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CNN Live Event/Special

Harris Will Attend Family Dinner, Watch Party at Howard University; Security Stepped up at Polls, Bulletproof Glass and Panic Buttons; FBI Command Post Monitoring Election Threats Nationwide. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 05, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:58]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: And welcome back to our special coverage of Election Day in America. I'm Erin Burnett in Washington.

Right now, millions of Americans casting their ballot for either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And Erin, it's truly, a truly a historic day. I'm Wolf Blitzer. And both sides right now incredibly nervous as we count down until the first polls close. And that's just four hours from now. We are live over at both the Harris and Trump campaign headquarters.

I want to start with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez. She's over at the Harris campaign headquarters at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Update our viewers on what you're hearing.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the Vice President is largely spending her day behind closed doors. But she is participating in a spate of radio interviews across the battleground states as she tries to mobilize voters and reach those who may still be on the fence, outlining her vision in each of these interviews. But also planned for the vice president later today is a dinner, a ritual of hers, to have dinner with family and friends at her residence before then going to her election night party at Howard University, her alma mater, one that she talks fondly of, and one where she says this will be her full circle moment.

Now, on the ground, Wolf, I am told that Harris advisors have directed their staff to continue to knock on doors, to consistently and frequently focus on mobilizing voters, making sure they're getting out to the polls. Because, of course, Wolf, today is a day that will test the strategy by the Harris campaign, one that we've seen play out over the last several weeks about reaching disaffected Republicans in those red rural counties, but also leaning in on reproductive rights. And just as we have heard from voters over the course of today about them, some of them voting because of reproductive rights and reproductive freedom, the Harris campaign is seeing much of the same.

I will also tell you, Wolf, I've been talking to some of her former aides who have been with her on election nights in the past. And there's one race in particular that's come up quite a bit. That's her 2010 race for California attorney general. That, too, was a razor thin race that was called three weeks later where she, of course, won that race. And one former aide to the Vice President telling me that that was a time when they had to practice patience, but it's also a time that they're reflecting on quite a bit today because it may also be a scenario that this is going to be a lengthy process because the polls and the votes are closed.

Now, all of that remains to be seen. But Harris advisors are poring over the data. And they are telling reporters and they are telling strategists privately that they are going to remain calm. They're remaining confident in what they're seeing in the data, again, hoping that they can eke out that victory against former President Donald Trump. But certainly, until those -- until the voting polls close, they are going to continue that ground game that they have talked about so extensively over the last year. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Priscilla Alvarez over at Howard University in Washington, D.C. I want to go right now to CNN's Kristen Holmes. She's over in West Palm Beach, Florida, over the Trump campaign headquarters. And Kristen, tell our viewers what you're hearing.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Donald Trump and his team also really believe this is going to come down to the margins. That's why the former president today, Wolf, is spending the entire day doing a series of tally rallies targeting both swing state voters as well as specific demographics. He is holding a tally rallies targeting seniors as well as unregistered voters, people who could still register today to vote, and young men. Remember how critical young men are to Donald Trump's voting bloc. The other states that he's going to be doing tally rally is in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, all states that his team believe are critical to his victory. But I would say talking to a number of advisers today, they are specifically watching carefully as those results come in tonight, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. They believe that there is a lot riding on those two states in particular.

Now, as for Donald Trump tonight, he's going to be watching the results behind closed doors with friends and family. I'm told by senior advisers that Elon Musk will be there as well as some of his children.

[14:05:03]

Then he's going to be attending a party, a dinner watch party at Mar- a-Lago. But of course, the big question remains whether or not he is going to speak. Aides advisors, allies that I've spoken to, do not want a repeat of what happened in 2020 when Donald Trump came out early and prematurely and falsely claimed victory in the 2020 cycle. They are telling me that he is in a different headspace now. Of course, they also acknowledge it's Donald Trump, anything could happen. But there are a lot of internal discussions happening right now as to what exactly his remarks would look like. If he comes over to the convention center, that's where we'll be setup as the press outside of his Mar-a-Lago resort, or whether or not he comes at all, and what those remarks would look like. So obviously, we'll be following this closely.

But a lot of what I'm being told by these senior advisers is that everything is going to come down to those margins, to those voters. And they are waiting to make any final decisions until those results start coming in, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Kristen Holmes over at Trump campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach, thanks very much. Erin, over to you.

BURNETT: All right. Wolf, and of course, the campaigns both watching what's happening across the country and of course, how this plays out. Cities and states beefing up security to try to keep elections secure, should have a calm, normal election in America. Our Chief Law Enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller, joins me now.

So you know, John, as you're talking to state and local election officials and seeing what's happening across the country, there have been some unprecedented security measures put in place. Can you tell us some examples?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, there is. The FBI's Election Security Command post, which was opened on Friday and is now operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at FBI headquarters. They're monitoring threats across the country. And they're able to farm them out to -- every one of the FBI's 55 field offices has a smaller version of that, an ECC they call it. And that's a response team that can go out on any of these leads, about a threat to the election process, any skullduggery, suspicious activity, threats or intimidation. U.S. Attorneys are aligned with that.

But we've also seen among the states, local law enforcement and election officials. You know, if you look at Georgia, they have a text system where poll workers can send alerts directly to authorities saying if something is going on. They have also issued thousands of lanyards with a panic button built-in, which will go directly to 911.

So you've seen a lot of this combination of local law enforcement, layers of federal law enforcement and technology.

BURNETT: I mean, that's incredible, those lanyards with a panic button built-in. John, can I ask you, you know, because you mentioned Georgia. Earlier, the Secretary of State had talking about -- had talked about how there was a -- of Russian origin bomb threats. They were not credible, you know, but he had said they were from Russia. They managed to reopen those polling stations and continue with voting.

But, you know, how many things like that are happening across the country? Is there any way that the FBI, you know, has a sense at this point at a national level?

MILLER: So more, more of that, Erin. And in other places, I just received a statement from the FBI confirming what we were reporting earlier, which is that sources were telling us that the origin of these threats are coming from Russia. That, of course, could be read as a pattern, a layered pattern of disruptive activities, including, you know, fake internet posts about immigrants illegally voting and other things. But the FBI statement says -- the FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible so far. This is the difficulty. These kinds of threats are literally meant to cause disruption, evacuation, disrupting the voting process. And it's one of those nuances where security officials and election officials have to figure out how to do a quick sweep of the area, do a search, figure out that there's nothing hazardous, and either do that without the process being interrupted or only briefly interrupted.

BURNETT: Right, right. And of course, that's, you know, the whole point is to just not create a question, to create a lack of confidence, and also, you know, later on, something that because legal --

MILLER: That's part of the theory.

BURNETT: Yeah.

MILLER: It's deny the objective. If the objective is simply to cause disruption, how do you thwart that without giving into the basic intent.

BURNETT: Right. All right, John Miller, thank you very much in monitoring that. Congressman, you know, it's interesting as we were talking about the situation in Georgia, which Sarah Murray had been reporting on, again, non-credible voting back up and running. But John saying several other states have experienced that. They say many of those threats coming from Russian origin. The intent is not to stop the voting. I mean, sure, they like that.

[14:10:00]

The intent is just to disrupt it, slow it down, cause chaos, cause a lack of confidence.

It creates chaos. It gets -- it can feed into a narrative of stolen election eventually, but it gets, you know, it can discourage people. If you're in line, you've waited an hour, all of a sudden, they're shutting down the polling place, you're like, well, I'll go home and come back. You may not come back. It just hits confidence. And the interesting thing, what John can't go into and I can't either, is the technology we have to know this stuff comes from Russia. I mean, we can see this in real time. And Russia is obviously not trying to mask this. They don't really care. Their goal is just to create chaos. They don't care if they take the blame.

BURNETT: Interesting, though. Karen Finney, glad to have you join us.

KAREN FINNEY. FORMER SR. ADVISER, CLINTON 2016 CAMPAIGN: Thank you.

BURNETT: So also, what he was reporting on, though, those lanyards that coal workers are wearing that actually are equipped with a panic button. FINNEY: Yeah. I mean, it's incredible that that technology exists.

Obviously, I think insights across the country, we can see it here in Washington, D.C., they are taking all sorts of measures to keep the poll workers safe, to keep people safe while they're attempting to vote in all phases of the process. It hurts my heart that we have -- that that's even necessary because remember the good old days, and you would just go vote and it was your civic duty, and it just felt good. And now, it's -- you've got to really think about what's my plan to vote? What am I -- you know, what are all the considerations?

I think it's also important, though, this is part of why talking about and reminding people it's okay. It's okay. If there's a pause, just stay in line. If it takes a little longer for the voting to make sure every vote is counted, that's okay, too. It doesn't necessarily mean that there -- it doesn't mean chaos, doesn't mean skullduggery. I just so love that you all use that word. I had to say that again.

But, you know, and I think we're all learning that. I think we learned a lot in 2016 and 2020 in terms of, okay, how we vote and how this comes out is a little different than maybe we used to be used to, and that's okay. And we just got to let the process play out.

BURNETT: And so far, you haven't seen either campaign start jump on any of these things as of yet, Matt?

MAN #1: No. And I ---

BURNETT: And we need to jump on them specifically as you said.

MAN #1: No, not yet. And I will say, you will probably get some later election results as a result, right? If a polling place closes for an hour, they're going to stay open for an hour later. You're already seeing election monitors announce that. The other thing I'll say, so I'm part of a group called the Democracy Defense Project. It's a bipartisan organization trying to restore faith in American Democratic processes. We took a national poll. We did a lot of key state polling. Foreign interference and actually censorship of stories by media were the top two issues voters were concerned about when they were concerned about what could actually rig an election. Wasn't the voting machines, wasn't concerned about who was counting the ballot, and the nice lunch lady who's taking the day off to go oversee it. It was those two things. And now, we're seeing exactly why because of this.

BURNETT: You know, Governor Pawlenty, Donald Trump was -- has talked about this in several different ways today, right? First, he said that he doesn't see any issues with the vote thus far. He did talk about violence and his own supporters. And let me just play part of what he said earlier at Mar-a-Lago at his campaign headquarters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My supporters are not violent people. I don't have to tell them that. And I certainly don't want any violence, but I certainly don't have to tell these are great people. These are people that believe in no violence. Unlike your question, you believe in violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Obviously at the end, you can see his anger there, Governor. What I find interesting, though, is actually you're looking at these lines and some of the lines where our reporters are interviewing people. And you see people back to back in line who very well could be voting completely the opposite way, and that they're standing there. One of them might talk to CNN. I mean, I have actually been, you know, kind of felt emotionally bolstered by all of this today, how people have behaved.

TIM PAWLENTY, 2012 President Candidate: Me, too. And we do see these isolated examples. And hopefully they'll stay isolated and will be quickly fixed. But it's great to see former President Trump talk about not having violence, encouraging people not to be violent. That's a good change. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he was up till 3:30 am in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And after he takes a nap, he'll roar back up. But, you know, that's a good message for him to convey. And it -- we should all celebrate these elections in a safe, secure manner. And hopefully he will, too.

BURNETT: (Inaudible).

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I mean, I want to thank all the election workers out there today that are being great public servants, all the poll watchers on both sides of the aisle. Let's protect our democracy today. Election is one of my favorite days. It makes me love America so much more because of our democracy. And so let's keep these events isolated.

And there is a hotline that if you see something, you can say something 1-866-OUR-VOTE where you can call if you have problems. And there's lawyers on the other end, bipartisan lawyers to help resolve any issues you have.

MAN #1: Can I say something real quick? In the country of Georgia, they just had an election that was stolen by the government in charge. And there were so many like things that were done to do that. The fact that we have so many eyes on these polls just shows how safe elections are. And that's something we should appreciate.

BURNETT: Yes, I love that. When you go to Nick Valencia or you go, you know, Kylie Atwood, they're in the room, they're showing you.

[14:15:02]

That is the incredible thing.

MAN #1: Transparency is really key. The more voters know, the more they trust the process.

PAWLENTY: Unbelievable irony that the foreign, you know, influence in our elections spins around the topic that you can't trust our elections. They're rigged and they're the ones rigging.

ALLISON: Rigging, per se.

BURNETT: All right. Our special coverage of Election Day in America continues in just a moment.

Next, we're going to talk to Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina to see what he is looking for as millions and millions of Americans are heading to the polls.

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BLITZER: And welcome back to our special coverage of Election Day in America. We are now less than five hours away from polls closing in the crucial battleground state of Georgia. This is the state both campaigns have spent a lot of time and a lot of money on. CNN's Isabel Rosales is joining us from Atlanta right now. So what are you hearing from voters out there? What are you seeing? What are you hearing, Isabel?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, things certainly running smoothly here. At this polling side, one of 177 in Fulton County, the state's most populous county and home to Atlanta, folks going right in and right out.

[14:20:05]

And of course, we heard from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that the time to check in that has dropped to 49 seconds across the state, the time to actually wait in line, it's under a minute. So certainly, voters are happy that they're able to go in, do their civic duty, and come right out. The Secretary of State also saying that he is optimistic that Georgia will be able to have a winner, a winner will be projected by tonight. And that's because of the all -- how quickly the information is being posted. And in fact, there's a state law requiring counties to report that data, the majority of the data, by 8:00 p.m. And of course, they won't stop counting until they have all the votes counted.

I did speak with one voter here, first time voter, 19 years old, Gen Z. Her name is Lauron. She voted for Kamala Harris. Here's what else she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURON ROBINSON, FIRST TIME VOTER, HARRIS SUPPORTER: I was amazed. Like I didn't think I'd be able to see that in my lifetime, not only a woman, but a black woman running for president. It was just amazing. I feel like, no question. It should be pro-choice. And I feel like it's amazing to be able to support someone that supports me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And Wolf, where it hasn't gone smooth for a very small percentage of people here in Fulton County are at sites that have received bomb threats, phony, non-credible bomb threats that the Secretary of State says are of Russian origin. The FBI saying that, too. I spoke with one voter who had to wait an hour before they were allowed back in to the polling site in Union City. And what's remarkable about that, he is suspicious that they were being targeted because of the demographic of Union City, which, Wolf, the U.S. Census Bureau says that it's 90% black. So he certainly thinks it wasn't a mistake that his polling site was the one to receive those threats. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. CNN's Isabel Rosales in Atlanta for us. Isabel, thank you very much.

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. What early indicators are you looking for as the results begin to come in later tonight?

JIM CLYBURN, SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE, MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: Well, thank you very much for having me, Wolf. I'll be looking at Fulton County, Gwinnett County, down in Georgia. I'll be looking at Nash County up in North Carolina. I'm particularly interested in Wake County in North Carolina as well.

We got reports last week that the turnout of early votes in eastern North Carolina seem to be lagging a little bit. And several of us went to North Carolina. And we got there, Trump was there. And so on Sunday, I did several events at several faith groups. And it's kind of interesting that Trump was only 10 minutes away. So I think that he sees what we now got reports on this morning, that there's a big surge in eastern North Carolina, especially in Nash County as well, of votes that we were looking to turn up early, but seem as if they just wanted to wait on Election Day. So I think the report is going to be good tonight.

BLITZER: Congressman, I understand you had a chance to speak with President Biden earlier today. What was his message?

CLYBURN: It was on yesterday that I spoke to President. He called to reminisce a little bit about the ride that we've had over the years and to tell me how honored he was to have picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate and to have endorsed her to succeed him. And I've talked to him a little bit about the bookends of his career. To be eight years as vice president of the first African-American president to run, to be elected, and to have had the temerity and the guts to name a woman of color to succeed him, gives a tremendous bookend to his career that I think both same audience about his legacy.

BLITZER: And you certainly played a major role in President Biden's ability to become the president of the United States. A couple of weeks ago, Congressman, you said that you were concerned about black men staying home. How much has your estimation of their turnout changed during this final stretch?

CLYBURN: Well, you know, when I started getting those reports, Wolf, I started doing some of my own investigations, going to the barbershops.

[14:25:02]

I go to a barbershop, though it may not look like it, getting reports on what kind of discussions were going there. My mother was a beautician. And I keep close contact with cosmetologists all across the state of South Carolina and when I go into other states. And they were not saying to me when I was here. And now, I hear today that the African-American men that there were supposed to be deserting Kamala Harris or the Democrats seem to be staying home as we had hoped they would and will turn out in numbers that I think will help to make the difference. There is no big difference between African-American men and women when it comes to voting. We have to realize that the party of Lincoln still lingers in a lot of household.

My parents were Republicans. 99% of the African-Americans that voted in that 1876 election, that they got double-crossed on 99% of the votes. The African-Americans voted for the Republicans. And so that's been the tradition coming out of Lincoln. So we have got to get people to understand that all Republicans are not the same. Lincoln, our 16th president, was a great emancipator. Then came Ruther B. Hayes, our 19th president, also a Republican. He was a great betrayer. And so we have members in the Republican Party who are decent, honorable people. But we got some that are not decent and honorable. And Donald Trump represents that group.

BLITZER: Congressman Jim Clyburn, and as usual, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it very, very much. I want to get back to our panel right now. Nia Malika, let me get your immediate reaction to what we just heard from the congressman.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, BLOOMBERG POLITICAL AND POLICY COLUMNIST: Well, listen, the Congressman has obviously been in some of these Southern states, been in the more urban areas, as well as some of the more rural areas as well. And you've seen over the last years, particularly in a state like Georgia, black voters matter. Latosha Brown, some of the work they've been able to do in that state, calling in some of those black rural voters who might not have felt like they were part of the process. They are going to be key to this win if Kamala Harris is able to win Georgia.

You know, and you also heard Clyburn there talking about maybe there's going to be sort of a shift around the edges among black men voting more for Donald Trump and them trying to go into the barbershops, go into beauty salons, and to churches to reach some of those folks as well. You know, we'll see what happens. We don't know, but those are two states Georgia, which is about 30% black, the electoral be about 30% black. And then in North Carolina, it's about 20% black.

The good news, I think, for the Kamala Harris campaign is there is obviously history of activism there. There are a lot of young voters, HBCUs, which are like ripe areas for organizing and drawing voters to the polls. They can vote right on their campuses in many ways. And they have won Georgia before Biden. And then you've got Raphael Warnock, who's also turned that state around, as well as Ossoff. So there is hope there. And we'll see tonight who wins Georgia.

BURNETT: Yeah.

BLITZER: HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities.

HENDERSON: Exactly. Yeah. BLITZER: Very important indeed. Go ahead.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: And just to underscore what's going on in Georgia. So Governor Kemp, who is a Republican, but who stood up to Trump in the past, yes, he did come out and endorse Trump. But let's just say that he said the right thing. But the real question is, my sources in the Republican community of Georgia say, has he really unleashed the power of the Republican Party the way they can in Georgia? And the sense is that they haven't.

I spoke to one very high ranking Republican in Georgia who said, let's wait to see. We will know the votes in the suburbs very quickly in Georgia. What happens with that vote?

The other thing that I've heard from Republican sources in Georgia is they were very upset. Madison Square Garden they say was an inflection point, whether it was language about Puerto Ricans insulting women, violent rhetoric about Liz Cheney, about saying he should never have left the White House. This is not the way you close a campaign.

BLITZER: You know, Manu, I want to play for you and for our viewers something that Trump said earlier about his chances in this election. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No, I feel very confident, I have felt. You know, we went in with a very big lead today. And it looks like Republicans have shown up in force.

BLITZER: So what do you think? They're really as confident as he claims to be?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, look, everything is within the margin of error. So this can certainly --