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CNN Projects Donald Trump Wins The Presidency; Republicans Will Flip Senate, CNN Projects, Shifting Balance Of Power In Washington. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired November 06, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Look, I think if Biden had decided to run sooner, let's say in the first place decided not to run or even closer to the initial decision, it certainly would have given the vice president more time to build the relationship with the American people and again, as I mentioned before, with women.

We have 20 years of data looking at the women running for executive office. When it comes to the economy and when it comes to security/national security those are always the two areas. In fact, for women who run for governorship usually having then the attorney general is the pathway because --

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right.

FINNEY: -- then you've got certain credentials.

HUNT: Karen, I unfortunately have to push --

FINNEY: Yeah.

HUNT: -- pause here because we have reached an historic moment in this election -- John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Kasie. We can now project the winner of the presidential race. It is now official. CNN projects that Donald Trump has been elected president, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris and making a political comeback unlike any in modern American politics.

Now, we can make this projection because CNN projects that Donald Trump has won Wisconsin. You can see right there currently ahead by 30,000 votes with 99 percent of the vote in.

Mr. Trump is only the second former president in U.S. history to be re-elected to the White House. He will return to office after two impeachments in his first term followed by unprecedented criminal indictments and felony convictions.

Mr. Trump scoring a landmark victory as he now heads back to power leading a politically divided nation.

Again, CNN projects that Donald J. Trump is elected the 47th President of the United States.

Let's go over -- actually, let's just take a quick look at the wall here. We can see with Wisconsin Donald Trump now has 276 electoral votes, Harris with 219. You need 270 to win. He is now over that mark. The 10 electoral votes in Wisconsin puts him over that threshold and CNN now considers him the President-elect of the United States of America.

Let's go over to the magic wall. Phil Mattingly is there. Let's talk about Wisconsin because those votes from Milwaukee that we were promised came in and that's what made the difference. The number -- the margins actually a lot smaller for Trump than it had been but still enough.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Right. What we've been waiting for throughout the course of the night has been a significant chunk of vote in Milwaukee had been outstanding. What we saw about five minutes ago, it was 109,000 votes that came in, in Milwaukee, the largest county in the state. Sixteen percent of the population, usually a Democratic stronghold.

That vote broke down about 80 percent Harris to 20 percent Trump, roughly, based on -- as I was kind of doing the math on it. It changed the margin in Milwaukee by fairly a couple of points amount. Not a dramatic amount but a fairly couple of points amount. There is still some vote outstanding but obviously this was enough for our decision to estimate the calculation that Donald Trump's 30,000-plus vote lead right now was enough to call the state of Wisconsin and give Donald Trump -- project Donald Trump to be the next President of the United States.

I think what this doesn't change, despite the fact that more than 100,000 votes came in in a Democratic county, that vote split 80-20 for Harris. That margin, while it is significant, is still beneath what Joe Biden was doing in 2020.

And so it's the similar story. It's not as dramatic as it had been in terms of Harris underperforming Biden in Milwaukee County, like we've seen in some other urban areas. Wayne County, right now, still holding in that space. Philadelphia is still holding in that space as well. But underperforming in Milwaukee County by a point or around a point.

At the same time, there's underperformance or matching margins in a place like Dane County, the second largest county in the state, a Democratic stronghold. Joe Biden, back in 2020, won this by 75 1/2 percent. Harris running about --

BERMAN: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: -- six-tenths of a point behind him.

And the reason that's problematic is if you push up into areas around vote drivers like Waukesha. Look, what's interesting about Waukesha, if you push up into the more rural parts of Wisconsin, Donald Trump's running up big margins. Not a ton of votes. Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee -- we call them the WOW counties.

These are the pushing out in the ex-urban counties around Milwaukee where there's been some view, and I think there's been some midterm years where Democrats have said Ozaukee, in particular, is that type of demographic makeup, that type of median income makeup that we can really make some inroads here.

Donald Trump lost a little bit of ground here back in 2020. He won it by 12 -- a little over 12 points, but holding more or less the margin, shedding a little bit here and actually doing better over here in Washington County. Waukesha, crucial. Waukesha, as they like to say, the third largest county in the state.

[05:35:00]

So in these big vote drivers the Democrats thought they could make inroads pushing out of their urban and suburban areas into the ex- urban areas. They simply didn't.

BERMAN: You know, normally, when we just project the winner of the presidential race it would be a huge historic moment. I will say that it's been so clear over the last few hours it was trending this way and maybe doesn't land with the same boom that it would have otherwise. And that's because of what we're seeing in these other so- called blue wall states.

Let's just check on Michigan, which we haven't called yet -- where that's trending.

MATTINGLY: So, 95 percent in right now. Donald Trump with a 116,503- vote lead. The question kind of always in these moments in time -- the race hasn't been called you. You see a lead like that in Michigan, which is significantly larger than Donald Trump had when he first shattered the blue wall back in 2016. Where is the vote outstanding? What are people waiting for? What are the potential pathways?

You're looking at the biggest blue bubble. That's where the most vote is outstanding in a Democrat-led district right now. This is Wayne County. It's the largest county in the state. Seventeen-plus percent of the population -- voting population lives right here. Home of Detroit. There is still 19 percent outstanding.

We saw how the vote batch that just came in in Milwaukee County split so heavily towards Harris. What does that mean for Michigan? Is there a possible pathway here -- right here in Wayne? I think the big question right now is if you look at the margin in Wayne right now, 64 1/2 percent to 32.4, and you compare it back to 2020, underperforming by four-plus points.

BERMAN: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: And I think the question is: Is this a composition or makeup of the vote up to this point or is this kind of what we've seen in urban areas in Philadelphia, in Milwaukee, and to some degree in Detroit. But also the added element here of the second largest city in this

county is Dearborn. Dearborn is the largest Arab American community in Michigan. That has been a concern for Democrats because of what's happening in Gaza throughout the course of the year -- whether or not that has an affect as well. So we're going to have to wait and see as that vote comes in. That's really what we're waiting on right now.

The other place where if you're a Trump voter you're looking at right now -- this is the 2020 map. We'll flip back to 2024. Seven percent outstanding. And this is a place where not only is Donald Trump running up a margin in a Republican stronghold, he's blowing out his 2020 and 2016 margins.

BERMAN: At this point somewhat academic, at least in the race -- the official race for the White House because we now do project that Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States.

Phil, thank you very much. We will continue to count the votes as they come in because they do tell an important story and there are still super important races for the Senate and Congress, which we will get to in a minute.

In the meantime, let's go over to Kasie and her panel now that we have projected a winner, Kasie, in the presidential race.

HUNT: We have, indeed, John. The history this morning -- 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday -- that Donald Trump has won the presidency for a second time. This time after having served for four years then disputing the 2020 election and then, of course, rallying a mob to the Capitol to try to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power there, Americans deciding to send him back to the White House for a second term.

And Geoff Duncan, as we mark this moment, I do want to take a second to reflect on that reality because there was a point in the wake of what happened on January 6 where the Republican Party had a choice about what to do.

They could have decided to convict him in his impeachment trial, which would have prevented him from running again in the future. They didn't do that. Kevin McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago, posed with Donald Trump, and it was the beginning of what would become another run for him to the presidency. And, of course, now we know how that has turned out.

Considering what you lived through and what the country lived through, what do you think it says about us as a country that we're here?

GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, (R) FORMER LT. GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA: Well, I want to start by just a heartfelt congratulations -- or a sincere congratulations to Donald Trump. I've worked for four years to try to not elect him as a -- as a candidate for our party and also as president, but he's won the race, and he's won it the hard way.

I never would have thought we'd have been here. I think tens of millions of Americans, including Republicans, never thought we would have been here. And you just add up all of the baggage along the way on his -- the time in office and the time out of office, it's uncomfortable for somebody like me who is a lifelong conservative to watch this happen. But it is what it is.

I think the ball is in his court. What's he going to do with this? Is he going to wreck the car because he wants to and because he can? Is he going to sow chaos and confusion and build anger, or he is going to actually take the time to try to fix stuff?

And he's that one personality that can actually do this. Like, if he -- if he just changed course and just tried to work across the aisle and put a Nikki Haley in his cabinet and showed a propensity to work with people that he doesn't agree with --

FINNEY: Yeah.

DUNCAN: -- it would send shockwaves through this country in a positive way.

HUNT: Well, considering he couldn't campaign (INAUDIBLE) --

FINNEY: That's what I was going to say.

HUNT: What do we think --

FINNEY: That doesn't seem to be his mojo, right? That's not his deal, right? He doesn't kind of heal and bring people together and say OK, now let's come together and move forward.

[05:40:05]

And I think, you know, Geoff, you said something earlier about solving problems. What concerns me is I don't think he cares about really solving problems except for the most expedient one of not going to jail, basically.

I mean, when he was talking about tariffs, what have we heard? That it's going to bring inflation back up. It's going to be bad for the economy and bad for jobs.

So even some of the things -- if he enacts some of the things he's talked about -- mass deportations -- what is that going to mean in the day-to-day lives in our country and the damage that could do?

And I hear what folks are saying about it -- I agree. America, this is what you want, this is what you got. This is who you are. And yet, we will have to live with the consequences if he does plan to and actually move forward on enacting. We would have a national abortion ban. Women are going to have to deal with it.

So that's what my concern is. I don't think he's someone who's going to try to bring people together or try to work across the aisle -- and given the way things seem to be going with the congressional races he may not have to.

DUNCAN: I used the hopeful tone. SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: But wait a minute.

(CROSSTALK)

DUNCAN: The hopeful tone.

SINGLETON: We always talk about these things of bringing people together and I don't know if that's necessarily the aims of politics. You need dissention. You need two parties going back and forth.

Did President Biden bring the country together after 3 1/2 years? I know a whole lot of Republicans who would say hell, no.

You've spent 3 1/2 years criticizing these people and calling them racists, calling them bigots, referring to them as uneducated, and now they've won. They've shown forces -- they've won. They've rejected the elitism that comes out of Washington, D.C. They rejected the elitism has come from Republican establishment. And they've made it clear we want to go in a different direction. And I don't know why we keep ignoring this reality.

Donald Trump won again by a very sizable margin for a reason, Kasie. And I think to minimize the concerns that people continue to say they have about our party establishment, Geoff -- about the Democratic Party establishment is not going to change things.

What propelled this man to the White House in 2016 is still there. It is still there. And I think it's incumbent upon the leaders in both parties to figure out what they need to do to serve those grievances.

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS: I think -- well, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, (D) FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE, AUTHOR, "WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?": No, go ahead, Alex.

THOMPSON: I was just going to say look, one thing that sources are saying to me is that it wasn't just that Republicans rehabilitated Donald Trump but Democrats, including most especially the Biden White House, gave him an opening to come back.

The fact is that Joe Biden -- when inflation was coming back, they were very dismissive of concerns, and they called it transitory. When it looked -- there was the potential for COVID to come back in the form of Delta and Omicron, they held a celebration on the White House South Lawn and called it "Independence From COVID Day." There was Afghanistan. There was the denial and dismissiveness about the border was not a crisis.

And all of those governing issues -- you know, they treated it -- in some ways this is what -- I'm just reflecting the views of people within the administration as they're reflecting on tonight. They now feel that the administration sometimes treated it as a P.R. problem instead of an actual governing problem. KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST AND POLLSTER: Well, and it absolutely created that opening. What we saw in polling during the Republican primary was that the primary message being used against Trump by his opponents -- by Ron DeSantis, by Nikki Haley -- was Donald Trump's going to lose. He's a surefire loser. Go with me. I can be a winner.

And yet, in every poll I saw when you asked Republican voters who do you think has the best chance to beat Joe Biden, they'd say Donald Trump. Do you think that Donald Trump will beat Joe Biden? Those numbers were through the roof. Republicans felt confident that in a Donald Trump versus Joe Biden matchup that Donald Trump was going to wipe the floor with Joe Biden.

And that's why they felt confident saying I like Donald Trump. You're not scaring me with this argument that he's going to lose. I think he's a winner. And they went ahead --

SELLERS: Can we --

ANDERSON: -- with their candidate.

SELLERS: One of the things that we also need to reflect on is Donald Trump is a very, very, very flawed man and I don't think that can be lost on where we are today. I mean, you literally have someone who you don't -- I don't want to run down the resume of who Donald Trump is in terms of the felonies, and inciting an insurrection, and criminal charges that most likely now will go away because he now controls the Department of Justice, or the things with Stormy Daniels, or all of these things that are kind of baked into the cake.

But as a country, you asked -- you asked a very big question, Kasie. We became numb to the lack of character that is Donald Trump.

And it's fascinating to me because I know religious conservatives who will go to the mat for Donald Trump, and that's what I don't necessarily understand. Somebody's going to have to explain to me, particularly the white male evangelical.

And what we saw today were white women come out. We -- I think that the missed bet for Kamala Harris was betting that white women would support her in a way unlike how we felt they left Hillary Clinton at the altar in 2016. We thought that was going to be vastly different but, in fact, it wasn't.

[05:45:10]

Rural white women, college educated white men, suburban white women -- all those white women we thought in those WOW counties that Phil were talking about -- they just didn't come home.

And the question is when you have someone who is as fundamentally flawed there is no one around this table -- there is no one who literally with good common sense would say I want my child to grow up in be like Donald Trump. ANDERSON: But I think at the -- as everybody goes through this election and is trying to figure out what could have gone differently, I am sure there's going to be a lot of instinct to say gosh, if only we'd just told Americans more of how Donald Trump was a terrible person, so and so. And I just think --

FINNEY: Yeah.

ANDERSON: -- you have enough voters who are telling us in the exit polls I don't like Donald Trump personally --

FINNEY: Yeah.

ANDERSON: -- but I'm voting for him anyways. I just -- I think there's a --

SELLERS: No, I hear you, but I --

ANDERSON: People (INAUDIBLE).

SELLERS: I'm looking at -- I was just trying to answer Kasie. I hear you, politically.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SELLERS: It's -- what you're saying is politically prudent. But you asked what questions did we learn as a country. And we literally have one of the most fundamentally flawed men that we've ever put in a position of power back there again.

And all I have to do is point to the rhetoric, not from Democrats -- I'm not making this up. I can point to the rhetoric from Republicans on January 7 --

FINNEY: Yeah.

SELLERS: -- and talk about what type of man this is.

FINNEY: But this is it.

DUNCAN: I think that's the problem. I think Donald Trump judged as a candidate is almost like a Republican god, but judged as an actual executive isn't. And I think that's the problem.

And he's got this very fragile period of time for the Republican Party where if he doesn't get his act together and doesn't clean up, his favorabilities are going to start to go down -- you'll see that start to show up in the polling data -- and the Republican Party is going to divide.

To your point, Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave if he listened to this -- well, we won and so we're just going to lock in and get our way -- this 80-20 idea. And I think there's this gravitational pull that's happening in one segment of the Republican Party where you're with me 80 percent of the time -- you're a friend and an ally and not a 20 percent traitor. That mentality is lost in Donald Trump's administration.

SINGLETON: I don't -- I don't disagree with that, Geoff, necessarily. But I do think when you talk to a lot of rural Republican voters about the Republican Party -- the whole Tea Party movement itself -- they will say that the establishment wing of the party -- they have completely forgotten about us.

We turn out and vote every single election. We empower these people. And they go to D.C. and they adopt policies and legislation, and rhetoric that is completely irrelevant to mobilizing and uplifting us. And I hear that often.

I spend a lot of time with Trump voters, and I talk to them about why they're so angry with our party. And they will go through a litany going all the way back to Ronald Reagan, but all of the failures of the party writ large and say you know what, maybe I don't like Donald Trump. Maybe I don't like some of the rhetoric he uses. But you know what, Shermichael, he's putting a spotlight on all of the failures from George W. Bush and the wars, and my son was killed, and the trillions of dollars we spent.

Or I'll go back to the Gingrich era, and they said they were going to do this in terms of morality and look what the hell happened. And folks are still angry about those things, Geoff.

And I think the failure was on us as a party to not address those things. And we promised to address them, and we never got around to it as long as we were winning elections.

DUNCAN: I just think in a place of anger is a horrible place to make decisions and set policy --

FINNEY: Yeah.

DUNCAN: -- and that is the -- that's the juxtapose inside the Republican Party.

SINGLETON: I understand. I understand.

DUNCAN: There's this angry voice that's trying to set policy and direction, and that's what resonates with Donald Trump as a campaigner but not as an executive.

SINGLETON: But a lot of people in our party are angry, Geoff. And why haven't -- why haven't --

DUNCAN: Two things can be right at the same time.

SINGLETON: But why --

DUNCAN: They could be angry, and they could be wrong.

SINGLETON: That's fair, but why haven't we as a party attempted to reconcile that? Why haven't we? We had the Tea Party movement. It was a clear opportunity for us to figure out what in the hell --

FINNEY: Yeah. I mean --

SINGLETON: -- are we doing wrong as a party?

FINNEY: You all did just win.

SINGLETON: Why are so many people in our party looking at the leadership and saying wait a minute here -- you're still moving in the wrong direction?

HUNT: Karen.

FINNEY: Well, no. Ironically, you all just won. You sound like we should be (INAUDIBLE). True. Well, Geoff, yes, I'm with you.

HUNT: Well, and from Geoff's perspective --

FINNEY: It does.

HUNT: -- he worked very hard to --

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: -- (INAUDIBLE).

FINNEY: Let me -- I want to pick on something Kristen said because this is a mistake we made in 2016 that I -- that I saw them making again in 2024, which is we kept telling people more bad facts about Donald Trump. Oh my god, he said this thing. Oh look, he was -- you know, he discriminated against Black people. Oh, he's done --

But at a point, what people didn't hear -- and I do think this was a mistake in this campaign -- you have to bring that home to why that matters to you. Because what I heard from Republican voters in those suburbs in Pennsylvania -- you know, white, blue-collar voters -- was we're not hearing him talk about us. We're hearing him talk about the revenge and retribution, and tax breaks for the wealthy, but we don't hear him talking about us.

[05:50:00]

I think the path -- one of the pathways would have -- was to connect why the flaws in this individual is actually going to damage your life. It is actually going to have a meaningful impact on you. It's not just saying he's -- you know, he's bad.

HUNT: Well, and that was one of the fundamental disconnects inside the alliance of Democrats who were trying to get --

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: -- Harris elected at the end --

FINNEY: Yes, 100 percent.

HUNT: -- at the end of the race.

All right, again, it's official. Donald Trump elected the 47th President of the United States.

Next, new reaction and analysis. Stay with us.

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BERMAN: All right, welcome back to our special coverage.

Donald Trump will now be the next president. He will have a Republican Senate, but at this point we can't project who will control the House of Representatives.

Jessica Dean has a new projection in that fight -- Jessica.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN WEEKEND NEWSROOM WITH JESSICA DEAN": That's right, John. We have some key CNN projections in this fight for the House.

[05:55:00]

Let's start first in New York. That is the place where -- that fueled Republicans' thin majority in the midterms. Let's take a look. Mike Lawler hanging on to his seat in the 17th District in the House defeating Mondaire Jones. So again, that is something Republicans certainly wanted to see. Democrats hoping to flip that seat.

Let's now move to Michigan. We're going to go to the 7th District. This was Elissa Slotkin's seat. She is, of course, running for the Senate. And for this one, Tom Barrett picking this one up. This is a Republican pickup in the fight for the House.

Let's go to the 8th District in Michigan. This is Dan Kildee's seat. He's retiring. This one is going to stay Democratic. Kristen McDonald Rivet defeating Paul Junge in that race in the 8th District in Michigan.

And in Wisconsin, the 3rd District. Let's take a look at this. You see Derrick Van Orden winning there, the incumbent. So the Republicans keep that seat.

And as I said, a lot of eyes now on the House. Will it become a check for President Trump as he takes office with a Republican Senate, or will it become -- will it stay Republican make the Congress kind of a glidepath for a lot of his legislation?

This is the balance of power as it currently stands. Again, the magic number is 218 to control the House. Right now, Republicans sitting at 201 with five pickups so far. The Democrats at 177 with two pickups. Fifty-seven seats remaining.

One thing to remember as we continue to get this data. A lot of these seats that they're hoping to flip -- Democrats are out in California. And John, of course, that's going to take a while. They are notoriously slower in counting their ballots.

BERMAN: Yeah. I will say, though, those five Republican pickups makes it a lot harder -- DEAN: Um-hum.

BERMAN: -- for the Republicans to lose control and the Democrats to take back control, which is something the Democrats would love at this point -- some sign of success in this morning.

Thank you so much, Jessica.

Just a huge moment for the country. Donald Trump, as of minutes ago, has been elected the next President of the United States. You are watching CNN's special live coverage, so stay with us.

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