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CNN Live Event/Special
Historic Night Sees Donald Trump Win Presidency; Trump to Meet with Obama on Thursday; Trump Has 289 Electoral Votes. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired November 09, 2016 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00] DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT: Another great man who has been really a friend to me, but I'll tell you, I got to know him as a competitor. Dr. Ben Carson. Where's Ben? Where is Ben?
(APPLAUSE)
And by the way, Mike Huckabee is here someplace and he is fantastic. Mike and his family, Sarah. Thank you very much. General Mike Flynn.
(APPLAUSE)
Where is Mike? And General Kellogg. We have over 200 generals and admirals that have endorsed our campaign. And they're special people, and it's really an honor. We have 22 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. We have just tremendous people.
A very special person who believe me -- and you know, I'd read reports that I wasn't getting along with him. I never had a bad second with him. He's an unbelievable star. He is -- that's right. How did you possibly guess?
So, let me tell you about Reince. And I've said this.
(CROWD CHEERING)
I've said Reince -- and I know it. I know it. Look at all his people over there. I know it. Reince is a superstar. But I said they can't call you a superstar, Reince, unless we win because you can't be called a superstar, like secretariat -- if secretariat came in second, secretariat would not have that big beautiful bronze bust at the track at Belmont.
But I'll tell you, Reince is really a star. And he is the hardest- working guy.
(APPLAUSE)
And in a certain way I did this -- Reince, come up here. Where is Reince? Get over here, Reince. Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. It's about time you did this, Reince. My, God. Yes. Just say a few words.
No. Come on. Say something.
REINCE PRIEBUS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States, Donald Trump! Thank you. It's been an honor. God bless. Thank God.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you.
PRIEBUS: You bet.
TRUMP: Amazing guy. Our partnership with the RNC was so important to the success and what we've done. So I also have to say I've gotten to know some incredible people. The Secret Service people.
(APPLAUSE)
They're tough and they're smart and they're sharp, and I don't want to mess around with them, I can tell you. And when I want to go and wave to a big group of people and they rip me down and put me back down, I just sit, but they are fantastic people. So I want to thank the Secret Service.
(APPLAUSE)
And law enforcement in New York City. They're here tonight.
(APPLAUSE)
These are spectacular people. Sometimes underappreciated, unfortunately. But we appreciate them. We know what they go through.
(APPLAUSE)
So, it's been what they call a historic event. But to be really historic we have to do a great job. And I promise you we will not let you down. We will do a great job. We will do a great job.
(CROWD CHEERING)
I look very much forward to being your president. And hopefully at the end of two years or three years or four years or maybe even eight years, you will say so many of you worked so hard for us. But you will say that -- you will say that that was something that you really were very proud to do and I can -- thank you very much.
And I can only say that while the campaign is over our work on this movement is now really just beginning.
(APPLAUSE)
We're going to get to work immediately for the American people. And we're going to be doing a job that hopefully you will be so proud of your president, you will be so proud.
Again, it's my honor. It was an amazing evening. It's been an amazing two-year period. And I love this country. Thank you. Thank you very much.
(CROWD CHEERING) Thank you to Mike Pence. Thank you, everybody.
[03:00:00] (CROWD CHANTING)
WOLF BLITZER, THE SITUATION ROOM SHOW HOST: An amazing moment in American history. Donald J. Trump, with his family there after thanking all of his supporters, all of his key staff, his family members. Having a very gracious speech. Thanking Hillary Clinton for calling him a little while ago to congratulate him on becoming president-elect of the United States.
He thanked her. He thanked her for her service. He was very gracious toward her. There you see him kissing his daughter and his family members over there. Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States.
What an historic moment this is. What an improbable moment. You see Chris Christie there. You see Rudy Giuliani. You see all of his top aides including Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, who worked very, very hard. Steve Bannon is there. All of his supporters are there.
Omarosa from his days in reality TV, Jake. This is how improbable is this, what we're seeing right now, that Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton to become president-elect of the United States.
JAKE TAPPER, STATE OF THE UNION SHOW HOST: There has never been anyone elected to the presidency of this country who had not at least served in government or the military before. He is as much of an outsider as possible, using those as the parameters.
It's quite remarkable. And it really says something very different about the world that we're in now and what at least a plurality of Americans want. It was on this day in 1989 that the Berlin Wall started to come down.
And now in 2016 the U.S. has just elected somebody who one of his policy proposals, perhaps his main policy proposal is building a wall, so many years after that Berlin Wall came down. It is a time when the United States seems to be saying to its leaders we want more attention paid to what's going on here at home.
BLITZER: And you see him walking into that crowd. It's after 3 a.m. here on the East Coast. He's in New York City. Didn't carry his home state of New York, but he got more than enough electoral votes, Dana, to become the president-elect of the United States.
And he pledged to work with democrats. He said even those who didn't support him. He said there were a few. He said he pledged to work with them going forward.
DANA BASH, CNN'S CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And we should take a moment to talk about the beginning of that speech. Because I was told by a Trump adviser it was going to be gracious, and it was. It was. He hit all of the notes and all of the tone, broad tone that a winner is supposed to hit. First of all, calling on Hillary Clinton by name, saying that she ran
a good race, reaching out to her supporters, and saying that he is going to try to bring this country together. That is precisely what he should do not in a -- and it was sort of -- you know, sort of a little bit jarring for people who went to his rallies and listened to him throughout the campaign because his speeches then were quite different.
Now he actually got what he wanted to play on the song we're listening to. And he realizes that he does have to succeed. His whole life is about succeeding. He succeeds in winning. Now he's got to actually do the job. And that's a whole different ball game.
BLITZER: He's got to become after being president elect president of the United States. John, you and I spent a lot of time with that magic wall. He did it impressively, cracking her so-called blue wall.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is stunning what he has done when you look at that map. You look at whether it's temporary or permanent, a major re-alignment of the electoral map the way we have elected presidents coming after two very convincing democratic wins.
Both of the Obama victories were not just wins. They were huge wins when it comes to Electoral College as expected. Guess what, as we have a couple more states to count, Donald Trump is going to pass 300 and he's going to get close to where President Obama was when he won four years ago.
And that's stunning because he flipped Florida, he flipped an Ohio, he flipped to Wisconsin, it looks like he's going to flip Michigan and Pennsylvania. That is stunning. Look at that, you look at how we have elected presidents the last 20 years. That is the -- now this is a man very few people gave any chance of being the republican nominee.
Then in the last several weeks, very few people gave any chance of being the president of the United States. His biggest challenge, just started. This country is ripped apart by this campaign and he is going to have to have in two months, but (TECHNICAL PROBLEM)
[03:10:00] (TECHNICAL PROBLEM)
BLITZER: ... and repealing ObamaCare. He's got an initiative that's going to begin right away. That meeting he's going to have with the President of the United States later this week. It could be awkward.
BASH: Look, President Obama has been campaigning his heart out, saying over and over again you don't want to elect this guy because he says he's going to undo all that we did. And he's right. That is what he said he's going to do.
We'll see how quickly he tries. We'll see how hard it is. Look, ObamaCare is a perfect example. You know, the reason republicans couldn't repeal ObamaCare is because there was a guy named Obama in the White House. That he would, that even if they got the votes...
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: He would have vetoed it.
BASH: He would have vetoed and they didn't have the votes to overcome it. He, Donald Trump has a republican Congress but not, you know, the votes to overcome a filibuster so he might not be able to do it either.
BLITZER: All right. Anderson, over to you.
ANDERSON COOPER, AC360 SHOW HOST: Yes. Wolf, a lot to talk about with our panel. David Axelrod, you know about transitions. There's a meeting with President Obama on Thursday with the President-elect, Donald Trump, and then the transition.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. And there's a lot of work to be done between now and then because it's a very complicated thing, taking over the government.
But first let me say, having experienced this before, I remember being in a room when I heard Wolf Blitzer announce that Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States. It was an emotional moment. It's an incredibly surreal moment.
I'm sure our friends over here are feeling that as well. And this is truly a historic event. Maybe, you know, I thought I was part of a historic event. This is certainly a historic event in its own right. The most surprising result perhaps we've ever had. At least in my lifetime.
So, let's just note that. Secondly, let's note that he did strike the right notes. He did strike the right notes. And I think that was a -- that was a good first step. Van talked about this a bit earlier. He did I think what he needed to do tonight.
And now he has to build on that in a country that's deeply divided. So, this issue of transition, I don't know exactly how far along...
COOPER: They are.
AXELROD: ... Chris Christie was. You know, we started this transition relatively early because -- first of all, because we had to, but secondly, as time went on it became clearer and clearer that he was going to have to assume office.
[03:14:58] The advantage that Donald Trump will have is that we assumed office in the midst of an epic economic crisis and two raging wars with 108,000 troops overseas. He doesn't have that. And that will be helpful.
But he still has to put people in place and he has to give some thought to who those people are because every appointment will send a signal as to whether this is going to be an administration that reaches out or an administration...
(CROSSTALK) VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Transition is just a massive operation. It's really -- I don't think people understand, it's almost a corporation unto itself...
AXELROD: Right.
JONES: ... to be able to pull this off right. And you have so many political appointments to get in place. And any one of them as you can see can sometimes cause...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I mean, just realistically, how much of it is about rewarding those who came along on the journey with you? Which has got to be, I assume part of it. And how much of it is reaching out to people who maybe weren't with you but governing?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's going to be an interesting challenge because particularly in foreign policy so much of the republican foreign policy establishments have said they are not going to work for Donald Trump. They wrote a letter opposing Donald Trump.
He will have to I think build -- and they don't agree with kind of the central tenets of his vision of how he'd interact with the world. So, you are going to see I think, in particularly on the foreign policy side.
I mean, there are a lot of domestic areas where Donald Trump is basically a republican. I mean, he can find the same EPA director maybe that another republican would. But in the State Department who those people are could look very, very different than it was...
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFREY LORD, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: The old saying that personnel is policy will come into play here. And I'm sure he will find people who are...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Well, he's had a general -- and General Flynn has been with him, you know, he spoke at the convention.
LORD: Right.
COOPER: Obviously he has an intelligence background that, you know, he likely will have a role.
LORD: Exactly. Senator Sessions has, you know, s got a lot of experience in this as well. I mean, these people will come. I mean, let's -- one thing I want to talk to what David was saying. This is what freedom and democracy is.
And Hillary Clinton could well have won this election. She didn't. But had she won it, I'd say the same thing at that point, that this is what freedom is, this is what elections are, lots of countries, many countries do not have this privilege, we have this privilege and so now we go on.
And now this is going to get into the sort of normal aspect of what goes on in Washington with everybody saying hey, I hear Harry's up...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But, you know, you always bring up Ronald Reagan, and let me bring up Ronald Reagan because I remember -- I was in high school when he was elected. I remember a lot of -- a lot of liberals believed the end -- the world was about to end.
LORD: Right.
COOPER: That Ronald Reagan and there was a hue and cry overseas that this former actor had been elected.
LORD: Right.
COOPER: I don't know if it's an analogous situation. Obviously, Ronald Reagan had been governor of a state. But certainly, I think there's a lot of people, a lot of democrats out there tonight who are horrified tonight, maybe just like many were when Ronald Reagan came -- again, I'm not comparing Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.
LORD: No, no, but...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You are.
LORD: I am. But I do so in the sense not that they're the same person, obviously. They're not. But what they are is they come into a situation and they assume the presidency and then they reshape it as every president does. As Barack Obama did.
To their personal -- you know, where they want to take the country, et cetera. And this becomes then part of the Washington scenario here and a very normal presidential administration.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a new world order.
LORD: Yes, it is.
BORGER: Let's say that.
LORD: As was the Reagan era.
BORGER: As, that's why I'm saying it. As, you know, as with Reagan.
LORD: Right.
BORGER: And I don't think we can possibly overstate that. Not only is Donald Trump different from the establishment republicans we have seen over the years, but there is a new world order in the Congress.
He will have control of the Congress. In much the same way as Barack Obama came in as a different candidate with a completely different kind of coalition and the pendulum swung one way but he had control of the Congress when he came in. And he wanted to be a transformational president.
And now you have somebody else coming in. The pendulum has swung the other way. He wants to be a transformational president. He's got control of the Congress. And everybody who wakes up in Washington later this morning will know that.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes.
BORGER: So, it's going to be different...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone in Washington is up.
BORGER: Huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone in Washington is up.
BORGER: Yes, they know...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Michael Smerconish.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, THE SMERCONISH SHOW HOST: As this campaign was in its 11th hour and was really nasty there was a letter that went viral and it was an image, a Jpeg of a letter that had been left behind...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I remember that.
SMERCONISH: ... by George Herbert Walker Bush for Bill Clinton, the man who took his job. And I'm just thinking now...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: It was an incredibly graceful and beautiful letter.
SMERCONISH: Unbelievable.
COOPER: Yes.
SMERCONISH: You're all of our president now was the gist of it. And I suspect President Obama will be equally gracious, as difficult as that might be, when he meets President-elect Trump on Thursday.
It also occurs to me that I'll bet Secretary Clinton wakes up in the morning wishing she had given that speech tonight given the way this whole evening has just come together, and put it behind her.
[03:20:06] But now the onus is on her because he was gracious and he did check all the boxes and say all the right things at the outset.
LORD: She called.
SMERCONISH: Yes.
LORD: I want to defend her.
SMERCONISH: Yes.
LORD: She called. Something had to be done. If she wasn't going to speak in public...
(CROSSTALK)
SMERCONISH: I'm glad for the country she did was my point.
LORD: Exactly. I think that was...
(CROSSTALK)
HENDERSON: I imagine she'll be gracious tomorrow, or whenever she comes out and makes a speech, and she's got a lot of supporters who are disappointed and devastated and fearful. And I think she'll have to set a tone. She had at one point I think said that if she won and Donald Trump lost she expected that he would, you know, sort of not advise her but be a helpful voice in terms of her transition.
One of the things I want to say also about the transition team I was texting back and forth with somebody who's on the transition team. He says they've been working, that it's a robust transition team and they've been working for months on it.
COOPER: You know, there's two questions, though. I mean, one, what does this do to President Obama's post-President plans, what his legacy, but also is the era of the Clintons is over. I mean, where do they go from here? Do they continue with the Clinton Foundation, which lots of questions have been raised about. You know, Chelsea Clinton is...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: I'm sure until a minute ago they probably hadn't been thinking much about that. I don't think much planning had gone into that.
COOPER: Right.
AXELROD: I don't think this exigency was considered. As for President Obama, I mean, I think he too is probably right now thinking through this. And obviously, this is a different end to his eight years than he expected as Paul Begala mentioned earlier. You know, there is -- one of the things that was at play here is it is hard to win a third team of any one party. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
AXELROD: And that was probably a factor here. But I want to go back to something I said earlier and something Gloria -- build on something Gloria said. Donald Trump does have the Congress.
And one thing I remember very clearly when we came to office was the awareness that expectations were very, very high and that it was going to be very hard to meet them.
Donald Trump has set some really high expectations. He did it again tonight. We're going to double growth, we're going to -- you know, we're going to -- earlier he said we're going to crush ISIS very quickly, we're going to -- you know, we're going to bring manufacturing, all this manufacturing back to the U.S.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Yes, infrastructure better.
AXELROD: All of this stuff is invigorating to his supporters, but it will very quickly become lamentations if he doesn't accomplish it, and he's going to find that it is hard to accomplish things. You know, even as willful and however skillful he might be, government is a different entity than the Trump Empire.
LORD: Presidents all face this -- I mean, that they all face is the doing of it is hard.
COOPER: Corey?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: OK. I think what you see tonight is you've got -- if the numbers hold up, Donald Trump's going to come to Washington with a mandate, not just on his presidency from the American people but with a republican House and a republican Senate.
And what we know, because I was at the campaign when we were doing this, the transition team was started last June. It didn't get a lot of fanfare. It wasn't this high-profile thing, everybody said what are the position that's have to be filled. Because Donald Trump had no interest in worrying about a transition team until tonight's election results were known.
But what we do know is that those people have been building -- you know, there are 4,152 presidential appointments. Some of those have to go and get confirmed by the Senate. Some are schedule c. Some are SES appointments, et cetera.
And in that category the team has been working diligently for something like this just in case, and they will be exceptionally prepared in 78 days I think from today when Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
But his agenda is going to be the agenda that the American people have supported for him, and he needs to work with Congress to get that done. He is a great person who will reach across the aisle. Privately he's a very different person. He has that relationship. He's very good at building relationships. He's talked about it a lot.
His criticism of the president was look, if you want to go play golf a lot, go play golf with the Speaker of the House so you can get something done. That's the way he tries to do things is being inclusive. You can still do things that you want to do but try to do it for the betterment of the country. I think that's the direction, he's going to go when he comes in.
JONES: I think the learning curve can't be underestimated. Part of the thing is when you're a CEO you can do certain things. You can fire people. You can reorganize a corporate charter. You can't fire the House. You can't reorganize the Constitution.
There are certain things that he is used to having and has to be -- and used to having at his disposal, he will quickly find you don't have. So that means there is a learning curve there which does then mean that who he picks to put around him he's going to be -- he's going to have a challenge.
[03:25:01] Because he doesn't want to stack it up with the old establishment types but if he brings in only a bunch of young rebels and young Turks that is a very hard bus to drive. He's going to have some real challenges.
COOPER: Ron.
BROWNSTEIN: The magnitude of the inflection point for the country here really can't be overstated. The democrats were on the brink of having a Supreme Court majority for the first time in 45 years, and now republicans will be able to name a fifth and appoint a fifth Supreme Court justice. This was the first time...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: And maybe more.
BROWNSTEIN: And maybe more.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Probably more.
BROWNSTEIN: And maybe more. This is the first time ever that we have seen a new entitlement program be opposed by the opposition party in two consecutive elections. Republicans running in Social Security in 1936, by 1940, they are accepting it. Medicare they accepted it. (TECHNICAL PROBLEM)
[03:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back. An extraordinary and historic night. Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. He's going to be meeting with President Obama on Thursday. The transition already underway, obviously. And that is going to accelerate obviously a very much in the days ahead. I want to continue our conversation with Jeffrey Lord, and Corey
Lewandowski, a former campaign manager. In terms of just the days ahead, I mean, the seats, I mean, it is an extraordinary moment to have been running as hard as Donald Trump has been running, working this hard, and then suddenly, I mean, he wakes up tomorrow, if he even goes to sleep tonight because we know he stays up much of the night often. Is he ready for this? I mean, is he -- can anybody be ready for that transition?
LEWANDOWSKI: I mean, David would know better than I would but I would say that nobody is fully prepared...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
LEWANDOWSKI: ... to step into the biggest job in the world. Regardless of what your background was, regardless of what your history was, whether you're a U.S. senator or governor or successful business executive. You're about to take over the most powerful nation in the world and govern that in a way that you are trying to bring the country together, to make sure they have economic security, to make sure they have national security, and this is a massive...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: But one just one important -- one million, one million civilian employees, one million military.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But you know, you -- just very briefly, earlier you know, on the stage Donald Trump tonight talked about, you know, everybody said he had a small team but he had a big team there. I remember going to Mar-A-Lago to interview Donald Trump between the primaries and it was you, hope hicks, Donald Trump and that was it. That was the campaign.
And I remember you pointed to a guy who was at the pool at Mar-A-Lago and said that's our digital guy. He was like asleep at the pool. And I literally was like -- I turned to people, where is the actual campaign? And I realized it was you guys just walking through Mar-A- Lago doing in -- doing your thing.
And so, now it is a whole other thing. I mean, it is a -- he's in a bubble for the rest of the next four or eight years.
LEWANDOWSKI: And probably longer than that.
COOPER: Right.
LEWANDOWSKI: You stay in that bubble. But what I think you've seen, what I have seen from Donald Trump is look at the choice of Mike Pence. A fantastic choice for Vice President. He is a polished, well- respected, well-liked, articulate individual who's going to bring poise to the Vice President's Office.
COOPER: Who also knows Washington.
LEWANDOWSKI: Who also knows Washington, right. And I think Mike is a great choice. I also think that, you know, you have is Donald Trump surrounds himself traditionally with people who are executers. He wants something done and he allows that person to go get it done - as long as the results are there.
And I think as he will build out his cabinet and look at those positions, he'll be looking to people who have an expertise, whether that's a Mike Flynn of the world who's been around and a retired three-star general, someone who understands the respective space, and he gives them the instruction from the top and says this is how I want it to be accomplished, please go do it.
COOPER: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: Anderson, when you were looking for the campaign, it was right here, it was in this room, it was in studios like this all over the country.
[03:35:02] What he showed was an amazing ability to dominate the national conversation through the mass media...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Donald Trump, which I always gave him credit for, he gave interviews, which all those other republicans running they wouldn't talk.
BROWNSTEIN: It overwhelmed many I think of the tradition al kind of tools of presidential politics, both paid advertising and organizing, and it's very applicable to being president.
Now, you know, whether a president can have kind of the same level of exposure and kind of friction that Trump employed as a candidate, but nonetheless, we have seen sort of a transformation of the way you run for president using the mass media as opposed to kind of the more structured tools.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Yes, I think to say to...
BROWNSTEIN: And that could be something of a tipoff of how he'll behave as president.
AXELROD: I agree that he has been masterful at using the media and he has -- like there are a lot of people in my old business of making ads and presidential campaigns who were going to go through a lot of soul searching because he just overwhelmed all of that.
But I'm just telling you, the presidency is more than how you communicate. The presidency is minute by minute making decisions that are incredibly consequential, complex, difficult.
President Obama always says it doesn't come to the president's desk unless it's impossible, because somebody else would have solved it.
BROWNSTEIN: That's right.
AXELROD: And so, that's the way you fill your days for four or eight years...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: And I think that's why...
AXELROD: ... and you have to have people around you who can help you do that. And then you have to make wise decisions. It is different than jumping on a television show or on Twitter.
LORD: But there is -- I remember when Ronald Reagan was elected, Jimmy Carter -- Jimmy Carter was the ultimate detail man. You know, I mean, some democratic donor went in to see him on one occasion and he was in the little office there off the Oval Office and Carter gets up to greet him and he's got the air force budget piled up here like to his knee and he says very proudly, "I've read every line of it."
And then Reagan gets elected, he comes to the White House to meet with Carter, and Carter in very detailed fashion has this whole list of things that he goes over and is appalled that Reagan never takes a note.
My point is that all of these presidents are stylistically different. And what you're describing is Barack Obama's presidency and what I'm describing is Ronald Reagan's presidency. There will be a Trump presidency, and it will be run in Trump style and he will adapt to the institution. And boy, that...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: I agree, Jeffrey. But what I'm saying -- what I'm saying to you is that whatever your style is the world is what the world is.
LORD: Yes.
AXELROD: The challenges are what the challenges are.
LORD: I agree.
AXELROD: You can't simply ignore them. You have to deal with them. And so, one way or another you have to find a way to get your arms around it.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But also Ronald Reagan had a very kind of, you know, core group of experienced, you know, statesmen and attorneys. Jim Baker, and the other, Deaver...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: He had been governor of California (Inaudible). COOPER: Right. So he was sort of big pictures, you know, and then
leave the room and maybe they worked out the details.
LORD: I mean, I think he'll have -- I think Donald, just my opinion here, I think Donald Trump will have some variation of that.
COOPER: Van.
JONES: Part of what I noticed about Mr. Trump as a candidate was that he changed direction a lot. Sometimes you guys would come out here and say he's going to come out and be very contrite and then he would come out with like people accusing Bill Clinton of rape. And it was like he was kind of wrong-footing his own advisers.
The problem, if you do that as president, because you've got a million civilian employees, a million military, that -- what struck a lot of people as that kind of erratic way of making decisions, you really -- you will cripple the federal bureaucracy if he send a different...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Forget about the federal bureaucracy, Van. What about the markets? What about your...
JONES: Sure.
AXELROD: ... what about other nations? I say all the time that when presidents speak they can send armies marching and markets tumbling.
JONES: Exactly.
AXELROD: And actually markets are tumbling tonight because there's fear of lack of predictability...
(CROSSTALK)
LEWANDOWSKI: But you know, David, it was the same markets we saw tumble after Brexit and guess what happened, two weeks later they were back at their highest peaks. And so, either was there...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: I'm not saying a wrong trajectory (Ph), I'm just saying that, well, I'm making -- I'm just amplifying on Van's point...
(CROSSTALK)
LEWANDOWSKI: I understand that.
AXELROD: ... which is you've got to be very careful about what you say as president because what you say as president, just your words alone can have enormous impact.
BORGER: Here's my other question. I've never seen a politician run who reacts to public opinion more minutely than Donald Trump.
COOPER: And watches coverage.
BORGER: And watches...
COOPER: I mean, incredibly.
BORGER: And as president -- and as president, and maybe you can answer this, David, as president you obviously watch public opinion and you know when you're doing something that's not going to be popular. And you know when you're responding to the public opinion polls, and you look at it.
So, my question is, how will a President Trump make decisions that are separate from public opinion? Because sometimes presidents have to do that. They have to make decisions that will be unpopular.
[03:40:06] SMERCONISH: So on the subject of how he governs I think there's another component of this that needs to be at least put out on the table, and that is how is he received.
I thought we were going to be here tonight anticipating a Hillary Clinton administration where there was going to be republican abstinence. It was already discussions of more Benghazi hearings, hearings relative to the e-mail server.
You even had John McCain saying I think that that Supreme Court that ninth seat should sit vacant until there's a republican and it looked like they were going to be at loggerheads from the get-go. OK. So, it's now President-elect Trump, how will he be received by democratic congressional leadership even acknowledging that the republicans will control both the House and the Senate? And I think the onus on them is to meet him halfway.
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: He'll be greeted the same way Tip O'Neill received Ronald Reagan, which is to say, I mean, he said to then President-elect Reagan, congratulations, Mr. President, but you know, you're now in the majors, and they had this kind of relationship right off the bat.
But when they needed to, I mean, Ronald Reagan knew either how to, a, defeat Tip O'Neill or, b, make a deal with him. And Donald Trump has that same visceral...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: I will say this president was received a little bit differently, though, when he came to office. And there was immediate opposition and implacable opposition...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The question is do the democrats try to do that...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: And the question is whether the democrats take that as an example and say we're going to do the same thing. And if he we get it...
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: That was done to Ronald Reagan.
BROWNSTEIN: And yes, I think they will. I mean, if you look at -- I'm sorry. If you look at where the democratic electorate is, it makes it almost inevitable the democrats are going to be in opposition.
I mean, the bigger question is kind of what do the republicans do? And I think that may not be as hard as it looks. Because as I said before, I mean, half of Donald Trump is essentially generic republicans. He will cut taxes, he will cut regulation, he will repeal ObamaCare, and he'll appoint a Supreme Court justice.
Then there's no problem lining up with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for that. The question is when he gets into the aspect of the agenda that made him unique and may have allowed him to get to these extraordinary numbers in white working-class America, things like building a wall, accelerated deportation, will they go along with that?
BORGER: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: Will Tom Donahue and the Chamber of Commerce and John Engler and the business round table, will they accept the portions of Trump that deviate from traditional republican thinking? As I said, twice as much infrastructure spending as Hillary Clinton. Will they be on board for that and if they aren't on board for that what does it mean about to the voters that ultimately a panel of...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The other thing, though, I mean, Donald Trump seems to have always been very loyal to the people who were with him. The counter to that and I think the -- I think I read somewhere in the New York Times that they had said he said is there going to be an element of retribution for those who work with him along the way or for, you know, changing libel laws or whatever it was for the crooked media, stuff like that...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: That's why the markets are tumbling.
COOPER: How much of -- how much of that continues or is it you know what, I've won, that was the race and now -- or is there an enemies list? I mean, I guess that's sort one of the...
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Well, look, we've seen this, though, after the primaries. I mean, Ted Cruz, who went to the convention and didn't endorse him at the convention then came and endorse him...
(CROSSTALK) COOPER: I remember that moment.
BORGER: I remember that moment. Right. And Chris Christie ran against him. So, it's clear that Donald Trump, if you come on board, you know, you're on board. I mean, is he going to like somebody more who was with him from day one than somebody who was a Johnny comes lately? Sure. But he's going to need all the friends...
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: That's not unique to Donald Trump.
BORGER: No. Exactly. I mean, he's a politician he understands that...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But I think Donald Trump does have a very long memory -- I mean, I think he remembers, you know, critical newspaper articles about him from ages ago.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Yes, but that's the media. You know, it might not be with somebody who ran against him who now wants to help him out. I mean, he understands that they're serving their own self-interest.
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: He wants to -- he wants to as he want to win. So, whether it's this campaign or whether it's making a successful presidency or a successful company, he is going to do what he has to do to make it work so he can win it.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: We haven't talked about it and I just think it's weird not to talk about it. A woman ran for president.
BORGER: Right.
JONES: Probably the most...
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: She won't be the last.
JONES: She won't be the last. That's for sure. But probably the most qualified by traditional metrics, person to run in generations. And she was beaten by someone who at least from traditional metrics is the least qualified person.
And I wonder, and I don't have a view, but I think it's at least worth talking about, you are taught when you're a young woman, when you're a young person of color, when you're any kind of outsider, that what you're supposed to do is be the best, is to stack up all the credentials, go to the best schools, do all these great things that yourself -- as you can prove you're worthy of these opportunities.
And now you have an example of someone who did that to the nth degree and was just -- and was just devastated.
(CROSSTALK)
[03:45:02] LEWANDOWSKI: But that's not true. She -- no one told her to go set up a private server. No one told her to delete 33,000 e- mails. No one told her that you have to break the law in order to run for president of the United States. Nobody said that.
No one said that you have to go and become secretary of state and then cash in and make hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign countries who degrade women, who degrade blacks, who degrade homosexuals and you keep that money and use that money to pay for your daughter's wedding. No one said you have to do any of those things to become the president of the United States.
COOPER: But certainly, Van, I mean, to your point there are a lot of voters, preponderance of voters who believe that whatever, you know, resume Hillary Clinton had it still didn't help her with judgment and Donald Trump does have a great recognition...
(CROSSTALK)
LEWANDOWSKI: You know where Van is wrong, is people say that she's the most qualified person to be president of the United States. By a metric that the media has imposed is what the qualities are that the American people want.
COOPER: Right, that's my point. Yes.
AXELROD: Well, when you have such jaundice about institutions generally, about government and about politics -- the idea that someone would emerge here who didn't come this and win is no...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
AXELROD: ... in retrospect, that's stunning because people -- that was part of the statement. We don't want someone from the inside, we want someone from the outside, we want someone who's going to take a blow torch to the establishment.
JONES: But doesn't it feel like sometimes like the rules change? I mean, I'm not...
(CROSSTALK)
LORD: Well.
JONES: I'm asking. Doesn't it seem like you're supposed to do all this stuff and then it doesn't matter.
BROWNSTEIN: But there's one element of the results I think that kind of puts this in a different light. I mean, she is the first woman nominee. She won college-educated white women not by as much as people thought but she did win them. She won minority women by a big margin. She lost white women without a college education by 28 points.
She lost them essentially by as much as Walter Mondale did against Ronald Reagan. Only a third of them according to the exit poll and maybe this will change as we go voted for her. And that is probably why Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin toppled that.
I mean, she expected to do poorly among non-college white men but this kind of deficit among working white women, what we used to call in the '90s the waitress moms who did vote for her husband Bill Clinton, a better performance among them than any democrat, that I think if there's any single result that's going to get the most discussion after tonight it's going to be that.
BORGER: I agree. I agree. I agree. Because there was a gender gap within the gender of women.
BROWNSTEIN: A class gap.
BORGER: A class gap. And it wasn't about gender. It was about class. And you know, you talk about a woman getting so close. What was remarkable to me about this race was that gender was never really an issue in this race.
LORD: And the reason for that I think is that she had made herself into a generic politician that had nothing to do with her gender.
BORGER: Well, the first time she ran, she ran on experience. This time she started out talking a little bit more about gender. But that got subsumed. And I think, you know, she thought that Donald Trump -- she, and a lot of us quite frankly, thought that Donald Trump was going to create her gender gap for her...
LORD: Right.
BORGER: ... by his own behavior. And that they would -- so it would be about -- the gender gap would be about his behavior and not about women having to feel like they were voting for a woman just because she was a woman. In the end it turned out to be about class, not gender and income.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. And the gap between the college and non-college white women...
BORGER: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: ... it was bigger than the gap between men and women. It was bigger.
BORGER: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: The class gap among white women was bigger than the gender gap.
BORGER: Exactly.
BROWNSTEIN: So, I mean, and again, Bill Clinton won. He's the only democrat in the last 30 years, he won most of those women. She lost them by as much as Walter Mondale.
COOPER: We have a lot more ahead, a lot more to talk about. We're going to take a short break on this historic night. We'll be right back.
[03:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Let's update you on the electoral votes that are coming in. In Maine, we now project Hillary Clinton will get three of the four electoral votes in Maine. Maine distributes its electoral votes according to congressional districts. Donald Trump will get one.
So now we have the number. Take a look at the Electoral College map. Donald Trump has 289 electoral votes right now. Still a few outstanding. Hillary Clinton has 218. He's well over the 270 you need to be elected president of the United States.
Let's take a look at the national popular vote right now. There it is. You can see Donald Trump is ahead by more than half a million votes. He's got 47.8 percent to 47.4 percent. Donald Trump has received almost 58 million votes, 57,300,000 votes for Hillary Clinton.
So, there you see it, Donald Trump still ahead in the popular vote. Just noting on Maine, Hillary Clinton gets three of the electoral votes. Donald Trump will get one of those electoral votes. That's why he went up from 288 to 289.
And she's gone from 218 to 219 in her number of electoral votes right there. So, that's what you see is going on in Maine the popular vote. We've updated you on that as well.
Jake, let's talk a little about the markets. Right now they seem to be calming down a bit.
TAPPER: They do. They're down. Dow Futures are down about 288 last time I checked. Perhaps it is because of the speech that Donald Trump gave in which he talked about partnerships in the world and reached out, extended an olive branch to former Secretary of State Clinton.
We should point out another update, just to remind our viewers that Hillary Clinton will be giving a speech in the morning. She has already conceded the race to Donald Trump. And tomorrow, she will be talking to her supporters and followers, presumably to tell them to unite behind the next president.
One other -- a couple other historical notes we should just note about Donald Trump. First of all, he is now the oldest person in this nation's history ever elected president. Older than Ronald Reagan at 70 years old.
We've said before he is the only person who has never before served in government or the military. There are four individuals before him, four presidents who had never held elective office before. Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, and Dwight Eisenhower.
[03:55:03] Taylor, Grant, and Ike had been generals of course. And Herbert Hoover had been a Secretary of Commerce.
And then now America, your new first lady, Melania Trump, she is the first foreign-born first lady since Louisa Adams, who is the wife, or was the wife of John Quincy Adams. Melania Trump joining that Augusts small club of first ladies born outside the United States.
BLITZER: The new first lady of the United States, Melania Trump. Dana, the Senate, the balance of power in the Senate. The republicans stay in charge.
BASH: That is the headline, that republicans were defending 24 seats and they did so successfully. They remain in charge of the U.S. Senate. Right now the balance of power is -- that we can call is republicans have 51. So they have a majority.
And there are two remaining seats that we just haven't been able to call yet. One is New Hampshire. And the other is Louisiana because there's going to be a runoff. So, it's possible that at the end of the day democrats will have only picked up one seat. And turns out Donald Trump had some pretty big coattails.
BLITZER: And the Vice President Mike Pence, Vice-president-elect, will be the president of the Senate.
BASH: Exactly. And then just -- obviously we talked about the Senate but it bears repeating that this is republican control of Washington.
BLITZER: Yes.
BASH: Republican in the White House, republican control of the House, republican control of the Senate.
BLITZER: It's very impressive, John King, when one party controls the executive branch and the legislative branches of the U.S. government.
KING: It allowed President Obama when he came to office, not without big fights, but to get ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act through. It allowed President Obama alienating a lot of republicans in the process to get his version of the stimulus package through all on democratic votes.
Now we're going to see what Donald Trump can do, which the tone tonight very conciliatory. The markets reacting, a lot of democrats saying that's the right pitch even. They don't trust it. We'll see, you know, what happens going forward in this polarized environment. We were just looking during the break. It's possible, still possible Hillary Clinton could win the popular vote.
As we count the votes in California. That will add a nugget to the debate in this polarized political environment.
Now the big question is with a Senate like that democrats will try to block it but the republicans can repeal the Affordable Care Act. They may have to go through budget maneuvers. You can't get 60 votes doing it other legislative ways. But they can do that.
BASH: Yes.
KING: As David noted earlier there's a Supreme Court vacancy, Antonin Scalia's seat on an evenly divided court, that is a huge deal. Donald Trump's going to fight with his own party on trade. The republican establishment including the speaker of the house and Mitch McConnell don't want to build a wall and they don't think Mexico will pay for it.
And so what Donald Trump, what he takes from the campaign into governing now is going to be fascinating. And sometimes people change their minds.
Bill Clinton ran against the dictators in Damascus and the Bushes in Beijing had -- with all half as Assad and the Chinese had very productive relationships. So, we'll see what happens. Sometimes you modify as you go but this is a fascinating moment for Donald Trump.
BLITZER: Yes.
TAPPER: And you talk about how the republicans control the executive branch of government and the legislative branch of government. We should point out the judicial branch of government which is now basically a 4-4 tie with a Supreme Court vacancy Donald Trump will now get to fill that vacancy.
BLITZER: Merrick Garland is not going to get that Supreme Court vacancy.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: And we should point out three of the so-called liberal justices if you include Anthony Kennedy who's a swing vote, are all either 78 or in their 80s. So, which Donald Trump will probably get at least, at least three Supreme Court justices to be named unless -- unless they fold out...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that argument that he made over and over again to really consolidate the Republican Party with him, that he would have the ability to shape the court for a generation. That was -- that gave real strength to the republican base. They believed that that was reason enough to coalesce around someone that they may have disagreed with.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Without an ObamaCare, without an ObamaCare.
KING: And in the final weeks of the campaign what he said I will repeal ObamaCare, I will cut regulations, when he gave a traditional republican speech, he stayed disciplined and you could close your eyes and forget the voice and it could have been Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio that Donald Trump was giving in the final weeks of the campaign.
That is when Mike Pence was running around the country saying republicans please come home. They did.
BLITZER: Yes, it's interesting. Hillary Clinton tomorrow is going to have to give a speech she dreaded. She gave it a number eight-plus years ago when she conceded to Barack Obama who won the democratic presidential nomination at that time. She concedes, spoke about the glass ceiling. She's going to have to do the same thing this time.
BASH: Donald Trump was extremely gracious and said he wanted to heal the country. And whether or not he is successful will begin with what kind of speech Hillary Clinton gives as the person who did not win and how when she tells her supporters that they need to get behind the president-elect.
BLITZER: Yes. He thanked her. He thanked her. He was very gracious for her service to the country over all of these years.
Our election coverage is going to continue nonstop right now. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota, they are going to be joining us on New Day.
[04:00:02] Remember, this has been a truly historic night. Donald Trump elected President of the United States.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
