Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Women Headed to Congress; Mississippi Senate Races Goes to Runoff; Split Verdict on Trump Presidency. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 07, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Strapping, you know, door to door retail politics is great, but wasn't there some other magic? How did you convince that sea of red to vote for a Democrat?

KENDRA HORN (D), OKLAHOMA CONGRESSWOMAN-ELECT: I think things are changing here. We had an amazing group of people that were involved. We really got a lot of young people involved. And I think that is one of the things that made a huge difference. We had a great group of fellows and getting those voices of young voters and engaging new people in this district really made a difference. And we had some great candidates up and down the ballot, too. There were some other strong women that were just elected to the state house and senate, and we were out there and working door to door. And I think there's an energy and people were ready to have somebody that wanted to talk to them and advocate for those issues that are really important on a day- to-day basis. And just change the way that we're doing politics in D.C. these days.

CAMEROTA: Governor-elect Whitmer, you should let people know you're the first Democrat and first woman to be elected to the office since Jennifer Granholm, who we know well here. That was in 2006. So what do -- was there something particular about 2018? Was the time just right for all of these women to go to Washington, or was there something particular about 2018?

GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), MICHIGAN GOVERNOR-ELECT: I just think that we worked hard. You know, we jumped -- I jumped into my race in early January. And when people say, is there a pink wave? I think that the -- that the real story here is that we worked -- we outworked our opponents. We got in early. We got into every part of my state, I did. And it sounds like that's the -- the same is true for the congresswoman-elect, showing up in a way that we haven't in a long time and staying focused on the dinner table issues that really matter to families, health care and clean drinking water in my state, infrastructure. One of my calls to action was fix the damn roads. And I know that resonated because it's just the most visceral, obvious challenge that we have as a state and we need a governor who's going to fix it.

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman-elect, we have had a debate here on NEW DAY this morning about what the takeaway should be from last night for Democrats. And some of our Democrats who have been on set here feel that a progressive message is needed, despite the fact that some progressives, such as Andrew Gillum and Beto O'Rourke, lost. They feel that they softened the soil, is the word that they used. But other people believe that this actually was a repudiation for progressives and that moderates will win the day. What do you think is the future for the Democratic message today?

HORN: I think that we have to talk to the voters in our districts and understand where they're coming from, what their concerns are and what's most important to them. I think that's how we won this district is by talking to our voters and meeting them where they are.

I'm -- I'm a fifth generation Oklahoman. So I understand the needs and concerns. And then we listened to and responded to them. And that, I think, is the message is, what are we talking about as the governor- elect said, that we have to talk about the kitchen table issues, the things that matter to people, and that's different in different parts of the country. So I don't think there's a one size fits all answer. And we were running for the 5th district here, not for the whole country. And I think that's what it comes down to.

CAMEROTA: And, governor-elect, that's what makes it complicated for whoever will run for president on the Democratic side on 2020 because if it's not one size fits all, then how does the party know what the message should be?

WHITMER: I think that's an important point. But, you know, what I know is, whether you're Republican or Democrat or you're, you know, an independent or someone who hasn't been engaged, we need leaders who are going to stay focused on the things that actually make our lives better, an education system worthy of our children, clean water for everyone in this country, health care. These are the fundamentals.

And certainly I am a progressive, but I'm also someone who knows, we've got to be able to get things done that impact and improve people's lives. And that's what I stayed focused on. And I think that's really important in any leadership position that people are seeking.

CAMEROTA: Congresswoman-elect, what can women change in Washington? Will women change the tone? Is that expecting too much of the women who are going to Washington?

HORN: Well, I think it's certainly -- it's certainly a tall order, but I believe it's one that we're up to. Representation matters. Oklahoma is 49th in the nation for women serving in elected office. And we need different voices at the table to enact good policy.

As the governor-elect said, it's not about your party affiliation, it's about the things that matter to our communities. And I think that women bring a perspective to that. I am not running just -- I didn't run just because I was a woman, and that's not a sole qualification. I'm an attorney, a mediator. We've done a lot of things. Bu the fact that I am a woman impacts the way that we see the world, and I think that's one of the things that women that are coming into office are going to bring to the table, the ability to reach across the aisle and get things done for education, for health care, for the things that matter most to Oklahomans and people across the nation. [08:35:10] CAMEROTA: Ladies, we're out of time. We really appreciate you giving us our perspective this morning. We have Michigan Governor- elect Gretchen Whitmer, and Oklahoma Congresswoman-elect Kendra Horn. Thank you very much.

WHITMER: Thank you.

HORN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks, Alisyn.

The Senate race in Mississippi so close headed to overtime. A run-off race there. One of the candidates joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The special election for a Mississippi Senate seat remains undecided. Incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Mike Espy headed for a runoff in 20 days because neither candidate reached the 50 percent threshold. Now Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate seat in April of this year after Senator Thad Cochran resigned amid health concerns.

Joining us now is Mike Espy, the Democrat candidate in Mississippi, headed to the runoff.

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

Overtime, how does that feel?

MIKE ESPY (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE UNDER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Good morning. Good morning, John.

[08:40:00] Overtime, well, you know, we all knew that this would be a two-step process. So now we've moved now to, if you will, the second quarter past our halftime. So we're look -- we're crunching the numbers. And I'll tell you what, we -- we really like what we see.

We fought the incumbent senator to a virtual tie. Now, I think that favors us. We have seen now that 60 percent last night, 60 percent of the voters consciously voted against the incumbent senator. And on our side, that was unprecedented turnout. We got 120,000 new voters than in midterms before. We almost got 400,000 voters. So, you know, it's sort of like what we see. Now we've got to go to plan b. We start this morning and we're moving forward.

BERMAN: Yes, no sleep for you.

ESPY: No.

BERMAN: Explain to me why -- and let's put the numbers back up on the screen here. You can look at this, and I don't think you have to be a math expert to say, look, if you add up the vote for the Republicans there, between Chris McDaniel and Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, that gets well over 50 percent. Why wouldn't the McDaniel voters just go to the senator?

ESPY: Well, they made a conscious decision not to vote for the incumbent senator. And they have their reasons. And those reasons remain. So, you know, Chris McDaniel and I don't agree on a whole lot, but we believe that Washington is broken. So what we have to do is just make sure that we can get our vote out, make sure that we can continue to expand those voters, you know, who are -- you know, who maybe are registered but did not vote yesterday and just do everything we can to enlarge the base and bring them out.

BERMAN: Right.

So what's your message to the McDaniel voters? Why should they vote for you? What's the one issue you will deliver to them?

ESPY: If you're a McDaniel voter and you have an interest in health care, you want to make sure that our rural hospitals don't continue to close. I mean we've had four rural hospitals in Mississippi to have announced closure in the last five months. If you're a McDaniel voter and you may have some illness, you want to make sure that you're protected against your insurance policy being lapsed or denied for pre-existing conditions. Cindy Hyde-Smith voted against that in the U.S. Senate three weeks ago and so that is going to be your primary issue. And those McDaniel voters have to know that she's already not voted against -- not voted for their interests, voted against their interests.

BERMAN: So, Mr. Secretary, you're looking to be an African-American candidate elected state-wide in the south. There were two candidates that did not succeed at that last night, Andrew Gillum, running for governor in Florida, and Stacey Abrams in Georgia. She has not conceded yet, but right now she trails in that race.

ESPY: Right.

BERMAN: What do you think kept them from victory?

ESPY: You know, I've not analyzed the Abrams situation nor the Gillum situation, to be honest with you. We have our own -- we have our own race here in Mississippi.

BERMAN: Yes.

ESPY: So I've kept my head down. I've really not looked at why they perhaps came short. But we think that we fought the incumbent senator to a tie here in Mississippi, and that is a win for us.

BERMAN: The president's perfectly popular in Mississippi. Why does his message resonate there?

ESPY: Well, I mean, he's the president of the United States, and, you know, but he got less voters in Mississippi than he did in Louisiana and Arkansas and in Alabama. So, you know, all we have to do is put our heads down and get our vote out in three weeks, and we're doing that. BERMAN: All right, Secretary Mike Espy, headed to a runoff, 20 days,

as I said, no sleep, no chance of rest for you. Thanks so much for being with us.

ESPY: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: All right, President Trump's new reality, working with a Democrat-led House, trying to get some sort of legislative agenda pushed through Congress. How will that work? We get "The Bottom Line" on everything, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:47:58] CAMEROTA: Well, a nation divided is now a divided Congress. Democrats take back the House. Republicans add to their grip on the Senate.

Let's get "The Bottom Line" on where we are this morning with S.E. Cup, host of "S.E. Cup Unfiltered," and Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary and CNN political commentator.

Great to have both of you.

Let me start with the Democrats. So, they took back the House. What is the message? But, you know, the big high-profile -- some of the big high-profile races they did not win. So, what is your message this morning?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think -- I think Democrats I know, almost everyone I've talked to, feels emotionally upset because people like Andrew Gillum, Beto O'Rourke, Stacey Abrams, who really kind of touched their hearts and made a case against the president and Trumpism. They came up short. But, you know, that's their heart. Their brain is saying, we took back the House, and that is a game changer. And we took back the House.

And I think the difference between the races were this, and I'll give Trump this point. The state-wide races Trump was able to make into kind of a national debate. The 30 whatever seats the Democrats are going to pick up in the House were all about their districts, they were all about health care. They were about education. You saw, you know, two women who are, you know, governor and coming into Congress making that case. And the Democrats now, just have to -- going forward have to figure out how to tap into that grass roots power. You know, the fundraising, the activism, all the volunteers, but also keep it on issues that people care about, not about what we spend a lot of time talking about in Washington.

BERMAN: I think it may have been nationalized in the House, too, it's just that some of these urban/suburban districts, where you saw the switch to the Democrats, those candidates, those Republicans found themselves on the wrong side of the national debate in this case. They -- those voters did not want the Trump message there. I think that's what our exit polls are showing us.

S.E., I want to know what the message to Republicans is here. S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BERMAN: This doesn't exactly beg for more John McCain's in the Senate.

[08:50:00] CUPP: Sadly, that's true, although I'm very closely watching the Arizona Senate race, and we still don't know what happened there. Martha McSally, when you compare her to someone like Kelly Ward, Joe Arpio, is more in the McCain lane than those guys were. I'm glad they were felled early. But we'll still have to see. But, you're right.

Look, I think if Republicans think they can keep squeezing by on the backs of older white men, they're in for a rude awakening. Women came out in record numbers. Women in suburbs came out in record numbers. Women and minorities were elected in record numbers. So they're in for a rude awakening. That awakening was not yesterday.

BERMAN: In the House it was a little bit of it. It was maybe like a one eye opening awakening.

CUPP: Really? We have so -- I think we have so collectively lowered expectations for Democrats over the past month. I mean September Chuck Schumer was saying, I think we could win the Senate. I get the map. I get we -- all of our sort of contingencies. But in a midterm election year, the party in power is not supposed to do well. And this party in power is especially not supposed to do well. And I think what it shows is Democrats have not figured out Trump. Trump's fear mongering and fear and loathing message, which was abhorrent to people like me, was not abhorrent enough in places like Florida, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio. You know, in other words, big states for 2020.

And, so, Democrats deserve a day to be really happy about these House seat pick-ups and the idea that they will have their chance at a lot of investigations. But I think the sooner Democrats realize Trump won last night and will likely continue to win, the better they can figure out how to take him on.

CAMEROTA: Is that what you're going to realize this morning? Did Trump win last night?

LOCKHART: No, I -- listen, Trump did not win last night. I just have to differ. You had, you know --

CUPP: Everywhere he went, his candidates did well.

LOCKHART: And he went places specifically to crisis (ph).

CUPP: Yes, Mitch McConnell had a really good strategy.

LOCKHART: Yes. And the fact of the matter is, the change in Washington today, that what is practical -- you know, people said, oh, it's going to be easier to get judges through. He's had no problem getting judges through the first two years. That's not a change. He may make -- it may make it a little easier to fill all these cabinet posts for people he's got to fire. You know, maybe. But fundamentally now he will have oversight and Democrats will have a voice in setting the agenda. That's a big change. Democrats won. Let me repeat that, Democrats won last night.

CUPP: Just -- if you look at the closing weeks, Democrats lurched from tactic to tactic. It was impeach Trump, impeach Kavanaugh, civility, no, no, no, screw civility, abolish ICE, finally landing on health care. That is not going to do it for 2020.

LOCKHART: That -- but that's not -- if you look at -- you know, you can judge things by what you see on TV or you can look at what Democrats put their money behind. It was health care from the beginning, health care to the end. Sixty percent of the Democratic ads for Congress, federal races, were about health care. So that's just not the case.

Now, I think the problem that Democrats have to figure out is, and the reason why, you know, we -- has had these mood swings last night among Democratic pundits, you know, it's -- I hope Van's OK this morning.

BERMAN: Yes. We checked on him. Van's OK.

LOCKHART: That's good.

The reason is, I think Democrats, in their heart, wanted to repudiate Trump so much, so much, that they lost track of some things. And they had this idea that he is so bad. I mean, listen, let's not forget, this is a guy who said pipe bombs and 11 synagogue members --

CAMEROTA: Congregants, yes.

LOCKHART: Were a distraction to his campaign. I think in their hearts they said, that has to be wrong. Well, I think what yesterday told us is, for a lot of Republicans, they're OK with that. So, going forward, we have to figure out --

CUPP: Yes.

LOCKHART: How do you make the affirmative case. It's not just enough to say, the president's a jerk.

CUPP: Right.

LOCKHART: Or the president's a bad guy.

BERMAN: You guys are --

CUPP: Yes.

BERMAN: You guys are (INAUDIBLE).

CUPP: I think that's right.

LOCKHART: That's a -- well, the only thing we're not agreeing on is Democrats won.

BERMAN: Can I say one thing, I think the timeline -- I think the timeline --

CUPP: I'll give you a day. I'll give you a day.

BERMAN: I think the timeline of last night also played into the psyche. It explains why we saw Van, among other liberals, so upset last night.

LOCKHART: Sure.

BERMAN: If you had told Democrats at 5:30, you're going to win the House, the House is done, you have won the House, I don't think you would have seen that collective mourning at 9:15 when it looked like Gillum was going to lose.

LOCKHART: If you had told Democrats in June, July, August, that you were going to take -- you're going to pick up 30-something seats in the House and you're going to have a couple losses, Democrats would have said, that's great. We did -- we got caught up a little bit in, you know -- I don't want to put it on him, but like Beto mania, which -- he was such a powerful candidate.

CUPP: Yes.

LOCKHART: There was a movement there in a race that he never really had a chance.

CUPP: True.

LOCKHART: And so that's why I think there's this --

[08:55:00] CUPP: I said for a long time, Beto was going to be the Wendy Davis of 2018. Texas is still Texas.

LOCKHART: Sure.

CUPP: And Democrats do what Republicans have done before this, cult personality. They really invest emotionally in the person without sort of recognizing where the country is, what state they're running in. And so I understand that setting up that expectation was probably very emotionally devastating, Joe, but I --

LOCKHART: I'm like Van. I'll be fine.

CUPP: I'm giving you your day.

BERMAN: Tell her she's actually -- she's actually reaching out to take care of you.

LOCKHART: Yes.

BERMAN: Joe, do you have a sense --

CUPP: I care for you.

BERMAN: If there's a -- we only have 25 seconds. So in ten seconds or less, progressive versus centrist Democrat, is there a lesson to be learned last night?

LOCKHART: I think good candidates win, whether they're progressive or centrist.

CUPP: Yes.

LOCKHART: And that's -- we're going to find that in our presidential candidate. I have no idea who it is, but it is someone who can bridge the gap.

BERMAN: Joe Lockhart, S.E. Cup, thanks for helping us get through this.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much, guys.

BERMAN: Appreciate it.

President Trump will hold a news conference at the White House at 11:30. Our special live coverage of the aftermath of election 2018 continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A very good morning to you. I'm sure everyone was up very late, as we were. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

In two words, elections matter. This was a day and a night with enormous implications for the next two years and beyond.

[08:59:57] This morning, still, thousands of votes remain to be counted and possibly recounted in some very important races and some races are now headed for runoffs. But after midterm elections that most voters viewed