Parscale: Trump campaign moved away from my plan and I don't know why

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Parscale: Trump campaign moved away from my plan and I don't know why

Former Trump campaign manager reacts to 2020 election results in exclusive interview on 'The Story'

This is a rush transcript from “The Story with Martha MacCallum" December 1, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Hey, thank you, Bret. Good evening,
everybody. I'm Martha MacCallum in Washington, D.C. tonight.

After months of silence, tonight President Trump's campaign manager, Brad
Parscale tells his side of the story. He was once hailed the digital genius
behind Trump's upset victory in 2016. Parscale claims that he was on track
for an even bigger victory in 2020. But all that changed this summer amid a
flurry of questions about his campaign spending and a tense confrontation
with the president over falling poll numbers.

Soon after, he was replaced by Deputy Campaign Manager Bill Stepien, a man
he hired. And we all watched as his personal struggles spilled into public
view in a domestic incident that revealed the strain.

Tonight, Parscale returns to television to tell his side of the story, what
he thinks went wrong inside the Trump campaign and what led to his now
infamous run in with the police. And he makes a startling admission about
his last conversation with President Trump.

Here now, my exclusive interview with former Trump campaign manager Brad
Parscale.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD PARSCALE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: We had a plan, and I have
always had a lot of confidence in our plan. And I think the president and
Jared had a lot of confidence in the plan. And it was unfortunate that we
diverge from the plan that we can't talk down the stretch.

But I think the - look, I think the president is still clearly in a
position that he might be able to pull this off. And I'm not ready to call
it off yet, because I think it's weird. I just think it's so weird that
things like Pennsylvania votes coming in day after day after day after day,
Arizona every two hours, the votes kept coming in, but states like had it
really organized, Florida and Ohio easily pulled away. And so, I still
think there's something to look at there. I'm not satisfied that this was a
fair election.

MACCALLUM: You said we had a plan, me and the president, Jared. And it was
diverged from at the end. Obviously, you left finally at first in the
summer and finally--

PARSCALE: I was removed.

MACCALLUM: In September. Removed. How do you feel about that?

PARSCALE: I mean, I was hurt. I mean, that's an obvious sign now that I was
hurt. I didn't get a warning sign really that that no one asked me to
change my plan. No one asked me to do anything different. I don't know
exactly why I was removed and why all of a sudden, we had to challenge the
plan. I have a lot of thoughts on why I think that is. But they paused the
plan, eventually went back to it. But we had a plan.

I had a lot of time to plan. And 2016, people don't like to admit it. I was
a semi quasi campaign manager and then we've got to say that publicly
before because I couldn't. Jared was the real campaign manager. I was the
one doing the day-to-day. And we won and it really didn't make sense to me
why in 2020 they had to change with--

MACCALLUM: Are you talking about 2016.

PARSCALE: 2016, I'm saying that I never really got to say what I really
did. I never really got to say I was a semi quasi campaign manager,
everyone got to say, oh, Brad didn't have the experience, but I already won
an election.

MACCALLUM: Kellyanne was the campaign manager, no?

PARSCALE: Yes, I think that was her time. But I think the people running
the day-to-day operation were Jared and I, and I think that it didn't make
sense why you would pull that team away if you're getting close to 2020.

MACCALLUM: So, you say we had a plan. What was the plan? Articulate it.

PARSCALE: Well, that's - I mean, that's going to take a book to articulate
the whole plan. It's a big campaign. It's a billion-dollar operation. But
we understood where the weaknesses were. We need to pick up the votes. We
understood what Election Day operations need to look like because the legal
fight, we planned that fight out two years in advance. I understood that
this was going to happen. My team understood it's going to happen.

We had a plan to increase Latino black vote, which we did. We had a plan to
try to keep the suburban housewives. We had a lot of plans and we knew
exactly what the path was to victory. COVID threw a wrench in it, but we
still had a plan even through that.

MACCALLUM: Biden bested Hillary in 373 suburban counties in Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona. So, apparently, they had a plan
too and it involved very little campaigning and very little door knocking.
So, a lot of folks look at the 80 million votes that Joe Biden got, and
they say, how did he do that?

PARSCALE: Yes, well, we'll see exactly how that vote count goes up. But I
knew in my plan tried to make this a choice election, not a referendum. And
I think that was one of the biggest disputes within the campaign. I knew
that if it was a choice or the president with COVID and the economy, the
president with his policies versus Biden, I touched 140 plus policies
against Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Trump bested him in 139 with
American people.

They knew the president's policies are what they wanted. The issue was how
to keep this as a choice election. Joe Biden's America going back that he's
somehow could do this better, which I don't think he can, or Donald Trump
would made America better and its policies and make sure it didn't end up a
referendum on him.

MACCALLUM: What was wrong with the plan from the point when you left and
Stepien took over? What changed? What was wrong?

PARSCALE: I'm not going to put the blame on any one person. These were the
people I hired. Everybody end up running the campaign were my deputies. But
I think what occurred and I don't know exactly why, and this is why I
started to really have a hard time, because I tried to stay. I tried to
stay on to make sure the plan kept going. Like, I'll take a lesser position
because I love Donald Trump. I mean, he's like family to me. That whole
family is my family.

And I want nothing more than him to win. I want nothing more than this
country to progress the way it was. But they paused. They didn't know my
plan. They didn't know to execute it or not. And they started to diverge
away from it, and they started to test it. Should we use data like this?
Should we buy TV like this? Should we run this? Should we do this? Should
we even work with the RNC, which I think were crucial mistakes and I could
name crucial mistakes.

And I just - I don't understand why, because the president should have won
by a lot more. He shouldn't be fine. And I still think he might pull this
off, which will be - I give it a 100 percent credit to him if he pulls it
off.

MACCALLUM: When you were sitting at home in Florida during the last few
months of the campaign.

PARSCALE: Yes.

MACCALLUM: What's going through your mind? You're watching the rallies all
across the country during the middle of--

PARSCALE: I'm watching this off TV.

MACCALLUM: You're watching the fact that they are pulling ads from swing
states. You're hearing complaints that the campaign has run out of money.
And in fact, those complaints are leveled at you for frontloading the
spending too much. $10 million on a Super Bowl ad, all of that. So, defend
that and tell me what they did wrong.

PARSCALE: Well, first of all, let's defend the budget stuff. It was only $5
million on a Super Bowl ad. We end up only going with a 30 second ad. And
it was a great ad.

MACCALLUM: But you didn't need an ad at that point, he didn't have a
candidate.

PARSCALE: Well, let's put it this way.

MACCALLUM: That point.

PARSCALE: In February of 2020, before COVID, the president in all of our
polling was winning by 400 some electoral votes. The Super Bowl ad in
itself paid for itself two times over, meaning are his fan base, his voting
base was so excited that he went up on the Super Bowl, the game they watch.

They donated tens of millions of dollars to it. So, you've got to
understand, not every dollar I spent was all done just as electioneering.
It's also how do we raise more money? How do we keep our fan base going
even stronger? How does the voter get even more excited? How does the - how
do we keep them fundraising the biggest campaign in history, what we were
going to do.

At that point, he was killing Joe Biden. 400 electoral votes. It was going
to be the biggest landslide in American history since Nixon at that point.
And we knew we wanted to win the black vote. Jared and I and the president
sat down and said, what is the best thing we can do at Super Bowl vote? And
we chose to put the chart (ph) to show the truth between Donald Trump, who
actually did prison reform, and Joe Biden, who put black people in prison.

MACCALLUM: It was a strong ad, I think by most accounts, just an unbiased
political campaign advertising.

PARSCALE: Made money, helped with the black vote. I think those are two
goals as me as a campaign manager. So, Jared and I never got sideways on a
concept. That's why we were such a strong team for a long time. And I think
the worst thing that ever did was to break us too up. I think that was a
decision that will go down if the president was his being down the worst
decision.

MACCALLUM: So, Jared was also sidelined when you were sidelined?

PARSCALE: This is my opinion. I feel like he was slightly sidelined, not as
much as me, but I think he said a little hand off. I said, OK. And I think,
since November of 2015, Jared and I talked every single day and it was in
our plan, every day. How to use Facebook? What to do? And I think our
relationship will go down as one that's pretty amazing in politics.

But it got sidelined in the summer and I don't know why. I have no idea. I
have a clue. I do.

MACCALLUM: And it is?

PARSCALE: I think it's all the D level people talking heads at around the
president that never done anything in their life, never created a business,
never built anything successful, but talked themselves into something. And
I think when the polling numbers were going down, they were in his ear and
I was out working.

MACCALLUM: There's a story that you have already responded to about him
shouting into the phone at you when you presented some pretty unappealing
poll numbers back in April. You want to tell me about that?

PARSCALE: I didn't like lying to him. I like telling him the truth.
Sometimes I come with a lot of painful days, watching, knowing that I might
have let him down or made him upset. But a lot of those D level people hung
around him.

They just told him what he wants to hear. They were yes man. And I wasn't
going to be yes man. I was going to be get it done, man. And I did it for
him. I did it for the family. I did it for this country because I feel like
somebody need to be the one telling the truth. And I think Jared did too. I
think we both paid the price for that sometimes.

MACCALLUM: When you say the campaign didn't run out of money, I've heard
from several sources in the campaign that they were running low on money
and that they had to make tough choices. How do you back up the assertion
that that's false?

PARSCALE: Well, I think you look at the FEC reports. The FEC reports
clearly show that there has been so many made up stories. My life, the last
five years has been made up story after a made-up story, after a made-up
story after crap. And the truth is, the campaign in 2016, the entire
campaign had about $300 million sum. We had that in the bank with three
months ago are still going to raise another $600 million. They didn't have
a money problem and a strategy problem.

They didn't know what to say. You just want to say it, they don't have the
money and I think they got caught in a catch-22 there, because FEC reports
didn't say that and I think the final FEC reports, when it's all said and
done in history, writes in the books, it'll show they didn't have money
problems.

MACCALLUM: Do you believe that if you and Jared had remained in-charge, the
president would have won right out?

PARSCALE: I don't know if he still - I'm not saying that - he could still
win this. I think he wins easy. I think he wins by more. I think our plan
was just right and we knew what we were doing, and I think we were fighting
a million pressures that are hard to explain.

MACCALLUM: So, one of the criticisms is that the president's side was
basically outgunned legally by the DNC, by all of these lawsuits all across
the country to expand the voting ability to change the signature reads from
60 percent down to 40 percent of a match. All of those cases that happened
all across the country that allowed more votes to be accepted rather than
kicked out of the system and rejected. How significant is that? And is it
fair criticism that the Trump side dropped the ball on some of that?

PARSCALE: In April of 2019, I sat down with my team and I said, let's come
up with the biggest Election Day operation ever, because voter fraud is
going to be rampant. If it's not going to be rampant, everyone's going to
think it's rampant or they're going to game it. Something's going to happen
because we sat around for two years in 2017, 2018 where they talked to all
this stuff about all this voter ramp, blah, blah, blah, and I said if we
want to do the same thing, so let's make sure we're there and let's make
sure they don't try to steal it from us, make sure they're so scared of
four more years.

The president always said something very interesting. He always says, when
the opportunity is right up front and you think you can take it, some
people just - they do the wrong thing. He'd say that to me, like he taught
me a lot of lessons. And what I mean by that is the people right there,
they know that maybe they can put those extra few votes and it could be the
difference of not four more years with Donald Trump and getting along and
telling all their friends that they did it.

I think it was important. So, in April of 2019, I came up with the largest
budget in Election Day operations in partnership with the RNC. What that
meant was to have lawyers everywhere, file suits beforehand, protect
beforehand and somehow between July of 2020 and Election Day that fell
apart. And that's a question. I don't know exactly what the answer is, but
from everything I'm hearing, it did not occur.

And I think that is a travesty to this to this campaign. It's a travesty to
President Trump. It's a travesty to this republic. And I think that it
should have happened. And I don't know why. And I was trying to do
everything I could to keep it from happening.

MACCALLUM: Who dropped the ball on that? You have obviously on the Democrat
side, they were pushing full throttle on all of those issues. And I think
there's a good argument to be made that that's how they got to 80 million
votes out there.

PARSCALE: I don't--

MACCALLUM: And I'm not saying that it's anything illegal. I don't know the
answer to that. I mean, we see some of this, dead voter. We see some of
that stuff which is obviously egregious and needs to be worked out. But it
sounds to me like you think that somebody dropped the ball, who dropped the
ball on that side?

PARSCALE: I can't. If I knew the name or I knew the people that did it, I
would. Something happened between the campaign and the RNC relationship and
the deal I had, the deal that we were going to set it up the way I thought-
-

MACCALLUM: What would it have looked like on Election Day under that
scenario?

PARSCALE: I wanted lawyers everywhere. I wanted regional lawyer
overstaffed.

MACCALLUM: Would you be able to get them in. I mean--

PARSCALE: I think we would have filed the lawsuits beforehand. We've been
asking beforehand; we'd be trying to. Why weren't during the early voting
days, why weren't they already getting into there - in there and then
already filing lawsuits? Why they're not in there? Why are we doing it at
post? And I think that somebody did drop the ball on that. And I think as
campaign manager, I wouldn't have been an expert in everything, but I
always knew how to sit and ask questions to everybody.

I would put the right staff in front of me and said, why are we not doing
this? How are we? Every day we said, how are we preventing fraud? How are
we preventing that we could beat by the DNC in this? And I don't know if
that happened because I wasn't at the table anymore.

MACCALLUM: So, the criticism even before you left in the summer was that
you weren't around, that you were down in Florida, that you weren't in
campaign headquarters.

PARSCALE: We weren't allowed. Virginia made it illegal to get in the
headquarters. And I had two choices. I can sit in my one-bedroom apartment,
my daughter, and my wife and my two dogs, or I could go home to Florida and
operate in some ease because we were going all Zoom anyways. And I would
fly up and meet the president when I could. But from - I was living full
time here on March 13th.

My home is Florida, that's where I live. I can operate. I still haven't
heard one thing I didn't get done. The only complaint is from all those D
level people around the president is, oh, he's not working hard enough,
guess what if I can do something an hour that takes them two months to do,
I'm just more talented. I could just do it from home. And when I needed to
be up here, I was up here. And as soon as I could be, I was back. I was
here the day the offices reopened. It's baseless and just unbelievable.

MACCALLUM: So, the kind of things that we're discussing in terms of voter
irregularities and some of what we've seen on the periphery is very
different from what the president's legal team is now talking about with
these voting changes that happened in the voting systems and Rudy Giuliani
and the cases that he is trying to bring, they have not had a lot of
success with those, but they continue to hold hearings and put out
affidavits. What do you think of that move, that push?

PARSCALE: Rudy and Jenna (ph) are a friend of mines. I worked with Rudy
multiple times and Jenna (ph) obviously worked on my staff. I disagree with
some of the things that are occurring. But do I think the president has
every right to understand what happened? I would say all those Republicans
right now in Georgia that are angry at the Republican Party and they want
it - and they're mad. They don't want to vote. I would do the opposite.

I would stand up and I would say, why don't you two senators make a promise
right now that you'll push for Senate investigation from the Judiciary
Committee of all the voting issues and do that, I bet you all of you will
show up because they'd rather have a just answer than just have the
Republicans disappear again because those Democrats didn't disappear when
they thought something was wrong. They terrorized us. So, stand up and find
out what really happened. You have the power to do it.

MACCALLUM: So, you say that you think that the president will still win.

PARSCALE: I think that there is still a chance he could.

MACCALLUM: How?

PARSCALE: You never know, maybe something comes out in these court cases.
And I don't underestimate Rudy. Sometimes, I watch him on TV. I'm like,
whoa. But the same time, like I mean the guy has done some amazing things
in his life. And I don't want to underestimate people. And if he believes
it, then he should go do it. I think that's what this country is about.

And I think the president has a good argument because it's sad in this
country, the Republicans say this, if I don't win by more than two or three
percent, it will get stolen from me. A common sentence that I've heard
across this country, how many Republicans say that to me in every little
race as I traveled the country? They believe that. I tend to believe when
you hear a myth that long, there might be a little bit to it.

MACCALLUM: When you saw Pennsylvania fall and Michigan fall, when you saw
Wisconsin not go the president's way. Why not try to make a bigger appeal
to some of the women voters who had maybe changed their mind or maybe had
been turned off by some of the president's actions? Why not try to drive up
the Catholic vote, for example, which the president lost some ground on
this time around?

PARSCALE: One, two percent possibly we lost of suburban families, right.
The men and women in the suburbs, Philly suburbs, Atlanta suburbs. I think
that goes to one thing. And I think it was a decision on COVID to go for
opening the economy versus public empathy. And I think a young family with
a young child who were scared to take them back to school, wanted to see an
empathetic president, an empathetic Republican Party.

And I think that, and I've said this multiple times and he chose a
different path. And I don't think he's wrong with this. I love him. But
like, we had a difference on this. I thought we should have public empathy.
I think people were scared. I walked around the - people walk, watch people
walk around me. Not like two years ago, when they still walk that's because
I'm Brad Parscale, but walk around me because I've got a mask on. Now, they
don't want to get COVID.

I can see how waitresses stand a little farther from the table. People are
scared. And I think if he would be publicly empathetic, he would have a won
by a landslide there. I think he could have leaned into it instead of, run
away from it.

MACCALLUM: So, it sounds like you think that was the biggest error, empathy
over COVID?

PARSCALE: Policy error. There's different kinds of errors. There's
technical errors, policy errors. There's also things he did great. It's
hard to see that now when things are so close. But one of the greatest
economies in history, he wouldn't even close if he wouldn't have been that
far. I still think he's going to go down as one of the greatest presidents.
I think he got one choice away from being perfect, and that was, do I want
to open the country and be the economic - or do I want to be publicly
empathetic? And I think it goes right into thing because this is one of the
most empathetic men when you're sitting there, he asks about your family
and all that stuff. All you do is get on stage and do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: When we come back, Brad Parscale will detail the strategy that
he thinks the president should take in Georgia. Plus, setting the record
straight on the viral video of his confrontation with police in Florida and
a stunning admission about his now relationship with the President of the
United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Have you talked to the president lately?

PARSCALE: I've not. And it's pretty hurtful, but it's fine. Just as much my
fault as his. I love that family and I gave every inch of my life to him.
Every inch.
 
(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: Back now with part two of my exclusive interview with former
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: What role do you think the president should play in Georgia?
He's going there on Saturday.

PARSCALE: He's the leader of this party. And he needs to stand up, in my
opinion, to the people of Georgia and say, go vote for these senators and
ask them to start immediately investigating what's happening in this
country, because as everyone wants to blame the president, I think it's the
opposite.

I think the president is exposing the problem. And that problem is this is
a country that just doesn't play fair rules, and I think he just exposes it
everywhere, and I didn't know how much until I joined this, how much all
those things are out. But like, it's just sometimes it's a dirty world.

MACCALLUM: Brad, we've known each other quite a while. We've done a lot of
interviews together.

PARSCALE: You're my most interviews.

MACCALLUM: Thank you. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about what
happened at your house in Florida back on September 27th.

PARSCALE: Yes.

MACCALLUM: The video became very public. I'm sure it was a very tough time
for you. And I think everybody is sympathetic to that. Your wife said at
one point that you tried to harm her. She later recanted that. She was
concerned you were going to harm yourself. What do you want everybody to
know about that?

PARSCALE: Well, good thing is my wife, and I are in much better place now.
My family is in a great place. It's - we went through a very stressful time
for five years. We had lost two children during the election. We buried. We
were completely attacked by the Left, the Right, the media. And I've got to
a bad place. My wife was worried about me and she helped. And she was there
every day by my side. And I love her for it. And we've never been happier.
And I'm just glad I've moved on. And I tried my best for the American
people.

MACCALLUM: Do you feel like you're healthy now?

PARSCALE: I feel like I'm healthy. Getting better every day as a stress.
And this is the last piece of it. To have history remember, as it was
accurate. And I appreciate we didn't tell the American people that because
I love my wife. She loves me. She was the first one there right afterwards
and she'll be the last one I ever see.

MACCALLUM: Have you talked to the president lately.

PARSCALE: I've not. And it's pretty hurtful, but it's probably just as much
my fault is his I love that family and I gave every inch of my life to him.
Every inch.

MACCALLUM: What would you say to him?

PARSCALE: Keep fighting. Don't give up, don't give up. The country needs
you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: We'll show you the rest of the interview with Brad Parscale
tomorrow night, including his thoughts on what he thinks the president
should do and whether he could win if he ran again in 2024.

Coming up next, Attorney General Bill Barr says that there's no evidence at
this point of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. So, what
to make of these hearings with bombshell claims of voting spikes and other
scandalous things that are coming out of these in the swing states across
the country? We're going to talk to former federal prosecutor Andy
McCarthy, who's been digging into the issues specifically. We'll see what
he knows after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  Attorney General William Barr telling the
Associated Press today that widespread voter fraud did not impact the
outcome of the president's election. But I do want to clarify one point on
that with regard to what the Department of Justice is saying tonight.

They are saying that the report that some media outlets have incorrectly
reported that they've concluded the investigation, the DOJ, of election
fraud and announced affirmative finding of no fraud, and that is not what
the attorney general said. There are ongoing investigations, and there is
ongoing information that continues to come in. So no definitive conclusion
on that, but at this point, that's where it stands.

So, the issue of voter fraud is popping up around next month's Georgia
Senate runoff. Here is the Georgia secretary of state. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE:  We have opened an
investigation into a group called "America votes" who is sending out
applications to people at addresses where they have not lived since 1994.

The new Georgia project who sent voter applications to New York City, and
operation new voter registration Georgia, who is telling college students
in Georgia that they can change their residency to Georgia and then change
it back after the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  Well, as was pointed out here the other night by
Jonathan Turley, that would be a felony in some of those instances that he
has just raised about voting out of state.

Here now Andrew McCarthy, former federal prosecutor and Fox News
contributor. Andy, good to have you here tonight.

ANDY MCCARTHY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Hi, Martha.

MACCALLUM:  First on this Georgia investigation in what you heard from the
Secretary of State Raffensperger. Are you concerned about what you find
when you dig into these different groups that are essentially get out the
vote efforts? But are they doing anything nefarious?

MCCARTHY:  Yes. I think, Martha, it's one thing to see that you are not
able to prove fraud in court on the present state of the evidence that we
have. It would be quite another thing to say that there aren't rampant
reasons to be concerned with the way that mail-in voting on a scale that
we've never had before has been handled.

And as Jonathan Turley mentioned to you, these are, indeed not only state
felonies, they are federal felonies. So, I would -- I would be very
concerned about it.

I also think that we've got to give this a long think when this is all over
because I don't understand why we shouldn't impose the obligation on the
person to ask for a ballot if the person is interested in having a ballot.
Why third party should be mass mailing ballot applications to people is
beyond me. It's a classic invitation to fraud.

MACCALLUM:  Yes. There is a lot of levels here. I think people look at it
in different ways. Because, you know, what you heard from Chris Krebs is
that it was a clean election, meaning that there wasn't in his mind
anything wrong with the machines or the counting, right?

But there is also different levels of this, as you point out in terms of
how these things are mailed out, how they're collected collective,
harvesting and all the different rules in different places in terms of what
makes a valid ballot.

Here is one more sound bite from Brad Parscale on this, I want to get your
thoughts on this on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD PARSCALE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER:  Packing is breaking in,
fraud is just, talk about of dead people and I think there was some of that
stuff, but there is also gaming. And gaming is all of a sudden, I show up
to 50,000 households after the election and backdate ballots and they show
up on the door. Now some people call that fraud, I call it fraud, but
Democrats call them gaming maybe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  What do you think about that?

MCCARTHY:  Well, obviously it shouldn't be done. And it's a little bit hard
because a lot of dialogue about this is like the two ships passing in the
night.

MACCALLUM:  Yes.

MCCARTHY:  When people say this was a clean election, it doesn't mean it
was a perfect election.

MACCALLUM:  Yes.

MCCARTHY:  There's always a certain sort of low thrum of fraudulent
activity that goes on. And the bottom line, Martha, always is, would it
have made a difference? That is, would what you can prove happen have close
the gap between, you know, here the president's deficit and what it appears
President-elect Biden has won by?

MACCALLUM:  Andy McCarthy, great to have you here tonight, Andy. Thank you.

MCCARTHY:  Thanks, Martha.

MACCALLUM:  So, a surprising decision tonight by the CDC to loosen some of
the COVID quarantine recommendations. Dr. Richard Besser tells what he
thinks about that more when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM:  Significant shake-up tonight in the government's official guide
on COVID-19, specifically, the CDC is expected to shorten the recommended
quarantine period for those exposed to the virus if they test negative from
14 days down to just seven.

This as we learned that the virus may have been here in the United States
far sooner than we have been told. As data now reveals antibodies were
found in some Americans as early as December of 2019.

A lot to talk about now with Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC.
Doctor, good to have you with us tonight.

Let's start there with a virus probably arriving sooner than we knew, based
on antibodies that were found in blood tests. What do you make of that?

RICHARD BESSER, PRESIDENT & CEO, ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION:  yes. I
think it is interesting. You know, I want to see more data on that to know
for sure. This is a technique that's often used in public health where you
look at blood collected by blood banks for the purposes and then you look
back to see if there is any sign of antibodies or any sign the infection
was here. Can you pinpoint when it first arrived?

One of the challenges is sometimes antibody to one type of a virus, one
type of coronavirus will cross react with another coronavirus. So I want to
make sure that what they found is truly real, but if it is real, then it
suggests that, you know, if we had been able to detect this earlier and to
know that this had the potential to become a raging pandemic, maybe there
is something that could have been done sooner.

MACCALLUM:  Yes, maybe.

BESSER:  But those are big if's and there is a lot of work to be done
before you want to conclude that.

MACCALLUM:  Yes. The other thing that I find really interesting is this
that it shows that it could be 53 million people in this country who have
had coronavirus already as opposed to the number that we see when we look
up the accounts which is about 6.9 million.

Here is -- here is what Rand Paul said about that the other night and I
want to get your thoughts on the other side of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY):  Right now, New York is having virtually zero
deaths. And you have to say is that because they are washing their hands
better? Or might it have something to do with the degree of immunity that
their vulnerable population got? A lot of them died but those who didn't
die in nursing homes, a lot of them have antibodies now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  So, your thoughts on the much bigger number than we
thought and also on what the senator said.

BESSER:  The bigger number, I think is probably spot on. One of the
challenges when you have a virus that spreads from people who don't have
any symptoms is it is hard to know exactly where it is and how many people
have been benefited.

It's going to have a big impact as we go forward and we look to see what do
we expect the trajectory of this to be. How many people are going to have
to be vaccinated before we start to see a downturn in this?

You know, Senator Paul's comments in terms of could people have protection?
You know, that's something that could be explored. Nursing home studies
with in terms of antibodies, but we do know the vast majority of people in
America are still at risk and need to do those things to try to reduce
transmission to protect themselves, their families, and their communities.

MACCALLUM:  So, should we have a test that figures out, you know, should
everyone have the antibody test and then should vaccines be given first to
people who don't have the antibodies?

BESSER:  Well, you know, I don't think that you should give them just to
people that don't have antibodies. I think that the advisory committee
today that recommended health care workers and people in long-term care
institutions, nursing homes, is the first is the way to go given the risk.

But I do say, and one of the challenges about measuring antibodies, is that
we know that people who have had an actual infection after several months
you may not be able to detect any antibodies, but they could still have
protection to COVID because of something called cellular immunity. So,
there is still a lot we're learning on this.

MACCALLUM:  Yes. And the quarantine down to seven days. If you test
negative but you've been exposed, right? Are you behind that?

BESSER:  Yes. So, you know, some of this is based on increased science and
knowing that those later dates and that quarantine period, you are at lower
risk of transmitting to other people. And part of it is that the Congress
hasn't stepped up and provided support to people to stay home for two
weeks.

You know, what we are hearing from states is that, no one wants to tell who
they've had contact with because for a lot of people who don't have sick
leave or family medical leave, it means that they could lose their jobs.

MACCALLUM:  Yes.

BESSER:  So, trying to come up with a balance there between protecting
health and doing something that people can live with and actually comply
with.

MACCALLUM:  Dr. Besser, thanks. Always good to see you.

BESSER:  Thanks, Martha.

MACCALLUM:  So, what would a return to Obama era economic policies mean for
the thousands of small businesses that were shuttered by COVID-19
restrictions, leaving families to struggle to make ends meet? We're going
to talk about that next with Michael Goodwin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM:  Thousands of businesses across the country have been shuttered
due to COVID-19 lockdowns. As of August 31st, the A.P. (Ph) reported that
nearly 100,000 businesses closed their doors forever. Many of those with
owners have gone public with their pleas for help. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX JORDAN, OWNER, EAT AT JOES:  They shut us down for outdoor dining.
Three weeks before Christmas, month before Christmas without any kind of
aid to my employees.

KEITH MCALARNEY, OWNER, MAC'S PUB:  They never came to us to ask how to do
that in a safe way. Basically, all they did was dictate to us what we are
supposed to do. And with doing that, you still weren't able to survive.

ROBBY DINERO, PRESIDENT, ATHLETES UNLEASHED:  Any infringement on our
freedom for any reason is too far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM:  So, who will take on this growing crisis of all these
businesses across the country? Today, President-elect Joe Biden announced
his new economic team.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:  The goal is
simple to keep businesses and schools open safely. And for millions of
Americans who have lost their jobs or hours and have had to claim
unemployment, we have to deliver them immediate relief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  Joining me now Michael Goodman, New York Post chief
columnist, political columnist and Fox News contributor. Michael, good to
have you here.

You know, Joe Biden is going to have his work cut out for him on this
issue. It's something that you can tell in the voices of small business
owners, people really are struggling. And they patted up to here with a lot
of the restrictions.

MICHAEL GOODWIN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Yes, Joe Biden, if you will recall,
Martha, early on was all for a national lockdown and said he would support
that if the scientist said it was the right thing to do. But I think more
recently, he has begun to realize the damage that they have done,
particularly in some of the big blue states, New York and California
especially.

And with the vaccine coming down the road, you would think that there would
be less need for that and more desired to keep things open. But for a lot
of these businesses, it's too late. As your statistics there showed, and I
think also there is the sense of resistance against these lockdowns that
feel often arbitrary, inconsistent with rules.

And then come of course, you see some of these officials who order these
lockdowns breaking them themselves to have dinner with friends or family or
to go on trips, even as they tell others not to.

So, I think the moment has passed for a big national lockdown. I can't see
how Biden would be able to pull that off.

MACCALLUM:  Yes.

GOODWIN:  I don't think there is enough support for it anywhere.

MACCALLUM:  But, I mean, even when it's done in isolated spots in the big
cities in particular, it's just crushing them. Small business confidence
levels have been plunging since the election at the beginning of November.

Fifty-three percent of small business owners say that they expect tax
policy is going to have a negative impact on their businesses for the next
12 months. Forty-nine percent said government regulation will have a
negative impact as well. That's what they are anticipating from this
economic team, Mike.

GOODWIN:  Right. Yes, I mean, I'm surprised the numbers aren't actually
higher in both cases.

MACCALLUM:  Yes.

GOODWIN:  I mean, Biden has talked a lot about raising taxes. You know,
even on the personal income tax, small businesses often, you know, passed
through businesses. So, I don't know how he's going to do that of course,
what happens in Congress will be a big part of the outcome. But even
regulations.

I mean, we see that in New York a lot that they say you can open an outdoor
dining spot, but then you have to do x, y, and z. And suddenly, these
marginal businesses simply can't afford it. There is no profit in doing it.

So, you know, it strikes me too, Martha, that a lot of people were talking
about Biden, Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, and other governors and mayors they've
never ran a business.

MACCALLUM:  Yes.

GOODWIN:  They've never had a small business in their own family. They have
always been, they're political careerists. So, I think there is a
disconnect between what the government says you need to do and what people
feel they can do who actually have to bear the brunt of these.

MACCALLUM:  I think the migration is fascinating. I saw today that Hewlett-
Packard is leaving California, San Jose, California, they're moving to
Texas. It feels like every day I see another headline of a business that
has decided that they don't want to stay in these really restricted states
anymore. They want to go somewhere where they have a little bit more
freedom to run their business they see fit, Michael.

GOODWIN:  Well, and you talk to individuals who are doing it for the same
reason. That if you, for example, in New York City, New York State, if you
pay, if you are making the top amount, you are going to pay 12.5 percent
extra on your income taxes.

I mean, if you are struggling, that's a lot of money if you have a
business, the same thing, that's a big difference to go on a place with
lower taxes, lower regulations.

MACCALLUM (on camera):  So real quick, here is President Obama jokingly
talking about a third term. And I will tell you why I played this after we
take a look at it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:  If I could
make an arrangement where I had a stand-in a front man or front woman and
they had an ear piece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking
through the stuff. Then I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody
else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I would be fine with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  Real quick, Michael. How much of a role do you
think the former president plays in his former vice president's presidency?

GOODWIN:  Well, it will be interesting to see. I think Obama is not going
to go away quietly. I think he will be a presence. I think there will be a
lot of back channel, I suspect with Kamala Harris among others who was
close to Obama. So, I think this president is not going away. He is young.
He clearly wants to be in the game. And there is nothing to stop him
really.

MACCALLUM:  Michael Goodwin of the New York Post, good to see you tonight.
Thank you.

GOODWIN:  Thank you.

MACCALLUM:  More of The Story coming up right after this. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM:  Tomorrow night, part two of my exclusive interview with Brad
Parscale. He looks ahead specifically to the president's prospects for
2024.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACCALLUM:  Do you believe he should run in 2024?

PARSCALE:  I don't know if that's what he should do, but I wish he would. I
think there's still a lot of story to be told. Do I hope he makes a few
little tweaks? Yes. If he wants to call me, I think I will tell him what
those tweaks are. If he doesn't want to call me, I will wish him the best
of luck. I think he is the best thing for this country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACCALLUM (on camera):  More tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Eastern. Back in New
York. That is The Story of Tuesday, December 1st, 2020. THE STORY continues
--

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST:  Good evening and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON
TONIGHT.

END

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