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Trump Campaign Says It Will Request A Recount In Wisconsin; Biden Leads In Michigan, Wisconsin, Trump Leads In Pennsylvania; Senate Balance Of Power Still Undecided. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

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[13:00:00]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right. Well, Wisconsin is tipping towards Biden and the Trump campaign is now asking for a recount. So, I want to start the hour with reaction from the Biden campaign. Just hearing this as, of course, Wisconsin tipping towards Biden with only 300 votes not counted in one small township.

Our Jeff Zeleny has the reaction from the Biden campaign. Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Erin, there's no question the Biden campaign has been anticipating this. They know where these battlegrounds are and they have been preparing for all of these scenarios. We are told that the Biden campaign will respond within the hour to any formal recount request. But, again, they are not going to respond to threats of a request.

Of course, in the last 12 hours or so, we've heard from the White House, the president saying he will take it to the Supreme Court. Now we've heard the Trump campaign manager, Bill Stepien, saying he will request a formal recount in Wisconsin. So we will expect a formal response from the Biden campaign once that is made.

But, Erin, the reality here is this, talking to lawyers and others in the Biden campaign, they believe that this margin right now of some 20,000 or so is sufficient enough to withstand any recount. In previous recounts in the state of Wisconsin, it's just a few hundred votes that usually are at issue.

But, Erin, certainly as we sort of watch all of this unfold, it is different than 20 years ago, the 2000 campaign. But you'll remember, in the Florida recount, it ended up in Florida. Wisconsin was one of the first places that lawyers for Al Gore and George W. Bush looked as well, because Wisconsin was so narrow. They ultimately decided only to go to Florida overlooking Iowa, New Mexico, centering on one state that was more favorable to them.

So as we watch this unfold this afternoon, the Trump campaign will have to make a decision here which state to focus on, because having multiple lawsuits may not be the best strategy. But the Biden campaign will respond formally once that formal request is. But, Erin, we're also told, I am told, expected to hear from Joe Biden in the coming hours. It could be this afternoon. We'll see how this changes all of that. But there is a lot of discussion about that 2000 recount, how this is playing into the Biden strategy. They are trying to stay on top of it, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. So let me just ask you, Jeff. Let's look at where we are in Wisconsin right now because Joe Biden does have a lead there now, more than 20,000 votes. As you said, 20,533 votes right now ahead of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, as you pointed out, won the state by about the same margin in 2016 versus Hillary Clinton, 22,748. So you're at about the same.

You're pointing out here that when they do a recount, really, only a few hundred votes usually move. They only have a few hundred votes, they say, outstanding in the whole state at this point.

ZELENY: And the Biden campaign is confident of their margin here. And this is one of those things that happen often in a tight race. They certainly can request a recount. That is well within the Trump campaign's right to do so. The Biden campaign might be doing so if the tables were turned here. But the reality here and just the history of Wisconsin recounts, usually just a very small number of votes are at stake here. This is a pretty substantial margin, 20,000 votes here.

But let's see how this plays out. That's what this process is for. These votes have not been certified. But this is something that we'll be keeping in our eye on here is how many different places the Trump campaign is going to try and make this play, and certainly Wisconsin seems to be the first one, Erin.

BURNETT: All right, it certainly does. All right, Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

And, Anderson, it does come, right, as they're looking at a state like Wisconsin. Secretary of state is saying, okay, well, we triple- checked, we picked these ballots, like it has just laid out all the triple-checks that they do. And, of course, the Trump campaign though wants to pursue a recount.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And also how transparent the process is, as they were pointing out, in Wisconsin as it is in many states. Erin, thanks very much.

John King, what's your take on the campaign calling for a recount?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's look at the numbers. And let's remember at this highly partisan time, Jeff Zeleny is exactly right and the election lawyer you had on earlier I thought was supremely good. It is very rare that a margin of 20,533 votes gets reversed in a recount. A couple of hundred votes maybe, usually, it's a couple of dozen, really.

You just go back, they re-tabulate everything they find a couple of errors, that's usually the machine says one thing and somebody writing it down or putting with the computer, had a number transposed. That's normally what happens and it's usually a small number. But, listen, for all the partisanship today, the rules allow it, right?

So what we heard last night from the president was outside the norm, outside of reality, outside of fact, right?

[13:05:04]

There's no cheating going on. People can watch all that. But -- so that's one thing. Don't listen to that.

Does the Trump campaign have the right under the rules to say, we'd like a recount? Yes, they do. And we should respect that because we should respect the entire process, every bit of it.

So you're at 20,533 ahead, 49.4 to 48.8, again, 20,000 votes there. Let's go back in time. This is a 22,000-vote lead for President Trump four years ago. And you can have a recount and, again, not much changes, but the rules allow. So let's watch it play out.

But as the chief elections officer said in Wisconsin, she thinks they're pretty much done, a couple of hundred more votes to come in, counties no go back and just double-check their math and they post it, and we go through the process.

Trump campaign saying it's going to request a recount, is what they're saying. We'll see if they actually do it. That process takes time because the state has to certify the results.

But there is Wisconsin for you, Anderson. We can walk through this, if you want, Michigan as well, 48,176 votes, same idea, right? It's a Biden lead. The Trump campaign does not like the trajectory here. They're still counting votes. We'll see. You haven't heard any recount words when it comes to Michigan, but we'll watch it play throughout the day.

One of the places I want to highlight, and ask what you will and we'll wander around the map a little bit. Georgia is getting a little bit closer. You see right now, 85,000, 50.3 and 48.5. We know they are still counting votes in the state of Georgia. Normally, you would say, at 93 percent, that's an 85,000-vote lead, you would think normally.

But here is where we're missing votes, right? Secretary of state says that 70,000 or so in Fulton County, that's Atlanta. You see how lopsided Joe Biden's lead is here, 72 percent to 27 percent. So if you've got 70,000 or votes or so, you still have to count here, you count them. And you come over, not Gwinnett, but down here to DeKalb, 50,000 still to be counted here.

This is ongoing as we speak. Again, look at Joe Biden's lead, 83 to 16 if you round up the president. So, if you just look at the headline map, you'd think that's a pretty steep hill to climb if you zero in on the counties where they are coming from. And there's one up here, there's one up here, Forsyth County, they say there's about 7,000 votes here, this is a place where the president might pick up a little bit as Georgia continues to count. He's at 67.1 to Joe Biden's 30.

So this is a process, whether we're talking Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, other states still in play, let's let it play out. We'll be okay.

COOPER: Right. The secretary of state said there were about 200,000 votes in Georgia still to be counted.

KING: 200,000 and most of them are here. He said, there's about 70,000. And, again, that was a few minutes ago, they were counting. So the numbers could have change just in that period of time. But we watched them come in. Fulton County is at 95 percent, Joe Biden at 72. So the bulk of them are here in the largest county, 72,000 or so there.

And you move over to DeKalb, again, the suburbs to the east of Atlanta, look at the margins, the predominantly Democratic areas. So if you do -- most of the votes are in Fulton and some in DeKalb, logic tells you the way the election has played so far. Joe Biden is going to pick up some votes, pick up a lot of votes, so 120,000 or so if you add up two counties. The question is, is it enough to overcome the president's lead, which is at 85? So, obviously, have you to win an overwhelming majority of those votes.

And, again, as I noted, there's a county up here, Forsyth, smaller county with 7,000 votes. The secretary of state says if the president keeps -- if the percentages stay like that, we don't know if they will, but if they stay anything close to that the president will add some math too. You just have to do math through the day. Some will come in from red counties. Some will come in from blue counties, you add it all up and that's how you settle an election.

COOPER: Yes, still, a lot of votes still to be counted, 200,000, in Georgia.

The margins in some other key states have also changed. Let's look at Pennsylvania and the Michigan.

KING: Sure. Let's go back to Pennsylvania, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You see right now, 466,625, again, it seems like a healthy lead. That's been over 600,000 at times. So, as more votes are being counted, the president's lead has narrowed some. Is he in the danger zone? We're still at 80 percent there, right?

So, let's go west to east this time. I normally go east to west. Let's give Pittsburgh a little love, Allegheny County. Again, this is why we have to do the math, right? If you look at the big headline lead and think that's a pretty steep hill, but you still have 25 percent or so of the vote to be counted in Allegheny County.

And you see the president is competitive out here, but still 54, you round up, 55 to 44, so 10, 11-point lead for Joe Biden out there, still votes to be counted, right? This is the second largest county, about 10 percent of the statewide vote inside of Allegheny County.

The overwhelming bulk of the vote comes here, Southeastern Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, the suburban collar around it. That's where Democrats need to run up the math. And that's where some of these votes are still being counted, including Philadelphia City. Joe Biden and Philadelphia County is getting 78 percent of the vote, while in Central Philadelphia, guess what, Joe Biden is getting 77 percent or higher of the vote. That's why, Anderson, here and then in the suburbs around it, Montgomery County is here, Joe Biden leading healthy with Chester County, not as big a lead but still a lead here, and you come back in here, Delaware County, 59 to 40.

So Joe Biden is leading not only in the city but in the suburban collar around it. That's where the bulk of the votes come for Democrats. They are still counting some, so it is possible. The Biden campaign thinks it's more than possible. But we're not going to take sides here. We're just going to count votes. Is it possible to overcome that? Yes. Joe Biden has to win somewhere in the ballpark of close to 70 percent, I think. And last time I checked the math, so he's got to win the bulk of the votes.

[13:10:01]

If they are all from Democratic areas or mostly from democratic areas, that will help.

We do know some others who are still counting votes. Luzerne County, was a big -- this was a big part of the president's win four years ago. We know they have some votes still to count here. And, again, if you're on team Trump, you're looking, okay, we have some votes to count here, well, our guy is getting 60 percent of the votes there. Maybe he'll continue to win the votes that are counted or maybe there are mail-in ballots that have been predominantly Democratic. We don't the answers to that.

What we do know it's a transparent process in every one of these counties. Reporters can go there, citizens can go there. Both campaigns are there watching this play out. It's not fraud, it's math.

COOPER: So let's -- just for people kind of just joining us, let's kind of -- big picture, let's look at the path to 270, because, for both campaigns, that is what it is all about. We were just looking at Pennsylvania. Joe Biden has a path -- a clear path to 270 without the state of Pennsylvania or the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

KING: Right. Again, this is why today's count in the states that are still open, you see the gray on the board here, those are states we have not decided yet or projected yet, is the word I should use. We have Joe Biden at 227, Donald Trump at 213. Everybody knows the math by now, it takes 270 to win the White House. So, let's just look at what is still on the board, the gray. We expect the president to carry Alaska, we're still waiting for the votes to be counted there. And so then we come east again.

I just showed you, Joe Biden has a possibility of a comeback in Georgia. Donald Trump is leading now. For the sake of this exercise, let's say the president holds Georgia. Donald Trump is leading in North Carolina. We're not to the finish line yet there. We're still counting votes. But, again, the president has a decent lead there. Let's assume the president carries that. So now, we're getting into interesting territory here, right? And let's assume the president -- I don't think we've done Maine's second congressional district yet, but the Trump campaign is confident about this. Let's be kind. We give the Trump campaign Maine's second congressional district. Where does that get the president? That gets him to 248.

This is why -- I'm going to repeat this over and over today, this is why today's count is so important. Because if that Wisconsin lead holds and if that Michigan lead holds, if Biden's lead in Arizona holds and Biden's lead in Nevada holds, finish line, 270 electoral votes. Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States if those results hold up, even if either Pennsylvania goes on for several days or the president's lead holds in Pennsylvania.

Again, Biden campaign thinks they can come back and get those 20 in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We'll see. But it is not absolute. If the lead in Arizona and Nevada holds up, if the lead in Wisconsin and Michigan holds up, he doesn't need Pennsylvania, which is why the counts today are absolutely critical.

COOPER: Let's take a look at Nevada and Arizona just to kind of let's drill down on the numbers a little.

KING: You bet. Let's slide over here to the other wall. It's nice to have two. When you have a close election like this, it's nice to have two to get through all the data and everything. So you want to go to Arizona and Nevada. Let's start in Arizona. Let me pop this out for you here.

And, again, it's close. The Trump campaign -- the intellectual disconnect, if you will, the Trump campaign says, please stopping counting in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That was their argument overnight. And their argument is keep counting, please keep counting in Arizona and Nevada. At home, you can figure that out for yourself. You don't need me.

But look at the results right now in Arizona, 93,000, right? We were just talking about those bigger states, the bigger states back in the Midwest, where Joe Biden looking at 20,000 lead, 93,509, 1.4 million, 1.3 million --

COOPER: That's a gain for President Trump in Arizona from a couple hours ago, Biden's lead was about 100,000.

KING: Right. And they are counting votes and that's the way it should be. The Trump campaign says, count them. Guess what, I agree. We should count them all.

And so watch this play out sometimes in these rural counties, they come in late. You see Yuma County, the president winning 53-45 here. They're at 93 percent. So as they keep counting out here, this doesn't have a population like Phoenix and the suburbs do but they are votes and everyone counts. So it's possible the president picks some up here. You move up the coast, the western part of Arizona, 92 percent here. Again, a very small county, La Paz, but the president might pick up some votes. And he deserves every one of his votes to be counted.

The issue for the president, yes, that lead has come down a little bit, but the issue is you come here, Maricopa County, this more than 60 percent of the vote in the state of Arizona, will come right from Maricopa. And that's Phoenix and the fast-growing suburbs around it, right? That is defining challenge in this campaign. Joe Biden tried to sweep suburbs, 52 percent to 46 percent, if you look out, they are 86 percent. So there is still a big chunk of votes to be counted in a place where most of the votes are, the largest county in the state.

So if you're a Biden campaign, you're right, it shrunk a little bit, you get tense, the next couple days, especially the next few hours are going to be tense. But you're pretty confident when you see that more votes have to be counted here in Maricopa County, that that's going to happen.

I just want to check down here in Tucson and see how the count is going down here, Pima County, 89 percent. And, again, so they're still counting, Joe Biden is at 60, Donald Trump is at 39, if you round that up. No guarantee the ballots yet to be counted match those percentages. But if you're the Biden campaign and you look statewide, you know what's out, you know the size of that lead, you know that most of the votes are in the blue areas, you're confident. But, again, we have to get to the finish line.

You mentioned Nevada. Let's check over Nevada quick. Nevada, you look at the state, you see all that red.

[13:15:01]

You think the president must be winning in Nevada. But that's just not how it works, because you have to go to population centers. And, again, 72, 73, maybe 74 percent of the vote in Nevada is going to come out of Clark County, that's Vegas and the suburbs, Joe Biden 53, Donald Trump 45. 84 percent, so still about 16 percent of the vote, 15, 16 percent still to be counted here where the most votes are.

If the trend continues, Joe Biden keeps that lead. It's simple math, right? If he's winning more than half of what's left, Donald Trump can't catch up. Does that happen? That's why we count votes.

You check up here, Washoe County, the northwest part of the state, Reno, and then the more rural areas coming up here. This one is close. This is a more competitive than Clark County, 54 to 47, if you round it up, about 10 percent, still to count. Again, it's possible the president picks up in those votes. If you're looking at the trend so far, if you're the Biden campaign, you think as they count them here and they count them here, we're going to get more than our share because we're winning so far.

And if there's some up here for the president, let me just check, 89 percent. But look at the difference, right? 2,100 votes, right, in a smaller county like this, the president will gain as they finish the count. That's either 2,100 votes, you come down here, 422,000 votes. That is -- when you look at the map of Nevada, you have to remember, most of the votes are down here in the southeast corner around Vegas.

Biden campaign is confident. Trump campaign says, keep counting. And, again, good for them, we should keep counting.

COOPER: Yes, keep counting. How many times have you said that today? Probably a lot.

KING: I have no idea, but somebody is keeping count somewhere. Somebody is keeping count, someone is making fun of me for it and that's quite all right.

COOPER: Well, you shouldn't be made fun of. That is what it's all about, counting the votes.

The numbers continue to move in the presidential race. We will bring them to you as they change.

Plus, an update on a key Senate race ahead. We'll be right back.

BURNETT: Okay. We have been focused for obvious reasons on the top of the ticket but we have an update for you now on the balance of power in the Senate, specifically on a Michigan senator hanging on by an electoral thread.

I want to go to Brianna Keilar. Brianna, what is the latest in this race? It has been neck-and-neck and now a very small, it appears, change.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And a change that Democrats are certainly celebrating, Erin, because Gary Peters, the Democratic incumbent senator in Michigan, had been watching the results. He was trailing John James, his Republican challenger. But now with 92 percent of the estimated vote in this is a tie, 49.1 percent to 49.1 percent. But Gary Peters has eked out a vote lead of a little over a thousand votes.

The question is going to be, will this trend in the same direction as more votes come in? Will he be able to eke out this lead? He is someone who is seen as someone expected to win but with a tough challenge. But what we're seeing, Erin, is that in this cycle where the goal for Democrats has been to flip the Senate, it's very clear their pathway to doing that is starting to shrink. Michigan is really a very good example of that as you see how much tighter this race is than it was expected.

So if you look at the balance of power, this is what Democrats need. They need 51 votes in order control the Senate. And right now, Republicans have 47, they picked one up. Democrats have 46. They have picked one up. Seven seats remain unprojected at this point in time. But you can see how the math is kind of closing in on Democrats in order for them to flip the Senate. Their possibilities of doing that are really shrinking here.

BURNETT: Yes. And it's pretty incredible, Brianna, because you point out that that wasn't how things were expected to be in terms of being this tight in Michigan. But, in general, this was such a friendly map for Democrats, right, only defending, what, 12 seats, republicans were defending 35. So Democrats came in with so much bluster coming in to taking over the Senate.

What about some of the other crucial races that we have been watching obviously up in Maine, and Susan Collins, Arizona, Georgia?

KEILAR: Yes. So, Maine is incredibly interesting right now because Susan Collins is in the lead. But when you look at how she's doing, she has to hit 50 percent Because Maine has a special process that they do. It's somewhat new, called ranked choice. And what that means is that if she does not hit 50 percent, voters have been able to put in place their second choice.

And that means that in the case of Maine, what you don't see on that board, is that there is a third party candidate who is getting some votes and actually campaigned telling people that they should put Sara Gideon, the Democratic challenger, as their second choice.

So, as Susan Collins, if she does not hit that threshold right now, she's 40,000 votes ahead, but if she doesn't hit that percentage threshold, it's possible there are voters who picked Sara Gideon as their second choice, that's going to get peeled off to her.

Arizona, you mentioned, that is a bright spot right now for Democrats, because Mark Kelly, the former Navy captain, astronaut, you can see right here, he is really outperforming Martha McSally, the Republican incumbent, for the Senate seat that was once John McCain's.

[13:25:02]

Mark Kelly, Erin, is actually outperforming Joe Biden in Arizona. So, a bit of a reverse coattails effect there as he might be pulling Joe Biden along in the vote as well, but it's looking very good for Democrats in Arizona.

BURNETT: In Arizona, for sure. Pretty amazing, as you say, the reverse coattail.

So, the Senate, though all-in, not turning out the way many Democrats had thought in terms of at least now the lack of a blue wave there, what about in the House?

KEILAR: So I think the story of the House is somewhat similar to the Senate, and that there's a bit of a status quo. We have seen some pickups if you look at the numbers there by each side. You see Democrats have picked up two seats, Republicans have picked up two seats. So there has been switching. But at this point in time, it's canceling each other out. Democrats with 181 seats, Republicans 171 seats, there are still 83 seats that remain unprojected right now by CNN.

Democrats went into this expecting that they would maintain power. But not only that they would maintain control of the House of Representatives but that they would be able to pick up more seats. And right now, as of this moment in time, and, of course, we are continuing to watch, we're continuing to have patience, a major shift in the numbers just doesn't appear to be happening at this point in time.

BURNETT: All right. So, Brianna, stay with us, because this is part of the big story here.

Abby Phillip, this was -- Democrats have expected this blue wave, right? They talked about it in the polls, they talked about the Senate. As I just said, they didn't have to defend many seats. They had a lot of seats up that were competitive. They expected to take the Senate and that is not what we are seeing at all, unchanged.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, not at all. And I think that this is going to be one of the bigger stories, I think, that comes out of this cycle.

Putting aside what happens at the presidential level, Republicans were the underdogs in this cycle. This is an extremely unfavorable environment to be running as an incumbent Republican in either the Senate or in the House. You have a president who is very unpopular. You have an economic downturn that has affected millions of Americans.

And in that environment, you see so many Republican senators hanging on, so many Republican Congress people hanging on and some Democrats even in some seats that are undecided who are -- these seats are too close for comfort for many Democrats. These are some Democrats that, I think, national Democrats had expected to survive and may not survive this cycle.

So, a lot of soul searching, I think, for Democrats about what happened here. And in some cases, it seems that Republicans are either performing as well as Donald Trump or outperforming him in some of these places. They are not able to have some of the negativity they've tried to put on Donald Trump stick to some of the other Republicans who are also running in this cycle.

BURNETT: Which is so fascinating.

And, Brianna, okay, let's just take South Carolina. South Carolina, I mean, the amount of money that went into South Carolina to take down Lindsey Graham. Jaime Harrison raised $57 million, it was the largest single quarter total by any candidate in U.S. Senate history. I mean, it was incredible the money that was going in there, and it did not pay off. Terrible investment in terms of your return on that, Lindsey Graham. So what does that tell you?

KEILAR: We're seeing that over and over. You can see that in Maine, which we just discussed. We're seeing that in South Carolina. We're seeing that the money didn't always make the difference. I think the real question now is going to be what does this mean -- depending on who is the next president, what does this mean for Americans? Because we have seen a deadlocked Congress at a time when Americans are in extreme need, right? We are in the middle of a pandemic. They have been unable to come to some sort of agreement on stimulus, that is supposed to help buoy Americans who are hurting very much economically.

So what does that going to mean? If Joe Biden becomes president, divided Congress. If Donald Trump remains president, he's also facing a divided Congress. What it's going to mean is that in order to get anything done, they are going to have to compromise. We have seen no appetite for that. So this is going to be a big challenge ahead in this very divided country, Erin.

BURNETT: All right.

PHILLIP: And I would argue that this result, just the way that it shows how divided the country is, is going to make it even harder for there to be compromise. Republicans right now looking at what they are seeing tonight really are not going to see any incentive to stray further from the party ideology that has been set out by Donald Trump because they are surviving because of President Trump today.

BURNETT: Yes, all right. Well, thank you both very much.

Of course, if Joe Biden manages to hold onto his lead, that is exactly what he campaigned on, right, dealing with compromise and working across the aisle. That will be fully tested, Anderson, if that is what transpires.

COOPER: Yes. Erin, thanks very much.

I'm joined now by someone who's probably hasn't gotten much sleep lately. She is Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

[13:30:01]

Madam Secretary, thanks so much for being with us.

You addressed the public earlier today. Where does the ballot counting in Michigan stand right now?