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tv   Erin Burnett Out Front  CNN  November 17, 2020 4:00pm-5:00pm PST

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vaccine effort wolf. >> can't wait to start getting these vaccines. sara murray, thank you very much and to our viewers thank you very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. follow me on twitter and instagram @wolf blitzer. tweet the show @cnnsitroom. erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next the president tonight in bunker mentality just canceling his thanksgiving plans at mar-a-lago all as he saab tajs any chance of a smooth transition for joe biden. i'll talk to a republican donor who says it is time for trump to move on. breaking news the senate's most senior republican testing positive for coronavirus age be 87. and a former nfl player who ran against black lives matter flips a house seat from "d" to "r." what does it say to democrats? house majority whip jim clyburn is my guest. let's go "outfront." good evening.
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i'm erin burnett. tonight, sabotage. the president-elect joe biden forging ahead with his plans to run the country while the current president is in a, quote-unquote, bunker mentality according to a white house official. canceling plans to travel to mar-a-lago for thanksgiving staying home to do all he can to block biden. biden again not getting a security update which forced him to go to a panel of experts who don't have classified information. the trump administration also announcing today the withdrawal of more than one-third of u.s. troops in iraq and afghanistan. when are they going to do this? well, five days before biden is inaugurated president. we've learned that just before trump fired his defense secretary mark esper by tweet right after the election, esper had said don't do this. it's a bad idea. conditions on the ground make it the wrong call. okay. trump refusing to brief biden's team on the single biggest domestic issue we have,
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coronavirus vaccines blocking biden's team about any information about his administration's efforts to distribute vaccines. it is a process that will take most of next year at the least and must be executed by biden. needless to say any mistakes will cost many american lives, deep economic pain, make this thing last longer and longer. so why is trump doing things that would hurd the united states of america just to spite biden? jack o'donnell is a man who worked side by side with trump for years. he told me this. >> he is a very avengeful man. i think he is trying to make it as difficult as possible on joe biden. because biden is the enemy. and along with biden being the enemy, donald trump views the 78 million people who voted against him as the enemy as well. >> trump's actions unfortunately backed that analysis up at this point because why else go
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against your own defense department on a matter of war and peace with troops five days before your successor is going to take over? why else put coronavirus vaccine distribution at risk? why else block national security briefings? the people you are hurting are the american people. and yet besides all this blocking for the tenth day since the election the president has, quote, no public events. that is what it says literally on his schedule. no public events. instead he spends his days watching television we know from those around him and we can all see he tweets about t-- lies about the election being stolen saying he won. now when they aren't in tv interviews in front of the camera some of them approached the vice president-elect kamala harris on the senate floor today. into is to do that in person though when they are talking publicly they still side with president trump. take lindsey graham. you can see him come up there. fist bump. so friendly. but what a farce.
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because it is graham who according to the republican secretary of state in georgia is trying to interfere in that state's recount suggesting that legal votes get thrown out. >> well, he asked if the ballots could be matched back to the voters and then i got the sense it implied that then you could throw those out. >> all right. so graham is the head of the judiciary committee. he is from south carolina. he's not from georgia. allegedly now trying to interfere in georgia's recount and how they're counting votes and what their rules are. that is potentially illegal. yet today he defended his actions to cnn. seemed to be at least saying he just needed more information verifying signatures on mail-in ballots in another state. >> i think i have every right in the world to reach out and say how does it work? that's what i did. >> graham's argument doesn't add up because the states graham claims he is reaching out to, you know, other than georgia, are all states trump lost, so
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georgia is one, nevada the other. arizona the third. north carolina trump won by 74,000 votes. no request there. graham denies he is doing anything improper. keep in mind this is the same man who just days after the election when it was clear trump lost said this. >> if republicans don't challenge and change the u.s. election system there will never be another republican president elected again. >> okay. you don't have to guess as to his motive. he wants to challenge the election system and change it so that republicans can win in the future. let's just be clear this is the most secure election in american history according to trump's own department of homeland security. save the fist bumps, senator graham. that just doesn't seem to add up at all in terms of what he is saying. the reality is of course this is somebody who has acted very differently with the last time around when hillary clinton won.
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let's listen to how he talked. >> trump has not lost. do not concede, mr. president. fight hard. president trump should not concede. >> sorry. that's what he said this time. don't concede. making it very clear. four years ago when trump won the 306 electoral votes the exact same number as biden of course has notched this time around the same lindsey graham was out there not telling hillary clinton not to concede. no. calling trump president-elect well before the votes were actually certified. >> if the president-elect chooses to nominate them. to the president-elect, if you are listening to what i'm listening to here's what i would challenge president-elect trump to do. here's what i'd ask president-elect trump. president-elect trump will soon be president. >> hum. but he won't say it this time. this time it's do not concede. save the fist bump.
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jeff zeleny, what is the biden's team latest thinking on how to handle president trump's attempts to sabotage the transition? >> reporter: frankly, they are moving forward as though they have their own plan in mind here. they are ignoring the president at least joe biden himself is. a, he's been filling the senior advisers who work just steps from the oval office that will be mr. biden's in just 64 days. they announced the hiring of a deputy chief of staff, senior adviser, counselor to the president, office of personal engagement, general counsel. so he is moving forward on that front. also holding briefings. yesterday on the economy. today on national security. tomorrow on health care. thursday talking to governors of both parties. so the president-elect is moving forward as though president trump is not here but he is still here and this is why it matters. it is still that ascertainment that the general services administration that obscure agency in the trump administration has not yet signed off on these election returns, has not yet allowed
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transition funding but more importantly information to come forward. there was a conference call late today with the top advisers, the medical advisers on the biden coronavirus task force and they talked about the urgent need to get access to the data and the information for how this vaccine will be distributed. the words of dr. david kessler, don't forget he was appointed to lead the fda under george h.w. bush, worked under bill clinton. he said, look. we are docs. wooer' not political. we want to save lives here. so the bide entrance igs team is moving forward trying -- the biden transition team is moving forward trying to show themselves as in motion but the reality is they are concerned about getting access to the covid information most importantly the vaccines that as of yet the trump administration is still blocking. >> it is incredible and crucial. the thing that matters the most for the economy, for american lives is getting that vaccine out and how. it is unacceptable that it is being blocked. all right. so i want to go to jeremy diamond outfront near the white
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house. you just broke the news that the president is going to stay. doesn't want to leave the white house. going to stay. not going to mar-a-lago next weekend. what more are you learning? >> reporter: officials were told today the president had decided to pull the plug on going to mar-a-lago for his thanksgiving trip. this will be the first time during his presidency that the president hasn't gone to mar-a-lago around the thanksgiving holiday and one official told my colleague kate bennett that it's a sign of a, quote, bunker mentality inside the white house and that is where the president's head is at. it does seem that way. you talk to people around the president. there is infighting right now among the president's advisers over the legal strategy. the president himself is getting bad news day after day as these lawsuits fail in one battleground state court after the other. and so it is very clear that the president right now is not in a good place. he is struggling to come to grips with the reality he has lost this presidential election. interestingly, even as the president is tweeting these baseless conspiracy theories
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refusing to publicly acknowledge joe biden is the president-elect he and his administration is also taking steps to secure his legacy and get in some of the last-minute policy moves before he has to leave office in 64 days. today for example we saw the president move forward on the afghanistan troop withdrawal, bringing down troop levels to 2500 just before inauguration day. of course it's joe biden the president-elect who will be the president then and will have to deal with the fallout. >> thank you very much. of course to emphasize going against the recommendation of his own secretary of defense. okay. i want to go now to long time biden ally democratic senator chris koonz. you are on the judiciary committee and spent a lot of time with senator lindsey graham the chair. he says he has called election officials in georgia, nevada, and arizona. according to the georgia secretary of state graham implied they should be casting out legally cast ballots in the presidential race.
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graham has made no secret of the fact he thinks there needs to be changes in the rules here for republicans to win in the future. what is your reaction? >> well, erin, chairman graham is engaging in this free wheeling, personal effort to try and motivate republicans, statewide public officials like in georgia to engage in character that as characterized by the georgia secretary of state would be outside the law and outside an appropriate action for that secretary. that is pretty alarming. i think senator graham has some explaining to do about why he would be taking these actions. >> we showed how different it was when trump won with 306 electoral votes before there was any formal certification it was president-elect, president-elect, president-elect. now same point in the process it's president trump should not concede. trump has not lost. do not concede mr. president. fight hard. what happened to lindsey graham? >> that is a question that's
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been asked quite a few times in recent years frankly, erin. and the bigger question to me is what happened to the commitment by republicans here in the senate to the rule of law, to one of the fundamental aspects of our democracy, which is every four years a peaceful transition of power after a federal election. all of us know that this transition should be well under way. the election that was two weeks ago tonight that was resolved ten days ago tonight should have led to an orderly and peaceful transition in the interests of america's public health, in the interests of our national security, and in the interests of our standing in the world. senator graham is someone who has long fought for our standing in the world. this is a moment for him to change his direction and show that he embraces, that he remembers one of his core commitments from his long service which is to democracy and orderly transitions. >> all right. i want to ask you about something the president has just fired just a moment ago here as we're speaking has fired the person who is in charge of cyber
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security and infrastructure for the election. this is chris kreps. chris kreps came out, the president has said he fired him. i'll tell you why in a moment. i want to be clear what chris kreps said. behind the statement, right, that this is the most secure election we've had in american history. and that there was, you know, it was secure. right? that these allegations are wrong. the president is coming out tonight and saying he is firing him because his statement was inaccurate. it was not the most secure election. in fact, there were massive improprieties, dead people voting, poll watchers, glitches, the same old litany of factual inaccuracies, lies. so the president has fired him. your reaction? >> chris krebs of federal service is the latest casualty in what has sadly been a four-year long war against the truth by president trump. the number of times he has spoken and tweeted and acted in
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ways that are just demonstrably at variance with the truth began with his fights with the media and the public and his own agencies about how big his inauguration day crowds were and they continue until today. mr. krebs was doing his job simply reporting what every relevant agency had told him which was these were the most secure elections in modern american history. that is something we should be celebrating not something that should result in his abrupt firing. >> it's shocking. okay? i guess i would say it's shocking but not surprising. but to that point, senator, what are you all going to do? i understand you're forging ahead, right? the president-elect is picking his chief of staff and his cabinet. he's moving ahead. you're getting outside people to brief him because you can't get the classified briefings but this kind of stuff is a problem. >> it is. >> and 64 days of this is a big problem. what are you guys going to do
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about it? >> erin i was literally just on the senate floor within the last hour talking to republican colleagues urging them to look themselves in the mirror and think about the consequences of what is going on. i can understand for a few days after the election results came in giving president trump his space to make his argument to file some legal briefings and to try and present evidence, but that was ten days ago. and we are in the middle of a pandemic that is surging out of control where president trump is doing nothing to address the million new cases in the last week. nothing to make sure that there is a clear hand-off to the incoming administration for vaccine distribution, and if anything is frankly putting our security and some of our most trusted alliances at risk by making abrupt changes in our troop deployments to countries like afghanistan and iraq where our nato allies and others have been fighting along side us for more than 18 or 19 years. so, frankly, it's time for my
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republican colleagues to step up and whether privately or publicly to say to president trump you've lost the election. do the right thing and move forward. and for them to publicly begin to embrace this transition and make it happen. >> all right. thank you very much, senator. i appreciate your time. you see senator coons obviously advises the president-elect reacting there in real time. back to the white house and jeremy diamond the president of the united states has just fired the person in charge of election security who issued the statement saying these are the most secure elections in american history saying he is firing him because he doesn't like what he said and everything he said is wrong just because trump is saying so. >> reporter: yeah. the president is making very clear here he is not even trying to tiptoe around the fact that he is firing this official because he is contradicting the president's baseless conspiracy theories that the president has been spreading around to try and, you know, legitimize his election laws, to try and vindicate himself.
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the president making very clear that this election in his view has been rigged and has been riddled with voter fraud. and that is exactly what christopher krebs the head of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency has said did not happen. he has said this was the most secure election in history. he has also swatted down the president's conspiracy theory about the dominion voting software machine saying there is no evidence as the president suggested that any of this software had been, had deleted votes or attributed votes to another da another candidate despite what the president said. this is something christopher krebs and his team knew was coming. he had been very aware in the days leading up to this he expected to likely be fired by the president of the united states and it is obviously happening in the same fashion as we've seen with so many other officials firing via tweet. >> it is stunning, jeremy, he is doing this. every single thing in here is counterfactual. to the extent that anything would have impacted this
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election which he lost resoundingly, 306 electoral college votes. it was a resounding win. when trump won it in 2016 it's a resounding win for biden now. is there anyone from your understanding who is even in the room with him? or is he just in there doing this stuff? going on twitter, fires the defense secretary. going on twitter a few days later. fires the guy in charge of election integrity in this country. he is just in there like crazy tweeting? >> reporter: he is certainly in touch with officials. there are still folks at the white house around him but we've learned he has been spending most of his mornings at the white house inside the residence watching tv, heading to the oval office much later than he usually does so he is certainly spending more time alone processing all of this and the other thing to point out is there are different views in the president's ear as there are so often. right now you're at a point where rudy guiliani the former new york city mayor is telling the president that he has a shot here screaming at trump campaign attorneys late last week and telling them that they are liars
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for telling the president that his legal battles here are a long shot in terms of overturning the results of the election. then on the other hand you have other folks telling the president it is time to start acknowledging reality. there is no question he is hearing a lot of different things right now and there are obviously still those voices encouraging the president to go deeper and deeper into this conspiracy theory territory and some of the members of the president's legal team right now are pushing that very same narrative including sydney powell an attorney working with the president who has pushed all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories including stating that the cia has been involved in altering votes in this election, which is completely unfounded and not true but clearly the president wants to go deeper into this. this is what we're seeing with the firing of christopher krebs as he continues to deny reality. >> thank you very much. i hope none of these people ever have to spend time in places in the world where these kind of conspiracy theories actually get traction and you live in the kinds of government that create
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that. phil mudd joins me on the phone. so, phil, obviously former counterterror official and at the cia, our analyst, your reaction? the president has now gone on twitter and fired the guy who came out and said this is the most secure election in american history with the backing of the full united states government. the president has fired this guy. christopher krebs. there he is. putting out a whole bunch of lies. i don't even want to keep repeating them. but lies saying that, you know, the election was taken from him. >> yes, as someone who served in government for a couple decades, firing people on twitter? i don't want to belabor this, remember for james comey the fbi director the president couldn't fire him in person. he sent over one of his personal assistants to do it. talk about low budget. the more serious question is, look. we're about two months maybe a little more than two months to the inauguration and in between
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there we have two major vacation periods. we have thanksgiving. we've got christmas. this is not about taking someone out of a position and putting in someone who is more loyal. as a president who is about to leave his position you don't have time to do that. you've got less than two months if you take out vacation time. this is about spite. i'm angry. i don't have much time left. so the people who didn't support me they're gone whether it's at defense, cia, fbi, they're gone. this is about spite. it is not about policy and it certainly is not about replacing somebody with a person who's more loyal because you just don't have time to do that. >> no, you don't. all right. i want to bring in ben hovland as well the chairman of the u.s. election assistance commission and when you and i talked the other day ben you've worked with mr. krebs. you know him. what is your reaction to what the president of the united states has just done? >> yeah, you know, i don't have official confirmation yet that
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what has happened obviously i saw the tweet. certainly concerning. my experience with director krebs is that he's been a great director, showed a lot of leadership particularly in the election space. i know he has done a great job pulling together as a team and has enjoyed working with him on election issues. we had, you know, such a success story this year as far as what we were able to do through the critical infrastructure sub sector. that partnership, working on a range of issues of course primarily around cyber security but a lot of work that was done as well in response to the pandemic and running elections this year and these challenging times. >> so, ben, you come out, your team, right, you are saying this is the most secure election in american history. the president of the united states now just fires the guy who was in charge of cyber security and intelligence here. and comes out and says that statement was inaccurate.
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then goes on to lyist things saying this election, you know, massive fraud. what is your response to that? you just sat there and spent your entire professional life running this election coming up with the most secure election in american history and the president of the united states has just come out and said that's bs. >> you know, i think it's very concerning. i think as i've said to you before, i wish that the rhetoric we keep hearing would match up with the court filings. again, the professionals that run this election, folks that worked on securing this election, they dedicated a lot of their lives to this. put in a lot of hours working on this to make this election run as smoothly as it did. and again, if there are any issues, you know, those should be investigated, but what we keep seeing in the court filings doesn't add up to the rhetoric. certainly that is concerning. and again, what we need to base
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our understanding of elections on, the will of the people is on facts. facts and truth. you know, when you talk to election officials across the country they're confident in the security of this election. they're confident in the outcome of the election that this was a fair election and that americans made their voices heard and we've got to respect the will of the people and the public servants that helped run the election and make this all possible. >> okay. so he doesn't respect it. he says you guys are all wrong and this is all lies and puts these falsehoods out there. so he just fired mr. krebs. he could fire you by tweet any moment, right? i presume you expect that to be possible, right? >> i'm in a little different position. so we are an independent, bipartisan agency at the election assistance commission. i guess that certainly is possible to try. there's any number of things you can put on twitter as we've learned.
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but again, to me, this is about respecting the will of the american people, respecting our democracy, and, you know, i can just say that the work, you know, it's been an honor to work with chris krebs and his team. they did an amazing job reaching out to state and local officials since 2016 there's been a sea change in information sharing across state, local, and federal government. that has really, you know, when we talk about our confidence in the security of this election, in the processes and procedures in place, you know, so much of that is because the work that has gone in since 2016 to improve that information sharing, improve the security of our elections, put in place additional safeguards and so again a lot of that credit goes to director krebs, goes to his team for the work that they've done. >> all right. i appreciate your time. thank you very much ben hovland as the president has just fired
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another person by tweet and in the president's tweet putting a whole bunch of falsehoods. we have more on our breaking news next. i'll speak to a long time republican donor who has been in touch with the trump campaign. what is his reaction to the firing tonight? plus the senate's second oldest senator chuck grassley is 87 years old and now tested positive for coronavirus. we have new details on his health. plus republican and former nfl player burgess owens flipping a seat held by a democrat. could the message he ran on be a winning strategy for republicans? >> we found out blm.ink is nothing but a marxist organization. you're clearly someone... ...who takes care of yourself. so when it comes to screening for colon cancer, don't wait. because when caught early, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool
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your reaction to this news? >> well, chris krebs is a highly qualified and widely respected cyber security expert. he knows of which he speaks. chris and the rest of the cyber security professionals in the u.s. government did an excellent job this year in trying to secure the election process. donald trump knows nothing about cyber security or technology. therefore he again continues to condemn those who say anything that he disagrees with and since he is trying to steal the election back from joe biden i think he sees chris krebs as being the target of vendetta that obviously he has wielded tonight. >> i just want to be clear here. we've interviewed the man in charge of the election in georgia, republican, life long republican. they've had independent audits go in the places they used that software and found absolutely nothing. adds up to exactly as it should exactly as the department of homeland security has said and officials across this country democrat and republican. let me just ask you, director, though, what do you make of the
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fact this just happened that the president is sitting there doing this? he fired his defense secretary by tweet and is now firing christopher krebs by tweet. he is just doing this stuff. this is unhinged behavior. >> well, it is. he is just brooding in the white house right now and it clearly shows that he is impulsive. he is reckless. he will do things because he can do it and, unfortunately, he still wields the powers of the presidency and will do so for another another 60 plus days which makes it very, very dangerous i think from the standpoint of national security and homeland security. what else might donald trump do to take action against those he perceives to be his enemies? what might he do on the foreign field? the real disgrace here are the republicans. every republican member of congress who has not spoken out against these types of reckless actions should be, you know, condemned by americans because they are allowing donald trump to continue down this
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authoritarian road that is fraught with additional dangers. >> what do you make of those enabling him? you have republicans enabling him by their very silence and i hear you. that is incredibly powerful. and there are others. rudy guiliani used to be america's mayor and he is out there peddling a whole bunch of complete lies saying 800,000 votes are stolen in a state. this stuff is false and very damaging. you know, you were the head of the cia. you spent a lifetime, a career analyzing people why they do things, their motives. what are the motives of people like rudy guiliani right now? >> a lot of people are motivated by financial gain. unfortunately, donald trump still has a fair amount of influence as far as who is going to provide funds to various re-election campaigns as well as to individuals like rudy guiliani and others who continue to market themselves outside. these are people who quite frankly have sold their souls and have not a single vestige of
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integrity left in them and it just shows the toxic impact of donald trump, someone like donald trump who has no ethics or principles and had no adherence to norms and standards and even the law. but he has influenced these individuals in such a way that again their actions are unconscionable. >> so, director, what do you say to people who are deeply worried as probably many are about the damage being done not just to american people's belief in the system but to the system, to american safety? with 64 more days of this sort of thing going on? we have 64 more days. >> yeah. i think there needs to be a national clarion call to all the members of congress, republicans and democrats, and the senate and the house of representatives expressing our great, deep concern as well as outrage over the fact that donald trump continues to act in this very impulsive and reckless manner. i have once before called for the 25th amendment to be invoked by vice president pence and the rest of the cabinet.
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if they have any sense of patriotism to their country they would either be restraining trump from doing these types of things or they would be taking action into their own hands to wrest away from him the powers of the presidency. i hope he doesn't go down a path that really is going to be dangerous and even more damaging to the health and welfare of this country. >> director brennan i appreciate your time. thank you, sir. >> thank you, erin. next more on our breaking news. i'll talk to a long time republican donor who's been in touch with the trump campaign. his reaction to tonight's breaking news at this hour of the firing plus republicans have now flipped their ninth house seat and in every case the winner, the republican winner was either a woman or a person of color. are democrats taking notice? i'll ask the house majority whip jim clyburn. omba vacuums exactly where you need it, and offers personalized cleaning suggestions for a clean unique to you and your home.
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breaking news president trump staying out of sight bunkered down in the white house lashing out though on twitter firing another head of an agency this time the director of the homeland security agency who had rejected trump's election conspiracy theories and came out and said this was the safest,
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most secure election in american history. outfront now long time republican donor dan ebberhart on the trump campaign's daily surrogate calls. i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> another firing moments ago by the president this time chris krebs who the president is claiming this wasn't the most secure election, he is saying there were massive improprieties, massive fraud, things we know aren't true. what do you make of what the president is doing right now this purge in not even his final days but these days since the election? >> yeah, so first, you know, i think there were some illegitimate things with the voting but it is largely irrelevant like the victory has been won by joe biden. i think trump needs to move on. this post election purge is damaging to the democracy and just seems like crying over spilled milk. to me. >> so how do you get through to him with what you just said? what you're essentially saying
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is, sure. you'll find a few things here and there that went wrong in an election as you always would. it isn't going to change the outcome and what you're doing now is really harmful for the country. how do you get through to him? >> well, i think that what needs to happen now is unfortunately i feel like this is something james madison and the rest of the founding fathers forgot in this kind of situation we really need like a model -- a regent for the boy king. what we need to do as a country is move on and i think trump has frozen the republican party and is just causing disastrous consequences for the brand and that's what i worry about. l is for the country the incoming biden administration needs the tools it needs and trump needs to focus on georgia right now and winning elections in 2022. it's bad for the party, bad for the brand, and also bad for the
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country right now. >> dan, you could come out and say all this >> i am. >> why do you think so many aren't? so many other -- most of them are not doing what you're doing. >> i think they are afraid of the trump team. right now mitch mcconnell and his team nobody in the republican party wants to -- until we have the elections in georgia because they think trump controls the base and the base is loyal to trump not necessarily the party and it is. trump got 9.5 million more votes than in 2016 so he accomplished something. he has a huge following now and mitch mcconnell and the rest of the republicans want to win in georgia where i'm from and the problem is nobody wants to call trump out and say anything. everybody else wants somebody else to do it. first in the republican party. and nobody is blinking. right now that is freezing everything. trump is trying to freeze the field. he doesn't want to be the next sarah palin. he wants to be relevant in 2022 and it is causing a disaster for
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everyone. >> dan, we're looking at his schedule. no public events. he cancels his trip next week. he fires another, the guy who said that america's elections were secure via tweet tonight saying they weren't secure. what is his end game? what is he doing? do you have any sense? >> i think his end game is to stay relevant but i think crying over the last play of the game two weeks later is really a bit irrelevant. move on. trump sees it as a way to fire up the base, get the right wing energized. he is raising money off this in excess of $60 million to be used for a leadership pac to keep him relevant in 2022 and potentially beyond and that is his focus. but it's problematic for the party like i said and it is causing a lot of disruption for the machinery of government and this is something for us all to be concerned with. we really need a circuit breaker
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or something like this in a situation where a sore loser can't throw sand in the gears of government. >> i mean you've made your point of view here very clear, dan. he is sitting there watching television as he always does. you know, what do you say if he hears you right now? >> sorry, erin? what would i say to him? >> yeah. what would you say to him if he is sitting with the volume up watching you? >> look, mr. trump, president trump, you fought a good fight. you got more votes than you got in 2016. i definitely think you beat the spread but, look, unfortunately you lost and the party and the country need you to move on. a is a republican what is best for us is to make mitch mcconnell the strongest we can which is to win the two seats down in georgia and what is best for the country toss prepare to hand joe biden the keys and make sure you don't make massive policy changes after losing the election like these troop drawdowns or the post election purge and you should be very, very wary of that and think about your legacy. >> i want to ask you one other
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question. i know you've been a major supporter of senator lankford from oklahoma and obviously he had come out originally and said biden needed to receive these national security briefings and seemed in favor of that but has been very reluctant to go through with that, to step up and say biden gets those briefings. what do you sa i to lankford? >> i am a big fan of senator lank ford dollar and i think he should do the right thing and call for biden to get these transition papers. these republicans are in a very difficult box because they perceive trump controls the party and nobody wants to cross him. everybody wants somebody else to do it first and mitch mcconnell is trying to hold the entire puppet, all these puppet strings together so that trump doesn't get angry and spook the base in georgia and cause us to lose those two senate seats on the way out the door. this goes back to what i said three minutes ago.
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james madison forgot to include something in the constitution. trump has figured out how to weaponize the machinery of government post election loss and this is something that happens in a banana republic not george washington's republic and we should all be very concerned about that. the trump administration is a melting ice cube and trump needs to realize that and we as a country and us as a republican party need to get prepared to move beyond this >> i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> and your blunt words. thank you very much. also breaking tonight senator chuck grassley confirms he has coronavirus. he is 87 years old. the senator is now in self-quarantine at his home in iowa. iowa meantime is surpassing more than 2,000 deaths tonight. the white house coronavirus experts calling iowa's spread, quote, aggressive and unrelenting saying the state response is their word inadequate. >> reporter: butch hanson 84 years old diagnosed with covid-19 last week. >> we're going to get a ct scan
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of your chest. you've got some junk in your chest. so you probably have a little pneumonia but i want to make sure you don't have a blood clot in your lung. >> reporter: today he is back in the emergency room. >> why did you come in today? >> i had a rough time with that phlegm last night. that's all i did. cough up that phlegm. the covid or something else and find out what it is. >> reporter: hanson a retired farmer says he has been careful. but may have picked it up from a family member. >> going to be a sharp poke here. okay? >> that's all right. >> reporter: regional health services of howard county, the hospital the ambulance service, the public health department, and hospice care for the entire county. the 19 bed facility moves most its sickest patients to larger hospitals with iowa, the midwest, and the country all seeing a sharp increase in cases and patients, finding available
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beds in a larger facility not so easy these days. >> the biggest concern the last week is when we call and ask for them to help take care of our patients who are maybe sicker than we're used to taking care of they don't have beds for us. and so that's where the strain really comes on. >> reporter: over the last month hospitalizations across iowa have skyrocketed under 500 covid patients hospitalized in mid october, now nearly 1400 iowans hospitalized with covid-19. and if there is a surge with nowhere to send critically ill patients -- >> this is the in case of emergency open this. >> pretty much. >> how many more people could you surge up to with everything in here? >> we have the capability of adding up to 50 beds. my hope is to never have to open this trailer. >> reporter: today the entire health care system here pushed
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to its limits. what is covid doing to places like howard county and cessco right now? >> it is starting to stress us out. we have limited resources. >> reporter: in the first month of the pandemic here howard county saw 13 coronavirus cases. over the last month there were 411. with holidays around the corner, the fear it's going to get a lot worse. >> with thanksgiving coming up how concerned are you with what you're going to see around christmas? >> i have a feeling it is going to be out of control. i really worry about health care in general. around christmas. because if everybody gets together on thanksgiving, has all their big gatherings within two weeks we'll start to see the outbreaks start. >> reporter: and this is the grand issue that towns across iowa, big and small, are facing. the entire system is basically filling up.
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there are fewer and fewer places for places to send patients in other towns. at some point they are afraid there will be people dying in their homes, dying in parking lots, waiting for help. one good note in all of this story the gentleman that was in the story off the top mr. hanson >> erin, back to you. breaking news, republicans blocking the certification of election results in detroit. this is an unprecedented move. states that biden won by 148,000 votes. we have this breaking story right after this. -twins!audrey's ex. grandparents! we want to put money aside for them, so...change in plans. alright, let's see what we can adjust. ♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. okay. mom, are you painting again? you could sell these.
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we have breaking news out of michigan. republicans in wayne county which is home to detroit blocked certifications to the voting results. the reason that was made possible was a strong showing in wayne county in detroit. this news may jeopardize his claim to the state's vote. tom, this is your reporting, let's go through this clearly. you had the county board in
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wayne county to certify these results. it should have been a formality. blocked by republicans? >> yes, it was, erin. it was a split vote. 2-2 and under michigan law that means that the county vote is not certified. election lawyers of michigan tell us that this is unprecedented and some of the democrats on that board and democrats observing this process sees it as a racist and uncalled for and the board failed to do its duty. it is important to note this bumps up the certification decision to a state board in punish bega michigan. joe biden's overwhelming victory will be acknowledged by the state and there will not be an attempt in lansing to intervene with that pretty clear results. >> let me ask you more about that. people hear this, wait a minute, you are talking about a margin
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here of 148,000 plus votes for a state as i said greater than the margin which trump won the race this time around uncontested. this board according to your report, the next board that this goes to, state's regulatory board meets november 23rd, that's next monday. tell me about that board. is it possible? this puts the entire state of michigan up for grabs and you have republican legislatures or something decide who gets michigan? >> so erin, you describing fears of democratic party lawmakers and activists that i have been hearing in michigan for the past couple of weeks. despite this vote that occurred today, there are a couple of things to be aware of. one is that though the county board in wayne county declined today by a tie vote to certify
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overwhelming vote for joe biden, it goes to a state board of canvassers and that state board has an opportunity to certify it. something that happened late today, the state majority leader in lansing, controls the -- this state leader said today unequivocally that joe biden won the vote and he anticipates no intervention and points out michigan's laws required the winner of the popular election viaing t receiving the votes of the state. >> tom, i appreciate it.
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i want to go to our republican election lawyer served as national council of the bush's campaign during the 2000s. ben, you heard what tom just said, this is unprecedented. the margin is unprecedented. it is clearly party line by county election board to not certify. >> yeah, it is sort of so politically transparent that i doubt -- with tom going to report about the majority leader says probably where this is going. it could ultimately go to the michigan court or the federal court and it is highly unusual that it is going to basically disenfranchise half a million voters in detroit on the vote of
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basically a county election board like this. i suspect this will ultimately be overturned and it is a little bit of a small victory for the trump's campaign in the short run. >> yeah. >> it comes today after plaintiffs who had a case on behalf of trump's campaign in support of the trump campaign dropped their case in michigan. they gave up. >> yeah, exactly. >> what's important that you had two local political essentials serving on the wayne county board came under intense political pressure thought they could get their moment in the sun but it is such a contrary to democracy move that it is really unlikely to holdup in the long run. >> i am amazed that there is so many things contrary to democracy happening in the country right now. it is deeply concerning. >> i appreciate your time.
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thank you so much for being able to jump on for that breaking news. thank you. thanks very much to all of you. we appreciate your time. with us, "ac 360 with anderson" starts right now. good evening, we'll continue with the breaking news, two stories connected to president trump to inflate baseless claims of voter fraud. today, he fired top dhs. the november 3rd election was the most secured in american history. other breaking news in the michigan county that includes detroit where they prevented the presidential results for the entire county. the vote was