Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming, whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at NPR Wine Club.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase.

Live from NPR news, I'm Jail Snyder.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Florida Senator Marco Rubio as his top diplomat.

NPR's Claudia Grasales reports.

A source familiar with the Trump team's plans told NPR that Florida, Senator Marco Rubio, would get the nod to be the country's next

secretary of state. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010.

If confirmed, Rubio could serve as the highest-ranking Latino in the Trump administration.

He would also become the first Latino Secretary of State in the country's history. Rubio was once Trump's political nemesis

running against him for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. He has since become a

key Trump ally and was also considered to be Trump's running mate before

another Senator Ohio's J.D. Vance was chosen for that role. Claudio Grizales, NPR News, Washington.

Senator Rubio's name is the latest on a growing list of those joining Donald Trump's administration,

including Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, as National Security Advisor.

To Pennsylvania now, all the thousands of last-minute challenges to mail-in ballot by far-right activists and Republican state lawmakers have either been withdrawn or rejected.

As NPR's Hansi-Low Wong reports.

Election officials in 15 Pennsylvania

counties received more than 4,400 challenges against voters' mail and ballot applications, most of them

days before election day. NPR's confirmed around 77 percent of those challenges were withdrawn by

right-wing activists and two Republican state lawmakers by last Thursday. To voter Christine Dax,

whose ballot application was challenged, the timing underscores these objections were baseless.

It's especially enraging because now that their preferred candidate has won, now it's all gone

away. It's all no big deal. Business as usual, hope everyone forgets. But I haven't forgotten.

...