Donald Trump’s Election 2024 Victory: History-Making US President
Donald Trump’s Election 2024 Victory was history-making in several respects, even as his defeat of U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris prevented other firsts. She would have been the nation’s first Black and South Asian woman to be president.
Trump History Making in 2024 US Elections
He’s the oldest to be elected
At 78, Trump is the oldest person elected to the U.S. presidency. When sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025, he will be a few months older than Joe Biden was at his inauguration in 2020. Trump’s running mate, 40-year-old JD Vance, will be the third-youngest vice president.
It’s the second time someone has won two non-consecutive terms
Several U.S. presidents have served more than one term, and Trump joins the group. He was the 45th president and now will be the 47th. But only one other president did it the way Trump will — with a gap between terms. That was Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd president after the 1884 election, and as the 24th president after the campaign of 1892.
He’s a convicted felon
Trump is in line to become the first U.S. president with a felony conviction. In May, a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
He’s been impeached (twice) and Acquitted
Trump already is the only president in U.S. history to face impeachment proceedings twice while in office. In each case, he was acquitted by the Senate on all counts.
Donald Trump’s election victory was history-making in several respects, even as his defeat of U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris prevented other firsts. She would have been the nation’s first Black and South Asian woman to be president.
Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House means he’ll want to stand up an entirely new administration from the one that served under U.S. President Joe Biden. His team is also pledging that the second won’t look much like the first one Trump established after his 2016 victory.
The president-elect now has a 75-day transition period to build out his team before Inauguration Day arrives on Jan. 20. One top item on the to-do list: filling around 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people who are specifically tapped for their jobs by Trump’s team.
That includes everyone from the secretary of state and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part-time on boards and commissions. Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control.
Here’s what to expect:
What will the transition look like?
Though the turnover in the new administration will be total, Trump will be familiar with what he needs to accomplish. He built an entirely new administration for his first term and has definite ideas on what to do differently this time.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
He’s already floated some names.
Trump said at his victory party early Wednesday that former presidential hopeful and anti-vaccination activist Robert Kennedy Jr. will be tapped to “help make America healthy again,” adding that “we’re going to let him go to it.” Ahead of the election, Trump didn’t reject Kennedy’s calls to end fluoridated water.
Trump has also pledged to make South African-born Elon Musk, a vocal supporter of the Trump campaign, a secretary of federal “cost-cutting,” and the Tesla CEO has suggested he can find trillions of dollars in government spending to wipe out.
The transition is not just about filling jobs. Most presidents-elect also receive daily or near-daily intelligence briefings during the transition.
In 2008, outgoing President George W. Bush personally briefed President-elect Barack Obama on U.S. covert operations. When Trump was preparing to take office in 2016, Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, briefed Michael Flynn, her designated successor in the new administration. In 2020, Trump’s legal challenges of the election’s results delayed the start of the transition process for weeks, though, and presidential briefings with Biden didn’t begin until Nov. 30.
Who is helping Trump through the process?
Trump’s transition is being led primarily by friends and family, including Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, as well as the President-elect’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his running mate, JD Vance. Transition co-chairs are Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.
Lutnick said this year’s operation is “about as different as possible” from the 2016 effort, which was first led by Chris Christie. After he won eight years ago, Trump fired Christie, tossed out plans the former New Jersey governor had made and gave the job of running the transition to then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
At the start of his first term, Trump assembled an original Cabinet that featured some more mainstream Republicans and business leaders who ultimately disappointed, or broke publicly with him, or both. This time, Trump has promised to value loyalty as much as possible — a philosophy that may ensure he makes picks that are more closely aligned to his ideological beliefs and bombastic professional style.
Unlike the campaign of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s team didn’t sign any pre-Election Day transition agreements with the General Services Administration, which essentially acts as the federal government’s landlord. He has therefore already missed deadlines to agree with GSA on logistical matters like office space and tech support and with the White House on access to agencies, including documents, employees and facilities.
New transition rules
In 2020, Trump argued that widespread voter fraud — which hadn’t occurred — cost him the election, delaying the start of the transition from his outgoing administration to Biden’s incoming one for weeks.
Four years ago, the Trump-appointed head of the GSA, Emily Murphy, determined that she had no legal standing to determine a winner in the presidential race because Trump was still challenging the results in court. That held up funding and cooperation for the transition.
It wasn’t until Trump’s efforts to subvert election results had collapsed across key states that Murphy agreed to formally ” ascertain a president-elect ” and begin the transition process. Trump eventually posted on social media that his administration would cooperate.
To prevent that kind of holdup in future transitions, the Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 mandates that the transition process begin five days after the election — even if the winner is still in dispute. That is designed to avoid long delays and means that “an `affirmative ascertainment’ by the GSA is no longer a prerequisite for gaining transition support services,” according to agency guidelines on the new rules.
The uncertainty stretched even longer after the 2000 election when five weeks elapsed before the Supreme Court settled the contested election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. That left Bush with about half the usual amount of time to manage to transition the government from the outgoing Clinton administration. That ultimately led to questions about national security gaps that may have contributed to the U.S. being underprepared for the Sept. 11 attacks the following year.
Summary:
President-elect Donald Trump addressed supporters, celebrating a historic victory and pledging to fight tirelessly for the American people’s future. He emphasized healing the nation, and economic revival and praised his family and supporters. Trump highlighted key victories across the Senate, House, and battleground states and introduced JD Vance as vice president-elect, praising his resilience in media battles.
Key Points:
Historic Political Victory: Trump declared his win as an unprecedented political movement, promising it would mark a new era for America.
Commitment to Healing: He emphasized plans to unify and revitalize the nation, vowing to work tirelessly for a “strong, safe, and prosperous” America.
Electoral Successes: Trump highlighted his wins in battleground states like North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and claimed victory in both the Electoral College and popular vote.
Senate and House Control: The MAGA movement regained Senate control and likely maintained the House, thanks to support from key figures like Mike Johnson.
Gratitude to Family: Trump expressed deep appreciation for his family, including his wife Melania, who has a bestseller, and his children, recognizing their support.
Introduction of JD Vance: Trump introduced JD Vance as the vice president-elect, lauding his courage and dedication to facing media scrutiny.
Vision of Economic Revival: Both Trump and Vance highlighted plans for an economic comeback, with Vance pledging ongoing commitment to American prosperity.
The former U.S. President and now President-elect Addressed a Crowd of Supporters Early Wednesday Morning.
Themes: #PoliticalVictory #NationHealing #SenateControl #FamilySupport #EconomicRevival
Below is a full transcript of Trump’s remarks:
DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. Wow.
Well, I want to thank you all very much. This is great. These are our friends. We have thousands of friends in this incredible movement. This is a movement like nobody’s ever seen before. And, frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond.
And now, it’s going to reach a new level of importance, because we’re going to help our country heal. We’re going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders, we’re going to fix everything about our country, and we made history for a reason tonight, and the reason is going to be just that.
We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible, and it’s now clear that we’ve achieved the most incredible political— Look what happened; is this crazy? But it’s a political victory that our country has never seen before — nothing like this.
I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. And every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America. That’s what we have to have.
This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again. In addition to having won the battleground states of North Carolina — I love these places — Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, We are now winning in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Alaska, which would result in us carrying at least 315 electoral votes, but that— but it’s much easier doing what the networks did, or whoever called it, because there was no other path. There was no other path to victory. We also have won the popular vote; that was great.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Winning the popular vote was very nice; very nice, I will tell you. It’s a great— a great feeling of love.
We have a great feeling of love in this very large room with unbelievable people standing by my side. These people have been incredible. They’ve made the journey with me, and we’re going to make you very happy. We’re going to make you very proud of your vote. I hope that you’re going to be looking back, someday, and say that was one of the truly important moments of my life when I voted for this group of people. Beyond the president, this group of great people.
America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the Senate; wow, that’s great. And the Senate races in Montana, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were all won by the MAGA movement. They helped so much. And in those cases, every one of them — we worked with the senators — they were tough races, and I mean, the number of victories in the Senate was absolutely incredible.
And we did tele-rallies, we did tele-rallies with each one of them. And sometimes we did two or three for— And it was amazing to look at all of those victories. Nobody expected that; nobody. So, I just wanted to thank you very much for that.
And we have— you have some great senators, and some great new senators. And it also looks like we’ll be keeping control of the House of Representatives. And I want to thank Mike Johnson; I think he’s doing a terrific job — terrific job.
I want to also thank my beautiful wife, Melania, the first lady, who has the number-one bestselling book in the country; can you believe that?
Oh, no; she has done a great job — works very hard. Works very hard to help people. So I just want to thank her, but I want to thank my whole family: My amazing children — and they are amazing children. Now, we all think our children are amazing — everybody here thinks their children are amazing. But that’s a good thing when you think they are. But Don, Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany, Barron, Lara, Jared, Kimberly, and Michael; thank you all. What a help.
My father-in-law, Viktor, is tremendous and we miss very much Melania’s mother, Amalija. We miss Amalija, don’t we; huh? She would be very happy right now, standing on this stage; she’d be so proud. She was a great woman, that one. Beautiful, inside and out. She was a great woman.
I want to be the first to congratulate our great, now I can say, vice-president-elect of the United States, JD Vance. And his absolutely remarkable and beautiful wife, Usha Vance.
And he is a feisty guy, isn’t he? You know, I’ve said: “Go into the enemy camp,” and, you know, the enemy camp is certain networks, and a lot of people don’t like those. “Sir, do I have to do that?” He just goes, “Okay, which one?” “CNN, and MS-DNC,” he’ll say, “All right, thank you very much—”
He actually looks like— he’s like the only guy I’ve ever seen who really looks forward to it, and then he just goes and absolutely obliterates them.
JD VANCE: Well, Mr. President, I appreciate you allowing me to join in on this incredible journey. I thank you for the trust that you placed in me. And I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.
And under 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 lead the greatest economic comeback in American history, under Donald Trump’s leadership.
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