Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Millions Traveling Despite Warnings from Health Experts; CDC Considers Shortening Coronavirus Quarantine Period; Biden Rules Out Urging DOJ Probe of Trump; Georgia Secretary of State Alleges He's "Being Thrown Under the Bus" By Trump After Voting for and Donating to the Trump Campaign; Hunger Grips Many Americans this Thanksgiving After Pandemic Rendered Many Jobless; Futures Flat After Dow Passes 30,000 for the First Time. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 25, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:05]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

We are just a day out from Thanksgiving and millions of Americans are just completely ignoring warnings from top health experts that have said repeatedly do not travel. This has Dr. Anthony Fauci very worried.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If we can just hang in there a bit longer and continue to do the simple mitigation things that we're talking about all the time, the masks, the distancing, the avoiding crowds, so that's my final plea before the holiday. What we don't want to see is yet another surge superimposed upon the surge that you just described, which will realize three, three and a half weeks from now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: He's right. Dr. Fauci's warning comes as new cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to surge across the country. Today marks the deadliest day that we have seen in this pandemic since May.

SCIUTTO: President-elect Biden's transition team is now one step closer to tackling this growing health crisis. Fauci says he is in contact now with the team. CNN has learned that the White House has signed off on Biden receiving the president's Daily Intelligence Brief, possibly as early as today.

And this is just into CNN. A senior administration official tells me that the National Security Council is prepared for a thorough transition and that face-to-face meetings among White House staff will begin soon with Biden's team. That kind of information sharing is key.

President-elect plans to address the nation later today. President Trump, he's still finding ways to undermine the election. Despite no proof of widespread voter fraud, he will join his attorney Rudy Giuliani in Pennsylvania for an event intended, it seems, to cast doubt on the 2020 election. We're going to have more on that in a moment.

Let's begin, though, with CNN's Rosa Flores, she is at Miami International Airport.

Tell us what you're seeing down there this day before the holiday.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, good morning. Well, take a look around, I can show you this is the busiest that I've seen an airport since the pandemic broke. You can see that a lot of the people here are wearing masks, that, of course, is the good news, but we've learned that millions of Americans, that's what they're doing this holiday season. They are traveling to go visit their loved ones. And of course, that's what the CDC is recommending that they don't do.

Here at Miami International Airport officials say that about 621,000 passengers are going to crisscross this airport during a 12-day period during Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving time. This is a 59 percent decrease from last year but of course that is a lot of people.

Now medical experts say that right now the virus is spreading because people are going indoors, younger people with no symptoms are passing on the virus to older individuals. That of course sounds like meetings over Thanksgiving. That is the worry from experts.

Now I can tell you from talking to people here that a lot of individuals have mixed emotions about their travels. Some are very worried, others are trying to be cautious, wearing their facemasks. And then there are some that are just very emotional about it.

I want to introduce you to a woman. Her name is Anna Sanchez. She is on her way to New York right now to go visit her parents. She hasn't seen them in two years. Her dad is 90, her mom is 87, and she said that she's on her way there because she's afraid that she'll never get to see them again if she doesn't travel now. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNA SANCHEZ, PASSENGER: I don't know if -- I'm getting emotional. If Christmas they're going to be around given this -- what's happening. Actually, I have double clothes on so when I get there I can shed all my clothes, leave them at the door, and then I can give them a hug.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, Jim and Poppy, I think we can all identify with this woman's story because many of us still have not been able to embrace our parents because of COVID-19.

Now for this woman she says she's trying to surprise her mom and dad, so it will be a surprise of course unless they're watching CNN right now and they know now that she's on her way to New York to go visit her parents -- Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Rosa.

HARLOW: No one text them. No one text them. If you saw her, do not tell them she is coming. Thank you, Rosa.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: We turn now to potential plans to shorten the CDC's recommended quarantine time. This is interesting. White House officials are now saying 14 days may not be necessary anymore.

SCIUTTO: All right. So senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now.

Elizabeth, suggestion here seven to 10 days could be enough. I wonder is there broad agreement on this?

[09:05:02]

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This is still being considered. There is a lot of science to look at. And I want to add a very important phrase here to what you just said, Jim. If you get a test. So they're not saying let's cut it from 14 to seven or 14 to 10. It's you have to get a test in order to cut it, if they even make this change at all. So let's take a look at what it is now and what they're thinking about.

So right now it's a 14-day quarantine, that's sort of the rule of the land, and that's what people are doing or should be doing. What the CDC is thinking about is if you get a negative test at around seven to 10 days, that could shorten your quarantine. They really hope that this will achieve two things, if they do this. The hope is that it will achieve two things.

One, that it will encourage more testing. Number two, people will be able to sort of tolerate a shorter quarantine. There is real concern that people are not doing quarantines at all. They're just kind of ignoring it, or that they're not doing it for as long as they should. So hopefully this could improve that situation -- Jim, Poppy.

HARLOW: I mean, that's a big hope and it could change a lot, you're right. Also before I go, Elizabeth, the FDA is now saying that it's OK for some people to wear expired masks in some cases? First of all, I don't even know what an expired mask means.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: So explain that to us.

COHEN: Right. So it sounds kind of funny, it sounds like drinking expired milk which of course you don't want to do, but this is different.

HARLOW: Right.

COHEN: Look, these surgical masks like the blue ones that, you know, we see people wearing all the time, that we ourselves have probably worn, those are actual medical -- that's medical equipment really, so it has an expiration date, but really it doesn't really expire. So what they're saying now is if you have a pack of these masks and it has an expiration date, don't worry about it, keep using them.

But do remember these are one-time use masks. You're supposed to use them once and then throw them away. So that still stands. Use it once, throw it away, but don't worry about that expiration date on there.

SCIUTTO: All right. It's good to know because there's still a shortage for these masks in many places. Obviously a mask better than nothing.

COHEN: Right.

SCIUTTO: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

Well, this morning in his first television interview since winning the presidency, Joe Biden pushing back at the idea that his White House will be simply the same as President Obama's. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: This is not a third Obama term because we face a totally different world than we faced in the Obama-Biden administration. The president -- President Trump has changed the landscape. It's become America first, which meant America alone. We find ourselves in a position where our alliances are being frayed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's talk about this with CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. Julie Pace also joins us, Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press.

Good morning to you both.

Jeff, I want your reaction to another part of the interview that really struck us and that is when Lester Holt asked Joe Biden about the hopes that some Democrats have that he will use the Justice Department or encourage the Justice Department to investigate the president on a federal level once he is out of office. Listen to his answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I will not do what this president does and use the Justice Department as my vehicle to insist that something happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: It's strikingly different from how the president has tried to use the Justice Department. I also wonder what Democrats' reaction largely will be to it, some who want to see the president investigated by DOJ.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, it's strikingly different and it's strikingly normal. It's a traditional sense of what most presidents in our history would say. So that is, I think, we are going to go through the list of things here that, you know, comparing Joe Biden to Donald Trump. It's going to be different across the board.

What he went on to say, though, is also interesting. He said he did not have the power to control other probes already under way. Of course we know that the New York attorney general is just one of many people who are looking into the president's finances but he didn't say he would call his Department of Justice off. He just said he would not use it as a weapon.

So the reality is he campaigned on a pledge to unite this country, a huge task by any measure. Having a simultaneous investigation going on, you know, simply is not going to help with that task. What he's also doing is sending a message, I believe, to House Democrats and others who have investigatory powers on Capitol Hill that it's time to turn a page and it is time to move on.

So we'll see what the appetite for that is, but this is classic Joe Biden. Clearly not wanting to repeat what his predecessor has done.

SCIUTTO: Julie, the world is literally moving on from Donald Trump. Just a short time ago the Chinese leader Xi Jinping formally congratulated President-elect Biden, and yet in this country, the Senate majority leader hasn't done that, the House GOP leader has not done that. Silent at a minimum on the fiction of massive voter fraud, although there are Republicans who have been very public on it. Trump is having his own event today.

[09:10:10]

Why that delay from GOP lawmakers right now, still? Why? What are they waiting for?

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ASSOCIATED PRESS: It's a really good question. We have seen the world moving on, we have seen other Republicans moving on. You know, every day seems to bring another Republican who is acknowledging reality which is that Joe Biden won this election and will be sworn in on January 20th.

I think there are a couple of things going on with some of these Republican leaders and some of this is just hard, cynical politics. One, there are two special elections in Georgia in early January and Republicans know that the best way for them to win elections right now is to keep Trump's base motivated, to cast those elections as a way for Republicans to get revenge. And so they want to keep open the idea of voter fraud.

They want to keep open the idea that the president was wronged here and if they acknowledge that he wasn't then that could take away from that. They also are of course thinking about the party's future and there is deep uncertainty right now in the Republican Party about which way they go after Trump does leave office. Do they remain a party driven by Trump and Trumpism or do they try to turn a corner?

Anybody who tells you they know the direction Republicans are going to go is wrong. They are deeply uncertain right now.

SCIUTTO: That's a great point, Julie. We don't know.

HARLOW: Yes. That is a great point. Jeff, the fact that the president is joining his attorney Rudy Giuliani in Pennsylvania today, not just in Pennsylvania, at Gettysburg.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: To, you know, try to continue to make the case for something which there is no evidence for, widespread voter fraud or any undermining of the election. I mean, the fact that he's doing it at Gettysburg, the site of the most famous civil war battle culminating, by the way, in the failed charge of the Confederate general. What do you make of that?

ZELENY: Steeped in history that it's unclear if the president is fully aware of. I mean, look, the reality here is this is a show where a day before Thanksgiving as the pandemic as we hear hour by hour is worsening, hospitalizations are worsening, deaths are rising, we have not heard President Trump talk about this at all.

This is going to be a split screen moment with President-elect Joe Biden delivering a Thanksgiving message to the country. You may say, that sounds hokey, that sounds normal. It is normal. It is what most presidents do. They're empathetic. So that is what we are really going to see this afternoon in a very different sense.

So, look, this is all about largely one thing. Keeping the Trump base fueled and motivated and keeping fundraising hopes alive. Let's see how many fundraising appeals are going to come in over the next few hours before that Gettysburg address and certainly over the holiday week. That is what more than 300 since Election Day. That is what Donald Trump is up to here. It's all about the money.

SCIUTTO: And we should always note that read the fine print on where and how that money can be used because it can be used for Trump campaign debt, not necessarily for the things as advertised.

Jeff Zeleny, Julie Pace, thanks very much.

Still to come this hour, why Georgia's Republican secretary of State says that his family voted for Trump, they donated to the campaign and yet we're still, in his words, thrown under the bus by the president anyway?

HARLOW: Also ahead for us as new COVID cases spike, especially across the Midwest, many families are lining up at food pantries for their Thanksgiving meal. And a powerful message this morning from Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, revealing her heartbreaking miscarriage in the "New York Times" and also sending a message to all of us this morning.

We'll take you live to London ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back. This morning, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State is once again swatting down accusations of voter fraud in his state. He writes in a very powerful new op-ed for "USA Today", quote, "by all accounts, Georgia had a wildly successful and smooth election."

SCIUTTO: He goes on to say that despite voting for, even donating to Donald Trump, he is now being -- and we're quoting him, "thrown under the bus by the president." Joining us now to speak about all this, Republican election lawyer and CNN contributor Ben Ginsberg. Mr. Ginsberg, always good to have you on the show.

BEN GINSBERG, ELECTION LAWYER: Thanks, nice to be here.

SCIUTTO: So, we've been talking to you periodically about the Trump campaign's legal challenges. Those are effectively over, they've lost across the board in court. In your view, has this become in effect a political, perhaps even a PR fight now to discredit the election rather than a legal one?

GINSBERG: Well, it's certainly not a legal one anymore with the certifications in the states, the legal part of this is pretty much over. And what it's starting to feel like is a sour grapes tour, which is what the president is a master brander should be aware of.

HARLOW: Sounds like a band, sour grapes tour. OK, Ben --

(LAUGHTER)

GINSBERG: May become one.

HARLOW: There you go. I want credit. OK, so in this op-ed that I just thought was so striking by Georgia's Republican Secretary of State, he writes, "those who had long sought" -- "who had so long been beneficiaries of the electoral process sought to tear it apart at its very foundations." Given you being the preeminent expert on all of this, given what has just happened, can you speak to the long-term damage done by that, what he lays out?

GINSBERG: Yes, actually because this is Georgia, there's short-term and long-term damage. From the assaults on the system, people will have less faith in the accuracy of the results, number one, and number two, they're going to question whether their vote matters if the system can't adequately record it. What's ironic, of course, is that Georgia has these two runoff elections that will determine control of the Senate. The more the president denigrates the system, the less likely Georgia voters are going to be -- to think that their vote matters.

[09:20:00] And so, Republicans there really have to worry about low propensity, infrequent people who went out to support the president, now going out and voting in the -- in the --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

GINSBERG: Senate runoff elections.

SCIUTTO: Bigger picture. The president in effect exposed holes in our system, did he not? I mean, if you look at Michigan, had it not been for one dutiful member -- Republican member of the state board of canvassers, they might not have certified those votes, right?

Enormous pressure put not just on someone like him, but Michigan state lawmakers, we're seeing similar efforts in Pennsylvania. Do those holes need fixing? Because we've always talked about how America's system is so -- you know, strong because it's state by state, but I wonder if we've seen holes here that need to get filled.

GINSBERG: Well, I think we certainly see some laws that do need fixing. The Michigan has a two-two canvassing board is an invitation for stalemate at some point. Parts of the Electoral Count Act obviously do. But I think that when we look back at this a few months from now, we will see that the strength of our system is actually the individuals involved.

And I can't envision an election system in the United States that doesn't rely on individuals. That's -- we have a million volunteers every election day, 10,500 jurisdictions. It may be the weakness, but boy, this election really proved it's also the strength.

HARLOW: Yes, to that point, you're quoted in "The New York Times" this week saying that our system because of this was stress-tested like never before, and that's really true, and it's doubtful that a future president will repeat the steps that the president has taken, but they might, you never know.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GINSBERG: Yes.

HARLOW: So, I mean, how well overall would you assess our system handled that stress?

GINSBERG: Well, you know, every state ended up working. And we've had some very anxious moments in this three-week period. There are improvements that need to be made, but I think overall, the system really turned out quite well. To me the real question is, suppose you get another Florida 2000 situation with really tight results, what worked now worked because the margins were so large.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GINSBERG: Right? The president lost by a fair amount in every one of those states. But if there were a series of Florida's sometimes, that's probably the real stress test that we should spend some time thinking about.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: No question. Well, Ben Ginsberg, so good to have you on as always.

HARLOW: Have a good --

GINSBERG: Thank you. Nice to be here.

HARLOW: Have a good Thanksgiving.

SCIUTTO: Yes --

GINSBERG: Happy Thanksgiving.

HARLOW: You, too. While many Americans are scaling back, who may be with them around the Thanksgiving table this year, many others have nothing to put on that table. We're going to take you to one food bank just showing how hard so many have been hit by this crisis.

SCIUTTO: Think of that, millions of Americans not able to feed themselves. And we are moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street, futures relatively flat this morning, what seems to be a pause in a rally that had been encouraged by positive vaccine news as well as signs that the formal presidential transition is finally under way in Washington. The Dow closed above 30,000 points yesterday for the first time in history. All the good news that's been fueling the markets being tempered, however, by the ongoing pandemic.

Listen to this, another 778,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week alone. Those numbers out just this morning a day earlier than usual because of Thanksgiving.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

HARLOW: Well, Thanksgiving celebrations for a lot of people tomorrow, but you have to remember the millions in need. Right now food pantries across the country are struggling just to keep up with all of the people that need them just to put food on the table.

SCIUTTO: The need is enormous, unprecedented in many circumstances this holiday. CNN's Adrienne Broaddus joins us now from a food bank in Chicago that is operating with a 200 percent increase in demand. Adrienne, how -- I mean, are organizers able to cope with that demand?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim and Poppy, they've increased everything, staff, volunteers and food. If you look behind me, you'll see boxes of -- boxes of pre-packaged food and of course turkeys. Normally, here at Lakeview Pantry, people show up and they walk in and they can get the items that they need, but that hasn't been the case because of COVID, and something else that we are seeing across the country, the pandemic has amplified and exposed the need that was already there. I'd like to bring in Kelly O'Connell, she is the CEO of the pantry and

she can shed light on what she's seen and how you all have responded. Right now, this is the calm before the storm because you've talked to us about long lines starting around noon or so.

KELLY O'CONNELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, LAKEVIEW PANTRY: Yes, so today, folks will come here and get ready to get food, and they'll line up around the block. This Summer, we saw a surge over 400 percent, it calmed down a little bit, but now as the holiday is coming back, we're at 200 percent, so we're really seeing a lot of need right now.

BROADDUS: And you know, Kelly, we were talking earlier before the pandemic, there was a great need.