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Interview with Representative Ted Deutch; Florida Governor Rick Scott and President Trump Criticize Florida Recounts. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 12, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] REP. TED DEUTCH, (D) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: He did it by making the number he did it by making the number of voting places during early voting by reducing of early voting the number locations. He did it by making sure that students couldn't vote on college campuses. He did it by trying to purge he did it by trying to purge 200,000 voters from our voting rolls, including a World War II veteran who is a constituent of mine. Yesterday was Veterans Days. It's appalling. The governor now, John -- this is important. The governor has now actually taken the unheard of approach of trying to use his own state police to impound voting machines before this election is even over. He is the governor of the state of Florida, he's not an unelected autocrat who can use state levers to try to change elections to his benefit.

We need to count the votes. We need to make sure that every valid vote is counted and we need to just follow the law. The governor has been able to get away with spinning conspiracy theories, ignoring his own past of trying to his own past of trying to manipulate elections. It's time he's held accountable and we stop listening to these crazy conspiracy theories and just make sure that we count all the votes.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And, again, there is no evidence of fraud, according to secretary of state's office. But I do want to ask you specifically about Broward County which seemed to have problems that other counties did not have, at a level that other not have. Do you have concerns about the competence of that county's ability to count the votes and to conduct this recount?

DEUTCH: Well, here is what's interesting. There were questions raised -- there have been questions raised about the county and some actions taken by the supervisor of elections over the past few years, supervisor of elections who was appointed by Jeb Bush when was governor, it's worth noting.

But to address those, Governor Scott sent officials from the secretary of state's office, from his administration to Broward County to ensure that things go forward smoothly. And, to date, they've not reported any problems with the way the count has gone. They've not reported any criminal -- any worries of activity. There is no fraud.

I just -- it's important for everyone to understand that when Rick Scott and Donald Trump and Marco Rubio go out and start spinning these conspiracy theories and stealing elections theories and changing the outcome of elections, not only are they embarrassing themselves, they're undermining the public's faith in our democracy. They ought to know better. They need to stop it and we need to let this recount go forward, as required under state law.

BERMAN: It is required under state law. I think that's an important to make. This isn't happening because of anything other than the fact that the numbers dictate that that it has to happen. The ballot in Broward County, a substantial number, thousands of fewer votes in the senate race than the governor's race and other races. It may very well just that it was ballot design. How frustrating is that for you, as a Florida Democrat? We're 18 years after the butterfly ballot happened in Palm Beach County and may have cost Al Gore an election there. You have another example where ballot design may have cost a Democrat thousands of votes?

DEUTCH: Well, I'm not quite ready to -- I don't think it's healthy to speculate about what the final numbers are going to be. That's why we're doing the recount. There are some who believe that this undercount, that is, people who vote for the other statewide offices but not for the Senate race, did so because the ballot. Others think that when these others think that when these machine tabulations are redone that we'll see it was an error with the machines. We don't know the answer to that.

There will be plenty of time after, John, to figure out what the ballot situation was. For now, we just need to count the votes, like Democratic and Republican governors across the Congress are still doing. Only here is our governor abusing his power in trying to prevent all of the votes from being counted.

BERMAN: It maybe is a machine error and those votes do end up materializing, then that would be a huge deal and that race would be even closer. Maybe that's why Republicans are so concerned right now. It's hard to see, given that the margins are where they are, what they are so upset about. But, again, we're going to leave that there. I want to ask you.

You are a member of the you are a member of the Judiciary Committee, soon to be a majority member of the Judiciary Committee.

DEUTCH: Right.

BERMAN: How do you think that committee should approach the president of the United States? There's all this talk about whether or not impeachment is on the table. You are not a fan the that, going after impeachment early, are you?

DEUTCH: That's correct, I'm not. But what I do think is critical is that the Judiciary Committee -- Congress as a whole but especially the judiciary -- does its job that it's mandated to do, which is to provide oversight of the executive branch.

[08:05:00] It's our job to hold hearings on obstruction of justice. It's out job to hold hearings when the president fires the attorney general for the purpose -- ultimately it looks purpose -- ultimately it looks like for the purpose of getting rid of Robert Mueller and the Mueller investigation. It's our job just to make sure that we're conducting all of oversight to figure out what's behind all of these decisions.

It's too soon to know what steps might have to be taken, but it is imperative that we do our job, provide a check on the administration. That's the job that Congress is supposed to do. Sadly, the Republican Congress for these past two years has chosen to look the other way and defend the president rather than living up to their obligations to defend the constitution.

BERMAN: Ted Deutch, Democrat from Broward County and Palm Beach County, thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

DEUTCH: Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about all of this. Let's bring in our panel. We have Florida political reporter for "Politico" Marc Caputo, CNN political commentator Ana Navarro, and former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. Great to see all of you. Marc, I'll start with you, because you are in Florida. You have covered the chaos there before. Is this standard operating procedure? Is this just a recount like as is mandated by law, or is it all extremely messy and chaotic?

MARC CAPUTO, FLORIDA POLITICAL REPORTER, "POLITICO": Because we have dysfunction in Florida, it's standard operating procedure. We've seen this play before in Palm Beam Count and Broward. It is a little different from 200. In 2000 you had a closer margin in the presidential race. You also have no real uniform standards for counting ballots. After the 2000 race, standards were put in and those are being obeyed here.

If you don't mind, I want to change the subject slightly. I did notice that Congressman Deutch did not really want to comment on Supervisor Brenda Snipes in Broward County. We have a story today on Politico.com that basically says if it's Governor Scott who decides to do it if it's Governor-elect DeSantis, her days are really numbered. She's more than likely going to be suspended from office by either that governor or the following governor, and the Florida Senate, which is charge of removing constitutional officer in Florida are probably going to remove her. She's not only lost support from Republicans -- although some joke that maybe it's good to keep her in, botching elections in the biggest Democratic county, but also Democrats have had enough of her as well.

BERMAN: Ana, I am struck by how caustic the Republicans have been in the charges they've been making about this, including the president of the United States just moments ago says who says an honest count is now impossible. It's hard for me to understand why the level of vitriol exists given that the margins are such that at least to my eye make it unlikely that the results will be overturned. Am I missing something?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I feel exactly the same way. I think the margins are that it's going the Rick Scott who is going to be the next senator of the United States form Florida. And I think this is unseemly. And if anything, it makes us question his legitimacy. Rick Scott has run a very measured campaign, a very Florida-focused campaign during this entire time. And now he's kind of emerged after this election as more of a Trump-like figure.

I hope he doesn't. I hope he doesn't. I think part of the reason why he won was precisely because of type of campaign that he ran. Marco Rubio, to me, it's inexplicable. It's something like 60 tweets the guy has done on this subject. And Donald Trump will be Donald, right? He is in Europe. Instead of attending a ceremony at a cemetery to honor the fallen in World War I, he is tweeting about Florida and trying to fan the flames.

I don't like it. The reason I don't like it is, listen, let's not forget that it wasn't last decade, it was just wasn't last decade that a whacko Florida man, triggered by political hate, took the act of mailing over a dozen explosives to people he didn't like politically. We cannot continue fanning those flames.

And I'm struck by the difference of what is going on in Arizona with what is going on in Florida. Look, there's no inconsistency in agreeing that Broward County is incompetent, but all the is incompetent. Only then will the next U.S. senator from Florida have the legitimacy from the people of Florida.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Let's just go to the source, right. So the source in each state that knows if there's any sort of election malfeasance is secretary of state. Some of them are Republicans. Some of them are Democrats. Here's what the Florida secretary of state says. Department staff continues to observe the administration of the election of Broward County. Our staff has not seen any our staff has not seen any evidence of criminal activity in Broward county at this time. So why the knee-jerk reaction to voter fraud, when Republicans are winning, to John's point?

[08:10:00] JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, only Rick Scott can answer that. And I think if you look at the numbers, there is no logical reason why they're acting this way unless they know something that we don't know yet about what's gone on in Broward County. But the reality is, the votes should be counted. These senators aren't seated until January. There's plenty of time.

I think the real insidious thing, though, is what Trump is doing. He is basically trying to undermine, at every turn -- it's not just Florida. He weighed in on Arizona. He has weighed in on other races. He's undermining the legitimacy of elections.

BERMAN: Where he doesn't like the results.

LOCKHART: Where he doesn't like the results, and that is a hallmark of a failing democracy, of someone moving toward an authoritarian, where he says fake news. Don't believe what you see. Only believe what I say. That is very troubling. And as one of my old bosses famously said, the fish rots from the said. And he's providing cover for all of these people to say outrageous things. And people who have no standing.

I watched Mr. Blackwell on your air theorizing about this. He doesn't know anything. He knows nothing about what's going on in Florida. Yet he's out there on a national stage saying that there's voter fraud. There is none. There's no evidence.

CAMEROTA: And then when pressed --

LOCKHART: And we've got to stop letting these people --

CAMEROTA: I think what's interesting is when he doesn't provide evidence, he said, well, there are he said well there are irregularities we've seen in past elections.

LOCKHART: And he doesn't know.

CAMEROTA: So it hasn't happened in this election.

LOCKHART: He doesn't know what's going on out there right now.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Ana.

NAVARRO: Look, I think to Joe's point, one of the great differences is that, yes, Trump has tried to stir the pot vis-a-vis Arizona. But in Arizona, the Republican governor and the Republican candidate for Senate who is involved in this finalized counting of the votes, have not taken the bait. They have not become his choir boys. They have remained statesman-like and they've remained measured. And I wish Florida Republicans did the same thing.

I think we all need to get every vote counted. I agree with you. The only logical reason for them to be reacting this way is if think that if every vote gets counted, they're going to lose. The illogical reason for acting this way is that they trying to get credit with Donald Trump and act like Donald Trump even before getting to the U.S. Senate. Both things are not right.

BERMAN: Marc Caputo, let me ask you. Ken Blackwell does not have standing in the Florida recount. You do by being a Florida resident, actually by knowing more this than any other human alive. Ted Deutch, the congressman, raised the possibility that when you do the recount in Broward County, maybe it will reveal county that some of those undercounts on the Senate race, maybe it was a mark that just wasn't read by the machines. You've done some of the math there. Is that enough to tilt the election?

CAPUTO: Oh, no. In fact, if you were to take all the undervotes in the Senate race essentially used as a denominator -- sorry to be so mathematical so early in the morning -- the total votes cast in the governor's race and apply the share of votes of Nelson and Scott to that new total of total votes cast in the governor's race in Broward County, Rick Scott still leads, but his lead would go from a little more than 12,000 to a little under 3,000. But he still would be head. That's if you just applied every vote that way. The likelihood that everyone who under-voted there actually left a little bit of a mark where they could divine voter intent is very, very unlikely.

To Ana's point a little earlier, I think another reason you're seeing Rick Scott and Marco Rubio come out and sound very Trumpian and talk about the specter of the election being stolen is that Trump was de facto on the ballot. He made this a referendum about himself and he won in Florida when Rick Scott looked like he wasn't going to win, according to a lot of polls and when Ron DeSantis looked like he wasn't going to win, according to a lot of polls. And President Trump also won in 2016 here when a lot of polls who he wouldn't win. The message to a lot of Republicans is this -- Trumpism works in Florida. Trumpism wins. Let's embrace Trumpism. This is a prelude to what we're probably going to see for the next two years.

NAVARRO: And also look, and Marc will know those. During most of this Capitol Hill, Marco Rubio, who had worked very well for all these years with Senator Bill Nelson. They had a good thing going. They had a very cordial, civilized, contributory relationship going on. And that's why Marco Rubio practically MIA during this entire campaign on behalf of Rick Scott. Now now that it looks like Rick Scott won, he has painted his face blue and white and he is out there trying to be Bravehart and trying to be the defender of this thing. And it, frankly, comes across, I frankly, rather ridiculous. A little late to the game, Marco. People can see through it.

LOCKHART: One quick point. If you go back in history in 2000 when Al Gore and George Bush were locked in this battle, the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, my old boss, stayed out of it.

BERMAN: He did.

LOCKHART: He wanted Al gore to win more than I can explain to you but he thought the interest of the country, the interest of people believing in our democracy was more important than his legacy being a senator or his friend, Al Gore, becoming President. He stayed out of it. This President has done the exact opposite. It's only his personal feelings that matter and the country be damned, our election system be damned and it really is outrageous what he has done over the last couple of days, sitting in Paris, when he should be doing the job for America, sitting in a hotel room with Fox News on, and tweeting about stealing votes in Florida. It really is an outrage.

JOHN BERMAN, HOST, NEW DAY: All right, Joe Lockhart, Marc Caputo, Ana Navaro --

ANA NAVARRO, AMERICAN-NICARAGUAN STRATEGIST: Yes, but Joe, Trump will be Trump, but Rick Scott, Marco Rubio - they should be better than this because they should be Florida focused and they know better than this.

LOCKHART: But they're not.

NAVARRO: Rick Scott is going to go to the Senate and let him go to the Senate with some sort of respect from this state.

BERMAN: All right, guys. I have a feeling we are going to have a chance to talk to you about this over the next few days. Deadline is Thursday. Other breaking story this morning, the wild fires in California, one of them becoming the most destructive and deadliest in state history. The death toll has just gone up.

At least 31 people now have died in these fires, more than 200 people, they are still missing at this hour. The fire named "The Campfire" has killed 29 people and devastated parts of Northern California leveling about 90% of the homes in one town.

Two other people have died in Southern California where a second fire is threatening thousands of homes there. This is a live look at the Woolsey fire. Unfortunately, we have to tell you the weather is not expected to give fire crews any relief in containing these fires.

I want to go to CNN's Scott McLean, he is live in Ventura County, California. Scott, give us the latest.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Hey, John, despite the wind, yesterday was a good day for firefighters. They managed to hold the fire largely within the footprint that it's already chewed through, 85,000 acres. It is 15% contained, but as I said, the wind is the real concern over the next couple of days, and that some of those smoldering areas could reignite and that's what we seem to be seeing in the Malibu Canyon right now.

We are in a different part of Malibu where the fire scorched all the way down to the Pacific Ocean which is about a mile from where we are and this is about a mile from where we are and this is one of the homes that it managed to take and it is barely recognizable. You can see a couple of walls there, but the beyond that, it's hard to tell what's what in that home. There's actually a pool in the backyard.

There were some really spectacular homes in this area. If you look over to the left, this van was absolutely scorched right through.

Now, because there is a mandatory evacuation in this area, it's been hard to find people coming back. There are some neighborhoods where those evacuation orders are being lifted, but I managed to find one person this weekend who is returning to their home. His name was Scott Major and literally, the only thing that he could find in the rubble of his home was a teapot that he had made in high school.

I asked him how he felt seeing it for the first time after trying to save it and eventually leaving it because it was simply too dangerous. He said he felt sick. He literally felt nauseous. Now, of course, if you've lost your home, it is devastating beyond words. But when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture here, this fire really does pale in comparison when it comes to the Campfire.

You know, we're talking about 150-plus homes lost here. There, we're talking about 6,000 plus homes. You know, 200-plus people still missing, and so you know, this fire obviously is still going to be going on for quite some time as firefighters try to get a hold on it, but as I said, the Campfire really is something, John.

BERMAN: All right, Scott McLean, thanks so much for the work you're doing there. Please, stay safe. For ways you can help those affected by the California wildfires, go to cnn.com/impact.

CAMEROTA: Okay, President Trump gets a lecture from the French President while he is in Paris. We have more on the rebuke he received in front of world leaders, next.

[08:20:00] CAMEROTA: It appeared to be a tough weekend for President Trump in

Paris. The President who calls himself a nationalist received a lecture from French President Emmanuel Macron during a ceremony commemorating the end of World War I.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (Through a translator): Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying, "Our interest first who cares about the others." We erase what a nation holds dearest, it's what gives it life, what makes graced and what is essential. It's moral values.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Let's go to Paris, shall we and bring in Iam Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group and author of "Us Versus Them: The Failure of Globalism." It's great to see you with your Paris backdrop there, Ian.

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP: Alisyn, not so bad, I have to say. Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: All right, so it's great to have you there because you always give us an interesting global perspective, particularly coming from Paris today because back here at home, it seemed as though the President's trip did not go as planned. It seemed that there was some sort of strange moments, what did it look like from there?

BREMMER: His relationship with President Macron here is profoundly broken. It's not like the bromance at the beginning. Trump came in hot by saying that you know, it's insulting for the French to talk about sort of building an EU Army and it was taken out of context and Macron of course gave back pretty hard by giving a speech and kind of a lecture with Trump sitting right in front of him basically saying that nationalism was a way towards war and that this was absolutely the opposite of what the world needed to be supporting right now.

But let's keep in mind that unfortunately, Macron doesn't have a lot of leadership backing him up. He's got Justin Trudeau from Canada, they were best buddies; Merkel from Germany, of course is on her last leg. Next year, this time, she probably won't be in power and aside from that, you kind of wonder who is that Macron is really speaking to. His approval ratings here in France are well under 30%.

CAMEROTA: Right, so what was the point? I mean, other than getting his philosophy out, we know that President Trump doesn't like to be lectured to, of course, so what does happen now to the Trump-Macron relationship and the US-European allies?

BREMMER: Well, Trump was tweeting about it this morning saying that why should we pay for protection if the Europeans aren't going to stop taking advantage of us on trade. It's kind of like that's a nice continent you've got there.

[08:25:10] BREMMER: Be ashamed if something were to happen to it. But we also

know that Trump has given that message before at the NATO Summit, at the G-7 Summit, at the G-20 Summit - I mean, for all of the tensions this weekend, I wouldn't say they were any worse or any more embarrassing from a European perspective and from the relationship perspective than any of those other meetings were, and yet Trump's actually not done all that much to NATO or to the trade relations between the US and the European countries.

So I still think the view here is that the relationships aren't going anywhere, but they are not about to break. The real question is, is Europe still fit for purpose. Macron this weekend organized this massive summit because he truly believes that Europe has forgotten the lessons of the 1930s and the United States has as well and that if we continue down this nationalist path, that we're heading for war.

That's a pretty stark message and it's not one that many people want to talk about right now.

CAMEROTA: There were kind of other strange moments that happened on this weekend trip. The President - President Trump did not go to this military cemetery, this burial ground of American soldiers on Saturday because of rain the White House said. Okay, obviously, nobody wants a helicopter to do something unsafe with the President of the United States, but there's always a contingency plan.

I mean, all other administrations have had a weather contingency plan in case it rains, so what went wrong on Saturday?

BREMMER: Look, we know that Trump really doesn't like these multilateral settings. We know he has been pilloried before for the way he responded to say Charlottesville or Puerto Rico and a number of other incidents of natural disaster as well as terrorism. He just - the President doesn't do empathy particularly well.

So, I mean, it's not as if he was itching to show up at the cemetery and give his respects a hundred years after the end of World War I. So, I mean, I think even if there is a legitimate reason in saying that, "Hey, you couldn't actually get the helicopter there, and you didn't want to actually inconvenience the French public because you would have to close down their roads." The fact is, it was on the weekend, the fact is Trump inconveniences a lot of people on the taxpayer dime for 150 and counting golf excursions so far since he's been President.

People did - he doesn't have credibility on this issue, but at the same time, I think that the media would have gone after him for not sort of being suitably sympathetic, not having the right words. You remember when he did show up at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and he wrote a short note. Everyone compared it to the longer sort of sense of remembering the holocaust and the rest when Obama made the same visit.

Trump can't win around this stuff because he's just not seen as having the relationships with the core allies and having the empathy to get the message across. So frankly, the fact that he didn't show up, everyone is piling on this weekend, but it was kind of a no win. All of these big summits with western allies are a kind of a no win for the America First President.

CAMEROTA: I guess, Ian, I just have to say that I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been President Obama and the drum that Fox News would have beaten for weeks about a US President being too soft to stand in the rain, and just the idea that we're lowering the bar for a US President who isn't quite comfortable expressing any kind of empathy.

BREMMER: I am not saying that, I am saying that legitimately, he doesn't do empathy. He is not an empathetic creature and so as a consequence, he would have - they would have gone after him pretty hard if he had shown up and made mistakes as he always does.

So I am just saying if you're in Trump's situation right now, the fact that he saw an out and said, "Hey, I don't have to go." We already know that he has basically used weather as an excuse to avoid the media when he's been angry and hasn't felt like talking to them, leaving the White House for example. He is not really credible on this stuff.

So it doesn't surprise me one bit that no one believes him when he says, "Oh, I couldn't make it to go to this memorial," while all of the other European leaders and the Canadians are showing up. I am just saying that this is - if you're looking at President Trump of all the things he does, this is - and it's a fairly low bar, this is one that he consistently just doesn't get right, and there is really no way that he is going to get it right.

CAMEROTA: Ian Bremmer, is today your birthday?

BREMMER: Yes, it is.

CAMEROTA: Ah, happy birthday and have a birthday croissant ...

BREMMER: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: ... on us. Enjoy Paris.

[08:30:10]