STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Just pouring a little extra coffee here as we take in the results of the election. Now, even those who felt they knew how the presidential campaign would end would have a hard time predicting we would arrive there in just this way. This year, an indicted candidate swept his party's primaries. A sitting president dropped out. A former president survived an assassination attempt. Let's look back at the 2024 race for the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
DONALD TRUMP: In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.
(CHEERING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer. I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do, too. This is not a time to be complacent. That's why I'm running for reelection.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Eight Republican candidates stood on stage in Milwaukee last night, with the goal of becoming their party's presidential nominee.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the race.
INSKEEP: Chris Christie is the latest Republican to drop out of the presidential race.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and...
DETROW: Former Vice President Mike Pence has dropped out of the race.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Nikki Haley made it official this morning - she is suspending her run for president.
NIKKI HALEY: So I will be voting for Trump.
BIDEN: Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn't shown up for a debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.
And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on - the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more border patrol and more asylum officers.
JAKE TAPPER: President Trump?
TRUMP: I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said, either.
NANCY PELOSI: Is this an episode, or is this a condition?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: He had a cold and a bad night. I would not see this as an episode.
PELOSI: It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run.
BIDEN: Nothing - nothing - can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition, so I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.
TRUMP: If you want to really see something that's sad, take a look at what happened...
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOT)
TRUMP: Oh.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
UNIDENTIFIED SECRET SERVICE AGENT: Get down. Get down. Get down. Get down.
DETROW: Danielle Kurtzleben on the line, our reporter at the rally. Danielle, tell us what you saw.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Yeah. There was a series of pops. I would say maybe half a dozen, pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. I saw Secret Service agents swarmed around the former president. And I saw Donald Trump put his fist in the air, and the crowd cheered for him.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) USA, USA, USA.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I accept your nomination...
(CHEERING)
HARRIS: ...To be president of the United States of America.
FADEL: And how has the landscape changed since President Biden dropped out and Harris has gotten in?
DOMENICO MONTANARO: Well, the vice president has really made up significant ground in the swing states, and it's happened across the board.
TRUMP: The next vice president of the United States, the current senator from Ohio - JD Vance.
(CHEERING)
JD VANCE: We're effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.
HARRIS: The nation will know Coach Walz by another name - vice president of the United States.
TIM WALZ: We can't even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary.
UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: (Laughter) Yeah.
WALZ: And I think bringing back people together - well, it's true. These guys are just...
UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: It is.
WALZ: ...Weird.
DAVID MUIR: Vice President Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump. Their first face-to-face meeting in this presidential election.
TRUMP: She doesn't have a plan. She copied Biden's plan.
HARRIS: Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump.
TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs - the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating - they're eating the pets.
HARRIS: You will see, during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early.
TRUMP: We're a nation that's in serious decline. We're being laughed at all over the world.
HARRIS: So I think you've heard tonight two very different visions for our country - one that is focused on the future, and the other that is focused on the past.
TRUMP: They've had 3 1/2 years to fix the border. They've had 3 1/2 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn't she done it?
TONY HINCHCLIFFE: I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico.
TRUMP: You know what? The truth is they've treated our whole country like garbage, whether they meant to or not, because they're grossly incompetent people.
BIDEN: The only garbage I see floating out there is your supporters.
TRUMP: Today will be the most important day in the history of our country. And together, we will make America powerful again.
(CHEERING)
HARRIS: And when we fight, we win. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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