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Smerconish

Trump Makes Big Gains Among Latino Men; Young Men Shift Towards Trump's Rhetoric On Masculinity. CNN Exit Poll: 55 Percent Men Voted For Trump, 42 Percent For Harris; What Trump's Win Means For U.S. Foreign Policy; DOJ Charges Three In Iranian Plot To Kill Donald Trump. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired November 09, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:31]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Harris Walls, obviously. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia.

The biggest surprise in an election that was full of them was that Donald Trump broke 50 percent. Count me among the many who said that he had a high floor but a low ceiling, meaning that his vote total had a baked in limitation. As president, he was never above water. According to Gallup, his approval rating never broke 50 percent. His average while in office was just 41 percent. In the 2016 election, he received 46.1 percent of the popular vote while winning the Electoral College.

In the 2020 election, his vote share rose slightly to 46.9 percent as he lost the Electoral College. This time around, there was no robust third party movement to siphon votes from his opponent. Still, he never ran a campaign based on persuasion. After the events of January 6, two impeachments, four criminal indictments, one conviction on 34 counts, and countless comments that seemed self-destructive, he was always hell bent on motivation, not persuasion.

As "The New York Times" said, "At times, Mr. Trump could be so crude and self-indulgent on the stump that aides wondered if he were engaged in an absurdist experiment to test how much aberrant behavior voters would tolerate." And yet Trump won, and with a majority. And he made some stunning demographic gains.

Doug Sosnik, who advised Bill Clinton and more than 50 senators and governors observed this, the 2024 election marks the biggest shift to the right in our country since Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980. Trump's victory was due to support from a multi-racial working class group of voters. The coalition includes one in three voters of color who voted for Trump. Trump increased his support with Hispanic voters by double digits compared to 2020. Trump carried Hispanic men by 10 points.

Trump improved his support with voters ages 18 to 29 by 10 points, 10 plus points. Most amazing is that he did it in the context of nonstop documentation and reportage in the media of every one of what "The New York Times" called those crude and aberrant statements. And sometimes the amplification was just too predictable and too loud.

Case in point, the blowback from a joke about Puerto Rico told by a comedian during his Madison Square Garden rally. The joke was indefensible, but it was a joke, and it was not told by Donald Trump. And yet it dominated the next three days of the news cycle in what was now the final 10 days of the election.

And yet, when all was said and done, Trump did better among Hispanics in 2024 than he did in 2020. For the past four days, I've been reading consuming disparate takes on the American election, trying to understand what exactly just happened. And the most provocative and the most profound, in my opinion, was written by Carlos Lozada, published online for "The New York Times." Matter of fact, it inspires today's poll question, which I'll get to. The headline on this essay, "Stop Pretending Trump is Not who We Are."

This is a long graph, but I want to read it. There have been so many attempts, he writes, to explain away Trump's hold on the nation's politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. Normalizing Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment. But we can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much a part of who we are.

Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016, 74 million did so in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad. After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps repeating? Carlos Lozada writes, "In recent years, I've often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it." That's going to be the poll question. "I decided that it was both, that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I'm considering an addendum. Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American he is."

And then this is my favorite graph, because I think it sums it all up. "Throughout Trump's life, he has embodied every national fascination. Money and greed in the 80s, sex scandals in the 90s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn't we deserve him now?"

[09:05:06]

Today's poll question at smerconish.com asks just that. Has Donald Trump changed America or has he revealed it? And you know, that essay reminded me of something that Michael Wolff reported about Donald Trump in his book "Fire and Fury." Wolff tells a story about Trump at a time when he was riding high in Atlantic City. He's aboard a private flight with friends, and Trump proposes a detour to Atlantic City, causing one other passenger to voice an objection who says that place is for white trash.

And an unnamed foreign model, according to Michael Wolff, then says, what is white trash? And Trump replies, they're people just like me, only they're poor. So true that the billionaire became the champion of a working class whose fathers were largely union members and voted for Democrats.

The image of Donald Trump from this campaign that almost, remember, it's not the fight, fight, fight photo after he was shot. No, it's this, taken on a Saturday last May at a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey. Trump was never going to win New Jersey, but he nevertheless attracted 100,000 people, according to ABC7. And understand this, the Jersey Shore is where we Pennsylvanians go to spend our summers or to spend our one summer week of vacation. And the towns they attract, distinctly different demographics.

Wildwood has always been a bastion for the white working class. In his speech that day, in what he would call his weave, Trump told a story about Frank Sinatra never eating before a performance. And then he told the crowd that he, however, had just devoured an enormous hot dog. The crowd roared. As the campaign progressed, the more these folks were told that they shouldn't, couldn't vote for Donald Trump, the more they hunkered down.

Imagine you're a member of a group whose leader is pilloried every day as a fascist, a racist, a dictator, you'd be asking, well, then, what do you think of me? And that's when the wagons were circled. Eventually, they'd be called garbage by President Biden, even though his own kind would have been Wildwood people, too. So many of Trump's campaign statements were indefensible. But maybe voters wanted to reach that conclusion themselves and not be told by a media that looked coordinated or celebrities who thought that their talents gave them a license to browbeat.

And then the final weekend before the election, one of the most prestigious pollsters in the nation said that Trump was trailing in Iowa by three points. Trailing in Iowa? In the stampede to give life to Ann Selzer's analysis, the media overlooked an Emerson College survey released at the same time that said, no, Trump was up 10 in the Hawkeye State as anticipated.

The Des Moines Register poll did not deter his voters, maybe it motivated them. And the final result was Trump up by 13 percentage points in Iowa. As a lifelong resident of Philadelphia and its surrounding counties, being the focal point of this campaign has been an interesting experience for me, the in person outreach, the commercials, the texts. And in the weeks leading up to the election, I paid close attention to the yard signs in the Philly burbs. And one caught my eye.

And immediately after seeing it for the first time, I said on my SiriusXM radio program that I thought it was tone deaf and that the boomerang, it said this, Harris Walls, obviously. Maybe I should say it as Harris Walls, obviously? As in how could you ever think otherwise? You don't think we'd ever consider voting for him, do you?

Do you see this House? You think we'd ever step foot in Wildwood? We're Stone Harbor people. We're Avalon people. We go to Loveladies.

I don't know how many of the Wildwood people saw those yard signs, but they got the unwelcoming message. I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com, answer today's poll question. Has Donald Trump changed America or has he just revealed it?

As I mentioned, Latinos voted for Trump in much higher numbers than expected. In fact, this year, Latino men broke for Trump for the first time. Trump received 55 percent of Latino men's votes in 2024 as compared to 43 percent for Kamala Harris. In 2020, Biden led among Latino men by 23 points. In my beloved Commonwealth, Trump got 42 percent of the Latino vote, almost double what he had received four years ago here in Pennsylvania. That's according to the exit polls.

Had this happen. My next guest was recently profiled in the New Yorker on his insightful strategy to court and retain Latino voters. Carlos Trujillo is a Cuban American, senior advisor to the Trump campaign, one of Trump's principal Latino surrogates, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States.

[09:10:06]

Ambassador, thank you for being here. That profile came out well in advance of the election, and yet you saw it coming. What were the telltale signs relative to the Latino vote?

CARLOS TRUJILLO, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I think there's a massive disconnect, as you said in your opening monologue between mainstream media celebrities and the ruling elite and your average person that goes to Wildwood and goes to a barbecue and goes to watch their kids play soccer. And I think that disconnect, as you saw in the obviously sign and everything else you said they live in a bubble and in a world in which what they're selling the Hispanic community is not buying. Hispanics want secure borders. Hispanics want economic opportunity. Hispanics don't want to be called Latinx.

Hispanics want their cultures to be celebrated and respected. They don't want to be pandered to. They want to be Americans. And I think one issue that you constantly see is Hispanics want illegal immigration. It is not true.

There are 1 million green card holders who come into this country every single year legally. The people who come into the country legally and ultimately become citizens vote in elections. Those who come into the country illegally do not. So the people who have to go through all this trouble to get to the United States of America the right way to pay taxes. When they go to vote, and they see the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City filled with people who did everything incorrectly and came to this country illegally, it really upsets them more than anyone else because they know the difficulty in the process to come to this country the right way.

And I think the disconnect is people think because you are Hispanic, you therefore want lawlessness and you therefore want an open border. The truth couldn't be any further from that.

SMERCONISH: Why did the dictator charge not land with Hispanics? You know, people who, like your family, fled a real dictator in Fidel Castro. Why did this not resonate with them? TRUJILLO: Because it couldn't be any further from the truth. If you look at the last four years of the history with President Trump, the amount of criminal cases, some of whom my firm was involved in defending, the amount of civil cases, the amount of destruction that they went after them, that reminds a lot of Hispanics, especially those who fled communism, of the struggles their own families faced. When you challenge an institution, you challenge the elites, and all of a sudden they're trying to sequester your property. That's what my grandparents face. That's what a lot of -- face.

And unfortunately, that's what President Trump faced in New York City. The weaponization of government as much as people think defending it wasn't weaponization, you've never seen in the history of American politics, a prosecutor from Georgia bringing a state criminal case after meeting in the White House with the political opponent. No one could defend that. Why would a state case -- why would they even need to go to the White House in order to meet with White House general counsel on indicting a former president on a state case? So I think the weaponization of government, the complete abuse and the constant telling people what they should do.

People are smart, people are intelligent, people are free. They should come to their own determination.

SMERCONISH: Ambassador, the joke, we have to talk about the joke at Madison Square Garden. When you heard the joke for the first time, when you saw the media reaction for the next three days, did you think that this was going to do damage or did you know that it was not going to be an impediment?

TRUJILLO: I knew it was not going to be an impediment because you would see that the, and all the polling, but you would also see it at the polls. And more importantly, I think the thing to highlight that you said in your opening monologue, the joke was made by a comedian. Comedians make jokes. If you watch all his history, it's the slap effect, right? It's really going after people.

But what wasn't a joke was when Joe Biden called, with his own words, Trump supporters garbage. That's really how he felt. That's how he felt about Trump supporters. So the sort of thing that a -- not -- he's not even a surrogate, a comedian makes a joke, whether you agree or disagree, whether you find it funny or you don't, it's not attributed to the campaign, is definitely not attributed to the president. And conversely, Joe Biden, his own words tells people that they're garbage.

So I think the media spun it out thinking that this is going to push people away. They're going to overlook the open borders, they're going to overlook failed economies, they're going to overlook inflation, they're going to overlook the Latinx. They're overlooking everything, women and men's sports. They're overlooking all this stuff because one comedian in Madison Square Garden said one joke for 30 seconds, the last four years don't matter.

SMERCONISH: Give me the 30 second response. Are we in the midst of a realignment? I've already shown all the data relative to the Latino community. Or is this a one off?

TRUJILLO: It's definitely a realignment. If you look at 2016 to present day his increase is 60 percent with the Hispanic community, from 2016 to present day. And these are all new voters. We're talking now about eight years of history. These are people that were 26, now they're 34.

These are people who are 50 now they're 58, and they're generational changes. If you look at new voter registrants in the Hispanic community, the majority are selecting the Republican Party. So now they're generational voters. I think the broken promises of immigration reform under President Obama that we're going to reform and break and fix the system, same promises by Joe Biden, nothing got done and now you find yourself with a large portion of the United States population 15, 16, 17 percent of the United States population I think going forward being much more conservative and much more Republican.

[09:15:06]

SMERCONISH: Catherine (ph), will you put up the social media reaction. I don't know if it's something the ambassador would want a piece of because I don't know what's coming. He revealed that most average Americans don't want to defund the police, don't want boys playing sports with girls, don't use the term Latinx, don't support terrorists. It's not that deep.

Well, that's pretty much everything you just said, right, Ambassador?

TRUJILLO: That is dead on. And I'm glad that at least Democrats stopped with the defund the police campaign and stop with the Latinx because there's not a single Hispanic, I speak perfect Spanish, so to my children and my family and we do at home that we call each other Latinx's. The word doesn't exist and it never has.

SMERCONISH: Thank you for being here.

TRUJILLO: Thank you for having me.

SMERCONISH: I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com answer today's poll question. You heard my opening commentary, so hopefully you get where I'm coming from. Has Donald Trump changed America or has he just revealed it?

Up ahead, which critical voting bloc did Democrats forget to include in their party's platform and campaign strategy? Professor G, Professor Scott Galloway, back to discuss how masculinity may have handed the Trump White House keys. And don't forget to sign up for the free daily newsletter at smerconish.com. Steve Breen drew for us this week the following cartoon.

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[09:20:50]

SMERCONISH: Did an election that was supposed to revolve around women's issues actually come down to the plight of men, young men? The 2024 race long ago turned into the boys versus girls election, with polls showing Harris performing significantly better among women and Trump among men. But the question was, how big will the gender gap actually be? Well, we all know now it was big enough to hand Donald Trump the presidency. More than half of the male vote nationwide, 55 percent went to Trump, 42 percent to Harris.

Men under 30 saw a dramatic shift from supporting Democrats in 2020 by a 15 percentage point margin to swinging back to the GOP by 13 points. A CNN exit poll also found men under 30 in Pennsylvania favored Trump by 21 points. In 2020, Biden won that same group by nine points.

A part of President-elect Donald Trump's campaign strategy involved using hypermasculine voices like Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock, UFC CEO Dana White. Democrats may have miscalculated the strength and importance in appealing to men on their party's website under the headline Who We Serve, Democrats showed a diverse list of minority groups, including LGBTQ, Americans with disabilities, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, women, many other communities, no mention of men.

You might remember back in August I noted this, made reference to the omission in a conversation that I had with Professor Scott Galloway.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFFESOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: The Democratic Party right now, Michael, is facing the same issues as some of the DEI apparatus at universities. And that is when you are purposely and explicitly advocating for 76 percent of the population, are you advocating for them or are you discriminating against the 24 percent? And that's how I think a lot of young men feel. Quite frankly, they just don't feel seen by the Democratic Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: In the final months of the election, Donald Trump reached out to young male voters on popular platforms that they subscribed to. His campaign even consulted Trump's youngest son, Barron, on where to find this audience. Trump did lengthy interviews with Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Logan Paul, Bussin' with the Boys on barstool, Adin Ross, he played golf with YouTube pranksters known as the Nelk Boys. His three hour interview with Joe Rogan last month reached 55 million listeners and resulted in Rogan's late endorsement for Trump on election eve. After clinching the presidency early Wednesday morning, Trump and his family and his campaign surrogates took to the stage to thank their supporters.

UFC CEO Dana White gave a personal shout out to the manosphere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA WHITE, UFC CEO: I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Aidan Ross, Theo Vaughan, Bussin' with the Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SMERCONISH: Joining me now is NYU Business School Professor Scott Galloway. He's the host of the podcast "Professor G." Great to have you back. We've all heard of toxic masculinity. What is aspirational masculinity?

GALLOWAY: Good to be with you, Michael. Aspirational -- feeling good about being a man, believing you are entitled to more economic opportunity than is currently presented.

Look, you referenced this. I feel like most of the stats I was going to discuss, you've already kind of stolen my thunder, but essentially this was supposed to be the election with the referendum on bodily autonomy. This was the testosterone election.

Look at who Trump went on -- look at who and what he went all in on. Crypto, Elon Musk, rockets, cars. You talked about podcasts, there's a difference between being right and being effective. Whether we can discuss whether his policies are right or not. Gosh, talk about effective.

That number you mentioned, a total of 55 million people listen to or watch the Rogan podcast, the Average age is 34, skews male. Just to talk about broadcast television, some of the best shows on MSNBC seen as a left kind of leaning network, get a million viewers and the average age is 70 and skews female. So what would be more effective? One million seven-year-old women or 45 -- 55 million 34 year old men in your state, the swingiest of swing states, young men were nine points towards Biden in 2020 and then 18 points toward Trump in '24. That's a tectonic shift.

[09:25:26]

And it all comes down in my opinion to the same thing. A 30-year-old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30 for the first time in America's history. And if your son isn't in a relationship, can't afford to buy a home, is anxious, is depressed. Are the rights of Palestinians territorial sovereignty of Ukraine or trans-rights, does that even register on your screen? This was the testosterone podcast election.

SMERCONISH: I want to say that you've spoken of these issues, we've spoken of these issues before there was a 2024 campaign. And I can remember having conversations with Scott Galloway going back two or three years, some of them here on CNN, some of them on SiriusXM, wondering why -- and I wasn't thinking Donald Trump, but why doesn't someone champion this cause? And really he was the first to step forward and do so.

GALLOWAY: He went right -- he flew right into the storm and he embraced this -- the manosphere. He talked about the need, I mean crypto, right? What is more ground zero for kind of young men and economic opportunity, whether you believe that or not, than crypto. And let's look at some of the stats, 40 years ago the average age of the first time homebuyer was 36. Today it's 54. Pre pandemic the average home was $290,000. Post pandemic it's 420 with an acceleration interest rates, you're looking at the average mortgage has gone from $11,00 to $2200. Forty years ago two thirds of people under the age of thirty had a home, 60 percent had a child. Have all of a sudden young people opted out of having a home and a child? Or maybe they just can't afford it.

And unfortunately the Democrats weren't able to square the circle of the fact that the economy is actually quite good. And some of Trump's policies, whether it be deficit spending or tariffs, will likely result in more inflation and greater interest rates and taxation on the young. But they weren't able to communicate that.

They -- in the podcast medium can't be understated here, Michael, because some of the offensive things that we Democrats thought that joke is offensive. The Zeitgeist and podcasts is it softens people. Podcast hosts aren't looking for a got you moment. They generally want to present the individual in their best light. And it's more got the vibe of can't you take a joke?

And if you look at the nine of the top 10 podcasts, eight of they lean right and Trump went on six of them. One -- I mean, there's going to be a lot of forensics here. But not acknowledging the struggles of young men as a broader theme will be a very big issue when we look at the autopsy that failed Harris campaign. And also simply put, she should have gone on a plane to Austin.

The demographic group --

SMERCONISH: Sure.

GALLOWAY: -- that swung most violently towards Trump was young people. The second most violent swing was their parents, age 45 to 64. All of the social engineering, all of the righteous social issues weren't -- didn't even take a backseat. They weren't even in the car. Because what people see is their kids not doing well, specifically young men. And Trump went right into this issue.

SMERCONISH: I want to display what you're describing. Put up the Edison Research exit survey data. This was published by the Washington Post. I don't know if Scott can see it, but it shows that among 18 to 29 year olds, she had the edge. But as we've documented, he gained significantly among young men. But now look at the 45 to 64 category. It was the best category for Donald Trump. You just made reference to this. But who are those people as they relate to young men?

GALLOWAY: I hear from them every day, Michael. When I started talking about the struggles of young men three or four years ago, there was a gag reflex, I understood it because a lot of people who entered that void were, quite frankly, thinly veiled misogynists. The conversation has shifted. And the people driving this conversation and the most e- mails of the demographic. I get the most e-mails from are the following, single mothers worried about their sons.

Are you focused on international affairs or the rights of special interest group when your son. My daughter's in Pennsylvania at Penn. My other daughter's in PR in Chicago, and my son is in the basement vaping and playing video games. And you want me to worry about Ukraine. You want me to have empathy for the zombie apocalypse on campuses, which is seen as very democratic.

No, I want my kid out of my house and I want him to have the same opportunities my generation had. The second biggest swing here or the portion of the female vote that swung most aggressively away from Harris and towards Trump was one demographic, mothers.

SMERCONISH: You are entitled to this victory lap because you have been saying it here, I have been thrilled to give the platform to say it, for years. Thank you, Professor G.

GALLOWAY: Thank you, Michael. Thank you for being first and unafraid to talk about this issue. America is a platform, wonderful rights, wonderful freedoms, directly linked to economics. And I think the Democrats need to re-embrace their strength which is better markets under Democrats and giving young people more hope.

That is what America is about. And Democrats have actually been pretty good at it. They just haven't been able to communicate it. But, again, thank you for bringing this up early and often.

SMERCONISH: Scott Galloway. Let's see now what some of you are saying on social media. Quickly because I know we are way over. That's all right. It was worthy.

It was not just the male vote but the non-college graduate male vote, as there was a 40 plus point gap against college-educated female voters.

When you put it together -- Darrel, I'll just say it quickly. When you put together both education and gender, that is when you see the most significant divide. Non-college-educated men, college-educated women -- being so precise with my wording because I do not want to be perceived as negative. I certainly would never be. I know a lot of street-smart guys who did not complete a degree, you know, more so than some of the Ivy League types.

I want to remind you go to my Web site at Smerconish.com. Here is today's poll question. Has Donald Trump changed America or revealed it?

Catherine, do I have time to put up that one graph on the screen? This comes from Carlos Lozada. If you're wondering like, what the hell is that poll question about? Can I read that one graph out loud? OK. Just put -- there we go.

Listen to this. Throughout Trump's life he has embodied every national fascination, money and greed in the 80s, sex in the 90s, reality in the 2000s, social media in 2010s. Why wouldn't we deserve him now?

I mean, the gist of the article is this guy is a reflection of the country. You may not want to admit that but he is.

Still to come, your social media reaction to my commentary, the bombshell report on an Iranian plot to take out Donald Trump, Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander, will be here, as Trump prepares to move back into the White House.

And be sure to sign up for the newsletter at Smerconish.com. You will get editorial cartoons like this from Steve Breen.

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[09:37:31]

SMERCONISH: Hey, you can find me on all the usual social media platforms. So, please, follow me on each of them including X now Twitter -- Twitter now X. There we go.

Government has been disconnected from the people for a long time, both parties. Love them or hate them. Trump understands that frustration. He's the most significant political figure in the U.S. since FDR.

Fredo, can I tell you a quick funny thing? Dr. Allan Lichtman was on my radio show yesterday. You know Allan Lichtman because he's the -- the man of the 13 keys. And he called nine of the 10 last elections accurately but he missed this one.

So, he came on radio yesterday. It was a great exchange. And we were applying the keys. And he was saying that the keys just do not foresee someone like Donald Trump.

And I was pushing back and saying, I think you misapplied key number 13 which asks, if the opposition of the incumbent party is charismatic, not necessarily a good thing but charismatic. And we disagreed about this. I said, you have got to give him the charisma key which then would have flipped with one other, his outcome.

Still to come, what Trump's win means for U.S. foreign policy. Former NATO supreme allied commander Admiral James Stavridis joins me next. And don't forget to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Has Donald Trump changed America or has he revealed it? While you are there sign up for the newsletter for which Scott Stantis drew this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:26]

SMERCONISH: My next guest was fully vetted to be Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016. Subsequently was invited to discuss a cabinet level position for President Trump in his first term. And then there are the qualifications that got him there. He's the former NATO supreme allied commander and he is joining me now, Admiral James Stavridis. By the way, author right now of a terrific novel, "The Restless Wave: A Novel of the United States Navy."

So many things I want to quickly tick through with you, Admiral. Let's begin with NATO's survivability. You know the concerns from some. How do you see it?

ADMIRAL JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), FORMER SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER OF NATO: You know, after the election my phone lit up with calls from Europe and the gist of it was, hey, Admiral, are these the last days of NATO?

The short answer to that question is, I don't think so. I think team Trump will come in and put more pressure on the Europeans to get their defense spending up to two percent minimum. Twenty-three of the 32 nations have hit that mark. That is pretty good. It is getting better but there will be a lot of pressure.

And then secondly, Michael, and finally, I think, there will be tension inside the alliance over Ukraine. How is the burden sharing there? How much did the Europeans put in? How much do we put in?

Some skepticism, obviously, from team Trump. But bottom line, NATO will continue. I think team Trump will recognize the value of the alliance.

SMERCONISH: The president-elect says he's going to resolve the Russia- Ukraine conflict jiffy quick.

[09:45:03]

How does it end? With some type of a territorial negotiation?

STAVRIDIS: Well, if he can end that one in 24 hours, I will be the first one voting for his Nobel Peace Prize. What I hope he does, and I think he will, is put pressure on both sides to get to the negotiating table and it comes out kind of like the end of the Korean War, Michael, which is to say Putin, unfortunately but in a real world, will end up with about 20 percent of Ukraine, the chunk that he currently holds.

But the rest of Ukraine, the 80 percent, all of those resources, vast majority of the population they stay democratic, free path to NATO probably three to five years realistically. It's not the worst outcome in the world and I think that is how it probably ends. And if President Trump can put pressure on both sides, more power to him.

SMERCONISH: OK. Wait a minute, you are saying that you see a solution where Putin keeps what he has now, but what Ukraine gets is NATO admission within the next couple of years?

STAVRIDIS: That is exactly right. I would probably throw in some E.U. membership. And let's face it, Putin will hate that part of it, just like the Ukrainians will hate the part of Putin holding onto 20 percent of their country, but it is a negotiation.

I think that is how this one comes out. You probably create some kind of demilitarized zone between the two parties, just like Korea, and maybe you patrol it with NATO soldiers, for example. Not U.S., Europeans.

SMERCONISH: Give me your Middle East headline. There so much there. Not the least of which is this Iranian plot to take out Donald Trump.

STAVRIDIS: I think, without question that is going to demand a pretty significant response from the United States. The first thing we need to do is completely validate our intelligence. Number two, talk publicly about why we believe Iran was attempting to kill a presidential candidate. Number three, respond.

I think the response is kinetic. You go after Iranian revolutionary guard, probably command and control facilities. You need to send a very significant message. Again, C.1, let's make sure we have got all of the facts in order. After that, I think, it demands a significant military response.

SMERCONISH: Thirty-second response from you. So many credentialed individuals opposed him. Now he is the president-elect. What level of concern do you have about Donald Trump's ability to surround himself with people with the requisite skill set and experience?

STAVRIDIS: It is the ultimate question for the next 30 to 60 days. I am encouraged by Susie Wiles, a fellow Floridian, being named as the chief of staff. She is a steady hand.

I'm looking to see who fills these other cabinet posts. A lot of the names that I hear in my wheelhouse of national security are folks who I think are also pretty steady. Ambassador Robert O'Brien, former national security advisor. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Senator Marco Rubio, another fellow Floridian. If those folks are willing to come into government, I think, he will be able to put a pretty good team together.

SMERCONISH: May I recommend for the holidays, as a breather, "The Restless Wave," your new novel. Thank you, Admiral. Appreciate you as always.

STAVRIDIS: Thanks, Michael.

SMERCONISH: Gang, you've got time to vote. Go to Smerconish.com, answer today's poll question. Has Donald Trump changed America or revealed it?

When you are there subscribed to the newsletter. Look what you'll get, editorial cartoons like this from Steve Breen.

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[09:53:41]

So, there's where we stand as of now. Wow. Interesting. OK. And I'm going to leave it up, you know, for the rest of the day so vote if you haven't.

Has Donald Trump changed America or revealed it? Thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight, now we're well beyond 40,000, and 84 percent say he has revealed it.

Yes. I mean -- and by the way -- probably I'm going to get hit with emails now like, you are normalizing, you are sanewashing. Read the Carlos Lozada essay that inspired me to select this as the poll question.

He's essentially saying like, wake up, the guy is a bit of a mirror. If you look at the trends of the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, 2010s, what he represents is what dominated the country at that time.

Here's some social media reaction. What do we have?

You nailed it a thousand percent in your monologue Wildwood visit masterstroke. And I'm a Democrat.

Well, Robert Rembecki, you must be from like the northeast. And I know I'm going to hear from all sorts of people who will say, yes, what about this shore town, that shore town?

It's just a funny thing because these Jersey Shore towns spill from one to the other. They are right on top of one another and yet when you get to know them, they are all unique. And the drill is that wherever you grow up going with your family is where you usually end up taking your own kids.

[09:55:03]

I am an Ocean City person. Buy Trump going to Wildwood, in a state that he was never going to carry, made me of course assess, well, why Wildwood? And then to factor in, you know, Harris-Walz, obviously, I kind of put it together. Like he was able to tap into those who felt disrespected.

Sorry, I'm long-winded. Quickly, one more. I think I can squeeze it in.

I guess the 2020s era will be characterized as the MAGA decade.

Too early to tell. Yes. Maybe the Musk decade. Who knows?

OK, gang. It has been a long strange trip. Thanks for still being here. I really appreciate you watching and listening to me on radio. And to my CNN team, you are the best. OK. See you.

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