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CNN Live Event/Special

Trump Wins Presidency, GOP Takes Seante, House Still Undecided; CNN Projects Trump Wins Michigan, His Third Blue Wall State; Exist Polls Indicate Trump Made Gains In Nearly Every Demographic; Harris Calls Trump To Concede Presidential Race; Source: Special Counsel Jake Smith In Talks With DOJ To End Trump Cases. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired November 06, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BRAD TODD, GOP MEDIA CONSULTANT & STRATEGIST: I mean, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley did make the case that Trump was not going to win the election. They did make the case for why he should not be the nominee.

And when they started, Trump was 11 points down. Until Alan Bragg indicted him, Trump was losing the Republican nomination. Republican voters then came to a different conclusion.

I think there are tactics that could be questioned on both sides. Neither of these races were perfect. Neither of them closed exactly the way they needed to close.

However, I think we do have to say that the focus of the election that voters kept telling us it was the economy and it was the border. The campaign that got to those places won.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: But it was also, Jonah, what we we're hearing from the Democrats. Look at the Goldman Sachs report that showed that Hillary -- what Kamala Harris' economic policy is going to be.

They we're giving all of this data and they were saying that this is the best economy. And there were economists saying that. There were economists at the "Wall Street Journal" saying, oh, look, they say her policies will be better for the deficit than his, although both would have been.

But it did not matter. That was not where the emotional connection was.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So the single best thing about the runaway inflation is that it has reminded a whole new generation of politicians. It is bone cancer, politically, because it affects everybody. You can't run away from it.

Ther was -- a few years ago, there was all of this insanity of modern monetary theory that inflation is no longer a thing. You had historians saying the inflation rate in the '70s was really metaphorical about reiteration and not actually about gas prices. That's done.

BURNETT: Then, all of a sudden, mortgage rates started going up 7 and 8 percent in months. And people said, whoa --

TODD: I think the original sin of this administration was saying that inflation is transitory. And saying that prices had to go up.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: I think Republicans said this is not your priority. And I think when Vice President Harris became the nominee, she had a chance to say, you know what, we did not take inflation seriously enough. It was a mistake.

And neither of these campaigns were very humble. And I think in the race to become humble was one that could have really separated her. If she had said we did some things wrong and I will do them differently.

If he had said I know you threw me out four years ago and I will do things very differently, he would have run away with even more.

That was something that was absent the whole time. And inflation in the original sin.

BURNETT: You can only imagine, had he said that, what these results would have been.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely.

BURNETT: And then he would've lost the democracy vote, too, I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: My god, yes.

All right, stay with us. Don't go anywhere. Stay with us. Our special coverage of Election Day in America continues. We have a very short break and Wolf and I will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:27]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our continuing coverage. Donald Trump returns to the White House. Today, the president-elect is hailing a sweeping victory, and I'm quoting him now as saying "the greatest political movement of all-time, end quote."

As for Vice President Kamala Harris, she is expected to address the nation later today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. We will have live coverage.

President-Elect Trump is also on track to do something he has never done, actually win the popular vote for president. In fact, no Republican has accomplished that since George W. Bush did back in 2004.

CNN just projected, by the way, that Trump has won Michigan. But we are also following two other battleground states that have not yet been called. Standby for that key race alert right now. All right, let's take a look at Arizona right now, it's 11 electoral

votes. Trump is ahead by more than 100,000 votes, 51.9 percent to 47.2 percent, 63 percent of the estimated vote in Arizona is now in.

In Nevada, 89 percent of the estimated vote is in, six electoral votes in Nevada. Trump is ahead by almost 65,000 votes. 51.7 percent to 46.6 percent. Trump is ahead in Nevada over Kamala Harris there as well.

I want to head over to John Berman at the Magic Wall.

You're getting more information even as we speak.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I just want to give you a sense, Wolf, of how broad-based this Donald Trump victory was, how much of an improvement it was for him over 2020.

So I will put in a filter here. Every state that Donald Trump overperformed his 2020 performance. All right? This is not a glitch. It's America. America minute Maine.

He overperformed in every state, except Maine. And if you dig a little deeper here and you look at the counties where he overperformed, I can put that filter in, too. It is almost all the counties.

All these counties, red and blue across the country, he overperformed his '22 results.

You can take it even one more filter. These are the counties he overperformed by a fair amount. More than 3 percent. All of these counties, both red and blue, Trump did substantially better.

If you want to compare that to Vice President Harris, this is where Vice President Harris overperformed by more than 3 percent. Almost nowhere. You see almost no counties colored in here.

And to go back to Donald Trump for a second, because he was the winning candidate, just the diversity of some of the counties he had large improvements of greater than 3 percent.

Look, I can look at Idaho here. And picking one at random, you see Boundary County, which is all the way up north in Idaho. It's a county he overperformed by more than 3 percent. So you have Boundary, Idaho.

And then you have Chicago. Let's look at Chicago here. I can push in. He overperformed in Chicago by more than 3 percent as well. You can see Kamala Harris won substantially by about 54 percent. But four years ago, Joe Biden won by 66 percent.

I can give you one more measurement of how much better Donald Trump did than he did four years ago. And just where the country is right now.

Take a look at Texas. This is a state the Democrats have been hoping to turn blue, really, every - every four years, right, for the last 20 years or so. You can see that Donald Trump won by 13.8 percent. Remember that number, 13.8 percent. Let's look at New York. This is a blue state that no one thinks about

going blue. So the margin in Texas, 13.8 percent. That's how far it is from being blue.

[13:40:07]

But in terms of how far New York is from being red, you know, it is not that far. Right? You are looking at, what, 12.6 percent by my math. I may be off by a percent or two. But you can see this is awfully close.

New York and Texas, all of a sudden, don't look so different in terms of how close they are to flipping, Wolf, and that is pretty remarkable.

BLITZER: My hometown of Buffalo blue, right there.

BERMAN: There it is.

BLITZER: All right. John Berman, thank you very, very much. Excellent analysis.

I want to go back to Erin -- Erin?

BURNETT: All right, so, Wolf, while Republicans will now control both the executive branch and the Senate, so they have got two of the three? And, of course, obviously, we know how the Supreme Court is right now.

In terms of where voters have to say, the House is still unclear. We're not calling that yet because there are still votes being counted in several key races. And this one is not clear which direction it may go.

Manu Raju is back.

So, Manu, when you boil it down to what will determine who controls the House, what races are you watching right now?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, there are several races that have not been called yet. But I've got to tell you, Erin, it is a complicated path to the House majority for the Democratic Party at the moment.

Remember, they have to pick up a net of four seats in order to be back in the majority in the House. Right now, Republicans have five pickups that we have called so far. Two Democratic pickups.

So the Republicans have a net of three at the moment. Democrats are vying for Republican districts. But this is the problem. The Republicans are ahead in Democratic districts, including three Democratic districts.

So why are they having problems? Let's go in and dig a little deeper into some of these key races. Here in Iowa, the first congressional district in Iowa, Democrats

thought they would have a really good chance of flipping this seat in Iowa. The incumbent Republican, they thought she was clearly vulnerable.

She is hanging on by a thread, 799 votes ahead against the Democratic challenger, with 99 percent of the vote in. Republicans feeling they can sneak away with that one.

Also in Nebraska, Don Bacon, the incumbent Republican, someone who represents a district that Joe Biden carried in 2020 and Kamala Harris carried last night.

This time, though, Bacon is at the moment prevailing, 8,300 votes ahead of his Democratic challenger. And with 95 percent in, Bacon is feeling very good about hanging onto that seat.

But there are still some pick-up opportunities for Democrats, including Arizona. A Republican incumbent, a freshman seen as vulnerable going in. He is down narrowly to the Democratic challenger. That's 4,100 votes behind her.

But at the moment, there is still a lot of votes to count, 59 percent of that vote is in.

There are still some pick-up opportunities in New York. There are two for Democrats and one of them is in the upstate, House congressional district 19, where the incumbent Republican, Marc Molinaro, is trailing his opponent, Josh riley, by 3,600 votes.

Now they believe they can pick up that seat because there is 94 percent of that vote that is not in.

So why is it so important? Because as you mentioned, Erin, Democrats lost control of the United States Senate. They lost the White House. And look at the Senate right now, 52-42. Right now, the Republican majority there.

They have three pickups so far. They could potentially get another one in Pennsylvania. That looks very good for them. That's a 53-47 Senate.

And they are leading in another one in Nevada in the United States central. Up to 54 seats. Potentially, as a handful have to be called. That's what makes the House so important but a difficult path back to the majority for the Democrats.

BURNETT: Right, a difficult path. And of course, if Republicans get it, I mean, that is a mandate, especially if Trump does secure, as it seems he will, the popular vote and an Electoral College victory.

All right, so the urban-rural divide was as clear-cut as ever in last night's race. Although it is important to emphasize that Harris underperformed in those urban areas and that is part of the reason for the loss as well.

Because Donald Trump's win was also boosted by voters in the suburbs. Let's go to Harry Enten to dig through the exit polls.

Harry, there is so many layers to this onion. That's how you get a landslide. It's not just one thing. It's many things.

But when you go through, peel back the layers, what trends are you seeing right now?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: In the lead up to this election, it was all about Kamala Harris. She's going to outperform Joe Biden in the suburbs. That's how she's going to do it.

Look what happened in the suburbs. Donald Trump won in the suburbs by a small margin but it is a flip from four years ago when Joe Biden had won in the suburbs.

So Donald Trump winning in an area that Kamala Harris thought she could dominate and then make up for losses in the rural areas and the losses in the rural areas were tremendous, were tremendous.

In the rural areas, what do you see? Look at this. Donald Trump with a 27-point margin. That is a double-digit gain from how he did four years ago. A big reason why he was able to run at the margins was because he was able to run up the margins with his own base.

[13:45:03]

And then, finally, Erin, you mentioned the urban areas. Look, the bottom line is, yes, they went Democratic but Kamala Harris did no better than Joe Biden did four years ago.

So the bottom line is, if you are doing worse in the suburban areas, you're doing worse in the rural areas, and you are doing no better in the urban areas, I don't know how the math works.

For Kamala Harris, it didn't work. That is why Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States.

BURNETT: All right, Harry, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BURNETT: All right, Wolf, you have some breaking news?

BLITZER: We have some breaking news coming into CNN right now. We have learned that Vice President Kamala Harris has officially conceded, officially conceded the 2024 presidential election, calling President- Elect Donald Trump to offer her congratulations.

Our senior White House correspondent, M.J. Lee, is here with me in the studio to give our viewers a little more information.

What else are you learning?

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this was a phone call we had been waiting on all day. We are told by a senior Harris aide that the vice president did call the former president to concede the 2024 race.

She congratulated him on his victory. We are told that she talked about the importance of the transfer of power being peaceful and also about being a president for all Americans.

Of course, as we've been talking about all day long, the next time we expect to hear directly from the vice president is at Howard University. This is, of course, where she was expected to be last night. She ended up not appearing at her own election night party.

This is not surprising that the vice president ended up making this concession phone call. We got no indications whatsoever from Democrats and the Harris campaign that she had any plans to contest the race in any way.

I think, watching for the tone that she is uses and exactly how she talks about her loss in this moment in American politics is going to be so significant.

There are going to be millions of Americans, many of whom are disappointed, even despondent about the results of last night's election, that will be looking to her for cues on, so what does this mean for going forward, how do I move on?

This was an election that was so divisive, that was so just ramped up in the rhetoric. And I think a lot of people are wondering, now that the vice president has conceded the race, what are the cues we can take from her on what moving on actually looks like and how to process the prospect of Donald Trump coming back for a second term at the White House.

BLITZER: I think it is important to note, as you and I well know, all our viewers know at well, she is now doing what Trump refused to do four years ago when he lost the presidential election. He refused to concede. He refused to congratulate her.

He refused to do all of the normal things that politicians in America have always done when they lose an election. They congratulate the winner and they move on.

LEE: Right

BLITZER: She is doing that right now, to her credit.

LEE: Yes. And so much of her campaign had been about emphasizing the norms that had been in place for so many years in our country and our politics. And something that, as you point out, the former president so often refused to abide by, refused to go along with, something as simple as a concession call.

You are absolutely right that that was one of the many ways in which Donald Trump was just different.

BLITZER: We remember what happened when he refused to concede, as he should've done four years ago.

M.J. Lee, thank you very, very much.

Still ahead, now that Donald Trump has been reelected, what happens to the criminal and civil cases against him? And there are many. We will discuss that and more when CNN's live special coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:52:34]

BURNETT: OK. We now have some breaking news. And this is very significant. For those looking at what is the next huge step, you're wondering about Jack Smith. Well, Jack Smith with a big development.

The special counsel is in active talks with the Justice Department about how to end his federal prosecutions of President Trump. This is according to a Justice Department official familiar with discussions. The discussions are expected to last several days.

The person breaking this news, of course, is our excellent chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid. Also with me, our senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.

But, Paula, look, this has been a huge question hanging all of this over --

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes.

BURNETT: -- the whole election and now the aftermath. What are you learning?

REID: So we knew there were a few options. If the former president, who now, of course, is the president-elect, returned to the White House, there were a few ways his federal cases could be resolved.

One, is he said he would try to fire Jack Smith. Unclear, if he could do that because Smith is not an appointee. But it was expected that his Justice Department would drop these cases. It was clear, if he was reelected, he was never going to face trial.

But we knew there's another option. That is that potentially the Biden Justice Department could try to resolve or wind down these cases before Trump takes office.

A lot of this stems from an Office of Legal Counsel that is a department within the Justice Department that gives advice to lawyers who work there this memo that talks about prosecutions of a sitting president.

They are looking very closely at that memo to try to determine how does that apply in this case, where you have two pending cases against a president-elect. Can they continue to move forward? Can they take additional steps?

They are in discussions. Jack Smith talking with top leaders at the Justice Department about exactly what this looks like. I'm told that Jack Smith is somebody who understands he has to follow whatever the rules and regulations of the Justice Department are.

So at this point, they are looking for ways to wind this down. I'm told it is unclear when this will happen and what it will look like.

BURNETT: I mean, Paula, can I just ask you, in terms of your reporting, given how the polls showed this would go, given that the Trump campaign did not think this would go this way, given that the Harris campaign did not think this would go this way.

I mean, did Jack Smith have this all sort of as a possibility really prepared? Or is he also, just as human being, Jack Smith, reacting to this in the moment and trying to figure it out?

REID: So in speaking with my sources, and they were not aware of any discussions that had happened prior to today. They said this is the first time there had been formal discussions.

[13:55:02]

BURNETT: Right.

REID: But everybody looking at the polls knew that this was a possibility. Right? I mean, Trump has been asked, what would he do regarding Jack Smith if he was reelected.

But I'm told the formal discussions, according to my source, have begun in earnest today. And it will take them several days to figure out exactly what this looks like and what they will do.

I'm also told not likely to expect any court hearings. These will likely be filings, if anything, to try to resolve these cases.

BURNETT: So, Elie, look, we have been talking about this for years now. OK? We have been talking about this for years. Trump has appeared in courtrooms. We've all gone and sat in courtrooms where Trump has appeared in downtown New York.

He is actually scheduled to appear in a New York courtroom in just under three weeks to receive a sentence for his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

So what happens to all of those cases? Does those cases -- is that even happening as a sentencing or is it just gone?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, and I do think these state sentencings -- now we are getting away from the DOJ federal cases --

BURNETT: Right.

HONIG: -- that Paula was talking about. But I do think that state sentencing will proceed on November 26th. The reason is the judge in that case, Juan Merchan, originally had scheduled the sentencing for September, which would have been before the election.

And then, in a somewhat surprising ruling, he said, actually I don't want to do anything that will impact the election so I will put it off until after the election.

So now, impacting the election is no longer a concern. But this will be a surreal moment. We will have the president-elect, not just the former president, but now the president-elect going into a county level court to receive a sentence.

But I do want to stress this. No matter what the sentence is that Judge Merchan pronounces, if this goes ahead in a few weeks, it is almost entirely symbolic and formalistic.

There is no way that the president-elect will be locked up. Even in an ordinary circumstance, he would probably be allowed to appeal before he had to serve a sentence.

So it will be an important moment and an interesting moment. But anybody that's thinking Donald Trump will be locked up, you can just let go of that fantasy.

BURNETT: Yes. No, I think this is a moment for people to consider what a different world we are living in than this country was living in six months ago on all of these stories. It's truly stunning.

Paula, Elie, thank you very much.

Our special coverage with Wolf and I continues in just a moment. We will be right back.

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