MSNBC
Morning Joe
11/6/24
6:02 am ET

PETER ALEXANDER: The conversations I've been having with people in and around the campaign, they felt like they really had the trajectory on their side in the course of the last several days. A week ago they said things seemed pretty tight, but now, yesterday, they felt pretty optimistic going into the night. 

That quickly evaporated as the returns came in. One return after another, one state after another falling into Donald Trump's category. You could really just see the emotion in the eyes. These blank stares, these glum looks. Some people embracing one another and appearing to share some prayers at the time.

To give you a sense of sort of the feel there, there was a party for donors in Washington, D.C., Harris donors, it was described to us by a Democrat in attendance as being like a funeral. 

During, as the returns came in last night at Howard University, they ultimately muted the screen and turned music on to try to cheer folks up there.

. . . 

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I came onto the set and Willie said, hey, by the way, we were talking about the historic nature of this sweep, and Willie said, you know, he only lost Illinois by four points!

WILLIE GEIST: Four points. New Jersey --

SCARBOROUGH: New Jersey by five! You talk about -- we had talked about a red wave two years ago that never materialized. This is -- I got to say, this is the biggest red wave I've seen since Ronald Reagan's 49-state victory in 1984. It seems every Republican across the country improved.

. . . 

GEIST: We'll break down some of these numbers. The gender gap wasn't nearly as wide as the Harris campaignn eeded it to be, and Latino men came out in force for Donald Trump.

SCARBOROUGH: Right. What a huge difference that made. And you know, really, that's just part of the stunning outcome. I mean, America first of all, is far more to the right than any time in our lifetimes, even going back to the Reagan years.

And Donald Trump won in dominating fashion. But he did that along with other Republican candidates in the Senate races and the House races. They're likely to dominate all branches of government for the next several years.

Donald Trump not only broke out through that sort of hard ceiling of 47%, 48%. Think about this: he became only the second Republican to win a majority of the popular vote since 1988, in 36 years!
. . . 

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Claire McCaskill: your thoughts this morning.

CLAIRE MCCASKILL: Well, first, we have to acknowledge that Donald Trump knows our country better than we do. I think he figured out that anger and, frankly [dejectedly bows head] fear, were way more powerful than appealing to people's better angels. That anger and fear were going to work in this election. Whether you're afraid of immigrants, or afraid of people who are trans, he figured that out. 

And I think we all thought everyone's better angels would prevail. Turns out, the better angels went on vacation when Donald Trump came down the escalator, and they haven't returned.

. . . 

GEIST: Rev, good morning. I know you were with the Harris campaign last night. Obviously, as the night went on, things became more and more grim for them, ending with shock, probably, this morning as this race was called for Donald Trump.

AL SHARPTON: No it -- probably shock would be the word for many at the Howard University party, and then disbelief 

. . . 

I think that we also have to deal with the issue of race and gender. There was a lot race gender bias in this, there was a lot of race bias in this, and I think that we thought a lot of voters were more progressive in those areas than they were.

When you have the Dobbs decision, and you see this kind of vote anyway with the person that put the three Justices on the Supreme Court, you have to ask yourself -- are we fooling ourselves saying that Americans are further down the road toward dealing with gender bias and race bias than we thought?

. . . 

SCARBOROUGH: Rev, let's talk about, you talk about gender and race. Let's talk about race. Donald Trump fared very well with Hispanic voters, especially Hispanic men. The numbers are coming, in still a little early. But I think he did better with black men than was expected in the past. And what do you think pushed that? Especially with Hispanic voters going for Donald Trump as much as they did, because that made a big difference.

SHARPTON: I think that a lot of it, he was able to sell a lot of Hispanic voters that immigration was a threat to them. That some of the people coming across the border was a threat to them.

I think that we've got to be honest: among Hispanic men and black men, there's a lot of misogyny. And I think we've got to deal with the reality that he appealed to this whole false macho thing, that some black men and some Latino men went for.