and look what happened. Is this crazy? Donald Trump has been elected to a second term as president, defeating a resurgent democratic nominee in Vice President Kamala Harris. People are unhappy with the direction of the country, and they wanted a change. They wanted something different, and Trump was that something different. Trump, who was nearly cast aside by his own party following the January 6th Capitol Riot, is the first felon to become president-elect, guilty on all 34 felony counts. What we saw in the last four years is probably the groundwork and execution of the greatest political comeback in American history. Here are the moments that define Trump's return to the White House. America's comeback starts right now. I remember being at Trump's third campaign announcement. There were virtually no sitting Republicans attending. His own children declined to attend. He really had been abandoned and left for dead. Many Republican lawmakers had turned to other candidates just 7 days after the GOP's lackluster showing in the 2022 midterm elections. But then, probably the single most important event

in the Republican primary was Trump's first indictment. Trump was indicted four times after leaving office. Prosecutors accused the president of trying to overturn the 2020 election, knowingly holding on to classified documents, and paying off a porn star to benefit his campaign. Virtually all of his competitors in the Republican primary defended him. They have weaponized and put politics in the Department of Justice. It was really a very odd thing. You know, if you're a political candidate and you're criminally indicted, most people would say that's not a good thing for your campaign. But because almost none of his political opponents wanted to capitalize on that fact, each indictment became more and more strengthening to Trump's candidacy. Trump's campaign capitalized on his legal woes as a fundraising opportunity, blasting emails that accused the Department of Justice of election interference. In late May, when Trump was convicted in New York state court of 34 counts of falsifying records to cover up hush money payments, his campaign raked in a record $34.8 million in small

dollar donations. He had this residual goodwill with the vast majority of Republican voters. Many of them believed his false claim that the election was stolen, so they saw him as a sort of incumbent. On the campaign trail, Trump ramped up his incendiary rhetoric. They're poisoning the blood of our country. They're not humans. They're not humans. They're animals. We don't need another low IQ person. He has never been interested in calls from even many Republicans to tone it down or to speak in more moderate terms. Trump believes that this is rhetoric that appeals to his voters. When I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy. The Trump campaign has really honed in on two issues: immigration and the economy. I remember being in Michigan and Wisconsin, and I'd ask people at his rallies, 'What's the most important issue to you?' and they would say the border. Trump was very effective in getting that message across to voters and making them fear migrants. They're eating the dogs. The people that came in

they're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets. Trump's previous campaigns were sort of marked by this sense of disarray and disorganization. The ground game, as we call it, where they go and knock on doors and hand out pamphlets and physically go out there and get teams moving, it always paled in comparison to Democrats. An important factor in Trump's political success in 2024 was that he ran a much more professionalized and strategic campaign. What they wanted to do was focus on the tiny group of undecided voters they call them persuadables and go to those people food for everyone food for because that's really where the effort should be put not just blindly knocking on people's doors and saying hey hey please vote for Donald Trump. After the Republican primary, Trump's team laid the groundwork for a tough battle in November. The former president maintained a sizable lead in the polls over Joe Biden as voters grappled with the sitting president's age. And then in late June, if we finally beat Medicare.

you President Biden, President Trump. Well, he right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death. One of the most astonishing events to come out of this election was the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The next two weeks after that, the Trump campaign did something very unconventional for the Trump Campaign, which was to lay low because all the focus was on Joe Biden. Then, out of the blue, literally came the Assassin's bullet, which came within a fraction of an inch of ending his life. Just days after the assassination attempt, Trump made a triumphant comeback at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. You will not take this man down. So, the Trump campaign, they decided they were going to go all in on this strategy of juicing their base, driving up turnout from unexpected and new parts of the electorate. Obviously, everything changed once Vice President Harris was the nominee. I know Donald Trump's type. Not only was there enormous enthusiasm suddenly on the Democratic side, something that we had not seen for Joe Biden, but also the Trump Campaign, which had been so disciplined up until

this point was so worried that Trump would hurt his advantage. He was angry, he went off message, and he started to say things in the early days that they did not want him saying. And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black. Trump scaled up his campaign appearances in a bid to counter Harris's rise. He adopted a busier schedule in battleground states with the auto industry, so goes Michigan. I mean, it's a big deal. He was interviewed on podcasts and YouTube channels, down and that's down and dirty, right? Yeah, he campaigned alongside billionaire Elon Musk. Take over, E-L-E-S, take over. In the final stretch before election day, Trump stuck with his off-the-cuff brand of politics, never touched by a human hand, nice and clean, and continued to attack Harris on one of her key liabilities as the so-called borders are the person in charge of our border. CA immigration has been his signature issue. We've seen more and more

Americans come around to Trump's point of view on the issue of the border. People are fed up. They feel that nothing's been done, that the border is in chaos, and that tough action is needed to address it. As President Trump has proposed sweeping tariffs on foreign imports, hardening U.S. borders, and deporting millions of immigrants living in the country illegally. This is really an important moment for definitely for Democrats but for the country in general. Despite all these things that normally would overshadow a candidacy, in his case, propped him up and got him through to victory again. Kamala Harris also did him some favors by not really distinguishing herself from the administration she was a part of. Once he was able to remind people that she was essentially the incumbent, that she was part of a status quo that people didn't like, and that he represented a departure from that status quo, he was able to successfully convince people that if they wanted something different, he was that change. [Music]

How Trump Defeated Harris for President: Key Election Campaign Moments | WSJ

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