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Congressional Leaders Near Deal on Coronavirus Relief Bill; U.S Reports Third Deadliest Day of Pandemic, Record Hospitalizations. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 16, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: This would be a huge development for the millions of Americans who are struggling.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there has been significant progress. Now, the exact details but we will tell you what we do know just ahead.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Overnight, President Trump added Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to his naughty list after McConnell congratulated President-elect Joe Biden.

CNN has also learned that McConnell is urging Senate Republicans not to pull anymore stunts when Congress meets to count the electoral votes on January 6th.

Later today, President-elect Biden will formally nominate Pete Buttigieg as his transportation secretary. We have new details about who else Biden has picked for his cabinet.

As for the pandemic, more bad news, more than 3,000 people, new American deaths were reported overnight, the third highest death rate of the year, and hospitalizations once again reaching new highs as well. Americans need help.

So we begin with CNN's Sunlen Serfaty. She is live on Capitol Hill with the latest on the relief bill. What's happening this morning, Sunlen?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. There are glimmers of hope up here on Capitol Hill, but this is such a fluid and delicate moment for the negotiators. Perhaps the biggest sign I know that things are essentially moving in the right direction is the fact that you have the four leaders from the House and the Senate in the same room, working out, trying to hammer out this deal. That is something that has not happened for many, many months up here on Capitol Hill. And they met until nearly midnight last night and they will do so again today.

And leaving that meeting late last night, Republicans and Democrats both expressing optimism and confidence, saying they are moving in the right direction towards being able to reach a deal. Now, we do not yet know the details of the deal. Of course, there is the contours of a potential deal that was put forward by the bicameral, bipartisan group of negotiators, that $748 billion, aid to small businesses, aid for vaccine distribution, money for jobless benefits. But, of course, there are those big sticking points that have been the sticking points essentially since the beginning of these negotiations. Republicans pushing for liability protections, Democrats pushing for money for state and local aids, there has to be some concessions there. So a big question, of course, going into today is who concedes on those things that they're sticking with.

Of course, a big question also is, will there be another round of stimulus checks, direct money to individuals? That's something that progressives overnight continue to drill down and push for. Now, today up here on Capitol Hill, the leaders again will be in the same room, meeting again this morning, up here on the Hill. Of course, these deals, they come together very quickly. A lot can move quickly. They also fall apart very quickly, John. So, of course, we'll be watching those meetings very closely today, especially as many Americans are waiting, holding their breath for this relief, John.

BERMAN: Yes, no question about that. We have a couple of senators on who have been crucial in these negotiations who will join us shortly. Hopefully, we'll get some new details, Sunlen. We'll let you know what we hear on this end. Thanks so much for your work on this.

Joining us now is CNN Political Analyst David Gregory. Also with us, Laura Barron-Lopez, she's a National Political Reporter for Politico.

David, glass half full, right, it appears that the leaders of Congress are coming together to work on some kind of pretty big relief bill for people struggling in coronavirus. Glass half full, Mitch McConnell finally looked in the mirror and said, yes, I acknowledge what's been clear for 38 days, that Donald Trump lost the election, that Joe Biden is president-elect. That's the glass half full analysis. Glass half empty, both of these things, both of them, could and should have been done a long time ago. Your take.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I agree with that. But I think there is another way to look at it. Look, people don't like it if you are a critic of Mitch McConnell or you don't like what Republicans have been doing but I think he's extremely pragmatic. And his strategy with President Trump is to get along in order to keep going along.

So he's been looking at, you know, the question of the -- who controls the Senate with these Georgia races. He's looking at, hey, can I get this guy to sign a relief bill at the end of the day and decided to not pick a fight by acknowledging reality. And even by acknowledging reality this late, he still gets that angry response from the president.

So I think Mitch McConnell is simply trying to avoid as many problems as he can with the president. That's not going to satisfy people. And you're right on the relief piece of this, it means that it's hurry up at the end to try to get something meaningful, when there are still pitfalls, like direct payments to Americans. So there's a lot at stake here.

CAMEROTA: So, Laura, on this private conference call with fellow Republicans, Republican Senators, Mitch McConnell said something to the effect of, enough is enough, let's not do anymore shenanigans for January 6th, because some of the Republican House members are planning to challenge the results, even on January 6th of the Electoral College.

[07:05:04]

And Congressman Mo Brooks, fellow Republican, appeared to be experiencing some sort of cognitive dissonance or disbelief that McConnell would actually say this. So, he felt compelled to tweet out yesterday afternoon, a republic is nothing without honest and accurate elections. Heroic patriots fought and died to give America a republic. Media reports, Senate ducks election fraud theft, because it requires a terrible vote, question mark. I can only hope that that is fake news.

It doesn't sound like Congressman Brooks has been convinced by Mitch McConnell's argument.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, Congressman Brooks is a completely Trump loyalist, as are the majority of Republicans. And so despite the fact that Leader McConnell made the comments that he did on the floor of the Senate yesterday, saying that Biden is the winner of the election, more than a month after we all knew that Biden was going to be the winner of the election. The majority of Republicans in all of Congress still aren't accepting that reality.

And part of this is because, as David said, they see political benefit to not accepting that reality. They look to the same voters that are very loyal to Trump. But that means that there are so many that aren't speaking out and they're sowing a lot of distrust and they're spreading false, baseless claims about the election, which means that those voters, and we know a majority of Trump supporters across the country don't believe that the election was free and fair.

And Republicans are hoping to make sure they to believe that, which continues to sow this distrust of the election system and the dangers of that aren't even fully known because of the fact that it continues to spread among the American electorate, and what impact that could have on elections like the Georgia runoffs or those to come.

BERMAN: I think we have some sound of President-elect Joe Biden responding or explaining the conversation that he had with Mitch McConnell yesterday. And it's notable, David, and hopefully we can find the sound and play it for you, Biden called McConnell. Biden called McConnell to thank him for acknowledging the election. So let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: I had a good conversation with Mitch McConnell today. He talked -- I called him to thank him for the congratulations. I told him, while we disagree on a lot of things, there're things we can work together on. He's always been straight with one another, and we agreed we'd get together sooner than later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's a small taste of normal.

CAMEROTA: And magnanimous.

BERMAN: Right. I mean, again, he called McConnell. I don't know if the phone call would have happened otherwise. These guys have worked together for decades, which is one of the things that makes the fact McConnell waited so long a little bit infuriating.

One of the things McConnell said, David, and this is interesting, to the Republicans in the Senate is don't make yourself have a stupid vote. It's dumb to force yourself to vote on this election. You're putting yourself in a bad position. It does seem like many Republican senators are listening to that. Ron Johnson, who does crazy things, has said he feels no need right now to call for a vote based on what he's seen.

Do you think that they will listen to Mitch McConnell?

GREGORY: I think most of them will, because McConnell himself held out and did the president's bidding, again, did everything he could not to pick a fight with the president in the immediate aftermath of the election. So the hopeful note is what we know about the history between McConnell and Biden. That's there, that's real.

But there's another piece of this. You know, the more Trump wants to act like a president in exile, as playbook -- from Politico described him -- setting himself up for today, the more Republicans understand that he has a choke hold on the Republican base. And the more that that disinformation is put out there, there's more and more energy against Biden.

And I just remember Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, saying, look, if you've got a large majority of Republicans who think the election was stolen, that's going to be bad for Biden getting something done. And let's not forget, it was Mitch McConnell who said he was going to do everything he could to block the agenda of Barack Obama when he came into office.

So despite the note of optimism, there's a lot after energy on the Republican side to play a slightly longer game going into the next midterms and the next presidential to make legislative life very difficult for the Biden administration.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Let's talk about the Biden administration. It looks like his cabinet is coming together more, Laura. So here is what we know about his new nominees. I'll put it up on the screen, Pete Buttigieg for transportation secretary, Jennifer Granholm for energy secretary, and Gina McCarthy, White House climate czar. Obviously, Pete Buttigieg, at one time, was a rival. Now, they seem to have an almost familial friendship, the two men. [07:10:01]

So what jumps out to you of these picks?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, one of the big things about Gina McCarthy being the climate czar is that's more of a new position. There were climate czars under the Obama administration, but Biden is really trying to elevate this go-around compared to Obama, climate change even more, with the appointment of McCarthy as this key domestic climate adviser for counterpart John Kerry, as the international climate adviser, and so them together really shepherding a much more prioritized movement on climate change.

But, again, with these picks, Biden is picking people that he knows, that he feels comfortable with, and he's not making any, you know, wild movement in either direction, whether it's towards the center or towards the left on a lot of his cabinet picks.

BERMAN: David, very quickly, Pete Buttigieg wants to have, I think, a future in politics and leadership. Secretary of transportation, how is that as a jumping off point?

GREGORY: Well, you're part of the cabinet, he's a very good communicator in general, as is Governor Granholm. They both have done well for Biden on that score, both Midwesterners. And I think both seen as pretty progressive. So I think that the president-elect is reaching out to that part of his political base there.

BERMAN: David Gregory, Laura Barron-Lopez, thanks so much for being with us.

More than 3,000 new deaths to coronavirus recorded overnight. In California, that state is now activating mass fatality programs. They're ordering 5,000 new body bags and refrigeration trucks, just a horrifying situation. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

CAMEROTA: We're only halfway through December and the U.S. already reports more than 3.1 million new coronavirus cases and 35,000 deaths. Today, we will likely pass the death toll for all of November.

Joining us now is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Also joining us Rick Bright, he is the former Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is now a member of President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus advisory board.

Sanjay, just horrible numbers, I mean, we can look at the hospitalizations going up, the death toll going up. We're more than 3,000 Americans dying a day. Is this what you expected after as a result of the Thanksgiving peak that we had talked about?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I guess so. I mean, I hoped that it wouldn't happen, because we had gone through this a few times already and we saw these surges. And I want to show you, we were just looking at the data this morning in terms of number of people infected after Memorial Day, after July 4th and now Thanksgiving, right?

In Memorial and July 4th, you had these surges. They were anticipated. They happened. It was also warmer weather. You were able to sort of bring the numbers down ultimately. Going into Thanksgiving, you see the numbers are already going way up and then you add into Thanksgiving surge, we're about three weeks almost after that. And this is the hospitalizations sort of in that same -- looking at it from that same prism.

So you knew it was going to be bad. There wasn't the buffer of people being able to stay outdoors as much as well, and now we're just obviously going into the holiday season now. So it's -- I'm worried that it's just going to -- you're not going to get the relief at some point. The numbers are going to continue to go up.

BERMAN: Yes. Just one more point on that, Sanjay, California ordering 5,000 new body bags, increasing the number of refrigeration vehicles to work as makeshift morgues. I mean, this is grim stuff. And when you talk about the national hospitalizations, jumping by 2,000, again, you've taught me a lot about this, I mean, this is the one number I look at, because you have emphasized it so much. You can't argue with hospitalizations. This is people sick in the hospital. And until that number plateaus, which it hasn't, you're not going to see the deaths go down.

GUPTA: That's right. I mean, you know, and it's -- these are all really tragic numbers. I think in terms of the overall number of people who are becoming infected, it's a really important number, but you also see shifting demographics, right? In the beginning, it was older people, more vulnerable people. You shifted the demographic, younger people started becoming infected. And even with the tragic death rates, you actually saw the proportion of people dying with respect to people becoming infected going down, because if it's younger people, less vulnerable people becoming infected, you're going to bring the death rate down, which is good.

But you're right, the hospitalizations, I think, ends up being the most consistent, truest measure for that reason, how many people are actually getting sick of the people who are becoming infected. And, you know, that number goes up. It's also one of those things that's so tangible. I mean, if you don't have hospital beds in your community, in the beginning, you can say, well, we'll send you out of region or we'll send you out of the system here, or we'll make room by sending other patients out of the system. But now, what are you going to do? If the entire country is sort of in this situation where everyone is sort of struggling for resources, struggling for hospital beds, what are you going to do then? That's the thing. You're starting to lose your escape hatches and your reserves.

CAMEROTA: Okay. On the promising side, Rick, the Pfizer vaccine is already going into arms this week. And now, Moderna is up for FDA approval and we expect it to be released soon. And the good news there, and I want you to comment on how can be, is that Moderna not only has an incredibly high effectiveness rate, I think 94.5, but they've also -- they also claim that it prevents infection. It prevents people who are vaccinated from being carriers, sort of asymptomatically, unknowingly, passing the virus around, which we didn't know about the Pfizer vaccine.

[07:20:08]

That was still a question mark. And So how did they figure that out and what does all of this mean to you?

DR. RICK BRIGHT, MEMBER, PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN'S CORONAVIRUS ADVISORY BOARD: Well, it means it's great for science. Thanks for having me on to discuss this today. Both the vaccines, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been shown to be very efficacious and very safe in the clinical trials that have been conducted to date.

What Moderna did in addition to just looking at the basic protection from severe illness and that safety is they took some extra samples or test swabs from the subjects in the clinical trials, between the first and second dose of vaccine. Remember, they do two doses and after four weeks, they get that second dose of vaccine.

They looked at these samples. They found out that more people who received the placebo dose got infected from the coronavirus than the people who received the vaccine dose. That means that the first dose of vaccine actually could be offering some level of protection from infection, not just protection from severe illness.

So if this plays out in a larger study and larger analysis, it could be very compelling to show that these vaccines could have impact over this protection of infection.

Now, it doesn't mean that the Pfizer vaccine doesn't also do that. PFIZER took these additional samples, from what I understand. They haven't analyzed those just yet,

but it's really encouraging that with both of the vaccines are really good, really efficacious, and there's promise that they might even be more efficacious and powerful than we initially thought from the limited dataset.

BERMAN: It is good news. And, again, Moderna checked. Pfizer may have the same efficacy, we just don't know because they didn't look at it quite like that. It's one of the things we're waiting to see.

Rick, while we have you here, you are on the President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus advisory panel. What can you tell us about when he will receive the vaccination?

BRIGHT: Well, he's going to receive it soon. He's having conversations with Dr. Fauci. One of the things he said was when Dr. Fauci says it's safe and effective for him to take it, he'll be happy to take it and take it publicly. I know there are those conversations, he doesn't want to jump the line necessarily. He wants to make sure that the limited doses of vaccine are available for people who need it most, the most vulnerable health care workers and people in long-term care facilities, but he wants to make sure that he does get the vaccine. It's a show of confidence, he's very confident in this vaccine. He just wants to make sure it is his turn and do it publicly so people know he's very confident in the outcome.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, rick, Dr. Fauci said this week that he thought that Joe Biden should get it immediately, basically. And I think that everybody in the country would agree that Joe Biden is an essential worker at this point, being president-elect. Why not today?

BRIGHT: Well, I know they're in discussions about it and I know that it is imminent that it's going to happen. It's just a matter of the timing and the logistics of getting the vaccine. So there is absolutely no hesitancy at all. It's just now a matter of the timing and logistics.

BERMAN: So, Sanjay, one of the things that Alisyn has been beating the drum on more than anything else is home testing, and a home test where you can start and complete the whole thing at home without mailing anything to anybody. Well, the FDA just green lit this home test, a $30 home test, which is an antigen test, which will allow you to test yourself. The company that does it is called Ellume. It's the Ellume test. You need an iPhone to basically analyze the data here. How significant is this?

One of the issues they have is they're not quite going to be able to ramp up production, I think, enough to satisfy everybody, but this is a big development, yes?

GUPTA: Yes, I think so too. And I'm right there with Alisyn on beating the drum on testing. I mean, we talk a lot about these other things, but testing is one area where we've probably never been doing it adequately. We're still not. And these types of tests -- by the way, I love the way you say that, that's another perk of being able to take these tests.

But the Ellume test, it is a home test, it's over the counter, there's no lab required and no specific machine. You do have this analyzer that connects to your smart phone. It's about 30 bucks. I wanted to make sure I got you the price, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes.

And so the thing about this is that the emphasis is that if you have symptoms, you should stay home, right? And people should know that. So, you're talking about really this idea that I'm not sure, I feel fine, but I want to test myself to see if I might be contagious today, this could be a good test to do that. It's not perfect. It's about 91 percent of the time will it find actual -- it will actually diagnose positive in somebody who is positive, meaning it will also miss about 9 percent of the time.

Now, that's one of those things where, what do you do with that information. You feel fine, you got a test that says that you're negative, pretty confident you're negative, but you're not absolutely convinced. [07:25:04]

Still wear mask, still maintain your distance, still do all the things that you do. On the other hand, if it's positive, you definitely stay home. If you have symptoms, you definitely stay home.

So, you know, it starts to make an impact on society overall because it should decrease the likelihood that people are out there spreading, not perfect but makes a big difference. I would feel comfortable with that sort of data as long as you used it to be actionable, the way that I'm describing.

CAMEROTA: I feel like you are adding an extra O to Ellume.

BERMAN: Well, no. I know you're so excited about it. I wanted to give it the emphasis it deserves.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. I'll take an extra syllable.

Gentlemen, thank you both very much for all of the information.

GUPTA: You got it.

BERMAN: All right. We understand that congressional leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, finally got in one room to try to work out a relief deal. The word is there is progress. What is the exact status as we sit here at this moment? One of the key senators who has been involved in this joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Developing this morning, congressional leaders expressing confidence that they are near a deal on a coronavirus relief bill.

[07:30:05]

Talks went late into the night. They were resumed this morning.