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CNN Live Event/Special

Election Updates on Key State Vote Counts; Tense Situation at Detroit Counting Location. Trump Campaign Asking Supreme Court to Interfere in Pennsylvania Vote Count. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: So the current state of play in Michigan right now as you know, Joe Biden has a lead of about 37,000 votes, 49.5 percent to 48.8 percent. We believe, again, rough estimate. These are not exact. But our rough estimate is 335,000 votes have not yet been counted in Michigan.

So we're calculating what does each campaign need in order to win Michigan? Well, those 335,000 votes that haven't been counted, we believe the vast majority of them are mail votes, and we know that has been a big pro-Biden group of voters, those that voted by mail.

Joe Biden would need roughly between 43 and 45 percent of those uncounted votes in Michigan in order to hang onto his lead there and win that state. OK? Donald Trump would need between 54 percent and 56 percent of those uncounted ballots in Michigan in order to overtake Joe Biden and hold onto that state of Michigan. You see that 54 percent to 56 percent range for the President, that is well above the current 48.8 percent he has in the state of Michigan -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Very, very good point, very interesting. You know, John, if Biden wins those states, he doesn't even need Pennsylvania or anything else. What do you make of what he just said?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, this what as David noted, this is what both campaign war rooms have been doing since late last night, and now they're doing it especially in these states. Again if Joe Biden holds his lead in Michigan, holds his lead in Arizona, holds his lead in Nevada, he gets to 270 electoral votes and he's the next president of the United States. That is the tension of this day, the potential consequence of this day.

So let's just reinforce what David was saying. At this point, you know, you're 94 percent into the collection of votes, the counting of votes in the state of Michigan. So you see how the candidates are performing. To the point David just made, in the state of Michigan Donald Trump needs, 55 -- somewhere there, 54, 56 percent of the vote.

Well, you're asking, to overcome that lead, a guy who has now been getting with 94 percent in, he's getting 49 percent, how do you amp that up? Is it impossible? No. But your eyes are speaking the truth, it's just unlikely. And it's more unlikely but we'll count them, but it's more unlikely when you go and look where those votes are -- Wayne County, and we've been here before. It's Detroit. It's the biggest Democratic area in the state.

It's also the biggest, most populist county in the state, Wayne County. So if your votes are here and Donald Trump's getting 31 percent. He's doing better statewide, but if he's getting 31 percent and there are still some votes to be counted here, logic tells you, he's not going to be getting 54, 55 percent. Doesn't mean it can't happen, but your logic tells you when you look at that. So that's the challenge for the President.

Again, you some votes also over here in Kalamazoo County. The President needs to get on average about 55 percent of the still to be counted votes in Michigan. He's getting 44 percent in this country right now. These are mail-in votes which we thought disproportionately Democratic votes.

Again, it doesn't mean -- it's not impossible math, it's just when you look at the performance there, if you've got a starting pitcher that throws 80 miles an hour, every day he goes out to have suddenly a game where you're throwing 92, 95. It just doesn't happen normally. Can it happen? We'll watch and see what happens. It's just the math tells you and that's just Michigan.

You come out of here and you come over to Arizona and you have the same dynamic, right? 93,000-vote lead, 600,000 ballots still to be counted. The President of the United States getting 48 percent. If you round that up right now, our ballpark estimate is he'd have to get 52 to 55 percent. So he has to overperform. We have 86 percent of the vote in. This is his track record right now with 86 percent of the vote in.

So you've a big basket of votes to understand how you're doing. That's your track record right now, you have to significantly exceed that as it comes in. And again, most of the votes are going to come from here, Maricopa County, because it is 60 percent of the statewide population. So again, you come in here, the President's metric is even lower, 46 percent and he needs 52 to 55 percent.

Is it impossible? Absolutely not but you just know this your performance rate right now, and you have to amp it up in the votes that have yet to be counted. Logic tells you unlikely. The process tells us we will wait and see. And it's the same challenge. I just went through two states where it's a very steep hill for President Trump to overcome that math.

Let's bring it back out. And it's just the same here for Joe Biden, right. You're down right now 388,000. Now that's come down, right. When we left very early this morning that was up around 600,000 votes. It's now 388,000. If you're in the Biden campaign, that's a good trendline for you, you're trending in the right direction but you're still down nearly 400,000 votes with 82 percent of the vote in.

So in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Joe Biden has to get essentially 7 in 10, right. Of the votes we believe are outstanding, he has to win 70 percent of those votes, somewhere around there. Right now, statewide, you're getting 46.

So your eyes tell you, 70 percent, how can he do that? It's a steep hill. Let's acknowledge that it's a steep hill. The challenge is a lot of those votes though are in places where he's getting 60 percent here in Montgomery County. He's getting 78 percent here in Philadelphia County, these are where we know most of those votes are in predominantly Democratic places.

[15:35:00]

So you look at the statewide performance metrics and say, can Joe Biden get two thirds of the votes, your first instinct would be no, my eyes tell me he can't. Then you look here where we know the votes are missing, and you say, oh, maybe. That's why we have to count them. And again, steep hill for the President, let me come all the way up. Steep hill for the President here, steep hill for the President here, steep hill for the President here. Significant steep hill for the former Vice President here.

The challenge is, you know, not that any states matter more than others, but some do when you're getting close to the finish line just in terms of the math, right. If Joe Biden keeps that lead, keeps that lead and keeps that lead, he's the next President of the United States even if we have to wait on that.

And even if -- we don't have on this board right now, we haven't assigned -- even if the President holds that, holds that, gets that and gets that. The one thing we can go -- you can go up and down in the electoral college math -- math, I mean, but once someone gets to 270, we count the rest of them, but once someone gets to 270, that's called winning.

BLITZER: Winning is -- that's huge, right. Now we're waiting to hear from the former Vice President. He's expected to be delivering a speech at some point. I want to go to Miguel Marquez who's watching the situation unfold in Detroit right now. What are you learning, Miguel?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, you're talking about where those votes are, where they are left to be counted? This is the exact place. This is TCF. It's the convention center in Detroit. It's the absentee ballot counting area. This is where they've been counting ballots for the last couple of days now, and the scene here is incredibly tense.

We were here all day yesterday. I want to show you some of this room. There's about 134 Trump observers and challengers in here. There have been several individuals who have been removed from the room because tempers are flaring here.

I also want to show you what it looks like for people trying to get in this room. So outside the convention center and at the doors of this, our producer Carolyn Sung has a shot up here of the doors just outside where the counting is taking place, and there is throng of people who are trying to get in here claiming that they also are -- want to be observers or challengers to the vote.

The problem is there is a process, a legal process, for how you become a challenger or observer. Officials here say that they have tons of them in this room right now. Democrats also have lawyers that, for the most part, are essentially following those observers around and making sure that everything is fine. They believe that they will be through the vast majority of votes here by this afternoon. They also believe, because this is Detroit, that most of those votes will go for Joe Biden.

The pressure on the people who have been counting votes is intense. The sense of the difference between yesterday and today at this little corner of Detroit is equally intense. Clearly, both sides now fighting very hard, looking at how this process will play out. Counties now have two weeks to canvass their vote. The state does the official canvas canvass a week after that. We expect lots of challenges along the way -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, we'll stay very close touch with you, good luck over there, Miguel. Thank you very much.

And we're watching every vote in the seven Presidential battlegrounds that are still too close to call right now. We'll have more results and possible projections. That's ahead.

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[15:40:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: We're expecting to hear from former Vice President Biden at some point within the next hour at the very longest, not sure exactly what he'll say back in New York with our team. David Axelrod, what do you expect to hear from Biden?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I expect he's going to say, let the process run, let's count them all and then we'll know. I think his role is going to be to try and reassure people and encourage the process to move forward. It's going to be a different tone, I suspect, than what we heard from the President last night.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, one thing that's so great, though, is, you know, we talk a lot about Trump. Trump kind of just hypnotizes you. You spend all this time talk about him, you think about him, whatever. Biden, I think, got the most votes of anybody ever, running for President, I'm not sure if that's right but it's a big number. And he did it the right way.

He was very cautious with his people. The COVID, he was holding people back. We were very concerned about that. He may win, he may not win. But if you look at what he had to go up against, a Postal Service, there was sabotage, there are hundreds of thousands of ballots still missing, still was able to be within a hair's breadth. You look at the fact that he protected his own people. He didn't have these big rallies, he wasn't willing to sacrifice.

Stanford says that there may have been 30,000 people who got sick because of these Trump super-spreader events. Biden didn't do that. And so you're going to see someone who is a decent human being, who's coming out. Who's going to hopefully, I think, be responsible, but I don't think he's celebrated enough. What an achievement for Joe Biden at this late in his career to have stood up, waved his hands, that I want to bring this country together, and to do be on the edge of doing it and doing it the right way.

RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: With all due respect, Joe Biden ran the campaign because Joe Biden is not the most -- he has some issues with stamina and communications, and he wanted this campaign --

[15:45:00]

LEMON: I'm proud of the campaign he ran because he did not risk the lives of Americans for his own personal gain. I'm proud of Joe Biden today.

SANTORUM: Number one and number two -- because it was in his interest not to do so. And number two, he wanted to make this campaign about Donald Trump and not about him. So then -- there was a strategy -- and he did.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: As you would with any incumbent President.

AXELROD: The President helped on that

SANTORUM: No, he did but, I mean, not -- I understand you want to wrap your arm around your buddy, but I just saying, this was a strategy more than it was some magnanimous thing -- was successful in doing so.

COOPER: Let's just to focus though on what's right now happening.

SANTORUM: Yes.

COOPER: Let's just try to focus there on what's right now happening here rather than looking back. Because there will be plenty of time for that when we're stuck on air for hours and hours after --

BORGER: If Biden, let's say Biden does come out and says, count all the votes, which I think he'll do. You also have something going on with his campaign, which is his lawyer, Bob Bauer, came out this morning and said, we've won the election, period. We've won the election, and we're going to defend that election. It's not about we're going to count the votes like the former Vice President is saying --

COOPER: What's the strategy for him to come out and say that?

BORGER: The strategy on that -- and let me take you back 20 years -- is what they learned from Florida. Which is they went into Florida for a recount and they said, we want to count the votes.

COOPER: You're talking about in 2000. BORGER: In 2000. Yes, and when Jim Baker went there, he said, we're

going to defend our victory. Bush has won. We're going to defend our victory. And people -- you know, there are lots of people who are working for Biden who were very involved in that recount.

JONES: And got beat.

BORGER: Who understood that they came to a gun fight with a knife, and they weren't going to do that again. So Bob Bauer was one of those people.

AXELROD: And I'll tell you who understood that as well, the President of the United States. That's why he went out and completely over- torqued it last night, but he wanted to claim victory and stake his claim to that real estate and create the image that something was being taken away from him.

BORGER: Right, but the problem that I think they have in the Trump campaign is that they're suing everywhere and everyone. They're saying, well, OK, Pennsylvania, we're going to sue here because we don't like the way she set aside some ballots and allowed people to come back and, you know, check their ballot if it had been done improperly. We're going to sue in Wisconsin. That kind of stuff makes it seem like you're thinking you're going to lose and you're trying to hang on by suing everybody. That's not what happened in Bush/Gore.

SANTORUM: Well, first off, in Pennsylvania they have every right to sue. The House and Senate leadership and state legislature has called a press conference and said that the Secretary of State should resign because she is not enforcing the law. And on multiple fronts, she is violating laws in Pennsylvania. Now, are they particularly consequential?

BORGER: No.

SANTORUM: Maybe, maybe not. You would say no, but she's not following the law and that's the problem.

COOPER: I've got to go to Jake with some breaking news -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Anderson, thanks so much. We do have some breaking news. Let me go to Pamela Brown who has some information about the Trump campaign filing at the U.S. Supreme Court today to intervene in Pennsylvania, I believe. Pamela, what can you tell us?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is the filing right here, Jake. The Trump campaign went to the U.S. Supreme Court asking to intervene in an ongoing petition that is before the court having to do with the receipt of ballot deadline there in Pennsylvania.

As you know, Jake, that has been under dispute. Republicans went to the high court before and asked for emergency review about the three- day extension to the deadline for these ballots. They said that the deadline should be on election day, not after election day. The high court essentially said, look, we're not going to take this up right now, but left the door open for them to come back to them which is essentially what is happening.

If you'll recall, Justice Alito said, we're not going to do step in right now but if you feel like anything is going on with these ballots, you can come back after the election. So essentially the Trump campaign is coming back.

And in this filing, here's what they said, the time has come given last night's results, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States.

This is coming from Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the President. And this court, not the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, should have the final say on the relevant and dispositive legal questions.

They're bringing up the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because it was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that allowed the counting of those late arriving ballots as long as they were postmarked by election day, but even if the postmark wasn't legible, it could still be counted.

And so that is what we're seeing play out here, but a really interesting dynamic, because before when this was taken up, Amy Coney Barrett had just started. She did not weigh in because she had not been involved with the case, she said she didn't have time to brief up.

[15:50:00]

Certainly, a different dynamic here given how high the stakes are. All eyes are going to be on the high court to see what they do now especially with Donald Trump's nominee Amy Coney Barrett now on the high court who would likely be part of this process -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Pamela, thanks so much. Let's bring in Ben Ginsberg, he's a Republican election lawyer, also a CNN contributor. Ben, tell us, you've been reviewing this document. Tell us how good a filing this is, or how good a case the Trump campaign has, in your view.

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's a very procedural filing. The Trump campaign was, I'm sure, working with the people who actually filed the suit in Pennsylvania. So there's not a real change in the arguments that are going to be made with the Trump intervention. It does provide a bit of emphasis to the case.

At the end of the day, this is more a case about the power of the State Supreme Court versus its legislature to set the rules. There's nothing in this motion that asks for the court to hear the case sooner and it may well be that the court is mostly interested in this for the very real constitutional issue of the power of the State Supreme Court versus a legislature to make rules about the time, place, and manner of an election.

TAPPER: The U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 in Bush v. Gore did intervene so as to overrule the Florida State Supreme Court. Do you think that that case provides any sort of precedent for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene here and rule against the Pennsylvania Supreme Court? GINSBERG: The U.S. Supreme Court can sort of get into what it decides

and wants to get into. But make no mistake about it, this procedure right now in Pennsylvania is very different from where Bush versus Gore was a month after the election down in Florida. And what the State Supreme Court in Florida did was really rewrite rules of the game that were part of Florida legislation and they changed the rules of the game after it had been played.

Here, you've got in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the body in charge of interpreting state laws deciding to go one way with the case, the legislature went a different way. That's a question more of who's got the ultimate authority to make these rules than something having to do with this election.

TAPPER: All right, Ben Ginsberg, thanks so much. Pamela Brown, you heard what Ben Ginsberg just had to say. Do we have any idea of what is next when we're going to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court, when we are going to hear from the Biden campaign?

BROWN: Well, we're going to have to wait and find out on the Supreme Court. And basically, the ball is in their court to see whether they take this back up. And it's interesting to note what we're seeing playing out right now is basically legal warfare. You're seeing this play out in Pennsylvania, you have now the Trump campaign going to the U.S. Supreme Court and we're just seeing this filing now.

This a new filing from the Trump campaign made to the Philadelphia local trial court on election day to challenge how witnesses had access to observing the opening and sorting of ballots and checking that they had writing on the outside of the ballot.

So, this is what the Trump campaign had alleged earlier. They were claiming that the process wasn't transparent or fair. We should note, though, as you well know, Jake, in Philadelphia, they've been live streaming the opening of the ballots, the whole process, it actually has been a very transparent process.

So it is interesting that they're filing this case with the local Philadelphia court alleging that, when you can actually go on right now to see the clerks there methodically going through the process, opening up the envelope, then opening up the secrecy sleeve, looking at the witness signatures, unfolding the ballot and putting it in the scanner. You can watch that play out.

But what you're seeing, Jake, is, like I said, a legal war are with the Trump campaign going all out when it comes to Pennsylvania and Michigan as well. We're also just getting right in on this case in Michigan that I can report back to you shortly once I get a little bit more briefed up on it -- Jake.

TAPPER: Yes, and just to be clear so our viewers aren't confused. Those are three separate cases that you just talked about. The U.S. Supreme Court and then, of course, the case having to do with the Trump campaign being able to observe the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania. Then there's Michigan case. There's also the Wisconsin request for a recount. There's a lot to keep track of. Donald Trump has always been a very

litigious individual, for better or for worse, and here we have him doing that when it comes to the election that we still don't know who won or lost. The votes are still being counted. Let me bring it over now to Dana Bash.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Jake, and I want to bring in Michael Smerconish who is a Pennsylvanian and an attorney.

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So, Michael, I'm sure you've had a chance to look at what the Trump campaign did with Supreme Court. What's your reaction?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Stuff always happens on election day. I'm cleaning it up, Dana, for you. Stuff always happens on election day. That's the nature of the beast. Think about it. We essentially create a pop-up Starbucks all across the country for one day, we rely on a work force that is underpaid and then we're surprised when human factors get in the way.

What I want to share with you from Pennsylvania today is that there was less stuff happening, meaning human factors, not fraud, yesterday, than any election I can recall. In other words, where's the beef? There's no insinuation, there's no allegation, there's no bag of votes. There's like nothing out there.

I'm not saying that it won't be produced but like you got to document something before you start making allegations of the theft of an election. You can't simply say, well, Philadelphia has a reputation. There was an election, it was back in 1994 when absentee ballots played a role. There hasn't been anything widespread since.

BASH: Right. So there are a couple things. One is allegations or questions of fraud. And the other is just the basic law that was put into effect by the Republican legislature and the Democratic governor, of course, that allowed some ballots to be counted after election day. So on that particular note --

SMERCONISH: But with regard --

BASH: Go ahead.

SMERCONISH: Yes, but with regard to the first, that, you know, fraud is such a stinging -- it has such a connotation.

BASH: Sure.

SMERCONISH: You can't just throw that label around. You can't throw theft around without backing it up. Listen so I want to say this --

BASH: So, given that, so given that, what do you make --

SMERCONISH: The President, the Vice President --

BASH: What do you make of what the Trump campaign is doing? SMERCONISH: They're entitled to a fair count that's what I want to

say. They're entitled to a fair count but you just can't make baseless allegations and you also can't talk about ballots that really haven't even been counted yet as being fundamentally unfair when they're still counting the ballots that were delivered by election night at 8 p.m.

BASH: So you say they're entitled to a fair count. Do you think that this legal effort, particularly the one going to the Supreme Court is justified?

SMERCONISH: don't see any basis in evidence that suggests that there is a theft under way in Pennsylvania. That's what I'm saying. Show me something.

BASH: So, another question is whether or not the Supreme Court will even hear this, right? We don't know the answer to that yet. It's been suggested to me by a Republican lawyer that it might not happen unless Pennsylvania is determinative, meaning the whole ball game comes down to Pennsylvania. Do you think that that's possibly the case?

SMERCONISH: You're giving a very practical answer and I happen to agree with it, right. I mean the Supreme Court of the United States, the members, why would they decide that they want to take it upon themselves to hear an issue that if Wisconsin and Michigan go the way that they seem they're trending, Pennsylvania will become an irrelevancy.

BASH: So big picture. You kind of mentioned this at the beginning. Do you feel confident in the way the vote counting is going based on the law that was laid out for all of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania to go ahead and count the votes?

SMERCONISH: I do. And I have a thought that maybe this mail process -- and you know, Dana, that we're rookies at this. This is the first time that in a Presidential election, Pennsylvanians have been permitted to vote absentee without cause and as you've heard from Secretary Kathy Boockvar, you know, there was a ten-fold increase in comparison to 2016 in terms of how many people chose to do it through this methodology.

My theory is that because so many chose to vote through mail, you don't have the normal type of reports of things that went awry at particular polling places on election day because there were so many more who availed themself of the opportunities to vote in advance and didn't have to show up and vote.

BASH: Michael Smerconish, thank you so for your insights -- Jake.

TAPPER: Thanks, Dana. It does appear as though the Trump campaign is able to see the writing on the wall and they have decided to throw as much at the wall as they can, especially when it comes to lawsuits and false claims.

We have now word from Wilmington, Delaware that former Vice President Joe Biden is coming out and speak soon. Let me bring in Jeff Zeleny, our reporter on the ground there. Jeff, what are we expecting Biden to say? He cannot yet declare victory. Nobody has declared him the winner, there remain many outstanding states. What is he going to do?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Jake, I am told that Joe Biden is going to do what his campaign has been saying all day long. That he is on a track toward victory. I'm told that he is not going to declare victory himself but he is going to call for the fair counting of all the ballots, and he is going to, and we're told by advisers, and this could be fluid here.