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New Day

Donald Trump Elected U.S. President. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired November 09, 2016 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:09] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is a NEW DAY indeed.

President-elect Donald J. Trump, a stunning comeback, wins in places and by margins that made this victory deep and decisive. We still have states to call. But whether it's the moment or simple exhaustion, Donald Trump already different in his first remarks to the country -- humble, conciliatory, and promising to make us all proud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us, it's about us, on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard- fought campaign. I mean, she fought very hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump's rival, Hillary Clinton, conceding the race last night. She will speak later this morning, we're told.

At this hour, there are still several states that are too close to call. Republicans, though, will maintain control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Markets around the world are in turmoil at this hour over Trump's astonishing victory. We have this incredible and historic moment covered the way only CNN can.

So, let's begin with John Berman to break down all of the numbers -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR, EARLY START: Good morning, Alisyn.

This is where things stand, a little after 4:00 a.m. in the East Coast, Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. As of right now, he's already won 289 electoral votes. We have three states still remaining to call, Michigan, Minnesota also, New Hampshire.

I want to show Maine. Maine, also, we did just call Maine. But one interesting detail about the state of Maine. Donald Trump will one electoral vote in the state of Maine. The first Republican to win an electoral vote in New England since the year 2000, that's because Maine gives some electoral votes based on congressional districts.

Some other information we want to give you right now, Donald Trump -- as of now, Hillary Clinton is at 218 electoral votes, 289 for Trump, historic wins in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He turned those states from blue to red. It's historic. You know, no Republican has won Pennsylvania since 1988. No Republican has won Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan. Clinton didn't even go there after the convention.

But Hillary Clinton did win some states including California and Virginia, bringing her total to 19. Dramatically fewer than expected. One of the big surprises Alisyn brought up say little bit ago, Donald Trump they had coattails -- Republicans, they will keep control of the Senate, at least 51 Senate seats. That means they don't even need Mike Pence to break a tie, if the need to arise.

As for the House of Representatives, as of right now, this is where the balance of power stands, Republicans easily maintaining control with at least 235 seats.

So, the key here to remember, guys, was that Donald Trump was able to bring Republicans into power, even Republicans who didn't necessarily support him. Some of these numbers will change throughout the morning. We will keep you posted -- guys.

CAMEROTA: All right. John, thank you very much for all of that.

About one hour ago, Donald Trump gave a victory speech. He reached out to Hillary Clinton and her supporters, here's a little of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've just received a call from Secretary Clinton.

(APPLAUSE)

She congratulated us, it's about us, on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign. I mean, she fought very hard.

Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely.

Now, it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together.

To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.

(APPLAUSE)

It's time.

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. (APPLAUSE)

[04:05:04] For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

(APPLAUSE)

As I've said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign but rather an incredible and great movement, made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their family.

It's a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs, who want and expect our government to serve the people, and serve the people it will.

(APPLAUSE)

Working together we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream. I've spent my entire life in business, looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world.

That is now what I want to do for our country.

(APPLAUSE)

Tremendous potential. I've gotten to know our country so well. Tremendous potential. It is going to be a beautiful thing.

Every single American will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

(APPLAUSE)

We have a great economic plan. We will double our growth and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world. At the same time we will get along with all other nations, willing to get along with us. We will be.

We'll have great relationships. We expect to have great, great relationships.

No dream is too big, no challenge is too great. Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach.

America will no longer settle for anything less than the best.

I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: Vice President-elect Mike Pence on one side, Baron Trump on the other side, his youngest son. We haven't seen much of him in this campaign, but what a moment to make an entrance.

Donald Trump making history. The victory astonishing on many levels.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan with the latest.

The word from there?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, too, Chris.

Well, certainly, there is jubilation from team Trump tonight and then to this morning and feel like they did hit the goal of making Trump come off as gracious in that victory speech earlier tonight. I can't tell you here outside at Trump Tower. It's still like a party-like atmosphere. There are many supporters of Donald Trump, many supporters of Hillary Clinton coming out. Passion is still, of course, running high here in the streets in front of Trump Tower.

We believe that President-elect Trump did arrive back here short time ago, presumably to get a little sleep because for him, the work really does start anew in a new way today. And that's something that his vice president said immediately, that they're going to start immediately getting to work on the transition.

We don't know much about their schedule going forth, but we do know that a White House visit is on the calendar. We know that President Obama cleared his schedule on Thursday to meet with the president- elect. So, potentially, Donald Trump Washington bound on Thursday -- Chris, Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right. Sunlen, thank you very much.

And, you know, a poignant reminder of what was at take last night, behind Sunlen was Trump Tower. You saw the dump trucks in front. They were filled with sand. There was a precautionary measure if God forbid, a horrible reaction. We have not seen that.

And, in fact, from President-elect Trump, we've seen a new and opposite tone, conciliatory, reaching out, saying that he will us all proud. Now, his opponent, Hillary Clinton, conceded on the phone. We're told she will not speak until later this morning.

CNN's Phil Mattingly joining us now for the latest.

Phil, that was something that people were talking about if Trump had lost would he come out, would he accept, it was a little bit surprising as the race seemed to end, Hillary Clinton nowhere in sight.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. And that's actually one reason, according to a senior official, that Hillary Clinton made that call even before CNN had actually called the race. The perception that perhaps she was going to hold out and that decision that she wasn't going to speak on election night.

Now, that call happened around shortly before 2:30, I'm told, it was cordial but it was very short. Guys, obviously, a call Hillary Clinton never expected to make.

I've talked to a few campaign advisers, those who are actually picking up their phones. They say devastation is the only way how the campaign feels right now. They simply didn't expect to be at this point. They went into Tuesday morning fully expecting to win, with a number of different pathways to reach those 270 electoral votes.

Now, I asked were your models wrong? Was there some major flaw in how you guys were looking at data? They wouldn't concede that but they made it clear that the electorate simply didn't match up with the reality that they thought they were going into with the day.

Now, you did mention, Hillary Clinton will speak this morning. We don't know when or exactly where yet. But I'm told from one senior aide that she is expected to strike a gracious tone. One of the things she's going to focus on is something we actually something that we started to hear at the end of the campaign, that the country needs to heal. It's been an extraordinary divisive 16, 17, 18 months even know it's clearly not the result that she or her team expected, it's the result that is the reality, and now she's going to have to talk about moving on to the next step -- guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil.

Let's try to figure out how we got here now. Let's break down everything that has happened overnight with our panel. We have David Gregory, Matt Lewis, John Berman, and in Washington, we have Maeve Reston.

It's great to have all of you here as we retrace our steps and try to figure out what happened last night.

David, what do you think happened last night?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: A political earthquake happened all across this country. Something that was stunning. Donald Trump knew and understood something about voters in America, that we in the media didn't understand, that the political class, Republicans and Democrats didn't understand, including pollsters, experienced strategists and that the establishment writ large didn't understand.

He understood and harnessed the energy and movement that was tired of the political establishment and really wanted a new day, wanted something completely different. And we have the juxtaposition of someone who had never held elective office, never served in the military -- we've only had presidents come from those two fields -- against the ultimate insider in Hillary Clinton.

And the American people on cross lines, primarily, rendered a resounding judgment. A desire for radical change, despite a lack of confidence in his temperament or his qualifications. Change is the order of the day. CUOMO: Hey, Maeve, let's hop over to you for a second. I was just

reading the piece that you put up the column that said how Trump won. And it's interesting, opinions change based on facts. People are looking at the prognosticators and saying, how did they get it wrong? They got it wrong because the facts were different. Donald Trump's victory margin and who put him in office changed the map.

Tell us how.

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, that blue wall that we've been talking about for all weeks is what was supposed to be what was going to, you know, protect Clinton and protect her victory, he changed the map. He did all of these things that he told us that he was going to do. You know, he made that argument over and over again that there was this secret army of Trump voters out there that was not being reflected in the polls.

And all of that came true last night. It's just really amazing, you know, for many weeks before this election, he was out there talking about how this was going to be Brexit plus, plus, plus, and Brexit times ten. He was going to shock the nation. And he did by moving into those Rust Belt states, and turning states like Wisconsin and Michigan that, until this weekend, were not even really on the Clinton campaign's radar as battleground states. It's really just a stunning -- a stunning development.

CAMEROTA: Matt, to your psychic credit, yesterday, you were on our air, and you had your own sort of idea of how it was going to go and polls and numbers that you had crunched. And you gave Donald Trump North Carolina and Florida, two things that other pundits were not doing.

CUOMO: He also had Clinton winning.

CAMEROTA: You had Clinton winning. So, OK.

CUOMO: Before his breast swells too much with pride.

CAMEROTA: OK.

But those were the pivotal states. Those were, at that time, last night, hours ago, those were the moments when Clinton's camp started gasped.

CUOMO: Let's put up those numbers.

CAMEROTA: Let's look at those, because let's look at how people, what the polls said, the polls of polls, all of the polls crunched together. Let's start here with Florida, the poll of polls --well, they saw it even, but he won.

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. So, I had Hillary winning a very narrow victory. I think I gave her 274 electoral votes. I thought Trump would win Florida and North Carolina. I did not think Trump would go win Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. [04:15:02] And, you know, I'm sort of cursed. I have this encumbrance

of actually having followed politics, I've seen Republicans time after time go into Pennsylvania and it's fool's gold. They always end up losing it. I think somebody like Donald Trump in a way it's a blessing, he saw things from a perspective that he wasn't sort of burdened by following politics as closely.

So, that sometimes gives you a fresh perspective. But, clearly, I think we are now in the beginning stages of reordering. I think that the Republican Party is going to be the party of working class whites in the Rust Belt in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Wisconsin.

And in the short term, I think that's a good thing if you care about winning elections. I still am concerned about the long-term ramifications, because I think you end up losing Arizona, and Nevada, and you know, the sort of Sun Belt states.

CUOMO: Well, President-elect Trump made an interesting point. He said for this to be truly historic as a win, we have to do a great job. There is a burden of the mandate of change which is you actually have to do something.

And when we look at why he won, you have two angles you look at, right, as a surveyor, as a pollster -- width and depth. Here, they saw where he got his support. But they did not get how deep it would be, and these are people, John, that you were tracking all see something real from their government.

BERMAN: You know, people say, what happened? The answer is it all happened, right? I mean, this was a political realignment. You talk about the Rust Belt -- Donald Trump won white voters that voted for Barack Obama.

CUOMO: Let's put those numbers up. Michigan, Wisconsin.

LEWIS: That's a great point. That's a great point because it's not just the missing white voters who weren't voting in the past. It's a lot of people who voted for Obama and now voting for Trump.

CUOMO: Michigan and Wisconsin, so just we can get a sense of this, because this was seen as fairy dust, when we used to touch these buttons on the wall. And then you see Michigan, very tight right now.

BERMAN: We haven't called Michigan right now. It is very tight.

We have called Wisconsin, it's a 26,000 margin. Wisconsin, Michigan, very, very close. Pennsylvania.

I will say one thing about Florida and also North Carolina. Even had Hillary Clinton won Florida and North Carolina, she still would have lost the race --

LEWIS: Stunning. Stunning.

BERMAN: -- because he ran the table there. GREGORY: Listen to what President-elect Trump said in his acceptance

speech, "The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer." Who else could say that?

LEWIS: FDR.

GREGORY: Elizabeth Warren could say that.

LEWIS: Bernie Sanders.

GREGORY: Bernie Sanders could say that.

This is not pure ideology to the point made about these voters. But it is class, it is Rust Belt voters. You have a gender gap here. But what is bigger that working class women voted for Trump over Clinton. And that was bigger --

BERMAN: And the college class women did not vote for Hillary Clinton in the numbers they needed to for her to win.

CAMEROTA: Guys, stick around. We have a lot more to talk about.

So, how exactly did Donald Trump do it? The exit polls tell some of the stories, but they still didn't tell which issues mattered most to voters. Find out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:21:56] CUOMO: President-elect Donald Trump, the next president of the United States. This will be where you will find Donald J. Trump for at least the next four years. How did he get there?

Let's talk about it. Let's bring in Christine Romans breaking down the exit polls.

The new dirty word in politics -- exit polls.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. What are the issues that drove him to the White House? Voters think Donald Trump can fix three things, you guys. Terrorism, immigration and trade.

Let's start with terrorism. Trump won overwhelming here with 57 percent of the nationwide electorate. Just 39 percent for Hillary Clinton.

And even bigger margin of victory with those who say immigration is the most important issue, 64 percent breaking for Trump, 32 percent for Clinton. He won Florida, right? But look at this -- we asked voters there what should happen to illegal immigrants working in the U.S.?

Seventy percent of Floridians say they should be offered legal status. Twenty-two percent want deportation. Of those who want deportations, 93 percent breaking for Trump, just 6 percent picking Clinton. That was a trend on all the issues, you guys. Trump support was huge among voters who believe in his message. And

even if some voters agreed with Clinton's position, the votes just were not there for her. Large share of voters in key Rust Belt states, important for Clinton's electoral path, they agreed with Trump that trade agreements hurt American workers. Half of all voters in Michigan said international trade kills American jobs. Fifty-nine percent break for Trump, just 36 for Clinton. It was those promises to bring factory jobs back that really resonated the Rust Belt states, really interesting about how trade propelled him to the White House, you guys.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting. Thank you for all that, Christine.

So, let's break down this historic morning, an election with our panel. We have David Gregory, John Berman in Washington, Mark Preston and Maeve Reston.

Great to have all of you.

David, do you -- so, obviously, those are the issues that this all hinged on. Those are the defining issues. The immigration, the promise of manufacturing again, though -- I mean, has manufacturing completely dried up in the U.S.? In other words, is this one of these Brexit moments where the people feel as though we need lots more manufacturing jobs, but it might not be possible for that to actually happen?

GREGORY: Well, but again, I think that this entire election cycle, going back to the primaries, was a lot more about idealism. The idea of restoration, it was not about pragmatism.

So, when Donald Trump says let's win again, let's make America great again, there are a lot of people we now know for sure who said, yeah, right on. I want to win again, I want to find my way back into a job, I find my way back into the economy.

All of these talk about Republican can't win the White House if they don't champion immigration reform, apparently, that's not true. And for some of the excess in his talk, people thought he was crazy, we have to remember -- just like politicians promise things, say nice things, people say, oh, I don't believe those politicians -- I think there are a lot of people say I don't think this stuff is extreme. I think he's, excuse me, going to shake things up and that's a good thing.

CUOMO: Well, something that we should be saying all morning long -- there's a lot of shock, there's a lot of fear, you can put any word you want on it, but it's negative energy surrounding what happened here, because you have a very divided country.

[04:25:10] To that point, what you just heard out of Donald Trump in his victory speech, you should get used to that. Those who know him and understand his ways would not be surprised that he sounded like that in his victory speech. And he's going to sound like that going forward, John Berman. You're not going to hear about the wall, about how Muslims are bad, how immigrants have to go. He's in a different position. He's delivered a mandate. The trick

will be, he's now got a huge group in this country who want to see things change and in a big way and tomorrow.

BERMAN: The other thing is, no matter what he says between now and January 20th -- what he does taking office will be an anathema to a large part of the population. You can figure, they will be in a vote on repealing Obamacare. You can figure that the Iran deal will be in jeopardy. You can figure that there will be some meaningful immigration action that will not be welcomed by a large part of the population.

This will all happen. Not to mention military intervention overseas. There's a war going on right now on Iraq to retake Mosul. What will he do about that in January?

He will be president on January 22nd. What he says between now and then matters a lot. But what he does immediately after will be fascinating to see.

CAMEROTA: So, M, given that we all now have learned that change was the order of the day, could any Democrat have won in this climate? Or was there something that went wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign?

RESTON: Well, I think she's clearly a very flawed candidate, particularly up against Trump who is sort of the embodiment of change, running as the ultimate outsider who had no experience in government or the military. And, you know, she was going for this historic milestone in many ways, being the first woman president. But she was sort of the embodiment of the establishment to so many voters who just felt that she had been in politics for three decades. And she never was quite able to articulate that message of how she would bring change to Washington.

And, of course, it's a very hard thing to do to have a third consecutive term of one party. So, she was facing tough odds. But, you know, you have to think about what Joe Biden was thinking about last night or Bernie Sanders or any of them. I mean, this could have been a very different thing.

GREGORY: Let's remember, the rebellion in the Democratic Party in the game of Bernie Sanders, a populist rebellion in the party that she put down, because in the primaries she had enough of vote to be able to put down, but not the energy. Not that feeling that people thought the economy and the primary and the system in the Democratic Party was rigged against Democrats and went on to face a much bigger force in Donald Trump.

Again, you think about the debate. She wins the debate.

BERMAN: Three for three.

GREGORY: Right, three for three. And, yet, what's that line that Donald Trump said, you've been there 30 years, what have you done? There's a lot of people who don't like the Clintons, who don't like Bill Clinton and his past and don't like her. You know, let's get them out. Let's really rebuild something new.

BERMAN: You either needed a candidate who was going to battle Donald Trump for the working class vote, or the white vote, or you have to have a candidate who was going to electrify minority voters, Latinos, African-Americans and like. She was neither it turns out in the end, and that was the real problem there.

CUOMO: Look, President-elect Trump said it right. He said it wasn't about me, it wasn't a campaign, this was a movement.

Mark Preston, you know, it's interesting, he has to, the moment demands it. His followers are angry, they're vindictive, they're fired up. He's going to have to strike a different tone. When we look into the numbers, we see this a passion that he understood before anyone else. Over 60 percent say they decided this race before September.

So, what do you see inside these numbers and why Trump is where he is this morning?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDTIOR: Well, you know, we talk about is how he tapped into an electorate that was very angry and was very successful in getting them out to the polls. I do think it's worth noting that Hillary Clinton, you know, as Maeve said was a very flawed candidate, she underperformed on key constituencies.

We talk about this blue wall that was built. But you know what? There are bricks that build the wall. For instance, she underperformed African-Americans by six percentage points by Barack Obama. Perhaps, we would have all expected that. But we wouldn't expect her to underperform amongst Hispanics by six points and Asians by eight points.

Let me just give you two stacks that I thought was mind blowing. In two key states, in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump outperformed Mitt Romney among white non-college voters by 18 points. I mean, that's a huge number.

And when you get to North Carolina, which I understand is not part of the blue wall, but remember Barack Obama barely lost North Carolina and he won it in 2008, and it's a state that's trending blue or at least that's what we thought so.