--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Michelle Martin: A look at the electorate that chose Donald Trump reveals some intriguing facts. Exit polls find the share of white voters grew while the share of non-white voters went down. How does that shift our sense of who's voting and who's not?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Michelle Martin with Steve Inskeep and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Trump will be the first convicted felon to serve as president. During the campaign, he spoke of firing one of the people pursuing a pending case, the special counsel. It's so easy. I would try him within two seconds.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump won't have to because Jack Smith cannot prosecute a sitting president. How does Smith finish up?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Also, we have an assessment of the president-elect's promise to raise tariffs, taxes on imports. The near-term impact would be slower economic growth, but it would also bring in revenue. So who are the winners and losers? Stay with us.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This message comes from NPR sponsor Adobe. Introducing the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio, now with AI-powered PDF spaces.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from NPR sponsor AARP. Where do you see your career in 12 years? What are you doing now to help you get there?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready. That's why AARP has management, finance, and small business reskilling courses, all to help your income live as long as you do.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Vice President Harris committed to a peaceful transfer of power yesterday in ways that President-elect Trump did not four years ago. While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But we want to take another look at the voters who fueled that campaign, as well as her victorious opponents. NPR's senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro, is here with some fascinating findings.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Good morning. So what are in the results that you see?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, I mean, I've been saying for some time that we're in the middle of a political realignment in the country when that's happening. You know, things look really volatile. We won't know what's on the other side of this until the dust settles.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: And that really hasn't happened yet in the age of Trump. But we did find out some things. First, the issue landscape, of course, just favored Republicans from the start of this election because there was an overwhelmingly negative view of the economy.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But I have to say, one of the most eye-opening things that I saw in these exit polls is that white voters actually went up as a share of the electorate. That hasn't happened since 1992.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: I mean, white voters had been on a steady decline as a share of the electorate because they're a shrinking share of the eligible voter population. And going up clearly helped Trump.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, I'm just thinking this through. So the country is becoming more diverse, more non-white people, fewer white people. The electorate went the opposite way. So I guess either some non-voters felt conflicting pressures and sat it out or new groups of white voters showed up. Is that it?
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Yeah, I mean it's hard to know exactly until we see turnout rates which are going to come out in coming months. But it wasn't just white voters that helped fuel Trump's win. I mean, Trump actually expanded his coalition.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And it's why this time, for the first time, he's on track to win the popular vote. How so? How would you say that?
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: You saw that women turned out. They're actually up a point as a share of the electorate from four years ago, but it appears Harris didn't get as many of them to vote for her as her team expected.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I mean, just 53% of women voted for Harris. That's the worst for a Democrat in 20 years.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Now, she did very well with white college-educated women, better than Biden, actually, but they weren't enough. I mean, look at white women without degrees. They made up an even bigger share of the electorate, one in five voters, and they broke overwhelmingly for Trump.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump also, and this is huge, made big inroads with Latinos. Get this, he got 46% of Latinos, which is the best any Republican has ever done with them.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: And Trump did it by winning over Latino men and young men. Okay, so you just mentioned Latino men, young men. How did he do overall with men?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, with Latino men, he won by 12 points. He won young men 18 to 29 by just a couple points.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Many of them had been saying that they're upset, that in their view, society says, you know, other groups are more important than they are. And they had a TikTok feed and a podcast to tell them exactly that.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And it's pretty remarkable because Trump won men in every age group. Okay. So you've given us some broad trends here. Do you feel you understand why people voted as they did?
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: Well, I mean, one big piece of this obviously is cultural grievance, as I was noting there. But in our final polling, we got some other clues. You know, women seem to think Harris was sincere in these moderate proposals that she'd been putting forward in this campaign that were different from her presidential campaign five years ago.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But men, they thought that she was doing it just to try and get votes. Clear that men and women see women as leaders very differently. And I think there's going to be a lot to dissect in that.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: The other piece of this, though, major thing, obviously, was the economy. We've been hearing it the entirety of the campaign. Working-class Latinos just said they felt they were better off under Trump four years ago.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Domenico, thanks very much for the insights. Really appreciate it.
--:-- Domenico Montanaro: You got it. That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Vice President Harris asked voters to turn the page on Donald Trump. Instead, he will turn the page on his legal problems. Yes, although he's already been convicted in state court, he started the year facing federal indictments that threatened to send him to prison.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But having delayed the cases, then won re-election, he will end the year free and clear. In large part because the Justice Department is evaluating how to wind down two federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Kerry Johnson has been following Trump's legal troubles. Kerry, good morning.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Good morning, Steve. So this is interesting. Trump on the campaign trail talked of firing Jack Smith. He doesn't even have to do that?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: No, that's because there's a longstanding view inside the Justice Department. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have followed this view.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: The reasoning there is it would be too much of a burden, that it would be unconstitutional and would undermine the work of the executive branch.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise are calling on this Justice Department to drop the D.C. case against Trump.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: The writing is on the wall, Bill Barr says, and people have considered these allegations against Trump about election interference, but the voters rejected them resoundingly.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so how quickly is the Biden Justice Department moving here?
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Well, we can report Jack Smith is working with others inside the DOJ to wind down both of these federal cases likely before the inauguration, first that January 6 case in D.C. and then the election interference case.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And then there's a separate case against Trump in Florida over his alleged hoarding of documents at his resort and his refusal to return them to the FBI.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: That case involves not just Donald Trump, but two other defendants, his valet and the property manager at Mar-a-Lago. Judge Eileen Cannon, remember, threw out that case, but prosecutors have been appealing her decision.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And to drop the case against Trump could mean it goes away as to all three of those defendants.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Well, this gets to another question, Carrie, that's on my mind, because I heard different opinions from Trump supporters. Trump talked of prosecuting his critics, including Jack Smith specifically, or even throwing him out of the country.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I heard from Trump supporters who are like, yes, do that. And others who said, oh, he would never abuse his power in that way.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: So what seems likely actually to happen once he gets the power?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, Trump's rhetoric on this has been really harsh. You're right, and we know the Justice Department has already spent millions of dollars on security for the special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutors in the face of some of these rhetorical attacks and threats.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: The regulations at the Justice Department say special counsels write a report about their findings when their work is done.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It's not clear yet how much progress Jack Smith has made on that report and whether the current administration might release some of it before Inauguration Day.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Remember, in the Trump era, then Attorney General Barr ultimately released the report by the special counsel then Robert Mueller over Russian interference in the 2016 election, but only after Barr characterized it in a way that Mueller's prosecutors described as acting like a defense lawyer for Donald Trump.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So we might see some kind of final report from Jack Smith.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: I want to ask about one other thing. We should note that Trump was less successful in delaying a state case until his election, and so he was convicted by a New York jury, which is why we refer to him as a convicted felon. 34 charges relating to business fraud.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What happens in that case? It's really uncertain.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: The Supreme Court gave Trump sweeping immunity from prosecution for his official acts in the White House, but the bulk of this case in New York involved Trump's behavior before he won the first time in 2016.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Prosecutors there during the trial in New York introduced some evidence from people who worked for Trump in the White House.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: And now this judge has to decide whether that has fatally impaired the whole case and whether to go ahead and sentence Donald Trump on those charges next month.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Just weeks, Steve, before he's inaugurated the 47th president of the United States.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: NPR's Kerry Johnson.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The president-elect promised lower income taxes and also higher tariffs, which are taxes on imports. He also promised mass deportations, including many people who work in the United States.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Markets are already reacting to these economic proposals. The stock market surged yesterday on news of his win.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Good morning, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so how do Trump's economic policies line up with his promise the other day of a golden age in the United States?
--:-- Scott Horsley: Well, it might have to be borrowed gold. Trump has promised to extend portions of the 2017 tax cut, which were set to expire next year.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He's also called for additional cuts to corporate taxes. If Congress goes along, that could boost economic growth, but it's also likely to cut into government revenues and widen the federal deficit.
--:-- Scott Horsley: The other centerpiece of Trump's economic platform, as you mentioned, is the blanket tariff on imports.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Economist Michael Polisi of Wells Fargo says that could be a drag on economic growth.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Tariffs are first and foremost a revenue raiser. It's a tax. It's a tax on imported goods that are brought into the United States.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So the tax would make the goods cost more, right, higher prices.
--:-- Scott Horsley: I think that the near-term impact would be slower economic growth, but it would also bring in revenue.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump has sometimes boasted that his tariffs would raise so much revenue they would pay for other parts of his agenda.
--:-- Scott Horsley: Fiscal hawks, though, are skeptical. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Trump's overall economic plans would add nearly $8 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So while the stock market rallied yesterday on prospects of a business-friendly White House, the bond market sagged under the expected weight of all that extra debt.
--:-- Scott Horsley: I'm just thinking Trump has made contradictory statements saying he's going to raise tariffs so much that you won't even have to pay income taxes, but then also that companies will change their behavior in a way that they won't have to pay any tariffs.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It becomes very confusing. So the bottom line is you borrow to make up the difference.
--:-- Scott Horsley: What would the debt do to the government's borrowing costs? Well, it would grow.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The federal government's already spending more on interest payments than it does on defense or Medicare or anything other than Social Security.
--:-- Scott Horsley: If the government has to borrow a lot more money, that could raise the cost of borrowing for you and me.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Mortgage rates typically follow the yield on 10-year treasuries, which jumped sharply yesterday.
--:-- Scott Horsley: So that could make buying a house even more expensive.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What does the Federal Reserve do as it meets today on interest rates?
--:-- Scott Horsley: The Fed sets short-term interest rates, which affect things like car loans or the cost of carrying a balance on your credit card.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The central bank is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point today.
--:-- Scott Horsley: But Puglisi says the Fed may be more cautious going forward about cutting interest rates if these various Trump policies go into effect.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Based on this idea that if you're going to get some higher inflation from the tariffs, from tax cuts, we'll see on the growth side, it's going to depend on what actually gets implemented, plus the fact that the economic data have also just been trending a little bit better lately.
--:-- Scott Horsley: You know, inflation, which was such a big driver of people's frustration with the economy, has been coming down.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But economists say some of Trump's policies could actually raise prices.
--:-- Scott Horsley: For example, he wants to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally. If you're worried about the cost of groceries, deporting people who pick and process food is probably not the best answer.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Is Trump going to respect the Fed's independence? We'll see.
--:-- Scott Horsley: You know, the Fed is supposed to be insulated from political pressure, but Trump has never been shy about criticizing the central bank and its chairman, whom he appointed, if he doesn't like the way they're managing interest rates.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has been pretty solid about not bowing to political pressure, but his term runs out in about a year and a half, and Trump will have an opportunity to nominate a more malleable successor.
--:-- Scott Horsley: NPR's Scott Horsley.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that's Up First for this Thursday, November 7th.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: For your next listen, stay tuned to our feed for bonus episodes as we continue to analyze the results.
--:-- Michelle Martin: You can also consider this from NPR. President-elect Donald Trump has brought a red wave to America. Who are the voters sending him back to the White House and why?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today's Up First was edited by Krishnadev Kalamer, Anna Yukonanov, Rafael Nam, Olivia Hampton, and Jan Johnson.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Ziad Batch, Nia Dumas, and Lindsay Tadeg.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We get engineering support from the ever-supportive Carly Strange, and our technical direction comes from Zach Coleman.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And we'll just note, one of our co-hosts has a birthday today. If you know him, congratulate him, A. Martinez.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Join us tomorrow.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from Ritual. What makes Ritual vitamins different? Ritual vitamins are made with bioavailable clinically studied key ingredients as well as the essence of mint.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Get 25% off your first purchase when you visit ritual.com slash NPR.
