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Trump declares victory as he closes in on 270

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From The Center Square

Results in the seven battlegrounds – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada – were expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race between Republican nominee Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Trump has won at least three and leads in the other four.

Former President Donald Trump declared victory early Wednesday as he closed in on the 270 Electoral College votes needed to security the presidency.

Trump would be the 47th U.S. president after serving as its 45th.

As votes were counted, it was clear Trump had the momentum as each state reported results. In a stunning comeback, the former president will win after surviving two assassination attempts and as he faces four separate criminal prosecutions that were launched after he left the White House in 2021.

Trump won in the key swing states of North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania and surged to leads in the other key swing states.

With North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, Georgia’s 16 and Pennsylvania’s 19, Trump is at 267, just three shy of securing the White House. Fox News called Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday, but other major outlets have not yet followed suit.

If Wisconsin’s do go to Trump, that would put him at 277, enough to win the race. Alaska and its three electoral votes, where Trump had a 14 percentage point lead with 51% of votes reporting as of 2:15 a.m. Eastern, also would be added.

Trump also leads the national popular vote, 51.2% to 47.4%. In 2016, when Trump won the White House over Hillary Clinton, and in 2020, when he lost his reelection bid to President Joe Biden, Trump lost the national popular vote.

Results in the seven battlegrounds – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada – were expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race between Republican nominee Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Trump has won at least three and leads in the other four.

After North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania fell in Trump’s favor, as of 2:30 a.m. Eastern, the former president holds leads over Harris in Wisconsin, 51.3%-47.3%, with 90% of votes counted; in Michigan, 52.5% to 45.8% with 73% of returns reported; in Arizona, 50.3% to 48.9% with 52% of votes counted; and in Nevada, 51.6% to 46.7% with 80% in.

National media outlets are projecting Trump has already secured 248 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the election. Trump won in Idaho, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Arkansas, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma and Kentucky.

Harris has secured 216 electoral votes by winning in California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Hawaii, Maine, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, Vermont, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island.

Cedric Richmond, co-chairman of the Harris campaign, addressed supporters early Wednesday, saying there were still plenty of votes to be counted. He also said Harris would not be making a statement until later Wednesday.

None of the called races are surprises.

As The Center Square reported Monday, Trump and Harris were virtually tied nationally going in to Election Day, according to Real Clear Politics’ polling average. More than 150 million Americans are expected to cast ballots this election.

Among the swing states that will decide the outcome, RCP had Trump leading Arizona by 2.5 points, Georgia by 1.9 points, Nevada by 1 point, North Carolina by 1.5 points, and Pennsylvania by 0.3 points.

In the same averaging of recent polls, Harris led Michigan by 1.2 points and Wisconsin by 0.4 points.

It remains to be seen if voters will know a winner by Wednesday morning.

​Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at [email protected].

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Business

Trump says ‘nicer,’ ‘kinder’ tariffs will generate federal revenue

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From The Center Square

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President Donald Trump says the slate of tariffs he plans to announce Wednesday will be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than other countries have treated the U.S.

Trump plans to unveil reciprocal tariffs on all nations that put duties on U.S. imports Wednesday, which the president has been calling “Liberation Day” for American trade.

Trump’s latest comments on tariffs come as he aims to reshape the global economy to reduce U.S. trade deficits and generate billions in federal revenue through higher taxes on imported products.

Trump’s trade policies have upended U.S. and global markets, but the president has yet to get into specifics ahead of Wednesday’s planned announcement.

At the start of March, Trump told a joint session of Congress that he planned to put reciprocal tariffs in place starting April 2.

“Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them. Whatever they tax us, we tax them,” Trump said. “If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.”

On Sunday night, Trump said on Air Force One that U.S. tariffs would be “nicer,” “kinder” and “more generous” than how other countries have treated the U.S.

Last week, Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported automobiles, duties that he said would be “permanent.” The White House said it expects the auto tariffs on cars and light-duty trucks will generate up to $100 billion in federal revenue. Trump said eventually he hopes to bring in $600 billion to $1 trillion in tariff revenue in the next year or two. Trump also said the tariffs would lead to a manufacturing boom in the U.S., with auto companies building new plants, expanding existing plants and adding jobs.

Trump predicts his protectionist trade policies will create jobs, make the nation rich and help reduce both trade deficits and the federal government’s persistent deficits.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs come after months of talk since Trump took office in January. On the campaign trail, Trump frequently called “tariff” the most beautiful word in the English language.

James Dorn, senior fellow emeritus at the Cato Institute, said Trump’s rhetoric on tariffs doesn’t match the economic reality of Americans.

“Tariffs expand the scope of government, politicize economic life, increase uncertainty, and reduce individual freedom,” he wrote. “Government officials gain arbitrary power while market participants face fewer opportunities for mutually beneficial exchanges and greater uncertainty as the rules of the game change.”

Dorn said consumers would pay the price.

“Tariffs are levied on U.S. importers as goods – both final and intermediate –subject to the tariff enter the country,” he wrote. “Importers and consumers typically end up paying the tariffs, as they cut into profit margins and drive consumer prices up.”

Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Farm Bureau Federation, have urged Trump to back off tariff threats.

Trump has promised that his tariffs would shift the tax burden away from Americans and onto foreign countries, but tariffs are generally paid by the people who import the foreign products. Those importers then have a choice: absorb the loss or pass it on to consumers through higher prices. The president also promised tariffs would make America “rich as hell.”

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Daily Caller

Biden Administration Was Secretly More Involved In Ukraine Than It Let On, Investigation Reveals

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

The U.S was far more directly involved in aiding Ukrainian forces against Russia than previously understood, a New York Times investigation revealed Monday.

American backing of Ukraine was an instrumental piece in forces of the eastern European nation wounding or killing more than 700,000 Russian soldiers during the course of the war, according to the NYT. Methods the U.S. used to aid Ukraine included giving target information while officially obfuscating their nature, dispatching American advisers close to the frontlines and sweeping oversight over its use of missile systems granted by officials.

One European intelligence official was taken aback as to how deep U.S. involvement was, telling the NYT that American officials had become “part of the kill chain.”

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Ukrainian officials met in Wiesbaden in Spring 2022, the headquarters of the U.S. European Command, to discuss strategy with U.S. forces and the extent to which the U.S. would aid the Ukrainians.

During the meeting, U.S. European Command settled with Ukrainian officials that they would reportedly dispense target locations as “points of interest” to the Ukrainians, not officially calling them “targets” as they believed the language would be too “provocative.”

“If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” a U.S. official told the NYT. Most artillery strikes were carried out with the M777 Howitzer system, in part provided by the U.S.

Due to diplomatic risks, the Biden administration wanted to share intel in the most plausibly deniable way possible, with a total restriction on sharing the whereabouts of Russian military figures and targets on Russian soil, one senior U.S. official told the NYT. The information shared would have to adhere to NATO guidelines of intel sharing to not provoke the Russian’s ire against other nations in the alliance.

“Imagine how that would be for us if we knew that the Russians helped some other country assassinate our chairman,” the official told the NYT. “Like, we’d go to war.”

European Command also had sweeping oversight of the Ukrainian use of the HIMARS missile system, the Americans retaining the ability to shut off the activation key cards required to fire the missiles, according to the NYT. HIMARS strikes regularly resulted in hundreds of Russian deaths weekly.

Advisers regularly made visits to the frontlines of the war, referred to as “subject matter experts” in their official capacity, according to the NYT. Their official names only changed back to “advisers” once Ukrainian leadership changed, which was also followed by a threefold increase in advisers.

Despite the deep cooperation, there was often tension between the U.S. and Ukraine, with Kiev often accusing the Americans of being overbearing, while the Americans questioned why sometimes Ukrainians did not heed their advice, according to the NYT.

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