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CNN Live Event/Special

Record Turnouts Around the Country on Election Day; Live Coverage of Vice Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris' (D) Speech; North Carolina Extends Some Poll Closures After Technical Malfunctions. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 03, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: In the contemporary world, no amount of unilateralism, protectionism or extreme egotism could work. Russia's hedging its bets and so is Iran, but (INAUDIBLE) prefer Biden.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Yes, all right. Well, we will see. They are all watching. All right, Christiane, thank you.

And I want to welcome back our viewers here in the United States and indeed around the world. We are happy to have you here with us today. I'm Erin Burnett and it is our special coverage of Election Day in America, a day that has been filled with lines, lots of voters in a country on edge, tens of millions of Americans are heading to the polls.

And good afternoon to you, Chris Cuomo.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: You've been doing a great job. It is good to share history with you, my friend -- and that's what it is. We have never seen anything like this before. There is already cause for celebration in America: In such a hard time, people have come out in a way we've never seen before, and that was before Election Day. How much bigger and better will it get for this country? We'll see.

We're watching both campaigns, the president just thanking staffers at the RNC offices in Virginia. Across Virginia and the nation, we have seen Americans casting their ballots in this year's race for the White House, a race upended by a deadly pandemic. We are literally living in crisis.

And that is in part why more than 100 million of you decided to act and act early. Early voting cast (ph) in a way we've never seen. The number is stunning, especially in the midst of such difficulty and hardship and misgivings about government and whether anybody has your interests in their heart and head.

Both sides now, incredibly nervous because we are counting down until the first polls close. Just four hours from now, we will learn our collective fate -- Erin. BURNETT: I mean, it is incredible, Chris, four hours -- four hours,

everyone -- and President Trump will be watching the returns at the White House tonight.

As for Joe Biden, he has been in Philadelphia. He's going to return to Wilmington, Delaware, where he will watch the returns tonight.

All right, so Chris and I are going to be with you for the next two hours. Trust us -- trust us, we're here with all of you, eagerly awaiting the results just like everyone else is. Polling stations across the country, we're going to be checking in. We have reporters everywhere, from Florida to Nevada, which is where we're going to begin.

So Erica Hill is standing by live in Las Vegas. And Erica, a lot of eyes on Nevada. What are you seeing right now?

ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are seeing lines, but everyone I talked to in line says they're fine with waiting a little bit. Where I'm standing right now, this is at one of 125 different polling locations in Clark County. And from here, it's about an hour to get into the polling station.

Speaking to folks in there when doors opened at 7:00, they said they already had about 150 people in this line. And if we walk a little bit, we can see it goes all the way around the corner here. Again, everyone I talked to in line, no problem with waiting.

Keep in mind, in Nevada, there were two weeks of early voting that ended on Friday, in addition to the fact that for the first time ever this year, because of the pandemic, every active voter in the state was sent a mail-in ballot.

Thus far, the turnout -- if you're counting those mail-in ballots, whether they've been mailed or dropped off and also early in-person voting, well the numbers have already surpassed what we saw for all of 2016. Just over half of the ballots cast so far are those mail-in ballots, about 52 percent, and we're seeing that more Democrats have returned those mail-in ballots. But when it comes to early in-person voting, what we're seeing across the state? More Republicans turning out for that.

You mentioned here in Clark County, it's the home of Las Vegas obviously, it's also home to about 70 percent of active voters in the state. There's always a big focus, not just because of the population and the number of voters here, but this obviously is a county that can lean heavily Democratic, and that's why it's getting a lot of attention, along with Washoe County in the north part of the state, home to Reno.

There were some early reports, Erin, of some technical glitches at other sites according to our affiliates; none here. I'm told by the site managers there was a software update overnight that caused some hiccups in the morning, but that everything was resolved when the doors opened at 7:00 and that other polling place that was having some issues, we're told those have been resolved. BURNETT: All right, Erica, thank you very much. Of course we're going

to be checking back in.

We're going to go to Minnesota first, I just want to give everyone a little bit of an update because I know you all want to know when we are all going to know.

North Carolina had had some delays in a few polling stations this morning that delayed voting by more than 15 minutes, which has allowed them to now go ahead and say they are going to actually delay their election results by about 45 minutes, or at least 45 minutes.

[14:05:03]

So they were going to start reporting results in North Carolina at around 7:30 p.m. Eastern, and they're now saying that that's going to be delayed at least 45 minutes until at least 8:15 Eastern. It's significant because it's a swing state. Both candidates have been campaigning extremely heavily there, and because they count their early ballots early.

So we were going to be getting, you know, perhaps a very early sense of what happened in North Carolina, so now that's delayed by at least 45 minutes and we're going to be going to the ground there in North Carolina in just a couple moments.

As I give you that headline though, I want to go to Minnesota, which was a state Hillary Clinton barely won in 2016. Our Adrienne Broaddus is live in Minneapolis there.

And Adrienne, what are you seeing right now in terms of turnout and turnout for whom?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Erin. I can tell you, Mother Nature is serving a sweet treat when it comes to voting here in the Twin Cities. Many of the voters walking through the doors behind me, some we saw wearing shorts.

Like you mentioned, Hillary Clinton did win the state of Minnesota back in 2016, but Donald Trump won more than half of this state's counties by a relatively large margin, at that. Nevertheless, historically Minnesota is blue. Up for grabs? Ten electoral votes.

And when people walk through these doors here and at other polling sites around the state, George Floyd is on their mind, and there's remnants of what happened to George Floyd here. We can't underscore enough, Minnesota is where George Floyd died at the hands of police.

On this marquis just over my shoulder, there's a sign that says, "Justice for George Floyd, black lives are beloved." Over here, a "Black Lives Matter" sign at this polling place outside of a church.

And when I talked to voters today, many of them told me George Floyd influenced them and led them to the polls. For example, 22-year-old Lewis McCaleb, the first time voting this year. He turns 23 next year. He was among the thousands who were protesting after the death of Floyd, but now he's taking his passion and anger from the streets to the ballot box.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEWIS MCCALEB, FIRST-TIME VOTER: I don't feel safe as a black man living in America, I don't. But I understand the lay of the land and I understand that a lot of these things are systematically organized, so we must systematically make changes. So that is why I'm going into here, I'm exercising my right to vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: And he created a rap song called, "Why Vote?"

Meanwhile, you might have noticed he was wearing a hoodie that says, "We will breathe." Lewis says that's his way of protest and changing the narrative after so many black and brown people have died at the hands of police, saying, "I can't breathe" -- Erin.

HILL: All right, Adrienne, thank you very much, monitoring these polling stations.

Now, there are so many states that matter this time, which is extremely exciting for everyone watching this. One of them, though, matters every single time -- Florida, and it is no less crucial tonight. Randi Kaye is live in Lighthouse Point.

And, Randi, two counties in Florida reporting some technology challenges this morning. Given what we're just hearing from North Carolina -- right? -- which is that they're actually going to delay reporting results because they're going to keep some polls open another 45 minutes because they had some challenges. How significant were the challenges in Florida? What could their impact be?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As of now, Erin, there will be no delay in the reporting of results. I mean, they -- Florida is used to the mail-in ballot process, they're used to the absentee ballot process, they're very used to the early voting process in general, so we're not getting any reports from the secretary of state's office in terms of delays in processing the ballots.

But let me share with you just how many ballots there are to process, even so far. Statewide, 9.1 million people have early voted, and that means that that's about 95 percent of the 2016 total vote, which is just remarkable.

And here in Broward County, where we are, just near Fort Lauderdale, there's about 77,000 people that have already voted and there's 850,000 people that have voted early, so 77,000 in addition have voted in person today, I should say, on Election Day. But the 850,000 that voted early is more than the 216 total, so there's a lot of passion.

But in terms of, you know, issues that we're having here, I only -- I talked to a bunch of voters here -- there was a line earlier -- and I talked to one guy who said that he went in to vote and they didn't have his name. And he said he's been voting here for five years. And it turns out he left, he called the Broward voter hotline, the

voter registration hotline and he was able to vote in the end. It turns out they had someone by the same name listed to vote in Tampa and that's how they -- that's why they told him they couldn't find here in Broward County. But they got it resolved and that was the good news.

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But this is a very red pocket right here in a very blue county. Donald Trump won Lighthouse Point and this area by about -- with about 65 percent of the vote, but Hillary Clinton won the county with about 66 percent of the vote. So it's just a very interesting pocket, which is part of the reason why we came here to talk to voters.

BURNETT: All right, than you very much, Randi Kaye.

You see Kamala Harris on your screen, the senator. She's speaking in Southfield, Michigan. Let's listen in for a moment.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: -- please, please do everything you can and talk to everybody you know, and let's get (INAUDIBLE) back in the United (ph) States (ph) --

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: -- and let's elect Joe Biden the next president --

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: So listen, listen -- here's the thing, I'm at the point now where I'm just like, I'm done talking about the guy currently in the White House. It's -- you know, why -- why, we don't need to do that. Let's talk about the opportunity that is in front of us right now, which is to elect Joe Biden, right?

We're in the middle of at least four crises. Joe talks about them all the time, right? We're in the middle of a public health pandemic that has killed over 225,000 people in the United States, people who sadly -- so many -- had to die, live their last days on earth by themselves because of the nature of this pandemic. They couldn't be with family members to hold their hands.

And you know, I've been through that process with someone. And if any of you have, to not be able to be with your loved one in those final days? To look at the fact that we're in a pandemic that has infected 9 million people -- who, thank God, have lived, but God only knows with what kind of long-term health consequences.

And we have, on our -- in our hands, an option to elect a president in Joe Biden who understands -- sadly, more than most -- what it means to go through being in a hospital with somebody, losing someone you love. Understanding the dignity of life, the dignity of love and the importance of caring for all human beings.

(APPLAUSE) We have in our hands and in our power the choice of electing a president who, in the midst of a mass casualty event of a proportion similar to World War II, who will lead with a sense of compassion and care in Joe Biden, somebody who says --

(APPLAUSE)

-- who says, look, yes, President Obama and I pushed through the Affordable Care Act that brought health care to over 20 million people, let's build on that, not take it away.

(APPLAUSE)

Joe Biden, he says we need to continue protecting people with pre- existing conditions. Clap or honk if you know somebody who has diabetes --

(APPLAUSE)

-- high (ph) blood pressure or a breast cancer survivor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm taking care of COVID patients every day.

HARRIS: And taking care of COVID patients every day.

(APPLAUSE)

And so Joe understands that. And he says we've got to extend it. We have to bring down the cost of drug prices, bring down the cost of premiums. We should bring eligibility for Medicare down to age 60. Joe says, I understand that when we're talking about health care, the body doesn't just start from the neck-down. It includes the neck-up --

(APPLAUSE)

And that's called mental health care.

(APPLAUSE)

The choice we have right now is in our hands. The power is with us, the people.

Think about this economic crisis, it has hit Michigan so hard. Gary and Debbie, Brenda, they talk to me about it all the time.

Well, we're looking at, in America, over 30 million people filed for unemployment in just the last several months. Well, we're looking at folks standing and parked in food lines, one in five mothers describing her children under the age of 12 as being hungry? So many people -- I think the number's like one in six -- who are describing not being able to pay rent last month, are concerned they can't pay it next month.

And Joe understands this, right? Joe understands that you don't deal with America's economy by doing what these other guys did, which is passing a tax bill that benefits the top one percent and the biggest corporations in America.

(APPLAUSE)

When Joe is asked, how is the economy doing? You know what Joe says? He says, well, tell me how are working people doing. How are working families doing.

(APPLAUSE)

[14:15:07]

That's what Joe says, we're not passing any taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year. Joe says we're going to bring down middle- class taxes. Joe says we're going to --

(CROSSTALK)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Thank you, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Vice President, how are you feeling about the Pennsylvania returns so far?

BURNETT: All right, decided not to take questions there. But you know, you just heard Kamala Harris is in Michigan, Vice President Biden is in Philadelphia. President Trump addressed his campaign at his headquarters in Virginia. Vice President Pence has been doing radio interviews today as his final day.

Kamala Harris there, wrapping up her remarks in Southfield, Michigan.

So I mentioned the breaking news coming out of North Carolina. If you just joined me, basically they had had some glitches, so now they are delaying the close of some polls and when we're going to get the data by about 45 minutes.

Let's go to Suzanne Malveaux, live in Charlotte. So, Suzanne, North Carolina, a crucial state, a state we may still know a lot earlier than most other places, but not as early as we thought. Tell me what you know.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, voters are just going to have to be a little bit more patient about this, about 45-minute delay or so. There was that New York -- sorry, North Carolina State Board of Elections that actually held this emergency meeting this afternoon, and they voted three to two -- strictly along partisan lines, the Democrats for, Republicans against -- this extension for four locations, three different counties.

And the circumstances are different for each one of them. Guilford County will be extended for 34 minutes. Cabarrus County for 17 minutes, and then two locations in Sampson County, one for 24 minutes and another delay for 45 minutes.

The 45-minute delay, that happened at a local church. The printer wasn't working. They were trying to figure out the printer, couldn't get the printer to work. Finally they got that settled, but each one of those precincts, those four locations, they have to give those voters equal time to participate in the voting process. And so you will see that staggered time, that extended time for those four precincts, those four locations.

So instead of the 7:30 target to get those numbers out, it's going to be at the very earliest 8:15, and it's important to remember what those numbers are. It is the 4.6 million early voters that voted before today, that's 62 percent of North Carolina registered voters that participated before Election Day, they have been tallied, they have been counted.

That is going to just kind of spit out, if you will, around 8:15 at the very earliest to get a good sense -- a pretty good sense -- of where North Carolina might be leaning .But again, it's unofficial numbers. And then after they put those numbers out, that's when they're going to be dealing with counting and tallying up those who participated in the election today.

BURNETT: All right, it's good -- it's so important, the order, because it's not the order elsewhere, right? it's different in every state. Suzanne, thank you very much.

And I'll just note, this is one of the things that makes this so great, right? Seventeen minutes here, 24 minutes there because they want equal time, and they're going to provide that down to the minute. That is what makes this system so great.

All right, let's go to our senior political analyst Mark Preston, live at the magic wall. So you know, Mark, as you talk about Suzanne saying in North Carolina, they're going to count those mail-ins first, they're going to come out and then they will go to the votes tabulated today.

But this mail-in vote has completely transformed this election, and it is going to impact how we're going to get the results tonight. And when -- you know, which ballots we're going to hear first. So walk us through it. How does it work tonight?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, there's a lot of talk about blue mirages, red mirages. Let's start with the blue mirage. And It really has to do with when the counting of these mail- in ballots or these early in-person ballots were -- when that occurs.

So let's take a first look right here. Let's look at the blue mirage. We'll look at Florida here, Texas right here. And then as you said -- there we go, North Carolina right there. Now, North Carolina was supposed to close their polls at 7:30. As has been reported, they will not close at 8:15.

Here's the issue with these three states. These three states have had overwhelming interest in early voting, and they are able to count and process their votes before Election Day, so that means we could see a very big dump of probably voters who supported Joe Biden reported first, specifically in states like Texas, Florida and in North Carolina, because the state legislature gives those states the ability to do so.

But when you head up here, when you talk about the red mirage, conversely, when you look at here in Pennsylvania and you look here in Michigan and you look here in Wisconsin, same could be true as well. The reason being is that these do not -- these states will not vote -- or rather tally their in-person votes or their early votes until today.

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Now, Michigan was able to do a little bit of it yesterday, but the bulk of it -- most of it is going to be done today, and that's in all three of these states. That means that the voting today is likely -- the votes that are cast today, which tend to be more Republican, is more likely to be reported first, which could show a Donald Trump lead. That's what we're talking about the red mirage.

However, when these mail-in and in-person votes early are added in later, that's when we could see things switch. So that is the red mirage and the blue mirage. Really, what we're trying to say to you is don't worry about not getting an answer tonight --

BURNETT: Right.

PRESTON: -- let the election officials do what they're supposed to do, Erin --

BURNETT: Right.

PRESTON: And they're supposed to count the votes.

BURNETT: They are supposed to count the votes, right. And everyone should understand, you know, it's like accounting, it depends whether you're counting what goes in first or what comes out first makes a big difference. So if you're counting the early votes first, it may look very different than a state where they count the in-person.

So OK, the other aspect of this is where the campaigns have put their time and money. We know in the final hours -- right, Mark? -- they were spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania. But in terms of the ad spending, where did they actually put their money, where they thought that that money, you know, on the screen could impact turnout in this final day?

PRESTON: So let me show you that right there. So I looked at the -- the top 14 media markets in the final week of the election right here. And what you see is that basically it comes down to this money has been dumped into nine different states -- 14 different media markets, nine different states.

In Florida alone, $15.6 million between three media markets. In Philadelphia, we saw more than $12 million spent. And this is interesting as well, Michigan, $7.3. But even look at Las Vegas. They put $2.1 million over in Las Vegas. We've seen $3.4 million in the final week for this presidential election spent in Georgia, that is amazing. Georgia has been a Republican state for so long, yet Democrats are trying to wrestle that back.

Follow the money and that will show you where the candidates think that they can win.

BURNETT: All right, thank you very much, Mark Preston.

And next, it's time to wait for President Trump and Vice President Biden, waiting, waiting. The president saying just an hour ago that winning is easy but losing, he said, is never easy for him. What did he mean by that?

And Arizona could be a nail-biter, long voting lines formed early in the state's traditional Republican strongholds, as you see here. This is a Republican stronghold, and a long line earlier. What does it mean?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:26:48]

CUOMO: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of Election Day in America. We are here with you and for you for the duration.

And I'll tell you what, man, this is a two-part day: part celebrate, part wait. Celebration comes first no matter who you're for. Why? Holy cow has this country made their voices heard already. In all 50 states right now, obviously, the polls are open but you've already set records in terms of what it means to have a stake in your future: over 100 million votes.

What will the ultimate tally be? What will it mean? Let's get through the noise together, keep our poise and get answers as they come. Let's check in with both campaigns for their feeling of the state of play.

We have Jeff Zeleny covering the Biden campaign. Good to see you, brother, thank you for sharing history with me once again. We just saw the V.P. in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania has been his focus. What do we know about the schedule and what does it reflect about the priority?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, Joe Biden is in Philadelphia right now, in the West Oak neighborhood. Just walked into a restaurant a short time ago to chants (ph) of "President Biden."

Of course, that will have to wait and he knows that better than anyone else of course, but it is those 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania that are so central to all of this going forward.

So the former vice president has been working throughout the day. He visited his childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That has been a part of his narrative and his biography of course, but today it's a part of his electoral future. He knows he needs those votes in Pennsylvania.

And Chris, it's striking, the degree to which this campaign and this Democratic ticket is working today. Senator Kamala Harris, as we saw just a short time ago, she's in Southfield Michigan, that's Oakland County, Michigan, just above Detroit. That is another central place they're trying to turn out Democratic voters.

So for all the talk of more than 100 million people have cast their votes already, that is true but tens of millions of Americans more will do so today, and that is what the Biden-Harris campaign are focusing on, trying to get all those votes out. So we are going to see them throughout the day.

But the former vice president, also focusing on other swing states, doing local interviews remotely in North Carolina, in Florida and in Wisconsin. So that gives you a sense of where they are keeping their focus on. But then he'll be coming back here to Wilmington, he'll be with his family and of course waiting for the results.

And Chris, I am told that he's going to address the country tonight regardless of the outcome or if an outcome is known. So he'll be doing that from the same place he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination. Of course, so much history in this for him, Chris, the third time running for president. He's never gotten this close before.

CUOMO: That's for sure. Any guidance on when he'll address, or is it soft?

ZELENY: Well, that is unclear of course. They're going to be watching to see how these results come in, and talking to campaign advisors, they do believe that they're going to get a sense of how this election is shaping up. No one believes there will be a winner tonight, it's almost, you know, impossible to think that that would happen because of the crush of early votes, but they do believe that they'll have a sense of that. So it could be into the early morning hours, we will just have to see.

But his headquarters of course, here in Wilmington where he spent so many years in the Senate, and now of course this is the center (ph) (INAUDIBLE). But for now at least, still keeping that focus on Pennsylvania because that could be for all the marbles -- Chris.

[14:30:06]

CUOMO: Jeff Zeleny, appreciate it.