Van Jones gets emotional because of Trump's lead on election night, says American dreamers are going to bed with a nightmare
CNN's Van Jones lamented the possibility of a Trump victory, saying that many Americans dreaming of how a Harris presidency would affirm their identities are now confronting the implications of Trump's return to power.
Media outlets that spent much of 2024 sounding the alarm that former President Trump is a threat to democracy didn’t take it particularly well when it began to look like he would win on election night.
Fox News projects Trump will become the 47th President of the United States, despite years of unflattering coverage from legacy media outlets.
In the face of this dawning reality, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suggested that Trump would make national abortion banned by executive order, while her colleague Alex Wagner grappled with the reality that MAGA is a real movement with "legs."
CBS’ Gayle King fretted over Trump’s unchecked command, saying it "seems like he will be in power with no guard rails."
MSNBC’s Joy Reid declared, "Nobody wants Donald Trump more to be president than [Israeli Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu, who is backed by a far-right coalition that would like to clear-cut Gaza… a complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza."
DONALD TRUMP ELECTED AS THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Liberal pundits didn’t take it particularly well when it became clear he would defeat Vice President Kamala Harris on election night. (Getty Images)
Liberal pundits and journalists began to sweat in the 10 p.m. ET hour, after Iowa was called for Trump, as many talking heads had taken the shocking data from pollster J. Ann Selzer over the weekend that claimed Vice President Kamala Harris had a lead in the state as gospel.
"This is beginning to sound like a postmortem," Lester Holt said on NBC.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace asked what kind of information young men were looking at to assume the economy would improve under Trump. Liberal website BuzzFeed shared an all-blue map with the caption, "We ran 80,000 simulations. Trump was a lil b---h in all of them."
MSNBC analyst Molly Jong-Fast deleted an X post from earlier in the night that predicted "Harris is going to win." She later posted, "I’m gonna throw up," on Instagram.
As Pennsylvania began looking like it would favor Trump, NBC panelists nitpicked Harris for spending too much time campaigning in the state when she could have chosen popular Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.
As midnight approached on the East Coast, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki appeared on NBC and suggested questions about whether President Biden was a better candidate than Harris would soon be "part of the discussion."
"If you’re on the campaign right now, you’re feeling pretty down," said Psaki, who served as Biden's first press secretary.
CNN’s John King pointed out that Trump was dominating Waukesha County in Wisconsin and said, "This is a place, the Harris campaign was hoping, ‘Hey women, you don’t have to tell your husband who you’re going to vote for.'"
On MSNBC, Reid essentially blamed White women for Harris’ North Carolina loss.
"Black voters came through for Kamala Harris, White women voters did not. That is what appears happened in that state," Reid told viewers.
"This will be the second opportunity that White women in this country have had to change the way that they interact with the patriarchy," she continued. "If people aren’t receptive to it, and if people vote more party line, or more on race than on gender, and on protecting their gender, there’s really not much more that you can do."
THREE INCREDIBLE WAYS THE FAR-LEFT MEDIA HELPED TRUMP WIN AGAIN
Far-left pundit Elie Mystal agreed and posted, "Black people did their job. Trump’s gains with Latinos were real. Trump is their guy. The end."
Liberal blogger Aaron Rupar essentially declared Americans to be racists.
"If Trump wins, there will be efforts to blame Russian interference or the Harris campaign or Biden, etc. That's all fair. But we need to be clear eyed that a huge swath of America likes what Trump is selling. Transphobia. Mass deportation. That's what he ran on. And here we are," Rupar wrote on X.
Shortly before 1 a.m. ET, CNN’s Tapper declared that anyone would rather be in Trump’s position than Harris’ as Georgia was called for the former president.
"If she doesn’t win Pennsylvania, it’s over," CNN’s Dana Bash said.
CNN then aired Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond announcing that Harris wouldn’t speak to supporters on election night. It mirrored 2016, when Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta spoke briefly in front of a somber crowd before announcing she wouldn't show.
"That is not the sound of a big crowd, that is not a celebratory mood," CNN’s Audie Cornish said before Bash compared it to Clinton’s infamous Javits Center event of 2016.
Tapper appeared somber and said he had to "admit" that the Harris campaign took a major risk by attempting to appeal to "secret" voters.
NBC's Chuck Todd called out Democrats for a "total misread" of Latino voters by using terms like "Latinx."
CNN’s Van Jones got emotional thinking about people who were "hurting" because of the results.
"I’m thinking about the people who are not a part of anybody’s elite who are hurting tonight. There are African-American women who know a little bit about being talked down to, who know a little bit about having their economic dreams crushed, who try to dream a big dream over the past couple of months, and tonight they’re trading in a lot of hope for a lot of hurt," Jones said.
"They were hoping that maybe, this time, this time, one of their own could be seen as worthy," Jones continued. "Once again they’re facing rejection."
Jones then told CNN viewers that Black women aren’t the only people "hurting."
"If you’re a parent of a trans kid, your child’s face was used as a springboard to power for somebody. That doesn’t feel good," Jones said.
HARRIS WILL NOT SPEAK FROM HOWARD UNIVERSITY ON ELECTION NIGHT AS PLANNED
On PBS, Jonathan Capehart said he was "mystified" that Trump gained support from 2020.
"Who are we as a country? I’m not sure I like it," Capehart said. He later added, "I can’t help but wonder if the American people have given up on democracy."
"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said on CNN Harris was hurt by Biden’s "unpopularity," but the vice president was respectful by choosing not to throw her boss "under the bus."
Liberal pundits realized there was no path to victory for Harris once Pennsylvania was called for Trump in the 1 a.m. ET hour. Shortly, Trump addressed supporters.
"He will effectively be a one-term president," Lester Holt told NBC viewers.
Indeed, Trump will never be a candidate for president again, but he's made perhaps the most astonishing political comeback in American history.
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Fox News Digital’s David Rutz, Alexa Moutevelis, Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Nikolas Lanum, Lindsay Kornick, Yael Halon and Alexander Hall contributed to this report.