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i'm michael smerconish, live from philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. we welcome our viewers at home and around the world on this, our first broadcast on the watch of president elect donald j. trump. after his kinder, gentler victory speech and a long meeting with president obama, trump is assembling his swamp draining team, who is in? who is out? sean spicer is here. chris christie was the first of trump's presidential opponents to jump on board, but is he about to be shunned due to bridgegate or a loyalty issue? and continued protests about the election results last night in cities around the nation under the banner not my president, one reason clinton actually won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, so some are lobbying the electors to switch their vote before december 19. and others want to do away with the system entirely. can either happen? plus, you'll meet david

urban, the man who finally delivered my home state pennsylvania to a gop presidential candidate. and i'll be joined by card-carrying liberal thomas frank to begin the democratic autopsy. finally, while a lot of pollsters had to eat crow after the election, expert sam wong promised he would eat a bug if trump got more than 240 electoral votes. he's here. and i hope he's hungry. but first, he didn't get my vote, neither did she, but he's about to be my president and until his official conduct demands otherwise, i intend to afford him the dignity and respect befitting someone who assumes the highest office in the land. that's what i promised when before the election i said here that regardless of the victor, the outcome would require forbearance. at the time, hillary clinton's election seemed a certainty that donald trump was victorious doesn't change my premise.

i'm willing to give the president elect a fresh start in the name of national unity. that doesn't mean that i'll soon forget the past but that from this moment forward it will be his actions as president that will determine his reception at least from me. however remote, there is the prospect of him surprising us and governing in a manner different than he campaigned. the donald trump who accepted victory in the wee hour of wednesday morning was not the candidate who stood on stage and belittled little marco or lie' n ted. instead, his acceptance speech was gracious. >> hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. i mean that very sincerely. now it's time for america to bind the wounds of division.

we have to get together. >> the next morning secretary clinton wearing nonpartisan purple struck a similar cord. >> donald trump is going to be our president. we owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. our constitutional democracy enshines the peaceful transfer of power, we don't just respect that, we cherish it. >> even president obama said that he was heartened by trump's conciliatory words noting we're all on the same team. we're all americans first. trump, clinton, obama, they're all acting like statesmen and providing leadership that the nation desperately needs. now their message needs to be followed by other politicians and the public. partisan competition, that's healthy. democracy depends upon it, but it's time to elevate the debate, to return civility to governance and end partisan gridlock.

this is not a time for pay backs. perhaps it's naive to think that trump is capable of any better, given the way he campaigned with such vengeance toward crooked hillary, but looking back on primary season, he gave me cause for hope of how he might lead when he quoted two kor rin thee y yans at liberty university. his walk ard reference to the new testament evidenced a lack of awareness to beliefs to his supporters. i would like to think i heard words from a man who wasn't a purist but a deal maker, a pragmatist who knows how to sell and close a deal. this former democrat who once contributed to the candidate he just defeated never showed an ideological commitment to any extreme before becoming a candidate. and maybe that's what will get it in white house, a compromiser in chief. one can only hope.

this morning's new york times reports that trump himself was shocked that he won. joining me now a man who was on the inside from day one, rnc chief strategist and communications director, sean spicer. sean, first, congratulations on an unbelievable victory. >> well, good morning and thank you. be honest, did you think you would get north of 240 electoral votes? >> we knew there was a path that we had the momentum and you saw the number of people that were coming out and waiting in lines in those rallies the last couple days. when you do this and you're this invested on either side frankly because i know the clinton campaign would say the same thing, you have to have that hope and you have to believe that, but i don't think that i hfr r ever thought i would see a number go north of 279 and see states like michigan and some of the counties in wisconsin that went heavily for obama that

flipped to trump. so, this victory is one that was, you know, up and down the ticket. the trump movement and message really resonated from one coast to another. let's talk transition. what happened to govern kristy? >> i don't know. i know that obviously mr. trump has a ton of faith in governor pence and his connections and stature in washington. he has been a very successful governor and been a very successful member of the house of representatives. now that we're in that phase, he obviously wanted to look at some of the people that would lead that transition more carefully and more thoroughly and he made a decision. >> reportedly mr. trump said that it was because of governor pence's contacts and experience in washington that he wanted him to play this lead role for the transition. but if, in fact, he's turning to governor pence because of

experience in d.c. and cultivating names like giuliani and gingrich maybe even jamie diamond, it doesn't sound like the swamp is getting drained, if you're relying on the same old faces. >> well, i don't think those are all the same old faces. mayor giuliani never held a senior post in washington, d.c. jamie diamond hasn't. not that i know anything about those names. i think more importantly about the names is the vision. leadership starts a the top. everybody who comes into a trump administration will understand what's expected of them to change how this government operates and is more responsive to the american people and tries to lift people up and in bureaucracy and get things like veterans care to those who need it most. >> your boss, reince priebus under consideration and steve bannon as chief of staff. would you worry about the

message sent if it's bannon. if he is the chief of staff, what message does that send? >> again, we're basically not even 100 hours out from one of the most historic elections in modern history. i think there will be plenty of time for mr. trump to make staff decisions and people for him to articulate why he has chosen different people to carry out various roles and implement his vision. so, i don't want to get the cart before the horse. we'll let mr. trump make those decisions as to who he will ask to serve in his administration at an appropriate time. >> sean, at the outset of the program i said he's my president. you know, i am of the opinion and i would have said the same thing if it were hillary clinton today that he is deserving of a fresh start. let me ask you this question, do you think that he has an obligation to be conciliatory? i ask that question because the likes of pat buchanan and rush limbaugh say, hey, we won.

we have both houses and let's go full on now with our agenda. there's no need to be looking left ward as we advance. what do you say? >> well, i think tone matters and i think mr. trump struck that tone early wednesday morning when he talked about what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it and how he wanted to bring people together. he struck a similar tone during his meetings at capitol hill and meeting in the oval office with president obama. there's a big difference, though. he -- when it comes to setting his agenda and understanding frankly the mandate that the american people gave him from around the country, they want him to do what he said he was going to do. they want him to bring the change. they want him to enact policies that are going to look after the american worker, the american family, business owners. i think mr. trump wants everybody who understands that the american people spoke very loudly and very clearly on tuesday, that they are ready for change, that they want an end to

the status quo, that they're tired of the excusings and they want to see things getting done. if you want to be part of that, then you're welcome to join and we welcome you to that movement. >> i don't know which president trump we're going to get. i look at the past 48 hours with regard to these protesters and you know he sent out successive tweets, the first that was critical of the media and referred to the protesters as being unfair and then he followed it up friday morning and friday morning he was saying, you know, democracy is a wonderful thing and i want to embrace everybody and he was much more conciliatory. explain that dichotomy to me and tell me which of those two is about to become the president. >> everyone has a transition period from being a candidate to going into the governing phase f you will. he is in that phase now. okay the campaign is over. i am now about to assume the presidency of the united states. and so there is a sort of transition into that phase, if you will. but he's clearly struck the

right tone in the second tweet where he talks about the beauty of our country and our first amendment rights and the ability to go out there and express ourselves. and yet we want them to -- everybody who may not have voted for him to understand that we welcome them to be part of this. we want their support. we hope that they will give mr. trump and governor pence an opportunity to lead this country and be part of the process and have their voice heard. >> you've run communications for the rnc. your the chief strategist for the rnc. i have a serious question, do you believe that he sent both of those tweets himself? >> i assume so, yeah. >> you assume -- you're not sure. did you ask him? >> well, i wasn't with him, so i don't know. but mr. trump is not a guy who -- he's very clear about -- he speaks for himself. so i don't think that somebody

just randomly did that. that wouldn't be in keeping with how he operates. >> i know, but there's no consistency there. they truly don't seem to be coming from the same person, which is why i ask. >> again, we're making a lot to do about nothing. he understands the role that he's playing now. i think the tone that he struck in his meetings in capitol hill and with the president, the comments that he made early wednesday morning are what you're going to continue to see, someone who really, truly cares about this nation, who wants to do better, who wants to enact policies that will help every segment of this country who wants to be inclusive. so i think you'll see more and more of that now that the campaign phase is slowly fading away. >> all right. final question, you clearly have the credentials to be the white house press secretary. do you think you have the temperament? i ask that because i don't think i would. i don't think i would be able to stand at that podium and maintain -- i would be doing a slow burn. i don't think that i could maintain my cool while listening

to some of that back and forth with the press core. do you have the temperament? >> i'll tell mr. trump you're not interested. but look, i enjoy my job now. i'm honored that i've been able to be part of this movement, this campaign. frankly this party. it's been an honor to have this position and i thank reince priebus for giving me this opportunity. >> that's an answer that a press secretary would give. that's a good answer. that's good. you're qualified. you're in. sean, thank you. i'm out of time but thank you so much. >> thanks, michael. lot of tweets already coming in in particular about my opening commentary. smerconish not a chance in hell. you don't get to dog whistle cheat to win and then think you get a pass. you're an ass to suggest it. i might be an ass, he's my president. the guy won fair and square and i'm just saying i'm moving forward. i'm not forgetting. i'm moving forward.

time for another one, we'll have a lot of tweets during the course of this program. quickly. he won, michael. he does not need haters to give him a so-called fresh start. he was never stale. >> i'm not a hater. i'm a critic. i'm a critic of all of them. next, what does the future hold for chris christie? he was the first of trump's one-time gop opponents to get on the trump train, but that was before the bridgegate trial and his criticism of trump's so-called locker room talk when the billy bush video was leaked. yesterday came word that vice president elect mike pence would be running the transition. matt, read the tea leaves, what just happened with christie? >> the positive way of looking at this if you're in the christie camp, i'm hearing this from them over the last 24 hours is that this is not a demotion

the fact that he went from the head of transition team to the vice chair of the transition team. it is an indication that another job could be in the offing. they think it is in the offing and potentially that job, the one that i believe christie would want the most is attorney general. you're going to be attorney general of the united states you can't be in charge of building out a new government. so, in that sense, it would make sense that this is why he is down from that position. they say there's the natural on boarding of the campaign. the campaign team is coming on. pence is involved now. so christie moves away and he has another job coming. >> matt -- >> christie has two major problems -- >> while the nation was focussed on the election, there was a bridgegate trial with two convictions. he was not charged with anything, but what did we learn from the bridgegate trial about govenor christie, if anything?

>> right. right this is obviously an issue and something that's playing against him. we learned that there was a pattern of retaliation that was happening in the christie administration against way ward politicians. politics for one reason or another were against christie. there were revenge plots against them that went up to the top of the administration. we were told by both prosecutors and defense attorneys that christie was aware of this scheme to close lanes to the george washington bridge to punish a mayor and cause a traffic jam because that mayor did not endorse christie. he continues to deny this but frankly lied over the last few days in his role of it. he said he fired three of those who have been convicted in this as soon as he found out about it. it's not true. in fact, two of those people resigned with praise from him during the coverup period before it came out in the press. so, you know, he's really like trying to clean up this

bridgegate mess, but it has certainly been a mess. it's taken a toll on his reputation in new jersey. he is at 19% favorability ratings even most republicans don't believe he didn't know anything about it as he claimed. certainly in trump tower there's concern that this could dog him, but you know, with the republican senate, i don't see why he couldn't get confirmed for any job that president trump might want to give him. >> i'm putting up on the screen a photograph that was taken on september 11, 2013. i don't know whether you have a monitor, but you know the photograph to which i refer. according to the evidence in the bridgegate trial, what is taking place in this photograph? >> while the traffic was happening in ft. lee, christie went to a 9/11 ceremony on 9/11 at ground zero. it's run by the same agency, the port authority that runs the bridge. while he is there, while people are stuck in traffic as he is preparing to go into the solemn

ceremony, according to those in the picture, he was told about this traffic jam and they laughed about it. they were told that they were -- there was some indication and wink and a nod that they were punishing this mayor of this little town of ft. lee for not endorsing him and they all had a good laugh about it. christie has denied this as completely bogus. >> i was about to say, matt katz, thank you again for being here, chris christie says that's just not true. he would remember it. that's not why he is laughing. i appreciate your analysis and will continue to follow your reportage at wnyc. thank you for that. >> thank you, michael. lots of tweets. we're being overwhelmed. how can you justify proudly announcing that you voted neither for trump or clinton. what kind of example are you setting? here is the kind of example i'm setting, i am 54. when i turned 18, i registered to vote in the spring of 1980

and i have never missed an election, not one, not dogcatcher, not president, not ever. so, you can question me on for whom i vote, but i've never missed my opportunity to exercise the franchise. go talk to the 50 million who didn't get out and cast a ballot, frankly it's more than that, it's half the country. still to come as with bush/gore in 2000, the candidate who won the popular vote is not our next president so there's petitions to get electors to switch their vote or dump the system all together. you're about to meet one of the electors. and, neuro scientist polling expert sam wong promised to eat a bug if donald trump won more than 240 electoral votes. so viewers have been sending in helpful recipes. let's take a look at some. olive oil and glazed vinegar to mask the taste. well, he will be here at least to eat some crow. ...one of many pieces in my life.

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the election results won't become official until december 19, that's the day the 538

electors of the elect rale college will cast their votes. because hillary clinton actually won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, the system is once again in the spotlight. there's no constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states, but state laws in 25 states and the district of colombia currently do require them to follow the popular vote. so, some clinton supporters have been lobbying electors to switch their votes to the democratic nominee, a change.org petition urging electors to vote for clinton had amassed 3.3 million signatures as of this morning. joining me now, one elector from the state of texas firefighter and paramedic chris. chris, first i salute you. you are one of the first responders on september 11 to rush into the pentagon. thank you for that, sir. i also know that there was some

false reporting about the way you look at your responsibility. speak to that issue. >> well, there was an article -- first off, thank you for having me, michael. but there was an article in august in politico where it indicated that i was considering voting for secretary clinton. that reporting was inaccurate. it was argued at the time with a reporter that it was inaccurate and they would neither print a retraction or correction. it died down because people didn't give president elect trump a chance to win te election. its reared its head again now that he has and surprised everyone. >> okay. when you get there, december 19, you will be casting your electoral college vote for donald j. trump. >> donald j. trump. >> and you represent an area, correct me if i'm wrong the congressional direct sending you there, which is centered on dallas, was an area where hillary clinton drew a lot of support. >> that is accurate.

i do not know the exact numbers, but more than likely. >> so what do you make of the debate where some say, you know, maybe the electoral college should be obligated or shouldn't be obligated to follow the will of the majority? you're the guy who is actually getting to play this role. i'm sort of envious. what's your opinion? >> my opinion -- well, let me switch gears if i can. i don't want to earn the entire wrath of the city of chicago, but no one out there that i know of is suggesting that the cubs should have lost the world series simply because the indians and cubs both scored the same number of runs. the system in place for the world series is who wins four games first. and in the presidential election, it's the same situation. it's who gets to 270 votes first. secretary clinton knew that when she got in the race. president elect trump knew that. jill stine and so forth. so i'm not real clear on why there's this push now for people to say the popular vote should matter, more than the electoral college system which was the

rules everyone agreed to before we began the race. >> i think what i hear you saying is to the extent that this subject gets revisited, it should be forward looking and certainly not retroactive because to your point these were the ground rules that everybody agreed to play by in the 2016 presidential election. >> well, michael, i won't go there actually. first off retroactively it was the system in place. going forward, i thisty electoral college is the appropriate vehicle to elect our presidents. i think most people forget but the electoral college comes from a tradition of our founding fathers to protect the will of the majority while also protecting the interest of mie torties like the right to trial by jury, like the filibuster in the united states senate, the electoral college makes sure that there's not an outweighted value placed on california, florida, new york and even texas, but that all states matter. whether it's wisconsin and pennsylvania or iowa and

wyoming. >> chris suprun thank you for giving platform to that argument. you set up beautifully my next guest. i salute your service. have fun on december 19. on this subject he raised whether the electoral college should be abolished. hi next guest says yes. professor, respond to mr. suprun. >> well, i also think if we're going to revisit this issue it ought to be going forward. i don't think obviously we should change the results of the election that were -- that was conducted under the rules as set forth. i think there's a real issue, though, with the ultimate utility of the electoral college at this point in time. you know, there's no principle that's more fundamental to a democratic theory of governance than the principle of political

equality. that is regardless of race, creed, color, material circumstances the views of every citizen should be weighted equally. in an electoral college system, every vote certainly doesn't count equally. the votes that happen to be cast in battleground states, the half a dozen states that decide elections clearly count much more than votes in se republican or say democratic states. that seems to me to really fly in the face of this central principle of political equality. we also as we sort of grow up in this country and we vote in all sorts of lesser elections the principle of majority rule seems to prevail in virtually every other election. i don't understand why at this point in time we continue to adhere to a system that again undermines in my view the principle of political equality

and simply doesn't follow the straight forward logic of majority rule. >> you certainly know all the arguments that get advanced in support of keeping this electoral college. i don't have time to run through all, but a favorite is the problematic recount. in other words, if we had the situation that we had on our hands in 2000 where the popular vote margin seems like it was much closer than it will be from last tuesday, how do you go about a recount in all 50 states instead of just isolating on a particular state integral to the electoral college? >> yeah. i still think that's a tractable issue. i think given modern technology, even a recount in a very, very close race should not undermine the ability to do that. so i don't really see that as a really credible argument. i should say, by the way, people say, well, this is the way we've always done this. in point of fact, the logic of

the electoral college as set forth by hamilton and madison and others was that the voting citizens that is property white males would elect a set of electors really upstanding citizens who themselves would decide who the president was going to be. they were not to be bound by the popular vote in their states. so we've moved very far away from the system as it was originally envisioned. >> professor mcadam, thank you so much for your expertise. i appreciate your book as well. >> thank you, michael. when you're wrong, you're wrong and neuro scientist and number cruncher extraordinary sam wong called 49 of 50 states in 2012, but like many others he got tuesday wrong. he was here last weekend and could not be swayed from his conviction that clinton would win. >> honestly this race is the

most stable statistically speaking since eisenhower beat stevenson in 1952. there's drama and data. state polls is a good gauge. >> what about the argument that says that no poll has properly taken aapprisele of donald trump's true strength perhaps people because are em bare rasz raszed to say to a pollster, i'm for him. >> no, no, no. >> dr. wong promised to eat a bug if he won more than 240 electoral votes which inspired an avalanche on my twitter page. here is one of many -- will you please have dr. wong back on to discuss where his logic went wrong. hoping to see bug eating video. dr. wong, you're a good man for being here. many others would have simply ducked. what did go differently than you envisioned? >> well, certainly i was wrong and i will say that i rely heavily as all do on the

pollster community being accurate together. and last week we saw a pretty large pollster error in presidential races, senate races, house races up and down an era of 4 to 6 percentage points. that's an unusually larger ror. i agree i was wrong. i was trying to be a transparenting a gator of polling data. >> do you now reconsider your view of a week ago as to this issue of a hidden trump vote? >> well, i think there's a very important point here which is still the same and even though i was wrong about the outcome, it is very much the case that voters are polarized, hillary clinton's vote came in a little bit above her polls and donald trump came in about three or four points ahead of his polls. i think if you look at the day tarks it looks like there's some undecided voters. if you look closely at the data, the cross tabs and all the details of the polls suggest that republicans were torn between party loyalty and voting for a fairly radical candidate.

mr. trump is unusual and we're about to see how unusual he is. and i think it showed in public opinion before at least before the comey announcement and jump after the comey announcement. >> in defense of polling f you look at the popular vote totals, then the pollsters and those who crunched the data were not so wrong. is that a fair statement? >> yeah. so, if you look at the national popular vote, it looks like hillary clinton's win of 1.7 percentage points was not as far off because polls indicated a 4-point win by her. just to go back further in time, look, back in january i pointed out that donald trump was the odds on favorite to get the nomination that was based on opinion polling data. it is not time to throw owl opinion polling data but it is time to ask an important and close race is there some way to do a little better and to refine methods so that in the close races then more accurate data

would be available. >> fast forward four years, you can imagine whomever the candidates might be, someone is going to be saying and frankly for a lot longer than four years from now, well, of course you remember what happened in 2016 with donald trump. >> yes. yeah. that's a likely thing to happen. i mean, i think that one thing is really difficult to gauge is undecided voters, there's going to be second guessing on -- as to whether white non-college voters in the rust belt were missed, but i think that probably the biggest innovation in the coming years as polling gets more difficult is to figure out what to do with people who say they're undecided. whether they're shy or just don't know. when i got into poll aggravation in 2004, my original reason was to get people talking about policy issuesed a not so much in horse race, obviously things have not gone in that direction with all due respect the national media seems to be interested in e-mails rather than in policy issues. honestly building a wall is a policy issue, so that's a policy

issue, but i think that really polling and horse race might take a step back in the news and that might not be a bad thing. >> okay. finally, the bug, what about the bug? >> can you see this? >> yes. >> this is a can of gourmet style crickets, and gourmet from the point of view of a pet. i'm told that -- i'm told that it's a great source of protein and so on. now, i should say before i do this, let's chat for a second. i think that the eating bug thing is itself sensationalist and keeps us off of important policy issues, such as supreme court appointments, donald trump had a great conversation with obama and he can make a grand gesture like say, you know what, i'm representing all the people, i'm going to show everyone who i am and what i'm made of and name merrick garland to the supreme

court. tere are things that can happen to bring the country together, i think the bug thing is not one of them. i wanted to point that out. now, mike, you really want me to do this? >> i kind of would. let's like put it to bed once and for all. >> sure. okay. so like john the baptist in the wilderness, he ate locusts and honey. so i regard myself as being in the wilderness a little by, after all i was wrong. a lot of people were wrong, but nobody else made the promise i did. and i'm hoping that we can get back to data and thinking thoughtfully about policy and issues and having said that and saying good morning to everyone out there on both sides, see this. here it goes. okay? >> you're a man of your word. dr. wong. i appreciate -- how was it, by the way? >> um, kind of mostly honeyish, little nutty. if it's good enough for a snake -- >> you delivered. >> you're a man of your word.

i appreciate it. it was sensationalistic but it was worth it. >> thanks. >> thank you for that. >> dr. sam wong from the princeton election consortium. someone who can explain how the experts missed this in such a big way, andrew is a statistics and political science professor at columbia university. he explained that the margin of error in even the late campaign polls is often so wide that they're not reliable. welcome back, dr. gelman, i appreciate your being here. how do you assess what we just saw on tuesday? >> four years ago barack obama got 52% of the vote and mitt romney got 48% of the vote. hillary clinton from the polls was predicted to get 52% of the two-party vote herself and she only got half. so, she did 2 percentage points worse than obama did and she did 2 percentage points worse than

were predicted by the polls. part of it is that people kind of forgot that the 2012 election was so close that actually obama only got 52% of the vote. we think about president obama, mitt romney as a failure, he lost the election, but it was really close. this election again was forecast to be really close. people weren't used to that. i think a lot of people who had been following polls, who didn't have a lot of experience in the area, had sort of naive view because the last few elections the polls happen to have been very close at the national election. but let me give you a quote. my colleagues wrote this "the new york times" on october 6th. this november we would not at all be surprised to see mrs. clinton or mr. trump beat the state by state polling averages by about two percentage points. we just don't know which one would do it and that was based upon our historical analysis. they get it wrong sometimes.

>> so from that same summation of your work, i, too, want to quote. i'm going to put it up on the screen. i thought this was remarkable. we examined -- this is part of your research, 4,221 late-campaign polls, every public poll we could find, for 608 state level presidential senate and governor's races between 1998 and 2014, comparing those poll results with actual electoral results, we find the historical margin of error is plus or minus six to seven percentage points, yes, that's a error range of 12 to 14 points not the typical reported 6 or 7. explain that fleez. >> we say sampling error and nonsampling error. the sample is because you're sampling a finite number of people, drawing bulls from the urn. you won't see the entire population. that gives you the margin of error you'll see in the newspaper. non-sampling error is because you're not getting the right

people or you're adjusting to the wrong population. and in this particular case, 2016 election, i think a lot of trump supporters were not responding to polls. and the turnout wasn't what was expected. people were adjusting to a 2008/2012 level turnout, as you might have heard, the democratic turnout was down a lot in 2016. it may have been a mistake to adjust to 2012 and 2008 given that in 2008 and 2012 there was this guy running for president you might have heard of, very inspirational figure, transformative, barack obama. we didn't have that this time. so i think that may have been a mistake right there. >> andrew gelman, thank you so much for being here with your expertise. we appreciate it. >> yeah. another tweet -- smerconish, michael, all you talking heads did such a poor job. i suggest strongly you look for other employment. pathetic to watch. hey, damon steel, i never

thought he would run, much less win. i acknowledge that. i've acknowledged it all along. still ahead, meet the man who delivered donald trump the key battleground state of pennsylvania by 65,000 votes. david urban is in the on deck circle. i thought we might be doing another autopsy on the gop this week, instead it's the democratic party in disarray. thomas frank the man who kept saying listen liberal, turns out to have been right. we'll dissect the remains. ♪ is it a force of nature? or a sales event? the season of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the season of audi sales event. (bing) this is my retirement. retiring retired tires.

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the tweets continue to roll in. @smerconish. dr. wong eating a bug makes him earn my -- yeah, he is a man of his word. he's the only one who ate a bug, even though a lot of others were wrong, no doubt. the key to donald trump's unlikely victory the crucial swing states that has gone for obama in 2012 including my home state of pennsylvania as i had said here, the difference was not going to be in the philly burbs that everybody scrutinize bud the more working class and rural counties of the remainder of the state and the man who cracked the code is david urban, senior aid visor to the trump campaign, he ran the pennsylvania effort. david, what was the key?

>> michael, thanks for having me this morning. the key was running a big totals in the rest of the state. you know, we were -- we knew what was going to happen in the philly suburbs and we worked hard to get mr. trump, president elect trump, out to the rest of the state, pittsburgh, scranton, the other media markets around the state. we knew what message would resonate. >> david, on any other election day the margin she did come out of philadelphia and the philly burbs with would have been enough. but it wasn't. you brought out people who hadn't been active participants in the past. >> you're correct, michael. secretary clinton's numbers out of the philly suburbs were very strong. our numbers were just stronger. we had an incredible ground game, great relationships with the pennsylvania party, the republican party nationally we were able to get out the vote

and all across the commonwealth. we simply outperformed her. >> hey, david, i remember this is a role you used to play for arlin specter and as far as i know you've never lost an election. what was it like to work for mr. trump? tell me about him as the candidate for whom you were working. >> president elect trump is an incredibly energetic campaigner. every time he came to the commonwealth of pennsylvania we wanted to know when he was coming back next. very granular in his knowledge of the commonwealth. wanted to know why we were campaigning in a certain location that week and where we would be headed the next week. very energetic, knowledgeable man and i expect him to be a great great president. >> we're all talking about the data in the abstract sense. is there a voter, a voter or two that david urban thinks of when you think of the pennsylvania victory. and if so, who is she or he?

>> sure, michael. i like to think of my next-door neighbor growing up in western pennsylvania, who i introduced to mr. trump at a rally, miss virginia longski. she told mr. trump that she had been a republican -- excuse me, she had been a democrat her entire life, 81 years, and this is the first election that -- >> i think we lost david. we lost david as he was explaining that it was his next-door neighbor in western pennsylvania that was the epitome of the trump constituency that propelled him to victory. anyway, congratulations, david urban. it was an unexpected and big victory. for the democratic side, what the hell happened? those were thomas franks' words in an article for "the guardian." quote, the woman we were constantly assured who was the best qualified candidate of all time lost to the least qualified of all time. he's the author of, "listen liberal," you think that's the way you're supposed to say, and

of course, "what's the matter with kansas?" thomas frank, thank you so much for being here. what went wrong? >> what went wrong? clintonism is what went wrong. this is the philosophy of clintonism going back to the 1990s, that people like working class voters have nowhere else to go. do you remember this? that is what they used to say when they got nafta passed in 1993. well michael, as i said many, many times this year, they found somewhere else to go. >> did they vote -- i mean, i remember the whole premise of "what's the matter with kansas?" your argument is that voters vote against their own economic interest. i assume thomas frank will say a whole bunch of folks voted against their own economic interest on tuesday. >> i would say, yeah, but the politics have changed quite a bit since then. the main point of "what's the matter with kansas?" is what we're seeing play out right before our eyes, is that working class people are transitioning from the democratic party to the republican party. it's been going on for decades

and here it is. and the democrats have been utterly blind to this. they dismiss it, they won't talk about it. they brush it off -- right now, in washington! coming up with all sorts of different ways to brush it off and say they don't have to reach out to these people, they can win without these people. they don't have to take their issues into, you know, into consideration. and they lose and they lose and they lose and they lose and they lose. >> so you look at that democratic bench, which candidly, to me, looks a little thin at the national level. who do you see as the champion for where this now goes? >> look, there are some good democrats, still. i like elizabeth warren, i like sherrod brown. there are a lot of good democrats out there, with i mean, good from my point of view. but i want to point out two things. first of all is that we have to get past the liberalism that i describe in "listen, liberal." it's kind of liberalism of the rich. martha's vineyard liberalism. this has to go. we have to move away from it. and -- what was the other thing i was going to?

>> you know what i want to say? i fear what donald trump is going to do to this country, but there is one very bright side to all of this. you know what it is? this man just destroyed the establishment wing of both parties. he just ended two political dynasties. the bushes and the clintons. he showed us that anything is possible in american politics. and that is a wonderful thing. >> if he delivers on the jobs, those voters are not returning to the democratic fold. you'd agree on that? >> i think that's -- you might be right about that, yeah. >> i mean, it's all about -- yeah, it is the economy. it is certainly not -- i would argue, it was certainly not a campaign driven by social issues. not this cycle. >> not this time, no, not this time around. but when i wrote "what's the matter with kansas?" that was before the great recession. that changed everything. look, had -- my argument is that had obama, had obama really delivered, getting tough with

wall street, changing the way the world works for middle class people. had he done, you know, anything for middle class people, we'd be looking at a different situation today. and he came into office, a lot of people thought he was going to be a very different kind of democrat. it didn't work out that way. but can i tell you something, michael, i'm speaking to you from kansas city, missouri, right now. i spent the last couple of days out in columbia, missouri. and missouri, like pennsylvania, like many of these states, democrats won two big cities in the college town. and they lost everything else, okay? and you look at the rural counties out there in missouri and it is like a neutron bomb went off in these places. the buildings are still standing, everything's gone, everything's boarded up, the people are gone. it's de-populating, the family farms are dead. these people have been watching their way of life disintegrate for decades. and they had hope in barack obama and now they've got nothing but desperation. and at least donald trump, you know, when somebody comes out there and says, make america

great again, that sounds pretty good to these people. these people are desperate. >> we knew we'd be conducting an autopsy. we just didn't think that it would be on this particular cadaver. thomas frank, thank you for being here. >> sure thing, michael. still to come, your best and worst tweets. man oh, man, are they coming in fast and furious. "who the hell is listening to this un-american entertainer named the smerconish. the guy didn't even vote for president of the united states" whoa, whoa, whoa, put that camera back on me. hold on. of course i voted for president of the united states. what i said at the outset is i didn't vote for either of them! i've never missed an election, since i turned 18. i'm 54. never one. and i didn't leave my ballot empty, okay? we're back in a moment. if you're searching other travel sites to find a better price... ...stop clicking around... the lowest prices on our hotels are always at hilton.com.

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keep tweeting me @smerconish. let's roll through. let's just ignore a campaign of hate, misogyny, racism, words and actions don't matter to you. i'm not ignoring it. i'm not going to forget. but i'm giving the man a blank slate moving forward and i'll evaluate him based on his conduct. "haven't been the biggest fan of yours this year. your grace this morning was commendable. we need to heal." that's what i'm saying. let's all work together the way president obama and secretary clinton said we need to. give me another one. "thanks for the bug. at least there's one democrat who doesn't lie." i don't know that dr. wong is a democrat, but he's a man of his word. give me another one. keep 'em moving here. "smerconish, i think you should run for president in four years. any chance?" no. zero chance. i'm out of time, unfortunately. thank you so much. tweet me @smerconish. i'll see you next weekend. well, good morning and