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Wayne County, Michigan Okays Election Results After GOP's Brief Block; U.S. Reports Deadliest Day of Pandemic in Six Months. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired November 18, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:03]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And then a reversal by Republicans meant to certify the count in Michigan hours after blocking an election board from certifying Detroit's results sparked an outcry, the Republican members doing that on the panel changed their minds.

But the president is digging in this morning, continuing to undermine election results. He just fired the senior Homeland Security official who refuted his unfounded voter fraud claim.

So let's begin with our Kristen Holmes, she joins us this hour for what happened in Michigan overnight.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, it looked for a moment brief moment that it was going to be some kind of partisan win for Donald Trump. So, essentially, what we saw was in Wayne County, which is the home of Detroit, it is the biggest county in Michigan, a bipartisan election panel that certifies the election in that county was deadlocked, two Republicans, two Democrats. The Republicans saying that they didn't want to certify the results.

Now, keep in mind, this is a routine practice and Joe Biden won in Detroit by huge margins. Now, they were saying that there were examples where Detroit tracings didn't line up, the data was mismatched, meaning that there was a different number of people who had signed into the poll books than the number of people who actually voted. This margin was incredibly slim. In some precincts, it was one or two.

But we reached out to an election expert to see what was going on here and they said that this is completely normal. And, in fact, these discrepancies were much larger in 2016 when the election was certified and in the primary earlier in 2020. This was a very small margin here. But this really just caused an enormous amount of uproar across the state.

You have to keep in mind one thing in particular, which is that the city is 75 percent black. So, saying they wouldn't certify that basically disenfranchised a huge amount of black voters in Michigan here. And there was a lot of outcry over that as well, citing that this is some sort of racist attempt, et cetera.

But I do want to note one thing. While they did eventually certify, Donald Trump latched onto this. He said that they -- he praised these officials. He said that they had courage and, again, as you say, he continues to lash out against the election.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, all right. We're waiting as a country for the General Services Administration, little-known body but plays an important role in allowing the transition and sharing of resources between the outgoing and incoming president. You're learning more about the administrator who leads the GSA and her decision. Is there any progress there?

HOLMES: Yes. Emily Murphy, she is a Trump political appointee and we spoke to several people who have talked to her, who are close to her, who are colleagues of hers, who all say the same thing, that, essentially, she is following what she believes is precedent. The only other time a president didn't concede was back in 2000 with Al Gore and George Bush.

Now, I want to be very clear here. Experts have said over and over again that this is not the same scenario. However, those close to her, those who were talking to her say that is the precedent that she is currently looking at.

And I do want to note one thing here. They also say that she is struggling, that she is receiving death threats, but that they also believe that she should go ahead and ascertain this election. And it's still unclear what exactly is going to be the tipping point that gets her over the edge to get this formal transition going.

SCIUTTO: Kristen Holmes, good to have you, it's important.

Well, the White House is defending President Trump's decision to fire election security official Chris Krebs, who he appointed, while falsely claiming that President Trump will win the election that he lost. Those are the facts.

HARLOW: CNN Senior National Correspondent Alex Marquardt joins us this morning from Washington. Good morning, Alex. How is the White House defending this wildly criticized decision, by the way, not just from Democrats, whether it's Rob Portman or Ben Sasse or Richard Burr or Adam Kinzinger? They all think this is nuts.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi, guys. It's clear that the White House and President Trump in particular is furious at the way that this has been depicted by Krebs and his agency when he called this the most secure election in American history, because President Trump is desperately trying to prove otherwise.

We heard just a short time ago from the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who, in part, said that this was a partisan attempt to just hit back at the president.

So, Krebs' termination is very -- simply a case of someone telling the truth and being fired for it. Krebs was a very widely respected, dedicated public servant who would often say that his number one goal was to make sure Americans decided American elections. And in that, in this 2020 race, he succeeded.

Right after the election of November 3rd, his agency, CISA, which is the cyber arm of DHS, put out a statement saying that there had been no foreign interference that was able to change votes and vote tallies. And then just last week, CISA, along with a large group of other election officials from the federal government, from the states, from the private sector, said that this was the most secure election in U.S. history.

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They went on to say in this statement, there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised. And, of course, Jim and Poppy, that directly contradicts the president.

Krebs never directly called out the president, but in the days after the election, he was rebutting, refuting, rejecting claims both on the CISA website. They have a section called rumor control and on his own Twitter page, that did contradict the president, his allies, his supporters.

Krebs was shooting down conspiracy theories, these baseless claims, these lies very actively, including lies that votes were fraudulent, that had been changed by voting systems. There was one that really took hold among Trump supporters that there was a CIA super computer that was changing votes from Biden to Trump -- from Trump to Biden, rather.

And it was clear this big statement from CISA and the others saying this was the most secure vote was really something -- was really the thing that pushed Trump over the edge when it comes to Krebs.

Krebs did put out a tweet on his personal account last night shortly after being fired by tweet in which he said that he was honored to serve. We did it right. Defend today, secure tomorrow.

And from others at CISA, where he was widely respected, we have heard that that mission of defending today and securing tomorrow, which was Krebs' tagline, essentially his slogan, will continue. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Alex, thank you for the reporting. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Well, as Michigan's largest county certifies its election results, there is a bitter legal fight still under way over the results in Pennsylvania.

I'm joined by Mark Aronchick. He is the attorney for several of Pennsylvania's county election boards. And he went head to head with Rudy Giuliani, the Trump campaign's new lawyer in that case in court yesterday. Mark, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

MARK ARONCHICK, ATTORNEY FOR PENNSYLVANIA COUNTIES SUED BY TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Hi. Thank you for having me. SCIUTTO: All right. We spoke yesterday. You told me that Rudy Giuliani was outrageous in his claim, but notably this, that many of his claims in court were not actually related, you said, to the actual complaints. So tell us how it played out yesterday, what argument he made and how you responded.

ARONCHICK: Yes. Hey, Jim. This was one of the strangest court appearances I have ever had. We were there to deal with a complaint, and the complaint that the Trump campaign filed was that Philadelphia and other county election administrators were doing some things that they didn't think were right in the administration of in mail-in voting.

The claim had nothing about fraud, nothing about gigantic conspiracies. But in walked Mr. Giuliani and he talked only about fraud, gigantic conspiracies, the kinds of things that we heard at the driveway of the Total Landscaping press conference. But it bore no relationship to what we were actually sitting there doing in court.

And so I listened for a while, and I realized that I had to do two things. One was to deal with rather outrageous statements that he was making throughout his presentation. And the other was then to focus the court on what we were really there for. Because when you look at the complaint, and what was really involved in this case, it was a bunch of small ball complaints that various administrators didn't do some things correctly when we think administrators were doing the very best they could to run a fair and honest election.

SCIUTTO: Now, in the midst of that, Giuliani made some remarkable claims. I mean, he accused Philadelphia election workers of being a little mafia group. I mean, can you make accusations like that in a court of law without basis?

ARONCHICK: No, you really can't. And I wasn't going to sit there and let that go. I represent the government and all of the aspects that are making these elections work right for all Americans, and particularly for Pennsylvanians.

And these are patriots. These are public servants. These are people, who in the middle of a pandemic, went out there day after day and sometimes all night trying to get this election moving and right for the American people, an election that had the biggest turnout in Pennsylvania's history and probably in the United States history.

And so to sit there and see these sideswipes and these outrageous accusations of a little mafia, gigantic conspiracies among all of the big cities, it will show this conspiracy if he only has another chance to amend his complaint and he can start again and have a hearing.

[10:10:10]

It was just -- it was -- he was living in his own fantasy, but wasn't living in the reality of this court case. That's how I saw it.

SCIUTTO: Now, reality did eventually intervene, did it not? Because you say that Giuliani eventually conceded that the case wasn't about fraud or widespread fraud. How exactly did he make that concession?

ARONCHICK: Here is the greatness of our independent judicial system, and I hope all Americans see it. You can say all kinds of things on Twitter and in parking lot driveways and the like, but when you go into an American courtroom, you have to have evidence, facts.

You have to make legal arguments that are appropriate. And when all is said and done, the judge, who's a very good judge, just asked, you keep talking about fraud but I don't see this in the complaint. And, eventually, Mr. Giuliani said, you're right, we don't have fraud in the complaint. We're not talking about fraud.

And I've seen this now several times where the campaign comes in with big accusations about fraud and then retreats under pressure from judges to explain themselves and tell the American people what they're talking about.

SCIUTTO: So where does that leave big picture? And I know you're a party just to the case in Pennsylvania, but you have enormous experience in these kinds of cases. Where does that leave this legal challenge that the president is still talking and tweeting about this morning?

ARONCHICK: Well, let me just give a word about Pennsylvania. Because in the middle of yesterday's federal court hearing, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in another case of mine issued a very important ruling saying that all of these accusations about whether observers of the campaign had meaningful access to watch the counting and watch the administration of mail-in ballots, the Supreme Court said, yes, they did. Under the law, they, as well as all campaigns, had access. They were observers in the way that the election code expects.

And so in the middle of the argument in federal court about these broad, wild accusations, our Pennsylvania Supreme Court reaffirmed another principle that tells us all that this election was run very well. With all of the challenges, with all of the pandemic issues and the mail-in system, it was run very well.

And so I'm not going to get ahead of where the judge yesterday is. I will never do that. But I hope that we prevail. I think we will prevail. And I just think these cases and these accusations will run their course and we're going to get on with what we should be involved in and that is certifying these elections and then moving on.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, facts matter in court. Mark Aronchick, we appreciate your view from the inside.

ARONCHICK: Well, I thank you very much, Jim.

HARLOW: All right. Still to come, more than 140,000 new COVID cases in the United States yesterday alone with the most COVID-19 deaths in a day that we've seen in six months. That is where we are this morning. The Midwest being hit very hard. we're going to take you there live, next.

SCIUTTO (voice over): And one state where cases have exploded in recent weeks, South Dakota. The governor there refusing to issue any kind of statewide mandate or lockdown restrictions. Why? Are the politics getting in the way?

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[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Well, this morning, the nation is seeing its deadliest day from COVID in six months. State leaders across the country are once again enacting tough restrictions.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's even happened in some red states that have resisted this prior to the election.

CNN's Sara Sidner is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So, Sara, the Midwest, I mean, just seeing frighteningly large wave of new cases, hospitalizations, I mean, positivity rates off the charts. What is Michigan's governor doing for the next several months?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, today is the first day of what she's calling a three-week pause. And, basically, it's putting more restrictions back in place. For example, you can't go inside and eat anymore in restaurants.

High school and colleges are sort of going back to having to having to do all of those Zoom meetings that parents dislike so much and the kids dislike so much and teachers dislike so much. But this is all because the governor and other health officials are extremely concerned about what they are dealing with right now.

And I want to give you kind of a look at the bigger picture. You talked about sort of all of the states having this issue. This disease, this virus, knows no bounds. Look at this picture, 47 states are all seeing an increase in coronavirus cases, some of them upwards of 50 percent more cases than they have seen in the recent past.

And then I want to take you to another picture of just sort of drilling down here in Michigan, which is really struggling right now. Look at this picture, look at this graphic, look how high those cases are. At this point in Michigan, over the past seven days, the positivity rate, the number of people who were testing positive when they go get that coronavirus test, is at more than 13 percent.

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Do you know where the state wants that number? 3 percent, so people can go back to kind of living their normal lives without having all of these restrictions. We're talking about more than 13 percent. They want that down to 3 percent. That is a huge number.

And, look, the reason for this is obviously you're going to see hospitalizations go up and you're going to see deaths go up. So let's look at what the hospitalizations are now in Michigan. I mean, again, you're sort of seeing a U-curve. We are basically back to where we started here in Michigan when they were slammed with cases. I know that one of the local hospital systems has sent out a note to

everyone saying, you know, we know people have gotten fatigue from coronavirus. Everyone is sick of wearing the mask, everyone is sick of doing this. But we are seeing more people come in and you just have to be careful, otherwise we're going to find ourselves in a horrible position.

I just want to lastly show you this. We just got this, it just came in on our phone, an emergency alert. And it sounded and you could hear it and it basically tells you, here is where we are. We want you to understand today is the day we're putting restrictions in, including telling people that you have to mask up and you just can't live your normal life anymore, you have to sort of follow these rules to try to bring these numbers down. Guys?

SCIUTTO: Yes. I'm getting texts in D.C. about being notified about potential COVID contacts. I mean, those messages can work, they can help. Sara Sidner, thanks very much.

Well, there is some great news, more great news from Pfizer this morning. The company is preparing to submit its vaccine for emergency use authorization, this after saying it is now 95 percent effective, the vaccine with, and this is key, no serious safety concerns.

HARLOW: Our Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is with us for more. Talk about how big it is, and I think you put it in an important context for us earlier this week. It's not just about to what percent a vaccine limits infection. There's more important stuff we need to know.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, exactly. And I will preface as well by saying, up until the last couple of weeks, this totally new type of vaccine, this mRNA vaccine, we really didn't know if it was going to work. I mean, there was some encouraging data from the early trials but we didn't know for sure if it was going to work and we knew that the FDA would accept 50 percent effectiveness in order to potentially issue an emergency use.

So when you are seeing numbers, 90 percent-plus, I mean, these are significant numbers. We're only hearing them so far from the company. Obviously, the FDA and these various advisory committees have to validate this data, but it does seem very encouraging.

Let me just show you quickly what the Pfizer and BioNTech trial for the last few months. They have obviously been trialing. They gave half the group tens of thousands of people a placebo and tens of thousands of people a vaccine. It's very simple. What they found was that the vast majority of people who got sick and developed COVID were in the placebo group, 162 versus 8. That's where these huge numbers come from, the 90 percent-plus effectiveness.

Also, you can read that at the bottom, the vast majority of people who got severely ill were also in the placebo group. That's really important. You may remember earlier we said, how well does it work at preventing serious disease? We didn't know. And now some of this data is starting to pan out. And as you point out, they have safety, now, milestones. They waited two months after at least half the people got both shots to see if there was any adverse effects.

We would have heard about serious adverse effects earlier, like we heard with the AstraZeneca trial earlier, you may remember. We haven't heard that. But now, obviously, Pfizer and BioNTech thinks that their data is good enough in terms of safety as well as effectiveness to apply, as you point out, this Friday, day after tomorrow, for an emergency use authorization.

We will see how long it takes for that EUA to be granted if it does and then how long a distribution plan takes to develop, probably just a couple of days. If it all works, guys, we're talking about for the first time ever people outside of the clinical trial receiving a coronavirus vaccine before Christmas. So it's a pretty incredible pace here.

SCIUTTO: Okay. To the larger population, let's talk about participation rates here. A new Gallup poll finds 58 percent of Americans said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine. This actually came before the news we had in the last several days about efficacy rates. That's actually up from 50 percent in September. It was higher before. I mean, it's moving around a little bit. But what percentage of the population needs to be vaccinated to properly control the outbreak?

GUPTA: Well, you know, when you talk about this idea of herd immunity, herd immunity, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, it's just a question of how do you get there. Getting there by just letting the infection run through a community is a bad idea. A lot of people would die. Hospitals would become overwhelmed. Doing it through vaccination, a much better idea. And you can calculate this but they say somewhere between 60 percent to 70 percent.

[10:25:02]

When I calculated it last night, around 67 percent, and that's based on the contagiousness of the virus. So about two-thirds of the country would need to basically be immunized in some way.

Some people have already been naturally immunized because of having contracted the infection but you're talking about a significant percentage of the country would need to be on board with this vaccine. I'm curious, as you are, as you alluded to, now that people are hearing the effectiveness of this vaccine, 90 percent plus, might it make them more amenable to getting it? My guess is yes when they hear the safety benchmarks have been met. Might that also make them more inclined? I think yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, other things like sending their kids to school, right, going back to work. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, always good to have you on. Thanks so much.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, the other battle, President-elect Biden is preparing for confirmation fights for his cabinet you. Of course, it matters who controls the Senate. We're going to have more on this strategy coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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