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CNN Projects Biden Takes Georgia, Trump Wins North Carolina; The Shady & Controversial Pasts of Trump's New Pentagon Team; Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) Discusses Trump Destabilizing the Military, CIA Director Iced Out of Intel Meeting with Trump; New GOP Senator Gets It Wrong on 3 Branches of Government & WWII. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 13, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: On the flip side, I'm told that the reason Donald Trump is going to give -- once we heard from him -- for keep on keeping on and fighting is because of the 72 million people who voted for him. Was it enough?

But that - that's small number, 72 million people, which is why he is going to argue that he has a movement, that he has support, whether he's in the White House or not, that he's not going away.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It is no small number. I think Democrats would not be smart to think that they didn't have some work to do, representing those people, trying to bring some along.

But you know, David, at the same time, it's a great number. It's second place. It's a clear second place, both when it comes to this big Electoral College win and when it comes to the popular vote.

And I think, more than anything thing, with Trump having won with 306 electoral votes in 2016, we actually earlier ran just sound byte after sound byte of him talking about what actually -- you know what? Let's actually play it.

This is President Trump, what he said when he won by the same number, by this number of electoral votes that Joe Biden has now won by.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a tremendous landslide Electoral College victory like people haven't seen in a long time.

Not only did we win the election, we had an Electoral College landslide, OK?

(CHEERING) TRUMP: It was a landslide.

We had an Electoral College, as you know, Congressman, we had a landslide, 306-223. We had a landslide.

They lost an election and they lost it big. It was really a landslide from the Electoral College standpoint.

(voice-over): He only got upset about it after the results were very conclusive, 306 to 223.

(on camera): Then it got bigger and bigger, and wilder and wilder. Then we won by a lot. Don't forget. It was 306 to 223. That's a lot.

We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College.

This was an excuse for the Democrats, who lost an election, who actually got their ass kicked, 306 to 223. That's a pretty good shellacking.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: There's no way, there is no measure by which Donald trump did not, David, have a shellacking here. This is an Electoral College landslide, by his definition, for Joe Biden. And it's also a popular vote landslide for Joe Biden.

How does the president continue on with this charade? And how do the people around him continue enabling what is clearly, as Dana said, fantasyland?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. Well, you've seen, Brianna, in the last 24 hours some real cracks in that enabling to some degree.

You saw Republican Senators from every wing of the party saying Joe Biden should start having the process of preparing for this transition.

Obviously, they're not out there doing what they should be doing, which is congratulating Joe Biden, acknowledging he won the race. But they're moving along in that direction.

But you ask, how long can the president keep up the charade, I mean, as long as he'd like is the answer because it doesn't really matter much what he does.

At noon on January 20, 2021, Donald Trump is no longer going to be president of the United States, whether he's ever acknowledged that, admitted that or not.

Joe Biden will be sworn in and will be the 46th president.

Brianna, I do just want to underscore one thing that Dana was talking about here.

You saw Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. You saw Joe Biden rebuild that blue wall, that so-called blue wall that Donald Trump busted through.

That was always thought, inside the Biden campaign, to be his likeliest path to the White House. And he did that.

But what he also did here in expansion states, Georgia and Arizona. This whole sort of Sunbelt region -- Texas included, which obviously the Democrats lost. North Carolina, you saw just now that Donald Trump won that.

This is now part of the Democrat's map for the future. And Joe Biden started putting those pieces in place so they are not just reliant upon the states that have traditionally gone Democratic.

And where they've seen, in 2016, that that can sort of fumble for this, if you will. They're looking to build their coalition in a new region of the country.

And doing so in two states, Joe Biden proved quite successful at that.

BASH: Can I just add one thing to that?

KEILAR: Mm-mmm.

BASH: Bri, if you look --

KEILAR: Please.

BASH: -- at that map that David has up, he shows the traditional blue wall that Joe Biden just rebuilt.

But on the west coast, into the southwest, it's a new blue wall, a new arm, a new blue elbow, however you want to call it.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: It's new. It's new. And that's something that looks different when it comes to American politics right now, right?

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Yes. This sort of the swipe that is coming right in, as if like, you know, a paint brush, a swipe right into the country.

You know, so Georgia, obviously huge that Joe Biden expanded there.

But that's also, Dana, going to be crucial to what he's able to do as president because there's going to be a big January ahead of us. Tell us about that.

[14:35:08]

BASH: Right. Georgia is not over for two reasons. One is, as David mentioned, don't expect the president to acknowledge

any of this soon but particularly Georgia because they are doing a recount, which is, by law, done on November 20th, which I believe is a week from today. So that's going to be happening.

But more importantly, the balance of power in the U.S. Senate will go through Georgia. Two outstanding Senate races. Both right now in Republican hands.

Whether the Republicans win will determine whether or not Mitch McConnell is majority leader, whether or not Republicans are in charge, or whether Democrats are in charge.

So the center of the political universe already is in Georgia. And it's going to be even mor so in the weeks to come.

CHALIAN: And just to be clear, Brianna, to add to Dana's point, that power, that control in the Senate that hangs in the balance through Georgia would not be the case if Joe Biden had not won the presidency.

It is because that Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris would be casting a tie-breaking vote that the Democrats have a shot in those two runoff races to get to 50, not a clear majority, but with 50.

But with vice president-elect, or then-Vice President Harris casting that tie-breaking vote, that's what would give Democrats control if they can pull off these two victories in Georgia, the way Joe Biden did, at the presidential level.

KEILAR: It's why, when President Trump is retweeting things about the balance of power in the Senate, perhaps it's sort of a giveaway that he sees the writing on the wall.

The question is: When will he be very public about the fact he will be moving on come January?

Dana, David, thank you so much. This is a big moment.

CHALIAN: Thanks.

KEILAR: And I appreciate talking with you guys about it.

BASH: Thanks, Bri.

CHALIAN: Thanks.

KEILAR: Next, President Trump cleaning house in his last couple months of office. And the people that he just put in charge of the Pentagon, they deserve a very close look.

We're going to show you the history of offensive comments that got them pulled from previous nominations.

Plus, Iraq War veteran and Senator Tammy Duckworth will join me live. Why she says the president's actions are destabilizing the military.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:42:03]

KEILAR: The president is essentially burning down the house on his way out the door, shaking up Pentagon leadership in his final two months in office and installing loyalists in top positions there.

Defense officials tell CNN his moves are "dictator-like, crazy and scary."

But beyond the headlines, here's part of the reason that they feel that way. Just take a look at some of the new blood here.

Retired Brigadier General Anthony Tata. His nomination to the Pentagon failed after CNN's "KFILE" reported on past Islamophobic and other offensive comments he had made. Lawmakers in both parties opposed him.

Tata called Islam, quote, "The most oppressive violent religion." He called President Obama a Muslim, and a Manchurian candidate and a terrorist leader.

He called Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as Congresswoman Maxine Waters violent extremists.

And look at this. Tata telling former CIA Director John Brennan to, quote, "Pick your poison, firing squad, public hanging, life sentence as prison B-word, or just suck on your pistol."

This man is the now the Pentagon's new acting top policy official.

Another appointee is a controversial retired Army colonel named Douglas Macgregor. He also has a history of xenophobic and racist comments, notably about immigrants and refugees.

And he too saw his nomination to be ambassador to Germany fail.

In one interview he said this about Mexicans when talking about cartels.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RET. BRIG GEN. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR, NEW TOP PENTAGON APPOINTEE (voice- over): The most serious threat to the United States and American society today is the criminality in Mexico, the drug cartels and the human trafficking that is driving millions of Mexicans, with no education, no skills and the wrong culture into the United States, placing them essentially as wards of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Macgregor also advocated for martial law at the border to shoot people if necessary.

In a separate interview in 2014, he said that Eastern Ukrainians are Russians, on Russian State TV, when Russia tried to annex Crimea, which led to war. The support was not or is not the position of the United States.

In and another shift, the president moving a National Security Council official to the NSA as legal counsel, which puts him at the center of a declassification dispute over Russia investigation documents.

His name is Michael Ellis. He served as the White House's top national security lawyer.

The problem is he has very little intelligence experience. Ellis has been at the forefront of many controversies, including overruling officials over classified information in Johns Bolton's book.

He became infamous for his alleged involvement in providing information to California Congressman Devin Nunes, who, at the time, was the head of the House Intelligent Committee.

That information showed that members of the president's team were included in foreign surveillance reports.

Another appointee tied to Nunes is also now in a senior role. That is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was accused of working with Ellis to provide documents to Nunes.

[14:45:04]

Another appointment is a former aide of Nunes', Kash Patel, now chief of staff to the new acting defense secretary.

And according to a House impeachment inquiry, there was evidence that connected Patel to the diplomatic back channel that involved Rudy Giuliani.

Part of that effort to spread conspiracies about Biden and convince Ukraine to investigate the president's rival as the U.S. held up military aid to Ukraine.

I'm joined by Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth. She's also an Iraq War veteran, a Purple Heart recipient.

Senator, thanks for being on with us today.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Thanks for having me on. This is such an important topic. Thanks for covering it.

KEILAR: I wonder how you are reading this firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Is this -- when you look at this, is this a temper tantrum? Score settling?

Or do you see it as a purposeful handicapping of the Biden administration at the risk of national? It is extremely odd that a defense secretary is vacated with just two months in an administration.

DUCKWORTH: I think it's all of the above. But I also think it's Trump's attempt to get the ultimate yes men into positions where he can carry out in his last couple months in office some policies that never would have been able to be carried out before.

I'm scared to know what that would be. And I wonder what he will do with regards to Turkey, for example. He seems to do whatever Erdogan asks him to do.

I'm very deeply concerned that we have a hollowing out of the very top echelons of leadership within the DOD.

And potentially within the FBI and the CIA as well, if rumors are correct.

KEILAR: That's right. You have Chris Wray who appears to be on the chopping block. Gina Haspel appears very vulnerable at this point in time.

Back to the military side of things, are you worried there could be a precipitous drawdown of troops in Afghanistan? And what are your concerns about what that would look like and what the fallout would be?

DUCKWORTH: I'm very concerned about that. It would certainly destabilize the region at a time when we know that our adversaries actually ramp up attacks on American interests.

Understand there's always been a trend that our adversaries basically prod, poke and try to see what they can get away with within the first year of any president's term in office. And usually within the first few months.

For example, the first World Trade Center bombing happened in February of President Clinton's first year, so just a month into office.

President Bush, in February of his first year in office, had to enforce the no-fly zone, because Saddam Hussein testing how far he could get with this new president.

President Obama had to deal with the North Koreans detonating a nuclear test in May. And then nine -- and then President Bush had 9/11. But President Obama had the detonation of that nuclear test.

And President Trump himself, the Syrians launched a chemical attack that we had to retaliate against in April.

Our enemies use this transition time to see how far they can get away with it.

For Trump to come in and gut the military and not participate in the transition, handicaps the Biden administration at a time when America's enemies are targeting us even more so than they usually are.

KEILAR: We've heard a lot of Democrats in Congress who are obviously not impressed where the Republican colleagues who, in big numbers, have still not acknowledged the win of Joe Biden.

But part of being a politician is sometimes walking a line. And they have a tricky one to walk. Democrats don't have this line to walk. They're trying to figure this out between the president, between

right-wing media, between the people who support President Trump.

And so they're waiting right now until the president, it appears, is ready to throw in the towel.

What do you say to them, you know, knowing that if some come out again him, they will ultimately probably lose their jobs? What do you say to them in this waiting game they are in?

DUCKWORTH: What I say is there's harm in waiting. Some of them have been -- I've seen some articles where some of the unnamed Republican leaders have said, well, what is the harm in letting him pout for a couple weeks? Or what's the harm is letting him have his way?

The harm is national security. We all took an oath of office, swore to protect the Constitution, to serve our country.

You cannot stand by and let this president hollow out our military and put our national security at risk.

These are some of the folks on the Republican side of the aisle, these are some of the Senators, you know, who claim to be the biggest names in national security and national defense.

And yet, it is crickets that I hear on that side of the aisle when it comes to the security, you know, stance we're being put into here that really can hurt our nation and role in the world.

But also will destabilize the world around us if we don't, for example, let Joe Biden get his national security briefings, intelligence briefings immediately, if we don't get people into positions so they can actually do their jobs immediately as well.

[14:50:09]

I'm -- it boggles the mind that Republicans would think that President Trump pouting is, you know, on par with our own national security.

KEILAR: You and I just touched upon Gina Haspel, the CIA director, a few moments ago. This is just into to CNN. We have learned that Haspel was iced out of an intelligence meeting taking place today with the president and other officials.

I mean, there's a very clear reason to fear for her being fired here, perhaps imminently. What will that do to the Intelligence Community and to the U.S.'s abilities when it comes to this fear?

DUCKWORTH: It's going to hurt our ability to get intelligence. And President Trump has already heard that with his term in office where he's disclosed classified information.

For example, information that our allies have given us. So now our allies, many of whom are reluctant to share classified information with us.

If President Trump takes action now, if he ices out Gina Haspel and he conducts sort of an action that destabilizes the Middle East.

For example, so that the Turkish can come in and grab more territory, then the next president will have to deal with trying to get the territory back.

Or having to deal with a world where we have a very, very negative situation happening in the Middle East or in Africa or anywhere else in the world.

This president -- I don't know whose agenda he's acting on, but the only saving grace in this whole thing is the professionalism and the dedication to the oath of office of our military men and women who will do the best job they possibly can.

But they don't have a commander-in-chief that honors their service.

I mean, we lost five American troops yesterday. And this president, who tweets nonstop dozens of times a day, hasn't tweeted once acknowledging the loss of those heroes.

KEILAR: No, he hasn't responded to that. We noted that earlier. It's sort of a stunning omission from him.

I wanted to ask you, while I have you here, your name was on the short list for vice presidential running mate for Joe Biden. You would be a logical choice to have a role in his administration.

If the president-elect asks you to serve in his administration, will you say yes?

DUCKWORTH: I would take a long, hard look and gulp down hard because I love being in the Senate. I really love being in the Senate.

But, you know, Brianna, some girls fall for the drummer in the band. I fall for "your country needs you to serve" line.

And I served at the pleasure of a president before and that's a great honor. So of course, I would be honored to serve in the Biden administration.

But really I'm very happy in the Senate. I've got a great job there representing my home state. And I think I can be an ally for him in the Senate as well as in the cabinet.

KEILAR: But you would say yes? If he asked you, you would say yes?

DUCKWORTH: It depends on the job. But I certainly would take a long, hard look at it.

It's really about where can I best serve him. I'm on team Biden 100 percent.

And if Joe Biden called me up and say, hey, I think you should be driving convoys and delivering supplies to our troops, I would take a long, hard look at doing that.

KEILAR: All right, Senator Duckworth, thank you so much for being with us.

DUCKWORTH: Thank you.

KEILAR: Next, Alabama's new Senator and former college football coach gets the three branches of government and the reason for World War II wrong. We'll roll the tape.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:56:38]

KEILAR: Alabama's newly elected Senator, Tommy Tuberville, is showing an alarming lack of knowledge about how the government works in one of his first interviews since defeating Democrat Doug Jones.

Listen to what the former college football coach said when asked if he thought the two parties could find a way to work together in Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN.-ELECT TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL) (voice-over): Our government wasn't set up for one group to have all three branches of government. It wasn't set up that way. Or three branches, you know, the House, the Senate and executive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The three branches are, of course, the executive, the legislative, which is both the House and Senate, and the judiciary.

But he didn't stop there. Here's what Senate-elect Tuberville said about his fears that Democrats are pushing the country toward Socialism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUBERVILLE (voice-over): As I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of Socialism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It's not the first time that he's told that story about World War II. This is what he said on election night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUBERVILLE (on camera): My dad, as you know -- I said this last time -- he quit school at 16, joined the Army. Landed at Normandy at 18, drove a tank across Europe.

He said he had never gotten the look on the people's face in Paris when we liberated Paris from Socialism and Communism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Dana Bash, back with us. Quick fact-check, Dana, World War II was fought to defeat the Nazis who were Fascists.

BASH: Fascism.

KEILAR: I mean, a Senator should know this.

And this is especially important because there has been a trend toward populism and some Fascist tendencies.

BASH: Right. Never mind that the Communists were in the Soviet Union and they were part of the allies, along with the United States. But that's a whole other road we don't necessarily need to go down.

I want to add one more thing to this. Our colleague, Terrence Burley, pointed this out to me. It's not just the past. It's the present that he might have an issue with.

Also in that interview, he talked about the fact that he's got temporary office space in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, which you and I know well.

He said it's a place he can work out of to interview people or "fundraising like we do for Georgia."

KEILAR: Oh.

BASH: Oops.

KEILAR: Oh, my gosh.

BASH: Just for the uninitiated, you cannot raise money out of a federal building. It's called the Hatch Act.

We've seen covering Congress together, Brianna, members of Congress running out of the building across the street to the party offices where they do dial for dollars.

So maybe that he has that out there now, somebody will call him and say, you can't do that, sir, because it's illegal.

KEILAR: I'm not trying to disparage the House at all, but when someone comes into the Senate -- look, you've got a lot of people when they come into the Senate, they often have experience in the House, right?

They've kind of gone -- I don't want to call it junior varsity, but they have that experience. Normally, the come in and they know this stuff in the Senate.

This is unusual, Dana.

BASH: It is unusual. Look, he's a -- I'm not excusing it. He's a first-time politician. He is a coach. He's a sports guy. And he has some learning to do. Let's leave it there.

KEILAR: He certainly does have some learning to do. [15:00:00]

Dana Bash, thank you so much.

BASH: Thanks, Bri.

KEILAR: Our special coverage continues now with Brooke Baldwin.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.