Trump casts doubt on Democrats’ midterm election victory: ‘Does anybody really believe this ‘election’ was honest’
After initially saying he would accept the results of the midterm elections, that saw Democrats flip dozens of seats and win control of Congress, Donald Trump has begun to cast doubt on the Republican drubbing.
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” he wrote on Truth Social. “How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote.”
The president also repeated his baseless aspersions that that voting machines are unreliable. “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!” Trump wrote.
Voting rights experts were initially concerned that the president and Republican allies would contest the midterm results, but after the seismic victory from Democrats last week Trump appeared to concede.
After last week’s elections, Trump said and his administration “look forward” to working with Democrats as they prepare to take control of both chambers of Congress. “We’ll probably work something out,” he told the New York Times.
In that same interview, he told the Times that he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the midterm elections.
Key events
Democrats flip the state house in Georgia
Democrats have flipped the Georgia state House, the Associated Press reported on Monday.
As of Monday, Democrats had won 91 House seats and Republicans 86, per the AP.
The state House in Georgia has been Republican-controlled since 2005. The flip comes as Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won the governorship in Georgia last week.
Pete Hegseth to hold a press conference tomorrow
Pete Hegseth has announced that he will hold a press conference tomorrow morning, marking the first Pentagon press conference since May.
Hegseth was asked by reporters on Monday whether he thinks he has enough Republican support to defeat the impeachment articles, Hegseth said, “We’re not worried about that.”
“Actually, I hope all of you will join us, we’re going to do a press conference tomorrow morning at the Pentagon on that very topic,” he continued. “So I’ll save my remarks there.”
Representative Don Bacon, a Republican of Nebraska, told reporters on Monday that he is “weighing” the articles of impeachment against Hegseth that were introduced by Representative Thomas Massie.
“We have eight articles, and I’m not very sympathetic to those articles, I feel like Iran’s waged war against us for 47 years, I don’t think the president’s done a good job at times, he never sought bipartisan support, which is a mistake, but I see a need to have gone into Iran” he told CNN. “But the areas that concern me most about the secretary aren’t in the articles of impeachment, the firing and redlining of 80 generals…admirals, the withholding appropriated money all year for Ukraine.”
He continued, “there’s a bunch of us talking about it, so this is, you know, Congressman Massie’s impeachment, he’s got more of a libertarian spirit to his write up, and I think some of us don’t feel comfortable with his justifications but I think there’s other ones out there, so I think that’s what we’re grappling with.”
Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, today directed an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s Professional Military Education (PME) system.
A news release from the DoD states that “the directive reverses decades of academic drift, eliminating ideological distractions in favor of joint warfighting mastery, decision-forcing rigor, and competitive wargaming”.
“Under these new guidelines, the Department will evaluate military schools by a singular, uncompromising standard: ‘Does this program forge leaders who will win America’s wars?’” the announcement adds.
Some of the changes include establishing “warfighter chair” positions at all senior colleges, replacing “subjective seminar grading with rigorous, standardized end-of-course wargames and comprehensive exams to test tactical and strategic mastery” and eliminating “lifetime tenure and emeritus status for newly hired civilian faculty, shifting instead to three-year, performance-based contracts evaluated on teaching effectiveness and national security research.”
Democrat Chuck Schumer says Trump’s ‘return to election denialism was inevitable’
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer has responded to Trump’s statement earlier today casting doubt on the midterm election results, saying that the president’s “return to election denialism was inevitable”.
Schumer added: “He can whine all he wants, but nothing will stop this inescapable truth: For the last two years of his presidency, Trump will face the largest Democratic congressional majorities in decades, all because he has been an unprecedented failure”
Commerce department stopped investigation into data company led by alleged Chinese spy after Nvidia intervention – report
A commerce department investigation into Megaspeed – the data company led by Singaporean executive suspected of being a Chinese spy – was halted after Nvidia’s general counsel intervened, according to a report by the New York Times.
This comes amid a probe Nvidia launched into Jensen Huang, the company’s CEO and founder, after he revealed that he had an marital relationship with the Megaspeed executive, Alice Huang (no relation).
According to the Times, Tim Teter, Nvidia’s general counsel, contacted the investigators at commerce department to inform them that their boss, Jeff Kessler – a top official – had given Teter permission to request details about their probe into Megaspeed. The case focused on whether the company was smuggling Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips into China.
According to current and former government officials, and others familiar with the incident, that the Times spoke to, some viewed Kessler’s interaction with Nvidia as violating government procedure and potentially tainting the investigation.
The case was eventually transferred to the justice department late last year, but questions remain about Kessler’s discussions with Nvidia, and what information he subsequently relayed to Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary or the wider Trump administration.
According to the Times’ sources, the justice department is conducting a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed.
Richard Luscombe
Joe Biden will undertake only limited promotion of his upcoming White House memoir because of advancing cancer, the former president said in a social media post on Sunday night.
His new book, Promise Me America, which will be published on 17 November, is Biden’s account of a one-term presidency that began in 2021 in the shadow of the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump eager to overturn the outgoing Republican president’s defeat by his Democratic rival in the 2020 election.
The deadly invasion of the Capitol as Congress was due to meet to certify Biden’s victory, after a rally near the White House where Trump urged his supporters to go to Congress and “fight” for him, remains a historic shame such that Biden in his book says of the current president that it “should follow him to his grave”.
In the post on X, Biden – who was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer in May 2025, four months after leaving office – said the number of speaking engagements he can manage in support of his book’s publication will be limited.
“Some days are better than others,” he said. “It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down. What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped.”
Instead, Biden said: “I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves”. He said he and his wife, Jill, were touched and grateful for the support of the American people since his condition became known.
The memoir takes an extensive look at the deadly violence in Washington DC fomented by supporters of Trump, who was seeking to remain in office after his defeat by Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Meanwhile, the incoming class of freshmen senators who won their elections last week are on Capitol Hill for orientation meetings. This includes several Democrats who made history with their election victories.
Here are some pictures of them arriving.
Trump casts doubt on Democrats’ midterm election victory: ‘Does anybody really believe this ‘election’ was honest’
After initially saying he would accept the results of the midterm elections, that saw Democrats flip dozens of seats and win control of Congress, Donald Trump has begun to cast doubt on the Republican drubbing.
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” he wrote on Truth Social. “How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote.”
The president also repeated his baseless aspersions that that voting machines are unreliable. “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!” Trump wrote.
Voting rights experts were initially concerned that the president and Republican allies would contest the midterm results, but after the seismic victory from Democrats last week Trump appeared to concede.
After last week’s elections, Trump said and his administration “look forward” to working with Democrats as they prepare to take control of both chambers of Congress. “We’ll probably work something out,” he told the New York Times.
In that same interview, he told the Times that he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the midterm elections.
Congress returns to Capitol Hill as funding deadline looms
House and Senate lawmakers are back in Washington after Democrats’ swept Republicans out of Congress in the midterm elections. This means that the remaining weeks in-session are likely to be ineffective as the GOP prepare to lost control. However, members do have one key deadline – 11 December.
This is when government funding, which was extended by a continuing resolution in September, lapses. Both chambers will have to hammer out another stopgap spending fill to avert a shutdown before Democrats take control in the new year.
We’re also bringing you the latest as we get the final US House race results – where currently Democrats have a 92-seat majority. There are 19 races that still have to be called, so as we get the latest result counts we’ll provide an update.
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