Wednesday, November 06, 2024

6: President Trump

Trump wins a second term. And, Republicans reclaim Senate control
Most states that considered abortion rights amendments approved them
Abortion rights advocates win in 7 states and clear way to overturn Missouri ban but lose in 3

President Trump, Again America has shifted rightward, giving Donald Trump a stunning comeback and a Republican Senate....... Trump won a clear victory in the presidential election over Vice President Kamala Harris, likely including in all seven battleground states. After a defiant campaign filled with grim portrayals of the country’s condition, he is on course to become the first Republican to win the national popular vote in 20 years. The New York Times called the race for Trump shortly before 6 a.m. Eastern. ....... The result showed a country that had shifted to the political right, with voters unhappy about President Biden’s performance, especially on the economy and immigration. ...... Four years after being impeached for his role in a violent attack on Congress, five months after being convicted of a felony in New York and three months after surviving an assassination attempt, Trump will begin preparing his return to the White House. ......

It is unclear which party will control the House.

...... The Republican Party appeared to expand its electorate in meaningful ways, especially among Latino voters.......... he is in a stronger position now than he was eight years ago. His aides have spent months planning for a second term and vetting potential appointees to ensure that his administration is staffed with loyalists rather than the establishment Republicans who often stymied him in his first term. In Congress, few of the Trump-skeptical Republicans from 2017 will remain. ......... Starting on Jan. 20, Democrats may control no branch of the federal government. .......... The U.S. has joined Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan as a country where the ruling party has recently lost power. In the U.S., the presidency is on the verge of changing hands for the third time in eight years, the biggest period of White House instability since the 1970s.




Trump’s social media stock spikes after his projected win Donald Trump didn’t just win the White House. He also grew more than $1 billion richer Wednesday....... Trump Media’s stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” spiked 35% in premarket trading, implying an astounding market value of about $9 billion. ..... With Trump’s election odds falling, the company’s share price crashed to record low after record low in September. ....... But between September 23 and the end of October, Trump Media more than tripled in value — a stunning spike driven by bets that Trump would win the White House. ........ because the stock is the “only pure play” for traders to wager on a Trump win. ..... “A lot of people got fooled by the Iowa poll,” Tuttle said, referencing a poll last weekend that found Trump no longer in the lead in a state he won twice. ........ Still, it’s hard to make sense of Trump Media’s price tag. At about $9.5 billion, it is now valued at more than twice Macy’s and quadruple JetBlue. ......... Trump Media disclosed Tuesday afternoon that its third-quarter revenue dipped 5% to just $1 million. ......... “Forget about the past 40 years and the string of bankruptcies. Think about the here and now and what the brand is worth,” Block said.

How Donald Trump Pulled Off the Greatest Comeback in Political History It was a nearly unthinkable coda to what can now be considered an intermission to the Trump era, which began with his refusal to concede defeat four years ago......... A violent attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters followed, which was then followed by four criminal indictments, a felony conviction on 91 charges, a $354 million judgment in a civil case against him and his business and another jury finding him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. ............. "The real verdict is going to be November 5, by the people," Trump said earlier this year. .......... Sure enough, the verdict arrived in his favor. "We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible," Trump told a crowd of supporters assembled at the convention center near his Mar-a-Lago estate. ....... After thanking voters, he said he would not rest until he had delivered a "golden age" for America. ......... "He's the toughest son of a gun I've ever seen," Fox News' Brit Hume said late on Tuesday, as the results began to break Trump's way. .......... Not since Grover Cleveland in 1892 has a U.S. president been elected to two nonconsecutive terms in office. In the end, Trump was able to pull off the feat not with a strategy of simply rallying his base, but by actually expanding the Republican electoral map. ............. His campaign's strategy mostly eschewed the mainstream press, focusing instead on appealing to young men and disaffected minority voters with high-profile appearances on popular podcasts, bolstered by influencers that have displaced the traditional media among those voters. ........... Through sheer force, Trump overcame a challenger who spent $1 billion to defeat him, with a ground game behind her that was thought be the best in politics. ......... "The former president of the United States given up for dead after January 6, 2021, is running stronger now than he did in the last campaign," John King said on CNN, noting Trump was running ahead of his 2020 performance by 3 points nationally. ........... The president-elect will take office with the wind at his back. Republicans also retook the Senate, meaning his cabinet and judicial appointments will likely face minimal pushback (control of the House remained up in the air as of early Wednesday, and was likely to stay that way for days until all the California races were called). ......... After a period of post-pandemic inflation, the economy is firing on all cylinders, with the Federal Reserve likely to cut interest rates again when it meets later this week. And the pending legal cases against him are now either dead on arrival or severely disrupted. ........... Now, instead of ending his career on a losing note—as a twice-impeached, one-term president and convicted felon—Trump will have four more years to reshape the government, and a chance to further cement his legacy as the most consequential Republican president since Ronald Reagan. ....... As for Harris, she will be tasked as vice president with the role of presiding over Congress' certification of Trump's victory on January 6 of next year—four years to the day since the riot at the Capitol that seemed, at the time, destined to send her opponent to the dustbin of history.

Elon Musk has parked his Tesla on the White House lawn The opinionated billionaire is not on the ballot, but he has turned the US election into an effective pulpit ........ A Republican win could put Musk in government, while a win for Democrat Kamala Harris could — he has joked — put him in prison. ......... Take Tesla, which sells half of all electric cars in the US. Democrats like clean transport. But if a triumphant Trump scraps some clean-car subsidies, Tesla’s lead over less-advanced rivals such as General Motors looks more secure. Whoever wins, Americans will keep buying electric vehicles. In any case, Tesla’s $785bn market valuation hangs more on robotaxis and humanoid robots.........

Trump has dangled a job for Musk heading a so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

........ A finely balanced legislature is unlikely to wave through drastic moves in any direction, whether on subsidies, tax, space or anything else. Any hyperactive billionaire could swiftly tire of being unable to get much done......... Remember Trump’s advisory council of chief executives, formed in late 2016 and helmed by Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman? Musk was a member too. It lasted six months. ........... Musk has already won from this election in one sense: by grabbing attention. Tesla’s market value has increased by $300bn since its April lows. Interest in its boss among Google users has doubled since he tweeted support for Trump in July........ It is unclear which individual will move into the White House. But there is no doubt who at present occupies the nation’s brainspace.


Tesla stock is soaring as Elon Musk looks to benefit from Donald Trump's victory The Tesla CEO is expected to have a role — or at least influence — in a second Trump administration



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Trump’s victory could mean US withdraws support for Ukraine in war with Russia Russia has steadily been making gains in the eastern Donbas region, which Russian President Vladimir Putin aims to capture in full. ...... Zelensky congratulated Trump on Wednesday and said he appreciates Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength.” ......... Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Ukraine-Russia war would not have started if he had been president. He has also vowed to end the war, sometimes even claiming he would stop the years-long conflict before taking office. In July, he said he could settle the conflict in one day. ...... In his September presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump refused to say he was committed to Ukraine defeating Russia. Later that month, he suggested that Ukraine should have “given up a little bit” to Moscow, saying at a campaign event that “any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.” ........ “If they made a bad deal, it would have been much better. They would have given up a little a bit and everybody would be living,” Trump said.

Putin unlikely to come to the negotiation table, regardless of who wins US election
Ukraine facing ‘one of the most powerful’ Russian offensives of the war, commander warns, as Moscow claims gains in east

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