The Outsider Perspective Issue 417 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! Especially to those of you who are on #teamnosleep like me this week. I’ve got deep dives on everything this week, from data to what happens next as Trump sets up his second term.

In a somewhat stunning turn of events, I was only off on one part of my map: New Hampshire. But I was correct directionally in that states like it were more in play than expected. And I correctly got the GOP Senate margins correct at 53, with a tight margin in the House (still TBD because CA can’t count). The only thing I’ll be wrong about is the popular vote and my belief that Republicans wouldn’t lose their electoral college advantage (which they did due to Trump’s massive surge in the popular vote).

On YouTube, I cover the states, data, and more with plenty of charts. Here, I’m going to cover what’s next for Trump. There are a lot of things coming up for him, both during the lame duck part of Biden’s term and in the coming months. I’ll get to all that below – links to follow.

Quick Hits:

Two books predicted the 2024 election from the left and right. For Democrats, John B. Judis and Roy Teixeira teamed up again (previously on The Emerging Democratic Majority) to write: “Where have all the Democrats gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.” After the election, they posted an excerpt from the book as essentially an “I told you so,” to Democrats. For Republicans, Patrick Ruffini of the polling group Echelon Insights published the book, “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.” As results came in on election night, Ruffini took to X/Twitter to point out that his entire thesis from the book was accurate. On one side, Democrats are mourning the fact that they’ve lost the title of the party of FDR. On the other side, Republicans are cheering on taking the working class away from Democrats.
Every Presidential campaign understands they have to run ads. There’s no way around that. However, the best advertisement of this cycle was for the Trump campaign. It was a combo of two ads. The first was an ad that blasted Harris for supporting “the use of taxpayer funds to fund surgeries for transgender inmates.” They ran a clip of Harris saying she supported the use of such funds to go to inmates and illegal aliens. The ad was so effective that it made Charlemagne Tha God go off on it during a Breakfast Club radio show, which Trump turned around and cut into another ad, which was the most effective one of the entire cycle. According to the New York Times, Kamala Harris’ super PAC data showed the ad “shifted the race 2.7 percentage points in Mr. Trump’s favor after viewers watched it.” It was particularly effective among Black and Hispanic men and “moderate suburban white women who might be concerned about transgender athletes in girls’ sports.” If you saw that ad and were annoyed by it, so was Harris. The New York Times says Bill Clinton begged the campaign to answer it, but they refused. It’s not radical to suggest that one ad helped turn a right race into a blowout for Trump.
What’s next for Kamala Harris? The New York Times devoted three reporters to this subject, and one of their enlightened suggestions was to take some “me time” and go one hike. They mention her running again, running for lower office (they couldn’t identify one), joining the private sector, or writing a book. I’m here to tell you that her political career is dead. She’s a profoundly flawed candidate destined to disappear from the scene. The odds of her being able to win a primary are low.

Where you can find me this week

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Horse Race Ep. 016: Trump’s Victory Map | Republican Senate Jackpot | House TBD

NBC Pushes Legal Boundaries To Aid Kamala Harris – Conservative Institute

Americans Tell Harris ‘We’re Not Going Back’ To You – Conservative Institute

Europe Attacks Jews While Biden And Harris Do Nothing – Conservative Institute

Trump Wins: What’s Next?

I covered the election numbers on YouTube this week with many helpful charts. The main updates since that video: Nevada’s Senate race has gone for Democrats, while Pennsylvania’s Senate seat has gone for Republicans. That’s going to leave us with a 53-seat majority in the Senate for Republicans (I do not believe Kari Lake will win in Arizona). Winning that extra seat is crucial for what’s about to happen in the next two years—more on that below.

The Republicans are also slated to take the House of Representatives. Speaker Johnson is likely going to retain his role because it’d be political suicide for House Republicans to oust him with Trump in power. Nuking your own party right when Trump takes power would be idiotic – I’m not saying it won’t happen because idiots exist in this caucus. Still, there would be a political price to pay to cross Trump.

I’m going to focus this week on what’s going to come with Trump winning a second term because I believe a flurry of activity will come up front, and we’re going to see Trump settle some scores early before getting sworn in. After that, we’ll cover the big issues facing Trump to kick off his term (inflation and the wars in Ukraine/Middle East) and the likely changes coming to the Supreme Court.

Trump’s To Clear The Deck With His Legal Challenges

Mark Halperin has been a fount of crucial reporting this year, from Biden stepping down to the final crush of the campaign. I cannot recommend his shows on YouTube enough. He’s been recovering from the campaign season while doing his regular reporting, but he had this nugget I found interesting:

“There’ll be the question of his sentencing,” says Mark Halperin of President Trump’s November 26th hearing in the Stormy Daniels case, “and whether for Hunter there’ll be a pardon deal — a conversation I think is going to heat up — a deal with Governor Hochul, Governor Kemp, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I’m predicting that’s going to happen, where they pardon Hunter and they pardon Donald Trump.”

This would be extremely smart for all parties to accept. Biden gets his son out of trouble while the state-level lawsuits against Trump are dismissed. In short, the lawfare from the left would end. We’re already seeing this at the federal level, with special counsel Jack Smith packing up shop and getting ready to drop all charges against Trump.

I can only guess the details of such a deal. Still, it’d involve New York and Georgie dropping the state cases against Trump, Hunter Biden getting a pardon, and everyone laying down arms on this front. If they disagree, Trump will fire Jack Smith, end the prosecutions from the DOJ, and likely win his cases on appeal on the state prosecutions. Joe Biden could pardon his son, but Trump could allow the Feds to go after both Biden on other matters (including sending someone like Jack Smith after Biden on documents).

It’s a declaration of a truce. Trump has the upper hand now. Both sides would be wise to accept it. Fani Willis won re-election in Georgia, but Republicans control the state. Brian Kemp could pardon Trump and end her case pretty quickly. If Democrats don’t end their lawfare, it gets turned against them. Cleaning the table helps everyone involved.

We’ll see if they take it, but Halperin thinks they will, and it’ll get settled before Trump gets sworn in.

The Big Issues Facing Trump

As much as Democrats want to claim inflation is solved, it isn’t. The Federal Reserve made its second cut to interest rates, bringing them down by 25 basis points. Jerome Powell says he won’t resign if Trump asks him and has a term ending in 2026. I don’t know if Trump wants to keep him or not. Who Trump appoints to the Treasury is more important overall.

The big question the Fed faces is that if they continue cutting rates, they risk inflation returning. As I’ve consistently pointed out, the Federal Reserve cut its fight against inflation short. We’re still above their historical 2% mark. But they’ve cut anyway. Whether that was political or they fear an economic downturn remains to be seen (I tend to believe we’ll see more layoffs over the winter).

Neither the Fed nor Trump wants a recession. But if inflation starts fanning itself again, we will need someone to take action. Also, I fully expect Democrats to try and play up inflation data they otherwise ignored for the last four years.

Next are the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Mark Halperin tends to believe that Trump will try to solve both wars before entering office. I have no doubt Trump will try, but I’m less sure either country will accept anything during this lame-duck period. Both can use this time to ignore Biden further and make more long-term gains.

The main thing Trump needs to do is jettison all the pro-Iran people in the State and Defense Departments. We should not have these borderline spies anywhere near U.S. intelligence, which we’re seeing get leaked to pro-Iranian news accounts.

Trump fires everyone

Speaking of firing everyone, at the end of the first Trump term, Trump made a series of controversial placements on various government boards. One of the first things Biden did at the outset of his presidency was ask them to resign, but when they refused, Biden fired them. They then sued to keep those positions, and the court ruled (correctly, in my view) that the executive had the power to fire them all.

That legal precedent is about to come back to bite Democrats: Trump is going to use it to fire many people in government—as he should. There will be less legal recourse for these people to take in keeping any position or maintaining power over decisions made.

We’re starting to see some of this play out already. Politico reported that the Biden team was trying to “Trump-proof” foreign policy before Election Day. That effort will intensify in the coming days as the Biden team tries to lock Trump into given policies. And the Trump team is already signaling a much tighter grip on the DOJ.

I’m expecting the Biden team to try to lock down their people and policies in the coming months while Trump attacks them. The press will cover this as smart actions by Biden’s team to “save democracy.” It’s not. Biden’s been a disaster; they should all be fired.

Senate Leadership And Replacements At The Supreme Court

The first question is: who replaces Mitch McConnell? The insider track goes to South Dakota Senator John Thune, who has been the second in command of the Senate Caucus with McConnell for several years. Texas Senator John Cornyn also wants the job, but Florida’s Rick Scott is trying to get Donald Trump to weigh in and tip the scales in his favor. Does Trump do that? It’s unclear, although Axios reports that Trump is rejecting Rick Scott.

With 53 Republican Senators, this position will hold a lot of power in Washington D.C. Aside from legislation and oversight, the largest thing looming for Republicans is the Supreme Court. I believe Trump is going to replace two justices in the next two years, at minimum.

Ed Whelan at National Review is already on the beat, and he says he expects: “Alito to announce his retirement in the spring of 2025.“ Clarence Thomas may take more convincing, but Whelan expects Thomas to retire “in the spring of 2026.”

Given the sureness of Whelan on Alito, the Alito decision is based on direct sources. There’s been rumors of Alito retiring in the last few years, so I’m not overly shocked. After that, it’s a question of whether or not Thomas wants to die on the bench like Ruth Bader Ginsberg or his friend Antonin Scalia. Thomas has earned the right, and I know he enjoys the job. The pressure will be to retire so Republicans can lock in a conservative majority for decades.

That means we’ve likely got two Supreme Court replacements in the next 12-18 months.

After that, I know for a fact Democrats have been pressuring Sonya Sotomayor to retire for the last two years. If Trump ends up replacing someone like her and tilts the courts to a 7-2 majority, he will have single-handedly delivered a death blow to the progressive agenda in the courts for a generation. It’ll be like the middle of the 20th century when Democrats had tight control of the court.

In the meantime, the Senate will also continue shoveling conservatives onto the lower courts, like McConnell did during Trump’s Presidency.

One last point on this: by getting to 53 Senators, any Trump nominee won’t have to worry about getting scuttled by Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins for being too conservative. And they’ll vote how they want to on these justices, which will help their re-election chances. Dave McCormick winning in Pennsylvania gives Republicans the margins they needed to avoid issues.

Trump appointing five Supreme Court justices, and potentially as many as six, would be unprecedented. FDR served four terms and appointed 8 in that time frame.

Links of the week

Cultural curators face reckoning for mocking Middle America – Salena Zito, The Washington Examiner

What the 2024 Election Returns Tell Us – Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics

Voters strongly rebuke Democrats by electing Trump. But will progressives listen? Americans not only rejected progressive ideas but also rejected a Democratic Party that views them as less-than, with disdain and full-throated contempt. – Nicole Russell, USA Today

The Shattering of the Democratic Coalition: It’s time to face the facts. – The Liberal Patriot

Trump the ‘colossus’ is the comeback king of American politics – John Podhoretz, NYPost

Dems rage against Biden’s ‘arrogance’ after Harris loss: Democratic leaders had hoped Harris could separate herself from Biden’s deficiencies. – Politico

Team Biden vs. Team Harris: Who Lost 2024? In the wake of a crushing loss, some Democrats contend the much-reviled president would have fared better than his VP. – Politico

Trump Has Humiliated His Foes: We are in for a new chapter of Trump’s career, and a new chapter in the American presidency. – Politico

How Trump Won: He was impeached, found guilty of sexual assault, faced 116 indictments, and was convicted in a Manhattan court. None of it mattered. Here’s why. – Eli Lake, The Free Press

The 2024 election buried Barack Obama’s coalition – David Weigel, Semafor

Democrats ask: Why didn’t anything work? – Dave Weigel, Semafor