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Pfizer Says Tests Show COVID-19 Vaccine More Than 90 Percent Effective; Trump Refuses To Concede, Peddles False Fraud Claims; Soon: Biden To Speak After Meeting With COVID-19 Advisory Board. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired November 09, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. Top of the hour. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing this day with us.

The Biden presidential transition kicking into high gear today and there's a potential break through on the dominant challenge of this moment. The global coronavirus pandemic. The drug maker Pfizer says its phase three trial data show a remarkably effective vaccine candidate and the company could soon ask the government for permission to put it on the market.

That news broke in the morning. The president-elect and the vice president-elect, you see them here rolling out a coronavirus advisory board. That board to fine tune the incoming administration's pandemic planning. President-elect Biden plans to discuss the challenge after hearing from the experts at the meeting. And we'll bring you that live, when it happens.

Also, today Vice President Mike Pence reconvenes the Trump White House Coronavirus Task Force. Now, cooperation or at least information sharing between the Trump teams and the Biden teams would be helpful. But the president still so far refusing to accept the election results.

The numbers tell us an election like no other will be followed by a transition also navigating this new normal. Look at that right there. The country on the precipice of another coronavirus milestone. 10 million infections.

It's taken just about 10 days to go from 9 million to 10 million. Sunday's 105,000 plus cases marked the fifth straight day the United States topped 100,000 new infections a day. The Pfizer announcement does offer hope of a turning point, but critical approval steps remain. The company's CEO tells CNN, data showing the vaccine is more than 90 percent effective in his view, beyond encouraging.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFIZER: 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 we started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The president's mornings tweets included praise of that vaccine news. The president's next political choice will set the tenor of his final 10 weeks in office. He does not accept the results but has yet produced zero evidence to support claims of massive fraud. Some advisers are telling him the math is real and it is overwhelming. But others cheering the president to fight on. And there is talk now of campaign-style rallies to air his grievances.

Twos sets of numbers to track today because this presidential transition and the fight against the coronavirus, well they are very much related. Let's walk through some of the numbers.

First, the election. Look, this is the state that put Joe Biden over the top, Pennsylvania. The president says there was fraud. 45,600 the current Biden margin, it has been growing as late votes come in, as they're counted - late mail ballots. Remember this, the president won by a slightly smaller margin four years ago. (AUDIO GAP) that of course.

Pennsylvania right now 45,670 votes in Biden's direction. And again, as they continue to count the mail-in ballots, it is growing. Georgia another state, very narrow here, 49.5 to 49.3, but that 10,612 vote Biden lead has been growing. Just a bit but has been growing as they count again, additional late mail-in and other ballots.

Arizona and Nevada still to be called. Biden ahead out in Arizona, 16000 votes. The president narrowed that some during the weekend, but it is held steady since. We're waiting to see final results there.

And in Nevada, Vice President Biden now President-elect Biden, 34,000 plus votes ahead. You look at those numbers, you talk to election lawyers and they tell you it's very unlikely those will be changed, but we're waiting to hear from the president. In fact, there's this all-staff meeting at the Trump campaign headquarters right now. We'll see if we get word out of that.

This is the challenge. You see the red and blue, this red and blue map makes Joe Biden the president-elect of the United States. This is the country he will lead in 10 weeks. Coronavirus everywhere. And cases on the rise as we showed you in the lead in. And that's the big challenge right now.

Just some of the numbers to go through. You look at the newly confirmed cases. This is just stunning, depressing, pick your word for it. The original peak back in the spring, the summer surge and now this. 105,000 new infections on Sunday, that's high for a Sunday. The numbers tend to go down over the weekend. Saturday a record high, more than 128,000 new infections.

You see the red line. You don't even need the numbers. We're going straight up at the moment. The case count is troubling and beyond.

And then you look at a couple of other quick things, the number of people hospitalized. And again, look at this in the context of the spring, the summer about matched it and now hospitalizations across America about to hit the highest point yet. And you can see from the trajectory all but certain to pass it.

And this is the problem. This is the problem across the country. Going to stretch this out a bit for you. Excuse me for turning my back for a second. I just want you to be able to see this.

This is stunning when you look at it in the sense that why can't you get this under control? Because of the positivity rate, 48 percent in Iowa, 54 percent in South Dakota, 36 percent in Wyoming, 39 percent Idaho, 37 percent in Kansas.

[11:05:08]

Even double digits, 16 percent in Pennsylvania. 16 percent and 19 percent in Mississippi and Alabama respectively. All across America double digit positivity, which means more new infections today and more people who can spread coronavirus so there are more new infections tomorrow.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner. Listen here. 70 plus days until Joe Biden is president. In that period, Dr. Gottlieb thinks as bad as things are now, are going to get worse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: The reality is that by the time the president-elect takes office we'll probably be at the sort of apex, if you will, of what we're going through right now. This is going to play out over the next couple of months and I think as the president takes office, we'll be coming down the other side of the epidemic curve, hopefully. And the only question is going to be how many people died in the course of this, and how many people have been infected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We expect to hear from President-elect Joe Biden as we said after that meeting with coronavirus experts. We'll bring you that right away.

Joining me now to discuss the challenge ahead, Dr. Tom Inglesby, he's the directory of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. And Matt Viser, national political reporter for "Washington Post."

Dr. Inglesby, I want to start with you, and I want to put up on the screen just some of the alarming tweets you sent over the weekend because like Dr. Gottlieb, you're looking at this data. And you understand the moment we are in here. That we have one president to frankly - I'm sorry, it's just a fact has not cared much or has paid much attention to the pandemic in recent weeks and months.

And you have a new president-elect who says it will be his challenge on day one. But your point there is cases are going in the wrong direction and you think governors maybe should step up and meet the challenge until we have a new president.

When you look at the data what troubles you most and what do you think needs to be done the most at the state level at this moment?

DR. TOM INGLESBY, DIRECTOR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: Well, many things trouble me. You talked about many of them. But the number of cases that are appearing every day. The number of people on ventilators is growing. The number of people in ICUs is growing. And it's a phenomenon that's spread across the country. It's not just one or two or three places which in the beginning of the pandemic back in March or April, we had a concentration. We have places where it was really the worst.

Now we're seeing all across the Midwest, the Mountain West, really steep rises in cases, which will be followed by in increasing numbers of deaths. So, in two point, about the governors, I think it's going to be crucial for the governors to take action in the coming months.

We don't know exactly what the current administration will decide to do. But the governors have so much to say and so much influence in how their state does. The decisions they take will really dictate what happens in the next couple of months.

KING: And to that point, Matt, this is the moment we live in we have a doctor talking about the health challenge and a political reporter. I'm talking about the transition challenge because we're in limbo here at a key moment for the country both politically and in the public health crisis.

The question is, will the Trump administration ever take the lead from the Biden transition? I think the answer today, that is certainly no. Will they even share information? And to Dr. Inglesby point, will governors decide we're going to have a new president in 70 days anyway, I should listen to them.

This is what they're going to tell me to do in 70 days, maybe I should start doing it now. You write about this challenge a little bit today. You know about this -- the Biden team wants to seize on the momentum a number of issues, including COVID. But the president has yet to concede the election.

"Biden's aides, saying they recognize that the United States has one president at a time, nonetheless hope to seize on the momentum from his victory to signal decisive action on the major crises engulfing the nation. That could be complicated, however, by Trump's refusal to concede and the fact that some states are still finalizing their vote counts."

On issue number one, smart optics for the Biden - the transition team have this meeting right away. It's fascinating when you read their COVID-19 document, this should not be breaking news. But they say the Biden administration will always, quote, "listen to science." That's the first bullet point. And sadly, it is breaking news.

MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It's no mistake, John, that today the first day that we're seeing Joe Biden after his victory speech it's all about the coronavirus. That is going to be the key and will sort of overshadow all of the work that they're doing as part of this transition about 70 days before the inauguration.

To the doctor's point, I think Biden himself is going to be calling Democratic and Republican governors to ask for their help in developing a consistent message, urging for mask mandates as Biden has called for. He's also going to take a little more role in the congressional stimulus package that they're going to be talking about here during the lame duck session.

So, Biden really is trying to take more of an assertive role at a time the Trump administration is not. And I think that it's a recognition of what he's going to inherent and how much this is going to guide the early part of his administration.

KING: So, doctor, we don't know if we will see any change in posture and strategy from the Trump administration in its final days we do know Vice President Pence is convening a meeting of the task force today but we've talked about this before, there's a lot of infighting on that task force. But we do know who the Biden team is, my question to you is, what do we expect from it?

[11:10:07]

I just want to show among the leading members here, Dr. David Kessler, who's an FDA director, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is the surgeon general, at one point in the Obama administration Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith from Yale University who's an infectious disease expert.

These are three of the leading members of this commission and we know the plan. The Biden plan includes access to regular, reliable, and more testing. The CDC would give specific evidence-based guidance for businesses and schools. Small businesses restart package invest $25 billion for this vaccine manufacturing distribution plan and the last part Matt was just talking about, working with state and local officials to implement a mask mandate. From the team and the plan, what do you think would be the most significant change even if we have to wait 70 days to get it?

INGLESBY: So, what I can say about that first of all is the task force is extraordinary. The leadership and background of the people on the task force announced today are -- is tremendous. So, it's very exciting to see that, and the plan that's already been announced, I think also is quite impressive. And really kind of walks across the landscape of the problems. I can't say what is going to happen yet because I think it's just being announced. But I -- I'm impressed with the direction they're headed.

I just also wanted to go back to one thing you said earlier about what Dr. Gottlieb had said. I think one thing that I'm worried about is that people in the country will start to feel this peak that were starting to rise up is inevitable. And that there's almost nothing we can do.

That's just not true. I think we've seen that people if they make different decision individually with masks, with physical distancing, with avoiding large gatherings that can make a big difference. If governors decide to begin to restrict high risk activities that can make a difference.

If you look back at what happened in Israel about a month ago, they had their highest peak since the start of pandemic, they shut things down, it's obviously a much smaller country but within three weeks they had a dramatic reduction in cases. So, it's not like everything that's ahead of us is inevitable. I think decisions that people make both at leaders and individuals could make a big difference.

KING: Well, I hope in this environment, there's a lot of raw feelings after the election, elation on the Democratic side, raw feelings on the Republican side. I hope they listen to everybody. All Americans listen to experts like you.

And Matt, that is sort of the question of the moment. We have this meeting at the Trump campaign headquarters today. We have Biden trying to get the administration's transition plan up and running as fast as possible. Then you have a question, I want you to listen here. This is some of the president's Republican allies, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham in particular here, saying don't give up, Mr. President, keep pushing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Trump has not lost. Do not concede, Mr. President, fight hard.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I believe President Trump still has a path to victory. And that path is to count every single legal vote that was cast, but also not to cast any votes that were fraudulently cast or illegally cast. And we have a legal process to determine what's legal and what isn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We do have a legal process, Matt Viser. And again, the president didn't complain of fraud when he won Pennsylvania by 40,000 votes. Now he's complaining when he lost Pennsylvania by a bigger margin. And the Biden lead is expected to grow.

Look, they have every right to use their legal avenues, they have every right to raise their hand if they have evidence and document it. So far, they have no evidence. I want you to listen here. This is the Republican conservative ambitious lieutenant governor of the state of Georgia saying so far, zip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): We've not had any sort of credible incidents raised to our level yet. And so, we'll continue to make sure that the -- the opportunity to make sure every legal ballot is counted is there. But you know at this point we've not seen any sort of credible examples.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Will the president eventually listen to people like Lieutenant Governor Duncan, who was saying if you got it showed to me because I don't see it sir, or will he continue to be egged on at a time. Again, if you want to have information sharing between the Trump task force and the Biden task force and the coronavirus, if you want to have a smooth transition of power on any number of issues, they need to start cooperating, not fighting.

VISER: I think that's the crucial point at this point, John. It's the transition period. The Biden campaign is moving forward, and they can only move forward so much without cooperation from the Trump side. And so far, the GSA administrator, who is a Trump appointee, has not allowed that process to move forward. So, there's not cooperation between the two.

And so far, Republicans, you know, have not kind of come around on this. Mitch McConnell has not said whether Joe Biden is the winner or not. Top Republican leaders are withholding this, aside from a couple senators. George W. Bush yesterday kind of trying to put a little bit of pressure, calling Joe Biden to congratulate him. And world leaders are expressing congratulations to Joe Biden.

So, so far, you know, there are political implications of this, but I think the important part is the actual implications of not engaging in a transition at a point where we're dealing with coronavirus, economic fallout, and a lot of raw emotions after this election.

[11:15:10]

KING: Right. Transitions are always difficult, but the moment here could be met with more, shall we say, responsibility. We'll see how it plays out. Matt Viser, Dr. Inglesby, grateful for your reporting and your important insights for us today.

Up next, we continue the conversation, president pushing allies to join him in refusing to accept the election results. And just simple truth, many Republicans remain afraid to defy him.

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KING: The president faces a big decision this week, keep fighting or accept the overwhelming math. So far, his approach is as promised during the campaign, attacking any vote he didn't win as rigged. Now there's no evidence to support the president's claims, but his allies promise to fight.

[11:20:08]

Sources are telling CNN the Trump campaign now planning a messaging blitz to claim the election is being stolen and the campaign considering holding campaign-style rallies to amplify the president's complaints.

With me now is CNN's John Harwood covering the White House.

John, I get that it is a raw moment. I get that losing is terrible especially for president who says he's always a winner. But the math here is pretty overwhelming.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's one of the strangest things I've ever seen in covering politics at least as long as you have, John. We know from the magic wall that Joe Biden is the president-elect not because the wall is magic but because it's incorporated the votes of 150 million Americans. States have not certified their results yet however it's pretty clear from the results that Joe Biden will have more than enough electoral votes to win the election. And the prospect of the president overturning enough votes in enough states to change that is negligible.

They haven't, as you said, offered any evidence so far, nevertheless pressing ahead with press conferences, with potentially rallies and with legal fights. Now, legal fights will tend to get thrown out quickly if there is not evidence behind them. And the question is how long can this go on?

Bill Stepien the campaign manager had an all-staff meeting this morning which he said we're still in the fight but he even acknowledged what he called amateur hour in part of the efforts by the campaign, including the circulation of fake photo shopped headlines from newspapers in the Bush/Gore fight a long time ago.

So how long can the Trump campaign and the Trump White House go on before they are worn down by reality. We don't really know the answer. But one date to watch is November 15th. That's when the paychecks run out for the Trump campaign staff and that potentially is where some of the steam might come out of the effort, John.

KING: That's an excellent point to make. And look, the staffers whether you're Democratic or Republican or independent, the staffers work hard in this campaign, so we wish them the best. And they deserve the right to know, is it time to move on? What should they be doing? John Harwood, appreciate that reporting there.

Let's continue the conversation. The president's unproven claims of election fraud are a little different this time. Remember in 2016 when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, he said that was only because some 6 million undocumented immigrants illegally cast ballots for Hillary Clinton. That of course was a fantasy.

And a big Trump appointed commission on voter fraud found zip, zero proof. This time we're being asked to believe among other things that the Biden vote surge in key states came from dead people casting ballots.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is here to fact check some of these claims. Jessica, look they have the right to say things but to overturn an election you have to put it on paper and prove things. Anything to this?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: No proof at all, John. You know this is a false claim that dead people have voted. It is baseless. Yet it's a claim that we've seen the president might try to promote as he refuses to concede and as he continues to really cast doubt on the integrity of the election. So, this is also a false claim that's spreading through videos on social media.

But we here at CNN we did an analysis out of Michigan and did not find a single instance of a dead person listed on the voter rolls who had also submitted a ballot. The claim here is that people could steal dead voter information and then show up or sent an absentee ballot posing as that person. But that baseless theory it's been repeatedly debunked.

In fact, CNN examined 50 names at random in Michigan from the voter rolls. And when we ran through those names through Michigan's voter information database we saw if they had requested or returned a ballot. Now 37 of those 50 names they were dead, but they had not voted. And then five out of the 50 we checked had voted but were still alive and the remaining eight were also alive but didn't vote.

So, John, while there are still some dead people on these voter lists for various reasons, the idea that other people are taking those names and voting, it's just not true. And to prove that we have this. A statement from the secretary of -- a spokesperson for the secretary of state in Michigan saying this.

"In the unlikely event that someone who was alive and had their identity verified when they requested a ballot died before receiving it, and someone else attempted to vote as them, the signature mismatch/deceased flag in the Qualified Voter File would once again flag it for rejection."

And then we have the Brennan Center for Justice echoing that. Saying, "The consensus from credible research and investigation is that the rate of illegal voting is extremely rare, and the incidents of certain types of fraud, such as impersonating another voter is virtually nonexistent."

And John, that last part is an important part of the quote to keep in mind as the Trump campaign continues to push this false narrative. And as we could see even more lawsuits pop up this week, voter fraud is virtually nonexistent.

And John, even if they did find instances, it really wouldn't be large enough in numbers to even put a dent right now in Joe Biden's lead. John?

[11:25:06]

KING: Jessica Schneider, very important reporting. This is a put up or you know what moment. You know this is democracy. If you've got the proof, put it up, otherwise should do the other thing. Jessica Schneider very much appreciate the important fact check there.

Up next for us, President-elect Biden calling for unity across the country. The challenge includes uniting his own party.

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