Speaking at an address to supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump affirmed that his win will help the country “heal.”…reports Asian Lite News
Republican nominee Donald Trump early on Wednesday morning hailed his countrymen as results of the high stakes presidential elections projected his victory which set poised to return him to the White House after securing a electoral college victory.
Speaking at an address to supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump affirmed that his win will help the country “heal.”
Addressing the crowd accompanied by his running mate, JD Vance, and family members Trump called his projected win the “greatest political movement of all time” which will help in making “America great again.” “This is a movement like nobody has seen before. This was the greatest political movement of all time. There’s nothing like this ever in this country…we are gonna help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and needs help very badly. We are gonna fix our borders, we are gonna fix everything about our country,” Trump said.
According to the latest projections called by Fox News, Trump has won 277 electoral votes, well above the 270 threshold needed to win the presidency. Trump flipped the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Georgia and he continues to lead Michigan.
Notably, this is going to be only the second instance of a president serving two non-consecutive terms in the White House. This is only the second instance and the first in over 100 years of a leader winning the presidency after losing once. Grover Cleveland served as non-consecutive president in 1884 and 1892.
In his address Trump expressed gratitude to the people and said he won’t rest until he delivers a “strong, safe and prosperous America.”
“We made history for a reason tonight, and the reason gonna be just that. We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible. We have achieved the most incredible thing. It’s a political victory that the country has never seen before. I thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th President and 45th President,” Trump said.
“I will fight for you, your family and your future. I will not rest until we have delivered a strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve This will truly be the golden age of America. This is a magnificent victory for the American people, and it will help us to make America Great Again,” he added.
In his address, he invoked God and how he survived assasinaton attempt against him in Pennsylvania this July when a bullet grazed his ear. “God spared my life for a reason” said Trump.
He pointed out that was because God wanted to “save our country and restore America to greatness. And now we’re going to fulfill that mission together,” he told supporters.
“The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fight that I have in my soul to the job that you’ve entrusted to me,” Trump said.
Republicans will win at least 50 seats in the Senate of the US Congress by the end of the elections, as estimated by Fox News. As per CNN projections, candidates from the Democratic Party are winning the elections for the governors in only three of the ten states where the counting is already underway. (ANI)
The market trend remained positive. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1,409 stocks were trading in green while 840 stocks were trading in red…reports Asian Lite News
The Indian stock market opened flat on Tuesday as buying was seen in metal, auto IT, PSU bank and pharma sectors during the early trade, as investors turned their attention to the closely-fought US election.
The Sensex was trading at 78,714.02 after slipping 68.22 points or 0.09 per cent in early trade. At the same time, the Nifty was trading at 23,989.50 after slipping 5.85 points or 0.02 per cent.
The market trend remained positive. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1,409 stocks were trading in green while 840 stocks were trading in red.
Nifty Bank was at 51,123.70 after falling 91.55 points or 0.18 per cent. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 55,720.55 after slipping 64 points or 0.11 per cent. The Nifty Small cap 100 index was at 18,378.65 after slipping 46 points or 0.25 per cent.
ITC, L&T, infosys, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Bajaj Finance, ITC and Power Grid were the top losers in the Sensex pack. JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma, HCL Tech, Tata Motors and IndusInd Bank were the top gainers.
According to market experts, with all attention focused on the outcome of the US presidential election, perhaps the more important domestic economic issue is not getting the importance it deserves
“It is important to understand that India’s underperformance is striking: while S&P 500 is up 20.45 per cent year-to-date, Nifty is up by only 10.36 per cent YTD. Clearly, domestic issues are weighing on markets,” they said.
In Asian markets, except for Seoul and Jakarta markets, the markets of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok were trading in green.
The US stock markets closed in the red on the previous trading day in the election week. When voters go to the polling stations on Tuesday, they will have to decide between the top issues presented by Kamala Harris – abortion and character – or Donald Trump – immigration and the economy.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 4,329 crore on November 4, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 2,936 crore on the same day.
“Investors can opt for the safe strategy of remaining invested and accumulating stocks in segments which can weather the volatility,” advised experts.
In his Virginia constituency, Suhas Subramanyam had 52.1 per cent of the votes to 47.9 per cent for his Republican rival with 97 per cent of the votes counted…reports Asian Lite News
Suhas Subramanyam is on his way to Congress where he will join the ‘Samosa Caucus’, the group of Indian American lawmakers, boosting its strength to six.
In his Virginia constituency, he had 52.1 per cent of the votes to 47.9 per cent for his Republican rival with 97 per cent of the votes counted.
He was declared the winner by The Associated Press, which calls elections based on the counting data before the official announcement.
Subramanyam now serves in the Virginia General Assembly after having been a technology policy adviser in President Barack Obama’s White House and starting a business.
His mother is from Bengaluru and his father is from Chennai.
Subramanyam got his undergraduate degree from Tulane University and went to work on Capitol Hill as a policy aide, where he worked to expand and improve health care access to millions of Americans [and] helped build a bipartisan coalition in support of immigration reform,” according to his campaign biography.
After a Law degree from Northwestern University, he joined the White House staff.
He contested the election on his record of helping small businesses and working families and promoting laws to bring down medicine prices.
Suhas and his wife Miranda Peña Subramanyam have two daughters.
All the five Indian Americans in the House of Representatives – Ro Khanna, Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Shri Thaneda – are expected to be re-elected.
Amish Shah, another Democrat, running for the House from Arizona had a slender lead of 1.8 per cent with 54 per cent of the votes at 11:30 p.m. in New York (10 a.m. in India).
Many believe a criminal conviction will either throw Trump out of the presidential race or discredit him enough to ensure his defeat, writes Ashis Ray
Narendra Modi did his best to ingratiate himself with Trump. He hugged the besieged former US president like his life depended on it. He campaigned for his re-election, in a way most unbecoming of another head of government. He laid out a red carpet for him in India for the benefit of audiences in the US.
That object of adoration has today dubiously become the first American president, current or erstwhile, to be accused in a criminal trial. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for the US presidency contest in November, is charged with concealing information regarding the payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress, to safeguard his bid for the White House in 2016.
The money was allegedly paid to Trump’s then lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to the offence in 2018. He is expected to be one of the prosecution’s explosive witnesses. There are 34 charges of felony against Trump. He is indicted of falsifying his company’s accounts to show the payments to Cohen as legal expenses.
Under US law, it is not illegal to have extramarital sex or pay hush money to conceal this. (Trump has denied having a sexual rendezvous with Daniels.) It is, though, a crime not to disclose the outgoings according to their actual purpose.
Donald Trump and Narendra Modi NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas
More seriously, such an offence violates the election laws in America. In addition to the proceedings underway in New York City, the former head of State and government in the US is confronted by federal allegations of inciting an insurrection on 6 January 2021 to unconstitutionally hang on to office, of purloining and then concealing classified documents in his Florida home after leaving the White House and of attempting to subvert the 2020 election result in Georgia state.
If the statements and depositions in the first few days are any indication of the shape of things to come— in what is expected to be a six-week trial—the gloves are off. The first prosecution witness was a grey-haired, moustachioed David Pecker, previously publisher of American Media Inc., which brought out the National Enquirer, on the basis that he collaborated to protect Trump from adverse publicity of his salacious past during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The alleged arrangement was that he would inform Trump and Cohen if he detected any harmful stories. As a result, he acquired rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that Trump had sex with her, but suppressed its publication until after the 2016 election.
He operated what has been described as a ‘catch-and-kill’ scheme. In other words, he acquired stories, but either buried them or kept them in cold storage. “We used chequebook journalism,” Pecker told the court, “and we paid for stories.”
CNN reported: ‘Trump sat motionless as he looked at his one-time ally divulge details about the scheme that has put him in serious legal jeopardy.’ Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Pecker how Trump reacted when told he would run negative stories about Bill and Hilary Clinton (his 2016 Democratic party opponent). “He was pleased,” Pecker replied.
There was no written contract between the two. “It was just an agreement among friends,” the publisher said. And it was ‘confidential’. Pecker narrated that in August 2015, Cohen called to say “the boss (Trump) wanted to see me”.
He deposed: “At that meeting, Donald [Trump] and Michael [Cohen] asked me what can I do and what my magazines could do to help the campaign. “So, thinking about it, as I did previously, I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents (in the primaries) and I said that I would also be the eyes and ears because I know that the Trump organisation had a very small staff.”
This was, as prosecutor Matthew Colangelo put it, “a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures—to silence people with something bad to say about his behaviour”.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche countered: “There’s nothing wrong in trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.” While Trump was tied down in court, visibly jolted by the chastening experience, his opponent in November’s presidential contest— incumbent president Joe Biden—hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania and Florida, states he respectively won narrowly and lost four years ago.
This was accompanied by a ballistic advertising campaign, which he can afford, given the war chest at his disposal. On the other hand, Trump is struggling to raise funds, not to mention haemorrhaging expenses in lost civil suits and legal costs.
The upshot is that Biden is reported to have neutralised the lead that opinion surveys had hitherto given Trump in the decisive swing states. Trump has milked his court appearances in the past year to his benefit, however.
A sizeable section of Americans believes he is being unjustifiably hounded for political gains, rather than the law simply taking its course. However, before the trial unfolded, a New York Times– Sienna poll found that a majority of voters thought the allegations against him were somewhat serious. In a Reuters–Ipsos survey, 13 per cent of potential Trump voters said they would not vote for him if he was convicted of a felony.
A sampling by Harvard Youth indicated that if Trump is declared guilty on any of the four criminal trials, Biden’s lead would increase. Conviction for felony, even if it leads to a jail sentence, would not debar Trump from standing for president. But if found guilty in the federal indictments, he would be disqualified from running for any office.
The US judicial system is inordinately dilatory in arriving at a trial. Yet, once it reaches this stage, it has the ability to move in a fairly business- like manner. While he is stuck in court, Trump is unable to campaign or raise money for his bid.
If the hearing concludes within a reasonable period, the sword of Damocles will hang over his head even if he appeals against a conviction. It is widely speculated that besides Cohen, Daniels herself and perhaps McDougal will testify.
The trial, though, is not being televised. Instead, there’s live coverage from outside the courthouse, providing interested people a daily blow-by-blow account of the drama within, juxtaposed with commentary from pundits and spokespersons. It is a thriller for non-partisans; but arguably tense and agonising for the committed.
A delayed judgement against him in this matter—given the ponderous scheduling procedure in America — could mean he may not face a trial in the most threatening cases against him before the presidential election in November.
In 2002, Trump’s Republican predecessor at the White House, George Bush, labelled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the “axis of evil”. But in a world currently plagued by destabilising figures like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Benjamin Netanyahu—not to mention India’s own Modi—the return of a Trump to power is a worrying thought.
It’s not ideal to stop him with a criminal conviction that eliminates him from running for office or discredits him sufficiently to be defeated. But the right-thinking US citizens and the international community can hardly object.
