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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Vaccine Approved By Christmas? Trump Refuses to Concede Election; Biden Names Economic Team. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired November 30, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: That's the highest level of intelligence about the threats facing the United States and its allies.

It's a vital step, as president-elect Biden prepares to take office in less than two months, the transition process, of course, delayed by outgoing President Trump's refusal to accept that he lost.

Outgoing President Trump is continuing his baseless lies about the election, even as Chris Krebs, the former cybersecurity czar at the Department of Homeland Security, is now publicly debunking many of the Trump team's allegations.

But it is not just Krebs, official after official, Democrat, Republican, nonpartisan experts, finding themselves responding to the deranged claims made by President Trump and his team.

Here's Georgia election official Gabe Sterling, a Republican, earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA VOTING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: The ridiculous things claimed in some of these lawsuits are just that. They're insanity. It's fever dream, made up, Internet cabal -- I can't even -- however many words I can use to say how crazy some of these things are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Nonetheless, President Trump and his team continue to push forward these lies, with state and local officials doing the lion's share of standing up for the facts and the truth, and congressional Republicans essentially silent, with a handful of exceptions.

Take Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who tweeted: "President Trump simply flooding the zone with baseless conspiracies again."

Retiring Congressman Paul Mitchell of Michigan tweeting: "Oh, my God, President Trump, please, for the sake of our nation, please drop these arguments without evidence or factual basis. #stopthestupid."

Meantime, president-elect Joe Biden is moving forward with building out his administration. Today, Biden announced key economic picks for his administration, as CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the first time since winning the election, Joe Biden receiving the president's daily brief today, the one-of-a-kind collection of classified intelligence and security threats facing the U.S.

For Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris, who also received a briefing, it's the biggest milestone yet on their way to the White House. President Trump finally signed off on the move last week, despite repeatedly refusing to concede defeat.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: We're going to build an economy that leads the world.

ZELENY: It comes as Biden today continues filling out his Cabinet, surrounding himself with history-making picks, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who would be the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary, Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton economist and veteran of the Clinton and Obama administration, as the first woman of color to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, and Neera Tanden, the first woman of color and South Asian to run the Office of Management and Budget.

Biden also announcing this White House communications operation, and for the first time with women in each of the senior roles, Press Secretary Jen Psaki, communications director Kate Bedingfield, senior adviser and chief spokesperson for the vice president Symone Sanders. All are among the women leading the team.

Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, is already overseeing confirmation of Biden's nominees in the Senate, which for now is controlled by Republicans.

JEN PSAKI, BIDEN TRANSITION ADVISER: We don't need a fabricated crisis in the Senate. And I don't think that the American people are going to tolerate that if there's a refusal to move forward with qualified nominees.

ZELENY: While there is only one president at a time, sharing the document known as the PDB with Biden underscores how Trump's time in power is drawing to a close. While hardly a stranger to classified briefings, today marked the first time Biden received one in nearly four years.

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: It could have something related to a recent terrorist threat or engagements with China or -- and Russia, maybe North Korea nuclear developments.

ZELENY: He received a briefing in his home outside Wilmington, where he spent the day out of sight, recovering from a weekend foot injury that aid say he received while playing with his dog Major.

His doctor says Biden will have a walking boot for several weeks to treat the hairline fracture.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, we are expected to see president-elect Biden tomorrow here for the first time likely with that walking boot. He will be introducing members of his economic team.

Janet Yellen, of course, has received wide praise from both sides. Not all of his nominees have. Neera Tanden, for example, has taken criticism from progressives and from some Republicans, who say she will not be confirmed. That, of course, is why controlled the Senate is so important.

But, Jake, one thing is clear. Mr. Biden's presidency, he knows, will rise or fall on this economic recovery -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Jeff Zeleny in Wilmington, Delaware, thanks so much.

In Arizona today, more deranged conspiracies from Rudy Giuliani representing the president at what can only be described as a publicity stunt. You will notice that Giuliani never introduces these claims in an actual court of law, where you are not allowed to tell lies and you have to president actual evidence to back up your claims.

It was fitting, then, that, shortly after Giuliani's event, the state of Arizona certified its elections results, confirming that Joe Biden won in the state by a margin of 10,457 votes.

[16:05:09]

As Kaitlan Collins reports, President Trump remains deep in denial, even lashing out now at his former allies.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Holed up in the White House again today, President Trump had no public events on his schedule as he continued to stew about the election.

Though no legal challenge recount or audit has changed the outcome, Trump insisted, "There is no way we lost this election" and trained his anger on Republican officials once considered allies.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The governor has done nothing. He's done absolutely nothing. I'm ashamed that I endorsed him.

COLLINS: Trump's latest target is Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp, who Trump called hapless today for not using nonexistent emergency powers to overrule his -- quote -- "obstinate secretary of state."

Governor Kemp rarely pushes back on Trump, but he did in a statement today where his office said Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections, and he has no such authority.

But Trump isn't just lashing out at his own party. He's also going after the person he put in charge of securing the election, then fired for securing the election.

CHRISTOPHER KREBS, FORMER DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY: There is no foreign power that is flipping votes. There's no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election.

COLLINS: After Chris Krebs appeared on "60 Minutes" last night, Trump complained the show never asked him for comment and claimed the 2020 election was -- quote -- "the least secure ever."

His false claims about the election haven't stopped there. The president also alleged that world leaders have questioned the U.S. election, despite how many have congratulated president-elect Joe Biden.

TRUMP: You have leaders of countries that call me, say that's the most messed-up election we have ever seen.

COLLINS: The White House hasn't told reporters about a single call Trump has had with a world leader since the election.

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO): Well, the president-elect will be the president-elect when the electors vote for him.

COLLINS: While many Senate Republicans have refused to acknowledge president-elect Joe Biden's victory, the one whose committee oversees the inauguration is publicly urging Trump to attend.

BLUNT: I think there's a big role for President Trump, and I hope he embraces that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, speaking of Republicans who have virtually ignored the president's attacks on the results of the election, the Senate is back in Washington today.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ignored a question from my colleague Manu Raju on whether he considers Joe Biden to be the president-elect today. Of course, that's not something he's going to be able to ignore much longer, given, as Jeff Zeleny just laid out, Biden is picking his Cabinet nominees and they are going to have to, of course, undergo confirmations by the Senate.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins at the White House, thanks so much.

Let's discuss with our panel here.

Abby, I want to start with this incoming Biden/Harris administration, president-elect Biden facing the difficult task of building administration, trying to appeal to all factions of the Democratic Party, perhaps even bring in some Republicans. What are the challenges here for Biden?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think you just hit on one of them. It's partly about making sure that the factions within the Democratic Party are satisfied. The other element of this is just the uncertainty around the United States Senate and what that's going to look like.

It very much seems, based on where Biden is going with some of these picks, that, frankly, are people who he worked with in the Obama administration. These are people who are known quantities in Washington, generally speaking. You don't see virtually anyone on these -- on this list who is somewhat out of left field.

So it suggests that the Biden administration is preparing for either possibility, that either there will be a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate or there will continue to be a Republican majority, and they need to get some votes across the aisle.

So, I think that it's probably more so the issue with Senate confirmation, making sure that they can get votes on the Republican side, because I think Democrats still, by and large, right now are pushing privately, but publicly are kind of holding their fire on most of those picks, with a few exceptions.

One of them you saw there, Neera Tanden, who will be nominated for the Office of Management and Budget position.

TAPPER: I'm going to ask Phil about that in a second.

But, before I do add, Abby, one key position that has yet to be filled is defense secretary. Tell us some of the names under consideration.

PHILLIP: Yes, so this is one, a big one. And it looks like Joe Biden, according to sources, is considering a couple of names, all of them, I think, pretty groundbreaking in their own right.

So, Michele Flournoy, who was a top Pentagon official in the Obama administration, she's under consideration. You have Jeh Johnson, the homeland security secretary under Obama, also under consideration, and a retired Army general, Lloyd Austin, who served as the head of Central Command under the Obama administration during that time. He would need a waiver in order to take on this position.

But Jeh Johnson, retired -- lieutenant Army General Austin, they would both be the first black picks to be Homeland -- Pentagon secretary, if they were picked. And then Michele Flournoy would be the first woman if she were picked to that position as well.

[16:10:14]

TAPPER: And, Philip, let's talk about Neera Tanden, Biden's pick to leave the Office of Management and Budget.

She's been attacked by some progressives, although who seems to be shoring up support among progressives in Congress, based on some statements I have seen, but also some Republicans are really going at. The communications director for Senator John Cornyn of Texas tweeted: "Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican senators whose votes she will need, stand zero chance of being confirmed."

So am I to understand that mean tweets are now important to Republican senators?

PHILIP BUMP, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, yes, I think we can add that to the list of hypocrisies that we're going to see over the course of the next month or so.

But, yes, I mean, Neera Tanden is someone who sits in a very unusual space, I think it's safe to say in the political conversation. She is both broadly disliked by a lot of people on the left wing of the party of the progressive/liberal space for being too centrist, but she's also been very vocal in her criticism of Republicans, which really gives her a long paper trail, to the point that you just heard, about having made disparaging comments, not necessarily unfairly disparaging comments, but certainly critical comments, about Republican legislators.

And so, yes, I mean, I think that that will be a contentious pick. And I think it will also be a contentious fight simply by virtue of the fact that the Republicans are going to look for someplace to fight, right? I mean, so someone Janet Yellen, it's hard for Republicans to kick up too much dust than it is for someone like Tanden, where they have a lot of ammunition, and it gives them something to really sink their teeth into.

TAPPER: But, Phil, I mean, you just mentioned Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary nominee to be.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley, says he believes Yellen will get a favorable review, but he wants to see more information, such as her tax returns. So, tax returns are now something important for Republican senators as well.

BUMP: Right. Right.

So, part of the process of getting that gig is to actually have to submit your tax returns. So there is an element of it, which is it's mandated that she actually has to turn those over.

Obviously, though, for Grassley, for Republicans in general to point to returns as something that need to be reviewed before someone is given a senior position within the federal government, there's a level of irony there.

TAPPER: And, Abby, "The New York Times" has a report out on the links between some Biden picks and their ties to consulting and investment firms, which "The Times" says raises some tricky ethics questions.

For example, the secretary of state pick to be, Tony Blinken, he co- founded a group called WestExec Advisors. It's a major consulting firm. Is this going to be difficult for Biden to navigate in this era when it comes to ethics concerns?

PHILLIP: You know, that is, I think, one of those areas where, in the Trump era, I definitely think that there is, as you were just discussing, some of the hypocrisy in Washington.

There's going to be a little bit of that happening here, where some of these ethics concerns are probably more resonant for Democrats than they were for Republicans over the last four years. I think Biden can really deal with this early by mandating his own ethics disclosure requirements, forcing his own nominees to disclose who their clients were, how much they were paid.

These are things that they can do voluntarily to get ahead of some of these issues. And, in fact, that would be in keeping with a lot of the ethics rules that the Obama administration tried to do on certain other issues, including lobbyist regulations and other things that they tried to do to get ahead of some of these ethics problems.

But, again, I mean, I think that for Republicans to kick up dust over conflicts of interest when it comes to clients of people who are serving in the administration, I think, would be a little hypocritical, considering that they seemed to have very little trouble with that over the last four years as well.

TAPPER: All right, Abby Phillip and Philip Bump, thank you so much to both of you. Really appreciate it.

Could there really be a COVID vaccine by Christmas? A second drugmaker just applied for FDA emergency use authorization. How safe is this vaccine? When might you be able to get one? I will ask CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta next.

Plus: a CNN global exclusive you will see first here on THE LEAD, revealing documents that show what the Chinese government really knew about the first cases of coronavirus in China and that government's chaotic early response.

Stay with us.

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[16:18:49]

TAPPER: Breaking news in our health lead now.

An official for Operation Warp Speed says 100 percent of Americans who want a vaccine will be able to have gotten one by June. This is the latest bit of promising vaccine news. Moderna today is applying for emergency use authorization from the FDA for its vaccine. That pharmaceutical company claims that their vaccine is 94.1 percent effective and 100 percent effective at preventing severe COVID cases.

CVS and Walgreens say that they are getting ready to be among the first to administer vaccines. And, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, vaccines could very well be in the arms of Americans by Christmas.

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

Sanjay, good to see you. Anyone who wants to vaccine will be able to have gotten one by June,

according to Operation Warp Speed. Do you think most people will be vaccinated before them?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I do think that that you're going to sort of have this ramp up to the number of people becoming vaccinated.

What is interesting about the comments made by that official from Operation Warp Speed, people who want the vaccine. That was the caveat, right? So, if you look at the right now the percentage of people who want it, they say about 60 percent of people want it.

[16:20:03]

That would require -- I did the math on this -- some 300 million doses by June to be able to vaccinate the 60 percent of adults who want it. Now, obviously, I think, Jake, over time, as people hear the news about the vaccine, as they become more comfortable with it, the percentage of people who want it will likely go up.

So, there will probably be this surge of demand that increases over the spring and summer. And that's something Operation Warp Speed, I'm sure, is taking into consideration.

We know, Jake, the likely amounts of vaccine to be available by the end of the year. They say some 40 million doses by the end of the year. Two doses, right? So that's 20 million people. And then you can sort of look at how things progress after that, another 50 million by January, another 60 million by February and March.

And I will also point out, Jake, that that's based on these two vaccines, Pfizer, which we'd heard about, Moderna, you just mentioned. There may be others by that point as well that get this authorization.

TAPPER: Sanjay, the advisory board for the CDC, they're going to vote tomorrow on the priority list of who gets the vaccine first.

Along with front-line medical workers, who will be first in line, do you think?

GUPTA: Yes, I think it's is primarily going to be these health care workers who are primarily taking care of COVID patients, because if you if you start to lose a significant amount of health care workers in the middle of this pandemic, that obviously puts a significant strain on the system.

So, again, you do the math on this, there's about 20, 21 million health care workers who sort of fit that bill. They're likely to be first in line. And that will be sort of the first phase of this. And, again, multiply everything times two in terms of doses needed, so 40 million, roughly, doses needed for that first phase.

And then, Jake, look, I mean if you start looking at everyone else who'd be considered either essential or vulnerable because of age or preexisting medical conditions, you're starting to look at well over 200 million people. That's 400 million doses.

And that's later in the spring, probably, late spring, early summer, by the time you get to that point.

TAPPER: Where will people be able to get the vaccine? And are they going to have a choice if there are two or three or four different kinds of vaccines available?

GUPTA: I have talked to so many people about this exact issue. And it's very interesting, because, first of all, we don't have the full data yet on these vaccines. There may be some data that says, hey, look, this worked really well for elderly people in terms of inducing immune response. This worked better for younger people.

We just haven't seen that data yet. That may come out. What we know about these two vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, is, they're pretty similar vaccines in terms of how they work. So, people may not have a choice, but they may not need a choice, in that the vaccines are pretty similar.

What's interesting, Jake, is that, in terms of where the Pfizer vaccine goes, how its distributed, vs. Moderna, that may be very well just dependent on your resources in terms of cold storage, something that people have heard a lot about, but the Pfizer vaccine needs to be kept really cold. So that may be for larger cities, for example, cities that have those sorts of resources, larger institutions, whereas the Moderna vaccine, which also needs to be kept cold, but not as cold, that may be more for smaller locations, that can sort of handle that sort of vaccine.

So it may have nothing to do with the efficacy of the vaccine, just the distribution capabilities of a location.

TAPPER: So, Dr. Fauci told me a few weeks ago that it's not as though you get vaccinated, and then you can just act as though the virus is not there. People will still need to wear masks and social distance, because it's not a 100 percent effective vaccine, even though it's very high, 95 percent or 94 percent.

How soon before we can just start living our normal lives again?

GUPTA: Well, I mean, I think, if it means normal, except that you may still need to wear masks at some point if you go into large gatherings, that would probably be late summer, early fall.

A sort of complete sense of normalcy, where you're really looking at this in the rearview mirror, maybe by the end of the year. I mean, I think there's going to be a hangover effect from this for some time, Jake, where people are going to be cautious about the idea of respiratory viruses in large public settings.

And I talk to arena -- people who run large arenas, and they're thinking about this in terms of their own hygienic practices within those large public spaces. So I think we're going to feel this, much in the way that you take your shoes off when you go to the airport and things like that. I think there is going to be a sort of hangover effect of this for

some time. But I think once we start seeing the numbers come down, Jake, these awful trends that we see going up, once we start seeing them come down, and we get into a containment level, which is about one in 100,000 new infections per day, 3,500 people becoming infected a day, instead of close to 200,000 ,I think we're going to have a sense of normalcy at that point.

TAPPER: And, as you note, this vaccine news is promising, but we don't have a vaccine yet. And the surge right now is smashing records. Lawmakers around the country still refusing to implement mask mandates.

You think that's a mistake?

[16:25:01]

GUPTA: Yes, I think that there's -- this is going to be one of the great sort of, I think, mysteries of this pandemic for me, certainly.

Maybe it's easier to understand than I believe, but masks work. And the places where you have had mandates have had decreases in overall virus transmission significantly. You know, we have reported on this for a long time. There was new data that came out of Kansas. Basically, Kansas tried to put a statewide mask mandate in place. There were a certain number of counties that did it, and a certain number that didn't.

And a month later, Jake, roughly a month later, the counties that put the mandates in place decreased their overall new cases. Just flattening it would be huge. To actually decrease it was significant. The places that didn't have mask mandates, it went up.

I mean, we just see this over and over again, and we're going to need to pay attention to this data certainly over the next several months, because it really matters.

TAPPER: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, good to see you, as always.

Coming up: more than four million cases just this month. Up next: why health experts are fearing another deadly explosion of the virus is coming soon.

Stay with us.

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