Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalian, CNN's Political Director, and welcome to the CNN Political Briefing. Donald J. Trump has won the presidency. And it was a truly historic victory at that. He becomes the second person ever in U.S. history to have been defeated for a second term, only to once again have a victory to return him to power.

I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th.

In the end, America was loud and clear in its decision. It is a sweeping victory for Trump, where he is likely to win all seven of those critical battleground states at the center of this election. And he's set to be the first Republican candidate for president in two decades to win the national popular vote. Vice President Kamala Harris conceded to Trump Wednesday afternoon, and then she addressed a crowd of her supporters at her alma mater, Howard University.

While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.

CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny was there, and he joins us now to break down America's decision. With Trump heading back to the White House, what's next? What do Americans want from a second Trump presidency? And what's next for the Democratic Party as it searches for answers?

Jeff, I couldn't think of a better person to chat through what happened in this election than with you since we've covered this whole campaign together. So thank you so much for doing this.

You bet.

So, I'll start there. What happened?

Well, look, I mean, it was the biggest extraordinary, whatever superlative you want to use, political comeback we have ever seen in our career covering politics, even reading about history. I mean, the notion that four years ago at this moment and certainly four years ago in January, Donald Trump left Washington as a broken figure. His party was eager to move on with him. All that has changed. He's roaring back. It wasn't a squeaker. I mean, this was a clean sweep. It has to defy even what he would have imagined. That is one of the things that happened on that side. And on the other side, the bigger picture here, I think, is like every recent election you and I have covered, it's a change election. And there was a deep mood for change in the country. We've seen it in elections around the globe. It's not a friendly time to be an incumbent, and Vice President Harris, at the end of the day, for all the trappings of office that elevated her, they also kept her down that she was viewed as the incumbent and not the candidate of change. Never mind the fact that she's never been president. Donald Trump had been president. But that very simple question of who would bring more change, he clearly won that in the mind of voters.

'You know, I sent you an email Monday or Tuesday this week in the morning, with some questions I had going into Election Day. And the very first question I put on that list was, can she overcome the environmental factors of three-quarters of the country thinking it's headed on the wrong track, of the incumbent Democratic president being at historically low approval ratings for a re-election? Not that he was on the ballot but for even his party getting reelected. Or was that going to prove to be too high of a hurdle? That was my first major question going into the election. I think we got a resounding answer to that.

We got the answer. And when I was reading your list of very good questions, that, of course, was on our minds, and I think we probably had a sense of the answer. I do not think that we knew the depth of that. But look, for all of the vice president's attempts to respectfully sort of distance herself from President Biden, the reality is her office is a few paces away from his in the West Wing of the White House, and she was forever tied to his candidacy. Now, you can ask, had she had a longer time to run? Would she have been able to identify herself more had she not answered that question on The View that she can't think of anything she would like to change from President Biden? Would that have made a difference? That, of course, was turned into millions and millions of dollars in paid television ads about it. But, look, I think at the end of the day, she was not viewed as the candidate of change. And I think that is one of the things that explains the election.

'I'll just reference an exit poll result on that: 28% of the electorate said that a candidate who can bring about needed change was their top quality that they were looking for. So, slightly more than a quarter. It was the second-highest-ranked quality. Ability to lead was the highest. But Trump won those voters seeking a change candidate, 74% to 24%.

Extraordinary. So how, I mean, talk about headwinds, trying to overcome that, and we think change to what? What do people want to change? And of course, the economy was just rippling through most every conversation we had with voters, as was immigration and the border. Look, I mean, we will see how much change actually happens on the economy. It is clearly on the upswing, but these are always lagging indicators. But look, there are a lot of discussions to have. We can sort of slice and dice all of the, how people voted in different pockets here or there. Were advertising campaigns successful? Were they not? Was the money squandered? Why didn't the ground game work? Perhaps it did. Perhaps it would have been an even bigger landslide. But I think at the end of the day, Donald Trump was viewed as the candidate of change, even though he was more familiar to many voters.

And as you said about the economy, Jeff, I mean, in the exit polls, 46% of voters nationwide said that they were financially worse off than they were four years ago. That's a very high percentage of a fundamental question in American politics, right?

'Exactly, and that question is, are you better off now than you were four years ago? And resoundingly, people thought that they were not. I mean, in one respect with those numbers, it's kind of extraordinary. This wasn't a 1984 Reagan Mondale-type landslide, the last time Republicans won the popular vote in a presidential election like this. I mean, in battleground states, there were, you know, just a torrent of advertising and other things. She sort of held her own. But I think one of the many fascinating takeaways from this is not necessarily, you know, that Wisconsin was just by, you know, 30,000 votes or whatever, it was the things that happened in your home state of New Jersey, for example, in Illinois, other places where there were just big Republican gains. So that clearly...

'Where the campaign was not a fully-engaged campaign.

Exactly.

That, I agree with you. For me, I actually don't think this election was as full of surprises as some other elections that we've covered have been. I mean, I think —

Aside from July, I would say.

No, no, sorry. I meant the actual results of the election. No, the campaign had lots of surprises: a change to the ticket, an assassination attempt, all such things, no doubt. But the actual election results mirrored up more with what we actually covered over the last two years of what was going on in the country. So I don't think there was sort of a shocking result. And in fact, even the Harris campaign in the closing hours of the campaign said we're still looking at a very close race in these battleground states, but all seven of them could go his way. All seven of them could go our way, or they could sort of split. Like they thought those were equally possible outcomes. And one of them was the outcome, which is that all seven went his way. What did surprise me, Jeff, what you were saying now, the huge Trump Republican shift in blue states and again, not brand new. We saw in the midterms Republican gains in '22 in New York and in Democratic strongholds. But the extent in a place that wasn't fully engaged is one surprise. The other surprise to me, Jeff, back to the issues that you were saying. I kept asking every Democrat all year long, do you believe abortion rights is as potent as it was as an electoral issue as it was in '22 when you were much more proximate to the Dobbs ruling? Is it still? And to a person, they said, yes, it is still as powerful an electoral issue as we saw in the '22 midterms as we saw in some special elections in '23. It is, it is just as powerful. That proved not to be the case.

'Absolutely, it proved not to be the case. And I am wondering if it actually helped turn out some on the other side, just the relentless focus on abortion rights as really an anthem for freedom. That was one of the central sort of messages of the Vice President Harris' campaign. Did that sort of drive some of the vote elsewhere? But, David, there's no doubt. I mean, even as Missouri passed an abortion rights amendment, Arizona as well, this is something that just was not as palpable. And you ask why. Donald Trump obviously was also concerned about this. I mean, just look at his calibrated approach to never talking about or trying not to talk about abortion. And he would never answer the question of his support for a national abortion ban, much to the consternation of anti-abortion activists and groups. But, of course, he has the credentials of the Supreme Court that led to the Dobbs decision. So he had a ton of leeway here, but that was clearly a —

Leeway with conservatives, you're saying

Leeway with conservatives, without a doubt. I think he was wondering, as well, and the Trump campaign certainly was wondering, the first presidential election after Dobbs, would he pay a political price for this? He did not. So it was a miscalculation for Democrats. No doubt about it. David, as we talked to so many voters throughout the year, in swing states and not, I'm thinking back to one voter I checked in with a lot. She's a realtor who lives just a little bit north of Milwaukee, in Cedarburg, in Ozaukee County. And I view her as my North Star on one of the reasons Trump won. She never attended a Trump rally. She doesn't particularly like his antics, but she voted for him, and she explained why.

You know, when he talks in the big arena, sometimes I'm like, I wish he would tone down his rhetoric and everything. But at the end of the day, I want a person that's going to fix the economy, border and then national security.

'So those were her three issues: the border, economy, national security. And she went with Trump, who was a familiar choice to her on those issues but represented a change from the Biden-Harris administration.

'And let's put her in her geographic political relevance as well. You said Ozaukee County is what we call the WOW counties, one of the three counties that surround Milwaukee, suburban Milwaukee counties where — they are Republican counties, but where Democrats have been making inroads each successive cycle and actually most aggressively in Ozaukee. And it's the kind of place and perhaps she is the kind of voter that were it not for some of these concerns you just heard her talk about, perhaps she would be a target to be moved in some way. To me, she gives voice to why we did not see an explosion of change in the suburbs where Harris turbocharged the gains Biden made in some of these suburbs and that we saw resist Trump in 2018 and all of these things that like we've seen this pushback to Trump in suburban America. It still clearly is there. That is not friendly turf to Trump compared to pre-Trump Republicans. But Harris did not turbocharge what Biden accomplished.

'She did not. And Liz Cheney was on the campaign trail a lot, including in places just miles away from where these voters we're talking about lived in Wisconsin. And, you know, she certainly had an appealing case for some on the democracy argument, but it was not an overriding reason to vote against Donald Trump. So, it was the economy and immigration and inflation that really — so it actually was an issue-driven campaign in the minds of some voters.

We're going to take a quick break. We're going to have a lot more with Jeff Zeleny in just a moment.

'Welcome back. We're here with CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, breaking down Donald Trump's sweeping victory and Republican victories. It looks like, as you and I sit here today, that when Donald Trump takes the oath of office in January, he will be in full control. His party will be in full control of Washington. We have not called the House yet, as you and I sit here, Republicans are about ten seats away from the majority. We've got a whole slew of races still to call, but they look to be on track for the majority. They are guaranteed the majority in the United States Senate, and Donald Trump will be in the White House. So, what should we anticipate a Republican-unified Washington looks like for a Trump administration, a second Trump administration out of the gate?

'It is going to show one thing above all: how unified can this Trump-era Republican Party be? As of now, it seems quite unified. We shall see in the coming weeks and months and year. But it is a fast, aggressive agenda. I think this is something that the first 100 days, if you have control of the House and indeed the Senate, you can get a lot done. So I suspect the front half of the next presidential term, when there is a guaranteed majority before any midterm conversation, most things are done in the first half of a presidential term. So, I think a lot of confirmations, obviously. Let's watch the Supreme Court, for example. Boy, this is something that wasn't talked about a lot, for all that Dobbs was talked about on the campaign trail and abortion rights were, the whole idea of the Supreme Court was not discussed a ton. It will be, because I would suspect, for sure, one retirement, maybe a couple retirements, and confirmation is all but guaranteed in the Republican-controlled Senate. But in terms of other policies, we will see if President Trump sort of follows through with many of his very specific campaign promises on immigration and other matters. He was actually quite clear about what he wanted to do. So we shall see if he follows through with rounding up illegal immigrants and deporting them. My guess is that some of that will be much more complicated. We saw the bureaucratic hurdles he hit in his first administration, but he knows his way around the store now a little bit more, so I think the second Trump term will not be as slow to start as the first.

Given everything we saw in this election and in the results about the economy and inflation, I am also curious to see if his proposals on tariffs are followed through on. You know, lots of economists believe that his economic proposals are inflationary in nature. Given the rebuke to Biden, Harris, and the Democrats in this election because of the pain that inflation caused, I wonder if Donald Trump all of a sudden might be a little gun shy on doing anything to cause inflationary pain on the American people, given what he just witnessed and benefited from politically just this week in this election.

It's a great observation. And look, campaign promises don't always become reality. And this is exhibit A of something that sounds a lot better on the campaign trail when you're running than it actually does in practice. So, we shall see. But he largely will have carte blanche inside this Congress to the degree to which — there are still traditional, there's no doubt that this Congress is a far Trumpier Republican Congress than when he took office by a mile. That does not mean that all Republicans specifically agree with his policy proposals. And I think tariffs is probably exhibit A of what we'll have to come back and see how much the reality of the campaign trail meets the actual proposals.

Such a good point. I also wonder, and I have not heard Donald Trump talk about this, Jeff, like, you know, you do this, too, I'm sure. But like I always keep a running list of questions if I randomly had the opportunity to interview a president or a candidate and —

In the circles you run in, that's totally possible.

But I, I haven't heard him really expound on this. I do wonder if he has thoughts about approaching the job any differently in a second term than he approached it in the first term. He's not the guy that's going to go back and say, I got things wrong in the first term. I'm not suggesting that. But I just wonder if he thinks because he does, to use your phrase, like know his way around the store a bit more. Does he also just bring a different sensibility or tweaks to the way he did the job now that he did it already, to the way he does it this time? I'm very curious to see that.

I think one of the probably biggest ways, at least that it seems, is who he surrounds himself with. I mean, he will talk about regrets, not his regrets, but people sort of failed him or didn't live up to what they said they would do. So I believe that he will. And this is one of the biggest worries, obviously, from Democrats and others that the guardrails will not be there, if you will. So I think in terms of his personnel, who he hires, who he brings on, let's look at the Department of Justice, for example, I think that will be such an interesting and important decision. Who is his attorney general? That is a regret of Donald Trump's from his first term is choosing Jeff Sessions. Of course, he doesn't blame himself. He blames Jeff Sessions for not being loyal to him. But look, I mean, I think as he fills his government, which is going to happen quite swiftly here, that is going to be an early sign of these clues here. But I think that is probably the biggest difference of who he surrounds himself with.

Before we wrap things up here, I do want to turn to the Democrats and get your sense in your reporting about where they sit. There's been a lot of call for soul searching. We've heard a lot of Democratic elected officials start giving their opinions for why the defeat was so resounding for them across the board, not just Kamala Harris's race against Trump. You know, you and I have covered parties who have suffered big defeats before. They do and can get introspective in that moment. I'm not sure necessarily that introspection always produces necessarily a better path forward for them. But what are you hearing about how Democrats are assessing this moment?

'I think how Democrats are assessing their moment is, first and foremost, a lot of blame and anger toward President Biden for making the decision he did to run again and stay in, a decision that was enabled by virtually the entire party, with very few exceptions, until it became so obvious that he was not able to really complete the task of running for president. So, I think President Biden earns a lot of that, but that has a short shelf life. I think there are far bigger challenges when you talk to Democrats that go far beyond President Biden, and that is the cultural divide in the country, the education divide in the country. And Democrats just simply are not only losing working-class voters, white working-class voters, but also in this election, at least losing Black and Brown working-class voters. And Bernie Sanders, I think, gave voice to that first and foremost. So this is going to be a time of introspection, as you said. And, you know, there are calls for autopsies, which I think are somewhat valid. But I think the only thing that, as you and I both remember from 2012, there was a Republican National Committee-led autopsy that was done and it was promptly shelved and thrown away when Donald Trump came into office. So, I think the rise of the Democratic Party and of course, given our two-party system in this country, I mean, there is not one-party rule for the end of time. I mean, Democrats will rise again. I do not think it will be through an autopsy. I think it will be through a leader, a figure. And if that's someone out in the ranks of governors, if it's Wes Moore from Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania, or even more likely, someone we're not thinking of necessarily. That is sort of what pulls a party out of the wilderness or darkness.

'I mean, that's exactly how Bill Clinton plotted his path out of the Democratic wilderness and darkness of the Reagan-Bush one years and plotted a different way for Democrats to appeal to the American electorate. The leader matters. So those names that you float are interesting. There's no doubt about that. But there is not a majority to be found if you are just shrinking to a coastal elite party. And so, that to me seems critical, challenge number one for them to solve. There's only so much they're going to be able to max out on college-educated liberals and suburbanites. They're going to have to find new ways to appeal to working-class Americans.

'Without question. You know, for all the talk of so many Democrats, you know, always kind of hold on to the popular vote as this ideal. And that is perhaps one of the biggest blows of all here. And there's always a discussion of oh, the Electoral College does not favor Democrats. So, let's look at the popular vote here. That is where Democrats, I think, have to start and look at really why this happened. But the reality here is that how people get their news and information has changed remarkably. We talk about the middle of the country. There are plenty of Democrats out there, there's no doubt. But how people get their news and information and the values and other things is something that Democrats just simply have not reached out to them. But the celebrity-driven campaign that was this Democratic presidential campaign, I'm thinking Oprah Winfrey was the person introducing Vice President Kamala Harris at her final rally in Philadelphia. I was standing there looking at Oprah Winfrey. And, of course, she has huge popularity, but she's also — she's an elite. And that is someone who was, I thought, a very interesting choice there. So the Democratic Party absolutely has to rebrand itself. The brand of the party is severely wounded.

Jeff Zeleny, fantastic work throughout this entire cycle. Can't appreciate your coverage enough. And thank you for being with us this week to sort of chew over the results. Really appreciate it.

It's my pleasure. Thank you, David.

'That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. We want to hear from you. Is there? Or a question you'd like answered about this election cycle. Is there a guest you really want to hear from? Give us a call at (202) 618-9460. Or send us an email at CNNPoliticalBriefing@Gmail.com. And you might just be featured in a future episode of the podcast. So don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, how we can reach you, and if you give us permission to use the recording on the podcast. CNN Political Briefing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dan Dzula is our Technical Director, and Steve Lickteig is the Executive Producer of CNN Audio. Support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Katie Hinman. We'll be back with the new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.