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Biden On Verge Of Presidency, Awaiting Results In AZ, NV And PA; Biden Still Leads In AZ, But Lead Shrinks A Bit; Biden Expands Lead In NV, Closes In On Presidency; GA Secretary Of State Says There Will Be A Recount; Biden Lead In PA Grows, On Verge Of Presidency. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 06, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: In Arizona, where there are 11 electoral votes, Biden maintains his lead 434,779, slightly less than it was a while ago but it's still 43,779, 50 percent for Biden, 48.6 percent for Trump, 93 percent of the estimated vote in Arizona is in. In the critically important battleground state of Pennsylvania, the most electoral votes at stake right now, 20. Biden maintains his lead 8,867.

A little bit less than it was a little while ago, but it's still 8,867. He is got 49.4 percent to 49.3 percent. 95 percent of the estimated vote of Pennsylvania is in. In Georgia right now, almost all of the votes are in, 99 percent of the vote is in, Biden maintains a lead of 1,584 votes. 16 electoral votes in Georgia. 49.4 percent. 49.4 percent.

Let's go to Pamela brown at the voting desk. In Georgia, there's an important development that's unfolding now.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Wolf. We are headed to recount in Georgia. In fact, just moments ago, the Secretary of State in Georgia said, they're looking at the next steps. The Secretary of State said, "With a margin that's small, there will be a recount in Georgia." Here is what this entails. If you take a look here, there's no automatic recount in Georgia.

Candidates can request a recount though if the margin was at 0.5 percent. As it is now, it is within that margin. But we should know today is a deadline for outstanding overseas ballots. There's up to 9,000 that still haven't been returned at last check. We don't know the provisional count. And today is also the deadline for the cured ballots.

So that is a factoring into all of this. Also, the superintended may recount or recanvas, it appears there is an error, but Georgia officials say, they have no evidence of errors irregularities. But we do know the Trump Campaign has made clear to them, they want the recount and it appears that is where this is heading according to the Secretary of State.

So the question then is when would that happen? It is possible for it to happen before recertification. Certification deadline is November 20th, it could be as late as November 24th. But we just heard that Georgia official say, they want certification to happen even sooner than what the deadline is.

And what would it entail for a recount in Georgia? With entailed ballot scanners, they would use to put those ballots back through the scanners, unless those ballots are defected. This is a process that would be overseen by superintendents. So it looks like there, Wolf, that is where we're heading at this hour.

BLITZER: Thanks very much, Pamela, for that. John, it's very interesting that in Georgia there's a Republican Secretary of State who's in overall charge as well as the Republican Governor. And if they do this recount and it comes back basically the same, there's not much the Trump is going to be able to do about that.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Right, and remember the Governor himself, Brian Kemp, is the Former Secretary of State. He was the Secretary of State when he ran for Governor, hardly contested race. Democrats were still grumbling about the vote counting in that race. So Governor Kemp now is the eyes of the nation and the world will be on him.

The question is, is Georgia decisive in the sense that if Joe Biden continues on the path he is on, he will have 270 plus and this will be very important to get the final outcome of the race. But it is quite possible it does not determine the winner o f the race, it's just sort of in limbo as you go. But you can look, you can understand this, whatever your partisan leanings at home, you're looking at 1500 votes right now.

More votes to come in. We expect that lead to actually grow for Joe Biden a little bit. As not that many more votes to come in, but they are mostly from Democratic strongholds. So anticipate that lead grows a little bit more. But you see 49.4 to 49.4. Well within reason for anybody to think let's take a look at this.

And Wolf, you look at the presidential race here, there's also there's two Senate races on the ballot in Georgia. But this one right here, a recount could be incredibly significant. First we have to get to the final vote total. But if David Perdue is under 50 percent, you have a runoff in that race. That's the way Georgia state law works.

So a recount here could be incredibly consequential, not just to determine who finally gets Georgia's electoral votes in the presidential race, it could have a dramatic impact on state politics as well. So let's see where we are at the end of the day.

You just heard what Pam said there, actually encouraging, if they can, the state wants to move up the certification process, if they're comfortable that they can do that, so they can get about the business that will recall sooner. So you're seeing there as you noted, a Republican Governor, a Republican Secretary of State, trying to move the process along.

BLITZER: I've got another key race alert right now. Take a look at Pennsylvania. Biden's lead just went up a bit. He now has a lead of 9,746 over Donald Trump. 49.4 percent to 49.3 percent. Still close but it's approaching 10,000 right now. Biden's lead over Trump, 20 John, 20 electoral votes, that's really the most important right now. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.

KING: Right. And so, you're watching this play out. These new votes untold just came in from Bucks County. So you come down here in the Philadelphia area, you move up just to the north of Philadelphia, you see that one of the suburban collar counties around Philadelphia, this one the more competitive. You see overall, 51 to 47. Votes came in here.

And as you noted Joe Biden just stretched out as lead a little bit. A short time earlier, Wolf, appear in the northern part of the state, in this county - county, President Trump actually picked up a few votes, a very modest number of votes, they counted several hundred votes, and the president picked up a little bit, just a tiny bit, a100 or so votes on Joe Biden.

As you saw in one of these counties, we've been saying consistently even in the republican counties when we get these mail ballots, that Joe Biden has been gaining. Instead in that one, there was a very modest gain for the president.

[12:05:00]

KING: But a lot more people live down here in Bucks County and every time we have seen the votes come in, in Philadelphia and the suburbs around it, Joe Biden builds his lead.

BLITZER: So in Pennsylvania, the lead for Biden over Trump now is 9,746. Let's look at how that increased right now. We've got the numbers if you want to put them up on the screen. This is coming in from Bucks County right now. So Biden just picked up 2,617 votes. Trump picked up - excuse me. Erase that.

KING: Sure, you got it.

BLITZER: All right. Biden picked up 1732.

KING: Biden, 1732. OK.

BLITZER: I just want to make sure and Trump picked up 853. There were a total of 2,617 votes. So Biden got 1732, Trump got 853. Biden got 66 percent of the vote in Bucks County with his latest batch.

KING: And again, so just look at this number in the sense that Donald Trump is behind right now. Right? That's Bucks County, Donald Trump is behind. Let me pull it out to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The full vote here, and you see 9,746. Sure, you're close at 49.3, but you're trailing.

So every time new votes come in, you have to get more and yet almost every time new votes come in, it is Joe Biden not only getting more, but getting two-thirds of the votes. So Joe Biden, that's not a giant lead in a state that is so big. You see the total votes count, 3.3 million, almost 3.29 million. This is a very competitive race. But the overall trend with that one tiny exception in one of the

republican counties to the north has been, we get new votes, Joe Biden is not only winning, meaning building his lead, but that lopsided advantage makes it harder and harder , more difficult by the vote count for Donald Trump to catch up.

And again the final margin is going to be important. We just mentioned the recount in Georgia. The president aids are going to look at that, talking about asking for recount, whether they want legal challenges, the final number in Pennsylvania if going to matter. But what matters most at the moment right now, Wolf is that, it is blue because that one alone is enough to make Joe Biden, the president elect of the United States.

BLITZER: Those 20 electoral votes are critical. Kate Bolduan is in Philadelphia for us. As you get more information, what are you learning, Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Wolf. So we are standing by for a press conference that checking should be coming up in the next 30 minutes. This will be the first press conference of the city election officials that have been running this count in the convention center behind me. This will be the first time that we've gotten a press conference, a briefing update from them since Wednesday.

I'm told we're going to be hearing an update on what is still outstanding, what is left to be counted, and hopefully how long it will take. But it is not clear if they'll be offering an update on numbers, an update on any additional count that has been finished in this process of finishing up the ballots.

We do know from sources that the process here has slowed. And here's why. The 25,000 ballots that are outstanding still to be counted include ballots that have issues, things like signature issues or date issues. It requires review. And that takes longer because it requires a second look.

There's an ambulance going by right now, Wolf. It should hopefully be past in a second. And we're back. One thing, that we are also told is that the segregated ballots that mail-in-ballots that have come in post Election Day, they are not included in this process right now.

They're still shrink-wrapped as it is described to me and being held securely separately from what's going on right now. But we should be getting some more information in just a few minutes, Wolf, 12:30 press conference scheduled right here.

BLITZER: And about 20 minutes or so. All right. Kate, we'll get back to you as well. So John, you were telling us about Pennsylvania. Right now, 20 votes at stake, electoral votes. If Biden wins that one state, forget about all the other states, if he wins that one state, he is the president.

KING: Right. And we're going to keep counting the votes in those other states. Arizona and Nevada we're still counting, Georgia again is likely to be a recount. Will be a recount in Georgia. So we might not know the final allocation of the electoral college votes, but if Joe Biden holds onto this, he is president-elect.

He would have 273 just with Pennsylvania alone. Kate went through the math. We'll see if we get new numbers out of Philadelphia. But we know a good deal, 20,000 leads you just said, 20,000 of the outstanding votes are still here. Your eyes tell you the story right here.

Joe Biden is getting 80 percent plus. And the last batch of votes in the mail-in votes, we got Philadelphia was 89 percent. So Joe Biden is not worried about that leftover votes here. He knows he's going to increase his lead. And that's the problem for President Trump. More votes there, and again 36, 37,000 votes out here in Pittsburgh. Joe Biden won't get them all, of course.

[12:10:00]

KING: But you already see he is getting close to 60 percent already in Allegheny County. And in these mail-in-ballots, we'll see if it changes, but in these mail-in-ballots, he is consistently be getting in a mail-in-ballots a higher percentage, sometimes a much higher percentage than he is winning county wide, because the overall totals include the president's big election day turnout.

So if you go through the counties and where the counts are missing here, I'd say we had a very modest increase for the president about 160 votes in one small county, but everything else we have seen not just today, but yesterday as well, these vote batches come in and Biden builds.

Again it's a modest lead with the votes out based on the percentages he has been getting, you can project out maybe 40,000, some people in Pennsylvania think even higher than 50,000 will be the ultimate end of it. We'll see that at the end of the day. And that final number again is incredibly significant if you're thinking about recount or challenges.

When you stretch a number like that even in a big state like this, 3.3 million votes, 3.29 million votes, you start getting about 10, and about 15, then about 20, history tells you that's a number that's most unlikely to be overturned. They may find 12 votes here or 12 votes there that were tabulated wrong, but once you get about 10,000, it gets almost impossible.

BLITZER: That's the history that we are all pretty familiar with. Brian Todd is joining us from Pittsburgh right now in Allegheny County, that's the second largest county in Pennsylvania. Brian, what are you picking up?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we're excited to be here because of the access that we are getting in this period after the election, when questions about transparency, questions about the access that observers are going to have to the vote counting are coming up in all of these states that have not been called yet, but we're getting a firsthand look very close to the vote counting.

We are here at the elections warehouse in Pittsburgh. Allegheny County, it's going to be a crucial county. These people behind me are what they call members of the election board. They were sworn in just a short time ago. What these people are doing, they going through these bins, they're picking out - these are all damaged ballots.

They're about more than 2,000 of them that these people are picking through, checking very carefully, processing them, so that they could be counted. Now we don't know how many of those of course might have to be tossed out because they're simply too damage and you can't tell.

We're going to be getting an update on these numbers by the way probably within the next hour, hour and a half or so as to what some of the numbers are for the Biden and Trump campaigns among the damaged ballots coming in. And I will show you over here, when we talk about access that observers have, these are the members of the board counting the damaged ballots and processing them.

Right behind them, this lady here in the red and this gentleman here in the blue sport coat, these are observers. These are bipartisan observers. They're being kept in that area behind this chain link fence here. They can't go any closer than they are. But look, they've got access here.

They're only a few feet away, they're watching this very closely. We've been told so far no anomalies, no irregularities have been reported to the chairman of this counting facility right here. We just spoke to him a short time ago. After they do these more than 2,000 damaged ballots and we get the results of those that we'll see in about an hour, hour and a half.

Then they're going to process more than 4,000 ballots from overseas and military members that are coming in here to Allegheny County and a short time after that, we'll get those results. We're going to be bringing you numbers pretty shortly here, Wolf, from Allegheny County.

And what's interesting also about this is, we're not going to be able to be here for that much longer, only a few more hours until we get kicked out. Why? Because at about 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time 29,000 plus ballots that are coming in that have not been counted yet in Allegheny County are going to be processed here.

These are ballots, these are mail-in-ballots. When they were mailed out to voters, they had wrong information on them, then they had by court order that information had to be corrected, they had to be sent back out. And then those ballots are coming in. They don't start to get counted until 5'o clock p.m. Eastern Time today. That count could take a couple of days.

They're going to start uploading those numbers they think tonight, but we won't get final numbers there until maybe tomorrow, maybe later in the weekend. So the key thing here is Allegheny County with its 35,000 plus ballots that have yet to be counted are being counted right now, are they going to help Joe Biden drive up his margins in Pennsylvania said that, this area favors Joe Biden.

He spent a lot of time in this area in the later part of his campaign, especially in the last few days. He came here with Lady Gaga the day before election. So again, Allegheny County is crucial with its 35,000 plus total ballots that have yet to be counted. But this is interesting, Wolf.

Again enjoy it while you can watch this. Because we're going to get kicked out here in a few hours. These are - they are very exciting here. Firsthand look at the ballots being counted. This is one of the things that really makes us jazzed about covering an election like this and about covering these races that have not been called yet.

You're seeing these people, I'm two feet away from these guys, and they're doing just some great painstaking work, so these results can come in accurately, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, we are grateful to those poll workers who are doing an incredible job. Brian Todd, thank you very much. So just a recap, John. 9,746 vote lead that Biden has in Pennsylvania right now, and we're told about 95 percent of the vote is in. So there's still thousands of votes outstanding.

[12:15:00]

KING: As Brian just noted, 30,000 plus of them are in Allegheny County. And again, your eyes can tell you Joe Biden is getting close to 60 percent of the vote here. He has traditionally been getting even in excess of that in these mail-in-ballots.

So you can anticipate if Joe Biden, if his 35,000 ballots and Joe Biden even gets 60 percent of them, he is going to add to his lead obviously. And that's the biggest chunk of ballots that are still outstanding. You see 9,746, math tells you and the last 24 hours tells you that lead is likely to grow.

The question is how many. And to Brian's point being in that room again at a time when there's a lot of heated rhetoric both from the podium of the White House and the President of the United States and on social media, a lot of it from the president and his allies. What you just saw there, I've been in those rooms before. If a Democrat and a Republican standing behind somebody, those are damaged ballots.

Sometimes you're filling out the little circle, you don't get filled all the way in. So that worker holds it up and says, see, I think this is a vote for Wolf Blitzer, they both look at it and they say OK. You just didn't finish filling in the circle or it's creased in a way that the machine won't read it, the worker holds it up, he says I'm going to call this a vote for Wolf Blitzer. They both look at it.

There is any doubt, one of them says, I object, and they take it over and they look at it, and they talk about it. That's how the process works in every election all across America. Two people standing right there looking at it. So when you hear people saying, there's no transparency, there's people doctoring ballots, if they have any evidence of that, we have things called courts.

But what you just saw there is what's happening all over America, right, in close states, in states the president is winning, in states the president is losing, that's the way it works. And it is refreshing to see it. Brian is right. BLITZER: And you and I covering in 2000 Bush V. Gore, we remember the

hanging chads as we all remember, they were coming in from Palm Beach County. I don't know, what we're saying? This is Pittsburgh. Right? You can see some of the - you remember the hanging chads, it took more than 30 days for them to determine who won Florida. And that was the decisive moment and it did go all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

KING: Just at the mention of hanging chads as years of therapy down the drain, right there, Wolf. Look, there was 537 votes in the state of Florida, we thought we would never have anything like that. Let's hope that we do not.

But again, if anyone has a legitimate complaint, whether it's a race for dog catcher or a race for president make your case. But don't stand and say things and then you see pictures like that of honest, hard working Americans. Who knows what party they belong too. Counting votes, it's a great thing.

BLITZER: There's nothing wrong with counting votes. And president said, they all have to be done by Election Day, you can't wait, you can't count anything after Election Day. That's totally unacceptable.

KING: Right. Well, the reason the president is mad though is, because a lead that was once go back in time, over 600,000 votes because they counted the Election Day votes first, and the president dominated that, president ran a good campaign in Pennsylvania.

The president got 3.2 million votes and counting in Pennsylvania. More votes than the president received four years ago when he won the state. The problem when Pennsylvania is not that the president turnout his vote. If you're President Trump, your "problem" is that the other guy got more votes. In America we don't call it a problem, we call it democracy.

And right now he is winning, Joe Biden is winning. Math. Simple. And we'll see where it goes from here. But again, as we are having this conversation, there is a civics lesson for some people who've never seen those recount rooms by those ballots room like that, that is blue. That is blue going to a recount by blue.

These right now are staying blue. Joe Biden's lead in Nevada and Arizona, both of those have come down a - in the count today, but he is still leading in all of them. But if he gets this one right here, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, game over. That gets him to 273.

And the rest again, if he can build more, that gives it, the question of that, if you get this, then the question for these is more when Joe Biden speaks to the American people not as president-elect but as president, how much more political power does it give him, how much more leverage. How much more the question of a mandate will be debated once we get past the moments of today which is getting these states to the finish line. They fail and gets to the finish line, Joe Biden is the next president.

BLITZER: And we are all told that even as little kids in school, every vote counts that are a democracy. Let the votes count, whether it takes another few days, a few more weeks, it's important that every vote counts in a real democracy. We're going to have more votes coming in very, very soon from Pennsylvania. Stay with us as our special coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back to CNN's coverage of the presidential election. Let's go to Jeff Zeleny right now who is covering the Biden campaign in Wilmington, Delaware. Jeff, you have some news?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: We do, Jake. We are being told that plans are being made for Joe Biden to deliver an address to the nation tonight during prime time, not exactly sure what time during prime time, but those are the plans being made at this hour. Of course much of that depends upon how this race goes, how the counting goes in Philadelphia.

I can tell you, all eyes inside the Biden campaign and indeed most likely by the former vice president himself are on these counts in Pennsylvania. But I'm also told he is doing a variety of other things today, looking forward to the transition and other things should that be how this develops.

But we do know that at least plans are being made for a speech tonight in prime time, and the stage behind me that you've seen all week, there is significant more activity happening here in the last few hours or so, higher secret service presence, they've been repositioning some of those jeeps and vehicles that were in the front of this. So it looks like it's being prepared for another drive in rally, which became a hallmark of the Biden campaign.

[12:25:00]

ZELENY: But of course this is a speech that the former vice president has long anticipated giving, not knowing if he would give it, but I'm told it will be serious in substance and tone, much like we have heard him speak over the last several days. But at least as of now, it will be in prime time here tonight, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much reporting there from Biden headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. And Dana, the three of us have been noting the response or lack thereof from republican officials when it comes to the untethered and wild allegations being made by the president and his spawn and his supporters about the election, all of the crazy and false claims about it being stolen. There is some new development from Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah. What does he have to say?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we were talking last night. He did put out a statement last night.

TAPPER: Mealy mouthed? BASH: Fine, he spoke out, but he does kind of said let the votes

happen. Not stronger right now, but we're seeing on Twitter effectively he says that doing things, he, meaning the president, he is wrong to say that the election was rigged, corrupt, and stolen. Doing so damages the cause of freedom here and around the world, weakens the institutions that lie at the foundation of the republic, and recklessly in flames destructive and dangerous passions. Wow.

TAPPER: That's strong. But there was a sentence at the top.

BASH: The top had said the president is within his rights to request recounts, to call for investigation of alleged voting irregularities where evidence exists and to exhaust legal remedies. Doing these things is consistent with our election process. That is kind of fine.

TAPPER: That's fine. Absolutely. Yes, and there's a recount going on right now in Georgia because the margin of victory there for Joe Biden is so slim. You see there right now, it's 1,567 votes, that's within half a percentage point. So there is a recap that the Trump campaign is asked for that's going forward.

BASH: Yes, but the fact that he is being so forward leaning more than we've seen any prominent republican do in saying to the president cut it out, cut it you're your undermining democracy is noteworthy. Not it's not as - Mitt Romney has not done that before, but in this case at this moment in time, I think it is significant.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a correction and it was a necessary one, because I think his previous statement left the impression that he was sort of not willing to denounce these broad, sweeping claims of fraud that everyone knows has no basis in fact. And this one is a lot more clear about what is within the leans of what is appropriate and acceptable in a democracy and what is not.

And there should be a lot more republicans making stronger statements frankly about what is going on here, because there is really no justification for the kinds of things that you were hearing from President Trump last night. Almost everything that he claimed was evidence of fraud was not true.

TAPPER: Right.

PHILLIP: Or not evidence of fraud at all. And it's worse when you watch Fox News where many of the president's advisers and supporters and campaign aides are going on the television, speaking to the president's supporters every single day, reinforcing falsehoods, frankly fake manipulated videos on social media, these are all things that are corrosive to democracy and not enough republicans are being specific about what the problem is.

TAPPER: And you're upset about what you see on Fox and you have every right to be, you should check out the Twitter feed of the president's spawn, because it is like rantings in cran by somebody having an LSD trip. I mean, is somebody - these are claims that are just so wild that they wouldn't even make, forget Fox, they wouldn't make Fox business where, you know, are all sorts of facts go to die. BASH: Meanwhile, what Jeff Zeleny just reported is really interesting,

which is that right now, Joe Biden is preparing what so far will be the most important speech of his life. It's probably going to be the first of many most important speeches of his life, because he is going to have to walk the line, depending on what happens in this prime time speech, presumably he won't give the speech until people feel comfortable enough calling the presidency, given where the votes are in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

But regardless, he's already set the tone from the beginning of his campaign from day one, about reaching out to everybody, being all inclusive and so forth. But presumably, he is going to be giving that speech without what normally happens, which is a call from the person who you beat. And my guess is that he is going to just ignore it. And talk about what he would do as president.

TAPPER: Yes, and if there ever were a democratic politician for a moment.