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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Vaccinations Falling Short of Trump Administration Promises; Chaotic Vaccine Rollout in Florida; Republican Senator to Challenge Electoral College Results; Interview With Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL); Trump and Biden to Campaign in Georgia on Eve of Senate Runoffs. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired December 30, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri announced today he will contest the Electoral College results when they're brought to a joint session of Congress one week from today, teeing up what should be nothing more than a procedural confirmation of Biden's win, doing it for whatever reason.

[16:30:09]

It will no doubt cause chaos.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, joins me now.

Senator Durbin, thanks for joining.

What do you make of Hawley's announcement he's going to challenge the election results, and how do you see this session playing out?

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri, is also an attorney and a former attorney general.

I would ask him one simple question. What is the evidence you have to back up your claim that the votes should not be counted in any state? We know we have had over 50 lawsuits by President Trump and his friends. Every one of them has failed raising that question.

And when they took it all the way to the Supreme Court, they barely got it through the door before the court rejected it. So, there's no credible basis for objection. It is simply a political exercise.

TAPPER: How many Republicans do you think are going to join him?

DURBIN: I don't know.

I understand that Senator McConnell was discouraging the Republican senators from doing this. I don't know if others will join him to be part of the parade.

But it really does not serve our democracy. It is time for us to accept the reality. Joe Biden was elected president of the United States on November 3, and he will be sworn in on January 20. TAPPER: Hawley pointed out in his announcement that this has been

done before by Democrats in the House and Senate objecting to the results for Republican presidents.

Obviously, the context is very different, with President Trump rejecting reality, rejecting the fact that he lost, et cetera. It can't be compared.

But it is true that your former colleague Senator Barbara Boxer objected, I believe, in 2004, trying to bring attention, she said, to the issues, the election issues in Ohio. In retrospect, was that a mistake?

DURBIN: No, of course, a senator has a right to do that. I'm not arguing with that.

But let's just basically ask the question, is it reasonable? Is it sensible? Can he make a case? She was arguing about voter fraud in one state. So be it. She has the right to do that.

But, at this point, the president has been hanging out for weeks refusing to acknowledge the obvious. Every lawsuit he's filed has failed. Rudy Giuliani's crazy theories have taken him nowhere.

And the people he surrounds himself with for a chorus of yes-people haven't really been successful in contesting any state. Republican elected officials in state after state have stood up and said, I actually voted for President Trump, but I have got to tell you, the election results did not end up being what I wanted. We lost.

Now, what is the basis then for Senator Hawley to make this objection?

TAPPER: He says he's doing it because there are so many voters out there who have concerns about the election.

DURBIN: If concerns are going to drive us in a political agenda, then I wonder if we're ever going to reach a point where people have confidence in what we're doing.

When the American people have spoken by seven million votes, electing Joe Biden over Donald Trump, they made it clear they want him to be president, when they gave him the same electoral votes as President Trump had four years ago, and he called them a landslide.

It's clear that he was elected. Are there those who were concerned about Trump's victory? Well, I was concerned, but I accepted the obvious. The American people had spoken then and they have spoken this time as well.

TAPPER: Let's turn to what's going on the floor of the Senate, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying that he doesn't see a process by which the $2,000 stimulus checks that the House of Representatives pushed, the Democrats in the Senate and others, including Josh Hawley, have been in favor of, as well as President Trump. Is there any chance, you think, that McConnell could be convinced,

given the fact that a majority of the Senate, including five Republicans, are in favor of it, to bring this to the floor just as a clean up-or-down vote, increase the stimulus checks to from $600 to $2,000, yes or no?

DURBIN: I would like to give Senator McConnell a radical idea. Maybe he would consider it. Let the Senate vote, period.

The House passed the major with 44 Republicans supporting it, all but two Democrats supporting it. Send it to us. It is the only way to give $2,000 to individuals who are struggling through this pandemic and the economy it brings with it.

There's one way to deal with this, a vote on the floor. Either McConnell wins or he loses. I think he's going to lose. I think enough Republicans are going to step up and join us, as they did in the House of Representatives.

But blocking this vote, arguing that we have got to try some other substitute with far-ranging issues and have nothing to do with this particular matter, is just not fair. Let's use the Senate for the purpose it was designed, to look, deliberate and to vote.

TAPPER: So, 47 of the 52 Republican senators, I think, either haven't come out in favor of these checks or oppose it.

I want you to listen to one of them, Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and his explanation as to why he opposes it. Take a listen.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA): We do not have a global macroeconomic depression under way at all. So, it makes no sense to be sending this out to everybody who has a pulse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: His argument is that this money -- this bill would give money to people who make I think it's under $75,000 a year who have not necessarily lost income because of the pandemic, who have not necessarily lost their jobs.

And he would prefer a program that gives the money to the people who have lost their jobs, lost income, and are more needy.

What's your response?

DURBIN: Well, it's ironic that our Republican senators have come around to progressivism when it relates to government spending and tax policy, after giving a $1.5 trillion tax break to the wealthiest people in this country. But let me get back to the point. What we have done with this COVID

relief effort, both in the early stages with the CARES Act, as well as the most recent COVID relief, is to send the money in to groups of people qualified by virtue of their income. In this case, if you're making less than $75,000 a year, you're entitled to a payment.

If your family is making less than $150,000, they're entitled to the payments. And we don't draw the line and ask people to sign affidavits. The reason is, we want the money in their hands quickly and spent into the economy quickly to give us some hope, some lift, so the economy gets back on its feet.

It could have been done more precisely, but we have decided that the impact on the economy is even more important. I'm supporting it. I know some people will receive it who might not need it. But an awful lot of people who are desperate for this help are waiting to hear the good news that the $2,000 payment is coming their way.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, thanks so much.

Happy new year to you, sir. Appreciate your time today.

DURBIN: Thanks, Jake. You too.

TAPPER: Chaos, confusion, endless lines, with some seniors waiting for nine hours -- how Florida's governor is defending his state's vaccine rollout.

Stay with us.

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[16:40:49]

TAPPER: Back to our health lead: a COVID-19 vaccine distribution mess.

Florida seniors waiting for hours in long lines, insanely long lines, for their vaccinations. Some even camped out overnight.

And, as CNN's Ryan Young shows us, that's not the only issue that the state of Florida is dealing with as it tries to vaccinate many of the country's oldest and most vulnerable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This bumper-to- bumper traffic jam twist around the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, a line so long, drivers have more than enough time to get out and stretch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be patient, but it's a good setup.

YOUNG: Not just in Orlando. Elderly Floridians across the state anxious to receive the COVID-19 vaccine are dealing with a similar situation, in Fort Myers, many bringing lawn chairs as they sit and wait for hours, nine, to be exact, for this man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I personally feel there's got to be a better way.

YOUNG: Because Florida has one of the largest populations over the age of 65, Governor Ron DeSantis decided to break slightly with CDC recommendations, which call for front-line health care workers and first responders to be vaccinated first,.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): We believe that the better approach is to focus on the elderly first and foremost. Then we will get in to essential workers.

YOUNG: The vaccine much-needed in the Sunshine State, which has seen dark days this year, more than 21,000 COVID deaths so far, many of them seniors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know people that have not survived.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unfortunately.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately.

YOUNG: But the problem is, all 67 counties are handling the vaccine rollout differently, creating some confusion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While I'm grateful to get the vaccine, I feel that there's got to be a better way to distribute this. For people that really need it, elderly that might be disabled in some way, they can't endure this process. So there's got to be a better way.

YOUNG: The issues not restricted to long lines. Some seniors have heard the vaccine is available, and started showing up at hospitals, only to get turned away, while others flood hospital phone lines looking to make appointments.

In South Florida, Broward Health says they have already booked up with vaccine appointments and won't take on more patients until February.

Back in Orange County, 30,000 people signed up within 24 hours on the county's Web site. They vaccinated more than 1,500 seniors on the first day, a dose of hope during this awful year.

CANDICE SELTZER, COVID-19 VACCINE RECIPIENT: Great. I can't wait to see my grandkids. I can't wait to hug those little guys. It's like -- it's just been so long in coming, that -- so relieved. It's just wonderful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just feeling very blessed right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG: Jake, we heard that over and over again, people wanting to see their grandkids, which you can understand.

This is one of those testing locations that had cars wrapped around the building yesterday. You can see a much different scene here. But also look over here at this parking lot. It's more than 40 cars

that are sitting over here. And that's because, after getting the shot, you must sit over here for a little while to make sure there's no adverse reaction.

One last thing. Governor Ron DeSantis said today he doesn't plan to take the shot just yet, because he wants to make sure these seniors get it first -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Ryan, thank you so much for that report. Appreciate it.

As the U.S. shatters one awful COVID record after the next, officials with Operation Warp Speed are admitting that the country needs to do a better job at vaccinating the American people, this as new CNN reporting shows that the U.S. is not just falling way short of its own vaccination goals.

It is also lagging behind the U.K., Israel and Bahrain when it comes to getting shots into arms.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has those details now. She joins us live.

Elizabeth, you have been looking at the latest data. What does it have to say?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, it really is not looking great for the United States.

Let's take a look at daily vaccination rates per 100,000 people in the U.S. and in a few other countries. So, if we look at this, what we see is that, in the United States, there has been 49 shots per day per 100,000 people in this country. In Israel, that same number, 608, in Bahrain, 263, in the United Kingdom, 60. The U.S. is doing better than Canada, where that number is only 10.

[16:45:04]

Now, we put Canada aside for a minute, one of the reasons that I'm told by vaccination experts that our number is lagging behind some other countries is that we don't have a central centralized National Health Service. So, we can debate until the cows come home about whether such a national health service would be good in general. But when you're launching a campaign like, there's no doubt it would be helpful if there were one central authority rather than doing this in so many different hospitals, different nursing homes, with so many different people trying to take the reins on it -- Jake.

TAPPER: So, in the last hour, I interviewed Admiral Giroir, and a number of other doctors about this, and Giroir said that the problem is just getting up to speed. That this is a very ambitious program, vaccinating, you know, 80 percent of 330 million.

What is the plan to improve these vaccination numbers? COHEN: So, Jake, let me tell you what the president's plan is based

on a tweet that he did earlier today. The president tweeted: The federal government has distributed the vaccines to the states. Now it is up to the states to administer. Get moving.

So get moving is not a plan. That is not a plan. When I talk to folks in the states who are trying to make this happen, what they say they need is more money. Because they say this is a big deal to try to vaccinate basically the entire population. They have gotten more than about $330 million, but they say that they need more. They say that's what they need in order to make this work.

TAPPER: It's also just not true to say that, as if all vaccines needed have been distributed to the states. It's just a lie. You need to vaccinate hundreds of millions of Americans. I think only about 15 million, 20 million have been -- you know, have been allocated.

Anyway, the U.K. just approved the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine for the general public in that country. The head of Operation Warp Speed says it would likely not be April before it would be approved here. We're also learning some new details about the vaccine from the Johnson & Johnson which might be approved in February.

Tell us more about the timeline.

COHEN: So, first of all, Jake, I want to make it clear. It is possible that neither of these will get authorized. You really have to look at it. I mean, the way that it was said today by this official was, if all goes well, we will have an approved vaccine. And for the other one, for Johnson & Johnson, they're thinking maybe February.

So we'll see. But they have to review all the data.

TAPPER: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. Appreciate that.

Biden's team says they're growing frustrated by one specific part of the transition. What is it?

Stay with us.

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[16:52:14]

TAPPER: In the politics lead, coffee is for closers only. Both President Trump and President-elect Biden, the closers, are heading to Georgia Monday to try to get more of the voters to the polls, Democrats and Republicans. The runoffs won't just pick who represents Georgia in the U.S. Senate, but which party will control the Senate, and essentially President-elect Joe Biden's agenda.

Joe Johns is covering the transition from Delaware for us.

Joe, President-elect Biden just arrived at his vacation house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He's still working on filing -- I'm sorry, filling out his cabinet, although today he named Kathleen Hicks as the first woman deputy defense secretary.

What are you hearing about that pick and how they're going to fill out the rest of the team?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, she's another Obama appointee, very well-regarded over right now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and she is sort of emblematic of the broader list of that they put out today. They want to get to 100 people on staff by the end of the year. This list gets them to that point.

A lot of diversity on that list. More than half of those folks are women, more than half of them are people of color. A lot of Obama alums, a lot of people who come from Capitol Hill, the House and Senate as well, Jake.

TAPPER: We've been hearing a lot from the Biden transition team about their frustration, saying there's an unprecedented restriction on the flow of national security information to their team. Tell us more.

JOHNS: Right. Well, this is a back and forth that has been going on for weeks and weeks. First, we heard about the Department of Defense. There were concerns here among the Biden people that the Trump people were not cooperating, were not giving them enough information, were not giving them the briefings they need.

Now we know what the Biden people say, they're not getting it. There's information about force protection at DOD, information about troop withdrawals and there was also a little bit more about the Office of Management and Budget.

The Biden people also say they're not getting enough information from OMB. And their concerns are that Joe Biden won't be able to put together quickly a budget when he gets into office. Other concerns relate to his COVID programs, if they don't know where the budget priorities are at OMB, it might be hard to fashion the programs that he wants.

So, those are the two big issues, and they said they're going to deal with them as best they can. That back and forth continues. Both agencies deny there's any problem, but then, again, this is the Trump administration.

TAPPER: That's right. They like to lie.

All right. Joe -- Joe Johns in Wilmington, Delaware, thanks so much, appreciate it.

Two states confirm the new COVID strain is in the United States.

[16:55:01]

A former CDC director on what states should do now, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Before we go today, we want to take the time to remember lives lost to the pandemic, more than 341,000 of them in the U.S. as of this afternoon. Today, we want to take a moment to remember incoming Republican Congressman Luke Letlow, who at the age of 41, with no underlying conditions died of COVID-19. Letlow was set to be sworn on Capitol Hill next week as a congressman for Louisiana's fifth congressional district. He's survived by his wife Julia and his two children, very young children.

His son appeared in this campaign ad for his dad just months ago, a little boy now without his father because of this cruel pandemic. May his memory and the memory of all those lost to this pandemic be a blessing.

Our coverage on CNN continues right now.

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