What Happens When Neither Party Gets To Celebrate The Election?

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Like two teams that meet in the seventh game of a World Series, both the Democratic and Republican parties bought Champagne for election night. But in this instance, it was hard for either to pop the corks. Days went by. The bubbly got warm and went flat.

It was not just the delay that spoiled the party. And this is not a case of post-election hangover. This was simply a sobering election.

This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, senior editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and senior editor & correspondent Ron Elving.

Connect:
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.
Email the show at [email protected].
Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.
Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.
Find and support your local public radio station.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, before we start the show, we have some news. We're hosting a virtual live show
0:04.8	next Thursday, December 3rd at 8 p.m. Eastern. We're calling it Politics After Dark.
0:10.6	That means we'll talk about the news, of course, but we'll also give you a behind-the-scenes look
0:15.2	at what it's been like to cover the selection during the pandemic. And we'll quiz you on your
0:19.7	political knowledge, too. We've really missed doing live shows, so we hope you'll join us.
0:24.4	Head to mprpresents.org to RSVP. Hey there, it's the MPR Politics podcast,
0:32.7	I'm Susan Davis, I cover Congress. I'm Dominic Lamontan, our Senior Political Editor and
0:36.8	Correspondent, and I'm Ron Elving, Editor Correspondent. And I'm so glad to have both of you
0:42.1	here on the pod today to talk about the moment we're in right now, because we're coming off
0:46.6	this election where Joe Biden won by a historic margin. He's defeated a sitting president by a
0:52.3	greater margin than anyone since Hoover. We've had historic turnout. And yet,
0:57.4	President Trump continues to refuse to concede the election. Ron, what do you make of this moment?
1:03.3	This moment has no real precedent in American history. We've had a couple of presidents who
1:07.6	didn't go to the inauguration of their successor. But generally speaking, we've not had a president
1:13.2	resist the results of the election. This president, of course, has broken many other
1:18.4	presidents, broken through many guardrails. And he is defining his own path to leaving office.
1:25.8	What his endgame is is not clear at this point, but he continues to insist there's a path for him
1:30.6	back to a second term. Fewer and fewer people are willing to even discuss that. And while other
1:37.5	Republicans of note have said the president is within his rights, they're clearly growing impatient.
1:43.6	And it's really contributing to this highly, let us call it sobering sense of this election
1:50.5	that I think a lot of us have. Neither party really got to celebrate, particularly on election
1:55.3	night or in election week. There was too much holding them back with respect to how well the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.