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Don Lemon Tonight

DHS and Election Officials Contradict Trump's Voter-Fraud Conspiracy Theories; More GOP Senators Say Biden should have Access to Classified Briefings; CNN Projects Joe Biden will Win Arizona; Coronavirus is Surging in the United States with More Than 147,000 New Cases Reported; President Trump Lashes Out at Fox News; CNN Projects Joe Biden Will Win Arizona. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired November 12, 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]

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: The Department of Homeland Security calling the 2020 election the most secure in American history. These election officials confirming tonight there's no evidence that any voting system compromised any votes. That's coming from the president's own administration. But that's not stopping him from tweeting baseless claims of voter fraud, and he still won't concede the race.

Come on, man. Meanwhile, President-Elect Biden's team, well, they say that they are undeterred and moving full speed ahead with transition plans. I want to bring in now CNN's White House correspondent John Hardwood and senior national security correspondent Mr. Alex Marquardt. Good to see both of you. Alex, I had to ask you, the president's own homeland security department is rejecting his baseless claims of a voter fraud, what can you tell us?

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they protected it a number of different ways and a number of different levels in the most recent, Don, was this statement from the Department of Homeland Security and other election security officials, which would normally be a cause for celebration. The statement says that no votes for changed, none of them were lost.

But instead, rather than focusing on how secure this race actually was it draws such a stark difference between those who are charged with securing the election and the president of the United States, that huge chasm between these two groups.

I want to read just part of the statement that came out earlier today. It reads there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised. While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you that we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should to.

Don, it goes on to say that you should trust local and state election officials. That is a reflection of what we heard from one of the most senior DHS officials, Chris Krebs, who is task with securing the election through the cyber arm known as CISA. And in the days that had followed the election, he has been very aggressive at shooting down, of swatting away, these conspiracies and false claims not just by Trump supporters and allies but by the president himself.

There is one that has taken a particular route that he called hoax and nonsense. And I want to just put up quickly on the screen a tweet that he re-tweeted earlier today, which is one of the most direct rebukes that we have seen of the president from this official, Chris Krebs, in which this election expert writes that baseless claims about voting machines, even if they're made by the president should be ignored. He calls them fantasies.

So, here you have one of the most senior DHS officials, charged with securing the election, telling people, echoing this person, this election expert, saying, don't believe these fantasies by the president. And that, Don, has put Chris Krebs on a list of national security officials who could find themselves fired.

LEMON: Look, can we put that tweet back up. Because listen, I'm glad that you brought that to our attention. And I think there's a line in there that says, as you said, these fantasies, but then it goes on to say, these fantasies have been debunked many times, and including the DHS and CSA, on this excellent site resource rumor control. I mean, wow. This is where we are right now, Ales, when we have members of the president's own government refuting what he has been claiming all along.

MARQUARDT: Yeah, absolutely. And in the weeks leading up to the election this was a question that we would put to Krebs into the Department of Homeland Security. How will you address this possibility that the president could be one of the main sources of disinformation? Because in the lead up to the election everything that they and the FBI were talking about was foreign adversaries, fueling this disinformation after the election, when in actual fact it has come from Americans.

[23:05:10]

It has been -- it has come from the far-right, and it has unfortunately come from the president himself. And here we have our answer. We have a senior Trump administration official directly refuting his boss, the president.

LEMON: Unbelievable. Well, maybe not so much John. You can tell us more about that. But this brings us to you. What are you hearing about the president's mindset right now? Is he beginning to understand that this is over, or not so much?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well he knows that he has lost the election. But this being the spectacle is not over. Now there are a couple of elements to this, first of all, if he comes out and acknowledges that he lost the election that is personally humiliating for him. This is a president whose ego depends on telling itself that he is a winner, that he's the best, that he's great. And sustaining that image for his followers.

So, he has stayed within the White House. We have not seen him speak in public or take questions from reporters for a week, which is extraordinary for this president. The second part of it is, if he acknowledges that he has lost the election, he is ceding the spotlight to Joe Biden. The attention is going to drift away from him, and he hates losing the spotlight, almost as much as he hates being a loser.

So what he is doing is plotting his way to take advantage of the situation. Raising money for a PAC, figuring out how he can control the Republican Party, sending out these legal flares which aren't going to go anywhere but keep the story going. And also plotting the idea of when he finally gets out, declaring that he is going to run for reelection in 2024. This is something our colleague Maggie Haberman has reported this evening in The New York Times.

And that would in essence say, well, I haven't lost, the campaign is just going on. It's going to continue to 2024. The one thing the president is not doing is the job of president. We see this pandemic spiking out of control. His constituents are dying by more than 1,000 a day. Record numbers of cases. And he is simply is not even pretending to try to the job of president anymore. That he has got the entire Republican Party that is allowing him to do that right now.

LEMON: Unbelievable. Gentlemen, thank you both. I appreciate it.

Joining me now, homeland security secretary under President Barack Obama, Janet Napolitano. And former Homeland Security Secretary under George W. Bush, Michael Chertoff. They are part of the group of DHS secretaries calling for the presidential transition process to begin, to keep the country safe.

Thank you so much for doing this, I am so happy that you both are here. And I respect both of you very much, and it's an indeed an honor. I'm going to start with you, Secretary Chertoff. This group that came out is part of the Department of Homeland Security. They say, no votes were compromised, it was the most secure election American history. There was no fraud. Isn't it time for the president to stop the charade?

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY UNDER GEORGE W. BUSH: I think it is past time. I think at this point everyone would benefit if the president acknowledged that he lost, ordered that the transition begin and that he cooperated with the incoming administration. This is about the security and the safety of the American people. And there is a lot going on and we can't afford to play games. So I think it is well past time to acknowledge Biden, and Donald Trump that he lost.

LEMON: Secretary Napolitano, president elect Biden still hasn't gotten any intelligence briefings. Republicans are taking baby steps towards that saying that he should. Isn't that the bare minimum that should be happening right now? Should they be doing more, shouldn't there be more outrage, more action around this?

JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Sure. President elect Biden should be getting access to what is called the presidents daily brief. Classified material should be made available to him so that he is up to speed on the most current threats that are facing our country. And his staff should be able to proceed getting their security clearances, so that they too can get access to classified information. So that we don't have a gap, and so that there is a smooth handoff from administration to the next.

LEMON: Yes. Listen, I know that, you know, the former president has praised the Bush administration, you know, helped him with the transition. Secretary Napolitano, Secretary Chertoff led the DHS before you, he passed the baton to you. Talk about what it meant for you and others to know that the entire government had your back, because there is a lot to take on day one.

[23:10:06]

NAPOLITANO: That is so true. I mean, I was then serving as the Governor of Arizona while then Secretary Chertoff was finishing his role as secretary and he did everything humanly possible to make sure there was a smooth handoff. He sent people to Phoenix, Arizona, to brief me. He made materials available, he met with me, and we even had an active threat stream against the inauguration.

And he and I worked out that he would stay on an extra day or two past the inauguration so that there would be no change in command if we were in fact in the middle of a national security event. I mean, it was really an example of a professional transition.

LEMON: So what has happened, Secretary Chertoff? Is that just something that is happening under this administration? Is there something going on in our politics in general? Because no matter how divisive or how, you know, fiery an election got, usually during the handoffs, right? During the transitions of power, people do it and they do it for the country, not necessarily -- it has nothing to do with Party.

CHERTOFF: Well, that's exactly right. This about protecting the American people, which is the most important responsibility a president has. And I know when I was in office when we had the transition to President Obama, President Bush was very clear he wanted a seamless, professional, fully cooperative transition, and my understanding is when the Obama administration transitioned to the Trump administration, they were fully cooperative.

And here's the reason why, Don. We lived through 9/11. Our enemies know that when there's a handoff of power, there's the possibility of a gap or a relaxation of guard, and that's when they're tempted to do something. And that's why both the outgoing and the incoming administration have to feel a key sense of responsibility to make sure there is no diminution or lessening of preparation or understanding of what the threats are and how you respond to them.

LEMON: So, that -- it comes from the top, then. Because it seems to me, that this is unique to this particular administration.

CHERTOFF: I think that's right.

NAPOLITANO: Oh, yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

CHERTOFF: If you look at the operational people in the departments, they would be happy to cooperate, but I think the message that has come out of the White House is, I don't want to acknowledge what is plainly clear on the facts.

LEMON: Go ahead, Secretary Napolitano.

NAPOLITANO: I was just going to agree with Michael that the election is for all intents and purposes over. Vice President Biden is now the President-Elect, and it's incumbent on the outgoing president, President Trump, to direct that his agencies and his staff cooperate with the incoming administration. It's part of what's called good government.

LEMON: Secretary Napolitano, let's talk about other things that are happening, very disturbing to most of us, if not all of us. The president is also forcing DHS officials to resign, purging the Pentagon's most senior civilian officials and replacing them with political loyalists and conspiracy theorists. Other intelligence officials are reportedly on thin ice. This isn't normal.

NAPOLITANO: Oh, it's not normal. And it's highly concerning to have that kind of turnover, that kind of a purge at the end of an administration.

LEMON: So, what are the dangers here?

NAPOLITANO: Key security roles. Key security roles. For example, at the Department of Homeland Security, there is something called the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA. And they're responsible for the cyber protection of the nation's critical infrastructure as well as any ongoing issues with respect to the election.

For example, they have a website that is quashing down false information about the election and the election returns. To have the professionals who run CISA ousted at the end of an administration, if that indeed were to occur, would leave us with a noticeable gap in our protection.

LEMON: Secretary Chertoff, listen. There's a lot of concern obviously about the motive or motives behind these personnel changes. Why is the president targeting all these national security officials at such a vulnerable time?

CHERTOFF: Well, I think these officials have been very professional. They have not simply bowed down and played political games. But they have actually called it the way they see it.

[23:15:03]

Now Secretary Esper made it very clear the military was not going to become a political pawn. I know DHS has been very clear about calling out Russian interference. And at the same time saying there was no evidence of vote fraud. So this strikes me as vindictiveness, because you have professionals with ethical obligations who are telling the truth, and the president wishes they would simply get in line.

And that's really playing fast and loose with the safety of the American people. Because if you eliminate the people who are professionally experienced and something happens, then it is really totally on your head what the consequences are.

LEMON: OK, then I have to ask you, Secretary Chertoff, because you served a Republican president. What is your message to President Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party playing along with this because they know Joe Biden won already? Is this doing damage to our democracy?

CHERTOFF: My message is this -- we are Americans first. If you care about the lives and safety of your fellow countrymen you've got put aside whatever disappointment you have in the outcome of the election and you've got to work with President-Elect Biden and his team to make sure we don't create a vulnerability that our enemies, whether they're overseas or domestic, take advantage of. This is the basic responsibility you have under your oath of office.

LEMON: Secretaries Chertoff and Napolitano, thank you so much. I really appreciate both of you appearing tonight.

NAPOLITANO: Thank you.

CHERTOFF: Thanks a lot, Don.

LEMON: We have brand new numbers out of Arizona, and my next guest, just in time, happens to be Arizona's Secretary of State.

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[23:20:00]

LEMON: This is our breaking news of this hour. CNN has a major projection to announce, and that is Joe Biden will win Arizona. He is the winner of 11 electoral votes in Arizona. Joe Biden wins the state of Arizona. A major projection right now by CNN. Look at the votes -- a little over 11,000 margin, 49.4 percent to 49.1 percent. Joe Biden, again, has won the state of Arizona. Let's bring in CNN's senior political analyst I should say, Mark Preston. Mark, good evening. I almost called you senior election analyst.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You can call me old election analyst. How about that?

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Mark, here we are, I mean, you know, look, it's more than a week after the election, and here we have it -- Joe Biden winning Arizona. So with all of this that's going on in the other state, recounts and you know, the lawsuits or what have you, Joe Biden has picked up another electoral win that puts him over the top even if there are some states that are contested and results flipped somehow.

PRESTON: Right. LEMON: Which is unlikely.

PRESTON: Right. So the thing is, let's take a step back and talk about why this is so important. Joe Biden up until just a few minutes ago had 279 electoral votes. He now has 290 electoral votes. He only needed 270 to win, Don. But this is important. In the state of Arizona at a time when Democrats had started to lose a little bit of support amongst Hispanic voters, they win in Arizona.

Now, Democrats have only won the state of Arizona one time since 1952, and that was Bill Clinton back in 1996. And let's not forget about Arizona too. Arizona is the home or was the home to really the father of the conservative movement that we now know, Barry Goldwater, who was 1964 Republican presidential nominee. So this is a big win for Democrats, Don, demographically and certainly it just adds to Joe Biden's status as the President-Elect.

LEMON: And when you think about -- listen, John McCain and his legacy and how John McCain was really not a fan of this president. This president really saw John McCain -- the late great John McCain we should say, Senator John McCain as a thorn in his side, especially with his voting down -- the president wanted to get rid of the affordable care act, and now you have the state of Arizona, us you said, Democrats haven't won since the 1950s. I would imagine it's something to do with John McCain's legacy and his widow Cindy McCain really supporting Joe Biden.

PRESTON: Yes. We should note too that Mark Kelly, NASA astronaut, has won the Democratic Senate seat. Democrats win the Senate seat out there. That race was called, you know, a few days ago. So, again, Democrats now are showing us that the shifting demographics in states such as Arizona, Texas, we're seeing it in Georgia right now, where Democrats are making inroads where they have not really played for a very long time or if at all, Don.

LEMON: Biden is running up the scoreboard. As you said, he has now has 290 electoral votes and if things continue on, he will be on path to have the same number of electoral votes as the current president, 306.

PRESTON: Right. Yeah. And you know what we're waiting on now too, Don, is that -- is we are waiting on Georgia to see what happens there. But the fact of the matter is, things are starting to look good. Joe Biden's lead, you know, continues to stay steady. We know there's going to be a recount in Georgia, but when it comes to that state and to the end of the electoral vote, it needs to be said, Don --

LEMON: Yes.

PRESTON: -- 77 million plus people voted for Joe Biden, the most ever. That's amazing. His lead over Donald Trump right now is more than 5 million votes nationwide. I won't say it's a mandate, but that's some pretty strong showing.

LEMON: I want to stick with Arizona just now. Because you see all of these lawsuits and what have you and the contests being contested in other states. More than half of all the counties in Arizona had conducted post-election audits, Mark, found either no discrepancies or microscopic issues. It won't affect the outcome of this race at all. That is according to reports filed with the Arizona Secretary of State office.

[23:25:00]

This is important because in other places like Georgia and Pennsylvania, they're saying these are large Democratic cities as they say, Democrat cities or even in Michigan, Detroit or what have you. There's nothing like that in Arizona. Arizona is a state that has been solidly Republican for decades.

PRESTON: Yes. As is Georgia as well. And this was quite a statement today that's come out and really solidified really how we should take pride in how the election process has really been undertaken. In Georgia specifically, Secretary of State, a Republican. Lieutenant Governor, a Republican. Both come out and said, that there has been no widespread fraud at all, Don, on that state. Even at the same time we're seeing Donald Trump and his allies just spew out the lies that we've seen so far.

LEMON: Mark Preston, thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us.

PRESTON: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: So, I want to bring in now Arizona Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs. Thank you so much for joining us, Madam Secretary. We really appreciate you joining us and it's appropriate that we have you here considering what's just happened. So, CNN has now projected Joe Biden is the winner in Arizona after a long vote count there. Tell us about the state of the vote count there and your audit.

KATIE HOBBS, ARISONA SECRETARY OF STATE: So, we are just around 16,000 votes left to count. Most of those, more than half of them are ballots that are ready to be tabulated. They've done all the processing that needs to happen with them. So, we expect to wrap up most of that sometime tomorrow.

It looks like that will be happening tomorrow. And yeah, it's been a long -- prolonged vote count, but really we're ahead of where we were this time two years ago. So I think we, with record turnout, more votes than we've ever had to tabulate, we've dis pretty well.

LEMON: And despite the president's complaints, the counting of mail-in votes in your state was to the president's benefit.

HOBBS: Yes, absolutely. Usually those late -- the ballots that come in on election day that are mail-in ballots, those tend to skew more Democratic, and that was not the case this election year.

LEMON: Yeah. So listen, can you dig into this a little bit more? Because I read for Mark Preston about the post-election audits for more than half of all the counties found no widespread voter fraud there. What has been the impact of all of these allegations of fraud?

HOBBS: Well, it's been very frustrating, because as you mentioned the post-election audits that we do, they're in statute. We do them every year. And so there are all these provisions for ensuring accountability, transparency, security, fairness, all the things, and people just don't know about this.

And I know that a large portion of the people that are yelling fraud, they're not going to listen anyway, but we do-do all these things to make sure the election is secure and that the tabulation results are accurate. And the post-election audit are coming up exactly as we expected because there's nothing fishy going on with any of the vote counts.

LEMON: Secretary Hobbs, you know, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit against your state in court on Saturday seeking to block the canvass and certification of all ballots cast in person on Election Day in Maricopa County until they can be reviewed. Can you tell us more about this suit?

HOBBS: Yes. There was actually hearing on it today and the Trump campaign significantly narrowed the scope of what they were looking to do and basically there are potentially 180 to 190 ballots in dispute, which obviously given the situation we're in is not going make a difference in the outcome of this race. And so quite honestly it was a waste of the court's the time. We're just waiting for the judge's ruling on that.

LEMON: Are you worried about the long-term damage that these lawsuits and claims of fraud could be doing to Americans' trust in our electoral system?

HOBBS: Absolutely, 100 percent. And, you know, we have elected officials in our state, legislators who have legislated the election laws that are in place, calling things into question, and it just continues to drag this out, to undermine the confidence, to bolster the people that are still protesting outside of the Maricopa County tabulation center and really just makes our jobs harder.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Secretary. I really appreciate that.

HOBBS: Thank you.

LEMON: If you're just joining us, here is the breaking news -- our major projection is that Joe Biden will win Arizona, all of Arizona's 11 electoral votes. Here we are making this projection on Thursday evening a week after the election. More than a week after the election. Joe Biden wins Arizona, beating Donald Trump, the current president, in that state. We'll be right back.

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[23:30:00]

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LEMON: Coronavirus is surging across the U.S. More than 147,000 new cases reported in this country just today. That is a new record. More than 242,000 Americans have already died from the virus, and experts say it's going to get much worse.

Joining me now, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Doctor, hello. Thanks for joining once again. So, today, we have Cory Lewandowski, who attended President Trump's election night party, testing positive for COVID. That brings the total to at least six people that we know about. It's likely there are more. This is the second time we're looking at a White House super spreader event. Why can't they get the message?

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Because they refuse to believe simple science.

[23:35:00]

REINER: They had a couple hundred people in the east room. And if you've ever visited that beautiful space, it's not that large. So you can't have a couple hundred people in basically a moderate-sized ballroom not wearing masks in the middle a pandemic and expect that people aren't going to get infected. It's just mathematics. It is predictable. But the president just doesn't care.

LEMON: This map that we are going to put up right now is from the IHME. It shows the month hospitals are expected to exceed ICU bed capacity. All those states in the red are expected to run out this month. The yellow states to run out in December. I have to tell you, this is terrifying. What everyone wants to know is, can this be slowed down?

REINER: Yeah, it can be slowed down. And the way a president would slow it down now is he will get on the phone with every governor and say, you are going to institute a mask mandate in your state and you're going to look at hot spots in your state, and if you need to close down certain types of businesses for a couple of weeks, places like bars and restaurants, you're going to do that.

That's how you start to turn this around. The problem is that we don't have anyone in command now. You know, Plato described something he called a ship of state. Our ship of state has no captain. We have a captain coming, but in two months, the losses that we will endure will be just horrible. We need action now, but yet the president is silent.

LEMON: You know, Dr. Reiner, as long as we have been covering this, when you say, you know, we got to start shutting things down and, you know, restaurants, you know, people go, oh, no, we can't -- and rightfully so, people are concerned about their businesses, but they say, we can't do that --

REINER: Yeah.

LEMON: -- we don't want that. So, what do you say to those folks?

REINER: What I say to them is we can't have it both ways.

LEMON: Mm-hmm.

REINER: We can't want freedom from masks and freedom from shutdown because the virus doesn't care what we want. It's going spread from person to person. So I agree. I want all these folks to be at work. I want our kids to be at school.

So let's all put a mask on now and let us also social distance, and let us see if we can blunt this curve and prevent this from happening. If we don't do that, our hospitals are going to be overrun. So we'll run out of ICU beds first. Then we'll have to start making ICUs out of other venues. Then we'll run out of people to man the ICUs.

So, I don't want places to shut down, but if our hospitals are really cracking, we'll have to shut down. So let's do what's easier first. Let us mask up, social distance, and see if we can put, you know, a little bit of distance between us and the virus for a while.

LEMON: Let's talk about this IHME projection here because their projections say that we could reach almost 439,000 deaths by March, and that factors in states pulling back and people actually following the rules. We can't count on that, though, can we? These people -- I mean, they have -- they're fatigued.

REINER: We can't count on that, but what we can count on is a different group of leaders in two months. You know, working with the states in a different way. And I think one of the most cataclysmic decisions made by this current White House was the decision to basically outsource everything, to decentralize everything, and to put the blame and the work on all the states rather than having a coordinated federal response.

So we had no coordinated testing response. We had no coordinated response for what to do when things start to get out of hand in states. We didn't coordinate PPE around the country. That's what we need. We need a federally-run, coordinated response. I think we'll get that, but we need to get there.

LEMON: Yeah.

REINER: So until we do that, let's take care of each other. Let's put masks on.

LEMON: Yeah. Doctor -- you know, an adviser, Dr. Osterholm, an adviser to president-elect Biden, appeared to call for another lockdown of four to six weeks. But Biden's transition team said that these comments do not track with the president-elect's intentions right now. Is this getting so out of control that we really could be looking at lockdowns as the only way to stop the spread?

REINER: I think if we don't do the prudent easier things, yeah, we could be looking at that. You know, we had 151,000 new cases today. Our daily average over the last week is almost 130,000. That's 54,000 more cases per day than just two weeks ago.

[23:40:02]

REINER: That's a 71 percent increase. So the velocity of increasing cases is staggering. So we need to do something different. The problem is that the president is paralyzed. He's incapable of working. He's just, you know, tweeting about his election results and how unfair it is. But, as I said earlier today, our house is on fire. So we need to do something differently.

LEMON: Yeah. Well, back when the house was --

REINER: I'd like -- yeah.

LEMON: Back on house is on fire in the early days of this pandemic, I think you and others were saying that we needed to take precautions, socially distance, wear masks, and so on, or we would be back at it again in the fall, winter, and here we are.

REINER: Right.

LEMON: Yeah.

REINER: You know, here we are, but we are expecting a different result over doing the same thing.

LEMON: Yeah.

REINER: So, I'd like to see the governors stand up. I'd like to hear more from the -- sort of the pandemic task force in waiting. Let's hear from them every day.

LEMON: OK.

REINER: Because we're not hearing anything from the White House.

LEMON: Thank you, doctor. I appreciate it.

REINER: My pleasure.

LEMON: So, here's our breaking news tonight. CNN projecting president- elect Joe Biden will win Arizona. This expands his electoral vote margin over President Trump. And we now see 290 electoral votes for Biden, 217 so far for Trump. Biden is padding his lead in multiple states in his column. Stay with us.

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[23:45:00]

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LEMON: So we have major breaking news tonight. CNN projects Joe Biden will win the state of Arizona. Biden winning 49.4 percent of the vote to Trump's 49.1 percent, a margin of just over 11,000 votes.

It's only the second time in more than seven decades that a Democrat will carry Arizona in a presidential election, a monumental shift for a state that was once a republican stronghold.

President-elect Joe Biden continues expanding his electoral vote lead. He now has 290 electoral votes. President Trump remains at 217. So, this is happening as coronavirus is raging out of control. President Trump refusing to concede election to Joe Biden and yet Trump spending his time lashing out at longtime media ally Fox News on Twitter, suggesting Fox is the reason he lost, and a lot of it stems from their early call in Arizona.

So let's discuss now with CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter. Brian, good evening.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Good evening.

LEMON: So, Trump spears at Fox. Fox called Arizona early.

STELTER: Right.

LEMON: They were right. So much so that Axios is reporting that Trump is telling -- Trump is telling friends that he wants to start a digital media company complete with his old home team?

STELTER: Yeah, that's right.

LEMON: Well, tell me about it.

STELTER: Look, Arizona called by Fox may have been premature. We may never know for sure. But the Arizona call by Fox on election night set a tone. The president was very angry about that tone. He lashed out at Fox for days afterwards.

Other networks looked at the Arizona call and said where is Fox getting that from? Why are they so confident, because the margin in Arizona later tightened? And now, only tonight, nine days later, can we say confidently that Arizona will be in Biden's column.

But that call by Fox was an early indication of what was going to happen on this electoral map. And the president has been raging at Fox. The president has lots of other reasons why he's mad at Fox. But, you know, at the end of the day, Don, the president doesn't want news, he wants propaganda.

So yes, he lashed out at Fox this morning, yes, he is promoting rival channel, but at the end of the day, he came home to Fox, he promoted Sean Hannity, he promoted Lou Dobbs, because those starts are still supporting Trump's election denialism.

LEMON: Mm-hmm.

STELTER: But every time another state fills in on the map, every time you announce another projection, it becomes harder and harder to deny the results of this election. So we will see if stars like Hannity end up having less and less to say as time goes on.

LEMON: It's interesting, Brian, because, yeah, as we have been sitting here covering this, this is the first time that Trump consciously uncoupled from Fox --

STELTER: Yeah. LEMON: -- or broke up. But this divorce now apparently -- it's looking like between Trump and Fox, is far from finalized.

STELTER: Yeah.

LEMON: He is so happy to promote their opinion hosts.

STELTER: Yeah, that's absolutely right. That's exactly what is going on here. He doesn't want to hear news. He wants to hear propaganda. He's promoting a new channel called Newsmax, which is farther to the right than even Fox, because Newsmax has not called the election for Biden.

Well, what does that mean? It means that Newsmax doesn't have a decision desk. They don't the experts like CNN and Fox have to actually make these calls. But Trump has leaned into the idea that he can go find alternative channels.

What we might be seeing is the balkanization (ph) of right-wing media. Then again, Fox still hasn't near monopoly position. At the end of the day, when the president leaves the White House, even if he has taken screaming, he is going to want a media platform. Twitter is not enough.

So will he end up with a show on Fox, or as you mentioned, Axios saying he might launch a streaming service? It sounds great. Everyone wants to be the next Netflix. But it is hard to become the next Netflix.

[23:50:00]

STELTER: I am not sure the president has that much motivation or energy to go out there and launch a new business of his own. He may well end up just getting a show on Fox or a contributor deal on Fox or something to that effect.

LEMON: Well, it's going to be like waiting on the election returns.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: And for CNN to make that call --

STELTER: We will see what he does --

LEMON: It's going to be interesting to watch.

STELTER: But we will also see if it matters. It may not matter that much.

LEMON: It may not.

STELTER: People may not want to listen to him anymore. That's the big unknown, Don.

LEMON: Yeah. It's true. Every time I hear someone talking about election fraud or -- I just go, oh, you know. All right, Brian. Thank you. I appreciate it. See you soon.

STELTER: Thanks.

LEMON: We'll be right back.

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[23:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So here is our breaking news tonight. CNN projects Joe Biden will win the state of Arizona, Biden winning 49.4 percent of the vote to Trump's 49.1. The president-elect now leads President Trump in that state by 11,424 votes. It's only the second time in more than seven decades that a Democrat will carry Arizona in a presidential election.

With his victory in Arizona, president-elect Biden expands his electoral vote lead to a commanding 290. President Trump remains at 217.

And speaking of that and the electoral process, I want to make sure you know about my podcast. It is called "Silence is Not an Option." I am taking on the hard conversations about being black in America. This week, the huge role black women played in the 2020 election. I am speaking with Black Votes Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown and Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson. The episode drops in the morning, so make sure you listen to it. You can find it on Apple podcast or your favorite podcast app.

I am so happy that you can join us this evening. Thank you so much for watching. Our coverage continues.