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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
GOP Digs In To Resist Reality Of Trump's Election Loss; President-Elect Biden Not Getting Top Level Intelligence Briefings; U.S. Reaches New Milestone Of 10 Million Coronavirus Cases. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired November 10, 2020 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: He is now telling federal prosecutors they should look into allegations of voting irregularities before states certify results. It is a reversal so disturbing it prompted the top election crimes prosecutor at the Justice Department to resign in protest.
Barr sent his letter hours after meeting with Mitch McConnell. The Senate majority leader had been viewed as a potential working partner for the president-elect, but McConnell still refuses to recognize Biden as the rightful winner of this election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): We have the system in place to consider concerns, and President Trump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: McConnell seems to want to have it both ways here. He's praising the Republican gains in the election but won't acknowledge Biden's victory on literally the same ballots.
Republican efforts to sow doubt even extending to the Georgia Senate race now. The Georgia Secretary of State -- also a Republican, I might add -- rejecting a call from both GOP Senate candidates for him to resign. They allege mismanagement of the election. They offer zero specifics.
Bottom line here, Trump remade the GOP. Now, the party clearly believes that they still need him and his megaphone to keep galvanizing Republican voters even as he spouts bogus and false claims of fraud to hold off his inevitable exit.
ROMANS: So what does all this mean for the Biden transition? For one thing, reality is setting in among Biden allies that the period leading up to his inauguration, it may be more challenging than many of them assumed.
Of critical importance, President-elect Biden is not yet receiving highly-classified intelligence briefings. That's because, as we mentioned yesterday, the Trump administration still has not officially signed off on designating Biden as president-elect.
CNN's Jessica Dean joins us live this morning from Wilmington. Hi, there.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Christine. It's great to be with you guys.
Look, it's very interesting with the -- it's called the GSA. That's the administration that is supposed to ascertain, which just means essentially validate the winner of the election, and that triggers the official transition process.
Now, part of that process, as Christine and Laura just explained, is the president-elect getting those presidential daily briefings. Those are those highly-classified intelligence briefings that's critical as a president-elect prepares to move into office. Now, so far, all indications are that Biden and his advisers are not getting access to that information because this process has not been triggered.
Now, Joe Biden is doing his best to move the process along. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT: This election is over. It's time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric that's designed to demonize one another.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Now, typically, a president-elect receives these briefings the day after the election, so it is odd that here we are on Tuesday morning and this is still not happening, Christine.
ROMANS: You know, Jessica, on election night, Joe Biden was really on offense, right? He was quick to claim the mantle, saying he would win, he did win. You know, Biden is notoriously different than Trump and has preached unity here, but how long until he or someone close to him has to get more aggressive to claim their ground here?
DEAN: Well, they're definitely thinking that may have to happen. Joe Biden, himself, over the weekend, really urged everyone around him let's give Republicans time to really come to terms with this election, to accept the results. Let's not press too hard -- again, in that name of unity.
And remember, at his heart, Joe Biden is a traditionalist. He believes in the institutions of government. He believes people will ultimately do the right thing. So he wanted to give everyone time to do that.
But the problem is we continue to move, again, more into this week and this administration -- this agency that's supposed to be triggering the formal transition process is not doing that. Instead, it's comparing it to 2000 when Al Gore and George Bush were deadlocked down in Florida, which it is not a similar situation because that was one state, smaller margin, and we hadn't called the race at this point.
ROMANS: Yes.
DEAN: Obviously, a bigger margin and more states, we have called the race.
They do realize that now they may have to take other options, and legal options may be available to them. But, Christine, expect to hear a lot more public pressure from Biden's surrogates and allies in the coming weeks.
ROMANS: Sure.
All right, Jessica Dean, bright and early for us this morning in Wilmington. Thank you.
JARRETT: So, President-elect Biden isn't only missing out on national security briefings. President Trump is essentially deconstructing the entire national security apparatus as the Biden team tries to get in the door.
The president fired his Defense secretary, Mark Esper, on Monday. He was one of the few top administration officials who had actually pushed back on the president.
He was among those who urged the president to release the security aid that he was trying to use as leverage over the Ukraine -- the one that got him impeached.
[05:35:00]
And he disagreed openly on sending in military troops to contain racial justice protests after the president used Esper in a photo op back in June. Remember, the one where he held up the bible after teargassing protesters there in Lafayette Square.
Esper tells the "Military Times" he has no regrets, adding, quote, "Who's going to come in behind me? It's going to be a real 'yes man.' And then God help us."
ROMANS: CNN has learned CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Chris Wray could also be in jeopardy.
The president and some of his conservative allies have become increasingly frustrated with Haspel, accusing her of delaying the release of documents they believe would expose so-called deep state plots against President Trump's first campaign.
FBI Director Wray has also provoked the president's ire with his frank testimony about the threat of white supremacy and Russian disinformation. Firing Wray, however, would provide an opening to the Biden administration as Wray is only three years into a 10-year term.
JARRETT: All right. With 71 days until Joe Biden's inauguration, it's time for three questions in three minutes. Let's bring in CNN's senior political analyst, John Avlon. ROMANS: Hey, John.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, guys.
JARRETT: Hey, John.
John, normally, we would be talking about who Biden is going to put for important posts, right --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- like the attorney general, the Secretary of State. But instead, we have to dwell on what's happening in this lame duck period because what the Republican Party is doing isn't just playing games. It's actually sowing distrust in an election and it's fueling further chaos.
AVLON: Right.
JARRETT: Look no further than Mitch McConnell saying let's let the process play out. The attorney general has now upended decades of election guidance based on nothing but rumor.
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: The president is tweeting nonstop.
This is about national security. I think that people think that somehow it's just about currying favor with the president's ego, but Biden isn't even getting briefed on the most sensitive intelligence aspects. I mean, how do you convey how bad this is?
AVLON: These people are putting party over country. They are empowering autocratic instincts and acting like apparatchiks. And in their mind, they may say this is about letting the president down easy and maybe currying benefit for the Georgia special election.
JARRETT: Right.
AVLON: But what they're doing is something far more dangerous.
And as you say, it's the firing of the secretary of Defense yesterday and the threats to the secretary -- the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA underscore that this is -- you know, the president may just be acting out, but the implications are far more serious for our country and the destruction of democratic norms and the spreading of disinformation.
These people are all culpable for their decisions and they will be viewed in the eyes of history as villains in this effort if they aid and attempt to overturn an election, no matter how much they may believe that it's simply catering to one man's ego.
It is a dangerous moment in this country right now. The system is strong.
ROMANS: Yes.
AVLON: Joe Biden won the election but do not take this moment for granted or allow people to normalize it under the cover of politics.
ROMANS: That's a very good reminder.
And, you know, John, sowing mistrust in elections, that's now infecting the Senate races in Georgia. Both are likely headed to a runoff. And as we just told you, both Republicans are now demanding the Georgia Secretary of State, who is also a Republican -- they're demanding that he resign over the election process. The secretary says he's not going anywhere.
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: But this corrosive atmosphere is expanding. They are sowing mistrust in last week's election and now, the next one.
AVLON: Yes, and this is what's so absurd. You've got two Republican senators saying a Republican Secretary of State should resign without offering any evidence of why he should allegedly resign, but saying he failed to conduct an honest and transparent election when that's exactly what he's done and why they're upset about it.
So this is -- this is an example of how this entire thing has become a hall of mirrors and that we're not dealing with common facts. And these two Republican senators have done themselves a great discredit at a time when they're both facing a runoff.
But facts matter and this Republican Secretary of State saying no, I'm here to do my job, not to be a hyperpartisan hack no matter how much you want me to be.
JARRETT: John, you know, even if the president lost, the country still has to confront what he's left behind, right?
And yesterday, we heard from some Trump voters who refuse to --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- accept the results, refuse to accept facts. If you want a sense of where that idea is coming from, here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST, TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT: We don't know how many votes were stolen on Tuesday night. We don't know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don't know. We ought to find out.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST, THE INGRAHAM ANGLE: And there's no question that mass mail-in voting, it's been an unmitigated disaster. We must never again allow Democrats to force this on our country given what we're seeing days and days later.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST, THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW: They want you to believe that this week's vote and same vote-counting process is totally normal and it's above board. Do you really believe that? They want you to ignore the irregularities, the lack of transparency, the serious instances where the law was broken.
LOU DOBBS, FOX NEWS HOST, LOU DOBBS TONIGHT: Biden's campaign says they're defending the election. They deny what they're really doing, which is stealing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: So they're talking about stealing votes.
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: There's no evidence of that --
AVLON: No.
JARRETT: -- at all.
AVLON: No.
JARRETT: We could spend time fact-checking it but it would take too long.
[05:40:01]
So how on earth is the Biden team supposed to get Republicans to listen when this is the type of propaganda and misinformation that they're being fed?
AVLON: They should be playing offense in the courts to assert their basic rights. The GSA needs to be cooperating and it can't just act like a partisan lapdog. That's not why the GSA exists.
As far as the crazy folks on the far right, to some extent, you can ignore them. But you also need to push back on facts. Simply asking questions about fictitious things is not reality nor is making assertions without any evidence.
We're going to have to find a way to unite as a nation. Joe Biden has tried very hard to do that. But some people only respect strength and we're going to have -- the country's going to have to be able to overcome these people who are trying to ruin if they cannot rule.
ROMANS: It's so frustrating because you hear all of these people on the right saying something bad happened. And then you say well, there's no evidence. They say well, show me the evidence that nothing bad happened.
JARRETT: Right. Prove the negative.
ROMANS: Wait a minute -- it's completely upside-down. I mean --
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: -- how can you have -- oh, how can you have trust in the election system if you have that kind of nonsense.
JARRETT: Christine is getting riled up at 5:40.
AVLON: No, that's good. Get riled up because this matters.
Look, the election is over. The counting is still continuing final tallies. But don't let your -- don't let yourself get set into a place where you feel that disinformation can overwhelm our democracy. It can't -- only if we let it.
ROMANS: They trust the Republicans on the ballot -- down-ballot -- who won, but they don't trust the --
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: -- Democrat on the top of the ballot who won.
AVLON: Please.
ROMANS: All right, John Avlon. Nice to see you -- senior political analyst. Thanks.
JARRETT: Thanks, John.
AVLON: Take care, guys.
ROMANS: All right.
Transition trouble overshadowing Joe Biden's biggest priority, now coronavirus. The U.S. is now the first country to reach 10 million cases of coronavirus, the last million diagnosed in the last nine days. By far, the fastest pace since the pandemic began. The number of Americans hospitalized reaching levels not seen since the spring and summer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, MEMBER OF PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN'S CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: What America has to understand is we are about to enter COVID hell -- 120,000-130,000 new cases a day when at one point, we were talking about 23,000 to 24,000 cases a day just weeks ago. This number is going to continue to increase substantially. We have not even come close to the peak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: The map of the country, you can see there, remains a sea of red with case counts worse or just holding steady in all 50 states now.
Meantime, three top aides to President Trump have tested positive for coronavirus -- his chief of staff Mark Meadows, HUD Sec. Ben Carson, and David Bossie, the non-lawyer who is overseeing his legal challenges. Several were at the White House on election night seen not wearing masks. ROMANS: All right, the economy still needs stimulus even if a vaccine
comes. Stocks soared on good news from Pfizer but Wall Street, of course, is not Main Street. Economists say it's crucial that lawmakers don't become lulled into a false sense of complacency or security or use progress on a vaccine as an excuse to limit or even put off relief.
The chief economist at Moody's Analytics, Mark Zandi, said lawmakers have to complete the bridge they started building at the beginning of the pandemic to get us to the end of the pandemic when people will feel comfortable going to restaurants and ballgames.
But hope for a stimulus deal in the lame duck session are fading. Both sides still divided on how much to spend. Failure to provide more aid could mean lasting economic damage. S&P Global Ratings said even if a vaccine is widely available in the second half of 2021, the hotel industry won't experience a solid recovery until the year 2023.
And there is still a jobs crisis right now, at this moment. The economy is down 10 million jobs since February. Economists at Goldman Sachs say the jobs market probably won't recover until 2024.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:48:39]
JARRETT: Well, a rocky start to the transition in Washington has U.S. diplomats looking for guidance on how to discuss the election results.
CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joins us live in London with more. Nic, nice to see you this morning.
So, the diplomats are essentially in this awkward position of the president's refusing to concede but the election results being clear. And the State Department in the United States saying nothing?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: This is, in the words of one of the diplomats CNN has talked to, a bizarre situation to be in. CNN's talked to five different U.S. diplomats overseas and they are both frustrated and confused because this is not a normal situation.
They would have expected to have guidance from the State Department about the transition of power, about calling Joe Biden president- elect, about how they might explain the transition that was coming up, or perhaps even been told how to defend President Trump's claims of fraud that there's no evidence to back up. They don't have any of that.
So, you know, they're dealing with governments around the world -- allies of the United States, enemies of the United States.
We think back to that time at the very beginning of the Trump presidency where even Russia said we don't know who to call at the State Department anymore because the system has been so eviscerated from what it was before. That was their implication.
[05:50:05]
So now you have this situation where diplomats -- U.S. diplomats around the world are left hanging. They are the face and the voice of the White House of America -- of everything that America stands for, a beacon of democracy, its values with all these different governments.
The United States diplomats are often in the position, where you have countries with questionable democracies who might be meddling and tainting their own elections, of saying don't do that. That's not right. That's not democracy.
Yet, these diplomats now are not being told how to move forward. Damaging for the United States' image and reputation, hard for these diplomats.
JARRETT: Hard for these diplomats, for sure. But world leaders clearly know what's happening. Many have congratulated the president. They know the truth here.
All right, Nic, nice to see you. Thank you.
ROMANS: All right.
President-elect Joe Biden expected to make some remarks today on the Affordable Care Act, the same day as the landmark health care law again goes before the Supreme Court. The justices will hear arguments in a case that centers on the long-held goal of President Trump and other Republicans to abolish Obamacare. Health care for millions of Americans could be at risk.
We get more from CNN's Jessica Schneider in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, the fate of American health care really hangs in the balance. That's because the Supreme Court, at 10:00 this morning, will hear arguments on the fate of the Affordable Care Act.
The Trump administration wants to completely strike the Affordable Care Act down, while Democrats are arguing to save it.
And this all could come down to Amy Coney Barrett, the newest justice, as the deciding vote here. She actually criticized the chief justice John Roberts' decision in 2012 to side with the liberals and save the Affordable Care Act. She made that criticism when she was a law professor but she would not weigh in during her confirmation hearing as to how she might vote in this case.
Now, what this all comes down to is the individual mandate. That's because, in 2017, Congress actually zeroed out this individual mandate -- the penalty for people not getting insurance. Now, Republicans are arguing that it, effectively, is no longer a tax anymore because people are not penalized at the zero-dollar number. So the question is if this is unconstitutional now that Congress has
essentially eliminated this penalty or this tax for the -- for not having insurance -- if it's unconstitutional, does the entire Affordable Care Act then get struck down? And, of course, it is a huge decision because 20 million people have come to rely on the Affordable Care Act and now with a global pandemic this means high stakes.
Now, of course, the Supreme Court likely won't rule until the spring or the summer, but the fate of American health care hangs in the balance, especially because there is no replacement to the Affordable Care Act waiting in the wings -- Christine and Laura.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: Jessica Schneider, thank you so much for that report.
Well, 2020 is now the most active hurricane season on record. A new subtropical storm named Theta forming in the Atlantic. It's the 29th named storm of the season. A dozen have made landfall in the U.S.
There are no watches or warnings for Theta, which is expected to dissipate out over sea.
ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business this Tuesday morning.
Taking a look at markets around the world, really consolidating after some big moves yesterday. You can see London and Paris are up, but Frankfurt down here.
On Wall Street, you've got futures moving around mixed this morning. Nasdaq futures, though, down another percent and one-half. That had been a big driver of the years' rally and Nasdaq cooled yesterday and cooled as well here overnight.
You know, yesterday, stocks soared after Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine is 90 percent effective. The Dow rallied 834 points, falling short of a new record high and well off the highs of the day. It had been up something like six percent. The S&P 500 finished up. The Nasdaq finished down -- again, dragged down by those losses in tech stocks that have benefitted from people working at home.
General Motors is focusing on the future of its electric cars with a plan to hire 3,000 new workers largely focused on engineering, design, and information technology. The automaker said Monday hiring has already started. Many of the positions will be remote.
Last month, GM announced its all-electric Hummer. The truck is due at the end of next year.
GM's stock has more than doubled since early April, a low point for automakers during the pandemic. A bounce back in its sales in China and the U.S. part of the reason for those gains.
All right, that's it for us this morning. Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans. JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:59:04]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump's refused to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden. Some in the president's inner circle are telling him to keep fighting.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The General Services Administration is declining to provide federal funds to President- elect Joe Biden's transition team.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But every effort to delay this, it's delaying us.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: President-elect Joe Biden setting a new tone on coronavirus.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In the U.S., this virus is spreading at record rates, averaging over 100,000 new infections every day.
BIDEN: A mask is not a political statement but it is a good way to start pulling the country together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, November 10th. It's 6:00 here in New York.
And this morning, the President-elect of the United States is calling for unity in a collective effort to fight a raging pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: This election is over. It's time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric that's designed to demonize one another.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
