President-elect Donald Trump 2.0 November 2024-

Donald Trump May-October 2024

Welcome to the Project 2025 admin
(Politico) Donald Trump spent his presidential campaign running from Project 2025. Now, he’s using it to stock his White House and administration.
In recent days, Trump has tapped nearly a half dozen Project 2025 authors and contributors, including BRENDAN CARR, who Trump picked this week to lead the Federal Communications Commission; former Rep. PETE HOEKSTRA, who got the nod for ambassador to Canada; and JOHN RATCLIFFE, who was tapped for director of the Central Intelligence Agency. One of Trump’s first selections – TOM HOMAN as “border czar” – was also a Project 2025 contributor – 21 November

11 December
How long can the Trump honeymoon last?
(Playbook PM) To no great surprise, the mood of the electorate seems to be shifting in the transition period as Trump prepares to take the reins from President JOE BIDEN following an election that delivered a stinging rebuke to Democratic power in Washington.
…new polling from CNN offers a window into how voters are feeling with Trump 2.0 loading — but serious questions remain about how long the president-elect can sustain the good-vibe feeling once he’s actually back in power.

8 December
Trump Picks Former Ambassador to Mexico for Deputy Secretary of State
Christopher Landau is a longtime lawyer and the son of a veteran U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador to three nations in Latin America.
Why under no circumstances should Pete Hegseth be entrusted with the U.S. military
But will Senate Republicans do their duty?
Robert Reich
Hegseth’s fate seems to rest with Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, a military veteran who has spent much of her time as a lawmaker working on improving how sexual attacks are reported and prosecuted within the ranks. … Ernst’s unwillingness to support Hegseth outright has prompted a fierce pressure campaign from the right.
There are issues beyond sexual assault that are also deeply troubling about Hegseth.
Trump’s Pentagon pick Hegseth wrote of US military taking sides in ‘civil war’
Defense secretary pick said in 2020 that should Democrats win election the military ‘will be forced to make a choice’

7 December
Trump isn’t back in office but he’s already pushing his agenda and negotiating with world leaders
(AP) There is no prohibition on incoming officials or nominees meeting with foreign officials, and it is common and fine for them to do so — unless those meetings are designed to subvert or otherwise impact current U.S. policy.
Trump aides were said to be especially cognizant of potential conflicts given their experience in 2016, when interactions between Trump allies and Russian officials came under scrutiny.
Trump’s team, meanwhile, is already claiming credit for everything from gains in the stock and cryptocurrency markets to a decision by Walmart to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion policies Trump opposes.
“Promises Kept — And President Trump Hasn’t Even Been Inaugurated Yet,” read one press release that claimed, in part, that both Canada and Mexico have already pledged “immediate action” to help “stem the flow of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and deadly drugs entering the United States.”

6 December
A crypto czar is born. Donald Trump picked venture capitalist David Sacks to become the White House’s AI and crypto policy champion. In Sacks, a former PayPal exec, Trump is tapping one of his most prominent Silicon Valley supporters and fundraisers, with the aim of making America the “clear leader” in both areas. The president-elect also named ex-Senator David Perdue as ambassador to China, a choice that could be seen as an olive branch to Beijing amid a raft of tit-for-tat trade moves

5 December
Former officials urge closed-door Senate hearings on Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for intel chief
A spokesperson for Gabbard on the Trump transition team on Thursday denounced the appeal as an “unfounded” and “partisan” attack.
(Politico) Nearly 100 former senior U.S. diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have urged Senate leaders to schedule closed-door hearings to allow for a full review of the government’s files on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick to be national intelligence director.
The former officials, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, said they were “alarmed” by the choice of Gabbard to oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. They said her past actions “call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire national security apparatus.”

4 December
Trump taps Peter Navarro as trade, manufacturing counselor
(AFP) – US President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that his former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro — who went to prison for contempt of Congress — would return as senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.
The president-elect added that Navarro’s “mission will be to help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agendas.”
Trump considers DeSantis, Waltz to replace embattled Hegseth as defense secretary pick
The president-elect discussed the role with DeSantis on Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter said.

3 December
‘Frozen out’: Trade hawk Lighthizer unlikely to return for Trump’s second term
Robert Lighthizer was the architect of Trump’s paradigm-shifting first term trade agenda.
That’s a significant loss for those who support more protectionist policies, which Lighthizer successfully implemented in Trump’s first term, overcoming opposition from more business-friendly, anti-tariff Cabinet secretaries and advisers. His exclusion from Trump’s Cabinet this time around gives the voices from Wall Street in the White House a much stronger hand in the incoming administration. And it throws into doubt the president-elect’s promises to pursue an even more aggressive second term trade policy, including a universal tariff of up to 20 percent on all imports and tariffs at least three times as high on Chinese goods.
Trump’s pick to head DEA withdraws after GOP criticism of his Covid policies
Chad Chronister is the second Trump pick to abandon his bid to serve in the administration.
Some conservatives had opposed Trump’s choice of Chronister, citing the sheriff’s enforcement of public health orders during the Covid pandemic.

Heather Cox Richardson December 1, 2024
Over the holiday weekend, President-elect Trump continued to name the people he wants in his incoming administration. His picks seem designed to destroy the institutions of the democratic American state and replace those institutions with an authoritarian government whose officials are all loyal to Trump.
(International Intrigue) Personnel is policy: Trump’s new cabinet picks all have at least two things in common: They are sceptical of the political establishment and have shown unyielding loyalty to the former and future president (with the arguable exception of Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio and Treasury pick Scott Bessent).
Trump taps Lebanon-born Massad Boulos as Arab and Middle East adviser
Boulos is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany and led campaign outreach to Arab and Muslim Americans.
(Al Jazeera) The announcement of the appointment on Sunday comes as the Trump administration continues to take shape, particularly in terms of the officials who will oversee US policy in the Middle East, although the purview of Boulos’s role was not immediately clear.
Before the selection of Boulos,…the president-elect tapped pro-Israel hawk Marco Rubio as his nominee for secretary of state; Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as his ambassador to Israel; and friend Steven Witkoff, a businessman with scant policy experience, as special envoy to the Middle East.
His selection was announced a day after Trump said he would nominate Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the US ambassador to France.
30 November
Trump Names Charles Kushner as Pick for Ambassador to France
(NYT) The announcement elevated Mr. Kushner, the father of President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and the recipient of a presidential pardon at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term.
Mr. Kushner, 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission in a case that became a lasting source of embarrassment for the family. As part of the plea, Mr. Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister.

Lawmakers express doubt over Trump’s plan to replace FBI’s Christopher Wray
FBI directors typically have 10-year tenures, unique among appointments in the executive branch. Wray was appointed by Trump in 2017.
Republicans and Democrats alike argued that replacing Wray — who has held the job since 2017 — with Patel showcases Trump’s efforts to appoint close allies who espouse his views and have expressed support for his plans to take aim at the country’s justice system.
Conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead FBI, faces Senate blowback
‘Deep state’ critic who has threatened to shut down agency’s headquarters could face tough confirmation battle
(The Guardian) Donald Trump’s plan to nominate as FBI director the “deep state” conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, a virulent critic of the bureau who has threatened to fire its top echelons and shut down the agency’s headquarters, is facing blowback in Congress as US senators begin to flex their muscles ahead of a contentious confirmation process.
30 November
Who is Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to replace FBI director Chris Wray?
Trump’s choice to run the nation’s premier law enforcement agency is the author of a list of “deep state” officials to target.
(WaPo) Kash Patel, a staunch defender of Donald Trump, is the president-elect’s pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he said Saturday night.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray would have to step down in the middle of his 10-year term, or Trump would have to fire him, for Patel to be nominated. If nominated, he would be subject to Senate confirmation.

29 November
All of the Trump Cabinet Picks That Have Ties to Project 2025
(New York) During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump and aides repeatedly dismissed the idea of any association between them and Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation effort to draft a transition plan and detailed policy blueprint for Trump to use should he win the election. At least 140 members of the first Trump administration helped with the plan, and multiple former Trump Cabinet members wrote much of Project 2025’s 922-page Mandate for Leadership manifesto — including top Trump adviser Russell Vought — but the whole thing became an election-year liability when Democrats began associating the Trump campaign with the extreme policies Project 2025 proposed. Now that Trump and Team MAGA are headed back to the White House, they clearly aren’t keeping their distance anymore. Trump has named several Project 2025 authors and contributors to his White House Cabinet, and despite the fact that Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick vowed in September that “I won’t take a list from them,” transition officials are reportedly consulting Project 2025’s personnel database in search of staff to hire.

26 November
Trump Picks Stanford Doctor Who Opposed Lockdowns to Head N.I.H.
President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday evening that he had selected Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist whose authorship of an anti-lockdown treatise during the coronavirus pandemic made him a central figure in a bitter public health debate, to be the director of the National Institutes of Health.
If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Bhattacharya would lead the world’s premier medical research agency, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, each with its own research agenda, focusing on different diseases like cancer and diabetes. Dr. Bhattacharya, who is not a practicing physician, has called for overhauling the N.I.H. and limiting the power of civil servants who, he believes, played too prominent a role in shaping federal policy during the pandemic.
Gaetz’s time as Trump’s AG pick was short-lived. But it taught us some lasting lessons.
Gaetz dropping out doesn’t mean Trump’s next choice for attorney general deserves less scrutiny. It actually means the opposite.
(MSNBC) …it reminded us that the vetting process for Cabinet members is kind of important. That probably shouldn’t be breaking news given that it’s a process that presidential transitions of both parties have engaged in for decades.
He Helped ‘Break’ the Bank of England. Now He May Run the U.S. Treasury.
Scott Bessent’s former colleagues and rivals see the prospective Treasury secretary as a thoughtful choice with a broad understanding of financial markets.
(NYT) When President-elect Donald J. Trump announced his selection of Mr. Bessent as Treasury secretary last week, there was no mention of the connection to Mr. Soros. But it was Mr. Bessent’s experience at Mr. Soros’s fund — including another high-profile bet, against the Japanese yen — that helped define his career, and that his former colleagues and other associates see as a crucial credential.

22 November
Trump Transition: Cabinet Nearly Full With Flurry of Friday Picks
President-elect Donald J. Trump picked Scott Bessent on Friday to serve as Treasury secretary, tapping a billionaire hedge fund manager to lead an economic agenda that is expected to be built around raising tariffs and cutting taxes.
Donald Trump picks investment executive Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary
Bessent, a former executive for George Soros’ Soros Fund Management, has touted crypto and tax cuts
(Quartz) … Bessent has built friendly relationships with Trump family members and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and was one of the few to recommend Vance as his running mate, according to the publication.
(NYT) In a flurry of late-Friday announcements, Mr. Trump made a slew of picks, including: Russell T. Vought, a key figure in the conservative governing blueprint known as Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget; Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon for labor secretary; Dr. Martin A. Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman from Florida, to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump picks Scott Turner, a little-known official from his first term, to lead HUD.
Mr. Turner, 52, served as a midlevel official in the first Trump White House, where he headed a council overseeing federal opportunity zones, a program that leverages tax and other economic incentives to build affordable housing and promote economic growth in impoverished areas.

21 November
Donald Trump’s Most Dangerous Cabinet Pick
Pete Hegseth considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means war metaphorically.
By Jonathan Chait
For a few hours, Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense was the most disturbing act of Donald Trump’s presidential transition. Surely the Senate wouldn’t confirm an angry Fox News talking head with no serious managerial experience, best known for publicly defending war criminals, to run the largest department in the federal government.
Hegseth’s drawbacks are not limited to his light résumé or to the sexual-assault allegation made against him. Inexperienced though he may be at managing bureaucracies, Hegseth has devoted a great deal of time to documenting his worldview, including three books published in the past four years. I spent the previous week reading them: The man who emerges from the page appears to have sunk deeply into conspiracy theories that are bizarre even by contemporary Republican standards but that have attracted strangely little attention.
How Gaetz crashed and burned
His demise marked a rare setback for Trump since his election triumph.
(Politico) Leaks from multiple investigations into sexual misconduct and drug use, an uphill battle to get skeptical GOP senators in line, and the looming possibility that his confirmation hearing would become an embarrassing circus as Trump tries to push his agenda simply became too much. As of Wednesday, there were at least four Senate Republicans opposed to Gaetz, according to two people familiar with the count. And his support was likely to dwindle as concerns loomed about additional damaging allegations being made public from the House Ethics Committee’s investigation.
19 November
Trump Kicks Down the Guardrails
Ezra Klein & Anne Applebaum
(NYT) Think back two months. Imagine it’s September. You’re reading the Substack of some resistance-era liberal. They’re ranting about the dangers of the Orange Man coming back. “Imagine what a second term is going to be like,” they write. “You’re going to have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary. Tulsi Gabbard is going to lead the intelligence services. Matt Gaetz is going to be the attorney general. Maybe Donald Trump is going to make a ‘Fox & Friends’ host secretary of defense.”
I think most people reading that would have said: Oh, come on! Donald Trump might be a menace. He is a menace. But that’s a parody of what a Trump-hating liberal imagines a Trump administration is going to be. Let’s be real about this.
But here we are in the real, and that is not what a Trump-hating liberal imagines a Trump administration is going to be. This is what Donald Trump imagines a Trump administration is going to be. It is what he is trying to make it be.
The diciest Trump Cabinet picks, ranked
Evaluating the factors that could give enough Republican senators pause in confirming Donald Trump’s picks.
Several of the picks for hugely powerful roles could test even Republican senators’ willingness to sign off, a situation that could tempt Trump to try to go around the Senate confirmation process.
…a reminder that Republicans will hold 53 votes in the Senate. That means all Democrats could combine with four Republicans to defeat a nominee.
‘People are upset’: Trump’s team prepping alternative defense secretary candidates
(Raw Story) Although Donald Trump is confident in his defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, two sources tell Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman that some of the president-elect’s allies are worried the Fox News host won’t “survive” the allegations against him.
Linda McMahon Chosen to Be Education Secretary
Ms. McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive with little experience in education policy, has long been a Trump ally.
Linda McMahon made a fortune with WWE. Wrestling scandals now shadow her rise.
Trump’s transition co-chair and Education Department pick, along with her husband, named in a lawsuit claiming they ignored abuse.
Trump nominates ‘Dr Oz’ as Medicare and Medicaid services administrator
TV personality’s medical advice has proven so controversial a 2014 study declared half of it ‘baseless or wrong’
Dr. Oz, Tapped to Run Medicare, Has a Record of Promoting Health Misinformation
The heart surgeon turned TV star has championed healthy lifestyle habits. But he’s also promoted sham diet pills and ineffective Covid-19 treatments.

How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to be the director of national intelligence has raised alarms among national security officials.
Ms. Gabbard’s comments have earned her sharp rebukes from officials across the political spectrum in Washington, who have accused her of parroting the anti-American propaganda of the country’s adversaries. Her remarks have also made her a darling of the Kremlin’s vast state media apparatus — and, more recently, of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who last week picked her to oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies and departments.

Dictator on day one: Team Trump is already in disarray in less than two weeks
Michaelangelo Signorile
It’s been less than two weeks since the election, but we can see Donald Trump and the GOP moving rapidly in their efforts to take sweeping authoritarian control of our government and give enormous power to the president.
(Raw Story) And there are signs of the typical Trumpian screwups that only benefit Trump’s opponents. Republicans are now worried that Trump—who could care less about anyone else—is choosing too many members of Congress for his administration when the GOP will have a very narrow House majority and hold the Senate by a few seats.

14-16 November
A majority of Senate Republicans doubt Matt Gaetz will be confirmed as attorney general, sources say
More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately say they don’t see a path for the former Florida representative, according to a number of Republican sources.
There’s never been a transition like this one
Donald Trump Cabinet picks communicate his contempt for the job before him.
Colbert I. King
(WaPo) … Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence … Given Gabbard’s sucking up to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and slavering over Vladimir Putin, the U.S. intelligence community and foreign allies are aghast at the thought of her having access to America’s vast trove of classified information.
Strict Senate scrutiny should apply to her, Gaetz and Hegseth, particularly with the intersection of ethics and morals and Gaetz’s and Hegseth’s professional and personal conduct.
However, the case of Kennedy is what makes the Trump transition a true farce. A more frivolous and dangerous candidate for secretary of Health and Human Services would be hard to find.
That Trump would tap an extravagant promoter of false health claims to head health and human services is a cruel joke. It might be also an indication of the contempt with which Trump holds the federal health establishment, including the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
[How Kennedy Has Worked Abroad to Weaken Global Public Health Policy – The health secretary pick and his organization have worked around the world to undermine longstanding policies on measles, AIDS and more.]
Which triggers the thought that certain Trump nominations reflect his disdain for parts of the federal government that fall into his hands on Jan. 20. And the transition isn’t half over.
Welcome to the Donald Trump Amateur Hour. Can democracy survive it?
Trump is stocking his Cabinet with amateurs and pranksters.
Ruth Marcus
It took Donald Trump scarcely a week to demonstrate his utter contempt for the government he is about to lead, culminating in his choice of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. The Senate cannot allow this dangerous man to become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
Trump’s appointments briefly looked fine, normal even, with Marco Rubio to be secretary of state and Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to the United Nations.
They went downhill from there, with candidates manifestly underqualified for the positions for which they were selected
My fear is twofold. One possibility is that not enough Senate Republicans, despite their revulsion for Gaetz, will have the guts to stand up to Trump. History does not augur well for backbone on the part of elected officials defying Trump.
A second, even scarier, is that Trump, if senators defy him, will employ a never before used option, outlined in the Constitution, that grants the president power to unilaterally adjourn congress if the two houses are unable to agree on a time for adjournment. If Trump were to do so, he could then use his constitutional authority to grant recess appointments during that period.
Decapitation Strike
Preserving America from Trump’s Appointments
Timothy Snyder
It is not they will do a bad job in their assigned posts. It is that they will do a good job using those assigned posts to destroy our country.
Trump’s Team of … Reprisals?
Evan Solomon
(GZERO North) If Lincoln put together a team of rivals, Trump has assembled a team of reprisals. This is a group of ardent MAGA loyalists, not rivals — as Ian Bremmer points out in our GZERO video. Their job is to radically transform every part of government, from trade policy to foreign policy. There are three goals: reformation, reduction, and reprisal. And that last point is critical. The foundational promise Trump made to voters was to smash “the enemies within.” And that is exactly what this team is built to do.
The Deep State: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed to actively find “efficiencies” and dismantle large swaths of the government. “You’re fired” will be the watchwords.
The Military: Pete Hegseth, the veteran and Fox News commentator, is headed for the secretary of defense job, where he has long said he would fire all generals who support programs like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
The Border: Tom Homan, the nominated “border czar,” has warned all illegal aliens to get ready for mass deportation, while South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will be Trump’s Homeland Security chief working alongside Homan.
The Department of Education: Trump has promised to close this down completely to stop the so-called “woke agenda.”
The Environmental Protection Agency: Expect former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to gut EPA regulations. He has already signaled his priorities, with a social media post saying he will “restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.” The EPA might have to change its initials to the DBD, for Drill, Baby, Drill. Still, there are some signs of resistance here. Even the CEO of ExxonMobil pushed back, saying, “I don’t think the challenge or the need to address global emissions is going to go away.”
Trade: China hawk Sen. Marco Rubio will be the secretary of state, likely overseeing a world of high tariffs that will trigger trade wars alongside the existing wars already raging.
The Legal System: Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general is taking the most incoming. Gaetz believes he and Trump are victims of Democratic “lawfare,” and he’s ready to hit back. “The hammer of Justice is coming,” declared Elon Musk on X, lest anyone think there will be no reprisals.
Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Health Secretary. OMG. Really?
Robert Reich
At a time when the truth is a precious common good, and the public’s health is already precarious, RFK Junior has made a name for himself spreading dangerous health lies.
He claimed that COVID-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” And that “the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons. They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”
He has promoted the baseless claim linking vaccines to autism. He’s been a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, erroneously suggesting the vaccine has killed more people than it has saved.

11 November
Here are the people Trump has picked for key positions so far
President-elect Donald Trump is starting to fill key posts in his second administration, putting an emphasis so far on aides and allies who were his strongest backers during the 2024 campaign:
Susie Wiles, chief of staff; Tom Homan, ‘border czar’; Elise Stefanik, UN ambassador; Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy

9 November
Trump Is About to Face the Choice That Dooms Many Presidencies
By Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass, conservative economic think tank.
(NYT) This is the first moment when presidencies go wrong. Rather than prepare to govern on behalf of the electorate that put them in power — especially the independent swing voters who by definition provide the margin of victory in a two-party system — new presidents, themselves typically members of the donor and activist communities, convince themselves that their personal preferences are the people’s as well. Two years later, their political capital expended and their agendas in shambles, their parties often suffer crushing defeats in midterm elections. …
CNN undercuts Trump’s ‘landslide’ boast – and adds a warning
(Raw Story) Boasts by Donald Trump and his allies that he was swept back into office in a “landslide” do not hold up under scrutiny based upon an analysis by CNN’s Zachary Wolf who also noted that the numbers suggest there are warning signs on the horizon in the 2026 midterms.
… Trump will never be on a presidential ballot again, because the 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two terms. But voters will get an opportunity to weigh in on how he and Republicans use their power in two years, during the 2026 midterm elections, he wrote. “The past three presidents, including Trump in his first term, all lost control of the House after their first two years in office. If Trump does end up with a friendly Republican majority this year, he’ll have to work hard to keep voters on his side two years from now.”
Trump’s win was real but not a landslide. Here’s where it ranks
(CNN) As of Saturday, Trump is winning the popular vote with a little more than 74.5 million votes, although millions of votes have yet to be counted in California, Washington and Utah, among others. The final 2024 popular vote tally likely won’t be known until December.
When he lost convincingly in 2020, Trump got a little more than 74 million votes. So while it’s true that much of the country moved to the right in this election, it’s also true that there was some voter apathy if, at the end of the day, turnout is down from 2020.
In terms of the Electoral College, Trump won 312 electoral votes. It’s a solid win, but in the lower half of US presidential elections.
It was a better showing than either his or Joe Biden’s 306 electoral votes in 2016 and 2020, respectively. It also outperformed both of George W. Bush’s electoral victories in 2000 and 2004. But it was far short of Barack Obama’s 365 electoral votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012.

7-8 November
Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says
(AP) — A good-governance group is warning of severe consequences if President-elect Donald Trump continues to steer clear of formal transition planning with the Biden administration — inaction that it says is already limiting the federal government’s ability to provide security clearances and briefings to the incoming administration.
Without the planning, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, “it would not be possible” to “be ready to govern on day one.”

With Trump Tariffs Looming, Businesses Try to ‘Run From a Moving Target’
Companies are filling their warehouses or looking into moving factories as they weigh President-elect Donald J. Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on foreign goods.
(NYT) The election of Mr. Trump is already cascading through global supply chains, where companies are grappling with his promises to remake international trade by raising the tariffs the United States puts on foreign products. Mr. Trump has floated a variety of plans — including a 10 to 20 percent tax on most foreign products, and a 60 percent tariff on goods from China — that would raise the surcharge American importers pay to a level not seen in generations.
Inside the Federal Work Force That Trump Has Promised to Eviscerate
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have pledged to strike fear in the heart of what they term “the deep state.” They have already succeeded.
Great expectations, grave concerns
Evan Solomon
(GZERO media)What to expect when you’re expecting Trump 2.0? Can he live up to the great expectations he set and alleviate the grave concerns? Let’s spell it out, in true T.R.U.M.P. style.
1. Tariffs and Taxes
… Prediction: Trump acts fast on some tariffs but not all. He will get a lot of internal pushback as members of his party worry that a series of international trade wars will be triggered, hammering their crucial exports and hurting their economies. Biden will scramble to get the Inflation Reduction Act money out the door, but I am already hearing reports that departments are freezing funds to prepare for the new administration.
2. Retaliation and Revolution
… Prediction: Mass layoffs in the federal government, overhauls of the Department of Education and the FBI, and legal challenges with multiple news organizations.

2 November
Trump Needs Help
Last night he simulated oral sex in public.
By Tom Nichols
I do not know how to put this gently or tastefully, so I will factually describe what happened last night in Milwaukee: A former president of the United States held a rally, during which he used a microphone holder on his podium to pantomime the act of giving fellatio.
This deeply impaired man is tied in the race to become the next president and could be holding the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal in less than three months.

Heather Cox Richardson 1 November
Trump’s comments to right-wing media figure Tucker Carlson last night at an event in Glendale, Arizona, about former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), coming as they have after the extraordinary racism and sexism of Trump’s Sunday event at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, have have highlighted the centrality of the campaign’s attack on women.
Cheney has emerged as the key figure to urge Republican women to vote against Trump, and it is becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s reelection is in trouble in part because white women are abandoning him. The early hints that this is happening, like the huge gender gap showing up in early voting, have sparked a right-wing frenzy of attempts to restore the power of white men over the women in their lives. Right-wing men are insisting that wives should vote as their husbands do, or that women should lose the ability to vote altogether.
Trump’s suggestion that Cheney should face a firing squad seems to be a general expression of the anger of white men accustomed to dictating the terms of public life when faced with the reality that they can no longer count on being able to cow the people around them.
Last night, Former President Donald Trump spoke off the cuff during a live interview with Tucker Carlson in Arizona. In the process, he offered a glimpse into what he envisions for himself and his movement after Election Day
What Trump Sees Coming
At one of his final dystopian rodeos, the former president hinted at 2025 and beyond.
By John Hendrickson
(The Atlantic) …perhaps the most meaningful moment of the night was when Trump said matter-of-factly that he won’t run for president again. He instead hinted that his vice-presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, will be a top 2028 contender. Win or lose, this was it, his last dystopian rodeo. Trump spoke almost wistfully about suddenly approaching the end of his never-ending rally tour. He sounded like a kid moving to a new neighborhood and a new middle school. He told his friends he’d miss them. “We’ll meet, but it’ll be different,” he said. He was in no rush to leave the stage.
The big question going into Tuesday’s election is whether the MAGA movement will fizzle out should Trump lose. Although Trump himself seems more exhausted than usual these days, his supporters are as fired up as ever. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” chants— a reference to Trump’s now-infamous response to the July attempt on his life—broke out among the crowd as people waited to pass through Secret Service checkpoints.
Trump’s Attack on Liz Cheney Is Just as Malicious as It Appears
(NYT) Once again, we confront a malicious Donald Trump word salad. On Thursday night, he called Liz Cheney “a very dumb individual” (which is typical Trump language), and then he said, “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”