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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Democrats Take Control of U.S. House, Republicans Keep Senate. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired November 07, 2018 - 04:30   ET

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

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, that's a great question. The Democrats in the Senate in particular, and the House, as well, they -- they really tried hard to run on health care.

[04:30:02] And if you look at the exit polls, the people who supported the Democrats put that as their top issue. It was overshadowed, if you look at the results in the Senate in particular, by other issues, namely immigration, which was named by Republicans as their top issue. Probably not a surprise since the number-one Republican, the commander in chief, was beating the drum big time on that issue. And because they felt like -- it is a winning issue.

So I don't know how much health care is going to -- going to continue to be something they talk about in the near term. In the longer term, meaning in the next two years, legislatively, 2020, you bet. That's all they're talking about as they try to, you know, as they begin to fight amongst themselves, the Democratic field, on the question of how far to the left to go.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Yes. If they can fall in love with incrementalism, and I know that there's different political cost benefit analysis on that -- and I know Don may accuse me of spending too much time in Michigan where they just passed the referendum for having this idea -- but if you can marry yourself to incrementalism, you see horse trading on the two issues.

So, on the Republican exits, you see immigration. Was that because Trump was pushing it so much, or because they have bona fides interests in that issue, we don't know. We'll see. That will suss itself out quickly.

But on that side, you're going to have to do something about how people are held on the border, OK. You have this caravan that's going to be here at some point. You have others like this. You have emerging issues of large-scale movements from Central and South America this way.

Not being able to deal with families effectively is a problem. The Flores settlement, we've talked about it and what it means, that you can't treat kids like adults. That's true. However, it puts a time collar on us to process cases as government, and it doesn't work.

So, there's a deal to be made about what we were talking earlier, moving this process outside our border, working cooperatively with Mexico, which means it stinks that we don't have a great relationship with them on that level right now, and also to allow families to stay together. That's one piece of a non-comprehensive immigration deal. But you could do that.

You could marry that on the health care side with doing something on pre-existing conditions. You could do something on pre-existing conditions. The ask from the Republican side will be that you got to help us with short policies and (INAUDIBLE) policies. You got to let us be able to --

BASH: I love that you're talking like an actual legislator. This makes sense in the --

CUOMO: I've spent a lot of time talking to these guys about it.

BASH: No, it makes sense in the era of Ted Kennedy and John McCain and when Orrin Hatch would do deals with them. That stuff happened because it is the art of legislating.

You are being optimistic like I was earlier --

CUOMO: You shamed me a bit. I felt like I had to change tone.

BASH: It's OK, it's worth it. I mean, it's worth it because this is actually really important. This is the way it used to work.

It didn't always work, but sometimes there was horse trading is looked as a negative, but it's not. It's legislating.

CUOMO: True.

BASH: Where can we come up with -- you give -- go two easy areas -- you give some, I'll give some. That means you have to shun the bases.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right. But that's -- that's maybe what Nancy Pelosi's dream is. That is not what the Democratic base wants right now.

BASH: Right.

COLLINS: Their energetic base that helped them win the House, doesn't want that. They want an impeached president. They want everything to be a referendum on him. They want Democrats to make him pay essentially.

They want the subpoenas, they want the investigations, they want the oversight. They want all of that. So, maybe Democrats do think that they should be able to compromise on that. Whether or not that's what their base wants, that's something they're going to have to work on.

Separately, I do think that the immigration part has been a big trial balloon for 2020. President Trump went really hard on that, of course, with the Senate races. We saw this have a much different effect in there than the health care did in those House races where we saw all the Democrats run on really hyper local issues.

They ran on health care, they ran on that, they tried not to bring President Trump into it. Meanwhile, on the Republican races we saw they tried to tie themselves to President Trump and make it more of a national issue. That worked in Indiana, Tennessee, Florida so far.

There are a lot of places that didn't work. So, the question is, is President Trump going to take the same immigration message we saw for the last two weeks, where it got to the point where he said he's putting out an executive order this week which still has not materialized on asylum changes -- are those real things he's going to do or things he threw at the wall to see if it worked. And is he going to try to do that again? If he proposed so many changes right before 2020, is he going to try to do it again --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. It begs the question of does he really want to fix it, or does he want to just point at this as a problem to --

CUOMO: If he has an executive order, it's proof he wants to continue the fight. He's got zero legal basis for it. It's not going to work.

[04:35:00] ypocrisy of what they did with DACA and Obama aside, legally, it's not going to get done.

All right. Let's take a quick break. We have races to update you on in the Senate and the House. We ain't done yet.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Some folks didn't get to sleep, others are just waking up. What are they going to find? Let's talk about that.

What's your takeaway, Marc, from this?

MARC SHORT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Again, a historic night for Nancy Pelosi. It's a significant night in the Senate for Republicans. I think it is going to be very different in getting confirmation, not just potentially with new picks in cabinet but also judicial. I think in the governors' races, the Republican did better than expected.

[04:40:01] LEMON: And on impeachment?

SHORT: On impeachment, I don't think Democrats really contain themselves. And the reason for that, Don, the congressman I'm sure can give perspective on this. In 2013, I don't know one elected Republican who said it's a good idea to shut down the government. The base was animated and frustrated that they felt Republicans needed to stand up to Obama.

LEMON: Yes.

SHORT: I think Democrats are in the same place.

LEMON: Congressman?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, the takeaway tonight is tale two of waves. There was a Democratic House wave, and a bit of a Senate Republican wave. Let's face it. I would tell you, what I've seen, the red areas of the country got

redder. The blue areas got bluer. The purple in the suburbs got a shade bluer. That's my take away.

LEMON: Go ahead.

SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think Democrats delivered in the house. They defended all of their gubernatorial seats, picked up additional gubernatorial seats and made gains in legislative seats across the country. And not to mention a number of ballot initiatives.

So, while I never thought we were going to take the Senate, I thought we would hold it better than we did, but I think it's a good night for Democrats. Going into the conversation about the next Congress and presidential primary, I think it has to be focused on the issues.

You have to look at the coalitions that came out to elect the diverse group of candidates. It was led by women. And what does the base want? The base wants some health care.

LEMON: Were surprised by anything, Kirsten, the number -- number of firsts, the number of women?

KIRSTEN POWERS, USA TODAY COLUMNIST: No. I wasn't surprised because I think there were so many women running this time actually. That's what's remarkable, that we're really spurred by Donald Trump.

There were a lot of firsts. I wrote down some. We have two of the first Latina congressmen, Marcia Blackburn, the first female senator from Tennessee. We have two Muslim women, one is a Palestinian American, first Palestinian American, first Somali American.

We have two first Native American women. We have -- I don't know if the race with Young Kim has been called, but that could potentially be the first Korean American woman in Congress --

LEMON: She's not been called.

POWERS: Yes, there's a lot of firsts. Exciting night for that.

LEMON: I would classify it this way -- a blue wave when it comes to the Congress, and a red wall when it comes to the Senate. Republicans picked up more seats in the Senate.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS EDITOR AT LARGE: Yes. So look at -- let's talk about the Senate because it's more manageable. If you looked at what we thought would be the most vulnerable seats on the first day of this election cycle, you would have said for Democrats, Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana, Montana, and West Virginia. Why? Those are the five states that Donald Trump carried by double digits.

At present, Democrats have lost Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana, they won West Virginia, and they're behind in Montana.

LEMON: What are you saying? CILLIZZA: What we expected has happened. The one state that Hillary

Clinton won that was represented by a Republican senator, Nevada. Dean Heller loses.

I mean, in some ways it's really, really predictable. We are further into our pockets of tribalism than we might have thought. The House --

LEMON: I was surprised by the consternation especially earlier in the evening among all of the pundits saying, oh, my gosh, I'm so upset. This is exactly pretty much what they said would happen. Democrats would win seats in the House. Republicans would win some seats in the Senate.

There are always upsets in every race. Were you surprised by the consternation? What's your takeaway?

APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, my takeaways basically -- I wasn't paying attention to other people -- I was looking at the polls. The polls led us astray in the presidential election. They were right on when it came to the House. The president, this president knew he was going to lose the House.

But he is safe, yet he has to go into that regret area and soften his tone. He's safe in the fact that, yes, the House could impeach him, but he's safe by the Senate because he cannot be removed -- they can't convict him. He will not be removed because it's Republicans.

But then also, he also has to listen to the will of the people. The people spoke out. They want change. They want to be included.

The new people, the new numbers that have come into this game or realm of politics, he has to pay attention to.

LEMON: Yes. Mark, we talked about whether it would be a blue wave or red wave or whatever. This is the way democracy is supposed to work. Now there's a check on the party that is in power now. Isn't it supposed to be that way?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's supposed to but not in the sense -- we're supposed to have the opportunity to vote and put the check in place if we so choose to do so. As an American people, we have so chose to do tonight. I mean, that's what we saw the last 24 hours in this midterm election.

I think, though, when we're looking at tonight, though, let's look at what's going to happen later today, what's going to happen down the road. And really nothing's going to happen.

(CROSSTALK)

[04:45:01] PRESTON: Good night, everyone.

(LAUGHTER)

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Tonight, Van Jones talked about it being a rainbow wave. I think that's the most interesting thing that's coming out tonight on both sides. You know, Young Kim, on the Republican side, and -- the fact is that you had so many younger and minority voters coming out, I think the question as we go forward is looking on the Democratic side among the 20 candidates, who can stitch together that coalition of millennials and women and voters of color.

Who among those candidates can do it? I think it's going to be a fascinating two-year debate that we're about to enter.

LEMON: Well, I will say this -- if you thought it was crazy and there were ups and downs in the past few years --

RESTON: Buckle up.

LEMON: You ain't seen nothing -- you ain't seen nothing yet.

CILLIZZA: Seven hundred and twenty-seven days away, Don, 727 dates away from 2020.

RESTON: It starts now.

LEMON: Listen, we're still not done. Actually, there are still races that are uncalled, and we need to check on those after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:50:22] CUOMO: All right. Eighteen seats remain open, 14 on the House side, four on the Senate.

Let's go through them very quickly with Phil Mattingly.

What did you see?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Let's start with that's outstanding, and that's Montana. We've been waiting to see with weather this ends up.

Matt Rosendale now up by about 4,600 votes. So, again, the question as it always is, is where this ends up? And can Jon Tester find a pathway to actually winning this race? There's four counties outstanding, less than 90 percent. They're all blue.

Tester has a little bit of vote to get here, not a ton but a little bit. Pull out, checking Great Falls, again, this is a place he's winning by almost 10 points. Still not a ton of vote.

I think the bigger problem for Tester, Missoula, this is Dem country. This is where he's opened up a 30-point lead, only 73 percent reporting. There's pathways here, too.

The big question right now, with 4,000 votes behind is can he rack that up. Again, 4,000 in Montana is a pretty good number of vote.

CUOMO: Yes. MATTINGLY: Right now, wow when you look at the county, these are Democratic counties. There's not a huge number of vote there. Jon Tester has a pathway, when you look at the map, it's just not a big pathway.

So, I think the question now is, where does the rest of the vote come in throughout the rest of the night?

Down in Arizona as well. Martha McSally currently holding the 14,000- vote lead over Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic challenger. Where is the vote standing right now? Pretty much all here.

That's a problem for Kyrsten Sinema, 82 percent reporting. Martha McSally has a lead of about 17 points. That's the problem if that's the only standing vote. We've been waiting on Maricopa almost the entire night. Sinema still holds the lead. The lead now less than a point, 99 percent reporting.

If this is a problem that's got a major vote outstanding, that's a problem when you look at the top line. Even though Kyrsten Sinema is outperforming what Democrats usually do --

CUOMO: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- in Maricopa County.

CUOMO: Close is only good in horseshoes.

So, here we are in Florida --

MATTINGLY: (INAUDIBLE) as well.

CUOMO: That's right, but not races.

All right. So, we've been watching this one and not calling it. Why?

MATTINGLY: And again, to the frustration of a lot of Republicans including I'm sure Rick Scott's camp. Here's the reason, look at this number differential right here.

In Florida, in the state of Florida, statewide race, there's a recount triggered automatically if it's within 0.5 points. That is currently within 0.4 points. The other issue is the outstanding absentee ballot.

As we talked about earlier, have to be stamped by today which means it will take a couple of days to actually count them. That might put it out of recount range. The reality is we want to make sure all votes are counted. We have a full understanding of the universe. Things before we call a race.

That's where things stand right there. That's why Florida remains uncalled.

Let's move to the House. I've been nerding out over the California races over the course of the last -- CUOMO: True, but we're 227-208 right now. How many open races do?

MATTINGLY: We have 14 open races. I think the big question is what would happen in California. If they were going to bolster their majority to 230, 232, what's outstanding right now, Democrats thought they would pick up four, maybe five seat. This is about to go on the board.

Mike Levin, the 49th district, 5,000-vote lead with 85 percent reporting. That's in pretty good shape.

Let's check on Dana Rohrabacher, right now, Harley Rouda, 2,700-vote lead, with 99 percent reporting at this point. He's in pretty good shape as well.

Bigger question, though, if you're Republican, you knew how many districts were at risk here, look at this, Mimi Walters, 6,000 votes ahead, 99 percent reporting. That's a great news if you're a Republican.

CUOMO: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Not a ton of great news if you're a House Republican tonight, in the House Republican Campaign Committee. You feel good about that. Move up one more -- you talk about new members of Congress, Young Kim running to replace her former boys, Ed Royce, up by 5,800 votes. She looks like she might be on her way to replace her boss.

CUOMO: The first Korean American woman in Congress ever.

MATTINGLY: Yes, absolutely.

There's a couple of other close races in California, but I want to check another one we've been waiting to come in throughout the course of the night. Right now, Washington -- this has not moved for a while.

Kim Schrier opened up the 11,000-vote lead. This is a district Democrats have been targeting for years. Dave Reichert is retiring Republican in this district, Democrats always thought they had the opportunity to take him out. Somehow he always survived.

The most fascinating thing about this district, it's the classic suburban-rural divide. You go on this area right here, all suburbs, anti-Trump, very resistance. Over here, all rural, very red. Both party thought they had good candidates.

Clearly, Democrats leading right now, but also a clear pickup opportunity. Again, what we're talking about here is not whether Democrats have the House. It's what the margin is going to be. And, Chris, when you look at California, and you look at Washington, it's clear Democrats have more opportunities, it's a question of how many they're going to cash in.

CUOMO: How much of the vote is in this race? Do we know? MATTINGLY: No, we don't know. We don't have the target right now --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: So, we'll see. As I was going to say, this is a bigger cushion than we're used to seeing in those races, but we don't know how much of the vote is in.

Phil, thank you so much.

All right. Look, I know that it seems, boy, you guys are dragging this out -- you have to, because if you get one wrong, it's a mistake you don't want to make.

[04:55:08] And a lot of these races, seven of them on the House side, are within a 1 percentage point margin. So, you got to take it easy.

Stick with CNN. And when we come back, we'll give you an update on where everything stands right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right. We're going to have coverage throughout the morning. One of the big questions is how many of us came out? How many of us voted?