WEBVTT

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And now let's turn to our Lisa
Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor.

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Hello to both of you.

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And, Lisa, I'm going to
start with you with this,
Lindsey Graham, senator
from South Carolina,

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admitting that he did reach out
to officials in states where the
Trump campaign is challenging

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the result. This is highly
unusual, as we know.

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What can you tell us about it?

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LISA DESJARDINS: It's
also significant, because
he is the chairman of
the Judiciary Committee,

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which oversees law enforcement,
not elections, but law
enforcement in this country.

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Chairman Graham has spent the
last day explaining to reporters
what he believes he said.

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And here's a quote, how
he explains this. Let's
look at that. He said:

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"I wanted to find out
how you verify mail-in
ballots signatures.

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And that was the extent of
the conversation" with the
secretary of state of Georgia.

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Senator Graham is saying,
essentially, he is not
sure that the technology in

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Georgia was up to snuff for
figuring out those ballots
and that -- and whether

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the signatures were actually
accurate for mail-in votes.

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But the secretary of
state said that, as part
of that conversation,
Senator Graham implied

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that large numbers of ballots
should be thrown out in counties
that the technology did not meet

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whatever Senator Graham's
standard was. So, there
are some questions about
what he said in general.

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And in I think that, when
we talk about senators
and how they look at this,

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a lot of senators have been
state officials. One of them,

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Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse
of Rhode Island, put it this
way over this whole thing.

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He said: "If he was
trying to get information,

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then that's fine. But
if he was trying to
influence ballot-counting,
that's problematic."

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And it's hard to tell,
honestly -- this is a

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he said/he said -- exactly what
Senator Graham was trying to do.

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One other note, Judy, this idea
of whether Republican senators
are accepting the election

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results, they seem to be
tiptoeing toward acceptance.
Senator Marco Rubio today said

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the preliminary results seem
to indicate a Biden win.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas

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has talked about the
president-elect and said
he doesn't think anything
can change that outcome.

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And, notably, you mentioned
that Senator Harris, vice
president-elect Harris,

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was on the Senate floor today.
She received congratulations,

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I have confirmed, from
Republican Senators Lankford,
Rounds, and Tim Scott.

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And Senator Lindsey Graham gave
her a fist-bump. He apparently

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told reporters that he said, "If
it works out, congratulations."

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Really
interesting, since these are
senators who, by and large,

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are saying they support
the president's challenges.

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But, Yamiche, that brings
me to you. What is the
latest on the president
and his allies continuing

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to challenge the
election results?

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YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well,
despite a string of failed
legal challenges, the
president is continuing to

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fight on, continuing
to not acknowledge that
he is the projected
loser in this election.

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Now, the president is
doing a number of things,
including leaning in

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on allies, on senators and
elected officials, and having
his allies, it seems as though,

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implying that they should be
reaching out to state officials
to try to see whether or not

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there can be things being
done to sway those states in
the president's direction.

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The president's also keeping
up his rhetoric. He's talking
about the fact that the election

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was stolen from him. And he's
doing that in fund-raising
e-mails, through text messages.

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Critics say that that is going
through a lot of money that's
going to end up in a slush

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fund that's going to at
times really help him lead
an expensive lifestyle.

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The president, of course,
is saying that that's part
of his legal defense fund.

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Then, on the legal front, the
president is continuing to have
lawsuit after lawsuit. Today,

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they filed a new one in Nevada.
We also saw the president
go to court in Pennsylvania,

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Rudy Giuliani, his personal
attorney, expanding his
role there, while lawyers

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are starting to quit, saying
that they cannot defend the
president's legal challenges.

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Today, the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court ruled
against the Trump campaign,

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saying that their
legal challenge against
Republican observers,

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saying that they didn't
have the proper access,
that that was not founded.

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And then, when you look at the
other strategy here, there's
a shifting rhetoric happening.

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Before, people close to
the president were saying,
if we can get recounts,

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if we can get it together,
we can rustle back
some of these states.

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Now people that are close to
the president, they tell me,

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well, maybe what we're
doing is just auditing
the system, seeing what

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could have gone wrong, what
the flaws were, because the
president might be losing.

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And one other thing, they were
saying over and over again,
allies to the president,

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they wanted recounts in each
and every state. We're now being
told at the "NewsHour" that the

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president is not going
to be demanding a recount
in Wisconsin. That would
have cost $8 million.

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So what you see there is the
Trump campaign continuing to
say, we can win this, we can

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have these legal challenges,
but when it comes to
actually putting money
toward that, putting

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money toward their defense and
the recount, they're not doing
that. So, we should always be

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watching that space and,
of course, the space with
these local officials
feeling pressured.

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We have been making some
calls on that. Hopefully,

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we can get some more reporting
on what's going on there.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And the
president continuing to say
the election is being stolen

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in most of his statements.

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Yamiche Alcindor, Lisa
Desjardins, thank you both.