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CNN Live Event/Special

Awaiting Kamala Harris Remarks After Loss To Donald Trump. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 06, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGIST: But Trump is able to win the majority. I think that's the first time that I know of that any Republican has been able to do something like that in more than 30 years. So that was number one.

Number two is that young women under age 30 only represented 7 percent of the sample. For Harris to be successful, they needed to draw a major turnout because the spread there was almost 2 to 1 in favor of Harris. So you have to make that something bigger.

And third was the fact that in the end, abortion was a relatively low priority issue. She was dominating there. But that if it doesn't matter to voters, then it doesn't matter if one candidate has a tremendous lead. Those would be my three great takeaways.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Very important takeaways indeed. Frank, what's your biggest lesson for Democrats today?

LUNTZ: Tell people where you stand. Tell them what you're going to do. She did a wonderful town hall meeting with CNN. She should have stopped Anderson Cooper at the beginning and said to the audience, I want to tell you exactly what I'm going to do in the first hour, the first day, first week, month, 100 days, year, all of that. And then when she runs out of time Anderson wants to move on, she says to the crowd, do you want to hear what I'm going to do or do you want me to answer questions? And they would have cheered for her. And that would have put aside all this doubt about where she stands and what she wants to do. She could have done it at your town hall. She didn't. And she paid a big price for it.

BLITZER: A senior Harris campaign official told CNN, Frank, and I'm quoting now, Biden will hold a lot of blame for it. And frankly, he should, end quote. Do you agree?

LUNTZ: Well, in the end, she decided not to differentiate herself. And you could be supportive of someone and still say, I'm something different, I don't look like him, I don't sound like him. We have complementary points of view, but they're not identical.

And then she got a gun off and differentiated herself. Once again it was her choice to align with Biden that tightly. Was she loyal? Absolutely. Did it hurt her in the campaign? Absolutely. BLITZER: And when she was specifically asked if there were major

differences that she had over the years with Biden, she basically said she couldn't think of any. And you think that was a big cost to her?

LUNTZ: There was no reason for her to do that. The two most important issues in this campaign, one of them was affordability, not the economy, because in the end, people's jobs were OK. They were secure and people were making more money.

The actual issue of the economy was the prices, the cost of everything. And the other issue was immigration and overall personal security and safety. And on both of those, she had to get involved. She couldn't push it off. It's not enough to talk about health care and it's not enough to talk about women's health. She had to address those issues. She didn't, at least not until the end. And it was a big cost to her, again, because she didn't want to differentiate between herself and the president.

BLITZER: Frank, you're a pollster, a highly respected pollster. How reliable are these polls right now? Because so many people have been shocked by what has happened over the past couple days once the votes were actually counted.

LUNTZ: Well, the poll that changed the entire narrative for the last 48 hours was the Iowa poll. Wolf, I know you reported on it, giving Harris a three-point lead when in fact Trump won that state with double digits. That's not good. And it changed how the campaign was being talked about in the end.

And I know this is a shot in my profession we should do a little less talking about the polls and a little more talking about policy. And in the end, that will help the public, it will help the candidates, and it will make our democracy stronger.

BLITZER: Frank Luntz, it's always good to get your analysis. Thank you very, very much. And to our viewers, stay with CNN. Our special live coverage of Election Day in America continued. And we will have much more right after this short break.

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BLITZER: Welcome back. We're now just moments away from Vice President Kamala Harris first public remarks since her loss to now President elect Donald Trump. My panel is with me. And MJ, I know you're doing a lot of reporting on this. What do you anticipate she will say in the speech at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington, where a huge crowd is now gathering?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think that if you have been following the Harris campaign in some ways, this is going to sound like a pretty familiar speech. She's going to talk about respecting democratic institutions like last night's election, finding common ground, the need for the country to come together, all themes that she talked about a lot on the campaign trail. I am curious to see how she talks to the American people about

accepting as the next president somebody that she herself has called a fascist, somebody that she herself said did not respect the American democracy and has been taking the country backwards on everything from reproductive rights to other freedoms.

Needling that -- threading that needle, excuse me, I think is going to be in some ways a tough act for her because of how forcefully she has been speaking out against Donald Trump. And then I'm also just looking out for any clues that she might offer about her own political future. Maybe today's not the day, but does she say, I plan to be at the forefront of Democrats fighting back against Donald Trump's and the Republicans extremist agenda, which is what she talked about a lot.

BLITZER: Mark Preston, what do you expect to hear?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, again, I think MJ is right. She has to come out. She has to -- she has to sound presidential no matter what happens, whether or not she has any hope of running again. She has to show that she's a leader, someone who again, you know, that Democrats like really pillared for so long and said that Donald Trump is somebody who doesn't understand how to transfer the power of governor.

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She has to deliver that message in a way that is accepting to the nation, but also in a way that Democrats know that she hasn't given up. It is an incredibly tough tightrope to walk. And honestly, in the days ahead, the reaction from Democrats to everything that Donald Trump says, and vice versa, is really going to give us an idea of how difficult this is going to be to govern in Washington in the next year or two.

BLITZER: You know, Manu, this is going to be a very difficult speech for her to craft, to write and then to deliver, given the pain that she's clearly been going through over the past 24, 48 hours or whatever that's going on. What do you anticipate?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and also President Biden also talking tomorrow as well to, you know, I expect this would be, as you guys are saying, a pretty gracious speech. The question, though, to Mark's point, what is the strategy after today? Yes, today she'll reinforce the importance of a peaceful transition of power, a graceful exit for the scene and talk about the issues she cares about. I don't think she's going to call him a fascist. I would certainly be surprised about that.

But then what's the next step for the Democrats? They're going to have -- they'll have while they'll be the minority in the Senate, they'll have power to scuttle an agenda. They have power. And the minority in the Senate is very powerful since the Republicans will not have 60 seats in the Senate. So that means they will they try to fight everything at every turn, will they try to cut deals, even though if they are in the House minority still they'll have a robust minority. Mike Johnson, if he's the speaker, assuming he is, he'll have a small

majority, which means that he may to rely on Democrats. Are they going to Hakeem Jeffries is Democratic leader. Is he going to fight at every single turn or are they going to try to figure out a way to connect with those voters they lost in this election? Those are all huge questions in the weeks ahead.

BLITZER: Huge questions indeed. Everybody stand by. We have another CNN projection for you right now.

In the important state of Michigan, CNN now projects that Democrat Alissa Slotkin will win her Senate race against Republican Mike Rogers. This is a critical win for Democrats who've lost control of the Senate. In any case, she will succeed Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow, who's retiring. Take a look at the numbers. We'll put them up on the screen. There you see him right there.

Elissa Slotkin with 48.6 percent. Mike Rogers, 48.3 percent. 16,494 votes. She's ahead. Slotkin is ahead of Mike Rogers by, that's what, 97 percent of the vote now in. This is a big win for the Democrats.

RAJU: Yes. And she was able to appeal to Trump voters as a state that obviously Kamala Harris lost. This is an open seat. She represents a Trump district that Trump carried in the House. Mike Rogers, a former congressman, he was pretty critical of Donald Trump in the aftermath of January 6th. He changed his course completely aligned himself with Trump through the course of this campaign, tried to ride Donald Trump's coattails. It only went so far. And Slotkin able to succeed there.

Obviously another sigh of relief for Democrats while they're in the minority and they have to dig themselves out of the minority. It could have been a lot worse if this went with the top of the ticket. Now they're looking at a 58 to 48 minority right now at the least, but it could be 53, 47.

The Pennsylvania race is looking good for the GOP. Nevada, they're clinging onto a lead 54, 46. And then in the future election cycles, it's just going to get worse and worse. The map is going to be difficult for Democrats to get back into the majority, which is why each seat so significant, because in successive election cycles, one seat can make all the difference.

BLITZER: Congratulations to Elissa Slotkin on that win. MJ, you reported earlier that President Biden has invited former President Trump to the White House for a meeting. This is pretty extraordinary, too, given the bad blood that exists between these two people.

LEE: Well, but this is all a part of the peaceful transfer of power that we are talking about for the current sitting president to invite the incoming next president to the White House to meet and go through all of those processes that are typically in place.

Clearly the White House and this president is trying to send the message, doesn't matter what happened during this election. It doesn't matter how heated things were. It doesn't matter that Democrats largely ran on the other side. The guy on the other side, Donald Trump, having been someone that completely ignored in so many ways all of these traditions that are in place, we are going to stick to what we believe are the Democratic norms in Washington, D.C. and in our country.

And that again, is for the current president to accept and welcome in some ways, his -- the person that served in the White House after him and the person that he ran against back in 2012.

BLITZER: Clearly, President Biden and Vice President Harris, they're doing it -- the traditional way, honoring the process, the election process, and they're doing it right.

LEE: Yes.

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting, Mark, there are some Trump supporters who have actually lined up outside of Mar-a-Lago with their views. I want to listen to what one of them had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIIP)

ROBERT F. KENNDY JR., (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If vaccines are working for somebody, I'm not going to take them away.

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People ought to have choice and that choice ought to be informed by the best information. So I'm going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacies are out there and people can make individual assessments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you eliminate any of the agencies?

KENNEDY: Am I to eliminate?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That's not the soundbite but we wanted. That's RFK Jr.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON: But that's going to be a very important part of the Trump administration.

BLITZER: He's going to be a major player.

PRESTON: You know what's interesting about this is there's going to be discussion about, oh, RFK, you know, he'll never get confirmed by the United States Senate. Well, he doesn't need to be confirmed by the United States Senate. OK. Just like Elon Musk is not going to serve in the administration in a way where he's going to pull up a paycheck, doesn't need to.

All he has to do is have Donald Trump's ear. You could put anybody into one of these cabinet positions and just have them parrot what the president wants him to do. So you're going to see the likes of Bobby Kennedy there. Obviously, Elon Musk, even the likes of, get this, like Dana White from the UFC will have some influence.

RAJU: They're going to have all these unconfirmed, what they call czars to oversee policy. And Republicans used to criticize that. But I can expect there's going to be a lot of that in the Trump administration.

BLITZER: I suspect you're absolutely right. Guys, thank you very, very much. And stay with CNN. Our special live coverage continues with Anderson Cooper and Dana Bash right now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to CNN's special coverage of Election Day in America continuing. I'm Anderson Cooper. We are standing by for Vice President Kamala Harris to speak after conceding the presidential race to now President Elect Donald Trump.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: And I'm Dana Bash. Harris will be speaking at Howard University here in Washington, D.C. We are also learning Harris just spoke with Trump and congratulated him on his win and according to his senior aide, discussed the importance of a peaceful transfer of power.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is obviously a decisive win for President Trump with 291 electoral votes, Harris 223. And we still have four states to call, including the swing states of Arizona and Nevada. Of course, we'll bring you Harris's remarks when they happen in just about 15 minutes. But first I want to go to Abby Phillips and Jeff Zeleny who are at Howard University where Harris is going to be speaking. Abby?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Anderson, let me just set the scene here because Jeff and I were sitting in these very seats last night. As the night wore on, it was packed. There were thousands of people here, students, supporters, and the vibe was energetic and it was happy until the results started to come in.

And today this is exactly the opposite. And both Jeff and I have lived through another version of this when Hillary Clinton conceded the next day to Donald Trump, kind of like you see supporters here really coping in real time with what they went through last night.

But there is a sense, I think, today of resignation that wasn't there eight years ago with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, because almost everyone here understands what Donald Trump is and what he means. And they are sad, they are upset, but they are moving forward.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Abby, it's so interesting talking to voters here and supporters. It kind of breaks down on their age. I was just talking to a woman who has lived through a lot of elections, and she made that point eight years ago. She said it was unclear what type of a President Donald Trump would be, but now America knows. And she said America chose this.

And there were a lot of recriminations for what Hillary Clinton could have done. She believes, she just told me a few moments ago that Kamala Harris did everything she could have done and was really starting this race in the fourth quarter. So, look, we will unpack this for many months and perhaps years to come. President Biden, his decision, his timing sits at the center of all of this.

That phone call that President Biden and Vice President Harris had just a little bit earlier today, private. So interesting. But when you talk to these supporters, they are dejected, and they arrived yesterday in a jubilant mode.

PHILLIP: Yes. And I should note, Anderson, I mean, that phone call that Jeff is talking about this, Harris and Trump, they only met that one time on the debate stage. So they really have almost never spoken to each other in a setting like that. And for someone who ran a very strong campaign against Trump's character, that phone call would have been quite difficult.

But, you know, I was talking to some Harris supporters. They're all milling around here. They're going to be kind of front and center for her speech. Her aides, her campaign volunteers, her staffers, they've all come in, they're giving each other long hugs.

But there's a sense here that this is not the end. This is perhaps the beginning. I mean, Vice President Harris is young, relatively young, and she was the vice president -- she is the vice president now.

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This race did not work out, but there are a lot of people here who do not think that this is the end for her. Anderson.

COOPER: Abby, do you have any sense of what message she intends to convey in her concession speech? I mean, I'm sure we will hear about, you know, the support for a peaceful transfer of power.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, I was told she needed to take the time, frankly, to gather her thoughts. This is not just about her and about Trump. This is also about all of these people gathered here, all of the millions of supporters who are actually looking for someone to lead them in the way forward in a new Trump era. So I do expect that it's not just going to be about the passing from one candidate to another or one, you know, vice president to the incoming president. It's also going to be about what the future of the Democratic movement looks like going forward.

ZELENY: There's no doubt. I mean, Anderson, this is not the time for the deep introspection of the Democratic Party, but there will be soul searching and there is no doubt. Yes, Vice President Harris is young, but a question hanging over all this. Was she the best candidate? I think she was put in largely an impossible situation with 107 days.

But talking to her advisors, they will say that it was President Biden who sort of left her in this situation. But pointing back to that one interview she said on The View, would you change anything about your administration versus President Biden? That became an ad, and that was a singular moment here.

But I'm told that she is going to tell her supporters and ask them to accept the decision and to find common ground and to move forward even as they stand their ground on basic democratic principles. COOPER: Jeff Zeleny, Abby, Phillip, thank you. We'll come back to you.

And again, we're going to bring you Vice President Harris remarks live, of course. Joining me now here, CNN's Jamie Gangel and co- founder of Lift Our Voices, Gretchen Carlson. Jamie, I know you've been talking to sources in the campaign. What are you hearing from them?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So first thing is they say, absolutely, they misjudged this race. They misjudged Donald Trump. I think we all know also that Donald Trump didn't think he was winning this. So there was a lot of misjudging.

COOPER: When they say misjudge, do you have a sense of what they think?

GANGEL: They thought that what mattered was the gender gap, their ground game, January 6th, democracy. And what one source said to me was it was as James Carville said it's the economy, stupid. It's the inflation, stupid. And the other thing that both Harris campaign sources and Democratic sources have said is that Donald Trump cuts through with his message. He connects.

We may talk about Madison Square Garden, about the rhetoric, about insults, about violent rhetoric. Voters didn't care about that. One source, Democratic, a very senior Democrat said to me, voters wanted the guy with the bat, not the woman with the joy.

COOPER: Gretchen?

GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST: Yes, I mean, I was just going to say that I think that the numbers speak for themselves and they're startling. I mean, if you look at Gen Z, 18 to 29, Biden had them by a 25 point margin. Last night, Harris only had a 13 point margin. I mean, that's a dramatic slip, especially after Roe v. Wade and the discussion that so many young women on college campuses or not were going to be going out in droves to vote for Harris. And that apparently did not happen.

When you mix that in with Trump, then up 10 points with young men in that same demographic, that's where you lost a lot of votes. And then you can go to white women. I mean, Harris got less than Biden did four years ago.

COOPER: Yes.

CARLSON: And that's startling. So, was there a misunderstanding about the impact of Roe v. Wade? And I can understand how you would get there because look what happened in 2022.

COOPER: There was also so much talk about the ground game by Democrats. None of that in the end mattered, no matter how many doors were knocked. A lot to drill down on. Dana, up first, let's go back to you.

BASH: Anderson, I want to now go to Kaitlan Collins, who is in West Palm Beach, Florida. Kaitlan, I know you've been talking to your sources about that phone call between Vice President Harris and now President Elect-Trump. What are you hearing?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I mean, Dana, it to be a fly on the wall for that phone call between the two of these people after the campaign that we've seen playing out over the last several weeks and months, ever since Harris became the top of the ticket. I'm told it actually only lasted just a matter of minutes where Harris was calling to congratulate Trump on his victory, to say that she looks forward to working on a transition, a peaceful transition of power.

In turn, I'm told that Trump was actually quite complimentary of her. The Trump campaign is saying on the record in a statement that he praised her tenacity and her professionalism.

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I'm told by someone familiar with the conversation that he was actually quite flattering to her during that call. That's not totally surprising given we've seen how Trump has acted towards other former rivals once they are no longer his rivals even, you know, in the Republican primary with people like Governor Ron DeSantis.

And so just a remarkable call between the two of them. And I think it's worth noting that she is affording him what one thing that he did not afford, the incoming Biden-Harris administration, which was saying that he would commit to a peaceful transition of power.

President Biden today inviting former President Trump to come and meet with him at the White House during their phone call and Harris pledging to work forward on that transition. And as far as what's happening here in Palm Beach today, obviously they are on quite a high from that victory last night bigger margins than they ever expected just a little over 24 hours ago, and the jockeying process is already underway when it comes to a Trump transition.

He has basically been on the phone all day long with business leaders, tech leaders and a lot of Republican lawmakers and some Democrats even talking about what this next few weeks is going to look like as part of this transition process.

One thing I will note, they still have not signed these ethics agreements that an incoming transition team usually signs even before the election has happened. The Trump team has not done so yet. We'll see if last night's victory changes that because obviously that's a very critical process that has to get underway.

And if you remember when Trump won in 2016, that was quite a moment there where they had this plan ready to go organized by Chris Christie. And in the days after that surprising 2016 won victory, they kind of threw it all out of the window and started from scratch.

We'll see if that's the case here. But just a remarkable moment to have that conversation between Donald Trump and Vice President Harris, even if it only was just a few moments. Dana.

BASH: If my memory serves correctly, I think they actually literally threw Chris Christie's transition plan in the garbage can. Thank you so much for that reporting, Kaitlan. I appreciate it.

I want to move here to talk about what we expect in moments from Vice President Harris. Matt Mowers is a former Trump administration official is here, CNN's Boris Sanchez, former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, who supported Vice President Harris, Jamal Simmons, former communications director for Harris and Brenda Gianiny, excuse me. A Republican pollster. Thank you so much, one and all, for being here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it's great. Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

BASH: Can you sell it a little better? I just want to go to the beginning of what Kaitlan was reporting and just sit on it for a second. And that is, we cannot take for granted anymore the notion that a person who loses the presidency pick up -- picks up the phone and calls the person who won to concede and say, I wish you well. We're going to hear, obviously, more what she's going to say in public.

But that phone call, not only did it not happen, as you know better than any of us, because you actually investigated what happened on January 6, it led to so much -- so much disinformation, so much misinformation, and then actual bloodshed. Talk about this moment now for us as a democracy.

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, this is really important, and especially given. I mean, look, it was obviously a very tense campaign. Kamala said some things about Trump that was hurtful to him. He said things about her that was hurtful. But for her to pick up the phone, make that call and say, look, we respect this transfer of power. You'll have full cooperation from the Biden administration. I think it's really important.

And it's also, look, around the world there's a lot of scared countries right now looking at, you know, Donald Trump coming back. They can look and say, OK, we know that transfer of power is going to be peaceful. And I think it puts a lot of people at ease, and it helps to heal the country. Look, we can disagree with Donald Trump winning. We maybe not wanted him to win, but we should all agree that we want to heal the country as much as possible. And this is step one.

BASH: So on that note, Jamal, you know the vice president well. You worked for her. As we are a couple of minutes away from her beginning, we are told that she is actually there. She's arrived at Howard University. What is not only going through her mind right now, and what, more importantly, do you think that she is going to want to convey?

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, she is. She's very businesslike. She can be very businesslike, not sentimental. So I imagine in this, that conversation was very businesslike, and she got it done. One of the reasons that's true is you have to remember she was a prosecutor. She dealt a lot with families that were in real crisis and real turmoil. BASH: I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just want to, as you're talking.

Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker, on camera. I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say that Kamala Harris was the nominee and not Joe Biden because of the work that she did behind the scenes and even in public to change the top of the ticket. Go ahead, Jamal.

SIMMONS: Yes. No. And as a prosecutor, she would talk about conversations that she had to have with families who were in real turmoil. Somebody died. A child was abused.

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And so I think in a moment like this, she puts herself back in that space of having to have those kind of tough conversations.