trump card

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparking a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol , was convicted of crimes and survived two assassination attempts.

With a victory in Wisconsin, Trump eliminated the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. He won Michigan on Wednesday afternoon with a sweep “blue wall” along with once Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania, says it all went for Trump in 2016 before switching to President Joe Biden in 2020.

His Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, called Trump Wednesday afternoon to acknowledge the race and congratulate him. A short time later, Biden also called Trump to congratulate and invite the president-elect to the White House, officially kicking off the transition ahead of Inauguration Day, the White House said. Biden also named Harris.

Foreign leaders also called Trump, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The victory validates Trump’s bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked Harris in deeply personal terms – often misogynistic and racist – as he presented an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants. The crude rhetoric, combined with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters — especially men — in a deeply polarized nation.

“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected as the 47th president and the 45th president,” Trump told the crowd of supporters in Florida just before his victory was confirmed.

State after state, Trump outperformed what he did in the 2020 election, while Harris failed to do as well as Joe Biden did when he won the presidency four years ago. Upon taking office again, Trump will work with a Senate that will now be in Republican hands, while control of the House had not been determined.

“We’ve been through so much together, and today you showed up with a record number to deliver a victory.” Trump said. “This was something special and we will pay you back.” he said.

US stocks, Elon Musk’s Tesla, banks and bitcoin rose on Wednesday as investors looked favorably on a smooth election and Trump’s return to the White House. In his second term, Trump has vowed to pursue an agenda centered on dramatically reshaping the federal government and seeking revenge against his perceived enemies.

The results cap a historically tumultuous and competitive election season that has included two assassination attempts against Trump and a switch to a new Democratic candidate just a month before the party’s convention. Trump will inherit a number of challenges when he takes office on January 20, including heightened political polarization and global crises that are testing America’s influence abroad.

His victory over Harris, the first black woman to lead a major party ticket, marks the second time he has defeated a female challenger in a general election. Harris, the current vice president, rose to the top of the ticket after Biden dropped out of the race amid alarm over his advanced age. Despite an initial surge of energy around her campaign, she struggled on a compressed timeline to convince disillusioned voters that she represented a break from an unpopular administration.

The vice president, who has not appeared publicly since the race was called, was scheduled to speak Wednesday afternoon at Howard University, where her supporters gathered Tuesday night for a watch party while the results were still in doubt.

Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland won back the White House in 1892. He is the first person convicted of a felony to be elected president and, at 78, is the oldest person elected in function. His running mate, 40-year-old Ohio Senator JD Vance, will become the highest-ranking member of the millennial generation in the US government.

There will be far fewer checks on Trump when he returns to the White House. He plans to quickly implement a sweeping agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government. His GOP critics in Congress were mostly defeated or retired. The federal courts are now filled with judges appointed by him. The US Supreme Court, which includes three justices appointed by Trump, issued a ruling this year giving presidents broad immunity from prosecution.

Trump’s language and behavior on the campaign trail have prompted growing warnings from Democrats and some Republicans about the shocks to democracy his return to power would bring. He has repeatedly praised strong leaders, warned he would deploy the military to target political opponents he labeled as “enemy within” threatened to take action against news organizations for unfavorable coverage and suggested suspending the Constitution.

Some of those who served in his White House, including Vice President Mike Pence and John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, have either refused to endorse him or issued dire public warnings about his return.

While Harris focused much of his initial message on themes of joy, Trump channeled a strong sense of anger and resentment among voters.

He tapped into frustrations over high prices and fears about crime and migrants entering the country illegally under Biden’s watch. He also pointed to the wars in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to present Democrats as presidents — and encouraging — a world in chaos.

It was a formula that Trump perfected in 2016, when he declared himself the only person who could solve the country’s problems, often borrowing the language of dictators.

“In 2016, I declared that I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your punishment.” he said in March 2023.

This campaign often veered into the absurd, with Trump amplifying bizarre and disproved rumors that migrants were stealing and eating pet cats and dogs in an Ohio town. At one point, he started a rally with a detailed story about the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer in which he praised his genitalia.

A watershed moment came in July, when a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A bullet grazed Trump’s ear and killed a supporter. His face streaked with blood, Trump stood up and raised his fist in the air, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Weeks later, a second assassination attempt was foiled after a Secret Service agent saw the barrel of a gun poking through the green while Trump was playing golf.

Trump’s return to the White House seemed unlikely when he left Washington in early 2021, a diminutive figure whose lies about his defeat sparked a violent insurrection at the US Capitol. He was so isolated then that few outside his family bothered to attend the send-off he arranged for himself at Andrews Air Force Base, complete with a 21-gun salute.

The Democrats who controlled the US House quickly impeached him for his role in the insurrection, making him the only president to be impeached twice. He was acquitted by the Senate, where many Republicans argued that he was no longer a threat because he had left office.

But from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump — aided by some elected Republicans — has worked to maintain his political relevance. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who later led his party in the US House, visited Trump shortly after he left office, essentially validating his continued role in the party.

As the 2022 midterm elections approached, Trump used the strength of his endorsement to assert himself as the undisputed leader of the party. His favored candidates almost always won the primaries, but some went on to defeat them in elections that Republicans considered within their reach. Those disappointing results were driven in part by a backlash to the Supreme Court ruling that revoked a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, a decision helped by Trump-appointed justices. The midterm elections have raised questions within the GOP about whether Trump should remain the party’s leader.

But if Trump’s future was in doubt, that changed in 2023, when he faced a wave of state and federal charges for his role in the insurgency, his handling of classified information and election interference. He used the allegations to portray himself as the victim of outdated government, an argument that resonated with a GOP base that was increasingly skeptical — if not hostile — to established institutions and power structures.

Special counsel Jack Smith was weighing Wednesday how to dispose of the two federal criminal cases against Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination, lamented that the allegations “sucked up all the oxygen” from the GOP primary. Trump easily captured his party’s nomination without participating in a debate against DeSantis or other GOP candidates.

As Trump dominates the Republican contest, a New York jury found him guilty of more than 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said he the two had sex. He faces sentencing this month, although his victory raises serious questions about whether he will ever be punished.

He was also found liable in two other civil cases in New York: one for inflating his assets and another for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.

Trump faces additional criminal charges in a Georgia election meddling case that has stalled. Federally, he was indicted for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and for mishandling classified material. When he becomes president, Trump could appoint an attorney general who would clear the federal charges.

As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has vowed to quickly enact a sweeping agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government. This includes plans to launch the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history, use the Justice Department to punish its enemies, dramatically expand the use of tariffs, and once again pursue a zero-sum approach to foreign policy that threatens to upend longstanding foreign alliances. , including the NATO pact.

When he arrived in Washington in 2017, Trump knew little about the levers of federal power. His agenda has been blocked by Congress and the courts, as well as senior staff members who have taken it upon themselves to serve as guardrails.

This time, Trump said he will surround himself with loyalists who will carry out his agenda without question and arrive with hundreds of draft executive orders, legislative proposals and in-depth policy documents in hand.