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Biden Moves Forward with Transition without Help from Trump Administration; U.S. Again Breaks Records for New Cases and Hospitalizations. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 12, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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

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

A nation is seeing the worst week so far in this entire pandemic, record-high cases and hospitalizations with just a brutal winter predicted ahead.

But this morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci does say that another national lockdown may not be necessary.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The cavalry is coming here. Vaccines are going to have a major positive impact. They are going to start being implemented and deployed in December. And as we get into the early part of the year, it's going to be January, February, March, more and more and more people are going to be able to be vaccinated.

So if we could just hang in there, do the public health measures that we're talking about, we're going to get this under control, I promise you.

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SCIUTTO: The cavalry is coming, he says. Good to hear from Dr. Fauci. He's very conservative in the way he delivers those messages. So that's hope-inducing.

HARLOW: It is, for sure. We're following those headlines.

Also this, President-elect Biden moving forward this morning with his transition to the White House despite no cooperation from the Trump administration, also calls from world leaders and intel briefings all blocked, all during a crucial time that experts fear will force Biden's team to play catch-up on day one. So, let's begin there this hour. M.J. Lee, our colleague, is following the president-elect this morning, and a big appointment, a big bit of news overnight that he picked a chief of staff.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Biden team is moving forward despite the president still being in denial. Overnight, Biden announcing that he is appointing Ron Klain to be his chief of staff at the White House. This is a longtime trusted aide to Biden. He has known him for a number of decades.

He served as Biden's chief of staff when he was vice president, and importantly, he was also the Ebola czar under Obama and has recently been a vocal critic of President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Obviously, skills that the Biden team believes will be very useful since Biden has made clear getting a handle on this pandemic is going to be a top priority for the former vice president.

Now, one thing that President-elect Biden is still not getting are these presidential daily briefings, these classified briefings that typically a president-elect at this point in the transition cycle would be receiving, but he can't until President Trump officially concedes the race.

And, importantly, and interestingly so, Republican Senator James Lankford has now been prompted to say you know, if this doesn't change by the end of the week, he wants to intervene somehow, make sure that Biden is getting the briefings. He essentially said it is important for the former vice president to get these briefings now so that he can be prepared. It is important for the sake of national security.

Though I will quickly note, he said, in case Biden wins, well, he didn't mention that Biden did win this election.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, those have become like the few courageous outliers, right, in the Republican Party willing to do that.

So tell us what more we're learning about the State Department blocking the simple step of allowing international messages of congratulations to President-elect Biden to be delivered to him.

LEE: Yes. So this is a pretty incredible thing that we're seeing unfold. As you know, all week, Biden has been on phone calls with various foreign leaders. They have been calling him to congratulate him on his victory.

But in the meantime, there are these messages CNN is learning from other foreign leaders that are basically stuck at the State Department because the Biden team cannot access them. They cannot access them because Biden currently does not have access to State Department resources.

So the Biden team is in this very strange situation right now where they're essentially having to, without the help of the State Department, find ways of reaching out to various foreign leaders. So, needless to say, guys, these are incredibly strange times right now.

SCIUTTO: Strange indeed. M.J. Lee, thanks very much.

So what impact could these roadblocks preventing the president-elect from seeing essential intelligence regarding the national security have on the security of this country? I spoke a short time ago with retired United States Four Star General Michael Hayden. He's a Biden supporter. He's also the former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency.

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SCIUTTO: So, General Hayden, it is nine days since the election. It is a little under two months to the inauguration, and the President- elect, Joseph Biden, is still being denied access to the highest level intelligence briefings. What danger does that put this country in?

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR OF CIA AND NSA: That was inevitable, and I'm sorry, it will be very bad for America. He should have done it every day except Sunday, you know? That's what I was accustomed to.

SCIUTTO: Do America's adversaries see opportunity by not having the president-elect briefed on this intelligence?

HAYDEN: Oh, yes, indeed. Now, President Biden will be okay because he knows a lot about it. But still it's not good at all for America to do that. You know what I mean? We have a system, a system. And right now, it's not working. And that's a problem. It's a real problem.

SCIUTTO: You can imagine a foreign adversary like a Russia or a China dreaming of creating the division over this election that exists right now, the failure to accept the results that's happening right now. And yet, it's coming from within the country. What risk does that pose for our country?

HAYDEN: Yes, indeed. I don't know. You know, before the election I said I think Biden will win. But then the next day, I was saying that now what's going to happen? You know what I mean? And, unfortunately, that's what's happening. And so it's very, very puzzling to me. It's a real problem.

SCIUTTO: There's an apparent push now in the transition by the Trump administration to put loyalists in senior positions in the Defense Department, in part, to declassify intelligence around Russia's interference in the 2016 election. A lot of pushback about the danger of revealing so-called sources and methods.

In your view, given your experience, what are the dangers here?

HAYDEN: Oh, it's awful, you know? And so I'm in intelligence, okay, many, many years. And I'm looking at that and saying, why are we doing that? It's just unbelievable.

And, by the way, though, it's good that the intelligence professionals are saying, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, but yet, he's trying to do it.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Can they resist him?

HAYDEN: So far so good, but I'm sorry, he may be doing it, and then it will be a problem for not just now but for later on too.

SCIUTTO: Finally, before I let you go, there was a somewhat remarkable incident yesterday where the former acting director of national intelligence under this president, Rick Grenell, was tricked into sending Veterans Day wishes to a convicted war criminal, William Calley, who was convicted -- court marshaled for the murders of 500 unarmed Vietnamese in 1968. Your response to it was pointed, shall we say. Tell us your thoughts on that.

HAYDEN: Well, first of all, I've got the same message, okay? And I read that and said no, I know exactly what he's trying to do, and I said no, it's wrong, but he, Grennell did it. It's unbelievable the secretary of the Director of National Intelligence did it. It's, to me, unbelievable. But, you know, it's par for the course, I'm afraid.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, General Hayden, thanks so much for joining us this morning. We always appreciate to hear from you.

HAYDEN: Well, thank you again.

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HARLOW: Very good to hear from him.

All right, joining us now to talk about all of this, a CNN Political Analyst Toluse Olorunnipa, who is White House Reporter for The Washington Post. Also joining us is Rebecca Lissner, non-resident Scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, also the co-author of a new book, An Open World, How America Can Win the Contest for 21st Century Order. Good morning, thanks to you both for being here.

And, Rebecca, let me begin with you, because the transition is so big in so many ways, as we've talked about, but you've got 4,000 different political appointees, 1,200 of them who are senior officials that need Senate confirmation.

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So, it's a big deal.

And it's almost as if you knew what was going to happen. You wrote in The Atlantic in August this. He, the president, could nevertheless wreak significant damage during the period between the election and the inauguration of Joe Biden endangering the incoming administration at best and actively sabotaging it at worst.

Again, just to remind people, that was in August. So that's what's happening, right?

REBECCA LISSNER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE: That is what's happening, Poppy. And the fact is that presidential transitions are the most perilous moment in American politics whenever they occur. And this time around, Joe Biden faces the task of assuming control of every element of the American government, from vaccine distribution and economic recovery to America's nuclear arsenal, the ongoing war in Afghanistan and counterterrorism operations around the world.

So it is absolutely imperative that the incoming Biden team have access to departments and agencies, have access to information and that they have access to intelligence they need to make sure that they can hit the ground running on day one, on January 20th. The fact that that is not happening is of grave national security risk to all Americans, whether they voted for Trump or whether they voted for Biden.

SCIUTTO: Rebecca, beyond the denial of intelligence, the Trump administration is preparing, it seems, or at least laying the ground work, to take consequential foreign policy moves during the transition, discussion of fast tracking withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria, declassifying Russian intelligence. But even I spoke with former Ambassador Richard Haas last hour, the prospect, at least there is some concern, of military action against Iran. I mean, you talk about what aftermath that might leave the incoming administration.

LISSNER: It is a tremendous risk. The fact is that, in America, we only have one president at a time. And until Joe Biden takes the oath of office on January 20th, Donald Trump will continue to have all the authorities, all the powers of the American presidency. And those are quite expansive, especially in the foreign policy realm, where he will retain the authority to take military action, to unilaterally impose sanctions or even as we've seen at the Defense Department over the past few days, change leadership, hallow out our important national security institutions.

And there's nothing that the Biden team can do about it during this transition period but they will be inheriting the consequences when they take office. And that could put the United States at a tremendous disadvantage.

HARLOW: Toluse, it sounds like Republican Senator James Lankford at least thinks that he can do something to get Biden up to speed, which is notable, saying, if he's not getting those presidential daily briefings by the end of the week, I'm going to intervene. I guess my question to you is just, logistically, what power does he have to do that? He's on oversight. I don't think he can force the GSA's hand to sign that paperwork, but what can he do?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, he actually does not have a lot of power in this political process. He could present some of the information that he can get as a senator. Joe Biden, prior to becoming president, is essentially a private citizen, so he does not have access to a lot of these briefings. But as a senator, James Lankford may be able to transmit some of that information to the incoming president.

I think the breakdown is between some of these senators who say that no matter what happens with this election, we want to do what's best for the country and starving the incoming administration of critical intelligence could harm the country.

And then you have the Trump administration, you have the president himself, who my colleagues are reporting is thinking about running in 2024, he does not want Joe Biden to succeed as president. He wants Joe Biden to have a failure of a presidency that might allow President Trump come back into office four years later. So he is trying to handicap the incoming administration and make it harder for them to get the kind of intelligence that they might need to protect the country.

So you do have this split between Republicans who are on board with what President Trump is doing and some who are very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to handicap an incoming an president when it comes to matters of national security, matters of intelligence, and that is something that's going to come a head pretty quickly here. Because if Joe Biden is not able to get access to this intelligence, it could really put the country at risk and it could make it harder for an incoming Biden administration to protect the country from terrorism or any other matter of national security.

SCIUTTO: It's just such a familiar phenomenon though, isn't it? Private discomfort, not followed with public comment or opposition, right? I mean, these are remarkable steps. The president is poisoning the result of an election with a big portion of population who is believing the false claims here.

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I just wonder, Toluse, I asked this last hour of other -- Alex Burns, is there a time limit to it, right? It's always like, well, let the legal things play out. But there's discussion, Kayleigh McEnany spoke about it this morning about then trying to force Republican legislatures to overturn the results of the elections in the state. I mean, where does this end?

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, it's a very good question. I do think some of these Republican senators are just sort of waiting for the actual process to play out in terms of the electorates that have to deliver the electoral votes, I believe, in early December. And once the process plays out, I think that a number of these Republican senators will move on and say essentially that the president had every opportunity to make his legal case. He did not make a strong legal case and the electorates did exactly what they're supposed to do, which is deliver votes in accordance with the will of the people.

I don't think that this effort, this last ditch effort to try to get the state legislatures to overturn the will of the people will have much success or will have much buy-in even among Republican senators that find themselves tied to President Trump and willing to do many of the things that he says. I think that may be a step too far for them to see the votes of their own constituents overturned by a late legislature. It's not in keeping with the Democratic traditions of this country.

So I think that that is really deadline, once the electorates deliver their vote, it will be clear Biden is the incoming president-elect and I believe a number of these Republican senators will have no choice but to treat him that way.

SCIUTTO: Well, he already -- it's clear. I mean, he won the election. So it's -- I mean, we'll see when folks recognize reality. Toluse Olorunnipa, Rebecca Lissner, thanks so much to both of you.

Still to come this hour, as the United States breaks even more records with new daily coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, what is the plan? So far, we have heard virtually nothing from the White House on this latest surge.

HARLOW: President-elect Biden leads President Trump by more than 5 million votes nationwide as the vote count continues in some key states. An update on where we stand, ahead.

We're also live in Georgia, where two critical Senate runoff races will affect the balance of power in that chamber. One of the candidates is set to speak this hour. Stay with us.

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HARLOW: Well, the U.S. has now topped another record for the most COVID cases in a single day, more than 144,000 infections yesterday alone. 44 states are now seeing an upward trend, fueling a 35 percent increase in the nation's seven-day average for infections in just the last week.

SCIUTTO: Our next guest has called on President-elect Biden to get to work now, warning that close to half a million Americans could lose their lives by inauguration day in the midst of this surge.

Joining us now, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, she is an emergency room physician and former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. Dr. Wen, always good to have you on.

I mean, that's a remarkable prediction there. I mean, doubling where we are now in terms of the death toll. So what can be done is the question.

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: And I don't know how much more we can sound the alarm about what's going on here, because we are breaking records today, and that we're going to shatter them again tomorrow. We already have hospitals that overwhelmed. We have ICUs overcapacity and we're only seeing the numbers shoot up in all the wrong directions.

I think people need to take matters into our own hands, because we know the Trump administration is not going to do their part. And so that starts with something as basic as limiting our indoor gatherings. We know that these informal gatherings of family and friends are -- actually was contributing to this latest surge. So that's something that's in our control. Do not gather indoors even with our loved ones right now while we're going through the surge. And absolutely wear a mask any time you're going to be in any public spaces. HARLOW: We really wanted to have you on particularly because of this on op-ed you wrote just a few days ago in The Washington Post. It's sort of a call to action to the president-elect. And you write, quote, the single most important action his administration can take is to level with the American people and tell us the hard truths about the actions the government and individuals need to take. What have we not yet heard from Joe Biden on COVID that you think we need to hear?

WEN: So I think that President-elect Biden is doing a very good job so far. He has already made clear that public health experts need to lead this public health response, and I thought his talk earlier this week about the importance of mask wearing was so effective. He needs to do a lot more like that. He can start the equivalent of the 21st century fireside chat and speak directly to Americans about the dire situation that we are in right now. And how it really is up to us to modify our own behaviors to control this pandemic.

You can have all the best policies in the world, and I'm certain that the president-elect will have good policies, but if people won't literally follow that guidance, then it's not going to do much good. And so the president-elect doesn't yet have the executive power to enforce many of his policies, but he does have moral authority, and he needs to exert that moral authority now.

SCIUTTO: How do you do that though, right? I mean, you look at the polling here. A new Gallup poll finds just 49 percent of Americans would be very likely to comply with another lockdown. That's now from 67 percent, right?

So some of that is exhaustion, no question, the economic consequences, but some of it is, frankly, that the president has successfully convinced a large portion of the population that simple measures like mask-wearing doesn't work or it's not their responsibility, or that it's a matter of personal freedom, et cetera.

So how does moral leadership overcome that trust deficit?

WEN: It's going to be really hard, Jim.

[10:25:]

I think part of it is the president-elect speaking directly to the people himself. Part of it is having his public health experts also explain, describe not just the steps that need to be taken but the rationale behind the steps.

And then I think it also needs to be -- there also needs to be concerted outreach to people who specifically did not support President-elect Biden. So he needs to enlist individuals who are pastors, who are leaders in local businesses, who are the heads of local chambers of commerce, individuals, again, who may not have supported him in the election, but they are the most trusted messengers to many Americans.

And I think that's the key here. One core principle of public health is you have to find the most trusted messengers, understanding that that often is not yourself.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Dr. Wen, thank you for being here and for writing this op-ed. I would encourage everyone to read it. Thanks so much.

WEN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, as the president is denying the results still of the election, President-elect Biden is in key states holding strong in his numbers. We'll give you an actual rundown of the numbers, next.

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