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Donald Trump Elected 47th President of the United States; Kremlin: Putin Has No Plans to Congratulate Trump. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 06, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States. Welcome to CNN's special live coverage.

[06:00:15]

If you're just waking up with us, you've missed a lot. It's no longer CNN election night in America. It is CNN election day in America.

And as we hit dawn across tacccche country, Donald Trump has now crossed the 270-vote threshold in the Electoral College, and he did it thanks to Wisconsin.

Looking at the map, the very red map now, it is clear the Blue Wall did not hold. Donald Trump broke through, not just in Wisconsin, the Badger State. He broke through it in Pennsylvania, both states that Joe Biden won in 2020. And he seems likely at this point to break through in Michigan, as well.

The groups that we saw push Joe Biden over the finish line four years ago -- places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit -- they did not show up for Kamala Harris in the numbers that she needed. In some major cities, you were seeing huge gains for Donald Trump, not just in the battleground states.

Donald Trump clearly connected with voters on the economy, on immigration. And as the sun rises, it appears possible he may enter the Oval Office with something that every president wants: a Congress entirely controlled by their own party. He has the Senate already, and at this time, Republicans are hopeful about keeping the House.

All right. Let's get right to Phil Mattingly at the Magic Wall.

Phil, we've been looking at the battleground states all night, but really, the story isn't just about the battlegrounds at this moment. It's this national movement that we've seen.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: It's the scale of by just how much Donald Trump did better than he did in 2020 and, in many cases, in 2016.

You ask what I mean. This is the map where it stands currently. You see the Blue Wall states. They're currently red. You see the Sun Belt states in the Southeast, they're red. What about the Southwest? They're red, as well. But dig a little bit deeper here to get a sense of how Donald Trump is

doing across the country. Every county you see highlighted right here is a county that Donald Trump is doing better than he did in 2020 by three percentage points or more.

And you realize, it's not just in the Southeast. There are a bunch of them in North Carolina and in Georgia, not just in the Blue Wall. There are a handful of them throughout those three states.

But across the country, from the Northeast, we've seen states that normally would not be even close to being late calls, like New Jersey or like Illinois, that kind of continued to push out throughout the night.

Now, the Western vote is still coming in. We'll have to see how that settles, particularly in California. But across the country, in places that we don't consider battlegrounds, Donald Trump overperforming.

What do I mean by that? Well, where's he overperforming in terms of the actual states themselves? Overperforming in Texas, overperforming in Illinois, overperforming dramatically to the extent Florida even was remembered as a bellwether, gone at this point in time. But also in the Northeast, as well.

It's not just a seven-battleground story. It's not just overperformance in the Blue Wall. It's overperformance across the board.

BERMAN: It is part of the reason why Donald Trump hasn't just crossed the 270-electoral-vote threshold. Right now, he's 5 million votes ahead in the popular vote.

Now, California, still a lot more vote to be counted there. That number may very well shrink. But he could have a popular vote victory in this, as well.

And just one thing you want to point out, as we talk about this not just being a battleground phenomenon. Can you point out Chicago for a second here, so we can see the difference in Chicago from now to four years ago?

MATTINGLY: So, why are we going to Illinois in 2024 this late in the game? We'd usually call Illinois very quickly. Let's take a look at Chicago.

And here's why we're doing this, because we've seen so many threads tied to exactly this in multiple big states, particularly in blue states.

You see the margin here in Chicago, 61.8 to 37 percent. You say that's a pretty big margin. There's still vote outstanding: about 12 percent of the vote is outstanding. The reason we're paying attention is this. Look at that top-line number for Kamala Harris. Look at what Joe Biden's topline number was in 2020.

[06:05:02] BERMAN: Twenty points better.

MATTINGLY: Now, more vote will come in. We'll see how it ends up, where it lands, when that additional 12 percent comes in. But we've been talking about this throughout.

Yes, we were talking about it in Milwaukee. We've been talking about it in Wayne County, home of Detroit. We've been talking about it in Philadelphia.

We can also talk about it in Newark, New Jersey; in Baltimore, Maryland; in Prince Georges County, Maryland, as well. Blue states that stayed blue tonight where, in urban parts of those states, with majority African-American populations that traditionally vote 80 percent plus for Democrats, Donald Trump chipped away those margins. And in some cases, like the case for Chicago, chipped away pretty substantially.

BERMAN: And let's go to Pennsylvania, which may have been called, or projected, when a lot of people were sleeping here. So, Trump doing better in some of those blue areas, but in the traditional red areas that he's done well in the past, as well or even better.

MATTINGLY: Yes, let's -- we were doing. He's overperforming in counties nationwide. Let's look at some of the counties that he's overperforming here.

If you talk to people who were on the Biden campaign, the key back in 2020 was not just running up huge vote in the Atlanta suburbs, in Cobb and Gwinnett. Or in the collar counties here in these suburbs outside of Philadelphia County.

It was holding Donald Trump's margins down in this area right here. And what Donald Trump was able to do was not just match his 2016 margins; do better than he did in 2020, but in places like Luzerne County, where obviously, he had been in Wilkes-Barre, just a couple of days ago, I think, about a week ago, where in 2020, he won this county by 14.4 points. All that talk about running up the margins: bumping it up by three points.

When you're bumping up your stronghold counties by two, three, and four points and, at the same time, the Harris campaign is unable to run up their margin in a place like Philadelphia. What happened in 2020? Joe Biden was at 81. Currently, Harris is at 28 -- or 78. We'll see where that comes in.

But also right here, Bucks County, one of the collar counties, by far, the swingiest of the collar counties. Joe Biden was able to win it by about 4 and a half points. Trump, 95 percent reporting, is winning; winning the county.

BERMAN: So, at this point, the states that we have not just projected, academic in the sense they will not be decisive in deciding who the next president is. But we haven't protected a winner in Nevada yet.

And to an extent, it tells some of the story we've been talking about over the course of these wee hours of the morning.

MATTINGLY: John, you are a youthful individual, but you know the game in Nevada. The game -- the game in Nevada is right here.

BERMAN: For me, it's Craps. But that's a different story.

MATTINGLY: If, allegedly, you gambled.

Look, Clark County is 75 percent of the state's voting population. For Democrats, this is their firewall. This is what they set up, both in early vote and mail, but also on election day. The union workers, the Reid machine, for those who remember the late Harry Reid and what he was able to put into place here.

Clark County was what Democrats had to have from a 7-10-point cushion in this Democratic county to offset whatever the Republican was doing in the rural counties and potentially the swingier county in Washoe.

This margin is a yikes for Democrats. And it's been trending in this direction over the court of the last couple of cycles. But back in 2020, Joe Biden was able to win it by just shy of 10.

Back in 2016, a little bit closer for Clinton. They were still able to pull it off.

Back in 2012, 15, 16 points.

Clark has been trending, particularly because of the Hispanic population, Donald Trump's inroads in that, as Harry can tell you at length. It is dramatic when you look at the exits right now.

But that margin in Clark is a huge siren for the state of Nevada and what actually happens going forward here for Democrats.

BERMAN: Phil Mattingly, an excellent segue. We'll let you get back to touching the counties here on the map.

In the meantime, you talked about Harry Enten; you namechecked him.

HARRY ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Let's go over to Harry Enten and talk about the exit polls and the underlying numbers here that explained that map we were just looking at.

ENTEN: You know, I want to drill down in Wisconsin, because it was the state that put Donald Trump over the top in the Electoral College.

I want to look at black voters, first of all. Look at this: Donald Trump getting North of 20 percent of the vote with black voters in the Badger State. Four years ago, he was South of 10 percent. So, he's doing more than twice better than he did four years ago.

But it's not just among black voters. How about voters under the age of 30, traditionally a Democratic bastion of votes, especially with the University of Wisconsin education system. Look here. It's a tie. It's a tie among voters under the age of 30 in

Wisconsin. I never thought I'd see the day.

Closely related, how about first-time voters in the Badger State? What are we seeing there?

Look at this: Donald Trump leading, leading among first-time voters, leading by 17 points going away. Joe Biden won this group rather easily back in 2020.

The bottom line is this: Wisconsin is something that we've seen throughout the entire nation. It's representative of the nation as a whole. If 2016 was the story of Donald Trump and white working-class voters, this, 2024, is about going into Democratic strongholds and taking those votes away and putting up historic numbers among those groups, John Berman.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, thank you very much for that.

Let's bring in our panel of experts. With me, Mark Preston and Professor Leah Wright Rigueur.

[06:10:03]

Professor, I just want to start with you and, like, take a giant step back.

I mean, Grover Cleveland this morning has company. I mean, Donald Trump is now just the second president ever to be voted out of office, kicked out. I mean, when we vote presidents out, generally speaking, if you look at the last several -- Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush -- you know, they're never heard from again at a political level.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

BERMAN: But now, Donald Trump, not just heard from again, but going back to the White House. Just from an historical perspective, it is stunning.

RIGUEUR: Well, it's shocking. But it's also kind of an interesting moment, because who wakes up and says, Hey, I want to be, you know -- I want to be Grover Cleveland tomorrow? Except somebody like Donald Trump.

And I think one of the things that's really important to keep in mind is that Trump essentially was a pariah in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election. A lot of Republicans had the pandemic heavy on their mind. They felt like he had mishandled it. They felt like they [SIC] had cost them a lot.

They also had January 6th on their mind, and they're looking at this man, and they're saying, We want nothing to do with him.

Elon Musk, who's now up on-stage with him celebrating, says in 2022, Donald Trump should just fade off into obscurity. He should go live a nice life. But what we know is that that's not Donald Trump. And that one of the

things that has emerged about Donald Trump that is radically different from any other president that we've seen, except Grover Cleveland, in fact, is that he has taken a very active interest in how the party -- how the party moves forward.

And in fact, we've seen him, even in moments where -- where Republicans said, you know, he's -- he's not in favor. He's not, you know -- he's not in vogue, we saw that he had a lot to say and that his popularity only started to rise the more that we saw him engage in these things that we, that Republicans might call prosecutions or persecutions.

So, as that started to change, it meant that the nature of Donald Trump's candidacy and his potential change. And that's how we ultimately end up with Donald Trump back as the nominee, back in charge, and back as president of the United States.

BERMAN: Mark.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know there's going to be a lot of talk over the coming hours. There's going to be a lot of, certainly Democrats are -- there's going to be a lot of grief and -- and disbelief.

And you're going to hear a lot of talk about realignment. And we're going to talk about the party's realigning.

But I think it's even much bigger than that. I think that what we saw happen just in the past few hours is going to have great consequences, you know, not only in the near term but in the far term, right?

If you look in the near-term right now, no more prosecutions against him. The J-6 defendants are -- are going to be pardoned.

But let's even go beyond that, right? You're talking about Republicans possibly controlling every lever of government in Washington, D.C., from the Supreme Court, potentially through the House, certainly in the Senate, and now at the White House, as well.

And then if you just even go even bigger than that, what is the Democratic Party going to do? Who is the Democratic leader? Right now, the only person that I can see who can lead the Democratic Party, certainly in the near-term, who has the power to do so, is going to be Chuck Schumer in -- in the U.S. Senate. But he's certainly not going to be the nominee for the Democrats in 2028.

So, let's assume that that primary has already started, if it hadn't started before. And the very last thing that I think this is why Donald Trump won the election, is that the war, the cultural war that we saw on "woke" culture and the backlash we've seen against that, I think we're going to see a, quote unquote, "realignment" on what the definition of "woke" is.

BERMAN: Well, that discussion. Look, after 2012, the Republicans did their famed autopsy. How is it that Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama? I'm curious to see if the Democrats do something like that, official

or otherwise; whether there is that introspection.

You know, Harry Enten has joined us here --

ENTEN: I walked over.

BERMAN: -- at the table. You know, you talk about what the Democratic coalition was and maybe is now.

ENTEN: I don't know exactly what it is right now. I mean, I think that there were a lot of folks who thought, you know, that you could make up for the losses in rural areas by winning suburban voters, specifically white women in the suburbs. Didn't happen. Didn't work.

The bottom line is this: this is a country in which the vast majority of voters do not hold a college degree. It is still a country that is getting more diverse.

And a lot of folks -- you mentioned that 2012 Republican autopsy. A lot of Republicans thought, well, we have to, you know, move, maybe become more liberal on immigration. No, didn't need to.

BERMAN: Well, Trump did the opposite.

ENTEN: Did the exact and total opposite. I think that we're going to see, over the months to come, Democrats try and figure out what the heck is going on.

I will tell you one name I do think looks awfully good this morning, and that is the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, who obviously was a real contender to be the Democratic V.P. nominee this time around. He didn't get it. I think there's going to be a lot of talk swirling around him.

I don't think him being on the ticket necessarily would have helped Kamala Harris out too much in Pennsylvania. But the bottom line is, his stock is up this morning. I think that there's going to be a move to the center among Democrats based upon the results that I've seen.

[06:15:09]

BERMAN: Professor, I am curious. As we are waking up, or some who have been up all night, is this a chump thing, a Harris thing.

Professor, I am curious as we are waking up this morning, or those of us who have been up all night, is this -- is this a Trump thing, a Harris thing, or a Biden thing? Or I guess option D, none of the above?

RIGUEUR: I think it's option D, none of the above. I think this is the leftovers of the 2016 kind of mess. That there were all of these issues that the Democratic Party saw laid out very clearly in 2016 after Hillary Clinton's loss.

And that, rather than address those issues, they moved and they migrated.

What happened is that the pandemic. Right? The pandemic came upon us, and Joe Biden happened to be the person for the pandemic.

And I think they mistook that moment for a referendum on what the Democrats had to offer, rather than being introspective.

I'll tell you one other person who I think is going to be incredibly important; actually, two other people. The first person is Bernie Sanders.

One of the things that Bernie Sanders has been saying, since at least 2014, has been about how the Democratic Party, if it wants to keep these coalitions, needs to talk about bread-and-butter issues. It needs to talk about politics.

A lot of people attacked him for that, saying, well, are you saying that cultural politics don't matter? that's not what he was saying. He was saying we need to focus on these things.

The other person is Stacey Abrams. We have not heard a lot from Stacey Abrams in this election cycle. But her organizations, particular Fair Fight, the New Georgia Voter Project, and other organizations, were instrumental in pulling together coalitions that ended up winning Joe Biden Georgia in 2020, but also Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

BERMAN: Not this time, though.

RIGUEUR: Not this time.

BERMAN: Not this time. We'll have a lot more chance to talk about that over the course of this morning, not to mention the weeks and months ahead.

Look, the once and future, now president of the United States, Donald Trump, has the keys to the White House again. We have brand-new reaction in from Russia as the world is really about to change.

More of CNN's special live coverage now of election day in America.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome back to CNN's special live coverage of election day in America.

Donald Trump, once again, elected to the White House. Leaders around the world congratulating him on his historic comeback.

But there is one leader who apparently has no plans to congratulate him: Russia's Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now with more on this.

Nic, good morning. What are we learning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, this is coming from Dmitry Peskov, the -- President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson at the Kremlin.

And he says this whence -- when asked the question about why hasn't Vladimir Putin congratulated President-elect Donald Trump. And he said this: "Let's not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state."

So, that is the Russian position on that.

Now, Peskov was pressed by the journalists on his daily press briefing phone call, well, isn't this going to put you in a bad and worse position with the United States? Because it's very clear the implication and the question that President Trump likes to get these congratulations early.

We've heard from the British just earlier today. We've heard from many European leaders earlier today, congratulating President-elect Donald Trump.

And Peskov's answer was this. And he said, look, the relationship is really bad. How can it get any worse than it is already?

And this is clearly a reference to something else that Peskov talked about in that phone -- in that phone call with journalists, saying that the United States is in a position to end the war in Ukraine; where Russia considers itself to be, essentially, in a war confronted by the United States, involving the United States.

So, the Kremlin's position on this, I think, gives us a hint about what -- about what Donald Trump has spoken about previously, about ending the war in Ukraine in a matter of a day.

Russia's position on this is clearly going to be tough. And as Peskov went on to say in this phone conversation, that this issue over Ukraine is not going to be ended quickly. That is clearly going to be a tough road ahead for President-elect Donald Trump.

HUNT: Indeed. It is. And of course, we're seeing a much different reaction from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at this hour.

Nic Robertson for us in London. Nic, thank you very much for that report.

So, as Nic was just talking about, leaders around the world, America's allies and its enemies, bracing for a second Trump presidency and a dramatic shift in both the style and substance of American foreign policy.

Our panel is back: Alex Thompson, in terms of the way that foreign policy is conducted, I mean, we saw, you know, Joe Biden on the world stage, often in a way that seemed to underscore the ways in which the Western alliance, the NATO alliance was perhaps fracturing or fading a little bit. Right?

That last appearance that he had with Western leaders, there was some footage where he appeared to wander off. But there were also a lot of other questions about the future for a lot of the other leaders that were meeting there.

Huge questions about the way the West is going to continue to interact there.

The contrast between how Biden campaigned around NATO, led with a NATO-forward foreign policy, could not contrast more with how Donald Trump conducted the foreign policy in his latest term and with what we may expect in a second term.

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, foreign policy maybe didn't sway that many votes this election, but it could actually be the clearest contrast between the two choices in terms of how they're actually going to govern.

Kamala Harris did signal that she was going to be -- try to be tougher on immigration. She was going to be tougher on tariffs.

But with regards to the foreign policy, they're going to be completely different. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were going to basically try to defend the post-World War II order which really focused on NATO. You know, it used to be communism versus democracy. Now, it's authoritarianism versus democracy.

[06:25:05]

Donald Trump has made clear he doesn't care about those -- those ideologies. And I think it's, you know, buckle up.

HUNT: Kristen, what you said earlier was so interesting, that it might not have been the first priority for many voters, but when they were voting on foreign policy, they were voting for Trump.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And I think if you are trying to find a single reason why Donald Trump has overperformed with younger voters, relative to past elections for Republicans, I think the divide I see in polls around foreign policy and the role of America in the world is no longer a left-right divide. It is younger- older divide.

If you're under the age of 40, you don't remember a time when America protecting its power in the world led to anything good.

And so, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, when they get up and they talk about, you know, warmongers; and they sound like they're Code Pink people from 2004. We had a complete inversion of the way we talk about America in the world, the use of the military, et cetera. It's totally a generational divide, and the parties have completely flipped.

THOMPSON: One small thing to add to that. I was really stuck at the Madison Square Garden rally, you had the Republican crowd cheering for people criticizing the Patriot Act and criticizing the Iraq War, which the -- you know, the RNC had been held at Madison Square Garden just 20 years before. GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's a sobering

reminder to see, within an hour of this network calling the race, we read a quote from Vladimir Putin where his -- his team essentially slid a stack of chips into the pot, and said, all right, Donald Trump, what are you going to do?

Are you going to -- are you going to double down on us being an enemy state? Or are you going to follow what you said through with what you said on the campaign trail of trying to solve this in a week and getting both sides to get what they want, and whatnot?

It's interesting to see. But this is -- this is a big boy's game.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But the --

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's also interesting.

SELLERS: I'm sorry.

FINNEY: It will be -- sorry, it will be interesting to see how Netanyahu reacts.

SELLERS: You're reading my mind. That's exactly where I was going.

HUNT: And he has already sent a congratulatory statement to Donald Trump.

FINNEY: Well, I mean just -- in addition to that, I think the hostages coming home is probably very much farther down on his list. Because now he knows he's got cart blanche to do whatever he wants.

He was hoping for a Trump win, because I think he knew that Trump was going to let him do -- he's also going to stay out of jail now, right? He was going to let him do as he pleases in the Middle East.

And that, despite Trump saying he will get us out of wars, that is an area where we could find ourselves very much more entangled if -- given that that is becoming a broader conflict in the region.

SELLERS: You know, I -- I actually -- we saw some the things earlier today like Russia calling -- or bomb threats. I don't want to say that the state of Russia. But bomb threats coming in, in Georgia, that we -- that the secretary state said emanated from Russia. So, you saw that play a role.

But the war in Gaza played a more looming role, I think, particularly in a state like Michigan. You saw in Dearborn, for example, certain precincts. There are precincts in Dearborn, Michigan, that Kamala Harris finished third. I mean, you know, you have Trump, Jill Stein, and then Kamala Harris finishing third in those precincts.

I'm interested as, you know -- as we go through -- I don't know if "purge" is the right word. I think that Republicans were going to go through a purge, Geoff, if -- if Donald Trump would have lost. They were going to be able to have this -- this kind of reckoning. I think Democrats are going to have this reckoning, and I'm interested

to see how a part of our coalition, Arab-American voters, those individuals who are or were pro-Palestinian, are going to analyze this race and what Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the impact that's going to have on the war in Gaza.

Because I just go back to Jared Kushner saying that Gaza would be good beachfront property. Right?

And I'm interested to see how individuals who either set out or chose Jill Stein to punish the Democratic Party are going to reconcile that with what happens with Bibi Netanyahu.

I, for one, believe we're going to have more chaos if you're going to -- I pray that he puts somebody like a Marco Rubio. And I'm actually -- I don't know if I verbally said that I'm praying for Marco Rubio out loud. But I'm praying that he puts somebody like Marco Rubio, who at least has some sense of -- of decency and common sense, although I don't agree with his policies, per se, as secretary of state, so we at least have a level of stability.

My concern with Donald Trump is the lack of stability in our global standing.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, Kasie, the big question --

THOMPSON: Marco Rubio's never going to be confirmed now.

SELLERS: Just play that, over and over and over.

SINGLETON: The big question for me in terms of foreign policy is China. For a couple of different reasons.

I'm looking at their technological advancements with hypersonic missiles. We're actually a bit behind with that technology in the United States. It's a very superior form of rocket use. We need to catch up there. I'm worried about that.

I'm worried about the expansion in the South Chinese [SIC] Sea. The Chinese government, they've been really strategic in going to developing nations, giving out these zero-interest-rate loans, essentially trying to buy in favor.

The United States was once the country that would help these nations develop. I'm worried about that competition there, as well.

[06:30:00]