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CNN Projects Trump Wins Arizona; No Roles For Haley, Pompeo; SNL'S Message For Trump. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired November 10, 2024 - 03:00   ET

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

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[03:00:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers watching from around the world. I'm Erica Hill.

Ahead on CNN Newsroom, Donald Trump runs the table in the swing states. CNN projects he will win Arizona of the battlegrounds.

Two big names scratched from consideration for a second Trump administration. Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo will not take part.

And Saturday Night Live sends a blunt message to the president-elect in its holdup.

Five days after Tuesday's presidential election, the final state has now been called. CNN can project Donald Trump wins the state of Arizona, which means, despite the Harris campaign spending a billion dollars, they did not win a single one of those seven battleground states. Of course, there was such, such focus in all of them. The total electoral count now stands at 312 for Donald Trump, 226 for Kamala Harris.

This news comes as the transition process itself is in full swing for the president elect. A source telling CNN that Trump's team, though, has not submitted yet any transition agreements with the Biden administration, in part, because of the mandatory ethics agreement.

While we wait for more information on who's actually in for a second Trump administration. We are learning who's out. His former rival and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will not be asked to join the new administration.

Here's Alayna Treene with more.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: President-elect Donald Trump spent his Saturday locked down at Mar-a-Lago meeting with his transition team and going through a series of candidates that he is considering selecting for top cabinet roles as well as White House positions.

Now, on Saturday, he did not announce new people that will be serving in his second administration, but he did announce who would not be. He talked about not wanting his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or his former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to have any part in his second term.

I'm going to read for you some of what he wrote. He said, quote, I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join the Trump administration, which is currently in formation. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously and would like to thank them for their service to our country. Make America great again.

Now, to give you a little bit of context on where some of this is coming from, Mike Pompeo is someone who many people in Donald Trump's inner orbit still are close to and believe that he did a good job as secretary of state. However, his relationship with Donald Trump has really soured in recent years, particularly because Pompeo had, in many ways, distanced himself from the former president after he had left office in January of 2021.

I'd remind you as well that Pompeo did not endorse Donald Trump until after the Republican primaries this year, something that, as we know, Donald Trump Donald Trump viewed as not being as loyal to him. And in my conversations with senior advisers they argued that in private conversations over the past few days now Donald Trump had asked them whether or not Pompeo would be loyal to him or whether he could trust him in a second term.

Now, as for Haley's part, Donald Trump has said that he appreciates that she had gotten up on stage at the Republican National Convention in July, called for unity. And also remember, she had actually been in discussions with the Trump campaign in the final weeks before Election Day about potentially meeting for a joint appearance and helping him campaign. That never materialized. But, again, Donald Trump had said he appreciated that on some level.

However, I am told that the president elect still harbors a lot of animosity toward Haley for the attacks that she had lobbed at him during the Republican primary, but also that she had remained in the primary for so long. Donald Trump has remarked that he believes that she hung on longer than was appropriate.

Alayna Treene, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

HILL: Well, another important part of the Trump transition will of course be his pick for attorney general. The president-elect said to view that role as the most important in his administration. Among those on the possible list, so far, a senator, a former intelligence official, and three state attorneys general. Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt may be a strong pick.

[03:05:001

He previously served as Missouri's attorney general and was also at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on election night.

Meantime, the president-elect and the current president will meet at the White House on Wednesday. It's a political tradition to hold the meeting, one that projects, of course, a peaceful transfer of power. However, the last one was not, in fact, four years ago, it was actually back in 2020, 2016, between Donald Trump and Barack Obama. Donald Trump did not host Biden four years ago as he was, of course, fighting the election results at the time, claiming, in fact, that Biden had not won. An official says Melania Trump has also been invited to meet with First Lady Jill Biden.

Well, the race for the White House, of course, is over. The battle to control Congress, though, has yet to be settled. Republicans have secured the Senate, but the House is still up for grabs. Right now, Democrats have 205 seats, Republicans 213. Of course, the magic number for a majority is 218. Of course, it means Republicans are just five seats away.

As you can see, there are still 17 seats that have not yet been called, including some races in California where Democrats could pick up some seats. Meantime, in the Senate, as I noted, Republicans do have control with at least a 52 seat majority.

Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex and joins from Colchester, England, at this hour. It's great to have you here, Natasha.

So, when we look at where things stand in terms of that balance of power, we're waiting on those final 17 races, of course, to be called so that we know what the balance is in the House, what's interesting as all this, you know, soul searching is going on in the Democratic Party is that in a lot of down ballot races, Democrats actually did better than the vice president did at the top of the ticket, even minimizing some of the Senate losses. And we're waiting to see, of course, the final tally for house seats. Is there a sense yet of why things played out that way that the down ballot Democrats would do better?

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: So, it's a really good question. I think the Democrats will be going through all the data to try to figure out what happened. So, there were more elections in 2024 than there has been in a long time and incumbents nationally. All did poorly. So, this is part of a bigger trend, that there was a lot of angst towards incumbents.

And Kamala Harris couldn't escape the fact that she was attached to Joe Biden was the incumbent who had a low approval rating and whose approval rating was affected by the fact that about a third of the American public believed Donald Trump's lies that the election was fraudulent. So, it was difficult to overcome that. It was also difficult for her to overcome this national perception that the economy wasn't going well, and this was repeated again and again on Fox News and other different outlets and that Donald Trump was going to fix it.

There was also problems with just the Democratic brand nationally, and this is where Harris' candidacy may have come into play, that maybe there's the perception that she was far to the left, that she's from California, that she was embracing some of these cultural issues that turn off Republican and moderate or independent voters.

And if you look at the down ballot races, you see that the Democratic candidates more closely are able to match what their constituencies want they weren't necessarily bogged down or tied down by whatever Biden's approval rating were and they're more in touch with their local communities. But I think the Democrats will have to look further into what happened and I'm sure they're going through the data.

I think the bigger issue is there just wasn't great turnout. Democrats in the areas where they really need to turn out to be strong and we can see a huge divide in terms of how many -- excuse me, a huge jump in terms of how many people voted for Biden in 2020 versus Harris in 2024 turnout just wasn't that great.

HILL: Yes, and we know there is a lot of discussion about that online in terms of the turnout.

When we look at where things stand now, the final state called, so Arizona going to Donald Trump, that means he swept all of those swing states. Does it surprise you at all?

LINDSTAEDT: It did. It did surprise me because I thought the polls were a little bit closer. I guess if you were looking at how the polls have played out, they have always underestimated Trump and thought, how is it possible that this is going to happen three times in a row, but they were consistent in that they underestimated him.

And the fact that he was leading in Arizona, he was leading in North Carolina, he was leading in Georgia, neck and the other swing states, by the end, leading in Pennsylvania. And with Biden's approval rating around 40, 41 percent, and only a third of Americans thought the economy was going in the right direction, the headwinds weren't great for the Democrats.

So, they had great vibes, though they had all this enthusiasm, though they had this amazing campaign drive to get out the vote, knocking on doors, you know, knocking on millions of doors in some of these swing states, none of these things mattered.

[03:10:10]

None of the traditional things that matter in the way you run a campaign. And at the end of the day, Donald Trump's message seemed to resonate with more Americans and 90 percent of all the counties went in his direction at the presidential level.

So, again, a really shocking defeat for the Democrats, something they'll have to dig into and try to figure out what went wrong.

HILL: Absolutely. There's a lot of speculation about who, in fact, could end up with the nomination to be Donald Trump's attorney general.

Loyalty is very important to the president-elect as we know, and as we certainly saw in that first term. We've also heard a lot about retribution and a sense of how he would like to use the Justice Department when he is back in office. What about the guardrails that are in place to prevent that currently? LINDSTEADT: So, I'm pretty concerned that we don't have the guardrails in place that we did in 2016. I mean, there've been great books written on this, that there was a lot of bureaucratic resistance to Trump's more crazy policies, that they just wouldn't implement them.

He was also surrounded by people who understood democratic processes and wouldn't let him get away with some of his more extreme or insane ideas. This time around, he is going to surround himself only with those who are undyingly loyal. We see this already with the report on not wanting Mike Pompeo to be a member of the cabinet, not wanting Nikki Haley, and she surely wasn't loyal enough by his standards.

And he's definitely going to want to pick an attorney general that is his personal attorney, that isn't really an attorney general for the United States, but it is focused on whatever his own personal grievances may be. Is it going after his political opponents? Is it trying to send a clear message that you don't cross Donald Trump? He wants to surround himself by those that are going to tell him what he wants to hear. And he's going to have fewer and fewer people that will push against him. And I think that's one of my major concerns.

HILL: And we'll be watching to see how that plays out. A number of folks sharing those concerns as well.

Natasha Lindstaedt, good to have you. Thank you.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

HILL: Well, the Biden administration is handing off to Donald Trump, a series of difficult foreign policy crises, including the multi-front conflict in the Middle East. Qatar, in fact, has become so frustrated with the war in Gaza. It is now hitting pause on efforts to mediate a ceasefire. The kingdom has reportedly concluded that neither Hamas nor Israel are serious about the talks anymore. One diplomat says Qatar has also decided to close the Hamas office there, but that it could be reopened if talks start again.

Meantime, we're getting word of a new Israeli airstrike in Gaza that has reportedly killed at least 25 people. Local medical sources say the majority of those deaths are children.

For more, we're joined by Paula Hancocks from Abu Dhabi. So, yet another strike and a number of the victims children, Paula.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erica, yes. This is in the area of Jabalya which is in northern Gaza. It's an area that the Israeli military has really been focused on for more than a month now, saying that they believed Hamas was regrouping and rebuilding in that area. And they have been hitting it extremely hard over that time, other areas in Northern Gaza as well. We've had concerns being voiced by U.N. agency groups off the apocalyptic conditions that those in these areas are facing at this point.

So, this latest airstrike we have asked the IDF for comment what they were targeting, we haven't heard back yet, but we know that at least 25 people have been killed. This is according to the hospital where many of those deceased and injured were taken to. And the hospital officials say that many of the deceased were children. We have seen distressing images of deceased children being pulled from the rubble as well. And it is an area that has been repeatedly hit by the Israeli military.

We heard just on Friday from the chief of staff of the IDF saying that they believed in Jabalya itself, where there is a very large refugee camp that they have killed around 1,000 militants. Now, he also said that the IDF has arrested and detained about 1,000 militants as well, saying that it is a significant achievement for Israel but a severe blow for Hamas. But, once again, we are seeing civilians bearing the deadly brunt of what is happening there.

We've heard reports from the United Nations as well, saying UNICEF says 64 attacks on schools in Gaza in just the last month.

[03:15:08]

That's about That's about two every single day, saying that mainly children are being killed in those attacks as well.

Now, from the Israeli side, they say that Hamas hides in schools and in areas where there are many civilians, which is why they target them. Erica?

HILL: Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi, I appreciate it. Thank you.

In Southern California, just north of Los Angeles, firefighters are battling an inferno that has already scorched thousands of acres, prompting mass evacuation notices.

Plus, tensions at an all time high in Valencia after Spain's worst natural disaster in modern history, the latest on both those stories.

You're watching CNN Newsroom.

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HILL: I'll just shift to speed on the California fall fire season. The mountain fire is now at 21 percent containment, according to state officials. The fire began early Wednesday in Ventura County. That's just north of Los Angeles. Already, it's burned through more than 20,000 acres. At the moment, the cause of that fire Remains unknown.

Firefighters, they're racing to take advantage of some improvement in the weather conditions before those seasonal dry winds, which helped to fuel the fires' explosive growth potentially arrive again in the coming days.

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TREVOR JOHNSON, VENTURA COUNTY FIRE CAPTAIN: Firefighters did an outstanding job, but with this break in wind and improved temperatures, we're able to access all the areas on the fire, put stuff out. And they are still actively looking for hot spots, securing our containment lines and truly taking advantage of that improved weather.

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HILL: Meantime, parts of Colorado and New Mexico are digging out after record snowfalls. The same low pressure system dropped snow in Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle, so the Panhandle's in both states there. Fort Garland, Colorado, some more than, get this, 53 inches of snow. Angel Fire, New Mexico, 40 inches of the white stuff.

The strong winds also blowing snow throughout the day, seriously reducing visibility. Weather alerts expired Saturday afternoon. The snow, though, did force several road closures across Eastern and Central Colorado.

The fallout continues from Spain's deadliest floods in modern history on Saturday. It was estimated more than 100,000 people took to the streets in Valencia, the hardest hit region, to demand government accountability. Here's Michael Holmes.

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Valencia, Spain is spilling over once again, not from the recent floods that devastated the region, killing more than 220 people, but with anger.

Protesters clashing with police following a rally demanding accountability for the deadly floods, including the resignation of Regional Leader Carlos Mazon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The regional government didn't warn on time for the flooding, didn't respond on time, didn't get the help from the central government on time, and they just did everything that they could wrong.

HOLMES: Mazon has defended his administration's response to the disaster, saying he respects the march, but now is the time to clean up and rebuild. But many residents say lives could have been saved if the government had acted faster.

On the day of the floods, the Spanish weather agency issued a red alert for heavy rain about 12 hours before the regional government sent out a text alert warning people to shelter in place. But by then, many residents say the water was already at their doors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're alive and I don't know how. And the only thing I want to say is that this abandonment and institutional negligence must be held accountable. And even though I'm exhausted, haven't slept at all and I'm anxious, I'm here to demand answers because this is not normal.

HOLMES: This isn't the first show of anger by infuriated residents. A week ago, crowds threw mud and shouted insults as Mazon, the king and queen of Spain, and the Spanish prime minister visited the hard-hit area. Locals say they're frustrated by what they say has been a slow and uncoordinated response by the government. So far, about 8,500 soldiers have been deployed to clear debris, guard against looters, and search for the missing. Divers scouring river bottoms for bodies. But many of the troops have only arrived in the past week. Too little, too late for a disaster many people say the government of Valencia should have known was coming.

Michael Holmes, CNN.

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HILL: The Billionaire Trump Club, just ahead here, a look at the impact of Elon Musk and others on Donald Trump's campaign, those notable billionaires during the election and perhaps after.

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HILL: Returning now to our top story, Donald Trump flipping the battleground state of Arizona, and that brings his electoral vote tally to 312. And with that, of course, we are now looking ahead to the presidential transition team. The president-elect is set to meet with Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday.

Trump is still in the early days of shaping his next administration, but he says key figures from his first term won't be coming back, including his former political foe and former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Elon Musk, though, is spending a lot of time with the president-elect, also spending a lot of money, some $119 million on Donald Trump's campaign, funneling the money through his pro-Trump super PAC. The tech tycoon could have a role in the next administration. Just what that would be? Well, he's pitched himself to lead a broad effort to slash spending inside the federal government.

[03:30:01]

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll with more.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: A star is born, Elon.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Cheers for the president elect and the richest man in the world who helped get him there, Elon Musk.

ELON MUSK, OWNER AND CEO, TESLA: As you can see, I'm not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA.

CARROLL: Musk spent some $119 million to help get Trump elected. The return on that investment is already paying off. Tesla shares have soared 29 percent since the election. Musk's stake has gained more than $30 billion. Investors betting that Trump's win will boost the electric vehicle company because of his closeness with Musk.

Remember, there was a time not long ago when Tesla wasn't looking so great with reports of sagging profits.

MAX CHAFKIN, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK COLUMNIST: When you look ahead, I mean, there are definitely opportunities for him to make money.

CARROLL: Max Chafkin is a senior reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek who covers Musk.

CHAFKIN: SpaceX, Musk's other main company, is a major defense contractor. Its most important customer is the U.S. government. And Trump on the campaign trail talked about, you know, handing Elon Musk new contracts.

TRUMP: What a great guy and he'd rather be making rocket ships, because he'd really rather do that.

CARROLL: SpaceX is a privately held company so it's tough to put a hard number on how much Musk stands to gain. The same can be said of his other privately held businesses, such as the brain implant company Neuralink.

TRUMP: He's a special guy. He's a super genius. We have to protect our geniuses. We don't have that many of them.

CARROLL: Musk could receive a position in the Trump administration running what he has called a Department of Government Efficiency, where he could roll back government regulations and cut what he determines is wasteful spending.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget?

MUSK: Well, I think we can do at least $2 trillion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MUSK: Your money is being wasted and the Department of Government Deficiency is going to fix that.

CARROLL: Whatever happens, Musk is gloating in the wake of Trump's victory, a political bromance brewing. Musk pictured with Trump on election night, with his family, and with Caitlyn Jenner. Musk posted this image showing him carrying a sink into the Oval Office, saying, let that sink in, a throwback to when Musk bought Twitter and posted this video of him carrying a sink into the headquarters with promises to shake things up on the social media platform.

Though it should be noted musk and his co investors bought twitter for $44 billion, one recent accounting has it valued at less than $10 billion.

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HILL: Thanks to Jason Carroll for that report. Of course, it's not just Elon Musk. A number of the wealthiest individuals in Trump's inner circle are playing a major role in shaping his cabinet. So, could they actually profit off a second presidency?

For more, I'm joined now by Mark Harvey, the author of Celebrity Influence, Politics, Persuasion and Issue-Based Advocacy joining us live this hour from Olathe, Kansas. Good to have you with us.

So, when we look at where things stand, there's a lot of question about what exactly a role would be for Elon Musk, whether or not he would have some sort of a cabinet role. It seems to be the thinking is no, that there would not then be, of course, a Senate confirmation process. But, you know, there are some other rules and regulations in place. Is there anything to sort of stand in the way in terms of a guardrail when it comes to Elon Musk helping the president-elect and Elon Musk helping his own businesses?

MARK HARVEY, AUTHOR, CELEBRITY INFLUENCE, POLITICS, PERSUASION, AND ISSUE-BASED ADVOCACY: Yes, I in this administration, I don't think that there will be any guardrails in that way. I mean, even if you look to the last administration, you know, he broke taboos in terms of having members of his own family as key advisers. And I honestly think that he could put Musk in there, but I don't know that it would serve him necessarily any more than just having him come in and be an adviser. And so I suspect that probably would be the plan that he would anticipate.

And there are lots of examples again in the past administration of people benefiting financially from being in Trump's orbit. And with him and his key businesses, you know, I think there're some conflicts of interest there definitely, but there's absolutely opportunities for him to make money.

HILL: He's not the only very wealthy individual, right, as I noted in Donald Trump's orbit. You have Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, right, who are helping to lead the transition there.

As you look at all of these folks, very successful folks around him and the possibility there for conflicts of interest, no guardrails there either.

HARVEY: No, I don't think so. And Lutnick has already run into some accusations from some of Trump's own people about potential conflicts of interest. Apparently, during the campaign, he was doing some political meetings, but also the accusation was, anyway, that there were some meetings he was doing that might benefit his financial firm and some of his cryptocurrency assets as well.

HILL: So, there are also questions about, and just for folks who may not be familiar with it, in terms of U.S. law, I mean, federal law actually requires officials to divest from their personal businesses, their personal holdings, any dealings that could conflict, rather, with any work that they're doing for the government. What's interesting, too, though, is there's also this provision in the U.S. tax code that allows government officials to indefinitely defer the capital gains taxes when they divest. It all seems a little a little too convenient.

HARVEY: Yes. Well, we shall see what happens. But if you recall, Donald Trump refused to follow some of those rules himself last time when he was president. And so it would seem to me probably one of two things would happen. You know, one is that maybe those people wouldn't be appointed to cabinet positions, although it looks like, you know, billionaire John Paulson might be on track to become a secretary, or a treasury secretary. We'll see what happens there.

But, you know, the other alternative is that they might -- he might just flout the rules. I mean, already the Supreme Court has indicated that a president can do all sorts of things without necessarily getting himself into trouble as long as in the official line of duty. And so he really pushed the envelope last time he was in office, and now it seems it's a much more permissive environment.

HILL: Looking at where things stand, there are also questions about certain documentation that is required moving forward for some help in the transition for the incoming administration. Part of the documents that have not yet been signed and submitted include this ethics agreement that was due on October 1st.

So, a source close to Trump telling CNN an advisor said that he does intend to sign the ethics pledge, but his main priority right now is selecting and vetting for top cabinet roles. Could he continue to move forward, get to the inauguration, get back in the White House without ever having signed that ethics document?

HARVEY: I think it's quite possible. Now, whether or not other people in his orbit will be required to sign those is another question. I mean, I think probably somebody's going to have to or else a lot of people won't have access to that. And I can see there'd be a possible stalling process, maybe a slowing down of his agenda if somebody on the team doesn't go in there and sign the things they need to, because, you know, Trump can say whatever he wants to now, he's not going to get what he wants until he's officially inaugurated, and I suspect his subordinates probably won't either.

HILL: What is the biggest red flag for you as you look at what we know in these early days of the transition?

HARVEY: My biggest red flag is actually kind of a bigger picture, and it has to do sort of with this creeping oligarchy that we've seen the United States. And it's not really just begun in the last, you know, even with the previous Trump administration, scholars have documented that there have been more and more influence of billionaires and much less influence, or at least the outcome of government has not at all favored people who are sort of at the bottom rung of society.

And I think it's troubling when you have billionaires who have net worth that are larger than many countries. I mean, Elon Musk, for example, his value is larger than that of Greece or Finland. And so the amount of power these people have without any democratic checks is rather startling and disturbing.

HILL: Yes. Mark Harvey, good to have you. HARVEY: Thank you.

HILL: In the wake of Donald Trump's re election, marchers taking to the streets of Washington and New York, a closer look at why they're protesting after a quick break.

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[03:40:00]

HILL: Demonstrators in New York and Washington gathering on Saturday to protest the reelection of Donald Trump. Organizers in D.C. said it was a, quote, rapid response, time to resist action, demonstrators gathering and marching to the Heritage Foundation. That, of course, is the conservative think tank that published Project 2025.

And that's a little bit of the scene here in New York City on Saturday. Marchers are focusing heavily in New York on what Republican campaign promises could mean for immigrants and other groups.

Well, there's a strong showing of support for reproductive rights in ten states where abortion protections were on the ballots this week.

So, what does that mean overall for abortion access in the United States as we move into a new Trump administration? Here's CNN's Jacqueline Howard.

JAQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: These are the states that voted this week to protect abortion rights, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York. But in most of those states, five total, Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New York, in those states, abortion is already legal and the ballot measures maintain access under the state's Constitution.

Voters in only two states, Arizona and Missouri, approved measures to expand abortion access.

[03:45:01]

And keep in mind, even if the ballot measures in Arizona and Missouri improve access in those states, about 40 percent of women of reproductive age will still be living in states where abortion is either banned or restricted.

Now, it's not clear what the new Trump administration's strategy will be around abortion. We know Trump's campaign has said he would veto a federal abortion ban if elected, But we also have seen his position on the issue shift many times over the years. Back to you.

HILL: All right. Jacqueline, thank you.

The investigation continues now into the source of racist texts sent to black people across the country in the days following the election, the hate-filled messages containing allusions to slavery. Here's CNN's Rafael Romo. RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The messages appear to have been sent using free phone service and mobile data providers. One of these providers known as TextNow told CNN Friday, the company believes this is a widespread coordinated attack. The hate-filled messages have been reported in more than 20 states from New York to California and the District of Columbia, students from at least three historically black colleges and universities in Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina have reported receiving messages. And according to Nevada's Attorney General's Office, the text appears to be Robotext messages.

One of the biggest questions here is how is it possible to do something like this anonymously. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Merrill told CNN Friday that whether this is a single person or a group, they're using anonymizing software to obscure their location, which makes it very difficult to track them. As you can imagine, this is cause for great concern for those receiving the messages as well as parents and loved ones.

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ALYSE MCCALL, STUDENT, RECEIVED RACIST TEXT: It's truly disgusting. And whoever sending it out is vile. No one should ever one think to send that message or receive that message. It just made me sick to my stomach.

JENNIFER GREEN, SON RECEIVED RACIST TEXT: We do talk about politics. It's not something that I hide from him because he is going to be a black man in America. So, I make sure that he understands what the landscape of his adulthood could look like. The fact that it happened the day after Election Day, it really speaks to what I think is going on here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: The NAACP denounced the messages saying that they represent an alarming increase in violent, abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday's election results.

We have also heard from President-elect Donald Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, told CNN that Trump's presidential campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.

CNN has learned that another text messaging service called TextSpot was apparently able to stop a new user from sending racist text messages. TextSpot says that it was thanks to artificial intelligence that they immediately flagged the message and prevented it from being sent until they were able to conduct an internal review. The company says that they then blocked the message and banned the user from their platform and shared the information with local law enforcement and the FBI.

Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.

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[03:50:00]

HILL: A major upset for one of the world's most recognizable athletes, Lionel Messi and Inter Miami crashing out of the MLS playoffs with a stunning 3-2 loss to ninth seeded Atlanta United in the first round. And it comes, of course, on the heels of a record breaking regular season for Miami. Atlanta United will now move on to face the number four seed, Orlando City, in the Eastern Conference semifinal.

The Princess of Wales joining the Festival of Remembrance in London on Saturday, alongside Prince William. Attendees there, including Kate, wearing a red Poppy. It's a symbol of Remembrance Day, and, of course, a nod to those who died in the World Wars. Also at the event, King Charles, as well as other members of the royal family. Kate is expected to attend the U.K.'s main Remembrance Day ceremony later today.

Fireworks lighting up the skies of Berlin to mark the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The city, holding a festival for freedom. Thousands attended, concerts and art events throughout the day. The Berlin Wall, of course, separated communist East Germany from capitalist West Germany for nearly three decades, a visible symbol of the Cold War. Its fall marked the beginning of the fall of the Iron Curtain. Some attendees say the festival celebrating togetherness, peace, and unity was more critical than ever this year.

And finally, in its first show since the election, the cast of Saturday Night Live taking a moment to let the president-elect know exactly how they feel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Tuesday, Americans went to the polls and elected Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To many people, including many people watching this show right now, the results were shocking and even horrifying.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump, who tried to forcibly overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office by an overwhelming majority.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, there are no guardrails.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nothing to protect the people who are brave enough to speak out against him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that is why we at SNL would like to say to Donald Trump, we have been with you all along.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:55:02] HILL: Cast members, they're adding that if Trump is keeping some kind of enemies list, they were very clear they should not be on it, except, as Colin Jost came out and said, of course, Michael Che should be making a few jokes there.

Thanks so much for joining me tonight. I'm Erica Hill.

Stay tuned. CNN Newsroom with Ken Brunhuber is up next.

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