Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 11122020 20240711

8002. U are unsure, 202748 you can text us at 2027488903. On twitter it is cspan. Wj. And facebook. It is republicans only for that question. We will open it up tomorrow for democrats only in our first hour of the program as well. Good morning and welcome to washington journal. One of those former supporters and fox opinion commentator opinion writer in the wall street journal. Bases his peace. The headline, this election result will not be overturned. Occasionally change margins in the hundreds but not in the tens of thousands. It has been an unsettling year, at deadly virus claimed almost a quarter million lives, a lockdown demolished personal routines and left us gasping for normality, a sudden deep depression snatched newfound prosperity for families, so why not finish out with a miscast election as the finale . Trump is that mr. Pursuing legal challenges in pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, arizona, nevada, and there will be an automatic recount in georgia given bidens. 29 lead. Mitch mcconnell is right that mr. Trump is 100 to go to court 100 within his rights to go to court, but his efforts are unlikely to move a state from his column. There are only three statewide contents in the past halfcentury that recounts change the outcome, the 1974 New Hampshire senate race, 2004 washington governors contest and the 2008 Minnesota Senate election. He said tv network showed you point crowd celebrating mr. Bidens victory and the nearly equal number of people who mourn mr. Trumps defeat. U. S. Politics remains venomous. Closing out this election will necessary step towards restoring some unity and political equilibrium. Once his days in court or over, the president should do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go. The opinion of carl grove. The opinions of republicans only this hour. Should President Trump six concede . 2027488000 yes. 2027488001 if your answer is no. The headline about georgia, georgia announces a hand recount. That is the republican secretary of state who made that announcement yesterday in georgia, let us listen. [video clip] atlow current margin stands 14,111 between the president and senator Vice President biden. My office will continue to investigate each and every instance of illegal voting. Voting,oting, felon people voting out of state. If you report it, we will investigate it. Every legal vote will count. In the current election process is getting the final county certifications and, and then we will move to the risk limiting audit. Make00 p. M. Today, i will the official designation of which race will be the subject of the rla and designate that the rla will be the president ial race, with the margin being so close it will require a whole, by hand recount in each county. This will help build confidence recount,be an audit, and recampus all at once. [end video clip] host that is the secretary of state in georgia. More about that in the Washington Post and a quote from him that people will just have to accept the results he told the Washington Post. They write that in the political swirl that has enveloped american politics in the days since the president refused to concede concede, the pushback has come from the littleknown but hugely influential state official in georgia. Now a 65yearold Structural Engineer by trade is on the republican firing line on two fronts in an unimaginable confluence of events. He must provide preside on an runoff and a a disputed president ial election. Republicans only, should President Trump concede . 2027488000 if you say yes. 2027488001 if you say no. If you are unsure 2027488002. Lots on the no line. Terry you are up first, good morning. Caller good morning. Ok. I do not believe he should concede. I think that the whole thing was a fraud. They keep saying that he is a dictator by not conceding, but how about the news media dictating to us what is going on . We do not believe that this is the true count, i think the mail and has led us to a big fraud. Is weak. Ink biden if it falls into his hands he will fall into the left part of his party in this country will go down the drain. We republicans do not believe that this election was on the up and up one bit. I think the whole thing should be redone, never mind recounted. I think we should start all over, and people should get out and vote personally. If you can go to the food store, you can go here and there, you can go vote, and voting by mail has done nothing but make it their way. Columbiais in maryland. Should the president concede . Caller i do not think so, and i guess you are asking the question on the premise that there are 270 electoral votes granted to Vice President biden. I have not seen 270 be granted to him yet. Until that happens, i would not concede. Are you asking that question on that the 270 have been confirmed . Host yes. Meg are news organizations have called the election major news organizations have called the election for president elect joe biden. Somer there are organizations out there, and they seem to have a mix of votes. Right now they have them at 259. They have not ranted him pennsylvania, and i think that on the republican side of things, we find it extremely ironic that the battleground states are the states having the problem. We are not having a problem counting votes in california or oklahoma, and it seems to be the battleground states that go both ways and it seems like they are having difficulty getting their votes counted. It just seems very lucky for Vice President biden, or very suspicious. Host david in texas, also says no. Caller hello . Host good morning. Caller i find it ironic that supposedly we are supposed to take the pronouncement of the biden being in this position as president elect. 95 same news media that is been vilifying the president since the moment he was elected or before he was elected. We are talking about the only president in the history of the country that did not get a honeymoon period. Is average honeymoon period seven months. Obama got 11, and that is being generous. The democrats knew this was going to happen. This was never not going to happen moving to unsolicited mailin ballots. I know there is a handful of states that mail ballots to everybody, but they stay years cleaning up their voter rolls before they did that. That is how you get all the dead people, all the people who have moved and they knew that, and liked the cares act, that is one of the reasons it did not pass, because they had one of those things about not having signature imaginings. They are about doing things to make it on and possible to have a Fair Election and it is easy to them because they can control the voting in the city anders which are all blue manipulating enough folks like philadelphia and pittsburgh. T in pennsylvania, where host have they shown any evidence of manipulating the votes in the cities . Caller there is hundreds of whistleblower affidavits. Forget about that for now, take pennsylvania. Judge alito had them set aside supposedly any votes that came in after 8 00 on the night of the election. It is only the state legislatures that can make the election law. The state justices cannot do it, the governors cannot do it, city officials cannot do it and they changed a lot of that stuff. The biggest is that between that and the poll watchers refusing the republicans the ability to monitor the vote, there are hundreds of thousands that fall under those two categories alone, much less the hundreds of whistleblowers that they are prepared to mingle all of these things with. Lies pushediggest by the American Media is that there is no voter fraud. Wayhis case, because of the that the democrats manufactured a case where it is guaranteed to happen. They were ready to party the day masks or election no nothing. There were a bunch of masks but there were eight tons of people on the street ready to go and look at the pfizer thing. They had the announce at the results and couldve announced that earlier. The results of the pfizer drug. Host david we have lots of calls and a lot of nose and unsure. Mark says no as well. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call, he should not give in on this. There are too many unmet irregularities. We do not know how many are proven fraudulent. But, certainly, this is the process and it has been tainted. As a previous caller said, pennsylvania going around the constitution and the secretary of state and governor resetting and eliminating the safeguards for mailin voting. The eyes of the news media folks, they have to be on what is going on with the court cases and that is the only thing that will determine the final outcome of this. The president has legal challenges going on in court. That is what is going to determine how these votes come out. There are far too many irregularities. The Democratic Party did a systemic effort to remove safeguards on mailin voting. It is ridiculous to say that your vote should count even if it was not mailed in properly and does not have the proper signatures. Clay mark play from from louisiana. Caller he should not concede. To make aallow him point to the subject of your program. I do not think he should concede. The demo the Democratic Party that by him not conceding that he is screwing up the transition. Yourld like to say to audience that one trump was elected it was unexpected. With general finn, flynn, they sent the fbi. A minute ago i was watching the taped program on the liberal think think tank about how corrupt donald trump laws. 70 Million People voted for donald trump, and he will remain a force in politics for a long time. The Washington Post writing about the concerns about the concerns and the sick impurity committee. Of the security community. Has firing of mark esper injected uncertainty into the ranks of National Security leadership at a vulnerable moment in the United States, adding turmoil to a period that already carries risks for the nation. President trump has refused to concede and has print published spurious claims of fraud and has refused to give president elect biden aid to continue the transition. Theould jeopardize handover. Ohio republican senator tweeted this about that excludes me excuse me, ohio oklahoma senator tweeted President Trump is fully within his rights to ask for recounts. It is important that the 71 million americans that voted for President Trump at the end of that is all of their questions are answered. He also says that Vice President biden should get the president ial daily briefings. They have so far not allowed those to be presented to the president elect. Let us go back to your calls and comments. It is republicans only. In columbus. You say yes. Caller yes. I believe that the president should look at the country as far as taking care of the country. Themain thing of it is that president of the United States has a lot of power and, if he does not understand the calmness that he can bring to the country by understanding that the numbers showed that he should concede, and there is no other way to look at it other than he is trying to disrupt the country. There is no other clear path for him to go, but to concede. January, he has to leave, and he has to look at what he looks like after this whole thing is over with. If he wants to be reelected in 2024, he needs to look at the past he has to look at it that way. Host would you support him if he ran again in 2024 . Hower i would have to see joe biden does. I would have to see what his agenda would be at that time. I could not automatically just follow him. I am looking at the agenda and what is going on. Goingyour state is through a recount. 14,000 votes separate joe biden and donald trump, are you surprised . Caller yes i am. I believe that georgia is a republican state, but at the same time, there has been so the disruption around state, and it will continue because in january we will have to do the same thing again. Widespread, and it is getting worse. And, when we go out to vote again, there is another problem with that. So, i am very concerned. Host i appreciate that. To columbia, maryland. Bill, go ahead. You are unsure. What do you think will happen . Caller good morning. Thereason i guess really reason i would categorize myself as unsure, i think there is a very remote possibility that a few states could swing and he could reach 270. I agree that it is unlikely. 3 30 theke up about day after the election, just as was projected, he was ahead in all of the states that had not been called and was ahead by close by nine points in pennsylvania. Said, he like he projected, there are so many ballots out there floating around. And frankly i do not trust the democrats, and i think they should do their due diligence. There were so many red flags, not letting them in, and i think it was political malpractice why did they why did they not have and those closely contested states, they did not have republicans in there. It seems to me that every account there should have been a republican and a democrat. And, when you are not letting them in, and putting cardboard over the windows, it is just like all of these red flags, and i am certain that the democrat were involved in quite a bit of fraud, and i think it is important that it be revealed, even if it is not enough to bring them over the finish line. Host pennsylvania, the focus of the vote counting and legal efforts by the Trump Campaign, pat toomey was a guest on Washington Post live yesterday. [video clip] that does appear as though joe biden is likely to be certified as the president elect relatively soon so i think it would be better if he did begin a transition process that we have had in the past. My guess is that it will probably begin relatively soon. What gives you that confidence . I think that is where it is heading. Are republicans beyond like yourself the ready to take your position . I am just telling you, i think that is where it is likely to go. Biden to consider joe be president elect . As i said, there is a process we go through, and it is perfectly fine for the media to make their projections, and after a certain point the media has a certain amount of evidence to make those projections. Are being said, elections not determined by media projections, they are determined by counting votes. We are almost finished with the vote count in pennsylvania. We are not finished and other states and we are finishing. That is not the end of the process. If it is close enough there is an automatic recount whether the candidates wanted or not. If the election margin is narrow enough. It looks like this margin will be slightly outside what was automatic what would automatically require a recount but the losing candidate can seek a recount. That is probably going to happen. And then there is litigation. Society and our elections have negation pretty frequently. So, i think we will adjudicate several disputes, that is part of this process, it will be done soon enough, and i think the outcome will be clear. [end video clip] host senator toomey mentioning the deadline in one of the key states where the Trump Campaign is contesting the results. Georgia is going through a recount. There deadline, the original deadline november 13. Arizona, november 30. Pennsylvania, november 23. At counties are deadlines november 23. Nevada, november 24th. Wisconsin, december 21. Asking you, republicans only, should the president receive concede . Yes, 2027488000. No, 2027488001. Rigged says this was a election, pelosi admitted we will do anything to win. Yes President Trump should concede to the election and has damaged the party. Says jack. No, President Trump should not concede, al gore was given 37 days to contest to contest the Election Results and the dems need to let the results play out. Even if the results do not ultimately change it is important to see where there are security failures in our election process to protect the future of our great nation, that is melinda in ohio. It isin texas says texas not likely the results will change significantly, however President Trump is legally entitled to challenge the results and he showed, but the people deserve the truth about the election. I would not concede because until until december because biden is not president election president elect despite propaganda. Texas is next up. We hear from tony. Go ahead. Concedehe should not because we have already had that deal with four years of this. So along, hen saying all is not a republican and i do not want him to run again. If i had my choice, i would like to see him leave the white house like julian assange, that would be great tv. Host patrick says no, why . I am a good morning, reagan republican and a student of history, and i would like to my remind all cspan in 1960, Richard Nixon conceded with 100,000 dubious votes in cook county, illinois just as an example. Forcrats are notorious cheating at elections. Lbj did it. It goes on and on. Votes coming in at 4 00 a. M. In pennsylvania and pittsburgh, etc. And, ire just examples was also a poll worker in florida. My suggestion and you are going to be surprised that i would say this, there needs to be a federalization of the voting process. If you are going to have early voting, number one, use the florida model. Number two, have early voting happen and stop a week before november 3 so that all votes can get in before november 3. And host let me ask you about that. You call for the federalization of the process and call yourself a reagan republican. Andare asking washington federal officials to take over the National Election process. Given that there is already a level of distrust, a fairly high level of distrust among people in general and the Republican Party and that was President Trumps motto, drain the swamp. Do you think people in your party will buy the idea of the federal government running president ial elections . Caller looking at situations whereby state governments change the rules midstream, absolutely they would. We have to do something about the voting process, because i watched in my training as a poll worker, i was at our department of elections and in florida you can take up to three ballots to a sick mother or brother or whatever, and i watched group and bunches of people coming in with three ballots. Walkingy that i saw into the supervisor of Elections Office during early voting time had three ballots. Nobody had one, everybody had three, that is called ballot harvesting and i do not trust democrats in regards to this. They are masters at this and there needs to be a federalization and a republican representation and a democratic representation. Host is that because the law says the individual voting, only that person can drop off that boat, correct . Caller all i can say is that i did not see in my training people walking up with one ballot. I saw them walking up with three. So everybodys mother or brother is sick or whatever. It just looks suspicious to me, to some extent. You know, i do not know whether a person is a democrat or republican, i do not know many republicans who think through and figure out schemes to do november 3es work so well for so long for us in this country, to a large extent, and i think early voting has messed up the process. It allows for malfeasance, it allows for specific suspicious activity. Going back to the situations where supposedly there were ballots that showed up at 4 00 a. M. In the middle of the morning. Callere will hear from a in advance, North Carolina. She also says no. Caller he should not. The media does not make the call. The Electoral College does, and firsthas already told his law, because he was an interview and said until the election process was over, he would not accept, and now he is already gone out acting like he is the president , but he is not. Our president , and the people who voted for him have been homophobic. T we have been trashed for four years, and now we are supposed to accept the illegitimate upsident and just suck it United Country is not because of the media, and because of the misinformation that has been given out. It is sad. Whatever happens if the votes. Hows that he lost, he will but, he will not go against what the legal count shows. Host the president s former National Security adviser has an opinion piste in the Washington Post. This is what this is part of what he writes in that oped in the Washington Post. Trump has alldent legal right to ensure an accurate and lawful vote count. Candidateible, any must produce valid legal evidence. Trump so far has failed to do so. And there is no indication if he can. Hehe cant his right if cannot his right to protest is beside the point. The real harm is the gravest lack of trust in america constitutional system. Trumps time is running out as his rhetoric continue escalating and time is running off running out for credit four trump is enhancing his own brand in his mind while harming the republican brand. Internal needs a long, conversation about the post trump era and it needs to get there honorably. By concession of defeat President Trump will be a betrayal of his 2016 election of the people who supported and sustained him during his term in office and of the nation. Conceding to biden at any point will signal to the democrats that im sorry, that was another piece. The piece from john bolton is available in the Washington Post, Washington Post. Com. We go to mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. And greg is unsure. Tell us why. Caller i am unsure because i think in this situation, it boils down to although i am a baseball fan and there is no appropriate analogy, in football there have been games recently where you lead a team that has the ball score so you can get the ball back to score a touchdown to win the game. Opinion, itrsonal makes sense to concede to consider conceding now, and let the people who stole this election and i am convinced that they did prove to the American Public that they do not get more than two years to screw up the country. Now, stop wasting our time and the listeners time time with the Washington Post and the New York Times. We know what their opinion is. Someone der having a general has put out a video called hammer and scorecard. Somebody should talk to him and decide whether it is appropriate to have him on. I would listen to them. He makes a lot of sense to me. Finally, yesterday sunday called thefrom pennsylvania about postal worker, and he refused to agree that he recanted what the democrats said he said in the statement. Are you now telling us that you were wrong . There is actually some Additional Information on that, and if you give me a minute or two, there is a followup on that story and it is a bit complicated and it will take a minute or two. I promise you that we will read you the update on that, because as we were doing the story yesterday, that video had been released and he has done another video, this is the Postal Service worker. We will redo the story and where it stands. I will tell you about that in a minute. We will go to linda, and florida. Good morning. Caller good morning, how are you . Host doing fine. Newsr if any of you people are trying to spread propaganda, we get the constitutional federal laws that applies to elections, everybody would know the truth. You guys are saying that the president does not have the right, but he has every right, and that is the way that elections work in the United States of america, and anybody who does not know that has not read the law and does not understand how the constitution works. And this president is prancing andnd like he is in office is nowhere near in office. We all know and we all saw it on television exactly what was happening in pennsylvania and in other places. Newscasts should get out the constitution and read the electoral laws, it is right there and clear and anybody can read it. And l most any american can look it up, the election laws are what trump is allowed to do, and andary got a National News told biden do not concede no matter what because she is one of the because she knows what the law is. Host let us hear from joel. He says yes that President Trump should concede. Caller good morning. , a longtimelican republican. This is what is causing the country to be like it is. You have people calling them in saying that they are godfearing. Let me tell you something. You will all have to give an answer, republican or democrat. The man lost. He did not win the popular or electoral vote. In 2016, all the controversy how he won, and no one is bringing up any of that reality. You need to check your souls, all yours all of you guys talk about being christians. You better be fearing of god. Support,ou uphold or garbage in and garbage out. Host you mentioned Richard Hopkins, the postal worker that had originally reported some alleged issues in the voting in erie, pennsylvania. A couple of headlines and stories. The Washington Times rights that Richard Hopkins has gone from inconspicuous letter carrier to the 2020 elections bestknown whistleblower but he insists he would be rather he would rather be back in afghanistan dan remain in the media spotlight. Let me bring on the followup reporting of the Washington Post on their story and video released by project veritas. In an interview, a pennsylvania postal worker walked back his allegation that a supervisor tampered with ballots the saying that he made assumptions after about overheard snippets of conversation. According to an audio recording of an interview posted online by activists who champion his cause, the recording shows that Richard Hopkins recanted claims he had made and affidavits that Top Republicans cited as potential evidence of widespread election irregularities and fraud. He told federal investigators on monday that his allegations were based on fragments of conversations among coworkers in a noisy mail facility according to the recording. When an agent from the u. S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General asked hopkins if he stood by his statement that a supervisor was backdating map ballots . He answered at this point know and agreed to sign a revised statement that undercut his earlier affidavit. On tuesday, following a story in the Washington Post that quoted officials as saying how recanted his claims, he said in a video that he had not done so that the recording of the interview would show as much. During the recorded interview, however, federal agents reminded hopkins that his cooperation was voluntary and hopkins agreed to sign a document stating that he was not coheirs. He repeatedlyt expressed regret for signing dna facial affidavit the initial affidavit that it stated and overstated what he knew. He told agents that the by projectas written veritas and he was not fully aware of its contents. If projectlear veritas, an organization that use deceptive tactics to expose liberal bias and corruption in the mainstream media, and government and altered or edited the recording. The group had described the interview as a three hour interrogation said that a portion of the interview was not recorded. In a video published wednesday, hopkins said that in an interview that he felt like he got played by the federal agents. I cannot redo the whole article you can find it at Washington Post. Com and find other reporting. You can go to project veritas and see their latest video released on this and decide for yourself. A revisedgned statement recanting his original statement allegations of things he heard of in that post office facility. Roger inar from pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller good morning. Republican, and a constitutional student. While i was waiting i got out my copy of the constitution and says the congress may determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they should give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States. And, it is the electors that choose the president , not a popular vote or the people. Sincee had elections 1789, and some have been disputed, and some have not been. Ofe of the close ones one your earlier callers pointed out, the 1960 election which nixon conceded, and there is evidence that both sides probably cheated in that election, so we will never know who was legally elected president although president kennedy was inaugurated. I do not know if President Trump should concede or not. I think that his concession should be based on the facts, and that has to do with the recount, if there are suspicions and proof of irregularities, that should be settled before any concession takes place. Once a concession takes place, then that is the end of it. In addition, i think it is proper for whoever thinks he is elected to start the process of transition, because it takes a long time to get the handle on governing the country with cabinet posts and ambassadorial posts and thousands of appointments that have to be made and party ships and so on. Know that he should concede now. I think senator toomey had it right. At a time that it is clear, not by the news media, but by the states and Electoral College, once that is clear. Host i appreciate that. L published about mitch mcconnell. Mcconnell tread lightly in the postelection fight. He is walking a fine line with his handling of President Trumps refusal to concede. He is defending the leaders right to challenge vote counts, arguing that the courts are meant to handle disputed Election Results and that wealthy Media Corporation should not project the winner. But, mcconnell is also keeping his distance from the president s claims of voter fraud and that his campaign has yet to back up with any hard evidence. Joe biden yesterday as well as President Trump attending different veterans day observations, but on tuesday the president elect talked about his aim on bringing the country together after the election. [video clip] i think at the end of the day, it is all going to come to fruition on january 20. Between now and then, the expectation is that the American People do know and understand that there has been a transition, even among republicans who are people who voted for the president. I understand the sense of loss, i get that. But i think that the majority of the people who voted for the president , and a lot voted for him, a significantly smaller number, but a lot, understand that we have to come together. And i believe that we can pull the country out of this bitter politics that we have seen for the last five, six, or seven years. How do you expect to work with republicans if they will not acknowledge you as president elect . They will. They will. [end video clip] host let us continue with your call. Kevin in indiana says yes. Caller good morning. It is obvious that the mailin voting caused some problems this year. There is no way of tracking them, period. Is why his trump had lawyers conceal what they are showing for evidence because the evidence really is not there because you do not know how many families used to live in that household that voted, there is no way to track that. He might as well concede to the quick thing on republican and democrats. Trump was never either one. And that is why he won the first time and he lost the second time because he trusted his republican fellowship way too much. He should have done it different than what he did. But, he should concede, let the clinton machine continue on in this world for it is not a swamp, people, it is a global world against your individual freedoms that is america. Host richard in nashville, tennessee. He says no. Caller i would not concede. I have been watching this with trump from the beginning. I have been covering politics forever. When i was in college i was going to be a political major and then i realized how corrupt it was on the college level. Just trying to learn about politics. I would not concede, and i have been watching the clintons in arkansas. I lived in arkansas when clinton was in governor. I never saw how somebody could get so powerful in a short amount of time. Bill clinton had the charisma, ok. Charisma does not mean you can legislate or manage. The difference between trump and any politician, the general was right, it is the rhino republicans that have hurt him more. I think trump should fight this until the end. When i was a little boy growing up all i heard was that in america every kid can grow up and become president some day. With what trump has been through with everybody investigating anything and everything, making up things and all of this. I am not saying he is perfect, no man is. But for them to throw sticks and stones, now they will be throwing back at you. They put mr. Trump in a situation where he has to fight, not only for himself and his reputation, but he has to fight for us in this country. I am an independent and has voted both sides. I would never vote for a democrat again based upon what i have seen in this election and previous to this election. Host Louie Gohmert was on fox this morning. He tweets a couple of things. I believe the election was stolen and anyone who says allegations of fraud is unfounded or ignorant or so biased. You have more than 10,000 people dead people confirmed on michigan to have voted, that is outrageous. Pressthe detroit free said that internet sleuths used misinformation in an attempts to prove that dead people voted. Tryingller sleuths are to prove that dead people voted in the 2020 election using a list of 14,000 registered voters in michigan older than 100. They write that the secretary of state in michigan said that lists of unknown origin circulating on various Media Channels do not constitute credible evidence. Take care and in North Carolina to karen and North Carolina, she says no. Caller absolutely he should not. He should take every legal path that he can take tish and it is so obvious they cheated and how corrupt they are. The rallies,at look at all the people at his rallies and the biden rally it as joe biden deep beeping horn in a parking lot. They have been setting this up probably the last three years. And, i will ask not never except biden has my president s or kamala harris, because that is the real deal. They will pull him out and stick her in, it is like the movie dumb and dumber. Everyone sees the deterioration of his mind. No that joe, you say the president should not concede. Caller no. Because this would mean that donald trump would be conceding to the media. We should not believe anything the media tells us regarding politics because the media is corrupt and slanted. Columbia, mississippi. Eva also says no. Tell us why. Caller i am 77 years old. I do not trump should given. When i was in high school in the late 50s. A man beat issue on the desk and said america will fall into communist hands and we will never fire a shot, you will rot from the inside out like an apple. Hasamericans, the apple rotted and it is the democrats. Host the front page of the New York Times on the coronavirus. As a resurgence of the virus overwhelms the states, washington pulls back. When Senior Administration officials held their morning call one day this week they received a warning from the agencys chief, dr. Steven hahn. Block out all craziness and stay focused on finding the pandemic, he said. There are plenty of distractions, President Trump is pushing to overturn the results of the election and his only public statements about the coronavirus were to make clear that good news about the vaccine had not come until after election day even as the new number of daily infections topped 140,000 average daily deaths and they shot past the 1000 mark. Hospitalizations hit a record high of 65,368. Vice president mike pence canceled a vacation as the virus numbers grew worse. The White House Coronavirus task force that he leads has been all but publicly silent. Mark meadows who was infected with the virus cleared last month we are not going to control the pandemic so the focus should instead be on the longerterm goals of developing vaccines and treatments. Since then the white house political director, brian jack has become the latest official to test positive for the virus. Two people familiar with the diagnosis that on wednesday. The pandemic caught the nation flatfooted but epidemiologist have been warning for months about a fall and winter wave as people are driven indoors, schools resume inperson classes and americans grow tired of precautions, yet shortages of personal protective equipment are back among rural hospitals, nursing homes, and private medical practices that lack access to supply networks that serve larger hospitals. Texas. Rebecca in morning. Caller hello. Host you are on the air, go ahead. Caller i do not think he needs to concede at all. Some oft we watched the fake news. But he said he has done so much for us and it will be i praypitiful, so no, that he does continue to be our president. Innot, we will vote for him 2024. Host jerry, chicago. Hello there. Caller thank you for taking my call. I do not think that trump should concede. He needs to fight this all the way. There is a lot of corruption within his Dominion Software changing the Voting Machines to go for biden. Are i think the democrats evil, corrupt, and they will do anything to keep their power. Senatehere will be two runoff races in georgia coming up in early january with both of those candidates both of the republican candidates not getting over the 50 mark at the election. This is the Atlanta Journalconstitution writing loefflersier Campaign Takes aim at warnock. Toco rubio speaking in favor support the republican senators. Heres what he had to say. [video clip] this is literally a showdown of all showdowns in terms of politics and what it means. We do not want to win one of them, we want to win both of them, we need to win both of them. And, that is an extraordinary opportunity, so if you are a local politician, you if you are a local station you will make a lot of money in advertising. Youre going to have a lot of political visitors from across the spectrum coming to speak. What i learned last night is that they are inviting people to move here, because they can vote. [booing] mean, i have got to tell you, i cannot do that, it would create problems for me. But, that is how important this is, that is how much this matters. All i am here to ask you to do is to tell you that nothing is an exaggeration to what the stakes are, they are that important. I know we are going into december and early january and there are a lot of things that are going on in our lives, but this year is different. What an understatement, this year is different. And, it matters as much as any election i have ever been involved in. Host the Washington Free beacon writing about the group of former republicans trying to oust a number of republican senators and the headline here biggest losers. Pac goes 07. They write that the Lincoln Project spent 12 billion in support of them a credit candidates and all of them winning their races in 2020. In florida, you are next, the president should not concede. That is what you say. Caller i believe he should not concede because i believe it was all illegally done, this mailin voting is not right. I am an absentee voter because i am older, but i think that it is wrong, and it has caused so much confusion, and i just think he probably has won. I think it needs to be sorted out and taken care of before we make a decision. Host heres what folks are saying on social media. For trump,d registered independent, the media are served the fruits of their labor. They want to call the election prematurely well everyone agrees that trump has a fair right to challenge the courts. Elizabeth, our president should not concede, this election has not been manipulated by the Democratic Party. The pandemic was used to their benefit with the mailin ballots. I feel a recount would be useless due to all the fraud going on. Shamtrump should fight the ale and fraud, the discrepancies are too widespread. Revote with id. Hell no. And that is well from harry. Debbie says news outlets have proven themselves wrong many times, let the Legal Process play out what is to fear . Was a rigged election and pelosi admitted that they would do anything to win. Elaine is next. Caller he should not throw the towel in. I know for a fact that my daughter, who is x military, and she was outside of augusta, georgia. She received 11 ballots for her son who is a citizen of colorado, my grandson, and i have a girlfriend in missouri who she received a ballot for her mother who is been dead seven years. This election has been rigged, and that is why they wanted the mailin ballots. I pray to god that he has enough in him and he wins this thing, because if he doesnt, our country is shot. And i know for a fact that this is rigged. The American People need to stand up, and i am 67 years old. I am so mad. I have never seen an election like this in my matt in my life. This was premeditated and the democrats have done everything to destroy this man and now they are trying to take away his rights to be president. Host let us take a call from alabama. This is bruce. Welcome. Caller i do not think you should concede right now, but if it turns out if he does lose, you can walk away and rerun in 2024. But the democrat should be careful what they wish for, because Lindsey Graham and mitch ofonnell told them that all the stuff they are doing will come back on you, so we are going to keep the senate, and when we keep the senate we will keep biden in check. Nothing will come out of the house that will pass the senate, to all biting can do is talk a lot of Foreign Countries and see how much money he can make with them. Next, jason up snead of the group the honest elections project will talk about his organizations efforts to challenge certain results of the president ial election. Later will be joined by rupert Richard Gephardt to talk about the integrity of the 2020 election. Book tv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Saturday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, from the recent virtual southern festival of books, author sarah sharsh, Thomas Burton and Wayne Winkler reflect on life in appear latch i cant. And they discuss the jim crow era in the south. Then at 7 45 p. M. , new yorker staff writer discusses his book joe biden the life, the run, and what matters now. On sunday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, from the southern festival of books, journalist matthew van meter talks about his book deep delta justice, about a civil rights case who helped to reaffirm the right to a trial by jury in most criminal cases. And author Stephanie Gorton and chris hamby offered their thoughts on Investigative Journalism and its role in a democracy. Then at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words, a law professor talks about his book american contagions epidemics and the law from smallpox to covid19. Hes interviewed by a Georgetown University law professor. Watch book tv this weekend on cspan2. Add we look at the president ial election, we look into challenges facing the he leble early to college and potential reforms. Our guests are the manager of election law reform at the Heritage Foundation and a brook law School Assistant professor of law. Find cspans the weekly herever you get your podcasts. Washington journal continues. Host with us is jason snead, executive director of the honest elections project. Hes here to talk about the election, and the name of your organization kind of sets the tone of the discussion this morning, jason snead. The honest elections project, tell us about that and how your group is funded. Guest well, we are a nonpartisan election watch dog group. We were set up and we started this project earlier this year, because we were anticipating that this was going to be not only one of the most contentious election cycles, but wulls all of the most litigious, and we wanted to make sure that what got lost in the heat of the partisan fight that was at that point to come, we did not lose the principles of free and Fair Elections. So were working every day to defend the right of every american to participate in an election that they can trust and find legitimate. Host and youre funded by individual donors, by larger groups . Guest were a 501c3 nonprofit and we dont talk about donors. They respect their privacy, as do groups on all sides of the political spectrum. Host as you look at the president ial race, where are we now and how many legal challenges across the country has the Trump Campaign put forth . Guest well, there are a number of legal challenges that have been filed by the Trump Campaign or related entities, particularly targeting a few key states based on the results and what i presume to be a calculation about how they can get to 270 in the he leble college. Those states would be pennsylvania, michigan, arizona, nevada and georgia. Those seem to be getting the most attention. Most of these lawsuits, at least so far, focus on process questions. That is to say, processes dealing with either the recreate or the counting and tallying of ballots and allegations of some sort of either misconduct or mismanagement of the election system in the runup to or on election day. S host all of these states have statemandated deadline for providing the results from the president ial election. Do you expect that any of these legal efforts will push those dead the counting of the results past those state deadlines . Guest i think that remains to be seen, and im not sure exactly what still remains in the pipeline in terms of additional litigation, but certainly were seeing lawsuits filed almost every day at this point. You are right that states have deadlines and state laws certify elections and those are sort of spread out between now and the next few weeks, and then, of course, theres the ultimate deadline, which is the safe deadline for participation in the Electoral College. Thats in early december, a Lara Setrakian by statute by congress. States have to certify their results and produce a slaste electors before that in order to ensure that congress cant question the electors that they point to the Electoral College. I think at this point it remains to be seen exactly how long the litigation will stretch on for. It could all stop today. I dont think thats likely. It could go on for another few weeks. I think thats certainly a distinct possibility. Host i guess the question i ask you is where do you think that the Trump Campaign has the best case . Guest i think right now most of the action is concentrated in pennsylvania. And i think that in terms of the state that seems most primed for a lengthy litigation, it would be pennsylvania. The reason being that not only are you seeing lawsuits filed there, not only are there some concerns emerging out of philadelphia in particular of what seems at the very least to be poor management of their election system, but you also already had a case teed up in the Supreme Court dealing with the States Election day deadline for the recreate of absentee ballots and a previous state Supreme Court decision to extend that by court order three additional days to essentially render the requirement that a ballot be at least even postmarked into more of a presumption that even if it doesnt have one, that the ballot is still a valid one. So i think that right now pennsylvania is probably the oddson favorite to see the most litigation, but you can also see i think potential medical challenges in michigan, probably also again in georgia, and georgia, of course, is also headed to a runoff now where the state Just Announced theyre going to do a manual hand recount of all ballots cast in the president ial race. Host are they mandated to have that done by a certain time . Guest im not sure if theres a particular deadline, but i know based upon the process that its going take some time, and i think the secretary of state described it as a pretty heavy lift, so i think some patience there would be a good idea. I do think the recount is a smart move and is a wise move, because youre talking about a momentous election, and right now the vote count between joe biden and donald trump is separated by only about 14,000 votes, if i recall the numbers correctly. Host right. Guest thats a pretty narrow margin, so i think that a hand recouldnt will help to bring certainty to that. It will also help to uproot any potential irregularities, as well as disprove any rumors that might be circulating that have no basis in fact. Host we are talking about the Trump Campaign legal challenges to the votes across several states, welcome your calls and comments. If you are a supporter of joe biden and kamala harris, the line to use is you 2027488000. Supporters of sandrump mike pence, President Trump and mike pence, 2027488001. For all others, 2027488002. Jason snead with the honest elections project. Let me ask you about the Supreme Court. Do you envision any role, potential role for the court in any of these cases . Guest i dont think that im seeing a role for the Supreme Court just yet. But as i was saying before, i dont know what additional litigation there might be in the pipeline. I do think if there is a world in which the Supreme Court becomes involved, i dont think that were on that path just yet. In fact, i think just speaking as a factual matter, a lot of the cases that have thus far been filed are heading into some stiff legal head wind. I think it remains to be seen whats coming up. I think, again, depending on what that is, depending what the underlying ed is, theres a possibility the Supreme Court could become involved, and i think thats just something thats sort of hanging in the easter right now. Host the Trump Campaign signalled on monday they may be changing tack, legally, as opposed to just challenging individual batches of votes, challenging the entire state result as a whole. Do you think thats a wise strategy . Guest i think we need to be very careful the way that we are talking about this, and i would advise that anyone talking about that strategy allow the initial investigation to play out, because obviously underlying that would be allegations of either stem fraud or error, and i think it would be important to prove out that underlying assertion first. I think we should let that process play out. At the end of the day, any credible instance of fraud, any credible allegations, i should say, needs to be investigated, and voters deserve to be whether or not it is, in fact, true and if theres any basis to that claim. I think whether you are a supporter of trump or a supporter of biden, whether you believe that fraud is real and tainted this election or not, everyone should be supporting investigation into credible allegations. You either want to be able to state with certainty that fraud did happen and then find the people who are responsible, bring them to justice, and show voters that their system is being defended, or that it didnt happen, in which case you want to set the record straight once and for all and be able to show voters clearly that the facts say that voter fraud did not occur and did not taint the election. So i think that we should be letting this investigation play out first. Host your organization, the honest elections project, are you providing any guidance or any input to any of the Trump Campaign legal efforts . Guest no, not right now, and i dont think that we will be. Theres a possibility that my organization could be involved in future litigation. In fact, we were in the runup to the election, we supported a couple of lawsuits in michigan and in minnesota, which aimed to restore those States Electionday ballot recreate deadlines, because we wanted to make sure that we were defending both the constitution and the rule of law. And in those states, there was an effort to extend the ballot recreate process through courts , in minnesota in particular, through a Consent Decree where the secretary of state simple al greed to the demands put forward by a group that was suing. And we argued in court that the constitution is quite clear that state legislatures have the four regulate the manner of an election. In minnesota, as well as in michigan, the state legislature had set election day as the deadline for the recreate of ballots, and in minnesota we went up to the eighth circuit and we got an order to segregate ballots and also its a very strongly written opinion basically back our assertion that the constitution does, in fact, not allow an executive branch official to simply unilaterally rewrite state election law, even in the midst of a pandemic, because theres no pandemic exception to the constitution. Host the Trump Campaign making a similar case in pennsylvania with the rulings of the pennsylvania Supreme Court. What do you think of their legal arguments there . Guest i think theyre on solid ground there, just as we were in minnesota and in michigan. The constitutions language is fairly plain that, again, its legislatures that have the power to regulate the manner of an election. I think that we have to be very careful when were counting either executive Branch Officials stepping in on their own authority and countermanding established laws that are passed in accordance with the constitution or courts counting that same conduct. Theres sort of another shade to this, another wrinkle to this, and that is the lawsuits being brought to extend these ballots deadlines were being brought by some of the same lawyers that represent Democratic Party, super p. A. C. s and other liberal organizations. I think that its not a good look at the very least for our democracy when one side is suing in a state, and then executive official, the secretary of state or otherwise that theyre suing, are agreeing effectively rewrite the law and doing so behind closed doors at the demands of deeppocketed groups on one side of the political spectrum. So i think thats something that we also need to be very careful about. I do think that case in pennsylvania thats now pending before the Supreme Court is on some strong legal footing. Host let me ask you your reaction to the opinion of ben ginsburg, who was a lawyer involved obviously in the 2000 trump v. Gore count. He had an opinion piece in the Washington Post just before the election, but it was about allegations of fraud. He said a systematic attack made completely without evidence aimed at undermining a basic pillar of our democracy, i know theres no evidence for systematic fraud because i spent the better part of every election for four decades working in full programs and election day operations. Jason snead, your thoughts. Guest well, i know for a fact that voter fraud happens. It happens in essentially every election cycle. When i was at my last job at the Heritage Foundation, we stood up an Election Fraud database, which zpracks proves that, in fact, there are always people who are ready to cheat and steal in order to win an election. They have their own personal agendas, often their personal ambitions are on the line. We know that there are people who have, shall we say, flexible senses of right and wrong and what the law says when it comes to an election. We know that fraud exists in basically every other aspect of life, so why should voting be any different . Host i guess the question would be, in what volume, what volume it has to be for the votes that the president would need to win the election. Guest well, thats right. As i was saying, we know that fraud exists, so now the question is to what degree does it exist and how impactful will it be . Frankly, the vote count being what it is, n a lot of these states, its going to be a very, very difficult hurdle for the campaign to overcome. Of course, if they actually do have credible evidence backing up these claims, and i would think that the American People would want to see it, because we all have a right to participate in free and honest elections, and so as i said before, if there is a credible allegation out there, it should be fully investigated so we can get to the bottom of what did or did not happen. Host President Trump this morning critical of the vote counting in North Carolina. His tweet moments ago saying it took long enough. What is taking North Carolina so long . Are they looking for more ballots to fix that one also . Now with a recount, we will win georgia also, pennsylvania and michigan. Wouldnt let our poll watchers and observers into counting rooms. Illegal. Lets go to calls and hear from peter in valley cottage, new york, a President Trump supporter. Go ahead. Caller everybody has a problem with saying valley cot only, i dont know why that is. [laughter] anyway, mr. Snead, my question is, i voted in person, so i dont have any idea exactly whats on a mailmany ballot. Once the ballot itself is separated from the envelope, how do they check the signature . In other words, one of the accusations that was being made was that the there were people who were voting who shouldnt vote. Can you explain to me, is there a signature on the ballot itself that can be verified afterwards . To certify that the ballot is legitimate . Nd also, is there a way to check these machines that are registering the ballots . One of the accusations that i heard was that the software of these counting machines was able to be flipped and votes could be sent to one candidate or the other. Is there any legitimacy to the fact that they could be hacked . Can you explain that, please . Thank you. Guest sure. In terms of the first question about what the absentee ballot actually looks like, there is not a place to sign the ballot itself. The reason is that most state laws, actually every state law where youre allowed to cast an absentee ballot, it also respects the privacy of the individual voter, and thats something that i think is obviously an important thing to protect. And so the way this process works is, when you are finished casting your ballots, youll put it in a privacy envelope, and then you will sign that outer envelope. That is the signature which is being vetted by Election Officials when they receive the ballot and theyre comparing it to the signature on file for the particular voter. And so the problem is once, of course, you separate the ballot from that envelope, its virtually impossible to actually be able to bring those two back together, so thats why that process at the outset is so important. Thats why it was so unfortunate that in several states, like pennsylvania, for instance, the signature matching process that was in place there was simply ended, and so now youve got a situation where lets assume that there is evidence of fraudulent ballots having been cast, the question is how do you actually deal with that problem . What is the appropriate remedy . Thats why its so important that we have these rules that provide the verifications at the outset and that we stick to them and not try to change those rules in the middle of an election. I think if for no other reason we want to show voters that they can have a sense of trust and credibility in the results of the election. As to the Voting Machines, it generally is considered to be a best practice that these machines not be tied directly to the internet so that their ability to be hacked is significantly limited. Im not aware of any credible concerns so far that any significant number of machines were in any way tampered with or the software was corrupted. Its certainly, i think, a possibility, but because these machines are air gapped, that would be a rather difficult thing to do. I think youd have to go machine to machine manually, plugging in a u. S. B. Device or Something Like that to install the malware or corrupted software. So certainly these machines are auditable. You can do checks of the software. But im not aware yet of any credible allegations that the machines themselves were tampered with. Host next is halifax, pennsylvania. Diana, good morning, on our biden line. Caller good morning. Ll due respect to mr. Snead, hes being paid for this, and he said that the private donors could not be divulged. I cannot find that anyone would not know that this election was so different from other elections that weve had in the past. I vote absentee for health reasons, and how many millions of people chose not to go out into a public arena to vote this year . Its mindboggling that this is continuing and continuing. We are in a terrible situation in this country. Everybody, individuals, need to take a good look at whats going on and choose for themselves whether to stand up for an election that took place, and we cannot take four more years of the divisiveness of this country. Thank you, sir. Host jason snead . Guest well, the caller is absolutely right to point out that the election was conducted very differently from how it normally would proceed. There were lots of states that made fairly significant changes to their voting process. We saw a huge surge in absentee balloting. Thats not inherently a problem in and of itself, but the problem really comes in when you are doing a few different things. One is, when you are rushing those sweeping changes into place, and if youre doing that in a state that doesnt custom airline deal with large numbers of absentee ballots, youre talking about new processes, new procedures, new training requirements for elections officials, potential confusion on the part of voters, all of which is to say there are a lot of things that could go wrong. We saw that in the primary, and any post mortem analysis of the election will show that there were problems and certainly hot spots in the general election as well. The other thing that we need to keep in mind is that a lot of the rules changes were essentially imposed on states in the course of litigation, and these lawsuits, which often were brought by politicized groups, were aiming to undermine a lot of the key safeguards and verifications that protect absentee ballots. We were talking a second ago about signature matching a. Lot of the lawsuits targeted signature matching a. Lot of them targeted witness requirements. These are voter identification requirements that help to prove that an absentee ballot is, in fact, a legitimate one that was cast by a lawful voter. We also saw efforts to legalize ballot harvesting. This is a practice that puts organized thirdparty individuals, sometimes campaigns or candidates themselves, in direct possession of other peoples ballots. I think that that process is demonstrably open to abuse and fraud. So this is why, again, its so important that we have processes in place and rules in place that we respect through the election and that makes sure however people cast their ballots, whether its in person or absentee, that those ballots are secure and that the system is credible. Host well hear next from maxine in michigan. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I dont have a question for your guest. I only have a statement. Rahm tement is i remember emanuel telling the democrats not to let an emergency go to waste. So what youre seeing in this election is Rahm Emanuels words coming back. Now, im a firstgeneration ghetto child from detroit. And detroit has been corrupt since back in the 1950s. You only have to look at the kwame prison to look at kilpatrick, who was the mayor who had a machine in detroit. His cohorts are still operating there. To think that detroit had a legal, lawful election, youre fooling yourself. There is no way, no how. And ask me to accept this president clinton, never, not in this lifetime. To accept this president elect, never, not in this lifetime. You cannot expect notice cooperate with you when i know that youre not lawfully elected. Host jason snead, what is the Trump Campaign trying to do in michigan in particular . Hats their effort like there . Guest well, there are a couple of lawsuits, including one filed yesterday. The lawsuit includes a potpourri of allegations of either misconduct or even fraud. That i think its worth looking into to see exactly to what extent these allegations, these concerns are valid. I think that while most of the conversation right now is focused on fraud, we also have to be talking about the potential for straightup bureaucratic inexcess ens and mismfplgt i think one of the Silver Linings from all of this that could come out of it, at least if were smart about it, is that the American People are seeing firsthand exactly how many things can go wrong with an election system and how badly some state will need some serious reforms. I think particularly pennsylvania, but also michigan would be a prime example where, when we go in and we look after the election is completed, at what works and what didnt, im fairly confident that were going to see that theres a lot of aspects of the voting process that could stand to use some legal reforms, and i would hope that lawmakers would step up and take a look at that. I think that we could do that. I think that florida did that after 2000, and 20 years later, theyre now a model for other states how to conduct an election and produce timely, accurate and complete vote counts. Host here are the vote counts so far. All the Election Results are there, the map of the u. S. , the Associated Press vote counting. As of this morning, joe biden with 50. 8 of the vote, 77 million, over 77 million vote. Donald trump, 72 million votes, and a. P. Declaring the winner there, joe biden, 290 electoral votes. Donald trump with 217. Jason snead, just the sheer volume of votes, did that exacerbate some of the counting problem . Guest well, i think that what we are seeing in terms of the counting problem being exacerbated is more the type of ballots than volume of ballots. Its the fact that we rushed into absentee voting with very little planning or preparation to do that. Obviously there were special circumstances with the pandemic. But we have to keep in mind while every state allows for some degree of absentee voting, and while a majority of states even before the pandemic allowed for no excuse absentee voting, it was not the norm in most states. In fact, in 2018, only about one in four americans cast an absentee ballot. And so when youre talking about changing from a predominantly inperson system to a predominantly remote system, or even a significantly remote system, there are different processes, theres different infrastructure in place, and that means that you have to retrain your poll workers and your polling staff, you have to explain and educate the new process to voters, in other words, murphys law applies here, and there is a lot that can go wrong when youre trying to do this on the fly, particularly in the circumstances that we all find ourselves in with the pandemic. So i think that a lot of these vote count delays that were seeing have a lot more to do with the fact that were just seeing an unprecedented number of absentee ballots. It also, of course, has to do with the fact that in some states like North Carolina, the recreate deadline for those ballots was extended, and so you then have to wait, and fths a close race like it was in North Carolina, you cant in good conscience call it until you know for sure what the vote count is actually going to be. So i think that those factors are a part of the reason why were seeing some of the delays and some of the problems with the counting and tallying of ballots. Host lets go back to the cspan vote map for a second and focus on arizona. Joe biden declared the winner there. 99 of the vote is counted there. 1. 6 million votes, 49. 4 of the vote, donald trump 1. 65 million votes with 49. 07 of the vote. Notably, libertarian candidate garnered 51,000 votes in that state, 1. 5 of the vote total. President trump tweeting about arizona this morning, saying that from 200,000 votes to less than 10,000 votes, if we can audit the total votes cast, we will easily win in arizona also. Whats going on in arizona in terms of any legal push by the Trump Campaign . Guest it seems that arizona is probably headed towards a recount. Well have to see how much the recount changes the vote tallies. Ill note that historically recounts dont usually change vote counts more than a few hundred or maybe a few thousand votes, depending on the total number of votes cast. I know there are a couple of other lawsuits, and there may be some more headed down the pike in arizona. I cant really speak to that. But it does seem that arizona, we really saw something incredible there in terms of the president clawing his way back from the early Election Night calls, where it seemed absolutely certain in the eyes of some in the media that it was going to be a biden win, but now it seems like its inside the margin for a recount, and well have to see what the impact of that recount actually is on the vote totals. Host well flare maryland next on the biden line. Caller how you doing . Good morning, gentlemen. I wanted to say let the process play itself out. I agree with the fact that trump has the right to do what hes doing, trying to legitimize this thing. But i think what baffles me more than anything is that all these issues that come up, its always in counties or cities where theres people of color. And then youre talking about fraud. Can you tell me how many people have been locked up for voting fraud in the last 20 or 30 years . And people locked up for that. Voter fraud, if its happening like you people say, so you have many people with fines that locked up, im talking about in the hundreds of thousands of people, if all of these things are really happening. Why is it always that its in the counties and cities of africanAmerican People or hispanics or people of color when we got these problems . These problems happen all the time, everywhere. Of vote season, we always have issues with those things. I mean, im just trying to pick out why its always when were counting black votes or hispanic votes, we got issues. I mean, can you answer the question . How many people been locked up for voter fraud . Host thanks. Jason snead . Guest again, i know for a fact that voter fraud happens. When i was at the Heritage Foundation, we were tracking cases of proven instances of vote fraud, including cases where people have gone to jail. No one has a complete count, and even if there was a total count of how many people have gone to jail over the time span that the caller is talking about, it wouldnt actually reflect the total universe of fraud, because these investigations are difficult, theyre timeconsuming, and they often arent actually followed up on, especially after an election is over, because prosecutors are much more interested in other crimes, and they have resource problems, which i completely understand. Theyre talking about priorities there. I would say that in order to have significant amount of voter fraud, you dont need to have hundreds of thousands or millions of people who are involved and all thely going to jail to do it. Sometimes you only need one or two people to be involved. And thats because they can, for instance, one person can go around and harvest hundreds of ballots and sway a congressional race. Thats essentially what happened in North Carolina. Just the other day, texas filed criminal charges against a social worker who attempted to get her hands on 67 ballots in a special care facility that she was apparently working at, and the people she was targeting were mentally incapacitated or intellectually disabled individuals, and she was trying to get her hands on their votes for her own personal reasons. So i think that theres a focus i think sometimes on how many people have been actually arrested, how many people have actually gone to jail, but i think that misses the point. Sometimes the significant amount of voter fraud only affects a small number of people. And as to the allegations regarding the racial component here, there are plenty of areas of this country, like parts of kentucky and appear latch i cant, where the populations are majority white, but you wind up with systematic fraud that is part of the bakedin, local corruption, and its one of the bestkept secrets of locals in those areas. So this is not about looking at people based on the color of their skin. That would be absolutely wrong and objectionable if it was. This is about ensuring that every Single Person has their lawful vote counted, and that everyone can trust the results of the election. And that means that no one should be left to be a victim of these sorts of crimes, no matter whether they live in a particular city or whether they live out in a rural area. It doesnt matter. Were all americans. We have a right to vote. We should protect that right. Host were seeing an update on the pennsylvania vote. This tweet from the National Security correspondent for cnn. New, bidens lead in pennsylvania has surpassed 50,000 votes. Bidens margin is 52,244, with democraticheavy areas left to count. Again, the map at cspan. Org showing pennsylvania and that vote tally, that number has been added in there. And again, significant enough, the votes garnered by the libertarian candidate in pennsylvania, 78,083, certainly more than the difference right now between joe biden and donald trump. Morgantown, west virginia, we hear from a trump supporter. Go ahead. Caller yes. I wanted to tell you about last time when i went to vote. I voted for donald trump. And it came up on my machine that i had voted for not hillary, but for the other woman. So i told the poll worker there, her name was gertrude. She told me to go ahead and vote again. So i went ahead and voted again. And it came up again, that i voted for this woman again. And i told her again. She said just go ahead and vote again. So i went ahead and did it again, and the third time i got donald trump. So, you know, you cant tell me that theres no fraud going around on here, ok . Now, the second thing i wanted to say was, and then this is all i have to say, i have no respect for joe bidens wife, for her to let her husband go out there and be humiliated and look like zerks my husband died of dementia, and thats exactly what hes got, and she is degrading him every time she lets him go on tv. I feel sorry for the man. I respect him, but i have no respect for his wife, for her putting him through what shes putting him through. Host her experience at the polls and the multiple misvotes there . Anecdotal ed there. Guest well, ive heard stories like that before, and i think probably the most likely outcome, or the most likely explanation is that the, if it was a touch screen voting device, that the touch screen was probably misaligned and needed to be recalibrated so that when you were touching the screen over donald trump in this case, that it was registering the input as donald trump. Theres also going to be, no matter whether youre talking about a touch screen device or one of the scan devices, or even if youre doing a manual one with chads back in the day, theres always the prospect that the device in some way malfunctions or theres a misread, and there are procedures in place for dealing with that. If youre dealing with a paper ballot, you can spoil the ballot and vote a second time to make sure the vote is properly counted. And if youre using one of these Electronic Devices with a touch screen, then you can simply back out and start again. There are procedures for dealing with that, and i think that it was probably a technical error more than anything else that accounted for her experience. Noip oregon, sharon on our biden line. Hi there. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I have just a couple of questions that i would like your guest to answer. You asked him earlier in the program how many lawsuits the Trump Campaign has filed so far. And how many have not gone through. So i guess thats my first question. How many lawsuits have been filed on this election, and how many have they won. Host do you have another question before we let you go . Caller i want to take them one at a time, because if you give him several, then the questions dont get answered. So if you would just let me have this, let him answer, and then ill ask. Host ill keep out line, go ahead. Jason snead . Guest i dont have an exact number of he total lawsuits that have been filed. That are lawsuits filed by the campaign, by the r. N. C. , by other groups, allied groups as well. There have been a couple of wins that the trump folks can notch, including a win on the poll watcher issue, where the claim was essentially that the poll watchers were not being allowed to observe the process close enough, either depending on how you want to view that, either because of covid restrictions or an attempt to prevent them from viewing the process. They won a lawsuit there ensuring that the republican poll watchers could, in fact, get close enough to view the process and ensure that it was all above board. So there have been a couple of victories. There have been a lot of cases that have been thrown out, and there are a lot of cases that are still pending, including the one that was just filed yesterday from michigan, alleging misconduct there. Guest host do you have another question . Caller i know you might not be able to give me a ballpark, but youre a researcher. About how many, two your knowledge, have been rejected by the courts . Guest well, again, i dont know an exact number of cases that have been rejected. I think that im aware of about 10 or 12 that have been rejected so far or are basically on appeal. This is not a cut and dry issue, because there are appeals ongoing in some of these cases, and so thats why theres a little bit of, i guess, wiggle room there. Host heres john in california, whos a trump supporter. Good morning. Caller good morning, good morning, mr. Snead. I would like to offer my opinion on the election and maybe you could offer your comment on that. What i think is that the voter rolls claw lot of people that in a normal election theres a certain percentage that do not vote, they do not come out of their houses, they do not go to the polls. And then when we had the universal ballots mailed out to everyone who is on the voter rolls, even those that might not have voted, that left some votes that could be harvested, that could be coerced, you know, heres a cell phone or whatever, and just people voting because they hate trump. Nd so theres you know, the republicans gained seats in the house. They held the senate. They beat the polls by 10 . There was a big surgery, yet they lost the president ial election, because as sydney powell puts it, there were with just the name of joe biden under it, no under voting, no down ballot voting. Host where did that snap where were those votes, . There were those 450,000 votes . What state . Caller im just voting a respected lawyer who i think is fantastic. Host ok, let you go there and flare jason snead. Guest well, i skernl share the concern when youre talking about sending unsolicited absentee ballots to every registered voter, because we do know that voter rolls with r riddled with inaccuracies. A few years ago, our researchers concluded that one in eight Voter Registrations nationwide was either inaccurate, out of date, or duplicative. So when youre sending out ballots to every Voter Registration you know that youre going to send it to people who have moved away or who have died. You saw this in the primaries, in clark county, nevada, as well as new jersey, where ballots were simply dumped on sidewalks, apartment lobbies, because, of course, the people they were addressed to no longer resided at those addresses. You saw it in michigan when michigan decided to send ballot applications to all of its registered voters. About 500,000 of those applications were returned to the secretary of state as undeliverable. By some estimates, another 300,000 were delivered, but delivered to the people who currently live at that address, not the intended resilient. So we know that voter rolls are inaccurate. I certainly share the concern that if you were going to be sending ballots unsolicited to every Voter Registration without going through and cleaning up your lists first, then you are creating opportunities for certainly abuse and fraud in a system, not to mention the fact that youre wasting tax dollars, knowing where between 8 and 10 are going nowhere. And this opportunity for abuse and fraud is only going to be exacerbated if you take away things like signature matching, witness requirements, those basic verifications that helped to ensure that absentee ballots are being cast by lawful voters, and we see that absentee voting is more vulnerable than inperson voting. We saw that with patterson, new jersey, with the voter fraud scandaled that forced a redo a municipal election. We saw it in 2018 when ballot harvesters were able to get their hands on hundreds of absentee ballots and effectively disenfranchised those voters and forced the redo of a congressional race in North Carolina. Thats why these sorts of verifications are so critical, they cannot be undermined. Im glad your caller raised that particular point. Host which states mailed out absentee ballots unsolicited . Guest before the pandemic, there were five states that were there are vote by mail states, so they would automatically send out ballots. A few other states followed in their footsteps, including new jersey this year. All in all, there were about nine states that ultimately made the decision to mail in or excuse me, automatically mail out absentee blts. Theres a big push in litigation to force other states to do this, including places like ohio, michigan, other battleground states. But fortunately, those lawsuits were beaten back, again, balls the key issue here is that when you are mailing ballots to every Voter Registration on file, and youre not going through and cleaning those voter files up first, then you are undoubtedly sending ballots to people who should not be receiving them, who moved away, who have died. If you happen to be be someone who is willing to cheat and you see ballots piling up, then its a fair guess that no one is going to come and challenge those votes, particular physical theres no verification in place. Thats why its so important we do absentee balloting right and keep the verifications in place. Host lets hear from carl in nashville. Caller im wondering, hes a director, right . Im wondering why in the world he he seems to me he telling lies. He have no proof on anything he has said so far. Everybody, we know that we have machines that mess this up, but the thing about it is, this technology right now, hey, we dont have to have we are smarter than that. We are not stupid. You are on there talking about something, and you are a director and you have no proof of anything you saying. I tell you the trufmente i love this station. But i dont like a liar. You just like the outgoing president , nothing but a liar. Thank you. Host carl, ill let you go there. Jason snead, would you like to respond . Guest well, i will respond to the extent that i havent made any claims here. All ive said is that where there is credible allegation of fraud or mismanagement in our election systems, that it should be investigated so that we can get to the truth and the facts of the matter. We shouldnt sweep this under the rug, pretend that there are never any problems with our election system. There threerl are. So i dont think that eve made any claims that is not supportable, and i dont think weve done anything but say we should be able to see exactly what did and did not work with this election. By way of a simple analogy, if you are sitting at home and you smell smoke, you dont just assume there cant possibly be a fire. You get up and investigate it. Thats the right thing to do, because youd rather investigate and find nothing there than do nothing and have the house burn down. So die think we toe to everyone, when there is a credible allegation of fraud or mismanagement to get to the bottom so that we can either bring the people responsible to justice and ensure that the system works smoothly or we can tell voters with a clear conscience that nothing happened. But i dont think we can simply make assumptions one way or the other, and at the end of the day, were talking about defending a system so that it will deliver a complete, fair, and accurate count that we can all rely on. Host jason snead, executive director of the honest elections project, thanks so much for being here on washington journal this morning. Guest thank you. Host more aheadly we will be joined next by former Democratic House majority leader, Richard Gephardt, to talk about the integrity of the 2020 election, and more of your calls ahead as well. Live h indepth sunday, december 6, at noon eastern. The most recent books include begin again, exodus democracy in black, and an uncommon faith. Join in on the live twohour conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. Watch in depth sunday, december 6, at noon eastern on book tv on cspan2. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern, bestselling authors and Depaul University history professors Kathleen Rooney and miles harvey talk about how they approach Historical Research for their fiction and nonfiction work. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, the author and former Gettysburg National Military Park historian discusses his research on the battle of antietam. Emory p. M. Eastern, University Professor discusses president Richard Nixon, his National Security advisoren had are you kissinger, and their key Foreign Policy initiatives. On sunday, at 2 00 p. M. Eastern, former u. S. Senator sam nunn reflects on the cold war 75 years later, exploring the american story. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host our next guest served as House Democratic leader for more than 14 years. Congressman, former congressman Dick Gephardt joining us this morning, now a member of the National Council on election integrity. Nine days after the election yal election, thanks for being with us this morning. Guest great to be with you. Host tell us about the organization youre involved with and what your efforts have done so far in the 2020 election. Guest sure. So about four months ago, a number of us former federal officials pulled together the National Council for election integrity. We now have over 40 members of this council. Its evenly divided between republicans and democrats. It includes former members of congress, like bill frist, dash ill, tom ridge, a number of others. We also have former cabinet secretaries, like madeleine former department of Homeland Security secretaries. And weve got three former fourstar generals or admirals. Weve got a pretty broadbased group. And our concern four months ago was that with the pandemic and with the high volume of mailin ballots required because people didnt want to vote in person as much as usual, and because of the possible closeness of this election, we knew that this could be a problem having a successful election. And getting both sides, whatever happened, to accept the results and to have a peaceful transition or retention of power. Host thats a Political Group with a lot of star power, political star power. Congressman, how did you quickly get all those folks together and get yourself funded as well . Guest well, we just got on the phone and called folks that we had known for a long time, some of whom we hadnt talked to in a long time, because many of us have been retired from Public Service for a long time. But they were gracious, and they saw the danger that we faced and the difficulty in having a successful election, so id say 95 of the people we asked that participate did so. And weve raised about 14 million, and weve use that had money to put ads on in the big swing states, basically asking people in this time of difficulty with the pandemic and the high volume of votes to be patient while the count goes on, because we knew the counting could not happen all on Election Night as usual. We asked people to be patient. We asked people to demand that all the votes be counted. And that if there are protests after the election, when that long count was going on, that we reject violence, that we can certainly have protests under our system, but weve got to reject violence so that we dont fall into real difficulty. So far pleased to say thats been the case. Host well show one of the ads in just a moment. Want to make sure we open our phone lines. For those of you supporting joe biden and kamala harris, the line is 2027488000. Donald trump and mike pence supporters, 2027488001. For all others, or if you didnt vote, 2027488002. Congressman gephardt, did your Group Anticipate where we are today, nine days after the election, with the election call by the Associated Press and other media organizations, but the campaign, donald Trump Campaign contesting that vote in multiple states across the country . Guest yes, we anticipated where we are and probably where were going to be for a few more days or weeks. We all believe in two important things. We all believe in country over party. And secondly, we all believe in the rule of law. We all, from our experience, understand that a democracy or any country that wants to be a democracy has to respect and get all citizens to respect the rule of law. Its just like if youre in a Football Game or a basketball game, you have to have referees to enforce the rules of the game. And thats what happens in a democracy. I was leader for 14 years in the house, and i was always in awe of how we could finally settle big conflicts, emotional conflicts on big pieces of legislation among the American People. And when we finally got it settled and it was always hard, the losing side, and by losing side i mean not only the members of congress on the losing side, but their supporters in the country willing to we gridgingly accept the results balls the process they thought was fair. Thats what we were in danger f losing in this election. So far were holding on to that, and that is the most important thing about a democracy or a republic. You have to follow the rule of law and people have to accept that process as being fair. Host the group is the National Council on election integrity. Former congressman gephardt a member that have group. He mentioned one of the ads you may be seeing across the country in those swing states in particular, lets give you a look at that, and well get to your calls. We did it. Americans. From both parties. Turned out to vote in numbers like we havent seen in a hundred years. And Election Officials counted those votes carefully, transparently, and in accordance with the law. So no matter who you voted for, if you cast a ballot or counted them, thank you. For showing the world that even in times like these, america is still going strong. Host congressman gephardt, have you seen any evidence that those votes werent counted as the ad said carefully, transparently, and according to the law . Guest look, in every election weve ever had for over 240 years, im sure there are minor glitches and errors. Look, this is a human organization, the electoral committees and groups in every state, people make mistakes. People create errors. But i must tell you that, in this election, as in all of our other elections, the amount of errors and fraud i think is minimal. And many, many studies have been done through the years, on this subject, and thats their conclusion. That doesnt mean you sweep anything under the rug. It doesnt mean you shouldnt investigate every allegation and every instance where something may have gone off the tracks. But once youve gone through and exhaustive recount auditing process in every jurisdiction in the country, then you can come to a conclusion, and then people hopefully can accept the results of all of that effort, and last thing i want to say is at we need to really honor the tremendous effort made by election workers all over this country, in every jurisdiction, in every city and town. They worked their hearts out to make sure this election came off successfully. And i believe when all is said and done, we will all believe that was the case. Host the former congressman from missouri, also ran for president twice in 1988 and 2004. Whats it feel like to lose a primary race, congressman . Guest nobody ever likes to lose. You work as hard as you can to try to win, not for you, but for Public Service, for the country. You believe in the country, and you want to be a positive effort for it, to help the country do better, perfect this experiment. Host oh, looks like we may have lost our signal with Dick Gephardt. Well work on getting that back. Congressman gephardt, finish your thoughts. We lost you there on zoom or whatever. Youre back. Guest i was just saying no one likes to lose, but you run to win, not for yourself, but for the country, for Public Service for the country. And im in awe of what we do. I just have to tell you, i think democracy is majestic. I think selfgovernment, government of, by, and for the people is the highest expression of human evolution. And i was so honored to be a small part of that process. So i love this country. I love what we do. And i think the American People are awesome. Host lets hear from some of them. Well go to anthony in pennsylvania, supporting President Trump. Good morning. Caller good morning. Good morning, congressman. Pleasure to talk to you. Ive always admired you. I think this country is at a crossroads right now. 72 Million People do not feel that this election was done above board. In pennsylvania, what they did to keep the poll workers out from dealing with potential ballot fraud is obviously an attempt to change votes or to fix votes or to take the election to go one way or the other, mostly for joe biden. Obviously. This election needs to be either redone or it needs to be thrown to the congress, because you have 72 Million People, we are pissed off. We are pissed off that this election was absolutely, absolutely thrown under the bus because of this pandemic and the use of these ballots that were mailed out, that they knew were not going to be valid or potentially could be abused. And this was the plan from the beginning, as soon as the pandemic came out, the democrats said, ok, lets go ahead and use this pandemic to our benefit to get donald trump out of office. Its a disgrace. Host congressman gephardt . Guest well, thank you for your statement. I respect your views. I respect your concerns. I dont agree with it. And ill go back to what i said a moment ago. Look, we have a process. We have rule of law. So the specific instance you just talked about has been embodied in a lawsuit that i think has been filed in so, we are going to get to the bottom of that concern, as we should. We have to follow the rules. We have to investigate allegations of problems in the election. And that will happen. Independent courts that have no relationship with either campaign are going to make this decision and carry out this investigation. So, i just think look, i understand your feelings. I understand that no one wants to be on the losing side of an election. But we have to stick with the rules. Thats all we have to hang onto in a democracy. Respect andur adherence to rule of law, the democracy can no longer exist. As al gore didnt like the results in 2000 because he didnt think that the investigation went on correctly in florida, he accepted the results because he knew that the process had been exhausted. Everything had been looked at. Time was up. We had to follow the schedule called for by the constitution and our laws. From steve,hear detroit, biden supporters line. Thank you for having my call. The reason i called, the ballot. I have friends that wont go to the polls and vote. They wont go out and vote, but when you send them a ballot, every guy and woman in the city of detroit and michigan and many ther places, they will fill ballot out and give it to the poll service and it goes down the line. If you send it to them in the mail, a ballot, they will fill out out. They dont got to go stand nowhere for a long time. Host got you, got the point, you are breaking up their little bit. Congressman gephardt . Guest this is a good point, a lot of people were fearful of being exposed to the virus and we knew that would happen in the middle of the pandemic. His other point, though, is a little more complicated. In your previous show, here, you had questions about states that mail out ballots to every whethered voter and that is subject to fraud and difficulty. I understand that debate. Its a worthy debate. My own view is that if estate does it right, keeps the voter files uptodate and has Good Technology and execution on the technology, they can do this without any evidence of fraud. Some states that do this may not have the up to date technology. That brings me to a very important point. A greatwe need to spend deal more resources on updating, modernizing, and making as confident as humanly possible the voting process in every state in this country. Some states are great at it, some are kind of good at it, some are not good at it. We need to make sure that this process is competent so that it is trusted by the American People as being valid, fair, and accurate. The were you still in house when they pass to help america vote act . Is that something you would like to see envisioned by congress . Guest exactly. We all have a stake in this. Theres the federal elections and then the state and local elections that have to be done in every state. Both sides should be contributing resources to this effort. In the past we kind of assumed all of this. We thought this is easy, we do this in person, i know the Election Officials, they are my neighbors, they are people in our community. Its both parties represented. But you cant just assume things. The country has much more population. In 1950 we had 150 Million People. Now we have 300 40 Million People. This is a lot more difficult task to bring off correctly. But it takes resources on both sides, the federal government and the state government. They should dedicate more resources for this most important activity to the heart of our democracy. The rob is calling from democratic line. Go ahead. Thehy dont you want to do election over . Joe biden didnt win, no way in heck. Guest i understand your view. I know how much it hurts and how disappointing it is. I will say it again, we have to have the rule of law, we have to all subscribed to the rule of law and believe that it is fairly done. If we lose that, if we all give up on that, you no longer have a democracy. Look, our ancestors who wrote the constitution wanted 535 people in the room to make decisions. Thats congress. Not one. They did that with the belief that we could govern ourselves, that we could make decisions as peoplery, with all involved in that decisionmaking process. A lot of times people say that well congress is gridlocked and dysfunctional, it doesnt act fast enough, its too hard. Lets get rid of it. Is be say to those folks aware of what you are saying. If you put one person in the room, then when every big decision is made, over half the people will be in rebellion because they had no role in making that decision. Thats the majesty of democracy. Its always hard. Its always unruly. Its always subject to allegations of difficulty in the process. But in the end, as Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government on earth, except for all the others. He was exactly right. Do. In all of what we so, we all have to be patient what we do. So, we all have to be patient. There may be changes in outcomes , and states that have been announced, and once the process is exhausted and the right things have been done, i pray and hope that we will all accept the results of the election. Whether we one or we lost. On that note, theres a headline today in the usa today. What role do you see your group having after the election to help instill some of that trust in a democratic process . Guest we will still be involved. We will stay on this. Dan coats, who used to be the head of National Intelligence under President Trump and was a former senator from indiana and a friend of all of us is on the council. He has been advocating for a congressional resolution or law to set up a National Council for election integrity. We all support that. If that could be done, that would be a great positive effort to makerward suggestions for how we can improve the electoral process all over the country, what things can be done. I will go back to what you said a moment ago. We have to trust. We have to have trust in our institutions of our governance. If we lose that trust, and we are bordering on doing that with a lot of folks today on both sides, then we are in big trouble. Thats why we set this group up. If congress did that, i would be happy about that. From the outside i say we will help them in any way we can. Next up is mississippi, linda, biden supporter, go ahead. Caller look, and donna in 2016, donald trump one over three states. Accepted that we could have had investigations, filed lawsuits in everything. This is rotten from the head. Republicanst these are trying to sue because of a mans feelings. You are right, we have laws and regulations. If they think the democrats cheated at the top of the ticket the wouldnt we count senate votes, the republican senators that one . If joe biden didnt win, as someone thinks, why would they think that the republicans on the senate where the winner. Some people voted for president and split their ticket, you know . The rule of law, Trump Supporters cannot get a grip on it. Divisive president we have ever had. We have had some, back in the beginning time, but this man, its time for him to go. Linda, mississippi. Senator gephardt, your thoughts . Guest i understand the callers feelings. We are in a big division in our country and have been for some time. Part of it may be President Trump, but its only a part of it. There are a lot of reasons that there is polarization in the country. Its a subject i am really concerned about and that we may start looking at without counsel. A house divided against itself cannot stand and its very worrisome that we wind up in this position. It has affected peoples oflings about the fairness this election. We have got to look at the causes, which are multiple, in my view, and then we have got a look at some remedies, even though you know you are never going to completely unify the country. Its never going to be the case. We are going to have broad disagreements on a lot of things , but we have to maintain respect for one another and reject hatred of anybody because of what they think, conclude, and believe. And then we have to have enough respect for one another that we can reach compromise solutions. That is what i was involved in for 28 years in the congress. Its always hard. But there are some things you have to keep in mind. One, you have to respect everybody. Two, you should probably remember that none of us knows everything. I wish i did. I dont and i dont know anyone who does. You have got to listen to your adversaries. They may teach you something that you dont know and could never know without walking in their shoes. Now, that doesnt mean its going to be easy to resolve your differences. But if you do that actively and enthusiastically, then you can solve these problems and you can have a thriving democracy Going Forward. Host next up is john, metal line, washington, Trump Supporters line. Good morning, gentlemen. I had a couple of comments and a question also. , heticed that this man here mentioned a history of past elections. This election is like no election we have had before, the got changedrything and added to the different states during the covid. History on elections is irrelevant. And then my question is, my other, my other comment is, one fraudulent vote cancels one ballot vote. That hasnt even been thought of in depth. Live in washington we have had the mailin ballot for a while. Even though we have had five or six democratic governors, people call that fair and balanced. I overheard that in certain states, like in nevada, when they separate the envelope from the identifying, signature or whatever it might [indiscernible] if thats true in whatever state has a recount, how would you know that the ballot you were recounting was ever a ballot to begin with . In person, legal, still on the planet, whatever it might be. Thank you, gentlemen. Have a great day. Host ok. Guest thank the caller for the question. , we have hadric many elections during national crises. And we have had to have people vote from remote locations or vote by mail. War, wet in the civil did it in world war i, world war ii, and all the other conflicts we have been involved in. Our soldiers and sailors across the world have been able to vote and they voted in this election as they were able to get their ballots in. I also would say that this election was only a little different than other elections, because of the high volume of mail and votes. Because again people didnt want to stand in line and be exposed to the virus. But there is absolutely no reason we cannot accommodate early votes, votes on election day, and mailing votes. And we have robust procedures and all the states to make sure that the votes are valid. Thats all being investigated statesow, in all these where there are allegations of missed actions, fraud, whatever you want to say. So, we are going to run all of that the ground. We should, we always do. And then we get to a result, we follow the rules and we get to the result. I just thinkpoint, that we have to be patient for this to all unwind and be looked at. It takes patience. Because we are all upset, worried, or concerned and we want our side to win. I totally understand that. As inreally believe that the past, we will have a successful election and we will move through this for whatever results and then we will come peopler as the american to solve the big problems on the horizon. Host earlier you referenced the contest between al gore and george w. Bush and those days between the election and the end of the Supreme Court resolution and al gore conceding. . S it similar here are you ok with the president not at this point conceding the race . Guest thats his decision. I cant tell anybody how to respond to any election. Thats his decision. I hope at some point he will make it clear that hes willing to accept these results, but if he doesnt, he doesnt and we have to move on and we have to have a government in place and we have to solve the problems that we face that are considerable. We are still in the middle of a pandemic that is going up in cases. Weve got big economic problems and we have future economic problems. So, we need to get together after this process is exhausted and we reach a decision and figure out how we can improve the country and deal with our multiple challenges. Host iowa, mary is on the support biden line. You are on with Dick Gephardt. Caller hello, congressman, how are you . I have watched your career in congress, thank you for your service. I live in a multigenerational family. Four generations of us live here. My soninlaw, my caregiver, took my, took all of our ballots to our county seat and give them to the elector. They opened them, compared the signatures, read the envelope and said thats fine. So, there was no fraud there. I wonder, sometimes, why the republicans seem to think that democrats are the only ones that might perpetuate a fraud. Ballots in the down the votes for president , where the republicans got in. Anyway, thats just a comment and again, i want to thank you. Thank you so much. The point that you made, its an important point. The process, the rule in all states call for the process to be validated with a republican and democratic judge, poll watchers in place, together to make sure that they agree that the ballot is valid. Has there ever been a glitch in that . Im sure there has. But it is minor in my view and all the studies of this indicate that when there are problems, they are without motive and we are just, we are all human, we all make mistakes, we all create errors, we are all human beings. So, i think the system is competent, i think it is accurate. And i think it is designed to get to the results of what the people wanted. I will say one last thing on this, what we are really talking about now is whether or not we are going to honor the votes of all the people. Who voted. Alidly that, if you get off of that and decide you dont want to honor some votes because of who they voted for, you are in trouble. That, that takes you back to gorby bush. Contested closely election that came down to just a few hundred votes in florida and when, when they came to the dropdead date, when they had to make a decision, florida was unable to make a decision and they went to the Supreme Court. They decided and everybody lived with it. Thats the rule of law. Caller askeda about the down ballot bases. Math tests democrats in the house, the thin majority could force Party Leaders to walk a fine line on legislating and forcing them to pull in republican votes on must pass items like spending and defense if leadership is unable to bring the left flank on board. You have been both majority leader and minority leader in the house. What would your guidance be for the House Speaker and minority leader of the house of the 117th . Guest i dont think they need guidance. I think they know exactly what this requires an thats what i totally believe they will do. Publice there as servants, first and foremost and always. Responsibility is no matter who is in the majority, or how much they are in the majority, to reach out to the other side and try to find compromises and solutions and im sure thats whats going to happen. Not only within the house, but between the house in the senate thethen in conjunction with president of the United States. Thats the way the system works. Its very tough to get anything done. There were days when i was leader when i didnt think we could get anything done ever because it is so hard to find those compromises. I will say one last thing about this. We, the American People, need to honor and reward members of congress who are willing to enter into compromises to get things done. All of us have strong views on everything. I have strong views on what we should do on climate change, the budget, taxes, health care, education. Entirely. T get my way you just cant. Endeavor. In any human you cant at any time. You have to find a way to move forward together. We are human beings. We have a bigger brain than other animals, other species, and we have the ability to communicate. And thats the way you reach compromises. You talk but you listen. You listen to what the other person is saying. And then you try to put together a compromise. Put a thread through 218 people in the house. 50 or 60 people in the senate. Take the product of the president , whoever they are, and get them to sign it. Thats the only way we move forward. I am in all of it. I was in the middle of it for 28 years. What inin all of awe of what these folks do. Awesome,ple are patriots, therefore the right reasons. Public service servants in the highest sense of the word and im optimistic about our ability, whoevers in the majority, whoevers in the presidency, to keep this great experiment Going Forward. Many of those new members are arriving today for the first two days of house freshman orientation. Back to calls, we hear from paul next in pompano beach, florida, on the trump line, go ahead. Caller good morning. There will be minimal value for recounting the tainted ballots. Instead a detailed examination of the signed voter certificate envelopes will show voter fraud evidence because the damage when theduring periods partisan watchers were excluded. Thank you. Thet i appreciate question. I assume hes probably talking about pennsylvania, where the lawsuit has been filed. With regard to a number of votes where the outer envelope was without both a republican and a democrat judge being present. But as i understand it, and this will be brought out in the case that has been filed that is ,eing decided and looked at there was always a republican and a democrat present when the inner envelope was opened and validated. Thats the ballot. The outer envelope is just what carries it into the commission. , these allegations are going to be seriously looked at and if they are valid, if there is a worry that it has to be afied, but if not worry, it has to be rectified. If not, you move on. 4 lets get host lets get one more call here. Neil, the biden line. Caller i want to generally speak to the view on the reticence of the systematic effort around the president and his cohort of the last couple of months to so delegitimize c outcomegitimacy in the cy of thetimi election. It represents a dramatic change from past elections, where there have always been challenges of voter fraud and litigation that have taken place, but never wear so much of a Significant Group of people believe that the withion has been tampered in such a systematic way. The president and his cohort, mainly his children, the folks very to him, have had a significant and deliberate effort in creating that narrative at this point in time. That was just my comment. Thank you. Host congressman, sounds like this is one of the reasons you started this project to begin with, your concerns of the rhetoric ash over the rhetoric and the tone coming out of the white house in particular. Guest right. Its unfortunate that the president and some of his supporters made those allegations. It takes away from peoples belief and trust in the process, which as ive said all morning is so important. We are in a different world. None of us has looked at the impact on the information revolution we have lived through over the last 20 years. Thats another part of the divided ande so polarized. Even a president cant, you know, talk to everybody every day. If a president or others are putting out allegations that may not have any basis in fact, it gets picked up on social media platforms and pumped out to millions and billions of people in an hour. Trouble todayal as consumers of information understanding what is pretty much true and what is pretty much untrue. We used to have editors at newspapers and tv stations that would kind of look at what was totally true and what was totally untrue. We dont have that today. Challenge for the country and for our democracy. If the president has done this, and i think he has been a contributor to the questioning of the fairness of this election its carried out on social media and it takes on a life of its own. Its all part of the challenge that we face Going Forward to keep this experiment going in a successful direction. Even in the face of all the modern changes in technology and other things that have happened. Former House Democratic leader and member of congress for many years, Richard Gephardt. Thank you for being here, we will have you back sometime soon. Guest thank you. Host our question in the next halfhour, should President Trump concede . If you support the biden ticket, 202 7488000. If you support President Trump, 202 7488001. For all others, 202 7488001. Others, 202 7488002. A discussion on the use of big data and surveillance technologies by law enforcement. Police have long been collecting their own data and information but that is on people they have had contact with and now police are increasingly collecting information on folks who have no direct terminal justice contact. Part of that has to do with this variety component around big data that they are increasingly purchasing. Using tools like automatic license plate readers, where you dont have to get pulled over by the police for the date of to be put into the system. That kind of information is also being used. Night, 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host the house coming in briefly at 10 00 for a pro forma session. As greg kaplan points out in beginseet, orientation for house members elect today, with covid19 Safety Measures in place. Candidates in tight races are invited to attend. These sessions will be the last until december 5, with a break for thanksgiving. Craig kaplan has a has photos he has taken of the arriving members today. Briefings coming up this morning from nancy pelosi. Thats coming up at 10 15 eastern. We will have live coverage of that and the republican leader will follow that at 11 00 eastern, covering it live. Our question for you in the remainder of the program is should President Trump concede . Support88000, if you joe biden and kamala harris. 202 7488001 if you support President Trump and mike pence. For all others, 202 7488002. Joe biden supporter in stafford, virginia. Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Caller thank you. Whether trump concedes or not is trivial. I mean i wouldnt cry if he conceded and i wouldnt cry if he was dragged out over the white house lawn in handcuffs and shackles. Either way, its his call. Hes provided a lot of amusement and entertainment to the country but is not serving in the capacity of a president. He just acts inappropriately, which is no big secret. If he concedes, so be it. If he doesnt, who cares. Thank you. Charlotte, trump supporter, hi there. Will in charlotte . Good morning. Charlotte, north caller can you hear me . Host yeah, we got you. Caller this is phil. Phil smith. Host phil, ok. It says will. Caller phil smith, fort bragg. Im a veteran, vietnam veteran twice. Im 75 years old and ive never seen a president that gets shafted as much as our president. Liberalsurd what these democrats are doing to our president. Phil, thanks for your call this morning. This is politico this morning on who is going to lead the rnc. Their headline, Ronna Mcdaniel is expected to stay on. Trump endorsed his handpicked party chair for another term on wednesday evening. Vero beach, florida. Donna, good morning, joe biden supporter. Caller good morning. [laughter] host go ahead. Say, i woulde to never want to see what has happened in this country with the election. I think trump should gracefully bow down. Recall, trump said about is. Na, it is what it well, this election is what it is. Lets hope that a lot of things change. The biggest thought that comes wemy mind as to change is have a disconnect in our states with elections. If when a death certificate is issued they made a monthly report to the supervisor of elections, we would have a lot less trouble. They couldnt say dead people were voting. Im appalled that everything in at everything that is going on and i pray for our country. Thank you for taking my call. Host leonard, austin, texas, on the others line. Let me have a few words to say. I believe that he should concede after the votes have been completely tallied. But in my view . Trump may would have one if the virus hadnt of came out. And i think hes the antichrist and the only way he could lose was god had to intervene and get him out of there because hes the antichrist. Joe biden continuing with his transition, announcements yesterday on personnel. Biden haselect joe chosen ron claim as his white house she said chief of staff, turning to the longtime advisor and ebola czar under president obama as he prepares his administration possible response to the pandemic. His decision underscores his plan to focus on coronavirus and the economic fallout. Mr. Claim, 59 years old, served as chief of staff to Vice President biden from 2009 to 2011 and previously worked as chief of staff to Vice President al gore. During the Obama Administration he played a behindthescenes role in the economic Recovery Efforts in the passage of the Affordable Care act. As the vote count continues, i wanted to show you a piece from joel pollock on breitbart. Ron klain, 2014 yes american elections are rigged, long tweetedaid to joe biden in 2014 that he believed elections are rigged. The tweet here from fox, hes responding to a vox to eat in 2014, 68 of americans think elections are rigged. The tweet here reportedly from brock about reportedly from ron claim, thats because they are. Jerry, republican line, go ahead. Be, we my question would have holidays for just about everything. Why not on the day that we vote for our president , it should be a National Holiday so everybody would have a chance to go invoke . Is, president g from the been fighting time he got in right up until now. Hes still trying to fight for the American People. But no matter what he does, the voters have spoke. I think that after everything is counted, if it is the way that it is, then he should open the in andnd let biden come transfer the power. Thank you. Tim, tim, tim is in preston, connecticut. A biden supporter. Should President Trump concede . Caller he should. Its 5 million votes ahead for biden already. A small city by me is 40,000 people. City, take a look at that being 40,000, multiply that by 2. 5 times, thats what his lead is. If you took it and divided it by 50 states, you come up with 100,000 more votes per state. I sincerely doubt that there is that level of fraud in every state across the United States. Thats all i have to say for today. Host all right. Pat is next, supporter of President Trump. Caller im so tired of hearing the tone that President Trump has. For four years its been nothing but a fight. Its constant. Hes gotten four nominations for the nobel peace prize. Hes gotten peace in the middle east. Its just not fair. 95 of the coverage of him is bad. You dont, you dont hear about the right to try. You dont hear about the unemployment. Theres been so much. What are these people thinking . I dont get it. I dont get it. If theres a recount and biden wins, conservatives will let him take his place. Host pat mentioned in her comments, peace in the middle east. Her words. The efforts of the Trump Administration in israel, this report is from the washington after trump, Benjamin Netanyahu faces a reset in the white house, the rare u. S. Ally who gloried in trumps unconventional turn, collecting political goodies and boasting of his open line to the office, meaning joe biden holds the cards as he attempts to reset the terms of one of the most important american relationships abroad and confront netanyahu over old grievances, such as u. S. Engagement with iran and engagement over palestinian land. For netanyahu, they write, the biden election takes him down a peg host in portsmouth, virginia, robert is the joe biden supporter. Whats going on . I tell you what, all this stuff trump, healking about asws that just as soon President Biden goes into be inaugurated, as soon as that done and hes finished, donald trump is a civilian again and he has got so many people on him with lawsuits. Some criminal, im sure. He just dont want that to happen and he owns his own aircraft. I believe hes going to bolt out of this country. Hes a chicken. Hes a plain chicken. Scotty, port huron, michigan, trump supporter. Caller yes, my comments from president for President Trump, hes the sir Patrick Henry of this day. This election, this election ist we have gone through worse than the john f. Kennedy assassination. It is sick. This country needs to wake up. Because there is corruption up the pyongyang. Yang. G harris, they are patsies. Trilateral crossfire, no different from the kennedy assassination. Host meryl is in washington. Caller wow, i have never heard so much, this is hypocrisy on steroids. That last caller, total hypocrisy. One some cheese with that whine . Im so glad he will never be president again. He has tried to destroy this country. Look at how many World Leaders have supported joe biden already. It tells you right now that the math is in, 45 is out, thank you jesus. Time for a new beginning and we are going to make it happen and georgia. Senate seat in go stacey abrams. Thank you. Host 50 more minutes of our program as the house comes in at 10 a. M. , brief pro forma session. On capitol hill, reports of a defense bill in the washington es facing cloudy prospects times, saying it faces cloudy prospects. The legislative branch is wrestling host salem, New Hampshire, dave, on the others line, go ahead. Hi, yeah, its just that im disappointed with an evergrowing number of my fellow americans. Seems like they, they really all on histrump at previous actions. To put someone who ran trump ,niversity and set up a scam the donald j. Trump foundation, and then i dont know how they spin that . I dont understand that you would want to put somebody in office that openly, you know, takes advantage of people for his own benefit, for his own wealth. If i did either one of those types of scams, im sure i would be sitting in jail. But he has been coasting for like forever. To give him accolades for it . I find it very strange. Host ok, matt is next. Matt didnt vote. Whats your observation with all of this . Voted sincevent the bush scandal in florida many years ago. My take on this is that i hear a lot of people saying that there might have been some voter fraud, but it wont put off the count. But thats like saying that tom brady cheated only one game, no big deal. How can there be any cheating going on . One melt one vote, one million votes, if we cant defend on the election voting system, what can we defend . Not the fbi. Sure isnt the police department. I mean, can we do anything right in this country . We cant even vote. Host looking ahead to 2024, are you firmly resolved not to vote again . Abler i would love to be to vote again, but i need to have 100 trust and confidence in what im doing. Im not going to waste my time out there pretending like my vote counts when obviously it doesnt. And how about the four people that actually have seen evidence . They are getting crucified right now, absolutely crucified. They may or may not want to say it and if they do say it, heres the media. We have no evidence, no evidence. Thisbout the evidence that old lady and this gentleman saw. You threw them under the bus. For the media to do that . Come on, america. Time thingis a long with you . Has your mistrust of the process cap your cap you away from kept you away from the polls . Ander i went to school ever since that class and university when i sat there with that teacher in those kids, we went in depth. I never would have voted since then. What a joke. What a scam. Host millie, wilcox, connecticut, supporting joe biden, good morning. Quickly, to check on the people who are answering their phones, this is the first time i have gotten through and the first time i called, i called the biden line and they said it was the wrong number and i called the other line and they said it was the wrong number and they were rude and hung up on me. Through. D you got go ahead. Caller theres a lot i want to say, but i know my time is limited. I will try to restrict it to just a few points. I have worked in the Mental Health field for many, many years. We know from doing an evaluation and from the people in law enforcement, if you look at a persons pattern of behavior, based on the President Trump based on President Trumps behavior throughout his life, he has cheated people out of his out of their money through trump university, cheated on his wife, cheated on his taxes, this is a longterm pattern of behavior that he has. The other thing is that i never really had we never really had significant problems with the elections until he came into office, starting with the issue of russia. I was fine to vote by ballot, mailing or in person, he was sewing so much doubt and dissent, it was hard to know which way would be safer and no matter what you did, he was going to try to undermine the election. Like, again, because i work in Mental Health, you judge people as you judge yourself. If you are an honest person, you think other people are honest. If you are not, you think everybody is out to lie and cheat host . Millie cheat. Host millie, appreciate you persevering and getting in on the phone lines. Pittsburgh, northwest corner there, in pennsylvania it is small shifts in small places adding up to big differences for joe biden, Election Night in downtown yeary at the Democratic Watch Party where the mood was grim. Yeary,en was losing, in the surrounding county had backed barack obama twice before flipping to trump and 2016 and it would probably need to flip back if democrats wanted to win pennsylvania. They write about how on saturday their patience was rewarded and biden defeated trump after the democrat won pennsylvania and set off a dance party on the streets of philadelphia along with amplification from the president ial backers of unfounded claims of the city Election Fraud. Yet it wasnt a Major Urban Centers that set the result in 2020. The state deliver the coolest cup of all, it was ear he county and other places like it where relatively minor shifts across a small swath of industrial cities and growing suburbs and smalling exurbs added up and made all the difference. Thats from the Washington Post. Rosamond, North Carolina, good morning on the trump line. The question was, should he concede to. My opinion, he should not concede. They planned this from the beginning. The doubt, the russian collusion and all. Thats probably why he suspects its not a legit election. If you look back in time, the United States has interfered in elections around the country in other countries 81 different times, so whats to say they havent interfered in their own . Plus, we wonder why we cant unite. Even though biden has one and condemnings so much trump, making lists, just making people stand hard. Last i looked, 70 of people believed that elections are not legit. We have a lot of healing to do in this country. My thought is what if nobody had started this from the time trump was elected. Things went smooth, politicians, hollywood wasnt calling for his head and everything. And things went smooth and all and no rhetoric, let trump done his four years, i dont think we would be in the shape we are in today if things had went smooth from day one. Host aretha, lakeland, florida, biden supporter. Caller high, thank you for taking my call. First, its really sad to hear these grown people with these conspiracy theories and thats sad, first and foremost. I wanted to say im a black woman with black kids, black and brown kids. 48, ive never seen an open racist like this with donald trump constantly coming on television attacking blacks, athletes, brown people from other countries . Of course that made us come out. You know . We have never seen that. Most of us are scared, looking at the tv going what are we seeing. Is this whats really happening . Older people who have been through the civil war to say somethings wrong here and once we hear that, we have the weight a minute, if they are telling us something is wrong, we might need to look at that. Yes, we came out and voted. Conditions. Xisting i voted by mail. Last time i voted in person. Donald trump knew it was a deadly virus. Lets put the blame where it lies. Someone lied to us. Someone lied to us when they knew it was airborne. I dont think its fair, you know. Im just feeling the way of the black woman. A lot of the Trump Supporters, lets be honest, are white and they have their own reasons. Everybody is entitled to vote how they want, i respect that. But they are privileged. Now they want to redo of the election because it didnt go your way. Host a couple of more minutes here, just an up eight on the pandemic, Economic Relief efforts on capitol hill, Jennifer Schock has this tweet , enng that Chuck Grassley covid19 relief negotiations, there has been no discussion between mcconnell and pelosi, but mcconnell wont be relying on mnuchin anymore to do the dealing. Writing on that, and opinion piece this morning from the wall street journal. Writes congress shouldnt wait for President Biden to be sworn in. They should act quickly to pass relief packages for families and states with money to combat the virus. It will require compromises on all sides, but they are worth making because time is of the essence. Hannah city, illinois. Kirk, trump supporter. Go ahead, cook kirk. Caller yes, i am. This election should not be about who you vote for, but rather about what you vote for. In my case, in point, celebrity steve harvey, back when obama was running for president , he stated that he would vote for the devil and put him in the white house. This mindset is a very scary mindset and its disturbing that people would think like that when it comes to our highest position in the nation and the best integrity for this country. Thank you. Is valerie,p richmond, michigan, joe biden supporter. Take mythank you for call. The question was, should trump concede, if im correct by the constitution, nowhere does it say that the sitting president has to concede. The newly elected president will be sworn in on january 20. For that. Ks one more call, here. The house is coming in briefly. A quick thought on your support for President Trump . My name is ken, im from washington. I dont feel that donald trump should concede. We have already had voter fraud in the gubernatorial elections. I understand what its like. I wish i would have gotten through with you when mr. Gephardt was on, but this counsel, i dont weigh much, i dont give him much weight on the council when she he has donna brazil on there. To say is, all i have come on, man. Host that it will do it for calls. We will take you next to capitol hill. Capitol hill