Maggie haberman. This is an hour and 10 minutes. Election law expert trevor potter, and New York TimesWhite House CorrespondentMaggie Haberman, guided by our capable moderator journalist alex wagoner will offer their analysis in what will surely be an insightful discussion of this National Election held nine days ago and still counting. Of thell tell us which last tuesdays outcomes surprised them and what their expectations are for what it means for american politics for years to come. I have many questions about this wild, unusual campaign, and i cant wait to hear our panelists take them on. If i may be allowed a little editorializing, i would like to say a few words on behalf of my husband about the importance of the american election. John believed that selfgovernment was the only moral government, and every human being on earth was entitled to it. It was americas great cause in the world, and he served it with unwavering dedication. Asloved nothing as much traveling abroad. Moved to seeo again the joy, the hope, and the faces of people who had long been oppressed and were claiming their freedom and equal justice by exercising their right to choose who will govern them. For all we take for granted, our elections are a sacred endeavor, and we should respect them as such. They are the source of our strength. Our enemies know that, and they are trying to reverse that as we speak. Spend so muchey time trying to cast out on the integrity of our election process, and propaganda in the democracy that they say are as corrupt as their own regimes are. We shouldnt do their work for them. Elected our next president , and he will soon be certified as the winner. On january 20, he will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Pretending that there is some doubt about this for the sake of politics is doing these thugs worldwide, doing their work for them. I feel certain john, if he were still here, would be making the same point emphatically. It is in the American Peoples vital interest at the transition from the incumbent administration to the Biden Administration is orderly as it was thorough when the transition from the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration. And i hope american patriots on both sides of this see it for what it is. That is the end of my brief editorial and now i will turn it over to alex and our panel to explain just how we got here. Thank you. Former Vice President joe biden will win pennsylvania and nevada, putting him over the 270 electoral votes he needs to become the 46th president of the United States. Alex on this program exactly one month ago, some of our most agile political minds ok the video can you hear me . Can anyone hear me . Im just going to keep talking. Apologies. I blame zoom. Thank you, cindy and we all hope there is going to be an orderly transition soon. My own resting heart rate has tripled in the last week alone. Thank you to everyone joining us today. This is Straight Talk live, the second installment of a twopart series from the Mccain Institute examining the 2020 election. Im alex wagoner and its great to be with you this afternoon. In part one of this program, one, one month ago, which feels like a lifetime ago, some of our most agile political minds discuss the fate of the president ial election and boldly main sub predictions for what was to come in november. And boldly made some predictions for was to come in november. Its fairly certain what has happened but a sizable portion of the country remains unconvinced. Because of this, there are a plethora of pressing issues to discuss, including ongoing legal actions from the Trump Administration, the biden transition, the very crowded agenda for the incoming president and, most urgently, whether it is possible for the United States to come together and find Common Ground or if our divisions will grow deeper. Today, we are once again joined by some of the sharpest minds in politics to discuss the ways forward for the United States and the world. First, i would like to introduce chair trevor potter, founder and president of the Campaign Legal center. He served as general counsel to john mccains 2000 and 2008 president ial campaign and will give us an update on the current legal issues related to the election. He will tell us what we can expect from the lawsuits coming out of the Trump Administration that are challenging the real it the election results. Welcome, trevor. While we have the tradition in this country of the loser in the election conceding, thats not a constitutional requirement. If President Trump loses this election and wants to say he doesnt think it was fair or he thinks as he said when he one last time, millions of illegal votes cast, he can say that, but it doesnt change the outcome. Alex you go right ahead. Trevor good to be with you all today. In the past couple days, Vice President biden has been declared president elect by the ap and a number of tv and cable networks. This reflects his apparent wins and states having more than 270 electoral votes. If the current total holds up, he will have earned around 306 Electoral College votes, which President Trump termed a landslide when he got that number four years ago. He will have slipped arizona, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania and georgia. We all understand these are unofficial results published by state Election Officials and they still need to go ahead and canvassed them, which means check them and produce final numbers. There is one state where the totals are sufficiently close, georgia, that there will be an official recount, a hand recount, and there are two other states, nevada and wisconsin, where the losing candidate may ask for a recount and trump has said he will do so. The important thing to understand about these recounts is that they are unlikely to change any state election results. Recounts are normally in the 200 to 300 vote range. These margins are 20,000 in wisconsin for biden, 14 in georgia, nevada, around 20. So it is unlikely they will have any effect on the certifications coming out of those states. This explain the Trump Campaigns current litigation strategy, where they have filed lawsuits in michigan and pennsylvania. Bigger vote margins in those states, when hundred at004 biden in pennsylvania, 145,000 in michigan. Doesna, which is closer, not allow recounting this circumstance. So in all those states, it looks as though the Trump Campaign is in court or will be in court, asking federal courts, judges, to stop the certification process. Now, those lawsuits say basically that there is a with mail problem in ballots, the fact they are counted by different process than the votes vented to machines on election day and that that represents what is called an equal protection problem under the bush versus gore decision. They also say there may have been fraud in those states, because there werent enough election observers to follow, they say. And they finally say that they have evidence from people who voted out of state. I dont think these lawsuits are going anywhere. The male in lawsuit challenge in particular should have been brought before the election. There is simply no way that federal courts are going to throw out two point 5 million votes in pennsylvania, 40 of the total in that state, after voters relied on the existing mail in system to cast their ballots. Has already issue been litigated in pennsylvania and the Trump Campaign lost. They said they didnt have observers and then admitted in court they actually did. They did have observers in those rooms. And terrore fraud allegations either are really very few and scattered, or have been debunked in those states. I expect we will see more litigation filed as we move towards the final state certifications of election totals, which will be by the end of this month in every one of those states. That leads to the Electoral College vote november 14 and congressional acceptance of those notes january 6. Alex thank you, trevor. We will see you back on the Program Later in the hour. Before we get to our big discussion, lets first get to our initial polling question, one of several we will have throughout this event. A box is going to come up on your screen. Please respond to the question. It will give everybody a second to check it out and log in their responses. Ok. Assuming everybody has answered that poll question, lets get to our panelists. It is my great pleasure to introduce Maggie Haberman, rick davis and David Plouffe. Maggie haberman is a white house the new yorkfor times who won a Pulitzer Prize investigating President Trump and his advisors ties to russia, and we have news this morning that maggie will be writing a book about President Trump to be released in the next year or so, i believe. Im sure we will be preordering on amazon, right after the segment is over. Rick davis served in multiple capacities in the reagan and George H W Bush administrations as well as multiple president ial , campaigns, including the first president bush, bob dole, john mccain in 2000, 2008, and now, a successful career in the private sector. David plouffe is a longtime political strategist, most notably Campaign Manager for Barack Obamas successful 2008 president ial campaign, served as Senior Advisor to the president. Since then, david worked in senior positions at uber and the chanzuckerberg initiative. Welcome, folks. Im excited to have this conversation with all of you. There is a subsection of the american electorate that has given up on the institutions and rule of law. He looked defeated. He was talking about fox polls. And he wasnt talking about jobs or health care or covid. The decisionmaking at the top has always been donald trump. He is running the bus and the bus is veering all over the road. And then with the coronavirus, if you talk to republican pollsters, they will tell you that they saw the bottom dropping out. [no audio] alex thank you for bearing with our technical difficulties. Have we done the poll . Have we done the poll . We are going to get to the first polling question. If you havent seen it, a box is going to come up on your screen, please respond to the question if you havent already. And we are going to get right to our discussion. It is my great pleasure to introduce our panelists, Maggie Haberman, rick davis and David Plouffe. Maggie haberman, you know her byline, she is a White House Correspondent for the New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work investigating President Trump and his advisors ties to russia. We have news this morning, she is writing a book about President Trump that will be available sometime in rick davis 2022. Served in multiple capacities in george h wagan and bush administrations, as well as multiple president ial campaigns including for the first president bush, bob dole, and john mccain in 2000 and he now 2008. Has a successful career in the private sector. And David Plouffe was notably the Campaign Manager for Barack Obamas successful 2008 president ial campaign, and then served as Senior Advisor to the president. Since then david worked at , senior positions at uber in the chanzuckerberg initiative. Welcome, folks. I hope you can hear me. My zoom is malfunctioning. But i know that your brilliant insight is going to make up for technical difficulties. So thank you in advance. Maggie, i want to start with you, my friend. I think a lot of americans are not necessarily surprised that President Trump has refused to concede the election. But i wonder if there is anything in particular about the aftermath of this period that has either shocked or surprised you, given the fact you are a font of information and prognosis about the administration. Maggie first of all, thank you for the kind introduction and thank you for having me on the panel. It is great to be here and i hope that enough people can hear me through our zoom challenges. Alex i am not surprised by how , he is conducting himself. I am surprised at how many republicans have gone along with it over the last couple of days. And i shouldnt be, given the tight hold he keeps over his party. And he has made clear he is not going to recede from the spotlight when he leaves office. And to be clear, i think he will leave office. I think it will just keep saying all the things he is saying about rigged elections, as he is walking out the door. But i think he is well aware that he has won the secondmost votes in an election in history. Jill biden won the first. And he is going to use that to propel himself, both commercially and potentially politically in the future. That has made other republicans very nervous, particularly as they face these two runoffs in georgia in january. I think more republicans in the i think if more republicans in the senate, in particular, were saying, it is time to go that might expedite it. , Lindsey Graham has been one of the most vocal defenders of the president s right to raise what have been specious questions about fraud in various states, even Lindsey Graham said today, joe biden ought to be getting intelligence briefings. So you are seeing some cracks. But what is interesting is what republicans are saying in public, versus private. Almost all of them have said that they look forward to the end of this era, privately. Alex that discrepancy tells you a lot about where we are. David, rick, i would love to get you to weigh in on the data we are processing in this election. And david, in specific this was , a very close election. If you look at what was happening on the ground in some of these battleground states, these were hardwon electoral votes. I would love for you, david to , weigh in on the efficacy of the Trump Campaign strategy and rick, i would love for you to talk about the biden Campaign Strategy on a statebystate level, if you could, not every state, but how you see the battle landscape in the aftermath. David, why dont you start . David thanks, alex. There is still a lot of data for us to land for us to analyze. It will take months. I will say this was not a particularly close race. They are battleground states for a reason. Biden will have a healthy number of electoral votes, the same number trump won by a 2016, but the biden margins in michigan and pennsylvania are much wider. The popular vote, it is not how we elect our president , but the margins are going to be stronger than obamas in 2012, shy of what he had in 2008, so a big number. So i think the Trump Campaign did well. This is a race donald trump won had herly have had he campaigned more , effectively in the closing week, had he had a better first debate. The original sin is not taking the pandemic as seriously as the American People would have liked, but they drove strong turnouts. That is the thing. Even when polls showed biden kept tellinglot, i people his people were coming , up. And when his people come out, the watermark rises. Wisconsin is a great example. The trump wind in 2016 was was 1. 4 million votes. He increased by 200,000 votes. In wisconsin, that is a huge increase. Biden was able to get over that. Trump had a great turnout. His urban margins held up. Turned out that 2016 was not an anomaly. I think some of that is going to continue in terms of our parties. But trump was particularly strong there. He obviously hemorrhaged in suburban areas, and hemorrhaged in x urban areas that were close to suburban areas. That is were biden did well, northampton county, pennsylvania. Erie county, pennsylvania. The three key counties outside milwaukee he was able to gain back. So trump did a remarkable job of turnout. And i think they knew that they were in Good Standing in ohio and iowa, they cut back resources there, they felt better about florida than most people thought. They thought florida would be a more comfortable win for them than a lot of people thought. And just like in 2016, they focused like a laser on pennsylvania. They probably wish they did better in georgia, and my guess is they wish they would have done more in arizona. That was a core battleground for them. But based on data i have seen around spending and resources, not important to them as it was to biden. They did a lot of things well. I am sure one of the reasons he is so outraged and refuses to cede to reality is that he probably does think it was a winnable race. But they deserved enormous amount of credit for turnout. And one of the questions is, is this what republican turnout is going to be in 2022, 2022, 2026, or how much of it was unique to trump . If this kind of turnout is an indicator for republicans, democrats are going to have a very hard time winning elections. Alex rick . Rick i think he is spot on with the differences. I would even drill down and say, from my biden perspective, he knew it was always going to be about donald trump. He didnt get in the way of the debate everybody was going to have anyway. So a lot of criticism early on about campaigning from his basement, reinforced the covid pitch, brought it home very personally. I think that penetrated. But he didnt get in the way of people talking about trump or or trump talking about trump or trump talking about trump. And over 75 of people polled on election day said this was all about trump. That was number one. Dont get in the way when he is probably going to help you win. Number two, he knew where his votes were going to come from. A lot of his strategy was focused on these suburbs and exurbs. He knew he would run up numbers in philadelphia, but also needed suburbs as well. Bucks county, when is the last time democrats were actively competing actively campaigning in bucks county . He knew that better than trump. If trump looked at the results today and realized he could penetrate as he did in the hispanic vote, get double digits in the black vote, he could look at this and say we have to get into the suburbs more. He kind of waged a campaign against the suburbs, and the reality is, that was a mistake. Suburbs would have listened to his economic argument, and he might have done better. And different maybe from the Hillary Clinton campaign four years ago against trump, she was running all over the country trying to put states in play like arizona, and yet didnt Pay Attention to the base states. And i think biden did a very good job paying attention to the base states. Spent a lot of time in michigan and sewed that up to it time in wisconsin. Pennsylvania was like a second home or third home or fourth home, all in one. When you look at a week before the election how many visits he paid insurrogates pennsylvania, and by the way, that was exactly the right strategy. David is right. If donald trump that these numbers in georgia and arizona and even wisconsin, he would have spent more time there. He spent a lot of time in wisconsin, but if he knew he was within 20,000 votes, he would have spent time there. Spent more time there. And yes, even in arizona, speaking of a state i probably know better than the rest, he wouldnt go to maricopa county, the largest county in america. He traveled all over the rural parts of the state and wouldnt pull the suburban card. And yet, that is where he lost arizona, in maricopa county. I think there were small mistakes made along the way by both campaigns. I think the mistakes trump made cost him the election. As david said, it was an election he could have won. We will see. It is a big question when you get over 66 of the vote turnout , best performance in an election since 1908. That is saying something. Is that a future wave . Is that all geared toward trump . And if it is all geared toward trump what is the future of , trump . Without saying what the future of voting is, someone is going to have to tell me what trump is going to do in the future, and good luck with that. Alex only Maggie Haberman knows what trump is going to do in the future. I just want you to know spent Election Night in bucks county, and crisscrossed the whole state of pennsylvania, and literally every day i was there, there was someone from the Trump Campaign or someone from the biden campaign. And it was almost preordained pennsylvania would be a deciding factor in this election. But maggie, when we talk about this president and this presidency, you have been in the whitehot center of the Trump Administration. [applause] [laughter] you know what has gone on inside that white house in a way few other people do. And i think you understand the mind of trump. I wonder if you have a sense of what his legacy may be, and whether he has forever changed the american presidency. I mean that, i think, in terms of what is expected of leaders, and how they approach not just the office, but the campaign. I mean trump made every part of , the white house into a campaign plank, if you will used , the white house as the center of his campaign several times. How do you think things change or dont change in the wake of trump . Maggie great question, alex. Both rick and david have pointed to things donald trump will point to as victories on his way out the door, thinks he did to transform the Republican Party. But it is not clear how permanent those will be. In terms of the durability of what he did for the office, when he was elected, i had a conversation with a democratic strategist about the fact we were about to learn how much of our system was norms and not laws. That is what we learned over the course of the four years. There are some norms he busted that we repeatedly heard about from every democrat who ran this Cycle Campaign as something they would restore. Among the things we heard about was the White House Press briefings. I think that the White House Press briefings are an important tradition, but they, in this administration, had almost no utility whatsoever by the end. Will there be things a president elect biden and maybe a president after him decides not to continue with, readouts with foreign leader calls, specific sharing of schedules, things like that . I dont know. I think trump has been so ingenuous i have a hard time , seeing a Lasting Imprint of a lot of what trump did. I dont think we are going to elect a wealthy reality tv Star Real Estate developer in the future, with that specific combination. But it is an open question. I am flipping at a little bit. I think there are things that he did that he discovered he could get away with doing, not just not releasing his tax returns, but certainly up there. Will there be other elected officials who find that it is kind of appealing to not go with transparency . I have heard president s complete over many years about the media, donald trump was not first. The first tois call it the enemy of the people from the Briefing Room podium. But there are aspects of his presidency that may have some appeal to future president s, but it is too soon to say. What we discovered over the four was not that just so much of what we were used to was a norm and not a law, but the general public didnt care about it. So how much adherence there is to previous expectations and norms is going to depend on what the public tolerate. That nobody is eager to have another convention, just from a media perspective. [laughter] sorry, convention lovers. I want to pause and give you results from our first poll, which is again, what do you view as a top priority for the new administration . Overwhelmingly, 74 of you say it is a covid19 response, 14 say it is the economy, 3 say it is Foreign Policy 4 social and , Racial Justice and 6 believe health care is the top priority for the incoming administration. We have another poll for you. It is going to come up in a box on your screen. Do you think the country is going in the right direction or the wrong direction . Think about that and answer as we switch gears a little and talk about the elusive ideal of Common Ground here in america. You know, i think that this is a question we ask ourselves generally speaking in american politics, but certainly in the wake of this election, there is a question about how we get back to the united part of the United States. David, i will start with you. What is your expectation for the presidency, and the degree to which he will pursue this lofty idea of unity . David alex lets start with , optimism before we get to the reality, which is quite pessimistic. [laughter] the truth is the american , people, on assault weapons, comprehensive immigration reform, education and health care questions, even climate change, youve got north of 70 80 agreement on these issues. The issue about politics is that people right and left who vote in primaries, contribute on social media, really make it hard. And we need more john mccains, people who are willing to be courageous. I helped a lot of people get elected to office, governor, congress, senator, eventually president. Some of them, and some of them were pretty bad, said, the reason i am running is so i never lose. They are running to do something. And then they get there, and the thing they fear most of all is losing. I dont understand it. It is a lot of travel and a lot of heartache. Lets look at the three parts of the presidency. There is Foreign Policy where an , american president has great the way and can execute lots of decisions. Take thereen will full advantage of that. There are executive actions and regulatory decisions. I think biden will be aggressive there. Then, there is legislation. I worked in the white house when we had a Republican Senate with Mitch Mcconnell as leader, so the only things i think could potentially get done is maybe an byrastructure package, and the way, i put the odds at all this at 50 maybe an , infrastructure package, maybe a slimmed down immigration package, maybe something around covid relief. But the notion we are going to get longterm deficit deals, tax reform, bidens health care plan, it is not going to happen. We have the highest deficits since world war ii. We have a great fiscal situation that happened with a republican president and a Republican Senate, but mcconnell is going to say, joe biden is not getting cent from me. He is going to go back to denying any fiscal stimulus and mcconnell is a savvy player, that is why democrats fear him and hate him, and he will make decisions based on one thing to , maximize his majority in 2022. He has incumbents running in tough states and one question would become a do they have a better chance if the economy is stronger, much of that might lead him to cooperate on economic issues. And also you might think, the more unpopular biden and democrats are, the more opportunity my incumbents can win in places like pennsylvania and florida and wisconsin. So i will say on legislative matters, biden will try, talk to mcconnell every day, but at the end of the day, particularly in this environment where over half of trump voters are viewing biden as an illegitimate president , it hurts. So anybody thinking of running in 2024, josh hawley, nikki haley, the trump kids, all of them have to say it was stolen from trump. So it makes it harder for members to cooperate. So it will take courage. And one thing i will say, we citizens have a role here. We always criticize the media, media, all super valid but citizens have a role here. ,so somebody you gave money to i am a democrat. Lets say you give money to someone who just one a house race and they sponsor legislation with a republican you disagree with, dont take out your phone and fire up a tweet and say, i regret supporting that person, or that person should get a primary. If we want people to reach across the aisle, we have to celebrate, even when we disagree with it, and i think citizens are failing on that front. Alex that is different that , would be a different tack. I think the instinct now is to double down on the divide and not reach across the aisle. Rick, if biden comes in to office as someone known for brokering relationships, and peace up on capitol hill, does that matter . Do you see the Republican Party united in the wake of trumpism . Even if trump is no longer in office, he will still be animating the grand old party. How complicating does that make efforts to work across the aisle on the part of the president . Rick there is a weird anomaly. On it. Ust touched republicans, they are going to see this as a referendum that has supported donald trump. He turned out more republicans than history, it is dark, the way he cultivated it, the way he focuses on the dark end of politics, but in all the surveys, these guys would tell you everybody wants you to work together. So even though you hate each other, you are tired of congress not getting stuff done, and i do think that was the gamble biden took in the election, he talked about that. It is not a popular thing to do. It doesnt rev up your base. Bipartisanship is not a hot issue, it is not a wage issue, it is kind of, since donald trump takes the opposite approach. Normally, everyone would say we want unity. But i think if he makes good on that, and he brings in republicans to his cabinet, that stirs the pot, confuses the issue, and even though we are waiting to see what happens in georgia, and that is going to determine control of the senate, the reality is, even if republicans win both those seats, it is a twovote margin , and you got collins, murkowski, sasse, mitt romney, you got a lot of votes you can go shopping for at those cocktail parties david was talking about. And biden is the kind of guy who is going to go to those folks and say, ive got a stimulus, pelosi wants to 2. 5 trillion, million, wants 500 lets take one point 1. 5 trillion and call it a day. Those are the kinds of deals that get all the time. So to democrats it looks like infrastructure, to republicans it looks like a jobs bill. It would be hard to vote against that if you are susan collins, who is liberated. This is her last term. She has got six years of looking across the aisle and trying to figure out what mark she wants to make. And there are other republican senators like that. So there is a crack in the armor. Whether mcconnell likes it or not, he is a master strategist and he can things from happening, but he doesnt have control of his caucus in the future, because the president isnt going to discipline them for him, and he has that benefit. He could quietly make his move z know that anytime he wants over the past four years one call to , the white house and donald trump would blow these guys up, go at them. Sloyal , there is nobody that is going to do that anymore. And mcconnell has never done that. He disciplines his caucus in private, not public, because he knows if that gets heard politically, he doesnt get to be majority leader anymore. I think we are going to enter a different environment. I err to the dark outcome david described, being a mccain guy, i have to be optimistic all the time. Alex live in the light, rick live in the light. Rick live in the light. and if biden doesnt fall prey to the left and tried to do too much with policies that are not even going to have a majority in the house, let alone the senate, he could thread the needle for a couple of years because this all heats up again and turns into another president ial campaign. He does have the benefit that no one is going to be afraid of running against him, because it is highly likely he wont be on the ballot four years from now, so he want to be a threat personally. Alex maggie, we have reports President Trump is talking about running again in 2024, he may start a Media Company of his own, i think perhaps there is some optimistic thinking he will go back to the sidelines, but that suggestsdata he might very much try to hold onto the mic. And there is a complicated love triangle that is emerging between joe biden, nancy pelosi, and Mitch Mcconnell. Where does donald trump fit in to all of this . You know this man, does he try to dominate the Republican Party even out of office, and what do you think the legislative implications of that are . Maggie trumpism is not defined by a core ideology. It is very much about the president personally. And it has been this catchall basket of issues that he has actually cared about, such as immigration to some extent, trade to some extent, and a bunch of other things people have thrown into the basket. So i dont expect he is going to become some strong voice on legislation from the sidelines. What i think he will do is hold , he will campaign for people if he thinks it looks like they are waiting and he will be able to claim he is the victor, everything is about surviving short increments of time and seeing what he can get away with. I think he likes the idea making things very difficult for joe andn, because he believes, im not approving of this, im just saying this is how he views it, he believes bad things were done to him during his transition, and that his presidency was never able to get left because of the various investigations. He ignores the fact that he fired the fbi director, fired advisoronal security for lying to the Vice President and so forth. , in his mind, damage was done to him and he wants to be some form of the face of the opposition to joe biden. That is what i imagine. I think we will start getting tests in 2022 of the staying power of Donald Trumps political potency but i dont , expect him to do more than onthefly things. The things you mentioned, bows both of which are true, whether he runs for president again, or just says he is, and forming a Media Company, those are in conflict, not things you do at the same time. So i think he is basically leaving himself this big menu of options, and he will take whichever path is more can get when he gets there. I dont think there is some well laid out strategy about how he wants to impact the future. Alex he seems to be a president that goes with his got goes with his gut and follows his instincts and i dont think that , will change postpresidency. Maggie one other thing that is very important, the number of votes he turned out, we will find out if it was just about him or not, but there is every reason to believe it was about him, based on previous votes to republicans. So that is something of a commanding presence he knows he has. Alex david, as we talk about the future of the parties, there is already an intraparty war , in theamong democrats aftermath of the election, the loss of house seats when there were gains expected, publicly decrying each other, do you think the Democratic Party moves forward . What do you think the implications are . We have a democratic president coming into office and get the caucus is very big and very rowdy. What does that imply legislatively . David it is less big because conventional wisdom was that democrats might any might net anywhere from three to 10 end ended up losing house seats. Both georgias are both still possible. The left and the centerleft are sniping at each other, but first of all, in the numbers, this was a tough congressional map that was put in at the beginning of the last decade. I think most observers thought there was no way the democrats could win back the house, but in 2018, they did. And i think what you saw was that was a high watermark on that map, particularly because trump was able to turn out very strong numbers in some trump districts that went democrats in 2018. We lost some of that turf. It turns out that we were at our ceiling. Listen, senate races right now, the natural state in america just because of where, the dakotas, the plains states, a lot of the south, democrats can still be incredibly competitive in those. There are places like the pacific northwest, california, new england, where it is harder for republicans, but right now, the natural state of things is that republicans should have 5456 senators, and democrats are not going to lose the popular vote anytime soon, unless you have a reagancarter kind of thing, but we are going to struggle to win the Electoral College. That is where we are. When we look at elections people , always make the mistake of, first of all, exit polls were completely screwy. When we get fullcounty results, we can learn a lot. We see that on the border. Trump made huge gains. In miamidade, trump made huge pains. Biden one 260,000 votes around the four counties around philadelphia. I never thought i would see it. It is an important trend. But we always just look at the votes. Remember, to gain votes, you need activism, you need money, you need volunteers, so you have to look at it in a 360 view. You cant just say we need candidates who appeal to the center and the centerright. If you dont add fuel to the fire, it wont work. We have to understand that to win wisconsin in a president ial race, or maintain the house majority, we have to win in really tough areas. I always tell people in president ial races, the popular vote doesnt matter, trust me. It doesnt matter. It is like saying in football, i gained more yards but didnt have as many points. Who cares . In every battleground state, there are more conservatives than liberals. Every single one. And republicans get more reliable turnout. So they start closer to the 50 yard line the democrats do. Why did biden win . He was able to get enough turnout, and he dominated on the selfdescribed moderates. So our party has to understand you need the activism and passion that comes from the left and younger voters, but to win in western pennsylvania, to win in northern minnesota, wisconsin, to gain in places like maricopa county, those are center, leftcenter, centerright voters. And to me it is crazy, because it is an all of the above strategy. How do you win a tough state or district . You need activism, strong turnout, you need to win moderates, and it is simple math that sometimes after elections we forget. Democrats go, it has to be this way, has to be that way, and at the end of the day, we have a lot of work to do, and it has to be yearround work, because if republicans can build on what trump did and cut down our margins with hispanic voters, particularly rural hispanic voters and hispanic men and the , africanamerican vote in the carolinas, if you look at rural carolina counties, it was frightening to me. So we have got to get on it. And at the same time, how do you maximize your gains in suburban areas and hold onto bluecollar gains and keep your urban margins up . Every election reveals where you are stronger than you thought you were and where you are weaker than you thought you were. I think the internal firing squad stuff is really not helpful. We need to figure out how we organize in the Rio Grande Valley yearround. Dont, even though some of it was unique to trump, but you see a trend now that is concerning. And so much of what is going to drive our politics in the next couple decades is that suburbanurban divide, and education. The education divide is as stark as we have seen it in american political history. Alex i am going to call that a mixed prognosis for the Democratic Party. [laughter] sounds pretty negative to me. Alex i was trying to be optimistic. [laughter] we are going to have some questions but first, i want welcome back trevor and continue the conversation with questions from folks who have been avidly watching this, and have submitted questions. But i want to kick it off with first, results from our second poll about the right direction or wrong direction of the country. So 41 of you believe we are going in the right direction and 59 of you believe we are going in the wrong direction. The pessimism continues. Trevor, let me start with you about legal challenges. I think a lot of people are wondering how we take the information we are processing now, and make sure this situation doesnt happen before the next election. What needs to happen before the midterm elections, practically speaking, to make sure there is not this uncertainty and chaos after an election . And more broadly speaking are we , as the United States more or less of a democracy after this year . Trevor one thing we have to recognize is that it is unique that a candidate that is so far behind in the states is challenging the fundamentals of the elections process. Normally, we see a dispute over contested ballots, and a claim were counted that shouldnt have been, maybe there were voters who shouldnt have voted and did, and those are detailed discussions. That is the sort of thing that will happen in georgia in the recount. But when you are looking at a 145,000 vote margin in michigan, or 50,000 plus in pennsylvania, you are not talking about the specifics of a couple of voters. The charges there, the claim is that somehow the whole system was invalid, that we shouldnt have had absentee votes in those state, where 40 of pennsylvanians voted absentee. And that is a fundamental matter to be raising as a legal matter. I dont think it goes anywhere, because if it was ever raised, it should have been raised before the election, and i dont think it would have gone anywhere. There are Supreme Court cases allowing different rules for absentee votes than for votes cast on election day. But to raise it at this stage is more a political point then a legal point. It goes to the conversation about whether trump will say he actually lost or not, and whether his voters will believe he lost. But in order to maintain this concept, i think soon to be fiction, that there was a shot at him winning and something was done wrong that can be corrected, in order to do that, he is going to end up with an awful lot of people who rely on him for information believing that the result of the election was somehow illegitimate, that if the system had been run differently and correctly, that somehow trump would therefore have won. And i think that willingness to ignore the vote totals and what people have actually done in the state is a problem for us as a democracy, and it will present a problem for President Biden once he is inaugurated. Because you will see pressure from the grassroots and pressure from the blogosphere and various silos on the internet on republican officeholders not to cooperate, or not to recognize this victory. We are seeing it in some states already, where there is a push Public Officials even, to say pennsylvania and michigan should ignore the results of the vote, and instead ask their trumpatures to send electors to the Electoral College and the vote counting in congress, even though biden won the state based on overall vote totals. So that is new, and i think disturbing. Ncognito. Ra i david, i want to get one more question to you. And put this in the global context. One week after the election, President Trump fired the secretary of defense. Shortly after he started disputing it, the United States formally withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord and we know the u. S. Is set to pull out of the world health organization. What is the message being sent to American Allies around the world, especially right now, as the president refuses to concede . David donald trump may not be moving on, but the rest of the world is moving on. Other than putin, every world leader reached out biden with a note to congratulate him. Their governments are preparing for what i Biden Administration means on the change in american policy. So the look for america could not be worse. We have spent decades going around the world, cajoling, partnering with, sometimes lecturing people on how to build elections, how to build a strong democracy, how to be faithful to your constitution, how to respect democratic norms and traditions. And they are all being violated. I know that sounds like a partisan, but that is through republican administrations, democratic administrations, conservatives and liberals. So even though we look like a joke, so i dont think a lot of the world takes this seriously, the fact an american president decisively lost an election is saying he doesnt care about the will of the voters. He wants to stay and is going to test every weakness to see if he can stay, and for the most part, one of our Political Parties is saying essentially and dont forget every senate race that , gets called for a republican is legitimate, every house race that gets called for a republican is legitimate, every state donald trump wins is legitimate, but the states that decide the presidency were not. And that is going to last for years. And back to your first question to maggie, that is an open question. And for me it is like in the , future, 2024, whether it is biden or harris or whoever emerges on the republican side, or if it is trump we know it , will continue. But will there be trashing of elections and Elections Officials and trashing of norms and threatening not to abide by results . And i really think, and rick knows more about this, i am an amateur here, but the most important people in the Republican Party today, about the future, are not Mitch Mcconnell on legislation of course, Mitch Mcconnell or Kevin Mccarthy or anybody thinking of running for president. It is rupert and lachlan murdoch, it is the people run breitbart, it is the people who are running newsmax. If they say the election isnt legitimate, if they say trump is the thing we need to double down on, whether trumps head of state or not that is where the , energy is. What we need to be watching is all those entities over the next 75 days. Where did they land . Because where they land is where i think most republicans will feel they have to follow that. Alex maggie, let me allow you to wax philosophical. Given what david highlighted about the media and polarization alternateergence of realities and parallel universes where facts are not agreed upon, how do we find Common Ground . Is it possible . As someone who works for the alternately very successful and the failing New York Times where do we find Common Ground . Maggie its a great question and one that i have been asked a lot over the last four years, and one i wish i had a better answer for, other than im not sure. The nature of partisan news david was describing is one of the biggest impediments to moving forward with an agreedupon fact set. Me, theat least for 2016 election, was the first it time it wasnt just a difference of opinions, but a difference of describing which reality people wanted to see. I dont know how that genie gets put back in the bottle. It will be a very slow process. What will is better News Literacy young people who want to be active in the public process. Something about the role that citizens play. And there are things the media could and should have done differently, and the candidates could and should have done differently, but citizens have various roles to play in terms of participation in the process. One is voting. That is the main way where if you dont like your representation, you can change it. But being aware of what is real and what is not is something news users need to become more savvy about. I have waxed on to boring length about the destructive nature of twitter. I think it is very dangerous, how many people in newsrooms get their main news from twitter these days. Met actually does scare because it does shape the news a , lot. Thingas just an emerging in 2012, in a real way and now , it has changed, and it is a fullblown virus. Answer, but a great i think that is one part of it. Alex rick, as we think of ourselves as part of a global community, what in terms of Foreign Policy and restoring alliances, what should be at the top of the incoming president s agenda in terms of what his , administration can do to begin to reopen american channels to the rest of the world . Rick there is a bunch of leftovers. President elect biden is going to have to address how he is going to followup on the middle east Peace Initiative trump initiated. In the middle east, they are pretty happy with the Trump Initiative and wouldnt want to see backtracking on that. Everything we have heard publicly is that he is for it, so he will need to articulate that as a policy. And it is complicated for him , since relations with saudi arabia are going to be refocused on things like humanitarian and human rights, rather than Just Economics and military. I think pushing back on our competitors, china and russia, resetting relationships there as competitors, not pals. And there is a host of issues, north korea, iran, a lot focused around Nuclear Ambitions around these countries that biden comes , from a bad place, the Obama Administration who did those problems kicked them into the , next century, and they got worse, not better, and nothing has changed. None of the trump magic worked in either one of those regards, so does he pick up with the europeans and try to find a new accord they can push into iran to stop Nuclear Development there . And what kind of sanctions or pressure can they put on china . And to try and discipline the north korean machine, these are really big, moving pieces that are going to be immediate for him on his desk. And obviously, the bilateral relationship with china is pretty much in disrepair. And i am sure that if it were better, i think bidens ambitions would be human rights on climate, the toptwo priorities with china, but trade and economics and covid are going to step on those things. So there is going to be and amount of questions about what the u. S. Bilateral relationship with china is going to look like. It is one one of the questions that is pressing now, with all the discussion about the transition, what access to information is biden going to get to try and start putting some ideas together related to those things . Because unlike most issues, it is what you dont know in those areas that are material, not what is in the public domain. And so i think that is going to be some of the challenges he has , literally in the first 100 days of his term. Alex maggie, what is your expectation for the way in which the biden presidency will be different than the trump presidency, not just in terms of style, but in terms of execution . In thee both tenacious pursuit of their ideas, and biden seems very intent on repairing the broken fabric of the country. As a political animal, how do you see him in terms of accomplishing those goals . Maggie a couple of things. I was having a conversation with someone about this the other day, that the last two president s, trump and obama, have not and creatures of been a chef not been creatures of washington in any real way. Yes, obama was in the senate, but it is not the same thing. Joe biden loves washington. So how he navigates his way is an open question. I think in general, his approach to politics has been a do no harm approach. He has tried to be inoffensive to people, but clearly knows what he wants to say, has been thinking about, and knows what he wants to do. He has been thinking about running for president for many decades. So i think that unlike donald trump, joe biden is going to come in with a number of things he wants to do and is going to be far less captive to various peoples ideas than donald trump was. I dont think you are going to see joe biden demonizing entire groups of people. We cant get past the fact that donald trump spent several years in office demagoguing emigrants, saying things that were clearly racist, saying things that were clearly sexist. I dont know what the half of the country that didnt vote for him is going to look like that going to look like. I think that is an open question. I think you are going to see a more traditionally functional white house than the last four years. It has become something of a andit has become something of a punchline, but just the carousel of revolving staff in and out of the president s service, and in and out of his head, in one ear, another person in the other ear whipsawing him on what to do. It will be important in terms of the tone biden sets in the country. Alex i hear a note of optimism about functionality. Maggie on a simplistic level, because somebody was messaging me, the Communications Director at the white house, alyssa farah, was rumored yesterday to be looking for another job at put out a tweet thread of moments she remembers the past couple of years in this administration. In a typical administration, this would be mundane, but in this one, it has been sort of a dont look for a job while the , president is fighting the results, it is seen as strange. Unusual this how white house is and how abnormal it has been has filtered down to the granular level. I think we forget because we have been doing it for so long, but i think it will have an impact when it is not like that anymore. Alex as the door closes, the window opens, an important take away for all of us. I want to take all of you talented, brilliant people. We have another poll that is going to be popping up on everyones screen, what has the potential to bring the country together . I want to thank the great Maggie Haberman, rick davis, David Plouffe, and trevor, thank you for your time as well. We are so thankful to have this admittedly somewhat dark assessment, but i think there is a Silver Lining of optimism about basic competence and may and maybe a lofty goal, but hopefully achievable Common Ground. Thank you all, for your insights on the topic. I want now to introduce mark green. Mark had an extraordinary career in Public Service as ambassador to tanzania president of the , International Republican institute, administrator for usaid before becoming executive director of the Mccain Institute. Welcome, mark. I will pose to you the question burning in our heads, do we have any hope of finding Common Ground . Mark i will be the optimistic note in all of this. As i was listening to our great guests, i was reminded of an experience that i had with john mccain a view years ago. It was right after the 2016 elections. I was serving as president of the International Republican institute and mccain was chairman of the board. And i was persuaded along with the nationali, democratic institute, our sister organization, to sponsor an event in which we had Madeleine Albright and john mccain talking about Foreign Policy. Well they disagreed just about , every issue you can think of. And when i got back to my office i thought, that was a bust, we just wasted all of our time. I could not believe how positive the response was, over and over again. And they disagreed. But i kept hearing over and over again, but it is how they disagreed. They disagreed civilly, they treated each other with respect. They actually listened to each other. Institute, andin institute bearing john mccains name, we try to put that principle to work. Like mccain, we definitely have a point of view on a range of topics. We believe in the primacy of liberty and human we also believe in the marketplace of ideas and we believe in the need to be civil, to listen to each other and make common cause where we can, because we are stronger that way. We know that is what our opponents, authoritarians, fear the most. Have aain institute, we number of bipartisan International Working groups. We have a working group on russia, on human rights and democracy, great our competition, strengthening americas alliances. The topics that were so near and dear to mccains heart. Not everyone on these groups agrees. They have quite strong points of view and sometimes, disagree sharply but we do listen to each other, and we do try to capture that sense of constructive and looking for ways to turn that disagreement into consensus where we can, to make common cause, and to try to create actionable items. There are going to be plenty of opportunities in the coming months and the coming years to use that model. Yeah, theres going to be disagreement between the two parties, between biden and mcconnell, but if they degree disagree constructively and try to turn that into action items, theres an awful lot that can get done. Im one of those who believes that sure, weve gone through a bruising time, absolutely. Weve seen information weaponize. Weve seen social media used and abused. Too much of echo chamber media, but on the other hand, i think that basic fundamentals of institutions are still there, and i believe that we have a great opportunity, all of us who care about these causes and about democracy, to really listen to each other and move forward. I hear a note of optimism tonight. It is much appreciated, m ark. I want to go over the results of our latest poll. What has the most potential to bring people together. 54 of you say joe biden, the incoming president reaching across the aisle, 18 believe it is a plan to address covid, shared humanity in the face of a pandemic, 13 believe it is trumped changing his tone, good luck to us all on that, 12 of you believe it is an agreement on economic stimulus package. Coming likely in the weeks and months and 3 of you believe it is an alliance on unborn policy. Interesting feedback in what you think will get us to that Common Ground in the end. I want to thank everyone who spoke tonight. Potter, Maggie Haberman, david, and our wonderful host cindy mccain and mark green, the, dropping optimism at end of this. Thank you to everyone who joined us in the audience. We hope you feel a little bit more optimistic about the future and the road ahead. Thank you to the Mccain Institute and everyone who helped put this together. We look forward to seeing you all again soon. Thank you again. You are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Created by americas Television Companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Watch indepth with author and chair of africanamerican studies at Princeton University live december 6 at noon eastern. His most recent books include begin again, james baldwins america and its lessons for our own. Exodus, democracy in black and an uncommon fate. Join in faith. Phone calls,r facebook messages, texts and tweets. Watch sunday, december 6 at noon eastern on book tv on cspan2. After 10 00 a. M. , leftdent trumps motorcade the white house and drove past pennsylvania avenue, cheering crowds at the freedom plaza. Supporters of the president were there for a rally and march to the Supreme Court