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Trump Casts Doubt on Election Results; Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) is Interviewed about the Presidential Race; Remembering Quincy Jones. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 04, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: In Iowa, this is what it means in Wisconsin, I don't think that's true. Look, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, these are all little universes themselves, right? And they - I don't think they translate, you know, across the board, across even state lines.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I get it. And again, which is why I was asking about something specific. If there is - clearly there's a trend in this poll among independent women. Something is happening - happened in Iowa with women. And, Professor, that's why I was asking, if you are seeing this trend among women, you know, what it might mean elsewhere.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND HISTORIAN: Well, I think what it means elsewhere is that the Democrats have actually gotten it right over the course of the last - really the last three, four months, which is that this was going to be an issue - this was going to be an election that was about women, that was about the gender gap.

Now, the point here though is that these elections are always about the gender gap. We see that women come out and vote in numbers that outnumber any other - you know, outnumber men significantly. We see that women overwhelmingly prefer democratic candidates. We now have a women on the ticket.

But it's also true that white women, who make up the largest demographic voting bloc in the United States, typically trend towards Republicans. Part of what we're seeing though is we've never seen an election on the other side of Roe v. Wade being overturned. And we've seen for several - since at least 2022 now that white women in particular have responded in very specific ways to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Dobbs decision. That may be coming into play.

But to the other panelist's points, this is a snapshot poll. So, it is quite literally a snapshot of a small microcosm of the voters (ph). So we don't actually know, and we're not going to actually know very much until tomorrow night.

BERMAN: Yes, that's not satisfying.

RIGUEUR: With that being said, I do think this is - you know, both (INAUDIBLE) this.

BERMAN: Yes, I was going to say, we have to wait till tomorrow night. I'm not satisfied by that anymore. I want to know now. I think everyone wants to know now.

RIGUEUR: Maybe Wednesday night. I don't know.

BERMAN: Wednesday night.

All right, to that end, 20 seconds or less, each of you lightening round, you know, what could possibly matter today, Jonah?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Just - I think the only thing that I'm looking for is what - what the new voters look like, because if you just assume everybody voted the same way as they did in 2020, it looks like the new voters are going for Harris in Pennsylvania and new voters going for Trump in Arizona.

URBAN: Look, what matters is just keeping the momentum going, right, and keeping the belief going. Keeping the hope alive, right, that, you know, Jonah and I were talking about this, about knocking and dragging, right? And in Pennsylvania, I was there in '16, '20, '24. And if Van has his way, I won't be there today. But, you know, it is really in here, right? That's where the knock and drag is. In Pennsylvania, your neighbors, your friends, the momentum is on the ground. It's into people's - you know, it's innate. They don't need people knocking or dragging Trump voters. It's an 11 on the spinal tap scale.

BERMAN: Professor.

RIGUEUR: It's the ground game. It is everything. All - you know, all cylinders charged. We are out in the streets. And we are doing - we are finding, not only likely voters, not only unlikely voters, but we are finding first-time non-voters. And it is similar in some respects to what we saw in Georgia in 2020. But now we're seeing it on a national level, particularly in these swing states. So whoever can win that game is going to win the election.

BERMAN: It just might be that it all comes down to turnout.

David Urban, Jonah Goldberg, Leah Wright Rigueur, Professor, thank you, all, very much.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: It's always good when David Urban brings in spinal tap to the conversation with John Berman setting at the desk.

BERMAN: That's right.

SIDNER: It's always good to see it.

BERMAN: What's wrong with (INAUDIBLE).

SIDNER: In the final hours of the campaign, Donald Trump still pushing false claims about voter fraud. A fact check on his claims that he keeps repeating to his crowds. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:38:15]

SIDNER: For days now Donald Trump has been laying the groundwork to cast doubt on the election results if, and only if, he loses. In part by spreading false claims of cheating. Listen to what he said at his rally in Pennsylvania just yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In Lancaster they found 2,600 ballots all done in -- y the same hand. In other words, the same exact penmanship. The same hand. The same everything. It was all done by the same pen. The exact same pen. And then they go and they say, well, this is a conspiracy theorist.

We have to solve this problem because we have a mess on our hands. We've got a bunch of cheaters that all they do is think about how they can cheat.

When they meet, they meet to find out how can they cheat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: OK, CNN's Daniel Dale is joining me now this morning for a very badly needed fact check.

Go.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: It's lie after lie to put - to lay the groundwork to potentially challenge the legitimacy of another Trump defeat. We've heard him talk about massive numbers and non- citizens voting. It just does not happen. Massive fraud with mail-in voting. No evidence of that either. Yesterday we had the claim that a bad poll for him was a malicious, deliberately rigged suppression poll meant to depress his supporter. No basis for that. And then we had this nonsense about his opponents holding cheating meetings, just a figment of his imagination.

Now, you heard him talk about a particular situation in one Pennsylvania county, and he's glommed onto this at rally after rally in the last week or so But he's grossly distorting what happened. He's talking about 2,600 phony ballots or phony votes that were supposedly caught. That is not true. What was actually flagged were about 2,500 voter registration applications that were deemed to be suspicious.

[09:40:05]

Those were set aside for further investigation. None of those people were permitted to vote. So, these were not votes or ballots.

Now, unfortunately, we have a misinformation spreader who owns a social media platform. That is, of course, billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk, who amplify this false claim yesterday. He called it true. I get it, it's just not true.

Now, fortunately, we had an election expert jump on this quite quickly yesterday. A man named David Becker, who wrote in response to Musk's post, "actually this is 100 percent false. They did not find 2,600 ballots. Not even close. They caught about 2,500 voter registration applications before processing them, meeting they protected election integrity. The system worked and voting is secure thanks to the diligence of election officials in Pennsylvania."

SIDNER: You are a treasure, Daniel Dale, going through all of that for us.

DALE: Thank you.

SIDNER: Really appreciate it.

Kate.

DALE: Thank you.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: A treasure for sure.

And joining us right now to talk more about this is Democratic governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, a surrogate for the Harris campaign.

Governor, thank you for being here.

You just heard that fact check laid out by Daniel Dale. And the messaging that we're hearing from Donald Trump, laying the groundwork to stir fears and stoke fears of voter fraud even before votes are being counted, what kind of impact do you think that kind of messaging is having in your state?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): Well, it is concerning that Donald Trump lies so easily. That should be concerning for a presidential candidate. That should be disqualifying for someone to ever become president.

Voting is the bedrock of our democracy. It's what's made the United States the greatest country in the history of planet earth. And to have a presidential candidate that is willing to attack our system, that's willing to do anything to win, to put himself above the country and democracy, that ought to be enough for all of us to see.

Now, for the sake of the United States, for the sake of our future elections, we've got to defeat Donald Trump this last time. We've got to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and then move past this division, this misinformation and disinformation, and move to that better place where we remember we are Americans first and everything else second, third, or fourth.

BOLDUAN: Kentucky, not a battleground, as you well know, Governor. It was 1996 the last time Kentucky voted for a Democratic president. I put that out there because I want to ask you this. I had a Republican senator on from Missouri earlier who said, when it comes to Donald Trump's kind of dark and dangerous tone, that at least part of it is, don't take him seriously. And people don't take him seriously. He said he was joking.

What about Donald Trump's message is resonating, though, with voters in your state?

BESHEAR: Well, Donald Trump is - is - is out there saying a lot of things. And - and you've got to take a presidential candidate at their word. And it's not once. He says it over and over and over. Just driving division the way he does.

I mean, for me, I'm driven by my faith, which tells me I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself. And the parable of the good Samaritan says everyone is my neighbor. And that can be found in all major religions.

I want a presidential candidate that will live that out. And here we've got Donald Trump encouraging one neighbor to hate another neighbor, calling half of America the enemy from within. And then you've got Kamala Harris, who is out there with a message that even if you don't vote for her, you will have a seat at the table and she will govern for you.

Now, part of what you see in Kentucky and so many other states is the fact that all the attention now goes to the swing states. And so we haven't had investment or visits from candidates. Not just in this election, but in a lot of elections. And I understand that the vice president and Tim Walz need to be out there doing what they need to do to - to win. And - and - and you see it on the other side as well. But I hope as we move into the future, that we can have more battleground states, or ultimately find a way to where pushing out the vote in every state matters. The candidates need to come to every part of the country, that they hear all of our concerns. I think that's how we get to a place of - of common ground and hopefully 0 approaches to it.

BOLDUAN: There's been a lot of talk about the quiet Harris voter, women especially, who might not want to say that they're voting for Kamala Harris, but will when they're in the privacy of the vote - of the voting booth.

Do you think that is real?

BESHEAR: Well - well, I think what we're seeing at the end is - is undecided voters, and maybe some the thought they had been - already decided, certainly putting their support behind Kamala Harris. I think it's - it's everything from just finally hearing one too many things from Donald Trump, whether it's wanting generals like Hitlers. My goodness, that would be disqualifying for any other candidate, at any other time, and it ought to be here. It could be him talking about Puerto Rico through his surrogate the way that - that he did.

[09:45:02]

It could be him demeaning anyone and everyone at any time, how he talked to the people trying to do his audio the other day.

Or, I think, even more so, it's hearing the contrast from Kamala Harris. You know, she is strong and she is smart. But she's also kind and she has empathy. And for me, at the end of the day, we've got to have a president where we can put our American kids in front of the TV and not worry about what they're going to say, who they're going to attack, or the crazy things that might come out of their mouth. We need a president that, even if we disagree with politically, we know will be a good example for that next generation of Americans. And when you put it in those terms, it's a pretty simple decision.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned about how making more battleground states going forward, you're - you've now said that you're open to throwing out the Electoral College. And Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell's actually responded to that saying, "at its core, the Electoral College protects Americans from the whims of the majority, and it's what compels presidents to govern nationally rather than pandering to the interests of New York and California. Without it, no presidential candidate would ever travel to a small state in middle America, like Kentucky."

He's saying you'd be hurting Kentucky. Your reaction?

BESHEAR: Well, Donald Trump hasn't traveled to Kentucky to ask for our votes. Just - just look at the amount of participation that we don't get from presidential candidates.

But listen, we know that Mitch McConnell is all about his party and not his country. If Donald Trump won the popular vote but not the Electoral College, Mitch McConnell would be out the next day calling for a change and - and a reform.

For me, I'm not coming at it from - from a point of ideology, I just want us all to count. You know, I want to see presidential candidates in Kentucky. I want them to hear about our specific issues. I think there are states in the west with water issues, for instance, that - that could feel the - the - the same way.

So, my hope, regardless of how we get there, is in the future we don't have presidential elections decided in seven states. And I think when that happens, again, we can - we can come together, find more common ground and use common sense approaches.

But with that said, I believe Kamala Harris is the candidate for common ground. She's talking about it right now. She's pledging to find it. She's pledging to include everyone, while Donald Trump is pledging to use the military or prosecutors to attack those who disagree with him.

BOLDUAN: As I ended the segment the last time with a Donald Trump surrogate, it is definitely a choice this election.

Governor Andy Beshear, thank you so much for coming on.

John.

BESHEAR: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, remembering the life of music icon Quincy Jones, who - who worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Frank Sinatra. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:52:13]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SINGING: We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's Quincy Jones there with an incredible ensemble. He is the one who really made "We Are the World" happen.

Breaking overnight, Quincy Jones, renowned producer and composer, passed away in Los Angeles. The 91-year-old icon, and his career spanned more than 60 years. He leaves behind a legacy as one of the most influential figures in entertainment history, period, full stop.

With us now, CNN's Lisa Respers France.

I mean what a life.

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: What an incredible life, John. I don't think there are enough superlatives to describe Quincy Jones, I mean, an icon, a legend, the maestro. He has had such an incredible career when you think about the fact that he's the reason why Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon" was a swing song as opposed to a waltz. He worked with Michael Jackson. I mean we got "Thriller" because of Quincy Jones. Just a phenomenal, phenomenal person.

But you know, for him, it was always about the music. And I think we have a little bit of him talking about the power of music.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUINCY JONES: Music is powerful stuff. I mean for people that don't even do it professionally. To me, it's the voice of God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh.

JONES: I really do. You can't see it, you can't taste it, you can't smell it, you can't touch it and, oh, but, boy, you can feel it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANCE: I mean, and he was almost, like, the pastor. I mean, you know, he talks about music and God. He was like the pastor when it came to music, because Quincy Jones understood how music moved us. And he understood also, I think, the legacy that he was going to leave behind because he had worked with so many tremendous legends. He - he was your legends favorite legend, which is something that I just love about Quincy Jones. And we have a statement from his family. They, of course, are

devastated, just like many fans around the world are, to have learned of his passing. The Jones family said in their statement, "he is truly one-of-a-kind and we will miss him dearly. We take comfort and immense pride in knowing that the love and joy that were the essence of his being was shared with the world through all that he created. Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones' heart will beat for eternity."

We're seeing on social media so much love pouring out for Quincy Jones, including from Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine, who referred to him as his "celestial twin," and said that he "was a titan in the musical world. He was a wonderful and unique human being. Lucky to have known him."

I mean Quincy Jones, in and of himself, he not only touched the lives of fans, he touched the lives of so many people that he worked with. I remember when he gave a very famous - now very famous interview to "GQ" magazine back in 2018 where he spilled a lot of tea about the people he knew, but he also mentioned that he had had over 60 friends that had died that year.

[09:55:05]

And when he started listening them, like David Bowie and stuff like that, it reminded people that he had scored so much, you know, in terms of not just the awards that he racked up but just the experience that he had, from the big screen to the small screen. I mean he scored "The Color Purple." We got "We Are the World," which it was a pivotal song at the time and is to this day legendary that he was even able to bring all those people together. And then, of course, on the small screen, we got "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" in part because of him.

So, you know, rest in peace, Quincy Jones. There will never be another one like him.

BERMAN: No. Just such an incredible legacy. And in terms of "We are the World," look, you know, if you're in the '80s and the phone rings and it's Quincy Jones calling to ask you to come sing, you go sing.

FRANCE: Absolutely.

BERMAN: I mean, period.

FRANCE: Period.

BERMAN: All right, Lisa Respers France, thank you very much.

FRANCE: Thank you.

BERMAN: As we said, I mean talk about someone who will just never be forgotten.

SIDNER: I am going to be singing "we Are the World" because we're going to need it as we go through this election.

BOLDUAN: Yes, here we go, friends.

SIDNER: Holding hands. Yes.

BOLDUAN: Here we go. That's the only way to say it.

Thanks so much for joining us today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "CNN NEWSROOM," up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)