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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Long Road to the Oval Office for Donald Trump; Late Night Hosts Make Play on Hillary Clinton Presidency. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired November 10, 2016 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:35] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. The breaking news overnight. We saw protests coast to coast over the results of the election. So what will it take to bring this country together?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Step one toward healing starts in a matter of hours. President-elect Trump meets with the president and then the House speaker to talk about the transfer of power.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Nice to see you. Looking at 30 minutes past the hour right now. Want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world.

The breaking news. Even as many celebrating the election of Donald Trump, others are not. Protests in cities across the country against the results of the election. Against the man that voters picked to be the 45th president of the United States.

This was dozens of cities from Boston, Massachusetts, to Portland, Oregon. Demonstrators, some of them chanted not my president. Not today. And in just the last few hours, protesters in Los Angeles brought traffic to a standstill. This is the 101 there. Thousands more filled the streets in Oakland. They lit fires blocking some thoroughfares. Officials say that one woman suffered injuries when protesters walked into freeway traffic.

In New York, police say as many as 5,000 people demonstrated. This is in front of Trump Tower in Midtown. Some expressed fear for the fate of women and minorities under a Trump presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump will reenact harsher stop and frisk laws that will wind up putting so many people back into prison. Also deep fear at the sexism that will be bubbling up through the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As a woman and as a Latina I feel very upset and oppressed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We should tell you that, you know, these pictures we're showing you from New York and California, those were states that did not vote for Donald Trump. But enough did. Thousands did march in front of Chicago's Trump Tower. You can see them blocking traffic on Lake Shore Drive. And there was a demonstration in front of the White House overnight. A he candlelight vigil with some songs and protests there and this was posted on Facebook live.

ROMANS: Donald Trump may have won the election, but he's just at the start of a very long road to the Oval Office. There are now 72 days until President-elect Trump is inaugurated. In that time, he has to make more than 4,000 executive branch appointments. More than 1100 of those requires Senate confirmation. Step one happens this morning as President Obama meets with President-elect Trump in the Oval Office.

For the very latest on this transition now under way, let's bring in CNN's Sunlen Serfaty in Washington.

Good morning, Sunlen.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Christine. Well, this is the first meeting that President Obama and now President-elect Donald Trump have ever had. And we all know so much about their storied relationship in the past from Donald Trump's mayor role in the birther movement questioning where President Obama was born and of course President Obama's real fiery rhetoric in the last months of this campaign against Donald Trump.

White House officials openly admit that this meeting today scheduled between them is not going to be an easy one for President Obama, but that said, they -- he is certainly very committed to make sure there is a successful transfer of power between the two administrations and this is something that President Obama touched on yesterday when he spoke in the Rose Garden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I'm looking forward to doing everything that I can to make sure that the next president is successful in that. I've said before, I think of this job as being a relay runner. You take the baton. You run your best race. And hopefully, by the time you hand it off you are a little further ahead. You've made a little progress and I can say that we've done that and I want to make sure that handoff is well-executed because ultimately we are all on the same team.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And Melania Trump will also be meeting with First Lady Michelle Obama today privately in the White House residence. Mike Pence will also be in town with Donald Trump. He also has a slew of meetings. He'll be meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and both Trump and Pence will be sitting down later this afternoon with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan so certainly here, John, a lot on the agenda. But I think we cannot overstate the importance of the moment, Christine, for when President Obama and Donald Trump sit down. Back to you.

ROMANS: Yes. Remarkable. Just a remarkable moment. I know we'll be watching closely. Thank you so much, Sunlen, for that.

BERMAN: All right. So as far as filling those key jobs in the Trump administration, sources tell CNN, the jobs are likely to go to loyal Trump supporters who, quote, "took a lot of crap" for backing him.

[04:35:08] Some of the names mentioned -- floated, I should say, it includes former House speaker, Newt Gingrich, possibly his chief of staff or secretary of state. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, maybe his chief of staff, attorney general, secretary of state, Homeland Security, CIA or some intelligence post.

The transition chairman is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He is said to be under consideration possibly chief of staff or attorney general.

We've been hearing a lot of names float around. That core group you heard, and I would add Michael Flynn, retired General Michael Flynn, to that group. They are all names being floated around for senior positions.

You know, we don't know, Rudy Giuliani has said publicly, he's not sure he even wants to do it. But it's a way of also saying thank you for that.

ROMANS: The econ team. He's got some billionaires who've been advising him. You know, Carl Icahn, Wilbur Ross, and others, you know, you wonder, would one of those want to be a treasury secretary or when you're a billionaire kind of -- with a huge sprawling --

BERMAN: His finance chair I think is the leading candidate for that. Manuchin, right?

ROMANS: Yes. Steve Manuchin. He used to be at Goldman Sachs. He's been his financier for this whole tome. You know, look, Peter Thiel, the contrarian, Silicon Valley investor. Who knows? That would be really interesting to see how that works out.

OK, Vice President Joe Biden made his first public comments following the Trump victory. was is trying to reassure Jewish leaders about the U.S. commitment to Israel in a Trump administration.

Biden spoke to the World Jewish Congress Wednesday night and vowed American support will not waver.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I stand here to tell you that I have no doubt, none whatsoever, that in the Trump administration there will be no diminution of support as a consequence of this transition. Even if it's a new administration we're inclined to reduce the commitment in which it is not, Congress would never let it happen. The American people would never let it happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Biden said he was responding to concerns from friends in the Jewish community who were anxious about the change in power following one of the most divisive campaigns in U.S. history.

BERMAN: All right. We had some new results from the elections overnight. Kelly Ayotte, the incumbent Republicans in New Hampshire, she lost her race to be reelected. She conceded -- she lost by just a few hundred votes to the Democratic challenger there, Governor Maggie Hassan. This gives Democrats a second flip. They picked two seats in the Senate but that was not enough to take control of the Senate. They also did not take control of the House. Republicans easily maintain control.

And Kelly Ayotte, it's interesting, you know, she split from Donald Trump.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: And she lost. And we saw other examples of that, too, where people who split from Donald Trump did not enjoy the electoral success that perhaps they thought they would.

ROMANS: And you know, Kellyanne Conway on the Trump team, she has said that the media's sort of perception of that, that people kind of distanced themselves from Trump to protect themselves was backwards. She's said that all along. And she turned out to be right in most cases.

Well, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has declared victory in the race for governor. Officially that race remains too close to call. Cooper is some 5,000 votes ahead of the incumbent Republican Pat McRory with 100 percent of the precincts reporting. The race could now hinged on tens of thousands of outstanding absentee, military and provisional ballots. So CNN has still not made a projection in the North Carolina gubernatorial race.

BERMAN: All right. If you want to see a visual representation of what a transition is, this is the Tim Kaine campaign plane. You can see the Clinton logo decals being pulled off the plane. This happened overnight in Richmond. The flight took Tim Kaine back to Richmond after his appearance with Hillary Clinton here in New York. And after this plane was stripped down, you know, and Tim Kaine driven home, and then the Secret Service dropped them off and left.

ROMANS: So you say he's never lost an election?

BERMAN: Tim Kaine has never been on the ballot for an election and lost before. This is a first for him. Mayor of Richmond first, and then governor and then senator and now this.

ROMANS: Wow. All right. One of the first things Donald Trump plans to do as president, repeal and replace Obamacare. Both actions will take a huge effort from Trump and Congress. Trump says on day one he will ask Congress to repeal Obamacare. Now that won't happen overnight. The House has voted more than 60 times to repeal, defund or replace some part of Obamacare. None have passed. But there may be more motivation following the election and this sharp rise in premiums for some enrollees. Experts say Trump could also tinker with the implementation of Obamacare. And that could affect health care coverage because it's -- you know, so interwoven at this point.

So why would Trump replace Obamacare? What would he replace it with? He would let insurers sell coverage across state lines which he says will increase competition and lower prices. He would make insurance premiums tax deductible and allow safe prescription drugs to be imported.

And one of the things you're hearing about the whole replace idea is that there is work already been done to make sure that people who are 26 years old and younger can stay on their parents' health insurance. And you would not throw people out who have pre-existing conditions and not let them apply for health insurance. They're going to have to make sure those safety nets are in place or it will not be popular to get rid of Obamacare.

[04:40:04] BERMAN: We don't know the contours of exactly what will happen. What we do know, you should assume there will be changes and big changes to Obamacare.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: You know, the Republicans have the votes. Donald Trump will sign it and there is very little way the Democrats, if they choose to, can stop it because there are maneuvers in the Senate even to get past it.

ROMANS: It has been the Republican theme song now for years now and it will make Donald Trump even more popular with the Republicans whom he is trying to heal.

BERMAN: It will. It will be one of the first things I think they do.

And just over -- six hours from now, we're looking at, President-elect Donald Trump meets in the Oval Office with the current president Barack Obama. These two men have a long, long difficult history. What will that meeting be like and what does it mean for the future?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:45:00] JIM FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": The big story is that America woke up this morning and was like --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did I do that?

FALLON: That's right. Donald Trump is going to be president. Republicans hope he'll keep his promise to build the wall and Democrats hope he'll keep his promise not to accept the election results.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": The Republican Party spent almost the entirety of this election in panic. Trying to stop Donald Trump from being their nominee. And when they could not, surprise. They won the presidency, both Houses of Congress, and soon a new seat on the Supreme Court. It's like the GOP got caught in a plunging elevator and they all fell

screaming 10 stories down and then landed gently to have the doors open on a candy store where everything is free.

JAMES CORDEN, HOST, "LATE, LATE SHOW": It was a weird night. Weird night. It felt weird to be watching the news. If you were flipping around, every news anchor on every channel was just going ah -- let's just go to commercial.

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": And my wife and I went to watch the election returns at a friend's house. And before we left, we put our 8-month-old son to bed. And I was holding him, and I said to him, when you wake up tomorrow morning, we might have our first female president. And then when we came home around midnight I went into his room, shook his crib until he woke up, and screamed, we have to get out of here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The late-night hosts they have really made a play I think on the Hillary Clinton presidency and they were stunned. You could see it.

BERMAN: I know. I mean, it speaks a lot to the divide in this country. You know, the West Coast and the East Coast felt one thing.

ROMANS: The urban suburban. The urban and rural.

BERMAN: A lot the folks in the middle felt differently.

ROMANS: Ellis Henican, political analyst and best-selling author, Eugene Scott, CNN Politics reporter, CNN political commentator Symone Sanders, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders' campaign.

Welcome, everybody. I mean, Ellis, it's a little soon -- it seems like it's soon for these guys to be making fun of the electoral process. They had kind of a different tone, I think.

ELLIS HENICAN, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they are having their own stages of grief.

ROMANS: Right.

HENICAN: I mean, listen, it's always disappointing to lose an election. Right? I mean, we've always pulled for people and they don't always win.

ROMANS: But I don't remember late-night being 100 percent in one camp before. Do you? I mean --

HENICAN: No. But this is -- this is different. The emotions are more raw. I think that it was a more personal campaign than we're used to. I think it's going to take even some comics a little while to get used to it.

BERMAN: You know, I just am struck by -- there's a lot of, you know, clothes ripping and finger pointing and self-loathing going on here by a lot of people.

ROMANS: Clothes ripping? OK.

HENICAN: How does that work?

BERMAN: My point is this, is that the national polls were not wrong. I mean, Hillary Clinton won the national vote, won the popular vote, it will probably grow as they come in more votes. And most of the polls probably were very, very close. So in that sense, it wasn't wrong. The statewide polls were a little bit hanky. You know, a little bit different. But it was very close there.

So, you know, the idea of what was missed here, Eugene, it seems like a fairly narrow but hugely significant thing. It was the amount of angst felt by a section of voters in this class, noncollege white in a section of the country. And we're talking about, you know, the rustbelt. This part that's been sort of left behind last few years.

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Very much so. And we had an idea that that was going to happen to some degree. What we were so sure about was that he was going to get support beyond that. I saw an article this morning that he won most white women.

ROMANS: Yes.

SCOTT: He won most white men. And so we continue to say, I know I certainly said that he could not win without going beyond his base. The fact is he did go beyond his base.

ROMANS: He won more Latino -- a large percentage of Latino and black voters than Romney.

BERMAN: Slightly but he. Yes. He didn't get crushed among --

SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He won 16 percent of black men. I mean, Donald --

ROMANS: The conventional was the things he said were going to kill him with those groups. And the conventional wisdom, Symone, was just wrong.

SANDERS: It was wrong. I mean, I know a lot of people. People and my family. I found out yesterday that really -- you know, close family members, older black men voted for Donald Trump. And I was shocked. So I think we were all a little bit shocked. We all didn't necessarily have a great handle on who the electorate was. But now we know. Now we know exactly where we are. So the question is where do we go moving forward and how does this shake out for later in 2017?

And I just want to hit on trade really quick.

ROMANS: Sure.

SANDERS: You know, we have a lot of conversation about trade and the Transpacific Partnership, but the reality is out of the 29 chapters in the Transpacific Partnership, only three actually have to do with actual trade. The other 26 chapters have to do with things like environmentalism, environmental protection, bio-medicals, intellectual property. All -- you know, where our food comes from. Pharmaceuticals. So there is some real, like, nuance implications and nuance things that the American people did not discuss. Trade is a really complex thing that a lot of people don't know about.

And, you know, Donald Trump ran on, we're going to bring our jobs back. Well, some of those jobs are not coming back.

SCOTT: Yes.

ROMANS: right.

SANDERS: So what do we do? Where do we stand with our American trade policy?

[04:50:04] A lot of Republicans voted for trade promotion authority because they saw the future past Obama, a Republican president being able to have this power of unilaterally deciding trade agreements and now they got Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Well, TPP ain't happening at this point. I mean, I think it wasn't happening already. Now it's like not happening with an exclamation point. You know, and I think there are some other things there as well.

Interesting to hear what you said about your family, some family members who voted for Donald Trump. And again, Eugene, I'm just struck by the fact, though, I'm not so sure that what was being -- what we were seeing in the polls was as much wrong as what people chose to believe.

SCOTT: Yes.

BERMAN: The conventional wisdom was absolutely wrong. You know, what you were hearing from late night comics was absolutely not reflective necessarily of what a lot of people in the country felt. So there is clearly, clearly a disconnect there that is something that, you know, I'm sure we in the media will have to address but also the Democratic Party will have to address moving forward.

SCOTT: So to Symone's point I had a similar experience in the sense that -- and Kellyanne Conway gave us some idea that this would happen. There were a lot of closeted Trump supporters. There were a lot of people who did not feel safe enough to be honest that they were backing him or at least not backing Hillary Clinton. But when it was time to chose a candidate, they chose him and ultimately he won. Now the reality is, I don't know how you count or quantify for support that is not telling you they're going to support him. So the polls to some degree said what they said because people didn't say what they were doing.

BERMAN: The polls weren't as wrong as people were saying there. If that's true, it was only happening in Pennsylvania, for instance, where he perhaps outperformed the polls. But he didn't outperform the polls in Michigan. He did not outperform the polls in Florida. They were exactly right. So there are a few places where it happened, but it isn't as universal wave of misinformation as some people are suggesting. That's all.

SCOTT: Sure. Sure.

SANDERS: But it was also, you know, white women. 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump. These are moderate Republicans that Democrats thought were going to break for Secretary Clinton did not. They went back to Donald Trump. I mean, this is unprecedented. People are wondering how this happened. And I think it's because folks made a decisive, a very clear decision Tuesday night and they voted for what they thought would preserve their place in society.

ROMANS: Yes. 60 percent of those people made their decision before September, which I thought was really interesting.

All right. Guys, everyone, thank you so much. There's so much to chew over. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:56:40] ROMANS: Let's get a check on CNN Money Stream. The Dow Jones 46 points away from a record high. Futures pointing to more gains at the open. It could happen. It could have a record. Big gains Wednesday. Yes, you heard me right. Big games. As investors watch Trump's victory speech and Clinton's concession speech. Their tone, their words erased deep losses in futures. Deep losses in futures. When the election results came in, you know, the Dow went down, almost like 900 points in the futures market. Stock markets in Europe and Asia, they are all higher right now as well.

So Wall Street welcoming Trump, but some big named CEOs, they're being cautious. Starbucks CEO sending a letter to employees, titled, "Onward Together." He writes, quote, "As Americans we must honor the democratic process. We have a president-elect in Donald Trump and it's our responsibility as citizens to give him the opportunity to govern well and bring our country together," end quote. Of course he had supported Hillary Clinton.

BERMAN: How about make coffee that tastes better?

ROMANS: And make coffee that taste better. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, quote --

BERMAN: I'm sorry.

ROMANS: Quote, "We've heard through the democratic process in both Europe and the United States, that frustration that so many people have with the lack of economic opportunity and the challenges they face, we need to listen to those voices." And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted that watching the election with his -- he watched the election results with his young daughter, it inspired him he said to work even harder to fix the world's problems.

A lot of these in Silicon Valley, there's another set of CEO in Silicon Valley who were yesterday trying to get a petition to secede from the United States. You know? That California to secede from the United States. So some of the Silicon Valley executives, they're not as I think nice about it as those guys are.

BERMAN: Interesting.

ROMANS: All right. That's EARLY START for today. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. There was reaction all night. We saw protests on the streets all night over this election. But today, another chance to bring the country together. "NEW DAY" picks it up right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division. And unify our great country.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We must accept this result and then look to the future.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: This needs to be a time of redemption. Not a time of recrimination.

TRUMP: I promise you that I will not let you down.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not Democrats first. We're not Republicans first. We are Americans first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. And welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, November 10th. 5:00 in the East. And we do begin with breaking news because thousands of people taking to the streets in cities across the country to protest President-elect Donald Trump. Demonstrators stopping traffic on major freeways, some setting fires in the middle of the street. Many chanting, quote, "not my president."

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Democracy is about a fair process. Not outcomes that everyone likes. And many in this country are experiencing a range of negative reactions. The idea of two Americas will be captured in this big meeting today.

President-elect Trump heading to Washington to meet with President Obama to begin the transition of power.

We have it all covered for you. Let's being with Deb Feyerick live outside Trump Tower in New York. I was down there last night. A lot of angry voices.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there were a lot of angry voices indeed. A lot of people chanting not my president. Not my president. Also, "hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go." You could feel the anger here on the streets, Chris, and not just here in New York. But all across the country. People feeling that Hillary Clinton who had been predicted to be the winner of this election having failed to clinch the win, they're very upset. They're very disappointed and they're taking that anger to the street.