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CNN Projects Biden Wins Arizona, Flipping GOP Stronghold; Trump Stays Publicly Silent Amid Baseless Election Fight; Election Officials Repudiate Trump, No Votes Compromised or Altered; U.S. Sets New Records for New COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired November 13, 2020 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A growing list of Republicans are urging the president to accept his fate and move forward for the good of the country.
[05:59:24]
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They're engaged in an absurd circus right now, refusing to accept reality.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Department of Homeland Security declared the 2020 election the most secure in American history.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to consider the former vice president as the president-elect.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: COVID patients in hospitals hitting another all-time high. Deaths also climbing.
DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: This is a humanitarian tragedy. These are lives that don't have to be lost.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to remind everybody how deadly this virus is. It hasn't abated; it hasn't changed. It's out there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday the 13th.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Jason Vorhees.
CAMEROTA: It's 6 a.m. here in New York. We do have some breaking news overnight. CNN projects President-elect Joe Biden will win the state of Arizona. He is only the second Democrat in more than 70 years to carry that state. This as President Trump's own Department of Homeland Security issues a
complete debunking of his baseless claims of widespread fraud. The DHS official saying in a statement, quote, "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," end quote.
Meanwhile, cracks are growing in the president's Republican wall of support as he tries to obstruct the Biden transition.
BERMAN: As of this morning, we are on day eight of the president's apparent silence strike. He has not uttered a single word in public for eight days. Eight days.
Maybe it's way of grieving his loss, but there are other people with problems here. Namely, America.
The coronavirus pandemic is out of control. The Republican governor of Ohio says it's on fire. We have never seen anything like this. More than 150,000 new cases reported overnight. That just shatters records. A record number of people hospitalized. In Utah, there are no ICU beds left in the entire state.
A key model used by the White House projects 2,200 deaths a day by mid-January, a total of nearly 440,000 deaths by March. And that's if we do everything right, which we're not.
This is happening in the United States of America, now. Donald Trump is still the president of the United States of America. Yet he hasn't said a word out loud in public for eight days.
Since the last time we heard his voice, 7,000 Americans have died. Since the last time we heard his voice, there have been 920,000 new cases. What a time to all of a sudden get shy. It's not just the silence. His administration is refusing to coordinate the pandemic response with the incoming Biden administration.
So let's go to Delaware. CNN's M.J. Lee covering the president-elect.
The Arizona win just adds to the Electoral College count and the inevitable victory that, of course, so many have already called, M.J.
M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It sure does, John. This is quite the political achievement for Joe Biden. A state that a Democratic presidential candidate has not won since 1996, when Bill Clinton accomplished that.
And as you say, this only just further cements Joe Biden's win. Eleven additional electoral votes for Biden. And he is, of course, already some 5 million votes ahead in the popular vote, as well.
But, yes, still, President Trump has not yet conceded to Biden. And what the Biden transition team has been telling us in recent days is that, despite all of that, despite whatever noise the president's team might be making, they're moving full steam ahead with their transition process. And we saw Ron Klain, Biden's newly-named White House chief of staff,
giving a new interview. And in that interview, he said that Biden has already started having conversations with Republican elected leaders, though he did say there is one prominent Republican that he still has not connected with.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON KLAIN, CHIEF OF STAFF TO PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN: Joe Biden has spoken to Republicans. He's spoken to some Republican senators, some Republican governors. I'm not going to go into the names.
He has not spoken, though, to Senator McConnell. Look, I think Senator McConnell still seems to be insisting somehow that President Trump won the election. He didn't. There will be a time and a place for Joe Biden and Senator McConnell to talk. They obviously need no introduction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: Now, Biden arrived here in Rehoboth Beach, where he has a house, and he is expected to be meeting with transition advisers again today.
I just want to remind everyone, though. Even as this transition process continues for the Biden team, there are several important things that he still does not have access to as the president-elect.
He is not receiving the daily presidential briefings. These are classified briefings that someone in his position would typically be receiving at this point in the transition. He does not have access to transition funding.
And then these messages from foreign leaders that are basically stuck at the State Department, because he can't access them until the president formally concedes, and he is able to access those resources.
So, again, the transition team continuing to press. All of the noise, they are ignoring for now, and they are just looking ahead to January 20. That is, of course, inauguration day -- John.
BERMAN: Yes. That's 68 days away, though. And there are important things to do now, which is why this coordination matters so much.
M.J. Lee, thank you very much.
[06:05:03]
Very interesting that Republicans have called Joe Biden. They're just too afraid to go public with it as of now.
So it's 6:05 a.m. in the east. Do you know where your president is? Or more specifically, what he sounds like? It's been eight days since we heard his voice in public.
A source tells CNN he is dejected and waffling over whether to keep fighting for an election he's already lost. CNN's Joe Johns live at the White House this morning. Joe, do we know
that he's OK, that there's nothing wrong with his voice?
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: As far as I know, yes. I mean, think about this. This is one of those examples where you can say, the silence of the president speaks volumes. It really says a lot about what's going on here at the White House.
We haven't heard from the president in more than a week, except on Twitter, where he continues to make baseless claims to his base. And now that the president has lost Arizona, the question is how much longer he intends to keep dragging this out and when he's going to stop the drama.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS (voice-over): Behind the closed doors of the White House, President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede. And his hopes of the election results changing are unrealistic, with President-elect Joe Biden adding one more state to his Electoral College count, flipping Arizona blue overnight.
The projection on the same day Trump tweeted he could easily win the state with the help of an audit. Hours later, the post-election audits across Arizona showing no voter fraud, despite the president's complaints.
KATIE HOBBS, ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE: The post-election audits are coming up exactly as we expected, because there's nothing fishy going on with any of the vote counts.
JOHNS: The case against Trump's allegations now amplified by the Department of Homeland Security, issuing a statement reading, "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history."
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Basically, you have the Department of Homeland Security saying, in effect, there's nothing truthful about what the president has just said. You know, I give them credit for courage. That's a gutsy thing to do. But it's the right thing to do.
JOHNS: Capitol Hill Democrats growing frustrated with the president and his party.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): These Republicans are all auditioning for profiles in cowardice.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They're engaged in an absurd circus right now, refusing to accept reality.
JOHNS: And while most of Trump's Republican allies are denying a Biden win --
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (D-CA): He's not president right now. Don't know if he'll be in president January 20.
JOHNS: -- a growing number are calling for Trump to allow Biden access to daily briefings and intelligence reports.
SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): At this point, just as a matter of protecting our nation's interests, I do think that both the president and his -- and his competition here, the Vice President Biden, should have access to those classified reports.
JOHNS: Former President Barack Obama condemning Republicans for following Trump's lead.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally. And that's a dangerous path.
JOHNS: As Trump stays out of the public eye, his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, are stepping in, amplifying his calls to challenge the legitimate election results. And privately, sources tell CNN, they are also encouraging the president to aggressively fight to the end.
But a source tells CNN that the president's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Trump adviser Jared Kushner, do not believe lawsuits will change anything, but still think they should play out.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: And now in the countdown to January 20, there is at least one issue that continues to be a huge unknown. That is the question of pardons. Whether even prospectively, the president will pardon members of his inner circle, close associates, friends, his family, even himself. Aides say the president has been asking about pardons since 2017 -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Then I guess it's a good bet that he will do something with pardons. Joe, thank you very much for all of that reporting.
The coronavirus pandemic is ravaging America. Another record for new cases surpassing 150,000 for the first time. This morning, a record 67,000 people are hospitalized with coronavirus.
CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live for us in Chicago with more -- Adrienne.
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning.
The U.S. again breaking its previous high of new confirmed cases; as you mentioned, more than 153,000. Hospitalizations are up, too. And more and more states reported their hospitals are reaching or surpassing capacity.
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BROADDUS: All across the country, states are struggling to get the pandemic under control. Nationwide, more than 67,000 Americans are currently in the hospital with coronavirus, the highest number since the beginning of the pandemic. And Thursday, 18 states reporting record hospitalizations.
[06:10:13]
ALEX AZAR, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We need you to stay safe now, because I want you to get to that point where we pull through this.
BROADDUS: A new projection from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation now predicts the country could see more than 2,200 deaths a day from the virus by mid-January. And the death toll could reach nearly 439,000 by March 1, if behaviors don't change.
After beating down its curve in the spring, Michigan is now facing a dire situation. It reported more than 7,300 new cases Thursday and a test positivity rate of more than 10 percent.
GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): This is the worst week of COVID we've ever had. And two weeks from now, we are going to see our numbers continue to climb, without significant action by the people across our state.
BROADDUS: And Wisconsin reporting more than 8,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday. Concern growing that hospitals are at or near capacity.
DR. RYAN WESTERGAARD, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES: I believe we're getting to the point where hospitals are strained and are likely to run out of staff before they run out of physical space. We've heard there are some hospitals that have no ICU beds available as of today.
BROADDUS: In Colorado, 85 percent of ICU beds are currently in use after the state recorded its highest number of cases and hospitalizations. Utah announcing the state has run out of ICU beds entirely.
Here in Chicago, the mayor issuing a stay-at-home advisory, encouraging residents to only leave the house for essentials and to cancel gatherings and Thanksgiving travel.
MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT (D), CHICAGO: This is literally a matter of life and death. And if we see you violating these rules in any way, we're not going to hesitate to take action.
BROADDUS: And with hospitals getting overwhelmed, the increasing number of deaths is taking a toll on healthcare workers like Jenny Glazer.
JENNY GLAZER, NURSE, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: When they pass, and then wiping them down and putting them in the body bag, it's -- you know, it's -- it's gutting, almost. And like I said, it's -- afterwards, you zip them up. They go out, and -- and you're on to the next.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROADDUS: And Jenny told me she's used to patients dying, but she's never seen so much death at once. She works in a hospital here in Chicago. And like so many ICU nurses here and around the country, Jenny has held the hand of her dying patients when their family members couldn't.
Back to you, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: It is gutting, Adrienne. It is gutting to think about that, how many people are dying and how many people are dying alone. Thank you very much for all of that.
So Minnesota's governor is warning that the Midwest is facing, quote, "a catastrophic lack of hospital beds." Illinois's governor says officials are running out of time. And President Trump is doing nothing. How will we get out of this?
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[06:17:27]
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GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): We're running out of time and we're running out of options. Our growth in new cases is now exponential.
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BERMAN: That's the governor of Illinois, stating the obvious right now. The coronavirus pandemic is stampeding across the country. This morning, a record number of people are hospitalized.
Just look at that graph. It is not slowing down at all. It's going up, almost exponentially.
Joining us now, CNN political commentator, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. He's an epidemiologist and Detroit's former health director.
Dr. El-Sayed, thanks for being with us. Really grim news. I mean, simply awful news, and it's going to get worse, according to the IHME model, which is the model that the White House and everyone has been relying on, projecting that by March 1, 408 -- 438,000 people will die. And that's if we do everything right, which we're not.
They're projecting 2,002 deaths a day by mid-January. This is just going in an awful direction, Doctor.
DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right, John. This is really, really grim news. And all of us need to take this in and recognize that we have a responsibility to doing our part.
Now, look, I'm not going to let the Trump administration, their failure to set us up, off the hook. We have seen inaction and failed leadership from the federal government since the very beginning. And a new team is on the way. But right now, that team is not taking their -- their oaths of office
until January 20, and we've got the holidays in front of us. And we know that this transmission is being fed by low-level transmission that people are -- are -- while people are engaging in, you know, a game night here or a family gathering there.
And we've got a decision to make. We can see these numbers continue to climb. We can continue to watch it cripple the substrate of our lives. Or we can take this bull by the horns. We can make the decisions that we need to make to put on a mask in public places, to socially distance, to make sure we're washing our hands, and maybe to have Thanksgiving with our immediate families this year, rather than to travel far and wide for a holiday that I know everyone loves and that we would miss.
But this is a choice about our future. And we cannot pretend like this -- this pandemic is over or that, just because we're tired of it, that it's tired of us. We've got to do what it takes to save lives right now.
CAMEROTA: Doctor, I hear what you're saying this morning. We're on our own. Everyone is on their own.
BERMAN: For 68 days. For the next --
CAMEROTA: For the next 68 days, we have to fend for ourselves. We have to do whatever we can individually to survive. [06:20:04]
Because President Trump is completely disengaged. He has tweeted 200 times since losing the presidential election more about his election and FOX TV than about COVID-19.
The head of the coronavirus task force, Vice President Pence, we're told, is maybe having some meetings behind closed doors. We haven't heard from him. We're on our own.
And you guys, you doctors are on the front lines, trying to save us. And here's a new map from the IHME model of what ICUs are going to look like by the end of this month. So this is in November. And the ones in the orange, which is most of the country, means ICUs at or above capacity. ICU capacity. That's in the red zone, basically. And I just don't know how we're going to do this for the next 68 days.
EL-SAYED: Well, I'll tell you this, Alisyn. We're not on our own. We've got each other, and we've got our courageous frontline health workers. And we've got local and state officials who are trying very hard to do the right thing.
But what we need to do is recognize that, when public health officials, when mayors and governors and county executives tell us that we've got to do our part on the coronavirus, that masking is the most important thing any of us can do to protect ourselves from COVID- 19; when they tell us that perhaps maybe this is a time where we should forego otherwise enjoyable and social gatherings that we love and are part of the substrata of our lives and we look forward to every year, they're doing that because they're looking out for our own good.
Yes, the map that you showed shows us exactly what's happening. Earlier on, as cases were growing, this fall, people were saying, well, the death rate was low and hospitalizations aren't really growing. Well, now we're there. And we were predictably there, because that's what happens when you have the spread of a contagious, extremely deadly disease.
So we're not on our own, but we've got each other. But that means that we've got to do what it takes to protect ourselves and protect each other, because this winter is going to be long and hard if we don't.
BERMAN: It's -- it's really going to be tough. It really is, for the next 68 days and longer. People need to listen to their state and local officials, for sure.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
EL-SAYED: Thank you for having me.
BERMAN: So we're hearing from former President Obama for the first time since Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election. What is President Obama's message to outgoing President Trump and the Republicans who won't stand up to him? The brand-new interview, next.
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[06:26:55]
BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, while you were sleeping, major election news. CNN can now project that Joe Biden has won the state of Arizona. Biden now leads President Trump by more than 11,000 votes there, flipping the longtime Republican stronghold. He will get the state's 11 electoral votes.
And importantly, as close as this is, this is well outside the range of the recount laws in Arizona. There will not be a recount there. This is it. Joe Biden has won Arizona. He now has 290 delegates -- no, 290 electoral votes, well over the 270 he needs to win. President Trump has 217 electoral votes.
CNN has not yet projected winners in two states, Georgia and North Carolina.
In Georgia, Biden's ahead by more than 14,000 votes there. A statewide hand recount begins at 9 a.m. this morning. The secretary of state says he does not expect this to change the outcome. He does expect Joe Biden to remain in front.
In North Carolina, President Trump leads Biden by more than 71,000 votes. Ninety-eight percent of the total vote there has been counted. Both campaigns expect Donald Trump to be the winner there.
CAMEROTA: OK, John, joining us now, we have CNN global affairs analyst, Susan Glasser. She's a staff writer for "The New Yorker." And CNN political analyst, Toluse Olorunnipa. He's a White House reporter at "The Washington Post."
Great to see both of you. So on a larger scale, last night, the Department of Homeland Security, the actual unit tasked with figuring out if there's any voting irregularities, if there's any fraud, put out a striking statement.
In part, it read, "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Toluse, this should be a proud moment in U.S. history. This should be a moment of national pride. But President Trump is stealing that moment of national pride for us, that we did something so well, because he's tainting it. Your thoughts?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, tens of thousands of Americans worked incredibly hard to make this election free and fair in the middle of a pandemic, the biggest challenge for election officials and generations. And they rose to the task, all the way from the national level, including our national security officials, who had to fight against foreign interference and foreign attempts to interfere and change the votes of Americans. They worked hard. Local election officials worked hard to put this election together.
People who were just volunteers working at polls and people who counted those votes late into the dead of the night. They were working very hard. And what we did have was a free and fair election.
The only problem is that we have a president who decides that, because he lost the election, he wants to cast doubt on the entire process. He thinks that in states that he won, everything was fine, but in states where he lost, there was obvious fraud.
And you just have to question why the president would -- would do that, other than the fact that he cannot stomach the idea that he's going to be a one-term president, and he's going to be put down in history as a loser, to a certain extent, which is something that, you know, he has fought against for the better part of his time on earth.
