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All Eyes On NV, AZ As Senate Control Hangs In The Balance; With Key Races Undecided Biden Notes "Red Wave" Did Not Happen; Nevada Officials Update Where Crucial Vote Count Stands; Ukraine Liberates Towns En Route To Kherson. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 10, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Buenas tardes, good afternoon and welcome. I'm Boris Sanchez. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Shall I do it in Russia now, Boris?

SANCHEZ: Do it.

GOLODRYGA: Dobryy den. I'm Bianna Golodryga. Good to see you, everyone.

We are continuing to watch the vote count in a handful of states this hour for you. Which parties will control the Senate and the House is still undecided and there are three remaining races that will determine the fate of the Senate.

In Nevada incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto trails slightly behind Republican Adam Laxalt. And in ...

SANCHEZ: And in ...

GOLODRYGA: ... sorry, go ahead.

SANCHEZ: I was just going to say there's a big race in Arizona Trump back Blake Masters is trailing the incumbent Democrat there, Mark Kelly. A quarter of all votes there have yet to be reported though.

Meantime in Georgia, the Senate race between the incumbent there Raphael Warnock and the Trump-backed former football star Herschel Walker is heading to a runoff on December 6th. We do want to get back to those outstanding votes that are still coming in with John Berman at the magic wall.

John, let's start with Nevada. We'll hold off on the whole new world solo that you're going to give us and we'll start with Arizona. What's going on there?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Okay. First of all, I'm glad - I can barely speak English, here you guys are talking Spanish and Russian here. All right. We did get some votes counted just seconds ago. You can see the total lead for Mark Kelly is now reduced a smidge. It would have been 95,000 some and now it's in the 94s, why? Because we just got new votes reported from Yavapai County. Let me see if I can do this, I haven't a chance to do this trick yet.

All right. This is the blackboard here. In - this is percentage - I'm not going to do percentage, I'm going to do raw votes. There were 1,195 new votes reported for Kelly, 1,743 reported for Blake Masters there. So you can see closing that margin about a 5,000 - 5,650-vote difference there. So Blake Masters closing the gap ever so slightly, guys.

So you can see this is how it's going to go in these states for some time, back and forth one way or the other. We're going to get these new batches of votes reporting and it's going to change this margin one direction or the next year. This was Yavapai County, which is a county actually that leans for the Republicans by about 30 percent. So the margin there for Blake Masters you might expect.

So that's the thing that we're watching in Arizona, as you can see now, Mark Kelly still with the lead, the Democratic incumbent still with a lead of nearly 95,000 but a little bit less than it was about 10 minutes ago, guys.

GOLODRYGA: And let's turn to the House now, John. Republicans need to win nine seats to gain control. Where are those outstanding races?

BERMAN: All right. The House of Representatives here, that's - these are the races, by the way, that are called, 209 for the Republicans, 192 for the Democrats, which means that the Republicans need nine seats to take control. The Democrats would need 26 seats.

This is where the uncalled races are, anywhere that's color in here, the uncalled races. You can see the Democrats would need to change five of these red districts here right now where Republicans lead into Democratic leads to have a hope of taking back the House. That's a steep climb. They have a steep climb. They need to do 126 of these overall to do it. I can show you where some of them are.

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In New York for instance, there is one on called race. It's New York 22nd District, which includes Syracuse 94 percent reporting. The difference there is some 4,000 votes. We'll see if that changes over the next several hours or maybe days as some more of the votes are counted there.

In California - California is interesting - they lead on male and vote there. There are some districts here that really don't have all that much in yet, California's third congressional district. You can see the Republican, Kevin Kiley, is ahead by 9,000 votes. But only 44 percent reported, just 44 percent reported, so a lot of room left there.

In this race, California's 13th district, there's only a 203 vote difference between the two candidates and only 40 percent reporting, so anything could happen there.

And then a race that I know a lot of people have been watching, which is in Colorado, Colorado's third congressional district here, this is Lauren Boebert, the very conservative election denier. She now leads by 433 votes. This flipped, Adam Frisch was up by 64 votes a little bit earlier today. So she has now taken the lead and we do expect to hear more votes reported from there over the next several hours, guys.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Significant gain for Boebert, given that we were just talking about a margin of some 60 votes just a couple of hours ago, John Berman will go down the Disney vault another time, thank you so much.

Well, President Biden is set to take a victory lap just moments from now in Washington. And while there are still several key races still undecided, he's calling out the lack of the so called expected red wave.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: While we don't know all of the results yet - at least, I don't know them all yet - here's what we do know: while the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn't happen.

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SANCHEZ: Let's go to CNN's Arlette Saenz. She joins us now live. Arlette, do we know exactly what the president is expected to hit on today at this DNC event?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris and Bianna, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be speaking here in just a short while to thank those democratic staffers and volunteers who helped fend off that so called red wave.

The President and his advisors have really been triumphant in their tone over the course of the past 24 hours as the Democratic Party did not sustain those historical losses that the president in power typically does in other midterm elections. But even as the President is taking this so called - this victory laps of sort, he is also staring down the possibility of having to work with a divided government.

Yesterday, President Biden said that he is prepared to work with Republicans and that he expects Republicans to do the same with him and that is why he held that call yesterday with GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy who very well could be House Speaker if Republicans take control of the House in the coming weeks as those races are coming in.

But the President also drew some very clear lines of some non- negotiables for him and that includes GOP proposals that would cut Social Security and Medicare or implement a nationwide ban on abortion. The President is saying that those are the types of items that he would veto. So there certainly is a lot of challenging work ahead for the president. His team is closely watching how each of these races is going to play out and this event could also be a sort of rallying of the troops as they are still facing that Senate runoff down in the state of Georgia, depending on how the Senate races in Nevada and Arizona turnout, that race could very well determined control of the Senate.

Now, the White House has said that the President is willing to help in any way that he can down there, whether it's through appearances or through fundraising, but it remains unclear if the President actually would be going down to Georgia as that is the state he did not visit in the lead up to these midterms.

But we already heard from the DNC Chair, Jaime Harrison, today telling these people behind me to be ready to work in that Georgia Senator runoff.

SANCHEZ: Man, the music is bumping in that room. Arlette Saenz, please stand by. We'll come back to you as we monitor the President's remarks, thanks so much.

With control of the House of Representatives appearing likely to go to Republicans, the current House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, is making moves to be the next speaker.

GOLODRYGA: CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju, joins us live from Capitol Hill. So Manu, this won't necessarily be a slam dunk for McCarthy, but are there any other names being floated other than his?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not at the moment, but that's what the hard right faction known as the House Freedom Caucus is threatened to do but have a challenger against him, even if it is a long shot challenger, who ultimately probably would not get enough votes to get elected Speaker, enough to force McCarthy to the bargaining table, cut deals, make concessions in order to give them their votes for his bid to become House speaker.

There are several demands that they are making that are on the table right now.

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One of which is to give them actually more power to oust a sitting speaker, trying to force a vote on this - on the House floor to oust a sitting speaker. That is something that is a no-go for Kevin McCarthy. It would it make him weaker as speaker, that's something that he certainly does not want to do.

They also want to have more time to review legislation, have better committee assignments. And one of the things that some of them are pushing for is for McCarthy to keep more - keep on the table the option of him moving forward on impeachment proceedings, something that he has not yet embraced, but some on the right have been pushing for either President Biden or some cabinet secretaries. Now, the reason why they have influenced at this moment is because of the margins. Kevin McCarthy had hoped that they would have a 20-seat pickup, that appears unlikely to happen here. Potentially, they could have a very narrow majority, maybe 220 seats, perhaps 225 seats. That means very few - he can afford very few defections on the House floor, because the first process is next week, it'll be a leadership election internally. That's where they will nominate their choice for Speaker of the House. McCarthy only needs to get half of the Republican conference to vote for that.

But on January, the first day of the new Congress in January, the full House will vote to name the House speaker. That will require 218 votes. And if there are only 220 seats or 2025 Republican seats, for example, then McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of defections. Anything underneath 218 will complicate his bid for the speakership, which is why the - this group is using its power right now to try to force McCarthy to cut a deal. Behind the scenes though, McCarthy is confident he will get there, but it may take some time to get the votes he needs, guys.

GOLODRYGA: All right. Manu Raju, very complicated indeed. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper now on this conversation with CNN Political Commentators Charlie Dent and Bakari Sellers.

And Charlie, I want to start with you. As a former congressman, you're familiar with some of these intra-party battles for leadership. What do you make of the situation that McCarthy is in as he aspires to be speaker, something he's been planning for, for years?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, these take no prisoners tactics that the Freedom Caucus deploys are very real threats. And we saw what happened in 2015, when Kevin McCarthy tried to ascend, many of the same members blocked him. They would not support him. So these guys are making demands and expecting concessions from Kevin.

If the House has a - say there are 222 Republicans, that means Kevin can only lose four votes, not five, four, and some of these guys might not vote for him, because they can. They can be - they're not - I don't think they're very strategic in many cases. So I think this is a real threat.

He should get the number, but some of those demands are making about vacating the chair to remove the speaker, he could never agree to that, or an impeachment probe without evidence, I mean, it would be terrible. So - but he's going to have to deal with this, should he become speaker, he's going to face these kinds of bare knuckle threats and demands almost every day.

We watched this - I lived this. I mean, there's no - and this is such a small margin for error for Kevin that - I don't envy him at all. I mean, this is going to be a miserable experience.

GOLODRYGA: And who else who doesn't envy him is John Boehner. Perhaps he can give him a tip or two through all of this. Bakari, let me turn to you, because clearly a better night than anticipated for Democrats. President Biden had the best midterms for the last 20 years of any president. That having been said, it was kind of a mixed bag. I mean, a wonderful night, historic night in Michigan. Not so great in New York State, Miami-Dade is now ruby red. What are some of the takeaway lessons that Democrats can learn coming out of these midterms?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think most Democrats would push back a little bit on the mixed bag, because I think by comparison to what this election was supposed to be, not just the prognosticators but also the history going into midterms, I think by all means it was - in all metrics, it was a success.

I think what Democrats realize is that President Biden actually got a couple of things right. The first thing he got right was people were chastising him literally for his closing message on the fact democracy was on the ballot. And we saw that two of the larger issues on people's mind was, one, abortion and, two, democracy.

And I think the second thing that we see is that the future is really bright. And I think Joe Biden recognize that as well, with some of the legislation that he signed and some of the executive orders he put forth, that young people came out in extraordinary numbers for the Democratic Party. That's the future of where this country is going.

Generation Z, I mean, if you look at the numbers, particularly look at the University of Michigan, where you saw Gretchen Whitmer just completely obliterate Tudor Dixon at the polls. You saw this on college campuses and for a long period of time we ignored Generation Z. We knew they would vote for Democrats, but they weren't coming out in numbers like that. That changed Tuesday night.

And so President Biden also was able to tap into that. And we have superstars in the party contrary to what people I believe from Wes Moore to Gretchen Whitmer.

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I mean, we have legitimate superstars in this party and I think that all in all, regardless of the success of Ron DeSantis, which has a lot to do with a lot of other things, it was a very good night for Democrats all across the country.

SANCHEZ: Yes. CNN exit polls showed big numbers for first time midterm voters, which you alluded to there, Bakari. I want to stick with you, because you said something on CNN earlier today that piqued my interest. You were talking about the possibility of Joe Biden getting primaried in a potential re-election race in 2024. I'm wondering how you would feel about a potential Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer challenge to Biden in the primaries?

SELLERS: Well, I don't think those will be the individuals that did it, because I think they have a lot more common sense than that. And I don't know why people are surprised by the fact that I actually told the truth. The fact is, this is not the same party that we had when Barack Obama was president of the United States or Bill Clinton was president of the United States.

We have a very vocal and active left-wing. We have a very vocal and active progressive wing of the party. And although this president has moved on things like marijuana has moved on things like student debt relief. I think that we would be remissed if we weren't talking about what this presidential cycle would look like and I would not be surprised at all if he got a challenge from the left.

Do I want that? No. Is it an indictment on his success and how good of a president he is? No. But that's just a realization of where we are as a party. I, like many others, would support him, but he will have to go through each and every one of those steps as he evaluates whether or not at 80 years old he wants to run for president of the United States again.

GOLODRYGA: He does have some tailwind off of the past couple of days and what we've seen in at least his own desire, as he expressed yesterday to run again in 2024.

Charlie, let me turn to you. Because somebody who did not have a good night was the former President Trump. We are expected to hear an announcement of some sorts for him next week. Do these numbers, do these figures - does the momentum and the trend that we're seeing in the Republican Party change what we may or may not hear from him on Tuesday?

DENT: Well, first, I think it'd be crazy for him to announce next week that he's running for president, particularly if they go to a Georgia runoff. That would be the worst thing in the world for Herschel Walker.

GOLODRYGA: But that would be him putting the party ahead of himself and that would a first.

DENT: That's correct. It would be a terrible mistake, but a lot of people right now are blaming Donald Trump for this fiasco. I know in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for example, Donald Trump endorsed Doug Mastriano, a horrible candidate that everybody knew was going to be terrible. And here's the reason why probably Oz lost because Mastriano was just so weak that he dragged Fetterman across the finish line, who is also a flawed candidate.

So I'm just stunned that the state House may be gone. They didn't pick up anything, but this happens all over the country. What part of losing are people comfortable with here. You can't nominate candidates. These ultra MAGA folks did very poorly in the election. Many of them lost or they're struggling. More normal mainstream candidates like Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey, they did just fine. They won. Those are the ones who won.

But if you nominate candidates who offend the sensibilities of a lot of voters, you can't expect them to win. And so I - when Republican elected leaders get tired of losing, that's when they turn on Trump.

GOLODRYGA: Well, I don't know. Are they tired? I mean, this was not the first election or midterm that he's lost. DENT: Well, I've said this for some time, because I came from a purple district, a marginal district and I used to worry about this. I said, guys, look what's happening in these communities. We can't win here with Donald Trump. If more of them notice, they'll speak up. Maybe they want to be in the minority for a long time. They want to be in the minority for a long time and get used to it. It is no fun, but most of them want to win and that's what's going to force them to turn.

GOLODRYGA: All right. Charlie Dent, Bakari Sellers, thank you.

Well, election officials in Nevada just gave an update on where their vote total stands.

SANCHEZ: Yes. This unfolding in just the last few minutes, so we want to take you outside the Clark County Election Center in Las Vegas where CNN's Gary Tuchman is reporting live. Gary, what's the update?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boris and Bianna, it's good talking to you. Good afternoon to you. Here's the latest information that we have gotten from this county.

The registrar just talked to us. He tells us there are now about 50,000 more votes still to count that have arrived in this building. Those 50,000 votes came in via the mail and via - about 300 election boxes that were put in various voting centers on Election Day. It's, it's an important number because we have a deficit in the Senate race of less than 16,000 votes - not a deficit, but a difference between the two candidates, the Republican leading. And a difference of 34,000 votes in the gubernatorial race, the Republican leading, so 50,000 more votes to count at this point.

Something that will not register as a surprise to any of you I suspect. The former president of the United States, Donald Trump on his app has stated that Clark County has a corrupt voting system. This is the largest county in Nevada and he says it's corrupt.

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I will tell you that the people here, the registrar who runs the elections took it very personally this news conference.

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JOE GLORIA, CLARK COUNTY REGISTRAR: Obviously he's misinformed two years later about the law and our election processes, which ensure the integrity of elections in Clark County and the State. We couldn't go any faster now even if we wanted to.

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TUCHMAN: Six hundred twenty-six more ballots arrived in the mail today. That's part of the 50,000 ballots can arrive tomorrow and can also arrive on Saturday. Bianna, Boris, back to you.

SANCHEZ: A lot of counting still to be done. Gary Tuchman from Las Vegas, thank you so much.

GOLODRYGA: A dramatic setback for Vladimir Putin as Russian troops retreat from Kherson, the only regional capital that Kremlin has managed to capture since invading Ukraine. We'll here exclusively from President Zelenskyy about his new strategy on the battlefield. That's next.

SANCHEZ: Plus, Twitter's top cybersecurity officer quitting. Details on turmoil that's plaguing Elon Musk's new company ahead.

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GOLODRYGA: Russia's war on Ukraine is taking a significant toll on soldiers on both sides of the conflict. America's top general says at least 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war and those numbers are likely similar for Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: Meantime, in the Southern Kherson region, Ukraine says its forces have reclaimed several towns. This comes after Moscow ordered its forces to withdraw from the key city and other cities west of the Dnipro River.

GOLODRYGA: Ukraine's president, Zelenskyy and First Lady, sat down with our Christiane Amanpour yesterday to discuss these latest developments. I know it was a wide ranging interview and discussion, Christiane, what stood out to you from what you heard?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, a lot. I mean, they talked about Kherson. The President would not give me any sort of details about the much anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive to try to win back that city, which as you know was the first and only major city that the Russians have been able to actually seize and occupy until maybe now.

We do know from somebody who we profiled earlier this week that one of those villages has been liberated and this person who we talked to earlier this week, she said her own aunt there in that village has now witnessed the Ukrainian flag being hoisted over the main building. So that's in one of the region - one of the villages near Kherson.

But I asked both the President and the First Lady and it was a first of its kind in terms of a joint network interview how they were doing nine months into this war that, of course, neither of them ever expected.

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ZELENSKYY (through interpreter): You asked whether I thought this war would last so long, no, because I didn't start this war and I'm sure there isn't a single Ukrainian who knew what this will be and what tragedy this would bring to every home in our country. Because I'll repeat, we did not start this war. But Ukrainian society united and showed that it was ready for what unfortunately was such a tragedy showed that it was ready for these challenges. I was really impressed by the power of one nation and was impressed by that swiftness of the response of Europe, the whole world and the whole international community that rallied around Ukraine for this challenge.

AMANPOUR: First Lady, what motivates you to get up in the morning? How do you feel that you've endured this war?

OLENA VOLODYMYRIVNA ZELENSKA, UKRAINE FIRST LADY: Well, thank you. It's a big question. It covers many spheres of my life and what helps me get up in the morning, surely, as you said, it's my husband's examples. I know that if he endures, then I have to endure.

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AMANPOUR: I just wanted to say, Bianna and Boris, that actually the body language between this first couple was really quite important to witness. There was a humanity. There was a humor. There was a love, but there was a solidarity together for the people of Ukraine. And it was quite amazing to see now on a much more political and military level that President Zelenskyy said that he was really grateful for American support. He really hoped and expected to be able to continue having that support after the midterms.

And as he said in my interview, they really need more weaponry and - especially air defenses and to that end, the U.S. has actually announced today that they will send a new security package here including air defense systems, more of them. Bianna and Boris?

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Yes, Christiane, I'm glad you noted the body language because I picked up on that as well, especially for the First Lady. It just - she did not come across as a politician or a politician's wife. She came across as someone representing a country that's facing unexpected war, right, and these terrible and tragic headlines every single day.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Fascinating interview. Thank you so much.

Well, we are expecting President Biden to speak at any moment at the DNC event in Washington, D.C. There you see vice president Harris speaking now a victory lap of sorts after avoiding a red wave, that many had expected, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And President Biden has been pressed on Elon Musk's potential threat to national security.

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Why Biden is suggesting that it's worth looking into the billionaires ties with foreign countries when we come back.