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Key U.S. Government Agency Acknowledges Biden Victory; Joe Biden Announces Picks for National Security Posts; Joe Biden to Pick Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary; Americans Traveling for the Holidays Despite Warnings. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired November 24, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:18]
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead, three weeks out to the U.S. presidential election, the transition of power has finally begun.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH (voice-over): This hour, how the news affects the incoming Biden administration and what President Trump has to say about his legal battles.
Plus, President-elect Joe Biden's cabinet is taking shape with a history-making nominee for Treasury secretary. What does it mean for the business world?
And --
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The chances are that you will see a surge superimposed upon a surge.
CHURCH: Sounding the alarm, as a new model predicts millions more COVID-19 cases across the U.S. medical experts urge Americans, stay home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH (on camera): Good to have you with us, and we begin with major developments in the U.S. presidential transfer of power. We've learned that late Monday White House chief of staff Mark Meadows notified West Wing staff that the transition process is formally underway.
That word came after the General Services Administration finally acknowledged Joe Biden's win in a letter earlier Monday. The move gives the president-elect much needed resources and money as he prepares to lead the country in January.
President Trump downplayed the significant step. He tweeted, "We are moving full speed ahead. We will never concede to fake ballots." This as Mr. Trump suffered two major legal blows Monday. The Michigan Board of State Canvass certified that state's election results, handing Biden its 16 electoral votes, while Pennsylvania's Supreme Court rejected yet another one of the Trump campaign's efforts to block certain absentee ballots. And counties there are also quickly certifying their election results.
Well, President Trump has taken to Twitter more than once since news broke of that letter to Biden. CNN's Jim Acosta has more now from Washington, D.C.
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JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): We're starting to see the peaceful transfer of power here in Washington as the head of the General Services Administration has released a letter stating that the Biden transition team can begin the transition process.
(Voice-over): President Trump responded to that with some tweets of his own saying that he's instructed the head of GSA to begin what he is calling initial protocols for the transition process. In the meantime, talked to a couple of Trump campaign advisers who said that is the closest we may get to hearing from President Trump, an actual concession that he lost the race to former vice president Joe Biden.
In the meantime, the president is sounding as though he wants to continue fighting out these legal challenges in court to the 2020 election results. But I talked to a Trump campaign adviser who said the president is essentially out of options.
(On camera): As this adviser put it, it's the end of the road for President Trump.
Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Joe Biden's team welcomed the move from the General Services Administration. The executive director of Joe Biden's transition saying it is the, quote, "needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track."
David Gergen and David Axelrod are no strangers to the comings and goings at the White House. Between them, they have advised five different presidents. They spoke earlier about their reaction to the Biden team formally getting the transition go ahead.
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DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, the president has done the right thing by allowing this to go forward. But he has still another vital step to take before Democrats can take any -- can feel sorry for him and pleased with him. And that is it's vital that this president tell his base and tell the whole country that he believes Joe Biden is the legitimate president, that he has not been put there by fraud.
Until he does that, Democrats have every reason to resent what he's done, where he stirred up the base, where he poisoned our politics still, you know, and they will neither forgive nor forget these last couple of weeks unless he makes it clear that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I can't speak for all Democrats because they are a nervous species, so there may still be some hand-wringing until January 20th at noon. But clearly this was a line of demarcation, and look, it's the most important one.
[04:05:04]
It really doesn't matter what Donald Trump says. It matters what can be done in terms of a transition that allows Joe Biden to coordinate and his team to coordinate with people across the federal government. This is the real danger of what the president is doing. He's going to hand Joe Biden a country more divided than it needs to be by trying to delegitimate an election that was clearly won by Joe Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And Joe Biden hasn't wasted any time waiting for a formal announcement from the White House to put together his team.
CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President-elect Joe Biden's cabinet is taking shape, announcing his intention to nominate seasoned advisers from the Obama administration into new history-making roles.
Janet Yellen, former Federal Reserve chair, will be tapped next week as the Treasury secretary nominee, CNN has learned, and would become the first woman to serve in the post.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why did you go with national security first?
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Because it's national security.
ZELENY: Before a virtual meeting with the U.S. conference of mayors, Biden unveiling key members of his National Security team, including Alejandro Mayorkas, who would become the first Latino to run the Department of Homeland Security, the agency tasked with the nation's immigration policy.
Avril Haines, a former deputy CIA director, who would become the first woman to lead the nation's intelligence community as director of National Intelligence. And John Kerry, the longtime senator and former secretary of State to serve as an international climate czar, a new post underscoring Biden's commitment to fighting climate change.
The president-elect is wasting no time filling his team, expediting his announcements in part, CNN has learned, because President Trump is still seeking to sabotage of the outcome. Biden making clear again today he is surrounding himself with experienced hands, many of whom he's worked with for years in the Senate and White House.
ANTHONY BLINKEN, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: And now on a personal note, it gives me particular pleasure to introduce a man who has been my mentor, my partner, my friend, and the greatest public servant I know. The vice president of the United States, Joe Biden.
ZELENY: That's Tony Blinken, a longtime adviser now to be nominated as secretary of State. Jake Sullivan, another longtime aide, to be named as National Security adviser, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a veteran foreign service officer who has served in posts around the world, to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Republicans were nearly silent about Biden's nominations, nearly all of which face Senate confirmation. When asked if he was concerned about the GOP putting up roadblocks to his team, he said this.
BIDEN: Are you kidding me?
ZELENY: Former president Barack Obama praising Biden's pick, saying they send a signal to allies of strength and stability.
BARACK OBAMA, 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They are going to be greatly relieved and pleased to see people like Tony. There is going to be a lingering sense that America is still divided, some of the shenanigans that are going on right now around the election. That is making the world question how reliable and steady the U.S. may be.
ZELENY (on camera): And the Biden transition moving forward even faster now that they do have that ascertainment from the General Services Administration. That means the Trump administration finally signing off on transition funding and more importantly, opening the doors to information. So finally, three weeks after election day, the Biden transition in full force. He's of course well underway already naming his cabinet picks.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.
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CHURCH: One of President Donald Trump's former National Security advisers tells CNN it's time for the nation to come together and foster a smooth transition to a Joe Biden presidency. H.R. McMaster is also calling on the president-elect and his team to resist the temptation of changing all of the Trump administration's policies.
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LT. GEN. H.R. MCMASTER (RET.), FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: These are long serving professionals who I think are going to come in and obviously do their best for the country. And we might have differences of opinion on policy, but I think this is a team that I hope will resist the kind of these twin temptations of either trying to turn the clock back to 2016, or do what I think several administrations have done in recent years which is to define their foreign policy mainly as an opposition to the previous administration's policies, because I think there are going to be elements of change certainly, but I think there are going to be really critical elements of continuity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And as Jeff Zeleny mentioned in his report, U.S. President- elect Joe Biden will make history when he nominates Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary this week. Yellen will be the first woman to hold that post as she was when she chaired the Federal Reserve during the Obama administration. A selection should appeal to both progressives and business leaders, but Yellen will face a massive task, leading the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
[04:10:06]
And CNN's John Defterios joins us now to take a look at this.
Good to see you, John. So what can we expect from Janet Yellen's leadership as Treasury secretary confronting the economic challenges posed by this pandemic, and how are markets reacting to all this?
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, Rosemary, I'd say experience matters normally, right, but especially during a pandemic of this level, so I think the announcement of Janet Yellen would be extremely well received within the global business community. I'm sitting overseas. But particularly on Wall Street and beyond, even to main street in the United States.
As you suggested there, Rosemary, the first order of business is dealing with the state of the pandemic and perhaps a second dip into a recession. So she wants to get a stimulus package done quickly. That will test her mettle in terms of negotiating with the likes of Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader who's a Republican of course.
Longer term, she would like to get an infrastructure package done to support Joe Biden, talking about the energy transition to renewable energies. But I think it's very important to look at the track record. As Fed chair, as you were suggesting, she was vice chair during the global financial crisis in 2010 and beyond before she became the chair, and then chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Bill Clinton administration.
So she has the best credentials that Joe Biden could have found at this stage of the cycle and that is what Wall Street is telling us. The futures markets are up here by about a quarter to 8/10 of 1 percent. Also that announcement that you've been talking about here with the GSA finally opening the gates to funding here for the transition, it's a similar response from the European markets as well. So the daylight is now there in the transition to a Biden administration.
CHURCH: Right. So, John, what more can you reveal about the major shift by the U.S. business community to break with Donald Trump? DEFTERIOS: You know, I was thinking about the best analogy here,
Rosemary. I think that the dike broke on Donald Trump. And this is significant, because he kept on saying I'm the president for Wall Street and main street business. They all support me, they love what I'm doing, and there's some significant names that decided to break with the president.
Steve Schwarzman, the CEO of Black Stone, which is one of the largest investment groups in the United States, and very close to Donald Trump, this week suggested it's time to move on. Jamie Dimond, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, said we have to let the system play out, allow the transition to go forward. It's important for the credibility of the United States.
Once those two did, you notice, Rosemary, 160 business leaders in New York put out an open letter suggesting the same. Even, you know, titans like the CEO of Walmart coming from the southern half of the United States, Doug McKinnon, saying he embraces a Biden administration. We have to trust the system and move forward. So after you saw those messages, you could see why the GSA kind of finally tilted in favor of proceeding with the transition at this stage.
CHURCH: Yes, it speaks volumes, doesn't it?
John Defterios, joining us live from Abu Dhabi, many thanks.
And coming up, millions of Americans are on the move despite calls from U.S. held officials to stay home this Thanksgiving. The latest coronavirus update in just a moment.
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[04:17:15]
CHURCH: Well, just days ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, the coronavirus pandemic continues to spiral out of control in the United States. At least 169,000 new cases were recorded on Monday bringing the total to more than 12.4 million. And a new model from Washington University in St. Louis predicts these numbers could almost double by the time Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20th.
CNN's Athena Jones has more.
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ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With Thanksgiving just days away, clear signs Americans are not heeding the CDC's warning to stay home, instead setting new records of pandemic air travel, with more than a million people flying on Sunday alone.
FAUCI: When you get a crowded plane, you're in a crowded airport, you're lining up, not everybody is wearing masks, that puts yourself at risk. What you don't want to see is another spike in cases as we get colder and colder into the December, and then you start dealing with the Christmas holiday. We can really be in a very difficult situation. JONES: Already November is shaping up to be the worst month of the
pandemic so far. Monday marking the 21st day in a row with more than 100,000 new COVID-19 infections reported. 1.2 million new cases reported in just the last week, the highest seven-day total in the U.S. ever. Hospitalizations nationwide breaking records for 13 straight days.
DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: I want the American people to know that we are at a dire point in our fight with this virus by any measure. Cases, positivity, hospitalizations, deaths. I'm asking Americans, I'm begging you, hold on just a little bit longer. Keep Thanksgiving and the celebrations small and smart this year.
JONES: While the governor of Texas, which has the most COVID cases in the country, is vowing his state won't shut down again, arguing most transmission is occurring in people's homes.
Other hard hit places are announcing new restrictions. In Washington, D.C., all Smithsonian museums including the National Zoo will close temporarily for a second time. and new restrictions including a 10- person limit on most indoor gatherings start Wednesday. Also starting Wednesday, outdoor dining will be shut down in Los Angeles County. California Governor Gavin Newsom and his family are now quarantining after three of his children were exposed to a highway patrol officer with the virus.
Meanwhile, there's more good vaccine news. AstraZeneca reporting its candidate is 70 percent effective on average, making it the third vaccine in recent weeks to show real promise. A CDC committee is already working to determine who should receive the vaccine first. But it will still be months before most people are able to get it. And experts fear what could happen in the meantime.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: It's the best of times because three vaccines are better than one. It's the worst of times as we go into the Thanksgiving season.
[04:20:03]
I'm very worried about the next few months. It's going to be a very difficult time.
JONES (on camera): Among those expected to receive vaccinations first are health care providers, first responders, essential personnel. Individuals living in nursing homes, those with high risk conditions and those over 65.
Athena Jones, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Dr. Larry Brilliant joins me now. He is a CNN medical analyst and an epidemiologist.
An honor to have you with us, Doctor.
BRILLIANT: It's my privilege to be with you. Very nice to talk to you, Rosemary.
CHURCH: You, too. And now of course the GSA has officially approved the formal transition to power of President-elect Joe Biden. He and his team will now receive all the necessary data to fight this pandemic and ensure a smooth distribution of approved COVID vaccines once that happens. How important is all of this in battling the pandemic?
BRILLIANT: As far as the transition goes, we've lost 16 days. It is hard enough to envision in the United States vaccinating two-thirds of the population, maybe 250 million people twice, and organizing that in an equitable and fair method as well as logistically correct, and not having the ability to coordinate for as long as you can. I'm sorry that we've lost that time.
But the task force that is advising President-elect Biden is terrific. They will be able to start off really quickly. Ron Klain, who was the Ebola czar, is the chief of staff. I'm really confident that we'll be able to get going very soon.
CHURCH: And of course, in the midst of this, there is this great news in addition to Pfizer and Moderna's vaccine candidates. AstraZeneca's vaccine offers less efficacy, but a cheaper option that doesn't require freezing temperatures. How important is this option when it comes to supplying the world with vaccines?
BRILLIANT: It's critical. If you think that you have to vaccinate everybody twice and store the vaccine at minus 100 degrees, that's not a vaccine that is formulated in a way that makes it possible to what we all want to do is throw COVID into the dust bin of history. We can only do that if we can vaccinate maybe six billion people around the world.
The AstraZeneca vaccine solves one of those two problems, which is the coal chain issue. It's not clear what its final efficacy will be. I'm optimistic it will be closer to the 90 percent than the 70 percent. But it still requires two doses, so it's not the perfect solution yet, but it's a step along the way.
CHURCH: Yes. That is such encouraging news, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force says by May 2021, about 70 percent of the U.S. population could be vaccinated, maybe enough to achieve herd immunity if a sufficient number of people take it. That's according to them.
Do you agree with that and how do you make people trust in these vaccines?
BRILLIANT: You're exactly right. The math is right. We have a formula for determining what herd immunity needs to be in order to use a vaccine to stop transmission, get the R-naught under one. But we don't have a formula for determining how we restore trust in a system that has categorically broken trust, not just about the vaccine, but if so many people have been told since the beginning that the virus itself was a hoax, that we're rounding the corner, that it's almost over, why would they want to believe that they need to be vaccinated then? CHURCH: And Doctor, just finally, against warnings from the CDC, we've
already seen more than a million Americans travel for the Thanksgiving holiday in the midst of surging cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. How concerned are you about that?
BRILLIANT: I'm very concerned. There was a time when a recommendation and advisory from CDC would have been followed more carefully. You have to understand, I think, how much pent up fatigue there is with COVID, but so much of that is because we have not been honest and transparent about how bad the disease is. And CDC has had some damage to its reputation to the extent it was complicit in that message but the truth is there's some great scientists at CDC.
It's got wonderful DNA and it will get back, but right now we need CDC and all of our institutions of government to make people understand that while we may have a vaccine in adequate doses in three or four or five or six months, right now we don't.
[04:25:01]
What we have now is a disease that might be killing 2500 people a day in the United States, by the end of the year, 200,000 people getting sick per day, and 80 percent of our hospital beds taken up by somebody with COVID.
This is not a joke. We are at a very dangerous inflection point. Thanksgiving and Christmas may be our holiday season, but my god, if we could only postpone them until next year, they'd be a lot happier holidays.
CHURCH: As always very wise advice. Dr. Larry Brilliant, thank you very much for talking with us. I appreciate it.
BRILLIANT: Thank you, Rosemary.
CHURCH: The Australian airline Qantas says when a COVID vaccine becomes available, international travelers will have to prove they have been vaccinated before they can fly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN JOYCE, QANTAS CEO: We are looking at changing our terms and conditions to say for international travelers that we will ask people to have a vaccination before they can get on the aircraft. Whether you need that domestically, we'll have to see what happens with COVID-19 and the market, but certainly for international visitors coming out and people leaving the country, we think that's a necessity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And the CEO of Australia's national carrier says he expects other airlines to follow suit. Australia currently requires travelers returning from abroad to spend two weeks in quarantine.
And still to come, the formal transition for Joe Biden finally begins. (Voice-over): Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election are all
but done, even though he's still not willing to fully admit it. And the CDC is discussing the best way to ethically distribute the COVID- 19 vaccine once it's ready. We'll have details on the groups most likely to get the vaccine first. That's next.
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