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Biden Not Getting Classified Briefings; Storm Makes Landfall in Nicaragua; Coronavirus Vaccine Hub; Biden Urges Congress to Act. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:07]

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ROBERT O'BRIEN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: If the Biden/Harris ticket is determined to be the winner and -- and it's, you know, it -- obviously things look that way now, we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There's no question about it.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Obviously things look like that now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Rip Van Winkle.

Good morning.

BERMAN: That's an unforgivable moment of honesty from President Trump's national security adviser, coming close to admitting that Joe Biden has actually won the election. Joe Biden is the president-elect. A lot of Republicans are now using the same kind of mealy mouthed language there saying it's likely Joe Biden will be president, that's the way it's headed, but refusing to outright say it and let this transition begin in earnest.

Joining us now, Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News, and David Sanger, CNN political and national security analyst and national security analyst -- or reporter for "The New York Times."

David, you've got some remarkable reporting we'll get to in just a minute. First, though, Errol, look, the Biden team is getting briefed today by national security experts who aren't part of the administration. Why? Because the administration won't cooperation with the transition. It has come to this.

At what point are Republicans, do you think, going to move beyond this mealy mouthed profiles and cowardice language and just say that Joe Biden is the president-elect and he deserves a real transition? ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Republican leadership

has made clear that that -- that day is never going to come, John. They're not going to do anything that they are not forced to do or given permission to do by Donald Trump himself. So the Biden team, it's been reported, is thinking about making kind of a popular mobilization strategy the way that they put pressure on the White House to do what they should have done days ago, if not weeks. The idea being that the general public can put pressure, both on Republican leaders, good luck with that, but really -- really more directly on the White House itself to do what's in the public interest, but relying on these mealy mouthed Republican senators to finally wake up and do what they are supposed to do according to their oaths of office, it's not going to happen.

CAMEROTA: Yes, David Sanger, I'm not sure our adversaries are willing to give it time for Republicans to work their way through the five stages of grief as we know in terms of national security. And your, really I would say alarming reporting this morning is that President Trump is considering going out with a bang. You say, President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he options to take action against Iran's main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country's stockpile of nuclear material four current and former U.S. said on Monday.

So President Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal did not work to stop their amassing of more nuclear material and what's your reporting about what President Trump -- where he is with this?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, what we know right now is that he asked a series of questions about military strikes on the (INAUDIBLE) nuclear enrichment site, which is the place where they do most of this work. But, of course, he's gotten such options many times over the past four years.

So what's new now? That this was the last IAEA report, the International Atomic Energy Agency's report, on Iran's nuclear progress before he leaves office. And as the national -- his national security adviser seemed to be hinting there, they understand he's leaving office. So the question is, is this the moment for him to act, even though the advance that Iran made wouldn't lead to a weapon in at least six months and probably longer. So certainly not within the time that he's president.

BERMAN: David, was it your sense that he was being warned off a military strike by the people in that room?

[06:35:02]

What was their reaction to his questioning?

SANGER: That was definitely the sense we got. And the credit for the reporting here goes to my colleagues Eric Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Helene Cooper. And as we made our way around to different people familiar with the conversation, it became clear that even the Iran hawks like Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Chris Miller, the new Defense secretary, and certainly Chairman Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, all said this would lead to escalation you might not be able to control in the last few weeks.

It might well be a good part of that national security briefing that President-elect Biden is getting, but not from the government or the administration.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that seems like it would be important for President- elect Biden to know.

In terms of the time frame, Errol, about when this can all be over, and President-elect Biden can move forward, it was very interesting to hear what the Georgia secretary of state said in terms of the pressure that he is still under from Republicans to skew the race their way, including from people like Senator Lindsey Graham. I mean he's basically saying that they are pressuring him to not only recount but to find different results and to maybe have to throw out some legal ballots.

Here is what Brad Raffensperger said yesterday on that topic.

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BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: They asked if the ballots could be matched back to the voters. And then I got the sense they implied that then you could throw those out for any -- really would look at the counties with the highest frequent error of signatures.

Well, it's just an implication that look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.

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CAMEROTA: I mean basically, Errol, he's saying that the suggestion was throw out the whole county. If there's some signatures that don't match, you can just throw out the whole county.

LOUIS: Yes, it is -- it is shocking that a public servant at that level has to endure that kind of pressure, along with death threats, by the way. It really is beyond the pale.

He, fortunately, has gone public, which is the first step, I think, in curbing some of those potential abuses.

But let make no mistake about this, Alisyn, this is about the January 5th special elections. This is partly about trying to maybe rescue, or at least humor, the -- what's left of the Trump campaign. But it's more important to focus on the fact that we've got the control of the Senate involved in these two special elections coming up in just a few weeks and making sure that these kind of shenanigans, these -- this kind of pressure campaign, the death threats and everything else are purged from that so we can have an honest vote in Georgia should be the main focus.

I think probably reality will start to set in when the likes of Lindsey Graham realize that there's going to be serious attention on this and possible law enforcement consequences for those who want to try to overturn a legal election.

BERMAN: Yes, it's a shocking statement, a shocking statement from a Republican secretary of state saying, quote, the implication to look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out. What is Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina, doing calling the Republican secretary of state from Georgia at all during a recount like this? Graham, for his part, put out some statement that says if he feels threatened by that conversation, he's got a problem.

It's crazy -- it's crazy that the Republican secretary of state came away with that feeling. And we're going to talk much more about this reporting later in the broadcast.

David Sanger, Errol Louis, thank you both very much.

LOUIS: Thank you.

SANGER: Thank you.

BERMAN: Look up into the sky. The four-person SpaceX crew arrived overnight at the International Space Station to begin a six-month stay. Get comfortable with your friend there.

CAMEROTA: They're not socially distancing, I see.

BERMAN: Their -- their message to people at home, next.

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[06:43:01]

CAMEROTA: OK, breaking overnight, Hurricane Iota making landfall in Nicaragua as a category four storm. Oh my gosh. Look at that. That is video that's off of a small island off of Nicaragua. That's being hit with the hurricane's massive waves and severe flooding.

Let's get right to meteorologist Chad Myers.

That's some scary stuff right there, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, there won't be enough adjectives to try to describe what happened in Nicaragua overnight as a 155 mile per hour storm made landfall only 12 miles farther south than category four Eta made landfall just two weeks ago.

There is the storm right now, spreading rain into Honduras and Guatemala, El Salvador. The people here are going to need help. They're going to need international help. Right now the storm is down to a category two, but it came on shore at 155. Now, I know we say that's category four. Well, category five starts at 157. So you're splitting hairs here.

Here is all the rainfall that's coming down and expected to continue all day today in places that already had 30 inches of rain from Eta. There's the landfall of Eta. 12 miles farther south is the landfall of Iota.

Now, Nicaragua gets hurricanes, but on average you're going to see somewhere in the neighborhood of a category four storm making landfall every 37 years. They had two in two weeks.

Now, this storm does go into the Pacific. It doesn't make the turn like Eta does. But the people there are in desperate need of help. They have rainfall and flooding and storm surge of 20 feet and there were many people in the way.

Alisyn. John.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much, Chad.

BERMAN: That is just devastating, Chad. Thank you so much for being with us.

MYERS: Yes.

BERMAN: Please keep us posted.

Also breaking overnight, four astronauts arrived to the International Space Station.

[06:45:00]

It took them 27 hours to get there. The SpaceX crew received a warm welcome from the team already on board who, frankly, were probably just excited to see new faces. I mean, honest to God, what you need up there more than anything is company and variety.

Listen to this.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was an amazing ride. I can't tell you how excited we were when that rocket lifted off the pad and -- and then the last 27 hours have -- has gone really smooth, actually. And so we are so excited to be here. We are humbled and we are excited to be a part of this great expedition. And so we are looking forward to the next six months and can't wait to get started.

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BERMAN: The docking of the Crew Dragon spacecraft marks the end of this first leg of this landmark mission for both SpaceX and NASA, who are working together to make sure the Space Station is fully staffed.

Coming up, we have an exclusive look at one of the hubs being set up to distribute a coronavirus vaccine. This is unbelievable what we're about to show you. The just extraordinary measures being taken to make sure that this vaccine stays safe and effective.

Stick around.

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[06:50:13]

CAMEROTA: This morning we're getting an exclusive first look at a potential distribution hub being set up in Germany for FISA's coronavirus vaccine. That vaccine needs to kept at temperatures much lower than standard freezers.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is live in Frankfurt with more.

So what are you seeing, Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Alisyn.

Well, this is the biggest pharma logistic hub in all of Europe. And Lufthansa Cargo, the cargo division of German airline Lufthansa, they're gearing up to get that vaccine and other vaccines out of here as fast as possible once they get the go ahead.

Now, you've already mentioned it, the guys here are saying the colder a vaccine needs to be stored, the more difficult it is to transport that vaccine. A lot of the vaccines that's going to be reaching people in America and elsewhere is going to come in containers like these. These are special cooling containers and they can be cooled down to about 100 -- minus 105 degrees Fahrenheit. The Pfizer vaccine, by the way, has to be stored at about minus 100.

You can see here, in order to do that, you need a lot of this stuff, a lot of this dried ice. And the most interesting thing that I've learned today, Alisyn, is that, of course, the more dried ice you put in a container, the less vaccine you're going to be able to put in a container. One logistical challenge. But this stuff actually also emits a lot of CO2. And if you have too much CO2 in an airplane cabin, it gets dangerous for the crew. So you can only transport fewer of these containers in a single go the colder a vaccine needs to be transported.

These are big logistical challenges. I was talking today to the management of Lufthansa Cargo and they said it's going to be difficult, but they do believe that they're ready for it. They also say, of course, right now, in Europe and elsewhere, vaccine is already being transported, vaccine is already being stored. And they say once they get the go ahead, a lot of this stuff is going to be going out of warehouses here, other warehouses as well, and it's going to be getting to people very, very quickly.

It's a big logistical challenge, but they do believe that they're ready for it. And they say things are going to go very, very fast once the approval comes.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Fred, that helps us understand so much better the challenges of what this is going to look like and it sounds very complicated from where we sit. What is their timeline?

PLEITGEN: Yes.

Well, look, right now they're saying -- they're obviously waiting for the -- for the companies to say, look, you can start distributing this stuff. They say that there's some vaccine already inside warehouses that has already been produced. Once it gets here, it can go out within a matter of hours.

If you look at this container right here, this is other medical stuff. This is also going to the U.S.. That's going to be going out later today.

So logistics in a hub like this one are basically on time logistics. They come here. They want it to spend as little time as possible in a place like this to then get it out. But they say, look, they're still waiting, obviously, for the vaccine to be approved. They're waiting for themselves to get the go ahead. And then they say things can go very, very quickly, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Frederik Pleitgen, thank you very much for all of your reporting and for showing us inside what this looks like.

All right, President-elect Biden says Congress must pass a stimulus package now to help the millions of Americans who are struggling. But will that happen? That's next.

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[06:57:38]

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT FOR THE UNITED STATES: 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.

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BERMAN: That's President-elect Joe Biden calling on Congress to act fast, act now on a coronavirus relief package.

CNN's Julia Chatterley joins us now.

They're not acting, they're not talking and the desperation doesn't wait till January 20th, Julia.

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and asking whether they can get something done, John, is a near $2 trillion question because that's the size of the gap right now in the position between the Democrats and the Republicans. I think there's little hope, actually, that Biden can break the deadlock. And he's talking about all the right things. Getting vaccines and the optimism and talking about that is one thing, but that doesn't help the millions of people that are facing eviction at the end of the year, it doesn't help the millions of people that are going to lose the pandemic related jobless benefits that they've been getting that run off at the end of this year too. So he's making all the right noises.

The fact is that, unfortunately, Congress isn't listening. And there's such frustration out there from ordinary people, from businesses that I speak to.

I spoke to the CEO of one of the largest hotel chains in America yesterday and he said to me it's maddening -- he used that word -- and frustrating that Congress can't agree. He also said he's seeing a tremendous amount of cancellations right now because people are too fearful to travel as a result of what we're seeing with COVID cases spiking all around the world. He said it's a catastrophe.

So we're in this situation where Congress aren't agreeing, the COVID crisis is out of control and, yes, we're talking about vaccines and the optimism around that, but it doesn't solve the current crisis today.

And, you know, John, I'll point at Wall Street. Look at what we're seeing there, record highs. If you look at the year-to-date chart for the Dow, it's almost as if the crisis never happened. Wall Street's optimistic about a pandemic future, well beyond the pandemic here. And the risk, I think, is that entrenches positions on the Republican side that they can get away with doing less or doing nothing and it's simply not the case. It's heart breaking.

BERMAN: Yes. There's a lot of suffering that is inevitable over the next few months at the rate we're going.

CHATTERLEY: Yes.

BERMAN: Julia Chatterley, thanks so much for being with us.

NEW DAY continues right now.

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[07:00:03]

Amidst grim, new records nationwide, a bright spot, Moderna's coronavirus vaccine more than 94.