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The United States Sets 17th Straight Record for Hospitalizations; President-Elect Joe Biden Spends the Holiday with Family; President Trump Thanks U.S. Military for their Service and Repeats Baseless Election Fraud Claims; U.S. Health Experts Warn of Post-Thanksgiving Surge; South Korea is Reporting New Daily Case Surge; Trump Repeats Baseless Election Fraud Claims; Trump Plans To Campaign For Georgia Republicans; Trump Claims Certifying Biden Win Would Be A Mistake; Trump: I'm Very Worried about Georgia Voting System. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired November 27, 2020 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I am Paula Newton. Live from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta, we will get straight to our top story now.
This, in fact, has been a holiday season like we've never seen before. Thanksgiving has come to a close here in most of the United States and with the coronavirus surging right across the country, we want to take a moment to think about the people directly affected.
More than 1,200 Americans died from COVID-19 on Thursday alone and more than 90,000 others spent the holiday away from their families in hospital. It is the 17th straight day of record hospitalizations.
Now, data from Johns Hopkins University shows cases are still on the rise in 13 U.S. states. Reminder, they've plateaued in other states at very high levels. Another 110,000 people were diagnosed with the virus in the past day.
President-elect Joe Biden, meantime, spent the day making video calls to frontline workers, including nurses and firefighters, who he praised as the heroes of this crisis. He posted this message on social media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know this isn't the way many of us hoped we would spend our holiday. We know that the small act of staying home as a gift to our fellow Americans. Yes, it is a personal sacrifice that each of our families can make and should make to save somebody else's life, but it is also a shared sacrifice for the whole country. It is a statement of common purpose that says we care about one another, and we are all in this together. (END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON (on camera): And we get more on the president-elect's day from CNN's MJ Lee.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: This Thanksgiving was a challenging one for so many American families across the country, who couldn't travel, who couldn't get together with their relatives and family members, and do sort of their usual traditions that they would typically be doing.
The same was the case for the president-elect and his family. Joe Biden has said that in past years, his family has travelled out of state so that they can have a big extended family gathering around this holiday. But instead, this week, they opted to stay back behind here in Delaware and only get together with a couple members of their family.
We heard Biden talked earlier this week in this national address that he understands the sacrifices that a lot of people are making across the country. He also wrote an op-ed for cnn.com, just a little part of which I want to read.
He wrote, like millions of Americans, we are temporarily letting go of the traditions we can't do safely. It is not a small sacrifice. These moments with our loved ones -- time that's lost -- can't be returned. Yet we know it's the price of protecting each other and one we don't pay alone. Isolate in our dining rooms and kitchens, scattered from coast to coast, we are healing together.
We've heard a pretty empathetic message coming from the president- elect, saying that he really understands the experience of looking around the dinner table and seeing that there is an empty chair, obviously a reference to how so many families across America have lost loved ones because of this pandemic.
And then just a very urgent message from the president-elect, as well, urging everybody to please act responsibly around the holiday season because he knows that we can get back to normal soon, particularly with vaccine distribution, potentially being around the corner.
So this has been a pretty consistent message that we have heard from Joe Biden over the last couple of months.
MJ Lee, CNN, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
NEWTON (on camera): So President Trump, meantime, held a video conference with members of the U.S. Military, thanking them for their service and sacrifice. But then he turned his attention to the election and more false claims about fraud. CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president has not taken a question in over three weeks, since the day of the election, and he broke that streak on Thanksgiving, finally taking questions of reporters after he held a call with members of the military.
[02:05:02]
COLLINS: And as he spoke to us, he repeated his accusations of widespread fraud in the election, something his attorneys have been saying without evidence for weeks now.
The president really hammered it home, repeating it, talking about the secretaries of state in Georgia, criticizing those officials there, and in other states. He is also saying that is the Electoral College certifies Joe Biden's win in a matter of weeks, as they are scheduled to do, he says that would be making a mistake.
He also criticized that Biden is moving ahead with transitioning to the presidency by picking people who are going to be in his cabinet. He wouldn't say whether or not he is going to attend Biden's inauguration as, of course, is the precedent for past presidents in January.
He talked about whether or not he would concede once his win is certified. He would not say that. Despite being asked multiple times, would he concede once the wind has been certified, the president would not say yes that he would.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is going to be a very hard thing to concede, because we know there was massive fraud. So as to whether or not I can get this apparatus moving this quickly, because time isn't on our side, everything else is on our side. Facts are on our side. This was a massive fraud. This should never take place in this country. We are like a third world country.
COLLINS: One thing he did say is that he would leave the White House. He said, of course, I would, of course, should January come and push comes to shove, as there have been these theories about whether or not he would actually leave the White House.
One thing he did say is he is going to leave the White House on Saturday, he says, to go campaign in Georgia, that runoff that that, of course, is going to determine which party controls the Senate.
It is just really notable, I can't stress enough, the president has had such a quiet period in his presidency where he has not taken questions, and, of course, now, after three weeks, he broke that streak. We will see if that continues with these baseless allegations about fraud.
Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
NEWTON (on camera): CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins me now. He is also the senior editor of The Atlantic.
OK, Ron, we don't even really need to fact check this. There were no facts in there. They were just outright lies. And yet, Ron, there is a method to his madness, is there not? What is he trying to get at here?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, SENIOR EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC: Well, look, I mean, he is succeeding at convincing a large share of the Republican electorate without any evidence that the election was stolen from him.
That has several implications. One is that it increases his leverage within the Republican Party. I mean, he can walk away in January 20th, and instead of Republicans feeling he led them into an electoral disaster where he will lose by seven million, close to seven million votes, in the end, he can argue, no, I didn't really lose, it was stolen from me, there is nothing wrong with the direction I set for the party, it was just a theft by Democrats.
And secondly, he is obviously making it tougher for Joe Biden to get a second look, any kind of honeymoon, among rank and file voters, to the extent Trump is convincing them the election was stolen, which in turn will make it harder for Biden to leverage Republicans in Congress to work with him on almost anything.
NEWTON: And he seems determined. He said he is going to step into this, you know, runoff here in Georgia with those two Senate seats, a reminder that this is really going to set the stage for what the future of the next Congress will look like because the Republicans either win back the balance of power --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
NEWTON: -- or they end up in a virtual tie. All that is at stake, he will go in there and do what, you think? He seems pretty serious about going to Georgia this weekend.
BROWNSTEIN: Here's the thing, I mean, he will rally the republican base. I mean, you know, that is Donald Trump's superpower, his ability to turn out more, non-college and non-urban voters, and really anyone in either party expected again, after adjusting all of their, you know, methodology from 2016 to 2020. He still turned out more of these voters than last time.
But he is, obviously, a very polarizing figure. He became the first Republican to lose Georgia since 1992, when Bill Clinton won it with a low vote total in a three-way race. Let us go back to 1976, Democrat kind of win Georgia outright, the way that Joe Biden did.
And the question is, in the past, Democrats have had trouble getting their voters out in these runoffs in Georgia, which were designed, in fact, to make it tougher for candidates favored by minority voters to win.
I don't know if that is going to be the issue this time. This feels more like a battle of the bulge in which both sides are going to see fairly substantial turnout.
NEWTON: Yeah, they certainly have been able to rally both sides. Everyone knowing what is at stake. Just for the president to continue to come here, even given the loss in Georgia, is going to be --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
NEWTON: -- an extraordinary weekend, if it ends up happening.
I want to talk to you a little bit, Ron, about the contrast to Joe Biden's day. He spent the day largely with his family and out of sight, except there was an editorial by the president-elect Biden and his wife, the incoming first lady, Jill Biden, in which they write, we are grateful for the fate and trust we have been given to continue to serve this beautiful, brave, complicated nation.
[02:10:03]
NEWTON: You can say that again. You know, the contrast is real, but given the fact that Donald Trump seems to be determined to continue to insinuate, to basically make his stake in the coming politics of the nation, what do you think is going to be the hurdle for Joe Biden, because he has taken a very clear road here? He is saying I am going to --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
NEWTON: -- rise above this. Is Donald Trump going to make that difficult?
BROWNSTEIN: Donald Trump will make it difficult. Joe Biden is betting that there is a majority of the country that wants to lower the temperature, understands that even if we disagree, none of us are going away. The evangelical south is not going away, and Brooklyn and Berkeley are not going away.
He is betting there are enough Americans who have been kind of terrified, horrified by the level of acrimony they have seen and really kind of every dimension. Partisan acrimony, urban versus rural acrimony, racial acrimony, and they want to lower the temperature.
It is not guaranteed that there is, in fact, a kind of sustainable majority that wants to pull back from this brink. Donald Trump, I think, was the first president who affirmatively thought that widening America's divide was in his interest. He has convinced a big section of the country that they are being victimized by their fellow Americans by kind of By diverse cosmopolitan info age metro America.
So whether Biden can reach across that curtain, especially given how much of that audience has retreated underneath the kind of a dome of, you know, conservative solely news information sources, we don't know. But that is what Biden is betting, and he is going to go, I think, quite a bit down that road before he gives it up.
NEWTON: Yeah. And again, so much of how far he go down that road depends on how much he can get done with either this lame duck Congress or what happens afterwards. BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
NEWTON: Ron Brownstein, as always, thanks so much.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me. Happy Thanksgiving.
NEWTON: So the coronavirus pandemic in the United States could soon go from bad to worse. Hospitalizations are at an all-time high. Health experts fear the Thanksgiving gatherings could, of course, fuel another big surge. Stay with us for more.
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[02:15:00]
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NEWTON (on camera): So millions of Americans ignored warning not to travel over Thanksgiving while coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been soaring. And now, health experts are worried about what comes next. CNN's Alexandra Field reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNKNOWN: Let's have a parade!
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A Thanksgiving like no other.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
FIELD (voice-over): The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade made for TV only on a closed set. Families across the country are being encouraged to get together on screen only.
CHRIS PERNELL, FATHER DIED OF COVID: I did my phone calls last night to friends who I heard were going to travel and I pleaded with them, please, stay home, be safe so that you can enjoy your loved ones in the future. I don't want anyone to experience what my family has gone through and what my sister is still going through in her fight to recover.
FIELD (voice-over): Last week, the CDC advised people not to travel for the holidays. Since then, 5.9 million people boarded a plane. The CDC now projects that by December 19th, America will have suffered between 294, 000 to 321,000 deaths.
PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE: What we are seeing is the entire midsection of the country screaming high levels, and unfortunately, now, 200,000 deaths per day is going to be the new normal. It will probably head to 3,000 deaths per day.
FIELD (voice-over): Deaths are now at levels unseen since May. Hospitalizations are smashing records every single day. In red hot Texas, there is a rush of new restrictions in places like El Paso and San Antonio, along with the deployment of the National Guard and 1,500 medical professionals.
California is coming closer and closer to the full blown stay-at-home orders of last March. Pennsylvania banned bars from serving alcohol on one of the biggest party nights of the year, the night before Thanksgiving, despite some pushback.
ROBERT PANICO, RESTAURANT OWNER: There is a lot of oppression on one industry and one industry alone, and it seems to be the bar and restaurant industry.
FIELD (voice-over): So, for those who are going to gather today, this advice.
ESTHER CHOO, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY: Try to layer on everything you can to keep your family members and all of their friends and family safe. So, lots of mask wearing, keeping gathering short, keeping ventilation good with windows open.
FIELD (voice-over): This year, there may be fewer turkeys on tables across the country.
KYLE WAIDE, PRESIDENT, ATLANTA COMMUNITY FOOD BANK: The pandemic has led to what we think is the greatest domestic hunger crisis in our country in nearly a century.
FIELD (voice-over): And this year, there are too many families in mourning, too many clinging desperately to hope, and some celebrating answered prayers.
UNKNOWN: There are amazing professionals. They give back.
FIELD (voice-over): Another precious life saved by health care heroes.
(APPLAUSE)
FIELD (voice-over): Once wildly cheered for their bravery and their sacrifice, heroes who we can still do more for this Thanksgiving Day.
CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: If you want to hear a healthy worker, put on a mask and stay home.
FIELD (voice-over): In New York, Alexandra Field, CNN.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
NEWTON (on camera): Joining me now is assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dr. Erik Blutinger. Dr. Blutinger, thanks so much for joining us.
Listen, the United States took a pause for a holiday. We all know COVID took a pause for no one. On the frontlines, what is going on day to day here? Is it real in terms of the crisis that so many people have been talking about now? ERIK BLUTINGER, PROFESSOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL: Paula, it is so real. You know, I am sitting here in New York City, one of the few spots that first fell to the initial outbreak of COVID-19, and we are starting to see a slow rise in cases. But what is happening in New York City is very different than what is happening across a lot of the country.
[02:19:57]
BLUTINGER: We are seeing that in even the most rural parts of America, people are not safe outside of their homes, talking to people without masks on, and keeping less than six feet apart.
And during a festive holiday like Thanksgiving, which is the one opportunity we have throughout the year to be with our family and our close friends to celebrate, especially after such a tiring year, it is a real test of maturity and also of safety to see whether or not we are able to keep our distance, continue to wear mask, because we are so close given the vaccine candidates and where things are headed.
NEWTON: We are so close, all of us are, and yet, how long do you think we will know, will it be before we know exactly the impact of this holiday, on the numbers in the United States?
BLUTINGER: It is very tough to tell and that's a great question. Generally speaking, two to eight weeks is the timeframe from when we start to see what exposures are looking like.
So, what happens today may not come to fruition for at least two weeks from now at minimum. So that makes it especially challenging being able to monitor and control and figure out what is working and what is not working. We all know that 14 days is the average incubation period, so that is why it is so tough to track.
NEWTON: You know, this issue about what is working and what is not working, it has been so confusing. One of the reasons that it has been so difficult for people to really follow instruction, if we contrast the United States with Europe, it seems that Europe was being so much more careful and yet they still went through a tremendous spike. And now, they have lockdowns.
What have we learned? Have we solved any mysteries about this virus right now in terms of how it is transmitted?
BLUTINGER: We are still learning a lot about the virus. What we are learning, especially now, more than ever, are the long-term effects. What happens after you get hospitalized? What do you come home with? What happens when you are four or five or eight or nine months after your first hospitalization?
I can tell you that I've had patients come into the emergency room where they still feel like they can't run the marathon. They can't even walk up the stairs at home. These are young adults, who had a severe hospitalization.
There was even an article in The New York Times the other day that many people across the country are requiring long-term rehab and therapy. And what is so tough is that we don't have a perfect regimen in place anywhere in the world currently that can fix hospitalizations and help cure us of the disease. So we have to continue to work hard at finding a long-term solution.
NEWTON: Yeah. That long-term solution will be, hopefully, a vaccine at this point. We had news, unfortunately, from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, who has that UK vaccine, and there seemed to be some confusion. Some people would even say it was an error in the way they conducted these clinical trials and the dose that people received.
BLUTINGER: Mm-hmm.
NEWTON: Do you think, from when you saw the information, do you think it is of major concern? And are you worried that will impact the confidence that people will have in the vaccines?
BLUTINGER: So I think we all have to keep in mind where we are with these three vaccine candidates. We are all in a rush for time. We would love immediate results. We want to see the data.
But what is challenging is the data that was released by AstraZeneca, just like Pfizer and Moderna, has only been released in the form of a press report. It has not been published in a peer reviewed journal, and we badly need that.
It is true that the AstraZeneca data, preliminarily, raises a few eyebrows. Why is it that if you provide two normal doses of the vaccine, the efficacy is less than when you receive only a half dose followed by a full dose?
But there are some possible advantages with the AstraZeneca. It can be refrigerated in normal fridge temperatures. It is arguably, I am told, less expensive compared to the other vaccine candidates, and the company also mentioned that they would be selling it without a profit involved, at least, for the duration of the pandemic.
So I would caution your viewers to just take a deep breath. Let's see what the data shows once it gets released in the peer reviewed journal, and then we will take it from there.
NEWTON: Yeah, medicine and science by press release is never a good idea, doctor, so we will definitely wait for those journal articles and that all-important peer review. Dr. Erik Blutinger there for us in New York, appreciate it.
BLUTINGER: Thank you.
NEWTON: For the second day in a row, South Korea has now recorded more than 500 new coronavirus cases. Those are the highest numbers the country has recorded since March.
Paula Hancocks joins us live now from Seoul. You've been following these numbers very closely. It must be unsettling at this point.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. What we are hearing is health officials really strengthening what they're saying at this point.
[02:25:00]
HANCOCKS (on camera): In a briefing today, we heard a health official saying that he's calling on all South Koreans to cancel all meetings and to stay home, pointing out that meetings with friends and relatives are particularly risky.
Now, this is not just because of those numbers are increasing, but also because within a week, there are going to be almost half a million students sitting a nationwide college entrance exam here in South Korea. Even those who are infected with coronavirus will be able to take the exam. They will take it in hospital with teachers moderating in full PPE.
I just spoke exclusively to the education minister and asked her, whether or not she was confident this can go ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YOO EUN-HYE, KOREAN EDUCATION MINISTER (through translator): On April 15th, we held a general election during a pandemic. We have shown that we can do this. Teachers and students have long been accustomed to taking extra safety measures.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANCOCKS (on camera): To put this into context, the national college entrance exam here is something quite spectacular, even in normal years. They actually suspend flights to make sure that students are not disturbed during parts of the test. They make sure that the stock market opens an hour later and all businesses start an hour later, so the students are not caught up in any kind of rush hour traffic.
So they are determined to go ahead with this. As the education minister said, she believes that they can do it because they have done the election. But she also pointed out that she is nervous every single day, that this could actually increase the cases.
Certainly, with these numbers increasing at this point, what the prime minister also saying, that we do appear to be going through somewhat of resurgence, it is certainly a nerve-racking time for the students. Paula?
NEWTON: Yeah. The fact that even the students who have tested positive will still be taking this test at the exact same time, extraordinary. Paula Hancocks for us live in Seoul, appreciate it.
Just ahead on "CNN Newsroom," Donald Trump answers reporters' questions for the first time since the election. He is still rejecting a very simple reality. He lost the election.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:30:00]
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: OK. We told you earlier about President Donald Trump's impromptu news conference at the White House. He made outlandish claims about election fraud, already rejected by the courts, because they are not supported by any evidence whatsoever.
Now, his answers to reporters' questions were so deceitful, we believe it's important, nonetheless, for you to see it unedited in its entirety. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Mr. President, do you have any big plans for your last Thanksgiving in the White House?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we don't know what is last, if you look at what's going on. You have to really take a look at what's going on. They're finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes, and nobody believes those numbers. Those numbers are incorrect numbers. A lot of numbers have already been reported that's incorrect. You're going to see things happening over the next week or two that are going to be shocking to people.
If you look at the numbers in Michigan, if you look at the numbers in Pennsylvania, if you look at fraudulent voting and fraudulent votes, so I can't say what's first and what's last in terms of is this the last one or is this the first one of a second term. We'll see what happens. Nobody wants to see the kind of fraud that this election has really come to represent.
We are looking at things that are so bad in Georgia. They don't want to show us signatures. The reason they don't want to show us signatures is very simple, because we will find thousands and thousands - it's a very close race. It's hair-thin. But we'll find thousands and thousands of discrepancies, fraud.
Why they aren't wanting to show those signatures is amazing. They're doing recounts, and even in the recount they found thousands of votes that were off. But now we want to look at the signatures, and you will find tens of thousands of false ballots, forged ballots. You'll see it all over. You're going to see a lot of it.
And if you go to Pennsylvania, you saw the meeting we had yesterday with Pennsylvania. You saw people come up, they went to vote, and they said, "No, you can't vote. Somebody else already sent in a ballot, and a woman--" But this is happening tens of thousands of times.
I think it was 600 and some-odd thousand - 687,000 fraudulent votes cast in Pennsylvania. And I will tell you, if you look at the State House now, the Republican State House, they're starting to see what's going on there. But they've really known it for a long time.
Then you go to Michigan and you look at what happened in Wayne County and Detroit. I went through a list. I went almost every county and you see it, almost everybody, 78 percent, 72 percent, 68 percent going through the list. Then you get to Wayne, and something happened, tremendous numbers. You saw the canvassers that refused to sign their document, because they said, "We can't sign a fraudulent document." Horrible things went on. That's in Wayne County, Detroit.
But you look at the votes that were just tabulated, and they were left today. Look at all the counties. I won almost all of them except Detroit was so egregious. It was phony. Look at what's going on in Wisconsin. Wisconsin they're finding tremendous discrepancy. You just take a look at that - tremendous discrepancy, and elsewhere. So we're going to see what happens.
But you can't have somebody assume office and already they want to get rid of America First. I mean they want to get rid of America First. They don't want America First. You know why? Because China doesn't want it.
China expressed their wish, "Please get rid of America First," and the Biden administration said, "That's OK, we'll get rid of American First." No, we don't want to get rid of America First. We want to put America first, and other countries should put themselves first too, and I tell them that all the time. But we don't want to get rid of it.
So I don't know what is going to happen. I know one thing, Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes, and I got 74 million. But there were many ballots thrown away, so I got much more than that. But I got 74 million. 74 million is 11 million more than I got last time.
It's millions more than Ronald Regan got when he won 49 states. I guess he won 49 states, yes, and it's millions more, a millions more than Hillary Clinton got. Joe Biden did not get - and by the way, Joe Biden did not beat Barack Obama with the Black vote. He didn't beat him. But they have him as beating him.
And if you look at the numbers, the numbers are false. The numbers are corrupt. It was a rigged election - 100 percent, and people know it. That's why you have people marching all over the United States right now. They know it was a rigged election.
[02:35:00]
And look at what's happening in Georgia. A lot of things are being found in Georgia and they are absolutely against showing - I mean, it's a sad thing. They don't want to show signatures. It can be solved if you show signatures. But you're going to find out the people that signed aren't the people that are supposed to be signing. You're going to find that the people that signed those envelopes, they didn't do the ballots - envelopes. And then somebody said, "Maybe the envelopes were thrown out." There's tremendous fraud here.
If you look - wait, just one second. If you look at 10:00 in the evening, you saw what happened. Then you had these massive dumps. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. You have Dominion, which is very, very suspect to start off with. Nobody knows the ownership. People say the votes are counted in foreign countries and much worse than that, by the way, with Dominion. So Dominion is also partially based in Canada, but it's based in other countries too, and nobody knows where the votes - but you know, Canada refuses to use Dominion. Canada uses paper ballots. So think of it, they're based in Canada, and Canada refuses to use them.
They're smart. They use paper ballots, because paper ballots are the only thing - frankly, the only thing that really you're going to get an accurate tab on, because those machines are fixed, they're rigged. You can press Trump and the vote goes to Biden. All you have to do is play with a chip, and it's down - it's shown all the time. All you have to do is play with a chip, and they played with a chip.
Especially in Wayne County and Detroit, you take a look in Philadelphia, you take a look, we've had excellent meetings with senators from Pennsylvania - Republican senators and others, and they're seeing things. They knew it was dishonest, but they didn't know it was this dishonest. You'll see it all. You'll see it all. So we'll see. Speaking of Georgia, I'll be going there.
REPORTER: When?
TRUMP: I spoke with the two great senators. They're great senators, Kelly and David. I'll probably be going on Saturday. We're looking for a site. We're going to have a tremendous turnout, and we seem to always have a good turnout. The people are very disappointed that we were robbed. We were robbed.
I won that by hundreds of thousands of votes. Everybody knows it. You go down the streets, there are Trump/Pence signs all over the place. And we won that by hundreds of thousands, Georgia, so they're disappointed. I don't want them to be disappointed. That'll solve itself. We're finding the votes.
Once we get to the signatures, we'll take over 100 percent. Once we get to signature, 100 percent. We will take over Georgia and we will get Georgia. But they have to show us the signatures. Stacey Abrams pulled the wool over the secretary of state. I don't know who he is, but the Secretary of State.
REPORTER: He said he donated to you.
TRUMP: It doesn't matter. I mean, he says that, too, but I don't know him. I've never met him. I have no idea who he is. All I know is that's the ultimate. "I donated to Trump. I respect Trump. I love Trump. I think Trump is great. By the way, we're giving nothing." This guy got played like I've never seen anybody played.
Tell him, if he donated to Trump, if he likes Trump, let us see the signatures. Why is he not letting us see? There's only one reason you can't see the signatures. That's because there's fraud all over the place. And even without looking at signatures, as you know, we found thousands of wrong votes. And by the way, always against me, it was not 50/50, it was always against me.
The other thing, take a look at Michigan. Take a look at what they did with respect to counties, every county, 78 percent, 72 percent, 76 percent, 59 percent. The whole thing, one after another after another, and then you get to Detroit and it's like more votes than people. Dead people voting all over the place.
But anyway, going back to Georgia just for a second. So, I'll be going there on Saturday night, and maybe I'll go twice. It's very important that we win those races. These are two great people. I know them both very well. They're both great people. And I think the two people - I beat the one gentleman. He ran against a congressional candidate who was an excellent person, frankly, and he didn't even live in the right community, and that's how we won.
Now, I have to beat him again. He lost as a congressman. He was going for Congress, as you remember, and now against Karen. And now he's running against David. He doesn't deserve to be there. He's a lightweight. The other one is either a communist or a socialist. I can't figure that one out yet. But he's either a communist or socialist, probably a communist. This is not for Georgia.
And I just want to tell my people, don't be disappointed yet, because this race is far from over. But I'm going on Saturday night. I'll be in Georgia. We're going to have a tremendous crowd. They're looking for the right site. Probably, we'd love to take one of the big stadiums, but you can't because of the COVID, so we'll have an outdoor form of probably an airport.
Most likely it's an airport. They're looking for the biggest space. We'll have tens of thousands of people show up. I think it's very important. Then, I may go a second time. Depending on how they're doing, I may go a second time. But they're two really good people. Yes?
[02:40:00]
REPORTER: Mr. President?
TRUMP: Yes, please, go ahead.
REPORTER: Mr. President, if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden on December the 14th, will you concede to Joe Biden?
TRUMP: It's going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud.
REPORTER: But will you?
TRUMP: As to whether or not I can get this apparatus moving this quickly, because time isn't on our side, everything else is on our side. Facts are on our side. This was a massive fraud. This should never take place in this country. We're like a third world country. We have machines that nobody knows what the hell they're looking at.
I mean, you take a look at all the mistakes they made. Look at even Georgia. Look at all the mistakes they made, and all that was - it's a simple you press a button. Look at Georgia. All the votes they found just by going - and I said they shouldn't even do it, because it doesn't mean anything. They're doing a recount right now in Georgia that is meaningless.
The only recount that matters in Georgia is to look at the signatures on the envelope, and you will find that those signatures do not match the people that were, many of them, hundreds of thousands of them - hundreds of thousands. And I only lost by 12,000 votes. I didn't lose. I don't even like to say I lose.
I only - I guess we're 11,000 or 12,000 votes short. That's out of millions and millions of votes. They just got it over the line. And one of the things that happened, I did so well, and I was told this in two other states, that they didn't know what to do. They panicked. Take a look at their drops at 3:00 and 3:42 in the morning on certain states. They did drops where you're going along like this, and then you'll have a spike that goes up to the ceiling at that. It's disgraceful. We can't let that happen.
I will tell you, in Philadelphia, the Republicans - State House Republicans are very, very upset, and it's appropriate, because Philadelphia's become very activist, if you look at what's going on. They don't want that to happen to Pennsylvania - to the State of Pennsylvania. And it was - I don't even like to use - It was a rigged election.
REPORTER: But, sir, just to be clear, if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden, will you concede?
TRUMP: If they do, they made a mistake, because this election was a fraud.
REPORTER: But will you--?
TRUMP: Just saying - I said, this election was a fraud. I mean, they have Biden beating Obama, and Obama's vote, in areas that mattered in terms of the election, in swing states, and yet he's losing to Obama all over the place, but he's beating Obama in swing states, which are the states that mattered for purposes of the election. So, no, I can't say that at all.
REPORTER: You won't concede?
TRUMP: I think it's a possibility. They're trying to - look, between you people - Don't talk to me that way.
REPORTER: Sorry, sir.
TRUMP: You're just a lightweight. Don't talk to me that way. I'm the President of the United States. Don't ever talk to the president that way.
REPORTER: Sir, I'm just asking.
TRUMP: All right, I'm going to go with another question. Go ahead.
REPORTER: If the Electoral College does elect President-Elect Joe Biden, are you not going to leave this building? TRUMP: Certainly I will. Certainly I will, and you know that. But I think that there will be a lot of things happening between now and the 20th of January - a lot of things. Massive fraud has been found. We're like a third world country. We're using computer equipment that can be hacked. They talk about glitches. How many glitches did they find?
So, a glitch, oh gee, we had a glitch - 5,000 votes. In all cases, right? In all cases, the votes went from Trump to Biden. They didn't go from Biden to - the glitches were never from Biden to Trump. So, they had many glitches, and they said, "Oh, we had a glitch." A glitch is like the equipment is a little broken, we'll fix it up.
No, a glitch is, in this case, we caught them cheating, we caught them stealing, we caught a fraudulent effort to get votes, and they said, "Oh yes, it's true, there was." And there were many of them. But here's the problem. There were probably 10, 20, 30 times that didn't get caught. We just got lucky and caught numerous of them.
What that is, is very simple. If you look at the glitch, the glitch means, right - it means "Oh, we got caught. We got caught with the votes and now let's just call it a glitch." It wasn't the machinery.
And by the way, the machinery, if you look, just take a look anywhere on the internet, you will see many, many people where they're experimenting with this stupid machinery, where if you set it a certain way, the votes go from Trump to Biden. If you look at these counties, if you look at Arizona where I was going to win very easily, I've had the biggest politicians in Arizona say, "There was no way you lost Arizona." There's no way I lost Pennsylvania, with his anti-fuel and with his anti-fracking and all of the things that they stand against. There was no way.
[02:45:00]
Now, Texas, you all said that I was going to lose Texas by a lot, four points. I won Texas by eight or nine points. Right? I won it very easily. In Wisconsin, you all said I was going to lose - or the poll said - certain polls, Washington Post, ABC, said I was going to lose by 17 points. Think of how dishonest. I thought I was going to win it, and essentially I did win it. It's very, very close. It's very, very close.
We're going to win because they found - by the way, in Wisconsin, they have found massive discrepancy, just so you understand, massive discrepancy. But they said I was going to lose by 17 points and I won the state, but it's very close. It shows very close, whether you say win or lose, it shows very close.
But when you look at the massive discrepancy that we'll be revealing - that's already been revealed, everybody knows it. They just don't want to play it. Between big tech and the fake news media, you just put out like this little railroad trade.
Now, I think it's not right that he's trying to pick a cabinet, but I can't imagine whether it's courts or legislatures, if you're going to catch hundreds of thousands of false ballots, and I'm talking in each state.
And just so you understand, many, many more votes that we're talking about that we need, you understand, I'm not saying we caught 23 dead people, but we were short 20,000 votes. No, no. We have tens of thousands votes more than we need in all cases. OK? In all cases. So, I think you're going to see something. I mean, I think it's going to be a very big story. Yes, please.
REPORTER: Yes, Mr. President.
TRUMP: It's going to be not only a big story. It's the most important story of our time. Yes?
REPORTER: Yes, Mr. President. If Joe Biden takes over the White House on January 21st, will you announce a candidacy for 2024?
TRUMP: No, I don't want to talk about 2024 yet.
REPORTER: Will you run again?
TRUMP: Because this is far from being-
REPORTER: If and when Joe Biden takes over, will you announce candidacy for 2024?
TRUMP: Look, look, look. I and the people that work in this are very professional and all of this stuff is coming. A lot of it came out, if you look at the Philadelphia meeting, if you look at the Pennsylvania meeting yesterday, a lot of it came out. This has a long way to go. This has a long way to go.
You're going to find tremendous fraud. You're going to find fraud of hundreds of thousands of votes per state. You're going to find fraud of many, many times the votes that I need. Again, we're not talking about less votes where 20 votes, but it doesn't turn the election. No, we're talking about thousands and thousands of votes beyond what we need to turn a state. When you see that, I think it's very hard, even for the media to say that Biden should win the state.
And there's no way that Biden got 80 million votes. By the way, the only way he got 80 million is through a massive fraud. There's no way that he got 80 million votes.
REPORTER: Can you give us a timeline of when you're going to present the evidence of voter fraud to talk about?
TRUMP: Well, it's happening now. I mean-
REPORTER: When can we actually see it?
TRUMP: We're in courts - we're in courts, but we're also in front of legislatures and we're doing very well in front of the states.
REPORTER: If you have the evidence, why not present it now?
REPORTER: Mr. President, if you don't think the presidential election was legitimate and you think that it was stolen, what confidence do you expect voters in order to have when they go to the polls to vote for, say, Loeffler or Perdue?
TRUMP: Well, I told them today, I think you're dealing in a very fraudulent system. I think I'm very worried about that. They are tremendous people. Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue are tremendous people. They should be in the United States Senate. They're desperately needed. But I told them today, I said, "Listen, you have a fraudulent system. You have a system with the flick of a switch or the putting in of a new chip can change the course of history, and you have to be very careful."
I read this morning where Stacey Abrams has 850,000 ballots accumulated. Now, that's called harvesting. You're not allowed to harvest, but I understand the Secretary of State who is really - he's an enemy of the people. The Secretary of State, and whether he's Republican or not, this man, what he's done, supposedly he made a deal, and you'll have to check this, where she's allowed to harvest, but in other areas they're not allowed. What kind of a deal is that? They're not allowed to harvest during the presidential.
But how can she say she has 850,000 ballots? That would mean that she's got 850,000 ballots for her. That's not supposed to be happening. That's not an election. You know, an election should be a one day deal. You walk in and you vote. And if you can't do it, if for some reason you're not feeling well or there's a problem - but what they did is they used COVID in order to defraud the people of this country. And the whole world is watching, and the whole world is laughing at our electoral process. The whole world is watching, and it's a very sad thing - a very sad thing.
[02:50:00]
And you know what? I've done a lot of things. You just saw Space Force, and you've seen the tax cuts, and the regulation cuts, and the way we've taken care of the vets, and what we've done with Anwar and Alaska and all the different things we've done, more than just about anybody's done, and even though it's four years. There are those that say what I'm doing right now is the single most important thing I've ever done, and I think it may be true. It may be true.
The vaccines - and by the way, don't let Joe Biden take credit for the vaccines. If Joe Biden - Joe Biden failed with the swine flu - H1N1, totally failed with the swine flu. Don't let him take credit for the vaccines, because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than they've ever been pushed before. And we got that approved and through, and nobody's ever seen anything like it.
And you got a big resistance in the FDA from years and years of people working there for years and years, different administrations. But the vaccines - there are those that says one of the greatest things. It's a medical miracle. Don't let anyone try and take credit for it.
But with all of the things I've done, this could be the most important, because there's been voter fraud going on, but never at this scale. Tens of millions of ballots have been sent out to people that didn't even want them. Many people - and I know you've heard, many people have received two, three, and four ballots, and many people have taken those two, three, and four ballots and they've voted them.
This election was a fraud. It was a rigged election. I mean, I hate to say it, but this was rigged, at the highest level, it was a rigged election. So we have to figure it out. And yes, I think it's very dangerous for the two people that are running against two totally unqualified people. And I think it's very dangerous for our nation.
And I'll go a step further. I said today, other than the fact that you have all of the eyes and ears, but the media doesn't cover it properly, because the media would - if they saw something wrong, I'm convinced that media would not report it, because you have many things that you know are wrong and you don't report. But if the media was honest in this country, which, for the most part, they're not, this would never have happened. This has taken place. This fraud has taken place. If the media were honest, this would never, ever have happened.
But you have a big election coming up. You have a woman or somebody announced 850,000 absentee ballots have already been collected. 850, and I told David Perdue today, and I told Kelly yesterday, I said, "They're talking about having collected already 800,000 ballots against you." You can't do that. You can't do that. What kind of a race is that? You can't allow that to happen.
And I'm serious. If the media were honest and if big tech were honest, which it's totally not, it's a terrible thing. That whole Section 230 is a disgrace that they even have it. But big tech is totally dishonest. If the media were honest and big tech was fair, this wouldn't even be a contest, and I would have won by a tremendous amount - a tremendous amount. And I did win by a tremendous amount, but it hasn't been reported yet. But people understand what's happened. They know what happened. Yes, please go.
REPORTER: Do you know, of course, it is tradition--
TRUMP: Say it?
REPORTER: You know that it's tradition for previous presidents to go to the next president's inauguration. So will you attend Joe Biden's?
TRUMP: I don't want to say that yet.
REPORTER: But he is going to be--
TRUMP: I mean, I know the answer - I'll be honest. I know the answer. But I just don't want to say it yet.
REPORTER: Is that a yes?
TRUMP: Look. A thing like this possibly has never happened before, but maybe people just didn't catch it, but we've caught it.
REPORTER: But why haven't your attorneys--
TRUMP: We've caught we've caught hundreds of thousands of votes.
REPORTER: If I may, sir.
TRUMP: Listen, excuse me, excuse me.
REPORTER: If I may.
TRUMP: When they don't allow a poll watcher, which is a sacred person in our country, people don't know what a poll watcher is. A poll watcher is, it's considered sacred in our country. When they throw them out of rooms-
REPORTER: But that's not true. They didn't do that.
TRUMP: Sure it is. And when they put them in pens-
REPORTER: Your attorneys admitted they were in the room then.
TRUMP: Excuse me. No, they didn't. My attorneys did not admit anything and it's all different places. But where they throw the amount of counting rooms, where they put them in what's called pens and they're 20, 30, 40 feet away, and in some cases 200 feet away, when things like that happen.
When a woman walks in on November 3rd to vote - a proud woman - and this is by the thousands, tens of thousands, and she said, "I'm here to vote." And they said, "You've already voted, ma'am. I'm sorry." "No, I didn't vote. I wanted to vote on November 3rd. I want to cast my vote in person." "I'm sorry, ma'am, you've already voted. You voted by ballot." And then they leave. This is a horrible thing, and we have tens of thousands of that happening. This is a horrible thing.
[02:55:00]
They gave Biden a lot of votes that he would never have gotten. This is not a candidate that could get 80 million votes. This is just not a candidate. This is not a candidate that beat Barack Hussein Obama with the Black voter, OK? This is not a candidate that beat Obama with the Black voter. This is not a candidate that beat Hillary Clinton to a pulp. It just doesn't work that way.
But when you look at the number, when you look at the data, and when you look at the things we have - we have affidavits from hundreds and hundreds of people. This election was a rigged election. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: So once again, none of what the president said about widespread election fraud or being cheated out of the presidency is true. Joe Biden won the election. Period. He will be the next president of the United States, inaugurated on January 20th, 2021.
I am Paula Newton, and we will be right back with more CNN NEWSROOM in just a moment.
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