wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. made for streaming. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program

woman: a successful business owner sells his company and restores his father's historic jazz club with his son. a raymond james financial advisor get to know you, your passions, and the way you bring people together. life well planned. brett: you know as someone coming out of college it can be very nerve-racking not knowing what to expect, whether you'll like your job or not, whether you'll make friends, whether you'll fit in, and here i feel like it's so welcoming and such an inclusive place to work, you just feel like you're valued. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" ♪ christian: hello. ♪ christian fraser. you are watching "the context"

on bbc news. >> i spoke to president-elect trump to congratulate him on his victory and i assured him my entire administration would work with his team to ensure a and orderly transition. >> we cannot yet know what his actions will be, but we do hope that america will become stronger, and this is the kind of america that europe needs. >> donald trump offering his loyalist to top positions. elon musk, is billionaire backer. christian: donald trump will become the most powerful president of the modern era, but how will he use that power? in floated the transition team is preparing with key positions to be decided. we will speak to anthony scaramucci, whwas involved in the last transition, who this

time had supported kamala harris. free democrats, the soul-searching begins -- for democrats, the soul-searching begins. president biden has promised and orderly transfer of power. and we will look at what the future holds for nato, china, the middle east, and ukraine. and what role elon musk play in this new administration? hello. a very warm welcome from washington. it is hard to think of any postwar president that has been invested with as much power as donald trump. the mandate was overwhelming, and republicans now have control of the senate and nearing control of the house, and the supreme court only recently ruled that he has absolute immunity for decisions he takes as president. america's first convicted criminal turned president-elect is returning to the white house instead of a prison cell. the three criminal cases he faces will be rounded down. the focus now, the new transition headquarters at

mar-a-lago. the trump campaign team has been slightly taken aback by how quickly this election was decided, but now is facing a deluge of questions over who will fill the key positions in the cabinet. what is entirely different to 2020 is that democrats have already conceded. the outgoing president now preparing the country for a peaceful transfer of power. pres. biden: we are in a democracy. the will of the people always prevails. yesterday, i spoke with president-elect trump and congratulated him on his victory. and i assured him that i would direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. that is what the american people deserve. christian: joining me tonight on the panel, anthony scaramucci, donald trump's former aide, an american political scientist,

and political commentator mona charen. anthony, i want to start with you. you were involved in the last administration and you have seen what a transition looked like. when you have a president that literally wins the lottery like this, a clean sweep of congress, he has the white housethere will be also to people that come out of the woodwork, people keen to offer advice. how does it work? how do they run it? anthony: well, i think it is going to be run differently this time and in some ways better and perhaps some ways worse. we were completely chaotic. we learned on the morning of november 9 in 2016 that the president-elect was the president-elect, and our team wasn't organized. you may remember he had fired chris christie and he put mike pence in charge on november 10. we were scrambling. th team run by linda mcmahon and how would lead to cap and putting things together for the

president-elect the last several months. donald trump himself would not look at that and wouldn't have anything to do with it until today, because he is very superstitious, and he told those of us that were working on the transition last time that he wouldn't look at it until he had some level of electoral success. i do think they have got things slotted it and i think i have a lot of senior people that still like the president, guys like mike pompeo that will return to his cabinet if they are asked. different. i think the way it would be worse, if you don't mind me adding this, is that there were very sensible people coming into the administration. i'm not saying there aren't still some, but you are going to get harder right iluences on the president's time then you did in his first term. christian: before we bring in christina and mona, i want to speak about howard lutnig, a wall street ceo.

i know that you know him reasonably well. what kind of guy is he and what sort of pressure will he be facing? anthony: listen, howard is a very capable, incredibly smart guy, this is new territory for him. what i would say to howard is that, listen, take a step back. i would be calling people that worked on romney's transition -- of course he didn't become president, but i would be calling them. i would be calling them like gin -- people like jim donovan who helped steven mnuchin and i built the treasury department last time. he is the most thoughtful and deepest thinker on personnel and as we both know, personnel is policy. one of the dangers for somebody like howard is he is so good at so many things, he may think he is good at this, and he might be, but you need more experience on this. washington and washingtonians,

they think very differently than wall streeters. wall street mostly things about money, frankly. we are all on the same green team. in washington there is lots of different incentives, and i would caution howard to take a step back before forging -- he's being criticized already, as you know, for forging ahead to aggressively for his colleagues. but he's a very smart, capable guy. christian: there going to be tensions, as anthony says, because he is a wall street ceo to some extent, although he is a close find of donald trump. he might be seen by some within the trumpet circle as an outsider. and then there is the issue of conflict of interest because he has these financial -- you know, these financial figures in new york. do you have concerns about how this might be run? >> i have great concerns. we remember jimmy carter gave up

his family's peanut farm because he didn't want to seem like there was any financial impropriety. donald trump does not have that concern or care. my true worry is that during the first administration, as anthony rightfully said, a lot of people were caught flat-footed and didn't really know what was going on as far as the transition. they had to scramble just a bit. but there were real republican policy professionals who cared about not just the success of donald trump, but the success of the american people. this time around there is lots of vendettas that donald trump has been very clear he wants to settle with various democrats on the local, state, and national levels. i don't know how many loyal republicans who care about the country will be in his inner circle. i am concerned about the billionaire class that controls not just jd vance, but the elon musks of the world who just because they have money thing they understand policy and education and climate and all of these -- transportation, so many

policy areas that matter greatly to american citizens. i'm worried about hard-right radicals in his inner circle and inner gear. we know that donald trump likes the last person in the room to flatter him. how will that affect not just immigration policy, but economic policy writ large? will he be able to work with republicans beyond steamrolling them, or will they all fall in line since the republican party in many ways has become the party of donald trump? i have concerns about the second term because the first time for me felt like donald trump was casing the joint, and this time he is clear it will be a systemic dismantling of american democracy. christian: mona, christina talked about the hard right radicalists. we have been hearing from former white house strategist steve bannon who has been floating the idea that marjorie taylor greene will take over as homeland security secretary. here he is chatting on the podcasted that he runs, "the war room," with her a little

earlier. >> is there any truth to the rumor that you will take over as dhs? >> [laughter] i don't know what's going to happen, steve. we're just thrilled to have president trump back in the white house because everyone knows what that means, we are going to dismantle the deep state, we are going to end weaponized government, we are going to pardon the j6'ers, that's extremely important, and we are going to restore peace and prosperity for the american ople, and we are going to end those foreign wars and we are going to end the climate-change scam. erything is going to be restored, we are so excited. christian: mona, the big question is if you will fill the positions with true believers like marjorie taylor greene, or whether like anthony suggests he will bring in those from the outside, some of those closer to wall street. that doesn't speak to the tension internally within the transition team. mona: first of all, christian, you know how to ruin a girl's day by showing a clip of

marjorie taylor greene. i don't think i've had enough coffee to manage that right now. look, i also would make a point about lutnick as well, ok, because marjorie taylor greene, we know that she is in the kooky fringe -- unfortunately would have been fringe, it is now mainstream in the republican party -- but lutnick is the head of cantor fitzgerald, well-respected wall street firm. and yet what happens when people like him are sucked into the or text of trump his they begin to spout--sucked into the vortex of trump is that they begin to spout nonsense. lutnick was saying his eyes had really been opened by robert f kennedy, jr., schooling him on the danger of vaccines. there is talk of robert f. kennedy, jr., having a big role at health, cdc, mbe health and

human services. we don't know if that will happen, but look, when you look at the cabinet members from the first trump administration, fofully half, half of the people he picked to work for him refused to endorse him for a second term, some of them morning that he was unfit -- warning that he was unfit, incompetent, or even a fascist. now he is going to be fishing in much different waters for his staff. he is going to be looking only for loyalists, only for the maga faithful. that isn't necessarily going to mean people that are less competent and experienced in the operations of government. christian: anthony, this is what the people voted for across every sector of society and across pretty much every state, and there were people like you who told us that he was going to lose, that kamala harris was

going to romp to victory. what has it been like for you the last few days, and one has the backlash been like from those on the right who know you well? anthony: well, listen, i got it wrong. i mis-sized something -- there was a great meme the harris team had, a dad at the polling booth looking down at his daughter and his daughter saying "who are you voting for" and he said "i'm voting for you." but there was another meme i didn't see, a son and a mom, and the son looking at the moment asking "who are you voting for" and she said "voting for you." 46% of the women in this country voted for donald trump, and when they were asking the exit polling by they did it, they said there were elements of the culture they did not like and that there is a great culture war going on in society and donald trump represented an

aspect of ending elements of that culture war. i'll point out to the people on this show and people listening, if you are a white male in the united states ages 18 to 36, you have a 33% more likelihood than other demographic groups to commit suicide. and so there is something going on in the culture. what i would ask my friends on the democratic party side is to reexamine your narrative, re-examine what you are saying to people, because donald trump's hateful rhetoric, which i despise, and i am among those 40 people that denounced him and offered support for the vice president, i would ask you guys to think about what you are doing with your narrative, because his spiteful and hateful rhetoric was ignored by manof his voters because of that issue related to culture and a few other issues. certainly inflation had something to do with ias well.

but i think it is a very serious issue, and listen, he won the popular vote, guys. i'm a big boy, i congratulated him, i congratulated elon musk. i live in a democracy, he is our president, i want him to do well. but i do understand the danger of him, and we still live in a democracy where we have free speech here. if he is doing things i disagree with, i'm going to speak out against it because i think it is important for people to understand the potential danger that he represents. christian: and yet, mona, he does understand what frustrates a lot of working-class families, a lot of working-class people across the country. i wonder if there does need to be some humility on the part of the democrats and also the liberal bubble -- i put the media in that, some of the media in that, who don't represent enough in some of the concerns and frustrations of those who voted for him. mona: oh, look, i'm all for

humility, and elections are opportunities for self-examination, look at what you might've missed and didn't understand about the electorate. certainly mala harris made a big bet that abortion was going to be a motivating issue for women, and it looks like that was not enough of an issue. they erred in that. but i do think if you look at this -- pull the lens out a little bit in terms of the global picture, you cannot understate the importance of inflation. in all of the countries around the world, something like half of t world's population has gone to the polls in 2024, and in almost every case where a party in power had presided over -- was in power when the inflation,ost-pandemic inflation began, that party has suffered reverses in the polls.

that was a tremendous headwind that the democrats were up against of this year, and then again of course there was the issue of immigration, and on that score -- inflation was not so much anything that the democrats could have done much about, in my judgment. but their mishandling of immigration was something that requires a lot of re-examination, because that was completely self-inflicted wound. christian: quickly, christina, before we go to the eak, i made the point on tuesday night that we tend to talk about voting groups as if they are a homogenous bloc. latinos, blacks, white working-class men and women. the common denominator across the map is your pocketbook. we all have concerns about our mortgages are how we are going to pay the rent or the car loan or credit-card loans.

that is what it is about. it struck me, anthony, that you put inflation at the end of your comment, when actually it is performance for every voting bloc, christina. christina: yes, every voting bloc goes to the post based on pocketbook issues, but to mona's point, this is where the democrats doubled down, forcing a woman to have a child against her will, that is a pocketbook issue. thinking about abortion as an economic issue, the right to abortion, the right to contraception, that is something that the democrats thought would resonate. but we know historically white women specifically do not vote for the democratic party candidate. they have only done so twice in modern history, 19641996.-to t ake the gamble that white women with think of abortion as a pocketbook issue was something that unfortunately did not pay off. when we think of white men dying by suicide and rates of working-class white men, donald trump said nothing about that. it was the biden-harris

administration that talked about shoring up unions and thinking about public school and the climate crisis because we have so many climate refugees within the united states, people having to move around and leave their jobs because the environments. so these are all economic issues that matter to families, but donald trump's type of populism appeals to the basest level of people's instincts and it is an ethos of divisionhat quite honestly worked. i was very surprised by the popular vote, but i've gwn to realize that nothing should surprise me in american politics as a black woman when you have someone like donald trump at the top of the ticket. christian: listen, some of those things definitely resonate with latino voters who were really the difference on the nine. we will talk about that after the break. around the world and across the u.k., this is bbc news. ♪

christian: welcome back.

not all the votes have yet been counted, but the signs are that donald trump is on track to become the first republican to win a majority of the national popular vote since george w. bush and 2004. that new coalition brimming with working-class voters, younger people, and record high latino support. trump's sources say he will consolidate the power by skipping appointments in the house and senate, kickstarting his agenda starting with an immigration crackdown. here to discuss that is deputy director of hispanic communications within the republican national committee and the trump campaign. welcome to the program. what do you put this latino vote down to? >> younow, there's so many different experts trying to figure out what's going on because it's clearly unprecedented, and clearly we are also seeing from other outlets, other pundits trying to blame it directly on us hispanics as if we are at fault for something. but the reality is it is vy

simple, it comes down to the economy, it comes down to pocketbook issues you guys were discussing a little bit ago. inflation, cost-of-living, everything is so expensive. so many hispanic american households and families were able to afford things, they were able to buy their first house at record high numbers under the trump administration. unfortunately that is no longer the case. it hasn't been the last four years. it came down to something as simple as that and wanting to have a safer communities due to the unprecedented amount of illegal migrants that across unchecked, unvetted through the southern border. we see that with the trend of numbers in different cities. those were the two biggest issues for a lot of families. christian: obviously the main focus, as you say, is the border, and a lot of people on the texas border, in arizona, of course, are deeply affected by that. but at the same time, surely there are concerns in the latino community of how a program of mass deportations is likely to

work. are latinos going to be stopped, frisked, questioned when they are going about their ordinary business? vianca: no, because the only ones who will be affected by this are the ones who have committed crimes, who have not been properly vetted to begin with, allowed under some sort of humanitarian rules that they were not properly qualified for or have committed fraud. that has been the case for many decades now, that sce we have had these laws put into place, so it is not going to be any different. we are finally going have a president that is going to be finally fulfilling the laws we already have set in place and making sure that those that don't qualify to be here legally are not going to be here. that starts with gang members, ms-13 gang members and people that have been viciously, brutally murdering innocent american woman including latina women, latina minors, and now we have a puerto rican woman that was brutally, disgustingly and

unfortunately assaulted and murdered in georgia. her name is mimi rodriguez. nobody is talking about her, either. this is sothing that many hispanic families wanted and what president trump is delivering on. christian: one of the most extraordinary result i was looking at on tuesday night was in star county i texas on the southern tip up against the border. 96% latino. trump won it by 16 points. that was a 76-point electoral swing over 8 years from hillary clinton. what do you think it says about the latino vote and how the democrats have depended on it and what it means for the future? vianca: it means that latino american family are no longer allowing democrats are taken for granted and to make empty promises, as they have been doing for so many decades. this is the first time that they are now vocally publicly expressing their support. it has already surpassed the

support for president george bush and for president ronald reagan. i think this is a momentum that is going to continue to keep building on, because latino- american families have the same worries as the rest of the american population, and so the democrats have tried so hard to block everybody into different little subset of groups and thinking everyone has different worries or different concerns and priorities. at the end of the day, everyone wants the same thing. everyone wants to be successful, they want to be protected and have their religious and individual liberties defended and respected, and that is unfortunately -- it hasn't been happening. we had kamala harris at a rally not too long ago saying you are at the wrong rally for being christian and openly vocal about it. clearly a lot of hispanic american families are socially conservative and very religious as well to the and they want a president that will defend their values and they found that in president donald trump before they find it again these next four years. christian: vianca, we are up against the break.

it is lovely to talk to you congratulations to you and your team. we are going to talk to anymore with our panel. we will talk first and foremost about foreign policy because there are a lot of things to consider with regards to china, the middle east, and the situation in ukraine. and while we have got anthony wi us, we will talk about tariffs in the economy. we are waiting for a decision from the fed, and we might see an interest rate cut today. what will the relationship be between trump and the fed governor? all that to come. do stay with us. ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james.

announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: get the free pbs app now and stream the best of pbs.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by...