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Trump's Legal Losses Pile Up; U.S. Hospitalizations Hit Record Saturday; Trump Rhetoric Could Backfire In Georgia Runoffs; Biden And Harris To Get First Presidential Daily Brief Monday; Anti-Lockdown Protests In London; Germany Tightening Restrictions With New Wave; Iran Accuses Israel Of Killing Of Top Nuclear Scientist; Conflict In Ethiopia's Tigray Region. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired November 29, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): More Americans than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19 and the situation could soon get a lot worse.
Donald Trump and his allies rack up another loss in court.
Meantime, Republicans are facing a new problem because of the president's lies about the election.
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RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: It's not decided. If you lose your faith and you don't vote and people walk away, that will decide it.
NEWTON (voice-over): The chair of the Republican Party is trying to convince Republicans in Georgia that the upcoming runoff election is not rigged. Control of the Senate hangs in the balance.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Paula Newton and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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NEWTON: So Sunday will be a peak travel day in the United States with about 1 million Americans flying home after the Thanksgiving holiday. Health experts fear it will lead to a disastrous rise in COVID cases in the weeks ahead.
Hospitals already are getting overwhelmed with COVID patients. A record 91,000 Americans now at this hour being treated in medical facilities right across the country.
But as the nation struggles with the pandemic and high unemployment, President Trump, you can kind of see him there, golfing during the crisis. And when he's not golfing, he's tweeting out falsehoods about the election he loss.
So far the courts have rejected almost every one of his legal challenges for being without facts, evidence or merit.
With the December holidays approaching and COVID cases skyrocketing, medical experts warn a catastrophe is almost inevitable at this point; 13.2 million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 since March. Nearly one-third of the cases, more than 4 million people, have tested positive in the last month.
We get more from CNN's Miguel Marquez in New York.
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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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NEWTON: Miguel Marquez there.
On the vaccine front, a CDC committee is expected to decide on Tuesday who will receive the very first doses. And that's once the vaccine gets clearance. Now Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of the U.S. president-elect's coronavirus advisory board, explains who she believes should get first priority.
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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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NEWTON: A recent poll finds 58 percent of Americans say they would be willing to get vaccinated right now at no cost. That's up from 50 percent in mid-September. A former U.S. Congress man is floating the idea of paying Americans to take the vaccine, which would keep Americans from the virus from spreading. CNN's medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner explains why he thinks it could work.
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DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: If you look at our experience, trying to get people to wear masks, we tried altruism, protect your neighbors. That didn't work. More recently we tried to get people to protect themselves. That doesn't seem to work.
So maybe money works. I'm all about paying people to do the right thing. Sure, so many people in this country are hurting financially. They need stimulus. They need some stimulus money. Get vaccinated, send the government your receipt and get paid. I'm OK with that. Let's do that.
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NEWTON: Dr. Peter Drobac is an infectious disease and global health expert at University of Oxford in England.
Good to see you. You just heard Miguel. Obviously the case count has been staggering in the United States. I have to say, unlike the first wave here, there is nowhere to hide in the United States. The issue here, the key metric to look at, is what is going on in hospitals.
And what is your worst fear about hospitals right now and what they face in the coming weeks?
DR. PETER DROBAC, INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD: Thank you for having me, Paula. It's grim and it's going to get really, really bad. Hospitals are already struggling with the tide of COVID-19 patients, on the top of what's always busy in the winter.
But they're about to be hit with a tidal wave. This weekend, Thanksgiving, is a national superspreader event. Millions traveling, gathering, households together. All of these little transmission events are going to turbo charge what's happening right now as we approach Christmas. We're going to be in a situation where ambulances are driving around,
trying to find a hospital that can take their patient; doctors are having to make horrible decisions about which of two patients can get the last ventilator; where PPE shortages are going to cause more doctors and nurses to be out sick.
It's going to be horrible. All that's going to drive the death rate up to levels that, unfortunately, we haven't even seen yet. It's hard to contemplate.
NEWTON: It's a key point. We've been hearing from professionals like you for so long that we cannot do our best if we are inundated and flooded with patients all at once.
I do want to talk about the situation in Europe where you are right now. Those countries have announced that they will ease some restrictions for Christmas. It has to be said that they have flattened -- haven't flattened the curve; they have in some sense been able to bend it a little bit.
Do you think lifting any of those restrictions for Christmas is a good idea?
DROBAC: Yes, there's some modest but hard-won gains in Europe. Many countries have now been through it, like here in the U.K., brief, soft lockdowns. We've seen some progress.
I understand the sentiment. Everyone's desperate to see their loved ones over the holiday period. Governments are afraid, if they tell people to stay home, they'll go out and flout the rules.
The reality is that kind of mixing is going to cause a rise in transmission again. My perspective is that we are so close, we've seen positive news about three vaccines. People are going to start getting vaccinated potentially in the next couple of months.
By next year, by next Thanksgiving or next Christmas, next holiday season, the most vulnerable people in a lot of the these countries are going to have been vaccinated.
Let's make sure they're all still around to enjoy those holidays. So I'd rather keep our foot on the gas pedal and have to understand we need to celebrate differently this year in order to make sure that we can make it through.
NEWTON: It really is a shame, Doctor, that something that is supposed to be such a joyous, restorative moment for so many families may turn out to end up in tragedy by January or February.
Before I let you go, I do want to try and harp on this a little bit. When this pandemic started, we were told that therapeutics, drugs that we could be treated with, that would mean that the disease wouldn't progress severely, would be in the offing.
And yet how do you think we're doing now, getting towards the end of the year? The death rates in both Europe and the United States still seem to be frightening.
DROBAC: Yes, the death rates are high. The number of deaths are high because the number of cases is so high. The actual fatality rate, the number of all the infected people who die has gone down significantly.
That's because we've learned a lot. We've learned, with drugs like dexamethasone, those can reduce mortality by 50 percent. Anti- coagulation, some of the ventilation techniques, all this hard-earned knowledge over the last year has really driven down the fatality rates.
Unfortunately, when we see cases spreading in an uncontrolled fashion, that's just not going to be good enough.
NEWTON: Not good enough indeed. As you said, some progress on the actual rate of mortality but some people, unfortunately, it is going to be eye-watering to see some of those numbers in the weeks to come.
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NEWTON: Dr. Peter Drobac, University of Oxford, thank you so much.
DROBAC: Thank you.
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NEWTON: Meantime, Colorado's governor is the latest political leader to catch the coronavirus. Both he and his spouse tested positive but are asymptomatic according to the governor's office. The governor will be working remotely at home and he will continue to monitor his health.
He's asking Coloradans to limit their time in public, wear a mask and stay, of course, six feet away from each other.
Still to come --
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NEWTON (voice-over): Britons angry over COVID restrictions to demand their freedom back. We're live in a tense, technically locked-down London.
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NEWTON (voice-over): And President Trump's rhetoric on conspiracy theories could hurt Republicans in a couple key Senate runoffs. We'll explain after the break.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) NEWTON: The barrage of legal challenges President Trump has launched
to overturn his election loss continue to fall one by one. Judges hearing the cases have been incredulous that none of the claims of fraud are backed up by any evidence.
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NEWTON: But that doesn't stop the president from pursuing and spreading some wild conspiracy theories. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is at the White House.
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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. 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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NEWTON: Now the state of Georgia now is ground zero in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. Republican strategists and state leaders are getting increasingly worried that Georgia's GOP voters may not turn out to vote in the January 5th Senate runoffs there specifically because of the party's own baseless attacks on the integrity of the election.
President Trump on Twitter, trying to find some kind of a workaround. He was telling supporters that, in his words, they must show up and vote for GOP senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, even though the election was a, quote, "total scam."
Of course, that isn't true. CNN's Ryan Nobles was in Atlanta for an unusual exchange between the Republican National Committee chairwoman and some 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.
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?
MCDANIEL: 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. (END VIDEO CLIP)
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.
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NOBLES: The Republicans are hoping that they still have the edge going into the runoff election -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Atlanta.
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NEWTON: Leslie Vinjamuri is the director of the U.S. and the Americas Programme at Chatham House and joins me now live from London.
Ronna McDaniel, she so typifies the impossible situation President Trump has put the Republican National Committee in, especially that chairwoman. Not to be missed, she is senator Mitt Romney's niece, one of the most vocal opponents of the Republican Party to the president.
She is now in a position to almost have to plead with voters, saying, trust us, we're fighting with you.
And yet the voters are saying, trust what?
You told us the election is rigged.
LESLIE VINJAMURI, DIRECTOR OF THE U.S. AND THE AMERICAS PROGRAMME, CHATHAM HOUSE: Thank you for having me, Paula.
I think you pointed out exactly the dilemma. We've seen the polling. By some polls, more than 70 percent of Republicans across the country feel like the elections haven't been legitimate, that there has been fraud. That makes it difficult to get people to turn out and vote.
The backlash against Donald Trump's own rhetoric, his own Twitter feed, is turning out. I think one of the questions in Georgia, as we lead up to -- remember, that race is very crucial for who holds the Senate. That matters for what policies the next president, President- Elect Biden, will be able to get through. So it's an absolutely critical race for the state, for the country.
And one real dilemma is how much will President Trump need to turn up to really persuade his base to vote?
He's seen as being very critical for getting people to vote. But there have been a number of people who have said, in Georgia in particular, there's also a dilemma, which is that, when people from outside of the state campaign, it sometimes has a negative effect.
So the difficulties in persuading voters within the state, Republican voters, to turn up when they think the results aren't credible, who do you send to the state to help out?
Those are really challenging questions for the Republican Party. But I think the broader point is the critical one for the nation, which is that, as the president continues to sow discord, to sow doubt, to -- despite the more than 30 legal challenges that simply haven't held up in the courts, no evidence; the judges have turned them away -- he continues to contest the election result.
And it looks like it's going to have some negative effects for his own party.
NEWTON: Yes, and not just negative effects for his own party because, when you look at it, you could be talking in excess of 50 million or 60 million people in the United States, according to polls, who believe that Biden somehow won in some illegitimate way, even though there's no proof of that.
If you are President-Elect Biden, how do you begin to compromise with the GOP, who believes that, look, most people in our party don't even believe you're the legitimate president?
VINJAMURI: Well, I think that President-Elect Biden sees this as his number one priority. This was even before the elections took place. It was clear that America is divided, has been divided, that we need to build bridges across people, across the rural and urban communities, across Democrats and Republicans, across any number of divides.
I think it's been very clear to Biden. So he will take that on board. What we will see is that a president, who is very constrained by the need to respond to the deep crisis of the pandemic, the economic crisis but who is going to be really taking on board this priority, which is, you can't get anything through Congress but you also can't get the electorate to really support these policies.
And it's really information, disinformation and building those bridges, which will be critical to his ability to govern. For those watching this from around the world, from outside the United States, it's clearly the most distressing part of an election that many people across the world are pleased with the results.
But they're very concerned at how close the vote was. Even with 80 million votes, the fact that Donald Trump received more than 70 million and is contesting the election causes a lot of concern across the rest of the world.
NEWTON: Yes, absolutely, because they certainly want a strong American government to go forward at this point in time. Leslie Vinjamuri from Chatham House in London, thank you for your insights.
VINJAMURI: Thank you.
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NEWTON: So there might not be a concession but there is a transition underway. President-Elect Joe Biden will receive his first presidential daily briefing on Monday. And he's beefing up his coronavirus advisory board. We get more now from CNN's M.J. Lee.
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M.J. 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 -- M.J. Lee, CNN, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
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NEWTON: Up next, chants become shouts and protests turn into scuffles. We'll tell you why London police arrested more than 150 people during anti-lockdown demonstrations. Plus outrage in Iran after the killing of a top nuclear scientist. How
the death could be a major obstacle for Joe Biden's Iran policy. That's ahead.
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NEWTON: Welcome back to you viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Paula Newton. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
England is technically under a national lockdown right now. But take a look at the scene in London Saturday.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Protesters took to the streets to register their anger over the coronavirus restrictions but it wasn't altogether peaceful. Metropolitan Police say they arrested more than 150 people for various offenses, including defying a ban on protests during the pandemic.
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NEWTON: Scott McLean that has the latest on the protests from London and Jim Bittermann is outside Paris for us with more on Europe's fight against COVID-19.
We go to you, Scott. A lot of emotion on the streets. I get the idea that it wasn't a very large protest, even though they did end up clashing with police.
What's at issue there right now?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. At first glance the timing of this seems odd. The lockdown restrictions are set to end on Wednesday. But that doesn't mean there will be no restrictions at all after that.
In fact, the country will be divided into counties and they'll each have their unique set of restrictions under a tier system. And the vast majority of places, well, you won't be allowed to socialize with people outside of your own household indoors.
The protest was organized by a group called Save Our Rights U.K. It was created in response to the pandemic. Fundamentally, they believe that the lockdown restrictions or the coronavirus restrictions have been unreasonable and disproportionate and without enough parliamentary oversight after lawmakers conceded control to the government to make their own rules without consulting them.
The London police made clear before the protest started that they believed it was illegal; the protesters, the organizers, they thought they were covered under a loophole. But legalities aside, the bottom line is when you look at that video, there wasn't a lot of social distancing. There were very few masks being worn by any of the protesters. You could hear them in the video chanting, "Freedom." There were some clashes with police and as you said, more than 150 people were arrested.
And that is quite rare in this country, because police have taken a pretty lax approach to enforcing the actual rules. It seems you have to try pretty hard to get fined or to get a ticket.
Case in point, if you had to walk yesterday down the Thames River front, you would see people openly in violation of restrictions. Even if police were there enforcing, the rule is they have pledged to engage, explain, encourage and only fine people as a very last resort.
So essentially, you are free to flout the rules with very little fear of any consequences in this country. If there is good news, Paula, it's that, despite the many people who seem to be oblivious to the rules, there seem to be enough people following them to start to bring the case count down, which, obviously, is a good sign.
NEWTON: Yes. No crushing the curve in Britain but at least they are bending it. Scott, appreciate that.
Now to Jim Bittermann outside Paris, where certain shops considered nonessential reopen for the first time in weeks on Saturday.
It is just in time for that all-important holiday shopping season.
I mean, how are people in France greeting this, with a sense of relief or a lot of caution?
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I would say relief. In fact, there were long lines outside some stores over the weekend, as people were lining up to try to get in there and do their Christmas shopping early.
I must say the shopkeepers definitely are relieved about it. Some of them depend on Christmas sales a month before Christmas for sometimes up to 20 percent of their overall turnover.
So, in fact, yes, it's definitely a relief all around. These are just small measures, however. The other measure was that houses of worship can be open. But the curfew and other restrictions remain in place until December 15th, when President Macron says they'll be reevaluated on the number of cases taking place and to see if any kind of restriction can be eased a little bit further.
In fact, the numbers are going the right direction. The overnight numbers in France indicated the number of ICU beds are down and the growth rate and number of cases is going down.
Elsewhere in Europe, there have been protests against restrictions in Eastern Germany, which leap over the border into Poland.
[04:35:00] BITTERMANN: Basically, a couple of hot spots in Germany and that part of Eastern Germany and Bavaria. The government says restrictions will remain in place until at least December 20th.
Basically governments everywhere are trying to figure out, grappling how to deal with the Christmas holidays. They want to avoid at all costs a third wave and a third series of lockdowns. So the governments are trying to figure this out.
The French government, for example, is going to lift the curfew here on Christmas Eve. The German government is considering some kinds of restrictions being eased around Christmas time. So just trying to figure out what they can do to help make things better, not only socially but also economically around the Christmas period.
And, of course, that all-time, sort of the kind of traditional favorite holiday for many Europeans that go skiing. And there again, a little bit of confusion the way the approaches are being made. Switzerland is letting skiing go ahead. But Germany's saying no skiing until next January.
And in France, even more confusing. They've said the ski slopes can be open but not the ski lifts. So I guess, Paula, you can strap on your skis, go downhill once and struggle your way to the top.
NEWTON: So many things I thought I would never hear during this pandemic, Jim. And that is yet another one. Jim, really appreciate you giving us the outlook in Europe. Thanks so much.
It's no secret that businesses have been hit hard by the pandemic. Later in the show, small business owners worried about lockdowns and desperate for more assistance.
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NEWTON: The killing of Iran's chief nuclear scientist is sparking fury in Tehran. Demonstrators torched U.S. and Israeli flags on Saturday. Iran is directly blaming Israel for killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
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NEWTON: But as CNN's Alex Marquardt explains, Iran faces a delicate political choice in how it responds.
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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Iran is saying it will avenge the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and is pointing the finger squarely at Israel for carrying out this attack.
A list of actors who could mount such a brazen, well-coordinated killing of one of Iran's biggest scientific figures in broad daylight is quite short. Israel is neither confirming nor denying any role.
The Trump administration for its part is being very quiet. The question now is how or whether Iran responds.
That the attackers were able to reach into Iran and take out the country's senior-most nuclear scientist is very embarrassing for them. It comes almost 11 months after the United States killed Iran's most famous military commander, Qasem Soleimani, in an airstrike.
There's been no major reaction to that either. So there is pressure on them to respond. If Iran were to respond in a significant way against U.S. or Israeli targets in the region, for example, it could set something off.
At the same time, Iran knows Joe Biden is about to become president and he wants to engage with them. He wants the U.S. to get back into the nuclear deal, to ease sanctions and the maximum pressure campaign of the Trump administration. So Iran could hold off. Meanwhile,
Israeli president prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees the clock ticking down on the Trump administration and knows that he will have less leeway with a President Biden when he's sworn in.
Biden is not eager to inherit a war with Iran and is almost certainly hoping things will be calm when he's sworn in in January so there can be a fresh start -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
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NEWTON: For more I'm joined Sanam Vakil in London, the deputy head and senior research fellow on the Middle East at Chatham House.
Nice of you to be here to try and parse this. It has been very interesting to see the fallout. I'm sure there's still more to come. There's no question that this has been humiliating for Iran. And yet far from de-escalating the situation, this might actually make Iran more dangerous.
If you're the Biden administration, how do you handle this going forward?
SANAM VAKIL, DEPUTY HEAD AND SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW ON THE MIDDLE EAST, CHATHAM HOUSE: Thank you for having me, Paula. It's a very important question. The Biden administration, it's sort of cautiously trying to design a strategy on how to re-engage Iran after the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign, that was directed to sanctioning Iran into new negotiations.
In the climate of this latest assassination attempt, of Iran's foremost nuclear scientist, this is going to make things much harder. I think there is an opportunity, though, for the Biden administration, of course, to work with its allies in Europe, the European countries that have tried to hold together the deal, to message the Iranians, to call for calm and wait for a proper statement with regard to how they plan to re-enter the Iran nuclear agreement and use that forum to air grievances and manage Iran's return to compliance in exchange for the Biden administration's return to compliance.
NEWTON: And while the Biden administration already has said that they're determined for this to go that way, is it really possible to go back to a nuclear deal that is now five years old?
It's aging poorly; of course, it has to be reframed.
But now that Israel is opposed to the deal and has really gotten ammunition after the last four years with Donald Trump, how can they possibly evolve this relationship, especially when they do have to appease Israel as well?
VAKIL: It is possible to go back to the deal. And actually, most of the signatories of the deal think that returning to the deal is the first step. By returning to the deal, you try to build back some trust.
And you see Iran return to compliance, which is of foremost interest to the international community, including to the Israelis.
Then over time, with a bit of confidence, you can broaden the spectrum of negotiations and try to address some of the deal's deficiencies, which, of course, are the timelines of the deal, the fact that the deal didn't address Iran's missile program or role in the region.
But that's going to require sustained international investment and it's also going to require Israeli engagement. So they're going to have to be a party to whatever comes next in this sort of covert action. It doesn't bode well for its early relationship with the Biden administration. I think it will make things quite tense for them.
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NEWTON: That was Sanam Vakil joining me earlier from London.
[04:45:00]
NEWTON: Ethiopia is claiming a key victory in the northern Tigray region after weeks of conflict there but details are difficult to confirm due to a communication blackout. Our senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir has been tracking the latest developments from London.
Nima, two things to update here. Obviously to see what's going on with the conflict, especially considering what the Ethiopian government is now claiming. But also I am still struck by the terror that so many have escaped there and what's happened to all of them.
NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just really heartbreaking stories, Paula, that are starting to come out from civilians, who fled at the beginning of that bombardment yesterday.
Our team on the ground said they spoke to a woman who was forced to give birth on those desert roads between Mekelle and the Sudanese border. And she's one of the lucky ones because she was able to escape.
There are so many, she tells us, who were forced to remain in Mekelle. We can't confirm the stories. The Ethiopian government will not give journalists access but also access for aid groups. That's having horrible ramifications on the ground.
There are 96,000, almost 100,000 refugees stuck in camps in one region with only one or two days' worth of food supplies left. They say they're having difficulty reaching colleagues in the Ethiopian capital.
If the Ethiopian government is serious about opening up a humanitarian corridor, first, they have to allow by assessment by aid groups but also by journalists.
NEWTON: Yes. That's something they have not allowed so far.
In terms of what's at stake there in the Horn of Africa, can you kind of give us some context to it, especially considering that the Tigrayan liberation front, they are still a player in the region and will continue to be?
ELBAGIR: There is a lot of fear among security sources we speak to that the Tigrayan liberation front will find ways to come across that porous border into Sudan, that they could potentially start using that stretch of border in South Sudan and Sudan with Ethiopia as a staging ground.
In addition to the fact that Eritrea has suffered multiple rocket attacks according to Reuters speaking to U.S. diplomats in the capital, from the Tigray People's Liberation Front, they have basically disappeared. None of us have been able to get in touch with any of the contacts within the TPLF.
The Ethiopian government says they're in the process of hunting them down but hasn't shown any evidence of success. There's a real worry that this incredibly shaky region will be further destabilized, especially as Sudan is going through its own fragile transition phase.
And we see the worries reflected from the comments from President- Elect Joe Biden's transition team. His National Security Council's Jake Sullivan has been tweeting and saying, we need dialogue. The African Union needs to come in. But the Ethiopian government for now is refusing to engage in any overtures of dialogue.
NEWTON: And there's certainly no sign the Trump administration is about to get involved. In fact, Mike Pompeo seems to be siding with the federal forces. Nima Elbagir, thank you. We appreciate it.
ELBAGIR: Thank you.
NEWTON: After the break, small business owners hoping for a holiday miracle: just stay open.
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NEWTON: Small businesses have fought for years to survive against online and so-called big box competitors. They've also become some of the hardest hit casualties of the coronavirus pandemic. CNN's Natasha Chen looks at how they're struggling to survive.
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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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NEWTON: So there is something good that may have come from this COVID crisis. It's actually led to a historic first in U.S. college football and especially for Sarah Fuller.
When some players on Vanderbilt University's men's team quarantined because of coronavirus, Fuller got the call to play against the Missouri Tigers. She made the opening kickoff in the second half. The 21-year old is the first woman to play in a Power 5 football game, which includes the five strongest conferences in U.S. college ball. Fuller had this message.
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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.
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FULLER: 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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NEWTON: Indeed. Fuller even put a sticker on the back of her helmet that reads "Play Like a Girl." She also tends goal for the women's soccer team at Vanderbilt and she has clearly made the best of her opportunities.
One final note for us, the man behind the mask of one of the greatest cinematic villains has died. You never saw his face or heard his voice but the presence of David Prowse as Darth Vader commanded the screen from the moment he appeared in the very first "Star Wars" movie. He played the Sith lord in the original trilogy.
Of course, it was another actor, James Earl Jones, who did the voice, telling Luke Skywalker, "No, I am your father."
Prowse had an acting career that stretched decades. But he said his favorite role was as the Green Cross code man, part of a British safety campaign in the mid '70s. Mark Hamill played Luke Skywalker. A short time ago, he tweeted a list of Prowse's other accomplishments, noting, "He loved his fans as much as they loved him."
What a fitting tribute. David Prowse was 85.
Well, that does it for us here at CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Newton. Viewers in the United States, stay with us for "NEW DAY" Sunday. It's straight ahead. International viewers, "AFRICA AVANT-GARDE" is next.
