Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
President-Elect Joe Biden Announces Coronavirus Advisory Board; Trump Refuses to Acknowledge Election Defeat; Pfizer Vaccine May Be More than 90 Percent Effective; COVID-19 Continues to March through Trump's Inner Circle; London's Mayor Commits to Work Closely with Biden Administration; Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia Sign Cease-Fire; England Locks Back Down, Italian Regions on Red Alert; Georgia Runoff. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired November 10, 2020 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I am Rosemary Church. Just ahead:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALBERT BOURLA, PFIZER CEO: It's very important for humanity (ph).
CHURCH (voice-over): Months into the COVID pandemic, some signs of hope. Drugmaker Pfizer makes what could be a huge medical advancement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH (voice-over): Plus, Joe Biden is already gearing up for the U.S. presidency even though Donald Trump is refusing to step down without a fight. We will explain why this could get even uglier.
Later, President Trump fires his Defense Secretary, raising concerns over America's national security in the weeks ahead.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHURCH: Good to have you with us.
U.S. COVID cases are now topping 10 million and, for the seventh straight day, the country is reporting 100,000-plus new daily infections. Cases are surging in 44 states and holding steady in six others.
As you can see, no states are heading in the right direction. But there is hope on the horizon in the form of a vaccine. U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says early results show its vaccine is more than 90 percent effective and promises no corners were cut.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOURLA: Ninety percent is a game-changer, 90 percent, now you are hoping to get a tool in your war against this pandemic that would be significantly effective. How long this protection will last, it's something that we don't know
right now but it's part of the objective of this study.
We will follow up the 44,000 people that they received -- they are part of this study for two years. And during this follow-up, obviously, we will looking also at the durability of the new responses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: The Canadian and British prime ministers optimistic about the news. Justin Trudeau says Canada signed a deal to secure millions of doses of the vaccine and is urging Canadians to hang in there.
And Boris Johnson says if the Pfizer vaccine is indeed proven safe, it will be distributed throughout the United Kingdom.
Meantime, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert believes the vaccine is a sign help is on the way but he says we can't let our guard down. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This is something that we should really feel good about. But I want to make sure people understand is that it's good because we know there's light at the end of the tunnel but that doesn't mean that we are going to give up the important public health measures that we continually still have to do every single day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: U.S. president elect Joe Biden wasting no time in tackling the pandemic. He made a point to back those public health measures Dr. Fauci just spoke about. He also announced his Coronavirus Task Force. CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: A mask is not a political statement. But it is a good way to start pulling the country together.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President-Elect Joe Biden setting a new tone tonight on coronavirus making clear it will be the top priority of his new administration.
BIDEN: I won't be president until January 20th. But my message today is to everyone is this -- it doesn't matter who you voted for. We can save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. Not Democrat or Republican lives, American lives.
ZELENY (voice-over): Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris moving swiftly in their transition to power, announcing a coronavirus advisory board as the U.S. surpasses 10 million cases. Despite promising news about a vaccine, Biden delivering a grim warning.
BIDEN: We are still facing a very dark winter.
ZELENY (voice-over): The 13-member board is led by three co-chairs including Dr. Vivek Murthy, a surgeon general from the Obama administration. It also involves some of the nation's top experts including Dr. Rick Bright, a former Trump administration vaccine scientists and whistleblower who accused the White House of interfering in efforts to fight the virus.
[02:05:00]
ZELENY (voice-over): It's a fresh start even as President Trump has yet to concede political reality and the outcome of the election.
BIDEN: Let this grim air of demonization in America begin to end here and now.
ZELENY (voice-over): Words of congratulations pouring in from around the world, including a call today from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but silence or defiance from most Republicans, with the notable exception of former President George W. Bush, who called Biden and Harris over the weekend and made clear the results should be accepted saying, "The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair. Its integrity will be upheld and its outcome is clear. We must come together for the sake of our families and neighbors and for our nation and its future."
Tonight, the refusal by the Trump administration to acknowledge the president's defeat has real consequences. A Trump appointee who leads the General Services Administration is refusing to sign a letter allowing the transition team to begin its work, saying, "an ascertainment has not yet been made" about the election.
Biden has instructed his aides to give the president and Republicans a bit more time, CNN has learned, before taking more aggressive steps.
BIDEN: This election is over. It's time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric that's designed to demonize one another.
ZELENY: But for all those calls of unity from President-Elect Biden, it is an open question if Republicans are listening to them. There is a resistance inside the administration that is surprising, even some allies of Mr. Biden.
I'm told they're going to start increasing their fight to make this case publicly, that it is time to move on with the transition of government.
As for Mr. Biden's part, he will be talking about the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday in Wilmington, pushing forward with the transition of government, even as most Republicans still have not congratulated him -- Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: So President Trump is still not conceding, although a Trump advisor tells CNN he is beginning to see a path to losing. As you can see from this map, President-Elect Joe Biden won both the popular vote by more than 4 million and the electoral vote necessary to become the next U.S. president.
Despite this, the Trump campaign is not about to give up. U.S. attorney general Bill Barr is telling fellow prosecutors to examine allegations of voting irregularities.
The move resulted in the Justice Department's top election crimes prosecutor resigning in protest.
Plus, the Trump campaign is attempting to block election results from Pennsylvania. But a top lawyer for the Bush-Cheney legal team during the 2000 Florida recount had this to say about Mr. Trump's claims.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DARYL BRISTOW, BUSH-CHENEY 2000 LEGAL TEAM: Looking back 20 years on my own experience, I see no legitimate claim of the kind of malfeasance that would justify the disenfranchisement of, you know, of something like 50,000 voters in Pennsylvania, 36,000 in Nevada, 17,000 in Arizona, 10,000 in Georgia.
We were, of course, back at that time, dealing with a vote count that was in the hundreds' difference, not the thousands and in one state, not five states -- four states.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins me now from Los Angeles.
Good to have you with us.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, Rosemary.
CHURCH: Ron, let's start with the tweet you posted Monday night when you said this.
"The postelection temperature changed radically today from Trump's personal peak to a party wide effort, blessed by [Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, of course], to find any pretext to try to overturn the results with the help of Barr's weaponized Justice Department.
"However implausible, are Democrats ready for this fight?"
Ron, that is a truly alarming tweet.
How likely is it that these various efforts by Republicans could come anywhere near overturning the results of this election, given they have offered absolutely no evidence to support the claims of voter fraud? BROWNSTEIN: No evidence as you point out. Look at what just happened in the past 24 hours. We've got a kind of an image of president Trump alone, stewing in the White House, kind of yelling at the pictures on the walls, to Republican attorneys general trying to intervene, Republican senators in Georgia calling for the resignation of the Republican secretary of state there.
Senator Mitch McConnell blessing this effort on the Senate floor, Bill Barr basically enlisting the Justice Department to try to find any kind of pretext of fraud.
[02:10:00]
BROWNSTEIN: You can say that the odds are high, that the courts will stand firm and dismiss these baseless accusations. But there are a lot of Republican justices Donald Trump has put on the court. I don't think you can feel a zero chance anymore that they will find some pretext not to overturn the lead but to cloud it enough that they convince then Republican legislators in some of these states to try to send their own slates of electors.
And where Joe Biden said, well, I want to give them a little more time to kind of work through this, I think this is going to be a very good test of whether he recognizes how different the partisan landscape is just as he left office since 2016, how much more venomous and really how ultimately he may have to fight a lot harder on this front than they have so far.
CHURCH: Yes. And you can't forget that 71 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. So he feels he has got some strength behind him.
So how much of Mitch McConnell's fighting words are about protecting his own role as majority leader in the Senate rather than perhaps caring about what happens to Donald Trump in the end?
BROWNSTEIN: I think it is largely about preserving his own role. Certainly they hope these baseless charges will help them fire up their base for the big fight that's coming in Georgia, early January. Two run off elections. Democrats win both, they control the Senate. They split or Republicans win both, Republicans still control the Senate.
But really to me, it's sort of the correlation damage that Mitch McConnell is willing to accept. This is just an extraordinarily dangerous course for Republicans to be taking in terms of our democracy.
As they know, they are seeding a narrative that this election was stolen with no evidence that anything like the margin could be affected by any kind of missteps anywhere.
And yet, they are providing fuel in the fire for what will be a four- year campaign to try to delegitimize the result of this election. And it seems to me you're seeing more of the Republican Party saying we represent "the real America," quote-unquote. Therefore by definition, any majority that is mustered against us is
illegitimate because it is not the real America. Those are the real voters. They're our voters. Lindsey Graham pretty much says on FOX on the news today.
CHURCH: It's such a fertile climate for conspiracies. That has been established over the last four years. But the agency overseeing the transition of power of the next administration, the GSA, has not recognized Joe Biden's victory, withholding funds and national security tools.
How significant is this and how long can the GSA sustain this?
BROWNSTEIN: I think it's incredibly significant and incredibly revealing of what we are talking about. This has gone from personal pique on the part of the president to basically a party-wide effort, where he is in enlisting the government and other Republicans are falling in line, to try to undermine the will of the voters that was very thoroughly expressed.
And you said, don't forget and the tipping point states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, I think Joe Biden is leading by three times as much at this time as Donald Trump won in 2016 by, Trump's margin?
And you did not see comparable efforts on the Democratic side. I mean, this is just like the Republican attitude during the impeachment, where there is clear evidence the president tried to extort the government in Ukraine and they did not really blink an eye.
I mean, this is just more evidence of the party moving toward, by any means necessary, attitude towards holding power. And it is extremely dangerous, not only it in itself but as we were saying, for what it signals is ahead for Biden as he tries, he says, to heal the breach and reach out across party lines.
CHURCH: We live in very scary times right now. Ron Brownstein, joining us there. Many thanks.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHURCH: A closer look now at that vaccine Pfizer claims is more than 90 percent effective. It is one of four candidates in late stage trials in the U.S. But even if approved, it's unclear how long the immunity on this two dose vaccine will last and how and when it will be distributed. We get more now from CNN's Athena Jones.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It could be the coronavirus vaccine the world has been waiting for. Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, announcing an early analysis shows its vaccine candidate is more than 90 percent effective.
BOURLA: It is extraordinary that it's coming at a time that the world needs it the most.
JONES (voice-over): The company is saying it expects to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA as soon as next week and is on track to produce up to 50 million doses this year and more than a billion next year, saying it will be free for Americans.
[02:15:00]
JONES (voice-over): Dr. Anthony Fauci tells CNN by text, "It's extraordinarily good news," while others expressed cautious optimism.
DR. JAY VARKEY, EMORY UNIVERSITY: If, in the deep dive of that data, that really shows a 90 percent efficacy, that would be phenomenal. Again, the FDA has been clear that even a vaccine at 50 percent efficacy would actually help move the ball.
JONES (voice-over): The promising news coming as the country reaches another grim milestone, 10 million COVID cases; more than 237,000 lives lost; 43 states now seeing a surge.
Sunday was the fifth day in a row the U.S. topped 100,000 new cases in a single day.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Many of our hospitals, particularly across the Mountain West to the Midwest and Upper Midwest are already getting overwhelmed.
JONES (voice-over): Hospitalizations setting records in 19 states, with 30 states hitting their peak seven-day average for new cases on Sunday, including Indiana, where Notre Dame fans, ignoring social distancing guidelines, rushed the football field after the team's upset victory over Clemson on Saturday.
The university's president, who was himself diagnosed with COVID-19 after visiting the White House without a mask, announcing new measures, including putting students' registration on hold if they refuse to submit to COVID testing.
Meanwhile, new concerns in New York City; once the epicenter of the crisis, where the positivity rate, while still low, is rising once again.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: And that is dangerous. So we have one last chance to stop a second wave.
JONES: Mayor de Blasio says, if New York hits a full-blown second wave, it will mean a lot more restrictions and even having to shut down parts of the economy again. The city's health department is now providing more tools to help people track infection rates, releasing new data showing the percent of people who tested positive for COVID- 19 by zip code, for the most recent seven days of available data -- Athena Jones, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: Dr. Ravina Kullar is an infectious disease expert and epidemiologist. She is with us now from Los Angeles. Thank you so much for being with us. And for all that you do.
DR. RAVINA KULLAR, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST: Thank you, Rosemary, for having me on.
CHURCH: So we are seeing U.S. COVID cases surpassed 10 million with daily cases hitting record highs but now comes this positive news about Pfizer vaccine being more than 90 percent effective. I'd be interested to get response to all of that.
KULLAR: Definitely. So here in the United States as you stated we're at around over 10 million cases, I mean we're surpassing any other country, 110,000 cases per day, which is about over one case per second. So I think the entire world, especially the United States needs a glimmer of hope in this grim outlook that we currently have.
So this Pfizer vaccine showing about a 90 percent efficacy is just that potential glimmer of hope that we have been looking for. And as a healthcare provider that's been involved in vaccine research for quite sometime, I can state that these results look quite promising thus far but there are still some unanswered questions.
So just taking a step back at looking at these results there were about 44,000 people that were entered into this trial and out of these 44,000, there were 94 cases that ended up developing the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
And so out of those individuals that were less than 10 percent of those that ended up receiving the vaccine. And there were over 90 percent that ended up receiving placebo.
So that's quite promising to see that most of those individuals that ended up getting COVID-19 were those that received the placebo versus the vaccine.
CHURCH: Right. So what do you think this means in terms of when people will actually have access to the vaccine and in a meaningful way, of course?
KULLAR: I think it's going to be sometime. This is an interim analysis. So I think they are very important questions to be answered. So this study looked at two different doses given that 21 days apart and then analyzed seven days after and so it is a total of 20 days.
How long is someone immune from this virus? We still don't know that picture from just these interim results. We don't know whether those individuals which are elderly will respond just as well as those which are younger.
We know from previous vaccines that elderly individuals do not respond as well and those are the ones which are most vulnerable. So there are very many unanswered questions here and we still don't know much about the safety.
Vaccines can have some very adverse events which are affiliated with it.
[02:20:00]
KULLAR: especially with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, where, early on in the phase 1 trials, were shown to have individuals have fatigue, chills and many other adverse events affiliated with it.
So it's this what's seen also with this vaccine. So I think, as the Pfizer CEO stated, we should hopefully have the results by sometime at the end of this month, which is very soon. But what that means in terms of utilization to the general public, I think that's yet to be told.
CHURCH: Right. Of course at least there is this glimmer of hope and that's what people are looking for, isn't it? And Moderna has a vaccine very similar to Pfizer. So how soon might that become available and, of course, how difficult will the low temperature requirements of these vaccine speed when it comes to distribution?
KULLAR: Correct, so that's a very good question that you have and that you asked, so both of those vaccines, so the messenger RNA vaccine is, it's a very unique technology, which actually that's what had these vaccines been developed and really been available in terms of phase three trials being done so quickly is this novel technology.
And so, these vaccines have to be kept at and negative 80 degrees Celsius temperature, which can make it very difficult in terms of its distribution. So that's a very good question. I think we don't know what that means. I think that's going to be a hiccup in terms of it being available to the public and where they can access the vaccine.
But another good point that you brought up is that they are right behind Pfizer as Moderna, we should just rely on one vaccine manufacturer.
The fact that there is Moderna right behind Pfizer, that there are several other vaccine manufacturers that are in the works, really making the development of a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 a priority. And I think that is a glimmer of hope that we have here in the midst of this pandemic.
CHURCH: Yes. So hope on the horizon but until then we do need to wear our masks. Dr. Ravina Kullar, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
KULLAR: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Still to come, news of a possible COVID vaccine, as we just said, and a Joe Biden presidency having quite an effect on the stock markets.
Plus President Trump is already showing he will not leave the White House quietly, firing a key member of his administration Monday. We will look at the tensions behind the scenes. That's ahead. Stay with us.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHURCH: World leaders are reacting to Pfizer's news that its coronavirus vaccine is more than 90 percent effective. At a news conference Monday at Downing Street, prime minister Boris Johnson talked about plans for distribution but added a note of caution.
[02:25:00]
BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: I must stress that these are very, very early days. We have talked for a long time -- or I have -- about the distant bugle of the scientific cavalry coming over the brow of the hill. I can tell you that, tonight, that toot, that bugle is louder but it is still some way off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau offered a similar message. Canada signed a deal with Pfizer in August to secure millions of doses of the vaccine. For now though, Mr. Trudeau is calling for patience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are hopeful that we are getting there, because our scientists are working incredibly hard. But we need to do our part. We need to stay strong and hang in there a few more months, maybe more than that but we can see it coming.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: The one-two punch of Joe Biden's election win and a possible vaccine has been pushing up stocks all over the world. The Dow shot up some 1,600 points at the opening bell and then proceeded to fall but still finished more than 830 points higher.
Let's take a look at U.S. futures, which were mixed at last check. You can see there the Dow futures are up 0.21 percent; slightly up there for the SNP 500 futures, down for the Nasdaq. Let's crossover now to John Defterios as he joins us live from Abu Dhabi.
Good to see you, John. With the initial market reaction to the vaccine trials well ahead of the medical challenges for distribution, where is all of this going, do you think?
Because we are going to have to wait for a while before anyone gets access to these vaccines.
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: I think Monday was a fantastic indication of how important a vaccine is to healing not only U.S. economy but the global economy. We heard from Boris Johnson and prime minister Justin Trudeau. So we had that initial spike up with all that enthusiasm and then a more sober assessment.
But as you said, a near 3 percent gain for the Dow industrials is nothing to sneeze at, because it's the 30 largest companies in the U.S. economy. So it says quite a bit.
The Asian markets here mostly higher but I wouldn't say they're running off to the races. Shanghai is the only one lower of the majors here. But let's look at the winners and losers, if you will, for Monday.
These are companies that would benefit from reopening, like airlines like Delta, Carnival Cruise Lines was under a lot of pressure during the heat of the pandemic, spiking up nearly 40 percent on the day.
Then you had Disney, which is a classic consumer stock here that would benefit from retail sales and people having more money to spend.
Then the work from home stocks. They had such a blistering 2020. It's not surprising to see them sell off here, especially Zoom, up better than 300 percent.
What are investors doing?
They're looking just like the leaders, 3, 4, 5, even 6 months down the road. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUINCY KROSBY, PRUDENTIAL: The market as you pointed out, looks ahead even four months. That's why today you see the normal stocks getting a major boost. You are seeing Disney, the consummate discretionary consumer name, getting a boost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEFTERIOS: Nobody is really factoring in the domestic challenges on the political front, Rosemary. BlackRock, one of the largest asset managers, said that the, despite the challenges by Donald Trump, they still see a Biden presidency and don't see major disruption. Back to you.
CHURCH: Interesting. John Defterios, joining us there from Abu Dhabi. Many thanks as always.
Still to come, President Trump is lashing out at key officials as he still refuses to concede he lost the election. We will have more on why he just fired his Defense Secretary. That's next.
And the U.S. president could drastically change relations with China but hear why Beijing has yet to recognize Joe Biden as the president- elect. Back in just a moment.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:30:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHURCH: With Donald Trump refusing to concede he lost the election to Joe Biden, the transfer of power to the president-elect is stuck in limbo. Biden is not receiving daily intelligence briefings like those before him.
The president is also stepping up efforts to delegitimize Biden's victory, filing lawsuits devoid of evidence and dispatching his surrogates to hold a news conference with unfounded claims of election fraud.
Even FOX News cut away from the White House press secretary when he started making baseless allegations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: We want every legal vote to be counted and we want every illegal vote to be --
NEIL CAVUTO, FOX HOST: Whoa, I just think we have to be very clear. She is charging the other side as welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can't in good countenance continue showing you this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: President Trump is also settling old scores. He fired his Defense Secretary on Monday. He might just be the first of many. CNN's Kaitlan Collins has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Donald Trump terminating Defense Secretary Mark Esper in his first major act since losing the election, Trump announcing on Twitter that Secretary Esper had been fired and a senior intelligence official will take his place for the next two months.
The move was announced suddenly, though it was months in the making.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mark Yesper.
Did you call Yesper?
QUESTION: Esper.
TRUMP: Oh, OK. Some people call him Yesper.
COLLINS: On his way out, Esper took issue with that description.
He told the "Military Times," "Who's pushed back more than anybody?
"Name another cabinet secretary that's pushed back.
"Have you seen me on a stage saying, under the exceptional leadership of blah, blah, blah, we have blah, blah, blah?"
Esper and Trump clashed this summer over the president's attempts to use active duty troops on American streets to control protests against police brutality.
MARK ESPER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.
COLLINS: But Esper may not be Trump's last firing. Sources say attorney general Bill Barr, FBI director Christopher Wray and CIA director Gina Haspel could be next to go.
Esper's firing amounted to President Trump controlling what he could while contesting what he can't. He's refused to concede the election to President-Elect Joe Biden and spent the weekend out of public view, with the exception of two trips to the golf course.
Some in the president's inner circle are delicately pushing him to come to grips with reality and concede, while others are telling him to keep fighting and even suggesting running again in four years.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Grover Cleveland came back. Donald Trump should think about it if he falls short.
COLLINS: Neither Trump nor vice president Mike Pence have called Biden or Senator Kamala Harris.
Today, Pence tweeted that he told his staff, quote, "It ain't over 'til it's over and this ain't over."
On the day Biden announced his transition task force on the pandemic, Pence met with the one that he leads for the first time in nearly 20 days, the meeting happening the same day news broke that another person in Trump's orbit has contracted COVID-19.
[02:35:00]
COLLINS (voice-over): HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson tested positive today after attending an indoor election night party at the White House with hundreds of others, where few were wearing a mask and none were social distancing.
COLLINS: Ben Carson is not the only person in the president's inner circle that has tested positive. We have now learned that David Bossie, who was recently put in charge of coordinating the campaign's legal efforts to contest the outcome of the election, has also tested positive after traveling extensively, being in the campaign office and, of course, meeting with top White House officials as well -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Joining me now is CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling. He served as the Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and the Seventh Army.
Always an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome.
LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Great to be with you, Rosemary.
CHURCH: What was your response to the firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a presidential tweet Monday?
HERTLING: Truthfully, Rosemary, not unexpected. We have been seeing the rumor last week of Secretary Esper tendering a (ph) resignation. He was asked about resignation and aged (ph) his answer.
We know that the president has been upset with Mr. Esper ever since the incident last summer, when Mr. Esper had a press conference saying he was prohibitively against using active duty military forces in riot control procedures for even the implications of the Insurrection Act or martial law.
So you could sense this was coming. I think the president did not want to do it before the Election, I think he felt it might have hurt his additional -- provided additional hurt to his chances. So he waited until today.
But it's troubling. Even though many of us saw it coming, it's extremely troubling, knowing that we are about in the transition period where the Secretary of Defense becomes very important as a key member of the cabinet to transition to the new administration. That is what is disturbing to me because it rains more chaos into an already dysfunctional situation.
CHURCH: Let's talk about that, because, as you mentioned, there were discussions at the White House prior to the election about firing Mark Esper due to his apparent insufficient loyalty. So let's talk about the impact a firing like this has.
During a lame duck presidential period, on the Defense Department and on U.S. and global security and how destabilizing could this potentially be?
HERTLING: Just from the shopkeeping, the transition of power, the Secretary of Defense -- not many people understand what that individual does. But you are talking about running one of America's biggest bureaucracies with millions of people and a huge budget.
The fact that he is literally signing deployment orders to move forces around the globe. He is the approval authority for that. He over watches contingency plans, what we call war plans, things that might have to be applied in case of a crisis.
The care and feeding of the force, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, all of those things are critically important and, during a transition, the individual that sits in that key spot in the cabinet has to turn that over to the person in the next administration.
And it is really nice to have someone that has a little bit of experience versus someone like a Mr. Miller, that is coming in with 2.5 months left to go before the end of the administration of Trump.
CHURCH: Just very quickly, how concerned are you about who else might be terminated by a very frustrated president, who clearly lost his election and is not ready to go and what impact does this all have on a peaceful transition of power?
You pretty much covered that.
HERTLING: Yes, I said the other day during a forum I attended with security experts that, during any kind of a crisis situation or any kind of transition, you are worried about four things.
First of all, you are worried about intelligence and what kind of feed you are getting from all over the world.
Secondly your defensive posture in global situation.
Third, your internal security and fourth, your homeland security.
We are talking about number one, the Secretary of Defense, the FBI chief, the CIA director and potentially the Homeland Security director. And we've seen rumors tonight that, after Mr. Esper was fired, chaotically on a tweet, that the president now has his eye on people like Director Wray and perhaps even CIA Director Haspel.
So I'm very concerned, because those are the four areas of government that are in a transition period that you want to keep the nation secure. That is troubling when you think about the potential repercussions of that.
CHURCH: Yes, and about 70 more days of that period to work through. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, many thanks for your analysis. We appreciate. It
HERTLING: Always a pleasure. Thank you, Rosemary.
[02:40:00]
CHURCH: Even though President Trump is still challenging the results from last week's election, leaders from across the world are congratulating his rival, Joe Biden. Among them the mayor of London, who has vowed to work closely with the next administration.
On CNN he spoke about the president's role on the global stage and how his actions affect the lives of billions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SADIQ KHAN, MAYOR OF LONDON: When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. And the embodiment of your country is your president, use of the tone. And you set the tone in bad times -- itl4y, I'm afraid, many of those have been bad times. But also for good times, when the president-elect talks about hope, talks about unity, talks about love, talks about time for healing, talks about internationalism, tolerance, anti-racism. These things really inspire not just those in London, the citizens of my country, but around the globe.
When your president speaks, we listen. So when a president of the USA, the beacon of freedom and democracy, talks about separation of children from their parents because they happen to be Mexican, talks about banning people from certain countries because they happen to be Islamic majority countries, talks about taking away funding for clinics because they allow women to choose what to do with their bodies, past policies that are anti the LGBTQ plus community. When the president of the USA has equivalence with anti-racist campaigners in Charlottesville, with the Ku Klux Klan, those things are heard and felt by people across the globe.
And similarly it's a very good reason why many of us across the globe have been glued to CNN since Tuesday, because who wins this election, who becomes the president matters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: China has yet to truly recognize Joe Biden as the U.S. president-elect. Chinese officials say they are waiting for all the legal issues around the election to be settled before addressing the matter.
It's quite a contrast to 2016 when China's President Xi Jinping congratulated Donald Trump on his victory just one day after the election. Relations between the U.S. and China have gone steadily downhill, of course, since.
CNN's Selena Wang is following this story from Tokyo. She joins us now live.
Good to see you, Selena.
Why such a muted reaction from China?
SELENA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rosemary, great to be with you. It is notable that Xi Jinping has yet to congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden. You have the editor of state backed tabloid "Global Times" suggesting that China needs to keep some distance from the election in order to not get tangled into that controversy and wait for Trump to officially concede.
There has been some ambivalence towards Biden within China. Some actually prefer Trump; on Chinese social media he has been mockingly referred to as Build the Country Trump, suggesting that his misrule of the United States has actually bolstered China.
China realizes that, regardless of who is sitting in the White House, relations between the U.S. and China are going to continue to be under high tension with this bipartisan consensus in Washington to be tough on China.
Tensions around Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Taiwan, technology trading war are not going to lessen.
CHURCH: Selena, what might policy under a Biden administration look like?
WANG: Experts I've spoken to say they expect Biden to be more sophisticated and coherent in his China policy. He has promised to return to multilateralism, to work with allies, which they say will more effectively constrain China's power.
In fact, according to Oxford Economics, they expect the Biden administration to actually take a more forceful and comprehensive approach when it comes to human rights, when it comes to China's increasing military assertiveness. The "Global Times" said that they do expect Biden to re-evaluate the phase 1 trade deal but they don't expect tariffs to be scrapped.
They don't expect pressure to lessen up on China's high technology companies or sanctions to be removed necessarily. What has become clear is that, under the Trump presidency, China's vulnerability, when it comes to high technology in supply chains, have been exposed.
So under this environment, China is not going to stop its self reliance campaign, its efforts to reduce its reliance on the United States. But on the bright side here, Biden is expected to bring some normalcy to foreign policy and trade.
So that means less volatility and more predictability when it comes to dealings with China. There also could be more cooperation on global issues, including combating climate change as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
CHURCH: All right, Selena Wang, joining us live from Tokyo. Many thanks.
[02:45:00]
CHURCH: And the cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan has sparked some raucous protests in the Armenian capital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH (voice-over): Protesters stormed parliament (ph), throwing furniture and damaging the building. Local media report the president of the national assembly was beaten up. The cease-fire comes after six weeks of fighting and the capture of a key city by Azerbaijan.
Armenia's prime minister admitted the military situation looked bleak and he called the cease-fire an extremely difficult decision. Russian president Vladimir Putin also signed the deal. Peacekeeping forces will be deployed in the region and both sides have agreed to a prisoner swap.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Still to come, with the second wave of coronavirus in full force across Europe, many countries are tightening restrictions further, even as Europeans grow weary of all the new lockdowns. We will have that and more when we come back. Stay with us.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHURCH: China's Xinjiang region is reporting no new coronavirus infections for the first time since an outbreak began late last month. It's one success story from Asia in contrast to countries like India, where the capital region of Delhi reported its biggest single day spike on Sunday with almost 7,800 new cases.
In Europe, many countries are back under lockdowns and tightened restrictions in an effort to slow a second wave there. CNN's Scott McLean is following the story from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Less than a week into lockdown 2.0, it's all quiet on the normally bustling streets of London. Instead, it's England hospitals that are bustling with activity.
In Liverpool, the coronavirus hotspot, the British army has been called in to help test the entire city. For the first time since the pandemic began, even the queen was spotted wearing a face mask in public.
This four-week lockdown isn't quite as strict as the first one in the spring nor is it unique. Across Europe, the number of new COVID-19 cases continues to rise with few signs of slowing.
And with the number of deaths in Europe on track to eclipse the peak of the first wave, France has reimposed a lockdown, even requiring exemption forms from people who need to leave their homes.
Greece, Austria and Latvia have also reentered some version of a national lockdown. While regional versions are multiplying in parts of Italy, Europe's original epicenter. Even in Rome, streets are eerily quiet after curfew.
In Spain, movement has been severely restricted in the popular vacation destination of Andalusia and a local lockdown has been extended much across Madrid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Before, people were stocking up. But I think that now, economically, people are not strong enough to stock up.
[02:50:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I am confident that we will soon get out of this. So I am calm. Bored but calm.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Belgium is locked down, too. ICUs in the capital have hit their limits, forcing smaller hospitals to take on the country's sickest patients. Belgian troops have been deployed to help inside overwhelmed hospitals while police enforce a strict curfew and mask mandate on the streets.
And while Belgium's top epidemiologist says the second wave may have reached its peak, the country's infection rate is among the highest on Earth.
So is the Czech Republic's, where lockdown measures have come too late for some hospitals. This one in the town of Zelin is too full to take new patients. Instead, sending them with a police escort to Prague.
Next door in Slovakia, most of the adult population was tested in a matter of days. And now officials plan to retest areas with higher than average case counts.
Despite the resurgence of the virus, Europeans are growing weary of the tighter restrictions. Protesters in Leipzig clashed with police just as German officials promised a vaccine early next year.
Danish officials are expressing concerns about vaccine development as they confront a mutated version of COVID-19 linked to mink farms that is now showing up in humans.
The World Health Organization report found the mutated virus has moderately decreased sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies but that more research was needed to fully understand the implications -- Scott McLean, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Another grim reminder of the pandemic's toll. The number of people in the U.K. feeling too lonely to cope with it has doubled since May. That is according to a survey by the British Red Cross.
Among survey respondents who said they are always or often lonely, 39 percent now say they are struggling to cope with the impact of the pandemic compared to 19 percent back in May. The Red Cross is calling for more investment and services that tackle loneliness and offer people ways to connect with each other.
The U.S. is still waiting to see if Joe Biden can flip the state of Georgia from red to blue. At the same time, Georgia voters are gearing up for two seriously consequential runoff races. A report from Capitol Hill just ahead.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHURCH: A week after Election Day in the U.S., Trump continues to call into question the legitimacy of the vote count in key states, including Georgia. That's where control of the Senate hinges on two runoff elections. CNN's Manu Raju has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: Welcome to the battleground South. Georgia is the tip of the spear.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: President-elect Joe Biden's agenda, now shaped by the outcome of two Senate races in Georgia.
If Democrats take both seats in the January runoff, there will likely be a 50-50 Senate, with the incoming Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie breaking votes.
If the GOP wins one or both seats, Republicans will control a narrow majority. With GOP leader Mitch McConnell setting the chamber's agenda, no matter what Biden wants to do. In one race, 33-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff mounting an intense battle against the 70-year-old Republican incumbent, David Perdue.
[02:55:00]
JON OSSOFF (D-GA), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: The bottom line is, this is the strongest Democratic turnout ever in the history of this state.
RAJU (voice-over): With Biden on track to carry Georgia, Democrats are emboldened by the surge of new voters and growth of the Atlanta suburbs, with about 5 million of the state's record 7.6 million registered voters casting ballots this election.
But Georgia has not elected a Democratic senator in 20 years. And in the January 5th runoff, neither Trump nor Biden will be on the ticket. So it is uncertain how many voters will show up.
Republicans are trying to drive out their base by warning about the prospects of an all-Democratic Washington, saying the Senate needs to be a check on Biden's agenda.
SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): The problem is guys, we already know that whether a spouse (ph) and it hasn't worked. We only have to look at Cuba and Venezuela and Russia and other places in the world where it's been tried.
RAJU (voice-over): The other Senate state is occupied by appointed GOP senator Kelly Loeffler, whose Democratic foe, Raphael Warnock has been largely unscathed. That's because Leffler had to first fend off a challenge from GOP Congress man Doug Collins in order to make the runoff.
To do that, Loeffler argued she was more conservative than Attila the Hun, stumped with a candidate who promoted the fringe QAnon conspiracy and argued she was 100 percent pro-Trump and did not disagree with him on anything.
RAJU: Are you making yourself unelectable among moderate voters in a runoff?
SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): Look, I have all the momentum in this campaign because Georgia's (INAUDIBLE) in Washington.
RAJU (voice-over): Warnock says he's ready for the GOP attacks painting him as the extremist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Raphael Warnock even hates puppies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): Get ready, Georgia. The negative ads are coming.
RAJU: Both Loeffler and Perdue are calling on the Georgia secretary of state to resign. The Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger has received under criticism from those Republicans because of the way that the election results have been handled.
The votes have been counted post-Election Day. Raffensperger pushed back and said he would not resign, saying it has been handled appropriately by his office and that the votes unlikely are going to change what looks like the likely outcome and that Donald Trump will not carry Georgia.
And he called on those two senators to do their job instead.
I asked Loeffler herself to respond to the secretary of state and she did not respond. She walked in silence and ignored my question -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: The new issue of "Time" magazine hits newsstands on Friday. And no surprise, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are featured on the cover, along with the words, "A Time to Heal."
Harris, of course, is the first woman ever to be elected U.S. vice president. The feature article details how Joe Biden won the White House.
Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. I will be back with more news in just a moment. Stick around.
