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Woman in England First Person to Receive Pfizer Vaccine Outside Clinical Trial; President Trump to Sign Executive Order that Only Americans Can Receive Coronavirus Vaccine Produced in U.S.; President- Elect Joe Biden Nominates First African-American to be Secretary of Defense; Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) is Interviewed About Pressure on Biden to Make Cabinet Diverse and Trump Ignoring Deadly Pandemic and Still Trying to Overturn Election Results. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 08, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: So far, although the next phase is probably going to be the big challenge. I was allowed into a vaccination center here in Cardiff earlier today. I can't tell you where it is because they're concerned that people might turn up to these centers and try to get vaccinated. There isn't this suspicion of vaccination in this country that you do get in some other countries. There's a huge amount of positivity about it.

When I went in there, they had on their priority list health workers and social care workers. So they were taking it in their stride, it's part of their business of course. But over the border in England they're prioritizing over 80s as well as health workers, most notably 90-year-old Maggie who was the very first person to receive the Pfizer vaccine in the world outside of trial. And she had a very clear message for the world as well while she took it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGGIE KEENAN, FIRST PERSON TO RECEIVE CORONAVIRUS VACCINE: I say go for it. Go for it because it's free, and it's the best thing that's ever happened at the moment. So do, please, go for it, that's what I say. If I can do it, so can you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: I'm told that she celebrated with a cup of tea afterwards, and if wasn't English with you, she was followed up, the second person to be vaccinated was none other than a gentleman called William Shakespeare. Both of them would have been presented with one of these cards which details the vaccination and also how they have to come back in three weeks' time for the second dose. Some suspicion here that this is a slippery slope towards an immunization passport, quite controversial that idea here in the U.K.

Also, as I say, the next stage is the big challenge. At the moment the vaccine is going into these hospital hubs, the next stage will be going to doctor's offices and to pharmacies and to care homes where they need smaller doses. They don't quite have the refrigeration facilities needed for the Pfizer vaccine. But also I learned today that you have to mix the vaccine, it doesn't come ready made. So where I was today they actually had a team of pharmacists in place. So huge logistical exercise currently under way in the U.K., but going well so far. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Max, all so interesting. Thank you very much for giving us a glimpse into what will be our experience perhaps as early as even this week. Thank you very much.

Joining us now is CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. OK, Sanjay, just start right there. They're guinea pigs, frankly. We get to see how this rollout is going in the U.K. and how people like Maggie, the 90-year-old woman, respond before we do this in a few days.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Obviously these vaccines have gone through clinical trials, but I've been paying close attention, and as Max was sort of outlining there, how exactly does the distribution process now go of actually getting these vaccinations into people. There's a lot of different -- it's amazing to watch, by the way, people actually getting this. We've been talking about this for so long, the idea that the vaccines are actually going into people, it is quite remarkable.

But, as Max was saying, you've got to thaw the vaccine when it gets there. It's obviously transported at super cold temperatures. You've got to make sure that you're timing this exactly right, all that sort of stuff. So it will be interesting to watch how that process unfolds over there, and there may be some lessons learned because, as you point out, in the next few days we're likely to see some of that same distribution and actually inoculation happen here. There's vaccine already being distributed right now even as we speak.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So Sanjay, the question will quickly become is there enough vaccine, or how can we get enough of it out quickly. And there was the reporting in the "New York Times" overnight that the White House passed on an opportunity to buy more than 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the summer and now can't get more that it wants, this is what the "New York Times" reports, because other countries have ordered this vaccine.

Now, it seems as if in response to that President Trump is going to sign some kind of executive order, a relatively toothless executive order, we think, requiring vaccine produced in the U.S. to go to people in the U.S. Hard to know how that would be enforced given that Pfizer has contracts. Moncef Slaoui, who was in charge of Operation Warp Speed, Dr. Slaoui was just on "Good Morning America." Listen to how he answered questions about this executive order. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Can you explain this executive order the president is going to be putting out? I don't quite understand it. He's saying that foreign countries aren't going to be able to get the vaccine until everybody else here in the United States gets it. It sounds like the problem is the opposite right now. Pfizer has made deals with other countries that are going to limit the supply here.

MONCEF SLAOUI, HEAD OF OPERATION WARP SPEED: Frankly, I don't know, and frankly I'm staying out of this. I can't comment.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You don't know?

SLAOUI: I really don't know.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you are the chief science adviser for Operation Warp Speed.

SLAOUI: Our work is rolling, we have plans. We feel that we can deliver the vaccines as needed, so I don't know exactly what this order is about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:05:07]

BERMAN: So I guess, Sanjay, if the guy who is actually in charge of getting the vaccine in mass doses doesn't really understand what the executive order will do sort of tells you about what it might actually accomplish, which isn't much.

GUPTA: Right. These are international companies, they have been at this for some time. I talked to Albert Bourla, who is the CEO of Pfizer, a few weeks ago right at the time that the data started coming out and they were applying for this emergency use. And he basically said even at that point the first 50 million doses, for example, 25 million would be in the United States, 25 million would be in Europe. So they already had sort of these international distribution sort of ideas. And then there were 100 million doses actually purchased of the Pfizer vaccine for the United States.

But, you keep in mind, we go back now a few months and think about when these decisions were made, and I had spoken to Moncef Slaoui about that as well. We can show you how Operation Warp Speed was thinking of this in terms of the various vaccines. And 100 million doses of the Pfizer, as we mentioned, but take a look at the other ones. The very bottom is Moderna which we expect hopefully an emergency use authorization, that in the next couple of weeks as well. Johnson & Johnson was a big one as well, and that along with AstraZeneca they may have trial results and possibly even application for an emergency use authorization at the end of next month, at the end of January, I am told, as well from officials at Operation Warp Speed.

So it's one of these things -- you're absolutely right, the executive order, I don't know how that would have any teeth because those vaccine doses that George Stephanopoulos was asking Moncef Slaoui about have already been accounted. They've already been accounted for by countries around the world. And I will also say this -- it is important that people around the world get vaccinated. An outbreak anywhere in the world is an outbreak everywhere in the world. That's one thing we have learned over the last several years even pre-COVID. CAMEROTA: Sanjay, I'm just reading here some bulletins that Reuters

is crossing after reading some FDA documents, and one of the things that's interesting is that we've been talking about what happens if people only get one -- only get the first shot of this dual-shot vaccine, if they just don't show up for the second one, and does it just nullify the effect? And so have you had a chance to read the FDA documents?

GUPTA: We're starting to look at -- it's about 53 pages now, these are the documents that the FDA is going to review on December 10th basically to make this decision about EUA. And a couple of the same points, you're right, Alisyn, you get two shots, so the question has long been, do you have any protection after the first shot? And the answer seems to come back, yes, you do have some protection. It's unclear exactly how much. These documents seem to suggest it's over 50 percent. It's not obviously the 90 plus percent that we hear from the two shots.

But I think the issue that keeps getting raised, and others have raised this, Dr. Scott Gottlieb raised this yesterday as well, is that given that there's not enough vaccine doesn't make sense, for example, to take the 40 million doses and say let's just inoculate 40 million people right out of the gate and then wait for manufacturing to catch up for those second shots.

I can tell you right now that that is not the plan from Operation Warp Speed. They essentially want to take the 40 million doses, go ahead and use 20 million initially, keep the other 20 million in cold storage, and then use those additional 20 million for those same patients.

You could see sort of the dilemma here. We're going through this real time. There is no magical answer here, and people have differing points of view on this, but right now, at least according to Moncef Slaoui and Operation Warp Speed, they're going to hang on to the doses and keep those for those who got the first shot.

The other thing that has also come out of this document that I think is worth pointing out, another big question, if you've had coronavirus and you think you have antibodies, should you still go ahead and get vaccinated? What this document seemed to suggest, we'll give it a closer look, seem to suggest is that, yes, you should. You should still get the vaccine even if you've recently had the infection and think you have antibodies.

BERMAN: And one of the questions also that has been asked and I don't think has been answered with this data, although the data addresses it, is what about people younger than 16 years old. What did you read there, Sanjay?

GUPTA: Right. I don't see much data, in fact, even for the age group 16 and 17. So, you know, 18 and older they have data on -- 16 and 17 they do seem to have some data, but I think it's very limited data there. But based on what they're seeing there, they will likely go ahead and recommend this for people over the age of 16. We'll see. Again, we're forecasting here a bit based on the data we

are starting to look at for the first time now. It's only really been seen by the company and by these FDA scientists so far.

[08:10:3]

Limited data on 16 and 17-year-olds, is it enough to warrant that age group specifically getting the vaccine? But we haven't seen any data on people younger than that.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, thank you very much for all of the information and even covering the breaking news with us. Great to talk to you.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: So president-elect Joe Biden's nominee to run the Defense Department makes history. More on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army General Lloyd Austin to be secretary of defense. If confirmed by the Senate, General Austin will be the first black man to lead the Pentagon.

Joining me now is House Majority Whip, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn. He is now the chair of President-elect Joe Biden's inaugural committee. Congressman Clyburn, thanks so much for being with us. You had expressed your concern quite publicly about African-American representation at the senior levels of the Biden cabinet. So how does the nomination of General Austin address that concern?

JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC) HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Well, thank you very much for having me. It is exactly what I think needed to be done. As you know, the military is about 40 percent minority. I think the kinds of experiences that General Austin has had are the kind of experiences that needed to be put to play.

[08:15:05]

So much of what we do in our governmental process is sometimes skewed because people have not had the kind of experiences that are necessary in order to have the compassion and the empathy that is needed for our brave men and women serving in the armed services.

So I think that General Austin has those experiences and I think this is a great appointment. I raised the issues I raised because this was a historic election and I think that I wanted to see this administration do historic things and this is a historic occasion.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It will require a waiver from both the House and the Senate for General Austin to serve as defense secretary because he only retired from the military four years ago and there is always a concern versus civilian and military leadership of the Pentagon.

Do you think those are legitimate concerns?

CLYBURN: Sure. Those concerns are legitimate and I think we ought to look at all the requests with an eye toward why a waiver is being requested. It's not unprecedented.

General Mattis got a waiver. I think there is a waiver that's even before that going all the way back, I don't know, was it Truman?

BERMAN: Marshall, yeah.

CLYBURN: Got a waiver of one of his appointees.

BERMAN: Yep.

CLYBURN: So I think this is something that's been done before and anything that's been done before can be done again.

BERMAN: What can you tell us about other potential African-American cabinet picks? I have heard you over the last several minutes mention Congresswoman Marcia Fudge will end up in the cabinet.

CLYBURN: Well, I think so. Marcia Fudge is a tremendous candidate. As you know, I was pushing her for the Department of Agriculture. Once, again, if you look at the experiences of African-Americans in this country, we were brought to this country 401 years ago for the purposes of agriculture. That's been our heritage. And I want to see that kind of empathetic leadership at the department.

Now, I don't say that you have to be black to give it, though I was pushing her, I don't know that that's where she will end up, but I feel certain that Marcia Fudge is the kind of person that should be in this cabinet and I will continue to advocate for her.

But she is not the only one, Keisha Lance Bottoms down -- the mayor of Atlanta is the kind of person that should be in this cabinet also. People like Donna Edwards. Donna Edwards, a former member of Congress is the kind of person that should be in this cabinet.

I told somebody if they saw the half joke (ph) in that, I can name at least ten African-American men and women, as well as some Latina men and women for each one of the positions in the cabinet. We don't want all of them. We just want to be fairly represented.

And so when people tell you, as I have been told, you know, I'm willing to do it, I just can't find anybody. You know -- well, there are plenty of bodies to be found if you ask the right person. I happen to know a lot of these bodies, so I've been putting their names forward for due consideration, not that all of them will get favorable consideration, but I want them to be considered.

BERMAN: President Trump is publicly trying to overturn the results of the election. He's making phone calls to state political leaders, exploring whether state legislators can throw out electors and appoint pro-Trump electors in some states.

You've worked for decades to protect the sanctity of the vote. What's your reaction to these efforts to overturn the election?

CLYBURN: Well, let me just say this -- this is an attempt to overthrow our government. You may not call it a coup, but this is an attempted coup.

Now, some people say he is trying to steal the election. He is not trying to steal the election. That denotes some kind of unknown activity when you are stealing.

No. That's not what he's doing. He is in your face trying to overthrow the will of the people.

But right here on your network I said three years ago that this man did not plan to give up this White House. I think Don Lemon asked me, did I compare him to Hitler? I said, no, I compare him to Mussolini.

And if you go back and look the night before he gave his State of the Union Address in 2000 -- in 2018, that's what I said then because I saw it coming. And that's what he's doing here.

BERMAN: So --

CLYBURN: And for my Republican colleagues not to speak up in defense of this democracy, the best thing going in the world today, to run the risk of losing this fragile democracy because of the idiosyncrasies of one person, that's what I think is at stake here.

[08:20:18]

We should not allow anything akin to this to be taking place in this country. This democracy has not only been good to me and my parents and forbearers, but it's the best thing going and we need to hold on to it. We should not let this continue.

BERMAN: Fellow son of South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham, isn't standing by silently. He seems to be fanning the flames. He seems to be promoting the actions of the president.

Listen to what he said last night. He's talking about the president's efforts to overturn the results in Georgia.

He says, quote: There is a civil war brewing in Georgia for no good reason. It's not unreasonable to ask a legislature to come back in and order an audit of the signatures in the presidential race to see if the system worked.

By the way, there's been a count, an audit, a recount, three times Joe Biden has been declared winner of Georgia, but Lindsey Graham says: What is unreasonable is to sit on your ass and do nothing when you've got a chance to save the country.

So, Senator Lindsey Graham, your senator, said there is a civil war brewing in the country promoting what the president is doing.

What's your message to Lindsey Graham this morning, Congressman?

CLYBURN: Get a grip. Get a grip. I think he's lost grip on reality.

Yes, there is a civil war brewing and this is just as idiosyncratic (ph) as the civil war we had before and it happens to be brewing in the same part of the country that it broke out before, and the result would be the same. This country is not going to allow this kind of activity to take place. I think that there are cooler heads are prevailing.

I thought I knew Lindsey Graham, but I must have been mistaken.

BERMAN: Congressman Clyburn, you are one of the chairs of President- elect Joe Biden's inaugural committee. Can you give us a sense of how this inauguration will look different to us?

CLYBURN: Well, if anybody saw our convention, the Democratic convention, I think you saw a bit of what you will see for this inauguration. I see work going on right below my window, I think the president will be sworn in in a traditional way, but 75 percent, 80 percent of this inauguration will probably be virtual. I was impressed with the production of our national convention.

I stayed in South Carolina, most other delegations stayed in their home states, and we're going to do something similar here because this president-elect has decided that he's going to lead by example and this inauguration will be an example of what a President Joe Biden would like to see the people of America do in carrying out the requirements of whatever may be taking place in their lives.

So, we are not going to violate anything. We are going to perpetuate what is good about fighting this virus and we'll do so with this inauguration as well.

BERMAN: What about a parade? What about potential crowds on the Mall?

CLYBURN: Well, that's my point. We are going to discourage anything that could be a spreader. We are going to say to people, please, follow our example.

Now, what I'm hopeful is that we will have the swearing in and maybe if we can have the virus under control have it be a celebration of this country's liberty on July 4th. Have this president, at that time President Joe Biden, celebrate his ascendancy to the presidency during the July 4th celebration down on this Mall. Hopefully, things will be under control then, vaccines will be widespread, people will have gotten beyond this pandemic, and we can go back to some modicum of normalcy and have a big celebration of Joe Biden's presidency on July 4th, 2021.

That's what I would like to see. But for the inauguration, let's stick with the science, let's stick with Joe Biden's examples and let's get this country back on track.

[08:25:04]

BERMAN: I've got to say, once this pandemic is over, the kinds of parties we're all going to have, political and otherwise, they're going to be something, and I'm available for all of them.

CLYBURN: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Congressman Clyburn, thank you for being with us this morning, I appreciate your time.

CLYBURN: Thank you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Clyburn thought he knew Lindsey Graham but he must have been mistaken he said.

BERMAN: You know, there are so many Democratic politicians who have had decades long relationships with Lindsey Graham, I talked to Jill Biden I remember way back in Iowa and she was pissed, I mean, Lindsey Graham who was fomenting a lot of that -- the Hunter Biden stuff back then.

And Congressman Clyburn has worked with Lindsey Graham for years and sees it now. I mean, Graham is egging on the president as the president tries to overturn the election. This is not a small thing. This isn't a ha, ha, ha, ha. This is the fate of the republic we're talking about.

CAMEROTA: I look forward to interviewing Senator Graham when this is all over after January 20th and seeing what he says.

BERMAN: All right. As we sit here this morning, millions of people in California under stay-at-home orders as coronavirus hospitalizations soar. We're going to talk about the consistency and the science behind some of these new restrictions and questions about all of it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)