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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Crisis In California: 33 Million Under New Lockdown Order; President-Elect Biden Rolls Out Health Team As Pandemic Worsens; Iran's Top Nuclear Scientist Reportedly Killed By Remote Guns. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired December 07, 2020 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Laura Jarrett. About 29 minutes past the hour here in New York.

And we begin this half an hour with breaking news overnight. We've learned some of the key players President-elect Biden will lean on to address a worsening pandemic right now. One of them, a top California politician very familiar with the COVID crisis in his home state.

Thirty-three million people in Southern California, the San Joaquin Valley, and the San Francisco Bay area now under new stay-at-home orders as ICU capacity in hospitals nears the breaking point there. Thirty-three million people. For perspective, that's more people than live in New York and Pennsylvania combined now once again facing closed bars, hair salons, museums, movie theaters, playgrounds, and more.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And the number of Americans that are hospitalized remains above 100,000. That's, of course, before the expected surge following Thanksgiving and before we even celebrate Hanukah and Christmas.

As the country waits for the vaccine, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, expects emergency authorization for Pfizer's vaccine is imminent. He's hoping it will be available later this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF VACCINE ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: The vaccine is safe. Its safety profile is compared to that of many other vaccines that have been in use for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Still, even if the vaccine is safe, important questions are unanswered, like how long immunity lasts for you after a vaccination and can you still infect someone else even if you are protected.

And we now know the first shipments of the COVID vaccines will fall short of what's needed. President Trump called for 300 million doses by January but federal officials estimate only about 40 million doses will be available by the end of the month. And that's if both Moderna and Pfizer get the green light from the FDA. And that's only enough to fully vaccinate 20 million people since you need two doses.

SANCHEZ: Yes. So help remains some time off for most Americans, including Californians. The state reporting more than 30,000 new cases just on Sunday.

CNN has the pandemic covered across the country, starting in Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN REPORTER (on camera): The numbers just horrific and heartbreaking and record-shattering in California -- all of these cases and hospitalizations. The new orders to go into effect.

One of those orders shuts down outdoor dining at restaurants. But because of the patchwork or crazy quilt of laws in California, restaurants like this one, the Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Sherman Oaks, already shut down.

ANGELA MARSDEN, OWNER, PINEAPPLE HILL SALOON AND GRILL, SHERMAN OAKS: They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive. My staff cannot survive.

Look at this. Tell me that this is dangerous but right next to me is a slap in my face. That's safe. This is safe?

VERCAMMEN: The owner here just devastated. She went viral with a rant about this. And among other things, she told me it's just crushing to have to tell employees they have no work right before the holidays.

MARSDEN: It's unbearable. I mean, you try to put on a good face and you try to say don't worry, we're going to reopen -- I'm going to make it happen. But to look at -- look at my staff given their last paycheck right before Christmas -- and some of them are newer staff that have been shut down over and over and their unemployment is running out and they have kids and children -- it's the most excruciating feeling.

SUNNI ACEVES, EMPLOYEE, PINEAPPLE HILL SALOON AND GRILL, SHERMAN OAKS: There's no options. There's no options for our entire industry and it's not because we are trying to stay on unemployment and just, you know, sit on that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yours is almost out, right?

ACEVES: Mine is almost out and I have no idea -- I have no idea what I'm going to do.

VERCAMMEN (on camera): And another employee here telling me Christmas is on its way and she just doesn't know what to tell her 9-year-old son in terms of what sort of Christmas it's going to be.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Evan McMorris-Santoro in Manhattan. New York City public schools will reopen their doors to thousands of students for five-day-a-week classes starting on Monday. Officials say they have enough testing capacity here to reopen schools for the youngest students, ranging from pre-K through fifth grade, giving them a chance for socialization and a chance to get back to some normalcy even as the virus has a second surge here.

They say testing will keep those numbers down and keep schools safe for students.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Thanks to our reporters for those updates.

President-elect Joe Biden is rolling out the team charged with bringing the pandemic under control. The president-elect is expected to nominate Dr. Vivek Murthy as U.S. surgeon general. You might recall Dr. Murthy served the same role in the Obama administration.

And, Politico is reporting Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been tapped to run the CDC.

[05:35:05]

There's also a bit of a surprise with the pick to lead Health and Human Services.

Arlette Saenz is in Wilmington, Delaware.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER (on camera): Laura and Boris, President-elect Joe Biden is starting out the week rolling out some key members of his health team and that includes his choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Sources tell CNN that the president-elect is expected to nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead HHS at such a critical time as the president-elect is mapping out his plans to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Now, Becerra has served as the attorney general of California where he has really led the legal efforts to try to protect the Affordable Care Act.

He is also Latino and is the second Latino to be named to Biden's cabinet as the president-elect is trying to make good on his promise that his administration will look like America. The Biden transition has been facing some pressure over the past week to appoint more diverse figures to that top ranks of the administration, so this is one more step to try to make good on that promise.

Now, Becerra will inherit -- if he is nominated, Becerra will inherit a very important task as they are trying to map out the response to the coronavirus pandemic, including what vaccine distributions will look like in the coming months. Now, Biden is expected to name other members of his health team as well this week. The president-elect making it very clear that tackling this pandemic is a top priority -- Laura and Boris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: All right, Arlette. Thank you so much for that.

There are 44 days until Joe Biden's inauguration as president. It's time for three questions in three minutes.

Let's bring in "Washington Post" White House reporter Toluse Olorunnipa, a CNN political analyst. Great to see you this morning.

SANCHEZ: Good morning, Toluse.

JARRETT: Thanks so much for getting up for us.

So what do you make of the president-elect tapping Xavier Becerra for HHS? He doesn't have a background in health care. He's sued over plenty as the attorney general. HHS obviously one of the most critical cabinet slots right now because of the pandemic, but also everyday issues like the Affordable Care Act, drug prices. What do you make of this pick?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST (via Cisco Webex): Yes, Xavier Becerra does fill in a number of the requirements that Joe Biden is looking for.

He's from a large state and that means he has experience working in a very large bureaucracy. He does have the diversity in working-class roots. Not only is he a Latino but he's someone who sort of pulled himself up by -- from a working-class background and was able to get to the highest ranks of the political world. And I think that's something that Joe Biden is looking for. He's talked about it when he talked about his economic picks.

And this is going to be a choice that is -- that has defended the Affordable Care Act and that's very important to Joe Biden as well. Xavier Becerra has sued to defend the Affordable Care Act and Joe Biden is trying to expand and defend the ACA.

So I think he fills a number of those key requirements. Even though he does not have that traditional health care background he was able to fulfill the things that Joe Biden was looking for.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Toluse, I want to pivot to the Senate debate in Georgia last night. There was an enormous elephant in the room, right -- the president's disinformation campaign. The state's lieutenant governor has said that the president could be hurting Republican chances in the upcoming January fifth runoffs.

How do you think Sen. Loeffler was trying to divert through this question of whether the president actually won the Peach State or not? It seems that Republicans have sort of talked themselves into a corner here. OLORUNNIPA: Yes. Senator Loeffler was really dodging and weaving throughout the course of the night not wanting to answer the question about whether or not President Trump lost the election and whether the election was rigged. Whether or not she believes that the voting system in Georgia, which is run by a Republican -- a Republican secretary of state, a Republican governor, who have both been attacked by the president -- whether or not she had faith in those Republicans.

So she did not answer those questions. She was trying to do two things at once -- placate the president and his supporters by giving some credence to their baseless fraud claims while also telling voters that they need to have faith in the -- in the system in order to vote on January 20th -- on January fifth. So it was very awkward to watch her try to do that over the course of an hour.

But that's where Republicans find themselves at this moment, trying to figure out how to placate the president while also telling people that they should have faith in the voting system in Georgia.

JARRETT: I guess it's good that she even showed up though considering David Perdue refuses to even debate Ossoff right now for reasons I can't really understand.

But it seems what's happening in Georgia also speaks to this broader issue about the relationship between this president and the Republican Party. And we've seen this over the four years, right? The party is desperately loyal to him.

[05:40:00]

But now he's furious with the governor of Georgia refusing to help him overturn his loss in that state. He's furious with Fox News for calling that race early for Biden in Arizona, so much so that he said he'd prefer watching the NFL players kneel over watching Fox.

Clearly, all these years of loyalty to the president don't matter when you don't do what he wants. So, Toluse, why are all these Republicans going to all these endless limits to try to satisfy the president who always, inevitably, turns on them when he has to?

OLORUNNIPA: Yes. Even though President Trump lost by a historically large margin in this popular vote election -- more than seven million votes -- he does continue to have a stronghold (ph) on the party. And there have been other Republicans who have tried to cross the president and they've seen their political careers end as a result.

He's very vindictive. He attacks members of his own party on Twitter and on social media. And once that happens it makes it very hard for them to run for reelection.

So they realize that, at least in the short-term, their political careers are tied to this president. And he is saying that he is going to run again and they're going to need his endorsement or his support if they want to run again in their own races.

So they're not -- there's not a lot of political courage right now in the Republican Party. They are realizing that they don't want to lose their seats.

So for that reason, they have to give in to these baseless claims from the president and essentially make it seem like what he's saying actually makes sense, even though they know that a lot of the things that he's saying are baseless and false and without any merit. But they can't so say publicly because he will immediately shoot them down and potentially end their political careers. So that's why they're sticking with him even though they know that what he saying does not have very much merit at all.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

JARRETT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: And anyone with 2024 aspirations is in such a difficult place, right? Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, even Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton. You know, damned if you do, damned if you don't --

JARRETT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- say anything about the president right now.

JARRETT: All right, Toluse.

OLORUNNIPA: Thank you.

JARRETT: Thanks so much for getting up with us -- appreciate it. Good to see you.

SANCHEZ: Thanks.

JARRETT: All right.

Well, another relationship with the president on the rocks.

Attorney General Bill Barr is considering leaving his post before the president leaves office. Barr has been a staunch defender of this president but a source now tells CNN Barr is not happy with Trump and is, quote, "not someone who takes bullying and turns the other cheek." We're told the attorney general has not made a final decision on leaving early.

CNN reported last week that Barr and the president had a contentious meeting after the A.G. said that the Justice Department had found no evidence of fraud that would change the election results.

SANCHEZ: A quick programming note to share with you. Now more than ever, the world needs heroes. Join Anderson Cooper and Kelly Ripa for "CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE," Sunday night at 8:00 eastern right here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:46:43] JARRETT: Welcome back.

Iranian media reports claim that the country's top nuclear scientist was assassinated with the help of remote-controlled guns guided by a satellite device. The question remains how Iran will retaliate and the transition in Washington could dictate the timeline on that.

CNN's international security editor Nick Paton Walsh got rare access to the site where the scientist was killed and joins us live from Tehran. Nick, what more are you learning about this?

NICK PATON WALSH, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, Laura, Iranian security officials increasingly elaborate in the plot they say was behind the death of Dr. Fakhrizadeh -- now saying, in fact, that remote-controlled machine gun guided by a satellite was fueled by artificial intelligence and facial recognition -- startling suggestions, frankly.

A little distant from the scene we saw, it has been cleaned up. Still damage on the road. A large memorial poster for Dr. Fakhrizadeh and clearly, to some degree, a pretty useful spot for a low-tech ambush if you look at the orchards nearby and the scene that we saw.

A witness, in fact, saying they heard a loud explosion and then eight to 10 minutes' worth of an exchange of gunfire. So a lot of versions still there.

What does it mean, though, for the diplomacy around Iran's nuclear program? Well, we've just heard, in fact, from three European nations -- France, Germany, and the U.K. -- saying they are deeply concerned of what they say is Iran's attempt to put some enrichment centrifuges into the Natanz nuclear facility. That's one of a number of moves Iran has put forward since that assassination.

Another one being its Parliament, saying that, in fact, they want to put a very strict timetable down, which essentially ends at end -- the beginning of Joe Biden's president-elect administration in mid- January, at which point they would hope Iran would be enriching further. And that essentially puts a great timetable of pressure on the Biden administration and those moderates here to get negotiations going and see some kind of fruit to alleviate sanctions and then fundamentally see some sort of progress.

But there are hardliners here, too, who simply say there must be retaliation. And the only thing Iran will negotiate is getting back into that original 2015 nuclear deal.

Back to you.

JARRETT: All right. A lot more to come on this, that's for sure, Nick. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Getting a COVID vaccine from the manufacturer into the arms of millions of Americans is a daunting challenge, and one critical component is keeping the vaccines cold. CNN's Pete Muntean takes a looks at -- takes a look at how that's done from inside a cold storage facility at Philadelphia International Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): This is American Airlines' cargo cold storage facility in Philadelphia -- pharmaceuticals only -- and essentially what is one big refrigerator -- 25,000 square feet. You can see the fans back there blowing cold air into here. You know, it is about 50 degrees in here right now, according to this thermometer, although I have to say it feels a lot colder.

The idea is to keep the specialized containers for vaccines that need to be super-cold, extra preserved. The Moderna vaccine, negative four degrees Fahrenheit. The Pfizer vaccine needs to be negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

They would probably sit on the shelves in here but the idea is to not keep them here for very long. This is only a pit stop, albeit a very critical one, that airlines say in the quest of getting the vaccine from manufacturer to you to be administered.

[05:50:07]

I just want to show you one more way that airlines are helping keep the vaccine cold while it is in transit. This is a portable, battery- powered, refrigerated shipping container. You can set the temperature on the side of the container here -- 32.8 degrees right now. If the temperature is off by only a quarter of a degree, alarms go off in this.

It is the infrastructure like this that airlines say makes them ready for a mission of a lifetime. American Airlines says it has a plan in place that as soon as the FDA approves the vaccine it can begin shipping it within 24 hours.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Philadelphia International Airport.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: A great look behind the scenes there from Pete Muntean.

And while Americans wait for COVID vaccines, actual immunizations will begin in the United Kingdom as early as tomorrow.

CNN's Cyril Vanier is at 10 Downing Street in London. Cyril, a lot of questions about how this thing is going to be distributed in the United States -- the differences between states. How are things going to work in the U.K.?

CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Boris, this week is going to mark the major turning point here in the U.K. in the fight against the coronavirus. Over the last three-four days, really, there's been a tremendous amount of logistical organization to get this thing ready. The jabs have been in-country -- the doses of the vaccine. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been in-country for three-four days.

They've been sent out to 50 hospital centers here in England that are going to serve as vaccination hubs. They've been sent out to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. Tomorrow, the first jabs are actually going to be delivered.

Now, the goal in the beginning had been to vaccinate, as a matter of priority, care home residents. That's not going to be possible because it is so difficult to send -- to actually take the vaccine doses to them. So they're going to start with 80-year-olds and above who already are in those vaccination hospital centers, Boris.

SANCHEZ: All right, we'll keep an eye on how that progresses.

Cyril Vanier, thanks so much.

JARRETT: All right.

Meantime in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning of a third wave just ahead of Hanukah.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is live in Jerusalem with more this morning. Oren, nice to see you. What's the latest?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Laura, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the country is at the beginning of a third wave of infections as coronavirus numbers here rise -- more than 1,000 infections a day for most of the last week.

And crucially, the positivity rate for testing is also on the rise. It was about 1.9 percent a week ago; 3.9 percent over the weekend. So that is very much trending in the wrong direction. And the number of serious cases also steadily on the rise in the country.

Netanyahu saying he won't hesitate to reimpose restrictions if that's what's necessary, as the rest of the country tries to push forward with opening and reopening after the second lockdown.

The coronavirus czar warning that the holidays, Hanukah and Christmas, should be celebrated only with the nuclear family, not in large gatherings.

That third lockdown looking very real here.

JARRETT: All right, Oren, thanks so much -- appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: While the United States sets near-daily coronavirus records, countries in Europe have managed to turn around dangerous spikes. So how do they do it, and can the United States replicate those efforts?

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is live in Berlin. Fred, you know, the United States considering new restrictions, new lockdowns as countries in Europe are looking at ways to potentially --

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- ease restrictions.

PLEITGEN: Yes, you're absolutely right. And I think one of the things that the European countries did -- or many of them at least did, Boris, is they moved very quickly and they moved fairly decisively when they had to.

Of course, you had some massive spikes in some of these European countries a couple of months ago, especially France. But then also, really bad situations, for instance, in Belgium and also in the Czech Republic, which for a while had the worst coronavirus incidence in the entire world.

And what those countries did is they did very, very strict lockdown. And you're absolutely right, they're now looking at easing some of these restrictions. Some of those countries are already doing exactly that.

And, of course, what they're looking forward to is Christmastime. They want to be able to ease some of these restrictions for Christmas to give people some freedom towards Christmas.

So these European countries moving in the right direction. The big outlier, actually, has been the country that's been one of the most successful so far is Germany, where the numbers are peaking but they really aren't going down yet, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes. The response in the United States still a bit uneven compared to many of the countries in Europe. We know you'll be watching the situation for us across the board, especially where you are in Berlin. Fred Pleitgen, thanks so much.

JARRETT: All right.

We leave you this morning with more people paying it forward during this pandemic. Emily Bugg and Billy Lewis decided to cancel their big wedding reception. So the Chicago couple asked the caterer to use their deposit to make Thanksgiving dinners for those in need.

[05:55:01]

The meals went to 200 clients of Thresholds, which serves people with serious mental illness and substance abuse. Thresholds says the couple's kindness inspired others to do the same thing for Christmas.

And, Boris, it turned out the donation was really timely, the group said, because they actually had to cancel their larger communal dinners because of the pandemic. So it really worked out well.

SANCHEZ: Yes, love to see it -- love to see it.

Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Christine Romans. JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Help is on the way. Vaccines are imminent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our health care system is at the breaking point.

ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: I believe we could see FDA authorization within days.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, RESPONSE COORDINATOR, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: The vaccine is critical, but it's not going to save us from this current surge.