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In 2016 we faced an attack of a new kind.
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The Russians hacked democracy.
The Russian interference only worked
because America was a vulnerable target.
In the alleged collusion...
These allegations are just absolutely preposterous.
Of course Russians preferred Trump because Trump said
that he preferred Russians.
- Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States.
- Oh, yeah!
- My fellow Americans, we are fortunate to be alive
at this moment in history.
- Whoo!
- Never before has our nation enjoyed so much prosperity,
the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years
and over 20 million new jobs,
the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years...
- You've got mail.
- And next month,
America will achieve the longest period
of economic growth in our entire history.
- From the record-breaking stock market
to the best job market in a generation,
the U.S. economy continues to defy
even the optimist's expectations.
Al Gore and his advisers are hoping
that focusing on the booming economy
will put his campaign on firm ground.
- He's the most qualified person in my lifetime
to seek this job.
- You're pitted against Al Gore now.
You used to be way ahead of him,
and now it's neck and neck.
Does that mean that the more people see you, Governor,
the less they like you?
- The stage is set for Bill Clinton
to hand off the baton to Al Gore
and lead that roaring economy into the 21st century.
- I know my own imperfections.
Sometimes people say I'm too serious,
that I talk too much substance and policy.
- I was apprehended
in Kennebunkport, Maine, for a DUI.
- You're now in the final stretch
of this race for president,
what could be the closest contest in 40 years.
- Whoever wins Florida wins the presidency.
- Critical will be Florida's 12% Hispanic population.
- I think wherever the Hispanic vote goes,
that is where the state of Florida will go.
- This state is going to be crucial
in the election of 2000.
- Miami, which had been, famously,
a cultural wasteland in the '70s and '80s,
began to emerge as a hot, happening place.
South Beach began to emerge as a place
for beautiful models
and people who wanted to hang out
with beautiful models.
But Miami would be a pleasant backwater
if it were not for the Cubans who came here.
The Cubans provide, really,
the heartbeat of the city.
- There's two Cubas.
There's the island,
and then there's the peninsula of South Florida.
- The '90s was when the Cubans really coalesced their power
in South Florida.
- Coming into 2000, of its 2.3 million residents,
Cubans were the majority minority group
that outnumbered Anglos by 200,000 votes
and even Black residents by 220,000 votes.
- At one point,
every single lever of power in Miami
is controlled by a Cuban American.
- Think about that for a minute.
A major American city
and the entire city council of most cities
were Cuban Americans.
And every single mayor was a Cuban American.
That's nuts.
- And I'll tell you,
it's a pleasure to stand on this stage today
and see all of the communities and all of the faces
that make Miami one of the greatest cities
in the entire world.
Here, as in the Hispanic community,
words like "familia," "comunidad," "educación,"
"patria," y "Dios" are not just palabras.
They're values and virtues that guide everyday life.
And there's nobody who understands
the meaning of those words more than my friend Alex Penelas.
- Miami-Dade County mayor Alex Penelas
is "People" magazine's choice for sexiest politician.
- In his nine years in politics,
he has become adept at responding
to what voters want.
The child of immigrants works hard,
plays by the rules,
and ends up at the top of the political ladder.
- Alex Penelas was the boy mayor.
- Never lacking for self-confidence,
Alex Penelas has propelled himself to the center
of South Florida's political stage.
- Alex Penelas was one of the most exciting politicians
in the history of Miami.
- He was hanging with Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
I thought he was kind of cool.
- I'm young, and I think that's exactly
what the people of this community wanted.
- One of the incredible things that Alex pulled off
is, he realized how to be a Democrat and how to live
in the traditional Cuban American world.
And he could navigate both of those simultaneously,
and nobody had ever done that before.
- I, Alex Penelas...
- At just 34, Penelas has been elected to the new job
of executive mayor of Dade County.
- Alex Penelas was the great Cuban hope.
This was the tipping point at which Cuban Americans
became the dominant political force in Miami.
- With 2 million constituents,
he is Florida's second-most powerful politician
after the governor and, some say,
the most influential Hispanic politician in America.
- He was more dynamic and had more promise
than Marco Rubio ever could've.
And as "People" magazine pointed out,
he was also far better-looking.
- There was a lot of momentum behind him,
and there started to become this chatter.
I could really see him as a cabinet secretary.
I could see him as a U.S. senator.
- And much like a farmer...
- There were mentions that Penelas was going
to possibly be Al Gore's running mate in 2000.
- Alex had all the promise in the world.
You know, the sky was the limit for him.
- What can change that?
- And from the ocean waters
off the coast of Florida tonight,
a real-life Thanksgiving story to tell you about.
- About 6:40 this morning,
a five-year-old child came ashore
on a small inner tube.
- His mother, stepfather, and other refugees drowned
trying to reach the U.S. illegally.
- In Miami, family members knew relatives
were making the crossing.
They had heard a boat capsized,
and they feared all were dead.
- When Elián González is found Thanksgiving 1999
bobbing offshore--
this extraordinary image of a five-year-old child
found by the two fisherman.
This child survived this horrific tragedy.
- Cubans are very Catholic.
Story of Saint Lazarus, story of the Virgin Mary,
and the story of somebody being lost at sea,
la Virgen de la Caridad, as Cubans call her,
which is the story of the guy
who doesn't think he's gonna survive in the ocean,
and he looks up and he prays to the Virgin of Charity...
And says, "Please spare my life."
And that's the story that Cubans saw
with Elián González.
- Everything became very biblical,
very mythological.
Nothing to do with the actual reality of the situation.
- Elián González in Miami today,
the five-year-old at the center
of an international tug-of-war.
On one side, his father in communist Cuba
today demanding his son be returned home.
- For most Americans,
when there's one willing parent who is competent
of looking after the child, it's a no-brainer.
- Every non-Cuban person in the United States
thought Elián González should be returned to Cuba.
- On the other side, his extended family in Miami,
relatives he had never met before,
exiles who came here in search of freedom
saying Elián now belongs in the United States.
- Every Cuban in Miami thought that he should stay
with his relatives here in Miami
because that was his mother's intent.
And she died trying to do that, so let's honor her intent.
- If Elián González was from Long Island,
then he should be returned to his father, but he wasn't.
- This is strictly a pissing contest.
Who's gonna get the brownie points?
Is it gonna be Fidel, God forbid,
or is it gonna be the crazy people in this town?
It hasn't got anything to do
with this poor little six-year-old kid.
He's like the wishbone at Thanksgiving.
We got Fidel and his crazy people on the one side
pulling one leg in one direction,
and we got the crazy people in this town
pulling on the other.
- The disparity in public opinion
yielded some brutal satire
on shows like "Saturday Night Live,"
"The Daily Show."
all:
announcer: "Elián: The Cuban Boy!"
- All I'll say about Elián is, thank God he's Cuban.
'Cause if he was Haitian,
you would've never heard about his ass.
Mm-mm.
If Elián González was Elián Lemumbo from Haiti,
they'd have pushed that little rubber tube
right back in the water.
"Sorry, fella. All full.
Good luck."
- Cuba demands return of six-year-old refugee.
Yankees refuse to let him out of the contract.
- A visibly angry President Fidel Castro
accused the United States government
of kidnapping five-year-old Elián González
and demanded his return within 72 hours.
- He says particularly offensive to the Cuban people,
Elián's trip to Disney World and then Universal Studios.
- Elián showed some lingering signs
of his Thanksgiving ordeal and rescue at sea
when he went on the It's A Small World water ride.
- He was a little bit frightened
at one time with the boat,
and he asked the question, "Is this boat going to sink?"
- Family spokesman Armando Gutierrez
says Elián eventually relaxed,
and afterwards he gave the boy a coin to toss in the water.
- Armando Gutierrez showed up on the scene.
He said, "Oh, I saw this on the news,
"the child in the sea,
"and I knew right away this was a situation
that begged for my intervention."
Armando Gutierrez is a kingmaker.
You could think of him maybe as part Karl Rove,
part Lee Atwater
with a kind of Desi Arnaz sense of humor.
- They don't even want to discuss it with Elián.
This is typical, you know, propaganda,
the Cuban government diverting attention
from a serious disaster.
- His main job was advising judicial candidates,
which really meant
that he would scare other judicial candidates.
- In Florida, judges have to run for office,
so there's this whole electoral industry
around judicial campaigns.
- He played all these games
where he would move one guy from one seat to another seat,
pit people against each other.
And to him, judicial races were a chessboard.
And nobody else wanted to do 'em
because they're boring, kind of crap races.
But Armando made a niche out of it,
and he made a lot of money off of it
and he was very successful at it.
- For example, if he had a client
and somebody else wanted to get into the race,
he would go to that person and say,
"I happen to know you've said or done these things,
so I suggest that you stay out of this race."
And guess what. It worked.
- The shakedowns. - He--
Armando Gutierrez was a very congenial shakedown artist.
- When asked once by the "Miami Herald"
what type of shady tactics he may or may not have used,
Armando Gutierrez volunteered,
"I don't extort anyone."
- He was known to be one of those black operatives.
- Nobody seized the Elián opportunity
better than Armando Gutierrez.
In that moment, he became the gatekeeper.
- Everybody ready?
Okay, everybody ready? - Yeah.
- This morning, another turn in the case of Elián González.
A judge has ordered the six-year-old boy
to stay in the U.S. until at least March.
- The Miami family members,
they went into family court
and said, "We want the legal right to have this child."
And Judge Rodriguez ruled in their favor.
- In a sweeping decision,
family court judge Rosa Rodriguez ordered
that the little Cuban boy remain in his Miami home.
- The status quo shall be preserved until such time
as a full hearing on the verified petition
for temporary custody and other relief is held.
- What nobody knew was that Armando Gutierrez
had been the campaign adviser to Rosa Rodriguez.
- Judge Rosa Rodriguez of family court in Miami
is defending herself over questions
about a former campaign consultant.
When she ran for election as judge in 1998,
this man was a key paid campaign adviser:
Armando Gutierrez.
But now he's acting as spokesman
for the boy's Miami relatives.
- And of course, Armando Gutierrez
was busy, you know, schmearing the judges all over town.
Finally, they had the first court hearing that came up
which turned out to be really shady.
He seems to have his hand in every judge's pocket.
- I haven't called her, I haven't sent her a telegram,
and I haven't sent her any smoke signals.
- Once again, it just didn't pass the smell test.
- Tonight Attorney General Janet Reno is making it clear
it is federal immigration case
and laws that will decide all of this.
The immigration service says he should be returned.
- The temporary legal custody
awarded his uncle by a Miami judge
will not be recognized by the Justice Department
because, the attorney general says,
"That question remains one of federal, not state law."
- Enter Janet Reno,
not just a Florida native but a Miami native.
She spent 15 years as the lead prosecutor
here in Miami-Dade County, so she wasn't gonna let
some state elected judge preside over this case
when she knew how the game was played down here.
- What is at issue is a father who wants his son home
and grandparents who want their grandson home.
And these are bonds that should be honored.
- Janet Reno spoke softly, but she carried a big stick.
- In Washington, the only sound was the metallic click
of a magazine sliding into Janet Reno's Glock
as she slipped into
her periwinkle blue ass-kicking tunic.
- America's most talked-about six-year-old,
the boy on the cover of "TIME,"
offered a wave to photographers this morning
as he was taken to school.
- Elián stopped being a five- or six-year-old boy
very quickly and became a symbol for American freedom
and liberty.
- Up to 40 news crews a day from as far away as Italy
recording every moment.
- From his first thumbs-up at the hospital...
- Yeah.
- To the parade for the crowd last night...
The adults around him have coached and coaxed
and never let him forget the photographers.
- Even more bizarre,
the boy's bigger-than-life celebrity status,
complete strangers waiting hours
to see or touch the child they call a miracle.
- They stay glued to the radio,
absorbing every ounce of information about Elián.
- A fascination fueled by an aggressive campaign
led by family spokesperson Armando Gutierrez
helping to keep 200,000 Spanish radio listeners...
- The fate of Elián González...
- And an even bigger English audience tuned in daily.
- Cuban talk radio in South Florida
in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s
was the most powerful mobilizing force
anywhere in America.
- The radio here gets politicians out
onto the streets, he said.
It mobilizes public opinion.
- Cuban American radio was, in Miami, very similar
to what Fox News has been nationally for Republicans.
- If you had a dime for each time Cuban radio announcers
used the words "communist" or "Fidel Castro"
in their newscasts,
you'd probably be on your way to retirement by now.
- One of the things that the Republican Party
figured out in Florida and especially in Miami
was that you could weaponize the Cuba issue,
and the way to weaponize that issue
was to use the C-word, "communists."
- Cuban radio stations encourage violence
against moderate exiles,
those who want a dialogue with Castro.
- There were Cuban Americans who didn't want this kid
to stay here, who thought he should go back.
They were too afraid to speak out.
- In public, it was one thing.
In private, it was totally different.
- They knew that there would be repercussions.
Sometimes the repercussions could be violent.
- Frankly,
the Cuban American community has never shown itself
to have acted violently under any circumstances.
- The bomb went off at Miami International Airport
shortly before 11:30.
- The bomb exploded shortly after midnight.
- Between 1965 through the '90s,
there were over 150 bombings
where some people lost their businesses
or lost their limbs or even their lives.
- The FBI says Miami has had more terrorist activity
over the past three decades than any other U.S. city.
- Bombings and death threats and vandalism.
- Some believe the blast has done irreparable damage
to the image of Miami's Cuban Americans.
- Miami behaves like a banana republic,
that the rights and the laws are being violated
in order to support the machinery
of extreme right-wing elements
in the Cuban American community.
- There were 800,000 Cuban Americans
living in Miami at the time,
but a minority of mostly hard-liner extremists
very much dictated the conversation.
- You've got this small but vocal and hysterical
group of people fanned on, always fanned on
by the Spanish-language radio stations in this town
and these crazy people, irresponsible people
that get on there and whip them up
and encourage them to do these things.
- Unfortunately, Elián González did become
a proxy argument for other things.
He was used for political purposes.
- They're following orders either from Clinton's lawyer
or Fidel, and they need to answer
to the community and to the world.
- There was this endless parade of politicians
who came for a photo op with this kid.
- It's mostly the Republicans.
They're the ones who are most vehemently anti-immigration,
and yet now because they think
they can make some political brownie points,
they're grandstanding on this bullcrap.
- Incredible, the way they were using the kid.
People coming from Washington.
That's pandering of the worst kind.
- But to create this hysteria over one immigration case--
that's all this is.
How many immigration hearings are there
every year in this country?
How many thousands?
How many desperate children come here,
including kids from China and other comunista countries?
Anybody protesting about that? - No.
- Every Republican politician was there
sucking ass yesterday.
They couldn't get there fast enough
to exploit this and jump on the goddamn bandwagon.
- It was sad to see, really.
- One of the reasons that Washington is listening
so carefully to South Florida today
is because of the solid vote bloc
that the Cuban Americans can give.
In the last election,
President Clinton got about 40% of the Cuban vote.
If a Democratic president can get
over 35% of the Cuban vote in a close race,
that will guarantee him the state of Florida.
- At last night's Republican presidential debate,
all the candidates demand that Elián be allowed to stay here
and his father allowed to join him if he wishes.
- The man ought to be brought to the United States,
given a whiff of freedom
so he can see how wonderful our country is.
- The election-year politics
surrounding the Elián González case
got a little more intense today.
- Even the vice president has split
with his own administration, saying the court must decide
and sounding very much like the Republicans.
- This child's mother died
in an effort to get her child freedom.
- That puts Gore in opposition to President Clinton
but in line with South Florida's big bloc
of Cuban expatriate voters.
- Vice President Al Gore
visited a pharmacy in Connecticut yesterday,
where he was getting some Advil.
Apparently, he hurt is back
flip-flopping on this Elián issue.
I don't know. Just back and forth.
Aah!
- Al Gore should use his influence today
to give Elián a ray of hope
by insisting that the administration
of which he is a part
uses its legal authority
to keep Elián in the United States
while his best interests are determined.
- I did not think at the time
that this thing would become so big that it would influence
the politics of the United States of America.
- President Clinton has said repeatedly
he wants to avoid playing politics
with the life of a six-year-old boy.
- Maybe it's just because I'm not running for anything,
but I just somehow wish
that whatever is best for this child could be done.
- But Gore is running for something,
and he faces an uphill fight in Florida,
especially if federal authorities
forcibly return Elián to Cuba.
- It wasn't until we started to see that rift developing
between Al Gore and Bill Clinton
that we started to say, "Oh, shit."
- Earlier today on the federal courthouse steps,
mayors from 21 cities mounted their protest,
the most controversial remarks
from Miami-Dade County mayor Alex Penelas.
- In a press conference,
the mayor of Miami stepped up to his sound machine.
- If their continued provocation
in the form of unjustified threats
to revoke the boy's parole
leads to civil unrest and violence,
we are holding the federal government responsible
and specifically Janet Reno
and the president of the United States.
- You don't want to provoke Janet Reno.
She'll break free from her moorings
and drop Elián in Havana personally.
- First of all, you never incite violence.
Even if you think you're right,
you don't incite or you don't talk about violence.
- We will not lend our respective resources,
whether they be in the form of police officers
or any other resources,
to assist the federal government
in any way, shape, or form.
- Well,
I like the mayor very much,
but I still believe in the rule of law here.
We all have to.
Whatever the law is,
whatever the decision is ultimately made,
the rest of us ought to obey it.
- There was an explosion in Miami.
- The Cuban community,
in many ways led by Alex Penelas,
rose up and they said,
"No way this kid is going back."
There were demonstrations in the streets.
There were people marching.
It was sort of like "Les Misérables" Miami-style.
- And this small band of malcontents,
of militant assholes who insist on getting their way
and anybody in Dade County that dares
to say anything opposite is crucified, vilified,
"comunista, maricón, ,"
those are the people that run all of South Florida.
4 million people whose lives and fate
and everyday life is determined--
and quality of their life--
by a few thousand selfish imbeciles
who have no concern for anybody else.
Nice going, Mayor Penis
and all you other pandering assholes, you.
- There are a lot of people here today
who are expressing very deep emotions.
- You phony.
His name should be changed from Penis to Pinga.
That's what I'm gonna start calling him
from this day forward: Mayor Pinga Pequeño.
- Means "a man with a small member."
- People have demonstrated appropriately.
- Reporting from Florida International University
in Miami, Ted Koppel.
- I remember Ted Koppel comes to town.
Everybody's gonna be watching "Nightline"
to see what happened with the Elián saga,
and there was their nemesis, Janet Reno.
- I want to work this out so force is not used
so that we do it in a way that is fair to all concerned.
- And then there was gonna be Alex Penelas,
who people wondered which way he was gonna go.
- And it was there that Ted Koppel called out Penelas.
- Do you want to say to the attorney general
to her face...
What you said when she was not present,
namely, if there was violence,
it would be on her head and on the president's head?
- And guess what. Alex Penelas really didn't.
- Ted, I think we are all responsible for our actions,
each and every one of us.
So there's no doubt that...
And getting back to the issue of the polls,
every time I see a poll that talks about...
To have his appellate rights protected.
- Mr. Mayor, I've allowed you to go on for a long time here
in the hope that you would ultimately answer my question,
but you haven't yet.
- Ted, what I'd like to tell the attorney general
is that we all are responsible for our actions.
- What does that mean? You're the mayor, right?
But if federal marshals were to come down here,
they can count on the local police
to back them up and support them.
Is that correct? - Absolutely.
Public officials will be here to maintain the order.
Absolutely. - Very good, sir.
- Congratulations. You played yourself.
- Holy shit.
- It's Reno time!
both: Damn!
- Mayor Penelas, you may very well regret now
what you said last week, but I just--I want you to know
you left a lot of us feeling incredibly disenfranchised
from this community, and it's gonna be very, very difficult
to ever forgive you for that.
- He was really a Shakespearean figure in that moment.
He was Macbeth.
- It is a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
- "What do I do?
How do I get myself out of this situation?"
- After four months of negotiation,
it has come down to the attorney general
flying down to Florida in the late afternoon,
personally negotiating with the boy's relatives.
But after three hours,
the attorney general left without a resolution.
- A defiant Lazaro González made it clear
he was not going to turn over Elián to his father.
His great-uncle Lazaro told Attorney General Janet Reno
that the boy could be removed only by force.
- Elián González is being held unlawfully in Miami
against his father's wishes.
- I want to be clear
that if we are compelled to enforce our order,
we intend to do so in a reasonable, measured way.
- Reno has already put into action a peaceful plan
for the transfer of Elián
based largely on this trial run.
- No one was seriously hurt,
but outside the house for some of those
who had been holding vigil day and night,
the emotional wounds were deep.
- Is that democracy?
No, that's Castro tactics!
You have turned Miami into Havana!
- I would like to take a moment
to talk to the exiled Cuban community in Miami
who are so upset over the recent government action there
and extend this heartfelt message to them:
shut the hell up.
- It's supposed to be nonviolent.
I just called the police three times.
- I'm burning this flag like Clinton did.
- It was a circus.
- I just saw you throw a rock.
Reno is shit.
- Reno is motherfucker.
- All right, Miss Reno!
So you ready? - Ready!
- Go, Blue! - Go, Blue!
- That's it!
Let's move, move, move, move, move!
- Give us the kids now!
- Hand over the children! Happy Easter.
Hand over the children!
- Get your ass off the road!
- It was a very bad situation post-raid
in the Cuban American community.
Emotions were inflamed.
Mayor Penelas hoped to inflame those emotions.
- I think, you know, despite this horrible episode,
what's happened here is unforgivable.
- And to the mayor of Miami, what's-his-name,
you say you're ashamed of your new home, the United States?
I'll tell you what.
I'll buy the raft.
- When Elián was finally returned to Cuba
and to his father,
hell was gonna freeze over among exile hard-liners
before they forgot this betrayal
by Clinton-Gore.
- There was a lot of tension
between Bill Clinton's Cuba policy
and the exile community in Miami,
and Al Gore, having been the vice president,
inherited all of those tensions.
- There was going to be a price to be paid.
The Gore-Bush election
was an opportunity for el voto castigo,
the revenge vote.
- It's a punishment vote.
Remember to vote and punish these people.
- El voto castigo, they called it,
the punishment vote.
Whom will Cuban American voters punish?
Al Gore and the Democrats.
- I will fight for your loved ones,
for your community,
for the future of Florida and the United States.
- George Bush,
the luckiest politician in the history of America,
was handed this
delicious plate of voters...
- Compliments of what happened to Elián González
and, suddenly, Armando Gutierrez,
who had to choose not only a judge,
like he was used to doing.
Now he was allowed to choose
the next president of the United States.
This is the guy you vote for to punish, castigo,
el voto castigo.
Talk about fortune.
- It's the top political job in South Florida,
and Alex Penelas is determined to hang on to it.
- There was an effort to fund his reelection campaign
from Florida Democrats and national Democrats,
and I certainly was helping to raise part of the money.
- Penelas, who's collected four times as much money
as his main opponent,
could spend $3/4 million
on TV and other advertising by the end of the campaign.
- This was his last election as mayor,
and he was looking to run for governor
or senator afterwards.
If he became an incumbent mayor,
then there was no reason
where he couldn't spend some political capital
and help Gore on the national campaign.
- It wasn't until 1:30 in the morning
that Alex Penelas could claim reelection
in the first round of balloting.
- I'm happy to tell you that we've won,
ladies and gentlemen.
- There was now the critical two months of election,
from Labor Day to Election Day, to help Vice President Gore
gain as much of that Cuban percentage back.
- From Alex Penelas, you're always gonna get leadership,
even the most difficult of situations.
Whether the hurricanes or any other crisis,
you're always gonna get leadership from Alex Penelas.
- A few weeks before the election,
Alex Penelas was supposed to calm down
the declaration of el voto castigo
by appearing with Hialeah mayor Raúl Martinez
to bolster Hispanic support for the Gore campaign.
- They asked me to stand with Alex
at La Carreta in Hialeah.
It was gonna be some national event
where all the Hispanic nationally would be supportive,
and of course, you know,
they wanted to get the media there.
I said, "Okay, I'll be there at 11:00 in the morning,
and I'll just be there as a second banana to Alex."
- So Gore just had to convince Cuban Americans
that he was truly on their side
on the Elián argument
and he disagreed with Bill Clinton,
and the only thing he really needed to make that happen
was to have Alex Penelas, the mayor of Miami-Dade County,
the most important county for Cuban Americans
in the country,
to stand at his side and back him on that.
- Vice President Gore flew in to hopefully collect
on what he thought was Mr. Penelas' word
and accept Mayor Penelas' endorsement.
- Got there.
By 10:30, 10:45, Alex wasn't there,
and we decided that we're gonna do a press conference there,
which we did.
Alex never showed up.
- We were told that Mayor Penelas
was going to be going to Spain.
- They probably thought he was gonna be in the country.
They probably expected that.
- Hard to campaign for Al Gore when you're in Spain.
- I said, "Wait a minute.
"Planes for Spain don't leave until 6:00 at night.
This is 11:00 in the morning."
- Al Gore wakes up one day and says,
"What happened to Alex Penelas?"
He's gone. He folded like a cheap suit.
- Mr. Penelas decided to leave Vice President Gore
literally standing at the altar.
- I was annoyed and pissed, because you don't do that.
- I went to rallies.
I heard other people speak about Gore.
But dónde está Alex Penelas?
He was nowhere to be seen.
- Dónde está Alex Penelas?
- When the going gets tough, Alex gets going.
- No Republican has won the presidency without Florida
since Calvin Coolidge in 1924.
- Florida was key.
I mean, if we didn't win Florida,
we wouldn't have won the election.
- Thanks for coming.
This is a huge crowd,
which leads me to be able to say
Florida is gonna be Bush-Cheney country.
- Didn't hurt to have your brother
as the governor of Florida.
- On the stop today, Bush rallied the crowds
with Florida's governor, his brother Jeb.
The younger Bush has led
a huge "get out the vote" effort here,
and advisers believe Florida is the state
that will propel them to victory.
- A person that can get things done in Washington, D.C.,
that will eliminate the cynicism of the past
and bring a new era for this country:
my brother George W. Bush,
the next president of the United States.
- The candidate poured it on thick,
especially on Cuban voters,
whose ears tune in to talk of Elián and Fidel Castro.
- We will keep the pressure on Fidel Castro
until the people are free.
- South Florida was so important.
Both candidates made multiple stops here
the day before the election.
Sing it!
- South Beach center stage
for a late-night rock-and-roll rally
that Al Gore hopes will ignite last-minute Florida voters.
- "If you want to win, vote for Gore and Lieberman."
That was Stevie Wonder's lyric.
- The entire 2000 presidential campaign for Al Gore
culminates on the sands of Miami Beach,
the last rally of the campaign putting an exclamation point
on the importance of Miami-Dade in this election.
- I think this may be
the most important election of my generation.
- I didn't see Alex Penelas at that rally, by the way.
- But will it make a difference?
- Florida was it.
Everyone on both campaigns
knew it was coming down to Florida.
- Good evening, and welcome
to what promises to be a long and exciting night.
- This being billed,
as the polls close before the election,
as the closest election in a generation.
- What happens tonight will set the nation's next agenda
for the 21st century.
There are many who believe
that this election is not just about the next four years,
but it may well decide the direction of our country
for the next generation.
- I was in charge of election night in Austin,
and we had a party-like atmosphere.
As the returns were coming in, there was great joy.
- Bush picks up his first state in the South,
Gore gets his first win in New England,
but no call yet in what both campaigns say may be the key
to this election: Florida.
That race, the heat from it
is hot enough to peel house paint.
- At 6:50,
I am sitting in the Fort Lauderdale Airport
to get on Southwest Airlines' flight to Nashville.
- Our John King is with the Gore campaign in Nashville.
- The polls were gonna close in ten minutes.
- The presidential race
is crackling like a hickory fire here.
- All eyes on Florida at this hour, Tim.
Both campaigns made an enormous investment there.
- By the time we landed in Tampa,
they declared Florida for Gore, and we're celebrating.
- Let's take a look back.
We have not heard one word tonight about Ralph Nader.
- Mike, excuse me one second.
I'm so sorry to interrupt you.
Florida goes for Al Gore.
- Al Gore wins the state of Florida,
giving him the first big state momentum of the evening.
- You can bet that Governor Bush
will be madder than a rained-on rooster
that his brother, the governor,
wasn't able to carry this state for him.
- That is a very, very, very important state for Al Gore,
and now the pressure is on George W. Bush.
- If Gore had lost Florida,
you might be saying sayonara to his hopes.
- All of a sudden, there were reports:
"Well, there's issues. There are problems."
- Passengers are getting off flights,
emerging from their airborne information vacuums
only to learn that Bush now appears to have the edge.
- When we landed in Nashville,
now they're not so sure that we won in Florida.
- The Bush campaign is now contesting
the projected victory for Al Gore
in the state of Florida.
- In the Austin hotel where Governor Bush
is watching the results with his family,
there is a strong sense
that the race in Florida is not over.
- Florida, for example,
I'm gonna wait till they count all the votes.
And I think America ought to wait
before they count all the votes too.
- What the networks give us, the networks taketh away.
NBC News is now taking Florida
out of Vice President Gore's column and putting it back
in the "too close to call" column.
- Florida is back in play.
- Florida is back in the toss-up category.
- Hoo, what a night.
- It's too close to call.
- It was either gonna be a tie
or maybe a little advantage to Gore.
Fox News changed the argument.
- Fox News now projects
George W. Bush the winner in Florida
and thus, it appears,
the winner of the presidency of the United States.
- It was actually George Bush's cousin
who made the call at Fox News.
The other stations started to call it for Bush.
- In a time of peace and prosperity like this,
it's possible for the country...
- Stop. Stop.
- To have such a division as they do--
- Doris, Doris, Doris, Doris.
George Bush is the president-elect
of the United States.
He has won the state of Florida.
- ABC News is now going to project
that Florida goes to Mr. Bush.
- George Bush will become the 43rd president
of the United States.
- Sip it, savor it, cup it,
photostat it, underline it in red,
press it into a book, put it in the album,
hang it on the wall:
George Bush is the next president
of the United States.
- This is the scene in Austin, Texas, tonight.
It's been a long, suspenseful evening.
- Gore has, in fact, called president-elect Bush.
No word on what was said in that conversation
but that it was very direct.
- Boom,
he goes out and concedes an election that he has won.
- Gore didn't want to hold up the nation.
He's a Boy Scout in that regard.
- Al Gore appeared to be conceding.
- There was no documentary evidence that he has lost.
- Why the hell would you concede?
What do you have to lose?
Just stay quiet.
- We're told Gore is on his way here.
Again, we were told that about 10, 15 minutes ago.
We haven't seen him yet,
but that is supposed to be soon.
- Vice President Gore's motorcade
is bound for the War Memorial, where he plans to admit defeat
and say a few comforting words to his supporters.
- I was one of the people to call up the vice president
and I'm screaming in the phone, saying, "You can't concede!
"There's still outstanding votes
"that we still haven't counted.
I don't care what the TV stations are saying."
- The margin in Florida is now said to be a mere 600 votes.
- Something screwy's going on in Florida.
We know large amounts of precincts
are not showing up on the secretary of state's website.
- This is clearly no time for the vice president
to make a public concession speech.
- The votes hadn't been counted yet.
The votes hadn't been counted yet.
- Sir, sir, sir, it's urgent.
- What is it, David?
- Daley needs to speak to you. He just needs five minutes.
- Look, I just spoke to Bush.
He's waiting for me to give this speech.
- Mr. Vice President.
- I'm not gonna keep him waiting.
- Please, Mr. Vice President.
There's a problem with the numbers in Florida.
- The crowd has gotten extremely quiet
as journalists are discussing
why the vice president has not come out
and made the concession speech
that they all expected him to make.
- And then he took it back.
- The vice president has re-called the governor
and retracted his concession.
- And I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be a shit show.
This is gonna be a total shit show."
- The race is not yet over.
- "The circumstances have changed.
"I need to withdraw my concession
until the situation is clear," Gore says
in what quickly becomes a tense call.
Bush is said to be indignant.
- I thought it was an interesting comment he made,
and I felt like I was fully prepared
to go out and give a speech
and--thanking my supporters.
- Sources close to Gore recall Bush
saying his brother Jeb assured him he'd won.
Gore responds,
"Your little brother does not have the last word on this."
- The Associated Press believes that the uncounted votes
in Broward and Palm Beach Counties
could allow a change of the lead...
- Oh, my word. - In the Florida vote.
- Hello, 911? Cardiac arrest unit, please.
- Broward and Palm Beach are the uncounted votes.
What if this goes the other way?
- Well, it's only 3:17.
We're here. - Right.
- Cameras are hot.
- Folks, it's 3:30 in the morning here in the East,
but the excitement level has just risen once again.
- Let's go home.
- We're thinking we're gonna send you
some of our cold pizza.
Would that make you feel better?
- No.
- Tim gets his board out.
Uh...
Good grief.
- For those of you who went to bed or started--
went off to brush your teeth and come back and say,
"Hello, what's this, Dan Rather?"
Well, I gotta tell you, folks.
I don't know.
I don't know anybody who does know.
- TV 3 control.
Okay, I want you to pull back Florida
and I want you to say it is equally probable
that either candidate can win in Florida.
- All right, we're officially saying
that Florida is too close to call.
- We are going to take Florida
back into the "too close to call" column.
- That means he is short of the 270 electoral votes
that he needs to win.
- Florida secretary of state says the margin in Florida--
get this, folks, and hold on to the bedstead or something--
629 votes.
We could be going to Recount City.
- Just an hour or so ago,
the TV networks called this race for Governor Bush.
It now appears--
it now appears that their call was premature.
Under Florida state law,
this triggers an automatic recount.
Our campaign continues.
all: Recount! Recount! Recount!
Recount! Recount! Recount! Recount!
Recount!
- Once again, we're talking about Florida.
Controversy surrounding the vote
raises a myriad of issues about our democracy.
And while there is much disagreement
about how to proceed from here,
nearly everyone seems to agree on one thing, and that is
holy [bleep] [bleep].
- This morning, we frankly still don't have a winner.
If you are just waking up and just tuning in,
you should know that after a long night of swing votes,
the presidential race is frankly
still too close to call.
- What's the problem with the election?
Voter fraud, Electoral College?
- The white man?
- All along, we thought there was a possibility
that George W. Bush might win the popular vote
but Al Gore could win the electoral vote.
As of right now, Al Gore has won the popular vote.
- Out of something like 97 million votes cast,
we're looking at a difference of 213,000 votes.
- But it is the Electoral College
that matters there.
George W. Bush could still win.
- They both are still short of the needed 270
because of the state of Florida.
- All that matters is Florida
because mathematically, it takes Florida's 25 votes
to put either man into the White House.
- In my mind, Gore would've won.
I mean, he won the popular vote.
- Right, Chris.
By the popular vote, the majority of the people
are saying, "We want Al Gore to be our next president."
But the Electoral College, which is run by the white man,
is saying, "We don't care what you niggas want."
- Almost 6 million votes in Florida.
987 separate the two candidates.
- And so as a result, the state of Florida,
by law, has gone to an automatic recount.
- You know, Florida has always been a troublemaker,
all year.
Hurricanes, Elián González, Alonzo Mourning's kidney,
'NSYNC, booty bass--
all that shit's from Florida.
- Let's be clear, again,
whoever wins in Florida wins the White House.
- So what do you think the answer is?
- I think the answer is fuck Florida.
Chris, look.
It's right down there at the bottom.
All you gotta do, lop it off.
- Why can't we just cut this state adrift
and let it crash into Cuba?
- South America, take it away!
- Across Florida and the nation,
this cliff-hanger vote, to many,
like a sporting event.
At 9:00 a.m., Bush's lead stands at 941 votes.
By 11:23 a.m., 799 votes.
Then back up to 830 votes.
But by 12:30 p.m.,
Bush's lead slips again to 795 votes.
2:30 p.m., Bush's lead down further to 787 votes.
By 4:25 p.m., Bush's lead plunges to 341
with only five more counties left to report.
- In a state as populous and diverse as Florida,
we were scratching our heads
to think that it could even be that close.
- Now to the woman who's in the crosshairs,
in the spotlight.
- Katherine Harris is about to learn
what real pressure is all about.
- She's the secretary of state, Katherine Harris.
- The Gore campaign has already compared her
to a Soviet commissar.
- Tonight the question of who will be the next president
is right on her desk.
- Katherine Harris was the chair of the Bush campaign
and she was the secretary of state.
- Harris was the state cochair
of George Bush's presidential campaign.
Today Governor Jeb Bush said she is doing a good job.
- I think she's doing the right thing.
- Two Democratic legislators told ABC News they now think
she is trying to hand the election to George Bush.
- Is there some concern in the Bush camp
that putting it in her hands, a Republican,
the cochairperson of the Bush campaign in Florida,
will tarnish the results?
- Your Governor Bush's co-campaign chair in Florida!
Seems to me you can be accused of political cronyism!
- Do I know who has officially won the election?
Yes.
Am I going to announce it? No.
Am I going to enjoy watching that Tennessee robot cry
when he hears the results?
Yes.
Does that make me partisan? I don't think so.
- So here you have the woman
who is responsible for counting the ballots,
who's like this with Jeb Bush.
- It's rather third world-like.
- In a clear sign
Democrats nor Republicans trust the other,
both parties are sending in former secretaries of state
to oversee the recount:
Warren Christopher for the Democrats,
James Baker for the Republicans.
- Warren Christopher sat us all down and said,
"This is the world's greatest democracy.
"We have a dispute about who is to be its next president.
"We will conduct ourselves, on our side of the ledger,
as if this is the world's greatest democracy."
- I don't see any threat to our Constitution.
Indeed, what we're doing is a constitutional process.
There's no constitutional crisis.
We're proceeding in accordance with the Constitution and laws
and will continue to do so.
- Warren Christopher,
who was virtually petrified by that time,
came down here thinking this was some kind of
high-minded constitutional debate.
He didn't understand Florida politics.
I'm not sure he understood politics at all.
- Is politics about uniting people?
- Politics is about winning.
- Roger Stone has always been a shadow figure
in the Republican Party nationally.
He's always been known
to be the fellow you would want to call if it's something
you didn't want anyone in your campaign to get close to.
- The assistant for Jim Baker called me and she said,
"Mr. Baker would like you to go to Florida
"and help on the recount.
How soon can you leave?"
- Beyond the closeness of the vote in Florida,
there are also questions about irregularities
at polling places
and alleged problems with the ballots themselves.
- So I packed my bags
and I headed first for Palm Beach County.
- In West Palm Beach, voters were protesting
what they say was a confusing ballot
and they want to vote again.
Al Gore's name appeared on the left,
Pat Buchanan's slightly above on the right.
Some say when they went to select Gore,
they mistakenly punched Buchanan.
- 19,000 ballots were tossed out
because they contained a double punch.
- Hundreds of voters take to the streets,
where election officials have tossed out
those 19,000 ballots punched twice
cast by voters like Robert Hurst.
- I cast a vote for Gore, but at the same time,
I must've punched the Buchanan column as well.
- Only an idiot would vote for Pat Buchanan by mistake.
- Butterfly ballots. - Right.
- And the little old ladies
who voted by error for Pat Buchanan,
it was the worst horror since the Holocaust,
and it was terrible.
- It's kind of caveat emptor.
I guess it is buyer beware.
- Are you suggesting they did not intend to vote
for Pat Buchanan?
- Pat Buchanan suggested they didn't intend to vote
for Pat Buchanan.
- If the two candidates they pushed were Buchanan and Gore,
almost certainly, those are Al Gore's votes and not mine.
- You know America's gone through a wormhole
when Pat Buchanan is the voice of fairness and reason.
I'm sorry, it just-- we are living in a freak zone.
- There was more than enough legal and political talent
to see Palm Beach through.
So I called Baker and I said,
"You know, everything here seems to be under control."
And he said, "Good.
"I want you to go down to Miami-Dade.
Things down there are really screwed up."
- If there was gonna be shenanigans and mischief,
it was likely to be in Miami-Dade,
so it made sense to go where it's likely to be stolen.
- He had this iconic moment, did Tim Russert, on NBC
when he said it all comes down
to Florida, Florida, Florida.
He might as well have said it all comes down
to Miami, Miami, Miami.
- All right, here is a quick summary
of today's major developments.
George W. Bush now leading Al Gore by just 290 votes.
This number will inevitably change before it's all over.
Which way, we simply do not know.
- A confident and determined Al Gore
making extremely clear
he is not close to conceding this election.
- When people cast votes,
the votes should be counted.
And there are more than enough uncounted votes
to decide the outcome of this election.
There are thousands of them,
and the margin is in the hundreds.
If you ignore the votes, you ignore democracy itself.
- One of the central issues of Al Gore's contest
of the Florida election involves thousands of ballots
in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties
that showed no vote for president
in either the election night machine count
or the automatic recount.
Election professionals call these ballots undervotes.
- Miami-Dade County,
ground zero in the Gore campaign's search
for discarded votes.
More than 5% of the ballots here, say Democrats,
are in the drawer marked
"No vote for president--rejected."
Election officials call that an undervote.
- That's what's in the parlance called an undervote,
but it's a vote.
- At issue, about 10,750 ballots
that were counted by machines
without votes being recorded for either candidate.
- It makes absolutely no sense
that 10,000 people would go to the polls
during a presidential election and not vote for a president.
- People do not stand in line for seven hours
to vote for their city commissioner.
- Voters who choose not to cast a vote for president
have that right,
and no one else has the right to make their choice
for them.
- We found a flaw
in the machine design
that cost hundreds of votes
to Al Gore.
- Dade County had an antiquated IBM punch card voting system...
Which IBM will tell you
if you vote at the end of the day
and the machines aren't cleared out,
it will only show the dimple
because the card cannot punch all the way through
because the chads, as they're called,
are filling up the machine.
- The so-called pregnant or dimpled ballots--
do they show voters' intent to select Gore,
as Democrats claim,
or are they simply an indentation on the ballot
from an indecisive voter, as Republicans claim?
- And that's why you had dimpled chads
and hanging chads and pregnant chads.
- The tiny bits of paper that could pick the president.
So much fuss over chad.
- Now to the land of the hanging chad.
- I had to go to the doctor today.
You know why? I have a hanging chad.
- The question of what to do with these ballots that are--
- Pregnant or dimpled.
- Dimpled chads.
- Dimples, hanging chads.
- Oh, yes, there's a right to vote in this country.
There's not a right to indent,
and that's what a lot of people did.
- The race comes down to the chads.
- A large majority of the undervotes
came from underserviced counties.
They don't have the machines.
They don't have the personnel.
They don't clear out the chads.
Gore won these precincts.
Poor voters vote on poor voting machines.
Rich voters vote
on state-of-the-art voting machines.
Welcome to America.
- As the national debate over the vote count goes on,
the late-night comedians say, "Count us in."
- I wanna have an impromptu and candid conversation
totally off the cuff.
Just give my guys a second to set up the teleprompter.
- Okay, all right.
Everything's set, Mr. Vice President.
- This has been an extraordinary eight days
for the American people.
There is a simple reason that Florida law
and the law in many other states
calls for a careful check by real people
of the machine results in elections like this one.
- Governor Bush,
why have you consistently refused to meet with me
so we can end this political infighting?
- 'Cause.
- The reason?
Machines can sometimes misread
or fail to detect the ways ballots are cast.
And when there are serious doubts,
checking the machine count with a careful hand count
is accepted far and wide as the best way
to know the true intentions of the voters.
- Why can't we have all the counties in Florida
conduct a hand count so the will of the people is heard?
- 'Cause.
- Oh, come on, George.
- Democrats wanted to count the votes,
and Republicans did not.
We should both call on all our supporters
to prepare themselves to close ranks as Americans
and unite the country behind the winner
as soon as this process is completed.
- As the machines are still counting votes
in Florida today,
the Gore campaign ups the ante,
demanding hand counts.
- The issue was getting the votes counted.
The initial thing was to make sure
that the canvassing board would agree to recount.
- The Miami-Dade Canvassing Board was the focus
because they had more than 10,000 undervotes.
- Miami is unique in that
we don't have an elected secretary of election.
When something happens in a recount situation,
we actually have in place before election time
a three-judge panel.
Now, we call it a three-judge panel,
but they're not all judges.
- Lawrence King, David Leahy, and Myriam Lehr.
Leahy was the supervisor of elections,
and the other two were county judges.
- David Leahy reported to Mayor Penelas,
and the canvassing board was working on the 18th floor
of Government Center, which Mayor Penelas controlled.
- And they're in charge of setting the standards,
setting the rules.
- We don't have standards for looking at what is a vote
or what is not an un--
or not a vote.
- They kind of make up the rules as they go a little bit.
- Three somewhat obscure Miami officials
suddenly had immense power.
- While Florida's other counties
started their recount almost immediately,
in Miami-Dade County,
something strange was going on.
- Quite frankly, based on what I heard, I don't feel prepared
to really give an intelligent answer.
- The votes were not being recounted.
- Somebody faxed to me an editorial
that was in the Havana newspaper
about the election in Florida,
and the headline was "Banana Republic."
Now, when the Cubans start making fun
of our election process...
- Elián went the wrong place. - Elián went--that's right.
- It's day 10 trillion in the Florida election debacle.
I say we give it one more week.
Then we give ourselves back to England.
- But now, under pressure from the Gore campaign,
Miami-Dade County has reversed course.
- This afternoon, the canvassing board
voted unanimously to go ahead and hold this hand count.
- I'll vote yes in concurrence with the recount of all ballots
in Dade County by hand...
- This is a huge victory for the Gore campaign.
- In Miami-Dade County,
election workers are preparing for the monumental task
of counting every ballot by hand.
- The seals cracked on the ballot trays in Miami-Dade
as, this morning, this county joins Broward and Palm Beach
in this huge undertaking.
- Look, everybody, it's...
Vice President Al Gore, everybody.
- I just want to say how excited I am to be here.
Conan, it's like that Gloria Gaynor song
"I Will Survive"
when she sings, "I will survive"...
- Yeah, okay. Yeah, I got that. Yeah.
- And then in that second verse when she sings,
"Every vote in Dade County must be counted."
- Sir, that's not in the song.
- It's in the live version. - No, it's not.
- George W. Bush filed the first lawsuit.
- The fate of the presidency hangs in the balance today
before Florida's Supreme Court.
This afternoon, attorneys for George W. Bush will argue
the hand recounts going on
in three heavily Democratic counties should be stopped.
Lawyers for Al Gore will try to persuade the justices
to let the hand counts continue
and to include them in Florida's final tally.
- I just assumed that by November 20th,
the election would be over with,
but I guess not.
- With his presidential hopes on hold,
George W. Bush went back to the Texas capital today,
turning a day at the office into a photo op,
his troops aggressively challenging
Vice President Gore's in and out of court.
Their main goal: to thoroughly discredit
the ballot-counting process as flawed and corrupted.
What they don't say is that they also fear that a recount
could give the edge to Vice President Al Gore.
- While Democrats are sitting around trying to figure out
how to do the right thing,
Republicans are figuring out how to win.
- It was a three-pronged effort,
what I call a stool.
And the three legs that we saw was the courts,
the recount, and then the street.
- We'll bring more. We'll bring more.
- Camped out in a motor home
in the middle of the media staging area,
you would think they would want to talk
about their mission.
- It's a Bush operation.
- It's a Bush operation? - Yeah.
- What goes on inside this trailer?
- Oh, I can't talk to you right now.
- In all, an army of 75 operatives came to Miami
to shape public opinion.
- I would have a motor home and use it as a staging area
and also as a place for us to work out of.
- You had to show a physical presence.
You had to show grassroots support for your point of view.
- If you want to sway public opinion,
then you have to take it to the people.
We have freedom of speech too!
And we're watching you!
You're not gonna steal this election!
We were fighting for victory,
and we weren't going to be outmaneuvered.
- This was ground zero, and the whole election
would end up hinging on what happened in Miami-Dade.
- We wanted to take this to farce
because it was so farcical.
- We had T-shirts printed.
Every couple days, we had different slogans:
"Don't be had by a chad." "Who let the chads out?"
And I had one of those shirts made with a banana on it
saying that Florida is a banana republic.
- I didn't know who came up
with the Sore-Loserman logo and sign, but it was brilliant.
- I came up with the slogan of "Sore-Loserman,"
which is a take on "Gore-Lieberman."
By doing that, it also created enthusiasm,
and people were coming down for the spectacle
and the theater.
- And the Republicans used Cuban talk radio
to mobilize their foot soldiers
to Government Center in downtown Miami.
- Spanish-language radio in Miami-Dade
is enormously powerful and very effective
and extremely efficient
at reaching precisely the people you want to reach.
- There was something still that was burning
inside the souls of so many Cuban Americans.
- 'Cause it was pretty powerless
when Elián was taken away.
They felt they had been betrayed.
Now we can get something.
Now we can stomp our feet
and stop Al Gore from becoming president.
- My wife, who is a fluent Spanish speaker, did a tour
of the Spanish-language radio stations,
and they were likening the situation in Miami-Dade
to the situation in Havana.
This is a takeover like when Fidel took over.
- And in the same way that Elián González had been stolen
and sent back to Cuba, the election was being stolen
and a call for many Cuban Americans
to go to defend the ballots
in the way they couldn't defend Elián González.
- The messaging, first and foremost,
is, Bush won.
The messaging is that Democrats
are trying to overturn a national election,
and one very popular message from the Cuban community
was, you know, this was a coup.
- It's overheated rhetoric. It worked extremely well.
- Bush for president! Bush number one!
- The talk in Miami at the time was that somehow,
the Gore faction were going to steal the election.
- If I'm about to steal an election,
the first thing I'm gonna do is say,
"They are going to steal."
- We'd like America to know
how the presidential election is being stolen
at this time in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
- It started to become apparent--
even someone like myself, who voted for Bush
and wanted Bush to win in part because of Elián--
something strange was going on,
and it wasn't necessarily
the message that we were being given
that somehow the Democrats were the ones
who were doing the coup.
It was the other way around.
If you say Bush won,
then everybody's gonna say, "Oh, Bush won,
and these guys are trying to steal the election."
See, it's all about what you call it.
And, man, Republicans are so good at that.
They're just better at manipulating the situation
to put themselves in a place where they're seen
as the winners and the victims at the same time.
- All Americans want a fair and accurate
count of the votes in Florida.
And I believe if there is a fair and accurate count
of the votes in Florida,
we will prevail.
- Gore underestimated the Bush campaign.
He fought in the courts
and he fought in the recount center,
but he actually told his people to stand down
and not turn out in the streets.
He did it to his peril.
- I was advised that Reverend Jackson said,
"We're gonna take to the streets."
and Vice President Gore said,
"If you take to the streets, there's potential for violence.
Please don't do that."
- We were sure that we were gonna be met with street brawls
outside the recount centers
and that we were probably gonna be overrun,
and it never came to that.
- This kind of thoughtful, conscientious liberalism,
they're just completely played up for the other side.
- Good to see you.
- It is good to see you, my friend.
- They turned out to be wusses.
They got their ass beaten by the Republicans.
- The recount in Florida was a street brawl
for the presidency of the United States.
- And for more now on what's happening today in Florida,
we're gonna go back to our Bill Hemmer,
who's still in Tallahassee.
Hi, Bill. - Hey, guys.
It's starting to rain.
Bummer.
- The question of what to do with these ballots
that are dimpled or pregnant will take center stage
in the courtroom right behind me later this morning.
A judge is going to be asked by the Democratic Party
to order elections officials to make those ballots count.
- Late into the night, the court worked.
A crush grew outside--
tired, cold, anticipating an answer.
Four hours after sundown, it came.
- The court holds that amended certifications
from the county canvassing boards
must be accepted by the Election Canvassing Commission
through 5:00 p.m. on November 26th
if the secretary of state's office is open
for the special purpose
of receiving amended certifications.
- So the recounts will count.
It's a victory for the Democrats.
- In Miami-Dade, the biggest problem now:
meeting that five-day deadline.
With a break for Thanksgiving,
they had planned on finishing ten days from now.
- I think that Thanksgiving's gonna be disrupted
for a lot of very dedicated public servants,
but we all know how important this is,
we all know the stakes, and we all want it done right.
- The Bush campaign fears it could result in a victory
for Democrat Al Gore.
- I firmly believe
that the will of the people should prevail,
and I am gratified that the court's decision will allow us
to honor that simple constitutional principle.
- In Dade County, the undercount,
ballots with holes not completely punched through,
will be examined individually
by the county's canvassing board.
- The rules were changing minute by minute.
- You don't know what you're doing.
You count his votes. You count her votes over there.
Excuse me, did you count--
if you're not sure if a person meant to vote
for what they did, you put it in the milk.
- Republican fears and Democratic hopes
ride on these ballots,
an estimated 10,700 set aside,
not counted because the machines couldn't read them.
- This has caused some consternation
among the Bush camp.
- We had a meeting in the trailer,
and they were telling us what was about to unfold
if Gore got ahead,
that it would change the dynamic
of not only the recount but also the PR effort.
- I was working out of a trailer.
I was using a walkie-talkie that worked not terribly well
to keep in touch with my contacts inside.
All we wanted in Miami-Dade was for the count to be over.
- I said, "Well, why don't we do what Democrats would do?
Why don't we do some civil disobedience?"
- I was on the 18th floor working on the recount,
and the next thing you know, the elevator doors open.
And then they started chanting.
- Stop the count! Stop the fraud!
Stop the count! Stop the fraud!
all: Stop the count! Stop the fraud!
- Can I have everybody's attention?
There's a full protest out in the lobby,
and I think it could escalate out of control.
all: Let us in! Let us in!
- Republican demonstrators stormed the hallways
and demanded access to the recount room.
all: Let us in!
- They were shouting and yelling.
all: Let us see the ballots!
- And then they started pounding the glass.
all: The world is watching! The world is watching!
- And that's when we said, "What the fuck is this?"
- This whole thing turned into un arroz con mango,
which is Cuban slang for clusterfuck.
all: Voter fraud! Voter fraud! Voter fraud!
- Who are these people, and what are they doing?
all: Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!
- And in the middle of this,
I go up to this very thick window and I said...
Hi, I'm a lawyer with the recount.
I need a sample ballot, please.
- I got a report from my contact
that a Democratic official and an unidentified man
were trying to take a sheaf of ballots...
- And it's marked, by the way,
"Official Democratic Party Training Ballot."
It's a sample ballot.
- Into an anteroom to the side that had no windows
in which there were no observers.
- And there was this one Republican woman,
and she looks at me, and in a loud voice, she says...
- He stole a ballot! - "He stole a ballot!"
- Stealing a ballot!
- I'm a lawyer.
- You can't take that!
- The mob turns right on me.
- Republicans accuse Joe Geller,
the chairman of the Democratic Party,
of stealing a ballot as a chase ensues.
- He's being confronted by these kind of thuggish guys.
- It was pretty--pretty scary.
People were yelling and screaming
and actually physically pushing and jumping right into me.
- Where is all the Republicans?
- I just thought really that I was gonna get knocked down
and stomped and that maybe that would be the end of me.
all: Thief! Thief! Thief! Thief!
- Those were the pictures that were being played
all over the nation as Miami being a banana republic.
all: Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!
- The people inside were terrified.
all: The world is watching!
The world is watching!
- Given Miami's history,
where taking the wrong side of a political issue
might cost you your limb or your life,
they were right to be scared.
- I called Alex Penelas and I said,
"Alex, I am on my way,
and you and I have to stop this."
And he said, "No, don't come. I'm not gonna get involved."
- Penelas certainly had a moment
where he could've walked in and said,
"We're doing what's right."
- He could've called the police department.
They would've moved those people out.
He just--he just melted.
- It's unclear what the actions of Alex Penelas,
who was then the county mayor--
couldn't really figure out where he was.
- Again, where was the mayor?
- The invisible Alex Penelas,
who just seemed to come and then go.
- Around that time,
Alex Penelas was in Tallahassee,
and according to reports, he was caucusing.
He was meeting with Republicans.
Republicans, mind you.
- Al Cardenas was the chairman
of the Florida Republican Party.
Alex Penelas' people were talking with him,
and there was speculation that Alex was meeting
with Mario Diaz-Balart, then a very powerful state lawmaker
who in fact had a big hand
in drawing congressional districts
and was going to be drawing them for the 2002 election,
that they would carve out a congressional district
for Alex Penelas, a Democrat.
- I...
I don't--I don't--
Very interesting.
I don't--
trying to be after-the-fact accurate here.
I don't--I don't remember that.
- If that's true, you know,
to say it's unfortunate and disappointing
would be polite.
It is just so disheartening to hear that.
- After he lunched at the Governor's Club
in Tallahassee with a Republican lawmaker
and met with others instrumental in drawing
a congressional district Penelas might win,
suddenly, the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board,
one of whom works for Penelas,
voted to stop the manual recount.
- This is a key moment, and I want you to listen here.
What has just happened is,
the canvassing board in Miami-Dade County
has decided to stop the hand recount.
- My vote is that we not proceed
and that we allow the certification
that we did on November 8th
after the second automated recount
be the certification submitted to the secretary of state.
- The board finally decided
they did not have the time to count all of the ballots
before the Florida Supreme Court's
5:00 p.m. Sunday deadline.
- They had plenty of time to count.
They absolutely had plenty of time to count.
- I do not believe that there is time to carry out
a complete, full manual recount.
- The idea that they didn't have enough time
to count 10,750 undervote ballots in four days,
that's horseshit.
- And with that, they declared their work done--again.
- Recount in Dade County: done.
- The canvassing board has flip-flopped
at least three times that I can count.
First, they decided not to do a recount.
Then they decided that they would do
a full recount of 680,000 ballots.
Then they were gonna limit it to 10,000.
And now they've decided to call it off completely.
Now Dade County looks like a complete mess,
and deservedly, it is the laughingstock of the country.
- The canvassing, the recount, was stopped midstream.
Can you think of something more undemocratic than that?
- The most clear-cut, obvious decision,
which very simply is count all the votes,
they reversed it.
- The video that I saw on the television today,
I thought was pretty shocking.
I mean, a crowd of people
going in there, storming that room,
trying to take it over,
and forcing that board to change its rules.
I mean, we haven't seen that kind of an angry crowd
since Elián González was rescued from Miami.
Is that what passes for democracy in Miami?
- A dangerous dimension to this campaign was introduced
where you had really the threat of violence
in a lot of ways scaring away many of those
who believe that the process should be able to work.
- These demonstrations were clearly designed to intimidate
and to prevent a simple count
of votes from going forward.
- From their perspective, I can understand
where they thought that we might've been intimidated
and our vote was based on that intimidation.
The fact is that it wasn't.
- And as for Mr. Leahy,
let's just get the record straight.
He belongs in the Cowards Hall of Fame.
- I simply made my decision based on the fact
that we could not certify in time.
- We got the message across, and the recount was stopped.
- I think justice won.
I think the American people won.
- At the time, it appeared spontaneous:
angry residents denied the right
to see their votes recounted.
all: Let us see the ballots!
- But the reality is,
it was an orchestrated Republican protest.
- The press is in! The press is in!
- Sir. - Let us in!
- Sir, you need to-- - Let us in! Let us--
- This was not an ad-hoc, impromptu kind of operation.
- It looks like chickenshit.
It looks like a bunch of people
who dress well and, you know, shower twice a day
flipped democracy.
- And most were not even from here.
- Are you local? Are you-- - You gotta ask my guide.
- Her guide, a Republican public relations officer,
cut that conversation short.
- You know, there was a suggestion made
by the Republicans, by the way,
that those were
"local Cuban American activists
who were upset by the situation."
Nobody was in guayaberas.
Nobody had an accent.
They were dressed in tweeds, and they all had square heads.
- In Miami-Dade, the majority of people who took part,
yes, were seasoned political operatives.
- The mob that the GOP sent to stop that count in Miami
was billed at the time as a spontaneous
grassroots uprising,
one that just happened to be made up
of no one at all from Miami,
all Republican national operatives,
including at least a half dozen
who, according to IRS records,
received payment for their services
from the Bush-Cheney recount committee.
- We did such a great job that the campaign in Austin
actually thought we had lost our minds
and that we were doing something
that was not well thought-out,
but when we told them that, of course,
it was all well-thought out and preplanned,
they were satisfied, obviously, with the result.
- It was run with care and with shrewdness
and evil intent.
And it worked.
- It became known as the famous Brooks Brothers Riot.
Because Republicans are, generally speaking,
better dressed than Democrats.
- Roger Stone has claimed
that he was in the motor home, the Winnebago...
- Telling them to coordinate and encourage
the Brooks Brothers Riot.
Is that accurate?
- No, it is not. Roger Stone is full of shit.
Had he shown up, he would've been thrown out.
No, the Winnebago, he was not in.
The Winnebago, I rented.
And he was not part of the Bush effort.
I had not seen Roger Stone down in the recount,
although I've heard he's taking credit
for things that he hasn't done, true to Roger Stone.
- Please give me a fuckin' break.
Don't use that.
- The idea that you would take pride
in being an operative who stopped an election
reveals that for the Republicans,
elections are nothing more than a dirty trick
to hold on to power.
- One man's dirty trick
is another man's civic participation.
- That Bush operation trailer has moved on.
- The Brooks Brothers Riot is a travesty.
The fact that there was not enough police
to prevent that from happening
and that Alex Penelas did not prevent violence
from ending American votes from being counted
it is to this day a searing travesty.
- I'm proud of what we did.
It was necessary that it be done.
And but for perhaps a little of what we did,
maybe the outcome would've been different.
- Certainly heard some Democrats whispering yesterday
about wondering if there were political pressure
brought to bear on those three canvassing board members.
- We learned later that Judge King and Judge Lehr,
two of the three members of the canvassing board,
had been clients of Armando Gutierrez.
- Judge Myriam Lehr and Judge Lawrence King,
2/3 of the Dade County canvassing board,
were clients of Armando Gutierrez.
- I didn't know that.
- Wow. That's fucked up.
That kind of bullshit, local politics,
happens all the time,
but it's rare that it has a national impact
and an international impact.
- Do you feel comfortable saying
Armando would never have called Judge Lehr and Judge King
and intervened?
- You kidding me? Yeah, I wouldn't say that.
- You wouldn't say what?
- That Armando would not pick up the phone and call
or show up at their house.
You kidding me?
- No, no, no, he was talking to them.
- I'm sorry?
- There's no doubt he was talking to them.
- Why isn't there a doubt?
- Because if you know Armando Gutierrez,
you know he was talking to them.
- It's South Florida. Anything is possible.
- The judges deny they were pressured by anyone,
and Armando Gutierrez said that
he had not spoken to anybody on the canvassing board
and that he had actually been out of town on a trip
with his son, named Chad.
- Another fixed election in a town
that's famous for fixed elections.
You know, it used to be
Chicago was the most corrupt city in America.
Then it was New York,
the mobsters and all the other and Tammany Hall.
And now Miami's number one, baby!
- Oh!
- We may not be the best,
but we're the goddamn crookedest
on the face of the Earth.
- This morning, Al Gore was in a lighthearted mood
as he helped to load food for Thanksgiving dinners
for needy families in the Washington area.
- We don't have to count these boxes, do we?
- No, no, they're already counted.
They're already counted.
- We don't have to recount them, do we?
- That was before the recount in Miami-Dade was halted.
- This decision by the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board
could be the last big blow for the Gore campaign.
- Now, this is one of the motherlode areas
for potential Gore votes that hadn't been counted
the first couple times around.
- With just 930 votes separating
the two candidates statewide,
the Gore camp loses 157 votes gained here so far
and the potential for hundreds more.
- Republicans have done everything they can
to delay the hand count to run out the clock.
- Democrats turn to the Third District Court of Appeals,
filing an emergency petition asking the court
to force the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board
to hand-count its votes.
The Court of Appeals says no,
but Democrats vow to go to the Supreme Court.
- After weeks of setbacks,
Al Gore wins a battle in his bid for the presidency.
The Florida Supreme Court justices ordered officials
in all of Florida's 67 counties
to hand-count ballots that did not register a vote
for the president.
- In addition, the circuit court shall enter orders
ensuring the inclusion of the additional 215 legal votes
for Vice President Gore in Palm Beach County
and the 168 additional legal votes from Miami-Dade County.
- Now the margin is 154,
according to the Florida State Supreme Court.
- Florida's supreme court comes back and says,
"Everybody recounts everywhere."
And then we're up there right in the middle of doing it,
and the Republican comes tearing down the hall
and says, "The Supreme Court just halted the recount."
- We have to stop?
Even in the middle of the machines?
Okay.
- Granting George W. Bush's request,
the United States Supreme Court
jumped into the battle for the White House today,
ordering an abrupt halt to a hand recount
of thousands of ballots in Florida.
- This is an ABC News special report.
"A Nation Waits." Now reporting, Peter Jennings.
- Good evening, everybody.
I'll make it quick and simple to beginning.
The Supreme Court of the United States
has reversed the decision of the Florida Supreme Court
on a very narrow majority: five justices to four.
- I read the Supreme Court opinion and said,
"We're fucked."
- How many ballots have you counted?
- Ion Sancho oversaw the recount
of the Miami-Dade undervotes.
Close to halfway through before the stay stopped them,
Sancho was disappointed.
- Because we were discovering valid votes
cast in the presidential race
that citizens of the United States of America,
who made a good faith effort
to go down and case those votes,
expect to have their votes counted.
- The Supreme Court says,
"We're not gonna let the count continue."
And suddenly,
George Bush became the president of the United States.
- The final margin in the state of Florida:
five votes to four votes.
- I won fair and square.
That's right, state of Florida.
Read my mouth.
I am the president of the United States.
- And by the way, Florida, do us a favor.
Stay out of the next election, okay?
Just--we don't need it.
- Interesting fun fact about the election:
Al Gore got more votes nationally,
so that's kind of funny.
And--
Kind of funny.
I bet Al Gore will get a big kick out of that
when he hears it.
- The election was lost in many different places,
but it was stolen in Miami.
- This was a game of gotcha.
I've been telling you since the 8th of November
they stole it fair and square.
They stole it a half a dozen different ways at least
because the fix was in.
- The Republicans wanted to pull off the perfect crime.
You needed the right people
to be in the right places to do so.
From Armando Gutierrez to Roger Stone
to Katherine Harris to Jeb Bush
all the way up to a Supreme Court justice
appointed by George W. Bush's father,
it was a royal flush.
- You know, it's one thing to bullshit people
because you're a great bullshitter
and you've got a good message.
- I know the human being and fish
and coexist peacefully.
- It's another thing
to literally scheme your way into getting a result
that is not perhaps the proper result.
And that's what happened during that election.
- And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people
and the strength of our democracy,
I offer my concession.
- After endless court battles,
the Florida vote has been certified
by Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris,
giving the state and the presidency to George W. Bush
by a total of 537 votes.
Wow.
That's a landslide
if you're running for student council treasurer.
- She certified a 537-vote total.
- The margin was 537,
a number that for any Democrat over the age of 35
is stamped into their head.
- 537 votes.
I could probably go and talk to, personally,
537 people that I know.
- 537 votes. That's stunning.
- What happened to Al Gore is very simple.
He won the state of Florida, but Miami-Dade made sure
that at least 10,000 ballots
never saw the light of day.
- All of the dimpled chads were never counted ever,
ever, to this day.
- And the takeaway is, close elections can be stolen.
- It's now clear that the Miami-Dade recount being ended
was the seminal event
that decided the 2000 presidential race.
Had things not gone down as they did in Miami-Dade,
we might have had a different result.
- It was the first domino to fall.
It was the beginning of the end.
- We drew the short straw and had that terrible mess
with the Elián González case.
Cost him a lot of votes in Florida.
- It was humiliating to many Cuban Americans,
and the 2000 election was payback.
- Bill Clinton got about 35% of the Cuban American vote
in Florida in 1996.
In 2000, Al Gore's support dropped to less than 20%.
What was the decisive factor in this election?
The U.S. Supreme Court, the Clinton scandals,
the debates, or a little boy shipwrecked in Miami?
- Who's to blame?
Democratic sources say it's South Florida's
former Hispanic golden boy, Alex Penelas.
- Alex Penelas may have cost Al Gore
the presidency of the United States.
- Before they're being made to me,
it's obvious nothing more than a PR stunt.
- The boy mayor finished his term
and Alex Penelas decided to run for United States Senate.
- This Miami-Dade mayor and U.S. Senate candidate
is doing damage control to save his reputation
after being singled out
by former presidential candidate Al Gore.
"One of the other candidates in this race became in 2000
"the single most treacherous and dishonest person
I dealt with during the campaign anywhere in America."
- Alex Penelas ended Al Gore's political career,
and Al Gore returned the favor.
- It was a moment. It was a Miami moment.
- I have something else to ask you,
to ask every American.
I ask for you to pray for this great nation.
- We're way ahead of you.
- This country would've been so different
if Al Gore have been elected.
We would've addressed climate change.
We would have maintained our position
as the moral leaders of the free world.
- Vice President Al Gore read
the national security daily briefs every day
as vice president.
I can't imagine he wouldn't have
read them twice a day as president.
I don't think that 9/11 would've happened.
- We would not have gone to war in Iraq.
- The United States ended up in two wars
and killed 350,000 to 500,000 people.
- When we went to what I thought
was an unjust war in Iraq,
I actually regretted the fact that he had become president.
- We went from a $300 billion surplus
to running a $1/2 trillion deficit.
We put a giant hole in the American economy.
We almost went insolvent.
- I can draw a direct link
to a war we shouldn't have fought
to over 3,000 soldiers dying
to 537 votes here in Miami.
- What happened in Miami-Dade County
changed the political landscape
of this country forever.
- America changed as a result
of that one year in Miami.
We have become one of the most polarized nations
in the world.
What Miami was, America became.
- If people do not think that elections have consequences,
they do.
You need to take the time to vote.
- Democracy is messy, but I'm a political animal.
Politics is in my blood.
So once an election is over,
the best thing to do is start focusing on the next election.
- Ladies and gentlemen.
- Who discovered America?
Who--who--who-- who discovered America?
- Ladies and gentlemen.
- Who discovered America?
Who--who--who discovered-- who discovered America?
- Who discovered America?