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CNN Live Event/Special

Source: Trump May Declare Victory On Election Night If He Is Close To 270 Electoral Votes, Trump Denies Claim; Trump Spends Final Days Sowing Doubt On Election Results; Biden, Trump Fight For Votes In Key States In Final Days; Early Voting Surpasses Two-Thirds Of All 2016 Ballots Cast; W.H. Adviser Atlas Apologizes For Russian State T.V. Interview; Dr. Fauci Sharpens Criticism Of Trump's COVID-19 Response; Polls Show Biden Leads Trump In Michigan, Wisconsin Amid Democratic Hopes To Rebuild "Blue Wall". Aired 10-11p ET

Aired November 01, 2020 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Been a busy night, there's likely no slowdown in the hours and days ahead. So let's turn things over to Chris for "CUOMO PRIME TIME."

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Ignore the noise, maintain your poise. Anderson, thank you very much. That is in the instruction for all of us in the days to come.

I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the special Sunday, to our PRIME TIME on election eve, eve. In less than 48 hours, we will likely be learning the first results of one of the wildest and most monumental elections of our lifetimes.

But know this, we may know the winner Tuesday night, we might know the winner on election night, but probably not. And that's OK. Because elections never end on election day and night. Because the law says there are periods of counting that come after that. OK?

Now, legitimate ballots are allowed and counted in multiple states routinely. The President knows this.

So why would he mislead you and tell you that anything that happens after Election Day is fraudulent? Why would he create this confusion? Same reason as always, it may work for him. How so?

A Trump campaign source says Trump could declare victory on Tuesday, even if he hasn't won, even if he hasn't clinched 270 electoral votes. How? Here's a scenario, Trump takes Florida, state start falling either way. Biden wins Michigan and Wisconsin, doesn't get Arizona, doesn't get North Carolina's, doesn't get Georgia comes down to Pennsylvania. And it's close.

And it's Tuesday. And Trump says, it's not that close. We won. But now they want to count for more days. Sounds suspicious, right? But it's BS. Why? The law in the state for a long time now and challenged at the Supreme Court level wasn't changed is they're going to continue to count mail in ballots for three days after Election Day if they're received by Election Day.

Now, if they're postmarked by Election Day, they come a few days later, those still count. Six of the counties that Trump won in 2016. And remember, this was a surprise that clinched it for him. Pennsylvania in 2016, he won by only 44,000 votes. Six of the counties that he won in 2016, say, they won't even start counting mail in ballots until after Tuesday's election.

So, why would he say something that could hurt him? Because he thinks it might help him? But know this, the idea that we may have to wait for counties in Pennsylvania or Pennsylvania overall or other states that have laws to count beyond Tuesday, is expected and legitimate.

And for the President to suggest otherwise is at a minimum untrue, so don't believe it. But at a maximum, he knows it's untrue. And what does that tell you? Win or lose, this President's mandate must call for a demand for better, not just more of the same.

Now Joe Biden says with some fire, you know, he doesn't care what this president says, but he will not steal the election.

Oh, I thought there was a soundbite there. But it's a dramatic pause nonetheless.

Let's take the idea to the CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood to fill us in how that dramatic pause work for you. So the idea --

JOHN HARDWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Definitely did.

CUOMO: Thank you, John.

This state of play, I was watching the President's fourth rally of the days on a five state Blitz. What have we heard from him directly?

HARDWOOF: Well, what we've heard from the President is repeated attempts, as you know, Chris, and as you outlined in the lead end repeated attempts to undermine the credibility of the election. And there's no mystery of why he's doing it. President Trump knows that he's losing. He knows that a majority of Americans disapprove of his performance.

All the polls show it both nationally, and in more than enough battleground states to win. And so he's trying to figure out some way to screw with the vote counting process to somehow jigger an outcome to his favor.

You had one of his advisors going on a Sunday show today and saying, well, we're going to have -- we're going to be leading and have more than 280 electoral votes on election night and then they're going to try to steal it. Well, that is preposterous, because you don't have any electoral votes until you've won a state and you haven't won a state until they've counted the votes in the state. [22:05:04]

Now, that argument is so outrageous that the President, as he typically does after he puts a nutty idea out front, he tried to kind of walk it back.

Take a listen to what he had to say when challenged on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That was a false report. We'll look at what happens.

I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. You're going to have one or two or three states depending on how it ends up with a tabulating balance, and the rest of the world is waiting to find out.

And I think there's great danger to it. And I think a lot of fraud and misuse can take place.

And I don't think it's fair that we have to wait a long period of time after the election. If people wanted to get their ballots in, they should have gotten that ballots in long before that long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARDWOOD: You know, the President is trying to justify this rhetoric that he's using by saying, well, you should have gotten your vote in. We have a pandemic, we've got problems for the Postal Service, this unprecedented conditions that people are adjusting to.

But what the President's trying to do, in trying to mess with the outcome of the election is he's talking like a thug. And he's encouraging his aides and supporters to act like thugs. That's why you saw these people with these trucks trying to run the Biden Harris bus off the road the other day, and you saw people trying to tie up traffic for no reason in New York. They're trying to see if they can get away with it.

The only question is whether the judicial branch, if this comes to it, we've seen the rulings in Texas about the drive by locations. We have the prospect of litigation about balance coming in three days late in North Carolina and also in Pennsylvania. The question is, are Republican appointed judges going to go along with it? And there's some indications from the Supreme Court that the conservative bloc on the court would go with the President. You heard Brett Kavanaugh endorsing some of this rhetoric about clouds of suspicion overlaid vote counting, which is, again, it's nuts.

There's not evidence of vote fraud, which he Brett Kavanaugh could find out from Ben Ginsberg his partner in the 2000 Bush campaign when they were trying to stop the vote counting in Florida, Ben Ginsberg has said there's not evidence of fraud. The Republican Party is trying to gin it up.

CUOMO: Ben Ginsberg, of course, famous for his litigation role in the 2000 election of Bush v Gore, that wound up in the Supreme Court.

John Harwood, thank you very much. Appreciate it brother.

All right, while Trump continues to sow doubt, Joe Biden is going the other way. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Our response is, the President's not going to steal this election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The interesting part is Trump keeps saying Biden is sowing gloom and doom. You just heard the President say that he thinks it's going to be fraudulent if you count votes after the Election Day.

You know, a lot of absentee ballots come in after Election Day. Sometimes they're for military members and other people outside the country. This isn't new.

M.J. Lee is following the Biden campaign in this final sprint. What's the word from the hustings?

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, the way that Joe Biden would like to prevent President Trump from prematurely declaring victory on election night is not only to win, but to have a decisive victory. And that is why we saw Biden sort of bring his campaign back really to where it all started, the state of Pennsylvania, the state where he was born. Pittsburgh, you'll recall is the place where he held his first event as a candidate in 2020.

And Philadelphia, right here is where his campaign is headquartered. This is where we saw him campaign all day today. And tomorrow, really his entire campaign is going to be fanned out across the state of Pennsylvania. And I will tell you one word that we keep hearing from Democrats, including Biden, and also former president Barack Obama in recent days, is complacency.

Democrats look back on 2016 and they will now openly acknowledge that they did take some of these Midwestern states for granted, these states that were supposed to be sort of the blue wall for the Democratic Party. The turnout just was not high enough. And they will say openly now that Hillary Clinton, the former Democratic nominee, just did not spend enough time and resources in some of these areas.

So what they're trying to do now is to really avoid the mistakes of 2016. But I will also note tomorrow, if you look at Biden's schedule, he is also going to be starting the day out in Cleveland, Ohio. This just goes to show you and is a good reminder that they are of course, pouring resources into states where the polling is a lot closer, it is more competitive.

It should be more difficult for Biden to try to win some of these states. And they are doing that because they want to have as many pathways to 270 as possible. [22:10:05]

It is also why we are seeing the Biden campaign spend time in states like Texas, Georgia, North Carolina. The calculation here, Chris, is that if they're able to pick up one of those states, then it just makes it infinitely harder for President Trump to also have a pathway to 270

CUOMO: If Joe Biden were able to pick up Texas, you and I would have a very different Tuesday night plan that we probably do right now. But hey, the theory for both teams should be leave it all on the field, all on the court. Go everywhere you can as long as you can until the final bill, anything less of that is always a mistake.

M.J. Lee, I know. That's how you do your job. Thank you for being out there and working 24-7, appreciate it.

Let's bring in David Gregory and Dana Bash.

You know, Dana, you know, I, you know, Biden say, well, maybe we get Texas, he gets Texas. He's got a very different night plan in what we're looking at right now. But let's discuss why, talk about Pennsylvania, specifically sensitive to what may wind up being our reality on election night.

You know, the President's not picking Pennsylvania by chance.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No. I mean, there, there are a few things. Number one, you're right, just the map and the road to 270.

For both candidates, it is on that road, Pennsylvania really appears critical, maybe more for President Trump than Joe Biden. But it is still absolutely critical.

And you remember four years ago, the way that Donald Trump won was to jack up his vote in the already Republican areas and surprise Democrats who did OK. Hillary -- did OK in the suburbs, but not well enough, and certainly not well enough to counterbalance the rural areas.

What is so interesting about Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, for example, is that he hasn't been ignoring even areas where he knows that Republicans are going to win. He just wants to get the share of the Democratic vote up even a little bit in some of those really, really, Republican conservative areas. And you're going to see that tomorrow, when his campaign goes to the four corners of Pennsylvania. It's not just the cities, it's not just the suburbs, it is those rural areas that really is Trump country.

CUOMO: You know, David, we often, or at least I often, have to look at what the President does is through the lens of white lie about this, you know, because he knows better. He knows what the law is in Pennsylvania, and he knows why it's legitimate. He knows why the election doesn't end on November 3. So, why is he saying it? It has to be because he knows he won by 44,000 votes last time there, which means it could very well be tight. And if it is tight, what does he want? He wants it to be close enough on election night before there's any counting done after that, and what could be a disadvantage for him and mailing ballots and say, he won. And that's what we heard out of his campaign is speculation.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He's working the rest, you know, he's working anybody who will listen, namely his supporters. So we can try to build that momentum. If it becomes that close, that there's a hue and cry that something is unfair, even working judges who may ultimately be looking at that and will do so dispassionately, we hope and trust.

I think the President also senses some momentum and the close of the campaign. You know, there's a lot we don't know, including how the early voting breaks. We look at data that says Democrats are voting earlier than Republicans. We see some tightening in polls as well. There's no doubt that that blue is the president.

He's also got deep committed support at these rallies that he's doing without failed toward the end. So, I think that's where he sees the critical battleground. They're obviously making it very clear that Pennsylvania is more winnable than they think Wisconsin and Michigan is.

So, the President's well aware about what could happen in Florida or Arizona or Georgia, and how those could be daggers to him. But he's playing a more conventional view that he holds on to a lot of what he had in 2016.

CUOMO: We've seen the ground that Trump is covering today, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida. Biden did two events in Pennsylvania. What does that tell you about the difference of opinion about what they need to do?

Well, Joe Biden has been more COVID careful. And that's just a fact. And Donald Trump is trying to finish out the campaign with a crescendo much like he did in 2016.

Look, he is running the 2020 campaign like he did 2016, and he's doing it because it worked. He did surprise the Clinton campaign and, frankly, the whole country by getting out voters that almost didn't exist before. So he's trying to do the same thing again.

One thing I just want to add about Pennsylvania, and I think you were getting it this Chris about what the President was saying about, you know, not counting votes after Election Day. That is exactly what is going to happen in Pennsylvania. That is what he's doing.

[22:15:08]

CUOMO: By law.

BASH: By law.

The Republican legislature --

CUOMO: Right.

BASH: -- it said that this -- when they changed the rules to allow for the first time, because Pennsylvania was pretty behind to allow for the first time mail-in voting, they didn't go far enough in terms of allowing the counties to start doing it early like other states are doing, Arizona for example. And so that is why it could take longer, it's because of the state or the law in Pennsylvania.

CUOMO: Two things, first of all, pre-election voting has surpassed two thirds of all ballots.

Forgive me for looking down. But I don't want to get any numbers wrong for like the next five days. So there's no guessing.

Two thirds of all ballots cast during the 2016 presidential election, we've now passed that. Now, Pennsylvania has fewer early ballots there than other swing states because of what Dana is talking about. That's something to remember also, David, that it's not like they think there's some cultural huge bulk of votes that come in later.

GREGORY: Right, right. But, you know, if the President's in a position where he's held a lot of his territory from 2016 and it relies on the upper Midwest, you know, then Pennsylvania is where he wants to fight. And he wants to throw as much shade on the legal process of counting votes, including from members of the military who would be voting absentee, whose votes will be counted not until the end of the day, when the polls closed and Pennsylvania. He just wants to throw doubt on that and begin a process of litigation if there's any basis for that.

I mean, he's so much different than President Bush, who Dan and I covered in 2004. That was a night that went late. It was not official until the next morning because of Ohio. And there was a big debate in the White House. And I was on the north lawn about, you know, pressuring the news media, by the way from inside the White House, call it for Bush, call it for Bush, we all demurred. And even his top adviser said to him, look, you can't put a crown on your head and declare this thing.

Trump is an entirely different guy who looks at the levers of power and his ability to maneuver them much differently.

CUOMO: But remember, this isn't a legal battle that brought us to this point in Pennsylvania, there's been a legal battle about what a state legislature did in Pennsylvania. And what a state's Supreme Court decided about its own state constitution and legislation there too. A world of difference from a jurisprudential perspective from what the 2000, not 2004, but 2000 race was about and why SCOTUS had jurisdiction and had purview over that.

This is a very different situation. It would be -- I know what's Alito, and Kavanaugh have said, but for them to take what a state decided by legislative process and reviewed with its own judiciary and change it would be true precedent of a new way of the Supreme Court doing exactly what it says it would.

BASH: Some would call that judicial activism.

CUOMO: If it's not activism, I don't know what it is, because you're supposed to stay away from things that are in a state purview and have gone through its own reconciliation process, unless there's a larger constitutional issue. What would be here?

David Gregory, Dana Bash, thank you both.

A lot of craziness. Why? Because when it's OK to say anything without any basis, you get a real war of words.

Now you have the President's favorite pandemic advisor on your screen right now. Remember, Dr. Scott Atlas has never dealt with a pandemic before. It is not his area of medicine. It's not his area of experience, period. So why is he talking to Russian state T.V. days before our election and saying all the wrong kinds of things from a scientific perspective?

Dr. Scott Atlas, is apologizing for stepping in. And he's been stepping on Dr. Fauci, America's most trusted person in the mix.

One of our favorite doctors on what the hell is going on here. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:22:45]

CUOMO: I know nothing really surprises anymore. But this is curious, let's just say, OK? We know that this President's approach to Putin and Russia has seemed oddly plain, OK?

But to have a couple of days before the election, his most influential adviser on the White House Coronavirus Task Force go on Russian state media and give a 30 minute long interview saying stuff like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SCOTT ATLAS, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE ADVISER: The lockdowns have been one of the -- will go down as an epic failure of public policy by people who refuse to accept they were wrong. The Public Health Leadership have failed egregiously and they're killing people with their fear inducing shutdown policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Just be very clear about the facts on this. You won't find a country that has rebounded effectively against the virus that didn't close things down in their society in order to motivate that change. Longer, shorter, how much, how many, all legitimate topics for debate we should be debating it right now. But we're not.

But going on Russian state T.V. and saying this kind of stuff about how the lockdowns are making people die in America. It's crazy. Dr. Atlas, now apologizing, not for what he said, but he says he was unaware that Russian state T.V. is a registered foreign agent.

Let's get some thoughts from friend to the show Dr. Ashish Jha. Still with an easy question. Do you think that if you were in that position, you would just wander on to Russia state T.V. kind of thinking, I might as well be anybody else?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Chris, thanks for having me on.

R.T., Russia Today has asked me several times to be on. And I've said no because I don't do Russian state propaganda. And it was obvious to me who they are.

And the fact that Dr. Atlas claims he didn't know when he has the entire White House media team behind him, that's just not believable. It's unbelievable in the truest sense of the word. I don't believe it.

[22:25:06]

CUOMO: It's not like they just jumped them in the street or something like that.

Now, more importantly, what he said, lockdowns bad. Kill people, make more people sick than they help.

JHA: Yes. You know, this has been a standard thing that Dr. Atlas has been saying since March.

I mean, first of all, let's be very clear, nobody likes lockdowns, we do not. No one advocates for them. You use them as a means of last resort when everything else has failed. They're only necessary when things are really out of control.

He keeps bringing up strawman and keeps claiming that lockdowns have killed more people than the virus, not true, virus has killed many more people than any policy to try to stop it.

CUOMO: Tony Fauci has been very quiet when it comes to politics and political implications. People give him a lot of heat for it.

He comes out in "The Washington Post" and says Scott Atlas is not saying things that square with science. And he does not respect the man's motives, because he doesn't respect his pedigree and the source of where these opinions come from. Is Fauci right or wrong?

JHA: Fauci is totally right. And that's the feeling across the entire White House Task Force. My sense is all of the public health leaders on that task force agree.

Part of the problem is, OK fine, Atlas doesn't have any expertise in this. He also doesn't read the stuff out there. Like, he could read the literature and get up -- caught up to speed, he doesn't seem interested in that.

CUOMO: Now the big one, can't vote during COVID. Too dangerous, going to get sick. So, you know, you keep telling us to stay home. Now it's Election Day, I don't want to go. And by the way, if I am likely to go, I'm probably somebody who doesn't believe you in the first place, which means that the messaging may actually have a chilling effect on Biden voters, because they're the ones who've been paying attention to the messaging. What do you say to those people?

JHA: I say the good news here is that you don't have to choose between participating in democracy and keeping yourself safe. Voting is very safe if you do a few things, right? Wear a mask. Expect to stand outside in line for a while, dress warmly, bring a little hand sanitizer.

And here's the key part, Chris, look at the ballot before you go, check it out online, et cetera. Know how you're going to vote. Walk in, vote, drop off your ballot, walk out. That's it. Safer than going to a grocery store.

CUOMO: Dr. Ashish Jha, thank you very much. Appreciate you keeping the audience straight on what matters. God bless you and your family be well.

JHA: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: The will of the people all comes down to math. And that's why you got to have people who know what they're talking about, who see the road ahead and understand the curves and can help us, keep our poise amid all the noise.

I know, keep calm carry on, doesn't quite fit here, also kind of cheapens that expression. That's about real war. When things are really, really bad, this is about process and being distracted. So I go with poise, keep your calm, there's going to be a lot of noise and it rhymes.

So we're going to have the wizard of odds come in. He's looking at the calculation. He understands the two states that this election could come down to and why.

Harry Enten, hair slicked back, must be ready to go. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:31:59]

CUOMO: Two days to go and know this, I'm not saying it's the biggest lie but for the President at this time right now to say no ballot that is counted after November 3rd is legitimate is a lie. And he knows it is a lie. And he knows what the law is. And he knows that a Republican legislature in Pennsylvania, he can say what he wants about the governor, governor is a Democrat, he can say that makes him a partisan wasn't make him then that he's part of the Trump party. He's not a partisan.

A legislature in a state made a law. It was reviewed by its own court system in state to the Supreme Court level and found to be just that gave them three more days. They're new in early voting, it's COVID, they were trying to figure it out, they didn't put the resources in as a legislature to allow counting to get done earlier for early voting like other states do with more experience. And this is what they arrived at.

Now, may it be reviewed by the Supreme Court, maybe, maybe not, they're not going to get an immediate writ of certiorari to do it now, it went up there once. The decision of the state held. They got no state against it. But the President telling you that only ballots on November 3rd and counted then that's all that counts. It's never true. And the election is never over on November 3rd. There is always a period of counting and checking afterwards, then electors are chosen. There's a whole process. And he knows it and he's lying, period.

Now, what does that mean? He's desperate about Biden, he should be desperate to. Why? Can he rebuild the so called blue wall in the upper Midwest that looked like Swiss cheese in 2016? Maybe, why? Wisconsin and Michigan, why?

Trump won them four years ago. The odds are not in his favor there. Why not? And what does that mean for his path? And what does it mean for Biden? You know, who's looking at the answers all the time? Wizard of odds, Harry Enten. How do I know? Because he lives in my office. So what do they see?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER & ANALYST: I mean, look, here's what they see. You know, you saw those polls before in Wisconsin and Michigan having Biden well ahead. And you know, if you look right now and you look at here or some other states where Joe Biden is ahead that Donald Trump lost four years ago, where Biden's close, right? Nebraska second congressional district --

CUOMO: Why do I care about the Nebraska second congressional district?

ENTEN: Here is why you care about if you go back one slide, and you look and you see that Joe Biden's a 258 electoral votes, if you give them all the states that Hillary Clinton won, plus the states in which he's up by at least five points except for Pennsylvania, right? If you then give him Arizona and Nebraska, second congressional district that gets him 12 additional electoral votes. You see it on the screen right now. Joe Biden at 258 in the states that he's up by at least five points, except if you're not including Nebraska, second in Pennsylvania.

If you then add in Nebraska second congressional district plus Arizona, what do you get? You get him to exactly 270 electoral votes. That's why you should care about Nebraska second congressional district.

[22:35:05]

CUOMO: And the reason Nebraska is one of only two states that you'd ever talk about, one part of it is because it's one of the only states that have portions, its electors. So if you win that district, you get it by proportion. If you win it, you get the elector. If you don't, you don't. So that's why it's there, a little weird. All right, so what does that mean for the big picture? ENTEN: I mean, essentially, what this means is that if, you know, you start Biden with the 258 base, and then you give him Arizona, Nebraska second congressional district, those are contests where I do believe most of the votes will be counted on election night, right? So there's all this talk of Pennsylvania.

But if Biden wins in Arizona, and then you add in Nebraska second congressional district, you get him to win without Pennsylvania. But of course, if he loses in those and all those other contests that were previously on the screen, then you go to Pennsylvania, which is on the screen right now, where Biden does hold that six point advantage.

CUOMO: Where does this leave Trump?

ENTEN: Essentially, this leaves Trump in a situation where he's well behind coming into Election Day, he needs to win states that not only is he leading and right now, but states in which Joe Biden is leading, and he likely needs to win all those states in the previous place page plus Pennsylvania, because if Biden wins Michigan, Wisconsin, and the rest of the states he's up by five plus PA where he's up by six points. That's 278 electoral votes, and Trump is done.

CUOMO: If Biden is up six points in Pennsylvania, why does this President seem to be very much banking on that being the state that matters?

ENTEN: It's because it is the state that matters, right? I mean, he has to win there, even though he's down by six there, it's the closest of this, it's essentially if you're to build up, you know, sort of a pathway to 270 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is the state that he would need to win in order to stop Biden's path. And so he has to compete there because if he loses PA, there's really no other path, even if he's down six there at this point.

CUOMO: Sell me on Arizona, who was it in New York Times/Siena, had Biden 50, 46 there.

ENTEN: That was the CNN SSRS poll.

CUOMO: So CNN SSRS has Biden 50, Trump 46, New York Times/CNN had a six point Biden. Let's say, I don't believe it. How can you make me believe it?

ENTEN: Well, I'll make you believe it this way? The Suburbs, I mean, that's basically what Maricopa County is, which has basically almost all the population that --

CUOMO: Sheriff Joe Arpaio territory --

ENTEN: Well, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is no longer the sheriff there. I'll tell you that much. He was --

CUOMO: I'm aware.

ENTEN: Yes. So look, there's a reason why Arizona is changing, the suburbs are changing, especially the cultural upscale suburbs that surround Phoenix. And that is a state in which obviously, they elected their first Democratic senators since 1988 last time around the 2018, where Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Biden has held that consistently. And more than that, in a state like Arizona, the polls there do not have a history of under estimating Republican candidates.

So a four or five point lead as those polls seemed to be indicating, to me is much more say secure, or at least Democrats should think that that lead probably will halt perhaps more so than a Pennsylvania poll that shows Biden up six, because obviously you saw in 2016 that sometimes the post on hold in the upper Midwest or in the Great Lakes regions.

CUOMO: Strongest counterpoint, we always know on election night, who won except for like Dewey and Truman, we always know. What is this new stuff from you guys saying, we don't know on election night?

ENTEN: That's complete another garbage. I mean, look, Arizona last time around in 2016, you didn't know that Donald Trump won that state until the Thursday after Election Day, and he still won by three. So oftentimes, there are states where even though the margin doesn't end up that close that we wait and see. I'll just say this. I've said it over and over and over again. It's more important to be accurate than to be fast, and we are going to be accurate, despite anything that the President is spouting off, potentially.

CUOMO: The Wizard of Odds, Harry Enten, see you in the office.

[22:38:44]

Breaking news on a federal judge's order tonight to the USPS, the United States Postal Service, why? He had the judge wanted to make sure they were doing enough to ensure that ballots get to the places that will count them. What are the details? Where's it leave the state of play? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Breaking News a federal judge is ordering the Postal Service to make some of its so called extraordinary measures mandatory. Two days out from the election the delivery of mail-in ballots is allegedly getting worse not better. Let's bring in our CNN's Tom Foreman. Let's start with the big headline. How do you make sense of this?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is no sense of this, Chris, this is something people been worrying about for months and months. The question with the pandemic and everything else, will the mail do its job moving forward especially when we're relying on the mail for so many other things, it's already crowded.

The bottom line is these extraordinary measures are talking about are things you can understand. For example, the Postal Service being essentially ordered now to say you must use the express mail network which says it'll deliver in a day or two for anything going any kind of distance, any of the voting. going any kind of distance. And same day or next day delivery to local post offices for votes that are closer in. That's what these extraordinary measures are at the moment. Although you got to say, I'm not sure how much just difference they make this late in the game.

Look at a couple of states here for examples. If you look at Colorado and Wyoming, they moved on Saturday, just 43 percent of the ballots in an on time manner. Now they're saying that COVID is part of the problem, the weather is part of the problem there. But if you were casting your ballot there, Chris, a couple of days ago, you would think I still have plenty of time I've done a good job and yet, maybe not.

CUOMO: Swing states, what do we know?

FOREMAN: Swing states that's really where the issue is here because many of the targeted states that we have been looking that seemed to be having the biggest delay problems are these key states that people are looking at, for example, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, a lot of Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida, all under 90 percent on time delivery with these ballots.

Now on time 90, under 90 percent, 90 percent sounds pretty high. But, you know, Chris, some of these could be very close races and that 10 percent of early voting could make a big difference. And we know and we know Democrats have been taking part in early voting a lot more than Republicans can. That's why so many Democrats say if the mail system is not working properly, it's a type of voter suppression.

[22:45:16]

CUOMO: Right. Democrats have been utilizing the right more than Republicans, not then Republicans can, the Republicans have the same right that they do, but more than Republicans have. Let me ask you this, though, Tom, how do we know any of this? Who flagged these problems at the USPS and took them to court?

FOREMAN: Well, basically, what's been happening is there have been challenges in Congress and there have been challenges to the USPS all along by various voting rights groups saying, look, we've got to have some read on this whole thing. So the Postal Service is getting its reports out there. And they're saying, look, there's nothing nefarious here. It's just difficult to manage all of this, especially with all these packages, filling the system, especially with staffing issues, and some underperformance issues.

But, Chris, the real problem here is when the President months ago started flagging the mail service saying, oh, you know, all this voting by mail is wrong, and it should be stopped.

CUOMO: Right.

FOREMAN: And it's a problem. And then he puts in a new postmaster general, and other problems come up. Well, of course, people who suspect that there's a fly in the ointment, look at what's happening right now and say, this is precisely what we were worried about.

And I will point out that many, many places where this is happening and where Republican groups are challenging the mail vote or the absentee vote, they're not doing that in any places where Donald Trump is likely to be getting a lot of votes. They're doing it in places where Democrats are likely to be voting and voting against him.

CUOMO: Yes. That's why while you were talking, Tom, I was looking down in Pennsylvania to see if I could figure out what this would mean, here, if you didn't have a 10 percent flow through, you know, if you had a 10 percent flow through gap, you want to talk about what you should be outraged about in terms of the legitimacy of every vote being counted. You know, it shouldn't the law -- it shouldn't be the law being followed, which is what the President is trying to confuse about in Pennsylvania. It should be can you imagine that 10 percent of the votes in states that matter don't even get counted because the mail service, Tom Foreman?

FOREMAN: And don't forget, and don't forget, in about half the states, even if you vote ahead of time, you vote legally, you vote on time. If it's just not received --

CUOMO: Yes.

FOREMAN: -- by Election Day, it doesn't count, you could have voted two weeks ago. And if it doesn't show up, it does not count. That's why people are alarmed, especially if this race comes down. And it is very tight where every vote really does count in some places.

CUOMO: Tom Foreman told as only a great storyteller can, thank you, Sir.

FOREMAN: Thanks.

CUOMO: Patriots doing their thing, expressing their rights. That's what we're about here. You don't have to like it. But they have the right to say it anyway, right? But when does it become harassment, Trump is applauding an incident, that boy, if this happened to him, it's all you'd be hearing about, about how he'd been victimized, right? The FBI is looking into this. Why? Well, because those are all with the cars with the flags, those are Trumpers, right?

Then you got the Biden bus there. What are they doing? What are they doing? Why are they forcing it to slow down? Why would the President joke about this and say it's a good thing and then the FBI, which is of course, directed by his own appointee look into it. What is this about? What could it portend of what is to come? Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on a Sunday night, you know what matters, next.

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[22:52:27]

CUOMO: The country is really on the brink of a very important day. We need to make sure everybody is their best. I bring in Andrew McCabe you know him of FBI fame and pedigree. Good to see you my brother.

So this is what was happening in Texas. The woman who was recording it was unnerved by it as were the Biden's staffers they actually called 911. Trump folks in trucks or whatever cars, they weren't just surrounding them, they were forcing it to slow down, they got it down to about 20 miles an hour. Then the cops came and didn't stop anybody, but escorted the bus to where it was going. What is the law here?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, thanks for having me, Chris. It's an incredibly disturbing series of events to see I think probably everybody has seen that video by now. It doesn't surprise me that the FBI is taking the matter up for investigation. But that of course doesn't necessarily mean that a law has been broken and someone will be prosecuted.

What the FBI will do now is they will try to identify the people who were involved in driving those trucks and slowing the Biden bus down. And I think particularly the incident where one of those trucks appears to try to run another vehicle off the road, there's contact made, and they'll be trying to determine what the intent was behind those people and who were involved. And whether or not there was potentially a violation of federal law there.

CUOMO: The FBI, you know, so what's the pushback, the President's like, ah, they just say, they are good people. They're just escorting it. You know, they're nice. Well, you guys should be worried about in the FBI isn't this, this is not your business. You should be going down there and figuring out all those anarchists and those crazy radicals that are destroying our cities. What are you worried about this for?

MCCABE: Well, I think the FBI has been pretty clear over the course of even all the demonstrations over the course of the summer. The thing that gets the FBI involved is not your ideology. It's not whether your left wing or right wing or you believe Antifa or your support Trump or whatever that is. The thing that gets the FBI and law enforcement involved is violence. When people resort to acts of violence and start committing crimes in the street, no matter what ideology they're pursuing. That's when law enforcement gets involved. And that's what provokes FBI interest.

This is for me, a pretty clear case that you were at least on the verge of some potentially very serious injuries. This could have turned out, you know, into a violent collision and all kinds of different ways. So it's certainly something worth looking into whether or not there's a prosecutable crime here is a question for the prosecutors.

[22:55:10]

CUOMO: The President saying to the Proud Boys stand back, stand by, cheering on the guys in Michigan with the guns getting in the face of cops there about mask policy and other stuff, him saying that this is nothing. Does that matter or is it not fair to put it on him?

MCCABE: No, it's absolutely fair to put it on him. I mean, look, we know that there is a cause and effect relationship between what the President says, his behavior, the way he conducts himself around these issues of white supremacy and kind of right wing extremist violence, the way he kind of signals to those groups, his implicit or tacit approval of certainly of their support for him and the things that they're doing. Those actions, those signals, that communication, people in that

spectrum of extremism, take those as signals of approval and to move forward. And, and we've seen that now happen in a number of different occasions.

CUOMO: Andrew McCabe, thank you very much.

All right, the President still on the stump. He wants to hit five states about to hit his fifth rally and as many states. He's saying a lot of things that's not true, especially about when this election ends. Why? He believes that even if he's lying, if it's better for him, it's worth saying. Let's take it on, and let's get after it on this special Sunday edition of CUOMO PRIME TIME, next.

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