Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Senators Back Trump's Election Fight; New Records for Coronavirus Cases; Biden Leads Trump Nationwide; Hurricane Watches for Florida. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired November 11, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

ANNA PALMER, POLITICO PLAYBOOK AUTHOR: Hoping we have to really look at a political play here with the Senate Republicans looking at those two races in Georgia. They do not want to piss (ph) off Trump supporters and potentially make it so that they don't turn out because that is going to be their only lever of power in a Biden administration, to actually keep control of the Senate.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Natasha, meanwhile, listening to Republicans try to do the verbal gymnastics of what's happening here is painful. Here is Rick Scott of Florida, trying to explain why we're in limbo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator, have you congratulated President-elect Biden yet?

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Well, first off, we need to finish all the votes. We -- all the votes need to be counted. I mean -- not votes, but we need to have all the votes counted. So I look forward to the finish -- to that being finished.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the race was closer in 2016 and Republicans congratulated President Trump then.

SCOTT: Well, I can tell you the -- you know, we still -- there's a lot of challenges out there still. So I think we need to get all the votes.

Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And is there any evidence of fraud that you've seen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Is there any evidence of fraud, Senator? He walks away, Natasha. NATASHA ALFORD, VP, DIGITAL CONTENT AND SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, THE

GRIO: Verbal gymnastics is the perfect phrase to describe what we're seeing. And, you know, what we're seeing is what enablers do, right? Whether we're talking about addiction or politics, they sit by and they do nothing and they say nothing.

And, in this case, I think a lot of members of the GOP are afraid to have a backbone, to take a stand. And what's different from what we've seen over the past four years? And, you know, I think what's concerning is that we're seeing the repetition of phrases like legal votes and illegal votes, which mean nothing, but similar to fake news, if you say it again and again, you know, it starts to seep into the American consciousness and erode people's faith in the process.

And so, you know, this is bigger than President-elect Biden or Donald Trump. This is about American democracy. And it's truly a shame that members of the GOP, who have actually worked with President-elect Biden for years are disrespecting him in this way and are not putting the American people first and protecting democracy.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I have to say, to continue the verbal gymnastics metaphor here, Rick Scott didn't stick the landing there.

CAMEROTA: That was a pirouette. He did many, many pirouettes.

BERMAN: No, no, no, no, no, he didn't stick the landing. He fell off the beam. The pommel horse hit him right in the crotch. I mean the only judge who would give him a passable score is the Russian judge at this case.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

BERMAN: And I mean that in every -- at every possible level.

Rick Scott sued to stop the counting in 2018 in Florida! It's like he's saying the polar opposite of what he said in his own Senate race just two years ago. So that is quite some performance. If you look up in the dictionary "squirm," it has a picture of Rick Scott right there.

Anna Palmer, the president-elect. His decision to address this as really just not of major concern right now, that this is something that's going on in the sidelines, I'm going to plow forward. Do you think -- how do you think that that will land with the American people? How long can the president-elect keep that up?

PALMER: This has been his strategy for the last several months. He's tried to present himself as the actual presidential alternative to Donald Trump, whether it comes to coronavirus, whether it comes to our national security.

I do think that this scenario is something that behind the scenes Biden aides and allies have contemplated, though I don't think they are necessarily surprised that this is happening. And there's clearly a strategy to say, hey, I'm the serious guy in the room. The transition is continuing. We're not going to be distracted by this side show.

The question is how long that can actually last. And at some point is there going to have to be some kind of, you know, resolution, if Trump does not actually stand down, does not concede, and there is a real transition of power issue.

CAMEROTA: See, Natasha, there's two different schools of thought. One is the petulance school, which is, everyone's sort of mollifying the president, he's going through the five stages of grief, he'll work his way around to it at some point and then everything will be good. The other is the plotting school of thought, which is, what's he doing behind the scenes? Why is he installing loyalists into positions of power? Why are the Senate majority leader and the secretary of state not acknowledging the win? Why is he getting rid of the defense secretary and putting in his own person? That something's going -- he's consolidating power. Something's going on in these final 70 days.

So, which one is it?

ALFORD: I think that, as Anna stated, this is more about performance, right? Donald Trump is a showman. He's told once, frankly, and from the beginning, that he has a hard time losing. And, frankly, he needs to take that up with his, you know, spiritual advisers, right?

[06:35:01]

I think that President-elect Joe Biden is right to have the calm, cool, collected demeanor that he has. The stakes are too high for him to play into this drama.

COVID-19 is raging. We're thinking about the fact that this -- this was a very close election with razor-thin margins. And I'm thinking about black voters. The fact that it was black voters in the South Carolina primary who really reinvigorated the Biden campaign and gave him at shot at this presidency. So there are a lot of people who he owes, right, who he has something to prove. And so I think that that's why he has no time to waste and has to begin this transition.

And the consequences of this delay are very real. President Obama wrote an op-ed about this. And we saw just the grace -- think about four years ago, the grace that President Obama showed to President Donald Trump, who -- and he told him, my number one priority is making sure that you have a successful transition. And think about the contrast right now. So President Obama didn't just do that because of the -- you know, out of the kindness of his heart. It's about America and what happens when foreign adversaries look at this and they see the instability and they take advantage and they exploit that chaos. Donald Trump, America does not like sore losers. You need to get over it and to move on.

BERMAN: Maybe why he's been in hiding since Thursday. We haven't seen him since Thursday. Maybe he did not want to portray himself as the loser. Maybe he was embarrassed to come forward.

We will find out much more today when he, we think, makes his first public appearance. Natasha Alford, great to have you on the show. Anna Palmer, nice to

see you as well.

ALFORD: Thank you.

BERMAN: What a moment in the coronavirus pandemic. We have reached a record number of hospitalizations. More people sick in the hospital right now with coronavirus than ever before. What, if anything, is going to slow this catastrophic rise, next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:58]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This is something that we should really feel good about, but I want to make sure people understand is that it's good because we know there's light at the end of the tunnel, but that doesn't mean that we're going to give up the important public health measures that we continually still have to do every single day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Dr. Anthony Fauci urging Americans to continue wearing masks and to socially distance, despite the encouraging vaccine news. The U.S. smashed its record for new coronavirus cases with more than 136,000 on Tuesday. And we set a new record for hospitalizations. Nearly 62,000 Americans are waking up in a hospital bed this morning.

Joining us now is Dr. Carlos Del Rio. He's an executive associate dean at Emory University School of Medicine at Grady Health System.

Dr. Del Rio, thank you for being here.

What are you looking at this morning?

Dr. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, Alisyn, I'm just -- I'm just terrified. We are entering a very dark phase in this pandemic. The numbers are going up. Not only cases, but, as you mentioned, hospitalizations and we're also beginning to see an increase in deaths. And I don't see -- I don't see two things. I essentially see that -- that the government -- federal government has lost any interest. We haven't had any briefing on the pandemic from any federal leader in quite some time. And we have essentially no national strategy. So I feel like we are, you know, navigating without a pilot and -- and we're just going down the rapids very quickly.

And this is -- this is bad. This is really bad. So I would encourage everybody to take, you know, things in our hands and do exactly what Dr. Fauci said, wear a mask, watch your distance, be careful because this disease is very serious.

BERMAN: I want to point out that Vice President Mike Pence, who is the leader of the Coronavirus Task Force, is going on vacation today. He's leaving. Going on vacation. We've never had as many hospitalizations in this country has we do this morning and he's going on vacation. New deaths, 1,400 overnight. That number is rising.

You know, we're getting better at treating people, Dr. Del Rio, but when you have hospitalizations rising as quickly as they are and the case rate rising as much as it is, even if the mortality per case rate is going down, you're still going to have an alarming number of new deaths. And I just don't see -- and I don't know if you do, maybe you can help me out, what is being done to slow this rise?

DEL RIO: John, unfortunately, nothing is being done. And, as you mentioned, you know, think about 1,400 deaths in a day. That would be equivalent of, you know, three to four jumbo jets dropping from the sky and killing everybody. If yesterday we had had four planes full of passengers drop from the sky and everybody died, there would be major outrage, right? The FAA would be saying something. We would have an investigation. We would try to figure out what's going on.

I don't see Congress doing anything. I don't see the federal government doing anything. I don't see -- you know, where's the CDC? Where is the CDC director standing up and saying, what are we doing? We need -- we have a vacuum of leadership. And I think the vacuum of leadership is -- is the biggest problem we have right now in our country in confronting this pandemic.

CAMEROTA: I mean you're so right when you put it into that context. We have all gotten inured, of course, because I think that, you know, just your mental health psyche protects you from having to deal with that level of catastrophe and trauma and death every day.

On the promising note, Dr. Del Rio, do you have a different timeline for the vaccine than we've heard? In terms of the general public being able to get the vaccine, when might that happen?

DEL RIO: You know, if we look, Alisyn, at where the vaccine is and, obviously, I have to see the data, but what we've seen so far is encouraging. But assuming that everything goes well and Pfizer submits for an EUA and the FDA, sometime in late November or early December, we will start having a vaccine available in late December to January.

[06:45:00]

It will be rolled out in phases. And those phases that will be initially to, you know, front line health care workers and emergency responders, it will be to the older, elderly individuals, people with comorbidities. By the time we get -- make it available to everybody out there, it's probably going to be -- I think it's going to be actually later than Dr. Fauci suggested. I think it's not going to be until the summer, probably July, August, maybe -- maybe by September we'll be in a much better place, but we still have many months ahead before we can count on a vaccine.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Del Rio, we really appreciate you giving us the hard facts and the frightening truth this morning. Thank you very much. The votes are still being counted and Joe Biden's lead over President Trump is widening. How decisive was this victory? Harry Enten is going to give us the context. He'll break it down, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So, this morning, President-elect Joe Biden leads in the popular vote by nearly 5 million votes.

[06:50:00]

And that number is expected to grow. And he does continue to pick up votes in a number of key states. In Georgia, you can see here, that Joe Biden's lead has grown to 14,000. That's significant. We'll tell you why in just a moment.

In Pennsylvania, which CNN has projected that Biden will win, he is ahead by more than 45,000 votes. Again, that number is expected to grow a lot.

In Arizona, Joe Biden's lead has narrowed to nearly 13,000 votes, but he is still ahead. We are expecting more votes in over the course of the day.

Again, the bottom line here is, no matter how you look at this, whether the popular vote or the Electoral College, the president-elect ahead, pretty -- by a lot.

Joining us now, CNN senior political writer and analyst Harry Enten.

Harold, it is a pleasure to see you post-election, for the very first time, to see your smiling face here.

Just give me a sense of how big this win was, Harry?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Yes, I mean, look, it's a pretty clear, decisive victory for the president-elect of the United States. And you can see that both in the popular vote and the Electoral College.

Look, at the end of this whole thing, President-Elect Joe Biden is going to get more than 5 million votes than Donald Trump. That's not particularly close. And if you look at the Electoral College, my forecast says that Joe Biden's going to get 74 more electoral votes than Donald Trump.

This just is not a particularly close election. Yes, it was long nights and a long week last week. But at the end of this, Joe Biden's going to have a pretty decisive victory.

BERMAN: Let's put it in historical context starting with the Electoral College, Harry.

ENTEN: Sure. So if -- if you look back, since 1920, and you look at all the elections where there was an incumbent, right, Joe Biden is forecast to earn a higher share of electoral votes than all but three challengers, right? We're talking about folks like FDR and Reagan in 1980. This is the company that Joe Biden is in. He just -- even if you look at the Electoral College, is just running away with the race at this particular point.

BERMAN: What about the popular vote in historical context?

ENTEN: Yes, I mean, there it's an even more decisive win, right? Look, Joe Biden's forecasted to again somewhere between 51 and 52 percent of the popular vote. I wouldn't even be shocked if it got a little bit above 52 percent with the votes that are still out. And that is a higher share than every challenger but Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. That was a huge blowout. This is the type of blowout that we're talking about here, the type of decisive win. Joe Biden, just simply put, a lot of folks got behind him much more so than usually get behind a challenger to an incumbent.

BERMAN: And, look, you're talking about the percentage victory, it will be greater than 2016, 2004, 2000. It will be greater than 1976, 1968, 1960. I mean it is a bigger victory than almost any of those.

Let's go apples-to-apples here. Really apples-to-apples. Compare this to say 2016.

ENTEN: Right. You know, look, Hillary Clinton conceded the day after the election. And take a look here, Joe Biden's popular vote, he's forecast to get between 51 and 52 percent. Donald Trump just got 46 percent of the popular vote in 2016. This is going to be five to six points higher than that.

And the Electoral College, remember, Trump was carrying around that map with him. He'd show it basically anywhere, even in places where he probably shouldn't have. Joe Biden is forecast to get the same number of electoral votes and the same share that Donald Trump got in 2016. So any way you slice this apple or this pizza pie or whatever food you want to use, Joe Biden gets to or exceeds Donald Trump's margins from 2016. It's a more decisive win.

BERMAN: And the fact that President Trump has yet to concede, how unusual is this?

ENTEN: Extraordinarily unusual. You know, if you look back at the Electoral College shares, compare them to Joe Biden's at this particular point, every single time you had a similar Electoral College share forecast for Joe Biden, 57 percent plus or minus 5 percentage points, look, the loser had conceded by this point. They had conceded. This includes Hillary Clinton in 2016. I honestly don't know what President Trump is thinking, John.

BERMAN: He may not be thinking, at least rationally at this point. Harry, talk about recounts here because there will be a recount if the Trump campaign wants in Georgia. Don't know about recount anywhere else. What do we know about how they change things historically?

ENTEN: Very, very little. You know, if you just look back and you look at the share of the vote that right now Joe Biden has in the most important state, Wisconsin, he has a lead of at least 20,000 votes and at least a 0.62 point lead in the states he needs to get to 270 electoral votes.

In recounts, they don't shift it that much. In fact, Joe Biden's lead is well above any range that a recount could potentially shift things. He's going to win this election, John.

BERMAN: It is multiple times higher than the biggest shift we have ever seen in a recount. An important note.

Harry Enten, great to have you on. Thanks so much.

ENTEN: Thank you, sir.

BERMAN: A lot of news this morning.

Tropical storm in the gulf right now, set to make a second landfall in Georgia. We have new hurricane watches just issued. We'll give you an update, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:58:47]

CAMEROTA: Hurricane watches just issued for parts of Florida's Gulf Coast as a tropical storm strengthens.

CNN's meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking it for us.

What's it looking like, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Alisyn, Ana Maria Island, all the way to Yankeetown, that's where the hurricane watch is posted. Tropical storm warnings are obviously there as well. But this could still be a hurricane as it's making landfall tomorrow.

Right now we have winds gusting in Key West almost 40, Naples kind of pushing 30 miles per hour. And as it gets closer to the coast, those winds are going to pick up.

The storm picked up a little speed last night. Had a little bit of bright banding, a lot of color with it, but now it's losing a little bit of that color. We are going to see this thing to make landfall to the north of let's say Clearwater, up to New Port Richey. This is the area that we're watching, though, to the north of there. The wind, obviously, will be in Florida, but there will be an awful lot of rainfall across parts of D.C., Philadelphia, D.C., all the way down into Richmond, Virginia, could see four to six inches of rain.

Yes, we know it's going to rain where the hurricane is, but it is going to flood to the north of there as well. All this tropical moisture coming up.

And Theta is out there in the Atlantic. It's the 29th storm of the year. I give up.

Guys.

CAMEROTA: It's incredible. Just the numbers are astounding.

MYERS: It is really.

CAMEROTA: We're running out of names.

MYERS: Yes.

[07:00:01]

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, Chad.

All right, NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump blocking key.