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Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election; Hillary Clinton to Give Concession Speech This Morning; Global Markets Drop Sharply on Trump Win. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 09, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

CUOMO: ... at last count. Three states still too close to call, but they won't change the outcome for Clinton. They could expand the mandate for Trump. The billionaire businessman now facing the daunting task of uniting a very divided nation.

[07:00:13] Here are some of his first words as president-elect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I 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)

CAMEROTA: All right. So as you heard, Hillary Clinton conceded the race to Donald Trump. She did not speak publicly last night, but she is expected to speak now within hours.

President Obama called Donald Trump to congratulate him, and the two will meet at some point this week. Republicans who maintain control of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Markets around the world are in turmoil at this hour over Donald Trump's astonishing victory.

We have the best political team in the business covering it all for you. So let's begin with John Berman to break down the numbers of how we got here -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning, Alisyn.

As of roughly 7 a.m., we have a new president-elect. That is Donald J. Trump. As of now, he's got 289 electoral votes, at least. Hillary Clinton with 218.

There are still a few states that we have yet to call. Look at this: Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Michigan. You know, Donald Trump 15,000 votes ahead; 42,000 votes for Hillary Clinton in Minnesota.

And if we can look at New Hampshire, this is a big wow. New Hampshire, just 307 votes separate the two. We're not going to call these races any time soon. We're going to wait for the secretaries of state of these states to tell us what happened, because they don't change the outcome here. Donald Trump is the president-elect. Hillary Clinton with only 218 electoral votes.

The big story: the blue wall, her blue wall crumbled. Donald Trump picked up wins in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. No Republican has won in Pennsylvania since 1988. No Republican's won in Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan. Hillary Clinton, she didn't even go there after the convention. They thought they had it in the bag.

One of the other big surprises in this slew of surprises overnight, Donald Trump had coattails for members of Congress. Republicans will keep control of the Senate. They have at least 51 seats. Mike Pence doesn't need to break any ties. They have the majority.

And in the House of Representatives, Republicans also, they are still in charge. Democrats pick up six seats. You look at that and say, hey, they had a good night. No way. Democrats were hoping they would get double-digit gains, maybe as much as 20 or more. That did not happen. Donald Trump helped sweep some Republicans into power, including at least some who did not support him. Again, we're going to get more numbers throughout the morning. We will get them to you as they come in -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right. Thanks, John.

CUOMO: All right. Donald Trump addressing the nation for the first time as president-elect. It was just before 3 a.m. in the morning. He started off positive, and he stayed there. He was conciliatory towards Hillary Clinton. He didn't mention putting her on trial as he did all through the election. And he said it is time for unity, and that it's only history when he does a great job. Here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 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, 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's 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. It's time.

I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. 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 or your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. We want to go now to CNN's Sara Murray. She is live at Trump Tower, as she has been for hours. It's in New York, of course. To tell us what the scene is and what is next for President- elect Trump.

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning.

Look, Donald Trump promised a political revolution, and it took him until the very wee hours of this morning to deliver on it, but he certainly did.

And now is the moment for the Trump team to really kind of regroup. It does appear, though, that Donald Trump is getting an early start to his day, or at least his Twitter account has been fired up. Want to show you what he's tweeting so far this morning.

Such a beautiful and important evening. The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We'll all come together as never before. And of course, Donald Trump is going to have a pretty long to-do list today.

Now that he is the president-elect. He has to turn to his transition planning, turn to building a cabinet. And we're told that Donald Trump really didn't engage in these conversations very much leading up to this. He really wanted to focus on the campaign, on the task at hand. And he kind of didn't want to jinx himself by planning ahead.

Obviously, the time for that is coming to a close, and there may be no bigger sign of that than the potential of a Donald Trump/President Barack Obama meeting coming up this week. Obviously, we've seen this in the past. Sort of the peaceful transition of power. We're expecting that to happen, yet again.

But these are two men who have exchanged very barbed words on the campaign trail. President Obama made it clear, when he was campaigning for Hillary Clinton, that he didn't just dislike Donald Trump. He was fearful of him leading the country.

So, obviously, the meeting between the two of them, whenever that is finally set, will be very interesting to watch.

Back to you guys.

CUOMO: Especially interesting, Sara, because we're used to seeing the two sides come together but not after a race like this. This was not ordinary. This was deep, this was about hate, and it was real.

Now, on the other side of this coin was Hillary Clinton. She conceded in a phone call. She did not address the American people last night. But we understand she will soon.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more on that. What do we know?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys.

Hillary Clinton is scheduled to give her formal concession speech later this morning. A speech she did not expect to be giving. Her campaign and the entire political establishment simply did not see this coming. Now, thousands of her supporters were shell-shocked early this morning

as they left the Javits Center here in Manhattan. Now, what her campaign planned to be a victory party last night that turned into anything but.

She decided against giving that concession speech last night as the votes came in, hoping her blue wall across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would save her candidacy. When that didn't happen it was after 2 a.m. in the morning, and aides said she wanted to give a more thoughtful speech.

So her campaign chairman, John Podesta, addressed supporters overnight, saying she would wait until all the votes were counted. But it quickly became clear that wasn't enough, so she conceded in that brief phone call to Donald Trump.

But her campaign, all Democrats, Republicans. The media didn't see it coming. This is a repudiation of her and her biggest partner on the campaign trail, President Obama. And she was unabashedly running for his third term.

I am told that her speech this morning will be focused on trying to heal the nation. Her advisers said it's not time for finger pointing, but there are so many questions this morning on her side of the aisle. Did she not campaign enough? Why didn't she visit Wisconsin? Did that private e-mail server sink her candidacy? Or was this simply a change election from the very beginning, that her advisors miscalculated?

CAMEROTA: Jeff, it will be so interesting to hear from her and hopefully healing for all of the Democrats who are sort of very disoriented.

ZELENY: Some division, I think as well as some healing before that healing.

CAMEROTA: Yes, good morning. Jeff, thanks so much.

So global markets are down sharply on the news of Donald Trump's victory. How will U.S. markets open today? CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange with more. What do you predict, Alisyn?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

I would say when markets open in a couple of hours, I would say buckle up. We are seeing Dow futures down as much as 370 points. Believe it or not, that is an improvement. Because overnight as those returns came in, we saw the Dow down almost 800 points. But at this moment, as I said, down about 370 points.

The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 down about 2 to 2.6 percent.

Globally, as you said, yes, global markets are feeling the impact of this win for Donald Trump. We are even seeing the Mexican peso, which really became a barometer during Trump's candidacy. It's down sharply against the dollar. That's because there is big concern about Trump's trade policies and his protectionist sentiment during his campaign.

So, what's got Wall Street all spooked? Well, first of all, this came as a big shock. Investors as a whole didn't expect it. And secondly, investors don't like unpredictability. And that's what Donald Trump represents.

So, you've got -- you've got the uncertainty in the mix. It's not something Wall Street really welcomes.

But one thing to keep in mind, usually after -- the day after a presidential election, the markets usually fall. Case in point, when President Obama was elected in 2008, the markets fell 5 percent -- Alisyn and Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much, Alison.

[07:10:10] I'm looking down at my BlackBerry, because we believe we just got a statement from the White House on Trump's victory. And, yes, here it is. And I will read it to you. This is a statement from the press secretary at the White House.

"From the White House residence, the president called Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory early this morning. The president also called Secretary Clinton and expressed admiration for the strong campaign she waged throughout the country. The president will make a statement on Wednesday at the White House to discuss the results and what steps we can take as a country to come together after this hard- fought election season. The president invited the president-elect to meet with him at the White House on Thursday, November 10, to update him on the transition planning his team has been working on for nearly a year. Ensuring a smooth transition of power is one of the top priorities the president identified at the beginning of the year, and a meeting with the president-elect is the next step."

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's talk about all this. Donald Trump's historic win. We want to bring in the Republican Party's chief strategist and communications director, Sean Spicer. Sean, great to have you here. Congratulations.

SEAN SPICER, CHIEF STRATEGIST, REPUBLICAN PARTY: Thank you, good morning.

CAMEROTA: At what point last night did your jaw hit the ground?

SPICER: I honestly can't remember.

CUOMO: Because you were in a haze.

SPICER: It probably hit multiple times. You saw states like North Carolina, Ohio come through. And piece by piece, we knew that there was a wave happening.

CAMEROTA: So, when North Carolina went his way and Florida went his way, you thought something's happening here?

SPICER: Yes. It was state by state. And just watching the reaction on people's faces and knowing that there's more to come. Watching some of the Senate races and House races that predicted that we wouldn't -- we wouldn't keep and knowing that there was something happening in this country.

CUOMO: So, now, here is the situation/the predicament. OK, ordinarily in a victory speech or acceptance speech that man and woman comes out, really only man in the case of presidency and says, "Hey, thanks to you, thanks to them, and here's what we're going to do. You remember what I campaigned on." Not this morning. And that was refreshing to many people, especially those on the outside of this election, which was Trump came out. He was conciliatory. He was generous. He was humble. And he didn't mention rigged. He didn't mention wall. He didn't mention Muslims. He didn't mention what's going to happen.

But here's the predicament of it. Now, we're in a position of having to hold him to account for what he promised to do in the election, which were none of those things. The wall, the Muslims, keeping them out, all those different things, prosecuting Clinton, who he was complimentary to. Are those things not going to happen now?

SPICER: We're three hours after.

CUOMO: But it matters.

SPICER: I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I'm just saying, let us savor the victory a little bit. He's going to put a plan together. We've got three months before the inauguration. He's going to lay out a plan. He's going to get his team in place. There's a lot of pieces that have to happen.

So today he's going to start having those meetings, talking about the people that are going to be part of a Trump presidency. Talking about how to move those policies forward.

But I think give us 24/48 hours to enjoy the victory, not only at the top of the ticket, but all the way down. And then put those people and pieces together to allow this agenda of change to move forward.

CAMEROTA: Sean, you've been on our show a lot, and you have been an energetic, vocal supporter of what you said was going to be the really sophisticated ground game that the RNC was going to bring. You did that. But today you seem rather shell-shocked and subdued.

SPICER: I'm tired.

CUOMO: He hasn't slept in, like, 30 hours.

CAMEROTA: But, in other words, you're surprised.

SPICER: Look, you spend four years working for something, sleepless nights, not just me, but I mean, you look at Donald Trump. Rally after rally. And he didn't leave anything on the field. Both him and Governor Pence, you know, they went up to the 11th hour.

And there's a lot of staff and there's a lot of volunteers that knocked on doors and made phone calls, because they believed in bringing change to Washington, D.C., and making people's lives better. And I think that, when you realize you did it, you know, you want to take some time and have a breath.

But this is an amazing victory not just for the people who made it happen, but hopefully, for every American that's out there who has felt as though they've had a government that hasn't listened to them or they felt that the policies aren't helping them move forward.

So hopefully, this isn't just a victory for everyone that made phone calls and knocked on doors and voted for Donald Trump, but frankly for every American who hopes we can be a better country and moved forward.

CUOMO: Right, but, again, this isn't born of cynicism. This is born of being constructive, because now it's the work of every different aspect of society to figure out how you move forward from here.

This isn't the usual election because of that last part of what you just said, which is everybody needs to come together. That's not how Donald Trump won. He won by saying, "We are divided; we're divided for bad reason. It is rigged. People are out to get you and hurt you, and I will stop them."

[07:15:10] So, now, you have people in this country who are afraid of this result, and it's his job and your job to give them comfort.

SPICER: You know what? And I hope that over the next three months that we show them that this is going to be an administration that Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to work for every American and make this country better, instill policies that lift up the American workers, the American business people, the American family and the American individual and make this country better for everybody.

And I hope, look, you look at the exit polls. It was -- it was across demographics. I think people were ready for change. And I think you've got to earn that change. You've got to earn that trust, rather. And -- and I frankly hope that, over the next four years, that that trust is earned and that we have policies and solutions that everyone in America can feel proud of.

How much credit do you take for the ground game versus that it was just a change election and there was momentum?

SPICER: Look, Donald Trump was the man, the message and the movement. And then I think Reince Priebus and the RNC invested $175 million and that operation, another 100 in the ground. And I think that you've got to combine those two things and say, "We know who to go after to talk about that message. And we can bring them over the top with the ground game."

But it's a combination of those two, and when you see the election that occurred last night, not just at the top of the ticket, but, again, maintaining the Senate, maintaining the House, picking up seat, flipping the Kentucky speaker, the Kentucky House that hasn't happened in 100 years.

CUOMO: How important is all of that in creating peace within the party going forward? How much of it was taken care of...

SPICER: Winning solves a lot of problems, Chris.

CUOMO: Right, last night, like the ability for Trump to turn around and say, "Look, we weren't together, but now we are. And a lot of you won because of me. It's over."

SPICER: Right. And I think when you look at that win, 285 electoral votes.

CUOMO: Maybe more.

SPICER: Right. Maintaining the House, maintaining the Senate, flipping a lot down-ballot, real down-ballot: city councils and state legislative races. I think that winning solves a lot of problems.

Again, it's not just that but governing. And hopefully, that we can enact policies and solutions that make everyone proud to be an American that make them want to be a Republican hopefully.

CAMEROTA: Sean Spicer, great to see you. Thanks so much. Congratulations.

CUOMO: Congratulations. Enjoy your moment.

SPICER: Will do.

CAMEROTA: Get some rest.

CUOMO: All right. Coming up on NEW DAY, Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, is going to join us live in the next hour to discuss how this happened and what happens next.

CAMEROTA: OK. And the White House is reacting to Donald Trump's win. So let's get right to Athena Jones. She is live there. And she is telling us about when President Obama will meet with President-elect Trump -- Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.

That's right. The president is planning to meet with President-elect Trump tomorrow Thursday, November 10, at the White House. We heard from the president putting out a statement. The White House press secretary putting out this statement just a few minutes ago, saying that Trump -- that President Obama called Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory.

He also called Secretary Clinton and expressed his admiration for the strong campaign she waged throughout the country.

We will see President Obama later today to talk about the election results and talk about the steps that need to be taken for the country to come together.

And more from the statement. It says, "The president invited the president-elect to meet with him at the White House on Thursday, November 10, to update him on the transition planning his team has been working on for nearly a year. Ensuring a smooth transition of power is one of the top priorities the president identified at the beginning of the year, and a meeting with the president-elect is the next step."

Now, of course, a President-elect Trump is not the person that people here at the White House wanted to see President Obama meeting with. We know the Obamas threw their all into trying to get Clinton elected. But as it stands, it's going to be President-elect Donald Trump that is going to be coming here on Thursday to meet with President Obama.

Back to you guys.

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

So, one of the big questions this morning is, how did this happen? Well, you're going to look at the voting blocs. You're going to see that this wasn't about the size of pie. It was the size of the slices of that pie that each candidate got. We'll break it down, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: Donald J. Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. Let's look at some of the deciding factors that led him to victory. Christine Romans joins us with the exit polls. It wasn't about the size of the pie, my friend. It was the size of the slices of the pie.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's true.

CUOMO: Thank you.

ROMANS: But think about the last couple of months, though, and all the news of the last couple of months.

A majority of voters made up their minds by the end of the summer. Think of that: 60 percent said they decided before September, and that early vote favored Hillary Clinton. But among those who decided after September, Trump had the edge. He won by ten percentage points against Clinton there. That late momentum for Trump, despite a pretty high unfavorable view of him. Sixty percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion; 38 percent have a favorable view of Trump.

We asked voters, does Donald Trump have the temperament to serve effectively as president? Just 35 percent said yes; 63 percent said no. But get this: that didn't matter to some of those voters. Of those voters that said Trump does not have the temperament to be president, 20 percent still voted for him.

This is the reality people are waking up to this morning, regardless of who they voted for. We asked voters at the polls how they would feel about Trump being elected. Thirteen percent excited, 27 percent optimistic; 57 percent are scared or concerned. But again, we see that just doesn't matter to some. Of those who say they are concerned of a Trump presidency, 34 percent, Alisyn, still voted for him.

CAMEROTA: OK, Christine, thanks so much for giving us all of that to discuss.

We want to bring in our panel. We have Jackie Kucinich, David Gregory, Matt Lewis and John Berman. David, for people who are just waking up, how do you get your head around what happened last night?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it was a stunning victory, in line with everything that Trump has done this entire campaign season. He understood the American voters who voted for him better than the media, better than the political class, Democrat and Republican, and better than the establishment.

CAMEROTA: So he didn't just get lucky; he understood something?

GREGORY: Clearly, he understood something we did not, because we all got it wrong, and he got it right. And a lot of that was spin and bluster for himself, but he was informed by a gut sense of how to connect this energy that was bipartisan energy. That was rebellion on the left. There was a rebellion on the right. He became the change agent. I think this came down to something very fundamental.

This was a sour electorate. Frustrated, anxious, scared. And they wanted radical change versus what Hillary Clinton represented, which was the ultimate insider establishment figure. And he won. He won that bet.

CUOMO: But now what do you do? Matt Lewis, promises were made. This campaign was a function of very specific intolerant talk from Trump. Now he comes out and says we're all going to be together like never before. Those two things don't go together. Someone's going to be disappointed. How do you lead?

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I've always thought that there was a lot of range with Donald Trump. I thought he could be this authoritarian strong man and be horrible for the country. I think he can be Theodore Roosevelt. I know that sounds a little bit grandiose, but there's a lot of range. Donald Trump...

CAMEROTA: What does that mean if he were to be Theodore Roosevelt? What would that look like?

BERMAN: He's a bully in the bully pulpit. Yes. And that could be good or bad, but -- but the other thing is that he is not an ideologue, which means in a way, he might be more open to compromise. You could get things done like infrastructure, possibly even some form of immigration reform. I know that's a conversational thing.

CUOMO: He was not elected to build a bridge. He was not elected to change or tweak a system. They want him to build a wall. They want him to drain the swamp. They want him to lock up Hillary Clinton. Doesn't he have to deliver on those things?

LEWIS: You can build a wall and then maybe have some sort of, we won't call amnesty but immigration reform after you build the wall. I think you can do things that are popular and infrastructure. And I think that you let bygones be bygones. We don't target our political opponents. It's not a banana republic. And I think -- here's the thing. I think a lot of voters who supported Trump knew that he was sort of braggadocios. And look, if he's promising to do ten things or a level ten, maybe he'll actually do a level five. That's what they were calculating.

BERMAN: And he has achievables. Don't forget: he has achievables. He can repeal Obamacare or change it drastically, and that will satisfy a huge percentage of the Republican base. He can do things on trade that will satisfy a huge percentage of his base.

But let me just add one thing to the mix of the difficulties here. He's losing in the popular vote right now. All of a sudden in the last hour, Hillary Clinton has overtaken him in the popular vote, and I think that's still the case. And this should grow over the course of the next several hours.

CUOMO: Why?

BERMAN: California, Washington, Oregon are still going to come in. She could win the popular vote, you know, by 1 percent.

CAMEROTA: Then what?

BERMAN: And that's going to mean, by the way, the polls weren't altogether wrong.

LEWIS: This's the -- there's the mandate problem. I think this is arguably a very bad thing for America is to have this muddiness...

GREGORY: Well, and it says something about how Democrats may approach this. Don't forget: Mitch McConnell and the Republicans made a decision. They said, "I know what let's do. Let's block everything that Obama does."

CAMEROTA: On day one.

GREGORY: On day one. And that was -- that was a strategy, and there were purity tests for that and Democrats have a decision about how much healing they want to do. And Hillary Clinton is going to speak about this. President Obama is going to speak about this when he meets with the president-elect on Thursday. So they have a decision to make.

CAMEROTA: And so what will that look like? I mean, Democrats are not known as the party of intransigence. They like progress, generally. But everything has been turned on its head.

I mean, you know, remember when George W. Bush was coming, and they popped off all the "W's."

CUOMO: That is -- that is a very optimistic view of the Democrats. They did plenty when they were in the position they're in right now.

BERMAN: They passed George W. Bush's tax cuts. Look, I think Democrats have a reputation for not necessarily having as much steel in their spine when it comes to the bare-knuckle brawls -- that's three cliches at once -- in Washington, D.C., as sometimes the Republicans.

KUCINICH: I disagree. You know who's different in that regard? It was Nancy Pelosi when s was speaker. She put it all on the line and she lost at the end of the day. She lost the House as a result of -- in part of passing Obamacare, also cap and trade that year. But you know, that said, they don't -- they don't really have any skin in the game, except to be obstructionists at this point.

BERMAN: They have no people. They have no stars. Is it going to be -- I wonder if the president of the United States now plays a larger role in the post-presidency than he might have otherwise, at least for the next year.

LEWIS: That's another thing I would point out is that one of the things that -- I think the untold story here is that Barack Obama is a rock star. But what we didn't know was, you know, because he would win elections, turn out millennials, African-Americans, Hispanics with big numbers in presidential years. Then you had the mid-terms, where Republicans would win. And I think the theory was, yes, but the universe is changing.

And so, when Hillary Clinton comes along, Obama can sort of transfer that base. It doesn't...

GREGORY: They got -- they got -- look, there will be plenty of time for recriminations, but...