Welcome to the online version of From the Political Bureauan evening newsletter featuring the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, senior national political reporter Jonathan Allen explains why Democrats need to rethink their economic message during Donald Trump’s second term. Moreover, national politics reporter Matt Dixon writes that the battle to succeed Trump in four years is already underway. And ‘Meet the Press’ moderator Kristen Welker asks Trump in an interview about his plans for mass deportation.
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How Trump Broke Both Parties — and Where Democrats Go from Here
By Jonathan Allen
Over the past decade, newly elected President Donald Trump has fractured both national political parties.
He first stormed into the 2016 Republican primaries with both an agenda and a style that ran sharply counter to Republican convention. Since then, the Democratic Party has defined itself by opposition to him, rather than its own values and platform. President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory now looks more than ever like an electoral brake in a race away from the establishment.
For much of the past two decades, American voters have cried out that they don’t believe their government is serving them well. Before Trump, Democrats nominated — and the country twice elected — Barack Obama, a candidate who ran against leaders who plunged the country into perpetual wars and a financial and housing crisis that nearly brought down the economy.
Add to that this nugget: This is the first time since 1896 that voters have ousted the incumbent party in three consecutive presidential elections. (They did this four times in a row in the 1880s and 1890s.)
In this election, there was no greater symbol of the aimlessness of the two parties’ old guard than the Cheney family and the Democratic presidential candidate throwing their arms around each other in an embrace that they somehow didn’t find awkward. Their marriage of convenience gave more credence to Trump’s arguments that elites serve their own interests first.
Like Obama’s two elections, Trump’s second victory was decisive by modern historical standards. There’s no need to count up how many thousands of votes he won in the closest swing states.
But if there’s a silver lining — or a glimmer of hope — for Democrats, it’s that the national shift in the electorate can still be measured as a handful of percentage points. This wasn’t Ronald Reagan who took everything except Minnesota and the District of Columbia in 1984.
Democrats now have time to assess how their party can better respond to public sentiment as they look toward the 2026 midterm elections and 2028 presidential elections.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., sharply criticized them for alienating white, black and Latino working-class voters. He may be the wrong person to make that case — given that he was an architect and cheerleader for Biden’s economic agenda — but he has a point.
Democrats would be wise to start with the issue that Trump harped on – and which was the biggest concern of the plurality of his voters: the economy.
For four years, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris tried to convince voters that their plans were working instead of shaping their agenda in response to the economic pain so many Americans are feeling. First, they said inflation was not a problem. Then they said it was temporary. Eventually they noticed that the speed was slowing. With few exceptions — hard-to-implement promises to ban price gouging — they barely stopped to acknowledge the damage cumulative inflation was doing to working families.
They threw out facts and figures to explain that the economy is in better shape than its counterparts around the world. Harris’ economic policy offering was largely an expansion of Biden proposals, such as more generous homebuyer and child tax credits than he had called for. In the political equivalent of Bill Buckner booting a ground ball in the World Series, Biden did not warn the public when he took office that the previous year’s pandemic spending would likely cause inflation.
But the other thing Biden and Harris failed to do — despite the president’s reputation for empathy — was listen to the cries for help and tailor their agenda accordingly. The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves if they don’t figure this out before the next election.
In the meantime, Trump now has the power to reform government — the institutions of democracy — because he rebuilt the Republican Party around a more populist and protectionist vision of the economy that proved compelling to the electorate.
To effectively fight for the issues they care about most, from the form of government to abortion rights, Democrats must ensure voters don’t see them as a threat to economic prosperity.
Even more consequences after the elections
🗳️ The autopsy: Alex Seitz-Wald, Henry J. Gomez and Natasha Korecki tell the inside story of how Trump won and Harris lost, based on more than 35 interviews with operatives and officials from both parties and campaigns. Read more →
🔵 Despondent Democrats: Natasha Korecki and Yamiche Alcindor also have more on how Democratic officials are grappling with Harris’ loss and are starting to lay the blame on messaging decisions, Biden and current party leaders. Read more →
🗣️ Voters weigh in: Democratic voters in battleground states said they were disappointed but ultimately not surprised by Harris’ defeat, and that their party could have done more to address economic problems. Read more →
Trump’s victory maintains his hold on the Republican Party. It also gives rise to succession plans.
By Matt Dixon
Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has done something no political opponent could: put an end date to his time at the helm of the Republican Party.
Well, sort of.
Trump single-handedly reshaped the party in his own image, not only becoming the undisputed leader but also rewiring what the Grand Old Party stands for. After he burst onto the scene in 2015, former party heavyweights who didn’t adhere to the new MAGA ethos were relegated to irrelevance or became the subject of intense lines of attack from Trump and his supporters.
But the fact is that the Constitution prohibits him from running for president again after a second term. And with Trump unable to run again, the process of figuring out who will lead the next party has already begun, with a series of ambitious and eager Republicans eyeing the opportunity for years — and a fight that will be shaped by the now two-term chairman.
A dozen Republican elected officials, fundraisers and advisers said in interviews that, at least in the short term, it doesn’t matter whether Trump can run for office again. He will still cast an unshakable shadow over the Republican Party, a shadow that will influence who can ascend, who will descend, and whether the party will reset at all to resemble its pre-Trump state or continue on a path much more focuses on new policy fascinations such as isolationism. culture war-inspired fights and tariff-oriented economic policies.
“He will keep the party as long as he is alive,” said a longtime Republican aide.
Read more from Matt →
Trump tells NBC News there is ‘no price tag’ on his mass deportation plan
By Kristen Welker and Alexandra Marquez
President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News on Thursday that one of his first priorities upon taking office in January was making the border “strong and strong.” When Trump was questioned about his campaign promise of mass deportations, he said his administration would have “no choice” but to carry them out.
Trump said he views his landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as a mandate “to bring common sense to the country.”
“We obviously need to make the border strong and powerful and at the same time we want people to enter our country,” he said. “And you know, I’m not one to say, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”
As a candidate, Trump had repeatedly promised to carry out the “largest deportation effort in American history.” Asked about the cost of his plan, he said: “It’s not a matter of a price tag. It’s not – really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they are going back to those countries because they will not stay here. There is no price tag.”
It is unclear how many undocumented immigrants there are in the U.S., but acting ICE Director Patrick J. Lechleitner told NBC News in July that a mass deportation effort would be a huge logistical and financial challenge. Two former Trump administration officials involved in immigration during his first term told NBC News that the effort would require cooperation between a number of federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the Pentagon.
Read more from the interview →
🗞️Today’s top stories
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🎤Biden’s message: Biden, in his first public speech since the election, urged Americans to “accept the choice the country has made” as he encouraged his supporters to “stand up.” Read more →
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➡️ Transition conversation: Susie Wiles, Trump’s co-campaign manager, is seen as the frontrunner to become the next White House chief of staff. Read more →
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🔀 On the hill: Trump’s victory has thrown into disarray next week’s three-way battle for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Read more →
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💻 Nice get-together: CEOs of technology companies who largely sat on the sidelines during the election are sending their congratulations to Trump. Read more →
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👀 Border Bracket: The Biden administration is making contingency plans for a possible increase in border crossings before Trump takes office. Read more →
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✂️ Rate reduction: The Federal Reserve announced it would cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, while flagging continued concerns about inflation. Read more →
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🔢 By the numbers: Here’s a district-by-district breakdown of how Trump won Pennsylvania. Follow live updates after the elections →
For now, that all comes from the Political Bureau. If you have any feedback – like it or not – please email us at politicsnieuwsbrief@nbcuni.com
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
