Politics and views in the United States.

The Democratic Party is regrouping, but critiques continue. The incoming Trump administration looks at barring mainstream media from White House briefings, and AIDS advocates say the pick of Robert F. Kennedy Junior for DHHS is worrying.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2024 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

We knew we had to show her as her own person and point to the future and not try to rehash the past.

Stephanie Cutter, a top staffer for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, is defending their strategy.

Some argue Harris should have differentiated herself from President Joe Biden more.

Cutter says Harris' sense of loyalty to him impeded that from happening.

Harris is voicing gratitude to donors and volunteers, but not directly addressing the criticism.

Democratic Senator-elect Ruben Gallego says his campaign and the battleground of Arizona aimed to treat decisive voters like the Latino male vote as swing voters.

We decided that we had to target them from day one or else they were going to not be coming out to vote at all and/or voting against me.

Gallego's victory is considered one of the party's biggest wins and came in spite of President-elect Donald Trump's win there.

Donald Trump Jr. says his father is considering barring mainstream media outlets from White House press briefings, giving their access to social media influencers and what he calls independent journalists instead.

Meanwhile, actor Alec Baldwin is criticizing a portion of the American public as uninformed, largely blaming TV news for creating an information gap.

Republican Louisiana Senator John Kennedy is responding that some Hollywood names are goofy and unpatriotic for their criticism of Trump supporters.

Now these people are entitled to their opinion, but they have an unwarranted sense of moral and intellectual superiority.

Trump says his pledged 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports will pressure them to act on the border and immigration.

Trump ally, Republican Wisconsin Congressman Derek Van Orden says higher grocery prices are worth it.

I'm willing to pay more for guacamole.

Less is the rest of the United States of America.

With Trump promising mass deportations, Marcela Diaz of New Mexico's Somos un Pueblo Unido says migrant workers, consumers and employers are essential to that state's economy.

She wants them protected.

Demands that our local and state policy makers don't use the money that we are generating for the state against us by spending very limited public safety resources in helping the Trump administration enforce civil and federal immigration laws.

The media says 10 percent of the state's population is undocumented and they paid nearly $70 million in taxes a year.

World AIDS Day is Sunday.

Trump's pick to lead health policy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has argued HIV is not the actual cause of AIDS.

Boston University professor Anthony Petro says that's worrisome, though not a complete surprise.

Here's someone today in 2024 thinking about those kind of conspiracy theory approaches to thinking about HIV and AIDS is certainly troubling, but it's not new.

I'm Alex Gonzalez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.