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The Lead with Jake Tapper

AstraZeneca Unveils Vaccine Findings; Trump Continues Denying Election Results; Biden Announces First Cabinet Nominees. Aired 4- 4:30p ET

Aired November 23, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:10]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Erica Hill, in for Jake Tapper.

We start with our 2020 lead, and president-elect Joe Biden moving full steam ahead with his preparations to take office, just moments ago, meeting with mayors from across the country, even as President Trump remains behind closed doors and continues to block the official presidential transition.

Today, Biden also naming the first members of his Cabinet, along with a handful of national security staff, a roster of experienced players in Washington and a few history-makers as well, including the first Latino and the first immigrant nominated to serve as secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, the first woman nominated to lead the intelligence community, Avril Haines, and the first ever presidential envoy for climate, former Secretary of State John Kerry. Tony Blinken nominated as Biden's secretary of state.

And, as CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports, on his way into that event with many of the nation's mayors, Biden revealed why he announced these Cabinet picks first.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President-elect Joe Biden's Cabinet is taking shape, announcing today his intention to elevate seasoned advisers from the Obama administration into new history-making roles.

QUESTION: Why did you go with national security first?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Because it's national security.

ZELENY: Before a virtual meeting with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Biden unveiling key members of his national security team, including Alejandro Mayorkas, who would become the first Latino to run the Department of Homeland Security, the agency tasked with the nation's immigration policy.

Avril Haines, a former deputy CIA director, who would become the first woman to lead the nation's intelligence community as director of national intelligence. And John Kerry, the longtime senator and former secretary of state, to serve as an international climate czar, a new post underscoring Biden's commitment to fighting climate change.

The president-elect is wasting no time filling his team, expediting his announcements, in part, CNN has learned, because President Trump is still seeking to sabotage the outcome.

Biden making clear again today he is surrounding himself with experienced hands, many of whom he's worked with for years in the Senate and White House.

TONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE: And now, on a personal note, it gives me particular pleasure to introduce a man who has been my mentor, my partner, my friend, and the greatest public servant I know, the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

ZELENY: That's Tony Blinken, a longtime adviser, now to be nominated as secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, another longtime aide, to be named as national security adviser, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a veteran Foreign Service officer who has served in posts around the world, to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Through the announcements, Biden is seeking descend the world a message, that he intends to prioritize rebuilding America's frayed alliances.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's going to be important to recognize that the confidence that our allies had and the world had in American leadership is not going to be restored overnight.

ZELENY: Former President Barack Obama praising Biden's pick, saying they send a signal to allies of strength and stability.

OBAMA: They are going to be greatly relieved and pleased to see people like Tony. There is going to be a lingering sense that America is still divided. Some of the shenanigans that are going on right now around the election, that is making the world question how reliable and steady the U.S. may be.

ZELENY: Biden will take office in just 58 days, even though Trump's General Services Administration has declined to ascertain the outcome of the election. Today, they told congressional Democrats they would offer a briefing on the delay next week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, congressional Democrats are saying that that is unacceptable.

But, Erica, this transition move -- news is moving fast here. We have just confirmed a few moments ago that Janet Yellen will be nominated to be the Treasury secretary in this administration. We're told that a president-elect Biden has settled on Janet Yellen.

Of course, she's the longtime ahead of the Federal Reserve. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department. So, this announcement will formally be coming possibly tomorrow, likely next week, but, again, continuing this just expedited announcement of the Biden Cabinet here, and, so far, fulfilling his pledge of having a Cabinet of diversity with several firsts on that list today -- Erica.

HILL: Yes, certainly, and that last tidbit there as well.

Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much.

Braking moments ago, another legal defeat for the Trump team, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the Trump campaign's effort to block the counting of certain absentee ballots in the state, as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump stayed behind closed doors again today, as he retreats from public view, while making desperate attempts to delay the results of the election.

[16:05:07]

Thirteen of his last 20 days have included no public events. And when he has been in front of cameras, he's refused to take questions. Publicly, it may be the quietest period of his presidency, but sources say it's anything but behind the scenes.

SIDNEY POWELL, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL FLYNN: Thank you, Rudy.

COLLINS: Despite having her speak at last week's press conference, Trump's campaign is now trying to distance itself from attorney Sidney Powell, after she peddled baseless conspiracy theories about voting machines and accused Georgia';s Republican governor of crimes.

POWELL: What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more about the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China.

COLLINS: Allies called Trump this weekend and urged him to drop Powell, as he watched others criticize her on TV.

FMR. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ): The conduct of the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment.

COLLINS: The campaign issued a statement saying Powell is not a member of the legal team or Trump in his personal capacity.

But the president is still pursuing his own baseless theories and raising money while doing so. His campaign has sent 332 fund-raising e-mails since the night of the election, claiming it's for election defense, while only a small portion goes toward his legal fights, and the rest is for his new political action committee that will help him maintain influence in the GOP.

The fund-raising pitches make no mention of how Trump's campaign and its Republican allies have lost or withdrawn at least 30 cases, including when a federal judge dismissed its last major effort to delay certification of votes in Pennsylvania this weekend.

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey urged Trump to accept his loss and says he's reached out to the White House.

SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA): At some point, you exhaust those possibilities. I think the president has reached that point in Pennsylvania. He appears to have reached that point in Georgia. Michigan wasn't even close.

COLLINS: President-elect Joe Biden is moving ahead, despite Trump's effort to hinder his transition, and will announce several top national security picks tomorrow.

Trump's first Defense Secretary James Mattis is offering him some advice, helping author an article in "Foreign Policy" magazine today that urged the new administration to drop the America first motto from its national security strategy and invest in relationships with allies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: And, Erica, the Trump campaign has now suffered another legal blow, because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court just rejected this effort by the Trump campaign to block the counting of some 8,000 absentee ballots because they were missing information on that outer envelope that comes with those absentee ballots.

And a justice on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that, yes, that was a technical violation, but that it did not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvania voters.

HILL: Kaitlan Collins with the latest for us.

Kaitlan, thank you.

And joining me now to discuss, CNN's Chris Cillizza and "The Wall Street Journal"'s Sabrina Siddiqui.

Sabrina, as we look at this, there really are some history-makers in the announcement that we saw from the Biden camp today. We have got the first climate envoy, the first woman to lead the intelligence community, the first immigrant to be nominated as homeland security secretary.

Clearly, the president-elect looking to send a message here, Sabrina.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think that there are two concurrent themes with respect to the names that we're seeing from president-elect Joe Biden so far to serve in his administration.

And, one, as you note, is the history-makers, the first woman to be DNI, as well as the first Latino to be at the head of the Department of Homeland Security, now the nomination pending for Janet Yellen, who, if confirmed, would be the first female to lead the Treasury Department.

And one thing that Biden had said often on the campaign trail is that he wanted to assemble a Cabinet that reflected the nation's diversity. And so some of these individuals we see, I think, reflect that commitment that he made.

At the same time, we're also seeing some veterans of the Obama administration, people who have been by Biden's side for many years, if not decades, who are now returning to serve by his side when he takes office in January, people like Tony Blinken, of course, his choice for secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, who will be his national security adviser.

And I think that it goes back to Biden having a very trusted inner circle during the years that he has -- of experience he has cultivated in Washington, and also just this sense of restoring experience and stability to the government, which was, of course, another centerpiece of his campaign.

HILL: Chris, when you look at that experience, right, Jeff Zeleny called this the who's-who of Washington. It is about those relationships, as Sabrina pointed out.

Also, important to note, though, it's not exactly a team of rivals.

[16:10:02]

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: No, I mean, largely, these are people who have been around Joe Biden for a very long time.

Ron Klain, for example, for example, his chief of staff in the White House was his chief of staff as vice president. Tony Blinken, secretary of state nominee, was his national security adviser. I mean, he is someone who -- Joe Biden is not new to politics. He's been doing this since the early 1970s.

So you accumulate a lot of people. And, to his credit, most of those people have stayed loyal to him throughout a long career. I do think it is important to note, Erica, we're always -- every president is looking back to the one before and reacting in some way, shape or form.

That's especially true with president-elect Biden and outgoing President Trump. Just take Tony Blinken, for example, secretary of state nominee, a guy who's really -- served in the Clinton administration, served in the Obama administration, as I said, was national security adviser to Vice President Biden.

Contrast that with who Donald Trump chose as secretary of state, his first one, Rex Tillerson, now a guy of remarkable credentials, but someone who had never been in government before. He was the head of a gigantic company, in Exxon. I think that you have to look at those two, and that explains a lot of how these two men envision the presidency and who they want around them.

HILL: As we look at what is happening with the current president, Sabrina, we have not seen him in days, I mean, except to go to the golf course. He's tweeting, as we know.

More Republicans now starting to come forward, Liz Cheney, of course, a member of House leadership, Pat Toomey, who we just heard from in one of the pieces, but what about the rest of the party? When do they need to step forward and admit that this is where we're at, Joe Biden's the president-elect, time for the president to move forward?

SIDDIQUI: Well, in many ways, that time was yesterday, if not last week.

But, as you pointed out, we're starting to hear at least some Republicans come around and push for the president to accept defeat and to pave the way for a smooth transfer of power, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska another Republican who spoke out and said this process now needs to take place.

You pointed to Pat Toomey. Senator Lamar Alexander is another, Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia. So, you're starting to see a little bit of the dam breaking. But I do think that it's telling that, so far, the president has the backing of the majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill.

And what that really does is, it reinforces the hold that he has over the Republican Party, the influence that he continues to wield. And the consequence of that is twofold. One, it's that it's created this sense of doubt in the minds of at least perhaps half of the electorate about the integrity of the election, and legitimacy of the Biden presidency, even though it bears repeating time and again that there's no evidence of widespread fraud.

And, also, the other consequence is that, without this ascertainment and this delay in the transition, it is putting the incoming administration at a disadvantage, at a time when the next president, president-elect Joe Biden, will be taking office against the backdrop of a pandemic that has infected 12 million people nationwide, left more than 255,000 dead, obviously in the midst of an economic recession, and nationwide calls for racial justice.

And so there is also just enormous consequence of having this process delayed. Each day, I'm told by Biden advisers, is incredibly costly, as they try and create -- and as they try to transition into (AUDIO GAP)

HILL: Yes.

SIDDIQUI: And so that's really the consequence, I think, of the Republicans not speaking out against the president and trying to force his hand.

HILL: Right, remaining quietly.

Quickly, Chris, before we let you both go, what's remarkable, too, is, I think the way that the president is clearly trying to hold onto the party itself, which you alluded to, Sabrina.

CILLIZZA: Oh, yes.

HILL: But when we look at these e-mails, I mean, by CNN's own tally, it's what -- I believe it's 300 -- more than 330 fund-raising e-mails.

And if you look in the fine print there, 75 percent of your donation is not about helping those legal battles.

CILLIZZA: That's right.

HILL: It's essentially -- it's going to this PAC that president has set up. It's a post-presidency slush fund.

CILLIZZA: Yes.

First of all, shout-out to Betsy Klein, our colleague, who has been keeping track of how many, in 300s, as you say, fund-raising e-mails since the election by Donald Trump. This is a grift, Erica. This is an attempt to cull money from willing donors to say, we will fight this election recount battle, but they're not really.

What it is, is, like so many things, this is about Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants to retain influence. It's why he endorsed Ronna Romney McDaniel to be the RNC chairman going forward. That's not something presidents, outgoing presidents do. It's why most of the money goes to this PAC, because he wants to stay relevant. And that's why he will keep keeping his name out there for 2024 for as long as he possibly can.

I know the election just ended, but that is just the reality. I think he will continue to do that.

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: Yes, we know how these things work, though. You're right.

Chris Cillizza, Sabrina Siddiqui, appreciate it. Thank you both.

CILLIZZA: Thank you.

HILL: A third drugmaker delivering really positive vaccine news -- why this action could be the most promising of them all.

[16:15:02]

Plus, you likely are clear we're still in the middle of a pandemic. You wouldn't know it, though, if you look at pictures like these from over the weekend, packed airports, despite the CDC pleading with Americans to stay home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HILL: Welcome back.

More promising coronavirus vaccine news today. A third drugmaker, AstraZeneca, says, on average, its vaccine is 70 percent effective.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now live.

So, this is really encouraging news. The company, though, of course, isn't done with its trials yet.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. They're not done with their trials, Erica.

In fact, this is reports from trials in the U.K. and Brazil. AstraZeneca is still doing its trial here in the United States. And so this data is preliminary.

[16:20:05]

And it's really, to be frank, not as good as the data that we saw from some other companies. Let's take a look at this comparison.

So, AstraZeneca is releasing or announced today that their vaccine is 70 percent effective. Moderna's was almost 95 percent effective and Pfizer's was 95 percent effective. And I will note that Moderna and Pfizer had considerably more people in their studies.

And scientists always feel better when they have more people, because it's more data. You feel better about the results. So, while AstraZeneca's vaccine is looking good, there are still a lot of questions about their data. And it's not the final chapter for this study -- Erica.

HILL: OK, so encouraging, but, as we always point out, we do need a little more information.

Meantime, there's this CDC advisory committee that's meeting today to talk about the distribution of any FDA-approved COVID vaccine. So, in reality, when can people expect to get vaccinated, the average person?

COHEN: So, we don't know for sure. But there have been some comments made by Dr. Anthony Fauci at the NIH and also Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who's with Operation Warp Speed.

So, let's go over what they have said. It's a forecast. And like a weather forecast, this could be wrong, but this is the framework that they are putting out there. This is sort of their outlook.

And so what Dr. Fauci says is that, towards the latter half of December, he expects that we will start vaccinating high-risk individuals. We're talking about essential workers, like police officers, health care workers, the elderly, people with underlying medical conditions.

Then he said, we won't start vaccinating the rest of the country until the end of April. We won't start with that, with everybody else, until the end of April. And so Dr. Slaoui says that he thinks that, by May, we will have immunized 70 percent of the U.S. population.

If that's true, that really is remarkable. To come up with a vaccine in less than a year and to vaccinate 70 percent of the population in what would be about six months would really be amazing. It may not happen that fast. It may take a few more months, but, still, this really is and will be an incredible achievement.

HILL: Yes, it certainly is.

So, that same CDC committee, it says that today Americans should really prepare for the possibility that, after you get vaccinated, you may not feel that great, maybe you will feel a little bit unwell. What are you hearing about that? Is this similar guidance to what we hear after we get the flu vaccine?

COHEN: You do hear that when you get the flu vaccine, but, actually, there's some data that showing that this one may be even worse.

There were -- there was a considerable number of people who took the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine who felt, I'm going to use a technical word here, Erica, yicky afterwards.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: They had headaches. They had a low-grade fever. As a mom, I think you will appreciate that word.

HILL: Yes, I do.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: They had headaches, they had fevers, they had body aches, and I'm sure your children have felt this way on occasion.

And it's -- that is just something I think that people are going to have to accept. Not everyone felt this way. But some people did feel this way. And the trick here is that these are two-dose vaccines. You give -- you get one and then, about a month later, you get a second one.

There's a serious question about whether people are going to show up for the second one if they didn't feel so great after the first one. What people will have to keep in mind is, look, at the end of this, I have a 90 percent 95 percent chance of being immune to COVID. It is worth feeling a little bit yick for a couple of days.

HILL: I will happily take a little yicky if it brings me that vaccine.

Elizabeth, great to see you. Thank you.

Three million travelers boarding planes over the weekend, this as coronavirus records continue to be shattered nearly every day -- why this could be a Thanksgiving recipe for disaster.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:28:21]

HILL: In our health lead: A Thanksgiving travel spike is coming at the most dangerous time in this pandemic.

The TSA reporting more than three million people passed through airport security over the weekend. During that same time period, more than half-a-million new COVID cases were reported in the U.S.

And, as Athena Jones reports, Americans are traveling despite the CDC asking them to stay home this Thanksgiving.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): November, the worst month of the pandemic so far, Sunday marking the 20th day in a row with more than 100,000 new COVID-19 infections reported, adding more than three million new cases in just over three weeks, a quarter of the total.

Hospitalizations nationwide breaking records for 13 straight days. Illinois one of 19 states setting records over the weekend. In many places, lines to get tested before Thanksgiving stretched for blocks.

DR. JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: I want the American people to know that we are at a dire point in our fight with this virus by any measure, cases, positivity, hospitalizations, deaths. I'm asking Americans, I'm begging you, hold on just a little bit longer. Keep Thanksgiving and the celebrations small and smart this year.

JONES: With the holiday just days away, clear indications Americans are not heeding the CDC's wanting to stay home to stop the spread, setting new records for pandemic air travel, with more than a million people flying on Sunday alone, this even after the CDC said more than 50 percent of new infections have come from people who didn't know they had the virus.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: One of the spots, if you want to call them, where you have a risk is seemingly innocent family-friends get-together indoors.

JONES: Despite the warning signs, Kentucky's attorney general is joining a federal lawsuit to stop the state's Democratic governor from closing schools to limit the virus' spread.

[16:30:00]