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U.K. Begins COVID-19 Vaccinations; U.S. Adds 1 Million COVID-19 Cases in Five Days; Europe is Starting to Beat Surge; Maduro Allies Win Parliamentary Election; Shocking Conditions in Venezuelan Hospitals; Japan to Finalize New Stimulus Package; Trump Repeats False Claims U.S. Vote was Rigged; Blaze Still Poses Danger to Fraser Island Despite Rainfall; Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State, is Interviewed about Pro-Trump Group's Screams Outside Her Home; Young Mom Loses Battle with COVID After Giving Birth. Aired 12-12:45a ET
Aired December 08, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, and so it begins. Britain will begin vaccinating the elderly, the vulnerable and health care workers.
In the U.S., emergency authorization to start vaccinations expected later this week. But a decision by the Trump administration could see supplies run short.
And the delusion goes on, Donald Trump still pretending to be a second-term president and it seems many elected Republicans are happy to go along for the ride.
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VAUSE: V-Day in the U.K., this is the moment so many hoped for, believe will bring back some kind of normalcy. Vaccine Day is about to begin. At dozens of hospitals across Britain, the first Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will be given to the elderly over 80 years old, as well as frontline health care workers and care home workers.
The vaccine requires two injections, three weeks apart, and as a reminder to get that second shot, the government is issuing vaccine cards. A recent survey published in the medical survey, "The Lancet," has found just over half of the respondents in the U.K. trusted vaccines. Naturally, that was before the outbreak of the pandemic.
To try and boost confidence, the health secretary has offered to be vaccinated live on TV.
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MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: It's the beginning of the end of this pandemic. We are not there yet. It's so important that people keep doing the things we know we need to do, following the rules, and the basics to make sure we keep this under control. But we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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VAUSE: The first shipments of the vaccine began arriving in Britain over the weekend. Over 800,000 doses are expected to be available in the first week of the rollout, the biggest ever vaccination program for the National Health Service. CNN's Max Foster reports from Cardiff, Wales.
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MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): There's a real sense of history here in the United Kingdom as it becomes the first country in the world to start mass immunizations with the Pfizer vaccine.
It's being delivered to a network of hospitals up and down the country although, here in Wales, those locations are being kept secret to avoid people queueing up outside.
It's strictly invitation only and the first invitations for the vaccine have gone out to front line health and care home workers. So far, everything is going to plan.
The bigger challenge though will what will be the next phase and that's getting the vaccine into smaller doctors' surgeries and care homes, which don't have the refrigeration facilities to keep the vaccine for more than a few days.
Nevertheless, a real sense of history and achievements in getting this vaccine through the development stage and into people's arms in a matter of months when it normally takes about 10 years -- Max Foster, CNN, Cardiff, Wales.
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VAUSE: In the United States, FDA is expected to authorize Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for immediate distribution. But according to a report from "The New York Times," around six months ago, the Trump administration turned down an offer from Pfizer for additional doses of its vaccine, which means many in the U.S. will have to wait until next June.
That's when Pfizer says it will have met commitments made to other countries and will be able to produce the vaccine for the U.S. The Trump administration denies the report in "The Times," and says there will be a sufficient number of doses to vaccinate all Americans who want to be vaccinated by the end of June.
All of this, amid the dire news of record hospital admissions in the United States for COVID-19. Just over 100,000 on Monday alone. CNN's Nick Watt has more on the surge in cases.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The United States just logged more than a million new COVID-19 cases in just five days.
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WATT (voice-over): For comparison, South Korea, smaller population, sure, but, in five days, they logged fewer than 3,000 new cases.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Today is Pearl Harbor Day. And, on Pearl Harbor, 2,403 Americans were killed. Three days last week, we exceeded that.
WATT (voice-over): The U.S. average daily death toll is higher than it's been since April and record numbers of Americans are now in the hospital.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Our surge right now is intensifying. It is amplifying.
WATT (voice-over): The post-Thanksgiving surge hasn't even hit yet and soon there could be another -- but bigger.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: With Christmas, it starts several days before. It goes through Christmas. The week after Christmas into New Year's and the New Year's holiday, I think it could be even more of a challenge than what we saw with Thanksgiving.
WATT (voice-over): Sunday night, a last hurrah for many restaurants in California.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know the drill and it's the only way to survive.
WATT (voice-over): Today, much of the state is back to takeout only, back under stay-home orders.
FAUCI: They said, we feel we need to do this.
What do you think?
And I said, you really don't have any choice.
WATT (voice-over): Because ICU beds are getting scarce, too scarce.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Hospitalizations, we're now over 10,000 patients in our hospitals, 72 percent increase over the last 14 days. You can see how quickly this grows.
WATT (voice-over): Today, New York City reopened some schools.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: The parents were so happy and so relieved.
WATT (voice-over): But just hours later, a warning from New York's governor. GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): If we don't get the rate under control and
you are going to overwhelm your hospitals, we will have to go back to shutdown.
FAUCI: The middle of January could be a really dark time for us.
WATT (voice-over): And not just in New York.
DR. JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: This surge is different than earlier surges, because it's not about PPE. It's not about testing. It's really about health care capacity. And certain places are just being overwhelmed.
We have got vaccines coming but we want as many people to be alive to get them as possible.
WATT (voice-over): An FDA committee meets Thursday. A green light for Pfizer's vaccine is expected to follow.
DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: I really hope they do it quickly and that the vaccine will be available to our population starting later this week.
WATT: Until the vaccine rolls out, we've got a problem. Here in California, over the past 14 days, hospital and ICU admissions are about up by 70 percent. They're trying to hire more health care workers and the California government has appealed to the federal government, asking for reinforcements -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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VAUSE: Anne Rimoin is a professor in epidemiology at UCLA, she is with us from Los Angeles.
So, Professor, good to see. You
ANNE RIMOIN, EPIDEMIOLOGY PROFESSOR, UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Good to see you.
VAUSE: Just to pick up on that reporting from "The New York Times," here is a little bit more of that report.
"Trump administration officials passed when Pfizer offered in late summer to sell the U.S. government additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, according to people familiar with the matter. Now Pfizer may not be able to provide more of its vaccine to the United States until next June, because of commitments to other countries."
Is there any good reason why like a decision like that was, made?
Can you explain why in just a general sense?
RIMOIN: Well, you know I actually am not sure why they would make such a decision, given that we know that we need vaccines here in this country. You know, I think this has been part of the issue all along. It is the lack of transparency in the process, the lack of understanding, of planning.
This, I think, is just another indication that we just haven't had a good grasp of the next steps, going forward. So I was just as surprised to hear it as you, were.
I think that it demonstrates the complexity and difficulty of having a good response, that is going to be thinking about all the angles here. But it's a real shame for the United States, that's for sure.
VAUSE: The U.K. is about to begin vaccinations, Russia started on Saturday, on Sunday Indonesia received its first shipment of coronavirus vaccine from China. In India, Pfizer is seeking emergency approval for its vaccine.
Here in the U.S., maybe Thursday, Friday and even then, because of the delay in the number of doses which can be made by Pfizer, overall, why does it seem that the rollout in the United States is incredibly slow?
RIMOIN: Well, I think this is really not a situation of the vaccine rollout being very slow; here is the situation.
The United States has a different process than the U.K. The U.K. has a different process than the E.U. So every country has a different process for being able to vet the vaccine.
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RIMOIN: Now in the U.K. regulators generally look more at the reports from the companies themselves and work on the basis of those. In the United States, the FDA request the raw data and redo analyses themselves, a very, very rigorous and thorough process.
So I think that the way this should be framed is not that the United States is moving so slowly. I think that this is really something that should be giving the United States, the people of the United States a lot of confidence in the process. Our process may be slower than the U.K. but there are reasons for that.
We're going through it methodically, using raw data, not reports from the companies. We know in the United States we have a lot of vaccine hesitancy. In October, even, our studies showed that 66 percent of health care workers were very hesitant about getting the vaccine right away. They preferred to wait, they had some concerns because of the politicization of the process, the lack of information that was out there.
While people were not vaccine hesitant or afraid of vaccines in general, this vaccine made them nervous. So I don't think that a couple of days is the end of the world. In fact, those days should give people a lot of confidence.
VAUSE: About a month ago, we had a situation in the U.S. and Europe. Both was pretty grim. There was a surge in the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus but now Europe may have actually turned a corner, if you look at the number of daily cases, the average which is starting to fall.
In the U.S., that is not the case. In fact, we're hearing that the worst is likely still to come.
It's no secret why Europe is getting this outbreak under control right now and the United States is not, right?
RIMOIN: I think you're right, John, the bottom line is measures that restrict people from mixing with each other work. As long as you can -- you have to take it very, very seriously again. And I hate the word lockdown. I don't think this is really a lockdown here. That has different connotations.
But they've really clamped down on day-to-day behaviors that allow people to mix, to gather, doing the things that we know slow the spread of this virus. We now need to do the same thing. We're seeing an incredible rise in these cases.
It's been the whole issue of what was called in the very beginning, the hammer and the dance. You really clamp down on, things you get the virus levels down. And then as you open up, you see spread. Again.
So I would say that Europe has done a really good job, they pushed numbers down, but nobody is out of the. Woods we are coming up to Christmas, and everybody needs to do everything they can to reduce the spread of this virus.
None of us have widespread access to vaccines at this point. Even if it's a few days earlier in the U.K., versus the U.S. or everywhere else in the world, we do not have enough vaccines for the whole population.
So we are all going to have to rely on the things that we know. Work. That's hand hygiene, social distancing, wearing a mask, avoiding contact with people outside our own households, avoiding doing anything where we are going to be in crowds.
This is just the bottom line for. Now but there is light at the end of the tunnel as we say. It's just that tunnel is long.
VAUSE: Yes, very long. For the record, I'm having a Zoom Christmas. There you go, Professor, thank you, good to see. You
RIMOIN: It's my pleasure.
VAUSE: Well, Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, declares the health care system is winning the war against the pandemic. But then there is reality.
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ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is intensive neonatal ward. And the reason I'm holding up this light right here is because there is no electricity in this hospital. VAUSE (voice-over): Coming up, CNN's exclusive report from inside two
Venezuelan hospitals.
And in the midst of a global pandemic,, hundreds have been admitted to hospital in India suffering from a deadly mystery illness, causing seizures, nausea and vomiting.
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VAUSE: Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro celebrating a widely criticized and apparently sweeping victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections. But on Maduro's watch the pandemic has crippled the nation and left the economy in ruins.
Officially, the government says fewer than 1,000 people have died from the coronavirus but in the real world, doctors tell CNN the situation is dire and CNN's Isa Soares has access to two of the biggest hospitals in the country and has revealed a health care system grossly unprepared, under-resourced and, in some cases, on the brink of collapse.
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SOARES (voice-over): In Los Magallanes Public Hospital in Caracas, remnants of this once wealthy nation lie strewn on the dirt floor. Its shackle wards hiding what the Venezuelan government doesn't want us to see.
Here, COVID-19 has unmasked Venezuela's open wounds. And, practically, every floor in this hospital is empty, tells me this hospital worker, who prefers to remain anonymous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): It's empty because there's nothing here. There are no supplies. There's no way to treat patients, no lights, no working pipes, the baths are clogged and there's no water. If patients don't die of their disease, they die of contamination.
SOARES (voice-over): It's a risk only a few dare to take. This is the COVID-19 ward. Only this part of it is functional. The rest is completely run down after years of mismanagement.
So it's no surprise many would rather face the pandemic outside these walls, choosing instead their homes over these decrepit rooms, where darkness has literally taken over.
SOARES: This is the intensive neonatal ward. And the reason I'm holding up this light right here is because there is no electricity in this hospital. Have a look around. Bare bones.
And what I have been told by doctors around Caracas and outside of Caracas is that this is a situation day in, day out.
SOARES (voice-over): Even in the morgue, death comes with shortages. There's no pathologists here and, with intermittent electricity, the stench is unbearable. Now imagine having to face a pandemic in these conditions.
It's why doctors like Gustavo Villasmil are no longer afraid to speak out.
SOARES: "I have friends of mine who have been criminally charged," he says.
Why?
For protesting the conditions in which they have been forced to practice. So he doesn't hold back.
"In Venezuela," he tells me, "there are only as many recognized COVID cases as the regime wants."
With testing limited to three government control labs, Villasmil says it's impossible to paint an accurate picture.
"With regards to COVID," he says, "we don't know where we are."
The government, however, claims the pandemic is under control, saying its strategy has worked.
A government minder shows us inside a hotel, where suspected infected patients are kept in quarantine for up to 21 days. It's a lockdown strategy employed by China, which the government of Nicolas Maduro has been keen to extol.
Dr. Rodriguez shares a similar pride.
"Venezuelans have shown an immunity to the virus," he says.
The families of those died on the front lines may see it differently.
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SOARES (voice-over): Two hundred seventy-two health-care workers have lost their lives in Venezuela as of November 30th.
At Hospital Vargas in Caracas, you can see why. They are overworked and not protected.
SOARES: That's one nurse for this whole area here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): We don't have masks, we don't have gloves. They turn on the water one hour in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night. There's nothing. There's not broom, no mop, no cloth. SOARES (voice-over): This is evident all around. And as I walk this ward, I stop to speak to a patient's daughter.
She tells me her frail 69-year-old father is here because of malnourishment, the same state-imposed (ph) malady that we've seen across Venezuela.
His immune system is compromised, yet he shares this ward with a COVID patient.
His daughter tells me he needs iron supplements that the hospital simply doesn't have.
SOARES: Have a look at this. I mean, this is what -- this is what they have to work with here, nurses and doctors, syringes. It's astounding. They've got nothing.
SOARES (voice-over): There's a vast emptiness all around and a sense of disillusionment and surrender, painful, no doubt, for those who saw this once oil-rich country as one of the wealthiest in Latin America, now teetering on the brink of survival -- Isa Soares, CNN, Caracas, Venezuela.
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VAUSE: CNN reached out to the Venezuelan government for comment on the conditions seen in these hospitals in Caracas and also on the criticism by health care professionals which were in Isa's piece. To date, we have yet to receive a response.
With South Korea struggling to contain the worst outbreak in nine months, the government has announced plans to buy enough COVID vaccine for 44 million people. Also, new social distancing rules and other restrictions have been imposed, effective today in Seoul, where new cases are surging. Nationwide masks are now mandatory indoors.
Japan is set to finalize its third stimulus package later on Tuesday, more than $700 billion to help an economy which has been hit hard by the pandemic. Ivan Watson is live in Hong Kong.
Ivan, South Korea and Japan are talking about this pandemic being a war zone. They are deploying the military.
What will these troops be doing?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They will be assisting, in the South Korean case, contact tracing. A top health official in South Korea says that that country is facing its biggest crisis, in the official's words, since the pandemic began back in February there.
We all have to put this in perspective compared to the U.S. which tragically is at the top of all of these statistics when it comes to new cases and hospitalizations and deaths, while South Korea is facing a third wave. Its numbers are just a fraction, even proportionately to a country like the U.S., with a death toll at 552 and some more than 38,000 new cases.
You see the wave there of total confirmed cases and that is what the South Koreans are struggling with right now, that they have announced new restrictions, closing bars and gyms, for example in Seoul, restricting gatherings of more than 50 people.
And, yes, going ahead with plans to allocate a significant sum of money, the equivalent of $1.2 billion , to purchase vaccines for some 44 million people.
Another East Asian country that is dealing with a third wave right now is Japan, which has also seen a surge in cases in the capital of Tokyo as well as Hokkaido and Osaka. It's in those two cities where the officials have called for help from the Japanese military in the form of nurses to come and help out.
For example, Osaka, 70 percent of its hospital beds are occupied by COVID patients right now and the government is announcing plans for a huge stimulus package to keep the economy moving.
And though the mortality rate is so much lower than in the U.S., these are countries that are still struggling with this deadly disease, which is, of course, taking a terrible toll economies of these countries.
And it just shows how difficult it is, even in countries where people abide by wearing masks and social distancing rules, that it's still very hard to try to keep this virus down.
VAUSE: Ivan, does anyone know what the situation really is in North Korea?
Pyongyang is claiming to have no cases at all when it comes to COVID- 19.
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VAUSE: That just doesn't seem true. And they have some pretty tough penalties for violating those coronavirus restrictions.
WATSON: It was a month or two ago, I remember pictures of North Korea's leader at the opening of the hospital. And he was the only person in the crowd assembled there who was not wearing a mask, which suggests something is going on in the most opaque of countries here in this region.
There has been aid money and supplies sent North Korea to help with allegedly its nonexistent COVID pandemic>
To move closer to a region that I'm more intimately aware with and there is more transparency, here in Hong Kong, John, we are also dealing with another wave of coronavirus. And the authorities just hours ago announced pretty drastic new measures that all restaurants will be forced to close for in-restaurant dining after 6 o'clock.
That like South Korea, for Seoul, for example, that the bars and karaoke bars and gyms, beauty salons, sports centers, they will all be closed.
Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong leader, has called this a record high in new cases, has said that there will be new measures to restrict, to curb the number of people on the streets and to try to reduce the flow of people. We don't know quite how the authorities here are going to try to impose that restriction on this densely populated city -- John.
VAUSE: In North Korea they, reportedly shot some guy who basically violated those restrictions. Clearly, they will not be doing that. But they will have to do something. Thank you, Ivan Watson, live for us in Hong Kong.
In southeastern India a mystery illness has sent hundreds of people to hospital and left one person dead. It's not COVID-19. Patients have been suffering seizures and nausea and losing consciousness. Authorities are testing food and water as well as blood samples.
Vedika Sud is following this live from New Delhi.
At this point, the numbers are fairly small. But clearly, this is a big concern coming at this particular time.
VEDIKA SUD, CNN PRODUCER: Good to be with you. Absolutely because the focus has been on COVID-19, where the incident has taken place. It's one of the worst affected with over 800,000 cases of COVID-19 in the state.
What we know from officials is that they have conducted tests and the idea of a viral being behind this has been ruled out. Mosquito bites which lead to deadly diseases like dengue in India have been ruled out for now.
Over 500 people have been affected by this mystery illness, of which over 300 have been discharged. What we know, as of yesterday late last night here in India, is that none of them had tested positive for COVID-19.
We are waiting for some more tests to come today, which could ascertain what this mystery illness is all about. We also know at this point is that there are water tests being conducted. Most of these people have been drinking water from the same source. There are food tests being conducted as well, as well as milk tests.
As of now the chief minister did visit those affected in the hospitals yesterday on Monday. Today is when we should be expecting something more on the results on these tests that have been conducted.
That is the latest we have for you. We have been speaking with officials from the state government. And they have been saying we just have to wait to ascertain what is behind the seizures and the discomfort that these people have been facing -- John.
VAUSE: Vedika, we appreciate the update. Good to see you.
The U.S. Air Force officer referred to as the fastest man alive has died, aged 97. Chuck Yeager became a household name with the book and the movie, "The Right Stuff." He was the first pilot to break the sound barrier when he tested the X-1 rocket powered plane back in 1947.
His wife, Victoria, tweeted that the World War II flying legend died on Monday.
We will be back.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back, everybody. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for staying with us.
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Well, Donald Trump is still in denial over the results of the presidential election, claiming it was rigged and he was robbed. But as CNN's Jim Acosta reports, in private, the president and his team know they're running out of options, running out of the legal challenges, running out of time.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today the president required more than a fact check. He needed a math check, as Mr. Trump was pointing to the 2020 scoreboard claiming he came out on top.
TRUMP: Well, you know in politics, I won two, so I'm 2 and oh, and that's pretty good, too. But we'll see how that turns out.
ACOSTA: But that's not true, and neither are his false cries of a rigged election, no matter how many times he looks at the numbers.
TRUMP: Well, I think the case has been already made, if you look at the polls. It was a rigged election. You look at the different states. The election was totally rigged. It's a disgrace to our country. It's like a third-world country, these ballots pouring in from everywhere.
ACOSTA: On the same day Georgia election officials recertified their results, announcing once again that the state's electoral votes will be awarded to Joe Biden. Mr. Trump was putting more pressure on the Republican governor of Georgia, tweeting, "He refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What's wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?"
But the president is engaging in some lame-duck double speak, as he's insisting he defeated Biden, Mr. Trump is telling voters in Georgia to elect Republicans in the upcoming Senate run-off races down there, warning that control of the Senate is at stake. And yet, that's only possible if Kamala Harris is about to become vice president, to break ties in the Senate.
TRUMP: Because at stake in this election, is control of the U.S. Senate, and that really means control of this country. The voters of Georgia will determine which party runs every committee, writes every piece of legislation, controls every single taxpayer dollar.
ACOSTA: Most GOP lawmakers are going along with Mr. Trump's charade, including Georgia's Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler.
REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: My question is actually pretty simple. Yes or no, Senator Loeffler: Did Donald Trump lose the election?
SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): You know, President Trump has every right to use every legal recourse available.
ACOSTA: But the president and his lawyers are running out of state challenge, a sign that his legal team's work is winding down. Not to mention the man leading that effort, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, now has the coronavirus.
TRUMP: Rudy is doing well. I just spoke to him. He's doing very well. No temperature, and he actually called me early this morning. He was the first call I got. Now he's doing very well.
ACOSTA: Another pressure point: the prospect that Attorney General William Barr could step down or be fired before Mr. Trump leaves office. Barr pushed back in the president's election claims last week.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you still have confidence in Bill Barr?
TRUMP: Ask me that in a number of weeks from now.
ACOSTA: The president is expected to return to his resort in Florida for the holidays, with aides discussing whether that trip will become more of an extended stay into January. Before that happens, congressional leaders are sounding more determined to hammer out a coronavirus relief bill that will reach the president's task.
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): This is a compromise. Neither side is going to get the full amount, or all the component parts that they wanted.
ACOSTA: And the president is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at prioritizing the shipment of the coronavirus vaccine to Americans first before other countries. The president is planning on signing that order at a vaccine summit at the White House.
Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
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VAUSE: Doug Heye is a CNN political commentator and Republican strategist. He's with us this hour from Washington.
Doug, thanks for taking the time.
DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be with you. Thank you.
VAUSE: OK, now Donald Trump, as he continues to lie about the election result, he's been fanning the flames of a civil war within the Republican Party. So with that in mind, just listen to this one Trump supporter from Georgia. Here it is.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the Republican establishment stands back and stands by and allows the steal to go through, we will do whatever it takes to completely destroy the Republican Party.
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VAUSE: "Completely destroy the Republican Party." So when Trump Republicans are talking in those terms, how concerned should the Republican Party actually be?
HEYE: Very concerned. They should be concerned in two ways: the long- term and the short-term. The short-term is Georgia, where those two Senate races are for the Senate majority and whether or not we're going to have a Senate majority. A lot of the rhetoric that we -- that we've been hearing similar to the person who's played, is that they're not going to come out and turn out and vote in that Georgia runoff election, which is a very small universe of voters, compared to a presidential election. Which would cost not only two seats but the entire Senate majority. And thus, everything that Republicans basically would want to fight against in a Biden administration.
And in the long-term. You know, as Abraham Lincoln very famously said, a House divided amongst itself cannot stand. And the Republican Party, in a lot of ways, has been divided amongst itself for a long time. And those fissures are really coming in forbearance right now, with the rhetoric from the president.
VAUSE: Yes. Well, you mention the runoff election for the Senate in Georgia, and over the weekend Trump was in Georgia, apparently to support those two GOP senators who are taking part in the election. Here's part of what he said at a campaign stop.
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TRUMP: You must go vote, and vote early starting December 14. You have to do it. They cheated and they rigged our presidential election. And they're going to try and rig this election, too.
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VAUSE: You know, go vote, but it's rigged. You know, who's the bigger threat here? I mean, is it Donald Trump or the Democrat opponents right now?
HEYE: It's Donald Trump, without question. And it all comes down to the rhetoric that we're seeing from the Democrats versus the Republicans on this. They have nothing to do with the issues that voters are most concerned about, with the economy, with battling COVID. We're not really talking about that much. What we're talking about is whether or not an election has been stolen
or not. It obviously hasn't. But the Democrats are saying, We need you to go to the polls, because every vote counts. Donald Trump is saying, go to the polls, but.
And the Republicans who are running in the Senate, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, they're not able to really make the best case that they could to be that check and balance on a Biden-Harris administration, because they can't admit the reality that there's going to be, on January 20, a Biden-Harris administration. So they're essentially campaigning with one arm tied behind their back. Not an advantageous place to be.
The fundamentals of Georgia -- I've worked a Georgia runoff before -- should favor the Republicans despite Donald Trump losing in Georgia. But when you're not able to make your best case, you're really fighting with one arm tied behind your back.
VAUSE: You know, congressional Republicans for the most part, as a bloc, have refused to state the obvious about who won the election. I mean, 26 believe Biden actually won; 221 are refusing to say any answer.
CNN has new reporting, also, that many of Trump's most loyal supporters in Congress are urging him to continue on with his barrage of falsehoods and lies and whatever else he's doing at the moment.
It seems congressional Republicans have abandoned the idea of democracy and joined a Trump cult. Will there be a time when that fever breaks? And can the party be saved?
HEYE: Yes, I would say some feel that way and a lot don't. There's a very real difference between what you hear publicly, versus what you hear privately. You hear nothing from a lot of them publicly. Privately, you hear a lot of concern.
And it's ultimately, it's that they're responding to what they're hearing from their voters, who are obviously quite passionate about this and truly believe, in part because this is what they've constantly been told. And they've been lied to and are believing these lies. That an election has potentially been stolen.
Look, if Donald Trump on January -- when Donald Trump is not the president on January 21, things will start to change a little bit. They won't change drastically overnight.
But you'll -- the problem that every Republican has right now is kind of a Trump-branded sword of Damocles, dangling over them. And that's true of the Republicans who want to run for president in 2024 and those who just want to run for reelection in the House or the Senate. If they cross Donald Trump right now, they do so at their own peril. Because his influence will be curtailed as we go through the weeks and months as he's no longer the president. But it will still be very real, especially within the party.
VAUSE: Yes. It will have a shelf life. It will be fully diminished, but the question is by how much?
But Doug, thank you very much for being with us. We really appreciate it.
HEYE: Any time. Thank you.
VAUSE: A massive bush fire in Australia has burned a cherished UNESCO heritage site. The ongoing fire threat and the effort to save Fraser Island, that's next.
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VAUSE: Heavy overnight rain has helped firefighters battling a huge bushfire on a unique Australian island, but authorities warn the danger has not passed. Dry, windy weather is likely to refuel the bush fire on Fraser Island. It's a spot which is popular with tourists for its natural beauty.
Angus Watson reports now on the ongoing efforts to save Fraser Island.
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ANGUS WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hot winds fuel the fire front as it blackens pristine rainforest on Australia's Fraser Island.
Half of this UNESCO world heritage site has now burned, over 82,000 hectares already up in smoke, according to Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.
Now the fire is ripping towards the tiny township of Happy Valley.
ELSPETH MURRAY, HAPPY VALLEY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION: Smoke is getting very (UNINTELLIGIBLE). You can hear the airplanes going overhead. That's another one of the crop dusters going over. We've got helicopters going up.
WATSON: Water bombs pound the blaze from above. Authorities say they're dropping over 1 million liters on this canopy of smoke each day.
This fire has burned for more than seven weeks now, sparked by an illegal campfire, according to CNN affiliate 9 News.
Australian on high alert in this first month of the southern summer, the memory of the last tragic bushfire season still fresh in the mind here.
Nearly three billion animals were affected then, according to the World Wildlife Fund, including 61,000 koalas killed, injured, or affected in some way.
Fire brigades across Australia were bolstered with new equipment this year, bought with donations that poured in from around the world. The pride of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service sent north on Monday to drop a flame-retardant gel from the air, working to save this unique island on the Great Barrier Reef. A front line for the climate crisis.
Angus Watson in Sydney, Australia.
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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. WORLD SPORT is back, and then I will be back at the top of the hour.
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