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Hi. I'm Claire Murphy. This is Muma MIA's twice daily news podcast, The Quickie. Today we'll be breaking down the US election and where we stand. As the votes continue to be counted, we check in with our US correspondent, Emelia Lester to find out what this result also means
for us here in Australia. Former President Donald Trump is former no more, taking to the stage at his Florida resort marri Lago last night to thank his supporters and declare himself the winner of the twenty twenty four US election and the forty seventh president.
The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit and fighting that I have in my soul to the job that you've entrusted to me. This is a great job. There's no job like this. This is the most important job in the world. Just as I did in my first term. We had a great first term, a great, great first term. I will govern by a simple motto. Promises made, Promises kept. We're going to keep our.
Promise in Trump was surrounded by his family, his team, and a number of notable supporters. CEO of the UFC, Dana White, joined Trump on stage to celebrate the win.
This is what happens when the machine comes. After what you've seen over the last several years, this is what it looks like. Couldn't stop him. He keeps going forward. He doesn't quit. He's the most resilient, hardworking man I've ever met in my life. His family are incredible people. This is carmel ladies and gentlemen. He deserves this. They deserve it a family.
Trump's new Vice president, JD. Vans, also stood by the man he once compared to Hitler, saying he's ready to help lead the country.
President Trump's leadership. We're never going to stop fighting for you, for your dreams, for the future of your children. And after the greatest political comeback in American history, We're going to leave the greatest economic comeback in American history. Under Donald Trump's leadership.
Channel seven spoke to Trumpets founder Tony Holt Kramer, who said there were some Aussies in the crowd too.
The President is here. President Trump just arrived. He's sitting at a table with Elon Musk. Rfk Junior is here. We just have tons of celebrities here, and most important, your biggest celebrity in Australia is with me at my table. Gina Reinhart is here.
Despite the celebrity endorsements and war chest of funds, it wasn't enough to swing those red leaning states in Kamala Harris's favor. Some big names even heading out to long queues where young Americans were waiting hours to cast their vote, some for the first time. Paul Rod just showed up Nicole because he heard the line was so long.
Paul, what brought you out?
I just wanted to give people water or they're waiting in line for a long time.
And it's a wonderful thing that all these young people are out voting.
Overnight, Trump secured enough Electoral College votes to take the win, securing the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, now sitting with two hundred and seventy seven votes to Harris's two hundred and twenty four, with five states and districts still to be decided, Democratic voters are mourning the loss.
I'm just waking up to the news that Trump has won the election. My overall feeling is disappointment, and my fellow Americans disappointed that so many chose a convicted felon of our qualified woman, that they chose a man who rambles incoherently about perceived plans for policy over the current vice president. Have chosen Anne, who thinks clearly only of himself and what he can gain from the presidency, of a woman who looked to gain the presidency to unite and uplift the American people.
So I'm pretty devastated by the results.
I just.
Never saw it coming.
I really believe that common sense would prevail. Harris is yet to concede, her chief of staff sending an email out to the team late yesterday in an attempt to remain positive in the face of ever red turning states saying they remained hopeful, but Harris canceled her post election party and has yet to deliver a speech. Late yesterday, we caught up with Foreign Policy Deputy editor Emelia Lester
to better understand how this election unfolded, Emelia. We closely watched those swing states that you told us about last time. We caught up to chat about the polling and how the candidates were shaping up pre election in places like Pennsylvania. Now it seemed really close for quite some time, and then things start to shift to Trump's favor. What was the deciding factor for voters in those states? What happened?
So there were seven swing states or battleground states that were in contention, and all along or since Harris took over the ticket, the polls had shown Harris and Trump neck and neck in all seven of those battleground states, and a lot of people thought that meant that the
election was going to be close. But then polsters and statisticians pointed out to us another scenario, which is that the election would not be close, and that in those seven battleground states, one candidate could actually sweep all of them. And astonishingly, we don't have the final results in yet, but it is possible at this point for Trump to sweep all seven of the battleground states.
When we look at an election, we generally look at how a candidate won, but I think when we are reflecting on this election, it'd be interesting to look at how Carmela may be lost, because when you look at her, she looks like she would appeal to a lot of different communities. But one community in particular who seemed to
have really supported Donald Trump is the Hispanic community. And that's despite a lot of the conversations that he has started around immigration and border crossings and things like that, which you would presume Hispanic communities would automatically feel like that is not what they'd wanted their candidate. How was it that she wasn't able to win communities like that over.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it. I saw that Florida was called pretty early, as it always is, and it's become a safe Republican state since two thousand. But Trump had an exceptionally strong showing there, much stronger than he did in twenty twenty, and people thought that that was a sign that the Hispanic vote was actually trending towards Trump, which was the opposite of what people had predicted, particularly given the Tony Hinchcliffe Puerto Rico floating island of garbage
remarks in the last days of the campaign. And I think that the post mortems are already being written that Harris just didn't win over enough groups. She increased her support amongst college educated voters. But if you break it down in other ways, Trump's Black vote was up, Trump's Hispanic vote was up, and while women and young people did favor Harris over Trump, neither group actually turned out
in as bigger numbers. It looks like, so far, that's my caveat neither group turned out in as bigger numbers as they did for Biden in twenty twenty.
Can we talk about what impact the cost of living crisis has had on this election, because a lot of people in exit poll interviews were saying that four years ago, under Donald Trump, they felt like they had more money in their pocket, that their businesses were more successful, and they've had to deal with what is actually a global
issue of rising inflation and cost of living crises. Do you think that's played a major role in why Trump did look so good to some voters who are really struggling right now.
Yes. The most important issue for voters consistently in every survey was the economy, and that overwhelmed abortion amongst women. The economy was across the board the most important issue and then the second most important issue was immigration. But just focusing on the economy for a little bit, I think it is fair to say that globally, incumbents are getting thrashed at elections because everyone's economy after COVID is
not in a particularly good way now. Actually, economists say that the US economy is probably the strongest in the world right now, but it doesn't feel like that to people. Economists aren't sure why there's this dissonance between how the economy is doing and how people feel about the economy, but it's definitely there. And Harris didn't have the opportunity to or never fixed on a narrative of how she
was going to turn things around. I think that in the post mortems, a lot of people are going to turn to this appearance that she made on the view.
Which you have done something differently than President Biden.
During the past four years.
There is done a thing that comes to mind in terms of and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.
A Trump campaign manager Jason Miller wrote a piece for Politico a couple of days ago where he said to him that was the turning point in the campaign. By not distancing herself from Biden and more to the point, Biden's economy, she may have sealed the deal for Trump.
You've mentioned abortion rights also being top ticket for a lot of voters in this election. Were you surprised to see that Unlike a lot of the other states that have brought in abortion band since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Florida has become the first state to fail to overthrow those with the option that they had on their ballot in this election. Did that surprise people?
I think so, because a lot of really conservative states have voted to enshrine abortion rights. One state that did that on election night, conversely, was Missouri, which is an extremely red state. I don't quite know what's going on in Florida. Florida is often regarded by Americans as a bit of a mystery. It's a bit of a wildcard,
and I think that's one of those wildcard results. I have seen some ANALYSI that says the reason why abortion generally never took off as an issue for Harris is because people feel inured to the national abortion debate because they live in a state where they feel simparticle with that state's values on abortion. Because the conservative line on the overturning of Roe v. Wade through the Dobbs decision was that we're just handing the abortion decision back to
the states. We're not saying federally what we want to do. We're just handing the right to decide about abortion back to the states. And people took them kind of at phase value at that it appears and decided, well, I'm safe because I live in a state where I agree with what this state is doing on abortion.
There's been a lot of discussion about women's rights. If Donald Trump returns to power, could it get worse for women in the US? I mean, it's gotten pretty bad with stories we're hearing regularly about women who are dying because they can't access the kind of care that they need. The infant mortality rate has increased. Could it get worse?
I think healthcare is dea going to get worse for women because we don't know exactly what's going to happen with abortion. Trump has sort of day dallied on whether
or not he would sign a national abortion ban. We've talked about the popular support for enshrining abortion rights at the state level, but I think it's safe to say that there are some really conservative, politically extreme ideologues who are going to make up this administration, people like Trump's vice president Jedie Vance, who has made pretty clear he thinks that a woman's main purpose is to pop out babies.
I just don't think that the way that this campaign has talked about women from the top down is a good thing for women generally. I think ambiently there's a lot of fear amongst women in the US. A lot of women feel like this election was a referendum whether women are equal to men, and the kind of coarse language that's been used throughout the campaign really made women feel panicked, and I think this result is not going to do anything to fix that.
I'd love to get your opinion on this. You know, Australians watch the US election as a kind of gay which as to what may unfold here in Australia. And we saw during the last Trump administration and during the Morrison government here that a lot of those values seemed
to be reflected and it felt very divisive. And we have seen here in Australia just in recent months two states at least look at bringing in abortion bands where abortions have been legalized for some time now do we fear that the sentiment that Trump may bring back again like we saw in the lead up to the twenty twenty election, might happen here again in Australia too.
I think that you'd be hitting yourself if you thought that the broad cultural dynamics and currents that play in this election are going to stay within American borders. The US is the most culturally influential country in the world, and what happens in the US is not going to
stay in the US. In fact, I saw a poll last week that was by Talbot Mills and it was asking Australians in New Zealanders who they would support in the election, and one really fascinating finding was that young men clearly prefer Trump, and his support of young women is tiny. I was very surprised to see the numbers of men under thirty who support Trump. It was actually forty three percent of young Australian and New Zealand man
supporter Donald Trump. So I think that the kind of aggressive gender politics that we've seen unfolds here in spectacular fashion are absolutely going to make it across the Pacific Ocean.
World leaders have congratulated the new president. One of the first to reach out was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyaho, who began with Dear Donald and Milania Trump, congratulations on history's greatest comeback. Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. He signed
off in true friendship, Yours, Benjamin and Sarah Netanyahu. Ukraine President Vladimir Zelenski also congratulated Trump, saying he appreciated his peace through strength approaching global affairs, saying this is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine. Closer Russian leader Vladimir Putin has yet to ignore knowledge
Trump's win. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a picture of him and Trump together at the White House, saying the friendship between Canada and the US is the envy of the world. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Alberzi took to social media, saying Australians and Americans are great friends and true allies, and working together can ensure the partnership between
the two nations remained strong into the future. Earlier this year, The Saturday Paper reported that former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison had positioned himself to serve the Albernese government as an informal envoy to Donald Trump if he were to
be successful at the election. Opposition leader Peter Dutton posted his congratulations, saying, may the years ahead be some of the most defining for our alliance, in which, driven by tests of our times, the necessity of deterrence and the cause of securing peace through strength, we unleash the defense, industrial and economic opportunities of Orcus at speed and scale. The response from Wall Street has been a positive one off the back of Trump's election win. US SA treasury
yields and bitcoin stocks hitting record highs. The US dollar also gained and the Dow added more than twelve hundred and fifty points. Senior market analyst David Morrison said financial markets responded to the relief of a quick and undisputed election results. Now that Trump has won, it may be the end of some of the criminal cases currently in
the process of being heard against him. The two federal cases brought by the Department of Justice over alleged interference in the twenty twenty election and the second over his handling of classified materials found at his resort in Florida, have already been hit with hurdles, but Trump may now personally order the dismissal of the cases, already saying he would fire special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges
against him immediately. The state cases, one in Georgia, where he's been charged with an alleged conspiracy to disrupt the twenty twenty election result, is beyond the Department of Justice's jurisdiction, but Trump could ask the DOJ to file a lawsuit in federal court to pause the proceedings and fast track it to the Supreme Court, who ruled in July that
former presidents are immune from prosecution. As for the New York hush money case, in which Trump was found guilty, the judge agreed to postpone sentencing until after the election, but legal scholars are now suggesting that sentencing may be postponed until after the next federal election. The transition to a Trump administration is not a quick one. It will be a few months before he moves back into the White House, but the process mandates that work begins five
days after the election. State election officials still have to certify their elections and wait to see if any recounts are required. Then, on December seventeen, the Electoral College will meet to certify the results. Congress will then formally count and certify the vote during a special session on January sixth, where Trump's opponent, Kamla Harris will preside as the envelopes are opened and verified. Then Trump's inauguration will be held on January twenty on the steps of the Capitol as
his four years in power begins. Barring any special circumstances, Trump will not be able to run again. Thanks for taking the time to feed your mind with us today. The quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy and our executive producer, Taylor Strano.