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New Day

Trump Undercuts American Democracy as Pandemic Worsens; 2,015 Americans Died Yesterday, CDC Argues Against Thanksgiving Travel. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 20, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Very much for that.

[07:00:01]

So, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has an exclusive interview with Dr. Birx, as the coronavirus crisis is breaking new records in the country.

New Day continues right now.

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

Unfortunately, your waking nightmare is not over. This morning, the United States still enduring two crisis, a public health crisis, as the daily coronavirus death toll again surpasses 2,000 people, and an election crisis, as outgoing President Trump refuses to accept the results and actively tries to undermine the election.

President-elect Biden is trying to keep a calm, if exasperated, tone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: It's hard to fathom how this man thinks. It's hard to fathom -- I'm confident that he knows he hasn't won and is not going to be able to win and we're going to be sworn in on January 20th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: A source tells CNN that President Trump does know that he lost, but he's trying to exact revenge for Democrats on everything that has upset him in the past four years.

Senator Mitt Romney says he cannot imagine a, quote, more undemocratic action by a sitting president. Senator Ben Sasse has also spoken out against what President Trump is doing, but most Republicans are silent, even as Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pushes wild conspiracy theories and appears to be melting down before our very eyes.

BERMAN: And don't lose sight of the fact about when this is all happening. This unbelievable assault on democracy is happening while the country is in crisis. 2,015 new deaths reported overnight. The death toll now back up over 2,000 a day. This is the most since May. We let this happen. The government let this happen.

This morning, almost the entire country is seeing a rise in cases. Look at this map. Everywhere in red and orange, they're seeing a rise in cases. And the states in beige are some of the states being hit the worst right now. They've plateaued or they're holding steady at incredibly high case rates at the moment. More than 80,000 people are now hospitalized. That's easily a record. Look at that graph.

The situation now is causing the CDC to urge Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving. Don't hit the road. Stay with your immediate family, just the people who live in your house.

In just a few minutes, we're going to have the first part of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's exclusive interview with Dr. Deborah Birx. She's been silent publicly for months. Sanjay landed this really interesting new interview.

CAMEROTA: Okay, we'll look forward to that.

Meanwhile, joining us now, CNN Political Analyst Maggie Haberman, she's a White House Correspondent for The New York Times.

Maggie, I want to start with Rudy Giuliani and what's happening. He is -- his statements have become incomprehensible. They're incomprehensible, if you try to follow the logic or anything. And that picture of him, he also -- I don't know, appears to be leaking black bile or black ink or something. Why does President Trump still put stock in his future or in any sort of legal credibility into Rudy Giuliani?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, I mean, certainly the visuals of that press conference, I can't imagine that President Trump who is concerned about things with appearances was happy with the way it looked, but in terms of why he keeps turning to Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani is the only one who is doing what Trump wants. Trump has wanted somebody who is going to go out there and say the things that Giuliani has said, never mind that these are not really the same claims more often than not than the Trump campaign makes in court, because there are penalties for lying in a courtroom if you are a lawyer.

But Giuliani is going out and echoing what the president wants to have said. The president turned to Giuliani last week at the end of the week after he had suffered a defeat or near defeat in Arizona, decided to put Giuliani in charge of everything, and Giuliani took that ball and ran with it. As we reported earlier this week, Giuliani also initially sought $20,000 a day for his involvement in this. So there seem to be incentives for everyone involved.

You will note, Alisyn, the lawyers who were not there yesterday, Jay Sekulow, Martin and Jane Raskin, who handled the Mueller probe for Trump, Pat Cipollone, the White House council, has stayed away from this.

[07:05:09]

William Consovoy, who's handled the tax issues.

None of the lawyers who have been with Trump on various serious legal issues over the last four years have been with him during this and there's a reason for that.

BERMAN: Maggie, you have some new reporting this morning on what exactly the president is trying to do and Rudy Giuliani is trying to do. Sidney Powell, another one of the attorneys on this, explicitly says it out loud. So let me just play this sound to preface your reporting here. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY POWELL, MEMBER OF PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LEGAL TEAM (voice over): The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states should be overturned and the legislators should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So lest be there any mystery here, the president's lawyer says the election should be overturned. That's what they're trying to do. You've got new reporting on this, Maggie, as the president has invited these Michigan Republican legislators to come to the White House and, I guess, try to convince them to overthrow the results of the election in Michigan.

BERMAN: Right. And we just see what he actually says to them, John. But the mere act of having them at the White House is in and of itself an application of pressure if you're the president of the United States. The president has asked advisers who he could call in other states to try to -- state legislators to try to accomplish the same thing, where he is going to try to push people to choose electors who would be faithful to him.

To your point, there is no longer a fig leaf here anymore. This is what some of his advisers are openly talking about, is overthrowing the election. They are going to run out of room to do that. Deadlines for certification are going to keep coming and going, and by mid- December, the president is really going to be out of options here, but I don't expect him to stop saying that this was taken from him. I think he's going to say that up until the minute he lose.

CAMEROTA: In my experience, President Trump is persuasive in person. He makes -- he has enough, I don't know, I guess, charisma or something in person -- I mean, we've seen it for the past four years. People do end up going along with him, like this team of lawyers that are saying whatever he wants, like the people in the White House. And so it will be very interesting and important to hear what these Michigan lawmakers said beforehand and how they felt and then after they meet with President Trump.

Here is what one of them said this week about changing the election -- the results. He says, I do think that we're going to find holes in our election law, particularly this new reality of mail-in vote. In that entire analysis, I don't expect it to change the results in Michigan. So that's how Senator Shirkey felt this week. And we'll see what happens today.

HABERMAN: Alisyn, something to bear in mind as this is going along and people need to be asking lawmakers this question. If you don't certify these results as legislators, then you are not certifying the results of any of the elections in your state. There are a whole bunch of Republicans who were elected to positions who I imagine would also like to have their elections certified. So you are undertaking something with consequences that might not be what you intended and that a lot of people are not going to be happy within your state.

So it's not as if Trump can just make this sales pitch in a vacuum. There are a lot of other things that are related and I think that legislators at the end of the day will be aware of it. But you are right, he is, at the end of the day, always selling. And I think that his selling works more on people than people want to admit.

BERMAN: Can we take at least a half step back from this though and focus on the fact that the president is even trying to do this? The fact that he's trying to overturn elections in states is worth marking. It is something that really should alarm people. It alarms Mitt Romney, at least one of two Republican senators willing to speak up overnight.

I mean, Mitt Romney says, it's difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president. Ben Sasse put out a statement not quite as stringent as this, but a statement as well. That leaves, what, 51 other sitting Republican senators right now who don't have the courage to speak up and say that the president of the United States is trying to overturn the election. Where are they this morning, Maggie?

HABERMAN: As you know, John, better than anyone, you know, Republicans are concerned about the special elections in Georgia going into early January and I don't expect to hear people like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, talk, who I think are the only two who the president would be inclined to listen to. I think you are not going to hear anything from them until next month when they feel as if their majority is cemented.

I have had conversations with people how different it might be if there was not a runoff in Georgia and if the Republicans had won outright, would you be seeing Mitch McConnell or somebody saying something different?

[07:10:03]

We'll obviously never know. We have seen Mitt Romney and even Ben Sasse speak out before and not be joined by their colleagues.

I don't have reason to believe this time will be different. But you are correct, that what the president is doing is something that is unparalleled in modern history, or any history, frankly, in this country. And the silence from Republicans is quite low.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, in terms -- at the presidential level in Georgia, we do expect possibly as early as this morning, them to finally certify the actual results for Joe Biden. They finished their hand recount, which was laborious, as we know, and now their voting system manager spoke out about what the findings were after the hand recount compared to what the machine count was. So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA VOTING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: Most hand tallies have, according to most studies, about a 1 to 1.5 percent deviation. But in Georgia, we saw a 0.153 percent total deviation on the total vote count and a 0.099 percent variation of the overall margin. So it's verified what we saw on election night, which was that former Vice President Biden has the most points at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So again, Maggie, huge success for the strength of the voting system and the, you know, lack of irregularities and its precision, basically, in Georgia. And so, despite that, as you know, President Trump is continuing to push for recounts other places.

HABERMAN: We have to see, Alisyn, if they push for a machine recount in Georgia, which would start the process over, delay it from being certified, which is, again, what they're trying to do in a number of states, delay the certification.

Even assuming that Joe Biden, you know, this gets certified in mid- December and assumes office at the end of January, there's still going to be lasting damage to the system from what the president is saying, because he is throwing accelerant on a desire to not trust the process. That is going to leave a real impact and it's not going to go away on January 21st.

BERMAN: Can I ask one quick question about Rudy Giuliani, who you covered for years, not just -- you covered him when he was at city hall.

HABERMAN: 23, to be precise, yes.

BERMAN: That's a long time. Well, then you're perfectly equipped to answer this. Because I think there are a lot of people trying to dismiss or excuse or explain his behavior right now. There's whispers and sometimes more that he's lost a step or that he's being coerced or manipulated somehow. Why can't we just say that Rudy Giuliani has clearly made a choice here and he should be accountable for this, and this is who he is?

HABERMAN: Actually, John, I haven't heard that many people try to excuse his behavior, certainly since he began overseeing these efforts in the past week I think that people are being pretty clear that this is destructive. Campaign officials, White House officials across the board are embarrassed by this. Some are saying it's dangerous, although none are saying that publicly. So I haven't heard too much of that.

I will say, this is who Rudy Giuliani is. This is who he was as mayor. When he was mayor, it was counterbalanced by enough policy, because he is very concerned about policy and he's a very smart man, that he was able to outweigh this kind of thing.

But we're talking about somebody who, when he was running against Hillary Clinton for the Senate, read the lyrics to Captain Jack, the Billy Joel song, that was kickoff that Hillary -- played at Hillary Clinton's kickoff announcement in 2000, in that race, to suggest that she was a glorifying drug use by playing the song.

It's not dissimilar from the kind of things you heard him saying yesterday. This is who he is. Most people across the country got to know him as America's mayor after 9/11, but that was not consistent with what New Yorkers saw over eight years.

BERMAN: That's important. That's why I asked you the question right there so people understand that this is not some aberration. This is part of a decades-long record. You're just seeing a different angle of it right now.

Maggie, thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: And thank you for that musical memory. That is very special. Thank you.

BERMAN: Is it just a memory? Is it a sense memory or is it a mental memory?

CAMEROTA: I don't know, but I'm feeling it. Thank you, Maggie.

All right, coming up, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's exclusive new interview with the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Was this a failure in this country? I mean, did you expect it to go this way?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay. Her response, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: What a moment in U.S. history. What a moment in the coronavirus pandemic. 2,015 new deaths reported yesterday. That's right. For the first time since May, the number of new deaths reported rose above 2,000. Think about that. We're back at this awful number.

This morning, I want to show you the trend map in the United States. This tells an equally horrific picture. Every state there in orange and red seeing a dramatic increase in new cases, the states in beige, by the way, are some of the states being hit the hardest right now. They've -- their levels, while they haven't gone up, are at an alarmingly high place right now. This is about as bad as it can get in terms of a map.

CNN's Chief Medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta sat down with the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx, Deborah Birx, who hasn't spoken in public, hasn't answered questions in months, Sanjay, landed this exclusive interview with her. He joins us now to talk about this conversation. Sanjay?

GUPTA: Hey, yes, good morning, guys. You know, you remember, she was doing daily briefings just about up until the middle, end of April. And then it was July 8th before yesterday, when we had that last coronavirus task force meeting.

So she's the coordinator of the coronavirus task force. I wanted to talk to her to get an idea of where she's been, what's going on in the country and what she thinks still needs to be done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Your trip to North Dakota really left an impression on you, I think. When you were there on October 26th, there were 522 people who had been diagnosed with COVID so far.

[07:20:01]

Five people have died. Now, the numbers have nearly tripled. That's since you were there giving the message.

But since you were there giving the message, what are we to take away from that?

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE COORDINATOR: I was really worried. I know as a physician, you're a physician, when we're out, we're looking at people and we're worried about them. I mean, we're worried about people with co-morbidities and we know how devastating this disease is for people who have specific co- morbidities.

And so when I'm out and seeing them without masks indoors, it really worries me. I mean, I'm worried for their health.

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 change 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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, so interesting to hear from her directly. That is really valuable. And your questions were so good, Sanjay. I mean, when you say, was this -- you know, did we fail? I think that that is obviously the overarching question. And she says that she worries, did we get the messaging wrong? Well, President Trump said it was magically going to go away. Was that the wrong message?

GUPTA: Right, no question. And she's so measured and so careful. She's been doing this for a long time. But she was pretty candid, you know, as you sort of heard there, around that, not coming right out and saying that, but, essentially, that was the inference she was making.

And also, on testing, we talked about this, you guys may remember, end of summer, these real sort of lines that were being drawn between the task force, CDC. Not everyone was on the same page. I asked her, was there strategic lack of testing? Was that a strategic decision? And she says, no, but, CDC then came out and said, only symptomatic people should be tested. That was a mistake, essentially.

She said, look, this is obviously -- some of this is in the rearview mirror now, but it still makes a difference. Because if you try to analyze and figure out why are we in the position that we're in now, why do the numbers keep going up, why does IHME, the modeling, now increase the numbers of people who they project will die by March 1st? Why is that still going up? It's because of decisions that were made over the summer.

And these are going to be important conversations, I think, to have going forward, because they're going to inform still the next few months.

BERMAN: Hearing her talk about the testing and the CDC decision, say it out loud, because I read the interview, Sanjay, just before we came to air, but to hear her say it, it's so much more clear now. She's saying they blew it. I mean, she's saying they blew it with testing that they stopped testing asymptomatic people. And that -- you can't do that. I mean, that that really doesn't stop community spread there. It was so interesting to hear her say that.

[07:25:00]

There's more to this interview, Sanjay, right, that has to do with the situation that we're in right now, which is college students and kids coming home.

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, this is a very real relevant issue, I think, for people making decisions today, really, about next week. They should have been making these decisions weeks ago, college students, but also schools.

I mean, July 8th, the last official coronavirus task force meeting before yesterday, that was primarily focused on schools. And it will be interesting, we're going to talk about this next hour, what were they sort of thinking at that point. And now, what are they thinking, given that New York City public schools are shutting down, at least for a while? How is this all going to tie together?

And, again, I mean, you know, sometimes we talk about this like we're sort of through it. These are going to be things that inform how we behave and how we respond over the next couple of months. Because in this whole pandemic, as much as we've been talking about this since the beginning of 2020, these next two to three months are perhaps the most critical.

We have such good news on the vaccine front, we'll talk about that a little bit, but also, the toughest time period over the next few months. So there is this dissonance. And people are saying, are we going to say, hey, we're good, the vaccine is coming, or are we going to say, we're going to lean in and we're not going to get sick or potentially even die over the next three months, when the vaccine is so imminently close.

CAMEROTA: Okay. So, on that front, on the good news front, today, Pfizer can apply for that emergency authorization use from the FDA. How long does that take?

GUPTA: Yes. Well, that's a good question. And it will take a lot less time than it typically takes. And this is sort of interesting, because, you know, these types of events, like a pandemic, like this really forces the efficiencies, I've seen now over the last several months in what is otherwise a very bureaucratic system. Basically, to answer your question, I think it could happen in the next two to three weeks. Before Christmas, we could see people outside of the trial finally receive this coronavirus vaccine.

There're two committees that need to sort of weigh in on this, if the emergency use authorization is granted. One is a committee that is associated with the FDA, that is going to say, yes, you know, this looks good to go. And the other one is with the CDC that basically says, okay, who, what, when? Who's going to get it, who should be first in line? What?

You know, there's probably just one choice or two choices coming up, and then the when, which, again, I think, you know, guys, it's kind of hard to believe, but, you know, this sequence of this virus was identified middle of January and by middle of December, before Christmas, I think, the distribution and actually shots going into arms could be happening.

BERMAN: That's great news, Sanjay. That's the news we need. Because by Christmas at the rate we're going, we could have more than 2,500 new deaths a day. I mean, that's where we're going. We could be there next week at the rate we're going. We're going to have much more time to talk about that coming up as well, Sanjay Really timely interview. Thanks so much.

We want to remember some of the more than 252,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

Sherry Knowles was described by her family as a vibrant woman from Orlando. Her twin sister says Sherry helped her through rough times, so she planned to take care of Sherry when she came home from the hospital, but she never got the chance. Sherry was 62.

Alexa Rose Veit was a freshman at Ballard Memorial High School in Kentucky, a high school freshman. She was born with special needs, but her family says never slowed her down. She beat leukemia last year. She was described as a social butterfly with zero filter and an infectious smile that can brighten any day. She was just 15 years old.

Our hearts go out to their families.

We'll be right back.

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[07:30:00]