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Republican Senators Support Biden Transition Process; Trump May Be Considering Pardoning Self; COVID-19 Cases Soar as Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) Limits Restaurant Hours. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 12, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:26]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And top of the hour now, I'm Pamela Brown in for Brianna Keilar. And we begin with a huge crack within Republican ranks. Influential senators like Lindsey Graham are telling CNN that Joe Biden should be granted access to classified briefings and that the administration's efforts to stonewall the transition need to stop.

It has been a full week since the American people heard the president speak publicly, but he's been on a Twitter spree, as you may have seen, alleging election fraud, even criticizing "Fox News." And CNN has new reporting that the president is beginning to feel, quote, "dejected" over this crusade.

I'm joined now by CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju, and CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.

It's really interesting, Manu, that we're hearing this now from Senator Graham, one of the president's fiercest defenders, who came out and backed his baseless claims about widespread fraud, but now you're hearing from senators there is a change in their tune.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's a lot of concern about the national security element of this, and denying Joe Biden the necessary briefings and -- could hurt the country's ability to transition safely and securely come January 20th.

And the fact that Republican senators, while they are publicly siding with the president who is disputing these election results, they see the numbers, they know how difficult if not impossible it will be for the president to change the fact that he has lost this election, that Joe Biden will be president.

So while they're giving him space to mount these legal challenges, they're making it clear that some of the transition needs to take place, namely those national security briefings -- Lindsey Graham being one of them, and also John Thune, the number-two Republican, told me that Joe Biden should get those briefings; Chuck Grassley, who's the most senior Republican in the Senate, also told me that that should occur.

Some other Republican senators, also making clear that the General Services Administration should at least sign off on the requisite paperwork to allow for the official transition process to begin. One of those senators, Kevin Cramer, one of the president's allies, told me that that actually should occur.

And others even recognizing Joe Biden as president-elect. And we know, Pam, a lot of Republicans have refused to call him that. Shelley Moore Capito, who advises Republican leadership, told me, sure, she would consider him president-elect. And even the president's close allies in the Republican leadership, like John Barrasso, recognize how hard it will be to overturn the election. He said it would be a very narrow chance for the president to win, so they're giving him space.

But if he falls on the short side of the election results, the question will be, will the president concede? And if he doesn't, how will those Republicans respond? Because they expect him to step aside then. But we'll wait and see what ultimately happens here, Pam.

BROWN: And Kaitlan, with all of that as a backdrop, what Manu just laid out, what is the president's mindset right now?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, just to give you some insight into how the White House is approaching this, today the press secretary was asked about those comments from some of those Republican senators, that President-elect Biden should be receiving access to these daily intelligence briefings.

And she referred that question back to the White House because she was appearing in her personal capacity, as they're calling it, as a 2020 campaign advisor. And if that's confusing to people at home, it's just as confusing to the reporters here at the White House, why the White House press secretary is referring questions back to the White House.

But it comes as these people around the president are trying to delicately navigate this because the president is still meeting daily with his political advisors about what they're going to do next, even though our reporting has shown that more and more of those advisors believe they do not have a path to success in these legal challenges that they're mounting in court. They don't think there's a lot of options there.

Even the president himself has recognized privately that yes, he has lost this election. He just hasn't done so publicly yet, Pam. So the question really is, how long is the president going to run the clock out on this? And some people have said it could be days, some people believe it could be weeks.

But we're wondering if this Republican support -- or the lack of -- that we're starting to see on Capitol Hill is going to affect the president's timeline here, because really you could see it make the president double down, or it may make him realize that this has a pretty short lifecycle here and he's going to have to move on.

But we should note that what we are hearing from people in the president's orbit is that they believe when he does finally acknowledge these results, he's going to tease a 2024 run just to keep people on the edge of their seats, even if he hasn't made a final decision about whether or not that's going to happen.

BROWN: I've got to say, I do not find that surprising. Kaitlan Collins, Manu Raju, thank you so much for that great reporting. We're going to discuss all of this in just a moment.

But first, as the president focuses on his own fate, the coronavirus problem in this country is spiraling as we speak, right now. More than 144,000 new cases were reported yesterday, that is the highest number we have seen yet. And over 65,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID. That too is a record.

[14:05:12]

The president has produced no plan publicly to stop its spread. Instead, his administration is taking action to notch political wins and obstruct Biden's transition. Let's check in with our correspondents in Washington for those details.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kylie Atwood at the State Department. There is a stack of messages from foreign leaders around the world sitting in this building for President-elect Joe Biden, but he is unable to access them right now.

And traditionally, the State Department Operations Center sets up all the phone calls between the president-elect and these foreign leaders. That's why they're reaching out to the State Department. But GSA has not formally recognized Joe Biden as the winner of the election.

And so the calls that he's doing with foreign leaders right now are being set up without the support of the State Department. It's leaving foreign leaders to have to navigate an unfamiliar maze just to get in touch with the president-elect in the United States.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I'm Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. A new senior advisor has been appointed here. His name is Doug Macgregor. He is a retired U.S. Army colonel. He's getting a lot of attention for various reasons.

He has a track record of racist and xenophobic comments, but he's also advocated for rapidly pulling all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, something President Trump wants to do but something his own military advisors say is a bad idea, that U.S. troops are still needed in that country for some time to come.

BROWN: And thank you to you both.

I want to bring in now CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor and the CEO of Canary. Thank you both for your time to discuss this.

Gloria, I'm going to start with you. The silence from Republicans over the last few days had been deafening. Will this shift from within Trump's own party work, you think?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's the beginning of the end. I think that the cracks are widening, and what these Republicans are saying when they say, you know, allow Joe Biden to have access to the intelligence is, start the transition, Mr. President. Understand that this is over.

This is not a president you can go to and say, you know, it's time to resign, like Barry Goldwater did to Richard Nixon. This is a president you have to sort of take care of, massage his ego, make sure that he's OK. And then do this in a gradual way without sort of stepping all over him and getting him angry -- this is one way to do it: gradually. They've got to see the intelligence, the transition has to start so this is a way to do it.

BROWN: So then, Dan, what about the Senate Republicans who continue to egg on the president? What's in it for them?

DAN EBERHART, REPUBLICAN DONOR: Well, I think they're in a hard spot, some of them are. And most of the people in the party are really worried about the Georgia Senate elections, and I know Mitch McConnell is. And so they're trying not to anger Trump and have him kind of you know, storm out the door by slamming it and really causing more consternation.

Because Trump is the number-one thing the Republican Party has for turnout, the number-one thing the Republican Party has for the base. And all eyes are on Georgia, I think, for this next month. I mean, obvious -- you know, notwithstanding the Biden transition.

But I think it's really past time for Trump -- you know, respect for the game, respect for the country, respect for the election, it's time for him to acknowledge defeat, open the door so that Biden can start getting the keys to take over things January 20th. And the country can heal and move on. And I think that Trump is really -- you know, holding out is damaging the Republican brand in the future, for 2022, 2024 and beyond.

BROWN: So -- but I know Republicans are in a tough spot, but as we talked about earlier, you know, this -- we saw this coming. This is not a surprise, that the president is behaving this way, not accepting the results of the election. Are the Republicans putting their party over the country, over the good of this country by essentially enabling the president?

EBERHART: You know --

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: To me -- oh.

EBERHART: -- I don't really think (INAUDIBLE) point yet, I think people are still trying to absorb this, I think people are still trying to understand what happened. But my point is that the Senate Republicans and the Senate leadership really need to move on and allow Biden to get the keys to the kingdom.

And Trump needs to understand that this is the point in presidential leadership where falling on the sword, admitting he's a warrior but he was defeated in battle and allowing the country to heal and move forward is what's needed, and that's what I call upon him to do. He needs to step aside or allow Joe Biden to start getting access to the classified information in the transition funds so that the country can keep moving.

You know, in sports, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But when you lose, you've got to respect the score, you've got to respect the game, you've got to respect your opponents and allow the victory to sink in.

[14:10:05]

BROWN: Gloria --

BORGER: Here's the thing, here's the thing. They don't want to poke the bear because they're afraid the bear will get angry and will not help them in Georgia. I totally understand that. But Donald Trump --

(CROSSTALK)

EBERHART: Exactly (ph).

BORGER: -- is also never going to admit defeat. What he's going to do -- probably -- is come out and say the election was rigged, which he has been saying. I would have won if the election weren't rigged.

And I want to point out that there's been an audit in more than half of the places in Arizona now, where they say Biden's up 11,000 and there was no hanky-panky going on. But he will still -- he will still say that. And then he'll throw out there, oh by the way, I might run in 2024. And he will freeze the Republican presidential race to replace him.

So the Republicans have to placate him. But make no mistake, Donald Trump doesn't care about the future of the Republican Party as much as he cares about his own.

BROWN: Right, and -- go ahead, Dan.

(CROSSTALK)

EBERHART: I disagree -- I agree with most of what you said, but I think that the Trump administration is a melting ice cube, and so I don't think it will freeze the field for 2024. I think people like Josh Hawley, Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton are going to creep ever in, and Trump's star is going to fade a little bit.

The Trump presidency is fading, it's time for us as a country to move on. And I hope that Trump will acknowledge that, look, he fought -- you know, I supported Trump, I'm conservative at heart. He fought the good fight, he tried, he just came up a little bit short. But the country needs leadership.

And unfortunately from my standpoint, that's Joe Biden. But we need to embrace that, we need to move on and we need to allow Joe Biden to plan, we need to wish him the best luck for all of us as a country. We need to put country over party right now. The election is done. BROWN: All right, Dan Eberhart, Gloria Borger, thank you.

BORGER: Thanks.

EBERHART: Thank you.

BROWN: Well breaking news, sources tell CNN two Department of Homeland Security officials have been forced to resign by the White House. Those details are just ahead.

Plus, we're going to talk about pardons and whether the president is preparing for an onslaught of them in his final weeks in the Oval Office, including a potential pardon for himself.

Plus, you'll hear from the man in charge of the federal plan to distribute a coronavirus vaccine. You are watching CNN's live special coverage.

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[14:16:35]

BROWN: So will the president bestow presidential pardons as he exits the White House? Well, CNN has learned President Trump may already have a working list of names. Sources reveal that list includes a host of familiar faces in Trump's orbit: Mike Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, Roger Stone, even Charles Kushner, the father of the president's son-in-law Jared.

Another potential name on that list is the president himself. Yes, that is right, CNN sources are asking if President Trump will consider granting himself a pardon after he leaves office, as investigations swirl around his business and finances.

Our sources are split on if he'd actually do it, but former administration officials tell CNN that Trump has been asking aides about pardons for himself and his family since 2017.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor. Paul also has an op-ed on CNN.com about how these pardon strategies might work.

Thanks for coming on. So what is your reaction to this idea of the president pardoning himself? How would that even work?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well you know, I'm not surprised at all about it, given his history of sort of gaming the court system. He had no hesitation about filing for bankruptcy or paying as low a tax rate as possible because he said, hey, the law allows me to do that, why wouldn't I do it?

So why would he approach pardon in any different way? So I think he's looking seriously at it. And there are several ways it can be done. One is the concept of self-pardon, he just pardons himself. It's never been done, it's a risky maneuver because a lot of legal scholars think that if you took that into court, it might be thrown out as the pardon power was really not intended for you to use on yourself. But there are other avenues that could be explored. And in fact, Pam,

they were explored around the time of the Nixon pardon back in 1974, I think it was. And one is -- and this is kind of a strange one that was proposed by an assistant attorney general named Mary Lawton back at that time, when they were looking at Nixon's situation -- something called a congressional pardon.

Congress could pass a law just allowing them to pardon a sitting president if they wanted to, and that would get around the self-pardon problem.

The other way to do it is under the 25th Amendment, the president could resign and then hope that Pence, the vice president who would become acting president, would pardon him.

So those are all three interesting and very, very different possibilities of how a pardon would be handled.

BROWN: So sources we've spoken to have really been split on whether he would do this. Some say they wouldn't be surprised at all, but he's been really interested in this idea since 2017. Others I've spoken to have said, well, he wouldn't do that because it would be an admission of guilt, he would never want to admit guilt like this. Because wouldn't a presidential pardon be an admission of that, that you had done something wrong?

CALLAN: It would not be an explicit admission. The Constitution doesn't require somebody to admit guilt in order to get or accept a pardon. However, I think that if a new, let's say Acting President Pence, after Trump resigns for a couple of days before the inauguration of Biden, would be foolish. And Congress would be foolish to let him get away with taking a pardon without confessing guilt.

[14:20:08]

Because otherwise, he'll try to make a comeback. And the whole reason to pardon a president is so the country can move on. That's what happened when Nixon resigned, you know. It was a situation where the Vietnam War had gone on for a long time, the Watergate scandal had embroiled the country -- much like what's going on in the United States today.

And Gerald Ford ultimately said, you know, we need a break from this, we have to move on. And you could imagine if Trump resigns or leaves office, and then continues with the Twitter feed and accusations of a stolen election, it'll dominate the public mind for years to come. So an admission of guilt and a pardon, a lot of people I think will come to the conclusion might be the way to go with former President Trump.

BROWN: All right, Paul Callan, thanks for breaking it down for us.

CALLAN: Thank you, Pam, nice being with you.

BROWN: And up next, officials in New Jersey are saying that Halloween parties are partly to blame for a surge in COVID cases there, this as New York cracks down on restaurants again, forcing them to close at 10:00 p.m. I'll speak to a man who says that will destroy his business.

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[14:26:01]

BROWN: Well, the coronavirus stole 1,893 Americans lives yesterday, as the country set new records for COVID infections and hospitalizations. This is a five-alarm fire we're going through.

Wednesday marked the ninth consecutive day of more than 100,000 new infections. Yesterday was a record high: More than 144,000 cases recorded in a single day. And there is no end in sight. Forty-nine states are reporting growing or steady numbers of cases.

We are also setting a record number of hospitalizations. As of last night, more than 65,000 Americans are hospitalized in this country. And some states are warning their hospitals are nearing capacity. In fact, Tennessee's Department of Health says there are 191 intensive care unit beds available across the state, that is just nine percent.

And also today, New Jersey health officials are saying multiple outbreaks in the state are linked to Halloween parties. CNN's Jean Casarez is taking a closer look.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, the New Jersey Department of Health is telling CNN that there have been at least five COVID outbreaks from Halloween parties. They are saying there are 70 cases associated with those parties and other social gatherings among students.

The New Jersey health commissioner, Judy Persichilli, is also advising, quote, "All social gatherings outside of an immediate family gathering are a concern and if you let your guard down, you could be exposed and not even know it by being around asymptomatic individuals" -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, thanks so much, Jean.

Meantime, New York's restaurant and bar owners are slamming Governor Andrew Cuomo's new 10:00 p.m. restaurant closing times and restrictions aimed at tamping down COVID-19. Starting Friday night, restaurants and bars will be required to close at 10:00 p.m. daily. Now, restaurants will still be allowed to do food-only curbside pickup and delivery after 10:00 p.m., but they will not be permitted to serve alcohol to go.

I want to bring in Butch Yamali, owner of seven restaurants, taverns and catering halls in the New York area, including the historic Milleridge Inn. Thanks so much for coming on, Butch. I know this is a difficult time for you. You were closed for about seven months due to the pandemic, and reopened your restaurants this fall. How are Governor Cuomo's new restaurant and bar restrictions going to impact your business and staff?

BUTCH YAMALI, OWNER OF SEVEN N.Y. RESTAURANTS, TAVERNS, AND CATERING HALLS: It's going to have a very heavy impact on us. And I understand where he's coming from. I mean, safety is first and we're going to support his decision and go with it, but it doesn't help us.

I mean we were closed, we couldn't give the same restaurant experience or catering experience to our guests over the past seven months. We finally were able to give 50 percent in Long Island, 25 percent in the city -- of our capacity, and people started to get used to the new norm as our guests and our staff.

And now with this shutdown, it brings a whole different dimension all over again, it's a whole new set of rules. See, what people don't realize is that, like, in the catering hall, if we have to be closed by 10:00 out the door -- which is what they're saying -- we have to stop all parties around 9:30.

Now, people already have their invitations out, there's weddings that have already been you know, heavily limited to what they could do. And if you go to a wedding or a regular party, catered event, all you can really do is sit there. You can't stand up and eat, you can't walk around and congregate, you can't dance. You have to wear a mask if you get up, you can't go to the bar. And it's just really just sit there and eat until the time is over and you go home.

Not much of a party, but people accepting it. You know, they're already numb to all the different rules and they say this is what it is and we're going to do our best.

Now we have to call these very same people and say, hey, you have to leave our premises by 9:30 in order for us to be out of there by 10:00? And they're not happy about it but again, they're accepting it.

And it's just going to -- it's like a trickle-down effect too, now our staff has less hours, there's going to be less people that want to do parties.

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