After Walker Loss, RNC Needs New Leadership: Fmr Trump Adviser; Loudoun County Superintendent Fired

Good evening and welcome to NTD News. I'm Stefania Cox. Here are today's top stories. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock wins the runoff in Georgia, giving Democrats a majority in the Senate. We hear analysis from former counsel to Donald Trump, Jenna Ellis. The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case that questions whether or not a state constitution can place limits on federal elections. Some say if the federal election law applies, states will have independent unchecked power to make election rules. How will the high court decide? The vaccine mandate for military members on the verge of being repealed. The White House today disapproving, while a few senators push for more. Loudoun County Public Schools reportedly fired its superintendent. It's the latest update in a case about multiple sexual assaults by a self-identified gender-fluid student. And what if you were denied service at a restaurant because of your political stance? NTD speaks with a lady who says that's what recently happened to her. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock won the Senate runoff in Georgia last night, giving Democrats a 51 to 49 majority in the Senate. Here's more on the election numbers. With over 99% of the votes in, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is projected to win the Georgia runoff election with 51.35% of the votes. This will allow him to serve a full six-year term. I want all of Georgia to know whether you voted for me or not, that every single day I am going to keep working for you. Warnock's challenger, Republican Herschel Walker, is behind by over two percentage points, or roughly 100,000 votes. The lead had seesawed back and forth during the evening between the two, but Warnock pulled ahead with the help of Atlanta's Democratic-leaning suburbs. Walker's campaign conceded Tuesday night. There's no excuses in life, and I'm not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight. Because this is much bigger. This is much bigger than Herschel Walker. A 51-49 majority in the Senate means Democrats will have majority membership on committees. This would make it easier for them to hold investigations and approve President Biden's nominees. Following his victory, Warnock repeated the narrative that there's voter suppression in Georgia. Just because people endured long lines that wrapped around buildings some blocks long, just because they endured the rain and the cold and all kinds of tricks in order to vote doesn't mean that voter suppression does not exist. Voting proceeded smoothly across Georgia throughout the day. According to the Deputy Secretary of State, wait times at the polls averaged one to two minutes. Roughly 3.5 million people voted in the runoff, with almost 1.9 million voting early or by mail, and 1.6 million on election day. Reporting by Allison Lee, NTD News. And earlier today, I spoke with Jenna Ellis, a former senior advisor and counsel to President Donald Trump, and now an Epoch Times contributor for her thoughts on Georgia's election and other election-related developments. Jenna Ellis, welcome to our show. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much, Stephanie, for having me. Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker gave his concession speech last night after the Georgia runoff election, saying he's not going to make any excuses for his loss and telling people to believe in the elected officials. What's your reaction to that? Well, clearly the RNC is not doing its job, and I think that Herschel Walker was right to concede. Obviously, people who have clearly lost to their elections when there are no sufficient legal bases to challenge it should concede. But here, this is showing that Ronna McDaniel absolutely has failed as the RNC chair. Lee Zeldin put out a great statement this morning saying that she has been a terrible leader, needs to step down, and that's actually the best service she can do for the Republican Party. So the fact that there wasn't as big of a red wave as people hoped, I think just shows why we need new leadership in the RNC, and my support is 100 percent behind Harmeet Dhillon. Right. There's been a mixed reaction to Walker's loss, with some blaming former President Trump, others blaming Republican leaders for not doing enough to help Walker. Where do you stand on that? Well, I think ultimately President Trump, who is a private citizen at this point, can support and endorse who he wants to. Like anyone else, his endorsement and his endorsement percentage rate over the course of the midterms was actually phenomenal and was better than Ronna McDaniel, who bizarrely went out to Colorado and supported a pro-choice advocate, Joe O'Day, for Senate, who had absolutely no chance of winning. So I think this is squarely on the shoulders of what Raheem Kassam and I are both calling the Mc-leadership, which is McConnell, McCarthy, and Ronna McDaniel. So I would absolutely blame them, and I think that it's the RNC's responsibility to make sure that they support the candidates who are best for the job, and President Trump, like anyone else, can endorse whoever he wishes in his own personal capacity. Raphael Warnock's victory gives his party control of committees, meaning Democrats can push legislation and judicial nominations more easily to the Senate floor. How do you see that affecting Biden's agenda? Well, I think, unfortunately, the Democrats' agenda is to simply get Trump and to prevent him from ultimately running again, which they were unsuccessful in. He has certainly announced his intention to run. And so, really, what this is going to do is simply shift everything that has gone on for the past two years in the House with the January 6th committee simply to the Senate. And so they have even expressed that they are going to start other investigations. And so this is going to be a political partisan warfare with the House now under Republican leadership that will open their investigations and Hunter Biden, the laptop, and the COVID response, Dr. Fauci. And then you're going to have the Senate having their own investigations. Those investigations are a waste of the taxpayer's time. But ultimately, the biggest danger for the Senate is the ability to appoint, with, of course, the advice and consent of the Senate, Biden's nominees for judicial appointments. So, I think that we as conservatives need to be on the lookout for those judicial appointments and to use our voices to strongly object when they are ideologically based instead of judicial conservatives, meaning conserving the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. And now turning to Arizona, they've certified the results of the midterm election on Monday, despite lingering questions over vote counts. Democratic governor-elect Katie Hobbs said she was legally required to certify the results, but you said that there were other paths available. Yeah. So, unfortunately, the legal challenges have simply been met with the judicial branch doing exactly what it did in 2020, which is to say not now and then sorry, too late. It seems like there's never a good time to file legal challenges. And so, unfortunately, Katie Hobbs is correct in terms of the situation of the law right now with a couple of the counties who were saying that they were hesitant to certify, but then a judge actually requiring one county to go ahead and certify because of the state of the law. So, really, what needs to happen here in Arizona and other states who are concerned about election integrity is for the state legislature to provide a process that will allow for expeditious remedies and hearings on the merits of election challenges. And the law in the way that it's currently set up, Stephanie, makes sense that you wouldn't want election officials just for partisan reasons refusing to certify a fair, free, legitimate election. But when there are sufficient legal challenges like what Cary Lake has, the system currently doesn't really provide for that unless we have judicial courage. And judges right now have a very easy way to simply say, sorry, that's the law. We're going to go ahead and force you and compel you to certify by the deadline. That's what needs to change. And I hope that state legislatures that are Republican-controlled, that should be anyone, that shouldn't be a partisan issue, but especially Republicans need to take that very seriously before 2024. Now, Katie Hobbs is the state's top election official. Her office said that two years ago, it requested that a pair of tweets be taken down because they constituted misinformation that could undermine confidence in elections. Some critics are now accusing Hobbs of censoring her political opponents. And Arizona's Republican Party wants an official investigation into Hobbs. What's your take on all this? I completely agree that there needs to be an investigation. I'm grateful for Elon Musk for releasing the Twitter files and showing how there were government officials that colluded with big tech and suggested that under the auspices of misinformation, that the American people didn't get to hear from various individuals who have free speech in this country. And so, absolutely, there should be an investigation. This is why Hunter's laptop absolutely still matters. And we need to know the bottom line here on whether or not there was activity that rises to a criminal level remains to be seen. But certainly, there needs to be accountability and resignations from anyone, regardless of party, who is actively attempting to censor Americans. We don't have arbiters of truth in this country. We have the constitutionally protected right of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Great to hear your thoughts. Jenna Ellis, Epoch Times contributor and former senior advisor and counsel to President Donald Trump. Thank you so much. Thank you. And today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a North Carolina redistricting case. The question, whether or not a state's constitution should be applied to federal congressional maps? And can a state court redraw the map? Antiques Arlene Richards reports. In a lengthy hearing on Wednesday, the Supreme Court justices debated with attorneys over which constitution should be applied to determine the legality of a state's congressional redistricting map, the state constitution or the federal constitution. In this case, a North Carolina state Supreme Court ruled the legislature's congressional map violated the state's constitution by being unlawfully biased against Democratic voters. And then the court made a new map. Republican lawmakers are objecting to that. They say that, according to the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures, not state courts, have control over elections. An attorney who represents an interested party in the case said the state court misinterpreted a previous Supreme Court case on redistricting. In the Arizona case, the constitutional amendment created an independent commission and the state legislature has no role in redistricting in Arizona. But he said the question now is whether or not that ruling applies to all states. Media reports say if the Arizona case is overturned, states would then have the unchecked power to make federal election rules for Congress and the presidency. Cardell disagrees. The state legislatures will be in charge of redistricting in other federal obligations it has under the Constitution and federal law, but it won't be unchecked. There will still be a limited role for the state courts. He said state courts will have the power to review procedures that are severely faulty. But Article One says that the state legislatures shall determine the time, place and manner of elections subject to congressional regulations regarding such. And so the point there is that these state legislatures determine the rules for the federal elections in each state. The Supreme Court did not rule on the questions presented on Wednesday. Arlene Richards, NTD News, New York. Vaccine mandates for military members are on track to be reversed. Lawmakers reached a deal to end the mandate in the annual defense bill, but the White House declines to say if President Biden will sign off on it. NTD's Melina Wisecup brings us more from Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have released the text for the National Defense Authorization Act for 2023. It's well above what President Biden requested at a top line number of $860 billion. It increases pay for service members and it repeals the vaccine mandate. Specifically, it requires the Secretary of Defense to rescind the mandate that requires members of the armed forces to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Republicans, of course, cheered this language, but the White House today calls it a mistake while declining to say whether or not President Biden would sign off on this or veto it if this NDAA bill reaches his desk with this vaccine mandate repeal language in it. Here's those official White House comments from today. So we still believe it's a mistake. I won't get ahead of process here. The only other thing I'd say is the President, as well as Secretary Austin, have been very, very clear that they support this Now this language that repeals the vaccine mandate is very specific and there are still some senators who are pushing for more. Today we heard from a handful of Republican senators who want to add another measure to rehire members of the military who have been discharged for not getting the shot. There are over a thousand Coast Guard members who have either been discharged or are in the process of being discharged and those people have lost pay. They've lost promotions. We're being told by many that the Department of Defense is going to deal with those individuals fairly on a case-by-case basis as things move forward. What leads us to believe that they will in fact deal with these on a case-by-case basis? And Senator Mike Lee and Senator Rick Scott both say they are still committed to not advancing the NDAA if this extra language is not added that reinstates discharged service members. And we asked specifically how they're pushing to get this done. Senator Rand Paul told me that this was in their discussions today. They're working out a deal to get a vote on this as an amendment when this bill comes to the Senate floor and this would be approved by just a simple majority vote. Now this bill is likely to come to the Senate floor sometime next week. Reporting in Washington D.C., Melina Wisecup, NTD News. An update from Loudoun County where a superintendent is now reportedly fired after two cases of sexual assault by a self-identified gender fluid student. We also hear from an education expert about the special grand jury report which came out this week. In Virginia's Loudoun County, Superintendent Scott Ziegler was reportedly fired by the school board on Tuesday night. That's the county where a student who identified as gender fluid committed acts of sexual assault against female students last year. A special grand jury report this week detailed how the superintendent and others handled the allegations. Ian Pryor is the executive director of Fight for Schools. He tells NTD many people were involved in this case. It is a positive first step but there are several individuals identified in this report from the deputy superintendent to the head of security to the Pryor says the report shows how the lawyer for Loudoun County Public Schools obstructed the grand jury's investigation to the point where the jury thought about indicting the lawyer. During the actual incident itself a teacher or a teacher's aide walked into a bathroom and saw two pair of feet underneath a stall and did nothing about it. They left the bathroom and then the sexual assault continued and they didn't report it because you know they thought that this kind of thing happens. The report also alleges that school staff after that assault were more worried about the behavior of the victim's father than the perpetrator. You know school staff was more concerned with getting a no trespass order from the father while the you know the assailant was was missing for three hours. It showed that the superintendent essentially wrote the statement that the principal sent to the community which made no mention of a sexual assault instead focused on the father who was angry about being denied entry to talk to his daughter. He concludes that firing the superintendent should only be the first step. The special grand jury stated that Loudoun County Public Schools ultimately bears the brunt of the blame for the second of the two assaults but the report concluded that there was not a coordinated cover-up between LCPS administrators and members. The school board shared a statement this week saying it was pleased that the eight-month investigation had found no evidence of criminal conduct on the part of anyone within LCPS and not a single indictment was filed as a result of this lengthy process. Reporting by Arian Pasdar, NTD News. A restaurant in Virginia canceled a reservation at the last minute based on political beliefs. NTD's Jason Perry has more from the woman who was denied service and what the can all have different views. What's disturbing about this isn't that they dislike us it's that they are unwilling to even serve us food in a restaurant. Victoria Cobb is the president of Family Foundation, a faith-based organization which advocates for policies based on biblical principles according to their website. On November 30th the organization was set to host a dessert reception for its supporters. Our organization had made a reservation for a private dining room for dessert reception to be held for some of our supporters to talk about the work that we do and despite that reservation having been made a couple weeks prior about an hour and a half before we were scheduled to arrive we got a phone call from the owner of Metzger's is the name of the place and they simply said we're going to cancel your event and they said it's because their team had looked us up and that they were uncomfortable serving us. She says the restaurant staff looked up the Family Foundation online and didn't feel comfortable serving them because of their views on marriage and abortion. The restaurant Metzger Bar and Butchery which is located in Richmond, Virginia issued a statement after they denied service to the faith-based organization saying Metzger Bar and Butchery has always prided itself on being an inclusive environment for people to dine in. We respect our staff's established rights as humans and strive to create a work environment where they can do their jobs with dignity, comfort and safety. Cobb said the restaurant staff would have been treated well and tipped well. The left often cloaks these words you know they'll have this whole statement about how welcoming and tolerant and wonderful they are and they'll take these very intolerant actions you know and then they use words like we wanted to feel safe. Well we find that amazing because we are a pro-life organization we're actually trying to allow the human rights of those that are unborn in particular we actually think we're a human rights advocacy organization. When I asked Cobb if she was planning to take legal action she said they are still weighing all of their options. Jason Perry, NTD News. If you have any news tips or feedback for our show you can email us at eveningnews at ntd.com and coming up it's the 81st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Over 2,000 service members were killed during the raid. We hear from a survivor and in baseball news Aaron Judge fresh off a record-setting home run season just signed the biggest free agent contract ever. We'll have details on that and more coming up. Welcome to renbiz.com the education and career program where parents rule. We replace public schools and universities. We are for ages 6 to 100. Never any big student loans with us. You graduate with a traditional diploma, a university degree, and your own family business. Adults returning to obtain better careers. Parents looking for better academic and career opportunities for their kids. At business occasion you spend 50% of your time on traditional education and 50% on business education including setting up your own family business. Learning is in your small in-person pods of 6 to 10 students. At renaissance business occasion aka renbiz.com graduation means you have a degree and your own family business. Like education always should have been a transition to getting a career. Today marks the 81st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A survivor recounts the day that FDR said would live in infamy. NTD's Andrew Thomas reports. That's your father there. USS Arizona sailor Lou Contour lived through the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He miraculously survived after his battleship was hit by two bombs and sank. Out of those 2,403 men who got killed, 1,177 were on the Arizona ship masonry. But the 101 year old doesn't consider himself a hero. We're not heroes. They call us heroes but we're not. The ones in 2,403 men that died are the heroes and we've got to honor them ahead of everybody else. For many years Contour flew back to Hawaii for an annual remembrance ceremony. But due to his health he'll watch a video feed of this year's 81st anniversary observance from home. I'd like to be there because there's only two of us still living from Arizona and Ken Pott myself. Contour went to flight school after Pearl Harbor. He flew 200 combat missions in the Pacific. One night in 1943 he and his crew were shot down near New Guinea. Ultimately he survived despite dozens of nearby sharks. Contour's son reflects on the Pearl Harbor anniversary. It's going to be a sad day but he's an American hero. Not only is he an American, he's my hero. So it's pretty cool. In the late 1950s, Contour became the Navy's first SEER officer, an acronym for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. Some of his pupils used his instruction to survive as POWs in Vietnam. Andrew Thomas, NTD News. And in sports news, the Aaron Judge sweepstakes finally came to a conclusion today as he agreed to terms on the biggest free agency contract ever signed in baseball. NTD's Dave Martin has more. Free agent all-star Aaron Judge agreed to return to the New York Yankees Wednesday with whopping nine-year 360 million dollar contract in hand. The amount is 30 million more than the record sum Bryce Farber got from the Philadelphia Phillies in free agency four years ago. Only Angels star Mike Trout and the Dodgers' Mookie Betts have signed larger deals but neither was through free agency. For Judge, the record amount is a redemption of sorts as the reigning MVP turned down a reported seven-year offer from the Yankees worth nearly before the season began. Once opening day came, though, he cut off negotiations, betting he could find a better deal after the season. He was right. Judge had one of the best years ever, hitting an American League record 62 home runs while also leading the league in runs batted in and finishing second in batting average, narrowly missing a rare triple crown. Meanwhile, his hot streak, especially in the second half of the season, hitting a combined 380 in September and October, kept the division-winning Yankees from an epic collapse. Elsewhere in baseball, 2019 MVP Cody Bellinger signed a one-year $17.5 million deal with the Cubs. The 27-year-old has slumped at the plate in the three years since winning the league's top honor but still has plenty of value defensively as a center fielder. And finally, the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates got some good news as the last-placed team won baseball's first-ever draft lottery, giving them the number one pick in the draft come next July. Meanwhile, in the NFL, the Buffalo Bills lost a key part of their defense for the rest of the season as it was revealed today that three-time All-Pro linebacker Vaughn Miller has a torn ACL. Miller, one of the best pass rushers in NFL history, was injured in the team's Thanksgiving win over Detroit. The 33-year-old leads Buffalo with eight sacks this season and has more career sacks than any active player. Dave Martin, NTD News. And that's all for today's news. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Stefania Cox. Good night. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. 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