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New Day

First Interview with President-elect Biden and VP-elect Harris. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 04, 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 MALE: Our numbers are at alarming rates. We sure could use some leadership in the White House.

[05:59:13]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The first day I'm inaugurated, I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask.

ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: More than 100,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: The bottom line is, if we don't act now, we'll continue to see a death rate climb, more lives lost.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so terrified and very anxious about what's going to happen in the weeks ahead.

HILL: States already preparing to distribute the vaccine, which if approved, could ship in less than two weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to make sure that the people who need to get it first are going to be there.

BIDEN: Once it's declared to be safe, and it's important to communicate to the American people it's safe, safe to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it is. You've made it.

BERMAN: We got here much more quickly than we have the last few weeks.

CAMEROTA: I agree. I don't know how to explain that.

BERMAN: Yes. All right. Good news. Six a.m. here in New York. And this morning, we have a CNN exclusive, a window into what America

will be like in 47 days. A sense of real changes that will have a direct impact on your life and maybe a direct impact on the pandemic.

Jake Tapper's exclusive conversation with President-elect Joe Biden and the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris. It revealed a ton of new information.

The president-elect announced he will ask all Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency. He will make masks mandatory in federal buildings. He's calling on Congress to pass a compromise relief package before he takes office. We're going to bring you highlights of this exclusive interview throughout the morning.

CAMEROTA: Also breaking overnight, the U.S. again shattered its COVID records: 2,879 American deaths were reported yesterday, the highest ever.

More than 100,000 Americans are hospitalized this morning. More than 217,000 new cases were reported just yesterday.

President-elect Biden tells CNN that he has asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to stay on as his chief medical adviser to help the country get through this crisis.

Here is part one of Jake Tapper's interview with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, their first joint interview since winning the election.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. is entering the dark winter that you warned about with the highest death rate. We just reached a new horrible milestone of new cases. On a policy level, what's going to be different, starting on January 20, when you take office, when it comes to dealing with the pandemic?

BIDEN: Well, it's going to be a couple of things. No. 1, it's going to be important we set out national standards to let the -- look, we met with governors, Democrat and Republican, as well as 50 Democrat and Republican mayors. And they said they need guidance. They need guidance. And they're going to need a fair amount of money.

It's one thing for us to talk about being able to get help out there, but it's not getting there. We're having -- these hospital stays are overwhelming hospitals right now. There's a need for more financial assistance. There's more financial assistance needed, as well, when the vaccine comes forward. There's need for planning.

And so, now, the administration's been cooperating with us of late, letting them know what their plans are for the COVID virus, for how they're going to deliver on the vaccine. But there's not any help getting out there.

TAPPER: Madame Vice President-elect, Pfizer and Moderna have applied for emergency use authorization for the vaccines. Are you confident that, if and when the FDA does give that approval, it will be safe and effective? And will you take it?

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course I will. And -- but we also want to make sure that the American people know that we are committed. The president-elect and I talk about this all the time, that the people who need it most are going to be a priority. We've talked a lot about the need to take care of our frontline workers, as the president-elect was talking about.

TAPPER: Obviously, those front-line workers are important, but you are, too, sir. And you will be the oldest president ever inaugurated.

Do you plan to get vaccinated before Inauguration Day? And will you do it in public, the way that Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton have suggested they're willing to do?

BIDEN: I'd be happy to do that. When Dr. Fauci says, we have a vaccine that is safe, that's the moment in which I will stand before the public and see that -- look, part of what has to happen, Jake -- and you know as well as I do, people have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work.

Already, the numbers are really staggeringly low. And it matters what a president and a vice president do. And so I think that my three predecessors have set the model as to what should be done, saying, once it's declared to be safe -- and I think Barack said, once Fauci says it's clear -- that's my measure -- then, obviously, we take it.

And it's important to communicate to the American people it's safe; it's safe to do this.

TAPPER: Speaking of Fauci, have you spoken with him yet?

If so, have you asked him to stay on?

BIDEN: Yes, and yes.

I asked him to stay on in the exact same role he's had for the past several presidents. And I asked him to be a chief medical adviser for me, as well, and to be part of the COVID team.

And, so, what has to be done is, we have to make it clear to the American people that the vaccine is safe when it occur -- when that is determined.

And, No. 2, you have to make sure -- as he points out, you don't have to close down the economy, like a lot of folks are talking about now, if, in fact, you have clear guidance.

We talked about masking. It is important that we, in fact, the president and the vice president, we set, you know, the pattern by wearing masks.

But, beyond that, where the federal government has authority, I'm going to issue a standing order that, in federal buildings, you'll have to be masked, and, in transportation, interstate transportation, you must be masked, in airplanes and buses, et cetera. [06:05:10]

And so it's a matter of -- and I think my inclination, Jake, is, on the first day I'm inaugurated, to say, I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days to mask. Not forever, 100 days.

And I think we'll see a significant reduction if we incur that -- if that occurs, with vaccinations and masking, to drive down the numbers considerably, considerably.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny Zeleny. Also with us, CNN political analyst Toluse Olorunnipa. He's a White House reporter for "The Washington Post."

And Jeff, Alisyn and I are watching this, and we have the same reaction, which is that, look, we knew that President-elect Biden wanted to require masks in federal buildings. We hadn't heard him say that I'm going to ask America to wear masks for the first hundred days of an administration.

And that sounds so simple, but it's such a big difference. And it is such a new kind of way of approaching this pandemic than we've seen.

CAMEROTA: It's called a plan. It's called a plan. You don't recognize it. You've actually lost the word for it. You don't know how to describe it anymore. It's called a plan. Will it work? That's what our medical experts tell us, it will. But it has a start and a finish. A hundred days of a plan from a leader.

BERMAN: And it's also asking for collective action, Jeff. It's saying, we're all in this. It's somewhat -- I hesitate to say -- Churchillian. I mean, we talk about wartime presidents. This is saying, we're all in this together. Let's do this now.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And I think the key word is "ask." I'm asking Americans to do this for a hundred days. Not telling, not ordering, not mandating, ask. So just in that tone, it certainly is different.

Now, of course, it's an open question, is that going to happen? The well has been well-poisoned on this front. On the -- you know, masks have become political. He can't change that necessarily.

But people are seeing all around them, no matter what part of the country you live in, hospitals are full. People are dying that people are family members with or they know. So asking people to do it is -- it underscores a couple of things.

One, this is a different tone and temperament from this president than we have seen over the last four years, which we knew was going to happen. We know his ideology is different. But asking someone to do something, I was just struck by how simple it sounds.

And it's not partisan. It was just a reminder of how presidents have acted before. They call on their country to do something. They ask their country to do something. So that is what he did.

It's a high bar, of course. We don't know how successful he'll be on anything, but the tone was certainly different. And I think people on both sides, at least many would agree, it's refreshing.

CAMEROTA: Toluse, on that topic, I mean, it is just a stark contrast with President Trump, who has had no plan that he has spelled out to ask Americans or to guide Americans on how to get through this pandemic. And tragically, because of that, we've seen the highest deaths and the highest case counts. And the pandemic have this horrible surge that we're now in the middle of.

And so, what were you struck by in terms of the coronavirus, tackling the coronavirus in this interview?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, you make a really good point about how President Trump, to put it pretty bluntly, has given up on the pandemic. He is not talking about it publicly. He is not telling the American people what to do at this time of record virus spread across the country, throughout all the various regions of the country.

So I was struck by the contrast. I was struck by Biden, essentially saying that he wants the American people to give a hundred days, to mask up. It will be very interesting to see how he follows up with that.

As Jeff said, that's not a partisan ask. But because right now it's a Democratic president asking the public to do that, many people will see it as a partisan movement, unless he's able to bring Republicans onboard.

So he said, he's been talking with Republican governors. He was able to bring some Republican governors, maybe even a former Republican president, the way the former presidents are going to take the vaccine, to sign onto this 100-day pledge. Then maybe he'd have more -- more ability to get more Americans to sign onto it, as well.

I was also struck by the way they talked about the vaccine. If you saw, you know, a few months ago, the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, then she was the candidate. She essentially, you know, cast some doubt on the vaccine because of all of this, basically, from President Trump that said that that is -- if President Trump says it's OK, I'm not going to take it unless I hear from the medical experts.

So now she has said, of course I will take it. The vice -- the president-elect says he'll take it on camera, if he needs to. So they are starting to show more of an endorsement of this vaccine, essentially saying if the medical experts endorse it, then they're onboard. And they want to get rid of some of the doubt that's in this country about this vaccine which has come to -- come to the front, the forefront at a very fast pace and has caused a lot of people to doubt it.

[06:10:05] So it's very interesting to see the kind of public messaging they're going to be making on the vaccine and on masking over the first few months of their administration.

BERMAN: You know, it is interesting just to think about what this picture will look like. And we had Jamie Gangel's reporting yesterday that three of the former presidents, Bush, Clinton and Obama, were all willing to get vaccinated on camera.

Add to that the man who will be the current president, Joe Biden. That's going to be an interesting picture, when these -- these four older men all get vaccinated on camera.

You know, former president, then, Donald Trump has an opportunity to join them, I'm sure, if he wants to try to reach his supporters.

Jeff, we got some new information just moments ago from IMHE. This is the modeling group that everyone has been relying on for projections on coronavirus, and it's pretty grim stuff.

This model is now projecting that there will be 538,000 deaths by April 1. That's staggering. It's more than half a million people will be dead of coronavirus by that date. One of the other interesting numbers is that they see the daily deaths peaking at 3,000 in mid- January.

So Joe Biden is going to come into office at a time when 3,000 Americans are dying a day. It's really hard to wrap your arms around. And I'm wondering, the Biden team, you know, we heard him talk about this yesterday, how they feel about that or what kind of challenges they think it will pose? His messaging has been so consistent about this. But that's striking.

ZELENY: The challenges are just extraordinary when you think about that. Stop and think about that, is what you said, John. Three thousand people dying a day. That is a 9/11 level of death toll every single day. Those are people we know, people we live by, people we're related to.

So this is something that the Biden administration, President-elect Biden there, he said he's determined. When Jake asked him what his emotion is going into this, he said he's determined. Well, boy, he's going to need every bit of that determination, no question.

They know they are facing massive headwinds, not just on the pandemic, but on the recession underlying this, as well. So I think they're clear-eyed about what they're facing.

The question is, what is the country willing to do? What if -- just what if the vast majority of Americans just, you know, play along with him and follow his instruction or question and decide to wear masks? Will that number go down? That's certainly what they're hopeful about.

But they are, you know, certainly clear-eyed about these challenges ahead of them. But I'm not sure any of us are braced for what those numbers actually mean in the new year. And what Toluse was saying, we've not seen a word from President

Trump. He's still the president for 47 more days. He's not really doing much more than taking credit for the vaccine and then talking about, you know, the fraudulent election he says he won.

So it's -- it's really an open question if he'll do more between now and January 20. But those headwinds are so dramatically fierce for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

BERMAN: All right. Jeff, Toluse, stand by, guys. We have a lot more to talk about.

You'll remember that during the campaign, Vice President-elect Harris said that the Justice Department would have no choice but to prosecute President Trump after he leaves office. So how does the Biden/Harris team feel about that now? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:24]

CAMEROTA: OK. So let's watch more of CNN's exclusive new interview with President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Jake Tapper asked the president about the challenges that he's going to face with the Senate, in particular, his relationship with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who still has not acknowledged that Biden won.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Why have you not yet spoken with McConnell? And how can you be optimistic about working with a group of individuals who have not even yet acknowledged that you're the president-elect?

BIDEN: I want to say this tactfully.

TAPPER: You don't have to be tactful.

BIDEN: No, I do, because I don't want to -- there have been more than several sitting Republican senators who have privately called me and congratulated me.

And I understand the situation they find themselves in. And until the election is clearly decided in the minds, where the Electoral College votes, they get put in a very tough position.

And so that's No. 1. No. 2...

TAPPER: So, you think the fever on that will break after the Electoral College meets?

BIDEN: With at least a significant portion of the leadership.

I don't know that it's going to break across the board. I'm not saying that. It's not the same Senate -- I don't mean -- I don't mean in terms of their philosophy. It's not the same Senate personnel that I knew when I left the Senate.

Look, it's going to be hard. I'm not suggesting it's going to be easy. It's going to be hard.

But I'm confident that, on the things that affect the national security and the fundamental economic necessity to keep people employed, to get people employed, to bring the economy back, there is plenty of room we can work.

TAPPER: President Trump is reportedly considering a wave of preemptive pardons for his adult children and for Rudy Giuliani.

He's also floated the idea in private conversations, according to our reporting, of possibly pardoning himself, which he insists he has the power to do, though that has never been litigated.

Does this concern you, all these preemptive pardons?

BIDEN: Well, it's -- it concerns me, in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and -- and justice.

But, look, our Justice Department is going to operate independently on those issues, that -- how to respond to any of that. I'm not going to be telling them what they have to do and don't have to do.

[06:20:05]

Now, in terms of the pardons, you're not going to see, in our administration, that kind of approach to pardons. Nor are you going to see in our administration the approach to making policy by tweets.

You know, it's just going to be a totally different way in which we approach the justice system.

TAPPER: During the primary last year, Madam Vice President-Elect, you told NPR that the Justice Department -- quote -- "would have no choice" but to prosecute President Trump and that -- quote -- "There has to be accountability."

How does that square with what the president-elect has said about not telling the Justice Department to go after individuals?

HARRIS: We will not tell the Justice Department how to do its job. And we are going to assume -- and I say this as a former attorney general, elected in California -- and I ran the second largest Department of Justice in the United States -- that any decision coming out of a justice department, in particular, the United States Department of Justice, should be based on facts, it should be based on the law. It should not be influenced by politics, period.

BIDEN: And I guarantee you, that's how it will be run.

TAPPER: President Trump has not said if he's going to attend your inauguration yet. Do you think it's important that he's there?

You're laughing.

BIDEN: I think it would -- important only in one sense, not in a personal sense, important in the sense that we are able to demonstrate, at the end of this chaos that he's created, that there is peaceful transfer of power, with the competing parties standing there, shaking hands, and moving on.

I think that's an important -- what I worry about, Jake, more than the impact on the domestic politics, I really worry about the image we're presenting to the rest of the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: OK. Back with us now to talk about all of this, Jeff Zeleny and Toluse Olorunnipa.

Toluse, once again, the contrast is striking, and I think we need to talk about it.

That first question about, you know, Mitch McConnell has not acknowledged your win, OK, to Joe Biden, he worked with him for decades. He knows this man.

And Joe Biden is somehow without, I don't know, resentment. He's not bent on payback, which has -- let's be honest -- marked the Trump presidency. President Trump is often motivated by payback and revenge. And Joe Biden is like taking this in stride, though his win has been dampened by the Republicans who won't acknowledge it. And he's just -- I mean, John was just saying, like, he's -- he's set at a different temperature than the rest of the country seems to be. How do we explain this?

OLORUNNIPA: He has said that he wants to cool things down. He thinks that things have gotten overheated in the Trump era, with everyone at everyone else's throat. And it's definitely a clear approach from the Biden campaign that they do want to provide that contrast and not continue to amp up some of the rhetoric and some of the antagonism that's in the country.

Now, it will be very interesting to see whether or not that works for him, because we have seen several Republicans unwilling to even acknowledge his win. And they may see his unwillingness to dig in for a fight, as a sign of weakness. And they may try to push further and continue to delegitimize him.

Or in -- in his mind, he believes that this will allow the fever to break. That after President Trump is off the scene, that some of these Republicans will want to actually get something done, and they will appreciate the fact that he didn't take swings at them when he had the opportunity to, that he pulled his punches. And you know, as he said, he wanted to be tactful during the interview and didn't attack them the way President Trump attacks people on both sides of the aisle, on Twitter and whatnot.

So it is a clear strategy. It's a throwback to -- back, in some ways, back to the time when he was Senator Biden, and he was working across the aisle on a number of different things. And senators used to go and have dinner even after fighting on the Senate floor. It seems like that era has passed, but you know, Biden says he was elected to bring it back and bring bipartisanship back to Washington. So we'll have to wait and see how effective that is.

But that's his clear strategy. It was evident during the interview, he did not want to take punches at the Republican senators, even at the incumbent president. He pulled a lot of punches about attacking President Trump, essentially saying, this is not about me and him. This is how we look on the world stage.

So that is the clearest strategies from Biden, and he will have to -- he'll have an opportunity to see how effective it will be in just a matter of 47 days.

BERMAN: Yes. I think there may be two separate relationships here, although, obviously, they're connected. One is how Joe Biden reacts and responds to Donald Trump. And as Alisyn said, he's clearly just in a different place than Twitter is. And he's in a different place than the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, or even the reactive part of the Democratic Party and sometimes the media is on just reacting to Donald Trump. He's just in a different place and handles it differently.

[06:25:06]

And then it's his relationship -- or what will be his relationship with Mitch McConnell, which may be the most important relationship that America will face in the coming year, Jeff. Address either of those, because I think it's fascinating to think about both. And we got a little taste of it there.

ZELENY: We absolutely did. And look, I mean, Joe Biden is not the master of the Senate. That was, you know, another president. But he certainly served a long time in the Senate, and he knows exactly what he's doing in terms of setting the tone for this relationship.

He does not need a call from Mitch McConnell to know what their -- the confines of their relationship are going to be. The confines of the relationship will be defined by the Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5. That is going to set the tone for everything.

But, look, Mitch McConnell, if he's the Senate majority leader, knows that he will need to get some things done, as well. He has many of his Republicans who are running and who are up in 2022. And Joe Biden is aware of that as all.

So look, he plays the long game. He's not resentful. He knows he won the election. That is the voice there of a confident man who is poised to be the 46th president of the United States, who is confident in winning the election.

I was struck the most, I think, by the question of how he answered if he hopes that President Trump comes to the inauguration. The word "I" was barely used by Joe Biden during this interview. It was "we," the sign that we'll send to the country, that we have a transfer of power. And I can tell you, that is just an awesome thing to watch, the transfer from one president to the other.

I was just thinking during the interview there, watching -- I was on the west front of the Capitol -- the east front, excuse me, watching president Donald Trump, moments after he was sworn in, say good-bye to the Obamas. And they move on. I was there for Obama and Bush's. It's just an extraordinary moment.

So if President Trump chooses to not come and fly off like that, that will be a moment of history that's lost. But I think, as Senator Lamar Alexander said it best, history remembers what people in public office do last. So this is also about Donald Trump's legacy.

So I'm not sure if he'll be there or not. I'm not sure if it matters to, you know, the underlying impetus of the economy, coronavirus, et cetera. But for the history of the country, I think it's important.

But how Joe Biden answered that question, I thought was extraordinarily fascinating.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Did you have something that you wanted to remark on?

BERMAN: No, I think it's -- I think you're absolutely right. I think -- you know, I've been to every inauguration for the last 25 years, and it's a fairy tale.

ZELENY: Right.

BERMAN: I mean, honestly, it's otherworldly to be in Washington for that and to see the majesty there. And you're right. It's -- Donald -- the idea that Donald Trump may choose to sort of thumb his nose at that is remarkable, and the way that Joe Biden chose to address that is remarkable.

CAMEROTA: I totally agree. Being at the Trump inauguration, watching the motorcade go down the avenue with people cheering, it was stirring. I will never forget those images, actually. And so we'll see what January 20 holds.

Toluse, Jeff, thank you both very much.

So how will President-elect Biden confront some of the big foreign policy challenges that he will be facing? His comments on China and Iran, next.

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