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Trump Support Among Republicans Breaking; Biden to Announce First Cabinet Nominations Tuesday; Trump Lawyers Disavow Attorney Spreading Wild Theories; COVID Cases in California Triple Since Start of November; Vote Certification in Two Key States in Question; World Leaders to Ensure Fair Access to COVID Vaccines; Travel Bubble Between Hong Kong, Singapore Postponed; Israeli PM: Should Be No Return to Iran Nuclear Deal; Texas Hospitals Filled to Capacity with COVID-19 Patients. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired November 23, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Great to have you along this hour. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow. You're watching CNN.

[00:00:31]

So just ahead on the show, COVID vaccine shots could be in the arms of some Americans by mid-December. The head of Operation Warp Speed is counting on it as a record number of Americans spent a night in hospital with the virus.

And a shake-up in President Trump's legal team as his effort to overturn the election result, which is a critical week.

Plus, President-elect Biden stocking his cabinet with experienced and diverse team.

ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.

CURNOW: It has been more than two weeks since Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election, and the Biden transition, even without White House cooperation, is happening, but slower than most would like.

Now, President Trump is still refusing to accept the loss, and there are no signs of him conceding any time soon. However, new cracks are appearing in the Republican wall of denial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: What's happened here is, quite frankly, the content of the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment.

I've been a supporter of the president's. I voted for him twice, but elections have consequences. And we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn't happen. The country is what has to matter the most. As much as I'm a strong

Republican, and I love my party, it's the country that has to come first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Well, among those speaking out against President Trump's actions, a Republican congressman from Michigan, where the president has been personally pressing state officials to dispute the vote count that shows he lost. That longtime Republican congressman saying the fight, for now, is over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. FRED UPTON (R-MI): The voters spoke, and here again in Michigan, it's not a razor-thin margin. It's 154,000 votes. You've got to let those votes stand. A hundred and fifty-four thousand votes is -- they need to overcome. I mean, it's over.

The longer this lasts, languishes, the -- the time then, it escapes from us from actually seeing a peaceful transmission to the next administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: So a Michigan board set to meet in the coming day, to certify the state's election results. But we're hearing one Republican member will try to keep that from happening.

And then, in another contentious state President -- President Trump lost, Pennsylvania, most counties are also expected to certify election results on Monday. But the Trump camp is filing an appeal after a judge shot down their latest attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters there. Legal experts say there's no chance that appeal will succeed.

Well, now instead of following the Democratic transition, a peaceful transition of power, President Trump spent another day, as you can see here, golfing. The main reason this transition needs to begin now, and not later, is not political. American lives, we know, are literally at stake.

Well, the coronavirus pandemic is reaching unprecedented numbers with incredible speed. There's the 20th straight day, with more than 100,000 new cases reported, and just look at the number of people who have died in this country from COVID. More than 256,000 people.

Joe Biden, meanwhile, is moving forward with his cabinet selections, with several names set to be announced on Tuesday. We're sure one of them will be Antony Blinken, a longtime foreign policy advisor in the Obama administration who will be nominated to serve as secretary of state.

Details now from Arlette Saenz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President-elect Joe Biden is set to roll out his first cabinet picks on Tuesday, and the announcements are shaping up to be foreign policy focused.

CNN has learned that the secretary of state is among the first jobs that Biden announces for his cabinet. And the leading contender for that position is Tony Blinken, someone who served as deputy secretary of state and has longtime ties to Joe Biden, having served as his national security advisor while he was vice president.

Now Biden also is expecting is announce his picks for national security adviser and ambassador to the U.N. The top contender for the national security adviser role is Jake Sullivan, someone who served as a national security adviser for Biden when he was vice president.

And the top contender, the leading contender for ambassador to the U.N. is Linda Thomas Greenfield. She is a longtime diplomat who worked in the State Department, and she is also a woman of color, which would fulfill part of Biden's promise to have a diverse cabinet.

Listen to what one of Biden's senior advisors had to say about how Biden's cabinet will be diverse.

JEN PSAKI, SENIOR ADVISOR, BIDEN-HARRIS TRANSITION TEAM: The cabinet, and the team, will look like America. So the means diversity of ideology, a background, and he wants to have a range of views of the people at the table.

SAENZ: All of those leading contenders for that -- those foreign policy, and national security positions all have decades of experience in the sector. Biden, throughout his campaign has said part of his goal would be restoring America's standing in the world and repairing relationships with allies.

So, in the coming days, as he is rolling out these foreign-policy- focused cabinet positions, Biden is trying to make it clear how his administration would look and operate in the early days of the White House.

Arlette Saenz, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Meanwhile, President Trump's legal team is trying to cut ties with lawyer Sidney Powell after she started spreading wild conspiracy theories about the election results.

Jeremy Diamond has the details -- Jeremy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, just over one week after President Trump named attorney Sidney Powell to his legal team in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the president's legal team now says that Sidney Powell is not a member of his legal team. Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, two of the attorneys for the

president's effort, saying in a statement, quote, "Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity."

Now, this notion, that Sidney Powell never was a member of the legal team is absurd. Not only did the president name Sidney Powell in a tweet as he was announcing the members of his legal team, but just a few days ago, Sidney Powell appeared right beside Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis at Republican National Committee headquarters to talk about their legal effort. Giuliani, in fact, saying that he was in charge of this investigation, alongside Sidney, referring to the attorney Sidney Powell.

Now, Sidney Powell has been tracking in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election over the last week during which she's been a member of that legal team. She has alleged the CIA was somehow involved in rigging the election. She's alleged that the late leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was also involved. And she's even accused the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, of also rigging the election in that state in favor of Joe Biden.

None of these claims, of course, have any basis in fact or reality. But nonetheless, she's been trafficking these claims as a member of the legal team, and they're not all that far off from what the president and his lawyers have also been saying.

The president has alleged this conspiracy theory about the Dominion voting software, saying that it somehow deleted votes in his favor. No basis in reality. It's something that's been repeatedly debunked by state and federal officials across the country over these last several days.

Now, as this is happening, though, the president is losing in the courts. One case after the next, more than two dozen cases, have been either dismissed or withdrawn by the Trump legal team.

And -- and Republicans are beginning to increase the pressure on the president, saying that it is time for him to either show the evidence that he has in court, or to move on and allow this transition process to happen. Pressure coming in on Sunday from Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, saying that the transition needs to happen right now. Others beginning to raise the alarm, as well, saying that the delay in the transition could cost American lives amid this pandemic.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Joining me now is Julian Zelizer from New York, via Skype. He's a CNN political analyst and professor at Princeton University.

Julian, hi. Good to see you.

So looking ahead to the week, we're going to see some announcements of appointments on the Biden team. What do you think of some of the names that are being put on the table?

JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think President-elect Biden is going to try to draw on some of the experts who he's worked with during the Obama years and during his Senate career. One of the names that has now emerged for secretary of state is Tony Blinken, who is one of his most trusted advisers. And I think mission one for Biden will be to create a team that looks like it has gravitas and which will be committed to rebuilding alliances overseas and institutions here at home.

CURNOW: Also looking ahead at the week, how concerned are you about any developments, particularly when it comes to, say, machinations in Michigan, for example, that votes -- that might not be certified in some states. Do you think that this could delay the transition in any way?

ZELIZER: Well, so far, all the efforts have not worked. The courts have rebuffed, the efforts of the administration to challenge the election results, and state-level Republicans, so far, have not been willing to go along with this.

[00:10:14]

But until this is done, until this is certified, it's a possibility. And we're hearing from a few figures in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, about possibly delaying this. Thus far, though, the institutions have been pushing back against the president, who's really trying to disrupt the election results.

CURNOW: And that, just in itself, just what you're saying, is extraordinary.

ZELIZER: Extraordinary. There's certain things we say are unprecedented, and they're not in this administration. But this is one of them.

To have a sitting president go after the legitimate results of an election, without evidence of voter fraud, with courts saying there's nothing there, is rather remarkable.

And -- and he's seriously trying to do this. This isn't simply Twitter rhetoric. And I think we're going to remember this period, not only when the president did this, but when many people in this party stood behind him.

CURNOW: There is some chatter that some Republicans are urging the president to, perhaps, be a better loser, not such a sore loser. Not a lot. Do you see that wall of support crumbling at any point?

ZELIZER: Maybe. According to the history that we know in the last few years, it won't crumble. The Republicans, certainly elected officials tend to stand by the president. They still fear the number of supporters who he has drawn, including in this election.

And we've heard a few Republicans start to say things, but it's certainly not a tidal wave. So we'll see. But I do think a lot of Republicans are going to become increasingly

worried about what is the cost of delaying the transition when we're in a pandemic, and when the rollout of the vaccine is the next thing that we need to do? But so far, Republicans have generally remained silent.

CURNOW: We're also seeing this week that the votes in Georgia, where we are, of course, are going to be recounted for the third time. We understand it's not expected to change much. But how much damage do you think has already been done with would appears, many voters saying is an assault on the actual vote by the outgoing president.

Even if all of this goes smoothly, and Joe Biden is inaugurated on January the 20th, how much has fundamentally changed?

ZELIZER: Well, it will be damaging. At some -- at one level, a president has now done this. And he has lowered the bar for future presidents.

He's also sent a message to supporters and Republicans who don't particularly love him, that there is something wrong with the election results. It's somehow, not legitimate. So that will make governing for President-elect Biden even harder than it's already going to be.

And again, finally, the transition is delayed. And right now, the president-elect needs to get to work on setting up a team, learning from agencies what's going on, getting all the intelligence and information possible, so that he'll be able to deal with the pandemic on day one and any national security issues.

And all three of those things are big problems, being caused by this campaign against the election.

CURNOW: Thank you very much. Julian Zelizer there from New York.

ZELIZER: Thank you.

CURNOW: You're watching CNN. So still ahead, the U.S. could be weeks away from a coronavirus vaccine. But how long before life actually gets back to normal? A top official offers his thoughts.

Plus, more restrictions in California as officials report record infection numbers. How the new measures will impact restaurants in America's second largest city. Stick with us. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:17:46]

CURNOW: Welcome back. It is 17 minutes past the hour now.

A scientist leading Operation Warp Speed here in the U.S. says he thinks that life could return to normal as early as May if enough people get vaccinated. He says that process could begin in the next few weeks if the FDA approves the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours from the approval. So I would expect maybe on day two, after approval, on the 11th or on the 12th of December, hopefully, the first people will be immunized across the United States, across all states.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Well, the urgent need for that vaccine is highlighted by the fact that nearly a quarter of all cases reported in the U.S. happened just this month. Experts are warning that new infections will continue to get worse as families gather this week for Thanksgiving.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says people who are planning to celebrate the holiday together should really think about the potential consequences. Take a listen.

(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.

So that's the reason why when we tell people, consider the people that you want to get into your own family unit. Do 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)

CURNOW: So California has reported its second highest infection spike since the pandemic began. More than 14,000 cases were registered just on Saturday.

Now, the outbreak there is one of the worst in the U.S., and it's about to force a big change to life in Los Angeles, as Paul Vercammen now reports -- Paul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The number of new COVID-19 cases in California just skyrocketing. It has tripled since the beginning of November. And that means more restrictions throughout California.

Among the most severe here in Los Angeles County. You will not see scenes like the one behind me any more, where people are dining outdoors or even indoors. In Los Angeles County. They are closing down restaurants for indoor and outdoor dining. That starts Wednesday at 10. You can only pick up and deliver.

We talked to the G.M. at this oyster bar. She is absolutely just shattered. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really, truly devastating. It's really

upsetting. I just think about all our staff, all of my friends and colleagues in this business. Everybody's really hard-hit. We're all struggling to get by as is, with our patio set up. So this is a real blow for us.

VERCAMMEN: The economic ripple effect, tremendous. Not only will employees' hours in these restaurants have to be trimmed, or people will be laid off. But then all of the vendors and everybody else linked to the restaurant business is also going to see yet another downturn as the pandemic just rages on here in California.

Reporting from Los Angeles, I'm Paul Vercammen. Now back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thanks, Paul, for that.

So Doctor Amy Compton-Phillips is the chief clinical officer at Providence Health System, and she joins me now, live from Seattle Washington.

Doctor, good to see you. So as Thanksgiving week begins here in the U.S. You just heard Paul reporting about it. I understand that you've said that Thanksgiving should be delayed, postponed. How serious are you about that?

DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, PROVIDENCE HEALTH SYSTEM: Well, I know we can't really honestly move the date of Thanksgiving, but the concept is exactly like Dr. Fauci said.

If we get friends and family together right now, we're only going to contribute to what's happening, and that's this crazy shooting up of the number of cases.

And so if we could somehow have a Zoom Thanksgiving right now, we'll avoid an ICU Christmas.

That said, people need to get together. We need to see our loved ones and our family. And so when my kids were little, they used to do this half-birthday thing, you know, six months after their birthday. They'd call it their half-birthday.

I think we need a half-Thanksgiving, a Thanks-living on the fourth Thursday in May, so that we can actually celebrate together safely. And right now, we need to hold back.

CURNOW: As people move and meet across the country, I think there have been millions of people who have already taken flights. How prepared are you for the infections that will inevitably follow? You talk about an ICU Christmas.

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: As prepared as we can be. Right now, health care systems across the country are drowning in patients. Which is scary, because we take everybody as they come in. And what happens when we run out of places to put patients? And what happens when we run out of doctors and nurses to be able to care for those patients when they come in.

That's when we know the death rate can actually start going back up again. In the past few months, we've done a much better job of figuring out how to help people survive COVID. But if hospitals get overwhelmed, it's going to go the other direction.

CURNOW: So as rampant and virulent as this virus is, particularly here in the states where, as you say, it's totally off the charts, what are you watching for that the Biden team is trying to do? Although not with a lot of help from -- from the Trump administration. Does their game plan make sense to you, and does it give you some optimism?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, it does give me optimism. The thing that gives me the shivers is that it's still not for several other weeks away. And we have to get between now and then. And -- and we really could get out of control in the country, unless people do the right thing and stay home and avoid going out, which absolutely is so hard on businesses in the country.

But we have to have people alive to be able to actually work with those businesses and keep them in business. And so, for right now, we have to get control of the virus, and that cannot wait until Joe Biden is inaugurated.

CURNOW: You also heard some positive news coming out -- you've heard a lot about it -- about the vaccination and the vaccination process. Do you think America will be the last country to really get a handle on this virus, just by the sheer number of people who have it? Even if this vaccine is rolled out?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: We have a long way to go until we have mass herd immunity here in the U.S. and enough people vaccinated that we can stop transmission of the virus from the vaccine itself.

And that's why we have to do these other things to get control of the virus first, including keeping people from congregating together, like in restaurants and bars, and making sure we're wearing a mask out in public. Because if we wait until March or April, by the time we have sufficient numbers of people vaccinated, that death rate is going to go way up. So it's a "both and."

CURNOW: OK. Doctor Amy Compton-Phillips there. Really appreciate you taking the time. Good luck. I know you and all the people who work for you must be very exhausted. I wish you all the best of luck for the next week and the next few weeks.

[00:25:06]

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Thank you.

CURNOW: So coming up here at CNN, the roadblocks to certifying the vote in two key states as President Trump refuses to accept defeat.

Plus, the G-20 summit ends with leaders promising to tackle climate change while President Trump rails against the global effort to do just that. Hear what he said, just ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CURNOW: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Robyn Curnow, live from Atlanta. It's 28 minutes past the hour. Thanks for joining me.

So more Republicans are starting to push for the U.S. presidential transition to begin, but there's still uncertainty surrounding the vote certification process. Georgia, where we are, of course, has certified its results, but President Trump's campaign is asking for another recount.

And then, in the coming hours, two other key states are expected to certify their votes. But Kristen Holmes now reports that there are several hurdles that still need to be cleared first.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two of the country's most critical states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are expected to certify the election on Monday. But now, there are a couple of questions as to what that would look like and, in Michigan, if that will actually happen.

CNN learned from a Republican congressman who had spoken to a Republican member on the Board of Canvassers in Michigan that that person was not going to vote to certify the election.

So here's how it normally works. You have four people on this Board of Canvassers: two Democrats, two Republicans. This is usually a routine procedure. When you see how many votes each candidate got, the board gets together, and they certify the election for the winning candidate.

[00:30:04]

Now, of course, as we know, nothing is as it seems in this election cycle in 2020. So Republicans had called on the Board of Canvassers to delay the certification 14 days and wait until there was an audit in Wayne County, Michigan's largest county, the home of Detroit. And it appears that this Republican member of the Board of Canvassers is expected to vote that way, so not to certify but wait for that audit. Even though there are no -- no evidence of any sort of fraud at this time.

So the question is, what will that other Republican on the Board of Canvassers do? If he also decides not to certify the election, you are looking at a deadlock.

And there's no precedent for this. It is unclear if state law would even allow them to delay the certification in order to wait for some sort of audit. In fact, we heard from one Democratic congresswoman who said that's how the rules are in Michigan. That instead, you're supposed to certify and then have an audit.

But obviously here, we know at least one Republican is voting for the opposite. So lots of questions as to what exactly is going to happen in Michigan.

The Republican speaker of the House there said that, if this was to happen, if they were to deadlock, that this could lead to chaos and, ultimately, lead to some sort of constitutional crisis.

Now, the other thing we're watching, of course, is Pennsylvania. There have been a blistering ruling against the Trump campaign, all but killing their legal efforts in Pennsylvania. However, they still decided to appeal that. So how that's going to affect Pennsylvania's certification process -- it's done a little bit differently. In Pennsylvania, each county certifies separately. How that lawsuit, that appeal is going to affect that, that has yet to be seen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thanks for that.

So the virtual G-20 summit wrapped up on Sunday, with leaders of the world's largest economies promising to ensure fair access to COVID vaccines. They say they committed to easing the effects of the pandemic in areas like education, jobs and tourism.

They also reaffirmed a commitment to tackling climate change.

But during a session on safeguarding the planet, President Trump defended his decision to pull out of the climate accord.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To protect American workers, 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. I refused to surrender millions of American jobs and send trillions of American dollars to the world's worst polluters and environmental offenders, and that's what would have happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: So this virtual summit was hosted by Saudi Arabia, and that's where we find Nic Robertson.

Hi, Nic. How did those comments by the president go down with other world leaders?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, they were a complete variance to what everyone else on that panel said: the king of Saudi Arabia; Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, actually quite an ally of President Trump; Modi, the leader of India; Xi Jinping from China; President Macron from France, all these world leaders talking about the importance of tackling global climate change.

And then you have President Trump coming at the end of that and saying, you know, he's not signing up to it, because they're all against the United States.

I was in the room while that was being broadcast in Riyadh, on a huge screen, and everyone was glued to the screen when the king and the other leaders were talking. In fact, the king got a round of applause. People just turned away and barely paid any attention to President Trump.

And I think that was sort of a sense of the mood. He's been out of kilter with the leaders. He's out of kilter with the message of the G- 20. They're talking at the G-20 talking about using the World Trade Organization to help prepare for a future pandemic. They've started what's known now as the Riyadh Initiative to -- to strengthen the World Trade Organization. They're going to use the World Health Organization to help distribute the vaccines. These were all some of the conclusions and initiatives that came out of this G-20 summit.

President Trump has been opposed to the World Health Organization, been opposed to the World Trade Organization. It really does feel and did feel here at this summit that this was President Trump with a message that he's had for the last four years, and world leaders saying, Well, thank you. We're moving on. We're looking forward to the next guy, President-elect Joe Biden.

CURNOW: Yes. In many ways, is this and was this the president's swan song on the global stage, on the international stage? I mean, you write on CNN.com that it was a little bit of a whimper in terms of an exit.

ROBERTSON: Yes, I mean, look, President Trump, while this sort of discussion about the pandemic was going on -- that panel was being hosted right after the opening session of the G-20 -- was seen going off to play golf. You know, if this had been a real summit, that wouldn't have been possible.

[00:35:15]

And I think, perhaps, the telling moment was in the last session, where the king is delivering the communique, the communique that everyone signs up to and agrees, and the sort of communique that President Trump at the last couple of G-20's and even at the G-7 actually refused to sign, has made problems for other leaders, trying to sort of get a strong communique, didn't even show up.

It was Larry Kudlow his -- you know, one of his economic policy chiefs who was sitting in the presidential chair. Most other world leaders -- Xi Jinping, others; Boris Johnson, the British prime minister -- were all sitting in their chairs in the boxes, in the virtual meeting place at this G-20.

Yes, it did look like President Trump perhaps -- I wouldn't say recognizing, because he doesn't do that. But President Trump just now not engaging at all, because he's not going to have a sway and influence and voice on it. And everyone else around the virtual table recognizes that. And going off to do what he likes to do, which is play golf, which is an acknowledgment that he does not hold sway on the world stage, as he would have previously liked to have done. CURNOW: OK. Nic Robertson, good to speak to you, live there from Saudi

Arabia. Thanks, Nic.

So you're watching CNN. Still ahead, Hong Kong sees another surge of coronavirus infections, putting a highly-anticipated travel plan on hold. We'll have those details in a live report. That's also ahead. Join us for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CURNOW: So European leaders are putting new pandemic plans into place. In the coming hours, the British prime minister is expected to announce an extensive community testing program for hard-hit regions under heavy restrictions.

[00:40:00]

Boris Johnson will also outline how England will exit its second national lockdown, come December.

The French president could make a similar announcement when he addresses the nation on Tuesday. France is seeing some signs of progress: a lower positivity rate and fewer people in the ICU.

And in the original epicenter of the European outbreak, Italy has seen a drop in cases and deaths over the weekend. That's just days after reporting its highest daily death toll since April.

And then a highly-anticipated travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore is now being postponed for at least two weeks, as Hong Kong sees a surge of coronavirus infections. The city confirms 68 new cases on Sunday, the most in more than three months.

And Kristie Lu Stout is live now in Hong Kong with an update on all of that.

Hi, good to see you.

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Robyn. Good to see you.

Hong Kong has been battling this virus since January. The cancellation or the suspension of the travel bubble, it's just another setback due to the spike in cases. On Sunday, Hong Kong reported 68 new cases of the coronavirus, the highest rise since Sunday.

Of the 68 cases, 61 are locally transmitted cases. That may seem insignificant when you compare it to Europe or the situation in the United States. But it's significant here in Hong Kong, because in recent weeks the daily new case count had been in the single digits.

Moreover, we have health officials here in Hong Kong saying that there is an increase in untraceable cases here in the territory. And that means the silent sort of chain of transmission is embedded here in the city.

Now, the Hong Kong government is responding. It's identified clusters related to dance studios across the territory. So dance studios and party rooms have been closed until Thursday.

Also, there is now, for the first time during the pandemic, a mandatory testing scheme in place. Anyone who has visited one of these infected dance studios since the beginning of the month, they have to submit themselves to a COVID test. Failure to comply means that they will have to pay a penalty.

And on top of this, that much-anticipated travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore was due to kick off on Sunday. That has been suspended for two weeks.

On Sunday we heard from the commerce secretary, Edward Yau. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD YAU, HONG KONG COMMERCE SECRETARY: In the light of the upsurge of local cases, we have decided, together with Singapore government, that we'll defer the launching of the air travel bubble by two weeks. Under the agreed arrangement, we are caught in some of the mechanics (ph) and the dialogue on this. But we decided, in the interest of making a good start and also in the interest of avoiding any confusion to passengers, we have decided to put this back for two weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STOUT: So the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble has been suspended for two weeks. And the onus is on Hong Kong to improve its COVID situation. Again, on Sunday the territory reported 61 new locally- transmitted cases of the virus. In Singapore, they reported zero new local cases of the virus.

Back to you.

CURNOW: Thanks so much. Kristie Lu Stout there in Hong Kong. Thanks, Kristie.

So for our international viewers, WORLD SPORT is up for you, but those watching in the U.S., we're going to be covering this story. Israel's prime minister has a message for the incoming U.S. president. His warning about Iran, that is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:47:15]

CURNOW: Well, to Israel and a new message from its prime minister to the incoming U.S. president. Benjamin Netanyahu says there can be no return to the Iran nuclear deal. Oren Liebermann joins us now with the details from Jerusalem -- Oren.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So often when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking about Iran, he was speaking to an audience of one, the president, Donald Trump. Netanyahu was perhaps the most vocal critic of the Iran nuclear deal

and very much supported and pushed for Trump's maximum pressure campaign against Iran with sanctions against many, many top Iranian officials.

Netanyahu very much would have liked to have seen that continue. But now that Netanyahu has finally acknowledged that Joe Biden is president-elect, it seems he is speaking to a different audience of one. Directly and apparently here to President-elect Joe Biden in putting out what is essentially Netanyahu's priority list, or perhaps his wish list for future U.S. foreign policy.

Netanyahu remains against the Iran nuclear deal unless it has significant changes, significant upgrades from Netanyahu's perspective. And that's directly the message here he's putting out to President-elect Joe Biden, even before the Biden administration is in place in mid- to late-January.

What's interesting here is that there's still an ongoing debate within Israel's intelligence community about whether the maximum pressure campaign and whether leaving the Iran nuclear deal was the right decision.

And that's because, despite the sanctions, despite the Gulf states, essentially, building pressure on Iran and moving towards Israel, Iran is moving out of the JCPOA and the limitations put within the JCPOA.

According to a report from last week from the IAEA, Iran has moved the banned centrifuges to the facility at Natanz and has begun enriching uranium there in excess of the limits within the previous nuclear agreement.

However, that's not going to change the policy of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his position, which is that the Iranian nuclear deal was from the beginning a bad deal, and he will continue lobbying against it.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thanks, Oren.

With Thanksgiving just days away here in the U.S., many Americans are ignoring the advice of health officials to avoid travel for the holiday this year.

Over the weekend, airports saw some of their highest passenger numbers since the pandemic began. Just take a look at these images. We know that, nationwide, security agents screened more than a million passengers on Friday and nearly a million on Saturday.

And of course, other Americans are heeding the travel warnings, most notably those directly impacted by coronavirus. Some say gathering with family this Thanksgiving just isn't worth the risk.

Here's Natasha Chen with some of their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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

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

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

[00:50:03]

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 if I'm staying home.

CHEN: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says stay home. CDC experts now say 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 25, 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 I -- 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 outside. 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. 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 Greene (ph), who would usually be present at the vegetable station.

SHOCKLEY: And this is the first year in 20 years that my uncle is not here to help us with the distribution to the community.

Because that was someone I could pick up the phone and call. But that's 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.

CHEN: Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Well, COVID hospitalizations are at record highs across the IC -- across the U.S. You know that. With ICUs being pushed to their limits.

Well, CNN's Omar Jimenez went to one Texas city where hospitals are just overwhelmed. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a reality this part of Texas has only seen in its nightmares.

The ICU at Odessa Regional Medical Center in Odessa, Texas, is at its capacity with COVID-19 patients. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have an IF?

JIMENEZ: Even with this hospital at maximum capacity, they're still trying to find places to put COVID-19 patients. All of the beds that you see in this section curtained off at the moment did not exist before the pandemic.

Now, it's filled to its absolute capacity, while patients here literally are fighting for their lives.

DR. ROHITH SARAVANAN, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, ODESSA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: We lost about ten patients last week. And one of them had been on a ventilator for about a month. The ones that are here now, on average, they've been on a vent for about a week or so.

JIMENEZ: Denise Mourning --

DENISE MOURNING, ACUTE CARE NURSE PRACTITIONER, ODESSA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: We're getting closer. OK?

JIMENEZ: -- is an acute care nurse practitioner.

MOURNING: There was only a few times in the summer where we were really pushed to the extreme. But now, for last few weeks, we're busting out at the seams.

JIMENEZ: But she and everyone else remain at war with the virus, even as some patients begin to take a turn for the worse.

(on camera): When you first have to make that declaration, what is it first thing that goes through your mind?

MOURNING: Please not another one. You know? It's a prayer. It's inevitable. We know it's going to happen, but the probability of it being a good outcome is very, very low.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): But most are able to fight it off.

MOURNING: Look at you!

JIMENEZ: And turn the corner. Ruben Romero (ph) is feeling better after two weeks in the hospital and says this isn't a game. I asked why.

(on camera): (SPEAKING SPANISH)

"Because this is really serious," he says. "This virus is not for people to be playing with. It's very dangerous. It attacks your entire body. I'm living it," he says.

And it's become life for so many in this part of the state. Hospital officials in Odessa say anywhere from 35 to 40 percent of the people getting tested are testing positive for COVID-19.

They fear becoming what El Paso has become. Mobile morgues for the dead. Hundreds in the ICU amid record hospitalizations. And roughly one in every 24 people actively with COVID-19. It's required a regional coordination like never before.

WANDA HELGESEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BORDERRAC: You know, a relatively short period of time. Our hospitals have added over 600 beds.

JIMENEZ (on camera): Wow.

[00:55:03]

HELGESEN: Even with that, we have flown out about 84 ICU patients to other communities in Texas.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): And smaller towns, once thought to have escaped the virus's grip, find themselves right in the crosshairs. Towns like Lamesa, Texas, near Odessa. Shelley Barron was hospitalized twice with COVID-19, a diagnosis she's hearing more and more in her community.

SHELLEY BARRON, LAMESA, TEXAS, PATIENT: The scary word is "positive." I'm positive. You know, you got tested positive. We've got two more right now. We experienced a death in our church yesterday. This stuff is real. It's scary.

JIMENEZ: Medical Arts Hospital, where she was mostly treated, now has an entire wing dedicated to COVID-19 patients. Transformations that have become shared experiences.

SARAVANAN: We're actually sending home patients on home oxygen to recover at home. That's not something we would normally do, but there is no space.

JIMENEZ: All for a months'-long fight, with no clear signs of an end.

MOURNING: People aren't taking the precautions they need. We're front line here in the hospital. But the real front line is on the streets, in the grocery stores. Wash your hands, wear a mask. Stay away.

I promise that the little bit of time and the little bit of effort it takes outside of here is worth it. Because once you're here, wearing a mask is better than having a tube down your throat. I promise.

JIMENEZ: Omar Jimenez, CNN, Odessa, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Powerful words there from that nurse.

Now, a passenger ferry with more than 400 people on board is being pulled to safety after running aground near Finland. I want to update you on this. The MS Viking Grace was stranded near the shoreline amid strong winds, as you can see here. But no one on board was hurt, and the ferry has resumed its trip.

So thanks so much for joining me. I am Robyn Curnow here in Atlanta. Up next, a CNN original series, "First Ladies," takes a look at Hillary Clinton's time in the White House. That's right after this short break. Enjoy.

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