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Don Lemon Tonight

Biden Names Ron Klain As His White House Chief Of Staff; GOP Senator Lankford Says He'll Step In If Biden Doesn't Have Access To Intelligence Briefing By Friday; Biden Stretches Popular Vote Lead To More Than Five Million; Trump Continues Alleging Massive Voter Fraud With No Proof; U.S. Hits Record Numbers Of COVID Cases & Hospitalizations; Trump Replaces Top Defense Officials With Political Loyalists; Trump Allies Clash With Top Intelligence Officials In Quest To Declassify More Russia Documents. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired November 11, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

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[23:01:27]

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: The President-elect Joe Biden making his first big hire tapping Ron Klain as his White House Chief of Staff. The Biden transition team moving forward with their plans despite the constant stonewalling from the Trump administration. The current President still claiming he will win the election. The reality is the election is over. He lost and the country needs to move on.

And tonight a number of Republicans seem to be signaling to the president that it's time to get a grip on reality, while damage has already been done.

So I want to bring now CNN's White House Correspondent, Mr. John Harwood and Senior Political Analyst, Ron Brownstein. Good evening to both of you. Good to see you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi Don.

LEMON: So John, Senator Lankford says that he's going to step in and Biden isn't briefed on Intel, Karl Rove making it clear in the Wall Street Journal, there's no evidence of fraud that would overturn the election. Geraldo Rivera says time is coming soon to say goodbye. Is the dam breaking here?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, it is beginning to crack a little bit. These are signals from Republicans. They're still pretty weak signals, the vast majority of the party remains allowing itself to be held hostage by President Trump and his base, they lack the guts to come forward and tell the truth.

You do see some people like the further they are from elected office, former House members. You see some governors Larry Hogan and Maryland, Charlie Baker, Massachusetts who are more moderate, not in debt to the MAGA verse, like others are.

Over time that's going to -- the resistance is going to wear down especially on leadership. The business community's moving on foreign leaders are moving on, Benjamin Netanyahu, Boris Johnson, all these people are beginning to deal with Joe Biden as the president-elect.

And most of these Republican members while they're playing along with this charade, they can't play crazy as well as Trump does for as long as Trump does, because they're not as crazy as him. And at some point, this thing's going to fold probably when these legal cases begin to be tossed out of court at a more rapid rate.

LEMON: Ron. I got to ask you, just listen to what John was saying there, the foreign leaders are, you know, sort of leaning towards Joe Biden as the president. Have ever seen, at least in recent history, or ever, were foreign leaders start to rely on the president-elect rather than the president is already in office, because we haven't seen much of the president who's already in office. He's just --

BROWNSTEIN: You know, we're ending the way we started. I mean, just with norms being shattered and precedents being exploded. There is nothing like this in American history.

And you see how absurd it is for the Republicans in Congress to be indulging the president in this way that foreign leaders, you know, the leader of Turkey is ahead of the senate majority leader and acknowledging the obvious. And you know, there's a real price to this. I mean, because not only is the president kind of indulging himself in this fantasy that the election is still ongoing.

In the process, he is ignoring a pandemic which actually is ongoing and is raging out of control. And by indulging him in kind of focusing on the election, the Republicans in Congress are essentially letting him off the hook for throwing up his hands and leaving Americans on their own as this reach, reaches an all time peak.

And I would say if this is the flash forward to what the next four years look like as Donald Trump dangles the prospect of running again in 2024. And the impact that has on Republicans in Congress, that's a pretty ominous trend.

LEMON: Yeah. Ron and listening I got a question for you. This is about Karl Rove. And I just want to read some of what he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

[23:05:06]

And he says there are only three statewide contests in the past half century in which recounts change the outcome, the 1974 New Hampshire Senate race, the 2004 Washington Governor's contest and the 2008, Michigan Senate election. But candidates in these races were separated respectively by 315, 261 and 250 votes after Election Day.

These margins aren't much like today's Mr. Biden led Wednesday, lead Wednesday, in Wisconsin by 20,540 votes, Pennsylvania by 49,060 votes, Michigan by 146,123, Arizona 12,614, Nevada 36,870, Georgia 14,108. To win, Mr. Trump must prove systemic fraud with illegal votes in the tens of thousands. There is no evidence of that so far.

So he's right.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

LEMON: No lost or recount will change the outcome with the margins this large. And you heard John say he believes that they're going to start courts may start throwing them out, you know, faster. Go on, what do you think of that?

BROWNSTEIN: As they have been, the courts have been throwing them out kind of as fast as they've been. Well, look, whether you like Karl or don't like Karl, he knows his politics. He knows his political history. He's a -- he's kind of a, you know, self-taught historian and he's right there.

There just are no precedents for recounts at anything like the margins, we are seeing. People can -- you can lose sight of the fact that Joe Biden's lead in the three critical Rust Belt states have decided the election in 2016. And again, this time, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin is almost triple Donald Trump's advantage in 2016.

And of course, Democrats conceded the election and President Obama welcomed Donald Trump to the White House with that margin, one-third as big as Joe Biden is now enjoying.

I mean, for many Republicans, I mean, they are projecting this idea that only, you know, "if their voters are the real Americans, by definition, any democratic win is a legitimate one by illegitimate votes." And it is a scary I mean, in terms of kind of the long term small d democratic norms of the country, that Republicans are indulging Trump to this extent on what is, you know, not only kind of a wild goose chase, but a destructive one that undermines faith in the democracy, again, an ominous sign for where things are going in the next few years.

LEMON: John, listen, you know, this works I have to go, are things really quiet like what is it like from, you know, the Trump folks in D.C. right now, is it weird, is it they -- what's going on?

HARWOOD: It's very weird because many of the Trump folks, the people staffing the White House have got to figure out what they're going to do for a paycheck in a matter of weeks. So they're trying -- they're both concerned about catching the coronavirus in their workplace.

They're concerned about their next job, and they're concerned about placating their boss, the boss, Donald Trump he understands that he hasn't won this, but he's playing this out for his future benefit, try to have a bloody shirt to wave in case he wants to run in 2024. If he just wants to hold that over the rest of the field or the party.

LEMON: Or to continue to raise money off of it.

HARWOOD: Continue to raise money off it.

LEMON: I got to go.

HARWOOD: He's playing this out. And they're paying the price.

LEMON: Thank you, John. Thank you, Ron. I appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: I got to get to this next gentlemen, that CNN's Mark Preston, because he's got the latest on the election results going to take a minute, so I want to make sure that we get it in.

So Mark, President Trump tweeting tonight, now 73 million legal votes. But Biden still has a huge lead in the popular vote. So why is he tweeting out? He's -- I mean, he is drawing attention to how many votes he lost the popular vote by?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENRIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well Don, I mean, you are not taking into account the fact that there are 77 million illegal voters who vote for Joe Biden.

Now listen, Joe Biden has made history, more than 77 million people have voted for him. And it continues to increase on up to this point. You know, he leads Donald Trump by more than 5 million votes nationwide. And again, that count continues to increase.

Let's look at where some of the votes are in, some of these states right now. Let's look at Georgia State that we spent a lot of time talking about here. Biden now holds a lead a little more than 14,000 votes, now 99% of the counties in Georgia have certified their results. But what's interesting is that Georgia is not only going to be the epicenter of politics for the next week until November 20, but it's going to be the epicenter until January 5 when we look at those Senate races that are heading for runoff. But let's go to Arizona as well --

LEMON: And Georgia hand recount, right? They're going to do a hand recount.

PRESTON: Yeah, yeah there will be hand recount. We'll talk a little about that momentarily. Look at as Wednesday morning right now, Joe Biden or as of this evening has 11,635 vote lead over Joe Biden, 99% of the counties have reported. But there's still 46,000 votes that are left out there that's why we haven't called that race in Arizona yet, but we are getting close there, Don. And of course, Joe Biden is still leading.

[23:10:14]

And in Pennsylvania, of course, we're the state that gave Joe Biden the presidency. His lead just continues to grow. Just in the past couple of hours, it has increased by 1600 votes, Don. You know, right now, Joe Biden lead is more than 53,000 in the state of Pennsylvania. Donald Trump is trying to launch lawsuits there. But look, they're not going to go anywhere.

LEMON: Yeah. Mark, I know a lot of states are still counting votes. When is everything going to be finalized? And I mentioned that Georgia hand count is going to -- you're going to mention that in this? PRESTON: Yeah, right. So here's the deal with Georgia, the Secretary of State has called for a hand count. He says that will be of every ballot, who says that will all be done by November 20. Now get this November 20, Donald Trump's campaign, if they still are losing the race by less than point 5%, they can go to another recount. But that would be a machine recount would be in many ways to be a waste of time. But it'd be something interesting to watch.

In addition, in Arizona, we should have the local results will be done by November 23 and the state will certify their results by the 30th, Pennsylvania by November 25. And then, of course, in Georgia, we'll have to see what happens with this recount or rather on this hand count on the 20th of November, Don.

LEMON: Maybe it's good that a lot of people can't go home for Thanksgiving.

PRESTON: There will be a lot of fights.

LEMON: Can you imagine?

PRESTON: Oh my god, terrible.

LEMON: It's going to be fights on zooms.

PRESTON: Hanging up on you.

LEMON: All right, Mark Preston, always a pleasure. Good to see.

PRESTON: Good to see you.

LEMON: Full count ordered in Georgia, but the Secretary of State there tells CNN that he doesn't think it'll change the fact that Biden is winning, plus Republicans playing right along with the President's election lies, why?

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got a party not of individuals, but almost a cult type party, where members of the Senate who know better not just on this issue on many other issues, they'll come up to you privately and say, yeah, Trump's a little bit crazy. But you know.

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[23:16:18]

LEMON: Georgia's Republican Secretary of State confirming tonight he has seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud in his state. Biden currently holding a 14,000 vote lead, but Georgia will now conduct a full recount and they're going to do it by hand. Let's discuss now, Democratic Congresswoman-elect Nikema Williams of Georgia who is also the Chairwoman of the Georgia Democratic Party. Good to see you again. How are you? NIKEMA WILLIAMS (D-GA), CONGRESSWOMAN-ELECT: Thank you for having me, Don. I'm actually in D.C. this time.

LEMON: I see that, I see that getting ready. I really appreciate you joining us. Can we -- let's jump right into this. Georgia Secretary of State says that no one has given him any evidence of widespread voter fraud, thinks the ballots have been counted accurately. And the recount is going to confirm that. So that means a win for Joe Biden, you think?

WILLIAMS: So I am confident that when this hand recount is done to certify our ballots by November 20 that their Secretary of State has my outline, that is going to only reaffirm what we saw on election night. And as the results started to come in, that Georgians voted for Joe Biden for their president-elect and we're moving forward. We are looking forward to casting our Electoral College votes for him when we meet at the state capitol in December.

LEMON: So here's the thing, Congresswoman-elect, Biden is up by over 14,000 votes in your state. According to analysis from fair vote, the average shift in votes from a statewide recount is about 430 votes, the largest shift was a little less than 2600 votes. So even if the numbers change a little wouldn't matter?

WILLIAMS: It won't matter. I am confident in the election results as they currently stand, but we're going to let them go through their hand recount process. And at the end of the day, is going to only reaffirm what we already know that we showed up, we showed up in force. And we've been organizing on the ground because we were ready to use our voice to elect our next president and that is Joe Biden.

LEMON: So what is this all about do you think? Firing up the base for the Georgia Senate race something else?

WILLIAMS: It's -- I mean, it's a number of things. You know, we're playing for all the marbles here in Georgia. We have two U.S. Senate seats on the ballot, you heard our Republican senators come out and demanding that the Secretary of State resign simply for counting every vote. And I have just been sitting back and watching them firing off at each other. Because we know what's at stake. We know that the balance of the Senate is at stake. And it runs through Georgia. And so we're continuing to do the work while they argue with each other.

LEMON: You are the chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Georgia. Are you confident democrats can win these Georgia run off? You know, as you know, it means Senate control. This is this is for all the marbles?

WILLIAMS: I am very confident, Don, because I know that Georgians did not just show up in an election. It wasn't just about Donald Trump. It wasn't just about one election cycle. This was about giving the power back to Georgia voters back to people who are for so long, been toiling out there making sure that we get people out to the polls.

We move to scale this year. And Georgia voters are not turning back we are turning blue. And that did not just stop with the presidential. We're moving forward to a like Jon Ossoff in Raffia (ph) we're not to the United States Senate. I am confident in that. And I'll be happy to come back with you and celebrate.

LEMON: And we'll be happy to have you come back and discuss, discuss whatever happens there. So But listen, all these baseless claims of voter fraud, President Trump is pointing to big cities like Detroit and Philadelphia and Atlanta, right? Is he really attacking the black --

WILLIAMS: Not just big cities, black cities?

LEMON: OK, that was my question. Is he really attacking black and minority voters that that showed up? What do you think of it?

WILLIAMS: I mean, Don when people show you who they are, you should -- we should believe them. And Donald Trump has shown us time and time again how he feels about our communities. He attacked Atlanta's fifth congressional district when Congressman Lewis was serving here so honorably for 34 years, and so the people of Atlanta showed up and they pushed back against that narrative. And we're just going to continue to do that.

[23:20:19]

We don't listen to Donald Trump. He's no longer going to be our president, come January 20. We have a new president-elect in Joe Biden. And so as he is out, making his accusations and doing whatever, we're continuing to do the work of the American people, because there's just too much at stake.

LEMON: Congresswoman-elect, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. Good luck.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

LEMON: More foreign leaders congratulating President-elect Biden at this point then, Republican leaders. My next guest says the GOP is attacking democracy.

And ahead, dictator moves. That's how a senior defense official is describing Trump's purge of the Pentagon.

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[23:25:09]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT SCHLAPP, AMERICAN POLITICAL ACTIVIST: Hillary is on her sore loser tour. And now we have her going through recounts, you know what she needs to do? She needs to get over it. She lost. Get out of the way and let Donald Trump be president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think the Democrats are sore losers?

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Yeah, I do. The reality is they're a bunch of spoiled crybabies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Newsflash for many of the partisan Democrats and those in the mainstream media who continue to try to de legitimize President-elect Trump's massive and historic win last month, the elections over, Hillary Clinton lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Oh, my gosh, well, you know, shout out to our KFILE team for finding President Trump's allies calling Dems sore losers in 2016, even though you might remember Hillary Clinton conceded the day after the election. So why is the GOP willing to go so far to go so far as to say to back Trump, when he clearly lost this time around? Are they worried that they can't win their own races without him?

And an op-ed for the New York Times editorial board member, Jesse Wegman, says the Republican Party is attacking democracy. He joins me now to discuss and he's also by the way, the author of, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.

Jesse, are you trying to get -- are you trying to stir up trouble with that book in what you're saying? I mean, you're a rabble rouser right now. Thank you for joining.

JESSE WEGMAN, EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: You know, Donald Trump said the Electoral College is a disaster for democracy before I wrote this book, you know, so, I mean, I'm just jumping on board the train. Everybody hates this thing. And everybody has hated it throughout American history the moment they realize it's going to hurt them. So you know, it looks like a democratic sour grapes issue right now. But in fact, it's been trans-partisan for centuries.

LEMON: That's the way Republicans are framing it down because they know it's a good way to appeal to the base and attack Democrats. Listen, you write this in the latest -- in a decade's long descent of the Republican Party. You said it's a decade's long descendent of the Republican Party, which you say now prefers conspiracy theories over facts. How did the Republicans come to this point?

WEGMAN: I mean, this is this is I think one of the biggest hazards of being a minority rule Party, which the republicans have been for quite some time now, when you don't have to win a majority of voters, you can basically ignore reality, right? You don't have to, you don't have to concern yourself with what most voters want.

And then you don't have to concern yourself with actually what are the facts on the ground. And so I think conspiracy theories are kind of a part and parcel of that. And that's why we see it being, you know, people kind of grabbing on to these sort of fanciful ideas and completely evidence, free assertions about voter fraud and irregularities all over the country right now. They have nothing else to grab on to. So that's what they do.

LEMON: Do you think it's fear? Because they know that it's sort of the last gasp of what you said of this sort of conspiracy of the minority? That's just a minority, actually deciding what's best, or what they think is best for the majority?

WEGMAN: Well, that's the crazy part. I'm not even sure it's a minority, right. I mean, Republicans had a great night on election night, down ballot, right in state legislatures, in the House of Representatives, and even in the Senate, which you know, the odds are right now that they're going to hold like, they have no reason to think that they can't win elections.

They have had trouble at the presidential level right seven of eight popular votes have gone for the Democratic nominee, you know, the longest stretch in American history. But else wise, the Republicans can win elections. And I really don't understand why they insist on dichotomizing this and saying somehow the presidential ballot is fraudulent. But the same, you know, the same valid a little further down is fine.

LEMON: Yeah, it was a conspiracy theory. Just let's get all the Republicans win everything else. But lose the presidency. It makes absolutely zero sense.

Listen, just a little fact checking here. We're talking about the sound bite. They mentioned Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton conceded within 24 hours of the polls closing and Trump's margin of victory was much smaller. And also you right, that when we hear Republicans talking about voting irregularities or fraud, that it's a euphemism for black and brown Americans voting in large numbers.

WEGMAN: Yeah, I mean, I think this is obviously a part of, you know, Republican -- modern Republican history right is, you know, from the southern strategy up and up through until today, you know, it was only in 2018 that they had a, you know, consent decree lifted by a federal judge that had been in place for almost 40 years, which prevented them from sort of anti voter fraud operations that they were undertaking to intimidate black voters from the polls, right?

[23:30:00]

They kept doing it over and over, which is why this consent decree kept getting re-imposed on them. It was only lifted two years ago.

But yeah, this is really just -- this is this is how they operate. And it's and it's kind of funny because as many people have pointed out, black voters and Latino voters actually increased their support for President Trump in this election.

Philadelphia was actually one of the only county, I think, that actually Trump did better in Pennsylvania. So it just doesn't make sense.

LEMON: Yeah, he did better in Pennsylvania this time than he did in 2016. So who knows? It's, it's crazy. Jesse, I love having you on. Please come back. Thank you so much.

WEGMAN: Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Philadelphia I should say, in Philadelphia. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks.

WEGMAN: Yes, thanks.

LEMON: Now I want to bring in political commentators, Amanda Carpenter and Scott Jennings. Hello, good to see both of you. So Amanda, right now, in some states, Biden won, like Pennsylvania, we're seeing GOP House candidates getting more votes all together than Democratic House candidates. And we see the same trend in states like Georgia and Arizona and Wisconsin, do Republicans need Trump as much as they seem to think that they do?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, we're going to see in Georgia, right, the way that the Georgia Senate candidates are running right now. They seem to think that they do need Trump. I think there's a difference between Republicans who have made a relationship with their voters, have had contact with them, know their districts, and other people that don't and are just purely reliant on the Trump base to get out the vote in the case. You see that with Kelly Loeffler, and David Perdue, because without that highly activated Trump base to go to the polls in January, they're going to have big problems.

LEMON: So Scott, I'm not sure if you think that, do you think that Republicans if you look at what happened in these races, do you think they need Trump as much as they think they do?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think going forward, the Republican Party has to figure out a way to harmonize both ends of this spectrum here, right? Because Trump undoubtedly is brought in new people to the party, as was just pointed out, new minority voters have come to the Republican Party, working class voters that didn't previously think of themselves as Republicans have come to the party. But at the same time, they've obviously bled some traditional Republican voters in the suburbs, who went the other way in both 2018 and 2020.

And so I think that the question is, is not who do you need as in terms of personalities. It's who can bring both sides of that of that spectrum together? And obviously, Trump had trouble doing that. He was able to increase one side of it, but losing on the other. Is there someone out there that can harmonize it? And get them both back together again. That would be a pretty powerful --

LEMON: OK. Well then, that's a good question. That's a good answer because in that -- so if it's not, if they don't need him as much, because in some ways, he is sort of he devices a divisive figure. So then why are they sowing doubts about the democracy? Why are they continuing to go along with this whole thing about fall voter fraud and the election was stolen if it doesn't necessarily work on their behalf?

JENNINGS: Well, I think some Republicans are -- Oh, go ahead, Amanda. Sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

CARPENTER: Go ahead. Well, I mean, part of the problem is that Trump has backed his voters into a corner. You have 71, 72 million people who voted for him, and a large chunk of them believing him that this election might be rigged or fraudulent. So how do you get out of that, and you see the Republicans on Capitol Hill, sort of just hoping Trump will exhaust his options, and this will resolve itself.

Bank banking on Trump to just go away silently is always a bad bet, because he won't he'll just go to the next Gambit. But here's what I'm worried about right now. I feel like we're all worried about trying to find a way to give Trump, his Binky so he can go away and feel good about himself.

In the meantime, he sacking the Secretary of Defense. I want to know why Mark Esper is gone. I want to know why other key national security officials have an x and been replaced with a bunch of lackeys. This is the kind of stuff people on Capitol Hill who purport to care about national security, should be taking an interest in rather than protecting the guy's feelings.

LEMON: Well, thank you, Amanda, because that's what we're going to talk about next, James Clapper is here. Thank you both for that.

CARPENTER: I didn't know that.

LEMON: No, no, that's OK. I'm glad you brought it up. It's a perfect segue. Thank you both. I appreciate it.

So let's move on and talk about that alarm, growing inside the Pentagon over Trump's purge of officials, a Former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper is going to weigh in next.

And ahead for the second day in a row, the U.S. surpassing record numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the country reporting more than 140,000 new cases today alone.

[23:35:00]

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LEMON: President Trump firing several top Pentagon officials and replacing them with political loyalists. One defense official calling it scary, unsettling and dictator moves. Joining me now is James Clapper. He's the Former Director of National Intelligence. Director, good to see you, how are you?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I'm great, Don. How about you?

LEMON: I'm doing very well. Thank you so much. So let's talk about the shake up at the Pentagon. OK. The President fired Defense Secretary Esper, put loyalists in key positions. Are you concerned that he is undermining national security?

[23:40:07]

CLAPPER: Absolutely, Don, I spent about 13 years in the Pentagon, over four assignments. And there's a certain battle rhythm that takes place in the Pentagon and requires a lot of teamwork and cooperation. And so something like this is, you know, purge, and worse, the implanting of what I call Political commissar in the Pentagon is, I think very, is very serious because it's such a disruption and such a distraction. So here we have this going on in the nerve center of our national defense. And this is very disturbing.

What I really -- what I worry about now is whether he's going to attempt to do something similar with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in other words, the uniformed military, and plant a commissar somewhere in the JCS. And of course, the question, you know, is what's the motive here?

LEMON: Yeah, so why so concerning about that?

CLAPPER: Well, I don't know. You know, I'm an intelligence guy. So, you know, our instinct is worst casing. So, so this is speculation, but I wonder whether he's trying to set up a structure there that will make a more pliant Department of Defense in the event he wants to haul active duty troops out in the streets. I don't know, I'm just -- that's just speculation because it's very hard to predict what actions that are our current president will take but that is one possibility that concerns me.

LEMON: Frightening, frightening. Listen to the Pentagon also confirmed today that retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor, will be serving as a senior advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense. McGregor has a history of making xenophobic and racist comments about immigrants and refugees, as well as other controversial statements. Well, the Biden administration be able to change these again?

CLAPPER: Oh, absolutely. I think Biden ministration will undoubtedly, do some housecleaning. And the emerging transition team, who are middle professionals and experienced and patriots, I think will do a very quick repair job.

LEMON: Is this -- there's also reporting that the President has not been briefed with the presidential daily briefing since early October. What is his relationship like with the intelligence community right now?

CLAPPER: Well, it's strained, I guess, which is probably an understatement. You know, I was calling back in 2016. And as for as soon as it was known, it was known the night of the election, that President Trump, Mr. Trump was the president-elect. The very next day, he started receiving a parallel presidential daily briefing, the intelligence briefing that President Obama received, that's been the standard practice for decades. And so that was just automatic that we did at the time.

And now if it's, in fact present, like Biden is being deprived of that. That is not good, because he in the run up to his assuming office on the 20th of January, you should be well prepped for, you know, about intelligence threats around the world. And if he's not getting that, that's dangerous.

LEMON: Yeah, that's it. That certainly is an issue. And you're right, very dangerous. We have new reporting tonight that Trump's allies are clashing with top intelligence officials about declassifying more Russia documents a president has been told there is nothing of substance in it will compromise sources and methods. Why do you think he is pushing so hard to have this unclassified or declassified?

CLAPPER: Well, I guess, he thinks that declassifying something which is apparently pretty serious in terms of jeopardizing sensitive sources and methods, and I guess he believes that if it is that will somehow disprove the Russian interference or more specifically that Putin directed it.

And I think the point here, apart from the fact that you're risking a lot, perhaps assets lives, or perhaps our foreign intelligence partnerships, but the bigger point is that looking at the body of evidence holistically, there's absolutely no doubt that Putin directed an operation of that magnitude and aggressiveness and it wouldn't have happened without it. That's just the way things work in Russia. So I think this will be a double whammy the wrong way. They're going to do damage and it won't make his point.

[23:45:17]

LEMON: Director, always a pleasure. Be safe and I'll see you soon.

CLAPPER: Thanks, Don. Same to you.

LEMON: Thank you.

Today marks the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in the U.S. since the pandemic started. And the CDC has a warning for the whole country as the holidays approach.

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[23:50:07]

LEMON: Coronavirus surging across the U.S. more than 140,000 new cases were reported just today. That's a new record and the ninth consecutive day of more than 1000 COVID cases in this country. CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner joins me now.

Doctor, thank you so much, listen, this is, boy, it's always been serious. But right now, I can't stress this to how bad it could get. The hospitalizations in the U.S. may have reached an all time high. Yesterday, many U.S. hospitals are at a breaking point. We are in a real five alarm fire here when it comes down to the spread of this virus.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We are, so 65,000 people hospitalized right now in the United States with COVID-19. We're increasing the number of hospitalized patients at a rate of about 1600 people per day. That's the rate of increase. And we're going to start to saturate our hospitals in large parts of this country.

They're already starting to feel the strain parts of the Midwest, et cetera. And we're going to have to start thinking about some of the strategies that we employed in places like New York in the spring, you know, making operating rooms into ICU, making cafeterias into inpatient settings. Really stretch, stressing the staff out. It's going to be a very tough few months.

LEMON: Yeah. So let's talk about that then, because you know, the holidays are upon us. What do we do, Doctor? What do we do?

REINER: So the good news, we'll start with the good news. The good news is that next Thanksgiving is going to be fabulous. It's going to be the best ever. This Thanksgiving is going to suck a bit. And we need to be careful. And we need to take care of each other, which means, we should really have Thanksgiving with people that we live with.

And you know, we can't have our parents come to town. We have to be very careful if we have our kids come to town, maybe get them to quarantine like we're going to do with our children, get them to quarantine, get tested, and then bring them home. That's really the only way to do it, we really should be --

LEMON: So only people in your immediate household, you think that even if your --

REINER: Yeah.

LEMON: -- family lives in a cross town or none of that?

REINER: Yeah, exactly. So you need your own little pod, like the virus doesn't care how much you love people, right? So let's stay safe this year. Let's get through this dark time. There is a bright light coming up, you know, we have new leadership coming. We have at least one vaccine that is going to work that's coming. So at some point, we're going to start to turn the tide. But for now we need to get to that point. So let's stay safe. Let's try and push the curve down a little bit, protect our health care workers and protect each other so that we can really have a great celebration next year.

LEMON: Yeah, you can give thanks by keeping people yourself and people safe and alive. So we have seen the president-elect and the vice president-elect in their virus task force meetings. But it has been a total leadership void from President Trump and the White House. No briefings, nothing.

REINER: Right. So, you know, many of us thought that, you know, the President had a conflict of interest in the spring when he was trying to run for re election. Now imagine in this insane interregnum, how much attention the West Wing is paying to the virus, none, none, which is why we have to take matters in our own hands. At the grassroots level, we need to basically educate people to mask up to hunker down, to understand that we will get through this, but we're going to have to get through this without the leadership from Washington.

Now, some of our governors in some of our states may take a leadership roles, certainly, Maryland where I live has a very good governor on this, places like New York State and Massachusetts, other parts of the country. But we have to rely on each other. We can't rely on Washington right now. There is new leadership coming. I think the new advisory panel task force is composed of brilliant people. We will get past this. But right now, let's take care of each other.

LEMON: Do you think that we are in a better place now that we have at least the President and the Vice President-elect in place along with the CDC telling people to wear masks?

REINER: Sure. At least as a consistent message, maybe more people will start to do this. I can imagine that more people won't start to mask up. But I like the message from the CDC now acknowledging what was obvious to so many of us that mask are not only to prevent the spread of the virus. Masks are also help to prevent you from acquiring the virus. So if I can convince you to protect your neighbors, maybe I can convince you to protect yourself.

[23:55:04]

LEMON: Yeah.

REINER: So let's do that.

LEMON: Doctor, always a pleasure. Thank you. We appreciate it.

REINER: My pleasure, Don.

LEMON: So before we go, we'd like to remember just one of the lives that lost in this pandemic. Horace Saulsberry (ph), 59-year old Memphis native, grandpa, football super fan, love the Dallas Cowboys. His niece, Kenya says that he would watch CNN all day. He especially enjoyed watching this show and hearing from Dr. Fauci.

His family says that he died alone in his home, three days after his COVID diagnosis. He leaves behind three daughters and five grandchildren. And I hope his family knows that my thoughts and prayers and those of everyone here at CNN are with them tonight. We are very sorry for your loss.

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