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CNN This Morning

Donald Trump Plans White House Return; Kamala Harris: "I Do Not Concede The Fight"; Biden To Address Nation This Morning; World Leaders Congratulate Trump On Historic Win. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired November 07, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:29]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, November 7th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: This will truly be the golden age of America. That is what we have.

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HUNT: Donald Trump's second act. The president-elect prepares to return to Washington, D.C. as the nation and the world prepare for another Trump administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.

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HUNT: Conceding. Vice President Kamala Harris's historic presidential campaign ends, but she says the fight for democracy is that over.

And later. Hearing from the president. In just hours, we'll get Joe Biden's first remarks about Trump's return to power and his VP's defeat.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: Five a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The White House, power changing hands in just a few short months.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Donald Trump will be returning to Washington. Now, the question becomes, who's coming with him? The president-elect determining who will take roles in his new

administration. Sources told CNN, some key positions could be announced in a matter of days. One of the top tests for Trump, loyalty. He is looking to reward allies who stood by him during his campaign, people like Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President Biden has already invited Trump to the White House. And that visit could take place as soon as next week. President Biden will address the nation about the election later on this morning. His vice president, Kamala Harris, conceding the race yesterday, vowing in her speech to supporters at Howard University to uphold the peaceful transfer of power, also vowing to continue pursuing her campaign's mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.

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HUNT: All right. Joining us now to discuss, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News, New York 1, Kevin Frey.

Kevin, good morning to you.

KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SPECTRUM NEWS NY1: Good morning, Kasie.

HUNT: So, we sit here on the precipice of Donald Trump's return to Washington. And I want to start with what Peter Baker wrote for "The New York Times," he has, of course, chronicled a number of administrations over the years.

He says this, quote: No longer can the political establishment right off former President Trump as a temporary breaking from the long march of progress, a fluke who somehow sneaked into the White House in a quirky, one off Electoral College win eight years ago. With his comeback victory to reclaim the presidency, Mr. Trump has now established himself as a transformational force, reshaping the United States in his own image. And while tens of millions of voters still cast ballots against Mr. Trump, he once again tapped into a sense among many others that the country they knew was slipping away, under siege as economically, culturally, and demographically.

Is that what we have seen with these results?

FREY: Far be it from me to take on Mr. Baker. But I would say, look, the pushback we hear from immigrants, at least to some extent, is yes, it was not a good night for them. They would argue, this is a part of a trend we are seeing nationally, where political figures, regardless of political affiliation, or see the aftermath of inflation that the public is basically lashing out at anyone who is in an incumbent seat position, and quite frankly, Kamala Harris, whether she successfully or not, try to get away from the Biden administration, was effectively the incumbent here. That is not discount the fact that people know what Trump is. They

experienced four years of him in the White House. To some extent, one could argue they are passively endorsing another four years of what he brought to the job.

HUNT: Right. So, one of the things we heard from Mike Johnson, the House speaker, he spoke to "Axios" yesterday, basically making the issue-based argument, when you mention inflation, among other things, he says, this, should Republicans hold the House, "Axios" writes this, should Republicans hold the House, Speaker Mike Johnson told "Axios", is because the GOP is focused on kitchen table issues over Democrats' emphasis on abortion, Johnson says this, quote, the entire Democratic campaign was run on abortion.

[05:05:08]

They just ran abortion at 24/7 in all the major markets and I don't think that's what people were focused on. I did events in so many cities. It was a safe concerns everywhere I went. It's the economy in the border, weakness on the world stage, rising crime rates. I think that's what motivated the voters.

Now, we have seen evidence that when abortion all by itself is on the ballot, voters tend to want to protect it. There were a couple of outliers in the results from Tuesday night, but for the most part, that's what we saw.

But do you think his point about how this didn't transfer to candidates bears out?

FREY: A couple of points here. One, so I was on the trail with him on one of his last days and so I would say that the issues kind of fold both ways because he made a comment about Chips legislation in Upstate New York, that did not bode well for him and his party because everyone lashed out because of the investments that it means for New York.

I would say that when it comes to the issues themselves, I believe there's been some studying that if you just looked at the policies that both parties are presenting without the candidate attached, the policies tended to be favorable more so on the Democratic side of the aisle. So, yes, to some extent, when it comes to the issues that were resonating, be it immigration, be it the economy, certainly the Republicans seem to have the upper hand there, certainly in the polling and certainly in the results.

There's also the factor that Trump isn't always consistent on the message. And so that adds another complicating factor to Johnson's argument there.

HUNT: Yeah. So, Kevin, you cover Congress, you cover Washington here from a New York perspective. We still are waiting for final results from the House of Representatives but it does seem like Republicans have the edge now. We know the Senate is going to go Republican. So the chances that Donald Trump is going to have unified control of government are pretty high. What does that mean?

FREY: Well, look, I mean, so Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats are still holding out hope that they can maybe flip the House. But certainly, the window seems to be closing on that opportunity with every passing day, and as more votes are tallied, there are a lot of reliance on California. Can they maybe hold on to any of those seats?

But at the end of the day, as you just hinted at were now entering into a presidents presidential term where the Supreme Court is essentially removed some of the guardrails here, Congress is completely different than it was in 2017 in terms of the folks that were skeptical of Trump are no longer in Congress, largely on the Republican side of the aisle. And so you have a lot of Republicans who are going to be folks like Mike Lawler might object to this notion, but are going to be more than willing to fall into line with whatever Trump decides to pursue.

And so there will be simply fewer guardrails here in Washington. Part of the way that the constitutional republic that we have operates is that the president kind of self-regulates, to some extent, based on norms. And we know Trump doesn't like to pursue that. Self-regulation.

HUNT: What a concept. Kevin Frey, thank you very much, for starting us off this morning. I appreciate it.

All right. Ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING: a majority of states with reproductive care on the ballot vote to uphold the right to abortion, even as Democrats suffer electoral defeats across the country.

Plus, more on control of the House. It's still hanging in the balance. Why? It could take another week before we know whether Republicans pulled off a trifecta.

And how world leaders are reacting to a second Trump presidency.

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OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: Many things will certainly be different under a government led by Donald Trump.

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HUNT: Welcome back.

World leaders congratulating Donald Trump on winning the presidency for a second time. CNN reporting the president-elect's aides in Florida are keeping track of who's reaching out and in what order.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among the first to call on Wednesday, congratulating Trump on his, quote, historic landslide victory and calling his campaign tremendous. In the U.K., Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Trump and then publicly praised him before parliament on his decisive win.

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KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Speaker, can I begin by congratulating President-elect Trump on his historic election victory. As the closest of allies, the U.K. and U.S. will continue to work together to protect our shared values of freedom and democracy.

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HUNT: CNN's Max Foster joins us live now from London.

Max, I'm interested in your assessment on all that noise going on behind him and what that was about. But tell us what the reaction has been in your world to Donald Trump winning.

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, I think Keir Starmer was probably pretty thrilled that Donald Trump took his call at all because there's some tension between the two men after the ruling Labour Party sent over activists to campaign for Kamala Harris.

And you know that was seen as pretty negative by the Trump camp. It's a crucial relationship to the U.K. So very happy that Donald Trump took his call. It was a gushing message we heard from Keir Starmer. They're completely different politically. I think Trump could easily see him as a far left extremist. When you look at some of his politics compared with Donald Trump.

But U.K. needs the U.S. and I think all the European leaders are pretty -- they weren't shocked that Donald Trump won, but certainly surprised at the scale of his mandate. And they're all scrambling really to figure out what this relationship will be in future between all of the European allies and the and the U.S., because he's an unpredictable character, he goes big on personal relationships, and there's a meeting today of European leaders and obviously, Ukraine will be high up the agenda.

And I think it's pretty clear that Donald Trump sees that as a European problem. So how are they going to sort that out, keep Donald Trump funding the campaign. But also putting more into it themselves and having to coordinate between themselves more but I have to say, Kasie, that the real issue that's emerging is a big problem for Europe is the idea of tariffs on European goods going into the United States. It could cause huge amounts of damage to countries like the U.K. and Germany for example. And they're now looking at the prospect of tariffs on Chinese goods going into the U.S., also being heavily taxed, and China dumping cheaper goods in the European market.

[05:15:06]

So, a double whammy which could do huge damage to the European economy.

HUNT: And very, very set -- a very interesting set of implications there.

Max, one -- some of the reporting that's coming out of the U.S. here, this is "The Wall Street Journal" on this question of Ukraine specifically, but also NATO more broadly. They report this, quote, one idea proposed inside Trump's transition office, detailed by three people close to the president elect and not previously reported, would involve Kyiv promising not to join NATO for at least 20 years.

In exchange, the U.S. would continue to pump Ukraine full of weapons to deter a future Russian attack. Under that plan, the front line would essentially lock in place. Both sides would agree to an 800-mile demilitarized zone, who would replace police. That territory remains peacekeeping force wouldn't involve American troops or come from a U.S.-funded international body like the United Nations.

What kind of reaction would there be in Europe to this kind of plan?

FOSTER: Well, I think the fundamental, you know, motivation behind this war is that Russia shouldn't be allowed to get away with what it has got away with, which is taking Ukrainian land because that sets a dangerous precedent. So I think there will be an issue with the idea of any sort of negotiation about what Russia is allowed to keep, but also some realism that, you know, Ukraine won't be able to hold the current borders even if they don't get that us funding.

So, they're going to have to sit down. The European leaders and discuss whether or not this is doable. Also, an awareness that Donald Trump wouldn't want to be seen to be losing this war against President Putin, but clearly they have to keep those American funds coming into the -- into Ukraine. Otherwise, you know more of Ukraine will be taken over by Russia.

So it's a big debate for them. But I think obviously Donald Trump has all the control here.

HUNT: Indeed he does. Max Foster, thanks very much for being with us this morning. I appreciate it.

All right. 16 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

The Federal Reserve expected to announce its latest round of interest rate cuts today. Experts believe the Fed will shave rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Back in September, the Fed cut rates for the first time since March of 2020 by half a percentage point.

Seven states vowing to -- voting to protect abortion rights. In Arizona and Missouri, voters overturning abortion bans. Other states preserved or expanded current access. But voters in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota rejected ballot measures that would have expanded abortion rights.

The Mountain Fire, spreading dangerously fast in California's Ventura County. More than 14,000 people now under evacuation orders. High winds causing the flames to spread more than 10,000 acres in just 24 hours.

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REPORTER: Look at you. Your shirt is singed.

STEVE ABEL, HOMEOWNER: That guy's house. And I guess everybody left because the police came up and tried to make us leave. And, you know, we want to be ready. Our trucks were ready. We left our house.

REPORTER: What did you do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our house would be gone. That one would be gone. And so would the next one.

ABEL: Yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Right now, the fire is zero percent contained. The winds fueling those flames expected to continue on the West Coast today and over in the Southeast, millions now under flood alerts.

Let's get to our meteorologist, the weatherman Derek Van Dam.

Derek, good morning. What are folks looking at today?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, incredible footage coming out of southern California. Look at the wind gusts that were recorded yesterday from the Santa Ana wind event. This is equivalent to a category one hurricane for some of these locations in southern California.

So, what in the world is Santa Ana winds? Well, we get this high pressure that builds in across the Great Basin. And because of the way that air flows around an area of high pressure, it flows through the canyons and over the ravines of the mountains and then down towards the coast, drying out and warming up as it does so. And the winds accelerate with that down-sloping trend.

And of course, this is the area that it's impacted the worst, Santa Ana winds, right over Los Angeles and Ventura County.

Now we will continue with the gusty winds today, but there is some relief in the forecast late tonight and certainly into the day on Friday still critical fire danger. Just north of the Los Angeles region, gusts to 50mph. And then with the ongoing fires which you saw on your TV screens just a few moments ago, there's plenty of smoke inundating this area. In fact, there is a air quality alert that stretches across Los Angeles and even to the south and east near San Bernardino.

This is the other main story were following today. The flood threat across the Southeast. We've had a considerable amount of rain overnight across southeast Georgia and into portions of South Carolina, where it is still raining right now just south of Columbia, between Charleston and Columbia. And in fact, some of the heaviest rainfall that fell into southeastern Georgia prompted flash flood warnings overnight. [05:20:03]

You can see the additional rainfall that will continue to fall. This is the accumulated. So far, but with the additional rainfall this could lead to that localized flash flooding. Another additional 1 to 3 inches of rain where the flood threat remains today -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Derek Van Dam for us this morning -- Derek, always great to see you. Thank you.

VAN DAM: All right.

HUNT: All right. Still coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING: Kamala Harris says the fight for her campaign promises isn't over. But why wasn't it enough for voters this time around?

Plus, Republicans have already flipped the White House and the Senate. Will they pull off a clean sweep?

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: And then if we have a unified government, if Trump's in the White House and we have the Senate as well, I think everybody on my side is going to be in a much better mood. And I think they'll want to be part of the reform agenda, and not -- not -- not a speed bump in the way.

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HUNT: All right, 5:24 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Raleigh, North Carolina on this Thursday morning.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Democrats reflecting on Donald Trump's decisive win and wondering where they went wrong.

[05:25:04]

Kamala Harris's short campaign might have started with a jolt of momentum, but she appeared hesitant to distance herself from her predecessor, while President Biden struggled with low approval ratings.

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HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of -- and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.

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HUNT: CNN's exit polling includes interviews with thousands of voters. And even though they aren't the final results, they do paint a picture of what tipped the scales for voters. Trump improved with almost every demographic compared to 2020, even among female voters who favored Harris, she still underperformed compared to both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, in past elections. And as of yesterday afternoon, was only ahead of Trump among women voters by eight points.

Trump also made significant inroads with Latino men this election cycle although Biden won this demographic by 23 points in 2020, they favored Trump in this election by double digits.

Trump won every blue wall state, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, flipping them from Biden's victory column in 2020. Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell telling CNN's Trump's telling CNN that Trump's win was not unexpected.

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REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): The fact of the matter is, is that I continue to tell all of you for months that this state was tight. It was going to be close. As Democrats we got to do some soul searching were getting a message from a lot of people that we're not hearing them, and I hope we take the time to do the soul searching. We have to do.

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HUNT: All right. Joining us now, "Axios" senior contributor Margaret Talev.

Margaret, good morning to you.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Kasie.

HUNT: So you -- it's entire election cycle have spent so much time talking to voters especially young voters, but trying to understand what was going on in the country, considering the results now. Did you see this coming in what those comments were about and how are you looking at what we now know about the country?

TALEV: Yeah, thanks. Well, I talked to young voters a lot in my day job at a university running a democracy institute, but for most of the year between swing votes between focus groups for Axios and focus groups for my institute, I talked to swing voters and battleground state voters, persuadable voters, people who haven't made up their minds yet, people in the seven key states.

And what we heard again and again and again and again was that inflation was the primary driver. If you were an American voter and leaned Republican, it was inflation and the border and related security concerns. If you were -- if you lean Democratic and you were an American voter, it was inflation and abortion rights and reproductive rights, and maybe some of the democracy stuff.

But trying to separate the economy message from the reproductive rights message and just focus on that second message left a lot of voters behind. And I know Vice President Harris had a short span for her run sought to tie the economy to the pitch for her at the end and that leaders all around the world, in places like the UK, Japan, Germany, like we know all this already. Everyone, everyone who's an incumbent or seen as an incumbent excuse me, has been impacted by the backlash to inflation and the post-COVID supply chain reality.

So she was had an uphill battle against her anyhow. But you see, in all of this exit polling how it wasn't just Latino men who moved away from the Democratic Party, it was a Latino women as well. They may still prefer Democrats by a little bit, but not nearly as much as they have in past election cycles.

You had young people, Generation Z, who we have thought of alongside millennials as being extremely progressive, moving towards a former president, now president elect Trump, or just not voting for Vice President Harris. So there obviously were underlying concerns about people just not being sure that Democrats could get the economy back where they wanted it from. A pocket sense but some of these cultural messages also leaving a lot of men feeling left out of the Democratic message.

HUNT: Yeah. The "Axios" headline too, as you know, the country starts to grapple with the implications of everything you just laid out, is this, quote, Democrats start clawing each others eyes out, end quote.

Congressman Tom Suozzi, a moderate, told "Axios", quote, we have to stop pandering to the base, and we have to start listening to the people. People are sick of extremism. Suozzi predicted he's going to get beaten up for his post-election takes. The far left is going to say it's because Kamala Harris was a war hawk. They'll try, but I think no ones buying it, said another House Democrat.

Clearly, there is going to be some sort of reckoning here with the progressive left. The reckoning is going to take several weeks and then several months and then two years to a midterm election. And then were going to find out, right? We all know how this works.

But the bottom line is when you look at that exit poll data and all of the all of the polling.