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CNN Live Event/Special

Voting Underway In Elections That Will Decide Senate Control; Mike Pence Faces Pressure From President Trump To Overturn Election; Federal Judge In Georgia Rejects Trump Campaign Election Lawsuit; Interview With Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R-GA) about Election Day. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired January 05, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:43]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Welcome to our special coverage of election day in America. I'm Erin Burnett along with Anderson Cooper, and we're covering this historic 48 hours in America.

Right now voters in Georgia going to the polls. That's going to determine who controls the Senate and the future of President-elect Joe Biden's entire agenda. Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue facing off against Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Last pitches today, in-person voting today, runoff record already, which is amazing, Anderson. I know we've been talking about this. Three million early votes already cast, and people lined up today to vote in person.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes. And today's voting is only part of this unprecedented moment in the country. Of course, not only is the balance of power up for grabs in the Senate, but by this time tomorrow, Republicans in Washington will challenge the democratic foundation of this country. More than half of House Republicans and 13 senators are expected to contest Biden's win when the Congress meets to tally the electoral votes.

Now this is President Trump's last-ditch effort to try and overturn the election and he's now applying maximum pressure to Vice President Mike Pence to go along with the charade tomorrow.

BURNETT: Which is going to be incredible theater. And theater of course is what it is. We know the outcome but we have so much to get to in the next three hours in Georgia where we have no idea what the outcome will be. So let's start with Georgia. Ryan Young is in Smyrna.

Ryan, what are you seeing there?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, there's been a lot of energy behind this. We just talked to a voter who said before when he arrived here for the November election, there was a line down the block. Well, early voting has certainly had an impact because if you look right now there's no line, no waiting. But there was a man sitting at this door before 6:00 a.m. this morning.

At some point we had a line around this building. The average wait time right now in the state of Georgia is less than two minutes. And we're talking to voters, they've been getting in and out very quickly. But as we saw this young man walking out -- we saw you and just wanted to ask you. First of all, how long did it take you to vote and what brought you here today?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It probably took me under like a minute, like, or a minute or two, and I just wanted to vote because I know it's important and specifically I wanted to show my support for Ossoff and Warnock. So I knew that was important to me.

YOUNG: What issue really stood out to you? Because, I mean, obviously you've been getting killed with text messages and you've seen commercials. Is there something that stood out to you about this election that made you want to be here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, definitely because I know that it's obviously important in terms of controlling the Senate and specifically I know that the candidates that I supported, I like their stances on environmentalism and especially in terms of race relations and things like that. And even though I don't specifically align with some of the candidates in terms of that, like I know, for instance, Ossoff doesn't support defunding the police, but I still think that he'll be a better candidate than the Republican candidates just because I think that -- well, I mean, I'm not going to vote for a Republican because -- yes, but yes.

YOUNG: Thank you so much. Was this your first time voting?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, actually.

YOUNG: OK. So this is not his first voting. Look, there's been a lot of people, a lot of energy. There's a couple group of poll workers who are over here, who are cheering folks as they come through. So far, the good news here, we've been told, that maybe the votes could be counted as early as 7:00 or 8:00 tonight.

Let's not forget, over $500 million has been spent on ads. Erin and Anderson, this has been a busy day. You see folks still flowing in to put those votes in.

COOPER: Yes. The ad buys have been incredible.

Ryan, thanks very much.

Want to go to Martin Savidge. He's live in Savannah, Georgia.

Martin, what are you seeing there?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I just want to reiterate that like much of Georgia, Chatham County here has seen a record early voting turnout. But today, the developing line of the story would be slow turnout. In fact, lower than projected numbers. This particular polling place we're at which is in downtown Savannah at the Civic Center, they're seeing it around maybe eight to nine ballots cast an hour.

COOPER: Wow. SAVIDGE: Now, you know, you can begin to start to calculate here, it's

usually Democrats that take advantage of early voting. So they saw twice the number of people that showed up for early voting for a runoff election, but they're not seeing quite the numbers they expected today.

This is Antwan Lang. He's with Chatham County Board of Elections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTWAN T. LANG, MEMBER, CHATHAM COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS: The projection is about 40,000 that we hope to see today, but we may see a little less than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:05:05]

SAVIDGE: Yes, they could see significantly less than that. They had about 69,711 early ballots that were cast. So again if you take a look at those numbers, if you're a Republican, you might have some concerns. Still, there's plenty of time left.

And I should point out, these are extraordinary times. For instance, at another polling place, same county, about 15 minutes away this morning, two people showed up and told the election officials there that they were positive for COVID-19. There is a protocol for this. So what they did was they essentially evacuated the polling place, allowed these two people, husband and wife, to come in, cast their ballots.

And then as soon as they were done, they did a complete clean and disinfecting of the precinct before they allowed the general public to begin voting again. Extraordinary times in many ways in Georgia today -- Erin and Anderson.

BURNETT: Wow, that is -- that is an extraordinary thing just to imagine that they do that. But the whole point, every vote will and should count.

So let's go to John King at the magic wall.

So, John, now you've seen what's happening on the ground there. Let's talk about turnout. Marty talking about that. Obviously, Savannah, that was Biden heavy, Democrats tend to vote earlier but now you have a dearth of people turning out on the day. What do you read into that? How do you compare this to what we've seen in November?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know it is off the charts for a runoff election. We do not know and we do not expect that it will match November. The question, Erin, is how much? How close does it get?

Let's go back in time. You mentioned November. So let's go back and look. The presidential election. That's always when turnout is the highest. And in this election, turnout was up everywhere. And just shy of five million votes, just shy of five million votes cast in Georgia in the presidential election. That back in November. So five million.

If you use that as a benchmark, we're going to come in under that. It's a runoff election. But usually runoff election turnout drops dramatically. We do know this. Let's just come back to 2021, this is one of the Senate races we're watching tonight. We do know this already, that as Marty was starting to mention there, three million have cast their ballots early already. Three million.

The previous high in a Senate runoff election was just over two million. So we've already exceeded the record. The question is how high do you go? And if you take a look at the breakdown of how it comes in, in person, two million of these voters have voted in person, just shy, 970,000 have voted absentee by mail. You can still drop an absentee ballot, by the way, if you've got one in a box, in a lockbox if you want today.

But this is your threshold, if you will, and then we'll see with election day turnout. It's a reminder, number one, turnout is up for the runoff, down from the presidential, but up for a traditional runoff which shows you people are still engaged in these elections.

And number two, Erin, it reminds us and all of our viewers, just like back in November, we're going to have to be careful. Some counties will be counting in different order. We'll just have to watch as the votes come in. You might see Democrats jump out to early leads in places that are normally Republican because they are counting mail-in ballots. So we're going to have to walk through it carefully just like we did back in November.

BURNETT: So, you know, you've got the president there last night, John. What role does he play? I mean, right? He's come out and said that the whole election in November was rigged and you can't count the system, even as he's telling people to turn out now. What kind of impact does that have?

KING: It's a fascinating question, Erin, and you get different questions when you ask different smart people. Let's go back to the 2020 presidential map to look at it that way. So let's look at it from one perspective. Do the Trump voters come out at a time when he's criticizing the governor, criticizing the secretary of state, criticizing the process, saying Georgia doesn't know how to conduct elections.

If you're a Trump supporter, do you say, well, then I'm not going to vote, I'm going to stay home? That's one of the reasons the president was here last night up in Whitfield County in the northern part of the state. Dalton, the city of Dalton, was his big rally last night. Republicans are a little nervous at the early voting especially in Trump counties, if you will, places where they want the Trump base to come out. That's why he was there.

Now he talked mostly about himself and his grievances, but he did say get out and vote in the Senate races. This is one of the places we will watch.

BURNETT: Yes. KING: Again, turnout will be down. How much? How much will it be down

from the presidential election? Do we see evidence that the Trump base isn't playing or do they -- the president is stirring up a fight, a lot of people think that's enough to get the Trump base to come out?

Here's another thing I'm going to watch, Erin, which is here. Here. In the suburbs around Atlanta. This is why Joe Biden carried Georgia. The anti-Trump animus, the anti-Trump bias in the suburbs had a lot of moderate Republicans deciding, I can't vote for President Trump. But just one quick example here, if you look. If you go back, this is -- come up to Cobb County and pull this out, you see President Trump gets 42 percent of the vote, 165,000 and change. Right? 165,000 here.

In the Senate race, David Perdue gets 169,000 and change. So it's 4,000 votes. You might think that's not a huge deal. In a close election, that could be a huge deal. So does anti-Trump bias in the suburbs continue tonight with Trump not on the ballot or do Republicans --

BURNETT: Yes.

KING: Do these Republican Senate candidates do better in the suburbs? I think that's a defining question.

BURNETT: And so hard as people -- you know, you obviously saw across the country, right, people choosing Democrat at the top, and then going against that on the lower ticket. Does that -- you've got the control of the Senate at stake here.

So all this being said, John, and I know they can start tabulating all of that early voting starting at 7:00 Eastern, when do you think we may know?

(LAUGHTER)

[13:10:05]

KING: The wall is magic, Erin. It's not that magic. Look, election officials do say, number one, in part because turnout will be down from a presidential election, they do think they'll be able to count more quickly. So we do expect them to count the election day votes. We do expect them to get to the mail-in ballots, the absentee ballots pretty quickly.

We may have a sense tonight. But we again also need to be careful. And if these are razor thin, remember, if you're an overseas Georgia voter or overseas military voter, and you're casting your ballot, those ballots can come in until Friday. So it is possible that we have another election week in America, not election night in America. But officials in the state say, number one, they think they did a very good job, despite what the president says back in November and they also think they've learned from that.

And so I think we'll have a good sense around midnight or so of what's happening, but will we have a winner? Will we have a winner or winners? We'll see. That's why we're here. BURNETT: All right, John.

So, next, Mike Pence back at the White House. President Trump of course pressuring him, doing everything he can to pressure him to prevent election certification. So what's he going to do, side with the Constitution or Trump?

And we are going to go live to Fulton County, the largest county in the state of Georgia. Voters at the polls this hour. And the coronavirus situation in California, right now a human being dying in Los Angeles County from the illness every 15 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:41]

COOPER: Election day in America. President Trump intensifying his pressure campaign for Vice President Pence to try to overturn the November election, tweeting, quote, "The vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors." They of course were not fraudulently chosen.

It comes as a source tells CNN Pence will, quote, "follow the law and Constitution" in his ceremonial role presiding over the Senate's certification of electoral college tomorrow.

Kaitlan Collins is live for us in Washington, near the White House.

So it's getting very public, Kaitlan. It's very confrontational. What more do you know?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do know the vice president showed up at the White House not long after the president sent that tweet. And so the tweet was really just part of what we are seeing, this private pressure campaign on behalf of the president and some of his advisers turn public. It started with that comment last night at the rally, which was really one of the first times we've seen the president address the vice president in that way.

We've seen him do that before with the attorney general, with the FBI director, with other people in his Cabinet. We have not seen it on a level like this with the vice president. And so what the president is asserting, Anderson, is that the vice president has an authority that we know he does not have, we know what the ultimate outcome of tomorrow is going to be.

But clearly the president is listening to people like Peter Navarro, other advisers, who are telling him that Pence can do more tomorrow that he actually can, even as the vice president has been taking careful steps to walk the president through what his role is going to look like. And so it seems obvious to the rest of us what it is that the vice president is going to do tomorrow, given he does not have legal authority to do anything else.

But he is facing the biggest loyalty test probably in the last four years of his relationship with Donald Trump, which is saying a lot because he has had to carefully navigate some things over the last four years. But this could be the biggest one. And it does go to show that even if you're someone who's been, you know, very loyal to the president, if there comes a time where you disagree or you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you have no other option, the president will still expect you to side with him.

And that is what he is doing with Pence right now. And he is clearly building up a lot of anticipation for what his appearance is going to look like on the hill tomorrow and what it is he's going to do.

COOPER: It's also such a lesson for all these Republicans who are, you know, prostrating themselves to bend to the president and try to please him in these final days. You know, Pence has been doing his bidding this entire time. If he now, you know, stands his ground and just does what his ceremonial duty is, none of that matters to this president.

COLLINS: Yes. There's always another loyalty test with Trump. And that's why it seems that some people around him don't realize, is that even if they go and disrupt tomorrow, and they do what the president wants, these Republican senators, these House members, even if the vice president took steps that the president wanted to see, six months later down the road, there could be another opportunity where the president has another thing that he wants them to do.

You know, that has been the story of the Trump era since he's been in office, since I have been covering him, is every single thing is a loyalty test. And just because you passed one doesn't mean there won't be another one later down the road.

COOPER: Yes. Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much.

Joining us now is Alan Fruman, Senate parliamentarian emeritus.

Alan, there's been a lot of speculation about what Vice President Pence might do Wednesday. I just want to play something that the president said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I mean, can you just explain what Vice President Pence can and can't do tomorrow? I'm not sure he can do anything that the president will view as coming through.

ALAN FRUMAN, SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN EMERITUS: Well, he's authorized under the Constitution to open the ballots and he is authorized under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to announce the result of the vote. COOPER: And we just lost that. Obviously we'll try to get Alan back.

What he was saying was basically his main role was opening up the ballots and then announcing the results of the ballots. We'll want to hear more from him coming up.

Huge early voting turnout may have given Democrats an advantage in Georgia. But we wanted to see what an election day voting what's going to reveal. We'll go live to Fulton County. Georgia's lieutenant governor is our guest.

Also, ahead, defying democracy. That's what's more than 100 Republicans of Congress are expected to do in a showdown tomorrow. The question is, are they destroying their own party and attempting to destroy democracy? Ahead.

[13:20:06]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Breaking news. A federal judge in Georgia denying an attempt by President Trump to decertify the state's election results. It is the latest unsuccessful attempt by the president to overturn the November election, and it comes as polls are open for another five and a half hours in Georgia's crucial Senate runoff races.

[13:25:03]

Gary Tuchman is live for us in Fulton County, Georgia.

So what more can you tell us about the judge's decision, Gary?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, it's important news but it's not necessarily surprising news. Most lawsuits by the Trump administration have failed. This is another one that has failed so things will proceed as normal here in the state of Georgia with that voting.

Georgia voters, they are the king makers from the north and the Appalachians to the south and the beautiful beaches. Georgians are going to the polls, more than 2600 polling places across the state, including this one at the Cathedral of Saint Philip in the Buckhead section of Atlanta.

Early this morning when we got here, there was a long line outside in the dark to come outside. Since then there have been no lines. But there is a steady stream. But the voting today is not the big story. The big story is the early voting, 15 days of early voting here in Fulton County, Georgia. Today you have to show up at the precinct you're assigned to. But for early voting here in Fulton County, you can go to one of 30 locations wherever you want.

So it's very easy to early vote. And because of that, record-setting voting here in Fulton County. 390,000 ballots were filled out either sent in by absentee or filled out in person, and that is a record- setting level. There has never been that many votes for a runoff election in the state Georgia ever. And there's more to come today. Now we've been talking to voters all throughout the day as they've

come in, why they've decided to come and who they've decided to vote for. I met these two folks a couple of minutes ago.

Tell me your name and your friend.

ABIGAIL, GEORGIA VOTER: My name is Abigail.

TUCHMAN: You don't want to be anonymous. You're willing to put your name.

ABIGAIL: Yes. Abigail.

TUCHMAN: Abigail.

LOFTIN (PH), GEORGIA VOTER: And I'm Loftin (PH).

TUCHMAN: And are you family?

ABIGAIL: We are. This is my son.

TUCHMAN: Your son? Very nice. So how old are you?

LOFTIN: I'm 19.

TUCHMAN: So first election?

LOFTIN: It is.

TUCHMAN: Presidential election, this election? What made you decide to come today and not early vote?

ABIGAIL: You know, I was going to early vote and then I just never got around to it, so here I am.

TUCHMAN: Well, better to vote today than not vote at all, right?

ABIGAIL: Exactly.

TUCHMAN: Let me ask you a personal question. Not everyone is going to answer, some people want to slug me. Don't slug me, OK? Who did you vote for?

LOFTIN: I voted for Democrat, Democrat, Democrat.

TUCHMAN: This is a very interesting point that it brings up. You know, we know there's two Senate races. There is a third race here. It's for the public service commissioner. This will be the most well voted for Public Service Commission runoff race in the history of Georgia.

Let me ask you, did you follow your son? Who did you vote for?

ABIGAIL: You know, it's a secret ballot. But what I will say is that I voted for peace, I voted for justice, and I voted for all people. And that's --

TUCHMAN: OK. Vote against your son?

ABIGAIL: No, I didn't.

(LAUGHTER)

TUCHMAN: That's how reporters get answers. Final question for you. You heard about the phone conversation that Donald Trump had with the secretary of state, president of the United States. Based on who you said you voted for, I assume you weren't happy about that?

ABIGAIL: You know, not surprised. Not happy. Not surprised.

TUCHMAN: You?

LOFTIN: Same. Not surprised.

TUCHMAN: All right. This case, we've got a couple of Democrats. I could tell you that Atlanta is a Democratic stronghold. Thank you, by the way, for talking to me.

At this particular area in Buckhead, this is the most Republican part of the city of Atlanta. So we're in a place where there's Democrats and Republicans. Just so happen we talked to a couple of people who voted for the Democrats -- Anderson.

COOPER: Gary Tuchman -- thanks very much, Gary.

BURNETT: All right. Thanks, Gary.

And I want to bring in now Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan.

Lieutenant Governor, good to talk to you again. So, you know, we've talked a lot of times. And now here we are, it's actual voting in- person day. Are you confident given all of the brouhaha the president has put out there, all of which you and your elections team have very clearly and factually debunked? Are you confident today's election will be secure?

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R), GEORGIA: Well, certainly I'm glad it is election day. If you're a Georgian, you certainly have not missed the fact that today is election day with mail and TV and radio, and everything else that's coming at us. But, yes, I am. I know that the Secretary of State's Office and all the 159 counties have put a great deal of effort. Certainly there's been a great deal of attention and focus. Our job is to make sure we put on a fair, legal election, and I'm confident that will happen once again today.

BURNETT: So you used the word today. Do you think we will know who wins tonight?

DUNCAN: I think it's going to take us a little bit of time here, certainly unless there's some sort of run away in the early results which doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like this will be razor thin margins on either side of all three of these races. And that's really one of the things that has been so concerning to me,

as I have been so, you know, loud about trying to get folks, Republicans, to focus on this race and not any sort of sideshows or the distractions that some of the other folks have started to talk about because this is going to be a razor thin election and we need every vote that we can get that counts.

BURNETT: All right. So I know you've spoken about the call. Gary Tuchman just raised it there with those voters in Buckhead today. The call that the president made to your secretary of state, Ben (sic) Raffensperger. And the president claimed in that call which we've all listened to now, 16 times that he won the state of Georgia.

Now of course, he did not win the state of Georgia, and along with that he made a lot of untrue claims which again you gave Sterling, Secretary of State Raffensperger have all gone to great pains to say are not true, right? Like all these 5,000 dead people voted, there were two.