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Erin Burnett Outfront

FDA Panel Greenlights 2nd COVID Vaccine; Trump Brags About Rollout Despite Confusion About Doses Being Sent to States; Awaiting FDA Decision After Panel Recommends Moderna Vaccine; Dominion Threatens Legal Action Against Former Trump Lawyer; Report: 76K New Georgia Voters Registered Before Senate Runoffs; Putin: If Russia Wanted to Kill Opposition Leader Navalny, It Would Have "Finished" the Job. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 19:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: She baked every week. May they rest in peace and may their memories the blessing. Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next breaking news, an FDA panel advisory just announcing and voting moments ago to send a second vaccine recommended for emergency use. This as the President brags about the vaccine rollout but is suffering what seems to be a major setback tonight.

Plus, the CEO at the heart of countless election conspiracy theories is my guest and he has something to say to the President and his allies.

And 10s of 1000s of new voters now eligible to take part in Georgia's crucial runoffs, they just had birthdays, who are they? Who are they going to back? Let's go OUTFRONT.

And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight the breaking news, a breakthrough in the battle against coronavirus. Just moments ago an FDA advisory panel giving the green light to a second vaccine, this one from Moderna. A final decision from the FDA could come at any moment.

Now, this will be in 10s of millions more doses for Americans and in a moment, I'm going to speak to a world-renowned member of that FDA panel. But it is a race against time. Today, the CDC forecast the American death toll will climb to as many as 400,000 people before Inauguration Day. As of this moment, today, we are on track for more than 3,000 deaths and it will not surprise you that Trump said nothing about those deaths today. Nothing. Not a tweet. Nothing.

But he did tweet, of course, 10 tweets today half on untrue claims about the election. The one and only tweet about the virus was about the vaccine. And even here, as of now, he's all talk. He tweets, "The Vaccine and the Vaccine rollout are getting the best of reviews. Moving along really well. Get those 'shots' everyone!" The President patting himself on the back, not empathizing with the

bereaved or the suffering. And just given what he tweeted. We've got to check the facts. When it comes to the rollout, officials in Iowa, Illinois, Washington, Michigan and Oregon say they have been told by the Trump administration to expect fewer doses than they planned for.

And Washington's Governor, Jay Inslee, tweeting tonight this. This is from the Governor of Washington, "CDC has informed us that Washington's vaccine allegation will be cut by 40 percent next week - and that all states are seeing similar cuts. This is disruptive and frustrating. We need accurate, predictable numbers to plan and ensure on-the-ground success. No explanation was given."

A 40 percent cut in what they were supposed to get next week with no explanation, and they say this applies to all states, that is a big problem. That's not OK and it's not all, Pfizer says it has millions of doses sitting in its warehouses with the Trump administration still not giving word as to where they should ship them.

So, these facts are relevant when somebody is saying that the rollout is so amazing. But the biggest issue with Trump tweeting to get the shots is actually this, the President so far is not taking his own advice. This is just another example of do as I say not as I do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have no problem wearing a mask.

I'm good with mask. I'm OK with mask.

I have nothing against masks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: What is it again that we all learned as toddlers? Action speak louder than words. Trump has made his disdain for and his mockery of masks clear every single day. After all, this is what he did when he had coronavirus after spending three nights at the hospital. Still contagious with coronavirus, he ripped his facemask off when he wasn't even socially distanced from a care man.

OK. He's made his feelings clear again and again and again. When the President was out, either at the White House with supporters or traveling, you see it there, shot after shot after shot, we all know the guy never wore a mask. He does not practice what he preaches. And that is part of the problem here.

So when the President says get your shots, he should explain his exact plans to get his, because all we know is that Dr. Fauci said of Trump in the vaccine, "If you're asking me, I recommend that he do that." So if Trump is not doing it right now and if he is not doing it for a specific reason, maybe linked to his antibodies, who knows. He should explicitly explain why he should lay out the exact timeline for when he's going to get it, he should do so proudly. He can do good by doing this, because one new poll shows that the

President's supporters are more than four times as likely as Democrats to say they are not going to get vaccinated. He can make a difference with that and it's time for him to set an example and do the right thing with something related to the virus.

Kaitlan Collins is OUTFRONT live near the White House. And Kaitlan, again, the President today totally silent about what's going on here, only one tweet actually about the coronavirus situation most about that the election again.

[19:05:02]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And none of his tweets are about the hospitalization rates that you're saying or the death rates that we're seeing with 3,000 Americans per day dying, topping those death tolls on a daily basis, which, of course, is what's concerning medical officials who say, yes, the vaccine news is good, but we have to focus on still what's happening across the country.

And so the President's one tweet was about the vaccines, but he's viewing it less through this breakthrough and more through the lens of the coverage that it's getting as you've seen the President do with many things on his presidency. The way he sees something is shaped by how others are viewing it and how it's being covered on cable news and in print headlines. And that seems to be the case here.

And that's something that's frustrated a lot of his staffers, because they've wanted the President to take a more public role in this education campaign about the vaccine. And instead, we have not seen that from the President. He's not going to be the first person from the administration to get the vaccine on camera. Instead, it's going to be - we've already seen the Defense Secretary get it, but we're going to see the Vice President get it alongside the Second Lady tomorrow morning on eight o'clock alongside the Surgeon General as well.

And they said explicitly, they're doing that to try to instill confidence in people, of course, about getting the vaccine. And when you talk to people in the White House, they say that's because the President already had coronavirus. He still has antibodies, but some others wish that the President would at least commit to when he is going to get it. And so far, Erin, they have not specified that.

So I think that's some of the cause for concern that's coming inside the White House and it's really part of this larger effort that we've seen or lack of effort, where the President has been basically out of public view the entire time since he lost the election. We saw it again today where he was behind closed doors, once again, he's stayed behind closed doors in Saturday when he went to that Army Navy game, did not answer questions from reporters on his way out the door.

And you're hearing people say he doe only have five weeks left on the job, but they wish that he would actually do the job, at least, publicly in these last five weeks.

BURNETT: Yes. And even that game, he barely say that. It's just not the way he usually acts.

COLLINS: Yes.

BURNETT: All right. Kaitlan, thanks very much.

OUTFRONT now a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, Dr. Paul Offit. He is also an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, one of the most renowned experts on vaccines and also, of course, regarding children.

So let me ask you, doctor, the Moderna vaccine hours away from a likely emergency authorization, millions more doses than available. Your committee today, 20 in favor, one abstention to authorize the vaccine. That's even better than on the Pfizer vote. Do you have any concerns about the Moderna vaccine?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, MEMBER, FDA VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Well, certainly from a safety and efficacy point, it looks great. It's 95 percent effective against disease, it's a hundred percent effective against severe disease across all racial and ethnic groups. And we know that it's safe in 10s of thousands of people who've been followed for a couple months after they've gotten the vaccine.

But there's a famous vaccine researcher named Maurice Hilleman who said, "I never breathe a sigh of relief until the first 3 million doses are out there." Twenty thousands of people isn't (inaudible) people, so you want to make sure that there's no surprises. I think (inaudible) be humble on this and keep your eyes open. But I'm optimistic that this vaccine is exactly what it appears to be.

BURNETT: OK. And one thing we know it is that the same technology that the Pfizer vaccine uses, an old technology but being used in a novel way. However, there are big differences between them. And one of the big differences is that one of them is a lot harder to control than the other. Pfizer's got to be kept so cold and after X number of minutes and - it's difficult, OK?

Moderna doesn't have those same issues. If you have the choice between Pfizer and Moderna, which one would you take?

OFFIT: Whichever one I can get. I mean, safety and efficacy-wise, they're indistinguishable. It's going to be hard to get enough vaccine out there. Whatever is available in my hospital, I'm going to get.

BURNETT: All right. So, you're a pediatrician, speaking of your hospital, what about children? When are children going to get this?

OFFIT: Right. So first of they need to be tested to make sure that the vaccine is equally safe and effective in children that's already happening, and it'll continue into early next year. Hopefully, by the middle of next year, we'll have enough data in children to be able to comfortably immunize them as well. BURNETT: All right. So I guess that would do it by the school year,

the new school year. So let me ask you something that could be significant. Volunteers in a trial, the way trials work, you don't know whether you got the real vaccine or a placebo. And the full length of the Moderna trial is two years.

So to really know the full side effects, all of that, you'd wait two years. But I know there was a big debate today and there's a big debate over whether anyone in that trial should be told, hey, look, you know what, you got the placebo and we're going to give you the real vaccine, given the nature of the virus that you would allow them all to get the actual vaccine. That would make it harder to determine the long-term effects of the vaccine, obviously, in the trial. Where do you fall on this?

OFFIT: I think if you're - let's suppose you're in the 1A category where you're an essential health care worker or you live or work in a long-term care facility. It's time for you to get the vaccine. If you got a placebo in that trial, I think you should get this vaccine. We know that this vaccine works. We know that it's safe.

[19:10:00]

And if you're in a high-risk condition like you live or work in a long-term care facility or you're on the frontlines in health care, I think you should get the vaccine. I think that's the ethically correct thing to do.

BURNETT: All right. So the President today, I said there was one tweet related to the virus and it was about the vaccine and that the rollout is getting the best of reviews. So the big question I have around this is what we're just finding out this hour though. And Dr. Offit, I don't know if you've heard this, but multiple states have now been told that they're going to get fewer doses of the Pfizer vaccine than they were counting on and that they've been guaranteed.

And the Governor of Washington says they're going to get 40 percent less next week than they were told and that this is nationwide, and that the CDC is giving them no reason for this. Health officials say they're confused and they're frustrated. Does this surprise you to learn this?

OFFIT: Not a lot. I mean, the old line is that the hardest part of making vaccines is making vaccines, meaning mass producing them. It's hard to schedule success. I mean, this is a complicated product that has the mRNA, which is not that hard, because it's synthetic. But the complex lipid delivery system, that little fatty droplet, it's never been scaled up before and we have to assume that there's no stumbling at all with that and there might be some stumbling.

I just can't wait till we get these vaccines out there, though, because we need them and I think the hardest part on this is that, for example, at our hospital, we will give the frontline people a dose, which assuming that we get enough vaccine then three weeks from now.

BURNETT: To give them a booster. OFFIT: To give people that second dose. So I'm sorry, say it again.

BURNETT: To give them a booster, but you're saying you don't necessarily even know that they're going to get that.

OFFIT: You have to know that - you're promised right now that you get enough for dose one and that you therefore will get enough for that second dose and we have to count on that being true.

BURNETT: Right. Obviously, these are the crucial questions out there. Doctor, I appreciate your time. I'm glad to have you.

OFFIT: Thank you.

BURNETT: And I want to go now to Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Director of Cardiac Cath Lab at GW and advisor to the White House medical team under President George W. Bush.

So Doctor, you got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine this week. The Moderna, obviously, has some advantages in terms of you don't have to worry about whether its temperature change or anything like that in its transport. So what do you think in terms of the vaccine? Would you take either one if it's available?

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. And my message to the public is whatever vaccine you can get, you should get. It's possible that over the next several months, we'll have a little bit more data that maybe will help us inform whether one vaccine is better with a particular group, let's say the elderly, et cetera.

BURNETT: Yes.

REINER: But for now, the best vaccine is the one you can get.

BURNETT: OK. So the President as I mentioned, one tweet about all this today, it was on the rollout, which of course is having some maybe understandable, but very serious issues and saying people should get the shot. Now, obviously, the Vice President and the Second Lady, Karen Pence, they're going to get the vaccine tomorrow morning at 8 am. They're going to do it publicly. That's a good thing.

We do know that Trump's supporters are much more likely to say they're not getting the vaccine than anybody else. And we know that Trump while saying people should get the vaccine is not getting it himself and has offered no details as to why or when, what is going on here? Doesn't he owe it to people, this medical team owe it to people to give a detailed explanation for the plan here?

REINER: Yes. I think to paraphrase Abba Eban, the President never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. All that he has to do now is come out, even if he's not going to get the vaccine now, is come out and enthusiastically say, we are so pleased that we have these great options now for the public. Every American needs to be vaccinated. The First Lady and I are going to be vaccinated as soon as our doctors tell us it's the appropriate time and we'll do it on camera. Every American hear me say this, get vaccinated. But yet he doesn't do this. His inability to do that with masks has

likely resulted in hundreds of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary American deaths. Now he has an opportunity to sort of partially right that wrong by being a vocal proponent of vaccines and he's not doing it. It's unforgivable.

BURNETT: And what about the rollout. You heard Dr. Offit say just the scale of what's being attempted here, you're going to have some stumbles. We all get that. Putting aside the President saying everything is great when there's issues, I want to ask you about the specific thing that Washington Governor, Jay Inslee is saying. Obviously, a long-term adversary of the President.

He says, "@CDCGov has informed us that Washington's vaccine allocation will be cut by 40 percent next week - and that all states are seeing similar cuts. No explanation was given."

OK. That's not just like, oh, we're getting a little bit less. That's 40 percent less, that is a huge swing and he's saying it affects all states. What do you think is going on?

[19:15:01]

REINER: It's coming from the federal government. This afternoon Pfizer put out a statement saying that they have millions of doses in their warehouses, waiting for delivery instructions. They don't have delivery instructions. That's what our federal government should be doing, organizing the distribution of these vaccines. They've been manufactured. They're waiting to go and there are arms that are waiting for them.

The District of Columbia where I work has over 700,000 people, but it's flooded with more people during the day than people come into work. There are 80,000 healthcare workers, D.C. this week got 7,000 doses. So few that the governors of Maryland and Virginia are now sending 8,000 doses each to the District of Columbia.

These kinds of snafus are unacceptable and we need the vaccines distributed in a timely fashion. There's an enormous amount of virus, we need to vaccinate the healthcare workers and then get it out into the population.

BURNETT: All right. Deeply concerning here, what's happening with these - both of those threads as we said, 40 percent fewer, less vaccine available next week to the country and millions of doses sitting not knowing where to go. Dr. Reiner, thank you very much.

And next, we're going to take you to California which has just shattered its own record for new deaths in a single day. Top health director calling the situation untenable.

Plus, every vote in Georgia has been counted multiple times and yet we're still hearing this today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: The state's Republican Lieutenant Governor responds. And Putin responding to CNN's investigation into the poisoning of a major opposition leader. His chilling remarks ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:20:24]

BURNETT: Tonight, California shattering its record for coronavirus deaths in a single day. COVID cases exploding across Los Angeles County, ICUs at capacity in Southern California and hospitals say that another wave is coming. OUTFRONT now, Dr. Christina Ghaly. She's the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and she oversees all of the hospitals in L.A. County.

Dr. Ghaly, I appreciate your time. So cases in your state skyrocketing, doubling in the past two weeks, more than 52,000 just today reported in the state. What kind of strain is that putting on the hospitals right now?

CHRISTINA GHALY, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES: This puts immense strain on the hospital system, no hospital manage the rapid increase that we've seen in COVID cases across the last two weeks. And as you mentioned, cases are doubling every two weeks and based on the case counts that we've seen come through just in Los Angeles County alone, 15,000 new cases a day.

We anticipate that those will continue to escalate and lead to more and more hospitalization in the days and weeks to come. There's really no end in sight right now of what we're experiencing on the ground in the ICUs, in the emergency departments across Los Angeles County.

BURNETT: So the Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer, we've spoken to her, a prominent voice in your state. She says one in every 50 residents of Los Angeles County may be infected with the virus. I mean, that's a stunning thing. She says it's untenable. What is driving the surge right now.

GHALY: I think it's so many factors that have all come together at the same time. Certainly, the cases that we see in the hospital today started, they became infected two to three weeks ago and that's really right around Thanksgiving. So it had to do with people getting together with their friends or their family extended relatives over Thanksgiving. It has to do with all of the activities before and after that. People going out of their house for shopping, going to the park, participating in sports tournaments, those things make a difference.

And when you combine that with all of the essential workers that need to leave their homes and the people who need to use essential services, you have way too much intermingling between people who aren't in the same household and that intermingling just compounds case upon case upon case and leads to really the disaster that we're experiencing right now. BURNETT: So you're seeing some of the Thanksgiving surge more I know

over the next few days and you're coming into the end of the year break and all the holidays there, so right now in Los Angeles County where you are, Doctor, the stay-at-home order is the strictest in California. Playgrounds are shut, takeout and pick up only at restaurants, no outdoor dining. How much further can you go? Do you need more of a lockdown than you already have?

GHALY: People are really being asked to do everything they can to stay home and I would ask anyone in Los Angeles County who's watching or certainly California and the nation to listen and watch what's going on. Listen to the stories of people who have lost their family members and their loved ones. Those people aren't coming back and people need to realize that the overwhelming of the hospital system affects not just people with COVID, it affects everybody.

If you get in a car accident, you need chemotherapy, if you have a stroke, if you have a bowel obstruction and need surgery and you go into a hospital, right now, there's no promise that the ambulance will be able to offload you in time in the emergency department in a timely manner. The emergency department is overwhelmed, the operating rooms are full of COVID patients. There's patients that are spilling into areas of hospital where they're not normally there. And that has an impact on everyone COVID and COVID alike.

So the message is please just stay home, stay home as much as you can. Put all of those holiday plans on hold, put all of the interactions with your friends on hold. It can wait a month. And we need to be able to do those things to get us through what is really a very dangerous situation that we're now experiencing.

BURNETT: All right. Doctor, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

And I want to bring in Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

So Sanjay, we just learned the FDA has voted in favor of the Moderna vaccine. But none of this matters in terms of what Dr. Ghaly is talking about, right?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No.

BURNETT: You've got more than 3,000 deaths today across this country and given where we're headed here, that number is going to go up. You're going to have almost a hundred thousand people dying between now and Inauguration Day according to the CDC.

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, that was quite something for her to lay it out like that and I hope people hear it because that's the reality of what's happening in hospitals and if you imagine we live in a country, you call 911 an ambulance comes takes you to a hospital, that's just an expectation, because hospitals are so strained the way that Dr. Ghaly was describing.

[19:25:07] I mean that's a real problem. It's a real tangible problem. The

vaccine will help the people who get vaccinated, obviously, but in terms of reducing the sort of situations that she was just describing, it'll take a long time. It's such good news what's happening with the vaccine, but the idea that it's some sort of silver bullet or something like that is simply not the case, because it's going to take - the way a vaccine works is that more and more people take it and then eventually, it has an impact on the public's health. That just takes time, though, Erin.

BURNETT: And what do you make of what we're hearing from the Governor of Washington, that they've been told by the CDC without giving specific reason that they're going to get 40 percent last vaccine next week and he says that that's nationwide. How big of a concern is that to you? I mean, that's not just a little swing.

GUPTA: There's several things that I've been following closely, several things. First of all, Pfizer is saying that they have the vaccine available and all of that.

BURNETT: Yes.

GUPTA: So this doesn't appear to be some sort of manufacturing or distribution problem on their end. Why this particular state? Is this something that's more widespread as you're saying? I don't know. But there's a real practical issue here and that if you run into a situation where people are getting their first shots, but not able to get their second shots, because of this sort of poor planning, in terms of distribution, that's a really significant problem.

I'm surprised a little bit, Erin. We've been following operation warp speed. We know that the planning that has gone into this particular issue, this sort of last mile distribution issue. So we got to figure out exactly what's happening in Washington State if there's something more that we're not hearing about.

BURNETT: Yes.

GUPTA: But they've got to address this quickly, because it'll sort of defeats the purpose.

BURNETT: So do you think when you look at the numbers out here, record case counts, record hospitalizations, death at record levels now back to levels not seen since the peak, have we seen the full extent of the Thanksgiving surge? And I say this with full well awareness that we're coming into another holiday stretch here, but have we seen a full hit from the Thanksgiving surge?

GUPTA: I don't think so. We went back and looked at Memorial Day in July 4th, because there were similar sorts of surges at that point and we saw how long the surge has lasted and what you see here and part of the reason those searches did eventually get buffered, I think, in part was because of the weather at that time. People could largely be outside and that helped, given the fact that you have, as you say, several holidays happening around the same time, and we don't have that buffer of people being able to be outside where the virus spreads less. I think it's a significant problem.

And, Erin, I mean, again, I was really struck by Dr. Ghaly's interview, but people need to stay home. We got to be as clear as possible about this. We cannot equivocate. People have been equivocating, I asked Secretary Azar this the other day and he said, well, everyone's got to assess their own risk. The risk is the country is on fire right now. People need to stay home.

I've talked to so many families this year of people who've lost somebody and you know what, everyone was surprised. It wasn't that they didn't think this was real. This pandemic was real, but they didn't really think that they would get it and then they did, and then they got some symptoms, and then they got sicker, and then they needed to be hospitalized. And then it turned into the worst days of their life.

That that exact thing is going to happen to 200,000 to 300,000 more people over the next few months. Right now, the people who are going to die over the next few months have no idea that it's about to happen, that they're going to get infected. And again, it's not maybe that they don't believe it, they just don't believe it'll happen to them. We need to stay home. That's what we need to do to protect everyone.

BURNETT: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

GUPTA: Yes.

BURNETT: And next, the voting machine company targeted by Trump now threatening legal action. What do they want? The CEO of Dominion voting systems is my guest.

And 10s of 1000s of new voters could soon be heading to the polls and they could determine who controls the U.S. Senate, so who are they?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just so excited to see what my vote is going to accomplish.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:33:09]

BURNETT: Tonight, Dominion Voting Systems threatening legal action against former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. Attorneys for the voting company used by several states sending a scathing letter to Powell, accusing her of, quote, reckless disinformation about the 2020 presidential election.

Dominion says, quote: As a result of your false accusations, Dominion has suffered enormous harm. Employees have been stopped, harassed, and received death threats. For the safety of Dominions employees and for the truth and confidence in American democracy, we demand that you immediately and publicly retract your false accusations and set the record straight. OUTFRONT now, John Poulos. He is the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems.

And, John, look, I'm really glad to have you with me.

You know, you are at the heart of this, your company. So many conspiracy theories about this election, all of them debunked. But I want to give you a chance here to take some of these down, so our viewers can explicitly hear them and very clearly hear your response.

So, President Trump says your machines shifted 2 percent to 3 percent of Trump votes to Biden, and that you, quote, change the results of a landslide election. What's your response, John?

JOHN POULOS, CEO, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEM: Yeah, thanks for having me on, Erin.

It's just been an absolute bizarre blizzard of crazy things being said about us. It's been extremely damaging to our company, our employees, and customers. We've -- the things being said about us just are not true. And as far as I can tell, I'm the only one that has volunteered to talk about these things under oath.

And so, ultimately, we are asking for a complete retraction, or, ultimately, I guess we'll have to see them in the courthouse.

BURNETT: So, many of the conspiracies have centered around Michigan. Now, we know human error did cause unofficial results in a county to show Biden ahead when Trump actually won.

[19:35:01]

That number was quickly fixed, right? We knew Trump won.

The president, though, came out, forget the human error part which is the fact, he said he was due to software error, not human error. Again, trying to put it on Dominion.

What's your response to that? How do you deal with this?

POULOS: Sure, well, people keep talking about this. But, I mean, our machines are tested all the time. It's hard to think of a more highly regulated business than ours. There are third-party labs that review all of our source code that are certified and regulated by the bipartisan federal agency, the EAC.

But most of all, we have paper ballots.

BURNETT: Right.

POULOS: We have one machine that allows voters to create a paper ballot, and then we have another machine that allows the counting of that paper ballot. So, some of the bizarre allegations that votes have been sent to Germany or Spain, and just to put this into context, the U.S. Army had to get involved to debunk some of these claims.

The voted paper ballots remain in the counties. They don't cross county lines. They don't cross state lines and they certainly don't leave the country. This is what's so bizarre.

BURNETT: Really bizarre, and I want to be clear here, when you talk about paper ballots, that's something -- I've been talking to the voting chief in Georgia again and again. He has made clear, the most secure election in Georgia's history, they used some of your voting machines.

But they also had a paper ballot trail for every single vote cast in the state of Georgia, which he said they actually had never had before.

So, you used the word "bizarre". I had saved it for this question, although I don't question your use of it and context in which you used it. But I had it saved for this one because one of the most bizarre claims out there, John, is that Dominion has ties to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. And Hugo Chavez, of course, died seven years ago.

But this is a claim that was getting a lot of oxygen thanks to Rudy Giuliani. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: The company counting our vote, with control over our vote, is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez, are present allies of Maduro, with a company whose chairman is a close associate and business partner of George Soros.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: OK. There's a lot of conspiracy theories in there. But let's just go to the straight one. The company with control of the vote is owned by two Venezuelans, allies of Chavez, again, Chavez is long dead.

But I wanted to give you a chance to respond to this.

POULOS: Right. Erin, our company is American. I started it in Toronto, but in 2018, we sold to U.S. investors.

I'm not sure what Mr. Giuliani is talking about, but there's no Venezuela, there's no Chavez at Dominion Voting. Never has. There's no China. And there is no links to Cuba or communism.

We are a very straightforward American company, and something, by the way, that we report to the federal state and local governments that we report to.

In 2010, while we were still a Canadian company, I underwent a CFIUS process, which is the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States, just let them know who we are, because in 2010, at that, point most of our customers and employees were becoming American, in the United States.

So we moved our head office to Denver. And so, that was the first time we met with CFIUS, and by 2018, we had decided to sell the company to U.S. investors. So, the claims on Venezuela, Cuba, and China are just absolutely bizarre.

BURNETT: Right, I don't mean to laugh in any way that it's funny. I don't. I think this whole thing is tragic and dangerous.

But one final question for you, John, the rumors most recently that your company could have been a target of this massive breach of federal agencies and Fortune 500 companies, nuclear facilities, by what they suspect Russian-linked hackers. We don't even know the extent of this attack, right?

All of those agencies use the same Solar Winds software. So, there are questions, oh, did you all use it also? Is it possible you are compromised? And that that could have caused compromise to the election that no one is even aware of.

Is there any chance you are impacted by this breach?

POULOS: Sure. Well, you brought up two things.

So, first of all, it really isn't funny, although it's crazy, because it does have a damaging effect, not just to our company and our employees, but to our customers and the integrity of the election, which is -- which is a real shame given the strives that have been -- that have been accomplished over the last 18 years since the creation of the Help of America Vote Act.

With respect to Solar Winds, the platform of Orion that has been the subject of the DHS note from the other day, we do not use that platform. We don't use anything to do with that product with our election systems.

So, I keep coming back to the paper ballots. There's no tricks that could change our tallies. And even if somebody tried, it would be caught.

[19:40:00]

So, I keep coming back to paper, paper, and paper.

BURNETT: All right. Well, I appreciate your time, John. Thank you very much. Thank you for going through each of these and detail. I think it's important and I thank you.

POULOS: Thank you very much.

BURNETT: All right. And I want to go now to the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan.

Lieutenant Governor, I'm glad to have you back.

So, you know, obviously, you were one of the states that used Dominions Voting Systems. And there's been all these charges about things that happened with Dominion. You've audited it. You've looked into it. It didn't happen. The

president continues to claim, though, that Dominion was able to rig the election in Georgia, and that he won your state, quote, by a lot.

Now, you just heard the chief of Dominion go through all this. And I know you all had had your own conversations in depth with the company.

What do you say to the president, though, who continues to put these false statements out about Dominion and the election in Georgia?

GEOFF DUNCAN (R), GEORGIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Yeah, certainly, it's part of the category of misinformation. And, you know, my encouragement, continues encouragement here is I cannot think of a single scenario where continuing to fan the flames on information around election fraud helps us on our January 5th runoff for Senator Loeffler and Senator Perdue.

My encouragement is move on, let's get this thing on on January 5th, let's focus in on why we want conservative leadership here in Georgia, and as far as U.S. Senate control goes nationally.

BURNETT: So, today, Republican Congressman Mo Brooks sent a letter to the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate, asking to conduct voter fraud hearings. Eighteen other Republican House members have signed on to the letter, including Congressman Jody Hice from your state, from Georgia.

Brooks is leading the effort to contest the result of the presidential election, right? The whole point here is they want to contest, even though the Electoral College obviously has now confirmed Biden's victory. They want to contest it in a joint session of Congress on January 6th.

What is your response to this effort by some in your party, including one of your own state reps?

DUNCAN: Yeah, it worries me. You know, there is this division going out of some folks that think that this system is what's broken, and that's why we lost the election. I think there are some data points that prove that that's not the case, that there's a better opportunity for us to improve our party, to improve our positions and our communications.

You know, here in Georgia, the separation was around 12,000 votes. But nationally, I think it's important to remember, there was over a 7 million difference in votes, and to me, that's concerning.

BURNETT: Yes.

DUNCAN: And certainly, I think it's something that we can do better.

You know, here in Georgia, and interesting statistic, I think, Erin, you and I have talked about this before --

BURNETT: Yeah.

DUNCAN: -- 53.7 percent of Georgians voted for a Republican state senator in this past election, and I'm proud of that.

BURNETT: So, let me quickly ask you. The vice president was in your state today, and he was campaigning now for your Republican senators. Here is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted. We're going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out. And we will never stop fighting to make America great again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: He's amplifying the president's conspiracy theories. This is the vice president. Surely, he knows better than this, Lieutenant Governor.

DUNCAN: Well, grateful to have Vice President Pence here in Georgia. He is a great man. He's been a great leader for four years.

You know, I think, you know, there is Republicans waking up every day all across the country that are starting the painful process of analyzing what went wrong and how did we lose the White House. We I think all those different, you know, kind of dissections into it will give us different things.

But, ultimately, tone and messaging is going to be I think over the next four years that what we as a party got to work hard. I think to, you know, on the national perspective, you know, Republicans in Arizona are waking up, that for 31 years, they voted for John McCain to be there U.S. senator. They were at odds with the way the president messaged.

I think about here in Georgia, a governor who has let us through the pandemic and gotten us to one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, yet for months, even before the election, to listen to the president unfairly picking on him for things that were actually helping Georgians.

BURNETT: All right. Well, I appreciate your time, Lieutenant Governor. Thank you.

DUNCAN: Thanks, Erin.

BURNETT: And next, they were too young to vote in the presidential election, but they will now be able to vote in those crucial Georgia runoffs that the lieutenant governor is talking about. And the candidates are taking notice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: Victory in Georgia comes down to young people in Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: Plus, Putin responds to CNN's reporting on the poisoning of his opposition leader. And what Putin is claiming does not add up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:48:19]

BURNETT: Tonight, nearly 76,000 Georgians, newly eligible to vote in the states crucial runoff elections, according to "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution". That is a lot of people, and more than half of them are under the age of 35. And that includes a lot of those who just turned 18.

You know what? Those November and December birthdays. It's a key voting group that could make the difference in these races.

Kyung Lah is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It has taken 18 years for Valerie Ponomarev to finally get here.

VALERIE PONOMAREV, 18-YEAR-OLD GEORGIA VOTER: I've been looking forward to this day for so long. I'm just so excited to see what my vote is going to accomplish.

LAH: Ponomarev is just turning 18, one of the thousands of Georgians too young to vote on November 3rd but able to vote for the first time in the January 5th Senate runoffs.

Why you hear the two Democratic Senate challengers talk directly to them.

JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: The bottom line is victory in Georgia comes down to young people in Georgia.

LAH: And the issues those voters care about.

REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: When we do something about student debt, we will unleash the power of the American economy.

Let's get out here and do it.

LAH: Grassroots group Georgia STAND-UP says the youngest voters maybe the difference maker, 18 to 24-year-olds made up 12 percentage points of Georgia voters in November, a small group. But Joe Biden won the state by less than one point.

ARIEL SINGLETON, LEAD ORGANIZER, GEORGIA STAND-UP: That vote right there for any candidate is going to be one that makes the difference because, as you see, when they show up, they show out.

LAH: Like Ariyana Gooden, who wanted to vote after a summer of Black Lives Matter activism and now finally can. ARIYANA GOODEN, 15-YEAR-OLD GEORGIA VOTER: I just want to be part of

this group of young people, you know, voting to make a change, make a difference.

LAH: That belief drives Students for Tomorrow. These young activists have backed Democrat Jon Ossoff as they brainstormed how to boost youth energy in the runoffs. They say they registered 3,000 new voters who will turn 18 between Election Day and January.

EDWARD AGUILAR, STUDENTS FOR TOMORROW: That is an extremely sought- after group because you're talking voters out of thin air.

LAH: Michael Gusto (ph) wanted to vote for the Republicans but --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It feels like my entire group, my demographic, are just completely written off.

SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): We will win.

LAH: The Republican senators have been far less specific about targeting young voters, but they may be looking at November exit polls that show 43 percent of 18 to 24-year-old Georgians voted for Donald Trump, 12 percent more than their peers nationwide.

MADISON TATHAM, 18-YEAR-OLD GEORGIA VOTER: A lot of my friends are Republicans. So, it's nice seeing them get all excited about voting.

LAH: At the Save America event in Atlanta, 18 and 19-year-old Republicans say they're not to be overlooked.

What is it about Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue that draws you to vote to them, to vote for them?

GAVIN SWAFFORD, 19-YEAR-OLD GEORGIA VOTER: They're constitutional conservatives. I know for a fact that we may be outnumbered, but our will is strong. Our will is strong to come out and vote.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (on camera): Now, in a nod to how important the youth vote is, 33- year-old Jon Ossoff, the Democratic challenger, is going to wear the youth congregate, namely, TikTok. He opened an account earlier this month, and one of his video posts has 1.4 million likes. The question though, Erin, is if those likes translate into votes -- Erin.

BURNETT: Yeah. All right. Kyung, thank you so much.

And OUTFRONT next, Putin's chilling response to CNN's reporting about a poisoning of an opposition leader.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Tonight, Russian President Vladimir Putin responding to exclusive CNN reporting, including evidence connecting Putin to the poisoning of a key opposition leader.

The Russian president, denying involvement, saying Alexei Navalny would be dead if special services and Russia wanted him to be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): In this case, of course, the special services should keep an eye on it. But it doesn't mean that he needs to be poisoned. Who needs him anyway? If they wanted to, they probably would have followed through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Back in August, Navalny fell seriously ill on an airplane, from what turned out to be a deadly nerve agent possess by the Russian government.

And now, thanks to a joint investigation between CNN and Bellingcat, we know an elite group of Russian agents followed Navalny, get this, on more than 30 trips, to and from Moscow, since 2017, including to Tomsk, which is where Navalny was poisoned.

Our Clarissa Ward, spoke to Navalny about these agents. She even went to the home of one of these agents, in Russia. Courageous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I just want to show you some photographs here, and ask you if you ever see any of the men in those photographs.

ALEXEI NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: No.

WARD: You don't recognize any them?

NAVALNY: I don't recognize any of them.

WARD: Would it surprise you to learn that some of these men went on more than 30 trips with you over the course of 3 years?

NAVALNY: That is absolutely terrifying. I don't know if terrifying is even a good word.

WARD: I think it's pretty good.

So, we are here now at the home of one of the FSB team, and we are going to see if he has anything to say to us.

We enter a rundown apartment building, on the outskirts of Moscow, where operative Oleg Tayakin lives.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

WARD: My name is Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN.

Can I ask you a couple of questions?

(SPEAKING)

Was it your team that poisoned Navalny, please? Do you have any comment?

He doesn't seem to want to talk to us?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All right. It's incredible what she did, right? She actually went to the home of an FSB agent.

In his first comments since the investigation, Putin denied having a role in the poisoning but, essentially, confirmed Russian agents have been tracking Navalny, and claimed without evidence that Navalny is being supported by U.S. intelligence services.

OUTFRONT now, Susan Glasser, staff writer at "The New Yorker", and a global affairs analyst for us here at CNN.

So, Susan, the report was really incredible to watch. How surprised do you think Putin was that someone actually put all of these dots together, found the FSB agents, found the 30 trips that they tracked this guy, put them in the same place he was, the morning he was poisoned? How surprised do you think he was that all this information came out?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, Erin, it was a great piece of investigative reporting, an important piece too. Navalny is the main opposition figure in Russia today, and it's extraordinary to find out the lengths to which the FSB had gone to follow him around the country, and then to use a chemical agent, you know, poisoning, nearly resulting in his death.

I mean, look, as far as Vladimir Putin goes, first of, all typical macho bluster from Putin. You know, this is often how he responded with this sort of non-denial denial in the past, when confronted with previous examples. And there are many of them, and many attempts to assassinate their opposition figures. It's really striking.

BURNETT: By the way, if they wanted to kill them, they would've killed him. They failed in many other cases, as we know, even in the U.K., recently, when they tried.

This information gathered by Clarissa and Bellingcat is extensive, right? So, we got phone records, all the flight information that placed these agents with Navalny, a lot of evidence that proves Russia was tracking him quite closely. And let me just play, though, what Navalny said to Clarissa about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAVALNY: I understand how the system works in Russia. I understand that Putin hates me, and I understand that the people who sit in the Kremlin, they are ready to kill.

WARD: Is it your contention that Vladimir Putin must have been aware of this?

NAVALNY: Of course, 100 percent. It could not have happened without direct order by Putin, because it's -- it was big scale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Susan, would you agree, clearly, at the direct order of Putin?

GLASSER: Erin, it certainly appears that way. I would say that, you know, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, he's well aware that western intelligence agencies would've known, from the minute that Navalny came to Germany, this information, and understood that only Russia itself, the state controls this kind of chemical weapon that was used to attempt to poison Navalny. So, of course, this is something that the Russian had a hand in, and this evidence is really powerful, that's been turned up in this investigation.

BURNETT: All right. Susan, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

I also appreciate all of yours for watching.

Anderson is now.