Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

President-elect Biden to Nominate Tony Blinken as Secretary of State; Trump Campaign Cuts Ties with Conspiracy Theorist Lawyer; Millions Travel for Thanksgiving Despite Surge in Cases; Top Republicans Losing Their Patience with Trump's Effort to Overturn Election. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 23, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The cabinet will look like America.

[05:59:20]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The position of secretary of state. The leading contender for that job is Tony Blinken.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president's legal team now says that Sidney Powell is not a member. Sidney Powell has been trafficking in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: The content of the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You see people traveling. Those are the things we've got to realize are going to get us into even more trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would expect day two, after approval, hopefully, the first week will be immunized.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to need about 225 million people vaccinated. It's going to take a long time to do that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: 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. It is Monday, November 23, 6 a.m. here in New York.

And breaking overnight, CNN has learned that President-elect Joe Biden will nominate longtime foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken to be the next secretary of state.

It's seen as a sign that the incoming administration is trying to rebuild U.S. alliances. The president-elect will announce his first cabinet picks tomorrow. And CNN has new details about the other potential nominees on the short list.

And a number of high-profile Republicans are losing their patience with President Trump efforts to slow this down and overturn the election. Vote certifications are expected today in Michigan and in most counties in Pennsylvania. But this usually routine procedure is getting complicated. We have the latest for you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning, the CDC is telling people not to travel for Thanksgiving and eat only with the people in your immediate household. A lot of people aren't listening.

Millions of people packed the airports in the last few days. Look at these pictures. These are the kind of pictures that give infectious disease experts heart attacks.

So we are in the middle of the worst month of the pandemic by far in terms of the number of new cases. Also, nearly 84,000 Americans are hospitalized this morning. That is a record that seems destined to be broken every day for a while.

Also breaking this morning, a new major vaccine development. AstraZeneca reports trials show its vaccine is an average of 70 percent effective and up to 90 percent effective, depending on the dosage.

This is the third drug maker to report positive results, after Pfizer and Moderna. We'll have much more on this development shortly.

We begin, though, with CNN's Arlette Saenz, who is covering the incoming Biden administration live in Wilmington, Delaware. The first big cabinet news: Tony Blinken leads the list of nominations for secretary of state.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. And President- elect Joe Biden is expected to name his first cabinet picks tomorrow, and in that mix is expected to be his pick for secretary of state. And we're told Biden is expected to nominate a longtime foreign policy adviser, Tony Blinken, someone who served as a deputy secretary of state during the Obama administration.

And also has known Biden going back to his time in the Senate. Also having served as his national security adviser while Biden was vice president. So Biden here for this top position, really turning to a seasoned hand in the diplomatic and national security world.

Now, also expected to come tomorrow are Biden's names for the U.N. ambassador and also his national security adviser. To start with national security adviser, the leading contender for that position is Jake Sullivan, someone who served in that position for Biden when he was vice president and also was a top aide with Hillary Clinton when she led the State Department.

Jake Sullivan has also been leading a lot of Biden's domestic and foreign policy agenda during his presidential campaign.

And for the position of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the leading contender for that position is Linda Thomas Greenfield. She has decades in the foreign service. Also was first appointed as an ambassador to Liberia under the Bush administration. And also served as the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of African Affairs.

And Linda Thomas Greenfield is also a woman of color, which if Biden were to select her for that key diplomatic post as the ambassador to the U.N., that would lend more diversity to Biden's top officials that will be leading his administration.

Biden has long said he wants his cabinet and top officials to look like America and has pledged to have a diverse team around him. And those are steps that we could see him take in the coming days -- John.

BERMAN: It also gives you a sense of Joe Biden's world view, a much more in-depth sense. We'll talk much more about this, the implications shortly. Arlette, thanks very much for that reporting.

Also developing this morning, a growing number of Republicans blasting President Trump's bid to overturn the results of the election, finally. And now the Trump campaign is cutting ties with one of its top lawyers who peddled crazy conspiracy theories. No, not Rudy Giuliani, the other crazy.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond live at the White House with the very latest. It really is interesting to watch more and more Republicans come out and say "enough," Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No doubt, John. Two weeks and two days after this election was called for President-elect Joe Biden, the president is still refusing to concede. But that wall of Republican support that the president has enjoyed, we're starting to see some cracks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: This legal team has been a national embarrassment.

REP. FRED UPTON (R-MI): The voters have spoken. Here in Michigan, it was 154,000-vote margin by President-elect Biden. And no one has come up with any evidence of fraud or abuse. It's over.

[06:05:03]

GOV. LARRY HOGAN (R-MD): Now we're beginning to look like we're a banana republic. It's -- it's time for them to stop the nonsense. It just gets more bizarre every single day. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that more people in the party aren't speaking up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Now, to be clear, John, the majority of Republican elected officials still refusing to call President-elect Joe Biden by that title, and -- but even among those Republicans, you are starting to see some who say that the president needs to at least allow this transition to proceed, even as he continues to exhaust these legal avenues.

But those legal avenues, John, they are quickly, quickly narrowing. Another major defeat for the president this weekend, in a federal court in Pennsylvania and strife in the president's legal team.

The president's lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, putting out a statement last night, announcing that Sidney Powell, a controversial attorney who was part of this Legal Team," is what Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement last night.

But just a few days ago, last Thursday, we saw Sidney Powell right alongside Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis at this news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters.

And so the question is, what exactly got her fired? We know that Sidney Powell has been trafficking in a range of conspiracy theories about this election. She has alleged that some combination of the CIA, the late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, and perhaps even the Republican governor of Georgia were involved in rigging this election.

Of course, those conspiracy theories have zero basis in fact or reality. But the irony, John, they are not all that far-fetched from what we have heard from the president himself and from Rudy Giuliani, who have also alleged that there is some conspiracy theory to rig the election, to delete votes from -- magically from the president.

And Sidney Powell, as for her part, she says that she's going to continue to explore this. She says that she is going to continue to represent, hashtag WeThePeople -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Hard to know which of her many strange utterances was over the line for the Trump legal team. And we will dig into that.

Jeremy, thank you very much.

So millions of Americans are traveling this Thanksgiving weekend, despite pleas from the CDC and other health officials to stay home amidst the worsening pandemic.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. What does it look like there, Adrienne?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, Alisyn, throughout the morning, we've seen the young and mature pass through the security checkpoint line just behind me, despite the pandemic showing no sign of slowing.

Hospitalizations are up, and at least in 40 states across the U.S., the number of COVID deaths is increasing. And despite that effort and plea from top doctors and health experts across the country, if airport travel is any indication, some Americans aren't listening to the advice to stay home this Thanksgiving.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROADDUS (voice-over): It's the rush home for Thanksgiving during the coronavirus pandemic, with travelers packing airports over the weekend, ignoring warnings from the CDC, urging Americans to stay home this year.

According to the TSA, over 2 million passengers went through checkpoints at U.S. airports Friday and Saturday. That's the most since the early days of the pandemic, which Dr. Anthony Fauci says is concerning.

FAUCI: You're in a crowded airport. You're lining up. Not everybody is wearing masks. That puts yourself at risk.

One of the things we're really concerned about is that, as we get into this Thanksgiving season, you're not going to see an increase until weeks later. Things lag.

BROADDUS: Some people choosing to wait in lines hours to get tested before the holiday, but health experts warn a negative result does not mean that it's safe to see friend and family.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: A single negative test just isn't enough and you have to really be careful. That's why this holiday season, we've decided as a family not to do anything and just stay in our household, which I think is really, unfortunately, the only safe thing to do over this Thanksgiving.

BROADDUS: Coronavirus-related deaths have increased in at least 41 states in the past week, and many hospitals are already overwhelmed by patients, with doctors saying it will only get worse.

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY: We're already running out of nurses. And respiratory therapists. We are terrified, and we really can't plead strongly enough with Americans to spend Thanksgiving at home.

BROADDUS: The surge in new cases causing Los Angeles County to enforce stricter measures. Beginning Wednesday, both indoor and outdoor dining at bars and restaurants will be closed.

This as the head of the White House's vaccine effort says one could be available in just a few weeks. Pfizer submitting an application to the FDA Friday for emergency-use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine.

MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours from the approval. So I would expect maybe on day two after approval, on the 11th or on the 12th of December.

[06:10:07]

BROADDUS: But even with the prospect of a vaccine starting to roll out in a few weeks, health expert say it's necessary to take the coronavirus seriously. DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: There's light at the end

of the tunnel right now. Try not to be the person who gets infected in the last two or three months of the acute phase of this pandemic. We need to just get through a very difficult period right now.

BROADDUS (on camera): Meanwhile, the head of the White House vaccine effort also told CNN that 70 percent of the American population would need to be vaccinated in order for true herd immunity to work.

And it remains to be seen if 70 percent of Americans will get the vaccine, especially with trust in the vaccine showing under 60 percent.

And just a little bit of perspective for you, Alisyn. In the 2019/2020 school year, about 64 percent of children got the flu vaccine according to the CDC and only 48 percent of adults -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that is interesting perspective, but of course, I mean, this is deadlier. And so maybe that will be an impetus for people.

Thank you very much, Adrienne.

So a growing number of Republicans this morning urging President Trump to accept defeat and let Joe Biden's transition begin. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:28]

CAMEROTA: Breaking overnight, CNN has learned that President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name longtime adviser Tony Blinken as his pick for secretary of state. The news comes ahead of a formal announcement tomorrow.

Arlette Saenz is back with us. Also joining us, CNN political analyst Alex Burns. He's a national political correspondent for "The New York Times." Great to see both of you.

So Arlette, let's just look through some of these expected cabinet picks. So Tony Blinken, secretary of state. Jake Sullivan, national security adviser. Linda Thomas Greenfield, U.N. ambassador.

What do these tell us about the direction that Joe Biden is going in? And do we have any reporting that Republicans can do anything to block these?

SAENZ: Well, first off, when you take the cumulative experience of all of these people together, you are seeing that President-elect Joe Biden is trying to rely on people who are seasoned, foreign policy, diplomatic and national security hands. All of these possible contenders for these top posts have decades of experience that they can turn to as they help Biden guide his administration.

And when you take a look at Tony Blinken, in particular, this is someone who served as a deputy secretary of state. He's also worked alongside Biden while he was vice president. And his role as secretary of state, in part, will be trying to rebuild some of those relationships that President Trump neglected in some ways with allies.

And you heard Biden talk about his desire to reenter things like the Paris climate agreement and also the World Health Organization. And those are key components of Biden's foreign policy strategy that Blinken could help implement.

But also, in addition to the experience factor is the fact that, if he were to nominate Linda Thomas Greenfield, this would lend some diversity to Biden's top officials.

He has promised throughout his campaign to have his cabinet and top officials around him look like the rest of America. And that is something that could make -- he could make a continual promise with if he were to appoint someone like Linda Thomas Greenfield.

Now, as for Republicans in the Senate, several of these contenders all have plenty of experience so we will see if Republicans in the Senate will try to put up any roadblocks to the nominations going forward as Biden is expected to present his cabinet.

BERMAN: Yes, who knows what Republicans will do in a few weeks, Alex. But we know what they're doing right now. And it does seem like there are more and more that are abandoning the president's ridiculous goal of overturning the election.

Pat Toomey, who's a conservative senator from Pennsylvania, all be it one who's not running for re-election, broke completely from the president over the weekend, writing, you know, "President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the results of the race in Pennsylvania. These developments, together with the outcomes in the rest of the nation confirm that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and will become the 46th president of the United States."

Lisa Murkowski put out a similar, albeit not quite as strident message overnight. You are seeing more Republicans come out. It does seem like this is just a matter of time.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that's right, John. And this is what happens when the president puts his party in a position that is not just politically difficult or politically untenable, but sort of politically absurd.

That it was one thing a week ago or two weeks ago. You had talked to Republicans and they had said, Look, I know that Biden has won this thing, but we need to give the president the room to exhaust his litigation strategy or I'll get crosswise with the White House and with the base.

The reality is that, as of today, the president's legal strategy is in tatters, if that. And so in order to deny that Joe Biden is the president -- president-elect, Republican lawmakers are in the position of maybe having to embrace these really outlandish and just plain false theories about how there may have been subterfuge in the election when we all know that, in fact, there wasn't.

I do think it's worth hitting the point really hard that Pat Toomey is not running for re-election. And that he waited until the president's long-shot litigation was exhausted in his own state of Pennsylvania before coming out and saying what he said over the weekend.

It's an important statement. But there are a whole lot of Republicans out there who have said nothing or have said kind of the opposite, sort of continuing to indulge the president's war on the election results.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Alex, one more thing. It is notable when the Trump legal team thinks somebody is too stone-cold crazy for them.

[06:20:07]

And so, I mean, what was Sidney Powell's mistake? Was it the Hugo Chavez thing? The global communist conspiracy? Was she the person behind Rudy Giuliani's Grecian formula for men? I mean, what was her big problem?

BURNS: Yes, I don't know what her role was in the sort of cosmetic dimension of the Trump legal strategy, but I do think that the -- the conspiracy theories you were pushing threatened to -- that she was pushing, threatened to make just a total joke of the president's criticism of the election and really probably did politically have that effect.

And Alisyn, I think that, within the Republican Party more broadly, there was really a concern about Powell veering off into attacking not just the legitimacy of Biden's victory, but the governor of Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp, and Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, who came out on top of a complicated race in the first round of voting for the Senate down there.

That the idea that somebody representing the president of the United States is now sort of linking a Republican senator who is still in a fight for re-election as we speak to some sort of zombie, you know, Chavez conspiracy, that really alarmed people in the party who are concerned about whether Republican voters are going to maintain their allegiance to the party and show up with enthusiasm for that runoff on January 5.

BERMAN: I will say, it is notable that, of the lawyers, she was not the one who had the clown makeup meltdown. She was not the one quoting "My Cousin Vinny." She was not the one who was the star of the Borat film. So, you know, none of that -- none of that, apparently, crazy enough or dishonest enough to get you fired. But, you know, go criticize.

CAMEROTA: It's hard to know what the Rubicon -- the Republican Rubicon is for the legal team.

Alex, Arlette, thank you both very much.

Coming up, brand-new details about the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine and new insight into how many Americans would need to take it before all of our lives can return to normal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:20]

BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, a major vaccine development. British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca reports its vaccine has an average efficacy of 70 percent against coronavirus, up to 90 percent depending on the dosage.

This is the third drug maker to report positive results, and the news comes as the U.S. outbreak is really dire now. More than 3 million new cases in November alone, the worst month by far.

Joining us now, William Haseltine. He is the chair and president of ACCESS Health International, former professor at Harvard Medical School.

Professor, thanks so much for being with us.

Look, and then there were three. The news about AstraZeneca follows Pfizer and Moderna. Very positive results in stage three of these vaccine trials. What does having this third option potentially mean this morning?

WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: Well, first of all, it's good news for everybody. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being tested around the world and actually being manufactured in part in India.

So it means that people other than in the U.S. will have an opportunity to have this vaccine.

But before we get too enthusiastic, we should be optimistic, but not wildly enthusiastic. There's many, many things we don't know. We don't know how long this vaccine lasts. We don't know if it's fully safe for everyone. And we don't think it prevents infection. So you may be infected, but you don't get so sick.

What they're really measuring is not prevention of infection. They're measuring prevention of symptoms.

And so those are questions when it comes to looking forward. And then finally is, you have talked about this morning, we don't know how many people are going to use it.

I would add another confusing note, which is I'm sure that the U.S. military can get the vaccine to our states. I'm not sure that there won't be, let's not say confusion, but -- there won't be chaos, but there may be confusion as to who gets it, how they get it, and where they get it.

So there are a lot -- there's a rough road ahead. This isn't the end, but this is certainly optimistic news.

CAMEROTA: I want to dive into that in terms of the rollout. The reason that you're not so confident. It's because -- is it because it's going to get -- the military is going to get it to the states. And it's going to be another piecemeal approach by governors doing their best of figuring out what the priority is for who gets it?

HASELTINE: That's part of the reason. Yes, exactly that. But it's also that the vaccines are going to be distributed by jurisdictions. Sometimes those jurisdictions are states and sometimes they're counties. And sometimes they're municipalities. And they all may have their own different rules, with respect to who gets it, how they get it.

And don't forget, there's going to be multiple vaccines, not just two. There'll be three, four, five vaccines. And which vaccine are you going to get?

So I foresee a period of confusion. It's not going to be chaos, but it will be confusion, somewhat similar to the problems we've had over testing, because we don't have a uniform way throughout the country to make sure there's one policy for all Americans. It is a different policy for different Americans, depending where you live.

BERMAN: Obviously, Professor, Thanksgiving just a few days away. I don't know if you've seen the pictures. I don't know if we have them here of these airports. The Phoenix airport, of course, is the one that's the most glaring here. Just packed airports.

People clearly not heeding the advice of the CDC, which is, don't travel! It's a bad idea! If you're going to have Thanksgiving, do it with your immediate family, your own household.

When you see pictures like this, you know, what do you think? How smart of an idea is it to travel for Thanksgiving?

HASELTINE: It's really terrible. And all you're going to see is a week, two weeks from now, a huge increase in what's already a horrendous spike. These people are infecting each other, and they're going to infect the people that they're having with Thanksgiving with.