Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Defiant Trump Fuels Chaotic Transition with Falsehood, Legal Fights; FDA Approves Emergency Use of Antibody for COVID-19. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired November 10, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Think there's a lot of news out there? Well, in addition to everything we've been talking about, the future of Obamacare hangs in the balance. Right now, the Supreme Court is beginning to hear oral arguments on the future of the Affordable Care Act. This could impact tens of millions of Americans. We are watching for any updates from the court.

Also this morning, a defiant President Trump is throwing the transition into deeper chaos, pushing to fight an election that he lost. But it's the nation that is losing now, putting the safety of the country on the line.

HARLOW: Still, top Republican leaders are standing by the president for the most part, and the attorney general, Bill Barr, is now telling Justice Department prosecutors to go ahead and investigate what he is calling vote irregularities despite a total lack of evidence of any major widespread voting irregularities.

Now, the Biden transition team says it's mulling legal action, worried that they're losing critical time to get the nation's business done.

Our John Harwood is at the White House. Our Jessica Dean is in Delaware following the Biden camp. Good morning to you, both.

John, let's start with you. The president, on top of this, just fired his defense secretary and now there's concern about what may happen to the heads of the CIA and the FBI.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. The interference that the president is conducting with the normal transition of power, which every outgoing administration has cooperated with, is only part of it. Because we all remember after the acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial, the president went on a purge of officials who had told the truth about his conduct during the impeachment process. Now, he has embarked on a similar purge against officials who had stood up against his attempts to corrupt their agencies.

He fired Mark Esper, the defense secretary yesterday. Esper, of course, had resisted the president's attempts to turn the U.S. military on racial injustice protesters this summer. We now have reason to expect that he will turn on CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who have also stood up against the president's attempt to use their agencies to serve his ends.

He has purged a series of other officials, lesser known officials, the woman in charge of the nuclear stockpile, and a climate official who had pushed the seriousness of climate change, a utility regulator who had talked about the need for use of renewable energy. He has shoved those people aside. Now, we're waiting to see whether or not he does the same with the FBI and CIA officials that I mentioned.

All the while, the Republican officials, not just his own administration like Bill Barr, but Republicans in Congress standing behind what he's doing. And Lindsey Graham this morning fessed up as to one reason why they're standing behind him. They've got two Senate elections, special elections, that will occur in January. If Democrats win both, they will gain control of the Senate under the new president. Lindsey Graham said, if we don't scrutinize these election results, we could hurt our chances of riling up our base and turning them out in January.

So you've got a mix of incentives, both the president's personal humiliation over losing, his desire to seek vengeance, and Republicans' search for political gain that is propelling this behavior.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, the price of that is allowing or encouraging a large portion of the country to not believe the election was free and fair.

Jessica, so the Biden team talking about legal steps in response to this kind of obstacle, building on the transition. What exactly are those options?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, they are trying to sort through exactly what those options are and how they might deploy them. Look, this is a more contentious and difficult transition than they thought they were going to have. Joe Biden himself last weekend, when the election was called, was telling his allies, look, let's give the Republicans and President Trump a little bit of time to get used to this and hopefully there will be a smooth transition.

But the General Services Administration, which is responsible for what's called ascertainment, and that's essentially validating that Joe Biden is the president-elect, which triggers the official transition process, has so far refused to do that. They gave out a statement comparing this to Florida in 2000, the Biden transition team saying this isn't anything close to Florida. That was one state, 500- some-odd votes. This is -- the election has been called, this is a much larger margin of votes in multiple states.

And so what's at stake here is national security. The president-elect is not getting those intelligence -- classified intelligence briefings. They're not freeing up the some $6 million that the transition team needs to go ahead and start doing this process.

[10:05:04]

And, remember, this is an incredible endeavor that happens. This is, you know, thousands and thousands of employees, federal agencies, and Jim and Poppy, they're not able to get into any of this.

Notable, back in 2000, the Bush administration, the officials said that their delayed transition really threatened national security and put them way behind. The Biden transition team does not want that to happen and they are considering legal action if it comes to that.

SCIUTTO: John Harwood, Jessica Dean, thanks very much.

Joining us now to help game all this out, Ben Ginsberg, he is a preeminent Republican election lawyer who worked on the landmark Bush v. Gore dispute after the 2000 election, who is now a CNN Contributor. Good to have you on, Mr. Ginsberg.

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: I wonder if you could help us game this out here. So, the DOJ, Barr has now enabled prosecutors to look into irregularities. I know that's not a legal term, but regardless, let's say they were open an investigation, and then you now have that phrase, active investigation underway on something, somewhere, in some state. Can that legally give state legislatures the power to say, hey, we're going to ignore the results of the election here as it stands, the popular vote, and we're just going to say Trump won this state and send it on? Is that legally possible? And if that were to happen, what would then happen?

GINBERG: Not in and of itself. What would have to happen is there is an investigation. Somehow, the investigation raised enough serious evidence so that the state's certification process was delayed. Now, the way this is working right now, and will start working in every state, is that precincts in counties will re-tabulate their vote, re- canvas what's already been counted, make sure there are no mathematical errors. That then goes to the state. The state certifies the total. And in most states, that's what triggers the contest or recount process.

And it would be at that point that one of the parties, the Trump campaign, would need to say, there are serious irregularities and be able to prove it. A DOJ investigation might add to that, but in and of itself is not enough to stop a state certification process.

SCIUTTO: Who decides though at that point, I'm just curious, to certify? Is that the state legislature or is it sitting officials who have --

GINSBERG: No, it's -- in almost every state, it's the secretary of state. In a couple, it's the attorney general.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

HARLOW: Ben, I'm worried that a lot of folks are drawing a direct line between 2000 and Bush v. Gore and what's happening today. And I just wonder if you could weigh in, since you were a lead on that, on the Bush team. We were talking about 537 votes in the state of Florida. When you look at the margins we're talking about already right now, in Arizona, you have Biden up more than 14,000, you have got Biden up more than 45,000 in Pennsylvania, in Georgia, Biden up more than 12,000. Is there any precedent where courts have overturned election results with margins that big?

GINSBERG: No. And recounts, which is what the Trump campaign says they're going to ask for, have never, in history, overturned that many votes. At most, you usually get a few hundred that were incorrectly counted and corrected. So that's very unlikely.

And this is different from Bush versus Gore in Florida in one fundamental respect. In Bush versus Gore, neither the Bush forces nor the Gore folks said, stop counting the ballots, as President Trump has done here, and that's an essential difference in the way that process proceeded.

SCIUTTO: Mr. Ginsberg you have got a lot of experience here essential to exactly what we're facing here. And on the one hand, we have our hope, confidence in institutions, law and how they play out. But the fact is, in the last four years, we've seen those things overruled, right, by intense political partisanship. And I just wonder speaking to folks right now who are trying to digest very complicated developments and allegations. Are you confident that the process, as it stands, will proceed? Because there have been times that hasn't been true.

GINSBERG: That's a great question, Jim. And, yes, I am confident that this process will proceed. Again, this is community-based, county- based, state-based, doing what they do every election, which is tabulating the results of that election. There is always a time period in which you adjudicate recounts in contests. And even with those margins that Poppy just mentioned, that is legitimate recount territory.

[10:10:07]

And so this will play out.

Hillary Clinton intervened in Jill Stein's recounts in three states on November 26, 2016. So that's the timeframe that people should think about for how long it takes recounts to play out.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Georgia, the fact that both Republican senators who are up for reelection in this run off in January, Senators Loeffler and Perdue are going after -- not just going after, calling on the Republican secretary of state there to resign, I think, is remarkable. And then his response, Ben, which struck me, he writes, quote, as a Republican, I am concerned about Republicans keeping the U.S. Senate. I recommend Senators Loeffler and Perdue start focusing on that.

Is this trying to essentially work the ref ahead of the runoff?

GINSBERG: Yes, I suspect it is. I mean, I think you can make an argument that the Hail Mary, kitchen sink, see what sticks against the wall, triple metaphor is at play here. And the ultimate goal may be to try and disrupt the certification process, which is conducted by the secretary of state in Georgia, from taking place. That would be the only scenario where a legislature could step in and name a slate.

But there's one other point in Georgia to bear watching. There are two massive competing fundraising operations going on. One for the two U.S. Senate seats that will determine control, and one for the Trump recount fund. And major Republican donors are being whipsawed with appeals for those two very expensive propositions.

SCIUTTO: And we should note that that recount fund, I believe, and has a proviso that some of that money can go to campaign debt, am I right?

GINSBERG: Yes, you are correct.

HARLOW: Thank you so much. Yes, it is. Ben Ginsberg, really good to have you, you and all your experience. Thank you very much.

Ahead for us on the coronavirus vaccine front, good news from the Pfizer vaccine but when can you potentially get it if it does get FDA approval? We're going to speak to a woman who is right in the middle of participating in the Pfizer trial.

SCIUTTO: And we have this just into CNN. Three Republican sources say that Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle are making moves to expand their influence at the RNC. Is the party in for a takeover?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Well, huge, major developments this week from multiple drug makers working on a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19. Now, Eli Lilly has just been granted emergency use authorization for its experimental antibody drug. It's the one similar to the one the president got when he contracted COVID.

SCIUTTO: Yes, some good news in a span 24 hours both on a vaccine and a treatment.

CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here.

Sanjay, set aside the vaccine if we can for a moment, as significant as that is, but tell us how significant this antibody drug is as a treatment and how significant it is that it now has emergency use authorization.

GUPTA: Yes. We've been reporting a lot on the idea of antibody therapies. And I think that there's a lot of enthusiasm behind this. So I think that this is a pretty big deal and the emergency use authorization could make it easier for people to get it. I mean, people were getting it through the trials already, but the EUA does potentially make it easier.

This is the way to think about it. When you give a vaccine, you're essentially teaching your body to make antibodies, these proteins that could help fight the infection. You could just give those antibodies, which is essentially what this Eli Lilly product is, and we can show basically how it works. It's typically given for mild to moderate illness. You want to give it early is the real point. And if you do that, you reduce the likelihood that someone needs to be hospitalized, the likelihood they need to visit an emergency room. It's one infusion and seems to last up to a couple months, one month at least.

It's sort of like a bridge to the vaccine. Ultimately, as you point out, the vaccine is going to be the thing that everybody really wants. But in the interim, this bridge to the vaccine, the antibodies, could provide benefit. And, look, as you mentioned, President Trump received an antibody therapy. It was not this particular one. But that may have helped him. We're still collecting data on it but there's good evidence that it can help people, especially people who are in vulnerable position because of their age or preexisting conditions.

HARLOW: Sanjay, from the start, you have talked about how much this country needs a solid, robust testing strategy to control the pandemic. Well, now you have President-elect Biden, who has promised to increase testing. What should that look like?

GUPTA: I think the testing is, as much as it has increased over the past few months, it probably needs to go up another 10 to 20 fold, which I know sounds like a fantasy. But keep in mind, the NBA was testing everybody every day, right, and that sounded like some sort of fantasy. We could be doing that for the country.

And I think it would be very empowering to think you at home, Poppy and Jim, you're brushing your teeth, putting in your contact lenses, whatever, you get tested, you test yourself at home, there's no machine, there's no lab, you get the result back. If it's positive, you stay home. If it's negative, you're able to go out.

Michael Mina from Harvard has been talking about this quite a bit.

[10:20:00]

And I want you to listen to him and listen to how easy this could possibly be implemented.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAEL MINA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: To get most people in a community to use a test every three, four or five days doesn't actually take a huge amount of tests to be produced every day. 10 million or 20 million might sound like a whole lot, but these are small little pieces of paper. We make bags of Doritos at that amount every day probably.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So the Harvard Global Research folks, they said 20 million tests a day would be the right amount. We're doing 1,300 a day now. So we need to significantly ramp this up. And I think it would be very empowering for individuals to have that information every single day.

SCIUTTO: Sanjay, it's so good to have your answers. To join the conversation, we want to bring in Christine Staines. She's participating actually in Pfizer's clinical vaccine trial. She got two experimental injections this summer. Welcome, Christine, thank you for the work you're doing. It's people like you that make these kinds of things possible.

First, if I could ask you, what was your reaction to hearing the news that this vaccine more than 90 percent effective? How encouraging to you?

CHRISTINE STAINES, PFIZER VACCINE TRIAL PARTICIPANT: I was very happy to hear that. That's the whole reason why I was participating in the study so they could come up with something and I'm surprised it was so quick, but I'm also very happy.

HARLOW: You don't know whether you received the vaccine or whether you got the placebo. I wonder if you could just talk about what the process was like, because if it is approved, then what you went through is what a lot of folks are going to go through.

STAINES: Yes. They don't tell you, they let you know ahead of time you won't be aware of which one you're getting. I think they all look the same so it's not even like you can't tell whether you are receiving the vaccine. I was fine with it either way. Like I said, I just want to help others get over this pandemic that I never thought I would live through.

GUPTA: I'm curious, Christine. It's Sanjay Gupta. I'm curious if you -- were you ever -- so two years, my understanding, is how long they follow you along. Will you be told at some point before that two-year mark whether or not you received the vaccine? Because, I mean, presumably, you'd want to have a vaccine for sure once it becomes available and approved.

STAINES: Yes. They -- they haven't essentially told me if and when they're going to let me know. I imagine at the end of the trial they would. If I had the vaccine then am I protected from it or will I need another vaccine? I'm sure I'll have answers at the end.

SCIUTTO: So, Sanjay, now, when do you and I and others, when are we most likely to have this widely available around the country? Keeping in mind that there are other vaccine tracks under way and making progress.

GUPTA: Well, I think that we'll be reporting before the end of this year of people receiving a vaccine under emergency use authorization in this country. That will probably be people who are at highest risk because of their profession, you know, because of the risk factors or people who are vulnerable to this disease.

But I think for the general population, I think it's -- I talked to the CEO of Pfizer yesterday, for example, and he said by March of next year, he anticipates there will be some hundred million doses available, two shots, right, so it would be 50 million people. I think by summer of next year, the general public will be more able to get these shots. We've got to make sure that we're thinking about this globally as well. Because if you get outbreaks in Europe or in Asia and people are traveling around the world, that, again, creates hot spots all over the world.

So it's, I think, end of next year before we start to get to that point where we're having enough people vaccinated around the world to make a significant difference.

But, I've just got to say, as we've always said, and Christine knows this because you volunteered for a trial, there're things that we can do to make a difference without that, right? I'll just show this graphic real quick. This really struck me. One person without mitigation measures within 60 days on the left side could affect 400 people, okay? That same person, masks, physical distancing, when you go out, no shutdown, just masks and physical distancing, two and a half people get infected within 60 days. That is a dramatic impact on the trajectory of this pandemic.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: Wow, that says it all. Okay. I'm handing my time over to you Sanjay because you interviewed the Pfizer CEO yesterday. What other questions do you have for Christine?

GUPTA: One thing we're hearing, Christine, is that the safety data is still going to be coming out, forthcoming maybe by the end of this month. I'm curious, obviously, you don't know what you received, placebo or vaccine, but did you have any symptoms at all, I mean, soreness of arm, fever, anything at all that was concerning to you?

STAINES: No, I didn't have any reactions to the injection site or any symptoms.

[10:25:04]

They give you an e-diary. You have to follow it up every single week so they can follow you to see if you develop any symptoms or any kind of reaction to it. And I have been fortunate enough to not have any.

HARLOW: That's good news. Yes, go ahead, Sanjay.

GUPTA: I hear the safety data has been good so far. I mean, we'll get the -- we're really pushing on that to get that data by the end of November. But that's going to be the last step in trying to figure out whether or not this goes through emergency use authorization.

HARLOW: Maybe a gift, a New Year's gift for a lot of folks. Christine, thank you for being a part of this, for coming here to talk to us. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, invaluable expertise, as always, thanks so much.

All right, politics for us next. A transition in turmoil as the president refuses to concede and pushes baseless election fraud allegations. What does this actually mean for our country? What are the real implications and the national security dangers here, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]