History have paved the way for this moment tonight. Shattering the glass ceiling. While i may be the first woman in this office, i will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. The Campaign Ends with celebrations and protests across america. [ crowd chanting ] as President Trump confronts defeat, the president elect prepares to lead, grappling with a raging pandemic, a faltering economy, a nation divided by race, region and politics. Announcer from abc news, this is a special edition of this week, your voice, your vote 2020. Here now chief anchor george stephanopoulos. Good morning, and welcome to this week. The week america chose to end the trump presidency. After four years of division and tumult, assaults on truth and treasured institutions, voters turned out in record numbers to turn the page, replacing a reality tv star raised in wealth with a career politician from the working class. In his first speech as president elect, a forceful joe biden delivered a soothing message, its time to heal. For all those of you who voted for President Trump, i understand the disappointment tonight. Ive lost a couple times myself, but now lets give each other a chance. Its time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again and to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are americans. As we come on the air this morning, President Trump is raging against the results with false statements on twitter. His team vowing to overturn them with legal challenges that have little prospect of success. The votes are still being counted across the country, and joe bidens lead in the popular vote is over 4 million and climbing. Hes ahead in enough states to eventually match the 306 electoral votes won by trump in 2016. This morning we look back at the lessons of this election, look ahead to the challenges now facing joe biden and the country he will lead. We begin with our chief White House Correspondent jon karl, rachel scott in wilmington with president elect biden, and, rachel, let me begin with you, the Biden Transition Team plans on hitting the ground tomorrow. Reporter george, it will be a busy stretch. Just 73 days until the inauguration and know that before this race was even called that bidens Transition Team was already working quietly behind the scenes. Theyve assembled these review teams to start working with the federal agencies so he can hit the ground running and we also know that here in wilmington they are having those discussions about who is going to be in those critical positions inside of the west wing and the administration. This is a Seismic Shift in american politics, and the makeup of this next administration will look dramatically different from the current one. Biden has already pledged to have the most diverse cabinet in american history, and he has already said what his priorities are coming out on stage yesterday saying hes going to start with that Coronavirus Task force assembling the team of scientists and experts that he believes will help slow the spread of the virus. Rachel, hes already preparing a list of executive actions, executive orders he plans to enact on day one. Reporter yeah, a lot of this has to do with the senate. We do not know what the control of the senate is going to be, if republicans are going to hang on, so we know his team is already having conversations about what he can do on his own through executive actions, but biden has already made clear what he would like to do on day one. He would like to rejoin the world health organization. He would like to repeal the muslim ban. He would like to reinstate daca, george, again, just dramatically different from the current administration. Rachel scott, thanks very much. Lets bring in jon karl right now. Jon karl, the president back on twitter this morning in denial. Reporter george, the president is angry and defiant, banging out all caps tweets claiming that he won the election, making false claims of massive voter fraud. He has not called to congratulate biden. He certainly hasnt delivered a concession speech or even begun thinking about writing a concession speech. In fact, hes pursuing lawsuits that he hopes that somehow would overturn the election without any legal basis. But, george, heres the thing. Virtually everybody in the president s inner circle, his true closest advisers including his family members are fully aware that this is over. There have been conversations, conversations that i am told include the first lady about how to convince him to make something of a graceful exit, how to go to him and talk to him about the movement he has built, about his role in the Republican Party, about the way he can be a kingmaker in 2022, 2024 and maybe even run again and how if he doesnt leave in the right way, he could jeopardize all of that. But, george, if the president and everybody fully expects him to eventually make this concession speech, it wont be a concession speech like any we have seen. He wont concede that he lost. What i would expect him to do is to effectively concede that the election was stolen from him and have a long list of grievances about the way they tried to deprive him of his presidency. Which, of course, is not a concession at all. Meantime, there is actual real Practical Impact on the transition. Until the General Services administration acknowledges the victory of joe biden, theres no funding for the transition. Reporter and that is being held up as of right now. I have to tell you, though, im told to expect that in the coming days that the president will commit to a peaceful transfer of power even as he is making these claims that the presidency has been stolen from him. So those around him expect that those funds will be freed up before long. And any sense of what else we can expect in this lame duck session between now and january 20th . Of course, you got a big covid relief package potentially on the table that couldnt get negotiated before the election. The president has all the powers of the presidency until january 20th. Reporter 73 days, george, and i am told were likely to see firings. Hes mused about firing mark esper, the defense secretary, christopher wray, the fbi director. Of course, he joked, maybe joked, maybe not about what he would do with Anthony Fauci and the Coronavirus Task force, so lots of questions there. I would expect you would also see a series of pardons, but you do have that big thing hanging over the presidency, hanging over the country, and that is the pandemic. Entirely unclear of the path ahead for the president on that. Jon karl, thanks very much. Lets bring this all to the roundtable. Right now im joined by rahm emanuel, yvette simpson, Chris Christie here in the studio, also matthew dowd in austin, texas, Heidi Heitkamp in north dakota this morning. Thank you all for joining us. Rahm, let me begin with you. It took a while to get to the final result. Its not that four or five days. Whats the big message from this election . Well, i think a couple things at least on the president ial level. Style is the substance in the sense that this was very much what biden said not only about my character versus the president , but the character of the country and the country was i kind back to grant park, 2008, that was jubilation. This is catharsis and in a sense that this is a relief from this darkness of attack and pitting. I think americans were exlawsoned by the constant pitting against us and they want washington a little distant in their lives, go back to your work. Get our lives well get our lives in order, which is why so many were focused on the pandemic and the economy in a sense of being able to get back to some level of normalcy. I do think also the Vice President is a bit of a restoration to that normalcy but has to be transformative and has to walk both sides of that sidewalk together. So i think that in this many there are many issues. But if you look at the five states that flipped from 2016 to now, there is a lot of similarities and at the end of the day, joe biden, even though he was ridiculed in the primary, the breadth of his coalition, that is how he has to govern, and he has to be authentic to that breadth, and that is who he is as a character that people felt comfortable with him with this responsibility. Chris christie, President Trump won 71 million votes at least. In the end though it still was a referendum on him. Well, yeah, i think you heard me speaking since the summer that he couldnt win a referendum, not in the middle of a pandemic, not in the middle of an economic recession that was caused by the pandemic and in the midst of real racial issues in our country. You cant win a referendum in that respect. The referendum winners are people like bill clinton in 96 and, you know, Ronald Reagan in 1984 where theres not a lot of argument that the country is moving in the right direction, the good direction. But the message of the election too is a mixed message, which i think from listening to the Vice President last night, he hears. You know, republicans added to the house. We dont know quite how many yet but at least five, maybe more. Governorships flipped. State legislatures flipped towards republicans, and more likely than not a Republican Senate, so that even reinforces more your premise, which i adopt that it was a referendum election at the president ial level. But it was not a rejection of republican policies across the country because if it was, there would have been the wave that rahm talked about beforehand rather than the undertow that i talked about before. Yvette simpson, it will depend on those two special elections in georgia on january 5th. This is the culmination on the democratic side of four years of activism. Absolutely. And i think we need to continue that. You know, i think this is a great time for the Democratic Party to hit the reset button. Like lets go back to our roots. Organizing is our foundation, remember the big wave of 08 that came from a strong organizing foundation built by barack obama. Lets continue to build on that and lets talk to our voters consistently. Lets as the president elect said lets make real the promises that we have made to the base of the party who has been with us, who showed up through a pandemic. Lets make sure that we recognize that before we go out and start, you know, trying to build this huge coalition. Lets show the folks who showed up that we love them and lets continue to stay consistent. I do want to push back a little bit on the flip situation. We won a lot of seats last cycle and republicans got some of those back, but i do believe in places where we were true to our mission, we won. For instance, the progressives who were in swing seats all won. But the moderates who were in swing seats didnt. And i think part of that is we didnt make our message clear enough. Go with what you know. Go with talking about serving real people. You can do that in moderate districts, and it doesnt have to feel extreme. It just says, im here for you and i represent you. That is the foundation of the peoples house. The representative form of government. Lets continue to reinforce those mess ans. Matthew dowd, what were the people saying . Well, i think the people were saying, im tired of the chaos. I want calm. I really dont want to hear from the president every single day about every single thing. I think a year and a half ago or two years ago, somebody asked me what the slogan should be for a candidate running against donald trump. And i said, make america boring again, and i think the country just doesnt want to hear if i were joe biden, i would stand up on the first day in office and say, guess what, youre not going to hear me from me on weeks on end because ill be in the oval office and you wont have to worry about me. One thing ill say, george, yesterday was a good day for Irish Catholics. Joe biden is an Irish Catholic but even as importantly, notre dame beat clemson last night, the Number One Team in the country, so i mean i think were a divided country. I think people want calm and decency and character. I dont think people are satisfied with either of the two Political Parties. On election day they got a lot of votes, but people werent satisfied with either Political Party on election day, and so i think were going to go back. I think its actually a good moment because in order to get something done, people are going to have to cooperate and compromise, and thats what most americans want. They want cooperation and they want compromise and to get the job done. Heidi heitkamp, the president elect said its a mandate for cooperation. Heidi . Hi. You know, i want to push back a little bit on this idea that moderates didnt win. You know, i think that its pretty easy when you look at the districts when youre a progressive running in new york city, its really easy to win elections as a democrat. Its not so easy in states like mine and i think that the most important thing that we can do is identify successes. Early successes that all democrats could agree on, whether that is curbing the cost of prescription drugs, which the president tried to take as his own. Its going to be really tricky, but i think for joe biden, yes, he needs to have the right rhetoric. But he needs to have victories for working people in this country to establish that base and solidify that base for the next two years and hopefully four years. Progressives in swing states won. Progressives who ran on actual issues in swing states won, and so were not talking about folks in new york. Were talking about people who just flipped these red seats like katie porter, like mike levin, seats we never had before. They won overwhelmingly and what im saying is no matter where we are, and i think we agree on this, heidi, no matter where we are, lets talk to the issues. Lets not run away from them. And i think there was this expectation because trump was such a vitriol character that we could win by just saying trump is bad, and what im saying is serve the people in your district and find out what they need and we can deliver that. The real fear i have, george, 2022 is right around the coordinator. Dfa got our first application for a candidate running for u. S. Senate yesterday for 2022. 2024 is around the corner. Well need our best. Im not sure anybody is ready to hear that yet. Its scary. Its right around the corner. I know well be seeing maybe some president ial kates for 2024 maybe starring to talk soon, and what im saying, lets not wait. Lets have that conversation now. Lets organize. Lets build. Because were going to need our base to win. I think what youre saying is listen to heidi, yvette, rahm, is the difficulty going to be unifying the Democratic Party while reaching out to republican. Yes and no. I think if you go back to the campaign, he did actually a very, very good job of keeping everybody inside, and actually the truth is the progressive wing of the party was less ideological and more pragmatic that we had an overarching goal. Let me draw back. Joe biden is a progressive. He said it. But theres a lesson to be learned. Jeremy corbyn lost in england and joe biden won in the united states. That you can make the first step in progressive politics being enacted is winning and elected. You can and i agree with yvette about organizing, but organizing not just with its either my way or not. Being very and they were progressive. They and when joe biden said in the debates, i beat Bernie Sanders, you didnt see Bernie Sanders yell or scream. He understood the singular goal, is, a, beating trump, b, making down payments on progressive policies. They may more incremental than some like but go there and i think joe biden if he doesnt stay true to the coalition who elected him and if youre not authentic, whatever you want to say about donald trump, and i dont like what he did to america, what the reason his people showed up is they thought he was authentic. If you cant be authentic, fake it. Chris christie, you said that joe biden had the right words last night speaking out to the trump supporters. How does he follow through on that, and then the flip side of that question is, are republicans ready to work with him . I mean, its kind of stunning that you havent seen him congratulated by more republicans, the republican leader of the senate has not acknowledged his victory. I think youve only had senator murkowski and romney so far acknowledge the victory. Will he have a willing partner in republicans . Just so that people who watch us often think that at times matt dowd and i dont agree on anything, here were getting together. Heres my mask this morning so matt and i are on the same page this morning even though we dont often agree on some other things. Listen, i think its going to be issue by issue, george, in terms of whether republican also work with democrats and vice versa. Dont they have to start by acknowledging his victory . Well, of course, they do, and, you know, listen, this was a very contentious election. You have the president sitting in the white house not acknowledging it, and i think theres lots of republicans who are trying to feel their way around that. Still afraid of him . Thats why to me i think it was so important early on to say to the president , if your base is for not conceding is that there was voter fraud, then show us. Show us, because if you cant show us, we cant do this. We cant back you blindly without evidence, and thats why i said what i said on wednesday morning and on thursday night. And im hoping that more republicans move in the direction of saying, not that we dont support the president , hes been a friend of mine for 20 year, but friendship doesnt mean that youre blind. Friendship means that you will listen to somebody, give them their opportunity, and if they dont come forward with the proof, then its time to move on. Matthew dowd . Yeah, i think if that the two Political Parties had both a success