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Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, we'll take your calls and comments live.
And then semaphores Dave Weigel and Scott Wong of NBC News analyze the political implications of unified GOP control of the executive branch, Senate, and potentially the House.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal starts now.
Join the conversation.
This is Washington Journal for Friday, November 8th.
Election Day 2024 is in the books with Republicans winning control of the White House and the Senate and possibly the House.
The potential GOP trifecta has triggered finger-pointing among the Democratic Party strategists and officials about what went wrong.
To start today's program, we're asking Democrats only: what's the message of Election Day loss?
Here are the lines.
They are broken down regionally.
If you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, 202-748-8000.
And if you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, it's 202-748-8001.
You can text your comments to 202-748-8003.
Be sure to include your name and city.
You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ.
Good morning, and thank you for being with us.
We will get to your calls in just a few moments, but first wanted to update you on the state of the race and where it currently stands.
Former or president-elect Donald Trump does have 295 electoral votes as of right now.
That's compared to Kamala Harris with 226th.
Two states have yet to be called: Nevada and Arizona.
Right now, Trump is leading in both of those states.
Trump also is up in the popular or in the popular vote and by a little over 4 million votes.
On the Senate side, Republicans have picked up four Senate seats.
They now have at least 53.
Compared to Democrats with 45, there's still a couple seats yet to be called, including Nevada and Arizona.
And in the House, there are still 25 races yet to be called.
They need, a party needs 218 seats to take control.
Right now, Republicans have 211.
Democrats, 199.
Again, 25 races yet to be called.
And with those races and the potential GOP trifecta, as I mentioned, there are talks among the party about what went wrong.
This headline from the Huffington Post shell-shocked Democrats stumbling for answers after loss to Donald Trump.
It says Democrats are in disarray days after former President Donald Trump soundly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, a romp that could result in Congress controlling not just the White House, but also both chambers of Congress.
Democratic lawmakers and party operatives offered an array of explanations for their stinging loss, ranging from ineffective party messaging, Harris' campaign strategy, President Joe Biden's initial decision to run for reelection, and his administration's record on immigration and the economy.
It goes on to say, progressives said Harris spent too much time campaigning for moderate Republican votes and not enough time attacking corporate America.
Adam Greene, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, faulted Harris for not driving attention to her proposal to crack down on grocery company price gouging as such as by staging a campaign event at a corporate headquarters.
Conversely, Adam Gentleson, a former senior aide to Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania, said progressive groups hamstrung Harris by making her commit to liberal positions that hurt her this year, such as a 2019 ACLU questionnaire, in which Harris said she supports gender reaffirming medical care for federal prisoners and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
Yesterday during the White House press briefing, the White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean Pierre was asked about the loss.
Here is what she said.
If you look at the four years, almost three, well, three plus years, there are some historic accomplishments that they were able to do together, whether it's beating Big Pharma and now Medicare is able to negotiate, whether it's getting a bipartisan infrastructure law, whether it's the PACT Act, the bipartisan infrastructure, the Chips and Science Act, thank you so much.
These are things that were able to get us out of the pandemic.
And you heard me say at the top that the president is proud to leave the strongest economy for the next person that's coming for the president-elect.
And that's what they're going to inherit.
But with all of that said, and this gets to your question, despite all of the accomplishments that we were able to get done, there were global headwinds that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, obviously COVID-19 led to disruptions with the supply chain.
And it had a political toll on many incumbents if you look at what happened in 2024 globally.
And that's part of what you saw, right?
You saw that there was a political toll on incumbent parties around the world here.
Now, I'm going to be very mindful and leave the political analysis to the pundits.
They're going to dig in.
They're going to look under the hood.
They're going to see exactly what happened.
But what we saw two nights ago was not unusual to what we have seen from the incumbencies around the world on the global stage.
Again, this first hour is for Democrats only.
The question, what's the message of Election Day loss?
We'll start with Andrew in Woodbridge, Virginia.
Good morning, Andrew.
Good morning.
The Vice President started off really well, and especially at the First, well, the first and only debate.
She came out outswinging.
And I want to also, first I got to compare it to the Republicans.
The Republicans have a consistent message of security, which is the border and immigration, and then the economy.
And that was inflation.
And they just hammered it on.
And then the Democrats, their main point, talking point ended up being reproductive rights.
So you have security in the economy versus reproductive rights.
Which one is going to win out?
To me, obviously, it's going to be security and the economy.
And like you just pointed out on what you were reading just a little bit ago, the Democrats needed to hammer in the economy.
They should have been just talking repeatedly about the Inflation Reduction Act, what they did for CHIPS, what they've done to lower prices, what they've done to lower energy, and then just what they're going to continue to do to lower prices, bring back jobs, how they had the union on their side,
and they were going out with Sean Faye.
That's what they needed.
That's what they just needed.
It's like at some point, they pivoted from talking a lot about economic issues, jobs, higher wages for workers, and then they pivoted and then they only talked about reproductive rights.
And I wish they wouldn't have done that.
I think if they had continued on talking about, you know, higher wages, lower prices, they would have won this thing.
That was Andrew and Virginia and Mike in Bethesda, Maryland.
Good morning, Mike.
Hi.
Yeah, this was absolute failure on the Democrats' part.
There were the global headwinds, but lost to one of the most incompetent people in politics and who gained ground in people he's demonized.
Just says a lot about messaging of the Democratic leadership who's failed, who's lost to this guy twice, lost to this guy twice.
We basically forced Biden out of the race.
Now we need to force more people out of the race who failed against this guy twice.
That's disqualifying.
Really, really losing to this guy is really disqualifying.
Mike, what messaging would you have liked to have seen them focus on?
Certainly more about the economy, how it was COVID that really caused the economic downturns, what Biden was really doing to try and stop it, despite also that it was all Trump's fault, really.
He absolutely botched COVID.
He basically caused a lot of the pains we felt both economically, socially during COVID.
And I guess overall, big message that shows in America and almost the whole world that people only care about their pocketbooks.
Democracy, freedom, decency be damned.
People don't care.
Just what's in their pockets.
Brenda in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Good morning, Brenda.
Good morning, honey.
I'm glad you took my problem this morning.
Please let me talk.
Well, I'm very disappointed in America way they voted.
And very disappointing.
They did not give Harris a chance to prove herself.
And to me, I think she would have made a wonderful president because she is looking after the people and our country.
And people did not give her a chance.
And what are we going to do?
I'm 78 years old, and I live on my little Social Security, and I'm in bad health.
And if I didn't have Medicare and Medicaid, I would not be able to go to no doctors or have operations.
And that's what 2025 is for Trump, to cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, and cut Social Security.
Now, I work three to four jobs trying to make my little Social Security.
And they cut my food stamps down from $99 to $35.
Okay?
I am struggling.
I am struggling each month to make my bills and be able to buy me some food and everything else.
And to me, the American people should look back what Trump done before.
Look back what he done before.
He had people go to the Capitol, tear up things, some chop.
Okay, now listen to this.
There is no way Trump could have got his ear shot because that bullet would have had to go through his head.
That was a put-on because Biden was ahead of him.
And I sat here in my living room and said, okay, Trump's going to pull one of his little things to make people feel sorry for him.
And the American people do feel sorry for him.
And if people remember when he was running for president first time, there were three doctors said that he was mentally disturbed.
A lot of Republicans turn against him and say that he is not fit to be a president.
He's mentally insane.
The people that knew him was coming.
A big general said he does not bow down to a dictator.
Trump wants to be a dictator like that Russia president does.
And to me, Trump will sell our country out to him.
Brenda, you mentioned a couple things in there.
You talked about your Social Security benefits and the economy a little bit.
And then you also mentioned Trump's record, former President Trump's record from his first term.
Do you think the Harris and Walls campaign communicated those issues enough?
Yes, I do.
And the border thing, it is hard to do because I sat here watching on news where people getting paid to secure our borders, resident of that bar wire fence, letting people in, letting people in.
They did not give her a chance.
And to me, everybody where I live back voted for her.
And on my local news, they said that there was over 3,000 votes that was not counted here in Neckerburg County.
And I want to know if my vote counted, but they said 3,000 and some of my votes was not counted here in Neckerburg County.
So why wasn't they?
Why didn't they do it?
If that was Trump, that some votes hadn't been done and things, he would have a recount.
Why couldn't they have a recount before they licked him president?
Brenda, I believe you can check with the Secretary of State or your county election office to make sure that your ballot was counted if you have a concern about that.
Sharon in North Bend, Oregon.
Good morning, Sharon.
Well, good morning.
I have been listening to people and I understand their angst.
I'll have to say that the president-elect has created a permission structure to persecute or murder me.
I do not understand at a visceral level how any anyone could vote for that, nor will I ever forget it.
So, Sharon, where do you think the breakdown was?
Right now, former President Trump is on track to win the popular vote.
That's something he didn't do in 2016.
What do you think is the cause?
Oh, I'm not sure what I think the cause is.
I'm talking about the, right now, what he is.
But I'm also proud of Harris.
I'm proud of her campaign, and I want Democrats to take heart.
We're powerful and we are united.
And one last thing is I really don't understand.
It's not what I know.
It's what I do not understand.
How women could vote for president-elect pussy grabber and be, and you know, they cannot be insulted.
So, I mean, I don't understand the other side.
It may take some time for me to understand the other side, but I do know that the president-elect has given a permission structure for people to do harm to Democrats.
But I do think it's important for Democrats to understand that we are united, that we are strong, and we're going to get through this.
That was Sharon.
And Sharon mentioned women voters supporting now President-elect Trump.
This column from the New York Times from Pamela Paul, she's calm us there.
Harris took women for granted.
The article says this was supposed to be the big gender gap election.
The data showed women leading heavily Democratic with abortion rights, a primary driver.
Women were expected to line up in droves, ready to reel in the vote for their designated glass ceiling shattering heroin.
Things didn't go according to plan.
Instead of a yawning gender gap, instead of a yawning gender gap, exit polls showed a real but not determinative disparity between how men and women voted.
If exit polls hold, Kamala Harris's advantage with women may have narrowed, may have been narrower than Biden in 2020.
But do not blame women for Harris's loss.
Blame Harris and her campaign strategists.
Apart from promising to safeguard abortion rights, the Harris campaign didn't do nearly enough to address other issues important to women, including the kitchen table economy, education, gun control, health care, the environment, and immigration.
The long hangover of COVID was brushed aside like yesterday's nightmare.
If there's one thing that almost every woman can agree on, it's that they do not like to be taken for granted.
Harris's biggest mistake was leaning hard on a single issue, making abortion rights a centerpiece for her campaign, which reflects a fairly reduced view of women's lives as citizens.
Women, even women who favor abortion rights, do not vote by uterus alone.
Back to your calls.
Alex in Chicago, Illinois.
Good morning, Alex.
Good morning.
I, for one, don't believe that Trump actually won.
Where there's Trump, there's trickery, there's bribery, there is all kinds of deceit.
The day of the election, Trump said that there was no, he trusted the results.
And he didn't say that before.
Before that, he was saying that he was challenging this state, challenging that state.
And also, he predicted that he would win all of the slave states.
There was trickery and bribery in this.
I don't think that the Democrats actually lost.
I hope it comes out.
The Postmaster General is very corrupt.
You know, so Trump did not win this election, you all.
He did not win.
Eugene in Grantville, Georgia.
Good morning, Eugene.
Yes, good morning, America, and good morning, Democrats.
Let's just face the facts.
America has turned to a more fascist, racist country.
That's just the facts.
We can debate, she did this wrong, she did that wrong.
We're headed to that direction.
I've been voting in 12 presidential elections, and this shows you what compromise gets you.
The Democrats sold out the working people in the 80s from Reagan, kept selling them out, embraced it in the 90s.
Trickled down economics.
This is what it got us.
Should have stuck to our principles.
We didn't.
And we're paying the price.
This is America.
Thank you.
Adele in South Holland, Illinois.
Good morning, Adele.
Good morning.
I just wanted to say this.
No one is addressing what the real issue is.
America is not ready for a female president.
The two most despised groups for racism against them are African Americans and Jews.
They did not want a black woman and a Jewish husband in the White House.
And that's all I have to say.
Thank you and have a great day.
Robert and Wooster, Massachusetts.
Good morning, Robert.
Yes, the last time that I called, I talked to you.
And I told you that if Donald Trump said, make America great again, I told you he's going to take us back to 1939 in the Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden.
And Donald Trump went to Madison Square Garden and made that racist rally.
And another thing with C-SPEN, I got to say one thing.
The Heritage Foundation, you had the Heritage and Paul Dixon on your show for too many years.
You allowed the Heritage Foundation to scoop 2024.
And I'm going to tell you one thing.
I do not appreciate C-Stan putting like air cultural TV.
I don't like you.
Every day, I get up 5 o'clock in the morning and I watch my local TV station dress.
Then I watch everything after that.
So by the time C-STAN gets on at 7 o'clock, you're telling me old news.
I am telling you one thing.
The black men, we decided to skit it out to let you white people suffer.
Bye.
That was Robert.
And he mentioned having guests on from the Heritage Foundation.
We do offer a wide range of guests on this program.
You may not always like what the guests have to offer, but we do want to bring you a variety of viewpoints.
Jonathan, Grand Prairie, Texas.
Good morning, Jonathan.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
And I have to say, for some of the people that are calling in at Kecking C-SPAN, you guys do a wonderful job, and you have to be, you have to let everybody on your platform.
That being said, here's my take on the election.
It wasn't anything that Kamala Harris's team did or did not do in terms of her losing the election, whether it was her not getting the messaging across to the Latinos or to the working class, the blue collar.
It had absolutely nothing to do with that.
What it had to do with was we had a huge population of people across the United States, coast to coast, that were intoxicated by the vulgar, violent, racist rhetoric of a madman.
And they expelled it when they went to the polls and voted him in.
Most of the people that voted Donald Trump in, I can tell you, they voted holding their noses.
This man was able to turn people, really good people who have a moral compass and values, and a blind eye to that and just say, hey, you know what?
I can just live with all the crazy rhetoric out of his mouth, but I'll just vote him in anyway.
That's the issue.
So when we look back and we say, well, what was the mistakes?
There really weren't any mistakes.
What I'm concerned about is going forward as a society where we have a lack of morals and values.
It wasn't about whether you were Democrat or Republican or Independent for me.
I have conservative views, even though I'm a Democrat.
It was the candidate and the person, him or herself.
And I think that's the messaging that we should take as American citizens and as a society.
I appreciate you taking my call and you have a great day.
Jonathan, can I ask you a question?
Sure, absolutely.
So I hate even mentioning the word midterms after we just got done with the election this week, but come 2026, what do you think Democrats should focus on?
Well, I think it's two things.
One is obviously we need to focus on getting people to the polls.
That's number one, the importance of it.
When I was coming up before social media, and I'm a baby boomer at the tail end of the tail end of the baby boomer generation, my parents instilled enough the value of why it was important to go to the polls, to vote, that you do have a voice and you don't have to necessarily have people assert power over you.
My parents grew up in the segregated South and told me a lot of stories about some of the experiences they had to go through personally.
And that resonated with me.
And we also, and our kids are biracial.
My wife is Filipina.
And we taught them the value of America, the democracy, going to the polls.
Number two is we have to do a better job at communicating to folks that are not necessarily in our class or our gender.
We have to reach those folks because evidently there was a disconnect.
And I think also with the Latino and Asian population as well.
We just got to do a better job of communicating to them that we are here for them and we're supporting them as well.
Equal opportunity for everybody.
That was Jonathan in Texas.
This headline from today's New York Times, Biden vows a peaceful transfer of power.
The American Experiment Endures.
The article says, in a seven-minute address to the nation, the president congratulated Mr. Trump on his return to power, urged Americans to accept that result, and promised to work toward the kind of orderly transfer of power that Mr. Trump had tried to block four years ago.
For Mr. Biden, the remarks were a moment of profound restraint.
He had repeatedly condemned Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy and had warned that allowing him back into the White House would lead to economic disaster, a loss of rights for women and minorities, and a return to chaos and uncertainty overseas.
And yet, after a majority of voters concluded otherwise, Mr. Biden did not use his platform to air grievances.
Instead, he echoed Vice President Kamala Harris, who a day earlier told a crowd of supporters, some of them in tears, that she had conceded the race in a phone call to Mr. Trump.
President Biden made those comments yesterday at the White House.
Here are some of what he had to say.
For over 200 years, America has carried on the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world.
And that's not hyperbole, that's a fact.
We're the people.
The people vote and choose their own leaders, and they do it peacefully.
And we're in a democracy, the will of the people always prevails.
Yesterday, I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory.
And I assured him that I would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition.
That's what the American people deserve.
Yesterday, I also spoke with Vice President Harris.
She's been a partner and a public servant.
She ran an inspiring campaign, and everyone got to see something that I learned early on to respect so much: her character.
She has a backbone like a ramrod.
She has great character, true character.
She gave her whole heart and effort, and she and her entire team should be proud of the campaign they ran.
You know, the struggle for the soul of America since our very founding has always been an ongoing debate and still vital today.
I know for some people, it's a time for victory, to state the obvious.
For others, it's a time of loss.
Campaigns are contests of competing visions.
The country chooses one or the other.
We accept the choice the country made.
I've said many times: you can't love your country only when you win.
You can't love your neighbor only when you agree.
Something I hope we can do no matter who you voted for is see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans.
Bring down the temperature.
We have just about 30 minutes left in this first hour hearing from Democrats only.
What's the message of Election Day loss?
Hearing from callers as well as getting responses on social media.
This from Jeannie.
She says, our country is run by old white men.
America won't elect a woman even if she's highly qualified.
Dennis says Democrats didn't have the best messaging on the economy and didn't counter Trump's blaming them for inflation.
The pandemic caused inflation, not a political party.
They failed to show the U.S. has recovered from the pandemic, caused inflation better than any other country.
And this text coming from Ben in Washington, D.C., I believe Harris could have talked more about the economy and the border.
The current inflation issue is a serious issue that has tremendously impacted the views of the Democratic Party since they are currently in the White House.
I also believe that too many people voted third party.
What a waste of a vote.
Back to your calls.
Diane in Key West, Florida.
Good morning, Diane.
Morning.
Thank you for having me on.
I thought that Kamala ran a brilliant campaign.
Her ads were fresh.
They were up to date.
She had celebrities behind her.
The DNC, when they had the rally announcing her, was fantastic.
Was positive.
It's very hard for me to understand how this election went.
A few things, if I could just say, that I didn't understand.
When Trump was shot at, you know, he wanted to, the Secret Service were dragging him away.
He stopped and he says, my shoe, my shoe, you just got shot at.
And it seems so unreal.
And then also the Secret Service, they let him go back to get his shoe when the guy was just shot at.
And also when he would, a week before the election, it was such a close race.
Why in the world would he insult Puerto Rico and all the Latinos?
They're very passionate people.
And I can't believe that they gave him so much of the vote.
And then once when I saw the rally close to the election, Elon Musk was jumping up and down behind Trump.
He looked like a crazy man.
It feels to me like something happened that we just don't understand.
But I give credit to the black women.
They gave Kamala the support.
I think that it's a lost cause.
And out of this, for the Democrats, I think perhaps Bernie was the one who was reelected in Vermont overwhelmingly.
I think we need to go towards Bernie.
We need to increase the Social Security, the minimum wage.
And I think what Bernie Sanders is offering people would be exactly what they were looking for.
But I don't feel good about the election.
And I think something funny happened.
And it just doesn't make sense.
I cannot believe that the people in the United States would vote for a man criminally convicted, had raped a woman, and et cetera, et cetera.
And the doctors had, it's just too many things going against Trump that people would elect him.
Does not make sense.
Got your point, Diane.
And Diane mentioning Senator Bernie Sanders, this headline on ABC News: Bernie Sanders blasts the Democratic Party following Kamala Harris' loss.
The senator released a statement, and here is what it says.
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, would find that the working class has abandoned them.
First, it was the white working class.
Now it is Latino and black workers as well.
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change, and they're right.
Clara in North Carolina, good morning, Clara.
Good morning.
I'm calling because I first need to make this statement.
I think it is so naive that when everybody's talking about this election and that, you know, in four years from now or two years from now, you'll be able to vote again and four years for another presidential election and you can get somebody else up there and so forth.
It's not going to happen.
On day one, when he is inaugurated and he becomes that 47th president, he then has the authority to dismantle all of the departments in the government except for the House of Representatives and the Senate or the Supreme Court.
Everything else is under his auspices.
If anybody has read 2025, they will understand that's exactly what's going to happen.
He has no intention of running again because he's not going to leave the office.
They have no intention whatsoever to have another election.
So I want to thank all of you who voted for him.
I thank you for putting, and I guess maybe in a sarcastic way, you're the ones.
I can't blame him.
I blame the voters for destroying this country, for destroying the Constitution.
And if you think you're naive and you're going to say, oh, that's not, it is true, and this is what will happen.
And your friend Elon Musk told you, well, you know, things, you're not going to see it.
You're going to kind of have to feel some pain economically now.
Do you understand that?
I hope you understand.
He's telling you, things are not going to get better for any of you economically at all.
It will be better for him and anybody like him.
All of these things are going to take place.
And Trump is the new dictator of the United States.
And I do not today or ever hear that he is my president ever.
And it's true.
That was Clara in North Carolina, Steve in Clifton, New Jersey.
Good morning, Steve.
Well, I'm just listening to this, and my brain is exploding.
I mean, you're asking what Democrats did wrong, and all the narcissists are calling up and saying, we didn't do anything wrong.
It's everyone else's fault.
That's exactly what they did wrong.
That is exactly what they did wrong.
You know, so many people have said they haven't left the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party has left them.
And it's this gaslighting, it's just pointing fingers when, you know, look in the mirror.
What the Democrat, this far left movement is so vile, it's so destructive to people's lives in the country.
I hear people talking about Trump, the Nazi.
Yesterday, we had a pogrom in Amsterdam, and we're gaslighting people.
We're not seeing what we're really doing.
We're not seeing what's happening on college campuses.
So, Steve, talk to me about what you think.
Steve, you acknowledge that there could be.
Steve, you acknowledge that something did happen and people aren't acknowledging it.
What do you think one of the issues was?
One of the issues with the election?
There were many issues.
What do you think one of the issues with the Harris and Wall's campaign messaging was?
What do you think they could have focused on more?
Immigration, for one.
And when I say immigration, I have to correct that, illegal immigration.
No one in this country is against immigration.
Everyone in this, many people, most people with common sense are against other countries who want to destroy us, sending their agents into our country and walking in.
That's what people are.
That's what people see.
That's what people see on the streets.
When you have people burning the American flag on the streets, when you have people attacking Jews on the streets, and we pretend we don't see it, and worse yet, we pretend that it's the other side's fault.
That was Steve in New Jersey.
Joseph in Maryland.
Good morning, Joseph.
Yeah, good morning.
Can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
Yeah, okay.
I've been listening to a lot of the previous speakers, just like the one who just finished talking.
He didn't point out anything.
He claims about the left.
He talks about immigration.
The point about immigration is that I blame the Democrats for not explaining, for not being, just using plain language.
There's a law for immigration.
It doesn't just depend on the president signing executive orders.
There is a law.
And that law, that's why the people at the border do what they do, because of the law, the immigration law.
It is not just a policy said by the, I mean, by the president.
It is a law that has to be passed through Congress.
So that's a failure of Democrats.
Democrats never explain and they never get nasty.
They never go down to earth to tell the people the truth about things.
They think they can sugarcoat everything, be too nice, be too perfect.
It is time Democrats start being nasty, start going down to earth and tell the people using the language they can understand.
Okay.
For example, a lot of people said Trump did a lot of stuff while he was four years, I mean, while he was president, say the 45th president.
But they never point out exactly what he did to the advantage of the black people or the Latinos.
No, they never point to that.
So why did all these years, I've never had any congressman and say Democratic Congress representatives go out and talk to the people and go down to earth and say, this is what we are doing now from January and February, and this is what the other party did.
Can you compare this?
This has to be done on a day-to-day basis.
You don't just sit in Congress or take over the position and don't do anything.
Now, we have an opportunity.
From January, we have to start keeping a log.
What did he do within the first 100 days?
What did he do after that?
We have to keep a clear, clean log and track everything.
And with that, we can get nasty when it comes to the next four years, when it comes to 2026 and 2028.
Got your point, Joseph.
This in today's USA Today newspaper on the opinion page comes from Nicole Russell.
She's an opinion columnist.
The headline will left learn message of Trump victory.
It says, Trump's lopsided victory and the long list of wins by other Republicans across the country should send a chilling message to the Democratic Party.
Democrats propped up candidates who spout extreme progressive ideas while expressing contempt for the electorate they were trying to win over.
You don't win by dismissing voters' concerns about the high cost of necessities, out-of-control, illegal immigration, or the visible decline of the current president who has been replaced as the party's nominee because he wasn't up to the job.
Over the past few months, I have tried to convey this repeatedly.
The majority of Americans can see reality with their eyes.
The Democrats tried to win by gaslighting voters.
They failed.
On the campaign trail, Biden, Harris, and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz kept telling the American people that they were wrong about the life they were living, that with their own eyes, ears, and bank accounts were wrong, not the Democratics, not the Democratic Party's failed policies.
Harris kept telling Americans nothing was wrong with immigration and border security until near the end of the campaign, even though Americans could see statistics showing record high migrant encounters at the border during the Biden administration.
Little of what Harris and Wall said reflected Americans' experience on the economy, immigration, border, and abortion.
Why would Americans elect someone who can say the problems they are experiencing firsthand are fabricated?
How can Harris Walls fix problems they say don't exist?
Back to your calls.
We'll hear from Peter in North Carolina.
Good morning, Peter.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
And to answer the question that you had asked, what's the message to the Democrats for the election loss?
I think the answer is this country was founded on a lie that all men are created equal.
It shows us that a pathological liar can lie his way to the top position in the country.
And that's all I would like to say.
Democrats need to think about that.
Have a nice day.
Patty in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Good morning, Patty.
Hi, good morning, and thank you so much for taking my call.
I'm a devastated Democrat, scared to death what happened, but I really feel like the Democrats did it to themselves.
I'm a Jewish American.
I'm from Philadelphia, from the suburbs.
I live in Atlantic City now.
And for the last year, I mean, my family and me, which big Jewish family from the Northeast, have just been listening to the Democrats calling us genocidal, you know, with Israel.
And this has been so discouraging.
And I feel like the Democrats did not take responsibility to handle this.
These students should have been immediately suspended.
I mean, where in America are you allowed to burn the flag and say death to America and death to Jews and stop Jewish students from going to their classes?
This was very, very hard.
And I just think that the Democrats from the divestment program 15 years ago, you know, I mean, it's okay to feel one way towards Israel, but Israelis and Jewish people are not genocidal.
And this was very offensive to me.
And being told what to say and, you know, what not to say, everybody walks on eggshells in the Democratic Party with the transgender community, which to each is own.
But people just don't like to be told what they should think.
And I think that the Democrats went from the party of inclusion and for the working person to, you better call me her or she.
And, you know, if you're Jewish, you're not included.
So I really do feel like there's a lot of things that the Democrats did to themselves to really turn off the population.
That was Patty and Atlantic City.
And Patty brought up the issue of transgender.
A headline from The Hill, two Democrats speak out against transgender athletes after Trump win.
The article says, two House Democrats say they oppose transgender athletes competing in women's sports in the immediate aftermath of President-elect Trump's decisive victory over Vice President Harris, shifting right of their previous policy positions and deepening fractures within a bruised Democratic Party.
It goes on to talk about the members who are now changing their viewpoint.
One of them is Representative Tom Swazi of New York.
He said, he told the New York Times on Wednesday, the Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left.
He said, I don't want to discriminate against anybody, but I don't think biological boys should be playing in girls' sports.
Democrats aren't saying that, and they should be, he said.
Tom Swazi, the incumbent, he narrowly won reelection on Tuesday.
Anthony in New Jersey.
Good morning, Anthony.
Hey, good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I've been a Democrat all my life.
My first vote was for Jimmy Carter.
I just want to give a shout out to Jimmy Carter.
I think he was a great president and a great human being.
Even after Mr. Carter got out of office, his work with Habitat for Humanity and just being a generally good human being on the planet is what I thought being a Democrat was.
And today, I really had a problem.
I think, you know, there's just so many lies by the media being absorbed.
We can hear what we're talking about.
Now, the lady from North Carolina said, you know, when Trump got shot, that he didn't really get shot.
And, you know, I mean, I don't know where this stuff comes from, but you've got to really believe your own eyes.
So the thing with the thing I think that really turned off a lot of people about a million things, but one of the biggest thing was that, you know, they're saying that, you know, Trump's going to do away with elections.
And, well, guess what?
You know, 14 million people voted for Joe Biden, okay?
And we didn't really even get the reason why he dropped out.
I mean, everybody could see why he dropped out.
And now it's like, well, he just couldn't win the election.
Well, they didn't even have a primary or anything about that.
And when they did have the vote, they discarded the vote.
So what is the danger to democracy?
And I think we've got to just get along over all this vitriol and negativity.
And we're all Americans.
We really got to get together and work together.
I see this, Letitia James.
There's so much hatred.
And yes, she's black.
And you know what?
She's a racist, too.
So, you know, and I'm a racist.
You know why?
Because I'm an old white guy.
So, you know, I agree with everything that Patty from Atlantic City, New Jersey said.
Maybe it's something in the water, but I suggest why don't we just drop it all, get together, and, you know, let's not be a threat to democracy anymore and disregard elections.
Thanks for taking my call, and have a great day.
Jerome in Asheville, North Carolina.
Good morning, Jerome.
Good morning.
I just want to say the messaging, and I've been a lifelong Democrat all my life.
I'm 68 years old, and I just do not understand why Camilla, either they didn't let her or she couldn't, but they kind of like kind of protected her so she wouldn't talk too much or if they asked her questions.
I don't know if she didn't feel comfortable.
I'm not familiar with her.
You know, she hasn't been in the national singing except like in the state of California.
But, you know, she said something to the effect of, I wouldn't change a thing.
And it's like she had allegiance, you know, loyalty to Biden.
And then the next thing you know, I just think the messaging was all wrong.
And then, you know, Trump is always going to be the guy that's going to be doing the personal tax.
And for a Democrat to get down to his level, it won't work for us because what that did is made us look like we don't know the issues.
And I wish we talked more about inflation, immigration, and crime.
And, you know, you can blame anybody you want.
But, you know, Biden was in, he was in power for three and a half years.
Or, you know, yeah.
And so someone's got to take responsibility for that.
So I think the messaging was off.
For some reason, it just didn't resonate with the voters.
It may be partial racist.
It might be because she's a woman.
But I guarantee I would love to have a African woman to become president.
But I just don't think that they either gave her a chance or she just wasn't the right person to speak like Obama.
You know, all the great Democrats were great speakers.
So, you know, maybe she needs to work on that.
She's very charismatic.
She's a nice-looking woman.
You know, I mean, she's got all the, sorry, I hate to say that, but, you know, it really helps.
And when you're a president, Bomba's a nice-looking man, Clinton.
And, you know, Biden came along, and then I think he backstabbed her at the end saying that garbage thing.
And, you know, it just turns off a lot of voters because when Trump says it, you know, people expect it.
But, man, when a Democrat says something, you know, negative, it just, we just don't like it.
It just doesn't sound like a real Democrat.
And I must say, because I'm married to an wife is Jewish, and I'm not trying to badmouth anybody.
But I'll tell you what, when you start using that Nazi word, and, you know, I voted for, I voted for Camilla, but my wife, she's Jewish, and, you know, she's going to vote who she wants to, but I can guarantee she didn't vote for Camilla.
I'm not knocking Camilla for that, but it just, you do not call people Nazis.
And if you knew what they did to her family, she was on the last boat.
Her mom was on the last boat to get out of Germany, Nazi Germany in 39.
She was one of the few people, last people to get out.
And, you know, she didn't like talking about it, but they killed her family, those filthy Nazis.
And to call Trump, which is Trump, Trump is one of the lowest of the lowest.
And if he doesn't do a good job, we're going to kick him out and we're going to get back in power.
So just be patient, y'all.
I love all of y'all.
We're hard, strong Democrats.
We do care about the working people, even though they're using that against us.
The Latinas will come back to us.
The black men will come back to us.
But you just cannot be calling people Nazi.
Sorry, got your point, Jerome.
Ken in Atlanta, Georgia.
Good morning, Ken.
Hey, good morning.
Yeah, I think the message, Bernie Sanders' statement that you read earlier really sums it up.
But I think the message is don't take our vote for granted anymore.
Or we still don't know Kamala Harris's, we don't even know what her policy is, so we still don't know that.
So the message is don't take our vote for granted.
That was Ken in Atlanta, Georgia.
And this headline in today's Wall Street Journal, a couple callers bringing up President Biden, also president, former President Carter.
Biden struggled to make case for agenda.
It says, Harris's sweeping election loss raises fresh questions about why Biden decided to seek reelection at the age of 80 after initially pitching himself as a bridge to a new generation and more recently why it took him three weeks to drop his bid after an abysmal June debate.
This was all born out of the selfishness of not considering the party and not considering the damage that could be caused by allowing Trump to have another opportunity to get the presidency, said Tim Ryan, a Democrat and former Ohio congressman.
He blamed Biden's inner circle for what he called the highest amount of political malpractice for letting him run again, despite knowing he could not articulate a message.
Biden now joins Jimmy Carter in a small club of Democrats, Democratic presidents who have only served a single term.
Carter's 1980 loss to Republican Ronald Reagan made him a pariah in the Democratic Party, although he rehabilitated his reputation during his four decade-long post-presidency.
Biden, who turns 82 this month, hasn't yet laid out how he plans to spend his time after office.
Time for a couple more calls.
We'll hear from Tanya in Tucson, Arizona.
Good morning, Tanya.
Good morning.
So the message is that the Democrats don't know how to message for starters.
There's a lot of blame to go around.
And first off, Joe Biden, when he stated he was going to be a one-term president or something to that effect, and then he didn't, and then he waited and waited and waited to step down.
That was a very big problem.
I don't think Harris had enough time to, you know, establish herself as a candidate.
She also didn't message well.
She, you know, when you talk about an opportunity economy, what the heck does that mean?
You know, she didn't talk enough about the border.
She was too much.
She was just, people thought she was too much like Biden.
So they weren't going to, if they didn't want Biden to come, then they weren't going to vote for her.
So, yeah, the Democrats are too afraid of hurting anyone's feelings.
So they let Joe Biden go on and on and on instead of telling him right off the bat, you cannot do this.
You know, they let courtesy rule over now.
We have a dictator in power.
It's crazy.
They don't know how to message.
They never, they have, this has been a problem for a long time.
Tanya, what would you have liked to have seen them focus more on?
Well, she needed to focus more on the, there were two things, the biggest things people voted, the border and the economy.
And she did not message well enough on either one of those.
She was just, like someone else pointed out, what would you have done different in the, you know, in the Biden administration?
She said nothing.
Like, she was just a continuation of the Biden administration.
And they were very unhappy about the border and the economy.
And you have to explain to the American people why were all those people coming to the border?
Well, we have asylum laws that we have to follow.
And so it's like when you come and you present yourself at the border for asylum, we have to let you in.
It's just crazy.
They don't explain enough because the average American doesn't know the nitty-gritty details of our laws and things like that.
So they don't understand.
And the economy, again, do you explain to them why the economy was bad?
I don't think I ever heard her explain it.
The fact that, you know, I often saw this on Facebook.
People would post a picture of the price of gas in March 2020 and say, look, this is what we had under Trump.
And it's like, oh my gosh, do you remember that was because nobody was driving their cars?
And so the price of oil went down to almost zero.
It's like, did she say that?
I don't know.
It's just crazy, but there's no explanation as to why things are.
Some of the criticism for the Harris campaign is saying that she's focused too much on the issue of abortion.
As a woman who voted in a swing state, where does abortion rank for you in terms of policy issues?
Hello?
Are you there, Tanya?
Yeah, I'm here.
Of policy positions?
Where does that rank for you?
You know, in terms of the election, it was not high at all.
Here's why.
Because so many states have now had abortion on the ballots separately as a separate issue.
So I felt like this back in 2022 when this thing started and they started putting them on the ballots.
A woman can still vote to save her right to choice and then still vote for a Republican.
So I don't think it was a big, they put too much emphasis on abortion.
Women?
That was Tanya in Arizona.
Rebecca in Maryland.
Good morning, Rebecca.
Hi, good morning.
I wanted to just echo the sentiment about the economy.
I personally, I'm in my mid-40s, and I can tell you right now that, you know, a lot of influence came from social media that was international based on the economy.
Things like cryptocurrency or stock markets and things like that.
I mean, that was a huge focus on the crypto community in which now Trump is promising to, you know, take away income tax or capital gains.
And so you have a lot of young 20-somethings that are worried about the economy and getting a job down the line.
And, you know, I mean, I hear people that don't even live in this country on, say, YouTube that, you know, because I follow that media because I'm invested.
And, you know, it is, it's all anti-Kamla.
So I voted for Kamala.
I've been a lifelong Democrat.
But I mean, honestly, I feel like if she had focused just a little bit more on something so crucial when we're talking about whether a recession is going to happen or, you know, things like that, I think it would have gone a really long way.
And it could have helped change, you know, it could have addressed more concerns that people had about the economy.
That was Rebecca in Maryland in our last call for this first hour.
Up next, reporters Dave Weigel of Semaphore and Scott Wong of NBC News are going to join us to break down the political and policy impact of the election results as Republicans unify their control of the White House, Senate, and potentially the House.
We'll be right back.
Visit c-span.org slash results for comprehensive coverage of the 2024 campaign results.