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GSA Triggers Transition While Trump Refuses to Concede; Biden Introduces First Round of Cabinet Picks; Hotels and Their Workers Struggle as Virus Surges. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 25, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, good morning, everyone, I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto. We wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving. Of course, sadly, it happens in the midst of this ongoing crisis, millions of Americans in the midst of it, disregarding warnings from top health experts not to travel this Thanksgiving.

The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is pleading with Americans to stick with guidance, despite all of the understandable temptations. We get it. We have the same ones. It comes at a critical time.

And when a new administration is gearing up to take on this pandemic, Dr. Fauci says there is progress on that front.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I have been in contact with Ron Klain. Nothing substantive in the sense of plans but just touching base with me, telling me that we're going to be talking about it very soon now, that the transition is in process.

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HARLOW (voice over): The relationship is so critical as the country just saw its deadliest day since May. The president-elect plans to address the nation on all of this later today. Just step back and juxtapose them for a moment with what the current president is doing today, President Trump, he, instead, is going with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to Pennsylvania, to do what, to push more unproven claims of voter fraud.

We are covering all of the angles this morning. Let's begin this hour with Rosa Flores. She joins us this morning at Miami's international airport.

Good morning, Rosa. Despite the CDC saying don't travel, a lot of people are still doing it.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim and Poppy, they absolutely are. Millions of Americans are traveling. Just take a look around. Let me show you, because I think this really shows the story. You can see there are long lines here. People are wearing masks. Some of them are wearing face shields. And if you look on the floor, there are lines to allow people to social distance.

Now, some people are following those guidelines, others are not. They're getting a little too cozy for comfort. But that's the story here, these pictures.

Now, this is the most people that I have seen at an airport since the pandemic broke, to be honest with you. Officials here tell me 261,000 passengers are expected to crisscross this airport during a 12-day travel period that they call the Thanksgiving Day travel period. Now, that's a 59 percent decrease from last year but that is still a lot of people that are traveling this holiday season.

And medical experts are, of course, recommending for people not to travel. But if they are traveling, Jim and Poppy, what medical experts say is, first of all, have your gatherings outdoors to make sure that there is a lot of breathing room, wear a mask, social distance and, of course, exercise hand hygiene. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Rosa, that's good advice, and it's good advice because it works. Thanks so much.

Well, this morning, New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, is warning that his state is about to see another major spike in new coronavirus infections, warning that the state's hospitalization rate has increased 128 percent in just the past three weeks.

HARLOW: Wow. Let's go to our colleague, Shimon Prokupecz. He joins us in Staten Island, where they have -- I mean, it's just like last summer, they have opened a new field hospital there.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they have opened an extra facility, because Staten Island is one of those locations that the governor is so concerned about, really sounding the alarm. We're hearing this urgency from the governor that we have not heard in quite some time, specifically with what's going on here on Staten Island because they've tripled. Their hospitalizations have tripled in the last three weeks. And they have not seen these numbers in about six months, according to state officials. So everyone here very concerned.

And so they've opened this extra facility here behind me. They're also doing testing here. There are tents set up for people to come and get tested, their drive-thru locations.

Staten Island is one of the biggest concerns for the city and for the state. They are now parts of this area are now under an orange zone, which means indoor dining is prohibited, bars have to shut down, gyms have to shut down, and this is even before the holiday begins tomorrow. There is an increasing concern not just on Staten Island but all across this city that the numbers can just continue to rise and, therefore, hospitalizations will rise and that other areas of this city could see extra hospitals open up. But right now, certainly, the focus is on here, is on Staten Island, where they're seeing this explosion of cases and the number of hospitalizations, Jim and Poppy, just continue to rise.

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HARLOW: I cannot believe we are going through this all over again. Shimon, thank you very much for that reporting on Staten Island.

Let's turn now to the CDC and some possible plans to maybe shorten the 14-day recommended quarantine.

SCIUTTO: Elizabeth Cohen joins us now. So, Elizabeth, okay, shortened to what, and why? What is this based on?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going to be -- if they do it, and that's an if, we don't know if the CDC is going to make this change, but they say that it's based on changing science. Remember, this is a new virus. We didn't even know about this virus a year ago. And so the science and data keeps changing about what kind quarantine there should be.

So, if there is a change, let's take a look at what it might be. Right now, the quarantine is 14 days. That's what the CDC recommends. What they're thinking about is changing it to seven to ten days but if -- and this is a big if -- if you get a test and it's negative. So they won't be just changing it wholesale, they've be saying -- if they change it, they will be saying, get a test at round seven to ten days. If it's negative, then you can get out early.

And there are several reasons for this. One of them is that people are losing their income because they're in quarantine. Nobody wants that. If they can make it as short as possible, it's good for those people and also it just makes it more likely that people will follow the rules. There are a lot of concern that people are not following the rules right now. Jim, Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Yes, I see, make it achievable and, therefore, more likely to work. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

COHEN: Right.

SCIUTTO: Well, let's bring in Dr. Jay Varkey, he's an infectious disease specialist, Associate Professor of Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta. Dr. Varkey, always good to have you on.

DR. JAY VARKEY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: It's in the numbers. We're entering a really dicey dangerous period here. And in the midst of that, people are still traveling and a lot of places just outright defying the best guidance. I mean, what's the other side of Thanksgiving going to look like?

VARKEY: It's something that I worry about a lot, Jim. I worry that the choices made by the general public this weekend will unintentionally result in an even bigger surge of hospitalizations in two to three weeks that can overwhelm many hospitals across the country, especially in the Midwest, who are already -- many are already feeling underwater. And that I worry that that will result in an unimaginable amount of tragic, preventable deaths that occur over Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, times we should be celebrating.

I also worry that people will be falsely reassured by getting a negative test. I worry that people who are infected on Sunday or Monday and are asymptomatic will get tested today, they will test negative and not realizing the fact that they will be infectious to their loved ones or their friends tomorrow and Friday and will unintentionally cause infections that cause this pandemic to spread, and could result in, again, unimaginable tragedy to our loved ones.

HARLOW: What does it say to you that yesterday marked the deadliest day for COVID deaths over the last six months, and that we have now seen 15 straight days of record hospitalizations knowing that -- and this is a big qualifier -- we know how to treat this better. We know what to do now. We know to wear masks and this is still happening, right? What does that tell you about how bad it is?

VARKEY: Well, what it tells me, as a health care workers, is that we -- I know folks are exhausted. I hear it, but so are frontline health care workers. We're exhausted, we're frustrated and we're scared. And at this stage with nearly 90,000 people, 90,000 Americans in the hospital right now with COVID complications, more than any point of this setting, we still amazingly are still struggling with shortages of PPE.

This is the same N95 respirator I have been using since March. And, again, every hospital, every colleague I worked with have tried to develop safe and effective plans to reuse PPE safely to try and extend it, so that our frontline health care workers, especially nurses and intensive care units, have what they need to safely care for folks. But we're also scared. Frontline health care workers are part of the community too. And we know when community rates go up, health care worker infections go up. We say this most recently at the Mayo Clinic, where nearly 1,000 workers got sick in a 14-day period.

So, Poppy, you nailed it, we know what to do but we cannot just rely on health care workers to do this. We need the general worker to just dig in a little bit longer through the holidays and 2021 could be so much better.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Varkey, are you telling me, you're an infectious disease specialist and you only had that one mask available to you for months?

VARKEY: Jim, as a doctor, if I needed to get another one, I could. But the only reason why is because of some of the difficult decisions we made back in March. Every hospital across the country has had to make these difficult decisions.

[10:10:02]

So the irony about it is that although we're right on the cusp of having these novel vaccines, which I truly believe will be a game- changer for not just the American public but for the world, we're still struggling in terms of having adequate N95 respirators and simple things like gowns or gloves. And that paradox is something that I find completely unacceptable as a physician.

HARLOW: Yes, it absolutely is. Well, we appreciate you always when you come on, Dr. Varkey. Thank you very much and have a healthy and a safe Thanksgiving.

VARKEY: My pleasure. Stay safe and Happy Thanksgiving.

HARLOW: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, three weeks after the election, the White House has now signed off for President-elect Biden to receive what he should, frankly, the presidential daily briefing, key intelligence briefing. What are the next steps in the transition?

And how damaging will President Trump's ongoing campaign to undermine the election be? We're going to speak to a Republican member of the House on the GOP's largely deafening silence.

HARLOW (voice over): Plus, millions of Americans are still flying over this Thanksgiving holiday, despite the CDC telling them not to, how are the airlines planning to keep everyone safe?

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[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back. This morning, we're learning President-elect Biden will start getting the president's daily intelligence briefing, hopefully, Jim, as soon as today.

SCIUTTO: That's right. And I'm also told today by a senior administration official that face-to-face meetings will begin between the National Security Council and the Biden transition soon.

Let's go to CNN Washington Correspondent -- Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He is in Wilmington, Delaware, with Biden team.

In his first television interview since winning the presidency, we heard Biden pushing back against this idea that his first term will be basically a third term of the Obama administration. And there are, to be fair, a lot of Obama alums that he's already announced in his cabinet. What's his pushback?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Jim and Poppy. Of course, there are familiar faces from the Obama administration and the Clinton administration. Where else would they come from? So that is sort of the point that happens every transition time. I remember back to Barack Obama's transition 12 years ago, there were a lot of people saying, these are veterans of the Clinton administration. Well, that's where Washington hands come from.

And that is the point. That is the point that President-elect Biden is trying to make here, that he's really going to hire and nominate people who are steeped in Washington experience, to turn the page from this chaotic Trump era.

We did hear the president-elect direct specifically why this term would be different than an Obama third term, largely because of the situation surrounding it. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: This is not a third Obama term because there's -- 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, it's been American alone. We find ourselves in a position where our alliances are being frayed.

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ZELENY: That, of course, is one of the biggest differences here, not necessarily who the faces and names are in the United States but how the world has simply changed in the last four years, how the world's view of the United States has changed in the last four years.

So, yes, some familiar faces and resumes, largely elevated to higher positions but so much has changed in the world, not just world leaders but just the sentiment of the U.S. here. So that is one main difference. But there's definitely a burden, and the Biden transition team realizes this, of putting some fresh blood in this. So I think we will see that on some cabinet nominees.

But next week, we'll see Treasury Secretary Nomimee Janet Yellen. She, of course, another experienced hand. So that is where Joe Biden is turning his attention to, not surprisingly after he spent the vast majority of his career, really, all of it, Washington. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: All right. Jeff Zeleny from Wilmington, thank you very much for that.

Well, today, President Trump is expected to join his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, they're going to Pennsylvania, Gettysburg specifically. Republican state lawmakers are holding a, quote/unquote, hearing on allegations of voter fraud there. I think it's being held at a hotel though, Jim.

SCIUTTO (voice over): It is. Listen, to be clear, the facts are the state has certified its election results, awarding 20 electoral votes to Joe Biden. The Trump campaign lost across the board in legal challenges in court, where you can't lie, you have to present evidence of allegations.

Let's go to CNN's John Harwood with the latest. John, what is he doing, right? I mean, is it a P.R. campaign? I mean, there is no legal basis. I mean, we had Ben Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer, on last hour say this is looking like a sour grapes tour.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the way to look at this, Jim, is the president is putting on a show and he's putting on a show that is designed for his future endeavors, not his attempt to remain president. That's not going to happen.

As you say, he's been laughed out of court in Pennsylvania and other states. It was a decisive victory for Joe Biden. But what the president is doing is trying to ensure that he can rally his base going forward. He's extracting money from his base, raising money for them, and trying to make an argument that in case he wants to run in 2024, he wants to exert control over the Republican Party.

This is a president who's never, as you know, Jim, had much interest in actually doing the difficult work of being president.

[10:20:03]

He's pretty well checked out of that now. He's checked out on the pandemic. And what he's focused on doing is using his remaining time and platform and levers of power as president to either harm Joe Biden, him and Joe Biden in a policy sense now that the transition is under way, or to protect his future political. Or perhaps business endeavors because the 70-plus million people who voted for Donald Trump, those will be the consumer base for whatever financial activities or business activities he undertakes in the future.

HARLOW: So, John, how serious is the chatter in the White House of a pardon for Michael Flynn, the president's first national security adviser, who, by the way, twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI?

HARWOOD: I think it's pretty serious, Poppy. And, again, it's of a piece with what I just mentioned. He is trying to protect himself for the future. Remember, Michael Flynn, like Paul Manafort, like Roger Stone, may know things that leave the president exposed in a legal sense. He dangled a pardon for Paul Manafort while Paul Manafort was going through the prosecution by Robert Mueller. He initially said he was going to cooperate and then Robert Mueller said he was lying with his cooperation. He was withholding the truth from Robert Mueller.

The president dangled a pardon the whole time. He's already commuted the sentence of Roger Stone, somebody who hung tough for him. Michael Flynn is somebody who pled guilty and was prosecuted but the Trump Justice Department tried to walk back that prosecution. Judge Sullivan is holding up that. And so the other option for Michael Flynn is to get a pardon, again, which could potentially serve to protect Donald Trump going forward once he's no longer president.

SCIUTTO: And we should note Michael Flynn, in recent days, has been sharing some of the president's conspiracy theories as well about the election. John Harwood at the White House, thanks very much.

HARWOOD: You bet.

SCIUTTO: Well, the Trump administration is now giving formal approval for President-elect Biden to receive, as his is due, the president's daily briefing.

HARLOW: Yes, it is about time.

Joining us now to talk about the transition is Max Stier, President and CEO of non-partisan and non-profit Partnerships for Public Service. Good morning.

We're in a better place than we were a few weeks ago because at least this transition is actually happening now. But you say that there's still like a bigger lesson for us as a nation to learn, that we must pursue statutory remedies, you write, to ensure the transition never again is upheld for arbitrary or political purposes. What are the holes in the system that need to be plugged?

MAX STIER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PARTNERSHIPS FOR PUBLIC SERVICE: Thank you so much for that and for coming back to this story. There are still obviously so many things going on. But this is really important. This is how a government needs to start well and all of the issues you cover from the pandemic, the economy really are dependent upon a -- not just a peaceful but an effective transition of power.

The changes that I think need to take place, first and foremost, to deal with what we've see happen here is clarity in the statute that giving the transition support is really a low bar and there should be some very really clear metrics around that. And when I say low bar, the really important issue here was President Trump could pursue whatever he wanted to with respect to his litigation options. That should never have interfered with the cooperation between the Trump administration and the Biden transition team. Because what's at stake there is ensuring that they can deal, the Biden team can deal with these critical problems when they arrive on January 20th.

The bigger change though that I think is harder and actually more important is we need to make that process easier. We actually should have fewer political appointees. We have 4,000 of them. 1,200 require Senate confirmation. Even if you do this all well, even if you have great cooperation, it's a near-impossible task. We need to make that task easier by ensuring that there's a more professionalized government. No other democracy has this many political appointments and we don't need them.

A president-elect and a president can actually run the government with many fewer political appointments. There are career professionals like Dr. Fauci who will be better leaders than many of those political appointments, even just because they stay around longer. It would be better for everybody if we make that change.

SCIUTTO: Speaking to someone in the administration yesterday, they made the point that this democracy has really, if not, the longest, one of the longest transitions, right, from one government to the next one. Granted, it was shortened by amendment, it used to be March, right? It used to be several months. Now, it's January. But still, that's 2.5 months.

STIER: Right.

SCIUTTO: Should that be shortened? Why all that time?

STIER: So I think it's a great question and, again, I think the answer is because we have such a difficult system. It's a phenomenally large task, $5 trillion budget, 4 million people, when you count the military, hundreds of operating units and then, critically, these 4,000 political appointees.

[10:25:06]

Other countries are largely parliamentary systems so they don't have -- it's not as challenging. They typically have shadow governments. You have people that are already been tapped in place.

But the biggest change that would make it easier, really, would be reducing the number of Senate confirmed positions, reducing the political appointee footprint so that a new leader, like a President Biden, can come in with the core team that he needs to ensure the government is working right around him. But that the rest of the government still has the leadership in place already, career people who look to the long-term. That would be a way of addressing this.

And then I might be up for a shorter transition but in present world, you have nowhere close to the amount of time you actually need to do this right.

SCIUTTO: All right. Max Stier, let's hope it makes progress. It's in everyone's interest. Thanks so much.

STIER: Thank you so much.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to just be safe, be careful this Thanksgiving, as, unfortunately, many millions are ignoring urgent warnings against travel. How airlines are preparing up, next.

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