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Record 3 Million-Plus Early Votes Cast in Georgia Senate Runoffs; Coronavirus Hammers California As Hospitalizations Hit New Record. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 05, 2021 - 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: So voters are lined up across Georgia this morning, where two runoff elections will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. The Democrats need to win both races to get control. So, why are we here today in January?

Well, there were two Senate races in November, David Perdue against Jon Ossoff, and there was a special election to fill the seat held by Kelly Loeffler, Raphael Warnock and Loeffler, the two leading candidates there. By Georgia law, if neither candidate gets 50 percent in the initial election, there is a runoff. David Perdue got close, but didn't quite get there, which is why we have these runoff today.

And what I want to focus on is really this race because you can see what the Democrats need to do in order to win. Jon Ossoff trailed David Perdue by 88,000 votes. That's not insignificant. That's a fair amount. What does he need to do to make up that margin? He needs to be more like Joe Biden. Get Joe Biden's numbers. Look at what Jon Ossoff got, 2.3 million votes.

Joe Biden, 100,000 votes more. So, how does Jon Ossoff, how do the Democrats make up that margin? They do it in the key Democratic strongholds. Fulton County, that's where Atlanta is. You can see Joe Biden got 380,000 votes, Jon Ossoff, 363,000. He runs 17,000 votes behind Joe Biden. And it's a similar story in the other Democratic strongholds, Gwinnett County, Jon Ossoff, 233,000 votes.

[07:35:00]

Joe Biden, 241. Only 8,000 votes, but you keep adding these up, and all these key counties, DeKalb County is another example, Biden, 308,000, Jon Ossoff at 298, 10,000 here, 10,000 there, that's what Ossoff and then Warnock need to do in order to prevail. Now, what do the Republicans need to do? They need to clean up in these rural counties.

That's where Donald Trump runs strong, and that's where they ran strong in November as well. And that's where Donald Trump went yesterday. Whitfield County is the county that Trump visited. You can see David Perdue got nearly 70 percent of the vote, a 15,000-vote margin. Donald Trump, by the way, with a similar margin there.

In all of these rural counties, if they build up these margins and there are 159 counties in Georgia, that's how the Republicans can pull this off. Now, there is one crucial thing I need to warn you all about tonight. Tonight isn't just going to be tonight. This will take some time to count the vote. How do we know that? Well, let's look back at what happened in November, shall we?

This is at 8:00 p.m. on November 3rd, election night. Donald Trump led by 7,000 votes, fast forward, this is midnight, Tuesday into Wednesday, Trump was up by 370,000 votes, but then what started happening, they started counting the mail-in absentee balloting. Joe Biden starts to close the gap, 12:00 a.m., November 5th, this is Thursday morning. Trump is only ahead by 31,000 votes.

By November 6th, is down to 1,000 votes. Finally, Joe Biden leaps ahead at 4:47 a.m. Friday morning. So it took three days, three and a half days for Biden to ultimately take the lead. They may count faster this time because they've started scanning the ballots earlier. But everyone should brace themselves for quite a long time. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, thank you very much for setting all of that up, John. Joining us now, Patricia Murphy, she's a politics reporter for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" and Lisa Rayam; she's the host of "NPR's" morning edition on "WABE" in Atlanta and was a moderator of the Loeffler-Warnock debate last month. You two are the perfect people to tell us what's happening on the ground.

So, OK, Patricia, let me start with you. Georgians are energized. Already, 3 million Georgians have voted. That shatters all sorts of early-voting records, it breaks even runoff records in the past, counting, you know, all totaled. What do we know about those 3 million votes? Do we know which way they lean or who's been voting?

PATRICIA MURPHY, POLITICS REPORTER, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: We know where they've been voting. We can tell you that in the Democratic areas of the state, especially in metro Atlanta and the other metro areas around the state. The Democrats are almost where they were at this point before election day in November.

So, they've been able to keep their numbers just about 4 percent of a drop-off in a runoff, which is an incredibly good turnout for them in Republican areas that John was talking about, those rural areas like Whitfield County, the Republican areas are down off 11 percent or 12 percent of where they were going into election day in November.

So, we know that Republicans need to well outperform their performance on election day in terms of the Democrats, in order to win again. It has to be said that David Perdue won the most states of anybody -- most votes of anybody here in the state. He goes in with an advantage, but because of Donald Trump's continuous hounding of the state and its voters and its electorate, this vote is still about Donald Trump and not about Joe Biden, which is what many Republicans wish it were about right now.

CAMEROTA: But Lisa, I do want to ask about David Perdue. Because as John just pointed out, he won, he beat Jon Ossoff by 88,000 votes on election day in November. So, has something so fundamentally changed on the ground in Georgia that Jon Ossoff can turn that around today?

LISA RAYAM, HOST, NPR'S MORNING EDITION ON WABE: Well, you know, early voting told a really magnificent story there. Three million votes cast and they all came from heavily Democratic areas. So, the surge is expected to continue today. Enter in the Stacey Abrams factor. Her fair fight in New Georgia Project, registering thousands and thousands of voters, just ahead of this runoff election.

So, it's going to be really unique to see just how they play. They are called the disenfranchised voters. Those ones that they had to court and say, you have a voice in this election, and we really need you to turn out. The majority, we think voted early, but they probably -- a large faction of those voters will probably turn up at the polls today.

[07:40:00]

CAMEROTA: That is really interesting. So, Patricia, you were at the campaign stops for both Joe Biden and Kelly Loeffler yesterday, and I'm just wondering, how are Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the Republicans on the ground in Georgia, how are they threading the needle, if they are, between President Trump telling Georgians that all of this is rigged and them, the candidates, having to turn out the vote?

MURPHY: David Perdue is telling people, hey, I agree with you. I didn't like the way the November election turned out either. In fact, I have my own doubts about it. So he and Senator Loeffler are both saying, we don't know exactly how this election really went in November, but use that energy -- if you're mad, Republican voters, use that energy on January 5th and come out and vote for us. If you don't vote, you will lose.

At least, if you vote in a rigged election, you've given it your best shot. It's a really difficult situation that the president has created for these two Republican senators. Kelly Loeffler's final argument, her closing argument last night at that rally in Dalton is that she's going to join the effort to challenge the electoral college and possibly the electoral college voters here in Georgia.

So, it's a very difficult thing to ask those voters to vote, not believe in the elections in Georgia, and to participate in them. And I have not found one Republican voter at these events for Loeffler and Perdue who believes that Joe Biden won, and many do not believe that he will be inaugurated on January 20th.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh -- well, we will see how today plays out. Lisa Rayam, Patricia Murphy, thank you both for giving us the view from the ground there.

RAYAM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Republicans have argued that a GOP-led Senate would provide a check on Democrats and the new Biden administration. Is that really the case? John Avlon has an interesting reality check, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: The two Senate runoffs in Georgia will determine whether President-elect Biden will assume the office of president with a divided government or majority control of both the house and the Senate. This matters. John Avlon with a reality check.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure does. Because the stakes don't get much higher than today's Senate runoffs in Georgia. And one argument you might have heard argues that voting for Republicans would provide a check and balance on the Democrats.

Now, it's based on the idea that divided government, when one party controls the presidency and the other controls part of Congress, will force the two parties to work together. This is comforting and quaint, and unfortunately, entirely out of touch with political reality today. Because in our hyper-partisan era, divided government means dysfunctional government. It means reflexive obstruction and demonization of even modest differences.

Just take a look at some Republicans' desperate attempts to deny Joe Biden's lawful election, and you'll get a glimpse of coming attractions. Now, it wasn't always this way. In the middle of the 20th century, America was able to get big things done with divided government. From the Marshall Plan under Truman to the Interstate highways under Eisenhower.

In large part, that's because there were still liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. And so governing coalitions could get cobbled together no matter which party was in power. Now, this wasn't a bipartisan era(ph). There were always hard-fought elections. Politics ain't bean bag.

But after the votes were counted, it was time for governing. Lyndon Johnson passed landmark civil rights with the help of Republican senators like Everett Dirksen, and most likes lived accomplishments from the Reagan era occurred when Democrat Tip O'Neill was speaker of the house. But things have changed. The parties have become more ideologically divided, and data shows that congressional Republicans have gotten increasingly more extreme than Democrats.

A phenomenon known as asymmetric polarization. During the Obama era, Congress kept getting more polarized. When tea party Republicans helped take control of the house in 2010, things really ground to a halt with fewer laws passed than any time in the modern era.

And by the end of the Obama presidency, he had had more nominees blocked than all the presidents up to that point in our history. Now, there's another myth about divided government that doesn't hold water. The idea that the stock market does better when the parties split power.

It turns out it's not true. And even with a 50-50 Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tie, there are enough red and purple state Democrats who have made it very clear that they will not go along with the most ambitious progressive wish lists. The irony of this is that President-elect Biden took a lot of grief from the left by saying he would work with Republicans. And whatever the outcome of the Georgia Senate race, he'll have to do just that. The margins are just too tight to ignore senators on the center-right.

The dirty secret in our politics, though, is that bipartisan support is still the best way to pass legislation. We even saw it during the Trump era, from criminal justice reform to the CARES Act to the renegotiation of NAFTA. The question is whether President Biden will face reflexive opposition from a Republican Senate, at a time when we face crisis that require reasoning together in good faith. Because that's what's been missing from the government over the past decade. And that's your reality check.

BERMAN: Yes, God forbid, people work together. John, that was terrific. Thanks so much. So, Dodgers Stadium transformed into a mass coronavirus testing site. The dire warnings from L.A. -- from Los Angeles as hospitals reach their maximum, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

CAMEROTA: This morning, California is in the thick of it. They're hitting a new record for COVID hospitalizations. Twenty two thousand people in Los Angeles County, one in five residents who have been tested are now testing positive. Health officials are calling this situation, quote, "a human disaster". CNN's Stephanie Elam is live in Los Angeles with more. So, what's happening on the ground there, Stephanie?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's awful, Alisyn. When you talk to the health professionals who are on the front lines dealing with this, this is not a joke. Many of the hospitals are being inundated to the point where patients have to wait hours before they can even get inside the hospital here. Just to paint a picture of just how bad it is in Los Angeles County, take a listen to Los Angeles County supervisor Hilda Solis put into perspective how bad the numbers are right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILDA SOLIS, SUPERVISOR, L.A. COUNTY: It took ten months to hit 400,000 cases, but we have reached another 400,000 within the last month alone. That is a human disaster and one that was avoidable. The situation is already beyond our imagination, but it could become beyond comprehension if the health restrictions in place are not fully obeyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: Now, what we also know is that one person every 15 minutes is dying of the coronavirus here in Los Angeles County according to Dr. Barbara Ferreira who has been updating us all pandemic long. They're also saying that at this rate, this system could really collapse because it's just so inundated. One nurse I spoke to said that the nurses are working eight to one with patients right now.

That just gives you an idea of how many people are there, so much so that right now, ambulances are being told to not bring people who do not have a chance of survival, a strong chance of survival to the hospital. That is how bad it is. I've also talked to an emergency room doctor who told me that it's a fight for oxygen almost because some of these patients could be released to go home if they had oxygen to take with them, but there's just not enough supplies.

[07:55:00]

Most importantly, the canisters that they could take with them, there's just not enough of them and the ambulances can't leave them because they need them for the next call that they're going to make. This is a huge problem that Governor Newsom says is a surge on top of a surge, and that he's assigned a taskforce to deal with this, and also looking to send more people down here.

All in all, there's about 1,300 federal and state employees who are here, who are working to try to ease some of this compression that we're seeing, transferring parts of hospitals into places that normally won't see patients, but now will. All of this happening here in Los Angeles County in particular, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Stephanie, that just explains the vicious cycle there perfectly. That patients could be released from the hospital, freeing up some beds, but there is not enough oxygen tanks to send them home for them to free up those beds. So, thank you for explaining all of that. We'll dive into it now because joining us now is Dr. Jeffrey Smith; he is the Chief Operating Officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. And so, doctor, just tell us, I mean, what is the situation in the hospitals? What -- since they're so overcrowded, what does that mean?

JEFFREY SMITH, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: Well, we're all working very hard to remain available to our patients, both those with COVID and those -- we have other urgent medical conditions.

So, we have opened additional clinical areas by converting recovery rooms into ICU beds to almost double our ICU capacity. We have brought in additional nursing staff from around the country to help out. In addition to that, our staff are working additional hours and shifts. We really want to be able to provide the best care possible in this very challenging time.

CAMEROTA: Doctor, can you explain what that directive means, not to bring patients to the hospital who are in the most severe distress? Aren't those the people who need to be in the hospital?

SMITH: Well, this order that was issued by the County Emergency Medical Services really is very specific to patients who have suffered from a cardiac arrest and are unable to be revived in the field. Those patients have a very low rate of survival, even if they are transported to the hospital, and so, at this time, it is deemed to likely be futile.

CAMEROTA: OK, and what about when an ambulance arrives at a hospital and there are no beds, where there is no room. What happens?

SMITH: Well, the Emergency Medical Services are working very hard to divert ambulances or send them to hospitals that do have potential capacity to receive those patients. There are situations where patients are made to wait in ambulances under the care of the paramedics. We want to make sure that time is as short as possible so that they can receive the necessary care.

CAMEROTA: At the moment, how long are they waiting in those ambulances?

SMITH: It can really vary from hospital to hospital and from situation to situation. I mean, really from day-to-day and hour-to- hour, there's nothing constant. Things change very quickly. There are parts of our city where ambulances are waiting for hours in order to off-board patients. In those places, the county is working with those hospitals to actually set up tents to receive those patients and get them off the ambulances, so the ambulances can be returned to service.

CAMEROTA: And, doctor, what about what Stephanie just reported about the oxygen, that there's not enough oxygen to go around, and there's not even enough oxygen to send people home who have otherwise gotten well enough to go home, but still need oxygen? What are you doing about that?

SMITH: That is a very difficult challenge. So, we are working with the private companies who supply our oxygen tanks to us, and working hard to deploy more. We are working with state and local county officials to try to access some additional resources, because it really is a problem and just delays the discharge of patients so that we might have more openings to accept new ones.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Dr. Jeffrey Smith, we know you have your hands full. Thank you very much for explaining everything that's happening in southern California to us.

SMITH: Thank you. Take care.

CAMEROTA: You, too. And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So much hinges on the results of this election.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT: One state can chart the course for the next generation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican senators got a presidential boost before the polls opened.

RAPHAEL WARNOCK, GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE: He is being aided and abetted by two United States senators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nationwide, record numbers in the hospital, 100,000-plus for 34 days straight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of our hospitals are feeling these impacts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone, welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world, this is NEW DAY, and it is decision day in Georgia. Two high stakes runoff races will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. Polls have been opened for an hour now and Democrats must win both seats to effectively win a Senate majority. President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden both campaigning in Georgia last night. Biden stressing that the future of his agenda hinges on what happens today.