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CNN Projects Democrat Warnock Wins Senate Race; Trump Silent On Walker Loss After Launching 2024 Bid; Herschel Walker Concedes Senate Race To Warnock; Trump Organization Companies Guilty of Multiple Counts of Tax Fraud; Voter Turnout in Georgia; China Ease on COVID-19 Restrictions. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired December 07, 2022 - 02:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:36]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all over the world. Live from Washington. I'm Kasie Hunt.

We are following big news for democrats. The reelection of U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock. CNN projects the Georgia incumbent will defeat his republican challenger. First time political candidate Herschel Walker. Warnock's victory in this runoff election gives Democrats a 51-49 edge in the senate but it is a critical advantage as democrats will now have a majority in all of the senate committees. Here as a part of Senator Warnock's victory speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): I want to say thank you from -- thank you from the bottom of my heart and to God be the glory. After a hard- fought campaign or should I say campaigns? It is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy. The people have spoken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And Herschel Walker, his challenger was quick to concede after Warnock's projected victory. Shouldn't be noteworthy but it is. He told supporters he believes in the constitution and elected officials.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERSCHEL WALKER, U.S. REPUBLICAN SENATE CANDIDATE: When they called the race, I said the numbers doesn't look like it's going to add up.

But one of the things I want to tell all of you is you never stop dreaming. I don't want any of you to stop dreaming. I don't want any of you to stop believing in America.

There are no excuses in life and I am not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Let's bring in CNN's John Berman who's at the magic wall up in New York to walk us through Senator Warnock's path to victory. First of all, John, it's great to see you. Thank you for being here at this middle of the night hour on the East Coast. Let's talk about how Warnock won this election tonight.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Very nice to see you, Kasie, along with Doug Flutie introducing Herschel Walker, his concession speech last night. The first thing I want to point out, Kasie, is the margin. Raphael Warnock, the margin right now ahead by 91,000 votes. Obviously, that is more than the general election one month ago where Raphael, Warnock had an edge of 37,000 votes.

So right now, Walker ahead by 91,000. That could still grow as more votes trickle in. One thing I want to point out that 91,000 vote margin is basically exactly the same from his special election runoff two years ago. And in fact, the map that Warnock won this special election runoff two years ago exactly the same as today. Look at all these counties. These are the counties Warnock won this time, exactly the same as the runoff two years ago.

Now, where did the race get decided this time? This is interesting. Let me show you where Herschel Walker underperformed. OK? He underperformed Herschel Walker, then you can see obviously, importantly in the Atlanta area, I'll dig into that in just a moment. But also, the other urban and suburban areas around Columbus, Augusta Savannah. Herschel Walker did fine. In fact, he outperformed some of his general election results in rural counties.

Let me just show you a few. Dade County, Herschel Walker got 82 percent this time in the general election one month ago. He got 80 percent. He actually grew that margin next door in Walker County. Walker -- Herschel Walker in Walker County got just about 80 percent this time. One month ago, it was 77 percent. So, he actually grew some of the margins in the rural areas. But it wasn't nearly enough because there aren't nearly enough votes there to counter what happened in the urban and suburban areas.

Take Fulton County which is the heart of Atlanta here. You can see Raphael Warnock was 76.5 percent, Herschel Walker 23.5 percent. One month ago, you can see it was less than that. Walker is 73 percent. He went from 73 percent to 76.5 percent. And there are so many more votes here.

[02:05:00]

You're dealing with tens and tens and thousands of votes. So, Warnock cleaned up in these urban and suburban areas. And there's one fascinating trend. I want to point out to you, Kasie. I think you'll appreciate this as a student of history, and it really gets to what is a challenge for republicans nationwide in the Trump area. Let's look at Gwinnett County. Gwinnett. County is Atlanta, but also in Atlanta suburbs right now. You can see Senator Raphael Warnock one Gwinnett County by 25 points. I'm going to put plus 25 here. Now go back to the presidential election in 2020. You can see Gwinnett County, Joe Biden won Gwinnett County but it was by 18 points. Now let's go back to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Hillary Clinton won, but it was by six points. Raphael Warnock just won Gwinnett by 25 points. Now I'm going to blow your mind.

Let's go back to 2012. And here, Mitt Romney actually won Gwinnett County by almost nine points. Again, suburban Atlanta, Romney won by nine points. This time, Raphael, Warnock won by 25 points. So, you can see that's a challenge. As you look at republicans now facing some of these areas nationwide, Kasie.

HUNT: No, it's a great -- it's an absolute great point. Mitch McConnell and his team are obsessed with the voters that are making those very changes that you just outlined, and it's likely why democrats currently control the senate. John Berman, thank you very much, my friend. We'll see you in an hour. Really appreciate you being here.

Here to talk about the Georgia Senate runoff is our distinguished panel of guests. Paul Begala Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator. Alice Stewart, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator. Laura Barron Lopez is a White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. And April Ryan, a White House correspondent for The Grio. They're both CNN political analysts.

We also want to bring into the conversation CNN senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, who joins us live from Los Angeles. Ron, we're all jealous. It's a couple hours earlier where you are.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Exactly.

HUNT: Early on Wednesday morning here on the East Coast. But let me -- let me start with you because -- I mean, for the -- for viewers who -- and we've got a lot of people watching from around the world because we're also on CNN I tonight who aren't familiar with your amazing work. I mean, you have looked at these kinds of demographic trends, the way our politics has evolved over the decades in a really in-depth and detailed way.

And Georgia is such an interesting example. I mean, what do you think here? Help us understand how much of this is a fundamental shift or a demographic shift versus these individual candidates themselves. And of course, the elephant in the room, Donald Trump?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, look, every election is a intersection of long term and near-term factor. So, all of those figured in. But to go back to the point that John Berman finished on what we are really seeing is the impact of the conscious choice Republicans have made in the Trump era to reorient the party toward the cultural preferences and grievances of a predominantly white non-urban, non-college, often evangelical electorate.

And the impact that has had on suburban areas that once reliably voted republican. I mean, there were five states, Kasie, as you know, that decided the 2020 election by shifting from Trump in '16 to Biden in '20. They were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. With Walker's loss tonight, republicans have lost all seven republicans in those states who are nominated for governor or senator with Trump's specific endorsement have now lost.

And they've lost in a very consistent way by having the suburban areas move sharply against them. It wasn't just Gwinnett and Cobb, it was Oakland and Michigan, Delaware, and Montgomery and Pennsylvania, Maricopa and Arizona and Dane County in Wisconsin. So, there's a consistent pattern here of these big populous, thriving population centers in the metro areas rejecting the Trump era definition of the party and their increased trends in the rural areas not being quite enough to overcome that.

HUNT: Yes. No, it's such a good point. And Alice Stewart, I mean, I got to -- as the republican at the table bring you in here because the reality is the people live in -- are increasingly in cities and suburbs. And the party is increasingly as Ron very clearly laid out, focusing on a message that appeals to rural voters and there are simply not enough of them to win national elections. And, you know, we're seeing it in control of the senate.

There's obviously a very narrow control of the House on the republican side, almost not enough that -- I'm not even sure exactly what we can take away from the way the House switched this year. But -- I mean, how do and how can republicans win back these voters that they need to win if they want the White House back?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, they can start with nominating quality candidates. Candidate quality was the big factor. In a lot of these races that Ron mentioned that we lost.

[02:10:03]

People that were flawed candidates that were backed by Trump, election deniers, we're OK with the January 6 insurrection of the Capitol. That did not sit well with voters. So, getting quality candidates that focus on issues that are important to voters is really important. And this, I think, will go a long way to what I'm going to say next. Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, she was put in that position in 2017.

Since she has been in that position, we have -- Republicans have not won across the board in any races since she has been in office. I think change starts at the top. In order for Republicans to do well moving forward, change needs to begin at the top and therefore, someone like her in a position of head of the RNC get candidates in the primary process that can win in the general election. This isn't about winning primaries, it's about winning the general election.

HUNT: I take -- I take your point but at the end of the day -- and Paul Begala, I'm interested in your take on this. The end of the day, a big part of this is that the best people in the Republican Party haven't wanted to put themselves in positions to run for these offices, to run for Senate. I mean, we had Chris Sununu in New Hampshire. There are -- there were others kind of across the map that Mitch McConnell really wanted to run and who didn't run because nobody wanted anything to do with Trump. I mean, how do they solve that problem?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We're not talking about the Maryland Senate race because the incumbent won in a landslide, a democrat, because Larry Hogan, the incredibly popular republican governor of one of most democratic states, didn't want to anything to do with politics in the time of Trump in the U.S. --

HUNT: And he's going to run for president. But yes.

BEGALA: And that we wish him well. But I think the problem is not even just geographic, right? They do have a problem in the cities and in the suburbs. But it's what they say, you know, right after the Civil War, Henry Adams, a historian and writer and diplomat, he described American politics in his day as the systematic organization of hatreds. That's Donald Trump's politics. If he were going to rural America and say, I'm going to help save rural hospitals.

You know, one-third of all the rural hospitals in America are under risk of closing. That's a crisis. There's a crisis on the farm. God knows there's an opioid crisis in every part of America, but it's hitting rural America. If he were going to them with ideas and solutions for their very real problems. That'd be one thing. Instead, he's going with grievance. Look at Mr. Walker running ads, attacking trans kids, of which I think in high school athletics in Georgia, there are two and we know that trans kids have spectacularly higher suicide ideations and self-harm.

And that's just -- it has failed politically. But I also think morally it's wrong. It's better to come to voters with something you'll do for them than just I hate the same people you hate.

HUNT: All right. Let's press pause on this. We're going to come back to our great panel in just a second because CNN special coverage of the Georgia Senate runoff continues after this quick break.

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[02:17:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARNOCK: You got me for six more years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock celebrating his major win in the final race of the 2022 midterm elections. CNN projects he'll defeat republican challenger Herschel Walker in that very close runoff election. Neither candidate got above 50 percent of the vote in November's general election which is what sparked this runoff. Warnock's victory gives democrats a 51 to 49 seat majority in the U.S. senate. And it brings to an end the marathon midterm election cycle that we are still covering which democrats defy historical trends, limiting their losses in the House and tonight gaining a seat in the senate.

But CNN political analyst Van Jones pointed out tonight that Senator Warnock's victory and his view wasn't big enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Just because republicans have done dumb stuff doesn't make democrats smart. And there is a danger that we get to triumphalist about what just happened. You should have been beat by 50 points, you should have been beat by 80 points. There are problems and faults and flaws in our party. I want to make sure that we fix those because 2024 is around the corner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Let's talk about this more with our esteemed panel. And April and Laura, let me bring you into this conversation. I'm not sure I agree with Van entirely considering the state of our politics. This was always going to be close. The reality is that Warnock, Laura, actually -- I mean, we keep calling it a close race. Yes. Almost every race in a competitive state in American politics right now is close. But this margin was pretty significant for a state that is a swing state at the end of the day.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: It was and it's still is Georgia. And I know we were just talking about all of the shifting demographics in Georgia, but it still just became a swing state in 2020. So, because of that, I think that there are a lot of things that democrats can learn from this election cycle and carry on into 2024. I mean, one thing we haven't talked about yet is abortion.

And when I was down there in Georgia, yes, it was the runoff. But a lot of female voters that I was talking to mentioned abortion access and mentioned that issue. And so, I think that that is going to be something that especially as we potentially see in '24, a number of states bring up abortion access ballot measures that democrats could potentially use which they did a number of states this cycle to try to bolster turnout.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, one of the things, April, that's one of my sources said too is that abortion was one of the reasons why perhaps history was defined in this election cycle. Meaning that there were a lot of voters who looked at, you know, normally they say, oh, the party is in power, you know, we're going to say we want to check on them or we want to change things around a little bit because of the way the Supreme Court intervene so aggressively.

Instead, voters actually felt like republicans needed a check in this sort of different way, what's your take?

APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Most definitely. When you have a conservative court that's going to overturn the law, the land. I mean the nation came out saying that they didn't want to change Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court did that.

[02:20:07]

And then you have a candidate who has accusations about him paying money to a former girlfriend with a get-well card. That, you know, he's denying having an abortion and his son, comes out saying you're lying. That brought a whole another layer and conundrum on this very sensitive issue in the nation. Do you believe this candidate? Where does he stand on issues? And can you trust what he says?

And it goes back kind of sort of also to what Charlie did say earlier about the fact that he was not a good candidate. He was someone who -- he couldn't string sentences together.

HUNT: There were a lot of questions. Vampires, werewolves, et cetera. Yes.

RYAN: Among other things. And -- but issues matter in a state that's trying to figure out who it is and a party that's trying to figure out who it is.

HUNT: So, Ron Brownstein, I mean, as I -- as we think about this kind of in the -- in the big picture. This really was the midterm -- the whole midterm, not just what happened in Georgia, but it was not necessarily the kind of change wave election that we saw kind of swing the country back and forth, and back and forth in previous midterm elections like 2006 and 2010. Instead, most incumbents won their elections.

The House did not swing very far. I mean, yes, Kevin McCarthy's party is going to be in charge of the House. But it's by, you know, barely, and kind of by the basically the same majority that Nancy Pelosi held, you know, four or five seats, or so. And then you have the senate again, basically evenly split the hand the democrats won seat. I mean, what do you think it is that drove this sort of maintenance of the status quo almost in this election cycle?

BROWNSTEIN: You know, what I wrote it in mid-October, Kasie, was I thought that it was becoming a double negative election. And I think that produced the environment that gave us that result. On the one hand, you had a majority of voters who were negative on Biden's performance and negative on the state of the economy. In fact, in the exit polls, we saw that worn out and normally that would produce big gains for the party out of power.

But that first negative was, I think, curtailed and limited by the second negative, which was that there was a substantial number of voters who viewed the Trump error Republican Party as a threat to their rights and to democracy itself on abortion and other issues. And that they were reluctant to entrust them with power, despite their doubts about the democrats. And, you know, that led to this extraordinary set of results which included democrats narrowly winning independence in the national exit poll, no party holding the White House is one independence and a midterm since at least 1982.

And democrats, of course, won them by even bigger margins in the swing states. And the other thing I think it's really important to recognize, though, is that this really was two different elections in the blue and swing states than it was in the red states. Because, you know, in Michigan and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, in states where Colorado, Washington and states where abortion is still legal, there was a clear and unmistakable signal from voters that they wanted it to remain legal.

And you saw overwhelming percentages of voters who identified as pro- choice voting for Democrats. On the other hand, in the red states that have actually banned abortion like Florida, and Texas, even Georgia, Iowa, with the sole exception of Arizona, we didn't really see much of a backlash. So, in some ways, what this election did was deepen and widen the chasm between red America and blue America.

The challenge for Republicans is that when you look at the Electoral College, the states that lean democratic really leave them I think, with an uphill climb for 2024 unless they can change the dynamic and the suburban communities that we were talking about.

HUNT: This is why we love talking to Ron. Really fascinating analysis and looking forward the -- just huge implications as you point out. Our panel is going to stick around with us for the next hour. You all are watching CNN's special coverage of the senate runoff in Georgia. We will be back with more on Raphael Warnock when after the short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:29:02]

HUNT: U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock remains undefeated after winning a close Georgia runoff just a few hours ago. That's after neither he nor Republican challenger Herschel Walker earns the necessary 50 percent of the vote in the general midterm election last month and we had to go to this runoff but Warnock's now secured his first full six-year term giving democrats a critical edge in the senate.

The White House is thankful posting this photo of President Joe Biden calling Warnock to congratulate him. In the caption they write tonight, Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism and most importantly, sent a good man back to the senate.

A short time ago former U.S. President Barack Obama tweeted "Georgians have proven that when it comes time to vote, they'll show up and vote for a leader who will fight for them." No reaction yet from former President Donald Trump who of course handpicked Herschel Walker and a series of other controversial midterm candidates who then lost their elections.

[02:30:00]

The losses do reflect pretty badly on Trump who has already launched his 2024 presidential bid. And it's been a rough day for team Trump, in other ways, with major developments in the capitol riot probe. The January 6th House Select Committee plans to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department. The committee chairman says that the panel has not yet narrowed down everyone who will be referred or what charges they might recommend, but those decisions will have to come soon as the Committee is set to wrap up its probe and publish a final report by the end of the year. Time is running out because Republicans are set to take control of the House and sure to disband the Committee.

There's also this, a New York jury has found two Trump organization companies guilty of multiple counts of tax fraud. The case was over a 15-year scheme carried out by top executives who kept lavish perks and bonuses off of the books. A high-ranking official executive pleaded guilty to 15 different felony charges, admitting that he failed to pay taxes on nearly $2 million of income. It comes as Donald Trump is pursuing the Republican nomination for president yet again. And while he and his family were not charged directly in the case, the verdict could have further impact on their businesses. Attorneys for the Trump organizations say that they will appeal.

Our panel is back with us. We've got Paul Begala, Democratic strategist. Alice Stewart, Republican strategist, both CNN political commentators. We've also got April Ryan and Laura Barron-Lopez. Laura is the White House correspondent from PBS Newshour. April for the (INAUDIBLE). Both CNN political analysts. I think we also have Ron Brownstein still with us, senior political analyst from Los Angeles.

This has been a conversation, guys, that we hear onset have been having in the breaks and around -- you know, the throughout the past couple of hours. And, Paul, I've got to tell you, the thing about Trump, and I have been convinced for many months that if he were going to get in, it was a going to be a situation where -- I mean, he was going to be the man to beat. He was probably the most likely future Republican nominee.

It does seem to me that there has been a shift. I mean, yes, part of it is the election, part of it is Republicans who were, you know, willing to say privately for a very longtime that they thought Trump was a loser are now more willing to say it in public, fine. But also, the things that the president himself has been doing have seemed farther afield in a way.

I mean, whether it is the dinner with Kanye West and the, you know, holocaust denier, who I don't even want to name, or the tweet -- truth -- the truth? What are we call things on truth social? That came out where he says that, we should terminate the constitution. I mean, the degree to which -- I'm not sure I thought the absurdity could get even worse than it was. But somehow it has.

And in some ways, it does seem, to me, like it is less likely that he is going to be taken seriously as the next nominee. But I don't know. What do you think?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think he will be. And I think he will be the nominee. And I'm often wrong. It's not party. Alice probably knows better. But Republicans have this win or take all system, which favors a plurality candidate. And while Trump does these things that are so offensive to even most many Republicans, they make him beloved to a core of maybe 25, 35 percent of Republicans. And, as long as he has them and you have a vast field, keep in mind, when he ran the first time, in 2016, he didn't win a majority in any primary caucus until the 33rd state. New York, his home state.

HUNT: Yes. Yes, that is true.

BEGALA: So, he has never -- he never had 50 percent support even a single day as president. He never beat a Democrat once by getting more votes. So, he is a plurality candidate and that's where he is comfortable. So, he's going to keep doubling and tripling down. But I would not bet against that in a multicandidate field.

HUNT: Sure. But -- yes. Alice, go ahead.

STEWART: I will say, there's a little bit of difference. I'll beg to differ with my friend Paul with regards to now and 2016. 2016, a lot of us held our noses and got behind him. He went into the White House with very low expectations and he failed to deliver. And -- but we gave him the benefit of the doubt. He came in with low expectations, we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Six years later, he failed to deliver.

We now have the benefit of options. There are other Republicans that are going to come forward and stand up to him. It might be a fractured field to begin with, but between these legal challenges, January 6th, the constitutional comments, the diners with anti-Semites, people are saying that, it is time to turn the page. He is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the Republican Party day after day. And Republicans are saying, it's time to move on.

HUNT: Let me get Ron to weigh in here. Because, look, I mean, the -- what Paul is saying is in -- if you are a plurality candidate and winner take all situation he can, you know, get his 20 percent in Iowa, in New Hampshire. And if there's not another candidate who can best that, then we are going to see that fragmented field. He can potentially clear it through. Based on what you saw in Florida, from Ron DeSantis, do you think that that's likely to happen again or -- I mean, what is your view of what we've been talking about?

[02:35:00]

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think Paul is right that that is Trump's biggest asset is the Republican rules favor whoever has the biggest piece, even if that piece is smaller than a majority. And as he points out, he was already the presumptive nominee in 2016 before he had reached 50 percent of the vote in any state.

What happened in 2016 was that Trump consolidated the half of the party who are non-college Republicans, many of them evangelicals, much more than anyone else consolidated the other half of the party who are college educated Republicans at the point that he had effectively ended the race in 2016. Because he was still winning only about a third of college educated Republicans.

So, in that sense, he is not in that position right now where you see in polling only about a third of college educated Republicans say they want him again or say they would support him. The question is whether anyone can consolidate that piece of the party more effectively than (INAUDIBLE) Cruz and Al did in 2016. And I think that that will be the biggest question.

One thing I'm trying to puzzle out of my head, I'm not trying to preempt (ph) it, maybe Alice does. If you think about most of the candidates who could get into this race, I think more of them are more oriented towards that college side than the blue-collar side that really helped Trump. You think of Hogan or Youngkin or Pompeo. And so, it might be that the field faces the same problem, not only a lot of candidates, but a lot of candidates fishing primarily in the pool other than the one that Trump is going to be strongest in.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, Laura, this does seem like the central challenge because, I mean, how many times has Trump been declared politically dead only to end up being the primary. And again, the primary force in a Republican nominating contest. We already know, and we've seen, we've got so much evidence that we've been talking about all night that shows that he cannot win general elections anymore based on his time in the White House and other issues.

But when it comes to winning Republican primaries, they are in this position. And all these other candidates, to Ron's point, would potentially split up the other types of Republican voters.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWHOUR AND CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And as we talk about whether or not Republicans are saying collectively, we don't want to turn a page, one thing that I think is important here is that when reporters were asking Republicans after the meeting with Kanye West and the white supremacists Nick Fuentes, whether or not they would condemn it, a number of Republicans eventually came out and said that they condemned it. But that they still wouldn't say that it was disqualifying or that they weren't going to support Trump.

The same thing with the latest truth social tweet from Trump where he says that we should terminate the constitution. Republicans again said, I don't agree with that. That's not OK. We defend the constitution. But then, you go the step further of, OK, are you done with the former president? Are you going to not support him? And they do not take that step.

And McConnell, you know, the Senate minority leader, has said before, that he would potentially support Trump if he were the nominee again. So, this idea that Republicans are going to totally sever their ties with him I think is just -- I don't think it's going to happen.

HUNT: April, last word?

RYAN: Brief last word. The elephant in the room that no one is talking about is that is going into this weekend, but if there is an indictment, he could wind up being a martyr. And he could rally the base and rally Republicans yet again to become the nominee. That is my take.

HUNT: Oh, boy. All right. RYAN: But it's true. It's real.

HUNT: We're getting closer to this late hour.

RYAN: No, we're not getting -- it's real.

HUNT: But I do not disagree with you and I did not disagree with you at all.

All right. In the run up to the runoff, Georgia's single day early voting record was repeatedly broken. We are going to look at how voter turnout impacted the results.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I don't want to be the one vote that took the other way. I want to make sure my vote counts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is important my children, my grandchildren and most of all me while I'm still here on this earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's an important race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Those are some Georgian voters laying out the stakes in the critical U.S. Senate runoff that was won by Democratic Incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock. A high-ranking state election official told CNN that around 3.3 million ballots were cast and pointed to record turnout on Tuesday. An early single day voting smash records last week.

Prior to the runoff, Democrats had already won the Senate. but only by the narrowest of margins. Warnock's win gives them more control over the chamber. And we are back with our coverage of the Georgia runoff election.

Let's continue the conversation with our esteemed panel. And, April, on this question of voting in particular. I mean, this is something that Democrats, particularly in Georgia, have worked really hard on in recent years but it also highlights the fact that Republicans, and namely Donald Trump, scared Republican voters away from many of these very legitimate ways of getting out to the polls in a way that, you know, created a problem for Herschel Walker.

If you've got a vote that has been banked early, you can spend your money and your focus getting somebody else out to the polls and you don't have to worry about the previous person. You don't have to -- I think one source told one of my colleagues on CNN, you don't have to be the weather reporter on election day, right, when it's raining and your turnout is down. RYAN: Yes. Let me say this. And this is one thing, when there is any kind of effort to suppress or change the vote, it's not just basically aimed at one group, other people are impacted and affected. If you say, no, we are going to shut it down for a weekend voting or a Saturday or Sunday voting, you know, there are not just black, but white people who have jobs that they need to work on a Saturday or Sunday, and they need to get off as well.

[02:45:00]

So, here is the issue in Georgia. This runoff situation. The first time they ran against each other, neither one of them got 50 percent. To go back again was to suppress the vote because they realized that certain communities don't come out on the second try. They thought it was going to be the black community. They were wrong. They came out.

But the larger issue in voting, we are now voting without the full protections of 1965 Voting Rights Act. That was gutted in 2013 by the United States Supreme Court with Shelby v. Holder. It pulled out something called preclearance. And preclearance is exactly what is happening, an issue that's linked to what is happening in Georgia. Preclearance is when these states would have to go to the Justice Department to get approval for what their changes.

And Georgia, you cannot -- if my aunty is in line waiting for three hours to vote, I can't bring her food. If I do, I go to jail, she goes to jail. That is suppression, et cetera, et cetera. And Georgia is now the test case for how we move forward to have blanket voting laws, so everybody has the right and freedoms to vote.

HUNT: Sure. That's fair enough. But I mean, Alice, really the issues is in Georgia was actually more on the Republican side, if anything, because there were so -- people were just not willing to do this -- to utilize avenues that were made available to them.

STEWART: Well, I think what -- I will say this and looking at the selection. With a record voter turnout, we had very few incidents of any irregularities. Certainly, no widespread voter fraud. And I just want to take a moment to hat tip to Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state's office, the election workers and every county in the State of Georgia that worked really hard to make this a fair election.

And look, what the most important thing is that every state has their own election laws, elected officials and every state determine the election laws in these states, and that's what Republican legislature did in this case. Some regulations with regard to elections were implemented due to COVID in terms of drop boxes and how people vote with COVID. Now, that we have gotten through COVID, some of the election regulations changed.

And to April's point about the water and the line, I think it's also important to point out that the law stipulates that while individual campaigns or issues can't give a water or food, if you are in line and you need water, election officials at the election sites can distribute water if you need. HUNT: Yes. No, I mean -- look, I'm glad you made that point. I think what I'm trying to get at here and what I think is an important piece of the puzzle in Georgia and also, across the country as we deal with election deniers, Paul, is that these people, voters, are willing to believe leaders who mislead them about what is safe and effective in terms of their voices being heard.

And it has become more of a -- I mean, in Georgia, it was more of a problem for Republicans than it was for Democrats in this particular case. But, I mean, I think it's important to call out when people are saying, you can't trust voting earlier, dropping your off. I mean, there are people who are going to believe leaders, who tell them those things, and those people's voices are not going to be heard.

BEGALA: And paradoxically, it hurts the Republicans when it was the Republican leader, Mr. Trump, who was saying these untrue things. Reverend Warnock made an important point tonight when he said, there, was voter suppression laws in place. Don't think because we had high turnout that those laws did -- don't exist. And what he said was that basically his campaign and others organized around it.

Now, he has a ground level reality here, four campaigns in two years. He knows more about Georgia elections than anybody, even more than the secretary of state. So, when he says that, I believe it. But I guess because he's a minister, it made me think of Genesis 50:20. Man meant it for evil, but Got meant it for good.

HUNT: OK now.

BEGALA: And I think that's what happened. You had a backlash.

HUNT: We in church.

BEGALA: Well, you have backlash.

HUNT: We got civil war history. We got bible quoted from Paul. I love it.

RYAN: But wait a minute. Kasie, I want to go back to something Alice said. Alice said something about voter fraud. Let's stop -- you are going right back into that Trumpism. Where is the voter fraud? Let's stop the voter fraud. Let's talk about voter suppression.

HUNT: Look, I think -- in fairness and I apologize, we are going to have to cut this block short because we have to go internationally. But I do think that Alice was saying that, in fact, we didn't see evidence of voter fraud in this election.

STEWART: Right.

RYAN: There is none.

HUNT: So --

STEWART: I agree. HUNT: All right. We are going to leave it there this hour. But Paul Begala, Alice Stewart, Laura Barron-Lopez and April Ryan are all going to stick with us. We will be right back.

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I am Rosemary Church with your top international headlines.

Following a wave of protests, China is easing more of its COVID-19 restrictions. Authorities have announced a sweeping set of new guidelines. They largely scrap the controversial health code system and allow people to quarantine at home.

And for more, we want to go to CNN 's Anna Coren who joins us live from Hong Kong. Good to see you, Anna. So, protests clearly played a significant role here, in easing these strict COVID measures. So, what is included in the new guidelines and what will this mean for China's zero COVID policy?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rosemary, this is a really positive step in China moving to dismantle its zero COVID strategy. It has yet to downgrade its COVID status, which at the moment, is on par with the bubonic plague and cholera. But certainly, the National Health Commission announced these 10 new COVID guidelines, which will make living with COVID a lot easier for people in Mainland China. Let me run you through them.

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They will allow people who have mild symptoms, who are asymptomatic, to quarantine at home. There is going to be no further mass lockdowns of neighborhoods. Instead, they will target specific buildings or apartments. They are going to reduce mass testing, which we have seen, those PCR tests that people need to do everywhere, you know, whenever they want to travel unless in high-risk areas. That will now be scrapped.

They, very importantly, want to accelerate the vaccination program for the elderly. Now, China has a problem here. Two thirds of people over the age of 80 are vaccinated. And there is obviously real concern that once there is a COVID wave, that it is the elderly that will, you know, potentially die. But certainly, this is China, you know, looking at the off ramp, looking to move away from zero COVID. Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right. Anna Coren joining us live from Hong Kong. Many thanks.

And thank you for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. Our special coverage of the runoff in Georgia continues after a short break. Do stay with us.

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