Why?

Biden trailed President-elect Donald J. Trump in all seven swing states. Trump would’ve smashed the blue wall handily and swept the Sun Belt. Biden led Trump a whopping zero days when he was at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket. Trump was ahead of Biden in those swing states by 3 and 6 points. It wouldn’t have been close. Biden’s support was collapsing in Northern Virginia. That development got buried since Biden dropped out in July, but it seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Based on the polling data, I categorize Biden's statement that he could have beaten Trump as "flat out bonkers."

Biden was well behind Trump when he dropped out. Biden never led in all of 2024. And no incumbent president who was anywhere near as unpopular as Biden has ever won. pic.twitter.com/lGk9h8pygU

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) January 8, 2025

Biden also had a net negative 19-point approval rating heading into Election Day. No president has ever been re-elected with such atrocious approvals. Biden would likely have had a carbon copy of Kamala Harris’ dismal 2024 performance, though slightly worse, as Virginia likely would’ve flipped for Trump. That’s 325 electoral votes for Trump to Biden’s 213.

Again, a total landslide for the GOP. It’s not quite a 1980s-style beatdown, but a drubbing nonetheless.

Approval for Biden began to plummet after September 2021, hitting an all-time low in June with just 37.4% support from Americans, while his disapproval stood at 56.7%, according to data collected by FiveThirtyEight. During CNN’s “State of the Union,” Finney stated that while Biden’s mental health had recently come as a shock to her, she believed Biden would be remembered for his “accomplishments” in the Middle East and with foreign policy.

“You think the Middle East is in better shape today than when he took office?” Jennings pressed.

“Well, I think he got our hostages home. I think that’s a big deal. I think it’s important — ” Finney responded.

Jennings then jumped in to question which hostages Finney was referring to, to which she responded that Biden has “gotten a number of people home” before Jennings cut her off again.

“There’s still 100 people over there,” Jennings said. “Including some Americans. Look, I think he’s going to, I think he’s going to leave office in disgrace. The Hunter Biden pardon was disgraceful. He’s going to be remembered largely for inflation and for the disastrous Afghanistan pullout.”

“We’re just getting the first draft of this now, but as we continue to learn about the massive cover-up that went on, not about his health, but about his mental acuity to cover that up, the efforts that were undertaken by the White House staff, by his family, not in the last couple of months, but for all four years, I think it’s going to be a really ugly chapter. It’s a diminished presidency because of it,” Jennings said. “I think we still don’t know the full extent of what they did to try to hide what they’ve been doing over in the West Wing.”

During Biden’s presidential campaign against President-elect Donald Trump, polls showed voter concerns over Biden’s handling of the economy, with inflation ranking among their top worries before the November election. Polls also revealed concerns about Biden’s mental fitness following his poor debate performance against Trump in June, in which he was seen freezing mid-sentence and struggling to finish his arguments.

Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have received push back for their handling of the disastrous 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 service members outside Kabul International Airport. In September, Gold Star family members criticized Harris for “gaslighting” and ignoring them for the past three years after she attempted to call out Trump for filming videos at the third anniversary event at Arlington Cemetery.

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Department of Government Efficiency co-heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy came under fire this week after a debate over H-1B visas erupted on X. On “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Jennings was asked about the feud highlighting a division on policy within Trump’s base and whether it could harm the unity within the party so far.

“Look, there’s always been a push and pull on this in the Republican Party. I think there’s a way to work this out and solve it,” Jennings said. “I think what a lot of people would say is, Elon Musk was making this point, if you take the top 1% or the top 0.1% of the most talented engineering people from other countries, that’s perfectly fine. H-1B visas for that, they’re unique, they have unique talent, unique innovative skills, fine.”

“If you’re using the H-1B program to abuse it, to recruit interns, accountants, other people that easily could be recruited from the United States of America, all because you just want to do it cheaper, that’s not fine,” Jennings added.

Jennings went on to say how there could be a way to “retain” top visa performers, but he called out Ramaswamy for his take as it had “rightfully” angered supporters.

“So I think what a lot of people in the party want to do is eliminate the fraud in this H-1B  program, retain the top engineering talent, and there’s a way to do this,” Jennings said. “What Ramaswamy did yesterday was not a great communications exercise, and it did anger a lot of people  in the president’s coalition, and I think rightfully so.”

The debate over H-1B visas, one of the largest visa categories in the country, began with their use in the tech industry by users on X. According to the Department of Labor, the visas allow employers to hire skilled foreign workers and authorize “the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the U.S.”

While Musk simply commented “correct” in response to an X user’s claim that a slowdown in skilled immigration would ultimately hinder American innovation, Ramaswamy elaborated, saying how American culture uplifts “mediocrity over excellence.”

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote.

Since Musk’s involvement in Trump’s campaign, Democrats have begun to ramp up their criticisms of Musk and his role in Trump’s second administration, with Democratic lawmakers like Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut referring to the billionaire as “President Musk” after he called out Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s original 1,574-page continuing resolution (CR).

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/CNN/”The Lead with Jake Tapper”)

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The DNC is slated to elect a chair, vice chairs, treasurer, secretary and national finance chair, according to a committee press release on Nov. 25. Wright Rigueur, on “CNN This Morning,” argued that Sanders and Abrams have consistently aligned with the priorities of Democratic voters, making them strong candidates to assist in shaping the party’s leadership.

“As you hear somebody like [DNC chair candidate] Marianne Williamson, who kind of emerges every four years to say these things, we have to remember that Marianne Williamson’s biggest endorsers have been billionaires,” Wright Rigueur said. “And that’s not actually very much in touch with where the Democratic base wants to be right now, as they said resoundingly, in this last election cycle. The person, the people actually, that they should be listening to are Bernie Sanders and Stacey Abrams.”

“Those are the two people who have been very consistent and very in touch with the American public that have been related to the Democratic Party,” she continued. “Those are the people that are going to help pick the leadership of the Democratic Party, or at the very least, should be helping to pick the leadership of the Democratic Party as we move forward into this next election cycle.”

Outgoing DNC chair Jaime Harrison and the DNC staff will remain neutral and avoid endorsements or campaign efforts for any of the candidates, according to the release.

“The DNC is committed to running a transparent, equitable, and impartial election for the next generation of leadership to guide the party forward,” Harrison said.

Sanders wrote a statement posted to X on Nov. 6, suggesting Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President-elect Donald Trump was attributable to the Democratic Party neglecting working-class voters.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” he wrote. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

Abrams served in the Georgia House of Representatives between 2007 and 2017. She subsequently lost in her two gubernatorial bids to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018 and 2022, but she maintained after the 2018 election that she was victorious.

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Trump, on Saturday night, posted to Truth Social, warning Panama that the United States would demand the canal back if it didn’t end its “ridiculous” fees, “knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the U.S.” On “Erin Burnett OutFront,” Rose told the panel he believed the former president was threatening the country because “someone wrote him a check or someone had a pivotal meeting with him and made a promise for a future check if he acted on this issue.”

However, Urban responded to the former lawmaker by explaining the Panama Canal’s connection to China and how China has influence over the area.

“He’s so jaded! Listen to the jaded bitter guy from Staten Island there. I used to like him until a couple minutes ago,” Urban said. “Listen, Kate, it’s important. Here’s why it’s important. There is a major player in the Panama Canal that’s not Panama, it’s China, right? So the Chinese control the two biggest ports at either end of the canal.”

“In 2017, the Panamanians rejected the notion that they rejected Taiwan as a country. They sided with China. They recognized China.They signed the Belt and Road Initiative with the Chinese in 2018, expanding their sphere of influence in an area which 70% of all traffic is U.S. traffic going through from one port to another through the Panama Canal,” Urban added.

Urban went on to call out how it could be possible for the U.S. to take the canal back and how the U.S. military could be used in the process. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Incoming Border Czar Sees A Huge Problem With Biden’s Latest Deportation Numbers)

“The treaty which was signed leaves an out for the United States that says if the neutrality of the canal is threatened, we can take it back,” Urban said. “You know how we do it? With the U.S. military. I don’t know if anybody remembers Operation Just Cause, but we sent the U.S. military down there to kick some ass and oust the president and put a new president in. We did it within about like 24 hours. So we could do it. If I was the Panamanians, I wouldn’t cozy up to the Chinese too much. If I was the Chinese, I wouldn’t get too cute.”

CNN guest host Kate Bolduan continued to ask the GOP strategist if he took Trump’s threats against Panama seriously. Urban responded by calling out how the Panamanians should treat their relationship with China with caution.

“This is U.S. national security. U.S. national security is at interest here. There’s a neutrality provision that was put in that treaty for a reason. If that neutrality is threatened by the Chinese, their Belt Road Initiative continues to expand and threatens the U.S. in terms of whether it’s allowing passage of U.S. military ships or hindering trade,” Urban said. “That was obviously put in there for a reason. We can exercise that clause.”

Since the 1990s, reports have indicated that China has slowly increased its presence within the Panama Canal by winning contracts in order to establish container ports and positioning themselves at either end of the canal, according to the Heritage Foundation. In July 2018 China Communications Construction Co Ltd and China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd helped build a fourth bridge over the canal after winning a $1.42 billion contract, Reuters reported.

Trump’s callout of Panama comes after he said that the United States could take on Canada and absorb it as the 51st state. This, following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying that the country isn’t able to handle a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods.

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The 1,574 page spending package would temporarily extend government funding levels through March 14, 2025, by approving hundreds of billions in spending to avoid a shutdown, which would provide pay raises for all congressional members and $100 billion in disaster relief. Cardona accused Trump and Musk of being incompetent and unable to govern after they came out against the legislation.

“The problem is Donald Trump has now put on the table, ‘don’t do anything with the bill unless you raise the debt limit.’ That’s insane! It takes months to negotiate a debt limit,” Cardona said. “So, I don’t think that the majority of the people voted willingly for this. The people voted for somebody, a group of people [and] a group of leaders to govern. And what Donald Trump and Elon Musk and [Vivek] Ramaswamy and Speaker [Mike] Johnson are now proving is that they have absolutely no ability to govern and perhaps, worse than that, not even an interest in governing.”

Gail Huff Brown, a former Republican congressional candidate in New Hampshire, argued no flawed bill should be passed and criticized the raise for congressmen and senators. Members of Congress, who currently earn a base salary of $174,000 annually, would receive a maximum salary increase of $6,600 if President Joe Biden signs the CR into law.

Arthur Adala, a veteran New York trial attorney, argued Musk has an exceptional track record of running companies and has the credibility to advise Trump on important policy issues.

“[Musk] also has a pretty darn good track record of running companies. I mean, he took people to space,” Adala said. “That’s not just like running Fords Motor Company or Tesla, he took people to space. His stock is through the roof. He obviously has the credibility of many Americans, many Americans who own that Tesla stock in their portfolio and watching it go through the roof. So it’s not like Donald Trump is asking a guy who’s failed, after failure, after bankruptcy, he’s asking a pretty smart dude.”

Cardona then argued that Musk is attempting to harm the same government that provided him with billions of dollars to help start his businesses, leading Adala to once again come to Musk’s defense by saying he knows how the government works.

“You know what’s so ironic about what you said? How many billions of dollars did Elon get from the government in order to start those companies? And now he wants to blow it up?” Cardona said.

“Well now you’re contradicting yourself,” Adala replied. “Because you’re saying he knows how the government works. You just said he doesn’t know how the government works, but he knows how to get the money, so he knows how it works.”

Musk, the co-head of the president-elect’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said Wednesday that any lawmaker who votes in favor of the CR should be voted out in the 2026 midterm elections. Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s DOGE partner, called on the bill to be voted down over its “special interests and ‘pork’ funding.”

Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said Wednesday that the Democrats must eliminate or extend the debt ceiling under Biden’s watch and called on Congress to pass a “streamlined spending bill” in June 2025 that does not grant “Democrats everything they want.”

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Trump sued ABC on March 19 for defamation over comments made by “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos, who claimed during an episode of the Sunday morning talk show that Trump was found liable for rape. Stelter called the settlement, in which ABC paid Trump $15 million, a “major victory” for the president-elect.

“These cases oftentimes do not work out for Trump. But this ABC case is a major victory. I talked to renowned First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams last night. He said, look, there’s no way to say other than this is a big win for Trump,” Stelter told “CNN Newsroom” host Jim Acosta. “It’s going to embolden him to file more of these suits. But as Abrams said, he called it disturbing that this could turn, $15 million could be paid around the use of the word rape versus sexual abuse in that interview on ABC’s ‘This Week.’”

“Look, Stephanopoulos has been a Trump target for a long time. He was very aggressive in this interview that aired in March,” Stelter continued. “So Trump decided to file suit about a week later, and a judge did not throw it out. A judge let it go forward through the discovery process.”

While hounding Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina over her support for Trump during the contentious interview, Stephanopoulos brought up her history as a rape survivor while bringing up the $83 million judgement against Trump in a civil defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who Mace criticized for joking about going on a shopping spree with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Mace discussed her rape during a 2019 debate in the South Carolina state legislature over a “heartbeat” bill that limited access to abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, according to the Post and Courier.

“It’s possible that ABC decided to settle this, Jim, because there might have been embarrassing emails or text messages on ABC’s servers that were going to become public,” Stelter told Acosta. “Everybody remembers that’s what happened to Fox News when Dominion sued Fox.”

“So this might have been a case where ABC is avoiding public embarrassment by paying $15 million,” Stelter continued. “But look, there’s a lot of people that say that payment is embarrassing as well. So this is not the end of the story.”

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The media has faced allegations of bias against Trump and he also got indicted four times during his 2024 presidential campaign. Smerconish, on “Press Club,” argued that these factors ended up helping Trump rather than hurting his appeal with voters.

“I don’t want it all distilled into this one sound bite or conclusion, but at the top of my list, I’ll say it that way … It’s like a parenting lesson. The more that you tell people what they can’t do, what’s intolerable, you must not do this, you should not do this, the more they’re going to rebel,” Smerconish told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin. “Maybe they would have ultimately come to their own conclusion and rejected Donald Trump. I don’t know.”

“But I think that the constant browbeating and the combination of the media influence and the four indictments, one conviction, and showing that god-awful joke from Madison Square Garden a week in advance of the election on a loop — and I felt it, and I said it,” he added. “I can’t sit here, Aiden, telling you, well, this is the way I called the election, but I definitely felt the potential for a boomerang effect, and I think that came true. I really do.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe performed at Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and receiving significant media backlash. However, Trump ended up winning a majority of Hispanic male votes nationwide in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republican voters in Georgia told MSNBC during a May segment that Trump’s legal issues have made them more passionate about supporting him.

“It’s actually caused me to support him more,” a voter named Antonio Jones said. “I just don’t believe that it’s a coincidence we have a trial happening in Atlanta, we have one happening in New York, so the question people are beginning to ask themselves like I did, is like, why now?”

Trump leads Harris in the popular vote by 2% with over 76 million votes as of Friday morning, according to The Associated Press.

After Trump’s election victory, his two federal cases will be dropped and his state cases probably will too, though there’s a possibility that ambitious local prosecutors could extend the battle, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. For instance, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis signaled during a Wednesday interview with Atlanta News First that she intends to proceed with her case against Trump, which accuses him of attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

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Trump announced Gaetz’s appointment on Truth Social Wednesday, asserting that “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations, and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.” Jennings, on “CNN News Central,” said he was “surprised” by Trump’s choice, adding that it reflects the president-elect’s confidence that Republicans will support his agenda without resistance.

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“Are you not entertained? I mean, this is the most entertaining transition I’ve ever seen … I’m as surprised as anyone. But what I take away from this is that this is a president-elect who is feeling his power,” Jennings said. “I mean, this is someone who is appointing people to things, whether it’s Gaetz or anything else we’ve seen today, who is feeling his power, feeling his influence, doesn’t feel like he’s in a mood to negotiate with the people in Washington, D.C. He’s here to do what he wants to do and he’s going to expect the Republicans to fall in line.”

“It is apparent to me that Trump is in a decisive mood and is not someone who’s interested in picking things that he would consider to be watered down,” he added. “So that’s my initial reaction … I mean, we truly learned about it two seconds before we came on here, so pretty wild day.”

Trump also announced he would appoint former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be director of National Intelligence for his second administration in a Wednesday statement, writing that she will bring a “fearless spirit” to the intelligence community to help secure “Peace through Strength.” Moreover, the president-elect named Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his pick for secretary of state in another Wednesday statement, calling him an “Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies and a fearless Warrior.”

Trump on announced in a Tuesday statement that Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth is his choice for secretary of defense in his upcoming administration.

“You can’t underestimate Donald Trump’s influence over the Republicans in the Senate on this. And he’s going to be insistent that he get his government and his administration. And look, here’s the thing: He won. And he won the popular vote and he believes he has a mandate,” Jennings said. “And honestly I think he does too. And some of these picks are conventional. Marco Rubio, for instance, you know? Well-known name. But some of them are designed to shake up Washington. And I am assuming that’s what Donald Trump believes he’s doing here with a few of these folks.”

CNN anchor Dana Bash said Wednesday that she couldn’t come up with a single “example” of why governing “could be harder” for Trump in his second term due to his strong support among elected Republicans.

“That really does change the game for Donald Trump in how he can get things through, who he can get through and the kind of support he has for what he wants to do,” she said.

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Hegseth, a “Fox and Friends” weekend co-host who served in the National Guard for 20 years and made multiple combat deployments, was announced Tuesday night as Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon. Jennings said that the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the attempt to deploy a mobile pier in Gaza called the insiders’ competence.

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“Does anybody have confidence in the current leadership of the Pentagon and the way the defense situation has been operating for the last several years?” Jennings asked the panel. “I mean, from the Afghanistan pullout, which was an extreme debacle for which no one was held accountable, we’ve had spy balloons flying over the United States, we built the $300 million pier as a public relations stunt which wound up killing an American service member.”

“I would say I’ve had just about enough of the so-called ‘insiders’ running the Defense Department, I think we ought to give Pete Hegseth a chance.” Jennings continued, prompting journalist Carl Bernstein to ask, “You think that’s about insiders?”

Jennings referenced the thirteen service members who were killed in an Aug. 26, 2021 bombing as American forces were evacuating from Kabul, as well as a pier built to deliver relief supplies to Gaza, which cost taxpayers over $230 million and was operational for just a few weeks, during which one soldier died of injuries sustained while operating the pier.

“All the criticism of him is that he is not the expected Washington pick and I am just saying to you that the American people just voted against the expected Washington pick,” Jennings responded. “He has 20 years in service, Afghanistan, Iraq, two Bronze Stars, Princeton, Harvard. Yeah, he is on TV, but so are the rest of us. I think he ought to be given a chance.”

Trump previously announced that former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe would be nominated as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and that Republican Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, a former Green Beret, would serve as national security advisor.

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