Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Biden Transition Continues Without COVID-19 Data Access; Sioux Falls, South Dakota Passes Mask Mandate; Interview with Lt. Gov. Kathleen Hochul (D-NY). Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired November 18, 2020 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:30:59]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, President-elect Joe Biden, he's getting ready to build his cabinet and gearing up for legislative battles over some of his cabinet appointments. At the same time, he's clearly focused on defeating the coronavirus pandemic.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Our Jessica Dean joins us again this hour from Wilmington, Delaware. Good morning, Jess, what is on the agenda today?
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you both. We are looking again at COVID, and the coronavirus response taking center stage for the Biden transition team. We are expecting to see the president-elect holding a virtual roundtable with frontline health care workers.
And this is very intentional on the Biden transition team's part. They continue to bring the focus back to their number-one priority, that's getting COVID under control. And you guys know -- we're been following this -- they're still not able to get access to the White House Coronavirus Task Force, to Health and Human Services in order to coordinate their response, and specifically their vaccine distribution.
We also heard from three co-chairs of their advisory board yesterday, saying they're not getting access to data that they need, and that includes what's the situation with PPE, how much availability do we have for testing, things like that, daily hospital bed, you know, allowances and what's available and what's not.
So this is sort of the information they want. And guys, currently they're not allowed to get it. So we will see Biden talking with those frontline health care workers though later today.
SCIUTTO: Yes, with real consequences. Dr. Fauci told us yesterday that this has consequences in terms of responding to the pandemic.
All right, the parlor game of Washington has already begun: Who's going to fill the cabinet posts? Who does President-elect Biden want to fill those posts? What are you hearing, what's the latest? DEAN: Right, it is a true parlor game at this point. But we do know
from some reporting from my colleague, from Jeff Zeleny, that they're, as you would imagine, really zeroed in on this Health and Human Services cabinet position, that's going to be a critical position as they move forward.
And we know that they're looking at two governors: Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, and the New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, both female governors who had to tackle COVID in their states and got good feedback for what they did and how they responded to COVID within their states, so interesting to see their names bubbling up.
And then also, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is co-chair of the task force, his name's also been floated out there. But it's also possible -- remember, guys, Ron Klain, telling us they will have a White House COVID coordinator, so that's somebody that will be reporting directly to the president-elect every single day on COVID and as needed.
So it will be interesting to see how they fill those, but that's certainly a post, that Health and Human Services post, that they are zeroing in on very closely.
HARLOW: Right, just like Ron Klain did with Ebola, which was incredibly useful.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
DEAN: Right.
HARLOW: Jess, thanks for the great reporting, we appreciate it.
[10:33:46]
Well, pressure is building on state leaders to enact tougher restrictions as COVID surges. There are also those who are opposing these calls, including some local sheriffs here in New York. We're going to talk to New York's lieutenant governor, she joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: Well, even as coronavirus cases soar across South Dakota, the state's governor, Kristi Noem, is still refusing to implement a statewide mask mandate.
HARLOW: And now, the state's largest city has had it and is taking matters into their own hands. Lucy Kafanov is live in Sioux Falls this morning -- good morning, Lucy.
LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy, Jim. We're actually in front of the City Council, City Hall building where the council, yesterday evening, voted six to two to mandate masks inside businesses and city facilities, where it's not possible to socially distance indoors.
Now, there's no penalty for this, but that is a very big deal. Sioux Falls is South Dakota's largest city, and as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to rise, the governor, continuing to oppose any sort of mask rule.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): Good evening. I'm Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota.
KAFANOV (voice-over): South Dakota's Republican governor, vaulting to the national spotlight this year.
NOEM: This is how we do social distancing.
KAFANOV (voice-over): Her hands-off approach to the pandemic, making national headlines.
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: If one governor makes bad decisions like that, spills over. I speak, of course, of South Dakota --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Republican governor there has refused to order any statewide COVID restrictions --
KAFANOV (voice-over): -- earning her praise in conservative media.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Those talking heads you just heard want South Dakota to fail --
NOEM: We've done a good job fighting COVID-19 without shutting our state down.
[10:40:02]
KAFANOV (voice-over): In mid-July, as cases across the country spiked, Governor Noem ran television ads to entice new business and tourism.
NOEM: Here in South Dakota, we trust our people, we respect their rights, we won't shut them down.
KAFANOV (voice-over): The governor welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Sturgis motorcycle rally this summer, didn't cancel the state fair, and has resisted issuing stay-at-home orders or a mask mandate, saying she would leave it up to the people to decide.
But now, the pandemic is hitting home. The Dakotas, devastated, each with more new cases per capita in the past seven days than anywhere else in the country. Hospitalizations and deaths, also spiking. Doctors struggling to cope.
AUSTIN SIMONSON, SANFORD MEDICAL CENTER, XIOUS FALLS: The hard part of this is I go from room to room, day after day, and get asked over and over again by people who are trapped in a room by themselves, when do I get to go home? You know, will I get better? And I don't know.
KAFANOV (voice-over): In an e-mail to CNN, the governor's spokesman offered this response, "Since the start of the pandemic, Governor Noem has focused on solutions that do good, not solutions that feel good. She has ramped up hospital capacity; thankfully 36 percent of South Dakota's staffed hospital beds remain available."
GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R), NORTH DAKOTA: Our situation has changed, and we must change with it.
KAFANOV (voice-over): Other Republican governors are reversing course. North Dakota, Iowa and West Virginia, implementing or expanding mask mandates.
NOEM: Ladies and gentlemen, President Donald Trump.
(APPLAUSE)
KAFANOV (voice-over): Governor Noem has aligned herself closely with the president, echoing Trump by casting doubts on the efficacy of masks in an op-ed last month, writing, "There are many others who question the effectiveness of masks... and government should not mandate it."
NOEM: I think the politics has undermined the science of this disease --
KAFANOV (voice-over): Ducking a question from ABC's George Stephanopoulos on whether she'd fight COVID with the president-elect.
NOEM: This is a premature conversation because we have not finished counting votes.
KAFANOV (voice-over): Meanwhile, locals have been left to fend for themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath?
KAFANOV (voice-over): The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, setting up checkpoints which Governor Noem called illegal, to keep the virus out, implementing a full lockdown starting next week.
HAROLD FRAZIER, CHAIRMAN, CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX TRIBE: That's all we're trying to do, is to save our people and the residents on his reservation.
KAFANOV (voice-over): And South Dakota's largest city, Sioux Falls, enacting a mask mandate yesterday evening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- passes six to two.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAFANOV: Now, that debate was interesting to say the least, some people referring to face masks as diapers, face diapers; others, questioning whether they help protect against the virus, saying that masks even make the virus worse -- that of course is inaccurate. But it sort of goes to show just what can happen when our elected leaders ignore the advice of medical professionals and question the science -- Jim, Poppy, back to you. HARLOW: Lucy, thank you very much.
The mayor of Sioux Falls will join us on the program tomorrow, so we'll talk more about that mask mandate there, finally.
All right, let's turn to New York, where, like a lot of the country, cases are rising. And New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, facing pushback from some against his effort to limit Thanksgiving gatherings to keep people safe.
Lieutenant Governor of New York Kathleen Hochul is with me. I appreciate your time this morning, as we have 2,100 New Yorkers in the hospital with COVID, the highest number since early June. What is your message to anyone listening?
LT. GOV. KATHLEEN HOCHUL (D-NY): Well, you mentioned -- first of all, I'm really glad I don't live in South Dakota, after your last segment. My gosh, I think most New Yorkers are glad and pleased with the results of what we've done here in the state of New York.
We have been very aggressive from the very beginning. And yes, our numbers are starting to peak (ph) up. We actually predicted this, that once the summer ended and people started gathering indoors and we have what we call living room spread, we're not surprised that numbers are going up, but we can manage them, we have a strategy to manage them.
And that's the main difference between us and many other states, where they've still not even having mask mandates. So we're asking people to follow the mandates, socially distance, limit your activities with other people and you know, we're not saying you can't have Thanksgiving, we're saying less than 10 people, try to get tests before you gather, let's be smart about this.
HARLOW: Yes. Well, look, I just had to tell our whole family that they can't come over. Certainly no one traveling from out of state, but even my family here in New York. And those are very hard conversations to have.
But there's also the question about rights and how far you guys can go, and about enforcement. So I just want your reaction to a sheriff in New York, Fulton County, Richard Giardino, who spoke to my friend and colleague Brianna Keilar yesterday, saying he doesn't think that the governor's 10-person limit on indoor gatherings for Thanksgiving is constitutional. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD GIARDINO, SHERIFF, FULTON COUNTY, NEW YORK: I don't think that the Constitution allows for the infringement of your own -- the number of people you have in your own home. I think that it sends a chill to the public, and people in my community, they think that law enforcement's going to knock on their door, count the number of family members and arrest them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[10:45:06]
HARLOW: Does he have a point?
HOCHUL: No. What I find chilling is the fact that we have an elected official who is basically saying, I'm going to pick and choose the laws I choose to -- I want to enforce, they don't all apply. Well, what kind of message does that send to the public? We are all living under a nation of laws, despite what we've seen for the last four years under Donald Trump. We still have a nation of laws. And a sheriff cannot decide which ones he likes and which ones he doesn't like.
Now, are we telling people to be heavy-handed? Of course not. And we're really counting on our first line of defense to be people being smart. When they hear we're saying less than 10 people, just have less than 10 people.
But if a sheriff is out on patrol and sees 20 cars in front of a house and they're all watching a football game, you know, you can knock on a door and say, hey guys, be careful, we're living in a pandemic. I'm not saying show up with guns blaring --
HARLOW: OK.
HOCHUL: -- and a search warrant. For God's sakes, that's not what we're talking about.
HARLOW: Well, it's an important distinction, I think, for a lot of folks to hear.
Schools. This is a key question for all of us who are parents right now -- I'm a parent in New York City -- Mayor de Blasio has said, look, if we get to that three percent seven-day average, I'm closing the schools in New York City again. The governor has been questioning that, saying, do we really need to do it at three percent? And listen to what Dr. Fauci told Jim just yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Can you keep schools open safely through this?
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know, I think in many respects you can. Do what you can to keep the children and the teachers safe, but try as best as possible to keep the schools open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: If New York hits three percent, if de Blasio closes the schools, will the governor intervene and use his power to keep them open?
HOCHUL: Well what Dr. Fauci's saying makes a lot of sense. When you have community spread that is over three percent, but within schools, now that we're able to test schools and weren't able to earlier on, we now know that it's about one percent or even less. So if you've got a situation where the kids are safer in schools than,
you know, trying to learn at home or sitting in the basement with a bunch of friends without masks playing video games, yes, I think the schools are better.
So it's not a conflict, it's just saying that the plan that was evolved in the summertime, when we had different data points, we're asking the mayor and everyone who worked together -- the teachers, the parents -- consider a different dynamic now. Let's not have a situation where it's an automatic. Let's be a little more flexible, we've learned a lot about this virus than we knew early on when that was put in place.
So I think that's what we're looking for too, is making sure that there's input from the teachers and the parents in doing --
HARLOW: OK.
HOCHUL: -- what's best for the children.
HARLOW: One final brief question for you. And that is, you guys -- the state -- are going to put the vaccines -- Pfizer and Moderna for now -- through your own trial before you distribute them. You said it's going to be at the same time that the FDA is doing its assessment. But why is that? And how much is that going to cost New York City, given that we're already in a deep financial hole?
HOCHUL: We can handle this, believe me. We'll do it just like we did with rollout of the testing. No one does more testing than we do, we'll be able to get the vaccine out.
But in terms of why we need to do this? I think it's very obvious, how Donald Trump and his cronies and all these different agencies have politicized the whole process, telling everybody I'm going to have it out before Election Day and it's going to be part of my legacy and -- come on. I don't trust that either.
And a survey done by CNN said 45 percent of the people won't even get a vaccine because they don't trust it. We need to build that trust.
(CROSSTALK)
HARLOW: Totally. Those numbers are --
HOCHUL: That's what Governor Cuomo is talking about, and we'll do it our --
HARLOW: OK.
HOCHUL: -- we'll not delay it, we will not delay the process, I promise you, we'll get it done.
HARLOW: OK. Those numbers are scary in terms of a lack of trust, I just meant shouldn't people trust the FDA when they make a decision. Come back soon, we're out of time, Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Hochul. HOCHUL: All right, thank you.
HARLOW: Thanks very much.
[10:48:59]
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler is doubling down on her call for Georgia's Republican secretary of state to resign. Loeffler, echoing President Trump by calling the state's election process into question though there is no evidence of fraud there.
HARLOW: Georgia is on track to finish its hand recount today, and to affirm Joe Biden is the winner. Our Amara Walker joins us now from Atlanta with the latest. Good morning.
AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy and Jim. Yes, the secretary of state's office has been repeatedly saying that they are confident that all counties will be meeting the deadline to finish up the hand recount by tonight at 11:59 p.m.
We will be getting an update from the secretary of state's office in about 10 minutes. But at last check, the last update yesterday was at about 4.8 million ballots out of the 5 million that were cast have been hand-counted, including in the two largest counties, Fulton and Gwinnett. The bottleneck is doing the data entry and uploading those results.
Also, I should mention the news yesterday was that there were more than 5,000 uncounted ballots that were found in two different counties during this audit process. But again, state election officials have been stressing, look, these were isolated incidents due to human error and these are not signs of any kind of widespread or systematic fraud. In fact, these two new batches of votes that were found were actually helping President Trump, adding more votes to his column.
So it obviously goes against his false claims that this election has been rigged against him, but Trump still trailing by about 13,000 votes in this state, and experts do not believe that Trump will be able to overtake Biden's lead here in Georgia -- back to you.
[10:55:12]
HARLOW: Amara Walker, thank you very much.
And thanks to everyone for joining us, we'll see you tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.
SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:00:00]
