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Ginsburg Lies In State At The Capitol; Trump Renews Threat To Disregard November Vote; WH Chief Of Staff: FBI Director Is Wrong When He Says No Voter Fraud. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 25, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Top of the hour, hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing your day with us. A final journey today for a legal legend. It will happen this hour. Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaving the United States capital after becoming the first woman to lie in state.

We begin this hour though with another election year refusal from the president of the United States to listen to the voters, to promise he would leave office if he loses. New swing state polling tell us the president is behind at this moment. His response is to introduce more chaos more uncertainty into an already turbulent campaign season.

"You won't have a transfer" the president says insisting, any election he loses must be rigged. Republicans including the Senate Majority Leader guarantee a peaceful transition and those Republicans say the president's talk is not helpful. Former Trump National Security Adviser, a decorated military hero, urges his old boss "not to attack ourselves."

The Trump appointed FBI Director testifying before Congress just yesterday that his bureau, yes, takes all election threat seriously but the FBI director says there is no evidence of massive scale election fraud.

Translation there's no election rigging and what the president tells you every day on Twitter and at his rallies is simply not true. The White House Chief of Staff though taking the president's side and taking issue with the facts and with the FBI Director.

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MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding emails in his own FBI, let alone figuring out whether there is any kind of voter fraud. Perhaps he needs to get involved on the ground and he would change his testimony on Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Let's get straight to the White House to CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

Animated, angry, exasperated, you have the White House Chief of Staff there with the FBI director because Kaitlan, Christopher Wray told the truth.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, disputing officials who testify on Capitol Hill is becoming a trend at the White House. We've seen it play out with the CDC Director, we've seen it play out with the president and the FBI director and now the Chief of Staff going after Christopher Wray after he said historically, there has been no evidence of widespread coordinating voter fraud in the United States.

It's something of course directly conflicts with this narrative that the president - this false narrative that the president's been trying to put out there for several months but has been ramping it up lately and of course that culminated in an epic way this week when the president would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

And so now the White House is trying to justify the president making those comments that no other president in modern history, no other U.S. president in modern history has made before by saying well, there are these instances, potentially saying that the FBI director who is tasked with looking at this John, needs to go on the ground in places like North Carolina and others to spot this kind of stuff.

That's what Mark Meadows was saying just there acting like he does know more about this than the FBI director does and one thing that you are seeing the White House point to is this unusual announcement that we got in the Justice Department yesterday about these nine discarded ballots in Pennsylvania.

Initially they said all nine were for President Trump. They later corrected their statement after removing it from the Justice Department website to say it was only seven votes for the president and of course to compare that 6 million people voted in Pennsylvania in 2016 but this is the way the White House is trying to justify those comments from the president that he made twice this week.

And we should note, I watched Director Wray's testimony yesterday. He was very careful John in the way he answered this question. He even seemed to be reading from prepared remarks because he likely knew that was going to be something that was going to push back against what the White House had been saying.

So he chose his words carefully. He was not answering off the cuff in the way that CDC Director was when he was testifying last week yet still the White House is going after Chris Wray in a remarkable way today because he's disputing the narrative that the president has been putting out there.

KING: Yes. The grievances there run deep. Kaitlan Collins live reporting from the White House. Appreciate it very much. Let's continue the conversation with Francesca Chambers from McClatchy and Politico's Laura Barron-Lopez and let's go through the history here because the president has built us up to this point. He's at the point now where he says if the vote counts and it shows I

lost, then clearly the election was rigged. Clearly all these mail-in ballots were done in some fraudulent way. Let's go back in time and listen to the history.

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TRUMP: The only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that.

Let them send it in and let him go vote and if their systems as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote.

Large percentages of these ballots are going to be missing. There's going to be fraud. It's a disaster. This is going to be the scam of all time. Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very trans - you'll have a very peaceful, there won't be a transfer frankly, there'll be a continuation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's that last part Francesca that has even Republicans worried. The president saying there won't be - there won't be a transition.

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There won't be a transfer of power because he will challenge and contest and perhaps refuse to honor the results but the president has been walking down this path for a long time. In fact his is the fraud in the sense that the fraud in the election is this so much about the president says about it is simply not true.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY: John this isn't the only way that's culminated this week, it cannot be distinguished from the Supreme Court vacancy. Conservatism Republicans who and legal communities this week believe that there will be significant challenges for the very reason the president does wind up with this election.

Then it will go to lower court and eventually make way to the Supreme Court. This is part of the reason why Trump wants to get another justice on this Supreme Court before the election because there is a belief that if again they get legal challenge that are - then this could be decided at the Supreme Court level and he does not want a situation in which there's a split 4-4 vote - or Justice - who has - with liberals on the court recently vote against president Trump in this election.

KING: Laura Barron-Lopez, I am by no means excusing it but if you look at some of the numbers, you could understand perhaps if you had this president's mindset, it's a big if but if you had this president's mindset, you might understand why he's suddenly decided this is Belarus and the elections actually don't count. I don't have to leave if I lose.

Look at these swing poll states, just the polls in swing states, just the last 24 hours or so. These are Fox news poll. Biden up 11 in Nevada, Biden up 7 in Pennsylvania. Biden plus 5 in Ohio and Texas, a red state Trump up 5 but pretty close and competitive there.

These are Quinnipiac and Fox News polls now there is a possible path for the president to win re-election but at the moment the map is tilted the other way in Joe Biden's favor. The question is how did Democrats see this moment? You haven't seen a shift among some Democrats saying vote early in person as opposed to a couple weeks ago, it was we're in the middle of a pandemic, just make sure you get your mail-in vote.

Are Democrats nervous?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think they're certainly nervous John and because the president is saying that he won't honor the results of the election. He's saying that he won't commit to a peaceful transition of power and this is something that he has been saying for the last four years.

Democrats you know also know that polls show that if a voter doesn't trust the election, then they may not even turn out to vote and so if they feel more comfortable with voting in person, Democrats are urging them to do that at the earliest convenience rather than just waiting till Election Day to cast a ballot.

They're saying as you said you know show up, vote in person or fill out your absentee ballot and drop it in a physical box at the voting location as opposed to mailing it in.

KING: We have had for 3.5 plus years now, a series of outrages by the president. Things he's said either promoting conspiracy theories, things he says that are not true but this is particularly reckless. This is our democracy. This is a great and cherished tradition that the United States like the hold up to the world.

We have elections, then we have a peaceful transition of power. To see the Republicans objecting number one but General H. R. McMaster, the president's former National Security Adviser, a decorated military veteran essentially listen here in an interview with my colleague, Wolf Blitzer saying what President Trump is doing right here is the work of Vladimir Putin.

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GEN. H. R. MCMASTER, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: The comments are very unfortunate, Wolf and as you mentioned, you know our elections have been under attack in the past. Let's not attack them ourselves, right? Let's come together as Americans and execute a process that we can have confidence in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is the president Francesca who's trying to undermine confidence and that does sync up, whether it's deliberate or not, it syncs up with exactly what Russia and other foreign actors trying to cause dissent in America are looking for. CHAMBERS: And John as you noted repeatedly in this segment before,

president has been making these comments many number of months in order to be able tee up the argument in case he does not win the election outright on Election Day.

And it is significant that we have Republican if not calling the president by name but speak out of the specific issue. Republicans also have for months distanced themselves from comments that the president has made. They think they don't - some of the things that he says, it is also notable that they are not - by name, the way that they are mentioning this is generally that there should be a peaceful transfer power because at the end of day, they don't want to be on the record of criticism of a sitting president.

KING: And Laura, both parties assemble teams of accomplished lawyers rightly so to have eyes on any process and everybody has a right to watch the process to question anything they view outside the norm.

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But what is the additional burden here on you know Republicans like to make a big deal out of this statement by Hillary Clinton telling Joe Biden, do not concede the election. What she means is do not concede on Election night because the count could go on for days and days and maybe even longer.

So be careful and wait but what is the burden on the Biden campaign not only to have people in place in the key states now, watching how this unprecedented process works because of the pandemic but then to have the lawyers ready as we go through challenged ballots, provisional ballots, recounts in states and court challenges.

BARRON-LOPEZ: It's something that they're preparing for John. I mean you know that the Biden campaign says that they're focusing just as much on the potential transition as they are on campaigning right now but they're trying to prepare for whatever could come November 3rd or the weeks to follow especially as we know states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, they don't even start counting their mail ballots until Election Day which is why they are expecting this prolonged count.

And so it's really incumbent upon the campaigns, elected officials to also be telling the public that this is not - you may not be aware of the - of the outcome on election night and it seems so far according to polling, that American actually maybe are prepared for that.

A Quinnipiac poll this week found that 63 percent of Americans don't expect to know the outcome of the election on the night compared to 30 percent who do.

KING: Could be a long night followed by a few long days but that's OK. We should take our time until we count them and find an actual winner that everybody can feel was counted legitimately.

Laura Barron-Lopez, Francesca Chambers, appreciate the reporting and the insights. We will continue this conversation and just to illustrate what we're talking about here, the surge in pre-election voting is to borrow an overused word unprecedented.

Take a look at the map there. Already voting is underway in two dozen plus states. Remember roughly 50 million people voted before Election Day back in 2016. Already in 2020, states have been hit with 28 million ballot requests and 43 million more ballots scheduled to go out automatically.

Of the states, CNN surveyed in recent days, 15 have already have more absentee ballot requests than they did in 2016 already. Still five weeks plus to go to. We met a few critical states and the numbers are quite staggering.

By this time in 2016, North Carolina's Board of Elections received 85,000 ballot requests. Now absentee ballot requests in that state number more than 1 million. In Pennsylvania 2.2 million ballots have been requested this year. only 286,000 Pennsylvanians voted before Election Day, four years ago.

And Kaitlan mentioned this at the top the program, an unusual announcement from the Justice Department now saying that's it's investigating problems with a small number of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. The U.S. attorney there David Freed, a Trump appointee says at this point we can confirm that a small number of military ballots were discarded.

Of the nine ballots that were discarded and then recovered, seven were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump. It is the vital duty of government to ensure that every properly cast vote is counted. President Trump teased that development during comments yesterday when he referenced Trump's ballots in Pennsylvania but the president did not provide any details.

This happened in Lucerne county just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. One of those counties that slipped from blue to President Trump back in 2016. We will stay on top of that but remember that is a very modest number of votes. Every case should be investigated. That's a modest number of both. It is not massive fraud.

Up next for us, the president repeats the claim. United States he says is rounding the turn on the coronavirus. This as we approach 7 million cases and as the count in many states is heading in the wrong direction.

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KING: This is the United States Capitol just moments ago. Members of the Military's joint chiefs of Staff and their spouses paying respects to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lying in state at the U. S. capitol. She's the first woman, first Jewish person to get that honor, to lie in state at the United States capital. Remarkable scene on the Hill today.

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KING: Let's shift now to the coronavirus here in the United States. The new U.S. death toll now topping 203,000. The case count is likely to hit 7 million, climbed past that level today. 23 states at this moment are trending in the wrong direction, you see it right.

There they were 44,000 new infections yesterday. 23 states trending in the wrong direction. 44,000 new infections yesterday. Listen here to Dr. Leana Wen, the former Baltimore city Health Commissioner who says we are heading in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

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DR. LEANA WEN, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: We are starting off this fall winter with a very high level of infection. If we have a doubling, if we have a tripling, we could be over 100,000 new infections every day coming into fall winter when we have the convergence of quarantine fatigue, people being indoors, restrictions be lifted, students, kids being - being in school again.

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KING: Joining us now is Anne Rimoin. She's a professor at the Department of Epidemiology at UCLA. Anne Rimoin, it is good to see you. I wish the numbers were better. I wish we were having a different conversation but when you see 23 states heading in the wrong direction and I think we can show you the case count, the seven day moving average of case counts in the United States.

44,000 reported yesterday. We are back above 40,000 when it comes to the average of new infections here in the United States. That number was 18,000 - 20,000 coming into the summer.

Got up as high as close to 80,000 as you can see there but the red line at the end, the seven-day moving average is what matters most. The trajectory heading in the wrong direction and I believe you would agree at the wrong time, right?

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ANNE RIMOIN, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, UCLA: Absolutely John. We are moving in the wrong direction and at a very critical moment. We have colleges back in session, we have schools reopening in many places, we are starting to at a point where people will be moving indoors because of the weather.

We have the convergence of the flu season so this is the moment where we need to be really pushing down cases and doing the best that we can to be able to reduce community spread because we are - we may have plateaued in some places but we plateaued at a 100 miles an hour which means that now when we see these upticks as we're seeing in many of these states as you said, we're not coming from 0 to these numbers.

We're already at a high number so upticks are very dangerous, we're going to see exponential spread and we can see what's happening in Europe and in other places. We are not different. This virus will spread where it can.

KING: It will spread where it can and we're having this conversation. The calendar forces it to have it in the political context as well. The President of United States, you said the virus will spread where it's - where it can. We have more than 40,000 new infections a day is the average down the United States.

The President of United States though says this.

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TRUMP: We're doing it. We're rounding the curve. We're rounding the turn under my leadership, prosperity will surge. Normal life, oh, I love normal life, we want to get back to normal life - will fully resume. Our early and aggressive action saved many millions of lives.

Through Operation Warp Speed, we developed and distributed vaccine. We will have a vaccine so soon you won't even believe it.

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KING: I'm not sure there's anything in that statement that's true.

RIMOIN: My advice John is to ignore political rhetoric and listen to science.

KING: Let me stop you for one second. Let me - let me stop you for one second. I agree with you. I'm hesitant to interrupt and I apologize for that but I want you - I want the viewers to understand what we're saying when we say ignore political rhetoric.

Ignore the President of the United States of America in the middle of a pandemic where we have 7 million cases in the United States of America. 203,000 of our brothers and sisters and neighbors dead and we have to ignore the President of the United States of America. I apologize.

RIMOIN: You're correct. That is exactly what I'm saying. Ignore the President of the United States of America who is not a scientist and who doesn't listen to science. Listen to the scientists like Dr. Fauci, like many of the other scientists, like Dr. Wen, like many of the scientists like Dr. Redfield, like many of the scientists that you've had on your show who tell you over and over again that we are not in a good place here.

We've had more deaths than any other country. We are not following the science. We do not have a national strategy and this does not represent a success as President Trump says but in fact a complete and total failure of the public health system.

We have ignored all of the science that tells us how to reduce spread of the virus which other countries have been able to do but then we also see when countries start to relax, we also see upticks in cases so I'm going to say it once again, ignore the President of the United States of America who is not a scientist and listen to science.

We need to do the right thing. We need a national strategy based on science.

KING: He has a number of remarkable scientists around him if only he would listen to them but Anne Rimoin that's why we bring you in. Again, pardon the interruption, I just wanted to make sure everybody completely understood the very important point you're making and it is a good point and thank you so much. We'll continue the conversation another day and in a related subject, let's move on to this. This is very important.

CNN learning the President Trump has lost patience with the CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield and other public health experts on his coronavirus team. CNN political correspondent Sara Murray is following this for us. And Sara, we're going to talk about this important news right on the conversation we just had.

This is a president who routinely ignores the scientists, contradicts the scientists and goes about his business contrary to what the scientists say is best practices. Tell us about the CDC dustup.

SAR MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right John. It almost sounds like you're not surprised that the president would be frustrated with the head of the CDC. We've seen this in the past with other top health officials and his frustration continues when the president looks at the health experts on his team.

Basically, he wants a rosier outlook from these guys, he wants faster scientific breakthroughs and that's what's contributing to this frustration. We've also seen a number of very public missteps at the CDC, whether it was an issue about testing asymptomatic individuals or aerosolized spread, that's all contributing to this.

But this is really disheartening for the scientists who are currently working right now at the CDC. It's been crushing for their morale, there are people there who are considering whether they should resign, whether they should leave government entirely and John, that's a big deal because even though the CDC has become politicized, even though there is a view inside the CDC that Redfield is not a particularly effective leader, people outside of the CDC still look at that agency and say there are good scientists here that we can rely on.

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So if you start to see an exodus among the staffers, that presents a real problem, a real crisis of confidence that's even bigger than what we're facing right now. Now as for Redfield's future, I talked to somebody who said that they don't expect any major staffing changes before the election so we may just continue to see this push and pull between the president and the health experts, John.

KING: Important reporting. Sara Murray, please stay on top of it. We'll see if anybody goes, if the tension still persists, it's just, it is a horrible thing to have mixed messages and all this tension in the middle of a pandemic. Sara, thanks so much. Coming up for us, Republicans downplay some even dismiss the

president's refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power.

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