change. they are the same people. circumstances change, candidates change and they contain multitudes. so we shouldn't flatten each other out either. the parties in the campaigns flattened us out, but we should see each other as humanity, decency. standing as a fellow child of god or nature and your fellow american. and it is very easy to do and i will shut up talking about the same thing i started. chris, i have got time for one more question, why don't you pick a lucky person in the audience for our last question? >> right up front. you right here. >> in the campaign, was there anything that you heard donald trump say that you believe he believes is more or less an approximation of the genuine truth, if yes, what was it?

[laughs] >> everyone forgets this was donald trump's fourth run for the presidency. he ran in 2000 briefly for the reform party. what did ross perot want? he wanted to cut off trade with nafta. he thought trade was a disaster. the guy who won the nomination was pat buchanan. his shtick build a wall. immigration and trade are issues donald trump is 100s percent sincere about them beyond that, i don't know. we are getting ready to find out. the wall street journal doesn't do endorsements but in the peace they wrote basically endorsing trump, they said, he's crazy and dangerous but we think he's probably bad at it.

we think he will be ineffective at doing this but we think kamala harris will be extraordinarily effective at doing the things which are maybe less dangerous but you will get it done, donald trump will fail to achieve the things you want. part of the reason donald trump won is that when democrats said he will have mass deportation, he's going to do this, they said, when he was president he said he was going to do all kinds of stuff. i don't know that voters take trump neither literally nor serious. he has become a hood ornament for the republican party. in the united states we have a gas pedal party and a brake party and the brake party says too much, i don't like it, pull back. i think that is what they were voting for. we will find out as we walk out of here. we will find out which donald trump do we have? and i have no idea and i don't

think anybody else does either whether he is going to be the guy who democrats have been warning about that we read about, or is he going to be this ineffectual would-be guy that the wall street journal describes. >> it's been a long year. we have had a number of election watches in our series. we have seen you come back in we would like to thank our panel. what a wonderful ending to have great also, appropriately, the founder of election watch going to the beginning karlyn bowman. [laughter] [applause]

hill, this is about 20 minutes.

i have been the majority leader, i have been the minority leader. the majority is a lot better. and i think based on the fact that we haven't got all the results and we already know we will be in the majority. we are hopeful that might actually throw some. i want to give particular credit to steve daines. i had that job at the rnc a few years back. i have never seen a better performance. he focused on getting quality candidates, making sure they actually got the nomination. and as i said to some criticism, candidate quality is absolutely essential. also am proud of the job senate

leadership has done and its related groups did. overall they were able to raise $425 million. they made decisions to invest in i think all the right places. i will run it down for you. we basically got 29 million in maryland. 42 million in michigan. 60 million in montana. 3.3 million in nebraska. 12.8 million in nevada. 100 33 million in ohio. 82 .7 million in pennsylvania. 30 million in wisconsin.

and 3 million in west virginia. clearly, what they were doing there is focusing on the places where we had the best chance to win, and i think the results pretty much prove they made a lot of wise decisions. with that id happy share what you want to talk about. >> senate republicans will have 54, maybe 56 seats before this is done. you have been an advocate of maintaining the filibuster. the former president now the president-elect and what will you do outside of the leadership to advocate if forces try to get rid of it? >> i am glad you raised that. you should've covered that before. one of the most gratifying results of the senate becoming

republican. the filibuster will stand. there won't be any new states admitted to give a partisan advantage to the other side. and we will quit beating up the supreme court every time they make a decision we don't like. i think this shifting to a republican senate majority helps control the guardrails. to keep people who want to change the rules in order to achieve something they think is worthwhile, is not successful. i think the filibuster is very secure. >> leader mcconnell, practically speaking, what is having a 52 or 53 seat majority being for getting trump sit then the -- trump's agenda through the senate compared to a 51 seat?

do you explore other things and what might those things be? >> we hear optimistic reports of what may have happened in the house. obviously, if you were going to legitimately work around the filibuster, it would be through reconciliation. we would be more successful if we flip the house. the speaker put out a statement. >> in march, you blamed president-elect trump and his inner circle on the delay for ukraine aid is he the best person to deter our adversary? >> i am here at this moment to talk about the election. i will largely confine it to that. >> what do you expect your role

to be next year when you are not in leadership? you talked about foreign policy. jd vance as the vice president. he has got diverging views from you. what will your role be the next two years? >> i will not speculate on what anybody else may be doing. i thought your question was what i was going to be doing. i am going to concentrate on defense and foreign policy. this is the most dangerous time since right before world war ii. our adversaries, the north koreans, chinese, russians, iran and iran's proxies are all talking to each other. they have one thing in common. they hate us. they want to diminish our role in the world. it may seem old-fashioned to some, but i am still a reagan

republican, who thinks that america's role in the world is absolutely indispensable. even if you are concerned about cost, it would be interesting to know that at the height of world war ii 37% of our gross domestic product was being spent on the war. 37% and we lost over 400,000 americans. the reagan buildup without a shopping cart was about 6% of gdp. we are currently spending 2.7. we need to ramp up defense spending in order to prevent a direct conflict with our adversaries. it is a lot cheaper to prevent war than it is to have one. that is the focus i am going to have for the next couple years. >> do you plan to chair the

appropriations -- >> i haven't made a decision. i'm hoping as former leader, you guys won't care what i think anyway, and i don't think it will have anything to do with committee assignments. >> what will democrats do with the lame-duck week coming up here? >> we have to finish up the week. that always involves a conversation between senator schumer and myself as to how we wrap it up but those conversations have not started yet. >> week before this selection your biography was released. it includes a lot of sharp kurdish citizens of president trump. do you stand by those criticisms? >> i am not here to do a book review this morning. >> next week your colleagues

will choose the next majority leader. what should they take away from last night when they vote for the next leader? >> what can i take from last night? >> what should your colleagues take from last night when they choose the next leader? >> candidate quality is essential. absolutely essential. i think we have the best candidates everywhere. yesterday. >> you've been the majority leader, in this situation with narrow majorities in the house and senate, how challenging will it be to keep the republican party together if you end up with more control? >> you are a bit of a student of history. since senators became popularly elected in 1914, my party has never had more than 55. democrats had massive majorities during the 30's.

during lbj. during barack obama. obviously, the higher we get, the better. but this is not 60 votes, which is what they had at the beginning of president obama. i think we did pretty well with narrow majorities during the previous administration. three new supreme court justices. comprehensive 30-your overdue tax reform. it is harder but we were successful before with a narrow majority and i think we will be again. >> looking at the results from last night, what do you take away from the mood of the country,