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CDC to Consider Recommendations for Who Should Receive Coronavirus Vaccine First; White House Reportedly Pressuring FDA to Approve Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine; Georgia's GOP Lieutenant Governor Blasts President Trump's Election Fraud Lies. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 01, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He is lashing out at the Republican governors of Arizona and Georgia for not helping him overturn the election, the election that he lost. And overnight there's no reporting as to why he's keeping up this. He says -- he says -- or it is no doubt all about money, a lot of it that will directly benefit the president.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, but we begin with the pandemic and the latest vaccine developments. Joining us now is Dr. Jose Romero. He is the chair of the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices. He is also the Arkansas health secretary, but it is in your first hat, Doctor, that we want to talk to you, because today these decisions are being made, and you all are meeting to figure out who will get these first precious doses of the vaccine. And obviously, I don't have to tell you these are life and death decisions that you all will be making today, and so how do you decide whose life to save first?

DR. JOSE ROMERO, CHAIR, CDC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES: Good morning. Thank you for having me. These are weighty decisions. We have been having meetings since April of this year, and we've had approximately 25 closed meetings and six to seven open meetings to discuss this. These decisions are made based on science and facts provided to us by the CDC. We ask for the data, and the data is presented and analyzed to us and presented to us.

So our decisions, or deciding which of the priority groups, are based on current knowledge and current information about the pandemic, the epidemiology, the persons most affected by this pandemic.

CAMEROTA: OK, so take us through it with specifics. As I understand it you'll have 40 million doses, and that translates to 20 million people. So this year before the end of the year theoretically 20 million people can be vaccinated. Who are those?

ROMERO: So as of today, we have talked about this among the group, and it seems pretty clear that the top group of individuals will be health care providers. There's a second group that we've discussed in our previous ACIP open public meeting, and that was individuals living in long care facilities, long care congregate facilities. There is some discussion among the group as to whether that group should be included or not. But overall, the 15 members seem to think -- the majority seem to think that that is an appropriate group. Today we will continue to look at that data, make that recommendation, if appropriate, that the vaccine should be delivered to health care providers and to those individuals living in long term congregate facilities.

CAMEROTA: I don't think you have enough doses for that. So the numbers we have 21 million people are health care personnel. So I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you have 20 million doses, and I think 3 million people are living in long-term care such as nursing home facilities. So that's more than you have. So now what?

ROMERO: So it will be -- it will be incumbent upon each state to decide within those groups who to begin to vaccinate initially. So it's not the same to be a health care provider that is not having direct patient contact as it is a health care provider that's in the intensive care unit caring for individuals with COVID, or emergency room physicians or nurses that are caring for COVID.

In addition, our recommendations are for health care providers overall, that is, anybody that works within a health care institution that could have contact with an individual who has COVID should receive vaccination. And that includes individuals such as the persons delivering food, those persons in housekeeping who rapidly turn over rooms in the emergency room or who perform cleaning in the patient's rooms, those individuals will be included. So we understand that there isn't enough vaccine to go around at this time, and so each individual institution will need to decide how they're going to prioritize that vaccine.

CAMEROTA: OK, that's so helpful for us to know. So, in other words, not every doctor and nurse in the hospital. More a custodian who has closer contact and a food delivery person, that's really helpful.

Last question, there are 100 million people, as we understand, with high risk, preexisting comorbidities basically, and then 53 million elderly Americans, meaning people over 65. Which of those two groups should get the next batch first?

ROMERO: Sorry, that's a very good question, and we have begun our discussions on this, and we will continue our discussions and our deliberations as we move forward. Again, this will be data driven. This will be scientifically based as well as we can.

[08:05:00]

So in the coming weeks, we will make a decision regarding the use of the vaccine not only in those groups, but also in the essential personnel, those individuals that keep our society running, and that includes individuals that man the power stations, individuals that prepare our food, the poultry workers, postal workers. So all of those individuals will be discussed over the next few weeks, and we will come out with more recommendations regarding what are called tiers 1-B and 1-C.

CAMEROTA: You have your work cut out for you. Dr. Jose Romero, we really appreciate you taking time on this very busy morning to explain all of this to us and our viewers. Thank you.

ROMERO: Thank you for having me.

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, Dr. Romero just laid out who will get the vaccine in what order once it's approved, once it has emergency use approval. And CNN has learned that this morning the FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has been summoned to the White House to meet with the Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Apparently there is displeasure in the White House that it's taking, and I'm putting it in air quotes even though I'm not going to use my finger, so long for the FDA to grant emergency use approval for the Pfizer vaccine which put in the first application. The FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn felt the need to put out a statement overnight that 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 this important decision." This isn't taking a long time, Sanjay, it's the opposite of a long time, correct?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the whole process is remarkably fast, and I don't say that lightly. People have been talking about this for some time, but eight months, essentially 243 days between the point that Pfizer actually created this vaccine to the time that they applied for emergency use authorization, eight months -- eight years would have been considered fast. So it is a fast process.

But also it's worth pointing out that between the time that Pfizer, for example, applied for their emergency use authorization two Mondays ago now, I guess, the data scientist scientists have been looking at that data. No one else has seen the data. We're talking about the 94 percent effectiveness, that's based on what Pfizer has told us, told everybody. So this is the first time that an organization, these data scientists who are trained to do this, actually look at the data and say, yes, it is 94 percent. And, by the way, certain demographics do better than other demographics, looking at the safety data, all that sort of stuff. And then on December 10th is when we're going to probably hear a recommendation, and it's likely, it seems very likely the recommendation will be to authorize it.

CAMEROTA: The pressure from the White House, this one is a little bit confusing because this will happen on President Trump's watch. He will be able to take credit for that. So the idea that he's trying to rush it, the worst thing that could happen would be for vaccines to be rushed into the marketplace, then to not work or worse, that would be a horrible catastrophe. And so why not -- it's going to happen this month. It's going to happen in December by all accounts.

GUPTA: Right. I think very likely, and I've spoken to Dr. Hahn a few times over the past few months, and I think it is worth pointing out that, obviously, he is the head of the FDA, but there is a process involved here. There are these data scientists, and these are people who are just looking at the data. They have unblinded all the data now from these tens of thousands of patients and they're looking very critically at who these patients were, what symptoms they developed, how likely the vaccine was to protect them, and also to maybe try and answer some other questions that we haven't had answers to yet. Are there certain people who respond better to the vaccine? How long does it last? Big question. Things like that.

We may not have answers to those questions before authorization, but ultimately, they then give -- these data scientists present their recommendations to Stephen Hahn. So he is the head of the FDA, but there is a lot of people involved with actually getting to that conclusion.

BERMAN: You talked about questions, Sanjay, and everyone has questions about these vaccines because pretty much everyone will or should be taking them. And we got some great questions from viewers, and I want to read you a few more of them, because they get to the heart of the issue here. And this is from Vivien who writes, "I would like to know more about the mRNA vaccines," the messenger RNA vaccines, that's what Pfizer and Moderna have here. "This is new technology, and I'm worried it could mutate my own healthy cells or cause cancer down the road." This is a concern that you hear, Sanjay. It's a well-formulated question. Can you explain what exactly is being asked and what the answer is?

GUPTA: Yes, and I would minimize these types of concerns, because sometimes I think these types of concerns get minimized. This is a brand-new type of vaccine, and just quickly, basically, vaccines have always worked with the basic precept that you would take a small amount of the virus, give it to somebody, and their body would say that's a foreign thing, let me create immune cells to fight that if I ever see it again.

[08:10:04]

This type of vaccine essentially is just taking the genetic sequence of a portion of the virus and giving that to somebody, and then saying make that portion of the virus over and over again, and then after that your body will respond to that. So you've essentially made an entire vaccine-making machine out of the body as a result of this.

Now, what her question is, is will it mutate cells? This messenger RNA is not entering the nucleus of the human cell where it would interfere with DNA. I think that's the nature of her question. So there is no evidence that it would mutate, call mutations, nor is there any evidence that it would actually cause infection. You're not giving the virus. You're giving the genetic sequence for a portion of the virus. So someone cannot become infected with this, either.

The biggest concern I think from all these scientists, Moderna, Pfizer, people that we've talked to for the last several months, the biggest concern was it simply wouldn't work. It just wouldn't do the job because nothing like this has ever been done before. But now, as we've heard from the companies, and again hopefully verified soon by the FDA scientists, it does work. It does seem to prevent disease. And they're still going to need the long-term studies, but at least the two months' worth of data seem to show that it was safe.

CAMEROTA: OK, in our less than a minute we have left, this comes from Shawn in West Hollywood, California. "I'm interested in knowing if the public will have to decide which vaccine to take out of the three or more almost approved. Or how will that work?" GUPTA: Initially you're not really going to get much of a choice. I

think the Pfizer vaccine needs very specific cold storage, so if you live in a community where that's available, the Pfizer vaccine may be the one that you take. Moderna may be able to go to smaller cities and smaller facilities like even nursing homes. But I talked to the head of Operation Warp Speed last night. The expectation is that by January you may have the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, AstraZeneca vaccine applying for EUA. So by summer, fall of next year if this becomes a yearly shot, at that point people may have options in terms of which vaccine to take. But I don't think initially. There's not going to be enough to actually give people that choice initially.

BERMAN: Sanjay, these are such great questions, and I think they raise so many important issues surrounding the vaccine, so I think it's so helpful that people hear this. So thank you very much for helping out this morning.

GUPTA: You got it.

BERMAN: So the president of the United States is trying to overturn the results of the election, and he's doing it wide open in public. And now there is a new twist to this. A member of the president's legal team making a death threat against a former government official who testified that the election was fair and just. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:20]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R), GEORGIA: It's certainly disheartening to watch. Folks willing to kind of put their character and their morals out there just so that they can spread a half-truth or a lie in the efforts to maybe flip an election. And, certainly, that's not what democracy is all about.

Long term I think we hurt the brand of our Republican Party which is certainly bigger than one person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. That is Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan just moments ago on NEW DAY, condemning the repeated lies many coming from President Trump himself about the election results in Georgia.

Lieutenant Governor Duncan told us he will not be available when President Trump goes to Georgia this Saturday to campaign for the Republican candidates there.

Joining us now CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip and CNN White House correspondent John Harwood.

So, John, the position that President Trump is putting these Republicans in, Governor Brian Kemp in Georgia, the lieutenant governor there that you just heard, the governor in Arizona, I mean, they are -- it's so interesting how, you know, for all of these years, these four years, Republicans have been able to many stay mum about things that President Trump says, but now when it's about law, when it's about courts and judges, when it's about their own political futures, they must say something and talk about the madness coming out of the White House legal team's claims.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And it's about themselves personally from a president who has been defeated and is going out the door. Remember, this was seen accurately from the beginning. Ted Cruz said in 2016 as he was losing to Donald Trump that Donald Trump is a pathological liar. Marco Rubio said he is a con artist.

Both of those things are true. They have always been true throughout his presidency, but Republicans, including Cruz and Rubio and many, many others, have tolerated what the president has done once he won because he was advancing their interests as well and because it threatened their interest to take him on.

Now that he's lost the election, everyone can see that he's lost the election, he is spreading these lies and the focus of his lies is getting increasingly specific on Republicans themselves. So, he attacked Doug Ducey the Republican governor of Arizona for having certified Joe Biden's victory in Arizona. He is attacking Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia for certifying Joe Biden's win there.

Once he starts training his fire directly on them, they don't have much choice but to speak up. And the crazy thing about it is that the president is doing this while also fleecing his followers as he's leaving office by using this dishonest campaign to pretend that he won the election to extract money from his base. So you think about many of these older voters who have been diluted into thinking what the president is saying is true and he's mailing them saying send me your money.

That money is going to go to Donald Trump to finance his personal political activities going forward. It's a tragedy for the country, it's a tragedy for those people and it's very, very bad for American democracy.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You mentioned Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. They are just watching. They are just standing here watching, sitting on their hands and being quiet, not to mention Mitch McConnell who is now allowing this to happen. I mean, his permissiveness to this is now a major issue.

And, Abby, when I listen to Geoff Duncan, that's the lieutenant governor of Georgia, a stalwart Republican, there was so much in that interview, there were so much in his words that were so telling.

[08:20:03]

He says that the brand of the Republican Party is being hurt. That it's a party that is bigger than just one person. What you hear in his voice now is concern in Georgia that the president is harming, perhaps badly, chances for these two Republican senators to be reelected.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, listening to him it really highlights actually the degree to which Georgia is becoming a state that is in play. He is saying those things because he is an elected official statewide in that state and understands that that's a state that's changing, it's diversifying. If Republicans are going to compete there, they have to be able to compete with voters who voted against President Trump and voted for Joe Biden, which is why that state flipped from red to blue.

So I do think that you're seeing Republicans at the state level seeing the writing on the wall here and recognizing that this kind of strategy in the long term is one that will hurt them when they are up for reelection or when they are running for their next office, even long after President Trump is gone. And even in those special election race in a couple of months, a lot of Republicans in Georgia in particular are saying, you know, you should be doing everything that you can to get Republicans to the polls. You should be doing nothing to discourage people from participating in this process and they're seeing the president doing the opposite and it's deeply frustrating to them, but, you know, unfortunately someone like the lieutenant governor is probably no longer going to be welcome in President Trump's orbit whether he was available this weekend or not.

I think President Trump has been very clear, anyone who pushes against him is being excised and being pushed aside because he doesn't like to hear people disagreeing with him on this.

CAMEROTA: John, there was something horrible that happened on Howie Carr's radio show, you know, one of the right wing radio hosts out of Boston. One of the president's legal team went on and said explicitly -- I mean, said -- violent rhetoric. I don't want to play it.

I'm very torn about this, John, about whether to play it.

BERMAN: Normally, I'm with you. In this case I think we should, because it's not just a joke. You need to hear this, a member of the president's team threatening violence.

CAMEROTA: I think we have -- is this video -- yeah, this one is video so you can watch the reaction as well.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JOE DIGENOVA, TRUMP CAMPAIGN LAWYER: Anybody who thinks that this election went well like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of --

HOWIE CARR, RADIO HOST: Oh, the guy that was on "60 Minutes" last night.

DIGENOVA: That guy -- that guy is a class-A moron. He should be drawn and quartered, taken out at dawn and shot.

(LAUGHTER)

(END AUDIO CLIP) CAMEROTA: Not funny, Howie. Not funny, Howie Carr. You know what? These guys don't realize that violent rhetoric actually leads to violent actions. Talk to the guy who drove hundreds of miles to the pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. with his shotgun because he thought that there were children being kept in the basement there. I could go on and on.

It's not funny when people say things like this about wishing violence on someone because sometimes people act on it, John.

HARWOOD: Alisyn, it's vile, it's disgusting. I don't know what happened to Joe diGenova. He used to be the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia during the first Bush administration. He once was a respected legal figure.

He has somehow lost his marbles and so he is saying these deranged things, not the first deranged set of things that Joe diGenova has said, and it's abhorrent what he's doing and I think people across the political spectrum ought to condemn it.

Chris Krebs is a public servant of high caliber who has been telling the truth about the election and his reward for telling the truth is to be the object of this hateful rhetoric from a very sad figure in Joe diGenova.

BERMAN: Look, Mitch McConnell could condemn it. That's for sure. We should note on the "Today" show a short time ago, Chris Krebs did an interview and he said he's exploring his options, his legal options in response to this what amounts to a death threat.

CAMEROTA: John, Abby, thank you both very much. Appreciate getting all of the analysis.

So, CNN is learning about aggressive plans for Joe Biden's first 100 days in the White House, as he gets ready to introduce his economic team, we discuss it all, next.

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[08:28:32]

BERMAN: All right. New reporting this morning from CNN's MJ Lee on what the first 100 days of a Biden administration will look like. She reports 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 says, the president-elect's wider legislative agenda is likely to take a back seat.

John Harwood, you have years of economic reporting, John Harwood and Abby Phillip back with us.

A large stimulus package that's for when he gets into office. We are starting to hear some Democrats more willing to pass something in a lame duck if that's still even possible.

HARWOOD: Well, John, I think the consensus among economists in both parties is that some sort of relief bill is urgently needed now because millions of Americans are seeing their unemployment benefits, special unemployment benefits enacted under the federal action this year expire. They are at risk of mass evictions given the eviction protections which are also expiring. State and local governments are broke because the curtailment of economic activity has cut back their revenues.

And so, just as schools are struggling to figure out how to stay open, much less try to close some of the gaps in education created by the closures this year, so many students have fallen behind and states and local governments.