Transcription
[Music] Welcome to Meet the Press. Now it is election day in America. I am Chris Welker, and I'm Clinton Jaws. All I want is your subscription, guys. You got to watch this. How can so many people be so wrong? And you know, if elected, I'll be the first HBCU president. No, you won't. That the momentum they feel, the momentum is on their side, and that's something we've—
To me, Harris was the clear choice, obviously, to keep things free in the U.S. What do you make of former President Trump's closing argument? He has spoken about issues like the economy and immigration, but there's also been a lot of rhetoric—uh, some would call it dark rhetoric—in some cases even invoked violence. What do you make of that closing message?
Look, it's the same old tired message, uh, for the—we've—with it. The vice president has made this point: the American people are done with his tired old story. If she wins tonight, she's going to win on the back of women. For the Trump campaign has been outsourced, quite frankly, uh, and saying you have Kamala Harris literally knocking on doors ourselves, and there's not that same on-the-ground organization. This Ally was saying Joe Rogan coming out as late as what he did, I think doesn't really help them, and these are low-propensity voters that he's—he's trying to target. But her message has been really consistent on abortion—close on abortion, close on freedom. We're not going back to the chaos of those four years, and I think she wins. I think that we make too much of the economy. He wants it to be about the border, uh, and a bad economy. So, of course, she's leaning into it; that's just good campaigning.
Else this uh, black—bales breaking for Donald Trump is the Red Wave of 2024. It's—it's—it's—it's an ABS, and and we'll come back and we'll have this conversation after the exit poll. The FBI did say that um, non-credible bomb threats in three states have come from Russian email domains, suggest that this is part of the Russian effort to destabilize the election. And look at that in bright pink there: 36% of voters say the most important issue to them is the state of democracy, not the economy as the top issue; that is immigration's where—think about—just take a step back here. Okay, look at those top four issues again. You know what the number one and number two issues have been for Donald Trump this election season: the economy and immigration. Correct? Add that together. Okay, together: state of democracy, abortion. It's—I'm being a little simplistic here, but already, and the Harris campaign will be ecstatic that that's the direction. This is not surprising. Trump closed on the economy; he also closed on immigration. Chuck, your take on this?
You know what is a little surprising? I think the gap—gap should be farther. Yeah, Donald Trump had been leading on this pretty heavily, eight to twelve points in many of our—when we would say who'd be better for the economy. She didn't have to win this issue; she just couldn't get clobbered on this issue. Yeah, I was going to say, Chuck, we talked about this all year, you know, because the news moves so fast, would abortion still be top of mind for voters? And it could be tonight. And I will tell you that just again, off the phone with a source in the—and the Senate side. Look—look at that in places like Florida, Chuck. Right, exactly. That there's sort of two things that matter. We are on track potentially to have the biggest gender gap we've ever seen, right, in modern presidential politics, in at least the last several cycles, with women plus 16 for Kamala Harris, men plus 18 for former President Trump.
Meeting, and let's start with former President Trump. We're going to pull that up here, and you can see he is what they say underwater—essentially 54% of voters in these early exit polls have an unfavorable opinion of the former president, uh, and I think that's going to be part of the challenge for the Trump campaign as we look at these early exit polls, which—I should—far more unpopular than Kamala Harris is right now is the kind of thing that I think would be a warning sign for the Trump campaign about that message and not being as effective as they'd like. Then Kamala Harris, she performs better than both Donald Trump and Joe Biden—four points ahead of Donald Trump, seven points ahead of Joe Biden. One of the concerns about Donald Trump had been that there was some sort of an evaporation, a memory gap, where Americans forgot the way they felt about Trump at the end of his term. Right now, his numbers are coming down; her number is particularly high. They believe Puerto Rican voters are turning up in big numbers, particularly notable as it comes only about a week and a half after those offensive comments by the comedian who let off for former President Trump at the Madison Square Garden event.
Interest a couple of weeks ago. Go. What if nobody gets to 270, and it's 269–269? It's a tie. Uh, that can happen. So listen, let me give—let me give the blue wall to Vice President—are we going to be saying the word Pennsylvania 150 times a day? I think we're going to be saying it all night, maybe into tomorrow. That is for sure. If you're in Mar-a-Lago right now, that makes you a little bit nervous. One thing they view is encouraging right now is extremely high turnout among college voters. There are lines that extend for up to eight hours right now. They say the campaign is sending support in surrogates to keep students in line. That support comes in the form of the stars of the films from The Avengers series: Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, and Don Cheadle, to keep them in line and to make sure they stick around to make sure those—that could be a positive sign early on. They're not going to listen to people like Joe Rogan; they're going to listen to real stars like Paul Rudd, at least for the Harris folks. Hi. And fewer people are identifying as conservative than any election featuring Donald Trump. She's also outperforming former President Donald Trump at maybe the closest election the country has ever seen. President Kamala Harris has a significant lead with women voters. Donald Trump will win in Kentucky. Vermont will go to Kamala Harris. Donald Trump out in front with eight—elect—you could have given her at least a head start—votes, three for Harris. Here's the data that's just coming in—has a large Puerto Rican population, uh, the biggest of any of any county, I believe, in Florida. They feel like that is a part of the Latino population that they can really try to move the needle with here after those controversial comments from that opener for former President—but what we're seeing in Georgia on the Latino vote is interesting. It is uh, Kamala Harris who is winning the Latino vote. 56—West Virginia, Donald Trump. Here's where it puts us. She is actually outperforming where President Biden was back in 2020. She is doing better with white voters in North Carolina, and yet in Georgia you're starting to see some of that suburban vote really being ramped up for Kamala Harris.
No, I think—I think that's right, but here's what's interesting. Look at Vice President Harris; she's got 47% of the senior vote. She's doing better than President Biden did with seniors. 20 in North Carolina, so she is outperforming where he was four years ago, whereas with Harris, she's performing even better than Biden did with women—65% saying that they support Harris in this exit poll when 58% actually support—just North Carolina, or is that national? North Carolina. The Harris campaign tonight touting the fact that they have Paul Rudd, for example, out trying to energize college voters in Pennsylvania. Jennifer Garner as well—keep him in line—keeping—stay in line. Mark Cuban is FaceTiming voters in a four—let's keep them in line because they're all Trump voters. And what's so fascinating is that the Trump campaign tried this sort of unusual, unconventional tactic to get out the vote, which was to outsource it to Elon Musk, to other outside groups. Historically, women have turned out more than men in every election dating back to 1980, and so that is going to be one of the big key factors into tonight. Right. That's why that moment with Donald—with former President Obama was so significant when he called on them not to stay at home. Right. Donald Trump will win Florida. Kamala Harris, the projected winner. Donald Trump, the projected winner in Tennessee. Tonight, that will go in the Kamala Harris column. Donald Trump is the victor in Missouri when all the votes are counted here. What Alabama looks like—that will all be projected to go to Donald Trump, three electoral votes at stake. NBC News projects that Kamala Harris—here it is—94. Donald Trump's underperforming about a point or two in almost—even in the rural counties. Indi is a very white state; that's a tea leaf. Well, we're seeing it too when you look at some of the numbers here. He is plus 10 specifically with Latino men, according to our exit poll nationally, a demographic group that Joe Biden was plus 23 with four years ago. So it is definitely a shift, and it is definitely one of the headlines that we're watching as—po—coming. She is winning independent voters nationally—51%, Donald Trump 44%. It means these independent votes are going to be the whole ball game; they're going to decide who's president. Northern Virginia, where it seems that Kamala Harris is—is underperforming, and as you well know, the suburbs in the battleground states are key to her victory.
Yeah, listen, this is the witching hour, you know. This is when it is very early. I think she's going to be fine in the suburbs, but I'll be very surprised if there aren't a whole lot of women that call themselves independents that don't vote for Donald Trump, uh, and let's don't sleep on Nevada—literally maybe 500 to 2,000 votes separating the two candidates. I think it's that close to your point on the get-out-the-vote effort. This is why early vote was critical for both of these campaigns, with some 79 million people voting early—better to bank those votes. What if somebody gets sick? What if somebody's—you know—kid out of school or whatever. South Carolina will go to Donald Trump. The Harris campaign feels good that she is outperforming with white voters over Joe Biden's performance with them, and some—here is that they are seeing really good enthusiasm among those youngest voters, those college students. White college-educated women—we've been talking about this demographic a lot here in some of these key swing states—she is doing better with white college-educated women, and yes, there is a difference between college-educated women and non-college-educated—EAS—but the support for Harris is so big among college-educated women. You know, I can't believe we haven't actually talked about it yet tonight: reproductive rights. This is the first presidential—do you think that issue still has its potency and is a—is a weak spot for Republicans?
I—I think it has its potency for sure. ProPublica has done such an amazing job of publicizing the deaths to women because of Trump's really extreme abortion bans that are in many, many states. And Texas isn't a battleground state, but there's a Senate race out there that I've got to have half an eye on tonight. Donald Trump will win in the state of Arkansas. State of the sitting President Joe Biden will go for the one where Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News, talked about uh, that you know, "Daddy's coming home and going to give a little girl a spanking," like you know, "the sheriff's come into town," which is a message that you know, if you're trying to reach female voters, I don't know how the females on this panel feel about that, but that—that's where that happened. Not good. Don't feel good about that. So it is harder for the Republican party to do the ground game, the gov, as you talked about earlier, than it is for the Republican party. It's been surprising how often the topic of The Joe Rogan podcast keeps coming up, and that was the deciding factor for them. They've also said that if the uh, Comm Harris would have appeared on that podcast, they may have had their vote skewed. It's—it's—talking about Donald Trump will win in the state of Texas when all the votes are counted. Stick it in. NBC News projects that Donald Trump will also win in North Dakota tonight. South Dakota, same story; that will also go into the Donald Trump column this evening. She's got this though, three electoral votes at stake. Donald Trump to—being 154 for Donald Trump. Young male voters, which the Trump campaign worked very hard to turn out, are responding accordingly, some of them talking about this Joe Rogan podcast—"Can't say I'm a regular listener to it, but he ended on the eve of the election, and that was extremely influential." It could—why would you pretend not to know who Joe Rogan is? Very influential that Donald Trump will—
So what I am hearing is that Democrats are large in every—in all of the battleground states, and I've been talking to party chairs, folks within the campaigns, but also the organizers on the ground. Um, they're feeling encouraged by what they're seeing from college campuses, specifically in Wisconsin, for example, in Philadelphia. The turnout um, in Philly specifically has surprised some Democrats, uh, University where the lines were so long, people were standing in lines for three hours. College campus—they had to add more um, voting machines; they were not expecting that. Democrats particularly in Pennsylvania, so they're encouraged. What I'm told by the raw data—emphasis on the raw data—there. Yeah, Simone, why would you assume they're voting for Harris? Yeah, Simone, what—it's worrying the Harris camp right now, looking—looking at from the other end of the glass. Well, the lines are very long, and they want people to stay in line. Lester, I'm told that—actually—race to call here—Louisiana, no big surprise, but Kamala Harris will win in Rhode Island when all the—VES—are—are counted. It is also the place where she started this shift in the last few days on her closing argument, moving away from this idea that Donald Trump was sort of looming large as this threat to democracy, this ominous shadow hanging over America, and shifting away from saying his name at all, calling him "the other guy," trying to make him seem small. Serious, Lester. All right, we have another call to make, and this is a pretty big one. Uh, it's a big one. Go for Harrison. Big—not necessarily a surprise, but NBC News projects that New York will—Kamala Harris will—is the projected winner. You want a fun fact? Fun fact alert—we love it. The last election was decided in four states by approximately 79–80,000 voters. You could fit those voters into Cowboy Stadium. Wow. That's what we're talking about. Talk more. Takes it. NBC News projects Donald Trump will take the state of Ohio. Donald Trump is the projected winner in Kansas now. Right. Donald Trump will win in Utah, take those seven electoral votes, and we go further into the West into Montana, four electoral votes. Donald Trump, the projected winner in Montana. T—isn't that so funny because it started out as a tie, and now tonight we're ending up—and it's—it's a tie right now, but we'll—we'll see what happens. We're going to be living and breathing Pennsylvania. That's interesting. And we talked a lot about young men and young men who were breaking for Trump. Well, at least your mom thinks you're pretty. Um, we—we saw the MAGA hats at some of the long lines of the universities. Yeah, talked to Harris officials in the last hour who said, "Look at the lines in—in Penn State, look at the lines in Arizona, look at the lines in the Philly uh, college campuses. They feel really good about their ground operation. They have the best ground operation person in American politics," and General—Mie—Dylan is the chair who is—buil—used to be a battleground years and years ago, but it is notable that he's increased his support based on what we're seeing so far amongst Latino voters; that—that is something that has resonated with them. Democrats making that late play to try to win them back, and—and so far based on what we're seeing, didn't work. And Iowa will go red as was widely expected. You look at Lancaster County, she's overperforming; it's going to be razor close. I don't think there's any question the Trump campaign is overperforming, doing very well with Hispanic voters and young men—that—that—that Joe Rogan army appears to be in a lot of these places. Is that what you're seeing, Mark?
No, absolutely. I think they're very excited by that, and you have a couple of Republicans that are not all on board with some of the Trump stuff, like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. You could actually have a situation where the Senate is frozen. Um, Nebraska. Okay, this is uh, NBC News projects that three of—here's where her improvement is, and this is interesting; it's with seniors, it's with voters over the age of 65, and we're starting to see that—me—when you said—no—oh my gosh—want to let everyone know, but the seniors piece of it is interesting because think about who actually gets out and votes, right? Who is more likely to get out there and vote? It is seniors. So there's—there's some fascinating dynamics at play, and as we're all talking about 1040, we're only on our first cup of coffee. I think you sound like you see the end here. Really? I don't—I—I do think that—I, you know, obviously we're disappointed about North Carolina and Georgia because there was a real feeling that there was such a good ground game compared to what the Trump—and to be clear, we haven't called those—no, we haven't. I still think we have a path obviously in the blue wall states, and I don't think anybody knows how Nevada is going to turn out, and I think that—well, we're outside, and it's a loud one here, but I can tell you if you get into the crowd here, it's particularly quiet in terms of their sense of optimism right now. That's how one Harris ally just described it to me. Kamala Harris will win in the state of California. NBC News projects Donald Trump. There's a reason why there's anxiety in—in the Harris camp and growing enthusiasm and optimism. She was trying to do something as a sitting vice president that had never been done before: Oh, succeed an unpopular president. Okay, Hubert Humphrey tried to do this; that is—you are asking somebody to—to overperform in a way that—that may have—we may find out was politically impossible. This sounds a little bit like a postmortem, so I want to make sure we—we have not called—let me give you the view from the Harris campaign that K—Harris will win in Oregon. This is not just young voters, but that's 57% of these first-time voters are under the age of 30; they are breaking for Trump. That is a major reversal from 2020—53% for Trump right now, and we are hearing so much right now. I'm hearing that in lines in Arizona—Gotti was mentioning that earlier—it's so much—it was because I heard him on a podcast; it was because of this thing I saw on TikTok. I also heard from a voter in almost every single swing state and multiple in several of them, including Pennsylvania voters who were eligible in this age group to vote in 2020 who did not, and they came out tonight to vote for the—be—so—ed—chip away at Vice President Harris's lead. I mean, her lead among women continues to be—based on what we're seeing so far—less than his lead with men of Philadelphia. She says, "We don't have election day results from Philadelphia, but we do know that we overperform turnout expectations there and have seen especially high turnout in places with nonwhite and student populations." One—what is the turnout and the vote margins coming out of Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Detroit, and if they are what we think they are, then she has a very clear, albeit narrow, but clear path to be the next president of the United States. Young voters, particularly male voters, who seem to be breaking for Trump—does that surprise you? That would be surprising. I think that's another reason to drink. Um, I think it's pretty early to be drawing conclusions. Kamala Harris—Harris with 165—214. Harris will win in Connecticut. I don't see any good news for Democrats in these results. Some are still saying, "Look, we could still win this thing; we can hold on to the blue wall," and that's absolutely accurate because we're still tracking the vote, but one Democratic lawmaker—Harris will—so it's—it's a numbers—it's a numbers game in each of these states, and the path becomes narrower and narrower and narrower, and that's a bit where they are at this moment, and there's a lot of things that bend the mind a little bit if you're the Harris team, including that Jen—has the conversation begun yet about Joe Biden and about the decision to ask him to step aside? It will begin. Uh, it will begin depending—
On the outcome, um, and obviously, we, there hasn't been a race called yet that Kamala Harris will win those four electoral votes. But the fact that this is such a fight for them, the fact that this is a tide race, it's also taking a step back voters saying so far, at least, they like Trump.
Well, it's so interesting, well how interesting that we actually are seeing tonight Donald Trump getting more of the Latino vote. We'll see if he, you know, got a better share of the black vote. I don't think we've seen that in the exit polls yet. You know, I think about the fact that just today, when he was voting, he was asked by another reporter about what he thought one of the most important moments of this campaign was, and he mentioned Joe Rogan, the podcaster, and the fact that he did that podcast interview.
Well, you can hear the music blaring, but uh, within the crowd right now, it's pretty silent; a lot of glum looks on the faces here. Over the course of this evening, they've been playing, as the returns were coming in, and blasted some music so they could sort of lift the spirits of some of the folks here this evening. Based on an attendee who was at one of the terrorist events taking place at a hotel not far from here, the situation there, the scene was described as that of a funeral. Right now, that that doesn't mean this thing is over, but it does give you a sense of the way people, the statement sent by the campaign, share gentem. We always knew this race was going to be tight. It appears they believe the blue wall states are their best path going forward. At it's not the end of the road. General Al Dylan also saying we're going to keep at it tomorrow, but we wait to hear from K. Harris, of course, in the course of the next couple of hours. I, but the end hasn't happened yet, and so they need to keep them all their spirits up; that's the goal.
You say the end hasn't happened yet. I mean, do you, do you still hold out hope that there's a pass, I mean, a reasonable path? Well, look, I think it becomes, as I said earlier, do you think the country is ready for a Black woman president? And she said yes. And depending on how this night goes, I think that will be one of the questions that gets this, one of the things that is going to be a challenge if Harris loses is that there will be Democrats who will not want to take a risk, woman who diverse because they'll think, I like, but the country not ready. But I do worry about that if she loses, people will leap to different ones, right? The country isn't ready for a woman, the country isn't ready for a Black woman, all the country is ready for a smart woman, not an idiot, all of these things. But there are a lot of factors that play into the win or or loss, and I think if she loses, I'm hopeful people will look at the broad scope of where the country is, the cultural divides, the rural urban divides, the education. There are just a lot of factors at play. There will be millions of people in this country who voted for her who will feel like we're in the state of an emergency. Get Trudeau, he'll invoke the emergencies act, will respond and feel, and they will be looking for hope that Donald Trump will win in Georgia when off the road to 270 looks, it'll turn to Secretary Castro here. Your thoughts on at this point where we are and where this is going to go? Uh, I it feels like 2016, honestly. It feels like 2016, uh, uh, and just the path becoming smaller and smaller. What do you think was the Difference Maker? You know, I think she was put in a very difficult position by President Biden. She's a Vic. Hate to interrupt you. I'm sorry, we still have votes to count. Get out of here, so you won't hear from the vice president tonight. Good and go, hu and go, Harris. Thank you all. This was very different. Vice President Kamala Harris went everywhere. She showed up and, but again, her messaging, and we all noted this at the time, her closing messaging really focused on the issue of democracy. Kamala Harris will win in New Mexico is I don't know, is the minute if we call Pennsylvania tonight, does he get to 270? I think so. That's right. Right, it's ball game. I mean, that's it. We may hear, you know, Donald Trump sooner than later. Uh, what can he say that will make it a less bitter moment for those on the left? A Vista, maybe. Oh, boy, that's a that's a really hard question. I knew you wouldn't be able to figure it out. Um, he, we know who this person is. He's been president before. He's been a presidential candidate before, uh, and and we know what his message tends to be. He's done it over and over in this campaign, and that is a message that is darker, that casts America as a dangerous place, a place that only heat can fix, uh, somebody who, as we talk about rhetoric, just called Nancy Pelosi crazy as a bed bug just recently, right? So let's just remember that that is, I think, the some of the tone now just so different. Everyone's speechless here. I guess it really is 4:00 in the morning, except for they're not speechless, they're cheering. The available information about what Donald Trump will say and when he will say it, they're broadcasting another Network in here and say that we are shutting it down at this point shy of 2:00 here. We're the only ones left, a matter of reporters here who are sort of bundling up their gear and anticipation. Another call in Nebraska, there is great excitement. Let me hand it over to Kristen Welker right now who can talk about the other big headline of the night, and that's the balance of power. Yeah, Lester. Republicans cheering for this as well, because NBC News has projected that Republicans will take control of the Senate. This will be a very different second term. He was doing an interview with Sean Hannity, and Sean Hannity asked him if he would be a dictator, and he said only on day one. And of course, some of his supporters said, look, that was hyperbole, it was a joke. But the reality is, news can now project that Donald Trump will win. Did I hear a news can now project, oh, Donald Trump will win in the state of Pennsylvania, and with that, it's expected that he will have the 270 votes he needs. Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States, as he was the 45th president of the United States. With the convincing sweep of several Battleground States, the magic number of 270 votes has been reached. Harris's favorable rating, 48%; Donald Trump's, 44%. That's right, people like him less, and it appears into an office, the people who liked him showed up here. Yeah, look what happened is this crazy. No, would have been crazy the other way. This will truly be the Golden Age of America. That's what we have to have. This is what happens when the machine comes after you. What you've seen over the last several years, this is what it looks like. Couldn't stop him. He keeps going forward. He doesn't quit. He's the most resilient, hardworking man I've ever met in my life. His family are incredible people. This is karma, ladies and gentlemen. He deserves this. They deserve it as a family. I want to thank some people real quick, and last but not least, the mighty and Powerful Joe Rogan. Who's that? And thank you, America. Thank you. Have a good night. I leave you tonight with Claire. Um, you okay? Think I'm okay. Tell me what you're thinking. Well, I'm so proud, uh, I'm so proud of her, um, I don't think people realize how hard it is to get to where she was, um, as a woman getting elected, da, it's not easy, guys. People don't trust women to be in charge of making decisions about life and death and crime and being frankly a supervisor in some ways over police.