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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Senator David Perdue in COVID-19 Quarantine Days Ahead of Election; Pandemic Out of Control; 140 House Republicans Expected to Vote Against Counting Biden Electoral College Votes. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired December 31, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to a special edition of THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper on this last day of 2020.

And we are ending this year with some absolutely horrific new records when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic; 3,744 Americans died just yesterday from COVID-19, breaking the tragic record set the day before. And more than 125,000 people are currently hospitalized with the virus in the U.S.

[16:00:10]

President Trump canceled his plans to attend a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, returning to the White House just moments ago.

But this change of plans was not because he is concerned about the pandemic, or how the administration is behind schedule when it comes to the COVID vaccine. It is because he is preparing for one last-ditch effort to overturn the election results, one that is doomed to fail.

It will happen next week when Congress meets to certify Joe Biden's Electoral College win. That will be on Wednesday.

Just minutes ago, two House Republicans told me that they expect at least 140 Republican members of the House to vote against counting the electoral votes for Joe Biden.

Now, there's absolutely no way this effort to undo the democratic, free and fair election will succeed in Congress. But this is where the president is focused. And he is getting help from many Republicans in Congress on this futile effort at more political power, at undoing democracy, as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUESTION: Mr. President, will you take our questions?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Without answering a single question from reporters, President Trump cut his Florida vacation short today and left behind a ballroom of disappointed guests at Mar-a-Lago for tonight's New Year's Eve party.

Instead of walking the red carpet like last year, Trump will ring in the new year in Washington, after spending most of his time in Florida and an irritable mood, fuming about everything from his election loss to first lady Melania Trump's renovations.

Sources say Trump is almost singularly focused on a plot by his Republican allies to disrupt Congress' certification of Joe Biden's win next week, which Democrats are dismissing as absurd.

SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA): They have got to choose here. It's real simple. There's only two choices. You choose democracy and the Constitution, or you choose the big lie and Trump. It's as simple as that.

COLLINS: Josh Hawley is the first Republican senator to answer Trump's call to challenge the election results, which will force the Senate to debate his claim before affirming Biden's win. But he may not be the last.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): This is the one opportunity that I have as the United States senator, this process right here, my one opportunity to stand up and say something. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

COLLINS: Senator Ben Sasse said he won't participate in the stunt by his fellow Republicans and urged others to reject this dangerous play, adding: "The president and his allies are playing with fire. If you make big claims, you better have the evidence, but the president doesn't. And neither do the institutional arsonist members of Congress who will object."

Sasse also noted: "When we talk in private, I haven't heard a single congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent, not one."

Although the vice president only has a limited ceremonial role in the process, sources say Trump is demanding that Mike Pence fight harder for him. "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board, which is often friendly to the president, says Trump is putting his loyal V.P. in a terrible spot: "Mr. Pence is too much of a patriot to go along. But the scramble to overturn the will of the voters tarnishes Mr. Trump's legacy and undermines any designs he has on running in 2024."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, we have also just learned that Mitch McConnell this morning held a conference call with Senate Republicans.

And on that call, he called out for Senator Josh Hawley, the first one to say he's going to object next week, to explain his reasoning behind this decision, that we are told he did discuss with Republican leadership, but he said he did not really discuss with his fellow Republicans, because, of course, a lot of them are out of town right now because of the holidays.

But when Mitch McConnell called on Josh Hawley multiple times, he did not respond and later realized he wasn't on the call -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan, stay with us and join our panel. And let me start, Seung Min, with the news that I just brought at the

top, which is two House Republicans told me just in the commercial break before the show that they expect at least 140 House Republicans to vote on January 6 to object to the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden, and then to vote against that.

Is that what your reporting is saying? And we should note how unprecedented that would be. No one has ever voted against the Electoral College in numbers like that. It has happened before in very small numbers, but not -- if it is 140, not to that degree.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We were certainly expecting, especially, as you know, first Mo Brooks over on the House side and then Josh Hawley over on the Senate side, once one person kind of breaks the dam, there would be -- there was an expectation that there would be more Republican lawmakers kind of flooding in.

[16:05:00]

But 140 people, that is a remarkable number, but, if you think about it, not that surprising, because it was about, what, 126 Republican lawmakers who signed on to that Texas lawsuit contesting the election results, and which we know was a very futile effort.

But this is the problem with this vote here, which happens every four years. It's very kind of pro forma, ceremonial, kind of ratifying the Electoral College results. This has rapidly turned into a Trump loyalty test, which is why you're having these high numbers of Republicans saying they would object to the results.

And I would point to what Senator Ben Sasse said in his Facebook post and what Republicans do say privately, that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, that the Electoral College, the voters, the vote counters in every state did their job.

But this vote is something that the president is clearly very closely watching, that the base is very clearly watching, and, again, turning into a loyalty test more than about the integrity of the voting institutions of our democracy, which is very -- frankly, very dangerous.

TAPPER: Yes, I mean, it's loyalty to President Trump, as opposed to loyalty to the electoral process and to democracy itself.

And, Jackie, as Seung Min just referenced, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska went on Facebook and slammed Republicans who plan to go along with the president's fevered desires here.

He wrote on Facebook, in part, -- quote -- "When we talk in private, I haven't heard a single congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent, not one. I hear them instead talk about their worries about how they will look to President Trump's most ardent supporters."

We should note that every single one of these House Republicans was elected... JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Reelected.

TAPPER: ... reelected -- or reelected in this same election, including from Pennsylvania and from Michigan and from Wisconsin and from Arizona and from Georgia.

Not one of them are suggesting that there's anything that happened in their elections. It's just the Biden thing.

It's so embarrassing, Jackie.

KUCINICH: So, they have never tried to square that dissonance that you just pointed out, because that's not the point.

It's about supporting President Trump and whatever lunacy he's pushing. But I do think there's two buckets here. There's that, and then there's someone like Senator Hawley, who is kind of part of this dystopian apprentice to inherit the MAGA movement should President Trump ever step aside.

Ted Cruz is also part of that group, saying that he was going to step up and defend that lawsuit from Texas, the Texas A.G., that all of those Republicans signed on to, if it went to the Supreme Court. Ted Cruz knew that wasn't going to go to the Supreme Court. And Josh Hawley knows this isn't going anywhere in the Senate.

It's about the appearance of backing up the president and being in his corner in order to curry favor with the base. And that -- and Ben Sasse referenced that not by name in his long Facebook post as well.

TAPPER: Well, he didn't mention Hawley, but he was obviously talking about Hawley.

KUCINICH: No, not by name.

TAPPER: But, I mean, to be fair, I mean, it's also -- it's a group that also includes Ted Cruz, who offered to argue that deranged Texas attorney general case, full of conspiracy theories and lies, before the Supreme Court.

KUCINICH: Yes.

TAPPER: The Supreme Court looked at it and threw it out the window,

Kaitlan, "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board, which has been pretty supportive of President Trump, not necessarily about his more aberrant behavior, but about his policies, they wrote this about the president's actions -- quote -- "Mr. Pence" -- about the vice president -- "is too much of a patriot to go along. But the scramble to overturn the will of the voters tarnishes Mr. Trump's legacy and undermines any designs he has on running in 2024. Republicans who humor him will be giving Democrats license to do the same in the future, and then it might matter."

That's an interesting way to argue that this is abhorrent behavior to say, when the Democrats do it, it's going to be bad too, even though the Democrats haven't done it in this degree.

But I guess another question I have is, do you think that "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board is right when they say Vice President Pence isn't going to go along with this? I don't know what Pence is going to do.

COLLINS: I don't think the vice president knows what he's going to do yet, because he does realize he is in what they describe as a terrible spot, because, of course, he is someone -- we talk about the Josh Hawleys and the others who have political ambitions.

Well, the vice president does too. And it's rumored that he would also try to run for reelection in 2024. And so he has got to walk a tightrope of making sure that he can secure his own political future, but also, of course, making sure he doesn't make the -- anger the president, which the president has already been questioning people why Pence is not doing more.

And he has zeroed in on this role that Pence is going to play next week, even though, as we have noted, it's just ceremonial, basically, really opening the envelopes.

But the president knows he's going to be there. He wants him to take an outsized role in this, in addition to those Republican House members and those Republicans senators.

[16:10:00]

And so he is probably in the worst position of anyone in this. And I think people around the vice president and in the White House are keenly aware of that. And they're kind of waiting and watching to see what exactly it is he's going to do.

I should note that, in our story we reported yesterday saying that the president was coming back to Washington early, we had also heard that they were planning a foreign trip for the vice president. He was supposed to leave shortly after this process happens on Capitol Hill, but now planning for that trip has been put completely on hold.

And we don't actually expect him to go on one anymore. And I think it has to do with the calculations of what's going to happen next week.

TAPPER: Seung Min, our other breaking news in this last hour, Georgia Republican Senator David Perdue, who's running for reelection, he's now quarantining just days before the run-off on January 5, after his campaign announced that he had a close contact.

Somebody he was in close contact with tested positive for coronavirus.

Seung Min, do you think this might actually have an effect on the run- off election?

KIM: Well, in a race that we're expecting to be as close as they are in the Georgia run-off, every vote matters. And, certainly, it's going to have some sort of an impact. All through this year, you have seen Republicans rely so much more on these in-person events, where they are people holding hands -- or shaking hands with supporters, very often maskless, crowded into these rooms. And remember that the president is going to be going down to Georgia on the eve of these critical run-offs.

Could Senator Perdue make it by then? I don't know. With the quarantine kind of time frame, it's unclear that would be able to happen.

But, certainly, it's going to have an impact. It also just injects the issue, I mean, not that it wasn't there already, but this issue, just how front and center this issue of the pandemic has been in virtually every campaign, but certainly this one.

It also, frankly, deprives Senator Perdue, should there be a vote on Mitch McConnell's plan to give President Trump these $2,000 or -- or do the stimulus check vote on expanded stimulus checks that we don't expect to pass because there are some poison pills in it, it does also deprive David Perdue a chance of voting on that, going back home and saying, I voted for these checks that the president wants.

TAPPER: All right, Jackie, Seung Min, Kaitlan, thank you so much.

Coming up: a terrible mix-up. A look at how several people thought they were getting a coronavirus vaccine, but, instead, they got something else. That's next.

Then: Dr. Fauci saying Operation Warp Speed is now considering waiting longer to give people their second dose of the vaccine, in hopes of getting the first shots in more arms.

Stay with us.

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[16:16:34]

TAPPER: In our health lead: We are ending this gallstone of a year on a grim note. More than 340,000 Americans have already lost their lives to this pandemic.

The United States has seen a record number of deaths in the past two days. The CDC is now predicting more than 80,000 more Americans could die in just the next three weeks.

And while the coronavirus vaccine has offered some sign of hope, the slow speed of distribution is also leading to disappointment, as CNN's Athena Jones now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As 2020 draws to a close, fresh signs of a deepening crisis that could make January a particularly challenging month, America hitting a new high for COVID-19 deaths for the second day in a row, more than 3,700 people losing their lives to the virus, as the CDC projects as many as 80,000 more people will die in the next three weeks, hard-hit Los Angeles County surpassing 10,000 COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic.

ERIC GARCETTI (D), MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: We are at our capacity. And while we're seeing the caseload begin to level off, we know that two or three weeks of more hospitalizations and more deaths that follow last week and the week before caseload, we are still going to have our toughest and darkest days.

JONES: Hospitalizations nationwide also setting a record again on Wednesday, 12 states reaching new highs for hospitalizations, including Georgia, where officials have set up a field hospital in an Atlanta Convention Center.

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): We're at a critical, critical point.

JONES: And with California becoming the second state to identify a case of the more contagious coronavirus variant first discovered in the United Kingdom, doctors say it raises the stakes for getting the vaccines out faster, even as experts acknowledge distribution so far is falling short, just 2.8 million doses administered out of some 12.4 million distributed, a tiny fraction of the 20 million-dose goal government officials set.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: We would have liked to have seen it run smoothly and have 20 million doses into people today, by the end of the -- 2020, which was the projection. Obviously, it didn't happen. And that's disappointing.

JONES: Several states facing problems getting shots into arms.

GOV. TOM WOLF (D-PA): Maybe my expectations were to either that the vaccine would have been rolled out faster in a much more efficient manner than it has been.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we had more doses, we would get those into arms as well. The demand at this point far exceeds the supply.

JONES: Dr. Anthony Fauci saying that giving more people a first dose of vaccine to provide some protection is under consideration.

FAUCI: You can make an argument -- and some people are -- about stretching out the doses by giving a single dose across the board and hoping you're going to get the second dose in time to give to individuals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Now, one place that has seen some hiccups with vaccine distribution is West Virginia.

On a day when nearly 8,000 people across the state were vaccinated, local health officials said 42 people in Boone County were mistakenly given Regeneron's antibody cocktail, instead of Madonna's vaccine.

Now, this local health department, the county health department, says it will continue to work closely with the Virginia -- West Virginia National Guard and the state health department to review internal policies and procedures and that all affected individuals would be offered the COVID-19 vaccine today -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Athena Jones, thank you so much, and happy new year to you.

The co-director at the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, Dr. Peter Hotez, joins us now.

[16:20:05]

Dr. Hotez, first, how's vaccine distribution -- how is it going in Texas?

DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Well, what's going on in Texas is similar problems to the rest of the country.

We have received 600,000 doses. As of a couple of days ago, we'd given only 100,000 doses. Now, some of that was being held back for the second dose. But what's going on in Texas is not too different from the rest of the country.

We have got to figure out a way to dramatically expand the number of Americans who can get vaccinated. And it's clear that Operation Warp Speed never really addressed that. It was like everything else in this COVID-19 response. There was no ownership of the federal government. Everything has been left to the states, and the states are clearly not equipped to manage this.

So, we're going to need intervention from the federal government.

TAPPER: By your calculation, how many vaccines should we be doing per day nationally, say, by the end of January or February, after it's gotten up and running a little bit? How many would you like to be seeing done?

HOTEZ: Well, Jake, just the back-of-the-envelope calculation, if you if that you want to get 80 percent of the country vaccinated by later in the summer, early fall, that's a tremendous number of Americans. That's 240 million Americans.

When you do the math, that's a million Americans every day from starting now until late in the summer. And if you look at the state of Texas, that's 100,000 Texans a day. And we're just not even close to even getting to that point with this kind of hodgepodge of pharmacy chains and some of the hospital systems and some of the public health clinics.

We're just not going to get there. So we're going to need to call an audible and come up with something really substantive in order to vaccinate large populations. And playing around with the doses and holding back on the second dose, just -- we don't have the evidence base to really warrant that.

I mean, the clinical trials were done with a very specific dose and a very specific interval. And we know that works. Anything else is adding additional risk. That's not the answer. The answer is to step up and really implement a system where we can vaccinate, do high- throughput vaccination. Whether that's using football stadiums in order to vaccinate large populations or realizing that some of the low-income neighborhoods are pharmacy deserts, and putting in specific infrastructure there, that's where the emphasis needs to be.

And that's when I'm hoping the Biden administration is recognizing, that we're once again coming up small in terms of public health infrastructure, and we have got to get some ownership from the federal government.

TAPPER: So, given that the vaccine is still elusive in terms of getting it into sufficient arms, and given that we're losing 3,000 to 4,000 Americans every day in this country, and given that we expect it to get even worse after the holiday season, testing remains very important.

We're still not up to speed on where we need to be in testing. I think we're doing about 1.5 million tests a day. There's this new CDC study that says that the rapid antigen tests are far less accurate than the PCR tests.

Almost a year into this pandemic, how are we still at this point, where there is a very prevalent popular test that still has -- I think it's like one out of five is a false negative?

HOTEZ: Yes, we have never really gotten our arms around that.

Now, part of that is the problem of diagnostic testing for respiratory viruses is problematic to begin with. But that is an additional concern that -- and this is why I say our federal government never -- if you look at the laundry list of things that haven't happened, in terms of missing the entry of the virus from Southern Europe into New York, never getting the diagnostic testing up to speed, the one thing that we'd counted on was vaccinating the American people.

We heard about Operation Warp Speed, and we heard about our four-star general. And now we realize that was all about sending out FedEx trucks and UPS trucks to the states and letting the states figure it out once again.

And until we get federal intervention, this is just not going to work. And there was an absolute refusal from the Trump administration to take ownership of that, insisting that the states had to be the lead, when the states never had that capacity for diagnostic testing and for epidemiologic surveillance.

Look, even the viral genome problem, we only have 50,000 virus genome sequence, 0.3 percent of the virus isolates in the United States, compared to 50 percent in Australia, New Zealand, and 7 percent in the U.K.

[16:25:00]

So, that's why we never picked up the U.K. variant or the South African variant or probably other homegrown variants that are still there. So, every element of our public health infrastructure has largely failed us.

And the consequence of that is we're backed into a corner now. We have put ourselves in the situation where we have no -- without any other recourse, we have now have to vaccinate our way out of it. And this is what we need to do. We have got to put the infrastructure in now.

TAPPER: Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you so much. Happy new year.

Congratulations on just being named a finalist for Texan of the year by "The Dallas Morning News." Just so you know, you are the Texan of the year as far as THE LEAD is concerned.

Thanks for all your hard work during this pandemic.

HOTEZ: That's very kind, Jake. Thank you.

TAPPER: The message President Trump is now sending to Iran just days before the anniversary of the U.S. taking out Iran's top general.

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