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Trump Fires Official Who Disputed His Baseless Election Fraud Claims; Pfizer And BioNTech Says, COVID Vaccine 95 Percent Effective, No Major Safety Issues; Global Cases Surpass 55 Million. Aired 11:30- 12p ET

Aired November 18, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA ELECTION IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: And I understand that.

[11:30:05]

And the senator probably was trying to figure out what do I do to help the president who I support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: For more on what states are facing as they certify their results, joining me now is Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Secretary, thank you for being here.

I just want to get your reaction to hearing a fellow secretary of state saying that he is feeling pressured to throw out legal votes by the president and his allies.

JENA GRISWOLD, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, Kate, thanks for having me on. And I think, as secretaries of state, we want to make sure that the votes are counted in accordance with the law. And I really commend my colleague, my Republican colleague from Georgia for standing up and upholding the law and upholding the will of the people.

I do think it's reprehensible for election officials to try to sway secretaries of state and putting that political pressure on someone, if it did happen, is corrupt.

BOLDUAN: Corrupt. But what is the fallout? What is the consequence for it?

GRISWOLD: Well, I think under the law, we would have to go look at that. But I do think that this is just part of a pattern that we are seeing from the Trump campaign and allies. Before the election, we saw the president and his allies tried to suppress voters and post- election we are seeing the undermining of our democracy and our elections.

But I think the good part of it is that it's not working. Election officials will stand up and follow the rules, follow the laws to make sure that their voters have their voices heard. And in terms of the other apparatus that the Trump campaign have been pursuing lawsuits, they lost 24 out of 25.

So I do believe the will of the people will be had. It's clear that Joe Biden is the president-elect, and even though there are these tactics, our democracy will prevail.

BOLDUAN: In kind of another shade of this, I wanted to ask you about the news about Chris Krebs, the top election security official in the government being fired overnight. We talked about it quite a bit via Twitter by the president. And the reason being and the president saying himself, for not going along with the president's conspiracy theories about election fraud and the election being rigged.

I saw your tweet that you said that Krebs was saying he had been a fantastic partner to the states with regard to election security. What were your interactions with him? What did you think when you learned that he was fired?

GRISWOLD: well, I think it's a shame for the country because Chris, he was a political appointee by President Trump, but he worked really well with Democrats and Republicans and was able to build a level of trust with some folks across the political spectrum that was really just so helpful and necessary for safeguarding our democracy.

You know, you have to be able to have that working relationship with the Department of Homeland Security and the national intelligence from the state perspective to make sure that you're upgrading your cyber.

So, Chris did a fantastic job. His whole team is just professionals. They love the nation. And he got fired for not lying.

But I would really just commend his work over the last couple of years, really, and I agree with him that this was one of the safest elections in America's history. We were much more prepared from a cyber perspective.

And he was really leading the national push to combat foreign disinformation, all topics that are incredibly timely. And if you're fired for doing your job and protecting the nation, so be it. But I'm just so proud of being able to partner with him and to just see all of his fantastic work.

BOLDUAN: More broadly, I was thinking back, you've got a lot of attention in some of our conversations before the election for saying that the president was lying about his accusations of the fraud that will come from mail-in balloting.

Now, after the fact, the president, seeing what the president is trying to do now, calling the count in Georgia a joke, saying that really he won the election. I mean, it continues, my Twitter feed still, as we speak, I'm seeing even more. What do you say to the president now?

GRISWOLD: I would say the will of the people will be had. The vice president, Joe Biden, is now the president-elect. The people have spoken. He has or will receive more electoral votes. And I would just say it's a hard time for our nation to have a president trying to undermine our democracy. But, again, the people will have their will in the election of the next president.

I will also say it's hard. It's hard for election officials. It's hard for me as the secretary of state because we fight for access. Just in this last election, I was able to send PPE across the state. We increased drop boxes by over 50 percent in Colorado.

[11:35:02]

We instituted statewide ballot tracking so there was more transparency in the election. And that list goes on and on.

So I think that election officials and elected state officials just have to remain steadfast. We have to continue to improve our elections and make sure that we're creating a system that Americans can believe in.

BOLDUAN: Secretary, thank you for coming on.

GRISWOLD: Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: I appreciate it.

So, yesterday, the acting defense secretary announced that President Trump is pulling troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, specifically announcing that President Trump has ordered to cut the American force in Afghanistan by roughly half by January 15th, five days before Joe Biden becomes commander in chief.

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CHRISTOPHER MILLER, ACTING DEFENSE SECRETARY: This decision by the president is based on continuous engagement with his national security cabinet over the past several months, including ongoing discussions with me and my colleagues across the United States government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Notably, Secretary Chris Miller announcing this without any real explanation as to why. Miller basically said very little actually in the eight minutes that he spoke other than to say that President Trump is pulling troops out and pulling them by this date, January 15th, a date certain.

That should stick out to you as yet another glaring and reckless example of bold-faced hypocrisy by Donald Trump. He ran on ending what he sees as endless wars. Yes, he did. But he also ran on not telegraphing military moves, remember?

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He must, as a nation, be more unpredictable. We are totally predictable. We tell everything. We're sending troops, we tell them. We're sending something else, we have a news conference. We have to be unpredictable. And we have to be unpredictable starting now.

My administration will not telegraph exactly military plans and what they are.

I have often said the great General Douglas Macarthur and the great General George Patton would be in state of shock if they were alive today to see the way President Obama and Hillary Clinton tried to recklessly announce their every move before it happens, like they did in Iraq, so that the enemy can prepare and adapt.

I have a substantial chance of winning. If I win, I don't want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now that he did not win this time, Trump appears to think that it's okay to broadcast to the enemy exactly what his plan is. And I'm not sitting here trying to argue the country should be kept in the dark when it comes to major military announcements like this. When the president singlehandedly moves to eliminate the nation's and NATO's hedge against Al Qaeda and ISIS loyalists in the region, Americans should know about it.

But why then couldn't the president bring himself to make the announcement himself? Why wasn't this worthy of a Rose Garden moment when much less consequential things, like taking a premature victory lap on overturning Obamacare was worthy of that or announcing infrastructure week, again, was worthy of such a scene? Nothing from President Trump on this, just a continuous string of increasingly desperate tweets pushing groundless conspiracy theories about the election.

It was the acting defense secretary and Trump's national security adviser left to face reporters and the public to announce that they were pulling troops out. And after doing so, both men quickly walked off, refusing to take questions about why they were doing this now, why they are announcing a date certain just days before the next commander in chief is in place. It's probably because they don't have any good answers.

Still ahead for us, a big announcement from Pfizer on the effectiveness of its coronavirus vaccine, we're going to hear from the CEO of Pfizer's partner in this effort, next.

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[11:40:00]

BOLDUAN: Big news in the quest for a coronavirus vaccine today. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, report the final analysis of their phase three trial shows their vaccine is 95 percent effective with no serious safety concerns.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is following this. He is joining me now from Berlin. Fred, you just spoke with the CEO of BioNTech. What did he have to say about this?

FREDERIK PLETIGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kate. Well, the most important thing that he told us is that they're definitely going to file for an emergency use authorization with the FDA this Friday, so, really, within the next couple of days.

And he said with that data you just mentioned that's been so positive, they believe they're going to get that authorization fairly quickly, possibly the middle towards the end of December maybe.

And he says that vaccinations in the U.S. are going to start in December but the real big push is going to come at the beginning of next year.

And he believes also says he believes also with the successes some other vaccine makers are having that that could spell the beginning of the end of the pandemic.

Let's listen in to some of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UGUR SAHIN, CEO, BIONTECH: Our goal is to supply several hundred million of doses in the first four to five months in 2021. And this might -- this will already have an impact, the beginning impact on the control of COVID-19. I am confident if everything goes well and if we have a very organized vaccine supply, that we could have a normal 2021, normal summer and winter, 2021.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:45:02]

PLEITGEN: So, normal summer and normal winter 2021, obviously, that would be very good news to a lot of people in the U.S. and, of course, around the world as well.

One of the other things, Kate, that I also asked about, this was a big question I know that we've been asking for a couple of weeks was the distribution of that Pfizer vaccine. Because, of course, we know right now it has to be stored at minus 100 Fahrenheit, and that obviously could make things difficult.

We know that Pfizer came out and said that they developed a system where they believe they can get it out. But the BioNTech CEO actually also told me that they're working on a formula for the vaccine for the future to be able to ship it possibly even at room temperature just to try and get that out of the way and make sure they can get a lot of vaccine out very quickly. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Wow. That's like a whole lot of really promising news all together. We're just going to hold on to that at the very moment. Great reporting, thanks, Fred, I really appreciate it.

Coming up still for us, the nation's top experts on children's health say kids need to be included in vaccine trials and soon, their plea to the Trump administration, that's next.

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[11:50:00] BOLDUAN: We are always closely following this threat of coronavirus here in the United States but also around the world. Let's check in with our correspondents around the world, first to Paris.

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: I'm Melissa Bell in Paris. France has become the first European country to pass the 2 million case mark even as its figures begin to improve. Numbers of new cases are down, the numbers of people in hospital, the numbers of people in ICU, this more than 2.5 weeks after France entered its second nationwide partial lockdown.

In Germany though, the situation remains difficult. Angela Merkel wants to tighten restrictions there, even though we saw protests today against those restrictions already in place outside the German parliament.

Elsewhere in Poland, the largest single COVID-19 death rate recorded today, also Sweden looking to tighten restrictions there.

But the World Health Organization says that, essentially, in Europe, there has been a 10 percent drop in the number of new cases in the last week, even though deaths for the time being continue to rise.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ivan Watson in Hong Kong. China is the world's biggest vaccine manufacturer. It's also a big player in the race to develop a COVID vaccine. Researchers just published initial test results on the experimental Chinese vaccine CoronaVac. They say it could be an attractive option but add that phase three testing is crucial before they can make any final recommendations.

There are currently five Chinese vaccine candidates in phase three trials around the world. Some of these experimental vaccines have been given emergency use authorization for the Chinese military and for hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, even though developers have yet to complete formal testing on these products.

BOLDUAN: Ivan, Melissa, thank you.

Some of the nation's most prominent medical groups are pleading with the Trump administration to do more to include children sooner in coronavirus vaccine trials. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for one, is warning if children aren't added to trials very soon, there will be a significant delay in when kids are going to be able to get a vaccine, the president of the association calling it unconscionable.

Joining me right now is the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Goza.

It's good to see you again, Doctor.

This plea coming from such a large group of well-known and well- respected medical associations like yours, why did you feel the need to speak out about it?

DR. SALLY GOZA, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: So we know if we're going to have a national strategy to stop the spread of this virus, we have to have children vaccinated and children have to be tested in these vaccine trials. And once we know it's safe and effective for adults is the time to start adding children into these trials because the longer we delay, the longer it's going to take for us to get a vaccine that we know is safe and effective for children.

Children aren't little adults, and so we can't assume that they will react the same way to a vaccine as adults do.

BOLDUAN: That's true. And, Doctor, as you well know, there's already a certain level of hesitation among some parents about vaccinating their kids with any vaccine, let alone a new vaccine like this. Are you saying that trials involving kids need to happen sooner, faster than they would with another vaccine candidate?

GOZA: We need the children enrolled in these studies as soon as it is safe and as soon as possible. If we delay longer, we may not have a vaccine ready for children before school starts again next year. And children are suffering from this virus. Over a million children have been infected with it.

But they are also suffering in other ways. They are missing out on school and education. They are missing out on other activities. Their emotional and mental health is suffering from this. And it's just wrong to not have children benefit from the vaccine when they are so affected by it, by this virus.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Goza, when is too late to get this vaccine trial started? Are you seeing -- does it feel like that folks are slow walking this?

GOZA: We feel like now that they are saying that they're seeing safety and efficacy with adults, that we need them to get these children enrolled in trials as quickly as they can.

BOLDUAN: What is your sense, let's say, what we know is your best sense of a vaccine for kids would available? If first doses available for the most at risk by the end of the year, how long after do you think shots could be ready for kids?

GOZA: That's all going to depend on what the data shows for safety and efficacy. Because we know if we're going to get parents to have their children take this vaccine, we have to be able to show them safety and efficacy studies done by the research.

[11:55:00]

BOLDUAN: Yes. You've also -- you mentioned the more than 1 million children in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID. Can you put that in perspective for folks? Because we have seen children appear to handle the virus better than the more at-risk populations, what does this number mean?

GOZA: Well, it means that children can get COVID-19. They can spread it. And some children get very sick with this disease. And we also do not know the long-term consequences of this disease. We've only known about it now for nine months. And so we do not know the long-term health consequences.

We do realize that there are going to be long-term mental health issues from this virus and the fact it's affecting children in many ways. And so it's really necessary to stop the spread of this virus.

BOLDUAN: That's one thing to keep remembering as we do not know the long-term consequences of this virus on any human, a little human or an older human.

It's great to see you, Dr. Goza. Thank you so much.

GOZA: Great to see you.

BOLDUAN: Still ahead, Trump campaign is now requesting a recount in two counties in Wisconsin. Why is the president focusing on two Democratic strongholds there?

I'm Kate Bolduan. We'll be right back.

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