Welcome to the online version of From the political officean evening newsletter that brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team on the campaign trail, the White House and on Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, national politics reporter Jonathan Allen explains why Democrats need to revamp their economic messaging during Donald Trump’s second term. Additionally, national political 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 about his mass deportation plans in an interview.

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How Trump Broke Both Parties – and Where Democrats Go From Here

By Jonathan Allen

Over the past decade, President-elect Donald Trump has shattered both national political parties.

He first burst onto the scene in the 2016 Republican primaries with both an agenda and a style that ran sharply against GOP conventions. Since then, the Democratic Party has defined itself by its opposition to him, rather than by its own values ​​and agenda. President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 looks more than ever like an electoral brake on a race against the establishment.

For most of the last 20 years, American voters have been shouting that they don’t think their government is serving them well. Before Trump, Democrats nominated — and the country elected twice — Barack Obama, a candidate who ran against leaders who plunged the country into forever wars and a financial and housing crisis that nearly toppled 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. (In the 1880s and 1890s, they did this four consecutive times.)

In this election, there has been no greater symbol of the futility of the old guards of both parties than the Cheney family and the Democratic presidential candidate, embracing each other in an embrace they have not Didn’t find it bothersome. Their marriage of convenience lent further 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 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 national voter swings can still be measured in a few percentage points. It wasn’t Ronald Reagan who took everything except Minnesota and the District of Columbia in 1984.

Democrats now have time to evaluate how their party can become more responsive to public opinion in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., severely criticized them for alienating working-class white, black and Latino voters. He may not be the right person to make this point – given that he was the architect and ringleader of Biden’s economic agenda – but he’s right.

Democrats would do well to start with the issue that Trump insisted on — and that was the top 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 to address the economic hardship felt by many Americans. First, they said inflation was not a problem. Then they said it was transitory. Eventually, they found that his pace was slowing. With a few exceptions – hard-to-implement promises to ban price gouging – they have taken little time to recognize the damage cumulative inflation is doing to working families.

They presented facts and figures to explain that the economy is in better shape than its counterparts around the world. Harris’ economic policy proposals were largely expansions of Biden’s proposals, such as more generous homebuying and child tax credits than he had requested. In the political equivalent of Bill Buckner throwing a ground ball in the World Series, Biden failed to warn the public when he took office that the previous year’s pandemic-related spending was likely to 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 shape their agenda around them . Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves if they don’t realize this before the next election.

In the meantime, Trump now has the power to reform government – ​​the institutions of democracy – because he has rebuilt the Republican Party around a more populist and protectionist vision of the economy that has proven compelling to of the electorate.

To effectively fight for the issues they care most about, from the form of government to abortion rights, Democrats must ensure that voters don’t see them as a threat to economic prosperity.

More post-election fallout

The autopsy: Alex Seitz-Wald, Henry J. Gomez and Natasha Korecki tell the 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 →

Discouraged Democrats: Natasha Korecki and Yamiche Alcindor also have more on how Democratic officials are grappling with Harris’ loss and starting to shift blame for messaging decisions, to Biden and current party leaders. Read more →

Voters speak out: Democratic voters in conflict states said they were disappointed but ultimately not surprised by Harris’ defeat and that their party could have done more to address economic concerns. Read more →

Trump’s victory maintains his grip on the Republican Party. This also kicks off succession plans.

By Matt Dixon

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency accomplished something no political opponent could: set a deadline on his term as leader of the Republican Party.

Well, sort of.

Trump single-handedly remade the party in his own image, not only becoming its undisputed leader, but also restructuring what the Grand Old Party stands for. After he emerged on the scene in 2015, former party heavyweights who did not respect the new MAGA philosophy were either dismissed or became the subject of intense attack lines from Trump and his supporters.

But the fact is that the Constitution prohibits him from running for president again after a second term. And because Trump can’t run again, the process of determining who will lead the party has already begun, with a slate of ambitious and enthusiastic Republicans eyeing the opportunity for years — and a fight that will be shaped by the two current. -presidential mandate.

A dozen Republican lawmakers, fundraisers and consultants said in interviews that, at least in the short term, it doesn’t matter whether Trump might run again. He will still cast an unwavering shadow over the GOP, one that will influence who can rise, who will fall, and whether the party resets itself to resemble its pre-Trump state or continues to follow a path much more focused on new political fascinations like isolationism. cultural struggles steeped in war and an economic policy focused on customs tariffs.

“He’ll keep the party as long as he’s alive,” said one longtime Republican member.

Read more from Matt →

Trump tells NBC News his mass deportation plan has ‘no price’

By Kristen Welker and Alexandra Marquez

President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News on Thursday that one of his first priorities when he took office in January was to make the border “strong and powerful.” Asked about his campaign promise of mass deportations, Trump said his administration would have “no choice” but to implement them.

Trump said he saw his resounding victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as a mandate “to bring sanity” to the country.

“We obviously need to make the border strong and powerful and, and we need to do that, at the same time we want people to come to our country,” he said. “And you know, I’m not someone who says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come.

As a candidate, Trump repeatedly pledged to implement the “the largest deportation effort in American history.” Asked how much his plan would cost, he said: “It’s not a question of price. This is not the case – in reality, we have no choice. When people killed and murdered, when drug lords destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price. »

It’s unclear exactly how many undocumented immigrants there are in the United States, but Acting ICE Director Patrick J. Lechleitner told NBC News in July that a mass eviction operation would pose an enormous 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 from a number of federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the Pentagon.

Read the rest of the interview →

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