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Trump Supporters Refuse To Accept Biden's Election Victory; Soon: Biden To Introduce Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin As Defense Secretary Pick; U.S. Cases Surge Ahead Of Pivotal Vaccine Approval Meeting. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 09, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:54]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: It is a very raw time in America after months of pandemic and political stress.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: It evolved caddy at a time when there was just an extraordinary amount of divisiveness in our country totally unrelated to COVID-19. I mean, it was there. I think you combine inherent divisiveness to begin with, with the stress and strain of an election year. And it was the worst possible combination you could have for a public health crisis.

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KING: President Trump routinely stokes these divides, attacking governors for example, who impose new COVID restrictions, ignoring the COVID safety protocols of his own experts. And now attacking officials in the states he lost and stoking fantasy conspiracies, the election was somehow stolen from him.

Election officials in Georgia and elsewhere report threats, and in Idaho last night, an example of the COVID turmoil. Look here, in Ada County District meeting to discuss new coronavirus restrictions. Well, they had to end it after 12 minutes because of these protests out in the parking lot prompting concerns over the safety of the government officials inside.

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DIANA LACHIONDO, ADA COUNTY COMMISSIONER: My 12-year-old son is at home by itself right now. And there are protesters banging outside the door. Hey, I'm going to go home.

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KING: Let's bring in CNN's Kaitlan Collins and CNN's Donie O'Sullivan. Donie, I want to start with you. But first, I want to start by being very careful here. People have every right to demonstrate publicly if they disapprove of something, if their government is considering a new COVID restriction, they have every right to stand in their parking lot in protest. It's how they protest. It's what they say and what they do.

You have spent a ton of time traveling in recent months to Trump rallies and the campaign down in Georgia where you're meeting a lot of people who feel disaffected, who feel angry, which again, they have every right to feel so and to express that. The question is where's the line? What have you been saying?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, John, to your point, you know, people who are disaffected who are angry will often engage in conspiracy theories. And this false notion that Trump somehow did not win the election is now a fully blown conspiracy theory. I want you to take a listen to some Trump supporters we spoke to a few weeks ago in Pennsylvania.

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[12:35:15]

MATTHEW, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I believe that Donald Trump won the election. I believe that they tried to steal the election.

MELISSA, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I've seen too much pieces of different evidence so far that shows that at this point, I would be OK with a revote.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): You don't think there's any way Trump could have lost?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: And that was a few weeks ago, John, obviously since then, there has been counts, there has been recounts, votes have been certified. But for all of that evidence that Biden won, you have Rudy Giuliani, you have the President, you have fringe networks like OANN, pushing false conspiracy theories, pushing videos that they claim to show that they claim shows that the election was rigged, which of course, it was not.

KING: And Kaitlan to Donie's point, a lot of these supporters of the President, again, they have every right to stand in protest in public. That's one of our most cherished rights for everybody. But they take cues from their leaders, including the President of the United States who again this morning insists somehow the courts are going to hand him the election, and from allies of the president like Lindsey Graham, listen to the language he uses when talking about his disappointment with the election results. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): There's a civil war brewing in Georgia for no good reason. It's not unreasonable to ask the legislature to come back in and order an audit of the signatures and the presidential race to see if the system worked. What is unreasonable is to sit on your ass and do nothing when you got a chance to save the country.

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KING: It is, I'm sorry, just simply remarkable. He's the chairman of a key committee up on Capitol Hill. He's a friend and ally of the President, using terms like civil war and saying for no good reason, it's not unreasonable to ask the legislature to come back in. In a democracy, it's unreasonable to ask the legislature to come back in and reverse the will of the people.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Especially in a state, John, where they've counted the presidential ballots three times now. And every time it has affirm that Joe Biden did win the state of Georgia, no matter what the President and his press secretary and his campaign allies have been saying on T.V. repeatedly, because those are the facts. They've actually done this. They've gone through this.

Yet, what they are trying to do is please the President because the President is not only making these false claims that we've been talking about, but he is calling privately and urging these Republican lawmakers to do the same. At the beginning, he was complaining that there were enough people on television making his case about fraud. Now, you've seen Republicans come out and continue to do that, try to sow doubt about this election.

And as you noted, it's having real world consequences. It's not just what we've seen over the last four years where Republican lawmakers have humored the President for whatever he's saying. There are actually people who believe this. And this is something that if you talk to allies of the President who are looking at what's going to happen over the next few years, this is something they can continue to run on and continue to inflame these tensions by misleading people about what actually happened in this election.

KING: And so we listen for it for a number of reasons. Number one, there are some people worried it could turn into violence. The Georgia election officials, Republicans are worried about threats. They say they are receiving for their physical safety. So as you track it, Donie, one of the things you listen to is a show like Rush Limbaugh, where some of the people calling in. Again, they have every right to vent their disappointment in the election. The question is, what will they do about it? Listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the streets are lined with truck drivers, and the roads are lined with people and clog these cities up, it becomes a desperate act. But if they steal this election, they've stolen our liberty, they've stolen our freedom. RUSH LIMBAUGH, THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW: Yes, I know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're done.

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KING: Rush says, I know, nobody stole the election. There's zero evidence of that. We have ways to prove that, they're called courts. They're called election tribunals. They're called recounts. There's no evidence of that. Just again, in the sense from your travels and the opportunity to meet so many people, how do people want to vent their frustration? Is it organizing for the next campaign? Or do you hear people who say we should be trying to shut down cities, clog things up, threatening people?

O'SULLIVAN: Well, this could all really, really backfire for Republicans here in Georgia. Look, the majority of Trump supporters I have spoken to here say they will come out next month to vote in the runoff elections. But some and we know how tight these races are. Some Trump supporters have told me here that they're considering not showing up, that they don't believe that Loeffler and Perdue are fighting forcefully enough to overturn the results of the presidential election. They don't think that they are fighting strongly enough for Trump. And these are Trump supporters, Republicans, who are considering not voting here in Georgia next month. So it could all just backfire.

KING: Donie and Kaitlan, grateful for your reporting and insights at this very important moment. And we'll watch this as it plays out up through the inauguration and beyond. Thank you both.

[12:39:58]

Up next for us, the President-elect is moving fast to fill his team. But some of the jobs still open or giant. The next Attorney General, for example, will have to deal with the racial reckoning, big looming Supreme Court decisions and, yes, investigations related to President Trump and his family.

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KING: It is a big afternoon for the Biden transition. Next hour, the President-elect will stand with his historic pick to become the defense secretary, the retired Four Star General Lloyd Austin. But many Democrats are excited to support the first African American to lead the Pentagon. Others though, are voicing concerns that the job is designed for a civilian, and they are promising to ask some tough questions before committing to a congressional waiver General Austin would need to take the job.

[12:45:19]

So far so good overall is how the Biden team views reaction among Democratic groups. Those groups of course clamoring for influence and clamoring for top personnel in the new administration but there are some giant choices still to come from the President-elect. Cabinet agencies still without nominees include the Department of Justice, Veterans Affairs, Interior, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Education, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Joining us now to discuss these challenges CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Julie Pace, the Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press. Jeff, I want to start with you because you have some new reporting about what I view is one of the biggest jobs Joe Biden still has to fill and that as the Attorney General in charge of voting rights, in charge of the law, federal law at a time of racial reckoning, may get across his or her desk questions about whether to investigate or prosecute the President of the United States, Donald Trump, former President by then or his family. You have some new reporting today that we're getting closer.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: We are getting closer, John. And nomination or an announcement of a nomination is not expected this week, we're told. But it is expected before the Christmas holiday. So that leaves about next week for when they might make this announcement. And we're told that the at least the final leading contenders are the current senator from Alabama, Doug Jones, who of course lost his race last month and he's heading out.

He is, you know, has a long civil rights history. He was a veteran prosecutor from Alabama. And most importantly, he has a deep connection to Joe Biden. That's what we are seeing in all of these Cabinet picks, someone who Mr. Biden is comfortable with and someone who's an expert in their field. So he is one of the leading contenders.

We're also told that a Judge Merrick Garland, a familiar name perhaps is also being considered. He, of course, was the Obama administration's nominee for the Supreme Court. He was blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans. So the question is, could he be confirmed as easily? Perhaps not. We're also told that Sally Yates, the former deputy attorney general is also on the list, perhaps not as high as the other two, we'll see. But those are three of the names that are circulating.

But look, John, one thing we're learning over the last month or so is that Mr. Biden is picking people he's comfortable with. And if you look on that metric, Doug Jones fits the bill.

KING: Fits the bill, Julie Pace, but there would be, I'm not saying opposition, but there will be grumbling. Look, this is very complicated. It's a friendly minefield, but everything Joe Biden does is in a minefield here. Because every constituency grew up in the Democratic Party says we want a seat at that table. And there's not there's not many bigger seats than the Attorney General of the United States. And especially I had a conversation earlier in the hour with Karen Bass, the Congresswoman from California, especially at this moment of racial reckoning, when voting rights were called into question the election, the African American community would very much like somebody from their community in that job.

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Absolutely. And this is part of this puzzle that Biden is trying to put together right now. There are a lot of competing constituencies. And there are a lot of groups who feel like they were instrumental, rightly so in putting Joe Biden into the White House. And black voters are right at the top of that list. And so you are hearing from a lot of prominent African Americans and civil rights groups who say, it's not just enough to have a diverse Cabinet. It's not just enough to have a Cabinet that looks like America. You need diversity in these top Cabinet jobs.

We don't want to just be relegated to sort of the second tier of the Cabinet. And when they look at the Justice Department, they see a real opportunity to put somebody there who has deep experience on civil rights. Yes, Doug Jones does have that experience. He is also a white man. And so that is the tension in this debate that Joe Biden and his advisors are having right now about that top job.

KING: And so part of the challenge Jeff Zeleny is when you do have some grumbling or some rumbling, sometimes it's a little more than that. But often that's what it is and within the family, if you will, how do you deal with that in the case of General Austin, just today, Jay Johnson, one of the candidates, we thought might get that job at the Defense Department, former Homeland Security Secretary in the Obama administration himself, an African American man, issued a statement about General Austin saying he will be an outstanding and inspirational leader.

And then the Biden transition goes outside the box and gets the former Secretary State Colin Powell, a Bush Republican. He knows the troops, they know and respect him. So smart politics here in terms of trying to get some character witnesses, if you will, when you're asking Democrats. Number one, there's a lot of celebration, again, to have an African American lead the Pentagon, but a lot of Democrats have been on the record because of General Mattis saying we don't like the idea of a general in that job.

ZELENY: Exactly. And that is going to be one of the things that General Austin is going to have to work through. He's going to answer some of these questions when he goes before the committees in the House and the Senate and that's what he needs. He's a House vote and a Senate vote. And he'll probably be a turning to some Republicans for these votes as well. That is what I'm at least what the Biden transition is thinking but it is the history of this historical nature of this pick.

[12:50:12]

But also, again, his close connection to Joe Biden, that is, you know, one of the reasons that he was chosen as defense secretary. So we're going to see them together here side by side in just an hour or so here in Wilmington. So we will hear his story, we will hear, you know, his extraordinary rise through the ranks of the military leadership. So that is something at the end of the day, at least Biden officials I talked to say they believe it will be difficult for senators to vote against him on confirmation.

And it is possible for a senator to oppose the waiver, and then support him for confirmation. It's a little awkward, but we've seen it before and I expect it will happen again in the early parts of next year, because this is a historic pick unless something comes up in the nominating fight that we don't see in the background check. I think it's hard to imagine him not being confirmed for this. But it might be a slightly rocky road.

KING: Slightly rocky road. I think you're going to see some Democrats having to forget things they said in the past because their numbers are so narrow at the moment. Joe Biden can't afford to lose much as we go forward on all of these picks. And we're learning every day Jeff Zeleny and Julie Pace grateful for the reporting and insights. Again, this is the conversation that will continue for some time.

Up next for us, though back to the coronavirus. The vaccine is finally coming. But should your government or your employer be able to mandate that you get one?

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[12:55:58]

KING: Tomorrow a critical moment in the coronavirus vaccine race, a government panel of experts will review Pfizer's COVID vaccine. And if all goes well, the FDA could authorize emergency use of that vaccine within days, the sad numbers you see on the right of your screen may clear the urgency. But the experts say there's an additional challenge here making sure that once a vaccine is available, everybody lines up to get one.

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PAUL OSTROWSKI, DEPUTY CHIEF OF SUPPLY, PRODUCTION AND DISTRIB, OPERATION WARP SPEED: We must build the trust in American people. We must make them understand that the science that went into this, that the oversight they wanted this is gold standard. And that our scientists, our pharmaceutical companies here in the United States are the best ever. And we just want to make sure that everybody gets this vaccine because we got to get our lives back.

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KING: Joining us now is Arthur Caplan. He's the director for the division of medical ethics at NYU's Langone Medical Center. Mr. Caplan, grateful for your time today. So the vaccine will be available. I can show you a Pew poll, you're familiar with these numbers. Back in May, 72 percent of Americans said they'd probably or definitely get a vaccine. By September that was down to 51 percent. Now it's about 60 percent, six in 10 Americans say they would probably or definitely get that vaccine. That's not enough, the public health experts would tell you to deal with the problem. So should a state government, should a federal government, should my employer say you can't come to work unless you get one?

ARTHUR CAPLAN, PROFESSOR OF BIOETHICS, NYU'S GROSSMAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, we're not going to see that on the emergency use approval, John, because that's basically still saying we don't have complete data. What we've got looks good. And we're going to allow it out to certain groups. But there won't be any mandates or coercion or compulsion, until the FDA gets more data and says we're going to license this thing. We're going to really give our final approval, I would expect that maybe January, February.

When that happens, I think you're going to start to see some mandates. My prediction is not initially by government, but by private employers, hospitals, nursing homes will say their workforces have to be done. The military will complete its mandatory vaccination. And I think you're going to see cruise ships and airplane, airlines, the travel industry, the tourism industry say, look, we've got to get vaccination here. If you want to come on this plane, you better show me proof of vaccination.

KING: And so I assume that you'll also see lawyers running it to court to challenge it when that happens in some of those cases. There's a New York state lawmaker, Linda Rosenthal, who has put a bill in the New York assembly. It says if the public health officials determined that residents of the state are not developing sufficient immunity from COVID-19, the department shall mandate vaccination for all individuals or groups of individuals, who has shown by clinical data are proven to be safe to receive such a vaccine.

I read the article you wrote in Newsday, where you're essentially say you hope that's not necessary, that you hope the evidence is from the emergency use first. And as this starts to get into the system, that people see it and say, OK, their skepticism melts away. Are you confident that will happen? Or do you think we will see in New York and elsewhere at least people try to mandate it statewide?

CAPLAN: Well, you may see some mandates put into the legislature. Look, we've had a difficult time getting them for kids with measles and mumps and other proven vaccines, you know, people fight that. They want exemptions. So it's been a tough road, trying to mandate for adults who are wandering around, not in a school all over the place is tricky, you know, to sort of enforce it, it becomes more difficult.

I think what's going to happen is caution, skepticism, show me, and as the vaccines begin to be proven effective and safe, as you see your grandmom is not going to die, as you start to see those terrible numbers, this massacre that's going on due to the plague begin to dip. I'm pretty confident people will start to say voluntarily, I'm going to take this.

KING: I hope you are correct. We're at a very important moment. I'm grateful for your insights. We've seen all the, you know, there's a political divide over masks, there's a political divide over vaccination. Let's hope some of that fades as people actually see the proof in the pudding, if you will. If these vaccines are safe, we will start to see them work.

CAPLAN: Absolutely.

KING: Hopefully we get there. Arthur Caplan, grateful for your time as we get to this very important moment.

[13:00:02]

CAPLAN: Thank you.

KING: And thank you for your time today as well. Hope to see you back here this time tomorrow. Brooke Baldwin picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.