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As Trump Refuses To Concede, Pro-Trump Groups Protest Results; Biden Team Seeks Coronavirus Backchannels With Transition Locked Out; Obama Saying Trump's Refusal To Concede Will Cause Damage To County; Right-Wing Media Encouraging Trump's Election Denial; Georgia Begins Hand Recount Of Nearly Five Million Ballots. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired November 14, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for being with me. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

And today marks one week since the race was called for Joe Biden and President Trump still refuses to concede. His supporters hit the streets of D.C. today to protest the results of an election that experts say wasn't just fair but the most secure in U.S. history.

And there he goes. That was the president earlier today, his motorcade slowing down as he passed this group of enthusiastic supporters on his way to his golf resort in Virginia. And some things never change. Since day one in his administration, it has always been about the crowd size. On day 3,194, it is still about the crowd size.

The White House press secretary falsely tweeting more than 1 million marchers for President Donald Trump to send on the swamp in support. The reality, thousands, yes. More than a million, not so much. definitely not.

So the administration that began with a lie about the size of the inaugural crowd is coming to an end with a lie about the size of a protest crowd. But if they want to play numbers, there's always 306 versus 232. Joe Biden won this race.

CNN National Correspondent Sara Sidner is in D.C. with that crowd, people who along with the president are not convinced that the election is over. Also with us, CNN White House Correspondent Jeremy Diamond.

But, first, to Sara, what are those supporters of the president telling you here today?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- rally. This is a combination of a bunch of different rallies. One called a million MAGA march. There aren't a million people here, but there are thousands and thousands of people here. It is starting to break up. You'll see people kind of streaming out from in front of the Supreme Court, which is where the rallies sort of ended today. And there are speakers are still talking but the crowd definitely thinning out.

It has been, for the most part, peaceful, a couple of little tussles here and there. But there -- the thousands and thousands of people here, the real message that we keep hearing from the speakers all day today has been that they believe that Trump should be in office four more years.

They do not believe that this election was free and fair, they believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump, which indeed is not true if you talk to anyone who is in an official capacity who is looking at the vote count in each and every state. But that is the general feeling.

And we've talked to a lot of people. And one person that we spoke to talked about the fact that she feels like there has always been fraud in elections. I want to let you hear what she says. She was holding a stop the steal sign, which is one of the sayings that has been going on here and she talked about how she feels about the American election process.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: You don't believe anyone that says this is a free and fair election. You think --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely not.

SIDNER: Was 2016 a free and fair election?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was probably fraud then too. This swamp has gotten --

SIDNER: Do you think that Donald Trump won legitimately?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that the swamp is so deep that there is probably been fraud and cheating that have gone on for decades now.

SIDNER: So, why weren't you out here in 2016 if you thought there was fraud when Donald Trump won?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there's been some fraud in all of these elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And so you heard there is someone who believes there's been fraud all the time but then, again, what you do get from a lot of folks is they believe that the Republicans won their seats in Congress were free and fair. They believe Trump, the states he won, were mostly free and fair but they do not like the swing states that went for Biden.

So, you can see the dichotomy here. It's pretty clear that a lot of folks just are sore losers when it comes to this election. Because if you look at the numbers and you look at the number of states who have come out and said, we believe this was a free and fair election, including one of the people that Donald Trump appointed, a senior election security official, federal security official who said he just cannot believe what he is hearing from the president, that indeed he believes a lot of that is hogwash.

You are seeing a lot of folks here though that still believe this was a stolen election and they are not letting that go any time soon. They believe, and the reason why they're here at the Supreme Court is that, ultimately, the Supreme Court decides who wins this election.

[15:05:03]

But come January 20th, we will be seeing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take over the office once these votes are certified.

CABRERA: Right. This is no 2000. There's not just one state that's going to decide it all. Joe Biden won multiple states and President Trump just has to deal with that and his supporters. But it's hard. Obviously, there's a lot of passionate people out there.

Jeremy Diamond is at the White House. I'm wondering, Jeremy, are there any signs the president is closer to acknowledging that he lost?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, over the last week since Joe Biden was projected the winner of this presidential race, we have seen the president privately, according to our sources, kind of wavered between kind of a pugilistic attitude where he is vowing to continue to fight this to the end, seeing a possibility that he could overturn the results of the election and also at the same time, at other moments, beginning to quietly acknowledge the fact Joe Biden has won this race.

And yesterday, we saw perhaps the first even close to a public acknowledgement by the president that a Joe Biden presidency is at least a possibility. Listen to what the president said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully the -- whatever happens in this future, who knows, which administration it will be, I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Now, obviously, that's not quite a concession by the president but it is a difference from what we heard from him previously publicly which is to say he has won this election as he has been tweeting repeatedly and that it has been stolen from him. Here at least he is acknowledging the possibility of a potential Joe Biden administration.

At the same time though, the president's efforts in court have not been going well. Even just yesterday, we saw nine cases brought by the president or his allies denied or dropped in courts across the country in several key battleground states. And we should also note that as all of this is going on, as the president is denying this reality, he is mostly ignoring reality of a surge in coronavirus cases across the country. Yesterday, we saw the president talking about Operation Warp Speed but he hasn't been talking about what Americans should be doing now as we are seeing the surge in cases.

Instead, the president once again falsely claiming that the surge in cases across the country what has really been an explosion over this past week that it is due to increased testing in the United States, which is, of course, not true. Ana?

CABRERA: Now, we're seeing positivity rates skyrocket above 58 percent in places like South Dakota with 184,000 new cases of coronavirus in the U.S. yesterday. Thank you very much, Jeremy Diamond.

Joining us now is former White House Communications Director under President Trump, Anthony Scaramucci.

So, Anthony, what's your read on the president's comment saying, I guess time will tell about the election results?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Listen, I think he sort of knows and I think there was a tweet this morning that I think we have to give him credit for, which is calling for bipartisan cooperation to create the stimulus necessary for middle and lower income families.

It's not clear how much longer he can fight. I think one of the more troubling things that's going on right now is the GOP appeasement to President Trump. He has got 66 days to go in the seat that he's in and it's time for him to pack up. It's also time for him to concede.

Now, the chances of him conceding, in my opinion, Ana, are remote, but I do think the Republican Party, if they want to be a responsible agent of the American government, they need to give national security transition awareness to the Biden administration, the newly incoming Biden administration.

So, hopefully that will happen in the next week or so. I don't see any way out of this for President Trump in terms of him, quote, unquote, staying in that job.

CABRERA: So, if he goes bye-bye, do you ever think we will ever hear him publicly acknowledge that he will not be the president after January 20th?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, I think he will recognize that he's not the president but he will never concede. He will say that this was a rigged election. He will say that it was a framed election and it was a false outcome and he will call -- he will try to disenfranchise a very large group of people from the system, making them think falsely that there was something wrong with the system.

He was planning to do that in 2016. And so all he did was repackage that sort of branding. He fully expected to lose to Secretary Clinton in 2016. And he was going to tell everybody, well, this is rigged and there was no way for an outsider like me to win the election.

And so the fact that he won last time and the fact that he was repudiated this time and yet there were several House seats that flipped over to the Republicans is a sure sign that this thing was very accurate. And I've been pointing to people there are more people around the president that have COVID-19 cases than there are actual legitimate, fraudulent votes that have taken place in this election.

[15:10:00]

CABRERA: That's such a good point, I mean, in a place like Pennsylvania, for example, the lieutenant governor tweeted out today that they have identified two cases, two cases, total in the entire state of potential voter fraud that they will, of course, prosecute.

But, nonetheless, you have a very welcome audience if you're the president, as we are seeing in the nation's capitol today, who are accepting his message, accepting the lies, really, as they're there to support President Trump, many taking their cues from the president of the United States and his baseless claims on Twitter about widespread voter fraud, claims that are then parroted and echo chambers on T.V. and online. He clearly has a lot of power.

SCARAMUCCI: Does he though? I mean, it's a small group, maybe 15,000 to 25,000 people, that will be probably the estimate when it's done. So, I don't think he really has a lot of power.

CABRERA: But why else would you have Republican lawmakers then going along with this?

SCARAMUCCI: So, I mean, there -- it's profiles in cowardice. If John Kennedy was alive today particularly with those 52 senators, he'd be writing about each level of their cowardice and what they decided to do against the Constitution of the United States and against their responsibility. And so they're cowards. They don't want to be tweeted at from the president.

But I don't think he has that much power. And I think what happens with power, it is very fleeting, its half life accelerated exponentially. And by January 21st, he will be out of power. He'll also feel that humiliation that he's feeling. You could even see it yesterday in his press conference. I don't see the guy traveling around to diminishing crowds. It's just not his personality.

I will take you back to what happened to him in Oklahoma during the campaign. They said there would be hundreds of thousands people there, there were 6,000 people in a 20,000-person stadium. It's not his personality to be traveling around like as his power is diminishing and, ultimately, his base will diminish. Because, remember, if you can get the right policies in place, you will dissipate the anger of this base and then they won't need Mr. Trump or President Trump to be the avatar of their anger.

And so I don't -- I think this whole thing of him running again in 2024 and him being the titular head of a shadow government or shadow power inside the Republican Party, I just think it's a falsehood. I think Senator McConnell will be the head of the Republican Party on January 21st. Mr. Trump will have some say potentially but I think it's going to be way less than other people think because he will have already jumped the shark (ph) and people will look back on this level of rancor, this level of tribalism and anger, and say it's totally unnecessary and, frankly, it's un-American.

And so this show got cancelled. And when shows get canceled like this, people don't typically go back and watch them in reruns until many, many years later.

CABRERA: Aides say the president has seen downcast in the days following the election that he's lingered in the Oval Office for longer more than he normally does. What are you hearing from people you're talking to inside the administration about what is going on behind the scenes?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, I have to confess openly that I don't talk to anybody inside the White House anymore, so I'm not going to be able to give you a direct current there. I still talk to people inside the government. I still talk to people at different cabinet level positions. And, yes, the president is disconsolate and the president has been bantering about the conspiracy theory and the denial about the loss of the election.

But I think everyone that I've talked to and some very well senior well-known people said that he's going, he recognizes this is over, and I think that you saw that rub in the Department of Homeland Security, when he was trying to fire the cyber security person and his own cabinet secretary said, no, sorry, I'm not doing that, I'm pushing back on that. And that's just showing you the power decline of President Trump right now.

CABRERA: He is obviously feeling anger at his favorite news channel, Fox News. He's been attacking them after they acknowledged the reality of the election that Joe Biden had won and, really, frankly, when -- earlier when they acknowledged that Arizona had been called for him, they were one of the first to do so, a call for Joe Biden.

Here s what some of the Trump supporters told CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Are you guys Fox News fans up until election night or --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're fading fast.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're fading fast. Fox News, it's crap.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We like Tucker.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't even watch the news any more. I don't even watch Fox anymore because they're getting just as bad as the other ones.

O'SULLIVAN: Where do you get your news from? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OAN, baby.

O'SULLIVAN: OAN?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are a lot more honest than you, even Fox News is crooked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:15:00]

CABRERA: So, Anthony, I guess what I don't understand about when you talk about Trump's diminishing power, Americans continue to live in their own echo chambers of information regardless of truth, how does a President-elect Biden or anyone for that matter bridge that divide?

SCARAMUCCI: It's just studying history, Ana. Any time that you've had a populous movement or the specter arise of nationalism like we're experiencing in the United States, if you can come up with the right policies and you can help those people feel less economically desperate and more economically aspirational, their anger dissipates and they go on to things in their life that are more important, like their family or their jobs or their profession.

You've got a tremendous amount of anxiety right now, wages down, high unemployment, 26-plus million people unemployed. We're in this second wave of the coronavirus, and so people are, frankly, justifiably angry. And many people -- and I think the 72 million people that voted for Mr. Trump, President Trump actually voted for themselves.

And I think the message that they're telling people is we're upset with the system. We feel plugged out of the system, and I think the Biden administration, in conjunction with the Republicans, frankly, I think there was a big message on Election Day, that there's a mandate to work together, and my prediction is that they will. We'll come up with a stimulus package and some other good policies and all of that anger will dissipate, and with it, President Trump's power.

CABRERA: Okay. Anthony Scaramucci, you've been right before in some of your predictions, hopefully, this time, it's one of them. Thank you for being with us.

SCARAMUCCI: It's like a broken clock, Ana, but I appreciate you saying that. Thank you.

CABRERA: We have this just in. We crossed a very grim milestone in the U.S., more than 245,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus. This is not just a number, those are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers.

And as this pandemic continues to rage is the Trump's refusal to acknowledge the election results, stunting the ability of the incoming Biden administration to get a grip on this pandemic. A member of the Biden transition COVID-19 advisory board joins us next, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[15:20:00]

CABRERA: The refusal of President Trump and his administration to recognize Joe Biden as the president-elect is now impacting this nation's response to this surging coronavirus pandemic. With less than ten weeks until he takes office, Biden's team is being blocked from crucial pandemic data and contacts with the CDC, HHS and Trump's vaccine task force, Operation Warp Speed. So, as a result, sources tell CNN the Biden team is having to backchannel with governors, the private sector and the community as it prepares for its own response.

This challenge is enormous right now. Yesterday, the U.S. shattered the record for most new case is in a single day. It was more than 81,000 people infected. Hospitalizations are spiking as well with more than 68,000 people being treated right now, again, another record- setting number.

Dr. Celine Gounder is an infectious disease specialist, she is also a member of the Biden transition COVID-19 advisory board, and she's with us now.

Dr. Gounder, just how extensive is this obstruction? Does it mean you can't even talk to people who are part of the federal agencies, like Dr. Fauci at the NIH or Dr. Redfield at the CDC?

CELINE GOUNDER, MEMBER, BIDEN TRANSITION COVID-19 ADVISORY BOARD: That's right, Ana, we are not able to talk to them. I have talked to some of them in the past but not since joining the advisory board. And it's important to understand, look, this is a national crisis, this is a national security threat, just like it would if we were experiencing terrorist attacks or we were at war with another nation at the moment.

And so it's really important in this moment that we'd be handing over the reins diplomatically, peacefully, between political parties, to the Biden transition team. We need to be prepared. And in the absence of that critical data, there are may be blind spots that we're not able to anticipate and that leaves us quite vulnerable.

CABRERA: Obviously, a lot has been made public when it comes to research and studies. What information do you need access to from those agencies that isn't public?

GOUNDER: Well, I think the most critical thing is to know in very detailed fashion what's available to us in terms of countermeasures, what are the supplies, and then also where is the virus spreading in, again, very detailed, granular fashion, understanding exactly in real- time. And there is some data that's publicly available. But I think really having the full accounting is going to be really critical to best planning our efforts.

CABRERA: If you're not able to have 100 percent coordination, I mean, could that slow down vaccine distribution?

GOUNDER: It could. I think in terms of vaccine distribution, much of that is going to be done by large hospital systems, by the private sector, so pharmacy giants like CVS and Walgreens as well as local and state health departments. And so we are not in any fashion obstructed from partnering and speaking to any of those stakeholders. And so we are moving forward in terms of planning with each of them.

CABRERA: While, you're not able to speak with the HHS secretary, Alex Azar is speaking to the media and here is what he told to my colleague, Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: The important thing for the American people to know is that Vice President Biden's plan to deal with the coronavirus is eerily reminiscent of our plan and what we've been executing and what are executing on now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Dr. Grounder, do you agree?

GOUNDER: I will just point out one obvious difference, which is testing. I think it's very difficult to control a pandemic when you don't see where the cases are. A very large proportion, the bulk of the iceberg, so to speak, is invisible because it's asymptomatic cases.

[15:25:03]

And so for all the people who are getting sick and ending up in hospitals and dying, it's many, many more who are getting infected and transmitting in the community.

We currently have an administration that has actively discouraged testing. This is going to be one of our highest priorities to increase testing so that we can really get a handle on who is getting infected, where is this happening and why is this happening, so that we can better combat it.

CABRERA: Dr. Anthony Fauci said this about the future of this virus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I doubt we're going to eradicate this. I think we need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically.

Certainly, it's not going to be pandemic for a lot longer because I believe the vaccines are going to turn that around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, what does society look like with COVID-19 still around even after there's a vaccine, but if it's (INAUDIBLE), not as a pandemic?

GOUNDER: Well, I do think there are some behaviors that may change, just as we've seen like in many Asian countries after SARS, after avian flu, that mask-wearing became the norm especially in winter cough, cold and flu months. I think that is something that may well change. I think Dr. Fauci had said early on in the pandemic he hopes handshaking never comes back, and I would agree with that. That's probably another one that will fall by the wayside.

So I think there will be changes. And I think in the interim, until we're able to scale up a vaccine, at least for the coming year, we're looking at many of these social distancing and so on interventions remaining in place.

CABRERA: I think people who get sweaty hands and sweaty palms, like I do sometimes, are grateful to think, maybe I don't have to shake hands with anyone again. Dr. Celine Gounder, I'm looking for the silver lining or the glass half full, because it's a dire time right now. Thank you very much for being with us and sharing that important information and for all you do.

Quick programming note, the nation's top disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, will join my colleague, Jake Tapper, tomorrow and the other guests on his show include Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Georgia Senate Candidate Reverend Raphael Warnock. Make sure tune in, State of the Union, at 9:00 A.M. and noon Eastern here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

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[15:31:44]

CABRERA: While the president digs in and refuses to concede, his campaign was actually forced to shut down a voter fraud hotline it had set up to collect tips against President-Elect Joe Biden's win. The reason? Too many prank calls.

But if you listen to members of the Trump transition and Trump administration this week you would think they were the ones trying to prank us by having us believe the election of Joe Biden that we all saw didn't happen at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART VARNEY, FOX HOST, "VARNEY & CO": Are you prepared to say President Trump will definitely attend the inauguration?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Again, that's many steps away here. We're talking January.

President Trump believes he will be President Trump, have a second term. And litigation is the first step. Many steps away from that.

PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: We're moving forward here at the White House under the assumption there will be a second Trump term. Our assumption is the second Trump term. We think he won that

election. Any speculation about what Joe Biden might do, I think, is mute at this point.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration. Right?

We're ready. The world is watching what's taking place. We will count all the votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Joining us now is Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of multiple books, including, "Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary" and "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the 20th Century," among others.

Professor Snyder, it's always good to see you and have you on.

What do you see as the long-term damage now from Trump's refusal and those around him to concede?

TIMOTHY SNYDER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY: First of all, there are the national security consequences that begin now and will continue in the future. Some of them you've already discussed on your show.

All of the crises around the world, which the Biden team should be informed about, will go on and get worse during the following two months.

There's also the national security problem that we have and will continue to have with democracy.

The clip you showed with Secretary Pompeo is a good example of this. Mr. Pompeo is either taking part in an illegitimate attempt to keep Mr. Trump in power or joking about it.

If he's taking part, that is basically the Chinese approach to democracy, that it's not a thing.

If he's joking about it, that's the Russian approach to democracy, that it's a joke.

Basically, what we're doing now is strengthening the hand of our foes.

Long term for the United States, we have the problem that a big lie, a really big lie has been introduced into the American society.

We're going to be dealing for weeks, months, perhaps even years with the reality that tens of millions of Americans will have been convinced, understandably, by their president that something was amiss in this election.

The problem with the big lie is that the big lie separates people into those who have faith in the lie and those who don't believe it. And it makes you very hard to have country, a society. It makes it very hard to have a democracy.

The particular form the big lie takes is even more dangerous, I think, because the form it takes is that of a stab in the back, that we really should have won, but we lost because we were betrayed. We were betrayed by the Democrats. We were betrayed by the media.

[15:35:09]

And that strengthens this idea that some people are not really part of the nation, some people are traders, and some people are cheaters.

And if the other side are cheaters, that means we have the right to cheat the next time.

Those are the consequences as I see them.

CABRERA: You tweeted something that really has unsettled me as I continue to think about it this week.

You wrote, "What Donald Trump is attempting to do has a name, coup d'etat. Poorly organized though it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all."

"While they take place, we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete, we are powerless."

As you mentioned, more than 72 million people voted for Donald Trump. It's the second-highest popular vote total ever.

And that's after four years of him blowing up all the norms of this office. And he has a strangle hold on conservative and right-wing media.

Is his strategy working? Is the coup nearly complete?

SNYDER: I don't think the coup is complete. I mean, I think the most important thing is to see as what it is.

Americans have many talents but, unfortunately, one of our talents is sleepwalking.

We have a tendency to say, well, this isn't really happening and this guy couldn't be doing this. And if it is happening, somehow the institutions or somebody else will save us.

Look, he's going for it. He owes a billion dollars that he can't pay off. He's facing criminal investigations.

Like most people of an authoritarian mindset, he would really like to die in his bed, ideally, a comfortable bed in a place like the White House.

He's going to go for it. That doesn't mean he's going to succeed.

But it does mean that, while he's going for it, people have to line up.

Lawyers have to line up. People on the streets have to do the right thing. Law enforcement has to do the right thing. The departments inside the government have to do the right thing.

Which means peacefully obeying the Constitution until January 21st.

If we just look away, then we lose. We have to look at it for what it is and react appropriately.

CABRERA: Right now, a lot of people aren't doing the right thing. We played the clip of so many people within the administration saying exactly what the president wants to hear.

I want to play you something that former President Barack Obama said during an interview airing tomorrow on "60 Minutes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials, who clearly know better, are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion.

It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration but democracy generally. And that's a dangerous path.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So, Tim, when you say everybody has to do the right thing around this president, and we see only a handful of GOP lawmakers even acknowledging Joe Biden as president-elect,

What do you make of that response from Republican lawmakers?

SNYDER: At a tactical level, it's probably a mistake. I think the next Republican president is going to be the first person who calls Mr. Trump a loser.

At a moral level, this is doing grievous harm, as President Obama says, to the country.

The continuity, the constitutional continuity of the United States of America depends upon the losers accepting elections.

Even where losers have been very unhappy, from Adams to Hoover, they have always accepted the outcome.

When you say, in the end, the vote doesn't matter, then you're saying we should be the kind of country where this sort of thing happens.

Mr. Trump may not win. But what he's doing is saying I and my followers should aspire to be the kind of country where voting doesn't matter.

We should aspire to be the kind of country where the institutions don't really matter, where morality and the law don't really matter. That is the message he's pushing. And it's a message which people have

to have the courage, and not just Democrats, people have to have the courage to stand up against.

Republicans used to admire the dissidences against Communism.

What dissidence against Communism said is: You speak truth to power, you set an example. By your own actions, you try to illustrate how people should behave in a democracy. And then maybe your example will be followed.

They're not living up to that.

CABRERA: We hope everybody is listening closely to what you had to say.

Professor Timothy Snyder, thank you for enlightening all of us and educating us. Appreciate it.

SNYDER: My pleasure. Thank you.

CABRERA: Tonight, CNN brings you the story of Joe Biden and his long journey from receiving the Democratic Party presidential nomination this summer to becoming president-elect. "JOE BIDEN'S LONG JOURNEY, tonight at 10:00 Eastern, on CNN.

Up next, inside the dangerous mis-information game the president and his allies are playing.

[15:39:59]

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: A group of national, state and private election officials agree this year's election was the most secure in American history.

But helping keep President Trump's claims of voter fraud alive, a right-wing echo chamber.

Here's Brian Stelter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOU DOBBS, FOX NEWS HOST, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT": Many are trying to steal this election from President Trump.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES" (voice-over): This is the 2020 form of Birtherism. It's election denialism, delegitimizing a Democratic leader.

And it's happening everywhere, from FOX News to Facebook, from talk radio to Twitter.

On Tuesday, eight of the 10 top performing link posts on U.S. Facebook pages were from President Trump, his evangelist supporter, Franklin Graham, and right-wing commentator, Dan Bongino.

DAN BONGINO, FOX COMMENTATOR & VIDEO HOST, "THE DAN BONGINO SHOW": The election oddities keep adding up.

STELTER: Unproven claims and inuendo about mass voter fraud are fueling right-wing talkers like Bongino.

BONGINO: There are way too many questions here.

[15:45:01]

STELTER: And he's telling his fans not to give up.

BONGINO: I'm not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere.

STELTER: Conspiracy theories about mass voter fraud are spreading widely on social media.

This genie left the bottle days ago.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Trump still has a path to victory.

STELTER: Trump's friends on FOX are telling millions of viewers that Democrats are cheaters, that big cities are voter fraud factories, that Trump's lawsuits are serious.

DOBBS: You have courts defying appellate courts within the state without any consequence. It's outrageous.

STELTER: This content is racking up big audiences on Facebook and on Twitter.

Some of it is hard to fact check because it's short on detail and heavy on innuendo.

But these toxic claims are reaching Trump -- mis-informing Trump and his fan base and garnering retweets from the president.

Trump dead-enders are digging in.

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO SHOW HOST, "THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW": I've not conceded anything!

STELTER: Stoking grievances and swearing that Trump still could be a winner.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX HOST, "THE GREG GUTFELD SHOW": All of the weirdness went in one direction. So I think I have proved that this election --

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: -- is fraudulent.

STELTER (on camera): That was FOX's Greg Gutfeld. He will say he was just joking. But the fact of the matter is the five stages of grief are very

evident in right-wing media right now. There's a lot of denial, a lot of anger. There is some bargaining, a little bit of depression.

But so far, I am not seeing the final stage. That would be acceptance. I am not seeing acceptance in pro-Trump right-wing media, at least not yet.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Brian, thank you.

It was a surprising flip by one of the closest margins of the 2020 presidential election. Georgia going blue for the first time since 1992.

Up next, we take you live to where they are recounting ballots by hand. These are live images where you see the work under way.

Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:51:42]

CABRERA: CNN projects Joe Biden will become the first Democrat in nearly 30 years to win the state of Georgia, a defeat President Trump and the state's Republican Party are not ready to accept.

Right now, nearly five million ballots are being recounted by hand as part of a statewide audit. Biden's lead prior to the recount, a little more than 14,000 votes.

CNN's Amara Walker is in Atlanta for us.

I know the work is under way, Amara. Where does Georgia's recount stand?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you, Ana, that here in Fulton County the hand recount has been moving along pretty swiftly.

I spoke with the election's director, Richard Barron. The stated goal was to finish up a little earlier than the deadline by Monday.

He just told me that things are moving farther along than he anticipated and they can actually finish even sooner than Monday.

In fact, all of the absentee ballots, as of a few hours ago, have all been counted. That's 150,000 ballots.

Also statewide, the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, saying things are moving smoothly. And 20 percent of the ballots that were cast by the -- five million ballots that were cast have already been counted. But that was at of end of day yesterday. We should be getting updated numbers sometime today or tomorrow.

All in all, the state is up against a pretty tight deadline. By next Wednesday, the hand audit must be done by 11:59 p.m. And then two days later, Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, must certify the results.

Ana, the transparency in this process has really been the priority for state election officials.

That's because, as we have seen repeatedly, President Trump and his campaign undermining the election process.

In fact, his campaign just a few days ago tweeted and alleged that four dead Georgia residents voted illegally.

But one individual that was named in that tweet, it turns out, is alive and well.

Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president of the United States was accusing you of voter fraud, essentially.

AGNES BLALOCK, GEORGIA VOTER: Oh, I know it. And I knew it wasn't fraud.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who did you vote for? You don't have to share that.

BLALOCK: I voted for the Democrats, for Biden.

(CROSSTALK)

BLALOCK: I guess I voted against the other one, really.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: The Trump campaign claimed and tweeted that it was Mr. James Blalock, of Covington, Georgia, had voted even though he had died in 2006.

He never voted. It was his wife, Mrs. James Blalock, who voted on November 3rd.

Yes, she is alive and well. And election officials say that she always voted under that name, Mrs. James Blalock.

Ana, back to you.

CABRERA: OK. Amara Walker, thanks for the update.

This year's "CNN HEROES," AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE" will be a special celebration of the heroic efforts of the many women, men and children from around the world who, when faced with the two simultaneous crises of COVID-19 and racial injustice, stood up to do more to help others.

It's been a challenging year. But there have been so many moments of resilience, hope, joy and inspiration.

Here is one of this year's most inspiring moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

[15:55:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Before, we never noticed the shift change. We didn't see the nurses, the doctors and hospital workers head home. We didn't notice the first responders leaving their stations after a long day. And now we do.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: At 7:00 p.m. in New York, at 8:00 p.m. in Los Angeles, in France, in Italy, and all around the world, the deafening applause --

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: -- and humble salutes, we stop to say thank you.

(CHEERING)

COOPER: From sidewalks, windows and balconies, masked and alone in homes, people joined together to give thanks to those incredible heroes --

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: -- who spent their days tending to sick, helping families say good-bye, and holding back their own pain to keep saving countless lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wanted to talk to everybody. And thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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