Ranked choice voting suffered a blow as several states, including Nevada, Oregon, Colorado and Idaho rejected measures last week. 

In Colorado, Proposition 131 would have created an open primary system for candidates of any party and the top four vote-getters would move on to the general election, after voters ranked their choices from first to last. 

‘The ranked choice voting movement has pushed really hard to convince everyone it’s a great idea,’ data scientist Seth Werfel told Colorado Public Radio. ‘It has some merits but it’s not a slam dunk, and I think voters are skeptical of anything that they can’t immediately understand.’

In Idaho, Proposition 1 would also have ended the party primary system. 

It was rejected by nearly 70% of the voters. 

‘You need a scandal, you need corruption, you need something that’s happening statewide to make the case to pass something complicated like this,’ CalTech professor Michael Alvarez told Boise State Public Radio. ‘I’m not super deeply immersed in the politics of these various states, but I don’t see that common ‘why’ there.’

Oregon’s ranked choice voting measure, Proposition 117, was rejected by 58% of the voters. 

‘Voters this year were reluctant to make dramatic changes to the way they vote,’ Chandler James, who teaches political science at the University of Oregon, told Oregon Public Radio. ‘But I don’t think that it spells the end for ranked choice voting in the future.’

A similar measure in Nevada was rejected by 53% of voters. The same measure was passed by nearly 6% in 2022, but Nevada measures that require amendments to the state constitution don’t go into effect until they’re passed in two consecutive elections, according to the Nevada Independent. 

Ranked choice voting is already used statewide in Alaska and Maine and places like New York City, but in Alaska a measure to repeal it looks like it could pass narrowly. Hawaii uses ranked choice voting for some special elections. 

And in Missouri, voters approved a constitutional amendment banning ranked choice voting. 

‘We believe in the one person, one vote system of elections that our country was founded upon,’ Missouri state Sen. Ben Brown, who sponsored the measure, previously said in an interview, according to NPR. 

Other states that have bans on ranked choice voting include Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Florida. 

In an unusual assurance to the Biden administration last month, Iran promised it would not assassinate Donald Trump in a secret exchange intended to ease tensions, U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal, according to a Friday report. 

The assurances reportedly came in a written message to the administration on Oct. 14, after the White House in September said it would take any attempt on Trump’s life as a serious national security that would reportedly ‘be treated as an act of war.’

The Department of Justice last week outlined allegations levied at Tehran that detailed a plot by an Iranian agent to assassinate the former president from the campaign trail.

The allegations came after a Pakistani man involved in an Iranian murder-for-hire scheme was charged by federal prosecutors in August with plotting to kill Trump.

Fox News Digital could not immediately reach the White House for comment on how it will act following the department’s charges last week.

Iran has long said it would seek revenge for the 2020 killing of its top military commander and chief of Iran’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated after then President Trump directed the U.S. military to kill him in Iraq.

Soleimani has since been dubbed a hero and a martyr. 

In response to the news that Iran has since pledged not to assassinate the now president-elect, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations told Fox News Digital, ‘We do not issue public statements on the details of official messages exchanged between the two countries.’

‘The Islamic Republic of Iran has long declared its commitment to pursuing Martyr Soleimani’s assassination through legal and judicial avenues, while adhering to the recognized principles of international law,’ the Mission added. 

The White House has not publicly commented on the report, and Fox News Digital could not immediately reach Trump’s transition team for the president-elect’s reaction to it. 

The Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, appeared to dismiss the Department of Justice’s allegations, calling the claims ‘third-rate comedy’ earlier this week.

President-elect Trump made it official on Friday, announcing that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will lead the U.S. Department of the Interior.

‘I am thrilled to announce that Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota, will be joining my Administration as both Secretary of the Interior and, as Chairman of the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council, which will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy,’ Trump said in a news release Friday, fewer than 24 hours after he spilled the beans on Bergum’s appointment during an America First Policy Institute and America First Works gala Thursday evening at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

The president-elect said in the statement that the newly formed National Energy Council ‘will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.’

In a X post following the announcement, Burgum said that he was ‘deeply grateful’ for the nomination.

‘I’m deeply grateful to President @RealDonaldTrump for this amazing opportunity to serve the American people and achieve ENERGY DOMINANCE!’ he said.

Trump lauded Bergum on Thursday.  

‘He’s going to head the Department of Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic,’ Trump said. ‘We’re going to reduce regulation waste, fraud and inefficiency,’ Trump said. ‘We’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken and failing bureaucracies. And we’re going to stop child sexual mutilation. We’re going to stop it because it’s time.’

Burgum, a multi-millionaire former software company CEO turned two-term governor, launched a White House bid in June 2023. 

Burgum made energy and natural resources a key part of his campaign for the GOP nomination.

After making the stage at the first two GOP presidential debates, Burgum failed to qualify for the third showdown, in autumn of last year, and he dropped out of the White House race last December. A month later, he appeared in Iowa with Trump and endorsed the former president for the GOP nomination, days ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Burgum became a high profile surrogate for the former president, appearing on the campaign trail and in media hits on Trump’s behalf.

He was in consideration as Trump’s running mate this past summer before Sen. JD Vance of Ohio was picked as the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee.

Burgum, in an interview with ‘Fox and Friends’ last week, said Trump’s election victory was ‘game changing’ and that ‘we’ve got a new sheriff in town.’ 

The governor added that a Trump victory also ‘means that America is going to be dominant in energy.’

‘America is going to be dominant in energy which is key to all the diplomacy we do all over the world,’ he said.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wants the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to be abolished, but described the prospect as ‘unlikely,’ he told Politico.

‘I’d like to eliminate it,’ Paul told the outlet. ‘The First Amendment is pretty important, that’s why we listed it as the First Amendment, and I would have liked to, at the very least, eliminate their ability to censor content online.’

‘While it’s unlikely we could get rid of CISA, we survived for what, 248 years without them,’ Paul said, according to Politico. ‘I think a lot of what they do is intrusive, and I’d like to end their intrusions into the First Amendment.’

‘CISA does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship,’ CISA senior adviser for public affairs Ron Eckstein asserted in a statement, according to the outlet. ‘Such allegations are riddled with factual inaccuracies. Every day, the men and women of CISA execute the agency’s mission of reducing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure in a way that protects Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties and privacy,’ he asserted.

CISA was established in 2018 during President-elect Trump’s White House tenure. 

‘On November 16, 2018, the President signed into law the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018,’ which established CISA, according to cisa.gov.

Republicans won the Senate majority during the 2024 election, and Paul, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, is slated to become the chair during the next session of Congress. 

‘I chose to chair this Committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role,’ the senator noted, according to a press release. 

‘This Committee’s mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself. Our first hearing will examine reinstating the successful Remain in Mexico policy from the first Trump Administration,’ he said.

Paul has served in the Senate since 2011.

Fox News Digital has reached out to CISA for comment.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., won unanimous approval from Republican lawmakers earlier this week to lead the House of Representatives next year, but some conservatives are warning that he still has an uphill climb before the House-wide election in January.

‘I think there’s still a lot of people that, as a favor to President Trump, didn’t request a vote, but it remains to be seen,’ Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

‘I’m going to be ready to get ready to govern, but he has a lot of people not committed. But as a favor to President Trump, we didn’t object.’

Johnson won a unanimous voice vote to be the Republicans’ speaker nominee on Wednesday, hours after President-elect Donald Trump told GOP lawmakers he was fully backing the Louisiana Republican.

The speaker was the only candidate in the race after it was revealed that Republicans managed to keep the chamber for another two years.

Just a day earlier, GOP hardliners were threatening to force a vote via secret ballot to delay the process and keep Johnson from winning the speaker nomination unanimously in protest of his handling of government spending.

It never materialized, but two conservatives who spoke with Fox News Digital also said there could still be holdouts in January.

With just a razor-thin majority expected in the House, Johnson may have to work to avoid a messy, protracted battle for the gavel in January – not dissimilar to the one his predecessor Kevin McCarthy went through two years ago.

He will need to win a majority of the entire House chamber to clinch the top spot again.

‘I understand that might be the case,’ one GOP lawmaker said when asked if there were still skeptics of Johnson’s leadership.

‘I’m concerned about informal deals that might be done. I want things in writing… We did not get to the long end of the stick with McCarthy because of handshake deals, so I don’t want to see that anymore.’

A second GOP lawmaker said, ‘I don’t want to just see in December, ‘We’re going to throw another $100 billion in disaster relief spending. We’re going to throw $20 billion at a farm product…the speaker said he’s not going to do an omnibus, but I just want to see how this stuff plays out and see how we’re going to organize and how he wants to set up for January to succeed.’

‘We made some baby steps in the last few days, and we need to take some more,’ the second lawmaker said.

However, not all conservatives agree – a third lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital said, ‘I think it’s going to be fine.’

‘President Trump came here and endorsed him yesterday. Yesterday was a resounding yes…this isn’t like two years ago,’ they said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, others who are inclined to support Johnson in January have also sought commitments from him for the next Congress.

‘He promised to work with me on legislation to protect women. He made that promise in front of the Congress, and I’m going to hold him to it,’ Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital.

Additionally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital that Johnson promised her the House would not pass more aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Both cited Trump’s endorsement, however, in signaling that he has their support in January.

Johnson won the gavel via a unanimous vote by all House Republicans late last year after McCarthy’s ouster.

When reached for comment, his office pointed Fox News Digital to Johnson’s comments after his unanimous election on Wednesday. He said, ‘The theme that you’ll hear over and over from all of our members across the conference is that we are unified and energized and ready to go. We have to deliver for the American people. Beginning on day one in the new Congress, and we will be ready for that.’

President Biden’s U.S. ambassador to Japan and a longtime Democrat operative is considering a run for chair of the Democratic National Committee, two sources in the DNC orbit confirm to Fox News. 

The sources tell Fox News that Rahm Emanuel has been quietly reaching out to DNC committee members as he contemplates a bid to succeed the current chair, Jaime Harrison – whose term is up early next year. Harrison is unlikely to seek a second four-year posting in the wake of last week’s very disappointing election results for the Democrats, up and down the ballot.

Emanuel, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s administration, went on to serve in Congress and steered the DCCC during its very successful 2006 cycle. He later served as former President Obama’s Chief of Staff before winning the 2011 election and 2015 re-election as Chicago mayor. Emanuel has served these past four years as U.S. ambassador to Japan during the Biden administration.

Emanuel appears to have a major advocate in veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod (the political mastermind behind Obama’s 2008 White House victory and 2012 re-election win), who is a friend of his.

‘If they said, ‘Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?’ I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan, and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee,’ Axelrod said on Tuesday during his podcast, ‘Hacks on Tap.’

On Wednesday, Axelrod wrote on X that ‘Dems need a strong and strategic party leader, with broad experience in comms; fundraising and winning elections. One thought I surfaced on @HacksonTap: Ambassador @RahmEmanuel. There may be others but he is kind of sui genesis: Dude knows how to fight and win!’

But it’s far from certain, if Emanuel goes ahead with a bid to chair the DNC, that he would be well received by others.

One DNC insider, who asked to remain anonymous, told Fox News Digital, ‘Rahm is no doubt talented. But we need to know what we need to do to move forward as a party. We need new blood. We need modernization. We need somebody who understands the vastly changed new media landscape, and who is willing to invest in it. Don’t know that Rahm fits the bill for that.’

Another DNC insider, who also asked for anonymity, was much more blunt, arguing in a comment to Fox News Digital that ‘the absolutely last person we need leading us is an arrogant elitist that has never worked a day in his life.’

The news regarding Emanuel was first reported earlier Friday by Axios.

Months ago, President-elect Trump vaguely suggested that those who ‘like TikTok’ should vote for him, raising the hopes for users of the video-sharing app that he might thwart a ban that is soon to take effect.  

‘We’re not doing anything with TikTok, but the other side is going to close it up, so if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump,’ Trump said in a September post on his Truth Social service.

He didn’t make any specific promises to reverse the impending ban, but his team says he will ‘deliver.’

‘The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,’ Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s transition team, said in a statement.

Working to reverse a ban, which should take effect in January, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden, would be a 180-degree reversal from 2020, when Trump tried to block the app in the U.S. or force its sale. 

Then, in April of this year, Biden signed a similar measure that gave TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, until Jan. 19, 2025 — the day before the inauguration — to sell it or face a U.S. ban.

‘He appreciates the breadth and reach of TikTok, which he used masterfully along with podcasts and new media entrants to win,’ Kellyanne Conway, an adviser close to Trump who now advocates for TikTok, told The Washington Post.

‘There are many ways to hold China to account outside alienating 180 million U.S. users each month. Trump recognized early on that Democrats are the party of bans — gas-powered cars, menthol cigarettes, vapes, plastic straws and TikTok — and to let them own that draconian, anti-personal-choice space.’

The Trump White House could pressure the Republican-led Congress to reverse the TikTok ban. Or, the Justice Department could pursue a policy of loose enforcement of the law. 

TikTok is currently fighting in court to undo the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional. 

The law also allows the president to extend the divestment deadline by 90 days if the administration sees ‘significant progress’ toward a sale. 

The law is enforced by ordering app stores like Apple and Google to stop offering TikTok on their platforms, or be subjected to a fine. 

When it comes to Big Tech, Trump has focused much of his ire on TikTok’s rival, Meta, formerly Facebook. In a March interview with CNBC, Trump said the owner of Facebook and Instagram poses a far bigger threat, labeling Meta an ‘enemy of the people.’

‘Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections,’ he said.

But since then, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has given a number of glowing statements about Trump.

‘Congratulations to President Trump on a decisive victory. We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country. Looking forward to working with you and your administration,’ the tech mogul said after Trump’s win. 

Trump himself has more than 14 million followers on TikTok. ‘For all of those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump. The other side is closing it up, but I’m now a big star on TikTok,’ he declared in September. 

But back on Capitol Hill, the national security threat of TikTok is a top concern for lawmakers of both parties — 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats voted for the bill to force ByteDance to divest. They fear that the Chinese parent company could be harnessing data on U.S. citizens and manipulating the content that users see to be against U.S. interests, charges that TikTok denies. 

But Trump’s Cabinet picks are largely China hawks who have supported the ban. His appointed national security adviser, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., voted for it. His choice for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that TikTok gives the Chinese government ‘a unique ability to monitor’ U.S. teens and that ‘we must ban this potential spyware before it is too late.’ 

Trump’s nominee for secretary of homeland security, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, was the first governor to ban TikTok on government devices.

Public support for a TikTok ban has tanked in the U.S., with only 32% of Americans backing one, a Pew Research poll found in September.