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U.S. Now Averaging 155,000-Plus New Coronavirus Infections a Day; Georgia Election Official Says, Recount Will Affirm Biden's Win. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN RIGHT NOW: We have entered the disaster zone of the coronavirus pandemic. The country is now averaging more than 155,000 new infections a day and climbing. Monday alone, the nation reported 166,000-plus new cases with 995 deaths. That's 995 people who are gone when they didn't have to die.

And the death count is going to increase. The positivity rates that we are seeing across the country will ensure that. More than 10 percent of coronavirus tests nationwide are coming back positive. This is a level we have not seen since May. And yet 301 days since the first U.S. case was reported, and there was still no nationally coordinated plan.

The president has given up. He is not governing. His White House task force, with whom he has not met for five months, has increased its urgency in its weekly reports to states writing, quote, there is 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 to sustain the health system for both COVID and non-COVID emergencies.

Many health systems right now are on the brink. 73,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID right now. That is the highest number ever. Those on the frontlines are exhausted and they're warning that they are maxed out. They're watching their own colleagues being admitted to the ICU knowing that person has seen patients die alone from COVID and they are now at risk of the same type of final isolation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those patients were so sick and there was nothing we could do for them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We, flat out, don't have the resources, we just don't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is awful, awful, awful watching people die alone. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This situation is unsustainable and it is going to get worse if we continue to set new records every day of infections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We walk into these COVID units, you hear the sounds of the monitors beeping, something about the heart rate, respiration, you hear ventilators going all around the unit because most of these people are on ventilators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look how many pumps, this is one patient.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You hear bells ring when things go wrong, call it a code blue whenever there's a cardiac arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're so tired of hearing, code blue, code blue, the code blue, blue lights flashing. Y'all, the morgue was so full of bodies that they have ran out of room. They've had to bring in freezer trucks. There's just so many bodies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Charles Mains (ph), one of the ICU nurses who was a patient about three months ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taking care of Charles was kind of scary. He is the sickest employee that I have taken care of.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our cases started to rise. We had a couple of co-workers that got critically ill, and they're crying to you, because they're still scared and they're alone, and it was scary. We were truly worried that they might not make it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When things are dragging out for a year, year-and- a-half, two years, then we don't feel like heroes any more. We feel like we are sacrificial lambs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: El Paso County, Texas, the Medical Examiner's Office is so overwhelmed by the pandemic, they have recruited inmates to move the bodies of coronavirus victims. Just a few weeks ago, the county requested four more mobile morgues to add to the six that it already has to house bodies there.

Since the pandemic began, more than 76,000 have tested positive and there have been more than 700 deaths in El Paso.

CNN Correspondent Omar Jimenez is there. So, Omar, tell us why inmates are helping the medical examiner rather than medical personnel or the National Guard?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna. Well, this is meant to be a temporary measure as they await help from the National Guard, though timing on that front is still unclear. Remember, there are members of the U.S. military that were sent here to assist in the coronavirus response.

But in this case, for the inmates, they're ones that volunteer, literally outfitted with full PPE and assist those at the morgue's office in moving bodies as the medical examiner tries to keep up with the pace of bodies they have seen in this pandemic, particularly here in El Paso.

And listen to the county judge on why he says they felt this was a step they needed to take.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE RICARDO SAMANIEGO, EL PASO, TEXAS: It's temporary opportunity for us to give a helping hand to how exhausted some of our personnel and staff are at the Medical Examiner's Office.

[13:05:00]

We are shorthanded. People are really tired. Nurses, doctors are tired. And it was our way -- it's a very secure process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And that is on top of the refrigerated units that we had seen requested and brought in to help with that process as well.

And if you remember last week, there was a lot of debate going back and forth from the county and the state over a shutdown of non- essential businesses. Well, the state eventually won that appeals process as leadership here tries to get on the same page on how exactly they are going to move forward in this fight.

One of the things we heard from the mayor here was that one of the big places they were seeing major spread was big box stores, for example. And that's why they're limiting the amount of people that go into places like Walmart and other places like that.

And when you consider the numbers, the sheer amount of significance of coronavirus here in El Paso, more than 50 percent of the entire hospital capacity is for COVID-19 patients. Hospitalizations topping a thousand, around record levels, more than 300 of those hospitalizations are ICU patients.

And when you breakdown the number of active cases, more than 30,000 active cases with the total population here, that gets you to about one in every 24 people actively has COVID-19 here in El Paso. Brianna?

KEILAR: Well, those are numbers that cannot be ignored. Omar, thank you so much for that report from El Paso, Texas.

On the Senate floor, the politics of masks erupted between two senators. Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan was presiding over the chamber when the Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown opened his remarks on the president's Fed nominee by asking Sullivan to mask up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Mr. President.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator from Ohio. BROWN: I'd start by asking the presiding officer to please wear a mask as he speaks and people below him, I can't tell you what to do, but I know that behavior --

SEN. DAN SULLIVAN (R-AK): I don't wear a mask when I am speaking, like most senators. I don't need your instruction.

BROWN: I know you don't need my instruction, but there clearly isn't much interest in this body in public health.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, Sullivan, because we looked at the tape, was not wearing a mask while not speaking, to be clear. But still, Republican Senator Ted Cruz came to Sullivan's aid, calling Sherrod Brown a complete ass. He tweeted that Brown wears a mask to speak when nobody is remotely near him as an ostentatious sign of fake virtue. Dan Sullivan was over 50 feet away, last I checked, 50 feet is more than 6 feet.

Well, a couple of things here. First, Cruz is missing Brown's point that Sullivan was within spitting distance. I mean, just look of several Senate floor staffers. You can see it right there. When Republican Senator Joni Ernst presided over the chamber before, Sullivan, here she is, wearing a mask.

And second, six feet when indoors is an outdated guideline for social distancing. The CDC has explained this. Quote, small droplets and particles can linger in the air for minutes to hours. These viruses may be able to infect people who are further than six feet away from the person who is infected or after that person has left the space.

Now, the CDC warns that people with COVID-19 have infected others who are more than six feet away within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation, like the Senate floor, which does not have windows.

But since Senator Cruz brought up asses, this was his grand prediction back in July.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): If it ends up that Biden wins in November, I hope he doesn't, I don't think he will, but if he does, I guarantee you the week after the election, suddenly all those Democratic governors, all those Democratic mayors will say everything is magically better. Go back to work, go back to school. Suddenly, the problems are solved. You won't even have to wait for Biden to be sworn in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He said, suddenly all those Democratic governors will say everything is magically better. Well, what's happening is that governors, Democrats and Republicans, are putting restrictions in place to fight the spread. So, let's go state by state here. California, they are considering a curfew. Massachusetts, there's already a curfew in place. In New York and Virginia, restaurants and businesses with liquor

license must close at 10:00 P.M. In Jersey, criminal and civil jury trials are now suspended. In Michigan, a new emergency order is in effect, this limits indoor gatherings. And in Mississippi, there are seven new counties that are now under a mask mandate.

And then there are other states with GOP governors, including those who had previously resisted restrictive measures. They are starting to follow science. In Utah, the entire state is under mask mandate, and casual gatherings are limited to just households there. In North Dakota, after months of resisting, the Republican governor there just did a 180, mandating masks and limiting the size of gatherings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): Our situation has changed and we must change with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: In West Virginia, this is what Republican Governor Jim Justice said at the beginning of the pandemic.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): For crying out loud, go to the grocery stores. If you want to go to Bob Evans and eat, go to Bob Evans and eat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: West Virginia escaped the initial COVID surge but now it is setting records. And here is what Governor Justice is now saying as he implements a stricter mask mandate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTICE: I need you to quit believing in any way that somebody is going to come and take your guns or it's unconstitutional or whatever it may be. Who cares about all that right at this moment? Right at this moment, all we need to do is try to some way break the chain of this killer that's eating us alive.

We need to stop listening to this noise out of people that just want to take your money to buy their campaign rhetoric or want to absolutely just be relevant. Silly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, in Iowa, this was Republican Governor Kim Reynolds back in July when the White House task force advised the state lockdown to prevent major spread, saying, quote, no, I am not going to mandate masks, I trust Iowans. I believe in Iowans. There is no way to enforce it. Most of the states or entities that have done that, they have actually gone as far as to say, we're not going to enforce it, so it is just kind of a feel good.

Well, now, Governor Reynolds is reversing course, mandating masks for the first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. KIM REYNOLDS (R-IA): No one wants to do this. I don't want to do this.

If Iowans don't buy into this, we lose. Businesses will close once again. More schools will be forced to go online. And our health care system will fail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, these governors are finally accepting reality but not in South Dakota. This is Republican Governor Kristi Noem, a Trump loyalist through and through. She once brought a miniature Mt. Rushmore to charm the president after he asked her about the possibility of adding his face to the monument.

Her state is one of the epicenters right now, and it's one of a handful that has issued no restrictions of any kind. She described her general philosophy on knowledge and governing at the RNC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): We are not and will not be the subjects of an elite class of so-called experts. We the people are the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Her office released this statement in response to calls recently for a mask mandate. Quote, it's a good day for freedom. Joe Biden realizes that the president doesn't have the authority to institute a mask mandate, for that matter, neither does Governor Noem, which is why she has provided citizens with the full scope of science and trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved ones.

The full scope of the science, says a governor that's given air to those that question the effectiveness of masks, the proven effectiveness of masks.

This isn't a legitimate debate. The death rate in Governor Kristi Noem's state is one of the highest in the nation, so is the case rate now and yet she continues to placate President Trump's insecurities at the expense of the public health of her constituents, essential workers and the medical staff, including this nurse from Woonsocket, South Dakota, who described what it's been like to witness people dying of COVID.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JODI DOERING, REGISTERED EMERGENCY ROOM NURSE: Their last dying words are, this can't be happening, it's not real. And when they should be spending time FaceTiming families, they're filled with anger and hatred.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And this doctor from Sioux Falls, who is begging Noem to do something, to do anything.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. WENDELL HOFFMAN, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST AT SANFORD HEALTH: Governor Noem, the people are suffering. We have a thousand cases a day. And this is not just about being in the hospital or the percentage of hospital beds, this is about the vast array of conditions that will develop for people in general getting COVID. We need to throw everything we have at it.

I get that you don't want strict lockdowns. Neither do I. Those are devastating too. But we can't just let the virus run without throwing everything we have at it. And that means, Governor, you need to be out in front of the people and you need to encourage all of the mitigating strategies that even have the potential, including masks, which I know you have sort of said the results were mixed. I'm sorry, Governor, but all of medicine is mixed results. That's what we do every day.

So, please, we have to take a different course.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: South Dakotans are dying because of their leader's malfeasance. South Dakotans are dying without dignity, in some cases, wondering how their body is ravaged by something they didn't think was real. South Dakotans are sounding the alarm.

[13:15:00]

Are you listening, Governor Noem?

We just mentioned how the Republican governor of Iowa has abruptly changed her stance on masks. For months, Governor Kim Reynolds rejected a mask mandate, she called it a feel good measure. But that changed yesterday. Since the pandemic began, Iowa's coronavirus cases and deaths have only gone in one direction, up.

CNN National Correspondent Miguel Marquez is Decorah, Iowa, which is in an area that has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Tell us the other measures that the governor is mandating, Miguel.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, all of Iowa is being hard hit by this pandemic right now is what we are discovering. And to be very, very clear, what the governor has put into place doesn't even come close to what the CDC recommends for mask mandates. She has put into place some recommendations. She's shaved off the hours that bars and restaurants can be open. The mask -- but she's left wide sort of exceptions for churches and for schools.

The mask mandates or rules that she put in effect are sort of riddled with holes as well. If you go into a public space and you are there for less than 15 minutes and you can stay six feet from people, you don't have to wear a mask. But you're going to be there for more than 15 minutes and you're going to be too close to people, then you do have to wear a mask.

Public health officials here are in shock. They feel it is too little too late. Her own board of health, the Iowa Board of Health, these members that she appointed last week in a 7-2 vote urged her to put in a statewide mask mandate and that still hasn't been done.

Meanwhile, you have not only cases exploding here but hospitalizations. One month ago, there were less than 500 Iowans in hospitals with COVID-19. Today, that number is tripled. It's about 1,500 now across Iowa with COVID, and it's going up everywhere, small towns and big cities in Iowa all across the board.

And what's happening is the entire system is starting to fill up. So, in Decorah and in Cresco, where we're doing a story that you'll see later today, lots of cases coming in there, they can't care. They don't have the resources, they don't have the nurses, they don't have the ability, they don't have the stuff they need to take care of the most critically ill from COVID. So they move them to other hospitals, bigger hospitals.

Now, when they call them, they say, no room at the inn. It is harder and harder for them to move those patients and that is going to be the biggest problem here. The entire system is starting to back up. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes. And that's when we see the problems. We start to seeing the problems there. Miguel, thank you so much for telling us what's going on in Iowa.

MARQUEZ: You bet.

KEILAR: Next, a Republican lawmaker in Michigan tells President Trump to admit that he lost. He is going to join me live.

Plus, the Republican in charge of Georgia elections says Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina suggested that he throw out legal votes. And now critics are calling that criminal.

And we're going to roll the tape on all of the promises and the claims that the Trump administration made about COVID as cases soared.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

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[13:20:00]

KEILAR: Just in, an election official in Georgia says the state's recount is on track to finish for tomorrow and will affirm President- elect Joe Biden's win. He says, the vast majority of counties are reporting results that are spot on with initial tallies.

The majority of the Republican Party continues to humor President Trump's conspiracy theories and ramblings that he really won the election. They're afraid to contradict him for fear of political retribution or mean tweet. So it is noteworthy when Republicans stand up and say the truth about this, like Michigan Republican Congressman Paul Mitchell, who has told the president, it is time to move on, and that the good of this nation requires an effective transition. Let's just deal with it.

Congressman Paul Mitchell is joining me now. I should mention you have decided this summer not to run for re-election. So you will be exiting Congress soon. But you mention, quote, the good of this nation in this. Do you think the president is hurting the country by refusing to acknowledge President-elect Biden's win?

REP. PAUL MITCHELL (R-MI): I think it's necessary to begin a transition. I think that because it is -- you know this, you talked about it earlier, these are complex problems facing the nation, besides the pandemic, national security and all series of other things. And given the complexity, we need to start the process of transition to a new administration.

What's the worst thing that happens, if by some miracle the president prevails, then we went to the effort for nothing, but we need to move forward because the American people expect us to govern and not just raw politics.

I think election results say a lot about that, if they get tired of raw politics that they saw on both sides, I think that's why it cost Nancy Pelosi seats in the House, was

getting into raw politics rather than invest interest to the American people.

So I think we need to move on. I think the people have spoken and we have President-elect Biden and we need to accept that.

KEILAR: Well, you're saying if by some miracle the president prevails. I mean, it doesn't sound like you think that's going to happen, but are you saying that that could be essentially the rhetorical out for President Trump and others who support his efforts to prove that actually he won the election when he really didn't?

MITCHELL: Well, there are people that hold onto rhetorical outs for a whole lot of reasons. But, as you just said, the recount in Georgia looks like it's going to come out pretty much as they announced it. The president has failed in efforts to pursue legal challenges in a number of states, in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

[13:25:03]

And at some point in time, those all run out too very rapidly here. I believe we'll have the election results certified in Michigan and the Republican legislature in Michigan has said that they will seek electorates that reflect the popular vote.

In 2016, President Trump won by 10,704 votes, that's all, a very narrow margin. And electorate will see that it reflect that vote. They will be seen this time to reflect the vote for President-elect Biden because that's what the American people expect. Their votes count. And once they voted, we move forward with governing the nation.

KEILAR: So I know privately there are a lot of Republicans who won re-election and are in Congress, and they agree with you on this, that it is time to move on, it's time to acknowledge that President-elect Biden won, but they're following the queues of President Trump. And you know they would look at someone like you and say, well, that's easy for you to say, you're retiring. You're not running for re- election. So you can speak your mind on this. What do you say to those folks who are still -- they're staying and they may have to deal with the fallout of saying something like you said?

MITCHELL: Well, I think, first, I'm retiring but I am not falling off the face of the Earth. I agree with you.

KEILAR: That's true.

MITCHELL: I'm not leaving the population. And I have an opinion and I am going to express it. I think that I understand somebody would be hesitant to climb into it because they think it will resolve itself. There are other members of the group who have spoken up about this. Adam Kinzinger has among others. I think there are people speaking out more and more on this and some people don't see a need to do so at this point in time.

I just think transitions need it because we have some real challenges facing this nation and we need to not let time go by and have a haphazard transition because that's not in the best interest of the people in this country.

KEILAR: Congressman, thank you so much for being with us. And as you do leave your position in Washington, in Congress, good luck on the next chapter.

MITCHELL: Thanks very much for having me.

KEILAR: Of course, we really appreciate it.

And it is being called criminal, morally reprehensible. The Republican in charge of Georgia's election says Senator Lindsey Graham's approaching him about tossing legal votes, and Graham's former opponent, who is campaigning for Democrats in Georgia is going to join me next.

Plus, why Howard Stern says Trump T.V. would fail within a year.

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