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Trump Fires DHS Official Who Rejected Voter Fraud Claims; U.S. States Tighten Restrictions as Infections Soar; Iowa Hospitalizations Have Doubled in Recent Weeks; Pfizer Completes Safety Review of COVID- 19 Vaccine; CDC to Decide Who Will Get COVID-19 Vaccine First; Trump Fumes Over Election Loss, Refuses to Concede; U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo Heading to Israel. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired November 18, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.
Ahead this hour, you're fired by tweet. Donald Trump takes his revenge on a senior official who had declared the 2020 vote free, fair and without fraud.
And COVID rages across the United States. Now the states which placed personal freedoms ahead of pandemic restrictions are getting hit hard. We have a report from Iowa.
Plus, the good news, the vaccines are on their way. The next question, do we have the logistics to deliver them around the world?
Good to have you with us. Well, U.S. President Donald Trump is ramping up a purge as he refuses to concede defeat in the presidential election. He announced the firing of Senior Homeland Security Official Chris Krebs on Wednesday. Krebs had rejected the President's claims of widespread voter fraud. Krebs' deputy director is also leaving. He resigned after news his former boss had been sacked.
Meanwhile, the President is facing another loss as he looks to reverse the election. Officials in Wayne County, Michigan have voted to certify election results after President-elect Joe Biden's victory there. It's a shocking turn of events after Republicans earlier blocked the same move.
And as Mr. Trump remains focused on the election, the COVID-19 crisis is spiraling out of control. The U.S. remains the world worst hit county as it approaches a 1/4 of a million deaths. And CNN Alex Marquardt has more on the firing of top Department of Homeland Security official Chris Krebs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: Chris Krebs might not be a name that most American voters know, but he played perhaps the biggest role in terms of making sure that Americans can go to the polls and cast their votes safely and securely. As the head of the Department of Homeland Security Arm, Krebs has been pushing back more and more aggressively in the days following the election against claims, lies, conspiracy theories by the President, his allies, his supporters that the vote was rigged. That votes changed and were fraudulent and that voting machines were manipulated. On that last count on Tuesday Krebs tweeted part of a letter from some top election security officials saying in part that these claims either had been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.
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But perhaps the biggest crime in the President's eyes that led to Krebs getting fired on Tuesday night by tweet was a statement that his agency known as CISA put out along with other federal, state and private election officials in which they said that the 2020 election in the United States was the most secure in American history. They went on to say there was no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.
After Krebs was fired, we learned that his number two, Matt Travis, also resigned after learning that he would not be taking over CISA after Krebs' termination. Krebs for his part on his personal Twitter now responded to his firing, which was not entirely unexpected because of the push back that he had been giving the President since the election.
Krebs writing honored to serve. We did it right. Defend today. Secure tomorrow. Was Krebs' motto in the leadup to the 2020 election.
Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington
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CHURCH: Well, from New York to California tougher coronavirus restrictions are being ramped up across the U.S. in an attempt to contain a surge of infections. Over the past week the U.S. has averaged more than 155,000 new cases per day, by far the worst stretch since the pandemic began.
The crisis has been particularly severe in places that initially resisted containment measures, including Iowa and North Dakota, but now they are tightening restrictions.
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GOV. KIM REYNOLDS (R) IOWA: 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) CHURCH: Iowa has also implemented a mask mandate after initially resisting calls for tougher restrictions. Over the past two weeks hospitalizations have more than doubled across the state rising to the fourth highest rate in the country. And CNN's Miguel Marquez reports health care workers are now being pushed past their limits.
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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Butch Hansen, 84 years old, diagnosed with COVID-19 last week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to get a CAT scan of your chest. You've got some junk in your chest, so you probably have a little pneumonia, but I want to make sure you don't have a blood clot in your lung.
MARQUEZ: Today, he's back in the emergency room.
(on camera): Why did you come back today?
BUTCH HANSEN, DIAGNOSED WITH COVID-19: I had a rough time with that phlegm last night. That's all I did, cough up that phlegm. And I thought, well, it's either the COVID or something else. Let's find out what it is.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Hansen, a retired farmer, says he's been careful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open your mouth. Say ahh.
MARQUEZ: But he may have picked it up by a family member.
Regional health services of Howard County, in Cresco, Iowa, it's the hospital, the ambulance service, the public health department and Hospice care for the entire county. The 19-bed facility moves most its sickest patients to larger hospitals.
With Iowa, the Midwest and the county all seeing a sharp increase in cases and patients, finding an available bed in a larger facility, not so easy these days.
DR. JOHN KAMMERER, REGIONAL HEALTH SERVICES OF HOWARD COUNTY: The biggest concern in the last week is when we call and ask for them to help take care of our patients who are may be sicker than we're used to taking care of, they don't have beds for us. And so, that's where the strain really comes on.
MARQUEZ: Over the last month, hospitalizations across Iowa have skyrocketed, under 500 COVID patients hospitalized in the mid-October. Now, nearly 1,400 Iowans hospitalized with COVID-19.
And if there's a surge with nowhere to send critically ill patients --
(on camera): So this is the in case of emergency, open this?
BRADY NORMAN, AMBULANCE SERVICES AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, HOWARD COUNTY: Pretty much, pretty much. MARQUEZ: How many more people could you surge up to with everything here?
NORMAN: We have the capability of adding up to 50 beds. My hope is to never have to open this trailer.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Today, the entire health-care system here pushed to its limits.
(on camera): What is COVID doing to places like Howard County and Crestview right now?
CHAD RASMUSSEN, NURSE PRACTITIONER, REGIONAL HEALTH SERVICES OF HOWARD COUNTY: You know, it's starting to stress us out. We, you know, have limited resources.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): In the first month of the pandemic here, Howard County saw 13 coronavirus cases. Over the last month, there were 411. With holidays around the corner, the fear, it's going to get a lot worse.
(on camera): With Thanksgiving coming up, how concerned are you with what you're going to see around Christmas?
RASMUSSEN: I have a feeling it's going to be out of control. I really worry about health care in general around Christmas because if everybody gets together on Thanksgiving, has all of their big gatherings, within two weeks then we'll start to see the outbreak start.
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MARQUEZ (on camera): And this is the problem with towns, big and small across Iowa, the Midwest and across the county are facing. The system is essentially filling up. There are fewer and fewer places that hospitals in Crestview, Iowa can send patients to. They're facing the real possibility that at some point people may be dying in their homes, in the parking lots waiting for health care. One good note in all of this, the gentleman that was in the story off the top, Mr. Henson, he went home. I think he will be A-OK. They make them tough in Iowa. Back to you.
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CHURCH: Well, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is the latest member of Congress to test positive for the coronavirus. The 87-year-old chairman of the Senate finance committee announced the test result on his Twitter Tuesday. Grassley is the most senior Republican in the Senate. He spoke on the Senate floor Monday and attended a meeting. He is the second Republican Senator in a week to self-isolate after possible exposure to the virus. Three members of the House of Representatives have also either tested positive or they're self- isolating after possible exposure.
Well meanwhile, a COVID relief bill is stalled in Congress even as cases soar nationwide. And unemployment programs are set to expire at the end of December, which could affect more than 13 million Americans.
Well, the U.S. has just issued an Emergency Use Authorization for the first COVID-19 self-testing kit that can provide rapid results at home. The kit is produced by Lucira and requires a prescription. The test allows users to swab themselves, to collect a nasal sample. That sample is then placed in a vial that plugs into a device that ultimately interprets the results.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration has scheduled meetings for its vaccine advisory committee in three weeks setting the vaccine review process into motion. Two companies, Pfizer and Moderna say they will soon apply to the FDA for authorization of their COVID-19 vaccines.
Joining me now is Professor William Haseltine. He is an infectious disease expert and author of the new autobiography, "My Lifelong Fight Against Disease from Polio and HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. An absolute pleasure to have you with us Professor.
WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
CHURCH: So let's start with Pfizer's vaccine news of reaching its safety milestone and preparing to file for Emergency Use Authorization. How long will the FDA approval likely take? And what might this mean in terms of when the general public will get vaccinated?
HASELTINE: In answer to your first question, how long will it take? It can go pretty quickly. There is a great need for this vaccine and other vaccines for COVID. I suspect the FDA will handle it expeditiously. They've had a chance to see the data. Unfortunately, we haven't yet seen the data, but the FDA has promised us that if they do give any kind of approval, they will.
They filed for Emergency Use Authorization. I'm not sure that's what they're going to get. They may get expanded access which will be a far wiser thing to do given an early state of the trial. This was an interim analysis with a small group of people, all young and healthy. I think we need a lot more data before we really roll out a vaccine. And once Emergency Use Authorization, it's very difficult to complete trials because people want the vaccine, they don't want to participate in a trial.
CHURCH: Yes, understood. And of course, we know that a CDC panel will meet next week to decide who should get that COVID-19 vaccine first. How do they make that determination? And can we assume this vaccine will be free to all Americans once it is available?
HASELTINE: Let me answer your first question I didn't get to, which is, when it would be available. To some people it could be by the beginning of the year or the very end of this year. But for most people it won't be probably until late spring, early summer at the earliest. It's going to take a long time to scale up the amount of doses. Hopefully, we'll have a lot more data on safety, we'll have more data on efficacy, we'll have more data on how it is used in different populations.
There will also be a lot of other vaccines that have reached this milestone by that time. And it's going to be a lot of news and it will be all pretty confusing as to who's where and going where. In answering to your question, how do they determine who gets the vaccine? Very difficult question.
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The people who need it most in the United States are mostly poor, disenfranchised people who have by far the highest rate of HIV -- I mean of COVID and of COVID-related deaths and getting it to the population, the black population, the working poor population is going to be a lot harder. It's not going to be easy.
CHURCH: And you feel it will be free to everyone?
HASELTINE: That is a determination of whether the government's going to buy it and make it free. Let's hope they are. Certainly is not going to be free to the government. Whether it will be free to the individuals? They say so. Let's see.
CHURCH: Right, I mean because really if it's free you're going to encourage more people to take it. And that takes us to my next question which involves a Gallup poll asking Americans if they are willing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It found 58 percent said yes. That is up 50 percent back in September. And that means around 4 in 10 Americans are not willing to take the vaccine for whatever reason.
What needs to be done to earn the trust of those Americans and convince them that getting the vaccine is the smart thing to do? Because unless most people take this, it's going to be sort of a useless exercise in the end, isn't it?
HASELTINE: Well, it's not useless if it works in the people who take it. You know, some vaccines work by creating herd immunity, that is that if enough people take it, the virus has no real place to go. These vaccines may not work that way. They may not prevent infection and it may not even prevent transmission. It will be more like a flu vaccine. Where the vaccine may protect you from getting sick, but it doesn't protect you from getting infected. It just may protect you from getting sick. And in that case if half the people don't get sick, that's a good thing.
CHURCH: Professor William Haseltine, thank you so much for talking with us. We appreciate t.
HASELTINE: My pleasure, thank you.
CHURCH: And still ahead, despite opposition to the plan, the Trump administration is withdrawing thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. We will have details on this controversial move. That's next.
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CHURCH: The Trump administration has announced that thousands of U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, a change that will take effect just days before Joe Biden is sworn in as President. The withdrawal will leave about 2,500 troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said the plans don't equate to a U.S. policy change, but the decision was strongly opposed by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper. He was fired by President Trump last week.
Joining us now is CNN politics White House reporter Stephen Collinson. Good to have you with us.
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi.
CHURCH: So, Stephen, you just wrote about what you called Trump's transition sabotage, threatening the vaccine rollout, and you talk about the likely fallout from Trump's order to drawdown U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and chatter about a possible strike on Iran. How much of this is proof Donald Trump is actively working to sabotage President-Elect Joe Biden?
COLLINSON: Well, Rosemary, I think that's become increasingly clear in the last couple of days. What we have is two separate strands here. You have a bunch of spurious and baseless court cases by the Trump campaign, alleging that there was massive fraud in this election.
So far, they've struck out on almost every single one of those cases, and they aren't really bringing forward conclusive evidence, or any evidence really of fraud, and that strategy is failing in the courts. But it's having an effect on public opinion. It's convincing Trump voters the presidency of Joe Biden that will unfold from January 20th next year is illegitimate.
Then you have the administration taking several steps, for example, the draw out of troops announced today from Afghanistan and Iraq, which will reshape the world that Biden will inherit as president. Trump box him in on foreign policy. There are various steps that the administration could take, for example, putting more tariffs on Chinese trade, more sanctions on Iran to make it more difficult for the Biden administration to renegotiate the nuclear accord that the Trump administration pulled out of.
So, two separate tracks. The ultimate goal, I think, of all of them is, was a recognition that Trump probably can't overturned the results of the election. He can make life much more difficult for President Joe Biden when he takes office.
CHURCH: So, if Donald Trump is doing all this to sabotage his successor, could it backfire in the end do to Joe Biden hitting the ground running despite his transition being blocked by Trump, meeting with relevant health experts, and now Pfizer poised to get Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine candidate that could see a distribution system already in place by the time Biden takes office in January 20th? COLLINSON: Well, certainly Biden is doing everything he can, short of
having an official transition take place to prepare himself to be president and to show the American people right now that there really is only one person who's actually doing the job of president. Donald Trump is basically effectively giving up trying to fight the pandemic even as it gets much, much worse.
What a transition is, is it's millions of dollars of government money that a president-elect can use. Its access to government departments to get information about what exactly is going on in the government, as you say, to just hit the ground running.
The big concern though is that if the Biden team doesn't soon get access to the data and the officials who are handling the vaccine rollout.
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Even these very encouraging news stories about how effective the vaccine will be, you know, it will take a little while for them to get up to speed, and that could delay the time it takes to roll out the vaccine in the first quarter of next year, and of course that could cost lives and you know, further damage to the economy.
CHURCH: Right. That is a big concern. And what are the potential ramifications of the troop drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan that Trump ordered to take place just days before Biden's inaugurated? A move that even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is not happy about.
COLLINSON: Yes, it was interesting to watch the reaction to that announcement, which basically goes some way to fulfilling President Trump's vowed to get all the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq by the end of his presidency.
There are traditional Republican hawks on Capitol Hill who are not happy about this. They worry that there was no consultation with U.S. allies who still have troops in both those theatres. They also are concerned that this could lead in Afghanistan, for example, to resurgence of the Taliban that could threaten the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
In Iraq, there are also worries on Capitol Hill that the drawdown will not just imperil the U.S. embassy in Iraq. One of the biggest U.S. embassies in the world. It could give a signal to Iran that the United States is handing over Iraq to Iranian influence.
CHURCH: Stephen Collinson, great to talk with you. I appreciate it.
COLLINSON: Thanks.
CHURCH: Well, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might face some tough questions about those troop drawdowns today. He is set to travel to Israel this hour. Earlier Pompeo met with the Georgian President as part of a tour of Europe in the Middle East. Pompeo arrives in Israel just one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with President-elect Joe Biden. So, let's bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann. He joins us live from
Jerusalem. Good to see you, Oren. So what is Prime Minister Netanyahu likely to say to Pompeo about this order for U.S. troop drawdown in the new year?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will mention that at all. Mostly if anything that could reflect negatively on the Trump administration or on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and he certainly isn't about to mention that phone call he had with President-elect Joe Biden. Netanyahu very much took his time in recognizing that Biden was the President-elect and had won the election and put out the statement Netanyahu made about a week and a half ago made no mention of the election or of president- elect. It simply congratulated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
So what is Pompeo doing here? Well, first he's trying to build on the momentum of the Abraham Accords and the regional normalization deals. That Bahrain's Foreign Minister just landed here a short time ago, and there will be a trilateral meeting between Netanyahu, the Bahraini Foreign Minister and Pompeo a little later on this afternoon.
Pompeo will also during the course of this trip, perhaps tomorrow, he is visiting settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Golan Heights. That's a first for a U.S. official, and certainly a first for a Secretary of State. Perhaps unprecedented by any other Secretary of State in this history, but not by Pompeo. Remember it was Pompeo who reversed decades of U.S. foreign policy and ruled that settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights were not de facto a violation of international law. So this very much precedes in that vein. He's expected to visit the winery of Psagot, which actually has a red wine named after Pompeo. Perhaps even the settlement of Shemot, which has biblical significance, and then a settlement in the Golan Heights. It's not clear which one yet. But he wanted to, he could visit Trump heights. Where is Pompeo off to after this trip? He's headed for Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Those are significant because it's those two countries that U.S. is still pushing for normalization with Israel even at this late hour in the waiting game of the administration.
Meanwhile, there will be no meetings with the Palestinians. The Palestinians are furious about Pompeo's visits to settlements.
CHURCH: All right, many thanks to Oren Liebermann joining us live there, appreciate it.
Well, South Australia is taking extreme measures after a new COVID outbreak there. We will go live to Sydney to get the latest.
