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Biden Takes the Lead in Georgia; Key Election Alerts from Georgia, Philadelphia. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired November 06, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Picked up 222 votes. That nets out for Joe Biden, 1,380. Donald Trump was ahead by 463. 1380, 463, the new leader in Georgia is Joe Biden by 917 votes. For the moment, the state of Georgia, it will update shortly in the magic wall, for the moment, according to the county web site, Joe Biden has turned Georgia blue for this moment by 917 votes as Clayton County has dropped what looks like the remainder of its outstanding vote.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: So, why does it matter? Well, Donald Trump cannot win this election without Georgia. So, for now, Joe Biden has taken the key piece in the puzzle for Donald Trump. Why are we doing it here? That's just about time in the system. This information is from the County Board of Elections. They put it out, the math is what it is. We have a new leader in Georgia. Joe Biden 917 votes.

Now two remaining issues. One is, so is it over there. No, because --

MATTINGLY: Well, we know there's more outstanding vote, I'll swipe this away. Just keep this in mind, 917 is -- if my math is correct and hopefully it is since we're on live television -- that is the lead for Joe Biden when this updates. Why? Because that was the outstanding vote in Clayton County. We knew it was going to come in, probably around 1,500, 1,600, ended up being 1602 votes.

But hat is not the entirety of the vote that's outstanding in the vote in the state of Georgia. We are still waiting for other Democratic counties, Gwinnett County's got about 4,700 votes, expected to report tomorrow at some point. But there's also Republican counties like Forsyth County that has north of a thousand votes. Lawrence County, another Republican County, go down here, they've got Lawrence County also has about a thousand votes left.

The big question, and we have been talking about it all night, is just because it is a Republican County, Lawrence County, 64/35 percent, however, what is remaining is vote by mail. Vote by mail even in Republican counties where Donald Trump holds a decent margin, has still been leaning Democratic.

While President Trump may pick up vote in that vote by mail in these Republican counties, will he be able to net a significant amount of it. That's an open question. Because now Joe Biden is up by nearly a thousand votes in this state once it updates, that given how close this is, given how little vote is outstanding and given how the majority of the outstanding vote comes from Democratic counties and all of the outstanding vote comes from vote by mail, that will be difficult to make up.

CUOMO: Harry, you've got something.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I was just going to say, you know, if you go down to Clayton County, the more recent bunch of votes that came in, Joe Biden is outperforming in that most recent batch what his current County total is, and I think you can apply that. Obviously, we've seen that throughout the evening, even in those red counties. Joe Biden is going to outperform even if he's losing there right now. That vote by mail will be much more favorable to him even in those red counties.

CUOMO: Harry Enten thank you very much. So now the open question becomes well, why, why is Georgia so significant for Trump but not for Biden? Let's take a look.

MATTINGLY: We'll map this out. We have been talking about this, and I think this is really important to actually know what's going on. We have been talking a lot about Pennsylvania, why? You add 20 electoral votes to Joe Biden's total and you're over 270. Why is Georgia so important? Look, President Trump has an uphill battle. He needs to basically win everything that's left on the map.

So, if President Trump were to win North Carolina where he's currently leading, if he's able to hold off Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, give him Alaska, we expect him to win that, you give him Nevada, you give him Arizona, go ahead and give him Maine, too. Joe Biden wins Georgia, there's no way that Donald Trump can get to 270 electoral votes. I'll give Donald Trump Maine, too, so you see what could be a possibility.

Right now, keep in mind, Joe Biden is closing very quickly in Pennsylvania. He leads currently in Arizona and Nevada. However, if Joe Biden wins Georgia, there is no pathway to 270 for President Trump. That's why it matters so much. President Trump needs Georgia. He needs Pennsylvania where Joe Biden is about to overtake him, and Joe Biden is leading in Arizona, and he is leading in Nevada.

CUOMO: All right so let's do the other path to 270. Because we've never done it because Georgia is so fundamental to Trump. If Biden wins Georgia, what does that mean for him in terms of his different paths?

MATTINGLY: Well, let's go through this. So, we'll go ahead and give President Trump North Carolina. Again, we're just gaming this out at the moment.

CUOMO: And by the way, Biden doesn't have Georgia, the big news is Georgia for the first time has changed hands from Trump to Biden by 917 votes now. But it's still not over. So, but just hypothetically, what could it mean?

MATTINGLY: Let's talk about trend lines and how things have been moving. Because you saw it happen in Georgia, and it's about to happen in Pennsylvania when they start reporting again.

[04:35:00]

They've taken a little bit of a break. Give Biden Georgia, that brings him up to 269 electoral votes. Basically, what that means is Joe Biden can win any other of these three states, and Joe Biden is over 270 electoral votes. The reality at this moment is Joe Biden based on what's outstanding, what we know and what we have seen is in a very good position in Pennsylvania.

Joe Biden right now is leading in Arizona. We will see if that holds. We should get the next update sometime this morning from Maricopa County, and Joe Biden is leading in Nevada. There is a very real pathway for Joe Biden right now to 306 electoral votes. Obviously, if you're the Biden campaign, all you really care about is getting over 270.

But let me explain why that matters. We talked about this last night, I think this is really important. Given how litigious the Trump campaign has made clear it wants to be, it started to be to some degree, if you're the Biden campaign, you feel a lot more comfortable if this isn't a one state win. If you're not just winning this with 270 electoral votes or 271 electoral votes.

If you win Pennsylvania, and you win Georgia, and you win Arizona and you win Nevada and you put up 306 electoral votes, it's not about a recount in Wisconsin, which has been called for you. It's not almost about what is certain to be a recount in Georgia. That is a comfortable lead. That is a lead that no Republican can look at and say, we cancel that.

And you want to know why, I'll show you why. That's the same amount of electoral votes that President Trump got in 2016. And while Democrats were certainly not happy, and Democrats some of them were trying to figure out ways to see if there was some way to stop it from happening, Hillary Clinton conceded the next day, that was the reality of the map, and everybody grasped 306. There was no way to try and overcome that, even though Michigan was 10,000 votes, Wisconsin was 22,000 votes. So, you want to get above 270 for the Biden campaign. That's all you really care about. But having a cushion, given what's going on, given the atmospherics right now, certainly won't hurt.

CUOMO: Right, the cushion point, very, very strong. Well, when the shoe was on the other foot, you guys were OK with it. That's probably not going to fly. Nia-Malika Henderson, if the expectation is, well, you guys are OK with it, so now leave the margin alone for us, we know Trump doesn't play like that. And we know the Republicans don't, they did it with the Supreme Court Justice. But the significance of the change in play for the moment in Georgia.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Huge, and I think for Democrats' spirits in some ways. They were a bit down because they didn't see the sort of repudiation that they thought they would see in this election. So, to make end roads in this state in the Sun Belt which was such a focus for Democrats for so long is a real boost for them. Listen, who knows if Trump can overtake this lead, based on the

trends, probably not. It will probably go to a recount, but, you know, it's certainly, I think, good news for Biden. And you see Donald Trump clearly watching these returns, and I'm sure it's upsetting to him. He's saying that these ballots that are coming in from these states and the count should stop. And these are illegal votes which is absolutely absurd. All he can do is fume as his presidential prospects of getting reelected seem to drift away.

CUOMO: Look, litigation doesn't work as a tactic with the President of the United States, the way it did with citizen Donald Trump. Citizen Donald Trump threatening to sue you -- which I experienced firsthand -- is a tactic, and it may scare you into doing something differently. Here we only know what you show. So, you can't just scare, you have to go to federal court and make a case. It's a very high bar. He hasn't had a good record of getting over it. Now, in terms of the numbers, one, harry, did we get it right, and what do they mean?

ENTEN: Well, I would say three things, you know, number one, you were talking with Phil about the idea, you know, if you're up in all of these places, you know, you can request recounts, and at the end of the day, the electoral count really isn't that close. What I would note is, Georgia the entire statewide apparatus is controlled by Republicans. The Secretary of State is a Republican, the Governor is a Republican. They're not fixing any votes in any sort of weird thing. They're not doing it in any of the states. But obviously, it takes a talking point away from the President.

The second thing I'll note, Joe Biden made a last minute visit down to Georgia. All of us were going, what the heck is he doing? What is this? You know, he's just trying to up the score. Apparently, they saw something in the polling, and it seems to be paying off at this hour. That visit may have in fact made the difference given how close the vote count is in the state.

And the third point I'll note -- it was noted earlier on another panel -- right now at this point it looks like there are going to be two runoffs, Senate runoffs in the state of Georgia in January to determine U.S. Senate control. And based on Biden's lead right now, perhaps that state is a little bit more Democratic than folks really give it credit for and might give Democrats a real shot at taking back the Senate.

HENDERSON: And we should mention Stacey Abrams, all the work she did with registering voters, it paid off in this instance. It didn't pay off for her necessarily in 2018, but she registered almost 100,000 voters and I'm sure some of those folks are showing up in this election.

CUOMO: Fair point, but you have to just change the verb. Right now, it is paying off. Let's see what happens.

HENDERSON: Right, right, yes. Mark.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, look, I just think that a couple of things about Georgia. [04:40:00]

One, it's trending Democrat. I mean, it's still got a long way to go. It's turning into what's going to become a battleground state. I used to be a newspaper reporter down there. Back during the newt Gingrich days. So, when I look at these caller counties right now outside of Atlanta go Democrat, it's quite frankly shocking. And plus, my wife's whole family lives down there. So, I know it pretty well.

You look at Cobb County, that used to be a bastion of conservatism. That's where Newt Gingrich used to live. That's where Bob Barr, who was incredibly conservative used to live. You know, you said that Joe Biden had gone down and had done a visit. So did Donald Trump if you remember. And I remember looking saying why is he going into Georgia two days before the election. Well, not even going into Georgia, he went into a conservative part of Georgia, which is north of Cobb County, which was northwest pushing Republicans even farther out.

I think when we look at Georgia, and Harry and I and Neil were talking about this earlier, when we really get all the data back and we find out what exactly happened, there's no doubt the African-American vote carried Joe Biden. OK.

However, I would say in the state of Georgia, you have to take into account all of the northern migration that has gone down there since the early 1990s when the Olympics came in in '96, but we saw a lot of corporations move down there. So, when you're looking at the caller counties on the outside, these are all white northerners who have lived down there now for a decade or two decades.

CUOMO: Quick refresh. Why is everybody so perky at 4:41 a.m., one, we love the job. Two, the job matters. Joe Biden for the moment is in control in Georgia. How did it happen? What does it mean? We'll take you through all of it right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right, take a look at your screen.

[04:45:00]

We've just had a very significant change in the state of this race. Joe Biden is now in the lead in Georgia. Phil Mattingly, what did we see happening?

MATTINGLY: Well, we're still waiting for it to update in the magic wall. But what we have been telling you, the county that we've been paying attention to throughout the course of the night has been updating. Working through the night, to get their final vote allocations out, has put out its final vote. Clayton County 1,602 votes for Joe Biden, 202 votes for Donald Trump, netting out Joe Biden, 1,380. We knew that before these updates, 463 votes was the lead for Donald Trump.

What this means right now, is in the state of Georgia, as state that if Joe Biden wins this state, President Trump has no pathway, no pathway to 270 electoral votes. Joe Biden is now up by 917 votes. This should update shortly. We took this straight from the county web site when they reported.

And I think the big question now, one, we saw this coming. We have been talking about this for the last couple of hours, that the way Clayton was reporting, Clayton was the biggest outstanding vote, Clayton is a Democratic County. And when was reporting results, they were coming in at about 84, 85, sometimes 86 percent for Joe Biden. That's well above what he needed to overtake Donald Trump here. He has done that now.

Big question right now, what's left outstanding, and can Joe Biden hold on to the lead? What I will tell you just kind of from a topline perspective is the lot of what's outstanding is coming from Democratic counties. There is not much outstanding generally. I think we're probably down to somewhere around 10,000 votes, maybe even less than that. Harry, you want to check me on that.

ENTEN: There's not a lot of votes left in that state.

CUOMO: Meaning what.

MATTINGLY: What does that mean?

ENTEN: Essentially what Phil was saying. I'm agreeing with our colleague.

CUOMO: Right, so I'm saying, we think it's around 10,000.

ENTEN: Yes, something like that. Again, with provisionals and all of that jazz.

MATTINGLY: But to provide some context of what that means, there's about 10,000 votes left, and we know roughly 4,700 of them come from Gwinnett, which should be reporting sometime this morning. And if you look at the margin, you're talking about where the vote is coming from, what is it going to track with. It is going to track with Democratic vote if it's coming from Gwinnett.

Now we don't know exactly what it will be. But we've seen mail-in, we've seen coming from Democratic counties, and this is likely to stick in Joe Biden's corner when it starts to report. And why that matters because Joe Biden is no longer trailing. Joe Biden doesn't need to hit 62, 63, 64 percent and more, now Donald Trump, the onus is on the Trump campaign to start overperforming Joe Biden from here on out. There are a couple of Republican counties with 1,000, 2,000 votes outstanding, but right now the biggest outstanding vote comes from right here, and for Joe Biden, that's a good sign, particularly when you are now ahead by 917 votes.

CUOMO: Now one step of context, when some people see this today if it starts holding because the President poisoned the well today on purpose, people will start to say, oh, see, this is it, it was fake. Georgia, OK, has all Republican -- it just updated, good, we had the numbers right anyway. But here it is.

MATTINGLY: It makes me feel better that my math was right.

CUOMO: Whatever works. So, here is the situation. Georgia is an entirely Republican infrastructure. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, of course in charge of the state's election processes, so the idea that the fix was in is demonstrably false, first of all, from what we understand, and you don't think that Governor Kemp, pal of Donald Trump, wouldn't be screaming foul if there were problems in the state? Nothing.

If there's a recount, it will be done by an entirely Republican infrastructure, so the idea of manipulation is just wholly without merit, but this is what happens when the President poisons the well. You have to make sure that people understand. The headline, Joe Biden is in the lead, 917 votes in Georgia. This could block Donald Trump's chances of being president for a second term. Let's take a break. When we come back, more developments.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Joe Biden is now leading in Georgia. He's leading by 917 votes. The director in Clayton County promised us that they were going to work through the night to get the vote out, and they did just that. This edges Joe Biden closer to 270 electoral votes if it holds. This is temporary. This is not a projection. For now, Joe Biden is in the lead. It would help him.

It would really hurt the President. The President cannot become President of the United States again if he does not win Georgia. That's why it's so important. It doesn't save Joe Biden, but it would kill Donald Trump politically. OK.

So, with that, now that we have is this, the President has been up late tweeting. What's he saying, ugly things. He's saying that he won. It's easy, this is all fraud. It's all illegitimate, and there is no basis for any of it. To be honest, I'm not reading the tweet because I really believe we shouldn't be. I really believe those days are behind us, not that Trump will be President again, but I think the days of giving a fair hearing to an unfair statement that we know is over. We shouldn't be doing it.

Twitter is flagging the tweet as misleading. When you look at the man's threat, I don't know who else could survive on Twitter with as many flagged tweets as they have. That's the state of play. Let's see if he has to pay for it with his office. Let's talk to our justice correspondent, Laura Jarrett. Good to see you.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you.

CUOMO: Am I wrong that, yes, there's been a lawsuit about having a monitor and where they can be? Yes, there's been a lawsuit about how many days you get to cure your ballot, which is an odd thing to oppose. But in terms of any meat on the bones of video tape, people signing other people's ballots, huge numbers of hidden ballots, all the suggestions of fakery, frankly Trumpery, real word, anything to prove it.

JARRETT: No, and the courts have recognized that, Chris.

[04:55:00]

The Trump campaign is making a lot of noise with these lawsuits but the thing to recognize here, is bottom line is that they aren't going to change the vote totals in the way that the President needs right now, and that's what our viewers should really recognize. This is noise and it's really aimed at delaying the process.

So, what's he doing? He's tweeting out his grievances. They're full of lies, as you said, we're not going to read them. But here's the thing, the courts have actually weighed in on this. So, his campaign ran to state court. And the dispute was about how close they could stand when they're watching these ballots being counted and adjudicated. And the judge said, OK, you want to stand a little bit closer? There was a dispute about it because of COVID. The judge said, fine, you can stand a little bit closer. Case done, fine.

But of course, the President doesn't mention that he won that case. So, then what do they do? They run to federal court, and in that case, the judge said look, is the campaign in the room, are they having an equal chance to look and observe these ballots being counted? And the campaign had to admit, that, yes, the Trump campaign is in the room. So, the judge dismissed the case as essentially moot. There is no, there, there.

And so, we're going to see a flurry of these cases. Obviously, all eyes on Georgia right now. Those two cases I mentioned were in Philadelphia. But judges in Michigan and Georgia have dismissed similar lawsuits, Chris. So, we may see more of these, but they are not changing the vote totals.

CUOMO: Laura Jarrett, thank you so much. As we get more developments, you know, I don't want to go about the hypotheticals of going to the Supreme Court. We have no reason to even pursue it right now as an option. Thank you so much for jumping in and giving us clear eyes on this situation.

Let's take a break. Because this is a morning that you may never forget. The vote count is moving forward in the final states that will decide who leads us as President of the United States. We'll be right back.

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