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DOW Hits 30,000 Amid Transition, Vaccine Progress; Pennsylvania Certifies Biden's Win; CNN: Advisers Tried To Persuade Trump To Move Forward With Transition; Doctor: Patients Need To Be Aware Vaccine Is No "Walk In The Park"; Poll: 70 Percent Of Americans Will Get COVID-19 Vaccine If Public Health Officials Prove It's Safe, Effective. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 24, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Investors are encouraged that uncertainty surrounding the election is ending, and with the formal transition process now getting underway, also contributing to the rally promising results from three potential coronavirus vaccines, so we'll have it. Thanks for joining us, you guys. I am Kate Bolduan. Nia-Malika Henderson picks up our coverage now.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN HOST: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am Nia-Malika Henderson in Washington. The Trump Administration finally presses play on the transition, even as the president says he won't concede. And a big market surge this hour, the DOW crosses 30,000 after this transition moves full speed ahead.

Also today, a Thanksgiving week test of America's Coronavirus resolve. Only four states pushing down their Coronavirus curves, 169,000 new cases recorded on Monday the average number of daily new cases, 172,000 plus, the highest number of the pandemic. Uncontrolled spread is now a fact of everyday American life.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warns going home will amplify the surge. The holiday week missions according to the Surgeon General keep grandma safe. The consequences of not doing that are quite plain. Just look at those numbers the U.S. now averaging 1500 COVID-19 deaths a day. But every single one of those numbers is a person with a family to lose.

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DR. SHIRLEE XIE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF HOSPITAL MEDICINE AT HENNEPIN HEALTHCARE: I took care of a woman who after over a month in the ICU was recovering from COVID, and that should be a win. But we were trying to call her family every day to give them an update, and we couldn't get a hold of anyone.

And then one day we found out it's because her husband had died of COVID and her daughter had died of COVID, although she was in the hospital. And so, how do you tell somebody that? How do you tell somebody that their family has died?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: More on the virus ahead. But we begin with a transition wait now over. The Biden transition can formally start after getting approval from the General Services Administration. The acknowledgment is both about nuts and bolts but also big priorities. The Biden team now gets office space; they also get federal money, and also federal resources to vet all their people.

They also will get access now to COVID-19 data. This is crucially important with the surge and also they'll get information about how to distribute a vaccine? A big rollout for the Biden campaign slated for next hour. And we've got CNN's Jeff Zeleny who is in Wilmington, Delaware for us. Jeff, so what is going to come next in the transition?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nia, there is no question here this is one of the biggest moments we've seen yet in this transition. It is three weeks after Election Day, but we're going to see the introduction of the foreign policy team as well as the national security team, their names are well known. They're rolling these out slowly for a reason.

They really want people to sit and savor on this permitted. And what it could mean for a new direction in American foreign policy and national security, it is a changing of the guard, no question. Not many new faces, more old face from the Obama Administration, even the Clinton Administration, and that is one of the points here, trying to show stability.

Secretary of State Nominee Tony Blinken, we'll hear from him for the first time. The nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, the Nation's Intelligence Community, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the National Security Adviser.

And of course, John Kerry, he is going to be climate czar, and a member of the president's cabinet and National Security Council. So those are going to be the first people introduced here today. And Nia, what it really means is this is going to set the tone going forward.

Now most of these nominees are likely to be confirmed, at least that is the sense right now. And we do not know how successful they'll be with their mission going forward of changing America's policies with the world, and changing domestic policy as well.

But we do know this is part of the president-elect's plan to try and return Washington to an era of normalcy, if you will a traditional sense, not necessarily a Democrat or Republican, in this case obviously the Democratic establishment, but a pre-Trump era.

But one challenge here is, as this transition gets under way, the cooperation between members of the Trump Administration and the incoming Biden Administration is very, very much an open question. Yes, the letter of ascertainment came last night. Yes, they have to give them their funding.

But beyond that, not much is required. So Nia, even in normal senses, these transitions are usually rocky. Once the Biden team gets into these agencies to see what is actually in there, we do expect some road blocks still to be put up. But look, this is a big development, now three weeks after Election Day. We'll see those big announcements here in the next hour, Nia.

HENDERSON: Thanks so much for your reporting on those developments, Jeff. And listen, if you go to Twitter, you will find a clear snapshot of the president's mind-set, willing to concede nothing, and continuing to pursue a baseless fraud conspiracy theory about this election. We've got CNN's Kaitlan Collins who's at the White House for us.

[12:05:00]

HENDERSON: Kaitlan, the president's public position is that the election was a hoax. And we all know that that is an outright lie. So why did he actually move forward with this transition to the Biden Administration?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's not clear that the president was actually the one who made that decision because while he tried to frame it that way on Twitter last night, saying he recommended to Emily Murphy, the GSA Administrator, make this move.

She said in her letter that she acted independently, and really chalked up her decision to a lot of this true court losses that you've seen happen in the last several days for the Trump team. And that continues to happen as you are seeing the certification of votes in places like Pennsylvania, something that the Trump Campaign sought to delay, also in Michigan as they're pursuing that as well.

And so, you're continuing to see these legal challenges that the president has relied on and his team has relied on as an excuse for why that transition was not taking place continue to fail really all over the place. So the question is going forward how does the president treat this? Because some are saying this as the closest you can get to a concession from President Trump.

But he is saying that this is not a sign that he is conceding, he's saying he is going to continue pursuing these legal challenges, though that path is dwindling and dwindling a lot. So the question is, how much further does he continue pushing this because you're starting to see Republicans say that the transition should start.

We're waiting to see does this mean that Joe Biden is going to start getting the presidential daily brief and all of the other factors that come with really immersing yourself, and taking over the federal government. And so far, the president has been tweeting about GSA, saying this does not mean he's conceding.

He's saying GSA transitions do not determine who is the president? Of course, we do know that's true, but we have seen what the will of the American people is? And they've decided that Joe Biden is going to be the next president. So Nia, we will see President Trump today this afternoon for that Turkey Pardon. It's going to be one of those rare times that we've actually seen the

president in the last three weeks since the election, but whether or not he will comment on this is still to be determined.

HENDERSON: We'll see what happens at the Turkey Pardon. A lot of people are thinking about other people who might get pardoned by this president, not so much worried about those Turkeys who I think their names are corn and cob. But Kaitlan Collins thanks so much for that report from the White House.

Joining me now, we got Toluse Olorunnipa, he is a White House reporter for "The Washington Post," we've also got Laura Barron-Lopez, National Political Reporter for Political. Thanks to you both for joining us today.

Toluse, I'm going to start with you and I want you to listen to one of the president's conservative media allies, and what he has to say about the president's legal team that they promised a lot but delivered very little.

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RUSH LIMBAUGH, HOST, "THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW": You call a gigantic press conference like that, one that lasts an hour. And you announce massive bombshells, and then you better have some bombshells. They promised blockbuster stuff and then nothing happened. And that's just not, well, it's not good.

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HENDERSON: So Toluse, does your reporting show that the appetite for a drawn out legal battle is kind of disappearing, because the Trump's legal team has just been solidly beaten over and over again in court? You heard Rush talk about all of these promises they made as well as the president made about evidence and none of that evidence has materialized.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes. The courtroom was where they were supposed to win back this election. And instead they have lost multiple times in multiple states, and not only lost, they've lost in sort of spectacular fashion with judges smacking them down and essentially saying that their ideas and their allegations are really just hard to believe, and hard to believe that they made these cases in the court of law.

I do think that now that you're starting to see some of the conservative media start to move on, and start to acknowledge that the president is not going to have a second term. There are very few places left where the president is having the kind of support that he had maybe in the first couple of days after the election where there was a lot of energy around the idea that the election was being stolen from him, even though that was pretty baseless.

Now there's sort of a defeatist attitude around the president. Now he continues to want to fight, he continues to want to show supporters that he is fighting and that he is going to continue to try to fight to have a second term. But I think a lot of the people around him are starting to come to the realization that is over, in the next two months, he is not going to be the president.

And that they're all trying to figure out ways to get him to come to that realization, and not have him continue to put up these fights which are all losing battles.

[12:10:00]

OLORUNNIPA: Because we have seen him losing in court, losing in the court of public opinion, as we see even conservative members of the media, some of his biggest supporters start to say that, what they're alleging in terms of the type of fraud that they're saying happened is just, they don't have the evidence to back it up.

All of it is pretty conspiratorial and baseless and it's pretty clear at this point that, they are not going to have the big bombshell that they have been promising for the past three weeks.

HENDERSON: Right. And Laura one of Trump's attorneys, Jenna Ellis, she just tweeted this, all this media chatter of Joe Biden picking his cabinet is like fantasy football, meaningless in the real game. OK, Jenna Ellis, do you get the sense that the president just never plans to concede? I know Jenna Ellis was on a different network yesterday, and saying that President Trump actually won in a landslide. So clearly it's still being drunk here at this point.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Right. There's a very real possibility that the president never says the words that he is conceding or that he's conceded to Biden.

But just simply leaves the White House come January, end of January, because whether or not Jenna Ellis wants to accept reality, the reality is that Biden is going to enter the White House at the end of January, and that President Trump is going to have to leave and be a one term president.

So yes, Trump and his allies can continue to say that he won in a landslide, but those aren't the facts. And we have increasingly said as Toluse outline a number of republicans, they haven't strongly rebuked President Trump, but they have said that there is no evidence here and that the country needs to move on. And they have been slowly acknowledging Biden's election as the president.

HENDERSON: And Laura let's stick with the Biden transition. So far a lot of the members have been Washington establishment. Those are the folks he picked so far to fill out his cabinet. But I want you to listen to Congressman, Jim Clyburn, and what he had to say this morning about progressives, that they should be happy with the likely treasury secretary pick.

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REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Miss Yellen would not be satisfactory to the progressives? I would think they hit the jackpot when he named her to be the first woman to be treasurer. I don't know that this is status quo; this is picking up, and building on what got stepped away from four years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: So Laura, is it your sense that progressive Democrats are going to be happy hearing that the Biden Administration, they're essentially picking up and building on what the Obama Administration did? I imagine that you're progressive Democrat; you want the Biden Administration to go much further than Obama did in his administration.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes. A lot of what I've heard from progressives is that are these their ideal draft picks? They aren't. If progressives had candidates that they were in love with, it would have been ended up being Elizabeth Warren at treasury, not Janet Yellen at treasury. Is Yellen someone that they can live with?

Yes. So a lot of the appointments that we've seen rolled out over the last day are people that progressives say that they think they can work with, that they can live with. They aren't going to be angry and corner the Biden Administration about them, but they aren't officials that progressives are in love with.

And so, the progressive wing has kind of scattered themselves a bit in the arguments that they have been picking with the Biden transition team. You know, they love their dream candidate for interior secretary, would be Congresswomen Deb Holland.

And so, they're still trying to push for their candidates there, they're trying to push for Sanders at a place like labor which could also potentially be a possibility. And that's even someone that Clyburn told CNN he could get behind, because he thinks that it would help with appeasing the base in terms of appointments to Biden's cabinet.

So these aren't candidates that they're in love with, but they're picking fights elsewhere and they're ones that a lot of progressive state that they can live with.

HENDERSON: And any quick thoughts from you Toluse on how this cabinet is shaping up so far, and maybe some of the battles that lie ahead?

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Joe Biden picks some specific members that the progressive wing of the Democratic Caucus wants, specifically in specific places. But I also wouldn't be surprised if he picks some former Republicans or some current Republicans to join his cabinet.

Biden has talked about having a very broad coalition; he's picked some people who are establishment, some establishment Democrats. But I wouldn't be surprised if as he talks about the level of diversity within his cabinet that he also focuses on ideological diversity.

[12:15:00]

OLORUNNIPA: And he includes conservative Republicans or maybe moderate Republicans as well as some pretty left leaning Democrats and progressives to join this cabinet to try to have that level of diversity that he thinks will be helpful to him when he becomes president.

HENDERSON: It'd be fascinating to watch. Bernie Sanders potentially at labor, could he get through the senate, maybe, we don't really know. And it certainly seems like he is campaigning for the job, and to have Jim Clyburn weigh in favorably is good for him as well. Toluse, Laura Barron-Lopez, we thank you very much.

Up next, what the medical professionals want you to know about the possible COVID-19 vaccines but first a warning from the U.S. Surgeon General.

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DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: We need to be very cognizant of the severity of the moment. A quarter of all of our Coronavirus cases this year have occurred in the last month. 40 states seeing cases go up. And those cases are turning into hospitalizations and deaths.

You may not be able to go in, and get your heart attack treated. I heard hospitals not being able to provide care for pregnant women, because they're filled with COVID beds, so that's the reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[12:20:00]

HENDERSON: So, as we wait for the ultimate weapon against the Coronavirus, a vaccine, an update this morning from Operation Warp Speed on a potential time line for rolling one out.

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ALEX AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We believe we can distribute vaccine to all 64 jurisdictions within 24 hours of FDA authorization. Then we hope administration can begin as soon as the product arrives. One of the private sector partners we've enlisted, CVS Health, has said that they expect to be vaccinating residents of nursing homes, one of the top priority groups, within 48 hours after FDA authorization.

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HENDERSON: Joining me now, Paul Offit, he is a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee. Dr. Offit thanks so much for being here. So we know the Committee that you're on is going to review the Pfizer vaccine on December 10th, and then the Moderna vaccine on December 17th. Can you walk us through what this process is going to look like and how quickly a decision might actually come down?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER DIR., CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, so typically what will happen is, we will get data to review before we meet. We'll go through all those data, and then we will meet and we'll have a discussion for about nine or ten hours.

And then at the end of that discussion, we will go to whether or not we think that this vaccine should be approved, and for which groups it can reasonably be approved, given that the data would support that.

That will happen on December 10th. Then probably within 24 to 48 hours, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practice, which is the Committee that advises the CDC will also meet, will also independently review those data. And if they too agree that this should be approved for various groups, then in theory the vaccine can roll off the shelves into the arms of the American public.

HENDERSON: And that's the other layer of this process is, CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice is meeting to discuss whether to recommend any of these COVID-19 vaccines that the FDA might authorize. I want you to listen to what one physician told the committee yesterday about reassuring patients about potential side effects.

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DR. SANDRA FRYHOFER, EMORY, AMA FOR CDC'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES: As a practicing physician, I've got to make sure that my patients will come back for that second dose. And so, I think we have a good head start in hearing what these vaccine efficacies are.

But we really need to make patients aware of that this is not going to be a walk in the park. They're going to know they had a vaccine. They're probably not going to feel wonderful, but they've got to come back for that second dose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: And doctor, do you agree that this is going to be a challenge and that this could weigh on the committee's views on one vaccine over another?

DR. OFFIT: I don't think so. I think the immune system; our immune system needs a better public relations team. When you get a vaccine, you're being inoculated with foreign substance which should make an immune response, that's good.

You want to make immune response, when you make an immune response, you can occasionally have symptoms that are associated with that immune response like low grade fever or headache or muscle pain or fatigue.

That's OK. That means your immune response is working for you, you should feel good about that. And there shouldn't really be any difficulty coming back for that second shot, knowing that you're now in a better position to fight off this awful virus which has killed more than 250,000 people, and can cause a lot of long term effects. We need a better public relations team for our immune system.

HENDERSON: And so, there is a new poll out from AXIOS and IPSOS, it shows that 51 percent of adults would get the vaccine when it is available. But that number, it actually goes up to about 70 percent when they feel that the vaccine has been proven safe by public health officials.

So you need about 70 percent of the population to get vaccinated in order for it to be effective. So how do you get to those numbers if you've got Americans reluctant in sort of the first rollout of this vaccine?

DR. OFFIT: Well, I think what will happen are essential workers and a variety of other groups will start to get this vaccine. So then hundreds of thousands of doses will be given, and then millions of doses will be given.

And assuming that the safety portfolio remains excellent, then I think people will feel better and better that this vaccine not only doesn't cause any uncommon serious side effects, which we will know based on the data that have been generated so far, but doesn't even cause a rare serious side effect.

And then I think people will be more and more comfortable because you're right. I think most of the people who are going to get this vaccine are healthy young people. And what they're most worried about is safety. But I think as we get more doses out there, people will feel more comfortable about the safety.

HENDERSON: Dr. Paul Offit, we thank you for your work. And thank you for joining us today.

DR. OFFIT: Thank you.

[12:25:00]

HENDERSON: And this just in moments ago, the Health and Human Services Secretary said that the official who has been leading transition planning efforts has been in contact with the Biden transition team. And here's more of what he said.

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AZAR: We are immediately getting them all of the prepared transition briefing materials. We will ensure coordinated briefings with them to ensure they're getting whatever information that they feel they need, that's consistent with statute and past practice.

I have reiterated, I've said press, I've said publicly to you all, I reiterated to Admiral Schwartz my firm commitment that transition, planning and execution will be professional, cooperative and collaborative in the best spirit of looking out for the health and well-being of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: And up next, President-Elect Joe Biden is just moments away from introducing his cabinet. First slate of cabinet picks. And as we go to break, we got Democratic Senator Bob Casey celebrates his commonwealth making it official, Biden wins Pennsylvania.

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