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Trump to Nominate Woman to Supreme Court: Protesters Arrested in London over New U.K. Restrictions; Trump Says He Approved TikTok Purchase Deal; Thailand Demonstrations; Vaccine Makers Face Manufacturing and Delivery Challenges; Taiwan's COVID-19 Success Story; RBG in Her Own Words. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired September 20, 2020 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): U.S. president Trump says he will move quickly to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court and giving one clue as to who it will be.
Anti lockdown protests in London as the U.K. faces a second wave of coronavirus cases. We will go live to London with the latest in just a moment.
And the clock has not run out for TikTok yet. We will have details and a live report from Hong Kong on the deal that could avert a ban for the popular app.
Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome everyone. I am Natalie Allen and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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ALLEN: Thank you for joining us. Our top story, the United States has barely had time to mourn the passing of U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg but Donald Trump already says he will move quickly to name her replacement.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman. It will be a woman.
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ALLEN: U.S. Senate Republicans already are trying to line up votes in anticipation they can get confirmation hearings and a final vote before the end of the year, maybe even before November's presidential election.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden summed it up on Twitter this way, "The Supreme Court is on the ballot and the outcome will impact everything from health care to civil rights, affecting generations to come." That is why the push by Republicans to replace Ginsburg quickly
threatens to overshadow the November election. CNN's Manu Raju explains exactly what is at stake.
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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: This decision ought to be made by the next president.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That was Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell then when Barack Obama was president in 2016 with a vacancy on the Supreme Court. But times have changed and so has the president.
MCCONNELL: We'd fill it.
RAJU (voice-over): Republican leaders applauding a full throated effort to fill justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat with the election just 45 days away, trying to make the argument, it's different now because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate.
Privately, McConnell and Trump speaking about potential nominees on Friday night. And the GOP leader, in a message to his colleagues, urging them to "keep your powder dry" and not take a position on whether the winner of the November election should be the one filling the vacancy left by the death of Ginsburg.
On Saturday senator Susan Collins of Maine, facing the toughest re- election of her career, breaking ranks, saying the decision of lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the president who was elected on November 3rd.
But with a 53-47 majority Democrats need a total of four Republicans to vote no and stop the nomination. GOP senator Lisa Murkowski, before Ginsburg's death, made clear she did not want to move ahead on any vacancy before November.
And it's unclear if two other Republicans will agree. Privately, top Republicans are arguing that a Supreme Court fight will only boost their chances at holding the Senate majority in November.
And several Republicans in difficult races are indicating they'll vote to confirm Trump's nominee this year, even though some endangered Republicans, like North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, took the opposite position in 2016.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): We're going to let the American people speak.
RAJU (voice-over): Yet moving ahead before November could squeeze Republicans like Cory Gardner, running for re-election in Democratic leaning Colorado. Gardner's office did not respond to questions about whether the winner of November's elections should make the hugely consequential pick.
It typically takes between 2 to 3 months to confirm a Supreme Court nominee, meaning it would be much faster than usual to approve a replacement before November.
Yet if a vote slips there's another complication if Arizona's appointed senator Martha McSally loses in November.
That means the Democrat Mark Kelly could be sworn in by the end of that month, bringing the GOP majority down from 52-48. So McConnell has little margin for error and several senators are uncommitted, like Utah's Mitt Romney.
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RAJU (voice-over): And some senators in the past have been wary about an election year confirmation, like senator Chuck Grassley, who as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, refused to hold hearings for Obama's nominee in 2016.
He told CNN in July:
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): If I were chairman of the committee, I couldn't move forward with it.
RAJU (voice-over): On Saturday his office declined to say if that is still his position.
Others have clearly shifted theirs, including Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the Judiciary Committee and said this in 2016.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination and you could use my words against me.
RAJU: Now Lindsey Graham explains himself this way. He basically says that things have changed since 2018 in the aftermath of that vicious Supreme Court fight that got Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to the court. He says he views all this differently now.
But if the Republicans do move ahead, Senate Democrats have their own plans. They're talking about that right now. They had a conference call on Saturday afternoon in which Chuck Schumer told his caucus that all options are on the table if the Republicans do advance a nomination this fall.
And one of those options that Democrats are discussing, potentially expanding the Supreme Court, maybe going from nine justices to 11 justices or even more than that. They would need legislation to do that. And to pass legislation it would have to change the Senate filibuster rules.
And, to do that, they need to win the Senate majority first in the fall. So so much is on the line in this fall's election but Democrats have indicated they're not going to take this fight lying down -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
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ALLEN: The Supreme Court is the highest judicial body in the United States and one of three coequal branches of government. Nine justices serve on the court, the chief and eight associates. They are nominated by the president and confirmed in the U.S. Senate.
They serve for life unless they decide to retire, resign or are convicted of a crime or are impeached. A new poll reveals how many Americans feel on the subject. It was taken just days before Justice Ginsburg died.
Two thirds of those responding said if there were a vacancy on the court, this year a hearing and vote should be held on President Trump's nominee. That was fairly even across party lines. Let's talk about these developments with Areva Martin. She is a civil rights attorney.
Thanks for coming on.
How do you see this issue affecting the election?
If Republican leaders move forward with the nomination, what are you expecting?
AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Republicans, I think, have to be very careful, particularly somebody like Lindsey Graham, who is all over television and print media. Back in 2016 and as recently in 2018, making very clear that, if a Republican president was in office and it was an election year and there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court, that vacancy should not be filled.
He is in a very tough election. He -- the polls are showing he is head to head with Jamie Harrison in South Carolina and I don't think voters are going to take too kindly to a senator making such a broad statement, a commitment not to move forward with a vote on a Supreme Court nominee and then flipping and saying it's OK to do so now, because it's to his political. Advantage.
So I think that Republicans need to be careful they don't overplay their hands and they face a serious backlash at the polls in November.
ALLEN: It certainly shows that they are sticking to President Trump through thick and thin, as always.
How do you think Democrats will be responding?
Do they have any moves to make as this process plays out, perhaps before Election Day?
MARTIN: The reality is the Republicans have the majority and if they can get those -- if they can keep their caucus held together, they have the votes, obviously, to move forward with any nominees Donald Trump puts forward.
But it doesn't mean that they're going to take this lying down. There's going to be tremendous pressure on Republican senators, particularly those in vulnerable elections this November.
And Democrats have a procedural mechanism that they have and ultimately as Chuck Schumer has said, nothing is off the table, so if Democrats win the Senate in November, if they win the White House, they are talking about things such as packing the court, which will be increasing the number of justices from nine to 11, even potentially to 15.
They are talking about eliminating the filibuster. There's even conversations happening about giving statehood to Washington, D.C., which would result in two additional senators.
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MARTIN: And those senators are likely to be Democratic senators. There are a lot of options that the Democrats have if they are successful in November.
ALLEN: It's been interesting to learn that it is not written in the Constitution that we only have nine justices on the Supreme Court. That was something that I have not realized personally.
But that would be interesting if there were a shift in the numbers, would it not?
If Republicans succeed in somehow getting a nominee, presumably a conservative, on the court before the election, as we heard, it usually is a process that takes 2-3 months, what will this mean for the Supreme Court and the balance on the court?
MARTIN: Oh, Natalie, it would be a seismic shift in the court. It would give the Republicans essentially six conservative justices on that 9-person court. That would mean everything, pretty much everything that impacts the lives of Americans, will be at stake: abortion rights, contraception right, immigration rights, civil rights, health care.
The case involving dismantling ACA is set to be heard by the Supreme Court two weeks after the election. So we know that Donald Trump and his administration is arguing that the ObamaCare, which provides insurance for millions of Americans, should be dismantled.
So everything that is valuable to the American people is at stake, which is why we should expect to see a massive battle, not just at the Senate level but we should expect to see people on the ground mobilizing, protesting, contacting their senators and doing everything possible to prevent this nomination from being voted on prior to the November election.
ALLEN: Right. And the other part of this is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we haven't even had a funeral for her yet and already her dying wish was that this not happen. So that could be another area, that it comes back to haunt the Republicans, because we are seeing them mourning for her and the public just talking about her and her influence and what a phenomenal, not just a phenomenal leader she was but a phenomenal human being.
MARTIN: No doubt, Natalie. As an attorney myself, my respect that I hold for Ruth Bader Ginsburg is just phenomenal. She opened so many doors. I graduated from Harvard Law School the way she did. She paved the way for lawyers like. Me if you are a female lawyer in the United States today you owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
She was a trailblazer in women's rights, civil, rights and people are not going to take kindly to the Republicans, first of all, moving so quickly -- she has not even been buried, there hasn't been a funeral service, no opportunity to mourn her death.
And already within hours they were calculating from a political standpoint how to move forward with her replacement. I think we're going to see one of the biggest protest movements in this country, if Donald Trump moves forward, as he's indicated he is going to do as early as next week with a nomination.
This is not going to be taken lightly by the American people.
ALLEN: We appreciate your input, as always, Areva Martin. We will look to see what will happening in the weeks ahead. Thank you, Areva.
MARTIN: Thank you, Natalie.
ALLEN: We were just talking about the gift of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her death at age 87 has inspired tributes, as we were just saying, and respects from across the U.S. The expressions show just how much of an iconic and irreplaceable figure she was. More about her from CNN's Jessica Schneider.
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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: All the singing and the celebration lasted into Saturday night. Everyone here to pay tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
There were streams of people who came here to the Supreme Court after hearing about her passing on Friday night. And it lasted throughout the day on Saturday. People came here to lay flowers, to light candles, to sing.
There were also many renditions of "Amazing Grace." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served at the Supreme Court for more than 27 years and the vigils stretched all over the country, from Denver to San Francisco to tributes in New York City as well.
The morning, on Saturday morning, the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris also came here in a nonchalant manner with her husband. They wore masks and they stayed silent as they looked to the Supreme Court to pay their own tribute.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was referred to as a tireless champion of justice by the chief justice here, John Roberts. And that's exactly what the people have been remembering all weekend -- Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.
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ALLEN: We turn to other news coming up here, the United Kingdom bracing for the second wave of the pandemic. The prime minister says it is already here. Now we will go live to London in a moment.
Also, masks, temperature checks and even COVID checks. We'll look at how Rome's main airport is trying to keep travelers safe and keep them flying.
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ALLEN: The United States is fast approaching the 200,000 mark in lives lost to COVID-19. Several states are seeing a rise in cases, suggesting a post Labor Day spike. In fact, Johns Hopkins is now reporting more than 6.7 million cases.
Medical experts worry about flu season and how coronavirus will make it even more dangerous perhaps.
Around the world, Poland, Lebanon and Uganda are now among the countries reporting record case surges. And in London, police say they have arrested 32 people in anti lockdown and anti vaccine protests. Officers say they were outbreaks of violence and emergency workers were assaulted.
CNN's Cyril Vanier is in London for us.
And that is a troubling scene there for sure, Cyril. The U.K. now going in the wrong direction. And good morning to you.
CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Natalie. Absolutely, the U.K.'s going in the wrong direction it has the government worried. The writing is on the wall. I think it is safe to assume that there are going to be further restrictions imposed on the daily lives of Britons, probably no later than this week.
That's the speculation in the British press this Morning. There are already targeted restrictions imposed on many localities in the U.K., restrictions such as people from different households are not allowed to mingle; curfews on bars, pubs and restaurants, which had to close at 10 pm.
All of this done obviously to slow the spread of the virus. And here in London, the mayor has already hinted that further restrictions are likely. He is looking at what is being done in the rest of the country. He says things are trending, the epidemiological situation is in the wrong direction.
He would rather act early and impose restrictions now than lock the whole city down because things have gotten out of hand. So, Natalie, those protesters who were in Trafalgar Square yesterday, protesting against restrictions to the daily lives of Britons, well, they're going to have to hang on, because they're probably going to be seeing more of that in the days and weeks to come.
ALLEN: Yes, and is that something new that they're seeing or has this been going on?
We certainly have it over here in the United States as far as anti vaccine and people not wanting their freedoms encroached upon.
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VANIER: It's an increasing trend. It's an increasing trend. Look, people here have been through a brutal lockdown to an extent that the U.S. had not seen in the early days of the pandemic. So you also have to factor that in. A lot of people just do not want to go through that again and you have more people who are now doubters, who disbelieve the official word about how serious this, is about how bad it is.
And specifically how much you have to restrict people's daily lives. I reported for several months in France on COVID-19 as you know and what we've seen in the last 1.5 months, is that the number of daily cases have increased but the number of deaths, while it has trended up has not increased as much. That has led a lot of people to believe that maybe, hey, I should take my risks and, take my chances, catch it and be done with. It
ALLEN: More young people are getting the disease but not going to the hospital for that because they're not the elderly. Cyril, thank you so much, appreciate it.
Let's talk more about it now with my guest, Sterghios Moschos, an associate professor of molecular virology at Northumbria University.
Good to see you. Thanks so much for coming on.
STERGHIOS MOSCHOS, NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY: Good morning, Natalie.
So what we heard there is troubling, understandable that people do not want restrictions on their lives. So new coronavirus cases have now risen to their highest levels in the U.K. since early May, some 4,000 new cases per day.
How might that add up if that trend continues?
MOSCHOS: Well, it'll go in only one direction. We'll have another lockdown and the more people are reluctant to comply with the measures that are supposed to prevent a second lockdown from coming down, the more likely we are going to get a lockdown. It's simple.
We are cases in countries that have seen a very sharp increase in the second wave like Hungary shoot up. The death rate is increasing as well. France's death rate is increasing. If you look at one of the many dashboards, you can see that now the average is exponential in France. That will increase dramatically over the last few days.
Similarly in the U.K., the hospitalization numbers are up, the death rate is up. So we are heading in one direction and that direction is the need to enforce another lockdown to prevent mass deaths and mass health damage and health problems with the NHS.
Obviously the NHS is much better prepared this time around than the last time around. But it's not been a week since it was leaked out (ph) they're anticipating a major surge of cases going into ICUs or just being diagnosed around the beginning of October. So it's a question of days, it's not a question of months or weeks or anything like. That
ALLEN: Let's talk about how they got here. The government did encourage people to go back to their offices, to restaurants and pubs are, of course, open.
Was it too much opening and loosening too soon and it got people complacent?
MOSCHOS: There are 2 schools of thought about. This one school of thought says we need to look after the economy, which is correct, and we need to look after people's welfare, which is also correct. Therefore, we need to give them the opportunity to take a breather. We need the opportunity to get the businesses to generate some revenue so they can sustain themselves for whatever comes next.
The other school of thought is, first and foremost, we must prevent the disease from causing damage and that school of thought, which I actually align to, looks at the whole picture. The economy, the economists themselves, have said that a series of lockdowns is going to be a lot more damaging to the economy rather than one major serious lockdown that would prevent this disease from taking hold.
Now any of the countries that actually did this are doing very well economically. The same applies for health and death rates. They have fallen. It's the economy, stupid, somebody said once.
In fact it is the same case here but it's not about the short term economy, it's the long term economy.
So the conundrum we have right now is, are we going to basically lose a large, substantial of the economy that is suffering from a second lockdown, businesses that will terminate operations because they won't be able to compete anymore and then will go into a third lockdown which will wipe out even more businesses?
Or are we going to do a second lockdown, clear up the virus and allow the economy to open up properly?
I think that's what we need to focus our attention to.
What damage do we want?
Do we want the long term damage that will be really disastrous to our country, the U.S., the U.K., most of Europe?
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MOSCHOS: Or do we want a real, proper lockdown New Zealand style that eliminates the virus and allows people to go back to their daily lives?
And, of course, the governments, plural, need to support people, by one of payments for the duration of this period we need to eliminate the virus and businesses and banks and the supply chains to make sure that key workers are looked after.
And then there's the question of what do we do after?
That now the testing and trace system in the U.K. collapsed because of the demand in the public. If we are able to remove the demand from the public and move that to the borders, the trades operations, after a second proper lockdown coming initiates and entry of the virus into the country can be contained very effectively. Those are my two trains of thought.
ALLEN: We will wait and see what happens. It makes sense what you say, be responsible now or it will get worse for everyone. Sterghios Moschos, we always appreciate your insight and your expertise, thank you.
MOSCHOS: You're very welcome.
ALLEN: There is a lot of anxiety around traveling these, days especially flying but one airport in Europe is getting high marks for its safety measures during this pandemic and CNN's Delia Gallagher has that from Rome.
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DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rome's Fiumicino Airport is the first airport in the world to have received a 5-star rating for cleanliness and anti-COVID measures, from airline and airport ratings companies sky tracks.
By comparison, London's Heathrow and other airports in France and Spain received three stars.
Fiumicino was one of the first airports to begin using thermal scanners at entrances and a smart helmet, a portable thermal scanner. It's also one of the first airports to have rapid testing available for passengers right at the airport.
Ivan Bassato, director of operations, says it's a safety measure but also a convenience issue for travelers.
IVAN BASSATO, AIRPORTS OF ROME: It's not a good service or at least a good experience for passengers, visiting a hospital or visiting a laboratory ahead of a flight, as it is required in some countries.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Since August, travelers coming into Italy from some high-risk countries have been tested on arrival. Just this week, the airport becomes the first in Europe to test departing passengers on flights from Rome to Milan.
BASSATO: If we test those passengers before entering the airport system at the airport or before boarding a plane, in that case, we have a flight that is fully tested.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): If successful, he says they hope to also use it on international flights. Travel through this airport is down 80 percent compared to this time last year, authorities tell us.
One of the reasons they are continually trying to improve protocols is not for the physical health of passengers but also psychologically they will feel safe to fly again.
Bassato credits the cleaning and medical staff at the airport for their tireless dedication. The rapid testing protocol was set up in 48 hours during an August holiday weekend in Rome.
BASSATO: The 16th of August was a Sunday morning. There were dozens of physicians, doctors and nurses who started (INAUDIBLE) because they felt it was much important for the country.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Workers in Italy pulling together to help the country take off again -- Delia Gallagher, CNN, Rome.
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ALLEN: TikTok is safe in the U.S. for now. The promise of a deal that will keep TikTok available in U.S. app stores is on the table and we will have a live report from Hong Kong next.
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ALLEN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen updating you on your top story.
Just one day after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Donald Trump says he will nominate a woman to replace her. Senate Republicans are already counting votes in anticipation of getting confirmation accomplished before the end of the year.
If they do push Mr. Trump's nominee through, it could be one of the speediest Supreme Court confirmations in U.S. history. Here's what Democratic challenger Joe Biden said about this issue 28 years ago when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
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JOE BIDEN (D-DE), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would be our pragmatic conclusion that, once the political season is underway -- and it is -- action on a Supreme Court nomination should be put off until after the election campaign is over.
That is what is fair to the nominee and is central to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ALLEN: Joe Biden in 1992. President Trump has already seized on the vacant Supreme Court seat. For more on that here's Ryan Nobles.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump making it clear to his supporters in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Saturday night that he's not going to waste any time in picking a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
Trump did have a lot of kind things to say about the former Supreme Court justice, calling her an inspiration. But he quickly pivoted to his plans to picking a replacement. The crowd responded, telling him to fill the seat and do it as soon as possible.
And Trump saying for the first time on Saturday night that he plans to pick a woman. Take a listen.
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TRUMP: So we will uphold equal justice under the law for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed. I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman.
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NOBLES: Trump also revealing his timing for making that announcement, saying it should happen sometime next week. And sources telling CNN that the president plans to wait until Ginsburg has been officially laid to rest before making the official announcement.
Now in the Jewish tradition that could happen very quickly, meaning the president could be able to make the announcement sometime midweek or towards the end of the week. The goal, though, for Republicans is to get this process moving as soon as possible, even with the hope of getting confirmation before Election Day.
Now that would be difficult. Normally it takes several months to nominate and confirm a Supreme Court justice. But the president and Republicans seizing an opportunity here. And they're hoping to have it done quickly -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Fayetteville, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: President Trump says he has approved a deal for the purchase of TikTok, the Chinese own social media app. Mr. Trump's consent comes hours before the U.S. Commerce Department was set to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores.
Now the ban will be delayed for a week until a deal is either finished or falls through. Will Ripley joining me from Hong Kong.
Hello to you, Will. Good to see you. President Trump certainly no fan of TikTok but it survived another day in the USA.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And much to the relief of the millions of American teenagers and quite a few adults as well, who have come to rely on TikTok as an outlet to express themselves.
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RIPLEY: Especially certainly during darker quarantine periods of the pandemic. Its popularity has exploded, more than 2 billion downloads of the app since it was established, a lot of them happening this year; 800 million active users.
And yet today was supposed to be the data TikTok, the app, just vanished from the app stores in the United States. The ones operated by Apple and Google. People were wondering why the U.S. government was doing this, the U.S. government said it had to do with national security. They were concerned that the Chinese owners of TikTok might have access to too much information, as social media users provide when they use apps like.
This is the same with Instagram and Facebook and all the other ones, you give a lot of personal data to these companies, what you're looking, at how much you're spending. The concern was that the Chinese government could influence TikTok owners to adjust the flow of what American users in particular were seeing. That somehow could be a national security threat, potentially influencing their behavior with an election coming. Up
Under this deal and the details are still coming in but President Trump has it would be a deal with TikTok's owner Byte Dance, which stays in control of the company, also Walmart and Oracle, a major U.S. tech company, would have a share.
They would expand the U.S. headquarters, 25,000 additional jobs in the States. For now at least, TikTok is not off the table in the States but the deal is far from closed and they have a week before the delay could eventually kick in again.
ALLEN: Yes, it's also a indicator of the frayed relationship between the White House and Beijing for sure.
Also, President Trump talked about a 5 billion dollar fund for U.S. education as part of the deal.
What is TikTok's owner saying about that?
RIPLEY: They actually did not know about that, according to the company social media posts within the last several hours. They said they are committed to helping with education and try to boost education. But they didn't know details that President Trump had expressed, a 5 billion dollar fund set up. That's news to them, they said. We'll see what happens on that. Front
President Trump had also wanted TikTok to initially make a payment initially to the U.S. Treasury and didn't apparently realize that that's illegal. This is an ongoing as you mentioned kind of issue. The United States going after Chinese tech. What it's doing is it's causing a lot of technology and social media companies to take a close look at what connection they have with Chinese investors and Chinese companies. Because the U.S. government has made it very clear that, if China is
too heavily involved, they could use a national security issue to crack down.
ALLEN: All right, we'll wait and see what happens next for TikTok. Will Ripley in Hong Kong, always good to see you. Thanks, Will.
The student leaders of mass protests in Thailand are declaring victory after they handed a list of demands for the Thai king to police. They want to see sweeping changes made at the highest levels of government. For more about it, here's ITN's Jonathan Miller.
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JONATHAN MILLER, JOURNALIST: Well, the royal standard is flying high above the grand palace. Thailand has survived a weekend protest without descending into violence. Earlier this morning, the student leader walked up this road and through police lines to present their demands for monarchical reform to the head of the privy council.
She was blocked from doing so, so handed the demands to the chief of police but not before he read them out live on national television. They want to rein in the powers of the king, they want the prime minister to go and they want a new constitution.
The weekend of protests started with a rally at Bangkok's Thammasat University, a poignant place because it was the scene of a massacre of pro democracy students 44 years ago.
The (INAUDIBLE) brigade was on the march. The Thai government had demanded the students be denied entry to their university. It had tried the COVID ruse as well, warning protesters they risked mass infection but that didn't wash in a country where the virus has virtually been banished.
As other gates were broken into, it was clear that nothing was going to stop this surge of people power. The students want their military backed government to go and they want to curb the powers of the king.
This an unthinkable demand until just last month. There are fears, though, Thailand may be on the verge of another one of its periodic violent spasms.
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MILLER (voice-over): As the crowds began to swell, the students spilled out onto the university onto the adjacent royal parade ground, where they had also been banned from gathering.
This is the student leader who, last month, smashed Thailand's last great taboo, demanding monarchical reform. She took a huge risk and met 2 teenagers. It seemed that they had lost their sense of fear. We conceal their identities for safety.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think they should be afraid of us. Not us afraid of them. We want freedom and we want the change to be under the constitution.
MILLER (voice-over): Red Shirts joined the protest, the former anti government rebels who fought and lost 10 years ago. Their presence here, red rag to a bull, diminishing the aura the students have about them.
Ranks of police were on display but they were not deployed. The national gesture of defiance now, the "Hunger Games" salute, three fingers to this royal yoke.
MILLER: In the space of a few short weeks, the mood here has swung from deference to defiance. The students brand their government a corrupt and incompetent quasi dictatorship. Backstage, I asked the student leader who dared to demand reform what she would say to the king. She delivered an ultimatum.
PANUSAYA "RUNG" SITHIJIRAWATTANAKUL, STUDENT LEADER (through translator): You should reform the monarchy so you can continue to assist in Thailand. If you pay attention to what I am saying, I would like you to consider our demands. It's up to you.
I suggest you better do it because, if you don't submit to our demands, I do not believe the monarchy will be as revered nor will its prestige survive.
MILLER: That may not sound like much but it's hard to overstate the gravity of what she and her fellow students are demanding.
The questions now, how far will they push it and what will the government do?
Right now, pretty much anything can happen.
MILLER: Well, the police are packing up now and going home but today the students have declared victory buoyed by the evident support for these radical and frankly potentially treasonous demands but this ain't over yet. There are more protests planned in the weeks ahead and there's even talk of a general strike being called next month.
We still don't know what the king makes of any of this or indeed what he wants his government to do. He himself is believed to be in Europe. And apart from a couple of brief appearances here in Bangkok, his remoteness from his people, his absence during the pandemic, has served to underscore the difficulties that the Thai people have in their relationship with him at this difficult time when so much are slipping into destitution which is why the demands of these students have struck a chord and is hardening public sentiment.
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ALLEN: Our thanks to ITN correspondent Jonathan Miller in Bangkok there.
Well, as if trying to create a COVID vaccine is not hard enough, making sure it's made and delivered safely is proving to be a daunting task. We'll have a report on that. Next also, a look at every day life in Taiwan during the pandemic and why its handling of the coronavirus has been commended around the world.
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ALLEN: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the race has been on to develop a vaccine. As if that's not complicated enough, the other hurdle will be manufacturing and distributing billions of doses once it is ready. CNN's Anna Stewart looks at what's being done behind the scenes and asked whether the world is ready to deliver a vaccine.
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ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pharmaceutical companies are inching closer to the finish line. There are over 170 vaccine candidates around the world. Eight are in the final stage of human trials.
Proving them to be effective, safe and achieve regulatory approval isn't the only challenge.
KATE O'BRIEN, DIRECTOR OF IMMUNIZATION, VACCINES & BIOLOGICALS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We have to go from there to actually having billions of doses of vaccine that can be delivered to people around the world. We're investing in the process of manufacturing before we even know whether a given vaccine will reach licensure and could be used.
STEWART: Governments around the world have committed billions of dollars to vaccine makers, buying up hundreds of millions of vaccine doses, which may not even work.
Pfizer, in partnership with BioNTech, plans to make 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate by the end of the year and over a billion next.
PAMELA SIWIK, VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN, PFIZER: Well, it's absolutely not normal. It's unprecedented.
STEWART: To try and meet that demand, Pfizer has set up separate manufacturing in the U.S. and Europe and is drawing on all its resources.
SIWIK: This really is a collaborative effort. It has to be. You know, in this case, the race, right, that people talk about. The competition. Right? The competition is -- is not each other, right? It really is working against the virus.
STEWART: Making the vaccine isn't the end of the challenge. Next up, getting it to those that need it all over the world.
Companies like UPS plan to be ready to pick up, store and deliver a successful vaccine.
WES WHEELER, UPS: We don't know who's going to be first. We know that Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca with Oxford University, we know that CanSino in China is -- is doing well. We know that Novavax is moving fast.
STEWART: Different kinds of vaccine need different transport and storage conditions. One of the biggest challenges is temperature.
WHEELER: A few months ago when we started to get good information about what temperatures would be required for these vaccines, we made an investment in freezer farm technology. So we have invested in both the U.S. and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in the Netherlands, one of our pubs near our Cologne air hub in Germany.
So we have made investments there and also on the clinical side, we've put freezers now in several of our depots around the world.
STEWART: Keeping the vaccine safe and secure is critical and UPS plans to have 24/7 tracking for every single vial.
WHEELER: We are taking very seriously the fact that our clients are counting on us to move every single vial and not lose a single one.
STEWART (on camera): And they're not alone. Vaccine developers, suppliers, manufacturers and logistics firms are all taking unprecedented action not just to make but to deliver a vaccine for COVID-19 -- Anna Stewart, CNN, London.
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ALLEN: At the start of the pandemic, most countries were doing the same thing, reacting slowly. But by that point, many had been infected but not in Taiwan. It's model for handling coronavirus has been praised in studied around the world. And as CNN's Paula Hancocks shows us from Taipei, the reward has been a return to a mostly normal life.
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PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Staying next to the midday sun seems more important than keeping six feet apart for these Taipei residents. The streets are busy, restaurants have lunchtime queues. Life during the pandemic seems fairly normal.
What strikes me is that even though there are an awful lot of people wearing masks in the street, there are still a significant number who aren't. I'm being told, a few months ago when there were still local transmission cases here, people wore masks without complaint.
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HANCOCKS (voice-over): But now there's more of a confidence in a way the government has handled this pandemic and they simply don't feel the need anymore.
Just one suspected case of local transmission since April. The rest are imported. Out of a population of 23 million, there have been around 500 confirmed cases and just seven deaths. Foreign minister Joseph Wu tells me they learned harsh lessons from the 2003 SARS outbreak.
JOSEPH WU, TAIWANESE FOREIGN MINISTER: At the time Taiwan was hit very hard and we started building up our capacity in dealing with a pandemic like this. So when we heard there was some secret pneumonia cases in China, the patients were treated in isolation, we knew that it was something similar.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Early recognition of the crisis and suspicions that Beijing was not being transparent spurred the government to respond fast, setting up a command center.
Passengers from Wuhan China, were screened from the start of the year, weeks before other countries started to react. Early travel restrictions, a 14-day quarantine for arrivals, contact tracing and testing.
Mask rationing prevented panic buying and Taiwan increased production to the point it was able to donate 12 million masks to the United States, lifting their world standing. Sil Chen (ph) was a college student in Taiwan during the SARS epidemic and says the country learned social solidarity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very few people here will refuse to wear a mask.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): She now runs a psychotherapy practice in New York. She caught a mild form of the virus then mid-March, spending five weeks recovering in her apartment.
SIL CHEN, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: At the time I couldn't even get a test because the -- I remember I think the criteria was for you to have shortness of breath or difficulty breathing or some life-threatening situation.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Chen came back to Taiwan in July to visit her sick grandmother and was shocked by the difference in realities.
CHEN: Life here is so surreal. It's basically like normal. Every so often, you have to remember to wear a mask and you'll have your temperature taken. But that's about it.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): A snapshot of normality in a world of uncertainty -- Paula Hancocks, CNN, Taipei, Taiwan.
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ALLEN: It is certainly wonderful to see.
Next we return to the death and remarkable life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Notorious RBC, in her own words, when we come back.
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ALLEN (voice-over): Flowers, signs and candles in Washington, D.C., in honor and memory of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was a passionate advocate for equal rights and earned the nickname the Notorious RBG, a title she seemed to relish.
RUTH BADER GINSBURG, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: It was beyond my wildest imagination that I would be one day become the Notorious RBG.
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ALLEN: And she had a great wit. While the arguments began over her replacements there is really no replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No one can express the meaning of her extraordinary life better than Ginsburg herself.
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GINSBURG: If you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself, something to repair tears in your community.
No door should be closed to people willing to spend the hours of effort needed to make dreams come true.
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GINSBURG: We are a nation made strong by people like you.
In my lifetime, I expect to see three, four, perhaps even more women on the high court bench, women not shaped from the same mold but of different complexions. We are at last beginning to relegate to history books the days of the token one-at-a-time woman.
The number of women who have come forward as a result of the #MeToo movement has been astonishing. My hope is not just that it's here to stay but that it is as effective for the woman who works as a maid in a hotel as it is for Hollywood stars.
I have had the great good fortune to share life with a partner, who believed, at age 18, when we met, that a woman's work, whether at home or on the job, is as important as a man's.
It helps sometimes to be a little deaf.
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GINSBURG: I have followed that advice assiduously and not only at home through 56 years of a marital partnership, I have employed it as well in every workplace, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
(LAUGHTER) GINSBURG: When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.
To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that's what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself but for one's community. Thank you so much. Thank you.
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ALLEN: What an amazing woman and amazing life, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen. More next with my colleague Kim Brunhuber.
