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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Biden Blasts Trump Administration's Irresponsibility During the Transition; Nearly 2 Million Vaccines Administered So Far in U.S.; December Is Deadliest Month in Pandemic Yet; Surgeon General Very Concerned Following Holiday Travel. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 28, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, you could argue, Jake, we are seeing two extremes here, at the same time. On the one hand, this is probably as difficult a moment for a transition as we have seen in modern times.

I mean the pandemic leaves us in the equivalent, I think, of a wartime national security threat, and we've rarely changed commanders in chief during an active war. I mean Nixon replacing Johnson was really the only time it's happened in modern history.

So the challenge is enormous on the one hand, bigger than usual during a transition. And then you see the other side of the ledger, where you're getting less cooperation than usual, perhaps the least cooperation we've seen from an outgoing president to his successor. Although I can't vouch for James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

But at least in modern times we've never seen an administration try to obstruct the incoming team as much as this one, and it's happening at moment when the need for a smooth transition is probably greater than it's been in modern times because of the enormous immediacy of the threat of the pandemic and all that has to be done to counter that. So irresponsibility seems like a pretty mild word when you put those two conditions --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: You are somebody who understands national security from the inside-out. How much of a problem could this be if the -- if what Biden says is true, that senior leaders of the Trump administration are just refusing to cooperate and share information that the Biden people feel is crucial to know. How much could that hurt the American people, theoretically?

PHILLIP MUDD, CNN COUNTER-TERRORISM ANALYST: OFFICIAL: I would say modest. I mean there's two separate questions. Your question, Jake, that is

how significant is this on the inside? For example, what's the American military posture in the South China Sea, and how aggressive has American been witnessing China go into the South China Sea vis-a- vis American naval forces there.

Significant question. How much problem are we having with the Iranian navy going into the Middle East right now? That's a significant question. What about American military engagement against ISIS, significant question.

I can understand why the president-elect is frustrated. If you could just add -- allow me to add for a second, I don't agree with the way this was approached in his speech today. Look, we spent four years of negativity. The president-elect had a couple messages today. The first is traditional coalitions like NATO. The second is we don't do America first. If we do stuff like climate change, we need other people, that is America needs partners.

We've got 23 days left. Focus on the big stuff, if I were advising him, you need to work on, and behind the scenes, I don't care if the president's team is a pain in the ass. Bud we've got 23 days. Let it go and give us a positive picture. I understand he's frustrated but that's for Washington. I'm not sure it's for the entire country to worry about.

TAPPER: And, Phil, while I have you, we heard President-elect Biden talking about the suicide bombing in Nashville and we have not yet heard President Trump weigh in on it. What is your, just general take, right now on that suicide bombing? It is not yet being called an act of terrorism, because law enforcement --

MUDD: Yes.

TAPPER: -- authorities say they do not know yet the motivation, whether or not there was a political motivation. But tell us more about what you think of the information we have so far.

MUDD: Let me give you practitioner's perspective. It falls into two baskets. The first basket is people, can I look at this -- it's always looking forward, saying, can I look at this after we ascertain that there is no threat, that is that there's no additional conspiracy.

Can I learn something from the individual, a red flag that we can apply to another case. My initial reaction is, no, if someone's sitting in their house deciding that they want to commit this act, I'm not sure what you do about that in a country of 330 million people where Americans can do whatever they want to do.

The second thing that people haven't talked about much is I'm thinking about of the device, how he acquired the material for the device. And thinking about trip wires in the future, was there anything he acquired where we could at it from Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for example, ATF, and say did he acquire stuff that we should be controlling more in the future?

It's not just people, it's also the device I'd be curious about -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Phil, thank you so much, appreciate it. And thanks to Ron and Jackie as well.

Holiday air travel setting a COVID record during the most deadly month of the pandemic so far. The new signs were nowhere near a return to normal, plus a suicide bomber identified in the massive Nashville explosion, whether police are any closer to finding out why he blew himself up Christmas day. Stay with us.

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[15:35:00]

TAPPER: In our HEALTH LEAD today, the U.S. has now surpassed 19 million cases of COVID-19. That represents almost a quarter of the global cases reported, 81 million.

Vaccine distribution in the U.S. appears to be moving slower than anticipated unfortunately with just 2 million doses administered so far. As CNN's Nick Watt reports, holiday travelers did not seem deterred by these grim statistics and slow coming solutions, but health experts are now worried about another surge in cases following holiday travel.

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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sunday was the busiest air travel day of this pandemic.

[15:40:00]

CARTER ERICKSON, TRAVELER: We've gone to Utah in the past to ski, so it was a good idea to try to get out of the house.

WATT: The search for normalcy will be fatal for some.

DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: We're very concerned, and we always see a little bit of a bump after holidays and sometimes a large bump.

WATT: December is already the deadliest month of the pandemic, more than 65,000 lives lost. And --

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: As we get into the next few weeks, it might actually get worse.

WATT: More than one in 1,000 Americans are already dead, killed by COVID-19. Up in Canada, by the way, that number is up around 1 in 2,500. Six states now with record numbers of COVID patients in the hospital.

DR. KIMBERLY SHRINER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: We have a limited number of ventilators. We have a limited number of ICU beds.

WATT: California is now suffering the highest rate of new cases per capita in the country. Now remember that Seattle area nursing home. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why don't you guys cover his legs up?

WATT: The nation's first hot spot? Today residents and staff are getting vaccinated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That feels good.

WATT: Around 2 million Americans have now had their first dose.

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: The 2 million number is probably an underestimate.

WATT: But the goal was to vaccinate 20 million people by year's end.

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: Well, the pace is slower than what was stated. That's probably unrealistic at this point.

WATT: Novavax is now starting phase 3 trials of its vaccine in the U.S. and Mexico. Oxford/AstraZeneca could receive approval for its vaccine in U.K. within days.

But the current rocky vaccine rollout proves a painful point. These elixirs will take time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (on camera): So over a six-days of the Christmas period, more than 6 million people traveled through America's airports. But that does not necessarily mean we're going to see a massive spike.

What matters is what those people do when they get to where they're going. Do they wear masks? Do they social distance? Do they steer clear of grandma? -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick Watt, thank you so much.

Joining me to discuss all this, Dr. Michael Mina, he's an immunologist and epidemiologist with the Harvard School of Medicine. Dr. Mina, thanks for joining us.

We just heard Dr. Fauci say that the worst is yet to come. Do you agree, is the worst yet to come?

DR. MICHAEL MINA, IMMUNOLOGIST, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Unfortunately, I do certainly agree with that. We are now seeing -- as you mentioned, we've seen a lot of travelers, the record number of travelers over the holidays.

This is only going to increase the amount of transmission that has now already occurred, will continue occurring over this holiday season, and generally we've seen cases continue to march upwards. And so the worst, certainly, in terms of hospitalizations and deaths unfortunately is likely still yet to come.

TAPPER: As you note, the TSA said 1.3 million people passed through airport security yesterday in the U.S., the busiest day at airports in the U.S. since the pandemic began.

Where are you afraid of people contracting the virus? Because, you know, if people are wearing masks and there's a lot of circulation on the planes, that should be OK, right? Are you more worried about what happens when people get to where they're going?

MINA: Absolutely. This is about people once they enter into the homes, once they see their families, the gatherings, that is where most of the transmission is going to happen. Some will happen in the airports, maybe a little bit in the planes, but really, it's happening when people start gathering.

TAPPER: The CDC is reporting that 2 million vaccine doses have been administered. Now that could be underreporting, but either way, it's still a far cry from the 20 million doses administered before the end of 2020 that U.S. officials promised. Why is this happening? Why is it going so slowly?

MINA: Well, I think that this was largely expected. We have seen a lot of overpromises from this administration and we are now seeing the consequences of that where we can actually measure the promises are not adding up. I don't know that all of the doses were even there in the first place to really get out in the numbers that they were initially suggesting would be.

TAPPER: And while we all wait to get vaccinated, there is this variant strain of COVID-19 out there, a couple, at least. You say this is a wake-up call and you've suggested that we start testing single-dose vaccine trials with these other strains. Why?

MINA: Yes, so these are two slightly different issues, but we should start to test the single-dose vaccine trials immediately. If it turns out that these vaccines actually work nearly as well with one dose as two, then that could mean that twice as many people can get vaccinated, perhaps, or just under that.

[15:45:00]

And it could mean that we could start achieving herd immunity quicker which can slow the spread and overall slow the variance from continuing their march in mutating away from immunity.

TAPPER: Oh, I see what you're saying, OK, yes, I misunderstood. So you're saying instead of everybody getting two doses which is how it is for the two vaccines that have been approved, Pfizer and Moderna, that before they get the second shot, everybody should get -- as many people as possible get the first shot, because there are all these new variant strains. Or a couple at least that we know of.

I misunderstood. Did I get it correctly the second time?

MINA: Yes, well, we should be trialing it anyway, we don't know, but if it turns out that just a single dose can work, then we could perhaps gain herd immunity and slow the spread which could ultimately slow these variants down and stop the continued diversification of the virus. TAPPER: OK. You've also been advocating for widespread, rapid at-home testing. How would regular people use those tests effectively in a moment such as this one?

MINA: Yes, and so these rapid at-home tests, if we can make tests accessible, if we can make them fast, and we can use them frequently, we can actually get people to know that they are infectious before they spread to other people.

We can get these small paper strip tests into people's homes so that every American can have a paper strip test which tell them, are they infectious with this virus on a daily basis, or on weekly basis, so they're not going out and unknowingly spreading the virus to others.

It can actually start to act almost in lieu of a vaccine to slow the spread of the vaccine down by giving people knowledge and preparing them to actually act if they are found to be contagious in the privacy of their own home.

TAPPER: Why don't we have that? I mean that seems like an obvious thing that we should be doing right now. Why don't we?

MINA: Yes, we should all have them. We should be demanding them from Congress. We should be pushing everyone to make these a reality. Testing has been a limit throughout this entire pandemic, and here we have this solution that could get millions and millions of these tests out to Americans, we don't have them largely because they haven't been prioritized and we don't have the regulatory pathway in the FDA to accelerate their introduction into the U.S. population as at-home tests.

But that's really what we need to do to get these out to everyone and we should all be demanding them every day, in my opinion.

TAPPER: Yes, why would the politicians bother expediting it? They've already been vaccinated while schmucks like you and me are sitting here trying to get people to pay attention to testing so as to stop the spread.

Dr. Michael Mina, thank you so much, appreciate your time today.

MINA: Absolutely.

TAPPER: Well, what about the actual distribution of the vaccines. Coming up next, new details on why more delays could be right around the corner. Stay with us.

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[15:50:00]

TAPPER: Sticking with our HEALTH LEAD today, Dr. Fauci says up to 85 percent of the U.S. needs to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus.

As we approach 2021, we still have a long way to go. We're about to miss the administration's target of 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered by the end of the year. The only question now is how much we're going to miss it by?

Kristen Holmes joins me now. Kristen, where are we with the distribution of the vaccines?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, we're very, very far from that 20 million doses administered. And the recent data that we've seen from the CDC came out over the weekend shows not even 2 million people have been vaccinated.

Now, we have heard from Admiral Giroir who has said that he believes this number is an underestimate. That the CDC's data is not in real time, that it's 3 to 7 days behind.

Of course that would be great, but that is still an 18 million doses administered discrepancy here. So it is almost impossible given all the health workers I have talked to, industry experts, to make that 20 million dose administered goal.

Now, it does appear that the administration has kind of shifted the goal posts here. Giroir also said that they still hope to have 20 million doses administered -- not administered -- distributed by the beginning of January. So not administered as they had originally said.

But the big concern here is what happens next week looking forward? We're about the time where people will start getting that second dose of the vaccine. This is system that is already incredibly logged down. There are a lot of issues with it. Will this second round actually add to the problems and slow down the system even further?

TAPPER: What are the hold ups?

HOLMES: Well there's been a series of hurdles from the very beginning. One was early on the FDA had a two-day requirement to assess the shipment for quality control.

There're also the issues with production itself given the fact these critical materials are so hard to come by. We know now that the administration is using the Defense Production Act to help get these companies, all of the companies working with Operation Warp Speed, the materials they need.

But that is recent. So that it's still a huge hurdle here. The last one is just the state distribution. We know that it was harder for these states to reach all of the communities that they need to.

I've talked to several health experts who say they're very concerned that some rural areas are still not getting the vaccine doses that they've been allotted. So there's a lot of complications here and a lot of moving parts -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Even though President Trump finally signed that COVID relief bill, his temper tantrum was far from harmless. We'll explain next. Stay with us.

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[15:55:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. And we start with breaking news in our 2020 LEAD at this hour.

Moments ago, President-elect Joe Biden accused some in the Trump administration of what he called, irresponsibility, because they are -- according to him -- partially blocking his national security team from fully preparing to take control in just over three weeks.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget. Right now we just aren't getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration.