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Sources: Trump Campaign Planning Message Blitz To Fuel Unsupported Election Questions; Biden To Deliver Remarks Tomorrow On COVID-19 Plan; Biden To Name 12-Member Coronavirus Task Force Tomorrow; Bush Welcomed Clinton To White House After Losing Reelection Bid In 1992; World Leaders Congratulate Biden On Win, GOP Lawmakers Do Not; GOP Silence Spreads As Trump Refuses To Accept Election Reality; George W. Bush Congratulates President-Elect Biden; Trump Refuses To Concede, No Plans To Invite Biden To White House. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired November 08, 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]

PAMELA BROWN, HOST, CNN NEWSROOM: Every minute I got to spend with him. The next hour of CNN Newsroom starts now.

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I'm Pamela Brown and you are in the CNN Newsroom and we start tonight on this Sunday with Breaking News. Nearly 36 hours after the Presidential race was called for President-Elect Joe Biden. The current occupant of the White House is rallying against the results and sources close to me tell me that the President and his key advisers are considering campaign style rallies. They want to amplify baseless claims that the election was stolen from President Trump. Let's go straight to Boris Sanchez at the White House. So Boris, what more are you learning?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pamela. The White House apparently planning this messaging blitz to try to present to the American people, this argument from President Trump that the election was stolen from him, a claim that to this point is unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. This is also happening as people close to the President are acknowledging privately that the lawsuits that are being filed by the Trump campaign are weak and likely will not overturn the results of the election.

Nevertheless, as you noted, they are indicating that part of the planning involves a campaign style rallies to try to drum up support for the idea that the election is illegitimate and was stolen. Their belief is that they could potentially persuade enough secretaries of state in certain battleground states to open up investigations in to the perspective elections in their states, and potentially delay the process of transition. That is one of the goals. We should point out, sources have indicated that people close to the President including First Lady Melania Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have approached the subject with the President of accepting reality and acknowledging that he lost and conceding to the Former Vice President, now President-Elect Joe Biden. Despite that, there are some Republicans who are very publically pressing the President to fight on. Here's a taste.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: OK.

SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM (R-SC): Trump has not lost. Do not concede Mr. President, fight hard.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): At this point, we do not know who is prevailed in the election. The media is desperately trying to get everyone to coronate Joe Biden as the next President. But that's not how it works.

GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): This is all premature. This is a premature conversation because we have not finished counting votes. There are states that have not been called.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Now Pamela, we should point out that two of those voices in Senator Ted Cruz and the Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem have been involved in speculation about potential Presidential runs in 2024. Also, there are a lot of Republicans that have not said very much about the situation as it stands right now.

One of them is the Vice President Mike Pence, the last we saw him was approximately 2:30 on Wednesday morning where he shared about two or three senses with the American people, seeming to hedge on some of the accusations that the President himself was making. We did get the Vice President's schedule for tomorrow, it turns out that he is hosting a 3:00 o'clock coronavirus task force meeting unclear if we will be able the hear from him then, Pamela.

BROWN: We will keep an eye on this unfolding story, Boris Sanchez thank you. And despite President Trump's refuse to concede the election. President-Elect Joe Biden is moving forward with plans for his administration. CNN's Arlette Saenz joins us now with new reporting on this. So Arlette we just learned that Biden is expected to deliver remarks about his plan to take on the COVID-19 crisis. What more do you know?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, Joe Biden the President-Elect is ready to get right to work when it comes to tackling the coronavirus pandemic. And tomorrow, the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris will hold a briefing from their newly formed coronavirus task force. This is going to be a group and an advisory group of about a dozen scientists and experts to guide their response to the coronavirus pandemic.

And then the Former Vice President, now the President and Elect will also deliver remarks about COVID-19 and the economy. The coronavirus pandemic really shapes so much of Biden's messaging over the course of the final months of his campaign. And now, it will shape the early stages of his transition period. He is making it clear that he does not want to wait until he is in the White House to start addressing this crisis that is affecting so many people across the country. Now, Biden has vowed that his response will be guided by scientists and experts and he is making good on that promise when he reveals this board tomorrow. Among the leaders of this board are the Former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. There's also a Former Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. David Kessler and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith of Yale University. They will be the people leading this dozen or so advisory task force that will be consulting Biden on everything he needs to do regarding to the coronavirus pandemic.

[23:05:00]

You have also seen the Biden campaign release a little bit of a blueprint of what they want to put into action in those first days in office. That includes expanding testing, as well as contact tracing. They also want to make sure that people have access to PPE and when there is a vaccine, they want to ensure that it is free and available to all Americans. So, Biden from the get go, trying to make clear that the coronavirus pandemic will be a top priority for him not just in this transition, but when he makes it to the White House in January. Pam?

BROWN: All right, we will keep an eye on those remarks from Biden tomorrow. Thanks for bringing us the latest on that front, Arlette. And joining me now to talk about all of this is CNN Senior Political Analyst, Ryan Lizza Chief Washington Correspondent for Politico. Good to see you Ryan.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, good to see you.

BROWN: So let's start with this reporting I have tonight. I spoke to some sources who confirmed that President Trump's campaign is planning a messaging blitz to fuel its argument that the election was stolen like holding campaign style rallies, just really pushing out this message like we are seeing from some of the President's surrogates, including his kids. So you, sort of, see this PR aspect of it. I mean, will this effort change anything? What do you think the end game is for this?

LIZZA: You know. I don't think so. I have been talking to a lot of Trump people today, White House Officials, Former Officials, Campaign Advisers and Daniel Littman, Politico's Daniel Lippman and Meridith McGraw and I will have a story out tomorrow about some of this. But one thing that we found, we did not interview a single Trump White House official or outside adviser who truly believes that Trump can prevail, right? There is not - the people around, the people who work in the White House, just they are sending their resumes up to the hill and to other people they know it's over, even if the President doesn't.

So that is one thing that I picked up today is that even some of his hardcore supporters in the White House don't believe any of this lawsuits have any chance of changing the results. Because there's just too many states that would have to be overturned at this point. The second thing is - but there seems to be a split between some people on the campaign and some people on the White House. The campaign is still - some people in the campaign are still pushing this. I was told by one person just to piggyback on your excellent reporting about the rallies.

I was told by one adviser that they wanted to do - some people were pushing Trump to do those rallies as soon as tomorrow night. So, it seems like that is, you know, I don't know if it's going to happen tomorrow night, seems unlikely in that - such a short timeframe. But that seems to be what is being pushed on President Trump by his, you know, hardcore campaign advocates and obviously other people are pushing in the other direction saying these legal disputes are not going to go anywhere and eventually you are going to need to concede.

BROWN: Right, you are seeing these warring factions. It is interesting about the rallies because my colleague Sarah Westwood and I had this reporting before the election about how, that they were already planning post election rallies.

LIZZA: Right.

BROWN: They were assuming that this was going to be the case, right? And it will be interesting to see what kind of role President Trump plays, because he has not really frontier (ph). And so will he be part of these rallies or will he not? That's what I am going to keep an eye on. Here is something now, so as you mentioned the people you have been speaking with and me too, they don't really think that they are going to change the outcome of the election by winning this lawsuits.

But one person I spoke to Ryan, he said that the Trump campaign has been tossed around the Trump campaign this idea of running out the clock so that they could put forth a slate of Republican electors that would support Trump and stays where Biden won. Of course December 8th is a critical day for that. It's a Safe Harbor Day, elector's gets together on December 14th to cast their votes. What are you hearing about that? Do you think that strategy would actually work?

LIZZA: I don't. I mean that strategy has been, you know, that strategy was sort of, whispered about weeks ago before the election really picked up momentum and where it looked like it might be a razor thin election. If Biden had not won Pennsylvania right, and he just won Arizona but not Pennsylvania and not Georgia, which it seems like he's likely to win. If he had hit - there's a scenario where he would just hit 270 Electoral Votes. Under that scenario I think the flipping of electoral strategy would be extremely tempting for the Trump campaign.

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And I think the Biden campaign would genuinely have to worry about that because there is a process for that. It could be done. I think now he is in the likely to be in the, you know, somewhere in about 306 electoral votes range, that is a very different thing and flipping that many electors in multiple states.

One, to my surprise actually even some of the Trump - President Trump's more severest supporters I have seen some of them say, that is a terrible idea. That's worse than the Democrats, you know, court packing plan. Which a lot of Republicans disagree with and they would not go along with that. So I think he will find resistance even among his hardcore supporters, especially people in the conservative legal world. So I just - I think it may be tried. It's being talked about. But it just seems so unlikely.

BROWN: There is a lot of things that have to align and it seems to be a long shot. But what it tells you is that they are grasping for straws at this point in the Trump campaign to try to figure out any path to win. And I am curious from folks that you have spoken to, and all of your sources. You know, on this campaign blitz to hold rallies and so forth. Have you spoken to people who sort of know that he is not going to win, that they are not going to win this legal battle but they still want this push to say the election was rigged. Do they understand the threat to democracy that could have it? They convince millions of people that Joe Biden was not duly elected?

LIZZA: You know that is such a good question. And I have to say no. There's a real mismatch when you talk to people in Trump world where it's almost just normal to talk about the President doing things that are really, you know, out of line with the history of the presidency and to kind of that is just how Trump is, and we all have to kind of wait for him to accept that he has lost. And in the meantime, he may bull dose some norms. I can't say I hear a lot of self reflection about that and how damaging that is. People around him are just sort of used to that and there's a lot of, kind of, you know shrugging and that's just the way it is.

I will say one - the three questions I have about what Trump does going forward is. One, does he invite President-Elect Biden to the White House? And does he actually attend the inauguration? And I got a range to predictions on that from people around Trump but I will say the conventional wisdom it seems to be leaning towards Trump will not concede once he exhausts this legal options. Will not invite Biden and will not go to the inaugural. Obviously that could change, but that was more people were saying that, predicting that than the opposite.

And on these rallies, one person said, if he does the rallies I just hope he does them in Georgia, right. So there are these two Georgia senate races Trump proved to be - he obviously, it looks like he's going to lose Georgia, but he is very important from motivating the Republican base. And it's an open question about whether he will go down there and campaign for those two Republican senate candidates. What I picked up tonight were some people trying to steer him in the direction if he want to do a rally. Going to do it for this Republicans, you know maybe that you know you could divert his energies that way.

Brown: Although - yes, I think you are right. We will have to see how it plays out. And really quick on the conceding, you make a really good point on that. On people just not thinking - and he will concede, but it is important to point out as well, Ryan that it would be a breaking of a norm of a tradition. But there - it has no legal bearing. The President does not have to formally concede for the transition to happen, exactly. So, but they will be interesting to noteworthy nonetheless if the President does not formally concede. Ryan thank you, excellent reporting from you, great discussion. Thanks so much.

LIZZA: Same with you Pam. Good to see you.

BROWN: Well, many people who voted for President Trump simply cannot believe that ballots are still legally being counted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's legal for them to count votes in Pennsylvania two days after the election on November 3rd.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are wrong. Go, I don't even want to talk to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Still ahead, why it's so hard for some to watch the electoral process to play out. And then later, this is what it looked like when President George H. W. Bush welcomed the man who beat him for re- election in 1992. Up next, while we are not likely to see the same graciousness and humility this time around.

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[23:15:00]

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BROWN: Well, the United States is on track to pass ten million coronavirus cases in just a matter of days. More than 100,000 new cases added today, just a day after the nation reported the highest number of new infections of a single day since the pandemic began. But it's not just cases. Deaths and hospitalizations are also ticking up. As of now, not a single state in the nation is trending in the right direction.

Look at this map right here, and that shows it all. President-Elect Joe Biden is already making the virus the biggest item in his agenda and he is expected to deliver remarks following a briefing with the new COVID task force tomorrow. Earlier I spoke with Former Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett who told me just why Joe Biden is uniquely qualified to handle the virus.

VALERIE JARRETT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: President- Elect Biden has been. He served for eight years as Vice President.

[23:20:00]

He has been through inheriting a crisis when he walked in the door with President Obama. We were in the middle of an economic crisis. He has been following the science and has had advisers all along who had been forming him how we could get our arms around this pandemic.

And in fact, Pamela, having been through the Ebola crisis and H1N1 and Zika. We left the Trump administration a playbook on how they could have got there and around this. They tossed that playbook in the garbage, but you know what we still have that playbook. So I am confident that he will be able to hit the ground running, but not with the benefit of support from President Trump. BROWN: So joining me now is a Dr. Abdul El-Sayed CNN Political Commentator, Epidemiologist and Former Detroit Health Commissioner. Thank you so much Doctor for coming on, a lot of stuff important to talk about. You heard Valerie Jarrett there mention that without Trump supporting Joe Biden's transition. It could add a layer of difficulty to some of these early action plans. How damaging could that be to the new task force's agenda if there's isn't cooperation with this administration?

DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, we certainly want everybody signing from the same hymn. The fact the matter though is that, there is a lot of implicit leadership that having a functional coronavirus task force, that is led by scientists and experts, that is speaking about what needs to be done in the coming 72 days until he takes office. And then, after his administration begins, it's going to be critical.

And I think, there's also just a morale leadership that comes from having a President-Elect who is willing to say, basic things like put on a mask to protect yourself and your family, social distance to make sure that we take on this spike in the pandemic. And so while I am worried about just how much information the Trump administration is willing to share with the transition. I also know that having somebody who is elected, who is willing to lead on the science is going to be critical.

BROWN: It's been kind of crazy frankly to watch how this pandemic has been politicized and one of the members already named to lead the team Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. And Obama point that he was fired by the Trump administration is part of Biden's task force. What does it say to you about the direction this team is heading? And what do they need to do to get everyone on the same page, considering how much it's all been politicized.

EL-SAYED: Well, I tell you this. This is going to be a task force that is led by scientist and experts. I know the Former Surgeon General. He is somebody who always puts the science first and takes his policy and political cues from there. This is not a political exercise. This is an exercise in building out an administration to take on the biggest single set of issues that we faced. The number of cases is rising. The number of hospitalizations is going through the roof. And the number of deaths is rising too.

And then, if you look at the economic consequences of the pandemic, we all know that we have to take on the pandemic first. And so this is going to be a group of experts who come together, bring the best analysis of the science and lead forward on what this administration can do to take on the pandemic and it's going to be quite a different take from what we have seen out of the current administration, the Trump administration in having a set of scientists who are certainly trustworthy people like Dr. Fauci. But then just not listening to them and the pointing people who are not experts, who say what the President wants them to say. This is a very different exercise in having the science speak and then the transition and the future administration listen. BROWN: So Biden has so far stopped short of saying he lock down the country. As we have seen with this pandemic, it really depends on individual behavior, people getting the memo to wear you mask, social distancing and so forth. What can he actually do that's different to change the course of this virus?

EL-SAYED: Well, certainly provide basic moral leadership that says, hey it's is a good thing to wear a mask, you should be proud to be protecting yourself, your loved ones and the community around you. And that can start right now. In fact, you've been showing it the entire campaign. But beyond that there are a lot of things that the federal government should have been doing since the beginning of this pandemic. Whether it's making sure that our brave healthcare workers on the front lines have the personal protective equipment that they need.

Making sure that we have a steady testing surplus, so that everybody one can get a test when they need a test, making sure that we have a robust contact tracing program that is moving forward. And then as a vaccine or multiple vaccines come online and are proven safe and effective in clinical studies the ability to actually make sure that you're deploying those vaccines in an effective way so that a vaccine turns into vaccinations in people's arms in the kind of immunity that we know it can bring in. So there's a lot that the federal government needs to be able to do and can do if you take a science and evidence based approach, as it's very clear that the Biden transition is doing.

BROWN: All right. Dr. El-Sayed, thank you.

EL-SAYED: Thank you.

[23:25:00]

BROWN: Well, several world leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu, Emmanuel Macron even the Saudi Crown Prince have congratulated Joe Biden on winning the Presidential Election, you maybe surprised by the American law makers who have yet to reach out to the President-Elect will tell you who they are. Up next.

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BROWN: Well, President-Elect Joe Biden picked up his phone on Sunday to hear a familiar voice. It was Former President George W. Bush congratulating him on a victory over President Donald Trump. President Bush has largely stayed out of politics since leaving office. But the Republican praised Joe Biden as a good man, writing in a statement, the American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld and its outcome is clear.

[23:30:00]

Well, the outcome isn't clear to President Trump or at least he is acting like it's not. He continues to cast doubt on the integrity of the election, refusing to accept that America did not choose him. Though there were more than 70 million votes in his favor but it was Joe Biden who won. So it is no coincidence that Bush's call is an exception to the party norm. Biden's phone isn't exactly ringing off the hook with warm messaging from city and GOP lawmakers. In fact, only two Republicans Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski have congratulated the President-Elect.

Beside me we're going to show you on the screen are all the names of United States Senators who haven't even acknowledged a clear Joe Biden victory since he cross the winning threshold of 270 electoral votes. Some have said nothing at all. Some have made neutral comments about the President's rights to pursue legal challenges and some including South Carolina's Lindsay Graham have even played into Trump false notion of a stolen election urging him to keep fighting, add Senator Cruz to that list.

But each person you saw in that screen has stopped short of saying adequately that Joe Biden is the rightful winner of a free and fair election. Just leave it there. And joining me now to discuss this, and what this means is CNN Political Commentator and Former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings and Bakari Sellers all a CNN Political Commentator and Former South Carolina State Representative. First off, thank you both for staying up late, it is much appreciated.

There is a lot to talk about and Scott I am going to go to you first because I want to talk about your old boss. The Former President George W. Bush, other Former Republican leaders like Condoleezza Rice, they have come forward to congratulate President-Elect Biden. Yet many current Republican leaders that I just pointed out there are hedging their words, they are hesitating or staying silent all together. That's even some among their ranks back the President's baseless effort - effort rather to contest the election result. How is that acceptable?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, look, I think what most Republicans say is that it looks like Joe Biden is ahead, that if the President has valid claims to adjudicate there's a process to do that. And then once those claims are either validated or invalidated then we will move forward from there. I think that's the majority of opinion in the Republican Party.

But it's obvious that Joe Biden has more votes at the moment and if we - and if the Trump people have evidence of any kind of thing that would change that, I assume we will know it in short order. I assume they will be in the court this week with actual evidence. If they don't have actual evidence this will all fall apart rather quickly and I think you will see the transition fall into play.

So I'm not surprised by the way that President Bush called Former Vice President Biden because he is a great man and he's a magnanimous person and he is always been someone who is been, you know, exhibited that attitude, so it didn't shock me at all that he put out such a gracious statement.

BROWN: OK. I am going to press you a bit on this, on this idea of taking it to the court. We're going to let it play out and so forth. The GOP had challengers there during the process of going through these ballots. Before the election, they could have challenged it. If there was fraud, we should have heard about it then, we should have heard about it on Election Day and then as soon as it become clear that the President was going to win, suddenly there's all this allegations without evidence to back them up, that there was something afoot going on.

And the lawsuits that they have filed so far really have not made much head way, the ones that they have one, have been - have made such a little difference and not moving the needle. Doesn't - isn't there risk for Republicans getting oxygen these claims and rallying up the President's base by setting up the false expectation or staying silent about this idea these results can be overturned?

JENNINGS: Well, I don't think they are giving oxygen to the claims. I mean surely you're not suggesting that the court system isn't available to a Presidential campaign or any campaign for that matter the things they have valid claim. Look, I don't know what they have right now. They say they are going to court this week. Like I said my presumption is if they have something, we will know about it in short order. So far they don't have much, and this will come to an end here very quickly.

But I think it would be improper, frankly to tell a presidential campaign or any other person in America that the court system is not available to you. It's available to everyone else. And so - but the burden is on them to bring forward evidence and we will see if they have it, I have my doubts. I think Joe Biden has won this election. But that does not mean that the courts don't exist to adjudicate and validate or invalidate the claims that are been made.

BROWN: Absolutely. But we have been asking, what's the evidence? And so far we have not seen it. But we will see this week what they have in their back pocket allegedly. All right, Bakari, let's talk about this. What is next for the President-Elect's transition if President Trump does not concede, are there legal issues that could come up here, if President Trump refuses to recognize that legitimately lost or is it just more of a symbolic showing?

[23:35:00]

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, concession is not something this in the constitution when you talk about the transfer of power. Once you get to 270 electoral votes you can be a sore loser or you won't that's not necessary. But I think that most people understand that transferring power, they are going from one administration to another is a huge task, it's a huge undertaking, especially during the middle of the pandemic that is a two-fold pandemic that is causing issues on both the economic front and the public health front. And so, that is why Joe Biden is actually rolling those things out in transition, and taking those things very seriously.

I know for a fact, from speaking to people in the campaign and around the campaign, that they are focused just directly right now on making sure that on day one of inauguration they are hitting the ground running and doing all the things necessary regardless of what Donald Trump will do. I mean, I anticipate Donald Trump probably is going to travel the country and do rallies and all the other things while he is acting aggrieved. I anticipate that if he does have a concession speech, it's going to be about him and not anybody else. And so, those things don't really matter, preparing the next administration to run the government is the most important thing, whether or not Donald Trump wants to play ball or not.

BROWN: So let's talk about this transition period and the future. President-Elect Biden he spoke a lot about compromise in his speech last night, Scott. We know progressives want a seat at the table in the Biden/Harris administration. Yes, listen to this warning from a Republican who backed Biden, Former Ohio Governor John Kasich.

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JOHN KASICH (R) FORMER OHIO GOVERNOR: I think that Joe Biden is in a perfect situation. He cannot let the left try to move him way left. It won't work. So he can be who he is. Which is basically a center left Democrat. And the Democrats had better be very careful, these business of defunding the police or you know these wild economic schemes that smack of, you know, the Republicans called him on it. On socialism, it won't work. And they will get slaughtered in 2022 if they go in that direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, Scott how does President-Elect Biden balance the two sides if he wants to leave up to his promise of bipartisan ship, how does he do it?

JENNINGS: Well, it's a big job. I'm sort of amused that the Republicans who backed Joe Biden that now presuming to instruct him on how to manage his own party. I mean if you're worried about left leaning government, you would not back the left leaning candidate in the ace but I guess that's not here nor there. I think Joe Biden's speech last night was exactly right. I mean, the tone was correct. The message was correct. It's exactly what America wants to hear. Now the question is, does his party want to hear it?

You've got allies of the Former Vice President. You've got prominent members of congress. You've got all kind of folks out there, circulating recrimination and enemies list and talking about truth and reconciliation commissions and all kinds of crazy things out there. That's not the kind of, message that Joe Biden delivered last night. So I actually think Pam, he has got two issues. One is to calm down the blood thirstiness on the American left and two, find a way to govern the country that does not alienate some of the moderates that came his way in the election who had it with Donald Trump's antics. It's not an easy job. But the American people voted for divided government, they did not vote to give either party too much power. And I think all the politicians and both parties would be smart to heed that message.

BROWN: And Bakari, you know you had the challenge of bringing his party together. But also, there are more than 70 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump. Donald Trump is not going away. He is, you know, for - from everything that we can tell, he is going to try to stay in the spotlight. There is still an ecosystem, a right wing meeting ecosystem out there where he can continue to get his message out. So, what does Joe Biden do? How does he unite the country when you have such a divided country that is so obvious with this election? What does he need to do?

SELLERS: I have to chuckle a lot like Scott Jennings for a different reason. Hearing John Kasich lecture Democrats on what we should do and warning us on how to govern. With all due respect to Governor Kasich, the real reason that Joe Biden is President of the United States is because of black and brown coalition that he put together, progressive coalition, young people who pushed him over the top, especially in these major cities even across the heartland. So that's first.

Second, I mean, I think there are lot of things that this President can do, that bring this country together in a bipartisan fashion, whether or not you are talking about policy, and things such as infrastructure. We have been having an infrastructure this week, every month for four years, it has not passed.

[23:40:00]

Whether or not you are talking about some of the things that you know went forward on statewide ballots in the past week's election. Such as marijuana even in deeply red states passing or a minimum wage that passed.

I mean, there are lots of things, there are lots of policy issues that this President can lead on, which I expect him to do. The difference though between this President and Donald Trump from the top is going to be tone and thinner. I mean, he is going to cool the temperature down, especially when it comes to the rhetoric. And you know, people want to make these red herrings about the Democratic Party and about Joe Biden in regards to defund the police and Medicare for all.

The Democratic Party voted for Joe Biden in the primary. And he was against all of those things. And so, I just think that that there's going to be a lot of rhetoric thrown back and forth on each side. And Joe Biden is going to governor just fine. He just actually has to get the keys to the White House first.

BROWN: All right. That is - that would be key. Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers thank you gentlemen. Great to see you both.

JENNINGS: Same.

SELLERS: Thanks.

BROWN: Well, it's not just President Trump baselessly claiming that the election was stolen, many of his supporters say the exact same thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't think there's any way that Trump could have lost? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

WALKER: Yes. How do you go from almost losing 200,000 and in five hours you are down to 30,000 votes away from winning?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, where do these false claims begin? That's next.

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[23:45:00]

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BROWN: Well, it's not just President Trump pushing baseless claims about election fraud, some of his supporters are also convinced that the election was stolen. CNN'S Donie O'Sullivan went to Pennsylvania, the state that ultimately made Joe Biden the President to see how they are dealing with the news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Trump is still your President!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's legal for them to count votes in Pennsylvania two days after the election on November 3?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are wrong. Go, I don't even want to talk to you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that Donald Trump won the election. I believe that they tried to steal the election.

O'SULLIVAN: Stop the steal. A movement of Trump supporters that gained hundreds of thousands of followers online in the hours after the election has inspired protests across the country. The ballots that you said you saw lying around the place or in trash cans or whatever, where are you hearing that from?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, the videos are going viral everywhere. I have seen them on TikTok. I have seen them on Facebook. I have seen them on Fox News. I have seen them on the local news around my area.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have seen too much pieces of different evidence so far that shows that at this point, I would be OK with a revote.

O'SULLIVAN: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, absolutely. When you have video footage of people taking bags of ballots and showing that they are for Donald Trump and lighting them on fire.

O'SULLIVAN: I helped write a fact check on CNN on that particular video. The election officials said that video has been going around for a few ways. They are print out ballots and they are not real ballots.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you say, you use the information of the election officials.

O'SULLIVAN: Somebody like me comes along, tries to research it, tries to fact check it and then I fact check it, you come back and say, well, the election officials would say that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But wouldn't they though? That's the thing though. Question everything, right?

O'SULLIVAN: The video actually showed sample ballots. Not real ballots. The video's assertion is false, but even the President's son tweeted it to his millions of followers. Election officials from where the sample ballots were from told CNN they had spent days trying to correct the online misinformation.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we went to bed on election night when they told us they stopped counting. We woke up and there was vertical spike right for Biden a 130,000 votes approximately, that's when I knew there was a problem.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now as my buddy Steve Brannon (ph) said, if you are going to lie, be believable about it because you do not have 138,000 votes coming in and 135,000 on them coming in for Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what I think you guys might have been talking about on election night, Michigan, 138,000. This was from a website called Decision Desk HQ that they came out and said, we messed up. There was an error and how votes came back and were reported and that's why there was this spike in the math. But, you know, the election officials in Michigan then all confirmed to say yes, there was this error, they are not real ballots those ballots have never existed.

O'SULLIVAN: President Trump himself even shared a post about the Michigan error, twitter labeled his post as misinformation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concerned that just as people on the left can fall for misinformation that maybe sometimes you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I am sure, yes, I mean I am very thorough with the information I look at. I have my opinions, obviously. But I am not just going go around and retweeting false information or things that I believe it's just - I look at things that are suspicious.

O'SULLIVAN: Some people at the protest told us to delay the news outlets projecting a winner contributed on to their belief that Biden stole the election. [23:50:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America first or else it's going to be America last.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes. You don't think there is anyway Joe could have lost?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

O'SULLIVAN: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. How do you go from almost losing 200,000 in 5 hours you're down to 30,000 votes away from winning?

O'SULLIVAN: A lot of Democrats voted in the mail, they voted absentee, they voted before Election Day. And in a lot of states, those Election Day votes got counted first. That's why Trump had that early lead. And then once those other votes are getting counted, that is how Biden caught up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So where are all the Trump ballots that were mailed in? Why are we finding them laying around in different places?

O'SULLIVAN: But Trump was telling everybody not to mail it in, right. That's why there is more mail-in Democratic votes you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

O'SULLIVAN: Many of the false claims alleging voter fraud spread on social media. Facebook and Twitter labeled some as a misinformation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that's wrong. That's not their place. We're like one big science experiment for social media. If I'm seeking a certain viewpoint and I seem - and they seem to see that I favor that viewpoint more, that's the viewpoint that they're going to feed me. And then on the other side is going to get a different viewpoint.

O'SULLIVAN: Does that concern you as a Facebook user?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean it concerns me, yes, because of the fact that unfortunately, people fail to think for themselves. They feed into everything that they're seeing without questioning it.

O'SULLIVAN: Viral misinformation there been used in a way and an attempts to undermine the fundamentals of American democracy. And you saw on that piece, it's not just Trump supporters, its President Trump himself. And Pamela as you reported this evening in the days and weeks ahead, as the President might continue to try and call this election into question, no matter how baselessly, it's possible and likely that he is going to be relying on some of this same viral misinformation, so a huge challenge potentially in the weeks ahead.

BROWN: That was really an eye-opening piece. Donie O'Sullivan, thank you. Meantime, President Trump is still refusing to concede to President-Elect Joe Biden, now joining a list of only 10 elected Presidents who lost their re-election campaign. And we know that many of them like President Trump are deeply affected by defeat. How did they handle it? Well there were two examples.

The first defeated incumbent President was John Adams who lost reelection in a bitter campaign against Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Adams left office with dignity. But the two didn't speak for 12 years until Jefferson decided to write a letter to Adams. It opened up a floodgate of correspondence. And actually they formed a close bond that lasted until they both died, which happened to be on the exact same day, July 4th.

And then there is the last defeated incumbent President, George H. W. Bush, who lost reelection to Bill Clinton in 1992, knows from outgoing to incoming President have become a tradition, but the letter Bush left for Clinton in the oval office really stands out. It reads, Dear Bill, when I walked into the office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago.

I know you will feel that, too. I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described. There will be very tough times, maybe even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I'm not a very good one to give advice, but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish you family well. Your success now is our country's success. I'm rooting hard for you. Good luck, George.

Well, much like former rivals, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Bush and Clinton ended up forming an unlikely friendship, examples to the rest of the nation that the ideals of America and the transition of power are bigger than any one party or political grievance or one person and both began with a simple gesture, a letter, illustrating the power of grace and victory and defeat. What will be the power of President Trump's example?

Thank you for joining me tonight. "CNN Newsroom" continues with Michael Holmes after a quick break.

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