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FDA Chief Summoned to White House Today Over Vaccine Timeline; CNN Reports, Biden to Focus on Passing Major Stimulus Bill Upon Taking Office. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 01, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Exactly.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Anyway --

BERMAN: Exactly. We'll take this up later, Andy. I appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Andy.

New Day continues right now.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day.

And happening now, CNN has learned that the head of the FDA has been summoned to the White House this morning. The president apparently angry that the FDA has not yet granted emergency use approval for the Pfizer vaccine, the head of the FDA felt they need to put a statement overnight saying that it's science that will guide the decision.

Today, a panel of CDC advisers will meet to decide who gets the first doses of the vaccines, two vaccines are now before the FDA for emergency use approval and could within weeks, which, honestly, would be amazing but not soon enough to prevent what promises to be a dark, dark winter in the pandemic, which is, frankly, already here.

More than 96,000 people hospitalized this morning, that's a new high. 23 states are also seeing record hospitalizations.

CAMEROTA: So, President Trump has said nothing about those hospitalizations. He's offered no support nor condolences for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Instead, he's slamming the Republican governors of Arizona and Georgia for not helping him overturn the election that he lost by a big margin.

This morning, The Washington Post and The New York Times report that money is driving President Trump's refusal to concede. We'll tell you just how much he's been raising.

Also this morning, CNN has brand new details about President-elect Biden's plans for his first 100 days. They included major stimulus push and a flurry of executive actions. BERMAN: First though, we're going to start with the pandemic and the new information about vaccines. Joining us is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, thanks so much for being with us.

First, on this news, it's Steve Hahn, the head of the FDA, has been summoned to the White House. Our Kaitlan Collins reports that, initially, this was going to be a telephone meeting but the White House insisted that the commissioner go in person, which has led some to believe that it could get very tense, this meeting with Mark Meadows, which is why Steve Hahn, Dr. Hahn, put out a statement overnight talking about how he views the vaccine emergency use approval, which the president apparently wants to speed it up.

Hahn says, let me be clear, our career scientists have to make the decision and they will take the time that's needed to make the right call on these important decisions.

What do Americans need to know about this approval process, Sanjay?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the most important thing is that everything we've been reporting, all the news we've heard about 94.5 percent, 95 percent effective, all of that has come from the company itself and this independent data monitoring safety board. We haven't had actually -- I haven't seen data. There's really nobody outside those two organizations haven't really seen the data, besides now the FDA scientists, which receive that data at the time the emergency use authority application was filed.

So, for Pfizer, for example, as soon as that EUA application was filed, these data scientists now, for the first time, have to at these data and say, okay, we hear what you're saying, does it match up? Does it actually provide this sort of level protection against COVID-19? Are there certain groups of people who did better with this vaccine or worse? Do we have any insights in the durability? Do we know that maybe it prevents disease? Does it also prevent infection? Does it prevent transmission? These are all open-ended questions.

And, frankly, they may not all be answered by December 10th, for example, Pfizer, when they're convening all these experts together to make a decision, but that's what they're focused on. This hasn't been lost time. And as we've talked about before on your program, typically, it could take eight years instead of eight months to get to some sort of approval.

So this is moving along fast and I imagine that's what Dr. Hahn is going to tell them today.

CAMEROTA: Right. I mean, it's happening, as you've always pointed out, at lightning speed. And it's still going to happen on President Trump's watch. I mean, if that's the goal, it's going to happen this month. People are going to get vaccinated this month.

And as you know, another thing is happening this morning and that is that the CDC is trying to figure out the priorities and exactly who they recommend to get those first shots. [07:05:08]

GUPTA: Yes. This is going to be really fascinating. You're going to be speaking to Dr. Romero later, who is running this advisory committee for immunizations. It's interesting because this is a committee that's going to make recommendations. These aren't mandates, these are recommendations to the states who are looking for guidance in terms of based on the science, who are the best people to be in line first for this.

And we've got some insights into this. We know that likely it's going to be health care workers who are taking of COVID patients are probably going to be first in line because they are high-risk of getting sick. And if they do get sick, that's going to put an increased a strain on an already strained hospital system.

But after that, you can look at the numbers here, essentially workers, people with high-risk medical conditions, people who are older. If you do all the math on this, this is well over 200 million people. And, again, you've got to multiply that times two because people require two doses of these vaccines, so 400 million or so doses of the vaccine.

It's going to take a lot is my point. I mean, just about everybody, most people in this country, in some way, the majority, I should say, are either essential workers are going to have some sort of pre- existing condition that makes them more vulnerable. So those are going to be the people who are first in line.

BERMAN: And you spoke to Dr. Moncef, Slaoui, gave you a sense, I think, of how this rollout work.

GUPTA: Yes. This is really is fascinating because a lot of people have been talk about the number of doses that are going to be available and then working backwards, all right? So 40 million doses they say, for example, available in December.

But I think one of the points that people like Moncef make is they are looking at this as sort of on a rolling scale. So, for example, Pfizer, at the time shots start going into arms, how many doses will they actually have available at that point? Let's say, it's a week or so from now, or two weeks from now, let's say, what would happen? They have fewer than 7 million doses, 6.5 million doses roughly at the time the shots start going into arms. They will probably be making about $3 million doses, and at some point, they expect Moderna to come online as well, making 3 million doses per week.

Why is that important? Because, typically, when you think about these types of medications, you create a huge stock supply of this ahead of time before you start rolling things out. So you've got tens of millions of doses sort of sitting in stock supply that can help smooth out the edges if there's some demands or surges in demand in various places.

But let's say you have a bad batch, which can very well happen. I mean, there are dozens of safety checks that these vaccines have to go through during the manufacturing process to make sure they're sterile, that there's not been a problem with quality control. You get a bad batch, all of a sudden, you could have a delay. And it's something that they've got to watch out for.

So they don't the sort of reserve supply to buffer, again, for any potential bad batches.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, viewers have a lot of questions about the vaccines and what it means. So can we get to some of these? This one comes from Sean in Brooklyn. If I'm vaccinated and come in contact with someone who is infected with COVID, can I transmit the virus to someone else even if I don't get sick? Meaning, like can he be carrier after being vaccinated?

GUPTA: Yes, this is a really important question. So, when you look specifically at what we know so far about the data, it says, for example, these vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, are over 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19, at preventing the disease, okay? People didn't sick as a result of taking this vaccine.

What the data has not shown yet or what we haven't seen, for sure, is does it prevent people from getting infected and does it prevent those people then from transmitting the virus? It is very possible that people are still getting infected with this even with the vaccine. They're just not getting sick, which is really important. I mean, that's the critical issue, you want people to get sick.

But, yes, Sean's question, it is possible they could still become infected, still have the virus in their bodies and even possibly still transmit that. We don't know. We hope that's not the case. And so far, we can say for sure.

BERMAN: Well, that is one of the most important, I think, unknown to this point. We're still waiting for science on that.

Sanjay, this question comes from Leila from Chicago. If I have COVID, should I take the vaccine? And if yes, what additional value does the vaccine have? Will this be a one-time or yearly vaccination?

GUPTA: Yes. I think the short answer, Leila, is, yes, you should. And there's a lot more to it. But the question has been for some time, as people know, I think, if you get infected, how long do you have immunity? And it's still a bit of an open question. We seem to be arriving at this idea that it's not forever.

[07:10:03]

There are some people who have seen to have had immunity for a few months. There are others who may have it a lot longer.

But when you talk to these vaccine scientists, I was talking to some of them late last night, one of the things they will sort of really -- they've impressed upon me is that a vaccinated type of immunity should last longer, being more durable than a naturally acquired immunity. So the immunity that you get from naturally be being does last a certain amount of time but the nature of the vaccine should provide longer immunity.

How long? We still don't know. Could this be a yearly thing? Perhaps. And right now, it's two shots, meaning the first shot sort of primes the immune system, and then the second shot sort of boosts it. That's sort of the goal of this vaccine. That's why it should be a better option for obtaining immunity.

CAMEROTA: Okay. This comes from Spencer in St. Paul, Minnesota. What is the best estimate for how long after the first injection one will be safe from COVID-19? Once one becomes inoculated, will he or she still need to wear a face mask, socially distance, et cetera?

Let's pretend this is the second inoculation, okay? So after you have immunity, can you rip off your mask and run around kissing people? That's what I want to know.

GUPTA: Well, I mean, this sort of goes back to the first question now that was asked. You know, if you've been inoculated, what does that really mean? What that really means so far, based on what we've seen, is that you are far less likely to get sick from COVID-19, really important. That's great. Keep in mind that the vast majority of people, young, healthy people were already unlikely to get sick from COVID-19.

But we still don't know this critical sort of question, can you still become infected, can you still transmit. So the short answer is, at least for a period of time until you get enough people sort of protected and immune against this disease, we probably will need to at least wear masks for a period of time.

I mean, how long? When I looked at this, and, again, speaking to people like Moncef last night, you're talking into the fall of next year. I talked to lots of arena owners who are saying, we are not planning on anything on the first half of the year, big arena events or anything like that. Second half of the year after the majority of the country has access to the vaccine, perhaps we could get to that point. But you're really talking beginning of school year next year probably.

BERMAN: Sanjay, this is terrific, and we have a couple more really important questions that we'll get to in the next hour when you'll leave. We're going to speak to someone about the vaccine rollout and some of the recommendations that are being made.

In the meantime, CNN has brand new reporting on what President-elect Joe Biden is planning to do in his first 100 days in office. Those details, next.

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[07:15:00]

CAMEROTA: CNN has learned that President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team are planning an all-out push for an ambitious new stimulus bill in his first 100 days. Biden's economic team, who he will officially introduce this afternoon will be critical to that effort. Biden has selected former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to serve as his treasury secretary. If confirmed, she will be the first woman to hold that post.

But what else do we know about her style and her vision? CNN's Tom Foreman has a closer look at Yellen's credential.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANET YELLEN, FORMER FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: I can say emphatically that partisan politics plays no role in our decisions about the appropriate stance of monetary policy.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Hard-nosed, clear eyed, Janet Yellen's nomination has triggered a flurry of praise from the right for her intellect, foresight and independence and from the left where she is called smart, tough and principled.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: She doesn't have a crystal ball, but what she does have a keen understanding about how the markets and the economy work.

FOREMAN: Her resume, which includes Brown, Yale, Harvard and the London School of Economics spurred President Obama to put her in charge of the Federal Reserve in 2014, keeping watch on the nation's banks, promoting economic stability.

YELLEN: I'm honored and humbled by the faith that you've placed in me.

FOREMAN: By the time her four-year term came to a close, however, Donald Trump was in office. He once said Yellen should be ashamed of her work and has openly criticized the Fed ever since.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The Federal Reserve raised the rates too fast and too soon.

FOREMAN: Yellen never blamed.

YELLEN: Obviously, the president has a right to comment on the Fed but I would worry that if it continues or intensifies, that it could undermine confidence in the Fed and the market's confidence in the Fed's judgment.

FOREMAN: Since the 1700 when Alexander Hamilton served as the first treasury secretary, they've all been male, including Trump's man, Steve Mnuchin, who has a deep pedigree in business and has staunchly refused to hand over the president's tax returns.

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: I've had no conversations ever with the president or anyone in the White House about delivering the president's tax returns to Congress.

FOREMAN: Yellen, by comparison, is known for her balanced approached to business and consumer concerns, for imposing stiff sanctions on Wells Fargo over widespread consumer abuses and her take on the pandemic economy was clear even last spring. YELLEN: We're going to be looking at a decline in GDP of at least 30 percent. And I've seen far higher numbers. So this is a huge, unprecedented, devastating hit. And my hope is that we will get back to business as usual as quickly as possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (on camera): Appreciation for the suffering of regular folks and respect for the needs of business, those are the twin engines driving this rare show of bipartisan support for Yellen in this deeply divided town.

Tom foreman, CNN, Washington.

[07:20:01]

CAMEROTA: Okay, our thanks to Tom.

And joining us, CNN Political Correspondent Abby Phillip and CNN Economics Commentator Catherine Rampell, she's an Opinion Columnist for The Washington Post.

Okay. Catherine, let's just start with this. So, Janet Yellen, what -- I mean, I think that Tom laid it out perfectly about her challenges. What do we know about her inclinations and how she will tackle the economic health of the country after this devastating pandemic and what it means for all of our pocketbooks (ph)?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: If you look at her long record of academic research, her record at the Fed, she is a person who has been historically focused on full labor markets, caring about working families, making sure that unemployment is as low as possible. In fact, she shifted economic thinking within the Fed about how important it was to emphasize low unemployment relative to controlling inflation.

So I think she is a person who has a strong focus on labor markets. She's also historically paid a lot of attention to fairness, inequality, issues that should be appealing to the left but also to American values, of course.

In terms of what she has specifically advocated, she's talked in recent months about the importance of having a generous stimulus package, fiscal relief, whatever you want to call it, to address the challenges of COVID. Of course, her main weakness, shall we say, is that she does not have the same sort of political background that a lot of other people who have held that job have had or other people who might be negotiating over stimulus-type legislation.

So, can she go toe to toe with Mitch McConnell, for example, if he is indeed still the majority leader next year, that will be the real question. But in terms of her priorities, I think she wants what the rest of want, which is to get us out of this economic quagmire.

BERMAN: And one of the things we've heard last week, Catherine, is personnel with policy. And if you look beyond just Janet Yellen, Cecilia Rouse, for instance, and some of the other people who have filled out this economic team, you get a little more of a sense of what you're talking about. The focus will be on labor and workforce issues.

Explain that a little bit more and also how it differs than the current focus of the administration.

RAMPELL: Yes. If you look at, for example, Biden's announced members of this council of economic advisers, it's also a great team, I think. The chair that he has named, Cecilia Rouse, is a dean at Prince University. She's also a labor economist. But two people who will be backing her up, Heather Boushey and Jared Bernstein also have a strong focus on labor economics.

Historically, people in those jobs can have different focuses. The might be econometricians, they might trade economists, et cetera. These three, while they do have other interests, they are very strongly focused on labor markets. So that tells us a lot about what Biden's priorities will be.

In terms of the comparison between this group of folks versus those who are outgoing, I think there is no comparison. This is a huge upgrade both in terms of their competence, their temperament, as well as in other experience. Steven Mnuchin, arguably, his biggest contribution before was work on Wall Street and producing the Lego Batman Movie. Janet Yellen has chaired the most important central bank in the world, has an enormous C.V., looking at the -- doing the research that is most important to the economic challenges we face right now.

It's just -- I think it will be a huge relief to a lot of Americans to have competent, experienced, respected people in these jobs.

CAMEROTA: But does she have a Batman movie?

RAMPELL: Maybe she has one we haven't heard about.

BERMAN: Federal Reserve Batman is actually the most boring superhero of all time.

CAMEROTA: Indeed. Abby, we have a little into what President-elect Biden says his priorities will be in the first 100 days. Here is our CNN reporting. Biden's agenda, for his first 100 days in office, will center on two key avenues of action, the passage of a broad economic aid package and where legislation is not necessary, a series of executive actions aimed at advancing his priorities, getting a grip on the surging coronavirus crisis is far and away Biden's top concern. Until that happens, one of the sources said, the president-elect's wider legislative agenda is likely to take a back seat.

Okay, so the coronavirus is his top priority. And in terms of all of the executive actions of the 100 days, I'm not sure we specifically know what he'll be doing, but it sounds like there will be a flurry of them.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think we'll see probably a lot of rolling back of things that the Trump administration has done over the last four years. But I think that that piece by our colleagues is exactly right. The Biden administration is going to be keenly focused on the virus first, because that's what economist say is necessary in order to get the economy back up and running.

Biden will have so many problems if he cannot get this virus under control, get the economy up and running because if isn't able to do both of those things, the rest of agenda is going to be virtually impossible.

[07:25:08]

Congress is going to be, I think, frozen on issues of spending after whatever this next stimulus bill is going to be because I think you're going to see Republicans starting to talk about debt and spending for the first time in roughly four years as soon as Biden gets into office. So it's sort of a house of cards, if he doesn't sort of start building it from the bottom up, it's just not going to work for him. So it doesn't surprise me to see that the stimulus portion of it, it might happen.

It seems like there is some actual movement on the Senate side for McConnell to want to do that even before inauguration day. But it's not clear whether something that is done before inauguration will be enough. Biden may have to take a second crack at it. It's going to be an enormous problem but it must be done first so that the economy can be rebuilt and there's at least a tax base to be able to do other things that the Biden administration might want to do in terms of spending, like, for example, infrastructure.

BERMAN: Abby, can I ask you a question about pure politics now?

PHILLIP: Yes.

BERMAN: So, we've seen over the last day something we haven't seen before, which is the president attacking the Republican governors of Georgia and Arizona for not helping him overturn the results of the election in public. Alisyn is going to talk to the lieutenant governor of Georgia in just a second, so I'll focus on Arizona.

Doug Ducey, on a news conference yesterday, was certifying or was there when the results of the election in Arizona were certified. And there was this remarkable, remarkable moment where you hear his cell phone ring, and we're getting this video thanks to Brahm Resnik, a local reporter there. What you need to know is that Ducey has changed the ringtone on his cell phone to Hail to the Chief when he gets a call from the White House because he never wanted to miss a call from the White House. Watch what happens.

So that is symbolic of much there. During this event he gets a call from the White House.

CAMEROTA: And he's been waiting for it, because he's so excited, he's changing his ringtone.

BERMAN: And he's like, boom, he's like, done, I'm over it.

PHILLIP: I don't know if excited is the right word for what Ducey is in terms of getting a call from the president. Look --

BERMAN: No, it's the opposite of that, literally. Just to be clear, the opposite of that, he's taking the phone and putting it away, ignoring the call from the White House there.

PHILLIP: I mean, it's so symbolic of the position that people like him are in, like Kemp in Georgia, also in a really tough spot where the president is pressing them day in and day out to do things that they have said are basically illegal. They cannot interfere in the results of a certified election in their states, but President Trump continues to try.

And really what seems to be behind this is obviously just raw politics. President Trump believes that anybody that he has endorsed or done a political favor for owes him this political favor, which is overturning the results of a duly conducted election.

And I think to Ducey's credit, to Brian Kemp's credit, they have really -- they have pushed back in the face of enormous pressure. I'm sure that this situation for them is not safe. We've already seen other people who have pushed back on the president receiving death threats, needing security, all kinds of things like that.

And as much as we've criticized Republicans on Capitol Hill for not doing enough, I think that state level, Republicans are really doing a lot.

And I think one of the other things about some of this is that President Trump doesn't understand why other Republicans won and he lost, and that is what's driving so much of his frustration in this period of time since the election.

CAMEROTA: Abby, you make such a good point. This has to be such an uncomfortable and unpleasant for Republicans in states, governors trying to do their job. But thank you very much. Catherine, thanks so much for all of the information and insight into Janet Yellen, really helpful.

So, Rhode Island is warning residents that hospitals are already at capacity as the number of patients soars there. So, up next, we're going to talk to a doctor on the frontlines.

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