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President-Elect Biden Holds News Conference; Trump Set to Reduce Troop Presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 16, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: You are watching CNN on this Monday afternoon. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being here.

Let's jump right in on the breaking news. And here it is, that the U.S. military commanders are telling CNN that they anticipate President Trump will issue an order as soon as this week to withdraw troops both from Afghanistan and Iraq before he leaves office on January 20.

The plan is this, to draw down troops from 4,500 to 2,500 in Afghanistan, and from 3,000 troops in Iraq to 2,500. And just keep in mind, this move goes against the recommendation of military commanders, who believe the region is not stable enough for these kinds of drawdowns.

The order would also complicate the transition process of his successor, Joe Biden, who is moving ahead with the transition plans, of course, despite the president's refusal to actually concede the race.

You're looking at live pictures there of the podium. That is in Wilmington, Delaware, where we will be seeing the president-elect momentarily, and we will listen and take him live.

But I want to jump straight to the White House to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, because, Kaitlan, this troop withdrawal is something President Trump, we know it's something he's wanted to do. This is something he said he would do during his time in the White House.

But, until now, it hasn't happened. And here we are, 65 days left in his administration. What he's doing here?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

Of course, the time is coming to an end. And now we're seeing the president do something that he has promised to do for a long time, Brooke, but that has eluded him. And, to be clear, even if the president gets to these numbers by

sending out this formal order that we are now expecting to draw down these troops, it would decrease the number of troops that are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it would not bring the number to zero, which, of course, is what the president promised on the campaign trail would happen by the end of his first term in office.

But here's what we are expecting, is that the Pentagon has sent this formal -- or this warning to commanders basically telling them to prepare for a troop drawdown in Afghanistan and Iraq. Right now, you have got about 4,500 troops in Afghanistan, 3,000 in Iraq.

So, it would bring those down by about 500 to 1,000 troops by January is what we're expecting. And we're expecting the formal order could come within the next week. It could be as soon, Brooke, within the next 48 hours.

And so this would be the president going through with what he promised, which is to bring troops home from the Middle East, though, of course, that picture gets a little bit complicated when you see how many troops the president has sent to places like Saudi Arabia.

But the other question is, is, what is the Pentagon saying about this? Because we have heard from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman Milley, saying that they believe it should be conditions- based. You have heard from the national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, who's pushed for a more accelerated withdrawal.

And, of course, this comes after that purge we saw last week at the Pentagon, where the president fired the defense secretary, Mark Esper. We saw several others also leave the Pentagon, either being fired or resigning in the wake of that.

And so we have seen that they have been on two different pages about how quickly this should happen and what conditions it should be based on, given those agreements with the Taliban.

And so this is what we're expecting so far. We know the president is supposed to have a meeting on this at the White House this afternoon. Whether or not they bring the reporters in and take questions, Brooke, still remains to be seen, because he hasn't taken questions from reporters since Election Day, we should note.

BALDWIN: I'm glad you noted that. And, also, this is precisely what people were wondering could happen after, to your point, those folks at DOD were replaced with loyalists. And, voila, you have this news about the withdrawals.

Kaitlan, thank you so much.

I want to get way deeper into this with both CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, and CNN's military and diplomatic analyst and retired Rear Admiral John Kirby.

So, welcome to both of you. And, Gloria, again, just reminding people, you look at the calendar,

65 days. That will be here in a blink, right, until we have a new president. And this is the kind of move that this current commander in chief decides to do. Why?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Because it's on his bucket list, and he sees it as something that he promised he would do, and he wants to put a check mark next to it.

I don't think it has much to do with national security strategy. Jake Tapper reported that that could be the reason why former Defense Secretary Esper and his like-minded colleagues were pushed, because they didn't agree with this strategy.

But this is something the president has decided he wants to do. So he will do it. It does complicate things for Joe Biden. As we all know, those of us who have known Biden for years understand that he is not someone who has ever been for robust military intervention, but this could be something that he decides he needs to reverse in midstream.

So, it complicates life for him.

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BALDWIN: I want to come back to your -- the complicating things point on Biden.

And, Admiral Kirby, to you, just let me preface this question by saying we all want to see our men and women in uniform out of harm's way and home, of course.

But when you look at the numbers, drawing down troops from 4,500 to 2,500 in Afghanistan, and from 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq, just given -- you know this part of the world better than anyone. Given the Taliban violence, is this the right move right now?

JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: I'm very concerned about it. Look, it's fine to want to end wars, and this war has been going on for 20 years.

But how you end wars, Brooke, matters a lot. And you have got to end it in such a way, particularly when we're talking about the war in Afghanistan, so that you don't have to go back in.

And the main purpose of that war, under two previous administrations, has been to prevent Afghanistan from being a safe haven for terrorists again. So, if you withdraw too precipitously, or you withdrawal too many in too many different places, you could end up creating a situation where, unfortunately, it's that much more unstable, and you might have to send troops back in again.

So, it really depends on where the numbers are going to be, where they're going to be stationed, these 2,500 troops, and what missions they are going to be doing. But I do agree that it certainly puts a kink in whatever plans president-elect Biden might have to come in with, I mean, and sort of makes it harder for him to plan. It also will no doubt put at a much harder place the Afghan

government, these negotiations with the Taliban. Certainly, one of the leverage pieces we have against the Taliban in Afghanistan is our troop level presence there. You pull that out precipitously, you're basically giving them a major concession with nothing in return.

And, of course, you get NATO allies that also have troops on the ground that are depending on us for support and for guidance and for leadership. So where does this leave them?

BALDWIN: Well, what about Gloria's point that what if president-elect Biden comes into office and suddenly has to reverse this?

KIRBY: Right.

BALDWIN: A, that's a lot of troops that you're reversing. And how does that -- how quickly can you do something like this, even if you are commander in chief?

KIRBY: Right.

BALDWIN: And then, just number two, what message does this send the world?

KIRBY: Well, it certainly -- it certainly, I think, further convinces the world that the United States cannot be counted on for global leadership around the world, certainly in hot spots. And our national security standing, I think, will be hit heavily on this.

But back to the -- to Gloria's excellent point, we get caught up in numbers. But you have to think about, what are those numbers comprise? Where are those troops? What kind of troops are they? What missions are they performing? And we have no idea about what he's thinking in that regard right now.

So that's a whole other thing that has to be considered here going forward. And I remember, when I was in the Pentagon when the Bush administration transitioned over to the Obama administration, and President Bush very specifically refused to make major troop decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan after the election of president-elect Obama, so that he didn't hamstring--

BALDWIN: There you go.

BORGER: Sure.

KIRBY: -- he didn't make it more difficult for President Obama coming in.

I mean, this is part of the normal, smooth transition you want to see.

BALDWIN: So, then, Gloria, back to your point, how does this complicate things?

BORGER: In every way. I think it complicates it in every way.

First of all, let's just say that intelligence is not being shared at this point the way it should--

BALDWIN: Correct.

BORGER: -- so that the incoming Biden administration, under normal circumstances, A, would have been given a heads-up, or, B, this wouldn't have been done, as General Kirby says. this wouldn't have been done -- Admiral Kirby says. Sorry. This wouldn't have been done.

So, just it complicates things in every which way. And if you're the incoming president, you just have to shake your head and say, OK, this is what we're dealing with now. And we're going to have to take a look at it once we have all of the intelligence information, which they don't have.

BALDWIN: Right. Right. They don't have, and we don't know yet whether or not this was, to Kaitlan's point a second ago, about the secretary of defense being fired. Was he pushed?

BORGER: Right.

BALDWIN: Did he know this was coming?

Because, Admiral Kirby, this -- doing this, this goes against the recommendation of military commanders, who have argued that any additional withdrawals should be conditions-based.

We heard from the chairman of Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, who said that--

KIRBY: Right.

BALDWIN: -- and that this situation does not currently merit any additional drawdowns.

KIRBY: Right.

BALDWIN: Is the president taking the best advice from his top military brass, the commanders, or is this just merely politics?

KIRBY: Well, as commander in chief, it's his -- it's certainly his right and responsibility to give these kinds of orders.

And if that was his strategy going in, well, we're just going to end the war, we're going to pull out, that's fine. But, Brooke, the problem is, his national security strategy, which his White House wrote, and the national defense strategy all talks about continuing to build enduring coalitions in Afghanistan, so that Afghanistan can't become a safe haven again.

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Now, if that's the mission that the military has been assigned--

BALDWIN: Then this goes against that.

KIRBY: -- and it is the mission they believe, then this goes against that, and it makes it that much more hard.

BALDWIN: All right.

Admiral Kirby, thank you. Gloria Borger, thank you both.

Coming up next, the potential game-changer in the fight against the coronavirus, drugmaker Moderna reporting its vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective.

Plus, the great news here is, it's much easier to distribute than other -- the other promising vaccines. We have new details on that ahead today.

And more than one million kids in the United States have now contracted COVID, and many others are suffering mental health problems, as the pandemic rages. We will talk to a doctor.

And, again, live pictures, Wilmington, Delaware. We are watching and waiting for the president-elect.

So, stay tuned. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: Good afternoon.

President-elect Biden and I just met with some of our nation's business and union leaders. Together, they represent millions of workers across our country and some of America's leading technology, auto and retail companies.

We had an important conversation about the impact that this pandemic has had on workers, especially essential workers, front-line workers, who have risked their own health and the health of their families, and many whom have given their own lives to keep us safe and keep our economy running.

And we all know that this pandemic and this recession have hit communities of color particularly hard. Black Americans and Latinos are three times as likely to contract COVID as others and more likely to die. Native Americans are more than four times as likely to be hospitalized as others. And last month, the unemployment rate for black Americans was almost twice the rate of others.

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And we have also had a conversation about the impact this pandemic has had on our economy as a whole, from the Fortune 500 to the small businesses that so many communities rely on.

Over the past few months, on the campaign trail, the president-elect and I saw that impact firsthand. In state after state, we met with workers who shared their struggles and told us about their pain, essential workers who have had to stay on the job, even as they worry about their families' well-being and their own, small business owners who are dipping into their own savings to make payroll and keep their doors open, and many others who have had to close their doors and fear never reopening at all.

Their stories have stayed with us. And the president-elect and I are focused on building our country back better for them and all Americans. And, as I said the night we won this election, now is when the real work begins, the necessary work, the good work of getting this virus under control, saving lives, and beating this pandemic, and opening our economy responsibly, while rebuilding it, so that it works for working people.

And we will do it by protecting the health and safety of our workers and creating millions of good-paying union jobs, from auto and construction jobs, to domestic workers and caregiving jobs, to service and hospitality jobs.

The road ahead, it will not be easy. But the president-elect and I are hitting the ground running, because we all know the challenges facing America today are great. The American people deserve no less. And we don't have a moment to waste.

And now it is my incredible and great honor to introduce our president-elect, Joe Biden.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

Vice President Harris, she indicated, just met with a group of America's top business leaders and labor leaders. And I must tell you, it reinforced what I thought from the beginning. We're ready to come together.

The unity was astounding. I want to go back and talk about the people who actually participated in that. I'm going to list all the people who -- just so you know who we spoke with.

Number one, there was Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, Mr. Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Rory Gamble, president of the UAW, Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU, Marc Perrone, President of UFCW, Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, and Sonia Syngal, president of Gap, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO.

It was really encouraging, quite frankly, to get people, business and labor, together agreeing on the way forward, which I'm convinced the American people will rally to do when they hear what we have in mind.

And I'm very pleased that they all came together around the same table to advance areas of common ground, and we agreed we're going to continue these conversations. They represent very different perspectives, but I'm convinced that we can all come together around the same table to advance areas of common ground, which are really -- I wish you could have all heard the conversation. It was really encouraging.

And that's what we were ready to discuss today. We all agreed that we want to get the economy back on track. We need our workers to be back on the job by getting the virus under control. We're going into a very dark winter. Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier. And that requires sparing no effort to fight COVID, so that we can

open our businesses safely, resume our lives and put this pandemic behind us. It's going to be difficult, but it can be done.

And they all agreed that means rallying the country behind a national strategy with robust public health measures, like mandatory masking, widely available testing with rapid results, scaled-up production of lifesaving treatments and therapeutics, and safe, equitable, and free distribution of the vaccine.

It's great news that Moderna and Pfizer have each come up with vaccines that are in excess of 90 percent effectiveness. And getting a vaccine and a vaccination, though, are two different things.

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Everyone on our call today, in our Zoom today, agreed that the sooner we have access to the administration's distribution plan, the sooner this transition would be smoothly moved forward.

And you know, as we battle COVID, we also have to make sure that business and workers have the tools, the resources, the national guidance and health and safety standards to operate safely.

And we can do that. We can bring Democrats and Republicans together, work with business and labor to deliver those necessary resources. And for millions of Americans who have lost hours and wages or have lost their jobs, we all agreed on our call that we can deliver immediate relief, and it need be done quickly.

Affordable health care for millions of people who have lost it or are in danger of losing it. Child care, sick leave, family leave, so workers don't have to choose between work and family. Corporate America agreed on this today, with folks on the call.

We need support of small -- to support small businesses and entrepreneurs that are the backbone of our communities, but are teetering on the edge. And we all agreed on the urgent need for funding for states and localities to keep front-line workers and essential workers on the job, vital public services running law enforcement offices, educators, first responders, like we did in the Recovery Act of 2009, saving literally millions of jobs.

There's a reason why the federal government is able to run a deficit, because the states must, must balance their budgets. And they're in real trouble. You're going to see hundreds of thousands of police officers, firefighters, first responders, mental health clinics, you're going to see them going out of business.

Right now, Congress should come together and pass a COVID relief package like the HEROES Act that the House passed six months ago. Once we shut down the virus and deliver economic relief to workers and businesses, then we can start to build back better than before.

We talked about how we have an opportunity to come out of this stronger, more resilient than we were when we went in. And I wish you could have heard corporate leaders and the major labor leaders singing from the same hymnal here.

Throughout the campaign, I laid out my Build Back Better plan. We laid out our plan that an independent analysis put out by Moody's, a well- respected law -- Wall Street firm, projected would create 18.6 million jobs.

We can also -- we talked about the need to own the electric vehicle market. We talked about climate a lot, building 550,000 charging stations, creating over a million good-paying union jobs here at home, the need for the federal government to invest more in clean energy research.

You know, it's based on a simple premise. It's time to reward work, not just wealth, in America. We're going to have a fair tax structure that makes sure the wealthiest among us and corporations pay their fair share. Our plan would create millions of good-paying union jobs in manufacturing, building the vehicles, products, technologies that are going to -- we're going to need for the future to compete with the rest of the world.

From autos to our stockpiles, we're going to buy American. No government contract will be given to companies that don't make their products here in America. To secure our position as a global leader in research and development, we're going to invest $300 billion in the most critical competitive new industries in technologies, creating three million good-paying jobs.

And the corporate America technology firms like Microsoft on the call, they all agreed. We can make sure our future is made here in America. And that's good for business, and it's good for American workers.

We can also modernize infrastructure, roads, bridges, ports, 1.5 million new affordable housing units. High-speed broadband, we talked about, for every American household, which is more important than ever for remote learning, remote working, telemedicine in the 21st century, building a digital infrastructure to help businesses, health care workers, first responders and students, $100 billion to rebuild our crumbling schools.

They talked about the need -- the business community talked about the need to invest in HBCUs and community colleges, retrofitting four million new buildings, our old buildings, retrofitting them, making them new, weatherizing two million homes, building more climate- resilient cities and towns.

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These investments will specifically target communities of color, so we can break the cycle where, in good times, they lag, and, in bad times, they get hit first and the hardest, and, in recovery, it's the toughest to bounce back.

These are the kinds of investments that are going to strengthen our economy and our competitiveness, create millions of jobs, union jobs, and, in doing so, I will respect the dignity of work and empower the voice of workers. You have heard me say it before. My dad, when he lost his job in

Scranton, eventually moved to Wilmington and got a good job. He would say, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity, respect, your place in the community. It's about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, honey, everything is going to be OK.

When we build back better, we will do so with higher wages, including a $15 minimum wage nationwide, better benefits, stronger collective bargaining rights that you can raise a family on.

That's how we build back the middle class better than ever. That's how we make sure workers are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

I can go on. And you can tell, I was very encouraged by our conversation. But the point is this. There's so much we can do. The only way we do any of this is if we work together. I know we can do this.

For example, on the call, I made it clear to the corporate leaders, I said, I want you to know I'm a union guy. Unions are going to have increased power. They just nodded. They understand. It's not anti- business. It's about economic growth, creating good-paying jobs.

Eleven years ago, when Barack and I took office during the Great Recession and implemented the Recovery Act that saved us from another Great Depression, we didn't see a map in red and blue states. It was the United States of America. We didn't care whether the city had voted for us or against us. The state voted for us or against us.

We worked with everyone. And we recovered and rebuilt together as one nation. We can do this again. The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control. It's a conscious decision. It's a choice that we make.

If we can decide not to cooperate, then we can decide to cooperate. I believe this is in part the mandate from the American people, part of the mandate they gave us. They want us to cooperate. They want us to deliver results.

And the choice that Kamala and I will make is that we're going to do that. That's why I'm so pleased today we were able to bring together business and labor leaders to make the choice jointly with us. We're all Americans. Now, let's get to work.

As I have said many times, thank you. May God bless you, and may God protect our troops.

I understand now I'm going to take questions.

Megan (ph), fire away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (OFF-MIKE)

QUESTION: Thank you, president-elect Biden, vice president-elect Biden.

BIDEN: Looking the wrong direction. Sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Good to see you.

I want to start with a question about your pandemic planning and then a question about your economic plan.

You spoke about the need to access the outgoing administration's COVID vaccine distribution plans. What do you see as the biggest threat to your transition right now, given President Trump's unprecedented attempt to obstruct and delay a smooth transfer of power?

BIDEN: More people may die if we don't coordinate.

Look, as my chief of staff, Ron Klain, would say, who handled Ebola, a vaccine is important. It's of little use until you're vaccinated. So, how do we get the vaccine, how do we get over 300 million Americans vaccinated? What's the game plan?

It's a huge, huge, huge undertaking to get it done, prioritize those greatest in need, and working our way through it, and also cooperate with the World Health Organization and the rest of the world in dealing with this.

And so they say they have this Warp Speed program that not only dealt with getting vaccines, but also how to distribute this. If we have to wait until January 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month-and-a-half.

And so it's important that it be done, that there be coordination now, now, or as rapidly as we can get that done.

QUESTION: On the economy, the vice president-elect talked about having an economy that works for working people.

One thing I didn't hear you talk specifically about is canceling student loan debt. Does student loan forgiveness figure in your plan? Would you take executive action to achieve it?

BIDEN: It does figure in my plan.