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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump, Biden Barnstorm Ahead of Election Day Tomorrow; Rally Crowd Chands "Fire Fauci," Trump Hints He'll Try to Do So; Biden Campaign Laser-Focused on Pennsylvania in Home Stretch; CNN: Elector May State of Play, A Day Before Election Day; Polls Open Tomorrow with 93 Million Ballots Already Cast; Lockdowns Expand Across Europe as Pandemic Worsens. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired November 02, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:00]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world, this is the pre-election day edition of EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: An early, EARLY START, and I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, November 2nd. It is 4:00 a.m. in New York. And after a long tense buildup Election day 2020 finally arrives tomorrow.

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden barn storming the final states, focusing on the Rust Belt. The President trying to keep states he won four years ago in his column, and Joe Biden working to flip them back to blue. The homestretch comes as the pandemic Trump failed to keep under control hits devastating new peaks. The U.S. is well on its way to 100,000 cases per day. The country set a single day record of more than 99,000 on Friday.

And overnight, the President gave his strongest sign yet that Dr. Anthony Fauci's days may be numbered as the government's leading COVID expert if Trump wins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD (chanting): Fire Fauci, fire Fauci, fire Fauci.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Don't tell anybody but let me wait until a little bit after the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: The President's hint there came a day after Dr. Fauci told "The Washington Post" Biden's came campaign is, quote, taking the pandemic seriously from a public health perspective. Fauci said that Trump is looking at it from a different perspective.

Meantime, tensions nationwide are escalating as election day nears. Stores boarding up in the event of protests, the Secret Service today adding back a special nonsalable fence around the entire perimeter of the White House. And the FBI is now investigating after Trump backers surrounded a

Biden campaign bus Saturday night, in what was described in an attempt to run the bus off the interstate there. The President defending his supporters as patriots.

ROMANS: It's not isolated here. Similar scenes playing out Sunday with Trump supporters seen blocking traffic on a New Jersey highway and there on a New York bridge. It was a late night scouring for every last voted. So, an election that began with Iowa needing extra time to count the votes -- remember that -- will end with much of the country facing the same problem. Our coverage this morning begins with Jessica Dean with the Biden campaign in Philadelphia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Laura and Christine on this final day before election day. And for the Biden campaign, it is all about Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. He spent most of Sunday in the Philadelphia area closing out the day with a drive-in rally here in Philadelphia. And later today Vice President Biden, Jill Biden, his running mate, Kamala Harris, and her husband Doug Emhoff, will spread out all across the state of Pennsylvania taking their final pitch to voters here. Here's what Biden had to say about the state yesterday.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: My message is simple, Pennsylvania is critical in this election. I live in Delaware, but I'm a Pennsylvania boy, born in Scranton. So, every single vote matters. The power, the power to change this country is literally in your hands. I don't care how hard Donald Trump tries, there's nothing, nothing he's going to do to stop this nation from voting.

DEAN: A Biden aide telling us that they see Pennsylvania as really representative of a broader coalition that they are trying to build. That includes white working class voters, black and Latino voters, suburban women, people who maybe voted for President Trump in 2016, and are willing to vote for Vice President Biden this time around, union households. Those are all people that are found here in the state of Pennsylvania, that they are trying to make sure show up and vote for them.

And remember, President Trump only won Pennsylvania by some 44,000 votes back in 2016. So, it was a small margin of victory. The Biden campaign hoping that they can turn it blue this year -- Laura and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: All right, Jessica, thank you for that. The voters may have to wait a while for this race to be called. But CNN has learned the Trump campaign won't necessarily wait for news organizations to make that call, that's even if a large number of mail-in ballots remain uncounted. The Trump campaign we're told plans to be very aggressive and is preparing to declare victory if the President is close to but doesn't clinch the 270 electoral votes needed to win reelection.

Now that would represent a break from practices in every modern election and defied basic common sense.

[04:05:00]

It appears President Trump faces an uphill battle fight in Pennsylvania. Perhaps the most important of all the battle ground states for him. So, what's he doing? He's laying the groundwork for a legal fight. Mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania can arrive up to three days after election day and still be counted there. That's a decision for now that the U.S. Supreme Court let stand and the President wants to challenge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think it's a terrible decision by the Supreme Court, a terrible decision. Now, I don't know if that's going to be changed because we're going to go in the night of. As soon as that election is over, we're going in with our lawyers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: It's important to recognize here of course that vote counting always continues beyond election night. Pennsylvania is one of 22 states plus Washington, D.C. that will count votes arriving after election day. That also includes the swing state of North Carolina and Ohio.

ROMANS: All right, we've seen the map there. Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon. She said the magic wall to dig into this for us this morning. John, officials across the country have preached patience. Show us why.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the reason we need patience is because it takes a while for all the votes to be counted and declaring you're the winner of a ball game in the 8th inning doesn't mean you've actually won. But this is election week, not election day. We have an unprecedented number of early votes, mail-in votes. 91 million early votes to date, so it's going to take time to count them all.

But let's take a look at where the current map might be and why so much attention is being paid to Pennsylvania. OK, what we've done here is take a look at some of the battleground states and we are telling the Democratic camp and some in the Republican camp. Let's say Texas reverts to the mean goes Republican, Iowa as well, upper Midwest, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan go Democrat.

Now let's say look, Donald Trump picks up Florida, tightly contested nobody knows what's going to happen always the biggest play. OK, the margin is close. Let's give them Georgia as well. No Democrat has won since Bill Clinton. But the Biden camp thinks they have a good shot. Let's say North Carolina reverts to them as well. Now you're neck in neck, where you come down to is Pennsylvania. This becomes really critical because this could go over the top, depending on Arizona or it could tilt the other way and be the difference.

If everything reverts to the mean, Pennsylvania is where the action is at and that's why every person at top of the ticket on both sides is campaigning there.

Let's dig a little bit deeper into Pennsylvania because it is a fascinating battleground. OK, look, I want you to pay attention to these districts here, and here. Now, this is where you're seeing a lot of people campaigning, both Trump and Joe Biden in the district owned by -- occupied by Scranton, Joe Biden's hometown. Let's take a look at what happened in 2016.

Right, you see a lot of red there. Now Scranton goes Democrat narrowly. Erie County goes for Trump and you see a lot of red up here. Now why that matters, you see here, because in 2012, Erie County goes blue, Luzerne goes blue, North Hampton goes blue. These are the pivotal counties in the pivotal state and that is what Joe Biden is looking to win back to his side. Back from when he and Obama won it in 2008, won it in 2012. But Donald Trump flipped a lot of these key districts in his direction. That makes all the difference in such a narrow lead. That's why every vote counts and around a third of voters have voted early in Pennsylvania. Which means unlike states that have seen more than half their voters, there's still a lot of votes to pick up on election day in PA.

ROMANS: And so, it makes every vote counts and it's so true. With all of this early voting the President declared we should have a winner stated on election night. That just can't happen with 91 million early votes, can it?

AVLON: No, and that's not how the system is designed and that's never how it's done. Particularly in a pandemic with unprecedented early voting and mail-in voting, it's not going to happen. And again, just as you say it's so doesn't make it so. We've got a system where all the votes are going to be counted. But what I can do is create a lot of chaos and potential conflict and uncertainty. We've never had a President declare victory without actually winning. And that's because it doesn't make sense.

Again, you know, one team doesn't declare it wins a ball game in the 8th inning. You got to wait until all the strikes are made and that's what we're going to wait for. All the votes are going to be counted. Military ballots take up to a week this some states, and Pennsylvania is one of the states, by the way, that's going to have votes come in over the longest period of time. Because they have to be postmarked and then they're going to be counted.

ROMANS: Count all the votes. John Avlon, CNN political analyst, thank you.

AVLON: Basics.

ROMANS: John Avlon CNN political analyst, thank you, John.

JARRETT: Thanks, John.

[04:10:00]

All right, special live election coverage the way only CNN can bring it to you from the first votes to the critical count, no matter how long it takes, "ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA," CNN's special coverage starts tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

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JARRETT: All right, just over 24 hours until polls open on the East Coast, but there's been no shortage of voting already, 93 million people have already cast their ballots early.

Sabrina Siddiqui is a national politics report for the "Wall Street journal" and a CNN political analyst. Great to have you with us on this election eve. All right, Sabrina, Trump's road to 270 is challenging but it's not impossible. So what states are you watching to see if Trump can pull off another upset victory?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think as you point out, President Trump has fewer paths to victory than Democratic nominee Joe Biden. And I think one state that we're watching closely is Florida, which is a must win for President Trump.

[04:15:00]

And four years ago, was one of the states that really indicated that he was perhaps on the way to a major upset victory. That is a state where Joe Biden has been running neck in neck with President Trump if not held on to a narrow lead. Of course, we're also still watching those Great Lakes states that flipped in President Trump's favor four years ago after twice backing President Obama and that includes Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Both campaigns have put a great deal of emphasis on those Rust Belt states where you had a significant percentage of working class white voters who swung in President Trump's favor and helped hand him his victory. And of course, there are other states where he was competitive where he won four years ago, such as Iowa and Ohio. He carried Iowa by nine points, Ohio by 8 points in 2016 and now is in a statistical tie with Joe Biden four years later.

So, there's just, you know, of course a much more competitive battleground map as we near election day. I think a big question will also be you already have more than 90 million people who have voted early, will President Trump be able to offset the advantage Democrat haves in early voting by having more of his supporters turn out on election day.

ROMANS: And, Sabrina, Democrats don't want to get too confident here, and that's pretty understandable after 2016. Right? I mean, context is important. Hillary Clinton leads in the polls and battleground states before the election were much narrower than Biden's are. So, how do you read these numbers if you're the Biden campaign?

SIDDIQUI: Well, I think you are taking nothing for granted and the Biden campaign has itself told supporters in memos issued by their campaign that they remember 2016 all too well, and they don't want voters to get complacent much like Hillary Clinton, Biden has been ahead in national, and battleground state polling. And to your point, his lead is somewhat larger than Hillary Clinton was, but they are haunted by those ghosts of 2016. Where there was a late stage surge towards President Trump that helped propel him to victory.

Now, it's worth pointing out that we're not so far seeing in polling that kind of swing in the final days toward President Trump but that's still something that factors heavily into the Biden campaign's thought process and where they are choosing to spend their time in these final days. That's why you have seen him go back to Michigan over the weekend, and really spend the closing days of the campaign in Pennsylvania. Also trying to shore up support with black voters, Latino voters, some of the constituencies which in many ways in previous elections have been the bedrock of the Democratic party. That is another area where Hillary Clinton underperformed in 2016.

So, it's not just about converting Obama and Trump supporters, at this stage there's not a lot of persuasion to be done, it's really about boosting turn out among those key demographics that they believe will help hand them the victory on Election day.

JARRETT: So, Sabrina, as you said, I think a lot of Democrats are haunted by 2016, but there are a lot of differences between now and then, and maybe the biggest thing is that the President has to run on his record. And that record now includes a pandemic that has killed a staggering number of Americans. Have Democrats figured out how to connect with the voters that they lost last time? Does the pandemic essentially do some of that leg work for them because the President has never had a plan on how to address it.

SIDDIQUI: Well, it certainly goes without saying that the pandemic has been at the center of Joe Biden's campaign strategy since March. And, you know, you heard him continue to drive home that this election is really not just a referendum on President Trump more broadly, but really on the administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which, as you know, has killed a staggering number of Americans now nearing 230,000 Americans as well as of course infecting more than 8 million Americans nationwide.

And I think that that is certainly something that separates 2020 from 2016. They do have four years of President Trump's record to point to, and their trend that we saw in the 2008 midterm elections was that suburban and independent voters swung away from President Trump and we haven't seen any strong indication that they have come back into his column as we get closer to election day.

And so that has been one of the challenges for President Trump is that he, at this point, has a base, but he doesn't really have a coalition. He is going to need more than his base if he's going to pull off the sort of upset victory on Tuesday that he did four years ago.

JARRETT: All right, Sabrina Siddiqui, thanks for getting up with us, I know you're going to be busy. Appreciate it.

[04:20:00]

SIDDIQUI: Thank you.

ROMANS: I know it's going to be a whole week of night and day. It's just one long election week, right. All right, thanks, Sabrina. More of the biggest economies in Europe heading for a lock down. The President of the United States calls that draconian after his own pandemic adviser decided to lend his voice to Russian propaganda.

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[04:25:00]

ROMANS: A mea culpa from Dr. Scott Atlas, the radiologist who's the President's top adviser on the pandemic. Atlas is apologizing for doing an interview with a Russian propaganda network. He says he was not aware that R.T., the Russian state controlled media outlet was registered as a foreign agent. And he made a series of dubious claims not worth repeating, frankly. A senior White House official tells CNN, Atlas did the interview from the White House grounds on his own without approval from the administration.

JARRETT: All right, let's hop overseas now. With the pandemic worsening, lock downs are expanding across Europe. Belgium and Germany imposed tough new restrictions today and now the United Kingdom is facing a one-month lock down with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning fatalities could be twice as high in this second wave.

Nick Paton Walsh is live for us from London. Nick, nice to see you this morning, what are the rules of the road for the lock down this time, is it going to be more strict, less?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Slightly less strict. We'll hear the precise details that frankly many people want clarity on from Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he addresses the British Parliament in the hours ahead and this government begin to push those out.

But more broadly, the big change is that schools, colleges and universities will stay open, bars, restaurants, nonessential shops like March and April will close as well. And I think Boris Johnson, who had lengthily said publicly he was so vehemently against the idea of a national lock down, with focus on local areas that have been badly hit. Well he's been pressured into this. He says because of awful data coming out of his own officials.

Now that has been questioned this morning in the British media, part of an international debate here, frankly, that's increasingly unhealthy in terms of getting the public to go behind these measures. But hope in the British government is that they can possibly in a month change those numbers enough that Christmas, the holiday season here, becomes a possibility. That's something that families can share between each other.

But really the economy has taken such a battering, the messaging system here by a government that admits it had to rush this announcement because of leaks to the media has lost a lot of public trust. So, there are real concerns of adherence to these new rules when they come into effect on midnight on Thursday and also to the staggering death and infection case numbers projected by UFK officials in the hours ahead. Back to you. JARRETT: All right, Nick, thanks so much for that, appreciate that.

ROMANS: OK, the 2020 election will have a big influence on policy at home and overseas. CNN has reporters around the world to show you why.

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