Question: Now that Donald J. Trump has decisively won a second term, will the president-elect again embrace Project 2025, which obviously was written for him in the first place?
FRIDAY 11/8/24
Racist Text Messages to Black Youth, Adults – The FBI and several state attorneys general have opened inquiries into racist text messages sent to Black men, women and children that started to appear Wednesday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The texts have gone out to Black middle-school, high school and college students, including the 17-year-old son of St. Louis’ mayor, according to the report, and say the recipients have been chosen for “some sort of indentured servitude.” (Listen to NPR’s report here.)
NPR tried calling phone numbers associated with the texts, to no avail. There is no indication yet whether the texts might be related to election day bomb threats at polls or pre-election day misinformation and disinformation thought to have come primarily from Russian hackers.
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EU to Abandon Ukraine? – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told an informal conference of European Union leaders in Budapest Friday that the EU must rethink its support for Ukraine following Donald J. Trump’s election victory, Reuters reports. Orbán, who is a close friend of both Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, said Europe cannot finance the war without US support.
Trump has promised to “end” the war via negotiations between Putin – who has fortified his aggression with North Korean army troops – and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The Americans will quit this war, first of all they will not encourage the war,” Orbán told state radio (a product of his own authoritarian rule).
Meanwhile … The Biden White House is rushing to process about $50 billion in guaranteed loans to Ukraine before January 20.
Speaking at the EU leaders’ conference in Budapest Thursday, Zelenskyy said this: “There should be no illusion that a just peace can be brought by showing weakness. Peace is a reward only for the strong.”
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Newsome Jumps Trump – Gov. Gavin Newsome Thursday issued a proclamation calling for a special session of the California legislature “to safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration.” It is set to begin December 2, the day newly elected members of the state senate and assembly will be sworn in.
“The special session will focus on bolstering California legal resources to protect civil rights, reproductive freedom, climate action and immigrant families,” the proclamation states.
Newsome is a likely candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination who was considered in the running after President Biden stepped down from his re-election bid and before Vice President Kamala Harris was named his successor.
The special session will assure California “won’t be flat footed come June,” said Attorney Gen. Rob Bonta, (per the Los Angeles Times). “You can be sure that as California attorney general, if Trump attacks your rights, I’ll be there. If Trump comes after your freedoms, I’ll be there. If Trump jeopardizes your safety and well-being, I’ll be there.”
James Gallagher, the California assembly’s Republican leader, responded thusly: “This special session is a shameless political stunt. The only ‘problem’ it will solve is Gavin Newsome’s insecurity that not enough people are paying attention to him.”
Newsome v. Musk? … Lots of context here. In addition to the civil rights issues AG Bonta mentions above, Sacramento is concerned Trump will seek to gut California of its ability to set its own emissions standards established during Gov. Ronald Reagan’s administration. Later, during the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (also a Republican), California established a zero-emissions mandate, which had stemmed early losses at Tesla as it sold EV credits to automakers that fell short of the standard.
But by the ‘10s, CEO Elon Musk, who appears headed to the Trump White House as a government waste-reduction czar, said he would have preferred Tesla to stand on its own without the ZEV credits.
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Casey Defeated in PA – The Associated Press has called Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat for Trump-backed Republican challenger David McCormick, former CEO of the world’s largest hedge-fund. However, three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D) had not conceded as of Friday morning, saying at least 100,000 ballots – including provisional, military and overseas – are yet to be counted, according to the AP, which reports McCormick leads by 31,000 votes.
The Senate count now stands at 53 Republican, including McCormick, to 45 Democratic, with two races yet to be called. In the House of Representatives, Republicans have 211 seats to 199 Democratic seats, with 25 races to be called, and 218 necessary for the majority.
--TL
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THURSDAY 11/7/24
This Just In -- Ex-president/President-elect Donald J. Trump has named a top political aide, Susie Wiles, as chief of staff. She will become the first woman in the role.
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UPDATE – The Federal Reserve lowered its target interest rate by ¼ points to the 4 ½% to 4 ¾% range, while reiterating it remains “strongly committed to supporting maximum employment and returning inflation to its 2% objective.” Whether meant intentional or not, the commitment seems to warn about potentially inflationary policies like tax cuts and tariffs.
II -- Chairman Jerome Powell said he does not expect the general election to influence the Fed's rate setting in the future, though the next president or Congress could enact fiscal policy that "could have effects over time that do matter." (Per Marketplace.) Powell also said he will not step down as Fed chairman if President-elect Trump asks him to, according to Marketwatch.
Another Rate Cut? – The Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates by another ¼-point when it concludes its Board of Governors meeting Thursday afternoon, according to NPR’s Morning Edition. This would mark the second benchmark rate cut since the Consumer Price Index fell close to the Fed’s 2% target late this year. In September, the Fed cut the rate by a half-point as the CPI came down to 2.5% from its end-of-pandemic high of 9.1% in June 2022.
Fed up? ... While Thursday’s expected cut was considered the second of many, the economic policies of President-elect Donald J. Trump could potentially blunt that. Specifically, another tax cut financed by hiked tariffs on imported goods would potentially re-fuel inflation. Trump already has spoken of taking executive control of the otherwise independent Fed and is unlikely to re-appoint its chair, Jerome Powell, when his term from the first Trump administration expires May 15, 2026.
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Zelenskyy Promotes ‘Peace Through Strength’ – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his most-pointed response to President-elect Trump’s vow to work out a peace plan between Ukraine and Russia, at the European Political Community Summit in Budapest Thursday, per The Kyiv Independent.
“There should be no illusions that a just peace can be bought by showing weakness,” Zelenskyy said. “Peace is a reward only for the strong.”
Trump has said he can “solve” it in a day, as he has promised for a number of other issues, which apparently means handing over parts of Ukraine already claimed by Vladmir Putin’s Russian army.
Meanwhile, President Biden is rushing to distribute before he leaves office a remaining $50 billion in Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loans, backed by interest earned from immobilized Russian sovereign assets, reports Morning Edition.
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That’s a Wrap – Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith is expected to wrap up his two cases against president-elect/ex-President Donald J. Trump – conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election and hoarding of classified documents -- before Trump’s January 20th inauguration (per NPR’s All Things Considered). Because a sitting president cannot face trial, that gives Smith 74 days as of Thursday to present his case. Afterward, he faces potential retribution from the once and future prez.
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Next House – Control of the House of Representatives for the 119th Congress remains undecided, with 40 seats yet to be called. As of Thursday morning, there are 205 Republican, and 190 Democratic victors, with 218 needed for control. It may take weeks before numbers are final, according to The New York Times.
New Senate … Republicans already have taken the Senate, with 52 seats. Democrats now have 44 seats. Key races in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania have yet to be called.
--TL
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Trump Will Be #47; GOP Takes Senate
WEDNESDAY 11/6/24
There will not be the long, drawn-out ballot count in the battleground states that virtually everybody (including us) had predicted. North Carolina and Georgia fell to Donald J. Trump before midnight Tuesday, while blue counties in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan were showing smaller margins for Kamala Harris than for Joe Biden four years earlier and Trump’s margin in key red counties in most states grew from 2020.
Trump, 78, was leading the popular vote Wednesday morning for the first time in three elections, 71.39 million to 66.45 million, according to the AP.
The once and future president did not wait for the AP to call Wisconsin and leap past the 270 electoral vote threshold when he made his victory speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, about 2:30 am EST.
“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason,” Trump told his crowd, referring to an assassination attempt last July in Butler, Pennsylvania, and another last September at Trump International Golf Club in Florida.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was the first foreign leader to hail Trump’s victory, The Guardian reports, writing on social media: “The biggest comeback in US political history! Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on his enormous win. A much-needed victory for the world!”
It probably doesn’t need to be repeated that Orbán is the only European Union leader allied with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “huge victory” a “powerful recommitment” to the US-Israeli alliance, according to Haaretz.
Prior to the market’s opening Wednesday morning, stocks rallied and bitcoin soared, “with investors piling into trades that align with a second Trump presidency,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “The dollar and Treasury yields both jumped, reflecting bets that Trump’s policies could widen the budget deficit and stoke inflation, while tariffs would strain trading partners.”
Meanwhile, myriad media outlets report that exit polls indicate male Latino support for Trump nearly reached 50%; Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, founder of We Are Más, cited the gender gap and told NPR’s Morning Edition the president-elect’s support was up 13 points among Latinos from 2020.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa