Jessica Elgot

The UK is examining all possible options when it comes to the US president-elect Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine, the chief secretary to the Treasury has said, as the UK’s chief of the defence staff said approximately 1,500 Russian troops were being killed and injured every day.

Whitehall officials are “considering and planning lots of different scenarios”, Darren Jones told Sky News on Sunday. During the US election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so. His vice-president nominee, JD Vance, has been vociferously opposed to providing more funds to support Ukraine.

Jones said the UK would not be stepping back from its own commitments. “We don’t want any countenance of the idea that we’re stepping back from that. That’s why we’re offering them £3bn a year, which you know, in the fiscal context here in the UK, is difficult but the right decision for us,” he said.

“Officials will be considering and planning lots of different scenarios – as they would do under any administration – to make sure that the UK is in the strongest possible position.”

However, Jones said he would not commit to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of the current parliament, saying that security and defence were a priority but that meant “trade-offs” in other areas.

Jones was also scathing about the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s offer to help the Labour government work with Donald Trump, saying:

The counterfactual here is that we do not have influence and we do not have relationships. That’s just not true.

I think [Mr Farage] should focus on working with his constituents in Clacton who deserve a bit of a full-time MP as opposed to a transatlantic commentator.”

Melissa Hellmann

Following Donald Trump’s decisive victory in this week’s presidential election, leaders of the anti-war group Uncommitted National Movement expressed their disappointment over the results, highlighting the Democratic party’s failure to listen to its base and prioritize progressive policies. Since the movement formed last winter, its leaders have urged the Democratic party to heed their demands of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to adopt an arms embargo on Israel, or risk losing their votes.

While a full picture of how Arab and Muslim Americans voted in the presidential election is still being captured, this election showed a shift among communities that had long formed the Democratic base. A majority of Muslim Americans voted for the Green party candidate Jill Stein at 53%, according to a nationwide exit poll of more than 1,500 Muslim Americans by the civil rights group Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), followed by 21% for Trump and 20% for vice-president Kamala Harris.

In Michigan, which has one of the nation’s highest Arab American and Muslim populations, 59% of Muslim Americans voted for Stein, according to the CAIR poll, while 22% cast ballots for Trump and 14% supported Harris. While exit poll data on Arab American voters is not yet available, a September poll for the non-profit group Arab American Institute found that they were evenly split between their support of Trump and Harris at 42% and 41% respectively.

Now, Uncommitted’s founders and supporters say that the election results reveal that the Democratic party has lost touch with its working class and anti-war voters. Their message for the Biden-Harris administration and Trump is clear, said Uncommitted leader and Palestinian American activist Lexis Zeidan: the movement is not over. While organizing for Palestinian rights under a Trump presidency will be an uphill battle, leaders said, they plan to continue mobilizing activists to apply pressure on the US government until it ends its support of Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since last October.

“The results of the election are really unfortunate because, with Trump taking office, there’s a reality that domestically, policies are going to get worse, and people’s rights are at stake. And we know also for Palestine and the Middle East, it’s not going to get any better. It definitely didn’t have to be this way,” said Zeidan. “Dems could have been much smarter, much more strategic and they chose to stick with the status quo rather than listening to their base of voters.”

A New York judge is set to decide this week whether president-elect Donald Trump’s criminal conviction on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star should be overturned in light of the US supreme court’s July ruling on presidential immunity.

Justice Juan Merchan has said he will make his decision by Tuesday. It is the first of two pivotal choices that the judge must make after Trump’s 5 November election victory. Merchan also must decide whether to go ahead with sentencing Trump on 26 November as currently scheduled. Legal experts have said sentencing now is unlikely to happen ahead of Trump’s 20 January inauguration.

A favourable ruling by Merchan for Trump on the immunity question or a sentencing delay would pave the way for him to return to the White House largely unencumbered by any of the four criminal cases that once appeared to threaten his ambitions.

Fema worker fired for telling Milton relief team to skip homes with Trump signs

Joanna Walters

An employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has been fired from her job and is being investigated because she told a disaster relief team she was directing in Florida after Hurricane Milton to avoid homes displaying election campaign signs supporting Donald Trump, conduct that the agency head on Saturday called “reprehensible”.

Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the federal agency, posted on X:

More than 22,000 Fema employees every day adhere to Fema’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors.”

She continued:

Recently, a Fema employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team not go to homes with yard signs supporting president-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of Fema’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”

Hurricane Milton roared across the Gulf of Mexico and hit Florida last month, crossing the state before reaching the Atlantic Ocean, just two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and then curved inland on a lethal path through Georgia and the Carolinas before dissipating in Tennessee. It killed 35 people.

The Fema employee has not yet been officially identified, but Criswell said of the actions:

This was reprehensible. I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people, this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at Fema and we will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct.”

The agency has said it understood the conduct to be an isolated incident. The Daily Wire was the first to report on the actions of the employee, a supervisor, which it said it uncovered from internal correspondence.

A senior adviser to Donald Trump said that the incoming US administration’s priority for Ukraine will be achieving peace rather than helping it regain territory captured by Russia in the almost three years of the war.

In an interview with the BBC, broadcast on Saturday, Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser to Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, began to elaborate on the strong signals the now president-elect had been sending to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the campaign trail.

Lanza said:

When Zelenskyy says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace, once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelenskyy: Crimea is gone.”

A spokesperson for Trump’s presidential transition effort said later on Saturday that Lanza had not been speaking on behalf of the president-elect.

Trump’s transition effort is currently vetting personnel and drafting the policies that Trump could adopt during his second term.

“Bryan Lanza was a contractor for the campaign. He does not work for President Trump and does not speak for him,” said the spokesperson, who declined to be named.

During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so.

Russia is open to hearing Donald Trump’s proposals on ending the war, an official said on Saturday. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said Moscow and Washington were “exchanging signals” on Ukraine via “closed channels”, according to the AP. He did not specify whether the communication was with the current administration or Trump and members of his incoming administration.

A British minister said on Sunday that the government is unlikely to ask the Reform party leader Nigel Farage to act as an intermediary to deal with US president-elect Donald Trump.

Farage is a friend of Trump and was at his election victory party in Florida. He has offered to act as an interlocutor between the UK government and the Trump administration, which takes power in January.

The Treasury minister, Darren Jones, said on Sunday that the government would probably reject that offer, reports the PA news agency.

“I think that’s probably unlikely,” he told Sky News, saying Farage, who is a member of the UK parliament, should probably spend his time with his constituents rather than in the US.

Farage said at the weekend he has “a great relationship” with Trump and would be willing to act as an intermediary for the government because it is in the national interest.

Governments around the world are trying to figure out how to deal with Trump, who has promised to increase tariffs and whose first four-year term was characterized by a protectionist trade policy and isolationist rhetoric, including threats to withdraw from Nato.

UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, delayed starting a recruitment process for a new ambassador to Washington until the result of the US election was known. The role will be crucial in the coming years in navigating the UK’s relationship with the Trump administration.

Protests against Donald Trump erupted in the US on Saturday as people on both coasts took to the streets in frustration about his re-election.

Thousands of people in major cities including New York City and Seattle demonstrated against the former president and now president-elect amid his threats against reproductive rights and pledges to carry out mass deportations at the start of his upcoming presidency.

In New York City on Saturday, demonstrators from advocacy groups focused on workers’ rights and immigrant justice crowded outside Trump International Hotel and Tower on 5th Avenue holding signs that read: “We protect us” and “Mr President, how long must women wait for liberty?” Others held signs that read: “We won’t back down” while chanting: “Here we are and we’re not leaving!”

Similar protests took place in Washington DC, where Women’s March participants demonstrated outside the Heritage Foundation, the rightwing thinktank behind Project 2025. Pictures posted on social media on Saturday showed demonstrators holding signs that read: “Well-behaved women don’t make history” and “You are never alone”. Demonstrators also chanted: “We believe that we will win!” and held other signs that read: “Where’s my liberty when I have no choice?”

Crowds of demonstrators also gathered outside Seattle’s Space Needle on Saturday. “March and rally to protest Trump and the two-party war machine,” posters for the protests said, adding: “Build the people’s movement and fight war, repression and genocide!” Speaking to a crowd of demonstrators, some of whom dressed in raincoats while others wore keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, one demonstrator said: “Any president that has come to power has also let workers down.”

Scrambling to construct an administration in the wake of his shock victory eight years ago, Donald Trump looked far beyond his inner circle, and those who ardently embraced his agenda. Not this time.

The president-elect has charged Howard Lutnick, a longtime friend, and one of the few high-profile figures in corporate America to vocally endorse his campaign, with recruiting officials who will deliver, rather than dilute, his agenda.

The CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and co-chair of Trump’s transition team, has made no secret of his plan to stack the new White House with loyalists – and keep out anyone who threatens to derail his pledges.

Last time around, Trump “picked unfortunately”, Lutnick told NewsNation last month, describing the hires he made in his first term as “freshman” mistakes. “He’s the CEO. Why would you pick someone who’s going to try to go the other direction? That would be silly.”

Lutnick, who says he talks to Trump every day, was on the sidelines in 2016 and 2020 when his friend won and lost the presidency. In 2024, he went all in – raising millions of dollars and loudly making the case for his ally’s political comeback

Trump “is going to build the greatest team to ever walk into government”, Lutnick declared to a triumphant crowd at Madison Square Garden last month, with nine days left of the campaign. As transition co-chair, he is in charge of that construction.

President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo will not be asked to join his administration, reports Reuters.

“I will not be inviting former ambassador Nikki Haley, or former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump administration, which is currently in formation,” Trump posted on social media. “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our country.”

Trump is meeting with potential candidates to serve in his administration before his 20 January inauguration as president. Reuters reported on Friday that Trump met prominent investor Scott Bessent, who is a potential US Treasury secretary nominee.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, endorsed Trump for president despite having criticized him harshly when she ran against him in the party primaries, reports Reuters.

“I was proud to work with President Trump defending America at the United Nations,” Haley wrote on X. “I wish him, and all who serve, great success in moving us forward to a stronger, safer America over the next four years.”

Pompeo, who also served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under Trump, had been mentioned in some media reports as a possible defense secretary and was also seen as a potential Republican presidential candidate, before he announced in April 2023 he would not run.

Pompeo could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday, according to Reuters.

Separately, Trump said the 2025 presidential inauguration will be co-chaired by real estate investor and campaign donor Steve Witkoff and former Senator Kelly Loeffler.

Republican US representative Eli Crane won reelection in a Republican-leaning congressional district covering vast swaths of rural Arizona, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Crane faced Democrat Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation president, in the second district race. Nez was vying to become the first Native American to represent Arizona in Congress.

In a statement late Saturday, Crane commended Nez for entering the race and thanked voters. Crane wrote:

I will continue using every tool in my arsenal to fight against the corruption and selfish interests of the DC elites to put rural Arizonans FIRST.

I’m laser-focused on working with President Trump to lower inflation, secure the border and return to peace through strength.”

The district covers much of north-eastern Arizona and dips south to the northern Tucson suburbs.

Nez said in a statement late on Saturday that he called Crane to congratulate him on a hard-fought victory. “Although we didn’t get the outcome we hoped for, the work we began together is not over,” Nez wrote.

Crane, a former Navy Seal who served in the military for 13 years, is a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a staunch ally of president-elect Donald Trump, who won Arizona. Crane was among eight US House Republicans nationally who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker in 2023.

Donald Trump won the presidential election in Arizona, the Associated Press (AP) declared on Saturday, completing a clean sweep of all seven battleground states and locking in a decisive electoral college victory over the Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris.

Trump, who had secured the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House by early Wednesday, now has what is expected to be a final total of 312 votes to Harris’s 226.

The win returned the state to the Republican column after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and marked Trump’s second victory in Arizona since 2016. Trump had campaigned on border security and the economy, tying Harris to inflation and record illegal border crossings during Biden’s administration.

Trump has also won the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by winning six of the seven swing states – he narrowly lost North Carolina – and won 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232.

Trump also won 306 in his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.

The Ap said Trump has won 74.6m votes nationwide, or 50.5%, to Harris’ 70.9m, or 48%.

Meanwhile, Republican US representative Eli Crane won reelection to a US House seat representing Arizona’s second congressional district. The freshman lawmaker defeated former Navajo Nation president, Jonathan Nez, who was vying to become the state’s first Native American representative.

In a statement late on Saturday, Crane commended Nez for entering the race and thanked voters.

More on that in a moment, but first, here are the latest developments in US politics:

• Protests against Trump erupted in the US on Saturday as people on both coasts took to the streets in frustration about his re-election. Thousands of people in major cities including New York City and Seattle demonstrated against the former president and now president-elect amid his threats against reproductive rights and pledges to carry out mass deportations at the start of his upcoming presidency.

• Biden and Trump will meet on Wednesday in the Oval Office, the White House announced on Saturday. “At President Biden’s invitation, President Biden and president-elect Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday,” the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement.

• Republicans on Saturday appeared close to clinching control of the US House of Representatives, a critical element for Trump to advance his agenda when the president-elect returns to the White House in January. The AP reported that three US House races in Arizona were too early to call on Saturday, most notably the first and sixth congressional districts.

• The president-elect has charged Howard Lutnick, a longtime friend, and one of the few high-profile figures in corporate America to vocally endorse his campaign, with recruiting officials who will deliver, rather than dilute, his agenda. The CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and co-chair of Trump’s transition team, has made no secret of his plan to stack the new White House with loyalists – and keep out anyone who threatens to derail his pledges.

• A senior adviser to Trump said that the incoming US administration’s priority for Ukraine will be achieving peace rather than helping it regain territory captured by Russia in the almost three years of the war. In an interview with the BBC, broadcast on Saturday, Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser to Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, said: “When Zelenskyy says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace, once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelenskyy: Crimea is gone.”

• An employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has been fired from her job and is being investigated because she told a disaster relief team she was directing in Florida after Hurricane Milton to avoid homes displaying election campaign signs supporting Trump, conduct that the agency head on Saturday called “reprehensible”.