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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is Interviewed about the Inauguration, Impeachment Trial; Fears Variant May Reduce Vaccine Effectiveness; Biden and Harris Honor Pandemic Victims. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 19, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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


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[08:32:23]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: In just hours, President-elect Joe Biden heads to Washington, D.C., where he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be, of course, sworn in tomorrow.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell. He will attend the inauguration. He is also one of the House impeachment managers.

Congressman, great to see you.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Good morning.

CAMEROTA: You're in Washington, D.C., right now. Can you just tell us what the nation's capital looks and feels like this morning?

SWALWELL: Not the celebration that we would like to see for any president. You know, I went to President Trump's inauguration in 2016. I took friends of mine from my district who supported the president as my guests. We had, you know, disagreement about it, but we both went and watched the transition of power.

You know, today, there are thousands of guardsmen in the street. There is a wide perimeter around the Capitol. You need to be credentialed to even get close to the Capitol. And it's really a result of, obviously, this horrible pandemic but also a president who incited an attack on the Capitol and for the first time in our country's history we will not be able to say we've had a peaceful transition of power.

CAMEROTA: And so how does it work with you being able to be there? I mean how many people will be there? Where will you be sitting? How will they ensure your safety?

SWALWELL: You know, I feel safe. And I'm grateful to law enforcement and military who are ensuring that.

I was going to bring my wife, but we had a conversation I know a lot of my colleagues have had, which is, you know, we've got a three-year- old and a two-year-old and because of what happened just a couple of weeks ago, we both don't want to be at the Capitol at the same time. So I'm going to bring someone I grew up with in my hometown as my guest.

But you get one guest and -- you know, but still important to show ourselves and the world that we can witness a peaceful inauguration.

CAMEROTA: So not only will you be there, not only are you an impeachment manager, you also ran for president. I mean you were a presidential candidate. And I'm just wondering if you ever let your mind go there and think, what if I'd won? I have an uncontrolled pandemic. I have a devastating economic crisis that I would have to be dealing with. All of this civil unrest. All of this surge of extremism, you know, white nationalist extremism. Do you ever think what -- how Biden will tackle that and what that would mean for the incoming president?

SWALWELL: Yes, I do. And I -- you know, I ran to make a generational case. And before the pandemic hit, I would hear from voters, you know, in Iowa and New Hampshire, they'd say, look, I love that you're running, but we just don't want to risk rolling the dice, you know, on a younger candidate.

[08:35:02]

And that bore out during the race when the most seasoned candidates were the ones that lasted until the end.

And I think the voters got it right. They picked Joe Biden as someone who will be able to draw on his experience, draw on a history of bipartisanship in the Senate and someone who's worked in a recession before, helping the Obama team, and also with his response to the Ebola crisis.

So, you know, we are fortunate that such an experienced leader is taking office. And the biggest priority has to be to crush this virus, get our kids back into their schools and open up this economy.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's talk about the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump that looms. Is that going to start next week?

SWALWELL: Hope so. You know, that's a decision for the speaker. The team is meeting regularly and we'll be ready.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, I mean, but have you gotten any marching orders that it will start next week and are you getting ready for that and what does that look like?

SWALWELL: Oh, we'll be ready. And I just want to say, you know, the case -- it's no secret, the president, you know, told a big lie, radicalized his supporters, incited terrorists to attack the Capitol. And when he did -- when that happened, he did nothing to stop them. And so we're ready. The Senate's not in session until, I believe, a little bit later today. So, you know, we're ready to proceed.

CAMEROTA: And just tell our viewers what that will look like. Will you call witnesses? Will you use videotape? What -- how are you going to make your case? SWALWELL: You know, when I was a prosecutor, I would never preview to

the public what I would do in a courtroom. And our team has agreed that, you know, we're not going to do that either.

But, again, the facts here are no secret. And unlike most cases, the jurors here are actually victims. They ran for their lives, too. They ran out of that chamber and they saw, just as all of us did, those terrorists stormed their chamber, ransacked their desks and just desecrated a sacred symbol of democracy.

CAMEROTA: I mean, as we've just discussed, Joe Biden will have so much on his plate the first 100 days. So how long do you think that this trial would last?

SWALWELL: You know, again I -- not sure. And that's really a decision for the Senate because they will vote, you know, to set the trial rules. But we think for reasons of accountability, for reasons of deterrence, and for reasons of disqualifying this man who despises public safety and democracy, we have to make our case.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you very much for laying everything out for us and what we expect to see tomorrow.

SWALWELL: My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: We'll be watching.

SWALWELL: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK, we could learn today whether the dangerous new coronavirus variants are resistant to vaccines or if this vaccine will work on them. CNN has an exclusive look inside the lab that is doing this research, next.

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[08:41:19]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So just hours from now we could learn whether the coronavirus vaccines that people are being given work against the new, more contagious variants of the virus that are threatening so many parts of the world.

CNN's David McKenzie has an exclusive look inside the lab that's doing this crucial research.

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DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A new year, a new level of sadness, a new level of fatigue.

SALIM KAZI, CHAIRMAN, ISLAMIC BURIAL COUNCIL: It's a time that we never thought we'd ever experience in our life. And it's here. It's a reality.

MCKENZIE: A second wave of COVID-19 is devastating South Africa. Salim Kazi's organization was once averaging two COVID-19 funerals per day. Now it's 12, sometimes 14.

KAZI: People have to take lessons from this. It's -- I don't know, God is testing everybody.

MCKENZIE: A country that defied the odds in fighting against COVID-19 most of last year finds itself being tested like never before. By what was discovered in this very lab, a troubling new variant of the virus that is much more contagious than the original strain.

For Tulio de Oliveira, the first clue were the panicked calls from the doctors whose hospitals were overrun. Using samples from newly infected COVID patients across South Africa, it was his team's sequencing that revealed the variant's exact mutations.

ALEX SIGAL, AFRICAN HEALTH RESEARCH INSTITUTE: So we can actually see what's going on. These cells are actually quite happy and they grow and divide.

MCKENZIE: COVID-19 targets those cells.

SIGAL: The same thing as if you would actually mud (ph) someone, I think.

MCKENZIE: The South African variant has three mutations at key sites that the virus uses to bind to human receptors, meaning it targets those sells more efficiently.

SIGAL: So it has a close distance. It has to get in. And it has to get out before any cell dies because the virus has no life of its own.

MCKENZIE: Thanks to Oliveira sounding the alarm, British scientists discovered a separate variant, sharing one of the same key mutations.

TULIO DE OLIVEIRA, DIRECTOR, KRISP, NELSON MANDELA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: What's not normal is when one variant dominated across a very large geographic region and that's associated with the first increase of cases. That's exactly what we saw in South Africa and the U.K.

MCKENZIE (on camera): This is a level three biosafety lab because (INAUDIBLE) is growing live versions of this troubling new COVID-19 variant discovered here in South Africa. The work that he's doing and the team is doing is critical to understanding where this pandemic goes next.

MCKENZIE (voice over): The team's final results expected later today will help answer whether COVID-19 vaccines will hold up against the variant and its three mutations. Preliminary results suggest that antibodies from the first wave of infections are less effective against the new variant.

SIGAL: As somebody with a -- you know, with a family and parents, I was very concerned. But, for us, this is our job, right? We're here only for one thing, and that's to do the research.

MCKENZIE: Research done at a record pace because the consequence of not knowing is all too clear and the costs of the pandemic already too high.

David McKenzie, CNN, Durban, South Africa.

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BERMAN: Our thanks to David for that.

So, President-elect Joe Biden's first inaugural event in Washington just hours from now. It will honor Americans lost to coronavirus. We have new details about the historic next 28 hours, next.

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[08:49:13]

CAMEROTA: President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will honor the nearly 400,000 Americans that have died from coronavirus at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. More than 53,000 deaths just this month alone.

Joining us now, CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, it's so remarkable to have a leader acknowledge the huge devastation that this country has felt in terms of the number of deaths.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No question about it. You know, I -- I was doing some -- talking to some folks even over the weekend. This idea that, you know, throughout this pandemic there really hasn't been what they've referred to as the center of grief. I mean so much of the grieving that has taken place has taken place, you know, behind closed doors.

[08:50:03]

Behind closed home doors, funeral home doors, hospital doors, whatever it may be. We don't -- we don't see it. We don't feel it. And that makes a big difference sometimes in terms of how we respond to it. I mean there's many people who still think that this is -- you know, we're looking at this in the rear-view mirror. And, obviously, we're not. I mean these numbers are as bad as they've ever been and there's so much news going on in the world because we don't have that center of grief, maybe we don't pay as close attention to it. This reminds people. I mean it's tough. It's tough news to hear. I'm sure what the president-elect is going to be saying today. But it's really important and I think a stark reminder of what we still need to do over the next several weeks and months.

BERMAN: You look at those numbers on our screen, 399,008 deaths from coronavirus so far. We will cross the 400,000 mark today, the final full day of Donald Trump's presidency. And there are some people who will look at that and say that is in some ways an appropriate milestone given how this administration has handled it.

In terms of what the next administration will have to handle, Sanjay, we heard from Professor Michael Osterholm before who's very concerned about the new variants that we're seeing in the United States. We had a graphic in your lead-in which talks about how much more contagious some of these variants will be. And others are describing a race now between getting the vaccines in people's arms and these variants, which are going to spread more quickly.

GUPTA: Yes, I -- there's two really important points. This -- these numbers you're looking at on the screen there, you know, I think it's really important, when we sort of look at the models here, and this is going to be something we need to pay attention to, these variants we do need to pay attention to. If it were just 50 percent more deadly, what would that mean after a month? It would mean that you'd have roughly 1.5 times more deaths. But the contagiousness is a real concern, OK? If you look at this after six generations, we typically say a generation is five days. So six generations would be a month. Fifty percent more contagious could potentially lead to 11.5 times more deaths. Why? Because it's more transmissible, spreading to more vulnerable populations, even very casual sort of interactions with people are much more likely to lead to infections. So you get a significant problem.

As Michael Osterholm was talking about, we have about 30 percent% of the country right now that's probably been exposed to this. Again, we don't even know because testing is still a problem in this country. But say if it's 30 percent, that means the vast majority of people who again may be looking at this in the rearview mirror are still at risk. And that's why you have to really focus on these mitigation measures. The same basic things we've been talking about, you know, the mask wearing, the distancing, all that sorts of stuff.

I think what Osterholm was also sort of saying, without coming right out and saying it was, look what they had to do in the U.K., look what they've had to do in Ireland. This idea that nobody wants to talk about, of potentially targeted lockdowns to really just break the cycle of transmission, it may be necessary. I mean, you know, nobody wants to say this, and I understand that. The incoming task force doesn't want to say it. Obviously, this current administration we have not done that. But, you know, the virus may be dictating some of these terms. If you're getting really, really significant spread and potentially, you know, 11 times more deaths as a result of that, that's obviously a gigantic problem and there are ways that we know to basically stop that.

CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about that, Sanjay, because Michael Osterholm, I'll be honest, scared me because I've had thought for the past couple of days, oh, good, there's promising signs, the positivity rate is coming down. Oh, good, hospitalizations are ticking down a little bit. And so the idea that this is about to explode, I don't want to go home and tell my kids that.

GUPTA: No, I -- look, I don't either, Alisyn. I mean it's tough to give this sort of news. And I feel like we've had to do it for the last year. And, you know, nobody wants to hear it. But I think the truth is important here. It's important for a couple of reasons, because it's the truth, but also because it doesn't mean we're helpless in the face of this. The same exact things that have -- that we know work, that have worked in other countries, that have reduced their viral transmission to hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands can work here. We just -- and even if it was masks and basically limiting maximum occupancy in areas that we know are the biggest source of viral transmission, that can make a big difference.

The vaccines will help. The vaccines may need to be tailored now as these variants become more and more dominant. We'll see. They may become more like the flu shot. But it takes a while for the vaccines to work. As we've said for so many months now, great big light hopefully at the end of this tunnel, but it's going to take a while.

The question really is, what price are we willing to pay in the interim at this point?

[08:55:01]

Are we -- you know, the number of people who are likely to get infected is going to go up, I think. We have seen maybe a little bit of downward trend. I want to see if that actually continues.

We know this U.K. variant because it is more transmissible will become the dominant variant in this country. That's the way it works. You have basically a doubling every week. So if it's 5 percent now, it will be 10 percent next week, 20 percent the week after. You get the idea. That's what happens. We've got to make sure the vaccines work against this and we've got to protect people from becoming infected for the next several months. Next several weeks, at least.

The weather will get warmer. The vaccines will kick in. That will all help. But, again, what price are we willing to pay over the next several weeks and months?

BERMAN: One thing is clear, we will have a change in posture in terms of leadership 27 hours from now or so, 28 hours from now, and we will see very quickly how much of a difference that makes.

GUPTA: Yes.

BERMAN: Sanjay, thanks so much for being with us this morning. Look forward to talking to you again very soon.

GUPTA: You got it.

CAMEROTA: You were right the first time, it's basically 27 hours until President-elect Biden is sworn in.

BERMAN: I got bad at the math. I was better earlier in the morning. Now I'm not so sure if it's 27 or 28.

CAMEROTA: Just wait until tomorrow morning because the Berman and I will be here extra early tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. Eastern.

BERMAN: Yes, that number I can -- I can tell. I can tell what that number means.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Yes. So his math is going to be all wrong.

We'll see you then.

And CNN's coverage continues, next.

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