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Trump Continues to Introduce New Legal Challenges to Election Results; Interview with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); U.S. COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Still in Planning Stages. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 12, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:31:03]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, results are still coming in for some key states. Let's be clear though, Joe Biden won this election -- the math is just there, that's what it is, for the Electoral College -- and states are still, though, counting to find out how much he won by.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: John Avlon joins us now for an update on where these outstanding states stand, but also the popular vote. John, why don't we start there?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right, guys. Look, the counting still continues, and these margins are just incredible. This is an historic election. We've never had -- you know, the 270 to win, Biden is clearing the way even though we've still got these outstanding states.

But I want you to focus on the popular vote because here's where you get a sense of the history that we're living through right now. We have never had a presidential candidate in American history get more than 69 million votes. Both candidates have this time around.

But for Joe Biden to be leading by 77 million with still room to grow, ahead by 5.2 million votes now, we're just in uncharted territory. It's a tremendous rebuke, really, of an incumbent president for the challenger to be ahead by 5 million votes and counting, so just extraordinary. So let's go to the states where the counting is still going on because CNN still hasn't called several races.

Georgia, this one has gone to a hand recount, but Joe Biden is 14,000 votes ahead, 0.3 percent. Looks tight, 99 percent in. But the Georgia secretary of state is saying that he does not expect that once this hand recount is done -- which hopefully will answer some people's anxieties -- that it will overturn the race. That gap is just too big, only 537 votes for example separated Gore and Bush in Florida.

Arizona, this is where the Trump team's been hanging a lot of their hopes because they have been closing that gap. They've got 11,000 votes ahead for Joe Biden, now Trump has been making gains. But the secretary of state's office says there's only 25,000 ballots outstanding. And it's going to be very difficult for Donald Trump to get the

margins he needs to pull ahead in Arizona, so still Joe Biden in the pole position.

Finally the Keystone State, Pennsylvania. Obviously this was the one that really tipped the election, allowed us to call it for Joe Biden. Right now, he is 53,000 votes ahead. That is a big gap, that is not the kind of thing that's going to get overturned even with 45,000 ballots outstanding in the Keystone State.

So really, the counting continues, the legal wrangling's going on. But these numbers are just massive. It's a great sign for our democracy.

HARLOW: What is the state of that legal wrangling by the Trump campaign?

AVLON: Chaotic and desperate, Poppy. I mean, they are trying to flood the zone with legal challenges that are increasingly wild and not backed by any evident fact.

And this is the problem, because the disinformation ecosystem is trying to create an impression of a lot of problems. They are not backed up by facts, and when Trump's lawyers are going to court, increasingly they've had to tell the judge that they don't have evidence at this present time.

This is a flood-the-zone strategy, it is desperate. They are trying to break precedence in some case, but it is a long ball to say the least and it is not backed by facts, as we've seen over and over again. Not widespread, massive voter fraud.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a problem when you tell a judge you don't have evidence, and we've seen some --

AVLON: That's kind of a problem, I've heard that.

SCIUTTO: -- of that in the court transcripts. John Avlon, thanks very much.

AVLON: Thank you guys.

[10:34:20]

SCIUTTO: Well, the battle intensifies in two Georgia Senate seats that will decide which party controls the Senate chamber. We're going to have the latest on those key runoff races, next.

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SCIUTTO: All right, now to the fierce battles in Georgia that will determine the balance of power in the Senate under President-elect Biden. Two seats, headed for runoff elections now, the stakes so high and the money is just pouring in. CNN's senior national correspondent Kyung Lah following all the latest. That campaign started the day after Election Day. KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and in a furious sprint, if you will. What we're seeing from one of the Democratic candidates for one of the two senatorial seats that are heading to this runoff on January 5th, Jon Ossoff is in the middle of a statewide bus tour.

This is -- basically he's winding his way all the way through the state -- and we got a memo from his campaign manager who says that in the last few days, they've already reached out to tens of thousands of volunteers who are now in the process of making phone calls to tens of thousands of others. So they are calling what they are doing here on the ground in Georgia a sprint to the finish.

[10:40:05]

What we are hearing from the other Democratic candidate, Reverend Raphael Warnock, is that he is going to focus today on health care, that health care message, which he believes will resonate with voters here in the state of Georgia, trying to build up some of that energy to try to keep that high in order to get them to turn out on January 5th.

And he's also, Jim, jumped on what we saw, the editorial from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying that the tactics of the two incumbent Republican senators that he -- that the editorial felt that these were baseless accusations and simply reckless, saying that any complaint about the outcome of this election just is not valid -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Kyung Lah, good to have you there.

Poppy gets a chance now to talk to one of their potential colleagues.

HARLOW: All right, thank you, Jim, thanks, Kyung.

With me now is the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Democratic Whip Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Good morning, and thanks for your time.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): You bet, Poppy.

HARLOW: These are two critical Georgia Senate races, especially for you guys. You need both of them if you have a hope of even having a 50-50 split it looks like.

If Democrats don't win both of those seats, Senator, what are you willing to give on so that your chamber can actually get things passed for the American people, especially since the incoming president has pushed a message of unity?

DURBIN: Listen, let me start by saying we're going to win. We have the two best candidates and the best organization Georgia has seen for the Democrats in modern times, and we believe these candidacies complement one another in terms of bringing out the vote.

The second point to be made is this. If we do win both of those, we are still going to have to work on a bipartisan basis. It'll be a 50- 50 Senate. I mean, to get anything done under the current Senate rules, you really have to compromise and work together, that's going to be the ultimate outcome.

But the question is whether it will be a Mitch McConnell veto approach to the Biden programs, or whether it's going to be a cooperative bipartisan effort to find a way to make them work.

HARLOW: All right. Well for the record, I did ask you what you're willing to give on. But since you bring up the current rules of the Senate, I think it's really important to ask you about the filibuster. Because it may sound wonky to viewers, but it's really, really important.

Because as of now, there are a number of big names in your party: Senator Schumer, former President Obama, President-elect Biden talking about eliminating the filibuster that would completely change the way laws are passed, how the Senate works -- so much so that it was just in 2018 that you said ending it would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our founding fathers. And you said we have to acknowledge and respect the minority.

So are you at this point comfortable with eliminating the filibuster?

DURBIN: Listen, I live in the world of Senate rules more than most, and I understand how they can be used effectively and how they can just be a roadblock to anything happening.

Here's the good news. In conversations I've had since November 3rd with Republican senators, we sat down and got very honest and very candid on a personal basis, and they are frustrated. They want the Senate to do things. I believe that's where the potential is for the future, that with Republicans who are ready for the Senate to be active and engaged and finding compromises and moving forward, the Senate rules won't hold us back. I hope it doesn't (ph) --

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HARLOW: So no, don't end the filibuster? You wouldn't support it right now? Because you know, Senator Manchin calls it BS to end it.

DURBIN: Yes. Oh, I can tell you at this point, there are a lot of factors involved. At this point, what I want to focus on is first winning Georgia. Second, finding bipartisan solutions. And third, letting Joe Biden use the presidency to put America back on its feet, to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and to get this economy back to work.

HARLOW: OK, that sounds -- I'm going to take that as a no, don't end it for now, and move on to stimulus. Because in the last week of October, your state, Illinois, recorded the singlemost new unemployment claims of any single state. One of the big food banks in Chicago saw their demand skyrocket 120 percent.

The House did pass a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, but you voted no on McConnell's $500 billion package. What concessions are you willing to make now so that desperate Americans don't have to wait until 2021? DURBIN: I want to reach an agreement. And I'm not going to say, oh,

OK, well forget food stamps, we won't be worried about people having enough food. I'm not going to say anything like that, that's irresponsible even though we addressed the issue and the Republicans don't. I'm not going to say, well, let's walk away from testing people for coronavirus, and say you don't have to wait days for results. I'm not going to walk away from those things.

What we need to do is walk into the positive side of this, a bipartisan approach that really does something now, that is helpful now. It doesn't mean we get everything or they get everything, but it means that the package that we come up with is significant, addresses the problems we face -- we have triple the infection, triple the infection in Illinois that we had October 1st. It's a dangerous situation, other states face the same thing. Let's get something done that is significant, do what we can achieve now.

[10:45:24]

HARLOW: What does it happen? Does it happen in this lame duck session? I mean --

DURBIN: Absolutely.

HARLOW: -- OK, I hope so.

DURBIN: Absolutely, don't --

HARLOW: I --

DURBIN: -- don't waste the opportunity.

HARLOW: -- I certainly hope so.

Senator Chris Coons told us, told CNN this week that some of your Republican colleagues are coming up to him privately and basically saying, pass on my well wishes to President Biden. Have you reached out to Senate Republicans to ask them --

DURBIN: Oh, I've talked (ph) --

HARLOW: -- about their public refusal, at least by many, to accept what is reality in this election? And if so what are those conversations like?

DURBIN: Many of them are senators who are also parents, who tell their kids, after that basketball game and soccer game, even if you lose, you're going to shake hands with the other team. That is just part of growing up, that's part of good sportsmanship. The president didn't learn that lesson.

I think many members of his party who are trying to be loyal feel very uncomfortable. They understand where we are today, we understand that Joe Biden is going to be the next president. It would be better if it's done with class. HARLOW: Let's end on this. Your party, House Democrats lost seats.

And some moderate Democrats are blaming the progressive, the more left wing of the party like Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio, here's what he told me a few days ago.

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REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): My numbers were significantly down too, but we had to get out of that defund-the-police, the Green New Deal --

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HARLOW: You don't support either of those things. Is he right, did that hurt the party?

DURBIN: No. Well, it was used by the Republicans very effectively in a lot of races, even if Democrats had not said those words or gotten even close to --

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HARLOW: But there were some Democrats in the House who did say those words.

DURBIN: Well if you listen to Bernie Sanders' explanation, there was one candidate for the Green New Deal who made it part of his platform and lost, and no one else. And I'll leave that to Bernie's analysis.

Because here's what I think, you've got to govern from the center. We want to move toward the progressive agenda of course, expand the opportunity for health care is a good example of that. But are we going to move straight into Medicare for all? Of course not, that's not on the horizon in a near term based on the results of this election. Let's achieve what we can, help as many Americans as we can particularly at this moment in history.

HARLOW: Appreciate your time this morning. Good luck to all of you because America is counting on all of you. Thanks, Senator.

DURBIN: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Great interview. Govern from the center, he said.

[10:47:51]

Well, the U.S. is breaking coronavirus records every single day now -- it's sad to watch, but Dr. Fauci says don't lose hope, the cavalry -- in his words -- is coming. That means what? Vaccines. Is the government prepared to deploy them?

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HARLOW: The World Health Organization is warning against pinning all of our hope on ending the COVID pandemic on a vaccine. This as a New York Hospital executive says the government agencies involved in vaccine distribution planning have yet to decide how to potentially distribute these vaccines to states.

SCIUTTO: All right, CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here. And listen, I mean, to be clear, what they're basically saying is you've got to do more than just have a vaccine, because the vaccine coming is an enormous and positive development, but one, you've got to wait a little bit, got to still wear masks. What's the distribution going to look like?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. This distribution will be incredibly complicated, Jim. As Poppy said, it will be to states, so the federal government will distribute it to states, which will then distribute it to individual hospitals and clinics.

But the question is, how do you decide how to distribute it to states? It is not an easy or straightforward question. So let's take a look at some of the different possible formulas for how to distribute it. One could be just based on population. We're going to give you sort of a -- you know, a prorated amount of vaccine just based on your population. Another way is to base it on the number of cases in each individual state, but that gets a little tricky because that number is changing pretty frequently.

You could also factor in the age of each state population. If you have a state with a lot of elderly people, maybe they should get more because elderly people of course will be among the first to get it because they are so vulnerable to complications of COVID.

Also, you could factor in the density of populations. Should states that have more cities, people that are more close together, should they get more vaccine because they're also at risk for having those outbreaks? So all of these are being considered, no one quite knows yet what will happen -- Jim, Poppy.

HARLOW: There is, Elizabeth, some more good news it appears about vaccines, specifically what Moderna's working on now. They say they're going to know by the end of the month whether or not it works?

COHEN: (INAUDIBLE) know by the end of the month whether or not it works. They still have to apply to the FDA and all of that. But let's look at the immediate next steps for Moderna. They did their 30,000- person clinical trial, half getting vaccine, half getting placebo. Dozens of people then got coronavirus from this trial.

So they are preparing data right now to send to the Data and Safety Monitoring Board -- that's an independent board that will look at this data. This board will assess, OK, of the dozens of people -- let's say I don't know, 60 people who got sick with coronavirus, how many of them were on -- got the vaccine and how many of them got the placebo? That will tell you whether or not the vaccine worked.

[10:55:05]

Now, they say they're likely to see efficacy results before the end of the month, so hopefully we will know before the end of the month if that vaccine works. Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that he expects that it will work, and that it will work well because it's the same kind of vaccine as Pfizer's -- Jim, Poppy.

HARLOW: I really hope so, Elizabeth. Thank you very much.

And thanks to all of you for being with us today, I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with John King starts right after --

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