A year ago, Astead took “The Run-Up” listeners home for Thanksgiving. Specifically, he convened a focus group of family and friends to talk about the election and the question of Black people’s changing relationship to the Democratic Party. This year, he got the group back together for a different mission. The question was: What happened? What can Democrats learn from their defeat in 2024? On today’s show: an autopsy conducted not by consultants or elected officials but by committed, everyday Democratic voters. And a farewell.

President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees and major appointments — which have arrived quickly in the days since he won the election — are more than just a list of allies. The roster is a window into how he sees the mission of a second term. One priority will be immigration and border control, and, more specifically, Trump’s campaign promise of “mass deportations.” On Sunday night, Trump announced the person he was putting in charge of this effort: Tom Homan. Homan was the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, and he played a key role in the family separation policy. Back in March 2023, we went to see Homan speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. After his panel, we sat down to discuss his views on the border and how he and Trump might institute their preferred policies, like mass deportation, if given the chance. Which of course, they now have been. On today’s show, that candid interview from 2023 with Tom Homan, and a possible glimpse at our immigration future.

For more than two years, we’ve been asking pretty much everyone we meet a version of the same question: Who are you going to vote for and why? And on Wednesday morning, we had the answer to that question. Or at least the first part. Donald Trump easily won the electoral vote, and as of early Thursday, he’s on track to win the popular vote too. The second part of the question — the why of 2024 — is a little more complicated. It will take time to answer in its entirety. But we wanted to start small, by talking with one Michigan voter. She came to mind on election night, when it became clear that it was going to be a Trump victory and that the sweep of his support was telling a new story about this country.