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Trump to Hold Press Conference on Elections; Dems Take House, Some Races Still Outstanding; Stacey Abrams Demands Recount Before Conceding Georgia Gov's Race. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 07, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also hard to tell what exactly happened last night, because there are mixed messages in the absolute extreme, giving both parties something to cheer.

[07:00:09] We just learned that the president will talk about the election at a White House press conference. That's at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Of course, CNN will cover that live.

He has already declared what he calls a big victory, but the reality is far different from that, because he's going to have to deal with a major change in the power structure of Washington.

Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, breaking the Republican monopoly here. They've already picked up 28 seats. There are still about a dozen races out, still being counted. So their majority could grow even more over the next hours, and we are counting those votes over the next few hours.

The big point for Democrats, they're very much now in the game.

CAMEROTA: And by the way, these numbers are still fluctuating. We're still getting some results. But in the Senate, the GOP not only held the majority. They added to it. Many of the winners were found in the states where President Trump visited in the final days of the campaign and held those rallies.

Some key races in the Senate are still too close to call this hour. Razor-thin margins in Florida, Arizona and especially Montana, where incumbent Democrat, John Tester, has closed a deficit that was bigger when we first came on, on NEW DAY this morning. So that number keeps changing.

One thing is for certain. Americans did get out and vote in a historic number. That was an estimated 113 million people voting in these midterms. That's nearly 49 percent of all registered voters, and that doesn't sound like a big number, but it is. Votes are still being counted.

So let's get right to the latest numbers.

CNN's Phil Mattingly has been up all night. He has some updated results for us -- Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn.

I want to zero in right on those Senate races that are still outstanding right now, because the question is not is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell going to continue to be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but how big will his majority be?

And one of that question is what's happening in Montana. Jon Tester is the incumbent Democrat. As you noted, when we started a couple of hours ago -- it seems like a couple days ago at this point -- Matt Rosendale was up by about four or 5,000 votes. That's now sitting in about 1,600 votes. That's a lot in Montana, given the fact there's 94 percent in, but here's the key.

Look what's still outstanding now. You've got five counties that are still outstanding. All of them are Democratic counties, including two of the three largest counties in the state.

Look at the margins in these counties. Jon Tester winning Missoula by about 31 percent at this point in time. Jon Tester winning Gallatin County by 21 percent at this time. So there are opportunities and pathways. You talk to Democrats, they feel like Jon Tester has a real opportunity here.

We're going to have to keep a very close eye on that one. Still continuing to fluctuate. But another one we've been keeping an eye on, Arizona. This has been pretty static over the course of the last couple of hours, with Martha McSally hanging onto her 14,500-vote lead over Kyrsten Sinema.

Most of the vote that we've seen is in, and the interesting element is probably here, right here, Maricopa County, biggest county in the entire state. Kyrsten Democrat -- Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat, is actually leading in this county and yet is still trailing statewide. Still waiting to see what else could come in there.

But the fact that she's leading in Maricopa and trailing statewide, that's something that's got Democrats worried. Republicans feeling pretty good about where they stand in this race.

Move over to the other outstanding race right now. It's Florida. The reason why it's outstanding, take a look at the margins. Point four percent separates Rick Scott and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson.

The reason why it's still outstanding, .5 percent is the trigger for state-wide runoff in the state of Florida. There are still provisional ballots to be counted, still absentee ballots from militaries serving overseas to be counted. That's what the decision desk at CNN is waiting on right now.

We'll see what happens when those come in. Could be a run-off. Have to wait and see.

The other issue, obviously, the other thing everybody's paying attention to is what's going on in the House. And as you noted, Alisyn, there's still a couple dozen races. Actually, about a little more than a dozen races that are outstanding there. And I want to look at some of those real quick.

These are the uncalled pick-up opportunities right now. These are what we're focused on. It's about 13 races still outstanding. Take a look at where Democrats stand and where Democrats have new opportunities. One of the biggest focuses has been on California. Democrats thought maybe they can pick four. Maybe they can pick up five. Maybe six. On a great night, where they stand right now, they've got three races that they're leading in. Some of them are razor-thin.

One of the most interesting ones, though, since we started, Katie Hill was up by about 250 votes two hours ago. Now she's up by about 2,500. Top-tier Democratic candidate. That's something Democrats feel very good about, a pick-up opportunity there. Have to keep an eye on how the rest of these come in over the next couple of hours.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil, thank you very much for keeping us up-to-the- minute. We'll check back with you.

Let's bring in now David Gregory. We have Nathan Gonzales, Anita McBride and Jim Messina joining us.

Great to have all of you here at the table with us to help us try to figure out what happened last night.

So big picture, David Gregory, the fact that there's a divided result with Democrats taking the House, Republicans taking the Senate and the fact that some things are so close, as Phil Mattingly just laid out. What does all this mean?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think there's revenge and there's resilience. For Democrats, out of the doldrums of 2016, they took the House of Representatives back from Republican control; and they did it in a strong economy.

[07:05:07] OK, it shows you that, on the strength of that weakness for the president among suburban voters Democrats made a strong statement.

The resilience piece is that the president actually helped Republicans build on their majority in the Senate. He locked in a lot of his supporters on the back of his caravan message, on a hardline immigration stance.

And the Kavanaugh factor was big. It united the Republican Party, kind of all wings of the Republican Party in a big way. I think that's a big factor.

But for -- for both sides of that, remember, now you've got two years with Democrats in the House in control with subpoena power. They're going to make the president's life very difficult. That could be good for them. It could also be good for the president, who will be fighting against it.

BERMAN: You know, Nathan, you watched these races so closely, and it's a pretty substantial victory. And they have some pad here. This isn't a one- or two-vote edge. They're getting some pad as these races come in, and we're still counting in California.

I think it's amazing that we're still counting, as we're now at 7:05 a.m. Eastern Time, Nathan. But what do you see here? Some surprises: Charleston, Oklahoma, Kansas City.

NATHAN GONZALES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, there was some -- it looked like the magic number was 23, and looks like they're going to land between 30 and 35, which is a substantial number.

And I think we saw Democrats win in a lot of places they should have won. I mean, you mentioned the upsets in some more Republican-leaning territory.

What they won in these suburban districts, where the president wasn't particularly popular, where I think the immigration message didn't play similar, as well as what it did in the Senate races.

And so we're seeing the sorting. And I think for Washington, when we look forward, what does it mean for Capitol Hill? You have fewer -- you're going to have fewer Republicans representing Democratic districts. You're going to have fewer Democratic senators representing Republican states, and there's going to be less incentive for them to work across the aisle based on their constituency.

BERMAN: There's a word for that: gridlock.

GREGORY: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Anita, as a Republican, what lessons do you take away from this morning?

ANITA MCBRIDE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I'm really wondering now at the White House when they're waking up this morning how -- what they're thinking about this new reality. And I'm going to be very interested to hear what the president says.

I remember the day after 2006 when George W. Bush said this was a thumping. This is not exactly a thumping, but because I think that the numbers, you know, are obviously very good for the Democrats in the House.

But what will that mean for what they can get done? Can they find something that is resonating with everybody?

The prescription drug issue, I think, has been one that President Trump has been very good about talking about; and Nancy Pelosi said it last night, as well.

CAMEROTA: So to avoid gridlock, there are some things --

MCBRIDE: To avoid gridlock they should find something.

CAMEROTA: Bipartisan progress should be able to move forward.

MCBRIDE: That they can work on together. And I would be interested to hear if the president puts out a little bit of an olive branch -- CAMEROTA: He called Pelosi.

MCBRIDE: He did, which was very good, and I remember President George W. Bush called her and invited her and her husband over to dinner, like right after she became the first the first female speaker of the House, and Italian-American, by the way, which was great.

And so, again, that sign was very important. And they tried to do something big with immigration. And unfortunately, that failed.

GREGORY: But it's interesting how different that time in the country was. 2006 really represented the light left in this country, mobilizing against the war in a way that they didn't in 2004. The winds of change were so strong at that point that it ultimately propelled Barack Obama into office.

Here I think you see this realignment where the polarization is so deep culturally, philosophically, that I think our future is a little different.

BERMAN: Let me say one thing. I would be shocked if the president came out and said, "We had a thumping in the House." He's not. I would be shocked if we heard anything.

MCBRIDE: He won't. And he'll take credit for everything that happened in the Senate and will probably take no responsibility for the losses in the House.

CAMEROTA: We already have a tweet where he's saying that foreign leaders are calling to congratulate.

MCBRIDE: Yes, I know. I know. I heard that.

BERMAN: I think the big victory side of it, which is a risk for him going forward. Not recognizing what happened to him in these House races, that's a risk.

Jim, I want to bring you into this discussion, but before you address this issue, you have eyes and ears all around the country in some of these Democratic races. Jon Tester, we've been watching that race very, very closely. You really do think, even though he's down 1,600 votes, he's got reason to be optimistic.

JIM MESSINA, CEO, THE MESSINA GROUP: Yes, look, I'm a Montana rancher, right? My wife is sitting at the vote headquarters right now. We have enough votes in Missoula, and Jon Tester will be reelected in the United States Senate.

He is -- never gotten 50 percent. He's always been very close. He will continue to be.

I want to talk about 2020 for a second, because the one thing we haven't talked about is the major realignment on the blue wall states. Democrats just took the Michigan governorship. They took the Wisconsin governorship. And if you look at the results, the Republicans wanted to put some of those Senate seats in play. None of those were in play.

If you wake up this morning and you're Donald Trump, you look at 2020 and start to say how does my math, 270 electoral votes, look? It looks very hard. If he can't, to your point, solidify some of these suburbs where he did well in 2016 and just got slaughtered in 2018.

GREGORY: Yes. You know, and think about -- think about what he's got to do on that. Is he going to moderate on immigration? I don't see him doing that.

MESSINA: No way.

[07:10:08] GREGORY: That's a lock in his base. And by the way, I mean, I hope it's not the case, but he could be looking at an economic downturn. And certainly, the market gyrations have been unsettling, right? They could hurt you, because otherwise, you'd want to be talking about the economy.

MESSINA: Well, and he wants to go out and talk about the economy in the Midwestern states where they don't feel markedly better. Swing voters are still working two and a half jobs and looking out there and saying, "What are you talking about the stock market? We don't have stock. Our lives have gotten harder." You know, the blue wall is going to be real again in 2020.

CAMEROTA: Jim, one more question for you about 2020. Where President Obama went out to campaign and hold rallies, did that help? Did that work? Will he do that again leading up to 2020?

MESSINA: I think it depends on where, right? People forget no Democrat carried Virginia until Barack Obama did. It's now a blue state. We now have every single office.

We now have control of seven complete states and legislative chambers and governorships that we didn't last night. And President and Mrs. Obama, people forget Mrs. Obama is the most popular political figure in America. They both were out there all the time, the president finished in the three pick-up opportunities in Virginia yesterday. And we want two, and it looks like we might win a third.

So he had a very good impact. I think he had a better impact in the suburbs than Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Nathan, you look at the turnout, 113 million voters. And it may go up from that. That's just the preliminary count we're getting. Way higher than 2014 and 2010. You know, it's great. Yay, democracy. It's not totally clear who it helped everywhere. In a state like Florida, it may have been decisive for the Republicans.

GONZALES: I think maybe the media got a little bit enamored with Democratic turnout and looking at lines in specific demographic groups that don't normally vote in midterm elections. But I think when you have that large of a number, your turnout was up across the board, you know, that it wasn't just Democrats who were turning out in greater numbers. It was Republicans, as well. Maybe as a reaction to what they were seeing on TV, Democrats being so enthusiastic. BERMAN: The president, does he deserve some credit for turning out these voters in the places he went. Many of the states, not all, but many of the states he went, you know, Missouri, Tennessee, he's got big wins?

GONZALES: I think the president deserves credit for turning out everyone. He turned out Republicans for Republican candidates. He turned out Democrats for Democratic candidates. Democratic turnout wouldn't have been as high as it was without President Trump.

GREGORY: Is there a polling problem, though? I mean, are we -- are we seeing a polling problem with regard to how -- what the spreads look like? And is there a hidden Trump vote? I mean, I heard Frank Luntz say that there's two or 3 percent of supportive Trump numbers out there that are -- that are not showing up in polls before the election.

CAMEROTA: What's the answer, Nathan?

GONZALES: I actually think the polls were pretty good. I mean, the margins in Indiana were surprising. The margin in Missouri was surprising, but those were trending toward Republicans. I mean --

GREGORY: But you feel you guys --

(CROSSTALK)

GONZALES: Our House and Senate projections were pretty good.

MESSINA: You can't look at all the Andrew Gillum numbers and think polling is OK. You can't look at the turnout estimates in some of these states. No poll figured out the -- but the turnout estimates, no one had 113 million voters, right?

Once again, polls are broken; and we should stop being so focused on them and start looking at actual data. And you could start to see in the early votes, there was -- to Nathan's point, real turnout to both sides. It wasn't just this blue wave that people were saying.

BERMAN: I will say Harry Enten, who does our forecast for us, nailed it on the House. Like, he really hit it exactly right on the House forecast, looking at the polls and other ratings there. Onto the Senate it was well within what he said the range would be.

Andrew Gillum, in the CNN poll that came out last week, was leading by one point. He lost by less than a point. So that's well within the margin of error, also.

Anita, you know, I'm struck. George W. Bush, when he was president of the United States, the Republican Party was the party of the suburbs, among other places. I chased him around the country for a year, and we went to ton of suburbs. David was there, carrying my bags for me.

MCBRIDE: Yes. No -- no, I --

BERMAN: But that -- that seems to be slipping away from the Republican Party.

MCBRIDE: Yes, and I think that President Trump has had a bit of reluctance in accepting the fact that he is the head of the party. I mean, he actually came in sort of thwarting what the Republican Party was.

I mean, and to your point, as well, the Kavanaugh hearings helped to galvanize a lot more Republican voters behind him. But it is changing. And to Virginia, for example, I think one of the saddest things about last night is losing one of the hardest-working women in Congress, which is Barbara Comstock. I am sure Jennifer Wexton will be great, but I think that that was really unfortunate. And those suburbs are changing.

GREGORY: The only thing you say about Trump is -- and you were the guy with the ball cap on the laptop all the time? I saw you in the corner a lot.

I do think the thing about what's different here is that, you know, Trump is the manifestation of the failure to solve the immigration problem, a reaction to, you know, the financial crisis. Such a different leader, obviously, than Trump. But the conditions are so much different now, which --

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stand by. We have much more to talk about. Coming up on NEW DAY, we're going to speak to some winners, including Congressman-elect Dan Crenshaw of Texas; Michigan Governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer; Congressman-elect Kendra Horn of Oklahoma; Mike Espy, who's in a run-off for Mississippi Senate. And we'll get a preview of the president's press conference from Kellyanne Conway.

CAMEROTA: We'll also have some new numbers.

OK, Stacey Abrams is behind but not conceding in Georgia's heated governor's race. At this hour, she trails the Republican, Brian Kemp by -- I don't know if these numbers are updated to the second -- 68,000, but she wants a recount.

So Nick Valencia is live in Atlanta with more, with the updated numbers.

Nick, what do we know?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, we all expected this race to be close. And here we are a day after the election, and we officially still don't have a winner declared.

Ninety-nine percent of the precincts are reporting, and there is a gap of roughly 68,000 votes, as you mentioned, between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, who is in the lead. He surpassed that 50 percent threshold, but Stacey Abrams believes that she has enough support in absentee ballots that are still being counted to bring Kemp below that 50 percent threshold, enough to force a runoff.

What she is counting on is metro Atlanta, which is part of her progressive base. She's hoping she has enough ballots to force that December 4 runoff. Yesterday, speaking to supporters, she sounded confident, but so did Brian Kemp.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY ABRAMS (D), GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Votes remain to be counted. There are voices that are waiting to be heard. Across our state, folks are opening up the dreams of voters in absentee ballots, and we believe our chance for a stronger Georgia is just within reach. But we cannot seize it until all voices are heard.

BRIAN KEMP (R), GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: We are waiting on the final results, but I'm confident that victory is near.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: -- didn't name any names but alluded to saying that there are people hard at work, trying to keep our voice away, alluding to allegations that she made against her counterpart, to Republican Brian Kemp, of vote suppression. He is the secretary of state. In that position, he oversees elections. He maintains the voter rolls. And there was an estimated 47,000 pending voter registrations that disproportionately affected African-Americans and Latino voters. Because of that, Abrams called him a vote suppressor. He denied those allegations.

Abrams digging in, saying she is not going to concede until all those absentee ballots are counted -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Just one of the races we're still watching. We are still counting votes in some places.

Democrats, they will control the House of Representatives. What will they do with their newfound power? We're going to speak to the head of the Democratic National Committee coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:36] CAMEROTA: So Georgia's race for governor is still getting a lot of the attention, but Democrats did manage to flip at least six seats from the GOP. Republicans managed to hold key seats in the Midwest.

So CNN's Phil Mattingly is looking at all of this. He has all of the up to the second election results for us -- Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn. Democrats obviously flipping at least six seats. That's great news, especially given what happened to the party on the state level over the course of the prior decade or so.

There's one race, though, that is particularly getting under the craw of Democrats, and that's Florida, where Andrew Gillum, considered really the future of the Democratic Party -- still could be, but he won't be doing so in the governor's mansion in Florida. Losing to DeSantis 49.7 percent to 49 percent. That was clearly a disappointment to a lot of Democrats I was talking to. They loved the campaign he ran, loved what he might have meant for the future. He will not be governor of Florida.

There's another one. We talked about Georgia. We also need to talk about Ohio, where Mike DeWine ended up winning that race, the Republican, running about 4 points ahead of where Richard Cordray was. Democrats had their eyes on this. They did very well in the U.S. Senate race in the state of Ohio. They were not able to flip the governor's race.

But here's where they were able to flip, and I think this is important to point out. When you look at Michigan, when you look at Wisconsin, where Scott Walker has been a Democratic target for what seems like years now, two races and a recall. They were able to flip that seat, as well.

Those are key pickups for Democrats and key flips, as well. You flip Illinois, as well. That's good news for Democrats when you look on the net.

Here's the one thing that I think people are a little bit concerned about right now. They also could have had an opportunity to pick up Iowa. They weren't able to do that.

In total, when you look at what they were able to do, not just because people look at these races and think, hey, 2020 statewide presidential, what it means 2020 for redistricting. The rewriting of legislative maps. Democrats' ability to narrow the gap between governors' mansions, Republicans and Democrats, by six, maybe seven seats is important.

And John, this one is for you, because I know you were very keen on this all night. Connecticut has been hanging out there, a very Democratic state, wanting to know how this was going to end up. Finally, East Hartford and Hartford have reported. We're still waiting for New Haven to come in. However, the Democrat, Ned Lamont, has taken a bit of a lead with 99 percent reporting. It looks like it's likely to stay in Democratic hands, but I'll keep a close eye on it for you.

BERMAN: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.

Important to note, we are still counting in some races; some still very, very tight and some big calls still to come over the next few hours.

Joining us now, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the former secretary of labor, Tom Perez.

Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for being with us.

TOM PEREZ, CHAIRMAN, DNC: Good to be with you.

BERMAN: Is it glass half full, glass half empty, or just half?

PEREZ: I'm very -- I'm very pleased. I mean, we now have the House. We -- I think we'll end up with about 230 seats in the House. I might be off by one or two either way. I had, actually, seven flips in the governor's mansions. I had

Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nevada, Kansas, New Mexico and Maine. Four women, again, yesterday was clearly the year of the woman. And we saw that well.

We flipped seven state legislative chambers, and the mission of the DNC and Democratic Party is electing Democrats up and down the ballot. And when you flip these state legislative chambers, to get back to your conversation about redistricting, that's very real.

And -- and winning in places like Wisconsin and Illinois and then Tom Wolfe won resoundingly in Pennsylvania. I mean, we're fortifying, again, that blue wall moving forward.

BERMAN: And that is a very glass-half-full analysis. And taking the House is a big deal. Any way you look at it, that's a big deal.

However, there were some very high-profile races that Democrats around the country, particularly newer voters, really wanted to win. And you look at Florida as ground zero for that, Andrew Gillum. What do you think happened?

[07:25:07] PEREZ: Well, hey, I want to win every race, so -- and I was down in Florida Friday, Georgia Saturday. And we have to continue to do what we're doing in the sense of organize, organize, organize. We were able to turn out young voters. We were able to turn out --

BERMAN: But why not enough? Why not enough, given -- given, you know, either running against the president, you thought you had a good environment. Why not enough?

PEREZ: Well, I mean, turnout was up on both sides. And so when you look at the modeling that was in place, I mean, we turned out more voters than ever before; and we've got to keep working at it.

I mean, one thing that we're going to continue to do, and I see progress both in Georgia and in Florida on this. Again, it's been, I think, 24 years since a Democrat won Florida. So it's a tall order. And in Georgia, it's been a similar amount of time.

BERMAN: You said you turned out a lot of voters there, and you did. Do you acknowledge, though, that the president is very successful at turning out his own voters? Is he a political force that you've figured out to reckon with?

PEREZ: Well, I mean, the politics of fear are -- that's his playbook, and the politics of fear can motivate people. There's no -- there's no doubt about that.

And what we have to do is continue to build these relationships with voters, not just in the three-month run-up to an election, but 12 months a year. And that's -- that's exactly what we're doing. And we're going to continue to do that in Florida. We're going to continue to do that in Georgia. I share Stacey Abrams's concerns about, you know, the continuing efforts to make it harder for eligible people to vote, mostly people of color. And that's not who we are as a nation.

BERMAN: You got the House. What's priority No. 1?

PEREZ: Health care. Making sure we protect coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. A robust infrastructure bill that puts people to work in good middle-class jobs across this country. Making sure that we work together with stakeholders on that. We have to make sure that we invest in public education. We heard that.

And we have a governor in Kansas in no small measure because, under Republican leadership, Kansas starved public education. And I see that across the country. And those are three priorities. And we're going to work on the DREAM Act.

BERMAN: Where does -- where does oversight of the executive branch fit in? I spoke to Connor Lamb earlier, congressman from Pennsylvania. He says he doesn't really want to see the president's tax returns. How important are they?

PEREZ: I think oversight is important in the sense that right now, the system of checks and balances is nonexistent. Look at all the cabinet secretaries that have been involved in wrongdoing and not an ounce of oversight from the Republicans. I mean, that's unconscionable. This is taxpayer money that is being wasted.

BERMAN: So we can expect hearings?

PEREZ: I'm sure we'll expect hearings, because we -- we have a constitutional duty of oversight in the U.S. House.

But at the same time, your first question was very, very relevant. We're going to fight for the issues that people care about. We won the House, and we won all these governorships. And again, it's been, I think, 25 years since one side won seven governorships in one race. And we won because we're focusing on the issues that people care about.

BERMAN: The president has a news conference at 11:30. If he reaches out his hand and says, "I want to work with the Democrats," what will you say?

PEREZ: What Nancy Pelosi said last night. Of course we want to work in a bipartisan fashion. I think we can get an infrastructure bill. I think we can -- they -- actually, if you look at the last two weeks, they said they were going to protect pre-existing conditions, notwithstanding the 70 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. So let's take them at their word.

We've talked about a DREAM Act before, and one day he was for it; one day against it. Will he stand up to the far-right wing of his party? That remains to be seen. If he does, we can get things done.

BERMAN: I'm out of time. Five seconds. Your biggest surprise last night?

PEREZ: The number of races that we won in areas like Oklahoma, Kansas, and elsewhere. What it shows is our investments in a 50-state strategy are working. We can win everywhere, as long as we are speaking to the issues that people care about.

BERMAN: All right, Mr. Secretary. Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, thanks for coming in. Nice to see you here.

PEREZ: Always a pleasure.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. After a whirlwind 72 hours that included an insensitive "Saturday Night Live" joke, retired Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw has won a seat in Congress. What does he want to do when he gets to Washington? He tells us, next.

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