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50 Million People Suffering From Hunger Amid Pandemic; California Hits Record High Number Of Cases In One Day; Fears Of Surge Upon Surge As Millions Defy COVID Warnings; Biden In CNN Op-Ed: We're Letting Go Of Traditions We Can't Do Safely; Trump Pardons Michael Flynn Despite Guilty Plea. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 26, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Hello. I am Boris Sanchez. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is a Thanksgiving unlike any other.

Americans this year are expressing gratitude for what they have while many are hungry, struggling and grieving for those missing from their table. Another 2,297 people have died from Coronavirus. The deadliest day Johns Hopkins has recorded since May.

Hospitalizations nationwide breaking records for the 16th day in a row, as medical experts warn this Thanksgiving surge could turn into a Christmas nightmare. For three weeks now, the country has reported 100,000 plus new infections every single day, and that number is likely an undercount, according to a new CDC model.

It estimates only one of every eight cases was recorded from February to September. The U.S. official count was 7 million cases at that time. The CDC now believes the real number is closer to 53 million. The holiday reflecting that millions are defying CDC guidance to stay home and not travel. The TSA are reporting nearly 6 million people are in airports so far this week, a record since the pandemic began.

The president sharing his own Thanksgiving guidance which flies in the phase of what his experts at the CDC are saying. Trump says "I encourage all Americans to gather in homes and places of worship to offer a prayer of thanks to God for our many blessings".

The First Lady sending her well wishes for the military, first responders, and law enforcement in a tweet. No mention of the pandemic there. This crisis has sent thousands not only to hospitals but also to food banks. Coordinators say that today 50 million Americans suffer from hunger, many for the first time amid the pandemic.

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CLAIRE BABINEAUX-FONTENOT, CEO, FEEDING AMERICA: One of the things that we started noticing very quickly was that the people who were turning to us for help, we didn't recognize them. About 40 percent of the people who right now are turning to food banks for help around the country are people who never before relied upon the charitable food system.

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SANCHEZ: In California, Coronavirus numbers are escalating. The state recording its highest number of cases in a single day on Wednesday, more than 18,000 people as officials plead with residents to avoid travel and large holiday gatherings. CNN Correspondent Stephanie Elam is live in Los Angeles. Stephanie, happy Thanksgiving. I am curious, what are officials now saying about the surge?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's terrifying basically in short, Boris. When you take a look at these numbers, 18,350 cases announced in one day, shattering the previous record which had been set in the last week by just about 3,000 cases.

This is really concerning especially as the Secretary of the Health Department, for the State of California pointing out the fact that in just about three to four weeks, 12 percent of these cases will likely be hospitalized, and there are some stats here that really paint this picture of how bad it is.

They're saying that this 14 day positivity now at 5.9 percent has gone up one full point in just a week. Also looking at hospitalizations, there are now more than 7,000 people that are hospitalized with the Coronavirus and that number are up more than 80 percent in the last two weeks.

Sometimes you just have to hear the numbers to understand how dire the situation is here. They're saying that right now there are less than 2,000 ICU beds available in the state, they do have a surge plan in place to bring on 2,000 more in 11 other facilities if necessary here in the state.

ICU admissions though up nearly 60 percent over the last two weeks. When you hear those numbers, you understand why they're saying things have to change. Here in Los Angeles County as of last night, there's no longer outdoor dining, it is to go, delivery, drive through only here in L.A. County. And that is because they're seeing astronomical numbers rising here as well; this is really the hot bed of the outbreak in California.

They're saying the positivity rate from November 1st through yesterday; just think about this, it has risen from 3.9 percent to 7.3 percent. They're saying hospitalizations are up sharply here as well, they have risen almost every single day since November 1st.

And they're saying at this current trajectory, we could actually see that we are out of all kinds of beds, hospital beds and ICU beds in the next two to four weeks. When you think about that, that is extremely sobering, Boris very much so. But happy Thanksgiving to everyone, to you, but let's stay home and be safe.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I am glad you said that, Stephanie Elam reporting from Los Angeles. Thanks so much. Meantime, in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is reacting to the Supreme Court decision to side with religious organizations in a dispute over the Coronavirus restrictions that he put into place.

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SANCHEZ: Cuomo tried to limit the number of people who could attend religious services. But the justices found that violated the constitution. The 5-4 decision highlighted the impact of the newest member of the court, Justice Amy Coney Barret appoints that was noted by Governor Cuomo.

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GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D) NEW YORK: Why rule on a case that is moot and come up with a different decision than you did several months ago, on the same issue? You have a different court, and I think that was the statement that the court was making.

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SANCHEZ: Health experts pleaded with people to avoid large gatherings this year, and especially during the holidays when so many are traveling. CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro is near Hill Square where there would normally be a massive crowd for the Thanksgiving Day parade, but Evan, so many of our traditions are changed this year.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris. And here is one of the big ones that have changed here in New York. This is where the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade usually goes on. Thousands of people line the streets for a 2.5 mile parade, obviously ending with Santa. And this year that parade was produced for TV, people were told to stay home.

And we've been here all morning; there weren't that many people that came out here. But the idea was to see it as much as you could. And so, you could see back here, they changed some things, they're starting to take it back down again after having a few balloons out here and things like that.

But as you mentioned, this is really a Thanksgiving that's very different in New York. You mentioned what Cuomo talk about; the idea here is that this city is trying to remain as open as it can, while those virus numbers increase.

We've already seen some changes in the way dining works, and schools being closed, and a lot of New Yorkers have that sense back in their minds that at any time in the future, more lockdowns could come. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Yes. And that's going to be especially difficult with the pent up frustration, the pandemic fatigue that so many are feeling Evan McMorris-Santoro, happy Thanksgiving, joining us from New York. Scientists are now learning more about how the Coronavirus is mutating? CNN Health Reporter Jacqueline Howard has more. Jacqueline, what are the scientists finding? JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Boris, the main take away so

far, these Coronavirus mutations don't mean much, so we don't have to worry, but the science is interesting. Here's what researchers have found. Researchers in London looked at the virus' genetic data in more than 46,000 samples from 99 different countries.

And the researchers detected more than 12,000 mutations, including one that was previously thought to make the virus more transmissible. But the researchers found no evidence of that mutation and others being associated with an increase or decrease in how easily the virus infects people.

So the mutations in this study are largely neutral, but this is something scientists are watching, especially as people start getting vaccinated in the New Year. Boris?

SANCHEZ: All right. Jacqueline Howard, hope you have a happy holiday. Thank you for that. Joining us now to discuss further, Dr. Peter Hotez, he's a Professor and Dean of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Thank you so much for being with us this Thanksgiving, sir. Hope you're having a good holiday.

I wonder as you see Americans going ahead with their Thanksgiving travel plans, despite skyrocketing Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, death, the numbers that we just heard from Stephanie and Evan in L.A. and New York, where do you think we're going to be in the next three weeks? Because it seems inevitable that we're going to go back to some of the really strict, severe restrictions that we saw in the spring.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, PROFESSOR & DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Well, it's not only just over the next three weeks, we're looking, Boris, we're looking at some dire predictions by the week or two after the inauguration. How we behave as a country can determine whether or not half a million people lose their lives from COVID-19 or we keep it around 300,000 or somewhere in between.

And the only way we can keep it down to that 300,000 number is to maximize social distancing, avoid any large indoor gatherings, wearing face masks, don't travel, don't go through airports and bus terminals. And the message is, we just have to do this for a few more months until February and then vaccines will be here. We can vaccinate.

So the idea is to get everybody to the other side. Don't do reckless things by gathering indoors and traveling and we can save lives. And that has to be the number one priority. We have to return to some sense of old fashioned American pragmatism, stop being ideological, and just save the life of your mother, your father or brother, or sister.

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SANCHEZ: Yes, sadly, the Coronavirus pandemic in so many ways has become politicized. I want to ask specifically about intensive care units. Yet again, they're being pushed to the brink, running out of space, running out of beds. Realistically, what happens when these beds run out? There are some places that have contingency plans, but that's not really sustainable, is it?

DR. HOTEZ: Well, remember, it's not just a bed. So you can convert a regular bed to an ICU bed. That is often not the big issue. The big issue is the trained health care staff, having enough nurses who know and health care professionals and respiratory technicians and physicians and PAs who know how to manage ICU patients. That's the hard part. And they're getting exhausted.

So we learned from New York in March and April, we learned from Southern Europe in March and April, that when the mortality rates or death rates really skyrocket is when those trained hospital staff become overwhelmed and now we're starting to see that.

We're seeing it in the upper Midwest, and in the Dakotas, we are seeing it in West Texas, in El Paso and Lubbock. And that's we'll get to those 500,000 Americans who will lose their lives. And again, the only way to do this is to ensure the success of our health care providers by not overwhelming them with ICU admissions and again, that all gets to stopping the indoor gatherings and the travel.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the effort of those brave front line workers, something that all Americans can be thankful for this Thanksgiving. I want to pivot, sir, to the Supreme Court's ruling overnight. They blocked New York's Coronavirus restrictions, limiting attendance at churches, synagogues and other houses places of worship.

I know a lot of folks that I've discussed this with, they are asking about religious freedom, and how certain officials are appearing to prioritize commerce over worship. But correct me, if I'm wrong, there are specific reasons why going in a church or synagogue or mosque can be problematic compared to going to say a liquor store as Justice Gorsuch alluded to.

DR. HOTEZ: Yes, it's absolutely crazy. This is not about religious freedom, this is not about civil liberties, this is about all hands on deck to save lives over the next few months until we get everybody vaccinated. I am not a constitutional scholar, I am a physician scientist, but I can say with firmness and clarity that human life is not cheap.

And that Supreme Court ruling did just that devalues human lives, and makes it really tough for our health care providers to provide the best care possible for lower mortality rates. This is not a time to resort to ideologies or this is a time as I say for American pragmatism to focus on saving lives.

Over a very defined period of time, we're not talking about perpetuity. Let's just do this for the next few months in order to keep everybody, and get everyone to the other side.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and to that point, practically there's a difference between sittings in the same area huddled with a group of, a large group of people over a large amount of time versus walking into a space that's restricted for a very short amount of time and then walking out. Dr. Peter Hotez-- DR. HOTEZ: I mean, to compare going to a liquor store, I don't know what kind of liquor store Judge Gorsuch is just going to. But the last time I was in wonder, when hundreds of people are singing or chanting or talking to each other without face masks. This is what we need to halt. Any kind of large indoor gatherings again for that very specific defined period?

SANCHEZ: All right. Dr. Peter Hotez, we appreciate your expertise and perspective. Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving.

DR. HOTEZ: Thank you very much.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Up next, letting go of traditions we can't do safely Joe and Jill Biden's Thanksgiving message to America. Plus, a holiday message from President Trump that flies in the phase of all the warnings from top health officials and after the President pardons Michael Flynn, pardon seekers now apparently plotting ways to impress the president to get a pardon of their own. This is CNN's special live coverage.

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SANCHEZ: President-Elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill are thanking Americans for the sacrifices they're making this holiday, while acknowledging those lives lost to the virus. In a new op-ed for cnn.com, they write "May the emptiness at our tables and in our hearts be filled with memories of love and laughter. May we cherish our traditions, even when they're out of reach and hold onto the hope of what is still to come? We're going to get through this together, even if we have to be apart."

Joining me now, CNN Presidential Historian, Douglas Brinkley. Doug, happy Thanksgiving. We're glad you could do with us. I want to get your reaction to this op-ed from President-Elect Biden. What do you think?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It's absolutely beautiful. And I urge CNN viewers to pull it up and read it. It's very well crafted. Remember, Joe Biden will become our second catholic president. So when you read it, it seems like a catechism or a prayer, and it's not just, he does three things, and Jill, they co-wrote it, they give three things that are very interesting, right out of the gate, they say we are asking a lot.

Asking you not to see your loved ones on Thanksgiving is a big asks for the country, but then he goes on a roll, almost like a Bob Dylan song, there is something where you're saying, we're grateful for the medical workers who have saved lives. We're grateful for the people that grow - to feed our country.

We're grateful to the teachers who had to operate in a zoom era, and sometimes work extra hours for families that don't have technology, and it goes on and on that way and it's a wonderful Thanksgiving message. And I don't think it could have been more elegant and more down home.

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SANCHEZ: It strikes me that someone so familiar with loss would have the right temperament and the right voice to speak to Americans who are struggling with losing loved ones of their own. And what also strikes me is just the contrast between Biden and President Trump; it could not be more stark.

Biden talking about sacrifice, thanking health care workers, educators, Trump encouraging Americans to gather to basically violate the CDC guidelines that his own administration put out w do you make of the contrast?

BRINKLEY: Well, with Joe Biden, he reminds me of Franklin Roosevelt in our dark days of the Great Depression, when FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself to March in 1933. He was in a wheelchair. And when he said that, he was saying hear my heart, listen to it. I feel your pain.

And the same thing that Joe Biden is doing when he reflects about Beau and the loss of his first wife and child, and saying I know what everyday people go through. By contrast, Donald Trump comes off as being very spoiled and selfish. It's about himself this holiday season. The election was rigged. I have been wronged.

And I thought he had a particularly awkward and clumsy moment yesterday when he does a grabbing telephone call to Gettysburg to start shouting nonsense, fake things about the election and conspiracy theories, spewing it while people are trying to settle in for Thanksgiving.

President Trump's off message, even if you like his message, he is off. And so, the difference between the amount of class and dignity that Biden has shown the last two days and Donald Trump kind of floundering around, pounding his chest saying look at me could not be sharper.

SANCHEZ: Douglas Brinkley, I have a ton more questions for you, but unfortunately, we're short on time. So I'm going to let you get back to the grub. Douglas Brinkley, have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you so much.

BRINKLEY: Same to you, Boris. You're doing great. Been watching you all day.

SANCHEZ: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. President Trump spending his Thanksgiving morning on the golf course as Coronavirus deaths soars across the country. Plus, paying for a pardon. New reports on how people are trying to curry favor with the president during his final weeks in office.

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[12:25:00] SANCHEZ: It may be Thanksgiving, but it's starting to look a lot like Christmas at the White House. The tree has been delivered, the reeds have gone up, and the president is out golfing after gifting three pardons this week, two of them going to turkeys, one of them to his Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is joining us now. Kaitlan how is the news of Flynn's pardon being received, and how soon can we expect more pardons?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That could come pretty soon. We are told the president is weighing pardoning a number of other people in his orbit, some people not.

Some people in his orbit including potentially a pardon for Roger Stone, who had a sentence committed earlier this year. George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, all of these people that you've seen in the news over the course of Donald Trump's Presidency.

But of course, the first one that came after his election loss besides those turkeys that you mentioned was Mike Flynn, his first National Security Adviser who we should remind people was only on the job for 24 days before the president fired him.

And of course we saw his legal drama play out over the last several years, including earlier this year when the Justice Department took that surprising move of trying to drop their own case against him. And now of course the president has ended it by granting this pardon. And so, we haven't actually heard from the president in person on this yet. He granted it yesterday, and announced it over Twitter. And then the White House later issued this statement.

And you've seen this reaction coming from White House officials where they're not only talking about the pardon, Boris, they're congratulating Mike Flynn on it, even though of course that is not the attitude toward Flynn in the early days of the administration when he had lied not only to the FBI, but also to the Chief of Staff at the time, and the Press Secretary as well.

But it was pretty obvious that the president was going to make this move. He had been telegraphing it for months now. So now the question is who else does the president have left on his list? And we are told it could be a number of people over the next two months.

And as the president today is denying that there's a way that Joe Biden got 80 million votes and won the election, of course he did and he will be taking office in January. And so, the president is acknowledging that by doing these moves like giving out these pardons because of course he knows his time in office is coming short and so is his time to grant these pardons to people that he knows.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's a tacit admission that he is not going to be president come January 21st. Kaitlan, happy Thanksgiving. I hope that the CNN White House team is catering well as they usually do. Thanks so much.

COLLINS: Yes, don't worry about us.

SANCHEZ: For many, Flynn's pardon is a sign of the power that President Trump is willing to wield on his way out the door. And because of that, many are now actively seeking his favor.