1 00:00:01,466 --> 00:00:04,733 And now let's turn to our Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor. 2 00:00:05,466 --> 00:00:08,033 Hello to both of you. 3 00:00:08,033 --> 00:00:11,533 And, Lisa, I'm going to start with you with this, Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, 4 00:00:11,533 --> 00:00:16,533 admitting that he did reach out to officials in states where the Trump campaign is challenging 5 00:00:18,666 --> 00:00:22,733 the result. This is highly unusual, as we know. 6 00:00:22,733 --> 00:00:25,300 What can you tell us about it? 7 00:00:25,300 --> 00:00:29,100 LISA DESJARDINS: It's also significant, because he is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, 8 00:00:30,933 --> 00:00:34,533 which oversees law enforcement, not elections, but law enforcement in this country. 9 00:00:34,533 --> 00:00:38,933 Chairman Graham has spent the last day explaining to reporters what he believes he said. 10 00:00:38,933 --> 00:00:42,700 And here's a quote, how he explains this. Let's look at that. He said: 11 00:00:42,700 --> 00:00:46,700 "I wanted to find out how you verify mail-in ballots signatures. 12 00:00:46,700 --> 00:00:51,266 And that was the extent of the conversation" with the secretary of state of Georgia. 13 00:00:51,266 --> 00:00:55,100 Senator Graham is saying, essentially, he is not sure that the technology in 14 00:00:55,100 --> 00:00:58,766 Georgia was up to snuff for figuring out those ballots and that -- and whether 15 00:00:58,766 --> 00:01:01,466 the signatures were actually accurate for mail-in votes. 16 00:01:03,466 --> 00:01:06,566 But the secretary of state said that, as part of that conversation, Senator Graham implied 17 00:01:06,566 --> 00:01:11,566 that large numbers of ballots should be thrown out in counties that the technology did not meet 18 00:01:14,133 --> 00:01:17,133 whatever Senator Graham's standard was. So, there are some questions about what he said in general. 19 00:01:17,133 --> 00:01:21,133 And in I think that, when we talk about senators and how they look at this, 20 00:01:22,566 --> 00:01:24,666 a lot of senators have been state officials. One of them, 21 00:01:24,666 --> 00:01:28,333 Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, put it this way over this whole thing. 22 00:01:28,333 --> 00:01:30,800 He said: "If he was trying to get information, 23 00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:35,233 then that's fine. But if he was trying to influence ballot-counting, that's problematic." 24 00:01:35,233 --> 00:01:37,133 And it's hard to tell, honestly -- this is a 25 00:01:37,133 --> 00:01:40,700 he said/he said -- exactly what Senator Graham was trying to do. 26 00:01:40,700 --> 00:01:45,666 One other note, Judy, this idea of whether Republican senators are accepting the election 27 00:01:45,666 --> 00:01:50,633 results, they seem to be tiptoeing toward acceptance. Senator Marco Rubio today said 28 00:01:52,666 --> 00:01:55,966 the preliminary results seem to indicate a Biden win. Senator John Cornyn of Texas 29 00:01:55,966 --> 00:02:00,833 has talked about the president-elect and said he doesn't think anything can change that outcome. 30 00:02:00,833 --> 00:02:04,433 And, notably, you mentioned that Senator Harris, vice president-elect Harris, 31 00:02:04,433 --> 00:02:08,100 was on the Senate floor today. She received congratulations, 32 00:02:08,100 --> 00:02:13,100 I have confirmed, from Republican Senators Lankford, Rounds, and Tim Scott. 33 00:02:14,533 --> 00:02:17,300 And Senator Lindsey Graham gave her a fist-bump. He apparently 34 00:02:17,300 --> 00:02:21,866 told reporters that he said, "If it works out, congratulations." 35 00:02:21,866 --> 00:02:25,633 JUDY WOODRUFF: Really interesting, since these are senators who, by and large, 36 00:02:25,633 --> 00:02:28,333 are saying they support the president's challenges. 37 00:02:30,900 --> 00:02:34,133 But, Yamiche, that brings me to you. What is the latest on the president and his allies continuing 38 00:02:35,466 --> 00:02:38,100 to challenge the election results? 39 00:02:38,100 --> 00:02:42,933 YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, despite a string of failed legal challenges, the president is continuing to 40 00:02:45,133 --> 00:02:50,133 fight on, continuing to not acknowledge that he is the projected loser in this election. 41 00:02:50,133 --> 00:02:53,333 Now, the president is doing a number of things, including leaning in 42 00:02:53,333 --> 00:02:58,300 on allies, on senators and elected officials, and having his allies, it seems as though, 43 00:03:00,300 --> 00:03:02,500 implying that they should be reaching out to state officials to try to see whether or not 44 00:03:02,500 --> 00:03:07,366 there can be things being done to sway those states in the president's direction. 45 00:03:07,366 --> 00:03:11,133 The president's also keeping up his rhetoric. He's talking about the fact that the election 46 00:03:11,133 --> 00:03:14,966 was stolen from him. And he's doing that in fund-raising e-mails, through text messages. 47 00:03:14,966 --> 00:03:18,433 Critics say that that is going through a lot of money that's going to end up in a slush 48 00:03:18,433 --> 00:03:23,433 fund that's going to at times really help him lead an expensive lifestyle. 49 00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:27,566 The president, of course, is saying that that's part of his legal defense fund. 50 00:03:27,566 --> 00:03:31,366 Then, on the legal front, the president is continuing to have lawsuit after lawsuit. Today, 51 00:03:31,366 --> 00:03:36,033 they filed a new one in Nevada. We also saw the president go to court in Pennsylvania, 52 00:03:36,033 --> 00:03:39,700 Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, expanding his role there, while lawyers 53 00:03:39,700 --> 00:03:43,233 are starting to quit, saying that they cannot defend the president's legal challenges. 54 00:03:43,233 --> 00:03:46,833 Today, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against the Trump campaign, 55 00:03:46,833 --> 00:03:49,633 saying that their legal challenge against Republican observers, 56 00:03:49,633 --> 00:03:52,833 saying that they didn't have the proper access, that that was not founded. 57 00:03:52,833 --> 00:03:56,866 And then, when you look at the other strategy here, there's a shifting rhetoric happening. 58 00:03:56,866 --> 00:04:00,233 Before, people close to the president were saying, if we can get recounts, 59 00:04:00,233 --> 00:04:03,066 if we can get it together, we can rustle back some of these states. 60 00:04:03,066 --> 00:04:05,700 Now people that are close to the president, they tell me, 61 00:04:05,700 --> 00:04:08,966 well, maybe what we're doing is just auditing the system, seeing what 62 00:04:08,966 --> 00:04:12,166 could have gone wrong, what the flaws were, because the president might be losing. 63 00:04:12,166 --> 00:04:15,766 And one other thing, they were saying over and over again, allies to the president, 64 00:04:15,766 --> 00:04:19,700 they wanted recounts in each and every state. We're now being told at the "NewsHour" that the 65 00:04:19,700 --> 00:04:24,700 president is not going to be demanding a recount in Wisconsin. That would have cost $8 million. 66 00:04:26,766 --> 00:04:29,133 So what you see there is the Trump campaign continuing to say, we can win this, we can 67 00:04:29,133 --> 00:04:32,333 have these legal challenges, but when it comes to actually putting money toward that, putting 68 00:04:32,333 --> 00:04:35,766 money toward their defense and the recount, they're not doing that. So, we should always be 69 00:04:35,766 --> 00:04:39,533 watching that space and, of course, the space with these local officials feeling pressured. 70 00:04:39,533 --> 00:04:41,300 We have been making some calls on that. Hopefully, 71 00:04:41,300 --> 00:04:43,700 we can get some more reporting on what's going on there. 72 00:04:43,700 --> 00:04:48,266 JUDY WOODRUFF: And the president continuing to say the election is being stolen 73 00:04:49,700 --> 00:04:50,966 in most of his statements. 74 00:04:52,333 --> 00:04:55,866 Yamiche Alcindor, Lisa Desjardins, thank you both.