CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview With Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Interview

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SCIUTTO: It's a wide gap between the charges there, including those repeated by the president, and the actual facts.

Ryan Nobles, keeping track of the facts on the ground there, thanks very much.

Joining us is Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She's newly reelected, no recount required in her race.

Congresswoman, thanks for taking the time today.

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D), FLORIDA: My pleasure. Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I know you're familiar with it, but I want to reference the president's tweet from this morning again, particularly the final line. "Many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible. Ballots massively infected." Not clear what he means by that. "Must go with election night."

What is your response to what the president is alleging there?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, let's remember that the president said after his own election that there were three million votes in California that were illegally cast without any evidence whatsoever.

And so here we go again. It's grossly irresponsible and completely inaccurate, absolutely untrue. And the only thing that happened is actual votes that were cast were counted and the process under Florida law was followed. Every supervisor of elections in the state, Jim, has until noon on Saturday after the election to get their vote counts in from their canvassing process.

And that's exactly what happened. And so, you know, it is not only unhelpful, but it also is really undermining our democracy to suggest that anything other than making sure that every legal vote cast is -- should be counted. It's what every one of our elected officials should advocate for.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this just as a practical element here. No one would dispute that votes should be counted and all votes cast should be counted.

From a practical standpoint, though, let's look at the Senate race here, still divided by more than 12,000 votes. The nonpartisan group FairVote showed that in statewide elections like this, really, you're not likely to overturn a margin of any more than 282 votes, right?

So the math appears to be against not only the Senate candidate there, but it's even an wider margin for governor, Andrew Gillum, vs. Ron DeSantis. From a practical standpoint, what do the Democrats have to gain here?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, what Americans have to gain, what Floridians have to gain is making sure that Florida law is followed.

You know, we have already been through a chaotic, nightmarish recount process 18 years ago. And we didn't have a uniform process then. Now, after that experience, we changed the law, and so that we have all 67 counties that, when there is a half-a-percent or less margin between candidates, we have a machine recount, and that's the process we're in now.

And then we have a manual recount if it gets to below a quarter- percent. And that is so that we can make sure that the most important thing occurs, that voters who cast ballots lawfully have the confidence that their vote was counted.

We have signature issues, we have undervote issues, and so even if the vote doesn't result in a different outcome from the initial reporting, we have to make sure that our process is followed.

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: Listen -- and that's fair.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: This is the third largest state in the country

SCIUTTO: Right. Exactly. And God knows, it's a state that is often crucial.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Millions of votes, eight million votes cast.

SCIUTTO: And a state that's often crucial to the makeup -- to the presidency, to the balance of power in the Senate, et cetera.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yes.

SCIUTTO: So I get you on that. You talk about changes made after 2000. I covered it, many of my colleagues covered that recount there.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yes.

SCIUTTO: And the thought in the wake of that was, OK, let's see Florida get their system together.

But the fact is, here we are in 2018, and you have instances -- and I don't mean to focus too much attention on the Broward County election supervisor, Brenda Snipes, who has become sort of a favorite target of folks on the right.

But the fact is, she has had missteps in recent elections, and yet still has that position here and appears to have missed some deadlines, et cetera.

[16:10:01]

Why hasn't the process been corrected to remove people like that and get people get people into those key positions who can do the job, do the job, as required?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, number one, she's followed the process as Florida law prescribes.

And there has been absolutely nothing amiss that has been found by Rick Scott's only Department of State election monitors, who have been in her office since the spring, and through Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which has also said there has been nothing alleged and no evidence of anything that has gone wrong.

The process is simply working. The deadlines have been met. And you have to ask Rick Scott about, you know -- who is the one that made a decision whether or not to suspend her or not. But she's a duly elected officeholder.

She actually is one of the top two vote-getters countywide in Broward County. You don't just indiscriminately dismiss someone simply because you, you know, don't like the outcome of an election.

We -- or like the outcome of an election. At the end of the day, Jim, even if my candidates that I favored don't win at the end of this process, that's not the goal here. The goal of all of us that are responsible should be that everybody who cast a vote lawfully should have it counted, period. That's what we all should be for.

SCIUTTO: Including those overseas, deployed military, whose ballots might not have been tabulated yet. Only fair to them.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yes. Yes. And mail-in ballots that were stuck in a post office because of the bomber that we had here. And I'm sure that's going to be litigated as well, because those votes were sent in, in time, likely. And we're going to have to determine whether they should be counted.

SCIUTTO: Fair point.

Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, thanks very much for taking the time.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you. My pleasure.

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