Front Burner - Trump takes to the courts as Biden makes gains

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

Two days after the U.S. election, we still don’t know who the next President of the United States will be as the vote counting continues in key battleground states. Today we are joined by CBC senior Washington editor Lyndsay Duncombe to help us sort through the growing legal battles and the narrowing paths to victory for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I recognize that right now the campaign wants to spin. They want to say whatever they're going to say. The campaign is over. The candidates made their case.

And now under the laws of this commonwealth, the votes have to be counted. And we will not let anything interrupt that process of counting. So that is Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania, explaining what so many people are waiting for them to finish doing, counting the votes. Today, two days after the U.S. election, the counting continues, and we still don't know who the next president of the United States will be. I'm not here to declare that we've won,

but I am here to report when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We want all voting to stop. My colleague, CBC senior Washington editor Lindsay Duncombe is back again to help us sort through the growing legal battles and the narrowing paths to victory. I'm Jamie Poisson, and this is FrontBurner. Hi, Lindsay. Thanks so much for coming back so soon. Hello again.

Okay, so when we had our conversation yesterday night, or very early yesterday morning, we went over the things that we know and we don't know. And we do know more tonight. We still don't know who's president. Right. I guess we don't know this very big thing. But we are talking Wednesday at 9.30pm. And so I want to be clear, things could evolve. But at this point, what happened today? What do we know? This was a good day for Joe Biden. Things look better for Joe Biden today than they did when we spoke last night. There has been a sort of a steady drip of good news, good counts coming in for the former vice president, who now has the clearest path, and not a sure thing, but the clearest path to that 270 electoral votes. He remains ahead in Arizona. That would be a pickup for the Democrats, a place they have been targeting. Wisconsin has

been called for Biden. Michigan has been called for Biden. That is two of the three so-called blue wall states that Trump won in 2016 and that the Democrats were targeting. And that's where Joe Biden's middle class appeal, the whole middle class Joe idea resonated. At least that was the aim of the campaign in those states. Nevada is leaning towards Biden. We're expecting to get those results tomorrow at noon Eastern. We're expecting to get those results tomorrow at noon Eastern. So if we had known last night what we know now, we would have said that the Democrats and Joe Biden are on track for a pretty big win.

Only three presidential campaigns in the past have defeated an incumbent president. When it's finished, God willing, we'll be the fourth. Okay. And what about Trump here? What are his options at this point to get to the 270? He could still win. He would have to win Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. And at this stage, that is an uphill battle. He probably has the best chance in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump is leading. But all day, Joe Biden chipped away at that lead as mail-in ballots came in. And in Georgia, it looked like Donald Trump had a pretty significant lead. But that has also tightened significantly as the mail-in ballots come in. Right. It's my understanding that if Georgia goes, it's over for him. There's no way

that he could win the White House if he loses Georgia. He needs Georgia. He could still get it, but we're waiting to find out. Okay. One thing that I want to talk to you about that we didn't get to last night are the Senate results. And so if Biden does get these extra electoral votes that he needs, and he does win the presidency, it is looking like the Senate could stay Republican controlled. Sarah Gideon, who raised millions of dollars in her race, lost to Senator Susan Collins, the longtime representative of Maine. While this election may be over, we have to work together to build a better future.

And can we talk a little bit about how another GOP-led Senate could impact his ability to make good on all his campaign promises, like effectively to govern? It really limits Joe Biden to what's possible with executive action. So that would mean those promises, including rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, some immigration reforms would be possible. But any kind of large structural sweeping change, including promises related to the New Green Deal, including a massive overhaul to healthcare, it's hard to imagine how any of that could happen with a Republican-controlled

Senate led by Mitch McConnell. And the same goes, too, for some of that structural change that Democrats had been musing about, including putting more justices on the Supreme Court, perhaps granting or having statehood applied to D.C. and Puerto Rico. So there would be constraints and limits on what Joe Biden presidency could achieve. And that might have the effect of increasing cynicism and frustration that Americans have with Washington and its ability to get things done. Senior Republican Senator Mitch McConnell himself reelected last night in Kentucky. We need another rescue package. Hopefully the partisan passions that prevented us from doing another rescue package will subside with the election. So I think that's job one.

Right, right. And I don't know if you would agree with this, but I do have to say, you know, watching several media outlets, like there is a lot of common measured coverage happening here. You know, there are a lot of people, commentators, anchors saying just we just need to wait. We just need to hold on and wait for these votes to be counted. Potentially tomorrow may be a big day. You know, trend lines are pointing Biden's way right now, but we are not done because we have votes to count. Big day. You know, trend lines are pointing Biden's way right now, but we are not done because we have votes to count. It's interesting that the president's messages of a stolen election are not being echoed by Fox News.

Pennsylvania and North Carolina results could be days away. As you know, any ballot postmarked by 8 p.m. November 3rd can be counted for up to three days by counties. Fox News is also reporting the races as they come in. Very much the president's chosen network, very much a supportive network. But we're not necessarily seeing that lockstep, the election fraud message coming through on that network. All right, so let's talk a little bit about the fight for the presidency right now. So Trump is continuing to claim victory into Wednesday without the results to back that up. We will win this. And as far as I'm concerned, we already have won it. So I just want to thank you. He had several tweets today that were flagged by Twitter for being untrue and misleading.

I'll read some for you. We have claimed for electoral vote purposes, he wrote, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and the state of Michigan. He can't just do that. He's saying a bunch of stuff about votes in Michigan or Pennsylvania for Biden just appearing. When in fact, what we do know is happening is that the votes are being counted. It's taking longer to count the mail and ballots. That is what is happening. There is no evidence of fraud right now.

But as promised, the court fights are starting. And with that, I want to pass it off to the great Rudy Giuliani. But we're not going to let him get away with it. They're not going to steal this election. Quite possibly, we'll do a national lawsuit and really expose the corruption of the Democrat Party. And let's go through some of them. Let's start with Michigan. Let's start with Michigan. Yeah, in Michigan, the Trump legal team announced they were planning to sue to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in that state, which has already been called for Joe Biden.

The reason, they say, is that the Trump team believes there has been insufficient transparency in the process. They say they want more access to watch how the ballots are being counted. And that's something that there hasn't been any evidence of. But supporters of the president were outside a convention center in Detroit chanting, stop the count today. Stop the vote! Stop the vote! Right. And this conjured up memories for me of the 2000 Brooks Brothers riots in Miami. You were like Republican staffers from Washington, went to Florida to protest. I mean, we don't know who this relatively small group of protesters were, but it was like just, it felt like deja vu a little bit. I didn't see too many blazers or name brand suits. But yeah, they were definitely supporters

of the president. Let's move on to Pennsylvania. There's a fresh case there. And what's happening in Pennsylvania? Well, it's the same baseline argument as Michigan that the Republicans do not have access to these places and they want to see how ballots are being counted. The way it's interpreted by the Democrat crooked machine of Philadelphia is that the observers can be 20 or 30 feet away. But it's worth noting that even as we're getting reports of these lawsuits, there are live streams of how these ballots are being counted in these states. So you can see these poll workers sitting there in their masks, taking things out of envelopes, putting them in machines.

And the Republicans are saying that they're not really getting access or the process isn't being transparent. And certainly the state officials in these states say that they are doing everything they can to obey the rules and to count the ballots and to provide access as is required. Right. Tell me a little bit more about these state officials. We heard from them today, throughout the day, people who are in charge of monitoring and counting the votes in all of these states. What are they saying? These are the secretaries of state in these various states who are responsible for administering election law.

And what's different, Jamie, in the United States than in Canada is this is all locally managed. So we have these people defending what is happening in their states and explaining a situation that they really had warned people about, that this is something that would not happen on election night necessarily, but would take time. And that's what we're seeing happen. Let me be abundantly clear. First of all, this is a meritless, frivolous lawsuit and really just an attempt to sow seeds of doubt about the integrity of our well-established election process and protocols. We are exactly where we said we would be. They don't have a legal pathway to challenge. We are legally counting valid ballots, and there's not a way to stop that. There's another case in Pennsylvania or tied to Pennsylvania that I just want to talk about briefly. And the Trump campaign

is essentially seeking to intervene in a lawsuit that had previously been refused by the Supreme Court. They didn't hear it. And that was considered a win for the Democrats. And what's going on there? Well, this is all about how to count ballots that come in late. The Supreme Court upheld a state ruling that extended the deadline as saying that they could count ballots for an additional three days because of postal delays. But the justices said they could revisit it. So what's happening right now in Pennsylvania is that ballots are being counted but put aside. And if it's close enough, then there could be a court fight to determine whether or not those particular

ballots should be filed. And in the previous ruling, where the justices said we're not going to make this decision now, the new justice, Amy Coney Barrett, did not participate, although it is expected that should this issue be revisited in front of the Supreme Court, she would be part of that. And Donald Trump explicitly said that he wanted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett before any kind of election case came before in the Supreme Court. Obviously, she has said that she will follow the law and not the president who appointed her. I certainly hope that all members of the committee have more confidence in my integrity than to think that I would allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election

for the American people. But it does put everything in an interesting position. Yeah. And I just want to be clear here. You know, Donald Trump is saying that he wants this fight to go to the Supreme Court. He wants the votes to stop being counted, the ballots to stop being counted. And like, it doesn't work like that, right? You can't just like walk up to the Supreme Court and ask them to stop voting in a whole bunch of states. Supreme Court and ask them to stop voting in a whole bunch of states. Yeah, and the Supreme Court has the ability to say whether or not they're going to hear a case that has been appealed or not, or if they will let a state ruling stand. So the president saying this is going to go to the Supreme Court when we have no idea what the specific conflict is, is premature for sure.

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Okay, we've got two more states I want to cover. The first is another active lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Georgia. Tell me quickly about what's going on there. Yeah, this lawsuit alleges that a Republican observer watched a poll worker take a small number of unprocessed absentee ballots from a back room and mix them into a processed absentee ballots in a waiting to be tabulated box. It is worth noting that this lawsuit came to light as the race in Georgia became tighter and as the it's not surprising that this is the way things are playing out in the face of a tight race that appears to be edging in the direction of his opponent. And just so that we're super clear, you know, tell me a little bit more about the strategy for all of these lawsuits. Like what what are they trying to accomplish? Like what what are they trying to accomplish? It is all about casting doubt on the result, painting the president as someone who is a victim of the Democrats and their schemes.

And this is a message that has worked for Donald Trump supporters before. Do you think we're stupid? You think we're fools? You know something? The Democrats do think you're stupid and they do think you're fools. And that's why you get called deplorable and chumps. Right. And I imagine, too, if you can be successful in some of these lawsuits and get, you know, baskets of votes thrown out, you could start shaving margins here and there in very close states. skits of votes thrown out, you could start shaving margins here and there in very close states. And we don't know how close some of these states will end up being. The other thing that could end up happening, though, is a delay in terms of when we find out who the president of the United States is. Okay. And lastly, Wisconsin. The Trump campaign also said it would request a recount in Wisconsin, which they are allowed to do because the vote is within a 1% margin there. As you mentioned earlier, Wisconsin has been called for Biden, though it could take a while. It could take a while to recount up to two weeks. Do you think that a recount could change the outcome there given how close it is? Well, let's look at what the former Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, thinks,

because his opinion is probably a little bit more significant than mine. And he said today that he does not believe a recount would be significant enough to really change Joe Biden's lead when he's up 20,000 votes. So certainly it's within the rights of the campaign to do that. But even Republicans don't believe that that would make a difference to how that state plays out. Okay. And so I guess we just have to watch in the coming days and weeks to see, you know, what happens with these lawsuits and also to see how wide the margins are in some of these states, you know, what kind of lead Biden or Trump may end up getting here. I wanted to ask you, watching today, I saw like a lot of the president's son, Eric Trump, was out.

This is absolute fraud. We've seen it in Philadelphia before. We're going to win Pennsylvania. But they're going to win Pennsylvania. But they're trying to cheat us out of it because they know it's their only path to victory. Donald Trump was out. Rudy Giuliani was certainly out. So his family and his surrogates kind of making the case that, you know, there was fraud happening in this election, that this election was being stolen from the president. But I don't think I saw very many senior Republican leaders like on a national level, talking about what's happening right now. And have they backed Trump's claims, you know,

like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? I think what we saw in the morning when we woke up today was a pushback from McConnell and other Republicans against the president's speech in the middle of the night or the early morning last night that the election had been stolen and a message that what needs to happen is that the votes need to be counted. Well, it's not unusual for people to claim they won the election, but claiming you win the election is different from finishing the counting. And you should not be shocked that both states, both sides are going to have lawyers there. is seeing that despite what the establishment backroom Republicans told him in the lead up to this campaign, he is having more success than people told him that he would.

It likely won't be enough to keep him in the Oval Office, but he did manage to bring millions more Republican voters, particularly Hispanic voters, black voters in Florida, men into the party. So if you're Donald Trump, you think, well, how I'm handling this, it worked. So I'm going to keep going with my strategy, despite what all of these establishment guys are telling me. Right, right. And just before we end today, let's talk about Biden and how Biden and his campaign are approaching all of this. What do we hear from them Wednesday? And, you know, where are they at right now? day and you know where are they at right now short speech from joe biden uh speaking in delaware kind of controlled message a positive uh saying that this isn't about him or the president it's

about counting the votes it's about democracy it's about the constitution no one's going to take our democracy away from us not now not ever. America's come too far to ever let that happen. Very much wanting to play by the rules. We are seeing evidence of a team that is moving into its transition, including setting up its transition website with the buildbackbetter.com title. And there will be no blue states and red states when we win, just the United States of America. So very much moving into a transition phase. But even if everything goes Joe Biden's way, and goodness knows there's no guarantee of that, way. And goodness knows, there's no guarantee of that. Given what the president is saying, given the people who are inclined to believe the president, given the amount of tension in this country, the ongoing court fights, that transition that Biden is planning for, even if he gets it,

likely to be bumpy. All right, Lindsay Duncombe, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Sounds great. Thanks. Okay, so hopefully we'll have all the answers that we need by tomorrow. But before we go, one answer we do have is that Kanye West certainly did not win this race. Kanye, who in case you missed it, abruptly announced he would run for president back in July, only appeared on the ballot in 12 states. He conceded with only 60,000 votes and a post on Twitter stating Kanye 2024. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner

and talk to you tomorrow.