast, singling out Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Jim Risch of Idaho, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Thom Tillis of North Carolina as potential targets. All four Republican senators’ seats are up in 2026.

For now, Musk has been enjoying the glow of his latest conquest, joining Trump for high-level meetings and galas at the soon-to-be president’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Palm Beach, Florida. The incoming administration is seeded with Musk allies, including venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks serving as the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” and Jared Isaacman, a tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Musk’s SpaceX, named to lead NASA.

Musk could help reinforce Trump’s agenda immediately, some GOP strategists said, by using America PAC to pressure key Republicans. Likewise, Musk could begin targeting moderate Democrats in pivotal states and districts this spring, urging them to break with their party on key issues, Republican strategist Chris Pack said.

“Instead of using his influence to twist GOP arms when you have majorities in both houses, he could start going after Democrats who vote against Trump’s agenda in states where the election was a referendum for Trump,” said Pack, former communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Otherwise, if you pressure Republicans with a primary, you can end up with a Republican who can’t win, and then a Democrat in that seat.”

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Linderman reported from Baltimore and Mendoza from Santa Cruz, California. Associated Press congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end birthright citizenship as soon as he gets into office to make good on campaign promises aiming to restrict immigration and redefining what it means to be American.

But any efforts to halt the policy would face steep legal hurdles.

Birthright citizenship means anyone born in the United States automatically becomes an American citizen. It’s been in place for decades and applies to children born to someone in the country illegally or in the U.S. on a tourist or student visa who plans to return to their home country.

It’s not the practice of every country, and Trump and his supporters have argued that the system is being abused and that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen.

But others say this is a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, it would be extremely difficult to overturn and even if it’s possible, it’s a bad idea.

Here’s a look at birthright citizenship, what Trump has said about it and the prospects for ending it:

During an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Trump said he “absolutely” planned to halt birthright citizenship once in office.

“We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous,” he said.

Trump and other opponents of birthright citizenship have argued that it creates an incentive for people to come to the U.S. illegally or take part in “birth tourism,” in which pregnant women enter the U.S. specifically to give birth so their children can have citizenship before returning to their home countries.

“Simply crossing the border and having a child should not entitle anyone to citizenship,” said Eric Ruark, director of research for NumbersUSA, which argues for reducing immigration. The organization supports changes that would require at least one parent to be a permanent legal resident or a U.S. citizen for their children to automatically get citizenship.

Others have argued that ending birthright citizenship would profoundly damage the country.

“One of our big benefits is that people born here are citizens, are not an illegal underclass. There’s better assimilation and integration of immigrants and their children because of birthright citizenship,” said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the pro-immigration Cato Institute.

In 2019, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that 5.5 million children under age 18 lived with at least one parent in the country illegally in 2019, representing 7% of the U.S. child population. The vast majority of those children were U.S. citizens.

The nonpartisan think tank said during Trump’s campaign for president in 2015 that the number of people in the country illegally would “balloon” if birthright citizenship were repealed, creating “a self-perpetuating class that would be excluded from social membership for generations.”

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment in July 1868. That amendment assured citizenship for all, including Black people.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” the 14th Amendment says. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”

But the 14th Amendment didn’t always translate to everyone being afforded birthright citizenship. For example, it wasn’t until 1924 that Congress finally granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S.

A key case in the history of birthright citizenship came in 1898, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the states. The federal government had tried to deny him reentry into the county after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

But some have argued that the 1898 case clearly applied to children born of parents who are both legal immigrants to America but that it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status or, for example, who come for a short-term like a tourist visa.

“That is the leading case on this. In fact, it’s the only case on this,” said Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration restrictions. “It’s a lot more of an open legal question than most people think.”

Some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment allows the U.S. to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally. Trump himself used that language in his 2023 announcement that he would aim to end birthright citizenship if reelected.

Trump wasn’t clear in his Sunday interview how he aims to end birthright citizenship.

Asked how he could get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action, Trump said: “Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.” Pressed further on whether he’d use an executive order, Trump said “if we can, through executive action.”

He gave a lot more details in a 2023 post on his campaign website. In it, he said he would issue an executive order the first day of his presidency, making it clear that federal agencies “require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their future children to become automatic U.S. citizens.”

Trump wrote that the executive order would make clear that children of people in the U.S. illegally “should not be issued passports, Social Security numbers, or be eligible for certain taxpayer funded welfare benefits.”

This would almost certainly end up in litigation.

Nowrasteh from the Cato Institute said the law is clear that birthright citizenship can’t be ended by executive order but that Trump may be inclined to take a shot anyway through the courts.

“I don’t take his statements very seriously. He has been saying things like this for almost a decade,” Nowrasteh said. “He didn’t do anything to further this agenda when he was president before. The law and judges are near uniformly opposed to his legal theory that the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States are not citizens.”

Trump could steer Congress to pass a law to end birthright citizenship but would still face a legal challenge that it violates the Constitution.

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Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

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By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will warn against further tax cuts for the wealthy and a reprise of Republican “trickle-down economics” during Donald Trump’s second term in what could be his final speech on the economy on Tuesday, a White House official said.

Biden will argue in the speech, which comes a month after bruising election defeats for the Democrats driven by voters’ concerns about inflation, that his push to boost investments in infrastructure, manufacturing and neglected communities averted a bigger economic crisis and laid the groundwork for continued economic growth, the official said.

Enacting another major tax cut benefiting rich Americans and cutting government old age and health insurance programs would threaten those gains, Biden will argue, while acknowledging that it will take years to see the full impact of his efforts.

In his remarks at the Brookings Institution, Biden plans to highlight the creation of 16 million jobs, the most in any single presidential term, the lowest average unemployment of any administration in 50 years and the smallest racial wealth gap in 20 years, the official said.

The speech echoes the message Biden pushed throughout his aborted 2024 election campaign and continued by Vice President Kamala Harris after he dropped out, although neither official was able to win over voters scarred by high food and housing prices.

Despite the strength of major economic indicators and a drop in inflation from a peak of 9% more than two years ago to 2.4%, voters punished the Democrats and handed the Republicans the White House and control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Investment banks expect Trump’s return to the White House to fuel a dealmaking revival that could boost investment banking income to $316 billion globally next year, a jump of about 5.7% on 2024, but economists warn that the Republican’s pledge to impose high tariffs could reignite inflation while further tax cuts could swell the already high U.S. deficit.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Kate Mayberry)

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Four women who accused Curtis Hill of drunkenly groping them at a bar when he was Indiana’s attorney general dropped their civil lawsuit against him hours before jury selection was set to begin on Monday.

The women initially sued in federal court in 2019 before filing this last lawsuit in a Marion County court in 2020, claiming that Hill committed battery against them at an Indianapolis bar and then defamed them with repeated claims that their allegations were false.

Their decision Sunday to drop the suit ends nearly seven years of investigations and litigation surrounding Hill’s actions during a March 2018 party on the final night of that year’s legislative session, The Indianapolis Star reported.

In a statement from their attorneys, the women said they agreed to dismiss the suit after reaching “the frustrating conclusion that proceeding with the trial cannot provide the relief they sought; namely, Mr. Hill accepting responsibility for his actions and admitting his fault in intentionally touching each of them in a sexual manner without consent.”

The four women who sued Hill are Mara Candelaria Reardon, Gabrielle McLemore Brock, Samantha Lozano and Niki DaSilva. At the time of the March 2018 party, Candelaria Reardon was a Democratic state representative from Munster in northwest Indiana, and the three other women were legislative staffers. All decided to come forward publicly in response to his denials.

Hill said Monday in a statement that the case’s dismissal is a vindication of his longstanding denial of the women’s claims.

“There was no financial settlement. There were no conditions for dismissal,” Hill said. “The case against me was dismissed with prejudice by each of the plaintiffs, thus ending this odyssey of unfounded allegations that have dogged me for nearly seven years and have served as the fuel for political and personal attacks against me.”

Despite Hill’s denials, the Indiana Supreme Court ordered a 30-day suspension of his law license in 2020 after finding “by clear and convincing evidence that (Hill) committed the criminal act of battery” against three female legislative staffers and a state lawmaker during the party. The justices ruled after nine people who attended the party testified at his professional misconduct hearing.

The allegations were a key campaign issue when Hill narrowly lost the 2020 Republican attorney general nomination for his reelection to Todd Rokita, who took office in January 2021.

Hill attempted a political comeback in 2022, but he lost a vote among Republican precinct committee members to replace U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski on the election ballot following her death in a highway crash. Business executive Rudy Yakym won the GOP nomination and election for northern Indiana’s 2nd District seat.

Hill also entered this year’s Indiana governor’s race, joining a six-way Republican primary to replace term-limited GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. But first-term U.S. Sen. Mike Braun won the May primary and the November general election.

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Clarke Reed, a Mississippi businessman who developed the Republican Party in his home state and across the South starting in the 1960s, died Sunday at his home in Greenville, Mississippi. He was 96.

Reed was chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party from 1966 to 1976, beginning at a time when Democrats still dominated in the region.

During the 1976 Republican National Convention, delegates were closely divided between President Gerald Ford and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. Reed united the Mississippi delegation behind Ford — a move that created a decadeslong feud with William D. “Billy” Mounger, another wealthy businessman who was prominent in the Mississippi Republican Party.

Reed recalled in a 2016 interview with The Associated Press that delegates faced considerable pressure. Movie stars visited Mississippi’s 30 delegates to push for Reagan, and Betty Ford called on behalf of her husband.

Reagan met twice with the Mississippi delegation — once with his proposed running mate, Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker — and once without, according Haley Barbour, who was executive director of the Mississippi Republican Party in 1976 and served as the state’s governor from 2004 to 2012.

“Everybody was coming to see us,” Reed said. “These poor people had never seen this before, the average delegate.”

Mississippi delegates were showing the stress at a meeting away from the convention floor in Kansas City, Reed said.

“I looked out, and about half of them were crying,” he said.

Reed initially supported Reagan, but said he moved into the Ford camp because he thought Reagan made “a hell of a mistake” by choosing a more liberal northeastern running mate in a gambit to win support of the unpledged Pennsylvania delegation.

“In my opinion, Reagan was the best president of my lifetime. I didn’t know that then,” Reed said in 2016. “And had he been elected with Schweiker, he might’ve gotten a bullet one inch over and Schweiker would’ve been president.”

Ford won the party nomination during the convention, then lost the general election to Jimmy Carter, the Democratic former governor of Georgia.

Reed was born in Alliance, Ohio, in 1928, and his family moved to Caruthersville, Missouri, when he was about six months old. He earned a business degree from the University of Missouri in 1950. He and Barthell Joseph, a friend he had met at a high school boarding school, founded an agriculture equipment business called Reed-Joseph International, which used technology to scare birds away from farms and airports.

Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said Monday that Reed was “a mentor, supporter and advisor to me for over 56 years.” Wicker said he was 21 when Reed put him on the Republican Platform Committee in 1972.

“There is no more significant figure in the development of the modern day Mississippi Republican Party than Clarke Reed,” Wicker wrote on social media. “Our state has lost a giant.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden visited Angola last week, one of the highlights was his pledge of hundreds of millions of dollars for an ambitious trans-Africa rail project that would bring copper and cobalt from central Africa to the Atlantic port of Lobito.

The project is possible because of the commitment of a $553 million direct loan from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, created in 2019 during the first Trump administration to counter China’s expansion of its global reach through infrastructure projects, such as the mega-port in Chancay, Peru, inaugurated just last month.

On Monday, the U.S. agency celebrated its five-year milestone by vowing to advance U.S. foreign policy and strategic interests through projects around the world such as the one in Angola. It also seeks re-authorization from Congress and a greater ability to invest in more countries when there’s a strategic need to compete with China.

“We need to be good partners while offering an alternative based on our values,” said Scott Nathan, the chief executive officer of the development agency, who was in Angola last week with the president. “Quite simply, we need to continue to show up.”

Nathan is set to leave the post. President-elect Donald Trump is yet to name his pick to lead the agency.

Over its first five years, the agency has developed a portfolio of more than $50 billion in 114 countries, including solar panel manufacturing in India, a power plant in Sierra Leone, and digital infrastructure in South America. To do that, the agency has leveraged government funding to partner with private investments. In the last fiscal year, the agency committed to $12 billion in new transactions, using the roughly $800 million in appropriations, Nathan said.

Investments by the agency are having a “transformational impact on economic development while concretely advancing U.S. strategic interests,” Nathan said.

In Angola, for example, the rail project would help secure the supply chain by cutting both time and cost in transporting critical minerals.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the agency was created when the U.S. was “ceding the field” to China in a new era of geopolitics. The U.S. needed a vision “calibrated to new geopolitical realities” and that matched ”the scope of the transformational challenges we faced.”

It was in 2013 when Beijing launched the massive Belt and Road Initiative to gain markets and influence around the world by building roads, railways, power plants, transmission lines and ports, usually in less-developed regions.

A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said China provided $679 billion for international infrastructure projects such as those in transportation and energy between 2013 and 2021, compared with the $76 billion the U.S. provided in the same period. Western politicians have criticized these Beijing-backed projects for creating debt traps, but Beijing argues that they have brought tangible and much-needed economic benefits to the host countries.

In 2018, Congress passed a bipartisan bill that created the U.S. development agency, aimed at bringing private investments into low- and middle-income countries through tools such as equity investment, loan guarantee and political risk insurance.

On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised the agency for “reimagining how the U.S. does development” and said, through its work, the U.S. has “shown countries that they don’t have to resort to projects that are poorly built, environmentally destructive, that import or abuse workers, that foster corruption or burden countries with unsustainable debt.”

“We really are the partner of choice,” Blinken said.

As challenges lie ahead, Blinken said the agency needs to do even more and in more countries than before.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The field of candidates has been set for two special elections in Florida to replace members of Congress nominated for positions in President-elect Donald Trump’s new administration. Two dozen candidates have filed to run for the seats of outgoing Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, though Trump has already weighed in on his preferred successors.

Trump’s reliance on Florida lawmakers for his new Cabinet is setting off a political chain reaction that’s opening up new possibilities in the state in 2026 and beyond. Multiple sitting elected officials have filed to run for the congressional seats, including the state’s chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis, triggering other vacancies and electoral opportunities.

Both GOP congressmen easily won reelection to their respective seats in November, Gaetz in a northwest Florida district known for its sugar-sand beaches and military installations, and Waltz in a stretch of the state south of Jacksonville that includes Daytona Beach.

The special elections to replace them aren’t expected to change Republicans’ slim majority in the House, but could trigger another shuffle among the state’s political hopefuls eyeing a run for governor in 2026, as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second term winds down.

Patronis is among those who Republican insiders say are considering a bid for governor, and a term in Congress could help boost his profile. Trump recently voiced his support for Patronis in the race to replace Gaetz in Congressional District 1, though that didn’t dissuade the 15 other candidates who qualified to run, even in a district where Trump is overwhelmingly popular.

“Jimmy Patronis has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump posted on his social networking site Truth Social. “RUN, JIMMY, RUN!”

Other candidates in the race include Republican State Rep. Joel Rudman, a physician who launched his political career by criticizing mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sole Democrat in the race is Gay Valimont, an activist for the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action who unsuccessfully challenged Gaetz in November.

In the race for Waltz’ seat in Congressional District 6, Republican State Rep. Randy Fine won Trump’s endorsement. Fine is a self-described “conservative firebrand” who was investigated for allegations related to posting the phone number online of a school board member, which led to a wave of harassment and threats against her. No charges were filed against him.

Eight other candidates have jumped in the race for the seat, including three Democrats and a candidate unaffiliated with a party — Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist who ran as the Constitution Party’s presidential nominee last month.

Gaetz had been tapped to be Trump’s attorney general, before stepping aside amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation. Gaetz has vehemently denied the allegations. Though no longer under consideration, Gaetz had already resigned from his northwest Florida seat, a move that effectively ended a House Ethics Committee investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Trump named Waltz to be his national security advisor, though the three-term congressman and retired Army National Guard officer has also been floated as a nominee for defense secretary, as the president-elect considered possible replacements in the face of growing questions about former Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s personal conduct and ability to win Senate confirmation.

Ballots for both special elections will begin going out to military and overseas voters on Dec. 14. The primary is scheduled for Jan. 28 and the general election will be held April 1.

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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By Mike Stone and Joe Brock

SIMI VALLEY, California (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s planned U.S. government efficiency drive involving Elon Musk could lead to more joint projects between big defense contractors and smaller tech firms in areas such as artificial intelligence, drones and uncrewed submarines, according to interviews with company executives.

Musk has indicated that Pentagon spending and priorities will be a target of the efficiency initiative, spreading anxiety at defense heavyweights such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

Smaller military technology companies such as artificial intelligence software firm Palantir and drone-maker Anduril have been buoyed by the prospect of Musk further loosening the grip that defense giants have held on the Pentagon’s budget for many decades.

Participants at the Reagan National Defense Forum, a summit in Simi Valley, California, that brought together corporate executives, U.S. military leaders and lawmakers, said they expect smaller tech firms to play a bigger role given that Musk, one of their own, is entering a position of enormous influence.

Musk and many small defense tech firms have been aligned in criticizing legacy defense programs like Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet while calling for mass production of cheaper AI-powered drones, missiles and uncrewed submarines. 

Such views have given major defense contractors more incentive to partner with emerging defense technology players in these areas, some having strong personal relationships with Musk and his companies such as SpaceX and Tesla, according to executives at technology and big defense firms.

One senior executive at a top defense contractor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that contract negotiations by his company with smaller military tech providers have been “on steroids” since Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory.

The amount of money available for the newer defense companies might be limited, however. Less than 20% of the Pentagon budget buys weapons systems and, historically, only around 1% goes to brand-new program purchases like those being offered by these young market entrants, according to Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of defense acquisition software company Govini.

These emerging firms could benefit from teaming up with the big legacy contractors if the newer companies want to quickly scale production of new weapons and deploy new technology platforms in the field, according to executives at the summit.

“What we’re locked into is a current worldview in defense that everything is zero sum. If you’re growing, that means I’m shrinking. I don’t think that’s true,” Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer, told Reuters on the sidelines of the two-day summit, which ended on Saturday.

“We need to help the Primes,” Sankar said, referring to the big legacy contractors, “once you get past a zero-sum mindset, that actually everyone can be better off.”

In a potential sign of things to come, Palantir announced on the eve of the summit a deal to partner on defense AI with Booz Allen Hamilton, a 110-year-old military contractor.

MUSK’S NEW ROLE

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, named Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the founder of a pharmaceutical company, on Nov. 13 as co-leaders of a government efficiency initiative intended to slash government spending, dismantle federal bureaucracy, cut regulations and restructure agencies.

The Pentagon, with a budget around $850 billion, accounts for half of U.S. discretionary spending – the money formally approved by Congress during the annual appropriations process.

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA, program is a project that could offer more access to smaller defense players. The CCA would be a smaller drone in a family of systems centered around a sixth-generation fighter jet – the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, program meant to replace the F-22 fighter jet and give the United States the most powerful weaponry in the sky.

Anduril and General Atomics were selected in April to design, build and test prototypes for the CCA program – demonstrating that smaller companies had innovative ideas for the vehicle. A future production decision would lead to billions of dollars, but a wider group including defense giants Lockheed and Northrop Grumman could also compete to win that contract. 

Drone makers such as Kratos Defense, AeroVironment and Hermeus are also well-positioned if there is a push to surge production of autonomous vehicles.

Software providers and services contractors such as SAIC and Leidos Holdings may benefit because their products can be deployed quickly to fill the bureaucratic functions that Musk hopes to cut, according to industry sources.

It is widely expected that space will get a boost under Trump, with SpaceX one obvious beneficiary.

Company executives, military leaders and U.S. lawmakers debated at the summit the extent to which Trump and Musk would be able to overhaul the Defense Department, given that its budget funds 2 million American jobs and that many programs are worth tens of billions of dollars and locked in for years.

Musk faces a major challenge to push through structural changes given that the Pentagon budget is approved by lawmakers, many of whom have defense programs in their states. 

Republican U.S. Senator Deb Fischer during a panel discussion at the summit said any major changes to the Pentagon budget would have to be handled by Congress, not Musk. Fischer offered a challenge to any defense firm advocating major reforms.

“Every one of you needs to propose a program that you personally benefit from that you’d be willing to cut,” Fischer said.

(Reporting by Mike Stone and Joe Brock; Editing by Will Dunham)

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing one of his defense attorneys in the New York hush money case as counselor to the president.

Alina Habba, 40, defended Trump earlier this year, also serving as his legal spokesperson. Habba has been spending time with the president-elect since the election at his Florida club Mar-a-Lago.

“She has been unwavering in her loyalty and unmatched in her resolve — standing with me through numerous ‘trials,’ battles and countless days in Court,” Trump posted on his social network Truth Social. “Few understand the Weaponization of the ‘Injustice’ System better than Alina.”

Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury in May found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

In Trump’s first term, the position of counselor was held by Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway. Habba has Iraqi ancestry and is Chaldean, which is Iraq’s largest Christian denomination and one of the Catholic Church’s Eastern rites.

Habba frequently accompanied Trump on the campaign trail and was one of the speakers at the late October rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

On Sunday, Trump also announced he is bringing back former staffer Michael Anton to serve as director of policy planning at the State Department. Anton served as the National Security Council spokesman from 2017 to 2018.

Trump said he also will be appointing Michael Needham, a former chief of staff for Sen. Marco Rubio, as counselor of the State Department. The Florida senator was chosen by Trump to be his next secretary of state.

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