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Health Care Officials Around the Country Short on Resources; Live Coverage of Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller Press Conference; Georgia on Track to Certify Election Results Before Deadline. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Current mitigation efforts are inadequate and must be increased to flatten the curve to sustain the health system for both COVID and non-COVID emergencies.

Many health systems are on the brink, 73,000 Americans hospitalized with COVID right now, that is the highest number ever. And those on the front lines are exhausted, they're warning they're maxed out. They're watching their own colleagues being admitted to the ICU, they're treating them, knowing that person has seen patients die alone from COVID and is now at risk of the same type of final isolation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWANNA RIVERS, REGISTERED NURSE, EL PASO, TEXAS: Those patients were so sick, it was nothing we could do for them.

LORI LUEGER, NURSE PRACTITIONER, SENECA, KANSAS: We flat-out don't have the resources, we just don't.

DAVID CHANSOLME, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, INFECTION PREVENTION, OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: It is awful, awful, awful watching people die alone.

JUAN ANCHONDO, REGISTERED NURSE, EL PASO, TEXAS: This situation is unsustainable, and it's going to get worse if we continue to set new records every day in infections.

NICK ROSE, REGISTERED NURSE, EL PASO, TEXAS: You walk into these COVID units, you hear the sounds of the monitors beeping if something's up -- the heart rate, the respirations -- you hear ventilators going all around the unit because most of these people are on ventilators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look how many pumps. This is one patient.

ROSE (voice-over): You hear bells ring whenever things go wrong, call it a code blue whenever there's a cardiac arrest.

RIVERS: I got so tired of hearing code blue, code blue. The code blue, blue lights flashing. You all, the morgue was so full of bodies that they ran out of room. They've had to bring in freezer trucks because there's so many bodies. CHANSOLME (voice-over): This is Charles Maines, one of our ICU nurses

who was a patient about three months ago.

Taking care of Charles was kind of scary. He was -- he's the sickest employee that I've taken care of.

LUEGER: Our cases started to rise, we had a couple of coworkers that got critically ill, critically ill. And they're crying to you because they're so scared and they're alone. And it was really scary. We were truly worried that they might not make it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When things are dragging out for a year, a year and a half, two years, then we don't feel like heroes any more. We feel like we're sacrificial lambs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: I do want to head now to the Pentagon, where the acting defense secretary is talking. Let's listen in.

[14:02:37]

CHRISTOPHER MILLER, ACTING DEFENSE SECRETARY: -- future acts of terrorism against our nation. We owe this moment to the many patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice, and their comrades who carry forward their legacy. Together, we have mourned the loss of more than 6,900 American troops who gave their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq--

-- God bless our women and men in uniform, thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell us why you're not going to take any questions?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Secretary --

(CROSSTALK)

[14:08:30]

KEILAR: All right, so there you have the acting defense secretary talking about what we had been expecting and the military had been expecting this, this drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 2,500 in Iraq, 2,500 in Afghanistan, all of this to take place by January 15th, so just a few days before Joe Biden, the president- elect, becomes President Joe Biden.

I want to bring in right now our military and diplomatic analyst John Kirby, and our CNN national security correspondent Vivian Salama to talk about this.

OK, Admiral, first to you. I mean, what's your reaction to this? We knew this was coming, but here we have this from him. I have to tell you, I especially want you to address that part where he calls it a prudent, well planned and coordinated transition.

JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: That's exactly my first point as I listened to him, was there was no details in this announcement, no indication of where these troops are coming from, what skillsets are going to be left behind, what parts of the advise- and-assist and counterterrorism missions we're going to continue to conduct and what we're not going to conduct.

So there's an awful lot we need to know about this withdrawal, otherwise it just looks like a math problem that Trump just drew a line in the sand and said, 2,500, and that's it.

Number two, there was really no justification, Brianna, for why they're doing this. the conditions on the ground, they kept talking about everything being conditions-based? He gave no indication that conditions on the ground actually warrant this kind of withdrawal. As a matter of fact, just as recently as a week or so ago, the special investigator general for Afghanistan said that actually the conditions were not ripe for any kind of withdrawal.

And then the two other things that I think are really key for your viewers to understand, is what impact does this have on negotiations with the Taliban? We are giving the Taliban a huge gift here with apparently nothing in return. The Taliban have not renounced al-Qaida. As a matter of fact, al-Qaida in the region just today lauded this withdrawal as supportive of their efforts in the region.

[14:10:17]

And then lastly -- and you kind of touched on this -- is, you know, is he hamstringing President Biden? We don't know what President-elect Biden's going to want to do about Afghanistan, coming in. We have general indications that he also wants to end this war, but he's -- by making this decision, President Trump is potentially impairing President-elect Biden's team from doing the necessary foreign policy and defense policy spade work that they need to do to get ready to govern.

KEILAR: Yes. And you know, Vivian, he said a warning, he was -- basically a warning to the Taliban there, warning to forces of terror, you know, if you're going to cause instability, he said essentially that America stands ready to respond. I mean, he's talking about a January -- I don't mean to laugh because this is very serious. Look I understand how serious this is, coming from a military family.

But when he's saying we stand ready to respond, it's not Trump's problem any more. It's not that defense secretary's problem any more. This thing is supposed to be happening a few days before the new administration comes in.

VIVIAN SALAMA, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And Brianna, he recapped the three goals that were set out in 2001, the way that Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller explained it is that the three goals originally were destroy terrorism, strengthen our defenses at home and also defend against militant Islamic extremists abroad.

And indeed, even if we've made progress on destroying the homelands of terrorists -- or the sanctuaries, I want to say, of terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, even Syria, which is not involved in this situation, we still have to think ahead about whether or not our homeland is secure, and that's something that we can't really decide today.

Perhaps today everything is fine, but this withdrawal could have serious consequences down the line. And of course in a couple of weeks' time, it's not going to be for President Trump or Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller to deal with, it's going to be for now- President-elect Biden and his administration to deal with, and anyone to follow.

And so this is the problem with short-sightedness, is that perhaps it satisfies the situation today, but what so many of these military leaders are cautioning is that we are looking ahead and thus far, Afghan forces, Iraqi forces are not capable of necessarily holding down the fort, nor are our allies like NATO and others who are going to be put in harm's way.

And one other point, I want to echo something that Kirby said, which is, he was talking about the training, advise and assist. You have to understand that, you know, so much of what American forces do over there is advise and assist, training Afghan forces, training Iraqi forces.

And so a lot of people will say, well, we've been there for ages, so they're trained. But remember that technologies are constantly evolving and progressing and modernizing, and also the tactics that these groups use. The Taliban, ISIS in Afghanistan, which is growing by the day, and groups in Iraq. Their tactics are changing by the day, and so there are new training techniques that need to be taught to these forces.

And our forces are the most skilled and able to adapt to those, and they need us on the ground at all times. That's what they say, and that's why -- you know, I talked to a lot of folks in Iraq and Afghanistan when this news came out, they're concerned for their own forces because they just don't feel that they're capable and equipped enough to go ahead with this mission, moving forward.

KEILAR: Yes. And that brings the question, then eventually do American forces, more of them, have to re-engage to considerable more risk than they're facing now.

I do want to bring in Barbara Starr to this conversation that I'm having with Kirby and Vivian here. And I'm sort of struck by the visual, and just the fact of who the acting defense secretary is, you know, someone with a background as a Green Beret who was involved in the initial invasion of Afghanistan.

And here, you kind of have this full circle in a way -- not exactly, because look, these troops are not drawing down to zero, Barbara, I mean, you can tell us how significant that is - but something he said struck me, which was where he said, you know, this is -- I think he said it was a day to be celebrated, and he talked about having the personal experience of serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well you know, Chris

Miller has been acting secretary of defense for less than a week, and by all accounts had a very distinguished career in Special Operations. I don't think anybody questions his military service.

But that is over for him, and has been for some years. Right now, he is a political appointee of President Trump, and carrying out the president's political agenda. So I think it has to be viewed through that scope.

And I think what struck me the most -- and several other reporters in the room at that time, and I think you saw it -- Chris Miller refused to take any questions about this decision. He turned -- he came out, he delivered and read a prepared statement, and then he turned heel and walked away.

[14:15:00]

And there you have it, that is how America's longest war just ended -- at least for the moment. It ended with somebody coming out, reading a statement and leaving the room. And you know, you better than anybody else, Brianna, you know thousands and thousands of troops have lost their lives in these war zones, been injured, families and personnel, their lives changed forever.

What we don't have in terms of information is a much longer list than what we do have. So we know it's going to come down to 2,500 troops in Iraq, 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, being the critical question at the moment because there is simply no indication that the Taliban have agreed to the terms they signed up to, which is to reduce violence. That was supposed to be the condition that would allow the U.S. to turn it over to the Afghan government and eventually leave.

We are being told that top U.S. military commanders recommended this. There is no evidence at the moment that they recommended this of their own volition, just as a bolt out of the blue. They have agreed to what President Trump wants. President Trump has long talked about getting out of these wars and bringing American troops home. Nobody wants to be at war one second longer than they have to be, that's all good.

But we don't really have an explanation yet, and will we ever get it from this administration? Three critical top military commanders: General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs; General Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command; and General Scott Miller, one of the most respected in the entire U.S. military who heads the U.S.-led and NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan, did they really think it was time for this withdrawal?

Because, just a few weeks ago, the now-fired defense secretary Mark Esper, wrote a memo that they all knew about that said the time was not right, our own Jake Tapper reporting that. So how does it go, in just a few weeks, from the time is not right to this? And defense officials saying not on-camera that this was something they recommended.

I think it was a stunning moment, to see reporters, a free press in this country, asking for explanation about the end of this war, and seeing the defense secretary, the acting defense secretary, simply turn and walk away.

KEILAR: I think, Barbara, that is an excellent point that you made. And you know, where he talked about his family being irrevocably changed because of Iraq and Afghanistan? I mean, so was mine. And I would like some more answers.

I think there's a lot of military families out there who want answers, and Americans should too. Because as they're looking at the national security of the country, they should want to see something that is done carefully, right? This -- it's sort of like medicine. You don't rip out stitches, you need to do things in a methodical way.

STARR: And if this administration does not believe that the American public, Brianna -- you know this better than anybody -- deserves full, complete, candid answers: who recommended what, why they recommended it.

If people cannot stand up before the public and explain their decision-making in detail, I think it's something that many members of the military, military families like yours, someone like me that was inside the Pentagon on September 11th, when all of this started, I'd like to know the answers. The press would like to know the answers to be able to explain it to the American people.

That is not what we got today. We got a prepared statement, carefully worded by someone who was in Special Operations, served in the war, no question about his service in that war -- I want to be very clear about it -- no question that he served very honorably. There's no indication of anything other than that.

But now, he is a political appointee, he is not a soldier. He called himself the leader of the American military. So if he is leading, perhaps what he needs to do is explain.

KEILAR: Indeed, Barbara. Thank you so much for putting it that way. We know you're going to dig on it, you've already been getting a lot of answers for us so we know you'll keep going that. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you.

STARR: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: On his way out the door, President Trump exercising a full scorched-earth strategy. The major policy moves that he's attempting to make before Joe Biden takes office.

Plus, Lindsey Graham responds to accusations that he urged the Georgia secretary of state to throw out legal ballots.

[14:19:30]

And one New York sheriff says he will not enforce the governor's mandate to police Thanksgiving gatherings. He's going to join us, live, to talk about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Just in, an election official in Georgia says the state's recount is on track to finish up tomorrow, and it will affirm that President-elect Joe Biden is the winner. He says the vast majority of counties reporting results are spot-on with the initial tallies.

I want to bring in CNN's Amara Walker. OK, Amara, tell us where things stand right now.

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, this was supposed to be a labor-intensive task. It has been, but the good news is that state election officials say that they are on good schedule right now to finish the audit by Wednesday midnight, that is the deadline.

The latest numbers as of 11:00 a.m. is that 4.7 million ballots have been hand-counted out of the 5 million that were cast during the presidential election.

I do want to mention, Brianna, we spoke with election officials in 29 counties -- they were small enough so that they were able to finish up this hand recount pretty early, and they say that they found no discrepancies. So in other words, the results of the hand recount that they just completed are exactly the same as the original tallies. So all of this, going to further discredit President Trump's repeated claims of widespread fraud in this election.

[14:25:00]

I should also mention, just a few minutes ago, the secretary of state here in Georgia announced the results of an audit of the voting machines. They took a random sampling of these voting machines, and he has said -- Brad Raffensperger -- that there is no evidence of tampering or hacking on these voting machines.

And obviously, he's talking about this because President Trump and his allies have been peddling false claims that millions of votes have been deleted or voted through these Dominion voting machines.

So look, the big picture here is that the hand-count is going as scheduled. And like state election officials have been saying, that they expect the machines to show that they are accurate on the other side of this, and they do not expect the overall outcome of the results to change. And that they will meet the Friday deadline to certify the results -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Amara, thank you so much for all that information about this very important recount in Georgia.

President Trump is still refusing to accept that he lost the election, and he is pinning his dreams of a second term on two things: Pennsylvania and Rudy Giuliani.

That is right, Giuliani, telling a federal court in Pennsylvania that he is now legally representing the Trump campaign in their bid to block the commonwealth from certifying votes. And he's doing this because Pennsylvania went for Joe Biden. The case is being argued this afternoon, and Giuliani has got his work

cut out for him. Since Friday, 13 lawsuits aiming to undo Biden's win have been denied or dropped. Sources tell CNN that when President Trump learned his attorneys were dropping a lawsuit in Arizona, he summoned team members to the Oval Office and demanded answers. Colorful language was strewn about, sources tell us. One aide dropped an F-bomb.

Let's get more now on all of this with CNN's Pamela Brown and Andrew Kirtzman, he is the author of the book "Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City," and he is in the middle of writing a new book on Rudy Giuliani.

Pamela, to you first, just tell us more about what sounds like a colorful Oval Office huddle.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Colorful, very contentious is what I'm told, Brianna. This huddle that happened last Thursday, the president was upset that when he learned his campaign was dropping the Arizona lawsuit, and he summoned many of his aides to the Oval Office.

Rudy Giuliani was on speakerphone, and basically Rudy, I'm told by sources, accused the Trump campaign lawyers of lying to the president because they had been telling the president that it was a steep uphill climb, that the odds were against him to win this lawsuit, to do anything to change the outcome of the election.

Rudy said they were liars for telling the president that, and that he thought the president could win through some of these conspiracy theories that have been thrown out there. And one of the aides, as you pointed out -- Justin Clark, the deputy campaign manager -- fired back, dropping the F-bomb, essentially.

And it was the next day, Brianna, we're told, that the president took Rudy aside essentially, and put Rudy in charge of his legal strategy, if you want to call it that.

In fact, right now, as we speak, my colleague Katelyn Polantz says Rudy is arguing in the Pennsylvania court on one of these cases, and he started out saying that there was widespread fraud, which we know is just inaccurate, plainly inaccurate, U.S. government officials from various agencies have come out to say there is no widespread fraud in this election. And so that just gives you glimpse into where this is heading with Rudy at the helm -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes. And, Andrew, you've written extensively about Rudy Giuliani. Talk to us about his role now.

ANDREW KIRTZMAN, AUTHOR, "RUDY GIULIANI: EMPEROR OF THE CITY": Well, you know, President Trump is not the only person who's watching his power slip away. Giuliani's relevance, his finances are all tied up in his access to power, to the White House.

And so, you know, while others in the White House, you know, are urging Trump to throw in the towel, Giuliani is -- you know, Giuliani's holding onto power by a thread and he's, you know, he's happy to throw gas on the fire. And so he's -- you know, he's throwing spaghetti against the wall, trying every possible means to reverse the outcome of the election.

It's an interesting situation, and Giuliani is not a shy person when it comes to tactics like this. And it looks, from what I understand, is that no other lawyer really wants to try this anymore. And so Giuliani has stepped in, he has not argued a case -- as far as I know -- since the 1980s, when he was a celebrated prosecutor. But that was a long time ago.

KEILAR: Yes, decades ago. And so is he being -- you know, is he handsomely compensated for his work?

KIRTZMAN: Well according to "The New York Times," he's asking for $20,000 a day. And you know, it's a lot of money btu that's a perfect distillation of what I was saying, is that everything that Giuliani has in terms of relevance and his influence and finances are tied to Donald Trump. And so this is just one more example of how, you know, it's in his best interest to try to keep the Trump presidency alive no matter how distant the possibility of that is.

[14:30:04]

KEILAR: You know, Pamela, let's talk about what the president is trying to do here.