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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN's Special Coverage of Election Night in America. CNN's Special Coverage of Election Night in America. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired November 06, 2024 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: -- and the beating that people are taking at the gas pump and in grocery stores, inflation, and immigration and the fact that immigration, there is a crisis at the border.
There has been for several years, the first couple years of the Biden- Harris administration, they were in denial about it and acted as though anybody who asked about it was just reading right-wing talking points and then also having to do with foreign policy and the standing in the world.
Now, you can say you can look at what's happening in Ukraine and you can look at what's happening in the Middle East and all over the world and believe that Trump had something to do with it or not believe something Trump had something to do with it.
But it is true that there are wars going on right now that we're not going on during the Trump presidency. I'm not saying that correlation but I just -- I want to reassure because I know that there are people out there who are worried that this is a statement, that this vote for Donald Trump is a statement of dislike of them. And I don't think that is what people should read into election results.
CHRIS WALLACE, HOST, "THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW": (inaudible) point of which I agree with most of what you said. The only thing I would push back on is this is a man who would get up in rallies and say, I am your retribution. This goes back to what David Axelrod said.
There obviously are millions of people in this country who feel that there's an elite, an inside game that they're looked down on, as Axelrod said, where the party, the Democratic Party, approaches them almost like missionaries, like we want to help you and make you like us and he was in effect saying I'm representing you against those people.
I'd agree that a lot -- a lot of it doesn't have to do with misogyny and racism but I do think that there is a you know we talk about the one of the big dividing lines here is college educated people versus non-college educated people. I think there is certainly a class element.
TAPPER: I'm not dismissing -- I'm not dismissing any of that. I'm saying that the people the people who's either swung their votes change their votes the people who decided this election. I'm not saying all 85 million or however many people ultimately ended up voting for Donald Trump did so for one monolithic reason. I'm just saying, I think that people need to think about the economic reasons first and foremost.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's what I was just going to say, is that one of the things that I think may be the biggest thing that Donald Trump benefited from was the fact that he had been in the White House before and the economy was better. Whether it was on him or not, the economy was better. And people remembered that. And that is such a fundamental across the board for pretty much everybody who voted for him.
TAPPER: Let's bring in Kaitlan Collins, who is at Trump Campaign Headquarters. Kaitlan, your takeaways from what we heard from Donald Trump.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS": Well, Jake, just on that conversation that y'all were just having, you know, what I'm hearing from the Trump campaign in the last hour or so, as they're looking at these numbers, is they're taking all of that and seeing what the margins are in these states that they were so worried about, even as of this morning, and also looking at the popular vote right now and believing all of that is an affirmation of what they have been saying on the campaign trail for the last two years and what Donald Trump has been arguing about the current administration and believing it was a message that resonated that despite, you know, moments like the Madison Square Garden rally and all of these other moments that there are this underlining message where all of that did not necessarily matter.
And it was still essentially, Kristen Holmes, what he has been arguing for two years on immigration or the economy, criticized the message or not that is what came through.
And I think the other thing that stood out from him being on that stage tonight was the powers sources around him. Suzy Wiles getting up there, she did not speak. She was the only person he called to get on stage who did not say a word into the microphone.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And actually adamantly shook her head that she wasn't going to speak.
COLLINS: It is maybe one of the most powerful and influential people of this campaign that was up there on that stage.
HOLMES: Absolutely, her name's already been floated for chief of staff. There's a lot of people around him who believe that if she wants that job, she can have it and that she's the best person fit for it because they believe she is somebody who can keep him at least somewhat in line.
Again, it's former President Donald Trump. We know that he is not somebody who can be controlled, but for the most part, Suzy Wiles has done a very good job at trying to keep him in line as much as he possibly can. And one thing I just want to point out on what you were saying about
those issues like immigration crime and the economy is that when we saw Kamala Harris ascend to the top of the ticket, there was an argument inside of the Trump campaign.
They kept pushing out that it would be, if Donald Trump could beat her, it would be because they would be able to link her to the current administration and the unhappiness that Americans felt, particularly when it came to issues like immigration, crime, inflation.
[03:04:50]
And they believed, they kept pushing that message, trying to drown out all the other noise, particularly the noise that comes with having Donald Trump as a candidate, somebody who is a loose cannon, somebody who says whatever, if they could drown him out with this constant messaging about the economy in particular, about crime, that they could win this election.
And if that is why the American people voted, and I'm sure we're going to pour through the exit polls and pour through the data as to why, they were right during that time.
And obviously, we saw the enthusiasm that came with Kamala Harris' ascension, but their point during all of that was at the end of the day, if he can make the case that she is tied to the current administration, then they can make the case to win in November, and I can guarantee you they believe and they feel very good about the fact that they stuck to that messaging.
Again, Donald Trump did not always stick to the messaging, but the campaign themselves was pushing that.
COLLINS: Whether it was the ads or what the surrogates were saying, that was something you saw constantly. It was a different campaign than what we'd seen in the past. Obviously the candidate himself was the candidate.
We were at the Madison Square Garden rally, but the campaign, there weren't major staff shake-ups weeks before the actual race. And that was really a question of the closing message also, whether that would affect it.
A lot of them, even inside the campaign, began to feel that way. Obviously today changed their perspectives. And just looking also on that stage tonight, Ivanka Trump was there with Jared Kushner. They were standing to the far right just off camera.
That is, I believe, her first campaign trail appearance. She did not attend the trial in Manhattan. She was not at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. We've heard from her. But she hasn't been out on the campaign trail at all.
HOLMES: That's right. And actually, we only saw Jared once. We saw him at Donald Trump's actual announcement about just about a year ago, or two years ago, gosh. Time flies. Two years ago at Mar-a-Lago. But Ivanka was not there. She made that
announcement shortly before Donald Trump announced that he was going to be running, that she and Jared were going to take a step back and take care of their family. And she has largely stayed out of light. Now, after his conviction, as we talked about, she was up at Trump Tower. She never came down with him. Even when he spoke, she wasn't there. She was never seen publicly with him.
And there was a lot of questions about that. Even he brought up on the campaign trail in the last two days how she was there on the campaign trail with him back in 2016 and 2020. And she had largely disappeared. It was notable that she was there.
And I was speaking to somebody earlier before the Mar-a-Lago event who said they weren't even sure she was going to show up to that Mar-a- Lago watch party. Now, obviously, everything started shifting when they started seeing those numbers coming in, but she has really taken a back seat here, and it was interesting to see her on the stage.
COLLINS: Yeah, and, Jake, obviously, a moment there that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump himself summed up, J.D. Vance calling it, as he put it, the greatest political comeback ever, and Donald Trump saying that he believed that they are seeing the results that we're looking at now for a reason. Obviously, the question is what that means and what's to come.
TAPPER: Kaitlan, thanks so much.
And Anderson, it is hard to think of a political comeback that is actually more significant than this one. I'm tempted to say Richard Nixon, but that really falls short of what Donald Trump has achieved.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. I mean, winning not just the electoral votes, but the popular vote as well.
Let's continue the discussion about just what this means and obviously Democrats are going to be looking at this very closely about what it was that, why they didn't deliver.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, we talked a bit about that. We should, you know, we heard a discussion about what it was. We should talk about what it was in may be a bit it may have been a mandate for some of the policies around economy and immigration they'll be battles over some aspects of that in the wisdom of some of it.
But certainly, he should -- he should feel like he'd been affirmed on that. It wasn't a mandate to wontedly use the power of the presidency to punish his political enemies, it wasn't a mandate to help enrich himself and his friends.
It wasn't a mandate to single out groups in our society for scorn, or worse. You know, I'd love to hear from Van on this, but let's be honest about this, okay? Let's be absolutely blunt about it.
There were appeals to racism in this campaign, and there is racial bias in this country, and there is sexism in this country. And anybody who thinks that that did not in any way impact on the outcome of this race is wrong.
I'm not saying that was the main reason that Kamala Harris lost and Donald Trump won, and I think they ran honestly strategically his campaign and I've said many times they ran a very smart campaign. It was ultimately rational well-conceived and well executed campaign for an irrational often irrational candidate and they overcame to sell his message or the message that they thought he should be selling to the country.
[03:10:10]
But let's not confuse what this was and what it was, and let's be very clear-eyed about it.
VAN JONES, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's going to be a long time for us to figure out what it was and what it wasn't. I hope that it goes the way that you said. But like, I do think it's bitter in the mouth the racial and gender dimension of this. And the only way that you can kind of get in a seat if you don't see it right away is, can you imagine a woman of color acting like Donald Trump acted, even for one day?
The kinds of stuff that he said, the kinds of things that he did, the way that he would insult people. If you're a person of color, you don't feel you have that freedom. You feel that you really are somewhat constrained. You're always writing something in the back of your mind like, how am I going to be perceived?
And also if I say this, will they think that all black people are this way or all women are this way? So there's a license that he had to just be a fool, just to be an obnoxious ass to everyone.
And for people to go, well, he can still be president. There's nobody who doesn't have that phenotype that feels that free. And so I do think that who I'm hearing from people is, what do we have to do to be acceptable? I'm hearing from women of color, like, people see things very, very differently.
I just want to make sure feels like Kamala Harris, look, she's not Oprah or Beyonce. She's not like some untouchable black woman in the pot foot, but she is a respectable woman. And she's somebody who served in all three branches. She served in the courts. She served in the legislature. She served in the executive branch. She served local, state, federal. She should have been qualified enough to be able to not have this sort of an outcome. And so --
AXELROD: Can I just --
JONES: Just give me a second. And so then I think people, time when Trump won. Everybody ran to the economic argument. The Tea Party was just people they had economic anxiety, that's all it was. But the people with the most economic anxiety were black and brown people who at that time did not join the Tea Party. So I just don't want to take out that many things can be true at the same time. DAVID URBAN, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I would just say this.
Maybe you got a bad messenger and a bad message. Kamala Harris has never run an election in a state that wasn't 100 percent Democrat. She ran -- She's been elected in the state of California her entire career. She's run as a prosecutor, she ran for AG, she ran for Senate, in a blue, blue state. So she's never had to build a coalition, she's never had to really campaign.
When she ran for president the first time on her own, she tanked. She tanked, she didn't get anywhere. And then so when this came about, this opportunity came about, she didn't run again. She's never been battle tested. And Axe, you've said this before.
Running for president is a skill yet Barack Obama was a good at what he started there was no racism at it. Barack Obama got good at it. You help them get good at it right? And so, maybe she's just a bad messenger selling a bad product.
AXELROD: No I mean look I think again I mean --
URBAN: You think there's any validity to that?
AXELROD: No I think that there would be there are plenty ways to keep critique her as a candidate. I think there'll be time to do that. I think the fundamental point in this big movement made again and again and again tonight, no one, I don't care how good a candidate you were very hard there's a 28 percent right track number in this country when people have two-thirds of the country think the economy is bad regardless of what it whether it is, you know I --
URBAN: Alright. Again, I'm saying not just a messenger, I'm saying the message as well.
AXELROD: Yes. But that is all true, but that doesn't obviate the fact that there were some people who probably voted against her. We've never had a woman president. That there's sexism in this country. There are people who probably voted against her because there may be some people who voted for her.
URBAN: Barack and Michelle Obama are some of the most admired people in America.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let me just say, though, I wonder...
AXELROD: Trust me. There were plenty of people who weren't terribly happy about having him.
FARAH GRIFFIN: But I think that the wrong takeaway from this would be that by running toward the center and away from some of her 2019 positions, that was a mistake and that she should have doubled down on ultra leftism and tried to play to the progressive base.
I think this is a sweeping indictment of a progressive left that has gone so far that it alienates so much of the center of this country. There's a rural-urban divide. But there's a cultural divide where people feel left behind where part of the Democratic Party is going.
[03:15:07]
And I do think she was right to moderate. That's what she should have done. But she had a three-month, basically, window to do that. She's somebody who was not battle-tested, and she was wearing the brunt of Joe Biden in her own positions in 2019. That was a terrible position to be in.
COOPER: Donald Trump on the brink of a stunning victory. Votes still coming in. We're all subtracting the fight for the control of the House. A lot more, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: It's an historic election night with Donald Trump poised to win back the White House. Let's take a look at where the electoral vote count stands right now.
Donald Trump has 266 electoral votes. Kamala Harris has 195 electoral votes. The magic number obviously 270 needed to win. Donald Trump has four short of that.
So let's look at the states, the battleground states that we have not called yet. Michigan, Donald Trump 52.6 percent, Kamala Harris 45.6 percent. Donald Trump, a 320,916 vote lead. That's with 81 percent of the estimated vote in from the Wolverine state.
[03:20:10]
In Wisconsin, Donald Trump 51.1 percent, Kamala Harris 47.3 percent, Donald Trump with a 120,903 vote lead in a state with 94 percent of the estimated vote reported in.
In Arizona, Donald Trump 50.4 percent, Kamala Harris 48.7 percent, Donald Trump with a 31,223 vote lead. That's with an estimated 54 percent of Arizona's vote reported in.
Nevada. Donald Trump 51.5 percent, Kamala Harris 46.8 percent. Donald Trump with a 51,805 vote lead with 76 percent of the estimated vote in.
So John King, what are we waiting for?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I have to see how bad the shellacking is. This is a shellacking for the Democrats tonight. The question is how bad. A shellacking for the vice president. Right now, we still haven't called, we haven't called Michigan or Wisconsin or the Western states, Arizona and Nevada, but the former president is leading in those.
The Republicans will take control of the Senate. The question is how high do they go? And we're still waiting on control of the House, which now becomes vital. Donald Trump with the presidency and a clear majority in the Senate won't get to 60 votes, but 55 maybe? It's possible, maybe even higher than that. So the House comes everything. But now you're looking at this. Here's one way to score it.
We're not done yet, but Donald Trump is winning the popular vote by 5.2 million votes. Another way, he's winning with more than 51 percent of the vote nationally as you look at this. To get to 270, to officially get there, Donald Trump, let's just sneak over here just a little bit, either would call Wisconsin or Michigan soon, but we don't even have to get there.
When Alaska comes in later, that would get him to the edge, and he wins one congressional district in Maine. So Donald Trump is knocking on the door. He's going to get there, he's going to get there. I was going to say barring this out of the other thing, he's going to get there. I'm probably not supposed to say that on television, we haven't projected it yet, but he's going to get there.
So here's another way to score this. Excuse me for turning my back.
This is where we are right now. That number could change. We have 50 states. The Republicans are winning 31 to 19. In a football game, if you lose like that, the coach gets together and says, what should we do differently, right? Ronald Reagan, Mr. Wallace and I were both child prodigies. So we were around, we remember this.
Ronald Reagan won 49 states. In the next election, George H.W. Bush won 40 states over Michael Dukakis. And some Democratic governors, Bill Clinton in Arkansas, Jim Hunt in North Carolina, Roy Romer was out in Colorado. Some Democratic governors, Lawton Chiles, believe it or not, a Democratic governor of Florida.
Governor (inaudible) together and said, we have a problem, Democrats. What are we going to do about it? This is going to be a fascinating conversation in the days ahead, because you see these three states right here, the blue wall states, right now, they're not done. It's possible the vice president picks up one of them.
But right now, the math is pretty damning for her right there. Democratic governor, Democratic governor, Democratic governor. What do the Democratic governors say? Arizona right now is going Republican. We'll see what happens. Democratic governor.
Where are the people going to stand up, Jake? That's my biggest question and say, Houston, we have a problem, how do we fix it? Back in the Bill Clinton days, that was the Democratic Leadership Council. They said the party was too liberal. A lot of those conversations, you just had one at that table over there, are happening tonight.
A lot of Democratic incoming tonight to me is Democrats need a new way to talk about urban America. They need a new way to talk about crime, and they need a new way to talk -- to counter Donald Trump's what the Democrats call fake populism. The voters today don't seem to see it that way. But the Democrats say it's fake populism. So how do we answer? Why are working class voters? Why is that happening out there, right?
So that's what the messaging problem is. Democrats are texting about. And when you say, well, what are they talking about? Well, this is what they're talking about. Again. Mr. Wallace and I were standing on a platform here in 1988 when Michael Dukakis rode the tank in Warren, Michigan. That's Macomb County.
Donald Trump is getting 58 percent of the vote right now in Macomb County. Those are, those used to be Democrats. Those are blue collar workers who work with their hand a few miles north of Detroit. A lot of them are unionized, union members. 58 percent of the vote. He got 53 percent there four years ago.
So in an election where Democrats are trying to pull back blue collar working class voters, Donald Trump took more. We're not at the final count yet, but there you see it there. And so then you come here to Oakland County. This is your more affluent suburbs. Again, when I started doing this, this was Republican territory. So I take a look at it. Donald Trump at 42 percent there in 2020. Donald Trump at 43 percent, just a tad better.
All right, Trump did well, made gains with blue collar workers, and some of those are black workers and Latino workers by the way. They're not all just white blue collar workers. This suburban, we're going to have to, this is going to take a while to analyze all this.
He seems to have inched up a little bit in the suburbs. That's enough to win. That would still be a place where Republicans look like, how do we improve after this? But when you have a map like this, come over to Wisconsin.
All right. I said earlier in the night, can the vice president do in Brown County, can she narrow the margins? This is Green Bay again, blue collar workers. Green Bay Packers fans 55 percent to 43 percent.
[03:25:07]
Joe Biden had 45 percent a little more. Again, it's a point or two, but the Democrats are heading in the wrong direction with the voters they need.
Now, a lot of Democrats scoff when you come out to the national map and they see all this in the middle, and they say, well, nobody lives there, or they're the flier of the states, or they have tiny roles in the Electoral College. I'm telling you when the score's 31 to 19, it's time to have a conversation about who we're talking to and who we're losing and who won't listen to us. That's the issue there.
So I just want to come down and look at a few other places as we come through this. You were talking about this earlier, Jake. Again, Joe Biden got 61 percent in New York State. It's a blue state, right? It's a blue state. 61 percent in 2020, the vice president's down to 56 percent if you round it. So even in the reliably blue states, the margins are down a little bit.
You can write it off if you want to won election. You can write it off to the really bad cost of living climate that you live in, but you can also say that our candidates and our message did not counter his message. Again, she's winning 96 percent, 52 percent. So call that a five point race, 52, 5.5, six point race. Four years ago, it was a 10 point race.
So even in places that are blue on this map, the margins are more narrow, which tells the Democrats, you're losing 31 out of the 50 if it finishes out that way. Your margins have shrunk even in the states where you have won for years.
The three states that made Joe Biden president there in 2020 once again made Donald Trump president. We're not done with the counts there, but you see that down there as well. The Democrats thought their progress was going to come down in the sunbelt. That's a lot of red and at the moment that's a lot of red, Jake.
TAPPER: Alright John, still ahead. Will Republicans hold on to the House or will Democrats take it back? We're going to get the latest on that plus more on Donald Trump on the verge of victory and what comes next?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[03:30:00]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump now 266 electoral votes, just four shy of the 270 needed for him to return to the White House. There's another battle going on in Washington, the fight for control of the House of Representatives. Boris Sanchez is looking to current balance in power there. Boris?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, Jake, two important projections to bring you. Two flips in crossover districts beginning with a 22nd House district in New York. This is up in upstate New York in the Syracuse area, a district that four years ago Joe Biden won.
Democrat John Mannion defeating Republican incumbent Brandon Williams to take that seat and we anticipate, flip it, for Democrats.
The opposite happening in Pennsylvania's 8th district. This is in the Scranton area, a district that Donald Trump won, one that Democratic incumbent Matt Cartwright was the representative for, but now Rob Bresnahan, who had never held public office in his life.
He's a business executive. He is now projected to win that seat in the House of Representatives. So what does this mean for the magic number, the number that Democrats need to take control of the chamber?
As you can see, Democrats have to pick up seven Republican seats. They are currently leading in nine races where Republicans hold seats, but the math starts to get a little bit complicated there because keep in mind, there are districts where Republicans are leading in races where Democrats hold seats. So if you do some math, while it appears that it's trending in Democrats' direction, they may come up short if this trend continues.
Let's get you an update on some key race alerts now. These are results coming into CNN as we're getting them in New York's 19th district. This is in the Ithaca area. Josh Riley, a Democratic attorney, is currently about 3,600 votes in front of freshman Republican incumbent Marc Molinaro, 94 percent of the vote in that New York district.
Another one to tell you about, this one on Long Island. Another district, Joe Biden won four years ago. Laura Gillen, a town supervisor in House District 4, is currently leading Republican incumbent Anthony D'Esposito, former NYPD officer, by roughly 6,148 votes, 92 percent of the vote in this district.
Looking at the first House District in Arizona, this is the northern suburbs of Phoenix. You have Amish Shah, the Democrat in this race, an E.R. doctor, a slim margin, 742 votes ahead of incumbent Republican David Schweikert. Obviously still a close race there, 56 percent of the vote in.
Now let's get you some more key races where Republicans are leading. Let's take a look, beginning with the state, or rather the district in Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley area.
This is House District 7. You have Ryan McKenzie leading Democratic incumbent, Susan Wild, a roughly 5,500 votes, 99 percent of the vote in there. It looks like it's trending in Republican's direction.
In Michigan, House District 7, Tom Barrett leading by 17,000 votes against Curtis Hertel, 97 percent of the vote there in the 7th District. This is in the Lansing area. This is actually the district that's got an open seat because Alissa Slotkin is running for Senate. Keep your eyes on this one.
Meantime, a key race alert from Alaska, Nick Begich, the Republican in this race, leading the Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola. She's a freshman was actually the first Native Alaskan ever voted to Congress. This is a ranked choice, sort of open format in Alaska. So you'll see her going up against a fellow Democrat.
But right now, Begich 5,800 votes ahead, 55 percent of the vote in, in this at-large district, obviously Alaska, a state that Donald Trump won. So what does all this mean for the balance of power in the House of Representatives? The raw numbers right now. 169 for Democrats with one pickup, 197 for Republicans with four pickups, 69 seats remaining up for grabs, Anderson. As you know, 218 needed for control of the Chamber.
COOPER: All right, Boris Sanchez, thanks very much. We'll check in with you a little bit later on as well.
Ashley Allison is joining us, as well as Scott Jennings. I want to hear from both of you. Ashley, obviously this is not the outcome you had hoped for. What do you think, what are you looking at about what went wrong?
[03:35:07]
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think she wasn't able to put the coalition together. She needed to in each of the states. It was never going to look the same. But we've always talked about this would be on the margin. So if you pull off even 1 percent of one of your base constituencies, which he was able to do in some and many, or he was able to do in many of them, you were not going to be able to keep that state or hold that state. And so I've heard a lot of people talk about the conversations we need to have. And I think we do need to have conversations as a party.
But the conversation I want to have for people who showed up and voted for Kamala Harris and tell them to hold their head up high. I remember in 2016 having to walk back into the White House today and I was embarrassed to go to work because I feel like I had filled our country. You know, despair is not the time to lose hope. It is the time to dig down, to do some soul searching and fight for a better day.
Many of the communities that are most vulnerable and that are really afraid right now, the trans community, immigrants, people of color, even if there's polling or outcomes that are showing that some people of color voted for Donald Trump. You're worthy, you're visible, you're not alone. And so you can feel what you feel right now, but we have to do work to protect the most vulnerable, and we can and we will.
And then for the people who did support Donald Trump, we've sat on this network and people have said the things that he said about retribution and about going after his enemies. That's not what he really meant.
So in moments when he does that, it's your responsibility to hold him accountable and not let him do that and not let him undermine the democracy because it is bigger than him. This is not his country. It is our country. He just happened to be most likely elected to run it for four years.
COOPER: Scott, what are you looking, what do you expect the next couple months to be like once he's in?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, he has an opportunity here to try to unite the country after a huge victory. This is a mandate. He's won the national popular vote for the first time since, for a Republican, for the first time since 2004. This is a big deal. This isn't backing into the office. This is a mandate to do what you said you were going to do.
Get the economy working again for regular working class Americans. Fix immigration, try to get crime under control, try to reduce the chaos in the world. This is a mandate from the American people to do that. I think I'm interpreting the results tonight as the revenge of just the regular old working class American, the anonymous American who has been crushed, insulted, condescended to.
They're not garbage. They're not Nazis. They're just regular people who get up and go to work every day and are trying to make a better life for their kids, and they feel like they have been told to just shut up when they have complained about the things that are hurting them in their own lives. I also feel like this election, as we sit here and pour over this
tonight, is something of an indictment of the political information complex. I mean, we've been sitting around here for the last couple of weeks, and the story that was portrayed was not true. We were told Puerto Rico was going to change the election. Liz Cheney, Nikki Haley voters, women lying to their husbands. Before that it was Tim Walz and the camo hats.
Night after night after night, we were told all these things and gimmicks were going to somehow push Harris over the line. And we were just ignoring the fundamentals. Inflation, people feeling like they were barely able to tread water at best. That was the fundamentals of the election.
And so, I think that both parties should always look at the results of an election and figure out what went right and what went wrong. But I think for all of us who cover elections and talk about elections and do this on a day-to-day basis, we have to figure out how to understand, talk to, and listen to the half of the country that rose up tonight and said, we've had enough.
ALLISON: I think we have to listen to everybody, actually. I think that I've been saying this whole time, I think the polls, the polls did not have it right, right? Like the spread in some of these battleground states are a little larger than some, not as close as we thought it was going to be. We thought we were going to be counting, I mean, it hasn't been called yet, but the likelihood that he gets to 270 is highly probable.
The people who voted for Kamala Harris are struggling too. They're feeling ignored too. A Republican's pain is no greater than less than a Democratic's pain. And we have a moment now where, and I'm not saying you're doing this, we can point and be like, ha, ha, you're the loser, I told you so.
[03:40:02]
Or we can do what Donald Trump said, which I believe I have the right to feel skeptical of, that he wants to unify this country. Actions speak louder than words.
JENNINGS: That's the opposite of what I'm saying. And I think for Van and for you and for Axe, I mean, I've been on the losing side of tough nights here and in my professional life it's not easy to lose a race like this might one of my most crushing nights was 2012 I know it was one of your best and one of your best because we were there in the same state together.
And so I understand and I do think that the new president has a responsibility to make the whole country feel like they can be part of a more optimistic future. I do think the way this campaign was run was basically on the Democrats thought there were enough people who hated Trump or were willing to fear him to win the race. And it turns out there's more to being president than simply not being Donald Trump in the eyes of the American people. I'm a little worried about how Democrats are going to react. They've
been told Trump is a modern day Hitler or at least he's a fascist. And now Kamala Harris, I suspect, is going to have to wake up in the morning and concede to that person.
And then she's going to have to go to the Senate and certify the election and -- and I'm just I'm a little concerned about an election in which half the country was conditioned to believe that the person who just won the national popular vote is going to be a dictator eliminate the constitution and create a bloodbath and so on and so forth.
So we have -- we have to -- we have to reckon with that and the aftermath of that argument.
VAN JONES, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The thing that they have been the most important remember is the people who said that he was a Hitler lover or Democrats or Republicans. The people who said that he was a fascist or Democrats they were Republicans who work for him and so it's not it's not just elite Democrats over here, you know, poisoning the well.
You had a pretty broad consensus from the -- from Chomsky to the Cheneys, from, you know, that was very concerned and remains concerned. And so, I think it's not just on us to stop calling names. I think it's up to him to as Alison said with deeds show that he's not going to be those.
JENNINGS: Well you said, it's not just the elite Democrats. It was just the elites. And when I when I was --
JONES: Can you just dismiss all criticism of Trump is just --
JENNINGS: I'm not dismissing it, but I'm just, how do you look at these results and not conclude that the non-elite portion of this country. Basically said, we've had enough and whether that was enough on the economy or enough on immigration or enough of the what you did to us during COVID or enough of whatever and so and so that that's always been the appeal of Trump, right, is that you know you all are being misled the elites the experts the institutions whatever.
And so, he's never going to long with the elites and he didn't get along with them in this election and it looks like the people agreed with him.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Scott, you know look, first of all, I'm always willing to be introspective about how we talk about these things and how we think about them. Polls weren't actually that wrong.
I mean, you're going to look at these polls and they're going to mostly be within the -- I think how we use polls and how we talk about polls is a discussion that we ought to have, and whether that's how we should cover campaigns.
But you know, you sat on this, maybe at this very table in January of 2021, and you were compelling and moving because you are someone who believes in the institutions of this democracy and in integrity and so on.
The reason that people are worried and wary about Donald Trump is because of the way Donald Trump has behaved when he was president, when he was after he was president, and during this campaign. And, you know, how many times do we have a discussion about, you know, his message as related in his campaign ads and the kind of really disturbing things that he says about jailing his opponents and shooting his opponents and so on.
It's not like people make that stuff up, it's concerning now. I would say to you that it's the responsibility people who supported him to hold him as we should hold him to the commitments that he made to work on the problems of the American people and to not indulge in the kind of craziness that we sometimes heard from him.
COOPER: I've got to get a break. CNN's election coverage continues right after this.
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[03:45:00]
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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Alright, welcome back to CNN's special live coverage, Election Night in America. I'm John Berman, in New York. And at this moment, Donald Trump looks like he is about to cap off what is an historic political comeback, dismantling the Democrats' blue wall.
You can see right behind me right now he's got 266 electoral votes, four short of the 270 he officially needs to win the presidency. But honestly, all signs point to that right now. Let's get over to Phil Mattingly at the Magic Wall and talk about where things stand. Trump at 266 electoral votes. We haven't officially called the race yet for Donald Trump. What yet still remains?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Let's start there. There's a lot to dig into about what's happened over the course of the last several hours. But start there in terms of he's four electoral votes away from the threshold, right? 270 and he's the next president of the United States. He's not there yet. What's outstanding? Why hasn't it been called yet? First off, we don't call races, you and me. You don't get paid to do that.
What we do know is what's outstanding. And you will notice everything that's in gray or races that CNN has not called yet, everything that's filled in has been called. And I think what's critical to know at this moment is the states that have not been called yet that add up to 270 that are very much heading in Donald Trump's direction right now. Why we say Trump is on the brink of winning the next presidency?
[03:50:05]
Well, start here. This is the state of Alaska. It's not been called yet. 56 percent reporting. Donald Trump, almost 15 points ahead, 14.5 points ahead, 28,000 votes in the state of Alaska. That's a pretty substantial lead, feels like he's on track there. The expectation was this was a state that would go into Republican hands. So what is that? That's three electoral votes.
BERMAN: That gets him to 269.
MATTINGLY: That gets him to 269. So he's looking for one additional electoral vote and I want to come over here. Maine obviously breaks its electoral votes down by Congressional District.
One of those Congressional Districts right here, Trump has been favored. The expectation and forecasting was that he would win Maine's second Congressional District. Where does it stand right now? Donald Trump with a healthy nearly eight- point lead with 61 percent reporting.
Add that one vote to Alaska, there's your 270, and he's still leading in a number of other states as well. So what else hasn't been called here? You're thinking two other Blue Wall states, Michigan, Wisconsin. You're thinking Arizona. You're thinking Nevada.
The biggest tell of the night is the fact New Jersey has not been called yet. If you're a Democrat, and I told you, at four in the morning or near four in the morning, New Jersey still had not been called in your favor, particularly when back in 2020, Joe Biden won this by nearly 16 points. It has not been called yet.
There's no expectation that Kamala Harris is going to lose New Jersey, but the fact that it hasn't been called yet tells you a lot. What also tells you a lot is we've been watching seven battleground states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the Blue Wall, the Sun Belt states, North Carolina, Georgia. Arizona, Nevada, what do you notice about all seven of those states currently?
BERMAN: Trump is leading in every single one or has already been called the winner in every single one.
MATTINGLY: Exactly, and what's outstanding right now, two blue wall states. We'll start with Michigan, 83 percent reporting. Donald Trump up by 324,000 votes. These were states that were decided by tens of 20,000 votes back in 2016. Joe Biden bumped it up a little bit higher than that. That's a huge margin with 83 percent reporting.
Swipe over to Wisconsin, always the tightest of the Blue Wall states. Donald Trump with 96 percent reporting is up by 108,000 votes.
BERMAN: That's a very big margin in Wisconsin, full stop.
MATTINGLY: Yeah, and if you don't believe John Berman, your mistake. However, go back into 2020. Joe Biden won this by 20,000 votes. Go back into 2016, Donald Trump won this by 22,000 votes. Where are we again in 2024? Donald Trump with 96 percent reporting is up by 108,000 votes. We haven't even gotten into Arizona and Nevada yet, which are still kind of on the early side of reporting, but Trump with decent leads there right now. All seven of the battlegrounds, Georgia, North Carolina, called
earlier in the night looking towards, either already called or heading towards Donald Trump.
BERMAN: So that's where we are, a very good description of why we haven't officially called the race yet, even though every single sign there is pointing to a Trump victory, we are on the precipice of Donald Trump perhaps being declared officially the next president of the United States. Now the question is, Phil, why? What have we seen perhaps in some of these key battleground states? Let's go look at Pennsylvania, since everyone's familiar with it, that tells the story of what's happened here.
MATTINGLY: Yeah, so if you look at Pennsylvania, obviously this has been ground zero for Democrat and Republican campaigns. More than $100 million in ad spending dumped here than any other of the seven battleground states. This was the linchpin state, that 170,000 vote lead. It's double what Joe Biden won the state by in 2020.
If you want to understand why Donald Trump is where he is, why he won the state, why he flipped it back into his column, let's start here. Where are the places that he outperformed his 2020 numbers by 3 percent or more? That is a significant over performance compared to the last time. And you see the area where he over performed in kind of the eastern part of the state that Joe Biden was able to keep the margins down.
He was able to cut into Donald Trump's 2016 margins when Trump was able to defeat Hillary Clinton. These are blue collar areas. These are areas of working class white voters without college degrees that Democrats were able to win back behind Joe Biden in 2020.
Donald Trump not only boosting his margins back up, but doing it in a major way. The other thing, and I think this has been the biggest concern, look, there were two theories of the case coming into election night.
The Democrats said, we have to run up huge margins in suburban areas in particular, in this, in the state of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you're talking about the collar counties, talking about the Allegheny county.
You need to ensure that Donald Trump doesn't cut in too far into your urban areas. Polling had shown that he was making inroads with black voters. And that would balance out any of Trump's support in these smaller rural counties where he was going to run up huge margins.
Let's look at the urban support here. This is Philadelphia County. This is the home of Philadelphia. 12 percent of the voting population is here. Biggest county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You look at that margin and you say, that's great, right? You must be doing very, very well.
Let's look at what happened in 2020. She's underperforming in those urban counties. Now let's push out into those collar counties. This is Montgomery County. This is where Joe Biden blew out the margins back in 2020, winning by more than 26 points. Underperforming. Bucks County. This was a county Joe Biden flipped in 2020. Won it by four points.
[03:55:01]
Harris actually losing the county. And that's the case up and down the Democratic strongholds, not just in Pennsylvania, but kind of throughout the blue wall.
BERMAN: Before you were showing where Donald Trump's over performing by three points or greater in all these counties in Pennsylvania. I think it's important to note, he's over performing almost everywhere in Pennsylvania, but by less than three points. I mean, that's in Philadelphia and Montgomery County, everywhere he's doing better.
MATTINGLY: And that leads into kind of what I was getting initially, which was there was a theory of the case on the Trump side, which was hold down Joe Biden's margin in their strongholds, maybe cut into them, particularly in the bigger cities in the urban population centers.
But then in your strongholds, places like Butler County, obviously everybody familiar with it, it's where the assassination attempt, the first assassination attempt took place. 65.9 percent to 33.3 percent, 99 percent reporting.
What happened in 2020? He's around there, he's kind of matching up with it. You move over into Beaver County, the 58 percent back in 2020. What's he doing this time around? Bumping it up. So he's got one, two, three percent throughout the course of those places that you knew Trump was going to win. It was just a matter of how much.
I do want to take one step back though, because this is not a blue wall story. This is not a Sun Belt story. This is not a Western part of the country story. If you pull up every single county in the country, you've got more than 3,000 counties in the country, and you show where Donald Trump has outperformed his 2020 results by 3 percent or more.
BERMAN: That's a lot of counties.
MATTINGLY: Look at all the counties. And these counties are not just in white working class communities without a college degree. This is up in New York. This is the reason that New Jersey hasn't been called yet. This is down in Florida. This is in the border of the Texas region. This is out west as well. This is the window. This isn't a one segment, a one slice type of victory. This is a sweeping victory and a sweeping comeback.
BERMAN: And we will note at this moment, Donald Trump leads the popular vote by 4 percent as well. Phil Mattingly, we have a lot of time to talk about all this. We're going to keep on digging into the numbers. We're getting new results in.
CNN has been studying the numbers all night. We have assembled the best team in the business. We will talk about the American Electorate and piece together the puzzle that has really created an incredible night here. CNN special live coverage continues after this.
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