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CNN Live Event/Special

Election Night In America; Trump Campaign Officials Believe They Can Win Arizona By Narrow Margin, Focused On Georgia; President Trump's Lead Over Joe Biden Is Narrowing In Pennsylvania. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If he can get Arizona and Nevada, if he holds his leads there, he would get to 270 and he will be president-elect of the United States. But the president, who is losing the popular vote, is still in the hunt if the late states break his way. You have to say, you know, trend lines are pointing Biden's way right now but we are not done because we have votes to count.

And so when you just went through, you heard David goes through those states, each state is a little bit different. If you look at Georgia right now and you are the Biden campaign, you see that 37,000 lead, 37,322 vote lead for President Trump. That was 372,000 at midnight. So you go back, you know, 11 hours ago, 10 or 11 hours ago, that was 10 times that almost, 10 times that almost.

So the trend lines in Georgia have been going in Biden's direction. As David noted and our Gary Tuchman on the ground has noted, many of the votes to still be counted are here in suburban Atlanta. You see, this is Atlanta, Fulton County. You see how well Joe Biden is doing. This is DeKalb County. You see how well Joe Biden is doing.

So the continuing to count votes there and you say, OK, you know, Joe Biden has a shot. Down again, you're behind 372,000 at midnight last night. You have a shot as they continue the count there.

If you go west, Arizona, this would be a flip. If Joe Biden can win Arizona, that would be a flip. It was a Trump state in 2016. You have to go back to Bill Clinton in the 1990s for a Democrat to carry this. You see right now, 50.7. So 51 to 48 if you round them up.

But the Joe Biden lead, just shy of 80,000 votes, 79,000 votes, Wolf, that was 207,000 at midnight last night. So Biden had a big lead in Arizona last night. It is shrinking as we continue to count the votes there.

Trump had a big lead in Georgia last night. It is shrinking. And so the dynamics in the end here, tension in both campaigns as they watch this count out. When you look here, this is where the last piece of votes came in. The last time we did get an instalment of votes, it was from Maricopa. That helped the president narrow the gap a little bit there. So the question, as these come in, do the next batch of votes from Maricopa, does Joe Biden do better, needs to pull away a little bit more or does the president continue to narrow that gap? That is just a fascinating dynamic. In Arizona, obviously, it is critical here.

We are still waiting to see if Clark County -- this has been -- again, it is frustrating for people at home. Some of this can feel like Groundhog Day when you revisit these states and you're trying to figure out who is going to win the presidency.

Arizona could decide it along with Nevada, and we've been waiting all day. It has been the same total. Clark County officials said maybe. Clark County is here, the largest county in the state. They have said perhaps we'll get some new votes tonight, more votes tonight. Perhaps we have to get wait until the morning.

Again, you're looking -- this is Clark County, 53 percent to 45 percent. You pull out here, 7,647 votes. We know there are still votes to be counted. So, obviously, we need to watch this, as well. Again, it has been hours at the same total there. That gets a little frustrating.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Do we have any idea what is taking them so long to come up with some more numbers?

KING: What they have said is several of the counties are -- Erica Hill is out there -- several of the counties have said that they have those numbers but they're deferring to the secretary of state whose policy appears to be to try to do it all at once. It is a great question.

Again, look, this is an election like no other. All of these officials are doing it in different ways. They're under enormous pressure. It is our job to watch them and to be skeptical, to ask them questions. We should also give them some grace.

But at this time now, again, if you come over here and look at it, this is why there's so much pressure on these officials. You can understand while people watching at home, people in both of the campaigns, people in our business want to know the answers because right now, since the big news of the day, it's been a long day but Michigan and Wisconsin projected for Joe Biden.

Remember, those are two of the three states along with Pennsylvania that made Donald Trump president. That's why he is in the White House. These were democratic states all the way back to 1992. Trump took them.

Biden takes this one back and this one back, which gets you to the math right here, 253 to 213, which means, again, if Joe Biden can do -- he's leading here and leading here. He holds those, he's the president-elect of the United States no matter what happens in these others states. The numbers would change but he would be at the finish line. That's game over.

So you can understand the pressure and why people want to know, can we speed up the count here, can we get it. But, again, we're in a pandemic election. It is like no other.

In Nevada, these are mail ballots, they're counting them. We just have to be patient and wait. It doesn't mean you don't check in all the time and see, but, you know, when you haven't updated your vote total all day, understandably people are saying it would be nice to know what the trend line is in the state of Nevada.

Again, if Joe Biden wins them, that's game over. I just want to come back so people don't get the impression we're there yet because we're not. This would be a huge cushion. If for some reason, you know, if Biden can come back here and then hold here, then the president has narrowed the lead somewhat in Arizona. This one is close, as well.

But Biden will only have to win one of these two if he somehow could pull ahead in Georgia, as well, which is why, again, the chess game here of the different dynamics in these states, especially you have a sense that, you know, the Trump lead is shrinking here, they're still counting votes. The Trump lead is shrinking here, they're still counting votes. The Biden lead is shrinking here and they're still counting votes. We have been waiting. We have been static and stuck in Nevada all day.

BLITZER: You make a really good point.

[22:05:00]

BLITZER: If he only got 270, that is what you need --

KING: Right.

BLITZER: You would be elected president of the United States. But if he got 270, there would be an incentive for the Trump campaign to file all sorts of legal issues to try to reverse that. If he got 280 or 290, that legal challenge goes down.

KING: Right. Let's play that out a little bit. Let's just say Joe Biden gets the minimum, he holds his lead in Nevada and Arizona and let's say the president of the United States holds his lead in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Let's say the president of the United States picks up Maine and Nebraska, allocate Electoral College votes by congressional districts. Let's say the president gets that and the president gets --

BLITZER: Alaska.

KING: -- Alaska there. So then you are 270 to 278 which is --

BLITZER: Two sixty-eight.

KING: Two sixty-eight, I'm sorry, 270 to 268. And so, we've already heard from the Trump campaign legal challenges here. Well, they will drop that if they get it obviously, so you're not going to go here. They've already said we want a recount here. We know that they're looking here. We know that they have their eyes out here and out here.

And so if it is 270 to 268, the challenge then would be do you pick one, do you pick two. Remember, Bush v. Gore, they decided to fight over Florida. There was thought of going to Wisconsin. There were thoughts to look at other states.

They decided to fight over one state so they can have consistency in the argument knowing it would go up through the federal courts. You didn't want to argue one point in one state, another point in another state and have those colliding as they went up to the appellate process.

But if you have 270, 268 and you are the president of the United States, you're meeting with your legal team, you are looking, where do we have the best legal case, can we flip one. If something else turns true and we get a dynamic where Joe Biden can come back and do that and if Joe Biden could come back, that would be a statement there and you're in a very different dynamic.

Number one, you have to flip more, so you have to win a number of states. And number two, even though this president is his own person, he makes his own decisions, he defies his party and he defies the elders in his party all the time because it is his party, it is not their party anymore, it is his party, there would be a ton of pressure on the president if you get anywhere close to that --

BLITZER: Yeah.

KING: -- to say one state is not going to do it, do not tie this up, this is America, we counted the votes. But we're not there yet. We are not there yet. These dynamics are things we need to think about. The president's behavior last night makes you think about it because he is clearly in a very combatant move.

Our Kaitlan Collins is saying he is calling these governors in these states, the Republican governors, saying what can you do, can you fix the count, I don't mean fix in a legal way, is there a way things can change right there. And so we know he is agitated. We have to see.

BLITZER: You know, it is interesting, even as we are speaking, Georgia -- let's go back to Georgia for a moment.

KING: Sure.

BLITZER: The count has narrowed once again. Trump's lead has gone down. Take a look at this now. He's 33,300 votes ahead of Biden, and remind our viewers where it was 24 hours ago.

KING: OK. So we can go back and show you this. This is a new function we have for you. We go back to midnight. Look at that. It is just stunning what has happened here.

BLITZER: Just tell our viewers.

KING: Three hundred and seventy-two hundred, four hundred and seven votes at midnight when many of you at home perhaps went to bed. Then overnight, 1:00 a.m., it drops to 249,497. They continued to count overnight. At 2:00 a.m., it is 118,000 and changed. By 4:00 a.m., we are down a little more, 117,000. And then as the count continues through today, 10:00 a.m., you get to 103,000. And then 9:00 tonight, we see it down to 39,000. And then we pop out to where we are now and it is 33,000.

So, that has been a steady trend as they count the votes. So, you're in the Biden campaign headquarters, you are saying, what is still out, which counties have not finished the count. You're in the Trump campaign --

BLITZER: Show us.

KING: -- headquarters, you're saying please, finish the count and get to 100 because this trend line is not going our way. Fulton County is the largest county, it is Atlanta and the suburbs around it, as you can see, heavily democratic vote. Joe Biden is running it up and running it up even more in these mail-in ballots that they're counting today.

We know Democrats decided to vote more by mail because of the pandemic. So you see Fulton County, Joe Biden is getting 72 percent, and they still have votes to count tonight. Our Gary Tuchman is right there keeping an eye on this.

DeKalb County is even more lopsided to Joe Biden, 83 percent, and they still have 10 percent of the ballots to count. So we know there are more ballots here. You come over here to Gwinnett, they are up to 95, so they're almost done but you're still counting ballots. And look at the vote totals in Gwinnett County. You are talking about very populated suburbs outside of Atlanta here, five percent, has a way to go.

Another place we know that is voting democratic is over here, 87 percent, Chatham County. Again, Joe Biden is getting 57 percent here. He needs a little bit higher than that in the average, but there's more vote possibility here as we count them.

And so that's the issue right now. The president's lead, again, down to 33,000. It was 372,000 when we switched from Tuesday to Wednesday morning back at midnight. So the trend line has been against the president all day long. That doesn't mean Joe Biden gets there at the finish line. But right now in the Biden campaign, you're looking at metro Atlanta.

I just want to check down here. Columbus, as well, some more votes here as well in a place where democrat -- again, you can tell by the numbers. It is not as big. It is not as big a population center but 89 percent. So they're still counting votes here. Let's come across in the blue as we look, 92 percent here, much smaller. You see the vote totals here.

[22:10:00]

KING: For the bulk of these votes, the bulk of these votes are here in suburban Atlanta, and you are looking around saying are there places where the president can make up some big ground. Most of this, this is typical all across America, and it is a tribute to President Trump. He runs it up in the small rural counties, but there's just not the math. He is 71 percent here. So there are still counting votes in Dodge County.

The issue is you're going to pick maybe a few hundred which helps, which helps in a close race. Every vote counts. But the bulk of this is going to happen right here in metro Atlanta, and we will keep counting.

BLITZER: Thirty-three thousand, three hundred. Most of the votes they're counting are the mail-in ballots as opposed to the day-of ballots.

KING: That's right.

BLITZER: Take a look at this. We are going to show our viewers how tight some of these remaining contests are right now. In Nevada, the former vice president is ahead by 7,647. In Georgia right now, Trump is ahead by 33,300 as we've been pointing out. In North Carolina, he is ahead by 76,737. In Arizona, Biden is ahead by 79,173. In Pennsylvania right now, the president is ahead by 186,755.

John, you know, we have covered a lot of these contests over the years. Night two, this is not night one, it is night two. We have got these races so close right now. It is pretty unusual, I think.

KING: Oh, it is highly unusual because we have two dynamics at play all at once. This is the collision of the campaign and the coronavirus. Again, we have a record setting day today in terms of the new infections. We are not talking about that as much today because we are talking about this, counting the votes. But because of the pandemic, number one, this is an evenly divided country. I mean, look at this, 50 to 48, 71.

The good thing about this election, no matter who you voted for, is turnout is up, participation. Even in the middle of a pandemic, more people voting, 71 million votes for Joe Biden, 71.5, and 67.9, nearly 68 million votes for President Trump.

Let's go back in time and look. Hilary Clinton carried the popular vote. President Trump won the election because of Electoral College. It was 65.8 to 62. So, both of these candidates are getting huge numbers. Donald Trump's number is now past where Hillary Clinton was four years ago and yet it is not enough to win the popular vote. That is one dynamic.

We have an evenly divided country that is fighting this out. You see this. You see this as you play it out. Then we have the voting. It is so unusual. Normally, states can count faster. Some of these states would have counted the votes faster but they have three -- most of the states have three different things they're dealing with.

People who voted by mail in some states, including the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, did not have a lot of experience with mail-in ballots. It was mostly a vote on Election Day state. You have all these mail-in ballots. In some states, there are millions of them.

Then you have people who stood in line to vote early in the days before Election Day. They have to count those ballots. And then you have the people who showed up yesterday, traditional Election Day, day of voters, at polling centers where people had to be socially distanced, where the poll workers had to be spread out, where people are wearing masks, and they're trying to do their best to keep people safe.

So because of that, you heard the Fulton County election director with Gary a short time ago, they had 25 people on his staff who got COVID. In the middle of this pandemic, the heroes are these election workers all around the country and the American people who voted in just remarkable numbers. Because of the collision of all of those things, it is taking longer to count the votes.

BLITZER: Let's check in with Jim Acosta, our chief White House correspondent right now. What are you hearing from inside the White House, inside the Trump campaign?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, right now, they are really focused on Arizona, Arizona and Georgia. Right now, the feeling is inside the Trump Campaign, and this may be just wishful thinking at this point, but they're looking at the numbers, as John King is looking at the numbers. They believe they can claw back Arizona.

I know we haven't called it, but other outlets have called it. They believe they can claw back Arizona, put that in the Trump column, and then perhaps they're back in business.

Now, obviously we're waiting for those results to come in, but they believe that those late returns potentially could put Arizona back in the president's column.

Now, as for Georgia, I talked to a Trump adviser about this just a short time ago and this adviser said Georgia is a big deal. Georgia is going to separate -- this adviser said a few moments ago, Georgia is going to be the difference between the White House and the outhouse for Donald Trump. He has to win Georgia. If the president does not win Georgia, this election is over for President Trump, in the words of this Trump campaign adviser.

I talked to a separate GOP official close to the campaign, Wolf, who said there is a feeling of resignation building inside the Trump campaign and inside Team trump that perhaps this election is slipping away. They just don't want to admit it at this point. They don't want to accept defeat, in the words of this GOP official.

So, Wolf, they are basically putting all of their eggs in Arizona. They feel at this point they have to claw back Arizona to stay in business.

And then Georgia is just make or break. If Georgia slips away, not only are they going to be shocked by that, they believe that that is essentially the end of the road for President Trump, and then he will no longer be president of the United States come January, Joe Biden will win this race, in the words of this Trump adviser.

[22:15:01]

ACOSTA: As this adviser said, the difference between the White House and the outhouse for Donald Trump, Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, it has been pretty extraordinary today, Jim. We haven't seen the president come before the cameras today, the whole day. He has tweeted a little bit. Not much. He has tweeted a little bit. Why haven't we seen him? We know that Biden went out and made a statement to the American people. Why hasn't the president?

ACOSTA: Well, you know, he has been in his social media bunker all day long. He has been tweeting out all kinds of things, all sorts of misinformation. We haven't been putting a lot of that out there because it is just misleading and false in many cases. So we're just not going to put it out there.

I will tell you, talking to this Trump adviser I was speaking with a moment ago who has been in touch with the president, you know, at different points throughout the day, this adviser says, you know, while the president understands how serious the situation is, how much jeopardy he is right now, that he is focused on winning, that he is talking to his lawyers, talking to campaign officials, talking to relatives, trying to figure out some way to claw this back.

Looking at the numbers right now, he knows Joe Biden is in the driver's seat. But, as you know, Wolf, the president has defied gravity before. He did these four years ago. And there's still a belief, it may be a fleeting belief inside the Trump campaign, that somehow they can eke this out.

But they need to claw back a state that's already been called by other news outlets. That would be pretty remarkable for the president to pull that off. And at the same time, they are just so nervous about Georgia. They did not see this coming. They did not expect this to happen. They thought Joe Biden was doing very well in Georgia but they did not think the election would potentially come down to Georgia, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yeah, 24 hours ago, he was doing great. He was up by about 350,000 votes. Now, it is 33,000 votes. All right. Stand by, Jim. Let's talk a little bit, John, about Arizona first. The president thinks he can claw it back. Is that wishful thinking on his part?

KING: Well, let me take issue with the terminology. It is interesting when you listen to Jim described the mindset and the words they use. Claw it back. Claw it back. Last night, the president said, I'm going to go to the Supreme Court. That's how the president thinks.

He cannot claw it back. They are counting votes. He can win. They can count votes and he can win the state of Arizona. The president can't do anything about that.

Now that we have the people whose job it is, public servants who are counting votes. Can he get there? Absolutely. It is because, as we said, Joe Biden's lead was over 200,000 at midnight last night. It is down to 79,000 right now. Most of the votes that are out are going to come from here.

But, we will see. The last time we got votes from Maricopa County, from Kyung Lah, it actually narrowed Biden's lead. Biden is still winning Maricopa County, but smaller. The president is catching up there. He has narrowed the lead there.

Then you come down to Pima County. We talked to the secretary of state a couple of hours ago. There are more votes down here. Again, Joe Biden is winning 60 percent.

The question is, in the two population centers, Maricopa and Pima, when the rest of those votes come up, Joe Biden needs to run up the score. He needs to run up the score because you do have these more -- they are smaller but you have these rural counties where the president is winning, and so 87 percent here.

So these votes are going to come in. Again, we don't know. They could be all democratic mail-in ballots. But the odds tell you the president has been carrying these counties. When you go around the rest of the state, these are smaller counties. You're not going to get giant vote counts like you do in the other counties.

But, again, the president is getting 66 percent of the vote here. The president is getting 52 percent of the vote here. We move over here. The president is getting 74 percent of the vote in Mohave County and you see 82 percent.

Look at the number here, 69,000, nowhere near what you get when you come into Maricopa County and Phoenix. But, but when you piece it together, that is how the president wins in states. He loses the cities. He loses the close-in suburbs.

The issue is Arizona is there are not as many places, not as many people. Most of the people live here and here and here, the democratic county up here where Joe Biden is doing quite well, and they have votes to count. So, you just look at the map and it speaks for itself. Joe Biden could get more votes here. We assume.

But Maricopa County is complicated. Remember, if you go back in time, four years ago, the president carried this county. So it is a little more complicated. You see it blue right now. You just think this is not Philadelphia.

When we go to Pennsylvania, you look at Philadelphia. Joe Biden is going to get more votes as they count votes in Philadelphia. This is more complicated because it is trending democratic. That's why Joe Biden is leading it right now.

But there are plenty of Republicans in Maricopa County. That's why the last time they gave us those votes, the president narrowed Joe Biden's lead. This is most of the ball game, but there are more votes out in these rural counties. So it will be critical tonight when the votes come in here. Can the president claw it back? It is just a language they use that insults the integrity of the process. I'm going to go to the Supreme Court. He is calling Republican governors and he is angry. This is one of the challenges for the president when Jim was mentioning that because he is talking about Georgia where Joe Biden is coming back right now. We don't know if he is getting to finish line.

We are talking about Arizona where Biden leads although that lead has been shrinking. The Trump campaign should just be staying calm, trusting his people on the ground to watch what is happening. However, you have a Republican president.

[22:20:00]

KING: He has been beating up the Democratic governors repeatedly in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He beats them up all the time. It is a much more difficult case to call the conservative Trump-like Republican governor of Georgia, the conservative Republican governor of Arizona to tell them you doubt the integrity of their election process.

You know, they're not going to stand for it because they're going to run for reelection someday, and they have to defend their state, even against the president.

This gets interesting if Georgia comes back in a way where the president doesn't like what is happening in Arizona. He reflexively attacks the Democratic governors. Watch to see if he wants to go after two Republicans who have been Trump allies in Georgia and Arizona.

BLITZER: You heard Jim Acosta say the president is freaking out about Georgia right now. If he loses Georgia, it is over as far as he is concerned.

KING: He should be concerned about Georgia. You know, I guess, you know, if you are -- it is personal. One of the things we should give all politicians grace -- people who don't like the president out there are going to beat me up for this. It is stressful. It is stressful to run for office, whether you are running for mayor or running for president. And so here you are at this point.

Imagine Joe Biden and Donald Trump tonight, and I'm sorry for the Democrats out there who are going to say I'm being kind to the president. The president said some horrible things last night. I'm just saying, as a human being, he is watching these vote counts come in, and, again, you were ahead by 372,000 votes at midnight last night. You thought you had this, but they're still counting votes.

That is why again the president's words about this are reckless. This is a democracy. We count votes. We don't stop on election night. We count until we're done. But there's a chance. He should be nervous about Georgia absolutely. That's why he has been on the phone all day.

The question is the ballots have been cast. They're sitting in secure locations. The trained professionals are counting them. He can't claw his way back. He can watch and see what happens. And, yes, have his people on the ground to have eyeballs on all of this just like the Biden campaign down. People will count. Hopefully, we will get more votes tonight and we will have a better picture.

BLITZER: When he sees the number that Biden has 3.5 million more popular votes than he, we know how the president looks at these kinds of numbers. The race for the White House is now down to just a handful of ballot- run states. "Election Night in America" continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to our continuing coverage. We are waiting for more votes to come in from Arizona, Georgia as well, Nevada, hopefully by tomorrow, we expect to have more. Nevada right now, Joe Biden is ahead by 7,647. In Georgia, the president is ahead by 33,300, but that lead has been narrowing.

In North Carolina, the president is in the lead, 76,737. Arizona, 79,173, Joe Biden is ahead. But that lead also has been narrowing over the course of the day. In Pennsylvania, 184,397. A lot of votes are still to be counted in Pennsylvania.

Back now with our team. Let's look at Arizona. Anywhere from 600 to 650,000 votes outstanding there were, we got a dump of 80,000 votes in Maricopa County, which did sort of narrow the lead.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: Yeah, and I think Rick would say this, as well. They hit right on the nose the number that they think they need, but they need to continue it and hope that they continue to get 59, 59.

There are, you know, there's no guarantee that that's going to happen. I'm sure they're going to watch this next crunch with interest, but --

COOPER: There are --

AXELROD: You talk to people on both sides and they expect this thing will narrow.

COOPER: There are enough uncounted votes in Arizona that it could go to President Trump.

RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. And the first crunch kept hope alive for the Trump campaign. There again, you know, we're hearing encouraging signs. They think they're in this thing. They think they can pull it out. They think the same thing with Nevada. Again, the character of the votes in Nevada is recently- dropped off votes just like in --

COOPER: The lead in Nevada for Joe Biden is 7,000.

SANTORUM: Again, going back to sort of the Nevada issue, because these are recently dropped-off votes, the big issue at the time that Trump was driving in Nevada was Biden is going to close the economy.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah.

SANTORUM: See what the Europeans are doing. See what folks like Biden are doing in Europe.

COOPER: Which in Las Vegas, obviously, is a huge issue.

SANTORUM: In Las Vegas, tourism. I mean, devastating the economy for blue-collar workers in Nevada. So the fact that these are recent votes, this was a big issue at the time, again, am I making the case for Donald Trump? Yes, I am, but I think it is also a legitimate case to make.

BORGER: It may be the one place in the country, and I think we were talking about this last night, where COVID could actually work against Joe Biden.

SANTORUM: Yeah.

BORGER: Because --

SANTORUM: Six electoral votes though.

BORGER: Because six of -- I mean, these people are unemployed, tourism is down. They're scared. However, you do have an increase in Latino voting and you will have to see how that plays out. You know, the Democrats -- I don't have to tell Van this -- have been very disappointed about Latino turnout, but they're hoping that that will help them here.

But, again, all of these numbers are quite dynamic and all everybody has to look at is say, OK, these are my voters because they voted -- you know, they voted late, they must be Democrat. They voted early, they must be Republican. That's not true.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The reason it is all so weird, it is weird, this is weird. We are talking about Arizona and you never had a situation where it could go this way.

So it is conceivable if you do have a bunch of people who -- last time, when you had Hillary Clinton, we assumed we were going to have a referendum on Donald Trump's bigotry. That was the entire view in the mainstream media. But for some people, it was a referendum on Hilary Clinton's perceived elitism.

Our view had been it is going to be a referendum on COVID as a public health disaster mismanaged by Donald Trump. For some people, it is going to be a referendum on the lockdown. That's what you got.

BORGER: We saw that.

JONES: If you got a bunch of people who voted late and they are voting thumbs down on lockdown politics, you could have a big surprise tonight in Arizona.

BORGER: We saw it in the exit polls.

COOPER: And Nevada.

JONES: And Nevada.

BORGER: Yeah.

[22:29:59]

BORGER: In the early exit polls that we started looking at last night and tonight, you saw that stark difference between, you know, the Trump voters think that it is a lockdown that has hurt the economy. The Biden voters think it is COVID.

COOPER: So just to be clear, if the president wins Arizona, wins Nevada, then it is Pennsylvania.

AXELROD: Well, yeah, he also has to hang on to Georgia.

COOPER: That's right.

BORGER: That's right.

AXELROD: Here is the thing. I think we don't know what is going to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: True.

AXELROD: After a while, all the speculation doesn't mean anything because this vote is coming in and we are going to know. But you do have a sense listening to the reporting from the White House tonight and just thinking about what is going on here of a campaign and a president that's sort of in a bunker right now because they're fighting on all of these different fronts and they need everything to kind of fall into place.

Joe Biden seems to be on a march in Pennsylvania. If he gets that piece --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is done.

AXELROD: -- it is over. I mean --

COOPER: And Georgia, and a possible march in Georgia.

AXELROD: Yeah.

BORGER: Yes.

AXELROD: There are so many different ways he can end this thing because he has 258 electoral votes right now. Trump is sitting at 213. Yes, he will get North Carolina. Alaska is hanging out. But there are big pieces that he has to have and a lot of things aren't going his way right now.

BORGER: And then you have a president on the phone, according to Kaitlan Collins, on the phone talking to the governor of Arizona, the governor of Georgia, and complaining because things aren't going the way he wants, because he has to blame them.

Now, you have always said, Rick, sometimes the president gets in his own way, can be his worst enemy, et cetera. And he cannot acknowledge that perhaps some of this may be his fault.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

BORGER: These people worked really hard for him, no matter what occurs.

JONES: One thing I don't think we're acknowledging enough, the system is working. All of these places, you've got Democrats and Republicans standing next to each other tonight, shoulder to shoulder, counting ballots. There's no fist fight. You had some people trying to get in say, stop the vote. Take those people away.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in this country, Democrats and Republicans, who worked their butts off against each other, are in rooms right now helping each other make the count to go down. That's a healthy democracy at work. If it takes them a couple more days, God bless them. I think it is important to point that stuff out.

Also, some good stuff has happened that we haven't talked about. I just want to say, we got the first female mayor in Miami, we got the first trans state senator out of Delaware, we got two openly gay black congressmen, male congressmen, we got the first formerly incarcerated state senator in Washington. So American democracy continues to move and to grow and good stuff is going on.

COOPER: You also have a big growth of Republican women serving in Congress.

SANTORUM: No, look, I think it was a good night for Republicans. You're right. There's still a bunch of races out there for Republicans that they can pick up and we can pick up maybe as many as eight to 10 seats in the House of Representatives. No one was predicting that coming into this.

JONES: That's the bad news. I agree. That's the bad news.

SANTORUM: And, you know, two interesting things is Georgia could be, you know, Armageddon for the United States Senate.

COOPER: How so?

SANTORUM: Because looks like --

JONES: Two senators.

SANTORUM: Yeah. Looks like David Perdue, who is barely above 50 percent right now, if he drops below 50 percent, and given what we're hearing from John King and the outstanding ballots being primarily from the Atlanta suburbs, Perdue is going to drop below 50 percent, which means it will be a run-off and there already is a run-off in the special --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two run-offs.

AXELROD: There are four people in Georgia who thought they were getting their television sets back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way.

BORGER: Right.

JONES: (INAUDIBLE).

AXELROD: Think of the --

SANTORUM: Think of the money that was spent --

AXELROD: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

SANTORUM: Think of the money spent just north of here on Jaime Harrison to go after Lindsey Graham. You know, what, $75 million or something.

BORGER: More, I think.

SANTORUM: There will be -- they probably can't spend $100 million in two months, but they will try.

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: They will absolutely -- it will --

JONES: But the reason why, the reason why is because you are going to determine whether or not Joe Biden can govern. That's for us. That's what that is going to mean. In other words, if you get those two senators, Joe Biden has a shot to actually govern. Otherwise, you are handing the man an airplane that he can't fly because the fear is that the republican Senate will just not cooperate with Joe Biden and we are going to be in a mess.

BORGER: Well, I see that from your point of view. I think Joe Biden, should he become president, will be able to govern no matter what.

JONES: I hope that's right.

BORGER: Because he doesn't have to -- he is not going to get as bogged down with fighting with the Democratic Party. What he would be able to do is say -- and I think we were talking about this earlier, Rick, is that you say, look, this is -- this is the land of the doable. This is what I can get done. Let's be pragmatic.

We have heard about it forever during this campaign, I work on both sides of the aisle, I know how to do it.

JONES: He wants to do it.

BORGER: That's his nature. In a way, I don't want to be too pollyannish here at all because I don't know whether Republicans would want to work with him given the polarized county we live in.

[22:35:04]

BORGER: But there might be places that he would be able to do it and so it could work either way.

AXELROD: The one place that I think he should be concerned about with the Republican majority and I have some experience with this having been with Obama --

(LAUGHTER)

AXELROD: -- is he needs to get an economic program, a real -- another recovery plan through. There's been stumbling on the stimulus program. There's a great deal of need. The economy is going to need to be jump started.

You know, if Mitch McConnell, who is a seasonal budget hawk, decides he is once again concerned about spending and says, no, we're not going to go that way and hobbles his ability to step on the gas here and restore the economy, but we're getting ahead of ourselves --

COOPER: Let's get back to the race.

(LAUGHTER)

AXELROD: What about 2024?

(LAUGHTER)

JONES: Funny you should mention that.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: So, another grouping of votes, a tranche (ph) --

BORGER: I love that word.

COOPER: Yeah. It is like hunker down, a word we only use tonight --

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: -- from Arizona tonight. Will that give -- yeah, and Georgia, as well -- will tranche (ph) in Arizona give us much more of a sense?

AXELROD: Well, I think it will, if it is, again, tilting --

SANTORUM: Fifty-nine President Trump.

AXELROD: -- in favor of Trump by 59 percent or more. I think that would be a hopeful sign for him. If it is more modest, if it is more of a push, then I think, you know, the Biden folks would take heart in that. So, yeah, I think it will give us an indication. I don't imagine we're going to see responsible news organizations call Arizona tonight.

COOPER: And Georgia, what about it?

BORGER: Well, I think we are waiting for DeKalb and all of the, you know, counties to come in. Look, again, we are reading these tea leaves which have proven to be pretty accurate. But if they're late voters, you know, the assumption is -- and more minority voters, the assumption is they are going to be Biden supporters.

The question is what margin. If you look at these early results, you see that Joe Biden is really racking up tremendous margins in urban areas. So like that, I think, is the fear of Donald Trump.

COOPER: At this point though the legal challenges that the president has been talking about and that his people have been talking about, how much of it is just right now they feel they need to kind of give some sort of sense of momentum or some sort of a plan, they're going to see where things lay a day or two from now when all of the votes are mostly in and then all of that stuff will kind of filter through?

SANTORUM: Yeah, look, the White House is deploying teams of lawyers to all of the close states, as I suspect Biden is doing the exact same thing, to protect their ground and to investigate what's going on, to watch these final votes being counted, to talk to people on the ground and see were there irregularities, what were they, is there an opportunity for us to squeeze votes here or there.

So there's going to be forensic lawyers out there doing a forensic analysis of how the vote was conducted and whether there's an opportunity to squeeze votes somewhere in probably 10 states.

COOPER: Are they on retainer or do they bill by the hour?

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: Yes. Probably both.

JONES: One thing I just want to put out there because I know for a lot of people, the fact that there's hundreds of thousands of ballots that are still missing because of the postal service just somehow not doing its job, I wonder how different this -- would we be done by now? Would we all be home?

I just think that there are so many different -- we have to recover as a country from so many different things that happen. But having the United States Postal Service somehow get politicized and possibly sabotaged and now here we are sitting here and we are biting our nails in this, you know, 100,000, 300,000 missing ballots in America.

SANTORUM: We don't know --

JONES: Well, that's the fear. That's the fear.

COOPER: What do you mean that's the fear?

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: You can't just say that. Where is the evidence?

SANTORUM: You are sitting here accusing the Trump administration of putting boogie man up there to scare the American public and you are doing the same thing.

JONES: No, I'm not doing the same thing.

SANTORUM: There's no justification for that number.

JONES: I do have justification for the number. That is a -- there is a court case right now where they're being --

SANTORUM: Just because they're accusing somebody --

JONES: I'm sorry. If somebody goes into court --

SANTORUM: Donald Trump goes into court and you say it is bogus. You guys go to court and you say it is real. You can't do that.

JONES: It usually is.

JONES: I can point out and I think that you would agree with me on the ordinary circumstances. The mere fact that in our country, the United States Postal Service, even appears to be politicized and then when you have people in court right now saying -- and judges ordering a search for ballots, that is a horrific outcome for America. All I'm saying is it is --

SANTORUM: Judges reacting to someone's complaint to prudently see if there's any validity to it is not -- does not say that --

[22:40:04]

AXELROD: Rick, we have already -- I mean it has been demonstrated that the mail -- that the postal service had a problem, that the postal --

SANTORUM: Right, but it is the same thing as counting vote. It doesn't mean it is fraud. It doesn't mean people are deliberately doing things bad.

BORGER: No, it means it is incompetent (ph).

AXELROD: It does mean there's a problem. It does mean there's a problem and --

SANTORUM: Just like there's a problem counting votes sometimes.

AXELROD: There was a lot of pressure from Congress to try to address this, to pump more money into it. The president was reluctant. He had his -- a campaign, major campaign donor take over the postal service. You put that picture together and you see what we're seeing now, and it does create -- it does create some unease. The point is, the point is --

SANTORUM: You just say that Donald Trump needs evidence. We are hearing this discussion.

BORGER: Yes.

SANTORUM: You need evidence.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: I think I'm now on pretty firm ground if a judge orders a search for a couple hundred thousand ballots, maybe couple hundred thousand ballots are missing. Anyway --

BORGER: What about --

SANTORUM: It doesn't mean you're going to find it.

BORGER: What about stopping the use of the automatic sorting machines, for example, which hurt mail delivery? I mean, look, if it is not political, it is incompetence, but something is wrong, and we all know that something is wrong.

And by the way, something is wrong with the way these -- with the way votes have been counted. We need to know, we need to change, now that we've seen how many people voted in a pandemic and how it increased participation with having more people being able to vote by mail --

JONES: On both sides.

BORGER: On both side, something has to be done. I know it was said 20 years ago after Bush/Gore, but something has to be done to make sure that it rises to the level of competency so American people can believe their votes count and are delivered.

SANTORUM: And there's nothing blocking the states from doing that. Some states do, some states don't want to.

BORGER: And I know people have looked into a federalized system. People have looked into a federalized system --

SANTORUM: No.

BORGER: And it is not going to happen.

SANTORUM: If you want to create an opportunity for real fraud, you create one big, uniform system that someone can hack into. The beautiful thing about our system, it is run by a bunch of local folks with volunteers.

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: You try to put to a scheme together to create fraud in that system, you are really doing something.

BORGER: So you have different states with different ways of counting ballots and one takes five days and one takes three days because of what the state legislatures have ordered. Some are Republican and some are Democrat.

JONES: I agree with the senator in this regard. I don't mind the differences. You are right. It would be hard to screw them all up at the same time, which is actually a good thing.

BORGER: Yeah.

JONES: But there is a Voting Rights Act that has been shot down by the Supreme Court that John Lewis was beaten for and John Lewis tried to work for, and the Republicans, by the way, helped pass that thing. This was a bipartisan bill, one of the more bipartisan successes.

The Supreme Court shot it down. There's an opportunity now for Republicans and Democrats to come together to get the Voting Rights Act done again to at least raise the floor. If we can't agree to at least raise the floor, not top down coordination, but raise the floor, something is wrong.

COOPER: Yeah. The race for president in Georgia is narrowing again. A check on the key battleground states in the race for White House is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Let's get to Key Race Alert, check in and see what is going on in Georgia. Right now, 16 electoral votes. Ninety-five percent of the estimated vote is now in. The president's lead over Joe Biden has shrunk once again. It is now down to 31,748, 49.7 percent for Donald Trump and 49.1 percent for Biden. Close race in Georgia right now. We will watch it.

In Pennsylvania, the president's lead is 184,000 plus, 58.8 percent to 47.9 percent, 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania. Still 12 percent of the vote outstanding in Pennsylvania. Eighty-eight percent of the estimated vote is in.

In Arizona right now, Joe Biden's lead is just under 80,000. Eighty- four percent of the vote is in, Biden with 50.7 percent, 47.9 percent for Trump.

In Nevada right now, 86 percent of the vote is in. Biden maintains his lead of about 7,600 votes, 49.3 percent to 48.7 percent. Six electoral votes in Nevada.

Let's go over to John King. He is watching all of these races for us very closely. What is jumping out at you, Pennsylvania right now?

KING: Pennsylvania is one. I was looking at the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Again, we have several states where things are trending, right? President Trump's lead right now is 184,397, 88 percent in. We are waiting.

The biggest thing we are waiting for is right here, this is the largest county in the state, population center, 67 of them in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is the largest vote center and we are waiting. You see, we are at 70 percent right there, and we know that Joe Biden is getting 79 percent of the vote.

So again, common sense tells you, Philadelphia votes blue, votes democratic. Will Joe Biden gets 79 percent of what's left? No. We don't know that. But what we know, he is going to get the bulk of what is left.

And so when you're looking at what is left to count, you look at that one first because you look at that margin right there and you think you could get a number of votes just like that right out of Pennsylvania. Arizona is trending towards the president. Biden has the lead. Georgia is trending towards Biden. The president has the lead.

Let us play out, Wolf, what has happened in Pennsylvania. Let me go back and start at the beginning here. Here we are midnight, last night. You see the president's lead, 548,200 votes. By 2:00 a.m., that had grown to 709,000 and changed.

Then 10:00 a.m. this morning, it is starting to come down a little bit. At 3:00 this afternoon, it is coming down a little more, 435,231. At 5 o'clock this afternoon, look at that big drop there, 276,979. Then at 9 o'clock tonight, you are at 195. And here you are, we come out now live reporting at 184,397.

Again, you are in the campaign headquarters and you see this trend. The more they count the outstanding votes, the more your margin shrinks.

[22:50:02]

KING: That is still a healthy margin, 184,000, 51 to 48 if you round up. I just showed you Philadelphia City. You are also looking here at Montgomery County. This is one of the suburbs around Philadelphia. Joe Biden is getting 62 percent of the vote. There are still some more votes to count.

You move over here to Chester County. Joe Biden is getting 56 percent of the vote. You still have 10 percent to count in here.

So that is what you're looking for, Philadelphia and the suburbs around it. That's the biggest vote part of the state and Allegheny County, as well.

BLITZER: But in Philadelphia, 30 percent of the vote is still outstanding. I think 70 percent that's in right now. That's 12 percent of the population of the whole state.

KING: And it's the biggest potential pool of democratic vote right here. Let us just go back in time. We showed you the popular vote turnout in this election. Four hundred and fifty-seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three is Joe Biden's total in Philadelphia right now. You go back four years ago, Hillary Clinton gets 584,000.

So we know turnout is up. So we know Joe Biden -- remember, Secretary Clinton gets 584,000. Joe Biden is at 457,000. So you know that number is coming up. We don't know exactly how much but we do know 30 percent of the vote is out there. So it is going to come up by a sizeable amount.

Again, will Joe Biden get close to 80 percent of the remaining votes? We don't know. They need to count them. But you it's the city of Philadelphia. He's going to get a large majority of those votes, which is why again if you're in the Trump campaign war room, you're nervous, because you see it is 182,000. That looks like a big number. This is a big state. Look how many votes have been cast, 3.2 million there.

So we have a ways to go here. Again, I just want to check. You look in Allegheny County here, 89 percent. This has been static for quite some time. We're missing 10 percent of the vote out here. Again, Biden has the lead, 59 to 40. There's no guarantee it comes in at the same rate. But one can safely assume you're going to have more democratic votes there.

So then, Wolf, the challenge is to look around. The president does really well in these smaller rural counties, 95 percent. Possibly, some more votes there for the president, 95 percent of the vote and you see he gets 75 percent of the vote. So it's complicated. We're obviously going to look at Philadelphia and suburbs and Pittsburgh and the suburbs. Those are where we know the most votes are.

The question is if Joe Biden continues to narrow the gap, are there more for the president in some of the smaller counties as they come? Again, you see a small place here. The president is getting 87 percent of the vote. You're not going to make up a ton of change here because it's a smaller population center. But it's something in a close race. You want to count every one of them.

I just want to pull out and see how we are doing. These are some of the counties where the president does well. Luzerne County, up to 95 percent here. You're just looking, go through the whole thing. Let me just check. Lackawanna, Joe Biden was born here in Scranton, 54 percent, they're done, 99 percent. So they're just about done there.

That's what you do at this point in the race. You see the trend line. Biden has been cutting into the president's lead since early this morning and the overnight hours. The question is with 182,000 in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, this would be game changing.

As we speak tonight, Joe Biden is leading in Arizona, leading in Nevada. The lead in Arizona has been shrinking. The lead is Nevada is quite modest, 7,000. President Trump could win both of those states. Don't get me wrong. But if Joe Biden protects those two leads, he's the next president of the United States.

So, if you're looking at something like this, again, if you're Joe Biden, Arizona might slip away, Nevada might slip away, 20 electoral votes here, this more than makes up for both of them if you can get the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So, again, you're in the war rooms right now, doing the chess. If we hold, Joe Biden's campaign, we hold Arizona, Nevada, we win. If we don't, where can we pick them up? They're watching Georgia. You see the narrowing lead here, 31,748. Again, at midnight last night, that lead was 372,000 votes.

So, the president's lead, Joe Biden has been coming in, those votes just like -- this is a common theme throughout this election, Philadelphia and the suburbs. The key if Joe Biden can come back in Pennsylvania, Atlanta and the suburbs. The key to whether Joe Biden can come back in the state of Georgia. We will watch them.

We know from our White House team the president is anxious about this. He's been talking to governors. There's a Republican governor in Arizona and in Georgia. These are Democratic governors up here. The president's team now is watching the vote counts and deciding what they do next and it really depends on whether he narrows the gap. He protects the leads where he has them, the states that are red.

I just want to show our views. Not called, not called, and not called. You take them up, you see the grey. We haven't called these states. When we have the map up and full like this, we are showing you who is leading. And so we have to walk through and explain it.

North Carolina looks good for the president even though we haven't called it. But Georgia and Pennsylvania, two states where the president is leading, but the leads have been shrinking almost by the hour. We have ways to go.

BLITZER: We certainly do. We're not going anywhere. Coming up, we are expecting more votes to come in from Georgia and Arizona. The margins are razor thin as the country waits for the results in this race for the presidency.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We are seeing extraordinary contests play out in key battlegrounds on this "Election Night in America." I'm Wolf Blitzer.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Trump are watching every vote tonight as ballots are still being counted. We expect more results soon from two of the six states that are too early to call. We're talking about Arizona and Georgia.

Biden is maintaining a lead in Arizona and now on the president's heels in Georgia, states that went to Trump four years ago. We're also awaiting results from Pennsylvania and Nevada in the hours ahead.

Biden is looking for the final battlegrounds that could put him over the top and reach 270 electoral votes. He has 253 right now compared to Trump's 213. Let's break down the votes in this key race alert. Let's start in Arizona right now with 11 electoral votes at stake. Eighty-four percent of the vote is in. Biden maintains his lead of nearly 80,000 votes. He's got 50.7 percent to 47.9 percent.

In Nevada, Biden also has the lead but only about 7,600 votes right now. Eighty-six percent of the vote is in.

[23:00:01]

BLITZER: Biden is at 49.3 percent. Trump is at 48.7 percent. Six electoral votes are at stake right now.