>> martha: that does it for this thursday night special coverage of the 2020 presidential election. >> and i'm bret baier. tucker starts right now. we'll be back tomorrow. >> we will. see you then. ♪ good evening and welcome to >> tucker: . the election was on tuesday. we still don't know the outcome. what happens next and how long does it go on? you probably assume you've got some idea how this election is going to play out. officials in contested states will carefully count all the available votes supervised by bipartisan observers to reassure all of us it's on the level. if they see irregularities or find questions of fraud, we will figure out what those allegations are and how they will resolve. that is what we did in

speeseventeen. we put them on tv so people could see the ballots for themselves. in the end, the dispute between al gore and george w. bush continued all the way to the supreme court. everyone of those days seemed like a month. that process was excruciating. it required patients and calm. but in the end, it was well-worth it. by the way, the news organization in this country covered every moment of it. no one in any newsroom in america even considered censoring information about what was happening in the states. that would have been regarded as grotesque and immoral. by the way, almost everyone in the media was a partisan democrat. in speeseventeen, they understood that preserving the public's faith in the system, it than getting al gore or anyone else into the white house. so, they pushed for openness and transparency in the process. thank god they did. a lot has changed over two

decades. it is entirely possible now and someday soon that the news media will decide to shut this election down. believe it or not, effectively, they have the power to do that. let's say tomorrow officials in philadelphia produced a large number of newly-counted votes. the secretary of state ratifies them, puts approval on them and then declares joe biden the winter. it would put him over the threshold of 270 electoral votes. so joe biden is now the president-elect. but hold on a minute. how many of the 69 million americans who voted for donald trump this week would believe that and accept it? at this point, not very many, not that anyone cares. and of course the fact that no one cares is the reason they voted for donald trump in the first place. but if you cared about the country and its future, you wouldn't force donald trump voters to believe this. instead, you would show them. you would convince them. you would pull back.

you would resist tasty calls. you'd make certain we got to the bottom of any credible claim of fraud. not all the claims are credible. some are. and you care. you would air the hanging chad. you would let the process work. maybe in the end, joe biden would win anyway. maybe he won it. but public's faith in the system would remain intact. that is what you would do if you cared about this country. but let's say you didn't, in that case, you would declare joe biden the president-elect. even though other states were still counting votes and serious questions about the legitimacy of ballots remained in question, you want to care. you would just shut it down. the news media believes they can do that. the role of declaring a winner in the presidential election in the united states falls to the news media." that's what "the new york times" declared this week.

so, let's say that the news networks decide to do it. shut it down. what then? donald trump and his voters would complain, obviously peer but what can they really do? they are not news anchors. they don't own their own channels. and if you wanted to stop them from complaining, it would it be very hard. you would just accuse them of attacking democracy. then, you would center their social media posts. you might even pull the president off social media completely. it is his main form of communication and he doesn't own it. zach dorsey owns it. we can't allow that. if trump and his voters persisted in complaining, you would consider stronger measures. democrats have been thinking about this for a long time, it turns out. none of the rest of us have what they have. he played a joe biden election simulation that the democrats held. in that demolition according to reports, they wanted to see what the military would do if donald trump refused to accept the election results.

the military question work so, what exactly wha with the mility do? it's shocking to even think about that. lawrence wilkinson went on the bill marr show on hbo to discuss that question. as you watch the clip we are about to show you, keep in mind that he is not a french speaker. he is not some guy muttering to himself. he was once chief of staff to secretary of state, colin powell. look him up. he is a famous man. here is what he said. >> if trump calls his base up in the street with hi their guns, y own up to 300 million guns in america. if the answer that call and come to the streets with guns, then we probably are going to have a need for the military. and then it depends how much blood might flow. >> how much blood might flow? you have someone who brought you the war in iraq fantasizing out

loud about killing even more civilians. in this case, trump voters in the states of our city. people didn't use to talk like this on television. and on fox news, they still don't because we wouldn't allow it. that's violent extremism. but on that channel, no problem. no one even noticed that. it tells you a lot about how they think. you really can't overstate, and we mean that, you can't overstate how corrosive language like that is. it's a quick way to break everything and it's happening now. normal people are becoming paranoid. americans who love this country are beginning to fear it. why? we know exactly why. because shutting down legitimate discourse and inquiry always has that effect. it destroys social trust and it sets the table for awful things to come. so, let's stop this right now. slow down. no hasty calls. our system works. it has worked before. if people air concerns, resolve

the concerns. don't call them names. don't sweep those concerns under the rug. don't shut it down artificially with unelected news anchors. let our system work. only by doing that what we have a country we are going to want to live in 20 years from now. josh hawley is a republican senator. we are happy to have him on. senator, thanks so much for coming on. so, i'm concerned by the number of reports that we are getting on this channel that i'm getting, that all of us are getting about irregularities and potential fraud. i can't confirm that any of those are true. perhaps some are. what i'm concerned about is the concerted attempt to ignore them and the effect that has on american's trust in the system. >> yeah, i am too, tucker. there needs to be transparency in this process. there needs to be integrity. americans have to have conference that their elections

have integrity. poll washers need to be present that ballots are being counted. that means an accounting of how many absentee ballots are left. how many mail-in ballots. where you pay a third party to go collect ballots and bring them in, that ought to be legal in the united states of america. let's band ballot harvesting right now. it is ripe with abuse. it is inviting abuse. these are the kind of reforms that we need to pursue. but right now, write this for instance, there needs to be total transparency in this process. and i forgot to tell you. when you see some states going to court to try and stop poll washers, people just observing the ballot counts, that is deeply deeply disturbing. >> martha: well, it is disturbing. and i can't really think of a reason for it that's legitimate. but i know for a fact. hopefully the system and the courts will figure this out. but i know for a fact that the effect of it is to make everyone

paranoid and distrustful. why are they allowed to get away with excluding oversight? that seems like a disaster. >> yeah, it does. and unfortunately we have seen it tried in multiple places. we have seen detroit, ballots brought in there, new ballots in the middle of the night. we have seen it in philadelphia. again, to your point moments ago, i don't know if those allegations are real founded or not. that is why you have a transparent process. i can tell you what else, tuck tucker, to have some states where they are not even telling us how many ballots they have counted, how many are left, they are not getting reports that we will get back to you in 24 hours. that also breeds distrust. people have no idea what in the world is going on. so, i say again, there needs to be total transparency in this process. allow poll-watchers to come in from both parties. states should be giving regular updates so the american people

can have confidence going forward. we are going to have to pursue election integrity reforms. >> martha: yeah, when people review you should be highly concerned. that is why people are concerned. i have to ask you, several months ago, democrats completely redid the way we vote for president. for hundreds of years, we have allowed people to vote with absentee ballots. but the entire voter file balance. what is that under a best of circumstances a recipe for undermining faith any of the election outcome. >> yeah, particularly when you allow ballot harvesting and then it is legal in many states to allow third parties to pay third parties to go round the ballots up and bring them to the ballot box. i mean, that is begging for voter abuse. this is begging for it. that should be banned. we should ban that.

mailing the list when there are no ballots requested. you just send it to them. that also i think has a lot of serious issues. so at the very least, let's start by banning ballot harvesting. congress should do that immediately. we got to take this up next week immediately. so, the left shakes up a system that is guaranteed to shake the public's faith and then challenge anyone who was fashioning it. good luck on the bill. >> thank you. >> tucker: so, we are going to do our absolute best for people who care about the country not to incite paranoia or fear but we are going to be as honest about what we can about what we are seen because that is our obligation. the president had a significant lead. two days later we are still waiting votes. why?

why did a bunch of states shut down voting on election day? these are totally legitimate questions and most people have not heard the answers. michael antone has written a fantastic topic o column on thi. thank you so much for coming on. you are among other things a historian. i know that you care about our system more than any single politician. all of us should feel that way. it does seem like people have legitimate concerns about whether the system is working fairly. tell us about what your concerns are. >> some of the ones that you mentioned. why was voting stopped in i think it was five states in six cities for four hours. why are ballots showing up? mail-in voting, it has a lot of problems, some obvious ones. you send ballots out to everyone, you never know who actually receives a ballot. you could be sending it to people who have died without knowing. you could be sending it to people who have moved from the

state. that already has a problem but there should be one advantage. if these things are mailed in, presumably some of them will come in late. but when it most of them come in weeks ahead of time? why are we finding ballots hours and in some cases days after the polls have closed? shouldn't mail-in ballots already be there somewhere ready to be counted? and your point is exactly the right one. these are questions. they deserve investigations and answers, transparent answers. when all we get up is shut up, you are a conspiracy theorist. you are questioning the integrity of our democracy. that doesn't give anybody confidence in the integrity of the system. it makes you suspect that something fishy is going on. we won well, i would say that censorship and silencing is itself an effort to undermine the legitimacy of our democracy. who is undermining the democracy? who is destroying the public's faith in the system? it's not us.

>> no, definitely not. look, i would say this. i think the person, ironically one of the people who will be harmed by this if it continues will be joe biden to be perfectly honest. if i were joe biden and i were convinced i won and i won back comfortably or least handily in a number of states and an accurate count would show that, i would be saying to everyone in my party, everyone in my campaign. i would be saying this to all of the state elected officials and nonelected officials be transparent. be open. let both sides examine this process and see what is going on. because i want the american people, the whole american electorate, including donald trump's 67 million voters, i want them all to be convinced that this is fair and that i won legitimately so that i can govern with the full confidence of the american people in the system. that is what i would want if i were joe biden. >> tucker: welcome you because you care about having the confidence of the american people because you believe in democracy. but people who believe in ruling

by force don't really care what voters think, because they are going to make money regardless. that is the difference between you and them. go ahead. please finish. >> but it suggests that they must not have total confidence if it were a completely fair account and if all these questions were addressed. they must be worried that they won't win. otherwise they would be throwing up the books. the president had mentioned it and others had mentioned it. there were places where they literally taped papers and windows so that people couldn't look inside. people who wanted a fair accounting, they won it do that. >> tucker: exactly. thanks a lot for coming on. >> thanks. >> tucker: not to mention, didn't they spend three years telling us the last election was rigged by vladimir putin and now questioninthey are attacking ano questions the legitimat legitime election?

very concerned about what is happening there. you will hear it straight from the person. also, jason whitlock, here with his assessment. the differences between people who voted for one candidate and the other. ♪ we believe at newday usa we have a noble purpose.

we want to be known as america's mortgage company for veterans and active-duty service people. some of them are giving their lives right now, today, for the freedoms that we have here in this country. so for us, at newday to help those people at this point in time. it's a labor of love, it's a noble service, and that's what we're all about.

♪ >> tucker: this is the fox news alert. we keep hearing all day of the state of pennsylvania. we wanted to speak to someone about where we are and where it is going. hey, bill. what's going on? >> you are about .9% total. that is the difference here between the 61,000 votes. so, where are these boats? philadelphia here, we've been talking about this all day. you've got a strong margin for joe biden. we believe at the moment, tucker, there are approximately 85,000 ballots stil still to be counted here in philly. we think it's about 34,000 votes. i difference of 8800. how they come in during the course of the night.

in pittsburgh, you are talking the difference between the two of 128,000. there were about 38,000 ballots outstanding in pittsburgh. so, that coverts pennsylvania, tucker. georgia has been moving closer and closer tonight. 8:22 our time on the east coast. the difference in the entire state in georgia, 3400 ballots. arizona is going to give us a bit of a dump around 9:00 eastern time. come back in 40 minutes. we will let you know how arizona is doing. tucker. >> tucker: wow. arizona is close. amazing. so, elections are deeply revealing. we learn who believes what. a huge scale, 350 million people expressed their preference. turns out there are differences between voters for sure,

especially this year. we are happy to have him on. jason, thanks for coming on. what you think we have learned about the differences between campaigns and the rotors? >> yeah, i think this 2020 election shows the power of love versus the power of hate. again, i'm not talking about donald trump and joe biden specifically. i'm talking about their supporters. donald trump's supporters are people who love donald trump, who unconditionally love donald trump. to the point that they will risk their health and go to rallies with thousands of people. they will risk their reputation. they will risk their safety in terms of being attacked by antifa.

they love donald trump. biden supporters hate to donald trump. that is their energy. it has nothing to do with joe biden. this is about can you take hate and turn that into something using hate as a more powerful motivation. deciding elections, can we rally enough hate to win an election? i think it's a sad statement about where we are as a society as it relates to politics. i think it's a sad statement on where we are in terms of our relationship. this country was founded on judeo-christian values and we are moving away from that. god is the embodiment of love and we are a society that seems to be embracing and favoring hate and intolerance.

if this election swings for biden, it makes a statement about hate and its power to conquer love supported by what i believe is corruption. >> tucker: i thought about this election a lot. i never thought about it in that way. that is a very smart way to frame it. why do you think donald trump's supporters love him in the way that they do? >> because he is actually expressing a set of ideas and beliefs that he stands firm on. i think this has been the case with most popular and beloved presidential candidates who actually know what they believe and what they are going to stand for. as it relates to joe biden, we just don't know. and again, president trump stands for awol , america, bringing manufacturing jobs back.

he has actually expressed that. he was all about revamping the health care system. people love that. as a relates to joe biden, i had to look it up this morning. >> tucker: yeah. i think that such a smart point. i'm glad you made it. thank you very much. so, the county in pennsylvania and is counting votes right now as we speak. we will take a look at why he said that. plus, we will talk to a polling-watch her saying that he was ejected from the convention center. that's not supposed to be the way that it works. it supposed to be about transparency. we will get to the bottom of that before the break. ♪

>> if you comp illegal votes, an easy win. if you

count they can start to steal the election from us. we are looking at them very strongly. a lot of those came in late. we will not allow the corruption to steal such an important election or any election for that matter. we can't allow anybody to silence our voters and manufacture results. it will probably go through a process, a legal process. as you know, i've claimed certain states and he is claiming states. we can both claim states. but ultimately, i have a feeling that the judges are going to have to rule. there have been a lot of shenanigans and we can't stand for that in our country. the one that was the president speaking from the white house. today, a judge in the city of philadelphia will allow republican election servers to watch votes been counted from 6 feet. i'm not sure why they would be excluded in the first place. democrats have appealed that

order. it is not clear. why would you exclude people from watching something that affects the whole country? the trump campaign trump campaign says officials did not comply. >> the state has issued a ruling that the board of elections is dismissed! it is shameful! the board of elections here in pennsylvania. you do not have to listen to a judge's order! your sheriff said no! what do we do? we get relief by the federal government to make sure every vote is counted. >> tucker: let's simplify the question. why would anybody try to prevent oversight of vote counting

customer gets a really simple question. what is the answer? one poll watcher explained that election officials just weren't allowing him to watch what they were doing. >> my name is brian. i was inside the philadelphia convention center observing people counting votes. i got thrown out because i took video of corrupt people undermining the president of the united states. he threw me out. he told me i'm not allowed back in. the reason is because i took video of people trying to undermine and have a coup against the president of the united states. >> tucker: brian mccafferty joins us now. thanks so much for coming on. so, tell us what you believe you saw in that. >> hi, tucker. can you hear me? >> tucker: i can hear you perfectly. thanks. >> okay, great. so yesterday, i was asked to be

a watcher. it's called a precampus/canvas watcher. i walked into the convention center yesterday not knowing what i would expect. there was really no direction. and there was complete chaos. it was at that point that i had the opportunity to talk to one of the trump attorneys. i said, listen, we have a 50,000 square-foot facility here and we have steel barriers being set up. one eighth of the place is free for the people that are supposed to supervise to watch the people that are counting votes, which is a complete farce, okay? you can't make this up. you can see from the videos that i have sent to fox news. nobody gave any direction. there were eight hour shifts where you can do whatever you want. i started watching and i said, wait a second.

you can't see anything. the closest desk, let's put things in perspective. the closest desk was 30 feet. the furthest desk was probably 150 feet. and you knew this was orchestrated. everybody had yellow jackets. okay. that is how they orchestrate it. however, nobody knew where these people went and i started look into the right hand corner and at that point yesterday, i started taking videos. i said, where are those back trash bags in the right-hand corner? there was no communication and when people as asked questions, they wouldn't answer them. at that point, you said to yourself, listen, something's wrong here. something's wrong. so, i left yesterday at 4:00. i came back today and i started

taking videos and pictures inside the convention center and the reason you and i are talking is one went viral, okay? i really feel sorry for this individual. he is one of the biggest handicappers and he's on fox all the time. his twitter account shut down right now. >> tucker: on what grounds? >> there is no grounds. because people are listening to them. freedom of speech. i'm just telling you what i'm seeing. if i tell you yesterday that when you walk into the convention center, and we are not talking about, we are talking about the president of the united states of america, okay? i woke up and there are still barriers. the closest you can see is 30 feet away. and today, trump's attorneys are inside the convention center today and they moved everybody up, okay? and you still can't see what's

going on. there is something wrong, man. there is something wrong. listen, you don't have to be a democrat or republican. you know something is wrong and this is really sad in america right now. >> tucker: well, i mean if they are having you observe from 150 feet away, i'm 51. i can barely see 10 feet away. i appreciate you coming on tonight and telling us what you see. thanks very much. >> but tucker, i also took video of what i saw. i took video of what i saw and that's why i got thrown out. >> tucker: yeah. of course. too much transparency. by the way, if i could just say the obvious point that no one wants to say. the city of philadelphia has a long and very well-documented history of corruption. it doesn't mean there is corruption going on but it has a lot in the past. it is not on us. it's on them to reassure our concerns on vote counting.

>> let's just finalize this. the mayor let his city burned to the ground. okay? >> tucker: yeah, i noticed. >> let's just say something. joe shapiro said before the election, trump can't win." are you kidding me? are we really, tucker, are we going to let this happen? yes or no? >> tucker: we are going to watch as carefully, prep as hard, be as honest as we can be. because in the end, no one will believe the results of any election if they don't believe the results of this election. that's our view. we mean it. and so we are going to press forward. we are having you want tonight and we are happy to. thanks, brian. >> thanks. it's been one at a press conference at the white house tonight, the president assisted that hinsistedthat he has a leg.

jonathan is a law professor. jonathan, thanks so much for coming on. what case is the president making and how strongly? >> well, there are a number of filings and all of these close states. some of them are more procedural how the counting of ballots are occurring in the absence of monitors. there are some legitimate questions there. it does appear in pennsylvania that these monitors did face barriers, did face obstruction. there are court orders to get them greater access. it is a mystery to me why the pennsylvania officials are litigating this question, because it certainly does fulfill the suspicions of people that there something going on.

so, i don't know why they would do this. but i would actually look more closely at the nevada litigation right now. you know, the trump campaign is saying that they have evidence of people out of state and even deceased individuals who were allowed to vote. that is the type of thing that really pops out because most of the challenges in these types of elections and you and i have been covering them, is passed mnuchin, are usually incremental. they usually grab a group of ballots. it can make a difference if it is a very narrow margin. but we really look for are those cases where there are large groups of ballots that have been challenged. the nevada case could be that type of challenge. you know, because it's not just that they believe there are 10,000 people who may have voted who are ineligible. it would indicate that there was a systemic failure.

that is the type of allegation, if it's true, that could lead to close judicial scrutiny. we are waiting to see if there is evidence of that. we have not seen it yet. the pennsylvania lawsuit is also worth looking at because they are saying that a judge effectively rewrote the election laws and that some ballots that were late processed aren't counted. we still don't know man how many that would be. john roberts started to kick that can down the road. well, the can came rattling back to the court this week. >> tucker: interesting. in one sentence tell me, it is established in every state that bipartisan election have a right to watch counts and recounts, right customer >> correct. this is supposed to be a transparent process because it's not just who wins. it's getting people to agree

that someone won. >> tucker: exactly. exactly. getting people to agree that someone won. jonathan turley, thank you. the media are not just observers of what is going on. they are participants in this process. critical participants. you might want to see what they have been saying. we will show you, straight ahead ♪

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♪ >> tucker: if you are a race-obsessed identity politics monger, and everyone is, the election was a crushing disappointment for you. donald trump performed very well, better than biden did in some cases. did well with hispanic voters, african-americans, muslims, and native americans. donald trump got 69% of the vote. what does this mean exactly? it just happens that we are not sure but it is a big deal. in 2012, mitt romney got 39%. what in other networks, they are not deterred.

donald trump is a racist! in fact, just about an hour ago, a pungent claimed that donald trump was a racist for raising concerns about voter fraud. >> unbelievable that he could say these cities are known for correction, et cetera, et cetera. why are you singling out these two coal black cities? why are you denying the victory that these people have fought for and have the president of the united states -- will all over their efforts. you can say that it's not racial but it feels racial to us. >> tucker: so, it's racist to suggest that there is a record of corruption in philadelphia. you know what is racist? lying about it. ignoring the deteriorating lies of the people that live in the city. have you ever been to those cities? imagine living in one of them. anyone who suggests maybe we should look carefully at how those votes are counted, they are a racist. people hate that kind of

nonsense. it's one of the reasons that trump did better than expected. he got more votes this time than he did the first time. america is completely sick of identity politics garbage. it's divisive, it's stupid, it leaves wounds that don't heal. why don't you stop it? but they won't. and best known for defending time traveling hackers couldn't contain her contempt for racists. >> there is a great amount of racism, anti-blackness, anti-wokeness, we know what this country is but part of your heart says may be the country can pay off all of this pain. as the night wore on and it sunk in, that's not happening. >> tucker: you know, scam artists like that, they have no

idea what they are talking about. it's so degrading and so horrible that they make donald trump -- why do you think they would vote for him? because of you. but they are still doing it. why is that? he is the founder of fourth watch. thanks so much for coming on. they never stop with this even when it doesn't work. >> no. no. it's because of how much they hate donald trump. donald trump is a sort of a singular force of hatred and the media. and lo, he says things and he does things and he is very polarizing, and frankly, had a can fully agree, every vote should be counted. declaring victory, i think that's irresponsible too. but i will say this. when people don't know trump supporter's, they extrapolate that hatred onto supporters of donald trump, average voters who happened to vote for him for any number of reasons.

28% of lgbt americans voted for trump. these are not racists and homophobes. when they take their hatred and put it on average americans, you get the reaction that you see from the supporters, who are stunned by it. to push it from trump to the supporters is so sad and it's continuing. i hope there is some introspection in the media. i'm not sure there will be. >> tucker: this is the nicest most welcoming country in the world. it is really ridiculous. thank you. a lot going on. we'll be right back. ♪

>> tucker: so, what have we learned with so much going on in the last two days and where is it going from here? mollie hemingway is that person. she's the senior editor. glad to have her. what is your assessment as of right now? >> well, it's just so important

that people be able to have trust in their election process and there are many reasons why conservatives don't have that trust in the process right now. what is happening is a lot of elite institutions are trying to bully conservatives into accepting. big business telling people that they have to accept joe biden as president. big tech censoring any legitimate questions about what they are seen, what people are seen happen and states across the country where ballots are being found in a similar direction. and then you have big media which spent the last four years doing everything in their power to destroy donald trump. saying that there is no reason why conservatives or republican voters or trump supporter's should have any problem at all. this is precisely the wrong approach. these people have destroyed their credibility and they are not in a position to tell people what they should feel or think about what they are seen. the only way for people to have

confidence is through transparency and accountability. and that is not what they are seen in key states here. and so, it is important no matter who is elected president that people be able to have confidence and really believe that the vote was fair. we are very far away from that and that will have serious ramifications no matter who is elected president. >> tucker: he really feels like they are doing grave damage. grave damage. >> it's an externally fraught situation. i think it's something they brought on themselves through the way that they behaved over the last four years and it's very important that they think through what they are doing now. >> tucker: that's right. censorship and bullying degrade the country and make it really difficult to move forward. we do all we can to fight that for the sake of the country. mollie hemingway, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> tucker: we are out of time tonight. we'll be back. tomorrow 8:00 p.m. eastern. there's a lot going on but we'll be here tomorrow.

until then, sean hannity has been watching very carefully everything that's been going on. by the way, 23 hours. that gives you a lot of time to go fishing, hang out. election coverage. that's a lot of time. i did agree with what we 22 was saying. we've got to have faith, and trust, and a belief and confidence in our election system. tucker, great show. thank you. welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." we do have breaking news out of arizona. a batch of newly-posted ballots from the liberal's stronghold. they are breaking for president trump at a rate of almost 52%. that is huge news from a very liberal county. over the past 24 hours, the president, 24,000 votes. this margin, this trend