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Former Trump Chief Of Staff, John Kelly Warns Delaying Transition Could Be Catastrophic; U.S. Tops 100,000 New COVID-19 Cases for Twelfth Straight Day; Trump's Legal Challenges To Election Results Fall Flat; Evidence Undermines Trump Campaign's Claims Of Dead Voters In GA; CDC: Black And Latino People Face Higher Rates Of Hospitalization. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired November 14, 2020 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Washington, D.C. today where thousands of disenchanted, disbelieving and just plain angry supporters of President Trump came out to march to argue and to protest the election that President Trump lost to Joe Biden, an election that Homeland Security agencies confirm was, quote, "the most secure in American history."

It was a crowd that grew from a gathering near the White House to a march that filled the streets to the Supreme Court. Not only mainstream supporters of the President, conservative voters, but also right-wing and even far right-wing groups were there.

Groups like the so-called Proud Boys. A group, President Trump at the first presidential debate in September told to stand back and standby. The President making good on his promise to stop by at the rally this morning, passed by slowly in his official motorcade to the cheers of his supporters, he was on his way to his golf resort.

As for the man who is the elections winner, Joe Biden, there you see him on his bike. He is spending the weekend in Delaware. He is still being blocked from critical Intelligence and Security briefings usually provided to incoming Presidents.

It's a development that a former top White House official sees as a potential disaster in the making. Retired Marine Corps General, John Kelly, President Trump's one-time Chief of Staff said this in a statement, "The delay in transitioning is an increasing national security and health crisis." And he said, the outgoing administration should start briefing Biden warning, quote, "The downside to not doing so could be catastrophic to our people, regardless of who they voted for."

Let's go to the White House now and CNN's Jeremy Diamond. Jeremy, a very stern warning there from General John Kelly. What are you hearing from the Trump administration and whether they intend to start giving Intelligence and Security briefings to President-elect Biden?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it certainly was a stern warning from General John Kelly and it is reflective, it seems of the sentiment among a growing number of Republican senators on Capitol Hill who have begun to say even as they refuse to recognize Joe Biden as the President-elect, that there's really no downside to providing a President-elect Biden with those highly classified Intelligence briefings should he be certified as we expect him to be as the winner of this presidential election.

As for the President and his team, they are showing no sign of wavering in terms of allowing that process -- the transition process to move forward. We are still waiting on the General Services Administration of this administration to ascertain that Joe Biden is indeed the President-elect and to release the millions of dollars in funding as well as those classified Intelligence briefings to the President-elect and his team.

As for the President, publicly we saw today that he appeared to be buoyed by this rally of supporters here in Washington, D.C. today. The President who drove by that rally afterwards took to Twitter. So once again reigniting many of his claims about this election having been rigged and stolen, claiming that he will win this election once all is said and done.

Of course, that's not true. Election officials, bipartisan Democrats and Republicans across this country have said that this election, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud and in fact, it was one of the most secure elections in modern American history.

Nonetheless, the President, even as he has privately and publicly on Twitter, saying all these things about a rigged and stolen election, yesterday, we did hear a sliver from him of acknowledgement of the reality of the situation; the possibility, perhaps, of a future Biden administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This administration will not be going to a lockdown, hopefully the -- whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration will be, I guess, time will tell. But I can tell you, this administration will not go to a lockdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Now privately, we are told by our sources that the President has at times begun to accept the reality that these legal challenges, most of which are failing in the courts at the moment that they will not result in overturning the results of the election.

The question, of course, is when the President begins to publicly acknowledge that beyond what he was saying yesterday, which is simply an acknowledgement of the potential for future Biden administration.

CABRERA: President Trump, Jeremy, tweeted today saying, "Congress must pass a COVID relief bill." Why now after the election? And do you think there's any appetite for this on Capitol Hill during a lame duck session? DIAMOND: Yes, it's not clear why the President has chosen this morning

to begin to re-enter this debate over a Coronavirus Stimulus Bill. Things are still deadlocked on Capitol Hill, which is where things stood before the presidential election.

Democrats and Republicans very far apart in terms of the total number that should go in in terms of how much money should be spent for this Coronavirus Relief Bill as well as -- forgive me -- as where that money should be going.

And as of now, it doesn't seem like the President's tweet is going to break that deadlock. The question, of course, is whether or not the President will choose to engage directly with those negotiators on Capitol Hill.

That was something that the President refused to do before the election. So far, no sign that he will do so again -- Ana.

CABRERA: Jeremy Diamond at the White House, thank you. President-elect Joe Biden is urging the Trump administration to take action on the pandemic now as daily cases near 200,000.

[18:05:10]

CABRERA: He released a statement saying in part, quote, "I am the President-elect, but I will not be President until next year. The crisis does not respect dates on the calendar, it is accelerating right now. Urgent action is needed today now by the current administration, starting with an acknowledgement of how serious the current situation is."

CNN Correspondent, Jessica Dean is in Wilmington, Delaware. Jessica, are Biden's calls essentially falling on deaf ears.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, President-elect Biden and his entire team have made it very clear COVID is their first priority. We know that the COVID-19 Advisory Board has come together that he is been being briefed by them.

Yesterday, when he gave that statement right after being briefed by them seeing the numbers knowing how serious this is. But Ana, as Jeremy was just talking about, because the General Services Administration has not validated President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the election, thus triggering the formal transition process. That means that Biden and his transition team and his COVID-19 Advisory Board don't have access to the Health and Human Services data. They can't talk to the Coronavirus Taskforce that's in the White House.

So while they are trying to put together the plan and move ahead with all of that things like getting ready for a vaccine distribution are very hard because currently there's a team putting that together within the Health and Human Services Department that they're not allowed to interface with at all.

Also, this is emblematic across the board though. You heard Jeremy also talk about those Intelligence briefings that Joe Biden is not receiving. He is also not getting State Department support with these leaders with calls with foreign leaders, so this runs across the board.

But it's very apparent and very acute when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic.

CABRERA: All right, Jessica Dean, thank you very much for that update.

As the White House refuses to allow for a smooth transition, it is playing up the protests in D.C. today. White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany tweeting this, "Amazing. More than one million martyrs for President Trump to send on the swamp in support." Now, it was a large crowd in the thousands, but nowhere near one million.

So the administration that began with a lie about President Trump's inaugural crowd size now ends with a lie about the protest crowd size, all while the simple math of the Electoral College seems to evade them.

Joining us now Julie Pace, Washington Bureau chief for the Associated Press, and Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News. Errol, first, I just want to get your reaction to the rally today. We know members of the far right group, Proud Boys, led a march. This is the same group President Trump told to stand back and stand by during one of the debates.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure. Listen, there were also lawmakers as part of that march, Ana, and they should be held accountable and asked specifically to denounce the far right violent goon squads that were part of this March.

It doesn't discredit the entire march. People have a right to express themselves, even if that expression is one of futility and frustration over the outcome of an election that their preferred candidate has now lost.

But there's no excuse for marching side by side with the Proud Boys and some of these other gangsters. And so the lawmakers who are out there should definitely be held accountable.

As for the rest, people should recognize that the valid frustrations that people feel, again, because their candidate has lost is going to be exploited by terrorists, by anti-government groups, by far right extremists, by racist organizations.

They should recognize that there they are a target and they should really be aware that even as they are expressing their lawful constitutionally protected right to dissent, there are others who have much darker intentions and they should be sure to -- they should make sure that they are separating themselves from those dangerous groups.

CABRERA: You point out what makes the U.S. very vulnerable right now during this transition period and the fact of the matter is that the President is harming the democratic system and the electoral process with these ongoing baseless claims about voter fraud that are just igniting more fervent feelings here.

Julie, there's this new reporting, though, from Olivia Nuzzi at "New York Magazine" suggesting that President Trump doesn't actually want to win this election despite contesting it. And here's what she writes about a source.

She says, "This person who speaks to the President often or more accurately, who listens and says, 'uh-huh' as the President speaks said that Trump is not just done for, but done. He wants to lose. He is out of money. He worries about being arrested. He is worried about being assassinated, they said."

Julie, what do you think of that?

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Well, look, I think if you look at how the last several days have played out up until that Rose Garden address yesterday where the President got so close to actually acknowledging an incoming Biden administration. It's clear that there's not any kind of formal strategy at play here to actually keep him in office.

There is a recognition around the President and up to the President himself that this is not going to go his way. So a lot of this is, frankly, theater.

[18:10:25]

PACE: A lot of this is the President trying to protect this reputation that he has built over the years as a winner, and the President trying to preserve the support of those people who have stood by him for so long for whatever he does after this, whether it is a media venture, whatever he does after he is going to need the loyalty of those supporters, so many of them that you saw in the streets of D.C. and other places today.

CABRERA: Errol, CNN has obtained a copy of the first volume of President Obama's post presidency memoir, and let's look at something he wrote about his Vice President, now, President-elect Joe Biden.

"One of the reasons I had chosen Joe to act as an intermediary, in addition to his Senate experience and legislative acumen was my awareness that in McConnell's mind, negotiations with the Vice President didn't inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of cooperation with black Muslim socialists Obama was bound to do."

So when President-elect Biden says Republicans will react differently with him, is the subtext because he is white.

LOUIS: Well, sure, I don't even know if it's the subject. I think it is right out there for all to see. And President Obama who knows more about race relations as it has played out at the highest levels of government than anybody on the planet, I think he has put his finger right on the problem.

And this is, in fact why Biden beat all of his challengers in the primary then went on to defeat a sitting President, which is no small accomplishment.

The reality is, he is a white male. Hillary Clinton wasn't. Many of the challengers in the primary were not.

He has a certain stature, because he's been in government for a long, long time. He looks like what most of the previous 45 Presidents have looked like. He looks like somebody who has been in government for a long, long time, isn't going to rock the boat and is culturally comfortable, if you want to use that phrase with white working class voters.

Again, that's partly how he won Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Sure, that's just the reality of it. If Mitch McConnell wants to take advantage of that in a way that will benefit the whole country, more power to him. He can do the right thing, I think, Ana, for the wrong reasons.

CABRERA: Julie, former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway has a tweet that isn't aging well, after Trump won the 2016 election, she called Trump's 360 electoral votes, a landslide, blowout and historic. Checks notes here to see that President-elect Joe Biden is now projected to win 306 electoral votes. But the GOP is hardly acknowledging Biden's win much less calling it a historic blowout.

PACE: No, I mean, most of them aren't acknowledging the win at all at this point. Obviously, Joe Biden is going to be President of the United States, and I do think it will be interesting to see how Republicans when they finally do acknowledge that reality kind of cast that victory.

I expect that they will not look at him as a President with a mandate, a President, you know, with a historic landmark size victory. I mean, the reality is that the country is still divided. It was divided in 2016 when Donald Trump got 306 Electoral College votes, and it is divided now when Joe Biden does.

And I think the challenge, you know, that Joe Biden will face is how he governs in that divided country. Trump made very little outreach or effort to bring people who did not support him initially on board. Biden has said he will do that. And I think that one of the big challenges and questions about his presidency will be if there's a willingness from that group to come along, not with every issue, but with some.

CABRERA: Errol, new CNN reporting says Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are poised to relocate back to Manhattan where they were once part of high society. But all signs point to a rough return. And they point to, you know, the protests that took place in the streets of New York after the Biden victory or the celebrations that were in the streets.

Just give us, you know, as a New Yorker a sense of what awaits the President's daughter and son-in-law back in New York.

LOUIS: Well, I'll take you back to, I think it was 2017 when they tried to board a JetBlue flight and somebody stopped and started to berate them while the plane was boarding. There's a lot more of that to come.

There are a lot of people in New York who are very, very angry at what the Trump administration and frankly, the Trump family have done to New York. New York was specially targeted for higher rates for condemnatory remarks, for falsehoods that were told by the President.

It cuts a little bit deeper because the President is a New Yorker and have changed his residence and then begin to lie about his hometown. I think they're going to maybe have a little bit of a hard time participating in public life the way they might have done before.

[18:15:10]

CABRERA: Errol Louis and Julie Pace, I really appreciate both of you. Thank you for taking the time.

New York warning it may be forced to shut down schools as soon as Monday as its coronavirus positivity rate continues to tick up.

We'll take you to the former epicenter next live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: New York City schools could be shut down as early as Monday as the state grapples with rising coronavirus case numbers. Mayor Bill de Blasio saying the seven-day average of New York City's test positivity rate is nearing the three percent threshold the city set to close schools and transition students back to remote learning.

But, you know, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo says individual schools in New York City should be allowed to quote, "test out" of COVID closings if case numbers and positivity rates are lower in certain areas.

So I want to bring in CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro. Evan, how would testing out work?

[18:20:07]

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, this is kind of a new thing that we've just heard about from the governor just today, as he spoke to reporters on a press conference call.

What he said was that testing in New York is good enough now, inside the schools, that he thinks that schools should be able to test their students and test out this idea of this three percent number that essentially, if the number of the infection rate inside the school is below three percent, then that school should be able to remain open, even if the neighborhood outside the school is at three percent.

This is a very, very different idea than what anybody in New York City has been hearing since the schools reopened for their hybrid schedule back around the first week of October.

Back then, and through this week, the thing that we've heard from the mayor over and over was that three was the magic number. That three percent of the seven-day rolling average infection rate, if across that three percent, schools were automatically close back down.

But today, the governor is saying he suggests the schools consider doing tests inside and keeping them open. It's just a suggestion. He has said that he has the power to keep them open if he wants to. But right now, he is saying the mayor and the school system should work this out together.

So it's a very confusing situation for parents and for students who are looking at that rising infection rate number and wondering if classrooms will stay open -- Ana.

CABRERA: Okay, Evan McMorris-Santoro, we appreciate the update. It's obviously something on so many parents' minds and children's minds, as well. And yet that three percent is nothing compared to what we're seeing in other parts of the country right now. Thank you, Evan.

Dr. Leana Wen is a CNN medical analyst and the former Health Commissioner of Baltimore.

Dr. Wen, I mean, we're talking about shutting the schools down when the infection rate reaches three percent in New York. Meantime, the national average right now is nearly 10 percent infection rate.

You have places like South Dakota that are seeing 58 percent infection rate in test positivity right now. We have hospitalizations at all- time highs. We have an exponential growth, the number of cases around the country and I was just looking at your tweet as you point out, hospitalizations are already way up.

And those reflect cases from three or four weeks ago when we had numbers around 80,000. So now we have, you know, the latest number, 180,000 cases in the U.S. What does this mean?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It means, Ana that things are going to get much, much worse. And I know that's very difficult for people to hear, because things have already gotten so bad, but we have this firestorm of coronavirus all across the country.

It's not one or two hotspots. The entire country is a hotspot of coronavirus infection. And you're right, this is the concern that our hospitals are already getting bombed. Our ICUs are already getting overwhelmed.

And so what is it going to look like in three to four weeks' time when the cases that we're seeing now end up getting reflected in hospitalizations and unfortunately in deaths.

CABRERA: We're hearing from the Governor of Idaho who says they are close to having to ration care that so many doctors and nurses are getting sick and the ones that are healthy are really getting burnt out.

And then you have other places in which hospital capacity is maxed out. ICU beds are maxed. You're an ER physician, what is life like for you right now? WEN: Things are busy and all of us are extremely worried. We hear from

our colleagues in hard hit parts of the country who are already just -- everybody is working at sprint speed, but we know that this is a marathon that we're in.

And I think everyone is just very concerned about what's going to happen, especially because we're looking around us and people's behavior are not changing. This is very different from March and April when the number of cases were skyrocketing and certain places were hard hits, but many parts of the country were not hard hit and also people were adapting their behaviors.

But now we're going around and we still see many bars being open. People going to crowded indoor gatherings, and all around us, the numbers are skyrocketing and that's very worrisome for what will happen in the days to come.

CABRERA: So what does happen when a hospital reaches capacity? Like what happens to other patients? Are they just turned away?

WEN: Well, this is the time that or that's something that we really hope will never happen. But in theory, yes, because this isn't something that just affects patients with coronavirus.

You can imagine that we did see the scenes in New York back in March and April, when hospitals became so full that even ambulances with patients who are coming in really needing emergency care were waiting hours to be seen, and this is not just patients with coronavirus, it is also patients with heart attacks, with strokes who may not be able to get emergency care when they need it.

We are already seeing many rural hospitals where their patients need to be transferred to a higher level of care that's not available in their small hospital and those other places are not accepting these patients. Ambulances are now happy to drive maybe hundreds of miles for these patients.

[18:25:09]

WEN: Maybe they were in a car accident and need emergency surgery and a higher level of care that they're not getting. That's already happening. What's going to happen in the weeks to come?

CABRERA: An influential coronavirus model, which is part of the University of Washington, the I.H.M.E. model we've talked about projects, the U.S. could see 2,000 deaths per day by January and nearly 440,000 deaths by March 1st.

I sound like a broken record, but is there anything that can be done now to avoid hitting these numbers?

WEN: Yes. And in fact, many people are already doing these things, and I would just urge everyone to continue these public health measures that we have been talking about for so long; wearing masks, of course, but I would also really emphasize not gathering indoors with people who are not in your immediate household. We know that this is what is driving this latest surge in infections,

these informal gatherings of extended family and friends, and especially with Holidays coming, and with the weather getting colder that could happen even more, but know that we should not have magical thinking.

So I think sometimes we want to think that those that we love and trust cannot possibly have coronavirus, but actually they could have coronavirus, just as much as strangers.

And so we should use an abundance of caution even with people that we know and love. Do not gather indoors with them and really socialize outdoors six feet apart only at this time.

CABRERA: And we should do that because we know and we love them so much, we want to protect them and ourselves.

Thank you Dr. Leana Wen, as always for being with us and for all you do.

WEN: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Georgia has turned blue for the first time since 1992. And now the state is counting every single vote by hand. We're at one of those recount centers. We'll take you there live when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:25]

CABRERA: Welcome back. I want to show you some live images right now of protesters and police in what appears to be a tense situation in downtown Washington, D.C. This is near Black Lives Matter Plaza and our Sara Sidner is joining us.

Sara, there was this big pro-Trump rally in D.C. earlier today. What is going on right now where you are?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There was a very large march with thousands and thousands of people. That was earlier today. That ended at four o'clock when their permit ended and everyone pretty much went back to their hotels or went back home.

But this is sort of a divergence of political ideas. You've got some Trump supporters who are down there. A lot of them are staying in different hotels here and have kind of hung out outside the hotels. And in the meantime, if you will go to your right there. There are folks here from many different movements of Black Lives Matter. Those who are very much opposed to Donald Trump and his administration.

And there's just been a lot of back and forth. The police have been here. We've seen two people being detained. We've seen some spraying of pepper spray by police to try to move people back. And there have been intermittent clashes and arguments happening between pro-Trump supporters and between those who absolutely abhor him and his administration.

But it is very small in comparison to the numbers of people, the thousands of people that we saw earlier today, which pretty much went off without a hitch. There were a couple of issues, but it was very calm for the number of people that were there. But now night has fallen.

I'll give you just a quick tour here of where we are. This is 16th and K Street and there were some issues in front of this hotel because, again, folks were like, oh, the Trump supporters are in that hotel, so they were trying to get closer and closer and closer to them. Police held the line.

The police have been very efficient in pushing people back away from some of these hotels and trying to keep people from clashing with each other. We've seen many police on bicycle, just kind of separating crowds and that's what we're seeing right now.

I'll turn this around just one more time, so you can kind of get a look at the scene here on K Street and 16th. And again, you've got police sort of separating folks, pro-Trump folks way down the street, and then you've got a line here keeping people who are anti-Trump from them.

It has been a very interesting day, but there are very few people that are still out tonight. The police have very heavy police presence here. There are more police officers that have just pulled in. You'll see the lights there.

At this point, there's a lot of arguing, there's a lot of disagreement. There has been a small bit of violence, but for the most part police have this all under control at this hour. Ana.

CABRERA: So Sarah, just to confirm, you said you know the earlier March or rally that was taking place, that dispersed, did people entirely leave and then now new people have reorganized or grouped together here or are these some of the people who just sort of lingered around?

SIDNER: Yes. So this is a completely different place. We're actually near Black Lives Matter Plaza. This is a completely different group of folks. Most of these folks here supporting Biden, most of these folks here are sort of on the left wing of things.

But there are still some folks from the million MAGA March that happened earlier today that brought thousands and thousands of people out. Most of them though are in some of the hotels in this area. And so there has been a little bit of mixing there, which has turned into some tension between the two groups whether it's arguing, pushing and shoving.

[18:35:05] So we've watched a little bit of that, but for the most part things

are fairly calm here. It was tense for a bit there. The police moved in, in very large numbers and kind of broke people up and separated people and that's kind of where we are at this point.

CABRERA: Sara Sidner, we know you're going to stay on top of it for us. We'll check back if there's anything that dramatic happens. Thank you.

Now to Georgia where right now nearly 5 million ballots are being recounted by hand as part of a statewide audit. Biden's lead prior to this recount a little more than 14,000 votes. And CNN's Amara Walker is in Atlanta for us. Where does Georgia's recount stand this evening, Amara?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Ana. Well, I know that in Gwinnett County, which is the second largest county in Georgia just north of here in Fulton County, the hand recount continues. Here though at the Georgia World Congress Center in Fulton County, they have wrapped up for the day. They will be back first thing tomorrow morning at seven o'clock.

I can tell you from being inside just a few hours ago. I mean, things are moving pretty swiftly. The Fulton County elections director was telling me that the goal continues to be to complete the recount by Monday. But he was sounding optimistic saying look, we might actually even be ahead of schedule.

All in all, statewide things also moving smoothly according to the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger the state of Georgia has to count 5 million ballots. It's a tight deadline. Wednesday is a deadline by 11:59 pm and then Friday, the Secretary of State must certify the final results.

But transparency in this process, building voter confidence that really has been the priority through this hand audit, especially as President Trump, as you've been seeing, has been repeatedly trying to undermine the election results making baseless claims of voter fraud.

In fact, his campaign just a few days ago was tweeting and alleging that four dead Georgians had voted on November 3rd and we know at least one of those individuals that was named is actually alive and well. Our affiliate, WXIA, caught up with this lady and this is what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The President of the United States was accusing you of voter fraud, essentially.

AGNES BLALOCK, WRONGLY ACCUSED OF VOTING DEAD: I know it and I knew it wasn't fraud.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who did you vote for? You don't have to share that.

BLALOCK: I voted for the Democrats, for Biden. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see. And so ...

BLALOCK: I guess, I voted against the other really.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Now, the Trump campaign had alleged that it was Mr. James Blaylock (ph) of Covington, Georgia who had voted even though he had passed away back in 2006. But you saw there, first of all, he never voted and his widow, Mrs. James Blaylock (ph), she was the one who voted and election officials say that that's how she has always voted under that name, Ana.

CABRERA: Amara Walker, thank you.

Now, the same disease two different outcomes, a new CDC study finds black and Latino people are four times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID compared to white people, why? We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:42:16]

CABRERA: We have some breaking news right now, a federal judge says new DACA rules that limited applications and renewals are invalid because the man who signed them, Chad Wolf, the acting DHS Director was not legally serving as Homeland Security Secretary when he signed that.

Maria Hinojosa is joining us now. She's the Anchor and Executive Producer of NPR's Latino USA and the author of the book Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America.

So first Maria, I just want to get your reaction to this brand new rule and just happened within the last hour or so and how should DACA recipients be thinking about this right now?

MARIA HINOJOSA, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER, FUTURO MEDIA GROUP: Well, look, in terms of DACA, everything, we're in a lame-duck period with a president that is very unpredictable, we don't know - we know that he doesn't, he says he likes DACA, but actually in terms of actual support for DACA has been very hard to read.

I would say that the activists would say it not hard at all, he's not interested in really supporting it. So at this point, there is a sense that what Joe Biden has said is that within his first 100 days that he is going to not only re-up DACA, but also begin a process of legalization for all of the people who by the way are not kids anymore.

If this was happening about a decade ago or so, these may have been 18 years old who are now 28-year-old, 20 year olds who are now 30 year olds. So they are productive members of the society.

For there to be any kind of restriction on DACA doesn't just impact them their life, their emotional status, their family status, it impacts the American economy, which we need to grow right now. So at this point, there is unfortunately, a lot of fuzziness around DACA.

But as usual with the Trump administration, we didn't know who was in charge and who was not. So it's typical kind of more discombobulated information from them.

CABRERA: And I should mention Chad Wolf is 1840 [00:04:10] acting DHS Secretary, I think DHS director there in the intro. But immigration policy we know was a motivator for some voters. I'm wondering because of Biden's win is the immigrant community breathing a sigh of relief? What are you hearing?

HINOJOSA: Well, I think the immigrant community what they're talking about is the fact that even though the parents were undocumented or the grandparents were undocumented, the next generation below them went out to vote. And before going out to vote in 2020, they spent the last decade or so, I'm thinking of the place like Arizona, organizing for something like this.

This is what it looks like the long haul, Ana, in terms of what organizers and activists on the street and political activists are thinking of.

[18:45:00]

When something like SB 1070 happens in Arizona, which is the most restrictive anti-immigrant law in 2010, they're not realizing that that's going to create a backlash that is going to result with more voters.

So immigrants are saying, we went to the polls, we impacted policy, we turn the State of Arizona, potentially, with the push of immigrant voters in Georgia, other places like Pennsylvania like Wisconsin. So a sigh of relief but sadly, as you know, if you've been watching my Twitter and other Latino Latina analysts Twitter, the Biden administration was present during the time that President Obama deported over 2.5 million people separating them.

The president who has deported more people from the interior of the United States than ever before, Joe Biden needs to own that in order to move forward.

And I think what immigrants want is a complete throwing this out and starting from zero. This is not working. And finally, Ana, this is not an immigration crisis at all that we are facing, it's down to zero. I'm in Mexico now. People are not thinking about going to the United States now.

We have an international human rights crisis where women's uteruses have been taken and babies and children have been taken from their parents.

CABRERA: That's so disturbing. I do want to ask you about the pandemic as well, because we have some new COVID hospitalization data from the CDC and it reveals a very stark racial divide when adjusted for age compared to whites, black people with COVID are 3.9 times more likely to be hospitalized, Native Americans and Native Alaskans 4.1. Look at this, Hispanic and Latinos 4.2 times more likely to be hospitalized than white people. Why do you think that is?

HINOJOSA: Look, what everybody is talking about, this is revealing really the structures of inequity in our country, in our society, right? And also Latinos, I just got to Mexico, we're talking about people here, the neighbor where I'm staying at my mom's home, he died from COVID early on.

So there is a question of our health being compromised if we are obese if we have diabetes and also what happens is that we have this thing about not going to the doctor at the beginning, but going at the end. But what it really is showing is that our country, the United States is dependent on Latinos and Latinas. Right now I'm thinking so much about El Paso, who's there, think about the population of El Paso.

One last thing though that I will say in a conversation around COVID, also no more family gatherings, familia, no es el momento. This is not the moment to be having family gatherings inside or even outside. And that is hard for many Latinos and Latinas and everybody, but that has got to be the message, las fiestas de la casa se acabaron (ph), no more at-home parties, period.

CABRERA: Thank you so much, Maria Hinojosa, for that message, for your thoughtful just analysis of what's happening right now. I really appreciate it.

HINOJOSA: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: We'll be right back.

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[18:52:35]

CABRERA: Welcome back. It has been a full week since CNN projected that Joe Biden would be the next President of the United States. Now, his road to the White House actually began with an impossible Senate race where Biden was the underdog by a longshot. CNN's Gloria Borger has more.

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GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Now that Joe Biden is the President-elect, it's hard to believe there was ever a time when few people even knew his name. Back in 1972. Biden was 29 and he decided to run for a senate seat in Delaware.

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BORGER (voice over): It was audacious if not arrogant for Biden to run as a 29-year-old underdog candidate of change against a well-liked Republican senator named Cale Boggs.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your last name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miller.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miller. I know you have Miller family.

TED KAUFMAN, FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR: He had been governor of the state for two terms. He had been member of Congress for three terms and he was running for his third term in the United States Senate. Cale Boggs was loved. I mean, he was loved.

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BORGER(voice over): Once again, Biden asked Valerie to run the show.

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VALERI BIDEN OWENS, SISTER OF JOE BIDEN: I remember saying to him, "Joey, I don't. I can't run a statewide campaign. I don't know how to do that."

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BORGER(voice over): She reached out to a local Democratic Party activist Ted Kaufman.

TED KAUFMAN, LONGTIME POLITICAL ADVISER: So, I went down and talked to him. I said, "So you're running on civil rights, you're running on the environment, you're running on tax reform." Those are really good issues. Then, he's silent and I said, but I don't think you have a chance, man.

BORGER: You said what?

KAUFMAN: I don't think you have a chance of winning.

BORGER: And his reaction to that was?

KAUFMAN: Just come and help me. We'll see. We'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORGER(voice over): Biden was confident he could talk his way into voter's hearts. But what Kaufman saw was bleak.

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KAUFMAN: On Labor Day, we did a big-time poll. You know what the number was? Forty-seven percent for Boggs, 19 percent for Biden.

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BORGER(voice over): But it was also the first year 18-year-olds could vote and young voters saw a candidate who was promising that he understands what's happening today. Fifty years later, this time as a political elder trying to connect with young voters, it's still his mantra. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): They had that funny feeling that Cale Boggs just his heart wasn't in it. He had been talked into running one more time by Richard Nixon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORGER(voice over): And then ...

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OWENS: We with snuck up on him. Boggs, this is the Nixon landslide year. Everybody expected no Democrat to win and that was the truth.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We won by a rousing 3,100 votes.

[18:55:06]

BORGER: I'm sure the President-elect is very relieved to have secured a wider margin in the 2020 presidential race to the tune of more than 5 million votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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CABRERA: All right. Thanks, Gloria Borger. So much more to see and learn about Joe Biden's ambition, tragedies, his dramatic fights and race of his lifetime. Don't miss Fight for the White House Joe Biden's Long Journey tonight at 10 Eastern here on CNN.

That does it for me today. I'm Ana Cabrera. I'll see you back here tomorrow at 4 pm Eastern.

Up next, my colleague, Wolf Blitzer picks up our coverage with a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. Have a great night.

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