CNN's Fareed Zakaria previewed his documentary Why Trump Won Monday on Wolf Blitzer's afternoon TV program. Zakaria said Trump supporters are "tribal" and saw the 2016 presidential election as an act of cultural and class rebellion against the "educated" urban professionals.



"We tried to get at that deeper issue, which is really a portrait of America," Zakaria said of his investigation into Trump supporters. "A kind of cultural and class portrait of an America that feels deeply resentful about the direction the country is going in and the people who run the country. People, you know, who are professionals, urban, educated. This is, in a sense, an act of class rebellion. It is an act of cultural rebellion. And Donald Trump is their guy."





BLITZER: Fareed, I'm really looking forward to your special, your documentary that will air later tonight, premiere later tonight, here on CNN about the 2016 presidential election. It's entitled "Why Trump Won."



So tell our viewers here in the United States and around the world the focus of your documentary, the message?



ZAKARIA: Well, what we really tried to ask, Wolf, was not even why he won but why he even came close, because everybody has their own pet theories, whether it was Hillary was a weak candidate, the Comey letter, or Russia. But really the bigger question is, this is the most unorthodox presidential candidate, really. Why did he even win the nomination against 16 very talented politicians? Why did he come close when he made so many statements, gaffes, mistakes that would have blown up the candidacy of anybody? There must have been something there that was deeper.



And we tried to get at that deeper issue, which is really a portrait of America. A kind of cultural and class portrait of an America that feels deeply resentful about the direction the country is going in and the people who run the country. People, you know, who are professionals, urban, educated. This is, in a sense, an act of class rebellion. It is an act of cultural rebellion. And Donald Trump is their guy.



You can -- you can ask -- we tried to explain why he became their guy, but he is their guy and, you know, my sense has always been, they have latched on to him the way you latch on to a sports team. The fact that the sports team is not doing well does not mean you will give up support. So when people keep watching and saying, well, but Trump is not really a conservative. Ideology doesn't matter. They say, well, he's not accomplishing much. Competence doesn't matter. This is some kind of tribal identity and they're sticking with him.