Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Los Angeles Predicts Hospital Bed Shortage; Scientists Find AstraZeneca Vaccine Trial Errors; President Trump Spends First Thanksgiving at White House. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 26, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:45]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: Welcome to a special edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Brooke Baldwin, and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

You know, if you are lucky, you are celebrating today with all the trappings of a very normal holiday week. But many Americans can't count themselves so fortunate this hour. And others, defying medical advice to celebrate with family, could only hope they'll stay so fortunate in the weeks ahead.

This, now, is a new American ritual, a daily reminder of our national public health failure: One hundred eighty-one thousand new cases, 41 states with 1,000-plus new cases, 175,000 new cases is our new daily average, 29 states with a positivity rate north of 10 percent, a hair shy of 2,300 new deaths.

And there were more Americans in hospital beds today -- nearly 90,000 -- than in football stadiums. Football on Thanksgiving? COVID broke that too, marquis match-up between the Ravens and the Steelers got the schedule shift to Sunday after a rash of positive tests on the Baltimore Ravens.

The president, at his golf course in Virginia. He will speak to military members next hour. The president-elect is spending his holiday in Wilmington, Delaware. And in a new CNN opinion piece today, pays tribute to the American spirit.

He writes, "We," quote, "do not cower in the face of crisis and hardship but instead come together to lift up one another," the first family-elect write.

We have seen evidence of just how remarkable our country is, we see it every day on the frontlines in our nation's hospitals, we see it in the mirror when we mask up. This is how we come together.

But look at our airports, and you see evidence of how we break apart, nearly 1.1 million people moving through airports on Wednesday -- that's according to the TSA. And the TSA warns Sunday's passenger number will make Wednesday's look small.

The fear? A pinball effect of transmission, lighting up each corridor of the country with new cases that turn into new hospitalizations that turn into new deaths.

2020 may seem like a thankless year, and a Thanksgiving apart, yet another painful reminder of everything we cannot do. But if you are healthy, if you are not in a hospital bed, if your family is safe, if you have food in front of you today, be thankful because we have all learned that on any given day, those very things can all change so very quickly.

Let's go to Stephanie Elam who's live in Los Angeles. And so, Stephanie, Happy Thanksgiving to you in L.A., already in the middle of a COVID spike, now says what, hospital beds will run out soon? Tell me more.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's true, Brooke, and Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.

When you look at the situation, how quickly things have changed here in this month of November, you can see that it's quite clear. In fact, in Los Angeles County, when you look at the positivity rate, they're saying from November 1st through yesterday, we saw the positivity rate, it was at 3.9 percent, now up to 7.3 percent.

They're saying of the people who are hospitalized, it's been a very sharp increase. And that is why they're concerned -- especially since 25 percent of those people are in the ICU.

But Dr. Christina Ghaly from the Los Angeles County Health Department, listen to how dire she says things could be if people do not stay home and if this infection rate continues as it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINA GHALY, DIRECTOR, L.A. COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES (via telephone): Assuming that there's no change in people's behavior that would affect transmission, there will likely be shortages in the number of hospital beds, and especially in ICU beds or intensive care unit beds over the next two to four weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: What's also noteworthy here is that she also said that nearly 60 percent of the people that are currently infected are showing mild symptoms, which means they're not as obviously infected and don't seem as sick, and that makes it easy for them to go ahead and pass this virus on to somebody else.

This is painted clearly when you look at the state as a whole. California, posting a record number, 18,350 cases in one day. This virus has been here for a long time now, but just think about it, this is the worst of it, this is the highest number that we've seen here. The hospitalizations, more than 7,000 people are in the hospital -- that's up six percent from the day before that.

[14:05:07]

All of this, pointing to the fact that these numbers are rising at a very rapid pace and they're saying there are less than 2,000 beds that are available in the state. Governor Newsom, announcing that they do have a surge plan where they can add on 2,000 more beds, 11 more facilities.

But really the point here, Brooke, is that people really need to take this seriously and stay home, protect their loved one because right now, anything you were doing outside is not as safe as it was even earlier this year. Just think about that, that is absolutely crazy -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: It is crazy, and there we thought it was bad a couple months ago, especially to think that so many people have mild symptoms. You know, you don't think you actually have it and then you're out and about, and it spreads. Steph, thank you so much for the wake-up call there, out of California.

Doctors warn that Thanksgiving will send the U.S. flying up another coronavirus slope, and that includes what should be an impossible-to- accept number, potentially 60,000 more American deaths before Christmas -- before Christmas.

Let's bring in CNN senior health correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. And, Elizabeth, I mean, that is a jaw-dropping projection. By Christmas.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It really is. Just when we thought these death numbers were climbing and climbing and climbing, they're going to be even climbing at higher rates than we had expected. Let's take a look at these projections. And this comes from the Centers for Disease Control, so this is from a group that knows what they're doing.

So the deaths that we have currently in this country since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 262,000 deaths. The CDC projection is that by December 19th -- so in less than a month -- we'll have as many as 321,000 deaths. That means that these deaths are just climbing at an alarming rate.

Now, part of the issue here is that there were actually probably more cases than we even thought. There's another CDC report that says that the number of cases that have been reported is probably much smaller than the number of actual cases, so let's take a look at those numbers as well.

So through September, 7 million symptomatic cases of COVID were reporting. What the CDC scientists say is there actually could have been as many as 42 million. So not 7 million, but 42 million symptomatic cases.

Now, I think some people might see those numbers and say, oh, well maybe there's a silver lining to this. Now, many -- so many Americans are immune because they've already had COVID. Not so fast unfortunately, 84 percent of the country would still be uninfected, even with these larger numbers -- 84 percent still uninfected. So not even close to anything that looks like herd immunity -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: What about -- you know, we've had all these encouraging conversations about potential vaccines, we talked about Pfizer and Moderna, we talked about AstraZeneca this week -- I know it has a lower efficacy number. Now there may be cause for concern? Tell me why, Elizabeth.

COHEN: Yes, I've been talking with experts who, from the minute they saw these numbers, said, wait a minute, something seems off here, actually in several different ways.

So let me start by explaining something that happened with this trial. They have -- basically there was an error, there was a mistake. This vaccine is given in two doses. You get one dose, and then about a month later you get a second dose.

For one batch of patients -- a couple thousand of them -- they only got half a dose the first time around. That's not supposed to happen. When you do a vaccine trial, you were supposed to be scrupulous about every tiny detail. So to give thousands of patients only half the dose they were supposed to get is not good, it does not speak well for how careful they were being with this protocol.

So let's take a look at these issues that have come up. So when you have that dosing error, the experts that I talked to said, what other errors were happening? Like what else did not go as it was supposed to here?

There's also some missing data. When AstraZeneca put out their press release, they said that it was 70 percent effective, but didn't give the numbers that got them to 70 percent. Pfizer and Moderna gave those numbers, unclear why AstraZeneca chose not to.

Also, we know that there were two participants in the trial who received the vaccine and developed neurological problems, and the study had to be put on hold in the U.S. for weeks and weeks. Now, AstraZeneca's saying, oh, those weren't related to the vaccine, though -- basically they're saying it's just coincidental.

Well, you know, people want details. Why did two people who got the vaccines develop these neurological problems? What are the details behind what happened there? And as one doctor I talked to said, you know, without those details, I don't know how we say yes to this vaccine -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Totally. With all the people already a little dubious around vaccines as it is, and when you hear this, you want answers, right? Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving by the way.

COHEN: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Feels funny to say that, given all the --

COHEN: Happy Thanksgiving.

BALDWIN: -- given all the news today, but it's important.

With me now, Erin Bromage, he's a CNN contributor and a biology professor specializing in immunology at the University of Massachusetts.

So, Erin Bromage, nice to have you on, Happy Thanksgiving.

[14:10:00]

ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I know you're the expert, and I always talk to you about your expertise. But if I may turn the tables for a minute, because I would just love to know how are you and your family spending your Thanksgiving?

BROMAGE: Well, normally we have quite a few people here, but we did something a little different today. So the -- one of the families we normally spend time with, I went out surfing with this morning. It was miserable, it's 57 degrees and raining but we went surfing to spend time together.

But us, we've just -- we have our household and we have my mother-in- law who came with us, came to us a week ago, in our house, and we've just kept it at this small nuclear group.

BALDWIN: Right on. And for people today who are sitting around -- who are fortunate enough to be sitting around, you know, the Thanksgiving table, what do people need to do today to stay safe?

BROMAGE: Yes, so we put a whole bunch of different layers, just to have one extra person here, layers of defense in here. We have 57 degrees and raining, we still have a window cracked open. We have HEPA filters, we have a big dining table, we've got separation there. We actually have a CO2 monitor going in the house so that we actually know that we're getting the right ventilation.

TEXT: How to Stay Safe This Thanksgiving: Maximize outdoor air; Consider installing filters; Keep your distance; Don't share food, glassware, cutlery

BROMAGE: So you just need to put things in place just like you would in a grocery store, just like you would in a restaurant, where you are actually distancing, where you're making sure that there's good ventilation, you're making sure that you're not spending a long time in enclosed spaces with people that don't live in your household normally.

BALDWIN: And I see the tip, don't share food, glassware and cutlery, so maybe this is the perfect excuse to use plastic and be able to chuck it after the meal.

What about after today, Erin? How should people conduct themselves to just limit any potential spread?

BROMAGE: Yes, well we know -- we've seen the airports, we've seen the traffic about how many people are actually getting together. And so we knew that there were people that were going to get together en masse on this day. Everyone has different risk tolerances, and some have a tolerance

higher than mine. But with gathering and with pulling people together for multiple hours inside houses -- and we know houses are poorly ventilated -- you do have a responsibility to your community and to your workplace in the weeks coming or the days coming from now.

So you really need to cut down on your interactions especially on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Whereas if you got an infection today, they're going to be the days that you could potentially spread it to others. If you possibly can, a test. A test on Monday or Tuesday will, you know, reveal most of the infections that actually occurred on Thanksgiving day.

So we sort of owe it to everybody in our community because we all have a piece in this, to make sure that if we gathered, we need to make sure that we lower the risk to our community by just making smarter choices, fewer interactions, you know, don't go into large offices where you're sharing space with lots of people on Monday and Tuesday if you gathered on Thanksgiving.

BALDWIN: And get tested next week. Erin, enjoy your turkey and your family. Thank you so much.

Well, President Trump is spending some time on the golf course today before a call with U.S. troops next hour. Why he could also be getting ready to issue more pardons in the days ahead, we'll talk about that.

And the U.S. Supreme Court, along with new Justice Amy Coney Barrett, siding with religious groups that were fighting against New York's coronavirus restrictions. Those details are ahead.

[14:13:26]

And struggling Americans, fearing yet another devastating blow as key relief programs are set to expire at the end of this year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are back on this Thanksgiving, I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

Last year for Thanksgiving, President Trump went to Afghanistan to visit U.S. troops deployed there. And this year, he is spending the holiday in a more familiar location: his golf course. Later today, he will call troops overseas.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is at the White House. And, Kaitlan, Happy Holiday to you, first and foremost. And what are you hearing about how the president's spending his last Thanksgiving at the White House?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he is spending it at the White House, Brooke, which is notable because typically every year he goes down to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, we go with him. And this is the first year where the president has not done that during the holidays, and so the president wanted to stay back here at the White House. I'm told by sources that had to do with that condensed time frame that he's dealing with because while publicly and on Twitter, as he did this morning before he wished people Happy Thanksgiving, he is denying the reality of the election.

But we're told behind the scenes, he's preparing to leave the White House come January. So that's why you see the president taking all these last-minute moves very obviously aware that his presidency is coming to an end. So he wanted to stay back at the White House to get things done. You've seen him take several moves over the last few weeks since the election, in part on this way to try to burnish his legacy over the next few weeks before he does leave office and Joe Biden does come in.

Though of course on Twitter, he is still denying this, and tweeting this morning he doesn't believe that Biden could have actually gotten 80 million votes -- though of course he did. And so the question, you know, that people have been dealing with and are still dealing with even on this holiday is, how long does the president continue pushing this publicly?

And right now, it seems like he is set to keep it up for a few more weeks.

BALDWIN: Well, speaking of his legacy, what about pardons, Kaitlan? We know he pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. What are you hearing about other possible pardons?

COLLINS: There are more that we should expect, basically. If you've spoken with people who have spoken to the president, he made clear he wanted to pardon Flynn, we knew that for several months. And then of course it finally came down yesterday, when the president announced it on Twitter, but we are told to expect several more.

Because it's not just the people who are in the president's orbit that he's been considering potentially granting leniency to, the George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort-type figures. But there are also people who know the president well and are working to get their own clients pardons or sentence commutations, people like Alan Dershowitz and other attorneys who have been in the president's orbit for the last several years.

[14:20:18]

So we are told, expect more of those to come down over the next two months or so before the president does leave office.

BALDWIN: Kaitlan, thank you.

The pardon of Michael Flynn will likely not be the only one, as Kaitlan mentioned, issued by the president before his term officially ends.

Let me bring in Alice Stewart, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator.

So, Alice, nice to have you on and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Same to you, Brooke, Happy Thanksgiving.

BALDWIN: Is this really how the president should be spending his final weeks in office?

STEWART: I wouldn't think so. Look, I truly believe that if he looks at what he plans to do in the future, and if politics and elected office is in his windshield, he needs to put the 2020 election in his rearview mirror, and he needs to stop asking about the integrity of the election.

In terms of the pardons, I expect Michael Flynn to be just opening the floodgates. I expect that he will have many more between now and the time he leaves office. Quite frankly, Brooke, he can do that, it's in his authority, he has the power.

And if you remember, he has always thought that the Russia probe was a hoax. And remember, he talked about it being a witch hunt. So I think anyone with any connection to the Russia probe that has faced consequences legally will get pardoned, and that includes obviously Michael Flynn, Papadopoulos; I expect to see something with regard to Roger Stone, maybe Paul Manafort.

But this is his opportunity to really make a statement for the fact that he never believed that there was any involvement with Russiagate, and the pardons and commutations are a way to do that.

BALDWIN: So if you're saying he should put this in his rearview mirror, what should he instead focus on? I mean, what about this president's legacy? You know, what should he be doing in these final weeks with an eye toward that?

STEWART: I think the most important things he can do? Three things, really: transfer of power, a peaceful transfer of power; treatment for COVID, making sure that we get that out there; and turning out the votes in our home state of Georgia, Brooke -- there's a critical Senate race going on there, and Republicans need to maintain those two seats that they have there.

And if -- the more he can do to focus attention on Georgia and turning votes out in that key state, it's important to the holding power and making sure that we have a balance of power when Joe Biden takes office, and those are important things that he can do.

Look, I think it's a good thing that he did finally sign off and give the GSA the heads up to begin the smooth transition process. It is critical to do so. I'm encouraged to see more of the personnel that Joe Biden puts in office, but I think it was a good first step to let the GSA do what they need to do to begin the transfer of power. I do think, at this point, sit back and let that transition happen.

BALDWIN: You mentioned Georgia, what about Pennsylvania? When the president took part by phone in this meeting among Pennsylvania Republicans in Gettysburg, and so here's some of his message there. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): This was an election that we won easily, we won it by a lot. This election was rigged and we can't let that happen, we can't let it happen for our country and this election has to be turned around because we won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Alice, does he still think he can overturn the results of this election or is this all, you know, with 2024 in mind for Trump?

STEWART: He truly does. Brooke, I've talked with people that are close to him and they still see a viable path. I quite frankly don't understand it.

Look, I voted for him, I wanted him to win, I would rather see his policies coming out of the White House than President-elect Joe Biden's policies. But at the end of the day the votes are in, they've been counted, they have been tabulated and most of the people in this country didn't agree with the person I wanted in the White House, and I think it's time that he and Rudy Giuliani and the legal team embrace that and stop questioning the integrity of our elections.

Look, we all want free and fair elections, but we can't just complain about them when we lose. And it's really important that we make sure that the American people understand that our election process is strong, it is solid, it is valuable, it's important and we have election officials in each of these different states.

Brooke, I was deputy secretary of state in Arkansas for a while, and we oversaw elections. And they take that job very seriously. And I think it's important that all of us, elected officials included, make sure that Americans understand that we are a great democracy and our election process is one that we can have confidence in.

[14:25:01]

And we need to make sure and remind everyone of that. Because there's going to be elections coming up next month and in two years and two years after that, and we need to make sure that people don't lose faith and confidence in our elections.

BALDWIN: No, we need to believe in the system, whatever political party you're affiliated with, and I appreciate you saying that out loud. Alice Stewart, bless you. Thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving.

STEWART: Thank you, Brooke. Happy Thanksgiving.

BALDWIN: Part of President Trump's legacy will certainly be the Supreme Court. He placed three justices on the court in his one and only term in office, three conservative voices who will be on the court for decades to come. And in this ruling late last night, we got an illustration of what

that will mean. Newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett proved to be the deciding vote in a case that was brought by religious groups in New York who claimed that they were being unfairly singled out by COVID-related restrictions.

So with me now, CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider. And, Jessica, we know this was a five-to-four decision with the chief justice, John Roberts, actually siding with the minority. What do you take away from this ruling?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're seeing it all play out now, Brooke. The court, solidly conservative for the first time -- legal experts say -- since World War II. And we're really seeing how consequential the president picking this third justice in a young and conservative Amy Coney Barrett, how consequential it is for the future of this court.

Now, when Justice Ginsburg was on the bench this summer, we actually saw similar cases that came down five-four against houses of worship that were fighting similar restrictions. So now we've got the flip side, where the five most conservative justices are stressing the importance of religious freedom.

This was a late-night decision on the eve of Thanksgiving, and it was a stark reminder of the split we will see on consequential cases moving forward. And as such, we did see some unusually critical language.

We saw this from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying, "Justices of this court play a deadly game in second-guessing the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting a million Americans each week, spreads most easily."

And then the unsigned opinion from the majority conservative justices, it really seemed to punch back when they wrote this, saying, "Members of this court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area... But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten."

And of course, the conservative justices there, seizing on the religious liberties the Constitution affords in this case. And for the first time, Justice Amy Coney Barrett being that key vote to side with the churches who challenge those restrictions on how people -- or how many people -- could worship at any given time.

So, Brooke, this really is just a glimpse of what's to come on this court that is now solidly conservative. All (ph) is (ph) we're probably going to see the chief justice continuing to try to work to keep this court from getting drawn into politics or being criticized for being too political.

We saw the governor, Andrew Cuomo of New York, come out this morning saying, look, the justices didn't have to rule on this case because the restrictions ended anyway. He criticized them for being political -- that's something the chief justice does not like, so we'll see how he handles future cases that could be equally political -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I said it before, this is why elections matter. Jessica Schneider, thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.

SCHEIDER: You too.

[14:28:26]

BALDWIN: Coming up, why people in Canada's largest city could be living in lockdown until next year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)