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U.S. Breaks Another Record With 83,000-Plus Hospitalizations; Sen. Kelly Loeffler Campaign Says Her COVID Retest Came Back Negative; Vaccine Distribution To Begin Within 24 Hours After Authorization; Chris Christie Says It's Time For Trump To End Election Lawsuits; Thanksgiving Brings Tough Decisions For Families; Trump Rails Against Climate Accord In G20 Virtual Speech; Trump's Attempt To Undermine The Election Unraveling. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired November 22, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:35]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me this Sunday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

The record surge of coronavirus cases in the U.S. on the verge of exponential growth. The nation's leading infectious disease expert says innocent family gatherings this Thanksgiving holiday in defiance of CDC warnings may contribute to the escalation.

Right now across America more than 12 million COVID cases. 3 million cases in November alone putting a record high strain on medical care facilities and health care workers, more than 83,000 hospitalizations.

But hope is on the horizon. The FDA grants emergency authorization of the same antibody cocktail given to President Trump shortly after his COVID-19 diagnosis.

The biotech company Regeneron says the treatment reduces medical visits for some patients who get treatment in the early stages of the disease.

Let's try to get to CNN Evan McMorris-Santoro who joins me now from a testing site in New York, one of the many with long lines throughout the city. Evan, what are you hearing from people many of whom are hoping being tested early helps them visit family and friends for the holiday.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Fred, in terms of visiting people, that's something that experts are saying people should not do. So maybe they're hoping to but it's something that they're being told not to do.

I'll tell you where I am right now though. I'm in Lower Manhattan outside an urgent care center. And you can see people are lined up almost a full city block. This is some of those long blocks between the avenues in New York City. People in front of this line have been waiting for five hours to get a test today. And it's not just here. We've seen this outside. These urgent care centers all over the city in every borough.

So that's the sort of anecdotal evidence that shows you just how back the virus is. How big this surge is.

There is also statistical numbers you can look at that shows you how big things are and how bad things are again.

Let's talk about hospitalizations. As of yesterday around 83,000 Americans were in the hospital with complications from COVID-19. Now, that's a record number.

And just to show you how big of a record it is. Back in April when we were really seeing that first, first big surge the record number then was 59,000. Around 59,000 -- well around 60,000 Americans in the hospital. So those are the numbers people are looking at when they talk about how bad things are right now.

And that's why experts are urging people even if they're coming to get tested like they are today, not to travel for the holidays, to make the hard choice to stay home. That's what this is about. And that's why people are nervous right now, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And then now New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says schools located in communities with high infection rates can stay open for in- person instruction if they test out of closing. What more are you hearing about this?

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: This is a little bit complicated. This is one of those things where the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York are on different pages. Something we're very, very used to on these weekends. You and I, Fred, have talked about this quite a lot.

Right now it's with the schools. Currently New York City public schools, the largest district in the nation, are closed to students because of a rising infection rate. The infection rate crossed the 3 percent threshold, the number the city had put into place to close the schools back down. And so they did.

Now, Governor Andrew Cuomo has said that schools in areas where the infection rate is above 3 percent or other high numbers like that can test themselves out of being closed saying that like look, if there's testing inside the schools that show that the number of the infection rate is actually lower than that overall infection rate, those schools should stay open to students.

We're not actually clear on how that applies to New York City schools yet. Right now they're -- right now they're closed. But we're waiting to hear if that thing the governor said applies to New York City schools.

WHITFIELD: Oh my God.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: And we just don't know yet. And that's leaving parents in the middle of it all as usual, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Right. A confusing matter just made even more perplexing.

All right. Evan McMorris-Santoro, thank you so much.

All right. And this just in to CNN. Georgia U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler's office said she has tested negative now for COVID after initially testing positive.

[14:04:50]

WHITFIELD: CNN's Ryan Nobles is following the latest developments from Atlanta. So Ryan, what more are you learning about this. This is particularly interesting because this is a potentially pivotal runoff race involving two incumbent U.S. senators.

She's among them. And initially there was a test positive for COVID. She met with the Vice President even before the weekend so now bring us up to date.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Fred.

Obviously this Georgia senate runoff has the eyes of the nation because it's going to determine who ultimately has the majority in the United States Senate in the next Congress. So this race with Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the two Republican incumbents against Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock who's running against Loeffler very important. All kinds of money pouring into the state of Georgia.

And over the weekend, Senator Loeffler's campaign said that she had indeed tested positive for coronavirus. Now, she wasn't dealing with any symptoms but she did isolate.

She's now subsequently taken a number of tests after the fact and one of the tests that she had taken right after testing positive ultimately came back inconclusive.

Her campaign not providing exactly a ton of information as to what that meant but her campaign just in the last hour releasing a statement that said that those results were retested again and they have now come back negative.

So what does this mean for Loeffler and her campaign? Well, they say that at this point she's going to continue out of an abundance of caution to remain isolated until she gets two consecutive negative tests. So she is going to test again and then after the fact she will resume her campaigning.

But obviously this has created a ripple effect across the board here because Loeffler has been with so many prominent Republican politicians over the past week. She was with Vice President Mike Pence. She was with David Perdue, who is the other senator who is running.

They've been seen without wearing masks and that's required both the Vice President and Senator Perdue to also take precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus if she ends up having the disease.

So, you know, Fred, more than anything this shows just how difficult the next month or so is going to be for these candidates as they try and navigate the campaign season here in Georgia with so much at stake not just the Democrats but the Republicans as well.

Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, who's running against David Perdue, he has a campaign event later this afternoon so the campaigning continues as we head toward that January 5th runoff, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Ryan Nobles, Thank you so much for that update.

All right. Joining me right now to talk further about testing and beyond, Dr. Amy Compton Phillips, the chief clinical officer of Providence health system.

Dr. Compton-Phillips, good to see you. So what does this case surrounding Kelly Loeffler, a number of tests that she's taken, tell you about the efficacy of today's testing?

DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, PROVIDENCE HEALTH SYSTEM: It tells us that it really matters what test you get and also when you get tested. That when you first get exposed to the coronavirus, your levels are pretty low and then they rapidly increase over the first five days.

If you take particularly the antigen -- the rapid antigen test, they're not very sensitive. And it's easy to get either false negatives so that you don't find people that are infected, or inconclusive tests.

And so I don't know what test she took. The PCR test -- the one that go off to the reference labs that, you know, get those swabs that people don't like are the ones that are more sensitive and really are the ones that we have to use for people without symptoms yet.

WHITFIELD: Because apparently there were several -- there were at least two tests that she took earlier in the day on Friday before meeting with Vice President Pence and incumbent Senator Perdue. And then according to her office, later on she did take that PCR test and there was a positive result that came from that. And then we were told over the weekend that there is continued testing.

So is this normal? Is this how it usually goes? Or is this unusual to take so many tests according to her office before now today learning that she is negative according to the latest result?

DR. COMPTON-PHILLIPS: The testing is not perfect. And that's exactly what you're seeing. Part of the issue is that even with the PCR test -- so the antigen test we know have real issues with false negatives. The PCR test -- the line between positive and negative is kind of inconclusive.

And so you heard early on in the pandemic when people would test negative and then they test positive again. And that's because their viral load might be just going above and below that line. And so that's where you end up in this nebulous area that maybe you have it, maybe you don't. Test is positive, test is negative, test is inconclusive. It's really challenging to work with.

[14:09:46]

WHITFIELD: Very much so.

All right. Coronavirus vaccine distribution is now set to begin within just 24 hours of the FDA issuing Emergency Use Authorization which could come as soon as December 10th. Each individual state will then determine which groups are first in line to be vaccinated. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR, OPERATION WARP SPEED: The way things are planned is we will distribute vaccines where each state Department of Health will have asked us to distribute it and then it will be the state, each state will independently decide, taking into account the guidance, who to immunize. So some states may make different decisions depending on their population and their situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So what kind of preparations do you believe should be taken right now about this vaccine distribution?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: A lot. Because the logistics of distributing this vaccine are really complicated. We have to know where to put those super cold freezers, the minus 70 freezer. We have to figure out how to get vaccine because even the ones with the regular freezers, we have to be able to distribute the vaccine out broadly.

You have to know which -- for right now we believe health care workers and first responders will be in that early pool. Which health care workers and which first responders? Who gets the vaccine first? How do you know which one gets the Moderna versus the Pfizer vaccine because one has to get the booster at three weeks, one at four weeks?

So it's really complicated figuring all that out.

WHITFIELD: All right. Still a lot of work to be done. Dr. Amy Compton Phillips, thanks so much. And hope that you have a great Thanksgiving week. Appreciate it.

DR. COMPTON PHILLIPS: Thank you. You, too.

WHITFIELD: All right. Coming up, lawsuit road blocks. President Trump's election challenge falls apart in battleground Pennsylvania. A federal judge lashing out at an attempt to disenfranchise almost 7 million votes.

Plus, enough is enough. A growing list of Republicans criticizing the president's legal strategy including Chris Christie who says Trump's lawyers are a quote, "national embarrassment". [14:11:50]

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WHITFIELD: Two critical states aware the Trump campaign is challenging the vote are expected to certify their election results tomorrow. The Michigan board of canvassers is expected to certify that Joe Biden won that state. Pennsylvania Counties are also expected to certify an election victory for Biden.

In Georgia this week, election officials will conduct yet another recount of the state's presidential ballots following a request from the Trump campaign.

A hand audit already confirmed President-Elect Joe Biden won Georgia by more than 12,000 votes and this new machine recount is not expected to change the outcome.

For more on these developments, let's bring in Kristen Holmes. Kristen, what is the status of the vote challenges in Michigan and Pennsylvania?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, if you talk to legal experts and election experts as we have, they would say that they're pretty much dead in the water.

But I think it's important to still go through what is floating out there. And we'll start in Michigan.

Last night Republicans in Michigan as well as the Republican National Committee sent a letter to the board of canvassers, which is the group that certifies the election. It's four people -- two Democrats, two Republicans, asking them to delay the certification in the state for 14 days until there was an audit in Wayne County, which, of course, is Michigan's largest county, the home of Detroit.

Now, one thing to point out here, there's no indication that this is allowed under state law at all. But this is also just the latest in this ongoing saga involving Michigan. We had these two people on the board of canvassers to certify the city of Detroit go back and forth say they would certify, they wouldn't certify.

And then we had President Trump inviting two of these Republican leaders in the state to the White House and afterwards they said that there was still no indication of fraud. So unclear what this will do and whether or not this is even legal.

Now, when we talk about Pennsylvania, a federal judge there dismissing a case from the Trump campaign basically outright saying there was no evidence of their argument that Republicans had been disenfranchised because Democratic-leaning counties had allowed some of their voters to cure or fix their ballots.

One last ditch attempt now happening from a GOP congressman. He is now bringing to court trying to throw out all of the mail-in ballots saying they are unconstitutional. And Fred, I really think the most important thing to point out here is that that law that allowed mail- in ballots, that was signed off on by a Republican state legislature -- not Democrats, Republican state legislature.

So unclear here what exactly they're doing. But it seems as though they are throwing everything they can at the wall.

WHITFIELD: And all this after that Republican Pennsylvania judge who actually said, you know, this claim like Frankenstein's monster has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.

All right. Let's talk about Georgia now. It has already certified a win for Joe Biden and this week Georgia will conduct a third count of votes. This time by machine.

Explain when results can be expected and is it expected to change the overall outcome?

HOLMES: Absolutely not. There is not one election expert that we have talked to who thinks that this will change any of the results. So let's make that very clear. This is in fact, less thorough than that audit that we just saw.

That was counted by hand, five million ballots that were gone through painstakingly. This is putting those ballots through a machine. Now we expect to have results in five to nine days. But again, we really need to point out that there's no expectation that the winner will change here based on this.

And right now when you talk to those election experts and those legal experts about what is going on, they believe that this is just an attempt to subvert democracy and to really undermine the Democratic process which will have long-term ramifications, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for that.

[14:19:51]

WHITFIELD: All right. We're seeing now growing cracks in President Trump's Republican wall of support as he continues to claim massive voter fraud without offering any proof.

Well, today a staunch ally of President Trump says it is time for him to end his attempts to overturn the results of the election. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says Trump has failed to provide any evidence of fraud. Christie, A long time supporter of Trump says it's time for the president to put the country first as he blasted the president's legal team.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: His legal team has been a national embarrassment. Sidney Powell accusing Governor Brian Kemp of a crime on television yet being unwilling to go on TV and defend and lay out the evidence that she supposedly has. This is outrageous conduct by any lawyer and notice George, they won't do it inside the courtroom. They allege fraud outside the courtroom but when they go inside the courtroom, they don't plead fraud and they don't argue fraud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. CNN's Jeremy Diamond joining us now from the White House.

So Jeremy, you know, Chris Christie, one of a growing number of Republicans, you know, finally starting to speak out about the president. What is the White House saying if anything?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, I think it's important to recognize that the overwhelming majority of Republicans so far, Republican-elected officials, they are sticking with the president. They have refused to acknowledge Joe Biden as the president-elect more than two weeks after he was projected the winner by all of the major networks and despite several states beginning to certify their votes.

But what you are also starting to see is you're starting to see some of the patience among Republicans beginning to wear thin. And you're seeing some Republicans starting to call Joe Biden the president-elect and others at a minimum beginning to say, look, we need to allow this transition to begin and if the Trump campaign has any evidence, they need to present it in court, not in press conferences.

You can see a number of Republican members of Congress, for example, Congresswoman Liz Cheney was a very notable addition to this list just yesterday. She's a member of House Republican leadership and she said yesterday very clearly that if the president can't present this evidence in court, he needs to respect the sanctity of our electoral process.

Even Senator Tom Cotton who is very much still on the president's side as it relates to these legal challenges, he has also said it's not the time for press conferences right now. It's time to present that evidence in court.

You're also seeing some Republican governors as well starting to make the case. Governor Larry Hogan of the state of Maryland, he was one of the first ones to recognize Joe Biden as president-elect.

He has been a long-time critic of the president and this morning he was saying that the president's efforts right now make the U.S. look much more like a Banana Republic than the democracy that the U.S. Is and the example that we should be to the world as it relates to the democratic process.

Obviously, Fredricka, a lot of this is coming in the wake of that decision yesterday in the federal court in Pennsylvania which added to the string of losses that President Trump has faced in court. He's been trying to make this case about widespread voter fraud but his attorneys have been unable to actually make the case in court. Yesterday marked the 29th case that the president's team has either had to withdraw or seen dismissed in state and federal courts.

WHITFIELD: So Jeremy, while there is a growing list of Republicans willing to speak out, it is still relatively short compared to Republicans who remain silent. Meantime, the president is still lashing out at those Republicans who are speaking out. To what extent?

DIAMOND: Yes. And this isn't a surprise, right, because this is one of the reasons why so many Republicans have stuck by the president's side along this. They won't want to, you know, garner his wrath.

And the president making very clear that those Republicans who choose to step out and recognize Joe Biden as president-elect or urge him to move on with the transition process, that they will face criticism from him.

Senator Pat Toomey, for example, who last night acknowledged Joe Biden as the president-elect after that defeat in court in Pennsylvania, he was criticized by the president on Twitter last night. And then today it was Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland.

Governor Hogan though firing back at the president after the president attacked him over his need to get tests for the state of Maryland. Governor Hogan saying if you had done your job, America's governors wouldn't have been forced to fend for themselves to find tests in the middle of a pandemic as we successfully did in Maryland.

But no doubt, Fredricka, as the time goes on here, Republicans' patience wearing thin and the president will have to deal with more of these Republicans beginning to come out and say, look, it's time to move on here, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Governor Hogan there saying stop golfing and concede. The president golfing yesterday. How about today?

DIAMOND: Yes. The president was at his golf course once again today. I believe it was the 304th day that the president has spent at one of his golf resorts during his time as president. That amounts, of course, Fredricka, to nearly a year of a four-year term.

[14:24:51]

WHITFIELD: Jeremy Diamond at the White House, thanks so much.

All right. Still ahead, holiday travelers are packing some airports even though health experts are warning against traveling. What do coronavirus -- what might this do to the pandemic?

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WHITFIELD: Traditionally Thanksgiving holiday is heavily-traveled. Public health experts though with a warning -- asking people to stay home and keep gatherings small.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: One of the spots, if you want to call them, where you have a risk is seemingly innocent family/friends get together indoors. I mean it seems like the most natural thing.

[14:30:01]

So that's the reason why when we tell people, consider the people that you want to get into your own family unit, you want to bring a large number of people with a big dinner party or a social event. And when you're eating and drinking, obviously, you have to take your mask off. We know now that those are the kinds of situations that are leading to outbreaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Some airports are still seeing a surge in travel alongside the country's surge in cases.

Natasha Chen joins us now from Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. And how is it looking there?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, in all of the years that I've done Thanksgiving travel week stories, I have never seen this. There are absolutely no lines. People are just walking right on through. And that could be a good thing considering what Dr. Fauci just said there.

The TSA logged more than 1 million passengers screened on Friday. That is the second highest daily number as far as this entire pandemic goes in how many travelers have come through airports. Here in Atlanta, they're expecting one-third of the normal traffic they see during Thanksgiving week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARTHUR BRELAND, PASTOR, UNITED CHURCH: We know there are so many people that are going through dark times right now.

CHEN (voice over): After almost a year of dark times, there's an understandable urge to be together for Thanksgiving.

KATHY FAYNE, RESIDENT, DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA: My father was in Memphis. He's 83.

CHEN: But the risk is huge.

FAYNE: So I'm struggling with going to see him because my mother passed earlier this year, so I'm struggling right now, trying to decide if I'm going or staying home.

CHEN: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say stay home. CDC experts now saying most coronavirus infections are spread by people with no symptoms. And the spread is worse than ever. The U.S. saw more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases every day for at least the last 19 days. New cases this month already total about a quarter of all U.S. coronavirus cases during the whole pandemic.

One of the early cases was Pastor Arthur Breland.

BRELAND: This is the worst experience I ever had in my life.

CHEN: On March 25th, he woke up in a sweat.

BRELAND: I basically was trying to rush to the refrigerator to put my head in the freezer because I was so hot. And then that's all I remember. And my wife waking me up a couple moments after that and then being rushed to the E.R.

CHEN: After 12 days in the hospital and another month-and-a-half recovering, he knows firsthand how real the threat is. This year, his congregation is having more events outdoors. They will not be having their annual celebration. And Breland says he won't be visiting family across the country.

Eslene Richmond Shockley is also foregoing her family's usual 50- person gathering. That's to protect the family after they already lost her 83-year-old uncle who, she says, died from COVID-19 in April.

ESLENE RICHMOND SHOCKLEY, FOUNDER, CARING FOR OTHERS, INC.: He wasn't feeling well and he went to the hospital and he never came back home.

CHEN: Shockley runs Caring for Others, a charity organization that held its annual Thanksgiving food drive Saturday. She honored her uncle, Walter Green, who would usually be present at the vegetable station.

SHOCKLEY: And this is the first year in 20 years that my uncle will not be here to help us to distribute the collard greens.

Because that was someone I could pick up the phone and call, but that someone that is gone.

CHEN: So she says, to make sure she can still see her other loved ones next Thanksgiving, she won't be seeing them this Thanksgiving.

SHOCKLEY: Life is precious. Let us try to save each other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (on camera): As of this afternoon, there have been more than 3 million coronavirus cases reported in November. That is the highest by far of any month in the U.S. for this pandemic so far, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, very sobering details. Natasha Chen at Hartsfield Jackson, thank you so much.

So even if the holiday traffic is much less than usual, this week will still be among the busiest travel periods all year.

Sara Nelson heads the AFA, the Association of Flight Attendants, the largest flight attendant union in the U.S. and she's joining me now from Washington D.C. Sara, good to see you. SARA NELSON, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS-CWA: Good to see you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: So, your industry is struggling and, of course, you want to see more people traveling by air but health experts are warning against it right now. So what is your message?

NELSON: Our message is the same as it has been since January, which is that you've got to attack the virus and contain the threat otherwise we are all in jeopardy not only our health but our economic security too.

And so while we are seeing about half of the travelers from the numbers that we saw last year, for example, and in some cases in Atlanta, for example, only one-third of that, we're only seeing half of the revenue of that so we're talking about airlines trying to get by on 25 percent of the revenue from a year ago.

[14:35:01]

So you cannot make that up by selling more cheap tickets.

We've got business travel that is down to essentially non-existent because these businesses are following CDC guidelines but we don't have a unified plan and clear leadership coming from the federal government yet and that is why we're still in the middle of this crisis and that is why, right now, half of my union is on furlough or not getting a paycheck and without health care after having been on the frontlines and served as essential workers from the beginning days of this pandemic.

WHITFIELD: So what's your worry going forward on how to kind of resurrect business, how to recover from all of these losses, financial losses, job losses? I mean, it's impacting so many on so many levels in the airline industry.

NELSON: Well, look, Fred, it is heartbreaking. People want to be together, as you're reporting there. People want to be together over the holidays. And the best way that you can protect your family and your friends is to stay apart.

In the airline industry, we are both the backbone of the economy and the infrastructure that can help us attack the virus, more recently, understanding that a distribution of the vaccine requires the full operation of the airline industry, so the vast majority of those vaccines cannot be transported unless they are transported on jumbo jets that are sitting on the ground right now.

We put in place a workers first relief package in March that kept the airline industry together, kept us serving all of our communities and also allowing for that financial relief so that people can make good public health decisions. This is what we have to do. We have to bring it all down together. The government has to provide assistance, just like they did to the airline industry to keep us in our jobs connected to our health care. That ended though on September 30th. It was the best template for the whole country. That has to be reinstated and we've got to get relief in place. Congress put relief in place in three days in March coming together after voting down a trillion-dollar package that was mostly for corporations. Three days later, they put in $2 trillion of relief that was focused on getting relief to real people. And in the airline industry, we made sure it was workers first.

That have to do that again right now as we're hitting the cliff of the holidays, the day after Christmas, 12 million more people falling off unemployment, student loans starting up again, 30 to 40 million people facing eviction. We have to take care of all those financial needs so that people can bring down the business, get the virus under control so that we can open back up again safely.

WHITFIELD: So, it's sounds like you are really hoping for that with a new session of Congress after early January because with this lame duck session, I mean, no hope for any kind of new stimulus plan to even involve the airline industry in any kind of vaccine distribution program.

NELSON: So, Fred, if we don't get this in place for the rest of the country and for the airline industry, the airline industry will not be able to ramp up fast enough to be able to distribute the vaccine, which is going to prolong the hurt for everyone. So this has to get in place.

And the good news is that in March, 96 to 0, the Senate voted for $2 trillion relief package. They've done it before. It's the exact same senators. They can do it again. Anyone who is politically musing about this not being politically possible is practicing malpractice against the American people.

They need to turn to the essential workers who have been patriots from the beginning, support those people, get this relief to the American people and they can do it. They can do it this first week when they come back from this Thanksgiving break and the rest of the American people need to demand it.

WHITFIELD: All right, lots of pain right now. Sara Nelson, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

NELSON: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:40:00]

WHITFIELD: In what is likely to be his last event on a global stage, President Trump used his prerecorded speech to the leaders of the virtual G20 summit to rail against the Paris Climate Accord.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I withdrew the United States from the unfair and one-sided Paris Climate Accord, a very unfair act for the United States. The Paris Accord was not designed to save the environment. It was designed to kill the American economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Yesterday, the president skipped the summit session on the pandemic response to go golfing. Today, Trump's economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, took his place for the closing speech.

CNN's International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So, Nic, what was the response of those who were listening to the president's prerecorded comments on the reasons why he exited the Paris Accord?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. All of those things you describe and pretty unorthodox for a G20, even one like this. It's a virtual G20. You had all those leaders speaking before President Trump on the climate change accord. You had the host, the king of Saudi Arabia, you had Xi Jinping of China, you had President Macron of France, you had Modi from India.

You had all of these leaders speaking about it saying how important the climate change agreement was and everything that they were doing. You had also the prime minister of Australia who is an ally of President Trump as well, by the way, all saying how important the climate change agreement was, and then president Trump at the end absolutely dissing it. That was a theme that ran through this whole summit.

And I was in the room where you have got a lot of Saudi officials and others, international journalists who were watching the big screen as President Trump was making his speech and I've seen them clap the Saudi king and pay attention to the other leaders. People were just turning their backs and walking away when President Trump was on. There was just like no registration of sort of any emotion at all. People are moving on literally and figuratively.

So I think the underlying message here is that President Trump at the G20 has been opposed to so many of the institutions that are now being used, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization being used by the G20 to combat the COVID pandemic, a lot of details released about that.

[14:45:12]

But the biggest thing was essentially President Trump really not playing a lead role and not being there for the conclusions. He's gone and I think these leaders are moving on ready for President-elect Joe Biden.

WHITFIELD: All right. Nic Robertson, thank you so much from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Thank you.

All right, straight ahead, a growing echo chamber of Republican criticism after the president continues his baseless allegations of election fraud. Is the president undermining American democracy? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:00]

WHITFIELD: Unprecedented times. You have a sitting U.S. president in his last few months trying to overturn an election. And now a growing number of Republicans concerned with the state of American democracy as we transition from one president to the next.

With me now is a CNN Presidential Historian Tim Naftali. He is also the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library. Good to see you.

We have got these competing messages from leaders within the GOP. The president has a right to challenge results and then the president's challenges are actually undermining the very premise of free and fair elections. How do you see all of this?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, I keep thinking to myself imagine if elected Republicans after Richard Nixon resigned said to the American people Richard Nixon's methods were okay and didn't criticize his methods let alone his criminal activity. The mixed messages are coming from the hierarchy of the Republican Party. They are inviting Americans to lose their supporters, 73 million Americans to lose respect for the entire constitutional system.

If people don't believe that their vote counts, if people don't believe that their vote will be counted, then they lose respect for our system of government. And if they lose respect for our system of government, it's no longer consent by the governed. And if that happens, then you're inviting people to exit the system and to start to work against the Constitution and our democracy, feeling that otherwise they can't be protected or their needs understood or acted on.

That's the consequence of the Republicans playing this game with Trump. The longer this lull goes on, the longer the silence continues among key national Republicans, the more likely it is that Americans -- many Americans will not accept the election of President Biden.

Donald Trump's stock and trade is to de-legitimate people he doesn't like to cast doubt on the powerful. That's what he did with President Obama. He tried to de-legitimate the Obama administration by saying that President Obama was an illegitimately elected president because he had no constitutional right to be president. That's what the birtherism was all about.

Now, President Trump is trying to trying to do that to a Biden administration. We saw the poison caused by the birther movement. Are there not enough Republican leaders who want to avoid the kind of poisonous political system that will arise if the Biden administration is viewed by 47 percent of the United States at the beginning as illegitimate? That's the road we're going down at the moment. It's not just a farce. It's a movement that could lead to an ungovernable country over time.

WHITFIELD: And is it your worry that this country is heading that direction, that this is not an issue of politics, but this is an issue of widening the divide on what is truth, what is real?

NAFTALI: Look, in 1876, we had a very contested election. It turns out that there was fraud on both sides. And, in fact, historians can't really agree who would have won a fair election in 1876. But we're not in 1876 right now. There is no doubt about the integrity of our electoral system. A Republican governor, the governor of Georgia, has just certified a contentious and close election in Georgia. So the fact is it's time for --

WHITFIELD: But then also left the door open that if the president wants to do so, request yet another recount by machine that that is available and the president has taken up the governor on that option.

NAFTALI: Well, the governor -- look, Governor Kemp was secretary of state in 2016, did not take seriously the Russian threat to the integrity of our system. But his certification of the election this time indicates his concern that if he says the system is flawed in Georgia, how does he get people to vote for two Republican candidates for Senate in January? So, he's in a bind.

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My point simply is this. If the American people believe that you cannot elect a president fairly, we have a problem. Our system rests on the belief that if your candidate doesn't win this time, you got a shot four years from now to reverse the outcome. If people believe that their champion can never win, then our electoral system is in real trouble because people will try to find flaws in it to cast doubt on the legitimacy of future presidents and that will make our country ungovernable.

WHITFIELD: Very worrisome. Tim Naftali, so glad you could be with us. Thank you so much.

NAFTALI: Thank you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Coming up next, the United States reporting more than 3 million cases of coronavirus in November alone, and this is what some people are facing, long lines to get tested as some hospitals reach breaking points.

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