Donald Trump November 2024-

Donald Trump May-October 2024

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; Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency
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” does 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.”