Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

In a Stunning Phone Call Trump Threatens Georgia Secretary of State to Tilt Election; Trump Demands Georgia Officials to Tilt Election by Finding Him Votes. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 03, 2021 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: In multiple recounts we know he did not. The jaw-dropping conversation between President Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger took place yesterday.

Just listen to this excerpt and decide for yourself, does it sound like a president or a crime boss?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hello, Brad and Ryan, and everybody. We appreciate the time and the call. So we've spent a lot of time on this, and if we could just go over some of the numbers I think it's pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially, Georgia. You even see it by rally size frankly. We'd be getting 25,000, 30,000 people a rally, and the competition would get less than a hundred people.

It never made sense. But we have a number of things. We have at least two or three -- anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls. Much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn't been checked. We think that if you check the signatures, a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County you'll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures of people with -- who have been forged and we are quite sure that's going to happen.

Another tremendous number we're going to have an accurate number over the next two days with certified accountants but an accurate number will be given, but it's in the 50s of thousands and that's people that went to vote and they were told they can't vote because they've already been voted for, and it's a very sad thing. They walked out complaining but the number is large. We'll have it for you but it's very -- it's much more than the number of 11,779. That's -- the current margin is only 11,779.

Brad, I think -- I think you agree with that, right? That's -- that's something I think everyone -- at least that's the number that everyone agrees on. But that's the difference in the votes. But we've had hundreds of thousands of ballots that we're able to actually -- we'll get you a pretty accurate number. You don't need much of a number because the number that in theory I lost by the margin would be 11,779.

But you also have substantial numbers of people, thousands and thousands who went to the voting place on November 3rd, were told they couldn't vote, were told they couldn't vote because a ballot had been put in on their name. And you know, that's very, very, very, very sad. We had -- I believe it's about 4,502 voters who voted but who weren't on the voter registration list. So it's 4,502 who voted but they were not on the voter registration roll, which they had to be.

You had 18,325 vacant address voters. They had no -- the address was vacant. And they're not allowed to be counted. That's 18,325. A smaller number you had 904 who only voted where they had just a PO, a post office box number. And they had a post office box number and that's not allowed. We had at least 18,000, that's on tape, we had them counted very painstakingly, 18,000 voters having to do with (bleeped). That's -- she's a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler, (bleeped).

That is -- that was the tape that's been shown all over the world that makes everybody look bad. You, me, and everybody else, where they got, number one, they said very clearly and it's been reported that they said there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area and then they came back (bleeped), with her daughter and a few people. There was no Republican poll watchers. Actually there were no Democrat poll watchers. I guess they were them. But there were no Democrats either and there was no law enforcement.

Late in the morning they went -- early in the morning they went to the table with the black robe, the black shield, and they pulled out the votes. Those votes were put there a number of hours before the table was put there, I think it was -- Brad, you would know, it was probably eight hours or seven hours before and then it was stuffed with votes. They weren't in an official voter box. They were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks -- suitcases. But they weren't in voter boxes.

[18:05:07]

The minimum number it could be because we watched it and they watched it certified in slow motion instant replay if you can believe it, but had slow motion and it was magnified many times over. And the minimum it was was 18,000 ballots all for Biden.

You had out-of-state voters. They voted in Georgia but they were from out of state of 4,925. You had absentee ballots sent to vacant -- they were absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses. They had nothing on them about addresses. That's 2,326. And you had drop boxes, which was very bad. You had drop boxes that were picked up. We have photographs and we have affidavits from many people.

I don't know if you saw the hearings but you have drop boxes where the box was picked up and not delivered for three days. So all sorts of things could have happened to that box including, you know, putting in the votes that you wanted. So there were many infractions. And the bottom line is many, many times the 11,779 margin that they said we lost by, we had vast -- I mean, you have -- the state is in turmoil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So we wanted you to hear the president in his own words. We didn't include the part from the secretary of state in this particular clip but he does push back. What you just heard from the president -- no evidence. No evidence. These are conspiracy theories. And the secretary of state says as much.

You heard some beeps there in that clip. We have redacted the name of an individual there about whom the president makes unsubstantiated claims.

This remarkable attempt to strongarm a state election official is playing out against a backdrop of partisan spectacle being planned for Wednesday. That's when at least a dozen Republican senators and 140 Republican members of the House say they will object to certifying Joe Biden's legitimate, repeatedly recounted, litigated, and certified win as president.

Joining us now, CNN's senior political analyst and former adviser to four presidents David Gergen, and CNN global affairs analyst and staff writer for "The New Yorker," Susan Glasser.

David, you served in the Nixon administration. The Nixon tapes have come up a lot in conversation today and on social media. You know, they obviously provided the smoking gun that brought down a president. This recording can't exactly bring down Trump. He'll be out of office in 17 days. But is this another watershed moment in American history?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I sure think it is. And just to back up just a second so people understand this. The president was raveling off lots and lots of data that has all been tested in court. The Trump people filed over 48 cases which they lost. I think what the number was they lost 48 in one, maybe one case. But consistently courts have found that what the president was saying today was just untrue.

The operative part of that tape legally was later on when he puts pressure on the secretary of state in Georgia to come up with the votes enough to put him over the top. That's called stealing an election. Stealing an election. This is the second time -- as you say, Ana, it brings back a lot of memories of Watergate. This is the second time in our history when a president has been caught red handed by a tape recording machine.

In the Nixon case, of course he resigned. The question is, what will Trump do? I think the chances have gone up now that he's going to try to self-pardon himself.

CABRERA: Do you think this is on par with Nixon or is it worse?

GERGEN: I think it's worse in many ways. It's just that we're so short now and the Republican Party has not gotten all riled up but it's not just the brazen, manipulative effort to bully his way to victory. It is also the fact that he's injected so much poison into the nation's blood stream so that lots and lots and millions of Americans believe that Joe Biden has been illegitimately elected. The evidence is simply not there.

It is propaganda which Trump has sold over and over again and of course in selling your propaganda you've got the Republican Party all whipped up, to go out there and support him, to make it worse. There wouldn't be this -- we wouldn't have these senators speaking up had it not been this phony baloney effort to convince people that the election was stolen to begin with.

Let's get Susan into this. I'm looking forward to hearing her views on it.

CABRERA: Yes, Susan, one of the questions that I have and I found stunning was the number of, you know, Trump allies and advisers, including his chief of staff, were on this call.

[18:10:03]

So what does it say about President Trump that he felt comfortable saying what we just heard with other people on the call?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think that's a really important point. He's clearly surrounded by advisers who are not telling him the truth or who are encouraging him in this combination of what appears to be extremely delusional or cynical or both behavior in attacking the election that has already been certified by the electoral college.

I just -- I can't state that enough. That's how the Constitution works is that we have an election and then we have a mechanism, it's called the electoral college. It met on December 14th. It certified Joe Biden the winner with 306 electoral votes.

What's happening in Congress this week on January 6th is basically the only role prescribed by the Constitution for the members of Congress is to open the mail. OK? Open the mail from the electoral college and acknowledge that they've received the certification from the electoral college. That's already happened.

So why is the president persisting in this? I think it goes to your question about the advisers and the sycophants and the people who are surrounding him right now who are -- people who are perpetuating a series of untruths, disinformation, falsehoods, encouraging the president apparently in what appears to be a delusional last stand.

Just to David's point about history, I just -- I think it's important for people to understand at this moment never in the history of the United States has a defeated, incumbent president refused to leave office and acknowledge the results of the election. That's what's happening here. This isn't business as usual and I think it is a direct consequence of many Republicans, even ones who are no longer going along with Trump, many Republicans refusing to do what all other elected officials have done previously which is to accept Biden's victory back in November.

They said they were just humoring Trump, many of them, that he would get used to it, that he would leave office peacefully. And instead we've gone on and on and on with an increasingly risky assault on democracy.

CABRERA: We just got -- found with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris who's stumping in Georgia. This is her moments ago as she addressed this phone call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Have you all heard about that recorded conversation? Well, it was, yes, certainly the voice of desperation. Most certainly that. And it was a bold, boldfaced, bold abuse of power by the president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: David, how do you think both the president -- the president- elect as well as the vice president-elect have been handling this effort to invalidate their legitimate victory?

GERGEN: Sorry, are you asking me?

CABRERA: Yes, yes. David.

GERGEN: Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. We dropped there for a second. The -- I think that Joe Biden has generally, and Kamala Harris, have both set a reasonable tone, a respectful tone. I don't think they've tried -- they've been much more concerned about where we go from here with the virus than they have been about Donald Trump. They've sort of tried to shovel him off to the side. You know, I think they want him to have less publicity and just be more in the rearview mirror.

They probably don't want to have a great big fight over this. But I do think the Republican Party is on trial here. And -- how many, after this recording, which I think is so damaging. You know, he's got his hand in the cookie jar. And he's been caught flat out, red faced. It doesn't seem to bother him. It doesn't seem -- will it bother other Republicans or not? They're the ones I think who are failing the country right now and putting the party's long term health frankly in jeopardy and the health of our politics.

To go with what Susan was saying, this is so dangerous for democracy. It's going to have long lasting effects. We're going to be hearing about, you know, the lost cause of Donald Trump for a long time from a whole lot of Americans who have been misinformed.

CABRERA: Susan, the president was impeached last year because of a phone call with the Ukrainian president where Trump pressured him to investigate Joe Biden. He hasn't learned his lesson?

GLASSER: Look, arguably this phone call is an even more serious offense. You know, obviously he's already been defeated by the voters so a move to impeach him again is unlikely with just a couple of weeks left in his term. But, you know, I think David's point is an extremely important one to underscore right now.

The Republican Party itself having enabled and excused and promoted Donald Trump for the last four years really fascinatingly is being ripped apart by Trump at the very end of his presidency. He seems determined to light not just democracy and in some ways institutions on fire but his own party.

[18:15:01]

Remember these are Republican elected officials in Georgia that Donald Trump is attacking and whose credibility and very careers he's going after simply because they did their job and certified the election results, simply because they followed court rulings many of them by Republican appointees. Now he is forcing his supporters in Congress to go ahead with this last ditch attack, the legitimacy of the election, making Republicans have to cast a crucial and extremely uncomfortable vote.

So you have the Senate majority leader who has said, you know, he has congratulated Joe Biden. So Trump is ripping the party apart at the very end and I think that it really -- it shows you how he really wanted a party of Donald Trump and not necessarily a Republican Party. And so many of them have been willing to go along with this.

CABRERA: So what will you do now? I'm asking those lawmakers who may be thinking this hard, thinking this over hard tonight as, you know, their statements, their plan to vote on Wednesday came before we heard this audio. We'll see if this changes any minds.

Susan Glasser, David Gergen, thank you both for being with us.

This call between President Trump and Georgia's secretary of state was an hour long. We're continuing to go through and we're going to, you know, turn some clips. We'll have much more of this call for you to hear after the break.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Back with our breaking news, President Trump in a phone call pushing the Georgia secretary of state to find votes in order to overturn his verified loss in the November election. This audio was first obtained by "The Washington Post." CNN has now obtained a recording of the full phone call. And throughout the next couple of hours we're going to play as much of it as possible for you.

Here's another portion. And I want to point out, you're going hear just President Trump in this. We've learned he speaks for about 10 minutes straight before giving an opportunity for the secretary of state to respond. So here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And I know you would like to get to the bottom of it, although I saw you on television today and you said that you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know. And I didn't lose the state, Brad. People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way -- a lot of the political people said that there is no way they beat me and they beat me. They beat me in the poll. As you know, every single state, we won every state, we won every statehouse in the country.

[18:20:01]

We held the Senate which is shocking to people, although we'll see what happens tomorrow or in a few days. And we won the House. But we won every single statehouse and we won Congress, which was supposed to lose 15 seats and they gained I think 16 or 17 or something. I think there's now a difference of five. There was supposed to be a difference substantially more.

But politicians in every state but politicians in Georgia have given affidavits and are going to that there was no way they beat me in the election, that the people came out, in fact, they were expecting to lose and they ended up winning by a lot because of the coattails and they said there's no way that they've done many polls prior to the election there was no way that they won.

Ballots were dropped in massive numbers and we're trying to get to those numbers and we will have them. They'll take a period of time. Certified. But they're massive numbers. And far greater than the 11,779.

The other thing, dead people. So dead people voted. And I think the number is in the -- close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number. And the minimum is close to about 5,000 voters. The bottom line is when you add it all up and then you start adding, you know, 300,000 fake ballots, then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other areas, and this may or may not be -- this just came up this morning that they are burning their ballots.

That they are shredding ballots and removing equipment. They are changing the equipment on the Dominion machines, and, you know, that's not legal and they supposedly shredded I think they said 300 pounds of -- 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that just came to us as a report today. And, you know, it's a very sad situation.

But, Brad, if you took the minimum numbers where many, many times above the 11,779, and many of those numbers are certified or they will be certified but they are certified. Those are numbers that are there, that exist, and that beat the margin -- the margin of loss. They beat it, I mean, by a lot. And people should be happy to have an accurate count instead of an election where there is turmoil.

I mean, there is turmoil in Georgia and other places. You're not the only one. I mean, we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly. And -- but this is something that's -- you know, as an example I think in Detroit and I think there is a good section of your state actually which we're not sure so we're not going to report it yet, but in Detroit we had a hundred, I think it was 139 percent of the people voted. That's not too good.

In Pennsylvania they had well over 200,000 more votes than they had people voting. And that doesn't play too well. And the legislature there is, which is Republican, is extremely activist and angry. But I mean, there were other things also that were almost as bad as that. But they had as an example in Michigan a tremendous number of dead people that voted. I think it was, I think, Mark, it was 18,000 -- some unbelievably high number. Much higher than yours. You were in the 4,000 to 5,000 category.

And that was checked out laboriously by going through the obituary columns in the newspapers. So I guess with all of it being said, Brad, it's the bottom line, provisional ballots, again, you know, you'll have to tell me about the provisional ballots, but we have a lot of people that were complaining that they weren't able to vote because they were already voted for and these are great people. And, you know, they were shell shocked. I don't know if you call that provisional ballots.

In some states we had a lot of provisional ballot situations where people were given a provisional ballot because when they walked in on November 3rd they were already voted for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Let me be very clear here. What you just heard from the president is not true. None of it. There is no evidence. These are lies. These are conspiracy theories. These types of claims have been investigated. They have been litigated. And there is nothing there. No there-there.

[18:25:08]

You will hear from the secretary of state of Georgia, a Republican, coming up as we continue to play this audio throughout the next couple of hours so you can hear as much of this phone call as possible and the secretary of state sets the president straight. The president doesn't want to hear it.

Stay with us. We're going to continue to play this sound so you can hear it from the president's own mouth so that you can judge for yourself.

When we come back we'll speak with Carl Bernstein, legendary Watergate journalist. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: We continue with our breaking news coverage. CNN now has the full recording of this phone call between President Trump and Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. And I want to play you another section of this astonishing attempt to strong arm a state election official into finding more than 11,000 electoral votes that didn't happen. Enough to give Trump a win in Georgia. And he seems to issue a threat if the count is not changed to his satisfaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have many, many times the number of votes necessary to win this state. And we won the state. And we won it very substantially and easily. And we're getting -- we have -- much of this is very -- you know, they're certified, far more is certified than we need. But we're getting additional numbers certified, too. And we're getting pictures of drop boxes being delivered and delivered late, and delivered three days later in some cases. Plus we have many affidavits to that effect.

[18:30:00]

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: So, Mr. President, if I -- if I might be able to jump in and I'll give Brad a chance.

Mr. Secretary, obviously, there is -- there are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted. That's at odds with the representation from the Secretary of State's Office. What I'm hopeful for is there's some way that we can -- we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully. You know, the president mentioned Fulton County but in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of -- where the facts seem to lead.

And so, Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that's less litigious.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I listened to what, you know, the president has just said.

President Trump, we've had several lawsuits and we've had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don't agree that you have won. We don't -- you know, I didn't agree about the 200,000 number that you'd mentioned. But I go through that point by point. What we have done is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time going through the election issue by issue, and then on the statehouse of the Government Affairs Committee we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of the contention.

And then just a few days ago we met with our U.S. congressman, Republican congressman, and we gave them about two hours of our time, talking about this past election. Going back -- primarily what you've talked about here focused in on primarily I believe is the absentee ballot process. I don't believe that you're really questioning the Dominion machines because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re- tally of all the ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and it came up with virtually the same result.

Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table. I don't think there's an issue about that. I think what you are --

TRUMP: Well, Brad -- Brad, not that there's not an issue but -- because we have a big issue with Dominion in other states and perhaps in yours. But we haven't felt we needed to go there. And just to, you know, maybe put a little different spin on what Mark is saying, Mark Meadows, yes, we'd like to go further, but we don't really need to. We have all the votes we need. You know, we won the state.

If you took -- these are the most minimal numbers, the numbers that I gave you, those are numbers that are certified, your absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses, your out-of-state voters, 4,925. You know, when you add them up, it's many more -- it's many times the 11,779 number. So we could go through -- we have not gone through your Dominion. So we can't give them blessing. I mean, in other states, we think we found tremendous corruption with Dominion machines, but we'll have to see.

But we only lost the state by 11 -- by that number, 11,000 votes. And 779. So with that being said, with just what we have, and, you know, with just what we have we're giving you minimal numbers. We're doing the most conservative numbers possible. Where many times, many, many times above the margin. And so we don't really have to, Mark, I don't think we have to go through --

MEADOWS: Right, right.

TRUMP: Because what's the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by a half a million votes?

MEADOWS: Right.

TRUMP: I think we probably did win by half a million. You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama and from South Carolina and from other states, and they're saying it's impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won -- you know, in Alabama we set a record. Got the highest vote ever.

In Georgia we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it's not possible to have lost Georgia. And I could tell you by our rallies.

[18:35:02]

I could tell you by the rally I'm having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It's just not possible to have lost Georgia. Not possible. When I heard it was close, I said, there's no way. But they dropped a lot of votes in there, late at night. You know that, Brad. And that's what we are working on very, very stringently.

But regardless of those votes, with all of it being said, we lost by essentially 11,000 votes and we have many more votes already calculated and certified to. So I just don't know, you know, Mark, I don't know what's the purpose. I won't give Dominion a pass because we found too many bad things. But we don't need Dominion or anything else. We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there is nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having a correct -- the people of Georgia are angry and these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night along with others that we're going to have by that time which are much more substantial, even.

And the people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated because the 2,236 in absentee ballots, I mean, they're all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, et cetera. And even if you cut them in half, cut them in half, and cut them in half again, it's more votes than we need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: During that call, Brad Raffensperger repeatedly pushes back on the president's false assertions and this morning before this call was released to the public he resorted to the president's favorite medium, Twitter, and said this. "Respectfully, President Trump, what you are saying is not true. The truth will come out."

Joining us now CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who broke the Watergate story.

Carl, you've been there, done this before. A president recorded on tape, issuing threats, calling for seemingly criminal behavior. Are you feeling some deja vu right now?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think it's deja vu because this is far worse than what occurred in the Nixon presidency. What we have just heard is that in any other conceivable moment in our history this tape would result in the leadership of both parties calling for the resignation of the president of the United States immediately. There would be a run in the Republican and Democrat parties to call for his resignation.

What we are listening to here is the president proposing a conspiracy to steal the election. Let's look at the other words that were uttered that were not played right then. Then I'll read them. So look, says President Trump. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. He is proposing a conspiracy to not only steal the election but to undermine the whole democratic process in this country.

And what this means really is I think we need to look at this in an even larger question. And that is Donald Trump really is the shame of this nation and its greatest danger. Trump, himself, the president of the United States, as Mattis, as many of his former chiefs of staff, as his Defense Department leaders concluded, Trump is the danger to our national security. And you hear it in this tape because it is both at once seditious and moving to being criminal.

A criminal conspiracy being proposed here to steal an election. And one would hope that perhaps there will be by state officials some, as well as federal, some look at the legality or illegality of what has happened here because this can't go unaddressed.

CABRERA: And we are going to explore that specifically, the legality here with our legal experts including Elie Honig coming up just after you. But, you know, this tweet from Dan Rather is an awful lot like what we're hearing from you. I want to read it to our viewers as well. He wrote this afternoon, "The audio of Trump with the Georgia secretary of state, wow. It's like telling the Nixon tapes to hold my beer." You've already said that this is worse than the Nixon tapes but I am

curious, do you think it's worse because of how, you know, people are reacting to it, how Republican lawmakers are responding to it, or is it what Trump, himself is doing?

BERNSTEIN: Both. Because one of the most significant aspects of Watergate of course is that it was the Republican leadership and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who had the courage to say, Mr. President, your illegal conduct cannot be tolerated and you must go.

[18:40:02]

And so Barry Goldwater, 1964 nominee for president of the United States of his party, led the delegation of Republican leaders to go tell Richard Nixon that he would be convicted in the Senate if he pursued the presidency any further and told him that he had to resign. And that's indeed what Nixon did.

We've had nothing comparable here. This is the shame of the Republican Party. The idea that at this stage of the game, if Mitch McConnell can't get up and say, we must put an end to this, put an end to this kind of conduct by the president of the United States. He won't do it. I don't see any evidence that he is going to do it. But listen a little bit to Liz Cheney here as perhaps the real moral leader of her party in what she has said throughout this.

This is intolerable in a democracy. This is an authoritarian president committing acts such of abuse, of real abuse of power much greater than that in Watergate that we have never experienced in our history. One other thing to keep in mind is how dangerous this moment is because what's going on now is not just about this attempt to steal the election in the last days, the final days of this presidency.

There is grave concern by national security officials, by the intelligence community, that already the president has attempted to do some things under the radar that military officials, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to push back on. Dangerous, dangerous things in which the president was ready to do some provocative things and endangered the national security and, indeed, the Joint Chiefs, others in the military pushed back on.

It's one reason that the Biden transition has not been getting any cooperation from the Pentagon, from the Trump loyalists in the Pentagon. We are in a dangerous, dangerous moment here and, also, the delusion expressed. If Donald Trump really believes the delusional stuff that is being said out of his mouth there about this manufactured evidence or whatever it is that every investigation has found by Republican secretaries of state, by poll workers, by investigations, all through the country, has been found to be false. So we're also dealing, if he really believes this with a serious kind of delusion.

CABRERA: Carl Bernstein, really appreciate your expertise, experience. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

BERNSTEIN: Good to be with you.

CABRERA: Stay with us. Much more from that stunning phone call between President Trump and Georgia's secretary of state, with the president trying to get the secretary of state of Georgia to change the election results.

Our breaking news continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:46:06]

CABRERA: More on our breaking news. President Trump on tape pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to find enough votes to make him the victor of the election in that state. The president without any evidence lambasting his fellow Republican and accusing the state of illegal activity just days before the critical Senate run-offs.

I want to discuss this with CNN legal analyst, Elie Honig.

Elie, a lot of questions right now about this phone call, right? Particularly if the president, himself, is guilty of doing anything illegal in his words here. Have you heard anything that could potentially incriminate Trump?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, Ana. Look, I used to prosecute mafia bosses, real mafia bosses. And I have to tell you, listening to this tape really gave me flashbacks. I mean, there is no easy way to say it. The president of the United States in this tape talks like an actual mob boss. If anything mob bosses tend to be a little more subtle.

Now if you look at the specific law both federal law and Georgia state law are pretty similar on this point. They both make it a crime to try to coerce or solicit or ask somebody to falsely count ballots that weren't actually cast. And look, when I used to charge cases, defense lawyers would sometimes come to me and say, is this a tapes case, meaning do you have my guy on tape? This is a tapes case.

There are red flags all over that tape. And the thing about a tapes case is he said it. You can't argue with the words on the tape.

CABRERA: That evidence is very strong it sounds like. The president of course has been peddling baseless claims of election fraud for months but isn't pressuring a state to find votes that aren't there in and of itself the definition of election fraud?

HONIG: It really is. Look, it's one thing to me, in looking at this from a sort of prosecutorial point of view, it's a gray area to pressure an election official let's take another look, let's investigate. That's close to the line. But the key word here is what you just said. Find. The president, Donald Trump, his own word, says, I need you to find votes. And not just any number of votes, that specific number of votes, 11,780, that would give him the election by one vote. That to me is really telling and really important. CABRERA: Yes, I'm looking at, you know, just some of the quotes from

this tape. He says there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated. He just keeps going on and on, trying to convince him to do his bidding.

Does this put more pressure now, Elie, on the Justice Department to do something or how would the legal system, you know, hold this president accountable at this point with only 17 days left in office?

HONIG: Yes. You bet it does, and it should. Look, there's two different prosecutors we should be looking at here. The Georgia state attorney general needs to take a hard look. I mean, one of his state officials was just essentially shaken down on a phone call. Also we need to look at DOJ and I understand that the new administration is going to have political and practical concerns about digging into what Donald Trump has done but, you know what, at a certain point enough is enough.

There needs to be justice. There's need to be accountability. I think this really does increase the pressure and the need for there to be at least an investigation.

CABRERA: Did the odds of Trump issuing a self-pardon just go way up?

HONIG: For sure. For sure. I mean, a self-pardon is all about self- protectionism and to the extent the president believes he may have committed a crime that will increase his likelihood of issuing a self- pardon. I do think the chances of seeing that went up just now. And let's keep in mind, we don't know for sure if that's going to stand up in a court of law because it's never been tried. If DOJ does charge the president that's the only way we'll really find an answer.

CABRERA: We know that Congress will meet Wednesday to certify the electoral college votes for President-elect Joe Biden. At this point at least a dozen GOP senators and at least 140 House Republicans are planning to object. Does Congress have the legal power to overturn the results of the election?

HONIG: Yes, so, I want to make sure our viewers understand this. We are going to see an outright political circus this week. But legally, this thing is going nowhere. First of all, vice president has no authority to throw out any votes. His role constitutionally and legally is almost entirely ceremonial.

[18:50:07]

Now there is a federal law that says a majority of the House and the Senate can vote to throw out electoral votes. It simply is not going to happen. I don't think it happens in the Senate. No way it happens in the House.

CABRERA: Many thanks, Elie Honig.

HONIG: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: And don't go anywhere because we have much more from this hour-long phone between President Trump and Georgia secretary of state. We're playing it out all across the next hour. Our breaking news continues after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Back to our breaking news, President Trump pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to find enough votes to tilt the election results on a phone call caught on tape. I'm going to play another chunk of this phone call so you can hear as much of this for yourself, from the source, a sitting president shamelessly stopping at nothing to overturn his election loss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFFENSPERGER: But, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen and they were surprised but they -- I guess there was a person, a Mr. Braynard that came to these meetings and presented data, and he said that there was dead people I believe it was upwards of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so that's wrong. That was two --

TRUMP: Well, Cleta, how do you respond to that? I mean, you tell me.

CLETA MITCHELL, PROMINENT GOP LAWYER: What I will say, Mr. Secretary, one of the things that we have requested -- and we do. What we said was -- and if you look at the -- if you read our petition, it said that we took the names and birth years and, you know, we had certain information available to us.

[18:55:07]

We have asked from your office for records that only you have. And so we said there's a universe of people who have the same name and same birth year and died, but we don't have the records that you have. And one of the things that we have been suggesting formally and informally for weeks now is to try -- is for you to make available to us the records that would be necessary to confirm --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: But, Cleta, even before you do that -- Cleta, even before you do that, and not even including it, that's why I hardly even included that number, although in one state we have a tremendous amount of dead people. So I don't know. I'm sure we do in Georgia, too. I'm sure we do in Georgia, too. But is that we're so far ahead -- we're so far ahead of these numbers, even the phony ballots of (bleeped) known scammer.

You know the internet? You know what was trending on the internet? Where is (bleeped)? Because they thought she'd be in jail. Where's (bleeped)? It's crazy. It's crazy. That was -- the minimum number, 18,000 for (bleeped), but they think it's probably about 56,000. But the minimum number is 18,000 (bleeped) night where she ran back in there when everybody was gone and stuff. She stuffed the ballot boxes, let's face it, Brad. I mean, they did it

in slow motion replay magnified. Right? She stuffed the ballot boxes. They were stuffed like nobody has ever seen them stuffed before. So there's a term for it when it's a machine instead of a ballot box. But she stuffed the machines. She stuffed the ballot. Each -- each ballot went three times. They were showing. Here's ballot number one, here it is a second time, third time, next ballot.

I mean, look, Brad, this is -- we have a new tape that we're going to release. It's devastating. And, by the way, that one event, that one event is much more than the 11,000 votes that we're talking about. It's, you know -- that one event was a disaster. It's just -- you know, but it was -- it was something that -- it can't be disputed. Again, we have a version that you haven't seen, but it's magnified. It's magnified and you can see everything. And she put -- for some reason, they put it in three times, each ballot. And I don't know why. But you know -- why, I don't know why three times? Why not five times, right? But -- yes, go ahead.

RAFFENSPERGER: You're talking about the State Farm video and I think it's extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. So the next day we brought in WSB-TV, and we let them see the full run of tape and what you'll see events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by --

TRUMP: But where were the poll watchers, Brad? There were no poll watchers there. There were no Democrats or Republicans. There was no security there. It was late in the evening. Late in the -- early in the morning. And there was nobody else in the room. Where were the poll watchers? And why did they say a water main broke, which they did, and which is reported in the newspapers?

They said they left -- they ran out because of a water main break and there was no water main. There was nothing. There was no break. There was no water main break. But if you take out everything, where were the Republican poll watchers, even where were the Democrat poll watchers? Because there were none. And then you say, well, they left their station. You know, if you look at the tape, and this was -- this was reviewed by professional police and detectives and other people.

When they left in a rush, everybody left in a rush because of the water main. But everybody left in a rush. These people left their station. When they came back, they didn't go to their station. They went to the apron wrapped around the table under which were thousands and thousands of ballots in a box that was not an official or a sealed box. And then they took those and they went back to a different station.

So if they would have come back, they would have walked to their station and they would have continued to work. But they couldn't do even that because that's illegal because they had no Republican poll watchers. And, remember, her reputation is -- she's known all over the internet, Brad.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

CABRERA: Top of the hour, you're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. We continue with this.