Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Joe Biden To Speak Today About His Response To The Pandemic; The House Voted To Increase Stimulus Payments From $600 To $2,000; Overnight A New Record For Hospitalizations Due To The Coronavirus; There Are Some Agencies That Are Not Taking It Easy On Biden To Take The Reins. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 29, 2020 - 7:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And Jim Sciutto joins me.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Nice to be here. We're talking about fruit basket of sour grapes, right? Is that -- is that --

CAMEROTA: Oh, I like that. Well played. All right, all eyes are on the U.S. Senate this morning after the House voted to increase stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000. it was a rare moment where Democrats aligned with President Trump and dozens of Republican House members joined in.

In a separate vote more than 100 House Republicans joined Democrats to override the president's veto on the defense bill. If the Senate gets two-thirds of its members to support this it will be the first veto override of the Trump presidency.

So, what will Majority Leader Mitch McConnell do today?

SCIUTTO: It's a big question. Meanwhile President-elect Joe Biden is accusing President Trump's political appointees of obstructing the transition process. He specifically called out the Department of Defense and the White House Budget Office for putting up what he called road blocks that could undermine national security.

The President-elect will address the worsening coronavirus pandemic later today. Overnight a new record for hospitalizations in this country, more than 121,000 Americans now hospitalized. We have yet to see the impact of millions of people traveling for the holidays. Dr. Anthony Fauci joins us live in must minutes.

CAMEROTA: I will look forward to that. Meanwhile, joining us now CNN Political Director David Chalian and CNN Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Hnederson. Great to see you guys.

So, David Chalian, strange bed fellows on display yesterday with Democrats going along with President Trump's call for the $2,000 per person in stimulus for people making under a certain amount and who are -- the Americans struggling the most. And then dozens of Republicans -- House Republicans joining in with

Democrats. So, where does this leave Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, in a bit of a tough spot. But Mitch McConnell has made clear he doesn't have a ton of interest in trying to get this $2,000 check out the door here, that has not been a high priority item for him.

And in fact, if you recall when the president, after days of these antics where he didn't sign the big COVID relief bill and the government funding bill, when he finally signed it he put out this statement saying how he had extracted this guarantee that the Senate's going to move on these $2,000 checks.

That was nowhere in Mitch McConnell's statement. He just praised the president for signing the funding bill. So, I -- I -- you know -- there are Republicans who would like this to not be an issue right now in the Senate and -- and disappear and go away.

But, you understand the political appeal of it, which is exactly why the Democrats as soon as President Trump said I'm for $2,000 Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer couldn't have gotten out there fast enough to say, let's -- let's go, let's do that.

And now we wait to see how Mitch McConnell is going to play this on the Senate floor this week. That's a big piece of Senate business here at the very end, in the closing days of this Congress.

SCIUTTO: Yes how big, we did the math, to increase those checks from $600 to $2,000 would cost $464 billion. I mean that -- that -- that's in territory for TARP, which was -- you know -- the entire stimulus package after the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Nia-Malika, forgive me for -- for perceiving the possibility of politics playing a part here, but does Mitch McConnell want to give that enormous additional stimulus to an incoming Democratic president?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, the big question I think for Mitch McConnell is the upcoming Georgia race. Does this make sense for those senators?

Remember, that was part of his lobbying effort to get this done in the first place, to say that those folks who are running, Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue in Georgia, this election coming up on January 5, they needed something to run on.

You saw David Perdue immediately out with an ad telling his support for that $900 billion package. So, I think if you're Mitch McConnell you're trying to figure out should they vote for this or should they not vote for this in terms of their fortunes in that Senate race. And ultimately, his fortunes as well, and obviously Biden's fortunes as the incoming president.

So, I think those are the calculations he's making, he's very shrewd at this job, he's very shrewd at sort of testing the winds of the Republican caucus. We have seen some Republicans come out and say, listen, if Mitch McConnell puts this on the floor they would be willing to back it. People like Rubio for instance have -- have said that -- you know -- not someone who is known for having necessarily a spine of steel, so he has come out and said that.

So, I think you probably will get a scenario where you essentially run out the clock if you're Mitch McConnell. He knows where his caucus is on this, he knows where his caucus has been. They are looking at that number that you just said, that big, big $400 billion price tag and saying that's too much for them to stomach even given what this president wants in the waning days of his presidency.

CAMEROTA: And then David, how about that 109 Republicans who voted to override President Trump's veto of the Defense Authorization Act? This is what happened in the House yesterday, again, notable because we don't often see House Republicans break with the president.

[07:05:00]

CHALIAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: So, what's going to happen in the Senate and how significant is that?

CHALIAN: On both issues, right Alisyn? We saw a majority of House Republicans actually not side with the president on the $2,000 checks, so that was one bit of not aligning with the president.

And now as you're saying, on this override of the veto of the Defense Authorization Bill, you see Republicans coming out to, in fact, rebuke the president and -- and override his veto of what is known in Washington as a must pass bill. And -- and Donald Trump vetoed legislation that has passed every year for nearly 60 years.

And what I think you're seeing is the first sort of inclining into what a post-Trump era in the Republican Party looks like. If -- if Donald Trump were -- were demanding his party follow his position and he had just won re-election instead of lost, we may have seen a different outcome here.

But you're starting to see a party right now, in Congress at least, not terribly afraid when they think that they're on the right side of the politics here to actually say to President Trump now, who's on his way out the door, thanks but no thanks.

SCIUTTO: Notable point there, and we should note that this NDAA, it's got a lot in there, right? I mean, military pay is a big deal, but it's got a lot of things that the president wanted that -- that have been taken away.

I mean, renaming military bases for Confederate soldiers, something the president opposed, that's in there. It puts restrictions on withdrawing troops from Germany and Afghanistan, something the president wants and promised.

And then this Section 230, which is all about kind of liability protections for social media. A big issue, the president tweets about it everyday. Nia-Malika, I mean those are major political losses for this president, but also for some Republican lawmakers difficult -- difficult votes to make.

HENDERSON: Well, a vote to make because it's about those military bases, it's about those -- it's about increasing pay for folks in the military and I think that is what they're thinking.

As David said, this has been a bipartisan effort, something that has passed fairly easily over the last many, many decades. So, that's where those Republicans and Democrats are on this. It was fairly easy to override that veto, it'll -- it'll be likely fairly easy in the Senate as well.

Listen, if the president wanted to have much more power in his party he should have won in November. He didn't. So, he sees his power draining away a bit on these issues that he says he cares so much about. He apparently wants to maintain the Confederate names of some of these military bases, which is an odd posture for a president to have, but that is where he is.

But listen, they are moving on in some ways, these Republicans. We'll see how much given where they have been and given that the president, even in his loss, maintains a strong pull on the base of his party. He got 74 million votes or so, so there is that. But listen, he will an ex-president. It's something that he has had to face time and time again, even though publicly he is in denial about it.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and apparently there are some agencies not making it easy for Joe Biden to take the reins, and so David, I mean Joe Biden yesterday came out and, you know, he as really stayed, I think, above the fray. He has tried not to be critical. But yesterday he used strong language to say that he is encountering road blocks in particularly important areas such as the Department of Defense.

And so, what did you hear yesterday in his speech?

CHALIAN: This is something that we've been hearing from the Biden team, even the president-elect flicked at this before the Christmas holiday, so it's been a couple weeks now Alisyn that the Biden team has been saying we're not getting the full kind of cooperation in these key areas, specifically with the Pentagon and OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, in the way that we need.

There is some of this that happens in transitions, but I agree with you, I thought that the president-elect came out yesterday in far stronger terms than we've heard before and really trying to lay down a marker here to get this thing going again.

There was, according to the Biden team, no agreed upon sort of holiday pause for these kinds of transition meetings to take place, which is the posture of the Pentagon. And remember, the Pentagon, after Donald Trump lost the election and fired Defense Secretary Esper, it became run by real Trump acolytes here. So, it was a place of concern for the Biden transition team and I think we're seeing why now. SCIUTTO: In a headline, Nia-Malika, before we go, taken not from a

bad movie script but from reality, we have a Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert suing the Republican Vice President to ignore the electoral votes of all the states that, in fact, that Donald Trump lost. The -- where does this go?

[07:10:00]

HENDERSON: Nowhere. I mean, this is Louie Gohmert trying to get attention from the president. We'll see how many other folks go along with him. It's also a misinterpretation of democracy, of America as well.

I mean, that is a ceremonial role that Vice President Pence will have certifying those electoral votes. He doesn't have absolute authority to overturn the votes of millions and millions and millions of Americans. That is not how democracy works, that's now how America works, bless -- you know -- bless his hear, Louie Gohmert, for trying to do this. It will go nowhere.

But listen, this is him trying to get on Fox News, him trying to be a fan boy with this president and I'm sure it will work. The president saying, stay tuned for January 6. We will be tuning in and we will see that President-elect Joe Biden will be -- you know -- those electorals (ph) will be certified and he will be sworn in on January 20.

SCIUTTO: And as you said, the demand is exactly that, overturning the votes of tens of millions of Americans.

CAMEROTA: Bless his heart. As Nia-Malika just said, we wish him the best.

SCIUTTO: That's one of saying it. Nia-Malika, David Chalian, thanks very much.

CHALIAN: Thanks guys.

SCIUTTO: Well President-elect Joe Biden will address the worsening pandemic in remarks later today, as hospitalizations in this country hit a new record. What can Americans do right now to make things better? I'm going to speak with Dr. Anthony Fauci, there he is, that's next.

[07:11:25]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:25]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. The United States once again setting new records, more than 121,000 Americans are hospitalized with coronavirus. Some hospitals in Los Angeles County are now discussing having to ration care. They're treating people in gift shops in some hospitals. December is now the deadliest month of this pandemic, with nearly 67,000 reported deaths, a staggering 5.7 million coronavirus infections so far this month. Joining me now Dr. Anthony Fauci, he is the Director of the National

Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to the incoming Biden Administration.

Dr. Fauci, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR NIAID: Good to be with you Jim.

SCIUTTO: You know the numbers better than anyone, December the deadliest month of the pandemic already, U.S. hitting a record for hospitalizations. In the simplest terms, what is this country doing wrong?

FAUCI: Well, it's just a question of we're in such an -- a surge, as -- as we call it Jim, that has just gotten out of control in many respects. If you look at -- at the history going back to the late winter early spring of 2020 we had a surge in the late winter, early spring, another surge in the early summer.

We're right now in a surge who's -- who's inclined, who's inflection is very sharp when you see it. The numbers that you gave, you know, tell it all. We're in a very difficult situation. We never got down to a low baseline where you can actually control community spread by identification, isolation and contact tracing.

When you get to the numbers that we're in right now it really is very, very difficult to do effective identification, isolation and contract tracing. Some areas are doing it, but for the most part as a whole, as a country, it really is sticking to the health -- the public health guidelines that I've been talking about, that you've seen me on your own show talking about continuously the simple things, we've got to keep doing it.

Most important now, Jim, in this season in addition to the travel, which is now too late, because we're into the Christmas, New Year's holiday, the people who were going to travel have already traveled. We try to get people to just tone down the travel.

For those who have already done the travel, the thing to do now is to try not to congregate with large numbers of people in social settings like dinners. Try to keep it restricted to the immediate family and the immediate household, because once you get to large numbers of people at a dinner, inside, poor air ventilation and circulation, that's when you get in trouble.

And that's what we're concerned about, that in addition to the surge we're going to have an increase superimposed upon that surge, which could make January even worse than December.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

FAUCI: I hope not. I hope that doesn't happen, but it certainly is possible.

SCIUTTO: A reliable fact of this pandemic, which you know all too well, is post-holiday, because of travel, because of people getting together we see the numbers get worse. I -- I just wonder how much worse can we be expecting at this point. I mean, it was 168,000 new infections just yesterday with that travel, with people sadly ignoring the advice you're giving here yet again. How much worse?

FAUCI: You know, there are different models that tell you different things, Jim. This I -- I think we just have to assume that it's going to get worse. You know, we're between 100,000 and 200,000 new infections each day. You know, there was a period at the worse part of December when it was over 200,000. I hope we don't just get to that level of continually seeing over 200,000, because as you know it staggers.

You get cases, you get hospitalizations and then you get deaths. It's highly predictable that once you increase in those numbers of cases in a staggered way every couple of weeks, you get increase in the hospitalization.

You mentioned the situation in California, which is very disturbing, you just hate to see that, when you have healthcare providers trying as best as they can, knocking themselves out to take care of people and they're running out of beds. That's the unimaginable to actually run out of beds.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that -- that was what the worry was early in -- earlier in this pandemic, didn't quite happen then, seems to be happening now. I want to ask about vaccinations, because the numbers so far, and I know you've been asked about this, not where we'd hoped to be, 2.1 million vaccinations.

[07:20:00]

I -- I know there's some thought that that might undercount, but when the goal was 20 million by the end of this year, three days away, two days away, do you believe that momentum, as you've described it, will pick up sufficiently to catch up to those goals, if not by the end of this month, then soon after?

FAUCI: Well, we certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of December, you heard talking about 40 million doses for 20 million people. I mean, even if you undercount -- 2 million is an undercount, how much undercount could it be. So, we are below where we want to be.

General Perna has -- has spoken about this, he's actually publicly, to his great credit, he's publicly apologized about some glitches that have gotten to this. I believe that as we get into January we are going to see an increase in the momentum which, Jim, I hope allows us to catch up to the projected pace that we had spoken about a month or two ago when we were talking about the planned rollout of the vaccinations, because we really want to get those priority people vaccinated so that we can then get to what we call the open season for the general population.

Because once you do that -- I mean, what we're doing now, we're certainly saving lives, no doubt about that, but when you get to the point where you can essentially say anybody and everybody who wants to be vaccinated can be vaccinated, that's when you really turn around the dynamics of the outbreak.

And we hope as we get into January, February, March and into April we'll finally be there so that the spring and the summer we can really do a very good job of getting as many people as possible vaccinated.

SCIUTTO: I just wonder though if this slow start is exposing holes in that distribution plan, in the vaccination plan? We had Dr. Peter Hotez on last hour and made the point about the enormous burden being placed on private pharmacies, right? The pharmacy chains to -- to kind of roll this out.

I mean, you could see it already in testing, right? I mean, these places get overwhelmed very quickly, I mean should Americans have confident -- confidence that the current plan will work?

FAUCI: Well we have to see Jim, I mean, I -- you know -- as -- not being responsible myself for the rollout, I can't personally guarantee that we're going to catch up. I hope we do. We're certainly looking at it. The people who are responsible for it are really on it. The question is, are they going to be able to get back to the pace that we set early on. And again, I hope we can, we'll just have to keep following it and keep pushing the envelope.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask specifically about schools, whenever you and I talk I ask you, there are a lot of parents at home watching, I'm a parent as well. You have always said, no one size fits all, but -- but you can open schools safely with mitigation. As we get into a worsening surge here, that is a fact, what is your advice to schools as they come out of the holidays here? Do they have to take a break? Can they still open safely? What's the best advice?

FAUCI: Again, well -- well Jim, I say the same thing that I said before, you can't have one size fits all, but the -- but the bottom line, what I call default position should be that we should, wherever we are, try as best as we can to get the children back to school and to keep them in school, and to have a plan to try and keep them as safe as possible.

We know looking at the data as it has evolved over the last several months, that the transmission within the context of the school is considerably lower than what we had thought. So, it may be that the children are more safe in school than we would have thought they are.

Having said that, we've got to make sure that the primary thing is the safety and the health and the welfare of the children and the teachers, hopefully as we get vaccinations and the teachers get vaccinated as essential personnel as it were and then we ultimately get to the people who are taking care of the children it will be less of a burden of transmission within the context of the school. But again, we've got to try as best as possible to keep the children at school, but don't be so rigid as to say every single thing must be done this way. We have to have flexibility.

SCIUTTO: There is a new variant of this virus, you have said that we have to assume it's already inside this country as well. Not more deadly but more transmissible. We're already in the midst of a surge, a new more transmissible variant, what does that mean?

FAUCI: Well, that means there could be more cases. I mean, more transmissible is -- is self-defining, if it's more transmissible, it's more transmissible. Like is said, Jim, I would be really surprised if we did not already have isolates like this circulating, not the dominate isolate.

My feeling would be that if it does get into this country, which believe it will, if you look at what's going on in Europe, started off looking like it was only in the U.K. and now several European countries, Canada has it. I mean, I cannot image that we're not going to get it.

[07:25:00]

The question is, prevent it from becoming the dominant strain and you do that by preventing the spread of infection which, Jim, gets us back to the same recurrent theme that we talk about. If we really put our foot pedal to the floor and do all of the mitigation things that we're talking about, the wearing of masks, the social distancing, the avoiding crowds, whether you have a highly transmissible strain or not, if you do that you're going to dampen transmissibility.

So, we do have a tool, whether we have the standard isolate or if we have a mutated isolate, the mitigation methods are all the same.

SCIUTTO: You are advising the incoming president, and in 21 days we will have a new president who will be in charge of this pandemic. President-elect Biden is speaking this afternoon about the response to the pandemic.

When -- when you look at what he has said will be his first steps when he takes office, 100 days of asking Americans to wear masks, this same goal of 100 million vaccine doses by the end of the first quarter, I just wonder, is that enough, right?

Because the fact is, many Americans aren't wearing masks, right? They've given up, the either don't trust the science or call it an issue of their constitutional rights. It's already the goal to have 100 million vaccinated, but -- but the rollout so far hasn't met goals. What does the president-elect have to do to turn this around?

FAUCI: Well, I think what he is actually doing, showing leadership from the top and talking about the importance of essentially pleading with Americans, let's do this, let's take 100 days, it's going to be more than 100 days, but what he's say is, that at least take 100 days and everybody, every single person put aside this nonsense of making masks being a political statement or now, we know it works, we know social distancing works, we know avoiding congregate setting works. For goodness sakes, let's all do it and you will see that that curve will come down and we will get better control.

There is no doubt about it, that if we do that. So, let's just do it.

SCIUTTO: Yes, put aside the nonsense, as you say. Let's hope people listen this time. Dr. Anthony Fauci, thanks so much for joining. FAUCI: Good to be with you Jim. Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting to hear from him there Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, you -- you sense the frustration too right? It's --

CAMEROTA: Oh --

SCIUTTO: -- listen to the science, because the science works.

CAMEROTA: -- very much. All right, meanwhile we want to remember some of the nearly 335,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

Fifty-five year old Robert Truevillian served the city of Chicago for two decades as a fire department paramedic. Friends say he was a man of few words who saw the best in everyone. He leaves behind a wife and four children.

Fifty-five year old grocery cashier Ramon Bustiamante kept working at his job in Torrence, California even though as a diabetic he was at higher risk. The single father to five children was not able to have them at his side in his final hours. His daughters could only thank him and express their love through a hospital window.

Mear Canny (ph) was a nurse for 40 years, most recently a home healthcare R.N. in Arlington, Texas. Her daughter says she was compassionate and kind and the best mother you could hope for, she was 65-years-old.

We'll be right back.

[07:28:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)