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No Winner Yet in America's Historic Presidential Election; Biden Takes Lead in Tight Michigan Race; Biden Leads in Michigan and Wisconsin As Trump Leads in Pennsylvania; U.S. Presidential Race Hangs in Balance As Many Votes Still Remain Uncounted. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:17]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm John Berman. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. This is CNN's special live coverage of this historic moment in American history.

It's 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 in the West, and right now at this moment we have no clear winner in the presidential election. Joe Biden has 224 electoral votes, the president has 213. They are locked in this incredibly tight race with razor thin margins in several key states making them just much too close to call at this point.

And while the votes are still being tallied, President Trump is falsely claiming victory, attacking his opponent for trying to somehow steal the election. No evidence of that whatsoever. And he's lodged baseless claims, the president has, of fraud.

Former vice president Joe Biden is urging patience and calling on every last vote to be counted.

Let's get straight to the numbers that tell the story starting with a CNN key race alert.

These are the states that hang in the balance right now. Let's start with the state of Wisconsin. Ten electoral votes there. Joe Biden now leading by 20,000 votes. This state flipped overnight when the urban centers came in and the vote by mail came in, Joe Biden vaulted into a 20,000 vote lead for these 10 electoral votes. That's a trend we've seen throughout the morning and we're watching very closely in a number of other states as well.

Let's look at Michigan, for instance. This state has been getting closer and closer by the minute. As of this moment the president leads by about 15,000 votes, 88 percent of the vote in, 16 electoral votes up for grabs, but Joe Biden has really closed the gap and the vote that's outstanding in urban population centers, vote by mail, which have skewed Democratic.

Next on the list is Pennsylvania. Here the president has the biggest lead in this key state of 618,000 votes, 20 electoral votes up for grabs, 75 percent in. But, again, the vote we're waiting on from large urban population center, vote by mail, which have skewed heavily Democratic. You see a pattern here, that's the story of the morning.

In Georgia, the president ahead by 100,000 votes at this moment, 92 percent in, 16 electoral votes up for grabs. Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, key urban population centers. We're still waiting on the vote by mail from those. Could turn the tide, we don't know. We are counting.

A couple other states we're watching very closely this morning, Nevada, six electoral votes. Joe Biden with a 7,000-lead there. They're done counting election day vote there for those six electoral votes. What they're waiting on now is some more of the mail vote to come in. That has tended to skew Democratic. But Joe Biden's lead there is much closer than the Biden campaign wants.

North Carolina, the president ahead by 76,000 votes, 95 percent in, 15 electoral votes up for grabs. Both campaigns will tell you that's tilting toward the president but we're watching it and they are counting.

Finally in Arizona. This may be one of the more important pickup opportunities for Joe Biden. He's leading there by 130,000 votes with 82 percent in. The 11 electoral votes in Arizona really opens up possible paths to 270 for Joe Biden that don't exist without it.

Let's take a look at the overall map right now. Biden is leading with 224 electoral votes, the president has 213. But the important thing here is those states in white. Any combination of those for either of these candidates right now gets them what they need and gets them over the top.

Let's dig a little deeper. I want to go to Phil Mattingly. He's over at the magic wall. We went through the states one by one. I want to start with Pennsylvania in a way. A, it's the biggest electoral vote haul at 20. B, the president holds the largest margin there, so why is it still up for grabs?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But he holds the largest margin there, but -- and it's something we've seen throughout the course of this morning and as the results have come in and Pennsylvania actually -- I'm actually going to stop real quick because something just happened and I think we need to pay attention to it.

Michigan just turned blue. Michigan just turned blue. Joe Biden now 1,337 ahead. We've been predicting, John, that this was coming throughout the course of the morning. We have seen it slowly but surely. About four hours ago Donald Trump had a 220,000 vote lead here, now with 89 percent reporting, Joe Biden has turned the state blue for the moment. However, this is a trend.

We're talking about the trend, I'll get into Pennsylvania in a second. But just because these are real results coming in now. What are we seeing?

BERMAN: OK. MATTINGLY: We're seeing more from Wayne County. We're seeing more from

Wayne County, it was at 66 percent I believe last time we checked, now it's at 70 percent. We're going to see this throughout the course of the morning. There's a chance we will be talking and numbers will start flipping.

[09:05:01]

The difference right now from earlier from last night, some parts earlier in the morning, is the numbers are almost universally, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, going towards Joe Biden. Now why? Why is that actually the case? A couple of reasons. The composition of the numbers, it's almost entirely vote by mail right now in all of those states. Why is that the case? Because they count after election day vote.

Why? Great question. Talk to their state officials. But as you saw in some states early in the night last night, whether it was Ohio or North Carolina, those states started off blue, Democrats thought they had real opportunities there, by the end of the night it became clear once the early vote was counted then election day vote was counted that in fact Republicans had Ohio at least pretty well in hand.

Now you've had the inverse happen. Election day vote was counted, now you're seeing mail vote count and that's trending Dems way.

BERMAN: Let's just put this back up again so people can see.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BERMAN: Because this is breaking news. This is a major moment possibly in the evolution of this contest. Donald Trump up until minutes ago had been leading in the state of Michigan. We've been waiting for these urban population centers and their vote by mail to come in, more came in, and now Joe Biden up by 6,000 votes.

MATTINGLY: We told you this was going to happen. It's now happening. Now, 89 percent left outstanding. We don't know the composition of everything, but I want to tell you what is outstanding right now. Why did I pull up Wayne County first as Wayne County started to come in? It is the largest county in the state. It is 18 percent of the state. It is 67 percent to 31 percent. That's a huge margin.

Also it is not 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 votes. It's probably 100,000, 120,000, maybe 130,000 votes left for the Biden campaign to pick up. Potentially here. That's in yet and he's already starting to take a lead. Move up another county. This is Oakland County, this has started to come in as well. This was outstanding. This is suburbs, this shifted hard Democratic over the course of the last couple of cycles. In 2016 Hillary Clinton won this by eight points. What's Joe Biden doing today? Whoa.

BERMAN: Wow.

MATTINGLY: Wow. You know? We've tried to figure out, everybody was talking about the suburbs running hard away from President Trump. You saw it in 2018, you saw it in the midterms, you saw it in Gretchen Whitmer's win in the governor's race here in 2018. This is a demonstration of that. With 94 percent reporting, Oakland County now 56 percent Biden, 42.5 percent Trump.

So what's left outstanding? What's left outstanding in the state? The Trump campaign is looking at this saying 11 percent left, let's go find our vote, 6,000 votes, 7,000 votes is not an astronomical amount. Let's take this down and see what's still 90 percent out here. Well, we already told you about Wayne County. That's coming in Democratic, it's coming in mail which has been Democratic.

Let's go to Kalamazoo County, not a huge county but right now Joe Biden 10-point lead, 10,000, 15,000 votes maybe left there with 82 percent reporting, also by mail, should skew Democratic as well. What about the red counties? Well, we talked about Kent County. Kent County was another one of those counties. Donald Trump back in 2016 won this county by three points, kind of a conservative county in the western part of the state. 2018, started to shift back towards Democrats.

What's happening right now? Well, the biggest thing to look at is the margin. Earlier in the night Donald Trump had about 15, 16-point lead here, and the margin has started to shrink. Why do we think that's going to come in Democratic?

BERMAN: Yes. The important thing here is people going to see this, oh, Donald Trump is winning in Kent County, we have 10 percent there, he may grow his lead. Actually, you would think if the vote by mail is what's outstanding there that will likely, not definitely, but likely skew Democratic so Biden may actually pad his lead from this Republican county.

MATTINGLY: It gets deeper than that for the Biden county. And that is we know from talking to the secretary of state earlier this morning that in Kent County the vote by mail that is outstanding comes from Grand Rapids, and Grand Rapids, at least in 2016, went pretty sharply towards Hillary Clinton. So it's not just that it's vote by mail and therefore it will be Democratic. We can't confirm that, although it's trendline that way all day.

It's that it's also where it's from in Kent County. So we've been talking about this that this was going to happen. It has started to happen. We will see how this goes over the course of the morning. As you can see, this is real time, this is live action, it's a live ball here.

BERMAN: Can you put up Wayne County? I just want to make one more point in Wayne County here. This is where 70 percent is in at this point? 70 percent?

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BERMAN: OK. 70 percent counted now, you can see the margins that are opening up. Joe Biden leads by 6,000 or 7,000 votes. With 30 more percent in Michigan may not look all that close. We don't know yet, but if it trends like it does and if there are tens of thousands votes more it may -- may not end up that close. People need to be open to that possibility which may matter when you hear the president talking about legal challenges and the like.

Phil, hang on one second. I want to go to Omar Jimenez who is in Detroit, in Michigan, right now, at a counting center to give us an update.

Omar, what are you seeing?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, these main population centers that we're keeping an eye on where these absentee ballots are being counted, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Sterling Heights as well. We're in Detroit at what's known as the TCF Center where they are trying to process as many of these absentee ballots as physically possible.

[09:10:07]

They've come in in 900-person shifts and worked overnight every single minute, basically of the night to try and get through as many of them as possible. At last check we had heard there were about 90,000 outstanding ballots. I suspect they've chopped down that number a little bit, but out of the 172,000 absentee ballots that they received here we do understand that they've tabulated 145,000 of them.

However, the caveat there is that there -- some of those have to go through a bipartisan group so the number of outstanding votes isn't quite the difference between the total and how much has been tabulated. OK. So there's that situation. And then when you look at Grand Rapids and Kent County, you guys were just talking about it a few moments ago about some of the absentee ballots that are still being counted there.

I was just in contact with the elections director for the county clerk's office there who told me it's going to be tough to predict when we will be done with the remaining 76 precincts that are outstanding in Grand Rapids but at this moment they're processing almost 60,000 ballots through high speed tabulators. Just to give you an idea of again the process and what they are trying to still work through a day after election day.

And as Phil pointed out a few moments ago, we heard from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson earlier this morning who said that overall, even with all these states scrambling to cut through tens of thousands of absentee ballots in some cases, they still expect that by the end of the day in Michigan we are going to have a clear picture as to where this state is heading with most jurisdictions reporting.

And even here at this Detroit center, the previous guidance that we had gotten from officials here was that they hoped to be done with this process by early this morning. Well, early this morning came and we spoke to an official with the clerk's office who told us well, it's likely going to be later in the day.

In Macomb County, a suburb here that President Trump flipped from Democrat to Republican in 2016, they were hoping to have their ballots done by 7:00 a.m. this morning. Well, 7:00 a.m. came and we still haven't gotten their full report. So we're keeping an eye there. In Oakland County they are still trying to -- they're still waiting on large communities of absentee ballots to come in as well.

So you've got all of these pockets that are still working through in some cases tens of thousands of ballots and as Secretary Benson put it earlier this morning, she said, and this was hours ago, that the difference in the ballots was enough to -- was bigger than the threshold between the two.

BERMAN: All right. Omar Jimenez for us live in Detroit.

Really the center of the political universe at this hour because of the breaking news which is that as of minutes ago Joe Biden has vaulted into the lead in the crucial swing state of Michigan. You can see it right there. Nearly 7,000 votes. It doesn't seem like a lot. It isn't a lot right now, but it is a trend we have seen over the last several hours, and it has major implications, major implications on the path to 270 electoral votes because we also saw this happen in Wisconsin where Joe Biden is clinging to a narrow lead there.

Phil, walk us through what this means with Wisconsin and Michigan with Biden now holding a lead.

MATTINGLY: So what you see on the map right now, everything that's filled in are states that we have called. If they're red, they went for President Trump. If they are blue they went for former vice president Biden. Biden with 224 electoral votes, President Trump with 213.

Now there's a couple that for the same of gaming this out we are going to go ahead and put in one category or the other. We'll go ahead and put Alaska red for President Trump. We'll even give President Trump North Carolina, still out there, has a solid lead, we haven't called it yet. Go ahead and give Maine to Joe Biden and should also look at Maine 2, I kept a tossup last time we did this. I looked at it, Maine 2 is moving in that direction. So we will keep that for him as well.

What does that leave outstanding right now? Well, we talked about Arizona and Nevada. Nevada is tight. Nevada is tight, Arizona would be a big flip. But right now Biden leads in both so we will give Biden Arizona and Nevada. What does that leave? Georgia, we've talked about Georgia. Pennsylvania, we talked about Pennsylvania. Look at Wisconsin, look at Michigan. You give Vice President Biden Wisconsin, and if Michigan, which just crossed over to Biden and looks to be trending more in that direction goes to Biden --

BERMAN: That's 271. That's enough to win the presidential election.

MATTINGLY: It is.

BERMAN: That's why what is happening before our eyes is so important and you haven't touched Pennsylvania and Georgia yet.

MATTINGLY: President Trump could win Pennsylvania, President Trump could win Georgia. Now, again, I want to caveat this. This is us gaming it out right now based on current results as to where things stand. Vice President Biden leads in Michigan, he leads in Wisconsin, he leads in Arizona, he leads in Nevada. Nevada is razor thin. Arizona traditionally Republican state. So properly caveating things, what I'm doing is showing pathways.

[09:15:00]

BERMAN: Yes. I will tell you, I am sure that when Michigan, when Joe Biden vaulted into lead, there was a scream of delight from Delaware because it's just that important for them this morning, given where things stand. What is it portend for Pennsylvania? We haven't seen votes really coming in yet in Pennsylvania the way they have in Michigan and Wisconsin. The president still leads by about 600,000 votes there, but if you are looking at the trends from Michigan and Wisconsin, how does that play in Pennsylvania?

MATTINGLY: Yes, so the difference in Pennsylvania more than anything else is the size of the president's lead, right, 75 percent in and Donald Trump is up by 618,000 votes. The other difference which actually tracks with what everything else is, is about 1 million and possibly a little bit north of that absentee votes.

BERMAN: Yes, nice --

MATTINGLY: One million votes --

BERMAN: Sorry --

MATTINGLY: One million absentee votes and possibly a little bit north of that, that are outstanding. Now, why does that matter? Well, first, where they're outstanding from. We're talking about Philadelphia, we're talking about the collar counties around Philadelphia that have gone Democratic pretty sharply including Bucks, maybe a swing over in Bucks which is currently red but have gone Democratic pretty sharply.

We've also talked about Allegheny County, the home of Pittsburgh, all of these counties went sharply, Clinton back in 2016, Democrats expected big turnout there, got big turnout in 2018 in the house races, expect big turnout there tonight, today, and at this point hasn't in large part because of what hasn't come in yet.

Philadelphia, 56 percent reporting. Let's move out to Delaware County, 74 percent reporting. Move over to Montgomery County, 77 percent reporting. That is a ton of vote outstanding in Democratic stronghold counties that is absentee. Absentee, if you've got 1 million absentee left, and you say, well, you know, look at the margins right now, 618,000 votes is a lot of vote to make up with 1 million.

Not when absentee has been going 70 percent, 75 percent Biden's way over what we've seen in Wisconsin, what we've seen in Michigan. Doesn't mean it's going to happen here, but the trend lines matter here, and the trend lines say that, that is a very large lead that President Trump has right now.

The trend lines also say that based on what's outstanding, based on where it's outstanding and based on the method in which that vote was cast outstanding, that, that is not an insurmountable lead. It's not. It doesn't mean that Biden is going to catch up, it just means that there is an opportunity for the Biden campaign in the state of Pennsylvania. Now, one key caveat here, if you go through the state and you go in

these counties in western Pennsylvania, you didn't think, people didn't think, President Trump could match how he just blew turnout out of the water in these counties.

Like people had never seen before, didn't even think it was possible finding voters. They did it again for the most part. Some of the margins were a little bit down in here, but there is just huge opportunity for Democrats out here and that is where the bulk of the vote is outstanding.

BERMAN: Again, all we're trying to say here is that the math is possible. The vote outstanding skews Democratic, it just does, Democratic areas, Democratic methods, it's possible. Is it likely? We just don't know. We're watching it very closely. Phil, do me a favor, stand by. I want to go to Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, which is one of the areas where they do have some votes still to count. CNN's Alexandra Field is there. Alex, what can you tell us?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, John, we should know in the next hour what else is going on in Allegheny County, that's when officials will start to count again, so we could get a clearer picture of what's going on in the county that is home to Pittsburgh, at the same time we're also hearing that officials in Philadelphia will be giving us an update about what's going on in the eastern part of the state.

So this could continue to shape our understanding of what's going on across Pennsylvania in the coming hour, but, John, remember all the way back to yesterday when we were telling people it was highly likely that they wouldn't get the results from Pennsylvania for several days.

Well, that still appears to be true today. I want to remind people again why it was expected to take so long in Pennsylvania, and what is causing what feels like a delay even if it isn't caused by anything going wrong. Here is what Pennsylvania is dealing with, they have that massive turnout that Phil was talking about. So frankly, there are a lot of votes to count. Add to that, the fact that this was the first time that they conducted a large-scale mail-in ballot election, some 3.1 million mail-in ballots were requested, 2.5 million were returned, 1.4 million of those ballots still have not been counted.

Why does it take so long to count those ballots? Well, it just so happens to be Pennsylvania law that counties, all 67 of them could not begin to process the mail-in votes before election day. So they didn't exactly have a running start coming into this.

On top of that, you had nine counties that said they still wouldn't even begin to count those mail-in ballots until today, that's another reason that we're waiting, and add to all of this, John, the fact that there are still ballots that can legally come in according to the state's Supreme Court, you can still count mail-in ballots that were post-marked as of election day and are returned or rather received within three days of the election.

[09:20:00] There have been legal challenges concerning those ballots and there

are very likely to be further legal challenges concerning those ballots, but they are very much in play. I just want to share with you what the governor of Pennsylvania shared overnight, he sent a message out on Twitter trying to assure all people across Pennsylvania that every vote would be counted.

He didn't set a timeline for this election, that's not what officials do. He also made it very clear that anyone suggesting that every vote shouldn't be counted in Pennsylvania would be conducting a partisan attack on this state, on its voters and the election itself. John?

BERMAN: Alexandra Field for us in Pittsburgh. Alex, thank you very much. Joining me now is the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. Mr. Attorney General, thank you so much for being with us.

I'm going to talk to you in sort of two roles, I'm going to ask you to wear two different hats, one as the attorney general, a senior elected official in your state, then as a senior Democratic official in your state. First, as the attorney general, the counting that's going on right now, can you give us an update?

JOSH SHAPIRO, PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes, look, we said all along that we were going to secure and protect and count the vote. We accomplished the first two, the vote was secured and protected, and now we're going through this laborious process of counting.

I think it's important to note, you know, folks ask me, who does the counting? These are volunteers and clerks from our communities who are working around the clock right now to get all of this data inputted.

And I think as you saw from your previous segment about Michigan, I'm certainly not an expert on Michigan, but you correctly reported that numbers come in, vote totals go up and down and things change. I think you're going to expect to see more of that happen today in Pennsylvania as the votes are inputted into the system and we get a clearer picture of where things are going.

BERMAN: So put on the Democratic senior official hat for a moment here. More than a million votes outstanding, the president leads by about 600,000. How does that math work, do you think, for Joe Biden to make up that deficit?

SHAPIRO: Yes, look, I'm really not here to be a political pundit. I mean, what I'm really here to say is that we can have confidence in this process, these votes are going to be tabulated, they're going to be counted, and at the end of the day, the will of the people of Pennsylvania is going to be respected.

I think you're going to see a lot of movement in those numbers today, just by virtue of the fact that these ballots are counted, you've correctly pointed out that there's a significant amount of ballots outstanding in southeastern PA which historically has been a large Democratic vote.

But the most important thing from my perspective right now is that we get an accurate count, that we count all the ballots as required by law, and that the will of the people is respected.

BERMAN: Any idea how long that will take?

SHAPIRO: Yes, that's the magic question. My kids woke me up to that question very early this morning, I did not get my sleep --

BERMAN: I don't feel so bad now.

SHAPIRO: Yes, look, I mean, here is the reality, it's going to take as long as it takes to get an accurate count. It's what the law requires. I think as your reporting suggests, we're going to get a lot more data today, I think you're going to have a clearer picture of where things are going toward the end of the day, but obviously, ballots can be received and counted all the way up until Friday. So I expect that we'll know by the end of the week.

BERMAN: So the president did what he promised or should I say threatened to do, which is he came out last night and then declared victory and said that you should stop counting, you shouldn't count these votes which by the way, at the time he said it, he is talking about votes that were in some cases cast or written in weeks ago --

SHAPIRO: Yes --

BERMAN: And that had arrived by yesterday. Your reaction to his comment and his threat of taking this to the Supreme Court. What to the Supreme Court? I don't know, but this --

SHAPIRO: Right --

BERMAN: To the Supreme Court.

SHAPIRO: Well, look, put aside his threats, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to that. The president wants this settled. Joe Biden wants it settled. The people of Pennsylvania want it settled. My kids want it settled, right? And the best way to settle this is to count and make sure that we have an accurate count, and that all legal eligible votes are part of that process. And so what we need to do right now is follow the law, take a deep breath and make sure that all of these ballots are counted.

BERMAN: Yes --

SHAPIRO: And when they are, we will respect the will of the people of Pennsylvania and make sure that our electoral votes go to that individual who garners the most votes in Pennsylvania.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, the votes that do arrive today, tomorrow and the next day, they have to be post-marked by -- yesterday, by election day, but the votes that do arrive these three days they will be segregated? How will they be treated? Why are you keeping them separate?

SHAPIRO: Yes, I would sort of not focus as much on that segregation issue. That's just more kind of putting them -- think about it this way, putting them into a separate pile, right? But they're all going to be counted. The guidance from the secretary says that they ought to be counted, these are legal, eligible votes according to our state Supreme Court.

[09:25:00]

In fact, the question of, you know, kind of trying to disqualify those ballots went up to the United States Supreme Court on two separate occasions, and on two separate occasions, and on two separate occasions, they refused to step in and say that those ballots should be disqualified.

This is a matter of state law to count those ballots, it's been interpreted by our highest court in the state, our state Supreme Court who said count those ballots that are properly -- excuse me, that are post-marked by election day, by yesterday and received up until 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Those are eligible votes, they will be counted.

BERMAN: Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania, thank you so much for being with us. We'll let you get back to your kids to face more of those withering questions that they seem to be asking. They seem to be dead-on point when it comes to the outcome of this election --

SHAPIRO: They're asking the right questions. They're asking the right questions.

BERMAN: We appreciate it, sir --

SHAPIRO: Stay safe --

BERMAN: Thanks so much for being with us. All right, Pennsylvania is one of the states where they are counting as we speak. Six states we're watching very closely, more votes coming in. Pennsylvania, Michigan just flipped from red to blue with Joe Biden leading. We'll give you an update right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Hello, everyone, I'm John Berman. Welcome back to CNN's special live coverage, 9:30 on the East Coast, we still don't know who the next president of the United States will be, but we do know some things.