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Congressional Leaders Near Deal on Coronavirus Relief Bill; Russian Hackers Infiltrate Multiple U.S. Agencies in Massive Hack; U.S. East Coast Braces for Biggest Snowstorm in Years. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 16, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Leaders expressing confidence that they are near a deal on a coronavirus relief bill. Talks went late into the night, they will resume this morning. Joining me now is Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan; she's one of the lawmakers who's been working on this bipartisan plan. Senator Hassan, thanks so much for being with us.

You've been working with a group of senators and members of the house on this bipartisan deal. The development is, is that the leadership actually got together in a room and they say they are close now. What are you hearing about what they have put together and how much does it coincide or align with the proposals from your group?

SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, John. And yes, senators have been hearing from their constituents, whether it's individuals who need to pay their rent or small businesses that need some support through these dark Winter months or teachers and educators.

We know how important it is to get aid out now, especially because some people are going to lose their unemployment benefits, otherwise, literally, the day after Christmas. And our bipartisan group put together not only a framework for a relief package, but actually delivered to leadership text, actual legislative language for about $750 billion in totally agreed upon assistance.

And then we also put together another package for state and local aid that also had another proposal in it, that isn't a complete agreement on concerning liability. And what we're hearing from leadership is that they really appreciated the full package, and that they're working off at least some of it. And I'm encouraged about what we're hearing from last night and yesterday afternoon, which is the leadership is getting closer, and we are closer to an agreement.

BERMAN: Before you were a senator, you served as governor of New Hampshire. How hard -- how hard will it be for you to accept a bill that does not include aid to state and local governments? Will you vote to support such a bill? HASSAN: Well, what we did with this bipartisan group, as you know,

was presented two separate packages. One of which has unanimous support, the other one which doesn't. And the second one is the one with state and local aid. That's really critical. Why? Because state and local governments have been on the frontlines of responding to this public health and economic crisis, and because they've lost revenues because of closing businesses, for instance, according to public health advice.

So, this aid is critical to keep those vital services going and also to prevent layoffs of firefighters --

BERMAN: Yes --

HASSAN: And police officers. So it's really important. I'm going to keep fighting for it, but we need to get a relief package now, especially for the individuals and small businesses who are struggling so much.

BERMAN: So you would vote on something, even if it didn't have that, if that was the difference?

HASSAN: I'm going to keep pushing for state and local, but the $750 billion package is ready to go. I'm hoping -- you know, the house members were continuing to work on that package that have the liability protection issue in it, as well. And I'm hoping that we could still get to an agreement on both things.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about a different subject, which is this huge pack into government agencies. We're talking about the State Department, NIH, Commerce. There is every kind of sign in the world that the Russians were involved in this. Yet, it's something that we haven't heard much from the administration on and the National Security adviser Robert O'Brien, he's touring the Louvre with his wife right now.

We're not hearing from him on this. David Sanger of "The New York Times" writes an article that says, quote, "analysts said it was hard to know which was worse, that the federal government was blind-sided again by Russian intelligence agencies or that when it was evident that what was happening, White House officials said nothing." So what do you think is going on here? And what do you need to hear from the administration?

HASSAN: Well, the administration should be focusing on this hack. We need to get to the bottom of what happened. And not only does this administration need to focus on it, but it also needs to be communicating with president-elect Biden's transition team and incoming administration, so we can get to the bottom of what happened, so we can make sure right now that our federal agencies are taking down whatever they need to in terms of their cyber systems to protect the integrity of our systems.

And, you know, right now, the National Defense Authorization Act, which both houses of Congress has passed, has provisions in it that would help strengthen our cybersecurity. Yet, the president is threatening to veto it. That's unacceptable. We

need to keep focused on the importance of cybersecurity here. We need to improve on a daily basis, and we certainly need to get to the bottom of what just happened with this Russian hack.

BERMAN: You know, on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, today, there will be hearings, Senator Ron Johnson who is the chair, he's holding hearings into what he calls irregularities or something in the 2020 election, of which there's no proof, frankly. What's the point of this hearing?

[07:35:00]

HASSAN: Well, I am very concerned about the fact that Chairman Johnson has chosen to have this hearing. We know that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected. That's been clear for weeks. We know that there is absolutely no support for these baseless claims that there were problems with election security. I am pleased that one of the witnesses today will be the former head of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agencies. Something we call CISA here. And he will speak to all the efforts they took to make sure that this was the most secure election that we've had.

What would be really great is if our Homeland Security Committee, led by Chairman Johnson, would be looking at the hack that you were just talking about, the Russian hack into so many of our federal government agencies. That's where our focus should be right now, and that's what I'll continue to push for.

BERMAN: You're talking about Chris Krebs who said that this was the safest election that he ever oversaw. It cost him his job. It cost him his job. He is now --

HASSAN: Right --

BERMAN: Former head of CISA, he will be testifying today. Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, thanks so much for being with us today, have a Merry Christmas.

HASSAN: Thank you, you too, John, take care.

BERMAN: Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, John, more than 70 million Americans -- counting us, are under Winter weather warnings and watches this morning, as the biggest snowstorm in years bears down on the East Coast. CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking it for us. OK, what's it doing now, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: It is gaining strength across parts of the Atlantic ocean, using that moisture from the Atlantic and getting a little bit stronger, and it's also pushing into colder air. And that's the problem with this storm compared to the last one that we had over the last couple of weeks. We had temperatures that were about 3 to 4 degrees warmer, so we're not seeing the amount of snow from the last ones that we're going to see this time. We are seeing some ice now into the Piedmont of North Carolina, also into parts of southeastern Virginia.

Watch the ice this morning. It changes over to some rain, but I'm also very worried about the amount of sleet that's going to be coming down here. Easier to drive on sleet than freezing rain, but let me get to this. Winter storm warning, 70 million people up and down the East Coast. This entire area of purple, 1 foot of snow or more. Now, there's enough moisture in the air to put a foot of snow everywhere, but along this line, really, I-95, that is the area where it's going to be rain, rain snow, sleet, sleet-snow, and then all snow.

So, that's why the numbers go down. And don't really look at this map and say, oh, I only get 1 to 2. You may get a quarter inch of ice on the road ways, on the tree, on the power lines, this is the ice forecast from D.C. to Charlottesville almost up into Philadelphia.

It's going to be a transition, rain, snow, sleet and then it gets colder behind it. So, by noon, the snow not quite into Philadelphia yet. By 4 O'clock, approaching New York City, by 8 O'clock, certainly on top of the city, certainly Philadelphia, changing back and forth in D.C. because it's slightly a bit warmer down there. Of course, it is, because it is farther south.

But Hartford, Boston, by 2 O'clock in the morning, very heavy snow for you. By 8 O'clock, 7 O'clock in the morning, snow tapering off in New York, but not Boston. Boston, you get snow all the bay to about 3 O'clock or 4 O'clock tomorrow afternoon.

So, now back to this map, where the purple is a foot or more. Boston, a foot for sure. New York City, 10, maybe 14, it could be higher than that if it gets toward Morristown, a little bit farther to the west. Philadelphia, 6 to 10, but remember, you're only 6 to 10 because you're mixed in some sleet. And D.C., 1 to 3, but you could get an ice event down here. That's the difference, that's why there is that line right there in the first place. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Chad, thank you for keeping an eye on it for us.

MYERS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: All right, some Hollywood news. Tom Cruise had a profanity- laced outburst on the set of "Mission: Impossible". We will tell you about what he was so angry about. We have a live report, next.

BERMAN: He just unleashed.

CAMEROTA: He did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

BERMAN: So, there are times it seems that people in Washington care more about made-up maladies than say, coronavirus. John Avlon here with a reality check. Sir.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Trump derangement syndrome. That's what Trump defenders have accused his critics of having over the past four years. And it's a political diagnosis with some history behind it.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer coined the term Bush derangement syndrome back in 2003. Its successor Obama derangement syndrome often came in the form of calling that president tyrant or secret Muslim who wasn't born in America. But the term Trump derangement syndrome has taken on a new twist. Because those who might really be afflicted now are folks who simply can't accept the fact he lost the election.

Patient zero, of course, is Trump himself, as a steady stream of unhinged tweets attest. But this is contagious, folks. Here's "Fox's" Maria Bartiromo yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS NEWS ANCHOR: An Intel source telling me that President Trump did, in fact, win the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: OK, it's worth pointing out the last supposed military intelligence expert secretly claiming that Trump won the election never actually worked in military intelligence. And that's just one of many absurd embarrassments from the legal stylings of Sidney Powell, which got so bad that even Trump cut her loose. No wonder his legal team has lost almost 50 cases to date. Just say no to kraken, kids. But on Monday, we saw Trump supporters cos-playing their own alternate electoral college ceremonies.

The same day, White House sycophants hit the airwaves to lie fast and loud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MILLER, SENIOR ADVISER FOR POLICY TO DONALD TRUMP: You have underage voters. You have voters with felony criminal records who are disqualified from voting in their states. You have non-residents, you have non-citizens, you have voters who are deceased, and I could go on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:45:00]

AVLON: Yes, Trump adviser Stephen Miller could go on, but there wouldn't be any point. Because even Trump-appointed judges have found that these and other claims have no basis in fact and law and are speculative accusations unsupported by evidence. The bigger problem is that there's a strain of Trump derangement syndrome that's resulted in death threats getting leveled on election officials around the nation. It's even infected state GOP organizations.

A Texas leader suggesting secession in the Arizona GOP, asking followers if they'd be willing to die in an effort to overturn election results. If that isn't deranged, then I don't know what is. Democracy depends on an ability to reason together from a common set of facts. We're going to disagree on all kinds of things, but let's not disagree about whether the sky is blue or Joe Biden won the election. We can't have Republican officials saying they're going to fight in denial forever, like some holdout Japanese soldier, decades after World War II.

Except that's exactly what Congressman Paul Gosar compared himself to. So remember, COVID is real. The kraken is not. And Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. And that's your reality check.

CAMEROTA: Thank you for that dose of reality, John. Apparently, we really need it.

AVLON: You know, if you believe that Trump is the only person telling the truth after this track record, see someone.

CAMEROTA: Good point. Good point. Thank you very much. OK, now to this. Actor Tom Cruise is trending this morning after unleashing on crew members on the set of "Mission: Impossible 7" that is currently shooting in London. "The Sun Tabloid" posted these leaked audiotapes, and they are reporting that Tom Cruise was furious over a breach of social distancing measures by some crew members. The film has already been shut down twice by the pandemic, and CNN's Max Foster is joining us live near London with more. Max, I'm not sure how you're going to read verbatim what Tom Cruise said, given the early morning hour.

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: We thought about it, but, yes, we are going to use some of the language, but we're going to summarize, as you would expect at this early point in the day. So this is "Mission: Impossible 7", it's being recorded currently at Leavesden just outside London by Paramount. And I've listened to this recording from the set which was obtained by "The Sun" reportedly. You very clearly hear Tom Cruise reprimanding crew members for failing to adhere to the quite strict social distancing rules in this country.

A word of warning, there is an expletive in here, but we're not going to give it in its full detail. But this is what I heard him say on the tape earlier. "I don't ever want to see it again ever, and if you don't do it, you're fired. If I see you do it again, you're f-ing gone, and if anyone in this crew does it, that is it."

So, reportedly, he saw two crew members within two meters, about 6 feet of each other, which is a clear breach of the rules, and he takes this very seriously. Clearly, he goes on to say, "we are the gold standard. They're back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us, because they believe in us and what we're doing."

He says they're creating thousands of jobs, people are struggling to put food on the table, people are struggling to pay for college tuition fees. These are the sorts of things he wants his crew members to think about.

And it's worth pointing out that the production has already been delayed during filming in Italy because of the pandemic. And Tom Cruise used more than $600,000 of his own money to pay for a ship to allow cast and crew to isolate. So, it shows how seriously he takes this. We contacted Cruise's publicist, also Paramount, haven't heard back yet.

But "The New York Times" reports that Paramount declined its request for a comment. Worth pointing out that Leavesden is owned by Warner Brothers, which is part of the same group as CNN. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Max, excellent job at choosing the most PG-rated portions of that. Thank you very much for that live report.

BERMAN: Today, playing the part of Tom Cruise, Max Foster --

CAMEROTA: Oh, well --

BERMAN: I was going to ask him to do it one more time with a little different motivation. I was going --

CAMEROTA: I feel like Tom Cruise speaks for you, and all of us, anybody who's ever been frustrated by seeing somebody flout the rules because he just went right up to them and said, like knock it off, you're fired if you keep doing it, and you're putting all of us at risk.

BERMAN: You're going to ruin it for everybody.

CAMEROTA: That's right. OK, what is it like to get one of those coveted coronavirus vaccines? Are there any side effects? Does the shot hurt? How did you get chosen to go first? We speak with two medical professionals who just experienced all of that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

CAMEROTA: Frontline healthcare workers are among the first Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine, as they try to save lives from the pandemic. So what does it feel like? And what side effects, if any, are they experiencing? Let's ask them. Joining us now are Charmaine Pykosh; an acute care nurse practitioner at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, also with us, Dr. Ari Sareli; he is the chief of Critical Care Medicine at Florida's Memorial Healthcare System, they were among the first in their states to get vaccinated.

Great to see both of you this morning. And Charmaine, I know you've told us to call you Char. So, I will do that. And I just want to tell people a little bit about your background and why you were chosen to go first. So, you work nights and weekends with patients with the most severe COVID cases, meaning those in the ICU, those on ventilators, those coding, meaning going into acute distress. And so, what did it mean to you to be chosen to go first?

[07:55:00]

CHARMAINE PYKOSH, ACUTE CARE NURSE PRACTITIONER, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you, first, for having me here today. Happy to share my experience. Yes, we do. There is a group of us in the surgical ICU that cover the utmost patients in the CTICU on the nights and on the weekends.

So, I mostly see them on the weekends. It was very -- it's a very nerve-racking experience, so for me to be able to get the vaccine as early as I did was very helpful, and it's helped a great deal to calm me down a little bit and not be so worried about, you know, having to take care of patients that are COVID.

CAMEROTA: I understand. So it's nerve-racking, your job is nerve- racking and getting the vaccine has helped calm you down going to work. It wasn't just by chance, by the way, that you were picked, selected, to go first. Your colleagues voted for you to go first. And did they share with you why they did that?

PYKOSH: I was afraid to ask because I'm sure it might be related to my age --

(LAUGHTER)

But yes, we got a call last Wednesday from our supervisor, a text message, and there were 13 of us in the Critical Care department, APPs that are involved with COVID patients. So she asked who wanted to go first, and everybody volunteered, and one person just said, I think Char should go first, and then everybody kept saying Char should go, Char should go, Char should go. So it just turned out that I ended up being the first person and I'm thankful to them for that.

CAMEROTA: I know that you consider that an honor, and it sounds like it is one. So, OK, so tell us about the experience, did the shot hurt?

PYKOSH: It's not too much different than a regular flu shot. You always feel a little pinch, but afterwards, I had maybe a little bit of muscle soreness, but haven't had really any other symptoms following that, so it was very smooth.

CAMEROTA: I read that you said that the most nerve-racking part of the whole thing was the cameras and the media attention.

PYKOSH: Yes, that's correct. We were in a room, a large room so we could social distance, but there were a lot of lights and cameras and it -- that made me more nervous than the shot itself. So you guys are intimidating.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: So since Monday, you haven't had any side effects?

PYKOSH: No, that's correct.

CAMEROTA: OK, Dr. Sareli, you also take care of the sickest patients, and so tell us what getting vaccinated means to you.

ARI SARELI, CHIEF, CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM: Great, and good morning, thank you so much for having me on the show. I have to say that it was an absolute honor to be amongst the first to get vaccinated, and for me it was because it represents a monumental time point in our war against COVID.

Being frontline workers in the Intensive Care Unit, we've seen the devastation and the suffering of our patients, how this virus devastates families and tears people apart, and the amount of monumental effort that I'm sure Char can speak to as well that it takes to treat these patients.

And even with massive maximal efforts, sometimes our patients don't survive. And the ability to have a vaccine that will really prevent people from getting this virus, that's the way to beat this virus. The way to beat this virus is not to get it in the first place, and it's a monumental time point in the battle against the virus. So, I was very proud to be up there, I was proud to get it, and I'm full of optimism for the future.

CAMEROTA: Do you agree with Char that it is just like getting the flu shot?

SARELI: Oh, absolutely. It was like a mosquito biting me, a little bit of muscle soreness the next day. I was in the Intensive Care Unit treating patients the morning that I got it. I'm ready to go back into the ICU today.

CAMEROTA: So, no side effects which is great news. And so Dr. Sareli, how will this change your life? I mean, given that you have been showing up for work and treating the sickest patients, what does this vaccine do for your life now?

SARELI: I think that it's important for people to bear in mind that the biggest impact that this vaccine makes is when it has widespread use in the community, amongst all my colleagues, amongst our leaders, amongst the community at large.

And really the biggest difference that it makes is that we are going to change the epidemiology of this virus, we're going to impact the way that it spreads, and we can really start conquering the virus and preventing so many people from being sick. I think that's really the hope it gives us as we enter 2021.

That's really the biggest impact it will make. Up to this point, we've had social distancing --

CAMEROTA: Yes, right --

SARELI: We've had the masks. I think it's really important that we all continue to do that. This is not like wearing a bulletproof armor. I think it's imperative that we continue all those safety precautions in place, no unnecessary risks, but yet, it's another weapon to really curb the epidemiology of this virus.