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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Who Will Trump Pardon? Trump Pushes For Special Counsels; Trump Science Adviser Pushed Herd Immunity. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired December 16, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:22]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We begin this hour with the health lead.

Today, there is more promising news in the fight against coronavirus. Experts believe a second vaccine will be authorized this week and in Americans arms as soon as Monday. This would be a monumental moment in the pandemic.

But, of course, the fight is not over. The state of New York says about 4,000 people have received the first dose so far. But to put that in perspective, New York reported more than 10,000 new cases just yesterday.

Assistant Health Secretary Brett Giroir told CNN today that, even with the first vaccine doses rolling out, Americans must continue to take this pandemic seriously.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Tens of thousands of Americans can either live or die, depending on what we do to protect them until the vaccine gets widespread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: New e-mails reported by Politico today show a Trump administration official back in July pushing the widely discredited theory of herd immunity, the idea of purposefully infecting people.

Wrote the then science adviser -- quote -- "Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions, et cetera, have zero too little risk. So we use them to develop herd. We want them infected and recovered with antibodies."

"We want them infected." Experts say that would be a disastrous course, though it might explain the refusal of the White House to do more to stop the spread. And, as CNN's Sara Murray reports for us now, right now, more

hospitals across the U.S. are once again warning that they are running out of space.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the pandemic refuses to relent across the country, optimism is growing a second coronavirus vaccine could soon be on the way, the Food and Drug Administration's independent advisory committee meeting tomorrow to assess Moderna's vaccine.

GIROIR: We're looking at about a 95 percent efficacy on this vaccine, 100 percent at preventing severe illness.

MURRAY: If the FDA authorizes Moderna's vaccine, nearly six million doses could begin shipping out soon after.

Because Moderna's vaccine doesn't require the same ultra-cold storage as Pfizer's, it's slated for broader delivery to more than 3,000 sites nationwide, including more rural areas and long-term care facilities.

But it will still be months before the vaccine is available to most of the public.

GIROIR: Right now, we're really immunizing for impact. And what I mean by that is, even though we're immunizing only a few million people to start, our most vulnerable.

MURRAY: Officials say they don't yet know how many people have been vaccinated nationwide.

ALEX AZAR, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: I can't tell you at this precise moment how many have gotten it. We're just, of course, two days into the vaccination program.

MURRAY: Today, the first nursing homes are receiving the Pfizer vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's let her rip.

MURRAY: All this while the outbreak worsens. The U.S. reported more than 3,000 deaths Tuesday, the third highest death toll since the pandemic began.

In another grim record, the U.S. notched nearly 113,000 hospitalizations. In New York, hospitals are going into crisis management mode, as officials warn shutdowns could be ahead.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Is a close-down possible in January? Yes.

MURRAY: California activated its mass fatality plan, purchasing 5,000 additional body bags and deploying refrigerated storage units to serve as makeshift morgues.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): This is a deadly disease. We are not at the finish line yet.

MURRAY: As officials continue to plead with Americans to lay low--

GIROIR: Avoid crowded spaces. Whether that's a bar or a house party of 100 people, you can't do it. This is a setup for spread.

MURRAY: -- they're also warning, a vaccine will only bring life back to normal if roughly 70 percent of the population takes it.

Today, Health and Human Services is unveiling its first radio ads touting the vaccines.

NARRATOR: Vaccines won't make COVID go away overnight, but they give us a real chance to finally overcome it.

MURRAY: But many Americans are still hesitant.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: The challenge is the acceptance on the part of various elements in our society. Minority populations, understandably, have somewhat of a skepticism.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, obviously, the Trump administration wants to get as much of the vaccine out there as possible. They're currently in negotiations still with Pfizer to buy an additional 100 million doses.

We're learning from officials on both sides that one of the sticking points in this is supplies, access to raw materials for Pfizer. Both sides are still holding out the possibility that the Defense Production Act could be used to try to ramp this up right now. Pfizer is saying, look, we can deliver this in the third quarter.

The Trump administration is saying, we really only want it if you can get it to us by the second quarter of this year. So, that's still ongoing, Jake.

TAPPER: So strange how they don't invoke the DPA.

[16:05:00]

MURRAY: It is odd.

TAPPER: Sara Murray, thanks so much.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, this afternoon, Alaska health officials confirmed that one health care worker suffered a severe adverse reaction to the Pfizer vaccine. This is not a reason for alarm. We only know of three individuals that have had an adverse reaction, two in the U.K., one in the United States. All of them are alive and well.

But what do you make of this? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we had

heard before from the U.K. that people, the health care workers there who had these reactions had a significant history of allergic reactions in the past.

Apparently, this person in Alaska did not. So we do know that, sometimes, people have allergic reactions, as you said, Jake, very easily treated. This person needed a couple shots of epinephrine, was my understanding.

I think what's surprising here a little bit is that, in the trials, they didn't see allergic reactions. But that was tens of thousands of people, and they excluded people with history of allergic reactions. As we see it more and more, as it's given more and more, we will see allergic reactions, but we don't know what people are actually allergic to.

Like, with the flu virus, eggs is often something people will say they have an allergy to, so they shouldn't take the flu virus (sic). They don't know what this is. They're sort of zeroing in on this one compound known as polyethylene glycol.

But I think they need to figure out what's actually causing the allergy. And that might go a long way towards preventing future ones.

TAPPER: And, just to be clear, these allergic reactions that we know of, only three out of thousands of people, they have an allergic reaction. They're still at the hospital. These allergic reactions happen quickly. They get shots of epinephrine, and then they're OK?

GUPTA: Yes, then they're OK. This isn't something that leaves a -- it's basically a temporary response of the body to this, in this case, the vaccine. But after you recover from it, there's no longer-lasting sort of implications.

TAPPER: All right, good to know. And it's also when you get a shot, when everybody stands up and goes in line and gets a shot, you need to allot some time. You get the shot, and then you see it, you make sure you're fine, and then you leave.

We're on the third day of Pfizer vaccinations in the U.S. It's possible we could see Moderna vaccinations happening as soon as Monday. How soon could we see the effects from both of these vaccines going out there?

GUPTA: Well, I think in terms of, from a public health standpoint, it just takes a while. You got to get enough vaccine out there to start creating a sort of broader immunity.

People always talk about herd immunity. And that's 60, 70 percent. If you look at the models, there are like sort of these intervals in time even when you get to 30 percent, where you will probably start to see some impact from this.

The impact won't be as quick or as powerful initially, as you know, just wearing masks, something that we talk about all the time. But, also, Jake, in some ways, it's the impact, the almost reverse of what we're used to hearing.

What I mean is that, hopefully, because vulnerable people are being vaccinated first, you will see death rates come down, hopefully or death numbers, hospitalizations then, and then after that cases.

So, spring, early spring, mid-spring, I think we'd start to see some of those trends changing because of the vaccine.

TAPPER: Now, there's a big difference between herd immunity because of vaccinations, in which so many people have vaccinations that a society is generally safe, and herd immunity by saying, let the disease run rampant, because that will result in a lot of people getting sick and dying.

Now, Politico this afternoon is reporting that a top Trump appointee repeatedly pushed this idea of herd immunity, purposefully letting people get infected, to administration officials. He wrote in e-mails -- quote -- "We want them" -- about the population -- "We want them infected. Let the kids and young folk get infected."

Now, obviously, this theory of letting the disease run rampant has been widely discredited by health experts, who say it would cause millions of lives to be lost. Dr. Reiner a few minutes ago said he thinks this is part -- this is what the Trump White House was strategizing, this is why the reaction to the pandemic has been so wanting, that, ultimately, President Trump wanted the virus to spread, knowing people would die, because it would -- not shutting down businesses would keep the economy going.

What do you think of it all?

GUPTA: I think -- I think you're absolutely right. I think Dr. Reiner's right.

And I think we saw plenty of evidence that that's -- that was sort of the tacit strategy. I mean, things were so downplayed, I mean, even going back to testing. We didn't -- we weren't testing enough and they didn't want to show the numbers. Just let the infection sort of run free, people will become immune was the thinking, and we will sort of get through it that way, without having to close things down.

It's a terrible idea, obviously, and there were people in the public health community that were screaming the opposite. Frankly, I think it's exactly why Scott Atlas sort of had the role that he had, because he was reflecting something that the president wanted him to reflect.

But, Jake, just -- you see the numbers on the right side of the screen, 16 million people confirmed to have been infected. They say it may be closer to 50 million, a seventh of the country. How many people died? Three hundred thousand.

[16:10:03]

So, it would -- you can start to do the math here, but you're talking close to two million people, 1.5 to two million people would die in that strategy if you just extrapolated what has already happened. It's a terrible idea.

And you can't simply bubble off vulnerable people and older people as much as you would like to think.

TAPPER: Yes. I mean, this does, of course, explain why the U.S., with 4 percent of the world's population has, at least according to official numbers, 20 percent of the world's cases and 20 percent of the world's deaths. It was, as you note, a tacit strategy.

And even though people like Dr. Fauci and Admiral Giroir and others were resistant to it, the president's the president, and he sat back and let it happen.

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, inaction is endorsing that strategy in this case, because that's exactly what you do. If you endorse naturally infecting herd immunity, which is -- again, it's a terrible strategy. I feel like I have to say that every time.

But if you don't do anything, that's what happens. And the numbers, again, on the right side of the screen, which I can barely even believe every time I look at it--

TAPPER: Yes.

GUPTA: -- now would have been seven, eight times that is where that would -- where that story would go.

TAPPER: Yes. No, it's incredible. And it's one of the reasons he was not reelected.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

What hundreds of President Trump's allies are now asking for during his last days in office that has one source saying -- quote -- "It's turned crazy."

Turned? That's next.

A former police captain, meanwhile, points a gun at an air conditioning repairman that he said was holding hundreds of thousands of fake ballots in his truck. A look at what happens when conspiracy theories turn violent in real life.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:03]

TAPPER: In our politics lead today: President Trump is pushing extensively for a pair of special counsels to be appointed, people familiar with the matter tell CNN.

President Trump wants one of the special counsels to investigate Hunter Biden, who is already being investigated by the U.S. attorney in Delaware for potential tax law and money laundering violations. And the outgoing president wants a different special counsel to be

appointed to investigate his baseless allegations of voter fraud that have been rejected by court after court after court, after Kaitlan Collins report -- as Kaitlan Collins reports, the president's lashing out at anyone who dares to say Joe Biden won the election.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It didn't take long for President Trump to bash Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for recognizing Joe Biden's victory, even though he waited six weeks to do so.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): The Electoral College has spoken.

COLLINS: Without noting that his opponent received 80 million votes, Trump tweeted: "Mitch, 75 million votes a record for, a sitting president. Too soon to give up. The Republican Party must finally learn to fight. People are angry."

Trump's press secretary said he was including himself in that category.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This president, he's made clear his thoughts about Leader McConnell on Twitter.

COLLINS: Trump also blamed his loss not on the way he handled the pandemic, but on FOX News, claiming their coverage was -- quote -- "perhaps the biggest difference between 2016 and 2020."

The president made no mention of how McConnell has also pleaded with Senate Republicans not to join efforts by their colleagues in the House to challenge Biden's win when Congress ratifies it on January 6, an effort being led by Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks that is all but certain to fail.

REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL): The law is very clear. The House of Representatives, in combination with United States Senate, has the lawful authority to accept or reject Electoral College vote submissions from states that have such flawed election systems that they're not worthy of our trust.

COLLINS: With only five weeks left in office, President Trump held a Cabinet meeting for the first time in seven months today. Today's meeting was closed to the press, which is rare, but could have been because Trump's attorney general is stepping down next week, his secretary of state is quarantining, and Trump has considered firing his CIA and FBI directors.

No one from the CIA, Pentagon, State or Justice departments attended today's meeting, as CNN has learned Trump has pushed extensively for special counsels to be appointed to investigate his baseless allegations of voter fraud and for the investigation into Hunter Biden.

Sources say Trump considers it payback for the investigation into his possible ties to Russia led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: First, there was the Russia hoax. Then it was the Mueller witch-hunt.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: And, Jake, we're told the president is intent on getting those special counsels, but his desire could be complicated by the fact that the leadership change is happening at the Justice Department next week, when Attorney General Bill Barr is going to step down.

And so it remains to be seen if the official who's replacing him, Jeff Rosen, is going to do what the president wants and whether or not he will be fired if he doesn't.

TAPPER: Pretty telling that he sees this as payback. That's not what the Justice Department is supposed to do.

Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

Also in the politics lead today, with five weeks in office remaining, a question consuming observers: Who might President Trump pardon and will he try to pardon himself?

Let's bring in CNN Pamela Brown.

Pamela, what's the latest?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, sources are telling me that hundreds of people have been reaching out to the White House in recent weeks since Election Day.

These include allies of President Trump in this frenzied push for pardons, people asking for pardons for themselves, for friends, family, on behalf of a client. And, in fact, the White House has been so inundated that a spreadsheet has been created to keep track of all of these requests that have really been pouring in.

And people have been going around DOJ and going directly to the White House or top officials if they can't reach Trump himself, reaching out to Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, Mark Meadows, chief of staff, the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, in their bid to try to get a pardon request in front of President Trump.

[16:20:16]

They know that the president is -- likes to flex his part in power. And he only has a few weeks left in office. And they also know that this president is transactional, that he likes to cut a deal.

And so some of these people reaching out to the White House in this frenzied effort in recent weeks are hoping to essentially cash in on the loyalty that they have shown to the president over the last four years.

One person I spoke to said they hoped their loyalty would pay off in the president pardoning this person's client. So, that's really what we're seeing play out. And the president is really interested in this. We have known, Jake, that he has been throughout his administration, and he's actually been reviewing cases in recent weeks of potential pardons that the White House Counsel's Office has put together.

He's been asking people he's been talking to who he should pardon. And what makes this also so interesting that this is happening as the president is still in denial that he has lost the election, even though this frenzied push for pardons is essentially a tacit acknowledgment that he did lose the election -- Jake.

TAPPER: Yes, I would put money on Jared Kushner's dad, former jailbird Charles Kushner, just me personally.

Pamela, after "All the President's Men," Woodward and Bernstein run another great book called "Final Days" about Nixon's last days in the White House, lashing out, yelling. Tell us about Donald Trump's final days

BROWN: Well, it's not -- it's not very different.

I mean, the president, as one source told us, is throwing a temper tantrum. He will not accept the results of this election. He has even thrown out that he doesn't want to leave the White House on Election Day. Aides and allies have gently tried to steer him toward thinking about post-White House, what he's going to do, perhaps running in 2024.

But, as one source said, he's really been ingesting this disinformation. He's started to believe it himself, Jake. And he is just not willing to accept at this point. He remains defiant and essentially delusional about the election results Jake.

TAPPER: Defiant and delusional. That sounds right.

Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

Let's discuss with my panel.

Nia-Malika Henderson, let's get your reaction to Pamela's reporting on this flood of presidential pardon requests. Now, this is normal for any administration. They get pardon requests. It -- we will see who he pardons. I mean, this is a guy who likes to pardon lackeys and allies and not use the pardon power as much as -- to right injustices.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right.

I mean, this is sort of the friends and family plan that we see this president employ when it comes to the pardoning and clemency process. There isn't the usual channels, going through the DOJ, vetting folks as well, vetting their records, and using, as you said, pardons as sort of a symbol of justice gone wrong, and then justice done through the pardoning process.

So, he isn't really interested in that. We have seen him pardon people, commute sentences, people like Dinesh D'Souza, like Bernard Kerik, people like Joe Arpaio, his ideological bedfellows. And, listen, I think, going forward, many people are wondering, will he pardon himself? Is that even possible? Will he pardon his children, even though they haven't necessarily done anything wrong?

It will be sort of a pre-pardon process, but, as with everything with this president, breaking of precedent in terms of this pardoning process, with people calling and kind of seeming to engage in a kind of quid pro quo with this president.

TAPPER: Philip, you heard my prediction, Charles Kushner. Who else do you think might get a pardon this time?

PHILIP BUMP, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, I mean, certainly it seems as though -- the through line that we're seeing here, which I think is important to keep in mind, is that the only thing which is established as a baseline for President Trump is President Trump's world view.

I think, contrary to your presentation of this as he's not using it to right injustices, I think he honestly believes that these conservative media figures who had faced prosecution, like Arpaio, like D'Souza, they were the subject of injustice and that he's righting those wrongs.

I think he views what the Justice Department does as necessarily being political. Why he thinks that he should have the special counsels to investigate his opponents, he thinks that's how it's supposed to be used. He thinks, too, that Biden's going to do the same thing. And that's why he wants to protect his family, because he thinks that that's how it goes, that this is what the Justice Department does.

So, I think it is likely that we will see him do these things because he wants -- he sees Biden as an actor, in the same way that he is an actor, and will try and protect anyone and everything he can from potential prosecution.

Of course, there is the undercurrent which there may be things that are prosecutable. I mean, we certainly saw the Manhattan DA, for example, had been taking a look at the Trump family even before President Trump came into office. We know that the A.G. in New York is looking at state charges now potentially related to the Trump Organization.

There may be reason to issue those pardons, regardless of whether or not Biden is going to use the Justice Department as a political tool.

[16:25:02]

TAPPER: Philip, you're feeling very charitable as we get close to Christmas. OK. I will take that. That's an interesting response.

Nia-Malika, let me ask you.

Kaitlan Collins reported that President Trump is thinking about appointing a special counsel to go after Hunter Biden. This is a question that, if Trump doesn't do it, Biden is going to be asked if he should put appoint or his attorney general should appoint a special counsel for Hunter Biden.

Might it make sense? Might it actually be a favor to Biden if -- I mean, assuming he doesn't pick somebody from FOX to lead the investigation.

HENDERSON: Right.

TAPPER: But, like, might it do Biden a favor by removing this very thorny decision for him, for his future attorney general?

HENDERSON: Attorney general.

TAPPER: Yes.

HENDERSON: Yes, because you can imagine what kind of questions that the attorney general nominee is going to get from that panel, the Republicans in particular about Hunter Biden. Will he appoint a special counsel himself?

And so that would be a very dicey issue, I think, for Biden as president and his attorney general as well. So this, indeed, could be Donald Trump doing him a favor, even though we know it does not come from a charitable place from this president. It comes from a vengeful place. It comes from a place where he wants to wound this incoming president.

He thinks that his presidency was hampered by that special counsel. And he wants to do the same, quite frankly, to Joe Biden. So, there is that. It's a dangerous precedent, I think, for this to start happening, where an outgoing president is going after an incoming president in this way.

But, listen, this is something that the president has been high on, going after Hunter Biden as a way of getting at Joe Biden. It is why he was impeached. So it seems like, ultimately, this might be where it's going, where you see a special counsel that looks into Hunter Biden, even though there's already an investigation into Hunter Biden, and as well as the Senate has looked into some of his affairs as well with Burisma.

TAPPER: Philip, let me just ask you about this, because there's a quote from "Glamour' magazine from Jen O'Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign manager, who is about to join the Biden White House as deputy chief of staff.

She says: "In the primary, people would mock him like, you think you can work with Republicans? I'm not saying they're not a bunch of F'ers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But the sense that you couldn't wish for that, you couldn't wish for this bipartisan deal -- ideal, he rejected that."

Kind of an interesting quote from the soon-to-be Biden deputy White House chief of staff, given how much Biden has talked about healing the soul of the nation, and now Axios is reporting that Jen O'Malley Dillon is under fire internally for that shot.

What do you think?

BUMP: I think it's understandable why she would be. We have certainly seen Biden paint a very rosy picture of his ability to work for Republicans.

I was struck when he had the call yesterday -- or Monday, after the Electoral College had voted, he had a call with some donors in which he told them that he had heard from some Republicans who didn't want to be public about acknowledging his win, but who had called to congratulate him and said they might be able to work with him in six to eight months.

I mean, that was sort of the best-case scenario, that a bunch of Republicans too afraid to call him president-elect might by August be willing to work with him was sort of the standard that was set.

I mean, yes, I mean, what O'Malley Dillon said was certainly not political, if you will. It wasn't a very politic thing to say. But it wasn't much worse than what Donald Trump's been saying about Mitch McConnell today either, which I think is worth considering too.

TAPPER: Oh, no.

BUMP: I do want to just go back to my past comment.

I certainly wasn't trying to be charitable in saying that Donald Trump saw the Justice Department as a tool of his own political arm. So, if it came off the way, I apologize.

TAPPER: No, no, no, no, no. I just meant when you said that he actually thought that, like, Dinesh D'Souza had been, like, a victim of some grand conspiracy, as opposed--

BUMP: Well, sure, because he came into politics through the lens of conservative media. I'm sure he really does see that. Obviously, it's not warranted, but I think that's accurate.

TAPPER: All right, Philip Bump, thank you so much. Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you so much. Good to see both of you.

A former police captain took conspiracy theories about voter fraud, false conspiracy theories, so seriously, he's now accused of pointing a gun in the face of an air conditioning repairman that he claimed and was wrong about was hiding thousands of fake ballots.

Stay with us.

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