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--:-- Ryan Knutson: Welcome to The Journal, I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, November 7th.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This week, former President Donald Trump won a decisive victory. And Republicans didn't just win the White House. They've also made gains in Congress.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Republicans did far better than expected. Everyone was bracing for Republicans to take control of the Senate, but not necessarily by a lot.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Even top Republicans were trying to manage expectations. And the expectation was that Democrats were going to win the House.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: We would have divided government, maybe an uncertain landscape. But that was the picture that was coming into view.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And at a high level, how would you say that happened? How did Republicans dominate so fully?
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: There isn't any one single factor. A part of it is the dominance of Donald Trump and his message, his message on inflation and his message on the border.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And a lot of Republicans rolled into office on those coattails. They mobilized. There was a big turnout. We have to get out and register. And they had a very good ground game, even by Democrats' estimation.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: While votes are still being counted in some states, Republicans have taken control of the Senate and are poised to keep their majority in the House of Representatives.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's going to be another trifecta. We are right back in 2016 when Donald Trump barged in and had all the levers of government in his fingers.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, November 7th. Coming up on the show, what a Republican Congress could mean for President-elect Donald Trump.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John host the highly anticipated new competition show.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, series premiere Tuesday on NBC.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Okay, let's look more closely at the breakdown of Congress. What does the majority look like in the Senate?
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: We're looking at roughly 53 Republicans in the Senate. That's enough for a majority with, of course, 100 senators.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's Siobhan Hughes, our congressional reporter. Right now, as we speak, we do still have two Senate races that have not yet been called.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: So far, Republicans have gained four seats in the Senate. One of those seats is in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's where Bob Casey, a Democrat, was running for re-election. He's been in office since 2007.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: And today, he lost his seat. And this race is really a microcosm of the forces we have seen coursing through this entire election.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It has turned out to be an anti-incumbent election, which doesn't help somebody who has been in office for 18 years.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: So Bob Casey is the son of Pennsylvania's former governor. He's a household name in the state.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He really knows how to work that state. I spent a lot of time crisscrossing Pennsylvania. I went to Erie County and I talked to people who knew he had gotten money for the biggest employer in that area.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: I met somebody who showed me a picture on her phone of Bob Casey with her spending a day as a home health aid worker in her house.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so this is somebody who delivers for the state.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: On the campaign trail, Casey distanced himself from the Biden administration.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He promised to protect fracking and supported tariffs on Chinese goods.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: Polling showed Casey was favored to narrowly win the race.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But his Republican opponent, Dave McCormick, beat expectations.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: McCormick is a former hedge fund manager and Army veteran.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What Dave McCormick did is he talks about the ways in which life has just become really hard in so many places in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: He talks about how inflation is really high. You know, he also talks a lot about the border.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And he runs these ads that show him with these police cars as if he's really out there, a cop on the beat, trying to protect people from this sense they have that there's crime out there and there's too much migration.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: And really projecting the sense that Bob Casey is just not standing up forcefully enough against either the Democratic Party or a lot of these forces that are making life so hard for people right now.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: McCormick won by a slim margin, so close that it could trigger a recount.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: But if the results hold, Casey will be part of a larger trend this cycle of Democratic incumbents who have lost their re-election bids, like in Montana.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: John Tester has lost his race. Sherrod Brown, who is a household name in Ohio, has lost his race.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: Those were the last two Democrats remaining in statewide office in their respective states.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Where have Democrats been able to defend their seats? Tammy Baldwin, for example, in Wisconsin was able to hold on to her seat.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: And so that was certainly a win. In Michigan, Alyssa Slotkin is going to get the seat that was held by Democrat Debbie Stabenow.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so she made a good defensive play in that state.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: Those are some examples of the bright spots for Democrats.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What would you say worked for Democrats in those cases?
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: So for Tammy Baldwin, a big thing that worked was she was out a lot in the rural areas.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: She's worked a lot on dairy policy, and that's big in Wisconsin.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: And so those voters really felt that she delivered for them.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And that's a big constituency.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: So that's the Senate. What about the House?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So right now it looks like Republicans are going to stay in control of the House.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: And their speaker would be likely Mike Johnson, who obviously has had a very, very good election day.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it's really the same issue set that propelled Donald Trump into office. It is the border. It is inflation. It is crime.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: It is a sense that this country is heading in the wrong direction and just not working for enough people.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So this all sounds like a big win for Trump.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: Trump is going to be in a very, very powerful position to carry forward his agenda.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What's more, this is a new Trump. This is a Trump who now has experience being president.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: He knows what he wants, and he's going to be able to be much more focused.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What Trump and the GOP will do with their power? That's next.
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--:-- Ryan Knutson: Okay, so we've been talking about the races, and at this point, we know what Congress will look like, generally speaking.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Could we talk about some of the policy goals that Trump has that might be easier to push through given the makeup of this Congress?
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: So the top one is going to be taxes.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Trump engineered tax cuts in 2017 that are due to expire at the end of 2025.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And that's an area where Trump is now going to have much greater leverage to get his way because Republicans will be able to turn to this tactic to pass that on a simple majority vote in the Senate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: They're going to skirt the filibuster.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: That's probably the most important one.
--:-- Siobhan Hughes: And also, though, I would look for Ukraine funding to be an area where Trump was far more able to get his way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But even though Trump will have more support than ever from Republicans in Congress, some of his proposals might still face some pushback.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Number one, Trump is a spender. He's never really been shy about spending.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And in the past, he has flirted with this idea of a debt default at one point, talking about how if the economy crashed, perhaps the U.S. should suggest giving back only half of the money it owed.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: So that's going to be something that Republicans have to manage.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Very different than what the Republican Party has stood for for a very long time.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Frankly, than what either party has stood for, because lawmakers in both parties know that a debt default would be catastrophic to this country.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We have a debt ceiling fight coming up next year.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And I think it's really going to test the spine of a lot of Republicans.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What are some of the things that you expect him to be spending?
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Well, the big one for him was the border wall.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: You know, but he now also has this proposal for mass deportation.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Logistically, it is not clear how that exactly would work, but one would surmise that that takes a lot of manpower.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So how exactly is he going to pay for this proposal?
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: How much of these policy ideas, how much of this is dependent on Congress?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And how much of this can Trump sign off on his own?
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: You know, I've been thinking a lot about this.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: When I went back to look at his record, one thing that jumped out at me was how much Donald Trump really tried to thumb his nose at Congress.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And he would just plow ahead with what he wanted to do even when the law didn't allow it.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And he actually ended up coming out sort of on top.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: You know, there was a big fight over the border wall last time and Trump just snatched money from the military budget and said he was using it to build a wall.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And after multiple court challenges, the Supreme Court ended up siding with Donald Trump on that.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: He won.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Having a solid GOP majority in the Senate also means that Trump's appointments to his cabinet and to federal courts could be easily confirmed.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: We have to take a moment to talk about the big change in the Senate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Mitch McConnell, longtime Republican leader there, is stepping down from leadership.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: So who is likely to succeed him?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We going to have this conversation next week.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And the two top contenders are the Johns, the two Johns.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: John Thune of South Dakota. He is the number two Senate Republican.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And John Cornyn of Texas, who used to be the Senate Republican whip.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And what can we expect from McConnell's successor, especially in terms of how they might align or not with Trump?
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: So neither John Thune nor John Cornyn is wildly close to Donald Trump.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But they have both made their peace with him.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: They respect him as the party's leader.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: They respect the voters who sent Donald Trump into power.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: But, you know, both men would be expected to have their work cut out for them in negotiating with Donald Trump.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: All that said, Democrats do still hold the presidency and the Senate for a few more weeks.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: So Democrats could bolster themselves possibly somewhat by stuffing priorities into spending bills.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The administration could also work administratively right now to ensure that money that has already been allocated gets shipped out to whatever entities need it.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: That prevents Republicans from clawing back those funds in a future budget.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But the big one to protect would be anything having to do with climate change and environmental policy because Republicans are no fans of Green New Deal spending.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And that would be something Democrats would very much want to insulate from political pressure.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So we're talking about like the Department of Energy, the EPA, that sort of thing.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Exactly. So once Republicans take over, what might the Democratic strategy in Congress look like?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's a really good line that John Banner used to have. When you're not legislating, you're communicating.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And so they're going to have to have a very, very refined message and figure out who their best communicators are in this moment.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So it seems like one of the themes of this election is that voters really wanted a change.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And this time that meant putting Republicans, putting Trump back in control.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What do you think voters are hoping for from this Congress?
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: You know, people are angry.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And you have to understand that people have been through a lot.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: We're in the middle of a housing crisis where in many places people can't afford shelter.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: People cannot afford food.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: I mean, as a pocketbook matter, voters are hoping that their lives just become more affordable.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That when they go to buy a ham sandwich at the store, they can buy a soda to go along with it.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: You know, I think that's a basic one.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think a feeling of security maybe in a lot of ways, just a feeling that the country is more settled.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And what does that mean for both parties?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We're in the middle of a very, very big political realignment where the traditional values, traditional leaders, traditional sentiment of the parties are very much in influx and shifting.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: And we're going to find out what this new Republican Party looks like.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And we're also going to find out if the Democratic Party is going to remake itself in response to these losses.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's all for today, Thursday, November 7th.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Additional reporting in this episode by Katie Stetch-Ferrick.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.
