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New Model Predicts 500,000-Plus Dead From Coronavirus By April; Trump Called Georgia's GOP Governor To Pressure Him To Get State's Election Results Overturned; Ten Million Californians Facing Stay-At- Home Order Tomorrow Night; CNN "Presidential Brief": Members Of Biden Transition Team Unable To Meet With Pentagon Intelligence Agencies; Trump Nominee For Senior Pentagon Position Spread Debunked Conspiracy Theories & Suggests Trump Should Declare Martial Law. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired December 05, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

[16:00:00]

Our breaking news right now on CNN, President Trump getting personally involved in efforts to rewrite history, to overturn his historic loss to Joe Biden in the state of Georgia.

Now, CNN has confirmed reports that the president phoned the governor of Georgia earlier today, pressuring him to cancel the state's election results and essentially put electors in place who will give him a victory there.

I want to bring in former White House communications director under President Trump, Anthony Scaramucci.

Let me give you some of the more -- the additional details we're learning about this phone call, Anthony, that Trump asked Kemp to call a special session to try to convince the state legislators there to select their own electors that would then support Trump. This is according to a source familiar with this conversation. We're told that the governor denied this request and now we know that governor is no longer going to be at the president's rally tonight, although we're told it's because of a death of a close family friend.

But what's your reaction to this?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR UNDER TRUMP: Look, it's sad. I mean, I think the broader reaction, Ana, is where are the Republicans? Where is the Republican leadership and the Republican Party?

Governor Kemp, rightly or wrongly, has been a close associate of president Trump's, more or less has done what he wanted him to do throughout the pandemic, but he doesn't want to disavow the constitution and break the law. William Barr doesn't want to disavow the constitution and break the law. You've got guys like Chris Krebs that want to tell the truth and tell the American people that the election was safe and secure, arguably the most secure election ever. And so, you know, he's going to continue to do this. The good news is,

even if the governor said that he wanted to do that, there are likely more patriotic men and women that would never let that happen, and even if he was able to flip Georgia, that wouldn't even be enough for him to get the electoral college votes that he needs.

So he's in it, he's painted into a corner, 46 more days of destructive personality disorder from him.

CABRERA: Why do you think he's emboldened to do this, though? Do you think it has to do with lawmakers -- Republican lawmakers going along with him or at least just staying silent?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, it's been a 45, 50-year strategy. The moral suasion, the jawboning, the imperiousness, the overcompensating bullying, all of this stuff has been in the mix for the president for five decades. And so, I think if anything, he's concerned and doesn't really understand why it's not working this time.

That's why you're hearing from sources inside the White House about the rage and the denial and the anger, but this sort of behavior has worked for him for five decades. But it's not going to work here. People don't want to go to jail, and you're watching his half-life of power fade very quickly.

And, of course, once he's out of office on January 21st, it will be like that scene in "Ghost," Ana, when the little ghosts came up from hell and grabbed the bad guys and took them down, that's going to be the Republican aspirants for the presidential -- 2024 primary. They're going to knock Trump into next week as he loses his battle.

CABRERA: Before we get to 2024, there is an election just around the corner next month and the president will be in Georgia tonight, trying to rally people for this special election runoff there, actually two special election runoffs for control of the Senate, essentially. This race will decide who it's going to be, if it's going to be Republican or Democratic control.

Is the president, do you think, going to be able to stay on message and avoid talk of election fraud, or is this going to turn into a potential nightmare for Republicans?

SCARAMUCCI: You know, it depends on his mood. You know, he's clearly can stay on message. The third debate, which became the second debate, he was more or less on message, which was lying with some level of congeniality. And so, you see their anger base lying, or his friendly base lying. And so, we'll have to see which direction he goes in.

But if he goes off on a tangent, it's going to hurt those two senatorial candidates because a very large portion of the MAGA base feels those senators let them down in the state of Georgia, and then there's a portion of the president's supporters that are so cult-like in their behavior that they want to boycott the election to punish those people, which is in the direct disinterest of the Republican Party. But remember, you know, he's going to have a hard time tonight because

it's not for him that he's down there. And so since it's not for him, he'll be more or less disengaged and less interested and less passionate.

CABRERA: Our Jim Acosta reports that the White House exodus is already under way. We reported, you know, the White House communications director left this week, sources say staffers at all levels are plotting their departures. Who's going to be there at the bitter end, do you think, and is it more advantageous for members of the administration to stay glued to Trump for their own political futures or is it time to jump ship?

[16:05:03]

SCARAMUCCI: Well, I think the people that will be there are sort of the people that carried him through "Celebrity Apprentice". It will be a few of his family members and a few very, very close acolytes. I think everyone else is sort of leaving and trying to figure out what they're going to do and how to recalibrate themselves and there will be a big debate in the Republican Party.

Will it be Trump sycophants going forward and carrying the torch of the Republican Party, like Representative Matt Gaetz who was caught in Jersey City last night, maskless, disavowing the health orders there, or will it be some type of return to normalcy?

And ultimately, I think, that's going to be people like Mitch McConnell that are going to make that decision. He'll be the titular head of that party and it will be up to him to direct people as to where things are going to go.

Right now, it's a personality cult but I predict that when President Trump loses power and that disintegration of power takes place, you may get a return to normalcy, or you may find people becoming Trumpier than President Trump. I mean, you can just follow some of these jokers like Senator Cruz on Twitter, and you're like, okay, I mean, this guy's really lost it.

I mean, the president went after his wife, he accused his father of killing John F. Kennedy, and he's sitting out there as one of the Trumpiest of Trump people.

CABRERA: Trumpier than Trump. That's hard to even fathom.

You talk about Mitch McConnell, maybe he brings things back to normal. As far as we know, he hasn't publicly even acknowledged that Joe Biden is president-elect.

And in fact, a new "Washington Post" survey of all 249 Republicans in the House and Senate conducted in just the past couple of days finds only 27 of them acknowledge Joe Biden's win over President Trump. Just 27.

What does that tell you? SCARAMUCCI: That tells you that they think that the 74-plus million

people that voted for President Trump are tied to him and that tells you that they don't want his wrath politically. They don't want his invective on Twitter, and they don't want to be primaried, and so they're trying to --

CABRERA: But you were just saying he's losing his power and his hold over the party.

SCARAMUCCI: Well, yeah, so, once he's out of power -- it's like a very bad break-up. Imagine that you're in a relationship with somebody and you know the person's completely nuts but they're moving to the other side of the world and you just don't want that powder keg to explode. So you're sort of going through the motions until that person departs and you're -- you've got a countdown clock on your iPhone watch waiting for that person to leave.

And that's what these people are doing. It's a very bad break-up with somebody that's abnormal, sociopathic, and they don't -- they don't want to go after him right now because he still has keys to some levels of power and they think it will be too disruptive, and so, that's what's going on.

CABRERA: Bottom line, Joe Biden will become president in just 46 days.

I want you to listen to how Biden answered the question about whether Trump should attend his inauguration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Do you think it's important that he's there? You're laughing.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it would -- important only in one sense. Not in a personal sense. Important in a sense that we are able to demonstrate at the end of this chaos that he's created, that there is peaceful transfer of power with the competing parties standing there, shaking hands, and moving on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And as we come back live here, you can see a lot of people are there ready for this rally for the president. This is in Valdosta, Georgia.

Anthony, do you agree with what we just heard from Joe Biden? Do you think President Trump shows up?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, I still think he's going to show up. Yeah, I'm probably the contrarian on this. I think that someone's going to explain to him, there's been 44 people that have been president. Grover Cleveland was president twice, which is why you're 45, and every one of those presidents, including John Adams, you know, was roughed up.

Now, in John Adams's case, he left but there's been 120 or 140-year tradition right now, could be longer than that, but it's a long tradition where the presidents hand over the power peacefully, irrespective of party, and I don't know if he necessarily wants to break that tradition. It will certainly hurt his political fortunes going forward, and the potentiality of his family members' political fortunes.

And so, I don't see the upside of not showing up. It makes him look like a sore loser and so, hopefully someone will convince him of that and on that day, perhaps he'll be in the right sort of mind and his impetuosity will get him there.

But if he doesn't show up, it's an embarrassment to him. And I think what the vice president is saying, soon to be President Biden, is that, you know, it's not the end of the world for the country, we'll move on. But it's just more evidence as to why he should have never been president in the first place, why he was so ill-suited for that job in terms of his temperament.

[16:10:00]

CABRERA: Anthony Scaramucci, I appreciate your perspective. Thanks so much for joining me.

SCARAMUCCI: Good to be here, Ana. Thank you.

CABRERA: It is a sobering statistic. On average, one American is dying from COVID every 30 second. So that means 24 people lost just since the top of the hour. The loss so unprecedented that some funeral homes are buying refrigerated trucks just to keep up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're backed up four and five weeks out now and we've had married couples that die within a day of each other. Parents and children die within a week of each other. It's -- it's heart wrenching.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: If funeral homes are overwhelmed accepting the dead, how are our doctors and nurses coping with losing the battle to save these lives? We'll ask one next.

Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the United States.

[16:15:01]

A virus we had never heard of a year ago is the leading cause of death here, surpassing heart disease. Think about that.

And now, an influential model from the University of Washington is predicting, by April, so just four months from now, there will be almost double the amount of deaths in this country. If that's true, 539,000 people will be dead. That would be equivalent of taking a city the size of Atlanta or Sacramento and just wiping it off the map. Already, one American is dying about every 30 seconds.

And even that statistic, as staggering as it is, doesn't do justice to the pain of people like Lizanne Jennings, an Oklahoma nurse who lost her husband and her mother within a matter of days. Here, she describes the moment she got in her husband's ear and told him he was about to die.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIAZANNE JENNINGS, LOST HUSBAND & MOTHER TO COVID-19 WITHIN 3 DAYS: Giving him morphine and Ativan and I turned him over, I got on his back, and I said, I love you, and he said, I love you. And I said, you're going to go now, OK? You can finally be at peace, and he said -- he took his last breath about 30 minutes later. And I bathed him and I cut his hair and I put clothes on him. And I left him. There's nothing else I could -- I couldn't save either one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: We can't put into words what it was like for Quincy Drone and Lastasia White (ph) to lose their 5-year-old daughter Teegan (ph) just hours after she tested positive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUINCY DRONE, LOST FIVE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AFTER COVID-19 INFECTION: As parents, you never expect to see your daughter in a coffin. You never expect to see your daughter in the emergency room with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And if you needed just one more reason to please, please, please wear a mask, listen to the words of this nurse and do it for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLISON BOERNER, CHARGE ER NURSE, CENTURA-PARKER ADVENTIST HOSPITAL: As an ER nurse, I haven't cried a lot on the job. You hold that back and you want to stay tough for the family and stoic, and there's been a lot of tears shed in ER rooms during COVID. Because we are treating that person dying like our loved one dying, because they don't have anyone else, and they need that grace and they need that human touch and they need someone to be there when they're taking their last breath.

The holidays have been rough for a lot of us. We're not seeing our families. We're doing everything we can to keep the public safe, and so, it's extremely frustrating for us when people are not doing that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: CNN's Sara Sidner has more on the pandemic's impact on daily life. .

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA KRUGER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FRYE CHAPEL AND MORTUARY: My business pretty much tripled.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Imperial County, California with an 18 percent unemployment rate that would normally be great news, but this is a funeral home inundated with bodies.

SIDNER: How much worse can this get?

KRUGER: We're afraid. You know when the first wave hit, our hospitals were sending patients out of county to other hospitals because they were at capacity. That's not going to happen this time, because nobody has room anymore.

SIDNER: The COVID-19 summer surge overwhelmed her staff, going from an average of 55 deaths to 135 in one month.

Sheila Kruger frantically bought and soon filled three new refrigerated containers with the dead. They are filling up again.

KRUGER: So, we can put two or three.

We're backed up four and five weeks out now. And we've had married couples that die within a day of each other. Parents and children die within a week of each other. It's -- it's heart wrenching.

SIDNER: Even with all the new treatments helping bring death down and a vaccine on the way, COVID-19 is killing one person in America every 30 seconds.

In Kansas, one patient says the politicization of masks is killing people.

JACE BRUCE, COVID-19 PATIENT: I've convinced that there are going to be so many people that are going to die just because of what I'm going to call political.

SIDNER: For months, throngs of health care workers have been working to exhaustion battling to save as many lives as they can, but seeing more death than ever before.

DR. SHANNON TAPIA, GERIATRICIAN: I don't want to say it's been harder for us than it has for everybody else, but the truth is it has.

SIDNER: From a doctor in Colorado, where one out of 41 people are contagious, according to the governor, to a COVID unit nurse in Kansas where ICU beds in one part of the state are at capacity, there has been no respite.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two to three weeks, we're going to be just swamped.

SIDNER: One healthcare system with hospitals in 21 states is reporting a 70 percent increase in hospitalizations over the past three weeks, caring for highly contagious coronavirus patients is taking its toll on everyone.

In a newly released survey of 1,100 healthcare workers, 76 percent reported exhaustion and burnout.

[16:20:06]

DR. ADOLPHE EDWARD, CEO, EL CENTRO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: I think we're past the breaking point. So the staff is here but they are broken but they still continue to come.

SIDNER: Dr. Adolphe Edward runs El Centro Regional Medical Center in California. This hospital has just two ICU beds left before they're at capacity. While working nonstop since the summer's deadly surge, they're facing down yet another surge. This time, a second field hospital with 50 beds has been erected.

The medical tent mimicking a familiar scene to this Air Force veteran.

EDWARD: This brings me back or takes me back to when we were in the middle of Baghdad.

SIDNER: Are we in a war, though?

EDWARD: We are. So, we used to shy away from using the term war zone. We're in a war zone against COVID.

SIDNER: The signs of a big battle are reappearing across the country.

On Staten Island, an emergency hospital reopened. Corona hospitalizations there have nearly tripled.

In Rhode Island, a field hospital erected.

Another put up by the National Guard in Massachusetts and a terribly familiar plea we heard at the beginning of the pandemic now repeated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you have the skills, the ability, they can do attitude and have time to work in a hospital, we need you.

SIDNER: Experts say what we really need to put the disease on ice the vaccine. Here in El Centro, they took part in the AstraZeneca trial and now have one of the precious super cold refrigerators that hold the delicate vaccine.

EDWARD: This refrigerator I call it my life right now. This is -- every night, we come in to make sure everything is OK with it, that it has what it takes and that we're prepared to actually take it to the next level.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: That was Sara Sidner reporting.

I want to bring in Dr. Shirlee Xie, associate director of hospital medicine for Hennepin Healthcare.

And, Doctor, thanks for being with us. I know your hospital is in downtown Minneapolis. The state of Minnesota currently dealing with a recent spike in the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19.

What has been the hardest part of your job this week?

DR. SHIRLEE XIE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF HOISPITAL MEDICINE: I think it is just the feeling of just suffocating all the time. You know, we're -- we're suffocating in our patients' isolation and their fear. It's suffocating in just the emotional and physical exhaustion of all of our colleagues. It's feeling helpless because there's often nothing we can do for people.

And I think it's the constant thought of what's coming next; 9,000 Minnesotans were diagnosed with coronavirus on Sunday, and then another 9,000 on Monday, and every single day, thousands more people are getting this virus, and we know that means that in a few days, in a week, hundreds of people are going to be coming to the hospital and hundreds of people are going to die.

And I think that sometimes when you hear statistics like that, you become numb to what those numbers mean, but for us, you know, the people that are taking care of these patients every single number is somebody that we have to look at and say, I'm sorry, there's nothing more I can do for you, and it's just another family we have to call to tell them that their loved ones are going to die.

CABRERA: It's so hard breaking. And clearly, it's so overwhelming. I can feel -- I can feel your stress and your strength at the same time, because you're hanging on, and you're still doing your job, even when it seems obviously so difficult. And I wonder, you know, why. Why do you think there's this surge? Is it -- what do you attribute this?

XIE: I think that people are tired. People are tired of, you know, wearing masks. People are tired of staying in their homes, and truly, my heartbreaks for everybody who has lost their jobs or their housing and for kids that aren't able to go to school and for people that can't see their family, but I don't think that people can really comprehend how horrific this disease is unless they've been personally touched by it.

I mean, people are literally suffocating inside our hospitals, and they are dying alone, and they don't get the luxury to complain about COVID fatigue, and their families don't get the luxury to complain about it because they're living in, like, COVID hell.

[16:25:01]

We all want to be able to have our lives go back to normal, but it doesn't mean that we can't -- can pretend that this doesn't actually exist. And I think that's the problem is that, you know, no one wants to believe how horrible it is and so they've just given up. CABRERA: How do you keep pushing forward?

XIE: You know, I think it's just -- it's hard. I think it's really challenging sometimes to not accumulate all of these experiences and have that weight, but I'm only Dr. Xie in the hospital, you know? When I leave and I go home, I'm Shirlee, and I am mama to two amazing little kids, and they know what COVID is. They know what their parents do at work.

And they've had their whole lives changed already, but quite frankly, I mean, they are more concerned with, you know, complaining about what I'm going to cook for dinner than what's going on in the world, and I think it's just remembering that we have responsibilities to our patients but we also have responsibilities outside of the hospital too. And remembering that you can't change these things that have happened, but you have to keep moving forward because there is still so much more work to do.

CABRERA: When you talk about us not becoming numb and not be -- just seeing the numbers but really seeing the bigger picture, can you tell us more about what you and your staff have been witnessing with the patients that are coming in with COVID?

XIE: Yeah. You know, when I think about what we're seeing with COVID, there's always a picture that comes to mind, and it's a photograph that was on the front page of the "Star Tribune", our newspaper, a couple weeks ago. It's a picture of a man in an ICU bed, and he's lying on his stomach, and he's got high-flow oxygen in his nose, and it just -- every time I see that picture, I think, this is what COVID is. This is what we're seeing.

And you can see that he's fighting to breathe, and he's fighting to live, and he is suffering. You know, COVID, it's not the cold. It's not the flu. It ravages your body. It attacks your heart. It attacks your brain. It destroys your lungs.

You know, we're just -- we're seeing so much suffering. I think I have had more patients die in the last eight or nine months than I have my entire career. And I don't know how to describe that to people.

CABRERA: And I just don't know how you even begin to cope with that, the work you do is really, really God's work. We're so lucky, all of us, as Americans to have people like you working hard to save lives.

Dr. Shirlee Xie, thank you for talking with us and sharing your experience. We're sending you and all of your colleagues strength and just tremendous gratitude.

XIE: Thank you.

CABRERA: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:33:09] CABRERA: Breaking news just into CNN. Ten million people in California will soon be under a stay-at-home order As the hospitals there face just an increasingly dire situation.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is live in California.

Paul, give us the latest.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, so we'll get straight to the horrifying numbers out of the state of California.

We have 25,000, more than 25,000 new cases in California. That means 10,000 people hospitalized, including here at UCLA Medical Center where I'm standing. And we also had 209 new deaths.

About these stay-at-home orders, soon, it will be almost all of the state of California.

And here's why. When that threshold drops below 15 percent of remaining ICU capacity, that triggers the enactment of the serious stay-at-home orders in a region.

The San Joaquin region has officially made this announcement. That's four million people. We know another six million people are going to go ahead and invoke those orders in the San Francisco Bay area.

And then looming, we expect this to come this afternoon, Los Angeles County will dip below that threshold and that means 23 million people.

And I should say, Los Angeles County and the rest of this massive southern California region, 23 million people, will go into these severe stay-at-home orders.

That's at 11:59 p.m., a minute before midnight. That's tomorrow, Sunday night, local time.

These orders mean no one's to head out to museums, playgrounds. Most businesses curtailed. You can't go to nail salons. You can't go to hair salons. It is rather strict.

Some of these measures are already in place, depending on the county in southern California.

But this sweeping measure, again, to be enacted at 11:59 west coast time on Sunday -- Ana?

[16:35:03]

CABRERA: Paul Vercammen for us in Los Angeles. Thanks, Paul.

With just 46 days until Joe Biden is sworn in as president, members of the Biden transition team were unable to meet with Pentagon intelligence agencies this week. We have your weekend "PRESIDENTIAL BRIEF" next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Almost two weeks after the Trump administration finally signed off on a presidential transition, CNN has learned that Biden's intelligence transition team was still prevented from meeting with counterparts at Pentagon intelligence agencies this week.

A senior defense official tells CNN that briefings took place for transition officials on military matters but not on intelligence.

The acting defense secretary said today the Pentagon has been fully cooperating with the Biden transition teams.

And the DOD issued a statement saying the reporting was demonstrably false and patently insulting.

[16:40:01]

Now multiple Pentagon officials blamed this delay on the Biden intelligence transition team, saying members of that team reached out directly to the Pentagon's intelligence agencies, which they said was a violation of the transition arrangement.

And that brings us to your weekend "PRESIDENTIAL BRIEF" with CNN national security analyst, Samantha Vinograd.

This is a segment we bring to you every week where we break down some of the most pressing national security issues the president is facing.

I assume we have Sam there.

So let's get right to our first question, because we know that the GSA ascertainment took longer than many expected.

I'm told we are having technical difficulties with same We'll bring her back on the other side of a quick break.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:45:09]

CABRERA: Welcome back. As we reported before the break, CNN has learned that Biden's intelligence transition team was still prevented from meeting with its counterparts at Pentagon intelligence agencies this week.

And that brings us to our weekend "PRESIDENTIAL BRIEF" with CNN national security analyst, Samantha Vinograd.

Sam, glad to see you. Glad our technology is working this time.

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You, too.

CABRERA: We know that the GSA ascertainment took longer than a lot of people expected. Now over at the Pentagon, it looks like we may have another delay on top of an already-delayed transition process.

So what does this mean? What's still on hold?

VINOGRAD: Well, agency review teams, or ARTs, are key parts of the post-election process. After ascertainment, they're authorized to enter federal agencies in order to understand operations and ensure a smooth transfer of power.

Despite the ascertainment, we've learned that ARTs have not been granted access to Pentagon intelligence agencies, like the NSA or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Pentagon officials are citing process fouls on behalf of the transition team. While other reporting indicates that Pentagon political appointees have laid down procedural roadblocks.

Ana, whoever's at fault, the bottom line is we're wasting time. No one should want a rushed transition on programs like government surveillance, which the NSA is largely responsible for.

Cramming on these responsibilities is not in our national security interests.

Fortunately, members of Biden's ARTs have deep experience on intelligence so that may be a mitigating factor here.

CABRERA: I want to ask you about some other reporting. This is from our "KFILE" team. And it's that Trump's nominee for a senior Pentagon position, Scott O'Grady, spread debunked conspiracies that called Trump's loss a coup attempt.

He shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law.

What do you think the impact is of his nomination?

VINOGRAD: Well, hopefully, he won't have time to get confirmed.

But this is the latest reminder of Trump's dangerous approach to the Pentagon.

Just recently, he's fired senior officials at DOD and replaced them with conspiracy theorists, like General Tata.

He's removed experts from Defense Policy Boards and, instead, appointed acolytes like Corey Lewandowski. Corey Lewandowski, seriously, it's ridiculous.

At the same time, we have to remember that while the new secretary of defense can remove unqualified political appointees, with 47 days until inauguration, these moves are not without impact.

We're drawing down in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. And we have an Islamophobia, General Tata, leading policy at the Pentagon as we undergo the transition.

We have a Trump loyalist, Kash Patel, arguably, inappropriately involving himself in the transition.

And separately, Trump is threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for an unrelated personal vendetta.

Overall, Ana, these measures are the opposite of supporting our military. Instead, it looks like President Trump is waging a war on the Pentagon.

CABRERA: And, Sam, in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed this week, director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, wrote:

"If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point, it is that the People's Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II."

Ratcliffe also revealed China's targeting members of Congress with six times the frequency of Russia and 12 times the frequency of Iran, he says.

How seriously do you take Ratcliffe's warnings?

VINOGRAD: I don't to diminish the multiprong threat the Chinese Communist Party poses pot United States. But we really can't take anything that Ratcliffe says at face value.

He's established himself as a political messenger rather than an honest broker.

And perhaps because of those political bona fides, he's established himself as a key player in the administration's full court press on China.

He did this CBS interview. He penned an op-ed. And his office publicized the fact that the Intelligence Community's budget next year will increase by 20 percent.

At the same time, Pompeo is engaged in rapid-fire punitive measures against China.

And overall, whether motivated by politics or policy, it's clear the administration really wants their swan song to be about China.

CABRERA: All right, Sam Vinograd, as always, good to have you here. Thank you very much.

VINOGRAD: Thanks.

CABRERA: Facebook announced this week it will remove any debunked claims about coronavirus vaccines.

And it is measures like that, to cut down on misinformation, that have some Trump supporters looking for other sites where anything can be posted, even if it's filled with lies.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: I've been suspended by Twitter a few times.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got sick of Twitter.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You got censored too much?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Censored.

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: She was in jail every other day -- Twitter jail.

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: We didn't even exist. We just want to be able to be a part of the conversation. We want to be able to speak on the platform without being labeled, without being besmirched. I mean, it is toxic out there.

[16:50:04]

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Convinced that tech companies are biased against conservative views, some Trump supporters have turned to Parler.

It touts itself as a free-speech social network, one with far fewer rules than Facebook or Twitter.

JOHN MATZE, CEO, PARLER: Every time Twitter or Facebook takes authoritarian steps to curate content and act as a publication, it drives more people to our platform, which is a town square.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): So how is Parler different?

KARI TINGLEY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: You can have free speech. You can say whatever you want. You can voice your opinions.

ED TINGLEY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: As long as you are not getting people riled up to go out and actually make threats on people --

K. TINGLEY: -- and incite violence, which we don't. Never have, never will. Then we just go and have our free speech there.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): What is something you could say on Parler that you wouldn't be able to say on Facebook?

E. TINGLEY: That the coronavirus is not as deadly as everybody says it is.

K. TINGLEY: OK. And you could literally post that on Twitter and get in Twitter jail for that.

O'SULLIVAN: But you could post it on Parler?

K. TINGLEY: Yes.

E. TINGLEY: Yes, no problem.

O'SULLIVAN: I mean the CDC says we should be wearing masks. You don't accept that?

E. TINGLEY: No.

K. TINGLEY: No.

O'SULLIVAN: You said you were in Facebook jail.

K. TINGLEY: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: Could you explain to our audience what Facebook jail is? And how did you end up in there?

K. TINGLEY: See, I posted something about the Proud Boys. It was taken down as racist. I wasn't allowed to post for about, I don't know, I think it was 48 hours, you know. It is every time you write something that they disagree with.

O'SULLIVAN: Why have you been suspended from Twitter?

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: Pass.

O'SULLIVAN: I mean have you said racist stuff -- I mean there is there are ways to get suspended from Twitter, being racist, sharing hate. Did you share stuff like that?

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No, it's just -- it's just -- stating a disputed opinion --

O'SULLIVAN: Give me an example of a disputed opinion in the case of you getting suspended.

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: No.

O'SULLIVAN: Ben, what is Parler?

BEN DECKER, ONLINE RADICALIZATION EXPERT: Parler is the latest alternative social media platform.

O'SULLIVAN: Ben Decker, an online radicalization expert, compares Parler to a dive bar.

DECKER: Before the pandemic, we used to go out to baseball stadiums and watch game as a community. If you started cursing or infringing upon the experience of another fan, you are removed from the game.

And where did you go to watch the rest of it? At the dive bar next door where the behavioral standards are lax and it is OK to share opinions that aren't OK to be shared around others.

O'SULLIVAN: So if somebody is pushing very hateful, maybe dangerous rhetoric, do you worry that that could lead to offline violence? And that having a platform that allows for people to post and promote certain hateful viewpoints, that that could be dangerous? MATZE: I mean, obviously, anything can be dangerous. I live with my

mind free enough to know that any situation can spiral out of control.

But the whole idea is of people sharing their ideas with each other and I don't see how that leads to violence.

UNIDENTIFIED NEWS REPORTER: A spokesperson for the El Paso Mayor's office --

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But violent speech online can lead to real world violence. And 8Chan, a platform that preached free speech but let hate run amok, was linked to mass killings in El Paso, Texas, and Christchurch, New Zealand.

DECKER: In other echo chambers, like Parler, there are no dissenting opinions. So constantly, beliefs, ideas, new narratives are just further reinforced by others.

And these are the kinds of places that facilitate an unintentional radicalization process.

O'SULLIVAN: Facebook and Twitter deny their bias against conservative ideas. And instead, are cracking down on misinformation and hate.

But Parler has seen a spike in downloads since Election Day. And most of its users appear to be on the right.

(on camera): Have you started using it?

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: No. But I've messed around a little bit, but it's never any fun when it's just us. You know, it just turns into an echo chamber. And it's never any fun, because we can't mess with guys like you.

You know what I mean? It's no fun when it's just us, you know, saying what we know to be true to each other.

O'SULLIVAN: Owning the lids, when there's no lids on the platform?

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: I don't want to own lids. I want to have a discussion. I want to talk to people. You know what I mean? I want to engage. I want to have, you know, a discussion.

But it totally -- it can't happen the way things are going.

O'SULLIVAN: Can you not have that discussion on Twitter or Facebook right now?

UNIDENTIFIED TRUMP SUPPORTER: Not if you want to keep your account.

O'SULLIVAN: Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[16:54:57] CABRERA: On January 20th, Joe Biden will join the small and exclusive club of American vice presidents who have gone on to serve as commander-in-chief. And that is the subject of new CNN film tonight, "PRESIDENT IN WAITING," that airs at 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:00]

CABRERA: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Breaking news. A stunning phone call between the president of the United States and the Republican governor of Georgia.