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07-11-2024
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has won the US election and will make a historic return to the White House.
The Republican told jubilant crowds in Florida: “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate”.
Of the seven crucial swing states, Trump won North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and is ahead in Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona.
We’ve yet to hear from Kamala Harris but she is going to speak to supporters at Howard University, her alma mater, later today where she is expected to concede.
Republicans have also taken the Senate back from Democrats after flipping a string of seats.
He election was “peaceful and secure”, according to the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
In a statement, Jen Easterly, the agency’s director, says the “election infrastructure has never been more secure” and there has been “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure”.
Law enforcement agencies nationwide had been on high alert for potential violence as voters cast their ballots.
The FBI confirmed yesterday that there were about 30 bomb threat hoaxes that targeted election-related locations throughout the US many in districts that favored Democrats. More than half of the threats were aimed at precincts in Georgia.
The hoaxes “appear to originate from Russian email domains”, the FBI said.
Despite the widely held assumption before the election that the Kremlin would favor a Trump victory, Russian officials and state media have stopped short of celebrating the outcome of yesterday’s vote.
In his daily press briefing this morning, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was unaware if the Russian president had plans to congratulate Trump.
“Let us not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that directly and indirectly is involved in the war against our state,” Peskov told reporters, external.
There was similar caution voiced on state TV, where the messaging is tightly controlled by the Kremlin.
MP Andrei Isayev of the ruling United Russia party told the Russian political talk show 60 Minutes that they are “not harboring false hopes. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are our friends”.
The show’s host Olga Skabeyeva added that Russia “does not at all believe” that Trump could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, a promise repeatedly made by the former president but there was also welcome acknowledgement that Trump could significantly reduce the flow of American military aid for Ukraine.
“Poor, unhappy Volodymyr Zelensky,” Skabeyeva said with a smirk, as she informed viewers of the Ukrainian president’s congratulatory message to Trump.
There are few countries across the world that are likely to feel the impact of Trump’s election win more than Ukraine. Ukrainians know that their chances of surviving Russia’s assault will be miniscule if US support is cut and Donald Trump’s rhetoric strongly suggests that that is a distinct possibility.
He is also seen as much friendlier towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky has been rocky. Will his vow to end the war within 24 hours of taking office involve forcing Ukraine to cede territory?
That’s not a prospect that Kyiv relishes but then again, few in Ukraine expected a Harris win to be a quick and painless end of their troubles more a continuation of a policy that has allowed the full-scale war to rumble on for two-and-a-half years. (Int’l News Desk)
