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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Anti-Trump Protesters Hit Streets for Second Night; Trump, Obama Strike Cordial Tone in Historic Meeting; Mrs. Trump's Path to First Lady; President; What Clinton's Loss Says About Women in Politics; Why Many Latinos Defied Predictions. Aired 9-10p ET.
Aired November 10, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:01:19] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our second live hour of "360".
Protests continuing on the streets in some cities of United States as people are taking to the streets for a second night demonstrating against President-elect Donald Trump. Again, this is happening in multiple cities across the country, including Dallas and Philadelphia. You're looking at live pictures right now there.
Earlier today, President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met for the first time at the White House. The President said it was a wide-ranging conversation that his number one priority in the coming months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I believe that it is important for all of us regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together to deal with the many challenges that we face.
And most of all, I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Michelle Kosinski joins me now from outside the White House. What did President-elect Trump say about the meeting?
MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. Yeah. Well, despite the gorilla in the room being that he wants to roll back virtually all of President Obama's policies and the fact that one day prior White House staff was openly weeping, today it was all about let's get along for now. Let's put our best foot forward and reassure America.
So we heard Donald Trump call President Obama a very good man. He said he might want to work with him in the future and even consult with him. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: I very much look forward to dealing with the President in the future, including counsel. He's -- he explained some of the difficulties, some of the high flying assets and some of the really great things that have been achieved.
So, Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future.
Thank you, sir.
OBAMA: Thank you, everybody. We're not -- we are not going to ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSINSKI: We also heard the President at the very end say that Donald Trump -- he said this in a joking way but he said, you know, one thing you don't want to do is answer reporter's questions when it's in a scrum like this, which was kind of interesting from one president to the next one.
But, you know, the White House said that this was focused on the transition because we heard President Obama call it an excellent meeting. What does that really mean under the circumstances? It looks like even though the President called it wide-ranging and they did go over domestic and foreign policy, really they were talking about let's have this transition be orderly and efficient. Anderson?
COOPER: And it went on for some 90 minutes, which I believe was much longer than it was supposed to go for. The -- I mean, these -- when you think -- I mean, it's just an extraordinary image today because, obviously, these men have said a lot of things about each other over the years. Do you think today's meeting actually thawed any of that tension or was this just out of respect for the office this is how things are done.
KOSINSKI: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, when you look at some of the things that have been said. Now, everybody is going back and replaying these videos because it's such a historic, almost comedic contrast to what's happening now, you know, that Donald Trump called President Obama very stupid and incompetent, said he was the founder of ISIS, et cetera, et cetera. President Obama said that Donald Trump was dangerous and unfit to be president of the United States.
Obviously, they want to put that aside. You know, they both have the same interests of seeing America move forward and be successful ultimately.
[21:04:58] I thought it was really interesting, though, later when you go to the White House and say, you know, all those things that President Obama said during the campaign trail, what about that? And the White House isn't going to back away from that. They reiterated today, in fact, after this meeting that President Obama meant everything he said on the campaign trail. That still stands. Anderson? COOPER: Michelle Kosinski. Michelle, thanks very much.
After his meeting with the President, Trump headed to a meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan. Again, a positive tone, carpeting (ph) a campaign relationship that was certainly no mutual admiration society. Phil Mattingly tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A relationship defined by tepid acceptance at best.
REP. PAUL RYAN, (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: Nothing's a blank check. You never give anybody for any reason a blank check on anything.
MATTINGLY: And downright antagonism at worst.
D. TRUMP: Maybe he doesn't know how to win.
MATTINGLY: House Speaker Paul Ryan and President-elect Donald Trump for months center stage in a delicate dance of clashing politics, personalities and policies meeting face to face today in Washington, now reliant on one another for success.
RYAN: Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we've ever seen and we're going to turn that victory into progress for the American people.
D. TRUMP: So we had a very good meeting, a very detailed meeting. And we're going to lower taxes, as you know. We're going to fix health care, make it affordable and better.
MATTINGLY: For Trump, Ryan represents a man who can bridge the gap to a still skeptical core of the establishment GOP, an explicitly stated goal in Trump's victory speech early Wednesday morning.
D. TRUMP: Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division. Have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.
MATTINGLY: For Ryan, a president that can finally sign policy priorities that have been collecting dust despite nearly seven years in the House majority.
RYAN: This Congress, this House majority, this Senate majority has already demonstrated and proven we're able to pass that legislation and be put it on the President's desk. Problem is, President Obama vetoed it. Now we have President Trump coming who is asking us to do this.
MATTINGLY: Advisors tell CNN both men have had positive things to say about the other in the wake of private meetings and post-election phone calls, but the two have more than just a strained relationship standing in their way. Ryan has faced criticism from conservative House Republicans for not fully supporting Trump as the nominee and Ryan splits with Trump on crucial issues like entitlement reform, trade and his hard-line immigration stance, but for now at least, it appears each man is looking to focus on where they have common ground rather than their differences.
RYAN: How do we make sure that when his hand comes off the Bible, when he's sworn in s president, we are hitting the ground running? And we are very excited about working with him to make sure that that's the case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Phil, joins me now from outside Trump Tower in New York.
I mean, Donald Trump has a long and in many ways controversial agenda. Paul Ryan for his part has his own lengthy agenda. You've been talking to GOP officials. Which gets priority next year?
MATTINGLY: Well, Anderson, I can tell you, I've been talking to a number of lobbyists too who'd be able add a couple of zeroes to their retainers if they could answer that question.
Look, I do think it's kind of one of the unknowns partially because you don't necessarily know how firm Donald Trump is on a number of his policy proposals. But in talking to Republican officials, I think this underscores their willingness to kind of put the past behind them. The excitement, a tangible excitement about the possibility of moving some of the issues forward that they haven't been able to over the course of the last five or six years, that's what they're focused on right now. There's low hanging fruit. There are areas of agreement on health care, on tax policy that they're almost certainly going to start with first. The big question though is how willing is Donald Trump to work with House Republicans when they diverge from what his proposals are? That, we don't have an answer to yet, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Phil Mattingly. Phil, thanks very much.
Joining me again, John King, Kirsten Powers, Gloria Borger, Kayleigh McEnany, Van Jones, Maria Cardona and Jack Kingston.
Maria, let's start with you. Obviously, you're a Hillary Clinton supporter. Obviously, you are, you know, not happy about the results. What do you make of what you have seen though over the last 36 hours in terms of this transition?
MARIA CARDONA, CLINTON SUPPORTER: A couple of things, Anderson. I agree with Van and I think everybody on this panel that so far what we have seen in the transition should give us hope, but here's the problem with that. Donald Trump's speech absolutely had the perfect tone, it had the right words, but five minutes of nice words is not going to make up for 15 months of what all of these communities that are now on the streets and many more who haven't said anything but are incredibly afraid of what's going to happen under a Trump administration, it's going to take a lot more than just those five minutes of nice words to calm them. There are stories, not just of the folks who are attacking Muslims. There are stories of Trump supporters going up to women and grabbing them and calling them the C word. There are stories of Trump supporters yelling at Latinos, spic, you wetback, go back to Mexico. There are stories of schools whose principals have had to put out a letter to their students telling them if you are LGBT, if you are Muslim, if you are Latino, if you are undocumented or have parents that are undocumented, you will feel safe in the school, you will not be bullied, you will be protected.
[21:05:23] To me that signals that we are entering into an era that we have not seen in a generation. And I agree with Van. It is dangerous. And I think that Donald Trump has a tremendous opportunity, a challenge but a tremendous opportunity to address this but address it in a way that is very particular to all of the communities of color who really are reeling and are hurt about this.
COOPER: But let's -- you know, look, there are demonstrations on the streets, but this was a valid election.
CARDONA: Absolutely.
COOPER: People ran. Donald Trump won.
CARDONA: That's right.
COOPER: We've had elections in the past. We haven't necessarily seen demonstrations like this. So, do you -- I mean, there is some frustration I'm hearing from Trump supporters who say, well, look, this was a legitimate election and why are people now protesting the streets?
CARDONA: I'll tell you a couple of reasons why. First of all, yes, legitimate election, Donald Trump won the electoral vote but guess what, Hillary Clinton is 2 million votes ahead of him in the popular vote.
COOPER: But you know what? So what?
CARDONA: I understand that, but that actually adds to the rawness of this -- of what this election result is.
COOPER: Right, but there's always half the country that feels raw after an election. We don't necessarily see that half demonstrating in the streets.
CARDONA: One last point though. I completely agree, and to a certain extent, you know, all of the Hillary Clinton supporters are going to have to understand that that is the path and that they at some point have got to give Donald Trump a chance. You know, follow her lead. Follow President Obama's lead. I'm sorry. Also, he said he wants to be the president for everybody. And if he really wants to do that, then he has to understand that the responsibility on his shoulders is that he also has to be the president for all of those communities ...
COOPER: OK. Congressman, and then Van. JACK KINGSTON, (R) FORMER GEORGIA CONGRESMAN: You know, I don't think he needs to worry about these protesters at this point. Frankly, when they're going outside Trump Tower and saying impeach Donald Trump when he's not even sworn in and when they're blocking Highway 101 in Los Angeles and writing all kinds of foul language things on police cars and also vandalizing other property, I think that they just don't understand the way a Republican democracy works. It was a legitimate election. There were no irregularities.
His tone at 4:00 a.m. Wednesday morning was magnificent. And I was in the room and I can tell you, it was an inspirational American moment. Hillary Clinton was very good yesterday. Barack Obama absolutely today. And what you've seen is great American leadership. And I think that sends a signal that will be heard throughout the land and it will overcome the voices of protesters.
I think in the days ahead as he picks his cabinet, as he picks more and more of his leadership, they're going to be the type of people that Mike Pence is and Kellyanne Conway, and people who are quality who know how politics works, knows human relationships. I think these people are going to calm down and get on board. And I mean these people in the sense of the protesters.
COOPER: Van, do you believe that? You know, as people start to see, OK, well, some of these names in the cabinet are names we've heard before, and they've been in government before, and this isn't a complete revolution that, you know, that will things sort of calm down and normalize?
VAN JONES, FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There's a couple of things. First of all, those people in the streets are not Hillary Clinton supporters necessarily. I think it's very important we understand the dynamics here. Those people in the streets are generally people who didn't feel that Democrats or Hillary Clinton or really anybody was speaking for them and so you've got a challenge now. You've got those young rebels out there and we've got to listen to them and hear. I think that's an important thing.
With respect to -- listen, Donald Trump is doing well right now. That's important for people to get. There is a trust deficit. That is true. Part of the -- the reason the trust deficit comes is that there were moments in the campaign he did well and then he would change and then he would do well again. And so people don't know yet, are we on solid ground?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
JONES: So I think it's important for these supporters to understand there is a trust deficit. He's doing well right now. But these young people, Hillary Clinton go out there right now and tell them to sit down, they'd walk right past.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: That's all the more encouraging though because these young people when they find out Donald Trump ran against the establishment. He ran against bringing ethics back to Washington. He ran ... JONES: I think they know that.
MCENANY: ... for brining jobs back. A lot of these people are millennials and I'm here to tell you as a millennial myself, my millennial friends, they care about jobs, they care about student loan debt. They don't have that right now. And when Donald Trump brings jobs back to this country, these young protesters are going to be very happy.
COOPER: We got to take a quick break. We'll have Congressman (inaudible) when we come back.
Also tonight after everything Donald Trump has said about women, which were much discussed obviously during the election. With the prospect of having the first woman president of American history, why didn't more women vote for Hillary Clinton?
[21:15:06] Certainly a question a lot of Democrats and Democratic women are asking. It's a question that's about as complex a nuance as they get. We'll look at that ahead as well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. A second night of protests against the election of Donald Trump. You're looking at scenes from Philadelphia. The main question is what he will do when he takes office? Here's what he said after a meeting on Capitol Hill today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: We have a lot of priorities. A lot of really great priorities. People will be very, very happy.
Well, have a lot. We have, we're going to look very strongly at immigration. We're going to look at the border, very important. We're going to look very strongly on health care and we're looking at jobs. Big league jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Donald Trump just tweeted about his meeting today saying, "A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for the first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry. Melania liked Mrs. O a lot." There we go.
Is that the first official tweet as president-elect? I'm not sure.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think -- no, I think he may have tweeted ...
CARDONA: He tweeted something ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: OK, all right. BORGER: But this is sort of an alternate universe here. I mean, it's pre-honeymoon, pre-honeymoon. And these people are -- they don't like each other. They -- you know, they haven't met each other, which was really stunning because they've never met before, but it's kind of hard to believe that Donald Trump comes in and says he has great respect for Obama, the man whose citizenship he challenged for five years before. And the President, I mean, showed him the same respect that he had been shown by Bush, and I know that that affected him a great deal.
[21:20:13] JONES: Yes.
BORGER: When Bush was so gracious and generous, and now they've become really good friends. And I think Mrs. Obama wanted to take around Melania Trump because she had young children in the White House and Melania Trump has a young son and she wanted to tell her what it's like to live in this bubble and how it is to raise your child that way. But nothing has happened. You know, they were all pitch perfect because they had to be for the international community, keep the markets calm and out of respect for the office and the country they love.
CARDONA: Right.
BORGER: And -- but let me just say that nothing has happened yet.
CARDONA: Right.
BORGER: He's not in office. There's no ...
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: I don't want to be the skunk at the garden party, but ...
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But to that point, what Trump said -- the sound you played from Trump is very important though. I mean, because he was asked what are your top three priorities. And it wasn't -- it didn't sound like he was ready for the answer. So then he thought about it and he said health care, immigration, talked about the border and then jobs, big league jobs.
What the Republican leadership is telling him and I assume what he takes with in the election is do the big leagues jobs part first.
We're sequencing matters here. If they repeal health care right away, they're going to pick a fight with Democrats. If that's what Donald Trump wants, then that's what he should do. He should do health care first and pick that fight or do the immigration bill first and pick that fight if that's how he wants to start his presidency. But if he doesn't a tax package, he'll have the Republican votes. Democrats won't like it. But a president generally gets his tax package.
If you add into that either in that legislation or separate legislation, the infrastructure projects that Donald Trump talked about in the campaign, Democrats will want that. He'll have some trouble with Republicans. BORGER: Right.
KING: They'll want to say, how are you going to pay for this? But Republican governors will love that because you're creating jobs in the country. So there's an opportunity early on to do a big Republican priority tax reform that includes some Democratic proposals.
JONES: I want to add into that.
COOPER: What about on trade issues too because there are -- I mean, there's, you know, a lot of liberals in the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders, you know ...
KING: That's going to take a little bit of time. And just quickly on the point where he said that he's going to consult President Obama in the future. I don't think that's going to happen often but there are times -- sometimes we never find out about these things. Questions of war and peace ...
CARDONA: That's right.
KING: ... he will -- Donald Trump will be the 45th president in the history of the republic. It is an exclusive club. They have made war and peace decisions.
So sometimes they talked about that, but President Obama is about to take his last foreign trip. He is going to meet with Angela Merkel. He's going to meet with other leaders who are nervous about Donald Trump. I assume they will talk after that trip. We may never hear about that.
BORGER: I don't know.
KINGSTON: I want to say this as a candidate. One reason you want to meet with your former opposition or somebody who's on the opposition team, it actually brings emotional closure to the campaign, not just for you but for all your supporters. If you look at that tweet that Donald Trump put out today, that was sending a signal to millions and millions of Americans who follow him and OK, the campaign is over. Let's get on with the business of the American people. And I'm very, very positive in that.
COOPER: Well, it is interesting and, again, as you said, this is a honeymoon period but I mean, I keep thinking back to, you know, interviews I do with Donald Trump during the primary season early on where he said, you know, I can be presidential. I can be different people in different situations. When I'm In Palm Beach, I can have society people really like me and when I'm in a, you know, construction site, it's a different thing.
BORGER: Yeah.
COOPER: And maybe that's some of what we're seeing.
(CROSSTALK) CARDONA: It's kind of like a chameleon, right? And we are now seeing
that chameleon act the role.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: No, I meant to your point, he can act this part, right? And the hope is -- my hope is that he will continue on this path and I think that going on some sort of legislative plan to do something in a bipartisan way will go a long way to sort of calm people because to your point, it has -- it's not ...
MCENANY: I just have to say, it's not an act. Donald Trump, anyone who took the time to look at his business and the $10 billion brand he built, knows that he is someone who achieve, someone who knows how to negotiate, someone who is very likeable. The first lady went in there -- first lady Melania Trump and President-elect Donald Trump ...
COOPER: I mean, anybody -- I mean, Kirsten made this point in the last hour which is anybody who's interviewed him knows there's a very charming side to Donald Trump.
MCENANY: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: Very gentlemanly side.
KIRSTEN POWERS, USA TODAY COLUMNIST: To give credit to the fact. Look, Donald Trump attacked a lot of people ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.
POWERS: But Barack Obama was ripping him limb to limb for the last ...
KINGSTON: Right, and all the surrogates.
POWERS: And he's still able to come in and be this way. And, look, and that was my experience with him. I have been very critical to him on air and he knows that and he told me that, but he still is able to interact in a ...
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: Look at Ben Carson.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: John King is trying to lay out a pathway to unity. I just want to add to it, because I think it's important for people at home to figure out how can we actually not have a catastrophe here.
[21:24:59] Kayleigh has pointed out over and over and over again this outreach that Donald Trump did to the African-American community on the campaign trail. It landed very badly because of the tone and the message, but that is something to add. You talked about the tax reform piece and infrastructure, but also a major push to uplift the poor.
KING: How about this one?
COOPER: Let me just add something in Donald Trump had actually just said in another tweet about the protests that we've been seeing. He said, "Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protestors incited by the media are protesting, very unfair."
BORGER: I think somebody needs to take away his Twitter account again.
POWERS: That's right.
JONES: That awful. OK. So ...
COOPER: Well -- but I mean, there are groups -- I mean, you talked about this last night, the one in New York with some socialist group. I don't know ...
JONES: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
KINGSTON: And the sincere question, not just snarky, but why aren't they working? It might be because of the economy. How many thousands of people ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, come on.
KINGSTON: No, seriously -- well, I don't understand how thousands of people across the ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: No, no, no. I'm just saying, it is -- there's a reason these are happening at night, which is people have jobs during the day and then they have free time at night.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: And that's exactly how worried they are. And to your interview with Mr. Khan, which was fabulous and very touching as he always is, he said something that I think is also very relevant in this whole protest era of healing that Donald Trump needs to face. He said that Donald Trump needs to tell his supporters, he needs to engage his supporters and tell them to essentially knock it off.
KINGSTON: No, wait.
COOPER: But wait ...
KINGSTON: I've got to say this as somebody who's been on the campaign trail. I have to say I'm -- we're hearing a lot of there are stories out there, there's hearsay. I promise you, if that was going on ...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: Wait until tomorrow. Wait until tomorrow.
KINGSTON: I'd love to see it.
COOPER: I mean, we should -- we should actually ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Let's take a break.
Melania Trump, we're going to take a look at what she may do in the White House. She's going to be the only second foreign born first lady. Her journey to the White House in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:31:09] COOPER: Well, as we have been reporting on, President- elect Trump and his wife Melania spent the day in Washington taking the first steps in the transition to their new life as the next first couple. While the President-elect met with President Obama in the Oval Office, Mrs. Trump visited with first lady Michelle Obama. They toured the White House residence and reportedly talked about raising kids in the White House. The -- Trump's 10-year-old son, Baron, is obviously about the same age as Malia Obama was when her family moved into White House since 2008. Randi Kaye tonight takes a look at Mrs. Trump's path to first lady.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIATRUMP, WIFE OF PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: It will be my honor and privilege to serve this country. I will be an advocate for women and for children.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Melania Trump just days before learning she would be the next first lady of the United States. At this speech in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, she spoke of her love for this country as a little girl growing up under communist rule in Slovenia.
M. TRUMP: We always knew about the incredible place called America. America was the word for freedom and opportunity. America meant if you could dream it, you could become it.
KAYE: Throughout the race, Melania was somewhat of a reluctant campaigner, often staying home with the couple's young son Baron. The Trumps reportedly have a cook but no nanny. Early on in the campaign, she was more often seen and heard. In fact, it wasn't until the Wisconsin primary in April that Melania officially stumped for her husband.
M. TRUMP: I'm very proud of him. He's hard worker, he's kind, he has a great heart, he's tough, he's smart.
KAYE: In March during an interview with Anderson Cooper, Melania shared how she feels about being compared to Jackie Kennedy. M. TRUMP: I see around that they compare me to Jackie Kennedy. It's an honor but of course we're in the 21st century and I will be different and she had the great style and she did a lot of good stuff, but this is different time now.
KAYE: As the Slovenian immigrant, Melania, will be only the second foreign born first lady and the first in modern times. President John Adams wife, Louisa Adams was also born outside the United States, in London. She was the first lady nearly 200 years ago. Melania Knauss, as she was formerly known became a naturalized citizen in 2006.
At 5 foot 11, she was once a successful model meeting Donald Trump at a New York fashion week party back in 1998. She told "People" magazine she thought he had, "sparkle" and later became his third wife.
Melania once graced the covers of "Glamour" magazines and sold her own line of jewelry on QVC. She also appeared in this Aflac commercial.
As first lady, Melania, who is 46, plans to focus on women and children. She hopes to end cyber bullying and teach children to treat others with compassion.
M. TRUMP: We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other.
KAYE: From Fifth Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue, Melania Trump will soon be first lady.
Randi Kaye, CNN, Orlando, Florida.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And joining me now is CNN political commentators, Maria Cardona, and Amanda Carpenter, and Anna Navarro, also CNN chief political commentator, Gloria Borger.
Gloria, they're both, obviously, very strong women in different ways with different paths to the White House and yet they do have this commonality -- I mean, they're going to be raising, you know, in the case of Melania Trump a son in the White House.
BORGER: And I think both of them wanted to be protective of their children, and I think that's clearly what they talked about today.
I also think that Michelle Obama took a while to find her way and what she wanted to do and she ended up along with Jill Biden doing something for veterans families which became her big thing in the White House.
[21:35:05] I think Melania has already said that and people have, you know, made their jokes about her husband and his tweeting, et cetera, et cetera, but it's a serious issue and she can have -- she can have an impact if she can take advantage of it. And that's -- you know, it's a difficult road for a first lady. COOPER: Maria, certainly Democrats expected obviously Hillary Clinton to win and expected more women, I think, to be supportive of Hillary Clinton. As you look at the election results, I mean, what went wrong? Because, I mean, you were convinced Hillary Clinton was going to win.
CARDONA: Absolutely. Not only were we convinced she was going to win, we were convinced that she was going to get a majority of college educated white women and she didn't or college educated white voters and she didn't.
From what I'm seeing of the information that has come in since then, that spectrum of the electorate started eroding. College educated white women and white men started eroding. That spiked after the "Access Hollywood" tape for obvious reasons, especially the support among women, but then with the FBI and the WikiLeaks, that started to go down. And there was no additional scandal involving women with Donald Trump to be able to offset that.
And so I think that a lot of these women who were Republican leaning but were disgusted by Donald Trump, with the FBI letter, I think they started thinking, OK, maybe not so much. Frankly, what the Republicans were saying I think ended up being true. They didn't want another scandalous, you know, person in the White House. They kind of were sick of the status quo. The status quo and the WikiLeaks stuff I think started sticking to her yet again and it really drowned out her ability to get through on the family economics message.
COOPER: Amanda, do you agree with that?
AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I think a lot of the fundamentals were just against Hillary Clinton. It was going to be a Republican year and she positioned herself as the establishment candidate. She actually ran on being Obama's third term.
I heard Republicans years ago saying wouldn't it be great if we could convince everyone she would be Obama's third term. It was totally a gift. And I think the "Access Hollywood" tapes were very bad for Trump, but when the other things came out it reminded everyone of her significant flaws, character issues, national security risk. It all just kind of came together in the perfect storm.
And I know Republican women who are very concern about Donald Trump's comments towards women. They said, well, that's personal to me but these other things out weigh that at this point in time.
COOPER: Yeah, and I mean, and, you know, what a lot of Trump supporters all along -- Kellyanne Conway was one of them whom we talked to in the last hour was saying all along that there's an enthusiasm gap. You have more people are enthusiastic about Donald Trump and we certainly saw them the results. Though fewer Republicans voted for Trump than voted for McCain or Romney, a lot fewer by many more millions voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Obama.
ANA NAVARRO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, we knew it from the start, right, that both these candidates had historic low approval ratings amongst Americans. Now, we also knew from the start that Hillary Clinton had a likeability problem and had a trustworthiness problem. And then there was this drip, drip, drip during the entire campaign coming out of the e-mail issues.
If you tell me, you know, to tell you what this campaign should have been called, it should be called sex, lies and videotapes and e-mails. We had the e-mail story go on for 18, 19 months. They were never able to address it properly because it never ended.
COOPER: And it also reaffirm -- it wasn't just out of the blue. It reaffirmed all the pre-existing beliefs ...
BORGER: Yeah.
COOPER: ... and concerns about Hillary Clinton.
NAVARRO: You know, and let me tell you, if I was a Democrat, I would be so upset and disappointed right now at the Clintons, at Hillary Clinton, at Bill Clinton, Clinton world. Because they knew they were going to run eight years later. They knew what the scrutiny that came with running for president was and they needed to have behaved in an impeccable manner that would have pass master and would have not brought back all of these memories of Clinton's scandal.
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: They would dispute that.
BORGER: But here's the thing we learned. We learned that women don't just vote for women because they're women.
CARPENTER: Yeah.
BORGER: And I think that what the Clinton campaign believed is that Donald Trump was making the gender argument for them because of the "Access Hollywood" videotape, they really didn't have to do that.
NAVARRO: Well, they believe the same thing with Latinos and African- Americans.
BORGER: Right. Exactly.
NAVARRO: They're going to come out and vote against Donald Trump.
BORGER: Exactly.
NAVARRO: And then it give people something to vote for.
BORGER: Right. And what they discovered was that non-college educated women went against them 2-1. They voted very much like their husbands.
NAVARRO: Right.
BORGER: And millennial women always believed -- there's going to be a woman president someday so it doesn't have to be this woman. CARDONA: Yeah, that's exactly right. White millennial women also did not come out in droves for her.
BORGER: Right.
CARDONA: But non-white women, in all categories, came out in droves for her.
COOPER: We've got to leave there. Thank you. Good discussion.
Just ahead, another surprising result and one of the most unpredictable elections on record. Why a big chunk of Latino voters in Florida cast their ballots for Donald Trump? We'll look at that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:43:48] COOPER: Hillary Clinton won the Latino vote on Tuesday, 65 percent to Trump's 29 percent, but her share of Latino votes was less than President Obama's in 2012.
In Florida more than a third of Latinos backed Trump. Randi Kaye talked to some of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll take the vodka spritzer.
KAYE: At this popular Cuban diner just outside Orlando, Latinos who voted for President-elect Donald Trump are holding their heads high.
MARISOL SANTIAGO, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: I'm so proud. I am -- I'm Puerto Rican myself. And I'm super proud to be able to vote for Trump.
MANDY DIAZ, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: It feels so much sweeter now that the silent majority has won.
AMAPOLA HANSBERGER, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: To me, it's a miracle. It's a miracle.
D. TRUMP: Thank you.
KAYE: CNN's exit polls showed 35 percent of Latino voters in Florida chose Trump despite him painting some Mexicans as criminals and rapists and regardless of his plan to build a wall and deport millions of illegal immigrants.
HANSBERGER: I have a problem with people coming illegally. They need to tell us who they are.
LOUIS GUTIERREZ, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: We don't want corruption to come in here. We don't want drug traffickers. We don't want people bent on committing crimes. Who doesn't want to get rid of those people?
KAYE: And about that wall at the southern border?
[21:45:00] SANTIAGO: I am very happy about the wall and I hope it does happen. I mean, if you're going to come to my country, come here legally. If you don't like the way we are running things, then go back to where you belong.
KAYE: This millennial from Cuba waited five years to get his U.S. citizenship. This was the first time he could vote in a presidential election and voted Trump.
So he talks about this deportation force.
DIAZ: Absolutely.
KAYE: And deporting all these illegals. You're on board with that?
DIAZ: Absolutely. They broke laws. Now they have to face punishment for those laws.
KAYE: Dr. Juan Torres who waited 10 years to become a citizen does worry people he knows could be deported but ...
JUAN TORRES, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: The bottom line is that they broke the law. When I came to this country, I came through the front door.
KAYE: Do you think everyone should go through the front door as you say like you did.
TORRES: If you go to somebody's house, you go through the front door.
KAYE: Beyond immigration, these voters think Trump's team will defeat ISIS.
GUTIERREZ: He's not negotiating with terrorists that are killing children, that are raping little girls, he wants to exterminate them and I agree with that 100 percent.
KAYE: He gets high marks on the economy and jobs, too.
SANTIAGO: He is a businessman and that to me was very important because I am a businesswoman myself. I feel that he will grow this economy for sure, you know, take us out of debt.
TORRES: Latinos need jobs. The number one thing that they are concerned with is economy, jobs, and Donald Trump is a job creator. He was a job creator all of his life. This is what he knows how to do.
KAYE: And while they admit he's hardly the perfect candidate ...
SANTIAGO: I don't personally love him. I'm not -- I'm not in love with Trump. I'm in love with his ideas and what he has to offer for our country.
KAYE: They are quick to defend what others call derogatory comments about Latinos and tweets like this one on Cinco de Mayo. That's the President-elect eating a taco salad, the caption reads, I love Hispanics.
HANSBERGER: I would put my foot in my mouth also. So we have to be compassionate to people and say, well, he's an average individual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: And Anderson, what surprised me most about talking to these voters is how forgiving they are of Donald Trump despite his insults to the Latino community throughout this campaign.
They basically explained it away saying that he's misunderstood, they love the fact that he isn't politically correct, and they really latched on to his campaign slogan "Make America Great Again".
They fought for years to get here. Many of them spent years waiting to get citizenship here in the United States. They love this country, Anderson, and they believe that he does too.
COOPER: Randi Kaye. Randi thanks.
Coming up what some African-American voters in North Carolina think about Trump's victory, and what it means for President Obama's legacy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:51:16] COOPER: Well, some 8 percent of African-American voters supported Donald Trump, 88 percent voted for Hillary Clinton.
Now, we wanted to hear what some African-American voters in North Carolina are thinking. Gary Tuchman tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In the heart of Charlotte, North Carolina, inside the Midnight Diner, many customers surprised and unsettled that was confirmed in the wee hours after midnight an election night.
When you heard the news that Donald Trump won, what was the first thing that went through your mind?
DENISE THRASHER, VOTED FOR CLINTON: I was shocked. I really was.
ALISSA JORDAN, VOTED FOR CLINTON: I feel hurt. It's a bad feeling. It's a real bad feeling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought it was an Instagram joke.
MARY WILMER, VOTED FOR CLINTON: I was heartbroken, because I said I don't trust Trump. I believe he's the devil and he's not going to do right by minorities.
TUCHMAN: A Clinton campaign concern came true on election night. The great majority of African-Americans supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, but many of them, not as enthusiast about hers they were for Barack Obama did not come out to vote.
Mercedes Stroud did vote and cast her ballot for Clinton, but knows many other African-American Clinton supporters who did not go to the polls.
MERCEDES STROUD, VOTED FOR CLINTON: Those people that didn't vote, that could have been Hillary winning.
TUCHMAN: At the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, others who voted for Clinton with similar stories.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Almost all my family did not vote.
TUCHMAN: Do you wish you did more to encourage your family and friends to go on vote those who didn't?
ANDREW AJEWOLE, VOTED FOR CLINTON: Yeah, I wish I did more, especially when it comes to encouraging and to wait in line. God knows some of the lines are like three hours long, especially on the last day of early voting the line was five hours long.
And so, I guess keeping up the enthusiasm to actually wait in line and go vote. Yeah, I wish I did a little bit more to advocate for that.
TUCHMAN: So what does the presidential torch being passed from Barack Obama to Donald Trump mean for the legacy of the first African- American president?
Do you think Barack Obama's legacy is hurt by the woman he wanted to become president losing to Donald Trump?
PRINCE CRENTSIO, VOTED FOR CLINTON: I don't feel like his legacy is hurt because Barack Obama had a great -- he had a great presidency and I feel like anything he left behind was great.
TUCHMAN: Back at the diner, some with the similar sentiments.
THRASHER: Everything Barack Obama did, I think it will stand on its own. Everything he did -- everything he accomplished.
TUCHMAN: But others concerned about the legacy of a president they so admired.
STROUD: I did feel that was a slap in the face to Barack Obama because he, you know, he was on the side of Hillary Clinton. She had ...
TUCHMAN: And for her that made Election Day even more of a letdown.
Gary Tuchman, CNN Charlotte, North Carolina.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, joining me now is CNN presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University, and Rosa Parks biographer. So, Douglas, where do you see President Obama's place in the history of presidents, or is it too soon to tell us that only kind of written years later?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It's written years later, but we can judge him as being successful right now, even though this is a blow with Hillary Clinton's loss. I mean, he has a 54-55 percent approval rating.
By the time he does this transition well which he will and does his farewell address, I think he'll be around 58 to 60 percent leaving office. He's a two-term president. No major scandals, two Supreme Court justices, the killing of Osama bin Laden.
And he's going to kind of grow in stature. I think people are going to miss him. And we felt his greatness, I thought today with the way he dealt with Donald Trump with such civility and really was America's president when we needed him today.
COOPER: Yeah, I mean historically, how crucial is that outgoing and incoming president working together? How much does personality, how much they actually like each other play into it?
[21:55:07] BRINKLEY: Well, it's a big thing. Each one, you know, like Truman and Eisenhower couldn't stand each other. I got along with Kennedy, OK. Nixon had almost a fetish of liking Lyndon Johnson. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan couldn't stand each other.
And so, it just all depends. Obviously, Barack Obama has no use for Donald Trump, but he is a student of Nelson Mandela School of Reconciliation. He knows what happened to John Lewis at Selma on the bridge, and when he did the freedom march, he had John Lewis a few years ago went back to Alabama and hugged, Anderson, the people that beat him. And that we have to heal sometime.
You know, Leonard Cohen just died a little bit ago. And Leonard Cohen has a song called "Anthem", that he wrote about -- you know, the light comes through the cracks in society in the song. And there's kind of a Barack Obama brought a lot of light to American life right now the last few years, and the death of Leonard Cohen the night I think is a good time to listen to songs like "Hallelujah" and "Anthem", and reflect on what the eight years of Obama's presidency meant. I think it's been a positive one by in-large for the country.
COOPER: You also have to take into account the incredible, you know, recession, you know, the economic situation that Barack Obama ...
BRINKLEY: Yeah.
COOPER: ... inherited as he entered office. I mean, that's something that I think maybe, you know, memories are often short and one forgets of what it was like eight years ago, but I think in the history books that will certainly also probably be a big part of his legacy.
BRINKLEY: Giant. When you go to the Obama presidential library in four or five years, they'll be showing what it was like in the Great Recession when Barack Obama came in, and the economy was in tatters, how hard he fought to get unemployment to the numbers it is now 4.9. He also wanted it below 5 percent.
Museum like The Obama library show what it was really like for people, what the auto industry was like in Detroit. He came in and saved general motors and Mitt Romney maybe lost that Midwest when he said "Let Detroit die." People in Ohio don't like Detroit dying because that means loosing jobs and, you know, Youngstown or Toledo or Akron.
And he was remarkable politician. And we saw Barack Obama's magic even though it didn't pay off in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio at the end of the campaign trying to lift Hillary Clinton along with him. Alas, it didn't work, but I think the public actually admires the cut of his jib and he's going to come out just fine in history.
COOPER: Douglas Brinkley, good to talk to you as always. Doug, thanks very much.
We'll be right back.
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