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Chris DeRose is Interviewed about Election Audit; Broder Wall Turns into Ghost-Like Scene; Kamala Harris Comments on Racism. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 03, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:32:30]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Arizona's Republican controlled audit of nearly 2.1 million votes in the 2020 election is now entering its third week with no definitive end in sight. Some Republicans worry that the ballot recount based on the false claim of widespread voter fraud in that state could do the party more harm than good. In an op- ed for "The Washington Post," election law attorney Chris DeRose writes, quote, I am a proud Republican. I have and will continue to support efforts to increase the fairness of the elections. This Arizona audit is not one of them.

Chris DeRose joins me now.

Councilor, thanks so much for being with us.

Why did you write this op-ed?

CHRIS DEROSE, GOP ELECTION LAW ATTORNEY: Because I think it's important that people who understand this situation speak out and point out that this audit is counterproductive. That it's not following established standards. That it was never necessary in the first place. That Arizona elections are incredibly professionally run and transparent and have -- can be observed by credentialed party representatives from all sides and, you know, open to the public, open to members of the press. And now, after all that, after all those safeguards in the additional audits that the county board of supervisors, which is 4-1 Republican performed, we have the state senate, led by a small group of members and aided by other state senators who really know better, right, who really know that no good end is going to come out of this running a closed to the public, calls itself an audit, doesn't have any of the hallmarks of an audit. People are looking at ballots. People are saying they're going to go door to door and contact voters and ask them questions. The press has been banned at various points. They've been restricted at various points. Members of the press have been kicked out, they've been confronted by people who are carrying guns. It's really -- it's really unclear why this is happening and what -- what possible good could come of it.

BERMAN: It's a mess.

DEROSE: And so I think it's important that people -- yes, it's a mess.

BERMAN: Yes, it's a mess and --

DEROSE: And it's important that people --

BERMAN: And if you're looking for a logical through line, it's really not there, right? As you write in "The Washington Post," you say, how could anyone expect a partisan process to yield a result more accurate and trusted than the one administered by professionals of all parties following established rules.

DEROSE: Yes.

BERMAN: If you're a Republican who supports this audit, ask yourselves this, if the Democrats had lost, how would you feel if this was their response?

DEROSE: Yes, they would not countenance it. And if you look at some of the complaints from Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania election, the observers weren't giving a meaningful -- weren't given a meaningful chance to observe what was happening.

[08:35:05]

Well, how much more so is that true in this -- in this old coliseum where this -- this audit is taking place, where members of the public are shut out, where, you know, this happened on a party line vote. It's being run by Republicans. And members of the press are being told they can't take notes, they can't take photographs, they're being removed from the premises, they're initially banned, they're given inconsistent statements on what the policies are.

In fact, cyber ninjas, who are the group with no election experience, who are in charge of conducting this show, actually had to be taken to court just to provide the guidelines that they're being -- that they're using to conduct this audit, whereas if you look at the guidelines that Arizona election officials followed, they're published, they're bipartisan, they've been agreed on, they're long established and there are safeguards to ensure an accurate and complete count.

BERMAN: Very quickly --

DEROSE: And so this is the -- this -- yes.

BERMAN: I just have to go. Very quickly, last question, you know, what's the outcome of this? I mean, not with the audit, but what's the impact long term?

DEROSE: Yes, well, everything like this causes damage to our democracy. It's so important and so critical to our form of government that we accept election results, whether they go our way or they don't. And so if this comes out and they can't find any evidence of fraud, there are going to be people who are disappointed and simply will not be satisfied until they get the answer they want about the 2020 election, or they're going to come up with some spurious allegation of fraud. You know, there's a -- there's a treasure hunter associated with this effort who says he can shine a light or shine some device on a ballot and tell if there's voter fraud. And so I would expect some spurious and unsupported allegations of fraud that never happened to be the conclusion of this audit.

BERMAN: Yes.

DEROSE: And so nothing good is going to come out of it in either event.

BERMAN: Chris DeRose, we appreciate you joining us. Thank you.

DEROSE: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: Up next, new reporting on the Biden administration's plans this week to reunite migrant families separated at the border.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And CNN is on the scene to show what was supposed to be Trump's border wall.

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LAIKEN JORDAHL, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: We've got this huge amount of devastation, this massive swath of land that's been blasted open and nobody knows what's going to happen next.

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[08:41:16]

KEILAR: New this morning, four migrant families who were separated at the southern border under the Trump administration are set to be reunited this week. Among them, a mother from Honduras who was separated from her children and a mother from Mexico who was separated from her son. These are the first reunifications as part of President Biden's DHS task force.

BERMAN: Meantime, the Defense Department canceling all contracts for border wall construction on the U.S.-Mexico border that used funds originally intended for military missions. It comes after the Trump administration dipped into Pentagon funds to build the wall.

CNN's Ed Lavandera in Dallas with more on how things look at the border.

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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Fly straight east out of Nogales, Arizona, and you'll pass miles of rolling border wall built during the President George W. Bush era. Then it reveals a construction zone frozen in time. Steel border wall bollards are left in stacks and construction equipment sits on staging grounds. Just weeks before President Biden was inaugurated, the Trump administration pushed ahead to build a four mile stretch of new border wall into the Patagonia Mountains.

LAVANDERA (on camera): This is the end of the road. About 15 miles east of Nogales, Arizona, this is as far as the border wall construction got. And what you see now is this carved out path sitting next to the pristine, untouched landscape.

LAIKEN JORDAHL, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: So this trench, I mean, this is the footer where they hope to put these bollards.

Eight to ten foot deep trench.

LAVANDERA: And they literally stopped in mid trench.

LAVANDERA (voice over): Laiken Jordahl has spent years campaigning against the border wall in these remote areas of Arizona.

JORDAHL: It's kind of a bizarre scene because we've got this huge amount of devastation, this massive swath of land that's been blasted open and nobody knows what's going to happen next.

LAVANDERA: We revisited a number of the border wall construction sites we've reported on in the last year and this is what we found. Dozens of sites along border have turned from bustling construction zones to ghost-like scenes.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.

LAVANDERA: Vowing not to build another mile of wall, President Biden stopped construction after taking office. About 200 miles of border wall that was being constructed now sit in limbo and funding is approved for about another 75 miles. The Biden administration says it's reviewing the construction projects.

JOE FRANK MARTINEZ, SHERIFF, VAL VERDE COUNTY, TEXAS: I'm taking you to the border fence. It's up the road here.

LAVANDERA: Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez in Del Rio, Texas, takes us to what's supposed to be a two mile stretch of border wall.

LAVANDERA (on camera): This is border wall that was started at the end of the Trump administration?

MARTINEZ: Yes. This -- this structure that you see here, and that structure there.

LAVANDERA (voice over): It's replacing an old iron fence a few hundred yards away from the Rio Grande.

MARTINEZ: I just think it's foolish to leave the project just as -- as it is.

LAVANDERA: Construction equipment is still on site. Deep trenches are dug out. The sheriff might describe this little section of Trump wall as overkill but he doesn't want to see it abandoned either.

There are also environmental concerns. At the end of the Trump era, crews were blasting into the Guadalupe Canyon in southeast Arizona.

LAVANDERA (on camera): When the Biden administration took over, construction stopped. But before leaving, construction crews used the remnants of old steel border barriers to block access to the new wall. Just a few months ago, all you could hear out here was the sounds of heavy machinery, construction crews and explosive detonations blasting into the mountains. Now it is eerily quiet.

LAVANDERA (voice over): Laiken Jordahl says he wants to see construction money diverted to restoring the wilderness.

[08:45:04]

JORDAHL: It is enraging. Frankly, I'm so tired of watching these beautiful landscapes pay the price of politics, of really poor decision making.

LAVANDERA: For anti-border wall activists, the damage is done and the question becomes, how do you repair a mountain landscape that now looks like this?

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LAVANDERA: And, Brianna, this fight is far from over. The federal government now needs to negotiate the cancellation of these contracts. And it's not all of the border wall contracts. There are still others that are being funded through other means. And the pools of money that the Trump administration was dipping into to pay for the expansion of that border wall construction. And, in recent weeks, there have been notices that have gone out to land owners in Texas from the federal government saying that the land was going to be taken over for border wall construction. So this is an issue that is not going away just yet.

KEILAR: All right, Ed, incredible reporting. I think sometimes this is an area that might live in folks imaginations and you really took us there. And it's just great to see you. Thank you so much, Ed.

America's first ever black and south Asian VP says she doesn't think America is a racist country. My next guest says she slipped up.

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[08:50:26]

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, first of all, no, I don't think America is a racist country, but we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its -- and its existence today. And I applaud the president for always having the ability and the courage, frankly, to speak the truth about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: That is Vice President Kamala Harris agreeing with Republican Senator Tim Scott when he said flat out last week that, quote, America is not a racist country.

My next guest has something to say about that.

Joining me now is Karen Attiah, who is global opinions editor of "The Washington Post."

Karen, you wrote about this in an op-ed. What is your response to the vice president's comments?

KAREN ATTIAH, GLOBAL OPINIONS EDITOR, "THE WASHINGTON POST": So Kamala Harris, I mean ever since she really joined the presidential race, has, obviously, because of her -- both because of her experience and because of her identity as a biracial black identifying woman, she's, you know, become a symbol for so much, including for what many would think is racial progress in this country.

So she's had and has to walk this tight rope on race. You saw what happened with President Barack Obama and often his -- the backlash that would come when he would speak very openly about his black identity. So I think this time what was really disappointing, I think, to many people, to agree with Tim Scott and look at this -- and look at this country and say, it's not a racist country despite the fact that we've been living, particularly for the last year, living with the realities of systemic racism beamed into our televisions, into our social media with police brutality, with the rise of an Asian-American -- attacks on Asian-Americans.

She could have really just said, look, we have to deal with the history of racism and its present existence and that would have been done. But the denialism -- I mean it's basically trying to say that, yes, you know, this country has all the hallmarks of being a racist country, it has all the symptoms, it has all the causes, it has all the history and it's literally right in our faces, but it's not that. And I think it has more to do with the fact that the word "racist" in and of itself tends to engender a lot of emotions, a lot of defensiveness, particularly, you know, in perhaps white Americans. We've seen all sorts of world salad being invented to avoid saying the "r" word, racially tinged, racially charged, racially spiced, whatever. But, ultimately, at the end of the day, I think that this was really an attempt to try to not alienate white voters in this big tent approach that the Democrats are trying to do.

KEILAR: You make a point about Tim Scott and essentially about Kamala Harris as well, which is, you can listen to Tim Scott talk about his experiences with racism. Clearly we've heard the vice president talk about her experiences as well.

How then -- you basically pause it. How then do you then argue that the country is not racist? You know, what -- what do you think about that, them talking about their experiences with racism but not saying the country is racist?

ATTIAH: As I sort of alluded to in my piece, I think so many black people and people of color have had to -- or have to go through this every day where we both, you know, want to be able to speak about our lived experiences, want to be able to speak about what it's like to be us in this country where we do face a different America than our white colleagues and friends, and yet at the same time we're very careful to not, again, you know, incite sort of, you know, feelings about this, right, particularly.

So I think this is something that not just politicians really, but every day so many of us have to walk -- have to walk this tightrope in our -- in our daily lives. But the truth is, is speaking about the truth and speaking about not only, you know, with Kamala Harris, we saw it on the campaign trail.

[08:55:02]

We saw the questions about her nationality, whether or not she was eligible to run, these racist birtherist attacks. We saw the deliberate mispronunciations of her name. We've -- we watched her face the racism that America -- that America has long been known for.

So I think for many of us it's just -- it's just kind of exhausting to have to walk -- watch her kind of walk both sides on this.

KEILAR: Yes. And you talk about that exhaustion in your op-ed, which I would certainly encourage people to check out.

Karen Attiah, thank you, as always, for being with us.

ATTIAH: Thank you so much, Brianna.

BERMAN: So, President Biden heading to Yorktown, Virginia, right now where he'll focus on schools. We have a live report coming up.

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