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Florida is Key in Path to 270 Electoral Votes; Dr. Fauci Says, U.S. in for a Whole Lot of Hurt; Federal Judge Hears GOP Challenge to Texas Drive-Thru Voting. Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired November 02, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Because he knows that it is just as simple as what should be necessary if we value the point that access to health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it.

Joe knows that --

JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS: Senator Harris speaking there in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. That's right here on the map. You pull it out, you see battleground Pennsylvania. That's just one, let's pull it out some more.

Key to the Trump victory four years ago, battleground Florida, always close in presidential politics get 270 electoral votes. It certainly helps if you can put Florida's 29 in your column.

Well, let's talk to somebody who understands close elections in the Sunshine State. President Trump was there last night for a very late night rally, early morning rally, you might call it, in Miami-Dade.

Florida Senator Rick Scott was there. He spoke to the crowd. Senator Scott joins me now.

Senator, I'm grateful for your time. And as I said in the lead-in, you know a thing or three about winning close elections in Florida. And your race for senator and both your races for governor were within a point. So where is the state of play on this final day?

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Well, it was fun to be at the rally last night. There was a lot of enthusiasm. I mean, look, it's all about getting the vote out. I mean, these last few days you're trying to figure out how are you going to get everybody out to vote. I know there's a lot of enthusiasm for Donald Trump. I was there last night. I think there was 20,000 people at midnight. So that's impressive.

I think Trump is going to win for this reason. People in Florida care about the economy. They know that's what Trump's strong suit is, that's not Biden's. We are not for high taxes. We're for lower taxes in Florida. We know Biden wants the biggest tax increase ever. I think what Obama did with Castro is horrible for people believing that Biden is going to hold dictators accountable. He said recently that he is going to start negotiations with Maduro in Venezuela.

So I think if you look at those issues, the taxes, the economy, the socialism, not holding dictators accountable, it's going to give Trump a big leg up in Florida.

KING: I agree with you that those issues could work if the president can navigate issue number one, which is the COVID pandemic. So I'd like your sense on that, in a sense that if you look at the polling data we see in the suburbs, and Florida increasingly, as you know well from your days as governor and as senator, becoming more of a suburban state.

The senior vote, the seniors citizen, those of ages 65, are absolutely critical. President Trump carried them four years ago. The polling tells us Joe Biden has a lead there, including in the state of Florida.

I want you to listen to a snippet of that rally you were at last night. Look, Dr. Fauci gave a very bold interview in which he said the president is essentially only focused on the economy, in his view, when it comes to the pandemic. He said Joe Biden has a very good public health plan. Dr. Fauci says that. He works for the government about the coronavirus. And this came up at the rally last night. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You turn on the news, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. We'd like to talk about COVID. And then next time, here's what happens, November 4th you won't hear too much about it. You won't hear too much about it.

Don't tell anybody but let me wait until a little bit after the election.

He's a nice man though. He's been wrong on a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Senator, win or lose, should the president fire Dr. Fauci?

SCOTT: Well, first off, I have a good working relationship with Dr. Fauci. I know he's been working hard. We are not -- you know, COVID is out there, we have got to wear a mask, we have got to social distance.

I believe that -- I talked to Steve Hahn this weekend, runs the FDA, they're working hard on the therapeutics, I'm hopeful on the vaccine. But we have not beaten this and everybody has got to keep taking this seriously. We're doing well on the therapeutics but the vaccine is going to help us a lot and more testing. We've got to get more testing out, especially businesses around the country.

KING: Help me understand your state. You're a Republican. You're a Republican governor. You're a Republican senator. I get it completely. I think if my math is right and my memory is right, when you won the Senate race about 10,000 votes, is that about right? And so you know what it's like. Your state among --

SCOTT: Landslide.

KING: 10,000 votes, it might well be. Al Gore and George W. Bush would certainly view that as a landslide. Besides them, you may know these close elections right now and the reason (INAUDIBLE) better than anybody. So I'm just going to go to my map a little bit here and pull Florida up.

And you know it well, people think about the cliche, the farther south you go in Florida, the further north you get, meaning Miami, Broward County, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, a lot of retirees, older voters who came from the northeast. And if you come up here, across here, the further north you go, well, these voters, they're of Georgia, Alabama. This vote is more like the south.

And then in a close race, it comes down the I-4 corridor. One of the things that struck me four years ago, I remember getting a call from a Democrat during the day who was looking at Pinellas County and said, we are getting bleeped because of turnout, Trump voters turning out Pinellas County. I go back in time to show why that matters. It was blue for Obama in 2012. In a close race, that can make the difference. What is it?

[11:35:00]

When you wake up on Election Day or you're watching the results come in on election night, what is yours? Every politician has one in their state. What's the county, what's the demographic, what is it Rick Scott looks at?

SCOTT: You know, I think the big difference is going to be the Hispanic vote. I won the Hispanic vote in all three of my races. I think President Trump is doing really well with the Hispanic vote. I think that's going to be the game changer.

I think we have so many Cubans and Venezuelans and Nicaraguans that really want a president who's going to hold these dictators accountable. And I know he will and Joe Biden won't. I think that's going to change the election. And this tax increase that Joe Biden is talking about is not going over well in Florida. So we'll see who turns out, because I think the real key is who is going to get their vote out.

I mean, you've got to work -- everybody has to get out there. I always say, I want 100 percent participation, 0 percent fraud. I would like everyone to vote for me when I'm running. But the real issue now is get your vote out. If you want to win in Florida, you better really work hard and win Florida.

KING: Take me inside the conversation with your Republican Senate colleagues right now. How likely do you believe it is that the next time you come back to Washington, you will know who wins the presidential race by then, but then you'll may be in the minority come January? How deep is the concern among Senate Republicans if the Democrats are going to retake the majority?

SCOTT: Look, everybody always worries about their election. I've been in the senate a little less than two years. And even people who look like they have an easy election, they're working hard. I think we're going to keep a Republican Senate, and I think it's going to be because of the issues. And we have good candidates running. We're going to pick up Alabama, we have a chance to pick up Michigan and a chance to pick up New Mexico.

Cory Gardner probably has probably got the hardest race. But I think it's all about who is going to show up to vote. And I think Republicans are going to come out and vote on the issues. They don't want tax increases. They want somebody who is going to supports law enforcement and our military. On these issues, Donald Trump, the economy, he wins.

KING: Senator Rick Scott, appreciate your time on this very important day before what will always be a close election in the state of Florida. We'll count it tomorrow night. We'll see how it plays out, those 29 critical -- Senator, again, grateful for your time. Thank you very much.

Up next for us, the new coronavirus warning we just mentioned from Dr. Anthony Fauci.

But first though, another campaign flashback, this one, a reminder, not everything you hear at the end of a campaign turns out to be true.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): Tomorrow, we begin a new tomorrow. Tomorrow we begin a better tomorrow.

FMR. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): My friends, we got one day left, one day left until we take America in a new direction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The polls are moving in our direction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pundits don't matter. These national pollsters who have been all over the field, they don't matter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This race is very, very tight, and it's getting tighter and tighter by the hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:40:00]

KING: Dr. Anthony Fauci is now warning the United States could soon see more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. Dr. Fauci fears the country is, quote, in for a lot of hurt. He said we're not positioned well as the spike goes up. And let's look at the case count right now. This is the 50-state trend map. 35 states, 35 states red and orange, that means more new COVID infections right now compared to the data for last week, so 35 states turning in the wrong directions. The deep red, that means at least 50 percent more new infections right now compared to a week ago.

So, those states, a lot of hurt there. Those states are hurting even more in terms of the case count going up. Ten states holding steady, five states -- only five states at the moment reporting fewer new infections compared to a week ago.

If you look at the case trend line, this is what's dangerous, even without looking at the numbers. You see that red line going almost straight up. That is the problem right now. The summer peak was here, around high 60s to 70. Now, we're above that, 81,493 yesterday, that, a record for a Sunday. The count usually goes down over the weekend a little bit. The case count heading up. Dr. Fauci thinks 100,000 is in our very near future.

If you look at the jump since October, right, just October 1st, the beginning of last month, last month, October 1st, we were averaging 41,000 new infections a day. That's bad enough. Look where we are now, not quite double but in the ballpark of double that, 81,336 a day on average right now. That is heading in the wrong direction, not rounding the final turn.

The death trend, there are no good statistics here. The better statistics are that this line has stayed down. Every one of these is a neighbor, a friend, a coworker, somebody's family member, so every one of these is pain. But this has stayed down. You see a trickle up. The experts believe it's going to go up faster all of a sudden as we get colder. Let's hope they're wrong. 447 deaths recorded yesterday. Again, the trend line, the average, below a thousand, and let's hope it stays there.

One of the reasons though the experts believe it will go up is you're starting to see the hospitalization lines go up. Just a few weeks back, we were around 40,000. Now, we're inching up toward 50,000. That's a problem there. And the reason it's a problem is because of this, the deeper the color on this map, the higher the positivity rate. The more positivity, the more cases today and the more likely all those people are going to infect more people tomorrow.

36 percent in Iowa, 34 percent in Kansas, 50 percent, half the people who get tested in South Dakota come back positive, 43 percent in Wyoming, 34 percent, Idaho.

So you see out here the upper Midwest, out to the (INAUDIBLE) states and the mountain west, that's where the bigger problem is, but 11 percent in Texas, 19 percent in Alabama, 14 percent in Pennsylvania. There are problems everywhere, such problems that Dr. William Haseltine, one of the experts who looked at this, one of the renowned infectious disease experts in the United States, looks at what's happening in Europe right now, looks at the rising case count here and he's worried.

[11:45:11]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM HASELTINE, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT: I think what Europe should be to America is a reminder of where things can go and how fast they can go wrong.

Viruses take advantage of human behavior. And that's what happened in Europe, people stopped listening to the government, they relaxed, they started congregating again, they didn't wear masks, they went to large groups, they had their parties as usual. And the results have been catastrophic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You listen to that expert advice about what you should do. Well, here is the flipside. President Trump's top pandemic adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, right now, critical of restrictions, like those being put in place in Europe right now, critical even of basic measures like wearing a mask. Now, Dr. Atlas having to apologize because he decided to give an interview on a Russian propaganda network to share his out of the mainstream views.

Let's bring in our Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, number one, he says things that are outside, defy science, defy logic, defy his expertise and, number two, saying them now on Vladimir Putin's preferred propaganda channel. That's just great.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is really, really horrific and mind-bending. I want to take a look at one sentence here -- two sentences, actually. Two sentences here that not only are they wrong but they're immoral, and I'll explain why.

So what Dr. Atlas told this Russian propaganda machine is, we see a lot of cases of COVID. We do not see an explosion of deaths. Now, John, let's look at the facts. Let's look at the numbers. The week of October 26th in the U.S., there was an average of 823 deaths per day.

What kind of moral compass does Dr. Atlas have that he thinks 823 people dead in the United States a day is not an explosion? How is that not an explosion? And it's heading in the wrong direction. More than 15 percent increase in deaths from the previous month.

It's immoral for him to be saying this, John, because even if one person hears this and says, a lot of cases, not so many deaths, I'm not going to wear a mask, I won't do social distancing. And if that person gets COVID and that person dies, that death is on Dr. Atlas. That death is his responsibility, because he is making this sound like a virus that just gets people sick but doesn't cause a lot of deaths. 823 deaths per day in the United States, 823 dead Americans, that's not a lot of deaths to him. He's a doctor. What he's saying is so immoral. John?

KING: And, sadly, the trend line heading in a higher direction with the numbers you just mentioned. I hope that's wrong but that's the way it's pointing right now. Elizabeth Cohen, grateful for the reporting there.

And, again, the final day of the 2020 campaign, we're going to take you live to the trail whenever we can.

The vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, right now, in the hometown of the Great Arnold Palmer, Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: And how about those GDP numbers, Pennsylvania? Man, I mean, the American economy grew by 33 percent in the third quarter, shattering every previous record. The American comeback is on. And with four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House, we're going to bring this economy all the way back, bigger and better than ever before.

It's kind of like the president tweeted last week, he said it's the biggest and best economic growth in history, not even close.

You know, and this great comeback is a testament. It's a testament to the character and the resilience and the work ethic of the American people. But it's also a tribute to a president and to our allies in the Congress, like John Joyce, who worked with us to create the greatest economy the world has ever seen.

It's why it's amazing to think here the day before Election Day that Joe Biden, in the midst of a global pandemic, wants to raise taxes by $4 trillion. He wants to pass a $2 trillion version of the Green New Deal that would crush American energy.

But under President Donald Trump, we cut taxes across the board for working families and businesses. We rolled back more federal red tape than any administration in history. We fought for free and fair trade. We unleashed American energy. And in three years, businesses large and small created 7 million good paying jobs, including 200,000 jobs right here in the commonwealth.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:00]

KING: This hour, a federal judge hearing an effort by Texas Republicans to toss out nearly 127,000 ballots cast by curbside voting. These are votes from the Houston area, Harris County. That's the state's largest county. The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court already rejected this challenge.

[11:55:00]

This morning, the Harris County clerk urging the federal court to also tell state Republicans, no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HOLLINS, CLERK FOR HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS: More than 100,000 Texans have cast their ballots in this way. This is completely legal. And as you noted, an all-Republicans Texas Supreme Court has thrown this case out as illegitimate, and this judge should do the same thing today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election lawyer, joins me now.

Ben, what is the issue here? So you lose at the all-Republican state supreme court, now you go into federal court, is there some federal issue at play here or is this just Republicans again trying to throw out votes from people in places they assume are going to vote Democratic?

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: There are different claims in the federal case, John. And just in full disclosure, I went in on an amicus brief opposed to the Republican position in Texas on this, simply because nobody should throw out 100,000 votes when it was, at worst, administrative error and not the fault of the voters.

KING: And when you say, at worst, administrative error, do you believe something was handled wrong or outside of the law or any pandemic policy?

GINSBERG: I don't. I believe that what the Harris County officials did was perfectly appropriate within the Texas statute, the Texas Constitution and the federal court should not throw it out.

KING: And so this is one case. You write -- you have been writing several of these op-eds, because you're trying to warn your party that you think it is heading down a dangerous path in challenging votes everywhere, and that's what's happening. I hate to say it, but it is happening everywhere. This is our most cherished right, it's our democracy and Republicans are trying to stop people from voting.

You write this morning, Sunday, in The Washington Post, President Trump has failed the test of leadership. His bid for re-election is floundering. And his only solution has been to launch an all-out multimillion dollar effort to disenfranchise voters, first by seeking to block state laws to ease voting during a pandemic and now in the final stages of the campaign by challenging the ballots of individual voters unlikely to support him.

So, you make both a legal and political argument that this is bad. Let me ask you the question this way. Why are Republicans afraid in a democracy of people voting?

GINSBERG: I'm not sure I know the answer to that. But what I think you can look at as a factual matter is that at this point in time, the Republican policy ideas are kind of in a wasteland, that instead of coming up with conservative policies that appeal to various groups, the Republican Party and the Trump campaign have, I think, really, unfortunately, not come up with proper conservative policies to appeal to the groups and this is kind of where we end up, which is not good.

KING: Right. They're not out in Idaho, or Montana, or Utah.

GINSBERG: They're not in the Republican precincts of the states. KING: Right. They're not even in the states. They're not challenging places that are Republican. They're going straight to the heart of the Democratic turnout.

So I want you to listen a little of the president yesterday. Here is the theory. Some states are going to hold their absentee ballots, which we know in many states are predominantly Democratic, will count, they're going to hold them until after.

So there's a possibility tomorrow night, we're getting around 10:00, 11:00 at night, and the president is leading in the count in Pennsylvania, leading in the count in Michigan, leading in the count of Wisconsin, we know those are real votes, but there are a ton more votes yet to be counted. The president comes out and says, I am winning, stop the count. The president won't say he is going to doing that, but it is kind of close. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think it is a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election.

We're going to go in the night of -- as soon as that election is over, we're going in with our lawyers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That night, the night, as soon as the election is over, the election is not over until you count all of the votes legally cast. I get it. People like you, Democratic and Republican election lawyers have every right to challenge this or that ballot, or this procedure. But an election is not over until they're all counted. What is the president doing here?

GINSBERG: I am not sure. It really shows kind of a lack of understanding of the basic part of the process. But the good news is this isn't decided by national rhetoric, that, in fact, ballots are counted under state laws in individual precincts and counties and that activity is going to take place. And I cannot envision a judge interrupting that.

KING: You can't envision a judge interrupting that. Well, that's one of the challenges, Ben. We may velcro you to that seat for 7,200 hours until we get through some of this, because we're going to need your advice and expertise. Ben Ginsberg, thank you so much.

GINSBERG: Thank you, John.

KING: And hello to our viewers in the United States and welcome to viewers around the world. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing this very, very important day with us.

Today, a frenzied final day of campaigning across the United States. Tomorrow, America picks its president.

[12:00:00] The choice is between two fundamentally different men, between Scranton and Manhattan, as the way Joe Biden like to put it, and between two very different strategies on how to steer the United States.