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McConnell, Top Republicans Back Trump's Refusal To Concede; Vote Counting Continues In Close Battleground States; Trump Pushes Claims Of Voter Fraud With No Clear Evidence; 17 States Reported Record High Hospitalizations On Monday; Testing Czar: Very Few States, Districts Are Screening Students. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 10, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Important breaking news. The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, there speaking after a Republican meeting. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

Very significant where you just heard from the top Republican in the United States Senate, he is trying to say don't worry, be calm, don't get worked up, there's nothing unusual, those are the leader's words about President Trump refusing to acknowledge this, the results of the American election that was held one week ago.

The leader rightly so says any candidate has the right to file charges allegations of improprieties fraud of abuse in the election process. He is right about that. One week after America voted, team Trump says there are all sorts of irregularities, but has presented no evidence. The leader also saying let the president challenge the results.

And up until the Electoral College votes that's in January when the electors come to Washington and send their votes to Washington to pick a new president. But here's where it is unusual. Because even if, it's unlikely, incredibly unlikely, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by more votes than Donald Trump did four years ago, but even if they reverse that, Joe Biden is winning here, he's leading here, and he's leading here.

President Trump would have to overturn the results in two, three, maybe -- depending on how it works states, depending on which states win, at least two states to make it happen, maybe more than that. It is highly unusual because the math is the math and the math is irrefutable. Though still the Republicans standing by the president for now.

Let's bring into our conversation our Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju. Jeff Zeleny is with us as well. Manu, again I get it, I get it. The president is the leader of the party, but the leader here, what I found interesting is, he brought the words Electoral College into the conversation, essentially trying to even give the president even more time. Many have said wait a couple days, if you have your suit, file your

suit. Mitch McConnell seems to be opening a long ramp here for the president.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, he is trying to say that there are opportunities for the president to challenge the election and depending on how this turns out, ultimately, no matter what; the president decides to mount here, that come January 20th, if Joe Biden is the President, he will be sworn in at that time.

He is trying to down play the concerns that have been raised about this process and also suggest that the transition will happen in an orderly manner, even as the Biden team has raised serious concerns about the refusal by the Trump White House to green light efforts to allow that transition to happen.

Mitch McConnell does not seem to share those concerns. And I can tell you and talking to other Republicans as well, they are not at all concerned about what the Biden team is saying, that there could be serious concerns of national security and other matters, filling critical posts, if some of those, if the requisite paperwork is not signed off, if the Trump White House does not allow the nuts and bolts of the transition to take place.

Republicans are not joining those concerns, thinking that things will just simply turn out. But the fact of the matter is, John, no one really knows what the president will do. They know the president is upset, I think they may have talked to the president. They know they need the president's support when it comes to this Georgia Senate races.

But they don't know what he will do if the court decisions don't turn out the way he wants, will he simply step aside, will he allow the transition to happen at all. The Republicans hope that he will see the writing on the wall if these things don't turn out the way he expects, but they simply don't know they just expect things will go orderly, John.

KING: Manu Raju, thank you. I just want to walk through the math here. Manu says the Republicans are hoping the president sees the writing on the wall. It's the math on the map is what the president needs to see. It's the math on the map. This is what the track we're on right now. We haven't called Georgia yet. But Joe Biden leads.

There are still counting votes in Arizona, but Joe Biden leads. Nevada is in the Biden column, so is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the state that put the president over the top. You're watching here, 306 is the likelihood of the outcome here.

Again we haven't finished in Arizona counting the votes yet there. So let's just say, for example, the president had a challenge and he contested Pennsylvania and took those away from Joe Biden.

It's still not enough. It's just simply still not enough. What if he challenged Georgia, too, and took that away. It's still not enough. Now it's unlikely, it never happened. You overturn two different states. Right? So if Biden let's say, he holds onto Pennsylvania and the president is able to challenge Georgia, so the president then would have to what, take Arizona off the map as well?

Let me come back here and hit this. He would have to take Arizona off the map and he would have to take Nevada off the map, and guess what, even if he did that, it wouldn't be enough. One, two, three states if they don't overturn Pennsylvania that is the absurdity of the math here. It's just absurd unless you can take two or three, maybe four states off the map which has never happened before.

But the Republicans giving the president this wide bandwidth to continue so far one week after Election Day unsubstantiated, there's no documentation of any widespread irregularities which poses a challenge for the President-Elect, Joe Biden. He is trying to plan a transition in the middle of a pandemic to take power in ten weeks.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is with us for that. Jeff, it is clear now, it has to be clear. Joe Biden has been tried to say give them time, I'm going to make deals with these people, everything is going to get back to normal.

[12:05:00]

KING: They have to know now in the Biden Campaign there's not going to be any grace here. So what is their strategy?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: They do know that, John. And if there were any questions, if the president-elect was going to have to wait until January to find out if he was walking into a new Washington, he does not have to wait. He is seeing that right now play out in real time. So the thinking inside the Biden transition team I am told is to keep moving forward, to keep making announcements.

We're going to hear and see from the president-elect this afternoon, here in Wilmington, he will be talking about the importance of the Affordable Care Act, of which he can do little about. Of course that is in front of the Supreme Court where we've heard those oral arguments all morning. But they are moving forward on this.

But I'm told they're also still considering legal options, and particularly for this reason. There are $6.3 million in funding that was set aside for either side, whoever won this election, any election in transition funding. That is used for staffing; it is used to bring people up to speed on background briefings, getting this government ready.

It has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican; it has to do with who the next president is going to be. It exists regardless of who wins. So the Biden team now realizes that they may have to fight for that perhaps illegally. And who knows if that will turn out.

But one thing that is probably different than in most transitions, this is not a Governor being elected to come to Washington to try and figure out the levers of government. This is someone who served in the government in the White House for eight years as vice president and in the Senate of course for almost four decades.

So this is an operation that understands and knows how the government works. So that is one reason why it is probably not quite as dire as if it was someone coming inside from Washington. But John, there's no question there is a sense of for all of these calls of unity, they're being met with resistance from the president.

If you talk to Senate Republican aides privately, they believe and hope the president sort of moves on, goes to Mar-a-Lago or something and sort of move on and drop this. But they do not know if that is so. So the Biden team for now is going to proceed and move forward. But it is a central question of if they're going to be able to set up the government.

And we should point out the reason it matters again, it's not partisan, it is because the government needs to be set up. We learned in that 9/11 commission report after September 11th, 2001, one of the things was the government was not formed.

So God forbid if there was an attack or something on February 11th, as was brought up in all of those hearings that you and I remember well, so that is why this matters, getting the government ready. It has nothing to do with who's in office, John.

KING: Jeff Zeleny, I appreciate it. And there's also, that's a very important point, the functioning of government. You need a coordinated transition. It's also just basic common courtesy, respect for math and respect for America's role in the world. Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

Let's continue the conversation with our Chief Political Correspondent, Dana Bash. Dana, I just went through the math, I have been doing this for 35 years. You don't overturn leads the size of Pennsylvania, even leads the size of Georgia. But even if the president could overturn one of them, that would not be enough. That would not be enough.

He would have to overturn several states to change what is a fact now; Joe Biden is the President-Elect of the United States. But this is the president this morning on his favorite platform. We are making big progress, results start to come in next week, we will win. Watch for massive ballot counting abuse and just like the early vaccine, remember, I told you so, ballot counting abuse.

And you see the goal there, that's Twitter flagging anything the president says about the election, because this is the reality of the world we live in. The president lies and he is lying there. What is the thinking? Is there anybody close enough to this president to just convince him look, even if we could flip Pennsylvania, sir, it's not enough.

Even if could flip Georgia, sir, it's not enough. Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 140,000 votes, sir, it's a pipe dream.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: There are people trying, but he is definitely not a receptive audience right now, and that is evidenced right there on his Twitter feed. KING: That's an understatement.

BASH: He is not; he is not a receptive audience. The other issue is that he has people around him who are yes, people. He has people around him who are saying fight the fight, don't give up, don't give up, don't give up. And some of those people are the ones who told him that before 2016 and PS, he won the presidency.

So there's some of that. But it's also, just who Donald Trump is. He is not somebody who was brought up to accept defeat. He is somebody who was brought up by a father who told him that there are two people in the world, people who succeed and fight and then there are just losers. And he doesn't want to be the latter.

And the issue is because of that, he is taking the Republican Party on this path to nowhere legally along with him. And you heard from Mitch McConnell earlier and you watched was McConnell walking what he considers to be a mine field, a political and procedural mine field, because he as you have noted before, he like others in government, they want power. He wants to still be the majority leader.

[12:10:00]

BASH: He is looking at the two races in Georgia, and he understands that if he says to the president publicly or privately explicitly that you're done, we're out, the president will not only help in Georgia, he could undermine the Republicans in Georgia. That's the last thing he wants.

KING: And so, the vice president is up there for the senate republican luncheon today, Vice President Pence. He tweeted support of the president's strategy yesterday, he doesn't use the same language, but it's the same. And just because you use more gentle language, that's the same.

There have been four Republican Senators, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Ben Sasse, all in what we would put as the not Trump supporters camp who have said, Joe Biden is the President-Elect. We should move on. Democrats, listen here, there's two of them saying we wish our Republican friends would relearn math. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): It is critical to keep moving forward with the transition process, to do everything that the transition team can to force an acceptance of reality. In the meantime, the Trump Administration continues to do everything they can to distract us and frankly to undermine the health of Americans, even in the middle of a pandemic.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): It's time to move on. And I think people within the White House know that, I think people within the family structure know that. They're just as scared I guess to go telling him the facts of what we're dealing with.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: What is the thinking of the Democratic Party? And I guess more specifically because it's more important, the president-elect's top political advisers and President-Elect Biden himself about how public, how aggressive, how daily constantly, because the president uses his Twitter platform that they need to come out and counter, they're saying, the math is math, the facts is the facts, be responsible.

BASH: There's a hope, not just among Democrats who you played, but among the few Republicans who have come out and said enough, this is not going to go anywhere, Mr. President, that that becomes the majority view. That becomes the majority notion in public. That hasn't happened yet.

You know, the hope according to one person who I talked to who is kind of in this camp was that if enough Republicans follow the George W. Bush lead and say okay, we're moving on here, then that becomes the reality and every other Republican who doesn't get to that point is going to be left behind. It hasn't happened yet.

And so, what you are seeing instead is the same story John that we've seen for four and a half years, which is Republicans who know better, who understand not just the traditions but the imperatives that keep this democracy functioning, they don't speak out. They go along because they think that they can do better by kind of following along, and towing the line of what the president is doing.

And it is one thing when the president says something that's crazy or, you know, goes after somebody, you know, personally and these leaders don't speak out. It is another thing when it gets to the core of what they're doing and what their jobs are and it's not happening right now because they want to keep power.

They don't want the two seats in Georgia to flip to Democrats because they make the Trump base which is the Republican base angry. And there's no other way to say, it's as simple as that.

KING: It is simple as that. Its power, lust, and fear taking principle, taking precedent right now over math. Just simple math. Joe Biden won the election. Dana Bash, appreciate the reporting and the insights.

Up next for us, the Former FDA Commissioner now joining the growing course of public health experts warning Coronavirus cases are up and about to explode.

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[12:15:00]

KING: Dr. Anthony Fauci says "Help is on the way" that after some very positive good news on a possible Coronavirus vaccine, but for most of us, that help is months down the road, months down the road. In the meantime, we are staring at a very bleak here and now in the fight against the Coronavirus. You see the red and the orange.

The red is the worst, the orange is bad. Red means 50 percent or more new infections today compared to last week, orange means infections are up, between 10 and 50 percent now compared to last week. And you see here 44 of the 50 states trending in the wrong direction right now. 44. Six holding steady, which tells you zero, zero states on the right trend line right now when it comes to the Coronavirus.

And when you look at this, it is simply depressing. This almost only the numbers straight up, but the numbers make it even more numbing, now above 120,000 cases on a daily basis. That seems to be the regular now. Remember, back in the summer peak, it was around 60,000, the first wave was below 30,000. Right now, 120,000 cases end counting.

You see one day above 140,000, that is the bleak -- with more people infected, yes, more people in the hospital. Approaching 60,000 there, the average is above 50, between 50 and 60. And you can see early back in the spring, and then the summer surge, 60 was the highest.

We are days away, just days away from blowing past 60,000 Americans in the hospital on a daily basis from the Coronavirus. And this is why, the higher positivity rates, the more cases, the more people are likely to infect others. This is all across the country. 48 percent of the people in Iowa who get a Coronavirus test come back positive.

It's 54 percent in South Dakota; it's 34 percent in Wyoming. It's 39 percent in Idaho. Even Nevada, it's 12 percent. Anything above 5 is bad. Utah, 18 percent. Alabama 20 percent. Pennsylvania, 16 percent. Florida 7, that's better. It's better than 50. But it's still above 5, which is where you do not want to be.

And here is one of the issues from the beginning, especially with more cases now. You need more testing. Yes, this number is higher, were averaging about 1.5 million tests a day right now, but the public health experts say, we need more, many more. Listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci here.

[12:20:00]

KING: We are eight plus months into this and --?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Right now, what is driving the outbreak in the sense of essentially people coming in the home, small groups of people, 8, 10 people, meeting together with friends for a dinner, not knowing that one of them is infected? Once you get enough testing out there in the community, you'll be able to get those people identified and get them out of circulation for the time being so they don't infect others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share his expertise and insights, Dr. Amesh Adalja, he is the Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University, Center for Health Security. Dr. Adalja, it's good to see you again. Again please help me on this one. We're eight plus months in, and you hear Dr. Fauci saying when you get enough testing out in the community. Why is that still a when?

DR. AMESH ADALJA, SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: It's mind boggling. This is an abject failure. This was the first thing we should have been doing back not even in March, but in January when we knew that this was going to be a problem for the United States. And we still have the same conversation over and over again, that we're not testing enough, that there are testing shortages, that the turnaround time for outpatient tests is too long.

And what we really need to be able to do is, test ourselves at will. Hopefully even someday at home, so that we can know our status, so we know don't go to this dinner party, don't go to this restaurant, because we know at any given time if we are infectious or not. But we are still a ways away from that. And hopefully we will finally start to take this seriously. Because we are really running our hospitals back into crisis. And none of us wanted to ever see that happen again.

KING: And so, fear I think is shared across the public health community is that people here, vaccine, efficacy, 90 percent, coming soon. And they think okay, great. I can let my guard down. I want you to listen to Secretary of Health and Human Services here describing, and this is critical for people to listen to this. This will not happen overnight. There's a long roll out here. And most Americans will have to wait. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: I'd be thinking in December we would be focusing on vaccinating the most vulnerable. We'll have to look at the data and see which groups, but focused on the most vulnerable.

And then by the end of January, we would have enough for all of our health care workers and first responders, and by the end of March to early April, we should have enough for all Americans not just Pfizer, but of course the other vaccines in our portfolio.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's four or five months down the line. And thank goodness for operation warp speed, thank goodness these drug companies got in and are having some success at least in the case of Pfizer with others to follow, but that is four or five months. And what is the danger between now and then?

ADALJA: That people look at this as some kind of pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, but that rainbow is farther and farther away. We're going to have tens of thousands of deaths that are going to occur between now and when the vaccine is available. So we can't stop doing what we're doing just with the hope that this vaccine is going to save us. Because there's a lot of time, there is a lot of illness.

Hospitals could go into crisis during that period of time. So we have to continue to do the social distancing, to wear the face coverings, to wash our hands a lot, worry about congregated and crowded places. We have to continue to keep that up until the vaccine is available. Because if we don't do that, we will in the interim put our hospitals into a place where we don't want to see them, where they are rationing care.

KING: And once this is Admiral Giroir who is the administration's testing czar. And again, the thing that has frustrated me, and I am just a layperson, I don't have your expertise is, month after month, week after week, they talk as if this is an urgent crisis, where they have been on the job for months. Listen to his take on screening students.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, MD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HEALTH, HHS: Schools are opening quite successfully across the country, with minimal transmission so we do know that school testing, although it's important, very few states, very few states or districts are actually screening students.

There's limited screening of staff. So that priority is probably less than we thought before, but again, we have to assess. We're in a different part of the pandemic. We'll work with the states to adapt their plans and move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that acceptable or do school districts need to be doing a much better job of screening students and staff?

ADALJA: Well, we have so far not seen major outbreaks linked to school. We've seen it was extracurricular activities related to schools, sports, cheerleading, those types of events, but not the actual educational component. So that is one good thing.

But in order to have schools open and be sustainably open, and have teachers feel confident that they can teach in person, we do need to have testing in the schools, because otherwise, no one is going to feel safe there, and they're going to always feel like they're dodging a bullet.

Especially if they're opening a school in an area where the community has a lot of spread, because the school can't help, but be engulfed by what's going on in the community, because people live in that community. So I do think this is one way to move forward with schools and move forward with a host of activities if we have the ability like I said earlier just to be able to test at will.

Just go and buy a test at the drugstore, keep them in your house and be able to test or you just walk up to a place and get them. We still are very far away from what South Korea could do back in February and March.

[12:25:00]

KING: It's a sad statement when you put that into context like that. It reminds us the failure in the rearview mirror. Let's hope it gets better ahead of us. Dr. Adalja as always grateful for your insights. And still ahead for us, the United States Supreme Court today mulls the fate of Obamacare.

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[12:30:00]