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U.S. Hospitalizations Hit Record Saturday; Trump's Legal Losses Pile Up; Iran Accuses Israel of Killing of Top Nuclear Scientist; Americans Ignore Rising COVID-19 Cases; Trump Rhetoric Could Backfire in Georgia Runoffs; Biden Administration Faces Economic Challenges; Anti-Lockdown Protests in London; Denver Broncos Have No Quarterbacks for Today's Game; Sarah Fuller Makes History in College Football. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired November 29, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes. Welcome.

Coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, exploding COVID case numbers in the U.S. filling up the ICUs, crippling small business and forcing many to line up just to eat.

President Trump just playing through, hitting the golf course and blasting out fact-free tweets.

And funeral plans set for a top nuclear scientist, killed on the streets of Iran. His government promising to retaliate.

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HOLMES: Three key words in play right now in the U.S.: disease, desperation and denial.

Let's start with disease: COVID-19 blowing up all across the country. The number of infections since the pandemic began, well, north of 13 million. That's 4 million in November alone.

For 26 straight days, the U.S. reported more than 100,000 new cases. Saturday, the largest number of hospitalizations was reported. Experts warn a surge of infections could be coming.

Now the desperation: small businesses are getting hit at a time of year where they should be making money. Some of the busiest places, food banks, as many Americans are forced to seek help for basic needs. Things could get more desperate next month.

Now to the denial part of this. While all of this is happening, President Trump is working on his golf game. He has done so one out of every five days he has been president; by CNN's count, 20 percent of his time as president.

He's still denying that he lost the infection, spreading more conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

In Wisconsin, President-Elect Joe Biden picked up more votes in the recount that was requested by the Trump campaign. Trump essentially paying $3 million for a bigger loss.

Yet another car on the Trump train of denial has derailed in court. Saturday Pennsylvania's Supreme Court tossed a lawsuit from Republicans seeking to invalidate absentee voting and block vote certification.

The heap of Trump's legal setbacks just keeps getting higher while his chances of actually changing anything get slimmer and slimmer. But his attacks on the system rage on. CNN's Jeremy Diamond with more from Washington.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: When he wasn't on the golf course, President Trump on Saturday continuing to make baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election. The president's focusing his ire this time on the states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two key battleground states that President-Elect Joe Biden recaptured from President Trump in this latest election.

But the president's continued allegations of widespread voter fraud and his conspiracy theories that he's been spreading, they now come against a mounting legal backdrop that is disproving the president's case.

More than 30 cases now brought forward by the president's campaign or their allies have been dismissed in state and federal courts or withdrawn by those legal teams.

The latest blow is coming from a Trump-appointed judge, Judge Stephanos Bibas, writing for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, denying the campaign's appeal to try and decertify the results of the Pennsylvania election, essentially trying to throw out millions of legally cast ballots in that key battleground state.

Judge Bibas wrote, quote, "Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here. The campaign's claims have no merit."

The president is also running into roadblocks on the recount front. After his campaign paid $3 million to have two key counties in the state of Wisconsin conduct recounts, one of those counties, Milwaukee County, certified the results of its election on Friday. And the results of that recount actually found more votes for Joe Biden.

Joe Biden coming up with a 132-vote gain in Milwaukee County after that recount went through.

[00:05:00] DIAMOND: The state of Wisconsin is expected to certify the results of its election Tuesday.

The question is how much longer does the president keep this up?

We know that privately he and his advisers recognize that it is almost impossible for him to overturn the results of this election. But the president has been charging ahead, trying to at least delegitimize this legitimate victory by President-Elect Joe Biden.

One key date that the president's advisers are looking at, that is December 14th. That's when the Electoral College will actually vote for the next President of the United States, locking in President- Elect Joe Biden's victory -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

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HOLMES: There might not be a concession but there is a transition underway. President-Elect Joe Biden will receive his first presidential daily brief on Monday. And he is picking up his coronavirus advisory board. CNN's MJ Lee with the details.

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MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's been a relatively quiet weekend here in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where President-Elect Joe Biden has been spending his Thanksgiving weekend.

But the Biden transition team did announce some additional members serving on its COVID-19 advisory board. One name is Jill Jim, a member of the Navajo Nation, who also serves as the executive director of the Navajo Nation's Department of Health.

One of the reasons this stands out and is so noteworthy is because this is a community that has been especially hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Look at the numbers. Some 6 -- 8,000, rather, 600 cases for every 100,000 people in that community.

This is a community that has had to go on lockdown through around December 6th. Now I will also note that we do expect a pretty busy week coming ahead for the Biden transition team.

On Monday we expect Biden to receive his first presidential daily briefing since he became president-elect. These are classified briefings that have been on hold until the GSA could formally ascertain he had won the election.

We also expect Biden to announce some members of his economic team. One of those names could be Janet Yellen, who is expected to serve as his Treasury Secretary if she is confirmed. We are also expecting some other key appointments, including who's going to be Joe Biden's CIA director and Defense Secretary. Those are more announcements that could be coming in the weeks to come -- MJ Lee, CNN, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: Iran's semi official Fars News Agency says the funeral for the country's top nuclear scientist will take place on Monday. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed on Friday east of Tehran. He was considered one of the masterminds of Iran's nuclear program. He was reportedly targeted by gunfire and a vehicle explosion.

Top Iranian officials accused Israel of being behind the killing and Iran's supreme leader is vowing revenge. Here's more from CNN's Nick Paton Walsh in London.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Theory and rhetoric continuing to escalate this day from the side of Iran after the assassination of their most prominent nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

The supreme leader of Iran said, there are two things on people's to- do lists, swift retaliation against the killers but also to continue his work.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was described as many as essentially the repository, the human being that held all of Iran's nuclear weapon knowhow. Iran publicly says it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon at this time.

But it is publicly saying it is enriching uranium at a faster and more intense rate than they agreed to do under the nuclear deal. Of course, the Trump administration pulled out of that deal, heavily compromising it, putting sanctions on Iran under a policy called maximum pressure, designed to weaken Iran's influence in the region.

Why this assassination?

Well it was exceptionally brazen and embarrassing to Iran to have its security penetrated quite so openly in this attack, in which a Nissan vehicle exploded near the scientist and his security detail, injuring some of them.

Gunshots were then used and many died later in hospital.

Why now?

There is a strong possibility in the months ahead that the administration of President-Elect Joe Biden will seek diplomacy again with Iran. They have made that clear and this is something that hawks in the region and possibly in the current White House wish to prevent.

There have been strong accusations from Iran toward Israel here. President Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Javad Zarif say they suspect Israel for this. They have not provided evidence and Israel has not commented on it at this stage.

[00:10:00] WALSH: But they do have a track record of similar killings and the ability to penetrate Iran's security. So potentially continued logic as to why people will continue to point toward Israel. They would not necessarily like to see renewed rapprochement between the United States and Iran so there's some logic, analysts saying that whoever is behind this assassination, to suggest that peace is somewhat useless.

We'll have to see what the long term impact of this in the weeks ahead. Remember, Iran lost its most prominent military figure, Qasem Soleimani, of the Revolutionary Guard, a key figure in that organization to a U.S. drone strike in January.

Then they promised revenge. That is yet to happen in open fashion. So Iran has said it will choose its time and place to exact revenge against its enemy. We'll have to see if this changes. I would personally suggest it's unlikely and they may be looking towards diplomacy.

But still an act like this in a region already on edge, deeply troubling -- Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

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HOLMES: Karim Sadjadpour is an Iran expert and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment. He joins me from Washington.

Good to see you. Joe Biden has said he would like a U.S. return to the Iran nuclear deal. If Israel was behind the assassination, it could be a reason not just to mess with Iran's nuclear program but to interfere with diplomacy.

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: I think that is certainly a plausibility, Michael. What has happened now is, that by assassinating Iranian's top nuclear scientist, Iran will feel that it has to take revenge in order to not only restore national pride but to restore deterrence.

But how is it going to do that without sabotaging the possibility of a full or partial return to the nuclear deal which is so important for Iran?

Because it's one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. It is not only suffering from economic sanctions but it's been hit hard by the pandemic as well. So Iran is in a very difficult spot in the coming days, weeks and months ahead.

HOLMES: They've got many things to consider. One thing, the killing of such a senior figure clearly exposes internal security.

How embarrassing is this for Iran, their top protected top nuclear expert taken out like this?

A few weeks ago, a top Al Qaeda guy taken out. And in January the assassination of their top military advisor. SADJADPOUR: Well, you put it well. In the last year, four major

global figures, ostensibly protected by the Iranian umbrella, were quite easily assassinated. For a regime like Iran, which really prides itself on being a security state, being a police state, this is deeply, deeply humiliating.

This comes at a time when Iran has been imprisoning innocent academics and environmentalists on charges of being Israeli spies. They can't protect the top figures from Israeli or American assassination. So I think morale must be very low right now in Iran.

And they must be thinking, what else do they know about us?

What other means of our communication have the penetrated?

HOLMES: Good point. Of course not all groups in Iran, all factions have the same calculations.

How does this potentially change the dynamic between Iran's hardliners and moderates?

It's been notoriously fractured.

SADJADPOUR: My view is that, over the last two decades, Iran has being gradually shifting from a country ruled by the clergy, these elderly Shiite clerks, to a country ruled by middle aged military men, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

And I think the more insecurity you introduce into Iran, whether it's assassinations or an escalating nuclear situation or regional crises, like Syria or elsewhere, any type of insecurity plays to the advantage of the security forces within Iran.

At the moment, even though we're talking about 150,000 men who constitute the Revolutionary Guard, there certainly is diversity among them.

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SADJADPOUR: But at the moment, the hardline folks, who are not at all keen on issues like civil liberties or human rights and things like that, are the ones that are firmly in control because they make the argument that this is a time of existential crisis.

HOLMES: You made a good point. Iran has a way up, the pride that might say they need to retaliate and the economic realities, which are a huge part of the calculus, it can't afford financially to make a misstep here.

SADJADPOUR: You're right. Iran's currency reserves are dwindling and its population has really been battered by the sanctions, the mismanagement and the corruption. Throughout the Trump presidency, they were really just waiting for Trump to be elected out of office, with the possibility that they could go back to the nuclear deal with a Democratic American president. As you pointed out at the outset, this is precisely why the Israelis

may have wanted to take this action, to sabotage the possibility of a revival of the Iran nuclear deal. But the brutal reality for Iran is that its dwindling economy and currency reserves simply cannot be reversed if they don't go back to either a full or partial nuclear deal.

HOLMES: If you can summarize, what's going to happen over the next month or so?

SADJADPOUR: I am confident we can avoid war but I am not confident that we can go back to a full nuclear deal, even under a Biden administration.

HOLMES: Plenty of moving parts, Karim Sadjadpour, always good to get you on and take advantage of your expertise. Thank you so much.

SADJADPOUR: Thank you, Michael.

HOLMES: U.S. hospitals are under more pressure than ever in this wave of the pandemic. Coming up on the program, one doctor explains how exhausting it is when people do not take simple steps to guard themselves from the coronavirus.

Plus, we will take a look at the many small businesses fighting for their survival. That's when we come back.

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HOLMES: Health experts in the U.S. are warning that we will see dramatic increases in coronavirus infections and deaths in the coming weeks in the U.S. As we mentioned earlier, the U.S. now recording more than 13.2 million cases and more than 266,000 deaths. Miguel Marquez talks about where the country stands right now.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in New York City and testing sites across the country, people are still being tested. But those lines and the length of time it takes to get tested is going down because we're in the middle of a long holiday weekend.

This is something that epidemiologists expected during the weekends, the numbers sort of go down. The number of cases, the number of deaths, the number of people getting tests, those all go down.

But during the week, they all go up. They expect that same pattern with the long holiday weekend we're in right now.

It is stunning to consider that the U.S., in the last week, has added over a million cases of coronavirus. That is something that used to take weeks, if not months, to get to, not only here in New York when it was horrible in the spring. The numbers are rising, not as fast as South Dakota or Iowa or Texas.

But they are rising and rising everywhere. Doctors and nurses working so hard and epidemiologists who follow this disease fear that Christmas is going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons -- back to you.

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HOLMES: Thank you, Miguel Marquez.

Despite the staggering numbers in the U.S., there is a glimmer of hope. Vaccines, of course, are on the way. On Tuesday, a CDC committee, holding an emergency meeting, to determine who should get the vaccine first, once it is approved. One member of Joe Biden's coronavirus advisory board tells us who is likely to be prioritized.

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DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Certainly health care workers -- so doctors, nurses, who are caring for patients in the hospital including patients with coronavirus -- should very much be among those first receiving the vaccine. And then beyond that, there are other frontline workers, essential

workers, whether that's the people who are working in food and meat processing, people who are the grocery store checkout counter, you know, people who are doing things we can't function without, whether it's with respect to food or drugstores or teachers, for example.

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HOLMES: Marina del Rios Rivera is a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She joins me from Chicago.

Doctor, thank you so much for being with us; 90,000 Americans, more, are in the hospital right now with COVID. It's hard to get your head around that.

Are you worried many Americans still don't understand the risk and, post Thanksgiving, what do you see coming?

DR. MARINA DEL RIOS RIVERA, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO: I really worry that people have just not gotten a complete handle of how serious this is. Yes, I worry that, two weeks from now, our hospitals are going to be more than full to capacity and I worry about the ability of our staff taking care of patients.

HOLMES: I'm curious how you and your colleagues are coping with the mental and physical strain.

How do you prepare yourself for what you're doing now, let alone the next several weeks?

RIVERA: Well, we call each other a lot, try to give each other support.

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RIVERA: I, for myself, I'm very lucky that I have a very supportive family. My husband is very good at equitable division of labor, because I have to admit, after shifts, I'm often just exhausted.

It's not only just the physical exhaustion of being on your feet all the time and running from room to room but also the mental exhaustion of having to deal with people who are so sick all the time.

HOLMES: Exactly. I was talking to an ICU doctor a couple of weeks ago on this program and he spoke of the frustration of what he was seeing, people dying and then going out and seeing people in close quarters in bars and so forth.

You said you're not the front line, you're the last line of defense. I thought that was very salient.

Does it frustrate you to see so many people acting like it's no big deal?

RIVERA: Yes. It's very frustrating. It's caused strains in my personal relationships. There are people I just can't talk to because it's difficult to understand. They've heard me complain of how difficult this job is becoming.

They've heard me with my concerns for, you know, patients that are just so sick and I can't do anything about them and yet, you know, they're still choosing to gather in big groups, to go out to bars, to be in close quarters and to complain because there's mandates for mask wearing and for distancing.

HOLMES: Meanwhile you're wearing a mask 10, 12 hours a day?

RIVERA: Yes, at least a good 10 hours. For my own protection, I've decided that the wise thing to do -- and the hospital has it as policy now -- just wear a mask for every patient encounter regardless of whether we think this person has COVID or not.

We've learned that the percent is so high of positivity. One in 15 people in Chicago is estimated to have COVID right now. So it's better to just be safe and assume everyone might be infected, even if they're asymptomatic.

HOLMES: I've covered wars for half of my career and I'm trying to get my head around the mental stress that you endure every day. You're in a place that has COVID patients. You just don't know when you're going to get it. At the same time, you're watching people die. I mean, that's got to take a toll.

RIVERA: Yes. I have to say, this wave has been difficult because, in the first one, we didn't know what we were dealing with, right, so I think we were still learning how to protect ourselves, how to protect our communities.

Now we know how to protect each other, how we can reduce the spread, the fact that we haven't learned our lesson is -- it really is a cause of a lot of concern and of mental exhaustion. It's more exhausting to deal with that than it is to deal with the sick patient in front of me.

HOLMES: That's well put. One thing about a vaccine, it's not like flicking a switch. It's more of a dimmer.

Are you concerned that the politicization of the pandemic and vaccines will leave people skeptical, reluctant to be vaccinated?

What would you say?

RIVERA: What I worry about is we've had already anti-vaccine rhetoric before COVID.

How many parents are choosing not to immunize their children or even people that are adults already that are refusing to get booster shots for tetanus or for the flu every year?

And so I worry about, just the fact that we have an effective vaccine is not enough. You really have to fight against this anti-vaccine rhetoric that, unfortunately, is part of the culture of American life. With that, also ensuring we're distributing the vaccine equitably and making sure our most marginalized and most affected population are receiving the vaccine.

HOLMES: Powerful messages, eloquently put. Dr. Marina del Rios Rivera, thank you so much for what you do and thank you for speaking with us.

RIVERA: Thanks for giving me the time. And I appreciate your work, too.

HOLMES: Thank you so much.

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HOLMES: We will take a quick break. When we come back, President Trump's endless attacks on election integrity are weighing on Georgia voters. Just ahead, take a look at how his comments could backfire on the GOP.

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HOLMES: Especially in that state's upcoming Senate runoff elections. We'll be right back.

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(MUSIC PLAYING) HOLMES: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and all

around the world, I am Michael Holmes. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and thank you for doing so.

The state of Georgia, now ground zero in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. And Republican strategists and state leaders are getting increasingly worried that Georgia's GOP voters may not turn out to vote in great numbers in the January 5th Senate runoff, specifically because of the party's own baseless attacks on the integrity of the election.

President Trump, on Twitter, trying to find a workaround, saying that everyone "must show up and vote for GOP senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler," even though the election was, quote, "a total scam."

Now of course, that is not true. CNN's Ryan Nobles was in Atlanta for an unusual exchange between the Republican National Committee chairwoman and some Georgia Republican voters.

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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Winning at least one of these races in Georgia is crucial for Republicans. They need to do that if they want to retain the majority in the United States Senate.

But things are off to a bit of a rocky start. On Saturday, the Republican chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, was in Marietta, Georgia. Her goal was to fire up Republicans to get behind David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two candidates running for reelection.

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NOBLES (voice-over): Instead she was peppered for about 20 minutes by Trump supporters demanding that she do more to help Donald Trump overturn the results of the election, not only across the country but specifically here in Georgia. Listen to an exchange during that event.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are we going to use money and work when it's already decided?

RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: It's not decided. This is the key --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know?

MCDANIEL: It's not decided.

If you lose your faith and you don't vote and people walk away, that will decide it. So we have to work hard, trust us, we're fighting, we're looking at every legal avenue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we have to get that word out, because people are losing here.

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NOBLES: You hear that supporter say, "Why should I vote if the election's already been decided?"

McDaniel pleading with these Trump supporters that it hasn't and it's important for them to get out.

But it shows the tightrope Republicans are walking here. They desperately need these Trump supporters to support their candidates. But at the same time, they can't make it seem as though they're not 100 percent behind Donald Trump, even while he works to sow discord and distrust in the election system in Georgia.

Republicans hope, when the voting actually comes around on January 5th, that they will come home and support the Republican candidates. The demographics have changed a lot here in Georgia, as evidenced by the fact that Joe Biden was able to win in November.

The Republicans are hoping that they still have the edge going into the runoff election -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Atlanta.

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HOLMES: Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris; her husband, Doug Emhoff, and Washington D.C., mayor, Muriel Bowser, stopping by the holiday market to support small businesses on Saturday.

While there, Harris bought puzzles, honey and art.

While small businesses have fought for years to survive against online and so-called big bucks competitors, they've also become some of the hardest hit casualties of the pandemic. CNN's Natasha Chen is taking a look at how the pandemic is affecting small business.

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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's never been this much riding on holiday season sales. According to the website, tracktherecovery.org, there's been almost a 29 percent decline in the number of small businesses open in mid November compared to the ones open in January of this year.

While not all businesses are listed on the website Yelp, that website shows that, of the businesses listed open in March, nearly 98,000 of them were listed as closed in September.

So this is a crucial time. A lot of small business owners told me they rely on assistance, including the PPP loan. That includes Bruce Kennedy, the owner of Universal Joint Restaurant here in Lawrenceville, Georgia. They really pivoted to opening up a general store when their restaurant had to be shut down. He said there is still more assistance needed.

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BRUCE KENNEDY, RESTAURANT OWNER: I'm going to tell you, without the PPP, which was the loan that we all got, probably nobody would have made it. That was a big thing that the government did for us. You think what happened in March and April, if that comes back again, tough. It will be really rough for us. And I don't know if we'd make it.

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CHEN: He said he's concerned for himself and his friends who own local businesses if there were to be another set of restrictions or another lockdown because of the current surge in cases. It's a question who would survive that.

The commonality among all the shop owners I've talked to is they have a loyal customer base, who understand, this year more than ever, what it means to shop small -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Lawrenceville, Georgia.

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HOLMES: Catherine Rampell is a CNN economics commentator and "Washington Post" opinion columnist. She joins me from New York.

You look at the landscape: millions unemployed, food lines, hungry Americans.

What are the biggest economic challenges facing the incoming Biden administration?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there are a few worries on the horizon -- or not even on the horizon; present with us right now. COVID cases are rising. That's going to put a damper on the economy.

Beyond that, you have the fact that, even in the past few months, the fragile recovery that we did have seems to be petering out somewhat, maybe stalling. There's some warning signs this month that we may have lost jobs here in the United States in November.

I hope that's not true. We don't know for sure yet but it's quite possible. Beyond that, the federal fiscal relief has been dwindling over the past few months. Program after program has expired.

And Republicans in Congress seem to have no interest whatsoever at this point in putting together a new fiscal relief package, certainly not with a Democrat coming into the White House.

HOLMES: Certainly a lot to walk into on day one. What do you make of his appointments so far when it come to managing

the economy, the picks he's made so far?

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RAMPELL: He hasn't officially announced anyone yet. However, it has been already widely leaked that his Treasury Secretary pick will be Janet Yellen, former chair of the Fed. I think she's an excellent choice for this position, given her talents, her temperament, her experience.

She's led, of course, the most powerful central bank in the world, as well as her values. She has written and spoken extensively about issues like equity and diversity, fairness, things like that, climate change.

So I think she will be a very powerful and qualified pick. It's hard to imagine someone more qualified than she is to take that job.

HOLMES: Right.

RAMPELL: The only downside, of course, is that she does not necessarily have the same sort of political experience that potentially other people might bring to the table, other Treasury Secretaries have had in the past. And she will need to negotiate with Congress over additional fiscal relief.

HOLMES: You look at Donald Trump and he, of course, trumpeted the Dow post election after saying repeatedly a Biden win would lead to a stock market crash. Of course, most Americans don't hold stocks. The vast majority of stocks are held by a small percentage of investors.

We've seen food lines, millions unemployed, the gaps between rich and poor couldn't be more stark. Speak to the economic realities for ordinary people, as the president touts the Dow.

RAMPELL: We're really in a world of two economies right now here in the United States.

You have the stock market doing well; you have white collar, highly educated workers doing well or at least OK. Their savings are quite fat right now, whether because of the stock market or because they're not spending money on travel and recreational activities that they would normally do in a regular economy. They're doing OK.

The rest of the economy, people who are service workers, more likely to be blue collar workers, who can't work remotely, they are not doing OK. They're down millions and millions of jobs.

Small businesses, likewise, have shuttered in droves. The real question is how many of those will be permanently closed, even when there is a vaccine that's widely distributed. The economy kind of just went into a coma for so many months. So again, it's this tale of two economies here.

HOLMES: I was going to say, there's one thing that all of this has shown is those two economies, have just been laid bare.

Once the inauguration is done and Joe Biden is president, I'm curious -- I think I know the answer.

Are we likely to see Republicans all of a sudden rediscover their fiscal conservatism, debt is outrageous, needs to be urgently dealt with, that, of course, skyrocketed under President Trump? RAMPELL: Oh, they already have suddenly discovered, rediscovered their fiscal hawkishness, despite the fact that they passed a $2 trillion unfunded tax cut when the economy was perfectly fine and the fact that they spent loads of money in additional federal spending even before COVID.

COVID has run up the bill as well in the last six to eight months. But even before that, the debt went up because of -- beyond what it would have been previously tracked to do, because of the tax cuts and additional spending.

But all of a sudden, you see Republicans remembering, oh, right, we're supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility, which I fear may be an excuse to withhold that lifeline to small businesses, to households who need assistance paying their rent, avoiding eviction and foreclosure, putting food on the table.

HOLMES: Which would be outrageous, having put it off. Catherine, good to see you.

RAMPELL: Good to be here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Now London saw multiple protests on Saturday over coronavirus restrictions and vaccines. Things got quite tense with police, with dozens of people arrested. We will bring you that.

Also, a protest in Paris, taking a much more violent turn. The demonstrators weren't marching against lockdowns or anything of that sort but rather police brutality. How it all came to this, just ahead.

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HOLMES: Police in London arresting more than 150 people during protests on Saturday. Some groups protesting lockdown measures. Others were marching against the COVID vaccine. Charges include breaching coronavirus regulations, assaulting a police officer and possession of drugs. England's lockdown is set to end on Wednesday.

Recent coronavirus restrictions across western Europe do appear to be having an impact. Let me show you a map that shows you the trend of new cases from last week to this week.

The countries in green have a lower case count compared to last week. The count in France alone dropping by more than 50 percent.

Here is a look at new cases, on a per capita basis, since the start of August. You can see all of these countries, except for Germany, have been dropping these past few weeks. The number in Germany, holding steady.

On the day France started to ease some coronavirus restrictions, more than 130,000 people took to streets across the country, sometimes violently clashing with police. In Paris, some protesters put up barricades, as you can, starting fires while police were seen firing tear gas.

It began as a peaceful march against the controversial security bill. That bill would make it illegal to film and publish images of police officers in certain circumstances. Now critics of the bill say that this will prevent journalists from reporting on police brutality. CNN's Melissa Bell explains.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a protest against the global security bill currently before the French parliament. Already it had attracted a great deal of controversy as it went before the national assembly because, essentially, one of its provisions would make it a punishable offense to publish pictures of police men with the intent to cause them harm.

That was already the subject of a great deal of controversy. Then this week, two separate investigations opened into allegations of police brutality, have further fed the anger that led to the crowds here today.

The bill so far has passed the national assembly. It should be before the Senate in December.

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HOLMES: We are taking a quick break. When we come, back Sunday pro football could look a little different in the U.S. this weekend, at least for one team. Why that team may have to play without a regular quarterback. They have three of them and all of them are out. We explain when we come back.

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HOLMES: NFL coronavirus protocols could leave one of its pro football teams in quite a predicament on Sunday. That is, with no regular quarterback. All three of the Denver Broncos' eligible quarterbacks were regarded as high-risk after close contact with a teammate who tested positive on Thursday.

So those players were deemed ineligible for Sunday's game. The team has called up three players from its practice squad but it's unclear who will play quarterback. Tight end Noah Fant took to Twitter to vent his frustration over the

decision, saying, quote, "I am not one to complain but @NFL, y'all can't possibly send us into a game without a QB."

Looks like it will happen.

And the San Francisco 49ers, looking for a new home, at least for three weeks. Santa Clara County has temporarily banned professional and college contact sports because of the surge in cases. The 49ers stadium and practice facility are both in that county.

The team has two home games scheduled over the next few weeks; the restrictions, also impacting both Stanford and San Jose State Universities.

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HOLMES: We did see a historic moment for college football this weekend and American society as well. Vanderbilt University's Sarah Fuller, breaking down barriers with an unprecedented kickoff.

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HOLMES (voice-over): She became the first woman to play in a Power 5 football game, the Power 5 is the best of the best, the five strongest conferences in U.S. college football.

She made history when she appeared in the game against the Missouri Tigers and kicked off to open the second half. Fuller had a message for those who might follow in her footsteps with a sticker on the back of her helmet that read, "Play like a girl."

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SARAH FULLER, VANDERBILT COMMODORES KICKER: Honestly, it's just so exciting. The fact that I can represent the little girls out there who have wanted to do this or thought about playing football or any sport, really, it encourages them to be able to step out and do something big like this. It's awesome.

I just want to tell all the girls out there that you can do anything you set your mind to. Like you really can. If you have that mentality all the way through, you can do big things.

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HOLMES: Fuller is a goalkeeper for Vanderbilt's women's soccer team, a good one by the way, and she got her shot at football after several players were ruled out due to COVID-19 contact tracing. And she made the best of the opportunity, as you saw.

A monolith was discovered in a remote Utah desert last week. The story became an international hit. You may have seen it on social media. The thing is, it is a mystery as to who put it, there and why. An alien?

An artist? Now the mystery is who removed it. Public safety officials in Utah saying, quote, "The illegally installed structure was removed by an unknown party sometime on Friday evening."

They insist they are not the ones who took it down. Could be a sculpture Banksy.

Thanks for being with me, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes. CNN special, "Superheroes," up next. For everyone else, stay with me, I'll be back with more news after the break.