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Biden & Trump in Final Sprint for Votes Before Election Day; Trump Suggests He May Fire Fauci After Election; Pandemic Rages Across U.S. Ahead of Election Day. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 02, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: NEW DAY continues right now.

[05:59:28]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump is trying to finish out the campaign with a crescendo.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pennsylvania is so critical. If they can take that away from President Trump, it all but ends his path to reelection.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans are wanting to vote on election day, in person. So we feel very strongly that we have a surge coming on.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The president's not going to steal this election.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: If the president loses this election in a tight, tight vote count, they're going to try to fight this out in the courts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need a president who's going to be a president for all Americans. Get your vote in. Every vote matters. And these elections have been decided on small margins.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is a special edition of NEW DAY. It is Monday, November 2. It is 6 a.m. here in New York. Why is it special? Exactly 36 hours until the first polls close in America.

The voting is very nearly over. And a reminder: we will not know a winner until the votes are counted, no matter what anyone says. That's not chaos; that's counting. And a vote cast two weeks ago is every bit as valid as a vote cast tomorrow.

Joe Biden and President Trump are using these final hours to blanket the key battleground states. Biden campaigns with three drive-in rallies in Pennsylvania, and he has a new added stop in Ohio, as well. That's a state Donald Trump won big four years ago.

President Trump travels to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

More than 93.5 million Americans have already voted. Look at that. We've never seen anything like that. Not even close.

Now, obviously, there is some anxiety as we get close to polls closing. Businesses boarding up. Some fear unrest after the polls close. Plans are underway to put up a fence around the perimeter of the White House.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: As John has just said, it could take a few days for all the votes to be counted. But CNN has learned that President Trump is prepared to declare victory before the count is complete.

Adding to the country's chaos is a surging pandemic. More than 81,000 new coronavirus cases reported yesterday. That's the most ever on a Sunday.

So what is President Trump doing about this surge? Well, overnight, he told a rally, filled with many maskless supporters, that he may fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election.

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Alexandra Field. She is live in the all-important place of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- Alex.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning.

Pennsylvania matters, and both campaigns are showing us exactly how much it matters to them, with 20 electoral votes up for grabs. The two campaigns have been barnstorming the state over the weekend, back again today.

President Donald Trump will be in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Vice President Mike Pence doing his campaign duties in Erie and Latrobe.

You've got the Biden campaign standing out, too, with former Vice President Joe Biden right here in Pittsburgh, campaigning alongside Lady Gaga. Really pulling out all the stops there.

They've sent Senator Kamala Harris to the eastern part of the state. She'll be appearing in Philadelphia alongside John Legend.

Yes, this state is critical. It's a state that President Trump flipped back in 2016 by less than 1 percent, just 44,000 votes. Recent polls show Biden with a narrow lead, but Democrats have seen this movie before. They don't like how it ended. They are taking nothing for granted.

Here in Pennsylvania, Biden is trying to make a closing argument to voters that he is the kind of leader who will stand in stark contrast to President Trump in terms of carrying them through the COVID crisis. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We're going to beat this virus! We're going to get it under control! But the truth is, the truth is, to beat the virus, we've first got to beat Donald Trump! He's the virus!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Three million mail-in ballots were requested in Pennsylvania. That's close to half the number of the total votes cast in 2016. Two point four million have already been returned. Alisyn, that means that both campaigns have access to very good data. They know where voters have already come out, and they know where they still need to turn the voters out.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting, Alex. Thank you so much for setting the table for us there.

So Florida is a must-win state for President Trump, and he was campaigning there until very early this morning. Former President Barack Obama campaigned -- will campaign there today for Joe Biden, as well as in Georgia.

CNN's Randi Kaye is live in Broward County, Florida, with more. So what's the situation on the ground, Randi?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, as you mentioned, Donald Trump was in Miami-Dade, just south of here for a late-night rally. That wrapped up about 12:48 a.m., well past the curfew in that area.

But he seemed to have a message for his supporters and, certainly, for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor, that he may fire him after the election. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!

TRUMP: Don't tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election. I appreciate the advice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Now, just keep in mind the timing of all of this. This comes as the nation is experiencing record highs in coronavirus cases daily now.

[06:05:07]

Florida saw more than 4,800 new cases just yesterday, but the state of Florida is still a toss-up. The polls are very tight. About 8.7 million Floridians have voted. Twenty-nine electoral votes up for grabs.

But Barack Obama has a message for voters, as well. And he's going to be in Georgia today, and he's going to be back here in Florida today. He's going to hold an election eve closeout rally in Miami later this evening.

And no doubt he'll have a message for all -- all voters, but also for African-American voters, because they have been lagging in the turnout, certainly, in the Miami-Dade area. He'll be telling them to make a plan to vote.

He'll also be telling them that, if we bring Florida home -- those are his words -- this thing's over. He likes to say that, because the last Republican candidate to win the White House without the state of Florida was back in 1924. That was Calvin Coolidge. And Donald Trump winning the state by about 1.2 percent, 113,000 votes. Biden would like to change that -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Randi Kaye for us in Broward County, which has really broken all kinds of early voting records. Very interesting to see what's happening there.

Joining us now, CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish, host of CNN's "SMERCONISH"; and CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She's the politics and White House editor at Axios.

Michael Smerconish, there may be no more important state in America in terms of this election at this point than Pennsylvania. And there's no more qualified analyst in Pennsylvania than you. So please, tell us what you see. What's happening there?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You may -- you may be wrong on both counts. First of all, first of all, it's nice -- it's nice to feel like they must feel every four years in Iowa and New Hampshire. It's wonderful to have all this attention heaped on the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

But John, Alisyn, I don't know that it's warranted for this reason. For us to be the Keystone State for Donald Trump, a lot of dominos earlier, tomorrow night, have to go his way. Florida has to go his way. Georgia has to go his way. North Carolina has to go his way. Ohio has to go his way. And according to the polls, he's trailing in each. Yes, if he can run the table on those states, then it sets up a situation where it could all come down to Pennsylvania. But he needs to pull -- what do they say -- an inside straight again for that to happen, and a lot of data would have to be incorrect.

CAMEROTA: Hmm. But, Margaret, I know that you are hearing from Trump advisers, as am I, that they are feeling more confident about that scenario today than they were a week or two ago. So what are they telling you? MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, that's right. And

part of the reason they're feeling more confident is because they were feeling so supremely unconfident two or three weeks ago. Let's start with that as a base line.

Their internal numbers, they say, are getting better. We don't usually run with internal numbers, but when you look at the national polling and some of the state-by-state polling, it is, indeed, tightening.

But look, even in these internal scenarios, they're still saying on the Trump side that places like Georgia are too close to call. If President Trump can't win Georgia, you know, then Michael Smerconish is right, it may never get to Pennsylvania.

But nonetheless, they're looking for silver linings where they can see them. We know these electoral states are always tighter contests than the national race. That's why it was possible for Hillary Clinton to win the popular vote and still lose the election.

And by all accounts, the popular vote is not going to be in question after tomorrow night's voting is in. It is all going to come down to these couple of states: Florida, crucial, Pennsylvania could be crucial. But Georgia could be crucial. Hey, maybe even Ohio could be crucial, Joe Biden is hoping.

So we understand the different types of math that exist for tomorrow, but we really don't know at this point exactly which way it's going to break.

BERMAN: Look, and if campaign advisers are not calling reporters, telling people that it's getting closer and they have a real chance, they're not doing their jobs. It's their job --

TALEV: That's right.

BERMAN: -- to call all of us and tell us they think they're going to win, and they have a chance.

Michael Smerconish, talk to me about Pennsylvania in general. It's interesting. Historically speaking, campaigns finish in Pennsylvania for a few reasons.

One, it's always close. You know, Pennsylvania being close is not some new thing. I think, like, five out of the six last elections have been within five points, many of them within two points.

But the other reasons campaigns close no Pennsylvania is there's no history of early voting. Early voting is something that's brand- spanking new there.

SMERCONISH: I heard you make that observation earlier in the program, and -- and you're so right.

Pennsylvanians also have a rich tradition of ticket splitting. You think about our longest-ever serving United States senator. It was Arlen Specter, right? A rather moderate, some would say progressive Republican until his party change, you know, serving on the watch of, say, Democratic Governor Bob Casey.

What's new, John, what's new, Alisyn, is we've never had the ability to vote absentee without cause in a presidential election. An unprecedented number of ballots have been requested, already returned.

[06:10:08]

And here's the fly in the ointment. The legislature, the Republican- controlled legislature didn't set up a legislature didn't set up a process where those ballots could be counted. And so tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning, at 7 a.m., they begin what they call the canvassing process. That doesn't mean you count. That just means you get them ready for a count that won't take place until tomorrow night.

Bottom line is, you've got seven counties saying, We're not even going to look at those until the following morning, Wednesday morning. So Pennsylvania, it absolutely will take a while, but not because of any fraud.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, one more point on why the Trump campaign is feeling more bullish, at least what they're sharing with me, is that it's not just -- it's not polling data that they're looking at, because that doesn't suggest that they would win. It's the data that they have registered more Republicans in battleground states and that they're seeing that more Republicans are engaging in early voting.

In other words, Republicans are closing the gap in early voting with Democrats. Those are the things they seem to be hanging their hat on. Is that what they're telling you?

TALEV: Yes, that these are internal numbers about, actually, what's happened, not just what people say they're going to do, but what they're doing.

CAMEROTA: And --

TALEV: But --

CAMEROTA: Yes?

TALEV: Well, yes, go ahead.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, both -- to both of you, is that convincing? I mean, is that -- are those data points that suggest that something is swinging or momentum is changing? First, Margaret, to you.

TALEV: Look, I -- I would just say this. This is why you see Obama going to Florida. This is why you see Biden going to Ohio. If voters -- if who are both Democratic voters or Democratic-leaning independent voters, non-white voters turned out at the rates they did for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, turned out at rates as high or higher than white voters traditionally do, none of what President Trump's team is looking at would matter. The results tomorrow, who actually turns out in person, is what all of this will come down to.

BERMAN: So Michael Smerconish, one thing I just want to say is the idea that things are closing, either in early voter, mail-in voter or in the polls isn't exactly necessarily true, depending on which state you look in.

Yes, the Trump campaign says it. The public polling, there isn't as much evidence of that, if you look at the polls that come out every day. It's about where it's been. It's the most static race we've ever seen.

Michael Smerconish, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in terms of a closing message, when you have the president of the United States musing on stage last night that he might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election, this is during a pandemic, 81,000 new cases yesterday. How does that message affect people who may still be deciding who to vote for?

SMERCONISH: And it seemed impromptu, insofar as the crowd began the chant. I don't know that the president incited this one.

But you know, it's the culmination of what this campaign has been about. Here was the president yesterday on the road, five different states. Most people maskless, not practicing social distance, and him acting as if it's in the rearview mirror.

And then, you know, you click or you go to a split screen, and there's the former vice president. He's masked. They're socially distant. It's more sedate. And it's him saying Donald Trump is the virus.

I mean, in the end, I think that this is the election -- this is the issue that has clarified the election.

BERMAN: Michael Smerconish, Pennsylvania's most important person, thank you very much for being with us.

Margaret Talev, Washington, D.C.'s most important person, we're blessed to have both of you on with us this morning. Thank you very much.

TALEV: Thanks, guys.

SMERCONISH: Thank you.

BERMAN: CNN's special coverage of "ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA" begins tomorrow at 4 p.m. Eastern time.

So what are Republicans doing as we are 36 hours until the polls close? They're trying to throw out votes. They're trying to throw out ballots from people who have already voted, including more than 100,000 in the largest county in Texas. What's going on here? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: A federal judge will hear a challenge this morning to drive- through voting in the largest county in Texas. A group of Republicans is seeking to block nearly 127,000 drive-through ballots that have already been cast. This is just the latest example of Republicans going to court, trying to invalidate votes. Joining us now with what's going on, CNN analyst Jessica Huseman.

She's a reporter for "Pro Publica." And a CNN contributor. Ben Ginsberg. He is a Republican election lawyer.

Ben, you know all about this. What's wrong with drive-through voting?

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, under Texas law, nothing at all. And the notion that a federal judge would disenfranchise over 100,000 voters just because of something that election administrators did is completely contrary to precedent and to law.

BERMAN: Yes, just to make clear what they're trying to do here, they're trying to throw out more than 100,000 votes that have already been cast. Jessica, this is not subtle.

JESSICA HUSEMAN, CNN ANALYST: No, it's not. It's a particularly brazen effort to manipulate the count at the end of the day.

And I think that, you know, Texans are really starting to see these things for what they are. The -- the Texas Republican Party has filed so many lawsuits against very basic voting methods this year, that I think that the lid has kind of been blown on their plan. And Texans are turning out at record numbers.

And I would not be surprised if -- you know, we can analyze later, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is because they are fighting for their right to vote.

CAMEROTA: And so, Ben, do you agree that this is the boy who cried wolf one too many times and that courts aren't going along with it, and voters aren't falling for it?

[06:20:03]

GINSBERG: Yes, I do. And I think it's part of a larger pattern. I mean, what's distressing for me, as a longtime Republican, is that the Trump theory of the case seems to be to exclude groups of voters who don't agree with him.

So, 100,000 Harris County voters, they -- they fear what those numbers would look like. But around the country in more than 40 lawsuits brought by the Republican National Committee, in which Republican entities are involved, there are a series of attempts not to -- to put down barriers to people voting, but in fact, to erect barriers to voting. And that's a -- that's a bad place for the Republican Party to be.

BERMAN: And just to be clear, Ben, you wrote your second op-ed on this subject over the weekend, because one wasn't enough to make the point you're trying to make now.

You've got no problem filing lawsuits on elections. You've done it a bajillion times. But what you're seeing now is simply qualitatively different, I think, this election, which is why you wrote that second op-ed. Jessica, let's talk now about what's happening in Pennsylvania and what claims the president is making. Let me stipulate that no one wins a state until the votes are counted in that state. That is when there is a winner. And for the president to suggest he's going to declare victory before the votes are counted, what's the reality?

HUSEMAN: So the reality is that it doesn't really matter if Trump declares himself president on election night. The election administrators are going to keep counting those ballots. There is no mandate under any single law that they stop as soon as a winner declares themselves a winner.

So, you know, what happens after that will really be up to the politicians that are making the shots in Washington. Whether or not they continue to allow the Trump campaign to say whatever it likes, or whether they're more interested in a peaceful transition of power.

Because while he doesn't have any real authority to just stay in office as long as he wants, he can create a lot of chaos. He can create a lot of, you know, riled-up politicians in D.C. So I think that this is really a matter of politics and how long he can continue this charade.

CAMEROTA: And that's the point, Ben, that legally, it doesn't matter what the president says on election night, if the votes aren't counted yet, but the sowing of discord, the narrative that he seizes, what -- what happens if he declares victory prematurely?

GINSBERG: I think it does have the effect of riling up his supporters.

But look, there's a real tactical error, a head scratcher in somebody from the Trump campaign telegraphing this particular strategy. Because if he's going to go in and say it, no matter what the results are, which is the apparent thrust of what they're saying, it just becomes a transparent line in a script, as opposed to something on the merits of the numbers on election night. So now you know it's a fake call that he's going to do, no matter what.

BERMAN: So you're suggesting it's not three-dimensional chess they're playing, Ben Ginsberg?

GINSBERG: I am suggesting that. It's really puzzling why spokespeople for his campaign would -- would leak things both to Jim Acosta of CNN and to Jonathan Swann of Axios that say they're going to do this, no matter what. It takes away the authority with which he can declare victory on election night. So the transparency is -- is out the window.

CAMEROTA: Don't malign tiddlywinks.

BERMAN: Nice.

CAMEROTA: Ben, Jessica, thank you both very much.

GINSBERG: Thank you.

HUSEMAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Coronavirus is raging on the eve of election day. The worst week yet of the pandemic. So we discuss where this is happening and what's happened with the worsening outbreak. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:28:04]

BERMAN: Overnight, the U.S. reported more than 81,000 new coronavirus cases. This is the most ever on a Sunday. Sunday's usually a slow day. This was anything but. It was the fifth highest day since the pandemic began.

Eleven states are seeing record hospitalizations. Twenty states have positivity rates at or above 10 percent, meaning that the virus is spreading rapidly.

Joining us now, CNN medical analyst Dr. Rochelle Walensky. She's the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Walensky, thanks for being here.

Look, the 81,000 new cases on a Sunday, that number is so high. We had 99,000 on Friday. This pandemic is headed in one direction, straight up. What do you see?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good morning, John.

I am equally concerned. We've never seen numbers like this. I think the hospitalizations are what worry me immediately most. And that is because we've now over 16 states that have hospitalized over a thousand people today. Texas has hospitalization rates of, you know, over 5,700 people in the hospital.

When you look at places like Utah and Wisconsin and southern Texas that are already running out of hospital beds, they are already running out of hospital beds, and yet we know, in a week or ten days, we're going to see the manifestations at the hospital emergency departments of these skyrocketing numbers from last week.

And I want to be very clear that this is not just coronavirus cases that are going to have challenges in these hospitals, because when we cannot deliver medical care to coronavirus cases, we also can't deliver medical care to everything else that walks in the door. So that, to me, is immediately concerning.

CAMEROTA: And then what, Dr. Walensky? Then what? I mean, just play that out for us. So ten days to two weeks from now, when hospitals are beyond capacity, then what happens?

WALENSKY: Well, we're back at flatten the curve. I mean, I know that's where we were in March and April. We're back at flatten the curve. We have to be able to support our hospitals.

I know in Utah and Wisconsin, they're looking at field hospitals. That's what we did in Boston and New York.