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Arizona, Nevada Count Votes With Control Of Senate On The Line; AZ Official Defends Election Workers Amid "Slow Rolling" Vote Claims; Ukrainian Troops Enter Kherson In Major Defeat For Russia; Tropical Storm Nicole Linked To At Least 5 Deaths In Florida. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 11, 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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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It is the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianna Golodryga.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Great to be with you again, Bianna. I'm Boris Sanchez.

We want to get you the very latest election results. Moments ago, election officials in Nevada's most populated county gave an update on their vote count. They confirm that thousands more ballots in Clark County alone still need to be counted. Nevada's Senate race is one of three that's going to determine who controls the Senate starting next year.

GOLODRYGA: The other races are in Arizona and Georgia. Right now, 48 seats belong to the Democrats, 49 to the Republicans. Three days after Election Day, control of the House is also still not known. But we are getting some more clarity. We do have a new CNN projection to bring you.

In Maryland, the Democrat David Trone had defeated Neil Parrott, the Republican there. It is a democratic hold. Let's get right to CNN Political Director David Chalian. So this is in Maryland, David, what more can you tell us?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. So first, the most important thing before we dive into the district, Bianna, is that this number here for the Democrats, it just went from 198 to 199. So these are called races. Republicans have 211, now Democrats with this Maryland projection have 199. We still have the several seats, more than 20 seats uncalled here.

But I want to go into the sixth congressional district here in Maryland. It's up here in the northwest corner of the state. You see David Trone with a 1,895 vote lead. We estimate about 93 percent of the vote is in. But why are we able to make this projection? Well, because Frederick, Maryland, a more Republican area of this district, gave their votes and actually the Republican, Parrott, was able to narrow the gap a little bit with Trone but not enough. And this is a district that Joe Biden won by 10 percentage points just two years ago and so we're able to project that the Democrats are going to hold this incumbent David Trone returning to the United States Congress. Again, that gets Democrats now to 199.

SANCHEZ: And David, bring us up to speed on the Senate side. We just got that update a lot of votes still to be tallied.

CHALIAN: Yes, so let's just go into these two uncalled races out here in the West. In Nevada first, you see Adam Laxalt hanging on to that lead, 49 percent to 48 percent, Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democratic incumbent is running about 8,900 votes, some change, 9,988 votes behind Adam Laxalt. And you noted we are basically waiting for a bunch of vote up here in the Reno area in Washington County and then a bunch of vote in the most populous county, Clark County down here, Las Vegas. They still have some 50,000 votes to report and we're going to wait to see what they're able to deliver today to see if indeed Catherine Cortez Masto can narrow this at all.

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Next door in Arizona, take a look here, Mark Kelly has 114,977 vote lead over Blake Masters, 51.7 percent to 46.1 percent. Let me just show you guys about a half hour ago we got a little, and by little, I mean little, little vote update in Arizona down here in the southeast corner of the state, rural Cochise County.

What happened here is that Blake Masters basically netted 60 votes. They uploaded about 400 votes, and the way that they split, Blake Masters netted about 60 votes. So it doesn't really change the overall tenor of the race, which is why we are waiting for Maricopa County. This is where Mark Kelly, the Democrat, is ahead of Blake Masters, 53 percent, so let's round up 45 percent.

This is where the majority of the vote is out. This is where the majority of the people live and most specifically, what Maricopa County officials have said, they have 290,000 drop off votes on Election Day, same day drop off where people went with their mail ballot and dropped it off on Election Day and we haven't seen any of those.

So we need to see if we're going to see some of those votes tonight to perhaps understand what the nature of this race will be going forward, guys.

SANCHEZ: It is such a complex picture with so many dynamics at play. David Chalian, we appreciate you boiling it down for us. Thanks, David.

CHALIAN: Sure.

GOLODRYGA: Joining us now is Bill Gates, the Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Thank you so much for joining us.

So we are expecting to receive an updated count tonight. When exactly can we expect to see those numbers reported?

BILL GATES, CHAIR, MARICOPA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: I'm not sure exactly on the time at this point. But we'll be doing a press conference at 4pm and we'll give people a better idea, but it'll be this evening.

GOLODRYGA: And to just follow up on David Chalian's question, how many of those 290,000 same day drop off mail ballots received Tuesday will be part of that count, tonight?

GATES: Well, let me let me answer that maybe in a slightly different way. So this evening, we'll be releasing a similar amount. We've been releasing around 60,000, 70,000 votes an evening. We should be reporting on a similar amount this evening. And of that amount, a little bit more than a majority of it will be mail-in ballots, early ballots that were dropped off on Election Day.

In addition to that, we anticipate that we may also be reporting some of those box three votes from Election Day. So those were people who came on Election Day to vote in person and the tabulator wouldn't read their ballot, so we put it into the secure box three. And then the remainder, a few thousand votes will be mail-in ballots that we received before Election Day.

GOLODRYGA: Got it. Can you help explain to our viewers again and we've been doing it throughout our broadcast why this process is taking so long?

GATES: So this process is set in place by Arizona statute. So this is a process established by the state legislature and it is very much related to the fact that we do mail-in ballots, very popular in the state. And 290,000 people dropped off their mail-in ballot on Election Day, broke the previous record for Election Day by 70 percent.

So when you have these 290,000 ballots, they come in here to central count, arrived on Wednesday. So they didn't even arrive until the day after Election Day. And then we have to go through with each and every one of those and signature verify them or in other words, confirm that the signature on the outside of the ballot envelope is the same as the signature that that voter has on record on their voter registration record.

So that takes time and we got to get that right, because we want to make sure that the people who say they're voting are actually the ones who voted. It's very important to the integrity of the process.

GOLODRYGA: Speaking to the integrity of the process, and you've already addressed this but just to bring our viewers up to speed, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake claimed that Maricopa County unfounded without any backing at all, she has claimed that officials there are slow rolling the process to help Democrats.

You have walked that back and you push that back aggressively. And you said, "If their team had been paying attention before the election, they would have heard us talking about this over and over again that we are not going to have results on election night and that it would take days."

At this point, do you think that she is deliberately trying to dupe Americans and voters there in Arizona?

GATES: Well, I'm not sure what her intent is, but it's particularly difficult to do digest those sorts of statements today on Veterans Day.

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Today is a holiday in Maricopa County, but we have many people here today working 14 and 18 hours, keeping this count going forward. And in fact, we had a moment of recognition of our veterans who are here today, just earlier today. These are people who saved democracy and now they're serving democracy today.

They're working so hard and they're complying with the laws. So to have those sorts of comments made, accusing these good people of slow rolling or dragging their feet, that's hard for me to swallow. I think it is for the people here, too. But the good thing is, they're focused on getting the account done and they're doing a great job and I certainly am grateful for that.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And we're grateful for all those poll workers and you're right to acknowledge the veterans today. But on the question of when will all the ballot counting be complete, when do you expect that to be?

GATES: So we anticipate that will be early next week, based upon the clip at which we're going again, maintaining that focus on accuracy. I would anticipate very early next week.

GOLODRYGA: Monday? Tuesday?

GATES: That seems fair.

GOLODRYGA: Okay. Well, let me - there's quick push back, obviously, last question for you, there's obviously pushback from people like Kari Lake about how long this is taking. But there is legitimate questioning about whether or not there's a different model you should take and some are pointing to the Florida model. We knew the result there, the AP called it in the early hours Wednesday morning. Do you think it's time to reconsider your process?

GATES: Well, first of all, I think probably one of the - because we don't get in the business of networks-calling races. But I think probably one of the reasons the AP could call that early on Wednesday was because they don't have the close races that we have here in Arizona. But setting that aside, our job here in Maricopa County is to follow the laws and to administer this in a safe and secure way.

If the state legislature wants to change the rules and say that people shouldn't be able to drop off their mail-in ballot on Election Day, they can do that. We will respect that. I just really don't have a strong feeling one way or the other on it. Just set the rules and we're going to follow them. And we're going to continue to educate the people of Maricopa County about what laws we're working under, and to push back on all this misinformation. GOLODRYGA: All right. Bill Gates, thank you so much for the time. We appreciate it.

GATES: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: So as we mentioned at the top of the hour, we are getting new election data out of Nevada.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Let's go to CNN Rosa Flores who is there. Rosa, an hour ago, you told us there's an estimated like 95,000 ballots that still need to be counted. Election officials just spoke, what did they say?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the headline here out of Clark County from the registrar's office is that they believe that of those ballots that you mentioned, of the 95,000, there's a portion of them here in Clark County. They're expecting to finish counting most of those ballots by tomorrow, by Saturday.

Now that excludes the ballots that have to be cured or the provisional ballots. Let me take you through this. This is according to the registrar's office. They believe that they can finish counting about 50,000 ballots tomorrow. Now, these include drop box ballots from Election Day and mail-in ballots.

There's another tranche of ballots that need to be cured. The total of those is 9,659. The deadline for that is Monday. Then there's another 5,555 provisional ballots that also need to be processed and those would be counted on Wednesday. Now to the question of why is this taking so long, here's what the registrar had to say, take a listen.

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JOE GLORIA, CLARK COUNTY, NV REGISTRAR: We're not purposely holding this process back. We're doing everything in our power to move ballot forward just as quickly as we can. But the statutory deadlines that we have in place, I can't do - finish all the mail until it all comes in. That's a very small number, but still, I can't finish until Saturday, even if I want it to. Monday, we have the cure deadline. I've got to wait for those voters to give them an opportunity to get their ballot cured.

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FLORES: Now, about that deadline for tomorrow, Saturday, when they're expecting all the mail in ballots that are postmarked Election Day, the registrar says that they've been going to the mail every day - once every day. Well, tomorrow, they're going to go twice to make sure that they get all of those ballots as to when the next tallies are going to go up, tonight we're expecting a tally and then, of course, tomorrow when according to the registrar, they are expecting to process the majority of those 50,000 ballots. Guys, back to you.

GOLODRYGA: All right. All right. Rosa Flores, thank you.

SANCHEZ: There is cheering in the streets of Ukraine in the key city of Kherson after Russian troops retreated.

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A CNN team went inside one of the newly liberated towns in that region. We're going to take you there next.

And a fresh look at the coastal damage Hurricane Nicole left behind in Florida. Where the storm is moving next, we'll tell you straight ahead.

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SANCHEZ: Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says it is a historic day for his country as Ukrainian forces have taken back control of the key city of Kherson. Videos on social media show residents flooding the city's Central Square cheering and waving flags, welcoming the arrival of Ukrainian troops.

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CROWD: (Foreign language).

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GOLODRYGA: CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, is live and Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. Nic, a major blow a black eye and embarrassment for Vladimir Putin just weeks after illegally annexing one of these four territories including Kherson.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. And the narrative that the Russian Ministry of Defense is putting out that they were able to get out 30,000 troops in good order safely and they're able to get out all their military equipment, 5,000 pieces of military equipment, they said, without loss just an utter fabrication.

We were there. We were in some of the territories that were liberated over the past day or so. We were in a town where we were speaking to residents and literally still in that euphoric moment of just having had their town liberated. Outside of the town, there was plenty of evidence of Russian military equipment, not making it back east of the Dnipro River, safely, as the Russian military has said.

And I think this gives us an understanding of what President Putin is trying to do in misleading as population. He's trying to play a failure and retreat as a strategic smart move that this is success. In other words, he's saved so many troops. For the people we've talked to today, this is the end of the horrors of Russian occupation and some of the stories we heard today from those people just liberated were quite chilling.

A young girl, 15-year-old girl, told us that she had been taken away by Russian troops in the past few days, had a hood put over a head, taken to the basement of a building, threatened with having her fingers cut off if she didn't tell them where Ukrainian troops were. And she said - she thought she was going to be raped, she was absolutely terrified by it.

And we spoke to an old pensioner, a lady who must have been in her early 80s, perhaps, and she told us Russian troops had threatened to kill her threatened, she said - they said to her to smash her brains out. So there's this euphoria, but on the other hand, people are really reliving now in this moment of freedom, reliving the horrors that they've just been forced to go through.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, really traumatic for the people there and, obviously, if past is prologue, we can expect to see more attacks on civilian infrastructure from Russia in the days and weeks to come. Nonetheless, this is a good day for Ukraine and a great day for those residents of Kherson. Nic Robertson, thank you.

SANCHEZ: Back to the United States now. We want to get you an update on Hurricane Nicole because that category one hurricane has been linked to at least five fatalities in Florida ever since it made landfall early on Thursday. We're learning more about the victims, too. One of them was a tow truck driver who was assisting a stranded driver.

GOLODRYGA: Just awful. Nicole has since weakened to a tropical depression and is now bringing heavy rainfall in its wake. CNN Meteorologist Britley Ritz, joins us now.

So Britley, what are you expecting next from this rare November storm?

BRITLEY RITZ, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the problem now, Bianna, is the fact that we're dealing with the threat for strong damaging winds, tornadoes and even localized flooding. And some of this already occurring with now Tropical Depression Nicolle. The center of the low located still parts of the southeast, but a lot of that moisture working its way up through the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and into New England.

See these pink dots, those are tornado warnings that have been issued and numerous warnings have already been issued earlier today. This is going to continue on through the rest of this evening until six o'clock Eastern time. Parts of North Carolina as well as Virginia dealing with a tornado watch, highlighted in this red dot. We got a lot of sunshine out there still, some of that heating helping to fuel some of these storms, which is why we're dealing with that threat of tornadoes.

Not only that, but of course stronger winds, so the area's highlighted in green all the way up into the Mid-Atlantic, Washington, Philly, still dealing with the threat of wind gust over 60 miles per hour. Then that, on top of the heavy rain which we've already picked up along the coastline, dealing around two to four inches of rain with additional rainfall expected, we still have flash flood warnings. Boris? Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Britley Ritz, thank you so much for that update. GOLODRYGA: Dave Chappelle's representative denies that there is a writer boycott at Saturday Night Live over him hosting tomorrow night. We'll have more details for you ahead.

SANCHEZ: And the turmoil, the soap opera at Twitter showing no signs of stopping after Elon Musk reportedly said that bankruptcy is a possibility. We'll be right back.

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GOLODRYGA: Comedian Dave Chappelle's representatives are disputing claims that Saturday Night Live writers plan to boycott his guest hosting gig this weekend.

SANCHEZ: The New York Post reported that some of the writing staff were opposed to his hosting because of his past remarks about the transgender community. CNN National Correspondent Jason Carroll has more.

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