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1:00

to previous generation, iPhone XS or later

1:02

required, charge time and actual results will

1:04

vary. So

1:11

many questions about election. You're

1:15

listening to Explain It to Me. I'm John

1:18

Colen Hill. Wow. What

1:20

a week. As

1:22

I'm sure many of you know, Tuesday was

1:24

election day. And I know that

1:26

you know because of the tons of questions we

1:28

received from you. I'm talking about

1:31

from all over the country and throughout

1:33

the entire voting process. Hey,

1:35

my name is Luke. I'm from Michigan. My

1:38

question is about the election. I

1:40

waffle between anxiety and trying to reassure myself

1:42

that everything's going to be okay about this

1:44

election. It's

1:46

kind of really boring

1:48

to have our entire world

1:51

descend on just a few states.

1:53

And it's really frustrating to have

1:56

people who are nothing like me

1:58

don't really represent that my beliefs

2:00

have such a major sway in

2:03

the decisions of this country. People

2:06

called in with questions about the results, about

2:08

the aftermath, and what it all means for

2:10

the next four years. You

2:13

also shared what you were experiencing throughout the day.

2:16

Here's a call we got pretty early on from Ronan,

2:18

who voted for the first time. It

2:20

is currently November 5th, and it

2:22

is election day. I'm a

2:24

student at Utah State University. I'm a

2:27

first-time voter and a college student who

2:29

isn't committed to either party. Tonight,

2:31

I will be hosting an election party. I

2:34

went and got some little flags and

2:36

some materials for that. I'll be making

2:38

some brownies and some cookies. So

2:41

I'm really excited, because I think no matter

2:43

what happens, to me, it's a celebration that

2:45

we're seeing democracy happen in real time. And

2:47

that might just be the political science student

2:50

in me, but I'm really

2:52

excited about it. And

2:55

people kept checking in with questions

2:57

and reflections throughout the night. Time

3:00

is 9.24 p.m. I

3:03

just got home from working election

3:05

day. This was my

3:07

first election cycle

3:09

and election day working

3:12

as a poll worker. And

3:14

overall, it was fantastic. The

3:17

people I met there, they were

3:19

the most professional, the

3:21

kindest, the most polite

3:24

people I've ever met. There

3:26

was one unpleasant experience

3:29

during early voting.

3:32

This lady commented, "'Oh,

3:34

you have really beautiful dark hair.

3:37

Where are you from? Are you from Knoxville?'"

3:39

And I said, "'No, I'm from Venezuela.'" And

3:42

as soon as I said that, her

3:45

face got incredibly

3:47

serious, as if

3:50

that wasn't what she wanted

3:52

to hear. And I just

3:54

let her know, when

3:56

you're done voting, there's a scanner at the end of

3:58

the room. You can turn in your ballot. out there,

4:00

right? I hope she had an okay

4:02

rest of the day. All right,

4:05

thank you for taking your time to listen

4:07

to this. Bye. Now,

4:10

what was I up to? I spent

4:13

election night at the office with my fellow

4:15

Vox journalists. I got there around

4:18

six ish. Most of my colleagues

4:20

were already there gathered around the tacos we

4:22

were having for dinner. Plenty

4:24

of soda, a desperate and successful

4:26

hunt for cold brew and emergency

4:28

energy drinks on deck. There

4:31

were also special appearances from a co

4:33

workers baby and another co workers dog,

4:35

two very cute additions to the evening.

4:38

And I should say, the thing about election

4:40

night in DC is that people really let

4:42

their nerd flags fly. On my

4:45

way in, I saw people headed to

4:47

bars for results, watch parties, and I

4:49

even ran into a DJ dressed as

4:51

Steve Kornacki. For a

4:53

lot of us, it was a long night. I'm

4:56

sure was a long night for many of you too. In

4:58

fact, I know it was because the

5:00

questions kept rolling in. I have so

5:02

many questions about elections. First

5:05

of all, every time election

5:07

comes, my question about the

5:09

election results revolves around

5:11

how various demographics voted in this

5:13

election. And last night as the

5:15

night we're on, the questions

5:18

started to change. I

5:20

just wanted to call it and ask

5:23

how are those Democrats feeling right now?

5:25

I bet they're crying, huh? I

5:27

bet they're crying huh? Trump 2024. With

5:32

all of the

5:34

stress and disappointment that

5:36

came with the election results

5:38

this year, something that's been

5:40

going through my mind is

5:44

when will America be ready for a woman

5:46

to lead the country? My name

5:48

is Blake from Florida. My

5:50

question about the election, seeing

5:52

that Donald Trump has won, what's

5:54

going to happen with all of those indictments?

5:57

I am also curious about women. reproductive

5:59

rights was a huge issue for me

6:02

when I went into the polls this

6:04

year. And so I'm

6:06

curious how much this is really going to

6:08

impact things from where they are today. And

6:12

when all was said and almost done, the questions

6:14

we got kind of fell into a few themes.

6:17

What just happened? Why did it happen?

6:19

And what's gonna happen next? And

6:22

so today we check in with our

6:24

colleagues who cover Republicans, Democrats, and the

6:27

courts, and we bring them your questions.

6:29

That's today on Explain It To Me.

6:36

Hi Christian, it is the day after

6:39

the election. It's actually 3 42 p.m.

6:41

on Wednesday

6:43

and I haven't seen you in,

6:47

I don't know, a few hours. I'm sure

6:49

it was all a blur. How

6:51

are you doing today? It feels like we have come a long

6:53

way from Tuesday night's tacos.

6:56

Yeah, we have come a long way. I

6:59

might sound similarly similarly

7:01

delirious. It's

7:03

pretty, pretty astounding what happened.

7:06

Yeah, so the first set of questions

7:08

from our listeners can kind of all

7:10

be boiled down to what exactly happened

7:12

this week. In the clear

7:14

light of the morning or I guess

7:16

you know the mid late afternoon, what

7:19

are your takeaways? Yeah, the

7:22

big takeaway obviously is just

7:24

that this is a country that was ready to issue

7:27

a very stunning

7:29

rebuke to Democrats and specifically

7:31

to Vice President Harris and

7:33

President Joe Biden. So

7:36

top line, we saw red shifts

7:38

in counties across the country almost

7:40

like I'm pretty sure no state

7:43

was more liberal than in 2020. It's

7:47

almost impossible to talk

7:49

about what's happening among subsets of

7:51

the electorate without acknowledging that just

7:54

across every kind of

7:57

category of voter, there was a shift

7:59

to the right. And

8:02

I can say very clearly now, one

8:04

of the more interesting things that we saw last

8:07

night, pretty early on, was

8:10

places that were Republican were

8:12

getting more Republican. Places

8:15

that were Democratic, like urban

8:17

centers, were not as Democratic

8:19

as they might be expected to be. And

8:22

the suburbs, which

8:24

have been making a slow shift toward Democrats

8:26

since 2016, did not

8:29

continue that leftward drift to

8:32

the degree that Democrats need in order to

8:34

win some of these important races. What

8:37

surprised you the most about last night's results?

8:40

I wasn't expecting so many primarily Hispanic

8:42

counties to flip so early or to

8:45

flip to the degree that they did.

8:48

There's been a lot of talk this

8:50

election about the shifting electorate, you know,

8:52

how Trump was picking up support among

8:54

black men and Latino voters. And

8:57

we got some questions about that. Hi,

8:59

everybody. This is Barton from Ann

9:01

Arbor, Michigan. And my question is,

9:03

among, they're saying

9:05

that among black men and among women

9:07

and among Latino voters, there's a big

9:10

surge in support for Trump. And

9:12

my only question is, why? Why?

9:18

Why? Why? Why?

9:21

Why? Why? Why? Why?

9:25

Why? Why are you covering how

9:27

black men were voting in battleground states? And

9:30

I'm just curious if you could

9:32

explain whether whether it did

9:34

or could have affected the election results.

9:37

This question was in the air, I think. Here's

9:41

something from the news. Well,

9:43

votes are still pouring in, still being

9:45

counted, but still a little too early

9:47

to tell exactly which minority will be

9:49

the scapegoat in this election. But the night

9:51

is young. Plenty of groups are still out

9:53

there. You have young voters, old voters, Asian

9:56

voters, all still in play, Muslims, Cubans. Certainly,

9:58

the list goes on. and

10:00

some minority will be to blame tonight.

10:03

OK, that last one was from The

10:05

Onion, I will admit. So the fake

10:08

newscaster said that we're definitely going to

10:10

have a minority group to use as

10:12

a scapegoat. Tell me again why the

10:14

scapegoat shouldn't be the majority,

10:16

why it tends to go

10:19

towards those smaller groups. Yeah,

10:21

so I think there are two reasons. One, there are

10:23

some assumptions already baked in about the way that the

10:25

majority is going to work, white

10:28

voters. And so there's a little

10:30

bit less of a shock, perhaps. At

10:33

the same time, because some of these shifts

10:35

among non-white voters, among the minority, feel

10:38

so novel. They feel so different. They feel

10:40

so new, even though this is now, what, the

10:43

second time that we've seen Trump

10:45

overperform with these groups of voters?

10:48

Is it too soon to find explanations for

10:50

what's happening? Like, what do we know so

10:52

far? So we do know a few things. First

10:55

thing is that turnout did not seem

10:57

to be like an issue. Turnout

11:00

was pretty high this election.

11:03

Turnout in battleground states was pretty high,

11:05

which in the past has usually meant

11:08

pretty good things for Democrats, right? One

11:10

of the easy explanations in past cycles

11:13

for why Democrats underperform is, oh,

11:15

well, the base just didn't come out. Black

11:17

voters didn't turn out in urban centers. That

11:20

doesn't seem like it's going to be a pretty good

11:22

explanation, because what we're seeing is that those urban centers

11:24

shifted to the right. Conclusion is

11:26

that lots of these places either did not continue

11:28

their shift to the left, like in the suburbs,

11:31

or did by a small amount. But we can

11:33

also look at counties that have large

11:35

populations of voters of color, of

11:37

non-white voters. And using that, we

11:40

can make comparisons to 2020. Looking

11:43

at South Texas, where we saw a shift

11:45

in Hispanic and Latino, primarily Mexican-American

11:47

and Tejanos, toward Trump in 2020,

11:51

we can make a pretty easy determination that something

11:53

happened in Texas, because those

11:55

counties that were drifting toward

11:57

Trump either flipped or shifted.

12:01

or if they had voted for Trump in the last

12:03

election, voted for Trump by a larger margin this time

12:05

around. Why

12:07

are people asking about

12:09

these specific groups? You know, I think

12:12

of like pollsters, I think even in the

12:14

aftermath, there's all this talk on, you know,

12:16

voters of color, these people who don't make

12:19

up the majority, but a lot of this

12:21

is, it's about blame. It's about like, okay,

12:23

who do we blame? And

12:26

it feels like the first place people

12:28

point their fingers are

12:30

to people of color, even

12:33

though, you know, a little over 75% of

12:35

people in the

12:37

United States are white. And I

12:39

should point out, we did not get any

12:41

questions about what's up with the white people

12:43

who vote for Trump. Why

12:46

aren't we necessarily seeing people parse

12:48

out that part of the

12:51

electorate as much as these smaller groups

12:53

of people? I think there

12:55

will be some analysis that remains to be done

12:57

as we get better and better data and more

12:59

votes are counted because white voters, as you said,

13:01

and in many of these background states as well

13:03

as nationally, any kind of small shift,

13:06

just because of how large that group is, is

13:09

like orders of magnitude more to

13:11

affect the overall result in a state than

13:13

any kind of big shift happening among non-white

13:16

voters. That's true in Pennsylvania,

13:19

for example, where counties in areas that

13:21

have large Puerto Rican populations that might've

13:23

shifted toward Republicans, but overall,

13:25

there was just more underperformance among

13:28

white voters there that even if

13:30

you were to subtract those gains

13:32

from non-white voters, the

13:34

state still would've gone in the Republican

13:37

direction because of Trump overperforming with white

13:39

voters in Pennsylvania. There's still

13:41

this assumption for so long, I've

13:45

written about this a bunch, like we've talked

13:47

about this, this assumption that a diversifying America

13:51

would inevitably lead to just

13:54

progressive or liberal or democratic

13:56

dominance regardless of other

13:58

factors, which... So once again, keeps being

14:01

proven wrong and wrong. In

14:03

fact, we're probably seeing, because of just

14:05

how Republican the swing of the

14:07

country was in general, that this

14:09

election will be one where racial

14:12

polarization decreases, where,

14:15

especially among Latino voters, they

14:17

voted similarly or in the similar

14:19

swing as white voters. But

14:21

I think what we'll see is that

14:23

this overall swing happened. Democrats

14:26

got the turnout they wanted, but it

14:28

turns out that the voters that were

14:30

turning out just didn't want to vote

14:32

for Democrat. OK, there is something that

14:34

I've been paying attention to in politics.

14:37

And that's the way people of

14:39

color have often been grouped into

14:42

one category. And we

14:44

aren't all the same. Like a black person

14:47

and a Hispanic person and an Asian person,

14:49

we are not the same. We have different

14:51

experiences. We are able to assimilate to different

14:53

degrees, if at all. Are

14:55

we going to start seeing an end

14:58

of POC as a political coalition? Because

15:00

I admit, I tire when people say

15:02

people of color. And I'm like, do

15:04

you mean black? Because sometimes they mean

15:06

black. And sometimes they mean any other

15:08

thing. Are we going to stop seeing

15:10

people talk about these groups of voters

15:13

all together and start seeing people discuss

15:15

us, I guess, more individually? Yeah, do

15:17

you remember BIPOC? Oh my

15:19

gosh, BIPOC. You cannot tell me that that is

15:21

not a bisexual person of color. So

15:24

much is fraught. Right, this

15:26

is the thing with identity, is it's complicated

15:28

and it's messy. And that's why

15:31

I get the urge to use

15:33

people of color, non-white voter, right?

15:35

It's a broad enough term to

15:37

include as many people. But

15:39

is it too broad in terms of

15:43

usefulness in politics? But

15:45

there's so much diversity that underlies any

15:48

one of the communities that makes up person

15:50

of color. And so I do wonder how

15:53

useful it'll continue to be, especially

15:55

as there were some shifts potentially

15:57

this year, maybe not as dramatic.

15:59

as the polling suggested among black

16:01

voters. But black voters'

16:04

behavior in this election was

16:06

very different from the behavior

16:08

of Hispanic and Latino voters.

16:11

One group still gave Democrats

16:13

a huge margin of support.

16:15

The other looks more and more like a swing

16:18

group. So there was something in

16:20

the water that people were just rearing

16:24

to punish

16:26

the incumbents. So there's an

16:28

aspect of the incumbency problem now.

16:31

Maybe it's no longer an advantage

16:33

like we thought in political science.

16:36

There's the fact that if

16:39

we're to believe the exit polls, so have you

16:41

kept caveat there. And then the

16:44

issues just did not break in Harris's favor.

16:46

So there's definitely

16:49

the economic kitchen table issues that

16:51

propelled a lot of this finger. But

16:54

then even on some of the social issues, some

16:57

of these surveys are telling us that there was

17:00

frustration about immigration.

17:02

There was frustration about

17:06

gender and sexuality, which

17:08

does lead to this idea of something's

17:13

a mess. There's some kind

17:16

of beyond just the

17:18

kitchen table issues. There's some kind of

17:20

other ideological aspect here. I'm

17:22

curious, we got a question from Instagram. What's

17:25

next for Democrats? Do they shift further left or

17:28

further right? What's next for them? The

17:30

assumption is that the lesson here will be

17:33

they have to move to the right, that they have

17:35

to move toward the center to become more moderate. And

17:37

there is a good criticism to be made that that

17:39

tends to be the lesson that Democrats get after every

17:42

election. There's maybe some

17:44

social issues from economic issues on which

17:46

a more progressive or a more populist

17:48

stance were okay with the

17:50

electorate, but then you see other shifts like

17:53

California deciding to implement stricter

17:56

sentencing requirements in the state.

17:59

So there's a mix of things. back there of just

18:01

what is it that the electorate wants? Is

18:03

this just a complete rebuke of progressivism and

18:05

a complete rebuke of liberal politics? Is

18:08

the solution to move to the center? Yeah,

18:10

we got we got another question

18:13

from a Vox reader who wants to know, do you

18:15

think Harris underperformed or Trump

18:17

overperformed? Can we even know

18:19

that yet? Yeah, it's gonna

18:22

be hard to make a definitive statement.

18:24

I will say that

18:26

red shift makes me think

18:28

Trump overperformed. He did

18:31

really well in rural regions. He

18:33

did shockingly well in urban places.

18:37

On the Harris side, I don't

18:39

know that she underperformed. My

18:42

whole take there is, and this

18:44

is kind of boring, there are complications to

18:46

this, but every

18:49

indicator pointed to

18:51

a landslide loss, like more

18:54

registered Republicans or self-identified Republicans

18:56

in national surveys, big

18:59

discontentment with Joe Biden,

19:02

Republican advantages on two of the

19:04

top three issues for voters, the

19:06

economy and immigration, only abortion

19:08

rights were a spot where Democrats had

19:10

an advantage, and then the just

19:13

overall global trend that we're

19:16

seeing across democracies in general,

19:18

which is a COVID hangover, frustration

19:21

at the way that the pandemic was managed by parties

19:23

that were in control, and then

19:26

further frustration with

19:28

the ensuing rise in inflation and cost

19:30

of goods, parties in power

19:32

were punished across the world this

19:35

year, and Canada seems like it'll be next

19:37

next year. So

19:40

you came to this call kind of bummed out,

19:42

burned out. I know we are running on. We've

19:44

had so much coffee in the last 48 hours.

19:48

What is the silver lining? I

19:52

think what I'm perhaps most optimistic

19:54

about. That's

19:59

so real. What

20:02

I'm most optimistic about is that reputation Taylor's

20:04

version is still going to come out. Christian

20:09

Paz, thank you so much for joining us

20:11

on Explain It To Me and

20:14

helping us parse all of this out

20:16

in the chaotic days after the election.

20:19

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I

20:21

hope you get to take a nap today. Yeah.

20:24

First I'm going to need a drink. Yeah. Oh my

20:27

gosh. And maybe a cigarette. We'll see.

20:29

Yeah. Vice time. Vice

20:32

time. Well, no, we're Vox. Vox

20:34

time. Oh,

20:40

God, I missed the Harris speech. Oh,

20:44

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22:29

Hi Vox, explain it to me. My name is

22:31

Katie and I have a question.

22:34

So even before results came in

22:36

on election night, you all sent

22:38

in lots of questions about a

22:40

specific topic. Why is

22:43

Trump not in jail? President-elect

22:45

Donald Trump and the law. After

22:50

being convicted of a ton

22:52

of felonies, he's just a

22:55

convicted felon running around. Like,

22:57

why does this happen? Later

22:59

in the night, another listener. My name's

23:02

Blake from Florida. Sent in

23:04

a question about the courts that I've been wondering

23:06

about since election night. Seeing that Donald Trump has

23:08

won, so what's going to happen

23:10

with all of those indictments? It feels like

23:13

all of them were pushed to just

23:15

after the election. And

23:17

there's this window now between now and then

23:20

when he's actually inaugurated. Can any

23:23

of those be expedited? It feels

23:25

like he committed crimes. We

23:27

see that he was able to somehow

23:30

solve it and it seems bad. And

23:33

in a just world, this would have been kicking

23:35

arrows a lot earlier as opposed to letting it

23:37

be something that could be kicked down the road.

23:40

So thanks so much. Goodbye. There's

23:43

an old legal principle. You don't kick

23:45

Superman in the balls. For

23:47

answers, I caught up with Vox's

23:49

senior correspondent and Supreme Court interpreter

23:51

Ian Millhiser for a speed round

23:53

of court questions. Is

23:55

there some possibility that

23:57

Donald Trump could spend?

23:59

some portion of the

24:01

lame duck period in

24:04

jail. I mean, I'm

24:06

a good enough lawyer that I could come

24:09

up with an argument for why that is

24:11

permissible. But like, come

24:14

on, I just think it would be unimaginably

24:18

foolish to

24:20

further antagonize this man in this

24:22

way before he becomes the most

24:25

powerful man in the world at

24:27

this specific moment in history. So,

24:30

you know, Trump has quite

24:33

a few criminal cases, you know, lots

24:35

of charges. I want to

24:37

talk a little bit about something that

24:39

Blake talked about in his questions, and

24:41

that's the president elect being able to

24:43

somehow stall these cases. Can

24:45

we take a step back and

24:47

review all these criminal cases against

24:49

Trump? Give us a quick refresher

24:52

on what those cases are and

24:54

why each case hasn't resulted in

24:56

any real consequences. So there

24:58

are four cases and each one is stalled

25:00

for different reasons. So,

25:04

you know, the Georgia case, the

25:06

Georgia case arises out of Trump's

25:08

election of theft attempts. Like you

25:10

might remember the phone call between

25:12

Trump and Georgia

25:14

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The

25:17

people of Georgia are angry. The people

25:19

of the country are angry. Where he

25:21

told Brad Raffensperger to try to find

25:23

votes. All I want to do is

25:25

this. I just want to find eleven

25:28

thousand seven hundred and

25:30

eighty votes. However many he needed

25:33

in order to overturn the result

25:35

in Georgia in 2020. And

25:38

there's several reasons why that case was

25:40

never likely to move forward before the

25:42

election. One was that they

25:45

didn't just indict Trump, they indicted all of

25:47

his co-conspirators. And so it was

25:49

just a really complex case with like all sorts

25:51

of normal legitimate reasons why it would take a

25:53

long time to bring that to trial. The

25:56

other problem there, the prosecutor didn't keep

25:58

her damn pants off. Dang. The

26:02

district attorney in that case had

26:04

an affair with the

26:07

gentleman that she hired to be

26:09

the lead prosecutor. And

26:11

like, my God, just a general bit

26:13

of legal ethical advice I will give

26:15

is that if you

26:18

are prosecuting one of the

26:20

most important cases in American

26:22

history, maybe just

26:24

quietly let the sexual tension

26:27

build until the trial

26:29

is over. In

26:33

the one about the documents where

26:35

he just kept a bunch of

26:37

classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. This may

26:39

be the most politically explosive raid

26:41

ever undertaken by the FBI. The

26:43

FBI executing a search warrant at

26:46

Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Palm

26:48

Beach, Florida. The reason why

26:50

that one's been strung out can be summarized in two

26:52

words. Eileen Cannon. You

26:54

know, he's got a judge who's basically on his side

26:57

and who has gone out of her way to do

26:59

favors for him. The judge

27:01

who threw out Donald Trump's classified documents

27:03

case is now on a list of

27:05

potential candidates to be attorney general if

27:08

Trump wins. The New York case where

27:10

he has been convicted, this involves the

27:12

least significant charges. He was convicted on

27:14

34 counts of

27:17

falsifying business records in

27:19

order to cover up the fact that

27:21

he paid hush money to the pornographic

27:23

actress Stormy Daniels. Count one, guilty.

27:26

Count two, guilty. Count

27:28

three, guilty. Count four,

27:31

guilty. And what happened there was

27:33

Trump just asked that the sentencing

27:35

be delayed till after the election.

27:38

The judge didn't want to interfere with

27:40

the election and so he said fine.

27:43

The prosecutors didn't oppose that motion. So

27:45

everyone just sort of agreed like, look,

27:47

let's wait till after the election before

27:49

we resolve this. And

27:52

then that leads one other case, the DC

27:54

case. a

28:00

four count indictment of the former president

28:02

of the United States, all in the

28:04

context of the former president's efforts to

28:06

overturn the 2020 election results. The

28:09

main reason it's delayed is because it went up to the

28:12

Supreme Court. The Supreme Court sat on it for a really

28:14

long time and then they held that he has really brought

28:16

immunity. The Supreme Court ruled former

28:18

President Donald Trump does have immunity

28:20

for some of his alleged conduct

28:22

as president in his federal election

28:24

interference case. And you mentioned the

28:27

Supreme Court immunity ruling that came

28:29

down this past summer. We've

28:31

actually gotten some questions about what the

28:33

Supreme Court's role in all of these

28:35

cases against Trump is. Hey, Jonclyn, Alexa

28:37

here. I have a couple of questions.

28:40

The biggest one being the broad immunity

28:42

decision. And I wonder what that means

28:44

with Trump now in office and would

28:46

love to know more about how much

28:49

the broad immunity decision really changes the

28:51

scope of presidential power. Yeah.

28:53

Tell us about that Supreme Court ruling, which

28:55

was really the headliner out of the courts

28:57

last term. What did that

29:00

decision change and how could it

29:02

play into a second term for Trump

29:04

or, you know, any presidency

29:06

after this? So

29:08

there's a longstanding rule that certain

29:11

high ranking government officials, including

29:13

the president, prosecutors

29:15

and judges, cannot

29:18

have civil lawsuits brought

29:20

against them for like stuff that they do

29:22

in the course of their official duties. And

29:25

I mean, there's a pretty basic

29:28

reason for that, which is that anyone can

29:30

file a civil lawsuit. There was a fear

29:32

that, you know, those individuals would just be

29:34

ground down by a bunch of lawsuits that

29:36

they'd have to defend against. They'd have to

29:38

pay lawyers from and it would discourage them

29:41

from performing their jobs or even

29:43

wanting to have their jobs. So

29:45

that principle is longstanding. The

29:48

idea that the president is immune from

29:50

criminal charges, at least after they leave

29:53

office, is completely novel and was made

29:55

up by the Supreme Court. In

29:58

the past, the reason why this

30:02

issue never came up. Like most

30:04

presidents just tried to

30:06

comply with the criminal law. And I mean,

30:08

like the one thing that is clear about

30:10

Donald Trump is that he thinks

30:14

he can get away with everything and thus far

30:16

he has. And

30:18

so I think that the Trump

30:20

immunity decision makes a second Trump

30:22

presidency very dangerous because

30:25

he now knows for sure that there'll be

30:27

no consequences for anything that he does. Okay,

30:32

so I would love for you to bring out

30:34

your crystal ball. You know, we are gonna look

30:36

into the future. We're gonna pull that so Raven.

30:39

The Supreme courts played a really

30:41

big role in shielding Trump from

30:43

some of these charges through this

30:45

immunity ruling. It seems

30:47

like most of the charges will

30:50

likely go away anyway with his

30:52

reelection. So how will

30:54

the decision affect his next

30:57

term? And you know, even

30:59

beyond these next four years. I

31:01

mean, I think they will give him a

31:04

complete blanket immunity from criminal charges while he

31:06

is the sitting president of the United States.

31:08

And I kind of think that's the right

31:10

answer as a matter of law. I'm

31:13

not at all sympathetic to Donald Trump,

31:16

but like imagine if say

31:18

Ron DeSantis's Florida had

31:20

decided to harass Biden with criminal

31:22

charges or if the state of

31:24

Mississippi had decided to bring fake

31:26

charges against Lyndon Johnson after Lyndon

31:28

Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act

31:31

or the Voting Rights Act. There's

31:33

lots of reasons why you don't

31:35

want an individual state to debilitate

31:37

the president in that way. And

31:40

so I think the constitutional arguments

31:42

against pursuing a criminal trial against

31:44

a sitting president are very strong.

31:46

The question is like, could the

31:48

charges then be revived after

31:51

he leaves office? I

31:53

can't think of any good legal reason

31:56

why they couldn't be revived, but by

31:58

the time we would get around. to

32:00

convicting him after he has served and

32:02

then he's an 82-year-old man. Like, I'm

32:04

very doubtful that there is still going

32:07

to be the political will four

32:09

years from now, but it's

32:12

such an unprecedented set of

32:14

circumstances that I think that's

32:16

a question we answer four years from now. So,

32:20

one of the things that I really

32:22

enjoy, and maybe enjoy

32:24

is the wrong word, but one of

32:26

the things that I appreciate about when

32:28

we are both in the office at

32:30

the same time is that we, you

32:32

know, with clear eyes can think about

32:34

the worst case scenarios for democracy together.

32:37

And, you know, we got a pretty doomy

32:39

question and I want to play it for

32:41

you. Hey, my name is

32:44

Luke. I'm from Michigan. I waffle between

32:46

anxiety and trying to reassure myself that

32:48

everything's going to be okay. I'm not

32:50

a Trump fan and I do

32:52

think he'll be horrible for democracy. But

32:54

the main question is, what can I do for

32:56

the next four years to ensure

32:59

that he does not hold on to power,

33:01

to hang on to power indefinitely? How

33:04

can I prevent that from happening? I

33:07

mean, I think that's a

33:10

difficult question. We have a

33:12

constitutional system that lays out

33:14

very clear processes by which

33:16

you can weaken the

33:19

incumbent party. The

33:21

next major roadblock where

33:23

Donald Trump's climb to power can be

33:25

stopped is the midterm election. You

33:28

know, among other things in the midterm election, it

33:30

might be possible for Democrats to take the Senate.

33:33

And once they take the Senate, that

33:35

means they can stop all Trump judicial

33:37

confirmations. You know, no more people getting

33:39

on the Supreme Court saying that Donald

33:42

Trump's allowed to do crimes while he's

33:44

in office. Like that is the

33:46

biggest thing that could happen, to try to

33:48

halt this man's rise to power, electing a

33:51

Congress that will check this man. What

33:53

outstanding questions do you have right now?

33:56

We're going to talk to some other

33:58

people in our newsroom. Is

34:00

there anything you want to know from him? I

34:02

mean, the biggest question that I have

34:04

is just how

34:06

aggressive is Donald Trump going to

34:08

be? Like, is he actually going

34:10

to bring criminal charges against his

34:12

political rivals? Is he actually going

34:14

to be able to round up

34:17

the millions and millions of undocumented immigrants

34:19

who live in the United States and

34:22

find a way to deport all of them? And so

34:24

the question I have is, I mean, I don't know

34:26

which of the specific things that Donald Trump has said

34:29

he wants to do are actually going to get done.

34:34

After the break, I call up a colleague who's

34:36

looked into just that. So,

34:38

hugely important. I think

34:41

it's the story right now. A lot of people are

34:43

going to focus on the politics for understandable reasons. But

34:46

the policy is the thing that's going to govern

34:48

all of our lives for the next four years.

34:50

And it's hard to overstate how revolutionary Trump's policy

34:52

agenda is. Stay with us. This

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ready at Whole Foods Market. Terms

36:23

apply. We're

36:25

back. You're listening to Explain It To Me. Before

36:28

the break, I talked with my colleague, Ian,

36:30

about the courts and a second Trump presidency.

36:33

What Ian wants to know is if Trump will

36:35

follow through on all those campaign promises he made.

36:37

Lucky for us, we have another coworker who has

36:40

thoughts on that. And he was also

36:42

in the office on election night. Zach

36:44

Beecham, I'm a senior correspondent here at Vox. And what

36:46

time is it right now? It is 9.09 p.m. on

36:48

the East Coast. Okay,

36:50

so what is it you're looking for tonight? So

36:53

like everybody else, I'm watching those seven key swing

36:55

states, right? And we're all trying to see how

36:57

they're fitting in with each other. And as we

36:59

speak right now, most of them don't have sufficient

37:01

data for us to be really confident about what's

37:04

happening. Well, it is about

37:06

17 hours later and we know what

37:08

happened. We sure do. And

37:11

in fact, we got a call from a listener about

37:13

what happened. I wanna go ahead and play it for

37:15

you. Hey,

37:18

this is Alex from Kansas City. I

37:21

just wanted to call and ask, how

37:24

are those Democrats feeling right now? I

37:26

bet they're crying, huh? I

37:29

bet they're crying, huh? Trump

37:31

2024. You've

37:34

been monitoring right wing media.

37:37

I'm curious what the

37:39

reaction to the results has been like there.

37:41

Is it similar to Alex's energy? Yeah,

37:44

a lot of the American right is

37:46

oriented around a shared

37:48

antipathy towards the left.

37:51

Their glee is in

37:53

part so many of these people being

37:55

disappointed and humiliated and angry. And it's

37:58

not just like a belief that... Trump

38:00

has done something impressive, it's that he's beaten

38:02

the people that they really hate. And that

38:04

is, it's quite a source of joy for

38:06

a lot of people on the right. Yeah,

38:09

so you cover Republicans in the

38:11

right, and from your perspective, how

38:14

did this win happen? How did

38:16

Donald Trump win the reelection? If

38:19

I have to give you a short explanation

38:21

for what happened, a simple one sentence, it's

38:23

that people don't like incumbents, right?

38:25

This is true not just in the United States, but

38:27

across the world, right? 2024

38:30

is the biggest year of elections in

38:32

human history, never have more people voted than they

38:34

have this year. And what we

38:37

saw in the United States fits that theory to a

38:39

T, right? Across the board, there was

38:41

a shift in the US. Like if you look

38:43

at the Washington Post is this really handy map,

38:45

where you can look at county results and they

38:47

can show you at the county level, whether

38:49

those counties swung left or right, relative

38:52

to the 2020 election. And if

38:54

you look at it, it's just a sea of

38:56

red, right? Everywhere, with a few

38:58

exceptions, Americans were more inclined

39:00

to vote for a Republican than a Democrat.

39:03

And to me, that's like the number one

39:05

analytic question that you have to answer is,

39:07

what theory do you have that can explain

39:09

nearly everybody moving in one direction? And the

39:11

answer is that most people were dissatisfied with

39:13

how things were going, right? Exit

39:15

polls are unreliable for subgroups especially, but one consistent

39:17

finding, which makes me have a little bit more

39:20

confidence in them, is that 70 plus percent of

39:22

Americans think the country was on the wrong track

39:24

or not doing well. And

39:26

that to me is the story of the election. I'm

39:30

also curious about Donald Trump, the man. A

39:33

question we got about President-elect Trump, we got

39:36

on Instagram from a Vox follower was, what

39:39

am I missing? Why is he so great?

39:41

And there really is this cult of personality

39:43

around Trump. He has stands. It's

39:45

up there with the Beehive and the Swifties. What

39:48

is up with Donald Trump's appeal? So

39:51

Trump connects on a

39:54

really fundamental, level

39:57

with a lot of voters. Part

39:59

of it is that he. He's been a celebrity for several decades

40:01

now, and he has a kind

40:03

of magnetic charisma honed in all of his

40:05

public appearances over all this time that draws

40:07

people to him. And I don't really know

40:09

how to explain charisma components of it. Yeah,

40:11

it's hard to describe Riz, you know? But

40:14

yeah, but you see it, right? If you

40:16

watch him speak, yeah, a lot of the

40:18

time he's boring, but then he does these

40:20

weird dances and says kind of funny stuff.

40:23

And people really, they really like that.

40:25

It makes him feel exciting to a

40:27

lot of voters. In my book on

40:30

right-wing authoritarian politics called The Reactionary

40:32

Spirit, I argue that the core

40:34

of Trumpism is a group

40:36

of Americans who feel like they have

40:40

lost what their country was, what

40:42

the country, what they believe the country ought to

40:44

be or what it should be. And this is

40:46

primarily a reaction to social

40:48

and demographic change. And

40:50

I don't think that that theory is

40:52

the only thing that explains the 2024

40:54

election results. Especially

40:57

it doesn't explain like a uniform national shift in

40:59

Trump's favor. But Trump got

41:01

to this point despite being, in

41:05

terms of policy, a pretty radical extremist

41:08

because he got to the head of one of our

41:10

two major parties, which normalizes him basically by default. And

41:12

he did that by expertly manipulating

41:14

the grievances of a percentage of

41:17

the population, a mostly white, mostly

41:19

older population. Huh, that makes sense.

41:22

I'd like to bring you another question we got

41:24

from the Vox audience about executive

41:26

orders, which our

41:28

directives presidents can issue without

41:30

waiting on Congress to pass a law. The

41:33

question reads, what do we expect

41:35

to be Trump's first set

41:37

of executive orders? So hugely

41:40

important. I think it's the story right now.

41:42

A lot of people are going to focus

41:44

on the politics for understandable reasons. But the

41:47

policy is the thing that's going to govern all

41:49

of our lives for the next four years. And

41:51

it's hard to overstate how revolutionary Trump's policy agenda

41:53

is. I would pick

41:55

three policy areas to focus on here. The

41:58

first is Trump. trade. Trump

42:01

has promised across the board tariffs, universal

42:03

or near universal, on all imported goods.

42:06

I would expect that to happen immediately. The

42:08

question is what level they'll be at. Regardless

42:12

of the number, across the board tariffs

42:14

will do pretty significant economic damage pretty

42:16

quickly. It's one of those areas where

42:19

Trump has a very idiosyncratic view that's

42:21

aligned against basically all economists

42:23

left and right on this particular issue.

42:25

The second one, the

42:28

Trump team is already talking about this right after the election,

42:30

is mass deportations. I don't

42:32

know how mass is mass, but they

42:34

have a lot of very specific plans about

42:36

how to restructure the way

42:38

in which the federal government does deportations

42:40

to be able to reach a much

42:42

larger group of undocumented immigrants much more

42:44

quickly. So, I mean, we're

42:48

possibly talking millions. The

42:50

third major area is staffing

42:52

of the federal government. Tell me more about

42:54

that. Right. Trump has said

42:57

that he will re-implement something called Schedule

42:59

F immediately upon taking power. Schedule

43:02

F is a reclassification of parts of the federal

43:04

civil service that makes people

43:06

whose jobs were previously non-political into political

43:09

appointees Trump can fire. By

43:11

some estimates, it's well over 50,000 people that

43:14

would be fired. If Trump can replace career

43:19

civil servants in key positions with

43:22

his people, he'll be able

43:24

to do a lot more across the board

43:26

and many of his other plans, especially plans

43:29

to, for example, open investigations into the Bidens

43:31

and into Harris. So, that is really a

43:33

sort of a linchpin of the broader Trump

43:35

agenda. Yeah. I'm curious if

43:38

any of this is actually

43:41

going to happen. I mean, politicians say they'll do

43:43

stuff all the time that they never

43:45

do. And I think with Trump,

43:48

it's especially hard to tell what's

43:50

real and what's not because he's

43:52

just such a showman. Like

43:54

a lot of times he does it just for the shock

43:56

and awe. Yeah, he's doing it bad. Yeah. And so how

43:58

do we know if it's a bitter or not, or how

44:00

do we know if he's like, no, I'm actually about

44:02

to do this? Well, sometimes

44:05

that can be really hard to tell. One

44:07

policy I've struggled with a lot, invading Mexico,

44:09

that is sending US Special Forces into Mexico

44:11

to fight drug cartels. That

44:13

sounds totally nuts. It's

44:15

just totally insane. I've

44:18

argued in print that we need to take it seriously, but that

44:20

doesn't mean I think it's guaranteed that it's going to happen. These

44:23

other three things that I mentioned, though, those are

44:25

all extremely likely to happen.

44:29

One consistent finding in the political science literature,

44:31

which I think maybe is a little bit

44:33

surprising to people, is that presidents

44:35

tend to keep their promises. It's

44:38

not that they're always telling the truth all the

44:40

time. I mean, Trump lies constantly. But when they

44:42

say they want to do something, they're stating their

44:45

intent to do it. They're

44:47

not just saying it to say it. It's

44:49

that they think that this is an important part of

44:51

their governing agenda. And by all

44:53

accounts on those three areas, immigration,

44:55

trade, and control of the federal

44:57

government, Trump is speaking from a

44:59

place of conviction here. He changes

45:02

his mind all the time on

45:04

different stuff. Abortion is a great

45:06

example. He's swung wildly on

45:08

abortion because I don't think he really has core

45:10

convictions on that issue. But on trade and immigration,

45:12

he's been consistent for a very long time. And

45:15

on control of the federal government, his number one

45:17

preoccupation is that throughout his

45:20

time in the White House and

45:22

since has been that government wasn't loyal to

45:24

him personally, that he couldn't do whatever he

45:26

wanted. That were people getting in his way.

45:29

And now he's in a position to

45:32

stop that. And even as he

45:34

has said many times, to get

45:36

retribution for the prosecution and investigations

45:39

into him that happened in his years out of

45:41

power. And there's just no doubt

45:43

in my mind that he's going to pursue that. The

45:45

only question is how effectively he'll be able

45:48

to accomplish his goals and all these things. And that I

45:50

don't have a clear answer to. So

45:52

Democrats have been saying for a

45:54

year that this election, 2024, is

45:58

the most important election of our lifetimes. Now

46:00

that it's over, was it? How

46:03

should we think about that part of it now

46:05

that the election's done? I mean, I think

46:09

they were right. And

46:11

I think that that's scary. Because

46:15

people did say that, but it was just clear from

46:17

the way that the election was being talked about, the

46:20

way it was being covered, people

46:22

weren't feeling the same level

46:24

of existential significance that they

46:26

did in, let's say 2020.

46:29

People have difficulty imagining

46:32

that they've lost something until it's

46:34

actually lost. And

46:37

I think we saw this pretty clearly with

46:39

abortion. For most Americans,

46:41

the idea of Roe versus Wade being

46:43

repealed was abstract until it was

46:46

actually repealed. And then we saw this massive political

46:49

movement oriented around protecting abortion

46:51

rights and significant victories

46:53

for abortion rights referenda, which continued in

46:55

this election, even though they lost some,

46:58

right? But still, a majority

47:00

won this time around. And

47:04

I think that's true with a lot of things,

47:06

not just like rights that you can lose, but

47:09

also basic elements of government

47:11

that we take for granted. And

47:13

then like just going down the list with different policies,

47:15

right? It's hard to imagine what it

47:18

would mean for millions of

47:20

people who either are or are alleged to

47:22

be undocumented immigrants being rounded up and put

47:24

into camps. I mean, they've literally talked about

47:26

camps for these people, right? I'm not making

47:28

this up. This is an anti-Trump hysteria. It's

47:30

what Trump plans call for in order to

47:32

house all of the people that they're detaining,

47:35

putting them in camps and then deporting

47:37

them, right? That is something that feels

47:40

so removed from our day-to-day

47:42

experience of life that

47:44

you can't integrate it. You can't even

47:46

really process it. But if we

47:49

start to get massive measles outbreaks,

47:51

because RFK Jr. has destroyed our

47:53

vaccine infrastructure. If the

47:56

American economy goes into a tailspin because

47:58

Trump institutes these wild and crazy. tariffs.

48:01

If you start to see your friends and neighbors

48:03

getting thrown into camps, right, people

48:06

will realize that they've lost something

48:08

really significant. Yeah. But

48:10

it just it's the

48:13

hypothetical messaging didn't go through and now I fear we're

48:15

going to have to live through the hypothetical. All

48:19

right, Zach, thank you so much for explaining this

48:21

to us. Thank you, JQ. I'm

48:24

always happy to chat with you. That's

48:31

it for this episode of Explain It To Me.

48:34

Thank you to all of you who called in with your questions.

48:37

We hope to answer more of them in the coming weeks. We

48:40

got a bunch about ranked choice voting in

48:42

particular, so we'll dedicate a whole episode to

48:44

that soon. If you

48:46

have a question about the election

48:49

or about literally anything else,

48:51

please give us a call. 1-800-618-8545. We

48:57

love to hear from you. Our

49:08

producers this week were Sophie Lalonde and

49:10

Gabrielle Burbet, Anouk Dusseau, Sarah

49:13

Schweppe and Katie Pinsy-Mough fact-checked

49:15

this episode. It was

49:17

edited by Jorge Jess, Julia Longoria

49:20

and Natalie Jennings. Mixing

49:22

sound design and engineering by Christian

49:24

Ayala. Our supervising producer

49:26

is Carla Javier. All

49:29

thanks to you, our listeners, for sending us

49:31

questions and making our show possible. If

49:34

this was valuable to you, please consider

49:36

supporting this work financially by becoming a

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Vox member. Details, perks

49:40

and more at vox.com/members.

49:43

I'm Jonclyn Hill and I'll talk to you soon. Take

49:46

care out there. First,

49:57

will you tell me about your influence on tonight's

49:59

election dinner? It was fully

50:01

my decision. I rigged the vote. I

50:04

first started off by shocking people with the

50:06

suggestion that we get pasta. And

50:09

I knew in the end I wanted chaya. Throughout

50:11

like a spoiler third party DC

50:14

vegan, which we've had before. Very delicious. And

50:17

I knew where this was going to end. Oh my

50:19

God. I was there when you threw out pasta.

50:21

The fact that this was your plan all along. I

50:24

tricked everyone. And then I stopped the

50:26

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50:28

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