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CNN Live Event/Special

Fulton County, Georgia Counting Mail-in Ballots; Maricopa County, Arizona Has 450,000 Ballots Remaining; Trump Believes Biden is Stealing Election. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 05, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so -- and Anderson, you mentioned Georgia.

So right now, here's how many ballots we understand are outstanding: 61,367. We are specific all the way to the ones place, because that is how razor-thin and tight this could be. And you know, as we say, we're trying -- going to get some crucial updates this morning from states like Nevada, also Georgia, the secretary of state expected to speak any moment.

So let's go to Atlanta and our Victor Blackwell. Victor, razor-thin when you look at the outstanding ballots versus where we are on the gap between President Trump and Joe Biden right now.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And of that 61,367, as you say, the precise number coming from the Office of the Secretary of State. The estimate that we have from Fulton County is that 10 to 11,000 of those ballots are here, will be counted and we're expecting that we're getting close to an announcement here.

They've rolled out the podium here for a news conference that's coming. I've seen members of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, the chairman here as well. There is an announcement that we've been told should be coming at 11ish, so we'll stand by for that.

But of course, the work continues here. We've been told that they've been working to process the last 3,600 ballots that have come in, simply opening them, preparing them to be scanned in the back of the room and then take that memory card over to another location to be tabulated and reported.

But that was three hours ago. Now, the work has not stopped here, but there were fewer people here earlier. There was a shift change, people are all working here, they're taking some of the ballots to the opener machine. There are some people back here opening them by hand with letter openers.

So the goal is to complete the counting here of the mailed in ballots and the ballots dropped off in those boxes by 11:00 a.m., and then they've got to focus on the provisionals tomorrow, the ballots from uniformed members of the military as well. That deadline is 5:00 p.m. on Friday. But the expectation is this will be done.

Now, you'll remember that Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, told us on Election Night, fairly early in the evening, was about 9:30 -- I was there in the room. He said that by tomorrow, Georgia will be yesterday's news.

Well, we're now the day after that tomorrow --

BURNETT: Right.

BLACKWELL: -- and we're still waiting for the rest of these 60,000- plus votes to come in and that tabulation -- Erin.

BURNETTT: OK, so let me just ask you because I think the scene behind you, you know, what's it like in there, Victor? I mean, it -- people are -- it's full, people are counting. You know, there are people who like to see this as a sign of the mess of American democracy. I prefer to see it as a sign of its strength. I mean, amazing of all these people to come together to do this.

So what exactly is happening and how frantic is the counting? I mean, they're late, right? Versus what you said they said they were going to deliver. They feel the pressure right now to get --

BLACKWELL: Yes.

BURNETT: -- some answers to this country.

BLACKWELL: It is certainly hectic. And let me get out of the way as I describe what's happening and what the officials are telling me. They understand that the eyes of the country -- and in fact the world -- are on Fulton County right now to get these votes -- a Democratic stronghold, a Democrat trying to close the gap with the president. So they are working around the clock, working overnight.

Let me describe what's happening. The people you see seated with the USPS trays, they are the sorters. What they're doing is receiving opened ballots. There's a machine that goes through that cuts them open -- the two envelopes, the mailing envelope and the privacy sleeve -- they pull the ballot out, take a look to see if the signatures match.

And if everything looks to be in order, if there is some problem, they raise their hand, they alert a lead. That person then comes over, sorts it out. It can go off to adjudication if necessary. Adjudication is simply determining the intent of the voter. What did this person mean to do? They were supposed to fill in a bubble, maybe they put an X through the bubble or circled the name. That happens in another space.

But after these ballots are sorted, they go over toward the window -- if we can show that, Stew (ph) -- those are the scanners. There are five scanners in this room, they're scanned into the machine, all saved onto a flash card. Those flash cards are then transported over to another facility, away from State Farm Arena where we are, and that's where they are tabulated. The expectation is that they'll all be sent over by 11:00 and we'll finally get those last numbers from Fulton County.

As -- what it feels like in the room? It's hectic, as you'd expect.

BURNETT: Yes.

BLACKWELL: What you can't see are the 15 to 20 cameras on the other side of where -- your vantage point, but there's media here of course, the scores of people who are working to finish the absentee ballot count.

BURNETT: All right. And as Victor speaks, in a few moments, we expect a live press conference for -- from the Georgia secretary of state. So stand by for that because there could be some very significant updates.

I want to go now to Arizona though, tensions running especially high over the counting. I mean, Kyung Lah, you were there last night. We all saw, right? When you were at the counting center. So what -- where are we this morning, when are we going to get more information? Because where you are, there are hundreds of thousands of ballots we still don't know who they're for.

[10:35:10]

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Let's start with the counting process, Erin, because that's really what's important here. Here in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix -- the very populated Phoenix -- Maricopa is the largest county as far as population here in Arizona, so you've got to win here if you want to win this state.

For the secretary of state's office, says approximately 300,000 ballots have yet to be counted here, and they're going through the counting process. That is still continuing here in Maricopa County. As far as the entire state, we're at about 450,000 ballots that have -- still being counted right now according to the secretary of state's office. So that is still ongoing.

We are anticipating that we'll have more results, the next batch of ballot results here from Maricopa County sometime around 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. It's not a hard deadline, but that's approximately the time that we're anticipating that the -- that the Elections Department here is going to have a new update.

And then I want to turn to what you were just talking about, Erin. You're talking about the protests that we saw here? We were inside of the entranceway is just over my shoulder, I'm in the parking lot this morning. We were inside the lobby, and then we could hear a growing crowd outside.

The security concern grew -- the Sheriff's Department arrived here because they were chanting -- among other things like Pizzagate -- they were saying, let us in, let us in. And so even though these were peaceful protestors, it was peaceful assembly, these were people who were carrying guns. And so the Sheriff's Department did deploy and they wanted to make sure that the doors weren't breached. There's an impact here -- not on the vote, let's be very clear, not on

the ballot-counting -- but out here in the parking lot, you can see these sort of -- you know, red markers. On each of those markers, there's a small white sign that says "the freedom of speech zone." This entire section to the left of these red markers --

BURNETT: Wow.

LAH: -- this is where they would like the people to peacefully assemble. And then over to the right, where cars are being -- driving in and out.

The impact on this is that the people who are doing the ballot counting here? These are temporary workers. A good majority of them are retirees, they are older, they're temporary workers and they're paid minimum wage. So they're being ferried in from different parts -- where their personal cars (ph) may be here so they don't have to walk in the Phoenix heat to continue the work of democracy.

I spoke to one of the staffers here about if this has impacted attendance or if there's been any sort of concern or sick-out? They haven't seen it -- Erin.

BURNETT: Wow. Well, that's impressive. And of course though, the guidance we're getting from Kyung here is that we're not going to really know the fate of Arizona today. So Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia: these are the crucial states we're going to know very -- much sooner, perhaps in the next hours or so -- Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's fascinating. And again, numbers in Nevada, really, we have not seen a change in the numbers in Nevada since yesterday. So hopefully get some new numbers --

BURNETT: Static, yes.

COOPER: -- yes, some new numbers soon.

Talking about Georgia, we are waiting just moments from now -- I think about two minutes or so from now -- the secretary of state in Georgia is going to give a press conference about the -- how many outstanding votes there still are there. We're waiting for that, we're going to bring that to you live.

I want to go to David Chalian. David, let's talk about Georgia and what a fascinating race we have seen over the last two days in Georgia.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It certainly has been. You know, this is one of those sort of Sun Belt expansion states -- is the way the Biden campaign referred to it -- it's been a long part of sort of the Democratic Party's project to play into where they're seeing demographic changes, and lean into the suburban sort of revolt against Donald Trump. They saw that as a laboratory for it this cycle.

But it is -- I mean, it is razor-thin, Anderson. I was just listening earlier to the reporting. I think that -- they think there's some 67,000 outstanding votes, we'll see what the secretary of state says now, when we get --

COOPER: Yes, it was plus-61,000.

CHALIAN: Oh, 61,000, this initial update. So I think -- I was doing quick calculations, I think it means Joe Biden would need roughly around the 70 percent range or somewhere in that of the remaining outstanding ballots to overtake the president's current lead.

But you've seen the president's lead in the state just shrinking. And we know that the late ballots being counted, the mail ballots that are getting tabulated are just overwhelmingly a pro-Biden group of voters. And so that is helping to increase that margin. Now you see it there, just 18,586-vote lead for the president in Georgia.

[10:40:04]

And just remember, Anderson, the president made a final campaign stop in the final 48 hours in Georgia, and it was stunning to sort of see it when they put it on their schedule, that a Republican incumbent president would spend time in the final 48 hours in Georgia. They were keenly aware of how close Georgia could be, and it's also why the Biden campaign sent Barack Obama there in the final day of campaigning.

COOPER: Obviously so much depends on exactly where those plus-61,000 -- 61,367 ballots that are still to be counted -- where those votes came from in the state of Georgia. Was it urban areas, which is what we have been seeing really in all the states that we're still waiting for, David, often it's the big metro areas that were -- they have so many votes, that's where we're seeing the slowest results.

CHALIAN: Yes. It's where and it's what kind of ballot. Is it a mail ballot? Because those too have been Democratic pockets of vote. And so if it's the combination of two, that you're getting the remaining ballots from sort of pro-Biden geography -- like you said, the urban centers or certainly the suburbs around Atlanta have been pro- Democratic in recent years. That's one advantage. And then add to it, if it's sort of the mail voting, that's also a Democratic advantage on top of it.

So even -- it could be that even in some more Republican areas, Anderson, if it's the mail vote, it may not come in as pro-Trump as the Election Day vote would, obviously. And so it is both sort of the political geography of where they're coming in from and what kind of ballots. And we believe these are predominantly mail ballots.

COOPER: We are -- we're monitoring this press conference in Georgia to see any information about these 61,367 ballots. We'll obviously bring you more on that. We're listening in, some of it is just kind of some detail that's not particularly germane. Let's listen in for now.

GABRIEL STERLING, ELECTION OFFICIAL, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: -- how to do this properly. Because the main thing we want to do -- fast is great, and we appreciate fast. We more appreciate accuracy. Accuracy is going to be the bedrock upon which people will believe the outcomes of these election, be they on the winning side or the losing side. So accuracy is vital and it's the key to all of our processes.

And I want to make sure we told (ph) everybody in this room and in this state and round the country, this is the first time Georgia has used paper ballots in 20 years. We told people, do not -- they can expect some results on Election Night, and we got a lot of them out there. In fact, we got down to 250,000 yesterday, we are down to about 60,000 today.

So let me go through what we know we have right now. I brought my computer so I wouldn't screw it up.

Bryan County, 3,027. Burke County, 494. Chatham County, 17,157. Clayton County, 7,408. Cobb County, approximately 700. Floyd County, 682. Forsyth County, 4,713. Fulton County, 11,200. Gwinnett County, 7,300. Harris County, 3,641. Laurens County, 1,797. Putnam County, 1,552. Taylor County, 456. For a total right now of approximately just over 60,000 votes.

The anticipation is we will continue to go through the process throughout the day and into the evening if necessary. I know there are large counties in this state that stayed overnight, Fulton County being one of those, to process these. They've knocked their numbers down to that 11,200.

We anticipate being -- getting through this process today. One of the reasons that our friends in Chatham County take a little bit longer is they have a unique system where their board of registration is separate from their elections division, and they handle different sides of the absentee ballot and the reporting process. So that's one of the things that held them up. But I think we're through that process today and I anticipate getting a majority of the 17,000 in today as well.

So with that, I want to thank you all for being here and answer any questions. We'll start with Justin (ph) over here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain to us why that number seems to be such a moving target --

COOPER: All right, let's quickly go to John King. This is really important information. We now have the breakdown, John, county by county, of the votes that are still outstanding. And we're told -- he says -- that's not the secretary of state by the way, it's an election official -- he said by the end of today we should have all the votes in. John, what have we learned then?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well you learn, number one, there's a number of counties. So you have a couple hundred here, a couple thousand there. But the biggest takeaway I had there is -- listening in, is one of the counties we talked about a little bit earlier, Clayton County? There were several thousand votes here, just south of Atlanta.

[10:45:04]

So you're looking, where do you have 500, where do you have a few thousand, right? Sixty thousand total, there were several thousand here in Clayton County. And again, if you look at the numbers, Joe Biden's getting 85 percent of the vote in this county.

So that's what -- it doesn't guarantee that when they count the mail- in ballots, Joe Biden's going to get 85 percent of those. But your eyes aren't deceiving you there, when you look and you could expect, OK, still several thousand votes to count here --

COOPER: Seven thousand, four hundred and eight in Clayton.

KING: Right, so your assumption there is, Anderson, that Joe Biden's going to make up some ground there, right? Because he's 84 percent. Again it's not guaranteed, you have to count the votes. But we know Democrats are more likely to have voted by mail, and we know that Joe Biden in this county -- again, there's Atlanta, you're in the suburbs to the south -- is getting 85 percent of the vote.

So the biggest question is this. I mean, the overall math is, can you overcome, with those 60,000 votes, a lead of almost 19,000 votes -- 18,586 for the president? To do that, it's pretty obvious, Joe Biden has to win a disproportionate number of those votes, much higher than the 49 percent he's getting statewide right now.

So he mentioned Clayton County. He also mentioned, I believe, Forsyth County, which I'm going to come down here --

COOPER: Yes, Forsyth --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: This is Houston County, Houston County here --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: -- was 4,713.

KING: -- right, and so that's a county where the president is getting -- has been leading. But again, the question is, Anderson, the president's leading in some of those counties you mentioned, especially the smaller counties, the numbers. The question then is, is the president going to match -- and you just pick a county and bring it up.

You bring up Morgan County for example, they're done. So let's move over here. Oconee County, they're done. But is the president, in these smaller counties, going to get 65, 66 percent? Or are the mail-in ballots -- you know, there may only be a few Democrats who live in those communities or a few people voting for Joe Biden in those communities. But is Joe Biden getting disproportionate? That's the hard part.

You look at the numbers and you could say, OK, that's a red county, that's a blue county. But we actually have to count the votes because we do know, as we've watched this lead shrink, the president's lead in Georgia shrink, it is because Democrats disproportionately did vote by mail, and those are the 60,000 left they have to count.

COOPER: Yes, John, also just a few more votes in Georgia have just come in. And the -- the president's lead has shrunk just by 400 votes in just this latest.

John, the election official was saying Fulton County has 11,200 outstanding votes. That's the Atlanta area, right?

KING: That's the Atlanta area, and I believe that was the biggest number --

COOPER: That was.

KING: Yes, and so you're looking at 11,000 here. And again, you have to count them because not always do the patterns stay, but we have seen a very clear and consistent pattern in Georgia, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, that when they count these mail-in ballots, Joe Biden is doing at least as good if not better than how he has been performing in that county overall.

So Joe Biden is performing at 72 percent right now, 73 if you want to round that up in Fulton County. That's Atlanta, you see Atlanta down here and the suburbs around it. Again, one of the Democratic strongholds in the state of Georgia.

And this has been the area. Essentially, the circle, the star around Atlanta, Atlanta and the suburbs, he mentioned some other counties here as well and I'll get to them in a minute.

But you have the biggest basket of votes still outstanding, 11,000 of the 60,000 are here. You can just do the math at home. You know, that -- if Joe Biden gets 70 percent of that, he's going to get, you know, 7,000-plus votes right there and the president gets his share.

But in some of these counts, Anderson -- I just did the raw math -- in some of the counts, Joe Biden's actually getting a higher percentage in the mail-in ballots, so that's why we need to get to them.

And again, if we look at that 18,144, that lead has been shrinking consistently. Every time you get a report of new votes, it shrinks. The question is, with 60,000 left, is that enough for Joe Biden to overtake 18,144? That's what the next very tense and consequential hours are going to tell us.

COOPER: And just for the order, it seemed like Fulton County was 11,200 by my count, and missed one or two of them. But Gwinnett, I think, was the next one with 7,300. Forsyth had 4,713.

KING: Right. And you move up and around here, and so this is -- again, so Gwinnett, you look here, look at Joe Biden's getting 58 percent, right? So in the Trump campaign, you know, you're hoping that Joe Biden's numbers come in lower. But again, as you count these mail- in ballots, they're up to 95 percent right now. This is again the suburban circle around Atlanta. This is where Joe Biden is making up this lead. And so we just have to watch it play out and count the votes as they

go. To their credit, they're being transparent about it. And to their credit, they're trying to get it done by the end of the day.

And I just -- I'm going to switch walls if I can . If believe this -- is this camera on with me if I come over here or do I lose you completely?

COOPER: Yes, we got you.

KING: Here we go. We come over here, the resources are a little stretched as we count this out. But just -- I just want to show you the significance of this because we're saying, you know, 5,000 votes here, 6,000 votes there? People at home get a little confused maybe about why this is so consequential.

Joe Biden is at 253, right? He is leading right now out here in Arizona and Nevada. That would be enough to get him to the finish line. But we have to be clear, as the votes have been counted out here, the president has been -- the president has been closing.

So let's assume these two come off the map for a little bit, right? Two fifty-three, we're going to wait, we're going to count the votes. Georgia it seems might get to the finish line before the states out west. If the former vice president can take this back, that gets him to 269, Anderson. That gets him right there, banging on the door -- he's knocking on the door now? That would be banging on the door.

[10:50:03]

If he can get Georgia, then he needs one more. Now, Maine's Second Congressional District would be enough -- the president's leading there right now, and the expectation is he will carry it. So if Joe Biden's not going to get that, if you can get Georgia, then you just need one more, right? Is it Pennsylvania, is it Arizona, is it Nevada? We keep counting votes.

But Georgia is a bigger prize than the two Western states. And also -- the theory in the Biden campaign -- I'm sorry, let me take one minute to play this out -- is if they can do it this way, right? Get it well above 270. If they could get Pennsylvania as well, that would get them above 300.

The president now is saying I'm going to sue everywhere. The hope in the Biden campaign is if they can stretch this out a little and it's not just one state, that perhaps there's a political dynamic in which people get to the president and say, sir, you might not want to do this.

I'm not saying the president will take that course -- if you look at his Twitter feed, he sounds very combative today -- but the Biden campaign is hoping that if they can get a couple of these wins and stretch it out a little bit, that maybe the political climate would change.

Now, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself though. Because let's come back to where we are? We're not there yet, 253 to 213 --

COOPER: Right.

KING: That's why that progress there for Biden is critically important. And as we go through these next very consequential hours, Georgia could be a huge part of the statement America is making here.

COOPER: John, could you also just play out just the president's path? Because if Nevada's only -- Biden's leading only by some 7,000 votes. OK -- I'm told we've got to get a break in. We'll do this on the other side, because I'd like to see --

KING: I'll be right here, I promise.

COOPER: -- the president's path if Nevada and Arizona go to the president.

Just ahead as we wait for these updated vote counts that we are getting today, we continue to follow the votes coming in. We'll have live reports from our correspondents covering both the Biden and Trump campaigns.

Also, new reporting on the mood for the Trump team. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:56:11]

BURNETT: OK, so here's where we are right now. These are the contests that we are watching to see how this gets called, when it gets called. You just heard from election officials in Georgia, Joe Biden slowly chipping away at President Trump's narrow lead. But obviously, as you can see, there are still votes outstanding in Georgia, 61,000.

Similar situation in Pennsylvania. The Biden campaign, though, is hoping its narrow lead holds in Arizona and Nevada, as you can see there.

Pennsylvania though, what they're looking at so very carefully -- you see, that's the widest margin in favor of Trump right now, 135,671. It's also, though, where you have the most votes still outstanding, about 700,000 of them.

So we've got Jessica Dean in Wilmington, Delaware covering the Biden campaign, and our Kaitlan Collins is in Washington covering the Trump campaign.

Kaitlan, I want to start with you though because, you know, as we are watching these numbers narrow -- and we are going to know a lot more today -- you have some new reporting on just how Trump and his aides see the path to 270, and how his aides see it is not the same as how the president sees it.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they realize, Erin, that that path is getting a lot smaller by the day as these numbers are coming in. They feel good about what's happening in Arizona, how Joe Biden's lead shrunk overnight, and they still expect that more votes are going to come in in the president's favor.

But increasingly, what I'm hearing privately from campaign officials and from people who work in the White House is that reality is setting in, and they realize that they are more and more, by the day, as these votes are coming in, staring down a potential loss for President Trump.

Now, just because reality is setting in for them does not mean it is setting in for the president himself. And actually, I'm told he is still convinced that Joe Biden is stealing this election from him -- that's what he's been telling people on the phone over the last several hours.

And he is stung by the fact that he is seeing leads in states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where he thought he was doing so well, diminish. Either they've disappeared entirely or they are going down by incredible numbers, like what we're seeing in Georgia right now, as more and more absentee ballots are being counted.

So what I'm told is that the president has been on the phone. He is still convinced that this is a fraudulent election and that it's being stolen from him -- that is what he's telling people. And he is instructing people like his children to go out and cast doubt on the way that votes are being counted in these key battleground states.

And we have seen them do that. You saw Eric Trump appear with Lara Trump yesterday in Philadelphia for that press conference, where Rudy Giuliani was threatening to bring a national lawsuit -- though it's not even clear, you know, where they would go with that, as they are really throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks here as they are trying to slow down the vote count.

Now, that's how they're feeling privately. They are realizing there is a serious chance Donald Trump could lose here. But we should note the Trump campaign did just hold a call. They said they are still confident that they're going to win Pennsylvania, even though we are seeing the president's lead there diminish significantly. And they say that, quote, "Donald Trump is alive and well."

BURNETT: All right, thank you very much, Kaitlan.

And so now let's go to Jessica Dean following the Biden campaign. So Jessica, you know, how does the Biden team see this right now? They obviously still have more than one path to 270. The fastest and easiest is to do it with one state -- that state is the one bordering where the vice president is right now, Pennsylvania.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Pennsylvania, that's right, Erin. The Biden campaign, feeling very good, very confident this morning. And I'm told by a senior advisor that they believe they're going to win Pennsylvania by a sizeable margin when it's all said and done, that's what they think.

They also think they're going to hang onto those leads in Arizona and Nevada. They see Georgia as a very real possibility, and have been keeping their eyes closely trained on those Democratic strongholds there in Georgia that are still counting ballots there.

Again, we have to see what the votes themselves say, and that's playing out as the days go on. But from the Biden campaign's perspective, they feel very, very good and very, very confident that when all the votes are counted, that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

[11:00:07]