Could Dems rebel against Nancy Pelosi after election performance?

close

Video

Could Dems rebel against Nancy Pelosi after election performance?

Some Democrats want the Speaker out after failing to grow House majority; Chad Pergram has the latest

Nov. 5, 2020 – This is a rush transcript from “The Story with Martha MacCallum” November 5, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Poll workers in Michigan were duplicating ballots. But, when our observers attempted to challenge the activity, those poll workers jumped in front of the volunteers to block their view, so that they couldn't see what they were doing. And it became a little bit dangerous.

One major hub for counting ballots in Detroit covered up the windows, again, with large pieces of cardboard. And so they wanted to protect and block the counting area. They didn't want anybody seeing the counting, even though these were observers who are legal observers that were supposed to be there.

In Detroit, there were hours of unexplained delay in delivering many of the votes for counting. The final batch did not arrive until 4:00 in the morning, and even though the polls closed at 8:00. So they brought it in.

And the batches came in, and nobody knew where they came from.

We have also been denied access to observe in critical places in Georgia.

In multiple swing states, counting was halted for hours and hours on election night, with results withheld from major Democrat-run locations, only to appear later. And they certainly appeared. And they all had the name Biden on them, or just about all, I think almost all. They all had the name Biden on them, which is a little strange.

I challenge Joe and every Democrat to clarify that they only want legal votes, because they talk about votes. And I think they should use the word legal, legal votes. We want every legal vote counted. And I want every legal vote counted.

We want openness and transparency, no secret count rooms, no mystery ballots, no illegal votes being cast after Election Day. You have Election Day, and the laws are very strong on that. You have an Election Day.

And they don't want votes cast after Election Day. And they want the process to be an honest one. It is so important. We want an honest election. And we want an honest count. And we want honest people working back there, because it's a very important job.

So, that's the way this country is going to win. That's the way the United States will win. And we think we will win the election very easily. We think there's going to be a lot of litigation, because we have so much evidence, so much proof. And it's going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land.

We will see. But we think there will be a lot of litigation, because we can't have an election stolen like this.

And I tell you, I was -- I have been talking about this for many months with all of you. And I have said very strongly that mail-in ballots are going to end up being a disaster. Small elections were a disaster. Small, very-easy-to-handle elections were disastrous.

This is a large-scale version. And it's getting worse and worse every day.

We're hearing stories that are horror stories, absolute horror stories. And we can't let that happen to the United States of America.

It's not a question of who wins, Republican, Democrat, Joe, myself. We can't let that happen to our country. We can't be disgraced by having something like this happen.

So, it will be hopefully cleared up, maybe soon. I hope soon. But it'll probably go through a process, a legal process. And, as you know, I have claimed certain states, and he's claiming states. And we can both claim the states.

But, ultimately, I have a feeling judges are going to have to rule. But there's been a lot of shenanigans. And we can't stand for that in our country.

Thank you very much.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: President Trump.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Yes, the president coming out and basically saying that he believes the election has been stolen. He didn't take any questions, Bret people yelling him on his way out the door.

BAIER: Yes, he said big media, big money, big tech and pollsters, suppression polls, essentially have affected this race, he said from the beginning. Also talked about several lawsuits that have already been launched and many more he says that are coming, challenging the handling of the ballots in various states, alleging that things are happening in these states, those state registrars and secretaries of state are pushing back on that so far.

MACCALLUM: Yes, he keeps talking but the fact that the later on, more votes kept coming in. We know that the mail-in ballots were collected, were announced, after the day of ballots, which was the order that we were told that would happen in but he says we have so much evidence, so much proof, that the election was stolen, so that is what will need to be produced if indeed it is there.

BAIER: Stealing an election, corruption, leveling a lot of charges, the President of the United States, who we haven't really heard from since the morning hours after the election and now this battle continues with his campaign fighting in numerous states.

MACCALLUM: So to our local Fox stations we will now return you to your regular programming tonight. Our coverage continues live on the Fox News channel though. I'm Martha MacCallum in New York.

All right, very remarkable news conference this evening from the President of the United States, he did not take any questions in there. Let's go back to our Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts, who is there in the room. Good evening to you once again John.

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Martha and Bret good evening to you. I think it's - from a 30,000-foot level, what we saw here is a president who was looking at the numbers tightening in races in places like Georgia and in Pennsylvania and looking at the results of what's coming in, in Arizona even though his campaign says that ultimately he will prevail in Arizona, looking at the numbers in Nevada as they are beginning to expand for Joe Biden.

And I believe what we saw tonight is a president who believes that at the end of the day when all of these votes are counted, the election is not going to go his way, so he is trying to plan an alternate route to retain the White House.

The president saying a couple of moments ago I think we will win easily.

There is going to be a lot of litigation and I believe that this is going to end up at the Supreme Court. That doesn't sound like a president who was waiting for 270 votes to be allocated to one candidate or the other. The net candidate claims victory and the other can see its defeat.

This sounds look a president who is going to look at the results come in and quite possible that Joe Biden in the end could end up with 270 or more electoral votes at which point it looks like President Trump is going to pull the trigger on even more litigation than we have seen so far.

I told you going into this that if the president had a grievance we were likely going to hear about it. He spent a lot of time, Bret, on your topic.

What he called suppression polls, polls that showed that the president was going to lose certain states by anywhere from seven or 15 points or 17 points in the case of Wisconsin.

And that the results were anything but what had been projected, the president calling those suppression polls designed to tell people that the cause is lost, stay home, it's not even worth coming out. And I think all of this is going to go into a big pot that the president's team is going to roll out as a way to challenge whatever election results we see later this week.

Now, in terms of fraud or abuse or found ballots or whatever the president talked a lot about that, but we haven't seen any widespread as evidence that that is the case. I did forward around a short time ago a letter from the Trump Campaign to the District Attorney in Clark County, Nevada, in which it is alleged that thousands of people who were not legal residents of Nevada cast votes in Clark County.

I mean, that could be some evidence of fraudulent voting, we don't know.

It's a claim at this point but other than that, Bret and Martha, I haven't really seen anything that would constitute any kind of flagrant fraud or abuse of the system. I haven't heard about it perhaps Fox News hasn't heard about it--

BAIER: We have not seen evidence yet John. And I just want to note something that was very stark was that, as the president is talking there about these various states, as he is saying that Democrats are stealing an election and that it's a corrupt system.

On the other side of the screen, because of the way we have the graphics set up, literally the votes are going down in Georgia. Now a 3600 vote spread between President Trump and Former Vice President Biden in Pennsylvania, the spread now 64,000.

That was happening as the president was talking. We have not seen the hard evidence. He claims that his campaign is going forward with these legal lawsuits and they are going to produce it, but those spreads are getting much more narrow and possibly will change as time goes on.

ROBERTS: And again, all Joe Biden has to do is turn one of those states blue. It Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and he gets to 270. And so when he gets to 270, clearly I would think the Biden Campaign - now, Joe Biden said let's wait for it so maybe he will wait for the vote to be complete in all of the states.

But the question I wanted to ask the president was let's say over the course of the next 72 hours the vote goes your way and you end up with 270, will you claim victory? The president clearly didn't take any questions.

But I don't know if Joe Biden, if he wins one more state will come out and say that's it, I'm the winner.

We are going to start building a transition team, which I'm sure that he's already doing as well because that would be the prudent thing to do because of a court decision goes your way, you want to make sure that you're not settling for five weeks behind.

I believe that it happened in 2000 the transition teams were up and running on both sides. Certainly President Bush said that he was doing it. But I don't know that the Trump Campaign is going to respond to that favorably or if they're going to say we are not accepting the results of this election.

And here's a litigation with which we are going to show that the election turned out a different way and I have no idea what evidence they would possibly present to back up that case that any court would look at and say you know what, you're right.

I mean, clearly back in 2000 when they had to recount in Florida, there was evidence. There were ballots that you couldn't read properly, there were butterfly ballots. You remember this all too well, Bret. Dimple chats, hanging chats, solid evidence that votes that were either legitimate or not legitimate and there were arguments on both sides.

And this was argued by two of the finest attorneys in the country at the time, Ted Olsen and David Boyce at the Supreme Court. And ultimately the Supreme Court said stop the counting. But in this case, we don't have any of that evidence that they had back in 2000 so I'm not sure how the president makes the case? But I can tell you this that he has got teams of legal people who are working on that at this moment.

MACCALLUM: Yes. We see the letter that you mentioned, John, which with regard to Nevada and this is really the first piece of any evidence that we know that the Trump lawyers have put forward, which is that they say 3,062 voters who moved from Nevada before the election still cast ballots in the election.

They do not attach those lists here, of who those voters are, proving that they did actually place a ballot but that's the kind of thing that you would need to see in large numbers and all of these places - make any kind of impact.

BAIER: It would have to affect the spread in those races.

MACCALLUM: Exactly.

BAIER: Right now that Nevada lead for Joe Biden is11, 438.

ROBERTS: If I could just add to that, I'm told that there are thousands more names that will be submitted to the District Attorney in Clark County as well. I have not seen that list. Someone who was working on a redacted version of it that I hope to get at some point.

But they do say that they have thousands of names, they are starting out with a tranche of 3,000 names. There will likely be thousands more I'm also told that the Trump Campaign has the names of people who are deceased that had a ballot cast in their name. So we hope to see more about that as this case begins to unfold.

MACCALLUM: I mean that's the kind of thing you need to see, that's actual evidence of the kind of things that are being suggested here. John, thank you very much.

BAIER: Let's bring back our panel, Bill Bennett Former Education Secretary and Host of the "Bill Bennett" podcast, Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent for National Public Radio and Bill McGurn, Columnist for "The Wall Street Journal." OK, Mara, your thoughts on what you just heard from the President of the United States?

MARA LIASSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Well, what I just heard was a lot of charges. We haven't seen the evidence yet and when he says that the Georgia count, which John just explained was his numbers are going down as he was speaking. He said this count - this system is controlled by Democrats.

The Governor and the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State is in charge of the voting machinery are both Republicans and if there was the kind of massive fraud and irregularity but the president talks about, you would think that Brad - and Governor Kemp would be looking into it or raising the alarm bells.

What I'm surprised by is the utter silence on the part of the Republicans, really, who aren't echoing the president's claims, and not even Vice President Pence has been charging the same things. So he's got a ton of lawyers, a lot of money to bring these cases, go forward, bring the evidence, let a court look at it and see what they think.

BAIER: Bill Bennett?

LIASSON: And that's what we're waiting for.

MACCALLUM: Bill Bennett, your reaction to what we just heard from the president, who as we said that I won Georgia, I won Michigan, I won Wisconsin and then it got whittled down.

BILL BENNETT, FORMER EDUCATION SECRETARY: Yes, well, the president firmly beliefs he does and I do as well. Let me just say it doesn't depend upon the president's feelings. All due respect, Bret, my respect enormously, you and John both talked about the numbers going down as he was speaking and that having some effect on him.

Well, it may have some effect on him. Maybe depressing him, probably should be depressing about but that's totally independent of the truth of things and though John Roberts hasn't seen the evidence yet, doesn't mean that there isn't evidence.

John cited Florida, but that wasn't solved in a day or two days or three days. You remember how long that took so I agree with Mara. If there is evidence, and I believe there will be, it should come forward and I think there is this very important and consequential circumstantial evidence the courts could make serious inferences from.

Large batches of votes with not a single one for Donald Trump, and go where the evidence leads, but it is a little early to say well, we have improved anything yet, no, they have improved anything yet. It takes a while to make the case and no, the president is not going to say well, if I'm declared the winner I want to challenge it in court, because that would be evenhanded. He doesn't think it was stolen from Biden. He thinks it was stolen from him.

BAIER: Yes, I understand what you're saying, Bill. My point was the visual of when he's making this case that the election is being stolen and it's a corrupt system, the visual on our screen showed real time as he was talking votes leaving his column in Georgia and Pennsylvania and it was happening real time. I was just referencing the image. Bill McGurn, your thoughts on what the president said and where we are?

BILL MCGURN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, pretty much the same. Look, there are a lot of assumptions here. First, we don't know that he's actually lost the election. Yes, the margins are going down in certain areas. I think we kind of expected this when some of the other votes would come in.

So that would have to - he would have to lose first. I think not only would he have to show evidence of widespread fraud, it would have to be the margin not only in his state, in the state that he is alleging, but in enough states where it would make a difference to the election, right?

I mean, it would have to be - so there are a lot of hurdles. I would say that the way the president spoke did seem to signal he was not confident that he would maintain his margins and that he would end up in court. I would also add I'm very confident the Supreme Court would do the right thing.

There are some people saying well, Trump appointed three of the justices. I don't think they're going to declare Donald Trump a winner if he didn't win. I want to see the totals and then I want to see the evidence and I'm hoping that when we have all that, it will be relatively clear, because if it's not, it's going to be poisonous.

MACCALLUM: Yes, I mean, we are waiting for rest of this vote to come in, so it's natural that these numbers are pouring in as these counties are reporting and we are still in position in many of these states where you've got 80, 86, up to 90 percent of the votes.

So the whittling down that happened over time is what we expected as these mail-in votes started to come in. If there's fraudulent behavior, if there are chunks of these ballots that were all dumped together with one person's name on it, we do need to - obviously we would want to report on that and we need to see if that is the case.

BAIER: Some counties do a separation, I'm told, and they sometimes put those into the system as they are counting them for each candidate, so that's also part of the system. Listen, we are looking into everything that we come across. We just haven't seen besides the specifics out of Nevada of the people who have moved out. We haven't seen the specific allegations.

MACCALLUM: Yes, it is interesting, would like to know more.

BAIER: Thank you very much.

MACCALLUM: Thank you guys. Thank you all. So if you're just joining us, welcome back to our continuing coverage of democracy 20. I'm Martha MacCallum and I believe we have--

BAIER: And I'm Bret Baier.

MACCALLUM: You're Bret Baier.

BAIER: President Trump was speaking from the White House moments ago, once again alleging Democrats trying to rig the election he said to fraud and dishonest counting practices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late, we are looking at them very strongly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Let's get reaction now from Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent at "The Washington Examiner" and Fox News Contributor. Byron, you watched along with us the president speaking there. Obviously he's disappointed with where things stand right now and he feels maligned. He feels like this is being stolen from him. He made that perfectly clear your thoughts?

BYRON YORK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he basically repeated a number of themes he said Wednesday morning at that 2:30 in the morning appearance at the White House. I think one of the reasons to come out was that Joe Biden has been coming out and probably inching closer and closer to claiming victory even though no victor has been declared.

So a couple of things you know, you were just discussing the Florida recount 20 years ago and there was one big thing about that, it was all in Florida. Florida was the big prize. It was the whole ball game, so the entire political world descended on Florida.

Here you have so many moving parts Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. And one more thing, last week when I was in Pennsylvania, a Republican Strategist who was working on behalf of the president, not for the campaign, said look, if Trump has made a mistake in this, it was in denigrating mail-in voting.

All those weeks went by when Democrats were banking votes every single day.

People could mail them in, they could early vote at their convenience. They were doing it on Saturday and Sunday and Trump was saying we are going to vote in person, we are going to wait for this big dramatic Election Day turnout there will be this red wave that will swamp all that came before it.

Meanwhile, Democrats already had so many tens of millions of votes in the bank. So I think in retrospect, when this is all over, if he does lose, I think that's what the president will regret doing.

BAIER: Byron, obviously the transparency issues are one thing, and we talked about that. Access into the accounting for Republicans and the president's team has been fighting that, going to court, trying to get action to see the counting itself and that is one thing. But then the fraud allegations, stealing the elections are another thing and those of the two sides of that battle.

YORK: Yes. Well, the access just seems very clear cut. Why should one campaign observers have to go to court to get - to observe people counting the votes? That just seems to me that it should be an open and shut case.

On the specific question of corruption, stolen votes, we need to see more and I think I was saying yesterday that we need to see from the president's lawyers a series of specific allegations. I'm not talking about proof, I'm not talking about something that would hold up in court, but something for us to look at in which they allege big enough specific problems in places that matter.

Here again we are talking Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. We have - Scott Walker, the Former Governor of Wisconsin, Republican, coming out today and talking about statewide recounts that have taken place in the past in Wisconsin.

And he said after all was said and done, they changed the vote totals by

150 votes, 250 votes, some very small number of votes that would not matter in this case. So the president needs to be - needs to make this case - it's not too late, it's only Thursday, but he needs to come out and begin to make this case that this, that this, and this were done in these important places.

BAIER: Is it only Thursday?

MACCALLUM: Only Thursday.

(LAUGHTER)

YORK: That's what I just checked, yes.

MACCALLUM: You just checked. Byron, thank you very much. Good to have you with us tonight.

BAIER: As you know, this race has come down to four states essentially, maybe five, but a short time ago the Secretary of State in one of them, Pennsylvania, told America to "Stay Tuned."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHY BOOCKVAR, PA SECRETARY OF STATE: It's very close in Pennsylvania, right? There's no question, and so that means it's going to take longer to actually see who the winner is, but I can tell you that there are several hundred thousand ballots remaining to be counted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Fox News Business Correspondent Connell McShane has more for us tonight from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capital there, hi, Connell.

CONNELL MCSHANE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Martha and Bret.

Now we've been following the story in Pennsylvania all day long and it's really been on two tracks. I mean, you have the vote count which you're eluding to there and I know we have the numbers up as we are all speaking here.

64,000 vote margin between the two candidates at this hour and then the legal challenges to that vote count which we will get it in a moment. But just to add what the Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said, which she also said in the news conferences that we are almost there, that the overwhelming majority of the ballots have been counted and that it's just that the race is so close that we don't know who the winner is yet?

And it's been getting closer throughout the day. We've been watching it, over 100,000, and then it goes down to 90,000, now at 64,000 in the lead the president has over Former Vice President Biden. I just looked at the Pennsylvania state website and they still say they have about 325,000 mail- in votes to count in Pennsylvania.

85,000 of those, Philadelphia County, 35,000 Allegheny County, which is Pittsburgh, so those are heavily Democratic areas that we are looking for to come in. Now on the legal front, Trump Campaign did ask the Supreme Court if they could be part of an existing legal challenge to the three-day ballot extension here in Pennsylvania.

And the Attorney General in the state as a Democrat, came out tonight, tried to response opposing the Trump team's efforts to join that case and then we have the back-and-forth that's been talked about in Philadelphia where campaign officials from the Trump side, Pam Bondi, Corey Lewandowski and others announced earlier today they have scored this legal victory as they said it was in the appellate court that would allow the poll watchers to get in and get a close look at the action.

But questions came up throughout the day about whether that was happening?

So the Trump team late in the day filed a federal lawsuit trying to stop the Philadelphia count that they weren't getting access. We just read moments ago from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the federal court, a judge took that on, heard the arguments.

First said that they should kind of figure it out on their own in a recess but then came back from the recess and said each side, Democrat and Republican could have 60 observers in the room as long as they keep their social distance because of COVID and that the account now should continue in Philadelphia.

So that's where we are. The bottom line, you do have those legal challenges, we are trying to follow them piece by piece has developed its come up, Martha and Bret. But you also have the vote count and the president's lead shrinking throughout the day, just over 64,000 votes now.

Back to you guys.

MACCALLUM: Connell, thank you very much. So Republican Congresswoman Debbie Lesko contends that the race is not over in her State of Arizona and she will join us to tell us what she thinks is going on there, coming up next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEBBIE LESKO (R-AZ): I spoke to the president yesterday morning and I told him I believe that Arizona is going to go for President Donald J.

Trump and then he is the - other states and he's going to win America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: Welcome back, everybody. The Trump Campaign is holding a press conference right now in Atlanta, Georgia tonight with Republican leaders in the state. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of you been reporting Joe Biden up ten points here.

One even said 17 points. You know what that was doing? You're interfering more with this election than the Russians have.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Yes. fake news.

JONES:  Let me tell you, we are not going to stand for it, we are not going to back down. We are going to fight. We don't cut and run. We are going to fight, because this is a battle cry, you're damn right, this is a battle cry.

(APPLAUSE)

JONES:  We have worked too hard and too long and that Donald Trump's been fighting for every American. It doesn't matter what your color was or your gender.

(APPLAUSE)

JONES:  And if he can put his life on the line --

(CROWD CHANTING)

JONES:  We love Trump. OK, we love Trump, but if Donald Trump -- if Donald Trump, and Kimberly, and America, Doug Collins, all of them, but my point is, America, my point is Georgia. That we believe in the process, but this process has been tainted. And if you tainted for one party, you tainted for the other party.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Yes.

JONES:  If you tainted for one American, then you taint it for all Americans and we are not going to stand for this. And you know was another fighter that's coming here tonight? I don't know who fights more, him or his father.

(APPLAUSE)

JONES:  That Don, Jr., you don't want to be in the ring with Don, Jr.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  He learned it from his daddy.

JONES:  He learned it from his daddy, but he cares. He cares about the state and he cares about this country, and they have a track record of resolving issues and addressing issues in the State of Georgia for every American.

So, I want to say to the press, so you can get the word out right now, this is my last point. We are not bullshitting.

(APPLAUSE)

JONES:  Stacy Abrams, you want a fair fight? Bring it on.

(APPLAUSE)

JONES:  Bring it on. You've been like a vacuum cleaner getting all of this underground money. We need to see where it's coming from and how you're spending it. But I know one thing, you're spending it on suppressing black people and other people, you are suppressing them. You know how you suppress because you're intimidating people for having an individual thought and the individual concern because they don't support your agenda.

You don't want them to vote. You don't want them to come out and speak their minds. What you're trying to do is keep them on the plantation.

MACCALLUM:  All right. Vernon Jones in Georgia where it is very narrow. You can see the president ahead there by 3,486 votes as those votes continue to come in.

Let's go to Arizona, obviously another state that we are watching very closely here tonight. Alicia Acuna is standing by with the latest on when we can expect more votes to come in as they continue to count in Arizona.

Alicia, good evening.

ALICIA ACUNA, FOX NEWS REPORTER:  Hi, Martha. Yes, we are expecting another data dump here in less than 90 minutes and behind me, the process continues and in terms of observers, because we've heard a lot about the observers and requests for both parties to be allowed, I can tell you that officials here in Maricopa County have told me that they both -- they have both Democrat and Republican observers inside.

The Arizona secretary of state says just under 450,000 ballots still need to be counted. The bulk of that in Maricopa County, which has 275,000 left.

Biden continues to lead here, however, the president has tightened it a bit in the last 24 hours. The head of Arizona's Republican Party, Kelly Ward is demanding Fox News retracked the Fox News decision desk call in the Grand Canyon state for Joe Biden. Today, GOP leaders in the state say that continuing count will end in favor of the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BOSSIE, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS UNITED:  Every legal ballot must be counted. We are here to protect every legal vote. If the current trends continue as we have seen, as we follow the science, President Trump is going to overtake Joe Biden and we are going to win Arizona.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACUNA:  Ten voters have filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa County recorder and others alleging they were provided sharpies to fill out their ballots, which they believed were not counted because the ink bled through or made their ballot unreadable.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs says that's not true and regardless of the ink, and defended her poll workers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE HOBBS, ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE:  In fact there are criminal penalties that would be associated with that kind of fraud and if you're talking about election are doing this, you're talking about a really huge issue that is absolutely not happening and I can unequivocally assure voters that no matter what pen you used to mark your ballot, if you're an eligible voter who cast a ballot, your ballot is going to be counted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACUNA:  And Martha, elections officials here in Maricopa County have changed the data dump schedule. Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. local, they will do one more dump and then we will see another one tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. local, 11 a.m. Eastern.

MACCALLUM:  Alicia, thank you very much. Thank you.

So, joining us now, Arizona is Congresswoman as promised, Debbie Lesko who is also a Trump campaign surrogate. Congresswoman, great to have you back on. Thank you very much for being here tonight.

REP. DEBBIE LESKO (R-AZ):  Thank you.

MACCALLUM:  So, we see this is a 61,000 vote margin right now in Arizona.

Joe Biden is ahead in the count there this evening. Your thoughts on the remaining vote? We've got 86 percent of the vote in and what you expect it will show.

LESKO:  Well, I think we have a lot -- hundreds of thousands of ballots have to be counted yet and the trend is going towards Donald Trump, so I have talked to people on the ground that are really in the know and they believe that President Trump really has a great pathway to win here in Arizona.

And so, I actually called the president Wednesday morning and I told them listen, I talked to the top lawyer here in Arizona and he is looking at the trends and what's happening and he really believes that President Trump can win Arizona and so do I.

BAIER:  Congresswoman, and I know you've been very vocal and people all over the place have been very vocal on our decision desk in the call that they made on election night. They stand by that call as of right now and they say that the votes will not -- the remaining vote will not go to the percentage that he needs it to go. We are going to get to the end of this count eventually. Do you know when that's going to be?

LESKO:  The last I was told it might be Saturday or Sunday. I think there's over 400,000 ballots that still have to be counted and the thing is, is that this is really a different turn out than in prior elections, so we have a lot of Democrats turn in the early ballots.

Those have been counted already, but then we saw it really swing towards Republicans and you know that a lot of Republicans were worried about mailing in their ballots and so they show up at the polls, and in Arizona, I was at a number of the polling places and there was just thousands of people showing up with their sealed ballots, dropping it off at the poll and those haven't even been counted yet. And so --

(CROSSTALK)

BAIER:  And you are saying that's what that vote is that's remaining in the president has to get basically 60 percent of that outstanding vote. You know, we've done this story many times, we've been very transparent about that decision and their defense of it, so you think it's there, and we are going to wait for the count, Congresswoman. Last word if you would.

LESKO:  Yes, well, no. I just thought it was count, you guys named it too early because we had hundreds of thousands of ballots out, but we will see what happens. You know, I think he is going to win Arizona, but nobody really knows until we count the votes and that's what I want to happen.

MACCALLUM:  And that's what is happening. We are watching them come in along with the rest of the country. Thank you very much. Good to have you with us, Congresswoman Lesko.

BAIER:  Thank you.

LESKO:  Thank you.

BAIER:  Here now, the man behind that call, director of the Fox News decision mask, Arnon Mishkin. Arnon, you just heard the congressman her concerns, I'm sure you've heard a few other people express concerns over the past couple of days. Where are you now on this Arizona call?

ARNON MISHKIN, FOX NEWS DECISION DESK DIRECTOR:  We remain confident, the entire team remains confident in his call. We believe that at the end of the day when the count is concluded, Joe Biden will finish ahead of Donald Trump. The former vice president will ahead -- will finish ahead of the -- of President Trump.

We have taken into account the fact that there is -- that President Trump is likely to get I think you said 55 percent of the outstanding vote. Even if you take that number into consideration, he still does not get enough votes in order to close the gap with the former vice president.

BAIER:  Up on the screen here we have the split, the number of votes, the differential, with President Trump leading now in Georgia, a lead that has really gone down to 3,486 votes. Where are you on the next state that you think is going to close or change based on the count that's coming in?

MISHKIN:  Well, we're looking at all four of the states, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. As you can see, the Georgia margin is very, very slim for the president. There is a likelihood, given that, and given the way the vote is currently coming in, that former vice president Biden might take over in the coming days or the coming hours.

The only question there is that there are a large number of provisional ballots and a large number of overseas military ballots which make that conclusion there a little more challenging. In Nevada, right now former vice president is ahead. It's not yet -- the distance between the former vice president and President Trump is not yet large enough given the amount of votes outstanding that we feel comfortable making a call in that state, but again, the vote is still coming in.

It's been a little slower than we anticipated. We thought there would be a bigger dump of ballots today -- by dump I mean data dump. It North Carolina, the president has a fairly healthy lead, but the count is sort of very, very slow. We actually checked. I don't think the number -- the numbers -- the number of total ballots counted has actually gone down by about 28. Don't quote me on the number, but in the last 24 or 48 hours, so it has not been moving.

Pennsylvania has been moving. There are a large number of ballots outstanding particularly in the Philadelphia area where I was with the former vice president has strength because of the urban area of Philadelphia. At that count we thought was going to go faster, it hasn't gone as fast as I think everyone would like in order to sort of determine who the winner is.

And right now, our models are showing the potential for the former vice president to take the lead from President Trump, but it's not clear that it's in what we would call the call status. It's actually nowhere near that in our various models.

MACCALLUM:  Arnon, before we let you go, you hear these suggestions about a dump coming in of votes that are largely for Joe Biden or all Joe Biden in some of these cases and there's been suggestions about this in Milwaukee.

Can you explain, you know, how you interpret that, and is it true that in some places they put in all the Biden votes at one time, all the Trump votes at one time? Can you clear that up for folks?

BAIER:  Like an A, B, thing.

MISHKIN:  That is not what happens. They put in -- the reality is we live in -- we say we live in a very divided country. We actually live in very unified communities. And so, I mean, Philadelphia is an area that has gone

80 percent or more for the vice president. There are other more rural areas of America that go by almost the same margin for the president, and so it's not surprising that when you put in ballots from a precinct or all the ballots from a precinct to be counted, it's not that surprising that either President Trump or former vice president Biden wind up with getting the bulk of that count.

It doesn't mean anything nefarious, it's just unfortunately that we live as Americans, and we don't live with people we disagree with politically, economically, what have you, and just the reality of America.

BAIER:  Speaking of that, I just want to end with this. The Trump campaign is very upset about the Arizona call. They've actually mentioned you specifically, your politics, your past donations. Can you talk about, you know, dealing with that, and also your team is Democrats and Republicans, statisticians, political people, just talk about the whole thing.

MISHKIN:  Essentially, everyone on our team is very interested politically and so they all vote. I don't ask them specifically how they vote. I do know that many of them have professional experience as Republican, other of them have professional experience as a Democratic. The Trump campaign is correct, in my professional experience includes political consulting for Democrats when I worked in political consulting.

I have over the past 12 years given a total, and it's out in the internet, in the past 12 years I've given a total of $800, 500 that went to a classmate of mine who was a congressman, a Republican congressman and another $300 went to a friend of a classmate who was a Democrat.

So, $500 to Republicans, $300 to the Democrats. Some more money back before I was the head of the decision team here. The team totally agrees with the call. The team when we come to Fox, we basically check our politics at the door and focus our statistical or political analysis on the computer and what the numbers show and that's it.

BAIER:  We promised when we started this that we were going to be fully transparent and we were going to lift the curtain and talk to you guys about decisions every time there was something that we had questions about, and that's what we did over the past two days.

MACCALLUM:  Arnon, thank you very much.

MISHKIN:  Thank you for having me.

MACCALLUM:  Arnon Mishkin on our decision desk.

BAIER:  Arnon, thanks.

MISHKIN:  Thank you.

MACCALLUM:  So, democracy 2020 coverage continues. I don't think it will end at any point soon.

BAIER:  I think it continues. It just continues.

MACCALLUM:  I think it goes on and on so we will see you after this break.

Stay with us, everybody.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM:  Joining us now, Deroy Murdock, contributing editor of the National Review online and you know what, we are going to take a look at the story first that Chad Pergram put together to us, and then we'll bring in our panel and talk about it. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAD PERGRAM, FOX NEWS CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT:  The losers moderate House Democrats who lost in battleground distance. The winners House liberals who saw their ranks grow, but the biggest loser of all could be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Some House Democrats are grumbling privately at the party can failed to increase its numbers, dwindling the majority to a bare minimum and they want Pelosi out. Some Democrats hope caucus chairman Hakeem Jeffries challenges Pelosi.

FMR. REP. HEATH SHULER (D-NC):  If you are going to challenge Nancy Pelosi, it is an uphill battle.

PERGRAM:  Former North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler should know. He ran against Pelosi for minority leader after Democrats lost the House in

2010 and Pelosi handily defeated him.

SHULER:  I think she understood it and because the way I handled it I think at the very end of the day it was a very respectful challenge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I extend to you this gavel.

PERGRAM:  Pelosi had to hustle to line up votes to reclaim the gavel after Democrats won the House two years ago. The entire House votes for speaker on January 3rd and with a narrow majority, Pelosi can't afford many defections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I know the vote on the floor is difficult for speaker.

I know there were a number of people who did not vote for her last time.

PERGRAM:  Fifteen Democrats opposed Pelosi for speaker in 2019, several of them lost Tuesday but some remain standing. Pelosi will need to court them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  She is the best vote counter and she also knows what it takes to get to the needed number.

PERGRAM:  But Pelosi could face an insurrection, says a former House Republican who once ran for speaker himself.

JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  If AOC and that squad can expand their base to say we are not going to vote for you on the floor, you cannot get to 218, then there will be chaos within that caucus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAIER:  Chad Pergram reported there. We have the House right now at plus five Republicans, but they are not done yet. There are about 17 other races, ten of them they are leading. The Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy thinks that they could pick up maybe 10 seats.

MACCALLUM:  I mean, not at all that we were anticipating in terms of what is happening in the House.

Joining us now, as I tease moments ago, Deroy Murdock, contributing editor of National Review online, Fox News contributor and Harold Ford, Jr., former Tennessee Democratic congressman. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us.

Harold, let me start with you. A surprising development, a surprising situation from this election in Congress for the Democrats.

FMR. REP. HAROLD FORD, JR. (D-TN):  No doubt. Thanks again for having me on. I think, look, I listen to Heath Shuler. I ran against Nancy Pelosi many years ago. We both suffered the same results. Heath and I dead. But I do think there is some reality that have to be listened to (AUDIO GAP) policies and strategies that were employed this go-round probably have to be reevaluated.

Socialism, radical left, spending or big spending, the exuberance for identity politics. A lot of that is going to have to be abandoned if there's any chance for Democrats to really not only be able to govern, but, you know, to assert their group again over the country.

Finally, I'm so -- I feel bad for Mr. Mishkin, he is a statistician not just but statistician -- imagine if a quarterback threw three interceptions and blame the statistician, Mr. Mishkin, hang in there.

BAIER:  Thanks, Harold. Deroy, your thoughts? Listen, it's not just the House of Representatives, think about the state legislatures that were supposed to fall like dominoes to Democrats and now Republicans didn't lose those battles and now they're in a position really for redistricting to come and other things down the road.

DEROY MURDOCK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  That's right. I mean, we are all expecting -- a lot of people, not me necessarily, a lot of people were expecting a big blue wave, turns out to be a big blue trickle and I think a big part of it is that a lot of Americans just rejected the Democrat Party as it exist not. It's not your grandfathers or grandparents or even your parents Democrat Party. It's a party that's been as Congressman Ford just said, far left, identity politics, very much quiet about all the riots we saw.

I also think that they probably Republicans benefited by President Trump reaching out to minorities getting a record number -- not quite a record, but I think the highest in 60 years, nonwhite support.

I brought with me a prop here. This is a black voice for Trump. I was in rally in Pennsylvania. These are handed out and these are real very energetic outreach that are part of the Republican Party to reach out for black and Hispanic votes. I think that the number of black percentage about

12 percent supporting President Trump, that's up from 8 percent and Hispanic numbers up in the 30s and that's largely responsible for the tremendous showing in Florida and a lot of Republicans across the country benefited from that outreach effort and that probably helped keep more of these seats in the House under Republican control rather than Democratic control.

MACCALLUM:  Yes. It's very interesting to see the demographic shift. You know, it's not huge, but it's real in terms of the pickup and some of those percentages. Harold, you know, there's some a lot of outrage in some corners on that.

FORD:  Look, black voters -- I like -- I respect Deroy's assessment of this and I appreciate the kind words but black voters remember, they were the ones that put Joe Biden over in South Carolina. They didn't go -- black voters in South Carolina didn't veer to the far left. Black voters are as serious and intentional about trying to find a candidate of whatever party, mostly Democrat in this country over the last hundred years, who can solve problems in a rational and serious way.

So I think the party has to acknowledge that, continue to acknowledge that and again, like I said the other night with you guys or last night with you guys, I think that the country spoke loudly, clearly, a lot of contention, but the country is right down the center and as these results continue to come in, numbers continue to trickle in, it confirms that point.

BAIER:  But Harold, do you think that that means that the country is against court packing, against some of the other things that were on the list of the left progressive agenda?

FORD:  Well, Joe Biden never supported court packing. I do think the country is against defunding the police, as I am. They are against unfairness. I think there's probably concern that we might not have -- should have not pushed a nominee with before this election.

So, there is no doubt the center politics, it's a little nuanced but at the end of the day, people want rationality and hopefully that's where we headed.

MACCALLUM:  Deroy, I've got about half a minute, just 30 seconds, but MSNBC did not take the president when he came out tonight. They interrupted it after he started and did not go back to it. What do you say to that in the middle of this incredibly tense election that is still playing out?

MURDOCK:  It's a total failure of their mandate. It's supposed to be a news organization. If the President of the United States comes out, particularly in a very fraught and difficult time like this, you cover him.

You can bring people in afterwards that disagree and say why he's wrong but people ought to know what the president state has on his mind what we are trying to figure out who the next president is in a very divided country. I think they totally failed their viewers tonight by not allowing the president on air.

MACCALLUM:  Thank you both.

BAIER:  Deroy and Harold, thanks.

MACCALLUM:  Thanks, Harold. Thanks, Deroy.

FORD:  Thank you.

MACCALLUM:  Democracy 2020 coverage continues after we take this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM:  That does it for this Thursday night special coverage of the

2020 presidential election. Thanks for being with us, everybody. I'm Martha MacCallum.

BAIER:  And I'm Bret Baier. Tucker starts right now. We'll be back tomorrow at 11 to 1, and I think 6 to 8.

MACCALLUM:  I think we will. We'll see you then.

BAIER:  Bye.

MACCALLUM:  Good night.

Content and Programming Copyright 2020 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2020 ASC Services II Media, LLC.  All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.