NBC NEWS - MEET THE PRESS
"11.13.16"
(BEGIN TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday, split screen America. A divided nation reacts with joy to the election of Donald Trump and with anger. With anti-Trump protesters demonstrating across the country, as Mr. Trump goes to Washington.
DONALD TRUMP:
Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future. Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Will Trump be able to heal the widening divisions in this country? I'll talk to his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. Plus, email fallout again. Hillary Clinton blames her loss directly on F.B.I. director James Comey, saying his announcement stopped her momentum. Also, not only have Democrats lost the presidency, the Senate, the House and state legislatures all remain in Republican hands.
How do Democrats rebuild? Senator Cory Booker and Congressman Keith Ellison join me. And did Donald Trump win the election, or did Hillary Clinton lose it? We'll dig into the numbers. Joining me for insight and analysis are David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, Katty Kay, anchor of the BBC's World News America, Hugh Hewitt, host on The Salem Radio Network, and former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders supporter, Nina Turner. Welcome to Sunday and the post-election edition of Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, this is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
(END TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
Good Sunday morning and, boy, this is no ordinary Sunday. If there's one idea that was validated on Tuesday, it's that we live in a split screen country. Half the country feels it finally got its country back. And the other half fears they lost their country on Election Day. Half the nation, once again, feels at home in a country they recognize.
The other half worries that they're now homeless in their own home country. And that split screen idea is reflected in the vote. Right now with 93% of the vote counted, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by more than 600,000 votes, larger already than Al Gore had in the popular vote over George W. Bush. And she'll almost surely end up winning the popular vote, perhaps by as much as two percentage points.
But elections are not won that way. They are won and lost in the Electoral College and Trump's victory has sparked protests around the country over the past few days. One question many people are asking is how did the polls get it so wrong? Hillary Clinton has one answer. Yesterday she said F.B.I. director James Comey's two email announcements, 11 days before the election and the other one two days before the election, proved fatal.
Clinton told donors, "Our analysis is that Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum." The election shocker put Republicans in control of all the levers of power in Washington and many levers around the country. And it has left Clinton voters asking themselves, "What just happened?"
(BEGIN TAPE)
DONALD TRUMP:
So Hillary called and it was a lovely call. And it was a tough call for her.
CHUCK TODD:
In a category five political storm, we missed what should've been clear. Donald Trump is the latest in a series of winning presidential candidates who faced opponents with deep resumes or perceived experience. And as they did in 1980, 1992, 2000 and 2008, Americans voted for change in 2016.
ELIZABETH WARREN:
If we have learned nothing else from the past two years of electioneering, we should hear that message loud and clear, that the American people want Washington to change.
CHUCK TODD:
In the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump turned reliably blue states red. How’d he do it? Number one, like Reagan and Obama before him, Trump won the support of white, working class voters in big, blue collar suburbs. Macomb County, outside Detroit, home of the Reagan Democrats, was one of 12 Obama counties in Michigan that voted Trump.
DEBBIE DINGELL:
I think many people also missed the fear that is really in working men's, women's hearts and souls. 2008 scared people.
CHUCK TODD:
Number two, the Obama coalition did not turn out where it needed to. Turnout was down among African American voters. In Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, Clinton got 63,000 fewer votes than Obama did four years ago. Democratic votes were down in Wayne County, home to Detroit and in Milwaukee County. Number three, Trump spiked the vote in rural America. While Romney won voters in rural areas and small towns in Pennsylvania by 19 points, Trump won them by 45 points.
CHRIS CLAYTON:
The rural jobs are tougher to find. So all of these different factors, you know, made it a little easier for Donald Trump and his campaign focusing on immigrants taking jobs, trade deals, causing jobs to be lost.
CHUCK TODD:
And Clinton also struggled to articulate why voters should support her beyond the fact that she was not Trump.
CHUCK TODD:
What is the big idea of your candidacy?
HILLARY CLINTON:
Look, we are stronger together. We are stronger together in facing our internal challenges and our external ones.
CHUCK TODD:
Instead of running clear economic messaging in small town and rural America, as Obama's campaign did in 2012--
ANNOUNCER:
Now, he has a plan that would give millionaires another tax break.
CHUCK TODD:
--Clinton's campaign focused on temperament.
DONALD TRUMP:
Knock the crap out of ‘em, would you?
CHUCK TODD:
For half of America, Tuesday's outcome is unfathomable.
FEMALE VOICE :
Discourse in this country has changed forever.
CHUCK TODD:
The other half celebrate.
MALE VOICE:
What I'm seeing is a return back to family values.
(END TAPE)
(BEGIN TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is the woman who ran the Trump campaign and is now helping with the transition, Kellyanne Conway. Kellyanne, welcome back to the show.
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Thank you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start. It's amazing what a difference a month makes. A month ago, Speaker Paul Ryan was disinviting Donald Trump from a big rally in Wisconsin. As early as 24 hours before the election, saying, you know, Donald Trump didn't speak for the Republican Party. Obviously Paul Ryan's changed his tune. On election day, you and I had a conversation. And you were sort of setting up the idea that maybe if he comes up short, the Republican Party has a lot to answer for. So is this victory because of the Republican Party or despite of it?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Oh, because of the Republican Party but mostly because of Donald J. Trump. I mean, he created a movement. You see the turnout in these counties that went for Donald Trump and Mitt Romney being way up for Trump. You see the counties in the states that were for-- more for Hillary Clinton being way down in turnout.
So I think the enthusiasm and the momentum, Chuck, that Donald Trump created as part of his movement really ended up translating into votes on election day.
I hope even those who were critical of Mr. Trump-- of President-elect Trump. I like the sound of that. I hope that they at least learned something from the voters. That's what so many of us have been urging from the beginning. You want to grow the Republican Party? Pay attention to what he's done.
CHUCK TODD:
Before the election, there were Democrats telling Hillary Clinton if she won, she needed to spend time in red America. Does Donald Trump need to spend some time in blue America and not just have rallies with his supporters but maybe have town halls with opponents?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Sure. He's already shown his willingness to spend time in blue America. It's actually how he won the election. Busting the blue wall that people said we couldn't do.
CHUCK TODD:
Now, but there's a difference. Talking to--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
But he also--
CHUCK TODD:
It's-- There’s one thing talking-- going to states where he finds voters who agree with him. But talking to voters who disagree with him.
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Well, he found a lot of voters who disagreed with the Republican Party all along, and they voted for him. Those were the undercover Trump voters we tried to talk about for months under a hail of ridicule.
CHUCK TODD:
You had said a-- yesterday that a chief of staff announcement was imminent. Who a president names as chief of staff does set a tone. I want to quote Dan Balz from this morning. "Do Trump's core followers want Washington to work better? Or do they expect him to be more disruptive as a president?"
And it seems as if Reince Priebus, chairman of the R.N.C., as chief of staff would send one direction about working with Paul Ryan. Steve Bannon, campaign chair, Breitbart, might send a more disruptive message. Should we read into that depending on who he names?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Well, they'll both have big roles in a Trump administration in my view. As well as they should. I mean, it was a very small core senior team. Probably less than 10 people all, all told. And, and I'm sure that everyone will be very important to the president moving forward. I will say this though.
I think having worked with him and known him, Steve Bannon in this particular campaign was the general. And he is much more the Goldman Sachs managing partner and much more the naval officer, I think, than people real-- than people realize. That's a big part of his background--
CHUCK TODD:
So what you're saying is he’s not-- he wouldn't come in to say, "Let's burn Washington down proverbially"?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
I think that the president-elect is there to actually implement his first 100-day plan. And those around him know that and will appreciate that, whether it's within his inner circle or on Capitol Hill. I-- we are very grateful in Trump world to both Bannon and Priebus. And I think you'll see them wor-- continue to work together. We all work very closely together. This is a mandate. And those of us, those of us who are around him will support him--
CHUCK TODD:
It's a mandate? But, the pop--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
--wanting to do stuff.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. But you say it's a mandate. How do you explain losing the popular vote?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Well, you've got big states in there like California, and Illinois, New York.
CHUCK TODD:
All, all part of America.
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
All par-- Well, of course they're part of America--
CHUCK TODD:
No, but that's my point. So that's half the country. I mean, it's one thing to claim a mandate. And I, I think governing-wise, I get what you're saying. But you do have a public opinion-wise or popularity-wise that's a different story. How do you--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Popularity.
CHUCK TODD:
--square the two? How do you square the two?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
You know, Chuck, for, you know, my colleagues across the aisle in Brooklyn and team Clinton are very smart people. I respect them very much. But they misread America. They, they did not have her in red states. They, they were pretending that they were going to turn red blue. They were pretending. It was literally said. And all of you covered it like it was gospel.
Literally said, "We will know this election result before election day because of the early vote." False but written about. We, well-- She had good election-- She had good early voting but horrible election day turnout. We-- Then it was, quote, "We will have historic turnout." False. But it was written about and covered as if it were true because it came from them.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
The-- I just want to say to you about him he has put out an agenda that everybody can see. He has talked about what his replacement for Obamacare would be. He has talked about his plan to defeat radical Islamic terrorism. He is going to create 25 million jobs over 10 years, invest in energy infrastructure. It's all there.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you final question. Hillary Clinton pinned the blame for her loss on James Comey. Do you believe Comey did have an impact? Whether a direct impact or not, do you believe it had some, that it had some help to your candidacy in the last 11 days?
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
I think it's unfortunate that for Secretary Clinton, who is a woman of enormous gifts and talents. And she should be commended for putting herself out there and running for president twice. I just can't believe it's always somebody else's fault. Sometimes you just have to take a look in the mirror and reflect on what went wrong.
We saw the polls tightening, as you must have, before the Comey announcement on October 28th. And I think to, to, to, recognize the fact that 40 million people have already voted, they can't have it both ways in Clinton world. They were quoted that very weekend, Chuck, on your show and others as saying, "Oh, people have already decided. People have already, people already incorporated the email scandal into their voting decisions."
Now, they're going back and saying he had an impact. What about the fact that they just got it wrong? What about the fact they weren't in touch with Americans, and the cultural zeitgeist, and the issue set that motivates many Americans? What about the fact that people felt like they had nothing in common, no connective tissue--
CHUCK TODD:
Kelly--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
--with Hillary Clinton?
CHUCK TODD:
I'm going to leave it there. By the way, congratulations. The first--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
--woman to run a successful presidential campaign as campaign manager. That should not--
KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Thank you. I'm thrilled for the country.
CHUCK TODD:
That should not get lost in all of this. Thanks for coming on. And joining me now is a Democrat who represents a part of the country that perhaps still can't believe they lost on Tuesday, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Senator, welcome back to Meet the Press.
CORY BOOKER:
Thank you for having me on again, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me put the question to you this way. What did you learn from the voters on Tuesday? What message did they send to you?
CORY BOOKER:
Well, look, I think that neither party should be standing with pride and chest bumping right now when you have something that's very ahistoric, one of the few times in which the Electoral College and the popular vote were different. The message to both parties should be right now that we need to find ways to work together to speak to the American public.
This is an election like I've never seen before. And I think it reflects the fact that many people have a dissatisfaction with politics as usual. So I think this is a time where both parties should be humble, reach out to each other and try to find ways to build on common ground to serve the concerns, the rightful frustrations of the American people.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, when you ran for the Senate, you talked about one of the things you wanted to be was a disruptor in that positive sense when you think of the way Silicon Valley companies are thought of as disruptors. Trump, Clinton, I heard a lot of voters talk about Trump as a disruptor. Do you get the sense that maybe that is-- that was something that was missing in Hillary Clinton's message?
CORY BOOKER:
You know, I think there's going to be a lot of time to focus on the data in this election and really try to figure out what happened. And I know there's going to be people on both sides trying to sift through it all. Right now, I'm dealing with the fact that I've never seen an election like this one before, where people are so fearful.
We elected someone who spewed so much Twitter troll like vile and hate and bigotry, that I literally have people erupting in tears. Even the flight I have to come here, an African American single mom slipped me a note and hugged me with tears in her eyes. And so, this is a time where I have deep concern about the future of our country. I've never seen an election where there're so many who just don't know, from folks who are American citizens born in this country, who tell me about their children, feeling as if they're going to have to leave the nation because they're going to come after them. So my concern right now is standing in the breach and trying to turn fear into hope. And trying to let folks know that we're going to fight forward and defend fellow Americans against what might or might not come.
CHUCK TODD:
What's your message to these protestors that are popping up? I was talking with Kellyanne Conway about it, asking if Donald Trump should be addressing these folks. She said he already has. And she even said she thinks that President Obama and Secretary Clinton should be telling these protesters essentially, "Hey, you need to accept the defeat and give some time and space to President-Elect Trump." What's your message to these protestors?
CORY BOOKER:
Well, I'm sitting here right now, having this conversation with you because of the tradition of American protest. I have my rights, not because of Washington suddenly deciding, Strom Thurmond and others, "Hey, let's give certain Americans equal rights." But because of the ardent, unyielding voice of protesters. And so, when you have a president in his campaign who ran saying things that not are just contrary to a fact, but literally threatening to use presidential power in a way that would erode the rights and privileges and equality of large sections of Americans, God bless the protestors.
But I will tell you this. I caution anyone who in their protest becomes the very thing that they're protesting against. Meaning turning to hateful speech, violating principles and ideals that are sacred in this country. We need to raise our voices, but we do not need to indulge in hate.
I still remember how upset I was in the aftermath of President Obama's election, where people in Republican leadership didn't say that, "Hey, I want to focus on the issues and values of our country," but, "My number one goal is to see that Barack Obama is not a two term president." That to me is outrageous. I would never do that. My number one goal is to fight to protect poor people, ethnic and religious minorities, working class folks.
And so, I'm not going to become what the other side, in many ways did, that I felt was despicable. Whether it's heckling a president during his State of the Union address, or questioning the birth and the legitimacy of a president. Those things were despicable to me. We need to not lose our honor. We need to not lose our class and the way that we go about being a noble opposition.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, the Obama coalition didn't turn out or vote for her. You could look at it two different ways. There were some parts of the Obama coalition that voted Trump. Particularly when you look at what happened in Michigan. Twelve counties with working class folks who voted Obama over Romney picked Trump over Clinton. And then, of course, there were turnout issues in other places, like Wisconsin. Is this a reminder that the Obama coalition is not a Democratic party coalition?
CORY BOOKER:
You know, so again, I live in a city and my entire professional life, I've lived in a poor census tract, median income. Where I live my census tract is $14,000. I've seen people come out in droves for Obama in 2008. I've seen them not come out in things like our governor's race in 2009.
And what happened after that race? The earned income tax credit was cut, hurting -- protecting millionaires in our state, but cutting poor people. Raising taxes on poor people. I've seen Planned Parenthood attacked. Elections have consequences and we all need to understand that. And so, I don't care about Obama coalition. Name it whatever you want.
But when you don't come out and vote, some people might think, "Hey, it's not going to affect my life." But there are people in this nation on the margins that elections like this will hurt and will have a deep impact. And again, that's why put me in the opposition. Put me in those people that are going to resist those things in our country that are going to happen now, where the folks who now are in power have said, they've told us who they are, they're going to have an agenda that is going to hurt those folks who are working class Americans. Americans struggling.
We are going to have to do everything we can to fight against that to make sure that, even though we didn't get big turnouts where we needed, we had all the votes we needed to win. But even though we didn't get those turnouts, it's not time to give up. We've got to keep fighting.
CHUCK TODD:
What are you looking for in the next head of the Democratic party?
CORY BOOKER:
The next head of the DNC needs to be a committed progressive. Somebody that's going to help to get our message out. Again, I've been working in my community for a long time. I've seen what happens when mortgage companies result amuck and do things that I consider should've been illegal.
CHUCK TODD:
So is that Keith Ellison?
CORY BOOKER:
Keith Ellison is one of the names that's being bandied about that gives me hope and excitement. And I think there's going to be a process. But they need to be a committed progressive. And they need to be someone that, in this time where there's a vacuum of leadership, that will join others, the committed resistance, and stand in the breach.
Now, we need to reach out and give space for partnership and collaboration. That's the humility that I was talking about, to find-- to see if there's going to be things that we can work together on. But ultimately, if they come after us with bigotry, with prejudice, with hate, and I say, "Us," all of Americans because we're all in this together. If they come after-- we need to make America love again. And do everything we can to prevent this country from becoming the way that Donald Trump campaigned.
If he governs the way he campaigned, it'll be a disastrous presidency. This is a chance for him to be magnanimous, humble. To work across the aisle. If that's the kind of president we have, that's fine. But if not, I want our DNC chair, I want Democratic senators and Congresspeople, citizens, we need to resist.
CHUCK TODD:
Senator Cory Booker, Democrat from New Jersey, thanks for coming on, appreciate it.
CORY BOOKER:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Coming up, did Donald Trump win the election or did Hillary Clinton lose it? And the man who Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and you just heard there Corey Booker, may want to lead the Democratic party.
(END TAPE)
***COMMERCIAL BREAK***
CHUCK TODD:
Well, what the heck just happened, right? Panelists here Hugh Hewitt, host on The Salem Radio Network, former Ohio state senator and an early and vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders, Nina Turner is here. Katty Kaye, anchor of the BBC's World News America to give the Brexit perspective and David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times.
Guys, there were many things that we believed to be true. Turned out not to be. We believed that Donald Trump support was stuck in the low forties. It wasn't. We believed Hillary Clinton had a stable lead. She did not. We believed that Hillary Clinton would expand the electoral map. Oh, she didn't. And we believed President Obama's coalition was transferrable to Clinton. Clearly, it wasn't. And we believed that Clinton's successful convention and debates would matter. They did not. There's a lot more. David Brooks, Trump win, Hillary lose? What happened?
DAVID BROOKS:
Well, it is a good week for humility for pundits. I think the twenty-first century happened, basically. That this century started on 9/11. And basically, it's been a century of counter reaction to globalization and the meritocracy. And a good century for-- 72 nations have gotten more authoritarian. We’ve had Brexit. We have Le Pen rising in France.
We've just got a lot of these types all around the world. And the people who are suffering from globalization and the meritocracy are saying, "No more. You know, we get a voice too." And so for those of us who believe in it, there has to be a movement that says, “We still believe in trade. We still believe in international engagement for America. But for those losers or those who are suffering, we've got your back." And to me, the crucial moment of the Clinton campaign was when she gave up on the trade deal that she had helped negotiate.
CHUCK TODD:
Huh.
DAVID BROOKS:
Because she, that said, "I don't really believe in what I think I believe in my whole life. I'm about to renounce it in order to win your vote." So it was a character issue. And then it, she couldn't have an affirmative case of, "What I believe in, the world I believe in," which is a global world, but also a very supportive world.
CHUCK TODD:
Katty?
KATTY KAY:
I agree on the Brexit thing. And I'm thinking about the Trump team this week because when I was in London during the Brexit vote, members of the Leave campaign went to bed that night thinking that they had lost and they woke up staggered the next morning that they had won. We did opinion polls afterwards that showed that, actually, if we were to hold the referendum again, Remain would win.
There were people who came on the BBC who said, "You know what? I voted to leave but I didn't actually think we were going to leave. It was a protest vote." And I think what we've seen during the course of this week is the kind of simple, clarion call of change crashing up against the complexity of actually governing.
CHUCK TODD:
Nina?
NINA TURNER:
Right, yeah.
KATTY KAY:
And that’s what’s going on in the Trump campaign right now.
NINA TURNER:
Disruption.
CHUCK TODD:
It, it-- Yeah, I've had a lot of people say, "If Sanders had been the nominee, would've been a different story." Do you buy it?
NINA TURNER:
I believe that to be true. But again, everybody thought that Secretary Clinton was going to beat Mr. Trump. So we'll never know. But in terms of the populous message, it leaves Senator Sanders on the opposite side in a way that pulls people together and not divide them. He was speaking the language of the forgotten.
And so, there should be no surprise that forgotten America, no matter their ethnicity, because we see that Mr. Trump was able to get Hispanic voters, African American voters. Oh my God, the majority of, of, of the women voters that he was able to amass, even though he was painted as the other, my party, the Democratic party, did not listen to the voices of the forgotten America.
CHUCK TODD:
Hugh?
HUGH HEWITT:
President-elect Trump won rural America three to one. He got more African American votes and Latino votes, according to Pew at least, than Mitt Romney did. It's a political earthquake. Now, I've lived in California for 27 years. And I went through Northridge, which was 6.7 and Big Bear which was 6.5. People are jittery after it.
And they don't want to go back in the building. You don't want to be under an overpass. You don't want to be in the tall building. And so I don't want to be, I don’t want to get out ahead of understanding all this. But there is a monumental shift that goes back to what David said about a reaction to 9/11, the panic, a post-traumatic stress America that is coming up in, in these protests now. It is very reminiscent-- I'm the only one at the table can remember 1968. I was in junior high. It's very reminiscent of 1968.
CHUCK TODD:
I've, I’ve had a lot of people bring up '68. I want to throw something out here that I thought Maureen Dowd hinted at this morning. She wrote this about Barack Obama and about this whole idea of the, the lack of, of cohesion with Clinton. "He came away from the, that elated whoosh in 2008 not comprehending that many voters viewed him as the escape hatch from Clinton Inc. It never would've occurred to anyone then, even the Clintons, that President Obama would be the one to brush away any aversions and objections, take us by the elbow and firmly steer us back to Clinton Inc." Is it possible, Nina, that, that, that basically, Clinton just, just screamed status quo and, and even Barack Obama didn't see that?
NINA TURNER:
Very much so. I mean, this was a disruption election year. This was the anti-insider year. And some Democrats, especially establishment Democrats, took their eye off the ball. Listen, President Obama is amazing in every way. And that's why he ran, he won in 2008. In 2016, people wanted something different.
They are tired of just talking about the foreign stuff. Nobody was really focusing in on domestic issues, that wealth and income inequality is very high. That people are suffering each and every day. And they wanted something different. And I think in terms of the whole Bernie or bust notion, some folks meant that. They actually meant it.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, there’s, there’s-- I want to throw one other thing out here. Let me play for you a comment by a reporter for reports on rural America for a publication called Progressive Farmer. He had a very provocative response on, on what happened post-election. But listen to this one piece of analysis, David.
(BEGIN TAPE)
CHRIS CLAYTON:
Every time you heard about these polls, you had heard that educated white voters were, were going for Clinton, while people, with-- without college degrees or had no college, supported Trump. I think they took some of these things that were said over and over throughout the last four, five months of the campaign, also very personally themselves. That rural America is not uneducated, even though maybe there are fewer people with college degrees than there might be in the metropolitan areas.
(END TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
That stung me because I, when we would say these things, it was an academic exercise. But the minute he said it, I was, like, "Oh, my, my late father would've kicked me in the rear for that."
DAVID BROOKS:
Yeah. I, I had that, just watching that, mea culpa because it is demographically true, demographically true--
CHUCK TODD:Yes.
DAVID BROOKS:
--that people with college degrees voted very differently than people with, with high school degrees. But when you say it, when you actually don't have a college degree, you hear, "Oh, they think I'm stupid."
CHUCK TODD:
That's not at all.
DAVID BROOKS:
I'm guilty of that because I use that shorthand too. And, and you saw so much sense of moral injury when you went around the Trump world, which I've been doing the last seven months. It's, "I used to have a code of respectability, and those people are trying to take it away." And the number of times this year I heard, "Flyover country. You guys think we're flyover country." Well, of course, you've always heard that, but I heard it, like, every hour.
CHUCK TODD:
So did I.
KATTY KAY:
And, you know, the skepticism that has grown up about elites is totally justified.
NINA TURNER:Yes.
KATTY KAY:
Since 2008, no one has gone to jail on Wall Street for the crash and elites have not been able to fix the problem, right? We haven't managed to fix post manufacturing job growth. We haven't fixed the issues to do with immigration.
And policy makers have plainly failed both here in the United States and in Europe as well. People who have suffered because of that. And when they say, "Throw out economists, we don't trust economists anymore," you can totally understand why.
HUGH HEWITT:
This is very important because Donald Trump actually won a lot of people. We've got to give the president-elect his due. He was a tractor beam for the disappointed. He said to the people who were disappointed with the president on Obamacare, "Come to me." He said to the people who were disappointed with trade, "Come to me."
He said to the people who were disappointed with the Supreme Court, "Come to me." And he did run a campaign of bringing in the disappointed. And to the people who may be disappointed with their own lives and where they are. And they have a person to speak for them.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. I'm going to take a pause here. How should the Democrats dig out of their deep hole? Move in the Sanders Warren direction, or try to reconnect with rural and working class America. The man who Sanders and Warren want to run the Democratic party, Congressman Keith Ellison joins me next. But as we go to break, here's a little lighter moment here. Here's what SNL did last night, their version of a Clinton watch party from Tuesday night.
(BEGIN TAPE)
CECILY STRONG:It’s the urban counties-- black people vote late.
CHRIS ROCK:Yeah, let’s hope there’s 100,000 of us in Green Bay. Brothers love the Packers.
(END TAPE)
***COMMERCIAL BREAK***
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Ever since Donald Trump took over the Republican party in the spring, political journalists have been obsessed with this question, “how will the Republican party fix itself?” After Tuesday's elections, the Republican party seems pretty fixed. They still hold a majority of the Senate, they'll be defending far fewer seats than the Democrats in 2018. They still hold the House with a very healthy majority.
In Republican hands, they gained two more State Houses, which means they now have at least 33 of the country's 50 governorships. The race in North Carolina, by the way, remains undecided though the Democrat is ahead. And Republicans control 32 state legislatures to just 13 for the Democrats, with four states divided. And with Trump's victory, Republicans have now grabbed the one office that they seemed destined to lose for years, and that was the presidency.
So now the question we're asking is this. How does the Democratic party fix itself? Well, joining me now is a man who both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren believe is the answer of who should lead the Democratic party out of this wilderness. It's Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota. Congressman, welcome to the show, sir.
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
Thanks, Chuck. How are you?
CHUCK TODD:
I'm okay. So word is you're announcing officially that you're jumping into the race to be Democratic National Committee chair tomorrow. Is that true?
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
Well, Chuck, let me tell you. I've been talking to a lot of people, basic organizers at the Democratic base level. Also members of Congress, labor leaders, all types of folks. And I'm telling you, I'm going to do my good part. I'll let my decision be known tomorrow or soon enough. But the real question is not what one person's going to do, what are we all going to do? How are we all going to pitch in to fix this party to make working America know that the Democratic party is absolutely on their side? That's the real question.
CHUCK TODD:
Why do you think they work -- Let's talk to both your state in Minnesota, you've seen all the counties that flipped Obama to Trump, Michigan. There were Obama '12 voters that voted Trump. And it's clear it was an economic message that they were trying to send. How did this happen?
REP. KEITH ELLISON::
Well, I think that people have been looking at 40 years of flat wages. You know, the reality is you've got folks in diners and hair shops and barber shops all over this country who look at their own lives and think, you know, "My parents did better than I'm doing and my kids might not do as well as I'm doing."
And that's because wages have been slashed for so long. They feel like there're two systems of justice, you know? Over there at Wells Fargo, you know, you had the scandal going on there, but the CEO leaves with a big, giant package. And other folks get in a whole lot of trouble for doing a lot less. The truth is that we have got to make America work for working people again.
We have to have a shared prosperity. We have to make that our job number one. Now, you know, Chuck, four minimum wage ballot measures succeeded on Tuesday. You know, I mean -- people want a better economic playing field for working Americans. And they're voting for it. Our job is to make sure that people know that the Democratic party is the party that is going to deliver that for them. And that means strengthening the grassroots. That means strengthening the local precinct county level and making sure that we're all channeled on massive turnout for that program.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think the Clinton brand actually hurt in that, you know, you had Bill Clinton was the signer of NAFTA. You look in this rust belt, it was something Donald Trump reminded these voters a lot of. And Hillary Clinton didn't spend a lot of time in rural America in particular. So I guess two questions for you. Do you think the Clinton brand itself was maybe too tainted with big donations, big money, NAFTA going back there? And second, do you think Democrats were perceived as looking down on rural America?
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
I'd tell you whose brand was tainted is Donald Trump. I mean, this guy was tainted every kind of way you could imagine. I mean, no way in the world that Donald Trump is a champion of working people. He has hurt workers in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Florida, multiple bankruptcies, never showed his taxes. I don't know any good thing this guy's ever done.
And yet, because he was able to throw hate and poison on Hillary Clinton, he was able to somehow prevail at least until the Electoral College. He actually lost the popular vote. But, you know, I think he was skilled at just sort of, like, keeping the attention on anyone but himself. I mean, but this guy is the most outrageous person ever to win a presidential election.
CHUCK TODD:
So no fault -- you don't put this fault on Clinton at all?
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
I'm not going to get up here and cast fault on Democrats. I think that, look, negative campaigning, people do it because sometimes it works. And in this particular case, him saying all this kind of stuff that he said, you know, had an impact. But the real question is how do we go forward?
And my point is we've got to go to the doors. We've got to go directly to the people from the party unit by strengthening folks at the grassroots level to bring a message of economic prosperity for working people. That's what we've got to do.
CHUCK TODD:
The job of DNC chair, many people believe now, is a big, fulltime job. David Axelrod, President Obama's longtime political advisor said he's, "Agnostic as to who. But Dems should pick a fulltime party chair. The job just became infinitely more demanding and important." And obviously, you've heard Howard Dean in announcing said, as much as he likes you, he thinks you can't both do the job of DNC chair and serve in Congress. What do you say to that?
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
I'd say the most important criteria is vision. What is your vision for the party? Do you have a vision to strengthen the grassroots and help them turn out people in their local communities? That's the real thing. You know the real question is --
CHUCK TODD:
So you can do both jobs?
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
Yes, I can. But the fact is that the real question is not about one person. It's not about an individual. It's about millions of people working all over this country to reach out in their local communities. And the DNC chair has to help them do that and have a vision for that and have the energy for that.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask a question this way. If you decide not to run, why would that be? What's the reason not to do it if you decide not to do it?
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
You know -- because there're a lot of places that I can serve. And I'm going to serve. I'm going to be fighting to rebuild the Democratic party no matter what. I'm going to be fighting to make sure the Democratic party is known among working people that we are their champion no matter what. So I’m not really -- I'm looking for a place to serve.
I'm looking for a place to be of use and benefit. And every single Democrat in this country better be thinking the exact same way. How can we help the average American worker, you know, right out there, worrying about whether that plant's going to close? Fighting for them, standing up for them. That's what the story is.
CHUCK TODD:
Keith Ellison.
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
What can we all do?
CHUCK TODD:
Keith Ellison. Democrat from Minnesota, congressman. And we'll find out tomorrow, it sounds like, what your final decision is on whether to jump into the race to be DNC chair. Thanks for coming on Meet the Press, sir.
REP. KEITH ELLISON:
Anytime.
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back, did Hillary Clinton lose because Obama voters didn't show up? Or did she lose because Obama voters voted for Trump?
***COMMERCIAL BREAK***
CHUCK TODD:
And we are back. It's data download time. We've been looking at the question, “did Donald Trump win the election, or did Hillary Clinton lose it?” The answer? Yes, and yes. Well, let's really dive into the numbers. We're going to start with the state of Florida, where Clinton hit the number we thought she needed. She actually got 248,000 more votes than President Obama did in 2012. Big surge in Latino voters. But Obama won Florida. Clinton did not. How did it happen? Because Trump was able to drive up turnout in parts of the state that many of us did not expect. He over performed Mitt Romney in Florida by nearly 450,000 votes. So in other words, Donald Trump won Florida. Hillary Clinton didn’t lose it.
Wisconsin however, that paints as different picture. It's a state Hillary Clinton clearly lost. And here's how. Donald Trump got nearly the same number of votes in Wisconsin that Romney did in 2012. There's about a 2,000 vote difference right now between the two. But Clinton missed Obama's mark in--from 2012 by a lot. She got almost 240,000 fewer votes in the Badger state. Just look at Milwaukee, a city the Clinton team banked on winning big. Clinton got about 43,000 fewer votes than Obama did. Turnout was down overall, which suggests those folks didn't switch parties. They simply stayed home. And those folks lost votes in Milwaukee alone, were enough to cost her the state.
She lost Wisconsin to Donald Trump by roughly 27,000 votes. Wow. Clinton needed a revive the Obama coalition to beat Donald Trump. And in states like Wisconsin along with Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania, she wasn't able to do that. She also needed to make sure Obama voters didn't become Trump voters. And clearly, in some states that happened too. Coming up, looking forward. How does Donald Trump deal with a divided nation?
***COMMERCIAL BREAK***
CHUCK TODD:
Back now with the panel. Donald Trump’s going to be presiding over a divided country and what’s interesting is the same language that conservatives used during the Obama years is now language that’s being borrowed by progressives. Let me play for you a little compilation we put together.
(BEGIN TAPE)
SARAH PALIN:We’re going to take our country back and you’re either with us or you’re against us.
MIKE HUCKABEE:
So what is happening to America?DONALD TRUMP:Take our country back.
GREGG POPOVICH:
It leaves me wondering where I’ve been living, and with whom I’m living.
CLINTON SUPPORTER:
This is not my America. What he stands for is not the America I know and love.
(END TAPE)CHUCK TODD:It seems like we’re destined to be split screen America. How does he do it?
DAVID BROOKS:Yeah but he’s--
CHUCK TODD:How does he try to pay- put this back together?
DAVID BROOKS:
Yeah, we still are America though. We're still a country that is a country of social mobility. We're still a country of immigrants. We're still a country with common ancestors. And reviving the civics of America and the idea that we're going to be united, at least not right now, but in some common future, and talking in that hopeful way that Martin Luther King did, that Abraham Lincoln did, seems to me that's the way.
HUGH HEWITT:
--and Senator Turner and I agree on nothing, but I admire her greatly. We are both from the land, Northeastern Ohio. We are both church attending Browns fans, we know how to pray and to lose.
NINA TURNER:
Amen.
HUGH HEWITT:
And we have a lot in common. I admire her greatly. We just disagree. And I do think that reemerges eventually, that it's politics, not life.
CHUCK TODD:
But it’s-- but, that's apocalyptic. You know, I feel as if, and boy, did both campaigns do it, apocalyptic rhetoric like this, that if you don't vote this way, the country's--
NINA TURNER:
That's right.
CHUCK TODD:
--gone.
KATTY KAY:
And I think it depends which right turn America's about to take. Is it about to take a Reagan-style right turn, where we slash regulations, slash taxes, have a fiscal stimulus program and there is job growth? That's one option. Or is it going to be a nativist, populist right turn, which adopts some of the anti-immigrant tone, anti-race tone of some of those groups that we've seen in Europe? I mean, the fact that the first foreign politician to congratulate Donald Trump was Marine Le Pen of the National Front, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, xenophobic group. And the first foreign politician to visit him was Nigel Farage. I don't even know if they know what image that sends.
NINA TURNER:
And we can't make America great again without love, without hope, without justice, without peace and without an acknowledgement that the fear that was stoked not only by President-Elect Trump's campaign, but also a lot of fear was stoked by Democrats as well, but there are people who are really fearful. I mean, I talked to one of my friends in New York and she teaches. And she talked about how some of her Hispanic students came in crying, thinking that their parents were going to be deported the next day. We, the collective we, people of leadership on all sides are going to have to deal with this--
DAVID BROOKS:
And I do think the problem is, to add one thing to Nina's list, it's just competence. That's what I worry about. It's not so much Trump's ideology, I'm not sure there is one. It's just whether he can actually get the job done. It's like me saying, "I want to be a heart surgeon. How hard could it be? The heart's over there, you open it up, you put in a new one."
HUGH HEWITT:
You know I worry about--
DAVID BROOKS:
It’s actually kind of complicated.
HUGH HEWITT:
I worry about hyper loyalty. I'm an old Nixon guy and I think we have a merger of Nixon and Rockefeller here on ideology and personality. President Nixon was brought down by blindly loyal partisans. Dean, Colson, Liddy -- people who did not know what they were doing, that they thought were acting on his part. When he staffs up, because of a lack of -- I am worried about these 4,000 people that come with him. Reagan brought Meese, Baker and Deaver. It could be Bannon and Conway and Priebus. But he also had Fred Fielding in the background there making sure -- and Nancy Reagan was a check on everybody around. That's what worries me.
CHUCK TODD:
One thing we've all been wondering about is Twitter and Mr. Trump. Let me play-- this is what he said to 60 Minutes about Twitter.
(BEGIN TAPE)
DONALD TRUMP:
I'm going to do very restrained-- if I use it at all-- I'm going to do very restrained. I find it tremendous. It's a modern form of communication. There should be nothing you should be ashamed of. It's where it's at.
(END TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
Speaking of where it's at, Donald Trump tweeted this morning. And he tweets the following. "Wow, The New York Times is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the Trump phenomena." He was noting I guess a letter that The Times has sent to some subscribers. So, that is --
DAVID BROOKS:
Do your patriotic duty, subscribe to The New York Times.
CHUCK TODD:
There it is. But, you know, it's probably how he's going to have a conversation with the press, is that it's always going to be through Twitter.
DAVID BROOKS:
Yeah. And, you know, the guy is animus driven. I mean, he wakes up in the morning to get in fights with people. That's been true since the 1980s. And I'm not sure that's going to change. I mean, how often does, like, a 70 year old egomaniac change?
KATTY KAY:
And that's the real concern globally, is that we don't know who we're dealing with. And if he doesn't getting this way on trade deals, does he slap tariffs on China and provoke a currency war? If he doesn't get his way with Japan or with Mexico, what's the retaliation going to be? And I think that's what people are nervous about. How quick is he going to be to respond in ways--
CHUCK TODD:
Look at--
KATTY KAY:
-- are potentially very damaging?
CHUCK TODD:
It's interesting here, quickly. I want to put up the two tweets he did in response to protestors. One was about seven o’clock at night, as you see here. Look like very-- Thought that the protestors were professional, incited by the media, very unfair. Then at three in the morning, about nine hours later, he says, "No, no, no, love the fact that small groups of protestors last night have passion for our great country. We all want us to come together and be proud."
NINA TURNER:
The First Amendment is a beautiful thing.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, suddenly somebody reminded him that.
HUGH HEWITT:
Well, as Senator Turner said off camera, Twitter is addictive. It's a lot of fun. It releases stress. It's good fun. There are ways to do it, even as President of the United States. And he's right, it's where it's at. It’s just-- but there is a head of state issue here, where you have to be so careful.
NINA TURNER:
And you can't have a temper tantrum on Twitter every day.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, that will be a lot for us to cover. We'll be back in 45 seconds with End Game and a Washington parlor game that people are already playing: Whom will Donald Trump pick for the Supreme Court? Wait till you hear Lindsey Graham's idea. Be right back.
ANNOUNCER:
Coming up, Meet the PressEnd Game. Brought to you by Boeing. Building the future one century at a time.
***COMMERCIAL BREAK***
CHUCK TODD:
Back now with End Game. There’s a lot of speculation about who’s going to be Chief of Staff, who’s going to be in the cabinet. But Donald Trump’s got a Supreme Court opening to fill immediately. Lindsay Graham has an idea. He tweeted the following: “I would put Ted Cruz on that list. I would suggest that President Trump look within the Senate. There is some talent there. There is no stronger constitutional conservative than Ted Cruz.” Boy, Lindsey Graham, we know how much he loves Ted Cruz, Hugh Hewitt. It was an accurate statement. There is no stronger, there are some equals: Mike Lee, Paul Clement and I’ve heard the name of the man for whom Ted Cruz clerked, Mike Luttig brought back as a sort of sop to the democrats at 62, Merrick Garland was 62. But he’s right, everybody would love this, everybody wins if Senator Cruz goes to the court.
DAVID BROOKS:
He could go to ambassador to Mongolia would work too for the Senator --
CHUCK TODD:
But it does go -- that first 100 days, that’s part of this. And the question’s going to be do democrats -- how hard do democrats fight this?
KATTY KAY:
Well I think this is part of this trying to understand which kind of a turn Donald Trump is taking, right, what kind of a country he envisages. And who he picks for the Supreme Court is going to be -- as are some of those key early appointments. Those are going to be the best indications we get about what kind of right turn America is on the verge of taking. Is it going to be more extreme than many people have predicted?
CHUCK TODD:
Nina, I am curious what do progressives expect from democrats? You heard Cory Booker saying hey if there’s some things we can work with we can work with and he’s not going to be what the republicans did to President Obama, but some progressives want a tit-for-tat, some progressives want to see Chuck Schumer do whatever it takes to prevent -- to do whatever it takes to prevent Republicans from confirming although there’s not much he can do.
NINA TURNER:
Right, I don’t think -- I mean, listen, if the Supreme Court nomination is extreme, and probably by democratic standards it will be, we definitely should fight. But I don’t think we should hold up just to do it because then we become what we accuse them of doing, but it is vitally important, Chuck that in this environment that leaders do come together to re-assure this country that all hell is not about to break loose. And that’s what those --
HUGH HEWITT:
Can I ask you? The only chairman I’m worried about is named Biden if they got the Vice President to go take over the DNC. How would a progressive like you react to old pro Vice President Joe Biden who could raise money and bring people together and connect with white rural -- how would you react?
NINA TURNER:
I love president-- I love Vice President Biden, let's make this clear. But we do need somebody that is going to reconnect with the heart and soul of everyday Americans in this country. The Democrats failed on that. And we can place blame on everybody else that we want to. But the bottom line is you can both love this party and critique this party.
CHUCK TODD:
Sounds like you think it needs to be a new--
NINA TURNER:
It needs to be a strong, strong progressive.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, guys. That's all we got. I'd love to get another hour. But the affiliates want this hour back. So we'll be back next week because, as you know, if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
***END OF TRANSCRIPT***