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CNN Exclusive: COVID, What Did China Know And When?; Assassination Of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh: What Now, Iran?; Immunizing America: Logistics And Public Confidence; U.S. COVID Cases: A Day Makes No Difference, Numbers Are Up; Trump Sees Writing on the Wall; COVID-19 Drives a Wedge between OPEC Plus Countries; Violence Against Women Has Escalated During Pandemic; F1 Driver Hails Safety Technology for Saving His Life. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired December 01, 2020 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:00]
PAULA NEWTON, ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello, everyone, I'm Paula Newton. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM live from studio seven at CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta.
Ahead this hour. Not one but two vaccine makers now applying for emergency use in the United States. And with record hospitalizations in this country, help can't come soon enough.
A CNN exclusive revealing documents that show what China really knew about its first cases of coronavirus and its chaotic early response.
Plus Iran's remarkable assassination claims. Could a remote- controlled machine gun really have taken out its top nuclear scientist?
So we are a step closer -- thank goodness -- to getting a coronavirus vaccine, at least for emergency use in the United States. And, of course, it just can't come soon enough, can it?
As the toll of the pandemic intensifies, the number of global cases has now surpassed 63 million and the death toll, tragically, nearly one-and-a-half million.
Now in the United States, COVID records are being smashed on a daily basis. At this hour, more than 96,000 COVID patients are hospitalized, the most ever.
And the United States has now topped 100,000 new infections a day for 28 consecutive days.
Now Dr. Anthony Fauci talked about the spike with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES:. The slope has done this. It's on an increment that is almost exponential which is a really dangerous situation to be in. Particularly as we get deeper and deeper into the cold months of the winter and we have the Christmas holiday coming up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: And so you listen to Dr. Fauci, but then meantime an extremely controversial member of Donald Trump's coronavirus tax force has resigned. Doctor Scott Atlas was a close advisor to the U.S. president and was known for his discredited theories.
Now on the vaccine front, more signs of progress. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has scheduled a meeting for December 17th to rule on whether to grant emergency use authorization for a second vaccine.
Now Moderna applied for that approval Monday and Pfizer did so on November 20th.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: As soon as the approval is granted, it's an authorization, then we have to await the ACIP -- which is the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices -- recommendation in terms of prioritization for immunization, which we hope will take almost simultaneously to the authorization by the FDA.
Then immediately shipments can start. Within 24 hours, the vaccines will be at the addresses that each state health agency will have indicated to us, to ship a certain amount of vaccine doses there.
And I assume that day or the next day the first immunization can take place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: So you just heard the chief of Operation Warp Speed say that CDC Advisory Committee is holding an emergency meeting in the coming hours to vote on which Americans should get first access to a vaccine once one is approved.
Health care workers and nursing home residents are expected to be at the top of the list.
A U.S. Government official says a vaccine should be widely available to all Americans who want one by June.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. GEN. PAUL OSTROWSKI, DIRECTOR OF SUPPLY, PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION FOR OPERATION WARP SPEED: A hundred percent of Americans that want the vaccine will have the vaccine by that point in time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: But that's if everything goes well and the vaccines are approved quickly. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We're sort of presenting a scenario where everything goes as people hope it will.
They have to manufacture this vaccine, they have to distribute it. We've talked about how difficult distribution is, for example, with cold storage.
But even manufacturing at this sort of scale. It's got to go through all these safety checks before it's actually released. If there's a problem with a batch, then all of a sudden that timeline could actually get delayed a bit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Now another issue, of course, is whether Americans will believe that any quickly approve vaccine is actually safe.
[01:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. RICHARD BESSER, PRESIDENT & CEO, ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION: The country is really divided on that.
There are those of us who are eager to get vaccinated with a safe and effective vaccine as soon as it is approved, and then there are large portions of society that are skeptical, that are worried.
Now the next couple of weeks when these meetings are held, the meetings of the FDA and their advisory committee are critically important in terms of trust.
And without trust, we could have affective vaccines which large portions of the population don't want to get and that would be a tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: But as Dr. Fauci puts it, he says if you want to be part of the solution, get vaccinated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: If you really want to be free of the threat of COVID-19, this is a global problem with a global solution which means we must be able as a global community to vaccinate the entire world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: To England now, and the second national lockdown ends, in fact, on Wednesday.
And this week parliament is expected to vote on a set of controversial tiered restrictions for another lockdown. Now on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson toured a plant which can
reportedly produce 300 million doses of vaccine a year. Even though evidence shows England's second lockdown was effective, leaders say some restrictions are still necessary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We can't afford to take our foot off the throat of the beast, to take our foot off the gas, we can't afford to let it out of control again.
So the tiering system is tough but it's designed to be tough and to keep it under control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Now to Spain now where rates of coronavirus infection have been slowing. But there's concern the Christmas season could cause cases to spike again.
Now over the weekend, thousands of people crowded the streets of Madrid lured by those beautiful Christmas lights. And yes, the Black Friday sales.
Now as the country plans to begin vaccinations in January, World Health officials are pleading with the public to please abide by the rules.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: This is no time for complacency especially with holiday season approaching in many cultures and countries.
We all want to be together with the people we love during festive periods, but being with family and friends is not worth putting them or yourself at risk. We all need to consider whose life we might be gambling with in the decisions we make.
The COVID-19 pandemic will change the way we celebrate but it doesn't mean we can't celebrate. We still can celebrate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Now a CNN exclusive. CNN has obtained leaked documents from inside China that reveal the missteps and chaos in its early response to the response.
Now the documents are from Hubei Province and home to the city of Wuhan where the pandemic is thought to have started.
They show authorities released misleading public data on the number of deaths and cases, that that all took an average of three weeks in some cases to diagnose. And there was much more in these documents.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has more. (END VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An unprecedented leak of internal Chinese documents to CNN reveals for the first time what China knew in the opening weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic but did not tell the world.
A whistleblower who said they worked inside the Chinese health care system shared the documents with CNN online which show a chaotic local response from the start.
YANZHONG HUANG, SR. FELLOW FOR GLOBAL HEALTH, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: This lack of transparency sort of also contributed to the crisis.
DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: Seeing information in black and white was very revealing and instructive.
PATON WALSH: CNN has verified them with a half a dozen experts, a European security official and using complex digital forensic analysis looking at their source code.
The documents provide a number of key revelations about the province of Hubei, home to the epicenter city of Wuhan.
Firstly, some of the death tolls were off. The worst day in these reports is February the 17th where these say 196 people who were confirmed cases died, but that day they only announced 93.
China was also circulating internally bigger, more detailed totals for new cases in Hubei, for one day in February recording internally nearly 6,000 new cases.
Some diagnosed by tests, others clinically by doctors and some suspected because of symptoms and contacts, but all pretty serious.
Yet publicly that day China reported nationwide about 2,500 new confirmed cases, the rest were downplayed in an ongoing tally of suspected cases.
[01:10:00]
That meant patients that doctors had diagnosed as being seriously ill sounded like they were in doubt. But it later improve the criteria.
DALI YANG, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: If China had been more transparent and also more aggressive in responding, clearly that would have had an impact on how much the virus spread in Wuhan, in Hubei, in China and perhaps to the rest of the world as well.
PATON WALSH: Strikingly, the documents reveal one possible reason behind the discrepancy in the numbers.
A report from early March says it took a staggering 23 days on average from when someone showed COVID-19 symptoms to when they got a confirmed diagnosis. That's three weeks to officially catch each case.
HUANG: This information seems to be very surprising to me because normally it would take just a couple of days.
SCHAFFNER: You're making policy today based on information that already is three weeks old.
PATON WALSH: Perhaps the most remarkable revelation concerns early December, the moment when COVID-19 first emerged in China.
Startlingly, these documents reveal there was an enormous spike in influenza cases in Hubei right when studies have shown the very first known patients were infected with COVID-19. Twenty times the number of flu cases compared to the same week the year before.
Experts said it could have flooded the hospital system with patients sick from flu-like symptoms, making it harder to spot the first cases of COVID-19.
The documents don't link the outbreak to coronavirus's origins directly but they show flu patients were regularly screened and many did not have a known flu virus strain, leaving open the possibility they were sick with COVID-19.
HUANG: The spike in Wuhan was very unusual compared to previous years, so that would raise a red flag.
SCHAFFNER: It was very, very sizeable. It's clear that the Chinese virologists can make precise diagnoses of influenza. But in retrospect, you have to wonder, was there some COVID in there masquerading as influenza?
PATON WALSH: The documents also showed the flu outbreak was biggest that first week in December, not in Wuhan but into other cities nearby in Hubei. All valuable information in the hunt for where the disease came from.
Chinese officials have said the outbreak began here, the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan in mid-December. And despite Western accusations that it has limited its cooperation with the WHO investigation into the virus's origins, China has insisted it has been as transparent as possible over the coronavirus.
HUA CHUNYING, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN (Speaking in Foreign Language)
PATON WALSH: For some time now, in order to shift the blame, she said, some U.S. politicians have constantly used the pandemic and other issues as a pretext to smear and demonize China and sow lies and misinformation about China.
This will, of course, seriously mislead citizens of the United States and some other Western countries' understanding of the truth of China's epidemic. PATON WALSH: China's foreign ministry and health officials in Beijing and Wuhan have not responded to our request for comment.
This disease has killed nearly one-and-a-half million people, about a fifth of known deaths in America.
These documents a rare, clear and open window into what China knew all along. Trying to appear in control, while a local outbreak turned into a global pandemic.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: OK. So just 50 days from now, Joe Biden will be sworn into office.
Now he received his first presidential intelligence briefing Monday, a clear sign he's one step closer to the White House.
This came on the same day that Wisconsin and Arizona certified his victory. And despite President Trump's baseless claims of election fraud, states are certifying those votes.
CNN's Jeff Zeleny has the details.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SNR. WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: For the first time since winning the election, Joe Biden receiving the president's daily brief tonight, the one-of-a-kind collection of classified intelligence and security threats facing the U.S..
For Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris who also received a briefing, it's the biggest milestone yet on their way to the White House.
President Trump finally signed off on the move last week, despite repeatedly refusing to concede defeat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to build an economy that leads the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: It comes as Biden continues filling out his cabinet, surrounding himself with history making picks.
Tonight, key members of the team charged with leading the nation's economic recovery.
Former Reserve Chair Janet Yellen who will be first woman to serve as treasury secretary.
[01:15:00] Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton economist and veteran of the Clinton and Obama Administration as the first woman of color to lead the council of economic advisers.
And Neera Tanden, the first woman of color and South Asian to run the office of management and budget.
Biden also announcing his White House communications operation. And, for the first time, with women in each of the senior roles.
Press secretary, Jen Psaki. Communications director, Kate Bedingfield. Senior advisor and chief spokesperson for the vice president, Symone Sanders.
All are among the women leading the team.
JEN PSAKI, INCOMING WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Hi, everyone.
ZELENY: Psaki, a veteran of the Obama Administration, is already overseeing confirmation of Biden's nominees in the senate which for now is controlled by Republicans.
PSAKI: We don't need a fabricated crisis in the senate. And I don't think that the American people are going to tolerate that if there's a refusal to move forward with qualified nominees.
ZELENY: One choice drawing early criticism from some progressives and conservatives is Tanden who has run the left-leaning thinktank Center for American Progress.
As a top aide to Hillary Clinton, she tangled with Bernie Sanders in 2016 and has blasted many Republicans.
The spokesman for Texas senator, John Cornyn, said because of the -- "disparaging comments about the Republican senators whose vote she'll need" -- Tanden "stands zero chance of being confirmed."
While there's only one president at a time, sharing the document known as the PDB with Biden underscores how Trump's time in power is drawing to a close.
While hardly a stranger to classified briefings, today marked the first time Biden received one in nearly four years.
JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: It could have something related to a recent terrorist threat or engagements with China and Russia. Maybe North Korea and nuclear developments.
ZELENY: He received the briefing at his home outside Wilmington where he spent the day out of sight recovering from a weekend foot injury that aides say he received while playing with his dog, Major.
His doctor says Biden will have a walking boot for several weeks to treat the hairline fracture.
And we will see Mr. Biden in that boot for the first time on Tuesday here in Wilmington when he does step forward to introduce these key members of his economic team.
Now even as he's doing that, he's already looking forward to other members of his national security team, settling on three finalists for the pentagon and about four or five for the CIA. These clearly are key positions.
I'm told by the end of December, he hopes to have his cabinet almost in place.
ZELENY (On Camera): Jeff Zeleny, CNN. Wilmington, Delaware.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: Iran claims the assassination of its top nuclear scientist was a high-tech killing. Just ahead, why one expert says it's possible but not probable.
(CNN 100)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: This is the 100 CLUB, our look at companies that are 100 years or older.
THEODORE PAPPAS: EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: The dark, cramped archives at Encyclopedia Britannica feel like hallowed ground.
We have business records and logs, minutes of boards meetings going back to the late 19th Century.
So it's really quite an array, a mirror in essence, of the history of the west.
Encyclopedia Britannica was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1768.
In 2018, Britannica celebrated 250 years in business with a special anniversary edition. Honoring the past, but still looking far to the future.
PAPPAS: We feed off our past, in order to get a momentum of the future. And that's very exciting.
NEWTON: State TV claims Iran's top nuclear scientist was buried Monday at a mosque in Teheran. Now it followed a military funeral for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in the capital. He was considered the mastermind of the country's nuclear program.
Fakhrizadeh was killed Friday in a hail of gunfire and a car explosion.
But as Nic Robertson explains, experts are skeptical about the claims assassins used a remote-controlled machine gun.
[01:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The aftermath of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's assassination indicates a carefully planned attack.
But was it a high-tech killing, as Iranian officials claim, or sloppy Iranian security?
(Shots fired)
As Hollywood graphically depicts, the technology exists in "Breaking Bad." The key fob is the trigger just meters from the gun. In the real world, in Iran, hypothetically possible.
JACK WATLING, RUSI RESEARCH FELLOW, MILITARY SCIENCES: The challenge is in target acquisition. How does the autonomous device actually work out what it's supposed to be shooting?
ROBERTSON: Typically, automated machine guns are used as sentries like the DMZ between North and South Korea.
In an assassination, more technology is needed to confirm the target, creating multiple risks.
WATLING: You're putting lots of very expensive communication relays or satellite up-links and this kind of thing into a device like that then you are handing that technology to your enemy.
And you're also creating a signature that could be detected by security services if it needed to be in place and left there for a long period of time.
So you're more likely to find that it's being controlled from a fairly close proximity but that could still be a few kilometers.
ROBERTSON: The majority of nuclear scientists assassinated in Iran -- and there have been several over the past decade -- have generally been low tech, gunmen or bombers on motorbikes.
Fakhrizadeh's assassination appears to be an embarrassment for Iran's security services. He was a protected and prized scientist.
However, blaming Israel, as Iran has, claiming sophisticated technology was used in the killing may mollify angry Iranians but it won't gain international credibility without evidence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office will not comment. But at least two Israeli minister saying they had no idea who killed Fakhrizadeh.
WATLING: We have to be very careful because witnesses are not always reliable in high stress situations. I think we would want the Iranians to present some more evidence before we made any assumptions.
ROBERTSON: No one is saying it didn't happen as Iran claims, simply Tehran has yet to prove its case.
Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
NEWTON: William Cohen is a former U.S. defense secretary. He joins me now from Bethesda, Maryland.
And Secretary Cohen, thanks so much for going through all of this with us and there is a lot to go through. A lot of intrigue, certainly, around that assassination in Iran and who was behind it and really how it was carried out.
I do want to get your take on something, though. John Brennan who was a former CIA director was categorical saying this was state-sponsored terrorism. Where do you stand?
WILLIAM COHEN, FMR. U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, we have always had, until recently I guess, an executive order that was signed by President Gerald Ford that prohibited the assassination of political leadership in other countries.
So that may have been changed. But nonetheless, we have always treated that as something not to do and to prohibit.
And so the attack or the assassination of a non combatant as far as we are not at war -- we or Israel or whoever carried out the mission is not at war with Iran on a technical basis -- so he is, in effect, a noncombatant. Even though he is responsible of building a nuclear capability or attempting to build a nuclear capability in Iran.
NEWTON: And --
COHEN: Yes.
NEWTON: I just want to go back, backtrack on something with that. So if Israel is responsible for this, and likely we will never know, is it your estimation that there's no way they could have done so without the tacit approval of the United States?
COHEN: I think that's probably a safe assumption. Although Israel -- if Israel has done this and we don't know that for sure -- but we have to look at OK, who has motive, who has opportunity and who has capability?
That narrows it down to a pretty select group of countries.
But assuming, if Israel did it, it has demonstrated it has acted to take out leaders in other countries in the past.
Certainly they have been attacking the Iranian proxies in Syria, they have attacked -- they tried assassination attempts in Dubai a few years ago.
So this is not beyond the scope of what they normally would do and they would not necessarily check with us.
But in this particular case, given the tensions that exist in the region, given the fact we are now in a transition process, then we're more vulnerable at this point. [01:25:00]
In terms of what will this president do that might have a carryover, long term implications, for Joe Biden when he takes office.
So if you have to put that in the mix to see whether or not the Israelis or whomever else was involved in this would have gotten at least tacit approval from the United States.
Because the complication -- the consequence, I should say, would not only affect Israel, it would affect the UAE, it would affect Syria -- sorry, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and those who have identified with the United States in terms of recognizing -- urging them to recognize the state of Israel.
So it has implications for the entire region.
And I'm confident that some sort of acknowledgment or consent must have been given to whomever carried this out.
NEWTON: And more broadly, obviously President Trump has several weeks left in his tenure, how worried are you that we will see more activity, shall we say, in terms of what they want to accomplish, what the Trump Administration wants to accomplish on their way out?
COHEN: Well, the Trump Administration has made clear they want to prevent Iran from having the capability to develop nuclear weapons.
I think at the moment, they have resisted the temptation to try and launch any kind of a kinetic strike against a hard target in Iran.
And so far have been willing to try other means, whether it's through cyber activity or other means, to try and disable the capability and to delay its implementation.
So I think that we have to worry that as we go toward January 20th and President Trump is on his out the door prior to that time, he may feel he needs to take some final action that he can say he did everything in his power to stop Iran's nuclear program.
And then leave the consequences for Joe Biden and his administration to deal with the consequence.
NEWTON: For most of his presidency, Donald Trump has really been categorical about what he thinks of the so-called deep state, that he doesn't trust American intelligence even.
How much damage do you think he continues to do on that level, especially given how now he's using some of that to attack the election results?
COHEN: Well, what he has done, to the best of his ability, is to delegitimized the various institutions in this country.
He has tried to politicize the intelligence agencies, he has undermined their morale, he has tried to politicize the defense department using 82nd Airborne to come in on Washington streets to plow their way through peaceful protesters.
He's tried to certainly politicized the justice department by urging the indictment of his opponents, political opponents and the pardoning of his friends.
So he has really tried to delegitimized the government, as such that is not carved in his image.
And so I think he's done damage, I think that Joe Biden can repair much of that by bringing qualified, competent, ethical people back into the administration.
But it's not going to be done overnight because other people, other countries, are going to say is America really back? Or are we simply witnessing a holdover, kind of a Trumpism holding off on the sidelines, trying to continue to undermine the Biden Administration.
So that is who he is, that is what he's done and he continues to do it on a basis now attacking our voting system. So this is what he does.
He says that if I don't win it's fundamentally corrupt, it's fundamentally fraudulent. Therefore, it's heads I win, tails you lose. And that's just been the way he's operated his entire life.
NEWTON: A lot still to get through. And I hope you'll join us again in the coming weeks, especially as President Elect Biden starts to come together with more elements of his cabinet.
William Cohen with us, thanks so much.
COHEN: OK. My pleasure.
NEWTON: Now you just heard former secretary of defense there talk about President Trump and the fact that he's still ranting about election fraud.
His advisers, though, say he does realize his time is up. Details of what they're saying next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:31:51]
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.
I'm Paula Newton.
The U.S. President Donald Trump's days in the White House are almost over with Arizona and Wisconsin now certifying Joe Biden's victory. His advisers say, the president's advisers say he can finally see the writing on the law. But that doesn't mean he won't continue to claim the election was stolen from him.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is now in the line of fire. The Republican defended the state's election process after being attacked by Mr. Trump.
But now a shocking comment from a Trump campaign attorney about the former cybersecurity official who said the election was secure. Joe diGenova said Chris Krebs should be, and I'm quoting here, "taken out at dawn and shot".
Joining me now is Ron Brownstein. He is CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor at "The Atlantic".
And my goodness, Ron, you are the voice of sanity. Please help us out here.
I mean it just seems to get worse every day, but what do you think will make the difference and does it mean that the GOP, the Republicans finally as they have them doing gingerly over the last few days, have to just come out and just say President Trump, stop. Just stop.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't see it. I mean I think what we are seeing is just the abject failure of the leadership of the Republican party who are making a calculated decision as they have throughout the Trump presidency, that is in their interest to allow him to move in these directions to continue to undermine American institutions either because they fear him or because they think that allowing him to do so advances their own goals.
In this case perhaps weakening Biden and making it tougher for Biden to appeal to Republican voters. Creating the groundwork for a new wave of voter suppression.
I mean Paula, it is really striking that you mentioned Doug Ducey today. He defended the governor of Arizona. He defended their election system, but in nine tweets he could not find it within himself to criticize the person who has impugned their election system, President Trump, in any way and I think that is indicative and reflective of what is allowing this to go this far, the utter silence of so many other Republican leaders.
NEWTON: You know, I had written out in big letters in my script here, expedient. It seems all too expedient, and yet you think there are calculating that what -- the voters will reward them for being expedient?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, they feel like they did not -- they feel like they did not pay a penalty for abetting and enabling Trump in Red America, you know. I mean there -- no Republican lost a Senate race in the state that Trump carried. Only about 10 Republicans lost in districts in the House that Trump carried. A comparable number of Republicans won in districts that Biden carried.
So that within Red America, within the confines of the Republican coalition there was no cost for this behavior.
The cost is measured in a damage that is clearly being done to American institutions where you have death threats against the secretary of state in Georgia and against the secretary of state in Arizona where you have the kind of comments from Joe diGenova, when you have polls showing 75 to 85 percent of Republican voters believe without any evidence -- evidence that have been laughed out of courts across the country, that the election was stolen.
[01:35:06]
BROWNSTEIN: This is an enormously corrosive set of actions that the president has taken since the election. And Republican leaders, as I write in my CNN.com column tomorrow, much like Republican leaders in the era of Joe McCarthy are making the decision to let it go by without challenging it, either because they're afraid or because they see value in it or both.
NEWTON: And there is something to this that you are quoting from McCarthyism because I know Ron that's not something you do lightly.
I do want to turn to President-Elect Biden for a moment. He's really threading a needle here with these remaining cabinet picks. Do you think the tougher ones are still to come when we talk about national security and defense?
ROBERTS: Well, you know, look, you know, he's gotten multiple balancing acts here, he's got an assertive left in the Democratic Party that is demanding a voice. He has a clear need as he began to do in the appointments that he has announced in the last 48 hours to fulfill his promise during the campaign to be a transition to a new generation of leadership.
I mean his first round of appointments were all very talented, skilled and experienced, but somewhat familiar. He began to kind of move to kind of younger faces that reflect the diversity of the Democratic party more and what he announced in the economic sphere and in the White House communications then.
But then on the other side he's got Republicans who despite all of Biden's pledges, I want to be the president for all Americans, I want to work with you who are already Americans, already sending signals of opposition to some of his choices. And of course if they hold that senate majority that's going to present with a real quandary.
So in his kind of a little bit of three-dimensional chess here. But I don think that as he goes forward, the highest priority is going to be on kind of reflecting the full panorama of the Democratic Party, both ideologically and generationally.
NEWTON: And yet that leaves out, of course, the people that didn't vote for him. I mean look, he's going to be judged --
BROWNSTEIN: He'll probably name Republicans. I think he will name Republicans.
NEWTON: Ok. But if we look at what he is going to have to try and do over the next two years at least, especially looking towards the midterms in the United States. Ok.
So the first few months are all about the vaccine roll out, right? How does that go? Does that go smoothly?
After that we are back at that economy, Ron. And you know, the Republicans are already -- were not denying the fact that he won. Those Republicans are coming out and saying look, we don't want higher taxes. We don't care how much you believe that there is income inequality in this country. We do not want wholesale change.
How much pressure is he going to be under to really do what is best for the economy to see some extremely exponential growth in the months to come.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I think he'll divide it into two -- into kind of two layers or two steps. I mean whether it is a 50/50 Democratic Senate, you know, majority or a 51-49 Republican majority, either way, the window to do the kind of sweeping legislative changes that he ran on, you know, massive changes in environmental policies, subsidies to green energy, big expansion of a public option. That's going to be a pretty narrow window for him.
It may be that the principal vehicle that he has to advance a lot of his domestic agenda is whatever COVID economic stimulus plan is passed, you know. They have to be optimistic that even if there is a Republican Senate they are going to see the need to reengage, reinvigorate the economy and that maybe the vehicle for him to put a lot of his domestic priorities.
And it maybe that after that the pickings get awfully slim, especially if McConnell holds a majority in the Senate. But as in 2009, when President Obama's passed the stimulus act that Joe Biden, of course, famously administered -- he got an awful lot of his domestic agenda into that one bill. And that may be the prospect for Biden as well.
NEWTON: Right. And one will think he knows better than anyone that he, you know, tick tock, time's a wasting.
Ron Brownstein for us in L.A. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
Now Donald Trump claimed the stock market would crash if Joe Biden won the presidency. Instead, it soared to new heights in November. All three U.S. indices posted double digit gains for the month. The Dow had its best month since 1987, passing 30,000 for the first time last week.
We want to take a quick look at U.S. futures there and they are headed up so far after taking a bit of a breather on Monday. The coronavirus pandemic means fewer people though are, of course, driving or flying. And that is keeping energy demand low.
OPEC members are meeting again today to discuss the crisis. Some countries want production cuts to keep prices up. Others oppose harsh quotas and hope COVID vaccines will eventually bring back demand.
CNN's John Defterios is live for us this hour in Abu Dhabi. The more things change, the more they stay the same with OPEC. I mean oil producers have quite the timing in all of this, right. They're in the middle of a pandemic with energy markets still uncertain. Is this really a good time for them to make any bold moves?
[01:39:53]
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, you know, Paula, I call it the tricky window in between, because we start to see the rollout of vaccines, but we don't see the impact in terms of demand, because cars and trucks and planes and trains are just not moving as they did pre-pandemic, right?
So OPEC is trying to be very careful here, because you have to remember back in March, they had a dust up with Russia. And the other non-OPEC players. They were all going to sit around the table at least virtually on that table today.
Because they had the breakup in March. If you take a look at the chart here in April, we had a brief price war and a collapse in prices below $10 a barrel for Brent. Paula you remember, we went below zero negative for the U.S. benchmark.
And then OPEC Plus came into action here the 24 producers took off nearly 10 million barrels during the summer. They've added back in two. So their cut is still below eight million barrels a day, 7.7.
The idea was in January to bring two more million barrels back onto the market. They think it would be more advanced in the recovery, and we are not there right now.
So the prevailing view within OPEC according to sources I've spoken to in the last 24 hours, let's let this ride. Keep the cuts of around eight million barrels a day through the end of March, revisit it for the spring. See how the vaccines are proceeding.
To show you how delicate it is though, the OPEC number, Nigeria had the president speak up, President Buhari saying that all these cuts are making development very difficult for Nigeria because they are so dependent on oil production for that development that I am talking about.
And again, because of the strains with Russia back in March this year at the beginning of the pandemic, Dmitry Peskov (ph), the spokesman for the Kremlin said we don't have major differences with Saudi Arabia. We can bridge the gap.
So is it to keep it the way it is or perhaps puts a little bit of oil back onto the market?
I would say the prevailing view going forward is let it ride for another quarter and don't push it. And I thought the statement from OPEC yesterday in the first day of the meeting was very telling.
It was two lines, Paula. We adjourned on Monday. we will reconvene on Tuesday with the other players. They don't want to rattle any cages right now because the price is up 25 percent in the last month right. They worked very hard to get there. And they don't want to give anybody some real doubts going forward.
NEWTON: Yes. Given we were at zero a few months ago this is a good place to be, exactly as you say.
John Defterios, I know you'll continue to watch that meeting. I appreciate it.
Now, cases of violence against women have risen right around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Up next, how our former colleague is using her new position with the U.N. to address this global problem.
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NEWTON: Now since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as cases have climbed so too have reports of violence against women. Now, lockdowns of course were meant to try and protect citizens, but for far too many isolation has actually proved to be a great danger.
There's been an explosion of domestic abuse around the world this year. United Nations says the pandemic has fostered millions of cases of violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation and unintended pregnancies.
[01:44:59]
NEWTON: My former colleague Isha Sesay joins me now from Los Angeles. She's the new goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Sexual and Reproductive Health Agency.
And Isha, just a warm welcome to you my friend. It is great to see you. Really is and congratulations on the new role. I know you will do everyone proud.
The U.N. foreshadowed this right, Isha. They said it, they said that there was vulnerability there during the pandemic with the lockdown. And that those at risk were literally put in a position where they were being held captive.
You are so passionate with your work. And the pandemic has underscored the urgency that you say exists. Give us some insight into what women and girls are facing right now?
ISHA SESAY, UNITED NATIONS GOODWILL AMBASSADOR: Well Paula, thank you for having me on and it's good to be back with the family.
Listen, let's give some context to the situation here. Even before this pandemic struck, we were looking at astounding numbers of violence to women and girls. I mean according to the data, one in three women will experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime.
So we're already talking about incredible numbers there at the baseline of expectation. And then in the early days of this pandemic, we were seeing up to five-fold increases in numbers for people calling into help lines.
So very, very early on we saw this surge, this uptick in the far fields of China, Brazil, Italy, Spain. And then in some places Paula, we actually saw a dip because people couldn't gain access to help, because they were now trapped with their attackers if you will.
So what we have seen is this has continued and governments though have said they will make this a priority, they haven't because of the pandemic and the economic stress. Money is being diverted to disease prevention.
But the reality is, for far too many women and girls they are suffering behind closed doors. To give you one data point -- for every additional three months of a lockdown, 15 million more cases of violence are expected, Paula.
NEWTON: Yes, extraordinary and so many people going absolutely without any help. I mean, Isha your family has intimate knowledge of the consequences of this type of abuse. With that kind of authenticity obviously, what do you think you will be best to be able to do in your new role to help?
SESAY: Well, you know, one of the things that I have, you know, said with this role that I want to champion and fight to stand proud is FGM -- female genital mutilation.
As you mentioned, my family is all so aware of it because my mother is a survivor of it. My grandfather one of his wives was a practitioner. She was actually someone who performed the actual cutting, if you will.
And so what is remarkable to me is that I grew up in a home where my mother through education and excelling, you know, in her chosen path, made clear that that was not to be a path for me.
And so I get a lot of the strength from her and her example, I look to speak to that example and engage with people, you know, particularly in Africa where there are a still a handful countries that continue to practice this.
When you speak about (INAUDIBLE) here in my own home country, up to 90 percent of females are still being cut in that country even though it has been banned only last year.
So you know, it's to come at it with an authenticity. And also to use the fact that I am black, I am African, I am not an external force coming in to talk about this. And the concern is that because of COVID again, a lot of the prevention programs that U.N. (INAUDIBLE) used to carry out have been interrupted.
So we're looking at millions more cases of FGM, 200 million women and girls in the world right have already been cut. So it's to use my experience and to also say culture changes -- culture is man-made. It is not in the Quran, it is not religion-based. This can change. So it's to speak to that. NEWTON: Yes and to speak to it in the sense that you know how
difficult it was for your mother to speak to that. What courage it took. And I know you're going to continue that on.
You know, before I let you go, we have to talk about what's going on in Nigeria. I mean just today Isha, a farming community near the capital of Nigeria's Borno state has been coping with a massacre at least 110 men and women were killed Saturday while harvesting their fields.
Boko Haram militants are suspected in the attack. You know Isha, you spent a great deal of your time in the past several years, highlighting the reign of terror in Nigeria with Boko Haram and especially, of course, the tragedy of those lost Chibok girls.
You know, you've been trying to hold the government to account there. I watched you live as you tried to put them on the spot.
[01:50:00]
NEWTON: I mean what is your hope for what will continue in Nigeria?
SESAY: It's so incredibly distressing because, you know, as you say at least 110 individuals lost their lives in this massacre on Saturday. That's according to the U.N. humanitarian coordinator there in Nigeria.
And the point to be made is, Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic state West African province ISWA (ph) have been terrorizing Borno state for years. And in largely has not made the news.
In fact, Paula, I was speaking to one of Chibok girls a few days ago, one of the girls who's here in the states. And she was talking about how her family is still living in terror in Borno state.
And so I think what this latest incident of violence underscores is the fact that, you know, even though the president said five years ago that Boko Haram had technically been defeated, they remain a bloody and ruthless force and they continue to destabilize lives.
And even -- I just want to point out as you mentioned the Chibok girls (INAUDIBLE) according to reports from the region that several women were kidnapped by Boko Haram during this atrocity on Saturday.
My hope is that Nigeria will step up its effort. My hope is that there will be greater cooperation with its regional neighbors. And that they will find a way, to engage with Boko Haram. Because clearly on the battlefield, they have not achieved success.
So I don't know that they can fight their way out of this crisis.
NEWTON: Right.
SESAY: There has to be another way, what that is I can only assume it's negotiation because people are dying. NEWTON: Yes. And we certainly hope that things do change there. You
bore witness to what happened with the Chibok girls in your book from last year, "Beneath the Tamarind Tree".
Isha Sesay, so good to see you. Big virtual hugs from so many people here in the control room and working from home. We love you, please come back and let us know how things are going.
SESAY: Thank you, love to everyone, thank you.
NEWTON: Now to Ethiopia, where the prime minister is praising his troops and claims not even a single civilian was killed by federal forces during a three-week offensive in Tigray.
Now, it's believed the conflict in the restive region has killed hundreds possibly even thousands of people, and sent refugees fleeing into neighboring Sudan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABIY AHMED, ETHIOPIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The defense forces never killed a single person in a single town. No soldier from any country could display a better competence. We have disciplined heroic soldiers. No one got in harm's way in the Mekelle operation. The Special Forces conducted a special surgery in Mekelle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: The leader of the Tigray's people, the Mauritian front insist the fighting continues despite the prime minister's announcement that the offensive is over.
The claims from both sides are difficult to verify because of a near total communications blackout.
Now, when we come back, a Formula 1 driver walked away from a fiery crash in Bahrain, how he's doing and what he says saved his life.
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[01:54:51]
NEWTON: A Formula 1 car turned into a fireball after plowing into the barriers at a race track in Bahrain. But incredibly, this is such good news, the driver Frenchman Romain Grosjean walked away. And now he's praising a safety technology that he had little faith in -- that he had little faith in, pardon me, before it actually saved his life.
CNN's "WORLD SPORT" Anchor Amanda Davies spoke with his team principal Guenther Steiner.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUENTHER STEINER, HAAS F1 TEAM PRINCIPAL: He was in good spirits. And he said he has no pain. I meant it sounds like the (INAUDIBLE) was still up. But it was good. He really is taken care of where he was in the (INAUDIBLE) Hospital here. So he just set his arms, he's got a few more days to understand how long this will take to heal up but otherwise, in great spirit and hopefully he has plans, he can go, I would say home.
But he cannot go home. He wants to stay here. He's going to his hotel and tomorrow and hope that he joins us on the weekend in the (INAUDIBLE)
AMANDA DAVIES, CNN WORLD SPORT ANCHOR: Yes, of course. Because of the final race of this season in a couple of weeks time in Abu Dhabi.
But I have to ask you I know my reaction to seeing those tapes as the incident played out yesterday. What goes through your mind as a team principal when you see a crash like that involving one of your drivers?
STEINER: I mean it is very similar to what you guys see, I just see the same images on the TV. We go oh, it's our car, it's just like what happened? What is going on? It goes so quick, you almost cannot think.
And then luckily they showed immediately on TV that he came out because obviously we had no radio contact with him anymore, once he went off and dipped to the barrier.
So we just see that one you see to get the mouth get out with the medical staff, it's a miracle. You know, had he just see him a few seconds before the car hitting the barrier going up in flames, all the drama you can have and then he comes out of when he (INAUDIBLE) flames with the help of the medical crew.
DAVIES: Are you in any doubt that the Halo saved his life? I mean were you somebody who always was in support of the halo? Because it was fairly controversial for a while.
STEINER: Yes absolutely, the halo saved his life. I saw the car today, I looked at it properly. You know you can see the parts of impact where without the halo, this would have gone completely differently way. So yes because you asked me, so may your way.
I wasn't for the halo, you know, initially. I'm pretty happy that the federation in Bahrain did a good job and convinced us that this is the way to go. For sure, and for sure now, it helps.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: All right, and I want to thank everyone for watching CNN NEWSROOM.
I'm Paula Newton. I'll be back with another hour of news in just a moment.
[01:57:51]
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