when they thought they should westart saving for retirement.le then we asked some older people when they actually did start saving. this gap between when we should start saving and when we actually do is one of the reasons why too many of us aren't prepared for retirement. just start as early as you can. it's going to pay off in the future. if we all start saving a little more today, we'll all be better prepared tomorrow. prudential. bring your challenges. i'm michael smerconish live from the city of broerl lotherl. our first broadcast on the watch of president elect donald trump

after his kinder speech and a long meeting with president obama. assembling his swamp draining team. rnc's sean price e sean spicer . 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 the 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 of pennsylvania to a gop presidential candidate. and i'll be joined by card-carrying liberal thomas frank to begin the democratic autopsy. and finally, while a lot of

pollsters had to eat crow after the election, expert sam long promised he'd 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 i said here 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 i'll soon forget the past, but that for this moment forward, it will be his actions as president that will determine his reception, at

least for 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 hours of wednesday morning was not the candidate who stood on stage and belittled little marco or lying 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. have to get together. >> the next morning, secretary clinton wearing non-partisan purple struck a similar chord. >> donald trump is going to be our president. we owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don't just respect that, we cherish it. >> even president obama said 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 time to elevate the debate, return civility to governance and end partisan gridlock. this is not a time for paybacks. perhaps, it's naive to think trump is capable of any better given the way he campaigned with such vengeance towards, quote, crooked hillary, but looking back on primary season, he gave me cause for hope of how he might lead when he quoted 2

corinthians at liberty university. i'm not crediting him for quoting scripture. to the contrary, his awkward reference to the new testament evidenced a lack of awareness to beliefs certain of his supporters held dear. some saw a shallow attempt to ingratiate. i would like to think i heard words from a man who wasn't a purist but a dealer, a pragmatist who knows how to sell and close a deal. former democrat who contributed to the candidate he just defeated never shown an i ideological commitment to any extreme before becoming a candidate and maybe that's what we'll get. a compromiser in chief. one can only hope. "new york times" reports trump himself was shocked that he won. joining me now, a man 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'd 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 line in those rallies last couple of days and when you do this and you're this invested, either side, frankly, because i know the clinton campaign would say the same thing, you have to have that hope and have to believe that, but i don't think that i ever thought i'd see a number go north of 279 and 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 and the trump movement and message really resonated from one coast to another. >> let's talk transition. what happened to governor

christie? >> i don't know. i know that obviously, you know, mr. trump has a ton of faith in governor pence. and his connections and his stature in washington. he's been a very successful governor and he'd been a very successful member of the house of representatives and i think now that we're in that phase, he obviously wanted to look at some people to lead the transition for carefully, more thoroughly and made a decision. >> reportedly, said it was because of pence's contacts in washington to play the lead role for the transition but if he's turning to governor pence because of experience in dc and cultivating names like giuliani and gingrich, maybe even jamie dimond, it doesn't sound like the swamp is getting drained if you rely on the same old faces. >> well, i don't think those are all the same old faces.

mayor giuliani never held a post in washington, dc, in a senior post like this. not that i know about anything about the names but it's the vision. leadership starts at the top and i think everybody who comes into a trump administration will understand what's expected of them to change how this government operates and sis mor responsive to the american people and tries to lift people up and bureaucracy, get veterans care to those who need it the most. >> your boss, reince priebus, reportedly under consideration as is steve bannon for the position of chief of staff. do you worry about the message that would be sent if, in fact, it's bannon, given his controversial past. i mean, he is a lightning rod. you have to admire the skill set in the campaign but he's a lightning rod. 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 and i think there will be plenty of time to make staff decisions and for him to articulate why he's 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. i am of the opinion and i would have said the same thing if it were hillary clinton that he's deserving o f a fresh start. do you think he has an obligation to be conciliatory? i ask that question because the likes of pat buchanon and rush limbaugh say, hey, we won, we've got both houses, and you know, let's go full on now with our agenda. there's no need to be looking leftward as we advance. what do you say? >> 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 to bring people together, struck a similar tone during meetings at capitol hill with president obama. there's a big difference though. i think when it comes to setting his agenda and understanding that 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, they're tired of the kufzs and want excuses and 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 then saying, democracy is a wonderful thing and i want to embrace everybody and he was much more conciliatory. explain that dichotomy to me and 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 and 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 a transition into that phase, if you will. but clearly struck the right tone on 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, you know, 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 to be part of the process and have their voice heard. >> you've run communications for the rnc. you're the chief strategist. you run communications for the rnc. i have a serious question. do you believe that he sent both of those tweets himself? >> i just, i assume so, yeah. >> you assume. >> you're not sure. >> mr. trump is very clear. 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 just don't, they truly don't coming from the same person, which is why i ask. >> again, i think we're making a

lot to do about nothing. he understands the role he's playing now. i think the tone he struck in his meetings on capitol hill and with the president, the comments he made early wednesday morning are what you're going to continue to see. someone who truly cares about this nation and wants to do better, wants to enact policies that are going to help every segment of this country, wants to be inclusive. i think you'll see more of that now that the campaign phase is slowly fading away. >> 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 the podium and i'd be doing a slow burn. i don't think i could maintain my cool wile listening to the back and forth with the press corps. 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, and frankly, this party. it's been an honor to have this position and i thank reince priebus. >> that's an answer that a press secretary would give. you're qualified! you're in. sean, thank you. >> thank you. thanks, michael. a lot of tweets already coming in, in particular, about my opening commentary. 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 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 of all of them.

next, what does the future hold for chris christie? he was the first of one-time gop opponents to get on the trump train but that was before the bridgegate trial and so-called locker room talk when the billy bush video was leaked and yesterday came word that vice president elect michael pence, not christie, is running the trump transition. the christie expert, author of "american governor: chris christie's bridge to redemption." read the tea leaves. what happened with christie? >> the positive way of looking at this if you're the christie camp and i'm hearing this from them over the last 24 hours that this is not a demotion, the fact he went from the head of the transition team to the vice chair of the transition team. it is an indication that another job could be in the offing and potentially, that job, the one i believe christie would want the

most would be attorney general and if 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, you know, this is why he is down from that position. they say this is the natural on boarding of the campaign. the campaign team is coming on. pence is involved now. so christie moves away and got another job coming. however -- >> matt, matt. >> yes? >> right, i was going to say, while the nation was focused 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? if anything? >> this is an issue and playing against him. we learned there was a pattern of retaliation that was happening in the christie administration against wayward politicians, politicians that 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. christie continues to deny this but he's also frankly lied over the last few days about his role and 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 cover-up period before it came out in the press. so, you know, he's really like trying to clean up this bridgegate mess but certainly been a mess. it's taken a toll on his reputation in new jersey. at 19% favorability rating. even most republicans don't believe he knew anything about it as he claims and 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 pit puutting up on the s a photo that was taken. i don't know whether you have a hon for but you know the photograph to which i refer. according to the evidence in the brid 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. this ground zero is run by the same agency, the port authority that runs the bridge and while he's there, while people are stuck in traffic as he's 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 some indication, a wink and a nod they were punishing this

mayor of this little town of ft. lee for not endorsing him and they had a good laugh about it. christie has said it's completely bogus. >> i was about to say. matt katz, thank you. he said it's not true, would have remembered it. not why he's laughing. i appreciate your analysis and continue to follow your reporting. @wnyc. lots of tweets. we're being overwhelme overwhelmed @smerconish. what kind of example are you settling? here's the kind of example. i'm 54. when i turned 18, i registered to vote in the spring of 1980 and never missed an election, not one, not dogcatcher, not president, not ever. so you can question me on for whom i vote, but i have never missed my opportunity to exercise the franchise. go talk to the 50 million who

didn't even get out and cast a ballot. frankly, it's more than that. it's half the country. as with bush/gore in 2000, the candidate who won the popular vote is not our next president thanks to the electoral college and positions to get electorals to switch vote or dump the system all together. you're about to meet one of the electors. and neuroscientist 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. my belly pain and constipation? i've heard it all. eat more fiber. flax seeds. yogurt. get moving. keep moving. i know! try laxatives. been there, done that. my chronic constipation keeps coming back. i know. tell me something i don't know.

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the election results won't become official until december 19 the day that the 538 electors gather to cast their votes and 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, 25 states and the district of columbia 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 amassed 3.4 million signatures as of this morning. firefighter and paramedic chris, first, i salute you, one of the first responders on september 11 to rush into the pentagon. thank you for that, sir. i also note that there were some false reporting about the way you look at your responsibility. speak to that issue. >> 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 and that reporting was

just inaccurate. it was argued at the time with a reporter that it wasn't correct and wouldn't issue a retraction and for the most part, people didn't give president trump a chance to win the election and reared its head now and surprised everyone. >> when you get there december 19, you'll be casting your electoral college for donald j. trump. >> donald j. trump. >> and you represent an area, correct me if i'm wrong, but the congressional direct se greggre. >> i do not know the exact numbers but more than likely. >> what do you make of the debate where some say, maybe the electoral college should or shouldn't be obligated to follow the will of the majority. you're the guy actually getting to play this role.

i'm sort of en vie yoviousenvio. what's your opinion? >> i don't want to earn the entire wrath of the city of chicago, but no one out there 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 stein and so forth. i'm not clear 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 agreed to before we began the race. >> i think what i hear you saying is to the extent this subject gets revisited, it should be forward looking and certainly not retroactive because to your point, these were the ground rules everybody agreed to play by in the 2016

presidential election. >> michael, i won't go there, actually. first off, it was the system in place but going forward, i think the 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 interests of minorities like the right to trial by jury, the filibuster in the senate. it makes sure there's not an outweighed value placed on california, florida, new york, or texas but all states matter. whether it's wisconsin, pennsylvania, or iowa, and wyoming. >> thank you for giving a platform to that argument. you set up beautifully my next guest, i salute your service and have fun on december 19th. on this subject that he just raised of whether the electoral college should be abolished, my next guest says differently than

my last. yes, doug mcadam is a professor of sociology and co-author of "deeply divided." professor, respond to mr. supran. >> 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 was conducted under the rules 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 political equality. that is regardless of race, creed, color, material circumstances. the views of every citizen should be weighted equally. inn in an electoral college system, every vote does not count

equally. battleground states, half a dozen states that decide elections clearly count much more than votes in, say, republican or democratic states. that seems to be flying in the face of the central principle of political equality and 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 politically of equality and simply doesn't follow the straightforward logic of marriagjority rule. >> you know all the arguments in advance of keeping the 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 close race should not undermine the ability to do that. so i don't really see that as a really credible argument. but i should say, by the way, people say, well, this is the way we've always done it. in point of that, the logic of the electoral college as set forth by hamilton and madison and others was that the voting citizens, that is, propertied 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 originally envisioned. >> professor mcadam, thank you for your expertise. i appreciate your book as well. when you're wrong, you're wrong. and neuroscientist and number cruncher extroo eer extraordina tuesday wrong. he was here and could not be swayed from his conviction that clinton would win. >> honestly, this is the most stable statistically speaking since eisen hour beat stevenson in 1952. i think there's drama and then data. a state poll is a good gauge of where things will go. >> no poll has properly taken an apprisal of donald trump's true

strength. perhaps because people are embarrassed to say i'm for him. >> oh, no, no. >> dr. wong promised to eat a bug if he won more than 240 electoral votes which sponsored an avalanche. will you please have dr. wong with his logic and how he plans to change 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 poll aggregators do on the pollster community being accurate together. and last week, we saw a pretty large pollster error in presidential races and senate races and house races and 4 to 6 percentage points, unusually large error. i agree i was wrong and i was

doing what i have tried to do in the past which is be a transparent aggregator of polling data. >> do you now reconsider your view 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 3 or 4 points ahead of his polls. if you look at the data, there's some undecided voters. if you look closely, the cross tabs and the details of the polls, they suggest that republicans are torn between party loyalty and voting for a fairly radical candidate and mr. trump is unusual and we're about to see how unusual he is. and i think it showed in public opinion, at least before the comey announcement and then after the the comey announcement. >> in defense of polling, if you look at the popular vote totals,

then the pollsters and those who crunch the data were not so wrong. is that a fair statement? >> yes, 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 and just to go back further in time, look, back in january, i pointed out he was the odds on and i don't think it's time to throw out opinion polling data but an important and close race, is there some way to do a little bit better and to refine methods so in these close races, then more accurate data would be available. >> fast forward four years, someone will be saying and a lot longer than four years from now, you remember what happened in 2016 with donald trump. >> yes. yeah, that's a likely thing to happen. and i think one thing that's

really difficult to gauge is undecided voters. there will be second guessing, i think, as to whether white non-college voters in the rust belt were missed but i think probably the biggest innovation in coming years is to figure out with people who say they're undecided whether they're shy or just don't know. i will say when i got into poll aggregation in 2004, my original reason was to get people talking about policy issues and not so much a horse race. things have not gone in that direction with all due respect, the national media is more interested in e-mails than policy issues and honestly, building a wall is in some sense a policy issue, so that's a policy issue, but i think, really, polling and horse race might take a step back in the news and 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 should say. i'm told that, i'm told 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 sensationalist and keeps us off of important policy issues such as supreme court appointments, donald trump had a great conversation with obama, and he could make a grand gesture like i'm representing all the people, i'm going to show everyone who i am and what i'm made of and i'm going to name merritt garland to the supreme court. but i think the bug thing is not one of them. i wanted to point that out. but 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, and so i regard myself as being in the wilderness a little bit because after all, i was wrong. a lot of people were wrong but nobody else made the promise i did but hoping we can get back to data and thinking thoughtfully about policy issues and having said that and say good morning to everyone out there on both sides. here it goes. >> how was it? >> honeyish, nutty. but if it's good enough for a snake. >> you delivered. okay. you're a man of your word. i appreciate it. it was sensationalistic but worth it. >> thanks. how the experts missed this in such a big way. andrew gelman is a political

scientist at columbia university and 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 you being here. how do you assess what we just saw on tuesday? >> four years ago, four years ago, barack obama got 52% of the vote and mitt romney got 48% of the vote. hillary clinton from the polls was 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 prikted edicted by the pol people forgot 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, lost the election, but it was really

close. this election, again, was forecasted 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 a sort of naive view because the last few elections, the polls happened to be pretty close with the national election but let me give you a quote. my colleagues wrote this in "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 2 percentage points. we just don't know which one would do it. and that was based on historical analysis. they get it wrong sometimes. >> from the same summation of your work, i too want to quote, i want to put it up on the screen because i thought this was remarkable. we examine, this is part of your research, 4,221 late campaign polls, every public poll we

could find for 608 state level senator and governor races between 1998 and 2014 comparing those poll results with actual electoral results find the historical margin of error plus or minus 6 to 7 points. that's an error range of 12 to 14, not typically reported 6 or 7. expand on that, please. >> polls can be wrong for two reasons. we say, sampling error and non-sampling error. it's because you sample a finite number of people and like drawing bulls from the urn. you won't see the entire population. that's the margin of error. not sampling error is because you're not getting the right people or adjusting to the wrong population. and in this particular case, the 2016 election, i think a lot of trump supporters were not responding to polls. and the turnout wasn't what was

expected so people were adjusting to a 2008, 2012 level turnout. you might have heard, the democratic turnout was down a lot in 2016 and may have been a mistake to adjust to 2012 and 2008 given there was a guy running for president, you might have heard of, inspirational figure, transformative, barack obama. we didn't have that this time. it might have been a mistake right there. >> andrew gelman, thank you so much with your expertise. we appreciate it. another tweet. all you talking heads did such a poor job. i suggest you look for other employment. pathetic to watch. hey, damon. i never thought he'd run, much less win. i ak thcknowledge that. i have acknowledged it all along. donald trump the key battleground state of pennsylvania by 65,000 votes. david urban is in the on-deck circle and i thought we might do

another autopsy on the gop this week and instead, it's the democratic party in disarray and thomas frank the man who kept saying, listen liberal, turns out to have been right. we dissect the remains. protein . real milk has naturally occurring calcium, but almond milk doesn't. oh, and now real milk's got as many almonds as almond milk. almond milk has only 2% almonds. what's in the other 98%? almond milk has only 2% almonds. thanks for tnorfolk!around and i just wanted to say, geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years! roger that. captain's waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. could've parked a little bit closer... it's gonna be dark by the time i get there. geico. proudly serving the military for over 75 years.

dr. wong eating bug makes him earn my respect. a lot of others were wrong. the key to donald trump's victory, the crucial swing state that had gone to 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 scrutinized but the working class of the state and the man who cracked the code is david urban, senior advisor to the trump campaign that ran the pennsylvania effort. so david, what was the key? >> michael, thanks for having me this morning. the key was running up big totals in the rest of the state. 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, erie, pittsburgh, scranton, the other media markets around the state. we knew it would resonate. >> any other election day, the margin she did come out of philadelphia and the philly burbs with would have been enough but not on this day because you brought out people who frankly not all that active participants in the past. >> you're correct, michael. secretary clinton's numbers out of the philly suburbs were very strong. our numbers were stronger. we had incredible ground game. great with the pennsylvania party. republican party, nationally, we're able to get out the vote. and all across the commonwealth, we simply outperformed her. >> david, i remember, this is a role you used to play for arlan specter and 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, didn't know when he was coming back next. granular in the knowledge of the commonwealth, why we're campaigning in a certain location that week and where we would be headed the next week. very energetic. knowledgeable man. i expect him to be a great president. >> we're all talking about the data. in the abstract sense. is there 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 pennsylvania who i introduced at a trump in rally. virginia told mr. trump she'd been a democrat her entire life. 81 years. this is the first election

i think we lost david. we lost david as he wassing it was his next door neighbor that was the epotome of the trump side. on the democratic side, what the hell happened? that was thomas franks who said the woman who we were constantly assumed was the most qualified. he is author of "listen liberal" and "what's the matter with kansas." what went wrong? >> clintonism. going back to the 1990s, people like working class voters have nowhere else to go.

do you remember this? that is what they used to say. michael, as i said many, many, many times this year, they found somewhere else to go. >> your argument is that voters vote against their own economic interest. a whole host of folks just voted against their own economic interest on tuesday? >> yeah, but the politics has changed quite a bit. the main part is just what we're seeing playout before our eyes. working class people are transitions from the democratic party to the republican party. it is going on for decades, here it is, and the democrats have been utterly blind to this. they brump it off. in washington, coming up with all sorts of people saying they

don't have to take it into consideration. they lose and lose and lose and lose. >> so you look at that democratic bench that looks thin at the national level, and who do you see as the champion? >> i like elizabeth warren, sharon brown, but i want to point out two things. we have to get past the liberalism that i described. this has to go. we have to move away from it. and what was the other thing? you know what i want to say? i fear what donald trump is going to do to this country. there is one bright side to all of this. this man just destroyed the establishment wing of both par

is. he shows us that anything is possible in american politics and it is a wonderful thing. >> if he delivers on the jobs, those voters are not returning to the democratic fold, do you agree with that? >> yeah, it is all about -- it is the economy, it is certainly not, i would argue, certainly not a campaign driven by social issues, not this cycle. >> not this time around, no. what i wrote about the great recession changed everything. had he really delivered, getting tough with wall street, changing the way the world works, had he done, you know, anything -- for middle class people, we would be looking at a different situation today.

can i tell you something, i am speaking to you from kansas city, missouri. they lost everything else. you look at the rural counties out there and it is like a bomb went off in these places. the buildings are still standing. it is depopulating. the family farms are dead. they have v been watching their way of life die away. these people are desperate. we knew we would be conducted an autopsy, just not on this particular cadaver.

>> coming up, your best and worst tweets. man oh man. who is listening to this un-american entertainer named smerconish. this guy didn't even vote for president of the united states. 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 never missed an election since i turned 18. i'm 54, never one, and i didn't leave my ballot empty, okay? back in a moment. that goes beyd telling ingredients to showing where they come from. beyond assuming the source is safe... to knowing it is. beyond asking for trust... to earning it. because, honestly, our pets deserve it. beyond.

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keep tweeting me @smerconish. you're a hypocrite, let's just ignore the a campaign of hate. i'm giving the man a blank slate moving forward. >> i have not been the biggest fan of yours this year. your grace this morning was commendable. we need to heal. give me another one. thanks for the bug, at least

there is one democratic that doesn't lie. i don't know that she a democrat but he is a man of his word. >> i think you should run for president in four years, any chance? >> zero, i'm out of time unfortunately, tweet me @smerconish, i'll see you next week. you're live in the cnn news room. we are following major antitrump protests now under way in cities across the united states. thousands on the streets in new york, los angeles, and indianapolis protesti the future president. this is the fourth straight night of demonstrations. we have reporters on the ground with the protestors. but the president elect himself answering questions about his social media use.