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Georgia a Must-win for Trump; Joe Biden Lead Slips in Arizona; President Trump Claims Voter Fraud; CNN's Coverage of the Election Night in America; America Awaits the Winner for the President of the United States; Democracy in Action as History has Changed. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired November 06, 2020 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Pennsylvania 20 electoral votes. That lead moving down 18,229 separate the two candidates, 49.5 to 49.2. Again, Philadelphia still has enough votes to make a difference, which is why you heard the president and his people attack Philadelphia, because that's what they're worried about.

Now Arizona, 11 electoral votes, 47-vote lead, this is the state of play in reverse. Joe Biden has been watching his lead slip away. Donald Trump overperforming in all important Maricopa County there. Will that continue? We'll see.

Nevada, 6 electoral votes, 11,000 vote lead for Joe Biden. We have seen that get a few more votes added to it, but we're in a vacuum of information there. We're waiting until sometime later today for a big set of votes still being counted in Nevada.

So, state of play, roots to 270 electoral votes. The roads for the president have to go through Georgia. For Biden, if it goes through Pennsylvania, everything is over.

Phil Mattingly at the magic wall.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So that's exactly right. That's why we're paying attention. That's why Joe Biden has narrowed in Georgia. He has narrowed in Pennsylvania there is a possibility he goes over the top in both of them sometime soon. What does that actually mean?

What you're looking at right now is the current state of play. If you're looking at red, you're looking at a state that was called for President Trump. If you're looking at blue, that's a state called for vice president Biden. We'll go ahead. Everything that's gray we're still waiting to call.

However, for the sake of kind of mapping this out showing you how this is going work. We'll say Donald Trump wins North Carolina. Not decided yet, but he's had a decisive lead for the better part of the last couple of days. Also say he is probably going to win Alaska. Republicans tend to do that. We'll go ahead and put that in his column.

Why do Pennsylvania and Georgia matter so much? Simple as this. If Pennsylvania goes to Joe Biden, Joe Biden is over 273 -- over 270 electoral votes. Here is the other key reason. Say Donald Trump comes -- ends up holding on to his lead and expanding at some point and ends up winning Pennsylvania.

If, if Joe Biden wins, Arizona, wins Nevada, he is at 270 electoral votes you. Talk about Georgia. Why is Georgia is a must-win? Joe Biden wins Georgia and Donald Trump comes back and wins Arizona, plausible at this point in time. Comes back and wins Nevada. We'll see when Clark County reports. He's under 270. If Joe Biden wins Georgia, there is no pathway for President Trump to 270.

CUOMO: Hold on a second. So again, this is basically as statistically likely as anything else would you say, this point in --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: I don't know about that.

CUOMO: This is a little less likely?

MATTINGLY: Less likely. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Because right now he is losing in both of these --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: And Pennsylvania is going in a very specific direction.

CUOMO: But if we were here, 269, 268, that means that the election would be divided -- would be decided by --

MATTINGLY: Right here.

CUOMO: -- Maine's one district?

MATTINGLY: And CNN has not called Maine too. So, Maine allocates its electoral votes based on congressional district.

CUOMO: Who is winning in there?

MATTINGLY: President Trump. President Trump is currently winning. And President Trump is likely based on where things are going. He is sitting with there. So where does that leave things? If Joe Biden wins Georgia, and President Trump wins everything else on the map right now, that's where you get, 269, 269.

CUOMO: And again, the Constitution provides for that. There is a whole extent you waited set of circumstances we don't have to get into. But just, you know, a little bit of context here. One, we quickly keep giving North Carolina to the president, and we should. But if we go to North Carolina for a second, just to show how us small the margin is, Phil, in North Carolina.

And again, it totally makes sense that if you're going to play it out hypothetically, he should get it. But look, 76,000 votes. We've had more votes in this election, congratulations to you, than we've seen in our lifetimes. And yet look at the margins we're dealing with.

This is like a, give me 26,000 votes. It's like it might as well be a million. And we saw this in 2016, Trump eked by with some small margins, but not like we're dealing with now. The most votes ever and the smallest margins we've ever dealt with on a multiple state scale. Six hundred in Georgia right now.

You know, a few thousand across the board, 42,000 in Arizona. That's the biggest one that we're dealing with that's in contention, very interesting. So that's where we are here in terms of -- that's North Carolina.

MATTINGLY: And to be clear --

CUOMO: Go ahead.

MATTINGLY: CNN has not called North Carolina.

CUOMO: No, no one has called it.

MATTINGLY: And so, we're doing it to game things out.

CUOMO: Right.

MATTINGLY: So, it's still on the board right now.

CUOMO: Absolutely.

MATTINGLY: There is an outstanding vote. We'll wait until the vote comes in.

CUOMO: Absolutely.

MATTINGLY: And then we'll make the final decision.

CUOMO: We're just not gaming it out the same way internally because it doesn't have the pockets of potential gain for Biden that these other states do. Specifically, you want to go to Pennsylvania or Georgia.

MATTINGLY: Pennsylvania first.

CUOMO: Yes.

MATTINGLY: We'll do Pennsylvania first.

CUOMO: So, we'll go to Pennsylvania. Why? Because this could be a dispositive move. If Biden wins Pennsylvania, the election is over. It's one and done. Now 18,229 votes. Again, in this context, that's not bad. But we're watching it go down over time. And why?

[03:05:03]

MATTINGLY: Well let's show that to you. We'll go in here. Great tool that our team made up. Take you back to Wednesday, Wednesday at midnight. Look at Donald Trump's lead, 548,000. And you can tick through. It grew 589. And then it started to drop. Why did it start to drop, and why did it started to drop so precipitously over the course of the last 24 hours?

Vote by mail started to be counted by the state of Pennsylvania. We saw it happened in Wisconsin, we saw it happened in Michigan, happening in Pennsylvania as well. Election Day vote counted first, vote by mail counted last vote by mail because of a pandemic, because of how Democrats have been voting throughout the course of this election.

It's leaning heavily Democratic, that is what put Joe Biden over the top in Wisconsin, put Joe Biden over the top in Michigan, and right now, take this off, has put Joe Biden within striking distance of about 160,000 ballots of standing and those ballots are outstanding very heavily in Democratic strongholds where Joe Biden has even been over performing what are already impressive margins up until this point.

CUOMO: Right. And that's why President Trump was bringing the hate parade to Philadelphia, specifically. And look here's one of the reasons you don't do that. One, it's untrue. Two, it's unfair. Third, it crushes something that should be a big sense of moral boost for this country, including your own supporters. But also, it invites animus.

We had a report earlier tonight, there is still trying to tuck down -- track down a group of people who came in Humvee with a weapon, looking to bust into the polling center. And obviously not do good things. Blaming the president? No, not exactly. But correlation may not be causation, but right after gives that, you know, that lie diatribe today is -- it really coincidence that then these guys show up in a Humvee, wanting the bust into the voting center?

So that's why we should be careful about how we criticize something that should be being emphasized and complemented. So, we believe it's going to come in. It's taken a long time. That's not that unusual. In fact, we have had one of the people running it there -- I think it was last night -- say, you know, this is going pretty fast for us in terms of the volume that we are dealing with.

MATTINGLY: And we've seen for coming. You talk about Philadelphia, obviously this was the biggest -- it's the biggest city, biggest county -- 12 percent of the population in Philadelphia, still waiting for about 8 percent toa report. But over the course of this night up to this point we've seen batches of a couple of thousand votes come in, those batches have gone heavily Joe Biden. You look at the overall margin in Philadelphia, obviously impressive for the Biden campaign.

That's expected, Democrats are expected to do very well here, but Joe Biden has been over performing in the batches we've seen up to this point, 86, 87 percent, not just 80 percent. And it's not just Philadelphia, it's also the counties when you push out, you can just, you can look at the blue.

This is southeastern Pennsylvania, this is Democratic stronghold, this is Philadelphia, and then it pushes out into the collar county. That suburbs it's gone heavily Democratic over the course of the last couple of cycles. That's going to continue.

Alleghany County, we had an Alleghany County councilwoman on earlier. Thirty-six thousand votes outstanding right now, expected to get them sometime tomorrow. And she said that those votes, all vote by mail, been coming in about a 78 percent for Je Biden.

So, when you look at the entirety of Pennsylvania right now, when you look at the outstanding vote, you look at where it comes from, you look at how it was cast, almost entirely vote by mail, it underscores that you would rather be this than this.

And that might seem counterintuitive, because Donald Trump is ahead right now by 80,000 votes but the reality of the math in Pennsylvania is of the 160,000 ballots that are outstanding. There are a lot more ballots that look and based on president of what we've been looking out over the course of the last 24 hours, lying up with her helping Joe Biden and likely helping him to a significant degree.

CUOMO: Within the reality that although there's much more red than blue land doesn't vote, it's about population, how do we know that there isn't a significant pocket of untapped vote trickling in for Trump?

MATTINGLY: Because the vast -- well, two reasons. First reason is you look at the outstanding vote right now and the vast majority of it, you know, you can come down, you look at Montgomery County, still 5 percent outstanding. You look at margins there, Joe Biden still holding pretty steady.

Moved over here, Chester County still about 5 percent outstanding. You're taking 5, 6, 7,000 votes in these counties right now. And mail- in ballots have risen or have driven up the margins in all these counties as they come in.

The other reason is you can even go to a President Trump stronghold and you can watch this and pull this up and show -- watch the margins here. This is Westmoreland County. Back in 2016, this is where President Trump basically put his entire margin in this county, just blowout turnout in this county.

Watch the margin. From Wednesday at midnight, 69 percent to 29 percent only 54 percent reporting and start moving through. It stays at 69, stays at 69 and starts to drop. Why is it drop? Because they start counting the vote by mail.

There are Democrats in these counties, Democrats are voting by mail. They are done counting the Election Day vote even in red counties, even in President Trump's biggest counties where he gets the biggest margin, and it just starts to drop as we go through.

[03:09:59] So, it sticking 63, 34, but it was up to 69 percent. And I think the bottom line, harry made this point about Georgia when we were talking earlier. Just because this Republican county, if there is vote by mail outstanding, there is no guarantee that it's going to be coming in Republican because that has been Democratic vote for the most part.

The ability for the president to net, to net outstanding vote given we're only counting vote by mail right now, it's limited. He may win, in total, but in terms of netting and polling out, not just a couple of hundred votes, but he's going to get thousands of votes based on what's left in Democratic counties. There are very, very few pathways if any right now to net significant vote for President Trump in Pennsylvania.

CUOMO: Harry Enten?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: I was just going to say, you know, you can look at the two key swing counties that I've been talking a lot about in Pennsylvania, Erie and Northampton. And those are counties that went for Barack Obama in 2012 then went for Donald Trump in 2016.

Look at Erie right now going for Joe Biden in 2020. And that county early on and the count was going for President Trump, but as a vote by mail -- there you see it right there -- right there on the screen right now with Phil over there -- it's going for President Trump earlier in the count, but now has flipped to former Vice President Joe Biden as that vote by mail has come in.

CUOMO: They have a little bit vote coming in also --

ENTEN: Yes.

CUOMO: -- if we want to take on the four-letter word of math here. Harry, help us along with it. So, they have 130,000 votes, basically, so that's about 6,500 votes that could come in. But they've split it 50-50.

MATTINGLY: We don't know that.

ENTEN: I'm sorry, Phil. I was just going to say I would doubt that they'd split that remaining vote 50-50. I think former Vice President Joe Biden would get his more than his lion share in that vote. And that's something we should point out.

Even though we've been concentrating on Philadelphia, there is vote in other counties out there, so I would think Philadelphia might put Joe Biden in the lead, but those are the counties could potentially help his margin.

MATTINGLY: And again, this underscores that Erie -- pull it up again -- and take it back to just Thursday at 6.30 p.m., Donald Trump was leading in this county. And again, he had a bigger margin if you go back even further, take it forward, they're counting mail-in ballots.

Even in the closest contested areas, Joe Biden is picking up margins. Joe Biden takes the lead in the county. So, whether it's a Democratic county with a narrow margin, or it's a Republican county with a big Donald Trump margin, vote by mail is heavily Democratic in this state and that is all they have left to count in the 160,000 more so ballots that are outstanding.

Whether it's a Democratic stronghold like Philadelphia, or whether it's Erie or whether it's Westmoreland County, a Republican stronghold or Trump stronghold. The vote that's coming in is leaning Democrats up to this point.

CUOMO: And what do we in terms of the Vegas sense of timeline with Pennsylvania?

MATTINGLY: And when they're going to report?

CUOMO: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I mean, Philadelphia has been reporting throughout the night. Philadelphia has been reporting throughout the night. We don't know when, we don't have the best sense of how they were doing. It would be awesome if they reported everything right now, we had a good sense of things.

But I think, look, we've been talking about this now, this is our third night of doing this. And let them do their jobs. Let them do their jobs. They will report. They're reporting in a timely manner. I think people need to understand, Pennsylvania as a state has never dealt with the scale of vote by mail before.

Pennsylvania as the state, due to state law, did not allow these officials to start counting mail-in ballots until the Election Day vote was tabulated.

CUOMO: Which was a mistake. In hindsight, we see a couple of things. States that do this all the time, like Nevada or really thought it through and put resources to it like Florida, just think of it logically. If you are going to have people mail things in in advance of a big event, OK, like an election, when we do want to count them?

After that big event or during that big event when you're obviously going to have a lot of issues going on, which is what precipitated you giving the option to do it early or before? The whole point would be to get ahead of it. And yet, Pennsylvania and other states didn't either think it through, or maybe the Republican legislature that saw some, you know, perceived advantage to Democrats to doing it sooner, so they wanted to do it later.

I don't know what the reason was. But they did something that was unintelligent and unproductive. They didn't give the staff or the resources to count them, or the rules to count them in advance. That's why we are where we are with this. It's not perfidy, you know, it's not pay flawlessness, it's not deception, it's not Democratic, you know diabolical movements. It's the law there. That's what we're dealing with.

MATTINGLY: And when you talk about not just giving them the staff, letting them do it the same time as election day vote, in Florida, they were processing and counting early.

CUOMO: Yes.

MATTINGLY: There were multiple states where they were processing and counting. And so, you saw on Tuesday night, polls closed and within minutes, boom.

CUOMO: More staff --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Huge batches just dropped in.

CUOMO: More staff, more stations.

MATTINGLY: And you get result station -- vote by mail.

CUOMO: More apparatus, you know, that's how Florida got it done. We'll see how accurate it is when everybody goes through it and all that. But they had a much different machinery down there and also because these mail-in ballots are harder to process then the other ones.

Because you know, you go in person, you get your ballot, you know, you go and put it into the kiosk and you take care of it, that's it. It goes through this counter on. The whole vetting is whether or not they believe it's you when you go in if it's a non-I.D. state.

[03:14:59]

And with these mail-in ballots, you've got to ask for the ballot, the ballot comes in, then you send it in, they opened it up -- we've been watching the process in real-time here last night with Nick Valencia who was doing a beautiful job of showing us the process in action.

They have to open it up, there is a little bit of an eye check there, Pennsylvania has a two-envelope process. So, you need someone just to sort the mail, put it aside for someone else to put it into the machine, and then a third person to do what they call authentication, so it's like a three-stage process there. So, it's more labor intensive.

All right, with all that said, and look it's all relevant, why? Because somebody is trying to salvage our process. Somebody is trying to cede a lack of belief of the integrity in this process. And that has never been less the case than what we've seen so far in this election. We haven't had, you know, knock on wood. Not a single gross irregularity claims of where we are really having to look into something. So, think of that as we go to break. Please stay with CNN.

[03:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: It maybe the wee hours, but history is really unfolding on our watch right now. Vote counting in Georgia is underway. And the state is on track to move into Joe Biden's column at any moment now. And it calls for a key race alert.

And look at that, look at the numbers in Georgia. Can you believe that? it is a dead heat, 49.4, 49.4. The difference there, a mere 665 votes. Every single vote counts in this election.

Let's bring in folks to talk about it. The former Michigan Governor, Jennifer Granholm, also, Scott Jennings and Ron Brownstein. Hello to all of you.

Ron, I think you will agree, it doesn't get much closer than 665 votes. Well, unless it's one vote apart, but you know what I'm saying.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. No, it is -- it is striking. And it is reflective of the changes that we are seeing everywhere across the country in this election, the lines that are being more deeply engraved. I mean, Donald Trump's hold on Trump country is formidable and looks impregnable, and it is, perhaps, even deeper than it was 2016, but look at what happened in the Atlanta metro to make this possible.

Not only a margin of 240,000 votes and counting in Atlanta itself, but the two giant suburban counties outside of Atlanta, Gwinnett and Cobb, diverse, prosperous, growing. Obama in 2012, Don, lost them by 66,000 votes.

LEMON: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: They moved a little in 2016, and Hillary Clinton won them by 26,000 votes. Right now, Joe Biden is up by 129,000 votes in places that as a Republican pollster would tell me, we used to build a Republican majority in the state. And you are seeing the same story in Pennsylvania.

The four big suburban counties outside of Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester, and Bucks. Right now, Joe Biden is up by 275,000 votes in those counties. That's 100,000 votes more than Hillary Clinton have. And you can look at Denver and its surrounding counties.

You can look at Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio and their surrounding counties, yes, Donald Trump is very strong in Trump country. But he is basically being repudiated in all of the growing metro areas that are driving population growth, and driving the economy.

So, it really is a bifurcation --

LEMON: OK.

BROWNSTEIN: -- of what is bringing Georgia within reach.

LEMON: I want to talk about what's happening in the rest of the country.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, but --

LEMON: I want to talk -- hang on governor, I want to talk about Philadelphia and all of that because it's an important conversation. But I just want to get Scott in here real quick.

Scott, you're a Republican, you're a Trump supporter, you remember we were -- in 2018, we were saying, Georgia, I don't know, I think it's a pipe dream for Democrats. But here we are, a mere two years later, are you surprised at what you are seeing?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, frankly, I'm not because of some of the trends that we saw in 2018 that Ron was just describing. I mean, we saw the continued flow of votes from the Republican Party to Democrats in the suburbs. You know, as Ron said, Donald Trump continues to do quite well among traditional Republicans, among people in rural areas, he also did better among some minority voter cohorts that I think Democrats probably did not expect, or don't like tonight.

But the truth is, white males in the suburbs went away from Donald Trump. We spent a lot of time, Don, talking about female voters, especially female voters in the suburbs, but it looks to me like the gender split was about the same as it was in 2016.

But male -- white male voters, especially -- so we talk about yoga moms, these are the yoga dads. They went away from Donald Trump. And so, I wonder, for the future of the Republican Party --

BROWNSTEIN: Namaste, Scott.

JENNINGS: -- and these folks --

LEMON: I don't know -- go on, sorry.

JENNINGS: I'm sorry? Go ahead.

LEMON: Finish your thought.

JENNINGS: No, I just want to say, the party -- the party used to depend on these guys, and now they voted for Joe Biden. So, the next messengers for the Republican Party are going to have to marry these coalitions. Right? The working-class voters that Donald Trump attracts, but then the white-collar voters that seem to have gone away from the president.

LEMON: Yes, I don't know if they want to be called yoga dads, but you know what, they are soccer dads, or maybe they are palates dads. Who knows?

But Governor, I want to bring you in. You can talk about Georgia, but also, I know that you wanted to talk about Pennsylvania and Philadelphia.

GRANHOLM: Yes.

LEMON: What Ron was talking about, because they are closing the gap in Pennsylvania right now. It's just a matter of time until --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

GRANHOLM: Yes.

LEMON: -- he officially, you know, pulls into the league for now. We'll have to see. But he is rebuilding the blue wall. Go on, Governor.

GRANHOLM: Yes, he is rebuilding the blue wall. And he did it with a very strategic strategy, Joe Biden did, which was he was not going to cede working class people to Donald Trump. Donald Trump did a good job in 2016 of going everywhere to say to working class people, these trade agreements, your jobs are gone.

Biden said, this is -- this is a group that should be Democratic. Working -- working class people whether you live in rural or ex-urban or urban areas, they should be part of the Democratic tent because our policies totally help them.

[03:25:08]

So, he wasn't going to cede any of that, and that was an important way of rebuilding this blue wall, whether it's Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.

I do have to say, though, in Georgia, I mean, I am so in awe of Stacey Abrams because her strategy of registering people who -- you know, they added 800,000 people to the registration polls between 2018 and today. And so, now, you have a 67 percent turnout in Georgia. Now you've these two potential runoffs that will happen on January 5th for the Senate, for the control of the Senate, and --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Hey, Governor, hold on one second, someone in the control room has me keyed, and I can't hear. Can you unkey me so I can hear the governor? Thank you. Now I can hear you. Go on.

GRANHOLM: Wait, I've been saying all this stuff and you haven't heard me? That is such a bummer?

LEMON: All of what you said and I cut out, but go on.

GRANHOLM: I was just praising Stacey Abrams for her efforts on registration --

LEMON: Yes.

GRANHOLM: -- and saying that there is an opportunity to do further registration even now because of these two Senate runoff seats that are coming up for control of the Senate because if you really want to see policy change on the Democratic side, you've got to get control of the Senate.

LEMON: But I think also that, to your first point, you said that the former vice president wasn't going to cede any territory to working class people, but I think that is something that the Democratic Party really needs to focus on and work on right now because they --

GRANHOLM: Totally.

LEMON: -- are losing or have lost, really, working class people in many ways in this country. Scott, I want to bring you back in, I want to ask you about what's going on. Because the president is saying now, my gosh, this is fraudulent, the election is being stolen from me. He's got other folks around him who were buying into this, politicians who are currently in office.

Donald Trump Jr. called out Nikki Haley on Twitter for not defending his dad's baseless claims on election fraud. Then minutes later, she did praise the president. Why does the Trump family have such a grip on your party?

JENNINGS: Well, I mean, look at the results. Donald Trump won 93 percent of Republican voters. This was an incredibly close election. It's obvious that Donald Trump is going to continue to have influence in the Republican Party for several years.

I think he, as a personality, even if he loses this election is not going anywhere. Neither is Donald Trump Jr., neither is Ivanka. I mean, they are here to stay. And you are going to have all of these Republicans vying for the nomination, and they want to be, you know, tapped by Donald Trump as somebody that can carry on with his coalition.

The trouble with it all is that it's not, apparently not true. I don't -- I mean, there doesn't seem to be any validity to the claims. They are still counting the legal votes that came in. And what I think the more responsible Republicans out there are saying is, count every legal vote, let every legal process follow its course, whether it's the Biden or Trump campaign that has a claim.

And once those two things are resolved, we'll have a result. It may take a few days, it may take a few weeks, but that's the responsible Republican claim tonight. That's the responsible Republican statement.

but if you go out and try to dial on this hill that this election was stolen, when there is no evidence that it was, my view is, people won't -- people won't appreciate it in the long run. And it won't be a good for your personal brand.

LEMON: OK. Well, same thing --

BROWNSTEIN: Hey, Don.

LEMON: Yes, Ron, I do have to go, but listen, I think what you're saying is only half of it, Scott. You can't say that every vote needs to be counted, but we also need to say is what the president is doing is dangerous. And you should call the president out for doing that.

Go ahead, Ron, quickly. I got to go.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: I did, it's wrong, I literally said there's no excuse.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: No, no, I don't mean you. I don't mean you.

JENNINGS: There is no evidence of what he --

LEMON: I meant -- I don't mean you. I don't mean you.

JENNINGS: -- is saying is true.

LEMON: I'm talking about people who are in office right now. Go on, Ron, quickly.

BROWNSTEIN: (Inaudible) real quickly, to Governor Granholm's point. You know, these two Senate runoffs in Georgia are perfect encapsulation of where we are as a country. I mean, Republicans now hold 47 of the 50 Senate, and the 25 states have voted both times for Trump. Democrats will hold 39 of the 47 Senate seats in the states that voted both times against Trump.

We are partitioning as a country and it is somehow perfectly encapsulated that Georgia, a state divided between the urban and rural that we are seeing separated us everywhere will now get to decide which party controls the Senate and how Joe Biden can go win in implementing his agenda if he wins in the next few hours.

LEMON: We got a long way to go on this shift and you guys are going to be back. So, drink your Red Bulls or coffee or caffeine, whatever it is you're doing, monster energy drink.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: Coffee (Ph) of choice.

LEMON: Yes. So, we'll see you in a moment. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

Hey, listen, we are keeping an eye on the battleground states, and what is going to happen in Georgia? Look at that. Sis hundred sixty- five votes separate these men, both vying to be the next president of the United States. One wanting to stay in office, and one wanting to go back to the office that he was close to four years ago.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:30:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: All right. Here we are. We're looking at the state of play, 253 - 213. Now on our watch, although it's the early morning hours, we have seen movement in Pennsylvania, but more specifically in Georgia, OK? Right now the lead in Georgia, in this key race alert is 665 votes. Dead heat. Forget about the estimated vote. There is more than enough vote in Georgia to make a difference in this election for Joe Biden. Why do we care? We care about all of them. But the president has to

win Georgia to have a path to 270 electoral votes. Who says so? Phil Mattingly at the magic wall. So let's discuss it. Phil, we're going to focus just on Georgia. 665 votes have moved on our watch. We're now dealing with smaller and smaller batches. Is that just the eventuality, or could we get a big crop of votes?

[03:35:08]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: To the extent you could be at the edge of your seat at 3:30 in the morning on the third day of an election and account you were at the edge of your seat right now.

CUOMO: This is not a toilet.

(LAUGHTER)

Go ahead.

MATTINGLY: Look, here is the --

All right. Here we go. Here is the bottom line, 665 votes, we know there is one county that has been consistently reporting throughout the course of the last several hours of which there is enough votes still outstanding in that county to overtake President Trump if you are Joe Biden. That county is right here.

That is Clayton County. We think that that is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 votes outstanding. Right now, we've seen Joe Biden over the course of the last several batches hit around 84, 85 percent. Could get him there. Still trying to figure out exactly what's outstanding to be able to fully do the math. But in terms of what's reporting in Georgia right now, what has been consistently reporting over the last several hours.

Clayton is the ball game. Clayton was the biggest outstanding Democratic stronghold county with vote going into this night. Had about 4,500 outstanding. We've seen it whittled down with a couple of thousand here and there. And Joe Biden has been picking up vote every single time.

Remember, we started this night, Donald Trump was up about 1,800 votes, now up with about 666 votes and we know Clayton, spoke to a Clayton official earlier who made clear they are working through the night. They are reporting as they can. This is what we're waiting on in terms of the immediacy of the actual vote count.

Will Joe Biden overtake President Trump and will he do it in a matter of minutes? The expectation is that Joe Biden right now is on a pathway to overtake President Trump. Clayton plus. Let me explain that for a couple of minutes.

CUOMO: Please.

MATTINGLY: So, Gwinnett County is also still outstanding. We do not expect Gwinnett to report until tomorrow -- I guess in a couple of hours. It is now this morning right now. We know Gwinnett has about 4,500 votes, out ballots outstanding. Votes that have already been cast that they're counting and they're waiting to report.

Gwinnett, you can look at the margin here, Joe Biden is winning Gwinnett handily. We don't know the ratio in which it is going to come in. When it does come in. But based on mail-in ballots, based on the fact that Democrats have dominated mail-in ballots throughout the country, the expectation is that Joe Biden will do well in Gwinnett.

So, if you're a Republican, you're saying where is the outstanding vote where Donald Trump has a chance to match, blunt some of what Joe Biden is bringing in right now, or is Joe Biden on a pathway to win the state of Georgia?

CUOMO: So, let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll work through the permutations. Any votes that come in, we'll deliver to you right away. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:40:00]

CUOMO: All right. We have another key race alert in Georgia. Even though it is 3:42 in the morning Eastern Time, they are working through the night, and we know it because more votes just came through. Look at the spread now between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. 24 hours ago, he was up almost 30,000, now 463 votes only separate the two men. Where did these votes come from? What do they suggest about what could come next?

Let's go over to the magic wall and discuss it with Phil Mattingly. First, as we look at this. What do we know about where they came from and what that tells us about the state of play in that county?

MATTINGLY: It's the hardest working county in Georgia right now. It's Clayton County. The county has made clear they are going to count through the night and they had been reporting, they are reporting in one huge batch. They've been reporting trickling out a couple of hundred votes here and there. What we do know is they reported 306 votes.

Joe Biden won 202 netted, 202 of those votes. Where does that bring him down to now? 463 votes. We know there is still outstanding vote in Clayton County. We know they are working through the night. We know --

CUOMO: Do you think 1500?

MATTINGLY: We were calculating that they're down. Harry is checking on this. They were down between somewhere 2,000 and 1500.

CUOMO: Yes, Harry?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: Right and so they reported 306 new votes. And as you mentioned Biden netted 202, which means he won that batch by about 66 points. That's a little less -- he earned a little less than 85 percent of that vote, which if it continues on, based upon on what we believe the number of votes are still out in Clayton County. Once they're done counting and given the statewide margin of 463 at this point, those votes that they continue on that pathway should in fact put Biden in the lead if it follows the pattern so far.

CUOMO: So Clayton is working hard overnight as Director Dozier told us when she did the interview with us. But we're not just waiting on Clayton County, right? It's not like well either this is going to settle the race. There are other counties that had vote.

MATTINGLY: There are other counties outstanding. This is a county that has a very real possibility based on what we've seen the last several batches. Joe Biden has been somewhere between 85 and 88 percent every single time it's come out. As Harry notes. That should base on what's left put him over the top of Donald Trump.

However, you make a key point. There is still vote outstanding. There is vote for Democrats. Democrats are very keen on Gwinnett County. 4,500 ballots outstanding. They've been obviously -- they are in. They're being tabulated right now. We expect them to be released sometime this morning that leans Democratic.

If you're Republican, you're looking here and I have to apologize, I called this Forsyth earlier, it is actually Forsyth. I thought I got Houston right and I was very proud of that.

(LAUGHTER)

A couple of days ago, but it was Forsyth that tripped me up. So, a little over a thousand votes in Forsyth. Republicans hoping that this margin holds. We've been talking about it all night. The margins are not holding. Regardless of where they are in Republican counties, because they're mail-in ballots, the mail-in ballots are largely going Democrat or blunting the ability for President Trump to net gains here.

[03:45:04]

You can also go down here as well, Lawrence County. I believe has about 1,500 votes outstanding. Not outstanding. Votes that have been put in that are being tabulated right now that we're waiting to see how they actually come out. So I think the question right now, and Harry has been good at breaking this down.

We've been talking about it repeatedly over the course of the last several hours is we know there are votes in Gwinnett County. We know Clayton County is about to put Joe Biden ahead of President Trump on net in the state of Georgia. Turn the state blue, at least for the moment.

The biggest question is, in Lawrence County and Forsyth County and President Trump in that outstanding mail-in vote actually gain votes and make a comeback. I think right now, I think Democrats on the ground will tell you it's unlikely. But we will wait and see. We'll see, count the votes. Count the votes. We'll see. CUOMO: Absolutely. I mean, look, its 3:45 a.m. in the East. I wish I

could tell you, you know what? We've got this. Go to sleep. We don't know when it's going to happen. It's been coming down in Georgia. We got a move in Pennsylvania. We've got to burn the midnight oil, just like the good citizens that are doing it for us as volunteers in this county. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:50:00]

LEMON: A key race alert. Look at what's happening in Georgia. I mean, 463 votes separate Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And at any moment, it is believed, this is the way the trend lines are going, the trend is going, that Joe Biden will at any moment now take over, take over the lead, at least for now in Georgia.

So, what we're witnessing right now really is history. That's history in the making in this election. Democracy in action. Despite the president's false claims that he won the election, OK. And that the victory is being stolen from him.

So, let's bring in to get some perspective from this. CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. Douglas, you're from Georgia. Good evening to you -- good morning to you. I keep saying good evening. So, I'm used to being on in an evening.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Yes, good morning to you.

LEMON: You're from Georgia. Give us some perspective. Because you've got Clinton, Carter, and Kennedy, right, who the last time Democratic president won Georgia.

BRINKLEY: Well, you know, Don, sometimes people forget that you know, states like Georgia were competitive. In 1960, Jack Kennedy was able to win Georgia, even as a Democratic Catholic. But after that civil rights act of '64-'65 under Lyndon Johnson's great society, the south, as we all know, went Republican.

But Jimmy Carter was from Georgia, a native son. He was able to pick up some southern states back in 1976. And then Bill Clinton in 1992 was able to. But since then, it's just been bright red. But like Texas, it's one of those states, North Carolina that people keep hoping if you're a Democrat that it will turn blue.

And it looks like now Georgia is on everyone's mind. Like the great Hoagy Carmichael song that all the great recording artist is saying, everything, all eyes are on Georgia. Who would have thought that Georgia may be the state that gives Joe Biden the presidency?

LEMON: I was going to ask you. And we're so divided right now, the country. Are you surprised that this is happening in Georgia? The demographics, I have to say, I lived in Atlanta for a long time, and I saw that the -- I would say maybe the beginning of some of the demographic changes there, younger people, more diverse, more people living what we call it inside the perimeter or just outside of the perimeter in the surrounding suburb.

BRINKLEY: You know, and I'd give Ted Turner some credit when he brought CNN to Atlanta, determined to make it an international city, a beacon for the world. Atlanta's known everywhere. And people, as you know, came from all over to Atlanta. You know, you go any community you'll find in the world, there are people from Somalia or from Nigeria, people from Venezuela, Costa Rica.

It became a great American international city, and it just kept growing and growing the rings around it. It's an amazing metropolis. And now this is Atlanta triumphing over rural Georgia that we're witnessing right now. And so it's a new day in the state of Georgia.

LEMON: And you're right about that. You got CNN, you had Coca-Cola did the same thing. And of course you've got the universities, Emory and hospitals and so on. So, yeah, it's -- the demographics are changing. But let's talk about the overall big picture here.

What we heard from the president of the United States, we heard it the other night, but we heard it today also in the briefing room or earlier yesterday, he said in the briefing room, it was pathetic. It's dangerous. How do you think history is going to remember that spectacle?

BRINKLEY: What an embarrassing moment it was for Donald Trump. He was like kind of shriveling coward, lashing out in different directions, humiliating our country around the world for no reason at all, except his own wounded ego. But if you really pull back from it all, it just shows you what a low class act this president has been.

You know, if you want to watch the way you lose an election, look at the way in 1992 that George Herbert Walker Bush conceded to Bill Clinton. If you want to watch what a president does when they're -- under in real peril, look at the way Richard Nixon spoke to the country quoting Theodore Roosevelt's famous speech (inaudible) about the man in the arena and the dust and the blood of politics.

[03:55:08]

Nixon said goodbye and left. Instead, Donald Trump's lost, and he's going to make us suffer and pay for it day after day after day with whining, complaints, lawsuits, threats to the Supreme Court. And so again, he is ending his presidency as it began, showing zero nobility.

LEMON: Yes. Well, we have to see how it plays out. Douglas Brinkley, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

BRINKLEY: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: If you look at the numbers, if you're just waking up or getting up to go to the bathroom, or whatever it is, your eyes are not deceiving you. Things have changed a lot when it comes to Georgia. Really it's changed a lot in Pennsylvania and a number of the battleground states. But look at that Georgia, 463 votes separating the men. 49.4 to 49.4. That is close. More key race alerts coming up, and we should be getting some new

information from all those precincts around the country. We'll be right back.

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