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Cuomo Prime Time
Biden: "We Should Be Further Along" In Transition Process; HHS Secretary Says His Agency Won't Work With Biden Team Until Trump's GSA Determines He Won Election; Biden Faces GOP Opposition And Fractured Democratic Party. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired November 18, 2020 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, CUOMO PRIME TIME: Think of that. And now comes what? The Holidays.
Every millisecond that the Trumpers give life to these tan-Trumps, these deranged conspiracy claims that only Rudy Giuliani would spew in open court, with every moment wasted on this farce, another one of us is gasping for their last breaths.
We suffered this long enough. And what makes it worse is that you guys actually chose someone to do it better. And your choice, that person, Joe Biden, is being kept, by the Trumpers, from doing what we need him to do.
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JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We should be further along.
There's a whole lot of things that are just - we just don't have available to us, which unless is made available soon we're going to be behind by weeks or months being able to put together the whole initiative relating to the biggest promise we have.
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CUOMO: We celebrate that a vaccine may be available, but that's the guy who will be on watch to make the distribution happen, and Trump won't let him learn anything about the process. How can he be about "America First" when he's guaranteeing that we will be last in terms of our preparedness?
We're in a pandemic. And the Health and Human Services Department won't share vital information on this virus. They have been told not to respond, but to take it up the food chain.
And guess what? The HHS Secretary didn't even deny it today. In fact, he defended it. Listen.
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ALEX AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We've made it very clear that when GSA makes a determination, we will ensure complete, cooperative professional transitions and planning. But that's - we follow the guidance. We're about getting vaccines and therapeutics invented, and get the clinical trial data and saving lives here. That's where - that's where our focus is.
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CUOMO: Focus is on saving lives, but you have been largely inactive during a pandemic.
And now that Operation Warp Speed, bravo, it worked, putting the money in was worth the risk. We have one maybe two vaccines. One came from the Operation, one didn't.
But now we need to figure out how to distribute it. You know it won't be on your watch, and you're not going to help the people who will have to make it happen, and you think you are about saving lives? You are going to kill more people by facilitating these tan-Trumps. That's what they are. It's a revenge blockade of a transition.
Biden's victory is about to be further solidified. Nothing else is going to happen. Georgia is on the cusp of announcing its election audit results. And the Secretary of State there, a Republican, says it will confirm Biden's win. We'll see.
Trump Team lawsuits being laughed out of court. They're in their third iteration in Pennsylvania of the same tripe. A federal judge actually canceled an evidentiary hearing. They said you don't even have enough proof to argue if there's proof.
Rudy Giuliani appeared in court yesterday, had no evidence of the fraud allegation. He literally attached news articles as proof and, when pushed, said "This is not a fraud suit." Then what is it?
The play is obvious. It's not about justice. It's about just us, the Trumpers, and getting enough political stink to create pressure to hope that a state legislature that is Republican-dominated will steal the vote and give it to hand-picked electors to be faithless and vote for Trump anyway. That's their play.
Just think about wanting to do that, and how heinous that is as even a suggestion with no proof to motivate it except proof of your own perfidy that you have no faith in your own duty. That's the reality that we're watching.
Some of the last remaining stimulus programs, for the unemployed, during this pandemic made unemployed by the pandemic, are set to expire by the end of next month. You see any action about that? You see anything?
The election is over. But the fight of our lives is only intensifying. And the only attention we're seeing from those in power, on the Right, is to forward Trump's endless vanity.
Let's bring in David Gregory, and Michael Smerconish, gentlemen thank you. Smerc, on the legal side, you are aware of the latest iteration, one, very unusual for a district court to entertain a third iteration of a lawsuit that has been rejected twice.
The new one says a million and a half ballots in seven different counties shouldn't have been counted. Trump wins. Proof? See attached, and they're news articles. How does this size up in your home state on the federal side?
[21:05:00]
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, "SMERCONISH," CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, HOST, "MICHAEL SMERCONISH PROGRAM" ON SIRIUSXM: There's been a disconnect, so far, between the President's Twitter feed and that which has come out, in courtrooms, across the country, because he's making these specious allegations of widespread fraud, but no evidence of that has been introduced anywhere, including in the Middle District of Pennsylvania Federal Court where Mayor Giuliani appeared yesterday.
And to your point, Chris, Rudy seemed unaware of what the then latest iteration was of the complaint. For example, all this talk about oversight of the counting of ballots in Philadelphia is not something that was then before the court, and he had to be told so.
I think you're right in terms of identifying the play. There is a process here. It's tabulation. It's certification. It's Electoral College. And then it's congressional acceptance.
And it is a flat-out attack now, without any foundation, to try and get state legislatures to refuse to go along with the certification phase, even though there's not been any offering thus far to justify the request.
CUOMO: You think it works in Pennsylvania?
SMERCONISH: Absolutely not. It will never work in Pennsylvania, for not the least of which reason is you can't go back and change the rules in terms of how you are going to slate the Electoral College representatives, the electors, after the fact.
Had they tried to change the rules before the election, arguably there'd be a shot. But you can't go back after the result is already in and say "Now we'd like to alter the way in which we choose those individuals." No way.
CUOMO: David, true or false?
We are looking at our future. Trump doesn't go away. He loses. The institutions stand strong enough, but the Republicans are too tied to that base, too in on riding Trump, worried about Trump, they just oppose Biden like they did with President Obama and then some?
DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, AUTHOR, "HOW'S YOUR FAITH?": Yes. I mean, I think Kevin McCarthy gave up the game pretty clearly, the Minority Leader in the House, in an interview with Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times." Because Jonathan asked him, "Well, don't you think that the temperature cools a little bit with Biden coming into office?" And McCarthy says, "Well, it depends how it all ends." He said "If 70 percent of Republicans believe that Biden cheated, then he's going to have a hard time."
Well, the obvious reality to that is that that's what's being stoked by the President and his allies. So, they are stepping back, allowing Trump to pedal nonsense so that more and more Republicans think, "Yes, you know what? This thing is rigged. He's right. And Biden is an illegitimate President."
That's the game that's being played. That's why this is so dangerous and why in the context of the pandemic it's so shameful.
Now, we have to acknowledge that this is not new. We have been in a cycle now in a - of a generation politically where one side delegitimizes the other. And there is no question that there were millions and still are millions of Democrats who don't think that Donald Trump is legitimate.
And so, the cycle is repeating. But it's so dangerous because it's eroding what little trust people had in institutions.
CUOMO: Michael, can we/do we get to a better place?
SMERCONISH: I think we get to a better place when we get through the certification phase. I'm not sure exactly what the President will say. I'm also not sure, call me naive, that the base hangs with him, absent some evidentiary finding.
But I'm mindful of the fact, Chris that you go back to 2016, and you think about Donald Trump standing on that debate stage. There were so many individuals running that there was a junior varsity, and he was able in the New Hampshire primary with 35 percent of the vote to begin that path toward winning the nomination.
My point is if he comes out of this, with his reputation intact, among Republicans, he'd be unstoppable to win the nomination in 2024.
CUOMO: Didn't you just answer your own question?
He's going to come out with his reputation unstained because it can't be stained. He is the "Teflon Don" for then. He is a symbol more than he is significant in terms of his words and deeds. He's going to come out unscathed and looking like a victim.
So, didn't you answer your own question? He doesn't go away. The base does stay with him. And he may be the man going into 2024 unless he wants to make it his daughter.
SMERCONISH: But I go back to David's point, right, which is to say, in any other climate, at any other time, this would be a very interesting intellectual argument. But we're dealing with a pandemic.
And I have to believe that people are taking a look at this, and saying there are no events on his calendar. His activities, as far as we understand them, are to sit there and tweet grievances.
It's like Festivus all day long, instead of handing over the football to the Biden administration, getting ready for vaccine distribution. That death count, I would think, is going to be an albatross.
[21:10:00]
CUOMO: Festivus, "Seinfeld" reference, except instead of it being a holiday for the rest of us, it's Festivus he celebrates, and he screws the rest of us.
David, your take?
GREGORY: Well I just think - I think Republicans would like to be free of Trump, and they can't. They're too afraid politically, because of what Michael is saying, what I'm saying, which - and you're saying, which is he's a force.
Whether he runs again, even outside of the White House, everything goes through him because he's got this base of support, and he's trying to build this idea that somehow he was unfairly deposed, for which there is no evidence.
But I think that is the question. Because, yes, Republicans would like to be free of Trump. But they recognize that Trumpism and that impact on the Republican Party is durable. It has - he's actually changed the Party. And that's what populists do. And how that runs its course, we don't know.
But that's the big challenge for the Party and it's an additional challenge for Biden because people rejected Trump at some level. They did not stand squarely behind the Democratic Party, and that's going to be hanging over Biden as he tries to lead.
CUOMO: After Turkey Day, do you think Biden needs to knuckle up and become "Fighting Joe Biden" again and say "Enough of this, I want in."
GREGORY: Yes, well I think so. I think he's got to calibrate it. I think he's done a good job so far.
I think he's had a pretty good feel for how to approach Trump throughout this season, the election season, and now the post-election season. He's acting like a President. He's not just trying to get it in the ring with the guy. He's just putting pressure on, putting pressure on.
CUOMO: I hear you.
GREGORY: More Republicans in their own feeble way are coming around. But, yes, I think, a couple more weeks, and they're going to have to amp it up. And again, it will be in the context of the virus.
CUOMO: But that's what I'm saying is that Michael--
GREGORY: Yes. CUOMO: --I totally agree with everything that David says. That's why I call you guys on the phone so much to figure out what to say on my show.
What I'm saying though is we've watched the GOP become the Trump Party. We've watched them, willingly, be complicit in ignoring the pandemic, and doing the minimum. And now, the idea that David says "Some are coming around," I don't see it.
And Biden is a Commander-in-Chief-Elect during a pandemic. Doesn't that give him the mandate, the wherewithal to say, "Look, we can't wait for him to get over it. These tan-Trumps are killing the rest of us. Get out of the way."
SMERCONISH: I think he has no choice but to do exactly that.
But in terms of whether more Republicans will break fold and bring pressure to bear on the White House, I think Republicans are mindful of the fact that Donald Trump increased his raw number of votes as compared to four years ago.
They gained seats in the House, arguably. We don't know till January 5th. The Senate remains in Republican hands. The Gubernatorial Mansion in Montana shifted to the "Rs" and more state legislatures were won by Republicans.
So, it's easy to look at the pandemic and for us to say this is - this is god-awful. But there is a political calculus where they are deathly afraid of Trump because of the control that he exerts on the Party.
CUOMO: They wound up doing that well despite the pandemic. Now, a little bit of that is because--
SMERCONISH: True.
CUOMO: --the Democrats have to learn that in this new binary world of Left and Right, they have their own concerns about fringe, and people have concerns about that.
But, David, think of that. We did this on paper. And you and I wasted a lot of Italian food, watching this election in 2016, and watching everything we thought might happen, happen and then some.
You did this during a pandemic. You won seats against the Democrats. You probably hold on to the Senate, and you got more votes than you did in 2016. Why change now?
GREGORY: Right. And that's the key point.
We can't forget, even though people disapproved overall of his handling of the virus, there is still a lot of people who look up and say, you know, because people nonsensically have created masks as some kind of politically divisive issue, they say, "Look, you know, we're getting a vaccine faster than ever. This could have happened to anybody. And yes, this is bad, and it's bad all over the world." But the real problem today is what Dr. Fauci talks about. You need a uniform standard. The virus is going crazy around the country. And you have a state-by-state approach. That's not what you need. The virus travels.
There's got to be a uniform approach. That's what's been lost. And that's the easy thing for Republicans to fall back on now saying, "Well, you know, the states have their own plans."
And you see what's happening in your city, in New York today, over the schools. I mean, it's really, really messy. And that's why everybody has got to be onboard.
The idea that Biden can't talk to Fauci, I mean, there is enough people in the country who hear that who say that just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. It's not safe.
CUOMO: Smerc, last word.
[21:15:00]
SMERCONISH: Last word is, as the dust settles, this was a referendum on Donald Trump. He lost that referendum. But voters were not prepared to hand a blank check to Joe Biden and the Democrats.
CUOMO: That's a good last word!
David Gregory, Michael Smerconish, thank you very much for helping the audience tonight. Appreciate you.
All right, look, what do we know by all these votes for Trump, and then even a legendary amount of votes against him? Division, we've always had them.
It's easy in America to play with us, right? Everybody here is different. We're all knitted together by common cause. When you start messing with that, we get fragile fast. And that's what's happened here. And they're not going to disappear.
So, given this election, how do you move forward? How fragile are we? How difficult is it for the Biden-Harris administration?
Bernie Sanders, major voice in the country, no matter where you are on the spectrum, you listen to him. What does he see as the state of play and the chance of progress? Next.
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[21:20:00]
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CUOMO: OK, the good news. More than 155 million of you, we haven't seen anything like this in a generation, you exercised the franchise. You came out and you voted for, against, both. What did we show? Oh, are we divided!
But there were messages, clear ones. A President has to be better than Trump. And what else? What about the guardrails for Biden in terms of what you want and what you don't?
This is part of the Biden reality now. He has to figure out, what does this mean for his own course forward? Even within his, own Party, there is a liberal wing. Was there a message of rejection of that wing in this Party?
Now, what does that mean for how he harnesses the power of the best, in his Party? That takes us to Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Good to have you back on the show.
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TEXT: ONE ON ONE.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Good to be with you, Chris.
CUOMO: Senator, I hope the family is well. Let's start micro, and then we'll go macro.
On the micro, this, talk that "Hey, Bernie Sanders should be in the Biden cabinet. That's what he wants," is that true?
SANDERS: Well, look, I want to do everything I can to protect working families in this country, who in many ways are living in terrible desperation right now. And if I could do it in the cabinet, that's great. If I can do it within the Biden administration, that's great as well.
CUOMO: Do you have a preference? Is there a position that would take you from the Senate, because we all know, if you leave your position in the Senate, you got a Republican Governor who gets to fill the seat?
SANDERS: Well the Republican Governor has indicated that he would appoint somebody who would caucus with the Democrats, a progressive who would caucus with the Democrats. So, I think that resolves that issue.
I think something like "Secretary of Labor" would be a very attractive position. It would give me the opportunity to fight to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, equal pay for equal work for women.
It would give me the opportunity to make sure that workers who are entitled to overtime pay get that overtime pay that workers get pensions that have been taken away from them, that we help workers organize into unions, so they can earn decent wages through collective bargaining, et cetera, et cetera.
There is a lot of work to be done in the Department of Labor.
CUOMO: Address the argument that what we saw in the election was, "Yes, Trump was rejected. But there was a record amount of votes for him."
And part of that message was, "We want somebody other than Trump, but don't go too far to the Left. We don't want that either. It scares us, and that's why he got so many votes, so that Bernie Sanders, and that part of the wing, be careful on that."
SANDERS: Well, I don't quite agree with that, needless to say.
My understanding is that over 100 candidates for Congress ran in support of Medicare-for-All, something that I strongly believe in, and has got to take place if we're going to deal with our dysfunctional and cruel healthcare system. You know how many of those candidates lost, Chris? The answer is zero. Something like 98 candidates ran on a Green New Deal. One of them lost.
I would say, really, to answer your question that we have too many Democrats who are not giving their constituents a real choice in the sense of telling them that they are prepared to stand up, in a very strong way, for working families, and take on very powerful special interests today, who are doing phenomenally well, while ordinary people are suffering.
So, I think what we need is to move the Democratic Party in a direction we're not in right now. Right now, let's be honest about it, Donald Trump has won a strong majority of working-class people in this country.
Now, you know enough about the Democratic body that 40 years ago or 50 years ago that would have been a laughable idea. Am I right?
CUOMO: Absolutely.
SANDERS: And yet that's - and that's where we are today. Why is that?
And the answer is I think that ordinary people, out there in Rural American, or parts of America, do not see a Party that says to the insurance companies, and the drug companies, "Stop ripping off the American people," who are demanding a Democratic Party that is demanding that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, "Yes, the billionaires are going to start paying their fair share of taxes. We're going to make it easier"--
CUOMO: So-- SANDERS: --"for kids to go to college, et cetera, et cetera." So, I think you need a party that makes it very clear which side they are on. Democrats have not necessarily done that.
CUOMO: All right, so we go from inside the Party now to outside.
[21:25:00]
Here's the big problem. If we learn anything, from what we're seeing right now, it's that "Thank god the institutions seem to stand up, even against a President," so far so good. But his Party is in his pocket. And they're not going anywhere.
And you may see even worse than what you dealt with, with the Republican Senate under Obama. And you won't get to do any of the things that you want to do, and Biden is going to be forced to find areas of agreement, which are going to have to be center at best. What about that proposition?
SANDERS: I don't accept that proposition, Chris.
I think if we come out strong, from day one, standing up, and making it clear that we have proposals to benefit working families, and if we are prepared, to go into those states, to tell those Republican senators, "You're not going to vote for a strong COVID-19 package which protects workers, guess what? We're heading into your state. We're going to explain it to the people in your state."
Now, we don't know what the results in Georgia will be, but it is going to be a very, very tight Senate.
And I think we can put pressure on individual Republicans to do the right thing by talking to the constituents, in their own state, when we have clear proposals, raising the minimum wage, expanding healthcare, making public colleges and universities tuition-free.
You make that clear. I think the people in those states will put pressure on their Republican senators.
CUOMO: Here is the starting point of the battleground. Rubio, Ted Cruz says, "Listen, god love Bernie Sanders, but we have had two votes in the last couple of months. $500 billion relief packages, never enough for these people.
So now they're going to blame us for all these people waiting in food lines. We wanted to give them $500 billion. It's never enough. They won't take something. They'd rather take nothing."
Can you win the argument?
SANDERS: Of course we can win the argument.
And the argument is that we are living sadly, tragically, in an unprecedented moment in American history. Never been a moment like this with this pandemic, quarter of a million people now dead, an economic downturn, the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression.
Chris, there are people who are watching this program now don't have any food in the cupboard to feed their kids.
If we're going to restore faith, with ordinary Americans, and I think that's enormously important, because I think when you have a demagogue like Trump, and others, the way they do well is when people give up on government, don't think government hears their pain.
We have got to stand up for those people, no matter what Cruz or Rubio may say, and say "We are with you. Yes, we're going to extend that $600-a-week unemployment supplement. Yes, you're going to have food on the table for your kids. Yes, you're going to get at least the $2,000- a-month check to get you over this crisis right now."
And I think the American people understand that we have to act boldly and they support that.
CUOMO: And the $500 billion wasn't enough for that?
SANDERS: No. It was not. Look, you got states, you got cities, you got towns that are facing bankruptcy right now because of declining revenue.
You got hospitals today that are overwhelmed, can't care for the patients who are coming in with COVID-19. We need an extremely bold package that addresses the crises facing unlike (ph) what is enough is addressing the crisis.
It's not a monetary amount. It's making sure that the people in this country have enough to feed their kids with, that they're not evicted from their apartments that they have a job to go to.
CUOMO: Bernie, are you guys ready for this fight? Do you think your Party comes together and has galvanized purpose the way we have seen magically manifest in the Trump Party?
I mean, these guys will swallow tripe and repeat it and mindlessly look by during these tan-Trumps like nothing I have ever seen. The--
SANDERS: No, that's right, Chris, yes.
CUOMO: --the single-mindedness, they're all in. Can you guys combat that?
SANDERS: Well, I don't want to emulate the Republican Party. I don't want the Democratic Party--
CUOMO: Can you beat them?
SANDERS: --to become a cult of the individual.
I mean what you have and the point you make is a very important point. What we have seen and I could not believe it. I would not have told you this would have happened four years ago. You have a Republican Party which has virtually collapsed and become a cult following the whims of a President of the United States. How do you have a Party where very few elected Republicans are even prepared to acknowledge Joe Biden's victory? I mean, that's pretty crazy stuff.
But if you're asking me, do I think the Democratic Party is prepared to stand up, and fight back, right now, yes, I do think that they are.
CUOMO: But that would require, not a cult of personality, of course, but do you think the Party will be behind Biden, and what he does, that people can be on the same page within the Party, because if you're not, you got no chance against unified opposition.
[21:30:00]
SANDERS: Well, it's not a question of what Biden does. It's how we all work together around an agenda.
Biden supports in his campaign, and I know we will come forward with an effort to raise the minimum wage to $15-an-hour, equal pay for equal work. Do I think we're going to have united support for those ideas? Sure.
Biden wants to invest $2 trillion to combat climate change and, in the process, create millions of good-paying jobs and energy efficiency and sustainable energy. So, I think the Caucus will support that, absolutely.
So, I think the proposals that Biden campaigned on, during the campaign, and as you may know, we had some task forces that worked with the Biden campaign to help work out those ideas. They are strong proposals. They are progressive proposals. If he brings them forward, yes, I do think the Democratic Caucus will be behind those.
CUOMO: Obviously, the first set of options is easy. You got to get us through the pandemic. The need is so great. I think this is going to be a fight unlike any I've ever seen in my lifetime.
Senator Bernie Sanders, you are certainly going to be a big part of it. Thank you for being on this show. You are always welcome to make the case. God bless you and the family.
SANDERS: Thank you very much, Chris.
CUOMO: All right, Senator.
SANDERS: Thanks so much.
CUOMO: Now, part of the pain, schools. How many times have I shared your frustration that what's happening in schools sucks?
It doesn't seem to make sense that nobody does it the same way, and one case, everybody goes home. They don't know when they're coming back. The teachers are worried. They can't teach in these weird classes. All the problems, they go on and on. None of them seem to getting better. Now, they're getting worse. The nation's largest public school system is going all remote again, in New York City. Why? COVID test positivity has "Spiked." Why do I have it in quotes? What does "Spiked" mean? Why is this the best way? Why don't we ever develop better ways when nobody likes the current way?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta understands. And we actually have a piece of good news, from the FDA, to tell you about, next.
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[21:35:00]
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CUOMO: The numbers blur, right? 250,000 Americans' lives lost. Does that mean enough? Can't see it in the sign of people's desperation to do better, can't see it in the sign of our leaders working to turn things around.
And we all know deaths are a lagging indicator, right? We start to hear that people are dying more, all the pain that has preceded it, a reflection of the people who were infected two weeks ago to three weeks ago, hospitals overrun.
When new cases were averaging around 70,000 a day to 80,000 a day, that's when the calls went out of what needed to be done. We don't do it. You don't do it. I don't do it. We don't do it enough. Now we're literally making ourselves sick.
The hardest hit, OK, those states are where GOP governors have followed Trump's lead. This is not about Right and Left. It's about being reasonable.
This pandemic, the virus, is the truth. Everything it does is pure and true. It gets all of us sick. It doesn't give a damn what you think or who you vote for. And all of us now know we're headed the wrong way.
New York City, the largest school district in the country is closing down indefinitely because of rising rates. The Chief Doctor, Sanjay Gupta, is here to discuss with me.
I'd like to do it this way, brother. I'd like to do it with what seems like good news, maybe good news--
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: OK. CUOMO: --and I'm not sure it's good news.
First, the good news, rapid at-home tests has been approved by the FDA. Is this a game-changer?
GUPTA: I think so. I mean, these rapid at-home tests are a big deal. The issue is with this particular one that you're talking about, I think, we have some pictures of it, but it requires a machine.
You're going to get - you need to get a prescription, I think, for the various reagents or swabs, and I don't know that they're going to have enough of these machines, a common problem, until sort of the first quarter of next year.
But fundamentally, Chris, you and I have been talking about testing from the start. The idea that you could have rapid accurate at-home testing that you don't need to send to a lab, don't need a machine, and that's actionable, that can basically tell you the question you're really trying to answer, are you contagious?
If we could get to that point, and I think we can, those tests do exist, I think they would be huge. We just haven't invested in that. This test will be a big deal, but we don't have enough of them yet, Chris.
CUOMO: What's the cabbage factor? How much money?
GUPTA: I mean the machine itself, my understanding, is around $50. The issue, the slowdown is really around the manufacturing of these things.
I mean if we had invoked, for example, the Defense Production Act, around the first antigen tests, that have been authorized, and I'm talking back in May-June timeframe, we could be in a very different position now, Chris.
I mean, every day or every couple of days, you and your family could test yourself, in the morning, while you're brushing your teeth, putting in your contacts, whatever. Within 15 minutes, you have a result, an actionable piece of data.
They aren't perfect tests. But if they are applied as broadly as they could be, around the country, they would make a huge difference. Michael (ph)--
CUOMO: Will it price out the same people--
GUPTA: --you've had on your show--
CUOMO: Will we price out people who have to worry the most already? So, it's the $50, and then there's the vig on the materials you need for every time you want to test. Will it become expensive in a way that you just can't afford it?
GUPTA: Well, it could be. I mean the Binax tests that I'm describing, these antigen tests are $5 apiece. If you are doing it frequently, obviously that cost adds up. You are adding it for your whole family. It's a significant cost.
CUOMO: And no insurance.
GUPTA: The government went ahead - and right now, I mean, what happened was the government essentially, they bought 150 million of these tests for $750 million, and they are giving them out to areas that they think need them, some nursing homes, school districts, and things like that.
CUOMO: Not enough.
GUPTA: But for the average person out there, it's still a cost.
CUOMO: Yes.
[21:40:00]
GUPTA: And it's not covered by insurance.
CUOMO: All right, so let's skip through these things real fast. The 95 percent effective for Pfizer, good news, but, what's the biggest "But?"
GUPTA: I think - I think there is two big question marks I have.
One is how long does it last? You get the shot, and it sounds like from the data that the company has released, it's very effective at preventing people from getting sick with COVID. The vast majority of people who got sick in this trial were in the placebo group. You can see. That's where the 95 percent number comes from.
CUOMO: Right.
GUPTA: 162 versus eight. But how long does it last? Is this going to be a seasonal thing, a yearly thing like a flu shot? It's possible. Because we do know the immunity--
CUOMO: OK.
GUPTA: --may have months of half-life. The other - the other question is basically does it actually prevent infection?
That may sound like an obvious thing. We know it prevents people from getting sick, and even severely sick, according to their data, but does it actually prevent people from getting infected? Does it keep them from transmitting the virus? Remember, Chris, people who don't even have symptoms can transmit this virus.
CUOMO: May keep your symptoms down, but still make you contagious.
GUPTA: So those are two question marks.
CUOMO: Good. The last one I left because I'm too personally invested.
The school thing bothers me, Sanjay. Just tell the audience why this 3 percent thing is OK. The percentage in New York schools is not 3 percent. It's about half that. But because the overall percentage is 3 percent, they're going to shut down the schools.
Why is 3 percent the right number? Why is closing down the schools the right thing when they don't even meet that 3 percent number? Why can't we find a better way than closing down?
GUPTA: Yes. No. I don't relish these decisions. But the 3 percent number is, I mean, it's a bit of an arbitrary number.
I mean New York has been doing really, really well in terms of keeping these numbers down. You look at South Dakota, 56 percent positivity. So, 3 percent by comparison seems pretty good. But that was the benchmark they set by which they would then shut down schools.
But, Chris, I agree with you. And I sense where your discomfort comes from. And that is that the positivity rate, among schools, among those New York schools, 0.17 percent. So, a lot lower, not just half, but a lot lower. And I got to say, I was surprised.
As you know, Chris, you and I talked about it, I was skeptical about getting kids back in school. I thought it was going to end up being a huge sort of super-spreader event. And yet, schools, many of them, have been able to keep a low positivity rate.
CUOMO: Right.
GUPTA: If you are hitting 3 percent, in a big community like this, and you say that's your benchmark, there are other areas of society that seem to be bigger drivers of spread.
CUOMO: Yes.
GUPTA: Restaurants, bars, hotels, cafes, to name a few of them.
CUOMO: Yes.
GUPTA: 80 percent of spread is happening in those locations. So frankly, I would probably be focusing on those types of things first before going to schools.
CUOMO: And none of those things - all those things affect jobs, OK, and - you know, except religious gatherings. That's a separate issue. The schools affect jobs and all these other family-vital things.
GUPTA: Right.
CUOMO: The inequalities among rich and poor exacerbated. Keeping kids at home for school sucks.
GUPTA: Yes.
CUOMO: We all suck at it. Unless your kid, it's probably like your kids, by the way, probably self-starters, and love doing the school thing, probably got your genes, and your wife's even smarter than you, but my kids with their bad gene pool, they're struggling at home. And now, I have a wife who runs a business. She has to do this. And other people who work can't even go to work. And that's where you
wind up closing down? I mean I just - it's so hard for people to accept. This 3 percent is no magic number. It's much lower in the schools.
And I feel like we need more Sanjay Guptas in these localities where people are asking questions about "How do we do this better? Where else are they doing it better?"
GUPTA: Yes.
CUOMO: "What can we adopt?" And it's like we're just stuck with the same metrics that are getting us just in and out of these holes.
But Sanjay, I know you give it to us straight, and I know you give us the best reckoning. And that's just one reason that I love you. Have a good night, my brother.
GUPTA: Love you, too, Chris. Talk to you soon.
CUOMO: I mean, look, I got to be honest. I'm not objective on the school thing. I'm not. If they told me fact number one, fact, this is two, one plus two equals three, all right, I got you. That's not what the 3 percent is. And the rate is lower in schools.
Why aren't we like pushing the standards? How do we do it? Because there is such a cost to making the kids stay home? Economic, family, stress, health, they're inequalities. I just don't get it.
Now, you know who does get it? Dr. Anthony Fauci. Guess who is on the show tomorrow night? Yes. Guess who is going to be on the show tonight - tomorrow night, longer than you've ever seen him, on a show, except a Special before? Fauci.
He's here. We're going to take our time. We're going to go through what's happening with schools. Why we are where we are? What the breakthroughs are? What we're seeing around the country? What the realities are for the Holidays and beyond.
Let's test the doctor and give him a chance to talk to us. No quick sound bites, no quick commercial windows. We're going to take time. Tomorrow night, on PRIME TIME, with the man who is in the middle of the biggest pandemic we have faced in a generation.
[21:45:00]
Now, what is the biggest price of it? Hunger, OK, food anxiety. Talk about political correctness being misdirected. That's called hunger, being hungry.
This is Dallas, people in their cars barely able to get by lined up for food.
(VIDEO - PEOPLE IN THEIR CARS FORM LINES TO COLLECT FOOD IN DALLAS, TEXAS) CUOMO: These lines are not unique to Texas. They're all over the country. The real need, stepping up, why it's not enough, the reality, Ameri-CANs doing what our government should do, next.
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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.
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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.
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CUOMO: Please roll the video of the cars waiting in line for food. This is Dallas. But in Dallas, Detroit, California to Queens, in New York, it's like this.
[21:50:00]
50 million of our brothers and sisters are going hungry. COVID, that's why. Here is where the numbers stood pre-pandemic, all right? The difference, COVID. The levels, Great Depression days. Remember those pictures of the guys in the coats with the hats? The latest government figures say the vast majority of the time now
it's a family with kids. Kids are going hungry in America and our Congress is not getting it done.
No, not an inner-city Blue state problem. Rural Americans, suburban, they're all starving at a disproportionate rate. Those are statistics. They don't really work. Faces work. Stories work.
Trisha Cunningham is the President and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank. Neil Wilson is a father, just like me, just like so many of you. And he is up against it, and doing the best he can, and there is not enough help.
Welcome to PRIME TIME.
NEIL WILSON, FIRST TIME RECEIVING FOOD FROM A FOOD BANK DISTRIBUTION: Thanks.
TRISHA CUNNINGHAM, PRESIDENT & CEO, NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK: Thanks, Chris.
CUOMO: First, Trish, articulate just generally, how bad is it now compared to anything you have ever seen it before?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, number one, we have never had a pandemic like this before, and we have not seen hunger rates like this ever, even going back to the Great Depression times. CUOMO: I have friends who work in your good works business, and they say it has taken them time to adapt not just to the volume but the faces, that they keep seeing people, like Neil, coming in, and they say, "Hey, you here to volunteer?" And they say, "No, man, I need food." And they've never seen anything like it before.
CUNNINGHAM: You're absolutely right. The face of hunger looks just like you and I do.
It could be your neighbor down the street who's lost their job. It could be a child in your student's classroom that's sitting next to them. It could be your hairstylist or your favorite waiter.
I think that's what's happened with the pandemic is there are so many now that need our help that have been able to make it before, and now, unfortunately, because of the economic stresses they're not able to.
CUOMO: And Neil, thank you, brother, for coming on the show. I know you work hard.
WILSON: Definitely.
CUOMO: I know you're proud. I know you take care of your family. I know you served this country. I know this is the first time you have been in this position. How quickly did things get to this point for you and why?
WILSON: It was real quick, just like within a month, we realized we ain't going to have food for Thanksgiving. And I said, you know, my wife said, "Well, they're having this food line that we could go to." So, we sat in there for like 3.5 hours to get our food, so but that it's - we're always the ones donating to this stuff, you know?
We're just not used to having to sit back and take it, you know? It's like - it felt - you know, it felt uncomfortable for us a little bit at first, but I said, "Well, we got to do this," so.
And then there's a lot of people out there that need our help, and stuff too. So, what we're going to do with this food is just kind of help some of these other people out that, you know, we know that don't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving. So, we're going to give some to the - some of these friends of ours that don't have a home to go to.
CUOMO: When you--
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CUOMO: When you talk to your family, Neil, and you talk to yourself, why at 57-years-old, why is this happening to you?
WILSON: I don't know. I mean it's - I was working, doing a (OFF-MIKE) job working good. Just the pandemic hit and it just started going downhill from there.
And it just - you know, and my wife ended up getting her stimulus check on her Social Security, but I didn't get one, and I'm getting a disability check from the VA, so, but I still didn't get one from the first time.
So, I'm hoping this helps - this next one comes through because, you know, we could have used that extra. We ended up losing our home in Tyler. Now we're just renting a house, so, you know, so we had to do that, give up our home that we were paying for.
And so, it's just like because we couldn't afford it, and keeping up, and I figured rent, a lot of times, will help paying rent. That way landlords will help pay for any repairs that need to be done to the house so.
CUOMO: Right. You are shaking your head, Trish, because you have heard stories like this too often these days?
CUNNINGHAM: It's sad, you know? You hear these stories, and you heard that one. We had the gentleman that stayed in his car overnight for this distribution that we had on Saturday with his stepsons just to be able to put food on the table.
We have had families, fathers come through that wanted to put the food in grocery bags because they felt like there was a stigma associated with coming to get a little extra help. And we don't want that.
We know people need a little extra help right now. We want to help that teacher that had to stop doing her night job of staying with hospice patients because she didn't want to put her students at risk. And so now, some of her income has gone away, and these are the families that we're helping.
[21:55:00]
We want to help people stay in their homes a little longer. We want to be able to help people to help their child with that distant-learning that they need to put into place. That's what we're here for at the Food Bank, is to fill those gaps.
CUOMO: God bless you, and the people who volunteer with you, and work with you for doing your work, Neil - Trisha Cunningham.
Neil Watson - Wilson, Mr. Wilson, what do you want our elected leaders to know?
WILSON: I just want to know there's - how many people are out there really struggling.
I mean this has been - and I bet you some of these people that were volunteering probably also needed a little bit of help, too. I imagine there was some of them in there, but they wanted to volunteer to help and then maybe, later, they had - probably had family members in the line, too.
I mean it just was - there was just so many people out there. We weren't able to visit with them because of the COVID situation, but at least, they were not just handing out food. They were going around, giving out hand sanitizers--
CUOMO: Right.
WILSON: --masks, they were wearing masks. I thought that was (OFF- MIKE) so but once this is over with and things, I'm definitely going to be back into helping again, once I get back on my feet, you know so?
CUOMO: Well it is - it's amazing that your first instinct--
WILSON: There are many that need that help (ph).
CUOMO: --Neil, I'm sure, this is why you served the country, this is why you've raised your family, your first instinct, as soon as you can, is to be in a position to help others.
I promise you this. I don't know what's going to happen. But I swear to God, every day that I do this job, I'm going to be telling people in power that they have to do better for people like you, and to help the people who are trying to help you, like Trisha Cunningham.
God bless you both. And I'm thankful for both of you coming on this show to let people know the truth. And we will fight for people like you every damn day. God bless.
WILSON: Thank you. Thank you, Trisha, too.
CUNNINGHAM: Thank you, Chris.
CUOMO: We'll be right back.
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