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Trump Threatens to Veto Major Defense Bill if Congress Doesn't Revoke Protections for Social Media Companies; Airlines Prepare to Begin Shipping First Batches of Vaccine; Ravens and Steelers to Play This Afternoon After Three Delays. Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired December 02, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:01]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEWSROOM: For the shortening of 14-day quarantine guidelines for someone who is exposed, now shortening it to seven to ten days, seven-day quarantine with a negative test on the end, ten days of quarantine with no symptoms but no test. What does that mean for you in New Mexico?

DR. JASON MITCHELL, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, PRESBYTERIAN HEALTH CARE SERVICES: I think there's a couple important things here. One is it's important to follow the science and evidence. And so as the CDC makes changes based on science, then that's great, and we should follow it.

From a workforce standpoint, as you shorten that, it helps return workforce or it helps return people to work. And so we need all hands on deck, and that does help people come back to work sooner as well.

BOLDUAN: Can you just talk briefly about what it's been like being on the frontlines for so long and dealing with the surge now with what you're looking at, and you haven't even seen the Thanksgiving fallout yet?

MITCHELL: Yes. It is hard, and I'm speaking for all of our clinicians. They have been working tirelessly for nine months and there's a lot of moral trauma that happens. When we had surges before and couldn't allow visitors, oftentimes, they were the only person with that patient when they died and they may have had family on the phone. Or they may have seen people who died who shouldn't have had to die.

And so we have already been having these traumas and experiences that no one wants to have. Now, we're at a point where that's getting faster and quicker. And although we're prepared with our masks and gloves and PPE, we can protect ourselves, the volumes are there and we all worry that we can't give the best possible care that we'd normally want to give.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that really is a nightmare scenario. Dr. Mitchell, thank you very much for coming in. MITCHELL: Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, President Trump, he is threatening a veto and it has the U.S. military caught right in the middle.

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[11:35:00]

BOLDUAN: President Trump is threatening to veto a massive defense spending bill. It is a critical piece of annual legislation that covers things like pay raises and other spending needs for the U.S. military. The commander in chief is threatening this veto over social media. His continued war against what he and other conservatives view as tech companies like Facebook and Twitter are working to silence their voices.

Twitter has labeled Trump's tweets as disinformation on multiple occasions but Twitter has done so when it's accurate that he's clearly promoting disinformation. The president is targeting something called section 230, it protects tech companies from being sued over third party content on their platforms.

But the way the president is going about this, he is holding up critical funding for the military to get his way.

Joining me right now, former Republican Governor of Ohio, CNN Senior Political Commentator, if I can speak, John Kasich, we can get to it. It's good to see you, thank you for coming on.

You know how important this legislation is. And overnight, the president has made it into a political war with the military caught right in the middle. What is your take on this?

JOHN KASICH, CNN SENIOR COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, I think he's just -- again, another reaction here that he's not going to get his way on this, in my opinion. Look, Kate, you know that the popularity of this new show called The Social Dilemma, which is talking about all of the things that consumers need to know about these tech companies. I have never seen anything rise interest more than this documentary, again, The Social Dilemma.

And what's clear to me is that the tech companies are going to have to figure out how they want to be regulated because the Congress is not just going to ignore this problem out there, and there are lawsuits being filed. And the fact of the matter is, what you have to do is take a comprehensive view about what the rules of the road are and what the proper regulations are for these big tech companies.

And Trump trying to do it in this way is just kind of typical of a ham-handed way in which he wants to get something done, but there's bipartisan concern about this.

BOLDUAN: That's what I was going to say, there's a legitimate debate over regulation of tech companies, section 230 even in and of itself. But the ham-handed way the president is going about it, it's downright dangerous and, honestly, it's downright -- it's disrespectful. Like, of all things to choose, the defense authorization bill, that's what you're going to take on to hold up in order to get your way because you don't like the way they're monitoring your Twitter? I mean, it's -- I don't know. It's really ridiculous.

KASICH: Kate, you know what, there's nothing that ceases to amaze us about what he's doing. This is clearly ham-handed. And I don't even know how he found this. Somebody must have gone in to tell him about this.

But it's obviously vital for the Department of Defense to be funded and this sort of like Charlie Brown, here's the football, try to kick it or not, is not the way in which you want to run the military, particularly at a time we see the rise, the military rise of China, and a time in which we need to have a resetting of all of our foreign policy initiatives.

I'll bet on Capitol Hill they're just like -- their heads are falling on the desk saying when will this stop, but it isn't going to go on for much longer because he's got about a month left or something like that.

BOLDUAN: Yes. So, let's get to that in a second. So, you and I often talk about the future direction of the Republican Party. I do want to ask you about the future direction of the Democratic Party for a second, because President Obama really had an interesting take on the future of the party in a new interview with Peter Hamby on Snapchat.

[11:40:08]

Let me play just a little bit of it.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S PRESIDENT: We stick so long with the same old folks and don't make room for new voices. The fact an AOC only got, what, three minutes or five minutes.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Good evening, and thank you.

OBAMA: When she speaks to a broad section of young people who are interested in what she has to say, even if they don't agree with everything she says. New blood is always good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: New blood is always good. What do you think about that?

KASICH: Well, I think he was asked a direct question and he didn't want to take a swipe at her, but he also said something very interesting in that interview, and that is using slogans like defund the police or green new deal, he says they're snappy slogans that only appeal to people that agree with him.

You're an Indiana girl and you imagine going over there in Indiana and trying to promote a platform about defund the police. Even Congressman Clyburn from South Carolina, the African-American leader who really saved Joe Biden's bacon down in South Carolina by Biden winning the primary, said he thinks this kind of language around defunding the police probably cost a congressional race in South Carolina.

So, on one hand, I think he's trying to say, yes, we need new ideas, we need new voices, I happen to agree with that, but he's also, at the same time, saying use these slogans, like defund the police or new green deal, or which labels socialists and all of that other stuff, I think it absolutely hurt the Democratic Party.

And I said on Election Day, whenever we were announced the winner here on CNN, I said it was the hard left that I thought put Joe Biden's ability to become president in jeopardy, because people -- these cultural issues, Kate, in our rural areas, our towns where the factories are forgotten, all across the country, down in Miami-Dade and South Florida, these issues of culture really matter to voters. And I think it's a struggle inside the Democratic Party as to who they are.

BOLDUAN: You also get to an important point, which is words matter, despite what anyone would like to say on cable T.V. Just focus on the Republican Party now. You still

right now have top Republicans dodging in remarkable fashion, doing everything they can to not acknowledge the reality that Joe Biden is president-elect.

You have state officials and election officials getting death threats over the hysteria that Donald Trump has stirred up with his baseless allegations of voter fraud. And today, the Georgia secretary of state, a Republican, came out and had to say this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: Even after this office request that President Trump try and quell the violent rhetoric being borne out of his continuing claims of winning the states where he obviously lost, he tweeted out, expose the massive voter fraud in Georgia. This is exactly the kind of language that is at the base of a growing threat environment for election workers who are simply doing their jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And top Republicans are still silent. Is that at all okay? Do you see a universe where that's okay?

KASICH: No, it's terrible. It's terrible. But the good news is there are more and more Republicans not listening to Trump and ignoring these politicians that don't want to say that Biden won the election. Polling is beginning to reveal that people are saying enough is enough, Kate. And I think we can all agree, wherever you are, Republican, Democrat, independent, enough is enough about this. Biden has won. He's going to be president. Let's move on.

BOLDUAN: There are enough problems in this country that we all need to come together around to solve. KASICH: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: This is not one of those. It's good to see you, Governor. Come back on soon.

KASICH: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

KASICH: All right, thank you.

BOLDUAN: Still ahead for us, airlines preparing to transport some of the first doses of the COVID vaccine in the United States. What will this large scale distribution effort look like? We're going to get to that next.

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[11:45:00]

BOLDUAN: The good news is a coronavirus vaccine will soon be on the way. But how it will eventually get to you is a massive logistical challenge that this country and the world has really never seen from manufacturing to transportation to storage requirements and handling, none of this is easy. And companies like United Airlines are jumping in to do their part.

CNN got a look at how the airline is preparing to transport the vaccines. You see these huge containers right there. Sources also confirming to CNN that United in the past week began flying first batches of the Pfizer vaccine to preposition doses for distribution when the green light is given.

How is this all going to work? Let's find out. Joining me right now is Josh Earnest, Chief Communications Officer for United Airlines. It's good to see you again, Josh.

JOSH EARNEST, CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, UNITED AIRLINES: Hi, Kate.

BOLDUAN: How is this going to work on your end once these vaccines get approval?

EARNEST: So, Kate, if you think about the challenge that we faced at United back in March, we saw international travel basically grind to a halt. And so as the airline with the largest wide body fleet in the world, we've got more than 200 of them, we have been trying to figure out how we can put those planes to work.

And so what we've actually done since March is we flew more than 8,000 cargo-only planes, cargo-only flights. Instead of filling those planes with passengers, we've been filling them with cargo. And as we started reading over the summer about the logistical challenges that we were going to face, that the world was going to face in terms of distributing these vaccines, we actually started working with vaccine makers around the world, working with the FDA to figure out how we can help in this herculean challenge. And part of that effort has been an engineering analysis, some of it has been logistical work.

[11:50:00]

Some of it has also been regulatory work.

So, one of the things that we went and did in the fall, we went and applied to the FAA and said, hey, we are going to need to fly much larger cargo of dry ice if we're going to be able to transport these vaccines than we ordinarily are allowed to do under FAA regulations. So we went and documented to them that we can do that safely.

And so now we are able to -- we have approval from the FAA to fly five times as much dry ice as we ordinarily are allowed to carry in the cargo hold of an aircraft so that we can fly more vaccine. And one of our 777 planes, one of our largest planes in our fleet, can actually carry 1.1 million doses of vaccine. So, we do have an important role to play here, and we're eager to step up and assist in the effort to get this lifesaving vaccine transported not just to the United States, but around the world.

BOLDUAN: And you are going to need all that dry ice, considering, when you are talking just about the Pfizer vaccine. The temperature that it has to be kept at is close to 100 below zero Fahrenheit. I mean, how do you do that? Is it just all dry ice? Like what went into -- what do you have to do in these cargo planes?

EARNEST: Well, there are what we call soft boxes that can be used to store the dry ice, and then the vaccine, inside them. It limits the rate at which the dry ice sublimates, sort of essentially evaporates back into the air. So it does keep the vaccine very cold even while it's in the cargo hold. We've got refrigerated cargo facilities. And I think one of your reporters was able to see one of those facilities that we have at Dulles Airport just outside Washington, D.C. but we had this at other airports.

We've got key hubs around the United States, places like New York, Chicago, Houston, just outside D.C. So, we actually are strategically located at some of the points where it would be convenient to distribute this vaccine as well. And so, like I said, we're just eager to do our part. No industry has been hit harder than the airline business.

And so, what we have been trying to do since the beginning is thinking about how can we contribute to a solution? So we have been flying medical workers to hot spots for free. We even took one of our warehouses in Houston and turned into a logistical hub for the Houston area food bank. At a time when we've been brought to our knees by this crisis, we've been looking for ways that we can help. And we do have the kind of safety, engineering and logistical expertise that can be a real benefit to the vaccine makers as they are trying to distribute this lifesaving vaccine.

BOLDUAN: Can you do this for free? Are you doing this for free or do you need the federal government to offer more relief to do this?

EARNEST: Well, you know, we certainly have been working with our customers. We actually do some of this cargo work as part of our regular course of business. We're actually doing much more of it than ordinarily because what I described before, where these planes were, otherwise, not being used. So, we do have existing, commercial relationships with vaccine makers because of the work we've done with them in the past.

But, you know, Kate, as it relates to the federal say assistance that we have received, it's only because of the support that we got from the federal government back in March that we were able to spend a few months over the summer adjusting our business and making sure that we could be nimble enough to make the preparations that was -- that were required over the summer and fall, so that now that we're here in the winter, we are in a position where we can play a critical role in this chain of distributing the vaccine.

BOLDUAN: And critical cannot be -- you can't overstate it, how critical a role it's going to be in the coming weeks and months. Thank you so much, Josh, for coming on. It's going to be fascinating to watch. Thank you.

EARNEST: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, for the second time in the history of the NFL, fans will be able to watch a game on a Wednesday. After three separate delays, Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, they are finally going to be facing off this afternoon for a 3:40 eastern kickoff. This, as the ravens continue to struggle to manage the coronavirus outbreak within the team.

Let's go over to CNN's Andy Scholes. He is watching all of this. Andy, 3:40 in the afternoon, but maybe more importantly, did the Ravens even have enough healthy players to get -- take the field?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, they have enough healthy players, Kate, but they certainly are going to be shorthanded. According to multiple reports, they had two more positive tests come back yesterday. One was a player. One was an equipment manager. That makes it ten-straight days now that the Ravens have recorded positive tests coming in today. They have 15 players on that COVID-19 reserve list, one of them being their start quarterback, reigning MVP, Lamar Jackson. He is not going to play today.

Now, all of the Ravens players are going to get tested again this morning. They're going to do one of those rapid tests where they get results in 30 minutes. If they were to record more positive tests, the game would certainly be in jeopardy of even happening this afternoon.

And you might be asking yourself, why are they playing a game at 3:40 eastern on a Wednesday afternoon? Well, NBC is airing the game and tonight in prime time, they already had scheduled the Rockefeller tree-lighting ceremony to be aired. And, you know, when it came down to deciding whether to air that, Kate, or move the football game into prime time, which just, I guess, so much uncertainty surrounding the Ravens.

[11:55:05] NBC deciding to keep the tree ceremony in prime time, which surprised some because the highest-rated program on television right now is NFL football, but that was their decision.

BOLDUAN: Tree lighting or football, you don't get to decide. Good to see you, Andy. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Still ahead for us, we just talked to United Airlines but how are states preparing to distribute the COVID vaccine when they get it? That's coming up.

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