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CNN Live Event/Special
ELECTION NIGHT LIVE CONTINUED: Live Coverage Of Georgia Runoffs With Chris Cuomo & Don Lemon; Close Race In Georgia Still Too Soon To Call; Biden's Agenda If Georgia Votes Blue Today; Black Voters Matter: The Strength Of Georgia's Turnout; Interview with Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA); Pence Informed Trump that He Can't Block Biden's Win; Technical Issue Causing Delay in DeKalb County Vote Count; Ossoff Takes Lead, Both Dems Now in Front in Georgia. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired January 06, 2021 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:00]
CHRIS CUOMO, ANCHOR, CNN ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA, AMERICA'S CHOICE: Whole team, a dramatic night. History being made in the moment. Georgia is every bit as close and then some, as imagined.
We just had the Reverend Raphael Warnock, Democrat, come out and say apparently he believes he won. The race has not been called, we're not calling it.
Right now, the margin of that race is outside the requestable recount amount but there are a lot of counts meant to be -- a lot of votes still meant to be counted.
But the big headline is, one, democracy won.
DON LEMON, ANCHOR, CNN ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA, AMERICA'S CHOICE: Yes.
CUOMO: People came out and vote in this election like we haven't seen in a long time, for a special election.
Also, Joe Biden is in a better position right now -- we don't know what's going to happen, he needs both of these seats to change the senate.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: But he is closer now to having a chance to govern with a mandate he never imagined a few months ago.
LEMON: And that's the big picture I was talking about. When he was talking about the river, Harry, this is the ocean, the big picture.
Would he have a road map to get his agenda through after the Trump era comes to a close? If both Democratic candidates win, then it is a 50/50 senate and that comes with the soon to be vice president, right? She will be the one --
CUOMO: The vice president is the president --
LEMON: -- who's the tiebreaker.
CUOMO: -- of the senate, breaks ties.
LEMON: But if the Republicans win --
CUOMO: They win one of these seats --
LEMON: -- then (Inaudible) Mitch McConnell. He keeps his power.
CUOMO: Right.
LEMON: He keeps a check and balance on Joe Biden in the White House. So -- and all just weeks ago before the inauguration.
And then you will have, Chris, you will have -- if this does indeed, if it turns out, call it tonight or whatever but if it does look like they're going to win -- and no one has called, meaning the Democrats -- Democrats go into that session tomorrow on a high note.
With Mitch McConnell being possibly, in their minds, in the minority. Imagine, just overnight, the flip in Washington and what that means for Joe Biden. That's why he's keeping an eye on this (inaudible).
CUOMO: Well, what it means for Joe Biden is going to be appointment. What this means for the Republicans tomorrow, I think is a little bit trickier question.
Do they come in there with air out of their sails or do they come in there more fierce? Now what are we talking about, we're talking about races that are not decided.
So let's give you the latest, a key race alert. Here it is.
All right. Now if we look at the board, you see right there.
Raphael Warnock, as I said, the Reverend from Ebenezer Baptist of course made famous by Dr. King, using it as a platform for his message. He has deep roots in the state. He just came out and said, apparently, that he thinks he's going to win.
Those are the numbers; 2,208,580, 2,172,931 for his opponent who was put in the seat by the governor to fill a vacancy.
Now David Perdue versus Jon Ossoff, this is a dead heat. Ossoff has been creeping his way back into this race; 2,191,369 for the incumbent, 2,190,047 for Jon Ossoff.
Why is there optimism there? Because in one of the two or three remaining counties with significant numbers of votes to still come in, they are overweighted Democrat in a way that could change this situation, Don.
LEMON: Yes. Well, all night everyone has been asking me, texting me, emailing me oh my gosh, this is a nail-biter, I can't stand it, who's going to win, what's going to happen?
So let's have that discussion, shall we? Let's bring in some folks here.
I want to talk to CNN political commentators, Bakari Sellers, Scott Jennings, and S.E. Cupp.
Hello, one and all. How are you doing? Doing OK?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: (Inaudible) it.
LEMON: Bakari Sellers, let's talk -- we've been talking a lot about the Black vote and what this means for the Biden presidency.
Where do you see this going? If this does indeed turn out that Democrats win -- again, we have not called it -- if they win both seats, what does this all mean?
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: From a 50,000 foot view, don, you look at the fact that you have a 33-year old Jewish journalist and you have Raphael Warnock who is the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. puts you in the mind state of Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King marching across the Edmund Pettus bridge.
It just hearkens back and it gives you that warm spirit. You think about John Lewis and everything that he stood for. His district is the one that we're focused on today as the Georgia 6th that we're focused on in those votes coming in.
And so all of those things come home. It reminds me of December 12th, when Selma came through for Doug Jones, making him a United States senator.
But when you actually look on the ground, Don, this is the most amazing thing.
You talked about LaTosha Brown and Black Voters Matter earlier but the organizers on the ground, not just Stacey Abrams but the fraternities and sororities, the links, Jack and Jill; all of these groups, all of these Black groups that came together to organize.
They organized from -- you know, Magic City's not just known for its lemon pepper wings anymore, they organized from Magic City --
LEMON: (Inaudible).
SELLERS: -- all the way to the C-suite.
[01:05:00]
They did absolutely everything possible to get this turnout today. And once again, we're talking about black voters. From Pennsylvania all the way throughout the country, the reason that this country has changed has been because of black voters.
LEMON: Yes.
SELLERS: So a shout out to everyone in Georgia tonight.
LEMON: You're absolutely right. But what this portends for the Biden presidency, S.E. Cupp. If you're looking at this, yes, we should give homage to the folks who helped this, who would have ever thought you would have seen turn blue?
For judges, confirmation hearings are going to be different, committee chairs on major committees. How votes on Biden's priorities get scheduled and go to the floor.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
LEMON: There's a lot at stake right now.
CUPP: Yes, it's really remarkable. Georgia has not elected a Democrat to the senate in 20 years -- 24 if you don't count Zell Miller which Georgians will understand. But it really is remarkable if Warnock ends up winning and Ossoff ends up winning.
The Democrats who hoped that Biden's election would help erase the past four years and really usher in an era that was the antithesis of the Trump era, well, they weren't going to get that without these two guys getting elected. And we'll have to see if they get that.
But that was the only way they were really going to get a lot of the things that they voted for and hoped for. And so I can imagine how many Democrats are on the edge of their seats because it is night and day from these two guys losing this election and these two guys winning this election.
Really, everything on the Democratic agenda is at stake tonight and over the next few hours.
Now I think there's an argument you can make if you're a sort of small government conservative that having one party control isn't always great -- I would just like to offer some caution. Sometimes you get great things that happen, sometimes you get a lot of overreach.
If you remember things like the Iraq war happened when Republicans controlled all of Washington, things like extrajudicial killings happen when things like Democrats controlled Washington under Obama.
I think good government happens when you have two strong parties.
LEMON: And --
CUPP: But you don't. The Republican party is at the weakest I've ever seen it. And so, in the absence of a strong Republican Party, you've got to hope for a strong Democratic Party, to actually be able to get in and get some things done.
LEMON: Well, I have to -- and listen, I have to tell our viewers, we're just reading the tea leaves. It doesn't mean it's going to happen, we have not called these races
but if you look at the momentum here, it doesn't look like Democrats will win. Again, we'll have to see when the final votes is counted, when the actual votes are counted and it is called.
Scott, you heard what S.E. said. Republicans were hoping to keep a check on the Biden White House, right, to hold the senate, to keep the current president's priorities and his legislation in place.
If this does happen, what does this mean for Republicans?
JENNINGS: Well, it weakens their ability to slow down Biden from a procedural perspective. If they control the floor of the senate, it'll make staffing the government a lot smoother for Biden, I suspect a couple of Biden's appointees who were in trouble under Republican majority control will now find their way into their cabinet positions rather easily.
So that will help Joe Biden. And I suspect the first thing they'll try to do is move to repeal the Trump tax cuts because I think that's something they could do without having to get to 60 votes in the senate through a process called reconciliation.
But a lot of the other things that Democrats want to do would require still getting to the 60-vote threshold in the senate provided that they don't eliminate the legislative filibuster.
And so I think one of the results of this is there will be I think, as S.E. pointed out, a lot of expectations from Democrats who will say well, we've got full control, let's do everything we've ever dreamed of. It still won't be possible in the senate --
LEMON: Yes.
JENNINGS: And so I think Biden's going to have to manage some expectations of people on his far left flank that some of these things, even in a 50/50 world where you have a sort of majority, still aren't possible.
LEMON: Go ahead, Bakari. What did you want to say?
SELLERS: Don. Yes, I don't want to spike the football but for a lot of Democrats tonight it surely would feel good to say Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Ranking Member of Judiciary Lindsey Graham or Chuck Grassley -- those things actually do mean something.
And we're talking about bringing things to the floor like a 2,000 dollar stimulus check. We're talking about bringing things to the floor likely the John Lewis voting rights bill, like the George Floyd policing act. These are things that should be debated.
Now whether it actually gets 60 votes or not, Mitch McConnell actually stifled the process.
[01:10:00] So by eliminating, by demoting Mitch McConnell tonight because he
didn't take the stand against Trumpism a long time ago -- and we can debate whether or not that was a strategy that cost him down ballot or not in these Georgia races -- but by demoting Mitch McConnell tonight there are progressive issues that are good and healthy for the country that we can even have a debate on.
So my whole thing is that with redistricting coming in 2022 -- you asked me a question that I didn't really answer earlier, because I wanted to talk about black voters -- but Joe Biden has to go big.
Like there's no -- with redistricting, there's a chance you're going to have trouble in the house because of the Republican governors that are seated there now but you've got to go big while you have an opportunity right now.
And I expect that Joe Biden's to feel that pressure and he's going to do that.
CUPP: But --
LEMON: Scott, go ahead.
JENNINGS: I totally agree, I totally agree with Bakari. I want the Democrats to go as big and as left as they could ever possibly ever dream of. I hope they go big and left tomorrow --
LEMON: Well, he said big, did he say left?
JENNINGS: -- because that'll make the midterms all that much better for the Republicans, I think.
LEMON: Oh. Scott already looking forward --
SELLERS: But a 2,000 dollar check -- but a 2,000 dollar check isn't left. Look, if AOC is agreeing with Josh Hawley, how left is that? That's not left.
If you want to talk about criminal justice reform being left when I got Rand Paul and Tim Scott who agree with it, that's OK, we'll call that left. These are things that are good for the country that you can get bipartisan support.
I'm not saying that we're going to go out here and build windmills on top of everything and hug every tree but I'm going to say that we're going to push good policy.
CUPP: But --
SELLERS: That's what we're going to do.
LEMON: S.E., but what does this mean, S.E., for -- this is good news, if this does indeed happen. It may be good news not only for Democrats but also for Republicans who don't want to have to deal with the conspiracy theorist part of the Republican Party.
CUPP: Oh, well, we'll still have to deal with them.
LEMON: The --
CUPP: Trust me, they're not going anywhere. But --
LEMON: What does that mean for the QAnon conspiracy theory people --
CUPP: Well, they're in Congress, Don.
LEMON: -- who want to convert constitution?
CUPP: The toothbrush -- the toothpaste is out of the tube in that. And so we'll have to deal with that.
But to counter Bakari -- and I agree with everything he said to Scott -- the Democrats will get to debate ideas and policies that matter to them.
Isn't it great that maybe conservatives will also get to debate policies that matter to us for the first time in years? Because we aren't being hijacked by someone who coddles those QAnon nut jobs.
LEMON: S.E., I just said that. Go on.
CUPP: No, we haven't had --
LEMON: It's true --
CUPP: -- really good --
JENNINGS: Look, I --
CUPP: -- debates about the deficit, taxes, about trade, about protectionism. We haven't had --
LEMON: S.E., I'm joking. But you're absolutely right.
CUPP: -- those great debates in years.
LEMON: You're absolutely right. But again, we have to see where this goes but people can actually debate policy.
You said that the genie's out of the bottle when it comes that sort of conspiracy theorist -- people who are willing to not even consider the constitution, what they're going -- planning to do tomorrow.
What does that mean? Does this take us to a saner place in our politics or --
SELLERS: No.
LEMON: -- does it light a fire, an even bigger fire --
SELLERS: No.
LEMON: -- under that part of the Republican Party ? CUPP: Well --
SELLERS: The Republican Party's in shambles.
JENNINGS: No. Well, my --
LEMON: I'm chiming in as the Democrat.
JENNINGS: -- view is that there (inaudible) --
SELLERS: (Inaudible).
JENNINGS: -- are going to be people that continue to believe.
LEMON: Bakari, first. Go ahead, Bakari.
JENNINGS: Sure. Go ahead.
SELLERS: Yes. No, I think that the Republican Party's in shambles. Anytime you have congresswoman Green flying down on Air Force One --
CUPP: Right.
SELLERS: -- saying that the Georgia ballot should be thrown out but her race should still count. That's insanity.
CUPP: Right.
SELLERS: When you have 13 Republicans standing up tomorrow who are just plotting a course for 2024 throwing democracy under the bus. That's insanity.
You have Donald Trump and Eric Trump coming out saying that anybody who doesn't join their father's titanic mission tomorrow is going to be primaried (ph) and lose. That's insanity.
So while we're pressing Joe Biden to go big --
CUPP: Yes.
SELLERS: -- the Republican Party has a problem on their hands. And yet --
CUPP: It's not even just the --
SELLERS: -- it's healthy that we're going to have some debates.
CUPP: It's not even just the conspiracy theorist and that is a very unique, troubling problem. It's that the party has become a party of stunts over the past four years. We're going to see one tomorrow night, in fact.
But let me remind you this is a party that stormed a skiff (ph) that many of them were invited to. This is a party -- Devin Nunes sued a fake cow just two years ago. Trump very dangerously tear-gassed peaceful protesters so he could take a photo op in front of a church. This party has made the stunts, instead of the sideshow, the show.
And so it will be great if that sideshow kind of leaves with Trump and some of these other Trumpists, if we could get back to -- I don't know, governing, legislating, policymaking, debating. That sort of thing.
LEMON: Scott.
JENNINGS: Yes. Look, I think that the next generation of Republican leaders here whoever they happen to be and whoever becomes the nominee in '24 has a real challenge
[01:15:00]
To do some of what S.E. is talking about would help recover some folks in the suburbs but they also want to try to retain some of the people that have realigned into the Republican Party under Donald Trump.
That's the real challenge; that Trump brought in some folks and drove some folks away.
And so for the Republicans to be a national, viable party, they're going to have to get back some of the people they lost while simultaneously retaining some people who did like some of the things Trump did.
I don't know which person is going to do that and I don't know which faction of the party is going to lead that but that's the mission.
Otherwise the algorithm doesn't work. Republicans haven't won the national popular vote very often in presidential races in the last 30 years unless their last name was Bush.
LEMON: Yes.
JENNINGS: And so finding someone who can realign, who can understand the realignment while retaining the old-world suburban coalition is the key. I don't know who it's going to be. I think there's a few folks out there but I don't know who it's going to be.
LEMON: As the old folks I grew up with down south say don't put the cart before the horse, cool your jets. We have to see, the votes are still being counted.
But if you actually look at the board. It doesn't get any closer, I don't believe -- 50/50, 49.6 to 50.4. That is really close.
So stand by, guys. We're going to see you in just a bit. We've got a lot of ground to cover here, we're going to -- on the verge tonight of what could be monumental, monumental change for Democrats in Washington.
What it all means for Joe Biden's presidency if Dems win both runoff elections in Georgia and take control of the senate.
Don't go anywhere.
(CNN HIGHLIGHT)
The CNN Freedom Project (Caption)
MARY FRANCES BOWLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WELLSPRING LIVING: In the midst of this pandemic, we realize that trafficking does not stop.
What we've seen with our youth is it is much more prevalent and the trauma is much more severe.
Wellspring Living is an organization that provides == and care for youth and for women from ages 12 to 39.
We opened our receiving center on March the 9th taking in our first youth and then the pandemic hit. And so you can only imagine a new program and trying to get everybody up to speed, something that's never been done before.
Because of the receiving center, they come in right from the street. So we have a medical center there, making sure they're physically OK to be in congregate care. We have mental health assessments, a psychiatrist that does an assessment there with them.
As we continue to navigate through these uncertain times with COVID and all of the things that are going on I think the most important thing we want to say is for everybody to have their eyes open.
We need to be looking out for youth and women who are in compromising situations and be a good friend to them.
Report it to the police, don't just say it's not necessary or it's not my business. This is life and death for these kids.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:20:00]
CUOMO: All right. this is the most important pair of election contests since Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. And, in fact, for President Elect Joe Biden to get anything done, he's going to need both of these seats.
Just one won't get it done; the Republicans stay in power if it splits tonight.
So let's take a look at a key race alert.
Right now, Raphael Warnock -- he came out, gave a very powerful statement, sounded like a victory speech.
He is 35,469 votes ahead. He is out of the requestable recount range right now but there's still votes to go in counties that can help and hurt him.
David Perdue, incumbent 1,322 votes ahead. That is a dead heat with Jon Ossoff. Again, votes that are coming in could make a very big difference in that race very quickly. We will be watching it.
Now DeKalb County -- you're going to hear us talking about that county. Why? Because there's a lot of votes that could come in, maybe 20,000, maybe more and it breaks about 80-20 in favor of Democrats.
So let's go to Nick Valencia who is in that county to talk to us about what's going on there tonight.
How you doing, my friend?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Chris. Good morning here from DeKalb County. Some unfortunate news to report.
Elections officials now telling us here that it's just recently, Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, that they encountered some technical glitches which is causing some significant delays in getting those votes counted.
We know that there's about 19,000 in-person votes left to be counted -- that's according to the last update from the secretary of state's office, Gabe Sterling.
The last update here, Chris, that we got from DeKalb County, 11:09 (ph). They're working on a statement to give us the details of exactly what's going on behind here but activity behind those doors has virtually come to a standstill as we are all waiting on those returns, 19,000 votes.
That really could change the difference in the outcome of this race. I know everyone watching it very closely. Chris.
CUOMO: Now, Nick, people are going to seize on this so let me just give you a quick follow-up here. What is the best reckoning right now of how officials are explaining what the problem is and what it isn't about?
VALENCIA: They're not. Just plain and simply, they're not. They are giving us very limited information, just saying on the record that there are technical glitches.
Now we did hear from somebody inside but that wasn't from an official so I don't want to repeat these -- unconfirmed information. There are some rumors around exactly what could happen but we don't want to tell our viewers unconfirmed information.
Right now though, what officials are saying is that there are technical glitches causing delays and we're expecting to get some details here in the next few minutes, Chris.
CUOMO: All right, Nick. Let me know what you get, thank you very much.
Look, that's going to be important, the integrity of the election and how it goes. Any kind of word about any kind of misgiving that could fuel any kind of doubt is going to have a ton of gasoline thrown on it between now and the next 12 hours. So we're going to need clarity there.
This county really matters, has all night. Matters for the rest of night as well.
JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It matters so much. Why? Well, look, if you look at the David Perdue Jon Ossoff race. David Perdue leads by just 1,300 votes right now -- he's actually expanded that lead in the last few minutes, I'll tell you why in just a moment.
But first, let's go to DeKalb County right here. You can see Jon Ossoff with a 200,000 vote lead, he has a mammoth lead in this county, he's polling about 82 percent of the vote.
So if there's 19,000 votes left to count and it breaks 80 percent for him, he will net 11,000 votes which would mean he would take the lead.
That is why we are depending, we are hanging on these 19,000 votes. And we're waiting to hear again from Nick Valencia about what's holding them up.
Now as I mentioned, you can see Jon Ossoff now trailing by 1,300 votes. That just changed because votes came in from Fulton County -- got to put my glasses on to read exactly how many votes came in. Here.
I can write it here which is super fun, right? Hang on one second.
CUOMO: Sure. I'm not going anywhere.
AVLON: OK. So 2,000 votes came in. Perdue got 1,166 of them, Jon Ossoff got 763. That means the percent of the votes that came in were about 60 for Perdue and about 40 for Jon Ossoff.
Now you're going to say well, wait a second, this is Fulton County, one of the most Democratic counties in the state. True. But these could be Republican precincts. Don Lemon who lived for years in the Atlanta area can tell you there are Republican precincts in that area. David Perdue did better.
This is why we're not calling right now the state despite the fact that we think that most of the vote remaining or much of it is democratic and that Jon Ossoff very well could take the lead soon.
We just can't call yet because we have to see these precincts come in.
CUOMO: All right. So we'll be watching it over here. Don, I'll come over to you right now. You were talking about the experience of being in there.
And obviously, the representation of the African American vote today is going to be a huge part of the headline story. It's not over yet but they've already made their stand.
[01:25:00]
LEMON: Yes. And I have the perfect person to talk to about that, Chris and John.
I want to bring in our newly elected democratic congresswoman, Nakema Williams of Georgia. She's also the chair of Georgia's Democratic Party. Also picking up Congressman John Lewis's -- the late Congressman John Lewis's seat, the 5th district of Georgia.
Thank you so much. And it's good to see you.
Congresswoman, votes are still being counted. How are you feeling about your chances right now?
REP. NAKEMA WILLIAMS (D-GA): I feel great. That's why -- the only reason that I'm up at 1:00 a.m. talking with you tonight. I am staying up to watch these last votes be counted.
But I firmly believe in counting every vote so I am patient, I'm allowing the election day workers to do their jobs safely and I would hope that everyone else is doing the same thing. I've heard about some people gathering at some of the tabulation centers.
So I am patient, I want accurate results and I'm not necessarily looking for expediency.
LEMON: I'm glad you said that. Because I need to tell our viewers, again, that CNN has not called either of these races.
So with that said, if it does happen, Congressman-Elect, Democrats could take control -- Congresswoman, excuse me -- could take control of the senate --
WILLIAMS: When it happens.
LEMON: Yes. All right. I'll give you that language, I'll allow that. Could take control of the senate, take control of the house and the presidency. What does that mean for the country?
We're at the precipice of -- this is history in the making, this is momentous.
WILLIAMS: It means that we have an opportunity to actually govern in this country and we can get past all the Republican gridlock that we've seen where the divisiveness is just for the sake of being divisive.
And so I'm looking forward to number one, getting our country's economy back on track, getting this pandemic under control, making sure that we can get this vaccine out to everyone safely and getting our children back to school safely. That is first and foremost.
And then next on my list is making sure that we get the John Lewis voting right act through the senate -- because the United States senate, Republican control, is what has held this up.
And I've heard a lot of people saying how they felt about Congressman Lewis after he passed away but the senate still not willing to even take this bill up for a vote. And I cannot wait to see someone who started his career in John
Lewis's office as an intern, John Lewis's pastor and someone -- and me who's been mentored by Congressman Lewis and taking over his seat being able to get this legislation passed in his honor.
LEMON: I was just going to say don't forget about you. Now I've got to ask you this because in twenty-oh six or whatever, I was in Chicago when I saw -- or twenty-oh-four, I got to see the rise of Barack Obama.
I moved to Georgia in 2008 and covered that election, and then in 2012 as well.
But I remember, Congresswoman, being in Ohio, in Iowa and what have you. And as Ohio goes, so goes the rest of the country. I would do my live shot then they'd call the election, I would get on a plane and go home.
Now it is Georgia. Georgia is deciding the presidency and the senate. What does that feel like? The tide has turned.
WILLIAMS: Well, Don, this is what we've been saying for so long. And finally, we got the resources to do our work to scale. And then winning in November showed the voters on the ground that winning is in fact possible and voters showed back up.
I kept telling everyone who would listen to me that this election was not a fluke in November, it was not about Donald Trump, it was about voters on the ground using their power and demanding that they have representatives actually willing to listen to them and represent them in Washington.
The voters have spoken. And I cannot wait until I have two Democratic U.S. senators up here in Washington to work with me on behalf of all Georgians.
LEMON: I want to continue to talk about big picture but the big picture also, Black voters. That is the big picture in this country as well. Made up 29 percent of the electorate in both runoff races, almost exactly their turnout in November. In a runoff, that's huge numbers.
What do you think the person whose seat you took over, what do you think the late legendary John Lewis would have to say about that?
WILLIAMS: I think for Congressman Lewis, he always talked about the beloved community and what we're building here in Georgia are multi- racial coalitions.
And so he would look at all of the communities that we've been able to bring together along with the high turnout in the Black community -- everything that he's always fought for is what we're seeing come to fruition in this election cycle.
And it's about everybody coming together for the common good.
LEMON: Is this a moment where you think Black voters in this country came into their own?
WILLIAMS: Black voters have always been the backbone of the Democratic Party but I think the rest of the country has finally accepted what we've always known. We know that we're powerful and we know that we can change the results in any election.
[01:29:52]
But finally we were able to convince the rest of the country that our voices are indeed powerful. And we're not going back. We're not going back to a time, tonight whenever this race is called, Raphael Warnock will be the first black man/person ever to represent Georgia in the United States Senate.
That is something to be excited about.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Let's move ahead and talk about tomorrow, ok because you know what's going on. You were sworn in as a member of Congress a few days ago, which means you'll have a front row seat to Republicans objecting the certification of the Electoral College results tomorrow.
How are you and your fellow Democrats going to handle that?
WILLIAMS: So I'm prepared because I have heard that Georgia's going to one of the states that they're going to contest. On the day of my swearing in, there were some shenanigans on the floor where they were trying to see if they were going to see some members from the states that they were contesting.
And now, here we are and tomorrow is up and I will be ready to defend our democracy and stand there in honor of Congressman Lewis and fight to protect the vote of everyone who turned out and cast a vote in this historic election cycle.
So the Republicans -- this is beyond partisanship at this point. This is about patriotism. Are you willing to uphold the constitution? The oath that you took to uphold our United States constitution? And what I'm seeing from all of the Republicans that I have seen sign on saying that they're going to contest, I don't understand why they are serving in congress, in a body that they don't even believe in.
LEMON: Get ready because either I will be calling you or Chris will be calling you -- whoever producer gets to you first, we'll have you on tomorrow night to talk about what happens in Washington, as well as what's going on in Georgia.
Thank you, Congresswoman. I really appreciate you staying up. Good luck. We'll see what happens.
WILLIAMS: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: Thank you.
WILLIAMS: Good night.
LEMON: Goodnight.
Or good morning, wherever you are in the country.
Listen, this is still close. We still have not called it. It does not get much closer than this.
The one person watching this more closely than anyone else outside of Georgia, you better believe is the President-Elect Joe Biden.
If Democrats when the two Georgia runoff races, Senate control changes hands and the course of Biden's presidency will be much different.
More on our continuing coverage, just ahead.
[01:32:23]
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: The stakes are so high for all of us moving forward. Who is going to be in control of the Senate? They're going to control the flow of activity certainly in the first part of this new presidential term.
That's why for President-Elect Joe Biden, what happens tonight means so much in terms of getting any kind of agenda going. Remember, you have to have control of both houses to get anything done in this culture of opposition.
Right now, the races are locked up. Yes, we did see Reverend Raphael Warnock come out and he gave what sounded like a victory speech. We haven't called anything, but we will call this, a key race alert.
All right. Here we'll start with Reverend Raphael Warnock. He is up 50.4 percent. He's 35,649 votes ahead. There are remaining votes out there that could help him. Maybe that's why he came out when he did. And we haven't seen the incumbent that he is running against.
But it is still very close. We just had some votes come in from one of the counties that goes very blue, but they actually helped the Republicans. So we'll keep an eye on it.
David Perdue and Jon Ossoff, now this is an every vote counts situation. 1,322 ahead for David Perdue and again, that race shifted on a blue county that had some votes come in, and they went for his favor.
Still a lot of votes to come. Mostly, we're looking at DeKalb County now. The trick there is officials came out and said they are dealing with a technical issue.
That's going to be scary. Hopefully they get it straight, they come out, and they give a clear statement about what it is and what the impact is. It's the last thing that we need.
All right. so that's the state of the race. How is it playing?
Let's go to Washington, D.C. We have Joe Johns there. Joe, it is good to have you tonight.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good to be there. Look, what I want to talk to you about first is Donald Trump. And it's been fascinating watching him on Twitter. He has been up late into the night tweeting a variety of things.
Almost on cue, as a matter of fact when the numbers started appearing stronger for Democrats, the president started teeing up the conspiracy theories.
But probably the most interesting thing the president has tweeted all evening is about Vice President Mike Pence, who is expected to preside over the Electoral College vote up on Capitol Hill tomorrow.
The president writes "If Vice President Mike Pence comes through for us we will win the presidency. Many states want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect and even fraudulent numbers, so on -- in a process not approved by their state legislatures."
So much there that is wrong, misleading, and false that I can't even begin to unwind it. But what I can tell you is the president has virtually all day long been putting the squeeze on Mike Pence, who is presiding over that event up on Capitol Hill. And he went so far as to have a meeting with Pence.
But our reporting is that Pence essentially told the president, there is nothing he can do to invalidate the election that went for Joe Biden.
Of course, that story got out first in "The New York Times" this evening. And when the president saw, he immediately reacted, put out a statement through his campaign indicating that look, the truth is Mike Pence and I are on the same page. The vice president agrees, in fact, that he can act if the electoral college turns out. If they're both on the same page then they're both delusional because the job of the vice president at this event is nothing more than ceremonial.
[01:40:01]
JOHNS: One more note. The president is expected to give a speech out on the Ellipse later today and there is some thought that the president might strike out at Mike Pence, which would be a pretty bad spectacle, the idea of the president going after his vice president, when they are both on their way out the door. Back to you.
CUOMO: Boy, oh boy. You talk about gratitude. You know, all we are waiting for is the thud-thud of the bus running over Mike Pence driven by outgoing president Donald Trump.
LEMON: How does that go again?
CUOMO: Thud-thud -- those are the tires, Don. I will show you later.
Joe, thank you very much. Good to have you.
All right. Let's get some perspective on the nuts and bolts of what can happen tomorrow. remember, there are rules. This is a constitutionally guided process.
All right. So let's bring in Norm Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. A former White House ethics czar, a mentor to me and many on these issues. And of course, you remember him from the impeachment challenges and proceedings.
It is good to have you, Norm.
NORMAN EISEN, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Thank you for having me, Chris. Hi, Don.
CUOMO: Now, the reason that I say that Trump is throwing Pence under the bus is because he has put him in an impossible position. Mike Pence, even as vice president of the United States, he doesn't control outcomes tomorrow. Does he?
EISEN: No, absolutely not, Chris. As a long time observers of Washington, you'll remember, Brendan Sullivan's famous comment in congressional hearings, I'm not a potted plant.
The constitution makes Mike Pence a potted plant. His sole duty under the constitution is to open the votes of the electors. It is ceremonial. It's procedural. He can do none of those things that Trump says -- decertify, sending it back to the states, recognizing fraud. The law reserves that to the two houses of congress. They have to agree in order to toss any of these slates out.
That's not going to happen. So you know that bus you talked about Trump driving? It has hit the guardrails that we have talked about so much over the past four years, Chris. The guardrails of the constitution and the rule of law. And Pence cannot do anything about it.
CUOMO: So we have up on the wall, we have the Republicans who we believe are planning to vote against counting electoral votes. And I think this is really important. It is sad that there are so many, to be honest, because you're not going to hear anybody as far as what we know from what has led up to this moment who is going to prevent any kind of action based on any type of proof.
But I think we should show their faces and you should get to know their names as much as possible because this is a period in our history that is going to b e remembered acutely. And what people did and what they said should be remembered during this time.
Norm, procedurally what is the most disruptive to the transfer of power that Republicans -- or really Retrumplicans can be tomorrow?
EISEN: Well, we have seen that for some of the president's followers, there is no limit on the amount of disruption, disrespect, and disregard for the rule of law.
That said, what we can reasonably expect is what should be a short and ceremonial recognition of the electoral 306 electoral votes for the President-Elect will be dragged out for hours, maybe into the wee hours tomorrow night or beyond, even into Thursday by objections. One member of the House and one member of the Senate handing up a written objection to a slate, we know the six slates that are going to be objected to by those individuals.
We can call it a wall of shame, Chris. And they will object to up to six slates. Each of those congresses together in a joint session, to receive the objections, the vice president can receive those, purely procedural and ceremonial.
Then, the two houses go to their neutral corners. They go back to the Chamber of the Senate and that of the House and debate each objection, each state, for two hours. The votes are not there to do anything. Each of those slates are going to be recognized. Big waste of time in a pandemic and an economic crisis. At the end, Joe Biden will be the next president.
CUOMO: Norm Eisen, thank you very much, especially in these wee hours. But, you know, you can't sleep on history. Thank you very much.
We are going to take a break. There is a change in the state of play. We are hearing from Jon Ossoff. Is he about to help deliver the Senate majority to Democrats?
We are also keeping a watch on DeKalb County. Now, what is this technical glitch? What does it mean? What's the state of play? We have news, right after this.
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CUOMO: All right. We have a key race alert for you right now and the state of play in Georgia. Obviously, the Senate is up for grabs. We've just had a change in play.
Jon Ossoff is now in the lead over incumbent David Perdue. 3,560 votes ahead -- statistically it is a dead heat. But this is a fundamental change in the race. We'll talk about why in just a moment.
The other race, we've already heard from Reverend Raphael Warnock who came out and gave what apparently is a success speech, but it's not over yet.
He is 40,575 votes ahead, however over the incumbent who was put in place but the governor there. That race right, now is that one percentage point, meaning it is clear of the 0.5 percentage point margin that you need to ask for a recount, ok?
[01:49:41]
CUOMO: Now very interesting, just as we saw the change in the votes, we got a statement from Jon Ossoff, who said from his campaign, that he believes that when all the votes are counted we fully expect that Jon Ossoff will have won this election to represent Georgia in the United States Senate. We look forward to seeing the process through in the coming hours and moving ahead so Jon can start fighting for all Georgians in the U.S. Senate. Remember, if Ossoff wins and Warnock wins, that means you have a 50-50 tie in the Senate. And that means who breaks the tie? The Vice President of the United States. Who's that? Kamala Harris as of January 20th.
So let's go to JB. JB, what did we see now in Ossoff's lead, 3,500 votes -- why?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: We saw new votes from DeKalb County. This is the county we've been watching over the last several hours. Let's take a look right now.
DeKalb County now with 94 percent reporting. You see Jon Ossoff now leads by 206,000 votes there. Now I'm going to try to tell you exactly what just came in. Because I think it's disruptive. Let's put up the blackboard here so people can see it.
Hang on a sec. Ok. So we got roughly 6,000 new votes in from this county. David Perdue got 512 of them. Jon Ossoff got 5,394 -- ok, 91 percent of the vote. 9 percent for David Perdue.
This shows why we've been saying for some time that as this remaining vote comes from these Democratic counties like DeKalb and also maybe Fulton later on, that it breaks heavily toward the Democrats.
This was only a smidgen of the vote we're expecting, we're expecting at least another 10,000 maybe more votes from DeKalb County. We were saying that it break 80-20. This one actually broke 91 to 9. So you can see how Jon Ossoff was able to expand his margin there.
CUOMO: So that's interesting. So again it would be a presumption because we're not calling the race or anywhere clear near it. But this type of margin, even if it goes back down it is highly suggestive that the incumbent David Perdue has got a lot of wood to chop, if he wants to get back in this.
BERMAN: He's got a problem, right. Let me see this if I can get rid of this here and I can pull this out.
Just so you know 97 percent reporting across the state right now -- where is the vote remaining? I mean this is where the 7 percent or more remaining, it's all these places.
CUOMO: What about all that red, not enough population?
BERMAN: No, There's not a lot of people here. You what, there's 3,000 people in this county in Jenkins County. Look up here, you look over here for instance in Madison County, again not a lot of people and you're dealing with only a few thousand votes to spare here.
So there aren't the votes that Perdue would want in order to make up these margins in DeKalb County where there's still more than 10,000 votes to come in.
CUOMO: So we were talking about, as John tells me to hit the D -- DeKalb. D as in Democrat because it's representing. We also have Nick Valencia who is there now and maybe he can give us some information about what may become the narrative of anyone who loses tonight which is Nick, what you were telling us about officials there saying, they had encountered some type of technical issue -- what do we know?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, still work being done here but the vote counts, you know, the reporting from this county has really slowed down considerably and we know why now.
Technical issues according to the county has caused them to now have to manually scan 19,000 ballots. This is a statement that we just got here. I want to read this, Chris, to our audience.
"Due to technical issues, the remaining 19,000 ballots must be manually scanned in order to be tabulated and added to the final vote count."
They go on to say that these outstanding paper ballots are currently being scanned and the tabulation will be completed as quickly as possible. And in compliance with state guidelines.
Look, guys, they're trying to get a timeline on exactly when we will see these last -- these votes that we're waiting on. We've been waiting really for hours now. We just got a quick update that John Berman talked about. But no timeline given by officials. We've heard everywhere, anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours, that's an unofficial time though. Officials not saying from the county exactly how long this will take.
But now they're going to have to manually scan them because of these technical issues -- Chris.
CUOMO: Any concern about the legitimacy of the votes that have been counted?
VALENCIA: So far we have not heard any problems, any issues here, the spokeswoman here that we've been speaking to has been very clear. Average wait times to vote, six minutes. They had no issues at all, no major issues to report. Of course, you're always going to have some minor things. We heard some minor reports in the morning, but nothing major or significant.
CUOMO: Bad news is, it adds time to the process. Good news is after a machine check of a recount, what you ask for is a manual recount. So they are slow walking this process, because they had technical problems. But you are getting hands and eyes on things that you wouldn't have had otherwise.
BERMAN: Look, if the Georgia elections officials have told us all along, there is literally a paper trail in the voting there. They have the paper ballot s so they can go back and then scan them if there's a glitch.
This barely even registers as a glitch. The impressive thing to me is what, it's like 2:00 am in the morning right now. They're still working, there are still working to get these votes counted and report them so people can see that this is a free and fair election. [01:54:52]
CUOMO: Now, something we didn't get to -- in the depth that I wanted to earlier because we had news coming in that's good. Is the headline of the night of the how the black vote delivered in Georgia.
And let's look at that in absolutely context but also versus Warnock and Ossoff because we're seeing different performances there as well.
BERMAN: I will show -- let me just compare it with Warnock and Ossoff right now. you can see that Jon Ossoff leading by about 3,500 votes over it all. Raphael Warnock leading by 40,000. Now you may think that Warnock is just doing better in counties without African American population. He's doing a little bit better there, We don't really have a way to show you that here, but Kelly Loeffler is underperforming.
David Perdue has been elected in Georgia before. Kelly Loeffler never has. So what you might be just seeing here is the advantage of incumbency that Perdue has over Loeffler level. It may not be as much of a Warnock versus Ossoff thing. Although I have to illustrate is running very strong in the Perdue they Around that, around Atlanta. And so this treasure.
Let show you one thing. I have to illustrate it with the perdue -- let me see what I got here. Now, they changed it on me. So I can't show you.
Well I can go like this in this stretch of the state right here. And this is known as the black belt. The Democratic candidates have vastly overperformed what they were showing before. They're doing very well there.
And David Perdue is underperforming under Donald Trump.
We'll take a look at this a little better and I'll get some of the numbers so I can show you.
CUOMO: All right. So let's do that. Let's get into the into the break right now. Look, things are getting very tight and the votes are coming in. This is the time to really focus in on and what's going to happen in these -- this is history been happening in the history in the making.
Let's take a breath will be right back.
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