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What Path Will Democrats Take After Election?; Clinton Blames Comey For Election Loss; Cowboys Win Thriller Over Steelers; Dave Chappelle Talks Trump On SNL; Trump Names Former Breitbart Executive As Top Adviser. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired November 14, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So now what for the Democrats. When Republicans lost their bid for the presidency in 2012, the party conducted this autopsy and came up with a plan and Donald Trump blew it to smithereens and still became president.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler. He supported Hillary Clinton in the election. Congressman, let's start with what we just heard from Hillary Clinton about part of the reason she believes the election didn't go her way.

And it has a name, Jim Comey. Many people believed that this is an excuse, not an explanation. That Comey is not why she lost. She lost because she didn't energize her base. She didn't get them out to vote. She was a flawed candidate.

People didn't really like her and even in a battle of personality attrition, Donald Trump was more popular with his base than she was so she lost.

REPRESENTATIVE JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Well, the fact that she -- when all the votes of candidates, she would have gotten apparently about 2 million more popular votes than he did and she lost key states by a total of about 110,000 votes.

At that margin, Jim Comey is putting his thumb on the (inaudible) very well to the election. A lot of other factors too obviously. What Jim Comey did was so highly improper and wrong from the very beginning in July.

For the head of a police agency to say we're indicting somebody because it's legitimate. We're not indicting somebody is legitimate and then to give his opinion of conceded illegal conduct. What she did was not illegal he said, but it was reckless, it was terrible, et cetera.

He was putting his thumbs on the scales right then and it's unforgivable for a police agency to (inaudible) frankly publicly about legal conduct and then to send that letter when he had nothing to say violated the guidelines that you don't comment on an ongoing investigation.

You don't intervene an election within 60 days may very well have cost her election. Whether it did or not was unforgivable as a political intervention by the police into the election.

And the people in the FBI who were leaking to Rudy Giuliani through former agents or not. That was also clearly illegal. The president ought to fire Comey immediately and he ought to initiate investigation --

CUOMO: You can't just fire Comey?

NADLER: Yes, he can.

CUOMO: Why? For cause because, you know, he's got to set term. So he is insulated for political payback like this.

[06:35:04]NADLER: Of course and ought to. He violated all the guidelines and put his thumb on a scale of an election, whether it was decisive or not is a different question and they ought to investigate and maybe prosecute the people in the FBI in New York who are deliberately trying to use the FBI to influence the election by leaking damaging information.

CUOMO: So that's why you think she lost because of Jim Comey?

NADLER: No. I said that may be why she lost. It certainly hurt whether it was the key factor or not.

CUOMO: In the polls you had almost seven in ten people said that they decided before September.

NADLER: Yes, but that's three in ten didn't.

CUOMO: And they say the biggest reason they voted, no matter what poll you look at was change. How does she win if change is the reason you're voting?

NADLER: She still has 2 million more votes and the difference was 110,000 votes in three states. So, anything could have done it. My point is whether it was the -- whether, in fact, it was the decisive agent or not to have the police intervene in an election, which is what happened, is unforgivable. A threat to our democracy and it has to be stopped and the people who did that have to be investigated and maybe prosecuted.

CUOMO: All right, so let's look going forward.

NADLER: Comey should certainly be fired.

CUOMO: I hear you. That will be interesting to see what happens. Trump and Giuliani have both been ambivalent about what happens or at least they're been circumspect about it with Jim Comey so we'll see what happens.

But let's look forward now. You have a recent hire here. The big one is Bannon. I know Reince Priebus got in position, too. He's not controversial, he's a party head. That's what happened. Bannon is controversial by anybody's definition. What do you make of having a promoter of the alt-right in the White House?

NADLER: It's not only that Bannon promoted the alt-right and prejudice. The president is appointed to his transition, the president-elect is appointed to his transition team outright homophobes and racists by Ken Blackwell and Chris Kobash.

And what it means is that the -- Trump appealed to the worst in America. He appealed to racism. He appealed to sexism. He appealed to homophobia. He allowed (inaudible) by Semitism and this cannot be normalized. We cannot proceed with him as if we just put that into the back.

CUOMO: So --

NADLER: We have to oppose all of these kinds of things until he repudiates.

CUOMO: So what will the Democratic Party be going forward? You used to be the party of the middle class, the blue collar party and it was the Republicans who were the elites, the white collar class. Now, it seems to have been reversed. What are you going to do?

NADLER: The Democratic Party is still the party that in Congress and the president has put forward programs to help working people. And the Republicans have put forward programs and they're still doing it to hurt working people, but they talk about it much more than we do.

And the trade issue, which I think that Bernie Sanders is absolutely right on the trade issue. I voted against all these things over the years dominated --

CUOMO: Would you agree with Trump because Trump was in the same place as Bernie Sanders?

NADLER: There are some differences, but, yes, I opposed NAFTA and the more recent trade deals. I voted against all of them. I think they've been very harmful, but they have also been used in this election to say to working class people that the Democrats, most of whom voted against these things.

They've been carried by Republicans even though our president supported them. Only 28 Democrats voted for the Trade Promotion Authority last summer. But this has been used to say to the working class that the Democrats are opposed to the working class. That we're in favor of sending jobs out of the country. Nothing Trump imposed will bring those jobs back.

CUOMO: Last question, who do you think should be the head of your party?

NADLER: I don't know. I think it's very important that it's someone who can do the job of rebuilding the party from the grassroots.

CUOMO: Can you give me a name? NADLER: No, I'm not giving you a name. We'll be started thinking about that.

CUOMO: All right, well, you better be thinking about it. Jerry Nadler, good to have you, as always -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Popular question for sure, guys. Thank you very much.

Coming up, you were probably watching it "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE." All eyes certainly on "SNL's" for the show's first post-election take that began with this surprise and continued on. We're going to talk to our media experts about all of it straight ahead.

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[06:43:20]

CUOMO: Cowboys now winners of eight straight games in a row after taking down the Pittsburgh Steelers in a really tight game. Speaking of the Steelers, joining us now one of the greatest they ever had in their ranks, Hines Ward has this morning's "Bleacher Report." Could have used you yesterday although your friend Number 84 did his job.

HINES WARD, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he did. This one hurts me to the core because it was hands down the game of the week and possibly of the year for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cowboys. Cowboys rookie quarterback, Prescott went toe to toe with Steelers quarterback, Ben Rothlisburger.

Here you see him stepping up and finding (inaudible) Bryant for 50-yard touchdown. Now you see Bryant point to the sky afterwards in honor of his dad who passed away on Saturday.

But under a minute left in the game, McMahon fakes, the spike and throws it to Antonio Brown at the end zone to go up one, but Dallas wasn't done.

(Inaudible) takes the handoff with 15 seconds left and run straight ahead untouched for the game winner. Seven lead changes in this game. The Cowboys would win, beat up on my Steelers 35-30.

Now Saturday was a crazy day in college football. Three of the top four teams in the playoff ranks had lost. Clemson, Michigan, Washington, all going down. Number one ranked Alabama is the only team to stay undefeated. Now, the playoff ranking poll came out Tuesday night. Anybody's guess who will be in the top four now.

It was a sold-out crowd at the iconic Madison Square Garden Saturday night. Demi Novato was in the house. They all came out to see the crafty, charismatic featherweight champion, Conor McGregor, who was looking to make history.

[06:45:04]He knocks down the bigger Eddie Alvarez three times before knocking him out in the second round taking his lightweight title making Conor the first UFC fighter ever to hold two belts in two different weight classes at the same time. Conor McGregor, you're a bad, bad man.

CUOMO: You summed it up well, my friend.

HARLOW: This is all Chris wants to talk about all morning, just by the way. We have to move on. Up next, you probably Saturday night, comedian, Dave Chappelle, delivering a powerful and a personal message to Donald Trump, the president-elect during SNL, his opening monologue. Our media experts weigh in.

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HARLOW: A decade after walking away from his groundbreaking show, Dave Chappelle took center stage Saturday night for "SNL" following Donald Trump's victory he delivered a powerful monologue about his visit to the White House for a party you probably heard it. If you didn't, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE CHAPPELLE, COMEDIAN: At the end of the night everyone went into the west wing of the White House and there was a huge party and everybody in there was black except for Bradley Cooper for some reason.

[06:50:10]And on the walls were pictures of all the presidents of the past. Now, I'm not sure if this is true, but to my knowledge, the first black person that was officially invited to the White House was Frederick Douglas.

They stopped him at the gates, Abraham Lincoln had to walk out himself and escort Frederick Douglas into the White House. And it didn't happen again, as far as I know, until Roosevelt was president.

When Roosevelt was president he had a black guy over and got so much flak from the media that he literally said, "I will never have a nigger in this house again."

I thought about that and I looked at that room and I saw all those black faces and Bradley and I saw -- and I saw how happy everybody was.

These people who had been historically disenfranchised and it made me feel hopeful and it made me feel proud to be an American and it made me very happy about the prospects of our country.

So, in that spirit, I'm wishing Donald Trump luck and I'm going to give him a chance and we, the historically disenfranchised demand that he give us one, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Strong.

HARLOW: Yes. Let's discuss with our guests, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter, and politics editor for theroot.com and professor of political science and journalism at Morgan State University, Jason Johnson. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with me.

Brian, two big surprises. Obviously, I think we all just sat back and watched and thought for a long time after we heard what Dave Chappelle said and we saw the opening -- you know, Kate McKinnon singing "Hallelujah." But your thoughts on Chappelle's story and then saying, I'm going to give this president a chance.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: No Alec Baldwin, by the way, on this SNL either. This was not a time for jokes. The cast, the crew, the writers of "SNL" wanted to be very serious on this first episode after Election Day.

Partly that's because of the political bent of the writers and the cast members. But partly I think what we were seeing was the role of comedy and art in a Trump administration.

Oftentimes when you have a conservative administration, you see liberal artists step up to the plate and try to be representative of the set. I think we started to see that from "SNL" on Saturday.

CUOMO: Well, Professor, we also saw the opposite in that, right? Chappelle wasn't being funny. He threw a couple of lines in there because his comedic genius with Bradley just to keep people from being too uncomfortable.

But he wasn't there to be funny and very often that's a mistake of the comics, right, is that they make a joke of everything and mock everything and sometimes that winds feeding disaffection. Chappelle seemed to have a very different agenda. Did he hit his mark?

JASON JOHNSON, POLITICS EDITOR, THEROOT.COM: I think he hit his mark. I think that Dave Chappelle made the clear point that Donald Trump is president, we'll see what happens. But Chris, I have to be honest with you.

I mean, within 24 hours after Dave Chappelle said let's give him a chance, Donald Trump said that his senior adviser is going to be Steve Bannon. So clearly, you know, this idea, hey, let's give a chance and we'll make fun of him like previous presidents.

That doesn't apply when you put someone in that kind of position who is directly hostile to people of color, who has favored terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, this is -- Dave Chappelle tried and Donald Trump disappointed everybody.

HARLOW: The tone that he took, Brian, was sort of a conciliatory tone, at the end, like, frankly, what we heard from Hillary Clinton and President Obama saying give this president a chance.

You wonder because to the professor's good point, would he have done that had the Bannon announcement come 24 hours prior? As you noted that top, no Alec Baldwin and no impersonation of Trump at all. Why?

STELTER: I think folks are struggling with what this means to give someone a chance. Give a new president a chance. We saw John Oliver also last night. John Oliver say what do we do now? He was more vulgar than that.

But what you hear are these comedians and these artists and kind of thought leaders in Hollywood for a lack of a better term struggling with what to do. What to make of this president and incredibly unusual situation.

And Bannon, the latest example, this is not your ordinary Republican administration. It seems to me that comedians or writers like everybody else kind of struggling to do, what do we do with that?

CUOMO: You've got a new word to deal with in media, normalizing. You have false equivalency and false narrative and now you have normalizing. You know, normalizing, obviously, means making something seem usual when it is unusual.

I think what Chappelle talked on about and the professor was touching on is a chance is conditional. You know, as someone who's made a lot of mistakes in their life, when you get another chance, you're promising to do something different or better.

Brian, to the professor's point, Trump has not responded to the chance by addressing the people who are angry at him in a meaningful way. By putting people around him who would dissuade those fears.

[06:55:10]Bannon is a dark arts guy. Breitbart is not a normal media outlet. It's not a normal conservative outlet. It's a hateful outlet very often. That's the truth. People don't want to say it because they don't want the scrutiny. But is the chance conditional for Trump and is he meeting the conditions?

STELTER: So far, no, not meeting the conditions. You think about the first few days of a president-elect administration. Every day he has opportunities to set the tone and change the tone. I thought it was striking that in the CBS interview Trump said as of Friday he has had not really heard about these incidents of hate and harassment across the country.

CBS withheld that clip for two days, which is troubling. By the time it aired on Sunday, there have been even more of these --

CUOMO: The man who monitors the media constantly said he hadn't heard of any of these reports.

STELTER: I have a very hard time with that. I think something I've been wondering all year long. I'm wondering again today, what are Trump's sources of information? That's what a lot of this comes down to. If he's only receiving information from Breitbart then, yes, he's not going to understand what is going on in the country and how the country is reacting right now.

HARLOW: Jason, to you and about media and what Donald Trump reads or doesn't read. He certainly does not like "The New York Times" and after telling "60 Minutes" on Friday when they sat down from the interview that he was going to be, quote, "restrained" when he used social media as president-elect and president. He tweeted three negative tweets about "The New York Times"

including one that said that they're losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the, quote, "Trump phenomenon."

How do you square the two and how does he address the media as president when he has them in press pool when he have to answer their questions for the next four years, at least?

JOHNSON: Yes, Poppy, this is problematic on two levels. One, he has people in his administration who runs fake websites to advocate genocide for people of color and Jewish people. If Steven Bannon is in his administration, we know what kind of media he follows.

But secondarily, he is attacking and bullying members of the press. Right now, he's talking about "The New York Times" because he is unhappy. What happens when he comes after an individual anchor or tweets a particular reporter?

HARLOW: He's done that. He's called out Katy Tur repeatedly.

STELTER: What does it mean when he has the power of the presidency behind him?

JOHNSON: Exactly. And his supporters who he has never demonstrated any propensity to restrain. This is literally a physically dangerous time for people who want to engage in reporting and a dangerous time for media, as well. There has to be a concerted pushback on this kind of behavior on the part of the president of the United States.

HARLOW: The voters decided that was OK with them. Guys, we're out of time. Thank you very much. What is your take? We want to hear it. Tweet us @newday or post your comment on Facebook.com/newday.

CUOMO: All right, there is a lot of news this morning. The president-elect has decided who will be around him. What does that mean for you? Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: I think my strongest asset is my temper.

CUOMO: Donald Trump's White House hires causing controversy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bannon created a home for white supremacy and white nationalism.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: I hate it that people feel way. They should not.

TRUMP: Don't be afraid. Certainly don't be afraid.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: There are going to be substantial deportation. TRUMP: Two million, it could be 3 million. We're getting them out of our country. There could be some fencing, but certain areas of the wall is more appropriate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Acts of intimidation and hate by pro-Trump forces flaring.

TRUMP: I will say this and I'll say it right to the camera. Stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Poppy Harlow is here. Thank you for joining me.

HARLOW: My pleasure.

CUOMO: We are getting our first look at Donald Trump's face to the world. His top political advisors and the people dealing with the media and the other elected down there to create change in this country.

RNC Chair Reince Priebus is in there as the chief of staff, but then comes the real story. Steve Bannon, he is a promoter of the alt- right. He has just been named a White House top strategist.

HARLOW: Yep. An in Donald Trump's announcement he said the two men will be equals. Also Donald Trump in his first interview since becoming president-elect speaking with "60 Minutes" about his top priorities and softening his stance on some of those key campaign promises like the wall and repealing and replacing Obamacare.

We have complete coverage. Let's start first with our Phil Mattingly in Washington. Good morning, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy. Every transition process, obviously, a lot of eyes on the hires. It's reading the tea leaves. You ought to know who is going to be running which agency over which industry. Who will have more power in the White House?

Never more so than with Donald Trump, though, as people try to get around his candidacy and his victory, but also the White House he is going to run. Getting a good hint with two hires yesterday.

One, assuaging a lot of the concerns about how he will deal with mainstream Republicans, the other only serving to raise alarm bells.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): President-elect Donald Trump's administration starting to take --