michigan, this is really making us nervous, we're not seeing that vote turnout in detroit and flint, that was pretty early. and everybody was saying, this couldn't be happening. look. chuck just alluded to the markets. it's global markets that have been collapsing overnight. and the fact is that donald trump has to rectify that. he could be facing the kind of economic collapse that barack obama inherited when he took office. he's got to f up with a plan that is completely different from his economic plan. the $5 trillion debt hole that all independent observers have said is his economic plan. he has got to reassure markets very, very quickly. >> he has promised a lot. before we go to katy, i ask you this. i think if we had had this discussion earlier today we'd have said, gee, will we be waiting to hear a donald trump concession? will he concede?

december sta said, look, it's not done, go home, we're not giving up. then she makes the call to donald trump. what happened? >> from the inner saik sanctum at the hotel sent out with that message, we're not giving up, we have to do more reporting on this very frankly. because clearly the numbers came in. and whether they were called by ed rendell in pennsylvania and other leaders in other states, they saw that there was no margin for error. what she didn't want to do was concede if it wa automatic recount margin because she'd seen what happened with al gore and that set a train of events into action. which for a variety of reasons which we all know about never came back. so she wanted to see i'm sure that that was the advice. >> when do we hear from her? >> we'll hear from her tomorrow, clearly. they are staying in town. at least as i was coming over here -- >> not chappaqua? >> they are not at chappaqua, they are at that hotel, they

make a statement. she's going to have to address the american peek. >> president-elect donald trump now working the crowd. folks taking selfies. enjoying the moment. wife melania. katy tur is also in the room. katy, we couldn't get a sense of the crowd, did some folks go home? >> no, no, no, nobody has gone home. they're starting to file out now after donald trump left the stage. but there are still a large number of people here and many people obviously wanting a picture with now president-elect donald trump. he took the stage with a number of his top aides but also his family by his side. his wife medical lawn yeah his son baron, daughter evaung character her husband jared kushner, his sons eric and don and their wives as well. it was a very jubilant moment for them. you could almost -- maybe it's just me, you could almost see the surprise, the shock, the

faces. and if you ask me to predict if donald trump would come out and give a speech as gracious as that just was, especially towards hillary clinton, i would point towards what he did in iowa after he lost to ted cruz, he did surprise everybody by coming out and give quite a gracious speech. the question is what donald trump do we see tomorrow and going forward and where do the very many policies he's put forth during this campaign season, what happens to them? and does he follow through with the promises of building a wall? remember, it was only a few days ago that donald trump was promising to put hillary clinton in jail. he was promising to investigate the investigation into the fbi. he was calling the system rigged. he was saying, obviously they were out to get him. obviously the system was rigged

donald trump, as he has won this election. i wonder how he continues to react towards hillary clinton and how he reacts to whether or not hillary clinton does take some sort of stage tomorrow to address the american public. it is quite a reversal. for the past few months everybody had been wondering if donald trump were to lose this election, how would he concede? a lot of scrutiny around him about whether he would graciously as the polls showed him behind. and now what we are seeing is that donald trump came out and graciously accepted the president-elect title and hillary clinton still has not addressed the american public. he says that she did call him and that she congratulated "us." he made a point to say us. >> katy, it was interesting watching him, you're right, so much humility. he talked about being president

reaching out to those who did not support him. hallie jackson is with us right now. that was a very presidential speech. and those of us who watched him, certainly you watched him during the primary, during the general election. were all left to wonder, is that president trump we saw? >> he has had presidential moments through this campaign. he has moments his critics would argue would very not presidential. i think what you is him trying to set the tone. remember what happened the last couple of weeks of this campaign. his campaign was i would almost say defiantly confident in their projections and mapping. he'd been talking about michigan before a lot of folks had been talking about and seeing michigan. they had identified some of these places that were going to be key battlegrounds. talking about pennsylvania. talking about wisconsin. some of these key states. look back not just in the last couple of weeks but to what we saw this entire primary season from the day that he announced,

the race 600 days ago. donald trump defeated all his primary challengers. he has been the unexpected candidate from the beginning. there are republican sources on capitol hill tonight who are saying things like, now he's going to have to learn how to fall in line with congress. >> oh yeah? >> does he? says who? donald trump would have something to say about that. >> look, i never thought somebody who may or may not win the popular vote, may not cross 300 electoral votes, i never thought i would say that pso but this person has a mandate. >> have you look the at that map lately? >> donald trump has a mandate because of how he won and because it was in defiance of the republican party, the democratic party, the professional nelg gent sea yeah, whether we in the news media, the academics, you name it. he is -- he does -- he owes nothing to those folks. now, you want to get something

anything. it is a fascinating -- i'm trying to think of the last president, andrea, that didn't owe -- didn't owe a political party, a lot of fund-raisers. he comes in without owing a lot of people much. >> andrew jackson? >> exactly, go back to andrew jackson. i think this is a modern-day andrew jackson. >> james carville, when do you suspect we would hear from hillary clinton? message, given the way she positioned donald trump as an enemy of democracy? >> right, i think that hillary clinton -- it wasn't conveyed to me but i don't have any doubt she thinks donald trump is totally unprepared to be president that he really doesn't know anything about what it takes to run the country. and she's going to have to go

tough for her. we live in a democracy. the election is in. he won the election. you're right, he doesn't owe anybody anything. he's not even a republican. he pretty much won on his own terms. the problem is people elected him because he did that, he won on his own terms. it will be unbelievably difficult time for secretary clinton -- >> is there going to be an acceptance, tho -- against him, an acceptance period, and allow him a honeymoon, okay, let's see? >> you know, if you're a person accused of president obama not being born here, a lot things, you go back and say -- i mean, things happened in this campaign, he said things in this campaign that had never been said before about anybody in a

around him. we live in a democracy. he's won the election. it has consequences. >> by the way, look, we've had jesse ventura as a governor of minnesota out of nowhere, arnold schwarzenegger. james, i'm curious that when you look at that, there was some predictions of these people don't know what doing. california didn't fall into the ocean. minnesota didn't get taken over by canada. he struggled to govern, ventura did. ventura comes in very similar to donald trump. ventura struggled, he didn't get along with either party, doesn't get along with the learn tour, it was tough to get things done. trump ought to look at that and say, be careful. when you come in with owing nobody anything, you still need

but, you know. we've got -- >> no state falls off the face of the earth, all right? it's a little bit different when you're talking about a country. the last time we had a president, people would say a disaster, a catastrophic recession -- there was real, real consequences here. and i mean, yeah, minnesota can survive a lot. the united states is not going to seese to exist. but there are all kinds of issues. if you take what he said, you know, he wants to renegotiate the debt. every climate agreement we're in. this is going to be the end of the system of health insurance we have. all of these things are things that descend. you have to take him serious. the people have validated that. >> when you talk to his support others the campaign trail, when you speak with folks at his rallies about some of his policies and messaging, they say, we know that he'll listen to the smart people around him once he is president-elect, once he ends up if the oval office. they don't necessarily believe

every single one, they believe he'll listen to his advisers -- >> what evidence do we have donald trump has ever listened to anybody? i mean, he hasn't even -- i'm being just honest here. people may say that. there is no evidence that he -- he is a man that said, i know more about isis than the generals. there's no evidence. let's don't delude ourselves here. we know who just got elected in this country. >> i would just question what we choosing people and staff, that's all in choosing cabinet, choosing staff. >> he listened to somebody in mike pence. that wasn't his first choice. he got talked into mike pence. a more, go pick yourself a traditional republican. >> that was a very odd relationship. because he ended up -- sometimes they would give different answers to the same question. >> let's not forget, it was did he wait 24 hours, hallie, before saying he was reaffirming he was staying on the ticket after the

pence had some internal struggles with trump's morality and some of those things. but i go back to that because james, to answer your question, he did listen to somebody on pence. >> okay. >> i guess the question is, is that how he picks his cabinet? that he is going to listen to more traditional -- >> one thing i know about smart people, they never agree on anything. if you get five smart people in a room, you're going to get i get that it smart people somehow or another, you know, have a consensus or something like that. and look, i hope i'm wrong. i don't want to be sour grapes, i'm obviously devastated but i hope i'm wrong. but everything i've seen about his conduct, about things that he's said, leads me to believe -- >> james, who's the leader of the democratic party right now? >> no one. the democratic party is

it doesn't have the federal court, the congress, the presidency, 30 or 31 state legislatures. you know. we're a party in search of a leader. it's a very, very tough time to be a democrat. >> we talked about the senate remaining republican. this was supposed to be the cycle for democrats. two years from now, the democrats have more exposure and more seats at stake. >> midterms. by the way, midterms, they've turned upside do midterms -- >> it's a tougher trail. >> no doubt but midterms do get flipped over. >> it's almost certain that she's going to win the popular vote. >> california. >> right. david washman -- it's almost certain. >> you know what, you know, this

same without that. but how can i prove it? i can't. it's -- what do you say? >> a lot of democrats are never going to believe -- you know what i mean? that's never going to go away. >> i understand. >> hallie's the expert but it seems to me in the nine days, the rhetoric, the lock her up, it had been there, then it kind of died down a bit. >> remember the obamacare thing blew up, the premiums. in the same window. >> that is the messaging that the comey announcement came out that friday, his campaign privately talked about seeing the polls tighten even before that. because he was on that health care message. i would say this. in those nine days here's what i think was one of the more significant developments. donald trump seeing what was happening when he was staying on message. and listening, to your point, to some of the people around him who said, stay on script, talk about the affordable care act, go after hillary clinton. he saw the polls begin to tighten. and it was kind of a self-fulfilling cycle in that

conway, president -- the variety, the diversity of voices. >> right, that he's listening to. >> big story coming out of this campaign and what happened is going to be people in the clinton campaign said, we need to have an economic message, you need to close on this. and there were people that said, if we close on temperament and we have this unbelievable get out the vote effort is what it's going to take to win. obviously the second camp out, had the day. that is going to be something that is going to be going over a thousand times. >> i need to get to kelly o'donnell in wisconsin with reporting for us, kelly? >> one of the things we need to think about, lester, that is now that he is president-elect, within days donald trump and mike pence will get higher-level intelligence briefings to prepare them in transition to take office. as candidates they had received some basic level.

one of the things that one can expect when you move from that point of being candidate to president-elect is the sober nature of everything that becomes a responsibility on his shoulders. so he will be informed at a greater level now to prepare. and that of course will be involved in the decisions that he has to make to set up a new administration. in conversations i've had with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, he has talked about a willingness to try to work with trump and to have a lot of and hope that they can work together to get some of these things done. now with republicans in control of the white house, the house of representatives, and the united states senate. >> all right, kelly. this headline has been written as we're on the air. we can show you some of the headlines as we continue our conversation. the folks who are not with us who will be waking up to trump stuns the world. andrea, let me ask you about president obama and michelle

they put blood, sweat and tears in this campaign. this was an argument not only for hillary clinton's candidacy but for his legacy. >> i have been thinking about that very thing, lester. we had been led to believe that whoever was elected, president obama would greet them, welcome them to the white house on thursday of this week. that wasn't announced, but that was what sources were saying was going to happen. and i was just thinking a couple of days ago, what if it's president trump? and barack obama the man he says, and his wife believes profoundly, was trying to delegitimize him, questioning his -- whether he was the legitimate president, his birth, his ancestry. they believe he is racist. >> michelle obama had given that amazing speech. >> at the convention. they had to raise their children in this atmosphere. there is passion about the

for him and for michelle obama to do everything that they did for hillary clinton was motivated not just by policy, but by the emotion of countering donald trump and of defeating donald trump. and now we're going to see the majesty of our democracy. what is it going to take for barack obama to welcome the trumps? for mrs. obama to show melania trump around the white house? for that image that we've all seen on inauguration day when they come for coffee and the two men -- now it will be a male president -- get in the back seat of that limo and ride up to capitol hill for an inaugural ceremony. it's just stunning when you think of the drama of it. it's a narrative you could not begin to imagine. >> especially because of the relationship the two have. >> exactly. >> or whatever you want to call it. >> not a relationship. >> yes, the -- >> it's poisonous.

for many african-americans in this country what he did with birtherism is an unforgivable sin. my guess is for many members of the obama family, what he did was an unforgivable sin. >> remind me, he never answered the question of what changed his mind, what ultimately brought him to -- >> he never apologized to the president of the united states. and i always thought -- now that he's about to become, it's late, but that's another thing. we talked about economics. the fact of a country that is going to feel more divided by race than we've had probably since -- before i was born in the '60s. and donald trump's got to preside over that too. it's in his best interests to perhaps repair a personal relationship with the outgoing president if he even has a chance. >> plus foreign policy, vladimir putin. >> yeah. >> i think a lot of people feel

latinos, muslims, you name it, asians, i think a lot of people tonight are feeling like, you know, united states told them exactly what they think of me. and i think a lot of people are really feeling down. >> i had an african-american woman say that to me earlier. >> people like myself who really believe in a plural istic nation, really think it's really part of our character. i'm like, gee. did we just really do this? i'll be fine, come to grips with it. but it is a -- it is hard, it is impossible to overestimate the magnitude of this as a political story. it just cannot be overestimated. >> i can't underscore enough your point, this is not just about policy, this is deeply personal for a lot of americans. for probably half of americans out there. members of the african-american community, members of the hispanic community, who are looking at their neighbors wondering, what happens now?

carville and chuck todd and andrea mitchell, great to have all of you here as part of our coverage. that's going to do it for nbc news coverage on this decision night in america. a night that will go down in history. a stunning upset as donald trump triumphs over hillary clinton, defying the polls, the pundits and the political class once again this time elected president of the united states. coverage continues on many of these nbc stations, on msnbc, on cable, and at all the reaction coming in with matt and savannah on "today." for chuck todd, tom brokaw and our election night team, i'm lester holt. good night, everyone, from new