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Trump Administration Still Refusing to Cooperate with Biden Team on Transition; President Trump Has Had No Events in Public Schedule for Much of Previous Weeks; Coronavirus Cases Continue Rising in States Across U.S.; Will Delay in Biden Transition Derail Stimulus?; New Jersey Coronavirus Hospitalizations Hit 6-Month High. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 19, 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]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Biden and his team zeroed in on the pandemic, pressing their case for the Trump administration to coordinate with them on the crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We haven't had any official contact between the transition team coming in and the current administration.

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am optimistic, but we should be further along.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pandemic spreading with dangerous speed right now, shattering records every day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than a quarter of a million people have died in less than 10 months in the U.S., by far more than any other country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm the most concerned I've been since this pandemic started.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are in a war right now, and the virus is winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. And the coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than a quarter million people in the United States. That number is, of course, shocking, as is the daily death toll. Just yesterday 1,848 new deaths were reported. That's more than one person per minute. The number of people sick in the hospital this morning reaching a new high, nearly 80,000, 10,000 people admitted in just the past week. And still even in the face of this growing crisis, the outgoing Trump administration has barred their health officials from even talking to the Biden transition team. Biden warns that could delay the vaccine distribution for all of us by weeks if not months.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So there is nothing on the defeated president's public schedule today, and by that I mean nothing, not a single thing. A pandemic just killed 1,800 more Americans and he has nothing to say about it in public. He's apparently setting new records for public nothingness. This is the 12th of the past 16 days that he has nothing on his public schedule. Folks who've covered the White House for years say they have never seen anything like this. In private at least, and on Twitter, the president does seem to be doing something. He seems intent on overthrowing the results of an election that he lost by more than 5.8 million votes and counting.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip. Abby, I just want to pull up that schedule one more time because it is striking to see no public events scheduled, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto. We didn't put this together. This is the guidance put out by the White House. It's an interesting paradox.

BERMAN: It's a great job if you can get it.

CAMEROTA: Abby, yes. Yes, it is.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Best and worst job in the world.

CAMEROTA: That's exactly right. But, Abby, it does seem to be a job that the president is fighting very hard to keep, but one that he doesn't seem that interested in performing.

PHILLIP: That is exactly the thing that is so striking about this. The president is so eager to hold on to this job, but in this interim period, where he still is the president of the United States, there's only one of those, he's not doing, as far as we can tell, really any parts of that job.

And he's spending so much time, just looking at his Twitter feed a few minutes ago, constant misinformation about voting, constant efforts to, frankly, lie about what is happening in the states and what already happened two weeks ago when he lost the election. That's what he's spending his time doing, that and golfing, and not doing the work of the presidency.

I think normally if you were really a president trying to contest the election results and saying that you really, truly believe you would have won, you would be acting as if every day, you're doing your job, showing the American people that you're doing it. And President Trump is not wanting to do that. And his aides have told my colleagues at the White House that it's a bunker mentality over at the White House where he just wants to close the world out and be in a world where he's surrounded by conspiracy theories and shut everything out. But unfortunately the rest of the country really does need presidential leadership in this moment.

BERMAN: Or they need his administration to cooperate with the transition.

PHILLIP: Yes.

BERMAN: And now sort of for the first time we're hearing President- elect Joe Biden lean into this much more, saying he needs this cooperation. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am optimistic, but we should be further along. There is a whole lot of things that are just -- we just don't have available to us, which unless it's made available soon, we are going to be behind by weeks or months being able to put together the whole initiative relating to the biggest promise we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I don't know why the hell he's optimistic that something is going to change in the transition. The president is hate-tweeting on the Internet right now, talking about election news conferences. He is not going to stop anytime soon. He won't allow this transition to happen.

PHILLIP: Well, I'll tell you why I think Joe Biden is optimistic, and it's because they are looking at the calendar.

[08:05:00]

And looking at the fact that as soon as today we could have certification of votes in several of these states, including in the state of Georgia. These deadlines are coming up, and states are, I believe, and I know that the Biden campaign also believes this and a lot of election lawyers believe this, these votes will be certified. There will come a point where there are no more legal avenues for President Trump. He can deny the results of the election all he wants, but at the end of the day, once the votes are counted and certified and this goes to the Electoral College, effectively this debate is over. And I think that's what Joe Biden is looking forward to in that sense.

And so, I think that there is -- whether or not there will remain resistance in the government is a different story, but in terms of the lobbying on the Biden transition side, I do think that that's what they are looking at is in a couple of weeks there's not really going to be any question here, not to mention the fact that all of these lawsuits that have been brought by the Trump campaign all over the country, they have lost all but one. So they have not had a very good track record so far in the courts.

CAMEROTA: The problem is that the clock is not our friend in terms of coronavirus.

PHILLIP: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: And so every day the deaths go up, it gets more deadly, we've reached 250,000 Americans dead, and the -- at least the COVID advisory council for Biden is trying to sound the alarm because unless they start right now, this is what Rick Bright, who is now on the Biden team, told us, unless they start right now they are not going to have the infrastructure and the funding and the know-how, the wherewithal, to begin getting that vaccine out. So we had all of this good news, the vaccine is more effective than we knew it was going to be, maybe it will even be available in December. None of it matters if you can't get it out effectively into people's arms.

PHILLIP: Yes, this is the real world consequence of all of this. I think there are a lot of political games being played when it comes to whether or not it is worth it to Republican lawmakers in particular to back the president up on these baseless claims in an effort to weaken Joe Biden, but the problem with weakening Joe Biden at this moment is that it has actual consequences for real people who need the government to work for them on a really important thing that only the government can do. Only the federal government has the logistical capability and the coordinating capability to distribute a vaccine or vaccines on this scale.

So you are totally right, this does need to be resolved sooner rather than later so that this can get going. And I think that maybe -- no matter what happens at this point we are already two weeks behind in a transition. We may be two more weeks out from an effective transition, and that's lost time that we will never get back.

BERMAN: We are talking about weeks where you have nearly 2,000 people dying every day. So talking about 15,000 lives that may be lost as a result of this. This is having an effect on people's lives. They are playing with people's lives here. Abby, thank you for being with us and laying it out so clearly.

PHILLIP: Good to see you guys.

BERMAN: So overnight the United States surpassed 250,000 deaths from coronavirus. That's by far the most in any country. We just spoke with a doctor in State Department which has the highest test positivity rate in the nation. Second on that list is Iowa at 50 percent. That's just unbelievable. It means that half the people being tested are testing positive. The White House task force calls the spread of coronavirus there exponential and unyielding.

So we want to bring in Dr. John Paschen. He is the chair of the Story County Board of Health in Iowa. Doctor, you've been with us before when things were not great in the summer. Now things are just downright awful. So tell us what you're seeing take place around you.

DR. JOHN PASCHEN, CHAIRMAN, STORY COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH: OK, well, first of all, thank you for having me back. Yes, it's pretty terrible here. And this surge, this is the third surge we've gone through in Story County, and this has a different feel to this surge. First of all, we don't know of any type of inciting incident that caused this. The only thing I can look at is possibly the Republican rallies that just finished because of the campaigns.

But it's like we're getting an influx of COVID from around the state. We saw surges in other counties outside of Story County, but we were holding pretty steady, and now it's starting to come into our county. And it's like the horse is out of the barn now, and it's everyplace. We run what we call a URI clinic for sick children -- I'm a pediatrician -- and we are getting a lot of positives in our children at this time.

[08:10:05]

They're still not getting very sick, thank God, but we're getting a lot of positives with the kids. We're getting a lot of positives in the adults. Our hospital is filling up. Our governor just put out a mask mandate, just put out a mask mandate, and we've been calling for her to do that for months. I was able to actually talk to Governor Reynolds personally about four weeks ago, and I asked her to pass a mask mandate where she didn't pass a mask mandate until those of us in the county or cities pass it. And now she has just come down with a mask mandate, which I've read her proclamation. It gives too many outs. Too many outs in her mask mandate. It will be helpful, I'm glad she did it. It's not going to be enough.

CAMEROTA: And the fact that your hospitals are filling up, beyond exhausting the frontline medical workers, what are the consequences of that if people get sick with something else than COVID?

PASCHEN: Exactly, co-infections, but the big issue that we're seeing and certainly in our practice is the stresses on the family. A three- year-old is positive for COVID, they can't go to daycare. The parents can't isolate themselves from their child, so they are in exposure. They may or may not get it. If they don't get it, they have to isolate for 14 days after the child is out of isolation. So they cannot go back to work for up to 22 days after this diagnosis -- 24 days, excuse me. It's a real stress on the families.

We still get people that push back about wearing a mask, which always floored me. Of all the mitigation measures that is being recommended, wearing a mask is like the easiest thing we're asking people to do.

CAMEROTA: And what do they say? I'm just curious, what does that pushback sound like?

PASCHEN: I can't breathe. Why are you doing this to me? This is a personal choice. Big on that. We heard that a lot. My wife ran for office this fall and we were out on -- she was out on the campaign trail as much as she could be, mostly by Facebook. And that's what the pushback she got -- this is a personal choice, this is a personal choice. Well, unfortunately this personal choice affects other people. And this is kind of how this -- this is how viruses work. They go from person to person to person until they find someone that it kills.

BERMAN: Doctor, it gets really cold in Iowa in the winter. We are nowhere near as cold as things are going to get where you are right now. That's going to drive people indoors even more than they are right now. So where do you see this headed over the next weeks and months?

PASCHEN: That's a real good question. We're really afraid it's just going to get worse. Not only are people going to be indoors and they can't be outside as much. When you are indoors, your nasal passages dry out, and the moisture in your nasal passages is one of the major ways that you protect yourself from getting viruses. So it really is a potential for spreading.

Now, on a more optimistic note, because I'm a hopeless optimist, maybe if everyone starts wearing masks we won't see as many other viruses. We're just going to have to see.

BERMAN: Let's hope. Let's hope they start wearing masks. Let's get to the point where we can get those vaccines in our arms next year. Just be careful for the next several months. Dr. Paschen, thank you for being with us and thanks for the work you're doing.

PASCHEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: So with so many Americans out of work and waiting hours in food lines, how is the transition delay hurting prospects for a stimulus deal? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:50]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Negotiations over a desperately needed stimulus bill remain stalled and prospects look dim. Senators have headed home for their Thanksgiving recess as President Trump continues to deny the Biden win and the transition.

So, joining us now is Jason Furman. He's a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and former top economic adviser to President Obama.

Professor, it's great to have you here.

Can you just help us understand in layman's terms the lack of certification or ascertainment of Biden's win, how is that hurting the economy?

JASON FURMAN, FORMER CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS: Yeah. I was on the transition in 2008. I started around 9:00 a.m. the morning after the election. I was in touch with political officials in the Bush administration, with career civil servants.

At the time, for example, the auto industry was on the verge of going bankrupt. We might not have GM or Chrysler today were it not for the daily cooperation that we had with the Bush administration as they were leaving and we were coming in. It's a very serious situation right now.

CAMEROTA: OK. That puts it in very concrete stark terms that we can all actually understand. That is something tangible that would have been lost you're saying if there were these sort of indefinite week- long delays.

And so, if the GSA administrator, this is at the moment it appears in her hands, if she were to ascertain the Biden as the winner, would that conversely help the economy today? Are there things that could happen today? FURMAN: Absolutely. And just understand, there's one president at a

time. President-elect Biden wouldn't be in charge of anything. He couldn't direct anything.

He would be getting information. But when that information also means, you know, here is what we're planning to do after January, here is how we build a bridge from what's going on now to what we're planning to do, you know, there's nothing ideological, there's nothing political about getting a vaccine to people, about getting economic relief in the hands of Americans. That's a matter of competence, it's a matter of coordination and it's not happening.

[08:20:04]

CAMEROTA: I mean, the faster that people get vaccinated, the faster the economy recovers. It's connected.

FURMAN: Yeah. No, that's absolutely right. And, you know, he has great people on his team, but there's so much information that they can't get right now because it's sitting there in the federal government.

Again, I had the same experience in 2008. We had a lot of ideas but there were data we didn't have access to. We didn't understand certain government programs, could this one be scaled up, could that one be scaled up?

They said with the auto industry, we were watching their cash balances on a daily basis, worried they would go below zero and what the consequences would be. Here, it's even more serious with thousands and thousands of Americans dying.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and obviously all of the financial repercussions of what's happening with the economy.

Here are the things -- the benefits that are going to expire at the end of this year. OK? So, basically a month plus from now.

Expanded unemployment benefits, student loan payment pause will expire, paid family leave, and all of the eviction protections for people who can't pay their rent right now.

So, what -- I don't -- I don't know if we should have any hope that there will be any stimulus deal before January 20th. What is the amount of stimulus that the country needs right now?

FURMAN: You know, Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi were negotiating a deal of nearly $2 trillion in October. I think that's roughly the right number right now. You may ask, how can we afford that? I think how can we afford not to do that?

If you are worried about debt, you can't repay the debt if you don't have an economy to repay that debt.

What we did last time was actually successful. The economy got to a better place by September than a lot of experts thought it would, that was because of the CARES Act, but if it all goes away at the end of December, January will be a very bad month for American families who are losing assistance and the American economy which is losing their purchasing power.

CAMEROTA: Are you someone who believes as many in the Trump administration do that there will be this V-shaped recovery, meaning that there is so much pent-up demand because we haven't been able to go out, we haven't been able to travel, we haven't been able to shop out at malls the way we used to, that there will be sort of -- something will just kind of unleash once this is over?

FURMAN: I think if we did something like a very substantial relief and stimulus measure, we could come closer to a V-shaped recovery. But to get that V-shaped recovery, you don't just need restaurants and movie theaters to be open. You need people to be able to afford to eat in those restaurants and movie theaters.

So you need a vaccine but you also need a sufficient economic response that there is enough demand. I think if we had those we could have it. If we just assume we're going to get the V-shaped recovery, no one will be able to afford to propel us up that V.

CAMEROTA: What do you think specifically about something like, say, what Chuck Schumer is talking about and Elizabeth Warren about relieving $50,000 of student debt? Is that a good idea? Does that have any repercussions we should know about?

FURMAN: You know, I think the highest priority should be getting money in the hands of people most likely to spend it, I think the unemployed, nutritional assistance, help states deal with reopening schools and the like. You know, $50,000, I think that's a lot of money -- you know, I don't know that that's as well-targeted as I would like our economic measures to be.

CAMEROTA: OK. So last, if no stimulus happens before January 20th, what will happen in this country?

FURMAN: We'll certainly have slower growth than we otherwise would have, we could easily have negative growth, something economists call a double-dip recession, and the repercussions won't just be in January and February. The way the economy works is you get, you know, knock-on ramifications. Somebody doesn't spend money, somebody else's job goes away, that person doesn't spend money, and it becomes a spiral.

And that's the spiral that policymakers need to act as quickly as possible to address.

CAMEROTA: Jason Furman, former chairman, Council of Economic Advisers, we really appreciate you giving us all this information this morning. Thank you for being here.

FURMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: A healthy 28-year-old ER doctor talks about becoming a patient of coronavirus. He almost did not live to tell this story.

You're going to hear from him coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:29:17]

BERMAN: This morning, the state of New Jersey seeing an alarming rise in coronavirus cases. Hospitalizations have more than tripled since last month and are the highest since late May.

Joining me now is New Jersey's Governor Phil Murphy.

Governor, you have said the second wave is crashing around us. How so?

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Well, John, it's here in a big way. If you measure it by positive cases every day, the hospitalizations, ICU, positivity rate, rate of transmission, all those numbers are going in the wrong direction and going in the wrong direction in a pretty significant way.

So, we are in the fight. We never get out of the woods, but we are in the thick of it again right now.

BERMAN: Why?

MURPHY: I think it's a whole mix of reasons. I think there is a lot of pandemic fatigue, understandably, a lot of transmission in private.