International

As midterm count drags on, focus shifts to 2024 White House race

Photo: Gregg Newton / AFP

| By AFP | Chris Lefkow |

Control of the US Congress hung in the balance on Thursday as ballot-counting dragged on and attention shifted to the next big election — the 2024 presidential race — and whether Americans could see a Joe Biden-Donald Trump re-match.

With 209 seats so far, Republicans appear poised to secure a slim majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives, but control of the Senate may come down to an early December runoff in the southern state of Georgia.

Biden celebrated on Thursday what he said was the success of his Democratic Party in fending off a predicted Republican landslide in a stormy economic climate.

“For months and months, all of you heard from the press and the pundits was Democrats are facing to disaster … a giant red wave,” he said. “Folks, that didn’t happen.”

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“The American public have made it clear — they expect Republicans to work with me,” he said.

Speaking a day earlier, Biden who turns 80 this month and is already America’s oldest president, insisted he intends to run for a second term in 2024 despite calls by some members of the party for him to hand the reins over to a new generation of leaders.

He promised a final decision “early next year.”

A drubbing would have surely raised questions about whether Biden should run again. But instead he did better than his two Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who both took a hammering in their first midterms.

The 76-year-old Trump has promised a “very big announcement” in Florida on Tuesday that is expected to be the launch of his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

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Trump’s early entry into the race would appear designed in part to fend off possible criminal charges over taking top secret documents from the White House, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6 last year.

It may also be intended to undercut his chief potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who emerged as one of the biggest winners from Tuesday’s midterms.

“(Trump’s) intention is to consolidate his support early and crowd out other potential candidates,” said Jon Rogowski, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

‘Ron De-Sanctimonious’

The 44-year-old DeSantis, a Harvard- and Yale-educated lawyer, notched up a nearly 20-point victory over his Democratic opponent in the Florida governor’s race and took credit for a host of Republican victories in other races in the Sunshine State.

“We not only won election, we have rewritten the political map,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got so much more to do and I have only begun to fight.”

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While DeSantis has emerged as Trump’s main rival for the nomination, the former president continues to dominate in the polls when Republicans are asked who they want to represent the party in the 2024 White House race.

But Trump may have lost the backing of a major ally — the powerful media empire of conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

Pointing to the party’s disappointing midterms showing, The Wall Street Journal, the flagship of Murdoch’s News Corp, declared in an editorial on Thursday that “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.”

The cover of the tabloid New York Post depicted Trump on a precarious wall as “Trumpty Dumpty” who “had a great fall” in the vote, blaming him for the failure of Republicans to sweep past Democratic rivals.

It celebrated DeSantis as “DeFUTURE.”

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Trump coined his own derogatory nickname for DeSantis, a one-time ally, referring to him as “Ron De-Sanctimonious” and belittling his election victory.

“Shouldn’t it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 Million more votes in Florida than Ron D got this year, 5.7 Million to 4.6 Million?” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Just asking?”

Biden was asked by reporters on Wednesday about a Trump-DeSantis showdown.

“It’ll be fun watching them take on each other,” he said.

In the Senate, Democrat John Fetterman defeated Trump-endorsed candidate Mehmet Oz, seizing the Pennsylvania seat after the most expensive Senate race in US history.

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The final makeup of the Senate now hangs on three seats: Arizona and Nevada, where the counting of votes could take several more days, and Georgia, where there will be a December 6 runoff between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and former American football star Herschel Walker.

Even with a slim majority in the House, Republicans could stymie Biden’s legislative agenda and launch investigations into the president and his allies.

International

Paris prosecutors alert U.S. over alleged deepfake strategy linked to Elon Musk

The Paris Prosecutor’s Office said on Saturday that it had alerted authorities in the United States over suspicions that tech entrepreneur Elon Musk may have encouraged the spread of sexualized deepfake content on the social platform X to artificially boost the company’s valuation.

According to prosecutors, the controversy surrounding explicit AI-generated videos—reportedly linked to Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence system—may have been deliberately triggered to increase the market value of X and X AI.

The office added that the alleged strategy could be tied to the planned June 2026 public listing of a new entity formed through the merger of SpaceX and X AI.

French authorities said they contacted the U.S. Department of Justice as well as legal representatives at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week to share their concerns.

Responding on X in French to a report about the case, Musk referred to French prosecutors using an offensive term.

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When contacted, X’s legal representative in France did not immediately comment.

Grok, the platform’s AI system, has its own account on X, allowing users to interact with it or request content generation. For a period, users were able to tag the bot in posts to generate or edit images, a feature that may have facilitated the spread of such material.

International

Netanyahu vows to target Iran’s leadership after missile strikes in southern Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to target Iran’s leadership directly, escalating rhetoric amid ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran.

Speaking during a visit to the southern city of Arad, which was struck by an Iranian missile a day earlier, Netanyahu said Israel would intensify its response against Tehran.

“We are going after the regime. We are going after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that gang of criminals,” he told reporters while standing among the debris left by the தாக்க.

He added that Israel intends to strike “personally” at Iran’s leadership, as well as its facilities and economic assets.

In addition to Arad, Iranian missiles also hit the city of Dimona on Saturday. The area is widely believed to host Israel’s undeclared nuclear facilities. The strike caused significant damage following a direct impact.

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Netanyahu also visited Dimona, where he urged residents to strictly follow military instructions and seek shelter whenever warning sirens are activated.

“The entire nation is a front line, and the home front is also a front line. And when we are on the front line, we follow these instructions,” he said.

International

US panel backs Trump-themed coin amid controversy

The United States Department of the Treasury confirmed to AFP that the Commission of Fine Arts approved the design of a new collectible coin featuring Donald Trump, with members of the commission appointed by the current administration.

According to the proposal, the coin will feature an image of Trump standing with clenched fists over a desk on the obverse, while the reverse will display an eagle, a traditional symbol of the United States.

The sale price of the collectible has not yet been disclosed, although the United States Mint typically offers similar items for more than $1,000.

“There is no more iconic portrait for the front of these coins than that of our president Donald Trump,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement sent to AFP. He added that two additional coins — a $1 piece and a one-ounce gold coin — are also under consideration.

However, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC), another body responsible for reviewing new coin proposals, declined to discuss the Trump design in late February.

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“Only nations governed by kings or dictators place the image of a sitting leader on their currency,” said Donald Scarinciat the time. “No country in the world has minted coins featuring a democratically elected leader during their term in office,” he added.

When contacted by AFP, the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.