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CNN Live Event/Special
Harris Ally Questions If They Relied Too Much On Ground Game; Biden To Address The Nation At 11:00 A.M. ET Tomorrow; Trump Wins White House, GOP Takes Senate, House Still Up for Grabs; Billionaire Elon Musk Set To Play A Role In A Second Trump Administration. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 06, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The race for the White House is decided and Donald J. Trump is getting an astounding second act in American politics, raising urgent questions about what lies ahead of the nation, for better or for worse. This is CNN's coverage of Election Night in America Continued. I'm Jake Tapper.
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump's paradigm-shattering victory, both parties are assessing the historic consequences for the American people and for American democracy.
[22:00:08]
We're getting new insights into how Mr. Trump so soundly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, the mandate Republicans are now claiming and the handwringing and second guessing within the Democratic Party. We're also tracking outstanding races that will determine the cliffhanger of the 2024 election, whether Republicans will maintain control of the House of Representatives or whether Democrats will manage to take it back, claiming a consolation prize of sorts.
With Republicans winning back control of the U.S. Senate, the GOP could potentially hold the levers of power in both chambers, giving President-elect Trump even more leeway to advance his agenda unencumbered.
Let's bring back in Anchor Abby Phillip, who was there when Vice President Harris gave her concession speech here in Washington. And, Abby, you have some new reporting on the Democrats' thinking. Tell us more.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Jake. I mean, in a close election like this, pretty much every decision comes under scrutiny when the candidate loses. And this is no different. I mean, the number of things that I think Democrats are talking about publicly and privately that went wrong are pretty much everything. The one thing a source close to the campaign talked to me about was this idea that the ground game could make up for, you know, the difference between Harris and Trump in a very tight race.
A couple of weeks ago, the campaign had gathered some of its closest supporters and donors and allies and presented to them a pretty convincing presentation about how they could really compete in all seven of those battleground states. And part of that was the impact of the ground game, which this source now says may have been exponentially overstated in terms of how it could overcome the fundamentals of an environment that was not favorable to Vice President Harris.
Now, on that environment, my colleague, Jeff Zeleny, is here with me now. One of the things that both of us are hearing is, of course, at the core of this. You know, you can talk about tactics, but I think a lot of people are also centering on a fundamental issue, which is on the message. And the Harris campaign made a strategic decision to talk about abortion and democracy, hoping that that would change the electorate. But many people, publicly and privately, are saying the real problem is a failure to address a whole swath of voters, working class voters of all races and genders.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Abby, one of the things that I've been picking up as I've talked to a variety of strategists in battleground states, as well as the Harris campaign headquarters, as you were saying, the ground game for sure, but also one thing people tend to do is sort of fight the last war and abortion rights was at the center of the midterms in 2022.
So, there are questions now, was just the idea that abortion rights could carry Vice President Harris over the finish line was too much reliance placed on that given the state of the economy. One of the biggest changes overall was who's going to be the change candidate. And when Vice President Harris became the nominee really so quickly, she was unable to separate herself. So, she used the fight for abortion rights as sort of an anthem over candidacy before she was on the top of the ticket even, but was that enough?
So, as we've spent the day talking to people, there's no doubt the soul searching has given way to finger pointing, which is always the case in a defeat like this. But I'm hearing talk of a need and a call for an autopsy deep inside these Democratic results here, much like we recall the Republicans did in 2012 after Barack Obama won reelection. That is a standard.
But, look, one thing that has unified the Democratic Party really for years is the disdain for Donald Trump, but was that enough? You and I remember from the convention in Chicago how Vice President Harris was joyfully sort of diminishing him, but that gave way to elevating him. And was that the right choice?
PHILLIP: You know, I think that there is a sense that Harris was so comfortable in that terrain, but not as comfortable on the other stuff, immigration and the economy, which, when we looked at the exit polls, those were at the top of the list.
So, yes, I think everybody in the Democratic Party right now agrees, Jake, that there needs to be some soul searching about what happens. The problem, though, is that everybody has a different idea of what that is, and that is what is going to, I think, continue to be a tug of war within the Democratic Party in the months ahead.
TAPPER: All right. Thanks so much, Abby and Jeff. Let's go to CNN's Kayla Tausche at the White House. Kayla, all this happening as President Biden is due to address the nation tomorrow.
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He is, and he has spent his own day today, Jake, behind closed doors, collecting his thoughts, allowing Harris to be in the spotlight conceding her race. But he will address the public from the Rose Garden here at the White House tomorrow morning. We now know and what's expected to be a high level overarching speech where he talks about the need for the country to come together. Remember, he ran four years ago as restoring the spirit of soul of our nation.
[22:05:00]
But, of course, these deep divisions still remain.
There's also some soul searching going on among the Biden camp, and they are vehement and they are, I think it's safe to say, angry about how their candidate was treated back in the summer when he was edged out of the race by the party's power that be.
I've talked to several longtime Biden aides and their finger pointing is going directly at former President Barack Obama, as well as House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi. And in the words of one of these aides who told me, twice our party leaders in 2016 and 2024 pushed aside Biden for someone who would generate more enthusiasm and twice we lost, referring to Hillary Clinton, of course, in 2016 and then now Kamala Harris in 2024. They say Biden remains the only candidate who has beaten Trump and he was tossed over once again.
That's certainly one school of thought and there are others too. There are aides who acknowledge that perhaps they didn't fully grasp Biden's deep unpopularity within the electorate. They didn't believe some of the polls and some of the data. But, of course, Jake, this is going to cast a big pawl over what Biden's able to do in his final months, especially whether there's any semblance of a farewell tour that he's able to embark on, Jake.
TAPPER: I mean, Kayla, eight days ago, President Biden called Trump supporters garbage. Are they not watching the same screen that the rest of the world is?
TAUSCHE: Well, certainly there was quite a bit of incisive rhetoric on behalf of the president maligning his predecessor both in public and behind closed doors. That is quite different language when he's on the campaign trail than when he's trying to give these lofty speeches in the role of commander-in-chief. That's the role that we expect him to step into tomorrow. But certainly there's quite a bit of anger, quite a bit of frustration still simmering within the Biden camp, Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Kayla, thanks so much joining us now.
Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell from the great state of Michigan. So, Congresswoman, your fears were as always well-founded. Kamala Harris lost Michigan. We should also note though that your colleague, Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, won her Senate race. So, what was Slotkin able to do that Kamala Harris was not?
REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): So, Jake, I'm, unfortunately, was not surprised and I think I'm not quite as depressed as others because I thought what we're watching today could very likely happen. I think people never got to know Kamala Harris during the time she was in this campaign. Elissa is well known. She worked hard. She got around the state. She's known as being a tough woman. It wasn't huge. She went by, I think, 18,000, 19,000 votes, but she worked it and people knew who she was.
This was an event-driven campaign. And, quite frankly, I really do think we didn't talk about some of the issues we needed to talk about and Elissa did.
DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Hey, Congresswoman, it's Dana Bash. I want to ask you about what Bernie Sanders said today. He said, quote, it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change, and they're right. What do you think about that?
DINGELL: Well, you know, I talked to all of you during the last month and said that we had a number of problems. We had the same problem in 2016, we saw again, which was union halls. And it's not just union halls, it's working men and women. I think there were four key issues, and two of them ended, I think, being more critical, but number one was the economy.
Working men and women are struggling. The cost of a gallon of milk, or a dozen eggs, or the price of gasoline, it's what -- I was about to say trump all others, but I guess that's really what we saw, too. That's what they were worried about. And I think that we didn't talk enough about that.
I did see movement in the last week as Donald Trump's rhetoric got more vitriolic and more whatever we want to call it. There were some people would tell me they were voting for Trump. They were now because of that, they were worried about our democracy. And the other two issues I saw a lot of, by the way, were women's issues, but it played less a role and you felt it out there in immigration. And, quite frankly, I think the economy and immigration were the two issues that people were intense and emotional on.
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Congresswoman, it's Chris Wallace. Good to see you again. I want to ask you about the city of Dearborn, just outside Detroit.
[22:10:02]
Donald -- it's a city that has a majority Arab American population. Donald Trump actually won a plurality of the vote there as a lot of Arab Americans refused to vote for Kamala Harris, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein actually won 18 percent of the vote there. How much do you think that the policy of Joe Biden towards Gaza and the fact that Vice President Harris was tied to that policy, how much did that hurt Harris in Michigan?
DINGELL: Look, Michigan was complicated, but the Mideast is one of the issues. And, by the way, it's all sides. People in the Jewish community and the Arab community have been hurting. And she lost some Jewish voters as well too. But Donald Trump won both Dearborn and Dearborn Heights. And people made it clear it was, even when you reminded them, I got in trouble reminding, Jake, about some of those issues, they wanted to send a message and they are angry and they wanted people to hear it.
So, you know, those were numbers that contributed to the former and now to be President Trump's victory. They weren't the only factor if you really start digging into the numbers,
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Congresswoman, it's John King. We spent some time together in Michigan on the ground in the final weeks, and your warnings did turn out to be correct. You mentioned labor halls. You mentioned other issues.
I just want to use the map a little bit. You can't see me, but I'll tell you. I don't think you can, but I'll tell you what I'm looking at. This is Wayne County. We see Donald Trump getting 33.7, so 34 percent of the vote. That's Detroit, Wayne, that's Dearborn, that's Hamtramck around there, but Donald Trump gets 34 percent after getting only 30 percent in Detroit and Wayne County area against Joe Biden four years ago.
And then the double whammy, as I talk about, as you move just to the north to Macomb County, and the vice president gets 42 percent in losing, Donald Trump is at 56. Four years ago Joe Biden was at 45 percent. So, you look at the 45 for Biden losing and then it's down to 42.
So, her margin went down in Macomb. Trump's margin went up in Wayne County. Is that the black vote? Was that -- some of this is working class vote, as I know. But how did Democrats fix, A, their math, their turnout problem and, B, what is the message that caused you to go the wrong way in those two key counties?
DINGELL: Look, I think I'm one of those people that's been saying all day Democrats have got to do some very serious soul searching and there's some really complicated problems here. As you know, I told you all, there, there's a male, a gender issue, but African American males were part of that.
And that certainly contributed to some of the reduction. I told you when Jim Clyburn came in and I was there reading with some of the black ministers and the clergy, they were very open about being taken for granted.
And I think we've got to be very careful here to not just blame -- everybody wants to point fingers. I think Democrats have to do some real soul searching. We can't just go in and talk to people a month before the election and take them for granted. A lot of people are tired of being taken for granted. And the African American community has members of it who are one of those groups that really are concerned about issues they want to see us talking about all the time, addressing, helping them on.
KING: Well, you mentioned those issues. I just have the map up again, and, you know, you know this well, Donald Trump has twice now flipped the blue wall, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, to red. And that's why he's going to be president United States. You mentioned those black pastors and we talked about issue as well. So, what is it in the sense when I was out there talking to voters, a lot of union workers, some of them African Americans, said they thought Trump's transgender ads, criticizing the vice president for being what they said is too liberal with them, not with us on that issue was a factor. Do you believe that was a factor in this race? And do Democrats need a better way to talk about that?
DINGELL: Look, those ads were powerful. We know it. People may not want to publicly admit it, but it did. And, by the way, when you talk about many faiths, it's not one faith, many of the Baptist ministers, the imams in Dearborn, et cetera, have an LGBT problem. So, there are issues for them. It's difficult for them. So, I do think -- I think that everybody's got a right to love who they want to love, but we got to find a way to help not lose some of the people that we lost.
And as you're saying, John, it's only 3 percent, but when you add up 3 percent here and 3 percent in this county, it adds up to a lot of numbers.
[22:15:00]
This was a bigger victory for Donald Trump than it was for him in 2016, which is one that I just knew for a month, for a month before that election, I knew he was winning.
KING: You see it right there.
TAPPER: All right, thanks, John. And thank you, Congresswoman, I appreciate it.
Coming up, more than 72 million Americans and counting, chose Donald Trump. We're going to hear some of their reasons, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to Election Night in America Continued. Tonight, former President Donald Trump preparing for his historic return to the White House, becoming only the second person to win back the presidency after losing a reelection bid.
I want to go to Kaitlan Collins. She's anchoring in West Palm Beach, Florida, near Mar-a-Lago. You're learning, Kaitlan, more about how President elect Trump is preparing for his return to the world stage.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Anderson. A lot of phone calls happening today in Palm Beach from the former president as he is now the president-elect and making phone calls not just with potential people in his administration, but also with world leaders.
And I'm here with Kristen Holmes. We've been talking to our sources all day. Trump has spoken to at least ten world leaders today so far, ranging from the British prime minister, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Chinese President Xi Jinping, all of these world leaders who are either -- Trump is calling them or they are trying to quickly get in touch with the president-elect.
[22:20:09]
That's not unusual for when someone is elected. They often get congratulations from world leaders, but these are world leaders, some of them who were in this position before when Trump was in office and they know flattery and a personal relationship can go a long way with Donald Trump.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly what I was going to say, is that we know that these world leaders, they have at least part of Donald Trump pegged. We know that he also is a little bit of a loose cannon, so they can't have entirely what he's going to do down to a science. But they know one thing. They know that if they call him and they flatter him and they tell him how great he's doing, that it bodes well for them in the future.
And we're told by a number of advisers that they've really been keeping track of who is reaching out and when they're reaching out, including not just since he won but before he actually was elected, when it was starting to look like he could be elected, when we started to hear about those foreign leaders reaching out.
Donald Trump often on the campaign trail talks about Viktor Orban of Hungary. Viktor Orban spent a lot of time courting Donald Trump calling him, coming down here to visit Mar-a-Lago. That's something that stuck out to Donald Trump, because remember, Donald Trump He used himself as the principal still, even when he wasn't president.
COLLINS: Well, and he said he was rooting for him to win. I mean, that was such an unusual tweet from a world leader saying, fingers crossed that Donald Trump actually wins.
And it's interesting that he spoke to Zelenskyy because Trump has promised that he'll end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours. But still, to this day, he has not answered from CNN's town hall to now whether or not he wants Ukraine to win this war.
HOLMES: Absolutely. And remember, he was pretty adamant against Zelenskyy until they had that meeting. And we're told that part of that was because the fact that Zelenskyy was so flattering in that meeting, he came out of it and said, I have a good relationship with Zelenskyy and with Putin, but before, we were just hearing about Putin.
COLLINS: Yes, obviously a notable change here, Anderson, as all these world leaders are still processing and navigating the results of the U.S. election.
COOPER: Yes thanks guys. We'll check in with you shortly.
I want to hear directly from voters about the choices they made in the election. CNN's Danny Freeman has been talking to people in Battleground, Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BERNIE SHIFFLER, PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICAN: It was just a great feeling. I still have goosebumps.
DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): It was like Christmas came early for Bernie Shiffler at Park Hill Jewelry in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
SHIFFLER: Look at that shine.
FREEMAN: The Republican small business owner, sporting Trump shoes and a custom Trump ring he made himself, said he feels like finally the country is back on the right track.
What did it mean to you to vote for him a third time?
SHIFFLER: It was just great. I thought, you know, he did so well in 2016. I just wanted to see him do this again.
FREEMAN: In the small red borough in the larger red Lancaster County, supporters of former President Trump echoed what his fans elsewhere felt around the country.
How are you feeling this morning?
GABBY JAMES, PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICAN: I'm feeling relieved that America came together and saved our democracy.
FREEMAN: Gabby James says she's a Republican, but she's also pro- choice.
JAMES: I know the main concern here is women's rights, but strong women are going to always rally together and fight for our rights, and we need to vote and come together to make the right decision in the states. Unfortunately, you know, it has come to that, but that was not my deciding factor in voting for Donald Trump.
FREEMAN: Are you concerned that President-elect Trump will be hostile to women's rights at all?
JAMES: No. I think as a nation, women are going to come together and prove ourselves.
FREEMAN: In nearby Lancaster, a bluer city in the red county, Democrat Sarah Thomas said she couldn't believe in the end, it really wasn't close.
How are you feeling this morning?
SARAH THOMAS, PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRAT: I'm pretty disappointed. I'm just sad. I'm worried. Yes, I just woke up feeling kind of disgusted and ashamed, honestly.
FREEMAN: The mother who works with children said, for her, this was about reproductive rights and about rhetoric.
THOMAS: I want to raise my son to be someone who believes that men and women have equal dignity and autonomy over their bodies. I do not believe in the, frankly, xenophobic and racist hate that's been spewed.
FREEMAN: Democrat Greg Colton was still at a loss for words.
GREG COLTON, PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRAT: I had really hoped that we would have something other than a caricature of a president for the next four years.
FREEMAN: The Pennsylvanian worried the discourse in American politics will only get worse.
COLTON: I wanted to put someone in office who would embody the ideals and the integrity of the American people, and I don't think we have that now.
FREEMAN: With the voters having delivered their judgment, now the focus turns to what happens next under a new president.
JAMES: I'm hoping for secure borders. I'm hoping for economic change. I'm hoping that enough women come out and demonstrate the need for women's rights and hope for a better place that we have been in for the past four years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREEMAN (on camera): Now, Anderson here in Lancaster County, Democrats told me that they were really hoping to close the margins in this traditionally red county.
[22:25:05]
That was something that we were looking at yesterday as polls were closing. Governor Shapiro got about 48 percent of the vote here back in 2022. But in the end, Vice President Harris actually paced with President Biden back in 2020 only getting about 41 percent of the vote. Trump, though, improved his margins here. And that was of course the story of many, many places across the commonwealth. Anderson?
COOPER: Danny Freeman, thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Back with the team here in New York. Let's talk about the Democratic Party and what needs to happen, what needs to be looked at and analyzed and --
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. No, I thought a lot of important discussions were going on there earlier, and I guess I call myself a Dingell Democrat at this moment and I started talking about this last night.
I think the Democratic -- this wasn't just a problem in this election. This has been a growing problem over time. This disaffection among working class voters with the Democratic party and the kind of growth of the Democratic Party as a college educated, metropolitan party that approaches working class voters in a kind of missionary way, saying we're going to help you become more like us and kind of disdains not intentionally, but sends these signals that really bespeak a lack of respect.
And I think the party, in some ways, has lost its ability to talk to working class voters. And you can see it, and it's not just white working class voters. It's black working class voters. It's Hispanic working class voters and the party paid a price.
Now, I think Kamala Harris articulated some, she spoke to some of the concerns of folks, but you can't develop those relationships in 90 days.
The second conversation that happened had to do with Biden. And I just want to point out that --
COOPER: Yes, there was a quote earlier from an unnamed person, a longtime aide to President Biden, saying, twice our party leaders in 2016 and 2024 pushed aside Biden for someone who would generate more enthusiasm. Twice he'd be lost. Biden remains the only candidate who's beaten Trump and he was tossed over once again.
AXELROD: I mean, look, so in the exit polls --
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Signed, Joe Biden.
AXELROD: In the exit polls yesterday, Joe Biden had a 40 percent favorable approval rating. Nobody would get reelected with that number. But more importantly, Kamala Harris, among the 59 who disapproved of them, she lost 82 to 16. The whole campaign that was run against her linked her to Joe Biden.
And the reason that people had concerns about Biden weren't so much this, but, I mean, I raise concerns a year and a half ago and had nothing to do with Barack Obama. It had everything to do with age. You know, I said then my concern wasn't political. It was actuarial And how do you tell people that you should elect someone who's going to be --
COOPER: It is remarkable. And at some point, I don't know if there will be a reckoning or some sort of -- but I have a lot to say Yes, okay, Van. Go ahead.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, I wasn't trying to cut you off.
COOPER: No, please go ahead.
JONES: No. Well, I mean, big picture, in 2016, two, these two parties had flaws, and they were about hypocrisy. You had Republican Party, which is the party of Lincoln, the party of radical, individual liberty, that had somehow smuggled in a bunch of white nationalists. And you're like, hold on a second, that doesn't make sense. Is that going to blow up the Republican Party? At the same time, you have the Democratic Party, the party of FDR and working class people that has smuggled in all this elitism, where if you weren't eating kale, you weren't allowed in the door. I said, hold on a second, that's not going to work. I actually wrote a book about this. Like both of these parties had fundamental hypocrisies.
And the question was, was the racism in the party of Lincoln going to blow up that party, or was the elitism in the party of FDR going to blow up our party? Well, guess what? Our party just blew up. It blew up because of the elitism.
But it's not just the elitism that's obvious. The condescension, the smarty pants stuff, the changing what you got to call people every six months. Somebody called me a BIPOC. What is that? I've never gone to a BIPOC church or had a BIPOC food. I mean, they just make up stuff. I don't even know what that means. That's what I'm saying. They literally make up stuff every six months to make sure that you feel like an idiot.
But that's not the worst of it. It's much more insidious. We thought, in Philadelphia, we're like, we're doing door knocking, people going around. There's no ground game for Trump. We're laughing at Trump. Like there's no ground game. There's nobody walking around with literature. Nobody's knocking on doors, didn't have to, because they were on this thing. They were --
URBAN: What is that?
JONES: This turns out to be a smart phone that makes it dumber the more you look at it.
[22:30:03]
But it turns out that there are a whole -- the working-class is getting its education -- its information completely differently on channels that we don't know anything about, on streaming platforms that we're not at, on gaming services.
URBAN: Right.
JONES: And the Trump campaign was putting information ads. They were -- we woke up in a body bag and didn't know it because we thought if you, well, we did something on "60 Minutes", and here on CNN, we're doing -- it turns out that the elitism had gotten so bad that we didn't even understand where the working class was. And that is much deeper a problem than I think we recognize.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let me eat my crow before I let David Urban speak. So, I always thought Trump could win. I did not think he would win by these margins. And I misread the room on just -- on a number of things. I always kind of focused on suburban women.
And what I think the Democrats so heavily focused on was abortion, abortion -- this is going to be the animating issue. It was in the 2022 midterms. It turns out that it sounds like a lot of these states are kind of okay with what Trump said which is let the states deal with it, I 'll deal with it, including the fact that most of the battlegrounds other than -- Georgia was the only one that had a particularly restrictive law.
People separated the vote they were able to separate the candidate from the issue. That didn't end up being the focus, something that I did hear from. And I think could have been motivating is these protests on college campuses.
Women in the suburbs are horrified when they see Jewish kids getting bullied and getting intimidated by these protesters who are then defended by elitist academics who are supposed to be the people rearing them up and looking out for them. That scares people. That feels like a shift that goes so far out of the mainstream of where the country wants to be. And I think that's one of the areas that the room was just misread by Democrats.
URBAN: Well, two quick point in that, not to -- not to pile in Democrats but I will -- an issue that "Access" talked about before. Joe Biden won and got his race because he said Kamala Harris can't win, I'm the only one who can win.
So, you know, there's a little bit of this, you know, built-in, delay in getting out because the only possible alternative, Kamala Harris can't win and so, you know, not to put her, you know, in a good light but she was kind of starting out in a bad spot to begin with because the premise was you're not going to win.
And then the second point is a little bit more on the ground. Vance talking about knocking doors. There's an article in the local Philly news about the Democratic chairman, Bob Brady, of the party -- Democratic Party. And Bob says, I'd like to see in the Harris campaign, especially the national campaign, coordinate with us a bit on the ground.
Talk to us. Give us some resources. Show us some respect. That didn't happen. They were just elitists. They went out there. They did their own thing. They didn't include the Democratic City Committee award leaders. They just didn't do it at all.
AXELROD: Can I just make one point? Can bring about needed change from the exit poll -- 28 percent of people would, this is the most important thing. Trump won that 74-24. And this has to do with a lot of this.
COOPER: Up next, it was on the ballot. Ten states, critical wins, losses on both sides, the abortion battle in the post Roe era -- more than that when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:36:57]
TAPPER: And welcome back to our special coverage. Election night in America continued more than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and left the issue up to the states. Voters in 10 states cast ballots on whether to cement reproductive rights, abortion rights in their state constitutions.
CNN projects that voters in Maryland and Colorado and Montana all enshrined a constitutional right to abortion in their state's constitutions. In Nevada and Arizona, voters passed measures protecting abortion -- legal abortion up to the point of viability, which rejected the 15-week ban in the state of Arizona.
Missouri voters also narrowly rejected their state's near-total ban, establishing a constitutional right up to the point of fetal viability. New York enshrined a broad set of rights into the Constitution, including the right to an abortion. In Nebraska, two dueling measures were on the ballot regarding abortion. Voters there keeping the state's ban on abortions after 12 weeks of a pregnancy and rejecting a separate, more expansive measure.
A Florida ballot amendment also fell short. It failed to meet the 60 percent majority needed for passage, keeping in place a six-week ban there. In South Dakota, that state's near total ban will also remain in place. Dana?
BASH: Thank you so much, Jake. This is something that I've been sort of rattling around, has been rattling around in my brain since last night. Audie, the question about why the Harris campaign got it so wrong in the whole push for freedom, for reproductive rights, for the idea that women and men were going to come out in droves on this issue in the first presidential election post-Roe, in the way that they did in 2022.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Can I stop you? Why do you think that? Yes -- because --
BASH: I'm going to -- so, I will tell you what I was told.
CORNISH: - most of them passed, right?
BASH: Yes. So, what I was told today by a Republican pollster who was looking at a lot of the data was that there has been time for the sort of reality of the shift in the law from the national level to the state level to sink in. And that, what has happened is that in some of these key states, Michigan, for example, two years ago, there was already a referendum on the ballot.
Arizona and Nevada -- there were a referendum on the ballot. And that not that this isn't a huge issue for a lot of women and men, but that because many of them, particularly in swing states, felt like they were dealing with it -- not all swing states, Georgia for example, but many of them felt like they were dealing with it, that they could prioritize and did prioritize other issues like the economy, like immigration, ahead of this issue when they decided their vote.
[22:40:00]
CORNISH: I mean, I think the reason why I'm asking is because fundamentally, those abortion measures did end up working. What they did not do was over-animate and they definitely didn't create a scenario where voters decided, we're going to do this all the way up and down the ticket.
The other thing is, I'm not sure voters believed that Donald Trump was ever truly pro-life, so to speak. And while they understand him seeing it as a conservative victory, I think they were more or less kind of convinced by his waffling this summer, where he wouldn't really come down on some of these issues. And so, they didn't really see it as a threat. I think the idea was the damage is done, and if I want to do something in my state, there's more than likely going to be a referendum to vote for.
WALLACE: I want to pick up on this issue of how Trump successfully was able to fuzz up this issue. You know, we'll be looking at the exit polls for weeks and finding little nuggets, and on this particular issue, I found one today. When people were asked, should abortion be legal in all or most cases, 65 percent, two-thirds said yes, 32 percent said illegal in all or most cases.
But while Harris won overwhelmingly among people who said that abortion should be legal in all cases. When it came to most cases, it was a split. Forty-nine percent of people who said abortion should be legal in most cases voted for Harris. Forty-nine percent voted for Trump.
And I think that the point was that Trump talking about, well, it's up to the states and, you know, I'm not going to push for a national abortion ban. He fuzzed up the issue to a large degree. A lot of people who are very much pro-choice didn't see him as a threat.
BASH: Yes, it's all very interesting. We are going to be going through those for a very long time. Up next, the richest man in the world helped deliver Donald Trump a second term. What does Elon Musk want in return? Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:53]
COOPER: Tonight, the wheels are in motion for Donald Trump's return to the White House, along with many of the loyalists who supported his campaign. Billionaire Elon Musk is set to play a role in a second Trump administration, potentially aiding Trump's plan to remake the size of government. And there's Brian Todd, who's digging into what this plan might actually look like. Brian?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R): We have a new star. A star is born -- Elon.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A victorious Donald Trump, effusively thanking billionaire Elon Musk for his support.
TRUMP: He's a character, he's a special guy, he's a super genius.
TODD (voice-over): It's no wonder Trump is grateful. Musk went all in. MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: We've never seen a media
baron in this age of social media, somebody who owns one of the most influential social media platforms, become so involved with one person.
TODD (voice-over): Musk has spent at least $118 million for Trump and gave away a million dollars a day to supporters. Musk also stumped for Trump and inundated X, the platform he owns, with a torrent of pro- Trump posts and misinformation.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, PBS "NEWS HOUR" WHITE HOUSE CORREPONDENT, PBS "NEWS HOUR": He has millions of followers on X, on social media, and he has also spread Donald Trump's baseless lies about the election.
TODD (voice-over): Someone who says he voted for Hillary Clinton and for Joe Biden, now at Trump's side on election night and posting, "The future is going to be so --", fire emoji. What does Trump's victory mean for Musk?
SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: But he'll definitely have Donald Trump's ear.
TODD (voice-over): Trump has said Musk will be an influential voice in his government, tasked with downsizing the government by $2 trillion a year. Why would Trump tap Musk?
TRUMP (voice-over): "You, you're the greatest cutter. They go on strike and you say, that's okay, you're all gone."
TODD (voice-over): Musk posted a meme showing himself in the Oval Office with the words, let that sink in. But Trump says Musk won't be a Cabinet secretary.
TRUMP: I mean, I'd love to have him, to be honest with you, but he doesn't want to --
TODD (voice-over): One possible obstacle?
HANS NICHOLS, "AXIOS" POLITICAL REPORTER: To nuclear conflicts of interest. He receives massive amounts of federal contracts from the federal government.
TODD (voice-over): Musk's companies, primarily SpaceX, had $3 billion in government contracts last year, according to a tally by "The New York Times". Could Musk's profits grow? Thanks to his ties to Trump?
FISCHER: For Elon Musk, there are some very obvious policy benefits if he can get in with the administration.
TODD (voice-over): Musk's platform X could also benefit as a major hub of MAGA online. And Tesla saw its stock price jump almost 15 percent after Trump's win, even though it has barely any contracts with the government. The two fellow billionaires have similar views on immigration, deregulation, free speech, gun rights and conspiracy theories. But -- FISCHER: Donald Trump and Elon Musk both have track records of having very close relationships turn sour very quickly. If for some reason one delivers on the relationship more than the other, or one thinks that they're not getting as much of it out of the other, that's when I can see the egos clashing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (on-camera): Elon Musk said during a live stream on X that his PAC --his Political Action Committee, would keep going beyond this election and weigh in, "heavily on future elections". As the world's richest man, Musk certainly has the means to back that up. Anderson?
COOPER: All right, and Todd, thanks so much. Back with the team here. David Urban, what kind of a role do you actually think Elon Musk might play?
URBAN: I think he and RFK Jr. are going to have one of those partner desks where they're going to sit across from each other in the White House.
COOPER: I mean, he's got companies to run.
URBAN: No, look, he's obviously like, he's just, he's, I've had an opportunity to spend some time with him. He's an incredibly bright guy. It's an understatement, obviously. He is the U.S. space program at this point in time, and he's putting payloads in space, and he's done incredible things.
And so, I think he's going to offer a unique perspective to, you know, how the government operates. I'd love to be able to see him come in and be able to figure out how to cut government spending. I don't know if there's you know, if Elon Musk could do that, it's more impressive than landing that giant rocket in the grabber thing.
AXELROD: I mean he's unquestionably a brilliant engineer and let's stipulate that. He also bought X and turned it into a sewer of conspiracy theories, including those that support the president's conspiracy theories.
[22:50:02]
He's poured -- I'm sure the number is going to be far beyond the 118 million that's been reported. I think he really wants to be like the next or the great American oligarch. By the way, it was reported that he's had conversations regularly with Vladimir Putin. None of this makes me really comfortable with him playing this major advisory role in the government.
URBAN: But he also provided Starlink to keep the Ukrainians going.
AXELROD: I'm not denigrating those efforts, absolutely. Ukraine wouldn't have internet without him.
JONES: Look, we can all praise Elon Musk, and we should. When he's in his lane doing what he does, he's one of the greatest people ever. Neuralink, Tesla. But it's a structural problem that someone with his resources, he's on his way to becoming a trillionaire, can just dump unlimited amounts of money in our system and have undue influence and then also buy a simple, you know, half of social media on planet Earth and also --
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
URBAN: But you could just say --
ALLISON: I think, you know, the question is that we all have to grapple with is, you know, right after it was very clear Donald Trump was the president-elect, he starts tweeting like, you are the new media to all of the folks on X. Like CNN, mainstream media is extinct and like this was our plan to ruin.
And I think that platforms like X and Facebook and all the social media platforms do help, when they're used properly to democratize microphones for people to have a voice. But it is very clear since Elon has taken over that the algorithms are working in a couple of ways that are causing greater division in our community.
Scott and I sometimes sit next to each other and he has a totally different feed than I have because we're getting fed things we want and they're very polarizing our feeds. And then, we also have people who get lifted up more and they happen to be people who agree with Donald Trump. And people who don't agree with Donald Trump get shadow banned.
That's not really the media. That's a platform and you can do whatever you want but the influence that it does have -- I'm not just talking about Twitter, I'm talking about TikTok, I'm talking about Instagram, I'm talking about Facebook. There's an issue here. And I'm not saying that's why Kamala Harris lost. But we have to grapple with what role social media is playing with kids, in our politics, in our long-term future.
URBAN: Or you can just Google how search engines are prioritized.
ALLISON: Sure.
URBAN: Anything you do, right? I mean, it's all -- it all contributes, right, in one way or another. And it's very important to know who has those reigns.
JONES: Look, well, there are two sets of laws and rulings we have to deal with. The Supreme Court has allowed this unlimited amount of money dumping in. And then, you know, there are legal protections that allow these companies to do what they want to and do what they will.
I think in a normal country, we would say, hold on a second, maybe we need to have a different set of regulations for social media platforms. And now that they're this big, maybe we need to have less money in the system. But that conversation is not happening yet.
COOPER: We got to go. Changing political climate, so we have Donald Trump back into the White House. What does that mean for the future of planet Earth's climate? We'll talk about that ahead and a lot more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:07]
COOPER: President-elect Trump has said climate change is a hoax. Now that he's heading back to the White House, there are some questions -- growing questions, about what he'll do if anything to fight it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: One of the most urgent tasks, not only for our movement, but for our country, is to decisively defeat the climate hysteria hoax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Joining me on the seat, Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir. What do you expect from this administration?
BILL WEIR, CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I expect him to try to undo as much as he can. We just got data, Anderson, that 2024 will go down as the first year to smash past 1.5 degrees of global warming.
That's the Paris Accord number that every country in the world is trying to hold. It's the warmest if you look at, you know, lake beds and ice cores in 100,000 years. And as a result, there's off the charts ocean and sea surface temperatures, air temperatures supercharging these storms. The warmer planet just holds more water.
So, we're seeing it from Asheville and Milton, the west coast of Florida where we were, to Spain. There's no snow at the top of Mount Fuji. The Amazon is in a drought. And the country just elected the most notorious climate denier of all. Less than 20 percent of the country denies climate change. And Donald Trump seems to be in like the five percent that says it's not happening or that it's just some sort of natural situation right now.
And this is a time test. You know, the next five years are so vital to bending that carbon curve, scientists tell us. And he seems determined to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords internationally, and then roll back all the incentives of Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, where there's real two years' worth of momentum, hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in, we'll see how much he can do.
COOPER: It wasn't something really talked about much in this election at all.
WEIR: You know, I think it is because it's often framed as a false choice between economy or the climate, whereas people in Nashville know that without a balanced climate, there is no economy right now. The health and wealth and happiness of eight billion people around the world depend on this sort of sweet spot on Earth that we have now exceeded. And nobody knows how the physics work on this overheating planet.
Not just there's the mitigation of stop using the fuels that burn as sort of fast as, you know, ethically possible, but also how do you respond to the built-in pain that's already here? And we saw a disaster response in the first Trump administration, where he holds the aid back, depending on the politics of the state and those sorts of things. So, it is a dark, dark day for people who really work around climate space, Earth scientists, folks who thought the country was serious about this.
COOPER: Yes, Bill Weir, appreciate it. Thanks so much. Coming up, our coverage continues -- the 2024 election results. We'll be right back.
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