Return to Transcripts main page

New Day Sunday

President-Elect Biden: It's Time To Heal In America; Trump Campaign Team Has Filed Lawsuits In Several States; Atlantic: The Polling Crisis Is A Catastrophe For American Democracy; International Leaders Congratulate Biden On Election Win. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired November 08, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:03]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: "Time Magazine", President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, wearing masks, holding up one another's hand and the caption "A time to heal."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE-PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is now my great honor to introduce the president-elect of the United States of America, Joe Biden.

(CHEERS)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify.

SUSAN RICE, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I know this is a painful moment for many who wish for a different outcome. At this moment, I believe that we have an extraordinary opportunity to move this country forward.

HARRIS: We, the people, have the power to build a better future.

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): The Biden/Harris ticket, it says so much about what this country is all about.

BIDEN: We will lead not only by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Half Indian girls here, they're too young to vote, but they can be part of the process and they can see that a woman can make it to the White House.

HARRIS: America is ready, and so are Joe and I.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Lady Liberty standing tall this morning there in New York as she always does, and the sun coming up.

Good morning to you, whether you're in New York or whatever you happen to be waking up this morning.

President-elect Joe Biden says, you know what, now is the time to heal and to end what he called a, quote, grim era of demonization in the U.S.

BLACKWELL: Last night, Biden said he plans to name his coronavirus task force tomorrow to deal with what he calls the gravest threat facing the nation.

PAUL: Now outgoing President Donald Trump's pushing forward with his legal fight this morning. We're learning one of his closest advisers has approached him about conceding. We want to take a moment and listen to what President-elect, though, Joe Biden had to say last night in case you missed it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: The people of this nation have spoken. They've delivered us a clear victory, a convincing victory, a victory for we, the people. We've won with the most votes ever cast on a presidential ticket in the history of the nation, 74 million.

I'm proud of the campaign we've built and ran. I'm proud of the coalition we put together, the broadest and most diverse coalition in history -- Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, moderates, conservatives, young, old, urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, white, Latino, Asian, Native American --

(CHEERS)

I mean it. Especially those moments and especially those moments where the campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African-American community stood up again for me.

(CHEERS)

You've always had my back. And I'll have yours.

For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight. I've lost a couple times myself. But now, let's give each other a chance.

(CHEERS)

It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again. And to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies, they are Americans. They're Americans.

(CHEERS)

The bible tells us to everything there is a season, a time to build, a time to reap, and a time to sow, and a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.

(CHEERS)

I'm a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president. I'll work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as those who did. Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: We have all of the angles covered this morning. Jeremy Diamond is in Washington. Jason Carroll is in Wilmington, Delaware, for us.

BLACKWELL: Jason, we're starting with you. President-elect Biden says that he is going to get to work immediately. What's up first?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

Well, look, the real work is just beginning, and president-elect and his team knew that they needed to be able to hit the ground running, dealing with the pandemic. You remember that last week on Thursday, then Vice President Biden and then-Senator Kamala Harris met with economic advisers, health care advisers about ways of dealing with the pandemic.

[07:05:11]

During the speech, the president-elect said that he made it very clear that he will spare no expense to turn around the pandemic. He also announced last night that he is going to be giving more details about that 12-person task force that he's put together to deal with the pandemic. He's going to be doing that tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers to help take the Biden/Harris plan and convert it to an action blueprint that will start on January the 20th, 2021.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: And, Victor, looking ahead, there have been a lot of questions about whether or not there will be a peaceful transition, whether or not the president will be cooperating. Well, the Biden transition team has been working behind the scenes since Labor Day, working on a number of issues. And Biden's deputy campaign manager basically says, look, they are prepared to move forward, whether or not the president cooperates or not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BEDINGFIELD, BIDEN CAMPAIGN COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Obviously, the peaceful transition of power is a core bedrock principle that our democracy's founded on. And, of course, we would -- we would hope and I think it would be a good thing for the American people to hear from President Trump. But that's his decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: And so, looking ahead, a number of challenges facing the new administration. One of the things that you heard about there, you heard a lot of the sound from the president-elect, he talked about wanting to unify the country. This is a message that we've heard from the Biden campaign since the very beginning.

He said there's not red states or blue states. The United States, he talked about wanting to restore the soul of the country. A lot of challenges facing this new administration as it moves forward -- Victor.

PAUL: All righty. Jason Carroll. We appreciate it so much. Good to see you. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: This morning, we've learned that Jared Kushner, president's son-in-law, senior advisor, has approached President Trump about conceding the election.

PAUL: CNN's Jeremy Diamond with us now.

Jeremy, we know President Trump's refuse today to concede. His campaign says it's going to begin filing lawsuits in several different states. What have you heard about how perhaps, if you've heard, how the president is receiving this talk from Jared Kushner about a concession?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, let's just acknowledge what a remarkable moment in American history it is to see a sitting U.S. president refusing to concede the election to the rightful winner, in this case President-elect Joe Biden.

President Trump so far has refused to call Joe Biden, has refused to publicly acknowledge defeat. Instead, he is making these unsubstantiated claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and he is insisting, in fact, that he has won the election as he did several times publicly. Of course, that is simply not true.

But what we know is that a senior adviser, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, has now approached the president about conceding, according to two sources familiar with the matter who told CNN. And what we know is that president Trump himself, while he publicly is not acknowledging reality, he privately at least is not contesting the results of the election. The question is whether or not that will go public.

For now, the president, as well as several Republican leaders, are refusing to acknowledge that Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States of America including the Republican minority whip, Steve Scalise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Look, there's a lot of game left to be played here. You look at Al Gore and George Bush, that wasn't decided until the second week of December. And here we are in early -- in early November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Now that comparison to the 2000 Bush v. Gore election and the recounts in Florida that followed just doesn't hold up. So far, all of the so-called evidence that the Trump campaign has put forward, very little actual concrete evidence that they have put forward, really has not held up water. And so far the legal challenges that the Trump campaign has been pursuing have not really amounted to anything.

But nonetheless, President Trump yesterday moments after CNN projected the winner of the race to be Joe Biden, the president vowing to pursue those legal challenges. He said, quote: We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him. They don't want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over.

Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated.

But it seems that in an acknowledgment not only here in the United States that those legal challenges are all but sure to go nowhere and not -- and not to change the results of the election. You are already seeing foreign leaders from key U.S. allies, including those who have been very close allies of president Trump personally come out and congratulating President-elect Joe Biden -- Victor, Christi.

BLACKWELL: Jeremy Diamond at the White House -- Jeremy, thanks so much.

Let's bring in Alex Burns now, national political correspondent for "The New York Times," also a CNN political analyst.

Alex, good morning to you.

I want to deal with the president's legal fight before we look ahead to the president-elect. We've heard from some of the more strident members of the Republican conference, heard from Steve Scalise. We heard from Ted Cruz. We heard from Lindsey Graham.

Is there any indication that the broader Republican conference on the Hill supports what the president is doing?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Victor, I think that every indication we have so far is that the broader Republican Party on Capitol Hill supports not getting crosswise with President Trump which has been their policy of White House relations over the last four years, and we're not seeing a whole lot of profiles in courage the last few days with a couple of exceptions of people in the Senate like Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, coming out to say, yeah, this election -- this is over. We know who the next president is going to be.

But I do think that there is only a limited amount of time for the president to continue to persist the way he is right now, that yes, there are going to be people from Republican districts and states that will give him basically as much room as he wants to play this out. But, you know, the party as a whole is going to reach a point where this starts to get embarrassing if the president just continues to make no headway in court and make these totally unsubstantiated claims about election rigging.

BLACKWELL: You've got a new piece out just overnight that gives a lot of context and texture into the campaign that the president-elect ran and how that informs what we should expect from his administration. Fill that out a bit for us.

BURNS: Well, Victor, I think that the big story of the Joe Biden campaign -- and thank you for highlighting our story today -- is that from the start, this was a campaign shaped by Joe Biden himself more than the strategy of the broader Democratic Party and even his broader political brain trust, and really centered around this idea of healing the country, for the battle of the soul of America and reaching to the other side.

That according to our reporting from the very start, Biden was telling people back in the winter of 2018 and 2019 that he was concerned about the fabric of the country coming apart. These Democrats were concerned that that was not going to be a sufficiently compelling political message, in a time of such intense polarization where people in his own party and people in the country generally were really looking for a fight.

And I think that today, we look at Joe Biden as a guy whose judgment in that has been vindicated, that he understood that the country did want somebody who was going to be a unifier, and that's the message that carried him through a campaign with a whole lot of ups and downs and into a period of crisis that in so many ways matches the message that he was driving at.

BLACKWELL: So beyond the message, look, a lot of what we heard in the latter part of the campaign, especially tonight, sounded a lot like what we heard from Barack Obama in 2008. No red states, no blue states, United States of America. We can work together.

And it's not naivete because, you know, then you had President-elect Obama four years out of the state senate. Joe Biden was on the same ballot as Richard Nixon in 1972.

BURNS: Right.

BLACKWELL: So he's been in Washington for a long time.

I'll ask you what I asked our partisan guest -- is there any suggestion, any indication that he will be able to get more done with a Republican Senate led by Mitch McConnell than his former boss was in the latter part of the first term and for the -- the second full term? BURNS: Well, Victor, I think the optimistic response would be the

reason to think that there's at least some window for President Biden to get things done with a Republican Senate or evenly divided Senate is he has done it before, right? This is the guy who president Obama would send up to the Hill to deal with Mitch McConnell when he personally was making no headway with Mitch McConnell.

So there is a grounding of a relationship there, at least a basis for negotiation. But from there, I think it gets really tough. And when you talk about a basis for negotiation, the hard part of negotiation is figuring out where there is substantive common ground. When you look at the agenda that Joe Biden laid out in the general election and the agenda of the Republican Party, there's not a whole lot of overlap.

Where there is some overlap is between Biden's broad goals and places where at least a handful of Republican senators have been willing to go in the past on issues like immigration, climate, on COVID rescue, and on reviving the economy. That there clearly is some room there, and the question is can he execute and will the Republican Party come to the table.

BLACKWELL: Fascination here I have with Lindsey Graham. After the race he won in South Carolina -- and I thought as the call was made about a profile that was published in "The New York Times" magazine, this was in 2019, February I believe it was.

[07:15:11]

And the headline was "How Lindsey Graham went from Trump's skeptic to Trump sidekick." And there's exchange with Mark Leibovich in which Graham says, if you know anything about me, it would be odd not to do this -- he's getting close to the president. And Leibovich asked what "this", what is that? Graham said, is to try to be relevant.

Who was a Lindsey Graham in a Biden administration -- you'll remember that Lindsey Graham shed real tears talking about how good a guy that Joe Biden is, and he's been so close to the President Trump. What is next for him? Do we know? Have we seen it?

BURNS: You know, I don't think we've seen it yet, but I think you are really wise to focus on Graham as a Republican bellwether for what might happen next if there is going to be cooperation. That we heard Senator Graham within 24 hours of the election, of Election Day, so well before the race was called, talking about opposing Joe Biden where he must and working with him where he can.

And I think that the working with him where he can part, well, if his goal is relevance, then he could have a whole lot of relevance if he were going to be one of the Republicans who would meet a President Biden at the negotiating table on the big issues that the government simply can't avoid confronting in some way.

BLACKWELL: It just seems forever ago that it was Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and now we watch the Trump years, where will Lindsey Graham be in the Biden years? Alex Burns, good conversation. Thanks so much.

BURNS: Thanks a lot.

PAUL: CNN's Polo Sandoval is with us from New York because we know that there are thousands of people that were in the streets overnight celebrating. As soon as CNN and other networks had announced Vice President-elect Joe Biden had won Pennsylvania and, thus, the election.

But what did you see overnight?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christi, we basically hightailed it to Times Square. And within minutes after the projection was issued, there was champagne being uncorked the middle of Broadway yesterday there in Times Square. Look, here's the reality -- many supporters of the president could be struggling to accept this projection, that now shows Joe Biden will be the next commander-in-chief. But in places like New York, obviously blue-leaning regions, the celebrations went well into the night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHEERS)

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Celebrations in cities, across the U.S., including many of the places that swept Joe Biden into the White House. From New York to Miami in the east, to Denver to Austin out west, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris supporters flooded into the streets after CNN and other news organizations projected Biden as the winner Saturday morning.

(CHEERS)

SANDOVAL: Honking horns, cheering, dancing, and popping champagne.

(CHANTING)

SANDOVAL: In the U.S. capital, the crowds packed into the streets in front of the White House at Black Lives Matter Plaza within seconds of the race being called.

Streets nearby filled with people shouting, banging pots and pans, and singing.

(SINGING)

SANDOVAL: In Philadelphia which was key to Biden's decisive win, cars honked, people waved Biden flags, and a large crowd gathered outside of Philadelphia's city hall.

It was unseasonably warm and people were pouring into the streets with everything from coffees to cocktails. In New York city people gathered outside of the Trump international hotel and tower chanting "no more Trump."

In Times Square, a doctor in New York had this reaction --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just seeing how this pandemic ravaged our city, I am so thrilled that we're going to have a leader who's going to take this pandemic and -- and do what it needs to be done.

SANDOVAL: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer joined the crowd that gathered outside the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, seen holding up a Biden/Harris sign.

In Chicago, crowds gathered to celebrate outside Trump Tower, cheering and ringing bells while cars honked. Some people raising Biden/Harris signs from their car windows.

A crowd also gathered in Atlanta at Freedom Park while people sipped champagne and danced in the streets.

In Austin, Texas, a Democratic stronghold, in the middle of red Texas, revelers waved Biden 2020 flags in front of the state capitol. While Biden and Harris did not win Florida, supporters flocked to Cafe Versailles, in the heart of the Cuban-American community in Miami.

And in Las Vegas, vehicles draped in Biden-Harris flags driving through the streets. Celebrations continued into the night, all across America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: I should point out that not just in New York but also in many gatherings across the country, we did see widespread the use of masks -- so there was that.

[07:20:01]

But at the same time, we should also remind you there was little to no social distancing here in New York, for example, and we also remind viewers, Victor and Christi, that guidance has been issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about this pandemic. That's not changed even though the election might be behind us. They're recommending people avoid crowds. Obviously given the historic significance of yesterday, that still drew some of those people out on to the streets.

BLACKWELL: Polo Sandoval for us there, thanks so much.

And be sure to watch this morning's "STATE OF THE UNION." Jake Tapper is joined by Symone Sanders, Congressman James Clyburn, Senator Mitt Romney, and Stacey Abrams and others.

"STATE OF THE UNION" airs at 9:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

PAUL: All right. We'll stay with us. We're going to dig a little bit deeper with you regarding President Trump and his allies' vow for their legal fight over this election, saying that it is not finished. Do their claims have any merit? Or are they just delaying the inevitable?

We're talking to an expert next. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:05]

BLACKWELL: No concession yet by President Trump, no clear legal strategy from his attorneys, despite a vow by Rudy Giuliani claims that his race is not over.

Let's talk about this -- the legal claims and the merits. Constitutional attorney Page Pate is with us.

Page, good morning to you.

PAGE PATE, CONSTITUTIONAL ATTORNEY: Good morning, Victor.

BLACKWELL: So, let's start by just talking about what this concession is and is not. It is a norm, it is a tradition, it is an acceptance and acknowledgment of a loss. It is not constitutionally required, correct?

PAGE: That's exactly correct, Victor. I mean, traditionally, president who have lost an election or finished their term have a concession speech. They cooperate with the president-elect, they work with their transition team.

It's clear we're not going to see that I don't think from President Trump, at least as far as the concession is concerned. But it is not required. The Constitution has a very specific process as far as dates as to how we move forward. And no part of that involves a concession from President Trump.

BLACKWELL: Let's go through the lawsuits. Lawsuit already before the U.S. Supreme Court that the campaign is joined, intervened, and relating to Pennsylvania, where the votes that arrived after 8:00 p.m. on Election Day should count.

Let's start -- before we talk about the merits, do you expect that the court will issue an opinion in this case?

PAGE: I think eventually they will. I mean, that is a legitimate legal challenge. It was brought before the election. The Supreme Court denied the Trump campaign's request for a stay. So they allowed the votes to be cast and collected and processed.

But there is a legitimate legal question as to whether though votes received after Election Day should count. The key question is will there be enough votes. And I don't think in this situation it's going to matters.

BLACKWELL: You got to the merit in your follow-up. There's one on -- the one that the president tweeted about calling it a big win in Pennsylvania, about the campaign and observers. The president and his supporters, the suggestion was that observers were not allowed in the room. This case got to something specific about distance from processing of ballots. Fill in the blanks.

PAGE: Yeah. Victor, I mean, I think this is a great example of what we have seen so far in terms of their legal strategy. It's petty, and it's too late. If you want to challenge an election, you don't wait until after the election is over to bring your challenge.

I honestly expected we would see more lawyers in more states watching things like this. You know, are we being allowed access to observe the counting, observe the canvassing, especially when you have absentee ballots. That's a critical part of the process because there are a lot of steps you have to go through to make sure a mail-in ballot is appropriate, it's legal, it's filled out correctly.

But they didn't do that. They waited until after the fact, and now suggesting, hey, wait a minute, we weren't close enough to see that. What is a judge going to do with that?

We saw here in Georgia, one judge threw it out. He's like, basically, you're not presenting solid evidence, and two, it's just petty. It's not enough to show evidence of fraud, and it's certainly not enough to change the vote.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. The -- I heard from someone who heard that they received a note that someone added 53 ballots to a stack. The judge said that's hearsay on hearsay on hearsay, and none of it is admissible. Thrown out. Suits in Michigan rejected, denied in Nevada, as well.

Is there anything that you see that the president has filed that will derail a president-elect Biden inauguration 73 days from now?

PAGE: The short answer, Victor, is no. And looking at this as a litigator, as somebody who's actually in court challenging things like this on a day-to-day basis, it almost looks like they're just going through the motions. Like perhaps the Trump campaign needs to appear like they're challenging this to satisfy some part of his base.

But I really expected to see a lot more in terms of a legal fight from Trump, more coordination, certainly more effective lawsuits. But this has been weak, disorganized.

And now, they're saying they're going to bring all these lawsuits on Monday. Well, what is a judge going to do with that? The voting is over. The counting is almost completely over. And so far, the legal claims have been meritless.

BLACKWELL: Page Pate, always good to have your expertise and your analysis. Thank you so much. Enjoy the morning.

PATE: Thank you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right. Christi?

PAUL: Well, like in 2016, U.S. polls have forecast President Trump losing the election by a landslide. Once again, that was anything but what happened. Our next guest says it's due to an American identity crisis.

More with that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:33:54]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president. I'll work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as those who did. Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Despite the election being called for President-elect Joe Biden now, mail-in ballots are still being counted in key battleground states. Election officials in Georgia, for example, say they're done rescanning ballots after encountering a small error yesterday afternoon. As the votes between Biden and President Trump continues to narrow or continue to, one thing is clear -- the polls saying that the president would lose by wide margins were wrong again.

So why did so many state polls underestimate support for the president and down ballot Republicans a second time around?

Let's talk to staff writer for "The Atlantic", David Graham, with us.

David, good to have you with us.

You call the polling industry a train wreck.

[07:35:03]

You say it is a disaster. And yet it mirrors what we saw in 2016. What went wrong, and can we rely on them next time around?

DAVID A. GRAHAM, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: We don't know exactly what went wrong. You know, as you say, state-level polls were off often by pretty wide margins. We saw district-level polls, you know, the House both in the presidential race and for House races were off by a lot.

We don't know exactly what the problem was. Maybe the national polls were right. I think we have a real problem when we rely so heavily on polling as a country, as a media industry, to could understand what's going on and where races are going and when it is consistently off by so much.

PAUL: So, yeah, you're right. It's a great article. You write that one of the problems that leaves us with is this -- much of American democracy depends on being able to understand what our fellow citizens think. In other words, if the polls aren't accurate, we're all left in the dark. Explain the real detriment here, though. Is the detriment to the

voters, or is the detriment to the candidate? Now the candidate doesn't know what the voters really value.

GRAHAM: I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, we want to understand what our neighbors think. We want to understand how people are thinking so that we can form our own political views. And in a time when Americans are increasingly sorted into communities and professions and families that are ideologically all the same, it's ever harder to do that. It's even -- especially harder now when we're in a pandemic and we can't see as many people as we want. So, we have a hard time understanding ourselves.

I think for politicians it's the same. You know, we all want politicians who are making decisions based on their judgment and are not going where the wind blows. But they should understand what constituents think. We have a problem with understanding.

You know, polls were meant to sort of replace the old method where journalists talked to a few people and extrapolated from that. That's not really scientific. What we're seeing is even the scientific method of polls has these big flaws that make it harder for us to understand each other.

PAUL: Let me ask you this -- is there any evidence that the inaccuracies come from a belief that, for one, there was so much divisiveness which we know, but two, that perhaps some people were not being transparent when they were answering polls because it is so divisive, and they didn't want to admit who they were voting for?

GRAHAM: You know, anecdotally I've heard from people who say they don't trust the polls, and I they wouldn't have given an honest answer or didn't give honest answers. We don't have a sense of how big the group is. We don't know whether it's that, we don't know if pollsters sort of underestimated what the demographics that voters for Trump, what the turnout would be.

There's a lot of places that could have gone wrong. And I think it's going to take weeks and maybe months for pollsters to really understand that. Maybe in that time the rest of us can sort of try to start recalibrating our relationship with polls and building a more healthy relationship.

PAUL: Yeah. So, I'm wondering if there's a positive to this prospective polling. And here's why I say that -- maybe people would become more independent in their thinking, and their reasoning of what they're going to do as opposed to looking for some sort of validation elsewhere?

GRAHAM: Yeah. I think that would be great. And maybe they can dig into policies, too. You know, I think back to Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, saying when he founded FiveThirtyEight, his hope was by creating a more reliable place for polls, a place that can explain the polls to voters, it would allow the press to focus more on policies and a lot of things that are really going on instead of focusing on the horse race. And Instead I think we've focused on the horse race even more, and I'm

not sure that's' really a positive thing for democracy.

PAUL: I feel like a baby is in the background. Maybe they're feeling like many people are. They don't know what to make of all of this. I'm going to keep you for one more second. Obviously I know you've got things to take care of there.

But when we talk about polls, say, for 2022, 2024, how imperative is it for pollsters to get that right?

GRAHAM: I mean, I think it's very important, especially in 2024. But they already have a big credibility crisis. You know, people I think are going to be a little bit more skeptical of what they see in the polls. They're not going to go from that.

And they're going to want to look for other sources of information. It's going to take a long time for the pollsters to rebuild their credibility even if they can do a better job in the next couple of elections of fixing the problems that went wrong this year.

PAUL: All right. David A. Graham, always good to have you with us. Thank you for taking some time. Go take care of that baby.

GRAHAM: Thank you so much.

PAUL: Of course.

BLACKWELL: All right. Coming up, President Trump has not conceded the race but world leaders are recognizing and congratulating President- elect Joe Biden. We will tell you who and how, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:44:16]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Tonight, the whole world is watching America, and I believe at our best, America's a beacon for the globe. We will not lead -- we will lead not only by example of our power but the power of our example.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: The U.S. presidential race closely watched around the world, and the world is responding now. London's Madame Tussauds Museum is already prepping its wax work model of Donald Trump for life after the presidency. Yeah. They put him in a -- in golf clothes.

But what are leaders thinking on the global stage is the big question.

BLACKWELL: Well, this shot if you have President Obama smiling looking across the floor at President Trump in his golf pants. PAUL: All in those pants. Would he wear those pants?

BLACKWELL: No. He wouldn't wear those pants.

Nic Robertson is in London with reaction. Let's talk here -- and you know, I brought up President Obama. It was President Obama who said that the U.K. would have to move to the back of the queue if they went through with Brexit. The U.S. and the U.K. got a figure out what trade looks like now post-Brexit.

What does this mean for that?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, if you like Boris Johnson a little bit behind the eight ball because there's been such a close ally and friend of President Trump. Now he's got to switch focus to dealing with President Biden over that trade deal which wasn't what he was expecting, and -- President-elect Biden. And President-elect Biden has already told Boris Johnson that unless you protect the Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland in your Brexit deal, then it's going to be that much harder to get the trade deal.

So you have Boris Johnson going on television today saying, uh, yes, we can work on that, we're going to protect the Good Friday peace agreement. There's catch-up going on at number 10 Downing Street at the moment to actually reflect now the new sort of political reality emerging in the United States.

I think when you take a look at the big picture here, President-elect Biden absolutely welcomed in Ireland for his Irish roots. I was in the town where he's got so many relatives, a month or so ago, people there really hoping that he would get elected. But hoping because this Brexit deal that the President-elect Biden has been talking about has been pretty bad for the Irish, and they want his protection on that. So that's a conundrum for Boris Johnson.

But you know, in the big picture, President-elect Biden has said that he will be strong on NATO. President Trump was not that. That had a lot of European allies worried. Germany, for one, is really being strong about talking about a new transatlantic alliance of wanting to frame that.

All the sort of heads, the principal heads of the European Union saying transatlantic alliance most important. And perhaps it was the mayor of Paris who kind of captured the mood more or less in Europe by saying "welcome back, America." They want -- Europe wants a U.S. president who's not isolationist, that believes in the transatlantic alliance, and wants to work with the allies.

And that's what President-elect Biden has said that he'll do, that he'll work with allies on climate change, who will sign up to the climate change agreement that was struck in Paris a few years ago. That he'll work with allies on dealing with China. That he'll work with allies on a host of issues, presumably Iran, as well.

So this is sort of a -- a reset in part to the America and the relationship with Europe that European leaders are used to. I think no one here is under any illusion that the United States is divided, that President Trump got a large, large turnout in proportion of the vote so people are cautious. They're going to be cautious about, yes, President-elect Biden will be different, but could it flip back to somebody similar to President Trump in the future? That will be a concern.

PAUL: All right. Nic Robertson, thank you so much for walking us through all of that. We really appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: The U.S. election is front-page news around the world. Some of the headlines, tongue-in-cheek.

PAUL: Just a little. Look at the front page from the western Australia, the picture of President-elect Joe Biden with the caption "phew!"

BLACKWELL: One German newspaper turned one of the president's favorite tag lines into the headline, "You're fired."

PAUL: And Canada's "The National Post" poked fun at the uncertainty of the last few days regarding who was the projected winner in the race. On the cover a picture of Biden with the caption, "The apparently, likely, probably, presumptive, almost certainly next president of the United States."

BLACKWELL: Joe Biden was gracious with his victory speech. Jim Carrey, though, on "SNL," said maybe what at least they imagine that the president-elect was thinking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM CARREY AS BIDEN: There must be a winner, and a loser!

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:53:41]

BLACKWELL: Can you have an election in modern-day America without "Saturday Night Live"? I mean, you got to have their version in there somewhere, right?

PAUL: I know, because we need some levity at the end of the day with all of this. It was an all-star cast too. You have Jim Carrey, Maya Rudolph, Alec Baldwin, reprising all their roles as the big political players to make fun of the Biden-Harris victory, President Trump's concession speech and in all transparency -- us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome back to what has become election week in America. I'm Wolf Blitzer. I have been awake so long that my weird, stubbly beard finally makes sense.

I'm joined by John King, who's been operating our touchscreen for the past 85 hours.

How are you, John?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm great, Wolf, thanks. My fingers are nubs, but I think that's normal.

CARREY: And tonight, we're not going to stand here and gloat --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, maybe.

CARREY: We're not rubbing our victory's in everybody's face.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But like just a tiny bit!

CARREY: We're humbly accepting this victory.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. And I'm just -- I'm just going to play a quick song on my phone.

(MUSIC)

CARREY: There are situations in life, and this is one of them, where there must be a winner and -- a loser.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:55:25]

PAUL: You knew it would be coming.

Thank you all for being with us. And we hope you make good memories today.

BLACKWELL: "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King is up next.