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CNN Live Event/Special
Biden Campaign Confident in Presidential Victory; Trump Lead in Georgia Drops to 9K; News Conference On Pennsylvania Vote Count; Trump Leads In PA By 90k, With 326k Votes To Be Counted; Sen. Pat Toomey (R- PA) Is Interviewed About the Trump-Biden Race In Pennsylvania; President Trump To Make Remarks At 6:30 p.m. ET. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired November 05, 2020 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[17:00:06]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We're standing by for an update from battleground Pennsylvania as our election coverage continues. I'm Wolf Blitzer.
Tonight, former Vice President Joe Biden says he has no doubt he will ultimately win the White House and defeat President Trump once all the votes are counted. Right now all eyes are on Pennsylvania, where Biden has been closing the gap with Trump and threatening the President's lead as results from Neyland ballots are revealed.
We expect Pennsylvania's Secretary of State to share new information this hour. We'll have live coverage.
Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia also could tilt the election one way or another. But Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes, that's enough to push Biden over the top above the 270 needed to win.
Biden has multiple opportunities to build on his 253 electoral votes. But Trump, who has 213 electoral votes needs to win Pennsylvania in order to win re-election. It's time for another key race alert.
And let's go to Pennsylvania right now, the lead that President Trump has over Joe Biden has narrowed to 90,542 with 93 percent of the estimated vote is in. Trump has 50.1 percent, Biden 48.7 percent. Remember, 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania.
Let's walk over to John King, who's looking at Pennsylvania very, very closely. We're going to be hearing from the Secretary of State, we're going to be getting new numbers. But meanwhile, the number has gone down, Trump's leads and 90,542.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Ninety thousand. Every state -- this has been the case now for the past 24 hours, every time we get new votes. Most of them are coming in from the Democratic strongholds here. We're waiting on Allegheny out there.
But even as some of these Republican Trump counties begin to report their leftover mail-in ballots as they count them, we're seeing Joe Biden makeup gains because we know across the country, but we know especially in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Democrats voted disproportionately by mail. Those are the ballots being counted now.
And so you've just seen this play out, the President's lead was once over 600,000 votes, it is now 90,000 votes. And so the question is, there is zero question Joe Biden has momentum. The question is, does he have enough to get him to the finish line? We'll he just narrow this and make a dramatic or will he pass?
One of the places we're waiting for is the largest vote basket in the case. That would be the city of Philadelphia, 86 percent. And we've been stuck at that number for some time. It was 80 percent to begin the day, we've been stuck at 86 for some time. It's 12 percent plus of the state's population.
Democrats believe they did a good job of turnout. We'll see what the final number is.
Here's one way to judge that, 494,000 votes right now for Joe Biden. You go back in time, the Clinton campaign actually thought they did a great job in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, in particular, with decent turnout last year in places like Milwaukee, places like Detroit, they had trouble with African American turnout.
They thought four years ago, they did a pretty good job in Philadelphia. So you see that, use that as your benchmark, 584,000. If Joe Biden can get up to that, it puts him in play in that state.
BLITZER: Let's go to Philadelphia. Kate Bolduan is on the ground for us over there.
Kate, what's going on?
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: All right, so Wolf, the whole ballgame now is how many ballots are outstanding and left to be counted. Statewide, the latest number that we have is 340,000 mail-in ballots are outstanding. Here in a big chunk of that is here in Philadelphia.
The latest numbers we have from officials here are there is between -- they estimate between 85,000 and 90,000 ballots that are still outstanding, still to be counted.
We also know in another large County, Allegheny County, home of Pittsburgh. The latest that we had was that there are between 35,000 and 36,000 mail-in ballots outstanding, those will not be counted until tomorrow, dealt with until tomorrow.
So that is where the kind of the biggest chunks, if you will, when it comes down to the counties of where these outstanding mail-in ballots are yet to be counted here in the Commonwealth.
We also have some information -- it's also will be interesting to hear from the Secretary of State if she has an update on the number of ballots that have come in after Election Day, those mailing ballots that are to be segregated, that are disputed by -- that are kind of in dispute or being contested, if you will.
We heard from Allegheny County officials that they have been told by the state and that was earlier today that just yesterday across the Commonwealth the number of those ballots that came in after Election Day was 10,000 of those mail-in ballots that are to be segregated.
It'll be interesting to hear what the Secretary of State has to say about those as well, because when you're talking about the margins that you and John are talking about, every single one of these ballots and votes matters.
[17:05:06]
BLITZER: You're absolutely right, Kate. Thank you very, very much. We'll check back with you. Kate Bolduan is in Philadelphia.
You know normally, you and I have covered a lot of elections, we see 93 percent of the vote is in one person has a 90,000 vote lead. We naturally assume, well, that looks pretty good. It's almost over, right?
KING: Right. Because you crunch that math, you crunch that math and, and Joe Biden needs to win, you know, 63 percent to 65 percent of the votes remain. Well, he's not getting 63 percent, 65 percent of the vote total right now. So normally you would say, oh, forget about it. Except this is the unusual, unorthodox election, where you had three kinds of voting.
And then voting by mail, the Democrats have a lopsided advantage, including in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Joe Biden suggests that you need somewhere between 63 percent and 65 percent, depending on the exact number of ballots still out there.
Well, in the vote counted today, in votes counted today, Joe Biden's getting 78 percent of those votes, Democrats voted disproportionately by mail. That is, most of what we're -- is being counted right now. So you glance at that number, in a normal election you would say doesn't work, the hill is too steep, no way you're going to get 63 percent, 64 percent of the vote when you're polling at 49.
When your account is at 49, however, just today, in the votes counted Joe Biden is getting 78 percent of the vote. So he is exceeding what he needs in the votes counted so far, doesn't mean he gets them in the rest of the day as they come in, but there's reason for hope in the Biden campaign, because right now you're exceeding the metric. And by a significant amount, hard to get.
BLITZER: You heard Kate say these are mail, mail-in ballots, which is -- which are skewed in favor of the Democrats at least right now.
All right, standby, we got a key race alert.
All right. Take a look at Georgia right now. President Trump's lead over Joe Biden is continuing to shrink. Right now it is only 9,525. He's got a lead of 9,525 votes over Joe Biden, 49.5 percent to 49.3 percent. Ninety-eight percent of the estimated vote is in but there are still several thousand votes outstanding in Georgia right now, 16 electoral votes, John King. That lead keeps shrinking and shrinking under 10,000.
KING: So here we are, 5:07pm in the East, 9,525. I wrote this down at 4:15. So less than an hour ago, it was 12,765. That's the metric we're watching today.
Again, just as in Pennsylvania, as the mail-in ballots are being counted, we said this at the beginning of the process, even before the polls closed on Tuesday, Republicans were expected to win the Election Day vote, people who voted in person on Election Day they did. And President Trump jumped out to a big early lead here. Democrats are dominating the mail-in voting, dominating with a capital D.
And Joe Biden now, this is, again, the Biden campaign, they think in both Pennsylvania and Georgia, think of a snowball going down the hill, Joe Biden is picking up votes as they go. That's not a guarantee that they pass. But every time this happens, and so let's see where they came in. We were waiting, and we're still waiting.
This is where it gets significant. We're waiting for 17,000 ballots to be cast here. This number has not changed, right. This number has not changed, the numbers up here, at least by my look at it during the day. This is Chatham County, it's Savannah, Joe Biden's getting 57 percent, 58 percent of the vote right here.
And this is key as they count these ballots. If Joe Biden's going to catch up, a lot of it's going to come right here.
BLITZER: Let's go to Savannah right now. Martin Savidge is on the ground for us in Savannah. What are you seeing over there, Martin?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we understand that Brad Raffensperger who is the Secretary of State, of course, for Georgia has scheduled a press conference about 25 minutes from now 5:30. So, we don't know exactly what he's going to say. But clearly, it's going to be something that will be impactful for the election.
Chatham County here, they're still tabulating the votes right now. What they're doing right now is sort of going through and looking at ballots that have been kicked out. These are ballots that the machine has identified that there's some sort of mismarking out some problem with the battle itself. And so you have Republicans, you have Democrats, and then you also have an Independent, who sit the room review.
This is in the old days where you hold up the hanging chads and look at it through the light. It's all done on computer now. And so they've got two teams that are inside working on it.
They won't say how many of these ballots had been kicked out. But of course, they're trying to whittle down that list of 17,000. They also won't say how far down that list they've gone. What we do know is that it's hoped at least by election officials here that they'll have a pretty good leg up on most of that number tonight. They will be updating to the Secretary of State later. They won't say exactly what time.
But we also know this county is going to have more ballots to look at and to count tomorrow. Primarily because as you know, Savannah is surrounded by a number of military bases. So they get a lot of overseas ballots. And here they have until 5:00 tomorrow to tabulate and count those ballots.
So, no matter how much is tabulated tonight, they know they'll still have more to do tomorrow. And they hope it won't go into the weekend. Wolf.
BLITZER: Yes, let's see what happens tomorrow, every vote counts, especially those military votes that are coming in.
[17:10:03]
Martin Savidge in Savannah for us. Thanks very much.
We're expecting two major news conferences this hour from Georgia and from Pennsylvania. These are two critical states, which potentially could determine who's going to be the next president United States.
KING: Yes. They're essential states and they're especially essential if you're the president United States who right now is looking at Joe Biden in 253 electoral votes.
Joe Biden right now is looking at 253 electoral votes, right? Donald Trump, you cannot get from 213 to 270 without Pennsylvania and Georgia, it's impossible. It is impossible. And so if Joe Biden wins, either one of those states, he's the next president of United States.
Joe Biden has other routes. If Donald Trump wins them both, that doesn't mean Donald Trump wins re-election because Joe Biden is leading in Arizona, leading in Nevada, those two states would get Joe Biden to 270. I'll just do it so you can see the math play out on your screen.
He's leading here, and he's leading here. Those would get him to 270.
Now, we're not done counting votes there. It may take another day or so to get there. But just those would get Joe Biden there. So he doesn't need Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maine, second congressional district.
So let's come at this from a different perspective. What does the President do?
Well, we expect the President's going to win Alaska. The President is leading in North Carolina, it's close, but it's been a stubborn steady lead. The expectation is, we're not there yet, but the expectation is that will stay there.
The President right now is leading in Maine, second congressional district.
Every time I touch this, I do this. Let me pick it up and fix it. Let me bring it back here.
Joe Biden is winning the rest of them, but the President is winning one of them. And so here's what you get, you get the President to 232.
Well, if Joe -- if the President wins here and here, he's in play, but he still has to win one of those, right? But if Joe Biden takes away one of these, it's just impossible. You can't -- the President's math, you can't get to 270.
So the president must win Pennsylvania, he must win Georgia. If he does that, he has a path to reelection. If he does not, it is game over.
So as we wait for the Secretaries of State, everyone on the board still matters. If you're the president of United States sitting in the White House wondering, am I leaving in three months or do I get to stay for four more years? It is absolutely essential.
And again, if you look at the vote counts in those states or come out to Georgia first 9,500 -- that was over 600,000. A little more than 24 hours ago --
BLITZER: Yes.
KING: -- that was over 600,000. It is now down to 9,000 votes. The same thing is happening in the Commonwealth a Wealth of Pennsylvania.
Inside the Trump campaign, they keep saying they have lawyers in both places. We know the President's been on phone to the Republican governor here and the Republican governor there. The math is going Joe Biden's way. It's not across the finish line yet, but at the White House at the Trump campaign headquarters, they're doing the math.
BLITZER: Yes.
KING: They know.
BLITZER: They certainly are. There's a lot of drama in the race for the White House.
There's also a lot of drama going on in the race that's going on the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. Dana Bash is watching that for us. What are you picking up, Dana?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's not just Donald Trump's lead shrinking in Georgia. It is the incumbent Republican.
Look at the screen, 49.9 percent, this is the first time that the incumbent David Perdue has dipped below 50 percent. Why does that matter? Because in Georgia, a candidate must have 50 percent in order to avoid a runoff. Right now, David Perdue does not have that. We are not sure where this will end up. But the reason we wanted to bring it to you it's because it's the first time it has dipped there. And this is the other race we've been watching in Georgia, two Senate races remember there. This already is going to run off according to CNN's count that is the Democrat Raphael Warnock, the Republican Kelly Loeffler. Those -- that run off will be January 5. We'll see if there will end up being too on January 5.
So, let's look at where the balance of power is right now. Democrats have 47 seats, Republicans have 47 seats. Remember, Democrats have to pick up four seats from Republicans in order to take over the majority of the Senate. And we'll see what happens at the end of the day. Wolf.
BLITZER: We'll watch it together with you, Dana. Very interesting race, I think.
We're going to be busy January 5, there's going to be two run offs. Looks like there's going to be two run offs in Georgia.
KING: And think of all the money spent in the presidential campaign, the House campaign, the Senate campaign, campaign for governors, now you're going to have those two seats, especially if they could, they could potentially determine the balance of power in the United States Senate. We should buy a local T.V. station in Georgia, we should buy it now.
BLITZER: Yes. A lot of commercials going on in Georgia.
KING: A lot. But look, look, it's just you know, I'm laughing about this, because this election could continue when it comes to, you know, we might be a day or so still. And we do expect this.
If it comes down to one state swinging it, watch for the President to mount legal challenges. So the presidential race, even if we are pretty clear about what is happening, even if we are pretty certain about the final count, it is possible we'll have some court cases that keep us in limbo for a little bit.
But it's the closeness of all of this. Look at -- I mean, this is -- I just want to go back in time and play this out for people because it is just stunning to watch. And again, it is a reminder, if you're looking at this, you're seeing the President. You know the President is saying things like stop the Count. Well that's just reckless and irresponsible. We live in a democracy we count every votes.
[17:15:05]
We knew coming into this, mail-in voting, in person or early voting, Election Day voting, that it was going to be complicated and that each state and sometimes counties within states would have a different way of doing it, they would decide how they thought it was best to count the votes. A lot of those mail-in ballots have been left for last so that they could deal with the crowds on Election Day.
So, let's come back here. This is Wednesday, as Election Day Tuesday, gives way to Wednesday, the President is ahead by 372,407 votes. Then Wednesday at 9 a.m., it starts to shrink a little bit. And you see it, go down some more. And you see it, go down some more.
And you see there, this is today 6 a.m., down to 18,000 votes, and we get down to 14,000 votes. And then you come out live right now.
Again, the trajectory has been steady. As they count the mail in ballots, a lead that was once higher than 600,000 votes is now fewer than 10,000 votes.
And again, the votes that are out are in Democratic counties like Chatham County where Savannah is, and we know there were still some votes out here in the Atlanta metro area, including Fulton County, which is Atlanta, still several thousand votes to be counted here.
BLITZER: By the way, John, take a look at what we're seeing. We're seeing some live pictures of the former vice president walking out.
Let's see if he says anything is with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, as well. I just want to listen to him for a second.
He's not answering reporters' questions. He's getting into the vehicle over there.
You know, it's interesting, he made that little statement a little while ago, he had a briefing on what's going on with coronavirus, on the economic crisis that's going on in the country right now. He's been busy in those kinds of meetings, in contrast to what we're seeing, we're not seeing much at all, only see some tweets from the President of the United States.
KING: The angry tweets from the President that are not factual, not factually based. They're just not saying things like fraud, saying stopped account.
Actually, the interesting thing is the President had stopped the count earlier today. If we stop the count nationally, right now, Joe Biden's the next president of United States.
Peter Baker of "The New York Times" pointing that out smartly earlier today in a tweet. If you stop the count right now, Joe Biden wins Arizona, Joe Biden wins Nevada, and Joe Biden is the president elect of the United States. So the President, it's been said before over the last four years should maybe think before he tweets. But that's not going to stop him.
But this is an interesting moment. You just saw the former Vice President Joe Biden first ran for president back in the 1988 campaign. Ran again in the 2008 campaign.
At the beginning of this campaign, many Democrats said he's not the man for the moment. Joe Biden right now has more votes for president than anybody in American history, 72 million votes, 72.6 million votes.
And there are a lot of votes still being counted on the west coast. There are a lot of votes still being counted in New York State. There are a lot of votes still being counted everywhere. But including in some big blue Democratic battlegrounds, Joe Biden is 3.8 million votes ahead in the popular vote. He's not president yet. Democrats went through this four years ago, and they went through this in 2000. You can win the popular vote and not win the Electoral College. But Joe Biden has more votes than any other human being running for president of the United States right now, which is a pretty significant achievement for a man who many in his own party question, is he the man for this moment.
And when he got into the race, 72.6 million votes, that number is going to keep climbing. So it's just a fascinating moment. And now you're looking at this and you're saying, you know, these are the states we have called, the red and the blue. And you're waiting to see again, if he wins there and he wins there, he's the president elect.
If he wins here, and he wins here as well, he can get as high as 306 Electoral College votes. At the moment, he's at 253.
And what you heard from him earlier today, Wolf, it's very interesting. He's using an economy of words. He doesn't want to speak a lot.
What he's trying to project is everybody hang in, everybody count the votes. I'm getting ready. I had a briefing on the economy. I had a briefing on COVID. Not saying much while the president of United States today, it's been interesting, saying absolutely nothing in public except his words on Twitter.
But as Kaitlan Collins was saying earlier, our White House correspondent, we do know the President's making calls to political strategists and like and we do know he's complaining about some of these Republican governors wishing they would stop the vote.
BLITZER: There, Senator Kamala Harris, the vice presidential running mate, she's walking out too. I guess she's not going to answer any reporters' questions.
We did hear the former vice President say specifically, when he made that brief statement, a little while ago, we have no doubt, he said, we will be declared winners. And he added, we will know very soon. So he's very, very confident about all of this.
And I assume if there is an outcome perhaps later tonight, we'll hear a major address from him.
KING: Yes. As Jeff Sony (ph) reported earlier, they have a site set up for that the victory rally, if you will. I assume if he lost that would be the concession rally. But they assume it's going to be a victory rally and you saw them setting in there.
The question is, how do you define very soon? We've been asking the question now for a couple of days, working long hours for the two candidates for both of them. Imagine the stress and the anxiety. This is a highest states contest, two men running for the highest office in the land. So, define very soon.
[17:20:00] Well, very soon would be if we got to a place where we could call this in Biden's favor, but we're not there. Right now. The President has a 90,000 vote lead in Pennsylvania.
Again, the momentum has been consistently and steadily toward Biden. The question is, are there enough votes still to be counted to continue it? And again, we know, bulk of those votes are right here, Southeast Pennsylvania, which is voted overwhelmingly for Biden. Can you get there? That's why you have to count them.
This one is interesting to me. We just talked about it, but just that this is now 9,525 votes. And we know the outstanding votes are in places like this, Democratic Chatham County, Fulton County, Atlanta, the suburbs around it, largely Democratic.
There are some votes out for places that are voting for the President. This is a county earlier, they said still had some outstanding votes. But even in Georgia, just like in Pennsylvania, sometimes looks can be deceiving in the sense that this is red, the President will carry it in the end. But even in these Republican counties, we are seeing a lot most Democrats chose to vote early by mail.
And so even here, they may not even in these counties, there may not be as many Democrats as Republicans, that's why they're red. But when they're counting these late votes, they tend to be Democratic mail-in vote. So you pull it out, Wolf, and again, Joe Biden wins there, there.
If he wins, just that, he's president of United States. If he wins here, and he's got to pick up one of these two that are still outstanding. He has many paths to 270 of these several states remaining on the board, the president of United States of a broken record, but he cannot lose that. He cannot lose that. And at this hour, he is in danger of losing both.
BLITZER: Yes. And as you correctly point out Pennsylvania with 20 electoral votes. If Biden were to win, simply Pennsylvania, lose everything else, he'd have 270 electoral votes.
We're standing by for news conferences in Georgia and Pennsylvania. The secretaries of state will be speaking and answering reporters' questions. President Trump's lead in both of those battleground states is slipping and slipping tonight. Stay with us. Our election night coverage continues right after this.
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[17:26:24]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Let's go live now to Harrisburg, where the secretary of state of Pennsylvania is talking about the count for the presidential contest.
KATHY BOOCKVAR, PENNSYLVANIA SECRETARY OF STATE: Though it's new under AK 77 that we can all vote by mail. It's the same process that we've used for decades for absentee voting. So, voters have to apply. They're checked against their social security database or the PennDOT database.
They're checked against their voter record to make sure they're qualified voter and they are who they say they are. They cast their ballot. And then they're checked again, when the ballot is received that they were actually an approved voter. Very secure.
There's really like the strength of the integrity of this vote is really unparalleled. Same when you vote in person, right, you have to be registered, you go in, you sign in the poll book, all these things are tracked, our voting systems and our databases. Make sure that no voter can cast more than one vote. It literally has a hard stop. Should anybody even try?
And the counties, again, as I've talked about the amazing county election officials, they take this so seriously, they are such professionals. So, you know it -- I can just say really no matter how you chose to vote this year, and so many Pennsylvanians have, and it looks like it's really going to be great turnout, when we finalize the numbers, that every method is incredibly safe and secure.
Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm sorry.
BOOCKVAR Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Secretary.
You've said, but if I understand it correctly, that enough results may be coming in tonight for people to have a handle on who the winner in the presidential races. What's your basis for thinking that? Can you put a finer point on it? How long? What makes you say that?
BOOCKVAR: So the counties are continuing to count. And so obviously, depending on how close the races that impacts whether you -- so you know, the final results are not certified until 20 days after the election, right? So I want to be clear, there's no final results happening now, anyway.
What's happening now is having enough ballots counted to actually see who the winner is, right? The farther apart that is, the easier it is to tell. So, it's very close in Pennsylvania, right? There's no question.
And so, that means it's going to take longer to actually see who the winner is. But I can tell you that there's several hundred thousand ballots remaining to be counted. You can track all that. What counties it remains in. Look at our website and you'll be able to see how we get to the conclusion.
But, you know, either way, I want to be clear, that these are just the mail and absentee votes and the in person votes, right. The overwhelming majority, like I think, you know, huge, huge majority of the in person votes have been counted. We're in a very good place with the mail-in and absentee ballots, but not quite there yet. But then there's still going to be provisional ballots, the military and overseas ballots and so forth. So the closer the race is, the longer it takes. But I think what I've said all along is that the overwhelming majority of ballots will be counted by Friday.
I still think that we're ahead of schedule, and we're actually already have counted the overwhelming majority of ballots, but because it's a close race, it's not quite clear yet who the winner is. So.
Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've mentioned provisional ballots a couple of times. How many of those have been passed statewide. And of those, how many have been counted and reported?
BOOCKVAR: So very few have been counted. And because the -- that usually happens following the counting of the other ballots. So, usually -- so that you won't see counties are not going to start that until after they've finished with the others generally. So, we don't know yet, we've been reaching out to the candidates. I know, I'm not Cameron Rivers (ph), you or somebody else who asked me both about provisional ballot numbers and numbers of ballots arriving after Election Day, after 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.
So provisional ballots, you know, I think we've heard from, you know, maybe two-thirds of the county, so I don't have a firm number yet. And as soon as we do, we'll be able to report those numbers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you give me your best estimate?
BOOCKVAR: The provisional ballots, I think it's still early yet. So let's touch base again, after I have more than the number that I have so far. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No guesstimate at all?
BOOCKVAR: It doesn't -- you know, the context matters, right? So if I tell you a number that reflects 41 counties, it's not -- it's could not -- it could be not reflective of the whole because it matters which counties they are. So we will circle back with you. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great.
BOOCKVAR: You, sorry. Sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you stand by the integrity of the election so far. Have you or any of the counties investigated any specific allegations of voter fraud?
BOOCKVAR: No. No. I mean, I'm not aware of any -- I mean, well, I should say you probably heard some weeks ago that there was a gentleman in Luzerne County who tried to apply for a ballot for his deceased mother. I don't know if you've heard that, but that was several weeks ago. That was the only incident that I am aware of in this year. Yes. Yes, sir? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that you said a minute ago that you guys have counted the vast majority of the in-person election day votes. Can you give us a more specific sense of how many of those are outstanding? Is it fewer than the remaining mail-in votes?
BOOCKVAR: If you go to our website and the supplemental dashboard, if you look at the pie chart, it's a tiny sliver. It may be the 99 percent are counted. So it's just -- but I -- whether it's 99 or 98.5, go to the dashboard and it will tell you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much more beyond the mail-in ballots then?
BOOCKVAR: I mean, there's a tiny fraction of precincts that aren't counted yet. Yes. It's a very, very, very small number. Yes. Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The outstanding mail-in ballots, does that include counties that have -- have all counties segregated the ballots that came in after Election Day?
BOOCKVAR: Right. So the ballots that have been counted so far are the ones that came in by November 3rd. So all the counties are going to be segregating any that came in after 8:00 p.m. on November 3rd through 5:00 p.m. on November 6th. Yes? Yes, Dennis (ph)?
DENNIS: Secretary, there are seven precincts in Allegheny County that aren't reporting anything yet, that includes Election Day in person ballots. Do you know what's going on there?
BOOCKVAR: No, I don't, but I'm happy to check with them afterwards. And, I mean, I know what's going on with some of the other things, but I don't know what's going on in those seven precincts. So thank you. We will reach out to them. Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does (ph) the department know how many mail-in ballots might still be in route to election offices that were postmarked by the third?
BOOCKVAR: Do we know how many are on route? No. You know, I could tell you that the numbers that have come in so far are a tiny fraction of what came in after the primary. So I don't think -- and usually, I mean, based on historical numbers, you get the most ballots, you know, the day after Election Day, and then it dwindles from there. So I think -- don't expect it to be a significant amount.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know how many mail-in ballots were surrendered at the polls on November 3rd?
BOOCKVAR: Not yet. We will know that because the -- we will know that, you know, once the counties do those -- because obviously those voter declarations had to be signed. And I think they'll also be able to track the provisional ballot voters, the ones that didn't surrender their ballot but that will take some time. Thank you. Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you or any of your staff taken any special safety precautions? And should the county workers who are doing the counting be concerned about their safety given the strong fields? BOOCKVAR: So by safety, you mean from the outside world or?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Physical safety, yes.
BOOCKVAR: You know, the counties really have the -- are in the best position to assess that. I mean, as you might imagine, you know, we're -- have a great Commonwealth, very -- a lot of diversity from, you know, very rural counties to urban counties. So, it's really not a one size fits all assessment. We certainly talked to the counties and issued guidance and directives on security of, you know, the voting systems and the locations and, you know, all those things. But I think the physical security of the staff I would defer to the counties on.
[17:35:13]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about you and your staff? Have you taking any special precautions with those?
BOOCKVAR: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you talk about those at all?
BOOCKVAR: I mean, we have security, we make sure that we are safe and we make sure that where we are -- where our operations are secure and safe. Yes, thank you. Yes, Jan (ph)?
JAN: I was going to ask you about the late arriving ballots, if you have any kind of idea of how many there are, but based on these questions, I get a sense you don't know. But you did tell CNN today that it was anywhere from zero in some counties to hundreds and others. So, I mean, can you be a little bit more specific?
BOOCKVAR: Yes. I mean, again, it's actually -- it's a lower -- it's significantly lower number than we thought, but I think we've heard from -- I apologize, I forget exactly how many counties, so it's not a full picture yet, but it's a much less significant number. It's like a fraction of what we saw in the primary. So I think we saw 60,000 in the three days following the primary. It's not going to be anywhere near that.
So once I have the full -- again, I think I have maybe, you know, two- thirds of the counties. And so, I just want to make sure before I give -- but what I said was true. It's been -- there are some counties that got zero the day following, and there were some counties that got in the hundreds, you know, maybe 500 but -- so that's the range that I have now. But I just don't want to give an overall picture until I make sure I have every county in. Thanks. But it really is smaller. Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry, if I could just double back on mail-ins, uncounted mail-ins, I think you said in your opening remarks that there were several hundred thousand outstanding and we've heard some, you know, varying numbers on that. Can you put a finer point on that at all? Just what kind of figure we're looking at.
BOOCKVAR: So, go to the website and go to the dashboard, it's constantly changing. And so it just seems like as soon as I give a number, there are county results that get updated and it's different than what I just said. It's a moving target.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's the last number that you were aware of?
BOOCKVAR: I think it was in the 350,000 range. But, again, as soon as I say that you're going to go into the dashboard and it's going to say it's lower than that. So --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I appreciate it's difficult topic.
BOOCKVAR: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And thank you for indulging me.
BOOCKVAR: Yes, sure. Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So on election night, results in Lancaster County were showing and amount well above the amount requested and then nearly double the amount of return. Could you explain why that happened? And if it was county specific.
BOOCKVAR: I'm sorry, can you repeat that again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. Yes. In Lancaster County, on election night specifically, it was showing results for mail-in ballots that was well above the amount return and the amount requested. Can you explain how that happened?
BOOCKVAR: You know, I can't remember Lancaster County specifically. What I can tell you is that some of the counties the way -- So, in Lancaster I'm thinking it probably had to do -- so they're one of, I think, the two counties that had hard path, hard voting systems. Some of the -- each voting system vendor has -- the way they translate with the data has worked slightly differently. And as you know, this dashboard and even the website, it's the first year that we broke out provisional ballots, mail-in ballots and in-person.
So, some of the reporting, if the counties files were not done perfectly, it might merge to the categories. It might put things in the wrong category. So we've been working on all those quirks. Like I know, for example, York was off for a little while, but that is now corrected. So that may have explained what was going on with the Lancaster. There's just been -- most of it has been the county, the way they sent us the files, the data was just not in the right place, basically.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) voters that it was handled and taken care of, is there a way that you can do that?
BOOCKVAR: Well, it's fixed. I mean, it's fixed on the website. And you can also -- so, I mean, I think I've said this prior of these, but you can always go to the county websites. You can look and see, you know, it's a easy way to double-check. Yes, Dennis (ph)?
DENNIS: Secretary, some tweets have surfaced admittedly from a couple of years ago, your tweets suggesting negative things about Donald Trump. What do you say to people that say, geez, you're the person overseeing this election and you have clearly partisan views on the matter. What's your response to that?
BOOCKVAR: So my response is, look, these were four years ago and at the time I was not in the administration, I was not in any public service. I was a private citizen. It was a personal Twitter account. And, you know -- so that, and then when I became secretary of state, I took an oath, Dennis (ph), and I took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Constitution of the United States.
And partisan politics have no place in the Pennsylvania Department of State or any county elections' office for that matter. I mean, we work for voting rights and for effective election administration.
[17:40:10]
And I can tell you that I will do everything in my power to make sure that every voter, every candidate and every party have access to a fair, free, safe, and secure election. And I don't care what their background is. And I don't care what my background is. That's what we do at the department of state. Thank you.
BLITZER: The Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar holding a news conference, John. Very significant numbers released. We're looking at Pennsylvania right now. Trump is ahead of Biden by 90,542. Basically, she said go to the website, see what the outstanding mail- in ballots are. And we did, 326,348. You're good at math. You've done the math for Trump to win in Pennsylvania. What percentage of 326,000 outstanding votes will he need?
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Trump has to get in the ballpark of 33 percent, 35 percent. But let me flip it and do it a different way. Because we know so far today in counting the mail-in ballots, Joe Biden, so far today in the count in Pennsylvania, is getting 78 percent. Let's just say Joe Biden got 70 percent, right? If Joe Biden got 70 percent, for the rest -- of the rest of the ballots, if he got 70 percent of them, that would be 228,443, right? There's a little rounding in there, OK?
So that means -- that's a two, sorry, it's a little messy. That's a two. And so, then you start from Donald Trump's 90,000 lead, right, so it's a 90,542 lead. And then you add into that, you add into that, if he would get 97,000, right, it'd be 97,000. So then he would be in the 188 and change, right? He would be 188 plus, right?
So, if Joe Biden gets 70 percent of what's remaining, he would pass Donald Trump by about 40,000 votes. He's getting 78 percent in the council for today. That just tells you it's possible, that doesn't tell you that it's going to happen. But we know he's getting 78 percent of the mal-in ballots they have already counted today. So as they count, as they count the number left, as you said, 326,348.
BLITZER: So --
KING: If he gets 70 percent, instead of the 78 percent he's getting, he would pass Donald Trump by about 40,000 votes.
BLITZER: So, basically, what you're saying is if Biden wins, 70 percent of the remaining outstanding 326,000 votes, he would win by about 40,000 votes, that he would win the Pennsylvania right now.
KING: Yes. And that would make him the President-elect of the United States. It would win it by 40,000 votes, he doesn't even need 70 percent.
BLITZER: What did Trump win Pennsylvania by four years ago?
KING: Let's go back and take a look as we go back through the thing, telestrator off, 2016, 44,000 votes.
BLITZER: So in other words, Biden would win Pennsylvania by almost exactly the same number of votes that Trump won Pennsylvania over Hillary Clinton in 2016?
KING: If he gets 70 percent of what is remaining out there. And, again, if you're watching at home, and let's come back to this year, so if you're watching at home, you look at this and you say, well, he's only getting 49. Why do you think he's going to get 70? We don't know that he's going to get 70. But we do know, in the votes counted in Pennsylvania today, he's above 78 percent.
And so, we're just saying if he only got 70 percent only, sounds like if -- it sounds ridiculous. But if he gets 70 percent for the rest of the count, he will pass Donald Trump by about 40,000 votes. And, again, just for anyone who hasn't been with us for the last two plus days, this is happening for a reason. Republicans vote on Election Day, the President did a fantastic job with his rallies of turning out Republicans on Election Day. That's why he's getting more votes in Pennsylvania now than he did four years ago.
Joe Biden and Democrats, though, they had a strategy, many of them voted by mail. Some of them voted early getting in line. It's the mail-in ballots that they're counting now. The Election Day ballots have already been counted. So Donald Trump's massive surge of votes have already been counted. That's why he jumped out to that big early lead in Pennsylvania.
Now, they're doing the arduous work of counting the paper ballots, the mail ballots, and as they do that, Joe Biden again, today, is getting 78 percent of those ballots as they count them. If he gets 70 percent of what is left, he will win the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by about 40,000 votes.
BLITZER: It's pretty amazing. And she specifically said, the Secretary of State of Pennsylvania, that those 326,000 outstanding ballots, they were all mail-in ballots --
KING: Right.
BLITZER: -- that they're counting right now and they should get that numbers -- KING: That's the universe that's left. And, again, this can be
confusing at home. But we just -- this is the unprecedented pandemic election. What they're counting now, the mail-in ballots lopsided in favor of the Democrats again. I didn't mean to interrupt, but Joe Biden is winning 78 percent of them. If he just gets 70 percent the rest of the way, he will win a Commonwealth by roughly 44, I mean, 40,000 votes.
BLITZER: In addition to those 326,000 mail-in ballots, there are some provisional ballots, potentially there have to be counted as well. We don't know how many provisional ballots there are.
Let's check in with Jake. Stay on Pennsylvania right now. It's a key battleground.
[17:45:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: That's right, it is. And joining me now is a Republicans Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Pat Toomey. Senator Toomey, thanks so much for joining us right now. We're watching intently your home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to report the results, you know, Pennsylvania better than almost anyone. What do you make of where we are? Who do you think will ultimately win Pennsylvania?
SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Jake, obviously, we're extremely close. And there's a path for either candidate to win Pennsylvania this point. So we don't know how this is going to turn out. The only thing we know is it's going to go right down to the wire, it's going to be very, very close. But we suspected that might be the case. So no big surprise there.
TAPPER: Vice President Biden has now been projected to win Wisconsin and Michigan, he's obviously narrowing --
TOOMEY: Right.
TAPPER: -- the gap in Pennsylvania right now. Why do you think President Trump had a harder time in the so-called blue wall states in 2020 than he did in 2016?
TOOMEY: Well, look, we know he developed some -- sorry about that.
TAPPER: No problem.
TOOMEY: You know, ran into, I think some challenges, especially with certain demographics, suburban women being a clear example, highly educated, white voters, generally, the President's numbers decline. I think that's true in Pennsylvania as well as in other places. I suspect though that in the post-mortem, that's what we will discover.
TAPPER: Tell me what you're seeing in Pennsylvania, because there's a lot of noise about what's going on in Pennsylvania. But it seems as though the election has been carried out efficiently, slowly, but methodically and with integrity, in terms of the voting and the counting, whether it's Democratic election officials, Republicans election officials, or nonpartisan ones. What do you what are you seeing? What's your impression?
TOOMEY: Well, so I think that's, as a general matter, entirely true. I think the vast majority of election officials in the 67 counties across the Commonwealth have been, you know, as usual, very conscientious, honest, and doing a great job. I will say there are some process concerns that I have, some significant concerns. As you know, I think at the convention center in Philadelphia, where votes are being cast, it is my understanding that even now, or at least as of a couple of hours ago, after a federal court order, requiring that observers be given the proximity necessary, so they actually can see what's going on. They were kept away. And even after the order, requiring them to be given access, they continue to be kept away.
Now, that's no proof that there's something untoward going on. But it certainly doesn't give anybody any comfort. And I can't, for the life of me, understand why in the first place, there would be a decision to make it impossible for observers to see, and then why after a court order, the order wouldn't be observed. One of the things that's really important in this process, for instance, is the segregation of the ballots that are coming in post-election.
TAPPER: Right.
TOOMEY: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court went completely rogue, and simply decided to disregard Pennsylvania law, to violate the U.S. Constitution, and to make up a new law effectively, that says that ballots can arrive for up to three days after the election, despite the fact that the statute is quite clear and quite to the contrary. So, those ballots are supposed to be segregated. So that if this gets challenged at the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court rules, as I think they should, that that's a completely unconstitutional decision, then those valid ballots wouldn't be counted.
Well, you can't take that step if you haven't segregated them in the first place. So maybe they're being properly segregated. But how does one know if observers aren't there to witness it?
TAPPER: Well, I did ask I think about the incident you're talking about. I ask Secretary of State Boockvar earlier, and she did say that she thought that that situation in Philadelphia had been resolved. But that is definitely something worth following up on and we'll tell our viewers --
TOOMEY: Yes, Jake?
TAPPER: Yes?
TOOMEY: No, I think that absolutely needs to be followed up on because, you know, I checked with the Republicans who's coordinating that process. He used to work for me, I know him very well. He's a completely reliable and honest man. And he told me hours after the court order, they were still not being given access --
TAPPER: OK.
TOOMEY: -- to anything like a level that would allow them to observe what's going on. You know, that doesn't encourage a sense of confidence in this process. And, yes, there's no good reason for that.
TAPPER: I certainly understand your concern about that. But, I mean, what we're hearing from President Trump and from his offspring and from other individuals, like Rudy Giuliani, are -- is not measured concerns expressed the way you just have, but all sorts of wild allegations of vote theft, of bad things happening in Philadelphia, of allegations that the election is being stolen, that votes are being invented.
[17:50:21]
And, again, I don't want to belittle your concerns, we're actually worth us following up on and in terms of your concerns and about that Pennsylvania Supreme Court case, my understanding is that all those ballots that come in after Election Day are being segregated because of your concerns and because of any formal U.S. Supreme Court involvement. So, putting aside those two concerns that you've just expressed, would you not agree that the histrionics we are hearing from President Trump, from his children, from individuals like Rudy Giuliani, are without merit that no one is stealing an election? No one is inventing votes that Pennsylvanians voted with integrity and their votes are being counted with integrity?
TOOMEY: Well, Jake, you know, you suggested that we put aside my concerns, and -- but it's a little difficult to do that, right? If you're not able to actually observe what's happening, you don't know whether the votes are in fact being segregated. Look, I can only speak for myself, I am not aware of any significant level of fraud that's going on, nobody has brought anything to my attention that causes me to say there's a huge case of fraud that needs to be immediately addressed.
I am concerned about the lack of transparency, a lack of opportunity to observe what's going on. And, you know, when someone goes down that road of precluding observation, it makes you wonder why, that's not encouraging. So, I hope that gets resolved. And I hope -- look, I think it's going to be very close.
By the way, I think we should probably expect a recount under Pennsylvania law that is permitted. And if it's close enough, you know, that I'd be very surprised if there isn't a recount, regardless of how it turns out. These are all part -- this is all part of our electoral process. You know, the truth is, litigation is a part of it. I'd rather not see that. But it's inevitable, in certainly in a close election.
So I just want to see this process, I want to see the most transparent, possible process. And then when we know it's over, then, you know, both sides have to accept the outcome.
TAPPER: All right, Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, thank you so much.
Let's turn now to Dana Bash with some new reporting.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is going to speak at 6:30 p.m. Eastern tonight. He's going to do so from the White House. We have been talking about the fact that we've not seen him since the wee hours of the night/morning, Wednesday -- Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. And so, he is now going to speak, which is, you know, couple of things.
Number one, as modern as the President is and how he communicates on Twitter and social media, choosing to do 6:30 p.m. Eastern is clearly no accident. He's also old school, he knows that's when the broadcast networks come on. So that gives him a bigger audience probably in his mind. You know, I'm not so sure that's necessarily true.
And the other thing is Kaitlan Collins was reporting that she was hearing from her sources that people around the President were trying to hold him back to not speak, because they're worried about what will come out of his mouth. That obviously did not win the day. Maybe it is more likely that one source that I talked to that argument won the day, which was the idea that they didn't want to see the stage to Joe Biden just yet.
TAPPER: So I just want to bring our viewers' attention to something going on in Pennsylvania. All eyes are on Pennsylvania and President Trump's lead has now dropped to 78,314 votes as election officials have gone through the more than 2 million vote by mail ballots that have been cast in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which overwhelmingly were cast by Democrats. We knew that and reported that several weeks ago, when that became apparent. The President's lead in Pennsylvania has narrowed and the more of these ballots that they count, the more that the division between Trump and Biden is narrowing.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this is really critical because as we sit here right now, President Trump needs to win two states. He needs to hold on to at the minimum, two states, Pennsylvania and the state of Georgia. As we've been sitting here on the air most of this afternoon, both of those states have been narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, and they are not trending in his direction. That could be one of the reasons why we're going to see President Trump tonight because he is clearly desperate to change the narrative around that, although he can't change the numbers. And also, with Joe Biden going out, he's got to try to fight back in his own way.
[17:55:01]
TAPPER: He's not -- it's not just changing the narrative. He's going to lie about the fact that votes are being counted. He's going to try to depict the fact of democracy as nefarious, which it is not.
We're getting new information right now about the Biden campaigns plans for tonight, as the race tightens by the hour. Election Night in American continues next.
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