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Hospitalizations Climb To Record 73,000-Plus; Nationwide Positivity Rate Now Over 10 Percent; Senator Lindsey Graham Tells CNN He Spoke To Arizona Governor And Nevada Election Officials About The Integrity Of The Vote; White House Task Force: U.S. Battling "Unrelenting" COVID-19 Spread; Dr. Anthony Fauci: Convincing Enough Americans To Get COVID-19 Vaccine "Is Going To Be A Difficult Task". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Top of the hour, hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am John king in Washington. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Reason to help this morning coupled with a new warning from Dr. Anthony Fauci, vaccines can get the country out of this pandemic but not right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There's light at the end of the tunnel. Help is on the way. So a vaccine should not have you then make a decision well, we're going to have a vaccine, so we don't have to do anything else. No. The fact that we have a vaccine coming means we should double down and hang in there, because help is on the way, which would motivate us to do even better with public health measures.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Americans celebrate Thanksgiving next week, sitting around the table with loved ones is a tradition, and would be even more welcome after months of COVID distancing. But the science says don't, or at least scale back, because it is simply too risky. And new numbers leave no doubt.

The Coronavirus is out of control at this moment. 166,000 cases on Monday, that's the third highest daily total of this outbreak. The daily case average now at 155,000 infections per day. The United States racked up nearing 1.1 million cases in just the last seven days.

Maybe most troubling, hospitalizations across the country, you see the map there, hitting record levels. 73,000 patients hospitalized Monday. Emergency room staffs around the country will soon be overwhelmed if they are not already. And the rise in infections guarantees that hospitalization number indeed will climb. The new weekly report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force says

there's zero evidence things are getting better. And the U.S. is now battling "Aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread". Now most presidents would be talking then like Dr. Fauci, asking you to be extra careful now and for a few more months until vaccines are available.

But President Trump's attention still again today on a web of conspiracy theories about the election outcome. The popular vote now tilting overwhelmingly, 5 million votes in Joe Biden's favor. Election Day was two weeks ago.

The Biden victory was crystal clear ten days ago. But the president still refuses to authorize transition cooperation. Ten days lost and counting on bringing the president-elects team up to speed one life and death issues like coordinating the roll out of that Coronavirus vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, people may die if we don't coordinate. They say they have this warp speed program that not only dealt with getting vaccines, but also how to distribute this. If we have to wait until January 20th to start that planning, it puts us behind, over a month, month and a half.

(ENDVIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's take a closer look at the numbers. And they are again sad today. You look at the state trend map here. Orange and red are bad. You see some deep red up here from the Midwest up to New England in the Northeast. That's 50 percent more COVID infections now than a week ago or more. 50 percent or higher.

The orange also states trending in the wrong direction. 45 of the 50 states, 45 of the 50 states on this day reporting more new COVID infections than a week ago. That's a trend line decidedly in the wrong direction. You look at the daily, it's just horrible to look at, that is straight up. Right.

Remember we started this in the spring, summer surge that we thought was horrific, came down a bit, now were shooting straight up. Monday, 166,000 and 45 cases. 14 straight days of over 100,000 new cases a day across the United States.

If you look at the total cumulative cases from the beginning, you see how steep the hill is getting, more than a million cases, 1.09 million cases added in just a week. In just seven days. You see the mountain continuing to climb.

And sadly with that, you see the blue line is the death trend, it is trickling up as well. 995 Americans lost to the Coronavirus yesterday. You see the trend line heading up. Most experts think 1500 a day is in our very near future. We hope they're wrong, but the trend lines certainly seem to suggest they're not. In part because hospitalizations. 73,000 Americans in the hospital with Coronavirus on yesterday.

Remember we hit about 60,000 both in the first time up the hill, than the summer surge, now we have blown past that. We are setting records every day. Seven straight days, a week in a row. Every day this past week, hospitalization records across the United States.

And this is why, you look at the positivity map here and the deeper the blue, the darker the map, the shade, the worse it is. 23 percent in Missouri. 52 percent positivity in Iowa. You think you're not going to beat that. 57 percent in South Dakota. 63 percent in Wyoming. And so on.

More infections today. People are testing positive and many guess what, many of those people then spreading it in their communities. If you look at the top five states in terms of positivity, Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho, out Midwest, upper Midwest out into the mountains and the plains there, 50 percent or higher in those states.

So you have a challenge today. You also have an incoming administration in 60 days, trying to get its handle. They will inherit this, the Biden team will inherit this.

[12:05:00]

KING: The experts in the government, the president says, I am not going to cooperate, I am not ready to cooperate, the experts who know how the government works, say, please, quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FAUCI: I have not had contact with the president, with the Vice President Biden, no, I have not.

DR. RICK BRIGHT, BIDEN COVID-19 ADVISORY BOARD: Lives are at stake here. If we miss this opportunity to coordinate now, we could experience hiccups or delays that really we don't need to see. Americans deserve smooth transitions we can make sure to save their lives from this pandemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining us now to discuss this moment, CNN's Abby Phillip and CNN's Kaitlan Collins. And Kaitlan, I want to start with you, because I go through those numbers every day, and they depress me. It's just a sad statement. We don't hear from the president about them at all.

We do hear from Dr. Fauci. We just read some of a snippet's excerpts from a Coronavirus Task Force report from the White House, talking about how dire the situation is. Our Kevin Liptak, who works with you on our - White House team, this is part of his report this morning.

Trump has demonstrated little interest in adding more to his schedule, people familiar with the matter said, and few aides have raised the idea with him because of his dark mood and preoccupation with his loss. Trump is spending mornings in the residence watching television, arriving in the Oval Office later in the afternoon and remaining into the evening.

He goes back-and-forth between the office and his adjoining dining room, which is equipped with the large televisions and where newspapers and magazines are strewn across the table. We know he likes to watch things that tell him he is great. But is he paying attention at all to the idea, that he is still president for two months, and the country is in a ditch.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that's the concern is that, he's just checked out of this, and not really paying attention as much, because he did provide that update on Operation Warp Speed on Friday.

But you saw the way he was talking, he was heavily implying that Pfizer waited to release that data on their vaccine until after the election, arguing that it was political, even though that time line really followed what medical experts have been saying all along is when we likely get the information.

And so, what's notable about the president's schedule and the fact that he has had basically nothing besides lunches and a few meetings on the public facing schedule that they released to reporters is that, he is actually staying in the Oval Office much later than he ever did before the election and before he was on the road for several weeks.

Last night he was in the Oval Office until about 8'o clock. We know, because we get a lid whenever he goes to the residence. And that's why he continues to make calls and watch television. So he is in the West Wing, but he has really nothing on his public schedule, he is not attending Coronavirus Task Force meetings. We know he hasn't attended in several months.

And so, that's really been the question as you see him try to take these hard charging moves, and you see "The New York Times" reporting about the strike in Iran, we've talked about the troop draw down overseas as well the president is also expected to order.

He is making those moves that we kind of expected, but he's also not filling his schedule with a lot of meetings or trying to end these last two months on a strong note of look at all the work that I am doing.

It's really kind of been where the president has been venting to aides, he's paying close attention to the lawsuits and what's happening with those across the United States, and really having those conversations instead of the ones that you would see in day to day governing activities.

KING: And instead, Abby Phillip, what we do see from the president, his allies is constantly questioning the election results. And again, the president has every right to go into a court anywhere in America and make his case if he has evidence. The problem is time and time again, in state after state after state, and I could go on, they have been turned away, that they simply don't have any evidence of massive fraud. They might have a vote here or vote there, nothing that would overturn

the election. But now we are learning today among the things here is that Senator Lindsey Graham is calling around. Listen first to the Georgia Secretary of State, the Republican Secretary of State who I saw you earlier on our air, rightly so pointed out, said repeatedly he wants Trump to win, said repeatedly he wants the Republican Senate candidates to win in Georgia.

But guess what? The results show Joe Biden is winning, the Secretary of State is counting the votes, and he says, he got a curious call from Senator Graham. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R) GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: I asked if the ballots could be matched back to the voters and I got the sense it implied that then you could throw those out for any, really we look at the counties with the highest frequent error of signatures. Just an implication that look hard and see how many ballots you can throw out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Senator Graham there, I will read it, just to be fair to him, if Secretary of State feels threatened by that conversation, he's got a problem. I actually thought it was a good conversation. We are learning today Abby just moments ago after a hearing Senator Graham said he has also spoken to the Governor of Arizona and election officials in Nevada about election integrity.

Now he is the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has every right to have questions about these issues. However, it's the timing. Let the states finish their work. And then if you have questions about them or call them in or bring them into an official hearing if you have questions about them. Don't be the - am I wrong here the president's friend, Lindsey Graham, who also happens to be a Chairman, checking in during a sensitive time in the process.

[12:10:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm checking in specifically with Republican officials in those states that the president would need to overturn the results in order to get to 270 electoral votes. Arizona's Republican Governor and Nevada's Republican Secretary of State and Georgia's Republican Secretary of State getting calls from Lindsey Graham, but John, you're right.

Sure, Lindsey Graham might have some standing potentially as the Judiciary Committee Chairman to ask questions about issues if there were issues. The problem is that we have not gotten evidence of any specific claims of widespread voter fraud or election problems in any of those seats, that is the underlying problem here.

So sure, if there were actual problems on the table, an investigation into those problems would absolutely be warranted. But it seems like Lindsey Graham is fishing for these officials to find problems where last I checked, it has been two weeks since voters went to the polls in the United States.

And we have yet to come up with any evidence of widespread fraud, which is why all of these cases and virtually all of these cases there have been no results that have actually overturned enough votes that it would change the outcome of this election.

Again, we're not talking about a handful of votes here or handful of votes there, we're talking about tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of votes across many states.

KING: And just a little math lesson. Republicans apparently have lost their ability to do math, even if you had the pixie dust and somehow flipped Georgia, flipped Arizona, and flipped Nevada, Joe Biden is still president. Those three states have not enough.

PHILLIP: --Pennsylvania.

KING: Not enough, they would need Pennsylvania along with it. Rudy Giuliani is heading of course today. Kaitlan, let me wrap it up with this, because you mentioned this at the top, how is the president spending his time? Every president on the way out has an opportunity of a couple of months left in office to do a few more things that you want to do.

The president has every right to do his job. Every right to do his job. And Joe Biden recognizes that, one president at a time. However "The New York Times" as you noted reporting today, President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had option to take action against Iran's main nuclear site in the coming weeks.

The meetings occurred a day after international inspectors reported, a significant increase in the country stockpile of nuclear material. Four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday. He is the Commander in Chief until noon on January 20th. That is an ominous meeting. What are people saying about it?

COLLINS: They're not surprised by it, of course, that the president wanted to explore those options. The ultimate decision according to "The New York Times" in this reporting is that the advisers convinced the president not to follow through with it. Whether or not that maintains to be the case until January is still another question.

Of course, remember it was just a year ago almost that Soleimani was killed in that strike, while the president was in Florida at his Mar- a-Lago club. So I still think it's to be determined. But I think their argument had been, these are the closing days of your time in office.

One of your biggest accomplishments is that, you didn't get involved in any more entanglements in the Middle East. And so, that's something that the president can hang his hat on. But of course the question is, what other implications do the decisions the president makes in the next 60 days have on the Biden Administration?

And with the troop draw down, which we are still waiting for that formal order to come down from the president, that would be something that would be significant. And last night, H.R. McMaster, who was the president's first national --- excuse me, second National Security Adviser after Mike Flynn, said he believed it was a bug risk for the president to do that.

Because he was talking about the labels that they were - the levels that they were at in the Middle East with troop levels right now. He said he believed it was a sustainable level right now, and said the chance that the president is taking by following through with these troop draw downs could have lasting effects, and those effects could come in years on the Biden Administration or potentially one after that.

So I think those are the decisions that we are watching closely. But I also want to point out, the president is making these decisions, a lot of the moves that he is making are ones that he might have made even if he had won the election, firing the defense secretary was one, considering firing the CIA Director was another.

We know in October he was tweeting, it seemed to be trying to get people to vote for him about these troop draw down levels. So we will have to see what he does over the next 60 days. But aides say, you should expect it not to be a quiet period.

KING: Kaitlan Collins at the White House. Abby Phillip with us here, I appreciate the reporting and the insights so much. When we come back, again the Coronavirus vaccine is coming, but it is a very difficult couple of months ahead before it does.

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KING: Another apparent vaccine breakthrough his week offer some hope in what will be the country's most difficult pandemic week. The challenge now is twofold. Get the government ready to distribute millions of doses to Americans and navigate the pandemic in the meantime.

With us to share their important insights, Dr. Paul Offit, he sits on the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Walensky, I want to start with you because of the urgency of the moment. People hear vaccines are coming, and I think the fear is we've discussed this before they will let down their guard.

This is from the president's Coronavirus Task Force. We don't hear this from the president himself. He is virtually silent on this issue. But there's now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement, but rather further deterioration.

Current mitigation efforts are inadequate, and must be increased to flatten the curve. I read these all the time when they come out. They're routinely depressing. I don't think I've read one this straight from the White House Coronavirus Task Force as grave as that. DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes, good afternoon, John.

I think we have a lot of work ahead of us, not just in backing distribution but in controlling a pandemic. This vaccine has not wanted to - able to get us out of a problem that is as massive as the one we have. And sort of a play that - cup of water, which will work well at the time to put out the fire or so. It's not going to work well on a wild fire.

So while we may very well have an incredibly potent vaccine, we may have two, we really need to be in the place in this country where we are able to distribute and deport it, and where we are effectively tampering down a pandemic, rather than trying to and deploy it and let the wildfire.

[12:20:00]

KING: And so, Dr. Offit as we try to deal with the wildfire, I think that's an opthanology. We do have this hope. First Pfizer, now Moderna saying their vaccine candidates have demonstrated in the trials very high efficacy. I want you to listen here, this is Dr. Rick Bright who was involved in the government's vaccine efforts.

He obviously left the Trump Administration in a dispute, he was a whistle-blower left. Now he is advising the president-elect's team. And he talks about how the data is encouraging, but he still has some questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BRIGHT: It's all in the data; it really is in the data that we need to see that efficacy for all people. Right now, we have some early interim data that we are hearing about, that could be in the same population of people. We need to make sure that the information that we see and the data we see showed that the vaccine is safe and effective in all people, in all populations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is part of your work on the Advisory Committee. Explain to general audience what Rick Bright is talking about, and what are your big questions about OK, it looks good, but?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, we haven't seen the data yet. What we have seen is, we've two press releases where the pharmaceutical companies have told us, those parts of the data that they would like us to see.

But the fact of the matter is, is that by the time both of them submit to the FDA, both Pfizer and Moderna, they probably will have 160 or 165 people in those trials who have gotten ill, which was the primary objective.

Honestly, just to take a step back for a moment, we had this virus in hand in January of this year, we knew that the genome, meaning that part of the virus instructs it had to reproduce itself in January of this year. In November now, eleven months later, we have two large clinical trials, with 30,000 and 44,000 people using this particular technology, Messenger RNA technology where you briefly introduced the gene into the cell that coats for the Coronavirus white protein.

And what appears to be pretty dramatic results. Dr. Bright is right. We need to look at the details of all these studies. But if you had asked any scientist in this country whether we would be where we are now eleven months from now, I don't think you have gotten one who would have thought we have been here.

So I think we have a lot of reason for hope here. Rochelle is right; I think this is now another tool we have in this - against this virus. And it's not going to all make it magically go away, but it is enormously encouraging.

KING: And so, if it is another tool that's coming and it is enormously encouraging, and it's good to hear that, because Dr. Offit your value to me in recent months has been to tell everybody to calm down, and be cautious here. So it's good to hear you optimistic. So Dr. Walensky, the challenge then is to convince the American people.

I get completely first deal with the crisis now, stay safe, don't let down your guard. But there is a huge issue now about whether people will trust this because of the environment we live in, pre-COVID, but especially accelerated during COVID. Here's Dr. Fauci's case on that on sort of the public education urgency that must now happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FAUCI: We've got to do outreach, we've got to be transparent. And we've got to get public health issues out of the realm of political divisiveness. This is not a political issue. If one element of the country or multiple elements of the country don't cooperate with an infectious disease, we're going to continue to be in trouble.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is your wheel house; he is the chief of infectious disease. Explain what Dr. Fauci means if people essentially decide, I am not playing, I am not participating, I don't trust the vaccine. What happens?

DR. WALENSKY: Yes. I think that there are two other major pieces of the puzzle. We needed an effective vaccine and on the whole we got two quickly which is incredible. What we also need is we need effective pace of scale-up and we need coverage, we need a lot of coverage.

We need accept abilities so that people want to take this vaccine and you need all of them together. So in terms of how is this going to make a difference, it's going to make a difference when we have investments in public health.

The investments in the development of vaccine on Operation Warp Speed have been on the context of billions, those in the distribution have been in the context of millions. And we really need more infrastructures to be able to build it out.

KING: And Dr. Offit one of the questions for the new team coming in, "The Wall Street Journal" raises one today. You have a Trump Administration again they had some mistakes in the Coronavirus rollout, some people will set Hydroxychloroquine as an example of maybe political influence rushing something out there for Emergency Authorization Use. But other drugs that have been helpful, Remdesivir and others have gone through the process very quickly.

"The Wall Street Journal" Editorial Board raises the question, there's reforms are one of the success stories of the federal COVID response. But there's a serious risk that the Biden team will default to their instincts and re-impose a culture of bureaucratic control that restricts new medical advances.

Do you believe that with the president-elect teams are the right conversations happening that here's where we maybe want to stick to the old way? But here are some things we have learned in this process about speeding things up, about being less bureaucratic, more innovative and entrepreneurial?

[12:25:00]

DR. OFFIT: Yes. I think we've learned a lot in this. I mean, the fact of the matter is when you submit as these companies, Pfizer and Moderna will submit their data to the FDA for typically what would be licenser announcement be a approval through Emergency Use Authorization. The average length of time it takes to get a license is about ten months.

If you have an expedited value review, you have six months, obviously that's not going to happen here under this administration or the next administration. This is going to be done quickly. I think I'm sure that by the beginning of December, we are going to be sitting down to look at the data from these two vaccines and then it's going to go to the CDC's Advisory Committee for immunization practice.

And then very quickly I think this is going to be rolling out into the arms of the American public. I think we've learned a lot in this about how we can move quickly. And I think really, the administration has to be praised at some level for being able to be - willing to spend the money to basically take the risk out for pharmaceutical companies by paying for Phase III trials which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and paying for mass production which cause hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

I think that what has happened has taught us how quickly and efficiently we can do something. It really reminds me of the sort of polio program in the 1950s where again that was kind of warp speed one, where five companies made vaccines at risk, and that's what's happened here. It's really a testament I think to American will and know how. I just wish we could apply the same thing to the hygienic measures as we do for this vaccine.

KING: I certainly hope the new team learns from both the bad and the good from the Trump Administration response. Dr. Offit, Dr. Walensky, grateful for your time and for your insights. Up next for us, Republicans in limbo, their internal clashes and what it means for the party's support of President Trump.

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