A Look at Trump’s Political Traction and What’s Ahead with Molly Ball

Air Dates: January 21-26, 2025

The results of the 2024 American election caught some Americans by surprise, but as campaigning turns to governing, Molly Ball helps us understand which campaign promises are likely to become administration policy and which may just fade away.

Molly Ball is The Wall Street Journal’s senior political correspondent, covering campaigns, the White House, Congress, political personalities and policy debates across America. She is also a frequent television and radio commentator and the author of “Pelosi,” a bestselling biography of the first woman Speaker of the House. Prior to joining the Journal, she covered U.S. politics for Time magazine, the Atlantic, Politico and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She has worked for newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Cambodia, as well as the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has received numerous awards for her political coverage, including the Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting.  She is a graduate of Yale University, a former Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan.

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Ball dives into the factors that influenced the outcome of the 2024 election. She attributes Trump’s political traction to his ability to appeal to the distrust that has percolating in segments of our society.  She said, “…around world, we see these anti-establishment populist parties gaining traction with electorates that have become disenchanted with globalization and with governing institutions.”  She continued, “…Trump was being self-serving, as he always is, but he clearly has also been tapping into something deep and authentic in the American psyche at this moment.”

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