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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Speaks Publicly for First Time Since Defeat, Doesn't Acknowledge Loss, But Says "I Guess Time Will Tell"; Biden Wins 306 Electoral Votes, Trump Still Refuses to Concede; Trump in 2016 on His 306 Electoral Votes: "Massive Landslide"; U.S. Reports Record 160,000+ New Coronavirus Cases; Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) is Interviewed About the Pro-Trump Protest and CIA Chief Shut Out of White House Intel Meeting. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired November 13, 2020 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: He was excited to travel the world during his retirement. May they rest in peace and may their memories the blessing. Thanks for watching. I'll be back tomorrow for a special SITUATION ROOM 7 pm Eastern.
Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, President Trump breaking his silence tonight but only uttering a fleeting reference to the election as Biden further cements his victory with a Georgia win giving him 306 Electoral Votes.
Plus, breaking news this hour, the U.S. reporting another record number of new COVID cases. President settling political scores telling millions of Americans though that they will not have access to a vaccine right away.
And cities across the country bracing for stop the steal protests. It may appear to be a grassroots movement but wait until you see who's really behind it. Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, Trump breaks his silence as Biden's Electoral Vote win surges to 306. CNN now projecting the President-elect has also won Georgia. The first Democrat to win Georgia since 1992 and it comes on top of Biden flipping Arizona blue last night.
Biden's Electoral Vote tally as I said now 306, his popular vote win now more than 78 million, 5.3 million more than President Trump. Look this is a major victory no matter how you look at it and the way America scores political winds. And yet the President who spoke publicly for the first time in eight days still refuses to concede and accept his loss. In fact, he barely mentioned the election. It was just a passing remark while talking about lockdowns.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully, whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: His pause and almost stumble there are notable, because he knows, we all know, but he is refusing to transfer power. He is refusing to concede. He is refusing to tell millions of Americans who believe him the truth and he's refusing to take questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When will you accept that you lost the election, sir?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: He wouldn't answer the question from reporters, instead letting his tweets stir a poisonous brew. "This election was Rigged, from Dominion all the way up & down." Just one of many of that ilk today. Now, Dominion is an election software company. And in the past hour, Trump has continued to retweet baseless stories about them and millions of votes, but the facts Dominions technology did not affect vote counts.
The Department of Homeland Security even said as much coming out with a strongly worded statement that quote the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Forced to do that after Trump keeps repeatedly making these false accusations of fraud, including baseless allegations against Dominion. And the man who the President himself appointed to make sure voting machines work, dismissed the President's baseless accusation saying, "We see bold statements on Twitter or at the podium and we see hearsay we see laughable evidence presented to the courts. There's just not a correlation between those."
He's going to be my guest in just a moment. But speaking of laughable evidence, Trump dealt more legal losses today in Pennsylvania alone, two judges tossing out six court cases the Trump campaign brought to invalidate thousands of votes around Philadelphia. In Michigan, a judge rejecting a request filed by Trump supporters as 'not credible' and 'rife with speculation and guesswork about sinister motives'.
And the Trump campaign actually dropping its own lawsuit in Arizona, admitting that Biden was too far ahead for them to fight, saying, "The tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors."
They're accepting reality because the lawyers know the truth and yet Trump is still surrounded by a dangerous group of sycophants who enable him to mislead millions and millions of Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STUART VARNEY, HOST, VARNEY & CO: Are you prepared to say that the President will definitely attend the inauguration?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Again, that's many steps away here. We're talking January and President Trump believes he will be President Trump, had a second term and litigation is the first step, many steps away from that.
VARNEY: It would look pretty bad if he did not attend the inauguration. It would look like sour grapes, wouldn't it?
MCENANY: I think the President will attend his own inauguration. He would have to be there, in fact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Kayleigh knows better. In fact, she along with her boss know full well that 306 Electoral Votes is a loud, clear and major Electoral College victory in this country. Just listen to them.
[19:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't know, I think you remember that but I ended up with 306. That was good number, 223 to 306 and that was a big number.
MCENANY: President Trump's landslide, his 306 Electoral Votes in 2016.
TRUMP: Remember 306 to 223, that's a slaughter. That's a slaughter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He won overwhelming with 306 Electoral Votes, the most since any Republicans since reagan.
TRUMP: We won easily. We won that easily, 306 to, I think it was 223, we won it easily. That was a great victory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Three hundred six Electoral Votes is a great victory. It is a great victory in 2020 for Joe Biden.
Jason Carroll is with the President-elect Joe Biden in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Kaitlan Collins is at the White House.
I want to begin with you, Jason. Biden, meanwhile, moving full speed ahead on his transition plans, cabinet plans, it's full steam ahead.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It really is. I mean, the Biden team is looking at everything happening in the Trump world and moving ahead with their transition efforts. For example, this weekend, the President-elect is going to be meeting with his transition advisors. Much of the discussion is going to be about those cabinet picks.
They already have in mind, the names of the folks they want for all the positions, including key positions, health, defense and treasury. We're told that the President-elect is going to be taking a very deliberate approach to all of this. He knows that whoever he names is going to be put under intense scrutiny by the Republican GOP. In terms of outreach though to the GOP, his incoming White House Chief
of Staff Ron Klain has basically already said that Biden has already reached out to a number of GOP leaders, so that is happening. In terms of also what we can tell you, there was a press call earlier today, where the team Biden was basically asked about how the transition efforts are going, how it's been proceeding so far, given that the Trump team has put up so many roadblocks.
You've got the GSA, the General Services Administration, that has basically not signed that paperwork that would help them get access to resources and funds. Biden still not getting those intelligence briefings as well. And basically team Trump's saying, a senior advisor saying, look, we're not looking for a food fight here going forward, but legal action is not off the table.
So basically, team Biden moving ahead with their transition efforts. It's not a straight line, but they are moving ahead, Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Jason.
And let's go to Kaitlan Collins at the White House. So Kaitlan, the President came out today speaking for the first time in a week and of the day, didn't take questions, didn't acknowledge Biden's win, but didn't say he will win. There was a pause and stumble there, which I guess is a shift for him as he looked down and sort of read his entire statement on the vaccine. Tell us what's going on.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're right. The President has been denying up and down the board what has happened in this election, which is that he has lost and Joe Biden has one. But two times today the President came close to kind of acknowledging it, if we'll call it that, where in a tweet he was talking about what happened in Arizona making these baseless allegations that his own DHS says they have no evidence of talking about the voting systems there.
But he said in his tweet, it was a very close loss. And then Erin, as we were in the Rose Garden, the first time, you are right that we have seen the President in over a week where he's actually spoken directly to us beyond when he went to Arlington Cemetery earlier this week. He came close to acknowledging that there will not be a Trump administration going forward, because he kept repeatedly talking about the vaccine, but saying this administration will not lock down again, this administration, this administration, he kept repeating it.
And then he said, next administration, he said whatever it is, time will tell he came very close to acknowledging that there will be a new administration, which we have all recognized publicly there will be next year, which of course is the Biden administration. And that seems like a pretty small step given that it has been well determined Joe Biden won this election.
But for the President, it's probably the closest he's come to acknowledging reality and what has happened. And that comes as his aides spent the day denying it and saying that there is going to be a second Trump administration, as not only Kayleigh McEnany did, as you pointed out, but also Peter Navarro, the Secretary of State this week, and several others.
But, of course, we are still waiting on the President himself to flatly admit that Joe Biden has won the election. He did not take our questions today, Erin, so that did not happen this afternoon.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Kaitlan. Of course, it's not the way it should happen. He should come out and give a statement and he should call the winner and he should concede and that's the way these things go. They're hard. They've been done time and time again every four years by somebody for the entire history of this country.
OUTFRONT now Ben Hovland. He was nominated by President Trump. He serves as a top election security official and he's the Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. All right. Thank you for your time, Ben.
[19:10:02]
So let me just start with your background, election law and voting security for decades. So everything happening right now is what you have spent your life's work on. Biden now has 306 Electoral Votes. Will anything change this?
BEN HOVLAND, CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION: I can't imagine that. Again, we said from the beginning that election results are always unofficial, because election officials, the professionals that run our elections have work to do and they continue to work through that process. But at this point, it's pretty evident where things are, the margins are substantial enough, that is well beyond anything that you ever see in a traditional recount or anything of that nature.
BURNETT: And we should be clear, as I just played President Trump himself saying again and again and again of his own victory, which was 306 Electoral Votes last time around, how stunning and overpowering and incredible it was. Well, it's accurate on an electoral basis and it's accurate now.
So, as I said, Ben, you are a Trump appointee and you worked with DHS officials, state and local officials in the election space to issue this statement. The stunning statement that I read at the top of the hour, 24 hours ago. You said, "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history."
And then I had on the guy in charge of counting the votes in Georgia and he said they have had the most secure election in the history of Georgia and the margins there, of course, are incredibly tight. What compelled you to come out and say this to say that this was the most secure election in American history?
HOVLAND: Thanks, Erin. Well, first and foremost, I would say I don't think this statement is anything that's particularly special. It's the facts about what we've seen in this election. I think it's necessary to put out there because of the amount of misinformation and disinformation we're seeing. But the reality is since 2016, election officials all over this
country have been working tirelessly to make our elections more secure, putting in the work to improve cybersecurity, improve how our elections are run across the country. And this year, with a pandemic, they put in an amazing amount of work and did an amazing job running this election.
And anyone who voted this year saw that it was a great election and that really is the story that we should be telling, not talking about conspiracy theories.
BURNETT: OK. Well, in the past hour the President has retweeted two conspiracy theories about Dominion, the software company that was involved in several states. One of them a story claiming millions of votes for him were switched, that they were switched to Biden or lost using Dominion. The other saying Dominion can be hacked and the votes could have been changed that way. He has taken this company on again and again.
By the way, again, I want to say, the Georgia official, he said, they worked with Dominion that this is false. Your job in part is test and certify technology. So you know about Dominion? Is there anything to any of this, that he just keeps wildly putting out there about Dominion?
HOVLAND: Again, Erin, I think that the President has had the opportunity, his lawyers have had the opportunity to present this type of evidence, these allegations in a court of law and we have not seen that. What you've seen in the courts all around the country amount to nothing.
Again, we see these bold claims, but we've seen zero real evidence about any votes changed. We know that all of these states have paper backups or paper ballot trails. Again, there's nothing that we've seen that would cause any real doubt in the integrity of the election and the people again that run our elections.
When you have these kinds of statements. Really, it insults them. It calls into question their integrity. The men and women across this country in the nearly 9,000 jurisdictions across this country who run our elections are public servants and they care more about the integrity and accuracy of elections than anyone else. And if there was anything to this, they want to get to the bottom of it, but we don't. We hear rhetoric and we don't see any facts.
BURNETT: Lots of rhetoric and it does not support the reality of the situation. Ben, thank you very much.
HOVLAND: Thank you.
BURNETT: I want to go now to our Chief Political Analyst, Gloria Borger and host of CNN SMERCONISH, Michael Smerconish.
So Michael, you just heard Ben, he was a Trump appointed elections official and making it very clear that this is this is an election that we should be celebrating because it is the most secure in American history. The DHS says what the President is spewing here is nonsense. It has been backed up with absolutely no facts.
The President though today when he came out and spoke for the first time, he sort of stumbled, stop short of saying he won, did you hear any kind of a shift here?
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, SMERCONISH: Only the bauble that you heard and have already noted.
[19:15:00]
And by the way, I think it makes logical sense that despite all of the protestations by the President about mail-in voting, it actually limits human factors when you have fewer people going to the polls and fewer human interactions. I think one of the takeaways from this election is that we're better served as a society and as an electorate when more people are voting by mail.
Erin, I would just add that there's this tendency to look at the President and to think that there's a strategy, there's a plan, what is it, let's read the tealeaves, maybe we can figure it out. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's all rather seat-of-the-pants, that he's reactionary, that there isn't a plan of any discernible magnitude.
Maybe that press conference today in the Rose Garden where he's able to give good news about the vaccination process will salve his wounds. But I did detect, like you have noted, that there was a subtle change in his demeanor and disposition.
BURNETT: Gloria, and there was in his behavior, he loves to spar with the press. He loves to have fights. He didn't today. He didn't take questions. He read a statement on vaccines. He looked down for much of the time to read it. He looked different. I mean, there was just ...
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: He did.
BURNETT: He did, right?
BORGER: Well, he did look different. You have to wonder why was he having this press conference in the first place. And I think it's because he's been watching cable news nonstop and understands that there's a COVID spike throughout this entire country and that he hasn't said a word about it. And somebody must have told him that you've got to go do it.
What was different to me, we heard the same lines that there's a spike, we have more reported cases, because we do more testing, we know that's not true. And he went through his usual spiel on that. What was interesting to me was that he didn't dominate the press conference the way he normally does. He stepped aside and let the experts speak.
Normally, he would speak and dominate the experts when he was running for reelection. Now, he looked more wounded and subdued and he did step aside. BURNETT: Right, right. And then he didn't want to jump back in and
take questions, which ordinarily someone will direct a question in an expert and then he jumps in, it didn't happen.
BORGER: Right.
BURNETT: So Michael, I want to play more of this exchange here between the White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Stuart Varney on Fox Business News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VARNEY: It would look pretty bad if he did not attend the inauguration. It would look like sour grapes, wouldn't it?
MCENANY: I think the President will attend his own inauguration. He would have to be there, in fact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Stuart, I think, made the point very clear there, the absurdity of that statement, Michael. But yet what she said is sort of reminiscent of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the other day, when he said there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration. How much damage does it do to have people of authority continue to act like such sick offense?
SMERCONISH: Well, I worry that it keeps the hopes up of half the country or 71 million Americans. The good news is that regardless of whatever the hyperbole might be, whatever the statements might be, there is a process and the process is chugging along and being followed. It's tabulation, it's certification, it'll then be the Electoral College and then it'll be in the hands of the Congress.
And given the margins that exist in those pivotal states. There's just no opportunity here for any seating of an alternate set of electors. None of that could possibly pan out, given the facts at present.
BURNETT: No. And given the courts and we're seeing it again and again, as I laid out, six in Pennsylvania, Michigan today, Arizona, they even dropped their own case. All right. Thank you both very much.
And next to crucial runoff. They are going to decide the Senate and it is now getting nasty and personal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Raphael Warnock, a radical's radical.
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, (D) U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE, GEORGIA: When people have no vision, they revert to division.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Plus, breaking news, the U.S. now hitting a record number of new COVID hospitalizations. So what's the President's plan to slow the spread, because it is up to him. He's in office here for two more months.
And former President Obama revealing new details about the night Trump won.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning and I then called Donald Trump to congratulate him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:23:11]
BURNETT: New tonight, Joe Biden's projected victory in Georgia marks the first time a Democrat has won that state since 1992. And with President Trump the projected winner in North Carolina, the electoral college total now sits at 306 for Biden, 232 for Trump. It is a decisive win for Biden brought about by flipping five states that Trump won four years ago.
OUTFRONT now Harry Enten, our Senior Politics Writer and Analyst who goes through these numbers. For all four years, all four years, every single day of your life and so you know more than anyone. OK. So we've got a full map now, Harry, with a projected winner in every state. So you're now looking at the real the real situation. What's your big takeaway?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: I think my first big takeaway is that 306 for Joe Biden looks awfully similar as you said earlier on to that 306 that Donald Trump got back in 2016, so it's a decisive win. I think the other thing when we look at those five states that flipped that sort of stand out to me was there was that question whether Joe Biden would go through the upper Midwest with Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin already trying to do something along the Sunbelt. And the answer, apparently, is both, right?
He flipped Georgia, which you mentioned hasn't gone Democratic since 1992 and he also flipped Arizona, which hasn't gone Democratic since 1996. So to me it's just a very clear, decisive win for the former Vice President and soon to be president.
BURNETT: Right. And certainly, I mean, as you heard, Harry, what President Trump said when he had a 306 total of how decisive and overwhelming it was, it is and it is now in favor of Joe Biden. So the thing is though, Harry, this election felt close. And we all knew that after a week or so it may or may not feel close, but it did because it took so long to call and you're watching 50 votes and 500 votes on a margin going like this and Arizona.
But historically speaking, what matters is when all the numbers come in and in that context how decisive is this win?
[19:25:05]
ENTEN: Yes, I think it's fairly decisive. For a challenger to beat an incumbent is very, very rare. And to get the number of Electoral Votes that Joe Biden got was very, very rare. If you look at all the elections since 1920 and you look at the Electoral College, what do you see? You see that Joe Biden's performance is one of the best. It's, I believe, the fourth of the last of the last 17, so that's very clear.
You look at the popular vote and you see that Joe Biden is getting 51 percent, 52 percent, perhaps, when everything is said and done. That's the highest vote share for a challenger to an incumbent since 1932 since FDR. So you just look at this, you look at the Electoral College and you look at the popular vote and it's just very, very clear that Joe Biden's done something as a challenger, that very few challengers have been able to do whether it's the electoral college or the popular vote.
BURNETT: Well, I think it's so important that you put all that context and the date and the history, because I think around the world, there's often a lot of confusion because we have a dual party system, and it's always pretty much split down the middle that you can take away with people saying, come on 51, is that really - that's it, that's decisive? Well, yes, and I think that context you just put around it and the historical context is so important to telling that story, Harry.
BURNETT: So when it comes to projections, CNN has projected Arizona for Biden as you mentioned. Earlier today, Republican incumbent Sen. Martha McSally conceded to her challenger, the victor, Mark Kelly, the astronaut. Kelly leading that race by nearly 80,000 votes. It is one of two seats Democrats were able to flip, right?
ENTEN: Yes, that's exactly right. And this is so interesting to me, you talk about how the map has been shifting. And Mark Kelly winning there give Democrats control of both of those Senate seats in Arizona. And that is the first time that Democrats control both of those Senate seats in Arizona. Since 1950, that election when it was Ernest McFarlane and Carl Hayden, that's how far back you have to go.
And by winning the senate race, it gives though Democrats a real shot at getting Senate control because they're able to win those two senate runoffs that you mentioned earlier on in the program down in Georgia that will be taking place in January. They do in fact get to 50 seats with Kamala Harris breaking the tie, they do get that Senate Majority so those two Senate races down in Georgia in January, a big deal.
BURNETT: Wow. A huge deal and incredible. As you point out, not since 1950, you have those seats in Arizona by a Democrat. I wonder if it would have been different if President Trump had been more gracious to the McCain family. Thank you so much, Harry.
OK. So the Biden campaign now with some breaking news on those Senate races, they say they're going to pour resources into Georgia for those two Senate seats. This is on the heels of the Republican national committee today saying they will spend at least $20 million and send more than 600 staffers into the state.
Secretary state, by the way, says if you move in here and register to vote just for the purpose of voting in this campaign, we're going to kick you out, you could be going to jail for 10 years. Is this going to be the most incredible race, the most brutal campaign ever possibly and it does determine the balance of power in Washington.
Kyung Lah is on the ground OUTFRONT in Atlanta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): This is it. I win, she win, she wins, I win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT(voice over): Their first joint runoff campaign rally. The two Republican senators from Georgia are defending their jobs, hoping to secure their futures and control of the U.S. Senate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): Make no mistake we are the firewall not just for the U.S. Senate, but the future of our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): Underscoring the national scale of this fight ...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): It's great to be here ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): ... for the Sen. Rick Scott.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT: You saw what Chuck Schumer said, right? He said, first we're going to take Georgia and then we're going to change the country. Not in Georgia, not today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): The political world has turned to Georgia and so has much of its money. Total ad spending and reservations from all four campaigns and outside groups already tops $55 million through the end of December. Of that, about 47 million is from the Republican side. Democrats behind early as they tried to flip the Senate seats blue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vote Perdue to stop them. (END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): Incumbent Senator, David Perdue 's first ads focused on keeping the Senate Majority.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You heard him, Chuck Schumer is trying to use Georgia to take the Senate Majority and radically change America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): Fellow Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler's ads echo that theme. But she also released an onslaught of negative ads against her opponent, Rev. Raphael Warnock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Raphael Warnock, a radical's radical.
WARNOCK: We stand up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): Warnock is defending himself in his ads.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Warnock: When people have no vision, they revert to division.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): And in television interviews.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNOCK: She knows that she is misrepresenting who I am and what I represent and so I'm going to stay focused on Georgia families.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need leaders who bring us together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH(voice over): But one area of common ground in this campaign, how high the stakes are.
[19:30:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Joe and kamala, they will not be able to govern. They will not be able to lead us. They will not be able to contain this virus and rebuild this economy unless we win these two U.S. Senate races here in Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE) KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So you saw Rick Scott in the state today. Earlier in this week, it was Marco Rubio. And next week, Vice President Mike Pence is expected to land here in Georgia.
On the Democrat side, Erin, we are anticipating that Andrew Yang could be here in the coming days.
So some familiar faces here in the state very soon -- Erin.
BURNETT: It is going to be a packed state.
Thank you very much, Kyung Lah.
And next, new cases of coronavirus hitting a record tonight. And yet the president is putting millions of lives at risk by trying to settle political scores on a vaccine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So we won't be delivering it to New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And CNN learning the nation's CIA director was kept out of an intelligence meeting today. The CIA director. So what is the fate of Gina Haspel?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:35:07]
BURNETT: Breaking news, another record day of coronavirus cases. More than 160,000 new cases tonight. And as the U.S. breaks the record, President Trump is vowing to keep the country open.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This administration will not go to a lockdown. It won't be a necessity. Lockdowns cost lives, and they cost a lot of problems to cure. Cannot be -- you've got to remember, cannot be worse than the problem itself, and I've said it many times.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Meantime, we're learning about an outbreak among Secret Service officers, dozens and dozens. They were tasked with protecting President Trump during his campaign rallies, now, all off the job, quarantined.
Nick Watt is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Open schools in New York City were a sign of great progress. Those doors might close again, as early as Monday, as positivity rates rise towards 3 percent.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: And we are making preparations as a result in case that number does exceed 3 percent, and in the event that we do have to temporarily close our schools.
WATT: Hell is back on the horizon, when there could be hope.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We can turn this around. It is not futile.
WATT: But turning this around will require discipline. And right now, COVID fatigue is winning.
FAUCI: It's understandable. I don't want to be critical of that, but we want to plead with them to understand the dynamics of this outbreak. If you do that, we'll continue to soar.
WATT: One hundred thousand plus new cases every day, ten days straight. Thursday topped 150,000, a new record. In Utah, Lindsey Wootton lost her mom and grandfather to COVID-19.
LINDSEY WOOTTON, LOST MOM AND GRANDFATHER TO COVID-19: He said, kiddo, I'm not doing good. She said dad, I'm not either. And he said, Tre, I'm dying. She said, dad, I am, too. And he said, then I'll look for you in heaven.
WATT: Look at South Dakota, a staggering 56 percent of tests are now coming back positive. Analysts say that's rampant spread.
But Sioux Falls City Council just voted on a mask mandate and --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My official vote on this is a no. And that item fails 5-4.
WATT: A vote against signs, and masks are oppressive, a newly minted GOP member of Congress tweeted today: My body, my choice.
Meanwhile in Missouri, doctors now begging for a statewide mask mandate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The real peak of this pandemic has yet to come.
WATT: And they want to plan for when beds run out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our health care heroes have fought valiantly, day after day. But we have no reserves.
WATT: This virus might soon force some very tough decisions. Illinois just crushed its daily new case record.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: If things don't take a turn in the coming days, we'll quickly reach the point when some form of a mandatory stay at home order is all that will be left.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WATT: Now, breaking news out of Nevada. The governor has tested positive for COVID-19, feels fine. He's waiting for a second test, just to be sure.
I'm here in California. The governor is expressing some regret after the "San Francisco Chronicle" reported that he attended a birthday party at a fancy restaurant that broke the state's own COVID guidelines. The governor said, we should have modeled better behavior -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Nick.
And OUTFRONT now, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who advised the White House medical team under President George Bush.
So, Dr. Reiner, President Trump made a point to say he will not lock down the country, that he believes we'll see cases go down rapidly. What is your response?
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It won't go down rapidly until we do something to make them go down rapidly, right? So if you look at the case curve, it's vertical. We had 170,000 new cases today. That's exactly double the number of cases that we had on Election Day. So we've doubled the number of daily cases in ten days.
The only way to make that stop is to do something different. We need to mask up the entire country now. Now, we may need to do selective closures in places where hospitals start to become really overrun with patients. But for now, the move should be national masks mandate.
The president should be on the phone with every governor tonight doing that. It will not go down unless we do something. The vice president, I should say the outgoing vice president, said today that Americans can be comforted that help is on the way.
[19:40:09]
Help is not on the way. A vaccine will take a couple of months to really make an impact.
If you're having a heart attack and you call 911 and I tell you that the ambulance is coming two months from now, that should offer no comfort. What people need is a mask mandate and they need it now.
BURNETT: Right. And, of course, the projections here, with the projection modeling that has underestimated deaths thus far is projecting an almost doubling of deaths in three months, right, and that -- there's nothing that comes in, this that time frame that would change that, except for what you're talking about, possibly a mask mandate.
So the newly elected Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, I don't know if you know her name, Doctor, but she has promoted QAnon conspiracy theories, put out a tweet. It reads: I probably told my freshman class that masks are oppressive.
In Georgia, we work out, shop, go to restaurants, go to work and school without masks. My body, my choice. #FreeYourFace.
She's not alone in that kind of sentiment. And that is a big part of the problem here. So what do you do about it?
REINER: We really need to talk to people on really the grassroots level. You know, there's always been a very fine line between a libertarian ethic and selfishness. But when your breath leaves your mouth and it becomes air, to paraphrase a beautiful book, it is no longer your choice to spew virus into my face.
And to hear this kind of nonsense, this really ignorant nonsense coming from a new member of Congress is really unbecoming of a legislator or really any American. Americans are not selfish people. But they need to be spoken to and they need to be educated by our leaders and they've been very poorly served.
BURNETT: People are smart and can handle the truth here. They could handle the small sacrifice requested -- required. Chris Christie said that. It just hasn't been asked. They've been told that the right thing to do is to refuse it.
Thank you very much. I appreciate your time, Doctor.
And next, "Stop the Steal". It's a movement that's been gaining traction at pro-Trump protests and across the Internet. So who is really behind it? It is not grassroots. Wait until you hear. Drew Griffin reports.
And former President Obama talking about the night that then-candidate Trump won the election. Hear what then happened.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:27]
BURNETT: New tonight, cities across the country are preparing for protests, being pushed by "Stop the Steal". It's a group embracing President Trump's baseless conspiracy theory that the election has been stolen from him. More than 50 pro-Trump rallies planned tomorrow, at least one in each state and Washington, D.C.
Trump says he may attend that protest, tweeting: I may even try to stop by and say hello.
Drew Griffin is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: It's an Internet battle cry, stop the steal has swept across inboxes, Facebook pages and Twitter like an out of control virus. The claims that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump are all false, but the truth means little to people inundated with lies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that they tried to steal the election. GRIFFIN: "Stop the Steal" may appear as a grassroots uprising, but it
started more than four years ago, the brainchild of a political dirty trick artist and convicted liar, who has pushed disinformation schemes for years, Roger Stone.
ROGER STONE, TRUMP ADVISER: Stop the steal is posting much of this material. There is insurmountable, compelling, overcoming evidence of fraud.
BENJAMIN DECKER, FOUNDER AND CEO, MEMETICA: "Stop the Steal" is a coordinated effort that has been revived twice by Roger Stone and allied political operatives in an attempt to gaslight the entire integrity of our voting and election process.
GRIFFIN: Ben Decker who conducts digital investigation says far from a grassroots campaign, "Stop the Steal" is a business. In 2016, Roger Stone's PAC launched stopthesteal.org, which was asking for $10,000 donations, purportedly back then to uncover evidence of vote fraud against Donald Trump.
Stone told CNN the group was a nonprofit, created to ensure the integrity of the vote.
"Stop the Steal" reemerge briefly in 2018 midterms. Then in the run-up to 2020, the "Stop the Steal" campaign rebooted by a group of people orbiting Roger Stone. The cast of characters include Ali Alexander, a Roger Stone wannabe.
ALI ALEXANDER: I actually just got a message from Roger Stone.
GRIFFIN: He began hashtagging stop the steal weeks before the election day and launched a "Stop the Steal" website.
AMY CRAMER, TEA PARTY ACTIVIST: I'm one of the co-founders.
GRIFFIN: Amy Cramer, a Tea Party activist who in 2016, formed the Group Women Vote Trump with Roger Stone's ex-wife. Cramer was behind a "Stop the Steal" Facebook group, along with two people who worked on Steve Bannon's discredited We Build the Wall Fund. It was taken down by Facebook.
Also shut down, a cluster of pages affiliated with Bannon that coordinated posts, according to Facebook, using inauthentic behavior tactics to artificially boost how many people saw their content.
In all, the pages had 2.5 million followers before they were shuttered.
DECKER: "Stop the Steal" is a highly coordinated, partisan, political operation.
GRIFFIN: This week, Stone even took his message to the most notorious conspiracy theorist of all, Alex Jones.
STONE: A hoax is being perpetrated on the American people. GRIFFIN: On Twitter, researchers at Clemson University saw the
#stopthesteal mentioned in nearly 2 million tweets. The tweets, the Facebook posts filled with unsubstantiated and false evidence of widespread voter fraud, quickly caught the attention of disinformation researchers like Ciaran O'Connor.
CIARAN O'CONNOR, ANALYST, INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC DIALOGUE: It only took a day and a half before Facebook took the group down.
[19:50:05]
But by then, it was already too late.
GRIFFIN: Copycat sites now number in the dozens, and the false information initially spread by a few is only multiplying.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: Erin, the followers of "Stop the Steal" don't seem to mind there being lied to. Don't seem to mind. But there is a plan to make them think the way they think.
And as you reported at the top of the story, this movement is going to get a big test this weekend. We're told thousands of "Stop the Steal" followers will show up for the rally in Washington D.C. We shall see -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much.
I want to now go to Jim Himes. He's the Democratic congressman from Connecticut, who is on the House Intelligence Committee.
So, Congressman, let me talk about with drew's reporting about tomorrow. You are going to have these rallies, these protests, and all 50 states tomorrow. One in Washington, the president said he might even stop by, highly coordinated.
A lot of people attending them have no idea about that, right? But they are. They are victims of disinformation.
But this is going to be a lot of people, and a lot of protests. Do you have any concern?
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Yeah. Not really, Erin. You know, what -- everything we've seen since the election has been, you know, almost, satirically underwhelming, right? I mean, from Rudy Giuliani's press conference outside of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, between the porn shop, and the crematorium, to now 14 cases in court that have been tossed out to the sort of pathetic quality of the president's behavior, it's -- I suspect, it's going to be much less than meets the eye.
What's very sad here, Erin, is that, look, this is being done really for one big reason. It's a huge grift, right? It's a huge grift.
Look at the president's fund-raising things, you know, the fundraising is about -- not anybody inside the White House believes he's got a chance to reverse the results of the election, it's about paying down campaign debt. And these people who show up at the rallies are going to be encouraged to sign up for this, and to donate to that, to buy this T-shirt, and to buy this thing. It's a big moneymaking grift.
And, you know, look, this is not new to our history. What's really sad about it is that it's -- it's not that is being stoked by Donald Trump, that's to be expected, that it's being reinforced by my colleagues. You know, when Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, says publicly something he knows to not be true, that this election was stolen, boy, our democracies in a lot of trouble. That's what worries me more than a bunch of protests that may occur this weekend.
BURNETT: So, can I ask you why you think so many of your colleagues are staying silent? Like do they still think that the president can be useful to them? And why is it that people who, I'm sure, your friends with, you've had meaningful conversations with, there's people of great substance, are allowing someone to come out, and say these completely false things, and to encourage Americans to believe our democracy is broken, and that they lost an election that was stolen from them? Why are your colleagues doing that?
HIMES: You know, it's the same old story. It's the same story over four years. I mean, I know this because I've talked to Republicans. They know that this is one big silly carnival.
But, individually, they got no incentive to make that point. And the reason for that is that, look, you know, President Trump, though he got beaten very, very soundly in the election, he got 70 million-plus votes. He is still a very potent force.
And if one Republican member of Congress, or Republican senator stands up and says will we all know to be true, which is that Donald Trump lost this, that member, that senator, has political problems.
Now, in the old world, in the old world, where integrity, truth, and sort of commitment to American ideals mattered, my Republican friends would say, you know what, it is going to be hard for me when I say what is obvious, it is going to be hard for me when I stand up for one of the basic tentacles or basic cornerstones of our democracy, which is that we do peaceful transitions of power.
I -- in the old world, you know, some of my Republican colleagues would choose to take that risk. Now, they are members of a cult of personality.
BURNETT: I just find it bizarre that it's a profile in courage to acknowledge that some getting -- less electoral votes is a win. I think that's sort of where I'm dumbfounded. Whatever politics are, you got to accept facts.
I want to ask you one other thing, because of your obviously knowledge on intelligence. A senior administration official tells us that the CIA Director Gina Haspel today was iced out of an intelligence meeting. It was out of -- a meeting at the White House, President Trump was there, the National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe was there, she was iced out.
And, obviously, this comes as you've seen -- you know, several members of the Defense Department fired, Defense Department chief fired, national security officials kicked out, Department of Homeland Security kicked out.
Do you really believe that he'll fire her?
HIMES: I don't know, I don't know. But I can tell you how serious this is. You know, when you go to war with a country, the thing you dream of doing is decapitating the national security leadership of that country. The president of the United States is decapitating the national security leadership of the United States.
[19:55:02]
And our enemies, and our opponents abroad, are noticing.
BURNETT: All right. Congressman Himes, I appreciate your time, thank you.
HIMES: Thank you, Erin.
BURNETT: And next, former President Obama, on the night Trump won the White House.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, former President Barack Obama's revealing new details in an interview with Gayle King at CBS. And they talked about the night President Trump won the 2016 election, and what is at stake now, as Trump refuses to concede this election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When Donald Trump won, I stayed up until 2 30 in the morning, and I then called Donald Trump to congratulate him. His margin of victory over Hillary Clinton wasn't greater than Joe Biden's margin over him. But if you're listening to some of the top radio that Trump voters are listening to, if you're watching Fox News, if you're getting these tweets, those allegations are presented as facts. So, you got millions of people out there who think, yes, there must be cheating, because the president said so.
GAYLE KING, CBS NEWS: What is at stake here?
OBAMA: Well, look, Joe Biden will be next president of the United States. Kamala Harris will be next vice president. There is no legal basis.
KING: He's getting support for members of the Republican Party who are challenging him.
OBAMA: And that has been disappointing. They didn't think there was any fraud going on, because they didn't say anything about it for the first two days.
But there's damage to this, because what happens is that the peaceful transfer of power, the notion that any of us who obtain an elected office, whether it's dog catcher, or president, are servants of the people. It's a temporary job. We're not above the rules. We're not above the law. That's the essence of our democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. Thank you for joining us.
Anderson starts now.
