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Morning News

The Florida Vote: Bush Preparing for Transition to White House; Gore Planning to Contest Election

Aired November 27, 2000 - 11:13 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The day after the state of Florida declared George W. Bush the winner in the presidential contest in that state, let's go ahead and check in and see what the Texas governor is doing today. And for that, we go back to Tony Clark, who is standing by in Austin, Texas.

Tony, good morning once again.

TONY CLARK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Even though there are still legal battles to be fought, as we have heard from Bob Franken and others this morning, the Bush campaign is proceeding as if the election were all over. Gov. Bush arrived at the state capitol this morning to work on transition issues. He ignored questions from reporters about whether they should call him governor or president-elect, but he made it quite clear last night in a speech to the nation that he believes he is the president-elect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The election was close, but tonight after a count, a recount, and a yet another manual recount, Secretary Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election. We will, therefore, undertake the responsibility of preparing to serve as America's next president and vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLARK: Andy Card, the man that Bush has named as his chief of staff, said he will talk to Dick Cheney, Bush's running mate and the head of the transition, a couple of times today. And also, when asked about the General Services Administration not opening up that 90,000 square feet of office space for the transition team at this point, Card said they may set up their own transition office anyway -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Tony. It will be interesting to see how that one plays out there. You know, we haven't really seen that much of the Texas governor as this dispute has gone on in the weeks following the election. Now that he's kind of taking on the role of president- elect, even though he doesn't completely claim the title yet -- but as he does that, do you expect we will be seeing more and more of him publicly? CLARK: Probably so. You might remember, in the week right after the election there were shots from inside the governor's mansion, almost Oval Office kinds of shots of him meeting with Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to become his national security adviser; Larry Lindsey, who may take another cabinet position; kind of transition issue video, that kind of scene. But he got a lot of flack for that, assumptions that he was being presumptuous. Now they're going to walk kind of a fine line, watch to see how the public gauges his position now. And we may see more of that effort to show that he's taking charge and that the transition is under way, and that the election issues are in fact settled.

KAGAN: Tony Clark covering the Bush camp in Austin, Texas.

Let's now switch over to the Gore camp. And that would be our Chris Black covering that from Washington, D.C.

And, Chris, I understand you have some news for us.

CHRIS BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Daryn, Vice President Al Gore has just finished a conference call with his legal team in Florida. Campaign sources tell CNN that they have made the final decisions on contesting the election results in the state of Florida. After much discussion, they have decided to stick to their original game plan, which is to challenge the results in Miami-Dade, Nassau and Palm Beach counties.

There was a lot of discussion in the last 24 hours about challenging what the campaign has nicknamed the "Thanksgiving stuffing," the ballots that were added over the weekend, mostly from Republican counties, they think illegally. But they decided, no, they want to keep this clean, they want to keep the focus on the ballots that have not been counted.

The campaign is arguing that Secretary of State Katherine Harris jumped the gun when she certified the results last night. And Joe Lieberman, the Democrats' vice president candidate, has -- last night reiterated the point that this election is not over until every vote is counted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D-CT), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The campaign is over, but what we do now will be as important to the future of our country as anything any of us did during the campaign. We must proceed responsibly, in a way that honors the rule of law and strengthens the institutions of our free society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK: The vice president is up at his official residence. Aides say he will be working on the draft of a speech that he's expected to deliver later today. Aides say he will be talking about his sense of obligation to the voters, the 50 million Americans who voted for him and for his agenda. And the Gore campaign today is also intent upon showing a unified Democratic front. At noon today, the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, will hold a press conference to say they're standing by their man -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Chris, you've been telling us about those appearance, about Daschle and Gephardt earlier in the morning as well. I was wondering, this seems kind of like a late appearance. These seem like some fresh faces. Where was the support and where was this, basically, public support earlier in this crisis for the Gore campaign?

BLACK: Well, I don't think you should make too much of the timing. The -- Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle have been virtually in daily communication with Vice President Al Gore and have been solidly with him. Yesterday, they were on the talk shows. I think the sense I get from campaign aides for the reason for today's show of solidarity is they want to convey, at a time when Congress is out of session and there's a lot of speculation about what members of Congress are thinking about this, whether Democrats are holding tough, that in fact they are. And by rolling out the Democratic leaders, they hope to show, present a united front to the American public.

KAGAN: All right, Chris Black in Washington, D.C., thank you very much. We'll see you later in the day.

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