Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.S. Reports Deadliest Day in Six Months with 2,100-Plus Deaths; CNN Says, Biden to Start Daily Presidential Briefings on Monday. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 25, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for that report, Andy Scholes.

And thanks for joining us. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN RIGHT NOW: Hi there. I'm Brianna Keilar, and I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

We're in the coronavirus crisis just a major holiday with millions traveling is bound to make the pandemic worse. The U.S. reported the deadliest day in the last six months on Tuesday, 2,146 people dead in this country, another 172,000 newly infected. Hospitalizations have broken records 15 days in a row now. 88,000 people are currently hospitalized fighting COVID.

Test positivity is above 10 percent in more than half the country. You can just look at the midnight blue that is on this map, and that indicates at least 16 percent of tests in that state are coming back positive. And then in the most severe case, which is Wyoming, more than half of the tests are coming back positive, showing coronavirus infection.

Tomorrow, of course, is Thanksgiving. What could be -- the quoting, what could be the -- and I'm quoting a CNN Medical Analyst here, the mother of all super-spreader events, despite the fact that polls the majority of Americans are heeding the CDC guidance to not travel. 61 percent they say changed the plans. Nearly one in ten say they won't celebrate Thanksgiving at all.

Still, traffic at airports nationwide is showing that several million people are not staying home, which has the country's leading authority on infectious diseases worried about a surge upon a surge in December.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The one thing we do not want is if we get a surge now, George, over Thanksgiving, we'll have that slope up plateau and then slope up again that we'll see in three weeks, which is a reason why we're trying to hard to get the message for people to be careful over this Thanksgiving holiday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: In New York, the governor is warning the rise in the number of new daily coronavirus cases is only going to get worse. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says, based on that trend, he predicts that bars, gyms and indoor dining restaurants are all going to be closed within weeks.

One of the hot spots right now is Staten Island. Emergency beds there are filling up, and that has prompted the state to reopen a mobile COVID-19 hospital facility, which is where CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is reporting from. Shimon?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, here on Staten Island, a lot of concern because of the number of people being hospitalized because of the coronavirus. The hospitals here have not seen this number of cases of people hospitalized in almost six months. They have tripled the number of hospitalization in the last three weeks, and so they have opened this facility here behind me here to try to relieve some of the burden on the hospitals here on Staten Island. Brianna?

KEILAR: Shimon, thank you so much.

And now to the west coast where the daily coronavirus case count is spiking once again in California. The state's top health official reports the average over the past week is just over 12,500. In Los Angeles County, officials are implementing restrictions to stop the spread, and that is where CNN Correspondent Stephanie Elam has this story from.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, as of 10:00 local time tonight, there will be no more outdoor dining in Los Angeles County. Now, this comes as the Los Angeles City Council voted overwhelmingly to allow outdoor dining to continue, pointing to the fact that there's no expressed data that shows that outdoor dining is leading to a spread of the coronavirus.

However, the County Board of Supervisors narrowly defeated this idea deciding to go along with health officials and say, any time people are outside for a prolonged period without their mask around people who are not from their household, that that is a danger.

This as we're seeing California log its record number of cases and we're also seeing a rise here in the number of deaths in Los Angeles County. Brianna?

KEILAR: Stephanie Elam, thank you for that.

And despite the warnings of spreading coronavirus, millions of Americans are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. Health officials say the risk is less about a flight and it's more about large family gatherings. CNN Correspondent Rosa Flores is at Miami International Airport with a look at the numbers. Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, millions of Americans are expected to travel this holiday season. Take a look around and you'll see that a lot of people here at Miami International Airport are wearing the masks. According to officials, more than 621,000 passengers are going to crisscross this airport during a 12-day period during Thanksgiving. Now, that is a 59 percent decrease compared to last year.

Now, this as the United States shatters its hospitalization record recording more than 88,000 hospitalizations yesterday. Brianna?

KEILAR: Rosa, thank you for that report from Miami International.

[13:05:00]

One ICU doctor is pleading with his community. He says he does not want to be, quote, the last person that looks in your frightened eyes.

He posted online a video simulating the final moments some of his COVID patients when they are struggling to breathe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. KEN REMY, PHYSICIAN, BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL AND ST. LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: This is what it looks like when you breathe 40 times a minute, have an oxygen level that's dipping well below 80. This is what it's going to look like. I hope that the last moments of your life don't look like this.

I promise you, this is what your mother or your father or your children when they get COVID disease will see at the end of their life. This is serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And Dr. Ken Remy is joining us now from St. Louis. He's critical care physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital. He's also a researcher at Washington University.

That is hard to watch, Doctor. I think that's going to be hard for a lot of people to watch and it really drives home the stakes, because you're not talking about them, you're talking about their loved ones. I think that's also what makes it so hard. Tell us what led you to record this.

REMY: So I've just seen too many people die and lose their life from this disease and, frankly, after calling almost 11 families last week and telling their loved ones in the middle of the night that their loved one passed or died, it's just real difficult to continually do this. And the only way that I know outside of when you get to the ICU to protect your life is to keep you out of the ICU. And the only way that I know how to do that is to prevent you getting the diseases in the first place. And so what stirred is we had a patient that passed away and I saw some of the sadness in my colleagues' eyes and I just grabbed laryngoscope and the endotracheal tube and went and made this video, frankly, if nothing more to just show folks what it might look like if they come into the intensive care unit and, in fact, have COVID disease.

And it may be nothing more while we're heading towards this holiday season, some folks will heed the wonderful messages that Dr. Fauci and others have put forth for prevention, including wearing a mask and social distancing and washing your hands.

KEILAR: You told us you called 11 families in the last week to tell them that their loved one had died. And you -- I mean, I can hear it in your voice, you are the witness to unbearable pain. That has been part of the role, as it has been to try to keep people alive, right, and to be with them in their final moments. And you are begging people to follow safety guidelines. What do you want them to do?

REMY: I want them to know first and foremost that the health care professionals are going to take care of them yesterday and tomorrow and we're give their loved ones as much dignity and part of humanity that we can offer them if, in fact, their loved one is nearing their end.

But my hope is that we can get to a place where everyone realizes that it's much more comfortable to wear a piece of cloth on your face than it is for me to put a piece of plastic into your airway and save your life or that will be towards the end of your life. And I don't want to see that anymore and have to make those phone calls to the frequency that we are currently doing.

So, if nothing more, I'm just hopeful that as we move forward, everyone can heed these warnings so that we can at least reduce transmission because I can tell you that the health professionals are fatigued, the community is fatigued and we've got to find a way to come together to say, at least right now, this is the best we can do while we're waiting for these fantastic and hopeful vaccines that are coming down the pike very shortly.

KEILAR: So, look, we just put up some numbers about how a lot of people have changed their Thanksgiving plans, but the bad news is that a lot of people have not. So, you know, Doctor, that there will be people having Thanksgiving tomorrow, having their meal and going and traveling to see someone who is not in their immediate household.

I know so many people who are doing this who otherwise are pretty careful when it comes to coronavirus. What can they do, right? They're going. There's nothing, nothing that's going to stop them. They're going to see their family members. What can they do in that environment or is that it, they've made the decision?

REMY: So I think if they're going to see their family members and they're not part of their normal social bubble, they have to maintain still that distance. It is easy to become complacent to take off your mask, especially when you're among those people that you love. But because you don't see them that often, there is the opportunity that you may infect or be infected by the people that you love more on this planet than anyone else.

[13:10:01]

And so if there's nothing more you should do is wash down your surfaces, wash down your -- wash your hands frequently, wear that mask when you're in that company for more than 15 minutes.

I know it is not ideal but it could save the life of that person that you want to give thanks with. And more importantly, if you're coming out of a location, make sure that you're vigilant to see if you've got symptoms of COVID or that you quarantine yourself if someone does become infected so that you're not a super-spreader to where you go back from that point.

And one other consideration might be, I know that when we get to 2021, we're going to hopefully return normalcy to this country with this disease. Perhaps we celebrate Thanksgiving in February. We don't -- in person with each other. Perhaps that's what we need to do. Because I would much rather be with my family members when they're going to be alive and not perhaps spread disease to them right now because the stakes are just too high.

And so I would implore folks to just at least follow the recommendations. They do work. But we have got to adhere to them and not become complacent.

KEILAR: Yes, I'm thinking Christmas in summer for my family, right? Maybe we'll have our Australian-style Christmas or something. Dr. Remy, thank you so much for being with us.

REMY: Thank you so much.

KEILAR: A contrast of two presidents in the next hour. President- elect Biden will deliver a holiday address as his predecessor is refusing to concede.

Plus, now that Biden will finally get the presidential intel briefing, what should he expect to hear? We have former CIA Director John Brennan joining us next.

And we will roll the resumes on Senator Marco Rubio's hypocritical attack on Biden's cabinet picks.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:00]

KEILAR: President-elect Joe Biden says his team has been getting sincere cooperation from federal agencies since the General Services Administration signed papers making his transition official, albeit, three weeks late. And now we know that Biden is set to receive his first classified intelligence briefing known as the president's daily brief, or the PDB for short, on Monday. These specific intel briefings were not being held up by the GSA or by the administrator, Emily Murphy, but by Trump himself. Only the White House can grant access to this level of intelligence and President Trump's green light here is a significant and public signal of what has happened, that Joe Biden has won the presidency.

Joining me now is former CIA Director John Brennan. He is also the author of Undaunted, My Fight Against America's Enemies at Home and Abroad. Thanks for being with us.

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR UNDER OBAMA: Sure, Brianna.

KEILAR: So we know obviously the specifics are classified. We are not expecting to learn what is in the PDB. But just give us a general sense of the categories, the way this is going to go. What is President-elect Biden going to learn through the PDB on Monday?

BRENNAN: Well, President-elect Biden should receive the same PDB that's delivered to Donald Trump and the other senior members of the national security environment in the current administration.

The PDB is a list of about six or eight articles, some might deal with breaking developments related to terrorist threats or worrisome developments in hot battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria or Somalia. It could be dealing with issues that deal with Russia or China, in terms of ongoing engagements that we might have with them on various fronts.

So it is a collection of items, some near term in terms of dealing with them, but also looking out over the horizon and making sure that a president and vice president and others are fully informed of some of these national security concerns, as well as developments that they need to pay attention to.

KEILAR: So, you said he'll get the same PDB as President Trump. But the way -- at least the way that President Trump has received the PDB changed since President Obama, since President George W. Bush behind him. Because he actually -- when it comes to how much information he's maybe briefed on in person or how much he is relied on to read because he is sort of oppositional to reading as much as other presidents have, is that going to affect the PDB that the president- elect gets?

BRENNAN: Well, as I said, he should receive the same written PDB. And the PDB is a written document that is delivered to the key customers. It is frequently augmented with additional information that a briefer will orally convey to a president and vice president and others. And so that written document though, it is the document of record that is used to make sure that a president is fully informed about these national security developments.

So I would expect that former Vice President Biden -- President-elect Biden will receive the written document as well as will probably sit down with a briefer who will deliver that document and then there will be some back and forth between President-elect Biden and the briefer about either the articles that are included in that PDB or other issues that might, in fact, be of importance to the president-elect.

KEILAR: Okay. So maybe that's the part that's going to look different. I wonder what you think as the President Trump administration moves out and the Biden administration moves in, are you confident the Trump administration is going to hand over all of the material that the Biden administration should be privy to? I'm thinking of things like transcripts of phone calls that President Trump and the like.

[13:20:01]

BRENNAN: Well, I'm confident that the professionals in the national security agencies and departments will do their very best to ensure that the incoming team needs has everything it needs. Now, I am not confident that some of the individuals that Mr. Trump put in place, such as the current director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, will make things available to the incoming director of National Intelligence, who will be Avril Haines.

So, again, I think the institutions themselves and the professionals within those institutions will carry out their responsibilities the way they should, but I don't know whether or not Mr. Trump is going to give some directives that could, in fact, undermine this very important transition process.

KEILAR: So, you think that when Avril Haines goes in to be ODNI that she should be prepared to not get everything from the outgoing DNI, Ratcliffe?

BRENNAN: Well, Ratcliffe, I think, has demonstrated that he is willing to politicize his position on behalf of Donald Trump. And so, therefore, I don't know whether or not there are notes or memos or other types of things that really reveal that type of politicization that he may not want to have other people see.

But, again, I think the professionals in the intelligence community, including in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will try to make sure that Avril has what she needs in order to hit the ground running on January 20th.

KEILAR: What is, in your view, the biggest threat that Biden is going to face over the next four years?

BRENNAN: Well, in addition to dealing with the COVID pandemic and trying to repair the U.S. economy, the real threat or challenge is having to deal with multiple national security challenges abroad. There are big power relations with Russia, for example, on the issue of Ukraine, Russian entry (ph) and activities in various parts of the world, as well as trying to restart the nuclear arms reduction talks with Moscow.

On China, there's cyber, there's trade, there are issues related to Chinese aggressiveness vis-a-vis Hong Kong and potentially even Taiwan. There's Iraq and Afghanistan and the reduced number of U.S. troops that are there. There are issues related to proliferation involving North Korea and Iran. There are issues related to the rise of authoritarian leadership in many parts of the world as a result of the Trump influence and the impact of climate change.

So I think the challenge for the Biden administration is dealing with all of these issues simultaneously and dealing while also dealing with issues on the domestic front. So, any of these threats, including terrorism, can pop up overnight. But I think Joe Biden has assembled a very, very talented and experienced team that is going to allow him, I think, to address these issues well as he takes office.

KEILAR: And so, obviously, you have praised so far the cabinet choices made by the president-elect.

There is one name that's under consideration for CIA director I want to ask you about, Mike Morell, who is the former deputy CIA director. He was acting CIA director when you were confirmed for the job in 2013.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who is a key Democrat, says, he is going to vote against Morell because he is a, quote, torture apologist. I wonder what you say to Senator Wyden and Democrats who share that view.

BRENNAN: Well, first of all, I don't know who is going to be tapped to head up the CIA. I worked close with Michael Morell for decades. He has served also as my deputy. He is exceptionally talented and competent.

And I think Ron Wyden, who continues to, I think, takes these very blind ideological views and, unfortunately, Ron Wyden has unfairly smeared a lot of the intelligence professionals over the years, he would be well advised to not make such charges against patriots like Michael Morell, who really has sacrificed much for this country.

And so, again, I think Ron Wyden knows not of what he speaks.

KEILAR: Sources tell CNN that President Trump is considering a pardon for his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. He is considering other pardons as well, as we understand. Flynn, of course, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. He later tried to withdraw that plea with support from the Justice Department and A.G. Bill Barr. What is your reaction to the consideration of the president's?

BRENNAN: Well, I think it's not surprising. I think Donald Trump is going to be handing out a number of pardons to his lackeys, as well as look for ways that he is going to be able to pardon himself or get Mike Pence to be elevated and to pardon Donald Trump himself.

Again, Donald Trump has no respect for the law, for the judicial system. He is trying to manipulate just for his own personal benefit and ends. And so, therefore, I think we still have a long way to go until we reach January 20th. So I do think there are some very legitimate concerns about what he can do before he departs the Oval Office.

[13:25:03]

KEILAR: Elevate Mike Pence, what are you saying?

BRENNAN: Well, there is debate about whether or not a president can pardon himself. It is not explicitly precluded in the Constitution, but I think it's constitutionally dubious and they probably would have to go to the courts. But if Donald Trump is really trying to protect himself from any type of follow-on federal charges, if he decided to step down and Mike Pence becomes a president for a brief period of time, he could, in fact, issue a pardon to Donald Trump.

Who knows what lurks in the mind of Donald Trump but I just think we have to be prepared for a number of surprises yet to come before he departs.

KEILAR: Director, thank you so much for being with us.

BRENNAN: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: John Brennan joining us today, thank you.

And ahead, Biden says he'd consider adding a Republican to his cabinet. We are going to discuss some potential picks.

Plus, Senator Marco Rubio attacks the Ivey League resumes of Biden's nominees, but he forgot one thing, and we're going to roll the tape.

A new CNN reporting just in about the inauguration and the transition happening right outside the president's White House window.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:00]