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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. I know many of you are in shock. Of course, those of you who voted for Donald Trump are celebrating. It's kind of the day after Election Day in 2016 all over again, which many Democrats, especially women and Black Americans, Latino Americans, experience grief and fear and disillusionment with your fellow Americans. Yes, but it's different in many ways too. Reality is reality and here's some of it. This time, Trump won the popular vote.

NBC's analysis is that Trump improved his percentages in 90% of American counties. Republicans took a majority in the US Senate. The House is still too close to call. Remember, Democrats had the Senate. USA Today calls the presidential race not just a victory, but a realignment election. It says, "In a major shift, Trump won Latino men 54% to 44% over Harris, according to NBC exit polls, after they backed President Joe Biden 59% to 36% over Trump in 2020." We'll come back to that stat.

It says, "Trump won support from about 13% of Black voters nationally and 45% of Latino voters, citing CNN exit polls. In the 2020 election, Trump won just 8% of Black voters and 32% of Latinos." I know that's a lot of numbers, but think about those Latino numbers especially, 45% nationally despite the mantra of mass deportation aimed mostly at Latinos crossing the border to seek asylum, and that Latino men number is a realignment one for the history books, assuming it's accurate from that NBC exit poll. Trump lost Latino men to Biden by 23 points. This time, he won Latino men outright and not even close. He won them by 10 points.

We'll bring on two guests for analysis and to help take your calls in just a minute. We've been airing the BBC for the last hour, so let me give you some local results. It does look like Democrats have flipped at least one and possibly two local House seats. In the Hudson Valley, Democrat Josh Riley flipped a Republican seat, defeating Republican Marc Molinaro. On Long Island, Republican incumbent Anthony D'Esposito and Democrat Laura Gillen are still too close to call.

Last I could see, Gillen has declared victory. As of this morning, The New York Times has Gillen leading by about two points with 95% of the vote counted. Officially, it's still too close to call, so we'll wait for that word. It may well be that Democrats have taken back that seat on Long Island and the Marc Molinaro seat in the Hudson Valley with Josh Riley and another one further upstate near Syracuse. It could be that there's a +3 for the Democrats in the House coming out of New York State.

No surprise that Harris won in New York and New Jersey, but Trump improved his percentages in both states. According to NBC, Harris only won New Jersey by five points and Trump is winning Passaic County at last report. The county that includes Paterson and around there, that's a 45% Latino county from what I'm reading. Also, a big shift in Hudson County, which includes Union City, which is 80% Latino. Biden won Union County by 46 points, Harris by only 28.

In New York State, Harris had only an 11-point win yesterday. Biden won it by twice that much, around 22 points statewide in New York. In the boroughs from the NBC site that I'm looking at, Harris got around 80% in Manhattan, 70% in Brooklyn and the Bronx, 62% in Queens. Trump, as in the past, carried Staten Island by a lot. He won there at this time by 30 points. Just like 2020, it's a larger margin than he won Texas by. In fact, it was twice the margin that he won by in Texas in this election. Trump won both Long Island counties. Harris won Westchester. Trump won Rockland.

Also locally, if you haven't heard yet, Proposition 1 in New York State did win. That's the equal rights or equal protection amendment to the state constitution that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and also protect against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, as well as reproductive health care and autonomy. That was all in that amendment. That all gets added to who already has protection officially from discrimination in the state constitution who had been by race, color, creed, and religion.

Prop 1 did win at the ballot box even while the abortion rights measures lost, if you haven't heard this yet, in Florida. Of course, the Florida result for those who support abortion rights is really distressing because it actually won by 14 points, 57% to 43%, but they require a 60% majority in Florida in order to amend the constitution, so that happened. With us now, Maria Hinojosa, president and founder of Futuro Media, anchor and executive producer of Latino USA, and co-host of the podcast In The Thick, and Benjy Sarlin, Washington bureau chief for the news organization Semafor. Maria, always good to have you. Benjy, welcome to WNYC.

Benjy Sarlin: Thanks for having me.

Maria Hinojosa: Good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Maria, I'll start with you. A realignment election for Latino USA?

Maria Hinojosa: Well, we're having a lot of conversations obviously. We reported this story in our political reporting all year. I was doing the on-the-ground reporting and I was picking this up. Definitely, you were seeing activism among different Latino populations in different states. That's part of what we were seeing, but that was also being met-- For example, I'm thinking New Mexico, which is a blue state.

We were talking about abortion and we met a lot of young Latinas who were fighting to keep abortion access, but we met also young-ish Latinos and Latinas who were staunchly anti-abortion or being in South Florida with our reporting on misinformation and being surrounded by people in South Florida who were absolutely convinced that Donald Trump is an amazing businessman, is going to do amazing things for the American economy.

I know this is going to surprise a few people or maybe not, but also they were convinced that Kamala Harris is a member of the Socialist Party. Is there one in the United States, the Communist Party? Actually dressing Kamala Harris with Mao Zedong outfits or Fidel Castro-type outfits and passing this around as truth. I've been talking about this in terms of the Democrats. You're not meeting the moment. You're not meeting the moment. You're not. You're not answering that barrage of misinformation about immigrants, which are mostly lies.

Because if there was that amount of crime that Donald Trump talks about, we wouldn't have an immigration problem. We'd have a huge crime problem. We don't. They did not respond definitively with another option beyond repeating the same thing. "We've got to close the border, stop all the criminals," instead of saying, "Oh, my God, immigrants are amazing. They're the best thing that ever happened. We're going to make sure that you get a pathway to citizenship. We're going to reunite something positive."

That's also the recognition that Latino men, in particular, but Latinos in general, we are very aware of strongmen. We call it "mano dura," the hard hand. We understand it. We have lived through it. In some cases, it is rejected. In other cases, it is very welcome in our home countries. Was I expecting this? I thought it could happen. Being in Harlem yesterday, it was kind of like, "Whoa, this is going to be historic for Kamala Harris." Then at the end of the night, I ended in the Bronx with a Latino Trump supporter. I was like, "I think this is going to be a different kind of historic day."

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we will invite your thoughts and feelings and questions for our guests, our various guests throughout the show today with the reelection of Donald Trump and all the other results. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. What do you need this morning, folks? More information about specific races or specific places? Do you need commiseration with others who are afraid now because of what you believe Trump represents potentially for you? Do you want to celebrate our democracy?

Because no matter what side you're on, the people did choose this outcome. Not every country has that right, or express your concerns about preserving our democracy with serious past Trump national security officials, among those saying he wants to govern like a fascist. Trump supporters, call us with your hopes for the next four years. If you were calling to make America great again, what does that mean? 212-433-9692. What does it mean at the policy level? Call with why you think it's a good thing.

We did see the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average go up 1,300 points at the open this morning. 80% of you in Manhattan voted for Harris. 70% of you in Brooklyn in the Bronx voted for Harris. 60% in Queens and Westchester, but majorities voted for him in both Long Island counties and Rockland. He came within five points of New Jersey. Another question for you is, listeners, why do you think we're so divided? Why do you think there's not just different opinions on what kinds of policies are best for the country, but we really fear each other, right?

Why are we so divided according to you from any point of view? Call with your thoughts or feelings or questions or what you need at 212-433-WNYC or you can text 212-433-9692. Benjy Sarlin from Semafor, thank you for your patience. In the article that you filed at 5:30 this morning-- and by the way, I see that you filed your article at 5:30 this morning, so thank you very much for extending your workday with us this much. How would you start to describe realignment if you use that word or what took place through a national lens?

Benjy Sarlin: Well, I'm a little hesitant to use the word "realignment," but it definitely was a very striking coalition that elected Trump. Now, I think the nature of it that really stands out is that, obviously, yes, there's going to be a lot of talk about his apparent gains with Latino voters, which were very large and real. The broader story was really a generalized backlash pretty much across the board. I think about 90% of counties swung right from 2020.

This wasn't just one kind of place moving to the right. It was, as you mentioned, as diverse as New York City, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, but also red states. Texas and Florida swung far to the right. In fact, the places that had the smallest swings in some ways were the seven battleground states, which were actually relatively close and not that far off from the polls even. They all showed them to basically be toss-ups. They all looked like competitive states in the end as far as we've seen.

I'd say the story here was a pretty broad, uniform backlash that you would assume is a rejection of the incumbent party. A lot of this seems to be what we've been hearing and seeing in the polls for many years, which is voters were very, very unhappy with the economy under Biden. Biden's approval rating was persistently low from early in his presidency right up to Election Day. Even as Harris's personal favorability numbers moved up, so did Donald Trump's.

Especially when voters are polled, voters retroactively rated his presidency better than they had when he was president. I think a lot of voters were nostalgic, especially for the economy as existed before the pandemic. What it all added up to was voters across a wide variety of demographics and a wide variety of locations deciding that they wanted to trust Trump again to try to bring back some of that magic and reject what Biden did.

I think a big question is, given how uniform the gains were for Trump, especially outside the battleground states, this was a very Republican environment. This isn't a thing that lends itself immediately to nitpicking about like, "Oh, if Kamala Harris had just visited the state more or picked a different vice president nominee or if you just run slightly different ads," you definitely will see that and are seeing some of that. None of that leaps out to me as what would explain something like this.

Whether you were hearing from the national campaigns with billions of dollars of advertising or whether you were just watching the race from a safe state, people just seemed very, very prepared to reject Democrats, but really specifically the top of the ticket in this election. Down-ballot Democrats actually had some separation, it seems, from Harris and maybe doing a little better. In fact, the House is still not even called, but broad rejection of the Biden administration, to me, is the overall story.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's Rebecca in Cambridge, Mass. Rebecca, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Rebecca: Hi. Thank you. I just want to say good mourning. By that, I mean M-O-U-R-N, mourning. Mourning. I'm mourning the fact that I feel like, contrary to your guest, this election shows that our country is misogynist. It's really across the board in the districts and counties and states and our whole country. It's a repudiation of a woman and women in general and a right to have control over everything.

I don't want to say the catchphrase, "have control over our bodies." I'm an old woman, but I feel like what I was told by this outcome in this election is that I'm just a seed pod and my female children are seed pods. I'm sorry. It's just really bad. I think that that is really the bottom line. It's not about all the things that your guest said. It's really just a smack in the face to a woman and to all women.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call. Maria, do you want to reflect on that? One number that I haven't seen yet this morning is how white women voted. Whether it's more about race than it's about gender or extremely about race in addition to being about gender, we talked about Latino votes. I haven't seen the white women vote. Obviously, there was this gigantic gender gap that I mentioned in the intro. In the Latino communities, +10 for Trump among men. I would have to get it again. I think -20 or -24 for women. That's huge in Latino households, the difference between men and women.

Maria Hinojosa: Yes, there was a comment I wanted to make in response to the other question about what happened. I do think that the Republicans really seized and the campaign really seized on what happened with inflation because of COVID, et cetera, et cetera, and really seized on telling the American people over and over and over again how horrible the economy was. For Latinos and Latinas, this really struck a chord. Then the messaging about Donald Trump being a great businessman is something that they really connected to and so writ large in the country.

I would say there was this sense of like, "Oh, my God, the economy is in the tanks, in the tubes." Actually, it's not such a bad economy. We're going to have to prepare ourselves for what might come. Look, in regards to the issue of abortion access and reproductive rights and just being a woman, yes, I think our country does have to look at a level of misogyny that, for example, us women in New York City who command the streets here. I'm boxing in my Harlem park every morning at 7:00 AM. Fearless, right?

New York women are fearless. We don't necessarily respond well to these like, "We're going to protect you and we're going to take care of you. Certainly, we're going to take control over everything about you." I think that the fact that you got within three points of passing the amendment in Florida that would have enshrined abortion access, that is three points. They got to 57%. They needed 60% of the voters to pass. That's very, very small, even though Florida went for Donald Trump. It is confusing.

Honestly, Brian, the early turnout of women in the early vote was one of the things that gave me a sense of like, "Oh no, I don't see this many white women turning out to support restricting abortion access," but we need to see the numbers. You're right. The question is, "White women, why?" What are they thinking in terms of this? The messaging seems to be working, "I want to take care of you whether you like it or not." This is something that we're going to have to reckon with over the next four years.

Brian Lehrer: We're still looking for the white women number. We have a women overall number and trend line in the three Trump elections from CNN here, which says Clinton won women by 13 points. That's all women by 13 points in 2016, Biden by 15 points in 2020. Harris won all women by only 10 points in the election yesterday and the last few weeks if the numbers from CNN are correct. Kevin in Sunnyside, Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kevin.

Kevin: Hi. I just want to comment on the commentary, I guess, about this realignment. I think that I understand the impulse to look at who voted and to draw a conclusion about how certain groups are realigning toward the Republican Party. I think it's also even more important to think about who stayed home last night. By all accounts, it seems like the turnout's lower than in 2020. In my estimation, Kamala Harris ran such a cynical campaign, trying to beat the Republicans at their own game, focusing on border security, refusing to break ranks with Biden on the genocidal war in Gaza, campaigning with Liz Cheney, and making Liz Cheney a centerpiece of her campaign.

I feel like we need to be talking about that as much as any kind of reading into the tea leaves of who voted last night, how many people stayed home because they were so disgusted with how the Democratic Party is positioning itself and trying to be Republican lights and to curry favor with so-called moderate Republicans rather than actually standing on any values of their own.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin, thank you very much. Do the numbers that you're seeing, Benjy Sarlin from Semafor, bear that out? He's their Washington correspondent and has been up, I think, for about three days covering this election. Benjy, do you see a lower turnout among Democrats compared to 2020 or anything like that? We saw huge turnout numbers in some particular pockets that have been reported. How about turnout and the possibility that the caller's theory is correct that there just weren't enough people motivated by a progressive Harris vision rather than her just trying to play it safe toward the middle?

Benjy Sarlin: Well, we'll still get numbers come in. We're not going to know the final turnout. In general, this does seem like a high-turnout election. It's going to be tough for Democrats to pick up the pieces here and figure out just what went wrong. I would not say there's a lot of evidence that there was some giant hidden tranche of progressives who were waiting for Harris to move a little further to the left and come out.

Doesn't see much sign on that. If there was one thing Democrats were encouraged by during election night was they kept saying, for example, college towns were very strongly for her, even though the margin slipped in some places a little bit in the key states, but it seemed like high turnouts. In the cities, they made out of fixed things. Some of the preliminary turnout in Philadelphia, where they were really hoping after a somewhat sluggish 2016 and 2020 to break out, didn't seem like the turnout in the margin was much improved.

The biggest story in general was just preference, not turnout. It was pretty much across the board, whichever state, whichever type of county you were in, whether it's a wealthy, largely college-educated county or a smaller rural county with largely non-college, especially as we mentioned, Latino-heavy counties. Just a pretty large uniform shift to Republicans. I can't really ascribe too much of an ideological component to it.

Brian Lehrer: Here are some more women results. We know the male results were pretty overwhelmingly pro-Trump, but the women results that came up, white women went minority for Harris, 47%. 52% went for Trump among white women. This is according to the NBC exit polls. Latino women, 61% for Harris. Black women, 92% for Harris. Quite a difference among those three racial or ethnic groups. Black women, 92% for Harris. Latino women, 61%. White women, 47% for Harris, 52% for Trump. Our coverage continues in a minute. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to talk about the election results with Maria Hinojosa, director of Futuro Media and, of course, the host on public radio of Latino USA, and Benjy Sarlin, Washington bureau chief for the news organization Semafor. Let's take another phone call. Let me just pull this up here. This is Gabriel in Bergen County in Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, Gabriel.

Gabriel: Hey, Brian. How's it going? I just called in to say that I'm half-Mexican, I'm half-American. My dad's from Mexico, came here in the '70s. I'm 31 years old. I voted for Trump yesterday. I think I'm a part of the movement. I felt like the Democratic Party, I felt, has been treating Latinos like a blanket group of people. I never felt really talked to. I felt like Kamala was the candidate of status quo.

I felt like if we're not happy with the last four years, why would I want another four years? As much as she tries to distance herself from Biden, she was there the whole time. Now, the one thing I have to say before I forget, Trump has to put his money where his mouth is. He has to perform everything he's going to do before I approve of my decision. I'm not just going to blindly follow him. He has to do well for me to be happy with my choice.

Brian Lehrer: What would "well" look like to you?

Gabriel: I just think immigration is a huge thing for me from a family who are-- We are immigrants. We've taken in Peruvian immigrants during this wave. We've literally been a part of this whole thing. It's like there are too many. We need to get them out. Yes, there's no plan, but if we can deport, they say there's estimates. 1.4 million a year or something is really, really high. That's a lot better than doing nothing and letting more. That's all I have to say because you're putting strain on sources, on people who are already here, already American citizens. We don't need more and more and more. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Lehrer: I know what you're saying. Maria, what are you thinking?

Maria Hinojosa: Well, there you have it. That's why Trump won [chuckles] because as I listen to this young man, I'm just like, "Okay." Well, the thought that he could say, "I'm good for one-point-whatever-million people to be deported every year," I'm like, "Okay." Well, it's going to come and we will be reminded again about what happened and what that looked like in our barrios, in our communities. People forget. I don't forget because I was there. I was reporting it.

When ICE was coming into warehouses outside of Hostos Community College, ICE standing on the corner when you have undocumented students just trying to get an education. The thing is that this idea, it's just not based on data, right? What we do know, the data across the board shows that immigrants, undocumented and those with documents, add to the American economy. They are the workers that actually keep the country going. We know that.

Anybody who lives in New York City knows we have so many undocumented people all around us. We depend on them. This gentleman is like, "But that's okay because Donald Trump is going to come in and deport a million people and that's going to make us into a better economy and a safer society," and I'm like, "Okay. Well, that's what you voted for and let's see what it looks like." This explains it, Brian. This is exactly where it's just like, "Wow." There's too many. I'm just like, I've been reporting on immigration when I'm an immigrant, but I've been reporting on immigration since 1985.

The American economy goes boom and bust not because of immigrants. It goes boom and bust because of Wall Street and capitalism. All economists know this, right? You cannot point to any time in American economic history and say, "Oh, my God, the economy was bust because of too many immigrants." No. Now, what we do know is that the mass incarceration that people work towards to really decrease mass incarceration is going to be replaced, has been replaced by the mass industrial complex of immigration detention and deportation, which most of us never set foot in.

We don't go to the detention facilities. We're not in those places. Those places will be where all the money is being made now in the process of deporting people who, by the way, this young man, in the worst-case scenario, under Donald Trump, helping an undocumented immigrant would make you a criminal accomplice. I'm just saying that that's, I think, the world where Donald Trump would like to go. We'll see whether or not he makes those nightmares come true.

Brian Lehrer: Benjy, the caller says that Trump has to deliver now that he's in office. He mentioned immigration, actually deportation there as one way that he would want Trump to deliver. You mentioned in the analysis portion of your article on Semafor that Trump has never been popular, including now, per his approval ratings despite his election. Now, he has to prove he can represent stability when he has represented chaos in the past. Do you think he even wants to represent stability or outside of the rhetoric of the campaign if it's different at all from how he intends to govern? What do you think success will look like? What do you think the agenda will look like for the new Trump administration?

Benjy Sarlin: Well, in many ways, that's the million-dollar question. Trump is often kind of vague on policy and how he'll confront things. On some things, he's been clear. The economy is an interesting example, right? The economy is actually, in many ways, pretty good right now. I have a feeling you'll see Trump supporters start calling that almost overnight after he takes office in polls.

You have low inflation, low unemployment, falling interest rates. We've largely moved past the worst of the pandemic. Voters are still very mad that prices are still high after a very large spike that largely ended two years ago. That's largely what they were looking at was a period that passed in addition to some other ongoing challenges. Trump is not taking a small-C conservative approach to the economy.

He's been talking about adding blanket tariffs of up to 20%, which he might be able to do without Congress, and a large slate of proposed tax cuts that could, if they increase deficits, add to some inflationary pressure. It's possible if he really pursues that, he might end up creating problems in some ways that don't exist now when it comes to the cost of living, which could be a source of backlash.

Also, it's hard to say how much of this will do, the makeup of Congress. Certainly, on taxes, it depends on that a lot. Then when we come to immigration, we saw this under Trump's first term that there are limits to what he can do. It's often commented that Obama deported more people than Trump. That was partly because what Trump wanted to do, facing, in some ways, a more difficult border situation than Obama was ran into legal hurdles, ran into political troubles. Child separation was an example of a policy that ran into both.

Logistical issues. It actually takes a lot of resources to locate, process, and deport people, especially people in the interior of the country who have been here. It takes a lot to process new asylum claims where there are legal obligations that the US has to let people in. Trump let in hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers just as Harris did despite obviously not wanting to because the courts would rule that, "Sorry, they have a right to apply here and have their claims adjudicated. There are special rules, especially for families and children."

You're going to see Trump have to find ways to enact that agenda. Getting legislation through might be extremely difficult, especially after he killed a prior bipartisan bill. It's an interesting question, but the one other thing I would add about this is that Trump's coalition of general anti-status quo people is very broad and includes people with very different views. Someone like Elon Musk is going to have a very large role in this administration. Think of how broadly Elon Musk's politics encompass.

He's obviously become very socially conservative on issues related to LGBT rights, but he also wants to make massive cuts in spending. That would probably be politically extremely difficult. It's unclear how much rope we'll have there. He's also the electric vehicle and renewable energy guy and it's unclear how that might affect policy. Meanwhile, we've talked about a major role for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I believe Trump mentioned again in his speech last night claiming victory, who's talked about taking an extremely major role, undefined role in health care that could affect everything from vaccines to fluoridated water to nutrition.

That could run up against other parts of the party or more moderate elements or people who just worry about the danger of putting someone who's strongly associated with conspiracy theories about health and making them the face of public health. It's just a really long list here. It's just being unclear how Trump will govern. At the very minimum, he inherits a situation where, on both the immigration front and the economy front, things are better than at their worst. He has some room to rebrand it as a victory for himself if he could just maintain those gains.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "I have not been able to speak without my voice turning to a cry all morning. I just have a lump in my throat and a hole in my stomach. Please give us some hope that our democracy is not lost." That text reflective of many that are coming in from Harris voters, but let's take another call from-- I don't know if a Harris voter or not, but somebody who's going to continue on this track. We've been discussing primarily so far, the really eye-popping results among Latino voters.

Trump got 45% of Latino voters overall according to the exit polls. He won Latino men overall by 10 points. That's the first time he has won among either Latino gender. He won Latino men by 10 points outright. Harris won by Latina women by 24 points, so that's a 34-point difference in how men and women in the group voted. Pedro in Bergen County is going to continue on that track, I think. Pedro, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Pedro: Hi, Brian. Good morning to everybody. Thank you for taking my call. As a Latino, as a Latin American in North Bergen, I work a lot up and down the Hudson Valley, even working with refugee communities and newer immigrants, as well as older communities. I would like to differ with what Maria Hinojosa reads in terms of this. I don't think as a Latino, I'm in love or other Latinos in general are in love with strongmen. I do see and hear where she's going.

What I'd like to read about all this is that Latinos have voted as working-class Americans like working-class white guys that Trump address. When I'm around here in Bergen County or up and down the valley, all the gardeners, all the plumbers, all the roofers, all the electricians, I called the Polish contractor to do something in the house. All the guys that come are Guatemalans or Hondurans, Colombians, Mexicans, Salvadorans. I think there is something to that. I think Trump addressed Latinos as working-class guys.

In the end, that's what we are. Perhaps, the educational divide also applies to Latinos in general. That's my read of the thing. I find the strongman read a little bit almost demeaning. I think this is an opportunity for criticism, for reflection on the part of Democrats. I will even go a little bit further because you, Maria, you're media guys. I think there is something to be critical about the media and what's going on with media in general. I say all this as a progressive Democrat and Harris voter.

Brian Lehrer: Pedro, thank you very much for your call. Maria, your response to any of that?

Maria Hinojosa: Well, these are really big issues. Do Latinos support strongmen? Yes or no? It's kind of like these are complex issues, right? You have to understand the history of Latin America, right? Just look at El Salvador right now and the president of El Salvador, whose solution to issues of crime is to simply jail tens of thousands of people. That is not sustainable, but he did win specifically using La Mano Dura.

Look, the whole situation with Latinos and Latinas. Donald Trump started his campaign in 2015. We didn't talk then, Brian, but I'm one of the first Mexicans who arrived. The wave of Mexicans come into New York, basically 1986, which is right around the Immigration Reform and Control Act of Ronald Reagan, the Republican, who gives a pathway to citizenship to about three million people.

New York becomes a receiver of Mexican immigrants. My gosh, it's not like New York City's economy is tanked because you have Mexican immigrants here, right? Donald Trump was busy attacking Black men like the Central Park Exonerated Five, attacking Puerto Rican people basically. That was a common-on-the-street known, but he starts his campaign by coming after Mexicans.

I remember just like, "Pero que hicimos," like, "What did we do?" Now, you have to understand that after you are attacked daily by a candidate, his entire party attacked and told, "You need walls to keep us out because we are so terrible," do you think that you're going to be the person who's like, "Yes, I'm part of that group. Yes, I'm proud. Undocumented and proud"? No.

Brian Lehrer: I think the caller's point is Democrats talk to Latinos as an ethnic group. Trump was addressing them as working-class Americans.

Maria Hinojosa: I wish I could say, Brian, that Democrats talk to Latinos. I would say this is the great failure. When I say this, people get very upset. I was trying to say to the Democratic Party, to the candidate, "You need to address them very specifically." I believe that if they had been painting a picture of-- Yes, I'm going to just be really extreme. "Immigrants are fabulous. Immigrants are great for Bergen County. Even if you're undocumented, we know that you're the best person and you're the hardest worker."

If they came out with that to match the lies about how immigrants are criminals, I think that could have provided a path for people to choose a positivity. The Democrats did not do that. Will they actually look at that in terms of when they're licking their wounds? I'm not so sure. They will probably just be like, "Oh, Maria Hinojosa criticizing the Democrats again." I'm just like, "Well, look where we are now."

Brian Lehrer: Benjy, a last word from you before you both go and maybe address the concerns about fascism. It didn't come from nowhere that three of Trump's top national security officials when he was president last time came out in recent weeks and said they thought he would govern like a fascist. What does that mean or how does Trump address it once he gets into office?

Benjy Sarlin: Well, this is a really big question. You don't even need to get into what people said. He tried to overturn the last election. He faces multiple criminal charges related to it. That will now very likely not come to fruition in any meaningful way, but that's what happened. We all saw it. One thing I think we learned during this election here is that voters were very aware of this argument against Trump, including some people who were voting for him. I think this is something that came up in polling, in focus groups. We saw in the midterms that voters weighed actually a very tough penalty, oddly enough, on Trump-aligned candidates who had tried to overturn the previous election or deny election results or--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that's the other thing. Let me just pile onto the question by reminding all of us that after Trump was elected in 2016 and a lot of the media has made so much of this, he lost and lost and lost, right? He lost ground in 2018 in Congress. He lost the election in 2020. His pro-January 6th candidates lost big time in 2022. The red wave that was predicted for Congress didn't happen even in an unpopular Biden administration midterm election. Trump, they say, lost in 2018, lost in 2020, lost in 2022. That's one reason it's so shocking to people that he won this time.

Benjy Sarlin: To get into that, notice the worst-performing candidate once again was Kari Lake this time in terms of relative to the party who was most associated with his election experience, and yet Trump's walking away with Arizona at the same time. One thing that happened here is that, for some reason, Trump's held to a different standard on this than down-ballot candidates. He's kind of his own brand. I don't think it's so much that voters were unaware of these criticisms of Trump. For whatever reason, they decided that either they were exaggerated or that they were just willing to take a chance given how upset they were with the status quo.

I think, in some ways, that's similar to 2016. Trump's been very good at positioning himself as the candidate who reflects people's anger back at them, who will tell you, "If you are upset about inflation, if you are upset about all these border crossings or migrants in your city, if you're upset about the general way things have gone in foreign policy, I might not even propose very specific solutions to these things, but I will acknowledge your anger and promise to shake things up and try something new."

I think one thing we saw with the fascism question is that that's not enough on its own to overcome that argument. I don't think Americans are endorsing this idea. I don't think a lot of people voted for Trump thinking, "Boy, finally, we can prosecute Trump's political enemies." I don't buy that for the most part, but I do think a lot of people knew that that was a situation and were willing to vote for him anyway. That's what Democrats are going to have to grapple with over the next few years.

Brian Lehrer: Benjy Sarlin, Washington bureau chief for the news organization Semafor, and Maria Hinojosa, the Pulitzer and Peabody Award-winning president and founder of Futuro Media, anchor and executive producer of Latino USA, and co-host of the podcast In The Thick. Thank you both so much. I'm sure you're on very little sleep for giving us so much time today. Thank you, thank you.

Maria Hinojosa: Thank you, Brian.

 

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