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Laura Coates Live

Elon Musk's Influence In Trump's White House; Nancy Pelosi Blaming Biden For The Election Loss; Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) Is Interviewed About How Trump Picks His Cabinet And Mass Deportations; Andrew Bailey Considered For U.S. Attorney General And Missouri Representative-Elect Wesley Bell Is Interviewed About His Views On This And The Democratic Loss In The Election; Celebrity Endorsement Did Not Help The Harris-Walz Campaign, Stephen A. Smith Explains. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired November 08, 2024 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

UNKNOWN: They had their swift. They had their moments. We don't want this. Make a separate category for AI music. That's all I have got to say.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Oh my gosh, yeah. I'll --

UNKNOWN: AI music.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

PHILLIP: -- co-sign on that. Like, we should just not put them in the same category. Everybody, thank you very much for joining us. And thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" she starts right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR, LAURA COATES LIVE: Tonight, what is nearly, what, $200 million buy you? Apparently, a front row seat to running America. Inside Elon Musk's growing influence on president-elect Donald Trump.

Plus, the Pelosi-Biden feud hits a new messy low as the former house speaker lays the blame on President Biden. But is she revising history or not?

And Stephen A. Smith on the fallout from the election where he says Republicans got it right and where Democrats got it wrong, tonight on "Laura Coates Live."

So Donald Trump is not even in the White House yet. We're getting a pretty big clue about who he's trusting to help him run it. I'm talking about Elon Musk. It turns out Musk joined a call between Trump and Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the day after the election.

A source says that it was brief, that no policy was discussed at all, and that Zelensky thanked Musk for his support with Starlink. You know what? It did raise eyebrows that the world's richest man with billions in federal contracts and, of course, a global satellite network got to be on a call with a foreign leader at war with an American adversary. And it may not be a one off. (Inaudible) CNN that Musk has been on several calls that Trump has held, has even joined conversations about staffing decisions.

By the way, those decisions, they are coming. Cabinet picks, we're told, are already being discussed, and new job at the White House could be announced as early as this weekend. So while Trump allies are battling it out in Mar-a-Lago for positions, the finger pointing in the Democratic Party is getting worse. I mean, real ugly.

Nancy Pelosi is now throwing President Biden well, under the proverbial bus.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

NANCY PELOSI, FORME HOUSE SPEAKER: Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that -- that if there -- if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. And as I say, Kamala may have -- I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But what -- we don't know that. That didn't happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COATES: Interesting, especially considering what she said in September.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: And we had an open primary, and she won it. Nobody else got in the race. Yes, people could have jumped in. There were some people who were sort of preparing, but she just, took off with it. And, actually, it was a blessing because it -- there isn't that much time. There wasn't that much time between then and the election, and it sort of saved time. So it wasn't that we didn't have an open process. It's just that nobody got in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: So she's saying now, though, it's Biden's fault for endorsing Harris right away. I wonder what happened if he hadn't endorsed her right away or at all, though. As for him getting out sooner, well, that's also curious, especially in the context of what Pelosi just did at CNN in February. You remember when there was major concerns about Biden's mental fitness?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: Joe Biden has a vision. He has knowledge. He has -- a strategic thinker. This is a very sharp president. In terms of his public presentation, if he makes a slip of the tongue here or there, what's the deal?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: That was kind of Donald Trump weave a little bit, doesn't it? While other high profile Democrats are also dog piling on Biden, it's for you to decide whether they're right or not, but it includes the "Pod Save America" guys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON FAVREAU, HOST, POD SAVE AMERICA: Joe Biden's decision to run for president again was a catastrophic mistake. It just was. And he and his inner circle, they refused to believe the polls. They refused to believe he was unpopular. Then we find out, when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign, that the Biden campaign's own internal polling, at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate, showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: One person who is not buying all of the Biden bashing, Democratic senator John Fetterman of the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He says this, "For those that decided and moved to break Biden and then you got the election that you wanted, it's appropriate to own the outcome and fallout.

[23:05:00]

You take a reasonable calculated risk to f--k around. Embrace your culpability for what you found out."

With me now, Jackie Kucinich, CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for the "Boston Globe," Ameshia Cross, a democratic strategist, and Brad Todd, a republican strategist and co-founder of the political strategy firm OnMessage. Glad to have all of you here. That's a new take, Ameshia, on f around and find out. He's talking about, of course, Fetterman, do you think that he has a point?

AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Absolutely. At the end of the day, Democrats lost. It is a hard loss. We know up and down the ballot there were some real issues associated with the messaging going into this, but also the polling, and what the exit polls actually show versus the polls that we saw just days prior, in the election cycle. But I think that Fetterman is right. The pile off for Joe Biden is quite frankly unnecessary, and it's really disturbing for the party.

For someone who has had such seismic winds, we're talking about infrastructure. We're talking about reducing the price of prescription drugs, particularly looking at insulin. We're talking about bringing the economy back, staving off a recession, hundreds of thousands of jobs at it, an economy that's the envy of the world.

It is very disturbing that you would see so much of a pile on. And I'm not exactly confident that even if there had been a prolonged primary, even if that had have happened and it was entirely different candidate, let's say it wasn't Kamala Harris, that Donald J. Trump still wouldn't have been extremely competitive and might not have and it still would have won.

And I say that just because in every country where you've had an incumbent presidency, the incumbent party lost, in the post pandemic era. That is something that happened globally. It's not something that is just -- something that we've seen as instigated in the United States. So you think that that pandemic fatigue, how people saw the economy irrespective to the fact that it is doing well is a very different thing, and that is something that needs to be studied.

But in addition to that, I think that a lot of the information that the Harris campaign was getting and the information the Democratic Party was getting and utilizing to develop their policy strategies and how they talked about it on the campaign trail just seemingly all fell apart. And I don't think that would have changed with a different candidate.

COATES: Well, Brad, how do you see it? I mean, obviously, the pile on can sound a lot like scapegoating. Did the Democrats just have the wrong message, messenger, or wrong strategy? And did the Republicans just seize on an opportunity and do it better?

BRAD TODD, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, digging back in my mind, I remember a fellow named Dean Phillips who was in the Democratic house leadership, who said --

COATES: We interviewed him last night.

TODD: -- said all these things about Joe Biden. Said he was too old, so he was slipping, said he couldn't win and put Democrats in peril in the election. Nancy Pelosi ran him out of the democratic leadership in October of 2023. They ran him out. He had to quit because he had the temerity to run against Joe Biden. And then virtually all these democrats who are now piling on Joe Biden rallied around him.

They could have had an open primary. They could have had these differences aired early. They could have put Joe Biden to the test with debates against other Democrats. They didn't do it. It was all a lie. And so any Democrat that's upset right now needs to look in the mirror for why didn't they contest Joe Biden early. They all knew it.

COATES: Does Pelosi own some of this as well?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So it's interesting to hear to see all those various gradations of Nancy Pelosi throughout the year because not only did she yank Biden off the bus and take away his keys, she's now throwing him in front of the bus. Listen. That February, when we were out in the trail, we're talking to voters. They're bringing up Biden's age. They're telling us that that was a concern.

COATES: They as in the voters?

KUCINICH: As in the voters -- over and over and over again. And when you had Democrats going on television and saying, oh, no, no. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. You were hearing from the electorate that they had questions, and they just weren't being answered. They're kind of being swept under the rug.

So that was step one in a lot of steps that that ended us where we are today. Is it Joe Biden's fault? I think this loss has a lot of different mothers and fathers --

TODD: That's easy. I think --

KUCINICH: -- within the Democratic Party and, you know, the economy and how and the failure to really understand what Americans were going through, I think, is the focal point of all of it.

TODD: Well, let's -- look, Joe Biden does deserve plenty of blame. I mean, he assured everybody inflation was transitory when it was not. He said the gas prices and fuel prices had to rise to meet their needs for Green New Deal type --

CROSS: Gas prices were going down significantly. And our inflationary cost are lower than anyone in the developed --

TODD: Look, Jennifer Granholm told us early in the administration that gas prices needed to rise and that Democrats willingly pushed natural gas prices up. They wanted higher energy prices to decrease use. When voters saw, hey, you want higher gas prices? You think inflation is transitory? That told everybody that inflation wasn't a priority for this administration.

COATES: Well, you know, thinking about this, and you've all pointed out the economy and the idea of Biden and blaming, but there was also a gender gap in many respects on this issue. And so Fetterman also talks about this. He said, Harris did not appeal to enough men, actually, and that at times, men were described as, quote, "dopes, gullible, or brutes." Harris now actually did not actually say those words at all.

[23:10:01]

But the sentiment, kind of the economy, the feelonomics (ph), the feel of sentiments was also part of this whole conversation. Is there a way for Democrats to envelop the men who felt disenfranchised or dismissed or, you know, insulted? Is there time for Democrats to course correct and bring them back into the fold? Is it too little, too late?

CROSS: I definitely think that there is time, but I do want to rewind a little bit because when we talk about men and particularly not on this show, but I've heard other shows. When they say working class, they typically mean white males. Working class exists across the American spectrum --

COATES: Of course.

CROSS: -- regardless of gender and regardless of race. White men in particular, white working class men have categorically been in the Republican tent for the better half of the past 35, 40 years. That is not something that is significant to the Kamala Harris campaign or even to the Biden campaign. What we did see was major shifts in the Latino vote, in terms of the turnout, but also in terms of their leanings.

But I think that those are things that we need to look at, in addition to the fact that rural voters came out in this election at rates that we have not seen in decades. Those are things that were headwinds that Kamala Harris faced that previous administrations, again, since, you know, the past 30 years, have not had to face. So I do think that those are things we need to look at. When it comes to rural culture, that's a different question.

COATES: One second -- with the rural -- excuse me. With the rural point of it, though, you were nodding your head. What impact did the rural vote have, and why were they able to come out now and drive towards the Republican Party? How were they enticed?

KUCINICH: Well, I think the, I mean, the Trump turnout model, the way that they were really trying to get out their voters this time, there were a couple things going on, right? Trump wasn't telling them to stay home and not vote, that --

COATES: Unlike 2020 attacking that.

KUCINICH: -- unlike 2020 where you had him saying, don't mail in your ballot. That it's rigged. You had that. But you also had a more sophisticated turnout model among Republicans. And listen, Harris really did have an uphill battle. She had to mount a campaign. And, yes, she had Biden's campaign --

COATES: In 105 days.

KUCINICH: Exactly. And that is something that needs to be acknowledged, how quickly they had to ramp up and really change the way they were doing a lot of --- really getting out there and getting people out.

TODD: I think she actually got the best campaign she could have had because she had six weeks where she was basically dark, no interviews at all. She had a great convention that was very well choreographed. She performed well. She had a great debate that she prepared for, for three weeks.

She did like five real interviews and screwed up four of them. I don't think a longer campaign would have made it better for her. I mean, "The View," the most friendly environment anywhere gave her the question that sunk her campaign. Would you have done anything different from Joe Biden? I just don't think that she should be commended for how well she did in a short time. I think that was the only way she had a shot.

KUCINICH: I wasn't commending anybody. I was just acknowledging that I mean, I don't think if you were running her cam -- a major presidential candidate's campaign, you'd say, you know what, three months is fine. TODD: But she had handed to her most of the pieces. I mean, she -- if

she was not going to run it different than Joe Biden, then she didn't need to change anything.

CROSS: In a truncated campaign, there are some things that you're going to have to do that you don't have to do when you get to run for a year and a half or longer. Donald Trump has been effectively running since 2015 and never stopped. With that being said, for Kamala Harris, she was trying to rebuild the Obama coalition. And rebuilding a coalition when there are individuals who feel as though the economy is not working for them, who have rising rents and cost of living, who are frustrated with the way American outlook is, and who feel like they're falling out of the middle class.

And individuals who are latching on to nativism, who are latching on to these ideals of populism, which again is not something that is, you know, native to the United States. We've seen it across the globe. Donald Trump and his campaign effectively chose people to blame. People to blame whether it was, migrants, whether it was, anybody who did not look like or represent the working class.

And I would argue that Democrats did not do as well of a job as they could have when it came to messaging working class policies because they are the party of working class policies and delivering on working class goals.

COATES: Interestingly enough, working class and Elon Musk don't go in the same sentence in many respects, and then both parties trying to jockey for that particular demographic, and yet Elon Musk was on the phone with president-elect Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Apparently, this was not a one off. We're hearing from different reports. He has been involved with other calls and staffing conversations as well.

This -- does this seem problematic to you to have somebody like Elon Musk specifically having that particular role or even the perception that he does?

TODD: It's very normal in a period of transition for you to have outside business leaders. I mean, Bill Clinton famously had Ron Brown run his transition and who had a lot of credibility with business people. But Elon's a different case. You know, he was a very central part of the campaign. A lot of voters were partly interested in Donald Trump, especially young men, because Elon was there.

They saw him as a disruptor. They saw him as somebody who has completely changed and maybe even saved American space industry. I mean, the guy actually made electric cars popular, something the government and the big three automakers had not been able to do in 20 years.

[23:14:59]

So I think you can't deny that he's a disruptor, and he was part of the package that people bought with Donald Trump. COATES: But should he be a part of those sorts of -- I mean, a

package is one thing, somebody who's obviously influential, but for him to be on the call with the Ukrainian president or other staffing agents, do you think Elon Musk should do that?

TODD: Well, I don't agree with everything that's going to probably come out of this administration on Ukraine, but I think it probably is pretty savvy to use Elon Musk because Elon Musk was there for Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people with Starlink at the very beginning. I think he probably cares a lot of credibility with Zelenskyy.

Trump may not start out in that position with Zelenskyy. It probably helped advance interest in the United States to bring him into that conversation.

COATES: I mean, there was an impeachment over our conversation with Zelenskyy. There probably have some credibility issues. So how do you see it? Should Elon Musk be in that role?

CROSS: Absolutely not. Elon Musk is operating as a foreign conduit when he has a lot to gain from this. We have to be real here. This is a guy who was wheeling and dealing contracts with not only the United States, but other global entities as well. This is also a guy who used X as an appendage of the Trump campaign. The entire time that we -- you know, that that Trump was running, the social media site formerly known as Twitter has been a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign.

He has done his level best to silence voices who were against Donald Trump, and he himself has pushed out Trumpian messages and a message of authoritarianism and has utilized that as, essentially a way to bring voices to the fold that would vote for Donald Trump. With that being said, this is a guy who is not going to -- he wouldn't make it past a congressional hearing.

He's not going to be somebody who takes an official job with the administration. But he has a very prized unofficial role that he is utilizing to wheel and deal in foreign nations as an appendage of the Trump administration. We're seeing that, and we saw it before Trump got elected, and we're seeing it now.

COATES: Interestingly enough, I mean, Trump may meet his match and those who can change their mind on a dime between Elon Musk. So we'll see. Thank you so much, everyone.

Still ahead, how will Donald Trump approach selecting his cabinet to enact his second term agenda? One of his cabinet members from his first term, Republican congressman Ryan Zinke, joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: President-elect Donald Trump has made a slew of promises to voters. Here are just a few.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: Two things in day one, right? Drill, baby, drill, and close our borders.

I will immediately bring prices down.

I will launch the largest deportation program in American history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: But first, he'll have to assemble a cabinet to help execute those very plans. Joining me now is someone who was part of Trump's very first cabinet, Republican congressman Ryan Zinke. He served as interior secretary. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. You served in the first cabinet. What will the president-elect's approach be to picking a second cabinet this time around?

REP. RYAN ZINKE (R-MT): Well, I think he has a lot to draw from. First of all, the cabinet really is the executors of the president's policy. In my case, it's interior, two things. One is energy, which would became energy dominant in two years, and we fixed our parts and force. So that was my mission. The president guided that, but the cabinet itself executes his policy.

I think we're looking at, you know, a lot of repeats probably Pompeo, certainly is in there. I've heard secretary of defense. He would be very, very good. Of course, the president's going to look at people that he's frowning with before and is comfortable with. As you know, President Trump does demand a lot of loyalty. And as a boss, I can tell you, he was pretty attentive. He'd call me at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, no problem, consistently if he had a question.

COATES: Does loyalty translate though to being a yes man? Obviously, every person who would head these different positions would need to have the sense of agency and autonomy to be able to effectively execute the strategy. Is that equated to yes men?

ZINKE: Well, certainly, I was not. And how I operated as I got the president to sign an executive order, so it was clear what my guidance was, not only to me, but other secretaries. In the case of energy, you know, Department of Interior did not have the entirety of the energy picture, but I needed other departments to also, you know, do their duty.

So, you know, I think President Trump, they asked some people because, you know, look, he's all Manhattan. He's a big guy physically. Obviously, he's a former president. He's got a pretty big ego, and it was my job as a secretary to stand up and say, Mr. President, this is my best advice to you, sir.

COATES: Let me ask you a question about one that people are thinking about one area, so their one promise, that's the area of mass deportation and immigration more broadly. And you had a conversation with a local sheriff recently as reported in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and you told the sheriff, I'm quoting here, "Montana has a long, long history of rounding things up," unquote. How are authorities going to determine who to round up, so to speak, in any type of mass deportation? ZINKE: Well, that's exactly the same question I asked the sheriff,

that you're looking at 10 million people. All right? Are you going to round up everyone? And, you know, Montana, again, tongue in cheek, but it is true. Montana and the sheriffs have a long history of rounding things up. And I ask if you're given the authority to round up, do you know who to round up? And if ICE is the place to put them, can you, do it? And the sheriff is absolutely convinced they can.

And look, it's the local sheriffs that know who's out there that's doing, you know, bad things. And Montana is like a lot of states. We have Fentanyl. We had drug trafficking, child trafficking. You know, our cities have too much crime and a lot of that is coming from even the southern border way in the north part of Montana.

So the bottom line, I think the sheriffs are the right people because they know the community and they have to work with local authority. Look, let's go after the bad people. The people that are hurting our kids that are running fentanyl that are -- they are from, you know, prisons that have been here. Let's go out with the people.

I don't really care too much about a dishwasher, but I do care about people that are doing a lot of bad homework.

[23:25:01]

COATES: I do. I have concerns obviously as somebody who, was a prosecutor and knowing how officers have to comply with the 4th Amendment and, of course, being able to not racially profile on a hunch, but rather what they actually see to be a crime or prospective crime. But I wonder even if in the event you're able to round up, so to speak, where would you be able to house or put everyone in the meantime? That seems to me a striking concern of what happens when you follow that thread.

ZINKE: Yeah. Well, for Montana, you have to deliver them somewhere, to ICE, and then you have to process someplace. I assume that's going to be, you know, near the southern border, but you're right. Logistics is a big issue. I think the president is spot on, on deportation, but I think he's going to go after as he should, the bad characters first.

I mean, when you have 10 million, you know, sheriffs in Montana know who's on the streets, they know who's dealing drugs, and they know who's doing child trafficking. They have the authority to do it, and they'll -- and I believe they'll take care of it in the best interest of their country and Montana.

COATES: You know, let's say that you're able to identify and remove, detain and remove all those who have committed the type of heinous crimes you're speaking about, and crimes that certainly are vile and no one would agree with. Then what comes next? Is that the end of the story and those who have simply crossed illegally and have not committed an additional crime of sorts, would they be left alone or would they be the next?

ZINKE: You know, the 10 million people, I think you got to go after real bad characters first. And I think, you know, there's a general acceptance in our country, but there's a lot of people that have waited in line. I mean, we should've incentivized doing the right thing. You know, we need work. We need we need people that want to integrate and be value add to this country. Absolutely, immigration is a big part of it.

I mean, unless you're Native American, we immigrated, you know, it's from somewhere. But, yeah, I think, you know, the picture is this. Let's go after the bad characters first. Let's make sure we have secure border. And then let's figure it out as Americans, oh, look, we need immigration, but let's make sure it's done legally. Let's make sure we know who's in this country. Let's make sure that we vet people, properly. And look, let's make sure we give people, you know, a chance, to make it in this country, and that's an important part.

COATES: The governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, vowed to fight the mass deportations and said that state police would not be used. Any idea how the Trump administration would deal with states who would refuse to cooperate in this endeavor?

ZINKE: Well, I know Montana, certainly, sheriffs given the authority will do their part as part of their constitutional duty is protect their citizens. And when you have drugs, when you have child trafficking. And look, we all know that most of the immigration is helpful. Most people want to come to this country to work. Absolutely, the American dream should be alive.

But also, we also know there's 100 of terrorists that come in on the watch list. There are people here that have empty prisons that are doing harm. So let's go after those and let's work together to fix this immigration policy. So we have a border and we incentivize doing the right thing. Let's incentivize doing the legal right thing.

COATES: Congressman Ryan Zinke, thank you so much for joining.

ZINKE: You're very welcome. God bless.

COATES: Take care. Who will be Donald Trump's attorneys general? It could be this man, Missouri A.G. Andrew Bailey, who successfully gone after the Biden administration. On my next guest, something to say about him. Missouri congressman-elect Wesley Bell joins me next.

Plus, is it the end of celebrity endorsements? Stephen A. Smith is going to weigh in on that and much more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

COATES: President-elect Donald Trump starting to bet his potential cabinet lineup. Arguably, one of the most important jobs, well, the attorney general of the United States seems to be in the news. CNN reports Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey is under consideration, but who is he?

Well, in a short time as state A.G., he has successfully sued the Biden administration over their student loan forgiveness program. He's also blocked efforts to free wrongfully convicted individuals, and he asked the Supreme Court to delay Trump's sentencing and lift the gag order in the New York hush money case. The court rejected that effort.

I want to bring in someone who is quite familiar with Bailey, Democratic congressman-elect from Missouri, Wesley Bell. He is the prosecuting attorney for Saint Louis County. Well, welcome congressman-elect Bell. I have to ask you, given your familiarity in particular, is Andrew Bailey qualified to be the top law enforcement officer in this country?

WESLEY BELL, MISSOURI REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT: Well, you know, we're getting into hypotheticals and I think what's more important is the idea that elections matter and elections have consequences. And as a result, the incoming president gets to make that decision. And my guess is no matter who he chooses, it's probably not going to be my top choice.

But that said, you know, I think, you know, whoever he appoints is going to be someone that's going to further his agenda. And, you know, we have to fight back against excesses and curtailing of rights. And I think that's one of the things that we're going to have to do and we're likely to be in the minority, but elections have consequences.

COATES: Well, you have been the prosecuting attorney in Saint Louis County. Now you're the congressman-elect, and you have defeated Congresswoman Cori Bush in your primary, a prominent member of the left wing of the party. It was a heated primary, I might add. What did you learn from your win that you think would have been instructive or would be instructive for the kind of soul searching the Democrats are doing right now?

[23:35:03]

BELL: I think that it's important to be introspective and not play the blame game, but play the accountability game. I think it's important for us to double down on those pocketbook issues, those kitchen table issues that really matter to working class folks, because I don't think it's a matter of having the right message. When you look at those issues that Democrats support, reproductive rights, a living wage, expanding Medicaid, when those issues are on the ballot independently, they win.

And so I think it's also about making sure that that message is heard. And I think that that's something that our party is going to have to do better do better with and look to connect with those local community issues that really matter to folks on the ground. And so, yeah, there's going to be a lot of introspection and there's going to be a lot of, soul searching as you said, Laura.

But I think that we're going to we're going to be better as a result of this, and I'll say this too. Republicans need to work with Democrats as well. When you look at races across the country, there are razor slim margins everywhere. So if Republicans walk away thinking that they they've solved the mysteries of the universe and that they don't have to work with -- reach across the aisle, I think they're going to be rudely -- they're going to be in for a rude awakening as well. So I think it's important that we find ways to work together, deliver results for our constituents because that's what Americans want.

COATES: Well, you know, certainly success, particularly when it comes to election, it seems to come around and go around and can be taken as much as it can be, received as quickly. But let me ask you this, because it looks like there is a mandate. That's the word I keep hearing. The president-elect says that he has a mandate to carry out his agenda, the popular vote, the Electoral College vote.

Republicans may be poised to control both chambers of Congress or enjoy some level of majority, particularly in the house. What can Democrats do in the minority to advance their agenda? Is it simply defense, or is there some opportunity for offense?

BELL: I think first and foremost, the last time President Trump won the election and lost the popular vote, he still said that he had a mandate. So, when we look at how close these elections are, I think it's pretty clear that the American people want Democrats and Republicans to work together and deliver results. I have a track record of reaching across the aisle and getting things done for our district, and so that's exactly what we intend to do.

We're not giving up on the house yet, though, Laura. There's still that hope there, but regardless of what happens, they're going to be razor slim margins, and it's important that we make that connection with regular working class folks on those pocketbook items that actually matter to folks, health care, jobs, and access to public safety. These are all things that Democrats and Republicans, for that matter care about.

And so, yeah, this is was tough, tough L for us on the democratic side, but we're going to learn from it. We're going to bounce back, and we're going to continue to do the work of the American people, and that's what you can expect.

COATES: Well, that is the mandate, the work of and for the American people. Wesley Bell, thank you so much.

BELL: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

COATES: From Oprah to Taylor Swift to Jennifer Lopez, Democrats rolled out the big names for endorsements and still fell flat. Did it actually hurt more than it helped? I'll ask Stephen A. Smith next.

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[23:40:00]

COATES: As the dust settles from the election, it's clear that a lot of things the Internet and certain pundits obsessed over simply didn't matter at all. Crowd size certainly didn't matter. And to surprise of perhaps no one, neither did the celebrity star power that the Harris team featured during its campaign.

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BEYONCE KNOWLES, SINGER: We must vote. And we need you. It's time to sing a new song.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, SINGER: By November 5th, I'm casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

JENNIFER LOPEZ, SINGER: There is no candidate in the history of the presidency that is more qualified, and there is no job that Kamala Harris can't do.

EMINEM, RAPPER: Vice president Harris supports a future for this country where these freedoms and many others will be protected and upheld.

LADY GAGA, SINGER: I cast my vote for someone who will be a president for all, for all Americans.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON, ACTOR: I am so proud to support our next president of the United States, Kamala Harris.

CARDI B., SINGER: I'm with Kamala. I believe in her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: A lot of celebrities did, and a lot of voters did, really millions, in fact, did vote for her, and we haven't even included the endorsement from Taylor Swift. Remember that and the whole Kamala era thing? Well, as the "New York Times" put it today, old school celebrities could not move the needle. Hollywood endorsements, once an essential part of the campaign playbook, may have backfired in this election. I wonder if that's true.

I want to bring in the one and only Stephen A. Smith. He's the host of "First Take" on ESPN, and, of course, "The Stephen A. Smith Show" on YouTube. Good to see you this evening. We're hearing a lot about the post mortem, of course, and the traditional Hollywood endorsements. Obviously, we're not as effective as they'd hoped they would be, but did they actually hurt the campaign as one person suggesting?

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STEPHEN A. SMITH, HOST, FIRS TAKE, ESPN: I'm not going to say they hurt the campaign. They did the best that they could. It certainly didn't dissuade voters from voting on the side that those celebrities endorsed. It's just that the other side had their own share of celebrities and plus they apparently had an abundance of Americans that paid attention to their own pocketbook, their own wallets, and looked at the situations that they individually had, and that's how they decided to vote.

You know, regardless of the fact that you have celebrities who are obviously highly popular and very, very well known, I think one of the things that we need to peel from all of this is that none of those celebrities are broke. All of them have made an abundance of money in their careers and in their life. Well-earned, I might add. But because that's their situation, regardless of who they tell you to

support, if you believe economically, you have a problem. You're not going to look to them for advice on how to fix it in terms of what candidate should be picked or not. You're going to go by what you believe and that's the direction that most Americans evidently went in when you consider the fact that Donald Trump not only won the Electoral College vote, but he won the popular vote.

Didn't win it against Hillary Rodham Clinton, did not win it against Joe Biden, but won it against Kamala Harris. And I don't think we can blame her for it. I think we have to blame the times that we're living in and what a lot of people are going through, and they made a decision for -- that was in the best interest for their lives as far as they were concerned, and a celebrity wasn't going to persuade them to do otherwise.

COATES: In some ways, they may have thought themselves, well, you're going to be alright either way with the money that you have. But for me and my personal pocketbook, perhaps a different story. But do you think that the reason that they -- that he was able to best on the popular vote, some appointed to race, some appointed to gender, some appointed to a whole host of factors, you think it came down to green?

SMITH: Well, I think it came down to green because I think it always comes down to green, and you can look at it in a variety of ways. You can look at it from the state of the economy. That's one point that you could make if you're on their side even though the economy had improved vastly, particularly in the waning months, before the election, at least according to the reports.

But still in all, as I've told many, many people, and I think you can relate to what I'm about to say, Laura, when it comes to black folks and minorities in this country, you can't come to us with data. You can't come to us with percentages. You can't come to us with the fact that inflation was once as high as 9.1 percent and that it had that dipped precipitously.

We're going to look at the price of gas, the price of groceries, how much it cost to go out to dinner, what's the cost of our rent, mortgage, etcetera, etcetera, and that -- and how much money we actually have in our pocket. Then that's our definition of an economy. So that's one argument that you get that you're compelled to make. The other way to look at it from an economic perspective is that from the first day that Joe Biden got in the office, he put an executive order out that essentially opened the borders and over 12 million immigrants came into this country illegally. When you have that going on and the right is making a case that it drastically affected the economy in a negative way, true or not, there are some people that's going to buy that argument.

Then you have to take into account some of the things that were going on in the streets of America in terms of crime and what have you, especially when it comes to men because he got most of the male vote. What happens with that? I've told this to people on many occasions, Laura. Most men, they think about two things. They prioritize two things, providing and protecting. So that's money in your pocket, and that's keeping your yourself and your loved ones safe.

And anytime that imagery goes against that, you're going to look for somebody to blame. And it's usually the incumbent administration. And that's what I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were dealing with, and they were unable to overcome.

COATES: What about the cultural issues, the social issues we are talking about a great deal. I mean, you had a lot of people who were looking at the existential threats for democracy. You had people talking about and I understand the idea of, you know, the role of men in society, and you had a whole lot of people from the Joe Rogan's and others, nontraditional celebrities, but it certainly become the very influential people they have, become talking about men feeling left behind.

And then you had this moment, and I'm going to read for you one thing that Congressman Seth Moulton had to say because he's facing some backlash for his comments, the "New York Times" the other day, in which he said, "Democrats spend way too much time trying to not offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. He went on to say, I have two little girls. I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formally male athlete. But as a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid to say that."

Now LGBTQ groups took an issue with him saying male or formally male, a top aide of his is reportedly resigning as well. But take us the essence of his comments. Did the backlash he's experiencing now prove his point?

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SMITH: I think the backlash to be more direct with it is that you felt there were a lot of people, particularly on the right, making the case that the left was being completely held hostage by the progressive extreme left. And what they were doing was making the case that you want to make an argument against the MAGA right, but we can look at the extreme left.

In the end, those are the fringes. The vast majority of Americans, whether you're right or your left, you're usually leaning towards the center, and that's not what they're trying to encourage folks to do. And as a result, that sort of debunked the argument against the MAGA right per se.

But we also got to sit up here and think about things from a very, very practical standpoint. We can talk all day until the cows come home about things being a threat to democracy when they were talking about Donald Trump. You have to listen to the argument that the other side was making especially tonight because they won. And so why did they win? Here's why they won. When you talk about a threat to democracy as it pertains to Donald Trump, they're going to say, A, we don't want to listen to that. We don't want to hear that because you guys always say that whenever it was a Republican candidate.

You said it about Reagan in the '80s. You said it about, you know, Bob Dole when he was running up against Clinton. You said it about H.W. when he was in office before, he lost to Clinton. You said it about W. And then after that, you said it about Donald Trump. So that's the argument that you're always going to make whenever it's the conservatives. That's number one.

Number two, you got to take into account, Laura, Joe Biden came in and said he was going to be a transitional president. He indicated that he was just a stopgap to calm the waters after the Trump administration to pave the way for a new generation of liberals coming down the pike. They won the midterm elections. It was supposed to be a red wave that never happened. The democrats won. He was feeling himself.

He said, why do I need to leave? Look at what happened under my watch as the incumbent. I'm staying. And when he stayed, all hell broke loose because everybody had anticipated that he would be a one term president. Now he was saying he had no intentions of that being the case. So people that were positioning themselves to succeed him suddenly well, it was a quandary. It was a mess within the Democratic Party.

He ultimately shows up on June 27th, embarrasses himself with his performance during that debate. The Democratic Party and donors and everybody in between said, no, he has to go. Three and a half weeks later, he steps down. They hand it to Kamala Harris. She's the presumptive Democratic nominee because she's the reigning vice president. But there was no primary that he endured, and there was no primary that she endured.

And Trump was able to say, look at how they bypassed the process and what have you. And they want to talk to us about democracy. Whether you agree with it or not, it wasn't a constitutional violation or anything like that. But it did seem a bit shady, not just to the right, but also evidently to independence. They took all of those things into consideration.

And in the end, they said, you got your argument, they have their argument. Here's my argument. My pocketbook and the streets of America are what's concerning me right now, and that is why I'm going to make the decision that I made. And that's why they won, and they won big.

COATES: They certainly readily won, and it was a clear and decisive victory, it seems, from all the numbers. I got to ask you. I know we don't have much time left, but I am curious. There are a lot of people who they're not even remotely close to looking at this in a non- emotional way. They are in it still. They are frustrated. They are angry. They feel, perhaps, betrayed by the numbers that they thought were going to come in. They feel disenchanted. What do you say to people about what happened the next day to move beyond, to move past, to move towards? Is that even possible?

SMITH: It's not only possible. It's necessary. Listen, this country has gone through a lot, and we've managed to overcome things no matter what trials and tribulations we endured as a nation. And, Laura, as the late great Joe Madison once said, this former host on SiriusXM, who we all miss dearly. Let me tell you, he said, "Let's put it where the goats can get it." If you're black, are you really acting like you haven't experienced something this bad before for those who think it's bad? Let's stop the nonsense here. There's plenty of times in American history, a matter of fact, every single election, where gloom and doom reign because the particular candidate that you didn't want ended up winning the nominee, the nomination rather or the presidency, and they became the president of the United States.

There are senators. There are congressional figures that do the same things. There's mayoral races, gubernatorial races. It happens all the time in America. You don't get to get what you want. That's not what measures the greatness of our country. What measures the greatness of it is regardless of the trials and tribulations, no matter how tough it is, no matter how dormant things look or how depressing it may appear to be, you get up and you continue to move on.

[23:55:02]

There's only but so much the president could do. Yes, he could do a lot, but he's not a dictator. There's 435 congressional figures. There are 100 senators. We ain't counting the governors, the mayors, and everything in between. There's a lot of people that can get in the way to stop some of the things that you may not want to happen. This is America. You don't get everything you want and you can be upset about it, but you get up and you march on it, you move forward because I'll be damned.

I didn't vote for Donald Trump, but I'll be damned if Donald Trump is going to stop me from moving forward with my life and to make sure that I make the most of the opportunities that America has presented to me. One way or another, I'm a find a way to march forward and I think most of us can say the same. So let's stop acting like it's otherwise. We know better. We got the resolve to move forward as a nation no matter what party affiliation you have, if you have any at all.

COATES: And that is where the goat can get it. Shout out to Joe Madison. I will always remember him and you, Stephen A. Smith. Thank you so much.

SMITH: Thank you.

COATES: Well, thank you for watching. "Anderson Cooper 360" is next.

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