11/04/20 11/04/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! mr. biden: it ain't over until is counted. pres. trump: we want all voting to stop. we don't want them to find ballots at 4:00 in the morning. amy: the presidential race remains too close to call as ballots continue to be counted in pennsylvania, michigan,

wisconsin, nevada, georgia, north carolina, and other states. president trump prematurely declared victory overnight and called for the halt to the counting of absentee ballots. but the counting continues. meanwhile, it remains unclear who will control the senate after republicans had a stronger night and projected, but several races remain too close to call and at least one is going to a runoff. we will speak to ben jealous of people for the american way, former bernie sanders spokesperson briahna joy gray, the nation's john nichols in wisconsin, and immigrant rights activist erika andiola in arizona. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. the presidential race between

donald trump and joe biden remains too close to call with ballots still being counted in the undecided races of michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, georgia, nevada, and north carolina. early this morning, biden spoke in wilmington, delaware, and called for patience as votes are being counted. mr. biden: i am here to tell you tonight we believe we are on track to win this election. we knew because of the unprecedented early vote and the mailing vote it was going -- mail-in voting was going to take a while. we have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. it ain't over until every ballot is counted. amy: shortly before 1:00 a.m., trump took to twitter to accuse democrats of trying to steal the election without offering any proof at all.

then just after 2:20 a.m., trump addressed the nation. pres. trump: this is a major fraud in our nation. we want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we will be going to the u.s. supreme court. voting to stop. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list, ok? a very very sad -- it is sad moment. to me, this is a very sad moment. we will win this -- as far as i'm concerned, we already have won. amy: despite the president's charge, no evidence of fraud has emerged in any state. historically, no state reports final elections results on election night. election authorities in pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan had repeatedly warned

prior to election day that it could take days to count the record number of early votes. across the country, over 101 million people cast early votes -- either in person or by mail -- shattering previous records. at the time of this broadcast, biden is leading in wisconsin by with anr 20,000 votes, estimated 97% of its reported. biden maintains a slim lead of about 8000 votes in nevada. nevada's election division announced no more results will be given until 11:00 a.m. eastern on thursday. trump is leading in pennsylvania by more than 600,000 votes, but the race remains too close to call. election officials in philadelphia are expected to report results from early voting at 9:00 a.m. in michigan, trump is leading

nearly by about 26,000 votes, but the heavily democratic-city of detroit is expected to take until wednesday night to complete its count of absentee ballots. and there are many other counties that have many ballots to be counted in michigan. trump is also leading in georgia and north carolina. the associated press and fox have predicted joe biden to be the winner in arizona but other networks say the race is still too close to call. in the popular vote, biden has a commanding lead of over 2.2 million votes and the figure is expected to keep growing as more ballots are counted. it is possible biden could become the third democrat in the past 20 years to win the popular vote but lose the electoral college. control of the senate is still for grabs as several key races remain too close to call, but it looks increasingly likely that the democrats will fall short of their goal of taking control of the senate.

democrats picked up two seats on tuesday night -- one in colorado where former governor john hickenlooper defeated republican senator cory gardner, and one in arizona, where democrat mark kelly has unseated republican senator martha mcsally. in alabama, trump-backed republican tommy tuberville, the former head coach of the auburn football team, has defeated incumbent democratic senator doug jones. georgia voters cast ballots in two senate races. democrat reverend raphael warnock will head to a runoff special election in january against republican senator kelly loeffler. in georgia's other senate race, incumbent republican david perdue is leading democratic challenger jon ossoff. several senate races remain too close to call. in maine, republican senator susan collins is leading in her

bid for reelection. it is maine's first election since the state instituted rank choice voting. in north carolina, republican thom tillis is leading over democratic challenger cal cunningham. republicans won many of the most high-profile races. in kentucky, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell easily defeated democratic challenger amy mcgrath. in iowa, republican senator joni ernst has survived a strong challenge by theresa greenfield. mississippi's republican senator cindy hyde-smith has defeated democrat mike espy, who served as the first african american u.s. agriculture secretary under bill clinton. and in south carolina, republican senator lindsey graham defeated democrat jaime harrison in the most expensive senate race in u.s. history. graham spoke after winning reelection. >> all the pollsters, you have no idea what you're doing.

and all the liberals in california and new york, you wasted a lot of money. this is the worst return on investment in the history of americanolitics. amy: house speaker nancy pelosi is poised to retain her speaker's gavel with democrats set to hold a majority of the house's 435 seats. but election night returns suggest house democrats may have actually lost ground to republicans, who flipped democratic-held districts in florida, new mexico, oklahoma, and south carolina. in a closely watched race in virginia's fifth district, african american physician cameron webb has lost to republican bob good, a born-again christian seeking to overturn gun control laws and outlaw all forms of abortion. meanwhile, all four progressive freshmen congresswomen of color known as "the squad" have been

reelected, two years after taking capitol hill by storm. they include the first two muslim women elected to congress, ilhan omar of minnesota and rashida tlaib of michigan. also holding their seats are ayanna pressley of massachusetts and alexandria ocasio-cortez of new york, co-sponsor of the green new deal. in new york's 16th congressional district, jamal bowman has defeated republican challenger patrick mcmanus. bowman is a former bronx middle school principal who recently joined protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality. in june's democratic primary, bowman defeated congressmember eliot engel, the foreign affairs committee chair who's served in congress for more than 30 years. congressmember-elect bowman spoke to democracy now! on elecon night. >> i am going to washington to fight for housin as a human ght, health care as a human right, fully funding our public schools, a federal jobs guaranty

raising a federal minim wage, a green new deal, and he maine criminal justice and immigration reform. amy: also here in new york, democrats mondaire jones and ritchie torres are set to become the first two openly gay black men elected to congress, replacing lawmakers who are retiring after decades in washington. mondaire jones spoke with democracy now! on election night. >> i am so thrilled to be running on the platform of medicare for all. the only healthy proposal that would literally enter everyone the richest nation in the world has health care i miss the global pandemic. where people have been losing their health care as a lesser jobs. amy: in missouri's first congressional district, which includes st. louis and ferguson, democrat cori bush has defeated republican anthony rogers. cori bush won a stunning primary upset in august over 10-term incumbent congressmember william lacy clay, whose family has represented the st. louis-area

congressional district for more than half a century. cori bush is a single mother and a nurse. she was formerly homeless and was a leader in the 2014 ferguson uprising over the police killing of 18-year-old michael brown. in georgia, marjorie taylor greene has won the 14th congressional district. her opponent, democrat kevin van ausdal, withdrew from the race in september for personal reasons. greene ran on a pro-gun, anti-immigrant, antichoice platform, and has embraced the qanon conspiracy theory, which claims that president trump is secretly at war with a deep state cabal of satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex trafficking operation. in puerto rico's gubernatorial race, pedro pierluisi has a thin lead over carlos delgado. the candidates are separated by less than 10,000 ves. pierluisi is a membemoof the new

progressive party, which supports statehood for puerto rico. delgado of the popular party wants to keep puerto rico's status as a u.s. colony. pierluisi briefly served as governor in 2019 after former governor ricardo rosselló was forced to resign amid mass protests. puerto ricans also took to the polls to decide on a referendum that would determine if the island is granted statehood. "the new york times" reports pport fothe refendum led thbout 52%f the vos. hover, conessould have to approve of any changes to puerto rico's political status. in other election news, the u.s. postal service refused to comply tuesday with a federal court order to sweep mail processing centers and deliver mail-in ballots that may have been unaccounted for. the order came after usps announced over 300,000 mail-in ballots nationwide couldn't be

traced for delivery. the u.s. postal service had until 3:30 p.m. eastern to conduct the checks and make sure all ballots could be delivered before polls closed. instead, usps said it would maintain its own inspection schedule. the order affected facilities in 12 postal districts across 15 states, including battleground states like arizona and pennsylvania where mail-in ballots must be delivered by the end of election day in order to be counted. the postmaster general louis dejoy is a trump mega donor who has come under fire for recent changes at the postal service that have caused widespread delays and sparked major concerns over mail-in ballots. in related news, the boko new york times" reports mail-in ballots cast by black and latinx voters are being rejected at higher rates than white voters,

including in the battleground states of georgia and florida. meanwhile, a network of activists calling itself the protect results coalition plans to mobilize in over 500 locations across the u.s. today against president trump's false declaration of victory. the united states confirmed more than 92,000 new coronavirus infections on election day, one of the highest one-day tolls for any country during the pandemic. over 1100 covid-19 deaths were reported across the u.s. on election day as hospitalizations reached their highest level since mid-august. former food and drug administration commissioner dr. scott gottlieb warns the u.s. should expect to see over 1000 daily deaths from covid-19 for a sustained period of time. hurricane eta has brought catastrophic damage to the atlantic coast of nicaragua and

honduras with heavy rain and winds triggering inland flooding and landslides. the hurricane is the 28th named storm of 2020's record-breaking atlantic hurricane season and one of the strongest storms to hit central america since hurricane mitch killed thousands of people two decades ago. in california, ride-hailing app-makers led by uber and lyft have succeeded in their $200 million campaign to prevent gig economy workers from becoming employees eligible for benefits and job protections. proposition 22's passage by california voters is a stinging defeat for organized labor. the ballot measures were opposed by human rights watch, which produced this video urging a no vote. classifyanies workers as independent contractors instead of employees, which allows them to circumvent federal and state labor protections.

gig companies also don't pay into social security or medicare on behalf of the workers they classify as independent workers. amy: oklahoma voters have rejected a ballot measure which would have ended the use of repeat sentence penalties for non-violent crimes. the measure would have freed thousands of prisoners -- a disproportionate number of them people of color. in nebraska, voters have overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure capping payday loans at a 36% annual interest rate. florida voters have approved a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage to $15 an by 2026. hour mississippi voters have approved a new state flag, with a magnolia flower replacing the confederate battle flag emblem that had flown over the mississippi state capitol since 1894. in arizona and new jersey, voters have approved a ballot measure legalizing the possession and use of

recreational marijuana for adults aged 21 and up. and in oregon, measure 110 has passed making oregon the first state to decriminalize low-level drug possession while legalizing the recreational use of psychedelic mushrooms. oregon will use the savings from reduced prison time to fund crime prevention and addiction treatment programs. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. when we come back, the presidential race remains too close to call as ballots continue to be counted. we will speak to ben jealous the people for the american way, former bernie sanders spokesperson briahna joy gray, we will go to wisconsin to speak with the nations john nichols, and we will go to arizona to speak with immigrant rights activist erika andiola. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "disorder" by joy division. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman in new york city with my co-host juan gonzalez at his home in new brunswick, new jersey. the presidential race between donald trump and joe biden remains too close to call with millions of ballots still being counted in michigan, wisconsin,

pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia, nevada, and other states. earlier this morning at around 2:20 a.m. eastern, president trump prematurely and falsely claimed victory. pres. trump: this is a major fraud on their nation. we want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we will be going to the u.s. supreme court. we want all voting to stop. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list, ok? sad -- it is a very sad moment. to me, it is a very sad moment. we will win this -- as far as i'm concerned, we already have won. amy: despite the president's charge, no evidence of fraud has emerged in any state.

earlier in the evening, about saidours before, joe biden although it should be counted. mr. biden: i'm here to take tonight, we believe we are on track to win this election. we knew because of the unprecedented early vote in the mail and vote, it was going to take a while. we are going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. ballott over until every is counted. amy: across the country, over 101 million people cast early votes -- either in person or by mail -- shattering previous records. many of those votes have not counted yet in some states. at the time of this broadcast, biden is leading by small margins and wisconsin and nevada. in michigan, leading by just

13,000 votes. trump has a large lead in pennsylvania, but many votes from philadelphia have not yet been counted as well as surrounding areas throughout the state. georgia also leading in and north carolina, but both states remain too close to call. we begin our show with ben jealous, president of people for the american way, former president of the naacp. his op-ed was published in "usa today" headlined "election chaos: keep calm, keep counting, and get to work." and we are joined by briahna joy gray, former national press secretary for bernie sanders 2020. she is the co-host of the bad faith podcast and contributing editor to current affairs. she tweeted through the night, so we were fortunate to be able to talk to her today because she tweeted right through this morning. ben jealous, we begin with you. chaos: keep calm, keep

counting, and get to work." the president called the elections of fraud. >> tmp is a fraud. we have reason to be very hopeful. joe has won every single state ms. was won in 2016 b clinton. nebraska andon arizona and huge exhibits to be counted in urban areas, pittsburgh, philly, milwaukee, detroit, atlanta. it is not just those that are left to be counted in the states, but the big urban areas, huge buckets have voted -- votes to be counted. trump did what we expected him to do, to perpetrate this fraud on the people of our country that he had won when he has not. i would say to my fellow dems and folks who voted against

trump and voted for biden, keep calm. we've got this. we've always known we would have to wait for every vote tbe counted. we will just have to keep calm and count every vote. amy: let's talk aut one of the first states that was called last night, and that was florida. we know that many thousands of -- if not over a million votes -- before the election, will before, when you talk about voter suppression, who got to vote at who did not initially. if you could talk about what you see happen in florida and in particular the latinx vote. it did not come out for biden and harris in the way the democrats have predicted. >> when you dig into what is going on with the latinx in florida, have to acknowledge a couple of things. one is donald trump heavily outspent joe biden and advertising on spanish-language media targeting latinx, swing

voters all across the country. the last time i checked, it was tender one. -- tender one. we found ourselves scrambled trying to get dollars for even statewide radio in florida. so there was a failure over the summer to really court latinx voters, especially those who speak spanish as their main language. the second problem was relationship. if you talk to folks in the venezuelan community, which is critical to winning south florida where joe did not rform asell as he did throughout the state, it is kind of insane because trump and pens from a policy perspective have great antipathy for what the community wants and yet the leaders will say, but we know them. pence made dozens of trips down here. democrats just made a few at that point. you have to kind of give it to trump from a marketing perspective, they have done a

good job of marketing themselves to latinx voters in southern florida despite the fact they have latinx children in cages on the border and quite frankly, their policy interests are not in line even with folks like the venezuelan community, you know, as leaders were very supportive because they felt like they had a relationship. amy: i want to bring briahna joy gray into this conversation, former national press secretary for bernie sanders 2020. talk about your response as you saw the way things were unfolding, what you predicted, what you are seeing now. in a moment, we will be speaking with erika andiola and arizona. fox first called the flip to the ire of president trump. cnn has yet to call it. you have arizona that looks like it has been won by biden but you have the very close races in georgia, in north carolina, in

michigan, in florida, in pennsylvania. could you imaginehat would happen if there wasn't a pandic? election,gedy of this regardless of what the outcome ends up being, iit was ever this close at all. for months, for years democrats have accurately described trump country, asthe someone whhas undermined every norm, who has caused a grt deal of hardship on specifically,istorically marginalized communities, and someone who has done little at all to stem off the worst effects of this global health pandemic. i'm health perective and economic perspective. and yet here we are, we start to dig a little deeper, you see what is going on. this was an election and the democraticarty w clear t put near a -- neoliberalism on the ballot. joe biden was a candidate who

bragged to his dors that nothing would finally change. the plan toly -- marginalize the left and to be clear about the fact he did not feel like he needed to reach out and do that kind of outreach. and specifically, he felt in the way that bernie sanders really excelled when it came to latino voters. wh you saw in florida, not just ty were ospent, but donald trump was up on the airwaves, spanish-language ads, a full month before joe biden got into the state. when to invest into what degree. those choices ignored perhaps fatally the extent to which the latino vote is not guaranteed and it has to absolutely be earned by building a relationship over time we look at nevada, one of the reasons why joe biden has done much better in terms of th latino vote there is because he got there earlier and spend more money in the state.

and also, there are some recordings at the intercept that he was helped by the fact that marijuana legalization was on the ballot and that might have turned out more voters. we are seeing some arguae coelation between progressive policies and investing in communities intates going toward kratz. i think we need to really think criticallybout how successful things will -- the message will be for the democratic party and in the long run. amy: ben jealous, your response? >> i think all of that was spot on. to, frankly, learn from the trump campaign as far as we have to market to every single voter. the way at they went after younlike men to try to pull off 3%, 4%, we should have gone after with the intention of getting %. the way they went after the latinx community trying to get

to 40%, we should have gone after trying to get to 80%. we have to stop taking this kind of machine boss approach where you're just asking, are you winning a particular community. you have to start seeing the people of this country as individuals and fight for every single one of their votes. i do believe we are going to win. it should not be this close. calm,now we have to keep count every vote, push hard, and we have to push against the disinformation coming straight out of the white house in the mouth of the president of united states who took to the television at 2:00 a.m. to live to the american people. , yourriahna joy gray response to what trump said? secretaries of state, republican and democrat come have repeatedly wned -- they are the ones in charge of state election. have repeatedly warned that they have to be able to have time to vote, to count that vote, and

yet president trump -- while he once every vote counted in arizona because right now biden is ahead, fox called it and see itid not and mark kelly come the democrat has beaten the seating senator martha mcsally in a special election. is in arizona. he once every vote counted there but in pennsylvania where he repeatedly has gone after absentee ballots, calling them fraudulent, he once the voting stopped. interestingly, he says this is going to go to the supreme court. like forget the other courts that may lead up to the supreme court, he is taking -- his suggestion was to his court. was the game, this plan that a lot of very sensible folks warned about. bernie sanders predicted this almost word for word on the late-night showarlier this week.

that is part of why it is so frustratin this race is this close to begin with. as i also predicted on the podcast, i sit it this is a landslide, biden carly wins and congenital -- declare victory on tuesday or wednesday rning, then we are in good shape. but if there's any ambiguity, we are at donald trump will try to railroad through a result of his liking. the reality is, and i think trump and republicans recognize, they are a lot better these kinds of strategic fights. it is not that they are fair or legal, but republicans are willing to scrape and fight for every advantage in a way that, as we just saw in the amy coney barrett debacle, democrats simply are not. in a situation like this where there is the ability to create ambiguity even if there is not in fact ambiguity, it is hard for me to imagine the steps

democrats will take to prevent this from going to a favorable court for donald trump and for this being a redux of the year 2000 -- the 2000 election. after which, electoral reforms were not put into place. let's talk, ben jealous, about the position of biden. as you said, this race is way too early to call. i want to talk about the kind of organizing that you have been doing. it president trump refuses to accept the counting of the ballots -- it has been amazing over the last few days to see that wall go up around the white house. wire and then it , preparing, not clear, for what. i should say yesterday he had hundreds of people in the white house starting at 7:00 in the evening, again, the issue of the

white house becoming a hotspot, a super spreading event in itself, and they stayed until well after 2:00 in the morning when he gave his speech to cheers as he talked about his victory and the fraudulent election. but i want to go to the issues of joe biden. you ran for governor of maryland and the kinds of issues that you represented and the kind of issues that biden really stayed away from. that is the issue of medicare for all. joe biden says he would veto it if it came to his desk if you's president. if it came to his desk, that would mean republicans and democrats would have had to endorsed it. the issue of the green new deal, clear he was not endorsing a green new deal and also that whole issue of fracking that he once said he was against and -- once said he was against and then said he was for. but do you think rather than

adopting a progressive position that would mobilize voters -- it is not the progressives don't have somewhere else to go, especially when it comes to trump. they can decide just not to vote. joe biden played his playbook, looks like it will win the presidency for him. with that said, the playbook of the party has to shift. the party has to run toward the people of the country, run towardts base. ala, quite frankly, has more of that in her. i've known her for years. the future of the party has to be to fight for every single vote, to be clear to working-class men of all colors that we have a vision for your economic prosperity. because right now you're seeing trump get more men of every color then he should. it is a real appeal to patriarchy. you have to replace that, frankly, with a strategy for how you're going to shore up people

economically. when they're falling through the floor, they will grasp for anything. we have to really fight for every latinx vote. we have to fight for every black vote come every young person's vote. and that means we have to be a party that is unabashed about pushing for a vision that actually saves the planet, provides health care for everybody, and provides a pathway to economic success for everyone and in the country. we are supposed to be the party of fdr. now, i am hopeful that joe biden can be that president even if you was not that candidate. what that is going to require is for us as a move to push him to his better angles. we will be optimistic. joe biden will win and then we will push him -- as fdr set himself -- we're going to have

to go make joe do a bunch of things that our children born and yet unborn need us to do in order to secure a better future for this country and our planet. amy: i want to bring in another guest and i also want to say, juan gonzalez was cohosting today. because we're living in these pandemic times, we're socially distance and he is having problems with his computer. i wanted to bring in john nichols, who is currently in madison, wisconsin. the presidential race between donald trump and joe biden remains too close to call as we have said throughout the show where we are broadcasting this in the morning of the day after the election. are still being counted in a number of states. biden is leading in wisconsin by just over 20,000 votes as we broadcast with an estimated 97% of votes reported.

in michigan, trump is leading merrily by 24,000 votes but detroit is expected to take until sometime tonight possibly to complete its count of absentee ballots and then you have grand rapids and other places, there ballots have not fully been counted. we're going to wisconsin where we are joined by john nichols, the nation's national-affairs correspondent and host of the podcast next left. his most recent book is "the fight for the soul of the democratic party." john, talk about what is happening in wisconsin right now. before we were speaking the margin was much tighter, it has increased to 20,000 joe biden had. talk about what has been counted, what hasn't come and what your assessment is of what is happening in wisconsin. >> thank you for having me on, amy. what a night it has been. i can tell you that as i look

around wisconsin -- and i just got off the phone with some key players around the state and party folks and local officials who were all up through the night -- it does look -- again, we will see what may be out there, but it looks like e lead tos a sufficient win wisconsin. i know that ,000 votes seems like a very small margin, but you should understand that it is almost twice what john kerry won the state by in 2004 and i must four times what al gore [indiscernible] battleground state. a look around the state right now, it appears that the key places have reported. had quite aump

substantial lead. in many ways, the reporting on help the media covers election night. it was reporting for more rural areas and suburban areas. it takes longer to count a lot of votes in big city. so milwaukee took until around 4:00 a.m. [indiscernible] amy: we are losing you a little bit. your spe is gog in and out. if you could repeat what you said about milwaukee? >> i apologize. amy: we're going to go to break and try to fix this, even if we just get you on audio. this is absolutely critical what is happening in wisconsin. john nichols, the nation's national-affairs correspondent and host of the podcast next left. we're also talking to ben jealous, head of the people of

the american way and has a usa editorial, -- "election chaos," as well as briahna joy gray, former national press secretary for bernie sanders 2020. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "how long must i wander?" by nina simone. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. as we talk about this day after election day, the day that so many around the country have warned, especially secretaries of state, we will not necessarily know who won the race for president, not to mention any senatorial race is, congressional races that the ballots must be counted. the ballots that were cast on election day and the ones that were cast early. there was a record shattering than 10101 -- more

million people cast votes early in this 2020 election. workr an absentee ballot early in-person voting. and all those votes must count. many races are still in contention. somebody -- some have been called. jealous, president of people for the american way, former president of the naacp. briahna joy gray, former national press secretary for bernie sanders 2020. john nichols is the nation's national-affairs correspondent and host of the podcast next left. his most recent book is "the fight for the soul of the democratic party." briahna joy gray, if you can talk about the kind of organizing that is going on right now we have president trump announcing he has won in

these elections are fraudulent. if the states do not call for him, he wants -- fox and av have called it for joe biden, but in pennsylvania, he wants these absentee ballots, the voting count to stop. talk about the organizing before the election to get people to vote and what is happening now and what you want -- how you want to see the democric party respond. herethink the real story is the extent to which certain really key demographics who uly comprise the democratic party base were completely either ignored or undervalued or those votes were assumed and not actually earned. so there was a lot of talk about the importance of black and latino voters during the primary. that quickly dissipated in the general when it became assumed

because donald trump is a racist who has backed number of policies that disproportionately keep arms on this groups, those votes would automatically come over to joe biden. people do and can stay home. exit polls show donald tmp did better with every demographic group except white men. nds down with white men whe women. that is something people are going to have to deal with. my former colleague at the intercept came out with the video earlier this week in which she interviewed and profiled philadelphia voters, predominantly black voters. several of the men that were spoken to said, no, i'm not going to vote for joe biden because it was his policies from the 1990's that resulted in so

many of my friends and family wasting their lives in jail. and they can't get that time back. there other black voters she resignedwho sighed and fashion is that, yes, and voting for joe biden but i'm not enthusiastic about it. the crime here is that the vote is this close. all democrats are looking hopefully to the return from ese major urban areas, blacker and you know, supposedly more democrat than the rest of the state, it remains to be seen whether or not joe biden did enough to demonstrate that black voters faithfully voting for democrats in 90 plus percent numbers the last 50 years has resulted in sufficient return on that investment but they're going to do so this time around. amy: i want to go to john nichols in madison, wisconsin. john, i think we can hear you better on the telephone. if you can explain what is

happening in milwaukee, green bay or president spent a lot of this and the votes at point, about 20,000 apart, very close race but joe biden does seem to be ahead. >> looks like a very narrow margin but it is important to understand that donald trump only won the state by around 22,000 votes four years ago. in last six elections wisconsin, four of them have been decided looked to have been decided by under 25 thousand votes. this is what happens in wisconsin. the fact of the matter is, a lot of our media covered wisconsin last night terribly because they were looking at those early results and really underestimating what was sll out and where it was still out. you have to wait for the ballots

to be counted. when the ballots were counted in milwaukee, an account finished around 4:00 a.m., they brought additional votes for biden that closed the gap dramatically. in, -- when green bay came closer to 5:00 a.m., that put biden up i roughly 11,000 votes. amazingly enough, kenosha, where donald trump did his last campaign stop on the eve of the election, clearly intending to exploit the story of what had happened in kenosha in august with the shooting seven times in the back by police officer jacob blake -- of jacob blake and then the shooting of two protesters by any armed white vigilante on the streets, trump is trying to exploit that. in the end, kenosha produced another almost 10,000 votes joe

biden. what we are looking at right now is the circumstance where biden has a lead. the vote appears to be overwhelmingly and it doesn't look to be anything substantial out. and wisconsin has never had a recount where you overturned 20,000 votes. that has never happened. when i spoke this morning to the chairman of the democratic , he wasof wisconsin feeling very confident. if i can add one final thing, coming off what my friends have just said moments ago is get to the heart of the matter. at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, folks and activists got the word that milwaukee vote was not sufficient or do not look the turnout was sufficient. in a massive final push was put on in the last four hours using social media and everything they

had. all of this focus went on in milwaukee. is, they of the matter possibly come activists and some democratic party folks, really put biden over the top and literally the last hours. amy: i want to say as we are broadcasting this, in michigan, 64% of the vote has been counted in wayne county, which includes the largest county in michigan and includes detroit. it is a very close race. gone down from president trump being hundreds of thousands of votes i had to now thousands of votes i had. he has 49.4% of the vote combines 49%. georgia, percent remains to be counted overall and michigan. 14% means to be counted and pennsylvania, 25%. a quarter of the vote remains to be counted. want to askay, i

about media coverage of how value and what they what they don't come especially under the corporate media. raising issues of concern like the latinx population d the african-american population not responding as much to biden's message. >> well, the corporate media lied to ericans about what electability entails. principally, the primary, by pretending as though the 13% of voters in south carona that participated in the primary were a good bellwether for help various groups of people of wouldacrosshe country vote, particularly in the states that are actually game changers on election night like south carolina. what bernie sanders was winning the

latino vote was a race. small nonwhite population, 10%. bernie sanders dominated because the campaign invested early and thought it was important to station campaign workers outside of meatpacking plants to communicate to the various communities there. despite all of the coverage and back and forth about the culinary workers in the so-called abe they were receiving from bernie supporters, they broke with leadership in this predominantly -- he worke supported won the majority of the vote. when that happened, had workers and, well, i will wait to see what happens when nonwhite states vote. vote,iverse states completely erasing any voters of color that were not black. and now we're seeing what is happening. one other aspect was the narrative about florida and how bernie sanders cannot possibly when there because of the

socialism smear and how that was going to affect more conservative latino communities. that smear was still applied and appears to have to some degree to joe biden but what you don't have is the positives ability to write on incredibly popular programs like medicare for all student debt cancellation and a more progressive immigration platform and joe biden had. and so it looks as though joe biden strategy to get the defector republican did not work. there were not enough of these moderate republicans to go after. who knows how many genuine progressives or working-class people who simply need material uplift that could have been delivered by the progressive policies, who knows have any of them could have come er to our side? one last point, if you look at the fa florida passed a $15 minimum wage but did not vote for joe biden, see the gap

between the politician a the policy and what might have been able to be achieved ifoe biden had in fact allowed himself to be pushed left in a way he wasn't. even in the midst of the biggest protest in market history, he did not dge. the work of activists -- amy: i want to read a statement from biden campaign manager. he said "the president statement tonight about trying to shut down accounting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect. having encouraged republican efforts in multiple states to prevent illegal counting of these ballots before election day, now donald trump is saying these ballots can't be counted after election day, either. ben jealous, finally, where you see what is happening going today? the headline of your op-ed

"election cows: keep calm, keep counting, get to work." you know what happened in 2000. you know when the recount was happening in the bush v gore presidential race in florida. a group of republican operatives posing as grassroot activists, many of them coming from washington, stormed the area where the recount was happening and stopped . that ultimately threw it into the supreme court, which made the decision. we know that, certainly, donald said knows that route and very ominously last night, "i will take this to the supreme court." not saying he was going to take it up to the supreme court, but right in the supreme court. >> what we are in the midst of right now is an epic radel betweenoney and people. our country, those are the

two forces. folks who organize money and folks who organize people. donald trump has installed justices wing pushed by organize money that is keen on destroyinghe affordable care act. on the other hand, joe biden has organized the inner capeople, he has won the national popular vote -- i thk he is up more than 2 million at this point. we just have to keep calm because it looks like not onl is he won the national popular vote but he wi win the electoral college vote, too. whatever america should be doing right now whos outraged by the president's attempt to steal this election, special interest who are pushing them to do that and push through amy coney barrett come is to make sure that your orgaze. you have to be organize. there will be protests across this country today in response to the president's outrageous comments last night. if you feel safe being at them, should be at them.

you should sign up with groups whether it is people for or move on or naacp or color of change, we have to be organize in this moment. once we win, and i do believe we will win, we have to make sure that the national popular vote counts. we have to end this crazy sort of gerrymandering a presidential politics where entire demographics are treated like they don't count, entire states are treated like they don't count. and the american people, frankly, whose eyes glaze over when they see and their faith starts to wane wn they see the popular vote not matter, presidenti after presidential after presidential -- i would say 2, 3. turn out to vote. make sure every focus counter. make sure every vote matters. amy: ben jealous, thank you for being with us, president of people for briahna joy gray, the american way. briahna joy gray, former national press secretary for bernie sanders 2020. co-host of bad faith podcast and john nichols of the nation

magazine. that does it for enormous thank you to our entire team. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] awc

♪ thank you for joining us from our studio in tokyo. this is nhk "newsline." we begin with what's become a very close race in the united states. so far neither republican incumbent donald trump nor democratic challenger joe biden have secured the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. u.s. media reports the trump campaign said it has filed a lawsuit to contest the outcome of battlegrounst