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CDC Director Robert Redfield Predicts 450,000 U.S. Deaths by February; New Details Emerge About Trump's Pardoning Plans; Interview with Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 02, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: New statement from the CDC director moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: The reality is, December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation, largely because of the stress that it's going to put on our health care system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Dr. Redfield, warning the U.S. could see close to 450,000 COVID deaths by February, his comments there echoing the White House Task Force's message to state leaders.

A copy of that report obtained by CNN says the COVID risk in this country is at a historic high. It goes on to say, quote, "We are in a very dangerous place due to the current, extremely high COVID baseline and limited hospital capacity; a further post-Thanksgiving surge will compromise COVID patient care, as well as medical care overall."

And the Task Force asked state public health officials to speak out if elected officials won't do it themselves. Quote, "If state and local policies do not reflect the seriousness of the current situation, all public health officials must alert the state population directly."

These warnings coming as nearly 2,600 families lost a loved one yesterday, 2,600 Americans dead yesterday. That is the second highest one-day death toll since the beginning of the pandemic.

But there is some good news on the horizon, the head of Operation Warp Speed here in the U.S. says 100 million Americans may be vaccinated by February, and the U.K. just became the first nation in the West to approve the Pfizer vaccine. the FDA is expected to take up possible approval of the Pfizer vaccine in the United States at a meeting next week.

The head of the government's Operation Warp Speed says that once approved, the vaccine will be available within 48 hours to health care workers and to people in assisted living facilities. And our Sara Murray is joining us now.

Sara, this is -- I mean, this is a huge undertaking, so just talk to us about what some of the challenges are in distributing these vaccines.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. I mean, this is a huge undertaking and this is all moving very quickly, and there are a number of important dates ahead. You know, the FDA's advisory committee is going to consider this first vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, on December 10th. And the hope is that it could be shipping as soon as December 15th -- of course that is pending that FDA authorization.

Then on the 17th, they're going to consider this Moderna vaccine and the hope is that those will start shipping out on December 22nd.

Now, the goal of Operation Warp Speed is to try to get these vaccines shipped out within 24 hours of the FDA authorization, but from there it's really up to these states to get the vaccine into people's arms.

And we already know from a lot of these states, yes, they are going to prioritize health care workers, that is what the CDC's advisory committee is recommending. But a lot of states won't even get enough doses to do all of their health care workers in this first tranche. So even there they're going to have to prioritize.

You know, for instance if you're a health care worker who's dealing day-in and day-out with COVID-19 patients, you're probably going to be at the front of the line.

TEXT: First to Get Coronavirus Vaccine, CDC Advisory Panel Recommendations: Health care workers 21 million Americans (ph); Long- term care facility residents 3 million Americans (ph)

MURRAY: The federal government has really taken this sort of 10,000- foot view of kind of trying to manage. You know, they're helping states get cold storage, they're helping states get dry ice. But a lot of this -- you see these numbers -- a lot of this is up to state to make sure that all of these health care workers and eventually all of these long-term care facility residents are getting vaccinated.

You know, states, Brianna, are already saying that they need more federal money, more assistance to do this. One of their big concerns is that, yes, health care workers are going to come in for the first dose of the vaccine and for the second dose of the vaccine, but when you're dealing with everyday Americans to make sure that they're actually coming back the second time around, that's a big challenge.

You know, this has all been moving at a breakneck pace as far as vaccine development and distribution goes; it is still not moving fast enough for President Trump. We see the head of the FDA summoned back to the White House today to meet with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. We know the president is very frustrated, he's not happy to see these headlines today that the U.K. is first out of the gate.

KEILAR: I am sure he is not. Sara, great report, thank you so much. Sara Murray, live for us here in Washington. I want to bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta to

talk about this. And you know, before we talk about the vaccine, Sanjay, I just want to get your reaction to this estimate from Dr. Redfield that we may have 450,000 deaths here in the U.S. by February.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to even get the words out of my mouth, you know, on this, Brianna. I mean, you know, it's sort of looks like the situation that's sort of shaping up in terms of the number of deaths per day.

If you look at these projections carefully -- and these projections came out back on November 19th -- they say that you know, the numbers will continue to increase and then plateau at a just remarkably high death rate for several weeks, so that's where that's coming from.

And I should point out that, you know, when you look at these models -- and we study these carefully, Brianna -- they sort of make a lot of assumptions, they make assumptions that many of the states will maintain some mandates for the time being.

[14:05:05]

But if there are states that start to ease the mandates, the numbers get a lot worse and they get worse pretty quickly. By March, you could start running into -- this is the worst-case scenario, and I typically don't give the worst-case scenario, but -- the worst in that situation would be 650,000. And it's so striking because that's the same number of people who died in the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Now obviously, the population's a lot bigger now than it was then, but we also have hospitals and ICUs and you know, vaccines and things like that that are on the way, and therapeutics. And yet maybe we don't do any better than a hundred years ago because of just human behavior. So that's -- so many thoughts go through my head, Brianna, but those are some of them.

KEILAR: I think that's why it's so hard to say the number, Sanjay, because it didn't have to be this way, that is the tragedy --

GUPTA: Yes.

KEILAR: -- of it that you just feel, saying that number.

On this vaccine news -- and of course the vaccine, it can't get here soon enough, it's not going to get here soon enough for these folks we're talking about. But this U.K. approval, do you see this as putting more pressure on the FDA here in the U.S.?

GUPTA: You know, I think that that's certainly going to be part of the discussion. I mean, you can't disentangle anything from politics nowadays.

But you know, I think there's a couple things to keep in mind. One is that the fact that the U.K. regulatory body did this is a good thing. I mean, you know, we had only seen data from the company really so far, we didn't have reason to not believe it, but it's nice that a regulatory authority has now said, yes, there were no red flags, it matches up with what the company said, which is essentially what the U.K. is saying.

We're also going to get a little bit of a look at how they distribute some of the stuff Sara was just talking about, how does it go over in the U.K.? There may be a couple of lessons learned, you know, and likely we're going to see the sort of same approval, you know, next week in the United States. We'll see if that happens.

I should point out that it doesn't make a difference in terms of where the vaccine goes. Doses have been sort of prepurchased, and sometimes even prepositioned in these places. So regardless of the earlier approval, it shouldn't affect vaccine availability as much as it is available in the United States versus elsewhere.

KEILAR: The CDC, Sanjay, just changed its recommendation on how long people should quarantine after they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. It's now seven to 10 days instead of 14. And they say that they made this change in the hopes that more people would actually comply if the burden isn't as great. Do you agree with the decision, do you agree with the rationale?

GUPTA: Yes, I really do. In fact, Brianna, this is something that we're been reporting on for some time. The idea that the average incubation period, while 14 is sort of the longer end, the average incubation period from time of exposure to the time that someone would test positive is actually closer to five days.

So the fact that, you know, so many months now into this, that we would say, hey, look, I think it's reasonable now, based on the data, based on the science, to shorten, you know, the quarantine time periods makes sense. They stratified it a little bit -- if you get a negative test, it can be as short as seven days, which does make sense. Without a negative test, 10 days. So it fits the science and much more in line with what the average experience is in this country.

KEILAR: Sanjay, thank you so much, such important news to talk about today and I'm so glad that you could come on to talk with us about it.

GUPTA: You got it, thank you.

KEILAR: As the president continues his attack on the legitimacy of the U.S. election, he is reportedly considering multiple pardons for those close to him -- very close, including some bearing the Trump name.

CNN has learned that Trump is considering pardons for his three eldest children, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who sources say has reportedly already approached the president about a pardon.

John Dean is a CNN contributor, he's a former White House counsel -- the former White House counsel for the Nixon administration, and he's also the author of "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers."

John, thanks for being with us. JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you.

KEILAR: So what do you think is going on here, what do you think Trump's endgame may be? Is he looking to avoid some kind of perceived retaliation from a Biden Justice Department? Is he trying to inoculate his kids and others from things that they may have already done?

DEAN: It's hard to know for sure, but what has been rumbled is that he's thinking that he's protecting his kids against some sort of retaliation from the Biden administration. That's how he thinks, that he would attack the family of somebody, which is quite surprising and quite likely.

I think too if he does grant a pardon to his children, what he ought to do is really take Hunter Biden and pardon him as well since he was the target of his charges throughout the campaign, that Hunter had done something improper.

KEILAR: So -- and why do you say that? You're just trying to make a case that there are some apples to apples or something?

[14:10:06]

DEAN: It eliminates the argument that he's doing it just for his family and wouldn't think it's a wise policy for any president, so he just takes it off the table for his competitor in the last race.

KEILAR: I suspect you don't see that really happening, though.

DEAN: I don't see it happening.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: OK, so I wonder what you think. Look, if the shoe were on the other foot here, if we were talking about a Democratic president, a Barack Obama trying to pre-emptively pardon his kids and his lawyers, how do you think conservatives and right-wing media would be responding?

DEAN: I think they'd go crazy, I think they'd absolutely impeach him on that move alone, even at the end. You know, a president who leaves office is still subject to impeachment if he's eligible to run for further office.

Trump theoretically could be impeached for his behavior on the way out, same requirements, the House, a simple majority; the Senate is three quarters, which takes a lot, 66 votes. So it's not likely to happen in the Senate, but it can send a message.

But anyway, I can't imagine that the conservatives would let Obama get away with a similar move and they would -- we'd never hear the end of it.

KEILAR: No, you can know that without, you know, even as a hypothetical. So, John, federal court records have revealed that the DOJ is

investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee -- a related political committee -- in exchange for a political pardon, for a presidential pardon.

The partially redacted court document specifically states this, quote, "A bribery conspiracy scheme, in which" -- and there's "'[redacted] would offer a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence for [redacted]'" there, "using [redacted] as intermediaries to deliver the proposed bribe 'Bribery-for-pardon scheme' (ph)"

What is your reaction to this?

DEAN: Well, this is an investigation that's in progress. When you read the full paper, what that document is, it's a ruling by the judge that there's no attorney-client privilege on information that was seized in a -- by a search warrant in a raid.

They got over two terabytes of digital material from iPhones, from iPads, thumb drives, hard drives, so there was a mass of material. A -- what they call a filter group at the Department of Justice was going through this, discovered these potential attorney-client privileged materials, and went to court to try to get that resolved, which they did.

The court found there was no attorney-client privilege. The court also said, I'd like this information released ASAP, and gave them 30 days to come back. Justice didn't come back with any kind of real substantive response, and the judge sent them back again, and said give me something to -- about what's going on. And that's the document that was released, which is still not very much information.

KEILAR: John, thank you, it's always wonderful to have you on.

DEAN: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: John Dean with us today.

Still ahead, a Georgia election officials calls out President Trump for stoking conspiracy theories about election fraud and the Republican lawmakers who have stayed silent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA VOTING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: All of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I'll also speak live with the Arizona secretary of state who has faced death threats herself.

[14:13:56]

And later, President Trump tells lawmakers to take action against social media companies, or he'll veto a bill that funds the nation's troops.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: President-elect Joe Biden has won Georgia again. A second recount will finish up later today, but the secretary of state says there have been no substantial changes in the votes so far.

President Trump has accused Georgia and its leaders of voter fraud with absolutely nothing to back his false claims up. Yet his words still have an impact: Election workers have received threats of death and violence.

One of Georgia's top elections officials, Gabriel Sterling -- who we should note is a Republican -- has had enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STERLING: It has all gone too far, all of it. Joe diGenova today asked for Chris Krebs, a patriot who ran CISA, to be shot. A 20- something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out, saying he should be hung for treason because he was transferring a report on batches from an EMS to a county computer so he could read it.

It has to stop. Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you're going to take a position of leadership, show some.

[14:20:00]

My boss, Secretary Raffensperger, his address is out there. They have people doing caravans in front of their house, they've had people come onto their property. Tricia, his wife of 40 years, is getting sexualized threats through her cell phone. It has to stop.

This is elections, this is the backbone of democracy and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this.

I can't begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this, and every American, every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike, should have that same level of anger.

Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia. We're investigating, there's always a possibility. I get it, and you have the rights to go through the courts. What you don't have the ability to do -- and you need to step up and say this -- is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed.

It's time to look forward. If you want to run for re-election in four years, fine, do it. But everything we're seeing right now, there's not a path. Be the bigger man here and stop -- step in, tell your supporters, don't be violent, don't intimidate. All that's wrong, it's un-American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now in response to Sterling's impassioned statement, the Trump campaign said it fully condemns any threat or violence.

CNN correspondent Amara Walker is in Georgia's state capitol in Atlanta, following everything there.

I mean, that was something, to hear Gabriel Sterling say that, Amara. And it came as this hour, the secretary of state launched the site for reporting results of the recount there.

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Some of the counties were supposed to begin posting the results of this computer-tallied recount starting at 2:00 this afternoon, but we have not seen any updated numbers just yet.

But, Brianna, the big picture really is the secretary of state Brad Raffensperger has been saying this for weeks now, that they do not expect any substantial changes in the results of the presidential election here in Georgia.

And that's exactly what they're seeing right now, 110 of the 159 counties that have finished up the recount already have not reported any major discrepancies. So all things considered, it looks like they're on track to meet the deadline by midnight tonight, and for the secretary of state, Raffensperger, to certify -- recertify the results by Friday.

But, Brianna, I mean, I do want to mention, I had an extensive sit- down with Secretary of State Raffensperger yesterday here at the state capitol, and I mean it's evident, it's been a very challenging time to say the least for him professionally and privately.

As you heard there from Gabriel Sterling, he now has 24 hours, seven days a week security at home and at work as a result of President Trump -- it's a direct result of President Trump spreading misleading claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, for which there is absolutely no evidence.

And also this morning, Secretary of State Raffensperger began his news conference by saying that he throws his full support behind Gabriel Sterling after that impassioned news conference that he gave yesterday, and he said it's time for Republican leaders to speak the truth and for President Trump to accept the fact that he has lost Georgia.

We'll be getting an update at 3:30 this afternoon, once again, from the secretary of state's office and we will pass any new information along to you, Brianna, when we get it.

KEILAR: Yes, and they're just -- they're clearly worried there about the physical safety of themselves and their families. Amara, thank you so much, reporting from Atlanta for us.

President Trump's anger isn't confined to Georgia of course, he has also lashed out at the governor of Arizona for certifying President- elect Biden's win there. Trump, claiming that Governor Doug Ducey, quote, "betrayed the people."

Now, it's worth noting, Ducey is also a Republican, he is also a supporter of the president. Arizona's Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, also signed off on the election results.

Katie, thank you so much for being with us, we really appreciate you being here. And I know that you've heard these emotional comments from -- out of Georgia, that we're hearing from Gabriel Sterling. Is that something that resonates with you?

KATIE HOBBS (D), ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE: Oh, absolutely, 100 percent. And it's been a very frustrating part of this post-election period, when -- seeing elected leaders in Arizona not just fail to condemn this kind of rhetoric and threats that are being made, but flat-out egg them on and continue to fuel this kind of behavior, it's been extremely frustrating.

KEILAR: What type of threats have you received, Secretary?

HOBBS: So there were threats on social media. We have law enforcement here monitoring activity on social media and looking into the people who posted them. There's surveillance outside of my house because people have showed up at my house as well. And -- so they're monitoring and anything, we're staying on top of things that are coming in.

[14:25:18]

KEILAR: OK, you sound very calm as you're saying that people have showed up at your house, but I can't imagine that that's what the situation played out like in the moment. What was that like?

HOBBS: I actually wasn't at home, my husband was. He was pretty rattled. We actually left to go to a hotel for a few days, and then my kids were both home from college for Thanksgiving and we were able to get away for that holiday as well so that we weren't disrupted.

KEILAR: So you had to leave your house because of safety concerns?

HOBBS: Yes.

KEILAR: OK. So the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani wants Republican lawmakers to convene a hearing into voter fraud in the state's election, in your state's election. What is your response to that?

HOBBS: Well, there's -- he keeps talking about all this evidence, but they've presented zero evidence. And the place to present evidence is in a court of law, and all of the court cases that have been brought in Arizona have been thrown out for lack of evidence. So there's no grounds for the legislature to intervene in this

situation at this point. You know, they had this -- I don't want to even call it a hearing, it was at a hotel on Monday here in Arizona, and again, if they have actual evidence, bring it to a court, that's the place to do it.

But legislators there, saying that they could actually overturn the election results. And that's just not possible at all.

KEILAR: Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, thank you so much for being with us and talking to us about what you're going through in your state, and also personally. We appreciate it.

HOBBS: Thank you.

KEILAR: Next, I'm going to be joined by a doctor who is the only member of the vaccine advisory panel to vote against sending the first doses to long-term care facilities: why she thinks it's potentially dangerous.

And President Obama says he doesn't think Democrats should be using the term "defund the police," and he has more advice for the party on how to move forward. Is this something that all Democrats want to take though?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)