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President-elect Biden Names Ron Klain as White House Chief of Staff; Biden Talks to World Leaders Despite Trump's Efforts to Block Transition; U.S. Again Smashes Records for New COVID Cases. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired November 12, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump continues his campaign of sowing distrust in America's electoral system.

[05:59:36]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Refusing to admit defeat, even as his advisers privately acknowledge he cannot reverse the election results.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Biden's top attorneys are dismissing those lawsuits and accusations of fraud as political theater.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: COVID-19 is tightening its grip on the United States.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There's been a little dip here and there, but now we're basically going into exponential growth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: America setting records no country wants to set. Infections on the rise in 45 states.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am really frightened by the spike that we're seeing in cases right now.

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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 Thursday, November 12. It's 6 a.m. here in New York.

And overnight, President-elect Joe Biden announced the first major decision of his incoming administration, naming Ron Klain as chief of staff. Klain is hugely respected by both Democrats and Republicans. He has vast Washington experience, including coordinating the response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak. That's of obvious importance, given the coronavirus pandemic, which this morning is just exploding to new levels. Michael Osterholm, who is on the president-elect's advisory board,

says we are now entering COVID hell. More than 144,000 new cases. That's a record. More than 65,000 people hospitalized. That's a record, with just a huge jump overnight. Hospitals in Wisconsin, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee all nearing capacity.

So what has outgoing President Donald Trump said about this? Not a thing. Not a thing. Not a single word said out loud in public on the pandemic in a week.

To be fair, he hasn't said a single word out loud in public since last Thursday. Why? What's wrong? Could it be embarrassment over his defeat? Could it be lack of a cogent argument for why he's blocking the transition? Could it be that he has too many shows saved up on TiVo?

Hate-watching cable news is no excuse to skip president-ing during a pandemic. Why fight so hard to keep the job if you're not going to bother to do it?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The outgoing Trump administration continues to obstruct the incoming Biden transition [SIC]. Overnight, CNN learned that the State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders, and Biden is still not receiving high-level intelligence briefings.

Now, one Republican senator says he will intervene if President-elect Biden does not get the presidential daily briefings by tomorrow.

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's M.J. Lee. She is live in Wilmington, Delaware -- M.J.

M.J. LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys.

Well, five days later, still no concession from President Trump, but here in Wilmington, Biden's team is moving full steam ahead with its transition efforts.

Overnight, Biden announcing that he is going to appoint Ron Klain as his chief of staff at the White House. This is somebody that Biden has known and has worked with for a number of decades, a trusted adviser, who served as his chief of staff when he was vice president.

And very importantly, he was also the Ebola czar under President Obama and recently has been very critical of and vocal about President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Obviously, these skills are going to be very important, because Biden has made clear that getting a grip on the coronavirus pandemic is his top priority.

Now, as far as other key appointments go, we are told that, for cabinet appointments, those probably will not be coming anytime soon. Perhaps post-Thanksgiving.

And one of the things that the Biden team is watching very closely are these two Georgia Senate runoff races coming in January, because that is going to determine the control of the Senate in Congress, and it is going to be speaking so much to the kind of political environment that Biden ultimately inherits when he becomes president.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I'm just not sure the country can wait until January to find out the results of that Georgia race. But M.J., what have you learned about what the Biden team is doing behind the scenes as the Trump administration blocks all this?

LEE: You know, just another sign that the Biden team is continuing on with transition efforts are these phone calls that he is having with foreign leaders.

Last night, as you know, he spoke with the leaders of South Korea, Japan and Australia. But very concerning that we are now learning there are messages from other foreign leaders that are basically being held up at the State Department.

And this is because Biden does not yet have access to the State Department. He can't until President Trump officially concedes.

So they are in this weird situation right now where they're essentially having to find other ways of getting in touch with these foreign leaders. Obviously, the Biden team feels like, look, we have done this before. We have been in government before, so we can find other ways of doing this.

But this is not normal. In a normal transition, the State Department would be in charge of making sure that these communications are passed along to the future president. That is simply not happening right now.

CAMEROTA: M.J. Lee, thank you very much for all of that reporting.

As the coronavirus breaks records and a record number of Americans die, President Trump is doing nothing. He's not holding briefings. He's not coming up with a national plan about what Americans can do to stay safe. Instead, he's focused on trying to change the outcome of his election defeat.

CNN's Joe Johns is live at the White House with more -- Joe.

[06:05:00]

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

You know, the president predicted on the campaign trail that coronavirus would be missing from the headlines immediately after the election. That has not happened. It's still there. Still, the president appears to be missing in action himself, in the fight against the pandemic.

Meanwhile, as you just heard, the former vice president, now the president-elect, is getting calls from world leaders. But the administration appears to be trying to shut down the lines of communication.

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JOHNS (voice-over): A defiant President Trump is still refusing to admit defeat this morning, but around the world, many foreign leaders are moving on.

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It was extremely exciting to talk to President-elect Biden.

JOHNS: Some top U.S. allies holding calls with President-elect Joe Biden, despite the Trump administration's efforts to stall the transition of power.

These communications are happening unofficially, with the State Department preventing Biden from accessing some messages sent to him, officials familiar with the situation tell CNN.

On Capitol Hill, one Republican senator, James Lankford, says it's unacceptable to deny the president-elect information from daily intelligence briefings, but he still supports Trump's legal experts investigating the election results.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): There is no loss from him getting the briefings and to be able to do that. And if that's not occurring by Friday, I will step in, as well, to be able to push him and say this needs to occur, so that regardless of the outcome of the election, whichever way that it goes, people can be ready for that actual task.

JOHNS: Biden says he will keep working, even with the road blocks put before him.

BIDEN: Access to classified information is -- is useful, but I'm not in a position to make any decisions on those issues, anyway. As I said, one president at a time. And he will be president until January 20. It would be nice to have it, but it's not critical.

JOHNS: The president making his first public appearance since losing to Biden for a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery. And after lashing out about the election results at the White House last week, he's using Twitter to air his grievances and baseless allegations, including this attack against Philadelphia's Republican city commissioner, Al Schmidt, writing, "He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption and dishonesty."

This tweet just minutes after Schmidt told CNN there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, even after they've investigated some of the allegations promoted by Trump and his supporters.

AL SCHMIDT (R), PHILADELPHIA CITY COMMISSIONER: One thing I can't comprehend is how hungry people are to consume lies and to consume information that is not true.

JOHNS: The message of fair elections echoed by other officials across the nation, including Georgia, where Biden is ahead and the secretary of state has even ordered a recount by hand.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: We have ongoing investigations, but we have not seen something widespread. We believe that the ballots were counted accurately with the machine count, and there's still minting (ph) on it, with the hand counting of the statewide recount will confirm that.

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JOHNS: We're not seeing any evidence in the president's schedule that he's focusing on the pandemic, but we do know he's been meeting with advisers, trying to figure out a way to delegitimize the results of the election. There hasn't been a coronavirus briefing in weeks. There are 69 days left in this administration. Still, a lack of leadership on the virus here at the White House.

BERMAN: We haven't heard his voice. We haven't heard his voice since last Thursday, Joe. And I can't remember a time that we've gone seven days without -- the president likes to talk out loud. I mean, he likes to say things. And the fact that we haven't heard him in a week is notable. It makes -- it raises all kinds of questions.

Is he well? I mean, has he lost his voice? Is he capable of addressing the American people right now on the pandemic or any other subject? These are fair questions this morning, given where we are. Keep us posted, if he says something by mistake.

JOHNS: Absolutely.

BERMAN: All right. We're entering COVID hell. Those are the words from Michael Osterholm, who will join us later. He's on the president- elect's coronavirus advisory panel. COVID hell.

More than 144,000 new cases this morning, marking the single highest day since the pandemic began. More Americans hospitalized than ever before, a huge jump in hospitalizations overnight.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov live in Utah.

Lucy, officials now say the positivity rate there is a record. It's, what, 23 percent.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. COVID hell is certainly one way to describe it.

The numbers just keep getting worse here in Utah and certainly nationwide. Cases skyrocketing, deaths rising. Health and state officials are now ringing the alarm that something needs to change as hospitals in some of the worst-hit areas across the country are reaching and, in some case, even surpassing capacity.

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KAFANOV (voice-over): Record highs across the country. On Wednesday, the United States reporting more than 144,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases.

[06:10:08] MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN CORONAVIRUS ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER: This is exactly what many of us expected would happen after Labor Day. And unfortunately, what we expect is it's going to go much higher than it is now.

KAFANOV: More than 65,000 patients are hospitalized with the coronavirus right now, the most of the entire pandemic. Several states reporting their highest case counts to date, including Illinois, where Governor J.B. Pritzker warns he is concerned about the growing rate of hospitalized coronavirus patients.

GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (R-IL): Across the state, the majority of our regions are seeing far higher rates of hospitalizations for COVID-19 than they ever did last spring.

KAFANOV: In North Dakota, the governor announcing hospitals there are at full capacity.

And in Ohio, the state saw its second worst day since the pandemic began, reporting more than 5,800 cases. Governor Mike DeWine reissuing a statewide mask order, despite pushback from the public.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): We must do this to protect our frontline workers. I'm very well aware of the burden that this will place on employees. I'm well aware of the burden this places on the owners. But these are places, candidly, where it's difficult or impossible to maintain mask wearing, which we know now is the chief way of slowing this virus.

KAFANOV: And despite the relatively low numbers in New York compared to the rest of the country, fears of another lockdown are growing. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issuing new restrictions as the state's test positivity rate is approaching 3 percent.

Bars, restaurants, and gyms will be closing at 10 p.m., and indoor gatherings are limiting to ten people starting Friday.

Here in Utah, the state seeing its highest seven-day average test positivity rate. It now stands at more than 22 percent.

These numbers make the push for a vaccine even more urgent. After the positive news from Pfizer earlier this week, now Moderna is reporting that it should know whether its vaccine works by the end of the month.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The thing that we've been dealing with in this country is a vaccine hesitancy or people really being skeptical about getting vaccinated. That is pretty much overcome when you get a vaccine of such high degree of efficacy as the Pfizer vaccine, which is, you know, 90 plus, closer to 95 percent efficacious.

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KAFANOV: And here in Utah, in addition to that mask mandate, the governor is limiting social gatherings. He's postponing all school extracurricular activities. College students will be required to test weekly in the new year. And he's deployed the National Guard to help with testing and contact tracing.

A lot of questions, though, John, whether this is little, too little late -- John.

BERMAN: A hundred and forty-four thousand new cases, 65,000 hospitalizations. Too late for them. No question about that at this point.

Lucy Kafanov, thanks so much for your reporting. Appreciate it.

So President Trump is not going to like this. Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove with a clear message that the election results will not be overturned. Conservative Trump fan Hugh Hewitt is calling Joe Biden "president-elect."

So how much longer will the president hole up in the White House with no public comments, not to mention no public effort to battle the pandemic? Answers, next.

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[06:17:36]

CAMEROTA: Developing this morning, President-elect Joe Biden has started to build his administration, appointing longtime aide Ron Klain as his chief of staff.

Klain served as the White House Ebola response coordinator back in 2014, which will be valuable as the president-elect confronts the coronavirus pandemic.

Overnight, the United States set more coronavirus records with more than 144,000 new cases. And more Americans are hospitalized than ever before this morning. That's more than 65,000 Americans.

Joining us now to talk about the political and health implications, we have Dr. Peter Hotez. He's the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. And CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She is a politics and White House editor at Axios.

So Margaret, let me just start with the politics of this. You know, President-elect Biden is trying to move forward. He -- his plate is going to be so full with how to deal with this, and he can't do anything for the next two months, as this virus gallops through the country and more people die.

I mean, you know, just yesterday, we had people -- our doctors were using the analogy of, you know, four jumbo jets falling out of the sky every day. And somehow, you know, President Trump has just abdicated any national plan for what we're going to do for these next two months.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, good morning, Alisyn.

You know, look, I think, first of all, what's going on right now with the coronavirus kind of illustrates why Ron Klain was, in so many ways, the obvious candidate to take on this role of chief of staff for the incoming president. And not only because of their close relationship for the last 30 years, but because Klain has been handling coronavirus stuff in house during the campaign and now transition, and of course, to the Ebola task force. So this is going to be, like, front and center on the Biden agenda. Obviously, the biggest thing that he must deal with when he becomes inaugurated.

And so that's why I think we'll also see health secretary rolled out, perhaps earlier than you normally might.

But there is a real question about, in this transition, how much the Biden transition team can do on its own. They obviously have put together this corona task force. They have got a plan for a coronavirus kind of special coronavirus structure inside the broader transition, when everything gets underway. They're having all of these conversations. There are all these experts involved. And nonetheless, there are things that you can do when you're having a cooperative transition that you can't do before.

[06:20:13]

And as the days proceed, this is going to be a bigger and bigger issue, which is why you see like Andy Card, President Bush's former chief of staff, say, OK, it's time to move on, President Trump.

This is why you're beginning to see Republicans -- Karl Rove -- kind of say, OK, this is over. This election is over. And why you're seeing, between this and the Pentagon moves, why you're seeing Senator Lankford begin to say, All right, I'm going to start pushing on this if it doesn't happen soon.

BERMAN: Yes. You know, in terms of the pandemic, this isn't galloping across the country. It's stampeding.

We had 4,000 new hospitalizations overnight, Dr. Hotez. We're now at 65,000. And it's showing no signs of abating. In fact, we could be at 80,000 in three days at the rate we're going. In terms of the new cases, we could be at 150,000 or 200,000 cases next week. Deaths are rising also. Michael Osterholm calls this COVID hell, Dr. Hotez.

And meanwhile, what is the president doing? You know, tweeting while Rome burns, almost literally.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Well, John, you have to remember, also, that we're going to be looking at unprecedented numbers of deaths. The projections are we're going to move towards 2,000 deaths per day, 2,500 deaths per day, the number -- the kind of numbers we saw back in March and April, but it's going to be extended over now the next 69 days.

So when you do the math thread, you get 120, 150,000 people who are going to lose their lives over the next two months or so, lives that don't have to be lost. Lives that, if we could just have some leadership in the federal government, could be saved until vaccines come along. We're not asking to implement measures for social distancing, mask

mandates forever. This is just a two- or three-month period. We just have to hang on until the vaccines come along.

We can save -- you know, we're talking about 120,000 mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who are going to lose their lives, totally unnecessarily. I mean, this is a humanitarian tragedy. You know, in my moments of despair, I say it's a slaughter. That's -- that's why I get so emotional talking about this, because these are lives that don't have to be lost.

CAMEROTA: That's really heartbreaking, Doctor. It's really heartbreaking. I mean, just -- I can only imagine -- it's hard, for us every morning to come on and have to report this, but for you as a doctor when you see what could have been done and what still can be done, and yet nothing.

HOTEZ: You know, this is why I became a physician scientist, to use science to save lives. And we have the science. We know how to save lives. And we're allowing this to happen.

You know, I don't know what the answer is for these next couple of months. I think it would be very important if we can identify some prominent Republican voices who can talk to some of the governors and elected leaders who are defying mask mandates, who still believe the White House disinformation campaign that this is a hoax or, you know, that want to attribute the COVID deaths to other causes, or these fake concepts of herd immunity, or discrediting masks. If we can find some prominent Republican leaders who can clamp on -- down on that, we can save some lives now.

So my priority is very imminent -- you know, right in front of us. Save as many lives as we can. Because good vaccines are coming along. We're going to have, you know, not only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, there's three or four following that. And we have a vaccine now that we're producing --

BERMAN: Yes.

HOTEZ: -- a billion doses of. So we can save all of these lives now, and then we can vaccinate. These are people who can be around a year from now.

BERMAN: We don't have 70 days. We don't have until January 20 to get this right. I think that's the simple fact.

And in terms of the Republicans coming forward, Margaret, Karl Rove, who's no shrinking violet, you know, publishes an op-ed in the "Wall Street Journal" that makes clear that the results of the election are not going to change. Let me just read briefly from it: "The president's efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Biden's column, and certainly, they're not enough to change the final outcome."

Why do you think Karl Rove is doing this?

TALEV: Because Senate Republicans won't. And because the more the days roll on, there are concerns about what the end game actually is.

I understand that there are concerns about the Georgia Senate race and control of the Senate and that may have a bit to do with why some Republicans are holding back. Other Republicans may get concerned about getting primaried or what their chances look like in 2024.

But every Republican that I talk to behind the scenes says -- at least said in the beginning they thought President Trump is just letting off steam, this is -- you know, he needs to exit on his own terms.

The longer time goes on, the more real the implications are. And between the parallels of what's happening with the coronavirus now and some of the changes at the Defense Department, installing people who don't actually have defense experience, but are political loyalists into roles, questions about whether this is going to lead to the intel -- you know, sensitive, classified information being released to try to exonerate the president, or contracts or other things that the defense establishment wouldn't sign off on. There are real concerns about that.

There are real concerns about possible firings of people inside the intelligence community, which many Republicans see as a red line, but it hasn't happened yet. And there's a reason why it hasn't happened yet. But will President Trump feel emboldened and pull the trigger on that at that point?

So you have elements of the Republicans inside the Senate who are very concerned about this but won't talk about it out loud.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TALEV: Andy Card, Karl Rove, they can talk about it, and you're starting to hear them talking about it.

CAMEROTA: Margaret Talev, Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you both very much on this hard morning. We appreciate talking to you.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: One Republican senator -- yes, one -- has come out to say that President-elect Biden should be getting the presidential daily briefing. Will other Republicans follow suit? We discuss the national security implications of all of this, next.

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