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Trump Tries To Bully GA Officials To Overturn Election In Call He Pushed For Weeks To Have, Division Grows In Republicans Party Over Electoral College Challenge; Trump, Biden In GA Today Ahead Of Critical Senate Runoff Elections. Aired 10-10:30aET

Aired January 04, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCUITTO, CNN HOST: And I'm Jim Sciutto. Outrage this morning over the President's call with Georgia's Secretary of State and his demand that he find votes for him, find them to overturn that state's election results. Now we are learning the president repeatedly pushed for this conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R) GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: No, I never believed it was appropriate to speak to the President but he pushed out, I guess he had a staff push us, they wanted to call. The challenge that we had - first of all, we're in a litigation mode with the President's team against the State of Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: He's Republican, remember that. In this disturbing one hour call President Trump demands, sometimes threatens that Georgia officials recalculate the votes in his favor, give him just enough votes to overturn the result. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): So look, 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 and flipping the state is a great testament to our country because you know, this, this is just - it's a testament that they could admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it.

If it was a mistake. I don't know. A lot of people think it wasn't a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: It's clear. It's audio. It's the President's words and pretty much silence for most Republicans, it is deafening. This as the party grows increasingly divided over what they're going to do on Wednesday. Some of them challenging Biden's win. And we see both the President and the president elect on the campaign trail today in Georgia ahead of the critical senate run offs there tomorrow.

And this is what Georgia voters are waking up to. Look at that. That is the front page of the state's biggest newspaper 'The Atlanta Journal Constitution.' It reads in bold, "Trump to Raffensperger: I want to find 11,780 votes." Let's go to our John Harwood again. He joins us at the White House this morning for more. Has the President tweeted anything? Is anyone that works for the president saying anything about it this morning?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, but not much they can say Poppy. As you noted, those were the President's words on the call. His White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was also on the call and what's remarkable is not simply that the President in this hour-long call which the White House had tried 18 different times to arrange.

Not only was he repeating this fantasy and nonsense about shredded ballots and altered machines, not only was requesting a specific number of votes to overturn Joe Biden's victory, but he was also punctuating those requests with threats to Brad Raffensperger. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The ballots are corrupt, and you're going to find that they are and which is totally illegal. It's - it's more illegal for you than it is for them. Because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal - that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's - that's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyers. That's a big risk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: Now to Brad Raffensperger's credit, he stood firm against what the President was requesting, as he has for the last several weeks. And he explained this morning on ABC's Good Morning America, that he has been in a continual process of trying to disabuse the president and his supporters of these false beliefs that the election was stolen from them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFFENSPERGER: For the last two months, we've been fighting the rumor whack a mole. And it was pretty obvious very early on, that we debunked every one of those theories that have been out there, but the President Trump continues to believe them. So we continue to debunk this. We believe that truth matters, we continue to fight to get our message out, but it's fighting the rumor whack a mole daily.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: Now, of course, the problem is you can only debunk false theories if you're talking to people who are both connected to reality and operating in good faith. And it's not true guys that either one of those things is correct about President Trump.

SCIUTTO: We spend billions to keep the president informed and we have a president who is spouting things from the deepest darkest corners of the web. John Harwood at the White House, thank you. Let's go to the Hill now. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty for reaction there.

[10:05:00]

So it's been almost a day since this audio was released. And just one, I mean, we don't even know if Cotton's statement is tied to this tape. But is that the only response we've had on the Hill to this?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There certainly has not been a lot of Republicans' response, Jim, you're right on that. We have certainly heard an awful lot from Democrats who are seizing on this expressing alarm outrage, one calling it a despicable abusive power.

Another one saying this might merit a criminal investigation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer essentially calling out Republicans up here on Capitol Hill saying if Republicans are looking for an investigation into election fraud, essentially, look no further than this audio tape.

And there Schumer's essentially hitting on the timing, that this is going to be a huge moment for Capitol Hill. Huge moment for Republicans and the Republican Party. They are driving towards that Wednesday, joint session where they will certify the election for Joe Biden.

And that's where we know that 14, excuse me, 12 Republicans over here in the Senate, and 140 over in the House are going to be objecting to that, challenging the results of the election. So this essentially is only going to ratchet up the pressure on them, ratchet up the skepticism on these Republicans and you had one Republican so far Adam Kinzinger who called out those Republicans, his fellow Republicans saying that they are essentially enabling the president.

He said this should serve as a warning to the dozens of Republicans who support Trump's effort to overturn the election. So a big moment up here on Capitol Hill today, driving towards Wednesday, Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: For sure, it's a huge and consequential week. Sunlen, thanks for the reporting. Let's go to our colleague Daniel Dale, to fact check some of the flat out false claims the president keeps repeating. You know, to their credit on the call, the Secretary of State did it in real time.

Fact checking the president but let's I suppose begin with this Daniel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF TRUMP: So dead people voted. And I think the number is in the - or close to 5000 people. And they went to obituaries, they went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number and a minimum is close to about 5000 voters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: OK, fact check that if you could please Daniel.

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: There is just no evidence that 5000 deceased people had ballots cast in their name in Georgia or elsewhere. Raffensperger on this call said it was actually two. I can't independently verify that figure but what I can tell you is that my CNN colleagues and I have personally debunked some of the Trump campaigns claims about dead people voting in Georgia.

For example, they claim that a ballot was cast in the name of a dead woman named Deborah Christianson. Well, it was a living woman by the same name. We talked to her at her house. So these allegations are either mistakes or intentional deception by the Trump campaign that they're passing off as fraud when it's absolutely not.

SCIUTTO: And they've been rejected by courts and the Justice Department, right? In terms of widespread fraud. OK, listen to another false claim from the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF TRUMP: We have at least two or three, anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: 250,000 to 350,000 ballots. What's the truth?

DALE: No, there is no mysterious or suspicious or shady ballot drop. Now what the President is talking about when he talks about ballot dumps or ballot drops is simply large populous counties, counting their votes as normal, and then adding them to the public totals as normal. They're big and populous. So when they count votes, and they're added to the totals, you're going to see a lot of votes.

And because cities tended to go for Biden, they tended to be Biden leading votes. So this is not rocket science, guys, and it's certainly not fraud.

HARLOW: Here's one more Daniel, that we want to play for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF TRUMP: 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 100,000 of forged signatures of people with - who - who have been forged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: They did it. Didn't they find like one woman who signed for her husband and that pretty much summed it up?

DALE: That's right, so no bases for the Trump claim. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted a signature audit in Cobb County in the Atlanta suburbs, and found that there was no evidence of fraud whatsoever in this 15,000 signature sample, they found. There's no reason to think that it's any different in adjacent Fulton County. That was kind of funny on this call. Trump said no, we didn't want you.

We didn't complain about Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County. Then his own lawyer interjected, actually we did complain about Cobb County. So it's this game of, you know, make an allegation. When that's debunked. Go to the next county, go to the next thing, constantly moving the goalposts and again, it's just a joke.

SCIUTTO: Well, thank you for distinguishing between fact and fiction as you always do. Daniel Dale, thank you.

DALE: Thank you.

[10:10:00]

SCIUTTO: With us now as long-time Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg. Ben, always good to have you on. The key question here is, is there evidence the president broke the law in this call? Let's post the section of U.S. code here that deals with things like this.

I'll read from it. A person including an election official who in any election for federal office, knowingly and wilfully deprived of frauds or attempts to deprive it of fraud, the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process.

I believe we have it, we could put it up on screen or the procurement casting or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious or fraudulent. Based on what you hear there, the president saying find me the exact number of votes plus one, I need to win this election. Evidence he broke the law.

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICANS ELECTION LAWYER: Well, it's clearly evidence that he broke the law, whether that becomes a prosecutable crime or not, is not clear. I mean, look, what the President did was wrong, both legally and morally and as a matter of principle.

It would clearly be a crime if the Secretary of State or Georgia election official did what the President asked. But the truth is no act has been committed, so that if a prosecutor were to take a look at that, and to put together a case takes weeks, if not months, and even years.

By that point, there would probably be prosecutorial discretion to not actually bring criminal charges, no matter how wrong what the President did. But none of that should take away from the absolute wrong nature of this call, and how dismaying it is and how harmful to the country that their Commander-in-Chief, their president would ask for votes to be fraudulently taken. HARLOW: So Ben, do you agree with the former U.S. Attorney for the

Southern District before he was fired by the President Preet Bharara, who says, "the odds of Trump declaring a self-pardon just went up a bunch." Because he can do that.

GINSBERG: I absolutely do. I think the more the discussion focuses on the criminality, the more likely it is that this is just one of many reasons that the President decides to pardon himself. Of course, the President has never before pardoned himself. So it's a case of first impression. And wouldn't it be sort of poetic if the test of whether a president can pardon himself is over this particular election fraud count.

SCIUTTO: We had a former head of the FEC on last hour who said that the President also appears to or may have broken Georgia State law. A self-pardoned by the President would not protect him from a state prosecution, would it? Because that's the case we have with the current investigation of his businesses in New York.

GINSBERG: No, it would not, it would not deal with that situation. But again, that's an awful lot of time to take to come up with something that's going to be on the edge.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Notable. Doesn't mean Poppy, he won't try.

HARLOW: No, it's just - I was talking to someone about this last night. There's just so much uncharted territory here, Ben. I think many Americans would be surprised to wake up this morning and hear that the President can even do that, that you can pardon yourself for a crime, you know, that hasn't been charged.

But nothing's to say that he won't. I just wonder how you think this plays into Wednesday. And if you can explain to people what's going to happen Wednesday, what they're going to see on their television screens in real time?

GINSBERG: Well, first of all, it's going to play into Tuesday night and how the Senate races turnout, which will play into the atmosphere on Wednesday. But what happens on Wednesday is that 1 pm, the House and the Senate gather in the House chamber, the Vice President opens the envelopes from the different states with their slate of electors.

If there's an objection, then the Senate goes off to the Senate chamber, the House goes off to the House chamber. What's important to remember is the way the law governs this debate. Once they go into their individual chambers, there's no debate on the - in the joint session at all.

It takes place in the individual chambers. Senators and representatives are limited to five minutes speeches in a two hour period. No senator or member can speak more than once. That's going to make it really hard for people objecting to the slate to present a cogent case. This is not going to be like an impeachment hearing. It's not going to be like a floor debate in Congress.

It really is going to be a series of disjointed remarks. It's also not clear what the order, they'll speak in. If you wanted to present a case you would, in this situation, try and get all your members to talk together at the same time. But whoever controls the order of the speech can of course intermix opponents and proponents so there's not a coherent case that can be presented.

HARLOW: Well Ben Ginsberg, thank you very much for explaining it all to us. Again such a monumental week ahead.

[10:15:00]

On top of all of this after that call over the weekend, the President is actually going to Georgia today. Is he going to hurt or help the Republican senators' chances of holding on to those seats in the runoff?

Also, hospitals across the country are strained to say the least trying to keep up with the surge in COVID patients. In Los Angeles the Mayor says one person contracts the virus every six seconds.

SCIUTTO: And starting today, many health care workers will be receiving their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. We're going to speak with one of them just ahead.

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[10:20:00]

HARLOW: Well, coronavirus has caused devastation around the world, particularly though right now in California where it is getting worse by the day. The state of California reported more than 45,000 people were newly infected with COVID yesterday alone.

SCIUTTO: And its hospitalization rate is now the highest since the pandemic began. Look at that chart there. More than 21,000 Californians fighting coronavirus in the hospital right now. CNN's Stephanie Elam in Los Angeles this morning and Stephanie, we hear this daunting headline that the National Guard has been called in to help the LA County Coroner, because deaths are happening so quickly. One death every 10 minutes.

I mean, it's just - it's just haunting to hear.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's unbelievable what's happening here. And for many people in New York, Jim and Poppy and maybe, internationally, when you look at these numbers, it's like how could this be happening at this point. But it's clear that we saw that December was the worst of the pandemic. And it is expected at this point that January may rival that and that is not a good thing.

But just to put it into perspective, you got in the U.S., more than 20.6 million people have been infected with the coronavirus. You see the deaths are approaching 352,000. And you see the hospitalizations at a record number. That number 125,000 and more than 500 in that number and that number of record hospitalizations that is being mimicked here in California, when you take a look that we have a record number of hospitalizations as well in the state. That idea that we can have approaching 22,000 people in the hospital

right now battling this virus. And on top of it when you look at the positivity rate, it's above 12 percent for the two week period that we just ended. Now when you take a look at these numbers that you were just mentioning for California, keep in mind, those are probably not what they really are because of the fact that we have the holiday and the weekend.

So these numbers this week are going to probably scare you. The National Guard coming in to help out because morgues are taking bodies but they don't have enough space. The National Guard coming in to assist there. You've also got the Air Force coming to assist. And here in Los Angeles County, you've got the Army Corps of Engineers helping out as well, assessing at least seven hospitals and looking to see what they need to do.

This is all predicated on the fact that at first, some of these hospitals were having trouble getting oxygen to flow through their pipes. But they're also changing over conference rooms and offices and turning them into places where they can treat patients because they're just overrun.

I have been talking to emergency room doctors here and also to nurses. They're saying that they are about eight to one, the nurses are right now and some of these hospitals that are being inundated. It's just too much for people to keep up with but they're doing their best.

These health care workers are doing their best in these situations here. The other issue that is worth pointing out Dr. Farera who has been giving us the updates from Los Angeles County. She has been saying that at this rate hundreds of people are going to die of the coronavirus each week in January, based on the trends that we're seeing.

Hundreds of people a week Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Stephanie Elam, just alarming to hear. Thanks very much. Well, later this week, the FDA will discuss administering just half doses of the Moderna vaccine in order to make up for what has been a slow vaccine rollout.

It's a remarkable step. I mean, you're basically talking about rationing the vaccines at this early stage.

HARLOW: In America in 2021. The federal government repeatedly promised 20 million Americans would be vaccinated by the end of December. It did not happen. We have fallen so far short of that. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, is with us again. Did they test this all the way through Phase 3 trials to just give people half a dose?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR Medical CORRESPONDENT: No, I don't know if you can see me shaking my head. But, no, they did not. And that is why there is great concern. I was speaking with Dr. Paul Offit, who's on the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee. And he said, this is a terrible idea. That is a quote, this is a terrible idea. He said you only give people

what you have tested in Phase 3 trials. Now they did use this so called half dose, giving half the dose twice instead of the full dose twice. That's what Moncef Slaui tells my colleague Sanjay Gupta that the FDA is going to consider.

They did do that in Phase 2 or something, something along those lines. And in when they went into the lab, and they looked at the blood of the folks who've been vaccinated, it didn't give an antibody response. But that's very different than saying that it that it prevented people from getting infected with COVID-19. You only know that in a Phase 3 trial. I'm going to say it again, because it's so important.

You only know if you're protecting people once you do a Phase 3 trial. A Phase 3 trial was not done with this half formula. And so what Dr. Offit said is I can't imagine why in the world we'd actually want to put that into play. I also asked Dr. Fauci what he thought of it.

He said he wanted to see the data before he gave an opinion.

HARLOW: Yes. For sure. OK Elizabeth, thank you for that important update. Meantime, the President and also the president elect Joe Biden, both they're going to be in Georgia today. This is after the President's stunning phone call with Georgia's Secretary of State over the weekend. What impact will it all have on the pivotal senate run off that's tomorrow?

[10:25:00]

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SCIUTTO: Well, President elect Biden and President Trump are both campaigning in Georgia tonight, underscoring the importance of tomorrow's two crucial senate runoff elections.

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