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Trump and Biden Swarm Battleground States in Last Day of Campaigning; Obama Speaks Live in Atlanta; Biden Speaks in Battleground Pennsylvania; Importance of Pennsylvania & Arizona in Race to 270; President Trump Holds Rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania; Twitter to Label Premature Claims of Victory Tomorrow; Key Senate Races That Could Tilt the Balance of Power; Trump Floats Firing Fauci But Lacks Direct Power to Do So; Trump Falsely Says FBI Not Investigating MAGA Swam of Biden Bus. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired November 02, 2020 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And we begin in Iowa.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Martin Savidge in Des Moines, Iowa. Early voting is still under way. In fact, when the polls opened here in this city, there were hundreds of people already in line. And the lines have only been growing throughout the day.
By the end of the day, it's expected to be close to a million Iowans will have cast their ballots early. That's a significant number of those expected entirely to cast their ballots.
And they're already counting the early votes today in Iowa, under Iowa law. Which means, come when the polls close tomorrow at 9:00 Central, 10:00 Eastern, they will have already tabulated a great many of those votes.
Which is why the secretary of state believes that Iowa will have a result tomorrow evening. Remember, there are six electoral votes that are at stake here.
It's been a very close, competitive race here until just recently. Now the "Des Moines Register" has reported over the weekend a new poll that says that President Trump is up by seven percentage points.
It is a far cry from September when the two were in a dead heat. But there are other polls saying, no, this state is still competitive.
And that's why you still see members of the campaign showing up here. Biden was here Friday. The president was in Dubuque on Sunday. His daughter is here in Des Moines today.
So everyone believes, at least in the secretary of state's office, they'll have a result tomorrow evening, primarily because early voting has gone smoothly. They haven't had many legal challenges. And the other factor that you have to worry about here in Iowa in November, the weather tomorrow is expected to be perfect. We'll see.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Evan McMorris-Santoro in the Gardiner High School gym in Maine's second congressional district.
This area is very important because this district is where President Trump picked up a surprise electoral vote in 2016, something he is trying to repeat in 2020.
Here at the gym, they're preparing for heavy turn tomorrow. They're trying to balance that with the pandemic going on.
As you can see, polling booths have been blocked off. And only 50 will be allowed in this room at any given time, including poll workers.
Voters will be asked to wear a mask, but if they refuse, they won't be turned away. You won't lose your right in Maine if you refuse to wear a mask.
So poll workers are being issued extensive PPE, Plexiglass shields, like these, masks, hand sanitizer, gloves.
And also these face shields will be given out to every poll worker by the state government. It being Maine, they are made by L.L. Bean.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, "AT THIS HOUR": I'm Kate Bolduan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes are critical for both candidates in their quest for 270 electoral votes.
Polls open tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. But we got an update from the secretary of state, who says, already, more than 2.4 million mail-in ballots had already been returned.
That is 10 times as many mail-in ballots being returned than they had in 2016. A major operation there.
Here in Philadelphia, over my shoulder, you can see that's one of the official ballot return boxes. And as we're standing here, people are making a party out of it.
As you can see, a big get-out-the-vote operation. That's today. That's tomorrow. And that's it.
So we're here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -- Brianna?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: I can see they really worked on their moves out there, Kate.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Let's go to Pennsylvania, where former President Obama -- pardon me. Let's go to Georgia where former President Obama is speaking live in Atlanta. BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It still looks
good, you said?
(CHEERING)
OBAMA: I'll let Michelle know.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: But the reason I'm here -- look, I thought, after my last campaign in 2012, I thought, all right, I'll campaign in '16 and just kind of go off and write my book and work on my golf game, spend a little more time with my wife.
Things didn't work out the way we expected because we weren't focused. Each one of us didn't do everything that we needed to do.
So in this election, when I got a call and said, look, Georgia could be the state.
(CHEERING)
OBAMA: Georgia could be the place where we put the country back on track. And not just because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have a chance to win Georgia. But you've got the chance to flip two Senate seats? I said, well, I've got to go. I've got to go.
(CHEERING)
OBAMA: I told Michelle, I'm sorry, baby.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: I got to go to Georgia. This is a big deal.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: You have two extraordinary candidates in Jon and the reverend, who deserve your vote.
[14:35:05]
And let's face it, you also have two Senators who badly need to be replaced.
(CHEERING)
OBAMA: Look, I served in the Senate. I remember when we used to get briefings in the Senate for threats, including the kinds of briefings that your two current Senators got about COVID-19.
They got briefed. You go into this room and it's all top secret, and you have to kind of closing everything off. You can't take anything out of the briefing room.
Because this is part of your responsibility as public servant. The point of these briefings is so that you can take quick action to protect the American people before it's too late.
That's why the Senate gets these special briefings, to serve the interests of the people who have sent you to Washington, to serve their interests before your own.
When I heard that your two Senators here in Georgia -- and understand, what I'm about to say now is not a partisan statement. I would be just as hot if I heard a Democrat was doing this.
Your two Senators publicly were telling you the virus would be no big deal.
But behind closed doors, they were making a bunch of moves in the stock market, to try to make sure their portfolios were protected instead of making sure you were protected. Man, that's shady.
(APPLAUSE)
JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That's a natural fact.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Look, I see the world from Scranton. I see this world from working-class towns all around this state. That's why the "Build Back Better Plan, and I'm going to do it.
We're going to -- for the first time in a long time, we're going to start rewarding work, not wealth. We're not going to raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year. But make more than that? Guess what? You're going to start paying your fair share.
(CHEERING)
BIDEN: You're going to start stepping up.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: I'm going to ask the big corporations, the wealthy to step up.
You know, 90 of the Fortune 500 companies trying to railroad you guys. Ninety of them didn't pay a penny in taxes.
We're going to invest that we collect in working people, creating millions of good-paying union jobs, $2 trillion to build a more resilient infrastructure, roads, bridges, water systems, a whole lot more, done by certified labor.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And by the way, no matter how many times Trump has tried to lie about it, I will not ban fracking. I never said I would.
(APPLAUSE)
(CHEERING) BIDEN: But I'm going to add something. They're sending -- they're sending jobs overseas. We have a trade strategy right now where you get a 10 percent cut in your tax if you send a job overseas.
We're going to reverse it. You bring a job home, you get 10 percent.
I want to promise you one thing. You know, the president has control of $600 billion, handing out contracts for construction, for anything from aircraft carriers to public housing.
Well, here's the promise I make to you. Not one single contract will be let to a contractor who doesn't have products that are all made in America. That's a guarantee. Every one.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: We're allowed to do it now, but we have never done it. It's about time we stepped up and made sure people -- by the way, one other thing to mention, Donald Trump talks about himself as a tough guy.
I grew up with guys like him in Scranton, like him in Scranton. They thought because they had more money than us, they could look down their nose at it. They though because they came from well-known families, they were somehow were better.
Let me tell you something. He talks about how tough he is, how hard- working he is, how he's done so much.
Let me tell you, the things that bothered me the most in this campaign -- and I have to tell you -- the way he talked about our veterans as being losers. Losers.
What's this guy all about? Who is he? He doesn't understand what is going on.
Folks, my son was the attorney general of Delaware. He gave up his seat to go fight in Iraq for a year. He won the Bronze Star, and Distinguished Service Medal.
He came home -- and he died of cancer. But he came home. And guess what? He was no loser. Trump's the loser. And all of you who served.
(APPLAUSE)
[14:40:00]
KEILAR: I want to bring in now CNN senior political writer and analyst, Harry Enten.
Harry, we've been talking about the importance of Pennsylvania. This is where both of the presidential candidates are and their running mates today.
So let's start with the math there.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER & ANALYST: The math to me is simple. That is Pennsylvania could be the determining factor in this election.
You can see this well in the graphic in which we sort of take a road to 270 electoral votes.
Let's say we give Biden the Clinton states from 2016. Then you give him Wisconsin, Michigan, which are states in which holds eight or nine-point leads. That gets him to 258 electoral votes.
And then, in Pennsylvania, where he holds a six-point average lead in the poll, that gets him over the mark to 278 electoral votes.
So to me, at this point, there isn't a state that's more important than Pennsylvania.
KEILAR: What about Arizona? Why is Arizona so critical?
ENTEN: Sure. Let's say Joe Biden does not win in Pennsylvania but wins in the states or contexts in which he's held at least a four-point lead in an average of both the September and the October polls.
Well, in that case, what you do is you get Joe Biden to exactly 270 electoral votes. Even if he loses in places like Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia.
So Arizona is sort of this backup path Biden if Pennsylvania falls through.
KEILAR: You say it would be hard for the polls in both Arizona and Pennsylvania to be wrong?
ENTEN: Right. What we know about polling errors, they tend to be correlated across demographics and regions. Obviously, the regions of Arizona and Pennsylvania are very different. Pennsylvania is in the northeast and Arizona is in the west.
But also look at some of the demographics, right? Arizona has fewer non-college white voters. It has many more Hispanic voters. It's also much more urban than Pennsylvania.
If the polls are off in Pennsylvania, they are much more likely to be off in, say, Ohio than they would be off in a state like Arizona, which is just significantly different than Pennsylvania is.
KEILAR: It's not a slam dunk for Biden. It's not easy for Trump either, though.
ENTEN: Right. Look, polls are not perfect. Polls are not perfect.
But that being said, Biden's lead right now is fairly significant. It's larger than the average state polling, say, since 1972 in close races.
But the true margin of error, the 95 percent confidence interval is plus or minus nine points. There's sort of these long-tailed errors.
It is possible that Trump does pull off this win, even if it's unlikely.
And the map for him to sort of pull off this win is essential if he does win in Arizona. If he does win in Pennsylvania and holds on to Florida, North Carolina and Georgia.
If he does that, he gets to 279 electoral votes. It's not easy, but it is doable.
KEILAR: Harry, thank you so much. Harry Enten.
I want to go how to President Trump, who is holding a rally in Pennsylvania right now. Let's listen in.
(CHEERING)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Only in Pennsylvania.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: You know, we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole deal. You know that, right?
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Just like last time. We want to have the same result as we had last time.
Hello, Scranton. Hello, Pennsylvania. Thank you very much.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Tomorrow we are going to win the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: And we are going to win four more years in the White House.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: With your vote, we will continue to cut your taxes, cut regulations, support our great police, support our magnificent military --
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: -- protect your Second Amendment --
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: -- defend religious liberty. And ensure more products are proudly stamped with that beautiful phrase, "Made in the USA," right?
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: More and more
(CHEERING)
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Thank you.
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Thank you.
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Remember last time they said, no, no, Pennsylvania hasn't been won by a Republican for many, many years. Many, many years. And then we won. And it wasn't even close when you get right down to it.
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Thank you.
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: That's really nice.
Don't make me cry. I'll cry with that whole thing. I'll cry.
And then they'll have it -- they'll say the president broke down and cried in front of his -- I don't know. Hey, maybe that would lift you up, right?
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: You pick up 10 points for crying. I say, I still don't want to do it.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Thank you very much. No, it's really nice.
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Thank you.
(CHANTING)
[14:45:04]
KEILAR: All right. President Trump there in the hometown -- in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the hometown of his rival, Joe Biden.
All eyes on Pennsylvania. Both presidential candidates as well as their running mates there today, a key battleground state. Next, an astronaut, a 33-year-old, and a combat veteran among the
Democrats looking to unseat incumbent Republicans in the Senate that could tilt the balance of power.
Plus, what's the political strategy behind picking another fight with Dr. Anthony Fauci? Why the president can't fire him, despite suggesting he may after the election.
This is CNN's special live coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: Anxiety is high the day before the election. Both campaigns fully aware the vote could go either way.
I want to bring in Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic."
Ron, it's great to see you on this Election eve.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you. Yes.
[14:50:01]
KEILAR: You know that Twitter is planning to apply this label warning to tweets from candidates and their campaigns if they attempt to claim victory before official results are declared.
What do you think we can expect tomorrow night?
BROWNSTEIN: Look, it is possible that Joe Biden will win early in North Carolina and Florida, and a lot of the fears about Trump trying to dispute the election will evaporate, become irrelevant.
But it's also possible that we will be waiting for Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin where it's important to note that Republican legislators have refused to allow them to do what so many states do, which is begin to allow mail-in ballots beforehand.
Which is why we will know, for example, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona does that as well. It really depends on the results.
But we could see a very aggressive effort by the president to try to undermine the results if it seems to be going against him.
KEILAR: There's this battle for control of the Senate that is playing out along the presidential race.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
KEILAR: Democrats are really hoping to flip enough key races. So they're trying to flip some of these.
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
KEILAR: I wonder what you'll be watching specifically. BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. Look, first of all, the Senate is on the
knife's edge about which party will control it.
The big picture in the Senate is that the results of the presidential race and the Senate races are aligning more completely than ever.
In 2016, for the first time since the direct election of Senators, which started in 1914, every Senate race, Brianna, went the same way as the presidential race in that state.
That means Democrats will have a hard time holding Alabama. Republicans will have a hard time holding Arizona and Colorado, which are leaning to varying degrees toward Biden.
Then you get to the tipping-points states, which are tipping points both at the presidential and the Senate level.
Can Susan Collins in Maine overcome what may be a double-digit victory for Biden in the state and hold the state for the Republicans?
Can Democrats win North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia if Biden does not? You know, looked more promising earlier. Now we're see more alignment.
Montana also on that list of tipping-point states. It might be the state where Democrats have the best chance of winning if Biden does not. But even there, it's an uphill climb.
And so you kind of have two-dimensional chess going on, not only with what's happening in the Senate races, but what's happening in the presidential race.
Because it may be very difficult, even if Biden wins, for Democrats to win a Senate majority unless Biden he wins some of the key Senate swing states, places like North Carolina, Iowa and Georgia, above all.
KEILAR: The president suggested that he may fire Dr. Anthony Fauci. Let's listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CHANTING)
TRUMP: Don't tell anybody but let me wait until a little bit after the election.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: I appreciate the advice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Now, under federal law, we should point out, Trump does not have the power to directly fire Fauci and remove him from government.
But Fauci is certainly playing as a device for the president here in the final stretch. BROWNSTEIN: Right. And this is revealing both his approach to the
pandemic but also his broader political strategy.
Talking about firing Fauci is consistent with not wearing masks at rallies and no social distancing and pressuring governors to open up.
He is speaking to roughly the 35 percent of the country that is saying open at all costs and further alienating the majority of the country that believes you can never get the economy fully going again unless you get the virus under control.
But, Brianna, this is indicative of his broader political strategy since the time he has taken office. He has been about speaking to his base on virtually all issues, even if it means alienating other voters.
And where that's left him and the Republican Party is in a position of trying to squeeze bigger margins out of groups that are shrinking in the society at the price of provoking more alienation from the groups that are growing.
If there's a path for Trump to win, it's to turn out vastly more non- college and non-urban whites than people expect. That may be a vital path, but it's a big hill.
If you look at numbers of what he's facing among young people, among college-educated whites, where he may have the biggest deficit every, and in the big metros, every big metro center economy and population in the country, he is likely to deteriorate from 2016.
He may lose the five biggest metros in Texas by a million votes. Texas. Not Colorado, not California, but Texas. Same thing in Atlanta. That is the story.
He has left the Republicans with only one path, and a potentially doable path, but a very narrow path of speaking to a minority of the country and exciting them to turn out in unprecedented numbers.
KEILAR: If anyone told us we would be talking about Texas, we would say, what? No.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
KEILAR: Ron, thank you so much for joining us.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
KEILAR: Ron Brownstein. Big day tomorrow. We know you'll be watching. We're going to be watching.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
[14:54:53]
And next, a nation on edge as we approach this historical election. Some businesses deciding to board up in case there's unrest as the results come in.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: President Trump is denying that the FBI is investigating his supporters after they surrounded a Biden campaign bus, which is a lie.
CNN's Josh Campbell has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: -- investigating. Now, video from Friday shows that bus traveling from San Antonio to Austin. It is swarmed by a group of motorists waving Trump 2020 flags.
At one point, it appears as though a Trump supporter veers into a vehicle belonging to a Biden volunteer, leaving that vehicle damaged.
Now, the president rushed to the defense of his supporters, saying they did nothing wrong, saying the FBI should instead be focused on Antifa.
[15:00:04]
Former Vice President Joe Biden also responded, saying the nation has never before had a president who would condone what took place on that Texas highway -- Brianna?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
