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Interview With Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY); Pandemic Exploding; Joe Biden Wins Georgia. Aired 3-3:30p ET.

Aired November 13, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: He certainly does have some learning to do.

Dana Bash, thank you so much.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Bri.

KEILAR: Our special coverage continues now with Brooke Baldwin.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Here we go on this Friday afternoon. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Let's roll right to it, the breaking news.

CNN projects that, for the first time since Bill Clinton in 1992, the state of Georgia is blue, president-elect Joe Biden projected to take Georgia's 16 electoral votes. That brings his electoral vote total to 306.

Also this afternoon, more breaking news. CNN can also project that President Trump is set to win North Carolina and its 15 electoral votes, bringing his total count to 232.

Let's go straight to the to the Magic Wall and our CNN political director, David Chalian.

And so, David, Georgia, major flip for the Democrats.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: No doubt about that. And there it is for the history books, Brooke, 306 to 232.

That is exactly the electoral count that it was four years ago, but in reverse.

BALDWIN: So wild.

CHALIAN: Donald Trump had 306. He called that a landslide. So, I guess Joe Biden gets to call this a landslide, according to Donald Trump's definition, 306 to 232. Mark it down. That's the history of the 2020 election.

And you are right to note, as I flip here to the popular vote, which you see Joe Biden winning by 5.3 million votes right now nationwide, in Georgia, what happened here is nothing short of astounding, OK?

Joe Biden wins by 14,152 votes. That's where the vote count is now. We know there's a statewide recount under way. We will see what that final vote total looks like a week from now, when the state certifies its vote, but Joe Biden's going to win that state. Donald Trump is not going to be able to overcome him.

And it largely has to do with what we saw go on here in Atlanta and the suburbs, just explosive turnout there for Joe Biden, as the suburbs across America have been leaning a little more Democratic.

That is what helped him in Georgia, as well as an African-American turnout that was critical for Joe Biden's success as well. You noted no Democrats done this since 1992. And it's been a decade-long project for the Democrats.

BALDWIN: Stacey Abrams, New Georgia Project, Fair Fight, all of that, working hard, grassroots. We will see how it all shakes out the beginning of January when it comes to the Senate run-offs.

David Chalian, thank you so much.

Let's go straight to the White House now to Kaitlan Collins, who's standing by.

And we know, Kaitlan, the president is supposed to speak next hour. Have we heard anything from the White House in the wake of these projections? And I got to ask the question, is the president going to be ready to concede this thing?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm going to answer last question, and based on what we have heard from people who spoke with the president in the last 24 hours, that answer is no. They do not believe the president is going to concede, even though, looking at those numbers that David just showed us, Biden obviously has a clear victory, as he's had for several days.

But, notably, Brooke, when it comes to Georgia, the Trump campaign was mocking the Biden campaign and Democrats for spending any time in Georgia, spending any money in Georgia, saying, if they wanted to waste their money, go ahead, because they did not believe Democrats were going to be able to flip the state.

And now they have flipped the state. And, yes, you can expect the campaign is going to point to the recount that's happening. But I think many people, including Republican county officials in the state of Georgia, are doubtful it's actually going to change the outcome of this race and whether or not Biden has won.

And so that's the question going forward. Of course, now this brings Biden's total to what the president's total was in 2016, when he called it a shellacking and often touted those numbers of the votes that he got for the last four years, since he's been in office, even keeping a map of the states that he won ready to go in the Oval Office to pass out to anyone who came in.

So, we will hear from the president shortly in the next hour. It's unclear if he's going to take questions. But this is only the second time, Brooke, that we actually are going to hear from the president since he lost the election.

BALDWIN: We will stay tuned. We will take it live.

Kaitlan, let me also ask you about this while I have you. We're learning that the CIA director, Gina Haspel, was just, I believe the phrasing was iced out of this key meeting with the president today, as a lot of people are fearing that he may be firing her next.

What do you know about that?

COLLINS: Yes, there has been a lot of speculation that she is going to be fired.

It's not clear where the president has ultimately landed on that, but there have been many discussions at the White House, I can say, this week about it. And now she is not being invited to this intelligence briefing here at the White House this afternoon with President Trump, the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, other senior intelligence officials.

It's not something that it's mandatory for the CIA director to come to, but, typically, you would see the CIA director invited to something like that. Certainly, when Mike Pompeo led the CIA, he would have been someone who was invited to a briefing such as this.

So, whether or not it spells doom for her future is still another question. But people have not been confident that the president is going to keep Gina Haspel around because he has been complaining about her for months.

And so the question is whether or not he bites the bullet and does actually terminate her, after he fired the defense secretary just a few days ago.

[15:05:05]

BALDWIN: We will stay tuned. Kaitlan, thank you at the White House.

Let's go to CNN's Jason Carroll. He's live at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, where the president-elect has a vacation home. And so, all right, Georgia has now turned blue. That has to be huge, huge news for team Biden.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Huge news.

And, Brooke, it's just another sign, from team Biden's point of view, that this administration, the Trump administration, needs to go on ahead and acknowledge what the rest of the country has basically voted for, and has mandated, that president-elect Joe Biden is, in fact, the president-elect, and things need to start to move forward with this transition.

As you know, the General Services Administration still, at this point, has not signed that much needed paperwork to allow the Biden administration to get much of the funds and get access to the resources that they need. They're still not getting those intelligence briefings that they want and that they need.

And on a press call this afternoon, just this afternoon, before all this happened with Georgia, team Biden made it very clear that they don't want to have a food fight -- their words, not mine -- with the GSA, with the General Services Administration.

But, look, they need those intelligence briefings. They need to know what team Trump is doing in terms of their COVID response. The incoming new White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, talked a little bit about this in a recent interview that he basically did, and he talked about the potential impact of not knowing what Trump is doing and their team is doing in terms of the COVID response, how that could impact Biden's response going forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON KLAIN, INCOMING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We're in a COVID crisis. Right now, right now, there are officials inside the Department of Health and Human Services who are busy planning a vaccination campaign for the months of February and March, when Joe Biden will be president.

And so, the sooner we can get our transition experts into meetings with the folks who are planning the vaccination campaign, the more seamless the transition from a Biden presidency to a Trump presidency can be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: So, again, Brooke, from team Biden's perspective, what's happening, what happened in Arizona before, what's now just happened with Georgia, is again another sign that the Trump administration needs to acknowledge what's happening here -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Again, we will hear from the president less than an hour from the Rose Garden. Jason, thank you.

Let's talk about all of this afternoon. I have got with me CNN senior political analyst Ryan Lizza. He's the chief Washington correspondent for Politico. And Laura Barron-Lopez, national political reporter for Politico.

So, welcome to both of you, and really same question to both of you.

Laura, I want to start with you.

So, the news, as of today, Biden takes Arizona, he's now got Georgia. We know the Trump lawsuits are getting dropped left and right. What do you think Trump says when he speaks next hour? LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, all indications, as

Kaitlan highlighted, are that the president is not going to concede this race, and he's nowhere near acknowledging the reality.

In an interview with "The Washington Examiner" that came out today, Trump again refused to acknowledge the reality that he has lost the election. So, even though his lawsuits, as you said, Brooke, are getting thrown out, not only in Arizona, where they withdrew that one, but also in Michigan, a lawsuit that they had to not count certain ballots was denied.

And so, I mean, it's just a refusal to acknowledge reality from the president. And a lot of Republicans are continuing to go along with him.

BALDWIN: We're hearing, Ryan, that the Trump children are split on how their father should be handling this publicly. We have heard, obviously, rumblings about Trump 2024. There may never be a concession, ever, from this man. What do you think he says?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Myself and two other reporters at Politico had a piece earlier in the week or last week -- it's all sort of fading together -- and we talked to 16 different people inside the White House, campaign people, White House Trump advisers.

And not a single one of them believed that Trump had any chance of overcoming Biden in electoral votes, that none of the litigation was going to go anywhere, none of the recounts were going to change the results of these states, and there was no path to victory, which, of course, is the reality of the situation.

And all -- and so I thought that alone was interesting, that nobody around him that knows about politics agrees with this. And, two, one person at the White House said, look, he's never going to concede. He is not going to invite Joe Biden to the White House for the traditional meeting, which in previous transitions would have already happened.

And he's likely not going to go to the inauguration. Now, obviously, all that could change. This is what -- that was one White House official's opinion.

But the fact that that is the conventional wisdom there and that they just think he's going to sort of sulk through the transition, and not extend any of the kind of grace and courtesy that every other departing presidents -- president has extended, is -- it really says something about what kind of president and person, frankly, he is.

[15:10:25]

And I think the only way that will change is if people like his family, like Melania, people that actually can have some influence on him -- I don't think there are too many Republican officials who can, but family members might be able to -- to get him to understand that his legacy will be tarnished by treating the incoming president-elect this way. BALDWIN: Maybe, though, in a sense, he's hoping this is red meat for

his base, and they love it that he can stick it to the Democrats, and never actually concede.

And, as I pointed out, Laura, back over to you, we're hearing from -- according to some advisers telling -- from the president that maybe as soon as the race is officially certified for Biden that the president will come out and announce a 2024 run, which may ultimately be his own version of a concession.

And my question to you is, might that be when the Republican Party, like, the rest of the Republicans acknowledge this race, this president-elect, Joe Biden, or do you think it happens after the Georgia run-off?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I think that, if President Trump, as you said, Brooke, does come out and say, OK, I'm going to run in 2024, and by doing that, he's acknowledging that Biden is the president-elect, that we will see a number of Republicans acknowledge that Biden is the president-elect.

But I don't expect any change in their tactics or a break from Trumpism. As we have talked about a lot, Trumpism and Republicanism are wedded now. And if Trump is, in fact, going to launch another run for 2024, then Republicans are going to feel very beholden to him still and the potential political power that he wields.

I mean, there's nothing stopping him from continuing to hold rallies, despite the fact that, of course, we just found out recently that his rallies all the way leading up to election night potentially resulted in more than 100 Secret Service agents contracting COVID.

BALDWIN: Getting COVID, yes. Yes.

BARRON-LOPEZ: So, again, there's nothing stopping him from doing that again.

He could very well go quietly into the night and decide not to run, but, of course, all indications are that he may very well--

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go quietly into the night and Donald J. Trump in the same sentence doesn't entirely seem to fit.

LIZZA: Not happening.

BALDWIN: Not happening.

Ryan Lizza, the president's own Department of Homeland Security just call this the most secure election in history. And this is, of course, after the president's filing lawsuit after lawsuit claiming alleged voter fraud. Trump seemingly took credit for election security.

Let me read this tweet -- quote -- "For years, the Dems have been preaching how unsafe and rigged our elections have been. Now they're saying what a wonderful job the Trump administration did in making 2020 the most secure election ever. Actually, this is true, except for what the Democrats did. Rigged election."

And, Ryan Lizza, like, what's happening?

(CROSSTALK)

LIZZA: There's no internal consistency in that tweet, obviously.

I mean, elections also are run by states and counties and localities, with some assistance these days from DHS. But I think DHS was saying that they don't have any evidence of the things that we were really worried about, right, any kind of foreign hacking into machines or anything.

BALDWIN: No.

LIZZA: That's really important.

And, look, Trump should be -- the Trump administration should get credit for that. That is obviously very important.

Unfortunately, because of the information environments that a lot of voters live in, a lot of voters will leave 2020 believing that something happened. This is a message that has been spread from the president on down, a lot of prominent supporters.

If you read, if you watch certain networks and read certain corners of the Internet where the strongest Trump supporters gather, a lot of people believe what they have been told by the president. And that's dangerous. That's bad for our democracy, because everyone agreeing that the election was legit is foundational for supporting the legitimacy of the new president.

And Republicans will have to do quite a bit of work to change those minds. And, frankly, I'm not -- they haven't stepped up to do it so far. And I don't see how they will be incentivized to do that going forward.

And so Biden is going to enter office with a very -- he's -- one of his core campaign promises was unity. And this obviously makes that a lot more difficult, given how many Trump voters believe that he's not -- he wasn't elected legitimately.

[15:15:15]

BALDWIN: Well, I just think it's also worth pointing out none of the Republicans down-ballot seem to have had any issue with their own wins.

LIZZA: I mean, exactly.

And what kind of moronic plan was it to rig the election for Joe Biden, but forget about taking the Senate?

BALDWIN: Exactly. LIZZA: So, whoever was in charge at that, next time they rig it, they

should think about how important the Senate is.

BALDWIN: Ryan and Laura, thank you both so much. Great conversation.

And, again, just a reminder to everyone, we will be hearing from the president from the Rose Garden momentarily, when I say momentarily, within the next hour.

Also breaking news today, the coronavirus pandemic, of course, raging nationwide, sparking new record cases in hospitalizations across several states. We have new information for you on that today.

And as we're waiting to see President Trump, who, again, let me remind you, is set to make his first public comments in days -- that happens next hour -- will he concede the race?

Stay tuned. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:20:35]

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Another coronavirus record shattered, this time in the state of Illinois. Officials report a staggering 15,400 new infections today. Plus, they say more than 5,000 coronavirus patients are in the hospital. That is also a record.

And, of course, it's not just Illinois. Nationwide, more Americans are hospitalized than ever before with the virus. COVID cases across the country now top 10.5 million and still rising.

CNN's Nick Watt reports that, amid the alarming spike, there is some optimism.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: We can turn this around. It is not futile.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But turning this around will require discipline. And, right now, COVID fatigue is winning.

FAUCI: It's understandable. I don't want to be critical of that. But we want to just plead with them to understand the dynamics of this outbreak. If you do that, we will continue to soar.

WATT: Election Day, for the first time, the U.S. logged more than 100,000 new cases in 24 hours. Ever since, it's been 100,000-plus every day, 10 days straight. Thursday topped 150,000, a new record.

And Thursday, all of these states, 14 of them, posted all-time high case games.

In Utah, Lindsay Wootton lost her mom and grandfather to COVID-19.

LINDSAY WOOTTON, FAMILY MEMBER OF CORONAVIRUS VICTIMS: He said, "Kiddo, I'm not doing good." And she said, "Dad, I'm not either." And he said, "Tra (ph), I'm dying." And she said, "Dad, I am too." And he said, "Then I will look for you in heaven."

WATT: More than 438,000 will be dead in this country by March 1, killed by COVID-19, according to one well-known model. And if states relaxed restrictions, say those modelers, the toll could easily top half-a-million.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Unfortunately, right now, we're starting to enter this period where it is truly widespread throughout the country.

WATT: Look at South Dakota. A staggering 56 percent of tests are now coming back positive. Analysts say that's rampant spread. But Sioux Falls City Council just voted on a mask mandate. And?

PAUL TENHAKEN, MAYOR OF SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA: So, my official vote on this is a no. And that item fails 5-4.

WATT: A vote against science. That's part of the problem.

Flip side, take Newark, New Jersey. Their test positivity rate was just under 20 percent. So that city just implemented some overnight curfews.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I just think a little COVID fatigue. And people began to relax because we were doing so well. But I do believe, if things get out of control more than sort of they are now, that we do need to contemplate a national shutdown.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, this weekend, the governors of seven Northeastern states are going to hold a emergency COVID-19 summit to further coordinate their movements going forward.

And in New York City, the mayor says that the schools there might close down again as early as Monday, as the positivity rate there continues to climb.

BALDWIN: Nick Watt, thank you very much for all of that.

Back to our breaking news this afternoon. CNN projects president-elect Joe Biden wins Georgia.

We are expected to hear from President Trump next hour.

Our special coverage continues after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:55]

BALDWIN: Now back to our breaking news.

CNN can now project that Joe Biden has won the state of Georgia, turning the Peach State blue for the first time since Bill Clinton did in 1992.

So, that brings the president-elect's Electoral College haul to 306, which happens to be the exact same number that President Trump won in 2016. And let's all remember when he referred to it as a shellacking at 306, so a shellacking for president-elect Joe Biden there as well.

CNN can also project that President Trump is set to win North Carolina's 15 electoral votes. So, that brings President Trump's count to 232.

With me now, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from the state of New York.

So, Senator Gillibrand, it's nice to see you again.

Welcome.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): Hi. How are you doing?

BALDWIN: I'm -- how are you doing? Let's start with you.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: With regard to--

GILLIBRAND: That was a relative question. It's a relative question.

BALDWIN: You know, it's been a week. It's been a year.

Your party managed to turn Georgia blue for the first time in 28 years. Your thoughts on that?

GILLIBRAND: It's really exciting.

And it's terrific momentum to go into these run-off elections in January.