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Trump Elected 47th President of the United States; CNN Projects Donald Trump Wins the Presidency. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 06, 2024 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So did Donald Trump just remake American politics yet again? The former president is now the president-elect after coloring in the blue wall MAGA red.

This is special live coverage CNN election morning in America, and we are still counting votes in some places, but the Electoral College math is certain. Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. He has 276 electoral votes, that's as of now, and it's almost certain to grow as we get closer to projecting, you know, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada. The popular vote, too, is tilting toward Donald Trump, and that would be the first time since 2004 that a Republican president-elect would come out ahead in the popular vote nationwide.

The math really leaves no doubt the country is saying it trusts Donald Trump to lead and to lead on a range of issues for the next four years.

Now, we have yet to see Vice President Kamala Harris yet today, but we do expect to see her at some point. And when we do, we will find out if she has called the former president to concede.

The new Trump era will begin with Republican control of the Senate. That much is certain. What is not yet known if the Republicans will maintain their majority in the House of Representatives.

Let's get right over to Phil Mattingly at the Magic Wall. You've been manning it for hours and hours, and we've been trying to process what happened and how it happened. So much focus on these swing states, the key battleground states. And you've had a chance to really dig in and see how and where. Things went Donald Trump's way.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you allowed me to leave the wall for 20 minutes, to take a break, which meant I went back to my office and pulled up the digital magic wall and started looking deeper into things.

BERMAN: Which everyone can do, by the way, at home, and I recommend you'd hop on your computer and check it out. Mine is cooler. I just want to make that very clear. Here's the interesting thing. We've spent a lot of time talking about the seven battleground states and the places where Harris underperformed, where Democrats need to run up vote, and where Trump overperformed and kind of his critical strongholds.

There were also a ton of counties across the country that were very close in 2020. In fact, I want to pull them up right now. And just to give you a sense of what happened in terms of Donald Trump's strength with close narrow margins that he ended up pulling out.

Now, again, this is full county, this is all 3,000 plus counties in the United States of America. So, the counties may look small. But every county you see highlighted red or blue, those are counties that were decided by two points or less in 2020. You see about three in Michigan, two in Wisconsin, two in Pennsylvania, a handful in Georgia, in North Carolina as well.

But across the country, what is the consistent color of all of the counties with the exception of two? Red. In the closest counties from 2020, separated by two points or less, Donald Trump won the vast majority of them. They broke his way. Not only was he able to run up margins in his stronghold counties and cut into Kamala Harris's margins and her stronghold counties, he was also able to pull out the closest counties back in 2020 and win them on a very, very consistent basis.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, every one of these counties were kind of the knife edge counties from 2020, and Donald Trump won every single one of them overnight except for those two tiny ones in blue.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and then some townships over in New Hampshire as well.

BERMAN: That's remarkable.

MATTINGLY: and I think that's just -- it's indicative of the fact that it's not just a margin game. In the close battleground counties, the counties that were decided by a few counties that had gone Obama to Trump to Biden, he brought them back.

And that's where I want to talk about Pennsylvania, dig a little bit deeper into here. Two of the counties that President Barack Obama won, that Donald Trump won in 2016, that Joe Biden won back in 2020, well, one of them is Erie, kind of a bellwether county back in 2020. Joe Biden was able to narrowly, and very narrowly, win this.

Back in 2016, Donald Trump was able to win this, kind of working class, blue collar. It's got some urban, elements of it, but mostly manufacturing, or former manufacturing, Trump able to win it back and actually add to the margin from where he was beforehand.

Most importantly though, and this is what I was kind of digging into back in the office, is we talk constantly about where Vice President Harris underperformed Joe Biden in 2020.

[09:05:07] Let's talk about where Trump overperformed. what he did in 2020. And right here is wild. These are counties that Trump was expected to win, and it starts right down here in York County. Donald Trump, 62 percent, Kamala Harris, 36.5 percent. This is a county Trump was expected to win. He won it by about a half point to a point more than he did in 2020. What about Lancaster County? 57 percent to 41 percent. What was 2020? Bumping up the margin a little bit. What about Berks County? 53 percent to 45 percent in 2020. What did he do in 2024? Bumping it up by a point, a point and a half. What about Schuylkill County? 70.6 percent to 28 percent. In 2020, he's at the 69 percent.

And I can keep doing this and I will as long as you let me. But every single one of these, this was 2020 in Carbon County, 32-point lead for Donald Trump, bumping it up a little bit.

And I think throughout the course of this kind of blue collar area that Joe Biden was able to chip away at Donald Trump's margins from 2016, Trump rested them back with a level of consistency that made it clear this wasn't just about Philadelphia. It wasn't just about the collar counties not exceeding their 2020 gains. This was about Donald Trump securing his strongholds and then doing better in some cases than he did even in 2020, John.

BERMAN: Consistent gains across the board, in the battlegrounds and beyond. Phil Mattingly, thank you very much for that.

Let's go over now to Harry Enten and talk about the exit polling there. And Phil hit on something a little bit right there, those counties that were in a knife's edge, the idea of the middle of the country. We talk so much about the ardent Trump supporters, the ardent Democrats. What about those people in the middle?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, we can go to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We can start off with Pennsylvania independent voters in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Look at this, Donald Trump with a seven-point margin. Four years ago, Donald Trump lost independents in Pennsylvania by a similar margin. So, a group that flipped in, of course, the all important battleground.

We kept saying Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. It was one in the center of the electorate by Donald Trump, but it's also the disenchanted voters. Those who did not vote back in 2020, look at this. Donald Trump here. winning among them by seven points. That's some young voters. There's some older voters who decided, hey, you know what? I didn't vote last time around. I am going to vote this time around. Those disenchanted voters came out and supported Donald Trump by as high single digits.

Then finally, how about we jump over to Wisconsin, which was the state that, of course, put Donald Trump over the top in the Electoral College. I remember that call that you made earlier on this morning. It was hours ago, but I still remember, it did not like either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Look at that margin, Mr. Berman, my goodness gracious, 67 minus 22, that's a 45-point margin. That was the key group. We always talk about the double haters. We talked about them in 2016. They weren't as big of an issue in 2020. But in this particular election cycle in which there was a majority of folks who didn't like Kamala Harris and a separate majority who didn't like Donald Trump, this neither group was the key group and it helped put Donald Trump over the top in the pivotal battleground state. of Wisconsin and gave him the presidency.

BERMAN: That's three to one, three to one among double haters in Wisconsin.

ENTEN: That's three to one. Three to one is a very hefty margin and ultimately in a state that was decided by the tiniest of margins, it was all Donald Trump needed.

BERMAN: Okay. Important stuff there. Harry Enten, thank you very much.

Let's go over to Kasie Hunt and her panel now. Kasie?

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: John, thank you.

So, the second election of Donald Trump, the ultimate symbol of his dominance in American politics and of the Republican Party just nine years after he descended that golden escalator in Trump Tower, just nine years, nine years after that, the grand old party is now unquestionably the party of Trump.

Joining us now to discuss is Fred Upton. He's a former Republican Congressman from Michigan, and he voted to impeach Trump after the January 6th attack on the Capitol and recently endorsed Kamala Harris. Congressman, it's good to have you with us this morning.

I just like to start with your reaction to the sweeping results of last night.

REP. FRED UPTON (R-MI): Well, it was a mandate and as I reflect about the different states and talking to a lot of voters and hearing from many of my former colleagues, inflation was the overall message. I mean, the price of bread, the price of eggs, the price of gasoline, people remember what they were and what they are today. And I think that economy and something that Harris could not differentiate herself from the Biden campaign when she was asked about the differences of what she would do, she really didn't have much of an answer that addressed those questions. And I think that was the deciding factor.

Look, we knew the race was going to be close in all the states. I think you all must have a Starbucks in the basement of your building watching CNN last night.

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But, you know, we knew from the start that Trump -- for Trump to win -- or for Harris to win, she had to win Pennsylvania, Georgia, or North Carolina. As it turned out that, she had to win a little bit more than that, but it was pretty close, still in a number of states, but it's over. A mandate is there. And now we have to support this president. We have to say it's time we deal with these issues, from certainly the border to inflation, the economy. Obviously, the world is watching. And somehow we have to come together as a country.

HUNT: Sir, how do you explain -- you know, you did as we mentioned, vote to impeach Trump in the wake of January 6th. And there was a period of time where it seemed as though the former president, soon to be president again, was going to be functionally exiled from the scene. What happened? And why did voters look at what happened that day and say, we want him to be president again anyway?

UPTON: Well, I think it's been four years and, you know, you look to the future, you do turn the page, you look to the future, you don't think about the past. And, you know, the economy was number one, I mean, it was inflation, it was the border, it was a number of things that were really at the top of the list, January 6th, and when you look at the whole list of issues was near the bottom, certainly four years later. And, you know, the voters made that decision, and we need to be comfortable with it and move forward.

HUNT: Sir, we had a statement this morning from Liz Cheney, who urged Americans to accept the results, but then also focused on institutions, and talked about the guardrails holding and the responsibilities of various people inside those institutions. Considering how Trump ran his campaign, what he said during his campaign, are you concerned about our institutions and the guardrails that they may put around another Trump presidency and whether or not those will hold?

UPTON: Well, I'd answer it this way. We still have a pretty much divided government. I mean, the Senate looks like it'll be 52 or 53. Obviously, Michigan is one of those races that's too close to call really at this point. But to get things done in the Senate, you got to have 60 votes. The House, I think it may stay Republican but it's going to be very narrow. And we're going to have to work together for Trump's agenda to move forward, for that mandate to move forward.

Yes, he's going to get his cabinet through as he should. But at the end of the day, we have to work together to try and solve these problems. And that's where the real call is going to come in terms of being able to actually deliver on the many things that he called for.

So, yes, we're going to have give and take a little bit. But at the end of the day, we know that these issues have to be solved and we, we know, too, that there's going to be an election only two years away. We're all glad that this one is over. But often the party in power at the White House loses seats in both the House and the Senate. He's not going to want that to happen as you look at eight years, seven and eight in this overall presidency,

HUNT: Sir, you have been, of course, out in your home state of Michigan. You have been talking to your neighbors, to voters. The division on display in this election is really remarkable. I mean, if you look at, you know, into our exit polling data, the number of people who, you know, approved of both of these candidates is down near 2 percent. The campaign that was run was an extraordinarily divisive one with Democrats, you know, warning that Trump would govern as an authoritarian, Kamala Harris at one point using the word, fascist. And, of course, Republicans Trump leveling sexist attacks as well. Is the country capable?

I know -- you know, I remember your time in Congress, you know, you were one of those who made friends across the aisle, who put your name on things with Democrats. That kind of work, you know, as someone who covered Congress for quite some time is really out of vogue. And what we're seeing in this election doesn't seem to indicate that voters are necessarily going to reward the politicians who do it in Washington. How do we solve that fundamental problem?

UPTON: Yes. Well, primaries are tough, for sure. I say that most of the people that I talked to weren't happy with the choices that they had yesterday. They would have preferred to have a different Republican maybe and a different Democrat to choose from.

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But that's the choice that they were left with, which is one of the reasons why I was very active in the No Labels movement, looking actually for a unity ticket where we'd have a Republican and a Democrat that are, that are running.

But, you know, this is what it is. And we know that to deal with the issues, and I was one that always worked across the aisle, I was a -- you know, I had the opportunity to work in the Reagan White House for 4.5 years, tremendously popular president, and he won 49 states when he ran for re election, because he worked with Democrats, and we had some tough economic times then, too. Inflation (INAUDIBLE).

HUNT: I think we may be losing our Congressman Fred Upton. Sir, I'm so sorry. You're breaking up pretty badly, but I want to say thank you to Congressman Upton for spending some time with us this morning.

Our panel is back with us. As much as -- you know, Donald Trump, to his credit, talked about, you know, he gave a relatively unifying speech, right, as he accepted -- you know, as he claimed victory. But the reality is the incentives in Washington are -- they often run the opposite way.

Scott Jennings, do you think this is, I mean, what Upton is talking about is at all possible?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, sure. I mean, look, if we got Trump in the White House and Republicans are going to control the Senate, I don't know what's going to happen in the House yet, it's possible Republicans will have it. It'll be a narrow majority either way. But there's going to be a lot of people for the next couple of years that can -- you know, if they're just moderately good at math, read the mandate that the American people just gave the politicians to go out and execute on. It's not all that complicated. It's please stop doing things that crush me in my daily economic life. It's please clean up the border. It's please make my community safe. It's please get the world under control. That's the mandate. And any of them ought to be able to look at that just as a raw political matter and say, my gosh, it would probably be in our best interest to work together to do this. So, look, I like Fred Upton. I think he was an honorable congressman and did a really good job. In this particular case, the American people sent a clear message about what they want and who they want to do it. And my idea would be that everybody needs to get on board with it. To rebel against it after what we saw on election night would be a political malpractice.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But the devil is in the details, as always. I mean, if, you know, if Donald Trump's version and Mike Johnson's version, as we've sort of heard them talk about in the week before the election, of doing things that don't, you know, crush people on costs is repealing the Affordable Care Act. Well --

JENNINGS: They're not going to do that.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I mean --

JENNINGS: They're not going to do that. He was quite clear that that is off the table.

Now, they might reform health care and they might increase transparency and they might do things that bring that, they are not going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It's not going to happen.

BEDINGFIELD: It's easy to say, you know, especially in the wake of a win, like the Republicans had last night, it's easy to say there's a political mandate to do these kind of broad based things, but we all know that when you get down to the details of what does that actually look like and how do you get enough votes to get that done, as Kasie said, the incentives run the other way for a lot of members on Capitol Hill.

And so, look, you know, as somebody who cares about this country, I'm hopeful that we will enter a period of bipartisan, effective working together. I think a lot of that is going to depend on how Donald Trump chooses to move forward in this moment. I have not seen a lot historically that suggests to me that he's going to move forward in the spirit of bipartisanship, but, you know, I guess we'll see.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And frankly, if we look to the last time he was elected, where we were waiting for this pivot that never came, right, that he was going to be more presidential and he was going to be more unifying, and it didn't happen. So, you know, when Kate says the devil's in the details, absolutely the devil's in the details. How this happens and what impact it actually ends up having on people, even the people who voted for him and gave him that mandate, it may not turn out to be the same as they anticipate.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Really, the incentive is to govern. People are experiencing real issues. They expect Republicans to govern at least center right-leaning. I think Democrats went way too far to the left on a whole host of issues, from cultural issues, economic issues, immigration, and the American people have said, no, we're not a leftist country. We're a center right country, and we want people with central right philosophical ideals to govern. And so to Scott's point, the mandate is to accomplish those things, figure out a way to address cost and the economy, figure out a way to address immigration so that most men who don't have college degrees aren't competing against illegal immigrants for jobs that they once didn't have to compete for 10, 15 years ago. And also make sure that our sons and daughters aren't going to foreign wars that are going to cost us a ton of money and lose a lot of lives. If they can accomplish that, that will be a success in terms of the mandate.

HUNT: Today, Donald Trump heading back to the White House. That's what we've learned.

Much more CNN special live coverage after this.

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BERMAN: All right. This morning, leaders from around the world reacting to Donald Trump's win. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among them, he congratulated Donald Trump on Twitter, writing, quote, he's hopeful that he and Trump can work together to bring peace to Ukraine.

For more now, I want to bring in the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor. Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.

Look, if you're a Ukrainian soldier on the frontlines right now, you've been fighting the Russians for two years, how do you feel this morning when you see the election news in the United States?

BILL TAYLOR, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: John, I think President Zelenskyy is exactly right. He needs the United States support and he needs the support from the president and from the next president. He needs bipartisan support from the United States in order to win against the Russians. And you're right, John, he's been -- I keep track, it's been 986 days that the Ukrainians have been fighting the Russians, 986 days. And we've been there to support him. President Zelenskyy is looking for that to continue. There's some reason to believe that that will continue, that there have been indications that that kind of support, certainly from the Biden administration in the next two months, but also from the next Trump administration.

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BERMAN: If you're Vladimir Putin this morning and you've been invading Ukraine, at least in this latest round for 900-some days, what are you waking up to this morning? How does this impact your decision?

TAYLOR: So, President Putin probably hopes that that he can get some lessening of support from the United States for the Ukrainians. I mean, President Putin has said that he doesn't think Ukraine even exists, so he can invade it and take it back and it into.

So, President Putin is trying to expand Russia. And the NATO alliance and all the indications that we've got that indicate that President Trump will oppose that, that is President Putin can hope for some kind of a lessening of support for Ukraine. But the United States has been very clear, the American people have been very clear, President Trump has indicated that he thinks that Ukraine is in the right here. They're not the ones that started this war. Putin started this war.

BERMAN: Just very quickly again, though, the Ukrainians, why should they believe that the level of U.S. support, as it's been, will continue like this?

TAYLOR: They don't know what the level of support is going to be. What they do know is that that support so far has been key to their ability to hold off the Russians. And they know that they're holding off the Russians is in the U.S. interest. We've said that. They understand that. It's in NATO's interest. It's in Europe's interest. But it's in our interests. And they expect that the next president will do things that are in the U.S. interest. So, they are looking for continued support to bring about a just and lasting peace.

BERMAN: Well, it may be in the U.S. interest. We'll see if Donald Trump believes it is in his interest or in the U.S. interest under a Trump presidency.

Ambassador, always a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you very much.

TAYLOR : Thank you, John.

BERMAN: So, a big question now that Donald Trump is headed back to the White House, will he get rid of the legal cases against him? I actually think that's a rhetorical question. I think the answer to that is yes. The question is not how many minutes, how many seconds will it take for him to get rid of the legal cases against him. We have much more on CNN's special live coverage right after this.

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