Transcript of What Democrats Plan to Do Next, and What JD Vance Says Went Wrong

From the New York Times, it's "The Headlines." I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Thursday, November 5. Here's what we're covering. The midterms dust is settling. There's a lot happening. To start, we're going to dig into three of the biggest questions this morning. What drove the big blue wave?

What was incredible about last night was how far we reached into deep red territory.

How is the GOP responding to its loss?

This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans.

And what is the Democrats' plan for what's next?

The north star for the Democratic Caucus is going to be affordability.

First, with more detailed results coming in, it's clear that every demographic group nationally, across race, age, gender, and education, swung left on Election Day.

It's really hard to overstate just how good a night this was for Democrats. Democrats made gains across so many states where they were never competitive before, and across every single demographic group we looked at.

Ruth Aghelnick analyzes voter data for The Times. She says one of the biggest shifts to the left was among Hispanic voters, who moved toward Democrats by 28 points. Young people shifted by more than 30 points, and young men specifically by nearly 40.

One thing that was really interesting that we saw is that white voters without a college degree, who have really been the backbone of Trump's base, also shifted about 14 points toward Democrats, which is really showing sort of cracks in Trump's key support, cracks in Trump's base.

Overall, the staggering results are on track to deliver Republicans the worst loss in half a century, which brings us to...

Now envision chandeliers all over your ceiling. Envision marble floors.

The Republican response. In his first appearance after his party's defeat, President Trump went on camera yesterday to talk about the White House ballroom.

See the thickness and size of that ceiling?

In a kind of surreal scene, Trump led reporters through the construction zone, pointing out beams, talking about varieties of marble, and he generally shrugged off what had happened the night before.

And if it was on the ballot, we would have won. But they just, you couldn't transfer that love. There was such love at those rallies. It was incredible. And we weren't able to transfer the love to candidates.

Other Republicans, though, have been quicker to start trying to diagnose the issues.

Mortgage rates are over 7%, gas is $4 a gallon, grocery prices have gone up, and all these. And so I think it was more kitchen table issues.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came out to criticize his fellow Republicans over the state of the economy, and Vice President J.D. Vance offered his own striking critique. In a post on social media, Vance placed the blame for the GOP wipeout squarely on the war with Iran, and he was not shy about ripping into the administration's agenda and messaging. But President Trump told reporters he was fine with it, and later his own son, Donald Trump Jr., even reposted Vance's comments.

We made a promise to the country that we would fight for an affordable America, and we intend to keep it.

What will Democrats do with their newfound power?

Democrats know exactly what they want to do in their first 100 hours. They have sort of a shock and awe beginning to the new Congress, where they want to show voters immediately that they are delivering on the affordability message that they campaigned on. And they have, like, four broadly popular things they're going to bring to the floor right out of the gate.

My colleague Annie Carney covers the House of Representatives.

One is reinstate the expired Affordable Care Act subsidies. Another is to reverse the Medicaid cuts that were in Trump's big beautiful bill. Another is to do something on tariffs, to bring congressional power back over trade policy. And another is to do some sort of war powers resolution to force Trump to end the war in Iran. Some of these items, they think will even attract Republican support and have in the past. They think that these are so popular that these can pass the Senate and really force Trump's hand.

For more on the midterms, The Times' chief political analyst Nate Cohen is on today's episode of The Daily, with a look at how much the $10 billion in campaign spending really mattered. In France today, the country is bracing for a nationwide strike. A huge number of people are expected to not show up for work, which could paralyze travel by bringing railroads to a halt and disrupt services at hospitals, schools, banks, and other institutions.

Getting access to K-pop contracts is incredibly rare. There has been snippets of contracts in court cases, but having a full contract gives us an incredibly exclusive look at how much control the label holds over these artists.

Sarah Hertz is an investigative reporter at The Times. She says the K-pop industry has been notorious for how strictly it manages its performers, with companies sometimes recruiting singers as children to come live in dorms and controlling many aspects of their lives. Some artists have described near-starvation diets and making almost no money. But despite years of promised overhauls, Sarah says the NewJeans contracts show how little has changed, even for such a successful group.

When you put it all together, these contracts give the label a lot of control over how the members act, who they date, what they say, how they look, and even the right to use AI-generated NewJeans voices with no end date, indefinitely. Another thing is plastic surgery in K-pop. So this is a kind of open secret in the industry. There's a lot of pressure on these performers to fit a very specific beauty standard. Some of them get surgery before they're even adults, and that pressure made its way into a contract that we got a hold of.

Sarah says the South Korean government has tried to promote a contract template to address concerns about the K-pop industry. In that template, there's a guaranteed right to education, physical and mental health, and sleep, but that was all stripped out for the NewJeans contracts. In response to questions from The Times, the parent company of the label, which is behind other huge groups like BTS, said the contracts were legal and negotiated in good faith.

The Golden State Valkyries

are champions of the WNBA!

That's the team color for the Golden State Valkyries, the 2026 WNBA champions, who just clinched the title over the weekend. Their victory marks a stunning rise. The team only debuted last year, and they managed to win it all in their second-ever season. Ever since they hit the court, they've been wildly popular. The Valkyries have sold out every home game they've ever played. In their glitzy waterfront arena, they share with the Golden State Warriors, the Bay Area's NBA team.