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U.S. Sees Record Surge in New Coronavirus Cases; Michigan's GOP Senate Majority Leader Arrives for Meeting with Trump at White House; Dr. Fauci Urges Officials to Keep Schools Open if Possible. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired November 20, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Friday morning to you, I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

Democracy is, rest assured, moving forward despite the president's best efforts to try to set it back. Today, Georgia Republican secretary of state is expected to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory in that state, a major blow to President Trump's ongoing efforts to overturn the election. This also comes on the same day the president will meet with the Michigan House speaker at the White House in these turn of events, as the president is trying to find any way to overturn the results in that state that were not in his favor. So much so not in his favor that Biden won Michigan by what's looking like, Jim, to be about 150,000 votes.

SCIUTTO: Well, many more times than Trump won that state in 2016, we should note.

The other fact, a sad one, the nation still fighting a pandemic that is getting worse, thousands now dying each day, and the CDC is now urging Americans not to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday. We know that is sad news to hear, but it is, they say, the safest thing for you and your families.

Let's begin now with CNN's Stephanie Elam, she's in California. And, Stephanie, state leaders across the U.S. are having to make really difficult choices right now that, frankly, people aren't happy about. Some aren't.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of people aren't happy about it. I mean, even if you're for these new enforcements, you would really rather not be in this position. But when you look at the numbers right now, Jim and Poppy, you can see that in 44 states, we're seeing that the cases are rising.

We know that just yesterday, we had nearly 188,000 new cases that were reported. That is a record that we're seeing there. And when you look at the deaths as well, you're talking about 252,000 Americans as of yesterday that have lost their lives to this virus.

Just to put that into perspective, there were more than 2,000 people that died just yesterday. This shows you things are not going in the right direction. We haven't seen numbers like that since May. This is obviously of concern.

And here in California, they are now deciding that they are going to go ahead and pump the brakes. This shows you how quickly things can change. We have seen a surge happen very quickly here in the state. And because of that, they are now putting into a new stay-at-home order just like we saw in March.

However, this one is targeting overnight. This one is going to be looking at from 10:00 P.M. until 5:00 A.M., they want people to stay home, all non-essential businesses to close during that time.

Just to give you an idea how this is going to affect 94 percent of the state's population, this is really going to affect those counties in the highest tier that have the most hospitalizations and cases. They're saying they're doing this because yesterday, just yesterday, 11,478 cases were reported here in California. And they're saying that if you look at the overall trend here, it doesn't really matter what's happening.

I actually spoke yesterday and asked a question to Dr. Mark Ghaly, he is the Human and Health Services Secretary here in California, about the timing of this right before Thanksgiving. Listen to what he had to say.

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DR. MARK GHALY, CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: At this level of surge, no matter what's coming next week, we would make these actions.

If we don't follow some of the guidelines -- all of the guidelines, we don't make choices to limit our mixing (ph), limit our risks, limit our cross country, cross state travel, we will see accelerated rates of transmission.

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ELAM: And just to give you an idea how this is looking, he says that the spread is across the state they're seeing these COVID numbers rise. Here in Los Angeles County, we had over 5,000 cases reported yesterday. That is the highest that we've seen throughout the entire pandemic. So the curfew is already put into effect here overnight in L.A. County.

But one more thing, Jim and Poppy, just to put into your mind, of a state of 40 million people, there's about a million cases that we've seen. That means the majority of the population is still susceptible, and that's the same thing across the country.

HARLOW: That's a really important thing to point out, for sure. Stephanie Elam, thank you for the reporting from California for us. SCIUTTO: Well, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, got the chance to sit down with the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx. It's a rare exclusive interview and he joins us now.

HARLOW: Good morning, Sanjay. You don't hear from her a lot, especially one-on-one. I'm eager to hear what you thought stood most from what she told you.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, it was interesting. She agreed to sit down and walk. You may remember, we were hearing from her almost daily until April and then before yesterday, there hadn't been a coronavirus task force meeting since July 8th for the press.

So, it was very interesting to hear her perspectives on what has happened over the last several months and where she thinks we are now and what could have been done potentially better, because that's going to inform decisions going forward.

[10:05:12]

Take a listen.

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GUPTA: I sometimes have a hard time, Ambassador, figuring out how to represent how we've done in this country. 250,000 people have died. If you compare it to other countries, South Korea, 500 people have died, was this a failure in this country? I mean, did you expect it to go this way?

BIRX: I always worry when we have an outcome that none of us want and none of us wanted, you know? Did we miss a communication? Did we say it the wrong way? And I think, really, that's part of the reason why I went out into the states, is to really understand what they were hearing when we were speaking and really being in a dialogue and a partnership to really understand how we could do this better together.

GUPTA: Was the lack of testing and the continued inadequate testing the original sin here?

BIRX: It's not only the number of tests and the type of tests, but using them in the optimal way so that we can get the most answers for the quantity that we have.

Certainly, I'm a big proponent of testing and expanding testing. I actually think testing alone is a public health intervention. And if you constantly are testing people and isolating the positives, then you have a very different outcome.

If you look at the universities that had mandatory, mandatory testing, they ended up with less than 1 percent of their student body infected. Ones that did the testing the way we were doing it in America, primarily focused on symptomatics, contact tracing, isolating and quarantining, they had 8 to 10 percent of their student body infected. GUPTA: Was there ever a strategic decision not to test as much?

BIRX: I think there was not -- that was not a strategic decision to not to test. There was a strategic decision to test more until a particular timeframe in the late summer, when you saw the CDC guidance changed to symptomatic testing. And from the -- I really -- I can't tell you how strongly I believe that symptomatic testing and contact tracing is only -- well, it's less than half of the equation. And unless you get the other half of the equation, you're not going to stop community spread.

And so that did put a pale on testing for a number of weeks.

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SCIUTTO: So, Sanjay, I know Dr. Birx, she also weighed in on the personal sacrifices, right, that, in effect, health officials are asking of you, me and the folks watching this show, how did she answer that? Explain that?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, the thing about a pandemic, right, is that everyone is affected by this. And there's two major things I think lots of things, but schools, we're hearing a lot about schools and obviously the upcoming holidays and how people are expected to behave during this time. I'm going to let you listen to how she talks about schools.

And I will preface (ph) by saying, look, I was a skeptic as well about schools as well, in the sense that kids are typically spreaders of respiratory viruses, why would schools be any different? But now we have data several months later to show in schools that have done a good job with masking and things like that, they've been able to control the spread.

So what does that mean now going forward? It's a critical, critical decision I think for the entire country, and here is what she said.

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GUPTA: You saw the news about New York City public schools. Because of a 3 percent positivity rate, they're going to shutdown. Good decision?

BIRX: You know, Europe was willing to sacrifice restaurants and bars to maintain their schools. We asked college students to sacrifice their college experience and even the universities that were open, it was a different experience. But we asked them to change their behaviors, to wear a mask, to physically distance.

GUPTA: Why would you shutdown schools when they're a 0.17 and the city is 3 percent and keep restaurants and bars and other places like that open even at limited capacity.

BIRX: I think the thing that confuses Americans, and I've heard this in the rocky mountain states, when we tell people that these masks prevent transmission, they're not perfect, but when we tell them they prevent transmission. And then we close the spaces where people are 100 percent masks and leave open the spaces open where the people aren't on masks, which we know is a transmission area, that's confusing to the American people.

I understand why it's confusing. They're like, okay, you said masks work and I'm doing them here and these spaces are safe. And you're closing my space and leaving open the spaces where people are unmasked.

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[10:10:01]

HARLOW: What an interview, I have the same questions about the New York City schools. Sanjay, I'm sure the whole thing is posted online so people can see more of it. Thank you very much.

GUPTA: You got it. Thanks.

HARLOW: Still to come, the state of Georgia today set to certify President-elect Biden's win there after the hand recount. That is the Republican Georgia secretary of state. We'll take you live to Atlanta.

SCIUTTO: That's right, defying the president's claims of fraud.

Plus, Dr. Fauci says that we should make every effort to keep kids in school, and the CDC director says coronavirus is not, in fact, spread in schools. This as New York, the nation's largest school district, has closed all public schools to in-person learning.

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[10:15:00]

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REPORTER: Are you here to help overturn the election results --

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SCIUTTO: Just moments ago, protesters and reporters there greeting the Michigan state Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, this as he arrives in D.C. for a meeting with President Trump at the White House.

HARLOW: It is an odd meeting, to say the least. What's the intent? Joe Johns is outside the White House.

So, Joe, we now know that at least one of those two members is going to meet with the president today. Do you have any clarification from the White House on what the president is asking of him?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: No, the president hasn't done any news conferences, as you know. He's sort of been hiding out in the White House for the last several days. We haven't seen him. But I can tell you, the pictures you have there, Mike Shirkey, he is the Michigan majority leader of the Senate and he's arriving here apparently for the meeting with the president. Also coming here is the speaker of the House in the Maryland legislature. And they're supposed to sit down and talk to the president.

Now, what do we know? We know the president has been trying to get votes thrown out from battleground states that he lost, and it hasn't been going very well. So, if you can't fix this in the courts and you can't do something with it in a recount, how about going to the legislature and see if they can either invalidate the election or send electors to the Electoral College who will vote for Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden, who won the state of Michigan.

But it doesn't sound like it's going to work. Both of these men have indicated that they don't have any interest in going there. In fact, the majority leader of the Senate has said, there is no provision in state law to do anything like that. So the question is, what are they up to? Well, this is the question, and what's the end game?

Colleagues here at CNN have reported that the president knows he lost this election but is looking to delegitimize the presidency of Joe Biden, sort of payback because the president feels his own presidency was delegitimized by things like the Russia investigation. Back to you, guys.

SCIUTTO: Wow. Hillary Clinton conceded. Anyway --

HARLOW: That's such an important point. Joe Johns, also, thanks very much for that.

Let's talk about this with Franita Tolson, CNN Election Law Analyst and Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at USC's Gould School of Law.

Sure glad we have you on this morning because I think it's pretty clear in Michigan state law that electors have to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote in the state, which is about 150,000 votes that put Biden ahead in Michigan. And the Supreme Court this year just said, you can't have faithless electors, meaning they can't switch. So, is there anything that can be done here no matter what the president says to this guy?

FRANITA TOLSON, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: So, first, let me say, happy Georgia certification day, right? So these certification days are really important. Once Michigan certifies on Monday, then it becomes really difficult to argue that electors should vote for President Trump when the election has been certified. As you mentioned, Poppy, Biden has won by 150,000 votes. And so at that point, this argument mostly goes away.

And let me just add that federal judges have been really aggressive about dismissing lawsuits that are seeking to block certifications or delay the certification deadlines in part because they realize that this could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of people, so another Hail Mary that will likely fail.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you though, Franita, because that's what the law says, that's what precedent says past practice. But it requires that electors cast their votes for the certified winner of the statewide popular vote.

I mean, we had an instance in Wayne County earlier this week when, for a moment there, the board, whose job it is to certify, wasn't going to do it, right? And there's a statewide canvasser who has said, according to The Washington Post, that he's getting a lot of calls and he is considering whether he will certify.

I mean, is that a backdoor that can be exploited by this president?

TOLSON: So, I think a lot of these efforts are back door attempts, even with Wayne County. So, initially, the board there locked, and then, eventually, they agreed to certify the results. And then there were reports that one of the members of the board wanted to recant her vote. But in reality, the Michigan governor has a lot of authority here. She could replace members of the board.

And so there are safeguards at various steps in this process to prevent outcomes that really the president is hoping for.

[10:20:05]

And I do think that these checks are important as the prior report mentioned, even if the president meets with members of the Michigan Republican Party, at the end of the day, they realize if they go against the will of the people, people will be in the streets, right?

And so, you know, federal judges, yes, are pushing back against this. But even more importantly in some ways, members of the Republican Party in key states seem to be pushing back.

HARLOW: Yes, for sure. What's -- is there anything illegal -- you know, we know the president did call those two Republicans who at least were waiting to certify the votes in Detroit and then flip back. Is it -- if he asked them to do something, is that, in any way, against the law? Meaning, are there any rules against sort of interference, if you will?

TOLSON: I don't think so. I don't think that the president will be subject to any legal liability for this. But let me be clear. In the last four years, I had to revisit the force of law in this context. The Republican National Convention was at the White House, which was a violation of federal law, but nothing happened, right?

So I do think we need to have more discussion about the extent to which law constrains and the extent to which political norms constrains. It's not that the president is potentially violating the law here, it's more so the fact that he's violating every political norm that we had in place leading to this election, right?

It is the fact that what he's doing is corrosive to our democracy and that by prolonging this, he really is hurting our country for the foreseeable future, and I think that is the larger concern.

SCIUTTO: It is. Franita Tolson, always good to have you on.

TOLSON: Great to be here. Thank you. SCIUTTO: Listen to the facts here. The president and his allies continue to claim, without basis, fraud in the election to undermine his loss. His attorneys, however, are acknowledging a very different reality in courtrooms around the country. Remember, you can lie on Twitter or in press conferences, you cannot lie in court. So, listen to what the Trump campaign says in court, its own words.

Here is what the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told a judge in a Philadelphia courtroom just this week.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the amended complaint plead fraud with particularity?

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: No, your honor, and it doesn't plead fraud. It pleads that -- it pleads plan was schemed, that we lay out in 132 to 149, without characterizing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: No fraud. He said it himself. That is just one of several similar admissions in several cases where voters or the campaign told the courts they have suspected fraud, they dropped their cases, or judges rejected them.

Here is one example. In one case brought by private individuals, a federal judge wrote in an order, quote, fraudulent motives were ascribed to the process and the city of Detroit, plaintiff's interpretation of events is incorrect, not credible. That's the judge speaking there.

Another Trump campaign allegation that failed in court was that GOP observers were not allowed to watch ballot canvassing in Philadelphia. In that case, a lawyer for the Trump campaign admitted before a federal judge, quote, there's a non-zero number of people in that room. Well, that's one way of saying there were GOP observers in the room, another lie caught in court.

And In Arizona, a case beginning with allegations of sharpie pens, ballots and fraud ended with a Trump lawyer saying this, listen.

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KORY LANGHOFER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN LAWYER: This is not a fraud case. We are not pledging fraud in this lawsuit. We're not alleging anyone stealing the election.

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SCIUTTO: We're not alleging anyone stealing the election. These are the president's own lawyers in their own words acknowledging their claims are false.

HARLOW: And it matters so much and it sometimes, Jim, I think, gets lost in the chaos of all of this, so thank you for laying that out. It's really important when his own team is saying in court.

Okay. So, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is, this morning, defending his decision to shut down all in-person learning at all New York City public schools. But the CDC director now says schools are among the safest places for kids to be, Dr. Fauci echoing that. We'll speak to one of the mayor's top health advisers, next.

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[10:55:00]

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Obviously, you want to be sensitive to the safety and the health of the children.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And the teachers and the family and the staff, I get it.

FAUCI: Of course, the teachers, you want to do that.

Having said that, my feeling is the default position keep the schools open if you possibly can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Keep the schools open if you can, Dr. Fauci's comments come as New York City shutters all public schools for in-person learning after hitting a 3 percent citywide positivity rate.

[10:30:09]