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87-Year-Old GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley Tests Positive for COVID- 19; U.S. Reports Deadliest Day of Pandemic in Six Months; CNN: Trump Team Aiming to Box Biden in with Foreign Policy Moves. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 18, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:29]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: There's another high profile COVID case in Congress, and it is again raising questions about safety and testing. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley revealed his positive test yesterday. Grassley is 87 years old and is the most senior Republican in the Senate. He attended the GOP luncheon on Monday and was also seen, as you see him right there, on the Senate floor, this from the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, earlier this morning.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Our colleagues have short run has been put on pause for the same reason that it was compiled in the first place, leadership, service to others, and a determination to set the right example.

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KING: Joining me now from Capitol Hill, CNN's Phil Mattingly. Phil, Chuck Grassley, senior Republican, one of 32 cases now at least among House and Senate members have been a lot of questions and complaints about testing, are they getting better at this finally, or not?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Starting to, I think taking steps, I think the fact that it's nine months in and they still don't have a kind of campus wide testing regime, there's no clear plan in terms of when lawmakers come back, how they're supposed to operate, when staff comes back how they're supposed to operate.

Look, if you look over the House of Representatives, they have started a voluntary process for lawmakers that return. And my understanding, I've gotten a test over there yet. But my understanding is its pretty effective. And they turn it around pretty quickly. I think the bigger issue right now on the Capitol is frankly, it's a microcosm of what we're seeing across the country. You've got lawmakers that are going home, and they're coming back from places where just like just about everywhere else in the country, case numbers are going up. The opportunity to get in contact with somebody who has tested positive is going up. And they're bringing that back to the Capitol. And you talk about the 30 plus cases that have -- positive cases have had, you've also have, I think, somewhere near 80 lawmakers that have at least had to quarantine because of contact with somebody over the course of the last several months. And I think there are real world implications here on two counts that I'll go through pretty quickly. And one is that this campus involves more than just lawmakers more than just reporters, right?

There's Capitol Police officers, there are essential workers, there are service industry individuals, there are the folks that clean and take care of the Capitol that are here every single day that could come in contact with lawmakers who are coming from outside of D.C., and perhaps bringing something back. I think the other thing that everybody's paying attention to as well is there are real world legislative implications.

We saw a Trump nominee essentially go down yesterday because Republicans didn't have the votes after Chuck Grassley tested positive. There is the need to fund the government by December 11th. There are stimulus talks that while they remain as more bound as they've been in a long time are still desperately needed. There are things that need to get done. And when you have lawmakers facing the reality, not only of what they have back home, but then bringing it back to Capitol Hill. There are real questions as to whether that's going to be possible, particularly given the fact we're heading into a Thanksgiving holiday, John.

KING: And part of the issue, Phil, correct me if I'm wrong, is that it's not uniform. You mentioned all those lawmakers that have gone into quarantine. Some do it, some follow the CDC or follow some guidelines. Others say I'm OK. Listen to Roy Blunt, who's a member, he was asked. Roy Blunt, a member of the Senate Republican leadership asked yesterday, you know, you guys were all in the same room with Grassley.

He said, well, should you -- should they quarantine? Well, you'd have to ask them. I was like, 12 feet away from him in the meeting. That's why we're in that big room. He's been great about wearing his mask. And I think great about taking care of himself, and so I think he's doing everything he can, does everything you could expect him to do, so protect himself in the rest of us, people catch this sort of a laissez faire. You know, ask the other senators, there's no set standard, right? This is up to them.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's up -- look, they can consult with the physician, they often do. But it's like a different world. If you go between the Senate and I'll give the senators credit. The vast majority of them wear masks just about all the time. Occasionally, we've had some kerfuffles on the floor about that when people are talking. For the most part, they wear mask and certainly wear mask when they talk to us. You go over to the House. It's a little bit of a different world. They are supposed to wear masks on the floor.

There are a number of Republicans who object to the idea of it and generally don't when they walk off the floor. But you're right. It's up to everybody's personal volition. And just one final thing, John, that leadership meeting that Senator Grassley was in, that Senator Blunt is talking about, that was leadership. That was the entire top of the Republican conference that was meeting there. So, real concern, even if maybe they're not necessarily taking action to a person right now.

KING: We'll keep an eye on it as we go forward. Phil Mattingly, grateful for the live reporting of the Hill. And democratic House members had their leadership elections this morning and the leadership of the coming Congress looks quite familiar, the top leaders keeping their roles after elections, this a.m. facing no opposition even after recent losses in the House. The speaker Nancy Pelosi, the majority leader Steny Hoyer, the majority whip James Clyburn, and the Democratic caucus chairman, Hakeem Jeffries. This process was conducted virtually. The Full House floor vote for the speakership won't take place until January.

[12:34:57]

Up next for us, we go inside one hospital struggling COVID cases surge. It's a heartbreaking view of the pandemic from the front lines.

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KING: The COVID surge numbers in recent days just staggering, more than 1 million new COVID cases in just the last week, highest number of deaths in a single day in six months. Nearly every metric shows a worsening pandemic here in the United States, governors across the country now each on their own, some of them tightening, many of them tightening restrictions. Let's take a look at the trends.

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Again we showed you this near the top of the hour, 47 states, 47 of the 50 states right now are trending in the wrong direction. That's the orange and red. That means more new infections this week compared to last week. And the red states more -- 50 percent more new infections this week, compared to last week. This is why all the new infections, you look at this positivity map, Iowa 51 percent of the people getting tested for COVID positive, South Dakota 56 percent, even Wisconsin 16 percent, double digits is bad. State like Connecticut, 5 percent, New England and the Northeast, you see they're lighter. They went through this early on.

Most of them, the rates are ticking up a little bit but most of them are way lower than the national average. If you remember the European Union just as the United States started this fall spike, right? The European Union is in purple. European countries have put in a lot of new restrictions. And look starting to trend down, the U.S. trend line heading up. They will pass each other in the days ahead is certainly the way it looks.

As governor by governor making decisions, do we need new restrictions, 21 states at least have added some new restrictions. Some of them severe, some of them moderate in November, 21 states including new mask restrictions. Some, again, some of them limited like in Iowa, seven states adding or expanding mask mandates in the past week. Masks as we all learned during the presidential campaign became way too political. Governors in the Midwest trying to tell their people this isn't about politics. It's about your health.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will get through this together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mask up Kentucky.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mask up Wisconsin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mask up Illinois.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mask up Ohio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mask up Indiana.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mask up Minnesota.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mask up Michigan.

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KING: The Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is directing his state's COVID response right now from quarantine. The governor's communications director tested positive and so the governor is in quarantine now, as a precaution. Governor Lamont joins us now from Hartford. Let me start right there, Governor. How you doing? Any issues at all? Are you just being safe?

GOV. NED LAMONT (D-CT): Just being safe. I've been in quarantine for about a week, tested negative a few times. But I want to set -- lead by example.

KING: And so we and we appreciate that. And I hope people are listening, set the lead by example. Because we see different people react in different ways. And that's one of the issues. Fifty states is sometimes the charmer of our democracy. Sometimes it can become a complication in our democracy as all these states go through this.

If you look at the new cases in your state right now, you see it starting to trend back up again. I just showed the positivity right is 5 percent. I know that's not what you want, you would prefer lower, but that's better than the national average. Sort of where do you see yourself, when you see that case count starting to go back up again and you have memories of course of the horrific spring, you see your positivity right there. Tuesday up a little bit. What do you need to do?

LAMONT: I see the black cloud of the COVID infections coming over from the upper Midwest, does now into a Pennsylvania, Western New York. So I don't think we're going to be spared. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. You know, fortunately, I don't have to tell people to mask up. They've been masking up ever since the spring. We never opened our bars. We've kept the restaurants closed at 10 o'clock at night. I'm not going to do winter sports until January at the earliest. And John, I'm doing a lot of this just so we're going to try and keep our schools open for in person learning as long as we can.

KING: As long as you can, I get that. And if you look at the European model, they would argue most of them that the schools are OK, that the issues or other restaurants, bars, or the large gatherings seemed to be more of the problem. You have -- I want to just show this map right now. You have a travel advisory right now. You essentially mentioned the cloud of other states. Forty-five states plus Washington, D.C., their citizens are not welcome in your state right now because of this. Does that work?

LAMONT: I'll tell you what. What I'm really nervous about, John, is Thanksgiving. And we're going to have tens of thousands of kids coming back to our region from colleges in states where they have an infection rate as you point out, that could be 10 times ours. So we're asking them please test and quarantine before you get on that plane and test again when you get here so you keep your family safe and your community safe.

KING: We're at this weird moment governor as you know for a while. Joe Biden will become president of the United States in a little under two months. The current President of the United States doesn't attend White House coronavirus meetings anymore, doesn't talk to the experts anymore.

I want you to listen here. This is Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health saying there's a problem here. We need a more coordinated transition.

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DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Everything we've done so far on COVID-19 that's made progress is dependent upon collaboration and openness about everything we're doing. And that's my goal as well. And so anything that gets in the way of that troubles me greatly. We have a crisis. People are dying. We should do nothing except actually inform everybody who needs to know about what decisions have been made and what further decisions have to be made.

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KING: What's your concern at the state level? I know you've had frustrations with the Trump administration. I also know sometimes the Coronavirus Task Force, the doctors on that sometimes work around that. They try to talk to the states about things the President refuses to talk about. Is the Biden transition already in touch with you? Is there information sharing? Are you worried about at least a few days of turbulence when the turnover takes happen -- when turnover happens?

[12:45:06] LAMONT: Yes, we talked to Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci and some of the respective folks on the outgoing COVID transition team. And we've spent some time talking to the Biden transition as well. Look, we need leadership here. We need to make sure this is seamless. It's going to be incredibly complicated rolling out the vaccines, the 3.5 million people, they need two shots, it has to be refrigerated 100 grades below zero. That is a planning exercise that has to be coordinated. The more support we get from the top, the better.

KING: Well, take me through that part because, look, I think the urgent thing, I get worried sometimes talking about the vaccine because it's months down the road, and you think people are going to let their guard down. So you want to talk about what you need to do today, tomorrow, and next week, especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming.

But as a governor, when you're working with the federal government now and you'll have to work with a new president soon on this vaccine plan, do you have what you need if they said to you we have emergency authorization in a week or two and your frontline workers can get this or people with, you know, people who are vulnerable immune compromised can get this? Are you ready?

LAMONT: Look we have a strategy in place. We go -- know how to go after the nursing homes. We know how to do our hospitals. We got the refrigeration units there. And we are getting support in terms of a pain for the vaccine. But all the states are going to need a lot more support than that when it comes to the actual distribution, implementing the shots, follow up the two, three weeks later. That's going to take a lot of resources and a lot of people.

KING: Governor Lamont, grateful for your time. And I hope the rest of your quarantine goes well and safely and we'll be in touch.

LAMONT: Nice to see you, John. Thanks.

KING: Take care, Sir. Thank you very much.

Iowa one of 19 states to record a new high for the coronavirus hospital patients on Tuesday, urgent and alarming is how the state's most crowded county describes this hospital crunch. CNN's Miguel Marquez is in Cresco, Iowa with more.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John so this is Cresco, Iowa. It's in Howard County. You can think of places like this. The other cases are not huge. But it's like a rivulet, feeding small numbers of cases into a river not only in Iowa, but across an entire swath of the country here. And the healthcare system across that entire swath is starting to fill to the brim. And that's what officials here are really concerned about.

We went to see Howard County Regional Health Services. This is kind of everything for this. It's a big county with a small population. And this place does a little bit of everything. It's the ambulance service. It's hospice care. It's the Health Department. And it's the hospital, of course. They've rearranged everything now for COVID. They did it back in March. They didn't really need it. But now it's on. Now they are seeing cases where they were seeing two and three and four a day. Now they're seeing 20 and 25 cases a day.

They have 19 beds in total. They have three or four for COVID patients if need be, but they cannot treat the worst of the worst here. They have to move them up to Rochester and Minnesota or Mason City or other places. That's becoming more difficult. That used to be easy to get them there. But those places are now filling up. And there's no places to get a lot of those patients too. So that's a very big concern of the hospitals here.

A quick anecdote about that hospital, we went in to see their emergency room. And they took us to see another part of the hospital. At what 8:30 a.m. we went to see the emergency room. There was one person who had checked in to be checked out for COVID. We came back 20 minutes later, there were then four people at that emergency room. That's how quickly the patients are starting to come in even in small places like Cresco, Iowa. John?

KING: Miguel Marquez, grateful for that. And joining our conversation now is Lauren Sauer. She's assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins. Lauren, thank you for being with us. When you hear what Miguel Marquez is talking about there in small towns, we talked about this in big cities as well. I know one of the things you're concerned about. Explain this, when we were back -- when it was the novel coronavirus, we're dealing with this in the spring. And then even somewhat during the summer surge there are people could move around. You could surge medical personnel from one state to another.

The federal government could help in some ways. When it is everywhere like this, are we at or beyond capacity everywhere?

LAUREN SAUER, ASST. PROF. OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE: Yes. So, I wouldn't say we're beyond capacity everywhere. But we are beyond capacity in many places across the country and many more places than that surge that we saw in the spring and early summer. And so one of the concerns we have is that when it's these regional localized surges, we can pull staff, we can pull other resources, and have them support those responses.

When it's across the country or even most of the country, we don't have that staff to pull from. And hospitals across the United States are facing and even before COVID, we're facing major staffing shortages and that continues to be a huge problem for our response.

KING: Right. And when you see this, I want to put up a map, it's a data map projections from the IHME out of the University of Washington. And you just look at it, it says essentially most states if you look at the deeper orange there, the darkest -- darker orange color there, those states will exceed their ICU capacity in November, this month, the states in beige below them in December. So you're looking at this. It's every -- it's just everywhere. What happens when that happens? Not only COVID patients are getting, it's tougher to get an ICU bed. But there's a domino effect on other illnesses as well, right?

[12:50:15]

SAUER: That's right. So the hospitalizations that were happening prior to COVID don't just stop because we're having a COVID crisis. People still get sick for many other reasons besides infected -- being infected by COVID-19. And as we enter into the winter, into respiratory virus season, we are still waiting to see what flu will look like this year. And as people go inside, and they mixed for the holidays, we're going to see those COVID cases surge as well.

So as the ICU cases continue to climb, I think one of our biggest concerns is how do we manage these patients. And that oftentimes can lead to crisis standards of care or delayed access to care for people who need it regularly. And so one of our biggest concerns is how do we maintain our level or our standard of care when our hospitals are just bursting at the seams.

KING: Bursting at the seams. I just want to show this, 19 states setting hospitalization records just yesterday, 19 states. What about the exhaustion factor of these health care workers if you can't surge in extra help from other states or other communities within a state because everybody or almost everybody is overwhelmed, what is the toll on the people doing this heroic work?

SAUER: Yes. I think we're continuing to see that toll. Health care workers across the country are absolutely exhausted. And if you go back to that spring and summertime, we were tired back then. But we were just starting the response, right? So everyone is feeling the pressure. But you get that mix of adrenaline and that early bit of the response, and you can kind of go for longer days and more hours.

And now we're, you know, eight or nine months into this response with no one insight and no bench to pull from to get that support so people can take that risk -- can take that risk, can take that mental health break and really take care of themselves. And I think that is weighing on a lot of people's minds both healthcare workers and public health workers across the country.

KING: Lauren Sauer, grateful for your time and your insights today. And we should -- we don't say thank you enough to the people, as you noted, on the front lines every day and they're exhausted, helping us stay safe. Lauren, thank you so much.

Still had for us, Afghanistan and Iraq, the latest places President Trump making some foreign policy decisions at the end of his term that the incoming president, might not like.

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[12:57:02]

KING: Troop withdrawals, arm sales, terrorist designations, all powers any President has and power President Trump is looking to use in these final weeks in office. Watching all this closely, of course is the President-elect Joe Biden, who may well inherit some late Trump decisions with which he profoundly disagrees. CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood joins me live from the State Department. It is this fascinating moment, Kylie. President Trump wants -- there are things he wants to get done, many of which team Biden does not like.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, that's right, John. And as we're seeing, you know, the Trump administration has taken or is going to take a whole host of actions in the foreign policy space in the final months of President Trump being in office. And this is going to box in a Biden administration, right? It's going to make it hard for them to develop their own foreign policy right out of the gates because in a lot of these instances, they're going to have to be responding to what the outgoing Trump team did.

And an administration official from the Trump administration explained it to me, he's trying to set off as many fires as possible so that the Biden team can't put them all out at once. So at the legacy of the Trump administration is still felt. And I want to tick through some of these actions that the Trump administration has taken or are going to take.

First, of course, is Trump announcing the troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq, thousands of troops are going to be coming home from those countries, then there is a consideration for sanctions or potential trade restrictions on China. Trump also, according to "The New York Times", discuss the possibility of striking in Iran nuclear site. And then the Trump administration has also pushed through $23 billion in arms sales to the UAE over the last month.

Lastly, the Trump -- Pompeo visited -- is going to visit the Israeli West Bank this week. And the State Department is also considering designating the Iranian backed Houthi rebels as a terrorist organization in the final months here. That's a long list, John. And this isn't normal, right? I want to provide a little bit of context here.

I spoke with Stephen Hadley. He was the outgoing -- he was the national security adviser to G. W. Bush at the time. He met with the incoming President-elect Obama team. And they decided on actions that Bush would either hold or take, depending on what the Obama folks want them to do. Clearly, that's not happening here.

KING: Stephen Hadley was a decent man and a good public servant. That's probably one of the differences you see right there. Kylie Atwood, appreciate the important reporting from the State Department.

Just moments ago on Capitol Hill, the Congressman, Hakeem Jeffries, he's the chairman of the House Democratic Congress, introducing the newly renominated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with high praise.

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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): It is now my distinct honor and privilege to introduce Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a voice for the voiceless, a defender of the disenfranchise, a legendary legislator, a notorious negotiator, and a powerful profound prophetic principled public servant, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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KING: That Full House will vote on that in January. But Nancy Pelosi will be back as Speaker. Thanks for your time today.