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Coronavirus Cases Rising in States Across U.S.; President Trump Still Not Conceded Election to President-Elect Joe Biden; President- Elect Joe Biden's Coronavirus Team Providing Plans to State Governors to Deal with Ongoing Pandemic; Biden Moves Forward with Transition Without Help from Trump Administration. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 13, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: He is only the second Democrat in 70 years to carry that state.

President Trump's loss is getting bigger by the day, yet he still refuses to admit defeat, and he continues trying to claim voter fraud, but his own Department of Homeland Security just debunked that in a huge way. The DHS officials 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." Meanwhile, cracks are growing in the president's Republican wall of support as he tries to obstruct the Biden transition.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So we have not heard a single word spoken out loud from the president in eight days. Eight days. We think he's in that building there, but we haven't heard from him, not in public. We don't know whether this is petulance over his election defeat, but if that is the case, the president is fuming while Rome burns. The country is on fire with the coronavirus pandemic. Those are the words from the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, on fire. More than 150,000 new cases reported overnight, that is a record. A record number of people hospitalized, 900 American deaths reported just yesterday. A key model used by the White House projects that 2,200 Americans will die a day by mid-January, 2,200, and that a total of 440,000 Americans will be dead by March, and that's if we do everything right, which we are not.

Since we last heard the president's voice out loud 7,000 Americans have died from coronavirus. Since we last heard the president's voice there have been 920,000 new cases. That's remarkable.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to talk about all of this with have CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod, he is a former senior advisor to President Obama and his campaign, and CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins. David, I want to talk about what happened with Arizona last night finally being called for Biden. This could be a moment of huge national pride in terms of how well the U.S. pulled off this election during a pandemic with record voter turnout, record breaking turnout. People were so engaged, they wanted to exercise their vote. And the DHS, the guy who is in charge of the unit that looks for all cybersecurity says it was the most secure election in American history.

We could be doing a victory lap right now, but, of course, we're not doing that because President Trump is fuming, we hear from the reporting, and staying inside and not talking. And, of course, the guy -- Chris Krebs, who is in charge of that unit who had to look and comb for any election irregularities or fraud and didn't find any, he thinks that his head is on the chopping block and he'll soon be gone.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know where he would get stuff like that. I don't know why his head would be on the chopping block. Look, I think you're absolutely right, this was a miracle, the degree to which this election came off so smoothly amid the worst pandemic in a century, record turnout. It is something to celebrate. And the only reason that the president doesn't like the election is the outcome.

And there was an election official, I think in Georgia, who said just because the president didn't win doesn't mean that it's fraud. But in his mind, it is. I've said for months to you and others that there are only two outcomes for Donald Trump -- either he wins or the election was fraudulent, and he is acting out now. What makes it worse is not just the damage he's inflicting on democracy, but the fact that he's AWOL and in a pout at a time when we're going through one of the greatest challenges that we've faced in a long, long time with this pandemic. So he is not ending in a way that will heap triumph on his presidency, that's for sure.

BERMAN: And 7,000 people have died since we last heard his voice. And Axe, I want to stick with you for just one second and talk about the incoming administration, which is the one that honestly, at this point, is probably more important, because they are the ones showing an interest in trying to do something. We heard from Ron Klain last night, who will be the White House chief of staff under President Biden starting January 20th, and he's talking about what's happening behind the scenes and who Joe Biden is hearing from. Listen.

(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. 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 to introduction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:05:03]

BERMAN: So, David, I'm really interested now in how the Biden transition is going to choreograph the next two weeks, three weeks, until Donald Trump does something. Named Ron Klain as chief of staff. What more do you think they will do, and what will we hear from Joe Biden publicly in the next few days?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, let's be clear. It is not the acknowledgment of the president that's important. It is the ability of the incoming administration to interact with the outgoing administration on issues like the distribution of vaccines, for example, which is critical to the health and safety of the American people. On issues like national security, we are starting to hear Republican senators say the president-elect should be getting security briefings, as any incoming president would be getting. That is what is at stake here.

I don't think Joe Biden loses sleep at night because Donald Trump doesn't want to acknowledge that he lost, but he may lose sleep knowing that his team that he assembled to work on this coronavirus epidemic or pandemic cannot know or have any visibility into what the current administration is doing. I think he's going to continue to do what he's doing, which is assembling his seem and gathering information as best as they can and hope that this hostage drama finally ends and they can talk the president into allowing his GSA director to sign the documents necessary for the transition to begin officially.

CAMEROTA: Kaitlan, what is President Trump doing in that building behind you every day?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He has still been in the Oval Office. He's actually been in the Oval Office later and longer than he normally stays there back before he lost the election, based on what we've seen play out this week. But we haven't actually seen the president except for when he went to Arlington Cemetery, a brief appearance on Veterans Day, he went to the golf course twice over the weekend. But other than that, he has not had any public appearances. And the only thing that's been on his public schedule have been lunches with the vice president, meeting with the Secretary of State Pompeo, but no events or anything like that.

Today it does say he's going to receive an update on Operation Warp Speed. That will be really the first time the president has done anything coronavirus related on his schedule in recent weeks. Of course, he was on the road a lot before the election. Then of course, the election happened, and we have not seen him keep an eye on the pandemic beyond implying there is a conspiracy to hurt him with how that data about a potential vaccine from Pfizer was being released.

And so that will really be the first time we have seen that. And it's been described as the president is abandoning these basic functions of governing while we are in this period where he is denying what's happened with the election, he's denying that Joe Biden has won, he's also denying Joe Biden's team, of course, access as David was noting. So that's really what the president has been up to based on what our sources have seen.

But the question of whether or not the president is going to come to this conclusion anytime soon and move on and let the Biden team have access, the last that we've heard from people who are speaking with the president in the last 48 hours, it's not going to happen soon. BERMAN: You do have reporting, Kaitlan, also, which is really

interesting about the royal family, which is to say what the president is hearing from his heirs.

COLLINS: Yes, they've always been split kind of with their advice coming to the president. They take a much different approach when you look at the Donald Trump Jr's and the Eric Trumps and Jared Kushners and the Ivanka Trumps, and we're see that play out right now, where Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are taking a more calculated approach to this, but of course want the president to concede the election and admit reality and what's going on instead of continuing to fight and push these baseless allegations.

But then we've seen Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. pushing the president and feeding what he's been saying, even though we're hearing from DHS that this is the most secure election in American history and that no votes were changed as the president alleged just yesterday on his Twitter feed to 80 million people that he believes that. And so there is a split, but of course ultimately it is not this influence that Donald Trump Jr. is going to be the sole reason the president is keeping this up. The president is the one who makes the decisions at the end of the day. Everyone around him knows that.

And so while they're saying what the president wants to hear, they're waiting on him to publicly come to terms with reality as well because, of course, until he does, they can't.

BERMAN: Kaitlan Collins, David Axelrod, thanks both so much for being with us.

So by the time Joe Biden takes office we could see double the number of daily coronavirus infections, and another 100,000 deaths. That's by January 20th. That's according to a key model often cited by the U.S. government, and that's a low end estimate.

Joining us now, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. This is the IMHE model, Sanjay. And those are alarming numbers, 220,000 deaths by mid-January and 440,000 deaths by the beginning of March. But I think what should bother people even more than those shocking numbers is that this is the low end estimate, that this is if we do things right and take actions. It's even worse if we continue down the path we're headed in for the next 68 days.

[08:10:12]

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. It was interesting, when you look at these models very carefully, and again, they're models, so you have to take it with a bit of a grain of salt. But even in these models it sort of counts on things proceeding the way that they are, but even in about two-thirds of the states that at some point they say certain mandates will go back into place, that certain stay-at-home orders will go back into place. And they historically have looked throughout this year, because that's the only history we have with this pandemic, and they find that when death rates get to a certain amount here in the United States or in Europe, that's when these mandates are likely to go back in. So there is this idea that there's things that can be done now to

prevent that from happening, or you wait until you sort of redline in these places, where hospitals are becoming overwhelmed like the doctor you were just speaking to in Wisconsin. We're seeing similar sorts of things in Texas. Do you wait until you get to that breaking point to enact some of these mitigation measures, or do you do some of that stuff now? That is probably the biggest decision that we have to make as a country or these individual states have to make on their own.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, President Trump has never wanted to roll up his sleeves and do any of the kind of leadership or actions that could have helped flatten the curve here. The one thing that they always hang their hat on is something that happened 10 months ago with the half-baked ban from flights from China, though tens of thousands of people still came in because it was such a leaky ban, but that's the one thing that he and his supporters always talk about, that he took decisive action. That was a long time ago.

And now if he had a conscience he could just get out of the way. He could just get out of the way, because being an impediment to President-elect Biden is killing people. It's dangerous.

And I was very comforted, and I want to know what you think about this, when we heard from Dr. Celine Gounder who was on President-elect Biden's advisory council about this last hour, and she said that they are working around it, that they themselves are going straight to governors and to local officials and disseminating their plan because they can't wait for the White House to decide to get involved.

GUPTA: Yes. So they don't have the mandate teeth, but I've heard the same thing. And this idea of going to these state leaders or even city leaders in some cases and saying, look, here is the evidence, here is what can happen if we do nothing. Here is what can happen if we even pull back some of what we've done. But here is also what can happen if we start to do things in a smart way.

And I will give you a couple of examples. First of all, Alisyn, I totally agree with you. Just the basics over the last 10 months -- testing, we are still not there on testing. Tracing, do you even remember that word? Because that was actually a thing, and we have never really gotten our hands around tracing in most of the country. And now we're seeing the ramifications, nearly 250,000 people who have died, hospitals becoming overwhelmed.

I described this as a humanitarian disaster in the United States yesterday, and I stand by those words. Preventable deaths the way that they are, hospitals becoming overwhelmed, this is what I'm used to seeing in all these places I've traveling around the world. After the tsunami in South Asia, the earthquake in Haiti. But the point is, you're making a good point. There are things that can be done now.

And I want to show you an example, Arizona, and I bring up these hyper local examples because hopefully it inspires people. In Arizona they were having real problems, numbers went up 151 percent -- I'm going back to the spring now. And this is a state that said we're absolutely not going to do mask mandates or any of that sort of stuff. And communities around Scottsdale, they imposed mask requirements for a period of time. They limited public events, certain business closures, mostly bars because that's where people are clustered closely and they can't mask. And what happened? They had a 75 percent reduction over a three-week period. It can be done.

We're finding now that there are certain hot spots within communities that are the worst. Not shutting them down, but limiting maximum occupancy in gyms, in restaurants, in cafes and in hotels, if you do that -- again, not shutting down, just limiting maximum occupancy, you can bring down viral transmission by 80 percent. We all want the vaccine, and it sounds like it's probably going to come second quarter of next year for the general public. But there are some things that we can do now that we're not doing, certainly not as a nation, and unfortunately not in too many places across the country.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, that's so helpful. It's just really good to know we're not powerless, we can do some things as we see this catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much for all the information, as always.

[08:15:01]

CAMEROTA: So, more Republicans are starting to call for President- elect Joe Biden to get that critical intelligence, the briefings that he needs and access to government agencies. How President Trump's obstruction is threatening American lives, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON KLAIN, CHIEF OF STAFF TO PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN: So far, the inhibition has been relatively minor. We've been able to proceed with building our COVID task force. We've been proceeding with our personnel meetings. We've been proceeding with our policy meetings.

We have space -- a private side of our transition is rented we're working very effectively and moving forward on business. But as time passes, the unreasonable position of the administrator of the General Services Administration to refuse to ascertain that Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the election as the statute requires will have an impact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That is Ron Klain who has been named as the chief of staff for President-elect Joe Biden when he is inaugurated on January 20th.

Joining us now is John Podesta, former White House chief of staff to President Clinton, former counselor to President Obama. He's the founder and director of the Center for American Progress.

And John Podesta wrote an op-ed alongside Andy Card, former White House chief of staff to George W. Bush saying there's a real problem, John, you're saying what's going on right now and the fact that the administration is not cooperating with the Biden campaign on this transition.

[08:15:01]

What bothers you most here?

JOHN PODESTA, FORMER COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, first of all, the point we were making is that this was not at all like 2000. Andy Card was, of course, chief of staff to President Bush. He was incoming, I was outgoing.

Even in 2000, we gave access to the presidential daily brief to Governor Bush. We sent the director of intelligence of the CIA down to Texas to give him full access to intelligence. But in this case -- but in that case, the votes were only separated by 537 votes, as went Florida went the election. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount.

In this case, there is no way for Donald Trump to be inaugurated on January 20th. He's filing frivolous lawsuits, he's impeding the transition, he's directed at risk of firing the director of GSA from filing that non -- finding that nonpartisan ascertainment that Vice President Biden is indeed the president-elect and Kamala Harris is the vice president-elect.

And this is dangerous for the American people. They are, of course, trying to do the best they can, but as each day wears on, their ability to plan for coronavirus intervention is delayed and slowed down.

BERMAN: The 9/11 Commission found that the slow transition -- and, again, I agree there's really no comparison here between the elections -- but the 9/11 Commission found that the slower transition in 2000 contributed to some of the confusion inside the incoming Bush administration.

I'm wondering what area concerns you most here? Is it the pandemic? Because we've been told there is no coordination at all. The Trump administration is refusing to coordinate in any way with the Biden team on this pandemic, and we're seeing record numbers of new cases.

PODESTA: Look, I think it -- my personal opinion, it is the pandemic.

Pfizer had that announcement recently. Everyone was buoyed by the fact that we may have a vaccine, but the Biden team doesn't have access to the Department of Defense, which is making plans for distributing the vaccine. They don't have access to the FDA, to the CDC, to the Department of Health and Human Services.

So they are inhibited from creating the kind of plan -- and you just showed Ron Klain. Ron Klain led the effort in the Obama administration to get on top of the Ebola outbreak in Africa and not see it spread in the United States. We need that kind of planning and that sort of integration of our teams.

You know, I ran the transition for President Obama in 2008, and we had great support from the outgoing Bush team, from the president to his chief of staff, Josh Bolton, we were in the middle of a financial crisis, Hank Paulson worked hand in glove with the people who were coming in to try to ensure that Obama had at least the option of doing something to rescue the auto industry which he ended up doing once he got in office.

This is in stark contrast to what bipartisan process has been, what presidents have done in the past, what their teams have done. I guess it comes as no surprise, since Donald Trump has broken every other rule. But he's -- in breaking these norms, in suggesting there was fraud when there's no evidence of that, he is really, I think, putting democracy at risk.

BERMAN: You brought up President Obama. This is what he had to say about it in an interview that will air on "60 Minutes" on Sunday night.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: They appear to be motivated in part because the president doesn't like to lose and never admits loss. 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: When will Republicans break, do you think, John?

PODESTA: Well, you know, you've seen some governors do it, but they've been willing to break with Trump in the past like Mike DeWine, Larry Hogan, Phil Scott. The congressional Republicans are really kind of pathetic. Finally, a few of them have come out and said, he at least ought to have access to intelligence.

But, you know, when will Mitch McConnell break? When will people do an intervention? Trump is kind of barricaded in the Oval Office.

[08:25:03]

When are they going to go down there and tell him he's got to give up? I don't know. I don't have a lot of hope for that.

BERMAN: I want to ask you one quick last question. "The Washington Post" reported there is some speculation that the Biden team that President-elect Joe Biden might nominate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the reason would be to show that the United States has the respect for the institution that may have been fading over the last few years.

What do you think of that speculation? Do you think she would take the job?

PODESTA: Well, look, I think she was a fantastic diplomat for the United States and did a wonderful job for the United States.

Whether she wants to come back into public service is obviously her decision, but I think the Biden/Harris team would do well by having her advise them and perhaps put her in a senior position where she can do what she did for many years as secretary of state, for -- of course, as a senator and first lady for this country.

BERMAN: John Podesta, thanks so much for being with us this morning. I appreciate it.

PODESTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right. Obviously, as so many parents and kids deal with problems around schooling, teachers now sounding the alarm. Coronavirus cases surging across the nation, they fear heading back to the classroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)