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New Day

Attorney's Encourage Georgians Not to Vote; Iran Boosts Nuclear Enrichment; Getting the Coronavirus Vaccine; Raffensperger Responds to Threats. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 03, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Don Junior has got a PAC that's running ads to try to get people to turn out. So now you're seeing the ire of the White House really turn against Sidney Powell and say, this is going too far. It's going to be Sidney Powell's fault if Republicans lose those two runoffs.

I would just say the president has also contributed to this. And has from the inception. It's caused a lot of heartburn for officials in Georgia. If the Republicans somehow manage to lose either of these runoffs, it will be because of both of these efforts. And everyone across the board, Democrats as well as Republicans, understand that it's always been an uphill fight for the two Democrats seeking to pick up these seats. So this is not really a contest where Republicans should be feeling as vulnerable as they are right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm not sure how much further you can go to depress turnout than literally telling people not to vote. That seems to be the far end on the spectrum of depressing turnout.

And, you know, you're hearing the concern. And, Alisyn, in your conversations with Republican officials in Georgia, they are now actually actively concerned that the president and his allies are forcing people to stay home here. It is having an impact. There's just no question about that.

One other piece of reporting, Charlie, I want your take on, and this is from "The Washington Post." CNN has reported that there are concerns that Bill Barr's job might be on the line now, or the president's very upset with William Barr for saying that he found no evidence of widespread fraud in the election. "The Post" takes it a step further and says, one senior administration official said there was a chance Trump would fire his attorney general and asserted the president was not merely frustrated over Barr's fraud-related assertions. The person said that several people are trying to persuade Trump not to do so.

It gives you a window into the mind of where the president is this last 50 days, Charlie.

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, it sure does. And, you know what, don't take it just from Bill Barr. Take it from the Homeland Security Department's cybersecurity office, where they said it was a very clean election. Take it from the secretaries of state. The secretaries of state from the --- both Republican and Democrat alike, you know, who have stated they have run honest, open, and transparent elections. They're -- it's ridiculous that they are alleging fraud without providing any evidence, or how about a specific allegation? The only allegation I've seen in Pennsylvania is up here in the coal region, some guy from 44, you know, was trying to vote his dead mother for Trump. I mean -- I mean I wish they'd just give us an allegation.

But, again, this is part of the, you know, the wrecking ball approach that democratic institutions (INAUDIBLE) use in the electoral process. I never thought I'd see attacks on democracy at home like I've seen -- especially coming from a White House and from a president and his allies. It's just completely insane.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Dead voters for Trump. It takes on a macabre meaning at this point.

DENT: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, does Bill Barr care? He has 50 days left. Does he care at this point if he loses his job?

TALEV: I -- look, I think Bill Barr, this has probably gone farther than Bill Barr thought that it would. I -- we're -- our reporting is the same as yours. Our understanding is that the president has been extremely agitated since the AP interview with Bill Barr. Although his real driving and abiding concern has been that Barr has not helped usher out the door this John Durham report that the president is convince would put former Obama-era officials in the hot seat for the FBI's investigation of the Russia thing. It's now the end of the Trump presidency. We're still talking about the Russia investigation.

And so, look, who -- who is going to step in, in the last 40-some days to take that job? What kind of a mark will it leave on the presidency? And yet there is still a series of pardons that could come, there are still a series of constitutional questions based on the next plays by the president. He may have a real instinct to clear a path to do sort of whatever he wants to do. But, you know, the fate of Bill Barr is still very much in question. There are people (INAUDIBLE) telling the president, don't do this.

BERMAN: All of it to raise money for his political action committee. More than $170 million the president has earned so far on all of this.

Charlie Dent, Margaret Talev, thanks both so much.

President-elect Joe Biden and the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, join Jake Tapper for their first joint interview since the election. Their election victory. Tune in for this special event tonight at 9:00 p.m. That will be fascinating. Only on CNN.

We learned overnight the Trump administration is withdrawing diplomats from the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran. We have a live report from Tehran, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:38:31]

CAMEROTA: Developing overnight, Iran moving to increase uranium enrichment and block nuclear inspections after the assassination of its top nuclear scientist. The response by Iran's parliament is presenting a major challenge for the incoming Biden administration.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is live in Tehran with more.

What's happening, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, this is a key move by fair to say a relatively hawkish parliament here to kind of set a timetable and essentially what they passed yesterday, which the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, do -- has to sign in the next four days or so, puts a two month time table on these new measures that would, first of all, block new inspections here in Iran on nuclear facilities and ultimately cause Iran to pull out of the non- proliferation treaty. But that doesn't start happening until February, coincidentally also, once the Biden administration is in power. This bill also says they want to see sanction relief soon too. So essentially it sets a clock ticking here. Hawks in parliament saying what they'd like to see happen by February, if they don't get sanctions relief.

Now, President Rouhani has said he's against this sort of pressure. He doesn't actually appear during the parliamentary vote he said for health reasons yesterday, but it does put pressure on him to get diplomacy moving as well, and also too on the Biden administration. Remember, we just had a key nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed last Friday on the outskirts of Tehran, where I'm standing, and there have been talk of severe revenge from Iran's top leadership peer.

[06:40:02]

They are still potentially looking towards the anniversary of Qassem Soleimani, their key military figure assassinated by a U.S. drone back in January as he left Baghdad's airport in Iraq. The retaliation for that so far was a limited strike on a very well-protected U.S. base in Iraq. So fears of rising potentially of Iran's moves here, but this parliamentary vote quite considered both in its presentation and its reception here in the dual parts of Iran's government, that don't always agree, the hawks and the moderates here on what the way forward is. But now they have a timetable and it all really rests on what President Hassan Rouhani and President-elect Joe Biden can get going in the next two months or so in terms of diplomacy, and whether or not any outlying moves of violence here in the region could derail that.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you very much for explaining all of that and all of your reporting. Well, coronavirus vaccines are coming. What does it feel like to get one? Are there side effects? How long do they last? Dr. Sanjay Gupta answers questions, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:01]

BERMAN: This morning, more deaths reported in the United States from coronavirus than ever before, 3,157 Americans dead reported in just one day. More than 100,000 people hospitalized this morning. That's an all-time high.

It comes as the hope of getting a vaccine is closer to reality. The vaccine is coming. There's a lot of suffering before then. But, when you do finally get your vaccine, what can you expect?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YASIR BATALVI, VACCINE TRIAL PARTICIPANT: That evening was rough. I mean, I developed a low-grade fever and fatigue and chills and --

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Yasir Batalvi is describing the side effects that he experienced during Moderna's COVID vaccine trial.

BATALVI: Thirty minutes later I had a little bit of stiffness, muscle soreness in my left arm. It's like you -- you're punched in the arm, basically.

GUPTA (on camera): When you're going through this whole process, Yasir, 22-page consent form, hearing about all the potential side effects, knowing that you're trialing something that, you know, we don't have a lot of data on at the time, did you have any second thoughts before taking it?

BATALVI: Honestly, Sanjay, yes.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's claiming the efficacy of --

GUPTA (voice over): Every decision we make is risk versus reward. And when the company announced early data showing over 94 percent efficacy, Yasir was confident it had been worth it.

BATALVI: It doesn't last long. And the potential of folks not getting this vaccine and actually infecting people with COVID, those affects last a lot longer. And they can be life or death.

These are early days. And the two vaccine front-runners in this country, Pfizer and Moderna, use a type of genetic sequence called mRNA. It's a technology that has never before been used in humans outside of a clinical trial. MRNA stands for messenger RNA. It carries the instruction for making

whatever protein you want. In this case, the spike protein the virus uses to enter our cells. These vaccines require two doses. One to prime, one to boost, a few weeks apart so the body mounts what we hope will be a lasting immune response.

One of the biggest concerns now is that the side effects that Yasir is describing, fatigue, muscle pain, fever and chills, will deter people from getting that second dose.

DR. MONCEL SLAOUI, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: Maybe 10, 15 percent of the subjects immunized have quite noticeable side effects that usually last no more than 24 to 36 hours.

GUPTA (on camera): Do you worry about the impact of this vaccine on you long-term?

BATALVI: I gave it a lot of thought. And the only thing that gave me some calm was trying to research the actual vaccine, trying to understand how mRNA vaccines work.

GUPTA (voice over): We understand this for sure, you can't get infected from this vaccine, because the vaccine doesn't actually contain the virus. And even though these are genetic-based vaccines, they don't alter our DNA. And as far as those side effects go, that may even be a good sign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That means your immune response is working for you. You should feel good about that. And it shouldn't really be any difficulty coming back for that second shot, knowing that you're now in a much better position to fight off this awful virus.

GUPTA: For now, Yasir is looking forward to his next appointment, which is on December 10th, the exact day the FDA might authorize the first vaccine for COVID-19.

BATALVI: So I put my name down because I just -- I felt so helpless. It's public service. I have to do it because I think mass scale vaccination is really the only realistic way out of the pandemic that we're in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: So, again, John, just to think about this. Two shots, one to prime the immune system, the second to boost. If you do both, the idea is that you get longer-lasting and stronger immunity overall. That's why you do the two shots.

Still, as you know, just about 60 percent, 58 percent of people say they would actually get this vaccine. Hopefully those numbers continue to go up because in order to get to that herd immunity, John, people are going to have to trust this vaccine and they're going to have to get both of those shots. Get one, come back for the others.

BERMAN: I think the numbers will go up as long as you keep explaining as clearly as you are, Sanjay, what people can expect, why they need it. And people like Yasir come forward and explain what people will go through. It's so help -- I mean we're at the stage now where people want to know, practically speaking, exactly what's going to happen. So it's terrific to get that information.

We'll talk to you again in a second, Sanjay. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: OK.

BERMAN: A quick programming note. You can join Sanjay and Anderson Cooper tomorrow night for a new CNN coronavirus town hall. Get your coronavirus and vaccine questions answered at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

CAMEROTA: OK, Georgia's Republican election officials are begging President Trump to stop spreading lies about the election and to condemn the death threats that they're receiving. We have a brand-new interview with Georgia's secretary of state, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:54:00]

BERMAN: President Trump heads to Georgia this weekend to campaign for Republican senators facing runoff elections. The trip comes as the president continues to attack the state's Republican governor and the secretary of state over their handling of the elections.

CNN's Amara Walker sat down with Secretary of State Raffensperger and had a really interesting discussion.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: My faith really is part of me. It's part of who I am. I guess it becomes part of your character.

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Character, faith, and family. They've lit the way for Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in his darkest times.

RAFFENSPERGER: You know, we've been through an awful lot. Losing your -- a child, I think Tricia said it best, it doesn't matter how old they are. You know, you can be, you know, halfway, you know, carrying a child and lose that child in a miscarriage, they can be six weeks old, and they can be six years old or 60 years old, it will always be your child, and it's an incredible hurt.

WALKER: The hurt is still evident in Raffensperger's eyes. He lost his 40-year-old son almost three years ago after a fentanyl overdose.

[06:55:02]

RAFFENSPERGER: When he was 25 years old, he was hit with cancer, stage 3B Hodgkin's lymphoma. This is the same child, right? Then he'd be clean and sober and then, you know, maybe some incarceration and clean and sober. And then -- and -- and things like that. So it was a struggle throughout his life. But every one of those times that we had, you know, that he struggled, you know, God was there for us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Secretary of State-elect Raffensperger.

WALKER: And he says that God is watching over him, his wife Tricia, their two grown sons and three grandchildren right now, even as the death threats and vulgar messages continue to pour in from many who are buying into President Trump's repeated and baseless attacks on Raffensperger, and false claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the presidential election.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's an enemy of the people, the secretary of state.

RAFFENSPERGER: Tricia got the first ones. For some reason they targeted her. I think, you know, the first one was like, tell Brad to step down, you know, and that type of thing. But then they just really, you know, ramped up. And I think that's what's been so much disheartening, and the language that they use and threats that they use. It's just really unpatriotic.

WALKER: Despite the unsettling threats and the incessant incoming fire from fellow Republicans and the president, for whom he voted, Raffensperger says the hard times he's endured helped prepare him for this moment.

RAFFENSPERGER: I do lean into the Lord because I know what he calls us to be, in all things, is to be honest and treat people with dignity.

WALKER: Raffensperger succeeded now Governor Brian Kemp as secretary of state in 2019. He describes himself as a conservative Republican and insists that he still supports President Trump. But in an editorial published by "USA Today" last week, Raffensperger wrote, my family voted for him, donated to him, and are now being thrown under the bus by him.

WALKER (on camera): But do you think the president shares your values of civility and compassion and understanding and truth and integrity?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, I really don't know. I just know that, at the end of the day, my job is managing myself. A lot of times it's bigger than the person. It's really a philosophy. And so Republicans, we have a philosophy of -- I hope we still do -- of small, limited, affective government.

WALKER: Do you feel abandoned, though, in any way, by other Republicans and more influential ones who haven't come out and spoke out to stop this kind of rhetoric and false, baseless claims of fraud?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, I know that some people maybe think it's not their fight or also they realize that someone has 50 million Twitter followers, maybe more, and they have, likely me, 50, and so they're thinking, why would I want to join that fray?

So if you all would just bow your head for a moment of silence. WALKER (voice over): Raffensperger says that in all the chaos lately

he finds comfort in reading the Bible, and at the end of the day it's what his family thinks about him that matters the most.

RAFFENSPERGER: They're proud of where I stand and they're just -- they understand it's a tough spot that I'm in right now, but that's really important that they see my integrity and they're grateful for it.

WALKER: And despite it all, he hopes that there will be many more elections for him in the future.

WALKER (on camera): Will you be doing that again in a couple of years?

RAFFENSPERGER: Yes, absolutely, because I'll be on the ballot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: So that, indeed, is a confirmation from Secretary of State Raffensperger that he'll be running for re-election in 2022.

I do want to mention that was really interesting to me. I asked Raffensperger if there were any Bible verses that really spoke to him during this time, and he mentioned that Psalms 37 and 73 were recommended to him. And it reads like this, Psalm 37, don't fret because of those who are evil or envious or those who do wrong, and it ends with, the Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him.

John. Alisyn.

BERMAN: Amara, thank you so much for that. It's so great to get a sense of the man, the person, who is suffering these attacks for doing nothing more than just doing his job.

CAMEROTA: And that was a deeply personal profile. I really appreciate that. Because -- and also to reveal what he has gone through in his life. So many families, obviously, struggle with addiction and overdose, and that was just a really personal view into how he's enduring all of this.

BERMAN: Yes, it just makes the president seem all the more small for what he's doing.

NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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

And we do begin with breaking news.

More deaths reported from coronavirus in a single day than ever before, 3,157. That's more deaths reported in one day here in the U.S. than Japan has registered the entire pandemic. We did it in just one day. That is just outrageous. More than 100,000 people are hospitalized this morning.

[07:00:02]

That's an all-time high. More than 200,000 new coronavirus cases were reported overnight. Every reason to believe.