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CNN Live Event/Special

CNN Projects Biden Wins Michigan; Biden Speaks Out on Election Results; Biden Widens Lead Over Trump. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And this could be fluid here.

But he is going to push back against these suggestions of fraud and push back against any suggestion this election is trying to be stolen. So, you can see the backdrop there. This is the exact same stage where he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in the month of August.

And it will be the same type of spirit and tone, I am told, a very presidential-like tone. He is going to make this claim and make this a statement that all these votes should be counted.

We do not necessarily expect him to talk about each of these separate lawsuits here that are just coming in. But we're told that he will also be joined by Senator Kamala Harris, the first time we will see the two of them together, at least on the same stage, since the election yesterday.

I'm told, all morning long, he's been calling Democratic officials, particularly in the state of Pennsylvania. He knows that state very well. It is just across the river and up the road. So this is something that he has been focused on.

But he has told -- he has an air of confidence, I'm told by a friend who has spoken to him, and he does believe he is on track to victory. But he's not going to get ahead of this in this speech today. I'm told he's going to say that every vote should be counted and push back against any suggestion of fraud -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.

And, Abby, these suggestions of fraud, there are no allegations, there's no specific -- I mean, not even evidence. There's not even an accusation.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, exactly.

And I would say that even this idea that somehow they weren't allowed to watch enough of the process, and that should mean that they shouldn't continue to count ballots, makes no sense. It's small ball, and it shows you they have very few avenues left to stop the counting of what's left of the ballots in Pennsylvania.

I do think that we're at a significant moment, though, Jake. The president is doing exactly what he telegraphed he would do, trying to declare victory before the process is done. And the question is, what part of the political process is going to step in to defend the democratic system that we have?

Joe Biden is about to come out. He's going to say what we expect him to say. And I expect that he might even appeal to other Republicans to say more about what the president is doing right now.

But I think we have to point out there is a vacuum of leadership in this country right now, in terms of who is saying -- who is out there really stepping out and saying, Mr. President, do not do this? Let the votes be counted.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, was asked extensively about this, this morning, and he went as far as saying, counting votes is not the same as declaring victory.

I don't think it's what you're talking about. But that was very McConnell-esque.

But I think what you just mentioned about this is what the president telegraphed he would do is important, but also what you mentioned earlier, that it is so glaringly inconsistent, and, frankly, just hypocritical that he is saying, let's just stop counting the votes in Pennsylvania, where he is ahead, and calling on Nevada, for example, where it's very tight, but Joe Biden is ahead, to keep counting the votes, Arizona to keep counting the votes.

It's so, on its face, not consistent that it's almost laughable. But that's not what his goal is. His goal is to muddy the waters and get his people riled up, that what he -- what he warned of all these months, falsely, is coming true.

TAPPER: Yes.

Just to be clear, Donald Trump could still win this election.

BASH: No question.

TAPPER: We don't know who's going to win Nevada. We don't know...

BASH: But the point...

TAPPER: I know.

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: I'm just saying, we don't know who's going to win Nevada. We don't know who's going to win Pennsylvania. We don't know who's going to win Arizona. There are votes that need to be counted.

BASH: Absolutely. TAPPER: Donald Trump right now is acting as though he knows he's

going to lose if votes are counted. Therefore, he's going to try to stop the votes from being counted.

But that's not how it works in the United States of America.

BASH: You're totally right. And I do not mean in any way to suggest...

TAPPER: You're not.

BASH: Yes, yes. And -- but I want to -- I'm glad you said that, because I want to kind of make it really clear and emphasize that when the president is calling for or saying, I won here, I won there, it doesn't matter.

I mean, he could win. But what we need to do is take a deep breath and let each state follow the law of their land, which is how elections in this country work.

TAPPER: What do you think Joe Biden needs to do? Does he need to come out and be the statesman, like he was last night and just say, we're confident, but we're going to keep counting the votes, and then just like walk off, or does he need to show a little bit of fire and outrage at what President Trump is doing?

PHILLIP: I could see it both ways.

I mean, I think his job here is not to fall into the same trap that the president is falling into, and he can't go out there and say, I have won, actually, frankly, say what we saw his attorney Bob Bauer do in an interview separately with "The Washington Post," where he indicated, we are going to defend the election that they believe they have won.

I think Joe Biden needs to avoid using that kind of language and just talk about counting the votes.

[16:05:03]

But you're right. I mean, there is an element of this. We're sitting here talking about it. It's like watching, almost like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I have been covering this issue of voting for months. And the president has been talking about this for months. We are seeing it happen right now.

And I think Joe Biden's going to acknowledge it.

TAPPER: And while we wait for Joe Biden to come out and speak in Wilmington, Delaware, let's bring in Anderson Cooper -- Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Hey. Thanks very much.

We are...

(CROSSTALK) RICK SANTORUM, CNN COMMENTATOR: We're having a lively discussion.

COOPER: We're having a very lively discussion without the cameras present.

David Axelrod, what the president of the United States is calling for is -- he is not saying very specific things about, well, I'm concerned that, in Pennsylvania, this secretary of state did this. He is saying -- he's talking about surprise ballot dumps. He says how, come every time they count mail-in ballot dumps, it goes up for Biden?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

COOPER: That's called the election.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Voting.

AXELROD: Yes. No, I know.

And Rick said earlier that they just want them to follow the law. I have to tell you, the president hasn't been that fastidious about that over time.

What he is very intense about is his own self-interest. And he doesn't want these ballots cast because he doesn't...

COOPER: Counted.

AXELROD: Excuse me?

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: You said ballots cast.

AXELROD: Counted, I should say, because he's fearful of the result.

And he's trying to impede the process. There are -- you have technical issues that apply to a small number of ballots. But there are a large number of ballots that are turning against him.

BORGER: Look, but this is a president who told everybody, his voters, to go on Election Day and vote.

Now, suddenly, he's, well, these ballots that are coming in by mail that they are counting after Election Day, suddenly, they're not for me. You have got to stop it. Why aren't they for me?

COOPER: And, in fact, the reason that they weren't counted before is because, in some states, it's Republican legislatures which refused to allow them to change the...

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: Yes, you can't count them until the day of the election in Pennsylvania.

COOPER: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: It was his strategy. Let me just put it that way.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: I agree with everything you're saying.

BORGER: Oh. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: No, I do think that we should count all these votes. I mean, they're perfect -- and here what may possibly what I think happened, which is that they went to the president and said to the president, here's what's going to happen in Pennsylvania that we want to stop, and that is that votes are going to come in after the deadline, which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said they could, but the law says you can't.

And here's the issue. The governor sent out are envelopes for absentee ballots that were pre-stamped. And when you send out those pre-stamped envelopes -- this is what everybody's upset about. When they come back, and they go through the mail, they're not date-stamped.

And so what they're thinking is, they can now rush out, get a whole bunch of people to vote today...

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Where are they going to find these people?

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: Go ahead. I'm sorry. I apologize.

SANTORUM: You're sitting you're criticizing me. I'm telling you what they told the president, OK, that they're going to -- there's an opportunity for people to go out and process a lot of these envelopes that will not be date-stamped, and that will come in before Friday.

BORGER: So, should we check the CVS to see whether there's a run on date stampers? How many ballots will that affect?

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: These are ballots that were mailed out by the governor before the election, but have not returned.

BORGER: OK. So how many ballots would that affect?

SANTORUM: And the answer is, we don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: What they're -- is it a conspiracy theory? Yes. BORGER: Yes. Thank you.

SANTORUM: Could it happen? To some degree, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: He's been attacking this for months.

He's been attacking mail-in votes from the beginning, implying that they are, on the face of it, fraudulent.

SANTORUM: And they're not. And they're not.

BORGER: Right.

AXELROD: And there's no evidence to support that.

SANTORUM: I agree with that.

BORGER: Right.

SANTORUM: But that doesn't mean that there isn't an opening here for some type of fraud.

And that's what they're talking about.

JONES: Right, but two things can be two things can be true at the same time.

It can be the case that there might be some small minor technical things or some things are not happening right. But that's not the big point. The big point is, I guarantee you, when you figure all that stuff out, it's going to be this much.

SANTORUM: I agree.

The big problem...

COOPER: Joe Biden's coming out to speak. This is him in Wilmington, Delaware.

Senator Kamala Harris is with him as well.

Let's listen in to what the former Vice President Biden says.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good afternoon, everyone.

Kamala and I are here to make a brief statement, and I'm sure we will have more to say later and either tonight or tomorrow.

But let me begin by thanking the press for being here and thanking everyone else.

My fellow Americans, yesterday once again proved democracy is the heartbeat of this nation, just as it has been the heartbeat of this nation for two centuries.

[16:10:12]

And even in the face of a pandemic, more Americans voted this election than ever before in American history. Over 150 million people cast their votes. I think that's just extraordinary. And if we had any doubts, we shouldn't have any longer, about a government of, by and for the people.

It's very much alive, very much alive in America. Here, the people rule. Power can't be taken or asserted. It flows from the people. And it's their will that determines who will be the president of the United States, and their will alone.

And now, after a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

I'm not here to declare that we have won, but I am here to report, when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.

With all the votes counted, we have won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes, virtually the same margin that President Trump won that state four years ago. In Michigan, we lead by over 35,000 votes, and it's growing, a substantially bigger margin than President Trump won Michigan in 2016.

Michigan will complete its vote soon, maybe as early as today. And I feel very good about Pennsylvania. Virtually all of the remaining ballots to be counted were cast by mail. And we have been winning 78 percent of the votes by mail in Pennsylvania.

We have flipped Arizona and the 2nd district of Nebraska. Of special significance to me is that we won with the majority of the American people. And every indication is that that majority will grow. We have a popular vote lead of nearly three million votes, and every indication is that will grow as well.

Indeed, Senator Harris and I are on track to win more votes than any ticket in the history of this country that ever won the presidency and vice presidency, over 70 million votes.

I'm very proud of our campaign. Only three presidential campaigns in the past have defeated an incumbent president. When it's finished, God willing, we will be the fourth. This is major achievement. This is a major achievement.

And it's been a long and difficult campaign. But it's been a more difficult time for our country, a hard time. We have had hard campaigns before. We have faced hard times before.

So, once this election is finalized and behind us, it will be time for us to do what we have always done as Americans, to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another, to hear each other again and respect and care for one another, to unite, to heal, to come together as a nation.

I know this won't be easy. I'm not naive. Neither of us are. I know how deep and hard the opposing views are in our country on so many things.

But I also know this as well. To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies. What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart.

So, let me be clear. I, we are campaigning as a Democrat, but I will govern as an American president. The presidency itself is not a partisan institution. It's the one office in this nation that represents everyone.

And it demands a duty of care for all Americans. And that is precisely what I will do. I will work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as I will for those who did vote for me.

[16:15:02]

Now every vote must be counted. No one is going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever. America has come too far, America's fought too many battles, America's endured too much to ever let that happen.

We, the people, will not be silenced. We, the people, will not be bullied. We, the people, will not surrender.

My friends, I'm confident we will emerge victorious. But this will not be my victory alone or our victory alone. It will be a victory for the American people, for our democracy, for America. And there will be no blue states and red states when we win, just the United States of America.

God bless you all, and may God protect our troops.

TAPPER: The Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, saying that every vote will be counted. He did not declare victory, although he did say, once every vote has been counted, he does believe that he is going to be victorious.

We're going to talk more about his speech.

But, first, let's go to Wolf Blitzer, who has a projection.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We have a major projection, not just a projection, but a major projection right now.

CNN projects that Joe Biden will win the state of Michigan, a huge win, 16 electoral votes. Biden wins Michigan. That brings his number -- look at this -- now Biden has 253 electoral votes. Trump has 213. You need 270 to win the presidency. Biden now has 253.

Let's go over to John King at the Magic Wall.

Wisconsin a little while ago, now Michigan. He's getting closer and closer.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Two big pieces of the so-called blue wall. That is why Donald Trump is president, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Joe Biden has now flipped Michigan and Wisconsin. He's also flipped that congressional district in Nebraska, the 2nd Congressional District.

Joe Biden, as we speak right now, is knocking on the door of the White House and the presidency, 253 electoral votes right now. And, Wolf, Joe Biden, as we know, is leading in Nevada. That would be a Clinton state hold. That would get him to 259. And he is leading in Arizona. That's 270. That's victory.

Yes, Alaska is likely to go for the president. Yes, the president is leading here and here. The president may get this congressional district here. He won't get them all here. Let me fix that for you here and here. You bring that out.

But it doesn't matter. Once you get to 270, you can't be caught. And so if Joe Biden holds his lead -- again, we will give that one over to the president. Let me move this here. You do that. Boom. Joe Biden holds this lead right here in Nevada, holds that lead in Arizona, then it's game over.

The question is, how fast will they advance the vote count here? We can look at the leads. But, if you just map this out, remember, even without the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, still counting votes there -- the president has a lead, and it's shrinking a bit -- Joe Biden, as he just said, thinks he can get it back.

But he doesn't need it. With Michigan's a flip, Wisconsin is a flip, if you can flip Arizona now and hold Nevada, he's the next president of the United States.

And if you walk over here and look at the map, I have Michigan up right now. You look at the lead, you're 20,500 votes ahead. As Joe Biden said, President Trump carried the state four years ago, you want to go back in history. It was just 22,000. That's Wisconsin.

Let's move over here to Michigan, 10,000 votes four years ago. You come up here, Joe Biden ahead now by 61,000 votes. That tells you why we make this projection right now.

And if you come through and watch this, it's an impressive win, in the sense that Wayne County, 85 percent of the vote in, Joe Biden running ahead. So we pull out to the bigger map. And we look at it this way, right?

What happened four years ago, Donald Trump won those three. He's leading in Pennsylvania right now. And just -- you can pull this off, Wolf, just so people see. You see the map right now? I just turned off the states that we have not called, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Arizona, and Nevada.

The key point is, all Joe Biden needs now to get to 270 is this one, and this one. And as we count the votes throughout the day, he's leading in both of them. That would be the difference.

BLITZER: Let's take a look at those two states right now, the two states that would bring him up to 270, and he would be elected president of the United States.

KING: Let's start in Nevada.

Again, this would be a Clinton hold. Hillary Clinton carried the state four years ago. You see Joe Biden. We're waiting. This has been a consistent -- we haven't gotten any new votes out of Nevada in quite some time. We're watching the vote, 7,647 votes ahead.

If you're a Trump supporter, you say, that's close. And you're absolutely right. The question is, as they continue to count the votes, where would you look for them? Well, the biggest basket of votes in Nevada is here, Clark County; 73 percent of the population lives right here. This is the major vote center in the state, 84 percent reporting.

So we're waiting for Clark County to update its vote totals. We will see if we get some of that this afternoon. But, again, in the largest county in the state, more than seven in 10 votes in Nevada come out of Clark County. Joe Biden's getting 53 percent of the vote.

[16:20:06]

That's all he has to do -- now -- he's ahead -- is just win a majority of the votes coming out. He's doing that in Clark County. We will see if he can continue. The next biggest county, Washoe County, up here, Reno in the rural areas up above it, Joe Biden getting 51 percent. If you're Joe Biden, your ahead. Yes, that's close, 7,600 votes. You just need to win a majority of the votes.

Come on up, and you look at the red areas. Yes, the president runs it up big here, but they're pretty -- they're much smaller population- wise. We're missing 15 percent from up here in Elko County. The president will make up some votes here, without a doubt. They keep counting votes there.

We don't know how many. We don't know how many are absentee and the like. Some of them will be for Democrats. Same thing here. But you're at 99 percent. You're at 91 percent. Possibility the president picks up -- you see the size of the county. It's pretty small. He could pick up a few hundred.

The challenge is, again, more than seven in 10 votes in the state of Nevada are going to come right here. And the former vice president is ahead right now. That's why they're quite optimistic in the Biden campaign.

And then you move over here, the state of Arizona. You have to go back to Bill Clinton in the 1990s to have a Democrat win the state of Arizona. Why is it happening? Older voters. Watch how Latino voters break down. And the suburban revolt against Donald Trump that we saw in 2018, when the Democrats took back the House, we're seeing it play out in Phoenix and the growing suburbs in Arizona. Maricopa County is the county where Phoenix is and the suburbs around it. Again, you look for votes now as you're counting the final votes in places where the people live, 60 percent. More than six and 10 votes in the state of Arizona come right here. Joe Biden is winning.

That's a tight race, but he's winning 52 percent right there. And when you pop out and look statewide, 93,000 votes. If you are Joe Biden now, you just need to win a majority the rest of the way. You have got a 93,000-vote lead.

So, you look. Where we do it here, 10 percent still out here, Joe Biden winning 60 percent in Pima County. All of the metrics, when you look through it, Wolf, we will count the votes, we will let these states finish the count. But when you look at the metrics, you look at the pattern so far, Joe Biden, again, leading in Arizona.

That would be a pickup, leading in Nevada. If we get to the end of the day, and Joe Biden holds those two states, he's knocking on the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

BLITZER: We will watch Arizona and Nevada closely.

We just projected Michigan going to Biden -- Jake, Dana, and Abby.

TAPPER: It's been quite a big day, Wolf, when it comes to projections from CNN and the fact that we have now projected that former Vice President Joe Biden will win both Wisconsin and Michigan.

The numbers are certainly going in Biden's direction. We are still waiting to hear from a number of states, including Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, as well as ones where we think Trump is favored decisively, like North Carolina and Alaska. Georgia is still a question mark.

It's very -- it's a big moment. And I think one of the things that has to happen is that Republicans on Capitol Hill need to figure out how they're going to react if the race ultimately is called for Joe Biden, which we have not got -- we're not there.

But if the race is called for Joe Biden, Donald Trump has made it very clear that he is not going to accept the results of the election. How is Mitch McConnell going to react? How is the Republican leader of the House, Kevin McCarthy, going to react? How is Vice President Pence going to react?

These are questions that these people need to be asking now. Again, we don't know. Trump could still win. But it's really gut-check time for these Republican officials.

BASH: It absolutely is.

And when the president started making noises of that there won't be a peaceful transition and he won't necessarily leave if he doesn't trust the vote results, Mitch McConnell did stand up in a way that -- in an almost unsolicited way, if I recall, and say that there will be a peaceful transition of power. So, if you take that and extrapolate from that to where -- the

scenario that you're describing, it would be hard for me to imagine that McConnell wouldn't do that. But we have also been surprised at Republicans in Congress not standing up to the president. This might be different because he may feel good about holding onto the majority, which is a very important thing.

But I just also want to...

TAPPER: Not to mention the Supreme Court.

BASH: Not to mention the Supreme Court and all of the federal judgeships.

But let's just also for a second talk about Joe Biden and the message and the tone that he just said, very big picture about, if I win, I will be the president for everybody, and not just Democrats.

But specifically on this question of who's winning and am I winning and so forth, what Joe Biden said is, it is clear that we are winning enough states to reach 270. And then he said, I'm not here to declare that we have won.

He leaned into it. He did what is politically maybe appropriate, if you feel confident, but he said explicitly, I'm not here to declare that we have won.

Last night, Donald Trump said, frankly, we did win this election.

[16:25:00]

Night and day.

TAPPER: Absolutely.

BASH: And we don't know if either of them is right yet.

TAPPER: Not to mention you have one person saying, count the votes, Joe Biden, even though he's in the lead. He could say, stop it right now because I won. But he's not.

He's saying, count all the votes. We need to count all the votes.

And then, on the other hand, Abby, you have President Trump, whose message is all over the map, including stop counting in Michigan, stop counting in Pennsylvania, keep counting in these states, Nevada and Arizona. I need a recount in Wisconsin, really the mark of a man who seems like he's losing.

PHILLIP: Throwing everything at the wall, from a legal perspective, from a rhetorical perspective.

What Joe Biden said today is not some kind of magnanimous statement. It's just easy. That is what you should say when we are in this position where we don't know where the votes are going to go exactly.

It would be fine if President Trump said, we think we're going to end up winning Arizona and Pennsylvania. Count all the votes.

But he's not saying that. And there's a reason that he's not saying that. They don't think that, if they count all the votes, that is what is going to happen.

Now, Dana, I know you have been talking to Republicans, vs. I have been hearing from Republicans. They're saying, based on their modeling, they believe that they have enough votes in Arizona. But here's the thing. People have actually voted. We know how those votes are going to go. We just have to count them.

So we can't rely on the president and his campaign claiming that they have won a state, based on their modeling, and not just wait to count the actual votes. So, we're in a situation right now where, as Dana said, and as you pointed out, Jake, what is Mitch McConnell going to do?

Yes, he said there will be a peaceful transfer of power. But now's the moment when President Trump is declare -- is trying to declare victory, trying to halt the vote counting in certain states.

Now's the moment when I think a lot of these Republicans really do need to speak up loudly, and not just say -- not just be equivocal about this, say pretty clearly what they think should happen in this situation, and tell the president not to prematurely declare victory, when there -- where there is not one.

TAPPER: Right.

And it's not just Rick Santorum in the other room, or John Bolton giving an interview. It needs to be the Republican -- current Republican officeholders. Again, we don't know what's in those votes, and President Trump could theoretically win every outstanding state, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania.

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: He could.

BASH: He could.

TAPPER: It doesn't look like he will, but he could.

The question is, are Republicans on Capitol Hill going to stand up for the principle of count every vote, and then let the chips fall where they may?

BASH: They're starting to.

Rob Portman, senator from Ohio, released a statement effectively saying that. Let's just everybody take a breath and count votes. We will see if other people are that explicit.

But one thing you just talked about with modeling, and I don't want to get too far into the weeds here, but I guess that's where we are, as we're waiting to count votes. One of the reasons why Republicans feel so confident about where their votes are is because they know where Republicans are.

And one question I have, particularly in a place like Arizona is, just because they're registered as a Republican or the Trump campaign and the RNC thinks that they're going to vote -- a certain voter is going to vote Republican doesn't mean that they did.

I mean, this is a very mixed-up election. And it is entirely possible, particularly in a red state like Arizona, there could be Cindy McCains in that state.

TAPPER: Or Jeff Flakes.

BASH: Or Jeff Flake, who are registered one way and vote another way.

PHILLIP: And there's only one way to find out.

TAPPER: Right.

PHILLIP: You have got to just count the votes.

I mean, I think this is why this situation -- look, where the map is right now, they don't have many options. They have got to hold onto Arizona, in particular, if they're going to find a path to 270. So I get it. I get why they want to keep that state on the board.

But at the same time right now, just like in Arizona, in Pennsylvania, votes still need to be counted. And they should be counted.

TAPPER: Yes.

So much of the Trump presidency has been about just standing up for basic standards and rules, just things that we shouldn't even have to talk about. Don't make fun of the disabled. Count the votes. And yet here we are -- Anderson.

COOPER: Jake, thanks very much.

Want to check in with our team, Michael Smerconish, Nia-Malika Henderson, former Governor Jennifer Granholm, and Scott Jennings.

Governor Granholm, Michigan was just called.

I'm wondering what you make of the numbers we're seeing so far on the path to 270 for the candidate you're supporting, Joe Biden.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I'm -- it's not a surprise to me that Michigan is called. Thank you to CNN for being the first to do that. But it was clear where this was going.

Obviously, these outstanding ballots, which we -- we must count, are all in heavily Democratic areas.

[16:30:00]