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Air Travel Hits Pandemic-Era High Despite CDC Warning to Stay Home; Minneapolis ICUs Near Breaking Point: "No Beds Anywhere"; Biden Speaks after Revealing Several Cabinet Picks; Trump Fielded Calls Urging Him to Drop Lawyer from Team; Update on Coronavirus Responses Around the Country. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 23, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: On Sunday, more than 900 deaths were reported in this country, with the average daily death toll being 1,500, the deadliest since May.

This just in regarding the treatment that President Trump received for the coronavirus.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the Regeneron therapy is going out to patients on Tuesday.

The treatment just received FDA emergency authorization. Azar said 30,000 doses will go out tomorrow.

Despite warnings to stay home, more than three million people passed through airport security checkpoints over the weekend all across the country, which is the highest number of people flying since the pandemic began. They're doing it at the worst point of the pandemic.

I want to go for the very latest to Adrienne Broaddus at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

Tell us what you're seeing today, Adrienne.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, we see people doing exactly what they want to do, traveling.

Right now, the line is short in comparison to what we saw earlier this morning and over the weekend.

Nevertheless, some airlines say they expect to see the busiest travel days after Thanksgiving, on Saturday and Sunday.

A spokesperson with American Airlines said, during the Thanksgiving holiday, American is increasing its flying by 15 percent compared to the rest of the month.

So, on average, American typically does about 3,500 flights per day. But now they're increasing the number of flights daily to 4,000. We talked to people traveling with small children. We also heard from college students. They were all wearing masks.

And most of the people I spoke with today said they crave a hug from the people they love the most.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLISON CILKE (ph), PURDUE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: Definitely hug them. It's been so long. It would be nice to see my family, touch them again.

DEVON LOWE, FLYING TO VISIT FAMILY: I only see them once a year. It's one of the main things that I look forward to every year. It's the one thing that I can get out this year I think that will make my life a little better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: When you hear those messages, it raises another question: Is a Thanksgiving meal worth the risk? Is traveling worth the risk?

Brianna, the response to the question is different, depending on who you ask.

I also talked to two other travelers who said they didn't want to get on the plane, but a family emergency was forcing them to fly -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Adrienne Broaddus, in Chicago O'Hare, thank you.

Health care workers are getting angry because Americans are flouting CDC guidelines and exacerbating coronavirus' spread.

Dr. Jason Stein told "The Atlanta-Journal Constitution," quote, "It makes me shake with anger. It's all entirely manageable. We know the contours of how to manage it. What makes me angry is the willful disregard for managing this well.

Just look at the front page of "The Minneapolis Star Tribune" on Sunday: Hospital systems so overwhelmed with COVID patients, one local doctor saying that there are, quote, "no beds anywhere."

That doctor, Matthew Klee, is joining me now. He is the medical director of the Intensive Care Unit at Mercy Hospital near Minneapolis.

Doctor, thank you for being with us.

What is happening in your hospital?

MATTHEW KLEE, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, INTENSIVE CARE UNIT, MERCY HOSPITAL: Thank you, Brianna.

Yes, it -- we are at crisis level at our hospital and throughout the whole state of Minnesota, and really in the whole Midwest region. We have seen just an explosion of COVID cases the last couple weeks. Off the charts compared to where we've been.

And we're completely filling the capacity of our hospital, running at 120 percent capacity. And we still don't have room.

We really just are trying to juggle wherever we can to put patients and moving patients from hospital to hospital throughout the entire state, and there's just simply not enough room.

KEILAR: Just to put your state into context, Minnesota reported the fifth-highest daily case count in the country on Sunday. They had more than 7,200 new cases. We know this is heading in an even worse direction.

But I think you might have heard some of those travelers right before you who were talking. And, you know, you can hear in their voice how much they miss their families. People they don't normally get to see, they really want to see them.

I wonder, you know, what you say to them, as they are making this calculation.

KLEE: Yes. This is just the worst time to be going out, to traveling, seeing others.

You know, we've been in, I would call this like a Tropical Storm COVID for the last six months. It's getting worse daily. We are now in full Hurricane COVID. And this is not the time to be out and about.

Nobody thinks they're the ones who would get COVID. All the people in my ICU and all the people who have died, they didn't think they would get COVID. But they did.

[14:34:59]

And it's because of leaning -- ability to maintain social distancing. This is completely preventable. All these people who are dying, these a preventable disease. It just starts with social distancing.

KEILAR: So when you're dealing with people in your ICU -- and this has been going on for months now. I mean, tell us about the kind of situations where families transmitted this inside the family, and in the end, it took away a family member.

KLEE: Right. That is an all-too-familiar story. So many of the people who have died in our ICU have been 50, 60, 70-year-olds who have been doing the best they can to social distance, and you hear this story again and again.

I was with my kids last week. My children, they got sick, and now here I am sick.

I think a lot of times it's the younger generation that's maybe not social distancing as well as they could be. And then they're exposing their family members. And before you know it, those family members are critically ill, and a lot of them are dying. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for a community to be losing

these people, for families, and for the health care providers who are trying to take care of them.

Having otherwise healthy people dying every day, it is truly heartbreaking.

KEILAR: When you're talking about their kids, they're seeing their kids and that's how they're getting infected, are you talking about kids in their 20s, 30s?

KLEE: Yes, 20s, 30s, 40s. Yes, people who are socially interacting. Or maybe they still need to be working and they don't have an option to stay home.

But there's the option to not be interacting with the other family members in these family gatherings. It's just a perfect spot for COVID to be transmitted between lots of people.

KEILAR: Yes. It is so hard. But you are seeing the hardest part, which is people having to say good-bye to their family members.

I want to thank you for talking to us about the real risks of what's going on. Thank you, Dr. Klee.

KLEE: You're welcome. Thank you.

KEILAR: So we now know where President Trump's line is when it comes to conspiracy theories. The campaign distances itself from a member of its legal team, who is baselessly peddling a theory of massive fraud organized by a dictator that has been dead for more than seven years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:41]

KEILAR: Just moments ago, in Delaware, reporters firing a few questions at President-Elect Joe Biden, after he announced his national security picks. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Are you kidding me?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why are you naming national security first?

BIDEN: Because it's national security.

Thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: All right. So a little quick Q&A there. Certainly, we would like more substantive answer to say that. But the president-elect clearly expecting there to be some friction with the Senate if it is Republican controlled.

And stating obviously, you know, the obvious, that national security is important. That's why he went national security first for his announcement.

Let's look at a different story. QAnon-friendly conspiracy theorist, Sidney Powell, just got the boot from Trump's legal team.

CNN has learned that Powell's firing was made at the behest of the president after receiving concerned calls from allies over the weekend.

She had floated a number of conspiracy theories about voter fraud in this year's election.

But her latest statement on "Newsmax" seemed to be the last straw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY POWELL, ATTORNEY (voice-over): Georgia will probably be the first thing I'm going to blow up. And Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it, because they're in on this Dominion scam.

Another benefit, Dominion was created through what I call election insurance. That's why Hugo Chavez had it created in the first place.

But I also wonder where he got the technology, where it actually came from. Because I think it's Hammer and Scorecard from the CIA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Sidney Powell was unable to provide any evidence to back any of that up.

Harry Litman is a former U.S. attorney and a former deputy assistant attorney general.

Harry, if you can, help us understand this. They booted Powell, but her conspiracy theories don't really stand out from those that others on his team promulgate, so why dump her?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY & FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's really true. Outlandish, extravagant claims with no proof whatsoever are Giuliani's stock-in-trade as well for many months.

She did seem to be wearing aluminum foil there on her head.

KEILAR: Yes.

LITMAN: Is that what got her voted off the island? It's a little hard to say. Because in general, she's just doing what they all were doing. Taking

it maybe a step further with this international conspiracy involves Chavez who died, as you say, many years ago.

Somehow they got crosswise with Giuliani. She flinched from appearing on Tucker Carlson's show when he asked for evidence. That might have contributed to it.

But it seems like she was sort of a sacrificial lamb for tactics that all three of the so-called Elite Strike Force -- Giuliani, Jen Ellis and she -- have been deploying regularly.

KEILAR: Yes. That's what Jen Ellis called the team, the Elite Strike Force team.

LITMAN: Right.

KEILAR: But by all accounts, from Republicans and Democrats, anyone who just has any legal knowledge, looking at how they've been handling court cases, it's been -- it's been a disaster.

[14:45:02]

And not only a disaster. It's been, you know -- to someone with a legal mind, who knows a bit, even a bit of legalese -- it's been hard to watch. It's been cringe-worthy.

LITMAN: It's been an absolute slow-moving train wreck. I can't remember a parallel. They are two and 34.

And every time they stand up in front of a court, including Giuliani on Saturday, the court says, where is the evidence. They say the equivalent of, oh, never mind, and we weren't claiming fraud anyway.

Completely different from what they were saying in public.

It's humiliating. Of course, Giuliani has shown himself to have an appetite for being humiliated and mocked in the past. It just seems like they're applying it for P.R. reasons, not legal reasons.

Nevertheless, Powell was, as one said, too crazy even for this president.

KEILAR: Which says a lot.

Where does the legal battle go from here? What is next in this team's efforts?

LITMAN: Well, they have just been thrown out of the 3rd circuit tying to appeal Pennsylvania. So I should have said two in 35. They're just getting their head handed to them all over the country.

The big thing, Brianna, is it has nothing to do, it has nothing to link up at all with the certification process. They need the judge to stop the music there. They can't find one. So it goes nowhere. He can sue anyone he wants. But as long as Georgia, Michigan and

Pennsylvania continue to methodically certify, as they are supposed to do under the law, all the lawsuits have no connection whatsoever, and have no possibility of stopping the indomitable movement of Biden being the president-elect.

KEILAR: We see Sidney Powell ousted. It's a sign the president is not happy with the optics of this legal team. Right?

I mean, this is just been an embarrassing situation the way things are carried out. But at the same time, as this legal battle goes on, he's able to raise money.

So when you look at the motive behind continuing with this legal fight, is that what it is? Or is there something else to it?

LITMAN: I think that's a lot about it. And the Republican Senators are in league with this, which may explain their silence.

It's true. From the start, it's had these supplementary goals, raising money for Georgia, and even to recover his campaign debt.

In general, people who have said "follow the money" when they have tried to explain Trump's otherwise opaque motivations, have usually come on to something. So that's a strong possibility.

Just in general, being able to maintain the charade is another one.

But, you know, this legal campaign where they're getting clobbered all over the country just can't continue very much longer.

KEILAR: Harry Litman, thank you so much for talking with us today.

LITMAN: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Los Angeles County is tightening the rules by banning outdoor dining for several weeks after hospitalizations have spiked.

And Toronto is under lockdown again. Canada's biggest city is facing a surge in coronavirus, more than a month after they celebrated their equivalent of Thanksgiving.

And it's a place where all are welcome. Another powerful season of "THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING." It premieres with back-to-back episodes Sunday night at 9:00 on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:52:59]

KEILAR: The spike we are seeing in COVID cases in our nation's capital and nationwide is forcing the closure of the Smithsonian Museums and National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

This is the Smithsonian's second closure because of COVID. The museums and the zoo closed in March. They had a limited reopening in September to the public.

And for more pandemic headlines around the country, let's check in with some of our CNN correspondents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dan Simon. First, it was indoor dining. Now even outdoor dining has been halted in Los Angeles as cases continues to skyrocket in California.

That new rule goes into effect on Wednesday. It will be takeout or delivery only in L.A. County, something we have not seen since the month of May.

The daily average of new cases in California has hit its highest point yet. More than 15,000 cases on Friday. The daily average of new cases has nearly tripled since the month of November.

Meantime, Governor Newsom announced that he and his family are quarantining for 14 days after their children came into contact with an officer from the California Highway Patrol who had tested positive.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Newton in Atlanta. I just returned from Toronto on the weekend where that city is now on a second lockdown.

Spiking cases, the ICUs is very close to capacity. And public health officials there say they simply had no choice.

This lockdown means that basically all nonessential services, all those stores, salons, barbers, any kind of indoor dining, even on a patio, now banned. Kids, though, will stay in school.

The fear now, people wonder, will it work. They will find out in the next four weeks and see if they will remain in lockdown through Christmas.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: I'm Jacqueline Howard in Atlanta. A new study suggests that the risk of COVID-19 still appears low among most children and young people under age 25.

But more concern may be warranted for those with underlying health conditions, and those from black, Hispanic, and Asian communities due to racial disparities, and those older in age like teens and older adults.

[14:55:01]

The study was based on data from more than 135,000 pediatric patients who were tested for COVID-19. Among those patients, about 5,000, or 4 percent, tested positive. And 359 of them were hospitalized. And overall, eight patients died.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Thank you to my colleagues for those reports from them. We are watching Michigan right now where the four Board of Canvassers

-- where the four members of the Board of Canvassers are meeting. They'll soon decide whether to certify the election results.

And our special coverage continues now with Brooke Baldwin after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)