JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
After a long presidential campaign for Donald Trump and an unusually short one for Vice President Kamala Harris, voters have made their choice clear. Trump is now the country's president-elect. He celebrated his win in the wee hours of this morning from the convention center in West Palm Beach.
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DONALD TRUMP: This campaign has been so historic in so many ways. We've built the biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition.
SUMMERS: Harris took her time readying her concession speech. Then, this afternoon, she headed to her alma mater, Howard University here in Washington, D.C., and addressed her supporters.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: So to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.
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SUMMERS: I am joined now in studio by NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid, who has been covering the Harris campaign. And we also have with us correspondent Franco Ordoñez, who is live from West Palm Beach, Florida, where he has been following the Trump campaign. Hello to both of you.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Hey there.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Hello.
SUMMERS: Asma, I want to start with you. We heard Vice President Harris talk about the peaceful transfer of power. She implored her supporters to respect that. But she still promised to fight for her party's ideals, her campaign's ideals. She also said that she will not concede the fight that fueled her campaign. Is that the starting point for this next phase for the Democratic Party?
KHALID: Well, Juana, it's certainly the message of optimism that Democrats want to hear today - particularly her supporters. You know, Harris ran a campaign that was largely focused on the fight for reproductive rights and the threats that Democrats believe Trump posed to democracy. And for many Democrats, this is an existential fight. And so Harris' message today at Howard University was that sometimes the fight takes a while, but that does not mean, in the long run, that they won't win. And so they see this as a fight that they're going to have to continue during this next Trump term, in the courts and in public squares, around the rule of law and abortion.
SUMMERS: Franco, over to you - we know that Vice President Harris called President-elect Donald Trump earlier today to concede the race. Trump put out a statement after. What can you tell us?
ORDOÑEZ: Well, it was a brief and gracious call, according to a statement by the campaign. During their talk, Trump acknowledged Harris', quote, "strength, professionalism and tenacity." Both of them agreed on the importance of unifying the country. I mean, it's interesting. Since winning, Trump has been more positive toward Harris. I mean, there's been no mention of retribution against his political opponents, such as in his victory speech last night. But this is an area that people are going to be watching very closely, as it was a big part of his campaign, including discussions of restructuring the Department of Justice.
SUMMERS: All right. That's the president-elect's take on that call. What about the Harris campaign's take? What do they have to say, Asma?
KHALID: A senior aide to Harris said that she discussed the importance of a peaceful transfer of power. This, of course, is something she echoed as well in her public remarks at Howard. And she also spoke about being a president for all Americans. It's worth mentioning here as well that President Biden also spoke to the new President-elect Trump, and the White House says that he expressed his commitment to ensuring a smooth transition and emphasized the importance of working to bring the country together.
SUMMERS: I imagine, among Democrats, there's going to be a lot of soul-searching. They're going to be dissecting last night's results for weeks and months to come. But even though it's early, I assume that there are some early thoughts breaking through about what went wrong here. What are you hearing?
KHALID: So lots of people, you know, pointing fingers in different directions and offering, you know, somewhat conflicting explanations. But a couple of main things I want to mention here -one argument I've heard is that Harris perhaps focused too much on Trump and did not offer a clear answer to people's economic pain. Voters have expressed for months and months that they are frustrated with the high costs of groceries, housing, healthcare. And then you saw this, you know, somewhat scathing critique that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders put out, where he said, quote, "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's referring there to the exit polls that suggest that Donald Trump was over - able to win over a bunch more working-class voters.
KHALID: You know, the other argument I've heard is that Harris ultimately was not able to untether herself from Biden. Biden was not popular. She was running as the sitting vice president, and that was just a challenge for her. She did not spell out what she would be able to do differently as president.
KHALID: And then one last sort of explanation I want to bring up here, Juana. We haven't spent as much time talking about this, but this is her gender and her race. It's hard to parse out...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
KHALID: ...You know, perhaps how much of a factor it was in all this, but there are two elections in which Democrats have run a woman at the top of the ticket - Hillary Clinton, of course, in 2016, and now Kamala Harris in 2020. Both times, when a woman was at the top of the ticket against Trump, Democrats were not successful.
SUMMERS: Franco, over to you - the campaign has ended. What comes next for Trump?
ORDOÑEZ: Well, for Trump, right now comes the hard work of the transition. I mean, there are many calls happening right now, as Republicans kind of jockey for those top positions, whether it's in the cabinet at the White House or throughout some of the top agencies. Trump's transition is being led by Howard Lutnik, the financier, and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who also led Trump's Small Business Administration in his first term in office.
Now, the new team absolutely does not want a repeat of the chaos that defined Trump's first transition in 2016. He has often said that was one of his big mistakes - personnel. And that's the big reason, or a big reason, why you have groups like America First Policy Institute and The Heritage Foundation putting together these lists of potential personnel - loyal personnel - and policy plans. Project 2025 is possibly going to come up again - the controversial Project 2025. They - in addition to the big book of policy proposals, they also put together a personnel list of loyal people who Trump could implement in the administration. Now, the team already has a number of executive orders at their disposal that...
SUMMERS: Right.
ORDOÑEZ: ...Could be implemented. Those will likely be used to help carry out some of Trump's early promises, such as...
SUMMERS: OK.
ORDOÑEZ: ...Shutting down the border and energy exploration. But his clear promise is to unwind President Biden's policies and resume where he left off in his first term in office.
SUMMERS: NPR's Franco Ordoñez in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Asma Khalid in Washington - thanks to both of you.
KHALID: Thank you.
ORDOÑEZ: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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