maricopa county in arizona, which was run entirely by trump allies has come to the same conclusion every other review has that joe biden won and donald trump did not. in fact, this review which started five months ago and cost $6 $6.1 million, including half a million dollars in tax payer money, found that biden won by an even larger margin than previously thought. so you would think this would be the end of these trump-backed sham audits, right? this would be -- let's just move on here. sort of, you know, pretend this didn't all happen but it's not. moments after a draft of that report came out today, trump issued a statement saying, quote, the audit has uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of fraud. this is a major criminal event and should be investigated by the attorney general, immediately. spokesperson for the audit, meantime, told an npr station in arizona and i quote, was massive fraud or anything? it doesn't look like it. well, trump's lies and his ongoing effort to overturn the election continue even today in places where trump won. i mean, just take texas. a state tru

the fact that maricopa county said they did not have the hardware tokens necessary in order to see if their election equipment was connected to the internet or not is extremely, extremely alarming. the accountability -- the county needs to hold vendors accountable. we may use subcontractors, but the responsibility always falls on the county. therefore, they need to always have all access. that should not be something they can relegate to someone else. machines should have paper backup ballots which to make sure the vote was cast as intended and it should be part of the maintenance schedule. one of the things that was found in some of our examination, the paper ballots, a lot of things were miscalibrated or otherwise not following general manufacturer guidance. if we want to make sure that we get the intended results out of things always, we should make sure that whatever goes through logic and accuracy testing, whatever the standard equipment being used is the same thing being used on election day. if you are testing with something different than what is happening in the real world, i

cnn's kyung lah is live in maricopa county with this.m the cyber ninjas with partisan ties. if anyon

cnn's kyung lah is live in maricopa county with this. this is the report from the cyber ninjas with partisan ties. if anyone was going to find more votes for donald trump, the thinking was among some people it would be the cyber ninjas. didn't happen. . >> at least not in one part of the report. you're talking about the draft report, john. and the headline you're talking about is in regards to the hand count. now, that hand count found that joe biden increased his lead. he picked up 99 votes. and donald trump lost 261. it is negligible. it didn't impact anything. we need to view the entire report with healthy skepticism. having been there, having seen this process go through, it has been riddled with problems despite that skepticism. we are seeing the republicans in maricopa county, who have been questioning this process the entire time, the ones who oversaw the county election jump on this data set. and we are seeing from jack sellers, chairman of the maricopa county board of supervisors releasing this statement saying, quote, this mean

i am very proud of my team as the former maricopa county recorder and chief election officer for maricopa county. and i think we have got to pay close attention specifically to this race. >> ari berman, what are they doing in texas? it was already one of the hardest states in the country in custom to vote. they have already taken what the "new york times" are some of the most secure ways to vote and taken them off the table because they were available to people in largely democratic counties. they all but overturned roe. they have overturned -- what else are they trying -- what is the end game in texas? >> they have really given the game away in texas, nicole, because they are only auditing the results. i don't know what it means to audit it in texas. but they are only so-called auditing the result in the four largest counties in the state three of which went for joe biden. so they are only auditing the results in the fast-growing counties that are trending blue, places like harris county, that are the future of texas, the diverse, multiracial, bluer version of texas. that's what they are

that's what we've done at maricopa county. the rest of the republican party needs to do, facts and rule of law. >> we're big fans of facts here at cnn. there are big questions about the future of u.s. democracy here. are you concerned we're witnessing the decline and erosion of u.s. democracy? >> yes, i am, and i've written on this topic. this is not a republican/democrat right/left issue. this is about our democracy. sadly never in our history have our institutions been attacked so much. i'm very concerned that 2022 for the republicans is just going to be attacking elections officials, and that's going to be the path forward. if we do that, we'll continue to sh tear at the foundations of our democracy. it's time to try and win in 2022 on the facts an great arguments. >> bill gates, i appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. constipated? set yourself free with fleet. gentle constipation relief in minutes. little fleet. big relief. try it. feel it. feel that fleet feeling. >>> germany is bracing fo

. >> reporter: clint hickman, a trump supporter who was then the chair of the maricopa county arizona> i'm calling to let you know that the president is available to take your free. >> reporter: he let the call go to voice mail. days later he called back. hickman refused to pick it up. >> i thought it was something to do with election and operations and i was not prepared to talk about that. the governor of arizona had already certified it and the attorney general and secretary of state certified it. >> reporter: dozens of text messages and phone calls from the white house, from rudy giuliani, and also the head of arizona's republican party. >> i just talked to president trump and he would like me to talk to you. >> reporter: trying to put pressure on the maricopa county republican supervisors to intervene in a free and fair election that joe biden won. supervisor bill gates believes it was an attack on the constitution. >> i saw that a voice mail had popped up. it is unbelievable to hear, instantly i knew who it was, i knew that voice. rudy giuliani, america's mayor. >> it is rudy gi

it could happen. >> reporter: one thing that bill gates, that maricopa county supervisor told me, dont if it weren't for republicans who were willing to risk their careers, and were standing up for what's right, there might have been a very different outcome. and some of those elections officials are dealing with threats to their own lives. don. >> all right, drew. well, trump's big lie damaging our democracy. and now, it's embedded in the gop party platform. where does our country go from here? i've got preet bharara and also amanda carpenter to talk about it right after this quick break. today let's paint with new behr dynasty™... so that you can be proud of your walls. where's your furniture? oh we thought it distracted from the new behr dynasty paint color. let me take your coats. because behr dynasty only takes... one. coat. behr dynasty. go ahead, throw your wine on it. what? stain repellent. it's also scuff resistant. you're paying for that! introducing behr dynasty™, the best of behr. exclusively at the home depot. all the time in the world. it's just a saying. but today, for

>> look, maricopa county did everything they could to comply with this. it was simply unnecessary. and i think it is important to remind folks that this entire exercise was enabled by elected leaders of the state of arizona who are clearly running the state by conspiracy theory. and this kind of partisan activity, this partisan posturing is keeping us from dealing with real issues. arizonans are simply tired of this. they are -- we have real problems and issues that need to be dealt with. and our leaders are failing us on that. that's why i am running for governor, because we have work to do and i want to get the job done. and folks can jane me in that at katiehobbs.org. anyone looking to take further action based on this this report should not be taken seriously as a leader. >> i wonder where you see this going next, which state you see this going next to? >> we already heard about texas. looks like pennsylvania is trying to launch something as well. we have been having conversations around the country with other secretaries of state and election officia

maricopa county tweeted last night. cyber ninjas leading in effort by republicans to audit the 2020 presidential election in arizona. in a statement maricopa county board of supervisor chairman jack sellers says this means the tabulation equipment counted the ballots as they were designed to do and results reflect the will of the voters. everything else is just noise. nbc affiliate says it obtains the copy and the review widens biden's victory. the findings are scheduled to be released later today in the state senate. willie. >> an unhappy president waking up to this news that the cyber ninjas, conspiracy group with no credibility finding more votes for joe biden and fewer for donald trump. >> it should be the final chapter when you have a group as official. >> what a waste of time and money. we know this is not the end of it. donald trump put out a statement calling for greg abbott to embrace the audit of the texas 2020 results that he won handedly. he tries to pursue a 50-state audit. he does not care so much about 20

that's compared to what maricopa county did. i need to warn you that having watched this hand recount up close, we should approach anything out of this draft report or final report with some healthy skepticism and having read the draft report there is a lot of errors in it. but it did not stop maricopa county from issuing this tweet, this response, saying, quote, the #azaudit draft report from cyber ninjas confirms the county's canvas from the 2020 general election was accurate and the candidates certified as the winners did in fact win. unfortunately the report is also littered with errors and faulty conclusions about how maricopa county conducted the general election. board members and election officials will pay close attention to what is said at friday's scheduled senate hearing and share facts as needed. so what is going to be happening and just about six, seven hours is that you're going to seeing some that looks very much like a real senate hearing. there is going to be testimony by the cyber ninjas, the contractor hired

maybe we can get this thing fixed up. >> reporter: the maricopa county board of supervisors had just received this subpoena demanding election officials hand over millions of ballots to state republican politicians who were launching fraud investigations. >> he wanted us to turn over the ballots as soon as possible, so that the state senate could get to work. >> reporter: get to work doing? >> one of the object iives was get their hands on the ballot before the january 6th hearing in the capitol. they wanted evidence to support dese dese de-certifying the election. >> it's constitution dammed. >> one of the main reasons i became republican was because i thought the republican party was the party of the rule of law. >> reporter: in michigan, a wayne county republican official voted to certify the election, and changed her mind after a call from donald trump. >> i have provided them with a copy of my affidavit rescinding my vote. >> reporter: in georgia, trump not only called the state's top elections investigator. >> whatever you can do, francis. >> reporter: but in what now is being

the same problems with the data and the votes that maricopa county had.ms with 50,000 or 80,000 ballots. again, take those with a grain of salt because the cyber ninjas have shown us they don't know what they are doing. this is not so much about the result as keeping this alive. >> 20 seconds -- >> we are going to see more of that today. >> 20 seconds left, bram, quickly, with the news that the oversight committee is requesting testimony from cyber ninjas, what do you expect to be the first and second question to them? >> the basic question seems to be show us the money. this was a legislative function funded by dark money funders allied with donald trump. we don't know who they are. i think the oversight committee is interested in that. >> mark, ten seconds left. same question to you. >> same question? i think you are going to continue to see these efforts being discredited by democrats on capitol hill and elsewhere, but they are going to continue to go on as long as the former president continues to insist he didn't lose. >> graham resnick, mark murray,

now, also during the presentation election officials at maricopa county were live tweeting, fact-checking point by point, explaining how election processes actually work. now the arizona president has sent a letter to the state attorney general a republican also running for u.s. senate, asking him to consider an investigation based on this final report. back to you. >> thanks. natasha chen there. >>> one local republican leader is not on board with trump's lie. bill gates is on the mare cope pal board of supervisors. he said his party should move on and push back against mr. trump's lie. this is his reaction to it all. >> i was very pleased to hear that the count of the ballots by the cyberninjas came out almost exactly as the count game out for maricopa county, that was very encouraging. i was frankly surprised by that but what i was discouraged by was the fact that this afternoon long hearing that you've been hearing about is basically the cyberninjas -- it's like we're watching reruns on tv. these are the same sorts of things that they've will be throwing out there for months. half tru

-backed review of ballots in maricopa county? confirmed what we have all known for some time and what millions and millions of peoplef in the country know. >> reporter: the review, funded by nearly $6 million from trump supporters, was run by cyber ninjas, a firm with no prior experience running official election audits. county officials said the review, which also cost taxpayers $425,000, was littered with errors and faulty conclusions. during the hand recount, volunteers spent weeks searching for signs of fraud. many of the state's top republicans calling it a waste of time, pushe without evidence by the former president. >> there's absolutely no evidence of fraud. so he's simply making this up. >> reporter: but similar 2020r: election probes are ramping up, from trump supporters in other states, including texas, where state officials this weekk announced a review of four counties after trump called for it. meanwhile, four key trump associates have been called to testify on the president's action in the build up to january 6 at

this organization did in arizona, but they affirmed what we already knew, that joe biden won maricopa county do you see when you look at this process? nate: you are right to hesitate in calling it an audit. audits are good things. every state should audit its elections, but that is not what this was. this was part of a coordinated disinformation campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the election. that the whole goal here after the fact, many months after the fact, now almost a year after the election, was to cast doubt on the basic machinery of this election. even in the public reception of this draft report, the fact that cyber ninjas did not find that it affected the outcome has not decreased speculation or this lack of confidence that the audit process is generating. william: for people who have not been following this circuitous process, this is bizarre they went about this. people had no experience in election law. they spent time searching for bamboo fibers, looking for counterfeit chinese ballots. the whole process seems bizarre, is the official term i think for this nate: one of th

the final report of findings adds votes to the final biden tally, specifically in maricopa county. >> this is inspiring copy cat tactics in other areas. republicans in states like wisconsin and pennsylvania along with states that trump won like florida and texas, they're now attempting to conduct bogus audits of their own. natasha chen joins us live. what can you tell us about results of the audit, it didn't turn out the way i think the former president expected. >> reporter: boris, the key thing to know from the final report is that joe biden did win maricopa county as we've known almost a year. his supporters didn't fix ate on that part. the presentation of the final report lasted three hours and the ceo of cyber ninjas, the group hired to do the audit that lasted five months, a group that had no experience auditing elections. here's the couple of minutes he spent talking about results of the hand count they did. >> you take a look at the presidential race, trump loses 261 votes from official votes, biden gains 99. juror again son loses 204 votes. these are all small numbers when yo

so this has been a problematic review process from the start, and here is maricopa county supervisor bill gaetes talking about how this went down. >> those behind this, they don't have reverence for democracy. they are trying to sow doubt so that down the road, they can again question elections if they don't turn out the way they wanted them to. >> reporter: and some of the issues, just some that we have observed over the past five months include changing processes and how they are reviewing the ballots. of course election officials say that any legitimate audit should have a consistent method and that did not happen here, and of course, again, a lot of taxpayer money spent, a lot of anticipation into the final results that have been delayed for a long time, and finally, we're going to hear what they have to say in less than an hour. allison and victor. >> natasha chen, we will be looking forward to that. >>> the former president's conspiracy is sadly living on in texas. former president trump wrote an open letter to governor greg abou abbot demanding an audit in his state, and it pl

i wanna play for you but the republican vice chair of the maricopa county board of supervisors said about that so-called audit tonight on cnn. >> the cyber ninjas, they came into this with preconceived notions. this should be something that can turn the tide. this could be the beginning of the end of the big lie. but what we need to really accomplish this is now have our elected officials, republican elected officials, like we've done in maricopa county, stand up. leaders here in the state and say okay, this needs to come to an end. joe biden won, it's time to move on. >> time to move on but i guess, will they? first of all, cynthia, what is your reaction to the outcome of this? will fare be, and do you think to these reviews, or is that parcel of u.s. politics that audits can go on indefinitely even in states where the accusing party actually won? >> you know, this is a big week for the big lie. first we had the reviews from the investigation which was supposed to expose the big lie and before the big lie about how trump was hounded. that went down in flames, and nothing happened with th

we just got a tweet in maricopa county, we're expecting this report on the review, whatever we want toarizona. here is what maricopa tweeted, the arizona draft report from cyber ninjas confirms the county ice canvas was accurate and the candidate certified as the winners did, in fact, win. almost simultaneously this report in the washington post i just mentioned it that the texas secretary of state's office is announcing an audit of the 2020 election results after trump called for one. i don't think we need to remind people he won that state. >> yeah. yeah. small detail. he won texas. look, this is an absolute waste of taxpayer time and money. it's up to the citizens of those jurisdictions to express their outrage about it. the rest of the country just yawns because the reality remains the result maricopa county put out tonight, hey, we called the election in november. we certified the election in november. all we see now is the same information coming back the exact same way. this idea by the way of a forensic electoral audit is a fiction. it doesn't exist in law. it is a waste of tim

the partisan effort led by a group called the cyber ninjas concluded that joe biden won maricopa county with 360 more votes, by the way, than the county had in its original tally. now, despite the affirmation of biden's victory, gop-backed audits are still pushing ahead across the country. texas is becoming the latest state to re-examine the results of the 2020 election. nbc's steve patterson has been following this for us. steve, what's the latest you're hearing on the outcome of this review in arizona, and also, what can you tell us now about this new effort? texas? >> reporter: well, lindsey, let's start in arizona because i think reaction really depends on if you see this as part of the battle with larger implications or really the war. certainly if you're one of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of trump supporters that were told, by trump, that there would be some evidence of a rigged election from this audit, you may be disappointed. so far, nothing has been proven true, except that it bends even more in biden's favor. certainly none of the allegations, none of the c

maricopa county is the county in arizona with the largest population. reggie: chuck schumer plans to hold a vote on monday on plans to keep the government open. it is expected to fail because it raises the debt limit and republicans don't what the country to borrow more money. the u.s. owes more than $20 trillion. the problem is it could cause a financial crisis if they do not raise the debt ceiling. america would default on some of its loans. kamala harris is going to appear on "the view" this morning and is expected to touch on several topics including the pandemic, afghanistan, and voting rights. you can watch it at 10:00 a.m. on abc 7. kumasi: bold attacks in san francisco and now we are learning about another potential victim. reggie: you're looking at the stock exchange this morning where we are slightly down. we will have any update in a few minutes. >> came into my office and handed me the audio device and a usb drive. they were nervous and said it was actually sensitive. kumasi: the makers of the brand-new britney spears documentary dropping on

all day long the maricopa county government had to post realtime rebuttals and fact checks in response to all this we don't understand this this claims ominous claims from the audio et people giving the presentation today. the county government posted things like this. you are talking about this server named reweb 1601 yes that server connects to the internet. you were claiming that's a terribly ominous things to the server why does it connect to the internet? that's the server for the website of the maricopa county recorder office. this is not the election system, they explain. we shouldn't interest to explain this. you think you found this terrible smoking gun that something in the recorders office is linked it the internet. it's their website. websites tend to be linked to the internet. that's not the election. here is the elected county recorder himself having to do the same sort of baseline explanation rebuttal fact checking all day long. he reiterates what the county says yes the server is our web server it connects to the internet also, quote, none of this is the election system

"cyber ninjas" undertook a controversial review of the vote, and affirmed that joe biden won maricopa countyarizona. and here with us to look at the larger context is nate persily, a scholar of election law at stanford university law school. the "newshour". i hesitate to call this an actual audit, what this organization did in arizona, but they affirmed what we already knew, that joe biden won maricopa county and heon arizona. but what do you make of this when you look at this process? >> you're right to hesitate in calling it an audit. audits are good things. we know how to do election audits. every state should audit its elections but this is not what this was. this was part of a coordinated disinformation campaign to undermine a legitimate election and we should not put too fine a point on it, that the whole goal many month after the effect, almost a year after the election, was to cast doubt on the machinery of this election. as we've seen in the public reception of this draft report, the fact that cyber ninjas did not find that it affected the outcome hasn't sort of decreased speculatio

reinstated what we already knew to be true that president biden beat former president trump in maricopa countyhan we previously thought. it should end there, right? no, republicans crank up their efforts elsewhere. most recently in texas where trump won by more than five points. what's more? the bogus audits making claims and things like ballot irregularities that continue to sow doubt in the u.s. election system. grant wood is joining me now, attorney general of arizona who's now a democrat. good evening to you, grant. you have called this a clown joe, a joke, what do you say to our republican lawmakers specifically? two of the many lawmakers supported this and the unfounded claims of fraud across the country? >> well, those two congressmen definitely falling into the categories of clowns and jokes, there is no doubt about that. i don't know what happened to them. they're not playing the full backs. the idea that they are moving on these drifters who hit arizona up for $6.7 million. now they're going to other states including states that trump won. it's part, it's very revealing pamela. it sh

that the republican-controlled senate of arizona hired some weird stop the steal folks to do in maricopa county? well, we finally have the results and the republican-led arizona audit reaffirmed joe biden's win. ( cheers and applause ) i agree. well done. which brings us to a breaking news alert: >> late show breaking news >> stephen: the late show is ready to project that joe biden has won arizona. and therefore, joseph robinette biden is still president of the united states. we now go live to election headquarters to our number cruncher, steve kornacki, still standing by since last november. steve, what do you have for us? ( laughter ) dasmen it! i told you! i forget to feed him! ( laughter ) should have got him one of those cat fountains. ( laughter ) this audit is a crushing humiliation for the gop, because not only was biden found to be the winner again, but the search for fraudulent ballots actually yielded 99 additional votes for biden and 261 fewer votes for the former president. ( cheers and applause ) wow! wow! he leal did get tired of winning. ( laughter ) the audit was conducted by

maricopa county supervisor, republican bill gates, bucked his own party to reject the sham process. >those behind this, they don't have reverence for democracy. they are trying to sow doubt so that down the road, they can again question elections if they don't turn out the way they wanted them to. >> reporter: but the former president continues to spread the big lie. on thursday, trump published a letter to the republican governor of texas, a state he won by more than five points, demanding an election audit while making baseless allegations. texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties. let's get to the bottom of the 2020 presidential election scam. hours later, the secretary of state announced that texas would carry out audits in four of the state's largest counties. trump's efforts to undermine confidence in the system is being embraced by republicans. in a recent cnn poll, most republicans said they want trump to remain their party's leader. and most republicans also consider support for trump and his false claim to have won the 2020 election to be an important part

even the audit by the so-called cyber ninjas found joe biden won maricopa county. he got 99 more votes than the county reported in november. and the former president? he got 261 fewer votes. but he says i guess that's winning to him. he lost maricopa county. he lost arizona. he lost the popular vote. he lost the electoral college. yet he continues to push the big lie. and the reason is both simple and terrifying for anybody who values our democracy. he does it because every time he raises questions, every time he sows the seeds of doubt, every time he pushes for another investigation in arizona, even though it makes him look like an idiot, a fool, a louiser. not make him look like a looser, he gets less votes. every time he pushes for arizona, pennsylvania, even in texas, a state that he won. he may be losing the battle, but he is winning the misinformation war. spreading the same big lie that exploded into deadly violence at the seat of our democracy. that is when bloodthirsty trump-supporting rioters tried to stop the certification of the vote. now i want you to

that's one point the maricopa county makes an issue of that makes this audit questionable because of the constantly changing methods, no bipartisan oversight and other issues. >> lot of energy from the crowd behind you. people they expected to expose the truth as they see it didn't come out with what they expected and they still don't believe now, cyber ninjas. >> they were based at the crazy times carnival. if that doesn't scream legitimacy, i don't know what does. joining us, grant woods, former republican attorney general of arizona. mr. woods, great to see you. turns out that donald trump lost arizona by more votes than we previously knew. are you surprised by the results? >> how about that, alisyn, crazy thing hand. i was in the downtown streets, bill murray came up and said hey, big news, joe biden won arizona. i said yeah, we knew that, you know, you told me that yesterday and the day before and over and over and over. that's how it works around here. these guys, you know, we have a combination of some grifters at the top, professional grifters, cyber ninjas milking this for m

and it's now completely undermined their own project by finding that biden, of course, won maricopa countys as sort of an unfortunate one off, the sort of left over of the big lie, or is there actually something more pernicious going on here? we now see other states with the sort of copy cat audits. >> well, that's right, laura. you hit on an interesting point. on the surface it seems like a good thing, right, even with all the partisanship and getting this going. the incapability in partisanship of the audit firm doing it, you still ended up with the correct truthful result. so that seems like a win for election integrity in our democracy. but as you point out, how did we even get here? how did we even get to a place where lawmakers, elected officials in office were permit today go through this sham in the first place? and you do see other states headed down that road. so unfortunately i think it's a mixed bag. hopefully the result here might cause some of those copy cats to take note and change direction. >> all right. meadows, scavino, bannon, patel, house officers subpoena trump allies

i want you to take a listen to maricopa county supervisor bill gates. he is a republican who bugged his party to defend democracy. take a listen. >> we certainly for the first time in our history, we did not have a peaceful transition of power. we now know that. but is that going to become the new norm? i certainly hope not. and by pushing back on this audit and the supporters of it and the dark money that's included in it, hopefully we can make this a one and done activity. >> reporter: one and done, though, is not what donald trump wants. just yesterday he sent a letter to texas governor greg abbott pressuring him to put in some legislation about bringing in arizona-style audits. and you mentioned it, kate, the secretary of state there announced that the four largest counties would begin those audits. kate? >> kyung lah, thanks for staying on this. joining me now is cnn legal analyst ben ginsburg. ben, let's start with arizona and then talk about the bigger problem because it's all intertwined. it is getting bigger. this was trump's best chance to pro

. >>> a bogus you had ait ordered by republicans in maricopa county arizona confirms what we all knew. joe biden won last november, and he won big, a big blow to the big lyle but trump and his supporters. we'll tell you about it next, and later, a mother's heartbreak after a body found earlier this monday was identified as her son, missing graduate student jal ha ni day. why bother mastering something? why hand-tune an audio system? why include the most advanced active safety system in its class...standard? because when you want to create an entirely new feeling, the difference between excellence and mastery is all the difference in the world. the lexus es. every curve, every innovation, every feeling... a product of mastery. get 1.9% apr financing on the 2021 es 350. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. that delicious omelet was microwaved? get outta here. everybody's a skeptic. paper money. it's the future! get outta here. i'm leaving with my gold. it's not crazy. help me, mother. it's an omelet. just crack an egg. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪

we know this audit, this review was just for maricopa county, the most populous in arizona. but what about other counties? what's next here in arizona? are you seeing reviews already under way in other counties? >> you know, we are already seeing cause for that to happen. i run one of the largest civic engagement organizations here in the state of arizona, and we are in, you know, pima, pinell, we're hearing from voters and voters understand that our elections were safe and secure. our voters also are asking that you keep these radical right individuals like mark fincham and donald trump cronies away from the actual -- away from our election data. we are seeing those calls. and pima county is our second largest, most populated county and that has been an ask and we're going to fight tooth and nail to make sure they don't do this. this is a huge waste of taxpayers dollars. we need to defend our democracy. >> well, it didn't end how they maybe wanted to, whatever their intention was. all right, arizona state representative reginald bolding, thank you for your time. >>> i want t

maricopa county supervisor, republican bill gates, bucked his own party to reject the sham process. >> those behind this, they don't have reverence for democracy. they are trying to sow doubt so that down the road they can again question elections if they don't turn out the way they wanted them to. >> reporter: but the former president continues to spread the big lie. on thursday, trump published a letter to the republican governor of texas, a state he won by more than five points, demanding an election audit while making baseless allegations. hours later, the secretary of state announced that texas would carry out audits in four of the state's largest counties. trump's efforts to undermine confidence in the system is being embraced by republicans. in a recent cnn poll, most republicans said they want trump to remain their party's leader. and most republicans also consider support for trump and his false claim to have won the 2020 election to be an important part of their own partisan identity, alongside support for conservative principles. nearly ten months after the 2020 election, t

maricopa county supervisor, republican bill gates, bucked his own party to reject the sham process. >> those behind this, they don't have reverence for democracy. they are trying to sow doubt so that down the road they can, again, question elections if they don't turn out the way they wanted them to. >> reporter: but the former president continues to spread the big lie. on thursday, trump published a letter to the republican governor of texas, a state he won by more than five points demanding an election audit while making baseless allegations. texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties. let's get to the bottom of the 2020 presidential election scam. hours later, the secretary of state announced that texas would carry out audits in four of the state's largest counties. trump's efforts to undermine confidence in the system is being embraced by republicans. in a recent cnn poll, most republicans said they want trump to remain their party's leader, and most republicans also consider support for trump and false claim to have won the 2020 election to be an important part o

ryan, was there any fraud in maricopa county, arizona?e has been no evidence of fraud in maricopa county in arizona. >> how many times was the count audited or recounted in arizona? >> county board of supervisors which is republican majority conducted two independent analyses of the election afterwards and found no issues. then the senate decided to take this third step. >> so there was no fraud detected in the count. it was checked two to three more times because of the political current. the maricopa county fraud-it done by the cyber ninjas happened anyway. and there are voter restriction laws being considered by the state legislature. what else has the big lie birthed in arizona? is there anything else we are not paying attention to, ryan? >> well, we are going to see when the legislature reconvenes. i mean that's what happened this week with the john birch society meeting. we had some people at that meeting shouting down lawmakers saying they didn't do enough to help president trump after he lost the election. i mean, that's a little

that joe biden won maricopa county in arizona. even a conspiracy theory driven fake audit that checked ballots for bamboo fibers couldn't invent enough evidence for the trump lie. one would think this would be a nail in the big lies coffin. but that is a reality-based approach to things. in this world, facts, they don't matter. the former president now sets his sights on texas, where everything is bigger, including his victory in the state, making it a bigger lie. in a letter to governor greg abbott he writes, quote, texans know voting fraud occurred in some of her counties. let's get to the bottom of the 2020 election scam. he won texas, yet it appears the state will comply with his demand for audit. in an attempt to keep the lie alive in georgia where are he is under criminal investigation for attempts to overturn the election, he will hold a rally there tonight throwing support behind her schel walker. we will hear more about walker than we will hear about the election fraud nonsense. meanwhile on capitol hill, key people who h

florida and has no experience in election audits yet they hired a team to examine ballots in maricopa countyth ultra violet light looking for bamboo in fake ballots. they pretended had possibly been shipped in from china. cnn's ken lau has been following all this nonsense from the beginning. is anyone of any substance taking any of this seriously? >> not of substance. conspiracy theorists will probably be paying attention. the blindly faithful to donald trump will probably take note of this. but election workers and election experts both republicans and democrats are widely saying this is going to be a giant joke. let's bring you up to speed. how did we get here? remember it was trump enablers, trump himself and all of his supporters and the republican electeds here who allowed this to happen. it was funded by conspiracy theorists, millions of dollars funded into this exercise. and then you mentioned the cyber ninjas the ones who actually conducted this beyond just having no experience. the ceo also tweeted and retweeted baseless election theories. election fraud theories. what you will see

i want you to listen to maricopa county supervisor bill gates. is a republican and bucked his party in the battle against the big lie. take a listen. >> we have to continue to tell the truth. we have to continue to push back against the big lie. those behind this, they don't have reference for democracy. they are trying to sow doubts so that down the road they can again question elections if they don't turn out the way they wanted them to. >> so what is down the road? well, we can tell you what's happening in texas. now just yesterday donald trump sent a letter, a public letter, to the governor greg abbott saying that he wanted in the special session legislation to allow for arizona-style audits in the state of texas and hours later the secretary of state in texas then announced that the four largest counties would conduct a recount of sorts, so, you know, john, it may be the clown show packing up here in arizona, but it is nowhere near being over anywhere in this country. >> nowhere near being over but you mentioned joe biden did win arizona and

maricopa county supervisor, republican bill gates, bucked his own party to reject the sham process. >tion elections if they don't turn out the way they wanted them to. >> reporter: the former president continues to spread the big lie. thursday, trump published a letter to the republican governor of texas, a state he won by more than five points demanding an election audit while making baseless allegations. texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties. let's get to the bottom of the 2020 presidential election scam. hours later, the secretary of state announced that texas would carry out audits in four of the state's largest counties. trump's efforts to undermine confidence in the system is being embraced by republicans. in a recent cnn poll, most republicans said they want trump to remain their party's leader, and most republicans consider support for trump and his false claim to have won the 2020 election to be an important part of their own partisan identity, alongside support for conservative principles. nearly ten months after the 2020 election the former president c

not only did the cyber ninja led hand count tabulate results close to what maricopa county reported. it determined that biden got 99 more votes than initially reported. trump? 261 fewer. so the fraud was on trump's count. right? wrong. why? because this isn't about fraud. it's about human error as is almost always the case. also the case, no candidate in the history has now lost an election more times than donald trump. we're waiting on trump to go bad on the same pawns doing the fraud it that he once praised. while we wait, here's what arizona senate president who led this had to say. >> the ballot counts were close to what maricopa county reported. and that is a true statement. >> 2.1 million ballots processed by hand. the ninjas say over 1500 people took part for a total of 100,000 hours. they were looking for bamboo in the ballots at one point. checking them for secret water marks to give credence to conspiracies that fake ballots were flown in from china. it was all b.s. no such fraud was found. so will this calm the conspiracies? will it stop the democracy demolition? >> this h

the rest of the country just yawns because the reality remains, the result that we maricopa county putwe call the election in november, we certified the election in november, all we see now is the same information coming back the exact same way. this idea by the way, other forensic electoral audit is a fiction. it does not exist in law. it is a waste of time. it is a waste of effort. the process eased that are in place under current laws, and subsequently revised, was not in this last cycle, but leading up to the cycle. had ensured this process to be fair and complete in dealing with the kinds of things that, you know, you need to do. canvassing and making sure that the ballots are where they need to be, etc. so all that we're seeing right now are republicans affirming what the country learned a new on november 3rd we proceeding a few days after the election. before the final announcement in certification of joe biden's election when it was made. so if you want to pay for it in taxes, you guys can pay for it. >> but what is confounding not that we're looking for a common sense in this

at the same time you have maricopa county election officials through their official twitter account theying to the public how election processes actually work and you've got ken matta the information security officer for the secretary of state's state telling kyung lah that 90% of what was presented yesterday was inaccurate. you have these copy cat efforts that you just mentioned in other states hoping to do third-party reviews like this all in efforts not to overturn election results, we know what those results are, but this is an unprecedented effort to politicize election administration and to sow doubt and crack at that confidence over election results, from he had. >> natasha chen, thank you so much from scottsdale. >>> let's talk more about all of this and more, with me now university of southern california law professor and cnn election law analyst ber neat at that tolson. good to see you, professor. boy, have you had an interesting week? >> absolutely. before i get to the other interesting part, let me ask you, how concerned are you about these partisan-led audits that they conti

this is all unfolding as the final report on the so-called audit of the 2020 vote in maricopa county says not only did biden win but by an even wider margin than previously believed. and the group that carried out the five-month review. meanwhile the president is trying to save his domestic agenda from falling apart. he is working to keep congressional democrats together ahead of the key vote next week on a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and advance his $3.5 trillion plan to expand the social safety net. this follows a chaotic exit from afghanistan, the delta covid surge, and the situation at the border. this morning, biden was asked about his campaign promise to bring competence to the white house. >> so what do you say to americans who say that you have not delivered on that promise? >> remember, i said it will take me aier to deliver everything i'm looking at her. that's number one. number two. take a long at what i inherited when i came into office. every element of my economic plan is overwhelmingly popular. overwhelmingly popular. but the problem is, with everything happen

even maricopa county's sham audit couldn't even come up with enough evidence to validate trump's claims of election fraud, his bogus lies about election fraud. but luckily for trump, yesterday was apparently opposite day. >> we won on the arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn't believe. >> all of that false. joining me now is katie hobbs, the arizona secretary of state. katie, we've known all along this was a crazy conspiracy theory-driven audit that wasted a lot of taxpayer dollars, wasted everybody's time. but set the record straight about what the final report actually said contrary to what trump just said. >> right. i mean to be honest with you, i didn't really take time to read the final report because this whole thing was a colossal waste of everybody's time. but what we know is their results showed that biden actually got more votes in arizona than -- or in maricopa county than the official canvass. but the rest of the report was filled with a lot of inaccuracies that basically shows that the folks running this sham, which we already knew, don't understand e

the family was from san francisco but had moved to maricopa county during the pandemic. >>> a sailor that got his start in the bay area is among the victims of a helicopter crash off the san diego coast. >>> the young family he leaves behind. >>> plus the important deadline looming tomorrow for teachers in one by area district. >>> our sales have climbed the roof. we have done well. >> pay area businesses cashing in on the holiday weekend and it is about location, location, location. >>> and starting tomorrow, cbs's morning news will have a new name and new home in the heart of times square and a new face on the anchor desk. analyst and former nfl nate burleson joins gail king and tony dacopa for cbs mornings after the kpix 5 morning news. california! all of our homes share power. but heat waves can stretch our supply to its limits. flex alerts remind us when to use less energy from 4-9pm. so we can all stay up and running. sign up today. . >>> local businesses hope to cash in on labor day especially on the coast. in santa cruz this is what the boardwalk looked like. the visitors enj

all along the maricopa county had to post real life time rebuttals in response to all of this -- we don't understand this, this seems ominous claims of the people. the county was posting things like this, all you are talking about the server, this server named reweb1601 yes the server connects to the internet. you will agree that this connects to the internet. you will agree that this is ominous. it connects to the maricopa county recorders office. this is not the election system, they explain, quote, we shouldn't have to explain. this you think you found this terrible smoking gun -- it is their website, websites seem to be linked to the internet. that is not the election. this is the elected -- doing have to do the same baseline explanation rebuttal, fact checking, all day long. he reiterates with the county is saying, yes, that's reweb1601 is our web server. yes, it connects to the internet. also, quote, none of this the -- none of this is the election system. this is the voter registration system. tsai. this is so irresponsible. this is incredibly irresponsible. they also approved, of

the findings from the partisan and conspiracy-driven so-called audit of arizona's maricopa county arey. to be clear, the results of this process are irrelevant. it was marred from the beginning by biased contractors, a partisan funding process and a phony procedure that included using uv lights to scan for wood fibers. joe biden came out on top in maricopa county, according to a draft of the findings obtained by nbc affiliate kpnx. nevertheless trump is pushing for more audits all over the country. he has pushed for an audit in texas, which announced an election audit in its four largest counties this morning, a state that trump won handily. jane, it's pretty much confirmed that the arizona audit will tell us exactly what we expected about the 2020 presidential election results. but the results don't really matter, right? that wasn't the point of this exercise, was it? >> yes, and the actual hand count, election experts say, can't be trusted because of the processes they used to do it. they note humans are not really that good at counting ballots. it's why we use machines in a lot of

at 11:00, the report from a republican backed review of the 2020 election results in arizona's maricopa county in. it confirms that joe biden won the election. in county. the much delayed report is from cyber ninja, a pro trump firm. they concluded the tally of the 2020 general election is accurate and the candidates certified as the winner did in fact win the election. according to the ninja count, president biden won by an even larger margin than was originally thought. >>> a live look at capitol hill after the house passed a bill that would guarantee a woman's right to an abortion. however, that vote is largely symbolic because republicans will not let it pass the senate. it is part of a plan by democrats to counter a new texas law that essentially bans abortions after six weeks. democrats say they'll do all they can to uphold the woman's right to choose. >>> the white house press secretary jen psaki is taking aim at instagram. during morning joe she was asked if the platform should be held accountable for negatively affecting mental health. she first cited president biden's belief that man