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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Continuing To Deny Election Defeat; Interview With Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA); Trump Requests Limited Wisconsin Recount. Aired 4- 4:30p ET

Aired November 18, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we begin today with the 2020 lead. President-elect Joe Biden this afternoon spoke with health care workers in a virtual roundtable, as the Biden/Harris transition team prepares to lead the nation in the midst of a worsening coronavirus pandemic.

Biden warned that his administration will be behind when it comes to handling the pandemic if they do not get access soon to key information that the outgoing Trump administration is withholding.

And not only has President Trump's refusal to accept reality meant that the transition process has not commenced. A Trump administration official tells CNN today that some staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services were actually instructed to ignore and report anyone from the Biden/Harris transition team if they try to contact the federal agency.

It's an outrageous act of obstruction that places the president's feelings ahead of the lives of the American people.

To be clear, president-elect Biden will be sworn in on January 20, and he will be in charge of trying to lead the nation out of this deadly pandemic.

An outgoing President Trump is focusing, instead of the pandemic, on trying to overturn the results of the presidential election. He is trying to undo the clear and convincing victory by president-elect Biden.

Trump is doing this not with so much evidence, as he is with tweets of wild and unhinged allies that he won the election. He's been pushing discredited conspiracy theories and false claims and purging anyone he deems disloyal to him, even if that is only because the individual is loyal instead to the truth and to the American public.

Last night, President Trump fired via tweet the head of the election cybersecurity division at the Department of Homeland Security, Chris Krebs, all because Krebs dared to contradict the president by telling the truth.

His agency had declared this election -- quote -- "the most secure in American history." And Krebs tweeted before his firing -- quote -- "On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree, in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent."

Now, in another world, Mr. Krebs' achievement as a member of the Trump administration behalf of the American people supervising this all as a clean and fair election happened, that would be considered a success.

But, instead, President Trump sees it as a personal insult. A source close to Krebs tells me that he knew he might get in trouble by telling the truth about this election.

And the Trump campaign is still continuing its longshot, if not ludicrous, legal challenges to overturn the results of the presidential election. Today, they requested a recount in two Wisconsin counties, as CNN's Kaitlan Collins now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUESTION: Do you think we will hear from the president soon?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Perhaps. That's up to President Trump.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Donald Trump had no public events on his schedule again today and hasn't taken questions from reporters in two weeks, as officials describe a bunker-like mentality inside the White House, despite this comment last month:

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I can't put myself into a basement of the White House. I don't have that luxury. No, no, I'm the president of the United States.

COLLINS: Trump hasn't attended a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in five months. But his press secretary insists he's still governing behind the scenes.

MCENANY: Well, the president's hard at work. He's hard at work on COVID, among other issues.

COLLINS: Kayleigh McEnany also hasn't taken questions from the press in weeks and walked by reporters three times today with no answers.

(on camera): You can't take questions, Kayleigh?

MCENANY: Oh, no, call me later on.

COLLINS (voice-over): Behind closed doors, Trump is continuing to falsely claim the election was stolen from him and software glitches changed millions of votes.

None of that is true. But, last night, he fired the country's top election cybersecurity official who corrected his false claims. Chris Krebs found out he was being fired from Twitter, after Trump

claimed without evidence that Krebs' recent statement declaring this the most secure election in U.S. history was -- quote -- "highly inaccurate."

Senate Republicans have fallen in line with Trump's baseless claims and barely pushed back on his retaliation against an aide for telling the truth.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): We're at a period in time the president has a decision who he wants to have in office and who he doesn't have in office.

COLLINS: In court, Trump's legal arguments are floundering.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's a fraud, an absolute fraud.

COLLINS: That's not what Rudy Giuliani said in a Pennsylvania court yesterday, when he told a judge -- quote -- "No, Your Honor, we are not alleging fraud, just a fraudulent process."

[16:05:09]

Trump's former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney questioned having Giuliani represent the president.

MICK MULVANEY, FORMER ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: This is a specialty. This is not a television program. This is the real thing.

COLLINS: The Trump campaign will now request a partial recount in two mostly Democratic Wisconsin counties for a price of approximately $3 million. That comes one day after Trump openly cheered a short-lived effort by Michigan Republicans to deny the certification of election results in the county that includes Detroit, which he called having courage.

The result was eventually certified following major backlash from voters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey said he does not think the Trump campaign has a strong case in his home state.

But, as this is going on and the president is continuing to focus on it, you're seeing other officials start to move on to what's ahead, including Vice President Pence, who is going to Georgia on Friday to campaign for those two Republicans in that Georgia run-off that's going to determine which party controls the Senate.

And, of course, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, was asked on Capitol Hill today if the president himself plans to go there and campaign. Jake, he said he would have to see if it was fit -- would fit in the schedule next to the president's official business that he says he's conducting. TAPPER: Yes, and we should note, it's not just that there isn't a

strong case in Pennsylvania. There isn't a strong case in Wisconsin. There isn't a strong case in Michigan. There isn't a strong case in Georgia.

In fact, I think the number of lawsuits that the Trump team and their allies have lost at this point is 24. It's all just a delay of the inevitable.

Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

Joining me now is Democratic Senator Mark Warner of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He's the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator, I want to start with the firing of Chris Krebs, who was the head of election cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security. I know that you must have worked with him, being the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

What was your reaction when you heard the news?

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Well, first of all, Jake, let's flash back to about 45 days ago, when, 30 days before the election, we lived in great concern of foreign intervention, we lived in great concern and, from Chris, from the intel community, from the law enforcement community, people potentially showing up with long guns on elections.

We lived in concern of violence right before or right after the election. And, instead, the American people really responded. We had a record turnout, record turnout for Joe Biden, record turnout for Donald Trump. Foreign intervention, for the most part, did not take place.

Literally, hundreds of thousands of election officials carried out their job. I mean, this should be a moment, in the aftermath, where we're celebrating the strength of our democracy. And, in many ways, Chris Krebs was one of the major guys to make that happen.

And he was uniformly well-regarded, at least from the Intelligence Committee standpoint, bipartisan, for keeping our elections safe and secure. And I think he did what he was paid to do. And he did it very well.

And to be treated this way for doing his job, and not falling in line as a political henchman, to have lost his job is one more indication, as you go through the litany at the beginning of your program, lie after lie after lie coming out of this White House.

At some point, we have got to -- I hope my Republican colleagues, and some of them privately, but more of them publicly, need to reach a breaking point and say, this is undermining the whole sense of rule of law.

And Chris Krebs did a great job. Our elections were the most secure in our history. The American people did a great job. Our election officials did a great job. TAPPER: Yes.

WARNER: The only person that's not doing a great job is Donald Trump.

TAPPER: Yes, I think it's the best turnout among the American electorate in a century or something like that.

So, Senator, while some Republicans came out against Krebs' firing, there are others, like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who say it's President Trump's right to fire Krebs. We heard the same from Senator Ted Cruz.

Obviously, everyone in the administration serves at the president -- president's prerogative, but I don't know if that's the point, though. What's your response to that argument?

WARNER: Well, my response is, if we're seeing this president, who's now a lame duck, try to dismantle our nation's security, whether it be firing the defense secretary, whether it be firing Chris Krebs, who kept our elections safe -- there's lots of speculation about the CIA director and FBI director.

How many actions will this president take that will undermine our country's security before people -- even if my Senate colleagues won't stand up, when good people of goodwill of both political parties and across the country?

I do not believe what Donald Trump is doing is a reflection of what the Republican Party is. I do believe there are Republican Party enablers, but I think there's lots of local and statewide elected Republicans who are aghast at this as well.

[16:10:11]

I think the secretary of state in Georgia has stood up and done his job, and gotten abuse for it as well. And I just -- I worry, going into this period with Congress leaving town, whether other senior security officials' careers are at stake as well.

One thing that hasn't gotten much attention -- I see this from the intelligence standpoint -- when the president arbitrarily decided to cut back on the troop -- number of troops in Afghanistan...

TAPPER: Right.

WARNER: ... without warning to our Afghan partners, without warning to the 30 countries who are -- had been our partners in Afghanistan, regardless of what you feel about that war, he is again undermining the security of our country.

TAPPER: So...

WARNER: And -- go ahead.

TAPPER: CNN is learning that some staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services have been told that, if anybody from the Biden/Harris transition team reaches out to them, they shouldn't talk to them, and they should report them to senior management.

I mean, I wonder what you think about this, given the fact that the pandemic is entering an incredibly dangerous stage right now. And the Trump/Harris -- I mean, the Biden/Harris team needs to start transitioning and taking over?

WARNER: Well, I think it's remarkable.

And I give credit to president-elect Biden for holding his temper, keeping -- keeping the emotions down. Actually, what he said, I believe yesterday, is the facts. By delaying this information, more people will get sick, more people will die.

The fact that the president-elect is not getting the presidential daily intelligence briefs is making our country less secure. And we should not be going into the Thanksgiving holiday without Biden's team getting not only the coronavirus briefs, but also the daily intelligence briefs.

The transition teams ought to be able to go to the agencies and start making the peaceful transition of power.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You like to work in a bipartisan way. The new chair, I guess, I don't know if he's acting chair or he's taken over officially, but Marco Rubio, senator from Florida.

I mean, very few Republicans in the Senate have even acknowledged that Joe Biden is president-elect. What do Republicans say to you privately when you say, the transition process needs to begin, at the very least for the health and well-being of the American people, which is more important than President Trump's brittle spirit?

What do they say to you?

WARNER: Well, the notion of the first -- after -- the election took a couple days to call, but after that first few days, when people said, well give Trump a few days, and let his ego work through this.

Well, I think there was a lot of folks who didn't like that, but said, for the greater sense of transition and security of our country and not trying to have more disruption, folks kind of gave that time period.

But we're now 15 days after the election. And I am extraordinarily discouraged by how few of my Republican colleagues who are willing to call out this totally inappropriate behavior.

And just again, this is not about Democratic, Republican. This is about the security of our people in terms of coronavirus, and it's about the security of our country. In many ways, what Vladimir Putin most wanted was chaos in our nation. One of the reasons why maybe Russia didn't try to disinform as much -- or misinformation as much this cycle as they did in 2016 was because the source of -- the greatest source of misinformation and disinformation about our elections didn't have to originate in Moscow.

It originates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

TAPPER: Yes.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Remember when President Trump said that Joe Biden was hiding in his basement? Well, president-elect Biden is out again today focusing on this horrifically snowballing pandemic, with President Trump the one out of sight.

And breaking today, the biggest school system in the country changing course, as the pandemic continues to explode across the U.S.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:39]

TAPPER: Today, president-elect Joe Biden is pushing ahead with plans for his administration, meeting with front-line health care workers to discuss the coronavirus response, and naming a new team to try to help get his nominees through the Senate confirmation process.

But, as much as Biden's team has tried to ignore the nonstop lies and conspiracy theories coming from President Trump and his allies, the Biden team does find itself forced to respond to Trump's actions, as CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President-elect Joe Biden praising medical workers today on the front lines of the coronavirus fight.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: It's not enough to praise you. We have to protect you. And we have to pay you.

ZELENY: He's shining a light on their heroism and calling out President Trump's obstructionism, as his administration still refuses to cooperate with Biden's transition team, especially when it comes to COVID.

BIDEN: We have been unable to get access to the kinds of things we need to know about the depth of the stockpiles. We know there's not much at all. And there's a whole lot of things that are just -- we just don't have available to us, which, unless it's made available soon, we're going to be behind by weeks or months.

ZELENY: Yet staffers inside the Department of Health and Human Services were instructed to not communicate with any Biden advisers, CNN has learned, and asked to report any outreach to top agency officials. [16:20:01]

ALEX AZAR, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We have made it very clear that when GSA makes a determination, we will ensure complete, cooperative, professional transitions and planning.

ZELENY: As the U.S. reported the deadliest day of the pandemic in six months, a Minnesota nursed begged Biden for more help.

MARY TURNER, MINNESOTA NURSES ASSOCIATION: I have taken care of co- workers as they fight for their lives on a ventilator, and knowing that they got sick because of the hospital or their government hasn't protected them.

ZELENY: Members of Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board are asking for access to the government plan to distribute the vaccine.

DR. RICK BRIGHT, FORMER DIRECTOR, BIOMEDICAL ADVANCED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY: We know that vaccines don't deliver themselves. It takes a team of people.

ZELENY: Dr. Rick Bright, a vaccine scientist and whistle-blower who accused the Trump White House of interfering in efforts to fight the virus, said Biden's team was skeptical that any credible plans exist inside the Trump administration.

BRIGHT: We will be ready on day one.

ZELENY: All this as Biden's advisers are blasting Trump's attempt to undermine democracy by firing Chris Krebs, who was in charge of election cybersecurity, for telling the truth about the election.

REP. CEDRIC RICHMOND (D-LA): It's dangerous. The entire transition, Trump's whole behavior right now should frighten the American public.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: So, even as Mr. Biden has seen this reluctance from Republicans in Washington, Jake, I am told he is continuing the process of searching for members of his Cabinet.

He's prioritizing the Department of Health and Human Services, I'm told. And two of the leading contenders for that, we are learning, are two Democratic governors. That's the governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, and the governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Now, they were on the long list for running mates potentially earlier this summer. But now I'm told they're being considered as well for HHS, as well as Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general. So we do expect Cabinet appointments to be made -- or announcements to be made after Thanksgiving.

And those at least are two of the leading contenders at this point before background checks -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Jeff Zeleny in Wilmington, Delaware, thanks so much.

Let's discuss with my panel.

Toluse, let me start with you.

The Biden team trying to go about business as usual. But, at some point, barring President Trump getting a personality transplant, this is going to come to a head. The president is refusing to concede. He's refusing to allow the transition process to begin. How is the Biden team going to handle it if worse comes to worse?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Jake, you do see them starting to turn up the pressure, starting to say that this could be a crisis.

Vice President -- former Vice President, president-elect Joe Biden said just a couple of days ago that people could die if this transition does not go smoothly, if he does not get access to the medical experts, to the scientists that are part of the Trump administration.

So they are starting to turn up the pressure. It's not clear that any of that is working in terms of swaying Trump himself or people in his closest -- his closest advisers.

But you're starting to see at least some Republicans start to speak out, start to say that Biden should get access classified briefings, access to people who have the ability to tell him what's happening with the vaccine.

It's happening very slowly. Republicans in general still are living in fear of the president. But I do think that, over time, you are starting to see some more Republicans break out. And I think that's the strategy of the Biden camp. We will see. We will have to see if it works.

But, right now, they don't have the ability to do anything until January 20, other than increase the public pressure on the Trump administration and try to get more Republicans on board to try to turn the president and change his mind and get him to stop being so obstinate, and get him to actually provide the information that could save lives to the incoming administration.

TAPPER: Laura, as President Trump continues to deny reality, deny the election results, falsely claim he actually won, he has simultaneously canceled his plans to spend Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago. He's going to stay at the White House.

Here's Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's explanation for that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCENANY: The president's hard at work. He's hard at work on COVID, among other issues, drawing down our number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing our men and women home. He's hard at work. And so he's staying here at the White House. And it

will be a lovely Thanksgiving for him and the first lady here in the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, the outgoing president has not held any public events in 11 days. He has not announced any steps to improve the administration's response to this surge of coronavirus.

He has gone golfing four times in the last two weeks. Other than tweeting nonsense, what is he doing?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Your guess is as good as mine, Jake, which is that what we do know he's doing is golfing.

Again, as cases surge and health officials are constantly warning about the months to come for the country due to coronavirus cases, the president is not talking about coronavirus. He isn't trying to improve public willingness to potentially take a coming vaccine.

[16:25:05]

There's none of that. What he's doing is laser-focused on saying that he won the election, which is false, and also ousting top security officials that he considers not loyal to him.

So, I don't know what the president is doing, other than continuing to further false claims about voter fraud and, as you said, deny reality about the outcome of this election.

TAPPER: Yes.

And I would ask Kayleigh McEnany this question, except she's not doing any briefings. She's only talking on the president's favorite channel.

Toluse, let's talk about President Trump's firing of cybersecurity official Chris Krebs, which Laura just alluded to. Besides getting rid of someone who disagrees with him, somebody who stands up for the truth, what does President Trump actually gain from firing a well- respected professional like Chris Krebs?

OLORUNNIPA: Well, not much in terms of good governance. The president is not really focused on good governance at this point. He has two months left in office, and he's trying to maintain loyalty among the thousands of employees, the thousands of people who work within the White House and throughout the administration.

Right now, they are sort of in a bind, trying to figure out whether they should break ranks, accept the results of the election publicly, say that the Biden administration is going to be taking over on January 20, and say that the election was free and fair.

Now that you have a scapegoat in Chris Krebs, who did say that the election was the most secure in the recent history of the country, then, when he gets fired, it's sort of -- the idea is to send a chilling effect to other administration officials, other political appointees, people who may know better, but may be afraid to speak out because they don't want to be fired by tweet.

So it's sort of the classic strategy that we have seen from the president, fire people by tweet when they break ranks, really try to instill loyalty by fear, and not through sort of allegiance to what he's doing.

There's not a lot of support for his position, even within the Republican Party. So it's pretty clear that he's just trying to create a sense of fear among different administration officials to keep them from speaking out, as Chris Krebs did.

TAPPER: I saw somebody on Twitter say that Chris Krebs is the only person to leave the Trump administration with a better reputation than he had when he went in.

Laura, you have -- there are Republicans such as Senators Ben Sasse or Rob Portman defending Chris Krebs, defending the work he did. But then you have Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz saying that President Trump has every right to fire Krebs if he wants.

Do you see any point at which the majority of Republican lawmakers would actually come out and just note that this is all insane, President Trump lost, it's time to get over it and prepare for the next administration? Because what he's doing right now is not only sowing discord. It's actually potentially harming the American people in terms of the transition and Biden's ability to do the job.

BARRON-LOPEZ: If past is prologue, Jake, I don't expect a big amount of Republicans or the majority of Republicans to finally say, look, this is insane, and Biden won the election ,and Trump should not be asking top security officials -- because, yes, they may quietly say that they're concerned that Trump could extend this to CIA Director Haspel -- or to Director Wray, to Haspel.

But the fact is, is that they are not out there en masse very loudly denouncing the president's actions, and I'm not holding my breath, and I don't think many reporters are, waiting for them to do so.

TAPPER: Just so cowardly, so cowardly, and the American people are the ones who suffer.

Toluse, Laura, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Breaking news out of New York City. All schools are closing, as the coronavirus gets even worse there, but city leaders did not shut down the gyms and restaurants? Find out why next.

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