Who is Susie Wiles?
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It's Friday, November 8th, right now on CNN This Morning. "Susie likes to stay in the background. She's not in the background." From the background to the spotlight, Donald Trump fills his most important post chief of staff with a key member of his inner circle. And this: "I'm convinced we're going to have a larger majority this time." Hanging in the balance, can Republicans squeak out another win and regain control of the House? Or keep control of the House, I should say. And this: "You can't love your country only when you win."

Accepting defeat, President Biden promises a peaceful transition of power as he looks at his legacy in office. And later... Oh look, there's a lot of blame to go around. The blame game. Democrats looking inward, trying to figure out what went wrong and what's next for the party.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at a beautiful sunrise in New York City. It's Friday, so, you know, the world seems to know that. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Just two days after a decisive electoral victory, Donald Trump has made his first and what could be his most important staffing decision. The president-elect choosing 2024 campaign co-chair Susie Wiles to be his White House chief of staff.

Announcing the decision yesterday, Trump called Wiles, quote, tough, smart, and innovative. Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie and Chris, the job you did. Susie, come Susie, come here. Come here, Susie. Chris, come here, Chris.

Suzy likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice baby. We call her the ice baby. Thank you, Suzy. Look at her. She's shy. I've never seen her be shy before. Suzy.

A source telling CNN, "Wiles accepted the job on the condition that she continue to be empowered to control access to Trump. During the campaign, this allowed her to insulate him from his most extreme advisors and other right-wing figures considered to be too fringe." The source saying, quote, "The clown car can't come into the White House at will." And he agrees with her. It is that quote, "clown car," that made the job of chief of staff especially challenging during Donald Trump's first term.

John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who held the position for a year and a half, once confided in a White House communications aide saying this, quote, this is the most expletive job I've ever had. People apparently think that I care when they write that I might be fired. If that ever happened, it would be the best day I've had since I walked into this place. Kelly was one of four men who served as chief of staff during Trump's first term, a reflection of Trump's chaotic management style, shall we say.

The White House Chief of Staff Ryan Spreves forced out and replaced now by the current Homeland Security Secretary, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly. Chief of Staff John Kelly will leave his post at the White House at the end of the year. President Trump has just tweeted that Budget Director Mick Mulvaney will be named his acting Chief of Staff. Mick Mulvaney's gone.

He's gone. The president announcing on Twitter just in the last several minutes that he's naming the Republican congressman from North Carolina, Mark Meadows, as his new chief of staff.

Walk down memory lane. All right. Joining us now to discuss Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Philippe Reines, former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, Matt Gorman, Republican strategist, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you guys for being here. Matt Gorman, I want to start with you on Susie Wiles because this is

She's obviously been with Trump for the last four years, but she is not someone who was new to politics. She was in Republican politics for a long time before Trump was on the scene. She's incredibly deeply and widely respected. She's the first woman that's going to hold this role, which is historic. And I think it's very telling that basically her one condition was I control access to the guy in the front office.

A great pick. She's a great operative, has a lot of respect from the party. And I think also, you know, look, her and Chris LaCivita ran a very, very good campaign. I would have said that if they lost. It was very disciplined. They did their best to, I think, really control some of the, as they kind of put, the impulses on Trump that would lead him to self-destruct in some ways. And they did a great job on that. And one of the other things

things that makes it new for a person like Suzy to come into this job as opposed to the other four Trump chiefs of staff. She's the first, I guess, real operative to be it, right? Like you had Reince Priebus, who's a chairman, members of Congress, even a general. She's an operative, so she gets the tactics of this. She understands, I think, in a better way, I assume, maybe more than the other folks, exactly how the trains are supposed to run on time and not at a high level, at a very granular level. All right.

All right, Ken Duberstein, Ronald Reagan was probably the last operative in that mold. But you know- Well, we do have Rahm Emanuel, who was a congressman, but also definitely fancied himself an operative. Fair, fair, fair point. Fair, fair, fair point. But anyway, continue. No, great. Good staffing choice, grownups in the room, all of the above. And I think we can agree with that. Let's take a look at his statement last night.

helped me and one of the greatest victories in American history, an integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns. And the question is, is he, yes, she is the force restraining the former president and

the grownup in the room, but he's still, even in announcing this wonderful pick, he's still going back to this nonsense of having won the 2020 election. And I just wonder all of these efforts and attempts to restrain the former president's impulses and future president's impulses,

how good a job can she actually do? - I don't think she sees her role as restraining him, frankly, and I think that's why she's been successful. I think she sees her role as channeling those impulses and managing around him, but she's someone who manages down much more than she manages up, and she has a lot of respect for her abilities as a manager, right? The staff that she manages,

Things very very highly of her so she's able to create non chaotic conditions around Trump But she really doesn't try to you know she really was on board with the sort of let Trump be Trump Strategy of the campaign the idea was he's gonna say what he's gonna say and we're gonna sort of run a professional operation around that but we're not gonna tell him what he can and can't do because that is always doomed to fail

One of the things that I thought was most interesting, Philippe, was that she was often on the road with Trump. So, I mean, to Molly's point, she kind of understood that, OK,

Okay, you can't make him do anything that he doesn't want to do but also that with Trump Proximity is power because typically in a job like that you wouldn't necessarily be on the campaign plane all the time You know, I mean many of the campaign managers I've covered in the past were back in you know Boston or New York or kind of wherever the campaign headquarters were Wilmington that's not how she operated kind of her understanding of how to work with him seems

to be a significant part of her success here.

Yeah, well, I mean, to go back to Elliot's term about adult in the room, by implication, that means the other people in the room are children. So it's unfortunate that we're right back to this where there has to be someone who can, whatever term you want to use, control, corral. Yes, it is a little strange for a campaign manager to be on the road so much, but we should see that for what it is. It's not, it wasn't a move out of power to be close to power, it was a move out of fear.

What happens when he listens to Corey Lewandowski? What happens when Laura Loomer gets on the plane? This guy is not any different. Look, congratulations to her. Good luck to her because this is going to be a doozy. It's going to be worse.

But let's not pretend, let's hopefully not go through months of what Trump are we gonna see? Well, I just said it. Let Trump be Trump. He was Trump. We're gonna see that no matter who works for him. Now, ideally, what we'll see from someone like Susan that we didn't see from someone like Reince Priebus is to at least be able to exert a modicum of common sense and hey,

That's not a good idea. Now, if he says at the end of the day, "I heard you, now get out of here," that's fine. But that wasn't going on with his first round of team in 2016. - Look, I'll say this. With the Tim Alberta, they wrote a very deeply sourced piece from kind of the inside of this campaign. And I think to Susie and Chris's credit,

they stared down Lewandowski and those other fringe folks. And I think, Molly, I think the way you put it is exactly right. It's not as much as controlling Trump as they view as protecting him from these outside people who I think want to use the position of the White House, the campaign back then, or just Trump for their own sorts of goals, whatever they may be. And I think when- Wasn't that the accusation that was leveled at La Sabita there at the end? Exactly, but I think that was a wrong accusation based on people trying to discredit

and get to kind of weasel in a little bit there. So I think that is a, and they stared that down and Trump sided with them, I think rightly. So I think that was a big test and it shows, I think that, you know, that could be common. For both of you, it's a really charitable way to speak about the American presidency and what we're getting from an individual that we've had as president before. There's been a template and a roadmap for letting Trump be Trump. And I don't mean to keep picking on Molly's comment here, but it's a fair one. I didn't even coin it.

Touché. Touché. Anything Corey Lewandowski coined it for that? I know we got to run, but it's just... I think Wes Wing coined it. Everybody coined it. Okay, it's an English expression. Nobody coined it. No one here is being original. No one here is being original. On this particular thing. I commend the optimism and the hope that this all works out very well, but...

giving the keys to an individual that we've seen the template of how it works out before. I can hope that she does a great job here.

Well, I mean, take it up with the American people. No, I'm not disputing. This is not about the results of the election or anything else. It's more just how do you expect the former president to govern when given a chance again? And there's enough data going back to even before 2015. This isn't any great Rubik's Cube to figure out. I mean, Donald Trump is about as...

complicated to some of us and to me to figure out as a clogged toilet is to a plumber. I mean, we've seen it. It hasn't happened in 130-something years where someone had it, lost it, came back to it. But we've seen it. And he's older, and he's more cantankerous, and he's more stubborn.

you know why was laura loomer on the plane susie wiles was the campaign manager so we can't say that she effectively did x y or z and she would get her off the plane which doesn't happen and didn't happen with lewin dowsey no it's not in florida there's a pretty low bar but okay look i i getting letting laura loomer on but at least getting her off his impulses are his impulses i to me you know of the four that donald trump had in the first term john kelly was the most capable

I knew him a little bit, and she strikes me as that kind of no-nonsense, I know how to make the place work. And I think there's going to be a lot of frustration because Trump is going to say he won, and because when you win, you think everything you did was great.

So having Laura on the flight to the debate might not have been as dumb as people thought. All right, coming up here on CNN This Morning, who will control the House? Congressman Greg Lansman of Ohio joins us live as Democrats insist they still have a path to win skeptical. Plus, dangerous wildfires ripping through California, forcing thousands from their homes. And President Biden's final months in office after a lifetime of service.

This country needs a leader, and leaders change attitudes about people. I've said many times, you can't love your country only when you win. You can't love your neighbor only when you agree. Something I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, is see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Bring down the temperature.

President Biden addressing his party and the nation as he prepares to hand over the presidency back to the man he replaced four years ago. During his speech in the Rose Garden, the president touted his accomplishments and pledged to carry out a peaceful transfer of power. I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory. And I assured him that I'd direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition.

That's what the American people deserve. You're hurting. I hear you and I see you. But don't forget, don't forget all that we accomplished. It's been a historic presidency. Not because I'm president, because what we've done, what you've done. So there was the president there.

outgoing now, Philippe. I think the big question here, and there are all kinds of recriminations going on behind the scenes. Frank Forer wrote this in The Atlantic. Earlier this fall, one of Joe Biden's closest aides felt compelled to tell the president a hard truth about Kamala Harris's run for the presidency. You have more to lose than she does. And now he's lost it. Joe Biden cannot escape the fact that his four years in office paved the way for the return of Donald Trump. This is his legacy. Everything else is an asterisk. Do you agree?

Not as harsh as that, and I hope it's wrong. You know, I think it's first important to put into context what happened, because when people lose, they seem to think they did nothing right. When people win, they say they did everything perfectly. Donald Trump won, I think, 312 to 226 when it's all said and done.

He -- Joe Biden won 306 to whatever. These numbers are pretty mirrored. Biden won by 7 million votes, Trump by 4 million now, and counting, let's just be gracious and say it's the same thing. So these are pretty mirror images.

After that election, the Republican Party didn't say, "Oh my God, it's back to square one. Are we in the wrong place on abortion? Are we in the wrong place on this or that?" In fact, they did the opposite. They went ahead and re-- with that. Now, I think this was a very difficult conversation, election. At the end of the day, we lost because of inflation. And I'm not dismissing anything else, but I think it's an interesting question and a hard argument to make

If inflation were gone and the economy was going the way it was, would these other things in isolation have had the same result? Do you think Biden should have run for reelection? I think he made the right decision not to. I don't think any Democrat... No, no, I mean back in 2022 when he had an opportunity to say, I'm going to do the one term that people think that I promised them. Well, he didn't, unfortunately. So we all heard something he didn't say.

Second, it's really naive of us to have nominated someone in 2020 who was at the time, what, 76? And think, oh my God, the guy's actually going to continue to age.

There's no one that age who thinks, you know what, I can't do it anymore. Well, another thing, though. It's good that he stepped aside. It was the right decision. Think about what it would have looked like had the president right out of the gate said that he wasn't running for re-election. He would have rendered himself a lame duck from the first day, either the first day he walked into office or two years in. And I think we would have been having a very different conversation now when he still might have won.

either he or whomever else might have still lost to Donald Trump. I just think it's a little bit, sorry, go ahead. - No, no, no, I also wonder, pretend that 2022 was a normal midterm year for the president's first term,

You know what I mean? They get throttled. And it's a terrible night for Democrats. Does that change the calculus? Because he has said, right, in a lot of ways, 2022 has spurred him to go and continue on. If they have a really bad night, wow. I just have a really hard time believing that everything would have been great for Democrats for four years if the man sitting in the White House from the day he walked in and said he wasn't running. He still would have owned it all. Well,

Well, I mean, a lot of Democrats that I've spoken to think that the time for him to announce he wasn't running for reelection was at the midterms. When Republicans won the midterms overall, they won the vote in the midterms. They just didn't do as well as some people had expected. And so Democrats took that as a signal to continue. But the other thing that I think is missing from this conversation is, you know, Biden is up there talking about a historic presidency and his legacy and all the things he accomplished.

But if inflation is what led to this result, I mean, that is in at least some part due to the policies of this administration. The policies of this administration created the inflation and the border chaos that people pointed to as the reasons that they were supporting Trump. So to the extent that this election was a referendum on those issues, it was a referendum on the policies of this administration. And that, too, is Joe Biden's legacy. Yeah, I don't mean that those things weren't a tsunami.

that couldn't control. I just want to isolate, you know, look at what it was. People in D.C. in particular, but, you know, they barraged the heirs with $40 million worth of trans ads. They put... So you don't... So it's the walk away from this that President Trump has a mandate, a moral mandate, to go after everything the Republicans don't like. And I don't think that that's the case now any more than it was four years ago. I also don't think that that's an extrapolation that you can make

If you're saying that these two races were the same, he won. That's great. You know what? We're still a 50-50 nation than we were a week ago. And to the earlier conversation about Susie Wiles, we'll see how he deals with that. And we all know in our hearts how he's going to deal with it. He's not going to try to address that. And that's the problem. All right. Still ahead here on CNN This Morning, what happens now? Michael Smirconish joins us to break down how the election unfolded and how President-elect Trump might tackle the promises he's made. Plus.

All my, everything got destroyed. We didn't have time to do anything but leave. A massive wildfire raging in California, destroying dozens of homes. All right, welcome back. Hundreds of firefighters still working to contain a dangerous wildfire in Ventura County, California, that's left dozens without their homes. This is like surreal. I mean, I know we live in a fire danger area, but this is, it came out of nowhere. It was so fast.

More than 130 homes have been destroyed, 14,000 people under evacuation orders. High winds have been fueling the fires, scorching more than 20,400 acres. Let's get to our meteorologist, Derek Van Dam, with the conditions that are expected today. Derek, good morning.

Yeah, I just checked the latest containment numbers from the mountain fire and they're at a 5% containment. So hey, we'll take what we can get at this moment in time because for a long period it was at 0% containment. But the brave and heroic men and women who are on the ground fighting this fire as we speak are making slow but steady progress. And the winds and the weather are also helping and cooperating as well, not as

strong with the Santa Ana wind event that we had in the middle of this work week. I had died down considerably. The relative humidity levels are coming up. Look, there's still a red flag warning for the interior coastal mountain range across southwestern California. And then there's a lot of smoke circulating in and around

these counties as well. El Los Angeles into Ventura, San Bernardino. These areas will be inundated by thick smoke through the course of the day and into the early parts of the weekend as well. High fire risk along the northeast into the mid Atlantic. And then I want to point your attention to the major snowstorm that is unfolding across portions of eastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico. Look at these snowfall totals. That's right. Three feet of snow in some locations

and it is still dumping. We've got plenty of snow on the way across this area. You can see with that shading of white, the unfortunate part of this is that it is stranding residents on the roadways, on some of the local highways. We've had the snow drifts here that have just basically paralyzed some of these roadways and making it for a very difficult and dangerous travel conditions across the region. Winter has arrived in some parts of the United States. Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thank you. Have a great weekend. Have a good weekend.

All right, coming up on CNN this morning, Republicans feeling confident about winning the House, pulling off a trifecta. If that happens, how would the party govern? Plus, Democrats despairing, blindsided on election night. If we want to win, we have got to listen to voters. And boy, did they tell us loud and clear what they thought of us. The House has been the only firewall in Washington standing between Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, and the American people.

Now, we plead defense. We blocked their woke America last agenda. We also had the smallest Republican majority in U.S. history. But you know what the good news is? We're about to grow that majority. That's what's going to happen on November 5th.

That was House Speaker Mike Johnson's prediction nearly two weeks ago. It seems increasingly likely to come true. Republicans are feeling more bullish about their chances to expand their admittedly very narrow majority in the House. With the presidency and the Senate already set to be in GOP hands, House control would amount to a stunning clean sweep by Republicans.

House Democrats insisting they still have a path to the majority through outstanding races out West and promising to stand unified if Republicans do in fact win the chamber. Whether or not we will be operating from a minority or a majority or whichever position, we must be a loyal opposition to this president and get ready

to take the house back in two years. I do believe that we lost these districts on people's feelings. All right, joining us to discuss Democratic Congressman Greg Lansman of Ohio. He won reelection Tuesday in a battleground district. Congressman, good morning. Thank you for being here.

Good morning. How are you? So let me start with why, what happened. You won your race in a battleground district. Kamala Harris obviously lost the presidential race in a very sweeping way. What message do you take from voters? Why did they send you a different message than they sent to Kamala Harris?

Yeah, a lot of us overperformed the top of the ticket. And I think in large part, at least for us, it was that we got a lot done in our first term. We made things happen. We brought tens of millions of dollars back. And we were

- You know, normal. You know, we've always led in a, I've always led in a very normal, pragmatic, bipartisan way. And I do think that's what most voters want. They're tired of the far right and the far left. And yes, they just elected Donald Trump, but I don't think they want the chaos or extremism or cruelty.

that sometimes comes along with him and his rhetoric. I do think, you know, they obviously chose him, but I think they, Republicans in the House and the Senate and Trump have to be very mindful of the fact that most people really just want us to get to work. They want us to solve problems and they want us to do it in a really pragmatic, bipartisan way. I honestly believe that.

Sir, how much do you think culture has to do with this? And I want to read you something that one of your colleagues, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, told the New York Times. He says this, quote, Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. 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

to say that. Is this a reflection of what you're calling people looking for normal? Do you agree with what Congressman Moulton says there? I think anytime that voters choose somebody else, oftentimes, or that they're sending a message like, you're not listening to us, or we don't feel included. And so, yeah, I do think that, look,

This happens on both sides. There are folks on the far right who alienate a ton of people. There are folks on the far left who alienate a ton of people. This is a moment, I think, for the center left and the center right to work together because in the end,

we want to get past this moment where folks are being alienated. Take, take the issue of, of, uh, you know, trans rights. Nobody in this country wants people bullying trans kids, kids that are struggling with gender identity, identity issues at all. They, they don't want them, uh, you know, bullied and mess with. And at the same time, they don't want government telling people what to do. So, you know, we go to a place where we have local control and people make the decisions on, on, uh,

who plays what locally and the rest of us focus on the economy and a bipartisan border fix and all of those things. But no one wants Congress to start or politicians to start bullying trans kids. And I think the far right has to stop. And I think the far left have to leave these kids alone too.

Sir, you obviously were vocal on issues around Israel in particular, and we saw a number of Jewish voters vote Republican this time. There now is this kind of back and forth in the Democratic Party. Some progressives say, well, Kamala Harris didn't go far enough

on the war in Gaza, on condemning Israel over that. There are others who say, no, the opposite story is true. Part of why some more moderate, perhaps, people in America rejected the Democrats this time is because there was too much anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic rhetoric. What, for you, is the lesson for the Democratic Party around how they should be talking about Israel?

So in terms of the election, I don't know. I mean, the data suggests that this –

The issue is hugely important to a lot of people, but it wasn't what drove their decision. And yes, I've been very pro-Israel and will continue to be. I also believe in a sustainable peace and Palestinian self-determination. So you can be both. And so, you know, and I won across the board here in our district and picked up.

ground, I think, in almost every corner of the district. So I think it's really more about being strong and having convictions. And, you know, I do think the party...

or some on the far left, you know, made things more complicated. And, you know, I don't think that helped her, but I don't think that's why she lost. I think the economy, obviously, it just hurts those that are perceived to be incumbents or actually incumbents. And so, you know, the moment for Democrats, I think now is for those of us in the center,

left to work with the folks on the far left and say, look, let's come to some understanding about how we're going to talk and work together because we don't want to end up like my Republican colleagues, that they are so frustrated with the far right. And a lot of them are worried that when they get back to Washington, it's going to be the far right driving the agenda, which will not be good for the American people or the Republican Party.

All right. Congressman Greg Lansman for us this morning, sir. Thanks very much for your time. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you. Yeah. All right. What went wrong, as we were just discussing, has been the big question for Democrats. The party is on track to lose the popular vote in a presidential election for the first time in 20 years. And now members are scrambling for answers as Republicans sweep back into power in Washington.

I think we do need to reconnect with working class voters. We haven't done enough for them. We haven't spoken to their concerns. And by definition, we're out of touch because they clearly don't support us at the polls. I'm grateful for the advocacy and the ideas that the far left brings to our party, but we can't be branded by that. We can't be defined by the far left. Donald Trump and a lot of his...

His allies did say racist things and did make racist jokes that did offend a lot of people, including myself. But at the end of the day, we also have to do a better job of not just saying what we're against, but what we're for. If we want to win, we have got to listen to voters. And boy, did they tell us loud and clear what they thought of us.

All right. The panel is back now. This was, I mean, Philippe, I understand what you have been saying all morning. Don't overread. But this was sweeping in the popular vote. No, I'm not saying don't overread. I'm saying try to narrow the factors in some orderly way. Unpack what happened.

So let's just say I'm wrong about what I said earlier, that inflation could have been hunky-dory and we would have lost about these things. Either way, here's the problem. I'm not concerned right now what the right thinks about the Democratic Party. I'm concerned about what I think about the Democratic Party. I don't like to echo the congressman, all three of them. I don't like the fact that a small portion of our party is pretty much dictating where we are.

that they are pretty much, we are being branded as the most extreme of us.

It is not only politically problematic, as we just saw, because none of this stuff helped the other day. Without a doubt, it's a problem. But we need to take stock of why we are being held hostage to the far left. No one should be and wants to be kowtowing to the extremes of their own parties. That just shouldn't, to the extent that majority should rule, the majority of Democrats don't agree with the things that we are being tagged with. Take care of a couple of those things.

I think Democrats believe in common sense stuff more than you realize. I mean, it's not like any of us sit at home and don't talk to anyone. Most Democrats I know think there's a huge problem at the border. Most Democrats I know think, frankly, that males at birth shouldn't play women's sports and vice versa.

Now, you can have a healthy conversation within a party, and you have to have room within a party for all this. But at the end of the day, if you have some of these issues that are 80-20 across the country, you really got to figure out why they're being so tagged with one. And on one hand, it's easy because it's politically sexy. There's a reason why $40 million in ads on this topic were thrown at the vice president.

but how we go forward from here first it comes from us yes we have to listen to everybody but people again the republicans don't get to tell us because they won like you said for the first time in 20 years and only the second time in 36 years the popular vote what everybody wants this is still a 50 50 country for us to go forward

and be representative of the Democratic Party, all whatever, tens of millions, half a million, you know, half the country, whatever you want to, however you want to describe it, we have to reorient it towards. And, you know, the Congressman made the point that he's, up until today, afraid to say it. And God knows what will happen on my Twitter when I get home. But it starts with that kind of thing. Yeah, that afraid to say it. Yeah. Do you think that that...

really fundamentally tells the story of why Democrats were broadly rejected here? I mean, insert whatever issue into that rubric. Afraid to say things about the border, about trans rights, about some of these other cultural things? Well, I mean, the border is not fair. The border is a wicked problem with legitimate differences of opinion. And frankly, no one's had a particularly good answer to it. And I don't think Donald Trump in his second try is going to have a good one.

On the other cultural stuff, and I don't even know how to refer to it without saying something, again, I'm afraid to say something wrong, but the woke stuff, the PC police stuff, you'll see Republicans who say they're afraid to say X. I'm afraid to say X. These congressmen are afraid to say X. Why? Why afraid to say X? It should be afraid if it's something stupid and hateful and makes someone feel that they don't belong.

But saying, "I don't agree with you," or saying, "That's not representative of the bulk of us," it's like Medicare for all is not something that the bulk of the Democratic Party believes in. But yet, we spend tons of time on it. Now, on immigration, there are people who do believe, and I think I buy into it, that part of the problem we've had as Democrats is that we have gotten pulled to the left so far that we can't make common-sense decisions.

and look at 20 look i worked for hillary and she had to contend with bernie um bernie you know went after five i shouldn't say whatever he entered the primary there's no evidence that the bernie sanders wing of democratic party has met with any success or represents this party yet we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna continue every time someone on the hard left says oh you can't do that we're all gonna

We're all going to paralyze. I mean, I don't know what the answer is, but the answer is for people to start saying what they say on WhatsApp and Twitter and whatever it is, that this is enough already. People can't-- the PC police doesn't just apply to Republicans. It applies to-- I don't know what I'd call myself. I'd just call myself a Democrat. I'm not a progressive. I'm not a lefty. I think I'm to the right of some Republicans on some topics.

But, you know, this general thing, especially parents, you know, kids in school, they're really bothered by this. And I get it. I get it.

All right, Philippe Reines, we'll be watching your Twitter all day. I will not. Go off. Oh, it's going to be lit this afternoon. But it's a fascinating perspective. I'm going to pull a David Plouffe, close my account. It's a really fascinating perspective. All right, so coming up here on CNN this morning, it's Friday. So Michael Smirconish is here joining us live with his take on Trump's victory. We're going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly.

-President Biden addressed the nation for the first time since Trump won the election. Democrats were like, "Well, I guess at this point, we can let him speak again. Let him talk. What's gonna happen?" -President Joe Biden promising a smooth transfer of power this January to the man that robbed him of that same right nearly four years ago. Declaring that he has an unprecedented mandate for his second term, Trump is now hoping to roll back a number of Biden's policies and fulfill his campaign promises.

On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. And if these companies don't make their products here, then they will be paying a stiff tariff. I will end the war in Ukraine. We're stuck in that war unless I'm president. I'll get it done. I'll get it negotiated. I'll get out. I will stop the chaos in the Middle East. When I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips. I will terminate...

The Green News scam, one of the great scams in history. All right, it is Friday, which means it's time for Michael Smirconish, CNN political commentator, host of CNN's Smirconish, who joins us now. Michael, wonderful to see you. I have been honestly dying to know all week, what do you think happened on Tuesday?

Great to see you as well. For me, the biggest surprise in a night full of surprises is that he broke 50 percent. He obviously didn't break 50 percent of the popular vote in 2016 or 2020. Casey, you can fact check me on this. I don't think he has ever been, President Trump, above water in the polls. And yet he was able to do it in this election and he was able to do it in a campaign where every day seemed as if

It was a greatest hits reel of something else that occurred that would have ended the campaign of anyone other than Donald Trump. Eating cats and dogs, the Madison Square Garden comedian, the shooting through the media and on and on and on. And yet it seems to have emboldened the people who voted for him. The more that you told people why they shouldn't vote for Donald Trump, the less they wanted to be told how they should cast their ballot. That's my takeaway.

It's really fascinating. And you know what? It's a great point about the 15, 50% as well, because that was one of the assumptions baked into our coverage was that Donald Trump had a ceiling that he couldn't get past. And it was baked into the way the Harris campaign looked at the map and what they needed to do. It's really just a great point. Michael, can I get your take also, the way you just framed that, that people didn't want to be told who to vote for or that Donald Trump was an unacceptable choice for

for them. We were just talking here at the table about how being afraid to say what you really think was part of the problem for Democrats that according to Philippe Reines, who's sitting here as part of our conversation, do you agree with what he had to say there?

Totally. When I think about the last full week of the campaign, that Madison Square Garden event that, by the way, was perfectly staged. And I'm not ignoring the comedian. I want to talk about the comedian. But it was it was I'm a former advance man. I did advance work for Vice President George Herbert Bush. And so that's awesome. My.

So I admire the structuring Republican Democrat doesn't matter. I just like to see well produced live events. That was a very well produced live event. But of course, all of the oxygen for the next three days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, was all about one joke not told by Donald Trump. It was admittedly an appalling joke. He should have come out and he should have immediately denounced it and then move forward.

But did it really warrant all that attention? And my God, you've been talking about it. We've all been talking about the Hispanic vote, the Hispanic male. It seems like the people who everyone thought would be most horrified about the joke were fine with it and, you know, rolled with it. So I think that's an example of being told you should be offended by this, but it didn't resonate. It didn't it didn't hit that way with the people when they voted.

Yeah. Michael, what do you think the lesson is that Democrats should take away from this? I mean, what is the way forward for them? I think that they've got to reestablish connection with working class people. You know, the individuals whose parents would have voted for the Democrat in a bygone era in this election voted for the Republican. And, you know, the billionaire is oddly the everyman.

I mean, that's really what he's become. Carlos Lozada wrote a great piece in The New York Times saying, like it or not, Donald Trump is us. I mean, think about the embodiment of the 80s, Wall Street, greed, Gordon Gekko. Think about the 90s and sex scandal, the intern scandal. Think about the social media era in which we're living now. Think about the reality television era that we went through a decade ago.

He's every one of those things. So the more that people want to say like he's aberrant, he might be the norm. I know that's going to send shivers down the spine of half the audience or more who are watching. But but think about that.

I mean, it's a remarkable point, and I will say it does really seem, I mean, look at the vote in Queens, right, that people really identified with him as the outsider who succeeded not because the elite in Manhattan wanted to let him succeed, but because he ran over them.

to do it. And it seems like they saw more of themselves in that than they did in those, you know, folks in Manhattan. Michael Smirconish, always love having you. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. We'll be watching your show, Smirconish, tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

All right, it has been quite a week. Let's just go around. We've got two, two and a half minutes left here. Final thoughts on what we learned about the country this week and where we go from here. I'm not that surprised by Queens, to be perfectly honest, having grown up in New Jersey, a state that only went 5%. We didn't call New Jersey until I was on the air after four in the morning. I'm not that surprised by Queens. It created both Archie Bunker and Donald Trump. It's a fascinating hodgepodge of people, but also a strong working class white community. Not that shocked by it. But it is time to rethink the country.

Everything, I mean, again, New Jersey being the biggest one, this was a bloodbath and a moment for Democrats to really think about where they're going next. - Well, yeah, I mean, Queens is working class, but it's not white. And that's the whole, that's the thing about this election is that Democrats need to figure out how to speak to working class people across races

And a lot of that is going to be thinking beyond identity politics, thinking about something other than a message that just says, you know, you ought to be offended by this joke or because you, you know, look a certain way or come from a certain place, that ought to dictate your politics. And I think that's got to be part of the conversation the Democrats are going to have. Well, I would say two things. First, we're conflating jokes at an MSG rally with saying things like,

a former congresswoman should have guns pointed at her face. So it's not something as I can't say what I want,

There are things he says that aren't funny, shouldn't be said, and shouldn't be excused by his own people. And what drives me crazy is that they elected him in 2015 saying he says what he thinks, he thinks what he says, we love that. And then every time he says something, it's, oh, he didn't say it. He didn't mean it. It was a joke. The news took that out of context. Like, you never hear, yeah, he meant it. The second thing is a little more high-minded. I've now worked for both

women nominees in our history and Just because it wasn't a daily discussion as it was in 2016 Really need to take a look at the role of not sexism as much I wouldn't call that or maybe it should be called that but can a woman Meet the criteria and I very much believe they do but someone like Donald Trump when you see these word clouds about him It's strength. He's strong

Can we see a woman that's strong? And I think you look at these two debates of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, these are strong women who kicked his... In an era where...

Television guys really don't break through a lot. One did, and it kind of goes to a lot we're talking about. It was the Kamala's for they, them, and Trump is for us. It played on Sundays during football, but it wasn't geared towards white men to the point we're all talking about right now. The images in there at the Breakfast Club, it was geared towards men of color, Hispanic men, African-American men. And the popular vote victory was based in places like Illinois, New Jersey, and New York City. All right. Well, the good news is, at least for me, the weekend starts right now. So we survived the week. We got a lot ahead of us as a

country. Thanks to you guys for being here. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I hope you also get some rest this weekend. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.