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Trump Claims Election Fraud with No Evidence; Biden Cements Victory with Electoral College Count of 306; France's COVID-19 Hospital Admissions Drop; U.S. Breaks New Daily Coronavirus Case Record Again. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired November 14, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Who knows which administration it will be? I guess time will tell.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): President Trump speaks publicly for the first time since losing the election and still refuses to face reality.
And another sad reality for the United States, the number of coronavirus cases breaks another single day record.
Can anything be done to slow down this second wave?
Live from CNN World Headquarters, I'm Kim Brunhuber and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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BRUNHUBER: Joe Biden's decisive victory in the 2020 presidential election has now grown to 306 electoral votes. Biden is the first Democrat to win Georgia since 1992. North Carolina has been called for Donald Trump.
Now Biden's overall lead is insurmountable. Still the president refuses to accept that he lost and insists, falsely, that the election was rigged. It's a fiction even some in his own administration have publicly rejected.
All this on a day when the U.S. broke another record for new coronavirus infections. The staggering 184,000 cases were reported in just the past 24 hours. That's a 20 percent spike from the day before. None of that was mentioned by President Trump on Friday. We've got more details from CNN's Jim Acosta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to the White House Twilight Zone, where President Trump is still publicly clinging to an alternate reality, the one where he can still win the 2020 election.
TRUMP: This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully, the -- whatever happens in the future -- who knows which administration it will be? I guess time will tell.
ACOSTA: But in the real world, it's a different story, as CNN projects Joe Biden has won Arizona and Georgia, with Mr. Trump clinching North Carolina.
That gives Biden a big 306-electoral vote victory, as the popular vote margin shows the President-Elect to head by more than five million ballots.
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS: I got no impression that he was plotting the overthrow of the elected government.
ACOSTA: Still, some of the president's friends like FOX's Geraldo Rivera are sounding like hostage negotiators, trying to talk Mr. Trump into surrendering to defeat.
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RIVERA: Every impression he gave me, Harris, was that, if the process went against him and he was satisfied that every vote, legitimate vote, had been counted and every illegitimate vote had been thrown out, that he would follow the edict of the Constitution and surrender the office.
ACOSTA: The problem is the president still has a team of dead enders enabling him.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who is doubling as a campaign adviser, is spinning the fantasy that Mr. Trump is marching toward a second term.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think the president will attend his own inauguration. He would have to be there, in fact.
ACOSTA: The president's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, sounds stuck in an upside-down world too.
PETER NAVARRO, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF TRADE AND MANUFACTURING POLICY: We're moving forward here at the White House new assumption that there will be a second Trump term. We think he won that election. And any speculation about what Joe Biden might do, I think, is moot at this point.
ACOSTA: They're taking their cues from Mr. Trump, who's tying himself into a pretzel claiming he's been cheated, tweeting, "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." Not so, according to the president's own Cybersecurity Agency, which stated: "The November 3 election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
And while McEnany insists Mr. Trump will fight it out in the courts...
MCENANY: Read through some of these affidavits. I now have three binders.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Wait. Hold that up. Let me up. Hold that up. Can I see it?
MCENANY: Well, I have three binders. These are court filings and affidavits. But they're startling, Sean.
ACOSTA: His campaign has dropped a legal challenge in Arizona and his lawyers have bailed on a case in Pennsylvania. Despite those developments, advisers say the president may never can see the race, a contest he once said he couldn't handle losing.
TRUMP: He is the worst candidate ever to run in the history of a presidential election, really. At least, if you lost, you could say, hey, you lost to a good candidate. How the hell do you lose to a guy like this?
ACOSTA: One White House adviser comparing him to the 1991 Detroit Pistons, who famously refused to fake shake hands with the Chicago Bulls, who won the NBA championship that year. The advisor said the president can do the same thing when it comes to the election: leave the stage without conceding defeat -- Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
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BRUNHUBER: Julie Norman lectures on politics at University College London.
Thank you very much for joining us. So last night, President Trump's former White House chief issued a statement criticizing his former boss for not helping the Biden transition team.
He wrote, "The delay in transitioning is an increasing national security and health crisis." And he went on to write, "The downside to not doing so could be catastrophic to our people regardless of who they voted for."
What is the biggest worry here?
JULIE NORMAN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Well, it is strong language coming from John Kelly. He's not the first person to raise these concerns this week. There was another letter from 150 former national security officials, from the CIA to the NSA, raising similar concerns.
And we know in any transition time, that's when states tend to be most vulnerable. And you really want that transition to go smoothly for immediate threats but also for being prepared for future threats.
The 9/11 Commission pointed out the delay in the (INAUDIBLE) administration for example may haven't cheated (ph) preparedness for the 9/11 attacks. So that's the kind of concern that many in the security agencies have right now.
Also is the coronavirus crisis and the need to have a smooth transition to ensure the rollout of a vaccine, to ensure that crisis is being addressed readily, as well.
BRUNHUBER: Some very important issues there. As we heard the president's own cyber security agency stated the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.
My good Republican friends keep bombarding me with lists of dead voters and other misleading Steal the Vote propaganda.
What about the damage being done to the faith in the electoral system?
NORMAN: That is another major concern. We've heard now from federal officials, from Department of Homeland Security, we've heard from state and local officials from across the partisan spectrum, Republicans and Democrats alike, certifying these election results.
And I think the ongoing challenges from Trump, we know this won't change the election at this point.
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NORMAN: But it's a shame at this moment in particular where we had record turnout of voters coming out, wanting to vote, to try and stoke distrust in that. It's something that could have long-term effects if this continues for much longer.
BRUNHUBER: One of those effects is on that dream of bipartisanship. Biden ran on the promise of bringing the two sides together. But you would think that would be even harder if one side thinks the election has been stolen and the president is illegitimate.
Let's say President Trump vanishes after January, just disappears. Unlikely but for the sake of argument. So you've written about this issue.
Even after Trump, what are the chances that Biden can resurrect this bygone era of bipartisanship given what we're seeing now from Republicans in Congress?
NORMAN: All of this makes it that much more challenging. We know polarization is at a very deep level in the United States. That started before Trump but has worsened under him.
Biden's whole message has been one of healing, has been one of unity. It's going to just be made that much harder if many voters who have been following Trump's statements feel that their votes did not count, feel that the election has been stolen for some reason, that will impede any of those good will efforts to try and bridge some of these gaps in American politics right now.
BRUNHUBER: That is not good news, obviously.
I want to turn to overseas and get to one of your areas of interest and expertise, the Middle East. Biden's win wasn't greeted with the same enthusiasm in the Middle East as elsewhere. Several countries there had close ties to the Trump administration.
How has the landscape been reshaped by Trump and what will Biden's priorities be?
NORMAN: The Middle East is a region where we will see a bit of a pivot with foreign policy under Biden. The Trump administration was very cozy with Saudi Arabia. That's been a long time U.S. ally, of course. But the closeness that Trump showed to Mohammed bin Salman, to overlooking the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist, were things we would expect to be handled differently under Biden.
We would expect Biden to have a more regional approach that was still concerned with security from Iran. We also see more of a return to a more traditional engagement with Palestine under Biden. We saw a pro- Israel stance under Trump that we expect to recalibrate under the Biden administration.
BRUNHUBER: So many challenges on his plate. Thank you so much, Julie Norman with University College London, we appreciate it.
Up next, some cautious optimism for parts of Europe trying to put a lid on COVID-19. We'll go to Paris for a live update. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: The coronavirus numbers in the U.S. are going in the wrong direction. And fast. The country smashed another record Friday. More than 184,000 new infections, the most recorded in a single day. That's more than 20 percent higher than the day before.
Deaths and hospitalizations are also going up across the country. Health care workers say they're overwhelmed and are running out of resources.
On Friday, U.S. president Donald Trump said that a vaccine is on the way but in the same breaths, he threatened the state of New York and its Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo.
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TRUMP: He doesn't trust the fact that it's this White House, this administration. So we won't be delivering it to New York until we have authorization to do so and that pains me to say that. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: So let's turn to Europe now. Melissa Bell is in France where COVID hospitalizations fell sharply on Friday.
So some hopeful signs there but still the prime minister said not to expect to see the country's partial lockdown lifted early, right?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is right, Kim. We've been in a state of partial lockdown for two weeks now and that is going to last for another two weeks.
Remember that here in France, you know, most shops are closed, you know, any kind of restaurants, cafes, bars shut, as well. And people really expected to stay at home as much as they can. So lots of people are looking to when that can change.
Clearly these figures on Friday are extremely encouraging. So what we saw was a really sharp drop for the first time in many weeks in the number of people entering hospitals with COVID.
To give you an idea, the net hospitalizations on Friday, that is the difference of people coming in and the difference of people leaving, was 22; the day before, that number was 736. That is the size of the decrease that we've seen.
Clearly, authorities will be looking at those figures with some sense of hope. And I think that is worth seeing elsewhere, some cautious optimism, I think that's exactly the term. Those countries that have been hit hardest by this second wave, so France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, the Czech Republic, all seeing over the course of the last week as a result of the restrictions that have been in place, substantial in many cases, of an improvement in terms of their infection rates.
Now of course, until these figures yesterday in France, that takes some time to translate into hospital admissions and ICUs.
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BELL: It does appear that Europe could be turning a corner when it comes to defeating this second wave or at least bringing it under control.
BRUNHUBER: So despite the resistance to all those restrictions, proof that they do work. Thank you so much, CNN's Melissa Bell in Paris.
I'd like to bring in Professor Keith Neal, joining us from Derby, England.
Thank you so much for joining us. Soaring cases in Europe, here in the U.S., as well. We're facing the highest hospitalization rate yet. This all before holiday season but people are getting COVID on cruise ships again.
It's been eight months since this crisis started in earnest and it almost feels as if, outside the medical establishment, we in wider society haven't learned anything.
KEITH NEAL, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM: I think people have become a little bit complacent because most people don't know someone who has died or been seriously ill.
I was interested in your comments about cruise ships because as far as I was aware, there weren't many sailing from Europe. There was an industry of people going out to view the moored cruise ships.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And here we go, we have some cases on a cruise ship. So it doesn't take very long for people just to forget. And now with the vaccine coming, you know, some people are saying, well, the vaccine is coming, don't worry about it, almost as if the vaccine were a cure.
NEAL: It is a cure for the problem, in particular if it looks like it's going to work. I think the better argument to make is that, given that we know that a vaccine could well be delivered very soon, we're talking a few months for the most at risk people, then we just need to hang on with the restrictions a little bit longer and then we can have a great big party when we've all had the vaccine delivered.
BRUNHUBER: Certainly it shouldn't change people's behavior when it comes to masks and things like that. There is a frighteningly high percentage of people who say they won't get the vaccine, even if it's available. And some experts have floated the idea of offering incentives like paying people to take it.
Good idea?
NEAL: I think that would be a step that would cause more problems. In Britain, we're quite lucky. We seem to have the highest rate of vaccine acceptance anywhere I've seen in countries like Europe and North America.
I think if somebody said, here is 20 pounds to get paid to have the vaccine, I think people might start asking, Why do you need to pay me? Is it dangerous?
I think paying people who can't afford public transport, traveling expenses is a completely different incentive so they're not out of pocket as opposed to people who can afford to drive to the centers.
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BRUNHUBER: What about, yes, so then, you know, we're talking about incentives to stay home with the lockdowns. A member of Biden's Coronavirus Task Force suggested they should pay people to stay home for a few weeks.
In some European countries, they've been able to reimpose stay at home orders. But here yesterday President Trump said there won't be a national lockdown and even local leaders who are trying to order shutdowns are facing more backlash than they were the first time around. Some health experts are signaling defeat.
Do you think we should start paying people to stay at home?
NEAL: We essentially already have in Britain. People are on universal credit or if they have identified as a contact or as a case, you're entitled to an increased payment to compensate for staying at home.
I think there's a wider problem that many people can't isolate or work from home quite easily. I've spoken to many journalists over the last six months who themselves are working from home. I think those are some people who can't work at home.
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NEAL: Particularly those in selling and producing food, which we continue to need. So it's a mixed picture. And I think this side of the Atlantic has quite a different benefits culture in Europe than you do in America.
BRUNHUBER: Absolutely true.
With holiday season approaching, there was a study that was showing that people of all ages have relaxed their attitudes towards gathering and, you know, family mixing again.
When you weigh sort of the benefits of getting people together, of decreasing isolation versus the dangers that this poses with COVID, how do you think this is going to play out?
And what is your advice for people as they head into this holiday season?
NEAL: I think it's actually a very complicated way to balance up the risk of catching COVID and the risk of not meeting people because that risk is fundamentally different by age.
Young people have a very low risk but they may start chains of infection that end up killing older people. For the holiday, one family may stay with just one other family and from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day, it's really the mixing that is causing the problem.
But if you only have one lot mixing, one family, that's OK. Going to different groups are a recipe for trouble.
BRUNHUBER: Thank you very much, Professor Dr. Keith Neal, we appreciate it.
That wraps up CNN NEWSROOM for our international audience. "Business Traveller." is up next for you.
But if you're in the United States and Canada, please stick around. We have another half hour of news for you. We'll be back.
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BRUNHUBER: And welcome back. To you, our viewers across the United States and Canada, I'm Kim Brunhuber, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Joe Biden's victory over president Donald Trump is now clearer than ever. Finally all filled in now that we have projects for every state. Biden only needed 270 electoral votes to win and he finishes with 306. But that's a reality that President Trump doesn't seem willing to face. He's still talking as if the election is still up for grabs.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully the -- whatever happens in the 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.
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BRUNHUBER: Meanwhile, the Trump administration is blocking Joe Biden's transition team from accessing crucial resources and information. Here is how a top Biden spokeswoman describes where things stand.
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JEN PSAKI, BIDEN TRANSITION ADVISER: We're not interested in having a food fight with the GSA administrator or anyone, really. We just want to get access to intelligence information, to threat assessments, to the ongoing work on COVID so that we can prepare to govern.
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BRUNHUBER: All this, of course, while the country is being hit by a major surge in COVID infections and hospitalization. Johns Hopkins University shows the U.S. is shattering records. Nick Watt shows us how the rising numbers are hurting the country.
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NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Open schools in New York City were a sign of great progress. Those doors might close again, as early as Monday, as positivity rates rise toward 3 percent.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: We are making preparations as a result, in case that number does exceed 3 percent, and in the event we do have to temporarily close our schools.
WATT (voice-over): Hell is back on the horizon, when there could be hope.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We can turn this around, it is not futile.
WATT (voice-over): But turning this around requires 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 (voice-over): 100,000 plus new cases, every day, 10 days straight; Thursday, topping 150,000, a new record.
In Utah, Lindsay Wootton lost her mom and grandfather, to COVID-19.
LINDSAY WOOTTON, LOST MOTHER AND GRANDFATHER TO COVID-19: He said, "Kiddo, I'm not doing good."
And she said, "Dad, I'm not either."
And he said, "Trey, I'm dying."
And she said, "Dad, I am too."
And he said, "Then I'll look for you in heaven."
WATT (voice-over): Look at South Dakota, a staggering 56 percent of tests are now coming back positive. Analysts say, that is a rampant spread. But Sioux Falls city council just voted on a mask mandate and --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So my official vote on this is a no and that item fails 5-4.
WATT (voice-over): A vote against science. And "masks are oppressive," a newly minted GOP member of Congress tweeted today, "my body, my choice."
Meanwhile, in Missouri, doctors are now begging for a statewide mask mandate.
DR. ALEX GARZA, ST. LOUIS METROPOLITAN PANDEMIC TASK FORCE: The real peak of this pandemic has yet to come.
WATT (voice-over): And they want a plan for when beds run out.
GARZA: Our health care heroes have fought valiantly, day after day. But we have no reserves.
WATT (voice-over): This virus might soon force some very tough decisions. Illinois, just crushed its daily new case record.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): If things don't take a turn in the coming days, we will quickly reach the point when some form of a mandatory stay at home order is all that will be left.
WATT: And here in California, Governor Gavin Newsom is expressing some regret after "The San Francisco Chronicle" reported that he attended a birthday party at a fancy restaurant that broke the state's COVID guidelines.
"We should have modeled better behavior," said the governor -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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BRUNHUBER: The coronavirus outbreak that is plaguing the White House is now impacting the Secret Service.
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BRUNHUBER: Dozens of agents who protect the president have either tested positive for COVID or are in isolation after having close contact with those who did. As Brian Todd tells us, many agents were on duty at Trump's campaign rallies.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In those final weeks of the campaign, President Trump aggressively canvassed several states, including coronavirus cauldrons like Wisconsin.
TRUMP: Hello, Wisconsin. Big day tomorrow. Big, big day.
TODD: Tonight, CNN has learned several dozen Secret Service officers have either tested positive for coronavirus or self-isolating after having contact with someone who tested positive. That's according to a source familiar with the matter.
DR. ABESH ADALJA, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: What I think it signifies is the fact that the White House basically became a hot zone that the protective actions that they had put in place there. The measures with testing and whatever limited use of masks was not enough to protect some of the people that are charged with protecting the president.
TODD: A source with knowledge of the situation tell CNN many of the officers sick or in quarantine, we're at Trump's out of town rallies. This isn't the first time that multiple Secret Service personnel at a time have been exposed to the virus.
In July, several agents had to holed up in a hotel in Phoenix after coming down with the virus while preparing for a visit from Vice President Pence according to sources.
And in June, dozens of agents had to quarantine as a precaution following a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa.
PHILIP MUDD, FORMER FBI, CIA SENIOR OFFICER: I understand why he's doing them politically. But as the leader of the executive branch of government, he's doing exactly what we've been told as citizens not to do. I don't understand the rallies. I don't get it.
TODD: Then there was the incident in early October at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The president at the time being treated there for coronavirus took a short ride in a government vehicle to wave to supporters, the president wore a mask and the White House insisted all safety precautions have been taken. But many fear he was taking unnecessary risks. ADALJA: When he did that not only did he risk his own health because he might not have been completely recovered at that time. He risked the health of those individuals that were driving him.
TODD: Secret Service officers who were infected in this case are in uniform and are separate from the plain clothes Secret Service agents who provide close security to the President. But the officers still perform crucial protective duties around the White House complex and on the President's trips. And they often touch the same surfaces or enter the same rooms as top White House personnel.
MUDD: They've got to do the kinds of things that we are not supposed to do. And that lead to infection and that is going to places where you're with working partners. Obviously this is a job that you can't do remotely.
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TODD: An official with knowledge of the matter tells CNN that the Secret Service is taking all necessary safety precautions and that these cases have had zero impact on the agency's security mission. The White House is not commenting on the matter -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is ready to take off tomorrow with a COVID related hiccup. The mission was supposed to launch later today but strong winds forced the delay. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Friday two of four COVID tests he took came back positive.
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JIM BRIDENSTINE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Before this news came to be.
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BRUNHUBER: So if Sunday's launch goes as planned, three American and one Japanese astronaut will ride to the International Space Station on SpaceX's first operational mission.
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BRIDENSTINE: The whole goal here is to commercialize our activities in low Earth orbit. NASA wants to be one customer, of many customers, in a very robust commercial marketplace for human space flight in low Earth orbit.
But we don't just want to be one of many customers; we also want to have numerous providers that are competing against each other on cost, on innovation and on safety, ultimately, bringing more access to space than ever before.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BRUNHUBER: SpaceX rockets and capsules are meant to replace the retired shuttle program and end NASA's reliance on Russian Soyuz launches.
Tropical storm Iota formed in the Caribbean Friday and is already threatening Central America. It's the 30th named storm in the Atlantic this season and is forecast to become a major hurricane.
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BRUNHUBER: Fires are raging in the largest tropical wetland on the planet. It's the worst they've seen historically since 2002. The historic drought is partially to blame; 28 percent of the flood plain has been scorched. It's been burning since mid-July and the fires still aren't under control.
It is known for its biodiversity. Now animal habitats have been destroyed and indigenous communities left homeless. It makes up about 3 percent of the world's wetlands. The area's ecosystems absorb and store carbon, keeping it away from the atmosphere, which is a process critical for fighting climate change.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, President Trump's baseless claims that the election has been stolen from him are about to hit the streets. We'll tell you about the protests planned for later today and why they aren't the grassroots movements they appear to be.
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BRUNHUBER: The nation's capital is bracing for protests Saturday by Stop the Steal supporters. They're echoing President Trump's baseless claim that the election is being stolen from him. It may seem like a grassroots movement but who is actually behind it might surprise you.
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DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's an internet battle cry. Stop the Steal has swept across inboxes, Facebook pages and Twitter like an out of control virus.
The claims that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump are all false, but the truth means little to people inundated with lies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that they tried to steal the election.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Stop the Steal may appear as a grassroots uprising, but it started more than four years ago. The brainchild of a political dirty trick artist and convicted liar who has pushed disinformation schemes for years, Roger Stone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop the Steal is posting much of this material. There is insurmountable, compelling, overcoming evidence of fraud.
BENJAMIN DECKER, FOUNDER AND CEO, MEMETICA: Stop the Steal is actually a coordinated effort that has been revived twice by Roger Stone and allied political operatives in an attempt to gaslight the entire integrity of our voting and election process.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Ben Decker, who conducts digital investigations, says far from a grassroots campaign, Stop the Steal is a business. In 2016, Roger Stone's PAC launched StopTheSteal.org, which was asking for $10,000 donations, purportedly back then to help uncover evidence of vote fraud against Donald Trump. Stone told CNN the group was a non-profit created to insure the integrity of the vote.
Stop the Steal re-emerged briefly in the 2018 midterms. Then in the run-up to 2020, the Stop the Steal campaign rebooted by a group of people orbiting Roger Stone. The cast of characters include Ali Alexander, a Roger Stone wannabe.
ALI ALEXANDER, RIGHT-WING ACTIVIST: I actually just got a message from Roger Stone.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): He began hash-tagging Stop the Steal weeks before Election Day and launched a Stop the Steal website.
AMY KREMER, TEA PARTY ACTIVIST (voice-over): I'm one of the co- founders --
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Amy Kremer, a Tea Party activist, who in 2016, formed the group Women Vote Trump with Roger Stone's ex-wife. Kremer was behind the Stop the Steal Facebook group along with two people who worked on Steve Bannon's discredited We Build the Wall fund. It was taken down by Facebook.
Also shutdown, a cluster of pages affiliated with Bannon that coordinated posts, according to Facebook, using inauthentic behavior tactics to artificially boost how many people saw their content. In all, the pages had 2.5 million followers before they were shuttered.
DECKER: Stop the Steal is a highly-coordinated partisan political operation.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): This week, Stone even took his message to the most notorious conspiracy theorist of all, Alex Jones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A hoax is being perpetrated on the American people.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): On Twitter, researchers at Clemson University saw the hashtag Stop the Steal mentioned in nearly two million tweets.
[04:50:00]
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The tweets, the Facebook posts filled with unsubstantiated and false evidence of widespread voter fraud quickly got the attention of disinformation researchers like Ciaran O'Connor.
CIARAN O'CONNOR, ANALYST, INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC DIALOGUE: It only took a day and a half before Facebook took the group down. But by then, it was already too late.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Copycat sites now number in the dozens and the false information initially spread by a few is only multiplying -- Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.
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BRUNHUBER: Saturday is moving day at the Masters golf tournament.
Can Tiger Woods come from behind and get past the world's number one?
That's next. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: And that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'll be back in just a moment with more news. Stay with us.
