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New Day

President-Elect Joe Biden Calls on Trump Administration to Begin Transition Process; Coronavirus Cases Continue Rising in States Across U.S.; Georgia Republican Secretary of State Claims He Has been Pressured to Throw Out Ballots in Hand Recount; Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) is Interviewed About Trump Asking About Possible Strike on Iranian Nuclear Site and Expected to Order Troop Cuts in Iraq, Afghanistan. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 17, 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]

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: While Trump and his sycophants can lie about anything, lawyers don't have that luxury. Maybe that's why we've seen two law firms bail on the Trump campaign to date, which is not generally a sign of confidence in their client's claims.

And it turns out that one of Trump's replacement lawyers already acknowledged Joe Biden president-elect on their website, which is awkward, but not as awkward as the facts and math piling up, leading election lawyer Rick Hasen to declare yesterday "The president can keep declaring he has won, but there's no plausible legal way this election gets overturned. We are not talking about three Hail Marys anymore. We're talking done."

And that's your Reality Check.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Another instant classic. John, thank you very much for checking into all of that.

And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 1 million new infections in the United States in just the past week.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've seen our cases go up five times, our hospitalizations go up three times.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Governors forced to implement their own mitigation efforts, including shutting down businesses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The transition still stalled. Health experts are warning that delays could hurt the coronavirus response, including vaccine distribution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Transitions are very important. It would be better if we could start working with them.

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: More people may die if we don't coordinate. If we have to wait until January 20th, it puts us behind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

Hospitals across the country are reaching a breaking point with coronavirus cases surging to unprecedented levels. Records for hospitalizations have been broken every day in the past week. They now are at 73,000 Americans. Seventeen states are reporting their highest number of infected patients ever. Yesterday the country saw the third highest number of total daily cases since the start of this pandemic. and take a look at all of the states that are inundated with new cases. So we will speak with doctors from two of the hardest hit states there, the Dakotas, and that's where hospitals are stretched to the limit this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President-elect Joe Biden is warning that further delays in the transition will lead to more deaths and also to the delay of the rollout of a vaccine. Donald Trump doesn't seem to care. And we have 64 more days of this.

Let's talk about where we are. Let's bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And, Sanjay, you have taught us so much about hospitalizations. If you look at one statistic in terms of this pandemic, hospitalizations is, I think, the key indicator. And now we have more than 73,000, if we can put up the graphic, you can see how steeply it is rising, getting more and more every day. If you look at the graphic, you see there's no sign of it abating. It's going straight up. Why does this concern you so much, and where specifically?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, I think it's the truest and most consistent measure really of all this, because we know that the number of people who are becoming infected has become astronomically high. It's hard to fathom that. But we're really concerned how sick are people then becoming, and then ultimately, obviously, how much does that affect the number of people who are dying? So hospitalizations are the thing that I sort of really look at, and we're seeing that number go up to a point where, you know, we may have over 100,000 people in the hospital with COVID at some point over the next few weeks. That number was something we couldn't even believe in terms of the number of cases, and yet that number of people are getting hospitalized.

It's also, I think, the most relevant to people, frankly, in the sense that if you are living in the community where you may not have the same number of resources, same number of hospital beds, are there going to be situations where if somebody gets sick in your household that there may not be a hospital bed in your community? You may have to go out of the region, out of the state, whatever it means, and maybe even that won't be a possibility after a while. Certain places are getting hit harder than others.

And the rural areas, the middle part of the country, a part of the country that maybe thought, look, we missed this. This hit the northeast, this hit the south, this hit the west, southwest. It didn't hit us. Well, they're getting hit hard now. They're getting hit hard in terms of numbers, but again, overall, in terms of hospitalizations. They just don't have the same resources. That's the problem. North Dakota, when you look at some of the overall statistics, 25 maybe ICU beds in the state. Sometimes they can repurpose some beds. But it's going to be a very challenging situation. Health care workers are frustrated, I can tell you, in these areas.

CAMEROTA: And despite all that bleak news, it's not too late to try to do some things. And I know you've looked at places that, however late, did then try mitigation measures, and they worked.

[08:05:00]

GUPTA: Yes. That's the same thing I think that we've been talking about since March now. These basic public health measures do make a difference. We obviously had evidence of that from around the world, but now evidence of that here in the United States. You saw it in New York where you are. But Arizona, I like to give this example because Arizona was a place that after the stay-at-home order started to get lifted, I'm talking end of spring, early summer here, they had a real problem on their hands -- 151 percent increase within two weeks the beginning of June.

So they did these three things. They did mask requirements when you're indoors, limited large public events, and certain businesses closures or reduction in capacity such as bars, because that's where people tend to cluster indoors, and that's where you can't wear a mask.

And let me just add to that. We've learned a lot about this virus. One of the things I thought was interesting was this paper from "Nature" just last week that basically said, OK, now we know where within the society the virus is most likely to spread. Where are those places? What can we do?

And it came down to five locations primarily. It was restaurants, as I just mentioned, bars, cafes, hotels, places like that. And what they found was that if you limited maximum occupancy, not shut it down, just limited maximum occupancy, you could potentially reduce 80 percent of the infections in this country. There's strategies that we can put in place here that don't require a wholesale change in our society, and just for the next few months. A vaccine seems to loom on the horizon, so we need to just basically lean into this for a while.

BERMAN: Sanjay, thank you very much. Sanjay brought up a vaccine. It's not the vaccine that saves lives, it's vaccinations. And one of the key to getting people vaccinations is to coordinate how they will do it. Millions of people need to get vaccinations. And the Trump administration, the outgoing, defeated administration is refusing to coordinate with President-elect Joe Biden, refusing to coordinate with the transition. And now Biden calls that stalemate -- it's not a stalemate. It's a refusal by the Trump administration, calls it embarrassing. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're moving along, knowing what the outcome will be. And as I said earlier, I probably shouldn't repeat it, but I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He also said people will die because of the lack of coordination. Joining us now is CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip. Abby, that's a subtle shift from Joe Biden specifically and the Biden transition. I think they were giving space to the president. They were not, I think, directly attacking what is so clearly the obstruction from the Trump administration. But now President-elect Biden is. Why the subtle shift?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they understand that the long-term consequences of this are obviously dire. I think there's a difference in their perception of how long this might go on. There is a sense that the president might never come to terms with this. But within a couple of weeks these results in the states are going to be certified, whether the president likes them or not. And given that they failed so far in the courts to deal with it, or to change the result, I think the Biden campaign believes that within a matter of weeks the results will be certified, and there will be some elements of this that will move forward.

But what you also heard from Biden was just a statement of fact, which is that if they go all the way to January 20th, there's no way that this administration will be prepared to pick up the baton and carry it through to the finish line when it comes to vaccinations. And that is a very serious issue, and it's something that I think should be a wake-up call -- I think he was saying it more for Republicans than anything else -- a wake-up call to the president's party that they need to stop living in fantasyland about the outcome of this election.

CAMEROTA: Yes, if we think the creation of the vaccine has been challenging, wait until we see the distribution. We just had a report from Fred Pleitgen in Germany about these uber cold storage refrigerators that have to move this thing around the country. And so it would be good to start now.

What's happening in Georgia is really interesting, what's playing out there, between the Republican secretary of state and other Republicans. First thing's first, you know they're doing this hand recount. Do you know there are some counties in Georgia that have already done, they've already completed their hand recount. And the number exactly matches the machine tallies, exactly. Not like there's one off or two off.

So still, they're going through this exercise of the hand recount. And now the secretary of state there says he has come under pressure from fellow Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham that he feels that if there is any abnormality in any sort of signature not matching, he believes -- he received the message at least, that why not just throw out all of the votes in that county, including the legitimate ones. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:20]

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, (R) GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: They asked if the ballots could be matched back to the voters, I got the sense it implied that then you could throw those out, really, look at the counties with the highest frequent error of signatures. It's just an implication that look hard and see how many ballots you can throw out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Your thoughts, Abby?

PHILLIP: It's really amazing. And I've spoken to Brad Raffensperger a few times leading up to this general election. And he's a Republican. He is not one to be out there wanting to criticize this administration even when he disagreed with some of the president's rhetoric around mail-in ballots. And so for him to come out in this way and be very clear that he felt like the president and his allies were trying to ask him to do things that were unethical or maybe even illegal, it says a lot.

What is going on in Georgia does not make sense from a political perspective or from a practical perspective. And when you listen to what the lawyers, his new lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and others, are saying about this election, they're completely making things up out of whole cloth in order to imply that there is justification to throw out hundreds of thousands of votes.

And what you're seeing from Raffensperger is someone who is on the ground dealing with this kind of recount, saying this is not right. And that is a really extraordinary thing. This is not someone who is a sort of -- as the president likes to call him, a RINO. He's a Republican who is thinking about his own political future and is doing something that he knows in his state and with his party will put him in the spotlight. And I heard "The Post's" Amy Gardner say a couple of minutes ago that he's been getting death threats.

So I think it's a really notable thing that he's coming forward and saying this. But it's just as notable the kinds of shenanigans that the president's allies are going to to try to invalidate hundreds of thousands of votes. That alone should be, I think, something of a scandal at this point.

BERMAN: Why is Lindsey Graham calling him to begin with? Why is the senator from South Carolina picking up the phone to begin with? That itself raises questions, Abby. And as for all of these smoke screen lawsuits and everything that you say, I think it is important to fact check them in certain places, but it's chasing bigfoot. The time spent chasing these ridiculous fantasies is a disservice. It's a disservice to the country --

PHILLIP: And there's no evidence and the courts are saying so. It's all innuendo, and it's designed to sow distrust and just to make people think that there was maybe something wrong where there was nothing. As far as we know, there's no proof that anything wholesale was wrong with the election.

BERMAN: Correct. And when you start listing all their lawsuits, they actually win. It's all they want. Abby Phillip, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

A new report overnight that President Trump asked about military options for targeting Iran's nuclear program. Not the only major military decision being considered before he leaves office. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:56]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Developing overnight, "The New York Times" reporting that President Trump floated the idea of taking military action against Iran's nuclear program in an Oval Office meeting last week. Senior officials reportedly talked him out of that idea.

CNN also reporting that the Pentagon is preparing for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan over the resistance of top military leaders.

Let's discuss this and more with Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly. He sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

Let me just read to you and our viewers what "The New York Times" reporting is about what the president is or was considering with Iran.

President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran's main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after the international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country's stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday.

What's your response to that?

REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA): This is a very troubling part of the end of the Trump presidency.

Let's remember that Donald Trump is the one who pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement that was a U.S. initiative and was working. Iran was abiding by all respects, with respect to centrifuges, enrichment, stockpiling of enriched uranium, getting rid of its plutonium production reactor. It in all respects was complying, and that's the agreement. Because Obama put his name to it, Trump decided to pull the United

States out of.

And Iran's view was if the benefits of agreeing to that don't accrue to us, why should we abide by it? And so, they started slowly to increase the amount of enriched uranium, dangerous, but something that the United States triggered because of the pullout of the agreement.

And now he wants to bomb Iran? I don't see good coming out of that. And this is a great example of why, "A," diplomacy is always better than kinetic reaction, and secondly, the dangers of an erratic and ill-informed and frankly impulsive president who's done real damage to U.S. foreign policy.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, this is, obviously, what President-elect Joe Biden is going to have fall on his lap if we wait that long. I mean, if President Trump doesn't do something in the next 65 days, and so, why not take military action if they are beefing up their nuclear program?

CONNOLLY: Because I think there's a real opportunity for the incoming president, President Biden and his diplomatic team to try to restart reengagement with our allies, with our adversaries and with Iran, all of whom were involved in the Iran nuclear agreement, a really groundbreaking kind of agreement that this almost unique thing in international diplomacy to get Iranians to reestablish compliance, and to make sure that the benefits of the lifting of some economic sanctions flow with that compliance.

[08:20:13]

I think there's an opportunity, but there won't be obviously if Donald Trump were to drop the hammer in a military strike against Iran, which I think would be profoundly dangerous.

CAMEROTA: OK. So this is just one stunning example of why president- elect and all president-elects need to have intelligence briefings, need to be privy to the same intelligence so that they can gear up. But that's not happening because, as you know, the GSA, General Services Administrator, has not certified the win of President-elect Biden.

You sent a letter more than a week ago to the GSA. You say: By failing to ascertain Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' resounding victory, you are undermining the urgent need for a prompt and effective transition of power in the midst of a global pandemic that must be focused on the safety and well-being of our citizens.

Have you received a response to this letter?

CONNOLLY: No, I have not received a response to the letter. And, ironically, we, of course, have seen public reports that that same official, Ms. Murphy, is actually floating around her resume for looking at post-Trump presidency options for herself in terms of employment. That goes in the category of if you're going to be a phony, at least be sincere about it. CAMEROTA: Well, what are your options since she hasn't responded and

she hasn't ascertained or certified. Or is there a legal option that you're considering?

CONNOLLY: Well, I think there's another sort of line that hopefully she won't cross which is, if you're not going to do it now while Trump has these, you know, baseless challenges to election results, the next really set of deadlines starts in late November and goes to early December, and that is actual certification by the states in question of the results of the election.

And that becomes a formal action by those states, and that absolutely is confirmatory in terms of President-elect Biden's formal status as the next president of the United States.

And, you know, we -- we could try I supposed to subpoena Ms. Murphy, but as you know, subpoenas have been resisted by this administration across the board. They have to be adjudicated in courts of law which takes too much time. We only have 65 days between now and the inauguration of President-elect Biden.

So, she can wait it out and there's not a lot we can do in Congress to enforce her own subpoenas because we rely on the courts instead of ourselves. That's a different subject that ought to be revisited. But I just think that the clock is not a friendly clock in terms of forcing action by Ms. Murphy.

CAMEROTA: I see.

Well, last week, Senator James Lankford was seemed to be upset that President-elect Biden wasn't getting intel briefings, so much so that he said he would intervene. I'll just quote what he said last week. He said if that's not occurring by Friday, I will step in as well and be able to push and say this needs to occur.

Then that didn't happen as far as we know. And so, then on this weekend, he had a change of heart and he said, I'm not in a hurry necessarily to get Joe Biden these briefings. It's an interesting thing, he said, how the media has twisted this term "step in."

Then he had a different position yesterday and he told CNN, oh, I did step in. I did talk to them on Friday. He didn't mention that over the weekend. And he said: My staff has been involved, I've been involved. We talked through the process, where they're coming from. I talked through what I see is a good progress. There's no way they can ascertain. GSA is not the electors.

What do you say to Senator Lankford?

CONNOLLY: Well, I congratulate Senator Lankford for basically being all over the map. You know, leadership for our time. I was hopeful at the statement he released, by the way, not a media-created expectation, he's the one who created the expectation saying if they don't provide the intelligence briefings by Friday, I'm intervening.

And I thought, great, forthright statement, right position, you know, this is about national security and smooth transition. And then, of course, he fell apart. Somebody got to him I guess.

And that's -- that's sort of the story of Republican intestinal fortitude during the Trump years, and a great example of it.

Look, of course, the president-elect should receive intelligence briefings. And, frankly, of course, the GSA administrator ought to sign a transition letter.

[08:25:01]

It's not up to her to decide who won the presidency. You know, it is our tradition going back to 1796 that the outgoing president and his team cooperates with the incoming president and his team. And, you know, to violate that norm, that tradition is very serious business.

But in a pandemic and with a world in turmoil, witness, you know, what's going on as we speak. The discussion by Trump to actually bomb a nuclear facility in Iran, the decision by the president over the opposition of Republicans in the Senate to rather abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Somalia, from Afghanistan, from Iraq -- these are disruptive actions that have consequences. The incoming president is entitled to understand the intelligence behind it or the lack thereof. And it hurts America when we don't do that.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Gerry Connolly, thank you very much. We appreciate your time this morning.

CONNOLLY: My pleasure, anytime.

CAMEROTA: Seventeen states are seeing record hospitalizations, stretching medical facilities to the limit. Doctors from two of the hardest hit states, the Dakotas, are going to tell us what they are experiencing on the ground, next.

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