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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Coronavirus Restrictions Reimposed Across U.S. As Trump Hampers Biden Effort; Biden And Harris To Speak Out On Troubled Trump Economy; SpaceX Launches First Fully Operational Crewed Mission For NASA. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired November 16, 2020 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Macron meets with Pompeo today, Christine. There's very little the two men agree on when it comes to global affairs. So their disagreements, not least on the functioning of American democracy, go much further than that.

And already, what we're learning is that where these types of meetings tend to deal with what two countries can do together, this one is likely to focus much more on what the French do not want the outgoing American administration to do. And namely, that is withdrawing unilaterally in a rushed manner from either Afghanistan or Iraq. French officials have made clear that will be on the table today when Pompeo meets with Macron, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Melissa Bell for us in Paris this morning. Thank you so much.

EARLY START continues right now. Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Jarrett, about 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.

No matter where you live right now in the United States, coronavirus is closing in. The U.S. has seen more than 100,000 new cases for 13 straight days. The first million cases in the U.S. took three months; the last million, six days.

The positive test rate is soaring across this country. In South Dakota, Kansas, and Iowa, more than half of the tests are coming back positive.

Now, states are being forced to reimpose restrictions that we haven't seen enforced since the pandemic crushed the country back in the spring. Among them, North Dakota, Ohio, New Mexico, Washington, Illinois, Utah, Oregon. And the latest, Michigan, with high schools and colleges going back to remote learning and indoor dining being suspended.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), MICHIGAN: As the weather gets colder and people spend more time indoors, this virus will spread. This is the worst public health emergency our nation has faced in over a century and our response has got to reflect the same level of urgency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So that's the governor of Michigan making what should be a non-controversial statement. And yet, the White House disagrees -- more specifically, Dr. Scott Atlas, the radiologist the president looks on for advice on infectious disease. He is urging people to quote "rise up" against the new public health measures. Rise up -- those are his words.

You'll recall that after the president railed against Michigan's pandemic restrictions, the Feds broke up what they say was a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.

The chief of the American Medical Association is fed up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SUSAN BAILEY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: This year also has revealed how politics can be corrosive. How misinformation and anti-science rhetoric can impede our ability to respond in a health emergency.

Never again should physicians have to fight a war on two fronts -- caring for severely ill patients in a raging pandemic while at the same time, battling a public relations war that questions the legitimacy of our work and our motives. This is unacceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: On Friday, about two cases were reported every second in the U.S. for a total of almost 180,000. That number -- well, it's almost double what any other country has reported in a single day. Of course, other countries have seen spikes but the U.S. is still far above their worst day.

Yesterday saw the most deaths of any Sunday since May. The U.S. death rate is now consistently over 1,000 per day for the first time since August. And the number of Americans hospitalized, the leading indicator for deaths, has climbed to its highest point of the entire pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JAMES PHILLIPS, CHIEF OF DISASTER MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: I'm just terrified about what's going to happen with Thanksgiving and the holidays, like Christmas and Hanukah. People are going to travel -- people that would normally travel because they don't believe in the science, and then those that are just fatigued who are willing to make some changes.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We'll see hospital ICUs filled. Now, you can make more ICU beds, but what you can't make are more ICU nurses, and we will run out of the capacity in many of these hospitals to care for the critically ill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And caring for the critically ill -- in some cases, these people don't even believe -- they don't even believe they have COVID or there should be masks. As these hospitals fill, some have already warned they may have to start deciding which patients get care and which do not.

And resources are thin. Two former FDA chiefs write in "The Wall Street Journal", "In previous waves, health care workers from less- affected areas were deployed to New York and the south. It isn't possible to send an army of health care personnel into hot zones when the entire country is a hot zone."

JARRETT: Well put.

Today, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will speak about the economy. A recovery, of course, directly linked to containing the virus.

Millions of Americans are suffering right now. Tens of thousands of people lining up for food this weekend in Texas. More than 600,000 pounds of food was given away there, including turkeys for Thanksgiving.

ROMANS: So that's what it looks like on Main Street, folks. But on Wall Street, the healthy stock market means congressional Republicans aren't feeling the pressure to get more stimulus done. And for the Biden team, an uncooperative White House could make matters worse.

[05:35:09]

Now, remember, when Barack Obama won back in 2008 and Wall Street was tanking, Obama asked President Bush to help the auto industry -- to save the auto industry -- and Bush obliged. Don't expect the same consideration this time.

CNN's Jessica Dean is with the Biden team in Wilmington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Laura.

With a new week on the horizon for the Biden transition team, they are zeroing in their focus both on the coronavirus pandemic and also the economy later today.

First up with the coronavirus, we heard from newly-named chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday that they will begin meeting with drug companies like Pfizer to talk about the vaccine and its distribution. Take a listen.

RON KLAIN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF, PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN: We're going to have meetings between our top scientific advisers and the officials of these drugs companies -- not just Pfizer, but there are other promising vaccines as well -- and we're going to start those consultations this week.

You know, it's great to have a vaccine but vaccines don't save lives; vaccinations save lives and that means you've got to get that vaccine --

CHUCK TODD, NBC MODERATOR, MEET THE PRESS: Yes.

KLAIN: -- into people's arms all over this country. It's a giant logistical project.

DEAN: Now again, because the General Services Administration has not ascertained or signed off on the transition process on Joe Biden being the president-elect, that means that the transition team still cannot speak with, formally, any federal agencies or anyone on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, for example.

So again, they're having to go about this in several different ways. We know they've been backchanneling also with local government officials and also with people in the medical community. And then, of course, the meetings they're going to have later this week, as Klain said, with those drug manufacturers.

Now, later today, we are expecting to see the president-elect and the vice president-elect coming together to talk about the economy. We're told that they're going to give remarks later this afternoon on the economy and how to build back better. That was always Joe Biden's plan on the campaign trail and now they'll be telling us how they want to put it into action now that we know he's headed to the White House on January 20th -- Laura and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Jessica. Thank you so much for that.

Former President Barack Obama says a crisis of truth engulfs American politics and it's been fueled by the rhetoric of President Trump. Obama tells "The Atlantic" not having a commonly accepted baseline of facts is the biggest threat to our democracy. He expanded on that to "60 MINUTES."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And maybe most importantly and most disconcertingly, what we've seen is what some people call truth decay -- something that's been accelerated by outgoing President Trump. The sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth but the truth doesn't even matter.

I don't see him as the cause for our divisions and the problems with our government. I think he's an accelerant, but they preceded him and sadly, are going to likely outlast him.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JARRETT: Obama tells "The Atlantic" you can't put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to how people get their information. He says, quote, "I was talking to a volunteer who was going door-to-door in Philadelphia in low-income African American communities and was getting questions about QAnon conspiracy theories. The fact is that there is still a large portion of the country that was taken in by a carnival barker.

You're not going to eliminate the Internet, you're not going to eliminate the thousand stations on the air with niche viewerships designed for every political preference. Without this" -- a common narrative, he means -- "it becomes very difficult for us to tackle big things."

ROMANS: Let's tackle three questions in three minutes and bring in CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon.

Good morning -- Monday morning, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, guys.

ROMANS: OK, so Joe Biden's team is going to meet with drug makers this week about manufacturing and distributing a vaccine. The White House still stonewalling the transition team. Everyone across the country anxious to get a vaccine on the market.

What can the incoming administration do to make sure they can hit the ground running?

AVLON: Well, the Biden administration can work with the pharmaceutical companies. They're going to be meeting with them later this week. They can work with the governors who are desperately in need of help.

But it is such a dereliction of duty for the current administration to stonewall the incoming against the backdrop of a pandemic that is raging on their watch at unprecedented levels. People are dying, people are suffering. And to play petty politics with this is just going to be a sin in the eyes of history.

JARRETT: John, governors, right now, are the ones that are trying to manage this pandemic -- the one that the president has clearly left behind. Millions of people are running out of options. You see these long food lines, there's no stimulus in sight.

For people at home staring down a long winter ahead, what's it going to take for Washington to actually get the help to people that need it during the lame duck? There all of this, obviously back-and-forth between Pelosi --

[05:40:00]

AVLON: Yes.

JARRETT: -- and Mnuchin, but what's it going to actually take to get people help? AVLON: What it always takes, which is constituents calling their representatives and demanding they do something.

You know, this is not going to happen on its own. Right now, basically, you see Democrats asking for $2 trillion. Republicans in the Senate saying how about $500 billion. And there's a big gap in terms of how much money that is but how it will meet people where they are -- where the needs are.

You know, the first round really did help people. It's one of the reasons why our economy did not go off a cliff.

But this is a dark winter. Winter is coming. Winter is basically here. And constituents need to pressure their congresspeople and say now -- do it now because this is where the need is greatest -- now.

ROMANS: You know, John, we just played Barack Obama's comments. He says the single biggest threat to our democracy is not having this baseline of facts anymore -- the lack of an accepted narrative.

Clearly, everyone has retreated to their corners here. Fox is even facing renewing competition from conservative outlets, right?

AVLON: Right.

ROMANS: What would it take for a baseline of fact to be the norm once again?

AVLON: Well, I think that's what we work on every day, honestly. I know that's what I try to do with "Reality Check" --

ROMANS: Right.

AVLON: -- every day on "NEW DAY."

We need to be unafraid about asserting that central idea. Facts exist, facts matter. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. We need to recognize the headwinds.

And frankly, we also need to start reining in some of the forces that allow disinformation to proliferate as it has. Some of that may be legislation, some of that may be self-policing. There's a lot of prescriptions I could get into, one of which is, buy the way, attention metrics is supposed to quit monetizing clickbait.

But this is a critical issue. As President Obama said, this goes to the heart of our ability to reason together as a democracy. We cannot just enjoy the bread and circuses while our country burns.

JARRETT: Yes. I think the question is just how do you put the genie back in that bottle, as he said. This is where we are now. Everyone is so ingrained in their positions. And the Internet is going away, obviously.

AVLON: No.

JARRETT: Social media is not going away, as much as Christine Romans might wish that it did.

ROMANS: I always say social media broke America. I hate it.

AVLON: They said the same thing about the printing press.

ROMANS: OK, thanks, thanks, thanks.

JARRETT: All right, John, thank you so much.

AVLON: Take care, guys.

ROMANS: All right.

A split recovery. Asia's economy is bouncing back, the West heading in the other direction. Earlier today, Japan reported its economy grew five percent in the third quarter. That allows it to emerge from recession.

And then, this. Data from China shows its factory production rose nearly seven percent last month. Factories are churning out goods. Retail sales climbed a little over four percent, the fastest pace this year.

And that's why you've got Asian shares higher on that positive news, a sharp contrast to the West where coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are rising and some states are starting to reimpose restrictions in hopes of bringing this virus under control.

Last week, the Federal Reserve chairman, Jay Powell, reiterated the resurgence was a key risk to the economic recovery here. The economy will need more stimulus, he said, from the government and the central bank will need to do more to get through this crisis.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:47:01]

ROMANS: All right, welcome back.

Coronavirus cases are spiking across Europe with restrictions added and expanded in Greece and Austria, Poland, and Italy. In Italy, they just recorded the highest number of new cases in a single day on Friday.

Today, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, expected to impose four to five months of significant limitations.

Let's go live to Berlin and bring in CNN's Frederik Pleitgen. Fred, what do we know about Merkel's plans and what will life look like for the next four or five months in Germany?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, it certainly looks as though there's going to be stronger restrictions here in Germany. And what the German government has been saying is they say look, right now, it looks as though the curve here in Germany might be flattening a little bit, but their problem is that the numbers aren't going down.

Now, initially, they had said that these stronger lockdown measures that have already been put in place with restrictions on the amount of people who are allowed to meet each other in public spaces and also, things like cafes and restaurants already being closed, they say that's doing a little bit but it doesn't appear to be doing enough.

So, some of the stronger lockdown measures that are set to happen are, for instance, going to be in schools where children are not going to only have to wear masks when they're on the school property, but also in classes, even when they're sitting at their desks. So far, that has not been the case.

Also, restricting the movement of people and letting them meet even fewer people outside of their household is also something that many people think here is going to be put into place.

The interesting thing, by the way, about the way things work here in Germany is that the states here in Germany have almost as many rights as they do in the United States. But, Angela Merkel is very deliberative and tries to find a common way to move forward to make sure that more people are actually in favor of these measures. And right now, the popularity of the measures are more than 70 percent. A lot of Germans wanting even stronger measures as Germany is trying to get out of it.

Also, by the way, a tough new lockdown going in place in Austria as well, with major restrictions going into place as we speak right now, guys.

ROMANS: All right, keep us posted. Thanks, Fred Pleitgen, in Berlin.

JARRETT: All right.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who already battled coronavirus once, now quarantining after being exposed to the virus yet again.

CNN's Max Foster live at 10 Downing Street in London for us. Max, Johnson is out at a pretty critical time for the U.K. government. What will this mean?

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. It was back on Thursday that Boris Johnson a fellow M.P., Lee Anderson. They were social distancing but they weren't wearing masks. Anderson later tested positive for coronavirus. And, Boris Johnson was actually contacted through the contact tracing scheme here in the U.K. and told to isolate despite having coronavirus previously.

But he's in high spirits, as you can see from this video he published this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: It doesn't matter that I'm fit as a butcher's dog and feel great, as some people do in my circumstances. It actually doesn't matter that I had the disease and I'm bursting with antibodies.

We've got to interrupt the spread of the disease and one of the ways we can do that now is by self-isolating for 14 days when you get contacted by NHS test and trace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:50:06]

FOSTER: So he's stuck on his own. He's having to do all of his meetings virtually by computer. He's operating it himself, we understand.

And as you say, it is at a critical time. Just last week, his two top advisers, really, walked out as an internal war on Downing Street really broke out in public. And he was meant to be resetting this week and come out with a whole new set of policy plans for the coming weeks. And it's going to be a bit more difficult but he says he's carrying on. He's going to do everything virtually on Zoom, he tells us.

JARRETT: Well, good to see him doing the right thing -- setting an example and quarantining even though he already had the virus, of course, once before.

All right, Max. Thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right, let's stay global here and look at markets around the world to start the week. Big gains in Asian shares as Japan emerges from recession and China posts really strong factory numbers. European shares have opened higher as well.

And in the U.S., also gains here. Look, on Wall Street, coronavirus is driving the action. Vaccine optimism sparked an early rally last week, then reality set in with surging cases and hospitalizations renewing lockdown fears. But then, investors shook off those concerns by the end of the week.

And look, it ended up being a really good week. The S&P hit a record high Friday.

And let me show you how markets are this year. The Dow is up three percent, the S&P 500 up nearly 11 percent, the Nasdaq up 31 percent. Again, these strong market gains really take some of the pressure off of Republicans, specifically in the Senate, to pass more stimulus here in the near-term when clearly, Main Street needs it.

Walmart has started counting the number of customers in its store again as coronavirus cases reach record levels. Back in April, Walmart restricted the number of people to 20 percent capacity but for a brief time there it stopped counting. A spokesperson said the data showed that a majority of the time its stores were not even reaching that 20 percent capacity and it resumed counting out of an abundance of caution. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NASA EMPLOYEE: Five, four, three, two, one, zero -- ignition, liftoff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: A historic launch for SpaceX there. NASA hoping it's the start of a new era for getting Americans to space after a decade on the ground.

CNN's Rachel Crane was at the launch in Cape Canaveral.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION AND SPACE REPORTER: Christine and Laura, history was made here at the Kennedy Space Center when NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, from Japan's space agency, after a successful launch from launch pad 39A which is, of course, where Apollo 11 astronauts blasted off to the moon back in 1969.

The mission was pegged Crew-1 and it is the first operational mission for SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which the astronauts named Resilience in honor of the hardships of 2020.

They are currently making their way through space on a 27-hour journey before they rendezvous with the International Space Station where they will live and work for the next six months. And they will be joining three ISS crew members onboard the floating laboratory, bringing the total number of crew members to seven, which will dramatically increase the amount of science and research they are able to perform.

Now, since the retirement of the Shuttle back in 2011, NASA has not had a homegrown way of getting to the ISS. And over the years, NASA has paid Russia over $4 billion to fly in their Soyuz spacecraft to get there.

Sunday's launch is so significant because it marks the true beginning of commercial flights to the International Space Station and allow NASA to focus on deeper space missions like returning to the moon and one day, putting boots on Mars -- Christine, Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Rachel Crane. I know she loves covering these stories --

JARRETT: You can tell.

ROMANS: -- and it's such a great story to cover.

All right, thanks for joining us this Monday morning. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NASA EMPLOYEE: Four, three, two, one, zero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:58:29]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The U.S. just surpassed 11 million coronavirus cases. The nation's health care system is overrun.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: The last time the president was physically at a task force meeting was several months ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Imagine if we are at war with a foreign adversary and the president has not met with his generals for five months. That's just unimaginable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump is still refusing to concede, blocking President-elect Joe Biden from receiving critical COVID-19 data.

KLAIN: Joe Biden is going to become President of the United States in the midst of an ongoing crisis. That has to be a seamless transition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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's Monday, November 16th. It's 6:00 here in New York.

And I want you to stop what you're doing and listen to this. Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia, Wyoming -- each of these states with a record number of hospitalizations for coronavirus. People so sick with COVID that they need to be admitted to the hospital. I wanted to read them one-by-one so maybe it won't just seem like another number.

Don't get me wrong, the numbers are horrible this morning. The highest number of coronavirus cases reported on a Sunday ever. Thirteen straight days with more than 100,000 cases. The most deaths on a Sunday since May.

And with 66 days left in office, the defeated president has moved to a new phase here no longer.