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Trump's Attack on Election Results Continues; Pfizer Vaccine Submitted for FDA Approval. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 20, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Phil Black, CNN, Stockholm.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And our special coverage continues now with Brooke Baldwin.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You are watching CNN.

Thank you so much for being with me on this Friday afternoon. I want to let you know -- oh, OK, I'm just getting in my ear from my producer.

We were watching this event in the Briefing Room of the White House. President Trump was present. We were waiting to see if he would actually take questions, because he has not done so in 17 days, and I'm just now told that he left.

So, 17 days, no questions being taken by the president of the United States. Just given everything that happens -- is happening, right? The numbers don't lie. The president lost the election definitively. He is behind in the popular vote by nearly six million. He lost the electoral vote by 74.

His legal battles are losing steam, so much so that he and his allies are two for 31 in the courts. It is over. And yet here he is hosting Republican lawmakers from Michigan today, a state that he lost by more than 150,000 votes in a desperate bid to overturn those results.

And while the president is all in on holding up the democratic process, he is ignoring the actual crisis that is worsening by the hour across this country, the pandemic.

Cases are surging. Hospitals are now overflowing. More than 2,000 Americans died yesterday alone. And health experts are warning the death toll could eclipse 470,000 in the next four months.

And while the president stands in the Briefing Room, doesn't take questions continues to put his ego ahead of you and your loved ones, this incoming administration is pressing ahead, meeting this hour with top Democrats in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

And, by the way, a source tells CNN that Speaker Pelosi has repeatedly referred to the current president, President Trump, as -- and I'm quoting her here -- "a psychopathic nut" this week.

So, let's go straight to our White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, who is standing by in the Briefing Room.

As I pointed out, Kaitlan, the president not taking questions yet again.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He has not taken questions since the day of the election, Brooke.

And you have got to think that if the president felt so good about his false statement, his lie that he won the election, you would think that he would take questions, he would talk about the evidence he believes his attorneys are going to be presenting in court, even though they did not president that evidence themselves yesterday, besides waving around some affidavits during that briefing.

And so this is continuing on, where the president is refusing to take our questions and refusing to expand on his claims that he won this election or expand on why he is refusing to concede this election to Joe Biden, given he has clearly won and is blocking that transition from taking place.

He just simply will not answer questions. And so he comes out here, he talks about the 74 million votes that he won in this election, but, Brooke, he's ignoring the fact that Joe Biden won almost 80 million votes, and, more importantly, obviously got more votes in the Electoral College, the same number that the president got in 2016.

And so this is coming ahead of that meeting that the president is going to have here, we believe, in the next hour or so, with those Michigan state lawmakers, where this is basically his last-ditch effort to try to pressure them to override the will of the voters, so he can try to overturn the results of this election.

And we have seen how this has changed from they were saying, let's wait and let's have the votes come in, that will show that the president has won reelection. Then they said, well, we don't believe the votes that were legally counted actually added up to what they were supposed to, so we're going to file these lawsuits.

We know, of course, the president and his allies have lost two dozen lawsuits since Election Day now, Brooke. So now the president is moving on to trying to use political muscle to pressure these state lawmakers to change the vote, to override the will of the voters in places like Michigan, where Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump with a margin of 150,000 votes.

It wasn't even close there, Brooke. And, of course, the president is not answering any questions on that. His press secretary was here earlier today. She only answered a handful of questions. And so that really does really say much more than probably them answering questions could about how they think these efforts to overturn the results of the election are going to go.

BALDWIN: I was just talking to the Michigan secretary of state yesterday live on air when the president had tweeted, "I won Michigan."

And I read the tweet back to the secretary, and she, without skipping a beat, said, look at the votes. Joe Biden won.

Nonetheless, as you point out, those Michigan Republican lawmakers are headed to the White House. I'm going to come back to that in a second.

Kaitlan, thank you so much for all of just the perspective as we continue on, because now, to team Biden, both the president-elect and the vice president-elect are set to meet with Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi this hour in Wilmington.

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Let's go to Jessica Dean, who is there covering that angle for us.

And, so, Jessica, has the president-elect responded to what Trump is doing and not doing now?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, we did hear from him yesterday, Brooke. And we heard really his strongest words yet about President Trump's behavior about what it means for the reputation of American democracy, frankly, all across the globe.

And he said that it was very, very damaging. And we heard him. He really kind of paused and really selected his words carefully. Of course, he and his team have been trying to move forward as best they can around the fact that this formal transition process has been stalled by President Trump and his allies, and then that the GSA has still refused to sign off on that formal transition process.

And so, to that end, they have been doing things all this week, Brooke, you have seen them, that really try to telegraph to the American people, to the Republicans, Republican allies of the president, and even the president that they are putting together a government, they are moving ahead.

So, yesterday, that included that meeting, that bipartisan meeting with a set of governors to talk about COVID relief. Today, what that looks like, as you mentioned, is meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to talk about COVID relief as well, and trying to get something done for the American people before this lame-duck session is over.

All of this Brooke, as we're learning they're also zeroing in on some Cabinet nominee announcements that are likely to come next week, the first of what will be many, but a handful next week. He said yesterday that he has picked a Treasury secretary. So they are making progress, Brooke. But, again, this is so outside of what's normal. One of his lawyers and a senior adviser to his campaign, Bob Bauer, held a call with reporters today to talk about Trump's legal challenges and what they have been doing.

And he said something to the effect of Trump and his allies are tearing at the fabric of democracy, but the fabric is holding. They truly believe that they will get to the other side of this, that Trump will not be successful, and that Joe Biden will take office on January 20 -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jessica, thank you so much in Delaware.

With me now, CNN contributor a "New York Times" columnist Frank Bruni.

And, Frank, great to have you on, as always.

First, just we saw the president in the Briefing Room speaking, didn't take questions. I don't even want to say in denial. He's just flat out like -- according to our sources at CNN, like, he knows he lost.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

BALDWIN: He's holding a grudge against Democrats over what happened in 2016. He is ignoring coronavirus.

But at what point are the higher-profile Republicans, Frank, going to break with this president and say enough is enough publicly?

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BRUNI: I think we have been asking that question for close to four years now, Brooke.

I mean, now the question is more urgent than ever. And the fact that more Republicans haven't broken with him is more astonishing than ever, because we have gotten accustomed to Trump's antics. This goes beyond antics. But he's doing profound, profound injury to the country right now, as you have noted and as your correspondents have noted.

And it requires people in his party, not just Democrats, saying, buddy, you have to stop this, America matters more than you.

You used a great phrase a bit ago, Brooke. You said he's putting his ego once again before you and your loved ones. This last couple of weeks is the apotheosis of Donald Trump's egomania. And it is his entire presidency distilled, and to the nth degree.

It is self above country. It is personal interest above civic interest. And his personal interest, I think, is not only prosecuting grudges, as you said. I think he also just likes to be the center of attention. He -- this has, to some extent, been a reality show presidency. And he's giving us the next few episodes.

He does not want until the day he must cede the stage to cede the stage. BALDWIN: But what's the long-term damage to the country?

BRUNI: The long-term damage to the country is -- so, we have talked a lot about the transition not going properly. And that is of great concern. But that will come to an end. I think we will get beyond that.

The long-term damage to the country is that Donald Trump is making sure that an enormous percentage of Americans do not see Joe Biden's presidency as legitimate, distrust everything about it and refuse to find common ground or cooperate.

And we were already in a state in this country of hyperpolarization, partisanship that was extraordinarily corrosive. This is just going to make that worse. And I think he's trying to make the country ungovernable.

BALDWIN: When you look at -- I'm listening to you. And when you look at the numbers, Monmouth University poll, 70 percent of Republicans believe Biden won because he cheated.

And on the point, Frank, of the Republican Party, it's becoming more dangerous. The president's lawyers' conspiracy theories are now being embraced by the RNC, right? They're tweeting out clips of that -- and I'm using air quotes intentionally -- like Giuliani's press conference yesterday.

[15:10:03]

But this is the Republican National Committee.

What is happening as we move forward with the GOP?

BRUNI: Well, I mean, I think, the GOP is profoundly broken. I think that history is going to judge them very unkindly.

But what's going on is, I think most of them know full well that Trump is acting in a completely demented and destructive fashion. They're rationalizing that, if I speak out against the president, he will come after me, someone else will end up replacing me in office, and that someone else will be even worse than I am.

And maybe there's some logic to that. But, at a certain point, when you haven't been biting your tongue this long and this hard, tell me what your purpose in Congress is. Tell me what exactly you're accomplishing with this degree of silence and complicity.

BALDWIN: If you can't speak up against this president -- I just was thinking about this morning -- how can you speak up against Xi, Putin, fill in the blank? That's what I'm wondering about with regard to some of these folks in Washington.

And then just, on top of all of this, the president, as we were just talking about, still claiming that he won Michigan. And I -- live on the show -- I just said this -- I talked to the Michigan secretary of state. And she assured me Biden won. And now President Trump will meet with Michigan House -- the speaker

and the Senate majority leader at the White House within the hour. And they both say they will honor the popular vote, but the fact that these two Republicans are even getting on a plane and flying to the people's house to meet with -- at the end of the day, he's the candidate.

BRUNI: Yes.

BALDWIN: How does anyone think that's OK?

BRUNI: They shouldn't think it's OK. We have never seen anything like this in your or my lifetimes, Brooke, because we should never see anything like this.

This is a display of trying to work around the rules and undermine democracy that, even coming from Donald Trump, takes my breath away. Throughout this presidency, we have always said, well, he wouldn't do X, Y or Z. He won't go that far.

He has always gone that far, and then he's gone farther. And to our to our discussion about Republican lawmakers and their complicity, their silence, how few of them are speaking out, if you can't speak out now, if now isn't the time to finally speak out, when is that time? What could be more urgent than circumstances in which you have a president of the United States undermining our very democracy and trying to make his successor look completely legitimate?

BALDWIN: Thank you. Frank Bruni, thank you so much.

BRUNI: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We have got more breaking news for you this afternoon.

It is official. Pfizer and BioNTech just submitted their 95 percent effective coronavirus vaccine to the FDA. When will Americans be able to get it? We will talk to Dr. Sanjay Gupta next.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: We are back with some breaking news this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Let's get right to it. Pfizer and BioNTech have submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, for emergency use authorization for their coronavirus vaccine candidate.

Let's go straight to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, our chief medical correspondent here.

And so, Sanjay, what does this mean?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, I mean, this is a day.

I mean, this is a day that we have been talking about for some time. It's -- what it means right now is that this application has been filed. It's got to lead to something for it to mean anything for people who are watching right now, but it's a significant move.

What Pfizer/BioNTech is basically saying is that they believe, based on the data that has been shared with them -- and, keep in mind, there's all these different organizations involved, as we talked about before, Brooke, various committees, obviously, the FDA, the CDC, but they believe that the vaccine that they have created will meet the requirements to achieve an emergency use authorization.

It's not the same thing as an approval. But it's an emergency use authorization that the FDA will grant in situations where they think there's tremendous need. This pandemic sort of qualifies for that. And they think that, if this does get an emergency use authorization, they have already have doses the vaccine that they have been manufacturing for some time.

It'll go to a committee that will determine where those doses go, who gets them. And that could happen within the next few weeks, Brooke. So, it's an important marker today. Again, I want to be careful. I haven't seen the data. Not very many people have. But the data that we have heard described to us by the company is very promising.

And they certainly feel like it warrants an emergency use authorization.

BALDWIN: So, what I'm hearing is that, if all goes well, according to this information we're just now getting, that, in a matter of weeks, those high-priority folks could possibly be getting this vaccine.

And just remind people, because I know people are sitting there thinking -- at least those who actually want to take the vaccine -- what's the hierarchy?

GUPTA: Yes.

So -- and this is a really important point. I mean, you -- and the CDC, as well as a committee that works at the CDC, will sort of determine that.

But, based on our reporting and lots of conversations we have had with people who make these decisions, high-risk health care workers are probably going to be at the top of the list, the reason being that, as you know, Brooke, there's a lot of strain on hospital systems right now.

In hospital systems, if you suddenly have significant outbreaks among health care workers, and you lose personnel as a result, that will obviously make it even more challenging to take care of the patients that are coming into hospitals. Those numbers are going up.

You need to do everything you can to protect those high-risk health care workers in the beginning. So, they're probably going to be first in line.

And we can show you the rough sort of number of doses that's likely to be available. This is based on, again, everything going as we sort of suspect.

[15:20:02]

Pfizer, we're hearing about today, but also Moderna likely to be filing for an emergency use authorization. If both those get approved next month, December, before Christmas, likely, 40 million doses.

BALDWIN: Wow.

GUPTA: Two doses per person, so 20 million people would be able to get immunized.

It's -- yes, it's pretty extraordinary. By the beginning of April, end of March, do the math there, it'd be 150 million doses total. That's 75 million people. And that still wouldn't necessarily cover all the people who would be considered vulnerable, high-risk for the various reasons.

But you start getting into the summer, and after those people become vaccinated and get the vaccine shots, then it would become people who are younger, healthier, less at risk of getting sick, so talking into the summer, late summer, maybe even early fall for other people.

But it these vulnerable populations, Brooke, that make the biggest difference. Keep in mind, as we have talked about since February, 80 percent of people, more than that, have very few, if any symptoms from this.

So this has really got to be for the 10 to 20 percent of people who are at highest risk, either because of exposures or because of their own medical background. And I think that that's going to really dictate the hierarchy, if you will, of how these vaccines roll out.

BALDWIN: Got it.

Sanjay, thank you so much for jumping in on the breaking news.

I want to bring in another M.D. She is Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath. She is president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.

And so, Doctor, great to have you on as we're getting this breaking news, which is certainly a positive development.

But, as Sanjay was pointing out, we're talking millions and millions of doses of this vaccine. And so my question to you is, we know that they want to distribute them quickly. So does that mean, all right, get them to your local doctor's office? Do we go to CVS? Do we go to Walgreens?

Or do they need to set up some giant area, like an arena, for a large number of people to just, bang, get the shot?

DR. MICHELLE MCMURRY-HEATH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, BIOTECHNOLOGY INNOVATION ORGANIZATION: Well, this is an incredibly hopeful day.

And this news is so reassuring. And we have at Biotechnology Innovation Organization that represents over 1,000 biotechnology companies that have been working nonstop to get to this point are certainly buoyed by this news.

And we do hope very, very soon that we will be able to start delivering doses after an emergency use authorization, which is still yet to come, as Dr. Gupta pointed out, to our front-line health care workers, who are at the top of that hierarchy that he mentioned, in terms of who is most at risk for COVID.

They have been working, they meaning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, on distribution channels, so not just making sure that we have a vaccine that reaches our threshold of safety and effectiveness, so that everyone can have confidence in it, but that we're actually working on figuring out how to distribute the doses and administer them.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let me just jump in.

If we're talking expediency and millions of doses, it'll take a lot longer for an individual to go to CVS on the corner vs. go to some arena where they will have people lined up, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine.

MCMURRY-HEATH: Well, they have been working through established health channels.

So, there is hope that, by the spring of next year, we will be including your local pharmacy, your local doctor's office in the distribution channels.

Now, as you may recall, the Pfizer vaccine has some very particular storage features. It has to be kept at minus-70, the temperature of dry ice. And so there's special distribution set up specifically for that type of vaccine.

So they are taking everything into account. They're making sure that they can get it to as many very, very convenient places as possible, but health care workers will be the first in line. And so they will be going where they can find them as quickly as possible.

BALDWIN: Do you, Dr. McMurry-Heath, trust this current administration, the Trump administration, to do this right, after they botched the distribution of PPE and testing earlier this year?

MCMURRY-HEATH: Well, let's just say it has been a bumpy road and made all the more bumpier today--

BALDWIN: You think?

(LAUGHTER) MCMURRY-HEATH: All the more bumpier today, where we have this triumphant news from one of our manufacturers, and we have the president of the United States standing at a press conference saying that Pfizer is to blame for his political loss, and introducing importing foreign price controls to -- as retribution.

So, while we have world leaders from around the globe calling our companies, congratulating them for the progress made to date, our own administration is dragging their heels.

And we need incredibly smooth transition of power to the new administration to make sure there are no delays, no hiccups, because we do not need that.

[15:25:00]

So, when the Food and Drug Administration meets on December 8, 9, and 10, they have said they're not going to approve a COVID vaccine without a public meeting, so that everyone can see the data and have confidence in it.

When they meet, we need to be ready to roll. We need to make sure that we're going to be able to distribute and administer the vaccine as smoothly as possible through January, through February, without any slip-ups in the transition.

So, we need that cooperation right now.

BALDWIN: Yes, yes, indeed.

Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, thank you so much. Great to have you on.

MCMURRY-HEATH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next: Are President Trump's children starting to feel the heat? What Ivanka Trump's latest tweet says about the investigation into her family business.

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