Politics
More than 40% of Californians voted for Trump, state 'not as liberal as Newsom' thinks, says expert
More than 40% of Californians voted for President-elect Trump this year, making it the most votes for a GOP presidential candidate in the blue state since George W. Bush re-election in 2004.
Experts say Californians aren’t as far left “as Newsom thinks,” citing several state ballot measures that swung conservative, followed by the ousting of progressive Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.
Though Trump lost California to Vice President Kamala Harris, his electoral showing in the Golden State increased significantly; he got 31% of the vote in 2016 and 34% in 2020. Even with something of a conservative exodus driving many residents to red states like Florida and Texas, Trump increased his percentage of the state vote by six points.
In absolute terms, Trump’s vote numbers from California come in third behind his showings in Texas and Florida.
“Trump built a cross party, multi party coalition,” Susan Shelley, VP of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “He’s built a movement that crosses party lines, and it’s reaching people who have not benefited from the policies that have been put forward.”
PROPOSITION 36 OVERWHELMINGLY PASSES IN CALIFORNIA, REVERSING SOME SOROS-BACKED SOFT-ON-CRIME POLICIES
Regarding California’s clean-energy mandates, Shelley said, “People have paid dearly for this, and that’s what crosses party lines.”
“Everybody’s electricity bill is higher because of the climate policies,” Shelley said. “And Trump is promising to do more domestic energy production to bring down the cost of energy, and he has a track record now of having done this as president for four years.”
“The legislature is much, much more liberal, much more much further to the left than the voters are. And you can see that in the results in the propositions,” Shelley, who is also a columnist, said.
Proposition 36, which would reverse some soft-on-crime policies authored by L.A. DA George Gascon and re-establish felony offenses for certain drug and theft crimes, was overwhelmingly passed by California voters.
Another tax-related measure, Proposition 5, also failed. Critics of the measure said it would likely have led to higher property taxes, because it would have lowered the threshold to local bond issues, which are backed by tax dollars.
Gascon, L.A. County’s district attorney since 2020, was also voted out. Independent candidate Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, will replace him.
“I think he knows that California is shifting and needs help,” Shelley said. “And he has spoken many times about California’s election process, mailing out 22 million ballots. He has concerns about that. He’s spoken about voter ID laws. Whether he’ll do anything about that as President, I don’t know, but he certainly has indicated that he knows Californians are not as liberal as Gavin Newsom presents them to be.”
DONALD TRUMP WINS 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
California was also ground zero for several culture wars in children’s education and transgender issues, such as sex change surgeries for incarcerated people on the taxpayer dollar.
Lance Christensen, a California Policy Center political expert, told Fox News Digital these issues also played a role in earning Trump more votes in the Golden State.
“I think people got tired of the rope-a-dope stuff that Governor Newsom was doing over the last several years,” Christensen said. “And they saw him doing that because of an enabling power from the Biden-Harris administration. And when they realized that the insane progressive policies that were happening in California were being amplified in D.C., I don’t think they felt like there was a good backstop.”
BLUE STATE GOVERNOR SUMMONS LEGISLATURE IN RESPONSE TO TRUMP WIN: ‘READY TO FIGHT’
In July, Newsom signed a new law banning school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a gender that is different from what’s on their school record.
The law created significant pushback from California parents who spent months protesting the new law at local school district meetings, and one school district went so far as to sue Newsom over the law.
“A lot of the social and cultural issues, the ethnic studies, the gender stuff, the hyper-sexuality that was happening in a lot of our schools, and they just didn’t want that nationwide, especially with issues like Title Nine, where more and more women feel disenfranchised by the Biden administration,” Christensen said.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I think that you’re seeing a shift in the partisan landscape of California, and it won’t be dramatic, and it won’t necessarily be consistent across the board, but I think there’s a march towards some sort of sanity when it comes to politics that won’t necessarily be a red-blue divide,” he said.
On Thursday, Newsom called a special emergency session for December with the state’s legislature in response to Trump’s victory and bolster the blue state’s legal response to any future attacks.
“California is ready to fight,” Newsom said on X. “Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action – we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked.”
His action comes just a day after Newsom said he “will seek to work with the incoming president.”
Politics
Biden supports bringing adversarial nations into new UN cyber crime alliance
The Biden administration will support a U.N. treaty this week that will create a new cybercrime convention that includes China and Russia — which has not sat well with some lawmakers and critics.
Since 2001, the global governance around cybercrime has largely been coordinated by the Budapest Convention, a product of the Council of Europe that includes 76 countries. It does not include Russia or China. However, under the U.N.’s new cybercrime convention, these two adversarial nations will be welcomed into the global cybercrime governance fold.
The move, confirmed by top officials familiar with the issue, has been met with concern from those who fear that a new global alliance on cybersecurity involving two of the nation’s most adversarial nations could spell trouble.
CYBER-ATTACKS AGAINST AMERICANS AT ALL TIME HIGH OVER PAST TWO YEARS
“We recognize that defending human rights and core principles of internet freedom is not easy,” a group of Democratic lawmakers on the Hill wrote last week to top officials in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Jake Sullivan. “Russia, China and other regimes opposed to democratic freedoms are always working to create international legitimacy for their actions and worldview … Unfortunately, these efforts – while laudable – are insufficient to fix fundamental flaws in the convention.”
IRAN TRIED TO INFLUENCE ELECTION BY SENDING STOLEN MATERIAL FROM TRUMP CAMPAIGN TO BIDEN’S CAMP
The decision to support the new treaty came after months of deliberations between the Biden administration and others, including hundreds of nongovernmental entities involved in human rights and other relevant issues. According to a senior administration official, the U.S. “decided to remain with consensus,” arguing the U.S.’s sway on global “rights-respecting” cybersecurity policy will be greater under the new convention.
To help address concerns that have been raised about the convention, the Biden administration plans to develop a risk management plan and will engage with nongovernmental stakeholders to help refine it.
A “consensus proceeding” took place Monday, and the resolution was approved without a vote. According to Politico, it is expected to be adopted by the General Assembly later this year.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would be nominating New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik to be the next U.N. ambassador in his administration.
The White House declined to comment on the record for this story.
Politics
Chloe Fineman confirms that 'rude' Elon Musk was the 'SNL' host who made her cry
Comedian Chloe Fineman says Space X owner Elon Musk made her cry when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2021.
Fineman recalled working with the tech billionaire in a since-deleted TikTok, months after fellow cast member and writer Bowen Yang alluded to the behind-the-scenes drama during an appearance on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live!” Yang cryptically revealed in August that a host brought several staffers to tears because “he hated the ideas” they had. Speculation abounded and Fineman confirmed her part in it Monday.
The “SNL” star broke her silence after blowing up the Tesla chief executive’s “butt hurt” reaction to “SNL” alumnus Dana Carvey’s impression of him in Saturday’s post-election episode. (Carvey returned to Studio 8H as a bouncy, fist-pumping version of the “Dark MAGA”-boasting Musk in the cold open, claiming he would run the country after former President Trump’s re-election last week. Fineman said that world’s richest man and Trump loyalist is “clearly watching the show” despite his barrage of “rude” criticism on his X platform.
“I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry, and he’s the host that made someone cry,” Fineman said in her video. “Maybe there’s others.”
“Guess what, you made I, Chloe Fineman, burst into tears,” she continued, “because I stayed up all night writing this sketch. I was so excited. I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like ‘It’s not funny.’”
The “Megalopolis” and “Despicable Me 4” star said she waited for Musk to say he was just kidding, but he did not. Then she accused him of “pawing” through her script and — while mimicking his South African accent — claimed he didn’t laugh at the sketch a single time. She did not name the sketch; however, she and Musk appeared together in “The Ooli Show” sketch of the May 2021 episode on which she received a writing credit. Fineman played an Icelandic talk-show host and Musk played her smitten producer.
She conceded that the sketch that made it into the episode “was fine” and that she “actually had a really good time” doing it. She also admitted that Musk was “really funny in it.
“But, you know, have a little manners here, sir,” she concluded.
Although Fineman deleted the video, it was saved and re-posted on X where Musk replied to it Monday and explained his assessment of the work.
“Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs,” Musk said. “I was worried. I was like damn my SNL appearance is going to be so f— unfunny that it will make a crackhead sober!! But then it worked out in the end”
Musk did not apologize or mention making any cast members cry.
Representatives for Fineman and “Saturday Night Live” did not immediately respond Tuesday to The Times’ requests for comment.
Before Fineman posted her TikTok, Musk ranted about the most recent episode on X.
“Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey,” Musk tweeted in response to a clip from the cold open, adding in another tweet that, “They are so mad that @realDonaldTrump won.”
He also claimed that the long-running, Emmy-winning sketch series “has been dying slowly for years, as they become increasingly out of touch with reality.” Musk, who is expected to be an influential voice in Trump’s incoming administration, also accused the show of a “last-ditch effort to cheat the equal airtime requirements” when Vice President Kamala Harris appeared in the Nov. 2 episode, before the election, claiming that it “only helped sink her campaign further.”
Politics
Trump tells world leader election gives him a 'very big mandate'
President-elect Donald Trump said his election victory “gives me a very big mandate to do things properly” in a newly released video by Indonesia’s president.
Prabowo Subianto could be heard congratulating Trump, adding, “Wherever you are, I am willing to fly to, to congratulate you personally sir.”
“We had a great election in the U.S…. Amazing what happened, we had tremendous success. The most successful in over 100 years they say. It’s a great honor and so it gives me a very big mandate to do things properly,” Trump told him at one point in the conversation.
Subianto also told Trump, “We were all shocked when they tried to assassinate you, but we are very happy that the almighty protected you sir.”
TRUMP EXPECTED TO NAME SEN. MARCO RUBIO AS SECRETARY OF STATE
“Yes, I got very lucky. I just happened to be in the right place in the right direction otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” Trump responded. “I got quite lucky actually, somebody was protecting me I guess.”
Subianto, a former Indonesian military general and defense minister, was sworn in as the country’s eighth president on Oct. 20.
TRUMP LIKELY TO MAKE SEVERAL BORDER SECURITY MOVES ON FIRST DAY, SAYS EXPERT
“Whenever you are around you let me know and I’d like to also get to your country sometime, it’s incredible, the job that you are doing is incredible,” Trump told Subianto during the call. “You’re a very respected person and I give you credit for that, it’s not easy.”
“Please send the people of Indonesia my regards,” he added.
In a statement on X alongside the video, Subianto said, “I am looking forward to enhance the collaboration between our two great nations and to more productive discussions in the future.”
-
Culture1 week ago
Yankees’ Gerrit Cole opts out of contract, per source: How New York could prevent him from testing free agency
-
Culture1 week ago
Try This Quiz on Books That Were Made Into Great Space Movies
-
Health5 days ago
Lose Weight Without the Gym? Try These Easy Lifestyle Hacks
-
Culture4 days ago
The NFL is heading to Germany – and the country has fallen for American football
-
Business3 days ago
Ref needs glasses? Not anymore. Lasik company offers free procedures for referees
-
Technology1 week ago
Amazon’s Echo Spot alarm clock is on sale with a free color smart bulb
-
Sports4 days ago
All-Free-Agent Team: Closers and corner outfielders aplenty, harder to fill up the middle
-
News1 day ago
Herbert Smith Freehills to merge with US-based law firm Kramer Levin