'This Week' Transcript 11-8-26: House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed & Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms

A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, November 8, 2026 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JONATHAN KARL, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR: The voters have spoken. The question now, can Democrats deliver? “THIS WEEK” starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: Tidal wave.

JAMES TALARICO, (D) TEXAS SENATOR-ELECT: We just took back Texas.

AMY ACTON, (D) OHIO GOVERNOR-ELECT: Ohio has chosen unity and decency.

KARL: An overwhelming rebuke of President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And if I was on the ballot, we would have won.

KARL: As Republicans grapple with monumental losses, what does a Democratic Congress look like? I’ll ask the man poised to be the next speaker of the House, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It’s a “THIS WEEK” exclusive.

And barrier-breaking wins.

GINA HINAJOSA, (D) TEXAS GOVERNOR-ELECT: This is our Texas. This is our government. And this is our one fight.

KARL: This morning, my Sunday exclusive with the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Senate, Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed.

ABDUL EL-SAYED, (D) MICHIGAN SENATOR-ELECT: We showed that in a battle between the money and the many, that the many really can win.

KARL: And the first black woman ever elected governor, Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms.

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS, (D) GEORGIA GOVERNOR-ELECT: Georgia has always been a state where we didn’t settle for what was before us, but we have always fought for better.

KARL: White House shakeup. After the Republicans’ dismal week, Stephen Miller replaces Susie Wiles. Our roundtable on what it means for Trump and the new Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it’s “THIS WEEK.” Here now, Jonathan Karl.

KARL: Good morning. Welcome to “THIS WEEK.”

It’s been called a blue tsunami, a bloodbath, a close to extinction level event for Republicans, a Watergate-level repudiation. And those are the words Republicans have used to describe Tuesday’s election results. Whatever you call it, the midterm elections were a decisive victory for Democrats and a decisive rebuke of a president who repeatedly urged Americans to vote as if he was the one on the ballot. Democrats have won at least 253 House seats and could end up with as many as 260, which would be their largest majority in more than three decades.

In the Senate, they prevailed in some of the most solidly Republican states in the country and won big. Fifty-four Senate seats as of this morning. Potentially 56 once the ballots are fully counted in Alaska and Mississippi.

Democrats will hold a majority of the nation’s governorships. At least 28 and possibly 30 by the time all the votes are counted. They flipped Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada. When the new governors are sworn in, three out of every four Americans will live in a state with a Democratic governor.

President Trump’s initial reaction was uncharacteristically conciliatory. He didn’t cry fraud. He didn’t refuse to accept the results. And when I spoke to him shortly after those results came in and asked how he will deal with the new Democratic leadership, he told me, quote, “I think we can get along. It’s good for the country if we do. The country has had enough.”

But his first major move hardly looked like a president ready to compromise with Democrats. On Friday, he ousted his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and replaced her with Stephen Miller. Miller has been with Trump since the 2016 campaign. He is a loyalist through and through. To Democrats, he has become a symbol of everything they detest about this administration.

Hakeem Jeffries reacted to the news by saying, “Stephen Miller should be fired, not promoted,” calling him a, quote, “Dangerous xenophobe and a reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands.”

American voters sent a loud message on Tuesday. They have had enough. Enough of high prices and corruption. Enough of cruel tactics in the name of mass deportation. Enough of the Iran War. The question now is whether that message has been heard at the White House and whether Democrats will deliver on the promises that got them elected.

This morning, we look at the Democratic side with exclusive interviews with three incoming leaders, all poised to make history. Abdul El-Sayed will be the first Muslim ever to serve in the U.S. Senate. Keisha Lance Bottoms will be the first black woman elected governor in American history. And we begin with the man expected to become Speaker of the House in January, Hakeem Jeffries.

Leader Jeffries, thank you for joining us.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER & (D) NEW YORK: Good morning. Great to be with you.

KARL: Obviously, a huge election for you. Have you spoken to President Trump yet?

JEFFRIES: I have not spoken to President Trump. It was a big night for the American people. A tremendous repudiation of MAGA extremism, and a cry out for dramatic change in terms of the direction that we need to take to make life more affordable for the American people, to restore American values and, of course, to hold those who have visited unprecedented corruption on the American people accountable.

KARL: I mean, usually at this point I would have expected that the president would have -- would have reached out to the -- to the Democratic leaders. He hasn’t called you. Have you tried to call him, or will you try to call him? I mean, you’re going to have to deal with him.

JEFFRIES: Well, we’ll see what happens in terms of moving forward. But I have spoken to three former presidents, and I'm thankful for those conversations. Of course, President Obama, President Biden, and President Clinton, and many other leaders across the nation. And, most importantly, I've had the chance to speak to everyday Americans who were the ones that powered this election and want us to actually deliver a Congress that no longer functions like a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s extreme agenda, but functions like a separate and co-equal branch of government designed to make life better for the American people.

KARL: It was interesting to see the president’s response to all of this. He didn’t -- he didn’t cry fraud, he didn’t challenge the results, contest the results, not immediately anyway. And when I spoke to him shortly after Tuesday, he said to me, “I think we can get along. It’s good for the country if we do. The country has had enough.”

Obviously, he’s sent some different signals since then, but what’s your sense, are you going to be able to work with him?

JEFFRIES: Well, the country clearly has had enough. And we’ve got to fight for an affordable America. The cost of living is way too high. We have far too many people in this country who are working hard, they’re playing by the rules, they can’t thrive, and they can barely survive. People are drowning in this failed Republican economy. And enough is enough in that regard. That’s why we’re going to fight to lower the high cost of living on all the things. And we have to. We've got to fight to lower groceries and gas and housing and certainly we’ve got to fight to make health care affordable for every single American.

Now, we’ll see whether our colleagues on the other side of the aisle actually are willing to listen to the American people so we can work to get things done.

KARL: So --

JEFFRIES: The good news is, Jonathan, that we’ve got a robust majority in a -- in a Democratic House and a robust majority in a Democratic Senate to be able to get to work.

KARL: So, what is the goal? There’s kind of -- there are two approaches you can take, oversimplifying a bit here, but you can -- you can pass legislation that you think the president might sign, or you can pass a whole series of bills that you know he’s going to veto. What’s the approach?

JEFFRIES: Well, the American people clearly want change that’s bold, change that’s transformational, and change that is dramatic. They also want results because relief needs to come to the fact that so many people are struggling throughout this nation. And that’s everywhere. That’s in urban America, in rural America, in small-town America, in the heartland of America, and in black and brown communities all throughout America.

So, from our standpoint, we want to do things like end this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has made life way to expensive. We need to stop the Trump tariffs. We need to reverse the Medicaid cuts that put the health insurance of millions of Americans at risk and threatens to close hospitals all over the place. We certainly need to reverse the SNAP cuts, and we need to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. And hopefully we’ll see some courage by a few of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to work on these issues to get things done.

KARL: And the only way ultimately you get things done is if either he signs them or you get enough -- I mean a lot of colleagues on the other side of the aisle to overturn his vetoes.

There are a couple of things that I see where you could potentially get him to sign. I mean, President Trump asked Congress back in January to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent. He also pushed for most favored nation status, pricing on prescription drugs. And Republicans, Republicans never acted on either one of those. So, will you? Is that -- are

those two areas where you could see passing bills in those two areas and saying, go ahead, Mr. President, sign it?

JEFFRIES:  Well, we certainly need to provide credit card relief to the American people. And we need to lower the high cost of health care across the board. And we look forward to working on those issues. There have been a lot of Democratic bills that have been put into the public domain. A lot of Democratic ideas to try to drive down health insurance costs and the cost of being able to just live and live an affordable life, a comfortable life and a good life.

So, we’ll see what the opportunities are. But we’re committed to moving aggressively during the first 100 days of the new Congress and beyond to keep our word, to fight for an affordable America, to bring about accountability because we’ve seen unprecedented corruption that has been visited upon the American people. And we are committed to holding the crooks accountable and making sure that Congress functions like a separate and co-equal branch of government and a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch.

And we also have to restore American values, like liberty and justice for all, equal protection under the law, our commitment to the unfettered right to vote, and to lift up our glorious history as a nation of immigrants.

KARL:  You had some choice words for Stephen Miller’s elevation to chief of staff. You called him a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist. Said he had blood, American blood on his hands. How does that -- what does that mean for your ability to work with that White House, with that chief of staff, this president?

JEFFRIES:  It’s an awful choice. Stephen Miller is the architect of Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine. And has unleashed billions of taxpayer dollars to brutalize and kill American citizens, like Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. And at the same period of time, to violently target law-abiding, immigrant families and communities all across the country.

So, you know, it was an irresponsible decision in my view. There’s not going to be an opportunity, certainly, to work with Stephen Miller and what he represents. And we’re committed to forcefully pushing back against the extremism that they may try to continue to unleash on the American people. And we’ve got a firewall in the House and a firewall in the Senate thanks to the American people.

KARL:  Because that’s my understanding, you used to -- you talked on occasion or had some communication with Susie Wiles in your role as Democratic leader for her role as chief of staff, which is natural in any White House, any Congress. But you’re saying that’s -- that can’t happen with this new chief of staff?

JEFFRIES:  It’s not going to happen with the new chief of staff to the extent that he lacks, because he clearly represents, along with Pete Hegseth and a few others, a really toxic brand of political engagement, of politics and of governance. And the American people just voted for that kind of MAGA extremism to be eradicated, which is why they’ve been defeated up and down the ballot all across the country, in the House, in the Senate, in governor’s races, in other statewide races and certainly in state legislative bodies.

KARL:  Well, let me ask you about Pete Hegseth because Thomas Massie, of course a Republican, tells me that he intends to introduce a resolution of impeachment of Hegseth, as defense secretary, as soon as tomorrow? Are you going to support that? Will Democrats vote in favor of that impeachment resolution?

JEFFRIES:  I'm a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security, and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe. Pete Hegseth has got to go.

KARL:  And you’re confident -- all of the Democrats are going to join you on that?

JEFFRIES:  We’ll certainly have that conversation on Tuesday morning when we reconvene for the first time in Washington, D.C. But I believe there will be incredibly strong support for that resolution.

KARL:  What about the rest of the accountability agenda? Your incoming House Oversight Committee chairman, Robert Garcia, put it simply as to his agenda. He said, “lawyer up.” That’s the message to staffers in the White House, the administration officials.

Is that what it’s going to look like?

JEFFRIES:  Well, there’s a cost to corruption. And throughout this campaign, we’ve promised that we would focus certainly on affordability and driving down the high cost of living, and on accountability in the face of the unprecedented corruption that we’ve seen unleashed on the American people by the Trump cartel.

And as a matter of fact, our view has been, if you’ve got folks out there who’s been short-changing the American people, screwing over the American people, or stealing from the American people, then they need to be held accountable in a manner consistent with Congress’ role, constitutionally, as a separate and co-equal branch of government and a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch.

And my view is that we’ve got to follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the Constitution at all times, and then let the chips fall where they may on behalf of the American people and highlight the fact that this certainly is a cost to corruption when you have people in high office who are solely focused on enriching themselves, their family members, their friends, and their donors, and they’re not focused on making life better for the American people.

We’re committed to cleaning up the mess wherever it’s found. That’s in Congress, in the Supreme Court, and with respect to this administration.

KARL: Do you --

JEFFRIES: That’s why I strongly support banning members of Congress from being able to trade stock as one of the things that we’ll need to do as soon as we’re back in control.

KARL: Do you expect Stephen Miller will be called to testify in some of these oversight investigations slash hearings?

JEFFRIES: Well, I'm going to defer to Jamie Raskin and the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, as well as Robert Garcia and Democrats on the Oversight Committee in terms of how they’re going to proceed. We’ll have a conversation about that over the next few weeks. I don’t want to get out ahead of any investigation, other than making clear --

KARL: Yes.

JEFFRIES: That we are going to visit accountability on the wrongdoers.

KARL: And we’re just about out of time, but I've got to ask you, what does it mean to you to be on the verge of being the first black speaker of the House in American history?

JEFFRIES: Well, listen, this is representative democracy. And it’s been an honor and a privilege to be able to serve the people of Brooklyn, as well as to work on behalf of the people of this great country. It was definitely meaningful as I closed this campaign with Shomari Figures in Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement, thinking about all of the struggles of those great heroes, like Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and so many other foot soldiers who helped to get us to this point.

Listen, we have to continue to push back against the national nightmare that has been visited upon the American people. But I'm confident, standing on the shoulders of so many great heroes, that we are going to be able to continue this country’s long, necessary and majestic march toward a more perfect union.

KARL: All right, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, thank you for joining us.

JEFFRIES: Thank you.

KARL: Back in May, Abdul El-Sayed predicted he would win by seven points. Six months later, he, in fact, beat Mike Rogers by seven points to become the senator-elect from Michigan.

And Senator-elect El-Sayed joins us right now.

Thank you very much for being here.

ABDUL EL-SAYED, (D) MICHIGAN SENATOR-ELECT: It’s an honor to be with you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

KARL: Congratulations on your victory.

What message did that send, your victory in Michigan?

EL-SAYED: We built a campaign to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for All. We face an unprecedented amount of spending against us, and yet we were able to come out victorious, both in a primary, outspent 11 to one, and then in the general, where we got outspent by $110 million.

The reality of it is, though, is that politics can be what it was meant to be by our framers, where we have conversations about who we are and who we want to be. We go across our state and have those conversations in living rooms and town halls and VFW halls, in basements, in churches, in synagogues. And the Michiganders decided that we want something that’s a little bit different than 30 second ads bought by big corporations and special interests flooding our airwaves. And I think it proves that we really can have government of the people, by the people, and for the people if we are willing to fight for it.

KARL: Have you heard from Mike Rogers yet?

EL-SAYED: Not that I know of. I think he had a flight to catch to Florida.

KARL: Wow. So, let’s start with the big news out of the White House. Stephen Miller is the new chief of staff. What message do you think that sends to the country and to your ability to get something done with this White House?

EL-SAYED: Well, the same kind of incoherent messaging that we’ve seen out of the Trump administration for a very long time. He says he wants to be conciliatory. He says he wants to work with us toward our end, to actually deliver on the affordability mandate that the American public called for, in my state and so many other states. And then he decides to hire the most broken man to continue to run the most dysfunctional White House that we’ve seen. I don’t know what Stephen Miller has actually contributed to our culture, our society, in any real way, except for to make us more angry, to stoke the worst kind of fear and vitriol, to weaponize ICE in our streets, to take American lives.

The real question is, why appoint this man White House chief of staff if you want to have a productive relationship with the Congress that actually intends to deliver on the mandate that the American public has just given us? And we'll wait to see.

KARL: On Friday, you said that Democrats should drop the decorum and treat Trump, these were your words, as the unserious fool that he is. So how is that going to work? How are you going to deliver on your promises? You're calling the president unserious fool that he is.

EL-SAYED: Well, let's talk about how he is an unserious fool. Think about this war in Iran that every single president had resisted fighting because, of course, it was a dumb idea because there's this place called the Strait of Hormuz that everybody could have told you would have been a chokepoint on energy.

He does this in a moment when energy is single-handedly upholding the S&P 500 because of the power of A.I. corporations building data centers right now, which we also have to start addressing because, of course, that's run amok.

Let's talk about the foolishness of a tariff war with Canada. Canada. I mean, I'm from Michigan. It's the only place in the country you can go south to get to Canada. And, you know, Canadians are really nice people. And yet here we are paying $5,600 a year.

Let's talk about the foolishness of gutting Medicaid to pass tax cuts for the richest people in America. And we're about to watch that nuclear bomb go off in the form of those cuts taking hold in January. I mean, this is foolishness.

So, look, if he wants to act serious, we are happy to work alongside him to actually address these issues. He is the president of the United States, but he wants to continue to fool he will hire people like Stephen Miller to run the White House. And he gets to choose where he goes next.

The American public has made their choice. They want affordability. They want accountability. They want to be able to afford their gas and their groceries and to see a doctor. And we intend to get those things done.

KARL: Well, let me ask you, when Mayor Mamdani was running for office, Trump called him terrible names. He mispronounced his name intentionally, just like he did with you. And then they ended up actually having somewhat of a working relationship. Do you see -- is that any possibility with you and Trump?

EL-SAYED: Look, I've never met the man. I am -- he is the president of United States. I am the U.S. senator-elect from the state of Michigan. I am happy to meet with him like I'll meet with anyone who can advance the goals I ran on, to get money out of politics, put money in pockets, pass Medicare for All. I've said this, if he wants to pass Trump care for all, which will guarantee health care to everyone and put his name on it like he's putting his name on everything, I'm game. Let's see if he wants to do that. So I haven't had any outreach. I'm happy to sit down with him to talk about how we can serve the Michiganders who just elected me.

KARL: So you also had some choice words during the campaign for Chuck Schumer. Here's what you had to say about him back in July.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EL-SAYED: If you're a big bank that wants to collude against us, I am dangerous. If you're a monopolist who wants to raise our prices, I'm dangerous. But if you're Chuck Schumer, I'm pretty dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: So, so that was obviously during the primary. He was endorsing your opponent. But in what way, or do you still think you'll be dangerous to Chuck Schumer?

EL-SAYED: Well, Senator Schumer and I figured out how to work together on the three pragmatic goals we had. We wanted to take back the Senate. We wanted to win this Michigan seat, and he wanted to see me elected as the next senator from Michigan, as the Democratic candidate in that race.

I want leadership who is going to deliver on the goal of getting money out of politics, put money in pockets, passed Medicare for All. As you know, a vote is a choice between two or more options. I don't know what those options are, but I am committed to making sure that we can deliver on the goals that we need, and we need action now.

And so I've had my criticisms of the now soon-to-be, or currently the minority leader, and I want to --

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: Soon-to-be majority leader, you almost said.

EL-SAYED: We'll talk a little bit about -- potentially. He's the question, though. Here's the question. I want to support somebody who is ready to take action on day one. And we look -- I mean, past is prologue. So I have not been impressed by what we've been able to do. Let's see where we can go from here. We may very well have a 56-seat majority. That is unprecedented. So if we squander that opportunity, it'll have been wasted.

We've got to treat this as the floor, not the ceiling. And the question to me is, who wants to be the leader who's going to make sure that we deliver on the mandate that we just got? I want to see who else is in the running. I have been very, very committed to somebody like Senator Chris Van Hollen, who I know has his eyes set on other goals. But let's see. And I'm open to be talking to folks who are ready to move the ball to actually get things done.

KARL: So one last thing. I want to play a clip from your graduation speech when you were a college kid. This is 19 years ago. Let's play a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EL-SAYED: The Michigan difference is us, the students. It's in the diversity of names, faces, stories, and experiences with which we decorate this great place.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT:  I wish every person in the world who believes that we are fated to have a clash of civilizations and cannot reach across the religious divides could have heard you speak today. I just wish every person in the world could have heard you speak today.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL:  Now, at that moment, you were on your way to medical school. Did that college kid think he'd be where you're sitting right now?

EL-SAYED:  I never thought I could run for office. In fact, after that moment, President Clinton came up to me and says, “You know, son, why are you going to medical school?” Which, of course, is not a question people usually ask you when you're going to medical school.

And I said, “I love people and I love science and this is how I want to serve.” And he said, “That's great. But you know, you've got a gift for speaking. Maybe someday you'll run for office.” It was really nice of him to say.

And I laughed in his face. I said, “Mr. President, I don't know if you saw my name. It's got 11 letters in it. People like me don't get to run for office.”

The next year, I watched a guy named Barack Hussein Obama run for and win the presidency.

Both of them -- he saw something in me I'd never seen in myself. And President Obama showed me something in me I'd never seen in myself. And 19 years later, I'm grateful to be the senator-elect from the state of Michigan.

But more importantly, I think Michiganders showed that we reject the kind of divisiveness, the kind of hate that was the hallmark of the Rogers and Trump and J.D. Vance campaign against us. They chose an America big enough for all of us.

And even though, you know, in 2007, I couldn't see it, I'm so grateful that America showed -- or Michigan showed me that in me and that America really is big enough for any of us and all of us.

KARL:  All right. Senator-elect El-Sayed, thank you very much for joining us this morning. We'll see you when you get to Washington.

Up next, Tuesday's blue tsunami went well beyond Congress, to governorships and statehouses. Is Georgia now a blue state?

Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms joins me in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS, (D) GEORGIA GOVERNOR-ELECT:  Tonight should remind us all that no matter what community we come from, Georgia is not by -- defined by one moment in time or by one person. It's been defined by all of us, and I will be a governor for everyone in this state.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL:  And that was Keisha Lance Bottoms on Tuesday night celebrating her victory as Georgia's first Democratic governor in nearly a quarter century and the first Black woman ever elected governor in the United States.

And Governor-elect Bottoms joins us right now.

Thank you for being here.

This -- this was -- this was a huge night, not just for you, but for Democrats up and down the board in Georgia. Think about it -- you won -- Democrats won all 10 statewide races in Georgia.

You won -- you won by eight points. Ossoff re-elected by 18 points. Democrats won a majority in the statehouse, almost won the state Senate.

Is Georgia now a blue state?

LANCE BOTTOMS:  I think it's safe to say that we are a blue state. I said throughout the course of this campaign that we would show people across Georgia and across the nation that sending Senators Ossoff and Warnock to the Senate and flipping Georgia blue in ’20 was not a fluke, that we were on a path towards truly showing everyone that we were solidly blue. And we showed that in a really big way on Tuesday.

KARL:  We've also seen Georgia has made shifts, I mean, for a good couple of decades, Republicans were solidly in control up and down the line. Now a lot of Republican voters voted for you and voted for Jon Ossoff. How do you keep them from going back? How do you keep them in your camp?

LANCE BOTTOMS:  Well, I was very intentional in visiting areas that Trump carried. We kicked off the general election up in the county that Trump had carried by close to 77 percent, and we ended it in another county that Trump won. And I wanted to be clear that I was there to listen, I was there to hear the concerns of people across the state.

That I wasn't just campaigning to Democrats, but also those Independents and Republicans across the state, because at the end of the day, the issues that we're facing transcend party lines. This cost of living issue is real. We've had nine rural hospitals to close.

We're struggling to fund fully and properly fund education in this state. And whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, you want better and that's what I hope to relay to people and I'm glad that they heard me loud and clear.

KARL:  You were mayor of Atlanta during a really tough time. I mean, obviously, you had COVID, you had a spike in violent crime. What lessons did you learn from that period that you now bring to you as governor?

LANCE BOTTOMS:  So many leadership lessons, but I'm often reminded of the proverb that says when you want to go fast, go alone. When you want to go far, take others.

Sometimes even in the midst of chaos, you just have to stop and take a beat. And sometimes, it just may be to catch your own breath and at other times, it may be just to have others around the table with differing opinions. You know, as a leader, I did everything I thought was the right thing to do during 2020.

But I would say you're not a great leader if you don't do some self-reflection and assessment. And I want to take all the lessons learned with me into this new season as governor.

KARL:  And in this new role, you're going to have to deal with the president of the United States. Certainly, your predecessor, Republican Brian Kemp, famously was at odds with Trump on a whole range of issues. Sometimes really came to verbal blows with him.

How do you plan to deal with Trump?

LANCE BOTTOMS:  You know, I want to talk to leaders across this country, Democrats and Republicans, to find out how they've been able to navigate this White House. I was mayor under the first Trump administration. There were a couple of reasonable voices that we were able to communicate with. I don't know that those voices can be found, especially with the transition of the chief of staff.

But I'm certainly going to talk to others who've had to deal with this administration for the last two years and find out, you know, how do you deal with this administration that at least outwardly projects nothing but chaos and confusion and division. But if there's someone there that we can work with on those things that will make lives better in Georgia, then certainly I'm willing and open to have those conversations, but always willing to stand up and push back and fight back when necessary.

KARL:  On the day before your historic victory, you went to visit Crawfordville, Georgia. And you visited a grave site of a woman named Betsy Peek, your great, great grandmother.

LANCE BOTTOMS:  Yeah.

KARL:  Tell me about that.

LANCE BOTTOMS:  It was one of the most moving experiences I've had in my life. I didn't know that this grave site existed. No one in my family has ever spoken of it. And I visited Crawfordville, where my grandmother was born in 1916, so I wanted to get there before the campaign ended.

And we went to the cemetery where we thought some of my family members were buried. And there are a number of unmarked graves. And we stumbled across a tombstone that had our family name. And I literally fell to the ground when I saw that it was Betsy Peek.

And it said, Betsy Peek, wife of Sheppard Peek. Sheppard Peek was my great, great grandfather, who was also enslaved.

KARL:  Incredible. And as you pointed out on election night, also Crawfordville, the place that was the home to the former governor of Georgia, who was also the former vice

president of the Confederacy. History is a remarkable thing.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, governor-elect of Georgia, thank you very much for joining us.

BOTTOMS: Thank you.

KARL: Up next, what Republicans are saying about their midterm shellacking and what it means for J.D. Vance.

We’re back in two minutes.

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GLENN YOUNGKIN, (R) FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Tuesday was incredibly rough.

NIKKI HALEY, (R) FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: The bottom line is, Republicans didn’t listen to the American people. They listened to Washington, D.C.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): To call it a wave, I don’t think would be fully accurate. It’s the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States.

SEN. TED CRUS (R-TX): It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate-level repudiation.

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KARL: All right, and I have a couple Republicans sitting with here -- here with me right now, who have some choice words of their own about what’s next for the Republican Party.

The roundtable is next.

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KARL:  All right. The roundtable is here.

We have Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign manager, Faiz Shakir; Democratic strategist Lis Smith; Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

All right. Faiz, I want to get right to you about what these results mean for Democrats.

FAIZ SHAKIR, BERNIE SANDERS 2020 CAMPAIGN MANAGER & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Great ones.

KARL:  OK, let me take a look at an analysis that was put out by Third Way, this Democratic group.

They say, “Moderates made Democratic majorities. Democrats should be clear-eyed about who the majority makers were in these midterms. The majority makers of 2026 were mainstream and moderate Democrats who overperformed and flipped red and purple places blue.”

In other words, maybe not the candidates that you were most excited about.

SHAKIR:  Victory has a thousand fathers.

KARL:  OK.

SHAKIR:  We can also go through Abdul-El-Sayed, who you just talked to, and a whole bunch of other wonderful people who have won.

Different ideological persuasions. The point is a lot of Democrats won, and I'm happy about that.

One of the core reasons why a lot of those Democrats won is to think about what were the common bonds between so-called moderates and progressives. Well, it was economic populism. The fact that we focused on working-class economic lives, the issues of health care, the issues of taxing the rich, the issues of A.I. and data center regulations, those were the things that drove working-class interest in the Democratic Party at a time when Donald Trump had literally nothing to offer them.

And I hope it is the recipe for us governing in this moment, too.

KARL:  But, Lis, the point they make is that, yes, El-Sayed won, and others, progressives won, some DSA candidates won in the House. But the largest swings came with people like Adam Hamilton in Kansas or Talarico in Texas.

LIS SMITH, SENIOR ADVISER, MAJORITY DEMOCRATS & THE BENCH:  Yeah. And let me just note, those are two candidates that my group, The Bench, supported in this election.

And what it tells me is that Democrats are starting to learn the lesson. One, it's important to elect people and run people who actually listen to voters. I think for many years we were seen as dismissing voters' concerns about the border and about inflation as, you know, made up by Fox News.

Second thing that we learned is that it’s -- there's no one way to be a Democrat. You look at Adam Hamilton in Kansas. He ran as someone who was pro-life. He ran as someone who called Biden's border policies a disaster. And we need to run candidates who fit the states they're running in and don't fit some national ideological litmus test.

Most importantly, look, you can call it economic populism. I just call it common-sense economics, saying that this disastrous war is driving up prices, these tariffs seem to go. And I think if we read into it too much and think that this is an endorsement of Bernie-style economic populism, that we're not taking the right lessons from this election.

KARL:  What is it, Chris?

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  You know, I had a political science professor in college who said, when your adversary's in the midst of committing suicide, there's no reason to commit murder. The result is the same.

That's what these elections were. The Republican Party was in the midst of committing suicide. And Democrats of all stripes, the ones that Faiz likes, the one that Lis likes, and any in between, were the happy beneficiaries of it.

Let's not pretend that this election was about anything else other than one thing, Donald Trump.

That's what it was about. And here, I'll tell you why. I can give you that example.

KARL:  Yeah.

CHRISTIE:  In my county where I live in New Jersey, we have not elected a Democrat county commissioner in 53 years. There's seven of them. We haven't elected one.

We elected a Democratic county commissioner on Tuesday night by 22,000 votes. They've never won since 1973.

So my point to you is, like, this is a repudiation of my party. And we have to live with that. We now have to go through the autopsy that you need to go through to say the Trump era is over.

. He has led us to the greatest losses this country has seen for a party since Richard Nixon.

And so, now, we have to decide what else to do. I think Lis is right. The worst thing the Democrats could do here is to over-read this as some mandate for them to do things that are really out there. Because if they do, the American people will rein them in too, maybe not as harshly as they reined us in on Tuesday night. But there'll be retribution for that as well.

KARL:  Don, is that what you see this? This is a repudiation of Trump through and through?

REP. DON BACON, (R-NE):  Absolutely. The president ran during the election or the campaign saying, pretend I'm on the ballot. Then after the election, he goes, I wasn't on the ballot. But he was on the ballot. He had a minus-30 favorable. So did Joe Biden, by the way, you know, towards the end of his administration.

But I think there's a difference here. There was anger, a broad based, not just partisan anger.

KARL:  I mean, you decided not to run for re-election. Your seat in Omaha, Nebraska, Democrats carried by how many points?

BACON:  Sixteen points. And that's the biggest win for about 20 years in the district. So this was all about President Trump. There was -- I don't think it was just one policy. It wasn't just Iran, which I have some feelings about as a three-year Air Force guy. I've had to deal with these guys for a long time.

But that aside, it was an issue. Tariffs were a big issue. I don't know how the Republicans became the protectionist party when we've been the free trade party since World War II. But the president has brought us there. Now the Democrats are being on the free trade side of this.

But it was more than that -- chaos, the sense of narcissism with the president, the whims of the tariffs, had a good meeting, so I am going to cut your tariffs by half. Oh, we had a -- you said something bad about me, we're going to expand your tariffs. I think the voters were tired of the eight or nine things that the president brought to the table that were unpopular.

And it was -- it wasn't just minus-30. It was emotional anger, and they took it out on us.

KARL:  And so, what is the approach for Democrats?

SHAKIR:  To Congressman Bacon's point, working-class people's lives got worse. Health care was taken away from them. Subsidies went up (ph). The cost of health care went up for most people.

And the fact that you have to pay for basic things, not only diesel, but all of the things that are affected within the system --

KARL:  Yeah.

SHAKIR:  -- through the One Big, Beautiful Bill, through tariffs, all those things made working-class people's lives harder. So what does a Democrat do? We have to offer a plan of expanding health care, making health care more affordable to people. And at a time when the tax code is broken, there are ways in which we should constructively tax the rich.

We should be able to afford ways to improve working-class people's lives at a time -- you got t expand Social Security benefits by raising the cap on Social Security. These are things I think will be wildly popular. Expand Medicare to cover hearing, dental and vision.

I guarantee you, go to Congressman, take Bacon's district, talk about those things and they will be very, very popular with Trump supporting people.

KARL:  Medicare-for-all?

SMITH:  So I was at a progressive conference yesterday -- Crooked Con. I think you were there too. I heard people talking about how in two years, Democrats are going to have 60 Senate seats, and the first vote we need to do is to implement Medicare-for-all. And when I hear that, like I support celebrating this election. I do not support this irrational exuberance.

And when I hear that language, I think about what the Republicans did after 2024, when they read into that election as a complete mandate for the things they ended up doing, like this complete overreach with ICE, where they created all this chaos in communities. We cannot make the same mistake. This is the reality.

The majority of Democrats did not run on Medicare-for-all. You think Adam Hamilton --

KARL:  He said actually he doesn't favor it.

SMITH:  Exactly. You think he got elected in Kansas by saying, I want to kick everyone off their private insurance?

SHAKIR:  But he was for expanding health care.

SMITH:  That is not Medicare-for-all, though. I support expanding health care, but like, let's be real about that.

SHAKIR:  Great, then we can find an agreement then.

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SMITH:  Let's be real about what these things mean. And so what we should not do is over-read this mandate and go in, and the first, second, third vote we take is something that would not only alienate most of the American people, but completely divide the Democratic Party and put the Democrats, who are in the toughest races on the record on an extremely divisive issue, that is the definition of political insanity.

SHAKIR:  I hear you saying a lot of things you're not for.

(LAUGH)

SHAKIR:  We should be saying for certain things. I understand if you're not for Medicare. I got you. I heard it. What are you for? So at this point, we need to be for expanding health care.

SMITH:  Universal health care. Let's do it.

SHAKIR:  There you go. And I promise you, if you and I can just say in agreement that we go out to the American people who Governor Christie has represented, Congressman Bacon has represented, they will be for those things. And we can maintain coalitions of people who would say, thank you, Democrats are standing up to say make health care more affordable for me.

KARL:  Meanwhile, Governor Christie, J.D. Vance said this was all about Iran. Long statement.

CHRISTIE:  Yeah.

KARL:  And Israel, he added Israel.

CHRISTIE:  Which bother me.

KARL:  J.D. Vance, what does this mean for presidential candidate J.D. Vance?

CHRISTIE:  We'll see, but what I suspect is that with someone who's only two resume items are, I wrote "Hillbilly Elegy," and I was Donald Trump's henchman, it's probably not a great resume to run on.

Look, what he participated in in this race is the finish of hollowing out the moral core of our party. When he stood up and chastised Republicans, Democrats and independents who objected to Vivek Ramaswamy's ad, which was essentially elder abuse against Amy Acton's mother, who she hadn't seen for 50 years, J.D. Vance showed you who he was and who he is.

He is an opportunist. He has no principles, and he showed that when he went from saying Donald Trump was a Nazi to being his vice president. I mean, so I think J.D.'s got a lot of work to do. And what I would also say is like, I really enjoy this. Like the Faiz and Lis debate is really great.

KARL: This is what we're going to see play out. It's interesting. Yes.

CHRISTIE: Why, that's what I'm saying. Like, I really do it. Like, again, don't forget that lesson from my political science professor. Republicans need to get smart again about appealing to the American people. And by the way, they need to get rid of this Trump-era narcissism that the congressman talked about.

KARL: All right. We've got to take a quick break. But when we come back, we'll take a look at Donald Trump's choice of Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff. We'll be right back.

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KARL: All right. We're back with the roundtable.

So, Congressman Bacon, were you surprised Stephen Miller as chief of staff?

BACON: I was. I think part of the election results Tuesday reflected anger towards Steve Miller. He took an immigration policy that Trump had two years ago as a 2-1 favorable. But he over -- he overreached. He not only secured the border we started deporting people that most Americans thought was indecent and inhumane, and he took those two to one favorable to a 2-1 unfavorable.

And it's one of the -- I think it's the top reason for the results. But it was like in the top three of why we took such a beating on Tuesday. And it particularly hurt us in Texas, Arizona, maybe Florida, and so, and what the president is signaling here, he wants to fight. He's not looking to work across the aisle and try to find some areas where he can agree on. It's like it's going to war. It's like he called the wartime consigliere, probably, like the mafia shows.

I don't think it is the right message.

KARL:  So Rick Klein and I spoke with Stephen Miller about less than two weeks into the first Trump presidency, back in 2017, for a podcast interview. I want to play a clip from it.

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STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY:  The only person who makes decisions here is Donald Trump. The only person whose vision is executed is Donald Trump. The only person who is guiding the strategy of this White House is Donald Trump. It's his vision, his policies, his insights.

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KARL:  So I think it's about Donald Trump when it comes to Stephen Miller.

BACON:  Yeah.

KARL:  I mean, look, he is the first White House chief of staff that Trump has pulled in from inside the White House. And he is, if nothing else, completely and totally loyal to Donald Trump, and is one of the very few people that has survived all the purges.

He's still there. He was there in the beginning. He's still there now.

CHRISTIE:  Yeah, look, I take a bit of a different signal to this than the Congressman does. This is probably one of Donald Trump's most insecure moments since the Access Hollywood tape came out. And he's nervous, and he doesn't know what to do.

And Stephen Miller is comfort food for a nervous and insecure Donald Trump. He's going to tell him, you're the greatest, sir. You're the best. Your instincts are everything. I will just execute what you're going to do. I'll be loyal to you. Don't worry.

That's what the president needs to hear right now, because after the beating he took, he is horribly insecure right now. And so it may lead to some fights. You may not be wrong, but I don't think that's what's motivating the pick.

I think what's motivating the pick is gross insecurity on the part of the president, and he needs his teddy bear.

KARL:  I mean, he does know how that White House operates. I mean, we've seen the reaction from Hakeem Jeffries and others.

SHAKIR:  Well -- and I don't know Mr. Miller that well, and my sense of watching him operate has been a lot of retribution, a lot of anger towards Democrats, a lot of anger towards people of color in the society. And now's an opportunity, you grow into a leadership rank, right? You're a chief of staff.

And for him, I hope you know that you have to change the way you are perceived if you care to function in this job. If the president is saying he wants to strike deals with Democrats, and I do think there are deals, you could raise the minimum wage right now. Absolutely, you could. Would the president veto that?

KARL:  And Stephen Miller thinks he's a populist, which means he can work --

SHAKIR:  Yeah, and taking on big corporate monopolies? Sure, there are going to be ways to do that. Taking on private equity and housing, there's ways to do it together.

KARL:  All right. Thank you. We've got to take a break.

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