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Pharmaceutical Company Moderna Announces New COVID-19 Vaccine has Over 94 Percent Efficacy; Coronavirus Cases Continue Rising in States Across U.S.; Trump Administration Still Delaying Transition for Biden Team. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 16, 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]

DR. WANJIKU NJOROGE, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, YOUNG CHILD CLINIC, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Still have your favorite dishes. And maybe, Alisyn, you can make your mom a twist on your stuffing, and if she lives closely, drop it off on her front porch. And that's another way where you can still have some shared meals and some shared traditions, but, again, you're adhering to all of the safety parameters to keep everyone as safe as possible.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: She will really appreciate your words and urging me to be more flexible, and so thank you, Doctor.

NJOROGE: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much. It's really comforting to talk to you. We really appreciate it and we will talk again soon.

NJOROGE: Thanks for having me. Be well.

CAMEROTA: NEW DAY continues right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. And we do have major breaking news. Moments ago the biotech firm Moderna announced the initial results of its vaccine trial, finding its coronavirus vaccine is more than 94 percent effective, 94 percent is very high, and it's a number that gives real hope of beating back the coronavirus pandemic eventually.

CAMEROTA: OK, this is the second vaccine that has shown these initial very positive results. Dr. Anthony Fauci just responded to this breaking news moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The data are striking, Savannah, they're really quite impressive. So now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. So I think this is a really strong step forward to where we want to be about getting control of this outbreak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, joining us now we have CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen with all of our breaking news. What have you learned this morning, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, as you said, these numbers are really stunning, to have two vaccines that appear from early data to be more than 90 percent effective is really very exciting. People were hoping for 60 percent, 70 percent, maybe if we got lucky, 80 percent. So this is really pretty incredible. And the vaccines do not appear to have any serious side effects.

Let's jump right into Moderna's data. What Moderna did was they gave 15,000 study subjects a placebo, and that was just saline that does nothing, and over a period of months 90 of those people became ill. Then they gave 15,000 study participants the actual vaccine, and five of those people became sick with COVID. Notably none of those five became severely ill. Eleven of the folks who got the placebo became severely ill, but none of the people who actually received the vaccine.

Now, this is news to Moderna, actually. They found out about this data just yesterday afternoon from their data and safety monitoring board, that's an independent panel that reviews the data and announces the results to the company. So let's take a listen to what chief medical officer Dr. Tal Zaks at Moderna had to say last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Tell me, how did it feel to hear that number, 94.5 percent?

DR. TAL ZAKS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MODERNA: Elizabeth, it's one of the greatest moments of my life and my career. It is absolutely amazing to me to be able to develop this vaccine and see the ability to prevent symptomatic disease with such high efficacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: I spoke with Dr. Fauci last night, and he said that he thinks Americans could start getting vaccinated in the latter part of December. Alisyn, John?

BERMAN: Elizabeth Cohen, terrific news. Thank you so much for that. I want to bring in Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health, and CNN senior political commentator and host of "The Axe Files" David Axelrod. Dr. Jha, I just want to start with you. Moderna, 94 percent effective it is reporting. I know this is initial results, but very positive. Talk to me about the significance of this, having a second vaccine now north of 95 percent effective rate. What does this mean?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Good morning. Thanks for having me on. Having two vaccines that are above 90 I have to tell you two weeks ago I did not think this was where we were going to be. So this is really good news. Again, with all the caveats, we have got to look at the full set of data. But also I think it's important for people to understand that the process that has led to these two vaccines being developed has been done with a lot of scientific integrity. So obviously lots of challenges ahead, we've got to make the doses, we have got to get it into people's arms. It's going to take a while, but this morning we should all be smiling a little bit and thankful that there is a light at the end of this tunnel, and it got a little bit brighter this morning.

CAMEROTA: Agreed, because it's a lot easier to swallow the bitter pill of not being with your families on Thanksgiving, of having to stay indoors, of shutting down, whatever needs to be shut down, if you think, oh, this is -- but this is right around the corner. We see the finish line. That's just so emotionally important. But, Dr. Jha, in terms of this vaccine from what we know, the breaking news, this will also be a double dose? And does it have the same challenges that the Pfizer one does in terms of having to be stored at that, you know, very, very cold levels?

JHA: So it is going to be two doses just like the Pfizer vaccine, but it does not have the same cold storage requirements, and that's also good news. So it will be a little bit easier to distribute, it will be easier to get into doctor's offices.

[08:05:07]

I think we are going to need both of these vaccines. Again, there are not going to be enough vaccines for most Americans until well into the late winter, early spring. So we need all the vaccines we can get, but this one is going to be a little easier to get out there than the Pfizer vaccine.

BERMAN: And we need to get those vaccines out there, which is where it becomes a little bit of a government and political issue, David. And I want to overlay this news, this wonderful breaking news with where we are in a transition, which is that President-elect Biden is trying to get things in order. He has picked Ron Klain to be his chief of staff. Ron Klain ran the Ebola response in the Obama administration which he worked in. Ron Klain knows what he's doing here. This is what Klain has to say about the challenges of getting a vaccine out to people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON KLAIN, CHIEF OF STAFF TO PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN: Vaccines don't save lives. Vaccinations save lives. And that means you've got to get that vaccine into people's arms all over this country. It's a giant logistical project.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, David, how much does this news mean even more that the Trump administration, the president, needs to get over itself and himself and assist the Biden team with this transition?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's a huge issue, as Ron said. This is an extraordinary logistical challenge, and the faster we can do it and the more efficiently we can do it, the better off we'll be. And there's no doubt that the lack of communication between the coronavirus task force and the key members of the administration on the coronavirus issue, the lack of communication between them and the people who are going to take over this mission on January 20th is going to be -- it's going to slow down the effort.

And there's another element of this, John, and that is the doctor talks about the light at the end of the tunnel. We should be clear, the tunnel is very dark right now, and it's going to be dark for some months. The fact that the president of the United States is completely absent on this issue, is not communicating with the country in what is the darkest hour of this siege, is also damaging. So we're paying a price in two ways for the president's lack of attention.

CAMEROTA: David, one more thing. His main adviser, his main coronavirus adviser, Scott Atlas, is telling people to rise up against any kind of measures that governors such as Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are trying to do to protect them. He tried to walk that back and he said he meant vote. I don't think "rise up" is a synonym for "vote."

AXELROD: No, and we've seen the consequences of this. Governor Whitmer was the subject of a plot to kidnap her and harm her because of the -- because of the decisions she's taken, tough decisions, proper decisions on the coronavirus. And that was prompted in part by the president's incessant attacks on her for the decisions she made -- liberate Michigan. These are dangerous things. I've said this a million times, the words of a president, the words of the people who work for a president, matter. People listen to them, and they are affected by them. And there seems to be no sensitivity to that on the part of the president and the people around him.

BERMAN: So, Dr. Jha, we talked about this light at the end of the tunnel. I think David correctly points out the tunnel is very dark right now. And, yes, I would hope that the vaccine news gives people the strength and the fortitude to get through these difficult months. But, if you will, just reflect, the numbers that we're seeing today are staggering. They are breathtakingly bad. We had the most deaths for a Sunday that we've had since May. We have had 13 straight days of more than 100,000 new cases. We have record hospitalizations in the U.S. and 15 states seeing record hospitalizations, and really, you have a bunch more states that are right at the cusp of that. So just talk to me about how bad things are right now.

JHA: Yes, David is absolutely right. Things are terrible right now. And, again, the hospitalizations we're seeing right now reflect infections that happened a couple of weeks ago. The deaths we're seeing right now reflect infections that happened four to five weeks ago. So the next four to eight weeks are going to be horrible, almost no matter what we do. One of the reasons I'm not seeing my family, my extended family, for Thanksgiving is I want them around in 2021. And what everybody needs to do is hunker down for two months. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but we all want to get there, and we're not going to get there if we don't make substantial changes to our actions. We are in the worst part of the pandemic at this moment.

CAMEROTA: David, as we know, the Trump administration is blocking, as we've been talking about, the Biden administration from trying to now figure out how to distribute and implement the vaccine so that we can have a plan in place for when this actually -- we get the green light, we can just be full speed ahead.

[08:10:00]

Because you've been in the White House, can you -- I know that the Biden folks are trying to do back channeling, and they're trying to make calls to whomever they still know in government, and this is what they're reduced to having to do, since the transition is not happening. Since you've been there, is that going to be possible? Can they back channel their way around all of this?

AXELROD: I think to some degree they can, but it's difficult, and there are going to be some things that just aren't -- connections that aren't made. And I will point out that in the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration, we were completely harmonized, and there were significant -- remember, we were in the middle, or at the beginning of a financial crisis. The auto industry was about to collapse. There was coordination on what to do about that. President Obama asked President Bush to extend some aid to the auto industry so that -- until March so that he could decide how to move forward. The Bush administration did that.

Coordination is really important in the midst of a crisis. You can't -- you can't just enter office in the dark on significant matters. But this is what President Trump is apparently committing the country to moving forward, and it's really horrendous. It's a horrible way to end one's administration.

BERMAN: It will cost lives. It will. It's just a deadly situation that he's putting us in right now. David Axelrod, Dr. Jha, thank you both so much for being with us.

JHA: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Back to our breaking news. Drug maker Moderna reporting more than 94 percent effectiveness with its coronavirus vaccine this morning. So we will talk to the former Health and Human Services secretary for President Obama about what this means next.

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: All right the breaking news, pharmaceutical giant Moderna reports this morning that trials for its coronavirus vaccine have shown it to be more than 94 percent effective.

Joining us the former Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Obama Administration Kathleen Sebelius, she was also the Governor of Kansas. Secretary, thank you so much for being with us. What's it like to wake up to that news, that we have this second vaccine showing more than 94 percent effective rate?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, FORMER SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Well, it's very good news and I think it will give a lift to Americans to know that there are safe and effective vaccines on the way.

There's no question that Operation Warp Speed has been a great success getting to the point in a very rapid period of time of manufacturing a vaccine. And we just hope that the safety results bear out what the early results from Pfizer and now Moderna are.

The terrible news is nothing else has worked at all and the Federal Government has stepped away from every other piece of the puzzle and is now blocking what could be a smooth transition in a very, very dangerous period of time.

BERMAN: I want to focus on both things you just said there. First, you said Operation Warp Speed has been very successful. How much credit do you give to the Trump Administration now for this vaccine development?

SEBELIUS: I give a lot of credit to the Trump Administration for understanding that the muscle of the Federal Government, the financing from the Federal Government, the urgency from the Federal Government makes a huge difference.

I just wish it had been applied from day one across the board, on making protective equipment, on making sure that the healthcare personnel got the help and support that they needed, making sure that we have a uniform set of communication, messages and guidelines across the country for how to shut down, how to open up.

We're still in a place where the Federal Government has literally walked away from every other piece of the puzzle, including leaving governors on their own to try and figure out when this vaccine is available --

BERMAN: Right.

SEBELIUS: -- how to get it to the most vulnerable people in their states.

BERMAN: And now the Administration is not working with the Biden transition team at all. I mean at all. You would think that the vaccine news would be all the more reason to work with the incoming administration to figure out a way and to put together a plan to distribute the vaccine. So, how much will this hold back the Biden -- the incoming Biden White House?

SEBELIUS: Well, you heard David Axelrod talk about how important it is to have a smooth transition, how the Obama team was really benefited by the gracious and openness and really collaboration from the Bush Administration. That's how things should work, it's how things have worked always in the past.

I have to tell you thought, beyond the unbelievably dangerous position taken by the Biden team, denying election results, refusing to let the Coronavirus Task Force folks talk to experts. Refusing to let people into the agencies, not sharing any logistics planning, I think we also need to talk about the United States Senate.

They're coming back this week, I guess to have their own elections for leadership. The Senate has the keys to the castle right now. The Senate could actually pass a bill that gives Americans some confidence that they would have economic support, get the extra $600 in unemployment benefits running again.

Make sure that people understand that they could feed their kids and pay their rent if we have, in some areas of the country, to restrict activities and they have the ability to step up to their president and say, you need to act differently. You must acknowledge the election and conduct a smooth transition.

So, I really don't want to let Mitch McConnell off the hook. He's, right now, sitting in a pivotal point, giving Americans economic hope and could bring this to a more rapid conclusion, insisting that the GSA certify this election and let the process move on.

BERMAN: Right. They -- they have a voice and they have votes. They could use either of them --

SEBELIUS: They do. They do.

BERMAN: -- and if they chose to -- and they are choosing not to. Secretary, you were Governor of Kansas. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, the state of Michigan has put together a new plan to deal with the next three weeks in this pandemic, putting some new restrictions in place.

Dr. Scott Atlas, who is the president's Chief Coronvirus Advisor, is COVID Rasputin if you will, overnight put out statement where he commented on Governor Whitmer's effort, saying, quote, the only way this stops is if people rise up.

[08:20:00]

So, Dr. Atlas is calling people -- on people to rise up in Michigan. You, as a governor, if you were Governor of Kansas right now and someone said to the people in Kansas, rise up. How would you take that? What message does that send?

SEBELIUS: Well I don't think there's any question that you have to take it as a threat. You've already had armed citizens showing up outside of Governor Whitmer's office. You know that there was a plot to kidnap and potentially kill the governor.

The notion that any human being, particularly someone who is got a bully pulpit throughout the country would use language like this against a sitting governor is shocking and totally irresponsible and dangerous.

I know that our governor now has additional security, all governors around the country because of the activities of the Trump Administration insisting that governors are really the problem. First they shirk their responsibilities all together saying the

Federal Government is not going to play a roll and then they begin to criticize governors, like Governor Whitmer and others, always Democratic governors I would remind you, but criticize people who are trying their best to keep their citizens safe and secure.

Mr. President, stand up and do your job. Keeping the American public safe and secure is your number one responsibility. Deaths have increased 38 percent in the last two weeks, infection rates have increased 80 percent in the last two weeks. We are going to see devastation across this country where people are hospitalized and die.

And, you're right, I'm in the Midwest, I'm in Kansas, our hospitals are overflowing. Our healthcare personnel can't keep up. We don't have the ICU beds, we don't have the units to take care of these very ill patients and this is a really terrifying position.

BERMAN: It's happening, there's no more time to wait at this point. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, thanks so much for being with us.

SEBELIUS: You bet.

BERMAN: Appreciate it.

SEBELIUS: Nice to see you.

BERMAN: On January 20th, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, but now this guy right here is involved in some kind of quasi legal something on behalf of the president, some mystery, magical mystery tour. CNN investigates what Rudy Giuliani is doing now, next.

[08:22:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:30]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: President Trump's legal challenges to his election loss are not going well. The president wants to launch more lawsuits and for that he has put his Chief Conspiracy Theorist in charge.

CNN's Drew Griffin joins us now with more. How's this going to work?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, many see that chief conspiracist ruining his own reputation, but what Giuliani and his client Donald Trump are doing beyond reputation ruining, Alisyn, has the potential for long-lasting damage to the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: It would be laughable if this wasn't so dangerous.

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: -- are doing ballots like this, duh, duh, duh. GRIFFIN: Rudy Giuliani on Fox Sunday spinning his latest false

conspiracy theory about an American voting machine company, a bizarre take involving George Soros, votes being counted in Spain and dead strongman Hugo Chavez.

GIULIANI: A company that has close, close ties with Venezuela and therefore China.

GRIFFIN: False. Truth, facts, they don't seem to matter to Giuliani, who's tweeting, posting on Youtube, showing up on far right wing shows spouting wildly false allegations, even from the parking lot of a landscaping company next to an adult book store.

GIULIANI: Wow, what a beautiful day.

GRIFFIN: His argument in Philadelphia, that vote counters were purposely hiding ballots from Trump poll watchers.

GIULIANI: Because many, many of them were fraudulent.

GRIFFIN: Not true. This is the man President Trump has just put in charge of his legal challenges to Joe Biden's presidential win. A stack of lawsuits has already been thrown out or dropped, including nine in one day.

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: All of the cases, all of the cases are falling apart. The way he's going about continuing to file cases with no basis in court just makes Donald Trump a looser more times.

GRIFFIN: In a Pennsylvania lawsuit a judge asked Trump's attorney, are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these disputed ballots? The Trump attorney admitted, no. And along with other Trump cronies, Giuliani keeps feeding the world his debunked conspiracy theories.

GIULIANI: In each -- each state there were ineligible ballots that overwhelmed the margin of victory.

GRIFFIN: No, Mr. Giuliani, there weren't. The United States Department of Homeland Security issued this joint statement from its Elections Infrastructure Committee stating, there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in way compromised.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Rudy Giuliani is undermining confidence in the American election system and therefore undermining our national security.

GRIFFIN: It's a far cry from the man who was dubbed Mayor of the World in the wake of 9/11.

Every since Giuliani became a vocal supporter of the president's 2016 presidential bid he's been Trump's chief conspiracist, even traveling to Ukraine to try to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden. Intelligence officials told the White House, Giuliani was the target of a Russian influence operation in 2019 according to the "Washington Post."

KEN MCCALLION, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It is very dangerous and it's extremely alarming.

GRIFFIN: Former Federal Prosecutor Ken McCallion who specializes in Russian organized crime and once worked with Giuliani believes Giuliani may unwittingly doing the Russian's business in this election.

MCCALLION: What they're doing is -- is completely 100 percent in the interest of Russia.

[08:30:00]