Trump to Meet with President Obama Today; Trump Appointing Team; Protests Flare Against Trump's Victory; Author Provides Insights into the Trump Voters.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Clinton turf protests. Like what's on your screen right now. This is actually a good example. This is just blocking a highway. We saw worse examples. There were pockets of problems. People chanting, "Not my president." Hopefully, temporary blowing off of steam or proof of a larger movement at hand. Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Athena Jones, live at the White House -- Athena.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. These are two men who have said some not-so-nice things about each other, to put it mildly. So it could be an awkward meeting this morning. President Obama has spent months saying that he didn't think President -- that Trump would become president. Well, now, he is set to become president, so the focus shifts to this peaceful hand-over of power. We know the president has talked about how much he appreciated the way that George W. Bush's team handled the transfer at that time, in 2008 and 2009. It was smooth; it was professional. He's instructed his team to follow that example. And he also talked yesterday in the Rose Garden about the need for the country to come together.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, everybody is sad when their side loses an election. But the day after, we have to remember that we're actually all on one team. This is an intermural scrimmage. We're not Democrats first. We're not Republicans first. We are Americans first.</s>JONES: Americans first. A few echoes from about -- from Obama's 2004 speech about red states and blue states. And we know the White House has said that it's too early to say how Trump's election will affect President Obama's top policy priorities. But we also know that Trump ran on a promise to undo much of Obama's legacy. So we expect him to get to work right away on repealing and replacing Obamacare, also reversing some of the president's executive action on things like immigration and regulations. He also says that he wants to withdraw from things like the nuclear -- the Iran nuclear deal, the Transpacific Partnership trade deal and the Paris climate accord. We've also gotten indications from Congress already that TPP, that trade deal is likely dead. There's a lot to discuss, and there's a lot that could change under a Trump presidency. After Trump meets with President Obama here today, he and Vice- President-elect Pence head over to meet with House Speaker Paul Ryan -- Chris.</s>CUOMO: You know, look, in most ways the campaign is the easy part. You get to say whatever you want. Now, you have to do it. Athena, thank you very much. And Donald Trump has only two months before he has to fill thousands and jobs and assume the presidency. The inauguration is in 71 days. So how's he going to fill those top cabinet posts? Who are those big names that are being floated? It's a good assignment for CNN's Sunlen Serfaty, this favorite parlor game of who's being considered for the cabinet. What do you know?</s>SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sure is, Chris. There are so many possibilities. And we know that President-elect Donald Trump has really, with his team, been hunkered down and huddled up behind closed doors, going through all the potential candidates for all these top jobs in a Trump administration. And many of the names just won't surprise you, because many are -- that are being considered are pulled from his circle during the campaign and now might fill out his cabinet positions and his new inner circle in the White House.</s>SERFATY (voice-over): On day two as president-elect, Donald Trump now looking to turn his promises into policy. Beginning with his call for unity.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division.</s>SERFATY (voice-over): Words echoed by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, both pledging a peaceful transition of power.</s>OBAMA: We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country.</s>HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.</s>SERFATY: Trump now in the throes of building his administration.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: We have to get ready to form a government.</s>SERFATY: Potentially rewarding some of his top supporters, RNC chairman Reince Priebus one prospective option for Trump's chief of staff.</s>REINCE PRIEBUS, RNC CHAIR: I haven't thought about it. And right now I'm chairman of the party. I'm excited about that job.</s>SERFATY: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has led his transition team, also being eyed for top posts. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani under consideration for attorney general or secretary of homeland security, while Newt Gingrich is being floated as the prospective secretary of state. Other possible cabinet picks: Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions for defense secretary, billionaire businessman Carl Icahn for treasury secretary, and retired Army General Michael Flynn for national security adviser. When Trump takes office in January, he'll have extraordinary power to push through his agenda with Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress.</s>REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: He heard those voices that were out there that other people weren't hearing. And he just earned a mandate.</s>SERFATY: And certainly new attention is being looked at what candidate Trump said during the campaign trail about what his first 100 days in office would potentially look like. He made several broad, sweeping proposals. Things like cleaning up Washington, protecting American workers, and restoring the rule of law, but, of course, he made very specific promises throughout the campaign, as well. Things like repealing Obamacare, renegotiating some of these trade deals and perhaps the biggest promise of the Donald Trump campaign, of course, building that wall along the Mexican border.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. Sunlen, thank you for all that. So thousands of people taking to the streets, mainly in Hillary Clinton territory to protest President-elect Donald Trump. They set fires; they blocked traffic in some major cities, and they were chanting not my president. CNN's Deborah Feyerick is live outside of Trump Tower in New York with more. What was the scene there, Deb?</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, we can tell you it was really surprising just how quickly the crowds grew. They started with a couple hundred people and then expanded to thousands. All of them marching in various cities across the country. Here in New York City, they marched up Fifth Avenue against traffic, shutting down traffic for quite some time. And you could tell in the crowd there's a lot of anger, but there's also a lot of fear. People are fearful that advances made over the last couple of years will, in fact, be turned back. And that basic human rights that they value, those in the crowd, those are being threatened. And in that crowd, along with the fear, there was a deep sense of disbelief.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not my president! Not my president!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not my president! Not my president!</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not my president! Not my president!</s>FEYERICK (voice-over): Protests breaking out in at least 25 cities.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, ho! Donald Trump has got to go!</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, ho! Donald Trump has got to go!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, ho! Donald Trump has got to go!</s>FEYERICK: Hundreds of demonstrators stopping traffic in Los Angeles on the busy 101 Freeway.</s>FEYERICK: While thousands more protested on the streets of L.A., burning Trump's head in effigy. Police arresting dozens of protestors across the country. In Chicago, thousands marching down an eight-lane highway to the site of Donald Trump's hotel. The disappointment of some voters turning to anger.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary had more votes. More human beings voted for Hillary. This isn't fair. This country needs you to stand up and walk into the Supreme Court and say one vote equals one vote.</s>FEYERICK: In New York, at least 5,000 people, including pop star Lady Gaga, protesting outside Trump Tower.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You saw this incredibly qualified woman to be president being superseded by a man who has no qualifications at all for the office.</s>FEYERICK: Thousands more targeting Trump's newest hotel in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No Trump, no KKK. No racist</s>USA! UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No Trump, no KKK. No racist</s>USA! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No Trump, no KKK. No racist</s>USA! FEYERICK: The march turning to peaceful demonstrations and vigils. Most of these protests erupting in major cities where Hillary Clinton won. Like Portland, Oregon.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No Trump, no KKK. No racist</s>USA! UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No Trump, no KKK. No racist</s>USA! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No Trump, no KKK. No racist</s>USA! FEYERICK: And Denver, Colorado.</s>FEYERICK: And along with chants of "not my president" and "dump Trump," there was, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go." Speaking to those in the crowd, you heard a lot of comments being made, people disagreeing with Trump's views on women, on immigrants, on minorities and especially the sort of hateful rhetoric that characterized this whole campaign season -- Alisyn, Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right, Deb, thank you very much. A lot of people are angry. This is going to take time. No question about it. All right. We have a great guest for you, no better person to get perspective on what's going on with Donald Trump than Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, special counsel to Donald Trump. Maybe there will be a new title soon. We'll discuss that later in the interview, because you'll probably duck it. Congratulations to you.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, EVP, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Thank you.</s>CUOMO: It's good to have you here. Good luck going forward. You'll remember the very first interview that I did on CNN with you, you said to me, when there were 17 individuals on the stage, "Where do you think Donald Trump is going to, you know, fare out at the end of the day?" And I said not only is he going to win the primary, you'll remember, I said he's going to win the election, as well. And I just felt that confident at the time that he's the right man for the time.</s>CUOMO: And something you've been consistent with, and I also think there's a little bit of an explanation for some of the trouble you get yourself into, is your passion about who Trump really is. Full disclosure: most of the time Michael calls me, it is to correct an assertion that you believe is an unfair portrayal as Trump, because you -- you knowledge of him as person, not politician. So, for instance, we're now facing this question about Trump. Which Trump do you get? Some suggest it's a Jekyll and Hyde. Is he the guy that's going to say, "I'll get business back to work. I'm going to be there for you. Whatever you need, I'll figure out how to get it. That's what I do." Or someone who seeds division. So when he goes with the president today, how do you think President- elect Trump presents himself to President Obama?</s>COHEN: Like a president should. And I think he's going to demonstrate class. He's going to be incredibly respectful, as I'm sure President Obama will be. And I actually believe in the future that they will have a better relationship that people believe.</s>CUOMO: You've got a lot of friends. Not all of them are Trump supporters. When people say to you...</s>COHEN: I've lost a lot of friends.</s>CUOMO: Look, this is an ugly process. You know that. But he comes out as president-elect. He says, "Enough. Time to heal, bind the wounds. I have to be president for everybody." That's what you want to hear from a president. The trick here is that Donald Trump is blamed by many for creating those wounds, enhancing that division. So, which is it? What's your answer?</s>COHEN: When you say that he's being blamed for it, I'd throw the blame, truthfully, on the liberal media. And I believe that they've distorted his words from the moment that he came down the escalator all the way up and through the election. I think that there's an inherent bias towards the Republican candidate. And I think Donald Trump was, unfortunately, the recipient of that bias. He is going to, without exaggeration, heal the divide. He wants to heal the divide. His message was never, let's make America great again for special interests. Let's make America great for Republicans. No, it's for all Americans, because whether you're Republican or Democrat, and I'm a registered Democrat. I've said that, obviously, on every show. For every American, he wants to make sure they have a job. He wants to put America first. He's going to be the president for every single person, regardless of race, religion, creed, color. And that's why I even started that National Diversity Coalition. It was to combat the negative rhetoric that the liberal media was portraying of Mr. Trump. Because, you're right. I know Mr. Trump better than the media does. They get a ten-second snapshot of him. I have ten years of shoulder to shoulder with the man. I've seen his compassion. I've seen his heart, and I know what -- I know what he's thinking. And I know what he wants to do for this country.</s>CUOMO: There's no question, in my mind, that the president-elect deserves the opportunity that the election delivered. Even Hillary Clinton said yesterday, he's going to be the president. Have an open mind. Let's see what he does. I also think the relationship between President Clinton, Secretary Clinton will heal in time. And I do think that that animus that the media has created between the two or that they've created between each other as basically combatants for a position, I think that will also resolve itself.</s>CUOMO: But how you fight matters, also. And I get the whole theory that Trump says what he has to say to get where he wants to get, and you know, he takes the game he finds it. But you know how I feel about media bias. The president-elect has to own what he said in the past, because when people are saying to him, "I'm gay. I'm a Muslim. I'm an 'other,' as was defined in this election. And I think you don't like me." He's going to have to find a way, if he wants to unite this country, to make people feel that he's not the source of the problem. How does he do that?</s>COHEN: Well, obviously, he will create the solution and he's created the solution even in the Trump Organization, which is a, obviously, a great indicator on how he's going to be as a president for this country. Take, for example, the gay community. You think that there aren't people that are gay who work for the Trump Organization? There's no animus and bias. There's no hatred towards this community. He employs them. As it relates to Hispanics, as it relates to Muslims, as it relates to African-Americans. I mean, in all fairness -- and I've said this on other shows -- he's been called every negative word in the American dictionary and then in other dictionaries, as well. I think he's a sexist, misogynist, racist.</s>CUOMO: But didn't he earn a lot of that criticism for what he said.</s>COHEN: I don't believe he earned it. I think that he made statements and, again, he's not a politician. Now he is, clearly. But he speaks off the cuff. He speaks from his heart. And it was never coming or supposed to come out as a animus towards a group, when he was talking about we need to stop the Syrian refugee influx, because we don't know who they are. That's not being an Islamophobe. That's not anti- Muslim. That's pro-American.</s>CUOMO: He also say he has a problem with Islam. I'm all about a clean slate.</s>COHEN: And by the way, there is a problem, but it's not Islam. Right? It's what it is, radical Islamist terrorists.</s>CUOMO: It's anger and disaffection.</s>COHEN: What happens is he's not scripted, he's not reading off the script. He doesn't have 20 different people figuring out what's the right way to say for the largest group of people. The American people have decided who they want, who they believe, who they trust will be able to take America off the path that we're currently on.</s>CUOMO: What does he say to those protests? I don't want to overstate their significance. These are big cities. They're Clinton territories and a lot of kids. And we don't understand the population of these protests and what it means going forward. But what does he say to those groups of "others"? Self-identified "others" now, because this was an election that was largely decided by white people, specifically white men.</s>COHEN: Well, that's not really true. I saw some numbers yesterday that Mr. Trump captured over 30 percent of the Hispanic vote.</s>CUOMO: Yes.</s>COHEN: Even yesterday I spoke with a gentleman who I had had some rough conversations with in the past, who represents a very large group of Hispanic coalitions. And we made peace yesterday, and I've actually asked him if, in fact, I do go to Washington, I do want him to be involved and engaged, because of his representation to the Hispanic community. There is no animus towards the Hispanic community at all. First of all, when I first spoke to him, he had said, you know, "There could be animus even by you." I said, "How? My grandmother was born in Argentina. My grandmother was, you know, Spanish." So how? I don't understand. You're imposing upon me...</s>CUOMO: It's what was said during the election. But hopefully, there's a fresh start. I just heard you say something.</s>COHEN: There will be a fresh start. And that is what I would say to the protesters. Please, give him a chance. Wait to see before you make your decision. The American people have decided. That's our democracy. What are you protesting? It just doesn't make sense. Let him be the man that I know that he can be, and he'll prove himself...</s>CUOMO: He's won that chance. He deserves it. Let's see what happens. You just said something. "If I go to Washington." We're trying to figure out who is going to go.</s>COHEN: I haven't been asked.</s>CUOMO: You haven't been asked? How have you not -- that can't be true. You would be the first person that he would want by his side.</s>COHEN: I agree with that. But I have not been asked.</s>CUOMO: You would be on the political side, not the governmental side, right?</s>COHEN: It would depend on the role that they're asking me to play. It has to be a role that I feel comfortable with.</s>CUOMO: Is there a chance?</s>COHEN: That he'll ask me to go to Washington?</s>CUOMO: Oh, there's absolutely a chance he'll ask you.</s>COHEN: Will I go? One hundred percent.</s>CUOMO: Then who runs the company?</s>COHEN: The children. Don, Ivanka, Eric. There's a large executive team that's there, that's been with Mr. Trump for decades.</s>CUOMO: And are you guys working on how to make people satisfied that there's enough of a separation from the president to the company.</s>COHEN: We're going to do it legally. It's going to be placed into a blind trust. The children, Don, Ivanka, Eric, they're really intelligent. They're really qualified. That's why he really didn't run in 2012. Because they were younger by four years. And they didn't have, I guess, the experience maturity that he felt he wanted to leave a $10 billion company to. Now he does. He's very comfortable with them at the helm and the people that will surround them. So, will we be able to appease everybody? The answer is no. No matter what the man does, he can't appease everybody. But everything will be done legally. He's not interested in the company anymore. He said it yesterday in front of a whole group of people. He's interested in fixing America. He wants to make America great, again. He wants to put Americans back to work. He wants to fix the economy. He wants to create jobs. And he wants to ensure national security for everyone.</s>CUOMO: Michael Cohen, I look forward to seeing what your future is. Congratulations.</s>COHEN: Hopefully, it will be in Washington.</s>CUOMO: Well, let me know.</s>COHEN: I sure will.</s>CUOMO: Let me know first.</s>COHEN: You can break the story.</s>CUOMO: Be well, Michael Cohen. And congratulations, again. Coming up in our next hour, another big Trump player. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, again, one of the top advisors, rumored to be in the cabinet, not just on the political side. What does he have to say about the way forward? Coming up -- Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: Chris, the white working class voters leading Donald Trump to victory. What motivated them the most? We have the author of the "New York Times" best seller, "Hillybilly Elegy." He's going to join us, next.