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Trump Transition Team Sets Up Operation In West Palm Beach, F.L.; Trump Wins, GOP Takes Senate, House Still Up For Grabs; Trump's WH Win Raises Questions About Fate Of Criminal Cases. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired November 06, 2024 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[17:00:40]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to CNN's special coverage of Election Day in America continued. I'm Anderson Cooper.
DANA BASH, CNN HOST: And I'm Dana Bash.
Just moments ago, at her alma mater here in Washington, Howard University, Vice President Harris spoke to supporters after conceding the race to Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hear me when I say the light of America's promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting. While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: President Biden also spoke this afternoon with president- elect, congratulating him on what was obviously a decisive victory, 291 electoral votes so far to Harris' 223. The president-elect shaping up to win the popular vote as well. Now, we still have four states left to project, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and Alaska. Michigan was called for him this afternoon, giving him a sweep of the blue wall states.
BASH: And as for Congress, Anderson, Republicans are now leading the race to keep control of the House with 207 of the 218 seats they need to and 40 are still in flux there. The election also puts the GOP back on top in the Senate with three pickups for them so far, meaning that when all is said and done, the president-elect could have both a mandate and both chambers of Congress to help him carry it out.
COOPER: And Dana, that certainly speaks the central question from here on out, namely, what happens next, from the transition to what the new cabinet will look like to the criminal and civil cases against the president-elect. We'll talk about it throughout this hour.
First to CNN's Abby Phillip and Jeff Zeleny at Howard University with Vice President just spoke. Abby, we heard her concession speech was ran about 12 minutes long, as John King pointed out, leaving the door open for perhaps some sort of future political life for her.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I mean, I think that that is exactly what this speech was, Anderson. It was a moment for her to close this particular chapter to speak to all of the people who were gathered here, who are -- millions who are watching at home who put their hopes in her at a particularly vulnerable time for the Democratic Party, when suddenly over the summer, her running mate at the time, President Biden, was unceremoniously kicked off of the ticket and she became the nominee. I think it's hard to understate how -- it's hard to overstate how much of a vibe change Vice President Harris represented when she got on that ticket. And this moment, because of that high, feels like such a low letdown for so many people here.
One of the things, though, Anderson and Jeff, that I noted in this speech, it was driven, as she said, by the ideas that animated this campaign, which were about democracy, the threat that Donald Trump, she said, posed to this country. But I have to wonder, after the results that we saw last night, voters seemed to say that maybe they get it, they understand it, they think that he doesn't have the best character, but there were other issues that were animating them, and she did not address that. She did not address how the Democratic Party claws back from that hole that they are now in.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: She did not. And look, one of the things that has been hanging over this is the fact that she was running during the Biden administration as his vice president. It was a fight to be the candidate of change. That was always going to be so difficult for someone who literally works just down the hall from President Biden, whose approval rating was really disastrously low, at least politically speaking. So she did not address that.
However, if she would run again. So it's far too soon to know. I'm thinking back to the 2000 campaign, people thought Al Gore would run again. He thought about it.
He ended up not in 2004. So we shall see. She is a young politician. I would argue that she has elevated her standing in this presidential race, which is not always the case. As vice president, she was sort of unknown. Now she has a following.
[17:05:00]
I was struck by when she said it's OK to feel sad and disappointed, sometimes the fight takes a while. She was talking to the youth in this crowd, but also talking to Democrats. Democrats do feel sad, and they do feel disappointed. So how this goes from here, how the party really studies it's disconnect with large swathes of America, is going to be very interesting.
But in terms of a concession speech, I was struck by the graciousness of it and the fact that she said we will work with the peaceful transition of power. And that is not -- it sounds obvious, but in this moment it's not. And I think that was striking.
COOPER: Jeff, just in terms of what happens now, the -- I mean, obviously folks in the Trump campaign are already working on the transition, looking at who's going to be in what positions.
ZELENY: Without question. I mean, this is something that eight years ago the Trump campaign was not expecting to win. This time they were hoping to and were expecting more to win.
Abby and I both covered the Trump administration, we remember well the jockeying that goes on behind the scenes. It is happening furiously for cabinet positions. So that will be extraordinary. But the president-elect has a much a better sense of what running this government is like, perhaps for good or bad. But I do think that the hiring process, this transition of power, is always an interesting season in Washington.
It comes on the fifth season every four years, and I think this will be an extraordinary moment to see who he surrounds himself with. Four years ago, as we covered this administration coming in, there were adults in the room, so to speak, and a lot of sort of titans of business and others. That is not likely to be the case this time.
PHILLIP: Many fewer guardrails. You know, that really underscores one of the things that is underneath the surface here, especially for the left. There are people who are afraid.
ZELENY: Right.
PHILLIP: Actually afraid --
ZELENY: Right.
PHILLIP: -- because Donald Trump has promised that the very first thing he is going to do, for example, is to carry out a mass deportation campaign. There are American citizens who have family members who could get caught up in that. He has made promises to go after his political enemies. There are things that Trump has promised to do that, frankly, don't have anything to do with the economy, but those are the things that are at the top of the agenda. And the results last night were not just at the top of the ticket.
You've got a Senate that is going to be Republican, and it's already a Congress that is very much more Trumpian than it was when Trump became president in 2016. So he's going to have a long rope to put his acolytes into positions of power. He's going to have a better understanding of the government. And that is the reality of 2024 that is very different from 2016. And you can sense among Harris' supporters that they understand that there's not going to be a benefit of a doubt given to Trump as he goes into this presidency. They are preparing themselves from day one for what could be very entrenched period of pushback against Donald Trump and his allies in Washington.
COOPER: All right, Abby, Jeff, thanks. Dana, back to you.
BASH: Anderson, as we mentioned at the top, President Biden and President-elect Trump also spoke today. We learned that Mr. Biden will address the nation tomorrow. CNN's Kayla Tausche is at the White House for us.
First, Kayla, what do we expect to hear from the president tomorrow and what did you hear about the conversation he had not only with Donald Trump but of course with his vice president?
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the conversations were very brief. They were very high level. A White House official said that President Biden congratulated the vice president on what he described as a historic campaign. And as for the conversation with now President-elect Donald Trump, President Biden talked about being a president for all people and ushering in a peaceful transition of power. And those are some of themes that we're expecting President Biden touch on tomorrow when he delivers this address.
Despite some of the more piercing rhetoric from the campaign trail recent weeks, we expect the president to talk about how he was a president for all people and he expects Donald Trump to be the same, how he will uphold democracy, which is, of course, one of the core pillars of what he ran on protecting back in 2020 and frequently revisited throughout the course of the last four years. Now, clearly it is not a bittersweet moment for President Biden. It is expected to be quite bitter as he delivers this address in a race he believed that he could have won. Whether that -- there's any tinge of that in his remarks, we don't expect there to be. We expect him to be on script and speaking at a high level. But of course, we'll see when he actually delivers them, Dana?
BASH: Yes, I mean, you sort of alluded to this. This is obviously a fraught dynamic here because President Biden, as you said, still believed that he could have beaten Donald Trump. He was sort of unceremoniously removed, even though he said he did it on his own. What are you hearing from his advisers about what's going on there behind the scenes?
[17:10:17]
TAUSCHE: Well, Dana, there are three schools of thought that have sort of emerged in the light of day after the results have come in, and not just come in, but shown a landslide and decisive victory of sorts for Biden's predecessor that he really ran a campaign directly against. And those three schools of thoughts are as follows. The first is perhaps Biden should have just remained the candidate. He had that strong coalition in the blue wall of white working class voters that helped tip the race to his favor in 2020 and that carried Donald Trump in 2016. Perhaps he would have been able to carry that out.
Then there's the school of thought that perhaps blame should be placed on former President Barack Obama for anointing Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, who effectively pushed Biden out of the race this time around, with aides saying that, you know, it was essentially the party's most powerful that told Biden that he needed to step aside. They said that any other Democrat could beat Donald Trump. And clearly they say that was not the case. And then there's a final school of thought that is perhaps they just didn't fully grasp just how unpopular President Biden was. They believed that the data would eventually play out in voter sentiment, that President Biden's approval rating did not accurately reflect how people actually felt on the ground. But Dana, as we know, voters are never wrong. They have this opportunity to speak their mind, to cast their ballots and show where their priorities are. And that is the source of a lot of reckoning for the Biden team in the light of day.
BASH: Yes. And it's pretty clear their priority was with inflation and the economy. Kayla, thank you so much. Anderson.
COOPER: Dana, thanks.
Joining us now is Bryan Lanza, senior adviser to the Trump 2024 campaign.
Bryan, you were obviously part of President-elect Trump's first transition team. I'm wondering what you're hearing about the team that's being put together now. What do we know?
BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: First of all, thank you, Anderson, for having me on. Listen, we're attracting the best and the brightest this country has. I think the transition team has done a good job, you know, sort of staying behind the scenes in the last couple months and sort of gathering a list of people who want to work in the administration, who want to serve this country in a positive way. And now we're going through the process of reviewing, doing the necessary background searches we have. We're excited to have so many people, so many people excited to be part of this administration and unifying the country.
So I think what you're going to see from this transition, you know, is going to be a unified front. And, you know, President Trump and Kamala Harris spoke a little bit earlier. It was a very gracious phone call that the vice president gave, and the president was very clear she thought she ran a strong campaign and she was very tenacious in the process. And, you know, she also mentioned she wanted to work with the president to unify the country. So I think from the transition, who wants to display a unified front, and also from the relationship that he has with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, we're looking to have a unified relationship with the country in January.
COOPER: There are documents that the president-elect needs to sign to unlock transition activities of the Trump administration can kind of hit the ground running. Do you know if President-elect Trump has signed those yet? Because I understand there were several deadlines that his team had skipped.
LANZA: Listen, those are sort of the technical processes of transition. Our understanding is that they're not legally required to be signed, but they're in negotiations. They're having conversations, are looking forward to finalizing the member of an memorandum of understanding. But let's be clear, Anderson, it's not a legal requirement for the sign -- for the campaign or the transition to sign anything with the government. We're working and cooperating in unison to make sure we cross the necessary thresholds so that our people can be briefed properly with national security background information and so that we can hit the ground running.
But let's be clear, it is not a legal requirement to sign a memorandum of understanding with the government for this transition.
COOPER: I remember when George W. Bush was elected and talked about the mandate that he had. This is probably as close to a sweeping mandate as a president-elect could have asked for. You know, having control of both the Senate potentially, it seems, on the way to have control of -- keeping control of the House as well. What do you expect to see in the first hundred days?
LANZA: Listen, it's very much a mandate for common sense. What we expect to see for the first hundred days is people focused on affordability. The American people want to do something with respect to affordability. They've been wiped out. They've suffered from that tremendously through the policies of the previous administration, and we're going to focus on that.
We're also going to focus on securing the border. That's very common sense to the common people. They want to understand, you know, a country that's so welcome of immigration. Why are people breaking our laws to get here? And more importantly, why is our government not doing anything about it?
So as we go forward with this common sense mandate that we have, we're going to be addressing the issues that we talked about at campaign in a straight faith, forward way. But we're also going to make sure that American people understand. We understand their priorities, we appreciate their vote, and we're going to go forward in a common sense approach with the mandate to make sure that we hit everything right, that the people -- that the promises the president made are kept.
[17:15:07]
COOPER: There were -- obviously the former president, the president- elect ran on this idea of mass deportations, there were people at the Republican convention holding up signs that were printed out for that. Do you know how that -- what is the plan for that?
LANZA: Well, let's be clear. When we talk about this mass deportation, it has to do with illegal aliens. We're not doing anything with legal residents or people who are here legally. It's people who are here illegally is going to be the approach with mass deportation. Now, we've always said it, the president has said it before, there's going to be a staged process.
There's going to be a phase in. The easiest people to target are the criminals, the people who here have committed violent crimes illegally that are still here. You know, that's going to be step one. And once we sort of understand what step -- once we sort of understand how step one moves forward, we'll understand -- we'll move to the next layer. But let's be clear to the American people, we are going to deport illegal aliens who have broken our laws and who have been violent to our people. COOPER: Bryan Lanza, I appreciate your time.
Coming up next, CNN's John King at the magic wall breaks down the magnitude of the Trump victory. And later, more on what we're learning about the transition as our special CNN election coverage continues.
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[17:20:02]
BASH: This is CNN special coverage of election night in America continued but not continued by much. It is Wednesday and we already know who will be the next president. And a short time ago, Kamala Harris brought her campaign to a formal close in front of supporters at Howard University right here in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: And the fight for our country is always worth it. It is always worth it.
To the young people who are watching, it is -- I love you. To the young people who are watching, it is OK to feel sad and disappointed, but please know it's going to be OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: CNN's John King is at the magic wall.
John, we still have a few states that are outstanding and that could actually make Donald Trump's victory even bigger.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Could make it bigger, could -- you know, could shrink some things. We'll see how it plays out.
A couple things to look at from when I went off the air at 4:00 this morning, number one, Donald Trump still leads by 4.8 million votes in the popular vote. There are some Democrats who say, you know, California takes actually sometimes a couple weeks to finish its count because of mail-in ballots. New York State sometimes takes a long time to count. There are some Democrats out there holding out what I guess is a last gap, hope that somehow she might catch up in the popular vote. But 4.8 million is a pretty strong lead.
We'll watch and see if that happens. And remember, Donald Trump lost the popular vote in both of his previous runs. So that is a trophy not only does Donald Trump like to have, but inside his campaign, they're already talking about this as part of a mandate, you win the popular vote as well.
Look at the map. I mean, your eyes don't lie, there's not really much I have to say. When you look at this map and you see all that red and especially where you see it. All right, those are the blue wall states. Donald Trump flipped them in 2016, that was the wow then. Well, he flipped them back again. Joe Biden got them blue in 2020, now they're back. This is going to be the conversation about Democrats. These states have voted together since 1992. They voted blue in all of those elections except two, 2016 and yesterday.
So Democrats are going to have a conversation there. And they have Democratic governors in all three of them. They're going to lead that conversation about how do we pick up the pieces and move forward. But that's big for Donald Trump. And then the conversation has been, well, the demographics are changing in the Sunbelt.
So North Carolina, it already was diverse. Now it's becoming more college educated, Democrats should be able to win it. Donald Trump took it back. Georgia, Joe Biden took it only by 11,000 votes, but Donald Trump took it back again. Big black population, Democratic foundation, more college educated voters, more diverse should be able to win it, they didn't. And then we're not finished out here, but Donald Trump gets Arizona back.
And even Hillary Clinton won Nevada in 2016. Again, we're not done, but if -- look, I can just go in and take this away and look at where we are in the counts right now. In Arizona, it's 106,000 votes. Remember how narrow that was in 2020 and in Nevada. Again, they take a while to finish the count, but it's 64,000 votes.
So if you look at the map, it's incredibly impressive. And if you go county by county and you look -- you can look, you know, inside Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Donald Trump running stronger, those areas are going to stay blue. They're not going to change. But it's just a sweeping victory no matter how you look at it. And so I just want to come into one state, Michigan, right.
And you look here, spent a lot of time here in the campaign. This actually came back a bit from last night. Last night we were talking about -- what about the youth vote in places like Washtenaw County where the University of Michigan is, the Democrats as the votes were counted, did come back some, see it's 71 percent right there compared to 73 percent for Joe Biden. So it did get better. It didn't get back to Biden levels, but it got better as the count continued in.
But here are the places the Democrats are going to autopsy. And it's actually kind of striking. When I first started doing this, Macomb County, Michigan was home of the Reagan Democrats. Right? How did Ronald Reagan win those union autoworkers?
Right? Well, now the conversation is how is Donald Trump not only winning but building support among union autoworkers? That's 2020. You come back to 202, he's at 56 percent in Macomb County. So Democrats are going to have a conversation about how do we appeal to farmers, how do we appeal to people who work with their hands, how do we appeal to all of the people, not only in farm state America and prairie America, but industrial state America? The Democrats have a problem.
But let's flip it, Donald Trump won the election and he was right last night to say the American people have given him a mandate. He's going to probably win the popular vote, he's going to be over 300 in the Electoral College, that is a mandate. The question is, what does he do with it? And you know this better than I he'll have a Republican Senate, we're not sure about the Congress, but this is a resounding victory especially after, again, the conversations we were having just after the Biden inauguration were that Donald Trump was done. Donald Trump is not done.
He's coming back, and he's coming back with a giant wind at his back.
BASH: Yes. I mean, it is a comeback that is really astonishing. No question about that. John, thanks. Anderson.
COOPER: Dana, thanks very much.
John, just mentioned the House. CNN's Manu Raju has a CNN projection to bring us into the House race. Manu.
[17:25:01]
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Anderson, CNN can now project a Republican pickup in the race for the House, representing the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, Republican GOP state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie defeating the incumbent Democratic Congressman Susan Wild in that district. It was a district that Joe Biden narrowly carried in 2020, a bellwether district and a big GOP pickup.
We also have a prediction out of New Mexico where there's a Democratic polled in that race, Gabriel Vasquez, the incumbent Democratic congressman holding onto his seat, fending off a challenge from Republican Yvette Harrell in that race. Now, what does this all mean and who's leading in which districts at this key moment in the race for the House? Well, Democrats have some advantages and Republicans do as well. Democrats are leading in a handful of states and Republican -- and districts and Republicans are leading in a handful of other districts. But in order to win back majority control of the House, Democrats need to get -- we have a net of four, a four seats altogether.
Right now, as you see, Republicans are leading in two Democratic districts. In order to get a full majority in the United States House, there needs to be 218 seats to get that majority. But at the moment, the Democrats have a bit of a fraught path to that majority given the fact that Republicans have picked up a net of six seats so far. They're -- but potentially could pick up a couple more. Democrats may pick up a few as well that may not meet the net four seats to get the majority.
Which is why at the moment, Anderson, both the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is projecting confidence that the GOP will hold the House. They're not ready to project that yet, but their path to the majority for the Democrats at the moment is complicated. Anderson.
COOPER: Manu Raju, we're following closely.
Just ahead, President Obama breaking his silence, coming out with a new statement. Also, go back to Florida for an update on the transition process ahead. And more reaction to Trump's win and Vice President Harris' concession speech.
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[17:30:53]
COOPER: And welcome back to our special coverage. CNN's Election Night in America continued. Moments ago, former President Obama and first Lady Michelle Obama released a statement. It reads in part, this is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for, given our profound disagreements with the Republican ticket on a whole host of issues. But living in a democracy is about recognizing that our point of view won't always win out and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power.
I want to go back to Kaitlan Collins, who's in West Palm Beach, Florida with Kristen Holmes. So Kaitlan, the Republican Party uniting obviously around Trump today as his political rivals congratulate him. What did the next couple of days look like for the Trump team in terms of putting together some sort of a transition?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Anderson, you can't really overstate what atmosphere Trump is coming into power with this time. It is so different than 2016. Obviously, he lost in 2020 and -- and was, you know, for weeks after he left the White House, had a bit of a falling out with a lot of the Republican Party. He was very isolated, only had a handful of aides around him. And we are seeing just how different that is since his victory last night.
All the Republicans, Mike Johnson, flew down here after watching the results come in from Shreveport to be with former President Trump as he took the stage as the president-elect there last night. You saw Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, all the way to the right.
And I should note, as far as congratulations are going, we did just hear from someone who was on that stage eight years ago, the former vice president himself, Mike Pence, who issued a statement saying that he and his wife, Karen Pence, congratulate Donald Trump on his election. He says he will continue to pray for all people who are in positions of authority.
And Kristen, just looking at that statement there where he's saying that they're praying and congratulating them and JD Vance, of course, the position that Mike Pence himself used to hold but now no longer does. And JD Vance does because he's willing to do what Mike Pence would not. It -- it just shows you, as were watching everyone on that stage last night, how different this is going to look, the people who are around Trump in his second term?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And everyone is clearly on their best behavior right now. I mean, we're seeing this in all the statements, even Donald Trump himself in his phone call with Kamala Harris praising her, her tenacity. Everybody is trying to focus on moving forward right now and turning the page. Obviously again, this is very different from what we saw back in 2020.
And I do want to get to what Anderson was saying because we do have some new reporting just on what exactly is happening with that transition. They have offices opened here in West Palm Beach. They are expecting that the entire transition will be run out of here. There will be meetings between Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon that are held at that office. That's where the campaign was set up.
As well as Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump is going to entertain various Republicans in terms of meeting with them, trying to vet them himself. And that's already underway. Now, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon I'm told, have already held some meetings with these top contenders for these top administration positions.
Now obviously, everything is going to have to go through the former president. But as we know, a lot of this transition had to get going. And Donald Trump himself was not willing to engage in any of it, a lot of it, being because he was superstitious. He didn't want to get ahead of the election. So he wasn't having any of the real conversations that come with a transition.
So instead, Howard Lutnick, Linda McMahon were doing some of that in order to prepare him for the potential that he would win.
COLLINS: Yes, I think what's just interesting, you know, when I interviewed Howard Lutnick and we sat down and it -- it went off on a tangent and rabbit hole about vaccines and conspiracies about vaccines. But the thing he was saying at the beginning was that he had thousands of names lined up, that he had gone to people and -- and said, tell me your five best people that you think should be working in the federal government.
And so, he does have basically a spreadsheet that he's working from of potential people that they'll want to put in front of Donald Trump. But I think the one unknown with Trump is does he go along with the plan that people have put forward for him in 2016? He famously did not.
HOLMES: He scrapped the plan.
COLLINS: In 2020, we didn't see it happen obviously. And so, I think that's a question of, you know, what that process looks like this time around eight years later.
HOLMES: Yes. And I don't think we're going to know that until Donald Trump actually sits down and looks at some of these names. But I will say that we know in addition to Howard Lutnick, in addition to Linda McMahon. Two people that Donald Trump really trust who have been there, I mean even with the knives out for Howard Lutnick which we know that they are. There are people who are circling him.
[17:35:00]
Donald Trump himself has repeatedly said that he really likes Howard and he trusts him. They will -- they presenting that will be something he looks at the other person to watch and the other kind of system and list to watch is Project 2025's personnel list. That was --
COLLINS: Which is thousands of people watch. HOLMES: Thousands of people all vetted for their loyalty, all vetted by Johnny McKenzie and his program, still a loyalist to Trump, still close to the former president. They're going to be providing the transition with a long list of recommendations of people that they have handpicked and gone through what they believe is a rigorous loyalty test for people to fill in those thousands of administration positions.
COLLINS: And the other interesting thing was when -- when we called the House or called the Senate for Republicans last night, just seeing -- they flipped even more seats that they were expecting. They were going into it kind of cautiously optimistic. I mean, Trump is entering this with a Senate, a Republican Senate that a lot of his appointees that he picks for the Cabinet could probably easily get confirmed. I mean, we can't say for sure, obviously, but -- but it's not --
HOLMES: Very different position.
COLLINS: Yes, they're not -- there's no like real, you know, the balance of power. He's going to be able to get them confirmed to this many Republicans won last night.
HOLMES: Which actually might be risky for him because he has made a lot of promises. And now that he has all of this power, he might have to actually follow through with some of those people who other people don't want in the Cabinet.
COLLINS: Yes, it's a remarkable moment, Anderson. And obviously this is what the next two months are going to look like as we're watching this so closely, to see who ultimately wins out. And -- and what often is a knife fight for staffing in the Trump term. No one expects that to be different than it was the last time he was in office.
But of course, Trump has always said his worst mistake he ever made when he was in office the first time was staffing or personnel decisions, people like Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions that he was so frustrated with. Obviously Mark Milley and -- and his generals. I mean, that is all going to look very different this time around.
COOPER: Yes, loyalty obviously will be play very high on his list. Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes, thanks. I -- I -- I want to take a look at some of the things President-elect Trump has said that he would do in his second term. We've got just a list of things. Mass deportations, 10 to 20 percent tariffs on imports, assert control over U.S. Department of Justice, purge federal employees deemed to be disloyal.
Jamie, I mean, where does this start? Do you think he can -- I mean, the mass deportations, I asked Bryan Lanza about it. He talked about, well, we go after first people who have broken the law here to deport them. All of that takes time.
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: It -- it does take time. But there are things that may happen more quickly. So for example, what does it mean for Ukraine? What does it mean for NATO? What does it mean for DACA, for DREAMers? I -- I did notice as far as Ukraine is concerned, Zelenskyy was very quick today to say congratulations to at real Donald Trump on his impressive election victory, exclamation point.
And then went on and on. He will not be the only world leader. You know, coming to try to get in Trump's good graces. But there are also questions about revenge, retribution. What does this mean for people that Trump has focused on as -- as political foes?
COOPER: He's talked specifically about people at the Department of Justice, even former employees of the Department of Justice. He's raised questions about even former members of the military, Mark Milley and others.
GANGEL: Certainly outspoken generals, like General Milley, General Kelly, who was his chief of staff. I think Liz Cheney is someone he would focus on, Nancy Pelosi, unfortunately. Then there's of -- of course the question of what happens to those legal cases against Donald Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who he is focused on.
COOPER: I -- I mean, it seems pretty clear what happens to them.
GANGEL: They will -- they will -- they will -- they will go away. Big picture, will there be any guardrails? Who will be the next Attorney General? Will that attorney general be someone who says no?
GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST: I'll just add a few more things. His aides have said he'll immediately start drilling. He also put the FBI on the list for potentially getting rid of them. His enemy list could be even more vast than -- than just those few names. And also, he will likely reinstate the transgender ban in the military.
But I think the biggest thing right now is what's going to happen in the House because if this is an entirely Republican Congress, then there really are no guardrails there at all. And a lot of things could happen that we're not even talking about today.
COOPER: Instead it's interesting because even some Trump supporters would say, well RFK Jr. He's not going to be able to pass confirmation. So, you know, don't worry about it. He'll have some sort of non-confirmed role, you know, that's -- its -- he could pass confirmation.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He could. And I think that we can -- should expect a Republican-led Congress that is overwhelmingly deferential even more so than we have seen them be in -- in recent years. I mean the list of Trump's, you know, there's the micro policies that he's talked about. And I don't want to say micro as in small, but just the tactical ones, things like tariffs, things like the deportations.
[17:40:02]
But then there's the reshaping of government. There is the concentration of power in the executive. They made a concerted effort in this election to not just try to win, but to win in a very specific fashion, to win by rallying folks around a vision of Donald Trump kind of as a unitary figure and -- and leader. And so, I expect them to try to govern in that fashion.
It is the reason things like Project 2025 weren't just sideshows in this race, but the layout of a vision that for a lot of conservatives, they see Donald Trump as a vessel as. The question is, will there be folks to say no around him? We know that they're already trying to ensure that that -- that answer's no. But I -- I wonder what if Donald Trump will say no to some of the things suggested to him? Because there's going to be a lot of folks in the kind of conservative ecosystem who see this as an opportunity to do things that they have not been able to do before.
That is the laundry list of kind of the suite of proposals that I think that were on paper.
COOPER: Yes
HERNDON: If we take Project 25 could become reality.
CARLSON: Just another quick thing. He potentially could have two more Supreme Court nominees.
HERNDON: For sure.
COOPER: Yes.
HERNDON: Huge compliance.
CARLSON: That's huge.
COOPER: Everyone stay with us. Just ahead, we touched on this briefly a moment ago. What happens now with the Para federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith against the president electorate? Paula Reid joins us with the latest on that.
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[17:45:12]
BASH: Welcome back to CNN's Election Night in America continued. Anderson and company briefly talked about this in the last segment. The question of what may happen with the federal cases against President Elect Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and mishandling classified documents. Paula Reid is here with me now. So Paula, I was just thinking about how many times you and I spoke over the last year or so about the presidential campaign for Donald Trump and everything that was coming his way in terms of federal prosecution being so intertwined for him. And here we are.
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It really is incredible because as we reported repeatedly, the whole strategy was delay, delay, delay. Push all four of these criminal cases back as far as you can. Of course New York, the trial there, they couldn't push back as far as they would have liked. But they're going to push his sentencing back. All in an effort to keep their client out of jail.
And it appears that they're going to be successful because I'm told by my sources right now Jack Smith, the special counsel that has brought two federal cases against President-elect Trump, is talking top leaders at the Justice Department about how to wind down these cases.
Now, it was expected that if Trump was reelected, these cases would go away. Trump has said he would fire Smith, unclear if he could do that, but they would be dismissed by the Trump Justice Department. But I'm learning actually that these folks at the Justice Department, they are looking at an Office of Legal Counsel memo that deals with prosecuting or indicting sitting presidents, trying to figure out how that applies to this case and how they can go about winding down these cases before Trump is even in office.
BASH: And President-elect Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York on November 26th on the Hush money conviction. Will that still happen?
REID: I doubt it. In speaking with sources over the past few weeks, I've learned that once again, they intend to try to delay this. They have several avenues to do that. There is currently at least one pending appeal on that case. There's briefings by the prosecutors. They aren't due until January. So they could try to appeal to the judge on that basis to get it delayed.
And they can also make this new novel -- this novel argument that he's the President-elect. He can't be sitting in a courtroom being sentenced. But at this point, Dana, I do not expect that that sentencing is going to happen in a few weeks or probably ever.
BASH: Paula Reid, thank you so much. Back with my panel here. And also joining us from New York is CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Elie, let me start with you because, again, you and I have talked about these legal issues for some time. The fact that that is potentially off the table for him, seems to be off the table more than potentially. And then you have the question of the Supreme Court, which ruled this summer that he will or any president would be immune from prosecution for official acts while in office. What are the ramifications of that just looking ahead?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It's such an important point to keep in mind, Dana. This immunity ruling is still brand. It came out four months ago. And I think we are going to be living with the ramifications of it for decades looking ahead. In that ruling, the Supreme Court decided that a president has very broad immunity, cannot be prosecuted or investigated for anything he does within his official acts.
And they define the scope official acts, both very broadly but also at the same time quite vaguely. Right now, Jack Smith and the judge are trying to go through and figure out what exactly is and is not immune. And so, when Donald Trump retakes office in 75 days, I think if he looks at that opinion, he's going to feel unbound. He's going to feel like pretty much anything he does, as long as he can believably tie it somehow to the office, he is immune from being prosecuted for in the future. And so I think one major guardrail against abuse of office has now been eliminated by the Supreme Court. BASH: And back here, Matt, as a Republican and as somebody who has -- has worked for Donald Trump part of his transition eight years ago, I believe. What are your thoughts on that guardrail as Elie called it, being eliminated?
MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes. I mean, I think there's the same guardrails that any president has right now. There are checks and balances, right? There is a U.S. Senate, there is a Judiciary branch, there is a Congress he's going to have to deal with at the end of the day. And in fact --
BASH: And even though the judiciary branch, the -- the -- the highest court in the land basically said like --
MOWERS: But -- but I think there's actually a --
BASH: -- kind of immune?
MOWERS: -- there was a bigger Supreme Court case in a lot of ways, in my opinion, which was the one that actually overturned the Chevron doctrine. That's that actually the executive branch has less authority on the overall everyday matters of what happens from agency rulings and the rest. So in fact, actually, I know everyone's talking about, you know, what they ruled out with immunity. The bigger one on actual policy is the one that overturned the Chevron doctrine.
BASH: It -- it's such an important point. I mean, when we say Chevron deference, when we've gotten to the Chevron deference part of the conversation, I hope people don't go, huh? It's so important. Because this has to do with what Republicans have long called the swamp, what a lot of people here call, you know, the -- the nuts and bolts of federal agencies that keep it going no matter who is president. And this ruling, you can correct me if I have it a little bit off, effectively said -- says that a president can have more authority, pretty much any authority to change that. Go ahead.
[17:50:28]
MOWERS: I -- I was just going to say, actually, it kind of took away the authority of the agencies in the executive branch and actually said that you're right, it take the big rules.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: -- of power in the hands of judges, didn't it?
BASH: And Congress.
MOWERS: Well, it -- in judges. And also, what it's ultimately going to do is put a lot more authority in the hands of Congress, which, by the way, is where it should be. They're the ones who are supposed to be actually making the laws. They're, you know, accountable to the people every two years in the House of Representatives. And that's how it was set up to be. We've only recently in recent decades given so much power to the federal bureaucracy. So actually, you'll have a lot more in the hands of the elected officials. BASH: And this is -- yes. And -- and this is just one of so many examples of issues that we are going to be talking about and thinking about that have real life consequences for people, for industry, for society.
SANCHEZ: No question. Especially given the outline that we've heard from Trump and what he has promised he would do on the campaign trail. When you're talking about mass deportations for example, when you're talking about the absolution of federal agencies like the EPA, the Department of Education, et cetera. I -- I kind of defer to -- to Matt on the experience of going through the Trump transition. But some -- some of what we saw early on in the first Trump administration had a lot to do with the chaos as were talking about earlier. I'm not sure if it was on air or not.
But the physical binders that were destroyed before Trump took office, that had sort of the -- the plans that had been laid out by former Governor Chris Christie, who was in charge of that Trump transition. When he went into office, there were all these different fiefdoms in the White House that were fighting against each other. You had the Trump family and then you had folks from the RNC, and then you had sort of the Steve Bannon wing of it. And that led to a ton of issues.
You saw departures very quickly. I don't think you're going to see as much of that this time. So, the Trump administration, I think, is going to be much more -- the second Trump administration is going to be far more effective and potentially much more disruptive.
BASH: You're the only one at this table who has been part of the check and balance --
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
BASH: -- of a -- of a Trump presidency. Is that a real thing?
KINZINGER: I mean --
BASH: Especially if there is Republican control across the board. We don't know about the House but it looks like it's headed that way.
KINZINGER: Yes. On paper, it's a real thing. In practice, no. There is no chance, 0.0 percent chance that Donald Trump says something and Republicans in the House buck him anymore. There was about a 20 percent chance we would buck him when I was in. But anybody that was going to do that, they're out now, they're gone. So this will be a compliant Congress, compliant House.
Look, I mean, the reality is, everybody knew this when they voted yesterday. So, yes, the American people voted for basically this unchecked power that the President's going to have. But, yes, I mean, look, I -- I agree constitutionally this belongs in the House, this belongs in the Senate. In practice, not a chance. They will not stand up against him.
BASH: When -- when you say this belongs in the House and the Senate?
KINZINGER: Like any decision-making things you know like what -- what -- what are we going to do on nefarious agencies, stuff like that.
BASH: And -- and the unchecked power argument, you -- you helped Kamala Harris make, it didn't work.
KINZINGER: No, it didn't work.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. No. Look, we are in -- we are setting ourselves up for an era with almost one sort of unitary government. Like one person was going to control everything about the government. And I'm not sure that we are prepared in any sense for what that looks like when we don't have those kinds of checks and balances anymore.
BASH: Just before we run out of time, I want to play a Latino voter and what he told CNN about why he voted for President-elect Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Plain and simple, the economy, right? People think, oh, he's a businessman. He can probably work things out with numbers and, you know, he can probably got better connections with, you know, leaders from other countries, you know, from the past. I mean, you know, people are fed up also with, you know, inflation and, you know, the economy, the -- the way it works. I guess they figured, you know, he's the better option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: That's fascinating. And also, there's still a pay phone wherever that guy was which is, I couldn't take my eyes off.
MOWERS: It is in public zone.
BASH: Yes. Is that what you saw in your data?
BRENDA GIANINY, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Absolutely. So you saw --
BASH: Did it come to life?
GIANINY: Voters -- I love this guy. I'd love to do -- do a focus group with him. But yes, that's exactly what -- what Latinos were saying. And they were saying, hey, we care about the economy. He's talking about the issues that we care about. She's talking about democracy. What does that mean? You know, it looks like everything in D.C. still held in a Trump presidency. She's talking about abortion. These are not things I worry about every day. But I go to the grocery store twice a week.
SANCHEZ: Yes. I think o -- one of the things that has struck out to me in the conversations that we've had in recent weeks about Latino voters specifically, has a lot to do with some of the insults that Trump over the years and -- and more specifically, what we saw in Madison Square Garden.
[17:55:01]
BASH: Yes. That was supposed to have such a -- e -- everybody --
SANCHEZ: Such a huge effect.
BASH: -- was saying that they were hearing it on the radio shows.
SANCHEZ: I was talking to Latino Republican operatives about this.
BASH: Yes.
SANCHEZ: And -- and one of them specifically said, is it any more crude than things we say amongst each other? And there's a -- a working class.
BASH: And they don't see it differently when somebody else says it apparently.
SANCHEZ: There's -- there's a working class sensibility to, I think, a large part of the Latino community. And that's why a lot of those jokes don't land with them. I think also when you look at research, there was a pullout from "The New York Times" and Siena College. And the majority of Latinos born outside of this country -- born outside of this country, told "The New York Times" that they did not see themselves as the immigrants that Donald Trump was speaking about.
And I think the proof is -- is in the numbers. When you look at some of the Puerto Rican dominant communities or the -- the communities with large numbers of Puerto Ricans in Lehigh County, in Berks County, Trump either shrunk or expanded his lead in there. And then if you look at Florida, Osceola, this is a -- an areas in central Florida not far from Orlando, Donald Trump flipped it. Joe Biden won by double digits back in 2020. Trump flipped it.
BASH: Fascinating.
SANCHEZ: That's an area full of Puerto Ricans.
BASH: All right everybody, thank you so much. Don't go anywhere, though. CNN's election coverage will continue. We're going to have more on what we're hearing about the President-elect's transition plans. And the keys to his very big win last night.
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