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U.S. Surpasses 13 Million Coronavirus Infections As Cases Surge; Iran Vows Retaliation For Killing Of Top Nuclear Scientist; Trump To Campaign In Georgia For Republicans In Senate Runoffs; Appeals Court Rejects Trump's Effort To Undo PA Certification; Police Cracking Down On Underground Bars And Parties; Thousands In CA Have Power Shut Off Amid Wildfire Danger. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired November 28, 2020 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:00:25]
AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone and happy Saturday. Thanks for joining me.
I'm Amara Walker in for Fredricka Whitfield.
We begin on this somber holiday weekend with a grim reality. The U.S. has now surpassed 13 million coronavirus cases. This following a Thanksgiving Day that saw more than 100,000 new infections and over 1,200 deaths despite 20 states not reporting any data on the holiday.
Now, one of our nation's top infectious disease experts now warning that the post-holiday case surge will be destabilizing for the U.S. on several fronts, including skyrocketing hospitalizations. Nearly 90,000 people are spending this holiday in the hospital.
And where is the president? Still focusing on the election that he lost.
Today marks three weeks since the election was called for Joe Biden. President Trump has yet to formally concede defeat.
Meanwhile, a member of Biden's coronavirus advisory board says the president-elect will stick to the science and let health experts decide who gets the vaccine first. This, as the CDC's independent vaccine advisory committee scheduled an emergency meeting and vote for this Tuesday to discuss vaccine allocation -- who will get those vaccines first.
All public gatherings will now be banned in Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the nation. Over 10 million residents will be impacted by the new stay-at-home order as California becomes the third state to record more than 19,000 coronavirus deaths.
CNN's Polo Sandoval joining me now with more. And Polo, I mean, this is a very restrictive order. How would it even be enforced?
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are drastic steps here, Amara, that officials are going to be putting in place here starting on Monday in L.A. County. This is being done for multiple reasons, encouraging people to stay at home but also to stay socially-distant.
As you point out, those gatherings will be prohibited in public with people outside of their household and a couple of reasons why this is being done, not only have they seen hospitalizations nearly double in the last couple of weeks, but also they exceeded that threshold that they had set for themselves of the average five-day number in terms of infections of 4,500, yesterday they exceeded it. It will be in place for about three weeks, at least for now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL (voice over): As of today, more than 19,000 Californians have lost their lives to the coronavirus. Until yesterday, only two states, New York and Texas, had reached that sobering milestone.
DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE: We're in the most dangerous public health crisis this nation has faced, at least for the last hundred years. We're going easily to 200,000 new cases per day. It will be accelerated because of the Thanksgiving holiday. It will be accelerated against over Christmas. And I'm so upset about the deaths.
SANDOVAL: Those death rates, along with the number of infections and hospitalizations, continue climbing throughout much of the country, with front line health care workers putting their lives on the line to save patients.
DR. HASSAN KHOULI, CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, CLEVELAND CLINIC: It is disheartening to some of our colleagues, our nurses, our respiratory therapists, our physicians falling ill and looking them in the eyes, too and see how this is impacting them.
This is as real as it can be and we have to -- we have to follow all the things that we know work.
SANDOVAL: Including mask wearing, social distancing, and following post-Thanksgiving advice to quarantine when in doubt about possible exposure. Health officials say that's especially important if you attended a holiday gathering this week with guests outside of your household or with people not taking precautions.
DR. AMY COMPTON PHILLIPS, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, PROVIDENCE HEALTH SYSTEM: If you've expanded your bubble over Thanksgiving, the CDC asks us to stay quarantined for 14 days. And so we're going to do everything we can to get as close to that as possible.
SANDOVAL: Multiple health experts are warning that this latest spike hasn't even peaked and likely to worsen significantly in the coming weeks, putting a bigger strain on hospitals across the country.
DR. COLLEEN KRAFT, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, EMORY UNIVERSITY: People can't get their serious surgeries if there's no ICU beds available because of COVID. So this is really becoming a tragedy within a tragedy. SANDOVAL: In the race to secure a safe COVID vaccine, a CDC advisory
committee will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday, voting on who would be among the first to be vaccinated. Front line health care workers and those at high risk of infection likely to be prioritized.
[11:04:53]
SANDOVAL: The World Health Organization also calling for more research on a vaccine candidate being developed by AstraZeneca. A dosing mishap in their tribal gave a small group of study subjects less dosage but was more effective than the planned, leading to questions about their trial.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: Another 200,000 confirmed COVID cases yesterday, that now pushes this country past 13 million confirmed cases. And then of course there's also that death rate that continues to rise.
In fact, Dr. Leana Wen, Er doctor and George Washington University professor, painting a pretty bleak outlook here saying that we are rounding the corner but into calamity with potentially up to 4,000 deaths a day if something isn't done to try to prevent more of that spread.
So it certainly gives you an idea of, Amara, where we are and potentially where the situation could go in the coming months as we get closer to the new year.
WALKER: Yes. We still don't know what the numbers are post- Thanksgiving. That will take about a couple of weeks, right?
Polo, thank you so much for your reporting. Polo Sandoval.
Well, COVID-19 continues to surge across the country, President-Elect Joe Biden is making plans for dealing with the pandemic and distributing a vaccine -- a lot of logistics involved.
CNN's Rebecca Buck following these developments for us. And Rebecca, we were just mentioning that advisers to the CDC will be holding this emergency meeting on Tuesday and they're basically going to vote which will determine who will get those vaccines first.
How will all of that impact Biden's plans?
REBECCA BUCK, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Amara, we heard from Joe Biden during the campaign that he planned to listen to the scientists and follow the lead of experts when it came to responding to the coronavirus pandemic. And indeed when it comes to the CDC recommendation of who should get priority to receive the vaccine we expect that Biden will be listening to the experts and the scientists.
Dr. Celine Gounder, who sits on the advisory board for Biden's coronavirus team said this week that she does predict Biden will take the recommendation of the CDC when they sit down this week. And she sees, you know, the people you would expect being prioritized for this vaccine. Elderly people, health care workers, people with pre-existing conditions that would make them more susceptible to severe virus. And so this is what we can probably expect to see from Biden moving forward.
But one of the keys for the Biden team, she said also, is that they don't want to politicize this process. And so when it comes to Biden's response to the CDC's recommendation, it's also about sending a message that he's going to follow the lead of experts and turn down the temperature on what has become a very politicized pandemic.
So the Biden team thick in the planning for their response to the coronavirus pandemic as part of their transition. But this will be a big signal this week of how he intends to move forward with his response, Amara.
WALKER: All right. We'll be watching closely. Rebecca Buck, appreciate you. Thank you for that.
And with me now is Dr. Esther Choo. She is a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University and a CNN medical analyst.
Doctor, a pleasure to see you.
First off, we were just talking about the CDC having this emergency meeting and in a few days we'll know what the advisers decide on who should get that vaccine first. And it sounds like that they are leaning towards allowing health care professionals, support staff and even elderly people in nursing homes to get the vaccine first. Does that sound right to you?
DR. ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It does. And it's consistent with the suggested guidelines we've seen from large experienced health care bodies like the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The first priority is keeping the health care infrastructure intact. And of course, as we've heard this morning, it is at risk. We're seeing unprecedented volumes. We're seeing field hospitals and we are in a month where health care workers have been getting COVID at alarming rates.
Mayo Clinic alone reported 900 of its health care workers got COVID-19 over a two-week period because of close contacts that knocked out 1,500 health care workers at a time when we're all already strained on double and triple backup. You know, many places moving to field hospitals and converting ORs to ICUs, things like that.
So we cannot afford that so that we can take care of the American people. So health care workers are likely to be at the very top of that list and then after that, the communities that have been hardest hit where we see COVID spreading like wildfire across this pandemic like nursing homes and other congregate living facilities that includes correctional facilities. And then we'll go on to people at higher risk for severe COVID, those with comorbidities and those (INAUDIBLE) the hardest. WALKER: And Dr. Choo, I mean this first group logistically, how complicated is it going to be to get the millions of health care workers and support staff vaccinated? And how long do you anticipate for that to take?
[11:09:43]
DR. CHOO: I mean we are -- I will say that everybody has been working really hard to kind of queue up the distribution chain to get it to health care workers. It's a complicated thing. There's no way around it.
I mean even if you say we're focusing on certain discreet groups, that number will exceed supply in phase one of vaccine distribution and we'll have to make some hard decisions about technically at every site who gets it first.
The other thing is we have to work in parallel at increasing the vaccine acceptance. We're seeing across the country, and even among health care workers, there is some real hesitancy at accepting a vaccine, even if it's right in front of you.
So distribution is just half of the puzzle and then making sure that we're doing a ton of education and public messaging to make sure that it is received once it gets to where it needs to go.
WALKER: Yes, to that point, you were saying, you know, even when a vaccine becomes available, polls are showing that large portions of the American public say, look, I'm not going to get the vaccine.
An Axios/Ipsos poll this week showed that just 51 percent of Americans were willing to get immunized when the vaccine first becomes available and a full 48 percent said they won't get vaccinated.
There is though a lot of safety data out there. How would you comfort the skeptics, Dr. Choo, and I mean how much of the population would actually need to get vaccinated for it to work?
DR. CHOO: We really need to understand what the concerns are. I can guess -- I mean, we've called the vaccine effort Operation Warp Speed. And we've been taught (ph) using terms like Emergency Use Authorization.
Those terms really convey haste over safety. And I think what we really need to do is share a lot about what we know about this process, which as far as we can tell has been done with great rigor by people who know what they're doing. The safety data even in groups of elderly people and those with comorbidities has been extremely reassuring.
And so I think part of it is a communication piece, but I think also we need to do a lot of work in communities to hear more from people about why they're so hesitant and what would change things for them.
So I think, again this work is so important and needs to occur in parallel with the distribution effort. WALKER: Yes. It makes sense.
Just quickly, we do have to go, but a vaccine for children -- will children be able to be vaccinated?
DR. CHOO: They will. That's kind of a phase three thing, most likely, because children for the most part have been doing well in this pandemic. They are on the list, but we're going to try to focus on older folks and those with multiple comorbidities first.
WALKER: Got you. Dr. Esther Choo, appreciate your time. Thank you.
DR. CHOO: Thank you, Amara.
WALKER: Still ahead, despite loss after loss, President Trump continues his false claims of voter fraud but that may backfire in Georgia's senate runoff races. Why Republicans are becoming more worried.
Plus, breaking news, Iran now promising to retaliate after one of the country's top nuclear scientists is killed in an alleged assassination. Why the U.S. is remaining silent.
[11:12:50]
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WALKER: Iran is promising swift retaliation after a key scientist in its nuclear program was killed in an alleged assassination plot. Iran's defense ministry confirming he died Friday when his car was attacked outside Tehran.
Top Iranian officials are pointing the finger at Israel. The U.S. says it is closely monitoring developments.
And the aircraft carrier, the Nimitz is being sent to the Persian Gulf though the Pentagon says it's unrelated to escalating tensions with Iran.
CNN's senior national security correspondent, Alex Marquardt joining me now. Hi there, Alex.
Have we heard anything from Israel about this assassination?
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Amara. No, we haven't. And I don't expect we will.
This is not the kind of thing that they generally comment on. They have not denied responsibility. They have not claimed responsibility. Essentially this is a win-win for them because everyone thinks that they were behind this attack, this assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and he is now dead.
We have not heard anything from the U.S. government either, not from the White House or the Defense Department. You did note that that U.S. official said that they are watching the situation closely. But what we are hearing from Tehran is that there will be revenge for Fakhrizadeh's killing and that it will come at the right time, according to the president, Hassan Rouhani.
This is someone who was not just a leader in Iran's nuclear program, this was very much the architect, the father of Iran's military nuclear program when it began. And then he continued to be a senior leader at the helm of Iran's nuclear program after that covert military program ended in the early 2000s.
Fakhrizadeh was someone who was named by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a presentation he made about Iran's nuclear program in 2018. So the message here to Iran is clear, we can find your top nuclear scientist and we can kill him in broad daylight.
This was a brazen attack, one that was carried out surgically with a lot of precision in the words of a top U.S. intelligence official, former intelligence official I spoke with.
And now you have a situation in which in the same year, two very senior figures were killed. The heads of the al Quds force Qasem Soleimani by a U.S. strike in January. And now Fakhrizadeh getting killed just ten months later.
And so the question becomes, how does Iran respond? They will certainly feel pressure to respond. This is hugely embarrassing for them. But at the same time, they know that Joe Biden is coming in and wants to reengage with them, wants to go back into the Iranian nuclear deal and wants to alleviate the sanctions.
[11:19:55]
MARQUARDT: So it's a very tough position for Iran and certainly very complicating for incoming president, Joe Biden, Amara.
WALKER: Yes, very difficult situation indeed, for both sides. Appreciate you, Alex Marquardt in Washington.
All right. Let's talk more now about the escalating situation with Iran. Aaron David Miller spent more than two decades at the State Department, advised both Republican and Democratic presidents and was a Middle East peace negotiator. He joins me now. Thanks for joining us.
AARON DAVID MILLER, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: Pleasure.
WALKER: Let's answer that question. You know, what does Iran do now? Iran is blaming Israel, as we said, for this. The U.S. has taken this wait and see approach at the moment.
And former CIA director John Brennan tweeted and called this move reckless and warned that it could provoke lethal retaliation. He also called on Iran to look, resist the urge for retaliation. Will Iran do that? MILLER: I mean, you know, Amara, this is an asymmetrical response. The
Iranians have any number of that options. We reduced our troop deployments in Afghanistan -- that's certainly a possible arena. So with Iraq, where the Iranians have demonstrated capacity acting through pro Iranian Shia militias to respond.
I mean you might even get, and this would be a very difficult scenario, a pro--Iranian militia responding on its own.
I think the red line here, frankly, is the deaths of Americans. If in fact, the Iranians choose to respond before January 20th, I think they seriously risk the prospects that a Trump administration, as its final act, in an effort to bind the Obama administration, and to support the president's maximum pressure campaign against Iran, you could conceivably see -- I'm not predicting it and I think the odds are low depending on how the Iranians respond -- but you could see an American unilateral strike against an Iranian nuclear facility if the Iranian response involves the deaths of Americans.
WALKER: Is the timing of this significant at all especially the fact that it's happening during a time of transition and, you know, President-Elect Biden is set to take office in less than two months from now?
MILLER: Yes, I think timing here is extremely important. I mean as Alex pointed out, there's been a pattern of attacks in January. Qasem Soleimani was killed by the United States.
In July there was a mysterious explosion at the Natanz nuclear (INAUDIBLE) facility in Iran. And in August the second in command of al Qaeda was killed through Israeli proxies apparently at the request of the United States.
So there's a pattern of activity here. But I think for the Netanyahu government, for the prime minister, there is the sense that the Trump administration provides sort of a zone of immunity and I think the Israelis have taken advantage of that fact to strike now.
Whether or not this constrains or restrains the Biden administration, with respect to its own efforts to engage the Iranians, I think will depend very much on what happens in the next several months. But what's happened here is going to make that a hell of a lot harder.
WALKER: Yes. I mean the fact that, you know, you have any diplomatic efforts that Joe Biden would undertake with Iran being undermined before he even takes office, I mean that really does complicate any attempt for Joe Biden to re-engage Iran and possibly negotiate or renegotiate a nuclear deal.
MILLER: I mean, it certainly does. I mean (ph) it's a heavy lift to begin with. Simply re-engaging in the Iranian nuclear deal is probably not an option. If the Republicans maintain control of the senate in January, that will provide an additional constraint.
And there's no doubt in my mind that this so-called non-meeting that Prime Minister Netanyahu had with Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia a week or so ago was an effort in part to create a common front on the part of the Israelis and the Saudis and send an explicit message to the new administration, understand what our interests are here and we're not interested in your returning to anything like a normalized relationship, or at least a diplomatic process with Iran.
WALKER: Aaron David Miller, appreciate your insight. Thank you very much.
MILLER: Thank you, Amara.
WALKER: Still ahead, President Trump's false claims of voter fraud in Georgia could backfire. Some of his supporters there now threatening to boycott the senate runoff. We're going to go live next.
[11:24:23]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALKER: Georgia, ground zero right now for Republicans' hopes to retain control of the U.S. Senate. President Trump on Twitter seemingly trying to reverse his messaging that falsely painted Georgia's voting apparatus as fraudulent, tweeting his supporters must get out and vote. He ended the tweet saying he would be in Georgia next Saturday to campaign for the Republicans.
Right now, the Republican National Committee chair McDaniel is holding a meet and greet in a suburb of Atlanta.
And CNN's Ryan Nobles is there in Marietta, Georgia. And Ryan, I mean the pressure is on today to turn out Georgia voters and to keep them enthused, even though President Trump will not be on the ballot in January.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Amara, you're exactly right. And what we are finding as we attend more of these Republican events in Georgia leading up to the runoff, that that is becoming a real problem for these Republican candidates.
Republican voters here seem to be increasingly more concerned about President Trump's baseless accusations of fraud in the last election than they are the election that is still in their front view mirror and that's the one on January 5th, this runoff election that's going to determine control of the United States Senate.
[11:30:02]
NOBLES: Listen to this exchange that we just saw a few minutes ago here in Marietta with these supporters of President Trump and the supporters of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler peppering the GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel about these allegations of fraud here in Georgia and around the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- Switching the votes and we go there in crazy numbers and they should have won, but then they're still -- RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Yes, we
have to -- we didn't see that in the audits. So we've got to just -- that evidence I haven't seen, so we'll wait and see on that.
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- when it's already decided.
MCDANIEL: It's not decided. This is the key.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do you know.
MCDANIEL: It's not decided.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: So the important thing to point out there is someone in the crowd actually asked the chairwoman why should we vote in this election when it's already been decided. That is the impression that a lot of Republican voters have here in this state because of President Trump's consistent and overwhelming criticism of the way the election was run here. They're in the midst of a third recount of the presidential election.
And Amara, the GOP chairwoman took questions for about ten minutes from these supporters. Every single question was about the election that already took place. There were no questions about the election that is still to come.
There are very few people, including the Republicans here in Georgia, that believe the results of the presidential election are ever going to change. But it demonstrates this tightrope these Republican candidates are forced to walk.
They need the energy and enthusiasm of these Republican supporters that passionately support President Trump. But they also need them to have confidence in the system, and right now it is clear that there's at least a level of angst with these Republican voters. And in a close election, that could be a very serious problem for Republicans here in Georgia, Amara.
WALKER: Very concerning for the Republicans, especially when you hear there on the ground people say why should we turn out if the vote has already been rigged, as the president has been repeatedly saying without any evidence at all.
Ryan Nobles, appreciate you.
Let's discuss all of this with CNN political commentator, David Swerdlick now. David, great to see you.
Let's start in Georgia. And yes, I mean it sounds like the president is not only shooting himself in the foot but the Republican Party. Isn't he going to depress voter turnout with these claims of voter fraud?
And let's say the two Republican candidates, Senators Loeffler and Perdue win the election in January, but the vote was rigged?
DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, great to see you, too, Amara. Happy Thanksgiving.
I think Republicans are fighting an uphill battle in the sense that President Trump himself has undermined so much faith in the process, including in mail-in voting, that Republican officials who are now trying to get their voters focused on these two runoffs are having to, as Ryan just reported, push aside all of the continuing talk about the presidential election to get people to focus on January 5th.
The advantage they have is that both of their candidates in both runoffs are the incumbents. But the disadvantage is that trust on the Republican side in mail-in voting has been eroded by President Trump and you have a situation where you're going to want to get people to go back and be enthusiastic in January when it's cold. They'll either have to vote by mail or go vote when it's sort of at the height of winter.
WALKER: Can you talk a little bit, David, about just how important the turnout is going to be, especially considering the changing demographics that were evident in the presidential election and the fact that Joe Biden won by a razor thin margin here in the state of Georgia?
SWERDLICK: Here's the thing, Amara. Turnout hinges on President Trump in this sense. Democratic turnout in Georgia and elsewhere was particularly high, in part, because there were so many democratic voters motivated to vote Trump out.
On the Republican side, there was enthusiasm because a lot of Republican voters, close to 75 million, wanted four more years of Trump.
Without him on the ballot now, voters are going to have to bear down on these two senate races and decide whether or not they want Democrats to be able to achieve a 50/50 tie, which would give him the de facto senate majority with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote. Or if they want to maintain the Republican control in the Senate and have a divided Congress and have likely less legislation in these first two years of a Biden administration.
WALKER: President Trump says he's going to be here in Georgia next Saturday to campaign for Senators Loeffler and Perdue. There's going to be a rally. Is it going to be people turning out for President Trump or for the candidates? And what does this say in general about President Trump's desire and ability to hold onto his most ardent supporters, even after he leaves office, David?
[11:35:00]
SWERDLICK: So President Trump has been the star of the show for the last four or five years and I think part of the reason he's been so intransigent and expressed so many sour grapes about the results of the presidential election is because he's having a hard time getting his hands around the fact that he won't be the star of the show come January 20th.
So when he goes to Georgia, I expect him and his remarks to make himself the centerpiece, but that may still redound to the benefit those Republican candidates, if for no other reason than it gets Republican voters focused again on going to vote on January 5th.
WALKER: All right. Let's quickly turn to Joe Biden and his transition, David. Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip, he's saying the president-elect hasn't named enough black officials to top posts in his administration.
How should we take his comments? Is that an extra nudge or something more? And you know, we should mention for those of you who don't know, I mean we know Clyburn played a very instrumental role in getting Biden's primary victory in South Carolina.
SWERDLICK: So Congressman Clyburn has standing to make this case. He's the senior most African-American in Congress. His speech, as you said, Amara, in the days before the South Carolina primary, is in my opinion and I think the opinion of a lot of folks, what saved the Biden campaign during the primaries, got him that South Carolina win and propelled him to the Democratic nomination. So if anybody can make this case, he's the one who can do it.
That being said, you have a situation where Biden is now -- he made the ultimate pick of an African-American on his team when he picked now senator, soon to be vice president, Kamala Harris as his running mate.
He has Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield on his team as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations or the nominee for that position. She seems like a pretty safe and standard pick as someone who has been a career diplomat and a career State Department employee.
I would expect to see someone like former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson in some role, but it's unclear whether they're going to make a concerted effort to have a lot of African-Americans in the cabinet or Biden is just simply going to pick the people who he's most comfortable with and he's going to just sort of have to hash this out with Clyburn and others.
WALKER: David Swerdlick, appreciate you joining us. Thank you.
SWERDLICK: Thanks, Amara.
WALKER: All right. Still ahead, a sharp rebuke in Pennsylvania. A judge shoots down President Trump's appeal to throw out votes and now it's headed to the Supreme Court.
But first, it's a place where all are welcome, another powerful season of "THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING" premieres with back-to-back episodes tomorrow night at 9:00 on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA LING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): What would you say young men need most right now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not broken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just need a place to be heard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's big, big money here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go after the traffickers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sheriff's office, come here.
LING: Do you feel nervous about what's going to happen after?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But that's part of life.
LING: Life.
Are your doctors learning from you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unequivocally.
LING: What does it feel like to carry the hopes of all these men?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No more dividing. Stand together as one.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're from different parts of the world, but we've been fighting for the same thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It takes courage to take a stand for what is right in this world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's powerful.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING" back-to-back episodes tomorrow at 9:00 on CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[11:38:43]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALKER: Calling an election unfair does not make it so. That is what a Trump-appointed judge wrote Friday in rejecting the Trump campaign's efforts to undo the certification of votes in Pennsylvania. It is the latest in a growing list of legal defeats for the president, though he has yet to concede the election he lost three weeks ago.
White House reporter Kevin Liptak joining us now with more. Kevin, yet another legal blow to President Trump and his campaign says they're heading to the Supreme Court with this now. How are they expected to fare there?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, it's not even really clear that the Supreme Court will be willing to take up this case. All indications are that the Supreme Court actually wants to stay out of all of this. Even if they did take it up, this appeal that the Trump campaign lost yesterday was structured so narrowly that what they were asking for essentially was the judge to allow them to go back to the district court to make their case there.
Even if the Supreme Court ruled in Trump's favor, all they would be doing is going back to the beginning, essentially, at that district court. Now, that district court is now one of several courts across the country that have not only rejected Trump's claims of voter fraud, but essentially laughed him out of court.
The latest yesterday in Pennsylvania, as you said, this judge was appointed by Trump to sit on that panel. He's saying that ballots decide presidents, not briefs.
Now, the president has said from the very beginning of this, even before the election, that he expected it to end up in the Supreme Court, perhaps thinking that the new conservative majority that he helped put in place there would be more willing to hear his arguments and side in his favorite.
He has looked to the 2000 case that ended up in the Supreme Court that ultimately decided that election for George W. Bush. Of course, these claims that the president are making now are much, much broader. He's asking a lot more of the courts now in this case.
Through this all, the president is continuing his false claims about voter fraud, despite state and local election officials all saying that there's no widespread fraud in the election.
One other official who has said that there was no widespread fraud in the election is Christopher Krebs. He's the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
[11:44:59]
LIPTAK: And remember, Amara, he released a statement after the election saying that the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. After he released that statement, President Trump fired him on Twitter.
And now Krebs is speaking out. He did an interview with "60 Minutes". He said that the president's claims of voter fraud were farcical, that the proof is in the ballots and that Americans should have 100 percent confidence in their vote.
Now, before he was fired, Krebs was telling people around him that he was fully expecting the president to fire him. And in this interview he was asked if he was surprised when word officially came down that he was terminated. Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS KREBS, FORMER DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY: I don't know if I was necessarily surprised. It's not how I wanted to go out. I think I -- the thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn't get a chance to say good-bye to my team. and I had worked with them for three and a half years in the trenches, building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage.
And I loved that team. And I didn't get a chance to say good-bye. So that's what I'm most upset about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIPTAK: So giving a nod to his team there, but also pushing back very hard on these continued false claims that you hear coming from President Trump.
WALKER: Kevin Liptak, appreciate your reporting.
We'll be right back.
[11:46:25]
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WALKER: As COVID-19 cases skyrocket, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to crowd into a jam-packed bar. Still, police say it's happening in secret.
Stephanie Elam with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): From a fight club called the Rumble in the Bronx --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These activities were illegal and sometimes deadly before COVID-19.
ELAM: -- to a warehouse shooting in Los Angeles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Turned out that it was a gathering for a large party.
ELAM: Coast to coast, secret parties busted by cops like this allegedly illegal bottle club with 120 people inside last weekend in New York City where deputies also shut down a swingers club with 80 people inside.
SHERIFF JOSEPH FUCITO, NEW YORK CITY: The best and most pragmatic method for sheriff's deputies to save lives is TO maximize enforcement at these types of dangerous gatherings.
ELAM: In Los Angeles, two warehouse parties in recent months led to two different shootings, exposing a reality that even in a pandemic, people are determined to party. LAPD says many of the warehouses are falsely booked as video shoots.
CAPT. STACY SPELL, LOS ANGELES POLICE: And then the fact they're in industrial areas, you know, oftentimes they don't get the same kind of attention that, you know, it would get in residential areas.
ELAM (on camera): Would LAPD tell these warehouse owners?
SPELL: We ask them to ask more questions, to be more selective. And to try to better identify what the purpose of that is going to be.
ELAM (voice over): the extent of the problem here, unknown. But on the same night of this warehouse shooting two weeks ago --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a big party going on.
ELAM: There were social media posts from this gathering in downtown L.A. And this one posted just last weekend.
The parties are often organized online with no location given until hours before the event. LAPD says in an era of police reform, the department must think hard about sending armed officers to a gathering where no additional crimes are reported.
SPELL: And so in those instances where a response would be more geared towards public health issues or we could direct, you know, unarmed response, you know, through we have partners in the fire department. There are other entities that could better respond to those kinds of things.
ELAM: A curfew in Los Angeles County may have had an impact. We found two separate warehouse parties canceled last weekend just hours before the curfew was to take effect.
In California, raves were held outside in San Bernardino County where the local health department says it approves and monitors them.
But in the cold weather of New York --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Sheriff's office would be concentrating on large-scale gatherings.
ELAM: Authorities have declared the underground party is over.
Stephanie Elam, CNN -- Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[11:53:45]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALKER: Wildfires have scorched more than eight million acres across the country this year, but the season is still not over. Strong winds have led at least one power company in California to proactively shut off power to thousands of customers hoping to reduce the chances of a new fire being sparked. But for those areas trying to recover from one of these devastating fires, the process may have gotten a little easier.
Here's this week's mission ahead. RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The climate crisis is
fueling wildfires that have burned over eight million acres of land in the U.S. this past year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are losing more trees faster than nature can regenerate or humans can regenerate.
CRANE: Typically reintroducing tree growth can take up to three years. Seedlings are first grown in a nursery and planted by hand. But Droneseed hopes its automated seed dropping drones can speed things up.
(on camera): Can you explain what goes into the operations of these missions?
We come in with heavy lift drone swarms (ph). We zip up and down those mountainsides, deploy seed vessels in very targeted and precise locations and make reforestation scalable.
CRANE: Droneseed CEO, Grant Canary says a group of five drones can cover 50 acres in a day. Compared to two acres by a human, seeding land owners up to 50 percent in reforestation costs.
The drones fly preprogrammed routes targeting the best locations for seed drops. But instead of raw seeds, the drones drop proprietary seed vessels packed with everything a seed needs to survive.
[11:59:56]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vessel is a dry fiber so It absorbs moisture. So that helps it avoid drying out which is one of the biggest causes of seed mortality.
CRANE: And unlike seedlings, seed vessels don't need to be buried in the ground.
