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Pfizer Says, Earlier Analysis Shows COVID-19 Vaccine is Over 90 Percent Effective; Trump Team Pushes Forward with Legal Fight after Biden Win; Biden Sets Tone for Administration as Trump Refuses to Concede. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 09, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: A good and busy Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

The breaking news this hour, it's good news, potentially a really good news, a potential major breakthrough in the race for a COVID vaccine. One of the world's biggest drug makers, Pfizer, says this morning that their data shows their vaccine is more than 90 percent effective. Pfizer's CEO is calling it, quote, the greatest medical advancement in the last 100 years.

We will speak with our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who just interviewed the Pfizer CEO in just minutes, about the developments.

SCIUTTO: Also soon we expect to hear from President-elect Joe Biden on his plan to combat the pandemic. We're going to take you there live. We're also learning more this morning about a plan, an attempt by President Trump's campaign to launch a messaging blitz as he digs in, refuses to concede and, by the way, spreading a lot of, frankly, false information, false claims of election fraud. And now he's considering rallies to do the same.

But, first, let's begin with this breaking news on the Pfizer vaccine. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

Sanjay, listen, we've been talking about this for months. It's so good to hear the potential for good news here. So, looking at this, does this change the likely timeline for when you and me and the folks watching the show are likely to have a vaccine like this available to them?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think the timeline is sort of what we've been talking about for some time, because we know that they have to manufacture, distribute. So, for the average person still sort of spring of next year is likely when we're going to see enough doses become available to people in the general public, I think. HARLOW: Sanjay, you spoke and did this -- this headline -- this interview is just full of headlines with Pfizer's CEO, Albert Bourla, this morning. I want to play a little bit of that for our viewers and then ask you about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFZIER: 90 percent is a game changer. 90 percent, now, you are hoping to have a tool in your war against this pandemic that could be significantly effective.

How long this protection will last is something that we don't know right now but it's part of the objective of the study. We will follow- up, the 44,000 people that they received their part of this study for two years. And during this follow-up, obviously, we will be looking also the durability of the immune responses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Yes, durability of immune responses, how long does it work for? Two notes, Sanjay. They didn't take any government funding, Pfizer, and they're not part of Operation Warp Speed. Knowing those things, what are the real implications here?

GUPTA: Well, I mean, I think no matter how you look at it, this is good news. But we obviously, as journalists and doctors, we have to turn a critical eye to this as well.

What does this mean? So, 90 percent effective. First of all, people may be surprised to know the numbers that we're talking about here, 44,000 roughly people were part of this trial and they basically were looking to see in the placebo group versus the vaccinated group who got infected.

And we can show that, basically, there were a lot more infections in the placebo group and the people who did not receive the vaccine versus those in the vaccinated group. There were just 94 confirmed actually infections out of the 44,000. And that's how they got to this 90 percent.

Just to give you the full context of this, second of all, nobody has seen the data, including Mr. Bourla, who I was just speaking to, the CEO of Pfizer. The only organization that is seeing this data is an independent data safety monitoring board.

I mean, it's not an unusual process but it may be a surprising process to people because they unblind the data for the first time, look at it. They called Mr. Bourla 2:00 in the afternoon yesterday and said, when we do the numbers, 90 percent effective. So that's how this process sort of comes about.

How well does it actually prevent serious illness in people is an outstanding question. The safety data is still an outstanding question. And this is a tough vaccine to distribute, it needs to be maintained at cold temperatures. The distribution process is an open question. SCIUTTO: Okay. So let's take it as a development along the road. And with so many things we've discussed in the last several months, you have to learn more about it.

[10:05:01]

So it's a positive step but things to be confirmed.

Is this something, from a practical standpoint, that you and I, like a flu vaccine, would have to take every year, as opposed to just once? And I believe I have it right that this is a two shot deal, is it not, that you need two?

GUPTA: That's right, Jim. And you're asking a critical question, the same one I asked Mr. Bourla as well.

So, two points. First of all, after the second dose, how quickly do you have immunity. And the answer seems to be about seven days, okay? So there's the first data point. Get two shots, they're separated by three weeks, so seven days, which is a total of a month or so after the first shot, you have immunity, okay? It's not right away but it's pretty quick.

How long does it last? This is a big question, Jim. I mean, it's interesting because we know that people who get naturally infected, their immunity doesn't last forever, maybe months. Will the vaccine be different? And if so, does that mean it's going to be a yearly shot, two shots of a vaccine stored at super cold temperatures?

One of the largest vaccine distribution projects we have ever seen in our history right now. You've got football fields full of refrigerators in places around the world right now that are starting to store these types of vaccines. We'll see. It's going to be a huge undertaking. But it's likely to be something that you need with some degree of frequency, maybe yearly.

SCIUTTO: Right.

HARLOW: What about people, Sanjay, who are worried that the well off and the connected, you know, are going to get this before they are? If I'm sitting at home and watching right now and I don't have any health care, am I going to be able to get this for free? And how soon?

GUPTA: Well, you're well within your right to ask this, because we still haven't seen, you know, clear state distribution plans here, something that we've been asking for as reporters for some time. There hasn't been a national strategy. Hopefully, that will change.

In terms of cost, and I asked Mr. Bourla this, he said that anybody in the United States would get this vaccine for free. So this would be for free. It's been purchased already by the U.S. government. So, some of these doses will be available. Again, as we're talking about earlier, probably not until spring of next year for the vast majority of people, but free.

But I think, poppy, to your question, the rest of the world matters. I mean, when you're talking about a pandemic, infections anywhere in the world could be infections everywhere in the world. So it is important for people in the United States to ensure that people around the world also become vaccinated.

Mr. Bourla said that there's manufacturing plants in Europe, there should be 1.3 billion doses available by the end of next year, 2021, which would mean 650 million people, again, two doses. So, 650 people could be vaccinated. It's not enough to get to that herd immunity for the world but obviously goes a long way.

At the same time, there are other vaccine manufacturers out there that are continuing their trials and it's likely we're going to have a bunch of choices within the next several months.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and the ones that are within that Operation Warp Speed, like Moderna, which is in conjunction with the NIH.

Listen, Sanjay, we know we're going to keep on top of for this. And folks at home, we will answer these questions as we get the data. Sanjay, thanks so much.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, the trump campaign is pushing forward with what it claims to be a legal fight, but it's really a P.R. fight. So far, it's provided no proof, no evidence. And, in fact, elected GOP officials in states have said there's no evidence of widespread or significant, credible election fraud.

HARLOW: That's right. Let's go to our friend, John Harwood, he joins us at the White House for more.

This is the underpinning of why the president is refusing to concede, but you have people like the lieutenant governor of Georgia who told John Berman, no, we don't see any of these fraud here. You have Pat Toomey in key state of Pennsylvania. You even have Roy Blunt yesterday morning saying it.

So, does the president care?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think, Poppy, the reality is the president does not like losing, does not like feeling humiliated. This is one of the strangest situations I've ever seen. He lost the election decisively to Joe Biden. Joe Biden is going to end up with electoral votes to spare, as well as a large popular vote margin. There are no credible allegations of widespread fraud or anything that in a recount really could make up the tens of thousands of votes that he's trailing in places like Pennsylvania.

But what we've seen is an attempt by the president's supporters and the president himself to cast doubt. You've had a series of Keystone Cop press conferences by Rudy Giuliani and others, including the Four Seasons press conference on Friday, which we've learned from Politico's story this morning, one of the people speaking out as a witness of an election fraud is a convicted sex offender who appeared with Rudy Giuliani. [10:10:01]

You also have the prospect of a bunch of lawsuits. Now, lawsuits without evidence tend not to go very well. So, as you mentioned, there is a much larger P.R. dynamic to this and there's talk about the president staging rallies to, you know, call for people to help him stop the fraud.

Does the president actually believe this? We know that he's had the tendency to convince himself of things that are not true. Our colleague, Maggie Haberman, this morning on New Day suggested that maybe the president didn't want a second term to begin with, he knows he's lost but he's just trying to cover the embarrassment of having been defeated by exiting the stage, claiming it was fraud, very hard to tell.

But we do know that the entire Republican Party right now is being held hostage to the president's ego, his claims and fear of his supporters who could turn on them if they declare that Joe Biden is the president-elect, which he obviously is.

HARLOW: John Harwood, thank you very much for the reporting. It's good to see you.

All right, well, detractors aside, President-elect Biden is moving forward with his transition. We're joined by Jessica Dean. She is in Delaware for us.

The transition officially kicked off today. Obviously, there's been weeks and months of planning if he were to win. Number one issue is this coronavirus advisory board. What do we know about it?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Right. Poppy, they are zeroed in on the coronavirus and the pandemic, and they are planning to take action. We did hear from President-elect Biden earlier today in a statement on the new vaccine news that you all were just talking about. He was congratulating the men and women behind that, but also urging caution, reminding Americans it's going to be a while before we get out of this pandemic. And that for the time being, mask-wearing, social distancing, all of these things are really, really important.

So that was the message we were hearing from him in a statement earlier today. This coming after earlier this morning, the transition team announcing their COVID-19 advisory board. It is full of scientists, doctors, experts, a lot of people that have been advising Biden and Kamala Harris throughout this process. You see a look at them there, led by three co-chairs and also notably including Rick Bright, the whistleblower from the Trump administration who said that his warnings about the coronavirus pandemic were not listened to and ultimately led to his ouster.

Interesting to see the Biden team putting him on this advisory board, quite the contrast to how the Trump administration has handled this pandemic. But now, they really want to telegraph to the American people, it is time to get to work. They promised the American people they would have a plan. They promised the American people they would take action, and so that's what they're doing today. Really telegraphing that that is what they are going to do.

We expect President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris to getting a briefing from this COVID-19 advisory board later today. We're also expecting to hear from President-elect Biden on that briefing and also on the economy, Poppy and Jim, because, remember, he really tied so much to the pandemic and his essential argument was until you get the pandemic under control, you can't really do anything with the economy.

SCIUTTO: Jessica Dean, of course, stimulus talks we talked about a lot. We'll see if that changes during the transition. Thanks so much.

Still to come, the facts, the president is pushing forward with specious legal challenges without offering evidence to back them up. We'll have an update.

HARLOW: And do we expect to hear from the former vice president, now president-elect today, after he meets with the new coronavirus advisory board? We'll bring that to you.

And all eyes are on Georgia as two critical Senate races enter runoffs there. The balance of power in the Senate is at stake.

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[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Well, this morning the president is promising to keep up and accelerate his legal fight. This is despite his entire team providing no evidence of widespread election fraud, none. And Republicans are even saying that, or some of them are.

Just hours ago, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia told our John Berman, no, there are no credible examples of fraud in his state.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And we had a Republican lawmaker from Florida on this last hour who said, time to recognize the results and move on.

Joining us now is an election law expert, Franita Tolson, she is the Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs Gould School of Law. Good to have you back on the program, thanks so much.

FRANITA TOLSON, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Good morning to both of you.

SCIUTTO: All right. So, you got so a bunch of cases out there. Basically, the Trump administration throwing stuff at the wall, see if it sticks. No evidence based on the accounts of the folks actually involved in counting the votes, whether Democrat or Republicans. How do courts handle under the law allegations of fraud like this when evidence is not presented? How do they respond and how quickly?

TOLSON: They respond pretty quickly by dismissing the lawsuit. And we've seen in it in the past few days with courts dismissing a number of cases by the Trump campaign. There's actually a formal name for this legal strategy and it's called, let's file this law enforcement and see what happens. And I think courts are pretty good at figuring out when litigants have done that.

And if you look at the type of litigation being filed, there were times when the allegations didn't make much sense, right? So, the Trump campaign sued to have the observers stand closer to where ballots were being tabulated in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada. And some of that litigation, they wanted the counting to stop until they could resolve this issue. Why would you want counting to stop in a state when you're behind, right?

In another case, they attacked the use of sharpies.

[10:20:02]

But, of course, there was nothing wrong with voters using sharpies to fill out their ballots. There was no evidence that this caused votes to be thrown out. And this litigation was ultimately withdrawn, right, because it didn't have any credibility. So you see a number of cases in which the Trump campaign has been unsuccessful largely because there's no legal strategy.

HARLOW: Franita, do you remember in the weeks leading up to the election and the process of having a hearing on the new Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, the president talked about needing nine justices on the court, a full bench on the high court, maybe to figure out the election. My question to you is, even if you want the Supreme Court to hear something, it doesn't mean they're going to, right?

So, can you explain where the bar is for the Supreme Court to actually take up a case?

TOLSON: Absolutely. So, first, let me say, Poppy, there is nothing magical about the number nine, right? There have been times in our history where the Supreme Court has been as small as six justices. And a couple years ago, they had eight.

And so we do have a situation where, in the rhetoric around the new -- the confirmation of the new Supreme Court justice, it was about, well, we need nine, and that's just not true. But even more so, there's no guarantee that the Supreme Court will take up your case.

In the year 2000, the Supreme Court resolved a case called Bush versus Gore, which I'm sure both of you are very familiar with.

HARLOW: A little bit.

TOLSON: Right, where they issued an opinion that ultimately decided the presidency in 2000. I do not think the Supreme Court wants to be in that position again. And, luckily, this election didn't come down to one state where they might be placed in that position. Even the order out of the Supreme Court last week with respect to the ballots received after Election Day in Pennsylvania, those ballots are not central to the margin that Joe Biden currently holds in that state. And so I just don't think that the court would relish the opportunity to be in a position of deciding another election.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Franita Tolson, it's good to have you. Thanks very much.

TOLSON: Great to be on. Thank you.

HARLOW: President-elect Biden is working on his transition now, even as a number of people around the president in the White House are openly refuting Biden's election victory. Where does Biden go from here? More ahead.

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[10:25:00]

SCIUTTO: Well, despite the facts, the president, some in the White House, many elected GOP lawmakers are refusing to accept the results of the presidential election, some makomg baseless claims about the legitimacy of the votes, your votes.

HARLOW: That's right. But the president-elect, Joe Biden, and his team are actively working on a very important transition with a keen focus on how to handle the COVID pandemic as soon as they assume the White House.

Let's talk about the developments. Joining us now National Political Reporter for Politico, Laura Barron-Lopez, and Washington Bureau Chief for The Daily Beast, Jackie Kucinich. Good morning, ladies. I hope you got some sleep last night all over the weekend, finally.

Jackie, let me just begin with you and where they go from here, because it's going to be an uphill climb for Democrats to get both the Georgia Senate seats. But even if they do, you've got a 50/50 split Senate, Kamala Harris would break the tie.

I ask you this because The Wall Street Journal editorial board, I thought, interestingly wrote this weekend that President Biden would benefit from a Republican-controlled Senate, that he would, quote, fortunate, because it would allow him to maintain his more moderate stance and not have to lean further left or to the more progressives in this party. What do you make of that?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITIAL ANALYST: I think there will be a lot of progressives that would look at that editorial as an aberration (ph) because of some the promises Biden made. Listen, there is going -- whether or not there is a Republican Senate, Biden is going to have a lot of pressure from the left to implement some of the promises he made and to instill some of their more prominent members as a part of the people that advise Biden.

And you had seen them. There were people from Elizabeth Warren's campaign, from Bernie Sanders' campaign that did enter the Biden fray, but a campaign is different than governing. So there will be pressure, I'm sure, both internally and externally on the president-elect to put people from the progressive left in positions of power in his administration.

Now, what he has to weigh is whether those folks can, if there is a Republican Senate, get through a confirmation process. It's obviously a couple steps down the line. But the idea that he is going to be able to just go back to his centrist way of governing and the left will fall in line, we're already seeing that is not going to be the reality.

SCIUTTO: Laura, I'm curious about the GOP deference to Trump now after this election loss. He's a rare one-term president. I don't recall a similar reaction among Democrats for Carter after 1980 or Republicans for George H.W. Bush after 1992.

[10:30:03]