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Democrats' Losing Margin In Blue Wall Slims As Vote Counting Nears End; DOJ Brings Charges In Iranian Plot To Kill Trump; Sources: Trump's Strategy For Tariffs Is Not Yet Formed; Elon Musk Joined Post- Election Trump-Zelenskyy Call. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 08, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: -- important reporting.

Coming up, Democrats know they need to reboot. What is that going to look like? We'll talk about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Republicans are inching closer to total control of Washington. We know they'll control the new Senate, and while voters are still, or votes I should say, are still coming in, they seem to have an easier path to the House majority, albeit with a slim margin. That puts Democrats in the wilderness with plenty of time to figure out what lessons to take from Tuesday's losses.

My panel is back. David Chalian, I want to start with you to kind of level set here because, as it tends to do, it's taken a while for the totals to come in, aside from what we saw on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, and --

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It's still coming in.

BASH: -- and it's still coming in. But we're having -- we have a, I think, a better picture already now by Friday of kind of what the real margins were nationally. And let's just put up on the screen, for example, the blue wall states. Trump up by less than a percentage point. Michigan, 1.4 percent. Pennsylvania is bigger, 2.1 percent.

[12:35:07]

And then, again, even more broadly, nationally, you were saying something this morning that I want to explore here, which is one of the things that we heard from Democrats was, are they going to go out and vote for her? Or are they going to stay home and choose the couch?

CHALIAN: Right.

BASH: And the Democratic vote totals were down.

CHALIAN: Yes.

BASH: The couch won in a lot of places. CHALIAN: Or made advances. I think if they didn't actually -- if the couch didn't actually win. But, I mean, we heard that when Joe Biden was atop the ticket, we heard it from Democrats, when Kamala Harris took the top of the ticket and so it's not an unexpected result.

We saw it -- Democrats were talking about this the entirety of the election cycle. But you see it in places like, go to very -- if you look at the election returns here in Washington, D.C., you see that Kamala Harris's vote total in heavily Democratic Washington, D. C. is significantly below the vote total in the district that Joe Biden got for four years ago.

It's not like Donald Trump made huge gains. He did make a little bit in Democratic territory, but her number is much more down than his number went up in a Democratic place. You know, why is that, is going to be worthy of exploration for Democrats to figure out what that enthusiasm issue was, what that connection to specific kinds of voters was, that's going to be part of the introspection here.

But we shouldn't diminish Trump also made real gains. So like both things are true --

BASH: Yes.

CHALIAN: -- and can happen. And did happen in this election. And so, I think that Democrats are going to have to solve for multiple problems here in the election results. It's not just going to be one thing that is going to correct their position.

BASH: Yes. I mean, let's take New Jersey for example. Our -- the Garden State --

CHALIAN: Yes.

BASH: -- New Jersey. Donald Trump did not win, but he did better, an example. And Andy Kim is the Senator-elect, he is a Democrat. He said the following in a post on social media, "Across the board, the conversations began with" -- expressions about his conversations with voters -- "with expressions of what I can only describe as deep disgust in politics. Severe distrust in politicians and the status quo. And this wasn't about the specifics of the moment, but instead deep seated long term dissatisfaction."

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Well, I think we've seen that for a while. I mean, the surprises with the democratic enthusiasm numbers we saw in polling before the election, you know, you have to scratch your head and say, well, what happened to that enthusiasm?

Maybe it was their general dissatisfaction with the choices that they had. Maybe it was, you know, they didn't like Donald Trump very much, but they didn't know Kamala Harris as well. I mean, you -- we -- at this point, we have no idea what occurred. What we do know is that Democrats have to go to the couch and sort of figure out what happened to their party and -- BASH: Different couch.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: And why they weren't talking to their -- to voters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BASH: Yes. Well, that's it.

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: I think it's also important to know where the race was most competitive, like in the battleground states and what have you, you didn't see this trend as much, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CHALIAN: It's where there wasn't an active, engaged campaign.

BORGER: Like New Jersey.

CHALIAN: So you look at that as sort of, so like, what was going on when all that money wasn't being spent and all that competition was not happening?

BASH: Yes.

CHALIAN: Because in those seven battleground states, I mean you were just pointing out the thin margins there, the Democrats were able to keep Trump's inroads --

BORGER: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Because he had all the -- yes.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Can I actually add something? Because I'm a nerd and just stare at the digital Magic Wall all day and go through all the states. The five battlegrounds that are 99 percent in, or more at this point, leaving off Nevada and Arizona, Harris outran Biden in raw vote total in three of those five. The two where she's underrunning him right now are Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Trump outran Biden's 2020 totals in all five.

BASH: Wow.

MATTINGLY: Trump added 120,000 votes in Pennsylvania, added 90,000 votes in Wisconsin, added 160,000 votes in Michigan, added 200,000 votes in Georgia, added 120,000 votes in North Carolina. This is as -- I would make the argument in these states, not in New Jersey, or Maryland, or the other blue states where there is very clearly an issue, particularly in the bigger cities.

BORGER: And they spent $1 billion on advertising.

BASH: Yes. But I want to -- but I -- before you jump in, Nia --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BASH: -- because I want you to jump in on this, just going back -- that's fascinating, Phil, but going back to what David said about the places where they didn't get all of the attention, Massachusetts is certainly one of them.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BASH: I want you to listen to what Seth Moulton, congressman from Massachusetts, said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:02]

REP. SETH MOULTON (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I'm grateful for the advocacy and the ideas that the far left brings to our party, but we can't be branded by that. We can't be defined by the far left. We're a much broader party than that. And if we're going to win more elections, we've got to appeal to voters in the center. These independents who so often decide these tough contests, and in this case, clearly swung towards Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Listen, I think Kamala Harris tried to combat that by campaigning with Liz Cheney, right, in touting the endorsement of Dick Cheney. It just didn't work. I mean, I think some of her past progressive statements caught up to her. You saw this campaign from Donald Trump, spent millions of dollars on these transgender ads, and people felt a certain way about it.

I think there are probably 100 things that went wrong in this campaign, an unusual campaign with an unusual candidate who had essentially four months to run after Joe Biden stepped aside. But I do think that's going to be sort of the battle that Democrats have. This whole idea of whether or not Democrats are too woke or do they need to move back to the center.

BASH: We have to get to some breaking news. The Department of Justice just announced criminal charges against three people in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill President-elect Trump. Let's get right to CNN's Evan Perez. Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Dana, this is a plot that according to the FBI spans from an IRGC agent in Iran who tasked a couple of Americans to try to surveil people here in the United States and eventually to try to carry out these assassinations.

Now, among those people that, according to this cruel case that has been brought in the Southern District of New York was, obviously, was Donald Trump. According to the court papers on October 7th, Farhad Shakeri, who is 51 years old and lives in Iran, he's still at large, he tasked a couple of people that he had known here in the United States before he got deported, he tasked them with trying to figure out a way to kill Donald Trump.

Again, that is in October 7th before the U.S. election. But according to prosecutors, there are a number of other possible victims that the Iranians were looking for. One of them is a -- an Iranian for -- an Iranian citizen who was a critic of the Iranian regime. They were surveilling this person.

They were trying to figure out their comings and goings, and trying to figure out a way to carry out that assassination. According to prosecutors, there's also others who are on this list, including two Jewish-American citizens in New York as well as trying to figure out ways to care -- to kill Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

Now, this is obviously part of a broader story here that, according to the FBI, the Iranian regime has been trying to figure out ways to not only target Donald Trump but also people in this current administration that they believe that perceived to be enemies as well as carrying out other assassinations in the United States.

You remember back in the summer there was another plot that was uncovered against a Pakistani citizen who was here to try to find people, again, to carry out assassinations and to do other kinds of surveillance on behalf of the Iranian regime. So again, these charges unsealed today in the U.S. district court in Manhattan.

Two of those people who are charged in this plot, Dana, have been arrested. They were presented in court and have been ordered detained until trial. Shakeri, who is the leader of this plot, according to the FBI, was -- remains at large in Iran. Now I think we have a statement here from the FBI director who says that this is part of trying to expose Iran's continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump and other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the Iranian regime. Dana?

BASH: That is very scary stuff. Thank you so much for bringing it to us, Evan.

PEREZ: Sure.

BASH: We'll be right back.

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[12:47:59]

BASH: The vision is there, but the game plan is not. That's what one source says about President-elect Trump -- excuse me -- President- elect Trump's tariff strategy as a candidate. Of course, we heard him talk a lot about tariffs. His numbers shifted here and there, but he pledged to slap a 60 percent tariff on all goods coming in from China. For cars made in Mexico, he floated a 100 percent or 200 percent tariff and then a 10 percent tariff on all other imports. Let's talk about this with business reporter Matt Egan and CNN's Kayla Tausche. She's got brand new reporting on how Trump plans to carry this out. I guess before we get to how he's going to carry it out, as you just heard, we don't really know what this is precisely.

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, in talking with a half dozen people who are advising both the president- elect and those around him on this, there are very few questions about whether Trump will go forward with these campaign promises. They say it is not bluster, but the questions are how and when, through what legal vehicles and by which personnel.

Ultimately, who is spearheading these policies will have as much of an impact on what they actually look like. But I'm told that among President-elect Trump and his team, there's one clear strategy, at least where the China tariffs are concerned, that has emerged. And that is to potentially pursue those broad based tariffs against China as part of discussions later on in 2025 about extending the landmark legislation from President Trump first term, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which most of it expires at the end of 2025.

And the idea behind some of these discussions is to say, if it's going to be costly to continue cutting those taxes, or perhaps cut them even further, then can you message that there will be additional government revenue coming in from tariffs? The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget put some numbers behind this.

[12:50:03]

They estimate that the tax extensions, the tax cut extensions, will cost the government about $5 trillion in revenue. And what Trump has proposed so far on tariffs, they say, will raise about $2.7 trillion in new revenue. So you can see that it's not an exact fit, but at least it would give Republicans some talking points.

And then if President-elect Trump wants to go forward with some of the additional tax cuts for domestic manufacturing, perhaps they could lump it all together. Those taxes on cars imported from Mexico, that could come up in negotiations on the USMCA, which are also expected to happen in the coming months.

And then there are expected to be some more targeted tariffs on other industries like potential retaliation against countries like Canada or the European Union for their taxes on some digital services companies, technology companies, and then there's the potential for electric vehicle tariffs.

Those tariffs could be more targeted, rolled out as standalone policies. But certainly, Dana, as I mentioned, all of this will depend on who Trump nominates to some of these key positions and how they decide to go about it.

BASH: All right, thank you so much for that.

And Matt, let's -- because we have percentages and numbers, but let's turn this into what it really means for consumers. 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports, for example. Can you break that down and talk about what it actually will mean if consumers going out and buying something that is coming in from China?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, Dana. President-elect Trump, he's made clear. He loves tariffs. He's described them as the greatest thing ever invented, a potential solution to almost any problem. And yet he has repeatedly falsely described how they actually work, suggesting that China is going to be the ones paying for the tariffs.

In reality, that's just not the case. Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a Chinese company making sneakers in China. And they ship those sneakers to the U.S. When they get shipped to the U.S., a U.S. company then faces the cost of the tariff. So in this case, it's the 60 percent tariff.

So a $100 sneaker is now $160. And the U.S. company then has to decide, are they going to eat the cost of the tariff? Which might mean maybe less money to pay workers. Maybe they can hire fewer workers. Or they could pass along the cost to consumers in the form of higher prices. More often than not, prices go higher.

The National Retail Federation put out a study recently that found that Americans are going to spend tens of billions of dollars more because of these proposed tariffs. They're projecting double digit percentage increases on everything from furniture and clothes to footwear and appliances.

36 percent price hike for toys, where obviously a lot of toys were made in China. So you could have a $50 tricycle that would actually cost $68. All told, U.S. households could face $2,600 in additional costs percent year. That's according to the Peterson Institute.

Now, all of this explains why a lot of mainstream economists are worried that the Trump agenda, the tariffs, in particular, could be inflationary, maybe very inflationary. But I do think it's important to emphasize that we don't know exactly what this is going to look like yet.

We heard what Trump said on the campaign trail, but to Kayla's great reporting, a lot of this is still being worked out. But I think it's very important that they're careful here because if they're not, prices could go even higher for consumers.

BASH: Really, really important reporting. And just to see that graphic with the sneaker, I think that really does kind of sum it up for people out there.

Thanks to you both. We will definitely be coming back to you to talk a lot more about this.

And coming up, we have more breaking news, this time about the role Elon Musk is already playing in the Trump transition.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:57:45] BASH: Breaking news, we are learning details about a call between President-elect Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A call apparently joined by Trump insider and tech billionaire Elon Musk. CNN's Alex Marquardt has this reporting. Alex?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, this is really quite remarkable. We already knew about the phone call between President Zelenskyy and former President Trump, future President Trump. And we have seen President Zelenskyy really flattering President Trump about his victory because there is, we believe, you know, so much uncertainty about the way that President Trump is going to handle the support for Ukraine or perhaps remove that support from Ukraine.

But I think what is really remarkable here, Dana, is that you have Elon Musk joining this conversation. And that really speaks to the possibility that Musk may, in fact, have a large voice when it comes to Trump foreign policy. Musk has really played an outsized role, not just on the campaign trail, but also when it comes to this conflict in Ukraine, because his company SpaceX has produces the Starlink internet service, which has been so pivotal in this Ukrainian fight.

And in many ways, Musk has been able to control that fight because that service has been so vital for Ukrainian forces. When he has essentially hemmed in that signal, has limited that signal, Ukrainian forces have not been able to make advances on the battlefield. We've heard recently that Russian forces, in fact, have also been using the Starlink internet service and that has allowed them to make advances.

Now, as far back as the fall of 2022, Musk was talking about the need for peace in Ukraine. He has not been a full throated supporter of the Ukrainian efforts against Russia. So here we have not just Trump, but Musk on the phone with Zelenskyy really raising questions about how those two men view the future of the conflict in Ukraine.

Of course, Zelenskyy would like them to continue supporting his efforts. But Dana, I think in this moment, that is not necessarily certain.

BASH: Wow. Really? I mean, it's just the beginning of so many unprecedented -- old is new again developments in our world. Alex, thank you so much for bringing us that reporting.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. Be sure to tune in to State of the Union this Sunday. I'll be joined by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. The show begins at 9:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN and streaming on Max.

CNN News Central starts right now.