The next four years

Nov 06, 2024

Supporters of Donald Trump celebrate his victory near his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Supporters of Donald Trump celebrate his victory near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. | Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

COMING UP — President-elect Donald Trump appears on his way to finishing off a commanding victory. He’s already helped flip Senate control and is likely to win the popular vote, with the grand majority of counties around the country shifting right from their 2020 margins.

The House remains undecided, but if Republicans can secure victory there, Trump will enter the White House in January with a clear mandate for his agenda and control over Congress. The GOP advantage in both chambers will remain modest, but as Trump receives guests at Mar-a-Lago and plots out what his Cabinet and first 100 days will look like, Nightly has you covered on what the next four years will look like.

What policies to expect from Trump’s second term: Trump has promised the largest deportation of immigrants in American history, sweeping new tariffs on imports, a freeze on climate-related regulations, a remaking of federal health agencies and ideological changes in the education system.

Trump insiders say they believe he’ll be able to move faster than he did in his first term to accomplish those goals. In a roundup from policy-focused reporters around the newsroom , POLITICO considers how Trump will deal with immigration, tariffs, foreign policy, health care, education, climate, housing and taxes.

How Trump’s legal problems will be erased: Trump beat the system that tried to put him in jail. He was already the first former president ever to be charged with and convicted of felonies. Now he has become the first convicted felon ever to win a presidential election. And his victory virtually guarantees that he will never face serious legal accountability for his alleged wrongdoing. Read Kyle Cheney and Erica Orden on how and why.

What the Trump mandate looks like, and who he wants to punish: Democrats warned that Trump and his supporters are prepared to hijack democracy. Now they must ruefully acknowledge another reality, writes POLITICO Editor-in-Chief John Harris: The Trump movement, no matter how much this appalls opponents, is a powerful expression of democracy.

And as that movement storms into office, Trump has promised retribution against his political enemies. Here are the people with the most reason to be concerned.

Trump’s planned Cabinet: Trump hasn’t yet had formal conversations about how his Cabinet will look. But that hasn’t stopped him from spitballing potential nominees on the trail. Between Trump’s own words and POLITICO’s reporting, learn who might be in Trump’s next Cabinet.

And Cabinet officials will be far from Trump’s only appointments. Joe Biden’s first days in the Oval Office were spent undoing a number of Trump’s most divisive changes at the Pentagon. Now, Trump is ready to do the same.

Trump’s opponents are foremost concerned that he will politicize the military and use it domestically against his political opponents. Should he follow through on his rhetoric, that could spark a fight over reining in his authority.

What Europe thinks: European policymakers have spent months preparing for Trump’s potential return to the White House. But they also don’t really know how this will all unfold.

Trump has promised to slap tariffs on every single European good entering the U.S. So the EU has preemptively locked and loaded some retaliatory measures. Seems logical — but that only works in a world where Trump is not erratic and impulsive.

Also, remember Trump’s boast that he could instantly “end” Russia’s war in Ukraine? Whatever he means, it has ramifications in Europe.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh.

What'd I Miss?

— Vice President Kamala Harris tells supporters ‘we must accept the results’ of the election: Less than 24 hours from when she was expected to address a waiting jubilant crowd, Harris stood in front of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall at her alma mater . Gone were the throngs of Howard students hoping to see one of their own lead the country. Instead, forlorn and crying staffers were front and center, hoping to hear their boss help them process the loss. “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign. The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and for the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation. The ideals that reflect an America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up,” the vice president said.

— Biden congratulates Trump on win, invites him to White House: President Joe Biden spoke with president-elect Donald Trump, congratulated him on his win and invited him to meet in the White House, the administration said today. Staff will work on a date for the visit “in the near future.” Biden will deliver an address Thursday on the transition and the election results, the White House added.

— Biden team prepares to rush last-minute aid to Ukraine: The Biden administration is planning to rush the last of over $6 billion remaining in Ukraine security assistance out the door by Inauguration Day, as the outgoing team prepares for the weapons flow to end once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The plan, described by two administration officials who were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, is the only option the White House has to keep sending equipment to Ukraine to fight off continued Russian offensives. But the problems are immense. It normally takes months for munitions and equipment to get to Ukraine after an aid package is announced, so anything rolled out in the coming weeks would likely not fully arrive until well into the Trump administration, and the next commander in chief could halt the shipments before they’re on the ground.

— RFK Jr.: ‘We’re not gonna take vaccines away from anybody’: Anti-vaccine activist and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s been promised a prominent health care role by President-elect Donald Trump in his administration, sought to allay concerns today that he would seek to halt vaccinations . “We’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody,” he told NPR in an interview this morning after Trump’s overnight victory. Instead, Kennedy said he wants to improve the science of vaccine safety, which he said “has huge deficits in it,” so Americans can have all the right information to choose whether to get vaccinated.

AROUND THE WORLD

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz talks to the media in Berlin on Oct. 22, 2024.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz talks to the media in Berlin on Oct. 22, 2024. | Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

COALITION COLLAPSE — Germany’s three-party ruling coalition collapsed this evening after Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced he would fire his Finance Minister Christian Lindner over persistent disagreements about economic reforms.

Many in Germany had hoped that the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. election earlier in the day would force the coalition to hold together over fears that the incoming president would give Europe’s biggest economy a hard ride — targeting its all-important car industry in a trade war.

Ultimately, however, not even the looming threat of Trump proved enough for the fractious parties to put aside their differences.

Crisis talks in the coalition of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, the Greens and Lindner’s Free Democratic Party had come to a head after the FDP issued a paper with demands for liberal economic reforms that were difficult for the other two parties to accept.

SNAP ELECTION CALLED — Prime Minister Simon Harris announced a snap election in Ireland for Friday, Nov. 29, in a bid to extend his Fine Gael party’s record 14-year run in power.

The 38-year-old Harris, who became Fine Gael leader and Ireland’s Taoiseach in April, launches the contest with his pro-business and socially progressive party topping the polls on 25 percent in a crowded field.

That lead, if maintained through the coming campaign, is widely forecast to produce a return of the current combination of Harris’ Fine Gael and its fellow center-ground rival, Fianna Fáil, led by Foreign Minister Micheál Martin. Together they have governed Ireland in a stable coalition since 2020 alongside a third partner, the environmentalist Green Party.

Nightly Number

$10 million

The size of a plan from the Congressional Black Caucus in September to mobilize undecided Black voters in key swing states that the Harris campaign ultimately rejected, according to a memo viewed by POLITICO.

RADAR SWEEP

‘ASTRONAUTS OF THE UNDERWORLD’ — Most of earth has been picked over. We’ve gone to space and learned about the moon and Mars. But there are still all kinds of places underneath the earth’s surface that are completely undiscovered. And they might hold the secrets to questions about the future of climate change, life and the universe. A team of scientists at a place called Deep Research Labs are dedicated to exploring many of these spaces, including the underearth caves that dot the landscape across the world. For the BBC, Katherine Latham explored a cave in England with the team at Deep Research Labs — and learned what kinds of secrets this research can uncover.

Parting Image

On this date in 1971: The aftermath of the North Street Arcade in the city center of Belfast, Northern Ireland after it was hit by a bomb blast which wrecked eight shops.

On this date in 1971: The aftermath of the North Street Arcade in the city center of Belfast, Northern Ireland after it was hit by a bomb blast which wrecked eight shops. | AP

Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.

Follow us on Twitter