Policy or Payback?
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It's Monday, November 11th, right now on CNN This Morning. Policy or payback? With just over two months until Inauguration Day, Trump is talking unity after campaigning on retribution. And... The working class of this country is angry, and they have a reason to be angry. Pointing fingers, Democrats ask what went wrong and what comes next after their crushing defeat. And... Anybody involved with that should be fired immediately.

A FEMA employee fired after telling hurricane relief workers to skip homes with Trump signs. And then, do you believe that the 2024 election was free and fair? I do. I do. Disappearing concerns, Republican election fraud claims taking a backseat in the wake of Trump's victory.

All right, 6 a.m. on the nose here on the East Coast, a live look at the Washington Monument and of course the White House there in shadow in the foreground on this Veterans Day as we honor the service and sacrifice made by our nation's military veterans. Take a minute, say thank you today. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

An eye for an eye. Donald Trump once said that was his favorite Bible verse, and now as he's been swept back into power, the question is whether he'll make good on this campaign promise. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed...

I am your retribution. I am your retribution. Well, revenge does take time. I will say that. It does. And sometimes revenge can be justified. I have to be honest. Sometimes it can't. Well, I said my retribution is going to be success. We're going to make this country successful again because right now it's a failing nation. My retribution is going to be success. Well, he's had success. Those repeated promises of retribution, though, do seem to contrast with the tone the president-elect struck on election night.

It's time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. It's time to unite. Time to unite, he says. Fair enough.

But it didn't take long after those comments, just 55 hours, the New York Times' Peter Baker points out, before Trump was calling for an investigation into someone or something that made him angry. In this case, people he says are spreading rumors that he may sell his social media platform Truth Social. Trump writing on that platform, quote, "I hereby request that the people who have set off these fake rumors or statements and who may have done so in the past be immediately investigated by the appropriate authorities."

In The Times, Baker goes on to write this, quote, his momentary non-unity on election night led to some predictions that he may ease off the menacing threats, but that may underestimate the depth of his resentment and desire for retaliation after the multiple impeachments, investigations, indictments, and lawsuits aimed at him.

Allies expect him to pursue at least some of the targets he has singled out. And even if he holds back on some, his mercurial nature means that no one can assume he would not change his mind, creating an atmosphere of intimidation that may inhibit vocal dissent. Trump's defenders have been insisting revenge isn't the plan.

I'm going to tell you what Donald Trump has said on this time and again. Success will be our retribution. Success will be our vengeance. That's a direct line from Donald Trump. It's a beautiful sentiment. And I do think that success is unifying. Nothing's going to unite this country more than economic growth. And my colleague Dana Bash asked Republican Jim Jordan if he supports Trump using the Justice Department to go after people he disagrees with.

who disagree. He didn't do it his first term. What I support is stopping. Right, but this is his second term. What I support is stopping this lawfare, stopping this political targeting, political cases. Some of Trump's upcoming decisions, of course, could shed light on this question, most notably who he decides to choose as his attorney general. But broadly speaking, the reporter who has literally written the book on Donald Trump and has covered him for decades, Maggie Haberman, says this.

Is he serious about retribution? He's been talking about retribution or revenge pretty consistently over the last two years, but certainly most of his life. So yes, I expect that will be a thing.

most of his life. Joining us now to discuss, Frank Foer, staff writer for The Atlantic, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Megan Hayes, former director of message planning for the Biden White House, and Matt Gorman, Republican strategist, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you on this, I guess, the first Monday of the Trump transition, right? Is that where we are? Frank Foer, give us a big picture here, because this question of

What is Donald Trump going to do? How is he going to use the levers of power that he is about to take over to execute on the promises that he has made? I mean, how do you see it? So, there are the symbolic dangers of going after the likes of Liz Cheney and the, and, and,

Joe Biden and whoever he considers to be his political enemies of the moment. But then there's the bigger picture, as you point out, which is that there are cabinet departments and agencies that have cultures that have been built up over 100 years that are going to be decimated because there's a plan to change not just the way that they implement one policy or another policy, but to change these departments, to change the face of the federal government

forever so that it serves their long-term ideological objectives. And it's not just about one guy and his grievances at this point, because there's a whole class of people, whether it's the fossil fuels industry or people who are ideologues who want to destroy the rule of law in this country as it's been practiced, who are descending on this administration and have implanted their tendrils really deep inside this transition.

Matt Gorman, one of the things I thought was interesting over the weekend was that Republican supporters of Donald Trump and Jim Jordan and Vivek Ramaswamy seem to want to walk away from the retribution idea and sort of soft pedal it really. We played what Trump said there, my retribution will be, success will be my retribution. Like, okay, he had success, right? He delivered on that.

But what is your sense of the tolerance among other Republicans for what Trump may do here and what that says about it? I think it's much more policy-focused in a lot of respects, where, look, he believes, him and his supporters believe he came in on a mandate with a popular vote victory, sweeping the electoral swing states. So you will see a great tolerance when it comes to the economy and immigration. I don't think that suddenly Liz Cheney is going to be in danger, any of that sort of thing. I think that's kind of like...

a lot of kind of ridiculousness and there hasn't been specified. When what you will see though is immigration policy and economic policy that he's been talking about for years be pushed pretty aggressively. And I think that him and his supporters and those in the Congress believe he has a fundamental mandate to do exactly that. I think a lot of the retribution stuff, the personal stuff, it's probably overblown, we'll see.

But I think policy-wise, that's absolutely the case. I mean, that's a lot of hope, right? I mean, the line from a lot of the Trump surrogates right now is, well, he didn't do it in the first term. Well, it wasn't for lack of trying. Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions have said that, you know, and you just can go through his old Twitter that he tried to call for investigations. So I think there's a lot of...

A lot of Republicans are hoping he won't, but they actually don't know if he's not going to. Have you talked to Democrats who are afraid that he is going to come after them in some way? Yeah, and even Democrats that don't necessarily expect that anything will come of it. I think there's a lot of Democrats, especially in the mid-level, you know, mid-level aides or even just like campaign aides that, you know, are afraid, you know, of lawyer fees, even just like putting them on the verge of bankruptcy.

Yeah, I think that is a fear. I think when you get hauled up to Congress in some of these investigations, you're no longer in the government, so the government's not paying. There's no lawyers. So it is very expensive when you do these investigations. And I think that they're going to use it as pawns when it's really people's lives and you have 30-something, very young 30-something-year-olds that are going to

you know it's going to take a financial toll but i i i am hopeful that is the policy and having susie wiles i think is a good sign to democrats that like maybe you are going to run something that's more traditional but to your point it's all just a wait and see if you know how he continues to move forward with some of his enemies but in a department like homeland security where they have big plans to do some version of mass deportation there have been lists that have been published that show

mid-level people who have collaborated with the bad guys in their view, who are just simply career people who've done their jobs and maybe received an award from the secretary of the department for having done their jobs. And they're targeted for retribution. What does it look like at that level, Alex? Because you do have a lot of these-- Kash Patel is a name that comes to mind, for example, people who have focused a lot

on what's inside the government and extent. I mean, it seems like Frank's arguing that this retribution is going to extend past the political enemies and into these like policy areas in a way that we haven't seen before. Yeah, there are two different versions of retribution. One is what we just were talking about with Justice Department investigations. The other version is just firing people in mass, which I think is also what Frank is talking about. And I think that is almost certain to happen.

because that's also what Trump ran on. Trump has basically said, and they've made it very clear, they view the federal bureaucracy as sort of an unauthorized fourth branch of government, that they are going to disrupt in a huge way. You are going to see the biggest change of the executive branch we've seen in our lifetimes.

I absolutely right and I can make the case for easily that in a lot of respects people voted for some sort of change that branch that is not personal attribution that's not him going after people who voted against him that is in many ways a clean up of the federal bureaucracy might be dramatic but absolutely it's more policy based than anything else. I'm not sure that people voted for that I'm not sure people understand how the federal government works I'm not saying that they are not voting for saving money in

the budget, but I just don't think that people understand how some of these agencies work, how they're broken down, how there's different sub-agencies and all these other people. And to your point of people who have been part of the border security and their career employees that have worked there and all of a sudden they're going to get fired because they did something that the Biden administration wanted. They're doing their job. They're not there. They're there to execute. They're not there to enact.

Well, the Trump administration did feel that some of the federal bureaucracy did undermine him in the first term. And there's evidence they did. I mean, you had people writing anonymous op-eds, right, saying that they were like sort of subtly dragging their feet for what Trump wanted to do. Trump feels that. And so that's why you're going. Now, the critics will say he's going to politicize the federal bureaucracy. And Trump is like, well, I'm going to make the federal bureaucracy obey my orders. And work and work. Right. Needs to be efficient. It needs to actually work. Right. The board has not been the border has not been working.

Period. So if they can't get the job done, they need to go.

All right. Looks like we're going to have a lot to talk about for the next few years. Okay. Ahead here on CNN this morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis calling for an investigation after FEMA fires an employee who told workers to avoid homes with Trump signs during hurricane relief efforts. Plus, soul-searching. Democrats weigh in on how their party needs to change. And the great Dana Bash joins us with more from her conversation with Congressman Jim Jordan about what comes next in the second Trump White House.

Ultimately, will it be 15 to 20 million as he promised on the campaign trail? Well, we will see. What I know is if you send a message, if you send that message, I think that that is so good for securing our border, which the country wants. Just the opposite of what the Biden administration did.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

All right, welcome back. A FEMA employee now fired after advising members of their hurricane response team in Florida to skip homes with signs supporting Donald Trump out front. In a statement announcing the firing, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell says this, quote, "This was reprehensible. I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people, this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA, and we will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct."

On top of the firing, FEMA is also sending a new team to the impacted region to contact people who may not have been reached. Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis announced over the weekend his administration is investigating the incident. And Florida GOP Congressman Byron Donalds is calling for a change to FEMA in Trump's second term.

Anybody involved with that should be fired immediately. Not asked to resign, not brought in front of a congressional hearing. It should be fired immediately. We are not going to have a country where we're going to decide who gets help and who doesn't based upon who you support politically or what you look like or anything else. Secondarily, when it comes to FEMA, my recommendation for the Trump transition team is that FEMA becomes a standalone agency that directly reports to the White House. All right. Megan Hayes, I mean, this is...

I mean, this is the kind of thing that prompts some of this backlash. And I mean, rightfully so in this case. 100%. They should be fired. And if they're not fired yet, Trump will definitely fire them. So, I mean, they're not going to be there. But this is not something that the president would stand for or Deanne Criswell would stand for. I mean, she's been really great. I've traveled with her on a lot of disaster trips. Helping people is in the foremost of her mind. And also,

Also, what the president has said many times, he's a president for all Americans. He goes to these disaster sites all the time. So I'm not sure where they got the direction, but absolutely they should be fired. There's no question. This person in question has been fired. Whether there may be more firings or not is a separate question. All we talked about just the last couple minutes ago, I mean, a lot of this stuff, it feeds into that. And I will say this. We were on the show during a lot of those hurricanes, and we were very nervous about

People there listening to the government, people there taking what they had to say really with the authority and the understanding it needed to. And things like that, this has a lasting effect, creates ripples in the pond that cause a loss of trust in a lot of respects. And look, again, everybody that was involved with this should be fired. And look, I don't know enough about the bureaucracy when it comes to FEMA to endorse whether Donaldson's a point or not.

common sense it makes sense that FEMA should be one of the few agencies that kind of bypasses a cabinet area and goes right to the president. But we'll see. But certainly some things need to change. So Administrator Criswell does have a direct line. She travels on every one of these disaster trips with the president. They are in constant contact during these sort of things. And I know that they're also with the National Security Council. They work very closely. So I do think that there is much more

interagency flow than some of the other... It goes kind of outside of it. Yes, than some of the other bureaus would have. But I do agree with you that this is not good for government. It also... This is something... These people need help. And it is our job to help them. Yeah, I mean, it's scandalous behavior and it feeds into two Trump narratives. One is that

You know, we were talking before the bureaucracy is not on your side, but also at the time we were talking about the hurricanes that, you know, everyone insisted that everything that could be done was being done for these people. And this is one, it's just one example, but it feeds into that Trump's narrative. Even as he was himself spreading falsehoods, the thing is that clearly not everything was being done. Yeah. Frank?

Well, it's also it sets an egregious precedent, which if any other person within the government wants to exploit it in exact retribution and the other sort of way, neutrality is the highest principle for the for the federal government, that it has to treat all of its citizenry equally, regardless of how they vote in an election. And when that gets transgressed, we're actually messing with things that are extremely fundamental. So if it's

Surely it is an outlier case, but it needs to be punished as if it's not in order to create a precedent for this never happening again. All right. Ahead here on CNN this morning, so much needed rain here in the Northeast where there's wildfires burning. The latest on the fires we're seeing from coast to coast. Plus, Democrats in despair. It's worse than disarray after sweeping Election Day defeats.

Welcome back. Time now for weather. Rainfall today in the northeast, tamping down wildfire risks. Over the weekend, one wildfire near the New York-New Jersey border turned deadly, killing an 18-year-old volunteer forest ranger. And out west in California, conditions once again getting concerning as the mountain fire burns. Let's get to our meteorologist Elisa Raffa with more on this. Elisa, good morning.

Good morning. We've been tracking wildfires in New York and New Jersey all weekend. The Jennings Creek fire has burned about 3000 acres, 10% contained right now. We did have some light rain move through overnight. You could see some of these showers still exiting eastern Long Island.

and Massachusetts. But we did get some of that rain right over the fire location overnight. Now it didn't amount to much rain. Totals are, you know, well less than an inch, not really finding too much of that rain when it comes to weather and wildfires. Those winds will spread the wildfires 'cause they could pick up the embers and drop them somewhere else.

When you get about a half an inch of rain, it can stop the spread of fire. So that's kind of what we've found overnight. But you need really more than two inches of rain to really start to extinguish these fires when you have such severe drought conditions. And that's been the case for the Northeast. I mean, more than half of the Northeast has drought conditions. I mean, stretching from Maine down to the mid-Atlantic there, including parts of New Jersey. And it's because we've been extremely dry since the start of fall on September 1st. These rain deficits are 6, 7, over

inches in New York. So just again, incredibly dry. Those ground conditions just with some drought conditions. The mountain fire still burning, not much containment there. More than 20 acres burn. The concern now today is that we have wind alerts that have been issued for the Santa Barbara area there just north of Los Angeles, including that fire where these wind gusts could top.

you know, 50 MPH today again that could spread some of those fire conditions to something that will need to watch closely. But again, wind gusts will continue to pick up today. We had a front come through and that's what's kicking these winds. The fire weather conditions there also continued through Tuesday. Casey, all right, at least a ruffle for us this morning. Lisa, thanks very much.

All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, Democrats looking forward, trying to figure out who will lead their party into the future. Friend of the show, Mark McKinnon, joins us to talk about what's next. Plus, Dana Bash joins with more of her interview with Congressman Jim Jordan on where GOP election integrity concerns stand now. Do you believe that the 2024 election was free and fair? I do. I do. And why was it different from 2020 when he lost?

They've already started cheating in Lancaster. They've cheated. They'll try. And they are trying, you know, though. It's too big to rig. What worries you the most? Cheating. Which one, though? What state? All of them. I mean, they cheat.

All of them may cheat. In the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly made false claims of widespread election fraud in an attempt to once again sow doubt in the integrity of the results, just like he did in 2020. When asked in advance if they would accept the election results this time around, his allies would often respond with this conditional refrain. If we have a free, fair, and safe election. If it's a free and fair election, I will accept the results.

Ever since Trump's victory last week, Republicans have said very little about the integrity of this election. Our next guest asked one of the GOP's most influential House chairmen about exactly why that is. There were false claims about election fraud when Donald Trump lost. This time, Donald Trump won, and you think the election was free and fair. You see there's a little bit of a

No, I think the Democrats got to ask, why did we go from getting 81 million to getting 70 million? What happened to those 10 million people? Maybe they needed, maybe it's not smart to run an election where you have no vision, no record to run on. Do you believe that the 2024 election was free and fair? I do. I do. And why was it different from 2020 when he lost? Is that the only difference? No, there were concerns about 2020 with all the mail-in voting that happened.

Joining us now is CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash. And of course, you saw there, she's the co-host of CNN's State of the Union, also the host of Inside Politics. Dana, good morning. Good morning. Happy Monday. Wonderful to see you. What possibly could be the difference between 2020 and 2024? I've been trying to figure it out for the last 24 hours, and I think I've come up with it.

He won. Wow. Astonishing. No, I mean, seriously. It's it's and look, I have seen some like, you know, some people on the on the left online saying, you know, where are the 10 million votes? What happened to them? But what matters the most is that the Democratic leadership up and down, starting with Kamala Harris, said, OK,

I lost this election, called him to concede, didn't claim one ounce of fraud or cheating because there isn't any evidence, widespread evidence of fraud or cheating, and we're going to have a peaceful transition. And this is how it's done. And we all knew that if he actually won free and fair, that this would be the case. But I just felt that it was important to make this point because the concept of

of cheating was so widespread cheating. Certainly there's all there always. Right. There's always the issue. And the reason why the statement is always these are false claims is that there's never enough evidence that it would change the outcome. Correct. Right. Even if there are a handful of ballots or registrations. Right. Correct. Every election, obviously, we need the officials to be making sure that they are continuing to do that. But it's not so big. Correct. And the integrity of

our electoral process is so fundamental and it was so undermined by Donald Trump and his allies making all of these false claims to the point that there was an insurrection and you were at the Capitol that day. So now that we are in a different place, the shoe is on another foot, I think I just felt that it was important to make that point. Yeah. Matt Gorman, I mean,

I appreciate seeing Republicans say this was a free and fair election. And it's, I mean, the results are very, very clear. But do you think that this means, and honestly, I feel grateful it was a clear result one way or the other for the sake of the country. Yes. But I'm interested in what you think Republicans and how they should be talking and leading on this now, especially because this again should be, you know, you're only allowed two presidential terms. This is Donald Trump's last presidential term. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I,

I actually echo exactly what you said. And I was talking to a lot of folks in the lead up for the election. And they were saying, look, they just want a clear result, right? They don't want any murkiness, not coming down to a state. God forbid it's a Florida 2000 again, where it's hundreds of votes separating.

A clear result, I think, was very helpful for the country in both aspects, right? A clear loss, a clear win. And I think you're right. Hopefully, I hope this turns the page on a lot of the stuff from 2020 and a lot of that. And I think you're exactly right. A clear result in the long run is so much more helpful to the country. I just want to add, and I don't think that you were suggesting anything other than this, but I want to say it flatly, there was a clear result in 2020.

Yeah, no, that's not what I was saying. No, I know, I know, I know, I know. But because it was so undermined to try to put a stake in the heart of this notion that there's widespread cheating and fraud. Again, does it happen on a small level? Sure. Are there mistakes because people are human and machines get messed up? Absolutely. But as you said, certainly not enough to change the election in 2020 and this election, it was very clear.

Yeah. Alex Thompson, what do you hear from Democrats on this question and how they're taking it in? Because I also think it's worth, as Dana noted, there's a concession call. The president is hosting Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday, I believe, right? I mean, they clearly think that it's important to send a message to the country that this is going to be a peaceful transfer of power.

Yeah, and they feel that Republicans are still not being blamed for playing with fire before the election. I mean, you have Republicans going out there talking about one undocumented immigrant in Michigan being able to cast their vote, acting as if this was indicative of widespread fraud. I think there's also a little bit of frustration of that they're not being rewarded for just basic Democratic, like, Democratic, like, small-t democracy behavior when Trump didn't do the same thing four years ago.

Yeah, I mean, I remember during the transition, we didn't know if he was going to leave the White House on the 20th. We were not sure. There were many plans in place of what happens on the 20th if he's still there. I mean, because staff comes in, they have to flip the house.

flip the house. There's a lot of things that happen. And so living through that experience, it's really nice to see the president and the vice president do what we're supposed to do in democracy that wasn't afforded to them and sort of take the high road. But I think that's sort of how Joe Biden has spent his whole career, right? No one ever gives him the credit for some of the stuff that he's doing. And he's continuing to go along with our institutions and the traditions that we have in this country that make it so powerful because that is core to who he is. Yeah.

Dana, while I have you, I also want to ask you about the interview you did with Bernie Sanders over the weekend. You talked to him, and he talked a little bit about Joe Rogan and the Joe Rogan experience. Let's watch that. Look, you can have an argument with Rogan, agree with him, disagree with him, but what's the problem going on in those shows?

It's hard for me to understand that. You have an alternative media out there, a lot of podcasts that have millions and millions of viewers. Get on the show. Disagree with you here. I agree with you there. I don't see a problem in doing that. And you're right. I got vilified by some of the Democratic establishment because I went on Rogan's show. Now a lot of other people are doing just that.

Bernie Sanders a bit of a lightning rod at the moment as Democrats are sort of the recriminations are ongoing among them. What do you make of what he kind of had to say overall and specifically about that? Well, the reason I wanted to ask him about Joe Rogan is because in the days since the election, you've heard a lot of Democrats saying we need to find our own Joe Rogan.

And Joe Rogan was their Joe Rogan. And so the-- - Joe Rogan was basically a Bernie supporter. - He was, he was. He endorsed him. And so the question that I, and I wanted to sort of illuminate this, shine a light on this with my interview with Senator Sanders was,

That to me is such a prime example of where Democrats have kind of lost those people. Now, the point I was making with him is that there are a lot of things that Joe Rogan says and believes that a lot of Democrats just totally shun. He's said not great things about some social issues that Democrats don't agree with. He doesn't support vaccines.

And so that is part of the reason why when Bernie Sanders went on the show, he got vilified. Him getting vilified by a lot of people on the left is case in point of the intolerance among a lot of people in the Democratic Party who claim that their whole mission is to be tolerant.

Well, and isn't that kind of a central piece of the conversation Democrats are having now about why this happened? It is. It is. It is. And that's precisely why. Now, Bernie's... Bernie. Senator Sanders. I covered the man. I was on the road with him for a really long time. Everybody calls him Bernie, but I agree with you. We're sitting in Washington, so it should be Senator Sanders. You know, his whole thing is we... Our policies are not geared toward the working people. We went back and forth on that because...

President Biden's policies were geared toward the working people in a lot of ways. But it's also about the culture, the messaging, the approach.

And that is, I think, the sort of Joe Rogan example is a key one. - Well, I was gonna say, so again, I spent six, eight months on the road with Bernie Sanders. And honestly, the rallies that I went to in 2016 that had the most energy were Bernie Sanders rallies and obviously Donald Trump rallies. I then went on to cover Hillary Clinton. It was a totally different experience. Those voters in those Bernie Sanders rallies

were often people who would say, when you would ask them, okay, who's your second choice? This guy's probably not going to win. They would say Trump. It's the horseshoe theory. Right? And it's a cultural thing. It's a cultural thing, but it's also us against them. I mean, when I've talked to several Democrats, sort of veteran Democrats, since the election about what the Harris campaign could have done sort of more of, it was more of...

um, it wasn't so much her policies. It was the language of fighting against the man, fighting against corporations, being there for you in a way that Bernie Sanders, obviously he it's in his DNA, but that's also the appeal of Donald Trump as incongruous as it might be since he's a billionaire, uh,

that is the appeal. Yeah, but he's a billionaire from Queens who was always shunned by the elites. Precisely. Yeah, identify with that. Real quick, I think also the focus on Rogan, it's indicative of a larger problem. Kamala Harris didn't lose because she didn't go on Joe Rogan. She lost because not going on Rogan, it was informed by a broader strategy, I think, of not taking risks, not being creative, not being scrappy, so to speak, kicking a bunch of field goals and hoping the other team would just

It turned the ball over and implode on their own. And I think that is, in a lot of respects, I just can't pick. What was one thing that she did? It's like, oh, you know, that was pretty creative. That was pretty inventive. There really wasn't one. Call Your Daddy was pretty creative.

different. It was a sympathetic, it was talking to their own audience. There was very little room for any sort of error or disagreement is your point. Well and it wasn't building a bigger tent. The people that are listening to Call Her Daddy were mostly already Kamala Harris supporters, at least I think that's how the campaign felt about it at the time. It was about rallying people, especially young women, young single women who are already inclined to support her. Joe Rogan would have been about people that are maybe skeptical of her. The whole Bernie conversation, Senator Sanders,

is, you know, there's a Democratic circular firing squad right now, and he has a bazooka right now. And you're going to see a lot more to come. Yeah, well, Nancy Pelosi clearly was piqued by what Bernie Sanders had to say. Look who's talking. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think. And then Jamie Harrison, the DNC chair, called it BS. But, you know, he stood by it. I asked him about it.

Yeah, no, for sure. And I think Bernie in particular is a, in some ways he's a stand-in in all these Democratic conversations for the recriminations against the left of the party, but he sort of stands on the left in a way that's different, I think, than what you got at with your Rogan interview. Dana, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, coming up next here on CNN This Morning, Saturday Night Live's first post-election show, the cast's message to the president-elect after Tuesday's results, plus...

Democrats reckon with Trump's victory how party members are playing the blame game. Mark McKinnon joins us to discuss. Anyone who's saying now this was not a winnable campaign didn't say that back in August. The reason we didn't win ultimately is we didn't listen enough to people on the ground. For months, Democrats have been saying, how is this even close? And they're right, it wasn't.

They could not conceive of a second Trump term, but they should have. When does America ever turn down seconds? I mean, come on. Democratic soul-searching continuing over the weekend. The party trying to figure out where to go from here. A number of Democrats now beginning to speak out about what they think led to their disastrous election night results. They've offered an array of different diagnoses. Here's one of them.

We have a wing of our party that shames us, that tries to cancel people who even bring up these difficult topics, and frankly, shames voters. This is the same group of people who told us to defund the police, who told us that there wasn't a problem at the southern border, who told us that inflation was transient, whatever that means, and who told us that Biden was just fine. And they're out of touch with voters. If we just listen to voters on all of these issues, they were telling us the truth.

All right. Joining us now, former adviser George W. Bush and John McCain, Mark McKinnon, also the creator of Paramount's The Circus. Mark, if it's Monday, it's always great to see you. This is our first, you know, our first Monday in the Trump transition, shall we say. The Moulton interview there, I'm really interested to know what you had to say because I have to say about it.

Because in so many ways, this interview kind of encapsulates exactly what he was talking about. He was on there. I don't know if you read the chyron. It's that he's responding to backlash over his own comments. This is what he had said. Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. Mr. Moulton, again, he tells the New York Times this quote. I have two little girls. I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete. But as a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid.

to say that and then he has to go and do this interview and this is how he puts it he basically says I didn't use exactly the right words when I said that watch

Look, I was just speaking authentically as a parent about one of many issues where Democrats are just out of touch with the majority of Americans. And I stand by my position, even though I may not have used exactly the right words. And I'm willing to have this debate, as I've been having with LGBTQ advocates and others, some of whom agree with me and others who don't. Does that not just encapsulate exactly the entirety of the issue people are trying to put their finger on?

That is so perfect, Casey. Yeah, you know, I mean, maybe the only good news of this election for Democrats is that it was such a thorough ass kicking that it's really, you know, there's no sort of there should be data. Was it this or was it that? It was everything. And again, I'd say that just from experience.

You spend enough time in the desert, you're going to find water. Well, the Democrats are now in the desert, and they're going to have to figure out how to find water again. And Bill Clinton did it after the Reagan years with the New Democrats. George W. Bush did it with compassionate conservatism. Donald Trump did it with Make America Great Again. But

The clear message for Democrats is you've got to rethink everything, especially when Donald Trump has stolen the very coalition that was the backbone of the Democratic Party, the working class of America. And when you look at the demographics of the new coalition, what Trump built of black voters, Hispanic voters, young voters, man, this is, you know, this is, again, not one thing or the other. It's everything that Democrats have to start from scratch, and they've got a lot of work to do.

Yeah, Mark, Maureen Dowd put it this way in the New York Times over the weekend. She said, the headline is Democrats in the case of mistaken identity politics. Quote, some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke. The party embraced a worldview of hyper-political correctness, condescension, and cancellation. This alienated half the country or more, and the chaos and anti-Semitism at many college campuses certainly didn't help. And

I was reading over the weekend also one voter was speaking to a reporter, had to pick one word for each. They picked the word crazy. It was a woman. She picked the word crazy for Donald Trump. She picked the word preachy for Kamala Harris and then was asked, OK, would you vote for? She says, I voted for Donald Trump because crazy doesn't look down on me. What do you make of that?

That's that's really great. I mean, there's no question that most Americans felt the Democratic Party just become condescending, that it become a party of sort of the faculty lounge that thought that they were better than everybody else. Your discussion on the Rogan podcast is a good one, because I think that that's going to America where they are. And Rogan is a guy who.

whether you agree with him or not, is really, you know, like you said, he was Bernie before he was Trump. He's kind of, you know, at least seems to be open-minded. And the notion that you would only communicate with audiences that are sympathetic to you, Rogan will listen. And the interesting thing about Rogan's audience is, you think about the new sort of media ecosystem,

Rogan has a greater audience, 11 million people, than NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC combined, which is about 10 million on a good night. So you can hit Rogan, go where the voters are, fish where the fish are. That's what Democrats have to learn. Yeah. Mark.

Mark, when you say when you're in the desert, you've got to rebuild, in many ways that often comes in the form, especially considering how we do politics, of a single person, whether it's Bill Clinton in 1992 or Barack Obama in 2008, probably the sharpest example. You know, he gave that speech at the convention that nominated Kerry, and so then he kind of burst onto the scene. But he wasn't really there before that.

Democrats, you know, part of why Joe Biden decided that he was going to run again was because, I mean, yes, they did better than expected in the midterms. That was a huge part of it. But also there was no kind of natural successor that he thought could win, could beat Donald Trump. Who do you who do you think is out there? Who are Democrats going to look to to try to take up the mantle in four years?

I'm so glad you brought up this point Casey because I 100% agree with this. It's not going to be one policy or one thing or one messaging strategy or going to just go into Rogan. As I said, it's sort of everything but it also requires

It requires somebody to hold the torch and say, follow me. We're going this way. It was Clinton. It was Bush. It was Trump. It's leadership that coalesces under somebody that's willing to sort of march forward under the banner. I don't know who that's going to be yet, but that's what the next four years is going to be all about. I mean, I like Gretchen Whitmer. I like Josh Shapiro. I think those are both really good political athletes that –

come from the places where the coalition needs to be rebuilt, this kind of the heartland of America. I mean, I like Whitmer because she's been through a lot. And I want to see one president in my lifetime. And I just, I don't think, maybe it's naive, but I don't think that Americans are voting

against Democrats just because of a woman candidate. I think in a lot of ways, America needs a woman candidate and wants a woman candidate that is more trustworthy and believable and credible than most of their male counterparts. I think there are other fundamentals that work. Again, maybe naive, but I'd like to see it in my time. And I think Whitmer is a good natural athlete. But again, there's others like Shapiro. But again, we'll see over the next four years. But that's a really good point. I'm glad you made it. Thanks, Casey.

All right. Mark McKinnon, always grateful to have you on the show, sir. Thank you so much. I'll see you next week, if not before. All right. Turning now to this, a throwback. This was Saturday Night Live eight years ago. I'm not giving up and neither should you.

That was how the SNL cast opened their first show after Trump's win in 2016. Kate McKinnon, as Hillary Clinton, mournfully, you may recognize Leonard Cohen's hallelujah. You could really almost hear the emotion in her voice. Now SNL striking a notably different tone after the second Trump victory. Donald Trump, who tried to forcibly overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office by an overwhelming majority.

This is the same Donald Trump who openly called for vengeance against his political enemies. And that is why we at SNL would like to say to Donald Trump, we have been with you all along. And we're so excited to debut our new impression, Hot Jacked Trump. That's right. That's right, it's me, Hot Jacked Trump. They finally got the body right.

Only took eight years, Alex. Got it. Yeah. Well, I mean, like you had Kate McKinnon in 2016. But you had Jimmy Kimmel and Steve Colbert basically crying on camera. It's like, guys, this is prime opportunity for comedy. And they leave it on the table. That was at least pretty funny.

And they're mocking something that's totally real. I mean, the sense of resignation that confronts the second Bush term is real. And then you saw Jeff Bezos in the Washington Post. Second Trump term. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Chickening out in the face of all this by not endorsing it. You can see Jeff Bezos starting to accommodate himself to Trump. You see all the way in which Elon Musk, all these oligarchs who were anti-Trump at one point now becoming pro-Trump. That's naturally happening. And it's actually worthy of political satire. I don't say I, I,

I'm glad they at least tried to be funny this time. And then the second thing, sort of to his point, I think you're going to see a very different reaction from the left of this country in response to the second Trump term than you saw in the first. Fair enough. All right, you mentioned Elon Musk. Let's just, he also, well, he was impersonated as well on SNL. Let's watch.

Worst case scenario, meaning scenario, if our planet falls apart, we can all go to Mars with the other man that we love and trust, Elon Musk. Check it out, Doc Mega. Yeah, but seriously, I run the country now.

And America's going to be like one of my rockets, you know, they're super cool and super fun. But there's a slight chance it could blow up and everybody dies. I'm Doc Mega. See you in the White House. USA! USA! Alright.

All right. And this is already, I mean, Elon Musk has clearly been around in Mar-a-Lago already. Kara Swisher, I talked to her the day after the election. She's like, I don't think there's going to be room for these two people for very long because these two egos are going to clash with each other. But for now. I don't know. We'll see. I mean, look, who hosted SNL in the last 10 years? Donald Trump and Elon Musk, right? Shows how much things have kind of shifted, right? Where they've kind of been turned on in a lot of ways. Donald Trump today is a presidential candidate.

which was a funny thing back in 2015 doing the hotline bling dance. Elon Musk needs Donald Trump now more than Donald Trump needed Elon Musk in the election time, which he did need. So to your point, I don't know how much longer he's going to stay. Being on Zelensky calls and some of these foreign leader calls is pretty wild. So I think time will tell how long Elon Musk stays around. Well, all right, guys, thank you very much for being with us today. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.