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Don Lemon Tonight

Three Weeks Until Election Day; President Trump Tries Courting Female Voters; Obama To Hit Campaign Trail For Biden; Barr's Unmasking Investigation Concludes Without Charges; Amy Coney Barrett Says Landmark Roe V. Wade Ruling Is Not A Super Precedent; Supreme Court Grants Trump Administration's Request To Halt Census Count While Appeal Plays Out; Trump Back In Campaign Trail And Holding Rallies In States Where Coronavirus Cases Are Growing; Fake Social Media Accounts Posing As Black Trump Supporters Reaching Thousands Online; More Than 10.5 Million Votes Cast So Far In 41 States. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired October 13, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Twenty-one days until Election Day, millions of Americans are already casting their ballots. We are seeing massive early voting crowds in states like Georgia, Texas and Ohio. Some people waiting for up to eight hours to vote. The coronavirus pandemic having a massive impact on this election, but you would never know it looking at President Trump's packed rallies, no social distancing, very few people wearing masks.

The facts are coronavirus still a huge problem. As of tonight, new cases are rising in 33 states. So, I want to bring in now CNN's Senior Washington correspondent, Mr. Jeff Zeleny who's on the road with the Biden campaign. Also Ms. Amanda Carpenter, the former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz and Mr. Ron Brownstein, senior editor at the Atlantic.

Good evening. So, I called Jeff Mr. So, I had to call everyone -- to give everyone, you know, a title before. Ron, I'm going to start with you. President Trump in Pennsylvania tonight. He won the state in 2016. Biden is now in the lead there. He plans to keep coming back over and over the next three weeks. So talk to me about how you see this race three weeks from Election Day.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, AND SENIOR EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC: The president is operating on too small a base from which to win at this point. I mean, he's on an island that is taking on water on several different sides.

We saw it in 2018, a historic movement away from the Republicans and white collar suburbs, not only in places where we've seen it see before like Northern Virginia, New Jersey but places across the Sun Belt like Atlanta, Houston and Dallas, I mean Phoenix. That it had not seen it before.

All of that is continuing, Don. The president is on track to lose college educated white voters by the biggest margin ever. He is still very strong among his base. The non-college whites, even evangelical and rural whites, but not quite as strong as in 2016. And because he has so alienated everyone else, including not only the college whites but young people and people of color, he has to basically be Ted Williams every year and hit 406 with his base.

You know, he just can't make the numbers add up. Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. He is a more culturally acceptable to those blue collar and rural white voters. And as a result, Donald Trump, while he is still very strong at around 60 percent of them, that's not nearly enough to make up from what is happening with everyone else at this point.

LEMON: Amanda, I want to you listen to the president's pitch to a key group of voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Suburban women, they should like me more than anybody here tonight, because I ended the regulation that destroyed your neighborhood. I ended the regulation that brought crime to the suburbs. And you're going to live the American dream, and that's what you're going to do. I ask you to do me a favor. Suburban women, will you please like me? Please. Please. I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You remember 2016 when he made fun of -- please clap for Jeb Bush. And now -- I mean, he's tried some casual racism, but when that didn't work, why not begging?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR SENATOR TED CRUZ AND THE AUTHOR OF GASLIGHTING AMERICA: Yes, I mean, listen, he knows he has a problem. He has a huge problem with women. And he lucked out in 2016. Just enough women were willing to give him a chance. One, because they just didn't like Hillary Clinton. Number two, they thought Donald Trump was a good business guy who would turn around the economy.

Well, guess what? In 2020 you don't have Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has tanked the economy. And everyone knows the economy has been tanked because of coronavirus. And particularly women understand that the economy will not come back until you solve coronavirus. And here he's holding these rallies like everything's fine.

His female surrogates, which you know, are in his family, like Ivanka Trump and Laura Trump, are running around the country pitching -- making the pitch to women that he's the one to bring it back and that he saw this coming and he was the only one that took it seriously. I mean no one, none of this makes sense, and so no wonder he's dropped off with women.

[23:05:04]

LEMON: Jeff Zeleny, so, you're on the road with the former Vice President Joe Biden, and he'll soon have President Obama campaigning for him. What are you hearing about his plans?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm in Florida. This is where Joe Biden was today going after this senior vote, which he is leading in. And this is something that is a critical constituency for President Trump, no doubt about it, and this is something that Joe Biden making a big distinction over Donald Trump. Not having big rallies. He had to drive-through rally. That it really felt like an old drive-in movie.

So, this is something Joe Biden's doing, but meanwhile as he is preparing for the debate next week. I am told that former President Barack Obama is going to hit the campaign trail for Democrats in key early voting states. The states that will begin early voting next week where early voting is already under way, like here in Florida, like in North Carolina, Georgia, and other states.

We don't know the exact itinerary yet of the former president, but we do know he is going to be going after I'm told three distinct constituencies, black voters, Latino voters and younger voters. There is some falloff among all of these groups for Joe Biden. There is some sense that they need to increase enthusiasm to get -- the support where the Biden Campaign would like it.

So, having Barack Obama out on the campaign trail is something we've not seen yet this year because Democrats have been taking a much more cautious stand here. But in the final two weeks of the campaign, I am told that Barack Obama is coming out.

Of course, this is personal for him as well. Donald Trump went after the former president, went after his family, has repealed many of the things he tried to do in office. So, Don, the final two weeks of this campaign, the closing stretch, is going to be a fascinating matchup between Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and of course Joe Biden.

LEMON: So, Amanda, we often talk about the conspiracy theories that, you know, that go unchallenged on -- in conservative media and on state TV, where they, you know, just bark about it all the time.

The Washington Post is reporting tonight that the investigation that Attorney General Barr commissioned into unmasking around the 2016 election was quietly completed without any charges or public report, nothing. This is what the president and his allies have been saying about it. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The unmasking and the spying. And to me, that's the big story right now. That's a very, very big story. It's disgraceful what went on. It's disgraceful, Obama-gate. It's been going on for a long time. It's been going on from before I even got elected and it's a disgrace that it happened.

Well, the unmasking is a massive thing. I just got a list. It's -- who can believe a thing like this?

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Why in the hell did the Obama administration's unmasking request jump threefold from 9,500 in 2013 to 30,355 in 2016?

TRUMP: If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would have been in jail a long time ago, and I'm talking with 50-year sentences. It is a disgrace what's happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax, in the history of our country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why was everybody in the Obama administration listening to the phone call and finding out and knowing that it was General Flynn?

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYTS: Look at the list of people during that brief transition period making unmasking requests of Michael Flynn. So many of them were partisan officials who had no business snooping and seeking to unmask the successors, the incoming Trump administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: I mean, the only unmasking that's going on is at Trump rallies. If this was such a massive crime, why did Barr's team come up empty?

CARPENTER: Because there was nothing there.

LEMON: Like the voter fraud team?

CARPENTER: Because there was nothing there. Barr can -- I mean, we can joke around about this, but it's hard to exaggerate what a massive deal this was.

I mean, Donald Trump started this big gaslighting conspiracy on day one of his presidency saying that the deep state was out to undo his presidency, and it wasn't just him. He got the conservative media to go along with it and he got U.S. Senators to go along with it and use the levers of power to try to push something out.

John Cornyn, Texas Senator who's widely considered to be kind of a smart establishment guy said this is going to be bigger than Watergate. They were talking about jailing government servants, OK?

People put out a list of names at one point in time, and now years later -- years later, it turns out to be nothing? Man, I hope we don't forget this, because people need to remember what these people did and how they threatened good serving public officials for no reason.

[23:10:10]

LEMON: Just for Ron, off the top of my head, we had the Hillary Clinton email server thing that turned out, remember? And then buried the report like on a Friday night or something that turned out nothing. Now we have this. What in the hell is going on here?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look. I mean, you have the president who's you know, trying to weaponized every element of the federal government, of the census which the Supreme Court kind of allowed him to (inaudible). The postal service or the Justice Department. But you see the counter reaction. I mean, Don, the other thing that

happened today that was pretty incredible, 128,000 people as you probably know showed up to vote in Harris County in Houston Texas more people than vote in-person in the entire state of Georgia yesterday. Another 40,000 turned in mail ballots. It's over 170,000 votes in a County where 1.3 million people voted in the 2016.

It's also a county that went from 1,000 vote margin for Obama in 12, to a 201,000-vote margin for Beto O'Rourke in 2020. And it is really emblematic of what's happening. Donald Trump is exiling the Republican Party from the fast-growing urban center and metros that are going to driving the population and economic growth.

And I think, you know, in 2016 he lost 87 of a hundred largest counties by a combined 15 million votes. The evidence is it's going to be even bigger. I mean, it's going to be substantially bigger in those 100 counties. Maricopa was the largest county in the country that he won in Phoenix and he's been trailing consistently in the polling there as is Martha McSally.

If he's going to win he's going to have to find a way to just ramp up rural turnout to a really, really historic and heroic levels, because he simply is driving the party out of these big populations. By the way, it's happening in the House as well. Republicans are down to one- quarter of all the seats with more college graduates average in a house and it could be as low as one-fifth after this election.

LEMON: All right. Thank you all, that's all we have time for. I appreciate it. I'll see you soon. Be safe on the campaign trail, Jeff. Thank you very much.

So, Democrats grilling Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett over issues from health care to abortion. President Trump's pick refusing to say how she'll rule on those hot button issues. But perhaps the biggest headline in all of this is this answer about how she sees the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. I want you to listen to this exchanges with Senator Amy Klobuchar.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Will you also separately acknowledged that in planned parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court's controlling opinion talked about the reliance interest on Roe v. Wade, which it treated in that case a super precedent. Is Roe a super precedent?

AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: How would you define super precedent?

KLOBUCHAR: I actually thought someday I'd be sitting in that chair, but I'm not. I'm up here so, I'm asking you.

BARRETT: OK. Well, people use super precedent differently.

KLOBUCHAR: OK. BARRETT: The way its use in the scholarship and the way that I was

using it in the article that you're reading from was to define cases that are so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling.

And I'm answering a lot of questions about Roe which I think indicates that Roe doesn't fall into that category. And scholars across the spectrum say that it doesn't mean that Roe should be overruled, but descriptively it does mean that it's not a case that everyone has accepted and doesn't call for its overruling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Let's discuss now. CNN's Senior Legal Analyst, Laura Coates joins us. Hi, Laura, good to see you. Barrett repeatedly declining to answer Democrats on how she might rule on Roe v. Wade but saying it's not a super precedent. That's telling.

LAURA COATES, CNN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ANALYST: It was. And of course I was tickled a little bit by the idea of this semantics based hedging at first, as if not to understand what the substance of Senator Klobuchar's question was, which was do you intend or do you think that Roe v. Wade is a vulnerable precedent? Which was really the question she was asking.

And she tried to go around in terms of super precedent which she really ultimately ended up saying was that, just by virtue of the way in which people are questioning it with me, the way in which there has been a you full well know and all on assault on Roe v. Wade and an attempt to overturn it to presidential value that she believes it is in fact is vulnerable.

And part of the reason for that is because she is one of the people -- and I don't know of any other Supreme Court nominee who had signed on to articles and different statements suggesting that it needed to be overturned in some capacity or at the very least revisited, and she's done just that.

LEMON: Today the Supreme Court is granting a request from the Trump administration to halt the census count while an appeal play out. A lower courts order would have required it continue until the end of this month. And this happened on a 5-3 court, which looks like it's going to be 6-3 soon.

COATES: You know, what's so unfortunate about this Don, is that the census is so important. It is something that the founding fathers in fact contemplated. It was one of the reasons they are able to figure out about apportionment and about representation in how many members of the House, about what types of services are going to be given to people from the elderly to the increasingly vulnerable.

[23:15:13]

It's a way for people to really participate in democracy and get the funding they actually need. It's also one of the things that's used by the voting rights section of the civil rights division among other entities to figure out whether or not there has been some form of gerrymandering, a way to try to undermine your ability to really be a participant in democracy.

And so they have it end early. This is after of course, an attempt to try to add a citizenship question with an eye, I believe, towards trying to root out undocumented persons in this country and trying to intimidate people from participating. You see what's happened I guess a mere 20, 21 days before an election.

It's a vital part of our democracy, and any attempts to stop it early -- what could be the possible benefit? Why would you stop a count? I guess what they say is, you know, democracy is not just about the voting, it's about the counting, Don.

LEMON: Yes. And it could change, you know, the number of representatives and so on. It has a big -- it has a ripple effect.

COATES: Yes.

LEMON: Thank you so much, Laura. I appreciate you joining me. Good to see you.

COATES: Of course.

LEMON: Thank you.

COATES: Thank you.

LEMON: Long lines and record turnouts as polls open for early voting in some states.

Plus, Dr. Anthony Fauci warning of a resurgence of coronavirus throughout the country. 33 states reporting an increase in cases and some hospitals are overflowing with patients again. We will bring you the latest.

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[23:20:0]

LEMON: Coronavirus cases are on the rise across the country with 33 states trending in the wrong direction. There are now only five states doing better than last week. It is a really scary situation, especially as the president races around the country doing last-minute campaigning. He has rallied schedules every day this week. Three out of the five states he is visiting in the red. And the other two states are only holding steady.

At a rally tonight in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, social distancing wasn't enforced and masks were only sparingly worn by attendees. Does that look like a good scene to you in a state where average COVID cases and hospitalizations have been rising over the past two weeks and the test positivity rate is almost 10 percent?

Tomorrow he is heading to Iowa. COVID cases are also on the rise there and the positivity rate is, get this, almost 20 percent. On Thursday he'll be in North Carolina. Numbers are climbing there too. What will these charts look like after Trump gathers together large groups of people who aren't wearing masks?

Joining me now, CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Doctor, thank you. I appreciate it. Good to see you. So, President Trump also heading to Florida and Georgia for rallies on Friday. So, what do you think when you see the president's itinerary to -- he's heading to coronavirus red zones?

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's incredibly destructive. If you look at just about every single battleground state -- Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin -- every one of those battleground state has rising COVID rates. But yet the president's going to take his traveling and their circus there with unmasked people and -- and perpetuate the pandemic.

It's completely avoidable. The president doesn't care what carnage he leaves in his wake. But this is how you accentuate a pandemic, by bringing all these people together. So that's what I think -- the president is desperate and he's going to go to these places come hell or high water.

LEMON: Do you think we could see big jumps in cases in these locations because of his rallies in a few weeks if people don't wear masks or/and distance themselves?

REINER: Sure. This is how the virus spreads. The spreads when it encounters virus naive hosts. People who have not had the virus, people who don't have immunity because of a recent infection. So, if you wanted to accentuate a pandemic, you would host many, many gatherings. Think of it this way -- how did we suppress the virus during the lockdown, or why did we go into a lockdown?

We went to a lockdown to place space between infected people. So instead now of placing space, he's reducing the space. People will die, and especially since the president appears to be increasing the cadence of these events and packing a lot of events into a very short period of time.

You know, we're going to hit a very sober milestone about a week before the election. We're going to hit 250,000 dead in this country. You know, think about that number. 250,000 people dead is more people who live in places like Scottsdale, Arizona, or you know, Augusta, Georgia, or Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's a lot of people. And you know we have become numb to this.

But what we have also become numb to is the spectacle of a president of the United States holding mass gatherings with really with wanton disregard to the safety of the people who come to these events. While at the same time touting his, quote, immunity. I mean, this is bizarre behavior that somehow has just become common place and you know, we shrug it off.

LEMON: Yes. Well, I mean, not here, but you mean, America in general, right? The understood you as I say.

REINER: Yes.

LEMON: OK. So, you spoke about what you know, what he's been saying about, you know, he's immune and all that. This is what he said tonight about his own battle with COVID.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I tell you what, we have -- the vaccines are coming soon, the therapeutics and frankly, the cure. All I know is that I took something, and whatever the hell it was, I felt good very quickly. I don't know what it was. Antibodies. Antibodies. I don't know. I took it. I said I felt like superman. One great thing about being president, if you're not feeling 100 percent, you have more doctors than you thought existed in the world. I was surrounded by like 14 of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:25:28]

LEMON: Jeez. I mean, that's really nice for him. That's not the case, though, for the average American who might be in that audience and vulnerable.

REINER: Yes, or the people who have succumb to this pandemic, their families, or the people who are in the hospital now. There are 38,000 Americans hospitalized now. 38,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19. You know, I did your show one night last week from the hospital because I had been there taking care of somebody who has been in our place for four months trying to get home. For four months.

And you know, when he got sick, he didn't have access to this triple, you know, experimental therapy. No one on the planet had access to this. So to call it tone deaf is really to underestimate the cruelness of his attitude right now.

LEMON: Doctor, thank you. And we saw you, we saw you in your scrubs when you were on this program. And we appreciate you.

REINER: It's my natural habitat.

LEMON: Thank you, doctor. I'll see you soon.

REINER: Good night.

LEMON: So, Twitter accounts are posing as black men in support of the president. Who's behind them, and why can't Twitter crack down? That's next.

And ahead, they wanted to start a civil war. Inside the group that attempted to kidnap Michigan's Governor and who else they were targeting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So fake Twitter accounts made to look like they belong to black Americans who support President Trump are popping up amid the final days of the 2020 race.

One fake account showing the image of a black police officer tweeted pro-Trump messaging. According to The Washington Post, the account was only up for a week but received tens of thousands of likes and followers before being suspended by Twitter.

And while Trump has not polled well with black voters, it is clear he will likely need more support from them than he has now in order to keep the Oval Office.

The president's effort to win over voters of color was on full display on Saturday during his White House event, which was supposedly aimed in part at black and Latino Americans. President Trump is repeating some of his favorite claims about his record.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We achieved the lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rate in the history of our country.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: The black youth unemployment rate reached the lowest ever again in the history of our country.

I say the fact is that I've done more for the black community than any presidents since Abraham Lincoln. I say it. Nobody can disagree. Nobody can disagree and it's true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: It's true. Attendees at the event included members of a small group called Blexit, which encourages black Americans to leave the Democratic Party. But why are so many of these fake Tweeter accounts made to look like they belong to black men? There isn't a conclusive answer, but consider this.

A recent PEW poll shows that Joe Biden is far ahead with black voters. But when it comes to Trump's poll numbers, there is an interesting catch. He is actually polling better with black men and black women.

There is a lot to discuss with CNN's Donie O'Sullivan. Donie, thank you, appreciate you joining us. Let us talk about this, these fake accounts, OK? Black Trump supporters. How are they made and where did they come from?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Hey, Don. These accounts are really going very viral on Twitter, getting thousands and thousands of shares. I want to show you an example of another one of these accounts that are posing falsely as black Americans.

Take a look at this one. It goes by the name of Gary Ray. You see there on the profile a flattering picture of Trump and some tweets pointing out -- saying that he is going to vote for Trump, pointing out specifically that he is black and that he is voting for Trump.

But Gary Ray doesn't exist. Twitter actually shut down that account. And the man you see in the profile picture there is a man not named Gary Ray. His real name is Robert Williams. He lives in Michigan.

He didn't know about this Twitter account until earlier tonight when I tracked him down and I called him. And of course, he was shocked that his identity was being used in this way. And of course, Don, he told me on top of all of this that he is not a Trump supporter and he will not be voting for the president.

LEMON: Did you record the phone call?

O'SULLIVAN: I didn't, but I'm sure --

LEMON: OK.

O'SULLIVAN: -- he'd be happy to come on and speak with you any time, Don.

LEMON: OK. All right. Got it. All right. So --

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: I thought you were going to play it. Sorry about that, Donie. So, listen. We learned in the Mueller report about how Russia specifically targeted black voters with this information during the 2016 race. But is it clear who is behind these accounts now? Do you know if it's Russians? Do you know if it's QAnon or members of the Trump -- the Trump folks? Who is it?

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. I mean, that's the really frustrating thing here, especially just a few weeks out from the election. Right now, we do not know who is behind these accounts and if they're all even linked together in some way.

Twitter might have that information on sort of the back end. It can see who is behind a lot of these accounts, but it is not sharing that information right now.

We have seen in the past foreign nation states posing as Americans, particularly as African-Americans on social media to try to sew division and confusion.

[23:35:02]

O'SULLIVAN: And as you mentioned in the case of Russia in 2016, try to dissuade black voters from supporting Democrats. But we've also seen con artists and scammers also posing as Black Lives Matter, activists to try and sort of set up fake donation sites. Now, experts at the cybersecurity company Far-Right (ph), which has been tracking some of these accounts, tell me that some of the accounts were posting links to merchandise sites, a sign that they might have had financial motives.

And also, researchers at Clemson University have been looking into this, saying that these accounts have become increasingly active in the past few months.

But, I mean, Don, whatever the motivations of the people who are behind these accounts, they are giving the impression on social media that there is a groundswell of African-American and black support for President Trump.

LEMON: And it's not really real. As I understand, Donie, there are others you're trying to contact. When you get them, keep in touch, let us know. Thank you, Donie. I appreciate it.

O'SULLIVAN: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: The FBI is saying that Michigan's governor wasn't the only target of an alleged domestic terrorist plot. Another governor was considered.

Plus, hours long lines at polls in Texas and Georgia today as early voting begins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): How long have you been waiting in line?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About two hours now.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): What do you think about that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sucks. But, you know, I'd rather be out here doing my civic duty than not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, tonight, we are learning about another sitting Democratic governor being targeted. The FBI is revealing that the right-wing extremist group allegedly behind the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also discussed targeting Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.

An FBI agent testifying in court -- quote -- "They discussed possible targets, taking a sitting governor, specifically governors of Michigan and Virginia, over shut down orders." The same two governors the president attacked over lockdowns in April when he tweeted "liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia."

When asked about that tweet, here is what Governor Northam said today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D-VA): When language is used such as to liberate Virginia, people -- they find meaning in those words and thus these things happen and that's regrettable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, three of the men facing charges in the alleged kidnapping plot appeared in federal court today where they were denied bail.

CNN's Sara Sidner has more on this story and the troubling links between law enforcement and right-wing extremists.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Five months before the FBI raid that exposed an alleged domestic terrorist plot to storm the state capital, start a civil war, and kidnap Michigan's governor, one of the suspects, William Null, appears on stage alongside the sheriff of Barry County. It was in a rally to rail against Governor Whitmer's coronavirus stay-at-home order.

DEAR LEAF, SHERIFF, BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGAN: The curve is flattening out. We are doing fine.

SIDNER (voice-over): That was in May. Last week, the state charged twin brothers, Michael and William Null, and five others with providing material support for terrorist acts in the alleged plot to kidnap the governor. Six other men were charged federally for conspiracy to kidnap the governor.

The Nulls are accused of conducting surveillance on the governor's vacation home where the men allegedly planned to carry out the kidnapping. But unlike state and federal law enforcement, Barry County sheriff said this about their arrests to CNN affiliate Fox 17.

LEAF: It's just a charge, and they say a plot to kidnap. You got remember that, are they trying to kidnap? It is because a lot of people are angry with the governor and they want her arrested. So, are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnapping attempt?

It is because you can still, in Michigan, if it's a felony, you can make a felony arrest, and it doesn't say if you're in elected office that you're exempt from that arrest.

So, I have to look at it from that angle. I'm hoping that's more what it is. In fact, these guys are innocent until proven guilty, so I'm not even sure if they have any part in it.

SIDNER (voice-over): It turns out there's a long history of cosiness between self-proclaimed militias and sheriffs in Michigan and elsewhere, according to experts who study the America militia movement.

AMY COOTER, U.S. DOMESTIC MILITIA EXPERT, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: It's been true all along since the early 90s that sheriffs in large places in Michigan kind of see themselves as having a cooperative relationship with militias.

They can call on them for searches for missing people or other times they need extra hands, so they have been treated kind of as a supplementary force in some of those places.

SIDNER (voice-over): In this case, the sheriff said he knows the men, but isn't friends with them.

LEAF: Every now and then, I run into those guys like at a rally. They're always very nice. In fact, they are excited about seeing their sheriffs. They come out and shake their hands, shake my hand. Sometimes, they'd give me a one arm bear hug.

SIDNER (voice-over): And when asked about whether they had any legal right to arrest the governor, he said --

LEAF: You look at the militia itself and the originations of a militia, they have more of a legal standing in this country than the agencies that arrested them.

SIDNER (voice-over): It is not just some sheriffs who support self- style militias, but historically, militia members are known to trust sheriffs. The man known as the godfather of Michigan self-style militia, Norman Olson, said just that back in 1995 during a congressional hearing on American militias.

NORMAN OLSON, MICHIGAN MILITIA COMMANDER: We will divert to the lawful historic authority which is the county sheriff.

[23:45:01]

OLSON: He indeed is the commander of the local militia. When a situation erupts in which we would be deputized --

SIDNER (voice-over): This congressional hearing was held in light of the one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks on American soil, the Oklahoma City bombing.

Lawmakers were trying to get to the bottom of the anti-government sentiment that led to Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to bomb a federal building, killing 168 men, women, and children.

In 1995, a relative of Terry Nichols said he was a former member of the Michigan militia. Amy Cooter said members told her McVeigh also met with them.

COOTER: What I am told is that Timothy McVeigh in particular went into a couple of militia meetings and they found him too extreme.

SIDNER (voice-over): She says about 10 percent of self-described U.S. militias have extreme elements. And during this extremely polarized election cycle, expert says there's a good chance it will activate the most extreme members to violence.

The FBI said the men involved in the plot to kidnap the governor agreed to carry out the kidnapping before November 3rd, the national election.

JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: The potential for violent conflict associated with the election is quite high, both during voting and in the days and weeks and months after Election Day.

The number of possible scenarios suggests that a contested election or narrow victory by either candidate could lead both to a constitutional crisis and a political crisis which extremist groups likely will try to exploit.

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SIDNER: We reached out to the Sheriff Leaf to see if he wanted to clarify his comments further. He did not return my calls, e-mail or texts.

But the Michigan Sheriffs' Association did put out a statement condemning Sheriff Leaf's comments, saying that his comments were actually dangerous and that there was nothing about this alleged plot that could be construed as legal, moral, or American. Don?

LEMON: Sara, thank you so much. Appreciate that.

Twenty-one days to the election and already over 10.5 million people have voted. With record numbers of voters comes hours long waits. What you need to know, that's next.

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[23:50:00]

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LEMON: We are three weeks out from Election Day and 10 and a half million Americans have already voted. Ohio early in-person voting, tripling compared to 2016. Georgia is setting a record with nearly 127,000 ballots cast on the first day of early voting.

But record voting is leading to record waits up to eight hours in Georgia. Lines are wrapping around the buildings in Texas. A sign Americans are determined to have their voices heard, but also showing one of the problems people across the country are coming up against as they head out to vote.

CNN's Pamela Brown has more.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another state, another day of hours in long lines, and some mishaps as voters go to the polls. This time, Texas.

Everybody's come out to vote here. Lines around the corner.

BROWN (voice-over): Across the Lone Star State, Houston, Fort Hood, South Austin all with long lines as voters take advantage of the start of early voting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just came out, so I would say about two and a half hours.

BROWN (voice-over): In Harris County, early voters hoping to use drive-through voting are facing similar delays.

In Travis County where a whopping 97 percent of the county's 850,000 eligible voters are registered to vote, some voting machines were not working, after waking up to news of a late night ruling upholding Republican Governor Greg Abbott's directive for one ballot drop box per county in the state, a major issue for densely populated counties where voters could spend more than an hour driving just to cast their vote.

CHRIS HOLLINS, HARRIS COUNTY CLERK: More than 50 miles in some cases to drop off their mail ballot. It's unfair, it's prejudicial, and it's dangerous.

BROWN (voice-over): It comes a day after a similar start in Georgia, where voters waited for hours to vote. In Gwinnett County, some voters waited in line for up to eight hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be out here to be able to share my voice.

BROWN (voice-over): Georgia setting an early voting record with nearly 127,000 ballots cast, some of the more than 10 and a half million casts nationwide. Today, no difference, more voters, more long lines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many people have sacrificed before us. So it is almost (INAUDIBLE) if we don't take the time to show our kids that they have this right and is best use as early as possible.

BROWN (voice-over): But voting rights advocates say it is not OK to make people wait like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): There have been problems with poll pads, with ballot access cards, with obviously social distancing, and just taking a lot longer to process through lines.

BROWN (voice-over): In Virginia, the last day of voter registration, saw the state's online registration system was down for several hours due to an IT cable that was accidentally severed, prompting calls from some state leaders to extend the registration deadline.

Meanwhile, in California, unofficial ballot drop boxes, potentially illegal in the state, as the state's Democratic secretary of state and the Department of Justice are sending a cease and desist order to the California Republican Party to remove them in at least three counties.

ALEX PADILLA, CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE: This is wrong no matter who is doing it. It's not just the security of the ballot that's in question here. It is the transparency, voter confidence.

[23:55:01]

BROWN (voice-over): The state Republican Party spokesman telling CNN he believes the boxes are similar to giving the ballot to a family member to drop off, which is legal in California.

While in New York, the city's police commissioner informed all uniformed service members to be prepared for deployment starting October 25th, citing the possibility of protests before and after the 2020 presidential election, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN.

Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.

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LEMON: Thank you, Pamela. And thank you for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

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