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Stocks Surge on COVID Vaccine News; Texas Sees Record Cases; Georgia's Recount; British Prime Minister Self-Isolating. Aired 9:30- 10a

Aired November 16, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:06]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

Stocks are surging on the heels of Moderna's positive news regarding its COVID-19 vaccine.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans is with us.

All right, the market just opened. Is this all because of the vaccine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It really is. There's optimism there. There's a few different things going on, but basically you've got this idea that we can see into an economy next year where people start to get vaccinated and you start to get back to normal.

Also the temperature at which this vaccine can be stored and the efficacy rate really enthusiastic response from investors on Wall Street because of this.

And then you look at the Dow, the Dow now is up 3 percent for the year. The S&P is up 10 percent for the year. The Nasdaq up 30 percent for the year. Just look at those numbers for a minute. That's remarkable when we're in the middle of the worst public health crisis in 100 years and you have a Wall Street performance that is this good.

One thing to keep in mind here, the positive vaccine news, while very welcome, a stock market that is doing well also welcome if you're an investor, I guess. There is a worry that it takes away some of the urgency to do a stimulus again, a bridge from real people, main street, who are going to start to see their rent protections expire, who are running out of their savings from their stimulus check and from their extra jobless benefits.

So there's this sort of hole in the middle of the bridge here and there doesn't seem to be an urgency, at least among GOP leadership, to extend that when you've got 6.9 percent unemployment rate and a market doing this.

HARLOW: Right.

But, still, Romans, the --

SCIUTTO: Well, that's the thing.

HARLOW: Go ahead, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, go ahead. Go ahead.

HARLOW: No, no, all good.

SCIUTTO: No. I was just going to ask you about unemployment, because you still have millions of people.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: What percentage of the people who lost their jobs in the worst of this, right --

ROMANS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: It was above 40 million --

ROMANS: Right.

SCIUTTO: What percentage of them are now back to work?

ROMANS: So there are 10 million lost jobs still. Ten million people who lost a job in the crisis. You've gotten back just about half of that 22 plus million that you lost in the first couple years -- months when we really shut this thing down. So there's a lot of pain there.

And when you talk to families, all kinds of surveys about, have they lost income, have they lost opportunity, have they lost a job, you know, more than half of families say that they have. And the number's even higher when it's families with children.

So there's a lot going on here that just every aspect of our lives has been affected by COVID and vaccine developments are so fantastic. The stock market, though, is reflecting, I think, a different reality than what many people on main street are feeling right now.

HARLOW: For sure.

Christine, thank you for that, as always.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

HARLOW: All right, now to the latest on the dramatic surge in COVID cases and hospitalizations across the country.

Over the weekend, Dallas County in Texas hit a new daily high of infections recording more than 1,500 cases on Saturday alone.

SCIUTTO: That same day health officials said that Dallas area hospitals were bracing for potentially record hospitalizations.

CNN's Omar Jimenez, he's in Dallas.

So, Omar, what are states and local officials doing about it, right? Because there was -- there was resistance to shut down orders, et cetera, politics behind it. Are these numbers changing that calculus now?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim and Poppy, the relationship of the two trends that you just mentioned, the record high daily cases and then the fear for potential record high hospitalizations following up closely after, that's how officials are looking at these numbers as we are seeing records in many places across the state.

Here in Dallas, it's been a steady incline over recent weeks. You look back at the week ending on November 7th around 20 percent of all emergency room visits here in Dallas were for COVID-19 symptoms. And you fast forward a week later and that's concerning because we are under 50 ICU beds available for this entire area.

And when you expand to Texas as a whole, the state, the first one to cross the more than a million COVID-19 case threshold, we are seeing many places either approaching record levels, at record levels or in danger of being overwhelmed, like in some places on the southern border, like in El Paso, Texas, like in the northwest part of the state in Lubbock, Texas, as well.

[09:35:10]

And when you talk about strategy, we've heard from two former FDA commissioners who say at this point it is up to governors and local officials to handle this for their communities. And we've seen tension between sometimes state, the governor's office, what's coming out of there and those on the ground over how best to tackle in some cases what is becoming an emergency.

HARLOW: Beyond the horrible medical toll, as you just walked us through, the economic toll was so evident in Dallas over the weekend. I mean if we could just pull up these images, Omar, and tell us about them. I think it was Saturday. It's cars lined up for this food bank for as far as you can see.

JIMENEZ: Well, and, of course, food banks have been going on for a long time, but this time in particular you see the thousands of people that showed up in cars because it was unsafe for them to all line up together, then you had 600,000 pounds of food distributed to 25,000 people, which is an astounding number by itself. But then when you realize that, as we heard from officials here, that 40 percent of the people that were getting food here were for the first time.

They had never done anything like this before. And that in itself is indicative of how quickly this year and the environment of COVID-19 has changed things for families across this country.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that one image shows hardship, real hardship. These people need food to eat. Feed their families. Omar Jimenez, good to have you on the story. Thank you.

Well, Georgia's largest county has finished its hand recount. This as the president continues to baselessly attack the state's recount process. All right, so what's actually happening? What are the facts? We're going to get reaction from Georgia's Republican lieutenant governor, next.

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[09:41:17]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

Georgia's largest county has now finished its hand recount of its ballots, wrapping up on Sunday. Statewide, nearly 5 million ballots were cast in the presidential race and Georgia is manually recounting every one. This after President Trump's baseless claims, which continue, of voter fraud there following his loss in the state by about 14,000 votes to the President-elect Biden. The states must now certify its results Friday.

I'm joined now by Georgia's lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan.

Lieutenant Governor, first of all, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

I understand you just had a briefing on the status of the recount. Tell us what you heard.

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): Yes, coming into the studio I just had a quick briefing with the secretary of state's office and the risk limiting audit continues to progress very well through the weekend. We have a deadline of Wednesday for that to be complete. And I believe they're well over 3 million votes into the process of counting those 5 million ballots. And proud to report that continue to not see any sort of systemic issues or fraud or improprieties poke their head up, but continue to work hard and making sure that we continue to earn the trust of 11 million Georgians in this election process.

SCIUTTO: Is there anything that stands in the way of Georgia certifying the results by Friday?

DUNCAN: Well, certainly there's more to count, right? There's still almost 2 million ballots to count. So we want to make sure that the process continues to play out and folks continue to pay close attention to those ballots. And, you know, we have 159 counties here in Georgia. So as you can imagine, it's quite a process. But continue to progress well but making sure we pay attention to every last detail.

You know, our job is to make sure that we continue to earn the trust of Georgians and also the candidates that are on the ballots, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

DUNCAN: It's not just for the folks voting, but it's for the folks' names that are on the ballots.

SCIUTTO: The president, this morning, continues to attack the recount process there, misleadingly claiming that there's no way to verify signatures. He's referring to a consent decree that, in fact, gives people the opportunity -- gave people the opportunity to correct if there was a -- if there was a signature problem.

I just want to ask you, considering your position here, to answer the president's claim here that the recount is not credible because of this.

What's your response?

DUNCAN: Well, we continue to be focused on following the letter of the law here in Georgia. I know the secretary of state's focus is there, my office, the general assembly, all the election offices in all corners of our state continue to make sure we're following the letter of the law because that's important. And, you know, I've said this several times, you know, just because the guy I voted for isn't in the lead right now doesn't change my job description. My job, I was hired by Georgians to follow the letter of the law and that's certainly what I'm focused in on.

SCIUTTO: Good for you and it's to your credit because you're taking job over party, et cetera. I do want to ask you, though, what damage, in your view, as a proud serving elected official in the state of Georgia, what damage are the president's continuing attacks doing on this because he's calling the entire election a fraud but he's taking particular aim at your state and you're saying this recount doesn't matter.

What damage does that do?

DUNCAN: Well, look, we're -- like I said, we're focused on doing our job here. Certainly everybody has the right to their own opinions and certainly the president has every right to every legal option available. And I encourage him or Vice President Biden or anybody else that was on the ballot, if they have any sort of concerns or issues, there's still some time left before we certify Friday to bring those claims forward and for those to be investigated. And certainly we will. I know there's available resources with the secretary of state's office, attorney general's office and whatnot.

But, you know, look, I think it's important. You know, too many folks are basing their opinion off of ten-second sound bites, FaceBook posts. You know, at the end of the day this is America. And on January 20th, when we wake up, this is going to be America.

[09:45:00]

This is going to be the greatest place to raise your family, the greatest place to run your business, the strongest military on the face of the planet. This is America. And we've got a lot of great days in front of us.

And there's a process set up to make sure that if the candidate that you voted for isn't in office, that there's -- there's a process. You've got the Senate and you've got the House. There's a process to make sure that the rule of law is continued to be followed. I'm certainly going to work as hard as I possibly can to make sure every Georgian or at least an overwhelming majority of Georgians are satisfied with the election process.

SCIUTTO: To reiterate, in the recount you have found no evidence of widespread fraud?

DUNCAN: Yes, certainly the reports that I've got from the secretary of state's office, the attorney general's office is, we have not seen any examples of widespread or systemic fraud or improprieties. But, like I said, we're going to continue to work as hard as we can to make sure that that continues to be the case.

SCIUTTO: OK, you have two, I don't have to tell you, two Senate runoff elections coming up in January. Will Georgia be able to carry those out in a safe and fair way?

DUNCAN: Yes, I do think we will. Certainly I'm going to work hard for Senator Loeffler and Senator Perdue. You know, Georgia -- Georgia's got all eight statewide constitutional officers are Republicans. We've got Republican majorities in the state senate and the state house. We're going to work hard to make sure that those -- those senators go back to represent not only Georgia, but also, obviously, we know that the national, you know, importance of them, from a Republican standpoint, that they be there in the Senate.

SCIUTTO: Finally, if I could ask your, number of Republicans are now recognizing Joe Biden as the president-elect of this country based on the results of the election and the lack of evidence to this point of widespread fraud. Do you believe that Joe Biden is the president- elect?

DUNCAN: Well, it certainly appears that way, but there's still time left. We're still making sure that we make sure we count every legal vote and certify the election. But it certainly, at this point, looks that way unless something changes.

SCIUTTO: Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, we appreciate you joining us this morning.

DUNCAN: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, President Trump is making a number of false or uncorroborated claims about voter fraud to justify his continued failure to concede the election. So, today, let's take a moment to deal with just one of them.

He has repeatedly perpetuated a baseless conspiracy theory that glitches in Dominion Voting Systems, a widely used voting software system, led to millions of miscast ballots.

Here are the facts, though. This began with a pair of vote tallying problems in just a couple of Michigan counties, but local officials there pointed to human error, not the company's software, as the reason behind it. Those problems in those counties were corrected.

Still, the president is claiming a national problem that does not exist, writing, quote, Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Without showing any evidence he claimed that states using the company's technology had, quote, switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.

To be clear, this is a lie. There have been no credible reports that any issues with Dominion's technologies affected vote counts. Dominion itself has refuted claims about problems with its technology.

It maintains that it is a non-partisan company and that its results are 100 percent auditable, that means they can be checked. Perhaps most notable, the Department of Homeland Security and the agency under it that monitors election security, we should note, all led by appointees of President Trump, have publicly refuted the president's charge regarding Dominion, saying in a statement, quote, there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised. It went on to state, quote, the November 3rd election was the most secure election in American history.

Those are the facts.

Poppy.

HARLOW: Amen to the facts.

All right, straight ahead, the latest on British Prime Minister's Boris Johnson's condition after he was exposed again to coronavirus.

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[09:53:20]

SCIUTTO: Well, right now the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, is self-isolating after coming into contact with a COVID positive person.

HARLOW: You might be scratching your head thinking, but didn't he already have COVID? He did, back in the spring. He actually spent several days in the intensive care unit as he battled the virus.

Max Fosters joins us in London this morning.

Hi, Max.

You know, I guess they know if you can get it -- you can get it again.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: So, how is he doing and exactly how is he running the U.K. right now from isolation?

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's in the best spirits we've seen him in for some time. What happened here was back on Thursday he had a meeting with members of parliament, lots of questions now being asked about whether or not those face-to-face meetings were necessary. Why they weren't wearing masks.

But the upshot was that one of those members of parliament later tested positive for coronavirus and through the track and trace system here in the U.K., the prime minister was told he had to isolate, which is what he's doing in the building behind me, even filming his own videos on his mobile phone.

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BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It doesn't matter that I'm fit as a butcher's dog. I feel great, as so many people do in my circumstances. And actually it doesn't matter that I've had the disease and I'm bursting with antibodies. We've got to interrupt the spread of the disease and one of the ways we can do that now is by self-isolating for 14 days when you get contacted by NHS, test and trace.

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FOSTER: And for those wondering, fit as a butcher's dog is a phrase that some people use here. And it basically means fit.

But this is not really what the prime minister needs right now. He's had an office in crisis.

[09:55:00]

He's facing various external crises as well.

HARLOW: For sure he is to say the least.

Max Foster, it's an important message, though, that he sent out to Twitter to everyone.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Thanks very, very much.

All right, we are continuing to follow major COVID headlines. Some really good news this morning. Drug maker Moderna reporting their vaccine is more than 94 percent effective, blowing expectations out of the water. We'll have the latest ahead.

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SCIUTTO: A very god Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

We begin this hour with a potential major breakthrough in the race for a COVID vaccine. Early phase three data from Moderna's vaccine, the one that's in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, shows it's a stunning 95.4 percent effective.

[10:00:00]

That is very close to Pfizer vaccine's rate of effectiveness. They announced that last week.