Speaking on the sidelines at the UN Climate Summit, Jonathan Harounoff, Israel’s UN spokesperson, commented on Trump's recent choice for the United State's UN ambassador.

"Ambassador Danon looks forward to working closely with Elise Stefanik on tackling malicious lies at the UN advanced by hostile nations while staying unswervingly committed to truth and justice," Harounoff says.

The Trump administration is expected to be favourable to Israel over its war in Gaza.

Stefanik, whom Trump announced for the UN ambassador role on Monday, has been a fierce supporter of Israel in the Gaza war. She also took centre stage during congressional grillings of university leaders over antisemitism on college campuses.

In September, the UN signed a non-binding resolution demanding Israel to end its "illegal" occuption of Palestinian territories, which Israel called "diplomatic terrorism" - we wrote about it here.

Image source, Getty Images

As Donald Trump draws up plans for his future cabinet, Republican ally Eric Schmitt has withdrawn his name from a potential position as attorney general.

Schmitt, a lawyer, who once served as attorney general for Missouri has represented the Republican party in the Senate since he was sworn in in January last year.

Responding directly to rumours on X, Schmitt says he "can confirm" he is not running for attorney general.

Instead the 49-year-old says he is “ready to roll up my sleeves and be a champion for President Trump in the Senate”.

“We need America First fighters who don’t just say they support the agenda but who are willing to stand in the breach and actually fight for it,” the lawyer adds.

Image source, PA Media

The Taoiseach of Ireland has become the latest world leader to congratulate Donald Trump on his election victory.

In a social media post released just now, Simon Harris says he spoke to the president-elect, and “congratulated him on his election win”.

He says the pair agreed to stay in touch, and “discussed the economic and historical ties between Ireland and the US as well as the war in Ukraine and the Middle East”.

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Lara Trump, the Republican National Committee co-chair and Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, says she thinks "Rick Scott would do an amazing job" as Senate majority leader.

"If you're a person out there who wants to see that happen, make sure you call your Senator, make sure you call and say, 'hey, I want Rick Scott,'" she says, speaking on the popular conservative YouTube channel The Benny Show.

Rick Scott is one of three names being floated as a potential pick for Senate majority leader, along with John Thune and John Cornyn.

The Republicans flipped the Senate this election, and will vote in a secret ballot for the leadership role later this week.

Scott, a fierce Trump ally, has received a number of high profile endorsements, including Elon Musk.

Trump has so far not chimed in.

Image source, Reuters

After laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery, Joe Biden gave his final Veterans Day speech as the US President.

"This is the last time I will stand here at Arlington as Commander in Chief. It's been the greatest honour of my life to lead you, to serve you, care for you, to defend you, just as you defended us generation after generation after generation," he said.

During his speech, the president pulled out his daily schedule and read out some figures written on the back, which he says he reads every day. It lists the number of Americans killed and wounded fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While thanking veterans for their service, Biden also praised their families, and reflected on how he and his wife Jill worried while his son Beau was serving in Iraq.

Biden emphasised America’s position, saying “we are the only nation in the world based on an idea”, and urged the US to never walk away from this idea that “we are all created equal”.

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Tom Homan is Trump's new "border tsar" - taking on a wide-ranging role overseeing border security and deportation policy.

It’s a role that he has experience in; Homan served under Trump’s last Republican government, but he also made strides under Barack Obama’s Democratic administration.

In fact, the former police officer headed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (known as ‘Ice’) under Obama, where he carried out record numbers of formal deportations.

Homan took on this role again under Trump and generated controversy soon after when he suggested undocumented immigrants “should be afraid”.

Additionally, the long-serving immigration official was a key figure in implementing Trump’s "zero tolerance" policy at the border, which led to thousands of migrant children being separated from their parents.

As we just reported, US President Joe Biden is at Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day.

You can see the ceremony and Biden's speech at the top of this page by pressing watch live.

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are currently marking Veterans Day at a ceremony by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

It's the first time Biden and Kamala Harris have appeared in public together since the election.

Armed forces personnel stood to attention, and crowds of dignitaries looked on as Biden stepped up to the monument, marking one of his final public duties before he hands over to Donald Trump in January.

The president will make a speech nearby shortly.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Trump is expected to name Stephen Miller as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, the BBC's US partner CBS News reports, citing two anonymous sources.

Miller served as a senior adviser during Trump's first administration and was considered the most prominent and perhaps influential adviser at the time - we wrote about him back in 2018.

CNN says he's expected to have more influence and power in Washington during the former president's second run and be a major player in Trump's goals to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

Miller has previously said he would seek to dramatically increase the number of annual deportations.

While the 47th US President-elect Donald Trump plots his future cabinet, the current President Joe Biden and his Vice-President Kamala Harris continue their duties today.

At 11:00 EST (in about 15 minutes) Biden and Harris will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

It’s a long-standing ritual that marks Veterans Day (the US equivalent of Remembrance Day in the UK), with leaders regularly visiting the monument that honours soldiers who have died in conflict but remain unidentified.

This will be the first time that Biden has appeared publicly with Harris since her election defeat.

Natalie Sherman
New York business reporter

Billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk is the latest big name to jump into the debate about how much the US central bank should answer to the president.

He approvingly shared a tweet from Senator Mike Lee of Utah, which called for the Federal Reserve to be under the direction of the White House, using the hashtag “end the Fed”.

It followed Fed chair Jerome Powell’s terse exchanges with reporters last week, in which he said he did not believe the president had the authority to fire him and would not step down if asked.

Economists say the Fed’s independence is important to keeping prices stable, since its tool for taming inflation – high interest rates – is often politically unpopular.

After price inflation surged in the US in the 1970s, Congress passed reforms meant to insulate the bank from pressure.

But that has not stopped Trump from saying he wants a say.

Image source, Getty Images

Let’s cross over to Azerbaijan for a moment, where US climate envoy John Podesta has been speaking critically of Donald Trump about his commitment to the climate.

Podesta tells the COP29 gathering that last week's election result was “bitterly disappointing”.

After praising Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ decision to rejoin the Paris agreement - which Trump left the last time he was president - Podesta says Trump’s "relationship to climate change is captured by the word 'hoax'”.

“None of this is a hoax, it is real,” he adds.

Afterwards, Podesta suggests that Trump’s incoming administration will try to make a U-turn on the government’s climate commitments, but that the US is committed to its goals.

“Are we facing new headwinds, absolutely. But will we revert to the energy system of the 1950s? No way,” he stresses.

Image source, Getty Images

Republicans flipped the Senate in their favour this election - a critical win for Donald Trump and the party to enforce their agenda.

Now, all eyes are on who will lead the Senate and play a major role in approving Trump's incoming administration appointments. Senate Republicans will vote in a secret ballot on Wednesday.

Among the names floated are Republican Senator Rick Scott, who told Fox and Friends earlier he was "very optimistic that I'm going to win because I have Trump's agenda".

Trump has so far declined to endorse any of the candidates, though Elon Musk announced his support for Scott. Other names in the running are John Thune and John Cornyn.

The Republican Party are moving closer to full control of the US Congress. They already have a majority in the Senate and need to win just a handful of seats to take the House of Representatives.

A party needs 218 seats to win a House majority. The Republicans have 215 compared to the rival Democrats' 210, according to BBC's US partner CBS News.

Control of the House gives a party the power to initiate spending legislation and launch impeachment proceedings against officials.

A majority in the House, the lower chamber of Congress, alongside the Senate, the upper chamber, would give Trump a greater chance of getting his plans approved than if Democrats controlled one or both.

Earlier on we reported that the BBC had been unable to independently verify reports that Donald Trump had spoken with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin last week.

Now, after Trump’s team refused to comment on the alleged conversation, the Kremlin has flatly denied that any dialogue has taken place between Putin and Trump since the US election.

According to Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia editor, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the suggestions of a call are “completely made up” and don’t “correspond at all to reality”.

The alleged phone call was said to have taken place last Thursday and Trump reportedly advised Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.

Continuing his interview on Fox and Friends, Homan says his family are "not at home right now" because they've been receiving death threats. It's "something we are going to deal with," he adds. "They are not going to bully me away".

Homan says his task is to deliver on Trump's promise to enact the "largest deportation operation in history".

To begin the process, Homan says he will target those that "a federal judge said you must go and they didn't".

"You have the right to claim asylum. You have a right to see a judge. We make that happen," he says. But if the "judge says you must go home, then we have to take them home".

Image source, Getty Images

More now from Homan's Fox News interview, and he says this is his second time coming out of retirement to work in the Trump administration and that he's "honoured" to be back.

"I'm looking forward to it," he says, seeing his role in charge of the US borders as an urgent one to "help solve this national security crisis".

Under the Biden administration, the number of US-Mexico border crossings reached a record high, though the numbers have dropped significantly since December.

Homan - who was the acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Trump created during his first term - says "thousands of retired agents" are also ready to volunteer and join him.

Image source, Getty Images

Tom Homan, Trump's newly-appointed "border tsar", says his message for Democratic lawmakers who might resist Trump's mass deportation plans is to "get the hell out of our way".

Appearing on Fox News this morning, a day after Trump announced Homan to be "in charge of our nation's borders", Homan says: "I've seen some of these Democratic governors say they're going to stand in the way and make it hard for us.

"We're going to do the job," he adds.

Homan's blunt messaging was in response to reports that Democratic leaders in some cities and states are preparing to defy Trump's plans to deport illegal immigrants (we explain more on Trump's plans here).

It is a similar tactic Democrats used during Trump's first term, creating areas known as sanctuary cities. Homan tells Fox News: "If sanctuary cities don't help us, then get out of the way... We're coming."

Image source, Reuters

New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump's new ambassador to the United Nations, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 2014, then aged 30. She continues to represent New York’s 21st District.

After entering politics, the fourth-ranking House Republican initially positioned herself as a moderate and criticised Trump - but later became his loyal defender.

In his statement to the New York Post, Trump described her as "an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter".

The UN ambassador role is crucial to global cooperation and security, and Stefanik's nomination comes as conflicts continue to rage in Ukraine and the Middle East.

As we've mentioned, the latest appointment in Donald Trump's top team is Tom Homan, 62, who Trump says will be his "border tsar".

Homan previously served in the first Trump administration as the president’s acting director of immigration and customs enforcement.

Also announced in the past day is Elise Stefanik, 40, who will be theUS ambassador to the United Nations. She’s currently Republican Representative for upstate New York.

Trump earlier appointed Susie Wiles as his chief of staff.

Anyone else in running? That's it for those confirmed so far, but other names rumoured to join the administration are billionaire X owner Elon Musk, and Robert F Kennedy Jr.

There is speculation that Florida Senator Rick Scott could be in line to become Senate majority leader, having received the backing of Musk and others.

Trump has said Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo - who both served in his first administration - will not be offered new positions.