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A Third Effective Vaccine Emerges as the U.S. Faces Pandemic Desperation; The Trump Campaign's Losing Legal Effort To Overturn The Election Verdict; President-elect Biden Plans to Announce a Number of High-Profile Picks For His Administration Tomorrow. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired November 23, 2020 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:04:00]
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Nia-Malika Henderson in Washington.
Word today that a third vaccine is effective and safe while we enter the Thanksgiving week facing pandemic desperation. An average of 170,000 new cases per day, about 1,500 Americans are dying each day, and 83,000 COVID-19 patients currently in hospitals. The surgeon general pleads for small and smart Thanksgiving gatherings, and governors beg for the Trump administration to start the transition so vaccine distribution doesn't lag.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): We're going to need a lot of help from the federal side of this, which is why, please God, the Trump and Biden teams need to begin speaking ASAP. The notion that we can sort of casually hand the ball off mid day on January 20 is a complete fallacy. This is really, really complicated.
Please God, I ask the Trump administration to open the books on the vaccine and the virus generally to the Biden team.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
HENDERSON: More on the pandemic ahead, but first the Trump campaign's legal effort to overturn a clear election verdict is very much sputtering. The legal losses are piling up. A Pennsylvania judge who dismissed the campaign's attempt to throw out millions of votes over the weekend, calling the campaign's claims unsupported by evidence. Today more Pennsylvania counties will certify their 2020 results. Some larger counties in the state have already done so, and the Trump campaign now severing ties with one attorney, Sidney Powell. The Washington Post reports that Powell was too conspiratorial for the conspiratorial team Trump and that the president didn't see her as useful anymore.
Another critical election meeting next hour. Michigan's canvassing board meets amid concerns over a deadlock, and after a pressure campaign by the president designed to undermine the outcome. A clear Joe Biden win in the state.
Let's get right to CNN's Dianne Gallagher, who's in Lansing, Michigan. Dianne, thanks for joining us. So do we expect any drama in Michigan today?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh Nia, we have had plenty of drama already. How many times can you say there's a protest before a board of canvassers meeting? Tracks for 2020 and we're going to see what happens at 1 p.m.. This is sort of how it breaks down. This is a pretty mundane, procedural vote in any other year. It's a four-person board - two Republicans, two Democrats. They have to have at least three votes for the election to actually be certified. Now one of those Republicans has already indicated to others, including a Republican Congressman, that he doesn't know if he's going to certify. He thinks he's probably going to vote not to certify, so of course all eyes are on that other Republican member of the board. Now, my producer, Dan Shepherd, he actually went to that other member's home. His wife said, look, he's not going to talk about it before the meeting at all, but there is some concern. What if it's a deadlock 2-2 vote? If it is a deadlock 2-2 vote expect a flurry of lawsuits immediately. It will go to the board - excuse me. It will go to the court of appeals, and then potentially if the court of appeals cannot make them actually vote, it can go to the supreme court of the state. Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, says that she has full confidence that no matter what happens today this will all work out.
JOCELYN BENSON (D), MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm confident we haven't received or seen any actual evidence other than a lot of rumor and conjecture that everyone involved is going to, you know, do their role, do their job, but I'm confident that either way whatever happens tomorrow we've got protocols in place to move forward to ensure the will of the people will be certified one way or the other.
GALLAGHER: So again, it's 2020, so we are dealing in a lot of what ifs here and this has never happened before kind of scenarios. If for some reason the courts can't make things happen and it goes to the state legislature, we could see another outsized role for the governor. She has a lot of power here, Nia. She can appoint new members. She can take members off because she appointed these members to begin with. More than anything, though, the people who are here in Michigan say that - especially those that we have seen out here, that they are now paying close attention to these very mundane, procedural events, even if it doesn't seem that they're actually paying attention to the evidence that would lead for something to actually happen out of the ordinary here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENDERSON: Dianne, 150,000 vote margin for Biden in that state. We will keep an eye on it. Thank you so much.
[12:05:00]
The transition hold up will snag the smooth running of government, but the Biden administration is already planning who will take over cabinet posts come day one. We've got CNN's Jeff Zeleny who is in Wilmington, Delaware for us. So Jeff, your sources are telling you that the president-elect has decided who to nominate for some critical cabinet-level posts already, starting with a very critical post, secretary of state.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Nia, we're told that that announcement formally will come likely tomorrow, and there is no surprise that the president-elect is starting with secretary of state. This is what has been his life work. I mean, the U.S. Senate, of course, and the Foreign Relations Committee and, indeed, when he was vice president travelling around the world, and he wants to restore U.S. alliances. So he's tapping a longtime aide, Tony Blinken, who has travelled many of those miles with him around the world really for the last almost 20 years or so starting in the Senate and then as vice president. Tony Blinken has worked as the deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration. He was the vice president's national security advisor. He's 58-years-old. He is someone who can start this job immediately, start even before that. He does not need on-the-job training here at all.
And Nia, just a short time ago we heard from former President Barack Obama talking about Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, who's also in line to be the national security advisor. This is what the former president said about those.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDEN OF THE UNITED STATES: He's outstanding, smart, gracious, a skilled diplomat, well-regarded around the world, and I know he's going to do a great job. The reports are that Jake Sullivan will serve as national security advisor. Wicked smart, young, energetic, and I think is going to be outstanding. So you're seeing a team develop that I have great confidence in.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
ZELENY: So there's no surprise there getting a glowing praise from former President Obama because they both worked for him.
(LAUGHTER)
HENDERSON: Right.
ZELENY: I mean, this part of the continuation of the Obama administration, but Nia, let's tale a look at just the resumes really quickly of these two key advisors. Jake Sullivan, as we said he is expected to be named the national security advisor This is someone who worked inside the White House. He's been a long-time advisor to both. He also was an advisor to Hillary Clinton as you'll recall from the 2016 campaign, and the importantly as well the U.S. Ambassador to the United National, Linda Thomas- Greenfield. She's a lifelong foreign service agent. She has worked as a diplomat. She has had a specialty of the Africa portfolio, a former ambassador there. So she is expected to be elevated to Ambassador to the U.N., so clearly (inaudible) that will likely be a cabinet position as well, so clearly the president- elect is moving forward here despite what we see in Michigan. And Nia, we're also learning that the next up for these round of cabinet picks I'm told will be next week will be the treasury secretary, and I'm told the president-elect is also eyeing a history-making choice in that regard. He's strongly considering as the leading contenders two women. There has not been a woman serve as treasury secretary here in the U.S. I know his two top contenders are Janet Yellen - of course she led the Federal Reserve - and Lael Brainard. She is now a current governor on the Federal Reserve, so she is someone who is also worked in the Obama administration. So I'm told that will come next week, but tomorrow we believe the secretary of state and those other picks here in Wilmington as well, Nia.
HENDERSON: Jeff, we will look for that formal announcement. Thanks so much for your report. Joining me now, we've got Jackie Kucinich, Washington Bureau Chief of The Daily Beast, and Catherine Lucey, who is a White House Reporter with The Wall Street Journal. Thank you both for being here. Jackie, I'm going to start with you. We've seen some more Republicans at this point urging this president to give up the game and start this transition. Chris Christie, he's called the Trump legal team a national embarrassment. Senator Murkowski without a merit she's called these legal challenges. Senator Toomey says accept the outcomes. Senator Cramer, it's past time to start a transition. Representative Upton, it's over. And Representative Cheney, respect the sanctity of our electoral process. And Governor Hogan, no surprise here, stop golfing and concede he has told this president. Do we think that there is any change that this president will listen to any of those folks who are telling him to acknowledge reality at this point?
JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: No, but - I don't, but it does seem like there is a - more of a base building. Also just in the last hour Senator Rob Portman, he's a Senator in Ohio. He's up in 2022, so that's not someone that you would normally associate some of the folks that you just rattled off, people who are normally speaking up, you know -
[12:10:00]
-- and critical of the president, with the exception of Chris Christie. He was more critical of the legal team, but it does seem like they're start - among Republicans they're starting to be concerned for the national security ramifications of not allowing the Biden team to access some of this information and not to mention the security with the vote from Republican voters, the need to tell them it's OK, that their votes do count, and that these things to move on as opposed to what some of the Trump campaign legal team that we're seeing right now is trying to diminish the faith in the vote. So it seems like they're trying to piece together a way to move on through this with or without the president.
HENDERSON: And I'm sure if you're a Republican you also want this president to maybe focus on that Georgia Senate race as well rather -
(CROSSTALK)
KUCINICH: Right.
HENDERSON: -- than fighting these meritless legal cases.
Catherine, you've been doing a lot of reporting on the Trump legal challenges, and there are many, many struggles in court. Do they have any venues left at this point to actually prove any level of fraud of the scale that they would need to turnover this election, to overturn their results in states like Michigan, states like Wisconsin?
CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, they are still certainly pursing the option they have. They are, you know, filing new appeals. They are seeking a recount in Georgia. Obviously the president continues to put pressure on officials in key states, but their pathways are narrowing. It is hard to see how they are going to overturn a number of votes that they would need. I mean, one of the Republicans you just mentioned, Fred Upton, representative in Michigan, he said on CNN over the weekend that this is over, that there's over 100,000 votes, that there is not no sort of voting irregularities are not going to make up these numbers, and thus far I think it's really important to be clear that there have been no reports of widespread fraud. Officials across the board have said this election was conducted safely, that they were finding (ph) is no evidence of interference, and that the legal team has not produced evidence that would suggest that anything is going to change at this point.
HENDERSON: And Catherine, we should also note that the Trump team, which represents a president that is himself a conspiracy theorist decided that one of his lawyers, and that's Sidney Powell, that she is actually too obsessed with conspiracies to speak on behalf of the campaign, and here's a statement from the campaign. Sidney Powell was practicing law on her own. She is now a member of the Trump legal team. She's also not a lawyer for the president. In his personal capacity (ph) - you flash back a couple of days ago - the president did announce that she was part of his legal team. What do you make of this shift?
LUCEY: Yes. Certainly the president tweeted she was part of the team. She also appeared at a lengthy press conference alongside Rudy Giuliani last week, and at that press conference and in an interview over the weekend she aired a lot of unsupported claims about foreign interference, about problems with the voting systems. She also suggested that Republican officials in Georgia might need to be investigated, so she brought up a lot of - a lot of these theories without offering any evidence. And so, then we obviously saw this statement from Giuliani and there has been a distancing. She is saying that she will sort of continue her work, but certainly they are - they are trying to put some distance with this one.
And we heard from people. We got a - you know, our story on this today. We heard from a White House official unsolicited last night saying that this legal effort looks like a farce. So there are people around the president who are concerned about how this is looking.
HENDERSON: And Jackie, the president has very much let his lawyers be out front and make this case about voter fraud. They've been making that case publically.
KUCINICH: Right.
HENDERSON: He's been making it mostly on Twitter but not really out in front of the cameras talking about, calling into Fox News as he would do all the time in weeks prior to this loss. Why do you think he is behind the scenes and not out front carrying this message?
KUCINICH: Well it just doesn't seem like he wants to have a face-to- face confrontation about this issue because, I mean, the fact the matter is there hasn't been - there hasn't been fraud. His legal challenges are all failing, and to have to own up to that and received adversarial questions about it isn't really the look this president is watching for or wants to be seen, so it's much easier to, you know, stand behind Twitter, go to the podium, not take questions like he did last week, and keep in a safe space rather than be challenged on what we know to be true, which is, you know, Joe Biden is going to be the next President of the United States next year.
HENDERSON: Jackie Kucinich, Catherine Lucey, thank you so much.
[12:15:00]
And up next, more good news on the vaccine front as COVID-19 cases take an unprecedented climb.
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[12:19:15]
HENDERSON: Thanksgiving is just three days away, and a stunning number of people are infected with coronavirus and in the hospital. The U.S. added more than a 142,000 cases just yesterday, a record for a Sunday. And just this month more than 3.1 million new cases have been reported so far. For a thirteenth straight day a record number of people are in the hospital. Nearly 84,000 people away from their families right now hospitalized with COVID, and more than 256,000 families will be without a loved one this Thanksgiving due to COVID. The U.S. is now reporting on average 1,500 deaths every single day.
Vaccines are very much the light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is a bit brighter today. AstraZeneca says its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford is, quote, highly effective. The company is now the third to announce positive efficacy results, and we've got CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, who's been following all of this for us. Elizabeth, how effective is this particular vaccine candidate?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Nia, this vaccine is actually quite effective. If we put this in context, the Food and Drug Administration has been asking these vaccines to be at least 50 percent effective, 5-0. And this one is about 70 percent effective, so that's better in many ways than what was expected but still not as good as two other vaccines that released some of their data in the past few weeks. So let's take a look at those numbers so we can compare them.
So this vaccine that's making news today is from AstraZeneca. What they found is that it was about on average 70 percent effective when you looked at a study of about 12,000 study participants. Moderna's vaccine on the other hand is about 94.5 percent effective, and that was for the much larger group of people, which gives it a bit more heft. Pfizer very similar, 95 percent effective with about 44,000 study participants.
Now, I will note that all of this data is early, but AstraZeneca's is particularly early because they have not yet finished their trials in the U.S.. The data I just showed you is based on results in other countries, so we're still waiting to see a fuller dataset from AstraZeneca, and we'll see what those numbers come down to, and it may be that this vaccine is particularly good for some groups and not for others. All of that remains to be seen. Nia -
HENDERSON: Elizabeth, I'm sure you're going to bring all this news to us going forward. Thank you so much for that report. Coming up, breaking news from the Biden team. He has picked a lead the change - the charge on the climate crisis.
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[12:26:40]
HENDERSON: This just in to CNN, the president-elect plans to announce a number of high-profile picks for his administration tomorrow, among them John Kerry, the former 2004 presidential candidate and Secretary of State will become Mr. Biden's new climate tsar, and we're going to get straight to Jeff Zeleny on this one. Jeff, I got to say the Kerry pick, it's a little let's get the old gang back together again.
ZELENY: No question about it. I mean, this certainly is an experienced slate of candidates and historic in many ways as well. Nia, we had been talking about those announcements coming tomorrow, and I think that's when we might see some of these picks, but in fact the Biden transition department has made it official now. They just sent out a release just a few moments ago with several of these new members on it clearly trying make the case again they are pushing forward, clearly trying to fill their cabinet and key positions as all of this is going on in Michigan and elsewhere, so these are some of the new people.
John Kerry, as you mentioned first and foremost, former Secretary of State of course. Of course a long time senator for Massachusetts. He will be a top presidential envoy for climate. We're told he'll also be a member of the National Security Council. That is the first time someone dedicated strictly to climate has been on the National Security Council, so certainly interesting in that respect. We're also seeing the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. That is Alejandro Mayorkas, and he is going to be the first Latino and the first immigrant to serve - at least be nominated to serve as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, so certainly that is a sending a dramatic message after the last four years of the Trump administration as well.
And moving on through this list that we're just getting now, Nia, we're also getting the name of the new director - at least nomination for this for the Director of National Intelligence. That is the leader of the intelligence community here in the United States. That is Avril Haines, someone who is a former Deputy Director of the CIA. And so, she would be the first woman to be in this position as well. She's a veteran of the Obama-Biden administration, so certainly her name has been in the mix, but this is something that is clearly we can see the cabinet taking shape right before us, and it is living up at least to the pledge that Joe Biden made that he is going to have a cabinet that looks like America. We're also getting some other names now confirming what we reported earlier.
Tony Blinken, Secretary of State Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, and again, Ambassador to the United Nation, Ambassador - excuse me, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. She's a 35-year veteran of the foreign service administration, so this is clearly the first slate of cabinet picks that we see will - see them officially tomorrow, but we're hearing them official right now, Nia. A busy day here in Wilmington.
HENDERSON: So some - yes. So we got some old, familiar faces and then some new names, and again -
(CROSSTALK)
ZELENY: Right.
HENDERSON: -- as you said a cabinet that looks like America. That was their pledge. Jeff, thanks so much for bringing us that news. And coming up we've got new reporting on Trump's allies urging him to drop a member of his legal team.
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[12:30:00]
