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Miami-Dade COVID-19 Curfew Back on Amid Court Appeal; Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Pushes Back on Stimulus Deal before Election; Early Voting Taking Place in All 50 States. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired October 21, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

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[11:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS: The pandemic curfew in South Florida is back on today. That move comes after an appeals judge issued a temporary stay to a ruling that struck down that curfew. Miami-Dade's countywide mandate orders businesses, including clubs and restaurants, to close from midnight until 6:00 A.M.

A strip club had objected, claiming that curfew violates the September 25th governor from, Ron DeSantis, saying local law should not interfere with people's jobs.

This curfew battle underway even as Florida's positivity rate is looking -- trending up again. Along with the case count on Tuesday, the state reported 3,562 new, confirmed cases.

Joining me now is the Mayor Carlos Gimenez of Miami-Dade County. Mr. Mayor, grateful for your time today.

So the -- now you have the curfew you believe back on, are you still in court or do you think we're settled now?

MAYOR CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL): Yes, we'll go back in court. That was a temporary stay. There are briefs (ph) that are due Friday and then Monday, and then we hope that the court will give -- the appeals court will give a final decision sometime early next week. So, it's still -- there's still a battle going on down here.

KING: Still a battle going on. For now, you get your curfew. Explain why this is important to you. If you look at the county testing data right now, you're not in bad shape, you're not in great shape maybe, but you're around 5 percent, which is people say, get it down to 5 percent, then try shove it down a little bit more. But I assume you're looking at what's happening around the country and saying, I need to manage this now so I don't end up like that.

GIMENEZ: Yes, precisely. We -- our experts down here are modeling -- some of the modeling that they have actually showed an uptick that was supposed to start this week. They have now shoved that back a couple of weeks probably because of the measures that we did take.

And so we want to make sure if we do have an uptick, that an expected uptick in positivity and also hospitalizations, that the lower that we keep now, we stay now, then the lower that new wave will be and a fewer people are going to have in the hospital and in the end have fewer fatalities.

KING: Walk us through -- we've had several conversations over the past several month. Walk us through where we are. We know the American people, understandably, a lot of them have COVID fatigue, right? They have been told, work from home, your kids can't go to school, social distance, do all of these things.

And we've also watched political conversations. You have some of them where you live, a Democratic mayor in Miami, you're the Republican mayor of Miami-Dade, the larger county around it. You have a Republican governor who has drawn some national attention. What are the political conversations? Are you also -- I get there are partisan differences, I get we're in an election year, but do you have fatigue too in a sense that it just gets -- is it getting harder to keep the coordination up and going?

GIMENEZ: Yes. It's always been an interesting job here. I have 34 cities that actually Miami-Dade County encompasses. And as the mayor of Miami-Dade, I'm actually the mayor of all of them. So if you live in the municipality, you have two mayors. You have me and then you have the municipal mayor. The actual mayor of Miami sounds Democrat but he's actually Republican. So we're in the same party. But it's all non-partisan down here.

And so, really, it is what you think is right. And I have served in a non-partisan capacity here for 9.5 years. I do what I think is right. I'm a paramedic, I'm a firefighter. I have some knowledge of medicine and what it takes and also contagious diseases and the preventive measures that you have to take.

So, look, at the end of the day, it really is all up to us, the people, to keep our mask on, keep our social distancing and take common sense approaches.

[11:35:03]

I mean, we can legislate away all we want. And if the people don't comply, then we're still going to be back in the same boat.

Fortunately here, the vast majority of the people are complying with our mask order, indoors and outdoors. But we do have some businesses that want to go beyond that.

Now, if, in fact, the curfew is lifted, we still have a lot of measures in place with distancing, mask-wearing, et cetera, that should keep people safe. My concern is that after hours, people have a tendency in these places, have a tendency to drink, keep their guard down, now you have a large number of people in a place where people aren't really following the rules, now you have a spreader event and the next thing you know, we have an uptick. And we have seen a little bit on the younger people, their positivity rates going up in a number of younger people, the same people that actually started that wave back in July, we've seen that start to crawl up a little bit. That's what we need to tamp down. That's why we need to keep it as low as possible, so if we do have another wave, it's well under control.

KING: Mr. Mayor, grateful for your time today. Interesting to hear you -- it's just to hear the smart approach. This is what happened last time. We're watching an uptick this time. We will keep in touch, watch how the legal part plays out and hopefully you keep the numbers down. Mr. Mayor, thanks for your time.

GIMENEZ: Thank you

KING: Thank you.

Up next, the Senate majority leader says he is not necessarily on board with cutting a big stimulus deal, at least not before the election.

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[11:40:00]

KING: The White House chief of staff today says there is clear progress in negotiating a new stimulus deal with House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Mark Meadows says he is optimistic even though he says the White House and Democrats are still far apart on several big things, including aid to state and local government. So we will keep an eye on those important talks.

But also on a red flag being waved across the Capitol in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is telling the White House he thinks it's a bad idea to try to cut a big deal before the election. And even if the White House and Speaker Pelosi do reach an agreement and even if that agreement clears the House, Leader McConnell is non-committal on the timing of a Senate vote.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): If a presidentially supported bill clears the House, at some point, we'll bring it to the floor.

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KING: CNN's Manu Raju is live for us up on Capitol Hill. At some point, Manu, what does that mean?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Senate is likely to leave town after Monday. And that's when they're expected to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and then head home, campaign a week before the election and then return after the election for a lame-duck session of Congress.

Now, that schedule is not final yet but it is a clear indication of where things are headed. The action right now is in the House and any deal that could be reached between Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin is unlikely to get a vote in the Senate before Election Day.

In fact, it's more likely, I'm told, from multiple sources in both parties that any deal will have to get voted on in a lame-duck session of Congress. That happens after the November 3rd elections and up until January.

And not just because of the divisions within the Republican Party, and there are significant ones, but also because the logistical hurdles in moving a bill of this magnitude, a roughly $2 trillion price tag they're talking about, moving that will be difficult. So that's why most believe people, John, that this is going to have to wait and people waiting for relief are still going to have to see when Washington will finally act, John.

KING: And we'll keep an eye on that calendar.

And, Manu, it's interesting the majority leader's disagreements with White House on stimulus, not the only sign of, I'll call it, separation or tension between the president and Senate Republicans right now.

RAJU: Yes, a lot of different issues, particularly the way the president is closing this campaign, attacking Anthony Fauci, going after the media and calling Joe Biden a criminal. Republicans want to be talking about the economy and anything but what the president has been pushing on the campaign trail.

I talked to several Republicans, including ones in difficult races, about particularly the president's attacks. This is what a few of them told me. Senator Thom Tillis, who is up for re-election in North Carolina, a very difficult race, says, I've got a lot of confidence in Dr. Fauci, this after the president called Dr. Fauci a disaster.

Also Lindsey Graham has told me that I trust his judgment. Lindsey Graham is in a very difficult Senate race.

And John Thune, who is not up for re-election but is the second ranking Republican in the Senate, told me that the president's strategy needs to be, quote, quit attacking Fauci, focus on the issues, he also said to quit attacking the media but, of course, the president is not listening to his colleagues, which is why a lot of Republicans, John, fear a loss could impact the Senate majority and the debate about what it means for the party if Trump loses is also starting to intensify, John.

KING: Yes. When the president won't stay focused, those candidates get asked about what the president said and they can't stay focused either. Manu Raju, fascinating reporting, we're going to watch this one play out.

Coming up for us, massive early voting numbers and the likely post- election night waiting game, at least in some states for the big results.

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KING: Some just wow new numbers today about early voting and some clarity about how long it may take for some key states to finish the count this year. We are 13 days to Election Day, but voting is now under way everywhere. There are mail-in, absentee or in-person voting being cast now in all 50 states.

[11:50:00]

And here is the count right now. Look at these numbers, more than 39 million votes cast, up nearly 180 percent from four years ago. By tomorrow, in-person voting will be active in 42 states.

But we still we still may not know the winner November 3rd. That is what we're hearing from a top official at the Department of Homeland Security who says this, quote, there's a very good chance that we will not know the winner of the presidential election for instance on election night itself. And that's not because something isn't working, it's because of the additional security measures in place.

Ben Ginsberg is an election law expert and now CNN Contributor.

Ben, those are responsible words from the cabinet agency that helps us with election security in the United States, telling everybody, chill. Pandemic election, a lot of mail-in voting, it may take some states some time. In fact, if you look at The New York Times today at a meeting yesterday of the secretary of state of Michigan and Pennsylvania said that it may take them three days, but they are confident they can finish counting within three days of the election.

There is nothing unusual here and nothing wrong here, and yet the president keeps saying he wants a fast count. Should we listen to the president or his own Department of Homeland Security?

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think at times like this, john, you have to listen to the state and local election officials and say what's doable. Right now, they are talking without any partisan motivation in the sense that their job is being sure the ballots are cast and counted properly. And from my experience, those state and local officials have a great deal of integrity in wanting to get the job done right. They say it's going to take a few days, listen to them.

KING: As someone who has been through this before, recounts, watching the counting of ballots after the election and the like, what does it say to you when you see those numbers, plus 179 percent in volume of early voting in the states we're tracking compared to four years ago? We knew it would be up because of the pandemic, but is that even higher than you would have anticipated? And what does it tell you about the pace of the count?

GINSBERG: Well, I think it's higher than I would have anticipated. I think what you never know at a time like this from the early numbers is whether this has energized voters wanting to cast their ballots early or this is really an expanded pool of voters so that we'll see even more than the 150 to 160 million people that are anticipated. You never quite know the answer to that until you have the total.

KING: Right. Remember, Democrats thought they had a huge advantage in 2016, it turned out in the end we know who is president. So we have to watch. Just because you vote early, it doesn't affect the math unless more people are voting.

We've talked before and we'll talk again about all these legal challenges, one that was resolved because they had a settlement in Mississippi. Now, the state has agreed to expand access to curbside voting and to allow absentee voters to fix their ballots. They will notify you if there's some discrepancy in your ballot so that you can show up. If it actually is your ballot, you can show up and fix it.

This seems to be a reasonable compromise in an age where we're seeing a lot of deep fights in the courts. What do you make of that?

GINSBERG: I think it is a reasonable compromise. What Mississippi did not change, will not change, is that you still need an excuse to vote absentee. So it is not a no excuse absentee state like many more are. So, Mississippi kept its core process intact and agreed to accommodation for COVID.

KING: All right. We'll track that one as it plays out as well. We have a lot to track in the next two weeks-plus ahead. Ben Ginsberg, grateful for your insights. We laugh about it now. We'll see if we're laughing about it in 13 days.

Voters in two states report they've received threatening emails about their vote this election. Officials in Florida and Alaska are now investigating those threats.

CNN Business Reporter Donie O'Sullivan is in New York tracking this one. Sounds ominous, Donie?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Hey, John. Yes.

So, first, let me fill you in on what these emails say. They purport to be from the Proud Boys, that hate group President Trump essentially embraced at the last debate, although the Proud Boys denied they have anything to do with this.

And the emails are pretty scary. They are going to a lot of voters we know in at least two states. They say, we are in possession of all your information, email, address, telephone everything. You're currently registered as a Democrat, and we know this because we have gained access to the entire voting infrastructure. You will vote for Trump Election Day or we will come after you.

Some of these emails also include people's home addresses and a sort of chilling message for any voter to get. The most important thing to know here first, John, though is what the cybersecurity government agency is saying about these emails, that the information is false.

Here is what they are saying. While we're looking into the emails, we can tell you this. Your vote is secret. These emails are meant to intimidate and undermine American voters' confidence in our elections. Don't fall for sensational and unverified claims.

So who is behind these emails? Well, we have been looking into some of the metadata that's attached to the emails. When you and I open an email, John, we just see the message. But behind that, there is a lot of technical indicators that can tell us where an email is coming from.

We've had some cyber experts look into some of the emails that voters have sent us and we're seeing two things. We're seeing that they are being routed through computers both in Estonia and Saudi Arabia. Now, does that mean that the people who sent these emails are in Estonia and Saudi Arabia? No, it doesn't. What it does mean is that whoever is behind these emails have taken a lot of steps, somewhat sophisticated steps, to mask who they are and where the messages are coming from.

Of course, we should mention that the Proud Boys, although their name is on this email and they are a hate group, they say they have nothing to do with this. And that is very possibly the case. I mean, we have seen groups try and pose as other groups, opposing groups online in recent months, including, of course, during the summer we saw white supremacists pose as Antifa on social media, all designed to sow division, to sow chaos and to ferment fear. John?

KING: Grateful we have you and experts you rely on helping us through this sad new normal in our politics as well. Donie O'Sullivan, grateful for that.

When we come back, the president is mad, he is frustrated at reporters who ask him about coronavirus, he is frustrated at Dr. Fauci for talking frankly about coronavirus. Why? Because the president says we've rounded the corner, the case count says something very different.

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